#idk if in english speakers that quote is common also

[milangakokoros]

(Latin Grandpa joke, if you not understand)

Think Shiryu, Think!

[dissociative-disaster]

So I started playing Elden Ring today, and it reminded me of a funny thing FromSoft games sometimes do with the Welsh language.

So obviously in ER there’s the character Blaidd (idk who he really is I just know he’s popular - I’m only like two hours in). Which I find funny because while to a non-Welsh speaker his name sounds cool and fantasy-ish, a Welsh speaker will immediately recognise it to just be the word for Wolf, which is quite funny. There are a few examples of these in soulsborne games, and chief among them to me is Gwyn, Lord of Cinder from Dark Souls.

Gwyn’s name comes from the Welsh folkloric figure Gwyn ap Nydd (‘ap’ has a similar usage in Welsh to ‘ibn’ in arabic, so his name means ‘Gwyn, son of Nydd) - (sometimes) king of the otherworld of Anwn, who also appears in Arthurian legends. This is well and good, but names don’t come from nowhere, and in Welsh there are generally a few places names come from. In this case, the name Gwyn probably started life as a surname.

While a lot of people might think them similar enough, Welsh surnames differ slightly in origin from English surnames. Until very recently (around the finance act of 1894 i think but don’t quote me on that this is from memory), surnames were less an inherited familial thing and more of an adjective on someone’s name, so that you could know which John out of the thirty-seven Johns in everyone’s circle of influence is being discussed. This was probably the same in England, actually, but the interesting thing is that in Wales (or at least North Wales) people still talk like this today. Nobody cares what your surname is - they know you by an adjective or nickname.

This adjective or nickname comes from one of four places generally: your job, the name of your home, the name of a more well-known family member, or the colour of your hair. For instance, my Taid (grandpa), John. Nobody knew John Owen, but everyone knew John Siop - he lived in Siop Isaf (literally ‘Lower Shop’).

Hair colour is less-used nowadays, but used to be very common, and is the basis for many surnames. Using a colour as an adjective for a person’s name in Welsh refers to their hair colour, and those old nicknames tended to stick and become surnames. A few English surnames, actually, come from Welsh hair colour surnames - like Lloyd, which comes from Llwyd (Gray), or Wynn which is from Wyn (treigliad (it’s complicated) of Gwyn, meaning ‘White’).

So we’re back at Gwyn. Gwyn ap Nydd’s name, then, was a descriptor of his hair colour. Which is interesting, but not my point. The point I was trying to get to before rambling on about the etymology of Welsh surnames was that Gwyn, and its variant Wyn, are very common Welsh first names. But the reason I find the name ‘Gwyn, Lord of Cinder’ funny is because Gwyn is the name of my five-foot-three bald uncle who plays golf and smiles like a fairy from a medieval illustration.

[smolsleepyfox]

hi, i have a german question if you would be so kind to answer. i'm watching a lot of the voice of germany and they use english in random places - e.g. "ladies and gentlemen". is that common or is it just for a television audience?

If it was on Voice of Germany, was it Samu who said that? Because he's not a native speaker so he switches to English sometimes (even though his German is really good.)

Regardless, English expressions are EXTREMELY common in Germany. Don't think I've heard ladies and gentlemen in the wild before but I wouldn't bat an eye at it on TV. A lot of advertising uses English catchphrases and slogans as well (even if they're German). It's about trying to sound ~ Mr. Worldwide ~ which totally never backfires when people don't know English slang oh no*

My parents also sometimes quote old movies and pop culture from back in the day but that might be my family being weird idk

Younger people use a LOT of English in day to day language, mostly slang and memes that don't have a useful equivalent in German (like vibes. It's somewhere between a feeling and a subconscious judgement of a situation or person.) A somewhat niche subgroup is literally translating things for comic effect, but it obv requires people to be aware of the original expression.**

I hope that helped a bit and that you're having fun :D

*Shout-out to "The new food everyone talks about" my store sold for a bit: "Balls"

** Große Stimmung, das Fühl wenn... Endless possibilities.

[pumpkinpaix]

hello there, hope you're having a nice day <3

so i've been reading a lot of fics lately, uk for sanity's sake, and i've noticed that in most of them, lwj doesn't use contractions (eg., says do not instead of don't)?? and i think he doesn't in the novel either but i don't remember lol so i can't be sure but anyway that made me curious - does chinese have contractions as well? does he not use it bc it's informal?

hello there! I’m doing all right, i started to answer this ask while waiting for a jingyeast loaf to come out of the oven 😊 many thanks to @bookofstars for helping me look over/edit/correct this post!! :D

anyways! the answer to your questions are complicated (of course it is when is anything simple with me), so let’s see if I can break it down--you’re asking a) whether chinese has contractions, b) if it does, how does they change the tone of the sentence--is it similar to english or no?, and c) how does this all end up with lan wangji pretty much never using contractions in english fic/translation?

I’m gonna start by talking about how formality is (generally) expressed in each language, and hopefully, by the end of this post, all the questions will have been answered in one way or another. so: chinese and english express variations in formality/register differently, oftentimes in ways that run contrary to one another. I am, as always, neither a linguist nor an expert in chinese and english uhhh sociological grammar? for lack of a better word. I’m speaking from my own experience and knowledge :D

so with a character like lan wangji, it makes perfect sense in english to write his dialogue without contractions, as contractions are considered informal or colloquial. I don’t know if this has changed in recent years, but I was always taught in school to never use contractions in my academic papers.

However! not using contractions necessarily extends the length of the sentence: “do not” takes longer to say than “don’t”, “cannot” is longer than “can’t” etc. in english, formality is often correlated with sentence length: the longest way you can say something ends up sounding the most formal. for a very simplified example, take this progression from least formal to absurdly formal:

whatcha doin’?

what’re you doing?

what are you doing? [standard colloquial]

may I ask what you are doing?

might I inquire as to what you are doing?

excuse me, but might I inquire as to what you are doing?

pardon my intrusion, but might I inquire as to what you are doing?

please pardon my intrusion, but might inquire as to the nature of your current actions?

this is obviously a somewhat overwrought example, but you get the point. oftentimes, the longer, more complex, more indirect sentence constructions indicate a greater formality, often because there is a simultaneous decreasing of certainty. downplaying the speaker’s certainty can show deference (or weakness) in english, while certainty tends to show authority/confidence (or aggression/rudeness).

different words also carry different implications of formality—in the example, I switched “excuse me” to “pardon me” during one of the step ups. pardon (to me at least) feels like a more formal word than “excuse”. Similarly, “inquire” is more formal than “ask” etc. I suspect that at least some of what makes one word seem more formal than one of its synonyms has to do with etymology. many of english’s most formal/academic words come from latin (which also tends to have longer words generally!), while our personal/colloquial words tend to have germanic origins (inquire [latin] vs ask [germanic]).

you’ll also notice that changing a more direct sentence structure (“may I ask what”) to a more indirect one (“might I inquire as to”) also jumps a register. a lot of english is like this — you can complicate simple direct sentences by switching the way you use the verbs/how many auxiliaries you use etc.

THE POINT IS: with regards to english, more formal sentence structures are often (not always) longer and more indirect than informal ones. this leads us to a problem with a character like lan wangji.

lan wangji is canonically very taciturn. if he can express his meaning in two words rather than three, then he will. and chinese allows for this—in extreme ways. if you haven’t already read @hunxi-guilai’s post on linguistic register (in CQL only, but it’s applicable across the board), I would start there because haha! I certainly do Not have a degree in Classical Chinese lit and she does a great job. :D

you can see from the examples that hunxi chose that often, longer sentences tend to be more informal in chinese (not always, which I’ll circle back to at the end lol). Colloquial chinese makes use of helping particles to indicate tone and meaning, as is shown in wei wuxian’s dialogue. and, as hunxi explained, those particles are largely absent from lan wangji’s speech pattern. chinese isn’t built of “words” in the way English is—each character is less a word and more a morpheme—and the language allows for a lot of information to be encoded in one character. a single character can often stand for a phrase within a sentence without sacrificing either meaning or formality. lan wangji makes ample use of this in order to express himself in the fewest syllables possible.

so this obviously leads to an incongruity when trying to translate his dialogue or capture his voice in English: shorter sentences are usually more direct by nature, and directness/certainty is often construed as rudeness -- but it might seem strange to see lan wangji’s dialogue full of longer sentences while the narration explicitly says that he uses very short sentences. so what happens is that many english fic writers extrapolated this into creating an english speech pattern for lan wangji that reads oddly. they’ll have lan wangji speak in grammatically incoherent fragments that distill his intended thought because they’re trying to recreate his succinctness. unfortunately, English doesn’t have as much freedom as Chinese does in this way, and it results in lan wangji sounding as if he has some kind of linguistic impediment and/or as if he’s being unspeakably rude in certain situations. In reality, lan wangji’s speech is perfectly polite for a young member of the gentry (though he’s still terribly rude in other ways lol). he speaks in full, and honestly, quite eloquent sentences.

hunxi’s post already has a lot of examples, but I figure I’ll do one as well focused on the specifics of this post.

I’m going to use this exchange from chapter 63 between the twin jades because I think it’s a pretty simple way to illustrate what I’m talking about:

蓝曦臣道：“你亲眼所见？”

蓝忘机道：“他亲眼所见。”

蓝曦臣道：“你相信他？”

蓝忘机道：“信。”

[...] 蓝曦臣道：“那么金光瑶呢？”

蓝忘机道：“不可信。”

my translation:

Lan Xichen said, “You saw it with your own eyes?”

Lan Wangji said, “He saw it with his own eyes.”

Lan Xichen said, “You believe him?”

Lan Wangji said, “I believe him.”

[...] Lan Xichen said, “Then what about Jin Guangyao?”

Lan Wangji said, “He cannot be believed.”

you can see how much longer the (pretty literal) english translations are! every single line of dialogue is expanded because things that can be omitted in chinese cannot be omitted in english without losing grammatical coherency. i‘ll break a few of them down:

Lan Xichen’s first line:

你 (you) 亲眼 (with one’s own eyes) 所 (literary auxiliary) 见 (met/saw)？

idk but i love this line a lot lmao. it just has such an elegant feel to me, probably because I am an uncultured rube. anyways, you see here that he expressed his full thought in five characters.

if I were to rewrite this sentence into something much less formal/much more modern, I might have it become something like this:

你是自己看见的吗？

你 (you) 是 (to be) 自己 (oneself) 看见 (see) 的 (auxiliary) 吗 (interrogative particle)？

i suspect that this construction might even be somewhat childish? I’ve replaced every single formal part of the sentence with a more colloquial one. instead of 亲眼 i’ve used 自己, instead of 所见 i’ve used 看见的 and then also added an interrogative particle at the end for good measure (吗). To translate this, I would probably go with “Did you see it yourself?”

contained in this is also an example of how one character can represent a whole concept that can also be represented with two characters: 见 vs 看见. in this example, both mean “to see”. we’ll see it again in the next example as well:

in response to lan xichen’s, “you believe him?” --> 你 (you) 相信 (believe) 他 (him)? lan wangji answers with, “信” (believe).

chinese does not do yes or no questions in the same way that english does. there is no catch-all for yes or no, though there are general affirmative (是／有) and negative (不／没) characters. there are other affirmative/negative characters, but these are the ones that I believe are the most common and also the ones that you may see in response to yes or no questions on their own. (don’t quote me on that lol)

regardless, the way you respond to a yes or no question is often by repeating the verb phrase either in affirmative or negative. so here, when lan xichen asks if lan wangji believes wei wuxian, lan wangji responds “believe”. once again, you can see that one character can stand in for a concept that may also be expressed in two characters: 信 takes the place of 相信. lan wangji could have responded with “相信” just as well, but, true to his character, he didn’t because he didn’t need to. this is still a complete sentence. lan wangji has discarded the subject (I), the object (him), and also half the verb (相), and lost no meaning whatsoever. you can’t do this in english!

and onto the last exchange:

lan xichen: 那么 (then) 金光瑶 (jin guangyao) 呢 (what about)？

lan wangji: 不可 (cannot) 信 (believe)

you can actually see the contrast between the two brothers’ speech patterns even in this. lan xichen’s question is not quite as pared down as it could be. if it were wangji’s line instead, I would expect it to read simply “金光瑶呢？” which would just be “what about jin guangyao?” 那么 isn’t necessary to convey the core thought -- it’s just as how “then what about” is different than “what about”, but “then” is not necessary to the central question. if we wanted to keep the “then” aspect, you could still cut out 么 and it would be the same meaning as well.

a FINAL example of how something can be cut down just because I think examples are helpful:

“I don’t know” is usually given as 我不知道. (this is what nie huaisang says lol) It contains subject (我) and full verb (知道). you can pare this straight down to just 不知 and it would mean the same thing in the correct context. i think most of the characters do this at least once? it sounds more literary -- i don’t know that i would ever use it in everyday speech, but the fact remains that it’s a possibility. both could be translated as “I do not know” and it would be accurate.

ANYWAYS, getting all the way back to one of your original questions: does chinese have contractions? and the answer is like... kind of...?? but not really. there’s certainly slang/dialect variants that can be used in ways that are reminiscent of english contractions. the example I’m thinking of is the character 啥 (sha2) which can be used as slang in place of 什么 (shen2 me). (which means “what”)

so for a standard sentence of, 你在做什么? (what are you doing), you could shorten down to just 做啥? and the second construction is less formal than the first, but they mean the same thing.

other slang i can think of off the top of my head: 干嘛 (gan4 ma2) is also informal slang for “what are you doing”. and i think this is a regional thing, but you can also use 搞 (gao3) and 整 (zheng3) to mean “do” as well.

so in the same way that you can replace 什么 with 啥, you can replace 做 as well to get constructions like 搞啥 (gao3 sha2) and 整啥 (zheng3 sha2).

these are all different ways to say “what are you doing” lmao, and in this case, shorter is not, in fact, more formal.

woo! we made it to the end! I hope it was informative and helpful to you anon. :D

this is where I would normally throw my ko-fi, but instead, I’m actually going to link you to this fundraising post for an old fandom friend of mine. her house burned down mid-september and they could still use help if anyone can spare it! if this post would have moved you to buy me a ko-fi, please send that money to her family instead. :) rbs are also appreciated on the post itself. (* ´▽` *)

anyways, here’s the loaf jingyeast made :3 it was very tasty.

[metisket]

Books about language

For someone who has never studied linguistics, I am a huge nerd about linguistics in an Amateur Hour sort of way. And so I will torment you with my favorite books about language! No one can stop me.

Most of these books are just dragging English, but some of them wander over and make cruel remarks about other languages as well. Love that for them.

The Mother Tongue, by Bill Bryson

It’s been many years since I read this, and I need to re-read it desperately, because I remember it being hugely fun and just Bill Bryson being like, “So, the English language. WHAT A HOT MESS, AM I RIGHT? Let’s discuss.”

I love Bill Bryson anyway, but he’s also very suited for discussing the theater of the absurd that is the English language. He’s having fun with it and he feels that you should be, too.

Spellbound, by James Essinger

Presumably you are already super mad about English spelling. If you want to direct that anger to a specific source, this is the book for you. (TLDR; it was the Norman Invasion. The Normans did this to us, guys. IT WAS THEM.) This book is very fun and educational and will make you froth at the mouth with rage, because why. WHY. See if learning about the Y thorn doesn’t make you just want to hurl the book out the window. It’s not the book’s fault, but still. STILL.

In the words of the author, “Many people, whether native speakers of English or those learning English as a second language, regard English spelling as at best a joke and at worst a nightmare deliberately designed to bamboozle and perplex anyone who tries to learn it.”

(Also he randomly calls out Bill Bryson at one point, because the world of linguistics is apparently both small and catty. Academia! Love it.)

Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue, by John McWhorter

This entire book feels like an ongoing argument the author is having with someone who is not you. He never introduces a topic with, “Here’s what I think about x.” No, it’s always, “SOME people may argue OTHERWISE, but here are all the reasons why they are DEAD WRONG...”

(idk who he’s fighting with, but I thought his arguments about the Celtic influence on English were very strong. Cheering for you, John McWhorter!)

John McWhorter clearly speaks a lot of languages and is mad about literally all of them. He seems to be mad about everything, frankly, but in a way you can respect. Here’s a good quote about a Theory I have also heard and also found to be nonsense in the case of, say, Japanese:

“There is a canny objection one sometimes hears out there, that English is easy at first but hard to master the details of, while other languages are hard at first but easy to master the details of. Purportedly, then, Russian means starting out cracking your teeth on its tables of conjugations and case markers and gender marking, but after that it’s smooth sailing.

“Nonsense. English really is easy(-ish) at first and hard later, while other languages like Russian are hard at first and then just as hard later! Show me one person who has said that learning Russian was no problem after they mastered the basics--after the basics, you just keep wondering how anybody could speak the language without blacking out.”

...Just so angry. *pats on head* *draws back bloody stump*

The Prodigal Tongue, by Lynne Murphy

Another Angry Linguist I love. She’s a New Yorker who’s spent decades living in the UK and being constantly harassed about her American accent, and she’s officially taken all the shit on that subject that she is willing to take in this life. She runs a blog called Separated by a Common Language. She is Done.

But with one thing and another, she has an encyclopedic knowledge of and fascination with all the differences between British English and American English, and it’s really fun to read. Weirdly enough, American English is apparently the more conservative dialect--it’s changed more slowly than British English over the centuries. I feel like I’ve read that this is also true of France French and Quebec French? Strange.

Anyway, excellent book: educational, funny, and full of bitter sarcasm.

Is That a Fish in Your Ear?, by David Bellos

This is about translation, and won me over immediately by having a Douglas Adams nerd reference right there in the title. Bless.

It discusses translation in general, the impossibility of literal translation, machine translations, trade languages, dragomans of the Ottoman Empire, and other translation drama.

There is also a really fascinating chapter on the history of simultaneous translation, which was first used in the form we know it now at the Nuremberg Trials. (Fun for everyone, of course. Nobody knew how exhausting it was going to be for the translators, plus translators kept bursting into tears and having to be replaced due to the nature of the testimony.)

The history of translation: challenging, cool, and a lot more politically fraught than I’d imagined.

Have fun with these navel-gazing books about language. They are great. XD

[katiemcgrath]

Am I late to the I hate america(ns) party? I immigrated here & the way some people, esp those who work in hospitals, schools, & other public service jobs treat non-English speakers with that "im not trying to be rude but this is America & its your responsibility to learn English" attitude gets on my nerves. Thats a direct quote from someone I had dinner with & I wanted to say, "you live in south FL with a high pop. of spanish speakers. It's your responsibility to learn a little spanish."

I’m in two minds about this. Firstly, people who call out other that are struggling to learn a language are absolute arseholes. Languages are difficult and also there are people who assume because someone speaks with a non-native accent that their spoken language is poor, fuck those cunts. It costs nothing to just be kind and understanding with people. The US and their��‘you’re in America, speak English’ is fucking jokes ‘cause they’re not English nor are they in England. America is a bastard nation who have no claim to anything, speak whatever language you wish.

The other side, this is perhaps specific to certain cultures or perhaps it’s more common, idk. I have an aunt who emigrated a lot later than my mum and her other siblings and when she and her husband arrived here She knew no English, we live in England, and because there’s a large South Asian community and her husband got a job working with other Indians and my aunt was a housewife, neither of them learnt the language. This became a problem for my cousins who had to grow up waaaaay too fast and started learning about finances and such from too young of an age and were translating adult thing and had adult worries when they shouldn’t have. 

So I understand your side but I do also think it’s important to work towards learning the language of the country you’re in, not appease the racists and idiots but to make your and your children’s lives easier. I mean, most of my cousins are going off to uni now and my aunt and her husband are gonna struggle when they’re alone. 

It’s just a personal experience. I know some of my asian school friends shared the same problem.

[soft-black-teabag]

Just curious, if one of your egglings accidentally said something racist what would you do? I highly doubt that all of them are educated in stuff that seems common in your life due to cultural differences. I'm not trying to say that your egglings are stupid, rude and racist because they absolutely aren't.

No, no, I think I understood what you mean, we all are ignorant.

No, wait, let me explain what I mean. Everyone in this world ends up being ignorant, in some ways, because we just can't know everything, it's just impossible right?

So yeah, ignorance about something can make people do mistakes, this can also happens with racism, sometimes you can be a totally supportive people but say a racist thing without even knowing that it was racism, you know?

Like, the thing is that sometimes it could also happen because, idk, maybe you're a non-English speaker and you're translating a way of saying from your mother language and in the translation it can take another meaning? Or maybe, like you said, it can happens because of cultural differences or, let's take as an example the Hyunjin case of some months ago, sometimes you can even just quote a tv show/cartoon/whatever that you watched as a child and ending up hurting people without even knowing because you didn't knew the real meaning of what was in that show.

I hope the example wasn't expressed in a too confusing way, but I'm a bit sleepy and light headed today, sorry.

So, to came back to what you asked, I would probably educate them, if I can?

Like, I honestly don't know a lot of things, just like what happened yesterday, so I don't know if I can help, but if I notice them saying a racist thing I would with no doubt confront them and make them realise that they had done something wrong.

But also that it's okay if they did it without knowing?

I mean, they should just not say that thing again, but they don't have to beat themselves up because they didn't mean to hurt or offend anyone?

Oh God, please, tell me you understood what I'm trying to say because my brain is still sleeping, apparently

[1-mini-1]

My 2 Cents on Translating

I was skimming through my computer and found this blog post that I never posted. I think I was hesitant because I saw varying opinions on the subject in the fandom, but idk, these are just my thoughts from my experience as a fan translator for the vocaloid/utaite fandom and what I have learned. I'm not sure if any of my thoughts are unpopular opinions or not, but I'm also not sure how much discussion there has been concerning fan translators. Also, this is really long, so if you want to skim or ignore it be my guest lol.

I guess the first thing I'll talk about is how I think writing a translation is just as much of an artform as writing original lyrics are. I know that translations aren't from scratch like an original story is, but with Japanese especially, there's sooooooo much leniency in how things can be translated into English. Here's an example of how different translations can be. This is a quote from Natsume Soseki's "Kokoro" and three published translations of it:

私は冷やかな頭で新しい事を口にするよりも、熱した舌で平凡な説を述べる方が生きていると信じています。血の力で体が動くからです。言葉が空気に波動を伝えるばかりでなく、もっと強い物にもっと強く働き掛ける事ができるからです。

"I believe that a common reply, stated with passion on one's tongue, is more impactful than novel words from a cool head. The flow of blood powers the body. Words are more than waves disturbing the air, they induce great action in greater things." - From the Soseki Project site

"I believe that commonplace ideas passionately expressed are more effective in real life than the original inventions of a detached intellect. Because it is the heat of the blood that impresses us, for in addition to the words which reverberate in the air, the emotion by its intensity pierces to the soul." - Ineko Kondo

"I believe that words uttered in passion contain a greater living truth than do those words which express thoughts rationally conceived. It is blood that moves the body. Words are not meant to stir the air only; they are capable of moving greater things." - Edwin McClellan

Anyways, you get the idea lol. As you can see from these translations, the grammar structures are completely different; sometimes words are added, sometimes words are left out, and sometimes there are grammar patterns used in Japanese that just don't work in English. All these decisions are up to the translator. I've read some translations of things where whole relevant plot details were cut out just because the translator got annoyed (I'm looking at your translation of the Tale of Genji, Seidensticker).

I should probably talk about how I translate stuff. When I first started translating, I thought my lyrics were more liberal, but as I poked around and looked at other translators, I found that mine stuck more closely to the original format of the song (such as, I would keep the same phrases on the same line in the stanza, use the same format for punctuation, etc.). Song translation is different from manga or books because sentences can be broken up over a whole stanza, so translators can play a lot with how they want to arrange phrases for lyrics. I kept mine very close to the original song because I liked being able to easily identify the Japanese line with the English. I'm not sure if that's a translating "sin" but eh, that's how I liked translating my stuff. Maybe in the future I'll try something different

However, just because I saw many different translations for songs, I wouldn't go out of my way to say that any of them were wrong or bad, per say. Translating songs is a huge pain because there's no punctuation which makes it hard to keep track of everything. I've had times where I've been able to translate a 10 page story faster than I could translate a single song, just because having context and punctuation makes everything sooooo much easier. However, even if a translation is wrong, I don't think that makes it meaningless. I'm personally of the opinion that having some sort of translation is better than nothing, but that's something you need to decide for yourself. When I was first learning Japanese and couldn't fully understand the songs I listened to, if there was even just one line that I understood, I would embrace it and really love whatever meaning I grasped from it. Even if a song is translated correctly, there are lines that will impact people differently, and even an awkward or incorrect translation can resonate with the reader. Similarly, there are many times when I translate that I look at a line and think "aaahhhhh I want to change the meaning a bit because I can make it sound cooler and give it more impact than a direct translation would".

The next thing I noticed is that I kind of feel like people value native Japanese speakers (who have English as their second language, non-native English speaker) over native English speakers more (Japanese second language, non-native Japanese speaker)? Tbh, that feels like a double standard to me. Like idk, I'm fine translating Japanese into English, but I don't think I would be able to translate English into Japanese. In fact, most professional translating jobs have you translate into your native language, so I thought it was strange when I noticed that it seemed like native Japanese speakers had more favored translations. Or another one I noticed is that if someone knew more languages, their translation would also be considered better because of the assumption that taking multiple language courses is the same as being gifted with languages. Anyways, my point is that both English native speakers and Japanese native speakers both put a lot of time into learning their languages so I don't think one side should be valued less than the other. Both have their strengths and weaknesses. Native English speakers may have a harder time understanding the initial Japanese, but shape it into English better, while native Japanese speakers understand the Japanese, but have a harder time putting it into English how a native speaker would understand.

No matter what the translator's native language is though, I've learned that having skills in a foreign language isn't the only requirement to be a good translator; you also need to have proper understanding of grammar and a large vocabulary in your native language. Also, proper reading of the translation requires the same amount of understanding for English grammar and vocabulary. I realized this after I took a lot of comparative literature classes and realized how much of a potato I am lol. I think it makes sense though, as a lot of the lyrics from utaite and vocaloid songs are usually extremely well thought out poetry. Multiple songwriters I've translated for have mentioned that as they tried to write better lyrics, they eventually had to immerse themselves in studying literature and their native language much more than the average person would. I often think that since literature and translating doesn't abide by scientific law that the humanities are actually more difficult to grasp than STEM subjects (and trust me, I've studied far on both sides of the spectrum).

The last thing I'll touch on is that… just appreciate your fan translators and don't give them a hard time please. Like nobody gets paid to do this stuff and usually they do it because they really like something, so just let people learn and try their best. Yes, they won't be perfect translations, but once again, fan translators aren't paid. They're translating out of the goodness of their heart. After all, translators don't need to translate a song to understand it, so in the end they don't really lose anything if they stop translating. As international fans, I feel like there are three options that we have to choose from eventually: 1. Rely on fan translations, even with their mistakes 2. Don't use translations and just enjoy the music or 3. Learn Japanese. I think all options are great, but they are personal decisions and shouldn't be used to knock other people down and make them feel bad. If there's a mistake in a translation, it is not intentional and the translator literally has no idea unless someone tells them (as translations are a combined reflection of both Japanese AND English ability). All I know is that Vocaloid was popularized from amateur musicians just doing what they wanted for fun, and so I think a really cool thing that the international fandom has that Japan doesn't is that we have awesome fan translators that are also amateurs and are doing translations for fun.

[talkingtotheapples]

Hey remember when I said I’d do a lyric analysis of northern downpour, and then didn’t do that for like 6 months? yeah here we go:

the opening line of Northern Downpour: “if all our life is but dream” really sets the tone for the song, its half quoting a children’s song; establishing the almost nursery rhyme aesthetic the has going on for large parts. The changes Ryan makes to the line also reveal important thematic elements in the song--“life is but a dream” is changed from a definitive and general statement; its no longer commenting about general reality but rather questioning all his established feelings about their relationship. He is turning to the other person and saying “is any of this real? is this all a fantasy ive built up in my head?” it feels almost as if he is Begging them to contradict him, to tell him what they have is good and Real and not just “broken glass”, that for a second looked like “diamonds”, and although theres a desperate uncertainty to how hes wording these thoughts “/if/ all our life is but a dream” “/do appear/ to be, just like broken glass /to me/“ you get a sense its less that he’s unsure and more that he has this realization and he is /Praying/ he is wrong.

The second verse seems to be the other person’s reply, but instead of addressing his thoughts and questions they turns to what seem like general criticisms of him “i cant believe that genius only comes across in storms of fable foreign tongues”, this line seems to be a dig at how he expresses himself: unorganized, wild, and hard to understand, while they insist thats this cant be the only way, they offer him this rather than, as noted before, addressing his fear that they’re relationship is nothing more than a fantasy or a dream.

The chorus seems to shift away slightly from the conversation the first to verses are detailing, the tone also switches back to the nursery rhyme that was present in the first line of the song. It’s directed to a personified version of the moon, a common theme in english nursery rhymes, it’s also reminiscent of ‘rain, rain go away’ although reversed in meaning. Overall the line is almost a prayer, begging the moon to say in the in the hope that that would freeze this moment forever, this hope adds a sense of anxiety to the whole song as if whatever happiness is held in this moment is fragile and will inevitably end with the day break. Using a child like tone gives the line an innocent edge, innocent as in ignorant rather, he’s asking for an impossible thing, wording it like a nursery rhyme or children’s song acknowledges this, asking for this night/this moment/ maybe even this entire relationship to last is as fruitless as child singing to that rain in the hope that it will bring fair weather

“Sugarcane in the easy morning/weathervanes my one and lonely”; speaks of Contrast; the first line feels to me to be about happiness and contentment: sugarcane is sweet and wonderful but also simple and natural, he also used the word ‘easy’ which i think compounds that, its a situation that is happy and beautiful but also effortless then you add the setting of the morning time which brings with it a sense of domesticality, and so the line paints a picture of a relationship or situation that is blissful and warm but natural and content also(much like a home)This is immediately contrasted with the next line; ‘weathervanes my one and lonely’ : weathervanes are an image that instantly conjure(for me anyway) ideas of isolation, they are distant from everything, they’re an object you own but have no physical contact with, this is then emphasized by the weathervane being described as lonely, Ryan, by using a possessive phrase aligns himself with the weathervane, creating the suggestion they are the same(he is also isolated and alone). Further more the choice of a weathervane suggests location as well, theyre an object rarely if ever found in the city, an object that is completely connected to farm life, as this is a song written by someone who lives in a city but travels long, long distances through the country seeing things like weathervanes would be a visual reminder that he’s a far from home as it well as being an object that is ‘lonely��� in its own right, bringing us back to the ‘one and lonely’ part, they’re joined together by their equal loneliness.

we shift back to the conversation here with a description of the of the other person talking: “through playful lips made of yarn”, Ryan has been using body imagery through out the song, and theres often been a subtle personification of the body parts, which is very true in this case. Instead of the speaker being simply described as talking the words move through their ‘playful lips’, which gives the words an edge of agency in their own right. But in this case he hasn’t just personified the lips, he’s also given them a sense of the artificial, by describing them as being made of ‘yarn’, not only is it a artificial material, it also has a strikingly different texture to lips(the line wouldnt have the same effect had he used plastic instead) the description gains a very haptic feel to it, but also alien and strange, potentially indicating his feelings towards the other person at this point.

The emotion of the verse starts shifts back to the more distraught feeling at the start of the song, the “Capricorn” is described as “fragile” and the words the came from the “playful lips” now “unravel”. As if the as the conversation progresses the other person gets more and more upset, and their speech more jumbled.

There isn’t a clear indication who or what ‘that fragile capricorn’ is, the natural inclination is that it’s the other person(presumably they are a capricorn) but its place in the verse seems to suggest otherwise— it seem to be the cause for the mood change, “/That/ fragile Capricorn /unraveled/ words like moths upon old scarves”, like it is the cause for the unraveling, I want to argue that its an outside force or situation, potentially the conversation they are currently having; tentative and hanging over their heads.

this is immediately followed by, what ryan described as the central line of p.o.: “I know the world’s a broken bone but melt your headaches call it home”, in the context of this song potentially being about a troubled relationship it could be taken to be about that specifically, a plea either to the other person or himself to keep working on the problems in their relationship, but I think its almost meant to be taken in general sense,(potentially as well) its not enough to just acknowledge the ways in which your life, or the wide world is hard and harmful and then to wallow it that pain, rather you have to then be proactive in that situation and Make It Better(which is a bit of a theme in jon’s solo music but i Digress).

the song then moves back into a repetition of the ‘sugarcane’ line, eventually interlaced with ‘hey moon’, finally the song ends on two new lines: “You are at the top of my lungs/Drawn to the ones who never yawn” and return to the body imagery that has ran through the song, “you are at the top of my lungs” has implication of someone ‘taking your breathe away’(tho its infinitely better worded that i actually feel guilty describing it as such but i dont know how else to put it). yawning is a sign of tiredness or boredom so the opposite of that invokes connotations of focus or intensity, tho i got to say im unclear as to whether that line refers to Him being “drawn to the ones who never yawn” or the other person, I default on it being the other person because of the wording but it makes more sense to me if it refers to ryan idk

basically northern downpour is a song that sits tentatively strung between the knowledge that maybe this relationship isnt the healthiest and being So in love with the other person that you almost dont care but mainly desperately want to be proved wrong, desperately begging the moon to stay in the sky so this Good moment doesnt end and you wont have to face reality by the harsh light of day

Some Notes

•this might be a a bit of a hot take idk it isnt really what i thought about the song until i thought intensly about each line for hours but once i landed on it the more i became convinced that was what the song was talking about, its still just my interpretation tho, how ever you interpretated it is just as valid u know, and if you wanna send me your thoughts about northern downpour(or any song off pretty odd lmao) please feel free! i obviously have Thoughts lmaoo

•kinda wanna write an entire piece about how northern downpour, dangrous blues and lie to the truth are basically a trilogy, kinda wanna cry

•i had to physically stop myself from writing an entire paragraph about how ‘i know the worlds a broken bone but melt your headaches call it home’ is a progression from the central ideas of fever and im real emotional about it but i managed to control myself cos it didnt really fit

[avi17]

I'm honestly going to try to have a good faith conversation about this, because I happen to have the energy for it at the moment, and I really feel like this fandom is fighting about nothing and it's just. Honestly exhausting.

So those sites aren't quite wegotthiscovered, but no, they aren't super reliable for the minutia of things, they're entertainment clickbait. Those articles, or at least the first one I can see since it's a link, were also published over a month before the movie came out, so they're going off of whatever press blurbs or leaks were put out in advance of it, which don't always match the final product.  These were not written by people who had seen the movie, not six weeks before the release. The only information we're given in the actual movie is that Liu Kang is an orphaned nobody picked up off the street and brought to the temple, where he met Kung Lao, and the actual word he calls him, which as multiple Mandarin-speakers have explained, is just a respectful term for an older student within your same martial arts school. Obviously there's not a single word for that in English, so they seem to have decided to use cousin in the subtitles (some Chinese folk in the fandom have also pointed out that it's common slang over there to call your friends your cousins), but that doesn't make it mean that. If they intended them to be blood relatives, it would be genuinely weird for Liu Kang not to say so or explain how in his backstory speech to Cole. He says "I was given a brother"- one of the meanings I've seen given of shī xiōng is basically "sworn brother" within this martial arts brotherhood- brotherhood in this case being a term you might also see in a military brotherhood, a brotherhood of...idk assassins, anything like that. But that would be a bizarre thing to say about someone who was already your blood relative without mentioning that part. That would just be bad writing. So the only reasonable conclusion I am able to draw from what was actually on the screen is that the characters, while obviously close, are not related.

You asked for quotes from the actors. There is an interview (that I can link if you want, it was on YouTube I'd just have to find which one) where Ludi says that "when you don't have a family, you join a temple and they become your family." That seems to pretty definitively say the same as in the movie. Additionally, there's even what he says cited in the image above- there are easy words for cousin and brother in both Mandarin and English if you're talking about your blood family. The fact that Ludi is struggling to find one, and settling for one "closer" to what he means, would indicate that he's talking about a type of non-blood related relationship that doesn't have an easy English translation- which supports everything said above.

Speaking as someone in the entertainment biz, information that ends up in these articles can come from anywhere- it may be part of a press pack put out by a publicist who forgot what was in which script revision, or it may be a leak that got out to one site and then was picked up by all the others for clickbait (the latter is VERY common). I've seen information go out about projects I was working on where we were all laughing in the office because it was totally wrong and we were like "where the hell did they get that?" So the fact that it's in an article like that doesn't always mean it was released intentionally or that it's accurate to what was in the final product- or in this case, to the intended meaning of a word that was used.

I can't speak definitively for anyone else, but there seems to be this idea that we're trying to claim this is a canon ship and it can therefore be "disproven" by saying that the actors regard their relationship as platonic. I do not think anyone is actually trying to claim that. The idea that you have to prove your ship is canon for it to be acceptable is honestly a relatively new phenomenon in the grand scheme of fandom, and is still very weird to me. We absolutely know that the actors were playing the characters with a close platonic bond. That's the case for about 90% of queer ships out there, especially anything that didn't come out in the last five or so years. Fandom is about exploring possibilities, and we are just exploring the possibility that it might have been more than it was portrayed as in this macho action movie (which let's be real, would pretty much never have queer characters for real. Look at the MCU.) The ONLY thing we're trying to prove is that the characters are not related, and the only reason we're trying to do so is that we want to be left alone.

Legit no one is telling you you have to ship them. It's fine to still just not like it, it's fine to be annoyed at its (honestly pretty minimal in the grand scheme) popularity, however you feel is fine. But it's maybe time to just accept that not liking it is a personal preference, and not something worthy of harassing people or posting constantly about what disgusting freaks they are for liking it. Separate from whether it's appropriate to do that about any ship, it feels like there's this whole argument going about a moral issue that just...doesn't exist in this case. We can just do our own thing in separate corners and not interact with content we don't care for. It doesn't have to be. This.

nobody is shipping incest lmao. liu kang and kung lao literally are not related and several people who actually speak chinese have pointed out that liu kang didn't even say the word for cousin. word of god also says they are not related.

Listen, I don’t speak Chinese and I’m not gonna sit here and act like I do and deny what people who do speak Chinese are saying in regards to what word he used. As far as I know, in the movie, they are cousins. Before I responded to your ask I went and did a quick search and found this:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/screenrant.com/mortal-kombat-2021-liu-kang-kung-lao-cousins/amp/

Liu Kang & Kung Lao Are Cousins In Mortal Kombat 2021

The screenshot below is from the article that is linked in the one above:

Though I am not entirely sure wether these sites are too reliable, these are two instances that I’ve found that says they are cousins in the movie. I am going to be looking further into this, and I am more than willing to see actual real interviews with the actors and/or director where they prove or disprove of this detail.

If I end up being wrong about them being cousins, then I’m wrong and I’ll openly admit it, but until I do further research on this, and basing it on what I know, they are cousins in the movie.

[wickymicky]

i dont really like using terms like bias and stan and stuff, things like “comeback” is also kinda weird to me lol (i mean why isnt it just called like “their next single” or something lol) but like its hard to talk about the groups i like without using those terms cause thats just the common vocabulary. i tend to use them mostly when people ask me questions that use those terms, whereas if im offering my own opinion i usually dont? i guess? well i dont really use stan ever, and ive found myself using bias a lot more on my own than i thought i would... but yeah. there are aspects of the kpop fandom culture i don’t feel like i’m gonna be a part of though... stuff like fanchants and literally every fandom name that isnt “orbit” (reveluv, flover, and insomnia arent good names even tho im a fan of those three groups. orbit is the only good one lol)... stuff like sharing fancams on twitter, streaming music videos in multiple tabs, calling myself “multifandom” when i mean im just a fan of music, those incorrect quote and shipping scenarios/fanfics posts, stuff like calling commercials ‘CFs’ and selfies ‘selcas’ (which as far as i understand are just korean versions of english terms, using english words to make a compound not found in standard english, but is commonly used by korean speakers. thats all fine, but western kpop fans using them is strange to me... theyre just synonyms), etc

i know this is a blog where i reblog pictures of idols, and to be honest, actually, i think im gonna try harder to curate the things i reblog. sometimes i reblog something just cause i like that group, even if its just like a picture of an idol i dont really know much about, just like... smiling. idk. i should try to keep this blog more tied to my appreciation of the music and the members of groups who i think are cool or funny or whatever. not just attractive. even tho, i mean, i find some of them attractive, it feels bad to reblog them just for that. feels like a nsfw blog but without the nsfw, just the shame lmao. sure, i’ll reblog someone like jinsoul being attractive, but like, i have a better understanding of who jinsoul is and how talented she is than i do of, like, someone from izone who i, to be honest, have trouble putting her name to her face because they only have two good music videos and i havent paid close attention to learn who is who. this isnt about any members in particular, its just kind of a thing i found myself doing earlier that im not sure i really enjoy doing. i was thinking of the groups i like, and checking to see if i had at least one post from every member on my blog. i had like no members of izone, so i went through tags and searches to find at least one post of every member to queue. why? cause idk, that’s what you do if youre a “stan”, right? but... is that what i am? to be honest lmao... not really. of izone? no like, i like violeta, and liking violeta made me like la vie en rose more too, but i mean.... 

this isnt just about izone, that’s just one that came to my mind. idk. i’m a fan but i’m worried i’m getting sucked into the parts of kpop fandom that get a bit sketchy, and i need to remind myself to take steps back and ask if that’s really something i’d be comfortable with in the long term. i’m still gonna post about loona and dreamcatcher and fromis and red velvet of course, im just gonna try to be more mindful of stuff, and reblog things because i want to reblog them and think that they’re worth sharing, not just because i need to fill up my queue and i kinda like this group

if this was too rambly and didnt make any sense, its cause its 3 am and im in kind of a contemplative and bad mood. 

[high-liters-and-tea-blog]

Language Learning Tip!!

GREETINGS ALL! (I’m rly sorry my posts are always whole novels but like I say as much as I can to make sure you get the idea.) Idk if I’m the best person to be giving out language tips but like this is just something I personally have been doing and I found it actually helps a lot.

1. Find songs in that language or take your favourite songs and translate them to that language. I, personally, started small with like nursery rhymes and things like that because the vocabulary and syntax is at a beginner level, then I moved on until I got to my favourite songs. II’m now at a level of french where I can listen to fast, harder, heavier music (like rap/trap/real underground stuff) and I can understand and catch a lot of the idomatic expressions and play on words etc

2. Similar to the first, find movies, tv shows, or other short videos with your target language. This especially helped me for sign language since the whole thing is basically watching, body language and facial expressions make up a good chunk of it. For spoken languages, this really helps with pronounciation, common expressions, idioms, and all those other things that you dont get from just studying/reading. French is all about tone, if you don’t sound nasal and slightly exaggerated you can potentially change the meaning of the sentence and with Hausa intonation is a major key. Plus with the various dialects, it’s good to be exposed to different pronounciations of the same word. If you can I’d definitely suggest something like a talk show (think oprah or Dr. Phil, not Ellen) because there’s not so much scripting and it’s a lot more natural (?)

3. (This tip is something I’ve jsut started doing as my Hausa vocabulary is starteing to grow) Incorporate the target language into your everyday life! I’ve gone around my room labelling everyday items (phone, eggs, clock etc) and if I need to use them I repeat the word and try and construct a basic sentence. ALSO RLY HELPFUL EXAMPLE but I’ve started doing my BuJo spreads in Hausa as well. This has greatly improved some of the more common calendar-related vocabulary like days of the week, numbers, time, and that sort of thing. I still write down quotes and tasks and things in english but hopefully that will change soon

4. LISTEN, LISTEN, LISTEN, LISTEN AND LISTEN. If you can find native speakers actually speaking pls befriend them and do the most to listen to them. Listening is so important because you will again get to learn so much that books and vocab lists can’t teach you (Refer to the first two points!!). If you can do some sort of exchange program, for the first little while, just sit and blend in, listen, and observe, only speak when you are spoken to!! If that’s not an option then for sure the internet is a great place, you should be able to find a radioshow or something like that to listen to. Find something that is fairly natural so you pick up on the way people actually speak (I hope youunderstaand what I mean). This was a huge issue with me for french because the french you learn in school is like incredibly formal, only a conversation between the Queen and your great-great-grandmother would sound like that, literally the interview I had was so informal I was confused. I’m fortunate enough that my parents (obviously) speak Hausa to eachother at home still and I rly take advantage of this.

5. The last (for now) and possibly one of the most important tips I have today is DON’T WORRY ABOUT GRAMMAR AND WRITING AND ALL THAT RUBBISH, speaking and pronounciation is far more important than understanding written things. The spelling and things might confuse you and impair your speaking or pronounciation. Think of learning to speak as a baby, your parents didnt sit you down with a notebook or dictionary and write things out then have you try and read them back, they spoke to you and the writing came YEARS later! (That’s why I believe lanuages are taught so backwards in school). A lot of people learning French for the firs time pronounce things the way they would in English, forgetting that there are a lot more soft consonnants and silent letters. When I as learning spanish I got stuck in the french mode and kept things silent that should have been pronounced. When I was learning Portuguese I got stuck in Spanish mode and even tho things are spelled similarly or the same, they are said completely differently. Don’t even get me started on Russsian, I’m taking my precious time to learn how to read/write that! With Hausa I made sure to learn from these mistakes. Plus, I already knew a lot of words so when I finally saw how they were written I was a bit surprsed but I had a better understanding of pronounciation so it was easier to learn new words.

Side note; If anoyone has any apps/websites to recomend for languages that aren’t as popular to learn (such as Hausa) PLS LEAVE THEM BELOW OR SEND A MESSAGE!!!!!

***Language-Related Backstory****** ***Don’t feel obliged to read but here are my (somewhat) qualifications***

So my first language WAS NOT English and I went to french schools for the majority of my life so I’ve kinda always hated and struggled with English in school and just in life. At home we spoke exclusively in Hausa, It wasn’t until I started school (age 4-6) that I we started speaking english at home (my mom sent me to school with a list of common words in Hausa so that my teachers could communicate with me, but thats a whole other story)

From preschool to second grade (age 4-7) I actually went to french immersion schools, so in the morning we did our lessons in english and in the afternoon we repeated them in french, or we learned the concepts in english but execution and any key vocab was all in french. From third to 5th grade I went to a French school, as in native french- speakers only, I was rly lost and so were my parents (literally ALL communication was in french). So by this time we only spoke English at home and I lost all my Hausa. From then on I went to english schools and just took a lot of french classes, even in uni.

But after 15 years of constantly taking french in schoool and my teachers saying im fluent and never getting less than 96% in all things french, I applied for a bilingual job position and COULD NOT communicate fluently in french with the interviewer. It was then that I realized that I had just been taking the same grammar course for 15 years and obviously what you learn in school is not representative of what you apply in real life but with languages its REALLY much so.

SO, I’m now continuing my french studies on my own, I’ve been trying to teach myelf Sign Language for years but I get frustrated a lot easier, I’m (quite sporadically, I’ll admit) self- teaching myself Russian and Portuguese, and I’m (re-)teaching myself Hausa. Ideally, I’d love to speak at least 5 Languages fluently before I die