#By language

[jonnywaistcoat]

Have you ever been to the USA, if you have the chance do cuz we are a big as country and you’d definitely re-think the idea of having one central branch for the usher foundation…

I have, yeah, and I'm well aware of how big it is, but I suspect you might be doing a lot of extrapolation as to what the Usher Foundation is and how it works, since as far as I recall it's only vaguely referenced in a brief mention or two. Like, the Magnus Institute isn't a "central branch" that covers all of Europe, or even the UK - it's an academic institution based in London. So one would assume the Usher Foundation is an Academic institution based somewhere in America (I generally imagine it in the Boston area, or somewhere in that region of New England due to the Poe connection). Also, if academic institutions were like public agencies that had a responsibility to cover geographical areas or populations, I think the more egregious problem would be the Pu Songling Centre in Beijing, as China has five times the population of the USA in roughly the same geographical area.

Also, while I do a lot of research for my stories, especially international ones, and try to get a sense of the specific area I'm writing about, I'm obviously always going to be writing as a Brit and thus with certain British assumptions about how places work. And to be honest, after living my life in an anglophone culture dominated by USAmerican media and constantly seeing those, uh, "interpretations" of the UK, there's a slight feeling of turnabout is fair play.

[mostly-funnytwittertweets]

[alivingtypo]

you can pry starting sentences with 'and' or 'but' out of my cold, dead hands

[vinceaddams]

People who try to copy historical writing styles don't say enough weird stuff in them. I'm listening to a 1909 story about a ghost car right now, and the narrator just said he honked the car horn a bunch of times, but the way he phrased it was "I wrought a wild concerto on the hooter".

[victusinveritas]

[baobei-bu]

Clan head!Gojo

[th1rdt3chnician]

who up hating pop psychology

[miraclemaya]

this is problematic of me (joke) but i really enjoy the splashing of french into english speech or writing. just adds a pizzazz

[pouletpourri]

"You just have to look closely."

[incognitopolls]

Hypothetical scenario: someone is on Ao3, looking for fanfiction to read. This person only speaks/reads English, and they set the language filter to only show fics written in English.

We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.

[mehilaiselokuva]

Why did you learn Finnish?

To communicate with my parents and extended family. At age 1 I started to feel a bit hungry and decided I should start speaking so that my parents would feed me.

Hope this helps!

[boyquet]

I just want to remind people that it’s 2024 and we didn’t “go thru a pandemic” we are “going thru a pandemic” present tense. It is still happening. People are still get sick, still becoming disabled, and still dying. Covid hasn’t gone away and I beg people to not normalize getting sick with it.

[mostly-funnytwittertweets]

[fckbatmanhiskidsareminenow]

multilingual batkids. they learn each others languages so they can mix and match. for example:

tim in french: have you figured out how we’re gonna tell b we’re not going to that gala yet?

damian in arabic: no i thought that was thomas’ job?

duke french: me? no jason said he’d do something

jason in arabic: hey don’t drag me into this!

dick in romani: i’m gonna kill him i really i am

steph in russian: who are we killing?

dick in english: ah! nobody! wait i didn’t know you spoke romani

tim in greek: you’re an asshole

jason in english: wait my greek is rusty say it again slowly

tim in greek: you’re an asshole

jason: …. you motherfucker

cass signing: nice drawing

damian in chinese: thank you

dick yelling at bruce about something he did

jason in spanish: what language is he speaking right now?

tim also in spanish: uh all of them i think

jason: does bruce even know-

tim: no he doesn’t

[ruhua-langblr]

Duolingo Sucks, Now What?: A Guide

Now that the quality of Duolingo has fallen (even more) due to AI and people are more willing to make the jump here are just some alternative apps and what languages they have:

"I just want an identical experience to DL"

Busuu (Languages: Spanish, Japanese, French, English, German, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, Polish, Turkish, Russian, Arabic, Korean)

"I want a good audio-based app"

Language Transfer (Languages: French, Swahili, Italian, Greek, German, Turkish, Arabic, Spanish, English for Spanish Speakers)

"I want a good audio-based app and money's no object"

Pimsleur (Literally so many languages)

Glossika (Also a lot of languages, but minority languages are free)

*anecdote: I borrowed my brother's Japanese Pimsleur CD as a kid and I still remember how to say the weather is nice over a decade later. You can find the CDs at libraries and "other" places I'm sure.

"I have a pretty neat library card"

Mango (Languages: So many and the endangered/Indigenous courses are free even if you don't have a library that has a partnership with Mango)

Transparent Language: (Languages: THE MOST! Also the one that has the widest variety of African languages! Perhaps the most diverse in ESL and learning a foreign language not in English)

"I want SRS flashcards and have an android"

AnkiDroid: (Theoretically all languages, pre-made decks can be found easily)

"I want SRS flashcards and I have an iphone"

AnkiApp: It's almost as good as AnkiDroid and free compared to the official Anki app for iphone

"I don't mind ads and just want to learn Korean"

lingory

"I want an app made for Mandarin that's BETTER than DL and has multiple languages to learn Mandarin in"

ChineseSkill (You can use their older version of the course for free)

"I don't like any of these apps you mentioned already, give me one more"

Bunpo: (Languages: Japanese, Spanish, French, German, Korean, and Mandarin)