Yearlyglot

Okay, we all know those cretins who seem to know the swear words in every language, but don’t know how to say hello, please, or thank you in even one foreign langauge. And we probably also know those judgmental prudes who refuse to ever learn any swear words because they don’t want to seem… continue reading

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post about grammar which stirred a lot of reactions from people, accusing me of everything from being misleading to using scare tactics! And of course, since I’m making millions of dollars from people being afraid of grammar, I can totally see where they got that idea… continue reading

It’s been a while since I’ve done a language profile, so today I’ve chosen a particularly interesting language to profile. It’s a constructed language called Toki Pona.

As I’m learning about my Lithuanian heritage, I am also learning about the language. So far I have looked at Lithuanian greetings, some common courtesies, how to ask questions, numbers, directions, basic verbs, descriptive words, and parts of the body.

While the partitive exists in English, it goes mostly unused. Like so many other things in English, we understand it by implication. But as with so many other languages, implication alone isn’t good enough for Italian grammar.

Did you know that humans aren’t the only creatures with different languages? One of the more enjoyable details about learning a new language is learning how animals talk.
Pigs, for instance, say “oink oink” in English, but they say “groin groin” in French and “хрю хрю” (khryu khryu) in Russian. Dogs say “vau-vau” in… continue reading

I’m noticing a troubling theme in the language-learning and language-blogging community: people who are looked to as subject matter experts, time and time again, encouraging their readers and followers to forego grammar.
I’m deeply troubled by this.

This is a guest post written by Natacha Cullinan. Natacha is an author at Third Year Abroad. ThirdYearAbroad is a website for students, by students, giving information about spending some time away, from short to long term stays abroad – whether you’re working, studying or volunteering!

Moving abroad can be some tricky business; once you’ve… continue reading

As I’m learning about my Lithuanian heritage, I am also learning about the language. So far I have looked at Lithuanian greetings, some common courtesies, how to ask questions, numbers, directions, basic verbs, and descriptive words. This week, I’ll talk about parts of the body.