Here, learn some finnish. (place forms)
- Nominative: Talo = House
- Genitive: Talon = House´s
- Accusative: Talo or Talot = House or Houses
- Partitive: Taloa = (Part) of a house
- Essive: Talona = As a house
- Translative: Taloksi = To become a house
- Inessive: Talossa = In the house
- Elative: Talosta = From inside the house
- Illative: Taloon = Into the house
- Adessive: Talolla = At the House
- Ablative: Talolta = From the house
- Allative: Talolle = To the house
- Abessive: Talotta = Without a house
- Komitative: Taloineen = With his/her house
- Instruktive: Taloin = By a house, or something like that..
- It was pretty hard to try to translate some them to english.. Have fun.
Why linguists hate being asked how many languages they know
“So you’re a linguist. How many languages do you know?” Every linguist hears this question a lot. There’s even a meme about it. And in addition to over-use, there are several contradictory reasons why it’s deeply frustrating.
1. Linguistics isn’t about learning lots of languages. Except when it is.
Linguists as scholars work to analyze language and figure out how it works and why we can speak it. Unfortunately, there’s also another meaning for linguist which is a translator or person who speaks a ton of languages. Academic linguists refer to the latter as polyglots or hyperpolyglots. But, for example, the US military job descriptions use linguist to mean polyglot/translator. It’s a real meaning, but it’s like asking a baseball player if they hit balls using a small winged mammal. Not so much.
Isn’t it weird for Brits, Americans, Australians, etc. that everyone on the web speaks their language? No matter if the people are from Spain, or Switzerland, or Denmark, or Israel – they all blog in English. I mean isn’t it also confusing for you? Like when someone makes mistakes and uses a wrong word and you can’t tell if the person’s stupid or just from a non English-speaking country?
