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misslinguistic

Founder: Meridian Linguistics (Asian Language Data Services).
Spare time: Learning languages, 📸 my drink
Based📍: Beijing
Now: Bangkok
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There are at least two Singaporean words here (bot

There are at least two Singaporean words here (both originally come from Malay). Who here knows what they mean?

(Does "heh" have a special meaning as well, or is it just a chuckle? I've learned not to assume!)

Hello Singapore!!!

Do you type in the language that you're learning?

Do you type in the language that you're learning?

It is actually easier than you might think to type in Chinese! There are a few ways to do it, but I prefer the pinyin method: I type the pinyin (roman letters) and the Chinese characters pop up to be selected.

This way you don't actually have to remember all of the strokes 😅! This is one reason that the Chinese are afraid young people will forget how to write the characters.

For Korean and other alphabets, typing is more straightforward, no different from typing in English. However, you'll find it takes some time to remember where the letters are!

Oddly enough, I can type pretty quickly in Korean on my phone, but I'm slow on a computer. And for the rest of my foreign languages, I type "woodpecker-style" - one key at a time, with my pointer finger, like an old lady 😂

How about you, do you type in your foreign language?

Thai is written not with an alphabet but with an "

Thai is written not with an alphabet but with an "abugida". An "abugida" is a writing system that is not quite an alphabet (like Roman) and not quite a syllabary (like Japanese kana, where each character represents a syllable). Abugidas write consonants and vowels together as a single unit, but with vowels marked "secondarily", almost like an afterthought (and in fact the next step, an "abjad", does away with vowel markings altogether, as with Arabic.)

As a native English speaker/reader it was initially pretty mindblowing that any writing system might consider vowels to be an afterthought...but this is just a reminder that no writing system is "perfect". For example, the English alphabet does not distinguish between the sound we make for "t" at the beginning of a word versus a "t" in the middle of a word...think about it: these are actually very different sounds that actually have very little in common. Yet we use the same alphabetic letter for them...confusing endless generations of non-native speakers when they try to learn English.

What if we had a perfect writing system, one that actually represented a 1:1 mapping between a character and a sound? How arduous then would that writing system be to learn and to write?

And that writing system would then need to be updated regularly as the sounds of our languages naturally change. Even the Korean alphabet, a near-perfect writing system designed specifically for Korean in AD 1443, is already out-of-date. If you have ever wondered at the odd pronunciation of many of the "받침" letters, this is why.

Other abugidas include Hindi, Marathi, Balinese, and Tibetan. Have you ever learned a non-alphabetic writing system?

Butterfly pea tea is supposedly great for the brai

Butterfly pea tea is supposedly great for the brain...and you'll need it if you ever try to learn Thai: tones, honor markers, measure words, that gorgeous abugida (writing system) and more...

Thai is also only one of 91 languages spoken in Thailand, though, and we're not just talking "dialects". The languages in Thailand come from at least five very different language families (Kra-Dai, Austroasiatic, Sino-Tibetan, Austronesian, and Hmong-Mien) meaning that many of the languages spoken in Thailand are mutually unintelligible.

And those don't even include at least two different sign languages (Ban Khor Sign Language and Thai Sign Language, with Thai Sign Language divided into Chiang Mai and Bangkok variants).

Have you ever tried to learn Thai (or another Thai language?) What was it like?

Sawat-dee ka, Thailand!!!! It was a decidedly ung

Sawat-dee ka, Thailand!!!!

It was a decidedly unglamorous journey, which included sleeping on a tatami mat on the floor of Hong Kong airport. There are so few flights leaving China these days, so I didn't have much of a choice. But in the end the paperwork was all in order, the planes all flew as scheduled, and I made it to Bangkok!

While recovering from a booster, I spent a few hours brushing up my Thai foundations with this great course by @stujay_r .

I really appreciate the attention Stu pays to prosody and airflow in Thai - factors that significantly affect your ability to be understood. Have you ever struggled to understand someone who spoke your language with a "musicality" very different to your own? Their consonants and vowels might have been great, but their pitch went up and down in intervals that confused your understanding of word boundaries?

Most language courses focus solely on consonants and vowels, very few touch upon prosody. Thai is of course a tonal language, but individual tones aren't necessarily even the main struggle...it is how to put them all together in a natural way.

Have you ever intentionally studied prosody when learning a new language? What are your tips?

Korea was full of supersweet breads (have you ever

Korea was full of supersweet breads (have you ever tried the wares of the confusingly-named "Paris Baguette"?) They include loaves filled with red bean, ciabatta-esque rounds striped with sweet matcha, and all kinds of interesting desserts masquerading as snacks.

These breads have gained popularity in China too, but my absolute favorites in China are the more traditional and savory shaobing (pictured), especially ones flecked with sesame and cumin and plenty of salt. Good ones will flake apart almost like a moist croissant. The pillowy mantou, sometimes twisted with scallions and salt, are my favorite for hotel breakfast. I can also always go for a nang covered in za'atar-like spices, or a chunky Tibetan balep, with or without the yak meat.

Stereotypically, Northern China leans toward bread and noodles, whereas Southern China leans toward rice. What about you...are you a bread, noodle, or rice person? What's your favorite carb?

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