#chinese listening

[rigelmejo]

Comprehensible Input Listening Experiment: Update 37 Hours

Colors meaning: pink is idea for how to study in future, blue is conclusions and results so far, red is question for others.

In the interest of figuring out exactly how 'comprehensible' the audiobook I am listening to, I took a random page out of my print book copy of MoDu volume 1, counted 400 words out, then counted how many I didn't understand to find the numbers I understood (378), then found the percent of words understood when reading: 94.5%. The words I did not understand per each 100 words were 6, 4, 4, 8 respectively. I counted each word I did not understand, counted it by hanzi (so a 2 hanzi single word I didn't understand counted as 2), and counted all the hanzi making up the word even if I knew some of the individual hanzi. I suspect a couple of the words were place or person names, because I jumped in randomly, but we'll just for the sake of simplicity treat all the words like regular words. So I guess my true estimate of understanding MoDu is estimated to be about 95% for some parts, unknown for others (but probably on average around that amount - for simplicity's sake lets assume this). I did count any word as known that I both recognized and could make a guess at pronunciation - so my pronunciation-known words is likely a bit lower than 94.5%, but it should be close enough that I will be able to eventually hear the words and recognize them if I hear them enough. That's the theory I'm hoping this experiment will prove or not prove - if I can pick up words known from reading (enough to guess at pinyin to look up) but that I don't currently recognize when listening.

I should have done a percent understood words check before starting this experiment, but oh well.

Somehow my reading skill has improved a bit since I checked last year with Guardian Zhenhun, as my comprehension was around 95% for that and I know MoDu has more words so I had guessed at the time it was 90-93% understandable and not quite easy enough to extensively read yet. Now, I could extensively read MoDu in print. That's a shock to me! Also a fun little note: I clearly learned a LOT of my words from priest novels, I went to read a Zhoudu fanfic on ao3 yesterday and only could follow the main idea - I totally misunderstood some details, caught other details, but overall the descriptive sentences threw me off and I misunderstood what half of them meant. I could enjoy the fanfic, but I struggled to read that person's writing style and word choice more than I do with a priest novel. That's how big a difference writer makes. I also tried to listen to a DMBJ novel on Ximalaya yesterday - I was excited Ximalaya seems to have added captions to MOST audio now, so I was reading along. It was HARD to follow, I managed to follow the opening was talking about narrators grandpa and dad, a curse, it might have been about the Mystic Nine or something? I was expecting the opening to DMBJ 1 which I've read before and jumps right into a tomb dig, instead this audiobook/captions was descriptions of people's life situations for 2 minutes and I gave up (more abstract compared to people DOING an action). I know I can read the Rain Village story, and dmbj 1 and 2, and it was definitely harder than that. Despite being familiar with dmbj, I found the audiobook/captions hard to follow anything beyond the main idea being communicated. I also found Fuermosi (Sherlock) for children on Ximalaya - perfect for learners, at least my level lol. Around 1 unknown word a paragraph, and I know the setup of Sherlock so they're easy to guess. Also the audiobook had captions so I could follow along reading (which is easier for me - without captions I don't think I could've followed the audio just because it's yet again a new writing/sentence Style I'm not listening to normally).

Side note: does anyone know how to make a Ximalaya account in the US? I have the app, but no account, so I can't bookmark/favorite anything to find again later, and can't make purchases.

The 2 things I want to test with the Chinese Listening to Comprehensible Input experiment are:

Can my instant recognition of words in listening improve, and get closer to the level of words I can recognize when reading? Answer seems to be yes, based on results so far.

Can I listen to audiobooks for comprehensible input, at this point in my learning, and learn new words/phrases?

Attached to this is: how comprehensible does the audio have to be to me, in order to use it to learn new words/phrases. Currently, because I'm mostly developing 'instant recognition' when listening to words I can already read, I can't really judge what audio is truly X known/unknown to me yet. That will probably come up in later hours of listening, once I can understand in listening mostly everything I can read. Much later in this process, using audiobooks for I can read less well because I don't know as many words in them like MDZS, wuxia and xianxia novels, would be a good material to use to test if I can learn new words from audio input only, or if I need say a visual like a show or manhua to learn that many new words.

How am I listening: partly focused, listening to audio while playing video games, working on busy work, chores, walking, driving. For stuff I have to look at the visuals for, I have to pay full attention, and that is harder to fit into my schedule (but easier for learning new words since you have visuals to use for context).

Note about my current improvements/descriptions of what I could comprehend so far: Another interesting thing I find about discovering I can read an estimated 94.5% of words in MoDu: that means when I described initially that listening felt like "I can figure out the scene I'm listening to, and on relistening can figure out some details like dialogue and key actions" that is the understanding level of someone who can read most of the words! Who has sucky listening skills! And that my current description of "I can figure out what scene I'm listening to, and some details like time/action/position/expression descriptions are easy to understand quickly" is the improvement caused by listening to things I could already read to around 95% (capable of reading extensively for pleasure). So all this 'improvement' in comprehending the meaning of stuff is purely, right now, from me being able to comprehend in listening better, the words I already knew from reading. So my conclusion of lessons learned is that if the issue is that you know a lot of words from reading and from TL subtitles, but struggle with listening skills: LISTEN to stuff you can read. Listen without reading is the personal takeaway from this, as I did listen a lot WHILE reading and it did not help as much.

So the materials I'm using to listen: Peppa Pig - understand everything if I'm looking at the screen and the main idea/most details if I'm not looking (I haven't heard any brand new words to me). Lazy Chinese - understand everything if I'm looking at the screen, main idea and some details if I'm not looking (when Lazy Chinese uses lists of vocabulary on the screen and doesn't actually explain their meaning in sentences they say, I can miss a lot if I'm not looking, like when she says regional food/drinks and just shows pictures). I recommend both of those resources if you're doing comprehensible input study too, and need to learn new words those videos contain - the visuals in those videos make learning new words doable from visual context. I would recommend those, then after you run out of content for learners, move to re-watch cdramas in chinese only that you've watched before in a language you know. Peppa Pig and Lazy Chinese only make up a small percentage of my listening, because they bore me and I struggle to follow some Lazy Chinese videos if I'm only listening.

Majority of my listening: MoDu by priest audiobook. I listen to chapters, then relisten 3-6 times to each 5 chapter section, since I'm listening while doing other things and want to hear enough to figure out the plot/scenes/key details before moving on. I apparently can read 94.5% of the words in MoDu, so I should be able (in theory) to keep listening and re-listening until I understand 94.5% of the words when listening only. After that, I can test if I can pick up brand new words from audiobooks only, and how much I need to already understand in an audiobook to use it to learn new words.

Other things I've listened to:

I'm watching Go Ahead on youtube with Chinese audio and Chinese subtitles - subtitles are fairly easy to read, first new word I hit was a teenagers 'period' starting. The speaking in this show is quite natural (versus dubbed with clear pronunciation), and reminds me of Qi Hun Hikaru No Go (which I also may use to practice since with that drama I can turn the Chinese subs off and rely entirely on hearing and visuals but no text). I figured since it's about everyday life, and I have watched it before and liked it, it would be a good show to relax and practice with. I am going to try to watch more episodes of Go Ahead ignoring the chinese subtitles, only looking at them to figure out a word, but it's an effort to make myself not look at the subs. I think Word of Honor in Chinese would be a much bigger challenge, both with chinese subs and me absolutely drowning without. Word of Honor could be a good test of understanding? But I just wanted to relax right now. I also wanted to check out the new gl drama Lies Never Lie (Xin Ling Mi Wu) but I expect it will take more effort to follow the plot and I'll rely on chinese subtitles, which won't really count as testing my listening skills/working on them. I listened to 5 hours of HP1 in chinese, which I've listened to the first few chapters of, before in Fall 2024. It is way easier to listen to now, which I'm attributing to the many hours listening to mostly MoDu which is a higher number of unique vocabulary/complexity.

I listened to a few chapters of SaYe, noticed it's easier to pick out individual phrases but still a challenge to place which scene I'm listening to/the main things happening. I know the reading level of SaYe is easier than MoDu, but I have not read SaYe before except chapter 1-2, so I am relying purely on listening to the audiobook to figure out the plot (versus MoDu where I have read it before in english and know roughly where the story should be as I listen). I've listened to chapter 1 of SVSSS and was surprised I could kind of figure out what was going on - figure out the scene main idea I'm listening to, so maybe understanding of the audiobook would improve with more listening to that genre of book (like MoDu did). It was still very hard to grasp most details, I could just pick out isolated phrases and words and guess what's going on from that.

Next update will probably be around 50 hours.

[sovamurka]

"timebomb painted each other this, timebomb painted each other that"

DID YOU KNOW THEY LITERALLY SWITCHED THEIR COLOUR SCHEMES ONCE AND USED THE ENTIRE WORLD AS THEIR CANVAS?

[ef-1]

Lewis Hamilton on the undue scrutiny he faced regarding his radio ft a lil swipe at other drivers 📻

[ryllen]

when everything is confusing, and then u see a familiar face

[unforth]

As I deepen my study with Chinese, the more I'm struck by how word meanings work. The monolingual USAdians I know or encounter online, who studied only as much as needed to get through school, really do seem to think languages are plug and play: know the word in both languages, and swap.

But that couldn't be further from the truth. There's on Chinese word, 稳当 (wĕn dang), that's really struck me for that. Because my flashcards give three translations for 稳当: reliable, secure, and stable. And in English these words are all fairly different! Clearly related but very much do not mean the same thing. How can one Chinese word mean these three different concepts? Well, of course, it doesn't. 稳当 means 稳当, some fusion of those three concepts we have words for in English but not quite any of them, that makes it appropriate to use in places where English would use any of those three. There are surely shades of meaning, and which interpretation of the meaning is most appropriate to a given context will be understood upon reading.

Now, expand this understanding - that a word doesn't mean (exact direct swap in English) but rather the word means the word, and we approximate it to the closest English equivalent we can - to *every single word in every single sentence in an entire book.*

Then translate that book.

Translation is an art, not a science, requiring tremendous verisimilitude in *both* languages, and an understanding of the story, and a deep familiarity with the culture (social, historical, linguistic, etc.) of the original work, and often knowledge of the authors intent (if possible to ascertain), and a range of other skills. Translation will always be interpretive and transformative, because (word in one language) doesn't precisely mean (word in another language). They're not "the same." If I present you a sentence with 稳当 in it, does it mean stable, reliable, or secure? Well that depends. On what? How it's being used, the surrounding context, other factors, and of course... the reader or translators interpretation.

It drives me insane when I see people present alternate translations as some kind of "gotcha" that one translator got things wrong. And don't get me wrong - of course some translations ARE just wrong, obviously if I translate 稳当 to mean "goldfish" I'm not interpreting I'm just incorrect. But beyond obvious mistakes, a world of nuance exists, and different translators can in good faith reach different conclusions on the most appropriate translation. This is WHY famous books not in English get translated repeatedly by different people, and why a reader would want to read multiple translations of the same work - to see, in different translations, some shadow of the wonderful nuance embodied by the original words that do not, and cannot, simply be swapped 1 to 1 for a perfect English translation. And this is *especially* true of a language like Chinese, which is ancient and beautiful and deeply steeped in understandings of Chinese history and literature.

Why do you think I and many others are studying Chinese for years? For me, it's all so I can read the actual books myself and get that much closer to the story, that much closer to my own interpretation. I'll never have the skills of a knowledgeable translator - this isn't my profession, it's my hobby - but I'll gleen things nonetheless and it's important to me to try.

Too many of yall disrespect those skills so much that you'll throw a sentence of a language you know nothing about into Google translate and then declare the translator Wrong (and sometimes Bad and Malicious) based on that.

稳当 means 稳当. It doesn't mean "reliable." It doesn't mean "the exact translation of 稳" plus "the exact translation of 当". It's a Chinese word with a Chinese definition that we retrofit English on to.

And the hardest part? Look, I'm still a Chinese novice. For all I fucking know, 稳当 actually MIGHT have three distinct definitions. Everything I said about it above might be wrong. I don't know enough Chinese yet to know for sure, and that's a level of nuance and understanding I'll only reach by reading more.

Multiply that by *every single word in both the original language and the language it's being translated into.*

That's what translation is.

Good luck.

[shitapril]

not nico rosberg comparing carlos sainz and charles leclerc's on track moves with his and lewis' moves back in the day - is he aware the ferrari girls are in shambles and disarray right now ? does he know we don't want charles and carlos to end up like them ???

[theshitpostcalligrapher]

yall i can't believe i haven't thought about this before but i tried it today and it was choice as hell

you know when you get a tin or a jar of stuffed grape leaves, how there's a bunch of remaining oil and seasoning in there? Use it to cook vegetables.

I had a lil tin of dolma for lunch and then used a bit of the oil like a ladolemono to fry up some zucchini, twas delicious

[doyoulikethis-vocaloid-song]

Really appreciating the amount of Chinese submissions we've gotten. Pretty please keep them coming I love vocaloid songs in other languages grahhh!!! [rips shirt in half like a werewolf]

[rigelmejo]

Comprehensible Input Listening Experiment: Update 42 Hours

2/13/2025: There is no major change between now and my last update at 37 hours, this is more of a log of where I am right now the first month I'm doing this, so in 100 hours I can look back and see what's changed.

hsklevel.com estimates my known words to be 11250 words: HSK 2.0: HSK 5 HSK 3.0: HSK 6 TOCFL: TOCFL Band B.2

HSK level 5/6

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟨⬛

New HSK level 6/9

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟨⬛⬛⬛

That dip toward the end of the graph is when I took this vocabulary estimate test at the beginning of February, and it estimated I knew around ~8000 words then. Since listening for 42 hours, I think a lot of words I 'knew before' but had forgotten after such a long break from studying Chinese, I can recognize again. I think that's why the words known estimate is now up to 11,250 despite it only being 2 weeks (42 hours).

I think the estimate I am around HSK5 (in passive understanding) feels realistic to me. I am going to find some audiobooks that are around HSK5 difficulty and use them when I'm done with MoDu (SaYe is the top of the list for HSK5 level material I'm considering).

How it feels to listen to various things right now:

Dubbed cdramas (Young Blood): surprised I understand as much as I do, I understand chunks of phrases and words when listening, I find my eyes automatically going to the chinese subtitles though. I remember a few years ago trying to watch Ancient Detective and relying on the chinese subs to figure out the main idea (with the reading skills I had of maybe knowing 2000 words), and trying to understand JUST from listening now kind of feels similar. It feels like the main idea can be figured out from words I hear and visuals, but it's frustrating how many details I do not understand (and so my eyes go to the chinese subtitles to figure out the details).

Cdramas with more natural speech (Go Ahead): I have to look at the chinese subtitles, I cannot just listen, and for that reason I don't think these kinds of shows would be good practice for listening unless I can find versions without subtitles entirely (perhaps Close Your Eyes Before It's Dark and Detention on Netflix - since I can turn off chinese subs, or Qi Hun Hikaru No Go since it's on youtube with the option to turn off captions). I don't think I could understand as much without chinese subtitles if I were watching a brand new show where I did not know the plot. If I look at the chinese subtitles I can understand all of the main plot, and many of the details (I only missed a few major details - when Xiao Jian Jian said she got her period I was confused about what exactly she 'got' until the next scene makes it clearer, I was confused about if Ling Xiao's mom asked her mom to drop the younger sister at him or was scolding her mom for doing it - until I replayed the scene and paused to read the chinese subs, and exactly what the dads said when they were fighting I had to rewatch - I understood they were fighting about Ling Xiao's mom making him sad but not exactly the words they were saying).

HP1 audiobook: I know the plot already, and I can listen to it without paying full attention and follow the main idea. Specifically: I can guess what scene I'm listening to in terms of the setting location, characters involved, time of day, emotions of the characters, and any main actions/items in the scene. I grasp some of the details: a smile, someone getting a cake piece, a picture of X, description of a character thinking about X topic. But then other details escape me, like the appearance of some setting locations, like parts about the classes all just blurred together as just 'kids in class' until I heard a specific chunk of dialogue where people were discussing something. I think if I was paying full attention then maybe I'd grasp more details, but I'm listening at work and while browsing my phone and looking at stuff in english.

MoDu: I know the plot already, and if I listen without paying full attention I can follow SOME of the main idea. Specifically on my 1st listen: (while not paying full attention) I can follow 1/2-3/4 of the dialogue specifics, most character names, most character expressions usually, most time words, some move-body action words, and sometimes I grasp the location description enough to know where they are. It takes me 2-3 listens to identify exactly what location they're at in all scenes, as that requires me to understand enough of the descriptive details to nail down if they're at a crime scene, what kind of setting the crime scene is at, an office, which person's office, a store and which store, a house and who's house, and in a story like MoDu that switches between one set of characters in one place and another in a different place - it takes multiple listens for me to figure out for sure X was in Y location, and not Z location with the other group. After around 3 listens: I understand enough of the main idea to know which scenes from the book I'm listening to, for all or nearly all scenes. This is usually when I start to understand the last 1/4 of the dialogue, am able to notice it's not description and is actually people talking, and when in the description portions some phrases will jump out at me as 'details' I understand. I suspect if I was paying full attention, I might not take as many re-listens to pick up some details.

SaYe: It feels easier to listen to now than it did in December, in that I can pay less attention yet understand phrases that jump out to me, but I feel like I still understand the same amount. In December I could roughly follow the characters in the scene (mostly), sometimes what location they were in, and usually the actions they took, and 1/2-3/4 of the dialogue. I feel like I can still understand the same amount, I just don't need to focus as intensely to do it. I know that I can read SaYe extensively, with no word lookups, so I feel like I should work to understand more when listening only. I feel like these should be words I can recognize when listening if I just practice more.

MoDu Audio Drama: much easier than the audiobook in one way, harder in another. It is harder to identify where the fuck anyone is, because there is no explanation descriptions saying X went to Y place and Y place looks like this blah blah - there is only sound effects and music to guess where they are. It is easier, in that I can understand nearly all the dialogue if I re-listen a few times. The first time I listen I can understand 3/4 or more of the dialogue. I think if you are a fan of the novel, and have read it before recently (in any language), then listening to the audio drama to hear the characters say their dialogue from the book is going to be easier than the audiobook, since there's no additional non-dialogue audio to distract you/confuse you. And it's very rewarding. For example - the scene where Luo Wenzhou asks Tao Ran if he hypothetically would pick Fei Du or Luo Wenzhou to date, if he had to. In the audiobook I had to listen 2 times to recognize I was hearing the full scene and where it started/ended, and 3 times to follow the majority of the dialogue they say. In the audio drama, only paying partial attention, I noticed quickly the scene it was and caught most of the words they said the first time I listened.

I am curious how other people feel about the following topic:

Do you think it's easier to listen to 'difficult' more unique word material, or easier to listen to 'learner made' unique word count material? Specifically if you are already reading webnovels and watching cdramas.

For me, I struggle somewhat to understand those graded reader audiobooks made for learners (like Journey to the West Graded Reader audio here). Yes, I understand many of the individual words, but when I hear an unknown word I feel like I have no idea what to guess it means sometimes. And the individual words I recognize, but I don't hear a lot of 'set phrases' I'm used to recognizing from cdramas I've seen and webnovels I've read. I hear some really common ones, but a lot of things are simplified so much it's not recognizable to me quickly enough to grasp what word they're saying. And they talk so slow, I'm not used to hearing chinese spoken so slow as I haven't been listening to learner materials for 4 years. I tried to listen to Da Lin He Xiao Lin audiobook yesterday, since it's one of the first chinese stories I read (and I highly recommend if you know 1000 words or are HSK4), and I immediately heard some words I couldn't figure out... even though I can read all the words in that story. I will say - I am listening to the audio graded reader Journey to the West I linked above, and I am grasping more words than when I listened in December... so listening for 42 hours sure helped. I am not hearing very many unknown words anymore (This result implies if nothing else, listening to 'difficult' stuff will make the less-unique-word stuff easier to understand later. I'm just wondering if improvement is quicker if you mostly listen to 'easier' stuff, because with reading to a degree it does work that way - struggle for a month with 1 hard novel intensively where you look up tons of words to improve your vocabulary, or you can read 4 easier novels extensively and improve your vocabulary and see similar progress in reading ability). However, it just still feels 'harder' in some ways than regular audiobooks.

With more 'difficult' listening material yes I hear a lot of words I don't know, but I also hear more phrases/chunks of words I've read before, and that helps me build up context in my head. Context like 'ah I heard said/asked and sadly/happily and got in car' so maybe this scene is 2 people in a car talking, feeling X, going somewhere. It gives me a lot more to rely on to guess the unknown words I hear, whereas with some simpler listening material... if there's no description around the unknown words I have no idea what the word I didn't understand means, and no way to guess. SaYe and HP1 don't give me these issues, despite being easier than MoDu, because both have enough descriptive sentences I can rely on those additional 'bits' I understand to guess unknown words. But with material made for learners? I try to listen to some, some 'easy' listening practice, then hear a word like shushi with no context around it and my brain blanks on what the fuck that word could mean. Shushi is a word I know from reading, and if I heard other words related to it that I've read in sentences using shushi (like in MoDu), then I'd have more surrounding context to guess what shushi is quickly.

Lazy Chinese youtube channel gives me the same issues if I try to listen, without looking at the video. If I look at the video, I totally understand what she's saying. If I try to just listen, so I'm not reading the chinese subtitles on the bottom (aka ignoring listening practice to read what's already easy to read), I suddenly don't understand a lot more words she is saying. I find Peppa Pig slightly easier to 'just listen' to, because all the talking the family does together repeats words and rephrases the topic with a couple of new words I can use as additional context (if I recognize some related words when listening to the additional context, it makes the unknown word easier to guess).

[xinyuehui]

⸺⸺ As long as the snow on the umbrella does not melt, you do not need to be afraid of anything.

[valyrfia]

ferrari on pole, but the brits already claiming hamilton, because once is higher than charles, will beat him all year around

yawn brits are sensationalist what else is new and at this point ANYONE WHO'S NOT MCLAREN is fine by me.....especially fine if it's ferrari. we have a championship to win here people! shanghai is historically one of lewis' strongest tracks, we're in with a good chance for a ferrari victory at least once this weekend.......

[moderndayamymarch]

chamber of secrets au where they don’t go back for ginny’s diary after she accidentally leaves it at the burrow, arthur weasley finds it and spends the rest of the book driving tom riddle into madness by writing pages of questions about the muggle world after learning he grew up in a muggle orphanage.

[vignirek]

Wukong + Macaque headcanons (part 3)

(part one & part two of previous hcs)

Wukong

- optional headcanon 1: in JTTW the monkeys all adopt Wukong's surname "Sun" (if I remember that part correctly), so perhaps in the Monkie Kid universe the monkeys still share Wukong's surname like they're all one family in a sense (and maybe it also applied to Macaque while he still lived on the mountain)

- has less scars than Macaque, but the ones he does have are from pretty severe injuries that his immortality was unable to heal for various reasons (and maybe he got some of them from before he became immortal and didn't have op regeneration abilities yet) - his favorite flavor is sweet and he dislikes spicy + bitter foods (while Macaque is the opposite, though he does eat moderately sweet things) - Wukong's fur is short and soft, while Macaque's fur is long and smooth - he and Macaque were the troop's go-to babysitters when the monkey parents wanted some rest from taking care of their babies (after their fallout, Wukong had to be the babysitter all by himself, but then Macaque started picking up his babysitter duties again since his return to the mountain after S4) - likes to play videogames in his spare time, his favorite types are tower defense and fighting games (while Macaque's favorites are fighting games and story-driven games) bonus: they're mutually afraid of horror/scary games (partially inspired by Monarch and Cyyu playing Mortuary Assistant) - optional headcanon 2: Wukong became depressed sometime after the journey, but he's been isolated on his mountain for so long that he doesn't even see it as a problem (and even if he did, he'd just deploy his good ol' "ignore the problem until it's not a problem" tactic) (it definitely wouldn't work all the time though) bonus thought: at some point Macaque realizes that his ex-best friend is depressed and starts secretly helping him out by making him proper meals and making sure he always has a set of clean clothes available (and just doing the house chores in general) (he feels like a jerk for always clowning on Wukong for being smelly after realizing this, so perhaps he does the chores as a way of making it up to Wukong) - he and Macaque used to have a very intertwined/synced fighting style; now they're grown used to fighting separately after their fallout, but they can still subconsciously slip into the familiar pattern sometimes - headcanon for funsies: he/she genderfluid

Macaque

- continuation & sorta update of my headcanon where Macaque has another name besides "Six Eared Macaque" - still kinda stuck on which one would be most fitting for him, but I've narrowed it down to my three favorite options after a lot of digging:

1) "Fēng Wǔ" (风舞/"wind dance"; my main interpretation is that it's a nod to his manner of dancing being light and carefree like the wind (in my headcanon at least))

2) "Yǐng Wǔ" (影舞/"shadow dance"; somewhat similar to "wind dance", but with his shadow powers, could be interpreted as him guiding his shadows in a dance of sorts)

3) "Jiāo Yè" (姣夜/"charming night"; mostly a nod to his black fur and maybe his appearance in general- perhaps the backstory behind this name is that Wukong gave Macaque a nickname in an attempt to help him feel less self-conscious about his own appearance, and the nickname eventually grew into an actual name that Macaque started using)

(note: I'm absolutely not an expert on chinese names and these options are mostly results of me slapping together chinese characters and seeing which ones sound good together in theory- so don't expect them to be 100% accurate to how chinese names actually work)

- has a big amount of scars from various past scuffles that happened before and after his resurrection (mostly because he doesn't heal quickly like Wukong does, so Macaque is not as "untouchable" as him)

- very good at vocal mimicry (basically he copies people's voices really well) and can adjust his voice to copy anyone he hears (his ears help him a lot with that, bc he can easily copy the voice just by listening closely)

- optional headcanon 1: Macaque gets a pair of headphones at some point and spends at least a couple hours a day listening to music; one of his favorite genres is metal (though overall his music tastes range from gentle tunes to something more like rock or metal) and he sometimes sings along (he typically goes into a room covered in noise-cancelling spells to do it) (maybe he takes those precautions because one time he got too into it and received multiple noise complaints the next day /j)

- the vision in his right eye (from his point of view) is pretty bad because of the injury, he's pretty much considered legally half-blind in that regard; the most he can see is blurry moving shapes, but he tries to make up for it with his hearing, so usually the blind right eye is not much of a hindrance to him, though he refuses to get glasses or lenses of any kind for vague reasons - prone to losing his appetite when he's really sick or stressed (he struggles maintaining a healthy weight because of that) - optional headcanon 2: Macaque had already been living on FFM for some time, but then one day he witnessed Wukong hatching from his egg and basically went "oh cool, new friend c:" and brought him along, and afterwards they became friends (basically he's older in this backstory interpretation) - in terms of shapeshifting, Macaque's strengths are in disguising himself as other people, while Wukong is more proficient with the 72 transformations (they can do both, but Macaque only has a few animal forms and hides his tail, while Wukong has his tail at all times when he's transformed into an animal or is using a disguise) - used to be fond of peaches, but after so much baggage involving Wukong, they taste almost bittersweet to him and he rarely eats them nowadays - a decent teacher when he puts his mind to it (he's typically the more organized one when it comes to teaching, though he isn't afraid to push limitations when he feels it's necessary) - headcanon for funsies: he/they nonbinary

[shitapril]

seeing people compare how some of the veteran drivers and rookies are adjusting to new cars/new engines, and what they're not taking into account is the fact that getting used to something entirely different and new is way easier than something that's just a little, but not too different. adapting to a whole new f1 engine from that of f2 is easier than going from a mercedes engine to a ferrari one, let alone a ferrari to a williams.

[starryrain]

when it’s that time of day

[moon-brain-90]

I'm so serious can Ferrari just fucking listen to Charles, because almost every time he wants to do something and they don't go for it, it was the right call. It's so frustrating because literally like 30 mins ago he wanted plan c and they said no and now they want to be on plan c.