You Are Not Wasting Time; It Was Given To You As A Gift, Freely and Generously; Is Rain Wasted Because It Falls On Gardens, Grass, Disgruntled Birds, and Umbrellas All The Same?
I wish rich people went back to keeping artists as pets. Like when you’re wealthy enough you pick a cool weirdo to do regular commissions for you, and if you really want to flex on your peers, you’ve got several.
And you visit them every once in a while like “hello, I’ve paid for your rent and your tools, have you worked on that commission giant oil painting of me getting sucked off by my political opponent, who is unfortunately still the mayor of this town, like I requested?”
And your favourite feral art person looks up - mouth full of gravel and completely surrounded by art-related trash like “no, but I designed a helicopter.”
And you’re like “that’s fucking lit, the mayor doesn’t have a helicopter. Please carry on as you have.”
So fucking stupid that File Formats are like. Image. Text. Spreadsheet. Powerpoint. And you can open an image in any program known to man. You can open text in any program known to man. There are fewer but still very accessible options for spreadsheet and PowerPoint. And then the last file format. Is pdf. Where it’s owned by one guy and if you want to even scroll down to see page 2 of your pdf Mr. Adobe heir to the reader fortune himself is like that will be one hundred dollars a month non refundable good fucking luck trying to get anything to recognize my format I’m the only one who knows how to read it and I want my one hundred dollars NOW. and this is just like. An acceptable format that schools and profs and work will routinely send you non negotiable very important documents as.
Hello! A lot of you have been asking me where and how I’ve learn multiple languages and well, after a few hours of digging through my browser history and bookmarks, I was able to collect all of these resources. I have personally used all of these, so I can assure you they are useful! If there is something wrong with a website or a link, please let me know. Also, if you have any questions or if you want a learning buddy, my ask box is open. (I speak English and Spanish. I’m learning Korean, German, Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese, Italian, and Esperanto)
Note: Learning a new language requires a lot of dedication, more than you actually think! Especially if you’re learning multiple languages at the same time. It isn’t impossible, but it will take time. And by time I mean months and/or years! So please, be patient. Take your time. Don’t rush. Keep in mind that you will mess up and that’s okay. Practice as much as you can. Practice out loud. Talk to yourself if you can. It doesn’t matter if people think you’re crazy. They won’t be thinking the same when you become a polyglot, so don’t mind them. This is for you and your future.
Get started:
- Everything listed below is FREE! Some sites do require you to sign up, but that’s for you to keep track of your own process.
- Tips to get you started
- Language Hacking tips (blog)
- More language hacking tips (blog)
- The Polyglot Project (Library with foreign books that lets you translate while reading)
- How to Learn Any Language
- Effective Language Learning
- Ankidroid (flashcard maker)
Multiple languages, one website
- Duolingo (Latin American Spanish, French, German, Brazilian Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, Irish, Danish, Swedish, Turkish, Norwegian (Bokmål), Ukrainian, and Esperanto)
- BBC Languages (40 languages)
- Learn A Language (18 languages)
- Conjuguemos (French, German, Italian, Latin, Portuguese, Spanish)
- L-lingo (21 languages)
- 101languages (167 languages)
- Languagepod101 (31 languages)
- Foreign Services Institute (44 languages)
- My Languages (95 languages)
- Surface Languages (43 languages)
- Lingualia (Spanish)
- Linguanaut (16 languages)
- OmniGlot (All languages [basic info for some of them])
- Memrise (Various languages) (flashcard system)
- Livemocha (Various languages)
- Polyglotclub
- Sharedtalk
- Interpals (specify in your profile you only look for language exchange because there can be some creeps in this one)
- Couchsurfing
- Babbel
Specific Languages
Korean:
- Learn to read Korean in 15 minutes! - Really helpful as well
- Learnkoreanlp - Focuses on grammar
- k-is4korean
- Talktomeinkorean
- Learn-korean
- korean-flashcards - Focuses on vocabulary
- Easytolearnkorean
- Korean.go.kr/ - Focuses on pronunciation
- Lang-8 - Community to correct your entries
- Dongsa - Conjugations for verbs
- Howtostudykorean- EXTREMELY helpful when it comes to learning hangul and writing structure!
- hangulpractice - This blog has some useful posts.
- letstteok-korean
- Talktomeinkorea (YouTube channel)
- fluentkorean
- sweetandtasty
- seoulistic - For culture lessons
- GenkiKorean
- Korean Word Game
- English-Korean Vocabulary Quizzes
- Hangul Keyboard - This is also EXTREMELY helpful with Hangul/romanization. It also converts any romanized syllables into hangul
- Korean - Reddit threat
Chinese/Mandarin:
- Hackingchinese
- Chinese-tools - Pretty helpful with pronunciation.
- Chinese Open courseware
- Chinese Language - Reddit threat
- Chinese Textbook
- Chineasy
- Learn Mandarin
- Chinese Hacks
- yoyochinese
- How can I learn Chinese
- Why is Chinese so damn hard?
Japanese:
- Learn Japanese I / II - YouTube
- Guidetojapanese
- Free Japanese lesson
- Japaneseclass.jp
- thejapanesepage
- Japanesepod101
- Tofugu
- Erin’s Challenge!
- Jplang
- Yesjapan
- Marugoto - Includes culture lessons
- Kana Invaders - Fun game for learning Kana
- Another great masterpost for Japanese - So many resources!!!
Esperanto:
- Note: I did a research and supposedly Esperanto is an easy-to-learn language that helps you with other languages.
- Esperantofre
- Esperanto “library”
- Esperanto Grammar
- Esperanto (Duolingo)
German:
- Learn German Online
- German Language Guide
- Mission Berlin - Mystery adventure game
- Basic German
- Deutsch Lernen
- Slow German
- Kids’ Games - For vocabulary
Italian:
Latin:
- Some Latin grammar
- Latin Course - YouTube
Portuguese:
French:
- Learn French Guide
- Coffee Break French
- University of Texas: Francais interactif
- Podcastfrancaisfacile
- French Language Guide
- Lingopolo/french
- Le Journal en français facile
- News in Slow French
- Francolab
- Cliffs Notes
- Native French Speech
- French Podcast
Spanish:
- Spanish - About.com
- @spanishskulduggery
- Study Spanish
- Cliffs Notes
- Destinos
- One Minute Spanish
- One Minute Spanish (Latin America focused)
Thai:
Arabic:
- Books to Learn Arabic
- Mandinah Arabic
- Arabic Verbs (PDF)
- al3arabiya
- Arabic Pronouns (PDF)
- Arabic Alphabet / Also Here / And Here!
- Arabic For Language Exchange
- Peace Corps
Hindi:
- A Door Into Hindi
- Learning Hindi
- NYU Hindi Course
- Quillpad - Great for typing
- Namaste Dosti
- SU Hindi Course
- ispeakhindi
- Hindi Script
Vietnamese:
Greek:
- Some Greek Grammar (New Testament)
Romanian:
Welsh:
Dutch:
Russian:
- Speak Russian
- Russian Alphabet
- Taste of Russian
- Master Russian
- Russian Open Courseware
- Russian Handwriting
Swedish:
That’s it. That’s all I have right now. I’ll try to search for more and will keep updating this list! If you have a request for a specific language, just send me an ask. Have fun and good luck!
this is definitely not the link to a google drive filled with free pdfs of books
for more chinese tips and resources
Books I use to self study Chinese and More
Some trans science fiction and fantasy books. You can find my earlier recs for f/f science fiction and fantasy here and my new recs for bi and pan books here. And ace book recs are here. Oh, and queer SFF by people of color.
Also I somehow totally blanked on this while making the powerpoint, but Charlie Jane Anders’ stuff should be in the last slide. Her two books are CITY IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT and ALL THE BIRDS IN THE SKY. I’ll link to some of her short stories below the cut.
The queer SFF database’s tag for trans books is here. There’s more than I included in the rec post, so go knock yourself out!
I included the author identities because I figured people would want to know if the book was own voices. Disclaimer that gender is a weird nebulous thing and life isn’t easy or straightforward, so depending on when you’re reading this post (I’m writing 8/2/19), some of the authors I listed as cis might have had gender realizations. I literally saw this on Twitter this morning with one of the “more trans SFF” books, so figured it was worth saying.
Below the text cut you’ll find the titles and authors, links to my queer SFF database (which includes links to trans reviewers and content warnings), and some of my favorite SFF short stories by trans people.
the muppets, 1x01: “Pig Girls Don’t Cry.”
Why did they make me watch Fozzy Bear experience a micro aggression
Fun fact. This is the post that a few years ago introduced me to the term micro aggression.
t shirt that says I PUT A NORMAL AMOUNT OF THOUGHT INTO STUFF
the secret to being a cool adult is to wear things that your younger self wanted to wear but couldn’t and to do things that your younger self wanted to do but couldnt
I rlly love that poem from that children's book where a little girl writes a poem about worms and her teacher gives her an F. wait