#forvo

[haxyr3]

It is official now: Forvo Academy offers Russian lessons!

Yours truly is happy to be a part of the project.

Now you can book a one-on-one session with me and pick the specific topic you need a help with.

I look forward to talking to you at Forvo Academy!

[soufre-de-paris]

i feel like this comparison on forvo is the perfect example of the phonetic differences between brazilian portuguese (BR-PT) and portugal portuguese (PT-PT)

the relatively slower, more even meter with which she (BR-PT) speaks compared to him (PT-PT)

note in particular the end of the first word: she (BR-PT) says toque with two syllables (tó-que), whereas he (PT-PT) says it as nearly one syllable (tóq) with the last vowel almost elided into a pause! this happens at other points as well.

her (BR-PT) pronunciation favors stress on vowels more than his (PT-PT)

however, the overall cadence (song) with which they speak is largely identical: with a higher-pitched initial sound maintained through the phrase, which then falls to a lower baseline on the final spoken syllable

[forveiin]

rw meadow time yay (build 0.0.72 + hotfix 0.0.72.1) here are the mods:

(visible ID and sharpener are client-side, and are optional)

My steam username is "butterknife" so make sure you're joining the right lobby!

password is "Goober" (case-sensitive)

We go to throw rocks at pebbles :)))))

[lightbulbshineon]

Immerhin kann man darauf vertrauen dass es auf Gutefrage.net jemanden gibt der das gleiche Problem hat

Habe meinem Chef vor kurzem das Prinzip der Band Babymetal erklärt, sagte zwischendurch irgendwas mit "...et cetera", und er unterbricht mich und sagt "Kaiserzeit." Gespräch kommt zu einem screeching halt. "Kaiserzeit??" "Das c in et cetera als k auszusprechen kam während der Kaiserzeit in Mode" ok bestie gut zu wissen. kann ich dir bitte in Ruhe niche metal bands erklären?

[mosqitofood]

Japanese Resources 2

Genki books google drive

Genki books and workbooks google drive

Japanese book google drive

Genki 2 slideshare

Forvo Japanese pronunciation

Japanese reading chrome extension

Learn Japanese Tae Kim’s guide to learning Japanese ; Introduction ; Grammar guide

Usagi-chan’s Genki resource page

JLPT Sensei Learn Japanese and pass the JLPT

Verb Chart 

[spanishskulduggery]

How can I start learning Spanish on my own?

If you're looking for free resources I always recommend www.studyspanish.com/grammar

I would also recommend www.conjuguemos.com and their activity list for Spanish

Other than that I really like youtube since you can hear the pronunciation and possibly get a human response from an actual person if you had a question; so I recommend Butterfly Spanish and Señor Jordan that have more lessons and plans, and Practiquemos also has some good videos that are more specific topics

...I also do recommend WordReference's forums, and honestly there are Spanish speaking reddits for grammar/vocabulary etc, Forvo is where I get pronunciation help for different countries, and I use WordReference, SpanishDict, Contexto Reverso, and Linguee as my online dictionaries/translation help

...

Everyone will also recommend Duolingo eventually. I have issues with the use of AI, and the lack of the forum, and generally them not explaining the grammar of what you're seeing

And if you're going for paid things, Babel or Rosetta Stone [very pricy] are not bad options either if you can afford them

[pompadourpink]

Bonjour maman ! Est-ce que tu as des conseils pour améliorer la prononciation (bien sûr parler aide, mais j'ai trop peur).

Merci beaucoup !

Hello dear,

To improve your pronunciation:

Listen to native pronunciation on Forvo (Deepl for sentences)

Study phonetics to understand sound making

Study nasals specifically

Use a phonetic converter for hard words

Dictate a paragraph to your computer

Read the physical book as you listen to the audiobook

Record yourself reading and listen to your audio while looking away to see if you can understand it

Watch subtitled content muted, try saying the line, play it again and listen to it to compare

Hire me (honhon)!

Get a learning buddy on Reddit, join a language group in your city, go to a museum or the library and make friends

Hope this helps and good luck! x

Fanmail - masterlist (2016-) - archives - hire me - reviews (2020-) - Drive

[coquelicoq]

i think in general i just ignore the diaeresis. i already know aiguë is two syllables. skill issue.

yes that means every time you see me use é i actually held down the alt key and pressed 130. every ç is the result of alt+135. every ù (151) takes me at least three tries because i always do û (150) and ô (147) first. i do ê (136) instead of â (131) all the time. è (138) is my babygirl and i would never forget her. on the other hand sometimes i use i instead of ï (139) because who can remember that. i just try a bunch of random shit until i finally get an î (140) and then i'm like oh yeah 140, duh. also even though i almost never type in spanish i will remember ñ (164) until the day i die. and of course all the acute accents in the 160s (á í ó ú, no é for some reason but as mentioned i have secret french knowledge that unlocks alt+130). i only needed to know the danish accented letters for like two weeks but occasionally i can come out with a æ (145), ø (0248), or å (134), usually by accident. this is what i'm using long-term storage for. i don't even know how to switch keyboards.

[haxyr3]

I can't praise Forvo enough for their pronunciation guide - one of the most helpful language resources in the internet.

Now Forvo launches Forvo Academy - a platform where you can find a teacher and boost your language studies to a completely new level.

This is not just another tutoring platform, it is a real academy where teachers were carefully picked and invited, and students are supposed to follow well-designed curriculum. I know it, because I helped them to design a curriculum for Russian.

For now, it's English and Spanish, but more languages, including Russian, to be added soon.

[rottenraccoons]

how do you pronounce Keir's name? I've seen it said like key-air, or kai-are, or Care. How do you say it? (if this has been answered before my apologies!)

Given how many posts we've posted and Tumblr's very bad search system, I think we can allow repeat questions!

We say his name Keir as in rhymes-with-here. It can sometimes help to here it said in context, too, so here's the results of a Forvo search for Keir. (Forvo is a website with recordings of people saying words to help people learn pronounciation, it's great.)

[forveiin]

hanging out on rw meadow, 10pm UTC, 7th of october

using the latest version (0.0.72 + 72.1 hotfix). will include mod list on the day, along with the password for the lobby. hopefully some people can join me :D

[stolen-wolfbread]

(Free) Brazilian Portuguese Beginner Resource Masterlist

I've seen a lot of posts for European Portuguese, but none for Brazilian, so here we are! All resources are available for free (or at least have free trials.)

The items highlighted in yellow are what I, personally, use and recommend.

The items with asterisks are closer to intermediate level.

I will continue to update with new resources as I discover them. If you have any suggestions, comment or reblog!

Text

Textbooks

101 Brazillian Portuguese Expressions

Brazilian Portuguese

Brazilian Portuguese Grammar

FSI Brazilian Portuguese Fast 1 | 2 (+audio)

ClicaBrazil*

Learn Brazilian Portuguese - Word Power 101

Complete Brazilian Portuguese

IE Languages

Modern Brazilian Portuguese Grammar

Português para principiantes

( +more in the Mega Folder from @salvadorbonaparte)

Handouts

List of Irregular Verbs

Top 100 Portuguese Phrases to Learn

Verbs in Brazilian Portuguese

Blogs

Uncle Brazil

Video

Channels

Brazilian Talk

Fernando - FWBP

Lennon Brito

Plain Portuguese

Portugués con Philipe Brazuca (For Spanish-speakers)

Speaking Brazilian Language School

Street Smart Brazil

Playlists

Brazilian Films with English Subtitles

Easy Brazilian Portuguese: Basic Phrases

Easy Brazilian Portuguese: Learning From the Streets

Portuguese From Brazil

Super Easy Brazilian Portuguese

Audio

Podcasts

Brazilian Portuguese Podcast

Brazilian Talk

Brazilianing

Carioca Connection

Fala Gringo*

Língua da Gente

LinguaBoost

Papo Vai

Read Books in Brazilian Portuguese With Me*

Speaking Brazilian Podcast

Tá Falado! (Compares Spanish and Portuguese languages)

Spotify Playlists

Brazilian Boogie

Brazilian Pop Mix

Brasilidades

RADAR Brasil

Raízes Brasileiras

Top 50 - Brazil

Top Songs - Brazil

Web Apps/ Mobile Apps

Flashcards

Anki | Speaking Brazilian | 55 Sounds

Linguno

Memrise | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6

Dictionaries

Forvo (Pronunciation dictionary)

Priberam (Cites differences between European and Brazilian)*

Word Reference

Courses

Duolingo | Old Duolingo for Web | Old Duolingo APKs For Android

Language Drops

Keyboards

Lexilogos

Type.it

Communities/Forums

HiNative

r/brazilianmusic

r/language_exchange

r/Portuguese | Discord Server

[carriechambers]

Wheel of the Year 101 - Beltane

The post on website

Hello tumblr! Today is Beltane and I've had this post mostly written for about a week now, just got caught up with other things. Hopefully I'm not too late though!

In this post, you'll find out:

the history of Beltane

when and how to celebrate (with reviving some old traditions!)

links to recipes and playlists (with over 100 songs)

correspondences (foods, herbs, incense, ...)

Click Keep Reading to read the entire post, or you can read it on the blog page Beltane. On the web page you can also find download link for the .md file if you'd like to import it as a grimoire page into notion or logseq!

Beltane

History

I will start it off with the following: Beltane is actually Anglicised version. It would be more correct to write it as Bealtaine, which also shows its pronounciation (Bee-awl-tin-a). If you’d rather like to hear the pronounciation, Forvo actually has 4 different voice notes of people from Ireland pronouncing it. I will probably keep using the word Beltane going forwards, but it is useful / interesting to know the etymology as well. It comes from celtic Baal or Bel, meaning “Bright one”. Like Imbolc (which was also called St. Brighid’s day), Beltane also is tied to a celtic deity. This time it is Belenus or Belenos, the god of fire, associated also with sun, healing and prophecy.

In Wiccan traditions this is the time when the Horned God fully matures and mates with the Goddess. 

Similarly to Imbolc, Beltane is also the midpoint between an equinox and solstice and is one of the 4 fire festivals. It is the beginning of summer and is usually celebrated on May 1st (although some may choose to rather celebrate on a different day, if that’s what the midpoint between summer solstice and spring equinox falls at).

I’ve seen it connected to fertility again, but that’s mostly because fertility is the undertone of most sabbats, or because that’s what the modern “May day” represents. Notice that the Wiccan celebration of this sabbat actually is about this, perhaps also coming from the later interpretations of Beltane.

It is also seen as the time when the Aos Sí (Fair Folk) interact more with the human realm, and so people make offerings to appease them and did rituals to also protect against them. Other than that, the festival is mainly all about protection. The fire rituals were meant to protect both people and the cattle, that they also moved from one pasture to another during this time (a concept called Transhumance). They were moved to the lower summer pastures. This Transhumance seems to have been actually the core of Beltane. 

One beautiful custom was to extinguish all fires in the home before Beltane. During the communal bonfires they walked around and invoked good fortune and protection for the coming year. Once they returned home after the celebrations, they carried back a torch from the communal fire, to relight the hearth.

The month of May is well known for the blooming flowers, and Beltane traditions reflected this as well. Flower garlands were made, and flowers would be seen pretty much anywhere. Most often used one was a yellow flower, for the colour is symbolizing sun and light.

One other custom was to burn bushes, once again because of the fae, who were thought to take refugee there. And one custom that has appeared later on was the crowning of May queen and dancing around the maypole, which I think most of us has seen somewhere, at least on pictures, since this tradition seems to have also grown nearly extinct.

How to Celebrate

As I’ve already mentioned in the history section, Beltane is one of the fire festivals. If it is within your possibilities, you can light a full bonfire! Or maybe a smaller one in a fire pit, where you would normally grill sausages. And of course the variant many of us go with - candles. And if you’d like, you can also bring out the old tradition of extinguishing flames at home (so mostly candles) and then relighting it again with protective intents. 

One more tradition I haven’t mentioned - first dew on the morning of May, if applied to the face, would cause beauty. You can certainly do this as soon as you get up in the morning!

Next up is the famous Maypole. While you might not have the chance to participate in it in your town / village community, you can certainly make your own! I’ve seen an amino post by Isa and Björn (the name is down below), in which wrote their wishes on long strips of thin, biodegradable paper and tied them to a young birch tree, while placing a small gemstone at its base as an offering.  You can technically also tie strips of paper to some bonsai and then take them off after a while, perhaps burning them. The sky is the limit!

FLOWERS. Pick them, make garlands, make crowns, do anything! If they’re yellow, even better. Maybe it could also be time to look into herbology. Or make yourself some tea from scratch.

Other things:

Protection spell time!

Recognize any fae you work with / know live near you

Wear corresponding colours, decorate your altar, …

Check your wards / shields / other protections

Spotify playlist

YouTube playlist

Beltane tarot spread

Recipes to celebrate Beltane

Correspondences

Incense: rose, primrose, lilac, vanilla, cinnamon Herbs: primrose, hawthorn, rowan, elderflower, marigold, hazel, holly, cowslip, mugwort, daffodil, pretty much any yellow flowers (careful about toxicity!), lily of the valley, daisy, willow, woodruff Decorations: maypole (even tiny ones), flowers (mainly yellow), ribbons, candles Colors: yellow, orange, red, perhaps also green and white Foods: oatmeal, milk, milk products, wine, cherries, bread Stones: bloodstone, quartz, rose quartz, amethyst, onyx, orange calcite, citrine, amber, carnelian Other names: Lá Bealtaine, Latha Bealltainn, Beltain, Beltine, Beltany, May day, 2nd fire festival Other celebrations this time: Rowan Witch Day (Finish), Sacred Thorn Tree Day (Irish), Festival of Shashti (Hindu), Earth Day, Samhain (southern hemisphere) Misc: light, fire, protection, purification, fae, for some also fertility and growth

Sources

Llewellyn’s Sabbat Essentials - Beltane (Rituals, Recipes and Lore for May Day) by Melanie Marquis (2015)

wiccaliving.com - Beltane

mabonhouse.co - history of beltane

thornandclaw.com - beltane

paganpages.org - beltane correspondences

study.com - Belenus mythology, cults & facts

cpre.org.uk - origins of beltane

Bealltainn: Transhumance & The Gaels by Dead on P&W Amino

Mordred’s Guide To: Lá Bealtaine (Beltane) #HolidayCelebrations by Mordred on P&W Amino

Beltane: Overview and how to celebrate by city witch on P&W Amino

Blessed Beltane Happy Beltane and my Rituals this year by t. on P&W Amino

all pictures in this post are from unsplash, free stock images

Thank you so much for reading! I hope you found this useful, or at least interesting. If you'd like, go check out the library for more posts like this! There aren't as many right now, but it will keep filling up. I also reblog witchy posts I find useful, so consider giving a follow! And I'll see you in the next one.

[languagelearningcorner]

Language Learning Journey Update

It's been a while since I've been on Tumblr! In the months I've been away, I was focusing heavily on Persian and strengthening my skills in all areas of the language before I switch to a maintenance phase and pick up another language. During this time, I also got really into planning and journaling which has helped me better structure language learning in my schedule as well as reflect on how best to structure my time.

I certainly learned a lot from this time but the biggest takeaway for me is that my biggest pain point when learning a language is acquiring vocabulary. I tend to let it happen rather naturally (slowly) and while it's a valid method, it also leads me to stagnate and plateau. That's why, with the change in my language learning plans, I've also restructured my learning schedule (for, like, the millionth time).

Learning Two Languages Simultaneously

I was originally planning on (re)learning Korean after going through the intensive 3 months of Persian but recent developments in my professional life have pushed me to start learning Cantonese instead. My goal for Cantonese is mostly to reach a decent listening comprehension level and a basic speaking level.

Although I'm learning Cantonese from scratch, I feel that I still have a long way to go with Persian. I am not ready for a traditional maintenance phase, but I know I am close to burn out and have to dial it back. The schedule is structured around Persian and I fill the rest of the time I was using for Persian previously, for Cantonese.

ON/OFF Weeks System

This system was inspired by my need to find a different way to learn and focus on vocabulary while also avoiding burn out in Persian.

ON Weeks: These are weeks where I will be focusing on 1 skill in Persian in the mornings. For example, on Monday, I will be reading intensively (e.g., breaking down phrases, re-reading, translating, compiling vocabulary) for about 25 minutes. In the afternoons, I am working on getting exposure to Cantonese and learning the sound system.

OFF Weeks: These weeks involve only practicing the Persian vocabulary I accumulated during the ON weeks. I'll be re-reading them, defining or looking up words on Forvo, writing practice sentences, uploading them to HelloTalk, and correcting them. I also do some light, passive activities like listening while I clean something or reading for a few minutes without stopping to translate.

Off weeks don't really change much in the way of Cantonese. I will continue with my plan as is.

Maintenance languages: I do have to maintain French and Spanish, however, I am lucky that I interact with languages almost on a daily basis. When I foresee that a day may be void of one, I'll stack it with another hobby of mine (e.g., journaling in Spanish or reading in French).

An ON week coming up.

Tools pictured: Night owl by Owl Paper Co planner, Asvine P50 fountain pen, Tombow Fudenosuke hard tip brush pen, Zebra Mildliner highlighters

[thinking-emoji]

for context, i'm a little hesitant to post the video to reddit because. you know. it's not my upload, and more importantly it's not my grandma - i'm just publicly involving myself in someone else's family mystery, and while i feel like that's accepted within the phandom, i don't think it is outside of it lol

soooo i'm still thinking about phil's grandma's welsh poem and atp i'm considering just learning welsh to transcribe and translate it. i've got time until january. should i do it or would literally anything else be quicker and easier

[nowtoboldlygo]

so anki is the love of my life, and i'd like to discuss it re language learning.

spaced repetition systems in general

SRSs are helpful tools to prevent memory loss for specific facts. there's some criticism behind the specifics, but it's pretty safe to say that it's good to have a huge flashcard deck with relevant flashcards where you review the new-to-you stuff with relative immediacy and your already-reviewed stuff with relative distance.

flashcard model recommendations

go for a monolingual deck!!! if you absolutely can't, edit the flashcard to monolingual after you're vaguely familiar with the word!!! (i use wordreference - it's good but imperfect)

edited to add - a TL/NL vocab deck can be very efficient if languages are from the same family

i use a picture for the front unless the vocab word is too high concept, and using a picture would just be misleading/ineffectual.

i use soundclips about half the time - i pull clips from wiktionary, forvo, & the collins dictionary.

i use the fill-in-the-blank feature (cloze) pretty heavily with antonyms, and if i'm trying to remember specific usages of common words/phrases

i also use the fill-in-the-blank feature for chunking, altho i use this fairly rarely

i recommend 25 new words daily, or anything that'll set you for your regular pomodoro time for studying vocab (which is 25 mins for me).

i'm not at an advanced level yet for language learning, but this format is recommended for higher levels!

i lowkey recommend including example sentences on the backside, re chunking, but the utility really can depend on the vocab word

limitations

some limitations are a bit obvious - the quality of your study is 100% down to the quality of the flashcard (e.g. accuracy, relevancy, does it need more explanation for you to understand it)

it's also a hell of a time-suck to create these decks. i study 25 new cards a day, which means i have to create about two hundred flashcards every week. i make this quicker by having an ongoing list of words to add to my deck, instead of trying to look up vocab lists or whatever in the moment. i also do the whole week at once because i do get into the rhythm of dictionary-picture-audio searching while watching tv or whatever.

there are some fun add-ons (like for deadlines), and some complicated customization within anki itself. i usually just google if i have a question - a ton of people use anki, so there are tutorials for almost anything you want to do.

fluent forever

if you're unfamiliar, the fluent forever guy wrote a book about language learning which really hinges on a specific model of flashcard. he has tons of tutorial videos on his website, but basically he incorporates the phonetic alphabet, Google Images, and other relevant info for a vocab word (and grammar) in a flash card.

i think his flashcards take an unrealistic/unproductive amount of time, with a bunch of useless filler. however, i do recommend doing a quick read-through of his model and reasoning, as he might speak to something that you're struggling with. (for example, i've never struggled significantly with pronunciation so i think the IPA stuff is 100% useless.)

here's an integration to create the fluent forever flashcards much much faster. i don't use it but i've seen it recommended before.

outside of language learning!

i've used anki to learn for my work certification, for english vocab words from books i'm reading, and for titles of paintings that i want to remember forever. i wouldn't recommend shared decks for language learning, but i emphatically recommend them for other subjects!