#Try Mandarin

[martyrbat]

rip to bruce but if i fumbled her i would literally kill myself

[asa-fish]

🎄merry Christmas！！🥰

[slow-reader-reads-books]

With Shen Yuan's name Yuan being a homophone for 原 yuán as in "original" (example given: the word 原创 yuánchuàng aka "original (creative) work"), and Shen Jiu's name meaning the number nine... It's bringing to mind some interesting questions about the supposed number of Shens separating the two

[twofunerals]

THE FIRST SHOT (2024) 雪迷宫 "We don't have time for your lessons." "You're solving drug cases. You have to know about drugs and chemistry first."

[faaun]

the way that diff languages sound r so fascinating they're all different and all so vivid

[crazylittlejester]

yknow those scenes in movies where something horrific and awful just happened to a character and the audio is cut so it’s dead silent (except maybe some soft music in the back) and you just see a character close to them screaming in absolute agony but you can’t hear anything at all because there is just absolutely nothing they can do to fix the situation, and they know it, and it’s ripping them apart from the inside out and it feels as though something has just broken and can never be repaired again, and you as the viewer can just feel something shatter deep in your bones?

^^^this but time and wars

[tevallen]

trying to get back into drawing moomin like what content did I even draw I can't remember how I used to do it

[trans-ralsei]

okay i can't find that post any more

but i worry about the trans girls who have gaping holes where their personalities should be.

it takes a lot of effort for a person to sustain your continued spiritual and psychological existence. i've met these trans girls, and i've tried to help (or I think I've tried to help). but the deadliest part of this is that to build yourself up brick by brick requires you to fight against the currents that want you dead, that want you to be the empty husk of a human being.

that's why the whole please stay alive thing is such a resonating statement; you need to stay alive for your own sake.

in the home city that means trying to find your own shelter when rent can easily cost you a third of your wage and landlords fucking suck. that means looking for a job that won't fucking deadname or misgender you, that you can tolerate. that means surviving. that means leaving clingy and transphobic family behind and uprooting what the home city believes should be your entire support system. that means trying to live, to get to the point where you can get hormone therapy, hair removal, bottom surgery.

i can't promise that things will get better. but if you know someone like that. if you know a trans girl like that. please. keep them alive. and help them fight. help them be themselves, and grow and bloom again.

we don't have much in the home city, but there are resources. places. things that we are doing and building so that we don't lose people. allies that are fighting alongside us.

because we will win. and when we win, i hope we don't have to mourn.

[xiangqiankua]

I'll be the first to proclaim my love of traditional characters, but sometimes, just sometimes...

[don-dake]

↑ Fake 倉頡 Congkit/Cangjie keyboard in Tomorrow Never Dies (1997).

The funny thing is, the 倉頡 keys (and placement) are accurate enough; it is possible the 艸 character is used in place of the more commonly seen 廿.

But the other keys (like the numeral keys 一、二、三, etc. accurately translated they may be) being either unnecessarily rendered in 漢字 (Chinese characters), or placed wrongly (like the 刪除 “delete” where the 逗號 “comma” key usually goes), or just bizarre (like what are 火八 “fire eight” and 火九 “fire nine” keys?), makes this obviously a joke keyboard! 😹

↑ Another imagining of the TND fake keyboard.

The naming and placement of the keys here at least matches up more accurately to a hypothetical, totally 漢字 keyboard.

(note the 逗號 key next to the 一 (M) key, rather than the 刪除, and no weird 火八、火九、火十 keys placed randomly, like shown in the movie prop!)

Actually…I wouldn't mind having a keyboard like this, just for the kicks! Unnecessary and pretentious it may be! 😹

↓ Examples of real 倉頡 keyboards.

[marilearnsmandarin]

Lazy Sunday morning, SuperChinese level 7 lesson 6 vocabulary 2

[sunmisbf]

what the hell is this😭😭😭😭😭 ?

[crehador]

shen (cv hanachan) speaks mandarin 🥰

they should let him say woc

[todayisafridaynight]

he's gonna be late to his first day of breaking the law

[canary-song]

any of y'all aware if tumblr is still blocking posts with links attached from reaching maintags, or if that's just at random, or..?

[fleshadept]

mandarin pronunciation guide

it’s always frustrating to see people mispronouncing things if you know what it’s supposed to sound like, and this happens quite often with mandarin, because a lot of the pinyin phonetic representations aren’t exactly intuitive for english speakers. luckily for people who want to be respectful, they are incredibly consistent. none of that sometimes-this-letter-sounds-one-way bullshit like with english. so here’s a quick guide:

first of all, mandarin has a pretty limited range of ways words can start and end, which is why there are so many homophones. but it makes it easier for pronunciation. most words start with a consonant, and if they start with a vowel it will be an 'a' or 'e' most of the time.

most important, mandarin does not have the 'ay' sound english-speakers say in 'hey', 'day', etc. if an 'a' is the only vowel in a word, it's pronounced like the 'o' in tongs. the common name 'yang' is not yay-ng but yah-ng. the city of Shanghai is not shay-ng hi but shah-ng hi.

the letter c is always pronounced as ts, like the beginning of 'tsunami'

z is pronounced similarly, but by vocalizing it rather than it being only breath, like turning a P into a B or an F into a V in english.

'zh' is a sound we don't have in english. it's at the very front of the mouth, like a harder version of a 'j' almost mixed with a soft 'g.' so the name 'zhang' would not be 'zah-ng' but 'jah-ng'

x is pronounced like a sh at the very front of your mouth, so the city Xi'an is pronounced like 'tshee-an'

e is always pronounced as a schwa (ə), the 'uh' sound in 'duh'. so 'sheng' is pronounced like 'shung'

q is pronounced as a tight ch the same way x is a sh, so the Qing dynasty is the 'tching' dynasty.

there's obviously a lot more to it, but those bullets are the biggies. it's not the hardest thing in the world, and even just removing the english 'ay' sound from any pronunciation of mandarin does wonders to make it sound more normal.