People Might Wonder Why I Love Etymology So Much And The Reason Is Simple — Our Everyday Language Is

That's so true! I'm learning Russian and even if I'm still a beginner, I can understand the common words of the other Slavic languages, that's so fun to see!

so a couple months ago i was looking through the channels and saw bbc alba and decided to watch it and something i found so cool was how similar gaidhlig is to gaeilge… i also know some french because i did it in secondary school and i have quite a few brazillian friends that i met online, and something i love is how whenever they speak in portuguese i can understand some words and the sentence structure because i know french, and they are both part of the romance language family. learning languages is sooooo cool and it is so interesting knowing about all the similarities and i feel like whenever you know one language it is really easy to learn the others which are in the same family. anyways ! i love learning languages, i find it all so interesting 🥹

Halito! Chahtawordoftheday sia!

(Hi! I am Chahtawordoftheday!)

Each new generation is responsible for proliferating their stories. I created this blog because, as a Native, this is hard to do alone. Want to brush up on Chahta anumpa (The Choctaw language) with me? Then this is the blog for you! Look forward to daily vocab, reposted lessons of the day from The Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma's website, and a spotlight on Native art/resources.

Speaking of which, here are my favorite Chahta language learning resources:

Here is an online dictionary-makes it easy to check for words/definitions every day! (I know I do)

The Choctaw Dictionary - Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma

Here is another site I find myself on often-if you are a IPA nerd like I am then you will love this phonic! (and even if you are not, it can still help your understanding of Choctaw words when written vs spoken)

Choctaw Pronunciation Guide, Alphabet and Phonology

Here is the home language page on the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma's site-Look here for common phrases, the lesson of the day, and for who to contact in order to request translations!

Language - Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma

This page on the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma's website offers multiple options for language-including virtual, in person, and self-directed! I personally recommend self-directed, especially if you are family with Canvas, registration for this course is the easiest and quickest!

Choctaw Language Classes - Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma

Here is The University of Oklahoma's Choctaw Language Course Catalogue

CHOC-Choctaw < University of Oklahoma

Here is the r/Choctaw Reddit page-an eclectic and lovely place to reach out to your community as well as look for information

Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma

If there are any resources you like me to highlight, please let me know! Feel free to tag me in simple posts you'd like translations too, like a picture of a cat (katos) or a snake (sinti), request subjects for the word of the day, and to otherwise dm me! I can't wait to go on this journey with you!

Chi pisa la chike, yakoke! (goodbye and thank you!)

In my L1-acquisition class two weeks ago, our professor talked about how only 9% of the speech a baby hears is single words. Everything else is phrases and sentences, onslaughts of words and meaning!

Thus, a baby not only has to learn words and their meanings but also learn to segment lots of sounds INTO words. Doyouwantalittlemoresoupyesyoudoyoucutie. Damn.

When she talked about HOW babies learn to segment words our professor said, and I love it, "babies are little statisticians" because when listening to all the sounds, they start understanding what sound is likely to come after another vs which is not.

After discussing lots of experiments done with babies, our professor added something that I already knew somewhere in my brain but didn't know I know: All this knowledge is helpful when learning an L2 as well:

Listen to natives speaking their language. Original speed. Whatever speaker. Whatever topic.

It is NOT about understanding meaning. It is about learning the rhythm of the language, getting a feeling for its sound, the combination of sounds, the melody and the pronunciation.

Just how babies have to learn to identify single words within waves of sounds, so do adults learning a language. It will help immensely with later (more intentional) listening because you're already used to the sound, can already get into the groove of the languge.

Be as brave as a baby.

You don't even have to pay special attention. Just bathe in the sound of your target language. You'll soak it up without even noticing.

this is so cool and also rosencrantz and guildenstern's sign names are killing me lol

the ladies call me the subjunctive mood the way I express desire, wishes, uncertainty, doubt and fear

the swears that non-native-english-speakers come up with are absolutely fantastic sometimes. my friend just said “she is fuck as shit” instead of “she is fucking shit” and now i cant stop saying things are fuck as shit. the weather is fuck as shit. my homework is fuck as shit. phenomenal.

I saw that English has also an expression for that: "should be taken with a pinch of salt"

Also, even if some translators are good, keep in mind that sometimes they won't understand the most colourful expressions and they will lead you to a word-for-word translation

I'm pretty sure that's not it....why is this the first result...... -> prendre quelque chose avec des pincettes = to handle/treat something with caution This post is a friendly reminder to take the google translate/AI translations with tweezers.

learning another language is always beautiful, no matter how long it takes. like, what do you mean you are crying because you had to read a sentence twice to get it, when at the beginning you had to do it five times? kicking yourself because you had to listen to an audio at .75x to understand it fully, when two months ago you could barely understand one or two words, even at your second try? getting mad because you had to research how to spell a word, when a few days back you didn't even know how to pronounce it? hell, that's amazing. keep going. you'll get there.