#i will go now let me look up the correct pronunciation bc nothing in english has ever made sense

[mingyaus]

@ starbucks pt. 2: t-o-b-a-n-g-t-a-n

series part of the john john cock @ _________ series. see the series masterlist (or even my full ml!) for more.

➫ a series of times when jungkook’s name gets messed up on accident (bc Americans kinda suck).

genre fren fluff, reader insert (x jungkook, but in a friendly way)

summary where you and jungkook fail and succeed. 

word count 476

author’s note final one for this week! stay tuned for more additions!!

Jungkook’s regular Starbucks order is a Venti (yes, a Venti because he’s a thirsty boy) hot chocolate. Even on the warmest of days, he’ll get it and you’ll ask him why he’s getting a hot drink, then he’ll just make you wonder even more by ordering it extra hot.

Today, the first anniversary of your friendship (but you two don’t know that because you don’t keep track of that sentimental stuff), is an early Pacific Northwest winter morning. It’s a little chilly, but it’s nothing your matching black windbreakers can’t handle. You didn’t mean to match, you just do.

“Screw you.” He whispers under his breath while grabbing his order from the counter. He says those somewhat malicious words, but he’s laughing because you just said a mildly offensive, yet funny joke. You take one look at his cup and start laughing even more. Thank God you’re facing away from the baristas. Jungkook quickly curses them even quieter than when he insulted you. Then he turns to you making a frowny face and shaking his head because you’re still laughing.

He blames your non-stop laughter on the Portland baristas. They can never spell his name right. Today it’s spelled “John John Cock” in very clear bubbly handwriting.

“Psh, I bet at least one of them is a BTS fan, or at least a former one.” You quickly go back to the counter to grab your drink and sit next to Jungkook on one of the bar stools facing the street full of pedestrians and the occasional biker.

“Be quiet, I think not. They all like, uh, what’s an indie alt group?”

“Vampire Weekend, Portugal the Man, The Head and the—“

“Yes, yes. That’s right. Too busy listening to those to hear BTS.”

“Next time we visit, I’ll prove you wrong!”

“Try me.” He smirks taking a sip, then sighs. “I mean even if they can’t spell my name right, then at least they can speak better English than me.”

“Well, you’ve got two languages and they don’t.” You praise him on his English improvement. He’s been in the US for about two years, on and off trying to get a taste of this American life before going off to the military.

“Hm, I guess.” The boy stares at the street and just shrugs his shoulders.

“Don’t downgrade yourself! Your English is so good now.”

“I can’t even say the word toboba, tob, tobag—“

“Tobabagin?”

“Ugh, not you’re saying it wrong too. Tobbe, tubagon?”

“Tobu—no. I can’t even say it either.”

“Let me spell it. T-o-b-b-o-g-a-n.”

“Well done,” You look up from your phone, which you were using to check his accurate spelling. Then you click on a video to play the correct pronunciation.

“Toboggan,” You phone mutters in a robotic voice.

“Toboggan.” The two of you repeat simultaneously, then let out light giggles while finishing your drinks.

[yuriplisetsk]

I kno everyone speaks Japanese in the show bc it's a Japanese show, but I've looked through the wiki and I don't think Viktor actually knows Japanese??? It's not listed among his known languages in the trivia section (Russian, English, and French). I couldn't find what languages Yuuri speaks but it's likely he knows English from living in the states, so maybe they communicate through English??? I bet Viktor learns Japanese over time, but I don't think he already knows it at the beginning.

Hey there!!! So, I scoured the net to find both canon and fanon sources. In this interview it’s confirmed that Yuuri and Viktor use English as base language of communication, and they’re both fluent. As you said, though, it’s also confirmed that Viktor’s fluent in Russian, English and French. Nothing is said about Japanese. In that regard, this post is super interesting. I’ll quote some of the tl;dr points here for practical reasons:

When Victor speaks Japanese he sounds like a foreigner

Victor maybe has rudimentary Japanese skills, but not enough for him to understand or participate in complex discussions. (Example: ep 4, when he has to ask Yuri what everyone is talking about.)

Every person Victor has had an in-depth conversation with so far has good English skills.

So, from auditory cues we can tell that Viktor does actually know a little bit of  Japanese, but his conversational skills are stilted at best. He uses English to communicate with Yuuri, Minako, the Nishigoris and other international skaters. I guess he does too with Mari? The funny thing about this is that, while in Hasetsu, people like Yuuri’s parents will most likely speak dialectal Japanese, which is harder to grasp and understand than regular Japanese, much less to learn.

Let’s keep in mind that Viktor already knows cyrillic and the roman alphabet, and has probably been studying English and French since he was 8/9 years old (even younger, if he was home schooled). Nonetheless, the fact that he’s fluent in both is still no small feat. If anything, I’d say he has a knack, or we can call it a talent, at grasping the basics and going with it. So a wild guess, before going to Japan he took like some online courses real quick to learn a general knowledge of it, for example how to ask for the bathroom and directions and food, drilled some useful vocabulary into his head and flew out because he just couldn’t make Katsuki Yuuri wait, now, could he? Once he got there, his skills gradually improved with time and practice. Actually, I really like thinking that he started learning Japanese directly after the banquet because he fell so hard he wanted to shorten the cultural distance between them immediately. (I read a marvelous fic about the whole language topic, I absolutely recommend it, it’s Repeat After Me by queenieofaces)

And now, my hcs on the thing because of course.

- I bet Viktor hates not being able to communicate smoothly, so he tries super hard to learn Japanese while in Hasetsu. He probably subjects every willing person to his terrible rapid fire babbling and eagerly awaits to be corrected, stumbles through the phrases until he gets it right. He’s absolutely not embarrassed about his abysmal knowledge, finds it funny instead- he starts practicing his Japanese with Yuuri too. He loves when something he says is so horrific that Yuuri has to scrunch his nose up and start laughing, makes him explain what was wrong and absolutely repeats the same error again just to be sure (and make Yuuri laugh again)- he totally downloads a learning Japanese app on his phone to fiddle with whenever he has nothing much to do, like when Yuuri’s stretching and he’s bored out of his mind; catch him flopped on a bench under the shade of a tree repeating very slowly “the cat is on the table” in Japanese while Yuuri is sweating in between lunges, having just run around Hasetsu castle fifty times (“You’re doing so great, Yuuri!” he chirps, without looking up from the screen, and Yuuri’s eye twitches a little)- even in St. Petersburg, while Yuuri tries his best to learn Russian, Viktor keeps exercising his Japanese (I bet at this point he’s gotten really better at it, because he’s been in Japan for a long time and usually language full immersion does miracles) and they start mixing phrases and words and languages together. Viktor switches to Russian in the middle of a phrase on purpose and Yuuri squints and replies in Japanese. They swap nose kisses and correct each other’s pronunciation, at the grocery store Viktor lets Yuuri read the labels on the products and makes sure they don’t buy salt instead of sugar- the first thing they teach each other are curse words - followed by how you say “I love you” of course- they watch Russian movies with Japanese subtitles and Japanese movies with Russian subtitles, sometimes re-enact the plot dramatically while spooning on the couch- Viktor is a little shit and keeps slipping French into their daily lives too because Yuuri gets flustered and confused - their whole conversations are unholy mixes of garbling multilingual nonsense and no one but them really gets it which is really useful when you want to talk shit (it’s super effective)- their babies are gonna grow up knowing three/four languages and I cry at night thinking about it

[floralbfs]

new pet peeve: when english words contain "ph" but they're not pronounced like "f"