#and if both genders have infixes it makes it so much easier

[a-dragons-journal]

Well thank you! :P

I found that Na'vi was way easier for me to pick up than any other language I'd tried before other than maybe ASL (which I really need to get back to learning), and while part of that was probably that it's got a more regular grammar structure than a lot of natlangs (such is the nature of conlangs), a lot of it was that the order I was asked to learn things in was different. Kelutral's Na'vi as a Second Language resource (which sadly no longer exists and has been replaced by the Na'vi Survival Guide, which is a decision I'm... not a fan of tbh since I liked NaSL's format a lot better, I would have preferred to have both available, but nuance) went through things more or less like so:

Here's a few very basic words, just enough that you can make a bunch of simple example sentences from them: a couple of nouns, a couple of verbs, and an adjective or two. Na'vi's initial vocabulary list is typically something like: you, I/me, yerik (hexapede), fish (noun, not verb), hunt, arrow, bow, have/is/be (this one's a weird one in Na'vi, so it got its own lesson section in NaSL, but that's Na'vi-specific), fast, small. This is all the words you need to start learning grammar. You don't need to cram 500 words of vocabulary into your head before you start really learning how to use them, and in fact I recommend you don't - trying to "learn a language" by just cramming vocabulary without ever being sat down and taught the principles of grammar was what made languages so hard for me before!

How to build a basic sentence: what are the subject, verb, and (direct) object, what order do they go in in this language, and are there any conjugations applied to nouns to indicate which is which? Na'vi has limited free word order (so you can put words in whatever order you want without changing the meaning of the sentence, within certain restrictions), and instead uses suffixes to indicate subject vs object (-l/-ìl and -ti/-it, respectively). In my ongoing dragon conlang, it's currently indicated purely by word order like it is in English (ie, "I eat the fish" is a very different sentence from "The fish eats me"!).

Slightly more complex sentences: how does your language indicate indirect objects? Any super common weird quirks like Na'vi's lu (that's that word that can be be, is, or have depending on how it's used) should probably be covered here as well. (From hereonout the order of learning doesn't matter so much.)

How does your language indicate possession (ex "my bow")? How are pronouns commonly conjugated, if they are? What other common modifications are applied to nouns?

What common modifications are applied to verbs? In Na'vi, this looks like the infix list - verbs can take infixes to indicate (in order of commonality) tense, ongoing vs completed, uncertainty/possibility (or a bunch of other things - is a weird one), causative case, reflexive case, positive or negative tone, or a couple other things, as well as to turn them from a verb (hunt) to an active adjective (hunting) or a passive one (hunted).

If your language is gendered, how does that manifest? Is gender applied to pronouns, adjectives, verbs, participles, adpositions, more? (And gender isn't always about masculine/feminine - my dragon conlang has grammatical genders based on the type of magic a thing is associated with, meaning any given noun can be "gendered" with fire, water, stone, storm, life, or null, and in some dialects rune.) Is there any (semi-)consistent way to tell what gender a given noun is, or do you just have to memorize it?

How are adjectives used? Where do they go in a sentence? How are they connected to their noun (simply by word position, or by another means as well? Na'vi attaches an -a- to the beginning or end of the adjective depending which end is "facing" the noun it applies to)? How can they be modified? Any common irregularities? (For example, Na'vi has many adjectives that start with le-; as this is a marker of turning a noun (fnele, metal) into an adjective (lefnele, metallic), you can drop the -a- if the le- is facing the noun it's applied to (lefnelea pa'li, pa'li lefnele are both valid; you don't need to say pa'li alefnele (though you technically could, I guess)).

Any cases that can be applied to nouns that haven't been covered yet should be covered here - in Na'vi, this is typically the topical case, which is only semi-commonly used but is present.

Going through all that should give you a pretty solid basis for being able to start writing and speaking basic sentences in your chosen language - you'll still have a lot to learn, especially if your language has a lot of irregularities, but you'll be able to start practicing right away, and that's the key to language-learning - practice every day, even if it's only a few minutes. Five minutes of practice every day is better than two hours of practice once a week. It'll stick better in your head that way.

And don't be afraid of getting things wrong! Getting things wrong (and being corrected) is the only way to learn! It's not a failure, it's a sign that you're making an effort and making progress - fucking up is something to be proud of!

I've also almost certainly missed things, in fairness, which I'm sure you'll find out when you start your language-learning journey and find holes in my advice, but at least it's a place to start, haha. Siva ko! (Rise to the challenge!)

the urge to learn the language of the ‘type i’m questioning (they have a whole ass conlang) but i'm so bad with language/grammar

[thatmartiangirl]

So I’m learning Esperanto, which in case you aren’t aware is a conlang made in Europe in the 1880s that was intended to become a universal second language, so the grammar is designed to be very simple, as is the vocabulary if you speak a (Western) European language

But I have a major pet peeve regarding it. Unlike many of the languages it was based on (looking at you romance languages) it doesn’t have gendered objects, but there is genders when it comes to words describing people, which fair enough, a lot of languages have this, but the way Esperanto does it annoys the hell out of me

So for those of you who haven’t studied Esperanto, here’s an example. Patro is Esperanto for Father. To turn that word into the word for mother, you add an -in- before the -o, so Mother is Patrino. And it does this for most words. Viro=Man Virino=Woman, Avo=Grandfather Avino=Grandmother, Fratro=Brother Fratrino=Sister, etc. But this doesn’t just stop where gendered words end in English, so you get stuff like Amiko=Male Friend, Amikino=Female Friend, or like Kuzo=Male Cousin Kuzino=Female Cousin 

And then to make one of those neutral, you have to add the prefix ge-, so if you want to say parents rather than fathers, you’d say gepatroj rather than patroj. But that seems kinda awkward and inflexible to me. Why is the base word automatically masculine? And the thing that annoys me the most is how easy of a fix it would be if there were both a masculine and a feminine infix there, like having -ir- taking the place of -in- in those words to make them masculine. So you’d have words like kuziro, amikiro, kokiro(rooster), etc. And then you can have more general neutral words

[discyours]

Someone messaged me saying - to put it nicely - that they have a hard time believing that I’d call myself a female homosexual despite having severe gender dysphoria. Which is fine, I'd rather people ask than assume, but it did get me thinking about how many people probably have the same doubts and didn’t ask me about them. So I’m gonna explain. Trigger warning if you’re a trans guy reading this.

I’ve talked about why I call myself female before; it’s relevant to my life experiences, to the traumas I’m trying to work through (hell I couldn’t honestly call myself trans if I didn’t acknowledge that being female has had a horrible effect on my life) - but also practical needs like wanting to be in minimal danger in changing rooms (or prison). And I guess you can add spite to that list now that I’m being told not to. 

But it’s not the why that’s the issue here, it’s the how. How it’s any different than calling myself a woman, and how it’s even bearable. I fully acknowledge that the dictionary definition of woman is adult human female, and as a radfem I believe that everyone (barring trans people) would be much better off if we returned to that understanding. Society just isn’t with me on that one though, as there’s a big gap between the biological differences between men and women and the societal ones. 

This shouldn’t affect me, since my sex is what I’m dysphoric about, but it does. The way I deal with my dysphoria is by mentally making my sex as abstract as possible. “I happen to have a certain genetic coding” is fairly abstract, “the results of it are readily apparent and directly and strongly affect the way people treat me” is not. That’s why it hurts less to be “misgendered” by gendercrits. 

The definition of female is “of or denoting the sex that can bear offspring or produce eggs, distinguished biologically by the production of gametes (ova) which can be fertilized by male gametes.”. Now I’m not an idiot, I understand that this is the base for every single physical difference between males and females. I understand that xx chromosomes affect every cell in my body, and I understand how upsetting that is. 

I know how it felt,  that realisation sinking in, feeling so incredibly trapped in an infixably wrong body, obsessing about ways I could kill myself that wouldn’t leave a single wrong cell intact. I’ve had mental breakdowns about it and that’s something you absolutely need to understand if you want to doubt the legitimacy of my dysphoria. I still have a scar from when I felt so trapped in my own skin that I, for a few moments, decided that taking it off was the only solution. It didn’t take long to come to the realisation that a skinless life wouldn’t be any easier, and that there simply wasn’t a solution to being wrapped in the wrong chromosomes.

The only thing left to do when you realise that you cannot fix something is to find a way to accept it, and I did. I looked at transitioned trans men, trans men who completely and inarguably passed, and thought this is a technicality to them. We’re both female, but it doesn’t mean anything to them anymore. It doesn’t have to mean anything other than a certain, invisible genetic coding. 

And I know we’re not the same. I could compare myself to a fully transitioned trans man and list off the differences, but I’m not going to because that would make me extremely dysphoric. I know that being female is a hell of a lot more relevant to me than just having certain chromosomes, I know that it strongly affects people’s lives and that’s a big part of the reason I call myself female in the first place. But acknowledging and dealing with the tangible effects of being female is only made bearable by abstracting them first, and I’m well aware that that’s somewhat of a contradiction. It’s one that lets me cope and that’s what matters.