Tshiluba (Cilubà) Grammar | The Verbs Di, Ena and the Negative Ka

#tshiluba #cilubà #language learning #grammar

Anonymous asked:

Can I ask what resources you used to learn spanish? I'm a little overwhelmed by how many there are and trying to think of where to jump in

hey !

so .. i’ve had a million and one spanish textbooks that i tried to work through on my own (never made it through one completely, but hey, it might work for you)!

mm duolingo’s spanish course (several times back in 2014---they’ve updated and changed the course pathway a lot though so..). language transfer’s spanish podcast was really cool!

definitely, definitely, try spanish podcasts. notes in spanish was cool, i just went for spanish-language stuff rather than things geared toward learners.

listening to music in spanish....watching (familiar) movies with spanish audio and/or captions is another good thing.

and obviously, writing and speaking, either alone, or with friends who already speak.

go for which way feels most comfortable for you initially! do you have a commute and need something to listen to? do you journal a lot? do you play video games (and can change the language)?

#trespassers w #anon #language learning #spanish

blacklinguist reblogged

Nidinawemaaganak

My relatives (in Ojibwe)

My mom - Nimaamaa (newer term), ndoodoom or nikaa (traditional/older term)
My dad - Imbaabaa (newer term), ndedem or noozh (traditional/older term)
My parent(s) - Niniigiig(ook)
My grandma - Nookomis, Noo’koo (newer pronunciation,) Nookoomish (older pronunciation)
My grandpa - Nimishoomis (newer), Nimishoomish (older)
My uncle (paternal) - Nimishoome
My uncle (maternal) or father in law - Nizhise
My aunt (maternal) - Nimaamaayens (lit; little mother) (newer term), Ninoose (older term)
My aunt (paternal) - Nzhigosh
My older brother(s) - Nisaye(yak)
My older sister(s) - Nimise(yak)
My younger sibling(s) - Nisiimens(ak)
My cousin - Ninimoshenh
My nephew(s) (paternal) - Ndoozim(ak)
My niece(s) (paternal) - Ndoozhimikwem(ak)
My nephew(s) (maternal) - Niningwan(ak)
My niece(s) or daughter in-law (maternal) - Nsiimish(ak)
My wife (old lady) - Nmindimooyaa
My husband (old man) - Ndaakiwezii, Nkeweziinyim
My partner - Niwiijiwaagan, nwiidgemaagan
My child(s) - Niniijaanis(ak)
My son(s) - Nigozis(ak)
My daughter(s) - Ndaanis(ak)
My baby(s) - Nbebiim(ak)
Newborn(s) - Oshki-yaans(ak)
My grandchild(s) - Ninoozis(ak)
My little grandchild(s) - Ninooseyens(ak)
My friends - Nwiijkewenyik
Great grandparent or great grandchild(s) - Aanikoobijigan(ak)
My great granparent - Ndaankoobijigan(ak) (lit tied too), *a lot speakers just shorten it to daangoo
My great-great grandparent(s) - Ngichi-daankoobijigan(ak)
My boy/girlfriend (sweetheart) - Nbazgim or Niinimoos
Who is your grandfather? - Awenen Gimishoomish?
__is my grandfathers name - Izhinkaazo nimishoomish
__is my late grandfathers name - Nimishoomishipan
Who is grandmother? - Awenen koo’koo?
My late grandmothers name is - Nookooyipan
Who is your father? - Awenen koozh? or kibaa’paa
My late father - Nipaapaahipan

#ojibwe #language learning

blacklinguist reblogged

Tshiluba (Cilubà) Grammar | Kampanda ne Kansanga

#tshiluba #cilubà #language learning

blacklinguist

hooligan-jinsei asked:

hello?!? Can I be part of the challenge?? 👀 MY goal is also Spanish and Japanese but honestly it's to improve on my sentence structure in Japanese and literally get conversations in Spanish 🙏🏾🙏🏾😭

hi !

i actually did that challenge two years ago this summer; you can still follow it on your own--but i don’t have any official set up right now ! it might be fun to bring it back, and i would certainly post on here if i do!

#trespassers w #language learning #i cant imagine that being until july tho--i have a lot of personal things going on to settle first !

blacklinguist reblogged

upside-down-uni

alvallah

Kinda crazy that at least half of langblr is learning their languages through their second and third languages instead of their native ones. The skills and talent you have to have to be able to self-study a foreign language in yet another foreign language is remarkable (especially if you need to learn specialized C1/C2 level shit) and I am honestly very jealous. I know it’s “normal” to a lot of you, but as someone who has never ever had to detour by using another language outside of my home one, I still think that’s very sexy of you guys that you can just do that.

#language learning #love that for yall truly

blacklinguist

languages i...

languages i wish i could go back to studying : norwegian, irish, mandarin, korean, japanese

languages i never ended up studying but would if i was a career polyglot getting paid to just exist : greek, swahili, turkish

languages i am studying/have been studying : spanish, french, somali, krèyol, zulu

languages i cant touch for [insert reason] : german, italian

if you see this im tagging you

#language learning

blacklinguist reblogged

I restarted the Gàidhlig Duolingo over three weeks ago now and I have to say that while it’s definitely much better off for being longer it still has some issues which leave me a little bit uneasy about it. Firstly it still hasn’t worked out what variety of English it’s using. Scottish Gaelic is native to the British Isles so I would expect that it would permit British English answers as well as North American English ones, but it’s inconsistent on that front, e.g. it’ll take “trousers” for briogais but for geansaidh the only translation on offer the North American “sweater”.

There’s also still some massive gaps in what they allow which seem entirely unjustified. In particular the lesson on relative clauses which I completed today was an exercise in frustration as it didn’t appear to even recognise “who” as a relative pronoun in English, only accepting “that”. So I found myself giving the “wrong” answer to the same questions multiple times because I naturally translated the phrases given with “who” rather than that. Similarly in another lesson we have the sentence ‘S e obair cudromach a th’ann which only permits the translation “It’s important work” but as obair can mean both “work” in the abstract noun and also a job I put in “It’s an important job”, because I reckon that should be a permissible translation, and yet it threw up an “incorrect”. Needless to say I’m using the report function liberally.

This is of course on top of the usual issues with Duolingo as a learning platform (e.g. gamification being the wrong kind of approach to language learning, the exercises involved not being the best way to learn language usage, relative paucity of detail grammar instruction and so on). It’s just kinda frustrating, and it makes me doubt that the 500,000 Gàidhlig learners that Duolingo touts will translate into much meaningful because most of those will be useless at the language outside of the learning environment of the website.

blacklinguist

What you're hitting on with this post is Duolingo's extreme over-reliance on free 'volunteer' labor by a handful of people to create a course that is available to millions. These same gripes have been loud on the forums of Duolingo for years.

I was a forum moderator for the site in the mid-2010s, back when the Duolingo staff interacted with learners on the forums, and actually stayed in contact with their volunteers. At least then, we knew the names of the people we 'worked' for, and they tried to play an active role in the creation of the new courses (this was around when Dutch and Gaeilge were being constructed). Dutch (2014), Gaeilge (2014), and Norwegian (2015) were considered the best volunteer-made courses.

Everyone who actively worked in the 'Incubator' (the platform for the course construction) put in an ungodly amount of hours. Each team might have had 5-9 members (often with one or two members becoming the 'face' of the course on the forums), but it was generally the case that only around 30% of those members put in substantial work. So, 2-3 volunteers are spending hours providing 2-3 different translations per sentence (each course back then would teach around 2000 words, and there's got to be more than one sentence with a target word). They have to figure out how to teach concepts that don't always translate over to English (and write notes and tips for each of these). The system was pretty stodgy then too, no idea about now.

You also have cases of courses just stagnating (Swahili has no current contributors, with the last update being at least 2 years ago, and was created through the Peace Corps). Contributors fall off because this is volunteer work, and they have jobs/school/lives to take care of. The process to replace those contributors was also lengthy, because a lot of people would apply (but were not capable of doing the work). The revolving door of help throws off the current volunteers, who have to forge new bonds and make sure everyone is on the same page.

Courses used to take 1-2 years (with consistent and high quality work). Now, the courses on Duolingo are shorter, with less grammar/vocabulary content. I was mildly horrified when Hawaiian launched with around 1000 words, I believe? Duolingo used to tout that one of their courses was equivalent to a semester of college language teaching. That little blurb is gone from their website now. Obviously, asking volunteers to create entire curriculums when they have their own jobs/lives is not fair...but what kind of language education are you genuinely providing if you won't even be an A1 speaker after going through these courses?

Beyond the obvious issues with Duolingo, the amount of work (and the tools those contributors had to work with) was almost not even worth it. I don't know how things are now, but the system has changed a lot. The holes in how Duolingo provides free global language education are just glaringly obvious to me now, I don't know how it can be taken seriously with any course created in the past 4 years.

[for anyone who reads this, the OG courses of German/Spanish/French/Portuguese/Italian, as well as the volunteer-made courses of Dutch/Gaeilge/Norwegian/Swedish, were my favorite courses].

oh yeah tl;dr : the quality of Duo courses has gone down over the years, not because of the contributors themselves, but because Duolingo doesn't have the same patience and attention it once did.

#i wrote a novel but omg i used to love duolingo so much #but i have SO many stories ..... so so so many stories #about how they treated their volunteers #duolingo #language learning #they've removed so much of what made Duolingo special..

blacklinguist

favorite kreyòl phrases the past 3 days

m' pral aboli jandam

m' te travay

lete ap vini

#language learning #kreyòl

blacklinguist reblogged

mupemba

Tshiluba (Cilubà) Proverb

You can replace tshidibudibu with mudibudibu, both mean ‘courgette leaf’. The proverb is about how customs must evolve if they no longer serve the interests of the people. Eating old courgette leaves might make you sick

[Tshiluba tshia Kananga - Kananga Tshiluba]

#cilubà #tshiluba #language learning

blacklinguist reblogged

blacklinguist

selenocysteine

Tips to learn a new language

The 75 most common words make up 40% of occurrences The 200 most common words make up 50% of occurrences The 524 most common words make up 60% of occurrences The 1257 most common words make up 70% of occurrences The 2925 most common words make up 80% of occurrences The 7444 most common words make up 90% of occurrences The 13374 most common words make up 95% of occurrences The 25508 most common words make up 99% of occurrences

(Source: 5 Steps to Speak a New Language by Hung Quang Pham)

This article has an excellent summary on how to rapidly learn a new language within 90 days.

We can begin with studying the first 600 words. Of course chucking is an effective way to memorize words readily. Here’s a list to translate into the language you desire to learn that Derek Roger suggested! :)

EXPRESSIONS OF POLITENESS (about 50 expressions)

‘Yes’ and ‘no’: yes, no, absolutely, no way, exactly.
Question words: when? where? how? how much? how many? why? what? who? which? whose?
Apologizing: excuse me, sorry to interrupt, well now, I’m afraid so, I’m afraid not.
Meeting and parting: good morning, good afternoon, good evening, hello, goodbye, cheers, see you later, pleased to meet you, nice to have met.
Interjections: please, thank you, don’t mention it, sorry, it’ll be done, I agree, congratulations, thank heavens, nonsense.

NOUNS (about 120 words)

Time: morning, afternoon, evening, night; Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday; spring, summer, autumn, winter; time, occasion, minute, half-hour, hour, day, week, month, year.
People: family, relative, mother, father, son, daughter, sister, brother, husband, wife; colleague, friend, boyfriend, girlfriend; people, person, human being, man, woman, lady, gentleman, boy, girl, child.
Objects: address, bag, book, car, clothes, key, letter (=to post), light (=lamp), money, name, newspaper, pen, pencil, picture, suitcase, thing, ticket.
Places: place, world, country, town, street, road, school, shop, house, apartment, room, ground; Britain, name of the foreign country, British town-names, foreign town-names.
Abstract: accident, beginning, change, color, damage, fun, half, help, joke, journey, language, English, name of the foreign language, letter (of alphabet), life, love, mistake, news, page, pain, part, question, reason, sort, surprise, way (=method), weather, work.
Other: hand, foot, head, eye, mouth, voice; the left, the right; the top, the bottom, the side; air, water, sun, bread, food, paper, noise.

PREPOSITIONS (about 40 words)

General: of, to, at, for, from, in, on.
Logical: about, according-to, except, like, against, with, without, by, despite, instead of.
Space: into, out of, outside, towards, away from, behind, in front of, beside, next to, between, above, on top of, below, under, underneath, near to, a long way from, through.
Time: after, ago, before, during, since, until.

DETERMINERS (about 80 words)

Articles and numbers: a, the; nos. 0–20; nos. 30–100; nos. 200–1000; last, next, 1st–12th.
Demonstrative: this, that.
Possessive: my, your, his, her, its, our, their.
Quantifiers: all, some, no, any, many, much, more, less, a few, several, whole, a little, a lot of.
Comparators: both, neither, each, every, other, another, same, different, such.

ADJECTIVES (about 80 words)

Color: black, blue, green, red, white, yellow.
Evaluative: bad, good, terrible; important, urgent, necessary; possible, impossible; right, wrong, true.
General: big, little, small, heavy; high, low; hot, cold, warm; easy, difficult; cheap, expensive; clean, dirty; beautiful, funny (=comical), funny (=odd), usual, common (=shared), nice, pretty, wonderful; boring, interesting, dangerous, safe; short, tall, long; new, old; calm, clear, dry; fast, slow; finished, free, full, light (=not dark), open, quiet, ready, strong.
Personal: afraid, alone, angry, certain, cheerful, dead, famous, glad, happy, ill, kind, married, pleased, sorry, stupid, surprised, tired, well, worried, young.

VERBS (about 100 words)

arrive, ask, be, be able to, become, begin, believe, borrow, bring, buy, can, change, check, collect, come, continue, cry, do, drop, eat, fall, feel, find, finish, forget, give, going to, have, have to, hear, help, hold, hope, hurt (oneself), hurt (someone else), keep, know, laugh, learn, leave, lend, let (=allow), lie down, like, listen, live (=be alive), live (=reside), look (at), look for, lose, love, make, may (=permission), may (=possibility), mean, meet, must, need, obtain, open, ought to, pay, play, put, read, remember, say, see, sell, send, should, show, shut, sing, sleep, speak, stand, stay, stop, suggest, take, talk, teach, think, travel, try, understand, use, used to, wait for, walk, want, watch, will, work (=operate), work (=toil), worry, would, write.

PRONOUNS (about 40 words)

Personal: I, you, he, she, it, we, they, one; myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, yourselves, themselves.
Possessive: mine, yours, his, hers, its, ours, theirs.
Demonstrative: this, that.
Universal: everyone, everybody, everything, each, both, all, one, another.
Indefinite: someone, somebody, something, some, a few, a little, more, less; anyone, anybody, anything, any, either, much, many.
Negative: no-one, nobody, nothing, none, neither.

ADVERBS (about 60 words)

Place: here, there, above, over, below, in front, behind, nearby, a long way away, inside, outside, to the right, to the left, somewhere, anywhere, everywhere, nowhere, home, upstairs, downstairs.
Time: now, soon, immediately, quickly, finally, again, once, for a long time, today, generally, sometimes, always, often, before, after, early, late, never, not yet, still, already, then (=at that time), then (=next), yesterday, tomorrow, tonight.
Quantifiers: a little, about (=approximately), almost, at least, completely, very, enough, exactly, just, not, too much, more, less.
Manner: also, especially, gradually, of course, only, otherwise, perhaps, probably, quite, so, then (=therefore), too (=also), unfortunately, very much, well.

CONJUNCTIONS (about 30 words)

Coordinating: and, but, or; as, than, like.
Time & Place: when, while, before, after, since (=time), until; where.
Manner & Logic: how, why, because, since (=because), although, if; what, who, whom, whose, which, that.

#language learning

blacklinguist reblogged

phonaesthemes

Examples of populative prefixes in the Iroquoian languages;

Wendat = -ronon

Mohawk = -ronon, -aka

Oneida = -lunu, -aka

Meherrin, Nottoway, Tuscarora = -aka

Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca = -ono

Cherokee = ani-

Populative prefixes indicate a group of people. Aniyvwiya “Cherokee people, Cherokee nation” Otowˀegehó:nǫˀ “Northern people” (Inuit) in Cayuga, Othole’kehlú:nu, Othore’kehró:non in Oneida + Mohawk, Onontaehronon (Onondaga people, Onondaga nation) in Wendat, Ganyë’ge:onö (Mohawk people) in Seneca, Čiru’ęhá:ka: (Nottoway people) & Akawęč’á:ka: (Meherrin people) in Tuscarora.

#iroquoian languages #language learning #linguistics

blacklinguist reblogged

thestudyingnightowl

Nothing interesting to talk about today but I did just post a new YouTube video on my channel. I tried editing clips together for the first time (forgot to film an ending lmao), plus you get to here me struggle bus my way though a bit of basic korean way back when semester started 😂😂😂

I am trying to do videos every Friday (Korea time) though no consistent posting time yet. Also thank you to the 50 ppl who’ve subscribed !

#language learning #friends #korean

blacklinguist reblogged

strawberrycinema

salvadorbonaparte

Hey did you know I keep a google drive folder with linguistics and language books that I try to update regularly

salvadorbonaparte

**UPDATE**

I have restructured the folders to make them easier to use and managed to add almost all languages requested and then some

Please let me know any further suggestions

salvadorbonaparte

clockworktardis

….holy shit. You found the holy grail.

#linguistics #language learning #come get yall juice #resources #save

blacklinguist reblogged

mupemba

Tshiluba (Cilubà) - Kanàngà dialect

Ne is a conjunction meaning “and”, “or”, “either”, “maybe” and “if”. It also acts as an adverb (at the precise moment when, at the exact moment and too), an adjective (even), a preposition (with), and it’s used to introduce speech. In the eastern dialects, “and” is ni

Examples

Conjunction: Bababa badi badia bidia ne matamba - the mothers are eating fufu and cassava leaves)

*bidia - western dialects, nshima - eastern dialects*

Introducing speech: Bantu bakamba ne “udi usanka” - people said that she’s happy

#tshiluba #cliubà #language learning

blacklinguist reblogged

Plains Cree

ᓀᐦᐃᔭᐍᐏᐣ (Nēhiyawēwin)

Plains Cree belongs to the Algonquian language family and is one of the five main dialects of the Cree language (Woods Cree, Swampy Cree, Moose Cree and Atikamekw); Plains Cree being the most widely spoken. Plains Cree is spoken by about roughly 34,000 people mainly in Saskatchewan, Alberta, Manitoba and Montana. Plains Cree is also a component language in two contact languages, Michif and Bungi. Both languages are spoken by Métis people. Michif is a mixed language which combines Cree with French. For the most part, Michif uses Cree verbs, question words, and demonstratives while using French nouns. Michif is spoken in the Canadian prairie provinces as well as North Dakota and Montana in the United States.Bungi is a creole based on Scots, Scottish Gaelic, Cree and Ojibwe. Some French words have also been incorporated into its lexicon. Cree has also been incorporated into another mixed language within Canada called Nehipwat, which is a blending of Cree with Assiniboine. Nehipwat is found only in a few southern Saskatchewan reserves and is now nearing extinction. Nothing is known of its structure.

Some vocabulary using the two writing systems (Latin script + Cree syllabics)

Hello - Tānisi | ᑖᓂᓯ

How are you? - Tānisi kiya? | ᑖᓂᓯ ᑭᔭ?

I’m fine - Namōya nānitaw | ᓇᒨᔭ ᓈᓂᑕᐤ

What is you name? - Tānisi ē-isiyhkāsoyan? | ᑕᓂᓯ ᐁ-ᐃᓯᐩᐦᑳᓱᔭᐣ?

My name is - Ēkosi nitisiyihkāso | ᐁᑯᓯ ᓂᑎᓯᔨᐦᑲᓱ

Nice to meet you - Nimanā skomon ē-nakiskātān | ᓂᒪᓈ ᐢᑯᒧᐣ ᐁᓇᑭᐢᑳᑖᐣ

Are you Cree? - Nēhiyaw cīkiya? | ᓀᐦᐃᔭᐤ ᒌᑭᔭ?

Yes, I am Cree - Āha, niya nēhiyaw | ᐦᐊ ᓂᔭ ᓀᐦᐃᔭᐤ

Where are you from? - Tānitē ohci kiya? | ᑖᓂᑌ ᐅᐦᒋ ᑭᔭ?

I am from Piapot - Niya ohci nēhiyaw pwātināhk | ᓂᔭ ᐅᐦᒋ ᓀᐦᐃᔭᐤ ᑇᑎᓈᕽ

Do you speak Cree? - Kinēhiyawān cī? | ᑭᓀᐦᐃᔭᐚᐣ ᒌ?

Yes, I speak Cree - Āha, ninēhiyawān | ᐦᐊ ᓂᓀᐦᐃᔭᐚᐣ

#cree #nehiyawak #language learning #the syllabary i love ...

blacklinguist reblogged

Linguistic Diversity Challenge: Languages of Africa | 5/7 | Turkana

What is the language called in English and the language itself? - The language is called Turkana in English and Ng'aturk(w)ana in the language itself. Where is the language spoken? - Turkana is spoken in northwestern Kenya, especially in Turkana County. How many people speak the language? - Turkana is spoken by 1,013,000 (2007-2009) people. Which language family does it belong to? What are some of its relative languages? - Turkana is an Eastern Nilotic language and closely related to Karamojong, Jie, Teso, Toposa and Nyangatom. What writing system does the language use? - Turkana is written in the Latin script.

What kind of grammatical features does the language have? - The basic word order pattern is VOS; two genders, feminine and masculine; many plural suffixes; verbs are divided into two classes; negative is formed by a prefix; pro-drop language; relatively few adjectives. What does the language sound like?

- Turkana has a system of vowel harmony and it is a tonal language with two tones. You can listen what the language sounds like here. What do you personally find interesting about the language? - Have I mentioned that Nilotic languages are cool? What I found interesting while reading the grammar is that colour terms are used especially to describe cattle, sheep and goats. I also found this website with information about the Turkana people and their culture (as well as other ethnic groups). Resources: - Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Omniglot, Library Genesis

Source: languagessi

#turkana #ng'aturk(w)ana #language learning