Getting To Know Me

20/01/2019

So I bought myself an iPad to save my back because I carry about far too many notebooks but I still like writing my notes. I’m also saving paper haha

I’m still getting to grips with this but I really love it so far!

Sorry for the inactivity - I just needed to take some time off. But I’m back now! I’ve got my mock results back and I’m very happy with them :)

More kidney notes before I leave for summer school at the University of Cambridge!

14/08/19 22:11

Less than 11 hours until I get my results! My plan is to wake up at 7am... except this plan is inherently flawed because it follows the (false) assumption that I will sleep at all.

I’m so stressed even though I shouldn’t be but I am because in this moment it’s a big deal even though it’s not really and oh my god why am I like this

02/10/18 - 20 days of productivity

Pictured above are my biology class notes and then my written up, neat version I refer to when I revise. I like writing them up - it’s therapeutic and helps me remember them. However, I typed these up in my only free period only for my memory stick to decide to corrupt itself beyond repair for no reason at the end of the lesson, so I lost everything. I’m currently crying about that - even though I have hard copies of all my other notes, which is good. I didn’t lose too much!

Today I had a fairly alright day - but I completely forgot to do my French homework and cried a bit because that’s so unlike me. I had an excellent German lesson though, and I’m Chemistry I got to do separate things to everyone else because my teacher dreads me getting bored haha

OMG I needed this

How to teach yourself linguistics online for free

Wish you were enrolled in an intro linguistics class this semester? Starting a linguistics major and looking for extra help? Trying to figure out whether you should study linguistics and what comes after?  Whether you’re just trying to grasp the basics of linguistics or you’re trying to construct a full online linguistics course, here’s a comprehensive list of free linguistics websites, podcasts, videos, blogs, and other resources from around the internet: 

Linguistics Podcasts

Specific episodes:

The International Phonetic Alphabet and vowels

Constituency

Gricean Maxims and presuppositions

Kids These Days aren’t ruining language

Learning languages linguistically

Phonemes

Prepositions and determiners

Morphemes and the wug test

Podcasts in general:

Lingthusiasm

The History of English Podcast

Talk the Talk

Lexicon Valley

The World in Words

A Way With Words

Linguistics Videos

Modular topics:

NativLang (cartoons)

The Ling Space

Tom Scott’s Language Files

Arika Okrent (whiteboard videos)

Structured video series like an online course:  

Introduction to Linguistics (TrevTutor)

Another intro linguistics series (DS Bigham)

Phonology (TrevTutor)

Mathematical linguistics (TrevTutor)

Syntax (TrevTutor)

Another syntax series following the chapter structure of a free online syntax textbook (Caroline Heycock)

The Virtual Linguistics Campus at Marburg University

“Miracles of Human Language” (on Coursera from Leiden University)

Blog posts

General

How much do I need to know before taking intro linguistics? (Spoiler: not much) 

28 tips for doing better in your intro linguistics course

How to find a topic for your linguistics essay or research paper

For typesetting linguistics symbols: What is LaTeX and why do linguists love it? (with sample LaTeX doc to download and modify).

Further linguistics resources about specific areas, such as sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, language acquisition (first/second), historical linguistics, neurolinguistics, prescriptivism. 

Phonetics & Phonology

How to make your own paper model of the larynx

Teaching phonetics using lollipops

How to remember the IPA vowel chart

How to remember the IPA consonant chart

IPA transcription practice

A detailed explanation of sonorants, obstruents, and sonority

A very elaborate Venn diagram of English phonological features

The basics of how Optimality Theory works, with coffee analogy

Allophones of /t/, explained with internet gifs

Several good visualizations and explanations of the vocal tract

How to type IPA on your phone (Android and iOS) 

Various ways to type IPA on a computer

Morphology & Syntax

Morphological typology cartoons

So you asked the internet how to draw syntax trees. Here’s why you’re confused.

Types of trees: a sentence is an S, a sentence is an IP, a sentence is a TP

A step-by-step guide to drawing a syntax tree, with gifs

Distributed Morphology

Garden path sentences: how they work, some examples

Structural ambiguity and understanding people in Ipswich

How to draw trees on a computer (TreeForm and phpSyntaxTree) 

Pronoun typology and “the gay fanfiction problem”

The solution to violent example sentences: Pokemon

Semantics & Pragmatics

The difference between epistemic and deontic, necessity and possibility (with bonus modals as Hogwarts houses)

Why learn semantics? Comebacks to annoying people.

Presuppositions, implicature and entailment, and more presuppositions in Lizzie Bennet Diaries

Gricean maxims in Welcome to Night Vale

Scalar implicature and a duck gif

Giving a shit about Negative Polarity Items, NPIs explained using Mean Girls references, and a follow-up on Free Choice Items

The lambda calculus for absolute dummies

The Lambda Calculator (software for practising in Heim & Kratzer style)

Teaching & Academic/career advice

Linguistics resources for high school teachers

Teaching linguistics to 9-14 year olds

On writing an IB extended essay in linguistics (& follow-up)

IPA Bingo

IPA Jeopardy and IPA Hangman

Practising syntax trees using cards and string/straws

Find a linguistics olympiad near you!

Editing linguistics Wikipedia articles instead of writing a final paper that no one but the prof will read (see also wikiedu.org)

Should you go to grad school in linguistics? Maybe

Figuring out if you actually want to go to linguistics grad school

How to decide which linguistics grad school to go to

How to look for linguistics undergrad programs

How to interact with someone who’s just given a talk

An extensive list of undergrad and/or student-friendly conferences - apply to one near you!

Advice for linguistics profs on increasing enrollment and supporting non-academic careers

Linguistics jobs - a series about careers outside academia

Languages

Linguistic approaches to language learning resource roundup

Will linguistics help with language learning? / Will learning a second language help with linguistics?

The problem with “economically useful” as a reason for language learning

Further link roundups

This list not enough? Try these further masterposts: 

A very long list of linguistics movies, documentaries, and TV show episodes

A list of books (fiction and nonfiction) about linguistics

A comprehensive list of language and linguistics podcasts, from Superlinguo 

A very long list of linguistics YouTube channels and other free online videos about linguistics 

20 linguistics blogs I recommend following

How to explain linguistics to your friends and family this holiday season

Studyblr Culture: How the Internet Changes Students' Perception on Studying

This survey aims to understand how the Studyblr community influences its members' perception on studying through the participation of and interaction with its members within the community.

Studyblr Culture: How the Internet Changes Students’ Perception on Studying

Hello everyone! My name is Sarabel and I’m a student in BA Creative Writing. In one of my GE subjects (English 13: Writing as Thinking), we’re asked to write a paper about how technology changes people, their way of life, methods, etc. Afterwards, we have to write a summarized version of it to submit to the Digital Disruption Asia-Pacific Writing Competition 2018 hosted by The New York Times.

For my paper, I’ll be writing about Studyblr. But since there hasn’t been much research about it, I will be conducting a survey to gather the data I need. It will be a tremendous help to me if you can spare a few minutes of your time to answer it. You only need to be a current student (high school, college, or graduate) and have an active studyblr to be qualified to participate in the survey.

The survey will ask about your study habits and methods before and after studyblr, your post-making process, the people you’ve interacted with in the community, your general views on Studyblr, and some basic socio-demographic questions.

Answer Survey

If you don’t have the time to answer, please at least reblog this post to help me gather more respondents. Thank you!

If you have any questions, feel free to dm me or send me an e-mail @ svvelez@up.edu.ph

28/09/18 - 17/100 days of productivity

Wow, these days are going fast. Almost 20% of the way there already!

Today was fairly boring in terms of what I did - I started the day with two of my three lessons: Chemistry (wherein we didn’t do much - just revision on benzene), Biology (test on the kidney), and then I had my friend pick up a McDonalds because I wasn’t allowed to leave and she was. Cheat days are ok if they are once in a very very long while 😂

After that I had German (character analysis on Hempf in Das Leben der Anderen). All while sipping on a strawberry milkshake :)

Then I had an hour free, which I used to do a review exercise in maths.

This evening I decided to take advantage of the fact that it is Friday night and chilled out. I’m not over-exerting myself right now because I don’t want to burn out, especally while I am still recovering from illness. I’m slowly but surely making progress with Le Père Goriot, and I am falling in love with the descriptions in this book.

I hope your studies go well and have a great day! x

Thank you so much! I appreciate that more than you’ll ever know xx

(I am still alive folks - I’ve got my German speaking exam on Friday 17th May and I’ve just done my French oral, which went fantastically!)

20/09/18 - 9/100 days of productivity

I had one lesson today - chemistry! We did a really simple practical for our official records which I am about to write up. I also got my maths mock back - 82/100, which is an A! I’m so happy!

Nothing can bring me down today and I’m feeling so productive. I’ve just done my German homework (as you can see, it’s about the EU 😭) and I have also done a load of Quizlet practice and admin for German.

I’ve also started reading Le Père Goriot by Honoré de Balzac, which my lovely French teacher brought back from her parents’ home in France for me to read!

Next up: filing away and revising French notes so I can be prepared for a mock speaking on Monday :)

21-24/11/2018 - 73-76 days of productivity

Hi guys! So today I was at the library all morning having a biology brain dump/crisis because we have literally just been told we have mocks in a couple of weeks. My Cambridge interview is the week before.

So yeah, I’m a little stressed right now. Which is why I am writing a formal petition to put the mocks back - none of our teachers knew about them and we are all basically screwed. I’m going to see how many signatures I can get and do this democratically.

However, I do have an incentive to work hard:

I have an unconditional offer from my favourite uni (behind Cambridge)!

If I don’t get into Cambridge, I’ll definitely be accepting the offer from the University of Birmingham to read Chemistry with German. Of course, if it becomes my insurance choice, it will become conditional - but it’s okay, because the only way it’ll be second best is to Cambridge.

My acceptance letter came with a handwritten note from the admissions tutor congratulating me on my knowledge of everything that came up at interview, which instantly made me smile.

So I’m stressed, but I got this!