Mardi Gras

• English
• Português

English

Hello strawberry shortcakes!

Today I’m here to bring to you a little bit more of culture from around the world! This will be a short post though, I’m on test season, the most dreaded for a student, but I didn’t want to leave you without a weekly goodie!

Today I’m here to talk about Mardi Gras, also called Shrove Tuesday or Fat Tuesday, this day marks the beginning of the Carnival celebrations (in some countries), beginning after the Epiphany and ending on before Ash Wednesday.

Typically on Mardi Gras people wear costumes or masks, go to various local parties, or even take vacations, dance, play, throw parades, and many other things. This day came to be because it marks the period before the ritual fasting of the Lenten season (that lasts until Easter’s Sunday) when people pray, atone, and repent on their sins. I see it as a last night of fun and party before people face their decisions and consequences of their actions (of course this is a religious concept, mostly Christian, people from other religions, or with no religion at all may see in this day just a reason to celebrate life and friends).

Of course this day and it’s definition varies a lot from country to country and from culture to culture, some people celebrate on different days, or in different days, some (like myself) didn’t even know this day existed, or rather, that it had a proper name and background, and that it was so widespread.

Well this will be all for now, see you next time!

Nana

Português

Olá docinhos de morango!

Hoje venho trazer-vos mais um pouco de cultura do resto do mundo! Este porém vai ser um post curto, estou em época de testes, a época mais temida pelos alunos, mas não queria deixar-vos sem um pequeno presente!

Hoje estou aqui para falar do Mardi Gras, também chamado de “Terça-feira dos Gordos”, este dia marca o início do Carnaval (em alguns países), começando depois do Dia dos Reis e terminando no dia seguinte.
Tipicamente no Mardi Gras as pessoas usam máscaras e fatos, vão a várias festas locais, ou até de férias para fora, dançam, jogam, organizam desfiles e muitas outras coisas. Este dia foi criado porque marca o início da Quaresma (que dura até ao Domingo de Páscoa) onde pessoas rezam e absolvem-se dos seus pecados. Eu vejo-o como os últimos momentos de diversão e festa antes de se enfrentar as consequências dos seus atos (claro que isto de um ponto de vista religioso, principalmente cristão, pessoas com religiões que não celebrem estes eventos, ou pessoas sem religião podem aproveitar para ter uma razão para festejar a vida com os amigos e família).

Claro que este dia e a sua definição variam muito de país para país, nem todos têm os mesmos costumes, alguns festejam em dias diferentes, ou de diferentes maneiras, outros (como eu) nem sabiam que este dia existia, pelo menos não por este nome.

Bem vai ser tudo por agora, até há próxima!

Nana

Mondly

• English
• Português

English

Hello guys!

Today I bring to you the second app review of this little review series I’m doing! Don’t worry I’ll still post stuff other than reviews, but I want to give you more information about the resources to really learn and this app specifically made me understand something important.

Before I get to that I must specify I used this app for both Italian and Japanese. Even in Italian the app was pretty confusing, we have a little tutorial in the beginning, but still I couldn’t quite grasp how it worked. The lessons were pretty basic in my opinion, they covered just vocabulary, almost zero sentence structure and so on, but even the vocabulary was covered in a very random way, they picked a handful of words and threw them in a very incomplete theme.

Now to the worst part, the Japanese version was a EXACT copy! Same structure, same words, you only had a choice to put the words in romaji or kana. This made me angry, and I’m a very peaceful person.
I think this app represents what’s bad with most Japanese learning app. Japanese is NOT a romance language, not even a western language, saying that you should never EVER try to learn it as such! Japanese is a very complex language that has its own way to be learned, its own techniques, and it really makes me mad when I see apps like this because then people will go and try to learn it like that and never completely succeed. I made the same mistake four years ago when I first started to learn Japanese and it set me back YEARS I can never take back, that is why I feel so strongly about it!

From all I think it was one of the worst apps I ever tried, not just because of the Japanese and I honestly don’t recommend it at all!

This will be all for now guys, see you next time!
Nana

Português

Olá pessoal!

Hoje trago-vos a segunda review das aplicações que andei a experimentar no passado mês! Não se preocupem, vou voltar a fazer outro tipo de posts, e não me vou focar apenas nestas pequenas reviews, apenas quero que saibam mais sobre os recursos por aí, e algo em especifico que me apercebi ao experimentar esta aplicação.

Mas antes de chegar aí quero clarificar que usei esta app para Italiano e Japonês. Até em Italiano esta aplicação é muito confusa, temos um pequeno tutorial no início mas ainda assim senti que não aprendi nada sobre como navegar pelas lições. As lições em si eram bastante básicas, apenas nos apresentavam algum vocabulário, não explicaram nada sobre estruturação das frases e aspectos gramaticais. Mas mesmo o vocabulário era apenas um punhado de palavras atiradas para dentro de um tema bastante incompleto.

Agora para o pior, a versão para Japonês era EXACTAMENTE igual! Mesma estrutura, mesmas palavras, a única diferença é que as podíamos ler em romaji ou kana. Isto deixou-me zangada, e eu considero-me uma pessoa bastante pacífica.
Acho que esta aplicação representa o que está mal com a maior parte das aplicações para aprender japonês. Japonês NÃO é uma língua latina, nem sequer do Ocidente, com isto em mente NUNCA devia ser aprendida da mesma forma! É uma lingua muito complexa com maneiras e técnicas muito especificas para ser aprendida, e deixa-me muito mas muito zangada quando aplicações como esta ignoram isso pois estão a prejudicar e a atrasar um iniciante que ainda não sabe a maneira certa de estudar! Eu era assim há quatro anos e aplicações como esta atrasaram a minha aprendizagem ANOS que nunca poderei recuperar.

De todas penso que foi das piores aplicações que alguma vez experimentei, não apenas por causa do Japonês, e honestamente não a recomendo a ninguém!

Isto é tudo por agora pessoal, até há próxima!

Nana

Befana

Hey guys!!

Two days ago the Befana was celebrated in Italy! Although I don't know to what extent it's still celebrated nowadays (for example here in Portugal barely anyone really celebrates the Epiphany (Dia dos Reis) which was yesterday), but here is a little bit of background about that day and how it came to be!

In Italian folklore, Befana  is an old woman who delivers gifts to children throughout Italy on the night before Epiphany, like Santa Claus!

A popular belief is that her name comes from "La Festa dell'Epifania". Other suggest that Befana is descended from the Sabine/Roman goddess named Strina, but no one knows exacly.

In popular folklore Befana visits all the children of Italy on the eve of the Feast of the Epiphany to fill their shoes with candy and presents if they are good. Or a lump of coal or dark candy if they are bad (I know exacly like Santa). She supposedly is a good housekeeper, so many say she will sweep the floor before she leaves. 

To some the sweeping meant the sweeping away of the problems of the year. The child's family typically leaves a small glass of wine and a plate with a few morsels of food, often regional or local, for the Befana, although milk would be better in my oppinion, after so many houses she is sure to get wasted!

She is usually portrayed as an old lady riding a broomstick through the air wearing a black shawl and is covered in soot because she enters the children's houses through the chimney. She is often smiling and carries a bag or hamper filled with candy, gifts, or both.

Many also call her the Christmas Witch due to these similarities!

This will be all for now, see you next time!

Nana

2016 Expectations and Delusions

Hey guys!

So I just wanted to drop by today and make an overview from what I learned in 2015 and what my hopes are for 2016!

Well what to say, what to say...

As so many times before, I started seriously studying Japanese, learned Hiragana and Katakana completly finally! (still they need some reviewing, especially Katakana) 

I learned more Latin but unfortunatly put it on hold because summer vacation kicked in and I was having private lessons from my middle school Portuguese teacher!

Also started Italian in the middle of August, with some Spanish reviews here and there... In reality I didn't finish either courses, but I'm learning a lot form different sources, not only Duolingo trying to make sense of it all!

Well I think this was pretty much my 2015 language-wise, but I have higher hopes to 2016!

I want to start a Youtube channel, even if to just practice my speaking and having you all judge me there, this has been a little idea of mine for quite some time now, I follow a lot of polyglots on Youtube or just foreigners that are learning another language, and I always wished to become one of them!

Also, I wish to finish Italian and start French (That I should already know because I had it as a subject for three years in middle school, back when I wasn't really interested in languages other that English and Japanese) it's one of my biggest regrets not have taken advantage of the teachers I had at the time!

Getting into Kanji by the end of the year would also be perfect, if everything goes well I might have Japanese classes in colleage, so I'll certainly take advantage of that!

Kind-of-language-related wish is going to the UK to study, although I might not go to Languages, I really want to immerse myself in another country and learn as much as I can about that wonderful place! Besides from there I can travel to other places and experience a lot of more fun things and report it all back to you!

These are my main wishes for this year, I hope I can accomplish them all, if not I'll always have the next and so on, so on!

Tune in for more posts, I'm going to make some changes to the blog and the Tumblr page soon, so check that out!

Nana

Italian Prepositions

Hi guys!

Today I'm gonna share a bit of italian grammar with you all! 

The first thing one should know about prepositions in Italian is that they are divided into two groups: preposizioni semplici andpreposizioni articolate (=combined with the definite articles). When a definite article follows a preposition, they merge together to form anarticulated preposition.

The usual order in which you should memorise them is di, a, da, in, con, su, per, tra, fra.
di: of, from; it’s possibly one of the most important prepositions in the list. It expresses a relationship of belonging between two entities (genitive). When followed by a definite article, di shifts to del, dello, degli, dei, della, delle according to the gender and number of the noun the article is referring to, e.g. i giorni della settimana, la camicia dei baristi. It can also mean from in sentences where you have[essere] + di [città], as in sono di Roma.

• a: at, to; it means at [a place] when used with a verb that expresses state or location, mainly essere and stare, and some of their synonyms like rimanere, restare, etc, e.g. sono a scuola; stare a letto. It becomes al, allo, agli, ai, alla, alle when combined with the definite articles. It’s a very productive prepositions as it is usually employed to form phrasal verbs such as pensare a, chiedere a, dire a, etc.

• da: from, for/since (when talking about time and duration); it becomes dal, dallo, dagli, dai, dalla, dalle when combined with a definite article. It’s mostly used in the same exact way you would use from in English, e.g. from: vengo dal cinema; vengo dalla Svezia. For/since: ti aspetto da due ore; vivo in Italia dal 2010.

• in: in; when combined with the definite articles, it becomes nel, nello, negli, nei, nella, nelle. It usually means inside of something and can thus be a synonym of dentro.

• con: with; it can be combined with all the definite articles, although collo, colla, cogli, colle are often avoided in writing, while the articulated forms col, coi are employed in both writing and speech.

• su: on, above, about; it becomes sul, sullo, sugli, sui, sulla, sulle when combined with the definite articles. There isn’t any particular difference between English on/above and Italian su; e.g. sto seduto sulla sedia; l'aereo vola sulla città. About: è un libro sulla prima guerra mondiale.

• per: for, through; per never merges with the definite articles in standard Italian, whereas articulation may be employed in poetry. Its meanings aren’t much different than in English, e.g. il regalo è per te; ho letto per un giorno intero. It can also meanbecause of in sentences like ho pianto per il dolore.

• tra/fra: between, among, in (when talking about time); both tra and fra are synonyms nowadays and can both mean between andamong. There isn’t any specific difference in usage in Italian compared to its English counterpart. Combination with the definite articles is not possible, e.g. between/among ci vediamo fra le 3 e le 4; siediti tra Carlo e Francesco; il fiore fra gli alberi. In: ci vediamo fra due ore.

Source:http://langsandlit.tumblr.com/post/135450672168/italian-prepositions-an-introduction


I hope you liked it! This will be my last post in 2015, so I want to wish you all a very good New Year, may all your wishes for 2016 become true as well, and I'll see you next time!

Nana

My Favorite Langblrs

Hey minna!

So two weeks ago I talked about the wonderful world of languages and how great of a community it is.

So today I came to share with you some of my favorite langblrs!

- Japanese Words
- language + literature
- Daily Japanese Phrase
- The Polyglot Haven
- Languages and Linguistics
- My Language Studies
- Hi Salut Hola
- Poliglotic
- definitly lingual
- Languages. What else?
- language studyblr
- You wouldn't understand: It's an Italian thing
- Translated Thoughts
- Kanji with Tavo
- Polyglot Nerd
- The Polyglot I'll Be
- I polyglot this
- Asociación Políglota Autodidacta de México

And there are many, many more I love to follow, these although, are the top ones, I hope someday this blog can reach and help as many people as these help me!

This will be all for now, see you next time!

Nana

Verb Conjugation Sheet

Hey guys!!!

So today I bring you something that will certainly be very helpful to you all!

I already shared this on my Tumblr, but many of you may not have seen it so I decided to do a post about it!

APAM or Asociación Políglota Autodidacta de México created some wonderful verb conjugation sheets that can be used for a great number of languages!

This is their presentation image, the great thing about this is that it's completly free, you can download it any time, or save it to your Dropbox, and acess it any time!

Here is the link to the Tumblr post where you can download the sheets! Be sure to follow them to for more useful content! 

And here is one of the samples, as you can see it is personalized to each language, so you can download the ones you want to learn only!

Well it will be all for now, I'll see you next time!

Nana

Immacolata Concezione

Ciao belle persone!

Yesterday was December 8th, also known as the day of the Immaculate Conception. In many countries (such as mine, and especially in Italy) it's considered a national holiday, many people nowadays don't even know what it stands for, at least here in Portugal, they just take it as a day where they don't have to go to school/work and don't look further into it, but this year I decided to do it!

This holiday was first solemnized as a Holy Day of Obligation on 6 December 1708 under the Papal Bull Commissi Nobis Divinitus by Pope Clement XI. It is considered a day to be spent with family, eating ethnic foods, watching fireworks and parades, all in honor of the Virgin Mary.

Personally I'm not religious but I do know of people, especially elders that at least go to church on this day where the priest or other religious entity gives a special mass regarding this day.

Exacly nine months after, on September 8th it is celebrated the Nativity of Mary that it's the supposed birthday of the holy Virgin. Of course no one knows for sure when she was born this being just a speculation.

Whether you are a religious person or not the fact is that this is a public holiday in many, many countries (most of all predominantly Catholic) and now you know the reason you get to stay at home!

This will be all for now, see you tomorrow!

Nana

Weekly Goals 6

Hey hey people!!

So as you must've noticed I didn't do my Thursday post, I was just so busy this week it was impossible!

So as a result I didn't achieve many of my goals, and I'm going to essencially repost them here to finish it all and review a little to oil up my brain!

Japanese

- Finish "Learn Basic Japanese" course on Memrise
- Brief introduction to Kanji on Tae Kim's course
- Finish level 6 on Genki

Italian

- Clothing
- Present 1
- Colors
- Conjunctive

Spanish

- Present 3
- Verbs: Infinitive 1

Let's hope this week I can do it all!

It's all for now, see you next time!

Nana

Duolingo

Hey minna!!

Sorry for the late post (here it's still tuesday though), today I'm going to talk about the app/website I've been completly OBCESSED about, Duolingo!

I've been using it to study Italian and Spanish, but I'll probably use it for all european languages I want to learn! The interface is really easy to use and understand and it's much better divided than Memrise (And while memrise's courses are made by users and have some errors this one is made by people who really know the language and it's constantly imprving from tips form natives and other people.

To me Duolingo is much easier to use on the pc than Memrise, but the phone/tab version is also pretty good! It has many different exercises all for free, including speaking ones that really helps your pronouciation!

Of course it has some flaws as every app does, and you can't study exclusivly from it, but if you complement it with a manual and even Memrise to build up more advanced vocabulary it is perfect!

Also when a verb appears you have the option to see it's whole conjugation which for me is absolut heaven!!

Well this will be all for now, see you guys later!

Nana

Weekly Goals 5

Heyoo!

Aoo... This week I was a bit lazy with my japanese, in part because I was so fascinated with Duolingo and discovering how it worked and all... So those goals will remain the same!

But not everything is bad news! And this one is big! I will also brush up my Spanish!!!

There are a TON of things I've forgotten and a ton that I don't even know (pfft, school education am I right??) so I decided I can't stop completly spanish, so I'll integrate it on my weekly goals too!

I'll also be learning it on Duolingo so it'll be kind of similar.

Japanese

- Finish "Learn Basic Japanese" course on Memrise
- Brief introduction to Kanji on Tae Kim's course
- Finish level 6 on Genki

Italian

- Plurals
- Animals
- Food 2
- Possession
- Clothing
- Questions
- Present 1
- Colors
- Conjunctive

Spanish

- Present 3
- Verbs: Infinitive 1

Some of these levels have A LOT of content while other have very few, that is why Italian has so many goals whilst Spanish has so few, I'm trying to calibrate the two the best I can and not overload myself, especially since I also have a paper to deliver in History class and next week will be really eventfull!

This will be all for now, see you next time!

Nana

UPDATE!!!

Hey guys!

Just a quick update, I'm going to stop (or almost stop) learning italian through Memrise and I'm going to start commiting to Duolingo! I find that website much more resourceful and complete, and it has much better explanations for begginers (at least I think so) So yeah, I'll still use Memrise for vocabulary, but that essencially nullifies this weekly goals for Italian!!

Thank you all and see you next time!

Nana

Weekly Goals 4

Hello cutiepies!

I am pretty proud that I was able to complete almost all my objectives for last week, and hopefully I can continue! I want to write even more texts and share my improvement with all of you who take your time to read this.

So without further ado I present to you this week's goals!

Japanese:

- Finish "Learn Basic Japanese" course on Memrise
- Brief introduction to Kanji on Tae Kim's course
- Finish level 6 on Genki

Italian:

- Complete 3 levels about verbs
- Finish 3 levels of grammar
- Begin "Hacking Italian" on Memrise
- Practice texts

So this will be all for this week, well I say all, btu between this, school, gym and other extracurricular activities I have, it's plenty!

See you later!

Nana

Una Finestra Dimenticata

"È 'stata il mio rifugio sicuro,

Quella finestra aperta,

Quando stavo male,

Quando stavo soffrendo,

La guardavo sempre,

Aspettando tempi e luoghi migliore.

Ancora oggi guardo quella finestra,

Ma più non vedo la sicurezza,

Non vedo una dolce bulgia,

Ma una verità amara,

Un'infanzia dimenticata,

Quella finestra chiusa."

- Nana Beluzzi

So yeah here is my first ever poem in italian! I don't know about you but I think everything sounds more romantic and plainly better in this marvellous language, and I'm really proud i was able to do this!

I confess I have quite the few mistakes and had it corrected on Lang-8 but that is how you grow, making mistakes and learning from them!

I hope you like it and until next time!

Nana

Come ti senti?

Ciao amici!

This week I'm here to talk about our feelings, specially how to convey your feelings to others in Italian!

Besides the frequent "ti amo" we have a ton of other stuff we might want to convey to our friends, family, or even strangers on the street!

And to do this you just have to add "sono" (I am) to the word of your choosing. For example:

I'm tired - Sono stanco

I'm angry - Sono arrabbiato

I'm happy - Sono felice

And so many more! this list is just a small portion of the words and situations in which you can use them!

To others words like the love and hate, as previously mentioned you can use "Ti" (you) before like in "Ti amo" and "Ti odio".

This will be all for now, see you next time!

Nana

Weekly Goals 3

Hey cutie pies!

We're back this week with more weekly announcements!

Well despite being busy half the week I was finally able to catch up some more and start some new courses on Memrise, but as I start new courses I'll have a TON of reviewing to do, so I'll be taking a small break on the advances this week to deal with that!

It is to be expected also Tuesday or Thursday (or perhaps both) the release of some small texts I've been doing on my spare time to train and start to put to use what I learn. Keep in mind these will probably still be in an elementary school level, so don't expect much!

Now for this week's goals:

Japanese

- Review
- Finish "Learn Basic Japanese" course on Memrise
- Finish level 4 and 5 on Genki


Italian

- Review
- Finish 5 levels of "Easy Italian Grammar"
- More verbs
- Practice writing

This will be all for this week, thank you lots, 

Nana

Weekly Goals 2

Hey guys!!

So as I've said last week was chaotic so I didn't get the chance to fulfill all my goals, so until i get things going these are going to be essencially the same!

Japanese 

- Finish the "Learn Basic Japanese" course on Memrise
- English to Katakana practice
- Reviewing Hiragana and Katakana thoroughly
- Genki: Chapters 1, 2 and 3

Italian

- Start the course "Easy Italian Grammar" on Memrise
- Start learning verbs
- Practice longer sentences, texts, descriptions, etc...

Some are already crossed down but need serious reviewing, so I'll keep them here, I hope this week I can cross them all!

It's all for now!

Nana

Weekly Goals

Hey minna!

So I'm starting a weekly kind of thing called "Weekly Goals" that essencially update you on what I'm planning to study during the week!

So here it goes, this is going to be week one, despite me studying for a lot longer now...

Japanese 

- Finish the "Learn Basic Japanese" course on Memrise
- English to Katakana practice
- Reviewing Hiragana and Katakana thoroughly
- Genki: Chapters 1, 2 and 3

Italian

- Start the course "Easy Italian Grammar" on Memrise
- Verbs
- Practice longer sentences, texts, descriptions, etc...

It seems little but I do have school and gym on the side, I don't have much free time, still I'll try my hardest! 
I'll cross these things one by one when I finish them (some of course I won't finish this week, only start) but let's hope this way I can progress faster on this journey!

This is all for now!

Nana

[UPDATE]

So yeah many of the goals I didn't achieve, last week was crazy, so I'll put the same goals this next week!

Books: Ma le Stelle Quanto Sono, Giulia Carcasi

Ciao!

Today I'm here to talk you about one of my favourite books of all times! I read it perhaps five years ago (more or less), but to this day I never forgot it. i found it in my school's library, but since I never found it again, I remembered the name though, so I researched it and finally discovered it was an italian book (I read it translated) and since then one of my goals have been buying the book in the original italian and reading it whole!

This is an image ofthe cover, and right here you can see the reason I loved it so much (because yes, I judge a book by it's cover). This story is told in two different perspectives, the girl's and the boy's. Of course it's a YA romance, but I found it really beautiful, so I look forward to read it again!

"C'è una generazione fatta di sms, gavettoni, crèpes alla nutella, professori frustrati; c'è la voglia di essere ascoltati e di giudicare la vita, gli adulti, l'ingiustizia. Ci sono Carlo e Alice: stessa classe e, a volte, stesso banco. Lui è meravigliosamente imbranato, senza modelli da incarnare, senza maschere. Lei si sente diversa, non omologata, è uno spirito critico e, al contempo, una sognatrice. Il loro cuore è ancora poco addestrato, bravissimo a sbagliare. E così Alice casca tra le braccia di Giorgio, nascosto e intrigante. Carlo si lascia sedurre da Ludovica, la classica ragazza facile che sa il fatto suo. Diciotto anni. Due ragazzi si affacciano su un mondo adulto che capiscono poco, tanto più se la scuola, la famiglia e gli amici si mettono di mezzo... Ma le stelle quante sono è un romanzo senza peli sulla lingua, schietto, diretto, una freccia che va dritta al bersaglio. Una partita di ping-pong sentimentale. Con una bella ventata di romanticismo. Un libro a due facce. A due sessi. A due voci. Per un amore solo." 

This is Goodread's preview on it, I found it to be a really pretty story, and completly worth it, if you do decide to read it, I completly reccomend it, it's full of beautiful, inspiring lines, very well written too, definitly gold!

Arrivederci,

Nana

Learning Through Music - Italian

Ciao!

As promissed today I bring to you the songs I personally use when learning Italian. Some of these songs belong to my childhood and I've known them by heart since I remember, others I found them when I first started learning Italian, as always this is my personal taste.

Italian works a little different from the japanese songs I showed you. Since it's a language that is really close to my native one, even closer than to English, I sometimes only look for the original lyrics (or "testo" as you say it in italian) and try to guess some of the meanings, decoding it.

This is the example of a song with both English and Italian lyrics. It's a very old song that I grew up with, so I know it well, and it has a decent amount of vocabulary, and the slow rythm allows you to follow it, word by word.

I think this is also an old song, this one doesn't have the translations, but the slow pace allows you once more to accompany it with ease.

This are three artist that I really like and that you should definitly check out! They are all fairly recent and still releasing musics today, of course you can research many more in bletween the genres you like the most.

This is all for today, see you next time!

Nana