Polyglot Journey (Miguel)

Learning and maintaining Spanish, Russian, Mandarin Chinese and Japanese with some dabbling in others

[Polyglot Journey (Miguel) @PolyglotZone]

@languagesimp I still like that news site's content and dictionary, but I am especially interested in importing my own text. Also, I kind of got tired of news, and LingQ handles Mandarin better than any other multi lang site I have found. LingQ grew on me. They have me for a long time I think

[Polyglot Journey (Miguel) @PolyglotZone]

@languagesimp I am only using it for Mandarin at present, but I would say it's way better than when I tried it 4 years ago. The word boundary awareness and especially the context-specific definitions are pretty nice. I was using https://t.co/hHdjU9EiFn for news reading, but put that on hold.

[Polyglot Journey (Miguel) @PolyglotZone]

@languagesimp The sophisticated stuff is always great to get down as it will cover the most complex aspects of the grammar, etc. That's my approach with Mandarin. Complex text imported to LingQ, etc. I just don't like how the mundane and trivial was neglected in class. Maybe not enough time.

[Polyglot Journey (Miguel) @PolyglotZone]

@languagesimp Especially needed because such everyday random, trivial or mundane stuff is often missed in language classes, since students, and least way back in my era, would study grammar and short stories and move on to literature - avoiding this "vulgar" (=cool) vocab.

[Polyglot Journey (Miguel) @PolyglotZone]

An interesting health-related podcast in Spanish. I have already learned a lot from him.

[Polyglot Journey (Miguel) @PolyglotZone]

@languagesimp Even better: learning about language learning in your target languages

[Polyglot Journey (Miguel) @PolyglotZone]

@madaomoshiroi Don't stand behind that robot or you may have a bad day.

[Polyglot Journey (Miguel) @PolyglotZone]

Please don't misunderstand. I know that making mistakes is a key part of learning. Trying to use articles will lead to less mistakes than not using them at all.

[Polyglot Journey (Miguel) @PolyglotZone]

Several people I work with know enough English to do their job, but make no effort to use articles "a" or "the". It's not that they make mistakes using them, which is great. I make lots of mistakes in my target languages. It's just they don't try, ever.

[Polyglot Journey (Miguel) @PolyglotZone]

I know their native language doesn't have these articles. But many emails are repeated to convey basic info. I know some people get frustrated and decide "this is all I am going to do". Maybe some are afraid of making a mistake that they instead make a mistake in every sentence.

[Polyglot Journey (Miguel) @PolyglotZone]

A side benefit of learning Japanese, besides its being an awesome language: I am learning a lot of traditional Chinese characters. It's nice to finally be adding some to the simplified characters already in my brain.

[Polyglot Journey (Miguel) @PolyglotZone]

@jegaevi It has to be from northern US if they are calling it "pop".

[Polyglot Journey (Miguel) @PolyglotZone]

@uncannyscience The number of people in the UK is larger than the number who attend Oxford. So, at this point, I am going to say no.

[Polyglot Journey (Miguel) @PolyglotZone]

@ooomuller I rarely hear that word in the US these days. More common are euphemistic terms like "meat packing plant". However we do still use the term "manslaughter", which is a legal term that means something like "unintentionally killing someone due to recklessness, etc."

[Polyglot Journey (Miguel) @PolyglotZone]

@enchantedflms My English colleague in the US really liked this one.

[Polyglot Journey (Miguel) @PolyglotZone]

@enchantedflms What is the difference between grey and gray? Grey is a colour, while gray is a color.

[Polyglot Journey (Miguel) @PolyglotZone]

"Discussion" to me implies focusing on a topic with some goal in mind, aiming at some resolution. "Conversation" means people are talking with one another. Am I from another planet on this one?

[Polyglot Journey (Miguel) @PolyglotZone]

It's interesting to me that the word "conversation" has taken over a lot of contexts where "discussion" used to appear. "Discussion" doesn't mean "have an argument" like some Romance cognates may imply, at least in the US. Is the verb "discuss" a scary monster to some?

[Polyglot Journey (Miguel) @PolyglotZone]

@minnano_dougaww Someone needs a pay raise right now.