#actually my dad is fluent in Portuguese but he and my mom will speak in ‘spanish’ to each other if there’s things they don’t want us to hear

[doctorsiren]

If you wanna know

Oa is hola but silly 🦆

HUHH

yeah I wouldn’t know that 😭 my parents might both be fluent in Spanish but I only know a little

[jollyinha]

50 (+3) Facts About My Rook Listener (aka Félix)!

Because I love him in a hiperfocus kind of way 😭💙 If you want to see how he looks like, go to my yuurivoice tag, and you will find all my listeners! Although I probably should make an updated version, he has gotten a 2.0 version ever since... Also, tagging @itsargyle since they suggested taking other YV fans! I'm... Too shy to tag anyone else tho lmao

Anyway, here goes my big infodump on my favorite sunshine boy:

1 - Hey, I'm Félix Torres... Or not, because that's my middle name, and my actual name is Victor. But I'm not that fond of Victor, so I go by Félix!

2 - Victor was my mom's grandpa's name, and Félix is a tribute to my dad, whose name was Feliciano.

3 - Thanks to the acute accent, the correct pronunciation of Félix would be "feh-liks", not "fee-liks". Oh, and the "c" in Victor is mute. It's Vitor. But sometimes even I forget that it isn't supposed to be spelled like the gringos do, haha!

4 - My mom is Brazilian and my dad was Colombian. I was born in Brazil (Aracaju in Sergipe, to be more specific), but have been living in the USA for most of my life now. I used to spend the holidays in Colombia as a kid, but haven't been there ever since dad passed away... I really should pay it a visit again soon, though. It's a real nice country.

5 - I speak native Portuguese, fluent English and intermediary Spanish. I've been studying ASL (as of right now I just know basic stuff like "hi", "how are you?", how to introduce myself... But hey, at least I know the whole alphabet off the top of my head!) and French too, but it has been hard to find some free time... And when I do have it, I always end up drawing, crafting, cooking... Duolingo's owl wants to eat my ass.

6 - Speaking of which, these are my favorite hobbies! Drawing and painting are main passions in life, though. I've been in love with art as far as I can remember. I was in a few-years-long hiatus when it came to painting, only came back to it recently, but have been drawing non-stop ever since I was a little boy!

7 - When it comes to crafting, I enjoy many aspects of it... I've been really into papercraft these days. Origami, paper dolls, collages... But I also really like jewelry making and fabric painting (even if I find it so damn hard, haha!). I just love personalizing things in general. Sometimes, I see a piece of furniture, have an idea and just have to put my personal touch.

8 - I also know how to sew, but I can't say that I'm a big fan. I've tried crochet once, per example, and almost fell asleep on the couch. It's just a bit boring to me... But I'll gladly sew back a button or fix a hole if you ask nicely!

9 - And, last but not least, I love cooking! Not as much as I love to eat, but anyway. I picked up cooking as a way to deal with my pyrophobia and to bond with my uncle (he owns a restaurant!), and really took a liking to it... And modesty aside, I'm damn good at it!

10 - Speaking of which... I'm a bit of a bottomless pit when it comes to food! I'll eat (mostly) anything, am willing to try (mostly) everything and am hungry 24/7. Please, feed me.

11 - My favorite food is kind of specific, but: I love Thanksgiving pies. And breakfast foods. But anything that's chicken or has corn is also very damn good.

12 - I don't really like fruits. Most of them feel either bland (apples taste like NOTHING!) or straight up gross. I hate, HATE peach. Mango, guaba and pineapple too. Disgusting. I'm team vegetables all the way. Lemon and watermelon are the only ones that get a pass.

13 - My favorite ice cream favorite is chocomint!

14 - When it comes to drinks... I like coffee, as long as it has milk and unholy amounts of sugar (hate bitter coffee, as contradictory as it is). And while I'm not too big on alcoholic drinks, I like champagne.

15 - I also like biking, but, much like studying ASL and French, I don't have enough free time nowadays to really get into it again... But I try to bike every weekend I can!

16 - As a kid, I was in singing classes! I really enjoyed it and was pretty decent at it, but nowadays I do it just for fun. Love singing and listening to music around the house while doing other things.

17 - I have eight tattoos on total: Flower sleeves on both arms (featuring a clock among the flowers on the left arm and a bird on the right), music player symbols on the left side of my chest, "keep going" on the right side, an anchor on my upper back, a sun and a crescent moon on my lower back, a sea monster's tentacles going through my right hip and a paper plane on my left ankle!

18 - I also have a bunch of moles. On my face, on my back and on my chest. I used to be embarrassed by them, but nowadays, not nearly as much.

19 - I have been dyeing my hair blonde ever since college. I'm actually a brunette! I like being a blondie, but I'm considering going back to my roots... My hair is screaming for help. [He goes back to being a brunette and lets his hair grow after the events of Escape]

20 - Oh yeah, speaking of college... I have a Law degree. And am working on this field. Ya-hoo... Unfortunately, I needed a more lucrative career to support my family. But my long-term life goal is to be able to quit and live from art! And I like to believe I'm almost there.

21 - I pierced my ears in college too! I usually only wear my lucky sun earrings, but if I'm feeling fancy, I can go with a larger one.

22 - I considered becoming an English major for a while, but didn't happen either.

23 - I have a weird love for plaid jackets (of any color, but especially blue ones) and grungy bracelets. If you wanna give me anything that's wearable, going with either of these is the safest bet! Can't ever have enough of these!

24 - My favorite animals are octopuses (I had an obsession with sea monsters as a kid and this love never really died) and peacocks (they're just awesome)!

25 - My lucky number is sixteen, because my birthday is on February 16th, and because if you put "Félix Victor" together, there's a sixteen in Roman numerals right in the middle: XVI!

26 - Also, I'm 30 as of 2024, and... It's terrifying, to be honest. Buuut I'll find comfort on the fact that I look like I'm 20, hehe.

27 - This one will be hard to explain, but... I really like the sun. From summer to sunflowers to sun imageries... I like the sun. And all because of my dad. It's a long history, but yeah.

28 - I have a younger sister, her name is Alice! She's in college right now, she's History major! And... She's my pride and joy.

29 - And I also have five younger cousins: Ariel, Rafael, Leon, Joyce and Mercedes! I love them all, they're like my siblings. [Joyce is actually my Sunflower listener!]

30 - I... Have a... Weird relationship with my mom. It has been getting worse these last few years... Ah, nevermind, I shouldn't have brought this up.

31 - I had three relationships in my life... Well, three and a half, if you count that high school fling, but I digress: My first boyfriend lasted, like, half a year of my freshman year in college. It was nice, we just realized quickly that neither of us were serious. And my second boyfriend... Ergh. Tristan. We began dating in my junior year, and had a pretty messy break-up right after my graduation...

32 - ...But, nearly a whole decade after that, he sent me a DM on Instagram asking me how I was, and I mistakenly thought he became a decent human being. Hell, he was the one who got me my current job. He works in the Marketing department and was kind enough to tell me that Legal was hiring. I thought that we could at least be friends again, but... He's still a pain in the ass, at the end of the day. And still wants me back. ERGH...

33 - ...But, actually, I should thank him for that. Ironically, by trying to get back with me, he got me my third and current boyfriend... And... I won't talk too much about our relationship, but... This is the happiest I've ever been with someone. I mean it.

34 - Ok, how do I say this? I... Have been told that I... Have a pretty high libido. Or, if you want to be meaner, I'm a horny bastard. I... Will not elaborate if that's true or not. [It Is Literally Canonical]

35 - But even if I WAS a horny bastard, I'm a romantic at heart, believe it or not! I like being swept off my feet! I like flowers! I like cheesy pick-up lines! I like cuddles, god, I really like cuddles... Anyway.

36 - I'm a petite lil' guy. I'm 1m69cm tall... Or 5'8ft.

37 - I have ADHD. I was diagnosed when I was 20. I've been taking meds to help with my lack of focus, and it really has been helping.

38 - I also have insomnia. It isn't as bad as it was a few years ago, but it still sucks.

39 - My favorite song of all time is "Don't Stop (Color on the Walls)" by Foster The People!

40 - My favorite movie of all time... It's a tie between Footloose and Burlesque.

41 - My favorite animated movie of all time is Ponyo!

42 - My MBTI is ENFP, my Enneagram is 2w3, and I'm an Aquarius!

43 - In my opinion, my biggest strengths as a person are that I'm pretty charming, I can get along with nearly any kind of person (given enough time), and that I'm notoriously hard to piss off. As long as you're not messing with my loved ones, it takes A LOT to make me actually angry.

44 - And my weaknesses... Well, I let people get away with stepping all over me pretty frequently... And I'm very restless. And I don't mean only physically, I mean like... Mentally. I feel like I'm a shark: If I stop moving, I'll die, y’know? Oh, I've been told that I can be pretty shameless and a bit nosy... And, welp. I... Can't really deny that.

45 - I hate the cold. I hate winter. I hate snow. Fuck you, northern hemisphere.

46 - I really like sitting on the floor, ever since I was a little boy. It just... Grounds me. No pun intended.

47 - My favorite color is blue, but yellow and orange are also lovely... And I've been getting real fond of red these days. Hehe (Can't believe that it took me this long to say my favorite color, we're on fact 47th...).

48 - I'm a dog person! I never got to have one, though...

49 - I, not-so-secretly, really like cute things. I may or may not have a big octopus plushie on my bed. And may or may not love Pompompurin and Gudetama.

50 - I'm overall pretty confident on my looks... Except for my smile and my laugh. My ex-boyfriend (Tristan) once said that my smile is wide enough to be scary, and my mom said that my laugh is too loud, and I've been restraining myself from truly smiling and laughing out loud in public ever since. But I tend to let go when near people I trust.

51 (bonus!) - I have a very sensitive neck... Now, if I see it as a good thing or a bad thing... Depends on what your intentions are... If you know what I mean.

52 (bonus!)² - I'm also pretty great at typing. My words per minute game is insane, modesty aside.

53 (bonus!)³ - I... Can be a little bit jealous when I'm dating someone. I was never a pain in the ass about it, I mostly just sulk in silence, but... Yeah. It's my toxic trait.

[centuriantalevevo]

Okay so I know I sent a friend an ask about this but I don't think I made an ACTUAL post about it.

So school started the 15th. We have A day and B. A day is the first 4 classes and B day is the other 4 and in total we have 8 classes.

In all I have Spanish 2, US History, Economic Fine Literature, Research 3 (virtual class shit), Psych 1, Math College Algebra, Per Car whatever the fuck it is, and English 4.

Spanish 2, USH, Econ Fin Lit, and Research 3 are A day and Psych 1, Math Coll Alg, Per Car Sch, and Eng 4 are B day.

Well! English 4 is amazing rn because we were doing this introduction thing, originally the activity was to partner with someone and your partner introduces you, you introduce your partner. Except me and 1 other girl did it alone.

Well! As most of you SHOULD know, I'm learning 6 languages. Japanese, Spanish, Portuguese, Swedish, Chinese, and Icelandic with Icelandic being on hold as it isn't on Duolingo rn.

Well... at one point we get to this boy... and his partner introduces him...

He also has this nice ass forest tattoo on his arm- and he's cute- anyways-

His partner says... he's from Sweden

And then I hear him speak English

AND THEN I HEAR HIM SPEAK IN SWEDISH- I heard I think 'I' but he went too fast for me to actually catch shit- but he translated it saying "I speak Swedish and English" or something..

And he even has a whole ass accent bRO-

His mom is from France so he also speaks fluent French iirc, and his dad is from somewhere in Russia from what I remember.

Well we did this Bingo thing, you get a name for each square on who has what or has done something. For instance "speaks at least 2 languages", and we had 2 technically 3 who could speak at least 2 languages. We had the boy who speaks Swedish and English, a boy who speaks English and Spanish (idk which is first language is), and then everyone counted me for learning 6 languages.

Well! I went up to the boy for him to put his name one one of the squares (he chose 'has been to or lived in another country') and while he was putting his name on mine and I was doing his, he asks "So you're learning Swedish?" With a smile and I said "Yeah! But I can only make one sentence and it's about my cat..." so he asked me to say it! And I did! "Min katt, Felippe, är grå och vitt. Jag älskar han." And he said I said it correctly, he heard me start the last part of the sentence and even said it with me, helping me with the 'han' vs 'hon' because I always forget which is 'him' and which is 'her' lmao-

And I also figured out YESTERDAY that he's also in my Spanish 2!

I wanna talk to him more cuz I talked to him quite a bit on the first day if B day, asking him questions about Sweden, I even asked if it stays daylight during certain times of the year (it does.. I was right-) but... kinda afraid to- why? No fucking clue- thats me for ya.

I wanna ask him if he can help me with learning Swedish cuz I'm not gonna get better without practicing speaking to native speakers... plus I need help how how the fuck to say "turtle" and "spoon" BECAUSE HOLY SHIT THOSE WORDS SCARE ME IN SWEDISH HELP-

I wanna ask but I don't wanna seem weird or stupid or something because like... no one at this school knows me so that means so far they don't hate me or think I'm weird... yet... and I don't want that to start any time soon...

[bunnyywritings]

Hii! May I ask hcs with shinsou todoroki bakugou and kaminari with a korean s/o and she is able to speak lots of languages, please? I know korean, english, japanese and portuguese, for example! Thank you so much

reaction to fem!s/o who is multilingual

[a/n: I-oh my goodness that’s so impressive!! Thank you for the request anon! sorry for the wait 😣here you go! -yours truly, bunnyy  ps. bro the only other language I speak is spanish...being multilingual seems awesome}

hitoshi shinso 

☆ He would definitely ask you to “teach” him a few phrases but has absolutely no intention of actually learning

☆ like he just wants to hear you speak as much of any language you can

☆ because of his quirk, I think he has like a thing for someone with a nice voice so he just loves to hear you talk

☆ he’d bother you to help him with his english homework A LOT, especially if you’re fluent because you have such a high grade in that class

☆ I think I take that first statement back, he’d definitely want to learn any phrases you want to teach him to help strengthen his quirk

☆ he’d learn a few cheesy phrases just to surprise you with them and catch you off guard

☆ he’d be a sucker for your native tongue though

☆ he loves hearing you talk to a relative on the phone because he gets to hear how your voice naturally gets a little deeper, the way the syllables drip off of your tongue like honey and the little sound effects that come with it

☆ there was a time when the two of you were on a date and a foreigner came up to you with hopeful eyes and asked if you had spoken any english, his eyes filled with pride as he watched you effortlessly give them directions or help them translate something

☆ as you waved at them and wished them luck, you felt his gaze on you

“Toshi? What is it? Do I have something on my face?” you had slipped back into japanese so easily. You were confused when a small smile grew on his lips.

☆ “Nah, I just have the most talented girlfriend. That’s all.” His words made you blush profusely. “I really am proud of you, you know that?”

☆ “Of course I know Toshi.” You wrapped your arms around his neck, his instinctively wrapping around your waist and pulled you closer. “What’s gotten into you?”

☆ “Nothing, but I think there may be a problem.” You frowned at his words. “You’ve put me under your spell. I’m so in love with you.” Your eyes widened as he confessed his love in your native tongue. Dialect and pronunciation were perfect.

☆ “Well, you’re not the only one because I love you too.”

☆ the two of you shared a kiss then and there, even if he wasn’t a big fan of PDA

☆ he just had to kiss you or he might die

shoto todoroki

❆ transferring to UA and being a foreigner was weird

❆ everyone was drowning you in questions, asking about your quirk, why you moved, where you came from, it was just too much but you instantly noticed Todoroki

❆ not because he was quiet but while everyone (minus bakugou) was bombarding you with questions, he was unapologetically staring at you, his sharp bi-colored eyes sent shivers down your spine

❆ but instead of looking away, you stared back with the same intensity because he was strikingly handsome

❆ he thought the same about you, from the moment you walked into class and introduced yourself, he was entranced by your beauty

❆ he could tell that japanese was most definitely not your native language, he was impressed with how well you passed as a japanese native

❆ as time went on, he came to appreciate you as a person

❆ the way you held yourself to a certain standard without coming off as stuck up or your selfless nature when it came to your fellow classmates

❆ he remembers one time that he woke up at 2am to go get a glass of water when he saw you by the couch and he noticed the two slumped figures on both couches. Mina on one and Denki on the other

❆ you hadn’t noticed hid so he watched as you carefully lifted Mina’s head and slipped a pillow under it before making sure she was covered properly with a blanket, doing the same with Kaminari before muttering something to yourself in another language and going back to your room

❆ he frowned, what did you say and what language was it in? shrugging, he got his water and went back to sleep

❆ surprise surprise, it was you that confessed to him halfway through the year

❆ he was surprised but confessed his feelings as well before insisting on taking you on a proper date with full intention to max out his dad’s credit card

❆ one saturday, the two of you were in your room studying when you got a phone call. You apologized before going to answer and his eyes widened when he heard you speak, it wasn’t japanese

❆ he was enthralled by how it sounded spilling from your lips, the words were foreign to him but he couldn’t help but listen in

❆ “What was that?” he asked once you hung up, you explained that it was your mom and that was your native tongue, you then explained to him the different languages you could speak in

❆ I think he’d only ask you to help him learn english and maybe your native tongue

❆ “Why would you wanna learn that, Sho?” You asked as you were sat in his lap and brushed his bangs from his forehead

❆ “Well when I meet your parents, I would want to make a good first impression.”

❆ his words shocked you, he wasn’t really one to joke about things like that

❆ “You want to learn for when you meet my parents?”

❆ “Well of course I do but if you don’t want me to meet them, then that’s alright.”

❆ “You’re so sweet Sho, of course I’ll teach you.” You peppered his face with kisses, enjoying the way his cheeks slowly turned pink

❆ “I think you missed a spot, princess?”

❆ “Oh really, where?” He took you by surprise when he grabbed you chin softly between his fingers and tilted your head down.

❆ “Right here.” he planted a sweet kiss on your lips, smiling into the kiss as he felt the warmth of your hands on his cheeks

❆ your parents meet him and they love him

katsuki bakugou

☀ baby would be very confused when he hears you speak something other than japanese

☀  he heard you speak to All Might once in fluent english and he just stood there, eyes moving quickly between the two of you as he tried to keep up with what was going on

☀ he’d 100% get competitive and try to learn another language to 1-up you but it doesn’t work and he’d get all pouty

☀ “Why didn’t you ask me to teach you something? You know I wouldn’t mind.”

☀ he came up to you once and insulted you in portuguese, it was an accident though...he definitely learned that duolingo and google translate were definitely NOT good tools to learning a new language

☀ “Suki, why would you say that to me?” he frowned at the tears in your eyes

☀ ”Wait...what did I say?”

☀ “You basically told me that my face was uglier than a rats ass.” he panicked even more when the tears rolled down your cheeks. He cupped your face and kissed the tears away

☀ “I’m sorry, I was trying to say that you are the most gorgeous woman I’ve met.” You’re not really sure how he got that phrase but the guilt in his voice definitely told you that it wasn’t on purpose so you forgave him...on a condition

☀ “I’ll forgive you if you cuddle me for the rest of the day.” you had never seen this boy move so fast. He tackled you to the bed and wrapped you up on his arms

☀ during this cuddle time, he’d press kisses on whatever skin he could reach, murmuring an apology each time

☀ while you were in his arms, you taught him a phrase that he could easily say

☀ “You got it? Or do you need me to say it again?” You asked as you looked up at him, he had a scowl of concentration creasing his forehead

☀ “I think I’ve got it...” He muttered. There was a small silence before he took a deep breath

☀ “Y-You are sw-sweeter than h-honey...”

☀ “There you go!” You smiled proudly, it was such a corny phrase and not one he’d ever say in japanese too

☀ “So what did I just say?”

☀ “You said I was sweeter than honey? Is that true Suki? Am I sweeter than honey?”

☀ “Well babe, why don’t we find out?” He slyly brought you down for a kiss, lips dancing slowly and sensually against each other’s

☀ “Mmm you are sweeter than honey, so sweet it’s intoxicating.” His voice rumbled deeply against you as he brought you in for ‘another taste.’

☀ definitely would ask you to teach him all the curse words so he could curse people out without them being able to understand

☀ 1000/10 a good idea because hearing him curse in something other than japanese was hot

denki kaminari

ϟ you would definitely end up doing his english homework for his sometimes

ϟ when he heard you and Momo speak in korean denki.exe stopped working

ϟ he was completely obsessed with hearing you speak a foreign language

ϟ he’s a very proud boyfriend, he would brag about you to ANYONE who would listen and even if they didn’t want to...they did

ϟ he loves it when you call him pet names in your native language

ϟ he’d learn how to say silly things or lame jokes in your language when you’re having a bad day, the pronunciation was terrible but you still understood what he was trying to say and it would never fail to make you laugh

ϟ he admired you so much, the way you selflessly went out of your way to help someone or to translate something for a classmate during english class, it made his heart thump in his chest

ϟ he’d secretly enlist Momo to help him learn your native language

ϟ bless that girl for having the patience because it took MONTHS for him to be semi fluent

ϟ you noticed whrn you were talking to a family memeber on the phone, you had let him stay in the room because you thought he couldn’t understand you but when you said something about how you wish you could punch Mineta in the throat he couldn’t help but stifle a laugh

ϟ you heard him but because he was looking at his phone, you thought he was just laughing at something on there

ϟ you finally figured it out when he sent you a meme that was in your native language

ϟ when you saw it, you snorted but the amusement quickly turned into confusion when you saw the profile name

ϟ you made your way to Denki’s room and you could hear him chuckling away on the other side of the door, you knocked before he said to come in and you frowned in confusion

ϟ “Did you really just send that to me?”

ϟ “Yeah...why?” His smile dropped. “Was it not funny?”

ϟ “It was but how did you know it was?”

ϟ “Because I watched it? Geez baby, what kind of question is that?” he shrugged nonchalantly but that definitely made you more suspicious.

ϟ “You know, don’t you?” You narrowed you eyes as you asked him in your mother tongue

ϟ “I don’t know, maybe I do...or maybe I don’t?” He responded almost perfectly.

ϟ you were completely shocked

ϟ “What? Wh-when did you even-?” You couldn’t even form a sentence. “Why?”

ϟ “I wanted to impress you, sunshine.” He responded flawlessly once again.

ϟ “You’re the best, Kami. You know that?”

ϟ “Yeah, I know but it definitely doesn’t hurt to be reminded.” his goofy grin made your heart do somersaults

ϟ “I love you Kami, you’re so silly.” You nuzzled your nose against his in an eskimo kiss

ϟ “I love you too pretty girl, you’re just amazing.”

ϟ i have a soft spot for this idiot :(

[ravenadottir]

What other languages would the islanders be fluent at?

if i write down only ‘fluent’, this would be boring, ‘cause i think a lot of them picked up on a language or two, not necessarily speaking it with vivency. so i’ll make a list for them, the boys i talk about the most and the girls i like as li’s.

lucas. spanish (he built houses in argentina, and i think he knows his way around it), french, maybe welsh and swedish. that’s because of the schools he stayed in, for so long. even if the schools were unilingual, focusing on english, i think he would’ve learned those. just a headcanon of mine. also, because of his ethnicity, he might know a bit of korean, that he learned in school to honor the family’s cultural background.

henrik speaks swedish, in my head. it’s canon (?) he’s sweden. i say “(?)” because gary references it on mr. love island contest saying “the next best thing after meatballs and ikea”, but it could be about his ethnicity, and not his nationality. so he might carry the culture, from his parents, without actually being born there. (i’m hazy on this, because i think i remember there’s a portion in the game where it’s canon, but his data card says ‘isle of wight’, so i’m always confused about this!). and i think that’s all he speaks.

bobby. we don’t know for sure who’s jamaican, but my headcanon is about his father. if he was in fact, born and raised in jamaica, then brought to scottland, when an young adult, then bobby would know a bit of the patwa. baker boy wouldn’t know a lot of it, but his father could use some terms back and forth and he would’ve picked up on them easily. also, picking up on expressions through recipes, chefs’ books and interviews. i just like to picture bobby being very open about different cultures.

noah... oof!!! his ethnicity helps getting closer, but the closer we get, the farthest we go. knowing he’s blasian there’s a possibility of asian grandparents or even mom/dad. however, we have no idea which asian ethnicity he descends from, and even though they drop a “ex named priya”, there’s plenty of priya’s going around, so that doesn’t give us evidence of anything, not really. i just wanna risk and say french, maybe a bit of spanish, and the language spoken on his asian side of the family. again, not fluently. it’s not too farfecthed, given noah is interested in several topics, and a headcanon of mine is that languages is one of them.

gary. i don’t see any other languages happening, except maybe for a few cuss words and pick up lines in spanish, italian and maybe something like german or portuguese. unusal, but that’s about it.

carl. nerd boy probably speaks klingon. and i wish i was joking. i would risk a little and say he had a lot of contact with japonese culture when younger, so he could be picking up on expressions and individual words, being able to even construct a few sentences. but for sure fluent in klingon!

kassam. canon about french and arabic, and if he had more languages on the tip of his tongue, i reckon he would’ve said something. plus, i can’t imagine other languages coming from him.

marisol definitely knows a bit of spanish, if not fluent. i will risk it more and say she knows her way around latin. law books, of course, might’ve contributed, but she’s an avid reader, and i reckon she enjoys ancient literature, like spanish/portuguese. a lot of authors wrote in latin before the languages were structured, and i really think she read a lot of it when younger. not fluent, but the “knows a lot of it” definitely applies. enough to show off with expressions for sure!

lottie might know a bit of german, latin, and spanish, based off solely on the fact she digs ancient witchcraft subjects. that can include several cultures from latin america and some ancient german too.  you end up picking up on a thing or two.

priya. i can picture priya being fluent in other languages, since she was good at spelling. that might translate (pun intended) to the skill of learning them. we don’t know for sure if she’s indian, but that’s how i headcanon her. she might know a lot of hindi, but i’m not gonna sit here and pretend i know tons about the other languages in the country or how they work, so forgive me for that.

chelsea. i’m not sure why, but i have in my head chelsea struggling to learn languages, and not because of the adhd. it’s just something i see her having some issues with.

[sagiow]

Tag game: A LIST OF STUFF

I was tagged by the ever creative & hilarious @tortoisesshells! Thank you!

Nicknames: Aside from the baby one my dad still embarassing uses and a high school one that re-emerges once a year with our annual get-together, surprisingly none. Or actually, my sisters and their kids calls me Gradi (French-sounding, GRA- like “grass”-DEE) because that’s how my name came out of my first niece’s toddler mouth a dozen+ years ago, and everybody thought it was hilarious and adopted it. No Matante title for me!

Zodiac sign: Gemini / Cancer hybrid. Never checked which one it was on my birthyear because that’s how much stock my STEM brain puts in astrology.

Height: 5′7″

Hogwarts House: I’ve gotten both Ravenclaw and Slytherin, which totally tracks and is apparently pretty on par for INTJs.

Last thing I googled:  The right spelling of Slytherin. Hey, it’s been a while.

Before that, “Légende de la Corriveau”, because my son learned about it in school, and my partner and I were arguing about how many husbands she really had, and whether she was hanged first or died in the infamous cage. Confused? Read the original Québec witch story Here, brought to you by the Treaty of Paris and the British takeover of New France.

Song stuck in my head: Toxic, Britney Spears. It’s been everywhere, this week. 

Fav musicians: Sounds blasphemous but... I’m not a big music person? So... whatever’s upbeat and fun and singable on my commute, like... ABBA? Cheesy 90s bands? Barenaked Ladies? Whatever Princess Poppy the Pop Troll is into.  Just nothing country or too experimental jazzy. 

Following: 52. Hmm. I need to branch out. Any fun blog recs?

Followers: 70. Huh. I’m really surprised that number is larger than the previous. You lovely people are quiet; I thought there was only a dozen of you :)

Do you get asks: Rarely, and pretty much only when I ask for prompts. 

Amount of sleep: 6-7hr most nights, 8 on the weekend, and they are FINALLY, after almost a decade of young kids with terrible sleep patterns, mostly uninterrupted. So 6hr straight totally beats 8hr in bits&pieces.

Lucky number: I’ll pick 21 if the options go that high. If not, probably 3.

What are you wearing: Fridays are Blue Checkered Shirt Day at work, and it’s a Team Tradition that I will never break for as long as I work here (and will probably institute wherever I work next). So flannel edition because Winter and jeans, because Friday.

Dream jobs: 1920s egyptologist, forensic anthropologist, The Thirsty Traveler, retired grandma who plays golf, hikes, writes, bakes and spends the worst of winter someplace warmer.

Dream trip: A few weeks with loved ones in a comfortable rented house some place near the sea, old historical cities and natural sites, with a rental car to drive around and visit at our own pace during the day, and nearby shops full of local produce, coffee, drinks, cheese and bread for relaxed evenings talking away on the starlit patio with a home-cooked meal and plenty of good wine.

Instruments you play: Does -badly- teaching myself rudimentary guitar in HS and going through Simply Piano last year count? ... yeah, didn’t think so. So, none. I’m more a Sports & Books type.

Languages you speak: Fluent French (first) and English (since childhood), above tourist level Spanish and German, but for no rational reason because they are the least similar languages ever, the two get mixed up like crazy when I speak either (both must be stored in the “Languages I Suck At” portion of my brain). And I never spoke as good Spanish as when I tried to speak Portuguese, which I can read decently enough, but understand when spoken? Not at all.

Fav song: Again with the music... ugh. I don’t know. Creep by Radiohead? Anything but Helter Skelter from The Beatles? Let’s Groove from Earth, Wind and Fire? Some Bryan Adams power ballad? Hopefully also something from the last 20 years... 

Random fact: My dad got the inspiration for my first name from a guy he met at a disco nightclub... who he later found out to be a male exotic dancer. Yup, I was apparently named after a Magic Mike disco dude. 

My mom found out at the same time I did. She was considerably less amused than I was.

Cats or dogs: Cats, 200%. Black ones all the better, although I relented and we adopted one of our foster babies, a tabby. He’s the devil but he’s also super sweet and cuddly. We named him Fofos, which is Portuguese for sweet / cute/ cuddly / fluffy (it is also wrongly plural but hey, it was always plural on the boxes of buns and cakes we bought in Portugal, and I already mentionned how abysmal my Portuguese is).

Aesthetic: Puzzles, books and movies in a cozy cabin with a fireplace in a snowy Laurentian forest; late summer nights at the ballpark, days by the pool and vegetable patch, the smell of BBQ in the air; flour-dusted vintage aprons, new recipes, planning meals & drink pairings; periodic tables, Erlenmeyer flasks, just being a nerd.

Tagging anyone interested!

[summerlimeismethebrony]

Okay so I have a general outline for the Dugan story

If you don't know who he is I hope you at least like the pictures

So, our story starts, as the comic does, with Fethry and his girlfriend Gloria looking through a photo album, and almost imedeatly we reach our first divergence

Instead of a family tree with a blank egg on it, which was kind of stupid, I think they'll find a postcard from his sister from just before she disappeared (because where did she go after her egg was lost that was way more convoluted than necessary, so I'm combining the two disappearances)

(I also made the dad an Orinoco goose she met on her adventures bc I can)

Gloria asks who these people are, and why she's never met them

Fethry explains that's his big sister and her (boyfriend? Husband? Idk there's literally no canon information on her partner), who had disappeared on a wildlife expedition about four years ago, and their unborn egg

There were signs they'd been eaten, but the egg was never found

Gloria convinces Fethry to go find his nibling, but he's not too optimistic

I'm not entirely sure what kind of wacky hijinks they'd be getting up to in this story, because the original was kind of racist and I am not actually a writer who knows how to fix that, but the journey definitely has some twists and turns in it

So before I continue, I'd like to mention design and my decisions on what waterfowl to base each character on

So you may know that Fethry's mother's maiden name is Loon, so of course I draw her as one. I've also based Fethry as a yellow-billed loon for this

Gloria is a Common Eider to keep that bright yellow "hair" (also she's trans now bc I can)

I based Mary (Dugan's mom) on a Common Shelduck for the combination of a Pacific Loon (Lulubelle's base) and a Common Eider (the base for Fethry's dad, yes I reused a type of duck don't @ me)

And Dugan is based on a Ruddy Shelduck even though I probably won't ever draw him as an adult. In the comics he's identical to baby Fethry, but I'm mostly getting rid of that, and making them easily distinguishable and having a vague family resemblence maybe?

ANYWHO Back to story

When they do find Dugan, he doesn't trust them right away

(Oh and I don't know what language this story was originally in, so this was probably less of a problem, but I can't really think of why Dugan would be fluent in English. So I think he can 'speak' porcupine(bc that was the wild animal that raised him for four years) and Portuguese (so he can actually communicate with his uncle and Gloria when they find him))

He's a bit of an asshole in the original story, seemingly for no reason, so I'm tweaking that a bit as him being understandably misstrusting of this weird scrawny loon who claims to care about him and has a terrible accent

(He'll warm up eventually)

So they get him to go home with them, and everything seems to be going pretty well

But then Fethry realizes that he isn't prepared to raise a child. This was a spur-of-the-moment decision. He doesn't have kids' clothing, he doesn't know how or what to feed a duckling, and he's freaking out, and he's calling his cousins in the middle of the night for parenting advice

So! The origin story is over, but on goes Fethry's adventures in parenting. He gets better, although there are struggles

Dugan does learn English and get his own clothing eventually (I do really like how he's usually wearing shoes in his comic appearances. Gives him some individuality)

[itsgonnabe-brian-may]

Te amo

// Requested by: @shinydragonllamacash

Heyy dear, could you please write something with Ben where they’ve been dating for like 2 months and he discovers she is Brazilian? I just LOVE Brazil and I’m trying to learn the language bc it’s sooo cute 💓 I’d really appreciate if you wrote this ☺️. Thank u so much darling love your blog

Hi lovely! I had a lot of fun writing this & thank you for your kind words and requesting it. I tweaked the request just a little bit but I hope you like it!!

Ben x reader

wc:875ish

DISCLAIMER: I, unfortunately, don’t speak Portuguese so I tried my best with phrases etc, I also tried to not use google translate because with my experience it’s not as accurate as people think it is :) If you speak Portuguese and want to correct me, please do! I want this to be as accurate as possible. Just be nice 

// 

"Alô?/Hi,"

"Eu estou bem, e você?/ I'm good, how are you?"

You softly spoke into your phone. You were careful not to speak too loud not wanting to wake up Ben sleeping in the other room. It's not like you were harboring a secret or hiding anything suspicious. You were just trying to be respectful of the man's sleep, god knows he needed it. Waking him up at 1:50am for no good reason wasn't kind or smart so you tried your best to stay quiet.

Normally you would save the phone call for earlier in the evening but it was the only time your family could come to the phone this week and the 5 hour time between London and your family's home in Brazil difference made it nearly impossible to find a time that worked for the both of you. A lot of times you talked during your lunch break, but clearly, it didn't work out. Though you were happy to stay up late, the conversations made up for it.

You always started with your mom, who bombarded you with 'motherly' questions about if you were sleeping and eating enough, and of course what your relationship status was. Then your dad was put on the phone and told you to disregard everything your mother said with a gleeful chuckle. Finally, your younger siblings practically fought to get to the phone and tell you about everything you were missing in Brazil. You were the odd one out in the family, having never lived there for long. Born and raised in London due to your mother's work, you had actually graduated from high school the same year the rest of your family moved back to Western Brazil. Of course, you had visited your whole family every chance you could, especially when you were younger, almost the whole summer was spent playing soccer with neighborhood kids and basking in the Brazillian heat all day long.

According to your younger brother, it was cold, but cold meant a high of 87.

"Irmão, não compreendo / Brother, I don't understand," You laughed, maybe a little too loud, however, you didn't pay any attention to it as you began telling your brother that 87 is not cold, especially since its 45 in London and that's warm compared to this winter. The words rolled off your tongue with ease as you sunk further into the couch pillows in your apartment. As you two fought, Ben stirred awake. Not due to it being too loud or the empty spot next to him. However, once he was slightly awake he sat up groaning and stretching out his stiff body. Noticing the empty spot next to him had grown cold he pulled his hoodie over his frame and walked out of your bedroom into the apartment. He found you sitting lengthwise on the couch, your feet propped up on the arm beside the dim standing light that was lit. At first Ben hadn't been paying attention to what you were saying, thinking that it was the grogginess of waking up that was jumbling words and phrases together. However, no amount of coffee or alertness could teach him to understand Portuguese, even at a decent time of day.

"Olá! Tchau! Te amo!/ Bye, Love you,"  You said happily hanging up the phone, grinning widely.

"So that's where you've been," Ben said softly picking up your legs and sitting down next to you on the couch.

His presence shocked you at first but you smiled placing a soft kiss to his cheek.

"I hope that wasn't your second boyfriend that you hide from me," He teased raising his thick brow at you.

"Oh god no, that was my brother," You laughed

"At 3 in the morning?" He asked confused.

"Time difference makes it 10 pm in Brazil, which still isn't great but not so bad for a teenager,"

"Ah, that makes more sense..." Ben said, his tired brain still trying to wrap his head around it all. You caught on to his continued confusion. You had only been dating for a short time, something like two months. Sure he knew you were Brazillian but the fact that you were born and raised in the UK made him assume it was more like how Joe was a quarter German or something like that.

"So when were you going to tell me you speak fluent Portuguese and your entire family lives in Brazil," He added after a while lightly running his fingertips over your shoulder affectionately.

"I guess it never really came up," you responded sheepishly turning your head to look at him directly.

"Sorry?" You offered giving him a tightlipped smile.

"For what? I guess I keep forgetting we've only been together for two months and I don't know everything about you," He laughed pulling you towards him.

"Come on love, let's go back to bed?"

"Gladly," you smiled pulling him off the couch and leading him into your bedroom where the two of you gladly fell asleep.

The next day Ben made it a goal to learn some Portuguese so he could surprise you. The first thing he learned was “Te amo” which means Love you and he was just waiting to find the right time to say it. 

[stereden]

In my defense @knightowlscurse French, German and Luxembourgish were mandatory in primary school (on top of French being my first language), and English was mandatory in secondary school (I went to the french highschool but it's mandatory in the luxemburgish ones as well) so the whole education system in Luxembourg is based around language learning. It was actually one of the reasons my parents wanted us to go through the luxemburgish system, at least for kindergarten and primary school, to make sure we would learn languages early, when our brains were at their highest malleability for language learning! My gran was worried we would get confused with all these languages, but it was always easy for us - French at home, luxemburgish in the school yard and when talking with friends, classes in German, so it was always kind of like, location based?

(fun fact: I apparently didn't say a word at kindergarten from September until Christmas when I started there, but was talking my teacher's ears off in luxemburgish when I came back after the holidays - children are sponges when it comes to languages! Also it was fun to have a 'secret' language that neither my parents nor my cousins and other relatives could speak - my siblings and I greatly enjoyed plotting mischief within earshot of Responsible People™ who couldn't understand a word of what we were saying, and insulting people in a language they can't understand is always fun)

I actually *lost* fluency in German when I left the luxemburgish system for secondary school, because the French system *sucks* at teaching languages and the school couldn't even be bothered to hire native German speakers despite literally being in a German speaking country and having Germany half an hour away. But noooo they had to get french teachers to come from France (admittedly also like half an hour away without traffic) to teach us German, which remains one of the stupidest things that school did (and there were many)

Despite this I could technically have taken another language on top of that during my last four years of high school, but I was already taking Latin because the history and etymology aspect was very interesting to me and thought my schedule was full enough as it was, so I declined even when teachers were pushing me to add another class.

In hindsight, I really should have taken Spanish or Italian or even Chinese [the only other language offered] back when my brain was still more malleable - learning new languages as an adult is much more difficult!

I also need to take up Spanish again because my parents are planning on moving to Spain once they retire so I'll need at least the basics for when I visit them there (I'm the only one in the family who doesn't understand it enough to hold a conversation, and they never let me forget it)

(My parents are fluent in French, conversational in English and Dutch, know the basics of Luxemburgish and German through osmosis after thirty years here. My dad's fluent in Spanish and my mom can hold simple conversations. My siblings are both fluent in French, German, Luxemburgish and English. My brother self taught himself some Spanish by watching Casa Di Papel and is currently learning Dutch since he studies in the Netherlands. My sister is also fluent in Spanish and Portuguese since she just finished her master's in Lisbon, so I guess we're all linguistic overachievers xD)

(Also I maintain that @aibhilin-atibeka is the terrifying one when it comes to languages!)

I was curious how many languages you speak ?

(I find languages super interesting and you reblogged something about the translation sector recently, so I was wondering, sorry if I’m bothering)

Hello! Sorry for being a bit late to answer, you're not a bother at all!

In theory, I know 7 languages, though 1 is a dead language and I can barely ask for directions in another, so it's more like 5 xD

I currently speak, by order of acquistion/learning:

- French (mother tongue, fluent spoken and written, C2)

- Luxembourgish (first language I learned in the luxembourgish kindergarden and primary school, semi-fluent - can speak it without much trouble and am getting used to writing it again now that my work requires it, but that language was very much not made to be written so i always doublecheck, either with my colleagues or through spellchecker.lu if I have to write any communication in Luxembourgish - B2 hovering to C1)

- German (learned in luxembourgish primary school where all my classes were in German, but then I switched to the French High School and lost a lot. Conversational spoken, can read it without problem, don't ask me to write in it because I've lost the 'ear' when it comes to declinations and I never understood the French way of remembering declinations. I technically have the C1 diploma, but my actual level is probably closer to B2, though my current job has me using it again so hopefully I'll gain some fluency back)

- English (learned in secondary school, minored at Uni, then went off to study in the UK for a year - Fluent spoken and written, C2 - though I originally learnt it mostly by reading, which means that my accent can be... interesting [in my defense, English pronunciation makes no freaking sense whatsoever when you look at how the words are written!])

- Latin (dead language, but I guess it counts? Took six years of it in secondary school, remember enough of it to kind of understand stuff written on old houses or temples, not enough to actually try and translate or write anything)

- Spanish (took two semesters at Uni, somehow passed the class [barely], can kind of understand it because of similarities to French and Italian, can ask for directions and that's about it. Probably around A1, let's be honest here)

- Italian (I lived in south Italy for a year for a volunteering and had evening classes to learn the language. Conversational, can kind of read it, writing is a pain in the ass because its similarities to French make my brain go 'stop butchering the French language and spell that word properly!!!' whenever I try xD. Between B1 and B2, and trying to continue learning it/practicing it)

French, German and Luxembourgish are the national languages of Luxembourg, so they're all taught in primary school already.

I can kind of understand Flemish/Dutch, due to their similarities to Luxembourgish, but don't ask me to actually speak them xD I can also somewhat understand Danish, as long as they speak very slowly and keep to simple words, because of the similarities to German.

I'm currently trying to learn Japanese in order to prepare for a trip there in a couple of years, and I'm also thinking of trying to learn either Welsh, Scots Gaelic, or Gaelic (Irish Gaelic) as I find those super interesting!

If you're interested in languages, I'm going to shamelessly tag @aibhilin-atibeka who is awesome at languages and knows a LOT of them!

[luchalabor]

TL, DR

I have nothing to do at work so I am going to try and write an obnoxiously detailed “about me” post to talk about the things that are important to me right now and why.

I was born June 14th, 1988 in Miami, Florida, which sucks because that means despite hating Nazis I have “1488″ in my birthdate when I write it in MMDDYY format.

My dad’s an immigrant from Havana, Cuba who came to the United States in 1959 in the first wave of immigrants to the US after the victory of Castro’s revolution. Growing up in Miami I was fed a steady diet of nostalgia and longing for a country that my dad’s family left voluntarily, without really explaining WHY they left. It’s only now after I put together all the stories about how they had a farm and my grandfather owned a boat that instead of having their property nationalized they... left it behind? Makes sense. 

My mom’s a wasp from Nashville, Tennessee. English is my first language and that’s what we speak at home. However, my dad made sure I always took Spanish as a class in school, and living in Miami meant knowing spanish was a functional necessity of everyday life. I was fully fluent by the time I finished high school and got a 5 on the AP Spanish exam. My grammar is super correct but you can tell from the slight imperfections in my accent that I’m not a native speaker.

When I was in seventh grade, I began studying Japanese because my middle school randomly offered it that year. After that year they stopped offering it so I studied with a private tutor all the way through college, where I majored in it along with Mandarin, which I started in college. I really hate the word “fluent” because I can’t, say, read a legal contract in Japanese or Chinese, but I would say I have advanced proficiency in both languages and can understand movies and TV without English. Usually if someone sends me a screen grab and asks “what does this say?” I can tell them.

Ever since college, acquiring languages has become a hobby of mine, especially since I discovered Duolingo. French still eludes me, but I’m functional in Portuguese, and trying to become functional in German.

I’ve been a wrestling fan since 2002. That’s right after the end of the Monday Night Wars and when it stopped really being cool to watch wrestling, but one day I was flipping channels and saw the Rock cutting a promo and I was hooked. I was 14 and I was amused by the fact that he said “sammich.” 

Like most of my interests, it turned into an obsession and I decided I wanted to actually be a wrestler. I joined my school’s wrestling team freshman year of high school, and that was the first time I became anything resembling an athlete as I had been a little fat kid most of my life until that point.

In 2005 some guys who had mostly been backyarders but had some professional training opened up a pro wrestling school in a warehouse in Little Haiti, so that was when I started learning how to take a bump and do it like they do on the TV. After a few months an actual professional by the name of “Soul Man” Alex G took over training us, and eventually he began just training me and a couple of other holdovers at Coastal Championship Wrestling’s Bodyslam University in Coral Springs.

I had my first professional match in July 2006 in an empty municipal gymnasium in Daytona, Florida and got paid $20. It was the first time I had gotten paid for any kind of work.

I stopped wrestling basically because I went to college. Dartmouth is in Hanover, NH, which wasn’t really close to any schools where I could keep wrestling. I tried to keep in shape, but at some point I realized I was 5′6″, 160 pounds, and nowhere near able to do all the same flips and jumps as the wrestlers my size who made it to TV, so I eventually gave up. I ended up finding another passion soon after, anyway.

I was home on a long break between my freshman and sophomore years of college right after having studied abroad in Japan and China for 5 months. Going from that hyperstimulating environment to being at home where none of my friends were because of differences in schedules and my family beginning to unravel as many do when the kids leave the nest, I had my first depressive episode. So I sat down and wrote my first jokes.

I began doing stand-up comedy at school in spring of 2008. We had a club and we’d preform in frathouses and local pizza places. If anything, it was a kind, gentle comedy womb in which to mature into a competent joke-teller. My first performance in front of an actual audience of strangers was in June of 2009 at the Comedy Studio in Cambridge, MA, which apparently as of this year no longer exists.

Stand-up gave me something to actually feel passionate about in college. I had absolutely no idea of what my post-college career plans were going to be with just a Chinese degree beyond vaguely teaching somewhere. After I caught the comedy bug, though, I knew I wanted to get into performing and writing. I joined the humor magazine at school, I spent the whole summer between junior and senior year performing in Boston. The only grad school I applied to was for a writing and producting for TV master’s program in NYC, and thankfully I got it.

The masters program was for two years from 2010 to 2012. At the end of the program, I wrote a half-hour animated TV pilot called “The 100 Deaths of Mort Grimley.” At the same time, Amazon Studios had just begun accepting TV scripts, so I submitted it. To my surprise, they actually optioned it, and then I was approached by an agent from William Morris Endeavor. I thought my writing career was off to an instant kick-start!

It wasn’t. I spent the next year hanging out in New York doing odd jobs while the script lingered in developmental hell. Eventually I decided to make the jump and move to LA thinking that being closer to the studio and my agent would help things move. 

Within a few months of moving, Amazon dropped the pilot from development, and my agent stopped picking up my phone calls. That basically brings me to where I am today, working in post-production to pay the bills and trying to make something else happen in the showbiz sphere.

I’ve kept doing stand-up for the 4 years I’ve lived here in LA, but doing stand-up here is more exhausting than NYC because you have to make more deliberate plans to go to a show or a mic because you have to figure out traffic, spend the time and the gas to drive, then you STILL might not get pulled out of the bucket. On top of that, at least in NYC everyone who does stand-up wants to BE a comedian, and they treat their stage time like it’s valuable. In LA you have to sit through a string of beautiful actors who were told to do stand-up by their agents struggling to figure out what to talk about when their set is only 3 minutes.

I discovered improv last year mostly because I got a job that was paying me better money, so I could finally afford it. I’m enjoying it but it sucks to feel like another white middle class nerd in an art form that feels like an exclusive white middle class nerd club.

Like most people who are privileged enough to realize the world was already shit, the 2016 election got me motivated to give more of a shit about politics. I liked Bernie at first because it felt like he was talking about racial issues in a frank way that hadn’t been discussed by a major party candidate before, but then got frustrated with his lack of specifics regarding HOW he was going to “break up the banks,” etc. It then finally hit me that any candidate working in the Democratic party would always be subservient to capitalism and never go as far as I wanted them to go. So then I finally relented and realized I was a socialist. I joined my DSA local in July after RL Stephens had been elected to the NPC and it felt like it might become more of a revolutionary organization instead of just a bunch of tepid reformists. So far, I have experienced a mix of both that has been frustrating. After a bunch of drama from both the national org and local chapters, I’m considering leaving and joining PSL instead. I want to work with an org that won’t make it difficult to build coalitions with other orgs and make marginalized people feel safe and welcome.

So there I am! I still have an hour before my next meeting, so wasting all this time still wasn’t enough! Boo!

[ukrainadian-blog]

Ukrainian-Canadian Identity and Ukrainophobia

Some days, saying I’m Ukrainian-Canadian makes me feel like a fraud. By blood I’m only a quarter Ukrainian, and while it may be surprising to people who follow me here, I did not embrace this part of my heritage until quite recently.

As a kid, I considered myself about half-Slav, half-Irish, like my mom. One, because I had and have very little number sense, and two, because I knew very little about my dad’s family and even then didn’t really feel I fit in with them (now that I’m older, and borderline estranged from my father, this is amplified). I knew my dad was Irish by descent as well, didn’t know he was half (probably Acadian) French until a few years ago. But blood isn’t culture. While significantly more of my DNA comes from Irish and French ancestors than Ukrainian ones, everything I know about Irish culture I learned from books, and everything I know about French-Canadians came from learning about it in school as a sort of foreign culture. Whereas some of my Ukrainian knowledge came down to me from family–making pyrohy and holubtsi together, learning to write pysanky at Easter from my mom, and learning about Soviet history with my baba.

Part of this is probably because of a fairly strong matrilineal line. I was always far closer to my mom than my dad, and also to my maternal grandparents. But I lost my grandfather when I was nine, so most of my life it was just my baba I could visit. And my mom, similarly, was closest to her maternal grandmother. Basically–it’s all about love for our babas in my family :)

But despite loving my baba very dearly, I was not a proud little Ukrainian girl. When asked where my family was from by friends, or in school projects, I would always proudly say I was Irish… aaand that I was a little Ukrainian and Russian. What I knew about being Ukrainian was food (pyrohy yum, holubtsi ew); pysanky (pretty and neat); and that it meant being poor, a peasant, and bullied. We don’t learn anything about Ukraine, Ukrainian-Canadians, or Eastern Europe in general in school in Canada (at least in my province, there may be more in the prairies). So I only knew my family history. My great-grandparents farmed, my great-grandfather was also a labourer in a quarry, and they were poor. My baba meanwhile endured enough taunting and beatings from Anglo kids at school growing up that she changed her name in the hope that Anne would attract less hate than the more Ukrainian Anna did.

When I was fourteen, we tried to visit Ukraine but couldn't get a visa. A year later, my baba asked if I wanted to go to Russia with her. I was really excited to leave the continent for the first time, but secretly disappointed we were going to peasanty Russia instead of, say, Ireland, where I desperately wanted to go. We spent two weeks in Russia, travelling up the Volga from Moscow to St. Petersburg, and I was stunned. All this fascinating history I had never heard of, imposing soviet architecture, and ornate Tsarist palaces--I'd finally learned that Eastern Europe was more than farms and vodka.

But only in Russia. I still knew very little about Ukraine, and that part of my heritage was shunted to the side again. Now when asked about my family, I was Russian, Irish... aaand a little Ukrainian. I learned everything I could about soviet Russia while in high school, and during my first year at university came very close to choosing to major in Russian history. I had Russian and Ukrainian textbooks my baba had given me, and while part of me felt I should try Ukrainian, especially because it seemed like the better textbook, I tried learning Russian for a couple of years (very unsuccessfully, the concept of prepositions being governed by cases made no sense in my pre-linguistics world).

When my baba passed, I regretted all I never asked and learned from her, and that I'd never learned enough Ukrainian to be able to speak to her. Enter @teensytigress and duolingo. Teensy was learning Portuguese, and I off handedly commented that if only they had Ukrainian, I would learn it to try to feel close to my baba again. It so happened that Ukrainian had recently gone beta, and she convinced me to study it so we could motivate each other. Duolingo was fun, Ukrainian was fascinating, and I finally had enough knowledge of linguistics for things like cases to be easy. I started learning more about specifically Ukrainian history and culture.

And then, I found my great-grandparents immigration records. In the year they landed, 1929, all passengers arriving by ship were logged with information about citizenship, ethnicity, language, health, occupation, etc. I knew my great-grandmother had been Ukrainian, and when I found the records there she was listed with my great-aunt. Polish citizens, ethnicity Ukrainian. My great-grandfather came over separately, to settle in Canada and get enough money to pay for their tickets to follow him there. I knew he'd been from a poorer family, and I had spent all my life under the impression that he was Russian. But I followed his line in the log--citizenship: Polish, ethnicity... Ruthenian. It turned out that I WAS NEVER ACTUALLY RUSSIAN. He was Rusyn, a Ukrainian who likely was from a Galician family.

After that, I stopped feeling guilty about learning Ukrainian instead of the """more useful""" Russian language that I had also believed to be my inheritance. I learned that Ukrainian culture is diverse and resilient, having stood up to repression both in Eastern Europe and in Canada. I learned that there is a ton of history we where never taught in school, from ancient cultures including those that may have inspired the Amazon myths?!, to being the heartland of Rus', through the Hetmanate Baroque, to Soviet and then modern independent Ukraine.

I regret not having embraced my Ukrainian-ness earlier, especially while my baba was here, but I'm glad to have got here eventually. I don't regret the years I spent thinking I was Russian--I learned a lot, and I'm sure someone at some point in my family tree was Russian if I go back a few hundred years given all the shifting borders and conquests.

So that's my story, of a lot of internalized Slavophobia and Ukrainophobia, and the near two decades it took me to get over it. This felt important to write (at five in the morning. Heh.), even though I doubt most people will read to the end of this novel. Perhaps I am just afraid of people here thinking I'm an authority on Ukrainian language or culture, when I'm very much not. I do a lot of research and reading and cross checking, but I started this blog as a way to learn, not as a platform to share established knowledge. I'm not a fluent speaker, and I've still never been to Ukraine, though I hope both of these will change in the future. In the meantime I'm always grateful to people like @tiger-manya who correct my mistakes!

And with that, I should probably sleep. Thanks for bearing with my insecurities. Good night)))

[mudpuddling-moved]

. her dad is peruvian & grew up in a spanish-speaking household which is normal in peru. he later moved to brazil where he learned portuguese which he is fluent in before moving to the us. he has a spanish accent when speaking portuguese.

. her mom was born in south africa & spent her childhood there but she’s actually portuguese n both her parents lived in portugal until shortly before her birth n they moved back there when she was a teen. she lived near mozambique which is a portuguese colony n therefore grew up with an accent specific to portuguese in southern africa. but because she also lived in portugal for most of her adult life it has weirdly blended into a unique accent. but ALSO her parents (my friend’s grandparents) are descended from portuguese sephardim and spoke ladino (judeo-spanish) growing up. she can follow her ancestors back to when they were cast out of spain bc of the alhambra decree and moved to somewhere in portugal in secret but continued to speak ladino only in private with other family members. so it became kind of weird bc it was only passed down in some families. so because my friend’s mom also grew up hearing her family speak a weird dialect of ladino in private it has influenced her accent as well. so her mom’s portuguese accent sounds like a mixture of south african portuguese, mainland portuguese, and ladino.

. AND when her parents married they kinda like mashed up their accents / dialects so they could understand each other in portuguese better but they also all speak english and have lived in the us for like 20 years so they both have a bit of an english accent

. so my friend basically speaks this mashup dialect of mainland portuguese AND brazilian portuguese with accents from like ladino, spanish, and south african portuguese and english. and only her, her parents, n her two sisters communicate with each other in this very weird language n while she has learned like typical portuguese in school this is all that they speak at home and though her parents can switch back to speaking mainland / brazilian portuguese she n her sisters’ first language is this extremely weird form of portuguese that nobody really understands except her immediate family.

i’m thinking abt my friend who fluently speaks the WEIRDEST portuguese you’ve ever heard