Posts Tagged ‘language profiles’
Mar
Mar
My first impressions after learning the Arabic alphabet
Last weekend I decided to learn to read Arabic. I’m not talking about learning any words, building any vocabulary, or even being able to communicate or understand anything. I just wanted to learn how to read this strange-looking language.
Mar
Mar
Esperanto, a first look
Since choosing to become an active member of the language blogging community, I have started seing Esperanto mentioned a lot. While I have had some basic understanding of what Esperanto is, I didn’t really know any details about it. After seeing it mentioned a few times in response to last week’s post about reasons to learn Spanish, I decided to take a little time to discover what Esperanto is about.
May
May
A first look at the Turkish language
In my recent look into the Complete World Traveler language list, many people were surprised to see Turkish make the list. But the influences of the Ottoman Empire have left their marks from south-eastern Europe, through the Middle East, and across all of Central Asia, even going well into Mongolia and northern China, where Uyghur (a Turkic language) is common language.
May
May
Lithuanian, first impressions
I have long had intentions of learning about Lithuania, its culture, and its language, since that is an important part of my own heritage. This fall, I finally have plans to travel to Lithuania and start to connect with the culture that has been passed down from my immigrant great-grandparents to my to father, and…
Jun
Jun
Language profile: French
This isn’t quite a first look…, since I already have some experience with French, but that doesn’t mean I can’t still do a basic exploration of the language as I would do with any other language I don’t know.
French is an official language in 29 countries. It is spoken by 136 million people
Jul
Jul
Introduction to Catalan
If you imagine a triangle, with Spanish, French, and Italian on the three points, Catalan would be the center of the triangle.… That’s the description that was given to me by Benny. And from what I’ve seen, I can’t think of a better way of describing it.
Aug
Aug
Impressions of Catalan
A few weeks ago, I wrote a basic introduction to Catalan, having never heard it spoken before. Now, after spending a week immersed in it, I have a few new impressions.
As I mentioned before, it’s common to think of Catalan as a dialect of Spanish. In fact, I’ve though that myself. But I can…
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….
Sep
Sep
The worst language I’ve ever seen
I’ve complained about some other languages, and I’ve had a lot to say about one in particular, but there is one language I know of which is, in my opinion, worse than all others. When I think of all the ways to make a language difficult, this one has most of them, along with a…
Sep
Sep
When you want simple grammar, you want Tagalog
In spite of the fact that I’d had 2 years of Spanish classes, and in spite of the fact that I think Spanish is the best first choice for a second language. In spite of the fact that I was enrolled in German classes at the time, the first foreign language I actually ever used…