"Does language influence how we think? What if we redesigned language? Let's talk about mnemonics."
I started a free newsletter sharing my thoughts on 👆 and tons more questions about language learning. First issue on Monday.
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#langtwt
First day at
@CoopDigital
today and impressed at how collaborative everyone is. Jumped into a team and was able to start contributing straight away. First real experience mobbing too, and I’m pleasantly surprised how effective and enjoyable it was to work that way.
10 days ago I tested positive hours before my flight back from Barcelona. Since then I've never felt so ill in my life. Today, finally, I feel like I'm back to a solid 80% and, really, it's such a joy to just feel healthy again.
I’m back! Literally 3 minutes after stepping outside the station someone says to me “Got the time our kid?”... and I just can’t think of a more Mancunian welcome back than that. 🐝
Here's a stupid meme I made in Esperanto. It's a play on the language's grammar. Let me explain.
🦑 "Loligo" is the Esperanto word for squid. But –igi is also the way you turn an intransitive verb into a transitive one. Eg: ridi = to laugh, ridigi = to make <someone> laugh.
One of the coolest things about life in Đà Nẵng is how easy it is to meet new friends and do random stuff together. Today we went to a fake French town they built here. So much fun, and amazing views!
Not getting your StackOverflow questions answered? Got questions sitting around collecting nothing but internet dust? Simply make a second account and post a blatantly incorrect answer. Watch as hundreds of thousands of programmers from around the world descend on your question.
I've been talking a lot about Esperanto this morning, so why stop now. Here's something fun for learners to try and understand (and has a nice message inside).
#langtwt
So I was watching
@lindiebee
's YouTube video about Thai resources and I thought: "Wait, I'm in Bangkok! I bet I can find these books!"
I blame (read as: thank) her for this! 😁 I can't wait to dive in and start. The beginning of a new language project is so exciting!
#langtwt
I have a project with a few thousand users. Very few people know I made it. As I resolve about 1 support issue/week, and see people continue to sign up and use the site, I’m humbled. There’s a deep satisfaction in being a background agent, making it happen for free.
It’s pretty awesome how many people are learning Esperanto with
@duolingo
alone. 1.5M people from Spanish and English, and Portuguese content just about to launch.
That makes it more popular than Chinese, Greek, Czech, Romanian, Welsh.
Correction. You can move any sum of money in $DASH to anyone, anywhere in the world with full confirmation in 1-3s and it’ll cost you $0.095, not $0.95 as I originally stated.
Who wants 1/12th the current $BTC fee when you can have 1/130th.
A few days ago I finished a little side project, which takes Esperanto text and speaks it (TTS).
If you’re curious: I blogged about where the idea came from, how it works, and included a little demo of the speech it produces.
How Does Esperanto Sound?
I’m thinking about doing a “Why you should learn Esperanto” talk at
@BarCampMCR
on Saturday, talking about how the language is a gateway to making international friends and other cool things.
👍 or 👎?
It was my last day at
@CoopDigital
today, and honestly, what an awesome bunch of people! Learned loads and definitely going to miss working with everyone.
The real victims in all of this are hard-working comedy show writers. How are they supposed to compete with the actual events coming out of this government. Honestly, just halt all new comedy shows. There are levels, and Parliament are smashing it out of the park right now.
Hey, I made a new thing. Parol is an Esperanto speech robot. It takes Esperanto text and phonetically converts it to Polish, so it can be passed into a Polish TTS to produce (surprisingly good) Esperanto speech. A pretty useful hack, if I do say so myself.
I just found out that some fiction I wrote for a competition will be published in a book sometime this year. Really happy about that! It's something I had never done before, so had to give it a go. 🙏
It's Esperanto Day today. Feliĉan Esperanto-Tagon al ĉiuj, kiuj ŝatas la lingvon! Got any questions about the language? It's one of most used ones, so ask away!
#langtwt
Years ago a made a little vanilla JS messenger for users of an Esperanto social site. It has sat there for years, ticking over without issues, helping a small group of people. I take such joy from being able to build things like that and see people get value from it over time. 🙌
TIL: the oldest lightbulb (Centennial Light Bulb) has been almost continuously on since 1901. It's now 120 years old. It has been in Fire Station 6, Livermore, California since 1976 where it still burns.
Impressive considering my code probably won't even make it until next week.
“Always remember that to argue, and win, is to break down the reality of the person you are arguing against. It is painful to lose your reality, so be kind, even if you are right.”
Want a free co-working space, with free coffee, free soft drinks, and free bits (lots of them)? I have no idea how this is possible, but B Works is impressive. I hope they manage to keep it sustainable.
Had an idea to build a small helpful tool on my train ride from Prague to Vienna. I’m half way into solving the problem already. I love coding for the ability to do that – to let your imagination run away and become an idea you can go ahead and build. That’ll never get old.
👨💻
One of the reasons I always default to Berlin for a working getaway is the sheer number of cool places to work from, from co-working spaces to coffee shops. Today’s was the Michelberger.
Recently I've hidden several easter eggs in the work I've been doing. They're very small, and probably won't ever be discovered, but the pleasure from doing that is irrationally high.
Woke up to find the app now has 25 people using it. It's super niche, so that's a bit surprising. I can't even describe how good it is to just build something for the pure joy of building things, but then see people dig and use your work. ☺️
I've tried (and mostly succeeded) in speaking only in Spanish to people here in Lanzarote. Had several compliments from folks too, which is super encouraging. Love it when people are supportive and help you once they realise that you’re learning. Very grateful for that.
#langtwt
5 years ago I had just arrived at SES – a week-long gathering of Esperanto speakers in Slovakia. I could barely speak the language then, and now I sometimes dream in it. Wild.
Something I enjoy doing when trying to practise a language is translate famous quotes that I like. Anyone else do this?
#langtwt
I'll give you an example I especially enjoyed.