I passed a very minor milestone yesterday. Duolingo, the language-learning app, informed me that I had a “streak” of 1,000 days. In other words, for the past not-quite-three-years, most days, I have fired up the Duolingo app or website and done some sort of language lesson. I say “most days”: in theory the “streak” is supposed to mean I did it every single day, but in practice you can skip days here and there if you know what you’re doing. I’ve mostly been learning Welsh, with a smattering of Dutch, and occasionally revising my tourist-level German.
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Keyword noise: Duolingo, learning, languages, coding, Welsh, Cymraeg.
It’s been quiet on here over the past week. Other things have been keeping me busy: work, trying to sort things out for The Mother, and various other aspects of life. With all of those things to deal with, I didn’t really have time to write any well-written and properly-researched blog posts. Or, indeed, any regular ones.
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Keyword noise: Cymraeg, Welsh, Cymru, Wales, De Cymru, South Wales, language.
A few weeks ago, I read on Twitter—sadly I seem to have lost the reference—that the Welsh Hydref, used for either the month of October or autumn as a whole, originally had the literal meaning of “stag-cry”. From that, it turned into “stag-rutting season” and hence autumn. Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru lists “stag-rutting”, but not “stag-cry”.
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Keyword noise: Cymraeg, seasons, autumn, yr Hydref, meteor shower, meteors, Geminids, astronomy.