Who am I
I am moonface. Naturally, this isn’t my real name, but one given to me by my wife who considered at one point that my face was round or moon shaped. This is patently untrue but the name lingers on.
What is Surface Languages?
Surface Languages is a free language learning resource, which I curate and add to for fun and entertainment on a very add hoc basis.
And this blog?
I live a normal life in the United Kingdom, and here my friends is where I write about it, once in a blue moon.
Warts and all.
Besos, baci, and so on.
Moonface
Hi!
First of all, I’d like to congratulate you because of the magnificent work about language leaarning. Secondly, I’d would like to contribute to both your blog and website. I’m a native speaker of Spanish and I also speak other languages fluently. I studied in Japan and I speak Japanese, as well. So, please, let me know what I have to do in order to collaborate with you. My email address was stated above.
Hugs! Andrés
You must be a genius to have made all these! They are helpful and amazing. Although I only found your link after the 5th google page, I still recognized it as an outstanding project. For me, the concept of learning grammar as a beginner by learning a lot of sentences following underlying patterns(with audio and translation) is by far the most favorable method. And I don’t any other method better than this, yet people are still ignoring because I didn’t see much available source like this. So for me, your work is much more helpful. Also being aware that you are such an accomplished multi-language learner, I’m deeply impressed. Hopefully, the Italian sentences can bring me a good foundation. Thank you again!
Hey thanks.
I’m not a genius though, as other people did the translations for me:)
The programming is all mine!
MF
HELLO
I am not south african, but this phrase seems to mean
do i need change ? ‘money/coins
in chapter on travel on otherwesite
it seems to mean do I have to change (trains)
Het ek kleingeld nodig?
your web site is fantastic
thank you
PS I AM ENGLISH FRENCH BILINGUAL
You are right. Thanks for pointing this out. This was definitely a mistake and I’ve removed the phrase. (All the content is professionally translated but there the occasionally mistakes).
Glad you like the site.
Moonface
Do either of you websites give a certificate of completion?
No. They are just for fun.
can we add word sets to make flash cards in the mobile version of surface
love the site. wishing for more latin lessons.
sorry i was confused i thought there was only 2 sets of phases. gonna love it here.
Hello – I have been using your site to learn non-Brazilian Portuguese. It is a great site. However, will you add more to it? I find myself on a roll with things you have me learning and want more of it in the same fashion you provide so any additional vocabulary words, verbs, etc. that you can add would be extremely helpful. I live several months a year in Portugal and I’m trying to learn the language.
Thanks SO much for your site.
Thanks. I hope to add more on all the languages, but I don’t know when.
MF
Hello Moonface,
I’m fluent in English and German and am studying French, Italian and Japanese for a couple years now. A few months ago my younger sister and I decided to start learning Afrikaans together, we both use easyafrikaans and I really love this website. It’s easy to memorize the words and study without a teacher, it’s always fun and even if you only have 15 minutes to study at times, you’ll still make progress.
I was studying Afrikaans again and just felt like I should thank you! I’ll definitely continue using your language teaching websites to reach my life goal of speaking at least 10 languages fluently!
Thanks for that!
Love the site. I’ve been looking at the Swedish phrases and am puzzled by this:
How much is it (n)? Hur mycket kostar den?
How much is it (t)? Hur mycket kostar det?
Please explain somewhere visible on the phrase page what (n) and (t) mean?
Swedish has genders and the (n) and (t) refer to these. Have a look at .
I’m in the process of making the site mobile friendly. I’ll add something about this to the page when I finally get to it …
MF
Hello,
I would like to contribute by adding a new channel for the Albanian language.
The link is:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6NG0UWGLm6DqwFVTwJFq7w
This is a free course for Albanian language learners. I really hope you will publish its.
Best wishes,
Jonis
Sure. It looks interesting and I’ve added a link to it on the Albanian page on Surface Languages.
Best,
Moonface
I’ve been using your program for a year to learn European Portuguese. When I logged on today the entire format changed. You are now offering much less and I have relied on your program to help keep my language skills sharp. Is there a reason for the new format and change? I really miss how easy to access things was and, again, how much was offered.
Margo
Ola…..I just wrote to you yesterday because I was really confused with the new format here on Surface Languages. I had originally thought there was much less happening on here then there really is. I have found all of the places where I can continue with my Portuguese. Thank you. Perhaps this can be made a bit easier to find things. It was very easy and eye catching before these recent changes. Regardless…this is still my favorite place to learn/work on my Portuguese.
Thanks 🙂
Hi. The first advantage of the new layout is that it is mobile friendly, so you should be able to learn on you iPhone or android gadget. The second is that it will be easier to add new content/methods of learning. Finally, I hope/think that it should be faster – especially on phones/gadgets. We will see.
Best,
MF
Perfeito e obrigada! 🙂
I really like your Apps and i like what you’re doing, but i’m curious to know why there is no mention of, nor any Apps for the Japanese Language.
Time really.
I tend to add languages on an ad-hoc basis, as and when I can.
It is definitely on the list of languages that I would like to add.
Thanks for your amazing work on the easyAfrikaans website
It really helps a lot
Thanks!
MF
Your app’s contact link is broken or something. Noone can email it. It comes back undeliverable.
When are you going to update your WELSH language app ?
Thank you 🙂
I’ve no current plans to update it, partly due to lack of time …
… and also obtaining Welsh audio is (for whatever) reason prohibitively expensive.
Maybe one day:)
MF
Not sure if this is meant to appear here. There it is: the pronounciation of Latin is so strong in English accent that it makes it no Latin at all. Consonants like r and t are softened to silence by the translator. Is like if I didn’t know English, learning Latin here would make me unable to speak it unless to an English speaking interlocutor.
I think you get the idea. The rhythm and melody makes a language. The Latin here is a surrogate for people oblivious to it. To discordant to be worth considering. Which is a pity, considering the efforts to put together the material.
My attitude to Latin pronunciation is outlined on the main page.
Each to their own.
MF
Hi Moonface. I want to buy the afrikaans site from you
Regards
Johan
Hi Johan,
My sites are sites I play with, and improve over time but not sell.
Cheers,
MF
Hi there
I am SO grateful for your app on learning Latvian. This is the ONLY app available on the whole app store that is actually very good and helps me so much.
Please take a moment to hear my request: PLEASE can you add more words and phrases to your app? I have been finding the words you provided to be very useful and handy, but it really deserves an update!
I am planning to move to Latvia in my future – because my boyfriend is Latvian, and I desperately wish to learn more of this beautiful language in my free time. Please consider an update. I would appreciate it so much!
I am even willing to pay for new words if they are ever added.
Thank you so much if you read this and consider it!
Regards
Eva
Hi,
Thanks for your kind comments. I’m not really planning on doing any more apps at the moment but over time am adding 500 sentences to all the different languages already on surface languages. I’d hope to add Latvian one day but don’t know when. I tend to add sentences when I can find someone to do the translation/audio and that doesn’t cost too much – which is often difficult.
Good luck with your learning.
MF
Dear Sirs,
My name is Pavlo.
Our team including me and two other linguists has created the free Ukrainian online dictionary YeNotes which currently has the full functionality for the Ukrainian, English, French, Italian, and German languages. The dictionary is being filled from scratch by our linguistic team, and it also allows users adding their own translations (with the subsequent verification and approval by our team). So, we work on professional grounds, and aim to create an academic dictionary in the long run.
As our resources are limited, we are currently working on the English-Ukrainian section of our dictionary. But if the project gets the desired development, we truly hope to create a powerful dictionary providing high-quality translations from Ukrainian into all the languages mentioned above, and vice versa. You may see what our dictionary articles look like here (the translations marked in red are pending for additional verification):
https://www.yenotes.com/uk/?q=cat&from_lang=en&to_lang=uk
If you like our project or the idea we pursue, we kindly ask you to share the link to our website: https://www.yenotes.com/ or to spread the word about us in any other way.
Best regards,
Pavlo Roik, Chief Executive Officer
Good luck with your project.
If the dictionary is a free one, I’ll add it to the Ukrainian page of Surface Languages.
MF
Hello Moonface,
I am trying to learn Slovak and I couldn’t find a lot of good resources out there so far (besides slovake.eu). So thank you for providing so much great knowledge for all these languages!
Especially the Slovak audio files are amazing. I wanted to ask if it is possible to download these audio files to use them in an SRS System like Anki or Memrise?
Thanks in advance and happy learning!
~ Meliodas
Glad you like it. Feel free to download the files if it helps, but please don’t link to them as the site only has limited bandwidth.
Cheers,
MF.
Hello Moonface,
after reading your comment I wanted to play some audiofiles via the integrated play buttons, but I cannot access or play the files anymore.
It always throws back Error 403 – it seems like this is happening for all languages.
~ Meliodas
Hi,
There is a problem with the audio which I will fix as soon as I have time, and you will be able to get at the files when I’ve done it.
I know what the problem is, and the solution. My day job is busy at the moment, but I’ll get to it as soon as possible.
Cheers,
MF
Your word lists and sentences are fantastic! It’s refreshing to see a clean source, as most sites just throw together a load of Google translated words with no care for the actual quality.
What would make it perfect for me would be making Anki flashcards from your words and sentences. Would you be able to provide the audio files or somehow make it easier to import everything to Anki? Cheers.
Thanks for the positive comments.
As to Anki, I can’t think of any easy way to do this, so not in the near future although I’ll keep it in mind.
MF
Hi moonface! Greeting from China.Thanks a lot for your amazing website! It is an incredible platform for learning languages! But may i ask a silly question? Where is the audios for words and sentences? i couldn’t find it 🙁 Can you help me a little? 谢谢！
Thanks:)
The audio should be there and it’s (luckily) working for me. It is possible that your browser doesn’t work with the audio on Surface Languages if maybe you are using something a bit out of the ordinary.
MF
What’s happened to the easy Spanish crosswords? I was using these with some beginner Spanish learners on Meetup and now they have disappeared. I am gutted. Please bring them back.
Thanks for letting me know, and I’m pleasantly surprised that anyone is using them.
Anyway, they are back having disappeared after an *improvement* to the code.
Sigh.
MF
Hello,
I am enjoying easy Afrikaans, and I am learning from it. However, there are bugs in it. I even took a screenshot of what it told me the answer was on one question and it was identical to what I had written. But it said what I wrote was wrong.
Hi,
I do my best, but these are hobby projects and errors creep in …
… and I can’t always replicate them to fix them.
MF
Hello Moonface! My name’s Kiara and I want to thank you for providing so many useful free resources. I plan to learn italian, portuguese and german in the next few years. Once again, thank you for all you do.
All the best,
Kiara
Thanks and good luck with your languages.
MF