The Glossophile

Weird Duolingo phrases for the win

This post won’t teach you anything, but I hope it makes you laugh a bit! You don’t have to go far in the language learning community for people to make fun of some of the phrases the popular site Duolingo uses in its exercises. But today a friend tipped me off to a Tubmlr site dedicated specifically to this phenomenon: Weird Duolingo Phrases.

Filed under: duolingo funny humor translations

Resources

Here you can find a list of recommended resources, organized by target language. As time permits, I will write detailed reviews of each of these resources, with links to the reviews from this page. Unless otherwise noted: Every resource I link to here, I have used, and I can recommend. Links to Amazon.

StackExchange resources

Watch the slide show for my presentation at the International Language Café Amsterdam Read An Introduction to Stack Exchange for Language Learning The complete list of Stack Exchange sites. If you’re new, take the Stack Exchange tour (this links to the Spanish site, but the tour is essentially the same for all sites).

My Newest Challenge: Learn Dutch

It’s been quite a while since I’ve written anything here. I was essentially between jobs when I started this blog, so I had a lot of free time to write. But I’ve been busy since September when I moved to the Netherlands and started a new job. Cheese, butter, and clogs.

Filed under: dutch netherlands Resources

An Introduction to Stack Exchange for Language Learning

As a self-directed language learner, I have a number of go-to resources that I use on a regular basis. In this article, I introduce you to one of my favorites: Stack Exchange. Stack Exchange is a network of question and answer (Q&A) web sites, each site devoted to a specific topic.

Filed under: online resources peer teaching Resources

Deep Fried Memory

If you haven’t heard that trans fats are bad for you, you probably live under a rock, and don’t have Internet access. But then I guess you wouldn’t be reading this blog… But last week a new study about trans fats was published (first reported back in 2014) which suggests that consuming trans fats may directly harm your ability to learn a language!

Filed under: diet health Memory

Top 1: The Essential Language Learning List

Today I will give you a list of essential tools for language learning. Its easy to list things that language learners do: Memorize vocabulary, practice pronunciation, listen to music in the target language, read articles, maybe even visit foreign countries. And all of these are good things. But today I want to talk about a different list: a core, essential list.

Filed under: faq language learning Techniques vocabulary

New on the Menu: Pungent Shrimp!

Pungent Shellfish: Cuba’s new specialty. This was the menu for our “fancy” dinner on our honeymoon in Havana, Cuba in April. I rarely point out translation errors to restaurant staff, but this one was serious enough I decided to point it out. But they didn’t seem to care. Perhaps they didn’t grasp the meaning their bad translation was conveying.

Filed under: Bad Translations cuba humor Image spanish translation

Would you repost a meme fail?

Is the sentiment lost if the sentence doesn’t make any sense? Would you repost a meme with an error like this one? Why or why not? Comment below.

Filed under: humor meme fail Image

About Me

My name is Jonathan Hall. And I’m a glossophile. I’m passionate about language. But I wasn’t always. If you’ve ever tried to learn a foreign language, there’s an excellent chance your experience was much like mine: you studied a language for a few years in high school or university, but you never achieved fluency and now you can’t even speak yourself out of a wet paper bag to save your life.