#i did it!!! i was able to translate this yayyy!!!

[neteyamssyulang]

Toys

Day 16

Pairing: Neteyam aged up x Fem avatar reader

Summary: Today was your mates birthday and you had a special surprise for him, although that surprise takes a quick turn at the party the clan threw for him.

Warnings: Dom reader, Sub neteyam, Mommy kink, Orgasm Denial, Whimpering Neteyam.

Word count: 790

Translation(s): Yawne -> Beloved, Rutxe -> Please, Tewng -> Loincloth.

A/N: This was rushed so I apologize, it’s not my best. Also yayyy first time writing subby Neteyam.

Tags: @teyamsatan @pandoraslxna

You were beyond excited, but also pretty nervous. The eldest son of Toruk Makto had chosen you, YOU as his mate. Naturally it shocked everyone that he’d chosen a dreamwalker as his mate.

Even if you had an avatar body you preferred your human one. It wasn’t that you didn’t like your avatar no, it’s just because you felt more comfortable in your human body.

Neteyam had wanted you to make the conscious transfer but you refused, you didn’t want to give up your human body just yet. To your luck he had stopped asking.

Today was special though as it was your mates birthday. The clan prepared a party for him and then afterwards you had your own surprise.

Currently your on your way to the village, you didn’t wanna go in your human form so you opted for the avatar. Your tail swished nervously behind you as you reached it and began searching for your mate.

Squeezing your way through crowds of na’vi drinking pongu pongu, a very strong alcohol. Eventually you find him sitting with his family and stride over taking a seat beside him.

“Yawne you made it!” Neteyam smiles and pulls you into a hug making you giggle. “How could I miss my baby’s birthday?” He blushes slightly before engaging in conversation with his family again.

You sit there with your head on his shoulder just listening till a group of girls walk over. Ugh it’s Alira and her “friends” more like followers. They do whatever she says.

She walks till she’s in front of Neteyam waving her hand to catch his attention “Hey Neteyamm” she giggles.

Neteyam looks at her sighing “Hi Alira.” The girl ignores your presence as if your not there as she sits on the opposite side of him placing one of her hands on his chest. “You look so handsome tonight, maybe you could come find me later and I could give you my present.”

Before he hands a chance to speak you stand up grabbing him by his wrist and drag him towards the lab ignoring him telling you to stop so you both can talk things over:

Eventually making it to the lab and going inside you shove him towards your room locking the door once inside. Turning your met with a confused Neteyam “B-baby what’s wrong what did I-” “Shut up, remove your tewng and get on the bed.”

He gulps at your words but obliges removing his loincloth and sitting on your bed. Your glad you got this new one as your old bed wasn’t able to handle the weight of a na’vi on it.

You smile and remove your own top and loincloth aswell, you make your way over to the bed and straddle your boyfriend. “You’ve been very bad Teyam, you let another woman touch what’s mine.”

Reaching over to your nightstand you pick up what looks like a silicone ring. His head tilts in confusion “Yawne wh-what’s that?-”

Chuckling softly you get off him and slide the ring down to the base of his cock. “This was supposed to be your present but now not so much.”

Moving your hand down to the buldge of the ring you press on the button turning it on the first mode, Soft moans leave your mates mouth.

You press the button again, this time turning it to the 3rd mode. His breath hitches and he bucks his hips in the air whimpering, “Y-yawne r-r-rutxe!..”

“Shh my love” you hover your hips above him positioning his angry blue tip at your entrance, slowly you slide down his length till your clit pressed against the toy.

His groans filled your ears as you began lifting your hips only to slam back down onto him, his hands moved do grab onto your hips but you slapped them away. “You don’t get to touch.”

Neteyams ears flattened against his head instead opting to grab onto the sheets. He could feel his orgasm approaching yet he somehow couldn’t reach it.

You began grinding on him now feeling your own climax coming fast, your mates whimpers and broken moans filled the room “Mo-mommy please..”

“Please what darling?” You trail kisses from his jaw to his neck nipping at it. “C-can I cum?”

“My sweet boy.. release is for good boys not naughty ones” sobs began leaving him as tears ran down his face.

Reaching your own climax you cling onto your mate riding out your high till you come back down from it.

Carefully you lift yourself off him and reach down pressing on the button turning it off making him gasp in relief.

“Maybe next time if you’re a good boy you can cum”

[rontra]

Do the chess moves translate into your OCs’ world btw. Are they normal humans or made in some kinda substance. Do Kaitlin and Erin ever interact and if so what’s the situation there

YAYYY MORE OC QUESTIONS TEEHEE thank u! letssee... oh god it's another long post 😭😂

chess moves NOT SO MUCH because in the setup we've got here its really hard to incorporate something like that beyond like. the vaguest gestures hahaha maybe if the magic system was more tangible and active we could play with stuff like that, but as the setting is right now there's not that much to work with in-depth. much as i might dream

(like you can give the rook a bow and say its because it attacks in a straight line from far away but beyond that its like...well... MDSJHBBG)

they are normal humans made of normal human stuff, much as they might wish otherwise at times. the magic in their world governs the structure and laws of reality and doles out punishments when said laws are breached. it's not really a magic Powers system as much as it's a magic Penalty system. this means that almost everyone (with a few exceptions) is just like a normal human being with no special powers or attributes, but the world itself will retaliate by magic if its tenets are breached. basically it's a nightmare and everybody hates it

(the main exception is people from outside this reality, like kaitlin and aster, who sit somewhere in the middle: right above ordinary humans, but very far beneath the Unseen Structure(tm) that holds the world together. they are subject to the same retaliatory destruction as everybody else, but they often have some degree of supernatural commanding force that beings belonging to this world find difficult to resist. ethical implications are Very Dire and basically aster wants kaitlin to use that power in her final duel so that the guy she's killing won't be able to defend himself. kaitlin uh does not want to do that to be honest with you!)

👆 this all is kind of important for your last question. when kaitlin first shows up in this world she's actually in alabaster, where erin is queen. so she's delivered to erin after some hijinks and they meet very early on in the story. their backstories and general personality inclinations have some pretty serious comparison points actually, but this isn't something they realize until wayyyy later (if at all)--they have a lot in common to compare and contrast. tbh they're foils but what else is new am i right. anyway;

erin is the first person kaitlin uses her command powers on, by accident, and they both hate it and it sucks very badly. kaitlin presses her to answer a question and erin has to obey and they're both understandably very freaked out by the whole thing. this direct confrontation with kaitlin's power is part of why erin is immediately like. "Oh It's OVER Over". it was erin's first time being directly exposed to this kind of magic--but she immediately felt how strong it was and understood what aster is planning to use it for (total crush victory)

erin and kaitlin do not really ... like each other very much after this and remain very wary of each other (kaitlin is very intimidated by erin but also feels guilty for what she did to her, erin sees her as a representation of aster's win/their upcoming confrontation + obviously does not feel great about having her free will messed with even if it was accidental). kaitlin is very timid and can't fully conceptualize how deeply uneasy she makes erin after their first meeting, because in her mind erin is very strong and unreadable and scary 😭 which is very fun to me personally

for a long time after that whenever they're forced to interact, erin defaults to treating kaitlin very like. detached, perfunctory, polite but not Friendly. and kaitlin is scared of her. LMAO

however they both have close ties with aster and aren't truly "enemies" either, especially as kaitlin starts to get her feet under her and push back against the less savory parts of aster's schemes. it's very obvious that erin never believed kaitlin would be anything more than aster's pawn, so when kaitlin finds her own opinions and starts rejecting things she doesn't like, it's kind of a change in her relationship with erin too. they start actually trusting each other as allies and people yknow. the "these assholes keep saving each other via ruining each others lives" cycle does absolutely include kaitlin rekindling erin's hope that things can be different (after first ruining her life w/ the IT'S OVER!! day). love world 🫶

also once theyre more comfortable with each other its very funny that aster's wife and gf(?) are hanging out talking shit about her 😭the relationships chart in this story is so.......................

[underacalicosky]

20 Question Fic Writer Tag

Yayyy! Thanks for tagging me @grapenehifics 😁 And thanks to @ineffable-snowman for tagging me too! ❤️

How many works do you have on ao3?

I only have six Obikin fics on AO3, which isn’t a lot, but I’m hoping to write more! I’ve posted fics for a different fandom that I’m no longer active in, but that was a lifetime ago and I don’t monitor those fics anymore.

2.) What's your ao3 word count? 

AO3 says 107,086. I know that’s not a lot compared to some folks, but it’s more than I thought I’d get to when I started writing again a few months ago.

3.) What fandoms do you write for? 

Right now, only Prequels/Clone Wars Star Wars, and only Obikin because they’ve taken over my brain. And mainly modern AUs, but I have couple ideas that are in the Star Wars universe.

4.) What are your top five fics by kudos?

Cruel Summer (Intern AU) - 175

Edge of Greatness (Figure skating AU) - 132

The Next Model (Top Model AU) - 125

Heartbreak Prince (Same age HS AU) - 70

In Good Hands (Hairstylist AU) - 69

5.) Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Yes, I always respond to comments! I try to respond within a few days. But yes, I love comments. I’m grateful that someone would take the time to not only read my fics, but to also leave a note or an emoji or wall of text 😭 so I try to show my appreciation by responding. Sometimes I’ll get a comment that’s really touching and I’ll reread it when I’m having a bad day. I love when I get into little side convos or hearing about headcanons in the comments!

6.) What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I’m incapable of writing anything but a happy ending for Obikin. I want so badly for them to find peace and joy together, whether that’s through lots of cuddles and sex or a platonic life-long friendship.

7.) What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

All of them? 😁 I like to end my fics in a way where they’re at a good place, and afterward they run off and have more adventures and I might not know exactly what they’re up to, but I know they’re happy.

8.) Do you get hate on fics?

Not since I’ve written for the SW and Obikin fandom. Everyone here has been wonderful and encouraging and kind of feral in the most amazing way. I can’t tell you how much I love love love the positive vibes.

It wasn’t always like that in my previous fandom and I eventually left. Although, it wasn’t really hate. I started getting comments about how I wasn’t incorporating certain extreme kinks (which I didn’t know how to write), sort of suggesting that what I wrote wasn’t interesting. And there were plenty of writers who did write those kinks so it was a little baffling. I’m a firm believer that everyone should be able to read or write whatever they like without judgment or shame, but it got to the point where my confidence took a huge hit and I wasn’t having fun anymore.

9.) Do you write smut? If so what kind?

I do write smut! Soft, fluffy, vanilla smut where they look at each other with hearts in their eyes. If my smut were a cake, it would be funfetti.

10.) Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

No, but I like putting them modern AUs so maybe the Top Model fic is kind of a crossover?

11.) Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I didn’t realize this was a thing. How do I know if a fic has been stolen?

12.) Have you ever had a fic translated?

A couple years after I left my previous fandom, someone reached out and asked if they could translate one of my fics into a different language. It was really heartwarming and humbling to hear that something I wrote resonated with someone enough to make them want to translate it and share it. I said yes, but I’m not sure I ever got the link to the translated version.

13.) Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

I co-wrote a big bang with another author for my previous fandom. It was a lot of fun and someone made a playlist to go with our fic. We had similar writing styles, to the point that our betas got confused over who wrote which chapters.

14.) What's your all time favorite ship?

Probably Obikin. Their dynamic is so intriguing to me. There’s endless possibilities. Plus, the authors in this fandom are so freaking talented and creative and that fuels my love for them.

15.) What's a WIP you'd like to finish, but doubt you ever will?

I don’t have too many WIP at the moment. I only have two that have actual words, the rest are ideas that haven’t solidified yet. But I plan to finish the ones I’ve started writing.

16.) What are your writing strengths?

I’m terrible at self-assessments. I like to think that I can create a feeling of longing or pining. I love a slow burn, especially a friends to lovers type relationship, and that’s where I like to live with the things I write. There’s that phase where they’re both too afraid to tell the other how they feel. But they stare longingly and wonder if the other’s thinking of them too. And maybe there’s miscommunication or an ill-conceived reason for why they can’t be together that leads to some mild angst before they confess their love and fuck all gentle and sweet.

17.) What are your writing weaknesses?

Writing anything that has a complex plot or interwoven side plots. I’m very linear and simplistic. I’m always so impressed when I read something and the plot has been intricately planned and the little details tie together in the end. These are truly talented writers. Like, you should be publishing novels and getting paid. If I had more time and brain space, I’d love to try planning something more complex someday.

18.) Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I’m not against it, but I can barely post anything without typos in English so I wouldn’t trust myself to include dialogue in another language.

19.) First fandom you wrote for?

X-files, Mulder/Scully. I didn’t post it to gossamer. I just had it on my computer and was too scared to show it to anyone.

20.) Favorite fic you've ever written?

This is tough, and it’s going to be a long and rambly answer.

Definitely the fics I’ve written for Obikin are my favorites. And if I had to pick one of them, it would probably be Edge of Greatness, only because it was the first thing I posted to AO3 in about 12 years.

I started writing fics again a few months ago as a way to do something for myself because most of my life revolves around taking care of my family. I had the idea in my head for about a month before I finally dusted off my old 2008 Macbook and wrote the whole thing in about three weeks. It was such a freeing feeling to be writing again, but I still had that criticism in my head. At that time, I wasn’t sure I wanted to share it once I finished it, but I also was trying to challenge myself.

I took baby steps. I got a new AO3 account and sat on it for a week before I began uploading the first few chapters. It was exciting and terrifying at the same time. My hands were shaking when I posted the first four chapters knowing that they would be out there in the world. I was convinced that no one would read them and I was okay with that because the goal I set for myself was to post and not care what other people thought. But the next morning I saw that I had kudos and comments and had a nice little cry. Some people, like @grapenehifics left comments in every chapter and I can’t put into words what that meant to me. So I’m not sure that it’s my best fic, but it holds special meaning to me and I’ll always love it for that reason.

I’m tagging anyone who writes fics and wants to share! I love reading these types of responses! ❤️

[borealopelta]

10 questions for 10 writers

the beloved @arokel tagged me aaages ago and i'm finally doing it yayyy!

1. Is writing a hobby or a way of life?

a hobby i think. i do write a lot and it's a big part of my life but i wouldn't define myself as a writer you know? i'm just someone who writes :)

2. A journal full of notes or a clean completed manuscript?

journal full of notes!! i usually get tiny snippets of Disjointed Scenes stuck in my head and i recently realised that if i wrote them out i could. come back to them later if i wanted instead of forgetting them like a cool person. so i'm doing that in my notes app for now. but theoretically i'm all for a clean manuscript i'm literally incapable of writing a fic out of order aside from my little notes

3. Who or what inspired your writing?

honestly this question is stumping me a little. i don't know? i've been writing and telling stories from a very young age and i never had Big Inspirations. i do have people who influence my style (see the three authors i mention in question 8....holy shit to be able to write like that) but inspiration? idk i don't think i'm even getting what kind of inspiration this is asking about.

4. Which is worse: Someone you ‘idolize’ reading your first draft or listening to you sing?

Definitely singing. i don't mind people i look up to reading my stuff! even if it could be improved!! but singing for an audience is horrible :)

5. Has writing from someone else’s POV changed your perspective?

i'm a very emotional person and experience everything all the time except for when i shut off and stop feeling at all for a bit. the latter is a rare occurrence and i'm generally all about emotions so writing my favourite oc who operates on a Very low emotional spectrum was (is) a really interesting experience. i have to put a lot of thought into how bella sees the world but i Love the way his brain works so he's always worth the effort and i'm thankful to him for showing me something new

6. Tumblr, AO3, LiveJournal, or FFN?

no wattpad....how quickly forget our dark history. anyway yeah it's ao3!!! i Love the way ao3 works i did Not learn to navigate FFN well enough (not for lack of trying btw) to ever really use it

7. AO3 word count? And are you satisfied with it?

137,805. i'm a notorious fic deleter so it's not representative of the amount i've written over the years but. yeah! i'm happy with that. i obviously want to write more but word count is one of the stats i care least about

8. What movie/book gripped you irrevocably?

for books it's either the hungarian selection aka Verhovina madarai by Bodor Ádám and Termőtestek by Sepsi László - two novels i think about literally all the time - or Tell Them of Battles, Kings, and Elephants by Mathias Énard which i keep recommending to LITERALLY everyone because it's so beautiful. btw read tell them of battles kings and elephants by mathias énard it's so beautiful. for movies i guess dead poets society? aesthetically & also its message is so beautiful and i love a robin williams film

9. What’s the highest compliment you could ever be given, and have you been given it?

i don't know!!! any compliment makes me happy. but i love hearing that people came back to reread multiple times. like omg!! welcome back i'm so glad my sillies are in your brain

10. What defines your writing style?

i like to think my descriptions are pretty definitive, i loooooove stacking adjectives and adverbs and stuff with hyphens and commas and ands and other verbal connective tissue i love describing things in very specific ways and i think my writing also has a unique rhythm because of how hungarian works and how that translates to english. but that's just inside my brain idk!! my writing might be the most generic shit to everyone else :]

[gettatranslations]

I Love Morning Musume。！！！Yumigeta Ako (23.08.13)

Good evening🌛

I'm Yumigeta Ako🛑

Thank you very much for your comments yesterday！

That pizza toast was so delicious💓

Next time I want to go out to eat kakigori！

And And And！

Today was RockInーーー！！！！

I participated by covering myself with Morning Musume。goods 笑lol

To summarise my thoughts in one sentence

「I love Morning Musume！！！」

That's it…！

I was my first time going to a festival & I love Morning Musume。's outdoor lives so I had so much fun❗️

I wanted to feel excited so I didn't really look at the set list before I went〜！

「Roman〜MY DEAR BOY〜」

Was insane…

Every time I watch the footage from last year's RockIn I think

「I wish I could have seen this live〜！！！」

I've regretted not going for so long so I felt like crying the moment the first song started 😭

It was really fun、and I'm really glad that I could experience the atmosphere of today as part of the audience！

Personally the most fun part was during Love Machine when everyone there was dancing together！

（For the Woah Woah Woah Woah part）

It was so passionate！😂

「Wagamama Kinomama Ai no Joke」

「One・Two・Three」

I practiced the calls before I went so I did them perfectly yay ✌️

I was having so much fun that it felt like it ended too soon〜。

My senpai are so amazing for being able to give a performance that makes me think that…！

I'll do my best to not lose to them and give a cool performance of my own too！

YAYYYー

⋆┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈⋆

Well then it's time for today's 【Gettaa Life】✨

Today amazingly incredibly unbelievably

Juice=Juice's、Endo-san Kawashima-san

Angerme's、Shimoitani-san Goto-san

Morning Musume's、Inoue ＆Yumigeta

The 6 of us gathered to talk together！！！

Waーi A mass gathering〜！

The first time I met Endo-san I thought she was so beautiful and pretty that I acted kinda standoffish…。

Kawashima-san's eyes were so sparkly and she was super beautiful so I was staring at her side profile the whole time。

This was my 3rd time meeting Shimoitani-san and Goto-san？

But every time I meet them they chat so brightly that they always energise me！

I met lots of other people too！

I Getted 「Encounters」✨️

There are still so many Hello members I haven't met yet so I'm looking forward to meeting them all！

That's all！This has been 【Gettaa Life】！

⋆┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈⋆

T/N News and information has not been translated

⋆┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈⋆

The weather was unsettled today ☀️☁️☂️

So the temperature was pretty changeable too〜

I'm not great with the cold or the heat so my preference is about 25℃、

When it was hot I ate the famed 「Melon Marugoto Cream Soda」、

And when it rained I ate kebabs and croquettes、

Just to adjust my internal temperature 笑lol

My tummy is full and I am happy ♡

Well then I'll see you tomorrow！

This has been YumiGettaa Ako！Good night🦉🦉🦉

[pegasusdrawnchariots]

OK this used to be my day job!! & I have answers for some of the complaints I've seen in the tags (the See More got vvv long. beware)

1) Why do subtitles paraphrase/cut down what someone said? Why not just quote them verbatim?

basically: minimum durations + size limitations (esp in older formats) + characters displayed per second. LEGALLY captions have to be visible for 1 second minimum each. caption blocks (each individual caption u see on screen usually in 2-line chunks) have character limits. AND. AND. the amount of characters shown on screen within a certain timeframe cannot exceed the CPM limit bc it would be too fast/too much to read. SO to make captions that fit the tech limits & that are short enough to read between changes & that are visible long enough to read...we have to paraphrase. This Is A Last Resort. captions SHOULD be verbatim. but if someone is speaking too fast to fit these limitations we have to paraphrase. the logic is it's better to have OK captions than none (or severely delayed ones/unreadably long ones)

2) Why do captions say (SPEAKS FOREIGN LANGUAGE)? Why not just put the language or, better yet, caption the foreign speech?

we would absolutely love to!! nothing makes me happier than being able to accurately caption grabs in foreign languages!! however (sadly) the captioner is kind of their only resource. if u as a captioner don't know what was said, or cannot with 200% confidence explicitly declare what language is being spoken, u have to put that (FOREIGN LANGUAGE) tag. we hate it too :( recently it was changed to (SPEAKS LANGUAGE UNKNOWN TO CAPTIONER) bc we got this complaint a lot but now people just get mad that we don't know every language ever. if we are given a script & the script contains any of this info, it WILL be captioned accurately. but if they just give us video/audio & we have to play it by ear... well, we aren't allowed to go around guessing, bc if we caption the wrong language, people will obviously get offended that their language was lumped in with another vaguely similar one. & also tech limitations are another (recurring) issue. if the language is more or less in the Latin alphabet, we can caption it (ONLY if we're confident in what's being said). but if it uses any other character set, then older tech may not support it. TV captions famously have this limit. streaming captions probably not

3) I'm watching foreign films. I don't know the language well enough to forgo subtitles but I know enough to tell that they're wrong.

hello. we are the same, u & I. 90% of u with this complaint will have come from Netflix. here's the deal: as of a couple of years ago, Netflix changed their foreign film captions. they used to be relatively faithful translations of the original language. NOW however.........they are just captions of the English dub. yep :| if u turn on the English audio track, u will see that suddenly the captions are perfect.

(the only reason I noticed this was that I was on a Studio Ghibli binge. part way through, I noticed that some of my fave quotes were no longer appearing. some characterisation had also changed (!!), e.g. girls saying "sorry" instead of "thank you". none of this was the dialogue I had come to love over years. however, it did sound awfully familiar to the US dubs I had experimented with once or twice... I turned on the English audio & sure enough, they now matched :] yayyy...)

the obvious solution here is to have the option of 2 subtitle files: one for the English dub & one translating the original language. idk why they wouldn't do this. those files surely would still exist...?

anyway. I hope this answers some of yr bigger concerns! the state of it sucks & will only get worse as AI-generated captions (& translations... shudder) replace human captioners. stay safe out there 🫡

one profession that does need better gatekeeping is people who write or translate subtitles. brother that is not what was said.

[iamthesloth]

Progress/Progresso: 8-9/2024

English

Helluuu. I was lost for the past 2 months so I’m just gonna wrap it all together.

First off, my to-do list of August:

TODAY finish beta reading a VN: done.

Edit first scene of the game in Larvae’s universe: did but gotta do it again based on feedback of the Spanish version.

Finish the chapter for a longer VN: done.

Get started on one of my IFs: no

Write first scene of a VN for 1-2 jams: canceled.

Proofread a Twine IF: I forgot!

Do at least 1-2 chapters of my book: 1/2

What happened in August-September

If July me was surprised back then…

Spooktober jam releases! I worked as a writer on my first competitive jam for 4 games during September. 3 were able to submit to the jam (now let’s hope none crash with their current builds ehem). I can’t wait for the judging resultssss.

Puppeteer’s Lament demo by Lavendeer Studios

As Dusk Falls by the Mexican studio Savage Kitties

Thoughts of Us, team lead by Ryan Stander

Plans for October

Make a small VN, hopefully for the Monstrous Desires and Dying Year jams, in collaboration with my fellow blossoming dev.

Get back to my poor book.

Translate a couple of writing pieces for my class or games to Spanish.

Español

Primero que nada, mi lista anterior:

Escribir el prefacio del libro de mi amiga: no (ya termina y el tercer libro y no escribí el segundo waaa)

Hacer revisión de la primera escena para un juego en el mismo universo de Larvae: lo hice, pero con retroalimentación de la versión anterior tengo que modificar también la de inglés.

Qué pasó en agosto-septiembre

Holaaaa. Estuve perdida por los últimos 2 meses así que resumo también lo de inglés también. Durante septiembre estuve trabajando por primera vez en una jam competitiva: Spooktober. 3 de 4 juegos se pudieron subir para la jam yayyy (ahora esperemos que ninguno se trabe): Puppeteer's Lament, As Dusk Falls y Thoughts of Us.

Planes para octubre

Segundo de agosto, lo sé, pero aún puedo conseguir un poco de orden antes de que finalice (poco probable que termine este mes):

Escribir el prefacio del libro de mi amiga

Hacer algunas traducciones de escritos para mi clase o de videojuegos.

[koizumicchi]

グッバイルールブック (My Milky Way) English Translation

グッバイルールブック Goodbye Rulebook MY♥MILKY♥WAY

ONE DREAM 2020 Pythagoras Production

Official Youtube MV

T/N: MMW songs never fail to capture my heart so I decided to translate this one! It's a song that would give you energy and kick your sadness away! This isn't the full version though but I hope you'd still give it a listen! The usual still applies, pls give me credit for my translations and sorry if there are some mistakes! Enjoy!

-----

グッバイ　誰もかも（笑顔） グッバイ　つながれる（きみと） グッバイ　勇気だそう（いつも） グッバイ　ルールブック

Goodbye dare mo kamo (egao) Goodbye tsunagareru (kimi to) Goodbye yūki da sō (itsumo) Goodbye Rulebook

Goodbye, everyone (smile) Goodbye, connecting (with you) Goodbye, gathering courage (each time) Goodbye Rulebook

性格に難あり ツキに見放される そうそれがぼくだ気にしない 心は揺れる

Seikaku ni nan ari Tsuki ni mihanasareru Sou sore ga boku da kinishinai Kokoro wa yureru

Your character flaws, The appearance you’ve given up on That doesn’t bother me at all My heart sways for you

切れてる虹なら、色を足してみよう だれかが、変えるわけじゃない 笑われてもいいさ

Kireteru niji nara, iro wo tashite miyou Dare ka ga kaeru wake janai Warawarete mo ii sa

If it’s a broken rainbow, then try adding some colors It’s not like it can be changed just by anyone It’s alright even if we’re laughed at

ぼくはひとりで生きていけるのか? 向日葵は知らん顔 耳課さずに (hey! hey!) 一直線 (hey! hey!) 願うことがLIFE

Boku wa hitori de ikite ikeru no ka? Himawari wa shiran kao Mimi kasazu ni (hey! hey! ) Icchokusen (hey! hey! ) Negau koto ga LIFE

Can I live all alone? The sunflowers have a passive look Speaking to my ears (hey! hey!) Go straightaway (hey! hey!) To hope is to live

Oh My Girl ♥

君は夏に愛され 僕は今もサンタクロース  Wow Wow 空を駆けて抱き寄せる

Kimi wa natsu ni aisare Boku wa ima mo santa kurōsu Wow Wow Sora wo kakete dakiyoseru

You are loved in summer Right now I am still a Santa Claus Wow Wow I hug you and soar to the sky

雪が夏にきらめく とどけ想いサンタマリア Yeah Yeah 奇跡おこし愛し合える

Yuki ga natsu ni kirameku Todoke omoi santa maria Yeah Yeah Kiseki okoshi aishiaeru

The snow sparkles in summer May these feelings reach you, Sta. Maria Yeah Yeah Love each other and create a miracle 

グッバイ 最高の (夏よ) グッバイ波際の (思い) グッバイわすれない (今も)

Goodbye saikou no (natsu yo) Goodbye namigiwa no (omoi) Goodbye wasurenai (ima mo)

Goodbye, the greatest summer Goodbye, my feelings of love at the beach Goodbye, can’t forget it even now

グッバイ　ルールブック Goodbye Rulebook

[the-himawari]

A3! Izumida Azami - Translation [SSR] Nacht of Beloved Ones (2/3)

*Please read disclaimer on blog; default name set as Izumi

---

Itaru: It’s too cold… I can’t do this.

Taichi: Itaru-san, don’t turn away! Please take your shovel~!

Azami: Omi-san ‘n Tasuku-san are only missin’ at times like these, huh?

Izumi: It seems those two had plans today.

Azami: It can’t be helped. Lamenting won’t change anything, so let’s start.

Itaru: Heave-ho, heave-ho… …Ahhh, I’m exhausted.

Azami: Uh, you’ve only done one shovel-full.

Taichi: Itaru-san, you get tired too fast!

Itaru: My base stamina is different from you youngins, ok?

Izumi: Let’s do our best for a little bit longer, alright!

-pause-

Azami: With this, it’s much easier to walk now.

Itaru: It’s fine if we finish up here, right? Our snow dumping ground has also turned into quite a mountain.

Taichi: Hey, hey, if we have this much snow, doesn’t it seem possible to make a snow hut?

Izumi: Oh, nice, that sounds fun! But how do you go about making one…?

Azami: A snow hut, huh…

Itaru: Won’t there be plenty of results if we search the net? “How to make”, “Snow hut”, and search. Oh, got it.

Taichi: As expected! What should we do first?

Itaru: Hmm, we’ve finished piling up the snow, so… Next it looks like you form the shape.

Taichi: Like this? Wahhh, it collapsed!

Azami: …

Itaru: No, it’s a little more like this… Huh, that’s weird.

Izumi: Isn’t it something like this? Huh, that’s not it…

Azami: ……… Ahh, that’s enough, I can’t watch this—! You’re never gonna be able to make it well that way, ya know?

Izumi: Eh?

Azami: First, pack the snow on the outside like this and then…

-pause-

Azami: …Look, it’s complete.

Taichi: A-chan, you’re amazin’!

Izumi: It was finished in no time thanks to Azami-kun!

Itaru: You really know how to build a snow hut, huh?

Azami: Ken-san’s been makin’ ‘em in our yard whenever it snowed since a long time ago. I just helped him today.

Izumi: Oh, is that so?

Azami: Anyways, in our case, we always put a kotatsu inside our snow hut though.

Taichi: I really wanna do that!

Itaru: That’d be the best. But did we have a kotatsu here at the dorm?

Izumi: Well, Homare-san had one but it’s kind of large so I don’t think we’ll be able to put it—.

Manager: Hum hum~m ♪ It finally arrived…

Taichi: Manager, what’s with that huge box!

Manager: Smaller sized kotatsus were available online for cheap! So I bought one for myself~. —Wait, a snow hut in the courtyard!? What’s up with that?

Taichi: All of us made it while we were shoveling the snow! A-chan was a huge help!

Manager: Oho, it’s pretty nice.

Troupe members: *Stare*~…

Izumi: *Stare*~…

Manager: W-what is it!

Izumi: Actually, we were just talking about how we’d like to place a kotatsu inside the snow hut…

Manager: Are you guys possibly eyeing my kotatsu!?

Itaru: It seems like it’ll fit if it’s around that size.

Azami: It’s just right.

Taichi: Manager, just one day is enough, so please lend it to us~!

Izumi: Everyone worked really hard shoveling the snow, so can’t you do us this favour?

Manager: Uh… I don’t have a choice, do I? Then I’ll lend it to you for just one day. But please let me in the snow hut too, ok!

Taichi: Yayyy! Thanks, Manager!

Itaru: Then Azami, we’re ready for your lecture on how to install the kotatsu.

Azami: You got it.

---

previous | next

[iiasha-archived]

genshin anon! LOL yeah the violetgrass is an ascension material for xinyan! i would know... i spent forever hunting for it all the time :/ you can buy 5 from... the pharmacy in liyue harbor i think? you can buy 5 somewhere. also i saw you say you have her c5 lol. she's pretty good! her shield is pretty nice. got a long cooldown though, so i have her use the sacrificial claymore. lol yes plz put everyone back in i missed all the fun characters and i want to (try to) get them! (1/5)

<3

(2/5) ah okay haha. i always have the english voices on for when i space out i still know what's going on lol. albedo's though.. so nice. want to replay his story mission just so i can listen to him ): yeah, they do say like chapter 1 or whatever so that really makes it seem like there will be more. oo bennett is nice. he's pretty versatile. you can have him just be a healer or set him up more to fight, which is nice. i tried using him a bit as a healer but idk it just wasn't meshing well for me

(3/5) ahh congrats on the lvl 10 friendship with chongyun lol. yeah im excited to get xiao there but like.. it'll be so disappointing haha. yayyy ill have his namecard woooo... and yeah so many of the new things look super cool! yeah i didnt watch the full video but i watch other people cover it oops lol. did you enjoy the theater mechanics thing from the lantern rite? it was kind of fun. it was fun when i played with my sister, but by myself was a bit boring lol.

(4/5) YES. there's never an incentive to pull on the weapons banner. i dont want to waste my primos on something im probably not going to get. like i'd love to try to get staff of homa for hu tao but i dont want to just keep getting crappy catalysts instead :/ itll take too long to hit pity and im not wasting that many wishes on that. i feel like standard banner could be free wish a day, and maybe weapon/character, one a week? or something. just anything to help a bit. its not like 1 wish

(5/5) is going to hurt anything. yeah it does force them to come on daily. the higher level things need SO MUCH stuff, it can take a few days to get everything. but yeah it does keep people coming back everyday to get things done. yeah having good artifacts is a big thing. ive been trying to work on my artifacts for my mains. its fun doing those with people in coop haha. and ooh nice! im almost at 45! rip world lvl going up soon.

god all the more reason i like........ don’t wanna level xinyan up even if i have her at c5 LMAOOO yeah i think i used her for a little bit but i’m not a big fan of long cooldowns :(

this conversation actually convinced me to put on other voice languages so i can get used to the other voices lmaooo so i have it on chinese now just to get a feel also it feels more authentic in a way i guess since the original is chinese and all voicelines/translations basically stem from that lmao. albedo’s is so nice to listen to i feel like i could fall asleep to it its like a damn lullaby lmao. 

yeah it’s crazy how for the overall story we’re STILL on chapter 1 like.... it’s been ages lmao. yeah i hear a LOT of praise for bennet, as soon as jean gets to 10 friendship (since she’s almost there) i’m probably gonna use him as a healer/attack booster for xiao unless i miraculously pull qiqi or something.

lmaoo whoo namecards... it’s not a particular trophy either unless you actually use it either like nobody knows unless you tell them or use it as your namecard.

for1.4 i actually just watched the brief trailer which (hopefully this isn’t spoilers or anything??? BE WARNED RIGHT NOW) but omgggg when it’s hinted that that big water boss is like lumine/your other twin BROOOO ARE WE ACTUALLY GONNA GET STORY DEVELOPMENT like. HOW long have we been searching for our sibling at this point ajkfslajd and ahhh at first i wasn’t that excited about rosaria but the trailer also made her look extra cool hehe

personally i didn’t really like it although i did play completely by myself. it was just boring to sit through lmao i think i only did a couple levels so i couldn’t buy all the things in the xiao market or whatever but i was like sitting through all this is NOT worth it for me lmao. it looks like there are some more mini games coming up in 1.4 hopefully they’ll be more fun

EXACTLY. i kinda wanted the jade spear for xiao because it fits his aesthetic so nicely but i wasn’t gonna waste primogems just for that lmao. yeah, something like that would definitely be nice to have lmaooo @ any mihoyo employees reading through my blog right now... *wink wink*

the higher level things are impossible i’m not even gonna bother trying to get things to level 90 lmao i’m treating the level 80 as the 100% at this point with leveling up fjdlakfds. after my embarrassing time in my last co-op i’m probably gonna start looking at more artifacts which is just like... sigh another thing to worry about lmao. i’m having enough trouble with the talents jafkldjda

at first i didn’t like the world level up bc i was worried i wouldn’t be able to keep up with it but honestly it’s been okay. especially once you get a 5 star on your team or a really developed 4 star its like. fine lmao. and it definitely helps maintain the game’s difficulty bc it would be no fun if things were too easy hahaha and then also + incentive to level everything up again

[rqs902]

on one hand im happy that this means there’s gonna be a lot of official content since the eps are supposedly so long that they gotta cut them in half. 

youku has been pretty consistent with giving us a relatively good amount of official content. but on the other hand im always slightly concerned that by splitting up perfs, those whose perfs get aired first will have a competitive voting advantage since (as long as they do well) those kids will have a full extra day of persuading people to vote for them through their stage performance. It’s not as huge of a deal as when other shows split performances across weeks, because a whole week ahead is a much bigger advantage than one day ahead. but every day can help those who need the votes. at least akey and zhan yu got aired today.... feels bad for jin fan because he really needs the votes. 

also another down side is just this show’s eps are SO LONG they’re eating up a ton of my free time LOOOL but thats how these shows always go for me... because I always end up taking like double the amount of time to watch an ep, just to pause, digest, rewatch sections that i like (sometimes multiple times), make sure i understand, etc. i feel like these shows always consume my life during the few months they’re airing so i’ll just enjoy it while I can HAH

..

anyway ep 4 starting with singapore buddies huang junrong and sun yinghao speaking english with their singapore accents!!!!! lol can totally relate to yinghao tho, like when you cant read chinese you gotta find someone to translate for you

yang chaowen with dog!!!!! i wonder if the dog really likes him LOL they seem to appear together on camera often. akey with chen junhao!! and zuo linjie!! making friends!!!

lol i feel like the group leader choice method is some sort of extended advertisement for knock off apple products lol.........

HAHAHHAHAHAH LIN MO’S VIDEO STARTING OFF ALL FORMAL AND NERVOUS AND THEN XUE EN’S CUTS HIM WITH HIM BEING STUPID. I LOVE IT. there’s two types of people. how did they not vote for xue en HAHAHAH

interesting that they picked the songs for the self-composition group ahead of time, rather than make them make the song as part of the competition (looks at produce camp... fireman is my jam but the east binhe road team ran into complications with that, so I can see why it’d be more risky to let them do that again) but lucky for zheng renyu and li chenxu tho! I’m interested in hearing their music so i dont mind, just kinda wondering what the other kids who picked composition would’ve brought to the table

oh theyre still giving yan an screen time... every time i see him im happy but then feel oof

oo zhanyu’s first stage look is just so nice oof xikan talking to lin mo but lin mo looks ded and is all eye patched up :( 

LOL su er all jubilant over a sexy concept song - good luck with that

oooof this shot of jin fan’s perfect side angle 

aw akey being bested by shaopeng at every match... but im so excited to see what they can do together, theyre both so good at making music!!!! the resident music makers for each of their respective groups, tyger and coreone, theyre both so talented! def shaopeng has and deserves the credit but hopefully people will see akey contributed too bc im sure the two of them really led together, being the most experienced rappers hahaha

WHOA csp opening up to qu boyu and saying he has older step brother and sister who have a different mom from him and encouraging him to just be real when writing because there will be people out there who connect with his lyrics awww hes really taking this child under is wing and teaching him from zero, hes really like a big bro taking care of him and enjoying watching him grow. im glad csp is opening up and is self reflective enough to realize that he hasnt done so enough in the past and that he should involve himself more with the others. 

im happy cui shaopeng got to feature in the bts clip for his group, he deserves it and hasnt gotten much screentime relative to his talent before. im happy akey got a little time and some recognition for his skills too. honestly just happy akey FINALLY got to do a rap stage..... wish we couldve gotten more huang enyu and huang junrong but im happy they got to show off their vocals!! for being young vocals in a rap performance, their stage presence were both really good too! csp’s entrance is epic wow. 

wow this is the most hyper performance ive ever seeeen wow im so happy for akey because we know how long hes been waiting for a rap stage and wow csp’s leadership must be top notch to get this group to somehow be cohesive with such a not cohesive song LOL i respect that csp really respected akey’s skill and let him shine too. akey was a second c if ive ever seen one lol. they both got to shine and so did everyone else in their group, which is telling of his leadership and why this stage turned out so well that even all the teachers like jackson were so hype LOL 

OOF shen bohuai and lin mo talking about how akey’s lyrics are so moving like lin mo wanted to cry and bohuai felt like he could tell akey’s been through a lot

lol xikan and bohuai being all tough and lin mo being like lol i feel the pressure. shaopeng smiling like a proud parent when boyu gets good comments c: oof rip akey and shaopeng’s votes tho :c 

lin ran’s look tho LOL but zhan yu’s is so questionable?? why is he in this group ?? LOL but i guess its his turn to do something cutesy. mannnn why does zhan yu look like hes surrounded by children but hes not even that much older//?? hahahha ooooo is this the center zhan yu of legend?? ?hahahah yayyy hopefully more people will notice him! you know when i heard zhan yu was gonna be center, this was not the type of song i was imagining, but hey if it takes a cutesy happy song and a bunch of little kids around to get zhan yu a chance to be center, ill take it! i wish they’d show us some practice footage?? im confused why there isnt any?? i think sun boran’s stage presence is good! zhan yu’s voice so powerful yess somehow he managed to show off different aspects of his vocal skills in this very plain song LOL  im surprised lin ran didnt stand out a lot but when they pointed out that he purposefully put himself in the back to protect his team members i think that makes sense bc he knows being cute isn’t going to be able to win them as many votes but if the less popular kids in his group dont get votes, its a lot more devastating for them than for himself. lin ran didnt want this song and he didnt want to be cute but he really didnt want kids to suffer from choosing his group. lin ran has a cute image but i appreciate that this time we got to see a more serious side of him. isnt it ridiculous that theyve literally trashed zuo qibo and lin mo about being old but then literally i didnt realize until now sun yinghao is the oldest??? (he looks really young wow and so tiny aw) but also like they never bring up akey being old either?? some sort of weird bias going on... but i mean good for yinghao and akey lol 

but aw im glad theyre giving yinghao some attention... 10 years and starting off with jackson? oof... 

ayy zhan yu getting the most votes!! 

kou cong being older bro to zlj but also ultimate mentor to cxh aw yay for him getting some recognition from the judges and jin fan supporting him too heheh but it says a lot that he recognizes cxh’s efforts and wanted to put in his own effort to help him

i wonder if them giving zlj less audience votes is an elaborate scheme to get him more pity votes from the general public lol.... well im excited to see the rest of the stages tomorrow! 

[josuyasu-pixiv-links]

Jou/Oku Messing Around #3

By:  heikki

Link: https://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=58162229 (19 pages)

Tomoko threatens to ground the boys from hanging out together if they don’t pass their next test at school. Hijinks ensue. Since the comic is pretty long, I put page numbers in to help keep track, I hope that’s helpful

Rough translation below the cut. About this blog here.

P1

Teacher: The text will be next week, in first period.

J: {Sigh}

[T/N: Most of what follows is in flashback, as Josuke remembers.]

P2

Tomoko: Josuke!! Okuyasu!!

*

T: When the end of term test comes

T: If you two fail, then you'll be grounded from hanging out!!!

*

J: What-!?

O: {Aaargh!}

*

T: The two of you have been doing nothing but play games for four hours

T: I won't have you let your grades go. Okuyasu hasn't passed a single class. Do you understand me?

P3

O: Guess I'd better study for once... haha. Well, I'll get going.

J: What seriously, Okuyasu? Later, then.

{Glooooom}

[T/N: end of flashback]

*

J: {SIGH}

*

J: (Me, well... If I study, it won't be a problem.)

J: (The problem is that bastard Okuaysu...)

*

J: (Cos he really can't study...)

*

Koichi: What? If you guys don't pass the end of term test, you'll be grounded?

P4

K: I kinda get what Josuke's mum means, though...

J: Whaddaya mean?

*

O: I can't solve the test with The Hand.

{Tearfully}

*

K: That's right, you won't be able to just use The Hand on the test, huh.

*

K: No, it's a compliment! You can't just 'GAON!' and erase everything like you don't care [T/N: Oof, that's a shaky translation]

K: You're a hoodlum, but it's better to not use it recklessly, I thought. [T/N: Again, oof. But you get the gist.]

*

O: KOICHI! You're damn right!

*

O: Usually I don't need to use it. Plus, that's not what it's for, right?

O: Look.

P5

{Squeeze}

O: We just gotta stick together like always, right?

O: If we stick together, then I won't need to {Right, Josuke?}

{AAARGH}

*

J: What are we gonna do? Today my mum won't shut up about study study study.

O: Right? Well, I guess today we gotta go straight home and try to study...

*

J: Well, see ya.

O: …...

P6

O: (If I don't study, then...!!!)

P7

{Chirping}

*

Rohan: Okuyasu the Idiot. What do you want? And your buddy Josuke's not here, that's unusual.

O: …

*

O: I've got something to ask you!

O: I want you to write something on me with Heaven's Door!

*

O: Please write 'He will not fail tomorrow's test'!

R: I refuse.

P8

O: PLEASE!

R: I ABSOLUTELY REFUSE!

*

R: I want to use my stand for my own convenience, absolutely not to help you!

O: I'm stupid, so I can't remember anything! Please, Mr. Kishibe, I'm begging!

*

O: Please! Just write it here!

{Pull pull pull}

R: Moron! You're a bastard and I won't help!

*

O: I'm back

*

J: {You went home without me}

J: Did you go to Kishibe's place?

P9

O: Check it out! Heaven's Door wrote on me.

J: That's not the Heaven's Door I know...

*

{Rub rub}

J: Look, it's come off. It's water-based.

*

J: You...

*

J: Relying on other people is risky, plus what if you get caught!

J: Seriously, just for once, don't mess around.

*

O: I tried studying! Until my eyes hurt {Look, I got glasses!}

O: But even so, nothing gets in my head

*

O: And even if I study, it's too late for the test tomorroooow!

J: {Don't cry about it}

P10

J: Well! If the test is stuffed up, then it's stuffed up. I can still come over to your place to hang out, right?

{Sitting noise}

*

O: THAT'S RIGHT!! YOU'RE A GENIUS, JOSUKE!!

*

T: I can hear everything.

P11

T: {You'll be grounded from going to Okuyasu's as well!}

{Shocked silence}

*

O: Guess I'll go home and keep studying...

*

J: Oi, cheer up! Hey, it'll be okay!

*

J: …..... uh

*

{Plod plod}

P12

J: O-okuyasu! Even if your test score is bad... In an emergency, there's still my stand stand. And, I can...

{Doki doki}

*

J: I can do something, so don't worry.

*

O: Huh? You'll do what with your stand?

P13

J: It doen't matter! At least, we'll pull an all nighter and if you fail tomorrow, come and find me.

*

{GAOOOON!!}

P14

J: Whoa!

O: Well, something my stand can do is bring you to me!

*

{Hug}

O: So it's not completely useless for the test! [T/N: or something like that, I think?]

J: Too close! Hahaha

P15

J: ….....

J: {kiss}

J: Er... uh... um....

{Blush}

J: I definitely did not kiss you just then [T/N: errrr, maybe]

{doki doki}

O: … I wanna do it again

P16

{THUD}

Narration (J): The test isn't until tomorrow.

P17

Narration (J): We did the best we could with what was in front of us.

Narration (J): The test was no big deal

Teacher: I'm going to hand back the tests now.

Narration (J): After all...

{Dozing off}

Note: {Lack of sleep}

Teacher: Higashikata~a, Higashikata.

P18

Narration (J): After all, it was no good!!!

{DRAMATIC NOISE}

J: CRAZY DIAMOND!

*

{Floating, floating}

Narration (J): I'll just change one number!!

J: (That was close!!)

J: {But, Okuyasu's case is still a concern...}

P19

{Compete~ent!}

O: Hehehe

O: Ta-daaaa!

T: You two better work hard for the next test, too.

O: Yayyy!

J: (How did I lose to Okuyasu...)

FIN

[lingthusiasm]

Transcript Lingthusiasm Episode 18: Translating the untranslatable.

This is a transcript for Lingthusiasm Episode 18: Translating the untranslatable. It’s been lightly edited for readability. Listen to the episode here or wherever you get your podcasts. Links to studies mentioned and further reading can be found on the Episode 18 shownotes page.

[Music]

Gretchen: Welcome to Lingthusiasm, a podcast that's enthusiastic about linguistics! I'm Gretchen McCulloch.

Lauren: And I'm Lauren Gawne, and today we're talking about how to translate untranslatable words. But first, it's our Patreon anniversary!

Gretchen: Yay!

Lauren: And we are super excited to revisit the topic that we visited for our first episode, which is swearing. Yayyy, rude episode on Patreon!

Gretchen: So our first Patreon episode was all about the sounds of swearing and swearing in different languages, and this time we're talking about the grammar of swearing, and we already have reports that it made somebody laugh out loud in public, so maybe don't listen to it around young children or in public, because you might have to explain to them why you're laughing so hard. You can go check that out at patreon.com/lingthusiasm.

Lauren: We also, conveniently for our anniversary, unlocked a new Patreon goal, which we are really excited about. This one is a goal to commission some Lingthusiasm-themed art.

Gretchen: Yes! So we're very excited to have some exciting art and for you guys to get to see concept sketches and where things go from here! Stay tuned for more exciting Lingthusiasm art news.

[Music]

Gretchen: Untranslatable words! Lauren, have you come across any untranslatable words lately?

Lauren: It's because I came across, like, three in the space of a day that I was like, "We really have to talk about this topic." Because it's a bit of a linguist meme, or talking about language meme, is this idea that there are some words that just aren't translatable, or meanings for which we don't have a single word and maybe we should. So the first is a Language Log post from Mark Liberman. He was talking about how there was a big, windy, wintry, weathery event in Philadelphia that meant that there were a lot of discarded umbrellas left around, and he talked about how there's no word for a dead umbrella.

Gretchen: Isn't the word for a dead umbrella just "dead umbrella" or "broken umbrella"?

Lauren: Well...

Gretchen: I don't know why this has to be so hard!

Lauren: We can chat about it, but he felt like it was something that needed a word and a blog post. And the other one –

Gretchen: Is it an UNbrella?

Lauren: An unbrella.

Gretchen: We need to write in to Mark.

Lauren: Yep. We solved it!

Gretchen: You have your umbrellas and then you have your unbrellas.

Lauren: And the second blog post about untranslatable words, or no word in a language, was from my favourite gynaecologist, Dr. Jennifer Gunter, who has a really fabulous blog, and she she was talking about – I'll just read the quote. "I believe there is no word in any language to describe that unique experience that's simultaneously running out of both pads (or tampons) and toilet paper when you're sitting on the toilet and in immediate need of both."

Gretchen: This is a terrible situation, but I think she's described it! I don't know, like, am I the untranslatable word sceptic here? But I think she's, you know, just put several words together and it did a pretty good job of describing this relatable experience.

Lauren: But there's no single word that encapsulates – I mean, there are plenty of single words and most of them are more appropriate for a Patreon episode than this episode – but none that specifically encapsulates that meaning.

Gretchen: Yeah, I mean, so this is a thing that I've been thinking about in terms of what I've called "the schadenfreude effect," which is, you know when you learn the schadenfreude and you're like, "Wow! The Germans! They really do have a word for everything, like taking pleasure in someone else's misfortune! It's not just me who's uniquely terrible by doing this sometimes! Other people do this too! Whoa, mind blown!" And the thing that I think makes us resonate with these lists of untranslatable words or ideas that certain concepts are untranslatable or there should be a word for something is that words are way of packaging our experiences, and if we have a word for something, then we know that someone else has thought of packaging that particular experience before. And so saying, "Oh, is there a word for this?" is also kind of trying to reach for "haven't other people also had this common experience" or "isn't this something else that other people have also felt."

Lauren: I really like that you've coined the term "schadenfreude effect" to really encapsulate the meaning of feeling pleased that you found a word that neatly translates a concept that you thought didn't have an elegant word for it.

Gretchen: Yeah, it's kind of when you encounter a word that describes something you're already familiar with. And I came up with it actually because there's this paper that I really like about people learning words and how best to teach people new concepts and new vocabulary. And so they did this study, and I think was a biology class or an economics class, I don't remember, an intro class at a university somewhere, and some of the students got a reading, kind of your standard textbook reading that is, like, you know, "Mitosis is blah blah blah..." and "Supply and demand is blah blah blah" – I don't remember whether this was biology or economics, so...

Lauren: The biology/economics textbook.

Gretchen: In the highly in-demand Intro Bio/Econ course! So anyway, they got your kind of standard reading that had a bunch of terms with their definitions, and then the other people got a different reading which was a version where you had all the concepts explained to you, saying, "There is a concept in biology where cells divide blah blah blah" or in economics where people buy things at different rates. And then for those students, they got to class and they got a brief list of vocabulary words that said, "These concepts that you were exposed to in the reading, here are the words for them." And then they did a post-test on how well the students did in learning these concepts, and they found that the students that had been exposed to the concept before the jargon did better than the students that were exposed to the jargon and the concept at the same time or even the jargon first.

Lauren: So it's not just a matter of smashing words into your brain.

Gretchen: Yeah, and it's – you know, when you come across a word like "schadenfreude" and you're like, "Wow, this is so satisfying to learn this," the reason it's satisfying to learn the word "schadenfreude" is because you're already familiar with the feeling.

Lauren: Right.

Gretchen: And it's less satisfying to learn a word like, I don't know, "mitosis" or something because you're not familiar with this concept before you learn the word, so you're having to learn the word and the concept at the same time.

Lauren: I guess it's why – and this is gonna date this podcast horrifically – why "hygge" has resonated so much with people in the last 18 months. It's just been like a hygge bonanza of like –

Gretchen: Mm-hmm!

Lauren: – Danish/Scandinavian, cosy, thoughtful, living books.

Gretchen: Yeah, and it's all about this, like, okay here's this concept that we'd like to be able to reach for, or this idea that we'd like to be able to articulate better, like, doesn't everyone want more cosiness in their lives? And it comes with a lot of cultural stuff, but it's around the idea of people wanting more cosiness, or more of whatever it is that thing that the Danes have. I think this is the same reason why words like "tsundoku" often show up on untranslatable words lists as well. So this is the Japanese word for the pile of books that you haven't gotten around to reading yet.

Lauren: What's wrong with "my pile of unread books"?

Gretchen: Yeah, I mean, I know a lot of people who talk about their "TBR pile," which is their "to be read" pile, or their reading list?

Lauren: Mmm.

Gretchen: And as far as I can tell,  they're used pretty similarly to "tsundoku"! But we're familiar with the idea of "of course you have this pile of books you haven't gotten around to reading yet."

Lauren: Yep.

Gretchen: And, oh, isn't it convenient that there's this convenient package for this thing that you either are intimately familiar with, or that you would like to be more familiar with, as in the case with "hygge."

Lauren: It's interesting how sometimes these words will enter into English. So, like, schadenfreude I think is – I mean, you can tell from my very Australianising of it, like it's a comfortable piece of my vocabulary, I can use it actively in a sentence, and I feel really comfortable with it. But, like, I think "hygge" is kind of crossing into that at the moment? I don't – I think it's too faddy, personally.

Gretchen: Yeah, I think it may still be too much of a fad at the moment, but it may be crossing over. I heard someone saying "tsundoku" in a sentence in English, but she was someone who'd lived in Japan for a while, so I don't think she was using it Anglicised? So I don't know which ones of these are crossing over.

Lauren: Yep.

Gretchen: But one of the things that I always think about what I think about these lists of "oh, here's a bunch of words that are untranslatable," is first of all, well, here is this convenient column B where someone just provided a bunch of nice translations for them. So how untranslatable are they, really? And also that if you look at a language just through the lens of its lexicon, you can end up with some really weird conclusions.

Lauren: Yeah.

Gretchen: And my favourite example of this is French doesn't have a word for "please." Therefore, obviously, the French, they must be very impolite...maybe. But what they do have is a four-word phrase, "s'il vous plait," which comes in another form, which is "s'il te plait," which both mean effectively "please." And in fact they come in formal and informal versions, this phrase that means effectively "please." And so, sure, if we look at the lexicon of French, the individual, atomisable words with spaces in between them, like, "Oh dang, there's no equivalent for please! Like, how do you even be polite in this language?" But if you look at it even just one step further in subtlety, of course there are lots of ways to be polite in this language! And so, seeing a language just through the lens of its lexicon – on the one hand, it gets us some of these interesting packages, but on the other hand it misses out on a whole lot of what a language actually is if all we're doing is looking at the lists of words and their translations.

Lauren: It reminds me of the "there's no way to say 'yes' and 'no' in Mandarin" meme?

Gretchen: Mm-hmm.

Lauren: That there isn't just a convenient word like "yes" we see that you can use to answer an affirmative, and no equivalent of "no" that you can just use to say no to a question that someone asks. And it's because you say – if, you know, someone says, "Do you want this?" you use the equivalent of "want" or "don't want."

Gretchen: Oh, Gaelic does this too.

Lauren: Yeah! So just because you can't find "yes" or "no" in a simple word list doesn't mean you're unable to say it.

Gretchen: Like, "Whoa, you can't do negation or affirmative in these languages!" Clearly the speakers are capable of agreeing and disagreeing with things.

Lauren: "Yes and no are untranslatable!" And it's just like, oh, they have some way of expressing affirmative and negative. Life is going on.

Gretchen: Yeah! But something that interests me is the subtler domains where things are actually harder to translate as well. And one of the big areas for me for that is poetry, because what makes a poem, essentially, is that you have a relationship with form and meaning that is aesthetically pleasing.

Lauren: And contextually dependent.

Gretchen: And different languages do have different relationships between form and meaning. So to take a very simple example, a pair of words that rhyme in English don't necessarily rhyme in another language you might be trying to translate a poem to. So if you have something like "roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet, and I love you" the kind of classic, four-line, parodisable poem in English –

Lauren: All versions of that poem are said in deep, deep earnest, Gretchen. It's the most moving piece of poetry.

Gretchen: So moving. Why wasn't this our Valentine's Day episode? 

Um, so you have something like this, but "blue" and "you" rhyme in English, and they don't rhyme in many other languages. There's no particular reason why they have to rhyme, it's just they happen to in English and so they make good subjects for poems, and that's why we don't say "violets are purple" because "purple" doesn't rhyme with "you." And so when you try to translate that in another language, either you've got to be unfaithful to the meaning and use a different pair of words that do rhyme, or you've got to be unfaithful to the rhyme and then not reproduce the aesthetic experience of getting the poem. And so because there's this inherent asymmetry, because different languages have different words – shockingly! – it's really hard to translate things that rely on both the form and the meaning simultaneously.

Lauren: I remember learning to read Old English poetry, and I just couldn't get my head around it – it involves alliteration, they weren't really big into rhyming.

Gretchen: Mm!

Lauren: And I was just like, "I don't have a feeling for this being good." You know, my Old English teacher would just be like, "Yeah, this is such a great poem, you can feel the rhythm!" and I'm just like, "Oh, but there's no rhyming..."

Gretchen: Everything's gotta rhyme.

Lauren: Yeah, I don't know how to evaluate this.

Gretchen: I remember I tried to read Hamlet in French once because, you know, whatever.

Lauren: How did that go?

Gretchen: Well, what was really interesting for me is, you know, the thing about Hamlet, and Shakespeare in general, is that Shakespeare is all in iambic pentameter, right?

Lauren: Mm-hmm.

Gretchen: And so you have your, like, duh-DUH beat, your iamb, with weak-strong –

Lauren: Yeah, even my "mm-hmm" was in iambic pentameter, I was really impressed. Mm-hmm.

Gretchen: Mm-hmm! There you go. And you have five of those per line, but in French you can't do that, because French doesn't have word-level stress the way English does.

Lauren: Right, yeah.

Gretchen: And I'm sure we'll probably do, at some point, a full stress episode, but in French you just only ever stress the thing that's at the end of the whole sentence or phrase. That's it, that's all you do, you have to do it that way.

Lauren: Okay. Yup.

Gretchen: And so you can't divide a poem into beats like that, because French doesn't do beats that way. And so what French poetry has instead that's, like, stylistically similar to iambic pentameter is something called the alexandrine, which is twelve syllables per line. So iambic pentameter gives you ten syllables per line, the alexandrine gives you twelve, which is pretty similar, and so this translation of Hamlet was all written in alexandrines with the twelve syllables per line.

Lauren: So they get an extra two syllables per line.

Gretchen: Yeah!

Lauren: The whole thing goes for like an extra 20% of time.

Gretchen: But it often takes more syllables to say the same thing in French anyway.

Lauren: Oh, okay.

Gretchen: Because French is kind of spacious like that.

Lauren: Yep.

Gretchen: So I think it kind of balanced out. But yeah, you just got this very different –

Lauren: And was it in modern French or ye olde French?

Gretchen: I... don't remember. I think it was in pretty modern French, though, it didn't feel super ye olde.

Lauren: Right.

Gretchen: But I also don't necessarily know what ye olde French would sound like, you know?

Lauren: Fair enough! Because sometimes, like, translating across time – you know, we talk about translating between cultures and what I think is, dare I say, a bit of fetishisation of, like, Scandinavian and Japanese social life that we overextend, one way of kind of borrowing their words that translate interestingly. And we forget that translating from older texts, like translating from Shakespeare, or going back further to something like Beowulf, there's actually a lot that's not easily translated between those.

Gretchen: Yeah, and when you're translating something like – you know, Shakespeare's stuff was written in current English to the original audience he was writing to, he wasn't writing in fake ye olde English, and so do you try to be faithful to that for the modern reader, or do you try to reproduce the experience of the modern reader in experiencing that as something old? Something I've been really fascinated about recently has been the Emily Wilson translation of The Odyssey.

Lauren: Mmm!

Gretchen: Oh, it's so cool. I follow her on Twitter now, it's really great. So, she is heralded as the first woman to translate The Odyssey into English, which is kind of shocking that we've gotten this far and it took that long.

Lauren: I'd have to say most of the versions that I have ever come across have been quite dusty, dry, like they feel like they were written at the time of Homer, even though they're in English.

Gretchen: Well, not quite Homer, but like this kind of 1800s feel.

Lauren: Yep.

Gretchen: And that's the thing, like even the ones that were written in, like, I don't know, the 1950s, often have this fake ye olde thing because, like, oh, well, Homer is a classic and so you need to make him sound olde.

Lauren: So what's Emily Wilson done?

Gretchen: And so Wilson doesn't do that. She's not doing ye olde, and her first line that she translates the poem as is, "Tell me about a complicated man," which is referring to Odysseus.

Lauren: Oh, that could be a text that I sent someone.

Gretchen: That's an Avril Lavigne song! Like, "Odysseus, why did you have to go make things so complicated? Right now I'm just unweaving this loom and man I really hate it!" You know, like, that's a very real translation! But she also – and this is something that the other translators also don't do – she also translates the whole epic poem in verse, and she does all of her lines in iambic pentameter.

Lauren: Right.

Gretchen: And the other translators tend to render it in prose, or in, like, shortened lines, but without paying attention to that beat in the same sort of way.

Lauren: Yeah.

Gretchen: And so I'm also really holding out for the audiobook version of this translation of The Odyssey, because I want to hear it read. It was originally an oral piece of a literature, and I really want to hear someone render it to me in that sort of way.

Lauren: Mm, that would be fun.

Gretchen: Yeah! I'm excited. It's one of my post-book projects, I'm gonna dive into that pretty deeply, I think.

Lauren: Awesome.

Gretchen: Yeah! So untranslatability, when it comes to things like how do you render – and I think the Greek word that she's trying to render with "complicated" is "polytropos"? I'm probably getting that wrong. But it means, like, "many-turning"?

Lauren: Mm-hmm.

Gretchen: "Poly" meaning "many" and "tropos" is "turning," like a heliotrope is a flower that turns towards the sun.

Lauren: Yep.

Gretchen: But "many-turned" is not really an idiom in English. And so different translators try to render that idiom in different sorts of ways that both try to make it legible for the reader and also try to make it sound somewhat idiomatic and give you a sense of the feeling of the source text, in a short amount of space.

Lauren: I mean, idioms are super difficult because they're often multiple words, or if it's just one word, alluding to the whole idiom. Like, idioms already come as complicated sets of words that have a specific meaning that you can't just go, like, "word + word." You know, "looking a gift horse in the mouth," you can't say "look + horse + gift + mouth = ..."

Gretchen: That's a nice Greek idiom, Lauren!

Lauren: Yeah, I'm just keeping on-theme. You have to know about how gifts work and how horses work – and actually I don't actually know how horses' mouths work, I just know that you want to make sure they're healthy and that's apparently the mouth!

Gretchen: Yeah, I remember I was reading a book that I'd – when I was practising French I was reading stuff in French I'd already read in English.

Lauren: Yeah.

Gretchen: And the English passage of this book had said something like "doing this thing was carrying coal to Newcastle," which, I've never been to Newcastle, but I know that this is an idiom for, you know, Newcastle is a big producer of coal and so why would you bring coal to Newcastle, Newcastle already has the coals.

Lauren: Yeah. Was it "taking croissants to Paris"?

Gretchen: I wish it was! They just said something like "it was just a drop of water in the ocean".

Lauren: Taking mustard to Dijon.

Gretchen: I don't think those are idioms in French the same way that "coals to Newcastle" is an idiom in English, right? So that would be kind of bringing you out by saying, "Oh, what what is this weird idiom that they have?" So instead they had just "is a drop of water in the ocean," which is kind of idiomatic, but is also something you could interpret at a very literal level and it doesn't particularly require context for the idiom.

Lauren: Yeah.

Gretchen: Because also the book wasn't supposed to be set in France, so it'd be weird to have a very French-y idiom.

Lauren: Uh-huh. So, we can have this kind of translatability complication over time in English, but we could also have it over space because English is a language that is spoken in many places, and many places have their own words that have their own specific meaning.

Gretchen: Yeah, I really do like adding to those "untranslatable" lists, like, here's this very specific meaning that this Japanese pile of books brings to you. English has a specific verb for "to deceive someone into watching a video of Rick Astley's 'Never Gonna Give You Up.'"

Lauren: Hey, wait! We do!

Gretchen: What does it say about the English speakers that we have the verb "to rickroll."

Lauren: Oh my gosh. It's such a profound reflection on what it means to be an English speaker on the internet that we have created the word rickroll.

Gretchen: I know, right?

Lauren: I never thought about it like that before, it's really fun to flip this trope around!

Gretchen: Yeah! You know, like, the English speakers – like, it's gonna be on a French word list somewhere and be like, "Look at those English speakers, look what they've done!"

Lauren: Oh, that one's gonna date really badly as well.

Gretchen: Nah, rickroll's a classic. And there's different words in Canadian English and Australian English that sometimes have different connotations.

Lauren: And since we bump into this occasionally, I thought we would do a mini quiz round!

Gretchen: Okay! Are you gonna quiz me?

Lauren: I'm gonna quiz you. I have some words here that have very specific meanings in Australian English.

Gretchen: Mm-hmm.

Lauren: And I want you to have a go at what you think they mean.

Gretchen: Okay.

Lauren: The first word is "bogan."

Gretchen: I'm familiar with "bogan," but I don't know if I could actually define it? Is it kind of like a hick, but in Australia? Or like a chav, but in Australia?

Lauren: I like that you're going for definition by triangulation.

Gretchen: Yeeeah... like, it's kind of more like working-class, salt-of-the-earth, but also the people that politicians kind of try to make up to?

Lauren: Yeah, that's actually – you did pretty good there. That's good.

Gretchen: Yay!

Lauren: But you can identify them from the particular sports that they're interested in, like the footy, like the cricket, something something outdoors, something something wearing flannel.

Gretchen: Okay.

Lauren: It's kind of a set of meaning that goes together to define –

Gretchen: I mean, in Canada they like the hockey, so I think I may somewhat understand this demographic.

Lauren: Yeah. The next word is "mateship."

Gretchen: So, because I know that you say – people say "mate" in Australian English to be like, "G'day, mate," or like, "What are you doing mate, that was a bad idea." So mateship is like the quality of having mates or like the relationship that you have with your mates? Or... this kind of thing?

Lauren: Uh, yeah! I mean, that is great, you've just kind of said the meaning of both of those words at the same time. Good start!

Gretchen: Is there something else I should be adding?

Lauren: It's something to do with the ineffable quality of reciprocal support. It's tied in a lot with the idea of community – not gonna lie, it has a kind of Anglo vibe. It's –

Gretchen: Oh my god, it's Australian hygge.

Lauren: It's Australian political dog-whistling to like –

Gretchen: Ohhh.

Lauren: – you know, the way things should be, i.e. back when Australia was quite Anglo. (It never really was, but that's another point.) Or this kind of idea of Australians as like battlers forged through hardship and adversity and are now somehow all kind of closely knit for that. Is my kind of definition of mateship.

Gretchen: Okay. Yeah, I definitely don't have the political context there.

Lauren: It doesn't stir your soul? That's what it's meant to evoke.

Gretchen: It just... ships my mates, mate!

Lauren: The final one is "early mark."

Gretchen: I have no idea.

Lauren: Have a guess, just make up...

Gretchen: A... like, something that... like, when you're like "on your marks, get set, go" so it's like the early... first thing you do?

Lauren: Mmm... no.

Gretchen: I told you I didn't know!

Lauren: This one is not even – like, so this is not a word that I have in my active vocabulary.

Gretchen: Okay.

Lauren: And it shows that like even in a country like Australia, which has a really quite homogeneous use of language across Australia, given how big it is, this is from New South Wales and Queensland?

Gretchen: Okay.

Lauren: And an "early mark" means you get to leave school or work early.

Gretchen: Ahhh!

Lauren: I have no idea why. New South Wales never really explained it to me.

Gretchen: I have a word for that, but I don't remember what it is.

Lauren: Is it "leaving work early"?

Gretchen: Yeah, okay. No, no, there's like an idiom to it, and I'm sure my high school self is reaching through time and being like "how did you forget this??"

Lauren: It was very important to you.

Gretchen: Yeah, it was really important to me for 13 years, and now I can't remember. I can remember the concept, but not the term.

Lauren: Well, there you have – it's an untranslatable word for you, Gretchen! It's a concept you're very familiar with and you've never had –

Gretchen: No, it's a schadenfreude thing!

Lauren: It's the schadenfreude effect from English to English.

Gretchen: Okay, can I give you a Canadian one?

Lauren: Sure.

Gretchen: So, are you familiar with the Canadianism "toque"?

Lauren: I am, but I feel like I'm not gonna know where to draw the boundary on it.

Gretchen: Okay, well, try.

Lauren: So, I know it's a hat.

Gretchen: Mm-hmm.

Lauren: Umm... yay for having Canadian rellos.

Gretchen: "Relatives" for the non-Australians.

Lauren: Thanks for translating for me! 

Gretchen: Welcome!

Lauren: Um, it's a hat, but it's like a hat you wear in the cold.

Gretchen: Mm-hmm.

Lauren: Like, I'm gonna translate it into my English and say it's a beanie, which is like a knitted, or like thick, woollen hat that doesn't have a brim or anything, it's just like an egg-warmer for your head.

Gretchen: Yeah, Americans do call it "beanie," so I wasn't sure if you'd have beanie as a term, because it's like kind of warm to wear beanies in Australia. So yeah, people call it a beanie, I have a beanie as something very different.

Lauren: What's a beanie, then, for you?

Gretchen: A beanie is one of those, like, round caps that has like a spinny thing on top? That they wore in like the '20s or something?

Lauren: Ahhhh. No. Gee, that's so confusing. How do we even talk to each other? Sometimes it's a complete mystery to me.

Gretchen: I know.

Lauren: It's going to be very difficult if I ever come and visit you in the cold. "Don't come here with a beanie, you need to bring a toque."

Gretchen: I may own a few toques, but I do not own any hats with little spinny things on top, and I do not aspire to.

Lauren: Ah, well. So, even when we speak the same language, we still kind of reach these moments of translation where we have to hopefully figure out that we're not talking about the same beanie.

Gretchen: Yeah. I know, personally, I think that my favourite really difficult word in English to translate is "the."

Lauren: That's not gonna look nice on any lists, Gretchen.

Gretchen: But it's so difficult! Because, you know, some languages don't have articles like "the" and "a" and "an" at all! Russian doesn't have them, Chinese doesn't have them I don't think, and there's a whole bunch of languages that don't have this at all, and so trying to translate into those languages is really hard, and for speakers of those languages, trying to learn English and being like, "Should I be using the 'the'? But how do you know?" And then there's a bunch of languages that have, like, several of them!

Lauren: Yeah.

Gretchen: And then even languages which have what is ostensibly still a definite article don't use them in the same sorts of ways.

Lauren: Yeah.

Gretchen: So in English, if I want to say "I go for a walk on Mondays," I don't put the "the" on Monday. But in French, if I want to say "I go for a walk on Mondays," then I have to say "le lundi," not just "lundi."

Lauren: Go for a walk on the Mondays.

Gretchen: Go for a walk the Monday. Singular.

Lauren: Okay. The Monday.

Gretchen: Yeah, so it's like, even in languages that ostensibly have things that map to this category, figuring out how to use them slightly differently depending on the language is a rich and difficult area of of investigation.

Lauren: So, we've established that it's not untranslatability, it's unable to translate into a single convenient word. And it's not untranslatability because it happens across Englishes, too...

Gretchen: Mm-hmm.

Lauren: So what is happening here?

Gretchen: I think it's about – there's two kinds of meaning that come with a word.

Lauren: Mm-hmm.

Gretchen: There's the kind of one-sentence, easy-to-describe, dictionary sort of meaning.

Lauren: Yeah. Which is what we often think of as meaning.

Gretchen: Yeah. And then there's all of the kind of surrounding context: the social context, and when you learned a word, and what it means to you, and these kinds of things. You know, I was coming across in one of these lists a word about, I think it was a Swedish type of coffee break.

Lauren: Fika!

Gretchen: Fika!

Lauren: It's a good one.

Gretchen: And they were saying, "Well in the Swedish coffee break you're not allowed to talk about work, and you must only talk about things that are not related to work."

Lauren: Uh-huh.

Gretchen: And I don't necessarily think that it is an intrinsic property of "fika" as "fika" specifically. I think this is a Swedish property of coffee breaks.

Lauren: Right.

Gretchen: Like, I know what a coffee break is.

Lauren: So it's conflating the coffee break and the – oh, I always think, 'cause with fika it's about having coffee and food, I think of it as, like, "let's do coffee"? You know, the act of doing coffee.

Gretchen: Yeah.

Lauren: That's what I think of fika as.

Gretchen: Let's get coffee, or let's do coffee.

Lauren: Yeah.

Gretchen: Not just like you're sitting by yourself at your desk having sad desk coffee.

Lauren: That is definitely not fika. I know that, and I'm not Swedish.

Gretchen: But you know, the cultural things are like what you do at a coffee break, or, you know, if you talk about different – I don't know, to go back to the school example, different recess traditions, or different school break traditions, like do you go out and play in the playground, or do you stay inside because it's very cold in Canada in the wintertime sometimes and they wouldn't let us outside, even with our toques.

Lauren: So, now that we have the concepts of these two forms of meaning, do you want the jargon?

Gretchen: Yes, I'd like the jargon.

Lauren: Okay. So the specific, to-the-point meaning – dictionary meaning, more or less – is "denotation." Which I always remember because denotation and dictionary start with the same letter.

Gretchen: Mm!

Lauren: And then connotation is all the context to the meaning. (Do you see what I did there?)

Gretchen: Ah, good.

Lauren: So I'm gonna explain denotation and connotation using sandwiches.

Gretchen: Okay.

Lauren: And of course we pulled sandwiches apart – not literally, just semantically – in a Patreon episode. But I want to come back to sandwiches and talk about a historical anecdote in my family that kind of explains where denotation and connotation are in tension. So as I've mentioned, my grandmother is an English second language speaker.

Gretchen: Mm-hmm.

Lauren: I've mentioned it on the show before. She's a Polish and German native speaker, came to Australia, had to learn not only English, but also raise a family of very Anglo-educated children. So, my grandfather's English, they went to school in English, and they wanted to kind of fit in with the other kids. And so the denotation of a sandwich is very simple: it's two pieces of bread with filling between it.

Gretchen: Yep.

Lauren: And my grandmother would send my mum and her siblings to school with sandwiches, but where my grandmother fell down was on the connotation of a sandwich, because my grandmother took the "two pieces of bread with some kind of tasty filling" quite liberally.

Gretchen: Uh-oh!

Lauren: There are stories of her sending my mum to school with butter and peanuts? Because she couldn't get the hang that peanut butter was a specific thing? Or sending them to school with – and I've never tried this, personally – but like chocolate biscuits in bread.

Gretchen: That's very interesting!

Lauren: And so this is completely violating the idea of what a sandwich – what its connotation is. But she's still meeting the denotation of it.

Gretchen: Yeah, I mean, I think in our sandwich episode she's passing the sandwich test with flying colours!

Lauren: She's doing better than a burrito!

Gretchen: Yeah!

Lauren: Or a pierogi.

Gretchen: Yeah, or a pizza or whatever. Like, she's got the the two pieces of bread, which is pretty key, and you could make a chocolate chip cookie sandwich...

Lauren: And so when we have these ideas of untranslatable words, we're trying to pull all the connotation along with the denotation. I mean, sometimes it's just denotation?

Gretchen: Yeah.

Lauren: And the denotation that it has cuts the world in a particular way our language doesn't, and that would be nice to have. But often we're trying to drag a lot of the connotation along as well, and I think that's why "hygge" feels like such a complicated thing to bring into English, because we could just say it means cosiness, and we've kind of hit the denotation pretty well.

Gretchen: Yeah.

Lauren: But we want to bring alllll of the Scandinavian knitwear, candles, prettiness in along with it.

Gretchen: Yeah. And it's kind of aspirational, like, this is how it could be. There's a quote from Dinosaur Comics that I really like that expresses this. So they're talking about meanings of words and what's the opposite of various things, and T-Rex is getting more and more frustrated and says, "Language is hard!" And the other character says, "No, life is hard. Language is just how we talk about it."

Lauren: Oh, that's so true. And it does – these connotations make it really hard, they make it hard especially for machine translation, because machines can't weigh up all the different connotations of different words in a way that a translator can. And that's part of the skill of translation, is knowing what words to use that have the same connotations.

Gretchen: Mm-hmm.

Lauren: You know, if you're translating a scene about someone at a market, then the word "cheap" as opposed to "inexpensive" – something that's cheap has this connotation of inferior quality compared to using the word inexpensive.

Gretchen: Yeah! Or "a good deal," you know, they could be the same thing, like a "bargain."

Lauren: Oh, yeah! Suddenly that's not only like – it's like good cheap.

Gretchen: "Wow, that's good cheap!" And, you know, "bad cheap," or "inexpensive," there's all these different levels there and –

Lauren: But words are connotation magnets. I mean, it's why we need euphemisms all the time, because as soon as we start using a word in a particular context, it just amasses all these connotations and they become either pejorative and negative and that's how slurs kind of get cycled through, which is not great, or they kind of make all these other cultural inferences.

Gretchen: Yeah, and I think that one of the things that talking about words as "untranslatable," even though it can be satisfying to say, "Oh wow, here's these new concepts!" or "Here's the thing that I hadn't thought about in this way before," in some respect, every word is untranslatable and yet we managed to learn them all anyway.

Lauren: Yeah.

Gretchen: How do we learn any new word if no word has an exact equivalent somewhere? Well, you know, we live a life and we figure it out! And in many cases, the word side of translation is very easy. It's the grammar side and the aesthetic side that's a lot harder.

Lauren: And all those connotations. I know when I learnt Nepali, I had to keep track of three different formality levels, which, like, I know how to be polite to different people to different extents in English, but suddenly I had to do it in another language and in the grammar, and I remember just knowing who to use which level of formality with was a whole set of translation that I took a long time to really feel comfortable with, so I would definitely agree that the kind of grammatical encoding of things adds a translation complication that can be quite hard to master.

Gretchen: Yeah, and yet you don't see different forms of "you" in "difficult to translate" lists, even though maybe they should be there.

Lauren: We're gonna start our own very exciting list.

Gretchen: Let's make a "difficult to translate for linguists" list! I'd be down for this!

[Music]

Lauren: For more Lingthusiasm and links to all the things mentioned in this episode, go to lingthusiasm.com. You can listen to us on iTunes, Google Play Music, SoundCloud, or wherever else you get your podcasts. And you can follow @Lingthusiasm on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Tumblr. You can get IPA scarves and other Lingthusiasm merch at lingthusiasm.com/merch. I tweet and blog as SuperLinguo.

Gretchen: And I can be found as @GretchenAMcC on Twitter, and my blog is AllThingsLinguistic.com. To listen to bonus episodes, ask us your linguistic questions, and help keep the show ad-free, go to patreon.com/lingthusiasm, or follow the links from our website. Current bonus topics include the semantics of sandwiches, language games, how to teach yourself linguistics, and a double feature: two episodes about swearing! And you can help us pick the next topic by becoming a patron. Can't afford to pledge? That's okay too, we also really appreciate it if you can rate us on iTunes or Apple podcasts and recommending Lingthusiasm to anyone who needs a little more linguistics in their life.

Lauren: Lingthusiasm is created and produced by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our audio producer is Claire, our editorial producer is Emily, and our production assistant is Celine. Our music is by The Triangles.

Gretchen: Stay lingthusiastic!

[Music]

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

[razberryyum]

Gintama manga chaps 656 & 657

Dear Gintama gods and Sorachi-sama,

I am going to just say right off the bat that this last chapter was unbelievably difficult for me to get through: I felt every stab that pierced through Sadaharu as if I was the one being attacked. By the time he found his way back to the Yorozuya and his old box, I was pretty much near a sobbing wreck. You see, I blame myself for Sadaharu's condition. I had been asking you in each of my recent letters to please not hurt the puppy too much, but then I lapsed in my writing and ended up grouping these last four chapters into only two letters and thereby reducing my prayers by two. I know I should be counting my blessings that you didn't straight out just kill him for my failure to sufficiently uphold my part of the bargain, but trust me when I say watching him being turned into a puppy pin cushion by Utsuro and his Tendoshuu zombies was punishment enough. I absolutely hate Utsuro for hurting Sadaharu that way, and I hope he gets stabbed a dozen times more by Gintoki and the other Joui boys as retaliation.  

I'm glad that Sadaharu was at least able to make it back home and I hope they are able to give him strawberry milk to his heart's content so that he could heal from his injuries. Sorachi-sama, you cannot kill him. If the next chapter consists of Sadaharu's farewell death scene, you will literally destroy me. I am positive I cannot bear it. Please don't crush my heart like that. I know there has to be more fatalities as a result of this war and the eventual battle against Utsuro, and they have to be fatalities that we care about, but killing Sadaharu would simply too much of a gut punch. To be honest, I might have to take a break for a while in order to recover from such a shock. I don't think you are that cruel...or rather, I HOPE you are not that cruel, but then again, if the "last" character poll is any indication, we might very well be nearing the endgame (I am still trying to dissuade you from that by the sheer power of denial at this point), so any deaths from here on forth will have to count and have meaning. What better way to turbo boost everyone's resolve than by sacrificing one of the most lovable and adorable character of the bunch.  I would hate that we have to go down such a gut-wrenching path, but I would begrudgingly understand it. My only true hope at this point is that we might still need Sadaharu to close the dragon gate. Even though I had previously ruminated over the possibility of Umibouzu's non-terrestrial crystals playing a role in that task instead, now that Sadaharu's life is seriously on the line, I hope he and Komako-chan will still end up being the heroes that put the dragon to rest.  

And though I joked about Hasegawa receiving no credit whatsoever even if he does succeed in saving everyone on the Amenotori and ergo Earth, I hope at the very least Hatsu ends up believing what he had accomplished and finally, permanently, gets back together with him. He deserves that much, and maybe his old job back officially, even though I doubt immigration will be high on the government's priority list considering the amount of rebuilding that would have to happen first. I'm glad he came up with an actually sound plan that wouldn't requiring sacrificing everyone on the ship. Luckily the remaining Liberation army finally woke up and decided to defect to the side of Earth; I doubt Hata's fleet would have done much to slow down the Amenotori since they lack the numbers to have much of an effect. There was something rather familiar about the formation of the Liberation Army's ships and shields however, which made me wonder if you were inspired by the Guardians of the Galaxy movie and most of those guys will end up perishing in their efforts, much like the Nova Corps fleet did when they tried to prevent the Dark Aster from crashing onto their planet. It will be an honorable death at least, probably more honorable than most of those Liberation Army idiots deserve considering they had a hand in perpetrating this entire mess. I am grateful though that I don't have to worry about the safety of Zura, Sakamoto, Takasugi, and the others for now: at least there's a good chance they can escape from the ship before it's blown into smithereens to prevent it from plummetin destructively into the planet.

Even though in a few days I will find out exactly how bad Sadaharu's condition is, I will still like to take this one last opportunity to ask you to please, spare him. Let him be revitalized in time by the elixir that is strawberry milk.  The same goes for Komako-chan. I would like for them both to remain well and alive so that eventually one day, when the conflict is over and the dust has settled, they can get together and produce more adorable inugami puppies to help guard the dragon gate so that the Altana stream will never get out of control again.

Yours truly,

A silly fangirl with yaoi dreams

(^3^)

PS: while the two of them weren't anywhere close together, the fact that Gintoki and Hijikata have remained side-by-side at the top of the character popularity poll is enough for me to rejoice (and Gin-chan is even looking at Toshirou!! Double yayyy!). I would love if their poll positions were to translate into the finality of the series, but that will most likely remain only wishful thinking on my part. At this point, I really will settle for simply more scenes of the two of them interacting before we never get to see them anymore. Ugh, that thought is already enough to make my stomach turn over in sickening anxiety. Anyway, I should thank my fellow Gintama lovers for making such wise polling choices. I also want to agree that I am completely not used to Shinpachi Shinshichi being a #7. There IS something very wrong with that and as much as I love our dear Pachi-kun, he should have remained in his 8th place forever. Unfortunately, I guess we loved him just a little bit too much.  

[wonhuis]

hank u! i got a 5 lol, so everything is good for now. Rn i’m studyin english, like in depth but a few years ago I was studying literature and philosophy and since i did 3 (almost 4) years i didn’t want to lose all that work but i didn’t take some finals so they sent me a mail telling that i needed at least one okay. i loved exo m but my bias is chanyeol lol, i think both cheol and him can be very loud sometimes (most of the time!) and i love that 1/? 🍰-sss

and i don’t follow nct a lot so i can’t give u an answer. such mood! rn i’m listening to some horror stories (podcast style) ah yes, some songs are meh, i really liked the reve festival day 1 (most of the songs). i hope u can be able to play gta soon, it’s a old game but i love stealing cars(? i started to watch it, so far so good but i’ll give u my final review when i finish it. 2/? 🍰-sss

FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST! i love love love that anime, both versions. 2003 one has a special place in my heart. ahhh all of those are really amazing ones! i remember ouran was one of my firsts mangas. currently i’m trying to collect the yu yu hakusho ones. kyoukai no kanata is still my fav anime, i remember i watched it in one day before my sociology final lmao. and then the movie! i wanted to make a svt/knk kind of edit but im lazy! 3/? 🍰-sss

jun’s pink/lilac hair was iconic!! such a good look, his whole aes in clap era had such a strong energy

reposters have no respect, unfortunatelly a lot of people that are into social media just want numbers but they don’t even work hard for them. bc alright u care abt the amount of followers u have, at least do smth to earn that. but no, they just steal bc it’s the easier way, honestly such a disgusting move. gfx, gifs, fanarts, etc take effort, talent and time. it’s really sad that some people don’t appreciate that, damn a lot of them sound like ignorants 5/6 🍰-sss

(reminds me of when my great aunt told me literature wasn’t a valid major to choose, smh. not everybody want to be a lawyer karen). !!! the foot fetish omg jfbsdfs. and don’t worry! hahah i luv ya, we can ramble and share our hate towards twitter. how is your weekend going so far?? 6/6 🍰-sss

yayyy, that’s great!!! i’m happy for u 💕💕 ohh i get it! i’m glad u could do well on this one then!! CHANYEOL! YES! A HAPPY BOY!! u cant write chanyeol without cheol so that’s cute LMAO and yessss they’re both rlly loud!!! god i love chanyeol but i can never see him next to baekhyun without feeling anxious bc of the shippers lmao right now not as much as a few years ago but i still got the trauma lol and!! idk if u know but noses are my fave thing ever right and chanyeol has one of my fave noses in kpop i love it :/// i used to cry about his nose as much as i cry about vernon’s now lmao 

oh i don’t remember if i actually listened to the albums lmao idk but sometimes if i dont like the title track i feel rlly unmotivated to listen to the whole album :/ also what did u think about psycho? to me it kinda felt the same as umpah umpah like i enjoyed the song but it kinda sounded more like a b track? also as i was listening to it and watching the mv it reminded me a lot of an ending song? like not an anime ending sort of song but like a goodbye song if it makes any sense lmao like goodbye by 2ne1 or lonely by sistar idk wHY BUT the album actually has the word finale in it and i was actually shocked to see it but it made sense in my head lmao

stealing cars is amazing but i actually like it more to punch random people on the street :/ i have anger issues and sometimes i do wish i could do that irl but i CANT so i do it in the game lmao also shooting random ppl god i LOVE it, love me some violent games where i can do whatever i want and then pretend i’m sane irl LMAO

fma is my fave thing in the world after my cats and maybe tied with pjo i LOVE that anime/manga and you’re completely RIGHT the 2003 version is just as good the 2009 ver supremacists are wrong bc both versions are amazing and they complement each other really well!! oh ur so brave to try collecting a whole manga lmao like it’s my DREAM but i only have bits and pieces of some of them bc i mostly buy them second handed

KYOUKAI NO KANATA I LOVEEEE, did i mention it on my list or did i forget? either way i LOVE that anime, i’ve watched it so many times it’s one of my absolute faves!! also i’m rlly sad there’s absolutely no english translation for the light novel i think? i searched a few years ago and couldn’t find anything, i’d love to read it even if i don’t usually read light novels lmao and god i fully support you and ur gfx idea but i do understand 100% about being too lazy to do it lmao i’ve had a gfx idea i wanted to do for the longest time but i’ll be SO hard and it’ll take me so much time i’m just zzzzzzz lmao

god jun in clap era was rlly something!! the hair, the outfits, the earring, ahhh i miss it lmao

reposters can just fuck off honestly lmao and yeah!! i’m rlly grateful my mother always allowed me to do whatever i wanted to when it comes to college so i never had that problem, but i’m rlly sad about every artist who got told that art isn’t a “real job” or stuff like that, same with stuff like literature/philosophy/sociology like some professions get sooo neglected it’s sad :/ 

also i do wanna thank you for letting me ramble and never complaining about it bc my friend (the only friend i talk to, in fact) always tells me that if he were u he wouldn’t read half the things i write lmao and he does indeed NOT read half the things i tell him lmao bc like i talk a lot and ramble a lot but not everyone is like this so i’m sorry if i’m making u talk more than u are used to but also thank you for doing so akdjnfsd

and my weeked was pretty ok i think? i dont rlly remember what i did, might have just slept a lot lmao but i don’t have any complaints either! what about yours??

also i’m going to the beach for a couple of days with my friends this week so i’m exciteddd i love the beach and i was sad thinking i wouldn’t go anymore, it’ll be for 3 or 4 days only but that’s already something!!