Archive for August, 2010
Aug
Aug
Che cosa dicono gli animali? Animal noises in Italian!
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 Hungarian,…
Aug
Aug
What is a partitive? The Italian word “ne”.
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.…
Aug
Aug
Vital information, in Lithuanian
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.…
Aug
Aug
Language profile: Toki Pona
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….
Aug
Aug
Why you need to stop whining about grammar
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 from.…