Languages5 min read
Marathi Verbs: Building Your First Sentences
How Marathi verbs agree with gender and number, what the present and past look like, and the minimum you need for a working sentence.
120 articles · page 4 of 5
Languages guides, page 4
Articles 73–96 of 120, newest first. The introduction to this reading list, its topic hubs and the guides other articles cite most are on the first page.
Languages articles 73–96
- Languages4 min read
Marathi vs Hindi: Same Script, Different Language
Marathi and Hindi share Devanagari but split on grammar, gender, vocabulary and pronunciation. What transfers between them and what does not.
- Languages6 min read
Russian Cursive Handwriting: Reading It and Writing It
Russian cursive looks nothing like the printed alphabet. Which letters cause the trouble, how to read them, and how to practise writing them.
- Languages6 min read
Russian Verbs of Motion: Idti, Khodit and the Prefixes
The unidirectional and multidirectional pairs, what the prefixes add, and a way to keep the whole system straight without memorising a table.
- Languages6 min read
Russian Vowel Reduction: Why Written and Spoken Russian Differ
Unstressed Russian vowels change sound, which is why words never sound the way they look. The rules, in the order worth learning them.
- Languages6 min read
Russian Word Order: Flexible, But Not Free
Cases let Russian move words around, but position still carries meaning. How word order signals emphasis, and the defaults worth starting from.
- Languages4 min read
Shanghainese Phrases to Start With, and Why They Sound Odd
A short set of Shanghainese greetings and everyday phrases, with notes on where the pronunciation departs from what Mandarin would lead you to expect.
- Languages5 min read
Romanising Shanghainese: Picking a System When There Is No Standard
Shanghainese has several competing romanisations and no single standard. How we chose one for the course and what that choice costs learners.
- Languages5 min read
Shanghainese Tones and Tone Sandhi: How Many Are There Really?
Shanghainese tone counts vary by source because sandhi reshapes tones across a whole phrase. What that means for a learner in practice.
- Languages4 min read
Shanghainese vs Mandarin: Why Knowing One Barely Helps
Shanghainese and Mandarin share a writing system and little else. Tones, consonants, vocabulary and grammar compared without the dialect shorthand.
- Languages6 min read
Should You Learn Malay or Indonesian? A Decision Guide
Which of the two to study depends on where you are going and what resources exist. An honest look, including where Malay is the harder option to resource.
- Languages4 min read
Wu Chinese: The Family Shanghainese Belongs To
Wu is one of the major Chinese language groups. Where Shanghainese sits inside it, which neighbours it resembles, and how far intelligibility reaches.
- Languages9 min read
Cantonese Tones Explained: Six Tones, One Structure, and How to Practise Them
What the six Cantonese tones are, why some references say nine, which contrasts actually cause beginner errors, and how to practise tone without perfect pitch.
- Languages9 min read
Cantonese vs Mandarin: The Differences That Actually Change Your Study Plan
Cantonese and Mandarin are not mutually intelligible. Here is what differs in sound, romanisation, script and everyday vocabulary, and how to pick one.
- Languages4 min read
CEFR Levels Explained
What A1 through C2 actually describe, why the framework measures what you can do rather than what you know, and how to use it to set a study target.
- Languages4 min read
Comprehensible Input, Explained Without the Hype
What comprehensible input means, why difficulty level matters more than material choice, and where the strong version of the claim outruns the evidence.
- Languages9 min read
How Long Does It Take to Learn Russian? What the Published Figures Do and Do Not Say
The one public institutional figure for Russian study time is FSI's, and it describes full-time diplomatic training. Here is what it means and what it does not.
- Languages4 min read
Learning Italian: How Long It Actually Takes
Why hour estimates for learning Italian vary so much, what CEFR levels actually describe, and how to set a target you can measure honestly.
- Languages4 min read
How Many Words Do You Need to Be Conversational?
Why word-count targets mislead, what text coverage research actually shows, and why the words you choose matter far more than how many you learn.
- Languages8 min read
Is Thai Hard to Learn? Where the Difficulty Actually Sits
Thai difficulty is not evenly spread. Here is what the script and tones really cost, what the grammar gives back free, and what published guidance says.
- Languages4 min read
Is Vietnamese Hard to Learn for English Speakers?
An honest breakdown of what is genuinely difficult in Vietnamese, what is unexpectedly easy, and why the usual difficulty rankings mislead learners.
- Languages4 min read
Italian Articles and Gender Explained
Why Italian has so many words for 'the', how noun gender is usually predictable from the ending, and how to make agreement automatic rather than effortful.
- Languages4 min read
Italian Verb Conjugation: What to Learn First
The three conjugation families, why the irregular verbs are the ones you need most, and a prioritised order for learning Italian verbs that actually works.
- Languages10 min read
Khmer Script Explained: Two Series, Stacked Consonants and Four-Sided Vowels
Khmer has 33 consonants in two series, subscripts that stack downward and vowel signs on all four sides. Here is how a Khmer syllable is put together.