Sampler ( China ), ca.1930 silk embroidery on cotton foundation.
Source: cooperhewitt.org
bon matin! c’est tôt pour moi, hmm? today I’ll be sharing some online resources for learning french ranging from vocab lists to full on courses! i hope you find these useful - the internet really is precious when learning languages! <3
⁎⁺˳✧༚ frenchtoday.com
this website threatens to put me out of business and I couldn’t be more delighted! vocab lists galore, free lessons, tips to work on your pronunciation, articles on french culture and even stories and poetry. i haven’t looked at everything available on there, but from what I’ve seen, it’s pretty useful!
⁎⁺˳✧༚ frenchpod101.com
this is a free course you can take, with options for absolute beginners and those already a little familiar with the language. it looks to be good for conversational french and is an easy, no nonsense starting point for beginners, who i know from experience are often easily overwhelmed.
⁎⁺˳✧༚ coffee break french
this is one I’m not quite as familiar with but has come to me highly recommended. it’s a podcast that covers the basics as well as providing dialogues and example role plays. give it a try and let me know how you find it!
⁎⁺˳✧༚ innerfrench (chaîne de YouTube)
this is a really interesting channel! you get to learn french through a variety of different topical discussions and he speaks slowly enough for you to get most of what he’s saying even if you’re a relative beginner, which can make you feel super smart :)
bien, c’est tout! i hope these recs are alright, and I hope we meet again soon~ a bientôt!
I didn't take two years of high school french for this to be left in the tags
This meme is inescapable on French insta so I'm posting it here for all to enjoy
Anonymous asked:
In our school, when we learn Chinese, we had to learn 文言文 as well. Can I ask your take on learning it? Like... Is there a difference in need of learning it in China or countries other than China? What's the purpose? Is it applicable?
I hope my question makes sense and have a great day!
China has a rich history of literature and poetry and much of it is in 文言文 (literary Chinese). Literary Chinese in formal/scholarly writing was only replaced by vernacular Chinese after the May 4th movement (1919). So. That's a pretty clear reason you should at least get the basics of it if you want to obtain any depth of learning when it comes to Chinese literary tradition and culture.
I have never formally learned it so when I started wanting to read/understand old writings, it was initially very puzzling to me and I had to research a lot and still have to consult other sources when I come across older texts that I want to understand.
It continues to be applicable in traditional arts.
It also helps with writing "better Chinese" so it definitely useful if one planned to do serious publishing or general literature creating (like writing stories, lyrics, poetry etc.) in Chinese.
Anonymous asked:
Sorry if you’ve gotten this question before but what do you recommend for practicing writing characters? Like paper and pens? I’ve tried practicing on regular paper but I feel like it doesn’t help with getting the characters to look right and was wondering if there’s better ways to practice?
don’t worry! i haven’t gotten this exact question so it’s all good! also, writing characters is one of my favorite ways to learn them so i could answer questions about this all day
i do prefer practicing on paper with a pen (i say pen bc pencils usually smudge and just make things messy later on). i usually just grab whatever paper is nearby and use that, so most of the time it’s looseleaf.
if you’re worried about your characters looking right (by which i’m assuming you mean proportional and natural) then i do have a recommendation for you. you’ll need access to a printer though for this one.
in a recent ask i mention hanzi grids as a way to practice writing characters, so i’m going to bring that recommendation back and add on to it a little bit.
once you make your free account (you really just need an email address to do this) and go to make your grids, here’s what i recommend you do.
at the top of the page there will be a box labeled “content” that will look like this:
as you can see i have the phrase “你好嗎” typed into the box with the option “single characters selected” on the drop down menu. what you would do is type or paste the words you want to practice into this box.
next you should go to the sidebar and look at these options:
“visible characters” makes the grids look like this:
“opacity” just toggles how dark the gray is for the lighter characters. you can also toggle the “visible characters” option to show less of the characters so you can practice on your own so it would look something like this:
once you’ve set the grids up to your liking, you just hit the button that says “generate pdf” and then print it. once you’ve got that, just practice writing until you’re satisfied!
i really hope this was what you were looking for! 加油！
This is the lovely post by MoonIvy that inspired me to get myself back into reading chinese by the way:
And this is MoonIvy's other amazing post, which includes a list of everything they read so far in order of difficulty which is a great reference list if you are looking for something to try, and includes some suggestions on listening study things you can try too.
MoonIvy is part of the group managing the Heavenly Path site I keep mentioning, that just has so many phenomenally organized media recommendations, a good guide to starting to read, and lots of linked resources:
Anonymous asked:
''In Chinese myth, the dark spots on the bamboo are the stains of the concubine’s tears.'' I wanted to ask if you know about some good Chinese mythology books where we could read stuff like this? Thank you!
Hi! Classic of Mountains and Seas and Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio would be great places to start, those two are well-known classics so English translations would be easy to find. Another primary text that contains many important myths is Huainanzi, but it's more of a philosophy book. For people who don't know, the quote in anon's ask is from this 2ha post, and one of the original sources where this myth is from is Bowuzhi. Bowuzhi is also a mythology classic but idk if the English translation would be easy to find. If we're talking about secondary sources then any book on Chinese myths by Western scholars would also do.
For anyone interested, this book’s coming out in spring 2023 by Xueting Ni, a Chinese writer based in the UK I’ve been following:
In the author’s own words, it’s "an accessible, entertaining and highly informative exploration of the fascinating mythology underlying one of the world’s oldest and most influential cultures".
Anonymous asked:
What are those apps you usually post in your productivity updates?
hi! here's a breakdown of apps i use, as well as websites and other resources i've used/use for my learning (mainly chinese, though some of these resources can be used for other languages as well).
I Can Eat Glass
I Can Eat Glass was a linguistic project documented on the early Web by then-Harvard student Ethan Mollick. The objective was to provide speakers with translations of the phrase "I can eat glass, it does not hurt me" from a wide variety of languages; the phrase was chosen because of its unorthodox nature. Mollick's original page disappeared in or about June 2004.
As Mollick explained, visitors to a foreign country have "an irresistible urge" to say something in that language, and whatever they say (a cited example being along the lines of "Where is the bathroom?") usually marks them as tourists immediately. Saying "I can eat glass, it does not hurt me", however, ensures that the speaker "will be viewed as an insane native, and treated with dignity and respect".
Anonymous asked:
In our school, when we learn Chinese, we had to learn 文言文 as well. Can I ask your take on learning it? Like... Is there a difference in need of learning it in China or countries other than China? What's the purpose? Is it applicable?
I hope my question makes sense and have a great day!
China has a rich history of literature and poetry and much of it is in 文言文 (literary Chinese). Literary Chinese in formal/scholarly writing was only replaced by vernacular Chinese after the May 4th movement (1919). So. That's a pretty clear reason you should at least get the basics of it if you want to obtain any depth of learning when it comes to Chinese literary tradition and culture.
I have never formally learned it so when I started wanting to read/understand old writings, it was initially very puzzling to me and I had to research a lot and still have to consult other sources when I come across older texts that I want to understand.
It continues to be applicable in traditional arts.
It also helps with writing "better Chinese" so it definitely useful if one planned to do serious publishing or general literature creating (like writing stories, lyrics, poetry etc.) in Chinese.
making ink for chinese calligraphy with 墨锭moding(ink stick), 砚台yantai(ink slab) and clear water
French texting horror
- Je c pa si L é là 2m1
- Mdr cmt sa tu dor enkor
- On pt partir + tôt si tu vx
- Jvoi pa pk ils diré nn
- Mtn aten 2 voir ce kel va dir
- G bcp + de tps laprem
- Tsp a kl h vs i alé?
Answers:
Anonymous asked:
What are those apps you usually post in your productivity updates?
hi! here's a breakdown of apps i use, as well as websites and other resources i've used/use for my learning (mainly chinese, though some of these resources can be used for other languages as well).
something you should know about second language acquisition is that the whole process of learning a new language is dynamic but slow. it doesn’t matter if you’re leaning French, Spanish or German, it is going to take time and that’s okay. it actually takes years for learners to build up a system similar to native speakers. “instantaneous acquisition”? forget about it. so, enjoy the process! do not feel bad bc you’re not native-like. try to communicate as much as you want in your L2 but don’t be harsh on yourself bc you made mistakes <3
Some characters in xingkai script (行楷), a style between running hand (行書) and regular script (楷書), but closer to regular script
[eng and video combined (this was originally 3 videos) by me]