iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Dr. Michelle Fullwood

Aaron A. Reed @aaronareed.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

I wrote some words for this lovely game, out now! Assemble a team of misfits for doomed missions into weird underworlds. Interesting choices, gorgeous art, super replayable... fans of Fallen London and inkle games take note! Congrats to @radiofreelunch.bsky.social and @kitfoxgames.com on release 🎉🎉🎉

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Reposted by Dr. Michelle Fullwood

Mark Sample @samplereality.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

Seriously, I can't stop admiring the output of this bot. I've been to Granada at least five times, and every time, I vow I'm going to make a bot inspired by the mosaics in the Nasrid palace there. Finally managed it!

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Dr. Michelle Fullwood @michelleful.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

ICYMI: I've been making a linguistics puzzle game where you decipher a language (which happens to be German) using shared etymology, shared cultural knowledge and pattern matching. It's called German Is ~~Awful~~ Easy and the first 10 levels are up! No German knowledge necessary.

Screenshot of the levels page for "German is ~~Awful~~ Easy" (there is a red strikethrough through the word "Awful"). 10 levels are shown with dotted lines joining them in a linear path. Each level is represented by 1-2 emoji such as a hippo and a pair of crossed swords. Scores are listed for each level.

Screenshot of the first sub-level of the first level of German is ~~Awful~~ Easy. The player is being asked to translate the German phrase "Salz und Pfeffer". A hint button and a reveal letter button are also available.

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Dr. Michelle Fullwood @michelleful.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

Levels 6-10 of German Is ~~Awful~~ Easy are up! michellefullwood.com/languages/ge... Thank you for the warm reception you gave the first 5 levels, I hope these also tickle your linguistic fancy. Danke schön to @tomalak.bsky.social for the native speaker feedback!

Screenshot of the first sub-level of Level 6 of German is Easy. The player is being asked to translate the German sentence: "Es gibt vier Jahreszeiten: Frühling, Sommer, Herbst und Winter."

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Dr. Michelle Fullwood @michelleful.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

If you're playing for the first time, pressing "Enter" from the levels page should always take you to the next level, so I feel like that's pretty streamlined. I'll contemplate this if I get more feedback about it!

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Dr. Michelle Fullwood @michelleful.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

Fixed! I had noticed this but was too lazy to fix, thanks for pushing me to do that. Also fixed the various other infelicities you pointed out for level 10!

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Dr. Michelle Fullwood @michelleful.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

I didn't, it's just sprinkled in at various build-a-word levels. I'm just hoping that since it's the same in English it goes without saying :)

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Dr. Michelle Fullwood @michelleful.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

Very interesting! I'll dig further into its etymology. Thanks!

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Dr. Michelle Fullwood @michelleful.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

Looking this up now - 1887, "social relationship based on duty to society or an organization," from German Gesellschaft, from geselle "companion" + -schaft "-ship."

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Dr. Michelle Fullwood @michelleful.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

Good catch! I should probably have a different puzzle type for this so people don't have to type in the ä

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Dr. Michelle Fullwood @michelleful.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

Elfenbein! Looks like it got eroded from "elephant bone"? Might be good fodder for another level.

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Dr. Michelle Fullwood @michelleful.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

That is a fun fact! I believe South American Catholics also successfully petitioned for capybara to be classified as fish. I've edited the code so that any non-"Unicode letter" characters are omitted altogether, hopefully that will fix it!

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Dr. Michelle Fullwood @michelleful.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

I felt like an English speaker might assume it was "cloudy" (on analogy with nebula - a cloud of dust and gas) rather than "foggy". That's why I introduced it separately in the word builder section.

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Dr. Michelle Fullwood @michelleful.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

interesting...I've seen it all 3 ways online. I'll contemplate this one a bit (obviously for the learner having "bad" both times is easiest)!

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Dr. Michelle Fullwood @michelleful.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

so this is meant to show you can use your enter key, not the physical direction you're moving.

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Dr. Michelle Fullwood @michelleful.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

oof, ok. I just saw "stormy" and assumed. I think i'm gonna go with klar 🟦 - considered adding eisig and having frostig = ❄️ and eisig = 🥶 but i feel like that could also go the other way potentially.

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Dr. Michelle Fullwood @michelleful.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

Awesome feedback, thanks! Gonna go through these and address them/reply. Danke schön!!

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Dr. Michelle Fullwood @michelleful.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

Possible compromise - tapping anywhere other than a button/text field will focus the first text field, so you don't need to be super careful with where you tap. (at least i hope, as i don't have an iOS device to test it with.) if it doesn't work let me know and i'll revert and try something else!

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Dr. Michelle Fullwood @michelleful.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

Awesome, thank you! If you use this link michellefullwood.com/languages/ge... 6-10 should be unlocked for you. I'll work on making the text field focused for mobile (but I fear sometimes that might obscure the sentence for long sentences...). Happy to receive feedback here or via DM or email.

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Dr. Michelle Fullwood @michelleful.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

Hi Tomalak, would you be interested in previewing levels 6-10 and letting me know your thoughts as a native speaker? I found your insights super useful! No pressure if you prefer not to though. Let me know!

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Dr. Michelle Fullwood @michelleful.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

Can you have her use this URL? michellefullwood.com/languages/ge... That will unlock all the available levels :)

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Dr. Michelle Fullwood @michelleful.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

Thanks and please send my thanks to your wife, this was lovely to hear! Working on the next batch! :)

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Dr. Michelle Fullwood @michelleful.bsky.social · 24/05/2026

I agree that Dutch would be almost straightforward, and most other (North) Germanic languages should be too. I'd have to think more about Romance, since there's a lot less shared grammar, but it's true there's so many cognates!

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Dr. Michelle Fullwood @michelleful.bsky.social · 24/05/2026

Thank you!! I've always thought that a lot of resources like Duolingo waste so much of the commonality between languages (probably because they're trying to be open to native speakers of other languages, but still).

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Dr. Michelle Fullwood @michelleful.bsky.social · 24/05/2026

Thank you!! I think the languages most suited to this are the Germanic ones, so it's theoretically possible to do this for Swedish. I've never been there and therefore not wrestled with it the same way I did with German though.

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Dr. Michelle Fullwood @michelleful.bsky.social · 24/05/2026

The target translation is "Water, water everywhere and not one (now 'a' is also ok) drop to drink", so "nor" is not required :) Most people don't quote it the way Coleridge originally wrote it, I didn't even know the original until I looked it up, & I decided to go with the more colloquial version.

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Dr. Michelle Fullwood @michelleful.bsky.social · 24/05/2026

Awesome. I've addressed most of your feedback, btw, except for Feierabendbier, I need to find a better fact about German workweeks 😛. Thank you again!!!

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Dr. Michelle Fullwood @michelleful.bsky.social · 24/05/2026

What about Sein wollten wir noch lange nicht gegangen.“? And what if the auxiliary wasn't "sein" but "haben", maybe something like „Geschlafen haben wollten wir noch lange nicht.“? (Thank you for all your help btw this is amazing.)

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Dr. Michelle Fullwood @michelleful.bsky.social · 24/05/2026

Thank you for the examples! The second is really interesting because both infinitives move together. Would it be grammatical for only one to move?

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Dr. Michelle Fullwood @michelleful.bsky.social · 24/05/2026

So basically "a" vs "one"? I was thinking of accepting "a" also, but because they're cognates I decided to accept "one" only. I can accept "a" too, that's probably the more common way it's quoted in English actually.

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Dr. Michelle Fullwood @michelleful.bsky.social · 24/05/2026

Oh I see, you're saying that when you're in a slot, the space should probably be ignored. It will still be counted correct with the spaces (which are removed later) but I see what you mean! Should be an easy enough fix.

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Dr. Michelle Fullwood @michelleful.bsky.social · 24/05/2026

Thank you for your input! What is the modern way you were trying to translate it?

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Dr. Michelle Fullwood @michelleful.bsky.social · 24/05/2026

Oh interesting, thanks so much for the native speaker input!

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Dr. Michelle Fullwood @michelleful.bsky.social · 24/05/2026

BUT as you note, it's not really a topic position - focus can happen there as well. I'm also just realising that it is possible for a verb to go there, so -verb is categorically wrong. Basically just the tensed verb can't go there (+ particles like "doch"). I'll definitely rethink how I present it.

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Dr. Michelle Fullwood @michelleful.bsky.social · 24/05/2026

Thank you for all the feedback! Can you tell me what browser/OS you're on, as the spacebar thing doesn't happen on mine? I'll definitely revisit the -verb and +tense thing. I'm building on an analysis from when I was TA of intro linguistics, where 1st slot is topicalization to Spec, CP (cont'd)

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Dr. Michelle Fullwood @michelleful.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

I'm making a puzzle game where you discover German for yourself, starting from shared etymology and cultural knowledge. It's called German Is ~~Awful~~ Easy and the first five levels are up! Feedback welcome! michellefullwood.com/languages/ge... #puzzles #etymology #LearnGerman

Screenshot of the puzzle game "German is Awful, I mean, Easy", Level 1. On-screen puzzle shows the German words "Salz und Pfeffer" and the player is being asked to translate them for 10 points. Also present are a "Hint" button for -3 points and a "Reveal Letter" button for -3 points.

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Reposted by Dr. Michelle Fullwood

Andy Woodruff @awoodruff.bsky.social · 23/03/2026

Well folks, we are less than two months away from the publication of Boston in 50 Maps, so it's about time for me to start clogging your feeds with promotion. (You can pre-order it now! You've been able to for a while!) First: added a thing about it on my website. andywoodruff.com/posts/2026/b...

andywoodruff.com

Boston in 50 Maps - Andy Woodruff, cartographer

A book of 50+ original maps of Boston.

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Dr. Michelle Fullwood @michelleful.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

I enjoyed it! Canon much more than RoS. Thanks for sharing, I probably wouldn't have tried this out otherwise!

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Dr. Michelle Fullwood @michelleful.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

I got tickets for Thursday just on your say-so :)

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Dr. Michelle Fullwood @michelleful.bsky.social · 22/02/2026

That's all for now! But hopefully there will be more language tools and other things forthcoming. :)

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Dr. Michelle Fullwood @michelleful.bsky.social · 22/02/2026

Lastly, I put up a list of "books I think should be recommended more often than they are". Books that I feel lucky to have encountered, basically, because they could easily have slipped me by. michellefullwood.com/lists/books/...

michellefullwood.com

Lesser-known book recs

Personal website for Michelle Fullwood, NLP scientist and linguistic tinkerer. Language tools, maps, miscellany.

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Dr. Michelle Fullwood @michelleful.bsky.social · 22/02/2026

Sample: "Miss Elizabeth Bennet!" repeated Miss Bingley. "I am all neurosis. How loooooooong has shhe been suuuch a sxey?" The original being: "Miss Elizabeth Bennet!" repeated Miss Bingley. "I am all astonishment. How long has she been such a favourite?"

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Dr. Michelle Fullwood @michelleful.bsky.social · 22/02/2026

5) I reformatted my #NaNoGenMo entry from 2014 (so old!) so make it more pleasant to read, and it's actually still quite funny. Twide and Twejudice: michellefullwood.com/misc/twide-a... It's Pride and Prejudice but with dialogue replaced by words used in a similar context on Twitter.

michellefullwood.com

Twide & Twejudice

Personal website for Michelle Fullwood, NLP scientist and linguistic tinkerer. Language tools, maps, miscellany.

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Dr. Michelle Fullwood @michelleful.bsky.social · 22/02/2026

4) My linguistic streetmap of Singapore died with CartoDB, but is now back at michellefullwood.com/maps/linguis... #maps #singapore

A map of Singapore with street names colour-coded to reflect their linguistic origin, e.g. red for Chinese languages, green for Malay, blue for British.

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Dr. Michelle Fullwood @michelleful.bsky.social · 22/02/2026

3) I have some tables of #Cantonese / #Mandarin syllable correspondences that I found useful to look at. You can see how reliable the correspondence between certain Cantonese/Mandarin initials, finals, tones, and syllables (i.e. initial + finals) are. michellefullwood.com/languages/ca...

Screenshot showing a table of Cantonese -> Mandarin initials. Example: the b/b cell shows that out of all the Cantonese syllables that start with a /b/, 93% of the time the equivalent Mandarin syllable also starts with a /b/.

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Dr. Michelle Fullwood @michelleful.bsky.social · 22/02/2026

2) Hieroglyphic Egyptian Typewriter: a tool for easy rendering of short series of hieroglyphs without needing to install JSesh or other keyboards/fonts. Includes a sign picker for quickly locating glyphs you can't remember the number/MDC symbol of. michellefullwood.com/languages/eg...

Screenshot of the Hieroglyphic Egyptian Typewriter. In the textbox is a series of Manuel de Codage (MDC) symbols, and in a box below that are the rendered hieroglyphs. There are buttons for copying as unicode and copying as image, as well as a sign finder.

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