#germans have a weird sentence structure i guess

[save-the-villainous-cat]

Hello cat!

Just read your 3k series and wanted to give you a bit of feedback.

End of part two feels a bit hasty, besides the typo in the second to last paragraph (pretty sure you meant villain not hero there). There's a few typos but who cares, this one was just a bit confusing and stopped my reading flow. BUT.

Part four is GREAT OMG the feelzzzz

And don't get me started on the ending it's truly villainous~ and just over the top honestly. I love it. Hard, hurting, realistic. Wanted to let you know you did a great job on the series :)

Personal opinion: I feel like you could have made this a lot longer. There's only a glimpse of the feelings you're trying to express, they came out but they'd really sink in if you'd dwell on it a bit more, write about the stuff a bit more. Although I think that's mb just not your style since you put more weight on dialogue. Like I said it's just a thought it's still great you don't have to change anything in your style.

Something else entirely... I've read some german mostly in your tags sometimes. So I wonder where you're from if you want to tell. Don't have to ofc.

Greetings!

Uhm…okay?

So, when I put my work out here, I obviously have to expect criticism. That’s kinda unavoidable. People will have an opinion about me and my writing.

However, I don’t really know what your intention is. For example, I don’t see the “typo in the second to last paragraph.”

I wrote:

The hero stared at them, eyes narrowed. As if all of this was a trick. But then eventually, they spoke. Followed by a line spoken by the villain.

The hero stared at them. So, they spoke eventually. I get that using nb/nb for both characters is confusing but most of the heroxvillain community is structured like that and nearly all my writing is too. Which makes it weird to me to see this as a mistake on my part…? Like, you could use any line I’ve written on here and tell me I actually meant hero or villain because they both use they/them pronouns.

Also, I didn’t really catch any big typos/mistakes in that snippet. I used a lot of short sentences in this especially because the hero is extremely tired in these scenes and thinking in long ass sentences is just not really possible in such a state of mind (at least not for me lol). So, I guess this could be a reason for why you were confused/not satisfied with the writing flow? It’s structured like all my other snippets and it’s my usual writing style, so that confused me about your ask, too. Of course, I make mistakes as well and I make typos but again…you could say that about every snippet I write, so I wonder why you chose this one specifically?

Additionally, I don’t really see which parts of my snippets are giving “only a glimpse of the feelings [I am] trying to express.” I don’t think my readers are dumb. I think my readers get what I mean when I write “It fried their brain, making it impossible to even think straight. Old panic resurfaced but they put on a tired smirk.”

I think my readers get that old panic means that this character is familiar with panic, whereas putting on a tired smirk is a reaction to it. Which is (as we see throughout the whole story) a thing the hero does a lot. Hiding their pain and distracting themselves with flirting. Readers aren’t dumb. I don’t have to go into every little detail about every tiny thing the characters experience. In fact, part of being a reader is, that you get to imagine these things for yourself. As the writer, I give you a tiny bit of information and as the reader, you get to interpret and shape that however you want.

My readers get what I am trying to express with my characters’ actions and their dialogues. The villain asking the hero if they think they’re a good person has meaning behind it and normally, as a reader, you get stuff like that. I don’t have to describe in a paragraph that the villain doubts themselves and is beginning to value the hero’s opinion on them, no, I let them ask if they think they’re a bad person.

Of course, this series could have been longer. Could’ve been deeper. It could’ve been a whole book. But I am not here to write books for you for free. I am not here to write thousands of words because one anonymous user thinks a blog which posts snippets, should write more and more and more.

So, I believe this is more opinion than actual criticism. I guess? Because, like I said, there’s a reason for the way this snippet is written and if you want to “criticise” me for typos, you’d have to criticise every post I have ever made.

And another thing is, this message is coming from an anonymous user. So, I’m sorry if this offends you but I really don’t care about your opinion that much. I don’t think this message had any criticism in it which improves my writing.

Eventually, your opinion doesn’t have the same weight to me as the opinion of a certain epiclamer or a certain lilyaang or a certain creweemmaeec11 or a certain snowshowerwriting or a certain avvail or a certain thepenultimateword or a certain English teacher of mine.

This is your opinion of the series and this is mine — I don’t see any big mistakes or horrible decisions I’ve made and some anon telling me they didn’t like this or that won’t change that.

And yes, English isn’t my first language. I am German, come from Germany, live in Germany.

[andronauts]

tbh, german grammar is so weird.

as someone who’s been learning german for almost a year now, i have to say, german grammar is just so weird…

every language in the world expresses sentences with subjects, verbs and objects. not necessarily in the same order, but they will generally pick an order. english for example uses Subject-Verb-Object (or i’ll say SVO)

I eat food (I - subject, eat - verb, food - object). and this pretty much applies all the time.

other languages might use SOV, or VSO, or any other combination. but german is just. so weird because they don’t follow any one sentence structure at all. they split verbs into two, they rearrange where the verb goes, they put the verbs back together, sometimes it’s at the beginning of the sentence, sometimes it’s at the end. you can have the subject at the start of the sentence, but also you could have the object at the start of the sentence too! why not! for example:

ENG: I’m learning German (SVO), because I have a German boyfriend. (SVO)

nice, simple! subject verb object all around :).

now let’s look at the german translation for this same sentence!

GER: ich lerne Deutsch (SVO), weil ich einen deutschen Freund habe (SOV).

because of the connective WEIL we now have to put the VERB at the end of the sentence.

this is true for other connectives too (ie. wenn)

okay, so wenn (in eng, “when”/“if”) puts the verb at the end so lets see an example of that

ENG: when I eat chocolate (SVO), I am happy (SVO)

oh that’s lovely :) yay! SVO and SVO! its just so simple. now let’s look jn german

GER: wenn ich Schokolade esse (SOV), bin ich glücklich (VSO)

oh so now BIN (in eng, “am”) is at the start? oh… okay I guess!

if we swap the english sentences around, the sentence becomes “I am happy, when I eat chocolate”, which generally means the same thing as the original sentence.

however, if we swap the sentences around in German, it becomes a question. ,“bin ich glücklich, wenn ich Schokolade esse?” since the verb is at the beginning of the sentence, we are now posing a question. “am I happy, when I eat chocolate?” instead.

if we wanted to retain the same meaning, we go back to SVO to become “ich bin glücklich, wenn ich Schokolade esse.”

and now for the last example is that you can swap around Object and Subject in the sentence order and it will make sense and mean the same thing as well?

ENG: I am cooking sausage (SVO)

GER: ich koche Würstchen (SVO)

GER: Würstchen koche ich (OVS)

however if u did that in english it would just be “sausage is cooking me” or “sausage is cooking I” which doesn’t really make any sense at all and you sound crazy. but no, it’s completely valid and normal to just swap word order in German because. you just can?

and I haven’t even talked about split verbs or sentences with two+ verbs yet (I want to eat chocolate) where in english, both the verbs still remain in the SVO sentence structure. but in german it’s just a whole other set of rules to wrap your head around (ich will Schokolade essen) where ich is I - subject, will - “want” (verb), Schokolade is the object (chocolate), and essen is the second verb (to eat). like ? it’s just at the end of the sentence now? literally no other language does this I think

in general most languages will pick one order but german is just so damn weird bc they just switch it up whenever they want just becuz okay german and dont even get me started on split and reflexive verbs 🤦🏻

[thatwasthenightthingschanged]

[translated] [page 1]

“When this album comes out, gossip blogs will scour the lyrics for the men they can attribute to each song, as if the inspiration for music is as simple and basic as a paternity test. There will be slideshows of photos backing up each incorrect theory, because it's 2017 and if you didn't see a picture of it, it couldn't have happened right?”

This text is written like an instruction in the booklet of the most successful album of the year (headline: “Here's something I've learned about people.“); it sold more than 1.2 million copies in the first week solely regarding the USA. It was written by the singer herself, Taylor Swift. The piece of art is titled “reputation” since that’s what it’s about, the reputation of someone being in the public eye. And the 28-year-old singer is the biggest superstar to exist at the moment, so she’s definitely someone being in the public eye. It’s impossible to escape form her music nowadays. And all that although she doesn’t do interviews at the moment and only a few pictures are released by her management.

You don’t become a superstar with your music, but with photos. Elvis made it through movies, the Beatles through a television transmission, Michael Jackson, Prince, Madonna and following artists through music videos. Taylor Swift, born 1989 in Reading, Pennsylvania and raised in a small town in Wyoming as the daughter of a stock broker and a marketing employee, shows herself - as she’s a digital native - nearly solely through her social media pages with the advantage that she can determine what is written and said about her. She has - as I’m writing this - 74 million fans on facebook, 85,7 million fans on twitter and 104,6 million fans on instagram - no journal, no magazine, no tv show has a bigger influence than she does. Taylor Swift doesn’t need the traditional media anymore, she’s the media herself, shows herself on instagram with a clever mix of glamour and intimacy, shows herself posing for magazines, gives insight into her songs and her music videos as well as shows herself with her cats in - as it seems - private surroundings. And if you’re after all more conservative, you can buy not one but two magazines. Although there aren’t be any interviews or reports in there, you will find many photos, e.g. pictures taken by the fashion photographers Mert & Marcus, self-drawn paintings, handwritten poems and lyrics. All in all it’s like an instagram account to flip through.

Therefore, Taylor Swift is in control of everything. But it wasn’t always like this. When she was 19, she won the category “Best Female Video” with her music video for “You Belong With Me” at the MTV Video Music Awards. And during her acceptance speech, rapper Kanye West interrupted her by saying “I’m really happy for you Taylor and imma let you finish”, to loudly proclaim that the also nominated R&B singer Beyonce had produced one of the best videos of all time with her music video for “Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)”. After that, he gave the girl in the silvery sparkly dress her microphone back and left the stage.

It’s a typical example of a powerful man humiliating a young woman. Happens even more lately. But West explained afterwards that the sole purpose of his interruption was that he found it to be unfair that black artists are always snobbed of their awards at shows like this. Of course he’s not wrong, but aside the fact that Beyonce eventually won the biggest award of the evening “Video Of The Year”, he did not have to intimidate a 19-year-old singer with a showcase of his power to prove his point, he could’ve also interrupted Eminem, who won the award in the category “Best HipHop Video” against Jay-Z and Kanye himself.

Of course what he did was nothing else than male power abuse to show superiority and it actually worked really well. All of a sudden, West was the nice knight in white armor and Swift like a stupid and not cool piece of bread with songs taken from a girl’s diary about first-world-problems representing the suppression of Afro-Americans in the US who are dealing with this issue for centuries now and she even wins an award for it. Hashtag #WhiteSupremacy.

Since that, talking about Taylor Swift meant also talking about feminism and racism. The young singer needed to accept her role as the international figurehead and most hated person. But she quickly learned and as the years passed by, there was always a subtle discussion of her songs and how she presented herself. On her next album, with the pragmatic title “Speak Now” which sold twice as many copies as her previous album “Fearless”, she addressed the situation with West (”It’s okay, life is a tough crowd / 32 and still growing up now / who you are is not what you did / you’re still an innocent”) and in her music video for the song “Mean”, she freed herself of the ties binding her to a train rail and switched from a country barn to Broadway.

On her album “Red”, which was released in 2012, she documents the transition from an innocent girl to a confident woman and to an autonomous artist, but the media as well as the user of social media did not want to grant her that role and assigned every song to a celebrity boyfriend and asked themselves what’s wrong with her as she cannot keep a man. Were the albums of Bob Dylan, John Lennon or even Ryan Adams also solely reduced to the aspect of privacy? No. But it was tried with Jony Mitchell, Fiona Apple or Carly Simon. The issue should be obvious (small hint: it has something to do with the gender of the artist).

[deathshallbenomore]

they tell you not to write long sentences because otherwise people won’t understand what you have to say but may I interest you in a revolutionary concept such as: punctuation.

[interact-if]

Day 5 of the interviews! let’s give it up for Ligia! :chinhands:

Ligia, author of Love the Guard, Be the King

Latino Heritage Month Featured Author

Mathias' heart has been bleeding since his father, the former King, decided to punish you for his mistakes. As the youngest child of a lesser bourgeois, you were raised in the castle, between the King’s cruelty, the Queen’s friendship, and  Mathias’s kindness (or supposed kindness?).

Now, more than twenty Carnivals since your arrival, the King is dead and the Queen’s sickness  worsens each day. As the azure taint spreads in the kingdom and the Opalean Wars come to an end, it’s Mathias’s time to sit on the throne.

Will the docile Prince become a kind King, a violent Monarch, or a ruthless Tyrant? Will you have any say in it? And how much will your relationship change?

Love the Guard, Be the King Demo | Author’s Kofi | Read more [here]

Tags: historical, romance

(INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT UNDER THE CUT)

Q1: So, tell us a little bit about the projects you’re working on!

With pleasure! Right now, I’m working on three main projects. My personal Visual Novel project, “Love the Guard, Be the King,” a second Visual Novel I’ve been secretly working on with a good friend for the past 10 months or so, and I also have an ongoing book series about hot, quirky supervillains—but I’ll focus only on the first two cause that’s what we’re here for, right? Hahaha.

LtGBtK is a really intimist experience, focused more on the MC’s and RO’s character arcs and how we can change depending on our experiences and how we feel about them. The entire plot happens in only four days, but it takes into account almost 30 years of history—basically Mathias’s (the only RO) entire life!

“Crystal Library” has mystery, romance, magic, 6 ROs, and a ton of memorable scenes already. I’m working on the graphics and the programming for this one, while Coco Nichole (@dreamybard), one of my favorite writers ever, is the brilliant mind behind the plot and all of CL’s characters! I can’t wait to share this one with you all. Romance is optional in both. :)

Q2: What excites you most about using interactive fiction? What are some of the biggest challenges?

What I LOVE and FEAR about all types of interactive fiction is how it invites players to, on a much deeper level, be part of the narrative. When reading books, we all work hard to translate beautiful sentences and scenes into images in your head. We interact with it, yes, but when playing IFs, we also explore the narrative in a different way; we have so much more agency over what happens! We sometimes have different paths to choose from, beautiful illustrations to unlock, or character traits that change depending on our choices… it’s amazing, and, IMO, it’s a very unique way to experience narratives.

But it’s also very complex, very demanding, and it can easily get out of hand if you give the players too many options/branches to follow, mainly when working with small teams or, in my case for LtGBtK, alone. *takes a deep breath* I just hope I’m doing a good job. .-.

Q3: What has been something in your project you’ve had to do a weird amount of research for?

Besides programming lol basically everything. For LtGBtK, I’m trying to create this weird fantasy with a modern-medieval society (?), so I’m constantly researching medieval customs, traditions, tools, and weirdly specific stuff like socks. Did people wear socks in the medieval era? What were their playing cards made of? When was ice cream invented? How did they shave? How did kids become knights? What were their perfumes made of? And soaps? What did they eat? How different was their wine? And what kind of materials or slang or fabrics can I use, and what can I change without completely breaking immersion?

 And then I shove all that into a pot and adapt it to a world where Mathias can literally put the world on fire with a wave of his hands. ♥

Q4: Which of your characters is most like you? How?

I think I’m a mix of them all, but mainly Mandra and Rafa (one of my main characters in my supervillain books). They have wildly different personalities and stories, but those two have clear views of the kind of person they want to be, they’re not afraid of their soft sides, and they are ready to work hard to become good at what they love. Rafa has a specially strong connection to her brother, like my siblings and I, and Mand is often locked in an eternal state of wanting to be alone and wanting to be surrounded by family/loved ones, so I guess we meet there too!

Q5: Does your heritage influence your characters as you create them? (How? Why or why not?)

Yes! There are the very basic ways, like habits, names, food, family dynamics, settings (mainly in my books, which are all very Brazilian), and Holidays. And then there’s a more personal way that I’m not entirely sure I can explain because I lived in Brazil for 28 years, and I’m not sure I can put that into words. The classics of our literature are different, Art, architecture, and music developed differently, my country was violently colonized and still faces the results of that violence (including but not limited to structural racism, classism, misogyny etc), I learned some Capoeira in my physical education class at school, we call non-Brazilians “gringos,” and so on. This is my normal, and this is what my characters would see as normal too, because I don’t know any different.

At the very core, all my characters are influenced by my country’s history, by our relationship with other countries, and by the values my parents taught me, passed down to them by my Indigeous-Spanish-Portuguese-German foremothers/fathers. :P

The main, more palpable way my heritage influences my characters, though, is through humor and theme. I think Brazilians have a very specific, sharp, and often very smart kind of humor that, IMO, stems from the type of history our country has, and the way we look at life, sometimes translating pain into humor. As for themes, I usually write about what makes me angry... and there’s a lot in Brazil’s history and modern society that causes me that. :)

But all I know for sure is that I want to show the world Brazilians are much more than samba and soccer.

 Q6: What is something you love to see in interactive fiction?

Other people! In the same way I add my history and worldview to my creations, I always approach stories thinking that there’s a whole, well, history behind them. And I love that! Also, I adore choices that feel impactful + good friendships and family relationships + soft romances with mutual respect. ♥

Q7: Any advice to give?

Hmm. Be proud and celebrate who you are and where you’re from. Learning and understanding the world inside us is a life-long process, so it’s always a victory to discover new pieces of ourselves. :) Also, if you can, talk to people that come from different cultures than yours to expand your worldview, don’t be afraid to be soft (the world needs more kindness), and please study personal finance. Seriously. XD

[sophierequests]

meet the writer

Navigation

“I believe in all kinds of things. Ghosts. Gnomes. True love.”

oh, who is she?

—Hello again! My name is Sophie (who would’ve guessed that?), and I go by she/they pronouns.

— I’m currently 19 years old, and in university, studying to become a teacher (try guessing the subjects I want to teach, I dare you lmao).

— I started getting into writing a few years ago when I still had a Star Wars writing blog, but I didn’t really enjoy writing for that fandom anymore. So when I took a creative writing course this year, I was immediately thrown back into my writing obsession.

— I’m not an English native speaker, hence why there might be some little mistakes or just decently weird sentence structures in some of my fics lmao. Other languages that I speak/am able to understand are French, Dutch, Spanish and German.

— My current obsession is the entirety of the Grishaverse, and I am not sorry to admit that. I have read all of the main books and binged the Netflix show embarrassingly fast, so make of that what you will. It’s legitimately one of my favourite fictional universes.

— Next to the Grishaverse, I also enjoy watching period pieces, Marvel movies, horror movies and so many more. I read a lot. Some of my favourite books include anything Dostoyevsky, Austen and the Bronte sisters, but I also have a huge interest in other gothic novels and (obviously) fantasy books. I read the Cruel Prince and I really enjoyed it.

— My favourite colour is green, but I don’t think that I dislike any colour in particular. Colours are just neat man.

— I love listening to music, even though my music taste is absolutely chaotic. Some of my favourite musicians are Mitski, The Crane Wives, Hozier, Phoebe Bridgers, Fiona Apples and a few other folk punk bands. I’m also really interested in Irish and Scottish traditional music!

— Cats are my favourite animals, followed by frogs and rabbits. I have a nine-year-old cat, which I would die for in an instant.

— I’m super fascinated by religious studies and the effect they have on our culture and the way we perceive things. Also, I’ve started trying to learn more about Indian and South Asian countries and their cultures.

— Some other random facts about me: I love plants, I’m a vegetarian, I love winter, I’m a Virgo, an INFP and a Ravenclaw, so basically I am just a female version of Wylan Van Eck. I hate crowded places, deadlines, having to redo my eyeliner like 20 times before it looks acceptable and wearing pants (dresses and skirts for the win).

a mysty memory

[readersperspective]

Writing Advice Bilingual Characters

As some of you (who read my reviews) already might have noticed, I am bilingual myself. Sadly, multilingual people do not get represented well a lot in media, so yeah... some advice for writing them. It will certainly not capture every aspect of being bilingual, but it might give you a first idea.

There are different ways to be multilingual.

People who grew up with more than one native language will almost certainly speak all of them fluently. Most of them have two (their parents’ language and their country’s language, or the language of one parent and of the other) but I also know a family where the children grew up with four native languages (the mother speaks Portuguese, the father Italian, they talk to each other in English, and live in Germany, where the children grew up)

Some people speak two or more languages, but cannot write all of them - especially when the alphabets are not the same, for example English and Russian or Arabic. This affects mostly children of immigrants.

Some people can read and write a language quite well, but are not good at speaking or listening comprehension. Those people often learned the language at school with a bad teacher or by themselves with books and apps.

Some people, again mostly children and grandchildren of immigrants, can read and understand a language, but don’t speak it. Mostly, the parents decided to not teach the child the language, and they learned it themselves by listening to their parents talk to relatives.

Confidence can play a big role in this. I understand the dialect of my grandparents without a problem, but I would never try to speak it. I can’t even imagine forming those words with my mouth, and it would sound terrible.

People who learnt a language at school can reach completely different levels of that language. I started learning English at age 6 and am completely fluent by now. Other people in my class barely understand more than easy conversations in English.

Most people will do their very best to hide their accents.

If the person is not a native speaker, but fluent in a language, their accent will be a mix of whatever they can find at the moment. Media is a big influence in that.

Since I watch more British than American TV, my accent sounds a bit british, too. When I watched “Call the Midwife”, I often even unconciously copy the accent of Laura Main. I don’t know why her, but my brain just liked it, I guess.

Also, we will use words, phrases and sentence structures from so many different sources.

People who learnt English through the internet (aka most of the younger generation) will have problems to not use swear words when actually being in Great Britain or America. They just do not have the weight for us, since on the internet they get used all the time.

I have never in my whole live heard a multilingual person switch languages mid-sentence on accident.

We will do it on purpose, though, if the other part of the conversation understands both languages.

Also, we will maybe say the word in another language if we forget the meaning.

Multilingual people that are not natives in the language they usually use in their day-to-day life (immigrants, for example) will often count and calculate in their native language. For example at a restaurant where they calculate the price in their head, they will probably do it in their native language.

Conversations with multiple multilingual people can be very different.

If one person only understands one language, they will probably try to include that person by speaking the language they share. I can say from experience, though, that if eight native Germans that have varying levels of English language skills will sit together with one introverted Turkish person with medium English language skills, they will go back to German quite often. It’s not nice, but sadly natural.

In general, people will try to speak in their native language if possible. You can take two people that share a native language and also both speak English and let them walk around in London - they will probably speak their native language, no matter how well they speak English.

Multilingual people that share multiple languages will switch on purpose when they feel like they can express their thoughts better in the other language.

Many languages have taken words from English.

Especially young people take a lot of English filler words and phrases (or insults) and put them into their native language. “Help, mein Deutschlehrer überfordert uns mit Hausaufgaben, like, what the fuck, glaubt der wir haben nichts besseres zu tun?” Is a sentence you would absolutely hear from a German student.

Many young people that don’t live in Great Britain or America will not use these words and phrases around their parents. First of all, our parents often do not speak English as well as we do, but more importantly, our parents do not like us using English instead of ur native language.

Many professions nowadays have an English name, I don’t know why. What used to be a Hausmeister is now a Facility Manager. The longer the English phrase for your profession, the more likely you will not be taken serious by older people.

Once you have more than one native language, you learn new languages more easily, for some reason. I know a girl that speaks 7 languages, at age 20, 5 of them fluently.

"You speak English quite well” or phrases like that said by a native speaker can be the best compliment ever, or more uncomfortable than nice.

When you are translating for your family and hear that sentence, it is super nice.

When you are only speaking English, that sentence indicates that your accent is still heavy. You do not pass as a native speaker.

When you are a native speaker, that sentence is just weird.

You can indentify the people that learnt a language through reading by giving them words that are pronounced untypically.

For years I thought “precious” (a word that is heavily used on the internet, especially in fan communities, but not that much in school) was pronounces pree-ci-ous. I was shocked when I heard it for the first time.

There are situations where even quite fluent non-native speakers will not be able to understand or talk in their second language.

The first few minutes after standing up (although that can change when the person is really fluent)

When they are in great pain

When they are in great fear

When they are under great stress

Sometimes even when they did not use that language in the last few days

Translating in realtime is terribly hard and will fuck your head. When I was on holiday with my parents, I often had to read the information signs in museums or at sights for them and translate. It’s easier when you first read the text and then summarise it in another language, but trying to translate it sentence by sentence is painful and you will question your abilities in both languages.

This gets just more horrible when under pressure. While we were in England, a visibly stressed young woman came to us and asked us if we had 5 pounds, she had lost some money she needed to take the train back home. I repeated her sentence to my father. In English.

Also sorry to the poor worker at McDonalds who I talked English to while speaking German to my English exchange student.

People abroad will absolutely become friends with every person that they hear speaking their language. While being in London, we overheard a man talking to his son in German about taking a photo, and I immediately asked (in German) if I should take a photo of both of them together. We talked for fifteen minutes after that, even though we had never met before.

On that note, in tourist citys the people that try to sell things to tourists usually speak a lot of languages enough to say things like “Oh, I speak a bit of [language], too, but not well. Didn’t pay enough attention in school. You look like nice people.” Makes it so easy to sell things.

Idioms are literally hell. Best example has been in the news currently, with Greta Thunberg literally translating a Swedish idiom in a tweet not realising that “putting someone against a wall” means something totally different in English. 

Idioms will be hell for you as a writer, too, though, as long as you do not fluently speak both of the languages or at least one of them is fictional, because it’s quite easy to mess up if you use idioms that jus aren’t normally used by people speaking that language.

Bilingual puns are amazing, but sadly rare.

Those are the things I thought of first... Maybe you can find some ideas or inspiration there for your characters, too. The best thing of course is to let someone proof-read your character if you are uncertain, but this hopefully already helped you a bit!

[blackevermore]

x Secrets of The Lake: The Company of Misery and Pain

{ Chapter 5 }

Summary: Vladimir Masters’ family tree has always been tainted by secrets swept under the rug. From generation to generation there have been countless reasons the Masters’ family had seemed to keep private from the public. Even to this day, Vladimir was no exception. But what was one to do when a restless spirit from the settlement years finally breaks free from restraints and demands you answer for your ancestor’s crimes? Vladimir doesn’t know. However, Clockworks does.

Notes: We just having fun, rewriting some of the canon, new adventure new characters. I will apologize now for any grammar, spelling, weird sentence structuring in advance. My brain writes faster than my fingers and even when I go back through to reread it I still miss things. Sorry about that!

Word Count: 3063

It wasn’t that it was hard to pinpoint where things began to fall apart for the Masters family. Rather it was who was to blame when all of it happened all at once. Could it have been the people they married or was it the family itself that had the bad luck? Either way, the Masters family had a very long list of unfortunate events that seemed to flock like birds to a nest. Vlad sat at his computer scanning through the digital archives of his family. He never truly sat down and looked through all of this, when he was younger it was more like being shown a picture and being asked to guess how far apart they were in life and death. His father did it often trying to brag about how headstrong all the men in the family were.

So many names, so much trading property or what seemed like stealing others. Not that Vlad was surprised at all by that, how else do you think he got where he was in life, it was just the game of business. Not having many divorces and remarrying, now that was surprising, he would have thought the men in his family would have had the least of the draw, or he was just shamefully projecting. Of course the latter could be farther from the truth when Vlad went through two stepmothers. Both his and his first stepmother died of unknown causes which left the last one living the longest. Luckily they were both lovely and the sweetest of women, but maybe would have been better off not in the family. At last Mrs Helena was alive, he hoped.

Vlad had scrolled to the very beginning of the files which started in the mid 16th century. The family name had just been respelt to the changing Germanic language and someone named Alger had married and inherited land in southern modern Germany; he died of an infection in the mouth at 32. From there they had seven children but only two survived due to the plague. From the two, only one was a boy and he carried the family name and expanded the family east. After that was a long line of names that either was married in, inherit, how they died, and weird scribbled notes off to the side Vlad couldn’t read. As the 16th century files ended the 17th century file started and was a lot more organized than the former. Vlad could actually read what jobs the males in his family had and where they actually ended up near the end of their life. The Masters family had once again gone through a name respelling and this time they were established merchants.

As he combed through the notes and names, Vlad had this weird ‘yes’ ‘no’ feeling, so far everyone had been a ‘no’ and his gut told him he was getting closer. Closer to what? Not sure, but he followed it anyway hoping to reach the end. But when he came across blank records, he was closer to the mid  17 century. The last family was the house of Anya with three dependents, a wife named Yolan and two sons, Vladan and Luther. In the notes it said that Anya served the ruler as a travelling merchant and was paid wealthy for it; he died of poison. The family lived in the furthest part of the eastern Germanic states which meant they would have been closer to migrating towards Slavic area. But after that there was nothing but empty rows. That was 50 years missing and that didn’t sit right with Vlad. Surely there had to be something or someone during that time. With how detailed the records were so far there had to be something- anything.

Vlad scrolled down to the beginning of the 18th century and that’s where the names picked back up with Vladan being the head of the house. There was an asterisk next to Vladan's name that read ‘only surviving heir’. Vlad sighed, of course, the family had died and was only survived by a single son. He could only imagine the tragedy that could have happened to the rest of the family.

‘Yes’

Vlad’s gut pulled as he read over the name again and the notes beside it. This man went through four wives whose names weren’t listed other than ‘wife 1… wife 2...’  and only had a daughter.

“Seems like misery was your only friend,” Vlad mumbled as he looked on and saw that the daughter took over for her father once he died of heart issues, and moved the family due to marriage. She didn’t change her name nor give up belongings and had five sons but only two of them had her last name. It seemed that it was on purpose for the lack of arguing on who got what when she died. The husband on the other hand disappeared early into their marriage, “You were truly a Wollstonecraft it seems, Miss Ursula Masters.” Sadly tragedy struck her down as well as she died of horse trampling. After Ursula the next four families had lost all the old money they once sat on due to wars and the collapsing economies. They did however maintain their pride and kept building themselves back up. By the end of the 18th century, the Masters family was in Russia and had branched off.

‘No’

Vlad knotted his brows as his gut once again pulled at him as a sign of the wrong direction. Rolling his eyes tired from looking at small prints and shitty handwriting he scrolled back up to the empty space.

“So you’re from right here it seems,” Vlad rubbed his chin and groaned. “What in the world happened and how did you get here?” As Vlad tried to think of another way to figure out the gap, the phone at his desk began to ring and broke him away from his trance. Deciding that that was enough for the day, Vlad closed his laptop and picked up the phone. Vlad had been so invested in his ghostly business he nearly forgot about his human one. Vlad pulled the phone away from his ear and rolled his neck as he tried to put on his Vlad Co. facade. Vlad pulled the phone back in when he heard a question and he politely asked the woman on the other side to repeat herself.

“I asked if you will still be holding the theme banquet this coming Wednesday.” Sha! Vlad had forgotten all about the company banquet. As a boss he felt it was important to give your employees a ‘thank you’, especially if there was company corruptness being swept under the rug. So as a treat every so often Vlad would announce he would host a banquet and give everyone the day off. Vlad felt his eye twitch as he thought over whether or not he should cancel it. Wednesday was in three days and he hadn’t even told his ghostly staff about it.

As his mind thought it over the words came out by themselves, “Yes.” Yes? Yes?! He had no time to play host when he had a ghost to deal with and any other madness being thrown his way. Why in the world would he say yes?

“That’s wonderful! Sir, if you don’t mind me asking, what’s the theme?” The woman said, eagerly.

“Well I do mind, that’s my little secret. Surely you wouldn’t want to take the surprise away from yourself, now would you.” Vlad gagged as he sweetly replied and heard the woman become flustered.

“You’re right,” Of course I am . “ Well I can’t wait to see what you put together, Sir. You never cease to amaze us.”

“Hmm, yes, now if you excuse me, Miss Wright, I have some emails to look over before prepping.”

“Very well, Sir good-” Vlad didn’t wait for the woman’s goodbye and hung up, he dropped his face into his hands and held his breath as he tried to mentally organize himself.

Clockwork? Check.

Vengeful spirit out to kill him? Check.

Nearly being torn apart? Check.

Waking up three days later? Check?

Prepping for a banquet he forgot all about? Wonderful .

Vlad stood up from his desk chair and stretched his back, he needed to get out of the house for fresh air. Maybe go for a walk or if he was feeling up to it, a quick flight, then come back and start on what was being served at the banquet and what the theme was. As he walked around his desk and reached out a hand to draw the handle he heard the low rumble of bickering outside his door. He used his ghost sense to hone in on it and only shook his head in disappointment.

“Yeah well I could have been there for backup if you had let me go with you. How come he got to go with you?” Dani crossed her arms angrily and shot Danny the meanest eyes she could muster.

“I didn’t bring him along, he showed up by himself, he was supposed to be on his way to pick you up, remember.” Danny retorted as she and he rounded the corner to Vlad’s office. “Besides I told you it was dangerous and you would have only gotten hurt.”

“No way I’m like super badass!” Dani yelled.

“Language, especially in this house, Danielle.” Vlad opened the door and looked on towards the children. Dani turned away and grumbled as Danny sighed and gave a quick wave.

“Either she was gonna fly here and pester you by herself or I would at least try to stop her, as you can see I didn’t do much.” Danny motioned towards his clone and she stuck out a tongue.

“Well at least you showed up at the right time, I have news I think you will like to hear.” Vlad rubbed the bridge of his nose and gestured for Danny to come inside. Guess the walk would have to wait.

“Boy would I!” Dani stepped out in front of Danny and Vlad quickly stuck a hand out.

“Miss Masters, you have other things to do. This problem has nothing to do with you and I would much prefer it if you stop trying to be a part of it.” Vlad put on his father voice and it saw how it made Dani upset. She looked back at Danny for help only for the older teen narrowed his eyes and looked away. Vlad gave her the all knowing look of ‘you are out ruled’ and Dani stomped her foot. She had been told no so much in the last few days of wanting to help.

“I swear you two still treat me like some weak baby. I have control over myself and my powers, stop doing that!” The hurt in Dani’s voice almost made the others cave but Vlad stood by his words and shook his head.

“I know you’re not a baby, far from, but this isn’t your fight. Now run along.” Dani's face nearly turned red and she flew off through the walls to god knows where.

“Maybe it wouldn’t have hurt to let her listen,” Danny rubbed his arm, feeling very much like a villain. Vlad on the other hand deadpanned him and turned to walk into his office.

“You should know what happens to those that become too curious, they only get in trouble.” Vlad’s monotone voice irked Danny, the jab was unnecessary considering they both ended up as they were due to curiosity. Once they were seated in their respective chairs Vlad opened his laptop again. Danny watched him scroll through files before turning the computer around for him to look at. Danny had no idea how to read any of this, cocking an eyebrow he shook his head.

“Explain,” Danny said.

“As I looked through everything, I noticed that my family record suddenly stopped between the late 1650s to the 1700s.” Vlad began pointing towards the screen. “This may sound odd but I had a feeling this might be where Tayonna is from. However, it doesn’t make sense because there is no mention of coming to America. This name, Vladan, is the only surviving member of his family and he stayed in the empire and got married. He was one of the sons of the family before the gap.” Vlad turned the computer back around and stared heavily at the name trying to make something of it.

“Is there any way for you to throw money on this and figure out what happened in those 50 years?” Danny asked with a shrug, surely, Vlad had that power considering he was a billionaire. Vlad did not have that power. Vlad blinked a few times and shook his head.

“If only it was that easy, however, I have no idea where to look nor do I have time to fly out to one of the thirteen colonies and check.”

“Get an assistant to do it, you have plenty of those and I know it, Miss Kate is a really cool lady.” Danny smirked, he had the honours of meeting a few of Vlad’s assistants who sometimes had very nasty things to say about him. Which Danny promised not to repeat back and enjoyed listening to. Truly, what man has a random sweet tooth at 3am and demands a strawberry shortcake?

“I doubt any of them would wish to take a random trip at the moment.” Vlad thought over his few underhands and couldn’t think of a single one he could trust with this. They all had their pros and cons and yet Vlad found himself cancelling all of them.

“When did you become considerate of anyone but yourself?” Danny asked with a cocked brow and pressed lips. Vlad was a bit taken back by the question but knew where Danny was coming from.

“When I decided to stop playing childish games with a child. My company is not a playpen and my workers are not playmates I can throw away.” Vlad answered with a hiss on his lips and Danny mumbled a ‘whatever’ before throwing his hands up and standing to his feet.

“I still say send one of them out to Ellis Island to find something.”

“Ellis Island was built in the late 1800s not the 16oos, Daniel.” Danny opened his mouth then quickly closed it.

“I knew that… I knew that.”

“Of course,” Vlad wore his annoying amused smirk that he always gave Danny when he messed up. “But I will take your suggestion into consideration since it’s something rather than nothing.”

“That’s the spirit. Get it?” Danny shot Vlad finger guns and a wink and the man snickered and walked around his desk to head towards the door.

“Besides, it's not like we can ask Tayonna herself.” Vlad added as he opened the door and allowed Danny to head out first.

“Dude, I think the last person she wants to see is you or me.” Danny snorted. Vlad only hummed and they walked towards the stairs to bring them to the first floor. Danny B-lined his way to the kitchen and quickly found home in Vlad’s frig. Vlad joined him and made himself a cup of coffee for his midday crisis. “Besides, the last place I left her was at the bottom of the pond as I drug your lifeless body away.” Danny shoved a gogurt in his mouth and raised his eyebrows. Vlad huffed and looked over the top of his cup.

“Don’t remind me. Those are Dani’s.”

“She’ll understand, her gogurts are going towards a great cause. And I know how much Masters love donating towards “ good causes ”.” Danny wiggled his brows and ghosted another hand into the frig to pull out another snack to shove into his pocket.

“Don’t say anything to me when she finds out. I’ve seen nothing.” Vlad chuckled behind his drink and playfully turned the other way.

“Oh ha ha.” Danny finished his first snack and threw it away. He pulled out the next and started in on it, he made an about face and gave Vlad a concerned expression.

“We gotta make it up to her, she really wanted to help, but this is hella dangerous and she could get hurt. Tayonna isn’t gone, she’s still in the ghost zone and we both have to go back in there to deal with her.” Danny voicing his worries for not only Dani’s feelings but the threat she kept trying to chase made Vlad feel like a drained parent. He always thought of Danny as a distant son, more so now than before. So when he made Danielle and then rekindled a relationship with her he really did feel like a single father. The last thing he wanted at the moment was to cause another rift in their relationship. Having a happy Dani around the house made Vlad feel way less lonely.

“I know and that’s why I’ll ask her to aid me in planning the company banquet for Wednesday.” Vlad finished his drink and placed it in the dishwasher before snapping his fingers to turn it on.

“You’re seriously having a banquet while we’re in the middle of this?” Danny's expression quickly dropped and Vlad shooed him away.

“Correction, this is happening while I was planning the banquet. Ghosts seem to have no consideration for my very busy life. But the show must go on.” Danny could only facepalm as he listened to Vlad.

“You are such a fruitloop, ya know.”

“Yes, yes, I’m well aware.” Vlad chuckled and walked out of the kitchen. Danny was about to follow him until he stepped out and nearly slipped. He looked down and saw that where Vlad once stood was now a puddle of water with a few smaller puddles heading the way Vlad did. Danny’s first thought was danger and panic but the beeping sound of the dishwasher snapped him out of it. Besides, if she would have gotten in, not only would Vlad’s ghost security alert him, but his own ghost sense would have told him. Danny hadn’t felt any weird energy nor had his senses go off the whole time he was here. Danny calmed down and told himself it was just a leak in the dishwasher he would have to tell Vlad about.

[theelliottsmiths]

Just rewatched the keine lust making of and would love to hear you wax poetic on it if you don’t mind

Okay here we go hello I have many opinions about it. This is less waxing poetic and more going aaa into the speech to text function.

The Keine Lust Making of is one of the best ones. I'm rewatching it right now and it's so fun, Schneider's laughter alone is enough to make it one of the best: His laugh is completely unrestrained, he just makes whatever noise his body decides and it's cascading and weird and beautiful. He's so proud of his idea, the sweetheart.

He also gives himself the most sultry death stare in the mirror as they're doing his make up. He's constantly bouncing between silly and serious even within the same sentence sometimes, which in the band seems pretty unique to Schneider. His little hallooooos I swear to christ. He does it there too, he changes in an instant.

His comments about how he now realises it's okay to age and get fat are... Do you think he meant it to be sweet or do you think he was being jokey? Because it's a little adorable honestly. I don't know if I grasp what he is fully saying because it kind of sounds like he's into it. Does the 'cooler' mean more chilled out and relaxed or cool-cool?

You know the bit where Richard talks about them getting together just to simply make music together again regardless of anything else? How close is that to how they've described the untitled album's inception? Just getting together with people they love to have fun and see what happens. I cry.

Till looks extremely bothered but patient about his makeup and the crew around him. He doesn't look himself in the eyes the way the others do, which is not surprising. He says ik instead of ich when he's talking about being hot and I know everyone knows this but it's the only time I'm ever aware that he does it. "It's so simple" he is Done he is Exhausted

I really like seeing the arrival of the boys, I know objectively it's a non thing that is barely notable but it's so interesting to see how they each are before they get going: Paul in his little bobble hat, Richard with his hair all drama-pointy (sometimes I wonder if he did that a lot in everyday situations to repel people just a little or if I'm being silly and it's just how it was), Oli the least fashionable as usual, Till doing... Whatever the fuck he was doing in that coat, have we all just agreed never to mention it?

And then Paul once again can't help but call them all hot, a recurring thing for him (I am saying nothing) and just all of the interview bits honestly bring be so much joy. Flakes are, as always, equal parts adorable and hilarious.

Paul singing Ohne Dich? Fantastic. Schneider's irrelevant facial malfunction (and subsequent ridiculous laugh)? The best part by far, I replay it over and over.

They did Richard so dirty, as they says with his face though. It looks very silly and not at all realistic for his facial structure or just in general. He looks very bad. 0/10.

Flake, by the way, looks Exquisite in his lil hat with his long bob hair; It's my favourite look of his ever, the soft hat and bob combination. My brain wants so badly to say verstehen? but unfortunately the likelihood of being called out for my pretentious inclinations (and the not speaking German thing) is much greater here than usual. Understand?

As much as I love his work I will, given the opportunity, stand on Jörns toes for the autistic comment. Free of fucking emotion indeed. I think I may have sprained my wrists I have not watched this in a while. These points are related.

Yeah this isn't poetic or pretty this is a Mess you're uh. Welcome? I guess? I don't know what else could be expected.

[recentanimenews]

FEATURE SERIES: My Favorite One Piece Arc with Maffew

  I love One Piece and I love talking to people who love One Piece. And with the series going on 23 years now, there is a whole lot to talk about. As the series is about to publish its 1000th chapter, a true feat in and of itself, we thought��we should reflect upon the high-seas adventure and sit down with some notable names in the One Piece fan community and chat about the arcs they found to be especially important, or just ones they really, really liked.

  Welcome to the next article in the series "My Favorite One Piece Arc!"

  My next guest in this series is Maffew, creator of the popular pro wrestling web series Botchamania. For my chat with him, he chose the Alabasta Arc, in which Luffy and his crew not only have to save a desert kingdom but also topple Baroque Works and its powerful leader Crocodile.

  A note on spoilers: If you haven't seen the Alabasta arc yet, this interview does contain major plot points. Watch the Alabasta arc starting RIGHT HERE if you'd like to catch up or rewatch!

    Dan Dockery: So I guess my first basic question is, let’s say for some reason, I got to the end of Drum Island and I said “Well, One Piece ends here for me. This seems like a good finale.” What would you tell me to keep me going into the Alabasta Arc in one sentence?

  Maffew: Well, after Chopper has made all the kids cry, you’ll need pickin’ up.

  That’s pretty good! What was the impetus for you getting into One Piece? What made you want to jump into an anime that’s nearly one thousand episodes long at this point?

  I think I tried watching it on YouTube back in 2009, and I just couldn’t get into it. At that point in my life, I wasn’t ready for a character like Luffy and his adventures, and I couldn’t wait for the villains he fought to kill him. So I dropped it. A year later, I’m in Germany and this wrestler ACH was doing a Q&A panel for this German wrestling organization called WXW. And ACH is a REALLY big One Piece fan, and even dresses up as Luffy in New Japan and Ring of Honor. And I was like “Hey, you watching JoJo?” because that was my thing at the time, and he was like “No, no. Just One Piece.” I said, “What else are you watching?” “Just One Piece.” And I’m like “Wait, what? Just the one?” But he was sellin’ it to me like he was a One Piece ad on QVC. And guys like Steve Yurko are so passionate about it, and if one person tells ya to watch something, you’re like “Eh, whatever,” but if five people tell you, you start to pay attention. So I’m gonna blame ACH and my good friend Steve Yurko for this.

    What do you like about this arc in particular?

  You get so much wonderful worldbuilding. They go to Alabasta, meet up with Mr. 2, and it’s one of those cool interactions where they’re meeting, but they don’t know who they are meeting exactly, like when they meet Blackbeard in Jaya. So later on, they’re like “Oh, it’s THEM!” There’s a real sense of everything not being really pre-determined at this point. It’s building everything through a bunch of pirates just doing stuff. Ace shows up, knocks out some assassins so he can get his royalty checks.

  That’s such a funny way to put it.

  Then we get Kung-Fu Dugongs, and they’re a pretty pure expression of One Piece. They’re all synchronized, they’re adorable, they play their part amid all the serious stuff, and they’re completely ridiculous, but they work anyway. And it’s with Alabasta that Eiichiro Oda starts to perfect the tropes that he puts into place throughout, with the new islands, the new leader who everyone loves but is actually a bad person, the crew having to deal with him and the Navy, them having to help put someone back in their position, etc. And even though, on paper, it reads like “Well, he’s gotta beat this dude and this dude and this dude,” it’s so much more chaotic and less formulaic than you’d expect. It keeps things interesting. 

  I agree. I like how he takes all of these pieces and he’s consistent with them, but Oda always plays around with how he sets them up.

    But it’s all a foot massage before the real reason to watch Alabasta: Sir Croc. 

  Are you a big fan of him? That dude is so cool, conniving and powerful. He’s kinda the perfect villain. 

  Back when I was being miserable and first watching One Piece, I really liked him. I like the design, the sand powers that could actually pose a threat. I always appreciate it when a villain provides actual tension. It’s like why I think Goldeneye is still the best James Bond film. Because Alec Trevelyan is constantly reminding Bond “Remember, I could kill you. I’m from the same place as you. I can take your exploding watch and just, eh, I’ll stop that then. Thank you.” And Luffy loses twice to him in the three-match structure that really works here as it did for wrestling in the 70s.

  How so?

  So you’d have somebody like champion Bruno Sammartino and someone like Ivan Koloff or one of the Wild Samoans or Stan Stasiak. They’d have one match where the hero would beat Bruno by disqualification. Bruno’s still around to fight, but he’s lost. Luffy survives being thrown in the sand, but he’s been beaten. Then they have the second match, where Bruno would win because the villain would just give up and leave and get counted out. Luffy attacks Crocodile with water, but it’s not enough, and Crocodile just kinda leaves Luffy thinking it’s all done. And then Bruno would be like “Oh no ya don’t. Next time, you won’t be able to escape, because we’re gonna be in a cage match.” And then Bruno wins, just like Luffy wins by punching Crocodile up through that giant enclosed space. He escapes the cage.

      It’s just so satisfying and that’s a great way to describe it. So, villains in the series have had extensive crew members before, but they haven’t been as recognizable and colorful as Croc’s crew, Baroque Works. Do you have a favorite member?

  They’re all good in their own way, but at this point, I’m gonna go with Mr. 2. Eh, that’s probably too obvious an answer…

  Mr. 2 is a lot of people’s favorite member. 

  Oh, who cares. I’ll go with Mr. 2. I like how Mr. 2 interacts with everyone, having fun with the boys and fighting Sanji with kicks but respecting him. 

  So, in this arc, there’s a lot of government intrigue and a revolution is about to happen, and everyone’s dissatisfied with their perception of the monarchy. How did you react to all of this political drama in One Piece? 

  Well, it’s great because you have Vivi, and you get to learn her motivations and because she’s on the crew, it gives you a reason to care for the crew and how all of the political intrigue affects them. Without her, you’d just hear about a war and say “Oh, sorry about that. Hope it goes well.” And with all this lore being thrown at you because you have Vivi and that connection, it’s adding to the main conflict, rather than distracting.

  Yeah, Vivi really grounds it all with a personal attachment. Because otherwise it’s just savin’ the kingdom, which is cool and they’re good for it, but it doesn’t have the same impact. So, they did this back in the Arlong Park arc, but what returns here is the kind of 1 vs 1 match structure, where a member or members of the enemy crew are matched up against a Straw Hat or Hats. Mr. 1 has knife body parts, so he’s obviously gonna fight Zoro. Mr. 2 kicks and Sanji kicks, etc. What do you think about that kind of matchmaking, because it’s also a little wrestling-esque.

    Yeah, right, like if you have D-Generation X fighting the Nation of Domination, you can’t just have The Rock fighting Triple H. Ya gotta have D’Lo Brown vs X-Pac and The Godfather vs Billy Gunn. I like it because the characters feel like they have to prove themselves, like Zoro’s a swordsman, and he’s gotta test himself against another swordsman. And Usopp does it when he fights Mr. 4 and Miss Merry Christmas with Chopper, because they have a weird dynamic and they’re fighting two people and they have no clue what they’re up against. 

  So, at the end of the arc, they do the iconic “We can’t let Vivi become associated with pirates so we’ll hold up the X symbols on our arms in solidarity” pose. What did you think about that? Because it’s one of the most famous images in One Piece, and it’s hard to avoid it, even if you’ve never watched the series. Was that your first time seeing it?

  It actually was. And I’m glad you brought this up because I was watching it and I thought “Wait, they’re just going? They’re not even keeping the duck?” And then they do that with the X and the original opening starts playing and I get goosebumps just remembering it. That really hit me. Because it finally got me really emotionally invested in the series. Made me feel a bit cheeky. 

      ONE PIECE LIGHTNING ROUND!

  So, considering you’re such a huge pro wrestling fan, your lightning round is gonna be a bit different. I’m gonna say a Straw Hat that’s in the crew at this point and you tell me which wrestler they’re the most like. You can also tell me what time period they’d fit the most in, since wrestler personalities tend to change. So, Luffy?

  Gotta be Cena. Specifically? With Luffy’s attitude? Probably 2015 defending-the-United States-Championship John Cena.

  Zoro?

  He’s all business, he likes to fight. So I gotta go with Cesaro.

  Sanji?

  Going with Eddie Guerrero.

  Usopp?

  That character is all over wrestling - the underdog who isn’t very good and uses every trick in the book to win. Gonna go with MJF. He had one of my favorite matches of this year against Cody Rhodes and he just had to use EVERYTHING to beat him - brass knuckles, distraction, chairs, everything he could to get that win. But he could be MJF, could be The Miz, could be Mikey Whipwreck from ECW, take your pick.

  Nami?

  Hmmm. Becky Lynch. 

  Chopper?

  KeMonito 

  Robin?

  Oh, she shows up after being booed for ages and you’re supposed to like her, so 2019 Charlotte Flair.

      Stay tuned for the next installment of "My Favorite One Piece Arc" as we speak with One Piece's official English manga translator Stephen Paul on his favorite One Piece arc: Skypiea!!

      Daniel Dockery is a Senior Staff Writer for Crunchyroll. Follow him on Twitter!

  Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: Daniel Dockery

[stuckwith-harry]

if english is your second language (which i believe it is?) how fluent are you in it? how does it compare to german?

good question! long answer!

i guess it doesn't compare to an extent, because i acquired my basic knowledge in either language differently, but honestly at this point, they don't feel that different anymore. in a lot of ways, english actually has taken over.

so, at a certain point (sixth/seventh grade, or age 12) i kind of bypassed the whole "i'm being taught a foreign language in school" rigamarole - i was always good at languages but that was when i developed like, a Thing for english, and took matters into my own hands.

(the first distinct memory i have of it is actually watching like, behind the scenes videos of the harry potter movies on youtube, and wanting to understand everything they were saying SO badly. which was really hard for me then! the audio quality was usually bad, they had different accents and spoke faster and less clearly than what your average language learning CD prepares you for, and i was a twelve year old german kid scrolling down youtube. that's what sparked all this madness and now i'm studying english in uni! freaking harry potter. i really owe it all to harry. all the best things in my life.)

i started reading books in english, watching movies in english (with english subtitles. life-changing), and around the same time i actually started this tumblr where i got to have conversations and read and write posts in english. also music, of course. (english is really easy to surround yourself with.) i was way ahead of school at that point and as far as actively improving my vocabulary etc goes i actually feel like i've been hitting a wall for years now. i kept a diary in english when i was sixteen, i dream in english and then i wake up and type the dream into my notes app, in english, i mutter to myself when i'm making chickpeas at 2am, in english, the list goes on. i write my grocery list in english, for fuck's sake.

i feel like one mark of acquired fluency might be when you stop actively translating in your head. i hope that makes sense. like when i'm speaking english i don't prepare that sentence in german and then translate it bit by bit, these two are two Strong Independent languages in my head now! i find translating harder than just speaking or writing in either language, actually. that feels like a big one to me.

combined with how much i am still surrounded by english in my daily life, german often feels less natural or effortless now. more intentional when i'm using it, maybe, but also i genuinely struggle with it now. a lot of the time i find myself translating words from english to german now, or translating phrases/expressions a bit too literally, or structuring sentences just a little bit wrong, because my brain is so english now. like you'll understand me but if you listen carefully you'll hear that my brain was providing an english sentence and my mouth was like, we're in germany right now, fool. it's just a LITTLE bit off. i'd go so far as to say that my german vocabulary, which i used to pride myself on (because teachers kept pointing it out), has actually gotten smaller. like i really forget basic german words sometimes, and my word choice used to be a lot more varied. (oops.)

i don't really think of myself as bilingual because i'm ultimately just speaking a foreign language reasonably well, but what sets english apart from what little french and spanish i remember is actually that it doesn't FEEL like i'm speaking a foreign language anymore. feels weird to think there was a time i didn't speak it!

[senzacaponecoda]

(res conlangii)

Waiting on data to come in for schoolwork so I kind of doodled a plan for the syntactic evolution of Góoreta which is probably as good as it’ll get and the new draft for what will be Tantapty 2.0, which would be like Pa3aty 4.0 or something by now. 5.0, 6.

1.

Góoreta is ancestral, and was modeled as pretty much a prototypical Nubian language; based on Old Nubian directly.

Góoreta is mixed SOVT/SVTO. T and V are generally fused (i.e. auxiliaries are rare) but SOV is slightly more primary and it’s reflected in how the verb is marked.

So the maximal noun phase is something like {en}  {adjunct} {adjective phrase} root.stem-{sg/pl/col}-{nom/dir/gen/cop/abs} {adjective phrase} {adjunct}, {en} being an optional semantically empty determiner (syntactically it helps clue the listener in to a complex NP), {sg/pl/col} being the East Sudanic singulative/plural/collective number markers, the dir case being a combined accusative-dative, cop being the copulatory case, basically the marker for the more topical half of a copula phrase (as opposed to the part traditionally called a predicate, which is confusing when you’re talking about languages that don’t use a verb to express it). Leftward adjuncts and adjective phrases tend to be alienable, rightward tend to be inalienable/attributive. Compounds are thus backwards for an OV lang: manfire, not fireman. Possession is always marked rightwardly.  Supplementation common.

Adpositions are chiefly prepositions, but adpositions that were promoted to conjunctions before Góoreta are postpositive.

The maximal verb is {adv} root.stem-{caus}-{pret}-{inch}-{pass/recip/mid}-{neg}-{admir}-{modal}-{fut}-[PNG]-{subj}

Already pluractionals would be lexicalized. Moods not happening in the morphology would be adverbial or like CP level or something. Verbs are mostly regular, with no supplemental stems coming to mind. Verbs however can be compounded, and a passive-perfective participle phrase WITH (adv) verb-POS tends to deliver stative sentence structures.

So a kind of overview of the whole sentence I got from a book on Egyptian might look like

(C) S-O-A-s-o-d-V.T (C) or (C) S-s-(í) V.T-o-d-O-A (C)

where d is indirect object and A is adjuncts. Small is pronomial arguments and caps is lexically full. Cs are not mutually exclusive.

2.

It seems that it’s necessary to have both a post-Góoreta NS creole and a pre-Tantafty Afroasiatic creole of the creole in order to “marry” it into the family as my goal originally was.

AA was probably already VSO~VOS, and probably ergative-absolutative. This initial hybridization would actually be crown to actual Afroasiatic, maybe being more of a hybridization with a Pre-Afroasiatic.

T would then be broken from V, and the cross-linguistic tendency for creoles to trend SVO (although this is maybe a European bias error since creoles tend to be half IE due to colonialism) is a compromise.

So new syntactic structure is C-S-s-T-V-o-d-O-A It basically follows Góoreta’s SVO style syntax. The new NP is {en} root.stem-{sg/pl/col} {adjective phrase} {adjunct}

Which loses the Nubian case system.

The new VP is

{aux=V-TA-M-Neg} root.stem.{inch/caus} {other mood} POS

Everything outside the domain of the inchoative broke off. The tense system would probably revolve around the now inherently unaccusative perfect i-VERB-POS forms and an un-i’d form derived from that. Maybe from núu (at) such as what forms a progressive in many languages. This has an advantage of preparing the verbal system for a harmony derived Front/Back ablaut.

Unfortunately Tantafty retaining an admirative mood seems unlikely.

3.

This is when the Afroasiatic elements become dominate, and the stage of the language borrowed is roughly sister to the non-Ethiopian type Afroasiatic languages.

New syntax overform is like S-T-V-s-d-o-O-A. V-s tend to form a unit.

Despite Egyptian losing it, verbs inherit the prefixing conjugation as it assists the Ca1a22a3 unmarked form of present tenses (though, maybe, really, it should lose it, the same way Egyptian did.)

New NP is

{en}-cl.ABS root.stem.{sg/pl/col}-cl.ABS {(a) complement} {adjective phrase}-cl.ABS {adjunct}

Agreement is normalized. Number is lexicalized. Class is introduced. All nouns inherit the PAA absolutative case (-a), although case is not a feature of the syntax. Old nominative -u occasionally used, grammaticalized into something of focalized case. New number system starts to arise from dragging {pl} suffix with -cl.ABS irregularly. (a) represents a connective element, like {of}

New VP would be

{aux} {caus}-root.{inch}.stem-{modal}-[PNG]

Auxiliaries handle most issues. The new causative from AA supplants NS’s productively, the inchoative is detectable but fossilized, like English -Cle in words like rattle, dabble, nipple, etc. Some new modals have attached themselves between the verb and the PNG markers, from the possessive markers, at least in the perfect aspect. Old modals provide at least a new subjunctive.

4. ~ 5. (split as legit branch, then future Amizightization/Arabization)

Language eventually shifts into VSO syntax preferably. Old focalizing case used for SVO word order subject.

Word order is T-V.s.d.o-S-O-A

NP is

{D}(-case?)-[N][S]stem[S]

or

[N][S]stem[S](-case?)

where S is state derived from the connector/absolutative case. 

Every draft of Tantafty/Pa3atic thus far has had case but I’m not entirely sure why it would even arise at this stage.

The nisbe could give rise to a kind of genitive-dative. But an earlier stage is likely to have had an et-ha-qadoyshim kind of accusative preposition. By now I want {en} to have become {lá} so it might be something that looks like l-á~an-á or something. The genitive-dative would probably have to go - l>r is what the negative for NPs is going to end up as, and ní would end up declining for something that governs it instead of what it governs. I could be silly and use d~ð, which looks both Imazighen-y and Modern South Arabian-y at the same time. I like the idea of German-style case-on-the-article-ness though.

Nouns would thus be VCCVC in form preferentially I guess. Irregular forms would be the main vestige of Nilo-Saharan - supplemental singulative-collective-plural forms.

For VP I guess that means a form like

{AUX} {caus}.stem.{modal}-[PNG] {adv}

The causative would be partially fossilized into the verb. The auxiliary would handle most of the weight, but probably as preverbs like in Egyptian or Nahuatl or so on as a VSO correlate. Although preverb-auxiliary-verb is likely too. Morphological moods I guess would be heavily reduced, compared to, say, Arabic or something.

The perfective/imperfective system should break into a new stative (like the present perfect), new preterite, new imperfect, and new “cursive” system, where cursive is habitual, gnomic, or the like. That’s taken from an Amazight language but kind of nicely lines up with how English distinguishes present perfect, the past tenses, the progressive, and the simple present. Auxiliaries from “come” and “go” add tense to the paradigm. New moods to be determined, probably areally based on Siwi and Arabic. Voice probably has to be grammaticalized from a verb/preposition instead of an Afroasiatic-y one. Likely a good place for stand? “He stands damaged by battle.”

It would probably be realistic for Tantafty to gain a prefixing conjugation from a suffixing conjugation Coptic style. The Amazight languages do interesting things to their prefixing and suffixing conjugations though and I might want to base whatever I do about the yaCvCCvC present forms on something like that, however. It might be that the whole present form from PAA collapses into just a gender distinction of the subject, which I’m leaning towards. Then PN agreement happens in the suffixes.

Vestiges of NS would then mainly be pluractional vs singulative verbs. I might be able to fit an honorific/emphatic mood in akin to Góoreta’s admirative, which I really wanted, but it can’t really be a direct descendant.

I like the idea of Tantafty having serial verb constructions (which it’s had for years now) and I like the idea of the creoles having compound verbs. Something like an atelic verb head and a stative resultative verb pattern might be doable for a lot of verb nuances, and end up with some weird compounds on the way.  A random bit of what looks like Mandarin syntax I guess. This would be, like, the cut-break compounds.

[yunsdreamworld]

Observer of the Celestial Pilgrimage -  Throne of the Stellar: Sirena’s Royal Palace

Again, this one might have some sentences that sound a bit weird as I’m still trying to get the hang of Japanese sentence structure –> English sentence structure. More of my translations here.

Observer of the Celestial Pilgrimage -  Throne of the Stellar

Story 12 -  Sirena’s Royal Palace

Sardinia: Once again, it's good to see. Fang……, called you Hope, didn't he? I welcome belonging to Burst Roar. Orion: You're doing in on purpose, aren't you? Sardinia: What are you talking about? Sardinia: Ah, and the introduction is late. −−Shinkai. Shinkai: Yes. Sardinia: This one is called Shinkai. He holds an interesting special skill, I'm leaving aside. Sardinia: The sound of his flute is more beautiful than anything else. For some reason, it shakes the hearts of listeners with its sad timbre. Fang: The sound of his flute? Shinkai: I am a troubadour. Hereafter, I wish to make your acquaintance. (1) Shinkai: ……shall I sing? Hope: A-all of sudden? Fang: That's quite one's own pace……. Orion: Songs and the like are trivial right now! Sardinia: What a quick temper. Orion: I don't have time to waste. After all, all of my body and time exist for the sake of Lama's nation. Orion: King Sardinia. Immediately return Lama's Star Gem Fragment. Sardinia: ……hmm. Sardinia: Why do you say I stole Lama's fragment? Orion: King Sardinia. You have, if I'm not mistaken, declared such to me before. Orion: "Hand over Lama's Star Gem Fragment to Sirena", you said. Sardinia: Ah……. This about the time at Mistero's Great Sanctuary. Orion: Seems you remembered. Orion: I didn't think it possible that you're not only targeting Lama's but also Alba's fragment! Sardinia: Lama and Alba's……. I see. Sardinia: Indeed, that's right. Lama's Star Gem Fragment is a beauty anyone is captivated by. Sardinia: Although Lama is an unrefined country, only that fragment clad in jet black shine is truly amazing. Orion: Then, as expected you……! Sardinia: Listen to the story until the end. Sardinia: Certainly, I spoke of wanting Lama's Star Gem Fragment. Sardinia: Leaving me aside, wouldn't the Star Gem Fragment also be happy to be admired this way? Hope: No way, did Sardinia-sama really……? Sardinia: Silly. There's no reason to steal it, is there? I only said I spoke of it. Orion: You bastard, you're feigning ignorance reaching this point!? Sardinia: Am I telling a lie or such? To begin with, Sirena's Star Gem Fragment is the same as Lama and Alba's. Orion: Same? What does that mean……? Sardinia: Right now, within this royal palace, Sirena's Star Gem Fragment isn't here. Sardinia: It's already after someone stole it. Hope: Eh……! Sirena as well?! Fang: …………. Orion: ……is it not a lie? Sardinia: Good grief, how distrustful……. If you like, shall I show you the Star Gem's space that became empty? Orion: Then, is it true……? Sardinia: Just the other day. It's a festival day called Piogga Lied. Taking advantage of the festival's commotion it was successfully stolen. (2) Sardinia: You remember that day's happenings well, too, Shinai, don't you? Shinkai: That day, the entire time……I had a lot of unpleasant feelings……. Shinkai: And that really occurred. Fang: By really happened you mean? Sardinia: I told you, didn't I? This one has an interesting special skill. Shinkai can predict the future. Fang: Prediction of the future, you say……!? Something like that is possible? Shinkai: I don't know. However, having that feeling and being off has never happened. Hope: Hee, that's curious……. Sardinia: Shinkai's predictions come true to a surprising extent. My fortune-telling hits as well, but that is a completely different thing. Sardinia: Shinkai must have senses that the Star Gem Fragment would be stolen as well.Shinkai: I sensed that "something" important would be lost. Shinkai: Something black, a very unpleasant feeling……. Hope: Something black!? Does that……! Sardinia: On the day the Star Gem Fragment was stolen, some attendants say they saw a person wearing black clothes and a mask. Sardinia: At the festival of Piogga Lied, everyone masquerades with masks. It seems he slipped in there. Orion: The man with black clothes, huh……. Orion: It might be the same person Erin saw. Fang: Thinking that way doesn't seem to be wrong. Fang: ……Is there any other information that could become a clue to identifying that man, like traces of having broken in? Sardinia: It's unfortunate, but there is nothing. Sardinia: By the time I noticed that the door to the Star Gem's space that had been closed with a spell was open, the inside was already completely empty. Sardinia: That door, it shouldn't be possible to open it for anyone aside from the royals, though……. Orion: ……I see. It's the same situation as Lama. Orion: The black-clothed man……. Just what kind of method is he using to steal the fragment? Sardinia: Who knows. First of all, it doesn't seem to be your run-of-the-mill thief. Fang: ……with this, that means that out of six, three fragments have been stolen by someone. Hope: Fang, does this……. Fang: The black-clothed man may be seriously trying to make the Star Gem Fragments one. Hope: B-but! The sleeping Protector is the only one who can offer wishes to the Star Gem, isn't he? Hope: There's no meaning in making it one, is there? Sardinia: We don't know. He may have found means to wake the Protector up. Fang: Or, wishes and such might be trivial……. Orion: Perhaps his goal is only using the Star Gem Fragments to take revenge on the world. Orion: In the case of the six fragments becoming one, he might be able to have the possibility of fusing the now six stars into one once again. Hope: That……. Orion: Those living on the stars may be equally destroyed. Hope: Destroyed, you say, no way……! Sardinia: After all, there is no divine protection from the Protector unlike on with the Day of Beginning……. Fang: At any rate, the only remaining fragments or the three of Bestia, Mistero, and Eterno. Sardinia: Mistero's fragment should be fine, I think. The Great Sanctuary over there is not easy to bet close to being protected by divine power. Fang: Bestia is no problem at the moment, either, I'm hearing. Hope: Then, the remaining one, Eterno's fragment……? Hope: ……what has become of Eterno's fragment? Orion: Eterno's fragment disappeared together with the royalty's dispersal. Hope: Eeh!? It was lost!? Orion: No. I don't know its whereabouts, but it should be fine. Orion: If anything by chance happened to the Star Gem Fragment, there should be disasters happening around now to the star of Eterno itself, after all. Hope: I-I see……. Hope: I'm glad……I wonder. Orion: In other words, the absence of a kind is impossible seeing as the Star Gem Fragment is safe. Hope: E-err……that is to say……what does that mean? Fang: It means, that even now, Eterno's king is alive somewhere. Hope: ……! Orion: I told you before that the most important role of the royal family is to protect the Star Gem Fragments along with the stars, didn't I? Orion: If there really is no king on Eterno, the Great Sanctuary of Mistero should already be taking measures of some sort. Sardinia: Mistero, being called the Star of Beginning, is a star that seems to exist for the sake of the Star Gem after all. Fang: However, at the moment there are no signs of that……. Fang: In other words, it means that Eterno's king is still alive somewhere. Hope: Yes……! The king……I'm glad……! Sardinia: I wonder if it's okay to so glad……. Hope: Eh? Fang: King Sardinia? Sardinia: No……. Sardinia: Sirena, Lama, and Alba, all fragments were stolen without the door to the Star Gem's space being destroyed, right? Sardinia: Then, that's it. Whoever opened the doors, wouldn't they be from the royal family? Hope, Fang, Orion: ……! Fang: ……certainly, to open the door keeping the Star Gems safe, the power of the royal families is needed. Fang: However, that can't be……. Orion: ……do you want to say that Eterno's king is hiding somewhere and manoeuvring secretly? Sardinia: To the last, it is one possibility. Because I hear that Eterno is in a terrible state after the war with Alba. Sardinia: It would be odd if he was planning something if he wants to dispel the humiliation received from Alba. Hope: …………. Eterno's king……. Fang: Hope. It's one possibility. It's not as if it's already that it is so. Hope: That's right……. Fang: ……for the present, I think we should head to Bestia. Orion: I guess that's all right. Most likely, the black-clothed man will target Bestia's fragment next. Sardinia: Oya, our opinion rarely match. Orion: Hmph. That's an honour. Shinkai: ……if you go to Bestia, you better hurry, I think. Sardinia: Are you sensing something? Shinkai: Something black……, the unpleasant feeling doesn't disappear. Shinkai: It's been unpleasant since before, but this has become bigger……. Orion: What has become bigger? Shinkai: Something that's not good. To a much bigger extent than now. Sardinia: Hmm……. Fang: Something not good bigger than now, huh……. Sardinia: −−Shinkai. Won't you go along with Fang and the others? Sardinia: That power of yours will certainly be helpful in order to take the Star Gems back. Shinkai: Does my king wish me to do so? Sardinia: Yes, that's right. Shinkai: Understood. If that is King Sardinia's desire. Sardinia: Thank you, Shinkai. When everything is over, make sure to return to my side. Sardinia: And, prepare to let me listen to the beautiful sound of your flute. Shinkai: Yes. My king. 

To continue….

(1) お見知りおき is a phrase that translates to "pleased to make your acquaintance". However, it is also a formal phrase used on first meeting someone to encourage them to remember the speaker. Since Sjinkai adds ください, he is also asking, which is why I went with phrasing it this way.

(2) ピオッジャ (Piogga) ist the Italian word for rain, whileリート seems to come from the German word for song (Lied). The latter is usually used in Japanese for solo voice and piano. Sirena's culture might be based on European culture with heavily leaning on Italian and perhaps French culture since when people hear Europe and art, Italy and France are the ones that come to mind first.

[jancys-blue-bayou]

14,30,8,9,12,17

8. do you get confused with other nationalities? if so, which ones and by whom?

Norwegian or danish I guess, mostly norwegian since they’re closest to us in speech pattern (swedish/danish/norwegian are all very closely related languages but danish people talk different, harder to understand, while norwegians just sound like happier swedes). Oh! And ofc the very tiring Sweden/Switzerland thing americans seem to do. Yes we get it, our countries names in english start with Sw and we’re both european.

9. which of your neighbouring countries would you like to visit most/know best?

Haven’t been to Finland actually so would like that. Beautiful country. Been in Denmark mostly.

12. what do you think about English translations of your favourite native prose/poem?

I’m actually quite interested in translations (I’m a lit. major), one difficult thing is whether everything in a novel is translatable ie not specific words but meaning and context. Haven’t read many english translations of swedish though, but straight up language-wise I think it’s similar to reading english translations of german, which I find a bit awkward since the sentencing structure becomes very different, swedish and german are more related than swedish/english. Also we have the tendency like german to write very long sentences which can be hard to translate well.

14. do you enjoy your country’s cinema and/or TV?

Well, yeah, there’s some good stuff, I think native people are too hard on it (some say there’s no good swedish movies which is just wrong). The main problem though is that SF (Swedish Film) that wields all the power favour a couple of directors some of whom suck so bad (ahem, Colin Nutley). Fucking Åmål (english title Show Me Lowe) by Lukas Moodyson is my favorite swedish film. Bo Widerberg and of course Ingmar Bergman great (dead) filmmakers too.

17. are you interested in your country’s history?

Yeah, generally interested in history, read 30 credits history at uni. Regarding our nation’s history I’m mostly interested in our modern history, especially the 20th century. But I also like all the weird stuff from before that. Like our king Adolf Fredrik who ate himself to death or king Gustav III who founded the Swedish Academy and got assassinated at a masquerade ball.

30. do you have people of different nationalities in your family?

Nah, barely anyone from outside of the local region even. On my mother’s side basically everyone was born in the same area of the countryside as my mom was for centuries going back and on my dad’s side the same thing but a couple of miles to the east for his generation and then before that everyone in his family was born in an area in the north for centuries upon centuries.

“hi i’m not american” ask

[aly126]

To join the discussion re. Latin to help your native language: I'm a native English speaker, and I have to say that when I started learning German (English is in the Germanic family as Romanian, Italian, etc. are in the Romantic family) it really, really did help me with English a lot. I started German right as the books used in my English classes started drifting into the pre-1800 range, and early modern English sentence structure has more in common with German than current English in many...

cases. Having the understanding that German gave me of how to parse the weird confusing word order made getting through some of those books a lot more bearable. It also really did give me a better understanding of grammar; idk if it’s because the case system in English is nearly dead or because it was deemphasized at my school but I didn’t have a great understanding of how accusative, dative and genitive really worked beyond just “hm that sounds off” until it was formally taught to me as … part of the German curriculum. I was a very good English student, who always got straight As and read well above my grade level, and I started German in highschool. Obviously I respect that y'all may have had different experiences for a variety of reasons. But for me, even being a well-educated, confident native speaker of my language, studying a closely related language helped me speak it better. I think there’s merit to the argument.  

Also this is less germane but wow, I would have loved to have the opportunity to study Latin and philosophy and logic in highschool. In American high schools you typically only have six or seven subjects per year, because you attend the same classes every day - the only schools that do European style block scheduling are really bougie prep schools, at least in my part of the country. Those are also just uncommon courses to offer at the highschool level. There are so many interesting things I would have liked to pursue and learn if I had the opportunity to take anything beyond the basic English, history, math, science, foreign language, fine art, athletics/PE that is the typical course plan in the US.

I’m not gonna argue about how German helped you understand English better, because it’s obviously a matter of personal experience, you know. Sure, there can be a merit to the argument, but I just said it did nothing for me, just like my Italian anon said happened in their case. And to be honest, you got the better deal, cause you get to speak German now, I got Latin. I guess I can penpal with my Italian anon lmao, but otherwise, it doesn’t come handy to me in any other way right now.

On having more subjects in highschool, yeah, we had a lot, and how many classes of each subject you do every week depends on your profile, arts or science. For the arts profile, I had the following

Romanian, English, French, German, History, Geography, Music, Painting, Religion, and PE every year of highschool. To that, you add 2 years of Latin, Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Informatics (like html and Office shit). And a year of Logics, Philosophy, Pshychology, Sociology, Economy and Entreprenourship (?).

And to be clear, cause you mentioned choosing, those were all mandatory, we had no say in it, bc if we were to choose, we would’ve chosen less classes lol.

Looking back, sure, it’s cool, you learn a lot, and maybe you become up a more well rounded individual, I don’t know, but I sure as hell didn’t enjoy it then. You can’t imagine how much information that actually is, or how much homework you get for all those subjects. And it’s not like you learned for pleasure or bc you want to, you learned because you HAD TO. We had frequent tests and got graded, and you HAD TO get good grades, because all the grades you get throughout highschool get averaged and that average matters for college admission, together with the Baccalaureate. So you can’t just say fuck it, I’ll cruise it and just study for the final exams. Nope, you had to get good grades throughout highschool to make it to a good university.

So yeah, the advantage is learning more, which is obviously good, but it comes with the huge added pressure of being good at 100 things and trying desperately to remember all sorts of things you will never use again. A lot of the things I learned, I can’t remember, cause I learned them… blindly. Like, just forced myself to remember a million mountains and their max hights, or the years of literally 30000 wars, things you forget easily. And I remember no German at all, except ‘schneller schneller das ist gut’. But I don’t think they taught me that at school, anyway

[guillemelgat]

Thank you @fractalrainbow for tagging me!! (Their post is here btw)

Rules: reblog and tag 10 others

1. What language/s are/have you studied?

I am currently/actively studying Catalan, Basque, Welsh (sort of), Malayalam, and Western Abenaki, and I have studied/am studying but taking a break on Spanish, Arabic, Turkish, and small amounts of German, Kurdish, Amharic, and Bosnian.

2. How long have you been studying?

Spanish - 7 years

Welsh - 5 years

Catalan - 2 years

Turkish - 2 years

Malayalam - very erratically my entire life, I learned a bit when I was 10 or so but I’m going to say that I only started a few months ago

Basque - 1 year

Arabic - 9 months

Western Abenaki - 5 months

3. Did you learn through class or self-study (or both)?

I learned Spanish in school which got annoying after a while because if you’ve ever taken Spanish in the United States of America you’ll know what I mean. That being said, I really learned Spanish by self-study and everything else I’ve learned through self-study too (classroom learning is awful a good 99% of the time).

4. Why did you decide to learn this language?

Oh dear

I had to take Spanish in school (fun fact: I used to hate Spanish for no apparent reason, I would just get mad whenever my parents tried to speak it), but I really got into it when I became a huge soccer fan in 8th grade, since that made me start listening to stuff in the language, and also I started listening to trash music in Spanish too which helped a lot.

Catalan was 100% Barça’s fault, but I’m also just a sucker for random languages and Catalan brings me joy.

Welsh was because of this series called The Dark is Rising, the last two books are set in Wales and there’s some Welsh in them, and I was instantly in love (I told you I learn languages for irrational reasons).

Turkish I learned for absolutely no reason at all besides “I saw it in the Duolingo Incubator and I wanted it”.

Basque is because I’m so obsessed with Xabi Solano and Esne Beltza and above all the trikitixa and traditional Basque music like you can’t even begin to comprehend how much of my life I spend on it it’s bad

Malayalam is my dad’s native language and I want to not look stupid when I’m visiting family in India so yeah

Arabic has always interested me for some reason, but I also wanted to learn it because the refugee crisis and other issues in the Middle East are interesting and real and I wanted to address them in their native language (so much for that goal I can’t understand anything). Also Mashrou’ Leila came into my life and just never left.

Western Abenaki I’m honestly not sure why I decided to learn but it’s from New England like me and it’s super interesting!

5. What was a major highlight / milestone in studying this language?

I guess Catalan is the only language I’ve actually felt rewarded in, and the first time I met Catalan native speakers was absolutely amazing and I just felt so unbelievably happy that I could communicate with them. I don’t know why but just hearing people speak in Catalan brings me indescribable joy (I know I’m weird). Also when I was in Barcelona I got by fine in Catalan and I surprised a fair number of people at museums and stuff by talking to them in Catalan and then telling them I was from the US - they thought I was from Catalunya.

6.What was the hardest thing about studying this language?

Definitely for all of my languages the hardest thing would be a lack of native speakers teaching me the languages and also for some of them the lack of resources. Learning Malayalam with my dad has been so easy, since he can correct me or tell me the phrase for something, while with languages like Western Abenaki and Basque I just sort of fumble along until I find a sentence with a matching structure that proves me right or wrong.

7. What resources did you find most useful for studying this language?

Catalan and Spanish I learned mostly just with direct input from songs, TV shows, etc.

I used SaySomethingInWelsh for Welsh, and also my precious Modern Welsh Dictionary and Modern Welsh Grammar, which are great! While SSiW was hard for me to get through and definitely not all the vocab I needed, it did work and I can use most Welsh auxiliary verbs without a second thought, so I’m grateful to it for that.

For Basque I used a lot of direct input, but this pdf is super helpful and also the Basque Wikipedia page. The Mikel Morris dictionary also helps a lot.

For Turkish I used Duolingo, and it shows.

For Malayalam, I used my dad, the legendary ca.1970 pamphlet “Learn Malayalam in 30 Days” that I paid 30 rupees (not even a dollar) for (I would not recommend it), and, although I haven’t used it yet, Learn Basic Malayalam in Six Weeks.

For Arabic I’ve checked out a lot of stuff, the Memrise course on Arabic script was a godsend and really helped a lot, and the Colloquial Arabic course seems to be the best book I’ve seen on the language so far (I want to learn the Levantine dialect, not MSA).

For Western Abenaki I’ve used mostly westernabenaki.com as well as a couple random theses which has been intense.

8. Any top tips for studying this language?

For any language, make sure you have a good reason to learn it, get frequent input even if you’re not learning every day, start with stuff from native speakers and familiarize yourself with the living language, enjoy the grammar, and don’t be afraid to take a nice, long break if you need it.

9. What’s your next major language goal?

I’m going to an Abenaki powwow in August so I want to try to get down the basics of the language before then, and I also want to take Catalan in my first semester of college this fall (probably not going to happen but let me dream), so I need to work on reading more advanced texts and regaining my ability to speak the language.

10. Anything we can do in the Tumblr community to get you there?

Correct me if I make mistakes please, it would really help a lot!! And definitely reach out to me if you’re obsessed with one of the languages I’m studying, I’d love to talk to you! If you ever need someone to reach out to about anything, I’m here and honestly would love some nerdy language-loving friends (y’all are great I love you so much)

I don’t want to awkwardly force anyone to do this but please please please if you want to, just do it, consider yourself tagged :) sorry for the really long post, I just love my languages