I Will Make Myself Proud

I will make myself proud

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1 revision sheet = 10 minutes of tumblr after...

God I’m bad at revision!

How to know which language level you’re at and tips for improving your skills - divided by proficiency level!

These are all my personal thoughts and experiences from reaching a proficient level in one language, and an intermediate in another!! Feel free to correct me or add whatever you wish<3

 1. A0 - Knowledge Level: Nothing

At this stage, you have absolutely no knowledge or very little knowledge about a language. My advice is to start out slow: the alphabet, pronunciation rules, basic pronouns, colors, etc. At this point, there’s not much you can improve on (Reading/Writing, Listening and Speaking) since you’ve got no actual knowledge to expand upon. Try apps like Duolingo, have fun with translating words such as your favorite animal, plant, or swear word. Don’t put too much pressure on yourself at this point, it’s all in good fun! Try starting a notebook in which you write down new words, (i.e. all of them) or watching a couple videos on Youtube, even if you don’t understand much.

2. A1 - Knowledge Level: Just a Bit

This is when you slowly exit the stage of “is this even a language” and enter the “beginner” world. You know a couple basic verbs (to be, to have, eat, sleep, walk, talk, etc) and some sets of basic nouns/pronouns. (weekdays, months, numbers, colors, objects you find around the house, and all that fun jazz.) You can string together a couple sentences you’ve heard twenty times on Duolingo! Regardless of the fact that “The boys drink milk” is not really something you’ll need in irl conversation, it’s good that you’re getting familiar. By this time, you should start looking into proper grammar rules such as verb terminations, tenses, noun declinations, pronouns, etc. Children’s books are a good way to learn a lot of stuff you’d need. The language is simple and it goes straight to the point, which is the only type of writing you understand, mostly. Right now, speaking is not really an option aside from learning to pronounce words right. Listening, on the other hand, can be done really easily! If you find that Youtube channels in your target language are boring or too hard to understand, music is the way to go. You’re especially lucky if you’re a Disney fan, because most of their songs are easy to remember and are dubbed in a lot of languages, so have fun with finding what fits you best!

3. A2 - Knowledge Level: Basic/Preliminary

Now we’re beginning to see some major improvements. You pick up words easier, you can read almost perfectly even if you don’t understand everything, and you can form really basic sentences by yourself. For speaking, by now you should be able to say your name, the place you live in, and maybe talk about your hobbies or your favorite stuff! It depends on if you’ve worked with a teacher until now or not, so don’t worry if you’re still struggling. As a stepping stone between beginner and intermediate, this level can either be the one when you slowly improve or make a really big jump in your skills. Listening to songs and youtube videos should be easier, but nobody is expecting you to actually comprehend everything. As for vocabulary and reading, learning new words should come more intuitively by now, but again, you’re still in the early days. Writing is still something that can be difficult, so try maybe linking a couple sentences together to make a short story and translating some simple texts. But it you don’t find it difficult, writing a hundred words once a couple days may be the way to go.

4. B1 - Knowledge Level - Intermediate

Finally, we’ve reached the intermediate stage! By now you should be able to hold very basic conversation and reveal information about yourself. You should be able to pick up words you know from the people around you, and understand mostly everything if spoken slowly and clearly to. Reading light books or magazines should be challenging but okay, while you should be able to remember certain words without making too big of an effort. By this stage, active learning is still essential, as you probably have a lot more ahead in your language learning journey. I encourage you to write short stories or several sentences about your day in a diary, depending on what works for you. Watching Youtube videos should be something you do often, because it improves listening skills greatly and gets you accustomed to informal speech patterns and filler words.

5. B2 - Knowledge Level - Advanced Intermediate

Yay! You have officially reached the advanced intermediate stage! You should be able to hold everyday conversation without too big of a headache, listening probably isn’t a breeze for you but still, if you watch a basic youtube video you can pretty much get all of it. YA books should be a regular part of your reading, since they’re not too hard to comprehend but still a good reading exercise. Vocabulary probably isn’t a bother anymore, since you know most of the words you need and the ones you don’t, you hear them once or five times and they stick to you. At this level you can probably write some basic fanfiction, or anything that doesn’t require advanced language skills but is still challenging. Congrats! You’re almost at an advanced level!

6. C1 - Advanced

If you’re still here, means you’ve got a strong sense of dedication. C1 is the advanced level, where you have pretty much everything that you need to comfortably live your life in a country which speaks your target language. If you’re already here and most of the above things seem far, far away to you, then maybe it’s time to get down on some serious reading. Look up local classics, or contemporary works that stimulate your mind. Writing essays, reviews, reports, etc, should be something you are able to do, as you have a good grasp on both formal and informal language, both literary concepts and idioms/phrasal verbs/slang. Listening should come easily, with the ability to understand everything that is spoken to you without worries, as long as they don’t have an alien accent. Speaking, too, should be a breeze by now, with everyday conversation being a piece of cake and more formal conversations not posing too big of a challenge. If you want to reach the next– and last– level, it can be done through thorough preparation of skills that are usually required by exams or for language-related jobs. If you don’t care about either of these, congrats! You learned a language! 

7. C2 - Proficient

Long past fluency, you now wish to master a language, down to its very core and history. Pick up some of the big classics to read. Watch a bunch of those complicated videos explaining complicated concepts. Write poetry and prose,and speak to people in contexts which require more than the average range of vocabulary. If you’re still not satisfied, get a damn teacher. Tumblr can’t help you now.

Food, Glorious Food.

Bonjour mes petits pétales!

Ok, so this is my first fan fiction that I've ever published! Please give me feedback, I really need the help! 😂🤭 

Bit of a pre warning: 

(I’m a bit of a history nerd) A Pavise is a large rectangular shield that would have covered the entire body, just in case you didn't know :)

Much love! 

(ﾉﾟοﾟ)ﾉﾐ★゜・。。・゜゜・ 

The silence resonating amongst the prison of Mirkwood was chilling. Although this was somewhat an improvement for the residents. Some floors above, the white-haired elves tilted their heads and looked inquisitively from one another to establish why the dwarves had ceased their droning complaints, which before now were so loud and irritating they could have easily woken a Balrog from its slumber.

Now, you had been travelling with the dwarves for quite some time after they had accepted you with relative ease, all thanks to Gandalf’s pre-warning. A prophecy had been passed straight from Galadriel to the wizard himself when he had been summoned to Lothlórien with an urgent invite.

The prophecy stated that a strange woman would be found in Middle Earth and was to aid Thorin Oakenshield in his quest to regain the dwarves’ homeland.  Gandalf had taken you to one side after the trouble of finding you, explaining how the dwarves could not know how it had been the elves to deliver the prophecy, despite you not really listening; it did not help that you were extremely cold and frightened, as, I think we can all agree, being transported midway through throwing an empty wine bottle at your god-awfully loud French roommate, whilst in your short Assassin’s Creed pyjamas was not the most ideal moment to be taken from.        

Anyway, that had been months previous to now. The morning before the silence fell had begun like any other… stuck with a load of dwarves, in a prison cell, in a cave that looked like a big tree.

“No, no, no! But that’s not how names work!”

Thorin scrutinised the girl through tense, tired eyes and huffed out a response,

“Well, that is how my name works”.

“That’s not an answer. You are the line of DURIN, yes?”

Thorin leaned his cranium against the jagged wall behind him and closed his eyes. To his chagrin, the girl continued.

“I mean how do they even know it was a bit of oak, anyway? You were in the middle of a bloody battle, not a nature walk, it could’ve been, Christ I don’t know, birch! Thorin Birchshield! Doesn’t really have the same ring, does it?”

“(Y/N)…”

“If we’re completely honest, Durin does kind of sound better than Oakenshield. More regal.”

“(Y/N)-“

“But then Dis married another man so why is Kili and Fili Durin, because surely the line of Durin is your ancestors, not Dis’ husband's. Could Fili become Fili Pine-Pavise? Nah, that seriously doesn’t sound-“

“FOR MAHAL’S SAKE (Y/N)! WILL YOU SHUT YOUR GOB, OR GOD HELP ME, I WILL CHARGE THROUGH THESE BARS AND DO IT MYSELF!”

The rest of the dwarves were immensely glad for Dwalin’s roar because, let’s be real, (Y/N) could go on chattering to herself like a babbie rook for quite some time.  

The (Y/HC) haired girl grunted and collapsed to the floor with the grace of a ballerina (with a broken foot, although in irritation her movement into sitting crosslegged seemed far more elegant).

She sat in that position for a good while, simply fiddling with the edges of her jacket. A slight crinkle made the woman’s hand pause in its ministrations. She fingered over the outline of the recognisable packet and allowed a Cheshire Cat grin to spread across her face.

Yanking the packet out of her inner pocket, she squealed when she indeed proved herself right and laid her eyes upon the glorious red packaging, the wonderful white letters imprinted over the wave of multicoloured ovals.

A sort of… gleam of obsession flowed its way across her eyes. She could fondly remember the days of how she would tackle Antoine to the ground before shoving one or two up his nose for bringing home another woman without informing his roommate. The wine bottle was the final straw, I mean the girl wasn’t that aggressive (only mildly). Besides, having to walk out of your room to find a half-naked woman making pancakes would get old after the first few times, no matter how delicious the pancakes were. Giggling to herself, she chanted under her breath, something sounding like “taste, taste, taste the rainbow”. It was a wonder she hadn’t fallen down with Bilbo in the goblin cavern, but maybe that’s just what Tumblr is doing to kids nowadays… moving on.

“What’s that you got there, Lass?” The lively voice of Bofur broke her train of thought.

“Hm? Oh! These, dear child, are the finest sweets in all of creation!”

The two’s chatter had gained the attention of a few of the other dwarves, the rest following after Fili and Kili’s “ooh”s and “aah”s. (Y/N) rolled her eyes at the two ‘young’ dwarves and popped a couple of brightly coloured circles into her hand before passing them through the bars into Bofur’s cell.

He chewed. And chewed. And chewed. Swiftly, Bofur jumped up with a caw of excitement and laughed.

“Lass you’ve got to share those! Boys, why they’re the most incredible things I’ve ever tasted!”

A final wave of commands and pleads washed its way over the woman, who giggled at their enthusiasm and happily handed the bag around to her new (adopted?) family.  

That was until a thundering voice shouted out in disgust: “Blech! Ugh no, they’re awful! How on earth did you eat those, brother?” Bombur exclaimed. The air in the prison stilled as the dwarves paused their pestering for more of the sweets.

Well, that was a first.

And to think, to find a food Bombur didn’t like only took a strange woman falling from another world.

Indeed it was true:

Bombur couldn’t handle the rainbow.

how to get the most out of duolingo

duolingo is a great app/website that you can use to begin learning a foreign language, but unfortunately you most likely won’t be able to fully learn the language if you only use duolingo. so, here are some things that you can do to get the most out of duolingo and to learn your target better.

1. read the lessons - most of the languages (especially if you’re learning in english) have little lessons. however, these are only available on the website, so if you use the app, you might want to occasionally check in online and click on the little lightbulb to read the lessons. they usually aren’t super in-depth, but for beginners it is super helpful and not as heavy as a textbook grammar guide.

2. don’t work too fast and always revise - if you’re knocking out a bunch of lessons a day thinking you’ll learn faster, this could be true, but most likely it’s not. if you work at a steady pace and remember to do it once a day (preferably at the same time – they say this is better for memorization) you will learn it better. if you do one lesson or maybe two a day and you still have time for more, go ahead and revise a little. when i first started french, i did two lessons a day and then always revised to make sure i remembered everything.

3. study the vocabulary - not all of the courses have this, but on the online version some of the courses have a tab on the top that says “words” and this is a great place to find all the vocabulary that you’ve been learning in your courses. go through the list and find all the words you don’t know that well or at all and make some flashcards or a set on quizlet and study them. learn how to spell them, pronounce them, conjugate them, and use them within a sentence. if you do this, you’ll always have a solid base to fall back on. this goes for learning conjugations, as well.

4. start learning your native language in your target language - after you’ve finished all the courses in your target language, feel free to revise daily. you might want to, however, start learning your native language in your target language. this might not be an option for all the languages offered on duolingo. for me, i learned english in french. this was helpful for picking up more phrases and seeing more common ways that french people write. if you’re feeling particularly confident and know your stuff really well, try learning a new language in your target language. for example, i did the spanish course in french, which definitely helped with my french phrasing while translating. 

5. don’t stop after you finish your course - if you’ve done it right, finishing your course on duolingo will give you a really good start to the language you’re learning. after you’ve finished, keep revising, but also go ahead and start learning your target language in different ways. i made a whole in-depth post on how to learn a language online here. some ideas are reading children books, watching youtube videos and movies, and talking to natives all in your target language. never give up because it will be worth it.