Happy Fall, my lil’ agaves! Here’s a vocabulary list of transition phrases and expressions to improve the fluidity of your Spanish writing and speaking. I actually have an exam on these phrases next martes,and I thought this would be an excellent vocab list to share with you. The Quizlet deck for this list can be found here. This vocabulary list is from the textbook I’m using this semester for my advanced Spanish comp class: Taller de Escritores.
asimismo also, in addition to
así/ de ese modo so/ in that way
con relación/ respecto a regarding
como se puede ver as you/one/we can see
además de in addition to
por suerte fortunately, luckily
desgraciaunfortunately
de hecho in fact
al igual que like
a diferencia de unlike
en cambio/ por el contrario in contrast
en vez/ lugar de instead of
no obstante/ sin embargo however
por una parte/ un lado on the one hand
por otra (parte)/ otro (lado) on the other hand
a causa de because of
debido a due to, on account of
entonces/ por lo tanto therefore
con resultado/ consecuencia as a result
por eso/ por ese motivo/ por esa razón for that reason
who doesn’t love languages? or free resources? or free! language! resources!?
i was on duolingo, reading a discussion, and saw a link to a free swedish grammar book! and when i checked the website, there were loads of free language books in downloadable pdf form just waiting to be put in a tumblr post. i even used proper capitalisation for the book names! but that was shortlived, as i have a nonchalant online presence to consider.
obvious disclaimer: i don’t own any of the rights etc etc to any of the above etc etc, i just thought i’d share.
and while i’m here, if you want an actual free online course to do, FutureLearn has some language ones (as well as lots of other disciplines too!) i did a few modules of their Italian For Beginners which i really had fun doing and i learnt a lot of the basics- unfortunately they don’t offer those at the moment, but do check back as they introduce new courses all the time!
Open University offers loads of free courses, including some language ones. i haven’t done any language specific ones through OU, but i have done a few history ones which i enjoyed (although personally, i prefer the format and structure of FutureLearn, if i’m being honest).
Open Culture seems to have lots of language courses (48 languages, to be precise), although i have never personally used their resources they have been recommended to me, and they seem to offer a lot of languages not previously covered by any of the above, so it may be worth a look!
YouTube and Spotify also offer some good visual/aural learning resources which really helps with pronunciation, but you’d have to check for your specific target language. i am currently trying to learn swedish and italian (although i have fallen dreadfully behind in the latter) and i’ve found some useful things on both!
I was reviewing lesson 1 of my Icelandic ‘textbook’ today. I felt like sharing some of my notes, so here they are! they are not very detailed, but they can still come in handy. Perhaps some of you will find them useful (especially if you are just starting out). My apologies, by the way, if the handwriting is a bit sloppy; I’m not used to taking digital notes quite yet.
Since I didn’t include the vocabulary section of my notes, heita means ‘to be named’. So, for the last picture of this photoset, ég heiti… means ‘I am named…’, þú heitir… means ‘you are named…’, etc.
Use your favorite colors to highlight what you don’t know
Have a nice notebook where you keep track of grammar or/and vocabulary
Try making a snack specific to a country where your target language is spoken
Have sticky notes with texts you wrote in order to improve and motivate yourself
Annotate books if that’s your thing
Look up for new songs and then learn to sing then by looking up the lyrics (+translate the new words)
Remember how you’ll improve over time if you keep learning
Keep a journal in your target language. Write in another color the words you had to look up. Notice how over time there are less and less different colored words.
Decorate your notes with sticky notes and doodles
Chat with your pets or with yourself in your target language (or just tell to mister cat how you’ll improve your French, everything works)
Start a book or a comic and choose a reward for when you finish it
Pretend you’re a foreigner who knows only your target language, try using that language only for some time
Talk about each product from your grocery list/chart
Learn idioms and imagine in which circumstances you could use them
Change the settings of your phone for a day/week to your TL and try to read/look up things only in that language
Keep a journal or agenda where you plan, analyze and organize your life but use only your target language.
Have a notebook/digital notepad where you write about your day and add a picture.
Make a PowerPoint presentation with what you learned today. Think of it as the most important project you have to make or the thing that could teach someone else your TL. (Your favorite fictional characters for example)
Weekly write letters to future you about your progress. (In your native or target language) Open those letters when you’re more advanced. Decorate them with drawings or stickers.
These ideas might seem more appropriate for higher levels BUT if you’re a beginner and start trying to do these things, you’ll improve a lot so don’t discourage yourself just because you think you don’t know enough yet.
I came up with a very simple idea to help me practice my target languages, so if you want to take part please hit me up !
What is the game ?
The goal is to find someone that is learning your native language and that speaks your target language.
Here are 30 questions. You should ask each other to answer a question (ex : number 18.) This gives you the opportunity to write a paragraph that allows you to search for more vocabulary and grammar than basic conversations.
Ask each other all the questions (or agree on a different number if you feel like there are too many / not enough questions) before introducing yourself to each other (name, city, studies, hobbies, family…)
Hopefully having someone writing personal things to you about themselves will trigger your curiosity enough to help you write in your target language regularly, practice, and bond with someone !
How did I come up with this game?
I have tried to practice languages forever and I think one of the best ways to practice it is through conversation with native people of the languages I learn. However I have always found it very hard to find a pen pal and bond with someone I don’t know. Most of the time, the conversations I’ve had with “pen pals” did not go any further than basic information about ourselves and it did not help learn the language. With this game I wish to trigger curiosity in order to practice and bond with someone so we can practice even once the game is over !
Want to play this game with me ?
I am looking to practice SpanishandItalian (also would not be against English) and I am a French native speaker. So if you are a native speaker of these languages and are learning French (or just want to play the game and are willing to write to me in your native language), that could work !
Please be somewhere between 20 and 25yo
I am willing to use snail mail or e-mails for that game as I think it is more convenient to write “long” texts ! Also, snail mail is more personal and triggers curiosity even more
We can discuss everything in DMs ! Please hit me up !
Andfeel free to reblog or repost the game if you want to do the same with other languages and/or your followers :)
I have an idea for the langblr community! I’m going to start a challenge (it’s acutally not a challenge but how else can I call it) where I get a question a day from you guys, and I have to answer in my target language(s). This way I get to practise writing everyday and the goal is to keep this up for as long as I can. For now I will only make this “challenge” in Dutch, since it is the only language I’m learning at the moment, but I’ll then add Italian too once I start learning it :) If you reblog this post and tell me that you want to join this idea I will send you a question as well so you can start! (I can only correct your answer if it is in Spanish or Enligsh, but if you’re learning any other language anybody can correct you! The idea is to have something that makes us practice our writing skills)
For me, I would prefer to receive the questions in my ask box since I sometimes don’t see when sombody adds a comment to a post of mine after reblogging it if they don’t actually mention me, so it will be more simple this way :) And I would be really grateful if you could ask me things that don’t involve answering with future tenses or conditionals, since I still haven’t learnt them in Dutch. You guys adapt your questions/answers to your own current skills!
I will later add a section on my blog where you can find all the questions of this challenge, and I’ll be answering one per day but you can send as many as you want.
Feel free to ask me for questions even though I might not be able to correct your answers! And let me know if there are any topics you can’t use yet so I’m aware :) If you join me with this idea use the hashtag #aquestionaday in your answers, or let me know, I would love to see the questions you get (and hopefully understand the answers) but mostly to see you practising and working hard! It would be awesome to see this idea spreading over the langblr community and involving all kind of different languages! After all we’re all here for the same thing :)
Good luck to anyone who tries this and keep up the hard work, I know you can do this!
I WANT TO DO THIS !! Would anyone help me practice Norwegian over the upcoming month by asking me anything in the comments or in my inbox ? Thank you so much !!
I remember how helpful the langblr community was like 2 or 3 years ago and the way sharing my learning here was motivating to keep learning but the community is dead now isn’t it ?
I haven’t posted in a while and I am sorry about that. Since I moved to Los Angeles last September I’ve been juggling two jobs, one of them is full-time and the other one is a part time German teacher position, and the horrible LA traffic every day. It’s hard to find time for other stuff… including this German blog.
Today I would like to share with you a fantastic new YouTube channel and network called Tastemade. Tastemade wants to connect the world through food and has just launched a German language channel next to their English channel.
Practice your German with fun recipes! Currently there are two original shows and new episodes are released every Tuesday and Friday. Tune it, subscribe, comment, share. Thank you for supporting this great channel!
Wat is je favoriete seizoen en waarom? Is het lente voor de bloei van de planten en de dieren die wakker worden uit hun winterslaap? Of de zomer door de warmte die als een deken over ons valt? Of vind je de warme kleuren van de vallende blaadjes van de herfst toch beter? Of houd je liever van de (hopelijk) witte winter? Vertel het ons!
What is your favourite season and why? Is it spring because of the flowering of the plants and the animals that wake up from hibernation? Or the summer because of the warmth that falls over us like a blanket? Or do you like the warm colors of the falling leaves of autumn more? Or do you prefer the (hopefully) white winter? Tell us!
I stopped reblogging tasks because of lack of time and forgetfulness, but also because there wasn’t a significant increase of people writing texts. So here’s what I’m going to do now: I will put all of the tasks I haven’t reblogged yet in cue so one will be published each week (starting with the youngest and ending with the oldest). Texts will still be corrected. There’s a little under 30 tasks left to reblog. I will see how active you guys are on here to decide whether I will make new tasks or not (which will of course also depend on my motivation and time).
Wat is je ochtendroutine? Wat is het eerste wat je doet als je uit je bed komt, wat eet je als ontbijt, hoe lang duurt het voor je klaar bent om naar je werk of naar school te gaan?
P.S. Sorry voor de weken zonder taak!
What’s your morning routine? What’s the first thing you do when you get out of your bed, what’s your breakfast, how long does it take before you’re ready to go to work or school?
Hello everyone! As you’ve probably noticed, this account has been rather inactive lately. I (@.geschiedenis-en-talen) have been the most active moderator on here and I’ve been rather discouraged to make tasks because very few people are interacting with this blog. Despite having over a thousand followers on this blog, a post that has five likes and two people who write a text for it, is a very popular one. There are many tasks for which no text was written by a learner and that discourages me. So I came up with a plan to see how viable this blog is: I will from now on reblog weekly (on Thursdays) a task, beginning with the most recent ones. I will see how many people will actually use this blog and decide whether I will deactivate after a few weeks or months.
Had je tien miljoen Wat zou jij dan doen? Een feestje bouwen en je geld opdoen? Ik kocht liters limonade Honderd kilo chocolade Om aan iedereen uit te delen!
Iedereen in België (en misschien ook wel in Nederland) kent dit liedje, maar wat zou jij doen als je tien miljoen euro had?
If you had ten million What would you do? Throw a party and waste the money? I’d buy liters of lemonade A hundred kilos of chocolate To share with everyone I know
Everyone in Belgium (and maybe in the Netherlands as well) knows this song, but what would you do with 10 million euros?
