#and then for english speakers its just all

[cazort]

Learning words is great but one additional tip I would have for learning a new language is to learn every word in the context of a sentence that has been written or spoken by a native speaker.

Languages are idiomatic and words don't have one-to-one correspondences, but rather, complex, partly-overlapping meanings.

For example, in Spanish, "bomba" can mean "bomb" like an explosive, but it can also mean "pump", like a gas station pump or bike pump, or it can be slang for a sexy woman. And "Bomba" is also a genre of music and dance. And think about how in English, you can say something is "the bomb" and it means it is really awesome, but if you say something "bombed" it means that it was really bad and failed to achieve its goals (like bombing a test = failing or flunking, or a movie that bombs means it was unpopular and made very little money.)

So basically, understanding the literal / core meaning of a word is important, but you need to expose yourself to a lot of different sentences involving that word to pick up the different idiomatic uses. A great way to get this meaning when you look something up is to type the word into google image search when having the settings set for the language in question. This often captures alternate meanings or connotation differences that you might not catch from a dictionary translation.

It's not just the meaning too, it's a connotation of who would say it and where / when you would say it. For example, "poop", "take a shit", and "defecate" all mean the same thing. But say "poop" and you sound like a little kid, "take a shit" and you are being more vulgar, so something an adult or older teen would say only amongst friends in a casual setting, whereas "defecate" sounds formal and stodgy like you would see in a medical textbook or legal proceedings.

When you learn a word, don't just learn the meaning, learn the cultural context.

A lot of Americans find Japanese hard and I think a huge part of it is that Japanese carries relatively more meaning in connotation of "who is speaking" and "what context am I speaking in" and this context includes more information about your relationship to the listener. So for example you can humble yourself or alternatively, insult someone, by using different word choice. We do it in English too, but different languages vary in the degree to which we are able to do this and Japanese for instance does it more. So be aware of the different ways the languages use words differently from each other, and keep this in mind when learning the words. Learn the words in a cultural context, and expose yourself to a variety of contexts. For example, try to converse casually with peers in the language, but also listen to news broadcasts, a children's TV show, and a regular TV drama. Interact on social media in the language, but also take a book out that is on a more dry, nonfiction topic so you can span the range of reading casual, slang-rich text, with formal, precisely-written text.

If you pick material you already know a lot about, it will be easier to read or listen to, because your brain will fill in a lot of things from context. For example, because I know a lot about plants and birds, I can pick up field guides to plants and birds in other languages I only know some of (like Spanish, German, and Portuguese) and read them just fine, only having to look up an occasional word here or there, but I don't know these languages well enough to read a novel written for a typical adult audience of native speakers. If you start by exposing yourself to the material more accessible to you, it gives you a "way in" to the language that is easier and then you can start filling in the gaps and exploring the more general aspects of the language from there.

Tips to learn a new language

The 75 most common words make up 40% of occurrences The 200 most common words make up 50% of occurrences The 524 most common words make up 60% of occurrences The 1257 most common words make up 70% of occurrences The 2925 most common words make up 80% of occurrences The 7444 most common words make up 90% of occurrences The 13374 most common words make up 95% of occurrences The 25508 most common words make up 99% of occurrences

(Source: 5 Steps to Speak a New Language by Hung Quang Pham)

This article has an excellent summary on how to rapidly learn a new language within 90 days.

We can begin with studying the first 600 words. Of course chucking is an effective way to memorize words readily. Here’s a list to translate into the language you desire to learn that Derek Roger suggested! :)

EXPRESSIONS OF POLITENESS (about 50 expressions)      

‘Yes’ and ‘no’: yes, no, absolutely, no way, exactly.    

Question words: when? where? how? how much? how many? why? what? who? which? whose?    

Apologizing: excuse me, sorry to interrupt, well now, I’m afraid so, I’m afraid not.    

Meeting and parting: good morning, good afternoon, good evening, hello, goodbye, cheers, see you later, pleased to meet you, nice to have met.    

Interjections: please, thank you, don’t mention it, sorry, it’ll be done, I agree, congratulations, thank heavens, nonsense.    

NOUNS (about 120 words)

Time: morning, afternoon, evening, night; Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday; spring, summer, autumn, winter; time, occasion, minute, half-hour, hour, day, week, month, year.    

People: family, relative, mother, father, son, daughter, sister, brother, husband, wife; colleague, friend, boyfriend, girlfriend; people, person, human being, man, woman, lady, gentleman, boy, girl, child.    

Objects: address, bag, book, car, clothes, key, letter (=to post), light (=lamp), money, name, newspaper, pen, pencil, picture, suitcase, thing, ticket.    

Places: place, world, country, town, street, road, school, shop, house, apartment, room, ground; Britain, name of the foreign country, British town-names, foreign town-names.    

Abstract: accident, beginning, change, color, damage, fun, half, help, joke, journey, language, English, name of the foreign language, letter (of alphabet), life, love, mistake, news, page, pain, part, question, reason, sort, surprise, way (=method), weather, work.    

Other: hand, foot, head, eye, mouth, voice; the left, the right; the top, the bottom, the side; air, water, sun, bread, food, paper, noise.    

PREPOSITIONS (about 40 words)    

General: of, to, at, for, from, in, on.    

Logical: about, according-to, except, like, against, with, without, by, despite, instead of.    

Space: into, out of, outside, towards, away from, behind, in front of, beside, next to, between, above, on top of, below, under, underneath, near to, a long way from, through.    

Time: after, ago, before, during, since, until.    

DETERMINERS (about 80 words)  

Articles and numbers: a, the; nos. 0–20; nos. 30–100; nos. 200–1000; last, next, 1st–12th.    

Demonstrative: this, that.    

Possessive: my, your, his, her, its, our, their.    

Quantifiers: all, some, no, any, many, much, more, less, a few, several, whole, a little, a lot of.    

Comparators: both, neither, each, every, other, another, same, different, such.    

ADJECTIVES (about 80 words)    

Color: black, blue, green, red, white, yellow.    

Evaluative: bad, good, terrible; important, urgent, necessary; possible, impossible; right, wrong, true.    

General: big, little, small, heavy; high, low; hot, cold, warm; easy, difficult; cheap, expensive; clean, dirty; beautiful, funny (=comical), funny (=odd), usual, common (=shared), nice, pretty, wonderful; boring, interesting, dangerous, safe; short, tall, long; new, old; calm, clear, dry; fast, slow; finished, free, full, light (=not dark), open, quiet, ready, strong.    

Personal: afraid, alone, angry, certain, cheerful, dead, famous, glad, happy, ill, kind, married, pleased, sorry, stupid, surprised, tired, well, worried, young.    

VERBS (about 100 words)    

arrive, ask, be, be able to, become, begin, believe, borrow, bring, buy, can, change, check, collect, come, continue, cry, do, drop, eat, fall, feel, find, finish, forget, give, going to, have, have to, hear, help, hold, hope, hurt (oneself), hurt (someone else), keep, know, laugh, learn, leave, lend, let (=allow), lie down, like, listen, live (=be alive), live (=reside), look (at), look for, lose, love, make, may (=permission), may (=possibility), mean, meet, must, need, obtain, open, ought to, pay, play, put, read, remember, say, see, sell, send, should, show, shut, sing, sleep, speak, stand, stay, stop, suggest, take, talk, teach, think, travel, try, understand, use, used to, wait for, walk, want, watch, will, work (=operate), work (=toil), worry, would, write.    

PRONOUNS (about 40 words)

Personal: I, you, he, she, it, we, they, one; myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, yourselves, themselves.    

Possessive: mine, yours, his, hers, its, ours, theirs.    

Demonstrative: this, that.    

Universal: everyone, everybody, everything, each, both, all, one, another.

Indefinite: someone, somebody, something, some, a few, a little, more, less; anyone, anybody, anything, any, either, much, many.    

Negative: no-one, nobody, nothing, none, neither.    

ADVERBS (about 60 words)

Place: here, there, above, over, below, in front, behind, nearby, a long way away, inside, outside, to the right, to the left, somewhere, anywhere, everywhere, nowhere, home, upstairs, downstairs.    

Time: now, soon, immediately, quickly, finally, again, once, for a long time, today, generally, sometimes, always, often, before, after, early, late, never, not yet, still, already, then (=at that time), then (=next), yesterday, tomorrow, tonight.    

Quantifiers: a little, about (=approximately), almost, at least, completely, very, enough, exactly, just, not, too much, more, less.    

Manner: also, especially, gradually, of course, only, otherwise, perhaps, probably, quite, so, then (=therefore), too (=also), unfortunately, very much, well.    

CONJUNCTIONS (about 30 words)

Coordinating: and, but, or; as, than, like.    

Time & Place: when, while, before, after, since (=time), until; where.    

Manner & Logic: how, why, because, since (=because), although, if; what, who, whom, whose, which, that.   

[serpentface]

maybe the most difficult worldbuilding question of all, what are some popular jokes in your setting? what about ones based on the vocabulary you have established so far, but which just don't translate to english?

I only have one thing established that is purely a Joke that isn't translatable to english-

A lot of Wardi dick jokes revolve partially around this animal, the long-suffering hippegalga

The name 'hippegalga' means 'little horn'.

Hippe/hippi is a somewhat antiquated word for 'small/little', in contemporary dialect it's still recognizable as having connotations of 'small' but isn't commonly used in actual vocabulary (you'll find it more often in names). Galga was originally one of several words for 'horn', in this case broadly pertaining to the horns of antelope ('meti' is the most generalized word for animal horns, while specific animal groups (antelope, khait and cattle) have their own horn words.

Hippegalga horns are considered to be notably phallic among all animal horns (big male hippegalga tend to have horns approximately the size of an average human penis) and are ascribed beneficial qualities for male development and fertility (taken powdered as medicine and/or worn) while also serving the non-sexual functions of a general phallus when worn as an amulet.

The word 'galga' or its shortened 'gal' tends to be used on its own specifically for this animal's horn (ie: if you're describing a hippegalga's horn, you just say 'galga' instead of 'hippegalga galga', while if you were describing another antelope's horn you Would say '[antelopes name] galga'). Because of this, the word has greatly absorbed the animal's phallic connotations while still retaining the meaning 'horn'. As such, galga/gal has earned additional meaning as euphemistic slang for 'penis' in common dialect.

The name 'hippegalga', which once had absolutely no penis connotations, now sounds to most Wardi speakers like you're saying 'small penis'. It's like if in english there was a very common, well-known backyard bird called the 'little cock'. You'd know damn well that it's not Supposed to mean 'little penis', you'd know that the bird was probably named before 'cock' became more commonly used as penis slang than a word for 'male bird', but it sure is a funny name.

What's more, hippegalga are VERY common wild animals that adapt well to urban environments (they're basically as ubiquitous to urban areas as squirrels) and are very tameable and kept as pets. Their ubiquity and familiarity makes them very fertile ground for dick jokes and innuendo.

So you'll see 'hippegalga' used as a basic slang term for 'small penis' (ie: "I saw his hippegalga the other day"), or used in more complex ways in comedic plays/poetry/etc as a euphemism IE:

"he left to tend to his hippegalga" - innocently meaning "he left to feed his pet antelope" while strongly implying "he went off to crank his (notably small, which is funny) dick" "she was disappointed to find a herd of hippegalga waiting at her door" - innocently meaning "she was annoyed that a herd of little antelopes were blocking her doorway", and depending on the context could imply something like "she found a bunch of disappointing, impotent male suitors lurking around her doorway" or "she's having sex with several men and is disappointed to find their dicks are small"

(TANGENT: average sized penises are culturally considered ideal, with notably large penises implying an outsized libido and un-masculine lack of self control, and notably small penises implying sexual impotence and general weakness. It tends to be assumed that if a woman has an outsized libido she will be interested in men with larger penises)

Gal(ga) as euphemistic slang for penis plays into the name of gannegal soup, which is a dish that contains bull penis as one of its ingredients. 'Gannegal' is effectively a double entendre. You're not saying 'ox penis' soup (that would be 'ganne gemane'), the dead literal translation of gannegal IS 'ox horn'. But this is not the Naturalistic way you would say 'ox horn' either, because 'gal(ga)' is not used for the horns of cattle (you would say 'gannemitla' or just 'mitla'). So like to a Wardi listener the name 'gannegal' is politely saying 'ox horn' while heavily implying its contents of bull penis.

"Gal(ga)" as both a word for horn and slang term for penis has a lot of other applications in jokes/puns/euphemisms.

I don't have the words established for the full Wardi language version, but a phrase that translates to "a hawk carrying a bull by the horns" (using 'galga' instead of the naturalistic 'gannemitla') is used to describe a woman as sexually domineering, or to describe a couple being consisted of a conniving sexually controlling woman and a weak-willed libidinous man. The imagery is a small predatory bird controlling a physically superior, powerful animal, and implying via 'galga' that the control is sexual in nature. It's usage is Kind Of similar to 'henpecked husband' in implying a man as weak and overly controlled by his wife (with acutely misogynistic undertones that he's a failure in that he should clearly be the dominant party instead), just with an explicitly sexual layer.

There's also variants like "he's a bull led by his horns" as something you might say about a superficially powerful man that you're implying is mentally weak (the galga euphemism implies this mental weakness is specifically lack of sexual control, but this phrase is sometimes used in more generalized contexts).

---

This one's less of a joke per se, but "digging out the viper" "digging out the viper's tail" "digging out the tail" is a saying that describes something as a high effort and utterly futile exercise, a doomed vanity project, etc.

This refers to the Viper seaway, which is named for its fat snakelike shape. The 'tail' of the Viper dead-ends about 50 miles away from the actual ocean, which makes this sea ultimately unimportant in the larger sea trade system (you don't have to enter its waters at all to get to any major trade hubs). However, it would become EXTREMELY important to sea trade if someone managed to dig a canal between the Viper's 'tail' and the eastern sea.

This would be very difficult- a lot of the terrain is rocky and hilly (the actual canal might have to be closer to 70 miles long AT MINIMUM to work around the terrain). The people who actually live on this land (mostly Ubiyan pastoralists) are not heavily involved in the sea trade system, and most of their communities have never particularly wanted foreigners digging a huge fucking canal through their lands and building up a sea trade hub around it.

So, there have been at least two major historical attempts to dig the canal, both of which failed. One was through a strained alliance of Royal Dain kingdoms, and one was an attempt by Imperial Bur at its height (in which it controlled all the coasts on the south end of the Viper, among other places). Both failed spectacularly, due to a combination of logistical issues (the sheer scale of manpower needed, feeding this manpower, and sustaining the endeavor), internal political disagreement on the projects viability, and organized reprisals from the Ubiyan population. As it stands, the attempted canal exists as about 20 miles of shallow ditches, heavily eroded and washed out by rain.

The idea of digging out the canal now tends to be regarded as a spectacular and utterly futile act of hubris, to the point that variants of "digging out the Viper" as an expression of futility exist in Wardi, Burri, Dain, Finn, and Ubiyan languages.

The saying itself isn't quite a joke, but can very easily be Used in jokes and wordplay: IE in a play where the stock Arrogant Idiot character excitedly goes off to fight a group of bandits singlehandedly, you could see an exchange between other characters like "What did he say he was going to do?" "He said he has to go dig out a viper's tail" (which would not be regarded as uproariously funny but would probably elicit a chuckle from the audience).

This saying also lends itself to more sexual wordplay in that one partly antiquated word for tail (cunna) is now mostly used as slang for anus (though is still Recognizable as having meaning as an animals tail). (Kind of like in american english how most people Know the word 'ass' has meant 'donkey' for most of its history, but you don't often see it used as such).

The related word 'cunnari' stems from it (this is untranslatable, it dead literally means 'anus person') and is used to describe someone as passive in anal sex. This is Extremely insulting to use on a man (probably the closest approximation to 'faggot' in this language, though with different connotations) and degrading even when not.

A man (at least rhetorically) threatening to sexually penetrate another man is kind of like saying "I'll make you my bitch". So you might see variants on "digging out the viper's tail" which use the word 'cunna' for tail to mock an instance of this alpha male type declaration. IE: in the context of a play, this type of threat might be responded with a "ha, good luck digging out my tail" (your threats are laughably futile) or a more elaborate sort of "do I look like a viper to you? I can see why the likes of you is so interested in my tail" (you must be fucking stupid, you're the type to engage in hopeless endeavors of vanity). Etc.

On the other way around you might see 'cunnari' slipped into reversals of 'digging out the tail', ie: "he'll have no troubles digging out that cunnari", "If only the Viper was a cunnari, he'd have spread his tail wide open and saved Old Bur all its trouble". Etc

[myokk]

💘

[ayv-art]

Love how Tamaki looked when he dressed as a girl, so I did a screenshot redraw of him. Original under the cut.

[osteochondraldefect]

i love spreading misinformation about what happens in this podcast aka.: bunch of thangs i drew but didnt feel like posting separately

[atthebell]

i think people really do not understand what's going on with carre guys he speaks english he just doesn't want to talk to them most of the time and like roier he does prefer to speak spanish

like i think you might be getting confused because cellbit kept speaking spanish to him but cellbit likes to speak spanish with all the spanish speakers (not just roier-- he does it with max and pol as well) because he doesn't like english being the default

[lichtbrenger]

charlie and empathy

I’ve seen some thoughts about Charlie floating around (always love to read them, everyone has unique thoughts, namaste 🙏) and there seems to be a lot of discussion about Charlie having little actual empathy for the people around her and I don’t know if that is a fair assessment based on what we’ve been shown so far.

Long one so I’m putting it in the read more <3

The idea that Charlie has strong feelings of sympathy without feeling empathy kind of befuddles me, because the jury's still out on what sympathy actually is when compared to empathy. The most intuitive answer would be to separate them by saying sympathy is feeling for someone and empathy is feeling with someone. I wrote out a whole thing about this (that empathy does not directly motivate helping behavior like sympathy does and that empathy can lead to personal distress (a self-oriented reaction of distress to another’s suffering)) BUT I don’t think that’s the point I want to make here 😸 hihi. So I’m solely going to focus on the thought that Charlie has low empathy.

If we look at Charlie and the way she expresses empathy (which, if psychometrically sound is seen as multifaceted in nature; usually cognitive, affective and somatic (sliding scales referred to as CASES)) the only thing she seems to be lacking is cognitive empathy.

Cognitive empathy allows us to understand and interpret emotions more analytically. This is sometimes also called empathic accuracy.

Cognitive empathy is more like a skill, a skill Charlie never got to work on. Charlie has lived her whole life in uhm, hell, where people don’t respond well to genuine feelings of empathy/sympathy from others. Charlie has tried and failed again and again in reaching out to people, and these experiences haven’t provided her with a reason why. A lot of people point to the Angel Dust Situation as a moment where Charlie shows that she’s not empathetic, but I don’t actually think that’s what’s going on there. Charlie seems to have a lot of empathy for Angel is this episode, she is however completely unequipped. Everything takes her by surprise, her emotions are intense and she doesn’t understand the stakes of Angel’s situation when she first tries to help. This doesn’t means she’s unempathetic, this means she’s in over her head. She doesn’t have a lot of experience with people actually wanting/ needing her help and she hasn’t had any experience in Angel’s scene. She fumbles, but a lack of empathy isn’t the issue. Her feelings aren’t wrong in these very complicated moments.  

I’ve also seen people discuss Charlie's relationship with Vaggie and with that I feel like people forget that Charlie knew nothing about Vaggie’s life before her until the meeting in heaven. We don’t know what Vaggie told her, but I doubt she told Charlie about her trauma or hangups surrounding coming down every year to slaughter her people. Charlie has no real reason to think Vaggie isn’t her equal, her partner, capable of handling the same things she does especially since that’s probably exactly what Vaggie wants her to think. Charlie trusts her and doesn’t have a reason to think she’s not being forthcoming. Again, naivete, maybe; a lack of empathy, I don’t think so. I also think that, while we as the viewer may recover quite quickly from the shock of Vaggie being an ex-exorcist, Charlie is allowed to give it a little more time. She’s been lied to (in quite a big way) by the one person who has stood by her and she trusted unconditionally. She’s known her for years (I assume) and there are certain patterns of thought and behavior that just wear into a relationship, and you can’t expect someone to snap out of that all of the sudden. Charlie realizing Vaggie has her own specific demons and what that entails for their relationship is going to take time, I think it would take time for anyone.

Tldr; I don’t think Charlie suffers from a lack of empathy, she suffers from a lack of practice and positive experiences, mostly. She’s ill equipped in some instances, and purposefully left in the dark in others.

[capisback]

I know it’s haha funny to laugh at dutch and call it discount english or what-have-you, but I stopped finding it funny a long, long time ago. There’s so much active distaste for a language that has every right to exist and be found beautiful, but it’s hated by people who don’t speak it and native speakers who do. Why would you call any language lesser than? Any language better than another? There’s so much beauty to be found in each language, so many different ways of life and seeing the world, so many different words and sayings and ways to love that you can’t find in another. Dutch is no different, and it deserves to be appreciated, not driven into the ground and disregarded as a worn piece of clothing that’s served its purpose

[renaissancefailmarriage]

just so we're all clear i do check the fundraisers i reblog to make sure they're legitimate. many of them have the verification in the post itself, ie, "verified by [xyz user]" but i do look just in case.

[mourniepoo]

crazy that indonesian isnt even top 29 help??? its 56(?)

IKR??? esp bcs Indonesia is like the fourth modt populated country in the world ,,, like obv mandarin and english n hindi wld be above it, then spanish n arabic bcs its got so many countries, but its wildddd its so low for native speakers. Even if u include non native speakers its only 11th :0

[splickedylit]

excerpting

Domestic Diplomacy II is turning out to be even more "splickedy gratuitously gets caught in the weeds of xenosociology and alien language barriers, the fic sequel" and tbh I'm not mad about it

--

“Oh, your moirail!” says Jade, and bounces upright, ignoring John’s wary little soft human cautionary hiss.  To your vague surprise, she’s apparently learned enough not to do the human holding-out-a-hand gesture they usually do when they’re introduced; she clasps her hands in front of her, nonexistent claws politely folded in, and ducks her head briefly forward and to one side, careful not to jab at him with her nonexistent horns. 

It's a pretty passable greeting—for a social equal, which is its own bizarre issue, considering he’s a highblood.  But relatively non-offensive, for a human, and fortunately for her she’s picked a highblood who isn’t likely to give a shit.  Gamzee laughs out loud and gives his own lazy-ass version of a greeting back, a vague twist of his wrists and dip of his head, condescending to use an equal’s greeting back at her.   When he says “Gamzee Makara,” there’s a hint of a threatening buzz to it, a testing you should know to respect me warning—you could have told him she’d show absolutely no sign of hearing it, which is exactly what happens.

“I’m Jade Harley!  I meet you,” Jade says, a carefully neutral statement-of-fact greeting—not fawning or hostile.  You don’t know if humans are out here just learning neutral address no matter what, or if this human particularly just doesn’t give a shit that your moirail’s a fuck-off mutant-huge highblood with horns that scrape the ceiling of the block—by the expectant way she looks up at Gamzee afterward, she wouldn’t give much of a shit either way.  Out of all of the humans, Jade Harley might actually win the prize for giving the least shits, no matter what Rose and Dave like to pretend.

“Yeah, I meet you too, motherfucker,” says Gamzee, looking incredibly amused, and glances down at you.  “She’s a rude-ass little motherfuckin’ toothful, huh?  I like her.”

“Of course you do,” you say, pained.  “Don’t take it personally, alright?  You’re not a highblood here, they don’t get highbloods.”

“Oh, best friend,” says Gamzee, and kisses your nugbone again, embarrassingly.  “I’m a highblood wherever the fuck I go.  It’s cool though.  Squishy-ass little motherfuckers won’t get any grief from me.”

“<Motherfucker>,” Jade repeats behind you, and switches back to English, in the bright, wide verbal tone you’re starting to learn means ‘smiling and happy’, weird interstitial ‘vowel’ breath-sounds further back in the throat through pulled-back mouth-corners.  “Hmm, <motherfucker>…  Oh, neat!  Is that dialect?  It sounds like, ahh, what’s that other word.  Kk—kkkht—  Uh, dammit.  You guys need to learn how to use vowels—  It sounds like <;brother>.”

“It is like,” you say, surprised despite yourself.  “&lt;Brother> is a troll, and <motherfucker> you put it all spots you want.  It’s a thing, it’s a troll, it’s a, tss, a doing-things word, it’s a name.  It’s bad, it’s good.  Any spot you want.  And he does want, for all those, all the time.”

[ciudaddelapazmp3]

Finally finished the first chapter of my wranduin fic and it's [checks word count] 10k words long 👍 oh god

[butterfly-siege]

Ok i was really gung ho about making a few languages for my novel, and i still am largely. But hoooo boy the learning curve. It goes from ‘wow neat!’ To deep philosophical questions about what even is language and also look how we prioritize certain structures and check this out! Hidden metaphor. Rethink everything, you’re biased immensely by the languages you speak.

Im going to keep with it but i am feeling very intimidated and also lots of respect for conlinguists. A++

[psqqa]

the person behind me is having a whispered conversation with someone and their desk and my brain keeps trying to go down the path “oh no it’s because they’re talking about how much they hate me!” and i keep having to drag it back to the extremely obvious and fully rational “oh they’re trying not to disrupt anyone’s work, super appreciate them for that”.

like human brains are for real the dumbest, most terrified little animals in existence. calm the fuck down my dude our colleagues aren’t going to kick us out of the cave to fend for ourselves against the cold and sabre-tooth tigers.

[snakesarefuckingcute]

The issue with learning english almost exclusively from social media is that sometimes you learn a phrase - say, "big if true" - and assume it is like any other phrase you've seen around. Then you say it, completely earnestly, and find out very fast that it is *not* a normal phrase for serious conversation.

Anyway "big if true" is a meme^2 in my friend group now.

[osteochondraldefect]

actually. coughs. traditional sketches of varying degrees of quality be upon ye

[designs on the last one are by @kamil-a !!]