21?

I think you sent this to the wrong blog lmao, but I'll reblog it with the one it should be on!

21. If you couldn’t study the subject you study now, what would you study?

That a very hard question for me because when I was starting university, I wasn't sure whether to study history or languages. I got a degree in history and I absolutely loved it. I'm now studying historical linguistics and literature, basically combining my two life-long interests. I have thought about studying other things though, like heritage studies, archival studies or anthropology. So probably I'd be doing something like that, but I'm a humanities gal through and through lmao

A friend of mine gave me the most amazing explanation for why nutella should have the article das and I feel the intense need to spread this theory. so basically nutella is actually the plural form of nutellum, the smallest unit of nutella (yes in this explanation nutella is a separate element made of the atom nutellum, it is one of the edelmetalle). following latin convention, the suffix -um signifies neutrum. so now you may be thinking (like I was) that actually the plural explanation means that it should be die nutella. But no. apparently (she is a linguistics student i am not i am fully trusting her on this) some plural forms use singular articles bc the thing is seen as one thing, not a bunch of small things. this is why one should say das nutella and not die nutella

While I agree that 'das Nutella' is correct and everybody else ist wrong, I would use a different reasoning, because in the end it's a loan word, so arguing with the original grammar (of a made-up brandname nontheless) can be a bit tricky.

However if we want to connect latin and German grammar, -ella signals is a diminutive, which in German are signalled by -chen and -lein. And, more importantly, in German diminutive forms are generally neuter, therefore das is the right article to use.

And while we're at it, Frikadelle & Berliner are also the correct ways of saying other things. And don't even think about using anything else but die for Butter.

I really wanted to go to the musical instrument museum in Brussels but I didn't have time :( the house of European history is also really interesting as long as you don't get one of the noon tours

oh that does look like an interesting museum too, definitely adding it to the list !! yet another reason to go back to Belgium !

y'know whenever I get a recommendation or learn about something new to do/visit in Belgium, it reminds me of an article I read back in the '00s. apparently Belgium is consistently voted as the most boring country in Europe — and honestly I found that intriguing ! like, I'm not a particularly excitable or high-energy person, so a "boring" place actually sounds idyllic !! for a time, this was the main reason I wanted to visit the country lol (of course after studying French and Dutch/Flemish, and after joining langblr and meeting some wonderful Belgians, those became the primary motivations for wanting to visit)

but now every time I learn something interesting about Belgium, my first reaction is "well, that's not boring at all !" and I can't help but wonder what the methodology or criteria are for decided a country is boring ?