#i do want to get back to properly learning vocab though...)

[cytser]

bore da pawb! mae'n dydd siarad chi'n iaith! dw i'n ddim un siarad cymraeg lol ond dw i'n eisiau dysgu cymraeg. sorri achos mae'n cymraeg drwg!

[meichenxi]

Hey, could I ask you how you do shadowing? Like the different ways you do it? You mentioned in your tag that shadowing is good and I'd love to hear how you do it! I do not attempt shadowing much so I don't really know what helps, etc. ToT (my studyblr is rigelmejo)

Hellooo! Thank you for the interesting question!

Tbh I think I do it fairly basically - I don’t use any particularly fancy software, but software like Language Learning with Netflix has certainly made it easier. There’s a whole video on how to get the most of it here: [on mobile, link didn't work - How to study Chinese with Netflix! by Chinese Zero To Hero] (I’d recommend checking out all of their videos actually, they’ve done a bunch of livestreams recently and they place a lot of emphasis on shadowing + the course they are trying to sell you is…actually phenomenally good)

(Also, I have to preface this by saying that I have been very lucky in terms of pronunciation: I learnt about 80% of my current vocabulary by ear without characters or pinyin. I have been in China for eight months in total, and while I didn’t speak Chinese for all of that, I was constantly soaking in info on natural sentence intonation. I still often don’t know officially what the tone of a vocabulary item is, especially if it changes tone like 教, 为 or 相, but I don’t get yelled at so I have definitely internalised a lot of those changes. I definitely would have more trouble with this if I hadn’t had that experience - my other areas are waaaay weaker because of this though- my reading SUCKS lmao and I can literally handwrite about ten characters)

Anyway. How I shadow:

1) Quite simply by playing the line, and repeating it with all the emotion it has!! I usually use Netflix or Viki for this. I try to do it as fast as possible, and if I can’t do the whole thing, I ‘chunk’ it: if I were doing the sentence 我们还不知道他会不会来, I would start from the end with 他会不会来, then 不知道他会不会来, and then the whole sentence. Notice that this isn’t breaking it down into words or even grammatical phrases, but intonational phrases: it would be perfectly sensible to just do 会不会来 without the 他 but realistically, since this is a question, it’s likely that a strong stress will be placed on the first 会, and you wouldn’t be able to replicate that without also included the more weakly stressed syllable before.

2) I locate (intentionally or subconsciously) the main locus of stress within the sentence, and I focus on that accordingly. Tones may become less extreme if they are not stressed, and may become more exaggerated if stressed. This is always a good exercise. I accompany this with physical actions - I throw my hands down, I sigh, I groan!

3) I put away the text, and don’t look at the tones or even my computer screen - more on this below.

4) Finally, when I think I’ve got it reasonably accurate, I’ll record them speaking the line into my phone with an appropriate pause for copying and play it back to myself at various points throughout the day.

5) I then go and find other words with the same tone contour to slot in, and copy it again. After that, I find words that are slightly different tonally and pop them in too.

6) I finally do fun things like hold a conversation with myself. This can be really simple phrases imbued with some kind of emotion - 这个女子到底是谁呀？为什么不认识我？应该是新手吧。You can do this either really informally, or very formally, or both - trying to speak in the latter way is very fun! So then it’d be idk something more like: 那位姑娘是何人，来自何处？This is fun because you can really slow down your speech and sound as elegant as you like!! (this will sound stilted if you do it for modern speech, but it’s a very fun exercise)

Choosing your media!!

1) Don’t use donghuas. Seriously. The voice actors usually speak at a ridiculous pace and not with the same range of ‘normal’ intonation

2) Your Chinese is definitely good enough to recognise when anyone is quoting poetry or speaking in a paricularly sexy literary way so, uh…don’t do that. That rules dramas like Nirvana in Fire OUT.

3) Modern dramas and reality TV shows CAN be great, but they can also be quite intimidatingly quick and almost too mushy at times. I’d recommend informal speech in guzhuang dramas more, because they have professional voice actors and extensive sound editing, meaning that although it might be fast and the vocabulary harder, it’s actually much more accessible and easier to copy. You don’t want to be stuck with the awfulness of 50% failed foreigner and 50% 12 year old boy who can’t enunciate properly!!

4) CHOOSE YOUR WEAPON WISELY. I try to find characters that speak in a dramatic, whiny or childish way. This is so important! There’s literally no use copying Lan Wangji unless you want to be able to have that particular cadence and tone of voice you get reciting poetry. Childish/whiny/dramatic characters on the other hand stress some words very strongly, and rush others together - this is great for hearing what actual real speech sounds like. Whininess wins. In The Untamed, characters like Wei Wuxian (not yllz!wwx but just…regular wwx), 一问三不知 Nie Huaisang, Jin Ling, and Jingyi are all great. Also Jiggy, who is just very extra constantly and speaks much slower as well, which really helps. In SHL characters like Gu Xiang are good.

5) CHOOSE YOUR VOICE WISELY! If you are really aiming to copy them 100% (which you should try at least sometimes), you want somebody with your pitch range to sound normal. I have a sort of party trick in Chinese that because I’ve spent so much time listening to women in guzhuang dramas I can change my voice and sound like a) a scheming concubine with honeyed words, or b) the voice of the Beijing metro. My teacher found it hysterically funny. But it’s not my natural voice, and if I speak like that for too long it hurts. The women usually are too high for me, and the big burly manly men too low - so I’d recommend finding a man with a higher voice, or an older woman (like some of the female characters in Nirvana in Fire). Again, sorry that this is mostly the Untamed (I’m just most familiar with it) but the voice actors for Wei Wuxian and some of the juniors (+jiggy) has a higher voice. Likewise Chengling in Word of Honour.

On intonation in general:

- The thing is that whilst shadowing is useful it requires prior ability in a whole bunch of other skills that you can train - it relies on your ability to accurately mimic pitch, emotion and other contrasts. Training this in ANY language, including your native one, will help your ability to do this in Chinese - so I’d recommend spending a fair amount of time practicing shadowing (or speaking just after somebody whilst listening to a string of text, like monolingual simultaneous interpreting) in your native language too. Any training copying accents or mimicking other people is going to similarly help, regardless of the language.

So, with that in mind, further tips:

1) Hum / try to copy the intonation without any words. What this does is force you to pay attention to what the intonation actually is, versus what you may think it should be.

2) Don’t look at the text! Do! Not! Look! At! The! Text! If you look at the characters or pinyin you’re telling yourself ‘ok this is a third tone here’ etc, but you want to override the part of your brain that has gotten into bad habits and is supremely self-confident in how you’re pronouncing the third tone, and actually just go straight back to mimicking.

3) Don’t be afraid to do it with vocabulary that is way beyond your level. Actually, I find this can sometimes be helpful, because you don’t have a prior idea about how a particular tone pair should be useful - and you don’t know which tone you should be producing.

4) Learn vocabulary by ear - listen to a vocab podcast or even make one yourself (I often do this; I record my daily Anki and listen back to it through headphones copying throughout the day - if you’re not confident in your pronunciation you can get Google Translate to do it). Similarly, pick unknown vocabulary out of a longer segment and remember it, trying to internalise the tones instead of figuring out which tone it is.

5) Find emotional sentences, and copy them with emotion. This is SO CRUCIAL!!! We remember things when we relate to them, and when we imbue them with emotion - and it also helps in hearing exactly how an angry second tone sounds, for instance.

6) When you’re copying, look up, and imagine you are having an actual conversation. Carry yourself with conviction and poise!! Really try to whine like wwx or slime like jgy. After a couple of turns copying them, try to turn off the audio and keep delivering it in the same manner.

7) Swap individual words out. Once you have a line properly figured out, swap a word or two that has a different tone pair, and focus on delivering it with the same pattern of stress.

8) Finally, practice doing this in your native language too!! It’s a skill that we don’t use often, and it can be trained. Some people are terrible at it at first go even in their native language, but you can work on it!

About intonation in general:

1) I think a lot of pronunciation problems with people sounding unnatural or stiff ultimately come down to a fundamental misunderstanding of what intonation looks like across different languages. In English we mark it by pitch: and we are so used to the rhetoric that Chinese has ‘tone’ and not ‘intonation’ that we try and focus on blindly copying every single word textbook perfect without listening to how it actually sounds.

2) Chinese does have intonation!!! Except that, unlike English, when you stress a word, the pitch doesn’t change, but the tone contour is exaggerated - basically the only time you will ever hear a full third tone is in isolated or very exaggerated speech. If you have a Chinese friend, get them to record a sentence like the English ‘I didn’t ask her to steal his rucksack’, and put stress on the different elements of it - I didn’t ask, I didn’t ask, I didn’t ask, and so on. Notice and copy how the tones change. When shadowing, you should always be paying attention to where the stress is in the sentence: when you speak by yourself, practicing saying a sentence neutrally, and then with stress on one component, the next, and so on. If it feels unnatural, it’s because you might not have practicised like this before - it’ll get better!

Hope that’s somewhat helpful / interesting!

- 梅晨曦

[kyidyl]

Kyidyl Explains Bones - Part 3

Well, I had this halfway done and then TUMBLR ATE IT, so let me start again.  UGH.  

(These posts are collected under the KyidylBones tag. Do with that information what you will, lol.) 

So what are we getting into today? Sex determination! 

Ethical Note: I’m adding this bc not everyone who sees this post saw my post yesterday and this is important info, especially on Tumblr.  Anthropologists of all stripes are well aware that sex and gender are extremely complicated.  Trust me, we know.  But we still do sex determination for a few reasons.  First, because missing persons databases are arranged on a male/female binary, and if we’re comparing a set of remains to that database to identify the remains then we need that info.  Second, demographic info for populations that have disappeared is important, even if those populations are historical.  This might shock you (<--sarcasm), but written records are usually either lacking or inaccurate.  Third, if we know the sex of the skeleton we can compare that to the grave goods and learn some interesting cultural things, including possibly being trans, because none of the signs of being trans survive physically in the skeleton.  So I am going to be using male/female binary language, but it isn’t to exclude the wide variety of sexes and genders that don’t exist on that binary, it’s because it’s what I’ve got to work with.  And if you have questions about this, feel free to ask, but please be respectful.  

Alright, so there are some vocab words for today’s post and I had them all nicely written out in an easy to read paragraph, but it got eaten, so I’m just gonna present them in list fashion this time: 

Characteristic - All physical markers of human variation exist on a spectrum because humans are varied and we invented the categories to begin with.  If something is characteristic of, say, a male? It means that it is very, very distinctly male.  It matches the stereotypical expectation of what you’d see in a male.  It’s a standard for an obvious example of a given thing.  

Landmark - A landmark on your bones is a feature of the bones that is always in the same place.  We use this to help us identify a bone and to help us know what side it is on.  IE, your lesser trochanter is a bump on your femur (thigh bone) that is on the inside towards the back.  It’s always in that spot, so we know which direction it should face and ergo which side it would be on.  Landmarks are unique to the bone in question.  

Foramen - A hole on a bone.  The big one in your skull that your spinal cord goes through is the foramen magnum and it literally means big hole.  But there are a lot of little ones all over your skeleton so your nerves and blood vessels can do to your skeleton what the weirwood did to Bryden Rivers.  I said what I said. ;) 

Bilateral - Both sides.  Humans have bilateral symmetry and so one side is symmetrical (externally and WRT your skeleton, but not always your organs.) to the other.  You can split us down the middle and the two sides are basically the same.  

Ok, so there’s another set of terms that you need to know, but I’m going to be copying and pasting this into every post going forward so I’m making it separate.  Anyone who works with any kind of anatomy uses these terms to be very specific about the location of something on the body.  They are: 

Anterior/Posterior - Front and back respectively.  I remember them because my mom used to say posterior when she didn’t want to say butt, and because A comes before P the way front comes before back.  Sometimes people say dorsal and ventral, and I remember that because a dorsal fin is on a whale’s back.  

Proximal/Distal - Near and far vertically in relationship to the center of your body.  I remember it because one end of the bone is in close proximity to me and the other one is distant.  

Medial/Lateral - Near and far horizontally in relationship to the center of your body.  I remember it because medial is closer to the middle of my body, and lateral isn’t medial.  Also, if you are reading left to right L comes before M and you’d get to a lateral body part before a medial one.  

So, where to begin? How do we know what sex people were assigned at birth from just their skeleton? Let’s start with what everyone is most familiar with: 

The Pelvis

The pelvis of an adult human is a really common thing for an archaeologist to find.  And by the time we find it, it’s usually in three pieces (excluding your tailbone aka last vertebra).  Your left and right hip bones, called the innominates, and your sacrum.  Mind you, the pelvis is made up of a number of bones, but they all fuse in adulthood except these three (fun fact: I’m so used to using the individual names for them that I had to *google* the word innominate.), so this is what we usually find.  If it’s a kid, they still survive well because they’re thick, heavy bones, but they aren’t fused.  Another fun fact, the bumps of bone that you feel under your ass are called your ischium and I’m only telling you that because I think it’s a fun word to say.  Your hop bones, like the actual entirety of the flat bladed part at the top, that’s called the Illium.  I like that word too.  Aaanyway, here’s a human pelvis: 

(Source)

These are actual bone specimens in the top down view, both are women, but they are of different ethnic origin.  

(Source)

This is a cast (IE, plastic), front view of a male pelvis.  

You can see those 3 pieces I’m talking about.  The only joint there that remains unfused is the sacroiliac joint, IE, where the two halves of the pelvis join the sacrum.  However! You sacrum is technically a series of fused vertebrae and your spinal cord runs almost all the way to the very tip.  There are some conditions which cause these not to fuse, or to not fuse properly, or to not properly encase the spinal cord and it causes all KINDS of issues.  But anyway, yeah, your sacrum is a really tough hunk of bone because it carries a lot of weight.  The bit in the front is called the pubic symphysis and, despite what certain tumblr posts would have you believe, having children does NOT leave a notch on the inner side of it from the muscle tearing away tiny chunks of the bone.  In fact, it is hotly debated whether or not pregnancy leaves behind any skeletal evidence at all.  

Alright, so basically speaking, females make da babies and males don’t, so the different equipment is differently shaped......

.....wait, no, that’s not right.  Let’s back up.  Male and female humans are differently proportioned and their center of gravity is, on average, different.  This is the whole thing about men having upper body strength and women having thighs that can crush watermelons.  This is on *average* (I will be saying a lot about averages in these posts.) true.  And so the physics of the forces exerted on your bones is different.  Males are top-heavy, and so their pelvis is shaped in response to their gate and muscle structure because the pelvis supports and distributes the weight of your entire body.  And bipedalism means that the shape of the pelvis is very, very different depending on the weight distribution.  These changes to the pelvis are really obvious, which is why we can tell from just a few bones whether or not a hominin was bipedal.  It changes the *entire* body.  

It is true though that the pelvis of a female is different than a male, because a female pelvis has to be able to support the weight of a developing child while still allowing the individual to walk.  So the interaction of average size, a uterus, and the bipedal gate means that male and female pelvises are a different shape.  

Here is a comparison: 

(Source)

So firstly, that angle is called the sub-public angle, and because a females pelvis is wider and flatter than a male’s (when viewed from the front) it’s wider in the front.  This also gives any babies more room.  Secondly, you can see the difference in the tilt of the sacrum - in the female you can’t see the tailbone.  This, again, is due to the confluence of weight distribution and the necessity of passing a baby’s head through that space.  It would be a lot harder to push it out if you had a tailbone in the way.  Lastly, you can see that the shape of the circle when you look top down and bottom up are different - wider on the woman because of the same reasons I’ve already mentioned.  There is one more major difference between the male and female pelvis, and that’s the sciatic notch: 

(Source)

Characteristic of male on the left, intermediate in the middle, and female on the right (and dang, she was young, too.).  Thinner is male, wider is female.  Usually you can fit your thumb in a female’s notch but barely or not at all in a male.  I personally find the subpubic arch and the sciatic notch the easiest to use because, fun fact #2, those 3 sections are a bitch to hold together with your hands and that makes it hard to see the other shapes.  The amount of sacrums and pelvic bones I’ve accidentally dropped while trying to determine sex....it’s a lot, ok? It’s a lot.  I only have two hands and pelvises are big.  

There are also several less obvious ways of determining sex from a skeleton, so you guys should definitely visit the source for the above image because they go into it deeper and there are several excellent images of public bones.  

So how else do we determine sex? The next easiest way is from the skull, because the features are distinct and skulls survive well.  

The Skull

In my opinion the easiest landmark to use on a skull for sex determination is the jaw.  There are several features of the jaw that can be used here - and, mind you, when determining sex we measure every small and large sex-linked feature according to a scale and then average it all out.  We never look at any single thing (although sometimes the individual has something so characteristic that you can’t help it.  The individual in my position has a brow like a neanderthal, so it was pretty obvious.).  Anyway, there are several features here but the easiest is to look at the shape of the lateral distal posterior portion of the jaw.  It’s called the masseteric tuberosity.  Basically, it’s a little bit of bone that sticks out of the back of your jaw.  It’s one of the attachment points of the masseter aka chewing muscles attach.  Because males have stronger muscles pulling on that part of the jaw and exerting more force, it flares out further for them when you look at it from the front, like this: 

(Source)

It’s that sticky-outy thing thing that I circled in red.  Here is an example of the same thing on females: 

(Source)

Female jaws are rounder, and so that bit is less defined, flares out less, and is not as sharp as it is on males.  And this is a reminder that these measures aren’t absolutes - humans have a lot of variance in them.  The female asian and the male on the right both have somewhat atypical structures, while the female european and the two other males have a very characteristic structure.  

The two other easiest to identify are the shape of the brown line and the shape of the chin (the mental protuberance).  Here is an image of the comparison: 

(Source: Pinterest, but this images are from the Human Bone Manual text that I use and I used this image so I wouldn’t have to make my own. :P) 

You can see in the profile that the female skull has a higher, more vertical forehead with less pronounced brow ridges.  If you look, you can also see that her chin protrudes less in profile, and is softer and less pronounced in the frontal view.  The angle under her teeth is less severe.  

So these three things, the chin, the brow, and the jaw, are the easiest to identify the most likely to be characteristic of the sex of the individual.  But, if you compare the images I’ve used here you’ll also notice that there are other differences in the skull.  Females have more of a slope to the bottom of their jaw, the bump on the back of their heads (the occipital protuberance) tends to be far less pronounced; and this is the case for all muscle attachments generally speaking.  On average, males are more easily able to build muscle mass and are larger, and so their muscles pull harder on their skeletons and create larger muscle attachments.  The round, blunt thing to the right of the back of the jaw that sticks out from the skull (the mastoid process), is also at a different angle and is larger in males.  This is another case of the muscles being bigger and stronger - the mastoid process is where several of your jaw and neck muscles attach.  

There you have it, then.  The easiest ways to tell the sex of a skeleton.  :) 

This post has been approved by Gage the science doggo: 

[avellanas-nutty-empire]

Every day I hate the usa even more than the last

(This is a vent, ignore if u want)

When people were talking about the recent supreme court members death, I thought it would all be fine. I dont know literaly anything about them, and I generally dont understand my own emotions enough to grieve for someone like that.

But I went on instagram

And all the posts made me feel as though I'm being crushed by a mixture of negative emotions I rarely feel like this. Negative emotions so powerful and raw I feel I'm being literally crushed.

I feel as if I'm being literally crushed.

This is especially the worst since I dont understand my own emotions enough to heal from the pain and resolve them and move on from them properly. I'm stuck. These will forever linger, fractions of being healed, ready to crush me another time.

I made a lil angst post thing for Anna of my ABC girls oc's in which she also suffers from the inability to understand her own emotions. But in reality, that's just a fragment reflection of me. Except the details are solidified - a peace of mind I fear I will never have.

Trump is the third president to ever become impeached, and that alone says a fuck ton. He tries to build a wall, that would damage the ecosystem, solve nothing, and waist money. Then he does next to nothing about covid, using China as an escape goat while a ton of other countries handle it all much better than he does. Then the west coast fires get practically ignored. I have a suit case packed just for fucks sake because if theres one thing 2020 taught me, it's that shit can and will get worse REAL fast. I've been living with yellow smokey ash skies for the past few weeks and this morning at 4am, it rained a good rain for the first time long before the fires started. I was excited and happy for it. It even rained recently AGAIN while I was at work. It gave me hope. Hope that has swiftly been crushed.

Even if the fires get solved, the govornment will not. Trump holds his place in office like a tyrant, bragging about fighting for more terms in office than legally possible. Covid is still a thing, no matter how less officials have cranked down on social distancing. Other countries are out there PAYING people to stay inside. But everyone in the states will just complain and shut down that idea because "oh, we dont have the funds for it. The country is in enough debt already" yeah. Why are you building a wall then. Trump has SIGNIFICANTLY raised that debt since he joined office. Why are we letting a man who has his own history or bankruptcy on SEVERAL occasions be president? Our debt should be going down, not up.

The usa likes to preach to high heavens that it's the best country when in fact, its super NOT. And THATS one of the big problems. Much like a racist insisting "I'm not racist, it's just a joke" or something simular, no progress is gonna get made. People just get mad when our poor countries quality gets pointed out and refuse to see the truth. Then they look back over the constitution written over 100 years ago and recite it like the bible for worshiping practice.

We need to rewrite our constitution like MANY other countries have done SEVERAL times, and stop worrying about what a dead person MEANT when PURPOSLY being vague when writing the constitution because it was supposed to be open for change. But nothing about the United states is open for change. This country needs to get off its fucking high horse, and I need to move to canada

Except that's WAY easier said than done. I want to teach high school math, but I'm p sure you need a degree in french to teach ANYWHERE in canada (especially Quebec, but that's on the other side of the country so I think I'm good). I SUCK at learning vocab and had a hard enough time with my 2 years of spanish class. How am I supposed to get a degree in french?

The college I'm attending has study abroad programs I could participate in, and I have considered transferring to a canadian college if mine doesnt become in person soon, but god knows when that's gonna actually become possible again. I want to do in depth research on teaching requirements and scout out schools in canada and talk with my college supervisor and stuff about it all, but theres no point untill covid ends. I would say to just cross that bridge when I come to it, but the land behind me is rapidly disappearing faster than I can aproach the bridge.

Besides, isnt the canadian boarder still closed? What about my job down here? I dont have money to move to canada. And I dont have the confidence to do it because my mom hindered my progress in becoming a fully functioning adult who can leave the house without a backpack full of shit I wont actually need unless I'm roughing it in the wilderness. What college would even accept me and allow me to transfer my current credits anyways?

All I know is the United States of america is a toxic country that is bad for my health, and I am not ok.

[linguenuvolose]

The goals are back and I’m almost ridiculously excited about it! Back in 2017-2018 on my old blog I used to do goals updates every week for like 8 months straight and I remember it was helping me a lot. I’m going to use the same system as I did back then: Plan goals for 3 periods of ~2 months and then make weekly goals week for week (I’ll post an update every Monday). Since I don’t really know how my fall will look there’s a big possibility the goals will change though (and that’s okay!). 

Wanted levels at the end of the year

Italian: Remain at C1/work towards C2. Keeping up the good work. French: Feel more secure at B2, make it a more active part of my life. Dutch: Keep it at A2, strengthen my knowledge so I feel more solid. German: Be at a solid A1, working towards an A2.

Period 1: 13/7-13/9

It: Finish reading il Canzoniere It: Read 700 pages of I promessi sposi Fr: Journal 10 times Fr: Revise basic grammar Nl: Practice the It-Nl Quizlet set on abstract concepts Nl: Make sentences with (some of) the Quizlet words and get them corrected De: Be able to properly introduce myself (in text and speech)

Period 2: 14/9-15/11

It: Finish reading I promessi sposi It: Finally learn il passato remoto (omg) Fr: Read 8 news articles and pick out new vocab  Nl: Write 10 pages and get them corrected De: Get to checkpoint 4 in the Fr-De Duolingo tree De: Finish Tyska 2 on Memrise

Period 3: 16/11-31/12

It: Read La coscienza di Zeno It: Listen to Actually/The essential from Will Media 10 times Fr: Watch 20 French youtube videos Nl: Read 14 news articles and pick out new vocab + grammar Nl: Talk about 3 of the articles De: Finish the Fr-De Duolingo tree

[yakocchi]

Luke S7 His POV, learn how to write a Japanese letter wit yo boi eisuke 

ok this part isn’t that fun tbh but it had terms i wasn’t familiar with (脇付って me too luke tf). always trying to learn more uncommon vocab and expressions ye. lol i would like to be more practiced with translating but whenever i write them out i forget how to english and then i feel beeg shame

spoilers (? not really) behind the cut

bolded sections reflect the screenshots

(Oh, perhaps Eisuke could teach me how to compose one?) After all, Eisuke’s skilled at easing through difficult negotiations. That sort of thing requires both speaking and writing proficiency. (In other words, he’s quite eloquent at the Japanese language.) The other members had already left the penthouse, leaving only MC who was cleaning up. (Now, I’d like to keep it a secret from MC…) With that in mind, I subtly turn my eyes towards Eisuke. [Eisuke]: “…” The instant our eyes meet, he immediately realizes the situation without me having to say anything. [Eisuke]: “Stop dawdling around and get back to work.” [MC]: “Y-Yes! I’m done here for now. Please excuse me!” Suddenly rushed, she immediately leaves the room in a fluster. (Sorry, MC.) [Eisuke]: “Good enough?” [Luke]: “Thanks, I was in a bit of a pinch there.” [Eisuke]: “So, what is it?” [Luke]: “I have a request to ask of you.” [Eisuke]: “If you had to kick your fiancée out for it, what could that be?” [Luke]: “I’d like you to teach me how to write a letter.” [Eisuke]: “A letter?” [Luke]: “I want to properly convey my feelings to MC’s parents.” [Luke]: “For that reason, I want to know how to properly write a Japanese-style letter.” [Eisuke]: “…How earnest. It’s unlike you.” [Luke]: “Well, I’ve always been eager to learn things since those exams back in school.” Speaking with a smile, a faint smile then also graces his features. [Eisuke]: “Fine, then. But as a disclaimer, I won’t go easy on you.” [Luke]: “I’m prepared for what you have.” Though I had meant it at the time, Eisuke’s way of teaching ended up being more stoic and Spartan than I expected. [Eisuke]: “A letter consists of a preamble, the body, final words, and a postscript. [Luke]: “What on Earth…” [Eisuke]: “In the preamble, you open with a salutation like “Dear so-and-so” and follow that with a statement about the weather or season.” [Eisuke]: “Or, you can include a sentence inquiring about the health of the other party.” [Luke]: “I see.” [Eisuke]: “The body is where you go further into what you want to express.” [Eisuke]: “The final words are where you hope for the future good health of the recipient, and then conclude with your thanks, apologies, etcetera.” [Eisuke]: “Then you conclude with something like “Sincerely” or “Dear Sir”…” [Luke]: “H-Hold on a minute…” [Eisuke]: “What.” [Luke]: “This is too complicated.” [Eisuke]: “What are going to do if you’re giving up at just the basic fundamentals?” [Luke]: “OK, but still.” [Eisuke]: “Is that the extent of your love for MC?” [Luke]: “…Continue.” [Eisuke]: “Once you finish your last words, you add a postscript at the end.” [Eisuke]: “There, you write the date, the full name of the sender, the recipient’s name and address, and the recipient’s respective terms of respect. (The name and address are at the end? What is a “term of respect”???) (This seems beyond my comprehension… but…) (I can’t lose heart now…) [Eisuke]: “It’s crucial to have proper etiquette.” [Eisuke]: “But, the most important thing is to write with sincerity.” Taking note of my perplexed state, Eisuke says that for me. (With sincerity, hmm…) [Luke]: “Thanks, Eisuke. I’ll do my best.” A strength naturally surged in my hand as I gripped the pen.

[nordic-language-love]

Norwegian

Read 16x chapters Odinsbarn (2x aloud)

Watched 6x Kveldsnytt broadcasts

Watched 2x Mummidalen episodes

Watched 1x Nytt På Nytt episode

Written task: wrote 300 words about body image

Wrote 1x journal entry

Listened to 1x Norsken, Svensken og Dansken podcast

Speaking practice: talked about my neighbour and training

Duolingo: increased skills Verb Review, Exercise and Health to level 3

Norwegian

I finally managed to get out another written task this week! It didn’t take me too long, and I didn’t use a dictionary too much. One word that I keep forgetting and have to look up all the time is holdning! It means attitude. I know it when I see it, but it refuses to stay in my active vocab. I’ve written a load of sample sentences now, so hopefully that’ll help.

My book is starting to pick up the pace, so I predict I’ll be spending a lot of time reading that this coming week. Maybe I can finish it by the end of the week? That might be a little ambitious given I’m only about 30% of the way through it right now, but we’ll see. Maybe I can aim to finish it by the end of the month. I’ve been taking note of vocabulary here and there (mostly words I find interesting or expressions I like) but I’m mostly just trying to read it through.

Listening’s been up and down this week. At times it was great, I understood everything and was like “omg am I approaching C1 now??” Other times it was like “how dare I even call myself intermediate”. Well, there was a time where I wouldn’t have even dreamt of being anywhere near C1, so I guess thinking that perhaps it’s not a million miles away is progress.

Other Languages

I actually did a smidge of Finnish and Icelandic this week. Not a lot - just a handful of Duolingo lessons and listening to the radio. I think I still want to focus largely on Norwegian. Yesterday I was feeling really down because I’m seeing everyone make such good progress at the moment and I just feel like I’m not. Which isn’t true, of course, but it’s hard to see your progress when you’re intermediate. Besides, it’s not a competition and my progress isn’t meaningless just because other people are progressing faster than me. Sure, other people might get there faster, but that doesn’t mean I’ll never get there (even though it feels like it sometimes).

(Also you really can’t compare progress on social media bc like you have no idea how long that 5-line post took someone to write or if they got it corrected by a native before they posted or how much they needed to use a dictionary. That’s partially why I’m keeping this log - so that I can be honest with myself and see how much progress I’ve really made.)

If you’ve been reading my blog you’ll know I dabbled a little in Japanese too. I ended up quite enjoying the challenge of learning kana, and my 1-day indulgence turned into more of a 1-week indulgence. I probably won’t continue it for now (because I want to focus on Norwegian), but it's good to know that actually, if I really wanted to, I could learn the writing system. Who knows, I might pick it up in the future, but I couldn’t do it alongside Finnish and Icelandic as well, so I’d have to decide which ones to study.

Productivity grid:

Yeah, I switched it up a little this week. I’ll probably switch it around again once I figure out what I’m doing regarding other languages. I also really need to get back into stretching properly - I always feel so much better when I do it and yet I struggle to get started for some reason lol.

[alithographica]

Could you share some tips with how you learned a new language? I want to learn a language but can’t figure out where to start and how to make sure I speak it properly

Well, I’m certainly no expert. There are websites and subreddits dedicated to language learning with people who are far more methodical and better at self-teaching than I am, but I’ll talk a bit on what I’m up to because I did manage to achieve Spanish fluency and am so far competent in basic German.

Putting a cut in because I’m obnoxiously wordy, but the tl;dr of it is that it’s about consistent exposure. Go find an interactive resource to get the basics, then go find the side of the internet that exists in your target language. Consume.

The best way to learn is through immersion, but of course we can’t all just go drop into a foreign country for a year.

I learned one language with formal instruction. I assume that’s not going to be your situation but hang with me—It’s definitely not necessary, and I found some shortcomings in it.

I learned Spanish in school from 7th to 12th grade, which was good for foundations but tbh only foundations. I could travel with it but not much more. But the AP Spanish exam let me skip straight into higher-level courses in college, so for a few semesters I spent ~15 hours each week without a word of English. Even though I needed the foundation to make it happen, I definitely improved my Spanish more in 1 semester than in several years of my pre-university work. I ended up doing a minor for shits n gigs.

But all of that amounted to being extremely capable in academic discussions, and not so much in casual conversations. I could go talk to someone about their dissertation and still need a dictionary on a menu. 

Learning a language in a classroom gives you a lopsided functionality. 

To combat that and to maintain my fluency post-college, I make a point to keep consuming Spanish media. I read books and fanfics, follow meme pages, listen to podcasts, watch TV…those have all been a big help and are accessible to you without needing formal courses. They expose you to how people are actually using the language.

I’m doing German entirely on my own. I have Duolingo for the barebones grammar and vocab, but it falls short in actually explaining certain things so I have a textbook downloaded for specific questions (like what the hell is going on with their grammatical genders. We just don’t know! Here are a few rules, think fast or memorize, go throw a dart and see what you hit! Terrible system.)

Anyway. Duolingo set me up for a decent understanding of sentence structure, though not everyone likes the way it’s set up. Probably depends on your learning style. I often see Memrise cited as an alternative but I haven’t checked it out yet.

For proper advancement, again, I’m consuming media. I follow a few meme pages and artists and look up words I don’t know (just Google “German to English” and it’ll give you a translator immediately. I also use the Microsoft Translator app. Sometimes actual googling is necessary if it’s slang.) I listen to learning podcasts, I have a few German singers I’m into. I don’t try to understand every word when listening, just pick up what I can and get used to the cadence of the language. Love subtitles (preferably in German). When I’m bored or cooking or shopping, I make a game of how many objects in the room I can name/describe. At this point I can read a newspaper with some competency—that kind of basic communication. Zero classroom time.

(Of note, my priority is reading/listening more than speaking. If you want to speak properly, short of actually finding a buddy to practice with, you can read things aloud and verbally respond to them. Write back to other speakers online. Make a point of listening to audio.)

It has been 2 years of pretty low-effort work—literally 20 minutes a day—but it is every day. 690 day streak on Duolingo and counting. I guarantee that 20 minutes a day is doing more for me than 2 hours once a week. I could definitely accelerate faster if I bothered to really dig into it, but I’m just doing it as a side hobby. Figure out what time you’re willing to commit to the basics with as much regularity as possible, then go dip your toes into media.

Anyway hopefully there was something in there remotely helpful lmao

[the-madame21]

Laito Sleeping Vampire

Same disclaimer as always, I’m still learning so take these with a huge grain of salt. I do these translations to practice vocab and kanji. A few quick notes if I may. I left Bitch-chan as “bitch-chan” but please understand given Japanese connotations a more accurate translation is “Little Slut.” Also, the night crawling that Laito refers to is the following: “Yobai (夜這い, "Night crawling") is an ancient Japanese custom where young unmarried men would silently enter houses with young unmarried women, silently crawl into a woman's room and make his intentions known. If the woman consented, they would sleep together.” With that, enjoy! This one was way more lewd than the others lol. Leave it to Laito~

*black screen*

Aah, Bitch-chan already came. Wait just a bit.

Alright, with that we can start…

*Laito appears*

Uh! Okay. Ha--good grief.

No good, scream louder. Because it’s more exaggerated when you do.

Aaha...wait, that, don’t press so hard. Because I’ll fall from the bed, you know? ...Uhn.

Eh? What’s happening you say? Can’t you tell by looking? I slipped into your futon.

Aah, it’s something like that. ...Something like, I decided to come and do a night crawl. Nfu~

*push*

Ahaha~? What’s up with that attitude? Could it be...it’s no good?

Haaaah-- honestly….as usual I don’t understand you, Bitch-chan.

Because suddenly you told me “come over tonight” I came properly and didn’t even attack you.

I was rather kind about it, wasn’t I? Honestly…

You don’t even consider that I was worried about you…

In the first place, why was I even bothered to come…

I was planning to sleep alone with a girl like yourself…

Surely I didn’t think this lonely feeling would happen.

I thought you’d be able to sleep well, even if it were just for a bit. Even so…

Girls really are so troublesome, I never understand them. It’s troubling.

Fuu. But it can’t be helped. I understand at least this much.

From this moment, this troublesome girl seems to be delighted.

Because I will take care of your mood. ….okay~

Alright. Go ahead.

Eh, what, you say...it’s an arm pillow. Haven’t you ever done it before?

Girls like surprise skinship don’t they?

Using my arm as a pillow, what else would be good, I really don’t know, but…

Ah, well anything is fine. Come on, hurry and lay your head down here.

*touch screen*

*Laito gets closer*

...fufu...to the outside world it seems like we’ve become lovers ne...Bitch-chan?

If I continue to keep my arm like this...then next I’ll be able to pull you to me you know?

Fufu...could it be Bitch-chan is feeling nervous? It’s merely a pillow.

….because, look. There is so much strain on your neck...don’t you know it will hurt later?

Well don’t force yourself. You can leave it to me. ...ok?

….nm? ….Aaah, could it be, you can’t sleep well on your back? If that’s the case then…

...How about if I turn towards you like this?

Ohoho? What’s wrong? We could stick even more closely together.

Nfufu. Are you embarrassed? Over something like an arm pillow...that’s adorable…

I’ve done things like this and that before. Nfu~

So, it’d be best if you go ahead and stretch out. Or until when do you plan to not be able to sleep?

You really don’t have to worry about me. Because right now, I’m your pillow.

That’s it. That’s the feeling. How is it? Will you be able to sleep with this?

….hnnmm. With that tension you won’t be able to sleep well, right?

Haha weell, for now we’ll test it out. Good night, Bitch-chan.

*black screen*

…

…..

…….

Hey...Bitch-chan. Bitch-chan…

...is still awake right? Honestly!

*Laito appears*

Nfu. As expected, you’re awake aren’t you. You also couldn’t fall asleep?

Basically, you don’t really like this arm pillow. Oh? That’s not it?

But, you don’t seem to like it, so I’m trying to help.

I also thought that I don’t know what to do that would be fun.

But that’s it, no? Staying side by side like this you’d fall asleep….

Although my arm is starting to go numb...you don’t really deserve it. (“I’m too good” he’s flattering himself here)

In that case, like this…

Until my arm goes completely numb, it would be best if you stay awake.

Haa. Though I guess rather than an arm pillow it’s an “awake” pillow?.....aah, but,

Of course, I don’t plan to keep it as an “awake” pillow so be at ease, ok?

Haa...that face, it’s a face I sort of don’t understand. Well, it is what it is.

First...we should talk, right? If we’re going to be night crawling.

Eh, it’s not a joke though? It’s just like I said. Nfufu~

Well, it’s fine. But you really, weren’t you somewhere waiting for something?

So...even if you push away from me…

*struggle happens*

Fufu. There’s no use in trying to resist. Because I have this foresight.

Since I’ve been doing this arm pillow, you’ve had a puzzled expression…

It wasn’t enough. You were disappointed right?

“Eh, just this?” is what you were thinking, weren’t you?

Nfu. I can’t. You almost completely forgot about it. You really are the best Bitch-chan…

Women from all around always do the same thing. They’re never satisfied, isn’t that right?

Nfu. You don’t have to hide it. Besides for me, doing this arm pillow has been very amusing.

Also, I can’t help it because you’re also petty.

Right…? Bitch-chan…?

Well, in that case from here on out I’ll meet your expectations.

Ah, but before that of course is to get rid of what’s causing a nuisance.

Eh? Who is the nuisance…? Hasn’t that been decided?

What you’re wearing. That neglige...nfu~

So, hurry up and get undressed. ...eh? No way? Why?

Hnnmm. Fine, I got it. Could it be, you get excited like this…?

That is….you want me to forcibly take it off, that sort of thing, right?

Fufu. Ah I see. As expected of Bitch-chan...In that case, as you wish...I’ll do it!

*ruffling*

Nfufu….You seem to hate it...It seemed to me that you wanted to get a little rough/wild.

Haa...seriously. Because your intentions aren’t honest at all, it makes things quite difficult.

*rustling*

Ahaha! That’s good! That’s the sort of night crawling feeling! Come on now, struggle more!

Haa...if you keep on making that sort of disgusted face...I’ll also just get  more and more excited.

Nee…*heavy breathing* Next is something [even more intense] than this…

Just like that….continue struggling while I hold you down...ha...nn…*sucking*

*moaning, sucking*

Nn...aaa….Bitch-chan. Resist me more with all of your might….*excessive moaning*

*slurping, moaning giggling* It’s fine if you start to sweat...Because I can…*moaning, sucking* lick all of it up…*moaning, sucking*

...nfufu...That face of yours...really looks like you hate it...it’s a good feeling isn’t it? Bitch-chan…

*giggles* Haa….yes desperately resisting like that...nn *sucking*...your sweat is so...sweet….

Haa...we’re playing out a good night crawl….it seems like you’re also pretty excited, right?

Nfu. You’re not really hating this at all, are you? You’re just pretending.

Aaaa...somehow I, my throat started feeling thirsty...I feel like I want to suck your blood right now.

Nfu. If Bitch chan...makes that kind of happy looking face….

Eh? That’s not true? Once again~ (you’re lying). You want to be sucked bad~ly~.

Right now you want that desire to be fulfilled. ….but.

Today your blood sucking will have~ to~ wait~

Ahahaha!! You really made such a surprised face! Were you disappointed?

I thought I might do a little tease play.

You were thinking of me doing something like that, right? Nee, doesn’t it seem like a fun thought?

Nfufu. If you’re not anxious it’s fine.

I’m not saying I won’t ever suck your blood.

Just to the end...that’s because it’s a part of the game, right? Nfu.

Fufu...Were you a little relieved?

But, if you were worried that’d be troubling, no?~

I said we’re playing but, tonight we’re also limited in time, no?

If we have fun for a while, me teasing you would be really good.

I’ll tease you to your limits until you’re numb but...until you ask me, I won’t stop, ok?

Nfu, you’re making a face like you want something...but it’s no~ good~ It won’t be that easy.

I’m saying,  a denial play is this sort of thing, right?

Oya? Could it be those tears are because I’ve hurt you?

Could it be, since I’m not sucking your blood you’re not interested in me! Is that what you’re thinking~?

You’re horrible. Is this also a part of your teasing?

Nfu….o~kay. That really is just overly mean. It can’t be helped. If that’s the case…

Today to relieve the need to suck your blood, with my velvet  tongue I’ll...

All night, you’ll be like a candy that I lick continuously, it’ll be fine don’t you think?

*shift*

*laughing* Woops, trying to escape now is useless, you know.

I keep scolding you for your own good, since a while ago, I’ve said you had a good feeling to look forward to, no?

Then, Bitch-chan~ Thank you for the meal!

First is...to expose...this chest...nn.. *sucking*

Nnn….haa….as expected, your sweat is…*moans*  extremely delicious...nnn….

Nfufu...If Bitch-chan sighs like that…

If I hear that sort of voice...carelessly doing as you please, it makes me want to give you what you want.

From your nape...If I drink just a little, then it’d be fine, wouldn’t it...absolutely…

Ah--but I can’t I can’t! Especially now because we’re right in the middle of our denial play! You’re a little too impatient!

That’s what I thought but…*kissing, sucking* nn….

Aa, as expected...If I hear that sort of voice...I already can’t endure it!

Haa, that’s right. It’s bad but, could you put the pillow to your mouth, that way your voice won’t come out?

Absolutely not. This is the only way for me to be patient! Because I’m trying to hold back on sucking your blood!

Haa….with this I can pull myself together…

If I can savor you, the right side of your nape...here is good.

Your heart is sending out the fresh taste of your blood...your sweat gently wafting out your scent…

*shift*

Nnn….aaa…*moaning*...It’s delicious, Bitch-chan…

Eh? You already can’t bear it? Do you want me to suck your blood that much?

*shift*

Aah, already struggling like that...ahaaaaa….that’s good! That’s the best feeling isn’t it!

For you to be acting so intensely towards me.

I can’t see your expression because of the pillow but….your body keeps twisting around so that you won’t let your voice out...

For you to be enduring that desperation...it’s the best kind of excitement!

Aa...sometimes its nice, pushing each other to the limits with this sort of denial play.

More and more, until we hit the absolute brink of our desperation to where I finally drink your blood...who knows what’ll happen then!

*rustling* *screen fades to black*

Hnn…? Bitch-chan?

You suddenly became quiet...Ah, could it be you got so excited that you tired yourself out...?

…

*rustling*

...hey…? Wait a minute, what’s wrong? Bitch-chan! Bitch-chan!

A--...thank goodness. It doesn’t look like you died but…

Hello hell--o? Bitch chan, have you fallen asleep? There’s no reason for that.

Ha….As expected it’s kind of really hurtful.

*Laito appears*

Ah, good. You came back to life~!

Bitch-chan suddenly fainted. You surprised me.

But basically, it was just a minor lack of oxygen.  Seriously, if holding your breath with the pillow becomes too difficult, then just say it properly.

Eh? You’ve been telling me to stop all this time? Aah...I definitely heard it, but…

What the heck. Obviously I thought you telling me to stop was a part of the denial play. Nfu.

...pfft...ahahahaha!!! Hahahahaha!! Ah sorry sorry!

Because you’re so delicious...that sort of attempt to stop doesn’t really work. Nfu~

Ha….when I remember it, I want to do it again. This time...let’s have some blood.

*rustling*

Aaha! It’s just a joke! Don’t get up!

Yes yes. We’ll just sleep like this then. Got it?

Because if you collapse again, I’d be troubled, you know? Since you only fainted just a bit ago.

Hn….What’s with that unhappy looking face.

Is it because I got too carried away that you’re angry?

Aaah, I’m always trying to please you but…

Somehow you’re still angry so...it’s pretty troubling.

Truly, women are such troublesome creatures.

Ha...the one I’m referring to….of course it’s you, no?

But, it’s been amusing.

Haa, well, your consciousness is back so, it’d be better for your health to get so sleep, since it’s already this late.

...ah...but before that…

*creaking*

...alright, come. Can we make up?

Be-cause! I said I wanted to make up! Won’t you let me hug you?

Haa...Don’t worry, I’m not going to suck your blood from this point on.

*rustling*

Haa….do you really not trust me at all? Eh? What goes around comes around?...you’re horrible~

Anyway! Come over here!

*touch*

*happy sigh*...this is good.

Nee...Bitch-chan. About earlier, I’m sorry, k?

I wasn’t really planning to make you suffer or anything like that.

I just wanted to have as much skinship as possible.

Nee, do you get what I’m saying?

...If you say you’re not angry anymore, won’t you lift up your face so I can see you?

*touch*

Nfu. Thank goodness.

With that apology…

From here on I’ll give you something pleasurable…*soft kissing/moaning noises*

*soft kiss*....fufu. You like those sorts of things don’t you?  Because I know a bit about you.

Well then...one more time…*kisses* *soft moaning*

….hey. You’re not telling me to stop….then if we do more of these sort of things...it’s fine, right?

Nfufu. Then in that case, I won’t hold back….*more kissing*

….eh? It’s difficult? That’s awful. If you faint again I’ll be troubled.

That’s why...here, open your mouth….haa…*moaning*...nnn….*slurping*....

*moaning sigh* So then, should we make it even more difficult…? Nfufu~

Haa...tell me if you don’t like it. Because then I’ll stop...nnn…*kissing, sucking*

Fufu...not saying anything? As expected you really do love kissing….

Ha...nee, is it ok if I kiss in some other places….?

*rustling*

*sighing*...for example...here…? *sucking* *moaning*

And after, here too….*sucking, kissing*

*rustling*

*kiss* Hnn?...Ohoho? What’s happened? Your face is incredibly red you know?

Ah, could it be...you got all excited again…? Nfu~

Nee, Bitch-chan.

I’m more or less aware that my love has lots of things about it that are confusing…

The girls around me have never really understood, but I don’t really care.

That said...I wonder why...when it’s you…

It’s a little new to me is what I think but...I do wonder?

Fufu...well, if you say so.

Ha...somehow I’m also starting to get sleepy.

Because staying up with you like this...it’s really warm…*yawn*....

Well, we should get to sleep already. But...since we’re like this, do you wanna make out a little?

If you want to then I’m open to it. Better yet, why don’t we just skip school tomorrow?

*giggle*...fine fine. I got it. We’ll sleep. Good grief, you’re a serious one.

Well, whatever. We have all of tomorrow.

What sort of things we’ll do tomorrow, I wonder…

Ah, that’s right. Instead of sleeping, you could come nightcrawling to me. How does that sound?

*rustling*

Ha *nervous laugh*...it’s a joke! If you struggle like that it’ll hurt!

*rustling, Laito moves further away*

...haa. Make sure to stay just like this Until I wake you up…

Because at this distance I can see what you’ll do while you sleep.

That’s why it’s useless to try and create a small gap to separate ourselves...nfu.

*sigh* Goodnight, Bitch-chan. Until tomorrow. Nn…*chu*

[koreanstudentiseul]

Beginner or Intermediate...

Okay, so the eventual has come. My tutor has given me the date for the end of course test. I mean I always knew it was coming she told me the set up back in my trial lesson when she didn’t know if I’d even take lessons from her yet. However, I wasn’t expecting it so soon.

I don’t feel like I’m ready to take the test, I know it’s a 4 part reading, writing, listening, speaking test. At the moment I feel I can almost do one of those never mind all of them in one go. I want to do well and I’ve been trying to improve my weak areas but my lessons started mid-late November last year that’s not even a full year I haven’t even gotten all the vocab down let alone have any clue about the grammar. I literally had to make myself a cheat sheet chart for grammar cause I literally remember maybe 5 of the 35 in the textbook, and that’s even worse when you consider the overall number for the year currently stands at 74. 

I have been doing my flashcards daily trying in vain to get the vocab down to the point I’ve learned that Anki can mark cards as leeches, like how many times do you have to forget a word for that to trigger it’s been months of failing at vocab why’s it only starting to do that now? Also no I don’t want you to decide the cards not worth studying that’s not how classes work I can’t choose to ignore problem vocab much as I’d like to. I still have issues with uni course names, actually at this point general uni words like major/minor, credit etc. Though again that may be down to in my school experience none of those words apply.

As much as I’d love to try the intermediate course, I know it naturally will be harder than what I’m already doing which I don’t deem easy anyway. I guess I’m just hopeful that because I’ve tried so hard this year especially with being ill and not having the best retention, or concentration, and generally just being drained I might still do okay. Though factoring that in, I feel like I’ve managed a fair amount regardless of pass or fail.

With a current pool of over 2000 vocab, I don’t have many problematic words and I’ve gotten over the issues with most of them. The grammar’s still difficult but I suppose one side always will be harder than the other. I know with time it probably will improve, with slowly being able to read more (harder) texts, having something that resembles listening skills will also help loads since I’ll be able to listen to songs, and radio shows, and podcasts and even watch tv and be able to hear the grammar in use. I understand why my tutor wants me to avoid Korean tv for the moment but it’s also kind of a bummer cause I see people being all excited about shows and I want to try and stay spoiler free but also do as I’m asked... please lift the ban soon ;u;

Basically I’m panicking over this test and slowly realising how little high school actually did to show you how to study properly. High school studying was a wing and a prayer and cramming in vain and retaining literally nothing after the fact. I didn’t really notice till now since at the time it’s all we knew, and was what everyone was doing and what the teacher’s basically told us to do and that was just the norm and was fine. But now when I actually need/want to study and retain long term it’s like walking through thick fog and I’m wandering aimless and hopeful but I could easily fall flat on my face or into a well or something.

My expectations of how this will go, is I will probably fail and it’ll be down to lack of grammar. Though I don’t really know what I’m going into more than simply you’ll be tested on all sides. I don’t even know what the pass rate is or if it’s 100%/fail. I’m not sure which I’d prefer to be honest, I don’t know if I’m ready for intermediate, I can’t tell where I sit anymore which is part of my stress like I could be fine and ace it or I could be as prepared as a 7 year old taking a standard grade (I know they’re nat 5′s now, but I’m old they’re the exams I know I don’t understand the new exams, but if you took them please feel free to let me know I’d love to see if they made life easier for people with the new set up).

I think I’ll make myself a supportive cup of tea and just have it with me should I need it in the hope it will mean I won’t run away and or start crying, I suppose I’ll find out on the day but I generally do better on practical exams so I’m easily most worried about the written section, even more so if the questions are written in Korean. I’m just going to be walking stress until this is over It think, but thank you for reading and happy learning~  ♡

[meichenxi]

Calling all langblrs for advice!!

I want to get started with learning German again, but am not quite sure how to begin. I had a fairly advanced level as I was planning on studying in German, in Germany, but the last time I spoke it frequently was about five years ago. My passive understanding is still good, but my active production has gone way downhill - not for gossip or grammar or general easy communication, but for having the vocabulary of more than a five year old. The problem is that if I go for just a general conversation hour I’m quite happy to talk about nothing and sort of fudge it for an hour - similarly if I’m talking about literature or anything, I can get my points across, but with much more limited vocabulary than I can understand. 

Jumping back straight in to reading and just learning vocab is of course the easiest thing to do, but my passive vocabulary is quite large and that won’t help my active vocabulary at all. I think I might start doing concentrated writing exercises to try and bring the vocabulary back, since if I speak I just babble. 

Last time I stopped learning because I felt frustrated with the endless new vocabulary, but where it really makes little difference in the long term. I suppose that’s the thing when you get to a higher level - your gains tail off, and it really does become mainly ‘learning words’. 

I also struggled because, unlike Chinese, I just couldn’t find media that I was interested in. With all languages I am more drawn to older, more formal language, and so spent a lot of time reading mythology-adjacent texts - the Ring cycle, translations of the Iliad etc (which work better actually in German translation than English for reasons of metre, case and word order), as well as fantasy like Tolkien in translation. I know there’s a good amount of German fantasy out there, so I should be ok in terms of reading material - I’m really not a Goethe person lmao. 

Re podcasts, again, because my level is better than Chinese I have every choice of things to listen to. For a while I was listening to a DnD podcast and the audiobook of American Gods, which was great. 

What I really need though is to find some sort of fandom in German...where I can interact with others and read posts and metas and discuss things...German side of the internet, what do you recommend?? I enjoy fantasy and speculative fiction mostly, the queerer the better, and love anything mythology related. I enjoy reading German for the sheer pleasure of German, but that can only keep you engaged for so long when each sentence has eleven commas and spans pages and pages...

Other advanced German learners, what do you do? 

One last issue is that I learnt German basically exclusively through books and in an age of zero learning ‘technology’ - no flashcards, no language learning with Netflix, and so on. I just...read things until I understood them. So whilst Anki and everything is a calculated, deliberate part of my Chinese language routine, it feels VERY weird to do that with German. 

Finally: how do you all stay positive, and not lament where you were six years ago? What is everyone’s advice on reactivating a language that you haven’t spoken for a while? I have spent so much love and time on German, and want it to be properly functional - otherwise it’s a waste - and am ready, I think, to jump back in again. 

[grape-studies]

My Current Study Regime! ❤️

If I can help and inspire at least one person, that would make it all worth it.

I've only recently been getting back to studying Korean properly, since starting college was pretty overwhelming and took some adjusting to. Now that I feel more able to balance school goals and personal goals, I can allot time to study Korean and here's how I do it:

시작해요~!

As I mentioned in a previous post, I utilize multiple resources to help me study:

TTMIK (Talk To Me In Korean), Lingodeer, Memrise, How To Study Korean (howtostudykorean.com), and Youtube. 

When I’m ready to have a study sesh, I always clear off my desk, grab the items I need (notebook, pen, highlighter) and make sure I have a drink with me and sometimes a snack. lol. I’m a very messy studier so I don’t have many specific rituals or anything to get into a study mode, but I do like to listen to kpop piano music or asmr tbh. I need background noise to ground myself because I struggle with an overactive mind. On my more serious study days I do a lesson on ttmik or a lesson on howtostudykorean. Both resources have lot’s of info covered in each lesson so it’s a bit more time consuming then a quick lesson on Memrise or Lingodeer.

I use a dotted journal for my Korean lessons. Each lesson I title with which resource, lvl, lesson #, and objectives. That way when I’m reviewing it’s easier to know what I’m looking at. I highlight A LOT. I highlight the lesson# so I can find it on the page quickly. I highlight vocab and grammar points, and I color code translations, so I can see right away which English translation matches the Korean vocab. I do the lessons in numerical order and I write down all grammar, vocab, and tips for each lesson, plus any info that came to me during the lesson that helped me understand it better. Sometimes when I’m struggling with a grammar point I will look to other resources to see other explanations and examples. i.e. If I don’t understand a point made in a ttmik lesson, I’ll search it on youtube and/or howtostudykorean. I’ll then add those examples and helpful tips to that lesson for when reviewing. 

I tend to review very rarely, which is bad. REVIEWING is super important and I hope to find an efficient way to do it more often. I have no tips at the moment. ;-;

On days where I have less time I do lessons on Memrise and Lingodeer. These apps give game-like lessons on vocab and phrases. So I can learn some new conversational words and sentences when studying this way. With Memrise and Lingodeer I CAN REVIEW lessons easily because it’s literally part of the curriculum and it’s just a click of my finger to review all I’ve learned previously. This concept actually gave me the idea to put all vocab and phrases etc in quizlet packs, however that’s a pretty daunting task so I’ve been avoiding it lol.

As you can see, my study regime is nothing special, it’s not very exciting but it gets the job done. College has been so busy and time consuming, plus working on top of it all it sometimes feels impossible to find time to study. Realistically, I can find time I just need to be a bit more disciplined and come up with a better study regime. I’ve been looking into new ways to add studying and learn better time management. The reason I joined the studyblr/langblr community was to find inspiration, advice & tips, and learn ways to improve my work ethics. I say this all the time but I’m not perfect, I’m just trying to make a happy and fulfilling life for myself, and with coming from a very low place, I hope I can help others who feel or felt like I did before applying myself to my goals. With time I will improve and since joining this community I have accomplished so much! My Korean has improved a lot, even though I still know hardly anything, I’ve made progress and that’s all that truly matters.

My best advice to you all is find what works for you. TRY different ways of studying, explore new apps, websites, youtube channels, books, etc. You never know what ideas will click with you until you try them out. Give time to doing what you love and to what’s important to you. Learn to organize your priorities(something I still don’t know how to do ^^;) and NEVER GIVE UP. If learning something whether it’s a new language or a new hobby makes you happy and helps you live the life you want to live, make time for it! Just like the rest of ya, I’m trying to make the best of my life and achieve my dreams and goals. THANK YOU SO MUCH to all the people who have followed and keep supporting me through this journey. 

I wish us all the best! I will continue to update and share with you my experiences and accomplishments (maybe not very often since I’m still bad at my time management for posting among all other things in my life clearly lol) and I truly hope that someone will find my experiences and advice helpful like I have all of yours!

Let me know if there’s anything specific you want, or any questions you have, I will do my best to help out if I can! 

Happy studying and HAPPY SPRING!!!! xoxoxo

화이팅~

[bieups]

60th TOPIK!

I took TOPIK II last weekend, and what an experience.

Because I was late signing up (@9:20 on the second day, after the website crashed on the first day), I ended up having to go to Daejeon~

The only things you need to bring are a photo id (passport, ARC) and your test registration paper, which you’re able to print out starting like a week before the test day.

My boyfriend and I went down to Daejeon on Saturday afternoon, but I forgot to print my paper beforehand and all the printing places nearby were going to be closed on Sunday...so I ended up printing it out at the love motel we stayed at hahaha (it’s called Inca Hotel, if you’re looking for a place near the KTX station)

On Sunday, TOPIK II people had to come to the test site by 12:20pm. The exact location is listed on your registration paper, so make sure to double check a map before just heading to whatever location. The building we needed to go to was like a 10min walk uphill from the main university gate. It was easy to find, though, because we just followed the groups of foreigners! Everyone had to wait outside the building until just before 12:20pm, and you had to have your id & paper out to be allowed in.

Classroom~

Based on your registration number, you’re assigned a test room. Your registration paper has your number & says what room number, but there was also a giant poster on the front doors that listed which numbers were in each room. Inside the classroom, there was a seating chart that showed us where to sit, and each desk had a little post-it sized paper listing seat number, test number, name, and is you had the even or odd test. (My seat was great and it greatly improved my test experience haha I was in the column farthest from the door, but there was another column of seats between mine and the windows, so we all had two desks and could put our stuff in the other chair instead of on the ground. Also the person in front of and to the right of me didn’t show up.)

Everyone found their seats, went to the bathroom, ate some snacks, and waited for the test proctors to arrive. Once they arrived, they gave some basic instructions. You have to turn off your phone and put it in this binder for the whole test. You cannot use your phone during the break time! Bring a book or something if you don’t want to just sit and stare at the wall for 20min.

They collected all the phones, we put everything away, then they passed out the answer sheets for 듣기 & 쓰기 and the special TOPIK pens. Yes, there is a specific pen for the test. It’s basically a regular computer test marking pen (if you’ve ever done a scantron in Korea) but it has two sides. One is thicker, for marking the multiple choice bubbles. The other end is thin, for writing. The proctor guy went over proper pen usage for a couple minutes. The thin end (it's gray!) is for writing. The thick end is for bubbles. Okay, we get it.

Then we were told what to fill out on the answer sheets. Korean name (whatever you put down when you registered), English name, test number, and if you have the 홀수 or 짝수 test (it alternates by desk to make cheating harder). They really emphasize not writing/bubbling anything you aren’t told to do because there are some things on the paper that you are supposed to leave blank.

During some of this time, the can you hear this? make sure the sound is good. recording came on. It’s nice because it gives you time to get used to what the listening test is going to sound like volume-wise. It was just through the classroom speakers and was good quality. The proctors also repeated that you should mark your answers during the test because there is no time at the end to do that! Once the listening test is finished, you immediately start the writing section. So it’s important that you are marking your answers on the answer sheet as you go.

Everyone was handed their test booklet and told to make sure you had all the pages (like just look at the page numbers and make sure it goes 1-15 or whatever). A couple people got yelled at for pausing way too long on pages, because obviously they were reading questions and that is not allowed because the test hasn’t started yet. One girl also was very obviously trying to read questions through the back of the test booklet....like come on, you’re either prepared for the test or not. Don’t destroy your chances by cheating before it even starts.

Listening~

There’s a signal that the test is officially starting, and the proctors will say to start, and then it’s listening time~! When I did a listening practice test, I used this recording. The real test was slower (for the easier questions, at least) than I expected! The easy questions are said once, the harder ones are said twice. Try to read ahead during the repeat/break between questions, if you can. It’s easier to answer the questions if you already read the answers and know what to listen for.

Writing~

As soon as listening is done, you can switch to your writing answer sheet and start. The proctors come around and take your listening answer sheet, which is actually really annoying because they will take up your precious time checking that you filled it out correctly and stamping it.

The writing section has 2 questions where you read a little paragraph and complete/write two sentences, one short essay where you look at a chart/graph, and one long essay where you write about whatever topic they give you.

I was really worried about writing because I haven’t done advanced writing since I graduated language school last year...but the fill-in-the-blank questions were easier than my practice tests and even though I made some dumb mistakes with my graph explanation (don’t know about using #배...I learned a very specific script and was thrown off haha) and my long essay was too short, at least I answered everything and some points are better than no points! (Our long essay topic was about the good & bad points of 조기 교육, and our personal opinion.)

When writing ends, you have to put your pen down and take your hands off the desk. If you keep writing, that’s considered cheating and you’ll get a zero. The proctors will come around and take the test booklets and answer sheets, then there is break time.

At whatever time they said, everyone is back in the classroom and it’s preparation round 2. They pass out reading answer sheets, we filled them out properly. The proctors once again emphasized to only fill out the parts they told us to. We got test booklets, checked the pages, and waited to start.

Reading~

Reading has a bunch of different types of questions, so it’s definitely a good idea to do some practice tests to get used to the timing and format. I am especially bad at the news headline questions, so I don’t give myself much time for those, just kinda guess and move on. Near the end I started skimming more, partly because it’s so boring (seriously, the topics are all over the place and there are a whole bunch of words I don’t know) and I wanted to make sure I attempted every question. The proctor said there was 10min left, I finished answering everything, then used my remaining time to really double check the last few questions.

When reading is over, they collect the tests, give everyone back their phones, and you’re dismissed!

Results come out next month and I’m hoping I at least got a 4...it’d be nice to get a 5, but my writing wasn’t that good and I did a lot of educated guessing during the reading section. I’ll have to take it again either next year or the year after (will be needing those visa points!), so I have time to study vocab and writing and bring up my score a lot~

It was a good experience taking it, and now I’m way less nervous about the process! And I’d be happy to answer any questions about it :)

[muggle-writes]

Rules: Answer 21 questions and then tag 21 people who you want to get to know better.

tagged by @elizabethsyson

Nickname: Muggle is my nickname, but when I went by Muggle in person for more than a month at a time, it naturally got abbreviated, usually to Mugz

Zodiac: Aquarius

Last movie I saw: into the spiderverse (same answer as last time. I don't watch that many movies tbh except around Christmas. unless YouTube counts in which case... music of some sort? idk links for the next answer)

Favorite musician: changes by the day. I've kinda been in an acapella and/or folk music mood recently so the Maccabeats and Peter Hollens are in my YouTube and Spotify history a lot recently. also I'm eternally in awe of Forte Handbell Quartet (eta a longer video; i recommend skipping to the techno piece or the Jurassic Park theme)

Last thing I googled: "vine why are you buying clothes at the soup store" (my wife hasn't seen it; also i can't find the vine because apparently it's a much bigger meme than I realized). before that it was "chgrp not root" because work and group permissions are useful when they work

Song stuck in my head: well for most of the day when I haven't been actively listening to something, it's been the Pokemon RSE route-walking music. (but that somehow happens frequently when I'm in the no-music-no-internet room at work, as I was for most of the day, and I don't know how I accidentally trained my brain to make that connection). right now, surprisingly, I don't have any background music playing in my head. I think it's because the humidifier provides just enough white noise that my brain doesn't feel the need to provide its own

Other blogs: my main is @muggle-the-hat and I'm a mod on @why-do-neurotypicals but we've gotten one ask ever so that blog has been dormant for a while. I have a bunch of other sideblogs, but they're all small and I use different screen names on each of them (enby life: no idea which name suits me best so I may as well try them out) so i feel like it would just confuse things to link them.

Following: blogs matching all the themes of my sideblogs, (including this one, which is writeblr), korean langblr, jumblr, assorted fandom blogs, authors of my more favorite fanfictions (some overlap with other categories), and irl friends and acquaintances (including one fandom blog turned irl friend)

Do I get asks: on my main if at all, which isn't really surprising because i have hundreds of followers there and maybe 60 followers combined among the rest. but I get asks far less often than I reblog ask memes so... I'm always happy to get more. I do get tagged in ask games more on this one, but writeblr is actually vaguely organized about tag lists so that makes sense. also I used to get tagged a bunch on my main and I rarely could find the posts again to follow up when I had time to answer.

What I’m Wearing: pajamas. staying warm and cozy

Lucky number: I don't remember what I said last time, but I like a lot of numbers. 64 is a good number. recently I've been debugging software in which 0x3E is my lucky status number and 0x0E taunts me. (um, decimal 62 and 14). Also my other favorite number i can't share until it's no longer the combination to the lock to the Secret Room. (or realistically never because opsec and i shouldn't make public the types of parents we use for that combination lock), honestly I aim to be like.... ah, I'm sure the anecdote involves G.H. Hardy but i don't remember on which side. anyway one mathematician remarked to another about how the id number of the taxi he rode in was sadly uninteresting, and the one I aspire to be like, argued "what are you talking about, this number is interesting because ______" and I'd like to be able to do that for any arbitrary number thrown at me. (hi yes math is good, history is hard, math history is interesting yet i still forget the people even if i remember the math. except when things are named after people, but that tends to be, like, Euler and LaGrange and other people who did lots of cool science things so i remember the methods and the names of the methods separately which never helps)

Amount of sleep: ....depression both screws with my sleep schedule and means I always feel like I need more sleep except when I wake up at 5pm and feel like I've wasted the day. so yeah. I can never get enough sleep

Favorite food: yes (why do I have to pick a favorite?) uh, chocolate in most forms, many other sweet things, red meats (especially if served with potatoes), curry (especially if it has "too much" ginger), fresh-baked bread, chai the way my favorite local Indian restaurant makes it (spicier with just a little bit of sweet, which is the opposite of what i can get from the mocha machine at work which is wayyy sweet with a hint of spice but that inferior chai is still superior to coffee so i drink too much of it). also vegetables which I really don't eat enough of: sauteed zucchini and onions, roasted broccoli

Dream trip: dreaming requires creativity and tbh I funnel that mostly into my writing instead. I wouldn't mind going back to Korea for another visit though

Dream job: my current job is pretty good when I feel productive and when my debugging tools actually produce data maybe??? (they were not being helpful today. but i still mostly like my job.) dream job is probably this but with seniority and confidence and double the salary (while living in a similar area of the country; I wouldn't want to double my salary by moving to work for Google in California and having less available after rent than I do now)

Describe yourself as aesthetic things:

the smell of old books

the first glow of sunrise (the sunrise painting the mountains pink and gold)

a rainbow in the spray from a waterfall

the flicker of distant lightning (watching a thunderstorm fade into the distance)

this picture

Random fact: about me or about the world?

how about a combination answer: when we got our new handbell music this season, we only looked at half the pieces our first rehearsal and afterwards I tried to look up one of the pieces we hadn't gotten to on YouTube because it's got a weird time signature and I wanted to get a feel for how fast it would go and how strict the counting is...... except it turns out we're the first group to ever play the piece. it was commissioned recently but seeing my conductor's name on the page didn't tell me how new it was because he's super prolific. (the fact that it was on printer paper without the publisher's graphics should have been a giveaway but it's only the second time I've been among the first to play one of his pieces so I think I can be excused for not realizing)

Languages: mostly just English, but I took Spanish for years, so I can hold simple conversations in it. I can almost read sound out Hebrew fast enough to keep up in services, and I know some random Hebrew vocab but comparatively no grammar. and I took Korean in college, enough that I can recognize sentence structure but I can really only speak tourist-Korean, though I can sound anything out (if it's typed. handwriting is hit or miss.) in both Hebrew and Korean (and Spanish tbh but i don't often listen to Spanish music) I'm very proud when I can separate the words enough, listening to a song, to translate them without looking up the lyrics. also I tried to learn Japanese from Duolingo when it was new, but I still hadn't gotten the kana straight when it started progressing to kanji so that was a rough time and I went back to Hebrew.

tbh I "dabble" in "language learning" which really means I start a million courses on Duo and stick with none of them. with the notable exception of French, which I acknowledge is super common and probably a good idea to learn but the spelling and pronunciation seem so arbitrary I'm scared to look close enough to learn it properly, and I've never particularly considered starting the Duolingo course for French

I think I lost a few questions, because that's only 18 answers. whoops.

um... who to tag

@abluescarfonwaston if school hasn't drowned you in work yet and @copperscales I'm interested in both of your choices for lucky numbers especially.

... wow I'm blanking on other mutuals I haven't tagged recently. as usual lmk if you'd like to be edited in, or just answer the questions and tag me back, that's great too.

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

hey! sorry to bother you but i'm welsh but I paid practically no attention to welsh lessons in school but now I have a B in welsh gcse I ironically now want to learn my own language. do you have any tips on learning how to speak it properly?? also thank you for your blog it is a damn delight

Hello! No bother at all! Welcome! And also THANK YOU SO MUCH, this blog is a mess of my ramblings but I am thrilled someone else likes it.

That’s pretty much the path my sister has taken, actually. In school she had zero interest in Welsh, in the same way she had zero interest in most subjects. And then she got to her thirties, living in London, and suddenly thought “Fuck I wish I’d learned that.” Though to be fair, I think what she struggled with was the way it’s taught - she’s actually someone who needs lists of verb tables and vocab to memorise, and then just practise at putting it into sentences, while the way we were taught was a lot of random topics and sentences that I’ve basically never used since (”Beth yw dy bwys di?” - HOW MUCH DO YOU WEIGH. I HAVE NEVER USED THIS IN EITHER LANGUAGE.)

As for tips… hmm.

I suppose it depends on things like how much you remember and how your language learning works. Not everyone is like my sister and wanting verb tables (she’s a bit of a freak if I’m honest.) So, let’s think…

If You Have Forgotten Everything

The first step has to be some form of refresher course, whatever form that may take. I don’t know where you are in the country, but almost every even-slightly-major town in Wales these days has a branch of the Menter Iaith, which is an organisation dedicated to getting people learning Welsh. They offer courses; they can also link you to others who do. You can do nice gentle ones where you go for an hour a week for thirty weeks; you can also do intensive courses over the summer, where you go every day for a few weeks. 

An EXCELLENT ALTERNATIVE for that is Say Something In Welsh. They do six-month courses or 5-10 day intensive courses, and at the time of me writing this their six-month course has been reduced from £200 to £50 - plus, if you aren’t a confident Welsh speaker at the end they refund you. And, you don’t need to go anywhere for it, as long as you have a working webcam and microphone - you do group video calls with your tutor and classmates once a week, I think, and then work at home the rest of the time.

Alternatives include things like the DuoLinguo Welsh app, or the Teach Yourself Welsh range. Given that you’ve studied it to GCSE level, even if it feels like you’ve learned nothing, you’ll have actually gained a surprising amount that will help you if you do choose to try to carry on with a book. Pronunciation will be much easier for you, for example.

Once you’ve done that and you have a good grounding in your head again, progress to:

If You Remember Some But Want To Turn It Into Fluency

Alright, so!

Both DuoLinguo and Say Something In Welsh offer good free/cheap Welsh lessons. SSIW’s consist of you choosing whether you want to learn northern or southern dialect, and then there are 25 free audio lessons and 5 free listening exercises. These are both good for getting back into the swing of learning it, and have the added advantage of you being able to hear how you should be saying it.

Immersing yourself is important, as soon as you can. Back to the Menter Iaith! They don’t just do courses - they also do a shit-ton of activities that are specifically aimed at making fluent speakers and learners mix together and try to speak Welsh. Choirs, hiking parties, gigs… Oh, and they always have coffee mornings, also known as a Siop Siarad. You literally just go along and chat to people as best you can. As I say, they’re designed for learners to practise, so no one thinks you’re a moron if you get halfway through saying what your father does for a living and realise you have no idea how to say “occupational therapist”.

And on that note, some general tips:

Do not be afraid to lapse into English for vocab you don’t know, or if the grammar of a sentence is tricky. Just make sure you return to Welsh after you have.

Do not be afraid to ask someone to repeat themselves. If you still don’t get it, do not be afraid to say “I’m sorry, I’m just not getting this. Can you say it in English?” Make them then parse through the sentence with you, if possible, so that you see why you weren’t getting it.

THIS HAPPENS TO EVERYONE, DON’T WORRY. Learners will understand. Fluent speakers will just be grateful you’re trying.

Don’t stress about mutations. They’ll come in time. Learn them so you’ll recognise them, but really don’t worry too much about using them yourself until you’re ready (it’ll happen naturally, too.)

If you wish to make the past tense much easier for yourself, don’t worry about short forms; just learn the past tense for “gwneud.” If you want to say the sentence “I walked to town”, it is just as acceptable to say “Nes i gerdded i’r dre” as it is to say “Cerddais i’r dre”. This means no fumbling about to work out how to put an “ais/aist/odd” ending onto any given verb; instead, you shove “Nes i/nest ti/wnaeth e” in front, and you’re done.

Mix and match whatever dialects you damn well like. This is about you, and what you’ll remember and be comfortable with in the moment. No one gives a shit if it makes you sound like a learner, and nor should you.

A strange phenomenon of the human brain is that, if you meet someone in one language, that’s the language your brain will make you speak to them in forever more. So, when you are trying to make new Welsh speaking friends in the choir or coffee morning or whatever, DO WHATEVER YOU CAN TO SPEAK IN WELSH TO THEM. Otherwise, you will make friends in English, and you will never speak Welsh to them. Trust me. I’ve been there.

But ultimately… have fun with it! You may enjoy learning other stuff about Welsh-language culture at the same time, actually - there’s a lot of fun shit like the Mari Lwyd and that, of course, but also different musical forms (Cerdd Dant springs to mind), different poetic forms (cynghanedd) and, of course, a whole different mythology. There’s a lot of good stuff that you never know about if you grow up Anglo-Welsh, because you aren’t taught it. It’s also worth a look.

Good luck! Feel free to ask me anything else.

[jungkookienoona]

The Meme and His Tutor

Part 35: The Tutor’s First Day On The Job

Co-written with @jiminieblush

Recommended Song: Kiss My Lips by BoA

|All Chapters|Masterlist|

Summary:

It was your first day of teaching at BigHit. From swearing in front of your students to getting distracted by Jungkook, it was safe to say you had an eventful day.

Genre: Fluff, comedy

Pairing: Jungkook X Reader (Y/N)

Warnings: Swearing

Word Count: 4657

Length: 35/?

A/N: Since both systems are going to be present in more than one scene, we’re going to use two asterisks (**) to symbolise when it’s changed from one system to another. This chapter starts with the new system.

It felt strange arriving at the BigHit building by yourself. Despite the warm smiles of recognition from a few members of staff who passed through the reception, you couldn't help but feel like you were intruding. But you weren't. You worked here now. Time to start getting used to it.

The grinning lady behind the reception desk wasted no time in giving you your official staff ID badge and directions to the classroom you would be holding your first tutoring session in today. Well, it was more like an office than a classroom you realised upon opening the door. There was a solid looking desk with glass top in the centre of the room. An official looking black padded chair sat one side with two leather chairs on the other. It looked you would be teaching two at a time rather than all at once. Your office was located on the upper business floor of the building rather than on one of the lower creative floors where the studios and dance halls resided. Which was probably for the best; the separation would prevent you and Jungkook from distracting each other.

Being you were a few minutes early, the room was empty and you rounded the desk to begin setting up for when the trainees arrived. Taking a seat, you grabbed a folder from your bag which contained a collection of worksheets you'd spent the night before making and printing off. They were essentially revised versions of the sheets you had made for Jungkook. You even included a vocabulary list with the English and Korean to help them to memorize the meanings. You got two of everything out, and placed the first sheet of basic vocabulary in front of the two chairs opposite, and set the rest aside. There wasn’t a computer on the desk, but if need be you always had your laptop that you could bring along.

With two minutes until you were due to start, there was a light knock on the door.

"Come in."

The door opened to two black mops of hair. Since they were trainees, their hair hadn't been coloured yet.

"Good morning seonsaeng-nim." Both boys greeted you in unison with a bow before pulling at the woolly scarves around their necks.

You flashed them what you hoped was a welcoming smile and gestured to the seats in front of you. "I don't think I've met you two yet. You're not part of the main group are you?"

They shook their heads no.

The taller of the two who, bizarrely, you thought you recognised, stepped forward to answer. "Bang PD-nim wants us to debut as a unit of three once we've found a third member."

"And how's that going?"

The two boys stole a glance at each other then faced you with a grimace.

"It's a...slow process."

You gave them a gentle smile. "Hopefully your patience will be worth it. He's probably working hard to find a voice that compliments the both of yours... Do you mind introducing yourselves?"

The oddly familiar one shifted awkwardly, scratching the back of his neck in a way that reminded you of Jungkook. "You've already met my younger brother, the maknae of the other group... the flirty one..."

"Ah, Jinwoo..." So that was how you recognised him. Now that you looked at him properly, they were unmistakably alike in terms of looks. But you could already tell they were worlds apart when it came to their personality.

"Yeah... Seojun told me what happened." He gestured to his friend beside him who gave you a hesitant smile. "I hope that hasn't ruined your opinion of him."

"Of course not! Though I do worry about what Jungkook might do if he keeps it up." You chuckled, "What's your name?"

"Baekwoo... ‘Woo’ is the generation marker so I share it with my siblings... ‘Baek’ means I'm the eldest."

"It's nice to meet you, Baekwoo. Take a seat."

He dropped his backpack beside a chair and unzipped his padded coat, draping it over the back of a chair before sitting down.

You turned to Seojun who had a small smile on his lips. "And you're Seojun?"

He nodded and sat in the remaining seat. "Kim Seojun. Nice to meet you Noo-ah, seonsaeng-nim."

You offered your hand to them to shake before going on to explain what your lessons would be like. Though you noted that the first lesson would run slightly differently as you had given them the vocab needed for that lesson as well as vocab to revise for the next. After that, the lessons would focus on practical use of the vocab they had been given to revise then they would be given a new list.

The boys nodded along in understanding. Based on the file Bang PD-nim had given you, Baekwoo and Seojun had the least experience with the English language meaning you were basically starting from scratch unlike your lessons with Jungkook. But you couldn't complain, you had the opportunity and all the tools in order to do your dream job without being qualified yet.

A part of you couldn't help but think about if what you were doing was even legal. The logical realisation that BigHit wouldn't risk a legal scandal settled your worries though. Maybe they negotiated some sort of ‘on going placement’ with the university.

You cast your thoughts aside at the clearing of Seojun's throat. He bit his bottom lip as his eyes narrowed at the sheet in front of him.

"What is it?"

"I don't understand what I'm supposed to do... there's so many words..."

You pointed to the first section of words. "These are going to be used in today's exercises." Then you pointed to the second section. "These are for you to revise for next week."

He nodded and you told him not to stress over it. "Today will mainly be about me learning more about your skill level so I can help you in the best way possible. So please don't be afraid to tell me if you're struggling."

Both boys got to work on the exercises, often asking you about grammar or what other words meant. They were very much beginners but had good pronunciation. During moments where your assistance wasn't needed, you turned your gaze to the folder containing all the information on the trainees. You found Baekwoo's page and felt your eyes widen in surprise; the teen had been a trainee for almost five years, joining the company at age fourteen.

How long had they been waiting for a third member to complete their trio? By the looks of it he was a 98 liner but born very early in the year. If he was born a couple days earlier he would've been a 97 liner.

You skimmed down his profile, feeling a new sense of pride for the teen when you saw the long list of instruments he played ranging from saxophone to guitar. He was talented, maybe even a fast learner. Only time would tell.

A vibration in your pocket got your attention. Fishing your phone out, you soon saw it was a twitter notification.

"Excuse me for a second boys."

You spun your chair to face away from them, tapping on the app only to be greeted by Jungkook. Jungkook in the red shirt and leather pants ensemble from his little Skype fashion show. His hair was parted to show his forehead, eyebrows drawn together as he bit his bottom lip, a hand pushing his hair back. Oh god. Concept pictures.

"Ah, fuck me..." You muttered only to blush when you remembered who was sat behind you.

After quickly saving the picture, you spun back around and placed your phone aside while asking Seojun how he was getting on. A creak came from the door and out of the corner of your eye you watched it swing open slightly. You caught sight of a familiar pair of wide brown eyes before they vanished, followed by the sound of giggles and footsteps scurrying away.

"That little shit..."

Once again forgetting you weren't alone, you got to your feet ready to go after your boyfriend. Baekwoo clearing his throat made you pause.

"Uh, is something wrong seonsaeng-nim?"

Embarrassed, you hesitantly sat back down. "N-nothing. I just spotted Jungkook in the hallway. I think he's up to no good."

He followed your gaze over his shoulder, chuckling when Jungkook peeked through the gap again. His eyes were narrowed mischievously and you sighed.

"Ignore him. Show me what task you're on."

Baekwoo turned back around with an amused grin.

"I think you should go see him, seonsaeng-nim. Our lesson time is nearly over anyway." Seojun said with a shy smile.

Your eyes blew wide as you looked at the time. "Crap! Give me your work and I'll have it marked in time for lunch."

**

The two slid their papers across the desk towards you. Your lips curved into a smile when you saw Seojun had printed his full name at the top of the page in relatively neat handwriting. Both boys gave you a polite bow then turned to exit the room. Though you weren't alone for long as Jungkook stepped through the doorway, dressed in a white t-shirt and ripped jeans combo. There was a grin plastered on his face that did little to calm your suspicions.

"How was your first lesson?"

"It went well until I got distracted.” You rolled your eyes as you tidied your folders into your bag. “You should've warned me that the concept pictures were coming out today!"

You pouted and he rounded the desk to pinch one of your cheeks. "But then you wouldn't have been surprised."

"Exactly! I swore in front of my students!"

He threw his head back to laugh and you folded your arms across your chest waiting for him to finish.

He quietened down and ran one hand through his hair while resting his weight on the desk. "So~ what did you think?"

You held his gaze for a second, ignoring the flip your stomach did when he bit his lip and raised an eyebrow in anticipation.

"I think you're the biggest little shit."

He scoffed and waved a hand dismissively. "But you love me anyway. Now tell me what you really thought."

You looked away, unsure of how to put the strange mix of feelings you felt into words. "...You looked... good. I don't know if I want to punch you or kiss you."

"Yah! Why would you hit me if I look good?!"

"Because!" You couldn't help stomp your foot even if it made you look like a toddler. “You're...you're making me feel things!!"

As the realisation dawned on him, he cocked a brow and smirked. "Feel things... are you... frustrated? Is this the grey to your ace-ness showing through?"

"No!...maybe...I think so..."

He stepped forward and unfolded your arms, wrapping them around his waist. You sighed and buried your nose in his neck, trying to make sense of all the new emotions conflicting and confusing inside of you.

"You can tell me...or kiss me. I'd rather that than you hit me, Jagi."

Gah! You were so torn.

He threaded his hand through your curls, an action that instantly soothed you. "It's completely up to you. You get to chose what you want to do. I won't force you to do something you don't want."

The two of you stood there for a minute or so, his fingers twirling strands of your hair. Slowly, you turned to place a gentle kiss on his cheek.

"Sorry for saying I wanted to hit you. I just don't know...I've never felt like this before."

"It's fine. Why do you think teenage boys get into so many fights? It's because they go through what you're experiencing right now... though unlike you they eventually calm down after discovering porn."

You cringed at the thought of porn. You tried watching it before but it just seemed so nasty. His chest rumbled with laughter at your expression and you felt your cheeks go warm.

"I don't know when I'll finally get used to all the feels."

"You will eventually. And I'll patiently wait for you to... express those feels."

He laughed again as the heat in your cheeks intensified. You couldn't help but slap his chest out of embarrassment.

"After all that you still got to hit me."

"I'm expressing my 'feels'."

His hands came to cup your cheeks, squishing them slightly as he pecked your forehead. "We're in this together. You can tell me anything, okay?"

"You frustrate me," You mumbled honestly, cheeks still squished.

"You frustrate me too but at least I deal with mine-" His eyes became as wide as saucers as his face turned red, realising the implications of what he said a second too late.

His hands fell from your face, one going to the back of his neck as he glanced away and cleared his throat before speaking.

"I-I didn't mean...sorry. I didn't think before speaking."

A laugh bubbled out of you before you could stop it. "At least I know you find me attractive," you muttered more to yourself than him.

His hands went to your shoulders, pushing you back to look into your eyes. "How could I not find you attractive? You're beautiful with illegal dimples and thick thighs."

You puffed out your cheeks to conceal your dimple and shook your head. "My thighs are only thicker cause I walk everywhere."

He scoffed. "You have no idea...no idea... I'll make you see what I see."

He leant down and placed a chaste kiss on your lips, "adorable" being uttered just before contact was made. There's was no way you'd ever accept that someone as good looking as Jungkook thought you were beautiful. That kind of thing only happened in fairy tales.

The trainees returned to the room just before lunch for some feedback on their work. You spent half an hour going over it with them while Jungkook behaved himself in a chair in the corner of the room playing a game on his phone. Then, once Baekwoo and Seojun headed down to the cafeteria, Jungkook convinced you to stay a while at the company with him and the other members since your afternoon was free and you were at the building already.

So that's how you ended up being pulled down an unfamiliar hallway with an excited Jungkook holding your hand.

"I can't wait for you to see it! I wanted to show it to you earlier but it wasn't finished."

You giggled, completely enamoured with his dimpled grin. He came to a stop at the end of the corridor and Jungkook steered you by the shoulders to face a large black door. 'Golden Closet Prod.' was printed professionally onto the wood and you grinned up at him.

"Is this..."

He opened the door to reveal a minimalistic studio, sparsely decorated with a few photos framed on the walls. On the desk was a production set up complete with keyboard and MIDI pad.

"It's my very own studio, Kitten!"

He urged you inside and pulled the door shut. You stood in the centre of the room, a goofy smile on your face as your gaze fell on a row of Marvel figurines lined up on an otherwise shelf.

"What do you think?"

"I can't believe you got your own studio..."

"Neither can I... it could use some more decorating, though. Maybe I should fill it with pictures of you to inspire me."

You laughed at the absurd idea. "I don't know what inspiration you could get from me."

He pouted and went over to his desk, picking up a frame which sat beside his computer. He held it out to you.

"You're here directly in my line of sight so I can see you as I work."

It was a photograph of the two of you taken outside of Geungjeongjeon Hall when you visited Gyeongbokgung Palace.

You smiled fondly at it. "We need to go back soon. You said we'd see it for every season. It's autumn now so the leaves are bound to be carpeting the ground with such lovely colours."

He hummed in agreement, turning you to face away from him so he could hug you from behind and rest his chin on your shoulder.

"I promise we'll go after album promotions end and I have some time off. Before the first snowfall."

"You better."

You moved out of his embrace to put the picture back and turned around to find him sat on a small two-seater sofa with a fluffy blanket draped over the back. You hoped he wouldn’t be taking too many power naps here like Yoongi did in his studio. He hugged the penguin plushie you bought him at the aquarium to his chest making you giggle.

"I wondered what you'd done with that."

He stroked the penguin on the head. "Pingu lives here now."

"Noot noot, motherfucker."

He gasped and covered the stuffed penguin’s ears. "How dare you swear in front of Pingu!"

You smirked, deciding to borrow one of your old friend’s phrases. "I dare because I can."

He poked his tongue out at you before patting the space next to him. You fell onto the sofa with a sigh and rest your head on his shoulder, taking in the full view of the room.

"This is a really nice studio, BunBun. Congrats."

He wrapped an arm around your waist and pressed a kiss to your forehead.

"This is partly thanks to you. Namjoon-hyung showed Bang PD-nim the CD I made for you, he was impressed by it. And then there's the songs I help with in this album..."

You tilted your head up to look at him. "You've been involved with this album?"

"I've been quite inspired lately." His nose scrunched up as he booped it against yours.

"That's good then." You returned his boop with an added nuzzle.

He hummed, the hand around your waist squeezed your hip to pull you closer to him. The gesture made you flinch as his fingers pressed against a particularly sensitive patch of skin.

"Yah, move your hand."

Jungkook gave you a confused look. "Why?"

"It... it... nevermind."

Understanding dawned on his features before morphing into an evil grin. "I just found your ticklish spot."

You shook your head and attempted to peel his hand away from your hip as his fingers began to move towards the hem of your t-shirt.

"No I- Ah!" You squirmed as his fingers worked over his targeted spot.

Giggles bubbled out of you without your permission. You tried to push him away but he was too strong and stayed firmly in place. Curse the muscle pig. Next, you tried to wiggle your way away from him... which backfired. Instead of getting away, you succeeded in falling backwards onto the sofa and dragging him with you.

"Kookie! Stop~"

You pathetically pushed at his shoulders but he wouldn't budge. Both his hands slipped beneath your t-shirt and you soon found it hard to breathe as you continued to laugh despite nothing being funny at all.

It had to stop. Your position lying down allowed you to slip your legs around him, then used them to help flip positions. He let out a wheezy groan as he fell back against the sofa. Your hands were planted either side of his head, caging him beneath you.

"I told you to stop."

"... So... are you gonna kiss me or hit me?”

You held his stare for a moment before your eyes flickered to his lips, so pink and plush looking. Should you? The situation seemed rather... intimate… You were very much aware of the fact that you were hovering over him, only inches away from touching. His hands slowly moved to rest on your thighs just above your knees. It was almost as if he was testing the waters, not initiating anything but not taking back his question either.

The first move rest on you.

Maybe he had endured enough abuse for one day... Maybe it would be healthier to explore the feelings you had instead of bottling them up. How were you meant to move on with your life if you stayed stuck in one mind set?

Without giving yourself a chance to second guess yourself, you softened your elbows and leaned down to press your lips to his. You assumed your decision came as a shock for it took a second for him to respond to the kiss. His arms came up to wrap around your midsection, pulling you down onto him gently. It was new. You had never been in this kind of situation before. All the other times you’d kissed you were either standing up, sitting down or led next to each other. Never had one of you been... on top of the other.

You pulled back ever so slightly to let out a shaky breath before moulding your lips back to his with a tad more force, feeling yourself beginning to relax against him. Jungkook made a surprised noise at the back of his throat. He must not have been expecting you to go in for a second kiss. But it faded quickly as you felt his lips move against your own. One of his hands skimmed down the length of your back, warm against the patch of exposed skin where your t-shirt had ridden up. A shiver involuntarily tingled down your spine. All your senses were alive, registering everything from the sweet taste of his cherry lip balm to the divine scent of his perfume.

So this was what a 'passionate kiss' felt like. You had only read about them until now. No kiss you’d ever had before, with anyone, felt as right as this. A small groan was heard. From him or you, you couldn't tell. The slightest brush of his tongue against your own had you flushing all over. One of his hands came to rest on the back of your head as your own lightly gripped his hair. His groan was muffled against your lips. You gave another gentle tug, noticing the way his other hand twisted in the fabric of your t-shirt.

**

The sound of a throat clearing had you splitting apart immediately. There stood Yoongi, Jimin and Hoseok. Your cheeks burned under their gaze as you led there frozen in place.

Yoongi wore a smirk as he turned to the other two. "Pay up."

They let out simultaneous sighs and stuffed a hand in their pockets for their wallets. You glanced away before you could meet their eyes and buried your face in Jungkook's neck.

"The fuck were you betting on this time?" Jungkook was clearly annoyed, speaking through gritted teeth.

"Yoongi-hyung made a bet that we'd walk in on you making out one day." Came Jimin's simple reply.

Jungkook huffed. "You won now tell me what you want or get out."

You squeezed your eyes shut, praying that they would forget it and leave.

Hoseok's voice was the one that greeted your ears in response to Jungkook. "You were meant to join us in the dance studio after lunch remember? We figured you may have come here. We just... uh... weren't expecting... this."

You sighed, growing impatient. Jungkook pat your back as if telling you just to hold on a little longer.

"We'll be down in a bit. So, if you wouldn't mind..."

There was a chuckle followed by, "Don't do anything I wouldn't" from Yoongi before the door was closed again. Jungkook shifted so that he was once again led on his back with you on top of him.

**

He sighed and rubbed a hand down your back. "First of all, sorry about that. Second, holy shit."

You groaned and raised your head from his neck. His cheeks were flushed and his lips a tad swollen from the kiss. You expected you looked similar.

"That was so embarrassing."

He tucked a strand of hair behind your ear. "I know, Kitten. I'm going to try and get a lock installed asap like Yoongi-hyung. Especially if you kiss me like that more often. Wow."

A nervous giggle bubbled out of you. "T-that was okay?"

He nodded, eyes bright and wide in the dim studio lighting. "I'll never object to your kisses. I think that counts for about three or four."

Him and his silly kiss counter.

"Where are we at now?"

"To be honest... I've lost track..."

You giggled and Jungkook drew you back in for one more kiss, sitting up as he did so.

"We should join them otherwise they'll interrupt us again."

He sighed but allowed you to climb off his lap and got to his own feet. Before he started towards the door, you reached up to brush his hair back into place from where you'd been running your hands through it.

He chuckled. "I'm glad you felt comfortable enough to kiss me like that. Feel free to do it more often if you'd like."

Colour dusted your cheeks as he adjusted your top that had risen up to reveal a band of skin.

"I liked it," you mumbled shyly for admitting so. But honesty was the best policy and communication is key when exploring new things- especially together.

He placed a kiss on your forehead when he was finished. "That's good. We'll go at your pace, okay?"

"Okay."

He gave you a curt nod and you giggled while following him out the door.

"I'll ask hyung who fit the lock for his door. Maybe get a doorbell or a pin pad- oh! Maybe a fingerprint scanner like you see in movies!"

"You're such a baby sometimes."

He took your hand with a grin. "Yeah... but I'm your baby."

There was a teasing glint in his eye and you refused to blush at his words, instead searching for a way to make him go red for a change.

You awed. "Are you Noona's baby BunBun?"

He nearly tripped over his feet. "W-what?"

"My precious Baby Boy." You came to a halt and cupped his cheek for extra measure. He continued to stutter and stumble over his words, you could feel his cheeks warm under your hand.

You pinched his cheek with a grin. "Is Baby embarrassed about being called Baby even though he said it himself?"

He moved your hand away from his face and kept hold of it. "I-it sounds a b-b-bit too g-good."

You giggled as his blush travelled down his neck. "If you like being Noona's Baby Boy that's just fine."

You were practically cheering on the inside. Ever since he'd dyed his hair darker he'd looked extra fluffy and you'd found yourself mentally referring to him as 'baby boy'. Now you had an excuse to verbalize it.

He swallowed, brows drawing together as if trying to stop his blush with sheer will power. "Almost sounds like you have a thing for being called ‘Noona’."

You felt your jaw drop and was quick to snap it shut, biting down on your lower lip to stop yourself from doing something stupid like agreeing.

He hummed. "Is that why you got upset when I stopped calling you it? Because you have a thing for it?"

"No... I was just so used to hearing you call me it."

He smirked, bending slightly to make direct eye contact with you. "Using it to refer to yourself suggests otherwise."

"I-I..."

His eyes crinkled at the corners as he giggled. "One month. That's all you have to wait. Can you be patient for one month Jagi?"

You gulped. Would you even survive with him calling you Noona again?

"I can wait."

He stole a kiss on the cheek and pulled you back down the corridor. Curse him! Curse him and his ability to get away with it. You were smitten and he knew it.

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