#Welsh vocab

[meddwlyngymraeg]

Some more learner level Welsh from English radio, comedians Elis James, south-Walian Welshman, and John Robins, Bristolian learner, speaking Welsh.

Vocabulary

Coginio -> to cook

crwst (crystiau) -> crust(s) [of a pie, etc.] crystyn (crystiau) -> crust(s) [of bread, etc.:] "Mae wedi mynd yn goffi crystyn arno!" "He's got coffee crust on him!" —Hen ddywediad o Arfon am un sy'n dioddef tlodi mawr (yn yfed coffi wedi'i wneud drwy losgi crystyn) An old saying from Arfon about one who suffers great poverty (drinks coffee made by burning crust)* (via EinCymraeg on Twitter) *correct me if I've translated this incorrectly

Coginio Fy Nghrwst -> Cooking My Crust, S4C's fictional reflection of Bakeoff, spearheaded by John Robins. "fy" causes a nasal mutation.

Noson -> night

llawen -> fun, jovial, festive (if you recall from about 10 days ago, merry Christmas in Welsh is Nadolig llawen)

Noson Lawen: nos/noson is feminine and causes a soft mutation. S4C TV Series.

Some other related uses: Roedd hi lawen iawn pan oedd hi'n clywed y newyddion. She was overjoyed when she heard the news.

Roedd llawenydd yn y tŷ'r nos hon. There was joy in the house that night. (Wiktionary suggests I could also colloquially use "bu llawenydd...", but I quite honestly can't work out how different in meaning "preterite" 'was' would be from "imperfect/continuous" 'was'. Perhaps that is a subtlety I've lost from the English word for the two being the same?)

[bonefall]

can you talk more about a warrior cats conlang? I know you said you weren't gonna do one for the rewrite but I love conlangs so I'd love to see your ideas for one since I'm planning to make a warrior cats conlang soon as well

Sure! Just get me started on some specific concept or aspect. I have a lot of little ideas but no 'central' way that I unite them all

I'm gonna share my little self-indulgent headcanon about this, though. I made a bit of an OC out of the blog title (since I picked it at random), his name is actually Bonefall and he helps translate Clan stories into human language. His human partner, Dr. Hunter, is an anthropologist investigating clan society.

What should I call the conlang? Clannish? Clanmew? clanyru like cymru

Oh! I'll start with pronouns!

Pronouns, Inclusion, and Patrols

Pronouns in clan language are NOT gendered; others are referred to in varying levels of closeness or threat. Clan language has special modifiers for different types of 'we' that rest on a singular pronoun.

(Clanmate) He patrolled = "Urr pabpab" (Other Clan) He patrolled = "Rarr pabpab" (Clanmate) We patrolled = "Urri pabpab" (Clanmate) They patrolled (without me) = "Urrk pabpab" (Clanmate) You patrolled (without me) = "Urrsk pabpab"

There is no self-referential pronoun. There is no 'I/me/myself' in Clannish-- only "Mine," added as a possessive modifier at the end of a person, place, or thing. Cats in general have a very self-centered language; when you aren't using a pronoun, by default, you are stating something about yourself.

I patrolled = "pabpab" I patrolled my territory = "pabpab upanna wraah" Clanmate patrolled my territory = "urr pabpab upanna wraah"

They're my Clanmate = "Urr wraah" My clanmate patrolled = "Urr wraah pabpab"

Lionblaze: "Well who's going to go on patrol?" Hollyleaf: "YOU will, mousebrain!"

Translation:

Lionblaze: "Pff, yarr ya pabpa?" (lit: Well, who will patrolling?) Hollyleaf: "Weeswoo!" (You-mousebrain)

Threat Level/Pronoun List

This doesn't necessarily mean 'danger,' so much as the level of caution you would approach the given thing with. It's a sign of submission, even cowardice, to use dangerous pronouns for non-threatening things.

Format: (Their/You)

Wi/Wees The softest, weakest possible way to refer to a person... used exclusively for babies, and prey. "Mousebrain" is either Wiwoo (them-mousemind) or Weeswoo (you-mousemind).

Nya/Nyams This is family and closeness, moreso than a Clanmate or a trusted ally. If Hollyleaf hadn't been playful earlier, she would have simply responded "nyams."

Pyrr/Pyrrs For apprentices, medicine cats, elders, exhausted warriors, and other non-combatants, but also for friends. It's a neutral-weak pronoun-- it can be sympathetic or patronizing in the wrong situation, but at most it would be over-familiar if used incorrectly. This is also used on useful objects, like nests, herbs, Jayfeather's stick, etc.

Urr/Urrs A capable clanmate, carries an implication that they are able to hunt or fight at the described moment. The term carries endearment-- the old RiverClan river was referred to with Urrs, for respect. Strong, worthy prey is in this category (RiverClan refers to a lot of big fish with urrs)

Rarr/Rarrs Now we're in the 'outsider' category. These are not used on clanmates without insult. Used for things that require extra caution, or aren't trusted. A lot of twoleg things like fences and bridges are 'rarr'. The cats who live in the barn and other loners are 'rarr'. Warriors in other clans are 'rarr.'

Mwrr/Mwrrs Something dishonorable, that lives without code. Rogues are tossed into this category before proven otherwise, same with snakes, foxes, badgers, and dogs.

Ssar/Ssas Something powerful and dangerous. Storms, floods, cars. Overwhelming and unpredictable-- can be a high compliment to the respected warrior of other clans, implies the same sort of respect you would give to a natural disaster, but if used too much it could show cowardice.

[tyrannuspitch]

thinking about CO fic again in a very vague way and god i'd forgotten how much fun it was to deal with Such distinctive character voices :') i love you vampire media...

[cytser]

bore da pawb! mae'n dydd siarad chi'n iaith! dw i'n ddim un siarad cymraeg lol ond dw i'n eisiau dysgu cymraeg. sorri achos mae'n cymraeg drwg!

[tadeadshihamurder]

I logged into memrise for the first time since ~2016–2017 recently and found that they're basically trying to remove the community-made courses and promoting their own generic, structureless, auto-generated courses and filling the interface with irrelevant ads and videos.

and while duolingo's decline hasn't been as steeply dramatic, their removal of discussion forums and relevant grammar notes along with the removal of the incubator has really disappointed me. also, I'd made it pretty far in my Japanese course a few years ago when it was still linear, but I'd returned recently to find that they reset all my progress when they overturned the course structure and now, I've been stuck relearning the words "hotel" and "convenience store" for weeks.

it's not a great time for language self-study enthusiasts right now :(

[natequarter]

i want to learn so many languages but french is miles easier than any other language i've looked at... rip

[mathmusicreading]

@yummysuika @ospreywhite I really appreciate your translation work; can you explain more about shichen timekeeping to me? Because I know a tiny bit of modern Mandarin Chinese, but I can't recognize the shichens as the zodiac animals:

Zi (I don't know "rat", so I actually can't make any argument here.)

Chou (I don't know "ox", but I reasonably could have expected "niu" for "cow".)

Yin (I know "tiger" as "hu".)

Mao (I don't know "rabbit", but to me "mao" is "cat".)

Chen (I know "dragon" as "long".)

Si (I don't know "snake", but now I find it interesting that it sounds like death, like snakes could be seen as evil in Chinese culture similar to how they are seen in the Christian world.)

Wu (I know "horse" as "ma".)

Wei (I know "sheep/goat" as "yang".)

Shen (I don't know "monkey", but I would have expected "Sun" or "Wu" or "Kong" because of "Monkey King".)

You (I know "rooster/chicken" as " ji".)

Xu (I know "dog" as "gou".)

Hai (I don't know "pig/boar" unless "pork" and "pig" are the same "siu".)

I tried asking my parents, but they just starting talking about how the Chinese zodiac is actually a 60-year cycle with the 12 animals and the 5 elements. So are these shichen names the "Pre-Han dynasty semi-descriptive terms"? Is it kind of like the difference between "midday" and "noon" in English? The former is a "descriptor", the latter is a "name", but they "mean" the same thing?

(I tried checking the etymology for "noon" on dictionary.com, so to be fair "ninth hour" is a descriptor, but in Modern English it's not really recognizable as such and so for the sake of my shichen question, I'm calling "noon" a "name".)

Or is this another language/dialect or due to the evolution of language (changing words and pronunciations)?

I was also looking up the Dragon Boat Festival being on the unluckiest day of the year, and it says, "The Chinese name of the festival is pronounced differently in different Chinese languages. Duanwu (端午) literally means 'starting horse'—i.e., the first "horse day" of the month according to the Chinese zodiac." so I was able to get the exact character for "wu". I think it's interesting that Wikipedia says "literally ... horse" but putting 午 into Google Translate yields "midday, noonday, seventh earthly branch, 11 a.m.-1 p.m." It's unfortunate that Wikipedia only says "different Chinese languages" for "Duanwu" instead of specifying them or time periods, but I appreciate it listing different romanizations by country for Cantonese.

Would you say there's any pattern to Chinese writers or English translators using the above terms vs. using "hour/time/head/body/tail of the (insert zodiac animal here)"? Like if one sounds better for a historical fantasy setting, or choosing to use the pinyin in English instead of translating to not be translating literally? ETA: I should have gotten onto a computer sooner. I asked my parents and then you guys because searching "shichen" in Wikipedia just resulted in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_units_of_measurement. But further digging took me to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_Chinese_timekeeping. I'll probably get answers there (Maybe I'll even be able to explain to my dad why he was thinking of ten stems and not matching mathematically with "60 is from 12 times 5, not 10 times 6" when he was trying to lecture on the 60-year cycle for the Chinese zodiac, lol.), so my apologies for bothering you. I'd still appreciate your thoughts on what was formerly the last paragraph about writing and translation choices!

[snakespeare]

😤😤😤

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

With Duolingo getting enshittified, do you know any similar alternatives for learning Welsh? I started last year but stopped after moving here because house move, spoons, etc. and all the news about it is really putting me off restarting on duo.

If vocab is what you want, there's an app called Influent that has a Welsh option. It's paid - I think it costs a fiver? So not much. But it's great for vocab, and gamified, so that's fun.

Actual courses:

learnwelsh.cymru is the official Welsh Government supported website to hook you up with any course. At any level, too, from absolute entry level beginner to "Used to speak it but haven't in a while so need to polish up". You can find in person courses, online courses, long ones, short ones, free ones, paid ones, ones designed for employment (including specific fields), Saturday workshops, residentials, digital resources... There's tonnes. Absolutely tonnes. And, if you want one of the paid new beginner ones, they're currently discounted to half price until the end of January with the code CYMRU24. Obviously, free ones are shorter and much more basic than paid, but they do exist.

Your local Menter Iaith will very likely have some options; go along and ask (you can do that in English, they'll be fine with it).

SaySomethingInWelsh is always always the best. It uses a completely different language learning method and it churns out fluent speakers like you wouldn't believe. This is because their course focuses on verbal and oral language acquisition skills rather than the written word. Now, they used to achieve this, in the online courses, by means of audio recordings, but they have finally built their own AI NO DON'T SWITCH OFF COME BACK they built it themselves. It hasn't replaced anyone, and won't. It just makes the audio recordings into something more interactive and therefore more effective. And currently if you sign up to it, you get it for a tenner a month (this will sometime soon be rising to £30 a month, but if you sign up while it's still a tenner they'll never put you up to the £30).

Or, they do an in-person intensive course, which is 100% effective and incredible but costs £2000 a day. Like, it will make you fluent in weeks, but that's way too steep for the likes of us peasants.

And, I expect others will probably add in the notes any others I've missed. So keep an eye there. Good luck!

[notquitedeadpod]

The more angsty backstory Neige gets the more im attached to him kcmdmdms

No but i was thinking what are your thoughts on Neige being given nicknames in different languages (like how Casper calls him Zima ect.)? Bc ive been thinking about possible Neige nicknames in my native language (latvian!) And its been quite fun!

I even have some ideas:

- Ziema (means winter and is already very close to Zima so not really that unique)

- Sniegs (means snow and sounds pretty nice, can be turned into a pet name "sniedziņš" lol)

- Ledus (means ice and sounds very cold and brutal, doesnt exactly fit the character but still good)

- Sals (it means like frost or frostbite im pretty sure, sounds nice tho)

So yeah from now on i will be reffering to Neige as sniedziņš sometimes and no one can stop me.

(Also i love love love how you bring other languages into the podcast i speak literally no french but its nice to see it used so casually and just aagghhh its amazing <3. I love the representation of languages XD)

I am glad you are having fun gnawing on this prehistoric boy. And yeah!! So, without getting too much into canon, anything wintery or cold themed is an appropriate thing to call Neige, based on the conventions used to name him elsewhere. It's all based on the 'cold' reputation of his blood.

I LOVE the idea of nicknaming him something to do with frostbite, bc he DOES bite, it's a very important thing about him. He's a lover and a biter. No bark, all bite, and so on and so forth.

Anyway YES you are absolutely right in the way you're nicknaming him!!

I really love playing with languages. English is my first language, Welsh is my second, and I also speak a handful of French and Russian. I also know a little grab-bag of words in Italian and Spanish, but not much, and a few words here and there of Czech, but like. VERY scant. Like I know stray bits of vocab, and that is all.

Languages are so fun, I love how they work and relate to each other, I love how when you start learning a new language it's like 'oh the whole way I think about using words is not the default, there are other structures, other systems, different ways to communicate about these objects and this world'. I love how languages are alive and fluid and they borrow and share and steal and give and change and exchange. I love how it's all about connecting with other people and even when the language barrier is a wall, eventually you will find a way to speak with each other, because that's what people do.

Language <3 It's amazing. In my Top 10 Things Humans Did of All Time.

--- Eira xxx

[meddwlyngymraeg]

This continues to be quite a silly little thing, but since people seemed to enjoy the last time I did this, here's some more Welsh vocab tidbits via a South Walian and an Englishman who is Trying: Elis James and John Robins! Again, for a better idea on the actual pronunciation though, I'd listen out for Elis' speaking.

Vocabulary

penblwydd -> birthday

gwrthod -> to refuse (the verb)

Elis has noun-ified that to give 'gwrthodwr' -> a refuser

If you instead wanted to refer someone to the skip, the rubbish heap, you'd use

sbwriel -> refuse (n), waste, rubbish

Relatedly,

to deny -> gwadu, ymwadu, or again, gwrthod

[shu-of-the-wind]

hello! apologies if you've answered this before (I tried searching but Tumblr search is awful). I recall you mentioning all the languages you have studied, many of which are quite distinct from each other. I was wondering if you have any advice for learning a new language? specifically any tips for someone with ADHD as a lot of the common tips I see online haven't helped me keep up with my language learning goals :/ thank you in advance for any advice/resources you can point me to!

hi @kyradic!! i haven't answered this before actually and i love questions like these so i'm so happy you asked!!

so for context for me i have inattentive adhd, which means if something is not right in front of me, i WILL forget it. this means i set a lot of alarms for myself, book time in my schedule to at least try to study (i do welsh on monday, arabic on wednesday, japanese on thursday, and chinese on saturday). i don't always succeed--a lot of the time i forget or have something else i need to do--but having that time booked means it keeps it in my mind that i need to study or at least look at some vocab.

to actually study, i do a lot of vocab games (you can find these online for a lot of languages, for japanese there's shiritori or other flashcard games you can find if you google) and i listen to a lot of podcasts in the langauge i'm trying to learn even if i don't have a fucking clue what someone is saying. the biggest thing about learning a language is hearing it, getting used to the rhythm, understanding how native speakers pronounce things, and (this is a big one) i listen to a lot of music in the language i'm trying to learn and try to teach myself the lyrics. it makes it more of an activity (karaoke baybee) but also teaches you how to speak faster, more fluidly, and with more native speaker-style pronunciation than just reciting shit off of duolingo or rosetta.

i also watch a LOT of tv in the target language. telenovelas have been my best albeit dramatic friend for spanish listening comp. it does way more for me than studying out of textbooks because it means i'm listening to native speakers, their contractions, different styles of speech, and i get some entertainment out of it. legit i know someone who studied for their chinese exams in college by watching c-dramas and aced all their courses.

the biggest and most important thing for me though is finding a buddy. language is not a thing you can learn on your own. there are loads of discord channels for various languages (if you're looking for a japanese learning community, seitokai's nihongo is a good one that i am a member of, and i can get you a link to their discord). it lets you body-double or find an accountability-buddy to make sure you study instead of getting distracted. generally there's also a bunch of other learners in those communities of various levels so you can ask for advice or help, you can have conversations (or try to, part of learning a language is learning how to be okay with communicating in broken grammar until you get better, and that is 100% okay; so long as you can make your meaning understood, that is all that matters) or practice pronunciation or play games or read books or do anything you need to do that will help you, specifically.

i hope this helps! i'm not sure what language you're trying to learn but there are definitely adhd friendly resources out there that aren't just "knuckle down and memorize these words." that being said if you're learning a language with a new alphabet, you WILL have to do that sometimes, and it's best to do that with a body double so you don't get bored, annoyed, or frustrate yourself into executive dysfunction about it.

[siaradwast]

Welsh Vocab 1 - Geirfa Cymraeg 1

[Plain text: Welsh Vocab 1 - Geirfa Cymraeg 1. End PT.]

Before I start, I would like to specify that all these posts are in a South Wales dialect of Welsh.

The Welsh Alphabet - Y Wyddor Cymraeg

[Plain text: The Welsh Alphabet - Y Wyddor Cymraeg. End PT.]

a, b, c, ch, d, dd, e, f, ff, g, ng, h, i, j, l, ll, m, n, o, p, r, rh, s, t, th, u, w, y

Greetings - Cyfarchion

[Plain text: Greetings - Cyfarchion. End PT.]

Shwmae/Helô - Hello

Bore da - Good morning

Prynhawn da - Good afternoon

Noswaith dda - Good evening

Nos da - Good night

Sut wyt ti? / Sut dych chi? - How are you? (Note - "ti" is the informal & singular you, "chi" is the formal & plural you)

Croeso - Welcome

Hwyl/Hwyl fawr - Goodbye

Pronoun sentence starters

[Plain text: Pronoun sentence starters. End PT.]

Dw i'n - I am

Rwyt ti'n - you are (Informal/singular)

Mae e'n - he is

Mae hi'n - she is

Mae nhw'n - they are

Rydych chi'n - you are (Formal/plural)

Dyn ni'n - we are

(Rydych chi'n can be shortened to dych chi'n, Rwyt ti'n often becomes just ti'n. Dw i'n is technically Rydw i'n but is often shortened)

Days of the week - Dyddiad yr Wythnos

[Plain text: Days of the week - Dyddiad yr Wythnos. End PT.]

Dydd Llun - Monday

Dydd Mawrth - Tuesday

Dydd Mercher - Wednesday

Dydd Iau - Thursday

Dydd Gwener - Friday

Dydd Sadwrn - Saturday

Dydd Sul - Sunday

for nights, "nos" would replace "dydd", so Monday night would be Nos Llun. (This mutates for Gwener - i.e. Nos Wener rather than Nos Gwener)

Months - Mis

[Plain text: Months - Mis. End PT.]

Ionawr - January

Chwefror - February

Mawrth - March

Ebrill - April

Mai - May

Mehefin - June

Gorffenaf - July

Awst - August

Medi - September

Hydref - October

Tachwedd - November

Rhagfyr - December

(Mawrth being March and Dydd Mawrth being Tuesday is I think because Mawrth is also the word for Mars, as in the planet. So the month and the day are named for the planet.)

Other Essentials

[Plain text: Other Essentials. End PT.]

Diolch - Thank you

Plîs / os gwelwch yn dda - Please (Os gwelwch yn dda literally translates to "if you see fit", so it's more of an "if you please" and is a more polite/formal version.)

Diolch yn fawr - Thank you very much (Literally "big thank you")

Esgusodwch fi - Excuse me

Mae'n flin da fi - Sorry (Fully - mae'n flin gyda fi, literally - Sorry is with me, however "flin" on its own does not really translate to sorry)

Weather - Y Tywydd

[Plain text: Weather - Y Tywydd. End PT.]

The weather is feminine so "it is" for weather is usually "mae hi'n", but this can be shortened to "mae'n".

Mae'n.... - It is....

.... bwrw glaw/eira/cesau - .... raining/snowing/hailing

.... heulog - .... sunny

.... braf - .... fine

.... stormus - .... stormy

.... wyntog - .... windy

.... gymylog - .... cloudy (Gymylog is the mutated form of Cymylog - it mutates because mae hi'n is feminine)

.... oer - .... cold

.... boeth - .... hot

Heddiw means today, so "it is sunny today" would be "Mae'n heulog heddiw)

That's all for this post, I'm not listing vocabulary in any particular order, I am quite literally just dumping vocab off the top of my head until the post seems long enough. There are nuances and exceptions that I don't really know how to convey in some circumstances, because to me they seem natural since to some extent as I was raised surrounded by the Welsh language. These posts weren't intended for people to learn Welsh from, but if you're already learning and have other resources for grammar, mutations, pronunciation, etc. these may be helpful. Anyway, unnecessarily long disclaimer over.

[guillemelgat]

Language Goals 2024

Another year, another set of goals! This year, in the actual spirit of my very reasonable 2022 language goals, here are my plans for language study.

Catalan

First and foremost, my goal is to find Catalan friends in my new hometown, because I really need to speak Catalan with people at minimum once a week or I get very sad, and currently I’m not speaking it with anyone at all. This goal is pretty chill though—I just have to actually sit down and put in the time to find people.

My main goal is to read 30 books in Catalan. I’ll make a proper post about it with a list of books that I’m thinking of and how the challenge itself is going to work, but overall I’m trying to pick a mix of styles and genres, so expect anything from medieval literature to YA novels to academic texts. I have a lot of books that I’ve been meaning to read for a while, so hopefully this will give me a chance to chip into some of them. 30 books is less than other versions of this challenge that I’ve seen, but it’s also many more books than I’ve read in Catalan possibly ever and I think it’s more reasonable in conjunction with a full class load. Hopefully it ends up being just the right amount!

Welsh & Basque

This year I really want to work hard to actually get these two to an upper intermediate level, because I’m so close if I put in the work. For both of them, I have two main goals: (1) go through the textbooks/workbooks that I started going through casually last semester (Basic Welsh: A Grammar and Workbook by Gareth King and Standard Basque: A Progressive Grammar by Rudolf P.G. de Rijk) so that I can continue to review and learn new grammatical structures, and (2) watch one episode of a TV series each week in each language. For the TV series, I’m going to be watching Rownd a Rownd on S4C (which is available outside Wales/the UK! Huge win!) and Eskamak kentzen on EITB. If I have time, I’ll try to go through episodes more thoroughly and note down new vocabulary and such, but the main goal is to make a routine of it and watch consistently so I’m trying to keep it simple. I’d also like to use both languages with other people more often if I can, but I think finding a consistent language partner will perhaps be a goal for another year.

Malayalam

I’m planning to focus the first half of the year on Welsh and Basque, and then next fall, I’m hoping to be able to take the Malayalam classes offered by my university and to get into studying my home dialect (or rather, my extended family’s home dialect, since I didn’t speak it at home) as well. Since this will be later and also classroom learning rather than self-study, I’m not going to go into details, but overall, after my trip to Kerala (which I have stuff about, it’s on the docket!), I’m generally feeling much less alienated and much more motivated to study the language. I’m also looking forward to being able to take real classes, which I think will help keep me focused and on track.

Russian

This is a minor goal, but at my friend’s house over the summer, her mom was joking that if they just spoke to me in Russian while I stayed at their house, I’d probably be able to understand it by the end. That led us to concoct a plan where I study a bit of Russian vocab, then go there and do intensive Russian immersion for a weekend or so. This is more of a silly goal, but I’d like to try it because I think it could be fun.

Anki

This isn’t a language goal per se, but rather a general resolution to spend this year learning to use (and tweaking and configuring) Anki. Anki has a notoriously high barrier to entry, and from everything I’ve seen it should be treated as a long-term, intensive project—I’ll hopefully reap the rewards later if I take my time and set up everything right in the early stages. With that in mind, I’m hoping that by the end of the year I’ve figure out a set up for my decks and cards that really works for getting me to remember and be able to use vocab and grammar. I’ll focus on the languages here for the start, but I’m hoping that with habit and time, if I get a good system going I can use it with other languages too.

And that’s it! It’s been a bit since I was systematic about studying languages, but I’ve found that I really miss it and want to go back. I feel like I’m at a really good place with all of these, and I’d like to continue to make progress, so I’m really trying to focus on consistency and hitting the sweet spot of just challenging enough to get myself out of my comfort zone while not burning out. Hopefully I’ve set this up in a way to build habits and make me excited to keep immersing myself with these languages in the coming years, which is really the key to learning any language in the long term—I've realized that I speak Catalan so well because it's fully integrated into my life, and I'd like all these others to be as well. Here’s to a good 2024, and I wish all of you luck with your own goals as well!

[tinknevertalks]

The feeling when you realise you do not have the vocab to write a Welsh limerick.

I can't think of words to rhyme with tractor, or an easy rhyme for the middle. 😭😭😭

[seherstudies]

Random English vocab I encountered

shore something up - to help or support something that is likely to fail or is not working well

Ex.: The tax cuts are supposed to shore up the economy.

insipid - 1) bland 2) not interesting, exciting or attractive

Ex.: Canned coffees taste either harsh or insipid.

effluent - liquid waste, especially chemicals or sewage

Ex.: In most cases, organic pollution occurs indirectly by anthropogenic eutrophication due to influx of effluent containing nutrient salts after the SAS treatment of wastewater from houses and industries.

enticed - to persuade someone to do something or go somewhere, usually by offering them something that they want

Ex.: This campaign enticed Japanese city dwellers to travel to the countryside by spreading images of idyllic nature and stereotypical pieces of traditional culture.

maverick - an unusual person who has different ideas and ways of behaving from other people, and is often very successful

Kono belongs to a faction of former Prime Minister Aso Taro, yet most LDP elders including Aso are wary of Kono’s "outspokenness and maverick tendencies.”

scullery - a room next to the kitchen in a large house, where cleaning jobs were done in past times

Ex.: The kitchen and scullery had been swept and tidied up, and all the beds made.

to croon - to sing or speak in a soft gentle voice, especially about love

Ex.: A woman gently crooned the tune of a lullaby.

to mothball - to stop using a factory, equipment etc or to not continue with a plan, temporarily but possibly for a long time

Ex.: Language learning app Duolingo to mothball Welsh course.

brogue - 1) an accent, especially an Irish or Scottish accent 2) a thick strong leather shoe with a pattern in the leather