Jump to content
Linguaholic

LazyLearner

Members
  • Posts

    18
  • Joined

  • Last visited

    Never

Converted

  • Currently studying
    English, French
  • Native tongue
    Portuguese
  • Fluent in
    Portuguese

LazyLearner's Achievements

Newbie

Newbie (1/14)

0

Reputation

  1. If you are looking for a podcast, I would recommend you ESL Podcast (English as Second Language Podcast), the episodes are short (around 18 minutes if I'm not mistaken), and there's a script for the entire conversation, also, it contains Slow Dialog, Explanations and Fast Dialog. It's free, but you can subscribe for $10 per month to get the "Learning Guide Membership", which gives a more in-depth explanation, but I don't think it's necessary. But, If you are talking about TV shows, watching with subtitles in English isn't bad. You are seeing and hearing. You need to remember that you can't skip stages, learning is slow and you need patience, try doing things gradually, in smaller steps.
  2. Fictional Languages are very intersting. time. Both are fascinating languages, and Tengwar is very elegant! I gave up because I couldn't find good sources to learn those languages.
  3. Why would podcasts be useless? I believe it's a valid way to learn listening. And how many times you should listen is up to you, isn't?
  4. Yes, it's true and amazing! Of course it doesn't work perfectly, but it's still impressive, and I hope that it will get even better now that it's a Google product. In the store there is a few recommendations to use the app, check out: - Best used on clearly printed text (eg signs, menus). - NOT recognize handwriting or stylized fonts. - Not perfect, but you can get the general meaning! - Keep the text in focus by holding it at least one hand away.
  5. Duolingo offers a Portuguese (I think it's only Brazilian) course for English speakers. In my opinion, it's the best site to learn the basics of a language. Link: https://www.duolingo.com/course/pt/en/Learn-Portuguese-Online Livemocha is a Social network and was acquired by Rosetta Stone recently. Link: http://livemocha.com/pages/languages/learn-portuguese-brazil/ (American Portuguese)
  6. World Lens is an app that translates printed words from one language to another with the smartphone's camera in real time, and you don't need connection with the internet! Example: The company who made this app (Quest Visual) was recently bought by Google! I recommend this app to anyone who will travel to another country. It's a must have app!
  7. I love to read short stories. It's fast to read and easy to comprehend the story. Based on that, which short stories do you recommend? My favorites are Isaac Asimov's "The Last Question"; Allan Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" and, "A Scandal in Bohemia" written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, all of them are great short stories, and I recommend to you! I would appreciate new suggestions, something good to read when I'm bored.
  8. Do you know some words or expressions that are hard to translate to other idioms? I know a few! Saudades: It's a Portuguese word that has no direct translation in English. "A somewhat melancholic feeling of incompleteness. It is related to thinking back on situations of privation due to the absence of someone or something, to move away from a place or thing, or to the absence of a set of particular and desirable experiences and pleasures once lived." (Dicionário Houaiss da Língua Portuguesa) L'esprit d'escalier: It's a French term used when the perfect retort comes to mind too late. "Used to refer to the fact that a witty remark or retort often comes to mind after the opportunity to make it has passed." (Oxford Dictionaries) This expression was described by Denis Diderot in "Paradoxe sur le Comédien": ‘a sensitive man like me, overwhelmed by the argument levelled against him, loses his head – and doesn't get it back again till he's at the bottom of the stairs’ If you know a word or expression that only exist in some languages, post here! I would love to see another examples.
  9. My friend bought the Japanese course for Rosetta Stone a few years ago. It seems that the course at the beginning is very good, carefully built. He could learn the very basics of Japanese, like the numbers, most used words and some phrases that are used daily, but he said there's a gap between the Beginner and Intermediate, and that they could do a better job with the transition of difficulty. I used it for a while to try to learn French, but I stopped because of my lack of motivation, but what I realized is that it is a very well structured course, It's expensive, but worth it.
  10. I'm a native speaker and I'm fluent in English, let me know if you need any text translated to or from portuguese.
  11. Chico Buarque is an incredible composer. When the military dictatorship was happening, his lyrics were full of "double entendre" to fool the censorship, especially in Construção. It is in my top 3 albums of Brazilian music, along with Tropicália (1968) and Cabeça Dinossauro (1986) (Ok, I know that Cabeça Dinossauro isn't as brilliant as much others brazilian albums, but It's great!). From Construção, I really like the music with the same name, It's my favorite by far: And heres AA UU, from Cabeça Dinossauro:
  12. Portuguese ones: "O rato roeu a roupa do Rei de Roma, a rainha de raiva roeu o resto" (The rat gnawed up the King of Rome’s clothes, the queen in anger gnawed the rest) "Três pratos de trigo para três tigres tristes." (Three plates of wheat for three sad tigers.) "O peito do pé do Pedro é preto, e quem disser que o peito do pé do Pedro não é preto, tem o peito do pé mais preto que o peito do pé do Pedro." (The top of Pedro's foot is black, and anyone who says that the top of Pedro's foot isn't black, has the top of the foot blacker than the top of Pedro's foot) The last one is hard to say and hard to translate! I think I got it right, but it's a though one.
  13. Portuguese male: "Eu sou seu" for a more informal approaching or "Eu sou teu" for a more formal mode. The "eu" (me) isn't necessary at all times. Portuguese female: "Eu sou sua" and "Eu sou tua", same rules as above.
  14. I really avoid it at most cases, you will have a bad time if you're trusting it too much. I used it to talk with a spanish friend some years ago, it was sufficient most of the time but some sentences were impossible to understand as GT wouldn't give a correct answer. As Kotro, I find Babelfish a better translator in general too.
  15. Got a 100/100 too! I would love a quiz about in/on/at uses, they always get me. Loved your quiz though! And that thrust/trust question...
×
×
  • Create New...