Challenge 52 in 52. Slovenian (Slovene)

Slovene is an Indo-European language belonging to the Western subgroup of the South Slavic branch of the Slavic languages, together with Serbo-Croatian. It is close to the Chakavian and especially Kajkavian dialects of Serbo-Croatian, but further from the Shtokavian dialect, the basis for the Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, and Serbian standard languages. Furthermore, Slovene shares certain linguistic characteristics with all South Slavic languages, including those of the Eastern subgroup, such as Bulgarian.

Although Slovene is almost completely intelligible with the Kajkavian dialects of Serbo-Croatian (especially the variant spoken in Hrvatsko Zagorje on the border with Slovenia), mutual intelligibility with other varieties of Serbo-Croatian is hindered by differences in vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation. The Slovene language also has many commonalities with the West Slavic languages.

Standard Slovene is the national standard language that was formed in the 18th century, mostly based on Upper and Lower Carniolan dialect groups, the latter being a dialect spoken by Primož Trubar. Unstandardized dialects are more preserved in regions of the Slovene Lands where compulsory schooling was in languages other than Standard Slovene, as was the case with the Carinthian Slovenes in Austria, and the Slovene minority in Italy. For example, the Resian and Torre (Ter) dialects in the Italian Province of Udine differ most from other Slovene dialects.

The distinctive characteristics of Slovene are dual grammatical number, two accentual norms (one characterized by pitch accent), and abundant inflection (a trait shared with many Slavic languages). Although Slovene is basically an SVO language, word order is very flexible, often adjusted for emphasis or stylistic reasons. Slovene has a T–V distinction: second-person plural forms are used for individuals as a sign of respect.

Slovene and Slovak are the only two modern Slavic languages whose names for themselves literally mean "Slavic".

Serbian, Bosnian, Croatian and Montenegrin alphabet

These are the letters Serbocroatian was written during the Ottoman empire

It is not being used anymore, but I like it.

 These are the Bosnian Latin and Cyrillic letters.

Croatian and Serbian Latin alphabet looks the same.

Serbian Cyrillic alphabet has different order from the Bosnian one, and this has also the cursive.

Montenegrin adds one extra Z

Challenge 52 in 52: Serbo-Croatian

 "By Wednesday I was attending sessions of a spirited Tito propaganda fiesta called the Zagreb Peace Conference and enjoying my first immersion in a language the mere mention of which impresses people even more than Chinese: Serbo-Croatian!
To my delight, I understood entire phrases from it from my university Russian. I became aware of “families” of foreign languages, something that doesn’t occur automatically to Americans because English doesn’t resemble its cousins very closely. It’s something of a black sheep in the Germanic language family. They say the closest language to English is Dutch. Dutch is about as close to English as Betelgeuse is to Baltimore!
I’d noticed the summer before that Norwegian is usefully close to Swedish and Danish. Serbo-Croatian sounded to me like a jazzier, more “fun” kind of Russian. They use the Roman alphabet in western Yugoslavia, Croatia, and Slovenia, and in Serbia to the east they use the Cyrillic alphabet, with even more interesting letters in it than Russian uses.
Some of the mystique I’d always imputed to multilingual people began to fade. If you meet somebody who speaks, say, ten languages, your instinct is to be impressed to the tune of ten languages worth. If, however, you later learn that six of those languages are Russian, Czech, Slovak, Serbo-Croatian, Polish and Ukrainian – I’m not suggesting that you dismiss him as illiterate, but you ought to be aware that he got six of those languages for the price of about two and three fourths! They’re all members of the Slavic family.
The Yugoslav university students, my hosts, sent me back home aboard a Yugoslav ship, leaving me sixteen days with nothing to do but practice Serbo-Croatian with the other passengers."

- Barry Farber; How to Learn Any Language

(I am a native Finnish speaker. English is as close to Dutch as French is to Spanish. I would say Estonian is "nothing like" Finnish, but I know I'm wrong about that :-D You can't estimate the likeness of your mothertongue to any other language. Nothing is like the language into which you grew.)

Until the dissolution of SFR Yugoslavia, Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin were treated as a unitary Serbo-Croatian language. Nevertheless, using this name of this (these) languages today is controversial for the speakers of Bosnian, Serbian, Croatian and Montenegrin, so other paraphrases such as "Serbo-Croato-Bosnian" (SCB) or "Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian" (BCS) or even "Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian" are therefore sometimes used instead, especially in diplomatic circles, and the national standards are treated as different languages inspite of the the common base (vocabulary, grammar and syntax).
 
Here's a great article about the Serbo-Croatian language issue talking about the differences which exist, even when to foreigners they might be ignorable... so far. Perhaps in a lifetime these languages will be different.

Bosnian is the standardized variety of Serbo-Croatian mainly used by Bosniaks. Bosnian is one of the three official languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina, along with Croatian and Serbian, and also an officially recognized minority or regional language in Serbia, Montenegro, and the Republic of Kosovo.

Bosnian uses both Latin and Cyrillic alphabet, with Latin in everyday use. It is notable among the varieties of Serbo-Croatian for a number of Arabic, Ottoman Turkish and Persian loanwords, largely due to the language's interaction with those cultures through Islamic ties.

Bosnian is based on the most widespread dialect of Serbo-Croatian, Shtokavian, more specifically on Eastern Herzegovinian.

Croatian is the standardized variety of the Serbo-Croatian language used by Croats, principally in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serbian province of Vojvodina and other neighbouring countries. It is the official and literary standard of Croatia and one of the official languages of the European Union. Croatian is also one of the official languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina, a recognized minority language in Serbia, and neighbouring countries.

Standard Croatian is based on the most widespread dialect of Serbo-Croatian, Shtokavian, more specifically on Eastern Herzegovinian. In the mid-18th century, the first attempts to provide a Croatian literary standard began on the basis of the Neo-Shtokavian dialect that served as a supraregional lingua franca pushing back regional Chakavian, Kajkavian, and Shtokavian vernaculars. The decisive role was played by Croatian Vukovians, who cemented the usage of Ijekavian Neo-Shtokavian as the literary standard in the late 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, as well as designed a phonological orthography. Croatian is written in Gaj's Latin alphabet.

Besides the Shtokavian dialect on which Standard Croatian is based, Croats also speak Chakavian and Kajkavian.

Serbian is the standardized variety of the Serbo-Croatian language used chiefly by Serbs in Serbia, Montenegro, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. In addition, it is a recognized minority language in Croatia, Macedonia, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic.

Standard Serbian is based on the most widespread dialect of Serbo-Croatian, Shtokavian (more specifically on Šumadija-Vojvodina and Eastern Herzegovinian dialects). The other dialect spoken by Serbs is Torlakian in southeastern Serbia, which is transitional to Macedonian and Bulgarian.

Serbian is practically the only European standard language with complete synchronic digraphia, using both Cyrillic and Latin alphabets. The Serbian Cyrillic alphabet was devised in 1814 by Serbian linguist Vuk Karadžić, who created the alphabet on phonemic principles. The Latin alphabet was designed by Croatian linguist Ljudevit Gaj in 1830.

Montenegrin is the standardized variety of the Serbo-Croatian language used as the official language of Montenegro. Standard Montenegrin is based on the most widespread dialect of Serbo-Croatian, Shtokavian, more specifically on Eastern Herzegovinian.

Montenegro's language has historically and traditionally been called Serbian. The idea of a Montenegrin standard language separate from Serbian appeared in the 2000s after Serbia and Montenegro broke up, via proponents of Montenegrin independence. Montenegrin became the official language of Montenegro with the ratification of a new constitution on 22 October 2007.

The Montenegrin standard is still emerging. Its orthography was established on 10 July 2009 with the addition of two letters to the alphabet.

6 Tips For Finding Motivation To Study by Kat of Study Hacks

*sigh* so many sites, posts, blogs are gone, now... so reposting.
Originally in Study Hacks

This week I realized that in order to actually sit down and do some work (any work, really), we must be really motivated to do it. Since there is plenty of tasks we simply can’t get started on, I’ve come up with a few things that could help us get our study/combat/I-Can-Ace-Everything mode going:

How to Get Motivated To study

1. Clean up your desk and room. Like I mentioned in the previous post, clean room = clean head

2. Organize all loose papers. Put them in a binder or folder, keep them in one place and in good order that you can follow.

3. Make a “to-do” list. Can’t do anything without that. Whether you’re using an app or a simple journal, setting your goals and tasks is a priority

4. If time permits, watch an inspirational movie. I usually combine it with cleaning my room. My personal favorite is “Legally Blonde” – I instantly get a wave of inspiration to study something and ace it. What’s your inspirational film or show?

5. Approach tasks in smaller chunks. Do homework in 30-45 minute increments like in the Pomodoro Technique. This is optimal time frame just because you’d be able to focus but not get too tired.

6. Reward yourself with food & breaks. I eat sweets and drink tea.

That's it. This is Ket writing, now :-D

1) Best snacks to keep you awake - not coffee and sweets

- water - yes, being thirsty makes you eat and that makes you sleepy, so keep drinking. And not energy drinks, cafeine and such things, nor sweet juices and cordials and such.(Also, needing to get up and go pee gives you some needed break and exercise ;-))
- dark chocolate, as dark as you can eat.
- nuts
- protein - carbs will make you sleepy. So, cheese, boiled eggs, sausages, things like that.

2) Here's some movies that might inspire you to study a language:

Arrival

L'Auberge Espagnole (The Spanish Apartment)

Love Actually

Avatar

Stargate

The Terminal

The 13th Warrior

Truly, Madly, Deeply

The Interpreter

My Fair Lady (1964)

Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001)

Windtalkers (2002)

Finding Nemo (2016) (Here because of the Navajo version, but I think it works because of this:)

Spanglish (2004)

13 movies about language
25 movies with linguists
Long list of linguistics movies

Challenge 52 in 52: Bulgarian

Bulgarian is a South Slavic language spoken in Southeastern Europe, primarily in Bulgaria.

Along with the closely related Macedonian language (collectively forming the East South Slavic languages), it is a member of the Balkan sprachbund. The two languages have several characteristics that set them apart from all other Slavic languages: changes include the elimination of case declension, the development of a suffixed definite article and the lack of a verb infinitive, but it retains and has further developed the Proto-Slavic verb system. One such major development is the innovation of evidential verb forms to encode for the source of information: witnessed, inferred, or reported.

It is the official language of Bulgaria, and since 2007 has been among the official languages of the European Union. It is also spoken by minorities in several other countries.

Bulgarian in Omniglot

"i stał się wieczór, i stał się zaranek, dzień szósty."

June 10th is my niece's birthday. I'm writing this on August 9th, my father's birthday... He died 6 years ago. I still miss him so much it hurts.

10 czerwca są urodziny mojej siostrzenicy.
Urodziłem się 19 kwiecień 1969 roku.

(And in the subject of tongue twisters; here's 999999999999   
dziewięćset dziewięćdziesiąt dziewięć miliardy dziewięćset dziewięćdziesiąt dziewięć miliony dziewięćset dziewięćdziesiąt dziewięć tysięcy dziewięćset dziewięćdziesiąt dziewięć)

The baffling world of Polish months
(BTW, January might come from stykać (to touch, to connect) as "that's where the years are connected to each other", and not from ściąć (to cut off, to cut down trees)

Styczeń - connecting month
Luty - cruel month
Marzec - March
Kwiecień - flower month
Maj - May
Czerwiec - Cochineal month
Lipiec - linden month
Sierpień - sickling month
Wrzesień - heather month
Październik - shiving or swingling month
Listopad - leaf fall
Grudzień - lumping month

Reminds me of the "baffling world" of Finnish months :-D

Tammikuu - oak month (oak means also the core, heart of something)
helmikuu - pearl month (ice beads)
maaliskuu - earth/ground/soil month
huhtikuu - burn clearing month
toukokuu - spring sowing month
kesäkuu - summer month
heinäkuu - hay month
elokuu - harvest month
syyskuu - autumn month
lokakuu - sleet month
joulukuu - Christmas month

Anyway, this is not what I came here to talk about :-D

I was trying to figure out the case suffixes in Polish, and was wondering why they are so different, and how am I going to figure it out, and then I remembered that Polish nouns have gender :-D
Funnily enough, that made all the difference X-]

About that word list above - "Chrząszcz by Jan Brzechwa is a poem famous for being considered one of the hardest-to-pronounce texts in Polish literature."

The thing with Polish pronunciation is that you do NOT pronounce every letter :-D

I mean, the first line of the poem is "W Szczebrzeszynie chrząszcz brzmi w trzcinie"

If you pronounce every letter as it should be, you'd be saying [v sh-tsh-e-b-zh-e-sh-ynie kh-sh-on-sh-tsh b-sh-m-i v t-sh-shi-nie],
but in reality you are saying [v shtebsheshenie shontsh beshmi v tshinie]
- so you leave out A LOT of the "shs". And there are no Rs in there... RZ is a totally different letter.

For instance, if you, like myself, are a fan of the world’s largest rodent, you might one day say: Mam kapibarę (I have a capybara). 
But what about the opposite? Simple: Nie mam kapibary (I don’t have a capybara). 
I’ll come with the capybara? Przyjdę z kapibarą. 
I’m talking to you about the capybara? Rozmawiam z tobą o kapibarze. 
You get the idea.
- 5 Very Good, Very Specific Tips To Learn Polish

 They are actually very good tips. Use them. For every language you are learning.

Piąty dzień wyzwania Polski

I'm premenstrual, so I react on everything very emotionally. Learning that there is a word in Polish meaning "umpteen" - "someteen", "fewteen", that you actually can create words by taking a prefix and a suffix, made me cry :-D "So sweet!" :´)

(It's kilkanaście, BTW. "naście" means "teen" (short of "na dziesięcie") and kilka is "a number more than 2 and less than 10". And even that fact makes me cry :-D

Etymology of the Polish numbers

OK, so it's day 5, and I SHOULD be able to

- know the alphabet
- know the "useful phrases" on Omniglot
- know how to count to 1 million
- know the 3000 most frequently used words and their inflections (which makes it quite a lot more than 3000 words :-D As most frequency lists count "I, me, my, mine" as four different words and I count them as one.)
(BTW, this is pretty much crap. Or, well... the person who compiled it took some USonian movies and calculated the frequency from the subtitles, there's a lot of names on the list, some words that haven't even been translated (like Los Angeles - two words, San Francisco - two words - Las Vegas - two words...*sigh* And I wonder which movies he was watching. There were quite a lot of war and criminal/detective movies... I seriously doubt sergeant and sheriff are among the 3000 most common Polish words. But, what ever. Any words are fine.)

and I should be
- writing a diary entry every day, 10+ sentences
- posting the entry to some site and have it checked
- reading it out loud and have it checked on some site where that is done
- listening to radio
- learning a song every day and sing along
- watching at least 1 hour of television series or movie, without subtitles
- having discussions with imaginary people
- describing everything I do and see
- hopefully actually going out there and speaking with people.

 I found out that Poland has a radio channel with just audiobooks and radio theater... Wow...

I'm not. I have been writing my flashcards and studying through Duolingo, and writing the flashcards is taking too much time. So, basically, I'm still on day 0 :-D
I'm not worried. (yet :-D My language mood is still strongly on.)

 (It should be "dziewczyna" 

- the girl I like, her male friend/colleague, her ex, her father - me...)

mnie się to podoba - I like it / mnie się to nie podoba - I don't like it
czy ci się to podoba czy nie - whether you like it or not

mnie - I, dative (to me)
się - oneself
to - this
podoba - image, look, appearance, form

Huh? Where's the verb? "to me myself this appearance"?

It turns out that "podoba" IS the verb. "podobać się" - to enjoy, to like, "this pleases me".