#english learning book

[universalinfo]

Best Adventure Books Non Fiction - A Guide to Learning English

Discover the Best Adventure Books Non Fiction. Boost your English language skills while exploring thrilling true stories & experiences.

[trans-cuchulainn]

favourite Irish phrase I've learned from reading books is "beidh ár bport seinnte" (or tá, depending on how hypothetical the situation is). our tune is played, lads. it's over.

[writingwithfolklore]

How to Read with Intention

                Often you hear advice to read, read, READ!!! And while I absolutely agree with that, I think there’s a way to read effectively to learn from it, and make sure you gain the most you can from it.

                Reading intentionally looks like paying attention to and taking note of the technique, skill, and choices the author makes. Start with identifying the basics: motifs, theme, genre, through-lines. Essentially anything your English teacher wanted you to pick out of school readings (turns out those classes were actually worth something)!

                As you’re going through the story, record any questions, strong emotions, or other things that stick out to you. Try to be specific with page number and chapter so later you can see how the emotional narrative develops throughout the story. A note might look like, “I wonder what’s going to happen to Anna now that her mother is back in town” or “Josh losing his journal is ending my life”.

                Note what you really enjoy about the story, and also what you would change or do differently. Things that make you uncomfortable, in both good or bad ways, or that inspire you. I copy down quotes of lines or passages that I find particularly well written. Sometimes, I try to capture a character I particularly like through finding the quotes that speaks closely to them.

                Pay attention to every word. Writers make a million choices, what does using “sprint” rather than “run” change? Why does the scene in the school yard follow the scene at the tomb?

                What do we know about our main character? How do we know that? We could ask a million questions about a story, and with every one, we’re learning a little bit more on how to write one ourselves.

                Pay special attention to the ending. What insight does it give us to the rest of the story?

                Good luck!

[rayroseu]

If Silver is truly a descendant of the Silver Owls, specifically the Knight of Dawn... Then His dorm card is just a big foreshadow to it all 😭😭‼️‼️💥💥

but the knight of dawn has blonde hair (Aurora's hair color I guess)--- So Silver probably got his iridescent hair from his mother✨

Edit: I just realized---- Dawn happens as an end of the night, right? and the Knight of Dawn fought the creatures of the night and he is also feared by them... The Dawn eliminates the night to give way for humanity

But in Silver's dorm, he is situated in the sunset... Sunset happens for the day embracing the night... So it kind of signifies Silver as the Knight who accepts the creatures of the night instead of fighting them 😭😭😭

[ohsalome]

What Ukrainian books would you recommend to a complete beginner? Someone who has no idea of Ukrainian literature but wants to support Ukraine.

Sorry in advance for answering so late!

If I had to recommend one single book, it would probably be Tiger Trappers (sometimes translated as The Hunters and the Hunter or Tiger Catchers) by Ivan Bagriany. It is a partially autobiographic adventure novel set in the 30s about a man who escapes the NKVD imprisonment and attempts to survive in the harsh Syberian taiga with a family of ukrainian settlers living there while running for his life from the state.

If you're interested in poetry, my #1 recommendation in Serhiy Zhadan. Out of modern authors I also recommend Oksana Zabuzhko

If you want to read our classical literature, the most Iconique (tm) authors are Taras Shevchenko, Ivan Franko and Lesya Ukrainka. The level of enjoyment you might get out of them will vary greatly depending on the translation. Unfortunately, one major issue that exists with ukrainian literature is that translations of modern authors are more easily avaliable than those of the older ones.

Some of these books and more are linked in my masterpost document on ukrainian resources

There is also a lithub article with some recommendations, but out of those I've only read The Moscoviad and I probably won't recommend this book as the one to make your first impression about ukrainian literature.

[radjerda]

Some portraits of some fancy elves from Gondolin

Ecthelion and Glorfindel deserved some more elaborate designs than my usual, and how can I draw one without the other?

[teatitty]

Was showing some TW3 Lambert scenes to Rae tonight and it's soooo cute that he's such an emotional drunk. Depending on dialogue choices, you can have a scene play out where Geralt's like "you know you're like a little brother to me right?" And Lambert goes "[voice cracking] Why would you say that to me? I'm gonna cry. Come here" and as he moves in for a hug he knocks the empty wine bottle to the floor and just shatters it everywhere ruining the moment asfrtdfgt they're all such a fucking mess

[karamazovanon]

controversial opinion maybe but it BEWILDERS me when people (mostly americans ime) genuinely seriously with their whole chest complain about how impossibly hard russian names are. like. do a single google search. i don't see how you can comprehend that charles = chuck and margaret = peggy but can't fathom that rodion = rodya. how is this such a huge barrier of entry for people

[doyouknowthismusical]

[nostalgia-tblr]

I feel like anyone who's about to embark on attempting to type out a character's accent phoentically (at least as well as one can with English) should probably stop for a moment before they get going and ask themselves, "How would I, myself, feel about a fic where the one character who sounds like me had their speech written out like this and every other character just got their dialogue left in standard spelling?" I feel like a lot of people would tone it down a bit, at least, if they'd done that thought experiment first.

(Anyone who answered "but I don't have an accent!" isn't allowed to write out anyone else's accent, ever. This rule may seem harsh but you need it. Really, you do. Because you've never had anyone treat your accent as abnormal or comical or wrong, so you really don't know what you're inflicting on others here.)

[one-time-i-dreamt]

My old middle school got the cast of Heartstopper to read in the audio exercises for their new English learning books.

[skunkes]

[kaladinkholins]

i know I've mentioned my interpretation of mizu's gender a million times on here but i don't think i ever fully elaborated on it.

so on that note i just wanna ramble about that for a bit. basically, it's my reading of the show that mizu is nonbinary, so let me dig into that.

putting the rest under the cut because it ended being pretty long lol. also here have a cute mizu pic of her being happy and most at ease with herself, symbolised by her letting her hair down. <3 ok let's proceed.

okay note that nonbinary is an umbrella term, and applies to a vast range of gender identities, but it's my personal preference to use it as is, simply because i'm not a fan of microlabels. more power to you if you are though, but anyway.

essentially when i refer to mizu as nonbinary it means that i interpret mizu as a woman, but not ONLY a woman. not strictly a woman. she is also a man. she is also neither of these things, she is something in between, while at the same time she is none of these at all. i've said as much many times, but i just don't want people to think that by nonbinary it inherently means a "third androgynous gender" that essentially turns the gender binary into a gender trinary. not only is that going against what the term nonbinary was crafted for (to go against rigid boxes and categorisation of gender identities), but also, not all nonbinary people fall under that category or definition, and that's definitely not the way i interpret mizu.

also, before anyone fights me on this, let me clarify further that gender means something different to everyone. it's not your biological sex or physical characteristics. but at the same time, gender is not mere presentation. you can be a trans woman and still present masculine—either because you're closeted and forced to, or because you just want to—and either way, that doesn't take away from your identity as a woman. same goes for trans men. if you're a trans man but you wear skirts and don't bind or don't get top surgery, that doesn't make you any less of a man. because gender non-conformity exists, and does not only apply to cis people! some lesbians are nonbinary and prefer using he/him pronouns while dressing masculinely, but that doesn't mean they're a man, or that they're any less of a lesbian. neither does this mean that they're a cis woman.

the thing about queer identities in general is that, like i said, they mean something different to everyone, because how you identify—regardless of your biological attributes and fashion or pronouns—is an extremely personal experience. so a nonbinary person and a gnc cis woman's experiences might have plenty of overlap, but what distinguishes between the two is up to the individual. there's no set requirements to distinguish you as one or the other, but it's up to you to decide what you identify as, based on what you feel. either way, by simply identifying yourself as anything under the LGBTQ+ umbrella, you are already communicating to the world that you are not what a conservative, cisheteronormative society wants you to be.

which is why i find all this queer infighting on labels to be so ridiculous. because we're all fighting the same fight; the common enemy is a societal structure that divides us into set roles and expectations purely based on our biological parts. that's why biological essentialism in the queer community is a fucking disease. because by arguing that women are inherently weak and fragile and soft and gentle and must be protected from evil ugly men, while men are inherently strong and angry and violent and exploitative of women, these people are advocating for the same fucked up system that marginalises and abuses women as well as effeminate and/or gay men.

anyway. i'm going on a tangent. this was meant to be a blue eye samurai post. so yeah back to that— the point i'm trying to make is that there's no one way to identify as anything, and everyone views gender in a specific way.

so with that being said, yes you can definitely interpret mizu as a gnc cis woman and that's a totally valid reading. however, interpreting her as nonbinary or transmasc also doesn't take away from her experiences with misogyny and female oppression, because nonbinary and transmasc folks also experience these things.

me, personally, i view her as nonbinary but not necessarily or always transmasc because i still believe femininity and womanhood is an inherent part of who mizu is. for example, from what we've seen, she does not like binding. it does not give her gender euphoria, but is instead very uncomfortable for her both physically and mentally, and represents her suppressing her true self. which is why when she "invites the whole" of herself, she stands completely bare in front of the fire, breasts unbound and hair untied. when she is on the ship heading to a new land in the ending scene, she is no longer hiding her neck and the lack of an adam's apple. we can thus infer that mizu does not have body dysmorphia. she is, in fact, comfortable in her body, and relies on it extremely, because her body is a weapon. instead, what mizu hates about herself is her face—her blue eyes. she hates herself for her hybridised identity, hates herself for being a racial Other. hates that she has no home in her homeland. these are not queer or feminist themes, but postcolonial ones.*

* and as a tiny aside on this subject, i really do wish more of the fandom discussion would talk about this more. it's just such an essential part to reading her character. like someone who's read homi k bhabha's location of culture and has watched this show, PLEASE talk to me so we can ramble all about how the show is all about home and alienation from community. please. okay anyway—

nevertheless, queer and feminist themes (which are not mutually exclusive by the way!) are still prevalent in her story, though they are not the main issue that she is struggling with. but she does struggle with it to some extent, and we see this especially during her marriage with mikio, where we see her struggle in women's domestic spaces.

on the other hand, though, she finds no trouble or discomfort in being a man or being around other men—even naked ones—and does not seem stifled by living as one, does not seem all that bothered or uncomfortable navigating through men's spaces. contrast this to something like disney's mulan (1998), where we do see mulan struggle in navigating through men's spaces, as she feels uncomfortable being around so many men, always feeling like she doesn't belong and that she's inherently different from them. mizu has no such experiences like this, as her very personality and approach to life is what can be categorised as typically "masculine". she is straightforward and blunt. her first meeting with mikio, she tells him straight to his face that he's old while frowning and raising a brow at him. she approaches problems with her muscles and fists (or swords), rather than with her words or mind. compare this with mulan, who, while well-trained by the end of the movie, still uses her sharp wits rather than brute strength. this is a typically "feminine" approach. it's also the approach akemi relies on throughout the show—through her intelligence and persuasive tongue, she navigates the brothel with ease. mizu, in contrast to someone like mulan and akemi, struggles with womanhood and femininity, and feels detached from it.

thus, in my opinion, mizu is not simply a man, nor is she simply a woman. she is both. man and woman. masculine and feminine. she has to accept both, rather than suppress one or the other. her name means water. fluid.

as a side note, while i do believe mizu is nonbinary, i also primarily use she/her pronouns but this is a personal preference. i find it's easier, plus it's what the creators use, and because, in general, being nonbinary simply doesn't necessitate the use of they/them pronouns. nonbinary is not just a third gender. it's about breaking the binary, in any which way, and that's exactly what mizu does.

also, i'd also like to mention that one of show's head of story even referred to her with the term "nonbinary", rather than simply "androgynous" (see pic below). and it's possible this could be a slip up on his part, in which he believes the terms are interchangeable (they're not btw), but regardless i find it a very interesting word choice, and one that supports my stance.

so anyway yeah that's my incredibly long rambling post.

TL;DR nonbinary mizu rights 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻 congrats if you reached the end of this btw. also ily. unless you're a TERF in which case fuck off. ok i'm done.

[finnlongman]

I love how discussion of "medieval" fantasy novels had me half convinced the divine right of kings was a medieval concept even though I've never come across it in medieval literature, and then I start doing some actual research and discover we can blame that one on James I and the seventeenth century.

Edited to add: I turned off reblogs for a reason, lads. I realise there's a lot more nuance to the history of this phrase than I conveyed here and that versions of this concept have existed in different places. I was talking about a very specific manifestation of it in a very specific (English) context, in terms of how it gets used in popular understandings of the past – nothing else, and purely as a curiosity for myself, not a history lesson or discussion starter. If I could also turn off replies on this post, I would do so. Please stop telling me about the use of the concept elsewhere and during other periods, I am a) aware and b) not actually interested at this time. I have made that abundantly clear in my comments on the post.

[nat-20s]

Not to sound like I'm sort of booktok girlie or some shit but like. Books really are good ass gifts. You don't have to know somebody super well but you can still give them something really thoughtful and also in a price range that is like. Normal for most people when it comes to gifts. AND sometimes libraries will sell books quite cheap that they have too many copies of or are out of circulation etc so you can buy from them AND support the library. Honestly not seeing a downside here

[deadunderorbit]

The Phantom of the Opera, but make it ghostsoap