Language Tales

Posts by Axel Rauschmayer (npub10fa…rdvy) about language learning in general and these languages in particular:
🇨🇳 Mandarin Chinese (普通话) – my current focus ✅
🇬🇧 English
🇫🇷 French
🇪🇸 Spanish
🇳🇱 Dutch
🇩🇪 German

#fedi22 #LanguageLearning

Blog: http://www.langtales.de

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Last Notes

2026-05-08 15:37:34 UTC

British English “post” vs. American English “mail”: “The public service by which letters and parcels are collected and delivered is usually called ‘the post’ in British English and ‘the mail’ in American English.”
“British speakers talk about posting a letter or parcel. Americans usually say that they mail it.”
I had always wondered why it was “post office” and not “mail office” in the USA. It’s just an older word that stuck around. Similarly: postage.
#English

2026-05-08 14:15:35 UTC

British accent: “Scouse (/skaʊs/ skowss), formally known as Liverpool English or Merseyside English, is an English accent and dialect associated with the city of Liverpool and the surrounding Merseyside area. Scouse is highly distinctive and bears little resemblance to other English accents […]”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scouse
Great example (“k” is often pronounced like “ch” in Scottish “Loch”): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKiuEi5jYyM
#English

2026-04-25 19:06:44 UTC

#English: The word “postparation” (=the opposite of “preparation”) would be useful, but doesn’t exist. Alternatives include:
• review, evaluation
• debrief
• post-processing
• wrap-up
• post-mortem
In #German, there is “Vorbereitung” (before-processing) and “Nachbereitung” (after-processing).

2026-04-23 18:54:45 UTC

“A thought-terminating cliché is a form of loaded language – often passing as folk wisdom – intended to end an argument and reinforce cognitive dissonance with a cliché rather than a point.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_clich%C3%A9

2026-03-22 12:31:43 UTC

“prepone” (the opposite of “postpone”) would be a useful #English verb.
Interestingly, it’s already used in India: https://www.reddit.com/r/etymology/comments/12awbk3/prepone_the_opposite_of_postpone/
But most dictionaries don’t mention it (e.g. Merriam-Webster).

2026-03-17 20:57:37 UTC

#English: How do you pronounce “machinations”?
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/machinations

2026-03-11 17:51:08 UTC

Interestingly, the #English don’t do rhotic (American-style) Rs, but they occasionally add that sound elsewhere—e.g.: “I saw (R) it”.
https://www.upworthy.com/why-brits-add-r-sound-to-words/

2026-03-09 23:59:11 UTC

1/ Artificial language:
Latino es lingua internationale in occidente de Europa ab tempore de imperio romano, per toto medio aevo, et in scientia usque ultimo seculo. Seculo vigesimo es primo que non habe lingua commune. Hodie quasi omne auctore scribe in proprio lingua nationale, id es in plure lingua neo-latino, in plure germanico, in plure slavo, in nipponico et alio. Tale multitudine de linguas in labores de interesse commune ad toto humanitate constitute magno obstaculo ad progressu.

2026-02-24 18:57:04 UTC

#English: The word “primer” is pronounced “primmer”. It means (e.g.):
• a small introductory book on a subject
• a short informative piece of writing
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/primer

2026-02-22 02:23:25 UTC

Random #Ukranian word:
масшта́б (masshtáb): scale
Borrowed from #German “Maßstab” (pronounced roughly the same, as far as I can tell)
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D0%BC%D0%B0%D1%81%D1%88%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%B1#Ukrainian

2026-02-16 00:32:24 UTC

Nice touch in “The Mighty Nein”: Mark Strong gets to speak #German (S1E5). He’s really good at it. Another example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-J_bCZejdnE
Also—I suspect:
• The fictional word Volstrucker → https://criticalrole.fandom.com/wiki/Volstrucker
• is inspired by the German word Vollstrecker (executor, executioner) → https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Vollstrecker

2026-02-07 20:20:50 UTC

#English phrase: “to hit the head” (to go to the bathroom)
Origin: “In sailing vessels, the head is the ship’s toilet. The name derives from sailing ships in which the toilet area for the regular sailors was placed at the head or bow of the vessel.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_(watercraft)

2026-01-31 14:21:18 UTC

Unicode: left Greek alphabet, right Latin alphabet
ΑA
ΒB
ΕE
ΖZ
ΗH
ΚK
ΜM
ΝN
ΟO
ΡP
ΤT
ΥY
ΧX
οo

2026-01-30 20:04:38 UTC

Automatically generated subtitle: “He budgeted poultry fractions of what was actually required”
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/paltry
#English

2026-01-01 04:19:06 UTC

“Shakespeare: original pronunciation (OP)”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPlpphT7n9s
Interesting points:
• Some puns don’t work with how we currently pronounce Shakespeare.
• OP changes the performance of the actors. They speak faster and the language feels more grounded.
• OP is easier to understand than you’d think. It sounds a bit like stereotypical “pirate speech”.
#English

2025-12-27 21:51:18 UTC

Reading online comments is interesting:
1. If you want to know what could possibly go wrong: Ask Germans.
2. If you want to know what’s possible: Ask Americans.
(#1 is often useful but it can also be paralyzing.)

2025-12-26 19:55:21 UTC

Having a first language whose spelling is more phonetic than English’s (such as German or Spanish) actually helps you with English in some cases. For example, those are typos I’ll never make:
• definately (German: definitiv)
• cognative (German: kognitiv)
#English #German

2025-12-14 22:11:40 UTC

#English spelling: “extravert” or “extrovert”?
https://louderminds.com/extravert-or-extrovert/

2025-12-03 02:52:04 UTC

Two #English idioms:
• to rock the boat: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/rock-the-boat
• the hand that rocks the cradle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hand_That_Rocks_the_Cradle_(poem)

2025-11-20 22:43:27 UTC

Neues Buchstabier-Alphabet für #Deutsch
https://www.din.de/de/din-und-seine-partner/presse/mitteilungen/von-aachen-bis-zwickau-867074
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/584/417/869/696/171/original/4e87497f0b656999.png

2025-09-10 19:40:56 UTC

It’s neat that there are rules that help with recognizing similar words between French, Spanish and English. These are two I recently found out about:
• French “gu” → English “w”: guêpe → wasp, Guillaume → William, guerre → war, guarde-robe → wardrobe,
• French/Latin “f” → Spanish “h”: fer → hierro, faire → hacer, fille → hija, feuille → hoja, frère → hermano
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonetic_change_%22f_→_h%22_in_Spanish

2025-08-24 13:53:50 UTC

I didn’t know this: “‘Columbia’, also known as ‘Lady Columbia’ or ‘Miss Columbia’, is a female national personification of the United States.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_(personification)
That also explains the “District of Columbia” in “Washington, D.C.”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_(disambiguation)
#USA #English

2025-08-22 13:27:01 UTC

#English – rough rule for rack vs. wrack:
• wrack ≈ wreck
• rack ≈ stretch (old torture device)
Therefore:
• nerve-racking
• rack one’s brains
• storm-wracked
• wrack and ruin
https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/rack-vs-wrack

2025-08-19 16:59:52 UTC

If someone says “yes mom”, they are either talking to their mother or British.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/pronunciation/english/ma-am
#English

2025-08-08 09:55:50 UTC

Interessant, dass viele Deutsche mittlerweile sagen:
• Das macht Sinn. (Engl.: That makes sense.)
Und nicht:
• Das ist sinnvoll.
#Deutsch

2025-08-05 11:21:58 UTC

German movies seem to be different from movies in (many? most? all?) other languages in that actors pronounce very clearly—following the tradition of theater not of movies. Movies in English are not like that. Are there countries other than Germany that do that too?

2025-07-31 13:26:07 UTC

Important innovation: “By the 8th century BC, the Greeks borrowed the Phoenician alphabet and adapted it to their own language, creating in the process the first ‘true’ alphabet, in which vowels were accorded equal status with consonants.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_alphabet

2025-07-22 16:41:28 UTC

Native USA English speakers: How do you pronounce “aunt”?

2025-07-18 08:12:23 UTC

One reason why Mandarin Chinese is difficult to learn for Europeans—unfamiliar vocabulary:
The word for comet:
• Russian: комета
• German: Komet
• Spanish: cometa
• Chinese: 彗星 (huìxīng)
However, whereas European languages use a Greek term (“aster komētēs” means “long-haired star”), Chinese does not borrow from another language: Literally, 彗星 means “broom star”.

2025-07-09 15:47:41 UTC

• English: fly in the ointment
• German: Haar in der Suppe (“hair in the soup“)
• French: ombre au tableau (“shadow in the picture”)
• Spanish: mosca en la sopa (“fly in the soup”)

2025-07-03 13:22:51 UTC

沙发
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/sand-couch-on-the-beach--27092035252148139/

2025-05-14 14:40:24 UTC

Als Kind hat mich verwirrt, dass es sowohl Parmaschinken als auch Farmerschinken gibt und eine meiner Theorien war, dass er „Pharmaschinken“ geschrieben wird und manche Leute ihn falsch aussprechen.
#German #Deutsch

2025-05-12 23:29:57 UTC

#English words I only knew in German (Perfidität, perfide): perfidy, perfidious
1. the quality or state of being faithless or disloyal : treachery
2. an act or an instance of disloyalty
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/perfidy

2025-02-23 13:31:33 UTC

I often make the typo “suprise”.
And, unless I’m mistaken, US-American pronunciation often seems to be “suh-PRIZE” and not the “proper” “sir-PRIZE”.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/surprise
#English

2025-02-21 12:04:38 UTC

What would #English look like if it only had Germanic words?
Short text by Poul Anderson: “Uncleftish Beholding” (atomic theory)
“For most of its being, mankind did not know what things are made of, but could only guess. With the growth of worldken, we began to learn, and today we have a beholding of stuff and work that watching bears out, both in the workstead and in daily life.”
Background and dictionary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncleftish_Beholding

2025-01-24 08:24:14 UTC

#English: All sources I checked say that “acknowledge” is pronounced with a “k”—e.g.: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/acknowledge
However, it sounds more like “ag-knowledge” than “ack-knowledge” to me. True?

2025-01-02 21:10:26 UTC

One of my favorite German expressions (I always think of it when I watch interviews with Dakota Johnson or Hugh Grant):
• sich um Kopf und Kragen reden
• Translation: to talk oneself into trouble
• Literally: to talk oneself out of head and collar
#German

2024-12-26 21:05:33 UTC

#Polish—pronouncing ć, ź, dź, ś: Is the tongue position in this diagram correct?
Source: https://linguistics.stackexchange.com/questions/19660/what-is-the-difference-between-sibilant-sounds-in-polish-%C4%87-%C5%9B-d%C5%BA-%C5%BA-vs-cz-sz-d%C5%BC
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/721/131/830/700/854/original/536b89a8d968283c.png

2024-12-23 19:17:05 UTC

#English: What does “breaking bad” mean?
Vince Gilligan (who created the eponymous TV show):
“I come from Virginia, and it’s very much a southern regionalism that I thought everybody knew. It means to raise hell. Like, ‘I was at a bar the other night, and I just tied one on and really broke bad. You know, I just wound up in the back of a squad car.’ So it’s a regionalism.”
https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/vince-gilligan-meaning-of-breaking-bad/

2024-12-05 09:26:56 UTC

Weird aspect of learning: You have limited control over what you remember: you feed your brain (a black box) and hope for the best.😀 Painfully obvious when you are learning the vocabulary of a foreign language.
#LanguageLearning

2024-12-03 19:17:33 UTC

What are words where native speakers in one language don’t hear a difference in another language?
English words:
– Germans: lose/loose, rise/rice, food/foot, love/laugh
– Chinese (Mandarin): yeast/east
Tones—for someone who doesn’t speak a tonal language.
#LanguageLearning

2024-11-29 17:21:54 UTC

Deutsche Rechtschreibung: „viel“, „wenig“, „[der] eine“, „[der] andere“ können groß geschrieben werden. Finde ich logischer – obwohl Kleinschreibung bislang noch üblicher ist. Ich bevorzuge:
Es gab Viele, die nicht mitmachen wollten.
Den Wenigsten war das bekannt.
Die Meisten blieben zu Hause.
Die Einen sahen zu, die Anderen halfen mit.
https://www.duden.de/sprachwissen/rechtschreibregeln/Gro%C3%9F-%20und%20Kleinschreibung
#Deutsch

2024-11-22 19:27:07 UTC

Insightful interview with Dr. Norbert Schmitt: “Vocabulary Professor Explains How To Learn Languages”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiWZgjXhLUw
* Vocabulary is most important part of knowing a language.
* There is so much of it—e.g.: To understanding a movie in English, you must know 5000–10000 words.
* Support each other: (1) Learning vocabulary greatly speeds up progress. (2) Comprehensible input provides important context & strengthens memory.
* Textbooks are bad at spaced repetition.
#LanguageLearning

2024-11-01 01:46:42 UTC

1/ Video with great language learning insights that gives tips for writing graded readers (books with simplified language that uses a limited amount of words): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yMxca0SEM8
Next: summary of the key points 👇
#LanguageLearning

2024-10-30 03:29:31 UTC

In #German, we don’t say “my legs are sore”, we say “I have a muscle hangover in the legs”. 😀
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Muskelkater

2024-10-29 17:31:30 UTC

1/ #English:
* historic: famous or important in history
* a historic event
* historical: of, relating to, or having the character of history
* historical novels
* classic: historically memorable; serving as a standard of excellence
* It’s a classic.
* classical: of or relating to a form or system considered of first significance in earlier times
* classical music
Source: https://www.merriam-webster.com

2024-10-24 00:26:56 UTC

In #English, the meat you eat often has a French-inspired name while the live animal often has a Germanic name—e.g.:
– pork (porc) vs. pig
– beef (bœuf) vs. cow
– veal (veau) vs. calf
– mutton (mouton) vs. sheep
Myth: That split happened while the Normans ruled (1066+) when the aristocracy ate meat and used French words, while farmers raised animals and used Germanic words.
Truth: It only happened in the 1800s, due to the popularity of French cuisine.
Details: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dL2vtwdEFaY

2024-10-22 15:55:31 UTC

Young lady behind Zambia’s growing anime popularity
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YecxIeciEAE

2024-10-21 22:16:26 UTC

Browsers seem to compute word boundaries for Chinese text (tested with Firefox and Safari). As an example, consider the sequence of characters 洗衣机. If you double-click on them, they treat 洗衣 and 机 as words (*).
In contrast, Apple’s TextEdit doesn’t—it selects all three characters.
(*) Works in the address bar, text fields and text on web pages: https://www.purpleculture.net/dictionary-details/?word=洗衣机
#Chinese

2024-10-20 15:40:59 UTC

Funny aspect of languages: Some words you read but rarely hear—e.g.: I wasn’t aware that “hegemony” was stressed on the second syllable: he·GE·mo·ny. Even native speakers can make this kind of mistake—e.g. I remember a US actor saying “epi-tome” in an interview.
Google can help you with pronunciation if you search for “pronunciation” + the word in question: https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=pronunciation%20hegemony
Dictionaries indicate stress—e.g. via apostrophes: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hegemony
#LanguageLearning #English

2024-10-20 15:05:26 UTC

It just occurred to me: For language learning, it’d be great to have subtitles for podcasts. And there are standards for that—but not every app supports them.
The SRT format seems to be supported best: https://support.transistor.fm/en/article/which-podcast-apps-support-transcripts-qphklp/
In RSS, you can link to (e.g.) SRT files via podcast:transcript. https://podcastindex.org/namespace/1.0#transcript
#LanguageLearning

2024-10-15 17:10:26 UTC

Capitalization of the word INTERNET:
– “the Internet": basically up to you
– “internet access” (“internet as modifier/adjunct”: never capitalize
https://proofed.com/writing-tips/when-should-i-capitalize-internet/
#English

2024-09-30 16:18:55 UTC

#German: Using the English words “laptop” and “notebook” for portable computers is so common that I (a native speaker) had to check whether there are German words for them. And there are:
– Klapprechner
– Mobilrechner
See “Synonyme” here: https://www.logitech.com/en-us/products/keyboards/mx-keys-mini.920-010473.html

2024-09-28 14:50:21 UTC

Humans seem oddly two-dimensional in their perception: As far as I can tell, English…
– has words for up and down in a plane (along the y-axis).
– does not have a distinct word for up and down *from* a plane (third dimension, z-axis).
German is similar, by the way.
#English

2024-09-19 15:37:43 UTC

English idiom: two peas in a pod
→ used to say that two people or things are very similar to each other
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/two%20peas%20in%20a%20pod
I always thought it was “in a pot”, but it’s “pod” as in the fruit of a pea plant – which contains multiple seeds = peas.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pea
Photo by Bill Ebbesen – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15727721
#English
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/164/951/694/085/245/original/151a894536674abd.jpg

2024-09-19 14:03:35 UTC

It’s amazing how much slightly advanced English words help with French—e.g.
– French: adage (m.)
– English: saying; adage
#English #French

2024-09-15 17:28:13 UTC

Meaning of “shout” I wasn’t aware of:
(UK, Australia, New Zealand, slang) A round of drinks in a pub; the turn to pay the shot or scot; an act of paying for a round of drinks.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/shout#Noun
Example: My shout today!
#English

2024-09-14 15:33:38 UTC

Pronouncing “r” in Mandarin Chinese (can a native speaker confirm?)
You place your tongue on the roof of your mouth. It points almost upwards and is situated on the hard flat part of the roof.
* r at start of syllable: like pleaSure (a voiced “sh”) – e.g. 人 rén
In contrast, at the end of a syllable, “r” is pronounced exactly(?) as in English:
* r at end of syllable: like faiR – e.g. 二 èr
#Mandarin #Chinese #MandarinChinese

2024-09-14 00:04:52 UTC

If you are a native English speaker: How do you pronounce the word “English”?
#English

2024-09-09 21:35:25 UTC

1/ #English: Which one of these would you use?

2024-09-09 19:03:11 UTC

We need to bring back these #English words:
* ereyesterday: the day before yesterday. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ereyesterday
* overmorrow: the day after tomorrow. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/overmorrow
Other languages:
* German: vorgestern, übermorgen
* Dutch: eergisteren, overmorgen
* Spanish: anteayer, pasado mañana
* French: avant-hier, après-demain
* Mandarin: 前天, 后天

2024-09-06 13:41:23 UTC

Feeling stuck learning Standard Chinese (Mandarin)? Try these resources!
http://www.langtales.de/2024/09/chinese-learning-resources.html
#LearningLanguages #Chinese #StandardChinese #Mandarin #MandarinChinese

2024-09-04 12:57:53 UTC

If you read that someone is “deceptively tall”:
#English