#i would like you to try to learn a language with grammar and sounds that are completely different and then we'll talk

[aurorasandsad-prose]

I'm aware this has been talked about before but I sometimes feel like international fans(especially native English speakers) don't understand that not being able to fluently speak a language but understanding most (or everything) of what's been said/written is very common for bilingual people.

Also, your native tongue influences how you speak a new language a lot. All languages have their differences in terms of sounds, tones, grammar and that reflects in whatever your accent is like. Of course people can work on their accents if they want but I believe it should always be a personal choice. Like you literally cannot correctly pronounce my name in English without having to borrow a sound from another language. And that's on languages and being bilingual. Thank you for coming to my Ted talk.

And, if you're someone who judges/comments on someone's secondary language skills while yourself only knowing a single language, there's the door 🚪. Bye!

[nymphea0]

Until Death My love

Part 2.

Yandere husband x Wife Reader

Very long story, might be bad grammar or language in this story, so please correct me if theres any bad word or bad grammar. This story will came out with 4 chapter , so stay always love🦋🦋

word count around : 2000 words

Story Part 1 : Until Death My love

Story Part 3 : Until Death My Love

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The sound of many vehicles and street lights were the only things that decorated the darkness of the night' You don't know how it could end like this, there are so many moments that you have gone through with Alex, your beloved husband.

It shouldn't be like this, but it happened so fast.

That night as usual, you became an obedient and very good wife waiting for your husband to come home from work, you prepared dinner that you cooked yourself, even though the servants really wanted to help you cook, that night you were very stubborn and made several dishes such as shrimp pasta alfredo, and roast chicken.

You waited as usual in the dining room, like the nights you had gone through before. But that night, Alex came home early in the morning, your husband came home a little later than usual.

You looked at the street with a sad face and remembered what had happened to you before, that day you learned another secret from your husband, alexandrovic Reigent.

You learned that Alex was the leader of the mafia association, the same association, that destroyed the place where you worked as a staff of a famous restaurant. You think that Alex is an ordinary man that you dated during school, you spent your days so happily with Alex, then you graduated from school and continued to college, you and Alex even studied in the same place with different majors.

Then you graduated with mediocre grades, until Alex said he wanted to build a business in the mining sector.

At first you didn't think that Alex's business would be very successful, but you were very happy with the success of Alex's business. Until one day Alex proposed to you to be his wife, right when it was your birthday.

That day you felt like the happiest woman in the world. .

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'Date 05 01 19xx'

That was the day Alex went on his business trip as a CEO of a company that handles coal affairs. Like a normal day you prepared your husband's clothes, helped him put on his shirt.

"Alex how long will you be away on business?"

"Love ...I won't be gone for long, just 5 days .... hmmm? Do you miss me already?"

Your husband, Alex, coquettishly pouted at you who was busy tidying up his work needs.

"No, I don't miss you."

In a playful tone you answered Alex who seemed ready to tickle you.

That morning was filled with laughter and happiness flowing in the residence you shared with Alex. .

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That afternoon was very boring without Alex, your husband for the next 5 days, at that time you for some reason really wanted to clean the room where Alex worked.

Alex's work room. As usual the servants at home really didn't want you to work, they looked as if they were afraid of something wrong with you.

Until you forced them and they had no other choice but to let you do what you wanted, well who would dare try to stop the wife of the Reigent house?.

Carrying a broom and cleaning equipment, you opened the door to Alex's work room, the room had a luxurious impression as Alex's job as a CEO of a coal company.

A room polished with African black wood, walls that are added with furniture such as classic lamps, lots of bookshelves and a document shelf.

A small pantry table that provides coffee and tea editing tools when Alex wants to drink something.

A polished work desk with additional high-quality marble with additional computers and also some documents scattered on the desk.

In short, this room is very comfortable and has a distinctive Alex smell, a blend of mint and a little musk aroma.

At first you tidy up and clean the desk where Alex works. Until you clean the bookshelf where Alex keeps books containing world history.

You clean the bookshelf carefully, rearranging the books. Each bookshelf is given a little space between 1 bookshelf and another, with the placement of a flower pot and also a classic lamp on the wall as a divider between shelves 1 and the others.

But when you were about to go to another shelf that you were going to clean next, your feet accidentally slipped between the black carpet that was the base of the shelf, with human instinct you held onto anything so that you wouldn't fall or get hurt, expert at holding bookshelves, you actually held onto the handle of a classic lamp that was quite low and you could reach.

With strong pressure you held the lamp, unfortunately when you thought it wouldn't fall, the chandelier was actually pulled down as you were going to fall, and you ended up falling with the wooden lamp that looked bent downwards.

After standing up and getting rid of the pain from the fall, you tried to fix the lamp to its original position.

But before you could even fix the poor lamp, you realized that the bookshelf you had previously cleaned was slightly tilted from the wall and showed a small gap, out of curiosity you tried to pull the bookshelf.

And there you see a small room with an area and size of 2 footsteps, the room is empty with 3 walls covered in black wallpaper and only lit by 1 lamp on the wall, on the floor there is a round carpet the same color as the walls in the room.

You think, what is this narrow room built for?, with slow steps you enter the room, trying to feel the walls but nothing happens. At that time when you think maybe this small room was built to store Alex's useless files.

When you was about to get out of the small room, my feet accidentally tripped over a lump protruding from the black carpet. Get up slowly and stand up, you try to push the carpet out of the room.

At that time, instead of the floor you saw, you saw a wooden door that was attached to the floor. Looking around, you exit the room and walk slowly towards Alex's study door, then with one turn, you lock Alex's study from the inside and walk back into the room.

Making up your mind, you open the wooden door, it's a little hard to open, but finally the door opens and reveals a staircase leading down, you don't see anything, it's very dark down there.

A dark basement!

When you look around the bottom of the stairs, you see a small light switch that is integrated into the wall right on the first step.

With a 'Click' a light shines under the room, holding a broom, you go down the stairs. Every step you take on the stairs creates a very unpleasant sound to hear.

Until the last step, you can clearly see this basement.

This room is very classic but looks luxurious. There are leather sofas lined up around a glass table, there is a bar table and also a billiard table, there is a television with a wide and thin screen and is very luxurious which is displayed facing the leather sofa.

Slowly you look around and realize that there are many shelves for storing wine bottles and other liquor, you always knew that Alex really liked alcohol beyond your expectations, but you didn't know that this room even existed in this house.

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The house where you and Alex live, a 3-story house, with a very large front and back yard, equipped with flower gardens and also a small lake that flows behind your house.

During the 2 years of your marriage with Alex, you didn't know that this room existed.

Walking through this basement, you see about 3 gold and black framed picture displayed on the wall, approaching the picture.

The first picture , is a picture of you and Alex who have just finished their wedding, in the picture you are very beautiful and beautiful, sitting smiling happily while holding a bouquet of flowers, while Alex stands behind you while holding your left shoulder, Alex is wearing a black shirt combined with a collar decoration and also a gold hanger on his jacket pocket which is united with roses.

Under the picture is your name and Alex's name and the date you got married.

Picture of alex and his family wearing all black suits, you don't know much about alex's family.

But when you married alex, only his mother and father came, you don't know why his other family didn't come, alex only told you that his other family was anti-social, and after that you didn't ask much.

On the wedding day, his father and mother didn't talk to you, but you only got a soft smile from his mother and a cold stare from his father.

In the picture there are so many people you don't know, they all sit in rows on the benches, but there's something strange, there are several women sitting on their knees below among several men you don't know. Then you see alex and his mother and father sitting in the right row that doesn't blend with the middle row, there you can see alex with an unfriendly and expressionless face, a facial expression that you didn't even know alex could make.

Under the frame, there is a bold text that contains.

'ARCEINT REIGENT FAMILY'

You don't think much and just guess that Arceint is Alex's extended family name.

Then, the last frame is a picture of Alex and his parents, and 4 people you don't know, they each sit on a bench, while the 4 people you don't know, 2 of them are men and they sit on a bench, but the other 2 are women, and they kneel beside the seats of the 2 men.

Blinking slowly, under the frame contains the name Alexandrovic Reigent Arceint, followed by Alex's father, Rovalnov Reigent Arceint, then Alex's mother, Ilvanna Rosye.

And the names of the 2 men whose names you are not sure which one is correct are Xirent Reigent Arceint, then the other one is William Reigent Arceint.

You can only guess that maybe these 2 people are Alex's older or younger siblings. Since dating and getting married, Alex has been very secretive about his family.

Looking at the other names there are 2 other names written there, you guess it is the name of 2 women who are sitting on their knees side by side.

The names there are written as, Lilya Ergevan, and also Belleriya Woods.

You think that why their names seem so beautiful and elegant?

Looking around the room again, you think to continue cleaning up Alex's work room that was delayed and only conclude that this basement room could be a room where Alex relaxes when he misses his family.

Just as you are about to step on a step, your eyes accidentally catch a corner of the room that is quite dark, and there is a white door in the corner.

People used to say, curiosity can be your death, so be careful.

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*Source image : Pinterest

©️Nymphea0 2024 , OG story . Project Dark Romance Story 1.

Please dont steal my work, or use without my permissions , Always be good people Dear. Much love , Neva🦋🦋.

@snowflakes666

[aggiewritess]

The Sweater

-> Pairing: Choi Seungcheol x Y/n

-> Summary: Just some wholesome fluff including Cheol, Y/n and her wanting to wear his sweater

-> Word count: 732

-> Author's note: Hey guys, this is the first time I'm posting something for others to read so I'm sorry if it's not that good, I still have a lot to learn when it comes to writing. English is also not my first language so excuse me if there are any grammar errors or mistakes. I hope anyone who reads it likes it and I would appreciate some feedback and/or constructive criticism. Thank you :)

read on ao3

A storm raged outside, the wind howling and the rain harshly lashing against the floor to ceiling windows of Seungcheol's cozy apartment. Inside, the atmosphere was warm and inviting, starkly contrasting the chaos happening beyond the apartment's walls. Seungcheol and Y/n sat on the dark blue couch placed in the centre of the living room, wrapped in a big, knitted blanket, watching a movie. Or at least, trying to — Y/n was finding it hard to focus on what was happening in the tv in front of her, her thoughts drifting to the comforting presence of the person beside her.

Lightning flashed once more, briefly illuminating the room and Y/n shivered, not from the cold but from the intensity of the storm that had already been going on for a few hours. She turned her head towards Seungcheol, who was too engrossed in the film to even pay attention to whatever may be happening outside, his arm lightly but comfortingly resting around her shoulders. Seeing how focused he was, she hesitated for a moment, feeling somewhat shy despite their recent transition from friends to something more romantic.

"Cheollie," she said softly, after taking a deep breath, her voice being almost drowned out by a particularly loud clap of thunder.

He immediately turned to her, concern flashing in his eyes and worry etched on his face. "Yeah? What happened?"

She bit her lip, feeling her cheeks flushing under his gaze. "Can I borrow one of your sweaters? Maybe the one you wore yesterday?"

Her request made Seungcheol blink, slightly puzzled but not unwilling. "Of course you can, love. But why do you want that one? Not that it got dirty yesterday, but would you not rather wear a washed one?"

Y/n shyly ducked her head, feeling a bit silly for a moment before gathering enough courage to explain. "It smells like you. It's...comforting."

Seungcheol's expression finally softened into a tender and loving smile, dimples on full display. "I'd be happy to go get it for you." He said before he stood and walked in the direction of his bedroom, returning just a few moments later with the pink sweater she had asked for. As he handed it to her, their fingers brushed, sending a tingle up her arm.

"Here you go," he uttered, before sitting back down on the couch beside her. "You know, you're welcome to anything of mine, anytime. You don't have to be nervous about asking me for something."

Y/n pulled the sweatshirt over her head, being immediately enveloped in the scent of Seungcheol's cologne mixed with something so uniquely him that it made her feel warm inside and she could swear she felt her heart swell with love and admiration for the man beside her. She sighed contentedly before snuggling back into his side. "Thank you, Cheol. You don't know how much better this makes me feel."

He pulled her close once more, this time wrapping both arms around her to cuddle more comfortably. "I'm glad, love. I kind of like seeing you wearing my clothes you know? They suit you." He told her, admiring the way his sweater fell on her, the hem reaching her thighs that were covered with a pair of thick sweatpants.

His admission made her laugh softly, the sound being once again almost lost in a loud rumble of thunder but still able to reach his ears and making his expression soften even more, a fond look making its way to his eyes. "Do you really?" She asked him quietly.

"Yeah...I really, really do," he affirmed, pressing a soft kiss to the top of her head. "You can keep it, if you want it."

At this Y/n looked up at him, letting him see how her eyes sparkled even in the dim lighting of the room. "I think I might just do that."

They settled back into a comfortable silence, the movie playing on tv now being mostly ignored, as the two basked in each other's embrace. Wrapped in her lover's sweater, Y/n felt a sense of security and happiness she hadn't felt in a long time and in that moment, she was sure that no matter what, no storm would ever be able to destroy the life they were just starting to build together. And with Seungcheol by her side, she knew that they would be able to overcome whatever challenges may head their way, as long as they have each other.

© aggiewritess , please do not copy my work.

[spanishskulduggery]

Baldur's Gate 3 - Non-binary Translation in Spanish

A while back I had mentioned that when I learned how to change language settings for Baldur's Gate 3, I was curious to learn how they would adapt the non-binary [no binario] option into Spanish since Spanish (like many Romance Languages) is very gendered

What I saw actually surprised me a bit

Usually in game translations with different genders, English tends to treat you as a "they" even though it's usually male or female; and in Spanish most of the lines are gendered, or phrased in a very ambiguous way in translation like speaking of your character as una persona "a person" rather than "he" or "she", or "they"

This is one of the first times I've seen the gender neutral -e endings used in an official setting

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For the purposes of this, and any future posts on this, I decided I would try to play as a non-binary gnome cleric. I should also mention that when you start up the game in Spanish and you do the character customization, everything starts you with the base word (i.e. masculine by default, or possibly agender but looks masculine)... as in you can choose to be elfo "elf", semielfo "half-elf", humano "human", semiorco "half-orc"... choose between bárbaro "barbarian", mago "wizard", brujo "warlock" and so on

My default character creation screen read gnomo, clérigo for "gnome cleric"

But the way your character is addressed by others is what changes

The first NPC you interact with is "Us" a little brain thing you can choose to help. If you do it calls you "friend":

Nosotros: Somos libres. Tenemos nuestra libertad. amigue Us: We are free. We have our freedom. Friend [nb].

The word used is amigue

For the sake of understanding Spanish grammar, you probably know amigo/a "friend". The G here is a hard G. The gender neutral ending is E... but the combination of GE is pronounced like an H sound in Spanish [la gelatina "gelatin" for example is like "hel-a-ti-na"]. To preserve that hard G sound, you have to add a UE to it... so amigo/a becomes amigue for non-binary

[if you study Spanish this is the exact same grammar you'll see in turning -gar verbs into subjunctive forms; why pagar would turn to pague]

The next person you come across is Lae'zel:

Lae'zel: Tsk'va. No eres une sierve. ¡Vlaakith me bendijo en el día de hoy! Juntes, tal vez podamos sobrevivir. Lae'zel: Tsk'va. You are no thrall [nb]. Vlaakith blessed me today ["on this day of today"; emphatic]. Together [nb plural], we may (yet) survive.

Interestingly, there's first siervo/a meaning "servant" or "serf" or "thrall"

What I found very interesting was that you have une... un and una being "a" are used for indefinite articles; the non-binary form seems to be une

What threw me off though was seeing juntes... now junto/a is "together" [lit. "joined"] but juntes implies a non-binary plural.

I don't know if this is because in Spanish grammar it would imply that non-binary trumps feminine [the way amigos "friends" could be male+female or multiple male, as opposed to amigas "friends" being all female]... or if it's maybe an error or something else; the game treats Lae'zel as a woman in every other regard so I think it's the first one which is a situation I somehow hadn't considered. I had just assumed it would be juntos ...or juntas if you played female

Next I decided to rescue Gale first because he uses a lot of adjectives/professions and I wanted to see what they looked like:

Gale: No serás clérigue por casualidad, ¿verdad? ¿Médique? ¿Cirujane? ¿Increíblemente hábil con una aguja de tejer? Gale: You wouldn't happen to be a cleric, right? A doctor/medic? Surgeon? Unbelievably skilled with a knitting needle?

First is clérigo/a "cleric" being used in non-binary as clérigue. Similarly we have médique which is the non-binary médico/a for "medical doctor"

[just like above C turned to QUE to preserve a hard C/K sound; you'll see this with subjunctive and even preterites of -car verbs... why atacar "to attack" will turn to ataqué "I attacked" and ataque in subjunctive... because CE has a soft S sound in Latin America, and can be lisped in Spain]

And next is cirujane... the word cirujano/a is "surgeon"

Finally important note - hábil being "able" or "skilled" is a unisex adjective, so there is no change in any gender - masculine, feminine, or non-binary

*Note: I did miss it but at some point someone used the article le to describe my character. The el and la "the" are the masculine and feminine definite articles; le is non-binary "the" which still catches me by surprise because it looks French to me

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I've been told since I made the original post that people have seen the non-binary E ending used in other things, but this was special for me to see. I'm curious how the other gendered languages available treated non-binary options

It was a fun surprise for me, especially for some modern day Spanish linguistics in a VERY big modern game, with non-binary word choices being heavily prominent. It's a bit of a learning experience for me

If I find any more fun examples of NB language being used I'll let y'all know as I go

[elumish]

There tends to be this viewpoint that English language (fiction) writing is only "correct" when it sounds like a native English speaker wrote it. Other than the inherent racism and xenophobia involved in that, not even every native English speaker writes in the same way or follows the same "rules" when writing.

When you're trying to think about what "rules" you need to follow in fiction on a pure sentence level, here are a few ways to think about it:

Does the use of punctuation inhibit understanding or break extremely standard rules (e.g., never ending a sentence with a period)?

Do these words in this order with this punctuation have the meaning I intend to convey?

Are the prepositions, conjunctions, and articles used in a way that is standard to the dialect of English that you are writing in? If not, is that intentional?

Does the grammar or phrasing of this sentence make it ambiguous or difficult to understand? If so, is that ambiguity intentional?

Does this phrase or word order match or diverge from a common English set phrase or standard (e.g., "knock on wood" versus "knock on trees", adjective order? Is this intentional?

Is this a translation of a common set phrase in another language? Does this have an understandable meaning in English? Would the use of this phrase locate my character, narrator, or story to a place or culture that they are not a part of?

Do the speech patterns of this character (e.g., use of contractions) reflect how a person of that background, culture, educational background, etc. would speak? If not, is that intentional?

A lot of the thoughts about how writing by non-native English speakers sounds boils down to some version of "does it sound right?" But, as you can see in the questions above, "right" is generally more about reflecting whatever it is that you're trying to write than about matching the English that American school children learn.

Native English speakers break English "rules" in their writing all the time. We just tend to have more practice at it.

From my standpoint, the most important question for any story is, can my readers understand what I am saying from the words on the page, and if not, am I doing that on purpose? Basically everything else is stylistic.

English doesn't belong to people who learn it as a first language, and we lose a lot of literary possibilities by pretending it does.

[luci-is-a-bitch-x3x]

Obey me! Brothers with Demon behaviors (part 4??) :

You can find other parts here: parts 1, 2, & 3

━☆*:･ﾟ✧✧ ♡ ❀ ♡ ✧━

Welcome! to another part of this adventure! The characters may not be how you imagine! I apologize for any poor jokes, bad spelling, and terrible grammar. Without further ado, please enjoy the content. ♡

⚠︎Caution: May contain dark themes or imply towards dark themes. May contain nsfw or it may imply towards nsfw themes.⚠︎

━☆*:･ﾟ✧✧ ♡ ❀ ♡ ✧━━☆*:･ﾟ✧✧ ♡ ❀ ♡ ✧━

. ⊹ ⟣┄ʚ Enhanced Senses ɞ┄⟢ ⊹ .

Some people talk about demons being able to smell blood, I agree with this I think if Mc got hurt the brothers would be able to smell it, but I also think that demons can smell sweat and arousal. Some dogs can smell stress from a humans sweat, imagine Mc's trying to do something without asking for help, they start sweating and then suddenly they have the brothers all over them asking them if they need any help. Demons being able to smell arousal makes Mc's life a living hell, there would never be any peace for them. Mc can't claim they aren't aroused, the brothers can smell it, imagine the teasing Mc will have to endure from the brothers. I also imagine the brothers can sense things like how some animals can sense the weather or someones fear. If Mc's scared the brothers will know purely by their body language. Imagine if the brothers can sense when Mc's heart race increases, they'd be able to tell when Mc's scared, flustered, nervous, ect. The brothers don't even have to be around Mc to know, if they smell something of Mc's they can usually tell how Mc's feeling if the scent is pungent enough. If Mc gets lost or even kidnapped and they foind something of Mc's while looking for Mc, the brothers could be like sniffer dogs. I imagine with a good enough scent that the brothers could probably follow the scent until it lead them to Mc. They will have better chance at being able to follow Mc's scent if there's some kind of Mc's bodily fluid on it; spit, sweat, arosual, blood. These make the scent more pundget, if its just a random shirt Mc wore for 5 seconds the brothers won't be able to learn anything from it.

I feel like demons or at least some demons have amazing hearing, and I feel like that includes some of the brothers. I also think some demons can zone in their hearing on a specific sound. Imagine the brothers are in the R.A.D hallway, and Mc is somehwhere within the sea of students talking to the angels or Solomon. I think the brothers could just focus on Mc and Mc's conversation and drown every other noise out, this obviously has a range to it but some of the brothers can definetly hear rather far in distance. This is one of the things that helps them always know what Mc says or does. Demons definetly have better sight then humans, obviously this means they can see better and farther, but imagine if some demons could see more colors like some animals can. That being said some demons can't see many colors at all, like dogs. Imagine one of the brothers being confused because Mc cant see the color their seeing, and a different brother being confused because they cant see the color Mc's seeing. Personally I feel like Asmo would be able to see more colors and Lucifer might not be able to see all colors. Since it's always dark in the Devildom, some demons can see in the dark. For example Octopus can use polarized vision to control how much light comes into their eyes. Some demons may use this to help them navigate the Devildom. Some animals can tell if a food has the nutrition they need, Beel can definetly do this. Some animals also have enhanced taste, like they have more taste buds and tase more, Beel can also do this. I don't know if i would say all demons could do these things, it could just be something special Beel can do because of his Avatar.

Some demons that are water based or have water abilities may be able to use electroreception. They can detect energy or "prey" in water, Levi low key might be able to do this. These demons would be great at pool games like Marco Polo. Demons are probably able to use echolocation, the Devildom is always dark, it only makes sense that their bodies would adjust to being able to manuvor through the dark easier. If a demon can't see in the dark then they definetly can use echolocation to find their way. Snakes use thermal radation to detect their prey when in dark spaces, some demons can definitely detect body heat. Levi most likely could, but Beel might be able to as well. Some animals can detect fire, like Jewel Beetles can detect a burning tree up to 10 miles away. Imagine if some demons could do this, like Mc and the brothers are just chilling and then one of the brothers starts herding everyone together because "theres a fire and we could be in danger".

⛧☾༺Pact Behaviors༻☽⛧

How having a pact with Mc affects them or Mc positively or negatively:

This kinda goes along with enhanced senses, but because of the pact I imagine that touching Mc is different for the brothers then touching a human they dont have a pact with. I imagine touching Mc after making a pact with them feels special, both for Mc and the brother. Its a soothing and comforting feeling that calms even the most angry brother. Mc usually just has to walk over and touch the brother to get him to calm down. Or the other way around, if Mc is angry or upset all one of the brothers usually has to do is touch them. This helps deepen their bond even more, not only are they connected by a pact that not only makes them emotionally connected but physically as well. I also imagine if one of the brothers touch their pact mark on Mc it'll be super special, like ultra bonding between the brother and Mc. When a brother touches his pact mark on Mc it probably glows, and I imagine if one of the brothers touch a pact mark thats not theirs, then that pact mark will sting in pain for Mc and the brother who's pact mark it actually is will also feel the sting of pain. This can and will be used against Lucifer by his bratty younger siblings.

So I personally believe they can feel Mc's emotions because of their pact with Mc, but I also think Mc can feel their emotions to some extent. If the brother is upset enough or their Avatar is being boosted enough, I think the pact mark Mc has of that brother would burn or sting. Like say Mammon gets to indulge in being greedy, wherever Mammon's pact mark is on Mc would hurt at least a little. Mc might not even notice it at first, and it would be hard for Mc to tell why the pact mark is stinging, is the brother mad, happy, sad? Mc would have to try really hard to decipher the different levels of pain to figure out what the brother was feeling. I also don't think its unbearably painful for Mc, I think its more like the sting of a light slap or the sting you feel when you scrap you're knee. Mc can survive the pain, and may get used to it over time. The problem with this is that the brothers can tell when Mc is hurting so they may figure out that their pact mark is causing Mc discomfort. This may cause them to have certain feelings whether good or bad their feelings may unintentionally cause Mc's pact mark to sting more. Its like an unending cycle.

Like I said I believe the brothers can feel Mc's emotions but if Mc is specifically upset because of one of the brothers, that brother will know. Since the brothers don't have a mark on their body due to their pact with Mc, I feel like they would just feel the sting everywhere. It may confuse them when it first happens, but after realizing what was happening some of the brothers may specifically try and make Mc mad at them, just so they can feel the sting. Both for Mc and the brothers, how much the sting hurts depends on how upset the other is, so it may just be a little pain sometimes and other times it can be rather painful, never unbareable though. This could def be used for pact play, by either Mc or the brothers, but thats a topic for a different time.

Having a pact with Mc obviously makes them closer with Mc, Mc and the brothers understand each other on different levels than others do. No matter how upset Mc and the brothers may get with each other, they always fall back into being a close knit family. All relationships have their bad points, and all relationships have their good points. I feel like when the brother is really happy with Mc, or just feeling lots of love for Mc, then their pact mark on Mc may glow with their color. This can also work when the brother is watching Mc indulge in their Avatar, or are feeling their Avatar towards Mc. For example if Lucifer is feeling proud of Mc, then Lucifer's pact mark on Mc would glow blue. Just like with the negitive emotions, how much the brother is feeling the positive emotion for Mc effects how bright their pact mark on Mc glows.

As I previously stated the brothers do not have a mark, so they dont glow. It would be weird to see a demon glowing just because the human that demon has a pact with is being happy with them. I feel like when Mc's feeling positive emotions for the brothers, the brothers will feel warm and fuzzy. Its a comforting feeling, a big contrast to the painful sting of negative emotions. Some brothers may try and get this feeling more than the other feeling, depending on how their feeling determins whether they make Mc happy or upset with them. Somedays the sting feels better than the comfort to them, and other times its the other way around, Mc just has to learn to deal with it.

━☆*:･ﾟ✧✧ ♡ ❀ ♡ ✧━━☆*:･ﾟ✧✧ ♡ ❀ ♡ ✧━

Thats all for now babes! Hope you enjoyed!! ♡ This is not proofread. Feel free to comment or reblog any thoughts or any add ons you have! Are you guys interested in hearing some of my pact play ideas? Lemme know if you are! Anyways I have more content coming soon, so Stay Tuned! Stay Safe! & Stay Spooky Loves!

━☆*:･ﾟ✧✧ ♡ ❀ ♡ ✧━

⟡˙⋆Masterlist⋆˙⟡

[corvid-language-library]

I see you talk about shadowing as a language learning method. I understand it had something to do with YT videos? Can you tell a bit more about that, how does it work and how did you come up with it?

Hi there!

Shadowing is where you listen to a language and simultaneously attempt to repeat what you hear - mimicking sounds and intonation - even if you don't understand it right away. By mimicking native speakers this way you acquire more native-like pronunciation while also (ideally) absorbing vocabulary and sentence patterns and grammar structures. I think this article explains it a lot better than I probably can!

The recommended way to do this is using audiobooks or podcasts with transcripts, but the reason I started doing this is because I would watch YT videos about useful phrases for daily life or videos about my target grammar, but I'd forget the sentences almost immediately and then have to find the motivation to sit down and rewatch an entire video, sometimes multiple times. "If only there were a way I could listen to the target sentences constantly and just practice parroting them back!" I found myself thinking. "It'd be so much more efficient than looking them up every single time or having to rewatch a whole 20-minute video!"

And then I realised I could literally just use Audacity (free audio recording/editing software!) and record from my laptop speakers myself.

So, I've been going on Youtube, watching various grammar videos and then recording sentences I want to learn from those videos. I record at natural speed first, then at 0.5x playback and then again at 0.75x playback. I then edit it together with two seconds between each recording and a repeat at each speed (plus one final repeat at normal speed). So an audio looks like:

1) Normal speed 2 second break 2) 50% speed 2 second break 3) 75% speed 2 second break 4) Normal speed 2 second break 5) 50% speed 2 second break 6) 75% speed 2 second break 7) Normal speed

Sometimes for shorter sentences, I don't bother to slow the audio down, so I'll just have it repeat 5-6 times at normal speed.

Once I've recorded everything and edited it together, I put the mp3 on my phone. I have a few different playlists (each one around 10-15 minutes in length) - some for specific grammar, some for specific situations (eg shopping, izakaya) - and I usually just stick one on repeat while I'm walking somewhere or doing some kind of menial task that doesn't otherwise engage my brain (doing dishes, ironing, making materials for work etc). And then I do my best to mimic what I'm hearing just behind the speaker (or along with the speaker). Usually the first few times I listen to a track I just try to speak along with the slower versions, or maybe just mimic the specific target structure. As I hear it more and more, eventually I can speak along with the audio word for word and focus more on my intonation.

I've found it helpful so far because it helps me learn sentences while building the muscle memory of how to say certain words/grammar. I can much more easily recall a sentence I've heard on repeat/practiced saying a hundred times than one I've heard in a video once and written down in a notebook somewhere. And if I can recall a sentence, I can substitute words using correct grammar rather than trying to figure out how to say something from scratch (and hopefully choose the correct option on the JLPT when the time comes!)

Hope that answers your question! Feel free to send more 😊

[subskz]

do you have any tips on writing? i wanna start my own blog and start writing, but im not sure where to start and how to make it sound good.

ofc! i do wanna preface by saying i’m by no means an expert, and when it comes to writing (or any form of creative expression) a lot of it is very subjective, so there’s not really any set standard for your writing to be considered “good” outside of basic writing/grammar rules! that being said, here are some things i do!

first just a few basic rules:

1.) start a new paragraph each time someone different is speaking

e.g. “What’s that?” she asked, tilting her head in the direction of the other room.

He squinted, taking a moment to listen carefully before another dull thud echoed through the door. “Not sure,” he replied. “Let’s check it out.”

2.) when seperating dialogue, don’t capitalize dialogue tags, treat the text in quotations and outside of quotations as if they’re the same sentence. this is one i didn’t learn until quite recently actually…😭

e.g. “Oh my God,” she muttered. “Why are you so difficult?”

The exception to this would be if the dialogue is seperated by a different sentence!

e.g. “Oh my God.” She was clearly fed up, running a hand down her face with a huff. “Why are you so difficult?”

3.) when a character is quoting something within their dialogue, don’t use quotation marks (“”), use apostrophes (‘’)

e.g. “He told me “do what you want”, so I will.” (this is wrong)

“He told me ‘do what you want’, so I will.” (this is right!)

as for writing tips, these are just some things that i personally do when i write! they’re not necessarily the right way to go abt it, so only follow the advice you want! i also talked a bit abt motivation here

include actions w dialogue! this can keep things from getting monotonous (like a constant back and forth of “he said” “she said” with little in between) and can also emphasize what the characters are saying! for example, instead of writing “he replied dismissively” you could say “he replied, giving a dismissive wave of his hand” or instead of “she said in exasperation” you could say “she rolled her eyes as she spoke” just little things like that to enhance the dialogue. ofc, keeping it simple is necessary sometimes so don’t overdo this!

that brings me to another point, adverbs aren’t bad (i use them a lot!) but sometimes what ur trying to say could be better expressed with just one word. it can get a bit repetitive if things are always described like “said awkwardly” “laughed loudly” “touched softly” etc. you might be able to find a word that gets the point across better. for example, “said irritably” could be “huffed”, “walked casually” could be “sauntered”, “smiled brightly” could be “beamed” and so on. but there are plenty of cases where adverbs are super useful so definitely don’t avoid them altogether!! i just try to make sure i dont use a bunch in a row

simple dialogue tags like “said” “asked” “replied” are your friend!! don’t avoid using them just bc they might seem generic hehe esp if you’re substituting them w verbs that are less appropriate simply for the sake of not using “said”

sometimes, you’re better off not including dialogue at all! like the whole premise of “show, don’t tell”, spelling out every last thing for the reader can sometimes work against you. body language and cultivating an atmosphere is key here! if it’s an awkward situation, you could bring up someone averting their eyes, shifting from side to side, playing with their fingers etc. if it’s a serious situation, you could mention their tensed shoulders/facial expression, their jaw clenching, them pulling away when someone tries to touch them etc. that in itself tells a story! but once again, it’s just abt using methods like these at the right times. sometimes, exposition is necessary

if ur writing abt skz, or any muse really, i think including mentions of their features/habits makes it more fun to read! it can help immerse the reader if u bring up traits that capture the character’s essence, or speech patterns that capture their voice. it’s all fictional ofc and just based off our perception of them, but i like to write skz in a way that’s at least somewhat believable in accordance w their personalities! even little things like the way jisung talks through breathy giggles, binnie’s nose scrunches, how minho looks up when he’s thinking, or how jeongin ends his sentences with a cute nod sometimes. and ofc there’s physical details as well like binnie’s chin scar, chan’s dimples, hannie’s cheek mole etc

this one is probably obvious but paragraph breaks are very important!! both to prevent overwhelming the reader with a huge block of words, and for organizing events/building tension! a paragraph never strictly has to be multiple sentences, you can have a single isolated line of text if you want. timing paragraph breaks can be very effective for creating the right vibe! if something intense is happening, putting a break right after a serious action or putting a single line of dialogue on its own can make them stand out and really add to the drama of it all hehe

don’t worry too much abt using the same word multiple times!! it might feel a lil annoying when you have to repeat a word several times in a paragraph but sometimes that’s the only option there is. if you try to replace it w 10 different synonyms instead of just referring to a book as a book, then it might end up sounding even goofier haha…so try not to stress when you feel like you’re overusing a word!

if you want your writing to be more immersive, take all senses into account!! describe more than just the character’s actions—describe sights, smells, sounds, touch, how the characters are feeling, etc!

arguably the biggest piece of advice i could give!! having varied sentence structure/length is one of the most challenging parts of writing in my opinion but so so important. when smth sounds off in your writing, it could very often be bc of the way a sentence is structured, or bc several sentences back to back are similar in length/format, which makes it flow awkwardly. i think making sure ur sentences range from long, detailed ones w several clauses, commas, semicolons, em dashes etc. to short, direct ones keeps the writing engaging! sometimes combining 2 short sentences can make the flow sound better, and sometimes breaking down a long one does the same! it also makes it a lot more effective when you have a sudden short sentence amidst several longer ones, bc there’s a clear shift in tone! generally just try to avoid having an entire paragraph of sentences that go “she did this and then this. then she did this and then this. then she did this and said that.” the variety will work wonders for how it all connects together!

ofc there are some situations where you might be going for a certain feeling or tone w your writing, in which case it can actually be a useful tactic to have repetitive sentence length/structure. maybe you want a scene to feel overwhelming w several long, complex sentences or you want to really drive in an idea by using blunt, disjointed ones. it’s all abt what you hope to achieve w your writing and your personal preference!

i hope this helps!! once again this isn’t the be all end all, so please only follow what you see fit! if you have any other questions let me know, i’m wishing you the best of luck! ^_^

[enweasley]

Restricted Section ; Finn Weasley x Sallow!Reader

AN: HII! So I haven't seen this being done much (or even at all but I barely looked) where people would write fanfics of their own characters in Hogwarts Legacy, so I decided to do so! Quick introduction to the character:

This is Finn Weasley; He's in Gryffindor and has a very loyal but mischievous personality. He's also pansexual! He LOVES herbology but he loves solving mysteries and exploring secrets even more - even if it's super dangerous. However, he will go to any extent to keep others out of danger (ironically). Finn can be really harsh to people if someone hurts him or the people he cares about. He's not perfect, though, he has some flaws. He does have a short temper and can say pretty horrible things without meaning to. He can also be quite reckless and finds it hard to accept other people's love and care, leading him to forget to keep himself from getting hurt.

That's all for now, but I'll probably add more to his story as time goes by!

(Please excuse any grammar mistakes, I'm trilingual and grammar from 3 languages can mix me up a lot C:)

--

Summary: The new student needs your help sneaking into the restricted section for something 'very important'. However, he doesn't expect you to cover for him when you get caught.

Warnings: Swearing, small panic attack, gets a little heated at the end. Kinda cheesy but we love that :)

Reader's gender is never specified!

--

"Excuse me! Y/n Sallow, right?" Interrupted from your game of wizard's chess alone, you turn around to be met with a pretty tall red-head. You couldn't help but think about how gorgeous he is, but you swallow your excitement.

"Yeah, that's me. You're the new kid aren't you?" You disenchant your chess game and give him your full attention. "I watched your duel with Sebastian in the Clock Tower, you're really good!"

Finn seems to flush at your compliment. During his short time starting in 5th year here in Hogwarts he's gotten plenty compliments on how he's been able to learn and execute spells so quickly, but for some reason your compliment had a special affect on him.

He chuckles lightly. "Thank you, I'm just trying to catch up quickly." He couldn't seem to keep his eyes from wandering over your features. "It's Finn, by the way. Finn Weasley."

"Oh, another Weasley! Well it's lovely to meet you! Did you need anything?" You ask politely.

Finn almost forgot why he was talking to you in the first place, but managed to remember before already humiliating himself in front of you. "Right, yes. This may sound quite forward, but Sebastian told me you're really good at sneaking around. Is there a chance you can help me sneak into the restricted section of the library tonight? I can't say why, but it's very important."

You were a bit surprised at his request, but kind of prideful that you were the first person he was led to for it. You smiled widely. "Of course! I'm surprised my brother didn't take you himself. Meet me at the grand staircase at 9. Don't be late!"

"Wait- Don't you wanna know more about why I need to sneak in?" He asked perplexed.

"Nope. I'll take any opportunity for sneaking around. Either way, you don't seem the type to burn down the castle or anything. Plus, you said you can't say why you need to sneak in."

He mentally facepalmed himself. How could he forget he just said that? Maybe he just wanted to talk to you longer. "I'll see you at 9!" You smile at him and walk away.

You take a long breath after turning away from him. Holy shit he's cute.

-

You're both crouched at the railing of the stairs looking down onto the central hall at exactly 9pm, analysing the prefects walking around and guarding the doors of the library.

"Okay," you whisper. "First of all, we need to go invisible. Have you learnt the disillusionment spell?"

Finn looks at you like a lost puppy, his head slightly titled. You almost had to tell him how cute he looked, but held back.

You pull your wand out and whisp it over your head and body. The wand leaves a blue trail of light before all there was left was your aura.

You continue whispering to the lost boy in front of you. "This is the disillusionment spell. It doesn't turn you completely invisible but it's better than being completely exposed."

You point to his hand holding his wand. "May I?" He nods hesitantly.

You slowly hold his fist clenching onto his wand and do the same movement you did on yourself over him. Finn could barely focus, the feeling of your soft hand on his summoning an army of butterflies in his stomach. You couldn't help but feel the same tingle in your stomach too.

Clearing your throat, you speak. "That's the movement for the spell. Just think of it and do the movement."

He did as you said, and suddenly you were both just two ghosts staring at each other's remains.

Finn chuckles enthusiastically. "This is awesome!" He whisper yells.

You laugh at his excitement, wishing you could see his freckled face through the spell.

"Okay, let's go. Stick close to me." You begin to sneak down the stairs, through the hall, and quickly side past the prefect turned away from the library door. You can feel Finn following closely behind.

After you both get into a safer corner of the library away from Madam Agnes's sights, you remove the spell off you.

"Here's the plan," you start. "You go get the key from Madam Agnes's desk draw over there, I'll distract her."

Finn nods. As you start to turn away, Finn grabs your arm gently and looks at you with his adorable puppy eyes.

"What if you get caught?" He sounds worried. You can't tell why he'd be worried about you, though.

You give him a cheeky smile. "Me? Get caught? You should worry about yourself, Weasley." He chuckles, shooing away the blush creeping into his cheeks after hearing you call him by his surname. "C'mon, let's go."

As you throw a book across the room, Finn conceals himself and scurries to grab the key. You quickly do the same and meet him at the entrance of the restricted section.

Exposing yourselves from the spell, you watch him unlock the gate before you walk in.

"YES!" Finn cheers, surprising you both with a tight hug. There's a pause before he realises what he's doing and slowly pulls away, taking his warmth away with him. "Sorry... Got excited."

You laugh sweetly at him. "I don't mind." He continues walking down the stairs of the forbidden room, but not before shooting you a relieved smirk.

"Lumos." You cast, making the eery room brighter and less intimidating.

As you squeeze between abandoned bookshelves and over piles of junk, you reach a collapsed set of armour. "Repai-" Finn begins to cast before a loud screech interrupts him.

Almost out of thin air, Peeves flies through the wall in front of you. He almost knocks you down, but Finn's quick reflexes catch you before you hit the ground. You find yourself wrapped in his arms, yours tightly around his neck.

"Shit, are you okay?" Finn asks you breathlessly, his worried eyes glaring into yours.

"Yeah yeah, I'm fine-" But once again you were interrupted by the same squeaky, loud voice of the poltergeist.

"I'M TELLING, I'M TELLING," Peeves squeals mockingly before flying straight upwards towards the main floor of the library.

Your heart squeezes into itself. You've never been caught before, why now? Your uncle is going to kill you if he finds out you were sneaking around the castle, and in the restricted section of all places.

You didn't realise your breath was quickening until you felt arms lowering you onto the floor and rough but warm hands palming each side of your neck.

"Hey, hey. You're alright, sweetheart. Take a breath." You hear Finn's soft voice whisper in your ear. A little voice was in your head screaming How do you expect me to breathe when you're making my heart beat even faster??

You breathe deeply before letting out a small chuckle. "I'm okay. I'm fine. Just go get whatever you need to get. I need to deal with Peeves before he gets us both in trouble."

Finn looks at you as if asking you if you're sure. You just nod and sprint after Peeves, the last thing you hear is a distant "Repairo" before making it back to the library.

"PEEVES YOU STUPID POLTERGEIST." You try catching him, forgetting he's a literal ghost as your arms flail right through him.

"Y/n Sallow." You jump at the voice of Madam Agnes behind you. You slowly turn around while Peeves chuckles menacingly at your head hung low in shame. "And to think I'd get a break from the Sallow siblings, you come running along. Wait until your uncle hears about this."

"No. No no no-" You get interrupted by her. "That's enough. You're a bright student, you should know better than to go sneaking around the restricted section especially after curfew."

"But Madam Agnes-"

"And Peeves here tells me you were with someone else." Peeves twirls and rolls around mid-air, celebrating your punishment. "Please tell me you were forced to come here by someone's hand instead of it being your own choice."

There's a pause. You could never snitch on Finn like that. You only just met him but you know better than to put his record at risk on his first week of school here. This was your own choice anyway, you weren't forced. Finn helped you down there, so you're gonna help him.

"No. I came here all alone." You said in a low but stern voice.

Madam Agnes sighs at your lie, but she knew how stubborn you and your brother were, so she let it slide.

"Detention after classes tomorrow. You're going to sort the books to their respective places until they're all done. It doesn't matter if it takes you all night." Your shoulders slump. "Peeves, escort her to her common room, please."

With a sigh from you and an evil chuckle from the poltergeist, you begin your walk to your common room. At least Finn's in the clear now.

Little did you know, Finn saw the whole thing from behind one of the shelves. He couldn't help but let a grateful smile reach his lips.

--

The next day, Finn runs to the library to find you after his classes. It's already dark out by the time he finishes his extra tasks and from talking to Professor Fig. He doesn't know why he's in such a hurry, but he won't let his confidence escape him just yet.

Once he's in, he find the library to be completely empty, not even Madam Agnes in sight. He hears distant curses and shuffling coming from the second floor and he can only assume the source being your complaining.

As he follows the sounds of frustrated mumbles, he finally finds you at the end of the second floor in a dark corner holding a bunch of books to shelf up. He smiles at the sight of you awkwardly balancing everything in your one hand and walks over to you, taking a pile of books from you.

"Need help there?" He looks at you with a teasing smirk.

You look at him with a grumpy face. "Oh haha, Weasley. I can handle this on my own, thank you very much." You snatch back the books he took from you, instant regret flooding your features as you immediately struggle to balance them.

Finn immediately takes them back from you and effortlessly holds them over his head, extending his arm upwards far from your reach.

"Hey- Hand those back, Weasley." You try hopping to reach the books he so graciously stole from you.

He chuckles at your efforts while you claw up his chest and shoulders, trying to tug down his arm. After a harsh tug, Finn loses balance of the books he's holding and he tries catching them but ends up stumbling forwards.

The books fall to the side as Finn catches himself on the bookshelf, trapping you between it and himself.

You lock eyes with him, your hands clutched tightly onto the thin material of his shirt over his chest. You're both breathing heavily, chests almost touching with every breath.

You can feel Finn hesitate as his hands slowly reach to cup the back of your neck, his thumb over your cheek. No matter how much you willed yourself to, your simply could not take your eyes off him.

"Thank you." He whispers. Your eyebrows furrow.

"For what?"

"For covering for me." His stare snapping between your eyes and lips. "I heard you in the library after we got caught."

"You mean after I caught got?" You tease.

Finn smirks at your remark, his hold on your neck squeezing for a second. "Whatever you say, sweetheart." The nickname melts into your ears and into the rushed beats of your heart.

"Hey, Finn?" The use of his first name makes the blood rush to his cheeks, his breath hitches.

"Yeah?"

"You dropped my books."

"Shut up." Finn lets out in a desperate breath before pulling you into him, his lips roughly but passionately meeting yours.

His other hand shifts from the side of your head to tangle into your hair, tugging it lightly. You let out a little whimper, but that's all it took for Finn to deepen the kiss even more, his tongue slightly grazing yours. Breaths were escaping through your noses, desperate for air but never desperate enough to separate from each other.

Your fingers weave through his long, soft ginger locks. Your other hand clutches desperately onto the collar of his shirt.

You both finally pull away from each other, your hands gliding down to rest on his chest.

"Fuck." Finn leans his forehead on yours, leaning in for another quick peck. His hazel eyes are glazed over, looking into yours like they hold the world. He slowly brushes a strand of your hair behind your hair, memorising your face as you memorise his.

"I was hoping you'd do that." You chuckle breathlessly. Finn laughs with you, his eyes holding nothing but love as they stare into yours. "Oh yeah?" You nod, your nose lightly touching his.

"Now help me with these books, Weasley. You're still responsible for my detention." You playfully push him away and start picking up the books he previously dropped.

"And I'd do it again as long as it ends like this every time." He smiles at you cheekily.

"Do it again and I'm telling Sebastian you used a love potion on me."

And with that he got to work helping you sort the books out.

[beforeiread-studies]

studyblr masterpost jam Day 3: free resources

Korean is a pretty popular language so there are MANY free resources. You could in theory not spend a penny while learning.

The King Sejong Institute

It's an Institute sponsored by the Korean government that gives students free material and online lessons. I repeat, FREE. You can download textbook from the website or enroll in their FREE courses.

I'm currently taking one of their 1 live lesson a week (on Zoom) course (it's FREE!!!) but there are also pre-recorded video courses. I completed 2 of them and they are still really valid. And free!

If you would like I structured approach (for free), I recommend you check them out. You can start a pre-recorded course whenever you like and you can enroll in the Zoom ones about one month before the course is set to start. There are four enrollment periods a year and each course lasts 10 weeks.

Your local Korean Culture Institute

Korea also sponsors physical Culture Institutes around the world. They offer lessons at laughable prices (one semester for 30€ here in Italy) and sometimes also organize free workshops (I learned how to read Hangul at one of those). Sometimes they also offer online group lessons so check that out as well!

Grammar: websites

Whenever I have to look up a grammar rule really quickly, I end up either stumbling on previously answered Hello Talk questions or the website How To Study Korean. Both amazing resources.

Listening: podcasts

Here is a list of the podcasts I like for beginners:

akapinn

koreant

study korean with sol

korean tutor k

anything that says "comprehensible input" is gold

They are all easy enough not to get discouraged but tough enough to make you improve with every video. I recommend not looking at the English translation until you've listened to the podcast at least a couple of times.

And here are some podcasts I've heard are good for intermediate learners:

choi susu (a classic) (if you find the podcast too difficult start with the vlogs)

didi's korean podcast

Listening: kdramas & TV variaties

You won't understand them as a beginner. That's ok. Watch them anyway.

Being exposed to the language will eventually bring you to pick up vocabulary and get a sense of some grammar rules. I watched kdramas with eng sub for 7 years before I started learning actively and it has helped SO MUCH both with my listening skills and with going like "oh so that's why they keep repeating that expression in that particular way" while I'm studying grammar, which helps me remember everything better.

For kdramas: just go on Viki.com and look for a drama with an interesting plot. Beware! Do not fall into temptation and start watching Chinese dramas instead. Remember that you are there to practice Korean, not start a whole new hobby. For a beginner, I recommend picking kdramas set in modern times, because the vocabulary in historical dramas is more difficult.

Some tv varieties I like:

The return of Superman. About celebrity dads raising their children.

I live alone. About celebrities and their daily life in their apartments where they live by themselves

Inspector / 감별사. On YouTube. Hosted by Jeongyeon from TWICE, she visits other celebrities' houses to ask them to donate their precious possessions. The objects will get auctioned and the money donated to charity. Jy is really funny.

Listening, reading and pronunciation: song lyrics

I've heard that some people shadow every podcast episode they listen to in order to improve their pronunciation, which sounds incredibly boring. But you know what's not boring? Singing.

Once you get to a decent Hangul reading speed (and to get there the only way is to read a lot), pick a ballad you love and try to sing along to the lyrics.

This exercise will help you improve your reading and listening skills, practice your pronunciation and memorize new words and sentence patterns. Also singing is a joyful activity that will take the stress out of language learning. Kudos point if you decide to try and translate the song.

If you are a kpop fan, you know a ballad for sure. If you are a kdrama fan, every kdrama soundtrack features at least a ballad. There are no excuses. But if you need a suggestion, Spring Day by BTS or 두 사람 are my current faves.

Writing

Writing is actually not that hard, guys. You can practice writing online (on Tumblr, on Hellotalk, on writing streak Korean on Reddit, with penpals) or in secret (in your journal no one will ever read). It's not that hard, find a list of prompts and get going! I know Choi Susu has some videos about writing a diary in Korean but I haven't watched them yet.

Speaking

If you have no one to speak to in real life you can either 1. go back to the "writing" section and do that or 2. try to think in Korean.

It will be a real chore at first, but if you simply try chronicling your day, little by little you will look up new vocabulary and practice using new grammar rules.

Warning: this will only help you with formulating sentences. To speak properly you will have to practice your pronunciation and get your face muscles used to some weird movements. Singing along (see above) is a good way of accomplishing that.

[a-pop-of-korean]

Sorry to bother you but I’m really for some advice on how to study for TOPIK 1/2 vocabulary. I tried flashcards both handwritten and Anki but i eventually stopped because it just gets really boring and repetitive. Do you know any entertaining ways you can review vocabulary? (Maybe games or apps that are entertaining and interactive) Also I wanna know your opinion on using A.I to review and practice Korean. I’ve been using it to review grammar and practice reading pronunciation there, it’s honestly really helpful if you don’t have anyone to talk to you in Korean. Would you recommend that method or do you think A.I might teach or say awkward phrases that aren’t really said in Korean.

Hello! I think Drops is a great app to help you memorize vocabulary in an easy, gamified way. I don't believe you can upload your own lists of vocabulary and study those, but the app should already have plenty of vocabulary that you need to know for the topic tests. It has a wide range of vocabulary, so it can help regardless of your level. It also keeps track of your streaks, keeping you accountable for practicing daily. If you do want to use your own vocab lists, try Quizlet; I never really used it much but I think it has games and other activities to help you memorize the words.

As for your question regarding AI, I personally would not recommend something like ChatGPT to explain anything about Korean to me. I remember I once asked it to explain the difference between -아/어/여서 and -(으)니까, and its response was pretty inaccurate. I haven't used other AI tools for Korean since, and maybe AI has become more sophisticated or something, but I generally don't have faith in its ability to help you learn another language. I think native speakers of that language are best equipped to explain the nuances of their grammar and vocabulary and create natural sounding sentences, not a robot. After all, language is a human phenomenon!

I'm not sure how exactly you use it, but if you find it helpful for practicing pronunciation, however, I think that's probably okay since Korean pronunciation has pretty straightforward rules that can be taught to a machine (if that makes sense--I'm not a comp sci person lol). I wish AI were better for language learning otherwise at this point since it would be great to, say, have a tool that can automatically check the correctness of your sentences or provide you with natural sentences, but I personally don't think it can. Thank you for the great question though--it really got me thinking and I would love to hear other's thoughts on it! I hope this is helpful :) 화이팅!

[cripplecharacters]

Hi there! Love your blog so much, I've learned so much from it!

I'm writing a My Hero Academia fanfic where one of the canon characters, Toru, is completely invisible, and can't turn herself visible. Her best friend Anju (my OC) is hard of hearing and communicates with both sign and voice depending on the situation, but she lives in a signing household so that's what she most gravitates towards. Realistically, Anju would want to communicate with Toru in sign, and she'd get tired of listening/not want to wear her hearing aids sometimes.

So how feasible do you think it would be if Toru wore gloves to sign with Anju, and exaggerated her body language to try and take the place of facial expressions (her clothes are visible, so Anju is able to see how she moves).

The girls have been friends for four years, and my thinking is that in this time Anju would have adapted Toru's specific style of signing (even if other signers probably wouldn't be able to understand her). Is there anything you can think of that might make Toru's signing more accessible to Anju? Or if I'm way off-base here and there's no real way Anju could understand Toru signing, what other ways might they be able to communicate?

Thank you so much in advance! And hope you guys are having a lovely day <3 (heart emoji)

Hi!

Gloves sounds like a good start of a solution! Be mindful, signing takes a good amount of dexterity, so thin, tight-fitting gloves would be best--otherwise they will get in the way.

Body movements will definitely help, as will signing speed and size. However, eyebrows and mouth shape are also very important non-manual cues. I am curious, would makeup show up? Toru could use makeup to make her facial features visible.

If that's not possible, then body language will cover most of it. Some non-manual markers are made solely using the face and don't really make sense with body language (such as mouth shape to help show size), so Anju may just need additional clarification in those instances. (For the size example, handshape classifiers will help too. Face is part of the grammar, but not the only thing dictating meaning.)

Another solution, especially if Toru needs to be invisible for some reason, is some version of tactile sign. In tactile sign language, emotions can be expressed through hand movement in signing space (similar to visual sign) and also through additional movement cues; look into ProTactile for some examples. These techniques from tactile sign languages could also be adapted into visual sign.

In general, signers will be able to understand sign without facial expressions, it just loses clarity. This is definitely something they can adapt!

Mod Rock

[femmefatalevibe]

How do I sound and appear more intelligent and sophisticated? I've read books and stuff but how do I apply the knowledge in real life? How do I make my everyday vocabulary more sophisticated? Ik the general advice to read books and converse with people etc, but how do I actually apply it irl?

Hi love! Here are some of my suggestions/tips:

How do I sound and appear more intelligent and sophisticated?

Keep your language and explanations simple & concise

Speak slowly & deliberately: Take your time between sentences, and pause between your thoughts. Always think before you speak. Silences, while slightly awkward, are not always best avoided

Use the proper propositions when speaking: Avoid small grammar mistakes (know when to use less vs. fewer, I vs. me, graduated from an institution, etc.)

Articulate complex concepts into layman's terms: Break concepts down into different parts of the conceptual equation – chronically, from beginning to end or outcome to origin, simultaneously moving parts/micro-stories or situations; Use analogies (metaphors, mundane/real-life examples, or hypothetical situations) that require the same thought-process or methodology)

Apply conversational "show don't tell" when sharing a story: Describe the situation using the 5 senses to convey the implied meaning (e.g. "I could feel the pit in my stomach." vs. "I was nervous.")

Use subtle tonality to convey particularly emotional or significant points while speaking

I've read books and stuff but how do I apply the knowledge in real life?

Relate cultural references or learned concepts to add clever humor to everyday conversations

Create parallels and analogies to outside information to convey your understanding of what someone is saying, ask more thoughtful follow-up questions, or smoothly transition into a new conversation topic

How do I make my everyday vocabulary more sophisticated?

Use everyday/simple sentence structure and replace one simple word choice with another more sophisticated word that is equally apt to the message you're trying to convey

If you're ever confused about whether a particular synonym makes sense to use IRL, look at how it is used in the dictionary sentence examples and in other books/articles

Ik the general advice to read books and converse with people etc, but how do I actually apply it irl?

Reiterate a concise, simplified version of the other person's anecdotes to convey your understanding. Drive the conversation forward by asking specific follow-up questions based on one "part" of the idea or story

Use cultural parallels to convey your understanding of what the other person is saying (sounds like this TV show character, like a certain artist, historical/current event, etc.)

Leverage metaphors to connect the dots between the points you and your conversation partner are making. Make an insightful connection to break up the air time between their anecdote and contribution

Conversational word choice should be used to create vivid images in people's minds – to paint a picture of the concept, scene, emotions, or sensations one would engage with or experience if the person was living your conversation in the present moment

Learn how to use wit conversations – context and delivery are vital to its success and positive reception

Hope this helps xx

[can-ya-guess-my-curent-obsession]

Hiii! I hope you’re doing well! I was wondering if I could request Gorillaz x Singer!S/O? Like, they have a solo career, and occasionally collab with the band? I hope you have a great day, and thank you for your time whether you write this or not!<3

Gorillaz with soloist Singer S/O

WRITERS NOTE: Thank you so much, i hope you have a great day as well. Sorry about the bad grammar, my mod at the time is not active and sorry if I got to off track with the headcanons. Either way- I am so excited for my first request!

All art on this post is mine

Edited: At this time no, but will hopefully will be later

TW: Curssing, Drinking, Trama, Voilence, if I missed any tell me please and I will add it

Characters:

/Gorillaz/

Murdoc

Murdoc straight up jokes about you replacing 2D(often right in front of 2D). And sometimes it doesn't feel like hes jokeing even if he is

He likes to chill back stage with you- which he expects automatically that he gets to be in the back because he's his S/O's boyfriend and because he's the leader of the greatest band ever- his words not mine

If/When you collab he was iffy on wether he wanted you to duet with 2D at first because he's a bit jealous

But he can't argue with what sounds good, and the voice of his amazing S/O, and the voice of the singer in HIS BAND is something that is he needs for his next album

Murdoc will always talk about how he could go solo too if he wanted to, once he learned his S/O was a solo act

If he drinks too much when you guys are hanging out he will start singing himself, and encouraging his S/O to sing with him

When recording he will give you as nice of criticism as he can if your not hitting the right notes or arn't in the right pitch- but satan forbit one of the others try to give you constructive criticism, especially 2D

Whenever he has nightmares about his childhood and his dad, and his S/O's around he finds it comforting if his S/O hummed to him but he won't ask you to hum to him though because he's scared that you'ed think he's weak

And if your not around when he's haveing a nightmare, he'll listen to one of your songs to calm himself down

If his S/O's a smaller and less well known singer- he will often tells his S/O how he can hook them up with good produser(even if S/O already has one) and anything that you as a smaller creator may not have access to, and will promote you sometimes like on an interview

And even if you are just as popular he can be a bit stuck up and will be like 'Yeah but, Gorillaz is little bit more popular'

Murdoc has mentioned before that he's glad that your a soloist, because he would feel bad for your band mates because of how bad you would out shine them

He wants to lay his head on you, and let you sing to him but he's to nervous

"Dove you have quite the voice, I'd love to have you on my next album."

Noodle

Noodle is can be quite the extrovert, so she would love to go out and do karaoke with her S/O

Noodle was so excited when it was decided that her S/O and Gorillaz was going to collab, cuz it means being with her adopted family and her lover at the same time- she was just so happy to have the people she loved most in the same room

She almost tears up duing a live performance collab because everthing feels so perfect and amazing at that point in time she can't help be a bit emotional

Noodle will travel the world to see her S/O preform at concerts

She would be absolutely in love if her S/O could sing in different languages

She has all your albums, murch- everything

Noodle would be delited to help write your songs

ANY ONE WHO CRITICIZES HER S/O'S MUSIC WILL FACE HER WRATH, it doesn't matter if she likes the kind of music her S/O makes she will beat the shit out of anyone who is rude

She is your personal body guard, like why would you need a body guard when you have a Noodle

She introduced you to 2D and Russel before the collab because her S/O and 2D are both singers and she thought 2D needed a singer friend that wasn't connected through work, and Russel is her dad who did the most parenting so it was like a meet the parent situation Sorry Mudoc :/

She will ask her S/O to sing to her somtimes, most often when you two are alone

Noodle has a LOT of respect for her S/O because managing a music career by yourself can be quite hard, especially to her because she grew up in a band with other people so she could never imagine doing it alone

She like catching her S/O singing to themself when they are alone, because she loves to see her S/O flustered, and if you don't get flustered she still likes to see them surprised to see her

"Hey S/O, about our date- I was thinking.... karaoke!"

2D

2D is ecstatic to have a S/O that is also a singer

He is just so happy to have someone to relate to

Before 2D even starts dating his S/O(like in crush faze) he would have already asked S/O to do a collab as a way to get closer with them

Like Noodle, 2D owns a lot of his S/O's merchandise not as much as her but still a lot

He likes to atend his S/O's concerts but prefers to watch back stage because while he loves his fans and fan interactions he also hates the idea of taking attention away from his S/O at his S/O's concert, and due to his very recognizable appearance he is likely going to draw attention to himself in a crowd of people

2D will blab to anyone who will listen about his S/O and their solo career as a singer, this is the case often in interviews where the interviewers ask about y'alls relationship

When talking with his S/O and his S/O's career as a singer he has forgoten he was a singer himself

2D tends subconsciously sing or hum to himself, and if his S/O joined him in his little tune he would melt into putty- though it would take him a hot second to realize that they where singing with them

He's fascinated by the fact that his S/O's are a solo singer, and often asks you about it, though he often gets off track with his questions

PLEASE write a love song about him, if you do his heart will die of happiness

When it comes time for the collaboration 2D gets distracted constantly, by his S/O, and their voice specifically

While 2D getting distracted in the studio isn't new, but him getting distracted while recording is, as he tends to hyperfixate on singing when recording- but now half way through the lyrics he just slowly stops and stares at his S/O like nothing else in the world exists- with a goofy euphoric grin on his face, and when S/O stops cuz he stoped he'll mutter out praise about S/O's voice/singing Much to the others dissmay

"Wow... ya have such'a pretty voice luv"

Russel

Russel is a very supportive boyfriend

Out of all of the band mates he's the one that doesn't mind watching from the crowd the most- but much like 2D he doesn't like taking attention away from his S/O

If you show him the lyrics to a song you are working on he likes to suggest beats that might sound good with it

While Russel was happy to collaborate with his S/O, he's the least thrilled about it in the group- as he likes to balance his work life and home life as much as he can even though its really hard to so bring his love life into work life isn't exactly thrilling for him I mean did you see how it worked out for 2D

Russel is also the most professional when it comes time to collaborate with his S/O, like I said he tries to separate home life and work life and he does this by acting professional and trying to ignore the fact he is dating the person he is working with

Whenever the bands on tour and he misses his S/O he likes to listen to S/O's music even if it's not his type of music, but he usually won't really listen to the collab music at that time because it only makes him think of work(also no one but Noodle knows he does this)

And to add on to him and his S/O's music, Russel likes to suggest his S/O's music but he's very sublet about it

Besides actually collaborating as a work thing, he likes to help his S/O with their songs, whether it be helping with lyrics, what instruments to use, or with beats- though he rarely does this as he is usually he is exhausted with making music from work

He's overall just really chill about it in general, he's doesn't mind that your a soloist, and out of everyone he's the most neutral in that category

Though Russel sometimes jokes about how he's jealous that you don't have to deal with band mates and that he wishes he was a solo act or that he was in a band with his S/O instead

I mean Russel loves his band mates but sometimes they can be down right obnoxious *cough* 2D *cough* Murdoc

Also Russel likes helping his S/O pick out their stage outfit/make up for live performances and/or music videos

"Look'in and sound'en great hun."

[fatuismooches]

Hold! Let me cook!

So, realistically, well not even that, it's a fact - language evolves and dramatically changes over the years, compare how we talk in this age to the letters of the past for example! The way we word things, how we formulate our sentences and the meaning behind them evolves with the context of current events, as in the use of modern slang compared to let's say, 1920s slang where they called alcohol "giggle water."

Now what am I on about? Well, I thought that hey: being comatosed for almost 500 years would surely mess up your communication, your words would be dated after all.

So here's the dish: Fragile!reader wakes up after 500 years, and can't understand a single lick of what anyone is saying.

A century passing = new slang and terms

Two centuries passing = grammar would have changed, but you could still hold a conversation

Anything past that? That's a new language! (See ye olden English from the medieval period, old English doesn't sound like our English!)

Poor fragile!reader spouting a dead language (old Sumerian) and the only one that understands is Dottore—

And, since their grammar would be different, the length they would speak would be different too! A bit hard to explain so:

[Reader: *Is speaking for a good thirty seconds*

*Confused cicin mage nodding along.*

Dottore, translating: "Your hair looks nice."]

Language anon here I just read your most recent post I served a cold-dish, room temperature, you were already on it 😭 I'm just gonna 🚪🏃‍♂️

ANON PLEASE, DON'T WORRY I LOVE THIS ASK SM 💗 And I was actually very much inspired by an anon right here so if anything, I'm also serving a cold dish as well 😭 But you're so right, the language of Teyvat has definitely changed a lot! From the way it's written, to new words, to old ones being now unused, pronunciation, and all that! Fragile reader was in for a shock for sure, because they would hear the segments and Dottore speaking in complete gibberish, and then switch back to the old language just for you. To reader, perhaps it's obvious that the language would no longer be the same but... it really hits them seeing it be so different right in front of them. You'd probably freak out a bit, considering literally no one can understand you, nor can you understand them.

Besides your lover, of course. Good thing he's a genius and made sure to preserve the old language for this day, and also program it into his segments. Thankfully, they are all quite patient in the process, as switching between languages is a piece of cake for them. I imagine you try very hard to learn certain words and phrases (how does one flirt in modern Teyvat? did courtship change much in 400+ years...? 🤔) in order to surprise him. Just don't do it too quickly... he will flirt back in much more advanced language that you don't quite understand yet and he'll laugh at your frustrated face. (AND READER TRYING TO BEFRIEND HER BY COMPLIMENTING HER BUT FAILING MISERABLY... you've been trying very hard for so long until he finally took pity on you.)

I imagine sometimes the two of them get jumbled together when you're feeling strong emotions, so only a select few people can really understand you. Sometimes, you still speak to Dottore in old Sumerian, if only to recall the old days.

[max1461]

Ok, I have a lot of people who read my blog and are (rightly) very skeptical of generative syntax. For my linguistics mutuals this is usually for somewhat subtler reasons, but for my non-ling-readers the reasoning is generally something like "well, it seems like a bunch of bullshit".

This is a very good instinct! I personally think that most of what gets published in generative syntax is a bunch of bullshit. There are very deep problems in the field, which basically everyone who is not a Chomskyan is in agreement on. But I do think people should understand, if they want to critique generative syntax well, what motivated the whole thing, what Chomsky was trying to explain, and why it's a genuine puzzle. Without that I think you're swinging blind.

I'm assume that anyone reading this will have at least some passing familiarity with the basic concepts of linguistics, but I'll try not to assume too much.

Right, so, one of the basic goals of linguistics, the thing you have to do before positing any deeper theory of the mind or linguistic cognition, is to be able to write down descriptions of existing natural languages. This descriptive task is where modern linguistics got its start. You want to look at a language, collect a bunch of data from speakers, and answer structural questions like "how can the words in this language be ordered? How can the sounds in an individual word be ordered? How do smaller pieces of words (morphemes) combine to make bigger words? Etc.". That first question, "how can the words in this language be ordered?" is the domain of descriptive syntax. Theoretical syntax (which really starts with Chomsky) attempts to find broader principles which govern the order of words in all languages, syntactic universals. Furthermore, the hope is generally that finding such principles will tell us something about the way language is generated and processed in the brain.

The first thing I want to talk about is, basically, what was already understood when Chomsky came onto the scene. I'll use modern terminology and notion (and bring a modern, computational lens to the question), but I'll describe the basic state of understanding at the very beginning of the generative project.

Let's get back to that original question, "how can the words in this language be ordered?". For the specific language we are trying to describe, let's take English. We know that some orderings of words produce valid English sentences: "the dog went to the store and bought a meteorite". We know that other orderings of words do not produce valid English sentences: "him the went dog store meteorite have bought". We would like to write down some rules or principles that characterize which sentences will be valid and which will not.

The first thing we can do is abstract away from individual words and start thinking about syntactic categories. We notice that certain words seem to be able to be swapped out for each other without affecting the validity of a sentence: if I can say "the dog went to the store", I can also say "they man went to the store". If I can say "I saw the dog", then I can say "I saw the man". Of course these sentences don't mean the same thing, but the point is that if one of these sentences with "dog" is valid, the corresponding sentence with "man" is also valid. We say that "man" and "dog" have the same syntactic distribution in English. The set of all words with a given syntactic distribution is called a syntactic category. In this case, "man" and "dog" are both nouns.

In school grammar, you might have learned that a noun is a "person, place, or thing". But in syntax, we want to understand a noun as a class of words with a particular syntactic distribution.

In fact, simple categories like "noun" and "verb" are too broad; in order to describe English grammar we need more precise categories than this. But we will keep running with these for now. If we want to be precise, we can think of "noun" and "verb" as classes of categories having similar-but-not-identical distributions. We're already at an important empirical observation—every language appears to have noun-like categories and verb-like categories, and this is interesting. But we won't dwell on this.

So we can view a sentence as a sequence of categories. "The dog went to the store" might as well be "D N V P D N" for all the syntactician cares. Here I'm using standard abbreviations for these categories: D is "determiner", N is "noun", P is "preposition", and V is "verb". I'll also use A for "adjective" later. But at this point we can abstract again. Look, there are two pieces of the above sentence that have the same shape: "the dog" and "the store" are both D N. Hmm. Let's look at another sentence. "The red dog goes to the store". Now here, the sentence starts with something shaped D A N, in place of that first D N. What about this: "the big red dog goes to the store". Now it starts D A A N. And we could have said "the dog goes to the big red store", D N V P D A A N. So it starts to look like anywhere a D N can go, a D A N can go, or a D A A N, or D [any number of As] N. These are sequences of words that have the same syntactic distribution as each other, and thus can be freely swapped out for one another. If we can describe the internal structure they have, and the positions they're allowed to go in, we can describe the syntax of the whole language.

Thus, the idea of describing syntax with trees. Sentences consist of parts nested inside other parts. These parts are called constituents or phrases. Each phrase has a particular syntactic distribution, just like individual words do. We can test what the constituents of a sentence are by trying to swap them out for one another (and for other things, like pronouns) and seeing if it works. Then we can diagram a sentence in terms of the way the constituents bracket: [[the dog] [went [to [the store]]]]. And we can represent that as a syntax tree, like this

I won't explain the concept of "headedness" right now, but the basic idea is that in some constituents, certain words play a special role, and these words are called "heads". A constituent whose head is a noun is called a noun phrase (NP), one whose head is a verb is called a verb phrase (VP), and so on. That's what the labels in the tree mean. The labels on the leaves of the tree refer to syntactic categories of individual words, and the ones up inside the tree are phrase types. The important thing is that each phrase is a subtree, and each phrase type has a specific syntactic distribution. Additionally, any individual word can be seen as a one-word phrase.

What we are building right now is called a phrase-structure grammar. If we want to describe the sentences of a language this way, we specify some abstract symbols for phrase types (NP, VP, N, V, etc.), and some rules that say what shape these phrase types can have. We know from the examples above that a DP can have shape D N (as in "the dog"), D A N (as in "the big dog"), etc. We could write this rule as DP -> D A* N. The "*" after A means "any number of As". Actually, that notation is not quite what a linguist would use, but I'm using "*" because I think it will be familiar to a lot of people already from computer science.

A phrase-structure grammar is a list of syntactic rules like this, that describe the valid shapes of different phrases. Once you do that, you need only specify what the different vocabulary items of the language are and what syntactic categories they're part of, and you've fully described the syntax.

But, wait... does that actually work? Can this system actually describe all of natural language syntax?

No!

Enter Chomsky. The term "phrase-structure grammar" was not around at the time, but diagramming sentences as trees in roughly the way shown above was not new. Chomsky wondered "is this sufficient"? In trying to answer that question, he came up with the Chomsky hierarchy. The Chomsky hierarchy is a hierarchy of different types of "formal language" (sets of sequences of symbols, like our sequences D N V P D N etc.). The hierarchy is ordered by what kind of computation apparatus you need in order to describe the given language type. Phrase-structure grammars like we constructed above are, mathematically, only able to describe languages at the "context-free" level in the Chomsky hierarchy. Are natural languages context-free languages, under Chomsky's definition? They are not.

Consider, for instance, English question words: who, what, when, where, how. Words of this type are known as wh-words, because most of them start with "wh" in English. Yes, that is as Anglocentric as it sounds. Anyway, where can they go?

Well, they usually go at the beginning of a sentence. "What did you see?", "How are you doing". Notice that in these sentences, there is something that looks like a constituent with a gap. We know already that English transitive verb phrases (VPs) have the shape V DP, where V is a verb and DP is a determiner phrase, described above. So verb phrases will be things like "saw the man" or "ate the rice". But in "what did you see", the transitive verb see doesn't have a DP after it. In fact, if you try to put the usual DP after it, then the sentence with what becomes ungrammatical: *"what did you see the dog".

(By the way, putting a "*" before a sentence is what linguists use to indicate that speakers judge it ungrammatical. Another helpful bit of notation: "?" before a sentence means speakers aren't sure if it's grammatical or disagree, the sentence is of dubious grammaticality.)

So, ok, you can put a DP after a transitive verb, unless the sentence starts with what, then you can't. Is that it? Well, not quite, but let's run with that for now. Check this out: the above rule still works no matter how far away the wh-word is from the DP gap:

"What did you see?"

*"What did you see the dog?"

"What did you tell me the man saw?"

*"What did you tell me the man saw the dog?"

"What did you tell me the man told you he saw?"

*"What did you tell me the man told you he saw the dog?"

This situation is called a long distance dependency, and it is impossible to describe them with the kind of context-free phrase-structure grammar we came up with above. Thus, context-free phrase-structure grammars are insufficient for describing natural language syntax.

So what do we do about it? Well, it's certainly the case that phrase-structure-grammar gets close to describing what we want. Lots of sentences can be diagrammed as context-free syntax trees just fine. And thinking about language in terms of constituency is very useful in a bunch of other contexts that I haven't mentioned here; phrases are the bread-and-butter of linguistic description. Chomsky's solution was to take a good old context-free phrase-structure grammar and augment it with a mechanism called movement, turning it into a context-sensitive grammar (a higher position on the Chomsky hierarchy, capable of describing long distance dependencies like that above).

There are a lot of different forms of movement, and proposals for what its limits should be, but the basic idea is that movement allows you to take something from one node in the tree and move it to another node, under some set of conditions. Generally the node it moves to should be empty; you sort of have to imagine trees like the one I drew above as having valid nodes at every possible location specified by the phrase-structure grammar, even if most of them don't have words in them. The ones without words are the empty nodes. Every syntactic theory with movement is based on some phrase-structure grammar, which determines what trees exist in the language. Movement is then allowed to apply to this set of trees generated by the PSG, shifting constituents from one node to another. In most theories, movement is only allowed to be upward (that is, things can only move to strictly higher positions in the tree). Other limitations may be put in place as well: heads may only move to other head positions, complements may only move to spec positions, movement cannot progress across certain barriers in the tree, etc. It all gets very technical.

The ideal generative theory is a PSG and a set of conditions on movement that allow linguists to describe all and only the possible syntactic structures of natural human language. This is where the term "generative" comes from: a grammar (of a specific language, in a specific theory) generates possible sentences, and a theory generates possible grammars. A bad grammar either overgenerates (predicts ungrammatical sentences) or undergenerates (fails to predict grammatical sentences). This makes it an insufficient description of the language. On a meta-level, a bad syntactic theory either overgenerates (predicts impossible grammars) or undergenerates (fails to predict possible grammars).

Anyway, back to movement. Why is it an appealing mechanism? Well, it unites a bunch of related phenomena under one description. First of all, let's notice something else about those long distance dependencies in English. There are a bunch of them: "what did he see", "where did he go", "how does he feel", etc. In all of them, the syntactic category of the gap corresponds to the question word you use.

"What did he see?" ↔︎ "He saw the dog" (DP)

"Where did he go?" ↔︎ "He went to the park" (PP)

"How did he feel?" ↔︎ "He felt good" (AP)

We might like to say that certain types of phrase are allowed in the highlighted positions in the sentences on the right, and this includes the corresponding wh-words. Then, the wh-word moves out of that position and up to the front of the sentence. This allows us to describe what sorts of wh-words pair with what sorts of constituents without having to "say the same thing twice" in the grammar. Many natural generalizations present themselves by simply specifying what is allowed to go in the position where movement starts, and then specifying where things can move to.

Here's another compelling reason to posit movement: sometimes, things don't move. Above, I said that it was a simplification to say that wh-word always show up at the front of the sentence. For example, when multiple interrogatives are present in a single sentence, only one of them can be fronted. If I say "Stacy went to the store and bought apples", and later you forget what I told you and want to ask about the details, you might say:

"Tell me again, who went to the store and bought what?"

Here, who has is in its fronted position but what is not (linguists call this wh-in-situ). Where does the in situ wh-word appear? It appears in exactly the position of the gap that must be present when it is fronted! This makes it very tempting to say that it "started there" and moved. This even provides a natural explanation for why it fails to move in the above sentence: if we suppose that words can only move to empty positions, then the position it would like to move to is blocked by the other wh-word who, and so it must stay were it is. This is fairly parsimonious.

Positing other limits on movement explains other phenomena. There are certain syntactic positions out of which wh-words can't move. Such positions are called islands. In English, wh-words are not just used for questions but also for introducing certain subordinate clauses, for instance "I know what the man saw". What if you try to move a wh-word out of a subordinate clause itself introduced with a wh-word? For example, suppose someone says "I know what Jim saw", and you later forget they were talking about Jim. You might like to ask who they were talking about. But you cannot say:

*"Who do you know what saw?"

This is an island. The most standard analysis of such islands follows from positing that movement must be local: items must always move to the closest valid syntactic landing site before they can move anywhere else. Our wh-word who would like to make it to the very front of the sentence. But that position is structurally identical to the one in the subordinate clause in which what already sits. This follows from the basic phrase-structure grammar: subordinate clauses are merely sentences-within-sentences. So, locally, the "front of the sentence" for who is the front of that subordinate clause. But what is already there! So it can't move, it can't get out.

Locality conditions and movement blocking explain a fair number of really weird, really arcane phenomena in natural language syntax, which is enough to make movement seem to me at the very least a compelling idea.

There are a bunch of other island effects that are difficult to even really talk about without the vocabulary introduced by generative syntax, at least, like subject islands:

"That John went home is likely"

*"Who is that went home likely?"

And left-branch islands:

"Susan likes Fred's hat"

*"Whose does Susan like hat?"

Which appear to be constraints on movement out of subtrees of specific shapes.

I don't consider these to be evidence for movement, but they are easy to phrase using movement, and they are essentially impossible to phrase without reference to tree structure and long distance dependency.

So, this is what the Chomskyans are seeing. There is a lot to be understood about natural language that you cannot even start asking about without looking in a pretty fine-toothed way at trees, natural language sentences, and the kind of rulesets that can generate them. I don't think there is a way to address these concerns without at least meeting generativism where it's at on some level, unless you are entirely disinterested in describing this aspect of natural language.

Where do I think generativism has failed? Well, I said that all these phenomena make movement a compelling idea, but that's a far cry from the generativists having a good scientific theory. And, in fact, I think that they don't. I think formal syntax research is marred by a thousand problems big and small that make it difficult to progress on turning their compelling ideas into good scientific theories, and I think Chomsky's personal approach to the research program has had a large hand in making things the way they are. But that's all a topic for another time. What I wanted to convey here is just... why, why are we talking about this? Why are these ideas important to think about to begin with? And I hope, even to the generativism-skeptical, that I've demonstrated that somewhat.