#also there’s more than just mandarin and Cantonese…

[scarletlich]

I wish people knew that Chinese doesn’t have “a different alphabet”, it just doesn’t have an alphabet. I wish people knew that Mandarin is a spoken version of Chinese and it is meaningless to say “written in Mandarin”. Written Chinese only distinguishes between simplified and traditional.

[pompompurin1028]

how many languages do you speak? this is so random idk…

It's not that random, don't worry about it <3

And technically I can speak two languages. Chinese and English. But under the Chinese language umbrella, I speak both Cantonese and (though much less fluently) Mandarin/Putonghua. But Cantonese and Putonghua aren't really mutually intelligible? But I don't do linguistics so this is not really my place to speak on that. I also know very very tiny bits of French because I learnt it for a bit but stopped because of the pandemic... (so I probably forgot a lot of it orz so we don't count that)

[kelaeri]

The Many Languages of Dick Grayson

Apparently, according to Nightwing #54, he can speak 12, so I went on a little quest to see just how many I could identify.

Starting off with The Essential Batman Encyclopedia, the entry for Dick Grayson lists him as being trained in French, Spanish, Russian, Japanese, Mandarin, and Cantonese with having some proficiency in an unknown Romani dialect. Given there are multiple examples of him speaking these languages throughout the comics, I am inclined to trust this claim. To start, we've got several examples of French (Gotham Knights #14, Detective Comics Annual #12, Nightwing #73, Grayson #10-- also featuring Spanish)

In Grayson #1 he speaks Russian only briefly, but in Detective Comics #36 he speaks it throughout.

As far as the Chinese languages go, while I believe Dick can speak Mandarin and/or Cantonese fairly well (Batman/Superman World's Finest #3), his Hanzi recognition and literacy could use some work.

Similarly, when the Titans head off to Japan in Titans Annual #1, we have Nightwing speaking Japanese in battle; however, when it comes to the prospective job of being a manga translator in Nightwing #125, he claims he doesn't know Japanese, which leads me to believe he is only proficient in speaking Japanese/Chinese and struggles with the writing systems.

So what about the languages not covered in the encyclopedia? To start, we have another romance language: Italian (Nightwing #72).

Followed by some alleged German (Nightwing #51, JLA #44)

And conversations in Farsi (Robin #175)

While I've seen some Tumblr and Reddit posts claim he knows Kikuyu, The Power Company: Manhunter #1 only says he "brushed up" on his Kikuyu before going to Kenya, so it is unknown how much of the language he actually speaks, but to me it doesn't seem likely to be a lot.

He also, to some unknown degree, speaks Tamaranean-- at least enough to hack into an alien computer (Action Comics #842).

As far as unspoken languages go, Dick is fluent in ASL, which is proven numerous times when he communicates with Jericho (New Teen Titans 1984).

And lastly, the two languages that remain rather uncertain are Romani and Cant-- largely due to the nature of the languages themselves and their representation in comics. "Romani," for instance, has several different dialects, and when Devin Grayson introduced it for Dick (Gotham Knights #20-21, Nightwing #91), she never specified which, and based on the lines she wrote, her research into the language was questionable at best. Writers since have recognized Dick's Romani heritage, but have not otherwise suggested he retained much of the language to be considered fluent.

Cant is an even wider term than Romani and can be seen as more of jargon for a particular language than a language itself, sometimes even being called a "pseudo-language." The colloquial term for American circus cant is Carny, or "Carny speak" as Boston Brand puts it in Batman: The Brave and the Bold #14 when he and Nightwing encounter a kid who speaks it.

So... this leaves us with 11 languages Dick has notable proficiency in: English, French, Spanish, Italian, Russian, German, Japanese, Mandarin, Cantonese, Farsi, and ASL. And ~3 languages he has unknown proficiency in: Tamaranean, Kikuyu, Romani, and Carny/Cant (if you want to count it).

Maybe memory-loss Dick was including either Tamaranean or Kikuyu in that count from Nightwing #54, or maybe he knows some other language we haven't seen yet. Given how close the family is to the Al Ghuls, I personally think it would be cool if one of them was Arabic.

But anyway, hope you enjoyed this post! A lot I've seen covering this topic are very surface-level and label some of his more iffy languages as "fluent," so I hope this cleared things up. I've read tons of Nightwing, and I swear there are more examples, but sifting through the 1,000+ comics I've read of him is a lot haha. If y'all know of some others, let me know!

[sizzleissues]

Speak my language (1250 words.)

inspired by this post by @nervousbelieverstarfish

There was a girl behind M Damocles, her hands stuck awkwardly at her sides as she made herself appear small next to him. Adrien tilted his head to the side to get a proper look but the girl shuffled away. Adrien straightened and looked up at M Damocles. Why had he led this clearly frightened girl all the way to his shady spot in the school yard? M Damocles stepped aside, gesturing to the girl with a worried smile. 

“This is Marinette Dupain-Cheng, she's a new student here.”

Marinette whispered something quiet that went ignored by M Damocles.  There was a piece of pasta on her shoulder that she didn't seem to notice and a reddish stain on her black jacket that she definitely knew was there. Her entire face was pink as she watched him from behind her bangs.

He extended his hand — that was what you’re supposed to do when greeting new people? — and tried to make his smile warm. “Hi, I’m Adrien. You have pasta on your shoulder.”

Marinette blinked and M Damocles stepped in, clearing his throat.

“She’s just moved here from China. Very little French.”

Adrien retracted his hand. (He was glad she hadn’t understood him, why had he opened with ‘there’s pasta on your shoulder’? She looked mortified already, no need to kill her.)

“I know you’re only recently returning to regular schooling after your m-,” M Damocles clammed up, his voice trailing off. 

“My maman died,” Adrien supplied, forcing M Damocles to look him in his eyes as he said it. He was sick of people treating him like he couldn’t bear to hear the words. Maybe it was more that they didn’t want to say it, that they didn't want to deal with the consequences if he did break with every mention of her. It was a good thing then that he’d put all that childish grief away — along with everything else that would only hurt him in the long run. 

“Err- yes. That. Anyways, you’re here longer than Marinette and I read on your file you’re fluent in Chinese. You’re also in all advanced classes so you’d be the perfect fit to help Marinette get around and teach her French on the side. If you are willing to, of course.”

Adrien had half a mind to refuse M Damocles and go back to his quiet existence on the edges of the school. That was the way he liked it and nothing ever before had made him want to change that. Then he looked at Marinette and he couldn’t find it in him to refuse.

“Do you know what dialect she speaks?” Adrien asked. 

“Pardon?”

“What dialect? I speak Mandarin but she could only speak Cantonese or another regional dialect I wouldn’t understand.”

M Damocles paused, his thick eyebrows weighed with confusion. It seemed the thought had never occurred to him. 

“Marinette. Do - you - speak - Mandarin?” M Damocles asked her in broken French. Adrien saw something flick across her face that was different from her timid expression before. A flash of fire in her otherwise soft blue eyes. She silently nodded in response. Adrien saw it again as M Damocles turned back to Adrien to relay the answer though he’d already heard. He had to bite his lip to contain a snicker as he caught the sarcastic flick of her eyes. 

“Well then, that’s all sorted. I’ll leave you to it,” M Damocles said with a note of relief in his voice, glad the translation problem was no longer his. He strode off, leaving Marinette behind. She watched him leave with a surprisingly reluctant expression, even though he’d proved utterly incompetent.

“So, you’re new here?” He asked in Mandarin. Marinette swung her head around, blue eyes wide and frightened again. 

“Y-yes.”

“I’m A-.”

“Adrien Agreste. I know,” She interrupted.

“You do?”

Marinette seemed to realise what she’d done and turned bright red.

“I mean, you already said so. Earlier. I’m not the best at French but I know when someone’s introducing themselves.”

“Right…” It didn’t explain knowing his last name, he’d never given it, but he wouldn’t be surprised if the Agreste name had made it as far as China. He moved on to the side on his bench and held his hand out to offer the seat beside him. “Do you want to sit down?”

“Okay.” 

She sat, bouncing her leg as she looked everywhere but at him. Had she understood him earlier with the pasta thing? He searched his head for something to say before the silence lingered too long and it became impossible to breach. 

“You have pasta on your shoulder.”

Not that!

Marinette squeaked, shaking it off and then removing her jacket altogether. She groaned into her hands. Adrien scrambled desperately for something not related to pasta to ask.

“I- I noticed you have a French word in your name?”

“Oh, yeah. My Papa is French but we’ve lived in China my whole life. Never really tried to learn the language. Regretting that now.” She laughed dryly at her own expense. Adrien smiled at her when she looked up and she immediately went back to staring at the ground, furiously tapping her foot. 

“Why did you move, if you don’t mind answering?”

“To go here. To learn art at this school and become a fashion designer. I applied ages ago, I didn’t think I got in. Didn’t think I would get in.” She leaned back from hunching over, her voice getting a little louder as she settled. “That's probably why I didn’t really try to learn French but now I’m here and I don’t know a word and it's going to screw everything up. I couldn’t find any of my classes and then this- this, bitch, threw her pasta all over me when I couldn’t understand her. She had a claim over the table I’d chosen, apparently. People had been warning me and I couldn’t understand them fully to realise. How am I supposed to become a famous fashion designer if I can’t even say it in French!”

Marinette clamped her mouth shut and turned to Adrien with an alarmed expression. His Mandarin wasn’t good enough to have kept up with everything but he got the gist. She was completely lost and alone.

“I’m so sorry. You don’t want to hear about that. You’re the one saddled with teaching me and now I’m dumping this all on you. You really don’t have to.”

Adrien looked across the school yard to where all the other students had gathered, talking amongst themselves. Groans about homework, whispers of gossip and cheers as one student presented a graded project. He’d never once bothered to join in. Now he was sitting with this girl who was on the outskirts like him and she couldn’t join in even if she wanted to. The voice that told him to shut everyone out could be ignored for now. She would be his exception.

His only exception.

(He didn’t know now but soon he’d make another. For a girl with fire in her soft blue eyes. He’d look into those eyes as her hand reached to save him and know he’d have to make another exception. But that would be the last one) (Until the next.)

“It’s alright. I’ll teach you French until it's better than your Mandarin. And you can help me improve my Mandarin in return. Does that sound like a deal?”

Marinette looked down at the hand he’d extended then up at him, her eyes flooding with relief. She shook his hand, grinning from ear to ear. 

“Deal.”

-

OK OK OK OK. I hope you liked it, i hope it was good. Let me know or whatever. Please reblog blah blah blah and have a good day

I would write more but I have so many WIPS and I’m trying to overcome doubt in my writing so I can just write again. This is an AU to the movie’s canon but also can be applied to the show if you want. I’ve also added my own slight headcanon that Adrien was only homeschooled during the period of his mother’s sickness and ‘death’ as my interpretation of the canon given to us in the movie. Take it or leave it. So he was friends with Nino prior to everything but he’s since shut him out.

[greenunoreversecard]

Kai general and Romantic headcanons

A/N:sorry if I got any of the characters wrong, I was using a combo of wiki/Google translate as I don't speak any of the languages mentioned. Pls let me know if I got any info wrong, i will gladly go in and change it to make it right.

General:

Half Indian and half Chinese.

His and nya's last name is 鄭 (Zheng), but he says it's Smith bc when they where younger he got in the habit of lying about his name so he Didnt have to deal with CPS.

His ma is from Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, and was a practicing Hindu. Ray is from the 云南 (yunnan) province, and was a practicing theravida Buddhist. Ray is ethnically from the 傣族 (dai people, also spelt Tai in english)

Before his parents dissapearances, they both brought him to their hometowns, and actively taught him both cultures and religions, which he continued to learn about and even teach Nya about after their dissapearances.

When he was 14 he bought a small boat and him and Nya rode it across the costal line, and he promised Nya one day when he was older he'd bring the both of them to their parents hometowns.

He's a Buddhist.

He speaks so many languages.

Like so many

He's fluent in Thai, mandarin and cantonese chinese, telugu, urdu, hindi, Punjabi, arabic and ninjago-ian(idk whatever language ninjago speaks)

Also trying to learn Indonesian.

He also knows yunnan dialect bc his dad would speak in it more often than not

Absorbes info like a sponge

He likes to quilt

He always wears a golden bracelet He got from his moms jewelry box after she left.

Likes to draw but is bad at it, so he colors coloring books

Introvert

He may act all confident, but he really isn't. super insecure

Soooo good with hair

Like, has all the stops. 10 step hair care routine

rivals Zanes cooking skills.

When working out focuses on building rather than lean muscle.

Mother friend

has dragged all of his friends into the water splashing festival.

Fatal flaw is loyalty and kind of hubris (it's conflicting, ik with the insecure and extreme pride, but like- it makes sense in my head. Inferiority/maybe superiority complex.)(it makes sense bc this is such me behavior. Imagine hating yourself but thinking ur the baddest bitch alive)

Likes to stare at fire

If he can't sleep he'll make a small bonfire to stare at and think

insomnia

Chronic cigarette smoker

Romantic:

Hes more show than tell

Def acts of service (me frfr)

Although, he is very cuddly.

Not in public, though. Maybe infront of the other ninja if it was a rough day

Loves to rock you gently from side to side when yall are hug

loves to give you temple kisses

He's very gentle with you, treats you like glass

You wil prolly say ily first, and he'll go;"🧍‍♂️...cool?"

He has mommy and daddy issues, but HEAVY on the mommy issues. Have fun with this hyper-independant fuck who can't accept help without feeling like a failure even though they need it (I'm not projecting you are)

Goes all out for holidays and anniversaries.

Doberman/German Shepard vibes tbh

When it's just you two he doesn't feel the need to fill the air with meaningless chatter, so if he feels safe enough to just share air without talking feel honoured and cherish it bc that means he actually trusts you.

A little rough around the edges, but will remember that thing you said 5years ago on ur first date

Most dates are chill inside and take a nap

But sometimes if he can he takes you on the town or someplace fancy

Also likes to show you his favorite childhood spots

[necromancy-enthusiast]

Traditional Chinese Translation of Homestuck Analysis-Beta Troll Typing Quirks

That's right, there's a full traditional Chinese translation of Homestuck. You can find it, along with links to other translations, here. If you want to jump to Hivebent when all the beta trolls are officially introduced so you can see this for yourself, here's a link to the first page.

But first, I'll give as succinct of a rundown of the elements of the Chinese language that are relevant as I can. The Chinese writing system doesn't have an alphabet, instead words all have unique characters. So a lot of the trolls' quirks just can't be 'transliterated', because they have something to do with spelling. Similarly, Chinese characters don't have upper or lower cases.

There are multiple ways to type Chinese on an electronic device, but the most common is using a Latin script keyboard. You type out the pinyin of a Chinese character (which is the system mostly commonly used to romanize Mandarin Chinese nowadays) and some suggestions for characters with pinyin romanizations spelled that way pop up in a little window, and then you pick the one that you want.

Chinese also has A LOT of homophones because instead of making a wider variety of noises like English, Chinese opted to differentiate words partially based on the tone they're spoken in. This is absolutely fantastic for puns and wordplay, English could never hope to be anywhere near Chinese's level in that regard. This comes into play with some of the trolls' typing quirks.

And just to clarify, sometimes I say 'Chinese' and sometimes I say 'Mandarin', that's because Mandarin is the official dialect in both mainland China and Taiwan and now the mostly widely spoken one in the world. It isn't mutually intelligible with most other Chinese dialects (this is part of why some people argue that Chinese isn't a single language but a language family). However, written Chinese can generally be understood regardless of the dialect you speak, even if people speaking in different dialects often have different ways of saying the same thing, like greetings and whatnot. When I say Chinese I mean things that broadly apply to written Chinese or the Chinese language/language family as a whole, when I say Mandarin I mean things specific to the Mandarin dialect. I think that about covers it. This post is already getting a bit long so I'll put everything else under a cut. Here's the breakdown:

Aradia: Replaces characters with the Arabic numeral for zero 0. I looked it up and apparently the Chinese character for zero also carry connotations of negation or mean things like 'nought' or 'no', which seems to fit with at least most of the instances she uses it in. Apparently this character can also have some link to death and dead spirits, which would fit given how she's a ghost at the beginning of the story.

Tavros: Uses the character 呃 a lot, which can be used like 'uh' or 'eh'. Uses 嗯 which can be used like 'hmm' or 'uh' as well, or like a general mumbling/light groaning sound, but with less frequency. Still, types haltingly, and uses commas, a lot, like in English, without any periods, Since Chinese doesn't have upper or lower cases, Tavros cANT DO THAT THING HE DOES IN ENGLISH, WHERE HE TYPES IN ALL CAPS OTHER THAN, THE FIRST LETTER OF SENTENCES, sO UNFORTUNATELY, there isn't a lot else to say here.

Sollux: Still refers to the others by their nicknames like KK and AA. He uses reduplication more often than most of the others, which is when you repeat part of a word or even a whole word for various reasons, often to stress your point. He also replaces characters that are pronounced as 'shi' in Mandarin with the Chinese character for 4, which is pronounced as 'si' and written as 四. I'm pretty sure this is supposed to be reminiscent of his lisp. EDIT: AS @autumntides reminded me, in at least Mandarin and Cantonese four is a homophone with death, and thus it carries the stigma of death and unluckiness. This fits in well with Sollux's mage of doom class and everything related to it, like Vriska mind controlling him to kill Aradia and him dying during the vast glub because he didn't make it into the game in time before Feferi revived him. I still think it's also the lisp, though.

Karkat: He doesn't type in a larger font size then the others so he doesn't really have any typing quirks, at least none I've been able to ascertain, but he's just as imaginative with his cursing. It can be pretty rough for me to parse and equally rough to translate into English in a way that doesn't sound really awkward, but one of my favorites is 'Rotten bloated corpse of God Almighty! Goddammit, what the fuck does your pockmarked think stem want?'

Nepeta: Uses onomatopoeias that equate to 'cat sounds' like meow and roar, as well as a good bit of reduplication. Still uses asterisk marks and speaks in the third person to indicate when she's role-playing.

Kanaya: Doesn't use punctuation. That's it, since she can't capitalize things like she does in English. I really wish I could say more but that's all I can see. She's still verbose, though.

Terezi: Replaces words that are homophones or near homophones with the numbers 1, 3, and 4 in Mandarin with their Arabic numerals, presumably to resemble how she types in leetspeak in English.

Vriska: Still types out characters 8 times occasionally, but rather than letters (since the Chinese writing system doesn't have an alphabet) it's the whole 'word' like 月月月月月月月月. Replaces words that are homophones (or almost homophones) with 'eight' in Mandarin with the Chinese character for 8 八. I'm pretty sure it's meant to signify that she's dragging the word out rather than repeating it, like when she does thiiiiiiiis in English.

Equius: Still uses % like X's, but he just types it and then types out the word. Again, I don't know exactly what kind of keyboard he's using, but if he's using a Latin script keyboard, he's just typing things like %xuan but when he's finished typing it looks like this %選.

Gamzee: Types out every other character in a slightly smaller font size then the default, he's the only one that changes his font size to resemble his English typing quirk. I'm guessing/hoping they have a set up where he can just as easily change font size as Latin script keyboards can change between lower and uppercase by hitting a certain button, but who knows. He uses ta ma de 他媽的 a lot, which is pretty much the Chinese equivalent of 'motherfucker/motherfucking', and cao 操, which is just 'fuck' but the verb.

Eridan: Still refers to the others by their nicknames like Fef and Kan. A lot of reduplication. A LOT of it, way more than Sollux or Nepeta even. I think this is supposed to be reminiscent of how he doubles his Vs and Ws in English rather then symbolizing true grammatical reduplication, though. It also seems to be that his specific flavor of reduplication is like Vriska's, it's meant to signify he's dragging the sound of a word out rather than repeating it. He also types ~ right after reduplication, seemingly to resemble the waves on the ocean and that he's sort of saying it in a 'wavy' manner, like how in English the comic remarks that he has a 'really weird kinda wavy sounding accent'. Honestly it's annoying to look at, and other Chinese speakers have told me the same thing when they saw how he types. Maybe that was intentional?...

Feferi: She does the same thing as Equius does with X but uses ) ( in front of words whose pinyin romanization starts with H. Uses 'gulu' in the place of 'glub' as transliteration. Replaces characters like those for 'is' 是 and 'have' 有 for characters that have that character in it but also have the character for fish 魚 like 鯷 and 鮪. Also occasionally uses ------ before characters, I think it's meant to symbolize that she's saying something excitedly.

And there you have it. This was rough and took a lot of time, but it was fun if at times deeply frustrating. I may do more of these posts comparing the Chinese translation to the original English, I'm particularly interested in the alpha trolls, but who knows. If you enjoyed this I'd greatly appreciate you sharing it :)

[jesncin]

NEW CHINDO LOIS COMIC WE CHEERED

chinoy lois truther™ anon here and again. ITS LIKE YOU REACHED INTO MY MIND 😆 i always imagine her going to her favorite cantonese hole in the wall for gossip. and then one day she goes with clark and the owner speaks to him in cantonese (in my head he’s mostly white passing but still racially ambiguous) and lois is like heh there’s no way.. and then BAM white boy SHOCKS chinese waiter by ordering in perfect chinese 🤩 tiktok moment (in my head he just. knows almost every language. kryptonian mind powers)

and this secretly makes lois so mad cause she only knows like two and half languages. no her parents did not teach her canto 😿😿…

We all booyah'd in quick succession!!

Aaah thank you :D Clearly this is proof that we are connected by the Southeast Asian mind realm, so we're bound to come up with similar bespoke ideas...! A lot of people think that when I say I want race to inform these characters more, that I'm only talking about adding a Racism Plot, but little things like this are part of what makes them richer to me.

Special fact, Clark does canonically speak Mandarin!

(they're both speaking in Mandarin here since Kenan's not fluent in English)

Something like this could open up how awkward Lois would feel knowing that language was more accessible to Clark than her. In my mind, Clark learns some languages to help him travel internationally as a reporter. I got a comment on a jokey comic about Clark not knowing Bahasa Indo that "Clark knows every language so that's not accurate". And I don't subscribe to that line of thinking personally! He's more interesting when he doesn't know everything. Plus mind powers are Martian Manhunter's thing! The Kryptonians may have had translators and advanced memory technology, but Clark's also experiencing his own kind of distance from those things. Basically I like that he has a language barrier from his own culture too.

[silentauthor96]

Random Xiaolin Showdown Headcanons: Language Edition

Everyone at the temple is multilingual, but they speak English since it's their only common language (at least at the beginning of the series)

Clay speaks Spanish and Raimundo speaks Portuguese, so they end up making a bunch of inside jokes based on their own hybrid of the two, and they are the only ones who understand what any of it means

Kimiko also knows Korean because she keeps up with all the latest pop culture trends. (Side note: Kimiko absolutely has k-pop star style. We love her for that)

Everyone learns Cantonese & Mandarin upon arrival at the temple. Kimiko has the most trouble with reading and writing, and is very much over learning new character systems tyvm

Raimundo learns how to swear in everyone's languages. He also can't spell in any language (he's of the opinion that if you can understand what he wrote, 'correct' spelling is irrelevant)

Omi picks up idioms in other languages much faster than English. He maintains that it's not his fault the English ones just make less sense.

Kimiko and Omi learn some of Clay and Rai's Spanish/Portuguese hybrid, mostly just through listening to random conversations, but then realize they can't communicate in either language on its own. (Of course they realize this after they insisted on going off on their own to collect Wu in Spain, and nothing around them sounded familiar. They completed the mission using a translation app, but they don't tell the guys that part.)

Eventually Jack can more or less understand monkey vocalizations even without holding the staff. No one is surprised by this revelation

[indireneedofanap]

As a literal half Chinese, half white girl I cannot express to y'all just how upsetting it is to see how this fandom treats the fact that Marinette is mixed. Homegirl is not a "whitewashed asian", shes literally half white.

"She can't even speak the Mandarin!" So? I can't speak Cantonese. My father is an immigrant, but I was born and raised in America similar to how Marinette was born and raised in France. Growing up I wasn't taught how to speak Cantonese because the only language my parents shared (and therefore communicated in) was English. That doesn't change the fact that I'm half.

"She looks too white!" No she doesn't? She might be (debatably) white passing, but many wasian people are, myself included. People seem to like to ignore the fact that when a kid is mixed, they may end up looking more or less like either parent. My father has dark tan skin and my mom is white. My older brother is the same skin tone as my father, possibly darker, while the rest of my siblings are more pale than my mom. Genetics just work like that, and Marinette does come off visually as being a mix of her mom and her dad.

"it's impossible for her eyes to be blue!" Not really. I babysit 3 kids, their mom is white with blue eyes and their dad is black with dark eyes. 2 of the 3 kids ended up with lighter eye colors like their mom.

"We don't see her experience her culture!" And what, exactly, is her culture in your eyes? She's mixed with Chinese, but she grew up in France. They never make a point to hide the fact that Marinette is mixed or that her mom is Chinese. There's little traces that really sell the fact that it's a mixed household all over their apartment: my personal favorite being the Chinese wall scroll art they casually have hanging up in their western style apartment, which is practically identical to my sister's house. There's nothing screaming "IM CHINESE LOOK AT HOW CHINESE I AM!", it's just casually shown throughout the show, which is the case for most mixed kids. Marinette's race isn't treated poorly, it's just treated casually, and I love that. You don't need to prove anything to anyone simply because of your race. People claiming that she's "not Chinese enough" are, in my eyes, hypocritical. I'm half Chinese, I'm half white, so what? I'd never deny it, but it also doesn't change the fact that I grew up in the American Suburbs, just like how Marinette's race doesn't change the fact that she grew up in Paris around predominantly French culture. Treating a character as if they need to look or speak a certain way simply because of their racial identity with disregard for their nationality and experience is ignorant in its own right.

You know who else is Teenage, Half Asian Superhero raised in a western society? Mark Grayson from Invincible (the show, not the comic). His Mom, Debbie, is Korean while his father (who's technically a Viltrumite Alien) appears white. His racial identity (in regards to being half Asian) is also never something that's shown to be of any importance to the story, but is also never swept under the rug. It's just there because that's how mixed families are in reality. The same energy applies to Marinette.

Her representation may not be accurate to everyone, but its accurate to me and many of the other half-Chinese people I've encountered :)

Note: I'm not speaking on Miraculous' depiction of Chinese culture via Sabine or her Uncle, just the depiction of a mixed Chinese/white kid via Marinette .

Also want to add that many people feel her character is "whitewashed" because the original concepts of her as a comic character made her appear more obviously Asian, where her on screen 3D counterpart is less so. Im not sure what happened during the creative process and if the decision to make her mixed was added later on, but the discussion above is simply in regards to those that claim her depiction in the show is inaccurate to actual mixed kids and not in relation to how her character changed during conceptualization.

[sleepvines]

How does corn hell work?

okay so. I work at a grocery store in a very asian centric area, and every so often corn goes on sale. This week it is 15 cents a cob. There is a limit of 12 on corn, but people will come in with carts full of like, 20, 24, sometimes even 36 or 40+ and expect us to let them have it.

A few things. One, I have to deal with this shit constantly, the people trying to convince me to split the bill (against policy) for them or just give it to them (also against policy) are not special and are extremely inconvenient. This is exacerbated by a massive language barrier, because more often than not our customers speak mandarin and cantonese. I don't know mandarin and my cantonese is like, basically kindergarten level (numbers, a few words here and there.) so misunderstandings and miscommunications happen All. The. Time. It's not their fault for not knowing english and in fact I wish we had more language accommodations to make my job and their lives easier, but we're understaffed and management can't be assed. This corn sale problem happens with way more than just corn. every week sales change and some new thing arrives to uniquely pain me.

on top of all this? Machines freeze. our piece of shit (pos) system is so flimsy it breaks during busy days sometimes. and we have a promotion going on that slows the machines down further and that our customer demographic is hardly interested in at all. it's a clusterfuck!

and then the corn specific problem. the husking! the silk! corn bits are everywhere. they're in the conveyor belts, on my workspace, stuck to the scanner, everywhere and customers are NOT ALLOWED TO HUSK THE CORN IN STORE! we even charge more for it. they don't listen and some even protest. a customer told me today she was pushed out of the way for this shit. god.

food insecurity is a huge issue these days and I don't entirely blame them but dear god a lot of it is just straight up not cool.

anyway yeah corn hell. save me

[stirringwinds]

Lowkey just thinking of regional lingua francas that have existed historically and I have a rough headcanon that Kiku and Port had to communicate through Cantonese or Mandarin Chinese— because 1) Kiku was too busy with domestic and regional conflicts in the 16th century (area man deserves the beating he got from Yong-Soo during the Imjin War) 2) Port could speak a Southern Chinese language like Cantonese due to earlier contact with Ming China at the port of Guangzhou. Kiku knows multiple Chinese languages because contrary to Western stereotypes, Japan wasn't mostly a hermit, but has a long seafaring history and extensive exchanges with continental Asia going back 2000 years. Knowing how to write in Classical Chinese and to speak Chinese languages like Cantonese or Mandarin was roughly analogous to knowing Latin in Europe/the Mediterranean because of the power and prestige of the Roman Empire. Essentially, the languages associated with THE regional titan, Yao— who in turn is actually perfectly fluent in Japanese and also Korean but it’s all a power play about who has to learn what language and Chinese cultural influence being equated to (imperial) standards of “civilisation”.

Port, I tentatively think, put more effort into learning Japanese than Kiku did with Portuguese (he found it just easier to use Cantonese or Mandarin.) But on Port’s part there’re not just guns to sell and profit from—but well, Jesus !! to spread around. But yeah, I kind of like the idea of human-nation interactions too and nanban trade era Kiku more than once had to rely on a bilingual Japanese convert whenever speaking to some Portuguese who didn’t know any Chinese languages. I think Kiku might've also deliberately used that presence of an interpreter to emphasise an arms' length relationship, even if his Portuguese later improved—to reduce intimacy and proximity in his dealings with the Portuguese since he was often suspicious of Port too, inasmuch as he depended on him for firearms and access to Chinese goods during the era Japan was banned from Ming China due to ostensibly being responsible for wokou piracy. Just the multitude of ways languages, the perception of understanding and (deliberate?) misunderstanding might shape power dynamics 🤔

[thatanimewriter]

BǍO BÈI, MON AMOUR AND... BABE, I GUESS??

➳ request: Can I request Finny, Baldroy, Joker, Snake, and maybe Dagger with a multilingual fem s/o? I speak English, Spanish, and French irl. Bonus points if you incorporate pet names in either of those. I’m thinking along the lines of some nice headcanons.

➳ character/s: finny, bardroy, joker, snake, dagger

➳ warnings: swearing, perhaps butched pet names from other languages, generally butched arabic (baldroy), french (joker), spanish (finny), norwegian (snake) and german (dagger) because i don’t speak anything but english

➳ notes: woww that’s really cool that you know how to speak other languages, i’ve always wanted to be fluent in something other than english and i used to learn mandarin, but i hated the teacher at school and dropped the subject asap lmao

𝐫𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐫𝐮𝐥𝐞𝐬 / 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭  / 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐬 / 𝐰𝐢𝐩 𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭  

──  𝐁𝐀𝐑𝐃𝐑𝐎𝐘.

infatuated

he thinks it’s super cool

and hot

now he gets creative for pet names for you

he goes beyond the classic babe, baby, sweetheart, doll etc

now you gotta suffer with sweet cheeks, toots, sugarplum and all that cheesy gross shit

but he gets which language mixed up all the time

he probably messes up the pronunciation as well

it’s ok, he’s attempting

he often notices that you’ll speak arabic when you’re tired or frustrated

“habibi... come to bed.”

but also when you’re thinking of a word and it only makes sense in the languages you know

it’s fine, he thinks it’s cool

and funny because accents between languages also change

all in all, very impressed

──  𝐅𝐈𝐍𝐍𝐘.

literally gets the anime sparkles in his eyes

as if you could get any better??

constantly asks you to speak your other languages

asks you for the names of basic household items in that language

“what’s bed in spanish??”

“la cama.”

“oh my god that’s so cool-”

but then you bamboozled him with another language

and he then discovered you’re multilingual

because he caught you speaking cantonese to lau

and he thinks you spoke, like, gaelic one time

he’s not sure what the languages are but it’s COOL

he definitely butches some of the words

most of the words

but it’s the thought and effort that counts

──  𝐉𝐎𝐊𝐄𝐑.

what a little charmer

he would tease you for keeping this from him

and would also want to learn 

he probably has caught you just mumbling to yourself in french

wants to learn french because stereotypical romance

but also to eavesdrop-

sometimes he’ll just stick his head through your tent ‘door’ and go

“tu veux venir te promener avec moi?”

and you’re left wondering how he knows to ask you for a walk of all things

you both use ma chérie and mon chéri

it’s the most basic one

but it does the job

as a joke he suggested you speak your other languages as an act for the circus

you said no because it’s not really that circus-worthy

but maybe in future it’d be a funny gag

──  𝐒𝐍𝐀𝐊𝐄.

silent admiration

emily and keats are more vocal about it

if he has snakes from the countries which language you speak they now cling to you, they’re yours now

they don’t leave you

he will probably learn easy words when he wants something but doesn’t wanna say in front of EVERYONE

“klemmer?”

“awww, yes hugs.”

the whole circus cannot interpret norwegian at all

nor can they understand korean or swedish

but they all think it’s a fun gimmick

because you’re extremely multilingual

his face was like :000

when you asked a foreign guest who didn’t speak english

‘what language would you like me to speak?’

because damn

what a badass that you can just whip out a language and speak it fluently

──  𝐃𝐀𝐆𝐆𝐄𝐑.

in love even more

if that’s possible

you’re just so cool ;v;

he won’t lie

it sounds like gibberish at the start before you teach him

the only thing he can possibly interpret is your tone

even then

he’s fucked if you speak a language that naturally sounds aggressive

because he’s gonna think you’re PISSED when you’re asking if he wants potatoes or not

“liebling, give me cuddless”

“LEE BLING??”

he can’t for the life of him try to imitate you without sounding offensive

so he doesn’t

he just admires you from afar

and from close by

[damian-al-ghul-wayne]

Arabic, Spanish, French, Japanese, Mandarin, and Latin in canon is what Damian speaks. However, Nanda Parbat is based off of a mountain range in Pakistan so it's possible he would also know Punjabi, Pushto, Sindhi, Saraiki, Urdu, and Balochi. Talia I think is partially chinese so she would probably teach Damian Yue (Cantonese), Xiang (Hunanese), Min dialect, Gan dialect, Wu dialect, and Kejia or Hakka dialects. She is also Arabic so that would mean she would probably speak either Najdi Arabic, Hejazi Arabic( aka Hijazi Arabic) or West Arabian Arabic. She would probably also teach Damian those.

- 💀

★°•.: Damian is said to speak multiple different languages, including the first few that you mentioned he speaks in canon. don't worry skull Anon, I've done my research 🤧

Either way, I do believe that Talia saw it fit that Damian should learn more than just the main ones that most people mention of Damian speaking. He's a very diverse character, and basically a genius when it comes to these kind of things.

Its alot like the fact that people forgets he can mimick anyone's voice to perfection as well, and speak as them!

[qilingxiong]

hi ash, i think i may have asked this before, but from one asian diaspora to another, i was wondering how, if you're able to, you keep up with your chinese practice in a country that's dominated by english (and/or french canadian since ik you live in canada). bc i know a lot of suggestions are like turning your tech to the language you want to learn, put sticky notes on objects with the name in the language you want to learn, etc. but like. i feel like it doesn't matter how much i try and practice bc i'm not in a class, so i don't get it consistently enough, and the rest of my day is filled with english bc, well, that's my first language, and what is needed for my job and every day living. do you have any recs, strategies, or tips? i'm getting desperate; i used to be so much better than i am now. thanks!

hi! honestly, most of my chinese upkeep since i stopped taking mandarin classes (which tbh was relatively recent; this april, and then i'll be taking a cantonese class next term so i can learn to read it) has been a lot less I Need To Practice My Chinese through exercises or dedicated study time, and more just making sure i have frequent exposure to the language that i'm also engaged in. which is a long way to say that basically c-media is how i'm maintaining my proficiency.

i listen to music, i watch dramas and variety shows, look up other vids on bilibili that catch my interest, sometimes read articles, and (very slowly) read fanfic, with pleco open to note new words. just generally scrolling through chinese social media has helped too. having that environment i can immerse myself in helps me learn new vocabulary and practice using what i already know + listening skills, but it also doesn't feel like work or study, just dealing with things i like and am interested in. (this is important for me because i'm so exhausted when i get home every day lmao, if language upkeep outside of class felt like additional Student Time i might have tapped out on attempting it. this way turning on a c-drama at the end of the day just seems like relaxation first and then chinese exposure on top of it).

just by poking through c-drama or fandom things, i know my vocabulary has definitely expanded since i finished my last class, instead of shrunk. even though i watch c-dramas with english subtitles (or chinese and english depending on the platform), i've still picked up stuff from them, and when it comes to things like variety shows i don't rely on subtitles anymore/make myself not. you absorb a lot more of a language than you think just through exposure, imo. although as a caveat for reading specifically, picking up new characters, recognizing them, and reading has been one of the easier parts of learning chinese for me, when it's probably the inverse for a lot of people. i don't know how well just casually reading things will work as a method for others, ymmv.

the thing that i struggle with is getting opportunities to practice speaking, because it's english in my classes and usually with my friends, and either english or cantonese with my family (and i'm not living with them right now). however, i do have a lot of diaspora friends given that i'm in vancouver, and we occasionally dip into speaking mandarin or cantonese. this isn't perfect, but hopefully in future i'll be able to get more speaking experience somehow. what's also helped me with keeping up pronunciation despite these limits is learning to sing chinese songs. singing is one of my hobbies anyway, so i'll use pinyin or jyutping as a guide (getting better at sightreading characters for singing though!) and it's helped me work on certain sounds i had trouble with, and improved my accent. (watching c-dramas even if i don't speak as often has also aided on that front tbh; i listened to recordings of myself from last year and i sound less canto when i speak mandarin now compared to back then, or even earlier this year).

if you want a place to start that i personally think has helped me maintain chinese proficiency, i would choose a variety show you're interested in and try watching it without english subtitles, when you've got free time and want to do something fun. most will have chinese ones you can use to practice reading along with listening, and people usually speak at a conversational enough level that it shouldn't be too difficult to follow along (for ref, after a year and a half of heritage learner mandarin classes at uni i could watch 《我们的歌》/Our Song without english subtitles and understand most of it). variety shows are also really accessible lmao, so many have full seasons on youtube.

tl;dr it's been media exposure for me all the way down since i left classes, wherever i can get it.

not sure how actually helpful all this rambling might be, but this is what i do to keep up my chinese proficiency and keep learning in daily life nowadays! hopefully maybe you or someone else will be able to get something out of it :)

[catchyhuh]

LUP AND LANGUAGE!!

just our special guy today because i’ve realized i have very complex thoughts about my main man’s polyglotism and the way i see it utilized in canon and in fan work from time to time. i will be rambling, i will be going off target, this is a promise SO LET'S GO!

so baseline, lupin was bilingual from almost birth, with the whole mixed upbringing and all. so we know that, from the start. french dad, japanese mom, you-- i mean it would be jarring to somehow not know a lick of either. I MEAN THEY GOTTA TALK TO THE BABY SOMEHOW

when he was about 4, the Horrors began. you can’t be much of an international thief only speaking two languages that are… really only primarily spoken in their countries of origin (canadian french is very different you know) so they started piling on more: spanish, italian, english, german, they tried cantonese too, but he had so much trouble with the tones that they dialed it down to mandarin, and he… still had trouble with the tones, because even as an adult that’s a LOT of voice control that he tends to lose when he’s overly happy or upset. so yeah it was hard for a FOUR year old to manage it

it’s kind of funny though; the first language he could really speak was japanese, and the language he usually defaults to, the language he THINKS in, is STILL japanese. all those language courses just for him to stick to ol’ reliable

however, certain words pop up in french first for him; usually numbers. by the time he was learning to count, his dad was more adamant about him speaking french more, so numbers (and colors) register as french in his head before he runs them through a little translator in his head and goes “TWENTY” at top volume. if somebody is describing a math problem to him in japanese, even though he’s most comfortable IN that language, he has to redo the whole thing in his head in french to really get his answer. yes, it’s miserable for him

the language he speaks SECOND most often is usually english, but more for a comedic beat than anything. ironically, lupin uses english the way some english speakers use french, in a way to be goofy and overdramatic about mundane shit. but also if you buy into the “jigen was born in america” thing then it just makes even MORE sense he’d be speaking it semi-often

the thing about his french is that while it’s still deeply ingrained into him, he… very rarely sees it come up in interactions. even when IN france, he sort of subconsciously removes his personal connection to it out of the picture. it’s like speaking portuguese in brazil, or speaking russian in, uh, russia. more of a needed skill than a part of HIM, really. in order to truly unlock his French Mode, he’d need to be around someone speaking french OUTSIDE of france, because, weird as it may sound, that’s just how he’s connected to it. and then he’d talk to them for a bit, start slipping into it naturally, and he might accidentally lock himself into it for an hour or so after they’re done talking. this is really the only kind of instance that gets him to slip up around any of the other four, because in his mind, why would he be speaking in french when he knows he can better communicate with the sorry bastard in front of him in another language?

i leave you with one final note to a question you could maybe be having idk: so, how many languages CAN lupin speak? and the answer to that is uh. i don’t know. many. whatever is plot relevant. are we like counting piglatin too or

[bentosandbox]

don't block me for this bento lol but while yes i get that her being Huge is hyperbole, i just can't suspend my disbelief that her being tall for a typical IRL asian woman jives with her in-game quote about having trouble getting through doors. she's the only op (outside mudrock i guess) who even has such a line, while men bigger than her have no problems or worries about banging their heads off the supposed tiny doorframe. i'm just being nitpicky about environmental implications i guess lol like why does she have this problem that no one else seems to have. gacha be gacha c'est la vie

also, what was the right line hoshi said to bagpipe? this is the first i've heard of it being mistranslated? :o (thank you for your TL work btw you're one of the few bastions of sense in this wasteland)

you're welcome + all good dw i have a pretty high block threshold for better or worse

Yeah i get it! BUT here is my copium reasoning

184cm + horn height (if as long as her face + average face length = 20cm) + boot heel height (about 3cm) = 207cm which is just very slightly over average door height (here?) which is 205cm and my view is that just slightly missing a few cm is way more troublesome than going through a door that's obviously smaller than your height since you'll definitely know when to duck than having a perceived illusion that you can make it through without bending down a little and then BANG the rhodes door frame has a little hole or something

I mentioned it here in a little rant i did last july but i'll explain it more in detail below (i thought i did before somewhere. probably twitter but i can't find it so i'll just do another one here)

I'll do a more literal TL first

风笛: 那个......我的钱包和护照都丢在莱塔尼亚了。 Bagpipe: Um...I lost both my wallet and passport while I was in Leithanien. 星熊: ......我是不是该佩服你？ Hoshiguma: ...Should I be admiring you? 风笛: ——被炸得一点不剩了。 Bagpipe: ——They got blown up with not even a shred left. 星熊: 我确实该佩服你。 Hoshiguma: Indeed, I should be admiring you.

And 佩服 really does mean admire

'what's wrong then' But admire has like 2 main definitions

And whoever translated it went with the second definition instead of the first; it's not admire in the 'oooo you have an admirer' (someone who fancies you) way, it's admire in the 'wow i admire your tenacity to make your way all the way from Londinium to Lungmen even after almost getting blown to bits otw'

'what makes you so sure its that reading over the other' just read the context of the conversation + I'm well aware of my bias for the JP loc but like. it's because their TL track record is pretty good (esp with characterisation) so I sometimes check it to double confirm my readings, and they use 褒める here which is homeru for you weebs and for everyone else

So back to the lines, admire sounds strange in context, but the idea is that hoshi is so impressed by her tenacity that she goes 'wow should i praise you?' so I would use 'impress' here

Bagpipe: Um...I lost both my wallet and passport while I was in Leithanien. Hoshiguma: ...Should I be impressed? Bagpipe: ——They got blown up with not even a shred left. Hoshiguma: Yeah, I should be. (Or 'Yeah, that's pretty impressive.' to flow better but it loses the 'should' which I prefer because Hoshi has a tendency to be very passive in her speech)

also also sorry i need to get this out lol i know they want swire to be as bratty as possible or whatever but :\ aghdgfhfgffff as someone who also calls their dad 爸爸 with cantonese tones and not mandarin im just really fucking bummed ok the rep would have been cool it, also has the slightly childish vibe to it that 'daddy' has so (without the discord kitten vibes even /shrug) Yuxia calls her dad 爸 if anyone was wondering

bonus since i mentioned chen's op rec in that og post

insane that swire's oprec was the last of her batch and chen is the first of the batch after so theyre next to each other in the medal list

TL is fine for the most part but man this is some 'parents making you call them by their first name' level of americanization (they took out most of the 警司 especially the one in their 'first' meeting??naur way...)