Louis Mai

Today I am so lazy to read news or enjoy a poem. So what will I do? Oh, I surf Facebook. Just try to search for "Bettel", name of the Luxembourgish Prime Minister, I can immediately get his facebook account, https://www.facebook.com/XavierBettelPM Let's see what does he write in the last status so that I can learn some useful vocabularies. Hmm, the last post is about something duck related. He is the guy with green T-shirt on the left. Unluckily, there is no new words except some hashtag about duck race. So I move to the previous status, and got a long paragraph, D’Mesurë vun der Regierung suergen derfir, datt et zu Lëtzebuerg kee Menage méi wäert ginn, dee manner Kafkraaft zur Verfügung huet, wéi virun der Kris. All Menage wäert méi Kafkraaft zur Verfügung hunn. D’Regierung steet zum Sozialdialog. D’Regierung steet zum Index. D’Regierung steet zur Solidaritéit. Fir d’Kafkraaft. Fir staark Betriber. A fir eng sécher Zukunft., with a photo, so there should be something abo...

Today I want to learn something douce  (means sweet in French), so I try to search for a Luxembourgish poem. Use Google Translate, I got the word "Luxembourgish poems" as " Lëtzebuergesch Gedichter ". I have already known the first word, so Gedichter should be poems. So what is "poem"? Again with translate, I got "Gedicht". So, Gedicht - Gedichter Poem - Poems. Seems like we can add "er" at the end of a noun to get the plural form. Hmm, the statistics of one sample :). Anyway, I will update my grammar about plural forms later. Let's google "Lëtzebuergesch Gedichter". Most of the links point to A-Z.lu, an online platform to search for books in this country. Unfortunately, they are physical books, which means I need to physically go to the National Library, register for a member card, wait for the system to activate, then go back to order a book. It sounds like I want a steak but instead I need to raise a cow and wait. Forge...

Here I will share my secret plan to learn a new language, Luxembourgish, without class or boring stuffs. 1. Why do I learn Luxembourgish? I am not a fan of normal language curriculums with no creative and amble boring. Thus I decide to learn the new language by myself, the Luxembourgish. Why Luxembourgish? Because I am living in Luxembourg. So simple like that.  2. What is Luxembourgish? Luxembourg is a small country in West Europe with a population of 600,000 (only a half are Luxembourgish citizen). Although small, this country is very powerful. It is the founder of United Nation, NATO, and European Union. And it is very rich. This is the richest country in the world. I came to this country to study Ph.D, then working here. Luxembourgish, to some extends, is a dialect of German mixed French. Its pronunciation and grammar is simpler than German. However, it is also a trap: there is no way to know whether a Luxembourgish word is spoken with German or French system. 3. What are norma...