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ellie-mnop · 5 years

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Hi everyone! I just finished the 100 Days Of Languages challenge and I wanted to do something new afterwards, so I came up with a challenge of my own! I’m calling this the Checkerboard Challenge because it’s an 8x8 grid. Along the top there are eight language-related skills, and on the side there are eight modes of learning, so each box contains a way to study a particular skill using a particular mode. I wanted to do that because exposing yourself to the same information in different contexts is so helpful for learning and I wanted to apply that to how I study Portuguese. The result is a list of 64 different ways to study languages, 71 if you include the alternate options listed below, each one versatile enough to be repeated as often as you want using different topics or resources and hopefully interesting and useful for your learning.

Ways To Use This Challenge

Complete all of the challenges on the table, in whatever order you want.

Choose a particular skill you’d like to work on. Complete all of the challenges in that column.

Choose a particular method of learning that works well for you. Complete all of the challenges in that row.

Use dice or a random number generator to pick a challenge to do every day, and see how long it takes you to get bingo or connect four or something.

Choose whichever of the challenges sound useful to you and incorporate them into your regular studying routine.

There’s no obligation to post anything you make; even when I say to record yourself doing something, that can just be for your own future reference. (It’s recommended for the collaborative tasks that focus on creating resources that would be useful to other learners or interacting on social media, but even then you can just write the posts/comments and not post them if you prefer) However, I would love to see anything you do want to share, or any updates on your progress, so you can post anything like that with the tag “checkerboard challenge” which is also where I will be posting the tasks I complete.

The tasks are listed below, with more detail than what would fit in the boxes.

Reading

(Visual) Read a comic book, comic strip, or webcomic in your target language. Depending on your skill level and the amount of time you have, you can choose anything from a single strip of a newspaper comic to a full-length graphic novel

(Auditory) Read along with a chapter of an audiobook, or another piece of writing with accompanying audio. Some language learning websites have articles with recordings of native speakers reading them. If you want, or if you can’t find anything else, you could even use a song and its lyrics.

(Hands-On) Option 1: Play a video game in your target language. This can be a computer or console game, or an app on your phone or even a little browser game. Check the language options on games you already have to see if your target language is available, or if not, many free games have lots of language options. / Option 2: Read and follow a recipe or another set of instructions, such as an art/craft tutorial, the rules to a board or card game, a DIY project or a magic trick.

(Logical) Solve riddles or logic puzzles in your target language. (Alternate: Read a short mystery story such as a minute mystery (or something longer if you prefer) and see if you can solve it before the characters do.)

(Collaborative) Talk by text chat with someone else learning your target language, or a native speaker learning your language.

(Read/Write) Read an article or a chapter of a book (or the whole thing) in your target language. It can be about any topic, and can be a children’s or adult’s book depending on your skill level and preference.

(Personal) Find and read a translation of a piece of writing that’s important to you, such as your favorite book as a kid that you feel nostalgic for, or a poem that resonates with you.

(Creative) Read story in your target language and illustrate what happens. The quality of the drawing isn’t important unless you want it to be; the important thing is to help you process what you’re reading.

Writing

(Visual) Choose a photo, either at random from a generator or by choice on a website like Unsplash, and describe it in as much detail as you can. Your description can focus just on describing visible details in the image, or you can make up contexts for and stories around the things you see, whichever you prefer. (Alternate: Do this with a physical object nearby instead of a photo.)

(Auditory) Try writing simple poems, focusing on the auditory features of what you’re writing such as rhyme and rhythm. You can use a rhyme dictionary to expand your vocabulary in an interesting way while you’re working on this. It’s not necessary to worry too much about the artistic quality of the poems unless you want to.

(Hands-On) Write instructions for how to do something you know how to do, such as recipe, a life skill, a game or sport, an art of craft project, or even your method of language learning.

(Logical) Create a persuasive piece of writing that logically argues a point. It doesn’t have to be about a serious or controversial topic. For example, you can defend your prediction for the next season of your favorite show, or what would happen if some fantasy or sci-fi concept were real (maybe a good way to practice the conditional tense if you’re studying a language that has one), or why your best friend is awesome.

(Collaborative) Use a language learning social media app like HelloTalk. Comment on posts and make your own.

(Read/Write) Write a summary of something you’ve read in your target language. You can either read in your native language and summarize in your target language, or do both parts in your target language.

(Personal) Write a journal entry in your target language, talking about how your day or week has been or what you are thinking and feeling. (Alternate: Write about one of your memories.)

(Creative) Write a small story in your target language. It can be about whatever you want, and it doesn’t have to be very long or detailed. You can (option 1) write it as prose, which could be better to practice description and narration or to focus on a particular verb tense, or in (option 2) a script style which could be better to practice conversational language.

Listening

(Visual) Watch a video with narration that describes it, such as a nature documentary, an instructional video such as a cooking video, or a video reviewing something.

(Auditory) Find an online stream of a radio station. Pay attention to both the music and what the announcers say.

(Hands-On) Watch a video demonstrating a craft project, recipe or other task and follow the instructions.

(Logical) Watch or listen to a mystery story and try to solve it before the characters do. This can be a whole movie or novel-length audiobook if you want, but it doesn’t have to be; even an episode of something like Scooby Doo should work.

(Collaborative) Exchange audio with someone else learning your target language, or a native speaker learning your language.

(Read/Write) Watch a video or listen to a piece of audio and take notes on what you learn.

(Personal) Watch a dub of a piece of media you are familiar with, such as your favorite childhood movie.

(Creative) Option 1: Listen to a story or other piece of audio and illustrate it. / Option 2: Listen to a song and make up a new verse.

Speaking

(Visual) Make a video of yourself showing something and talking about it, for example a tour of your home or neighborhood, a review of something, or a video about your pet.

(Auditory) Listen to a piece of audio and try to repeat what you hear. You don’t have to pause after every word and repeat it, it’s probably better to go at least sentence by sentence or with parts even longer so you can keep things in context.

(Hands-On) Explain to someone, or record yourself explaining, how to do something, possibly while demonstrating.

(Logical) Record yourself explaining, and possibly demonstrating, how something works, such as a science concept.

(Collaborative) Record yourself explaining a concept you’re learning, like a grammar topic or how to use a particular word.

(Read/Write) Read out loud and record yourself.

(Personal) Make a recording of yourself talking about something that’s important to you or a memory or anecdote you have. (Alternate: Make a vlog entry (even if you don’t have a vlog to put it on) talking about your day.)

(Creative) Record yourself telling a story, or tell one in person to someone.

Vocabulary (Most of these, with the exception of the first two, can be done with any vocabulary list you want.)

(Visual) Choose a page from a visual dictionary to study. One way you can do this is by studying the words and then covering the labels with sticky notes or whiting them out on a copy and trying to fill in the blanks.

(Auditory) Choose a song in your target language, and look up and study any unfamiliar words in it.

(Hands-On) Option 1: Use your vocabulary list as a scavenger hunt list. This works well if you have a lot of nouns and adjectives on the list. For everyday household items, you can look for the literal items on the list, while if they’re more obscure you can look for pictures or other representations of them. / Option 2: Act out the words on your list. This works well for verbs and adverbs, as well as more abstract nouns or adjectives like emotions. You can record video of yourself doing this and later look back at the video to try to guess the words.

(Logical) Option 1: Make a crossword puzzle using your vocab list. If you write the words and clues, there are tools online that will build the puzzle itself for you, or you can do that by hand on graph paper if you prefer. You can either wait a while and then solve your own puzzle to see how much you remember, or give it to another language learner to solve an ask them to make one for you to solve. / Option 2: Look into the etymological history of the words to find out why they mean what they mean and whether they have any connections to words in your own language.

(Collaborative) Create a vocab list post around a theme, including words you are studying as well as any related words you already know. Include any resources that you think would be useful to someone using the list, such as sample sentences, pictures, or whatever else you want.

(Read/Write) Try to write a small story or other piece of writing using as many of your vocab words as you can.

(Personal) Write a sentence about what you think of each thing on your vocabulary list.

(Creative) Try to write an interesting sentence using each word on your vocabulary list. (Alternate: Illustrate each word on your vocabulary list. You can do this on index cards if you want, to make illustrated flash cards.)

Grammar

(Visual) Create a color or shape coded system to classify a concept like verb tenses or noun gender. For example, you can read through a piece of text and highlight all of the verbs using a different color for each tense, or you can make flash cards with your vocabulary words and mark them with different symbols depending on the gender.

(Auditory) Grammar is a common topic for educational songs. Find a one intended for kids who speak your target language.

(Hands-On) Using words on sticky notes or index cards, build sentences that demonstrate grammatical concepts. If you have access to some of those little word magnets in your target language, those would probably work great for this, but if not (and I know I don’t) you can write various words, affixes, etc. on index cards or sticky notes, or use your existing flashcards if you have them.

(Logical) Create a table, chart, or diagram of a grammatical concept you’re studying.

(Collaborative) Write a post explaining a grammar topic you are learning.

(Read/Write) Read through a text, to find (and maybe highlight, circle, etc.) examples of a grammatical concept, then write more examples.

(Personal) Write about a part of your life that corresponds to the grammar topic you are studying. For example, for the future tense, you can write about your plans or hopes.

(Creative) Write a small story relying on the grammatical concept you’re studying.

Pronunciation

(Visual) Look up diagrams of how to pronounce sounds you struggle with. These can be found as images or in an animated form in YouTube videos, and usually show what your tongue, teeth, etc. are supposed to be doing when you pronounce the sound.

(Auditory) Find a recording of a native speaker, record yourself saying the same thing, and listen for differences.

(Hands-On) Try to pronounce some tongue twisters or other pronunciation-based challenges.

(Logical) Try learning the linguistic names of sounds you work with, and look into how they compare to other sounds. Wikipedia has articles about the different sounds that can exist in languages and tables showing how they are used in various languages.

(Collaborative) Record yourself reading something that contains sounds you struggle with and post it for feedback, possibly on an app like HelloTalk.

(Read/Write) Look at the written IPA pronunciations (these can be found on Wiktionary) of words you learn and look up what the symbols mean.

(Personal) Sing along to songs you like in the language, especially (for the personal category) nostalgic ones or ones meaningful to you.

(Creative) Write a tongue twister using words that are difficult for you to pronounce and practice saying it.

Cultural Context

(Visual) Explore a museum website in your target language. The museum should be located somewhere where your target language is spoken, but it up to you whether you want to look at an art museum, a science or history museum, or something else. Look at the exhibits and read the descriptions.

(Auditory) Create a playlist with traditional, classic and modern songs in various genres that either were invented in or popular in a place where your target language is spoken. Ideally using resources in your target language, learn about the songs and genres.

(Hands-On) Using resources in your target language, learn how to do or make something from a culture that speaks it. For example, you can look up a recipe, a tutorial for a dance style, the rules to a game, or how to make an art or craft project. (Make sure the thing you pick is being openly shared by members of the culture it came from.)

(Logical) In your target language, learn about a scientist / inventor / etc. from somewhere the language is spoken. Learn about their work, with explanations of what they invented or discovered, and if you want, find out other information about their life too.

(Collaborative) Comment on or otherwise interact with the blog/YouTube channel/etc. of a native speaker, after you read or watch it, of course. (You don’t need to receive a reply to check off this box, because that part is not under your control.)

(Read/Write) Try reading a significant work of (children’s or adult) literature in your target language.

(Personal) Learn about something relevant to your job/hobby from where your target language is spoken, using resources in the language.

(Creative) Read about artistic or literary themes, movements or eras where the language is spoken, and create something (it can be something simple) using those concepts.

[Image: The title “Language Learning Checkerboard Challenge” above a purple 8x8 table. The information contained in the table is repeated above.]

#langblr #studyblr #language learning #language challenge #learning languages #checkerboard challenge

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fuckyeahjeanyvesmoreau · 4 years

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tips for learning a language all by yourself

I am assuming you want to learn a new language by yourself and you want some tips? Well, read on then!

Hi! If you’ve read my previous post (check it here; it’s about my Italian resources) you’ll probably know that I started learning Italian by myself and it’s going great! So, I am writing this article to let you know why exactly it’s going great.

A.k.a, what do I do and how in order to learn successfully the language I want.

Step one; Choosing a Language

First of all, like this article says, there’s a list, created by the Foreign Service Institute (F.S.I) in which they have sorted out languages into five categories; from the easiest to the most difficult to learn.

And here’s the list, in case you are interested;

First Category (23-24 weeks or 575-600 hours to learn); Afrikaans, Danish, Dutch, French, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, Swedish

Second Category (30 weeks or 750 hours to learn); German

Third Category (36 weeks or 900 hours to learn); Indonesian, Malaysian, Swahili

Fourth Category (44 weeks or 1100 hours to learn); Albanian, Amharic, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Bengali, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Burmese, Croatian, Czech, Estonian, Finnish, Georgian, Greek (that’s me!), Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Khmer, Lao, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Mongolian, Nepali, Pashto, Persian (Dari, Farsi, Tajik), Polish, Russian, Serbian, Sinhala, Slovak, Slovenian, Tagalog, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uzbek, Vietnamese, Xhosa, Zulu

Fifth Category (88 weeks or 2200 hours to learn); Arabic, Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean

Note; keep in mind that this list sorts out the language difficulty for a native English speaker!

Fortunately for me, Italian is in the first category:)

Anyhow, let’s move on.

Have you decided on a language you want to learn? If so, think to yourself, why? Why did you choose this particular language? Your goal must be strong enough to encourage you to learn and to stop procrastination. If you haven’t choose a language yet, now’s the right time! Please consider, not only the “why” question above, but also the difficulty of the languages! Again, I recommend Italian. It’s such a beautiful language with an amazing pronunciation and it’s super easy.

Step two; Finding Resources

Resources are so very important. But, be careful. It’s the quality that matters; not the quantity. In other words, it doesn’t matter how many books you bought or how many videos you’ve seen; if they are not helpful enough then you won’t be able to learn the language.

Like I mentioned in my previous post, I rely a lot on textbooks. They are pretty useful and also have exercises and quizzes that help me a lot. I download them from a site called pdfdrive. Just type “the language you want + for beginners “ in the search engine (feel free to erase the “for beginners” part for more results) and find the textbook that suits you! Keep in mind that this site has also textbooks for school subjects and other cool books that I haven’t check out yet.

Important; don’t download only one textbook! You might face a problem or have a question while reading it! I have downloaded around five textbooks for Italian and, even though I am learning the language from only on of them, I usually read the other ones too, in case they have more information on something.

Next, Quizlet. If you learn better through flashcards make Quizlet your best friend. It’s a site (and app!) where you can make your own flashcards for free (it also has a premium offer but I use the free version and it’s epic).

However, don’t use it if you are not a-flashcard-learner. Here’s a test I have found where you can find with only 20 questions your learning style AND things to do to learn better.

So yeah, find some textbooks and your learning type and you are done, right?

Nope.

I mentioned above that you need to make Quizlet your best friend. Well, I am correcting this.

Make Google Translate your soulmate.

Seriously.

And I don’t mean using it to translate articles e.t.c, we all know that it low-key sucks when it comes to translating long texts. You can use it, however, for hearing the pronunciation for words that may confuse you; after all the textbooks are books, they don’t have audios.

Also, you can use Youtube. Even though I don’t use it (I prefer the other resources I’ve mentioned), there are many playlists and channels with tips for the language you want.

Now, go and buy a notebook, or find an empty one from the school.

Step 3; Begin

Now you are ready.

Open your textbook in a new tab, Google Translate in another and Quizlet (or whatever site you use) in another. Also, open your notebook.

However, you should be careful! Time management is very, very, very important.

Here’s my schedule when it comes to learning Italian;

The textbook I use has 20 chapter; each chapter has around 5-7 sections. Thus, my goal is to finish one chapter week which means one section per day. That’s super easy for me; I have the free time to do that. Also, each chapter has a quiz at the end, which I usually take on Sundays. I also repeatedly take these quizzes every time I finish a new chapter. For example, when I finished chapter 2, I made sure to not only take the quiz of that chapter but also the chapter 1 quiz to review what I’ve learnt.

And that’s it. I take notes, review them after I finish a section and the morning before I start a new section. In general, I try to review a lot my past notes and flashcards; it helps me a lot and makes me more confident and proud for my achievements.

Also, try not to take too many breaks! I personally don’t take any breaks because I don’t really need them; it takes me around 15 to 25 minutes to finish a section. But, if you want to finish more than a section per day, make sure to take small but often breaks. And, remember; don’t use your break on the internet! That will distract you and from 5 minutes the break will expand to hours and hours!

Anyhow, I really hope I helped you! I tried to be as specific as possible but if you have any questions, my dm’s are always open! Also, feel free to reblog this post with your tips on how you learn a language!

Ciao, Marina♥

#dark academia #dark acadamia #aesthetic #edits #language learning #language #school #school tips #tips #advice #study motivation #studyblr #study tips #study #studying

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zakytenn-blog · 4 years

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11 DID YOU KNOW FACTS ABOUT THE SPANISH LANGUAGE

1.DID YOU KNOW Over 400 million people speak Spanish

Spanish is the mother tongue of an estimated 400–450 million people, making it the world’s second most spoken language. Spanish only falls in second place behind Chinese, which is spoken by over a billion people and far outranks any other language. Spanish surpasses English in its number of speakers, as English comes in third place with 335 million native speakers around the world.

2. DID YOU KNOW There are 21 countries that have Spanish as the official language

Spanish enjoys official language status in 21 countries across Europe, Africa, Central, South and North America, making it a very important global language. Not only is it the main language for these 21 sovereign states, it also serves as a key language in a handful of dependent territories. For many people in these places, it’s the only way to communicate and all official correspondence and documents are in Spanish. Spanish is also used in schools to teach the curricula. Since English is spoken in 112 countries, the English language is the most widespread in terms of the number of countries that speak it. French is second with 60 countries speaking the language and Arabic is third, with 57 countries who communicate in Arabic. Sure, Spanish only comes in fourth place in this aspect, but that still results in making it one of the most significant languages in the world. Many international companies and organizations, including the United Nations, have adopted Spanish as one of their official languages.

3. DID YOU KNOW Spanish is a Romance language

Spanish has a place with the Indo-European dialects, which incorporate French, English, Russian, German, the Slavic and Scandinavian dialects just as different dialects in India. Indo-European dialects at first spread across Europe and numerous territories of South Asia prior to arriving at different pieces of the world through colonization.

The name “Indo-European” has a topographical significance identifying with the dialects’ most easterly reaches in the Indian subcontinent and their most westerly reaches all through Europe.

Spanish is additionally named a Romance language, alongside Catalan, Italian, French, Portuguese and Romanian.

You most likely definitely thought about Spanish being a Romance language in some capacity, yet the significance of this goes further than you may anticipate. All these intercontinental associations give Spanish a particular favorable position. Knowing its underlying foundations in and associations with different dialects can help you better comprehend Spanish semantically, truly and socially.

DID YOU KNOW YOU CAN GET BY IN SPANISH WITH JUST 138 WORDS ?!

LEARN MORE BY CLICKING HERE

4. DID YOU KNOW Spanish has Latin birthplaces

The Spanish language gets from a specific sort of spoken Latin. This vernacular created in the focal northern locale of the Iberian Peninsula following the fifth century end of the Western Roman Empire.

From the thirteenth to the sixteenth hundreds of years, Toledo built up a composed language standard and Madrid stuck to this same pattern through the 1500s. During the most recent 1,000 years, the language has gotten more inescapable, moving south towards the Mediterranean.

It was in this manner received by the Spanish Empire and, similarly as significantly, in the Spanish settlements set up on the American landmasses.

5. DID YOU KNOW Spanish has two names: Castellano and Español

Spanish speakers regularly allude to their language as español just as castellano, which is the Spanish word for “Castilian.”

The terms applied can contrast from district to locale, and they can likewise reflect political and social perspectives. In English, the expression “Castilian Spanish” can be utilized to allude to singular vernaculars of Spanish spoken in the northern and focal pieces of Spain. Every so often, the term is utilized all the more freely to allude to the Spanish expressed in Spain, instead of Latin American Spanish.

6. DID YOU KNOW Spanish is a phonetic language

The vast majority know a couple of expressions of Spanish, for example, tapas, rest, cava and tortilla. Spanish has likewise acquired a couple of words from English, for example, los (pants) and el inn (lodging).

There are, be that as it may, some huge contrasts among English and Spanish. For example, there’s the way that Spanish is a phonetic language. This implies that you articulate letters reliably and each letter addresses a specific sound. This additionally implies that Spanish is a genuinely basic language for amateurs to learn, particularly with regards to spelling and talking.

The connections among sounds and letters imply that there ordinarily aren’t any spelling shocks.

Obviously, you will not get off that simple. There are a couple of different stunts for local English speakers to dominate.

As Spanish starts from Latin, it has gendered language — manly and female words and articles. The sexes of descriptive words should concur with their going with things, just as the articles of those things.

Spanish appreciates more tenses and a more noteworthy variety in action word parts contrasted with English. It additionally has three different ways to address individuals: tú being the casual “you,” usted being the formal “you,” and vosotros being the casual, plural rendition of tú (similar as “all of you” or “you all”) in Spain. These all affect action word structures, possessives and pronouns.

7. DID YOU KNOW The Royal Spanish Academy is “in control” of the language

The Royal Spanish Academy is authoritatively liable for being the overseer of the Spanish language. It has its home in Madrid and works various language institutes through the Association of Spanish Language Academies in the 21 different nations that communicate in Spanish.

The Academy started its life in the eighteenth century and from that point forward has distributed word references and language rule books, which have been authoritatively received in Spain and other Spanish-talking nations.

The Academy highly esteems creating the utilization of the upset inquiry and outcry marks, which are special to the Spanish language. Another special element it’s liable for is the letter ñ, which was acquainted with the letters in order during the eighteenth century

8. DID YOU KNOW There are many regional nuances of Spanish

We know that Spanish descended from Latin and spread from the Iberian Peninsula to Latin America through colonization. It’s fascinating to know that there are more than a few discrepancies between the Spanish of Spain and that of Latin America. There are also countless differences in the Spanish language within Latin America itself! That being said, the relatively minor vocabulary, grammar and punctuation differences aren’t terribly extreme, and communication is still very easy. You should be able to travel the Spanish-speaking world with “neutral” Spanish and manage communication with nearly anybody. The differences originally arose because the colonies developed somewhat independently from one another, and even from Spain itself. Since communication was limited, with no telephones, airplanes, emails, WhatsApp or Skype, some elements of older Spanish were retained and others abandoned. Plus, you’ll find that many regions have invented their own unique vocabulary, slang, accents and language usage quirks over time. A good example is the way vos is used in Paraguay, Uruguay and Argentina. This is used in the Spanish from Spain, and so it was transferred to the Americas. As alluded to before, vosotros means “you” or “you all,” and thus is the second-person plural in Spain, as it was originally intended to be used. However, vos is now used as a polite, second-person singular pronoun in the above three countries. Spain has long since stopped using it in this way, but if you visit Buenos Aires you’re quite likely to be asked “¿de dónde sos?” (where are you from?) as opposed to “¿de dónde eres?”.

9.DID YOU KNOW Arabic influenced Spanish

Arab armies started to conquer the Iberian Peninsula in 711, bringing Arabic art, architecture and language to the region. Arabic gradually mixed with old Spanish to become the language spoken today. When Spain expelled the Arabs in 1492, the language retained some 8,000 Arabic words. Apart from Latin, Arabic is the largest contributor to Spanish. Many words that you already know in Spanish come from Arabic, such as el alfombra (carpet), la almendra (almond) and la almohada (pillow). When you travel through Spain, you’ll come across many place, region and historic site names that come from Arabic, such as La Alhambra

. 10. DID YOU KNOW The earliest Spanish texts were written over 1000 years ago!

Las Glosas Emilianenses (Glosses of Saint Emilianus), written in 964, were long thought to be the first written Spanish texts that survive today. They consist of Spanish and Basque notes made on a religious Latin manuscript. The unknown author is thought to have been a monk at the Suso monastery. In 2010, however, the Real Academia Española announced that the first examples of written Spanish exist in 9th-century medieval documents known as the “Cartularies of Valpuesta,” from the Burgos province.

11. DID YOU KNOW Spanish is poetic and has long sentences

When you translate from English to Spanish, your text is likely to expand by 15–25%. This isn’t because Spanish words are longer than English words (and they’re definitely not as long as German words can be). The reason for this expansion lies in the fact that Spanish is more detailed, poetic and expressive. It thus uses more words to describe something that English would probably sum up in just one word. For example, the phrase en el sentido de las agujas del reloj literally means “in the direction of the needles of the clock,” but in English we would simply say “clockwise.” Spanish doesn’t have a word for “clockwise” and has to use the aforementioned phrase!

DID YOU KNOW THAT YOU CAN GET BY IN SPANISH WITH JUST 138 WORDS !…

If you’ve made it this far that means you probably enjoy learning Spanish therefore you will love this video that shows how 138 words in Spanish can give you 88000 phrases.

you can watch it by CLICKING HERE

#spanish #learn spanish #how to speak spanish #facts

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erinptah · 5 years

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Super Drags review (tl;dr Show Good)

The post where I do my best to spread the Good News, that there exists a saucy gay drag-queen magical-girl animated comedy and everyone should watch it.

Okay, not everyone -- I'll give some caveats at the end -- but definitely a heck of a lot more people than Netflix has bothered to advertise it to.

Look at this! Why did nobody tell me about this??

What is Super Drags?

Fast facts:

It's a 1-season, 5-episode adult animated comedy series, released in November 2018

Here's the official page, with a free-to-view trailer

It packs more explicit, unashamed queerness into those 5 episodes than any other cartoon I can think of

The only possible competitor would be if you took the whole 5000-episode run of Steven Universe and pared it down to a supercut of Just The Gay Parts

This in spite of being produced in Brazil, which (in my broad understanding, as a total non-authority on the subject) is more oppressively, dangerously homophobic than the US

The original is in Portuguese

There is an English dub, fabulously voiced by contestants from RuPaul's Drag Race

It's wrapped in "for adults only!" warnings, not because the content is any less child-friendly than (say) your Bojacks Horsemen or your Ricks and Mortys, but because Brazilian authorities tried to get it shut down on the grounds of this much gay being Harmful For Children

It was (heartbreakingly) not renewed for a second season

Here's a promo video, in which the main characters (Portuguese, with subtitles) play Drag Race judges for Shangela, who ends up voicing Scarlet in English.

And here's a beautiful flashy music video of the big musical number! (Also Portuguese, no subtitles, but the melody and the visuals stand on their own.)

Plot and worldbuilding stuff!

The elevator pitch is "What if Charlie's Angels, but also drag queens, with superpowers, because magical-girl transformations?"

In this universe, all LGBTQ people have magical energy. The Big Bad is an evil magical-drag-queen nemesis who tries to drain our energy for her own purposes. It's like if Ursula from The Little Mermaid was a first-season Sailor Moon villain.

...sidenote, in case you were worried, the representation isn't "cis gay men and nobody else." There's a butch lesbian in the recurring cast, a genderfluid person (in that specific word!) as a one-off love interest, and all the ensemble scenes are wonderful collages of different races, body types, and gender presentations.

Our heroes also fight non-magical everyday homophobes, who get written with scathing realism.

The moment I knew the show wasn't pulling any punches was in the first episode, where a newscaster complains about being Silenced by the Law of Political Correctness, then chirps "however, we have a special guest who is thankfully above the law!"

According to the reviews I've found from Brazilian viewers, it's also pitch-perfect when it comes to local queer culture, community dynamics, slang and speech patterns, even memes. All of which flies right over my head, so here's a post (with no-context spoilers) about one viewer's favorite details.

The handful of reaction posts on Tumblr have a dramatic split between "Brazilian viewers fiercely defending the show as culturally-accurate, uplifting, and brave in a terrifying political moment" and "American viewers complaining that the show is problematic because it's a comedy about drag queens with no perfect role models and lots of sex jokes."

As the Super Drags tell their nemesis (and this is also in the first episode): "How dare you try to turn the LGBTQXYZ community against each other? We do enough of that on our own!"

In between missions, our girls work sitcom retail jobs and deal with other everyday problems. All of which are written in amazingly nuanced and thoughtful ways for a show that also features "defeating an orgy monster with a lip-sync battle."

Detailed character stuff!

Our heroes are Color Coded For Your Convenience!

The Super Drags themselves go by "she" in-uniform, and a lot of the time when out of it. Like the Sailor Starlights, only more so. I'll roll with that.

In blue: Safira Cyan, or Ralph by day, an excitable college-age kid who's built like a football player and squees like a fangirl. (She's an anime fan in the original, and for some reason all the otaku references were replaced in the dub, but you can see them in the subtitles.)

Ralph lives with her younger sister (they play video games together!) and their dad, comes out to them mid-series, and is very shippable with another young guy who starts out reciting the homophobic beliefs he was raised with but whose heart clearly isn't in it.

Safira's weapon is a classic magical-girl wand that casts protective force-fields. Which are shaped like condoms. Because of course.

In yellow: Lemon Chiffon, aka Patrick, the oldest of the group and generally the smartest/most strategic. In most cases, the other two treat her as the de facto team leader -- unless she pushes it too far.

By day she's a single guy with thick thighs and thinning hair, who has some body-image insecurities on the dating scene. And this show has Things To Say about unrealistic beauty standards within the community...not to mention, about masc guys who look down on anyone too flaming or femme because straight people disapprove.

Lemon's weapon is a fluffy boa that can be used as a whip or a lasso, especially when there's a bondage joke to be made.

In red: Scarlet Carmesim, also Donizete, the loudest and most aggressive teammate with the most cutting insults, who refuses to suppress that attitude in an attempt to appease racists. (But will give it a shot when trying not to get fired.)

Donny still lives in her religious/homophobic mom's apartment, and I'm pretty sure it's because neither of them can afford to move out. Her rock-solid sense of fierce self-confidence is the reason it doesn't bring her down.

Scarlet's weapon is a fan that she uses to throw shade. Yeah, you knew that was coming.

The Charlie to these angels is Champagne, who runs operations from a cool magitech compound and breaks the fourth wall at the end to petition for viewers' support in getting a second season.

...we let her down, folks :(

So here's a thing. The show never draws a sharp line between "people who become drag queens because it's a way they're driven to express themselves as gay men" and "people who become drag queens because they were trans women all along." That's consistent with how South American LGBT+ culture works. (Again: best of my knowledge, not personally an authority on this, etc etc.)

Many of the characters, including Champagne, never describe themselves in ways that translate to one of our sharply-defined Anglo-USian identity categories. And I'm not going to try to impose any English labels on them here.

But I can say (in contrast to Safira, Lemon, and Scarlet), Champagne never switches out of her "drag" name/voice/presentation, not even in the most candid off-duty scenes, and still has the same bustline when naked in the tub. Make of that what you will.

You Should Watch This Show

If you have a Netflix subscription, watch Super Drags!

If you ever do a Netflix free trial month in the future, make a note to yourself to watch Super Drags!

It's one of their original productions, so there's no risk of missing your chance because the license expired. But it's absolutely not getting the promotion it deserves. Which means potentially interested viewers won't find it, which means Netflix will think there's no interest, which means they'll keep not promoting it...etc etc etc.

No idea if there's any chance of getting it un-canceled, but maybe we can at least convince them to release it on DVD.

And the sheer gutsiness it took for a group of Brazilian creators to produce this show in the first place -- that deserves to be rewarded with your attention.

In spite of various anti-discrimination laws that sound good on paper, the country has serious problems with homophobia, transphobia, and anti-LGBT violence (warning, article has a violent image which is only partly blurred).

Maybe the creators could've gotten a second season if they made this one softer, less sexually-explicit, more restrained...but honestly? I bet that wouldn't have helped.

Consider Danger & Eggs, an Amazon original cartoon. It was made in the US, thoroughly child-friendly, and restricts its LGBT+ representation to things like "characters go to a Pride celebration...where nobody ever names or describes the quality they're proud of."

And it didn't get renewed past the first season either.

(Note: it had a trans woman showrunner and a queer-heavy creative staff, so I blame all that restraint on executive meddling, not the creators themselves. The showrunner even liked the tweet of my review that complains about it.)

So there's something very satisfying about how Super Drags went all-out, balls-to-the-wall (sometimes literally), all the rep explicit and unapologetic, packing every 25-minute episode with all kinds of queer content that would be censored or muted elsewhere -- but here it's exaggerated and celebrated and just keeps coming.

(...as do jokes like that, and I'm not sorry.)

Okay, there are a few legitimate reasons to not watch this show

Some caveats.

None of these things are Objectively Bad Problems that the show itself should be shamed for...but maybe they're genuinely not your cup of tea.

It does have actual Adult Content beyond "the existence of gay people." This show loves to swing barely-clothed cartoon genitalia in your face. There is, as mentioned, an orgy monster. If that kind of humor is going to bother you too much to appreciate the rest of the show, give it a pass.

I wasn't kidding about how realistic the homophobes are. Opening of the first episode has a guy trying to murder a busload of people while shouting slurs at them. If that level of hatred on-screen is gonna crush your soul, even in a show about sparkly queens flying to the rescue with dick-shaped magical weapons, don't push yourself.

Any fiction with this much crossdressing and gender-transgressing is going to hit some trans viewers in a bad way. Because trans people are such a broad group, with so many different experiences, that Every Possible Trope Involved pushes somebody's buttons. (See also: "some trans readers complain about a storyline that turns out to be drawn from a trans writer's actual life experience".) If this show goes does gender things that turn out to be personally distressing for you...or even just distressing for this specific time in your life...don't feel obligated to keep watching.

It has aggressively-sassy queer characters making jokes and calling each other things that are affectionate in-context, but would not be okay coming from straight/cis people. If you can't wrap your head around that, go watch something else.

Other Than That, Go Watch This Show

For all its big heart, big ambitions, and big gay energy, Super Drags is tiny enough that I've binged the whole show 2 times in the past 2 weeks. Thankfully, it's highly re-watchable -- lots of fun background gags and subtle foreshadowing that you don't catch on the first round.

(Pausing one last time to appreciate that a show with elements like "the high-tech robot assistant is called D.I.L.D.O." can be subtle at all, let alone be this good at it.)

I've also paged through all the fanart on Tumblr and Deviantart, looked up the single fanfic on the AO3, and started brainstorming plans to request it in Yuletide next year. Someone, please, come join me in (the English-language side of) the itty-bitty fandom for this ridiculous, glittery, over-the-top, fabulous series.

#Super Drags #lgbtq #recommendations #recs

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eallisnwndrlnd · 5 years

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A New Year. A New Decade.

As I type away, only a couple of hours to go to lead us into not only a new year but a new decade. So many memorable moments that happened this year…some good…some not so much.

2019, a year that began with anxiety and stress as I began my final semester and final year of college and ended it with uncertainty of what the next year will bring with a bit of hope that things will get better.

As I begin to reflect on my 2019, I note that even with all my downs I had a lot more ups and so much to be thankful for this year. As some of my family and friends had many new joys to celebrate there are others near and dear that also suffered a lot of hardships and loss this year. For them I hope that this New Year will bring hope, joy, peace and many more blessings.

I stressed over my academic performance as my college years were coming to a close. As I lost myself in my thesis and trying to complete it and finding that pulling my hair strand by strand may have been less painful of a process. The stress of personal issues happening at home, my deepening depression, and self-inflicted stress from school, led to me smoking a ciggy after being more than 2 years smoke free. Albeit only two lung cancer sticks, but still a moment of succumbing to my go-to distressing vice. I was, however, more determined than ever to survive my senior year being on top. With many late, tiring nights I worked towards ending on a high note. And boy did I. After having graduating high school 19 years ago, I, Ethni, at 37 years of age FINALLY graduated college…as a foreign student…with honors to boot! Can you believe it folks? I actually managed to graduate cum laude. Holy mother of fruitloops, how the frak did I even do that and not go bald? An academic acknowledgement I never dreamed possible four years ago when I started my first year of college. An honor that I can solely chuck up to hard work and determination no matter how much I lacked in confidence or ability. Alas, I finally completed a long held dream to obtain a college degree even if it took me a long time to get there. Of course the dream initially was graduating back home years ago in my dream school NYU-Tish, but hey, there are moments when dreams and goals change depending on what cards you’re dealt with and how you deal with them.

This year I was able to go back home for a visit after being away for five years. Oh how I missed my family and friends and OMG the FOOD. (the latter gifted me 20 extra pounds to take back to the Philippines) As I went back to visit the people nearest and dearest to my heart, unfortunately not having enough time to see all of them, I couldn’t help but feel nostalgic. How much has changed in just those five years amazed me. I felt so odd when I visited my old workplace. I hardly remembered the halls I once roamed for three years. It felt so much farther back in time than it was that it almost felt like a dream rather than actual memories. I also found some odd connection to my hometown of Los Angeles that I don’t remember ever having in all the time that I lived there. Perhaps being away for as long I had gave me some new perspective of my birthplace that was something other than being at odds with it and not feeling like I belonged. Basically I can say I don’t hate L.A. as much as I did when I was so desperate to move away from it.

After graduating, I had so many things I still needed to complete before I could even begin to search for my new direction in life. I had to change my student visa status which was a trying and pricey task. I had to finalize the printing and binding of my thesis which I finally managed to do only a month ago…ahh ever the procrastinator that I, at times, can be.

As a part of my student visa downgrading tasks of having to deport myself briefly and return with tourist visa status, I was able to check off yet another goal of mine from my ever changing and growing bucket list. My ma and I made a three day vacation of it in Tokyo, Japan. This was a city I had wanted to visit for years but had to work at convincing my mom to let our trip itinerary be in Tokyo. With her memories of WW2 as a child, I couldn’t really blame her but thankfully she finally said yes. Tokyo is a remarkable city with a lot of history and traditions. We found the Japanese people to be some of the most respectful, disciplined, welcoming and helpful people we ever had the honor of meeting throughout our travels. There were a handful of standout moments like where one young lady even walked opposite of her direction to help show us where our hotel was. I definitely will make plans to return one day but for longer than the three days we were there and make sure that I go to Mount Fuji.

Out of what I had hoped to accomplish from what I wrote last new year, I only managed to check off a few but hey, we all know that even one being checked off is practically a miracle for many of us.

I did get to learn a new language, bombarding my phone with language apps. I have managed to nearly memorize the Hangul alphabet. Now I just need to start memorizing the actual vocabulary and I’ll be good. I can now at least read several of the ingredients on Korean cosmetics and skincare products. I have also added some words in Chinese, Japanese, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Gaelic, and Russian. (I tried Arabic but I need a one on one assistance with that one rather than an app) In one or two more years I hope to at least be mediocre in my ability to speak and understand Korean while learning a few more words from other languages. Of course I sometimes get confused as hell mixing up foreign words and their translations in my head. Some Chinese leaks into Korean sentences and Portuguese gets muddled with Spanish, Italian and French. The proper pronunciations and accents also get flipped around. I already had this issue with my second language, Tagalog, finding itself mixed in with my first language of English (U.S.) With my memory issues also adding to this problem, I may find myself one day accidentally saying a multilingual sentence without realizing it. I already have a bad habit of going Taglish around people who only understand the English part.

I did cook and bake a lot more this year than I did last year to the point that my mother is complaining that I am spending too much money and time on ingredients for my baked concoctions. I even took the time to cook vegan dishes for much of my school lunches during my last semester. I did love to bake more often than cooking this year thus partly to blame for my added weight gain…

As one recent unsolicited comment from a male FB acquaintance said…”u really fat” Yes, darlin’, thank you so much for that ‘oh so keen’ observation (FYI I have a mirror and a plucking scale of my own. I don’t need input I didn’t ask for nor need. Ever heard the phrase “if you ain’t got nothing nice to say...shut tf up”?) . As he so gracefully put it, yes I’ll admit I added a bit more junk in my trunk this year rather than shedding it. And? Yeah so I admit, I piled on the dessert and snacks and revisited my obsession with video games that had me mimic the physical actions of a sloth or an overly blubbered seal to the point that I nearly gave myself tennis elbow and the posture of Igor. It also didn’t help that my fybro kept flaring up on and off this year which made me feel like a Golden Girl could take me down in one fell swoop and outrun me. Not to mention my constant and annoying friend that is called clinical depression and chronic anxiety that kept nipping at my heels that I’m lucky that I can even act like a functioning human most of the time. The fact that I can tell my inner negative voice to shut the duck up most of the time and ignore it, as well as wishing to not wake up at all only twice this year is a frakking miracle in itself. (Seriously though...what is up with some people that feel the need to foist their shallow insights on those that did not solicit it. And the added ludicrousness that sometimes this is supposed to lead into a flirt-on...I mean what kind of hells bells reverse psychology load of horse manure is that?)

Unfortunately I did not read any books this year but I did read more news articles and try to keep myself up to date on current events. (and try tried to stay sane while reading them)

My writing progress stalled and I only have a long list of story ideas to show from it. There is one story I recently started outlining that I find hopeful. I think it has the legs to be a decent script if I can manage to focus on its development. That will be a big focus this coming year…to gain some momentum in my writing.

(currently being distracted by the onslaught of illegal fireworks popping in my neighborhood, hoping my house and neighborhood manages to survive these irresponsible idiots.)

The promise to keep up with my daily checklist died a hollow death early on in the year with my senior year and thesis weighing me down from being able to stay consistent. Well there’s always next year.

Sadly I didn’t get any higher in Gurushots but I did get one of my shot viewed along with other peoples work at a showing. Yay for the small things!

I did sell several of my clothes and accessories but still way more to go before I can say I am done. Like a HEEP load. Every time I see some clothes I want to buy I have to keep repeating “no more clothes” over and over again. I just try to picture Hasan Minhaj’s piece on fast fashion to control those horrible habits of mine.

Even though I didn’t successfully check off a lot of what I wanted to complete for this year, I still look back to this year as a decent one even with my ever present depression and anxiety looming over me. Dude, I graduated college, I learned a new language, and I knocked off Tokyo from my bucket list. I think that was enough to make my year above meh and almost a big YAY!

As I near the close of this annual report of mine, I list these goals and hopes not set in stone but in rainbows (oh yes I just went there into ridiculousness!!!)

May I find a job I actually like rather than what I just deem as a necessary obligation to obtain a paycheck.

I will learn enough Korean to be able to legitimately claim that I am multilingual.

Finish reading the books that I have collected on my shelf before I leave the Philippines.

Cook and bake with a bit more flair and add more complicated dishes to my repertoire.

Sell and clear out more of my shit to prepare me for our move back stateside if all goes according to plan.

If I manage to shed enough off my caboose to fit in the jeans I already own that will be a small victory in itself and the only goal that deals with my rollipollies for the year. If any extra manages to come off along the way that’ll be just an added bonus.

Hitting reset on my daily checklist and will do my best to let it last longer than last year (I can say that now as it is currently past midnight and officially 2020 in my neck of the woods)

If I do move back stateside this year I will start saving towards my future goal of getting me a tiny home. (Seriously the perfect solution to my wanting a permanent home but not a permanent address and thus my added reason to shed the burden of most of my crap)

Complete my story outline and treatment and finalize the first draft of a 45 minute script.

Delve a bit more into my art and photography as well.

Get more sleep…(crappy sleeping habits I can lay blame to my current gaming and ongoing kdrama addiction and mindless internet browsing habits)

Begin volunteering once again.

With my final moving destination still unknown dependent on the job prospects I get, pretty sure I won’t be able to mark off any other travel destinations or adventures for the coming year.

Just be healthier not only in body but in mind and soul overall. I need to work on alleviating my health issues that aggravate my fybro as well as my anxiety. If my brain could shut the frak up and calm the frak down, and keep my ma’s schizophrenic outbursts and episodes to no more than an hour a day at least once in a while would be oh so lovely.

As long as I keep going and progress even in baby steps I will eventually get there.

For those that know me and my political ideology, they know what I especially hope for this year. Please oh please if there are any actual deities that exist or even if there isn’t…please let that outcome be a good one.

Now I end my annual New Year musings with a Happy New Years greeting to everyone. May we all find good and peace in this new year and may we have a better decade than the last one.

Goodbye 2019, I can’t say I’ll really miss thee. And goodbye to another decade.

Hello 2020, be better dammit and I promise that I will strive towards making it a positive and productive one for me, my family, my friends and with that, some decent contribution to this world we all live in.

#happynewyear #newyearsresolution #newyears2020 #goals

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bluewatsons · 5 years

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Julie Herrada, Letters to the Unabomber: A Case Study and Some Reflections, 28 Archive Issues: J Midwest Archives Conference 1 (2003)

Abstract

When the University of Michigan's Special Collections Library acquired the papers of a high-profile person, the standard procedures involving acquisition of archival collections were found to be lacking. This article traces the events leading up to the acquisition of the Ted Kaczynski Papers: detailing the process of negotiating a deed of gift agreement, resolving privacy issues, processing the collection and making it accessible, dealing with the media and a very curious public, handling the administration's concerns, and responding to outside inquiries about the acquisition, as well as practical and theoretical matters affecting the management of controversial and contemporary archival collections.

In April 1996, Theodore John Kaczynski was arrested and charged with being the infamous Unabomber who, since 1978, had mailed or otherwise planted bombs targeting individuals working in the field of genetic engineering, and the airline, computer, and forestry industries. His bombs killed three people and injured 24. The Unabomber had successfully evaded the authorities for nearly 20 years. His manifesto, "Industrial Society and Its Future," was published in The Washington Post just a few weeks before his arrest.

For several months during that year, I, along with much of the rest of the country, watched in eerie fascination the story of the lone outsider who had eluded the authorities for so long as he carried out his bombing campaign. As I read the media coverage about the evidence piling up against Kaczynski and the uproar over the publication of the manifesto, I decided to ask him to donate his papers to the Labadie Collection' at the University of Michigan Library, little realizing what events this would set in motion.

Kaczynski's 35,000-word essay advocated the destruction of technological society before it destroys humanity and nature. The publication of the Unabomber manifesto and its ideas were greeted with a great deal of interest by the anarchist and left press such as Anarchy, Earth First, Fifth Estate, The Nation, and Z Magazine, as well as mainstream publications such as Time, The New Republic, and The New York Times. Kaczynski immediately became a media draw, with everyone wanting to get on the bandwagon by writing about him. Most mainstream journalists and reporters were eager to make names for themselves by publishing the latest "inside" stories or trying to get exclusive interviews. They sensationalized the stories, eager to boost their sales.

Kaczynski also attracted freelance journalists to the frenzy. Radical publications, how- ever, were more interested in analyzing and critiquing the ideas in the manifesto; many of their readers saw him as a modern-day personification of Ned Ludd, the fictional, nineteenth-century British machine breaker. To them, these were not original ideas: they were the same ones that had been discussed within the radical environmental and deep ecology movements since the 1980s. What came to be called "anti-tech" theory (also known as "green anarchism") is well represented in the Labadie Collection. Be- sides his theories, many radical writers also debated the validity of the Unabomber's tactics. The use of violence to overthrow the ruling system or extinguish enemies of the people has been extensively discussed in the radical press for well over a century, and Kaczynski was strongly criticized by some for using such methods. Many anarchists believe in nonviolence, since a basic premise of anarchism is to do nothing that will harm or impinge on the rights of others to live their lives as they choose. It is coercion they abhor. It is also true, though, that some anarchists have engaged in "propaganda by the deed" and, in efforts to prevent further attacks against the oppressed, have taken their beliefs several steps further. Just as with the assassination of President William McKinley in 1901 by the anarchist Leon Czolgosz, some people were supportive of, or at least sympathetic to, Kaczynski's actions.

Since its inception, the Labadie Collection has had a policy of collecting retrospective as well as contemporary materials that document activists and radical movements throughout the world. In addition to anarchism, the collection's strengths include civil liberties, socialism, communism, American labor history, the Spanish Civil War, sexual freedom, the underground press, youth and student protest, and animal liberation. One of my tasks as curator is to continue documenting contemporary social protest such as the radical environmental, global justice, and peace movements. Like Agnes Inglis, the library's first curator (1924-1952), and Edward Weber, the second curator (1960-2000), I do this by keeping up with current social issues in the radical press and writing to activists and authors, asking them to donate their materials. Collecting materials not only about activism but by activists is one of the hallmarks of the Labadie.

The Labadie Collection, now part of the University of Michigan's Special Collections Library, is recognized today as one of the world's most comprehensive collections of materials documenting the history of anarchism and other radical movements. It is a valuable repository of materials used by a wide range of people, from noted scholars who travel there to do research to graduate and undergraduate students at the university and nearby colleges who use its holdings of current and noncurrent periodicals to study radical movements of the present and past. It is part of my job and my passion to ensure that that tradition continues.

Because of my own links with political activists and protest movements, I have been uniquely positioned to acquire new collections. My position in an academic library in some cases grants me a certain amount of carte blanche, while in other circles I am immediately suspect. Occasionally, I have-sometimes boldly, sometimes timidly- pursued the papers of some contentious and notorious, elusive and difficult characters, even people I would not want to meet in person, but that is the nature of collection development. Mostly, the donors I work with care deeply about the world and its people and that alone usually gives me an immediate rapport with them.

The Unabomber manifesto, in addition to diaries confiscated from Kaczynski's Montana cabin, were the type of writings acquired by the Labadie Collection from past radicals. There are no known writings of Czolgosz, but if there were, they would certainly belong in our collection. Letters of Russian anarchist Alexander Berkman, who attempted to assassinate industrialist Henry Clay Frick in 1894 during the Homestead strike in Pittsburgh when Frick ordered his men to shoot striking steelworkers, are in the Labadie Collection. Berkman served 14 years in prison for that crime and, in 1919, during the Red Scare, was deported with Emma Goldman and many others. I do not wish to compare Kaczynski ideologically with either Berkman or Czolgosz: the times and methods are different, as were their targets. I mention them only since they all killed or attempted to kill those they believed were guilty of perpetrating heinous acts upon the exploited of the world.

Kaczynski's brother, David, upon reading the published manifesto in The Washing- ton Post, recognized the writing style and the ideas outlined in it as being very similar in nature to Ted's. The FBI lost no time in investigating Kaczynski and arrested him at his Montana cabin without incident. Subsequently, the manifesto has been published on the Internet, as well as in print, and translated into many languages, including Spanish, French, Italian, German, Greek, Turkish, Dutch, Japanese, Russian, Portuguese, and Czech.

In February 1997, nearly a year after he was arrested, I wrote Kaczynski's attorney, Judy Clarke. It is always a little tricky writing to potential donors. Without knowing exactly what existed and what was available, I asked for everything, including manuscripts, journals, correspondence, photographs, and legal papers. Four months passed and one day I was surprised by a phone call from Clarke, stating, "Mr. Kaczynski is very interested." Clarke had shown a copy of my letter to Kaczynski. He said he would like more information about our library. It was apparent that, even though he earned his Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Michigan (and won the Sumner-Myers Award in 1967 for outstanding graduate thesis), he had never heard of the Labadie Collection, which is not unusual, especially for someone not studying in the social sciences.

If Kaczynski had not been arrested on suspicion of murder or had not been a notorious figure, I would still have been interested in acquiring his writings, which criticized technology and industrialization, and advocated nature and a return to a more primitive lifestyle, in essence, the kind of writings that oppose the status quo. This is documentation I interpret as being "socially relevant," to borrow Danielle Laberge's expression. 2 What I did not know at first was that Kaczynski had a fairly large following. For example, despite the antitechnology theme, there were many Web sites, such as Unapac (the Unabomber's political action committee) and electronic discussion groups such as <alt.fan.Unabomber> devoted to him. There were also a number of fans writing letters to him. The fact that we must be able to hypothesize about the needs of future researchers is a well-established part of the appraisal process. In so doing, we have the opportunity to unlock secrets. We can heed the call to document the ways in which people are formed in our society as well as the ways those people have shaped our values as a society.

I wrote a second letter to Judy Clarke, including in it the information she requested. Before long, I received my first letter from Ted Kaczynski. With his name and prison number from the so-called "SuperMax" Federal Penitentiary in Florence, Colorado, neatly printed in the upper left corner of the envelope, it arrived in our department from the library's mailroom with a frank question from the person who delivered it: "Is this for real?" A large manila envelope stuffed with correspondence accompanied the letter. It was six pages long and also neatly printed. The correspondence consisted of letters to Kaczynski since his arrest; they were mostly from people he did not know. We did not yet have a formal deed of gift agreement, or even an informal one. His letter explained that he was not allowed to keep more than 20 letters in his cell and, rather than risk having them confiscated and destroyed, he sent them to me for safekeeping until there was a formal arrangement. He acknowledged the possibility that I would not want to keep this kind of material, but was offering me the option before the prison authorities made the decision for me. This was my introduction to Ted Kaczynski. I found his first letter to be candid, explanatory, direct, and unambiguous. This set the tone for the rest of our communication. Kaczynski did not ask any personal questions about me and kept his communication strictly confined to the business at hand, which was to reach a formal agreement as soon as possible regarding the disposition of his papers.

This would prove much more difficult than I anticipated. As our communication progressed, I realized he was extremely concerned with the potential misuse of the collection and wished to place what I considered unreasonable demands on its accessibility, such as restricting it to "serious scholars only." He was particularly concerned with keeping journalists from using it.

We have a standard Deed of Gift form that every donor signs. For most donations it includes all necessary information. This form was far from adequate for negotiating Kaczynski's gift. When he asked us to draw up a deed of gift that placed restrictions on some of his materials, I explained to him that we would not discriminate among users: it was our policy to allow everyone equal access to the collection. He reluctantly agreed. The problem then was the amount of time his restrictions would remain, "the year 2020 or his death, whichever comes later," that would have placed a minimum closure of 22 years on the collection. The only materials he wanted to make available immediately, without closure or redaction, were letters to him that were either anonymous or from the media. These misgivings about the media were at the basis of his desire to keep most of the collection closed. Since his notoriety began, he developed such a disdain for anyone connected to the media and others he perceived as trying to exploit him that he either ignored their letters or answered them with sarcasm; sometimes he was even hostile. In his replies to almost everyone else, he was friendly, congenial, witty, and at times even charming.

Although the Special Collections Library does not have an official policy on length of closure, like most institutions, we discourage any restrictions but are willing to negotiate depending on the circumstances. Kaczynski certainly tested our boundaries. With- out knowing exactly what he was trying to conceal from the public, it was difficult to understand his reasoning. As one who does not trust much in the mainstream news, I sympathized with his sense of being misrepresented by the media, yet I could not in good conscience agree to close the collection for such a long period without understanding why.

Without a formal deed of gift, I was reluctant to open any of the materials he sent, apart from the letters he wrote directly to me. On the other hand, I did not want to risk losing the materials completely to the prison authorities, so I quietly stored them, unopened, in the boxes in which they arrived and continued with the negotiations. I even asked the mailroom workers not to mention to anyone that I was receiving mail from Kaczynski.

When Kaczynski asked that we seal parts of the collection for 20 years after his death, I immediately rejected the request, citing SANs Code of Ethics and our own policy. I gently urged him to reconsider. He then outlined a series of options from which we could choose, creating a classification system based on levels of accessibility. He seemed extremely worried about privacy issues, not so much his own, because by then he was accustomed to intense media exposure, but that of the correspondents who wrote to him. Although he referred to some of the people writing to him as "kooks" and "lonely women," he was still concerned about their privacy.

A further consideration of ours was that the media would find out about the donation before we were prepared to announce it. The university administration was already very nervous about the collection, since some of the Unabomber's victims still lived in the Ann Arbor area. The administration did not want to appear insensitive, nor did they want to open themselves up to increased negative publicity. (There was a high-profile negligence case against the university going on simultaneously.) For the first time in my career, I was at the mercy of the university's general counsel and the provost to negotiate for a new donation. I had spoken to my department head before soliciting materials from Kaczynski; she was very supportive, remaining so throughout the process. But from her superiors I felt some resentment that I had taken it upon myself to seek this donation. They told me that, since Kaczynski's attorney was involved, our attorneys should also be involved. My heart sank. I knew then this was not going to be easy. Until then, I had been communicating well with Kaczynski. We both had our ideas about how the collection should be handled, and we were openly discussing the issues, working to achieve compromises. I know he appreciated my honesty and, by conveying to him the ethical standards by which I was motivated, I was earning his trust. I was, however, disturbed by some of the stories I was hearing about him in the media and I was doing my best to stay detached. I tried to see his perspective as a prisoner with few resources at hand and almost no control over the negotiations for the placement of his papers, not to mention his legal affairs, which included possibly facing the death penalty, certainly a life sentence at the very least. I was determined to treat him with the same respect and consideration I would give to any donor. When the administration got involved, I began to realize the process could break down at any time and that would be the end of it. The power I had was wrested from me, and all my hard work was in jeopardy.

The university attorneys requested copies of all my correspondence with Kaczynski. This was another privacy issue altogether. As in most institutions, our donor correspondence is confidential. I had a choice in the matter: I could have refused. Because I was technically acting as an agent of the university when I wrote those letters, the result of such a refusal may have halted negotiations, or at least stalled them indefinitely. I also did not want to make trouble for my supervisor, who was still very much on my side. In addition, having known from the beginning that my letters were read by prison authorities and could potentially be reviewed by university administration as well, I always kept my correspondence with Kaczynski on a strictly business level. My priority was the swift execution of the deed of gift, rather than the protection of my own privacy, so I handed the letters over to the general counsel.

After a series of letters and drafts of deed of gift agreements, an official one was finally signed on July 10, 1999. Although we had decided not to make a formal announcement about the donation, I knew the story would break soon, so I accessioned the collection and immediately began the processing.

At first I thought Kaczynski's privacy concerns about the letters peculiar, but once I had a chance to read them, I was instantly struck by their personal nature. Coupled with the media's attraction to the story, I sensed a dangerous mixture. Hundreds of people from all over the world were writing to the Unabomber following his arrest. The letters covered a wide range of topics, from mathematics to the environment, philosophy to physical or mental illness, depression, and family and job issues. Many wrote as if they were old friends, discussing their personal problems. Each one found some level at which to connect with this man, whom they only knew from sensationalized reports on television or in the newspaper. Some knew of him through the radical press. It was astonishing to me to see the variety of people he touched: housewives, academics, teen- agers, grandmothers, secretaries, anarchists, journalists, scientists, survivalists, writers, artists, mental health professionals, college students, teachers, and environmental activists, in addition to many women who were interested in initiating romantic involvement. Even though correspondence between inmates was not allowed, other prisoners wrote to him, delivering mail through underground prison channels.

As I read through the letters, I was struck with various emotions: sadness, compassion, and pity, and I began to see what Kaczynski saw in these letters. Waves of despondency crept over me for weeks. I struggled with the sense that these letters represented but a microcosm of the people in our society. They wrote on perfumed paper, colored paper, decoupage paper, anonymous postcards, business letterhead, and frayed-at-the-edges notebook pages. Some were very well educated, others barely literate. They sent photographs of themselves, their gardens, and breathtaking scenery. There were many bright and normal people, as well as some seemingly unstable ones, who were merely curious about the intellect and personality of the man known as the Unabomber. A few people sent complex mathematical equations; some simply wanted an autograph. Many offered prayers and salvation. Others expressed their love of nature, their fear of technology, and their alienation. Several people wanted to know what it was like for him in prison, or how he had lived on the outside. Some of the letters were genuinely fan letters. In this age of constant discussion and debate about how to manage electronic records, this collection is unique in that it is all on paper; in fact, some people writing to the Unabomber apologize to him for typing rather than handwriting their letters based on their assumption that, because he is critical of technology, he disapproves of typed letters. Others printed articles from the Web and mailed them to him, seemingly un- aware of the inherent irony. That there was such a mix of people and ideas did not change the fact that probably none of the people ever imagined their letters would end up in the archives of a public institution. This is what I was grappling with. I even lost sleep over it. Although I had no idea what I would end up with when I asked for Kaczynski's papers, I was now in the difficult position of being responsible for people's privacy, at the same time making a professional pledge not only to care for these materials but to make them available to the public.

My gut reaction was to close this collection for a long time. I had never dealt with a collection so varied, so personal, and so contemporary. I was genuinely worried about the letter writers. I knew that their messages were being read and possibly copied by the prison authorities, and one could assume they also knew this. What they did not know was that I was reading their letters and intending to make sure that many others read them as well. Suddenly, I felt worse than a voyeur. Of course, it was not the first time in my career that I felt I was intruding on something very private, but this time the feeling was much stronger than ever before, partly because these letters had been written within the past two years. The writers were still around, some of them still corresponding with Kaczynski. I felt the weight of the world was on my shoulders. I felt like giving all the letters back. I certainly did not feel entitled to them.

One of Kaczynski's early suggestions was to black out the names and other identifying features of the authors. Initially, this seemed like a bad idea to me, mainly because of the work involved. We discussed other options such as closing the collection but, given the youth of many of the writers, a reasonable time of closure would not have protected their privacy for very long. Fifty years might do it, but anything less was risky. This would have made no sense and would have violated our own policy of non-closure. There are no hard and fast rules governing the privacy of third parties in archival collections, only guidelines and professional ethics. Typically, archivists prefer not to see restrictions on use because restrictions can inhibit research. The contents of the letters to Kaczynski were of potential interest to researchers, but the names of the writers were irrelevant except to the press, and the press was my major concern. Kaczynski and I discussed these issues at length. I consulted with trusted colleagues. I researched the policies of other institutions. I interpreted the SAA's Code of Ethics.

The letters to the Unabomber were a surprise to me but are a useful element in understanding our society and, after several weeks of research and meetings and discussion and soul searching, I was finally convinced that the content of the letters was very much worth keeping intact. These letters certainly meet Laberge's definition of "socially relevant"; however, revealing the names of the writers served no ethical research purpose and, indeed, in many cases would be an invasion of privacy and could seriously harm the author. One could guess that even if some of them signed their letters, they would want their names kept out of the public eye.

The decision to redact the names from the letters to protect the privacy of the third parties had another result. Third parties retain their copyright (currently, life plus 70 years). Making the names of the writers inaccessible means that no user can seek permission from a writer to quote from or publish any of the letters. One exception to this is letters written by people already in the public eye: their names are not redacted since they are not allowed the same rights to privacy as private individuals. These public figures have been, for the most part, media personalities who have written to Kaczynski in the hopes of procuring an exclusive interview.

Eventually, the media found out about the donation. They began calling. For the first time in my life, I felt I was being forced into the public spotlight and I did not like it. I was able to fend most of them off at first, giving them very little information and telling them that the processing of the collection was expected to take six months and that until that time I could not tell them anything about the papers. That worked with most of them, but some reporters were so aggressive that I began to find Kaczynski's contempt for the media justifiable.

Given the expectations of the donor and the media and the sense that this would be a popular collection, I knew it would require immediate access. The processing took a full six months. I hired an excellent archival student to do most of the work of redacting the initial four and a half linear feet of correspondence. By this time, I had read many of the letters and was certain about what needed to be done. We were preserving the originals but wanted to conceal names, addresses, phone numbers, and sometimes place names for added protection. Envelopes and photographs of people were not copied but were stored with the original letters. The process was very time-consuming; however, it was the only precise method we found. Each letter had to be read thoroughly to catch any possible reference that might lead to an individual. I certainly do not recommend this method for every sensitive collection. This is an issue that must be carefully thought through and discussed with responsible parties. Relying on your instincts and training as a professional is also an essential tool.

Early in our negotiations in an effort to assemble a more complete record, I asked Kaczynski to send me carbon copies of his own correspondence. He complied. He can read and write German, Russian, and Spanish, so he has international correspondents as well (although he is now prohibited from corresponding in Russian since the prison authorities cannot properly screen Russian-language materials). All his incoming and outgoing letters are read and possibly photocopied by the prison authorities. There are now over seven hundred different correspondents.

We considered creating a special permission form in addition to our regular Application for the Use of Manuscript Material. My experience with the media reinforced my decision to black out the names in the letters. It also convinced me that a special form would not prevent cunning reporters from doing what we were trying to prevent, since permission forms are not legally binding. In addition, there was no need for such a form if we were going to conceal the names. The way the media descended like vultures upon me and anyone else who was in any way associated with Kaczynski was nothing less than barbaric. Once the collection was processed, I could not keep the media out. One local reporter, after an hour's interview, wrote a fair, honest article, even allowing me to review it prior to publication. Everyone else was not only unprofessional but simply looking for a way to disgrace me. An on-line radio talk show host even asked if I considered Kaczynski "attractive." I had the choice not to talk to reporters but I thought this might be worse for me and for the university. Being direct and firm seemed to be my best defense against the onslaught.

Even though several years have passed since the story of the collection became public, every six months or so I get call from a magazine or newspaper reporter wanting to do another article on the papers. The story has been covered in many newspapers across the world, including one in Russia, for which I was interviewed by E-mail. Sometimes,

in order to fend off unwanted attention, I remind them that the story has already been covered many times. A few years ago there was a brief flurry of negative publicity about this collection when a conservative radio talk-show host urged his listeners to call the university library and complain about the fact that we were "glorifying" Kaczynski by placing his letters on display (we had not done this). The library's public relations unit requested that I not speak to anyone in the media about this issue and that I refer all calls to them or to the university's News and Information Office. I had a mixed reaction to this, feeling somewhat censored, but overall I admit I was relieved to let someone else handle the calls.

In 1998, Kaczynski pled guilty to murder charges in exchange for a life sentence. He then began an appeals process, asserting that he was forced to plead guilty because his lawyers, in an attempt to avoid the death penalty, insisted on presenting evidence that would have portrayed him as mentally ill. He also appealed on the grounds that the court would not allow him to act as his own lawyer. He represented himself in his brief to the Supreme Court. On March 18, 2002, his final appeal was denied. Since he has exhausted all his legal channels, he is now sending me the court documents related to his case. The collection now spans nearly 20 linear feet and is still growing.

Part of what is interesting and relevant about Kaczynski is that his views on technology are antithetical to an archivist's work setting, especially my own, given the University of Michigan's reputation for being at the forefront of technological innovation. As Hans Booms believes, archivists cannot "separate [ourselves] from the socio-historical conditions of our existence." 3 The technological movement is part of our social context, making it difficult though not impossible to be critical of it. Part of what attracted me to the archival profession in the late 1980s was the scarcity of computers within it. The joke is on me. I still love what I do, despite the fact that technology increasingly dominates much of my archival work. I have resigned myself to the modem methodology and have accepted the role of technology in it.

Kaczynski is in the tradition of those Americans who have been outspoken in their rejection of technology and modernity in their lives, from Thoreau to Scott Nearing. Kaczynski is unique, however, for the methods he employed to make his views known. Also, it is slightly ironic that just as Jo Labadie donated his radical papers to the University of Michigan in 1911 to balance its conservative philosophy so, in 1999, Ted Kaczynski's papers ended up there despite the university's overwhelming commitment to technology.

The fact that I have experience with contemporary and controversial donors puts me in a smaller category of archivists. But if we are to have more complete records documenting social history, this category needs to grow. I would very much like to share this responsibility. Historical societies and other institutions documenting local history should be collecting materials relevant to their communities, especially if they are controversial. These materials may otherwise be destroyed or discarded out of shame, embarrassment, fear, or misunderstanding. If we, as keepers of history, collect and protect only what is appealing, socially acceptable, or politically correct, we are hardly doing our jobs. In his article "Mind Over Matter," Terry Cook reminds us that:

... In any appraisal model, it is thus important to remember the people who slip through the cracks of society. In western countries, for example, the democratic consensus is often a white, male, capitalist one, and marginalized groups not forming part of that consensus or empowered by it are reflected poorly (if at all) in the programmes of public institutions. The voice of such marginalized groups may only be heard (and thus documented)-aside from chance survival of scattered private papers-through their interaction with such institutions and hence the archivist must listen carefully to make sure these voices are heard.4

Because I am now publicly connected to the Unabomber, people dealing with similar collections call on me. Two years ago, I received a phone call from a representative regarding the placement of Timothy McVeigh's fan mail and last year I was consulted about the placement of papers and artifacts belonging to the Branch Davidians. In both cases, I spoke with an intermediary. I took heart when each of them conveyed the deep concerns of the donors that the materials be protected and made available. McVeigh even had legal documents drawn up prior to his execution that detailed his wishes for preservation of and access to his letters. I did not have to tell these people how important the collections are: they already knew.

It is also important to think about which institution can best care for the materials. Large and well-funded archives have prestige and can appeal to prospective donors, but smaller, local archives, museums, and historical societies are often more accessible and geographically more desirable. I am a strong proponent of collections being properly geographically placed, close to the point of their creation and accessible to the most users. I could argue that Kaczynski has ties to the University of Michigan and, there- fore, his papers belong there, but he also has ties to Berkeley, Chicago, and Montana. And nothing in the papers is connected to the time he spent in Ann Arbor, Berkeley, or Chicago. Montana seems to be the closest geographic connection. Being properly cared for and cared about, however, is fundamental. The Branch Davidians's collection most assuredly belongs in Texas; it stands to reason that the McVeigh letters belong in Oklahoma City, but the people of Oklahoma City might disagree with that.

I cannot stress enough the value in collecting contemporary materials. Booms says the appraisal process should include a study of the major events of the times in which the collections were created.5 That is easy if we are already living in those times. We have ready access to most current debates and controversies regardless of which side we personally take. We might be appalled and bewildered by some of the events of our era, but we have the resources, the social values, the context, and the perspective to thoroughly document them. Society's reactions to events are just as important as the events themselves. I think about a letter written by Agnes Inglis in 1928, when she was feeling overwhelmed by her work in the Labadie Collection:

... It takes time and constant interest and effort. I realize I have to stay on the job. But sometimes I find it rather hard to do, for after all, that has all been lived. It's wonderful historically but lacks one's present day heart beats. I have to have a life besides.6

In his article, "Keeping Archives as a Social and Political Activity," Booms's focus is on appraisal of older documents but, if he had discussed contemporary documents, his argument surely would have followed that archivists are best able to chronicle those collections in which their own social values are summoned.7 Recently, I have been collecting materials related to the current antiwar movement. These materials are mainly in the form of flyers, buttons, and posters. That the largest antiwar movement in history has been organized across the world to include radicals, liberals, and mainstreamers is truly a historical occurrence. It comforts me to see and touch it, the tangible evidence of a mass movement of social protest, to know that it is being saved, and that, generations from now, people will acknowledge the work we have done and study the materials we had the foresight to preserve from our own time. The better we document our society's transformations, the better we will be able to learn from those transformations.

Another good reason to collect contemporary documents is that archivists are often stuck with collections that someone else first had the opportunity to rifle through. The best time to collect is not years or decades later, after who knows how many hands have touched them, but as soon after their creation as is feasible. Regardless of what those materials consist of, we all know this task of sorting and weeding is best left up to the archivist during the appraisal process.

Frank Boles correctly asserts that we must educate the public about the importance of collecting controversial materials. 8 This can be done in many ways, the least of which can be to educate them in general about archives: what they are and how they can benefit society. One of the simplest ways is to utilize the resources that are the most accessible. It is true, as Boles states, that "Reporters understand the archivist's view- point regarding the acquisition of controversial material much better than the general public." 9 Reporters also understand (and are often motivated by) the general public's attraction to scandal and tabloid news. The public will not be educated about the value of archives overnight. It is a gradual process; the more archival collections make it into the news, the more people will become accustomed to the ideals we have been putting forth.

It is possible that some patrons or donors or members of the general public may criticize you and your institution for obtaining certain collections. Some prospective donors may even change their minds about giving their materials to you. This again is where education and diplomacy become important. You may not be able to please everyone with your explanations, but placing your mission statement ahead of their attempts to dictate your collection development policy will be liberating in more ways than one. And, like it or not, this is how we get attention in our profession. A little controversy about our collections is better than whitewashing social history.

We are fortunate to be in a profession for which we have a passion and a calling. It may not be a lucrative one, especially these days when most of our cultural and educational institutions are under serious financial strain, but it is a profession that we do not have to worry about being moved to a developing country in order for a corporation to reap more profits. We will always have the responsibility to practice good ethics and to collect, preserve, and make accessible the papers and records and artifacts of underrepresented communities, unpopular individuals or groups, and marginalized movements. The FBI should not be trusted as the only organization to collect these materials. Their motives are singular, making their methods much different from our own. We are a richer society for the things from the past we have managed to save, but we have a long way to go in overcoming our prejudices, our biases, our snobbery, and our fears.

Footnotes

The Labadie Collection is named for Joseph Antoine Labadie, who was born in 1850, in the back- woods of Paw Paw, Michigan. His father, a wandering free spirit, taught his eldest son the ways of the frontier and introduced him to the life and language of the native Pottawatami tribes living nearby. With almost no formal education, Jo was trilingual, speaking the native French and English of his family and learning Pottawatami from his neighbors. In his teens, he was trained in the printing trade and went on the road as a tramp printer, working in print shops throughout Indiana, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan, joining typographical unions everywhere he went. This experience gave Jo a class consciousness that would stay with him the rest of his life. He became a labor union organizer and an anarchist. By the turn of the century, he had amassed a large collection of correspondence, essays, poetry, newspapers, pamphlets, posters, photographs, broadsides, leaflets, badges, and other materials, and wanted to make sure it was preserved and made available for research. In 1911, despite several offers from the University of Wisconsin, he chose to donate it to the University of Michigan because he wanted it to remain close to his home but also because he felt his collection would give the conservative Michigan institution some much needed balance.

Danielle Laberge, "Information, Knowledge, and Rights: The Preservation of Archives as a Political and Social Issue," Archivaria25 (1987-1988).

Hans Booms, "Society and the Formation of a Documentary Heritage: Issues in the Appraisal of Archival Sources," Archivaria24 (1987): 74.

Terry Cook, "Mind Over Matter: Towards a New Theory of Archival Appraisal," The Archival Imagination: Essays in Honour of Hugh A. Taylor, ed. Barbara L. Craig (Ottawa: Association of Canadian Archivists, 1992).

Hans Booms, "Oberlieferungsbildung: Keeping Archives as a Social and PoliticalActivity," Archivaria 33 (1991-1992): 31.

Agnes Inglis, letter to Jo Labadie, 6 September 1928, Joseph Labadie Papers, Labadie Collection.

Booms, "Uberlieferungsbildung."

Frank Boles, "Just a Bunch of Bigots: A Case Study in the Acquisition of Controversial Material," Archival Issues 19:1 (1994).

Boles, 60.

#case study #political violence #unabomber #psyche #ted kaczynski #correspondence #technology #law #deviants #anti-technology #rebels

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Culture and Translation - S01E08

If you read all of this, congratulations. I think this is by far the longest culture and translation post I’ve done yet.

CLIP 1: Hit Me With Your Best Shot / One Way or Another

I didn’t get to this part last episode, but as some people have mentioned, Nora lives with her parents. Spanish grammar has a feature called “masculine generics.” I’ll quote Wikipedia: “Grammatical gender in Spanish refers to how Spanish nouns are categorized as either masculine (often ending in -o) or feminine (often ending in -a). As in other Romance languages—such as Portuguese, to which Spanish is very similar—a group of both males and females, or someone of unknown gender, is usually referred to by the masculine form of a nouns and or pronoun.” Because of this, we can infer that one of Nora’s parents is a man, but we don’t know whether the other parent is a man or a woman. Twitter likes the idea of making the Eskild expy her parent, and Linn his husband, but I don’t think it’s caught on in here.

Buah, ¿sabéis quién triunfó también en la fiesta? (“Hey, you know who also triumphed at the party?”): I have never seen “to triumph” being used this way in English, but that is the verb Amira uses and I really wanted to keep the idea of hooking up with people as a victory, something you win at.

Es que me parece súper fuerte, ¿no? (“I just think it’s too much, no?): “Fuerte” (literally “strong”) is Spanish slang for something that crosses a line or is “extra” in some way.

Hombre, pues no sé cómo lo veréis (“Man, I don’t know about you”): What Viri says would be literally translated as, “Man, I don’t know how you’re going to see it.”

Ya, y a ésta le van a llegar los cuernos hasta el techo del gimnasio (“Yeah, and the side girls are going to reach the gym ceiling all standing on top of each other”): Okay, so here is a line where I took liberties in order to get the most out of the line and the visual. In Spanish, when someone cheats on their significant other, we say that the person being cheated on has “cuernos” (horns) or is a “cornudo” (horned). So, Cris says that Cristian is cheating on Lara so often and so much that her horns are going to grow as high as to reach the gym ceiling. In English, the closest translation is “cuckold,” which comes from the Old French word for the cuckoo bird. Since I couldn’t work with the actual translation, I reworked the line to say that the side girls could reach the gym ceiling if they stood on top of each other. Sort of like that factoid that says if we stacked every human up on one another, we’d be 1/4th of the way to Venus.

I think Nora means that it’s better if she doesn’t flash a UV light over her room, but it’s not clear in Spanish either.

I really can’t remember whether we ever played dodgeball in high school P.E., but the whole premise just sounds like a pair of broken glasses waiting to happen.

CLIP 2: Skam España didn’t come to play

Fun fact: like Lucas, I hadn’t had anything to eat all day when this clip dropped, and a kebab sounded amazing, lol. Another fun fact! When I realized what Lucas was doing, I had to stop the clip and take like 5 minutes to regroup, I was that shook. I was really late recapping this clip on Twitter because I couldn’t deal with the enormity of it all.

Mis padres se pelean como cada mes, mes y medio (“My parents fight every four to six weeks”): Lucas says, “every month, month and a half.” “4 to 6 weeks” was shorter and, I felt, closer to the way English speakers talk about time. But really, Skam España is basically hell to sub because they talk quicker than any other Skam, including the French. If a sentence can be made shorter, but still keep the exact same meaning, we as a team feel blessed, lol.

Just in case it wasn’t immediately obvious, they literally just bought the kebabs and Eva didn’t spend the whole morning fixing them. And, also, that Lucas comes out to Eva over kebabs is an intentional homage to the og. In fact, in Spain, we eat kebabs like sandwiches, we don’t pick at them with forks/tongs, so Lucas and Eva are eating them like Jonas and Isak did.

I thought this would be as good a place as any to link to the Wikipedia article on LGBT rights in Spain. I’ll quote from the article: “Spain has been recognised as one of the most culturally liberal and LGBT-friendly countries in the world and LGBT culture has had a significant role in Spanish literature, music, cinema and other forms of entertainment as well as social issues and politics. Public opinion on homosexuality is noted by pollsters as being overwhelmingly positive, with a recent study conducted by Pew Research Center in 2013 indicating that more than 88 percent of Spanish citizens accept homosexuality, making it the most LGBT-friendly of the 39 countries Pew polled. LGBT visibility has also increased in several layers of society such as the Guardia Civil, army, judicial, and clergy. However, in other areas such as sports, the LGBT community remains marginalised. Spanish film directors such as Pedro Almodóvar have increased awareness regarding LGBT tolerance in Spain among international audiences. In 2007, Madrid hosted the annual Europride celebration and hosted World Pride in 2017. The cities of Madrid and Barcelona also have a reputation as two of the most LGBT-friendly cities in the world. Gran Canaria is also known worldwide as an LGBT tourist destination.”

CLIP 3: Making his way downtown

Tampoco es para tanto (“it’s not that serious”): Another translation would be, “it’s not as bad as all that.” I think the line I went with was clearer and more specific.

Yo creo que ha mejorado (“I think it looks better”): Eva says, “I think it’s gotten better,” but I reworked it. Lol sometimes I wonder if people read these and wonder why I just do whatever the fuck I like, but I promise I try to stick to what sounds more natural to me in English.

Te está durando mucho (“It’s taking too long to heal”): Cris actually says that the cold sore is lasting too long (presumably lasting too long on Viri’s face, lol).

Okay, so my experience with Spanish guys is that they initiate cunnilingus on their own and without prodding (i.e. will eat girls out), in the hopes that the woman will return the favor. I have surveyed my friends and they have reported similar experiences. Girls have said that guys have never not gone down on them, and guys have reported having no issues doing it. Og Skam actually backs me up, as Chris says that a guy did it to her, once, in Gran Canaria. So, while the girls are pleased for Viri that Alejandro went down on her, they’re not about to give him the King of the School slo-mo treatment Jonas received for doing the same. (I do have to note that the girls were impressed that Jonas not only went down on an older girl, but that he actually got her to come with oral only.) Given what we later learn about Viri and Alejandro’s encounter, I’d bet money on Alejandro hoping Viri would take the hint and suck him off in return, but since she doesn’t mention doing so, I think she just didn’t.

I think Viri did allow Alejandro to go down on her when his cold sore was already visible, and I’m legit appalled, tbh.

I learned of the Callao youth center through Skam España, because I’ve never needed to go. That said, it is a real youth center and they were pleased and touched about being featured on the show. Honestly, if even one teenager in need learned of their services through the show, I’ll consider Skam España a resounding success.

I love that Amira has seemingly gone with Cris to that youth center sometime before the show. Tangent, but I love the way the Amira/Cris friendship (and relationship, if you wanted to read into them that way) has been developed through the season. I remember having discussions early in the season about why Cris would join the losers, when Viri referred to her as “that pretty girl over there” and Cris was surrounded by a group of people when she was first introduced. In my opinion, Amira and Cris are best friends, and before the girl squad, everyone else was just along for the ride. But I’m looking forward to what we could learn about Amira and Cris’ friendship (and relationship) in further seasons.

CLIP 4: 8 Simple Rules for Dating my Spanish Daughter

Dating in Spain! The concept of “a date” exists in Spain, it’s called “una cita.” But we rarely, if ever, use this word. In fact, I don’t think it’s been used at all through the season. What we do is “quedar,” i.e. arrange to meet at a specific place and time. But it’s important to note that you can “quedar” with your friends, a hookup or a boyfriend/girlfriend. Since this arrangement isn’t exclusive to romantic relationships, I’ve translated it as “hanging out.” Again, the word “cita” (date) exists in Spanish, so if it’s ever used, I want to make sure it has the proper impact for the audience. Other dating vocab:

“Salir juntos” (to go out together): If two people “salen juntos,” they’re a couple.

“Salir conmigo” (to go out with me): If you ask someone to “sal conmigo,” you’re asking them to hang out as a couple.

“¿Quieres ser mi novio/novia?” (Do you want to be my boyfriend/girlfriend?): This is how you’d make a relationship official, beyond just arranging to hook up.

Pillado (“hung up on her”): Lit. “caught.”

Cris says “bye!” in English. Jorge then says, “Really?”

Y parecía tonto (“And he seemed dumb”): This is a truncated, common Spanish idiom. The full idiom is, “y parecía tonto cuando lo compramos” (and he seemed dumb when we bought him). It is used when a person who is frequently timid or a wallflower does something assertive or takes charge.

Pero que andar quedando es de novios (“but that to have standing dates is a couple thing”): As I mentioned earlier, we don’t use the word “cita” all that often, and, as Hugo tells it, Cris didn’t use it to turn him down. Here’s what Cris meant: Cris thinks she and Hugo had a good time at Nora’s party, but she doesn’t want to make a thing out of it. She doesn’t want to hang out one-on-one. That includes hanging out together at each other’s houses, like Eva and Jorge sometimes do, or go do something together, like going to the movies or to get something to eat.

A veces Cris se pasa un poco de directa (“sometimes Cris is a bit savage”): I reworked this because “directa” means “straight-forward,” but “se pasa” is slangy. “Se pasa” would mean “to go too far,” so a literal translation would be, “sometimes Cris goes a little too far with the straight-forwardness.”

A mí me parece guay que haya ido con la verdad por delante (“I think it’s cool she was straight up”): Okay, so the literal translation is, “I think it’s cool she was honest upfront.” But… It’s Jorge. He’s the Jonas expy. And I just could not and didn’t want not to use “straight up,” i.e. Jonas’ catchphrase.

El sábado ¡a las nueve, tío! (“Saturday… at 9pm, dude!”): This is another underrated moment. I don’t know if people remember, but Jorge’s excuse for not attending Nora’s party was that he was playing football at 9pm on a Saturday. Here he actually gets a text to play a game at 9pm on a Saturday, and he’s like, “who the fuck are these people?”

As I explained on Twitter at the time, Jorge mimics calling the cops over Eva being hungry. The joke is that Jorge would consider it an emergency that necessitates police involvement. This is a really common (and corny, natch) joke in Spain. We’re very dramatic, so obviously any situation, no matter how mundane, is on the verge of needing police intervention.

We all know that when Jorge asked Eva what she wanted to eat, her answer was pizza. Right? Just checking we’re all on the same page.

CLIP 5: Vaginas and languages

Note about the message in Arabic: I was the one who originated the translation, after I asked a Middle Eastern friend if she could translate it for me. She translated the note as saying, “Equality between women and men – Rashid Alfadhili.” I thought it might be a direct quote from a writer or an activist, but if you search for the name online, all the references are to my Twitter. So, who is the mysterious Rashid Alfadhili?

The obgyn is singing Havana D’Primera’s Me dicen Cuba. The actor is indeed Cuban, and the character speaks in a noticeable Cuban accent.

If you have further questions about The Herpes Thing, I reblogged a post by @niteskycs and added my own commentary, including quotes from this scene.

There’s one more thing I want to mention wrt candidiasis/thrush/yeast infection. Candidiasis is an opportunistic infection and so, it’s an infection that takes advantage of an opportunity not normally available, such as a host with a weakened immune system. Because of this, and before antiretroviral drugs, people with AIDS often suffered from candidiasis and could die from it. Thus, it is notable that the obgyn thinks Viri may have candidiasis (which, again, gets ruled out). It makes it really obvious that he suspects Viri’s actual problem might be that she has a weakened immune system.

If you have further questions or commentary about this scene, feel free to hit up my inbox, reblog, reply, etc.

The positions of the girls behind Viri are a reference to og Skam.

CLIP 6: It always comes back to dicks

Cris is playing a game which consists of pulling the tab on a can back and forth as she recites the alphabet, until the tab breaks apart. The letter that she was saying out loud when the tab broke apart is the initial of her crush/loved one/person she’s fated to be with. Which in this case is H!

Alguien que haga que, sabes, te entre aquí una cosilla en el estómago (“someone who makes it so… you know, that makes you feel butterflies in your stomach”): The literal translation is, “someone who, you know, makes you feel a little thing in your stomach,” but Eva is referring to the “butterflies in your stomach” metaphor. The metaphor exists in Spanish as well (that’s what Bely Basarte’s Mariposas is about), but I think it’s been adopted after the English idiom became well-known in Spanish.

Un gilipollas integral (“an unadulterated asshole”): Viri says “integral,” which is a word we’d normally use to refer, like, to whole-grain bread or rice. While I think Viri calling Alejandro a “whole-grain asshole” would’ve been hilarious, I thought “unadulterated” would also be just as funny. As in, Alejandro’s assholishness has not been contaminated with any niceness. He’s 100% pure asshole.

Unos colegas y yo hemos alquilado un local (“Some buddies and I have rented a place”): This is a very Spanish way of putting things, I think. “Un local” is basically any business premises or shop unit (such as, for instance, at a mall). It can be as sparse as four walls and a water outlet, or a fully furnished club, or even factory premises on the outskirts of a city. Alejandro wasn’t very forthcoming with details, so I wasn’t sure what to expect from the “local” when this clip dropped. But, we’ve since come to learn that, in the universe of Skam España, there’s a Kose Club, which can be rented for private parties. And this is the place Alejandro and his buddies rented.

Capullo (“Prick”): “Capullo” is yet another word for penis. Its non-penis meaning is “flower bud” and, when talking about dicks, makes reference to the head of the penis. “Capullo,” in the dick sense, is pejorative.

CLIP 7: Doing recon

I’m assuming that, for this specific party, Alejandro and his buddies hired people who would serve alcohol to minors. Or just had some friends play the part of bartenders unofficially. Because this is some illegal ass shit.

De puta madre / De fruta madre (“That’s fucking great” / “That’s ducking great”): It looks as if Amira has renounced swearing, as well. I seem to recall that Sana Bakkoush would swear, but I can’t think of any example off the top of my head. Anyway, Amira accidentally swears when she compliments Cris’ pumpkin accessory. The girls call her on it, and she says a clean version. I’ve seen it subbed as “fruiting great,” which is the literal translation (“fruta” is fruit), but I looked into the ways Americans censor their speech, and went with “ducking,” myself.

Either way, I was really proud of myself when this clip dropped. There were several instances where I could’ve gone for a swear word while subbing Amira, but I had the feeling the character was intentionally keeping it clean. It felt great to have that feeling confirmed within the show.

Edward Scissorhands is really iconic, but Sweeney Todd came out in 2007. And, you know, it’s Tim Burton, not Benh Zeitlin. Hardly an obscure director. I guess Johnny Depp as Ichabod Crane wasn’t specific enough?

Is one of the second years dressed as Inu Yasha, or is it just me?

Que son súper chungas (“those girls are bad news”): I’d say “chunga” is most closely translated as being “ghetto.” These girls are bad news, girls you don’t want to fuck with, because they will fuck back with you ten times as hard. You know how in 90s sitcoms there are always older girls hanging in the school bathrooms teaching the underclasswomen to smoke? A girl who is “chunga” is that older girl.

Putivuelta (“slut round”): I’m pretty sure the concept doesn’t exist in English and, if it does, I haven’t come across it yet. When you arrive at a club, you and your friends check out the whole place, scoping out hot singles. As far as I’m aware, “putivueltas” are only ever performed by women and queer men, and the targets can be of any gender. I’m sure straight dudes have a name for what is essentially scoping out the place for chicks to hit on, but straight Spanish men, at least, do not call it “putivueltas.”

Uh, what is that awkward Hugo and Amira’s conversation about? Amira lets Hugo know that Cris is scoping out the place for singles, so she’s both letting him know Cris will be back and that Cris has moved on from Hugo onto newer pursuits. And then there’s a medium close up on Amira’s expression, and she looks Over It. Is Amira jealous of Cris because she wants Hugo? Or jealous of Hugo because she wants to be able to pine for Cris openly??????? (By the way, I assume saying “slut round” doesn’t count as swearing, Amira?)

The song in this clip is Brisa Fenoy’s Free. Brisa Fenoy also wrote Lo Malo, which the characters make references to and eventually shows up later in the season. Here’s Free, in English:

Baby, I am free I am free

Baby, I am free I’m ready for me I go out in what I want to go out I’m better without you I like everything

Without additives Without artificial flavoring, without lies Without regrets Without giving everything and lose it afterwards Without baggage to travel lighter

Without terms that put a brake in my progress Without modifying us with so much augmentation Let’s be flesh and bone people With a lot of virtues and few flaws

Let’s get together already Through transformation we have to demolish What we were will last me the day before The future is today, what are you going to be?

Baby, I am free I’m ready for me I go out in what I want to go out I’m better without you I like everything

Without tricks like those that hurt us Without losing those pounds that fool us My body is mine, and if I want I eat what I like, I’m the one in charge

We’re what we do to change what we are No more sexism, together with each other We’re not sex symbols, there’s a bit of everything here Let’s be so authentic that they can’t prevail over us

Respect and freedom We have to demand it Let’s be a unit They won’t be able to create us Respect and freedom We have to demand it Let’s be a unit They won’t be able to shut us up

Baby, I am free I’m ready for me I go out in what I want to go out I’m better without you I like everything about me

Respect and freedom We have to demand it They won’t be able to shut us up

Here and now let’s all shout Baby I am free

CLIP 8: Moments before tragedy strikes

Si nos hubieran cobrado la entrada, se hubieran sacado un pastizal (“if they charged for admission, they’d have made out like bandits”): The literal translation would be, “If they’d charged us for admission, they’d have made a pasture.” Much like in English, you can say “dough” to refer to money, in Spain you can say “pasta” to do the same. A “pastizal” is a word with its own meaning (“pasture”), but it sounds like it could be large amounts of “pasta.”

Satanasa (“Lady Satan”): What Amira says can be literally translated as “Lady Satan.” I’ve never it before, but I think she’s going for a Halloween version of “Cheese!” 😂

Se le ha ido la pinza a Lara (“Lara lost her mind”): This idiom, which Jorge used all the way back in episode 1 to say something slipped off his mind, can also mean that Lara just lost her shit entirely!

It’s worth noting that the song playing when Lara slaps Eva, is actually playing in Eva’s mind. As you can see if you check the social media for the episode, Post Malone’s Better Now is still playing when Lara is pulled back from Eva. Here are the lyrics for the song playing in Eva’s mind (Jorge Marazu’s Simulacro), in English:

If this was a drill I bought it to the end It’s not going to be cheap to climb back up I have lost the measure And even though I had a taste I forget it’s a two-way street

The star lights went out Their circuit breaker tripped It hasn’t stopped snowing all day And even though they’re hurt My hopes and dreams I forget it’s a two-way street

The whims that get in the way Of instinct and reason, don’t know a goodbye without pain

Let’s not wait until tomorrow I wish you the best Now we’re getting to the end…

Social media:

This episode had a lot of references to og Skam. I’ve noted the references in the clips where they happened. There were also references to og Skam on social media though. Most notably, the club where Alejandro hosts the Halloween party is called Kose Club, after Kosegruppe. Die Antwoord’s Baby on Fire, which is the song that plays when Iben’s squad fights the girl squad, is playing on the background of a couple ig stories.

It took me a while to notice that the kitty in the background of Cris’ pics switches from being Viri, to the second year girl Cris hooks up with.

Other:

Halloween has only become a thing in Spain in recent times, and mostly as an excuse for young people to host parties or clubs to host Halloween-themed nights. Kids don’t go trick and treating, although their parents may buy them Halloween-themed candy in grocery stores. As such, I’m not too bothered about Alejandro hosting a Halloween party in Saturday.

That said, if he wanted to host the party on Halloween proper, he could’ve done so. The 1st of November is a national holiday, All Saints’ Day. Traditionally, religious people visit family graves on this day, and leave flowers or candles. Since the 1st of November fell on a Thursday, schools were also out on Friday.

#culture and translation #skam españa #skam spain #skamesp #skames

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morningsound15 · 6 years

Note

How do you think Beca would handle her fame in perdition? We know all the gossip magazines like to make up stuff about celebrity couples and that talk show hosts and interviewers like to prod, do you reckon Beca would be open about her relationship with Chloe bc that’s something she’s wanted for so long, and therefore would scream from the rooftops that she’s in love with Chloe Beale and that she’s hers?

i know this wasn’t your intention anon but congratulations you got a drabble i just wrote in like 3 hours:

(P.S. If you love Stevie as much as I do, PLEASE watch this video of her singing “Wild Heart” while getting her makeup done for a Rolling Stone photo session. It will change your life.)

[COVER STORY]: Beca Mitchell on Her Newest Album, Coming Out & Finding Love. “I’m bisexual, and I’m proud of it.”By Sydney Havershaw

You probably wouldn’t recognize Beca Mitchell if she walked past you on the street. Her personal style is more ‘early-20’s grunge rock enthusiast’ than ‘Grammy Award-winning musician.’ She’s dressed comfortably for our interview — in a pair of skinny jeans, combat boots, and an oversized flannel shirt. Mitchell seems perpetually youthful, and among the crowd of college students around us, she fits right in. At 5’2”, she is also certainly an unassuming figure on the street. “I’m basically a hobbit,” she jokes early in our interview, when situation demands we perch on a set of barstools while we wait for our lunch table. Mitchell’s feet dang comically off the floor, and she swings them absent-mindedly while we get to know each other.

The restaurant where we meet is a tiny hole-in-the-wall Italian bistro — the space is so small it can barely fit 6 tables and the mini-bar it confusingly insists on forcing into the already-crowded room — but it’s a favorite of Mitchell’s (who made me adamantly swear to reveal neither the name nor location of her personal haunt). The little building is charming and rustic and somehow both out-of-place and perfectly nestled within its surroundings. The atmosphere is exquisite. I find myself nearly anxious to grab my pen and begin scribbling down notes.

There’s something easy about being around Mitchell. She has this awkward energy that makes her seem jumpy but also strangely endearing. She’s quick to crack jokes and put herself down for the benefit of the group dynamic. Though her proclivity to make fun of herself is startling at first, her wit and sincerity ultimately triumph, becoming the adjectives which immediately come to mind whenever her name is mentioned in my presence thereafter. Before we even order our food she’s had me in stitches twice, both times with stories about some of her more raucous adventures with her all-female college acapella group, The Barden Bellas (more on them later). She’s an excellent storyteller, if not excellently verbose, and I cannot wait to see what she might have in store for our interview.

It’s a bright afternoon in early March, with clear skies and only the barest hint of a chill in the air. It’s beautiful, and the subtle feeling of spring is beginning to emerge in outfit choices, store inventory, and menu changes. But while most people tend to feel energized and rejuvenated with the promise of new beginnings, Mitchell is still practically reeling from the relative whirlwind of the previous month. She won a Grammy, came out, and started a new relationship — and that was all just in one day!

“I feel like everything changed overnight. I went from being, like, a club DJ to now, I’m at the point where people literally stop me on the street for pictures.” She laughs and shakes her head, like she can’t quite believe it. “It’s been completely nuts.”

For those who may be unaware: after a very public Grammys acceptance speech earlier this year, Mitchell was caught locking-lips with her date, Chloe. [Note: While their relationship is not a secret, and the identity of Mitchell’s partner can be easily found, Mitchell requested we leave Chloe’s last name out of this article for the sake of her privacy.]

Almost immediately, Mitchell’s name-recognition sky-rocketed. The image of the kiss circulated countless gossip websites, made headlines in newspapers around the country, and became a trending topic on Twitter. Videos of the night played on nearly every morning talk show. Mitchell’s social media following almost tripled overnight. Suddenly, and without warning, Mitchell has found herself at the center of a media blitz caused by her very public — and incredibly adorable (link) — public coming out. Seriously, if you haven’t seen the video of her acceptance speech yet (have you been living under a rock?) go watch it right now. You’ll cry, you’ll laugh, you’ll squeal, you’ll fall in love.

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Pictured: Beca Mitchell [left] and partner kissing on the red carpet.

Since we both know where this interview is eventually headed (it would be impossible not to talk about it at some point), I figure I should ask: does she want to talk about her relationship first?

She shrugs, her leg bouncing under the table. “I don’t know. No? The… I always think of myself as an artist, first. And my personal life is my personal life. But, you guys are, like… the gay magazine. I can’t imagine it won’t come up.”

Her confidence from earlier has all-but vanished. Perhaps because her music carries with it the easy, confident maturity of an artist with twice her experience, it’s easy to forget she’s still new at this. In order to put her at ease, I start off with a few softball questions, things to get her excited and make her more comfortable with where our interview is going.

Her favorite musician growing up? She smiles, looking much less anxious. “I think this probably is gonna hurt my rep, but I gotta go with Stevie.”

“Nicks?” I ask. This is surprising to me, though perhaps it shouldn’t be. While Mitchell’s music is pretty reliably ‘Pop’, it also shows evidence of clear influence from eclectic styles of music, including jazz and alternative.

“Absolutely. She was my childhood crush. And like, she’s totally everything that I want to be, as a musician. First time I listened to the album Rumours I thought, ‘God, that’s just about the most tragic thing I’ve ever heard.’ It’s the story of a relationship falling apart, the dissolution of a marriage, about cheating and heartbreak and mistrust. But it’s also about optimism, and joy. And… well, to me, it’s also about love. And I used to sit there and listen to that album and think, ‘That’s what I want. If I can produce a piece of music even half as emotional, half as complete, I’ll be happy.’ My entire life, all I’ve ever wanted is just one great love story to tell.”

She’s passionate when talking about her music. She seems energized and excited, like she’s thrilled that anyone at all is interested in her music in any capacity. Because it seems like her preferred topic of discussion, I keep asking her questions about her most recent work. Her favorite song on the album? “Oh, that one’s easy,” she says. “Gotta be ‘Saudade’.”

Saudade is a Portuguese word that roughly translates to a feeling of longing, melancholy, or nostalgia. It is a word closely associated with Brazilian music and Brazilian culture. Its most famous usage in pop culture comes from the famous Antônio Carlos Jobim Bossa Nova song “Chega de Saudade” (the published English version is titled “No More Blues”). Mitchell uses the chord changes of Jobim’s chart as the basis for her own melody. This is a common musical practice amongst jazz composers (similar to what ’sampling’ is to Hip Hop and R&B artists), but much less prevalent in Mitchell’s more Pop-dominated genre.

“Saudade” is an early stand-out on Mitchell’s album. It’s a melancholy affair, with a Latin/Bossa drum feel that immediately conjures images of warm summer nights. And to round out the nostalgia of the instrumentals, the song’s lyrics are almost as haunting as the vocal work. Cynthia-Rose Adams, one of the album’s main featured artists, manages to evoke a quiet, unendurable kind of heartbreak while still keeping her performance subtle and subdued. The piece is more than a little impressive. It truly is a masterclass in sad, mournful, longing ballads, and puts more popular efforts by artists like Adele completely to shame. If it isn’t on every teenage girl’s “breakup playlist” by the end of the year, I would be shocked.

But when asked about her preference for that song, Mitchell’s response is less-confident than the quickness of her earlier answer would imply. “I work with a lot of really incredible musicians. My friend, Cynthia-Rose [Adams], who actually provides vocals for that track, she’s a trained jazz vocalist. She’s listed as a co-writer for that song because it’s really all because of her that it has any kind of melody. I showed her a bunch of lyrics really early on, back when I was still work-shopping, and she was in the room with me when I was writing the first draft. But, God, it was terrible.” She laughs again (always willing to joke at her own expense). “No, for real, it was… horrible. So cliché and dumb. But Cynthia just kind of on a whim suggested we try to craft a love ballad using the chord changes of Chega, and I listened to it one time and then it’s like I couldn’t stop writing. It all just poured out of me. The music tied to the lyrics and back again. It’s like the song always existed, and I just was the first person to hear it and write it down.” She pauses, as if she’s only just realizing how long she’s been speaking. “But really,” she says quickly, “without the performance Cynthia puts out on that track, it just… I couldn’t have done it with any other singer. I’m so grateful for her.”

This is a common feature of our interview. Mitchell is almost reluctant to take sole credit for her own music. At every turn she’s thanking her vocalists, her sound engineers, and her co-producers. It belies the incredible amount of time and energy and dedication she put into crafting this album. Anyone who works with Mitchell will also be sure to note both her work ethic and her unyielding attention to detail. Talking to her, you might think a great many things about her character, but ‘immodest’ would certainly not be one of them.

When I ask how she met her collaborators — specifically Adams and Emily Junk, the album’s other featured vocalist — Mitchell grins wider than she has all afternoon. The ease immediately returns to her body. She relaxes in her chair, lounging back with her legs crossed over the knee. She seems like any other 20-something again. You never would guess that, a few short weeks ago, she was a trending topic on Twitter.

“I met Cynthia and Emily in college. They were in the same acapella group I was in.” She’s talking about the Barden Bellas, the nationally-ranked all-female acapella group out of Barden University, a small liberal arts college just outside Atlanta, Georgia. Mitchell was the captain of the group for 3 years, and led the Bellas to two national championships and one world title. “We were really just a bunch of misfits,” she says when I prod her for more information. “And, y’know, being a group of only women, it’s actually pretty hard to make a name for yourself in the acapella world. The best groups are either mixed or all-male. And we’re a very diverse group, and most of us don’t necessarily fit with conventional beauty standards. So I’m just really proud we were able to break through, make an impact, and show people what a group of badass, powerful ladies can do.”

Does she keep in contact with her old group? “Oh, of course, we talk on the daily. I mean, the Bellas gave me everything. They’re my family. I truly don’t know where I’d be without them.”

But now, it’s time to address the elephant in the room. I almost want to apologize to her, though I know it’s completely unnecessary. She has made it apparent that she is comfortable answering personal questions, and has previously specified to me that she is open and completely willing to talk about her own coming out experience. But even though I know she’s agreed to this line of questioning, that’s still just the kind of person she is: she makes you want to look out for her, to keep her safe. She’s so shockingly sincere, so non-malicious, that to do anything to harm her in any way seems tantamount to blasphemy.

Almost like she can sense a shift in the air between us, Mitchell sets her shoulders. I ask her if she’s nervous about coming out. “Not at all,” she answers quickly. “I’ve been ‘out’ for pretty much my whole life. Sexuality has never been a problem for me. I’ve never talked about it before because, honestly — and I know this sounds cheesy and cliché, but I really do mean it — it’s just never come up. It’s been such a non-issue for so long. And I guess I figured it would become common knowledge sooner or later. I just never anticipated, the, um…”

“Going viral?”

She flushes. “Yeah. Never saw that one coming.”

Becoming an overnight sensation by going public with a relationship is an experience that is difficult to replicate or understand, if you haven’t been through it. I ask Beca how she feels about the sudden influx and attention she’s been receiving.

“I don’t mind the attention,” she says honestly. “It can get pretty scary sometimes, but it’s not like I have paparazzi lurking around my apartment or anything, so I feel like I got off pretty easy. I mean I don’t like the attention, but, y’know… sales have gone up, at least,” she jokes, somewhat half-heartedly.

And about her new internet celebrity status (there are dozens and dozens of Tumblr pages devoted to her alone) as an out, queer female musician?

“I mean, I hope we’re moving into a time when, like, it doesn’t matter who anybody dates?” she says, somewhat uncertainly. “I’m like, yeah, technically a celebrity, but it still shouldn’t really matter who I’m with. Man or woman. Like, shouldn’t we be past this, now? If I had kissed a guy that night, I wouldn’t have made the front page. There’s just something different about a queer artist, a woman kissing another woman publicly, I guess. And I mean I do get why. When I was a young, baby bi, I didn’t really have any musicians I could look to, to see myself represented. I know how important it is to see people be out and open about who they are and who they love. I don’t mean to imply that I’m taking that for granted. I am so thankful to every person who’s told me that they’ve connected with my story. And to the people who say I’ve helped them in any way, like… truly, that is such an honor.” She pauses, chewing on her lower lip nervously. “But at the same time, I don’t know if I like that we still live in a world where it’s, like, headline news if a low-level celebrity like me just happens to be dating someone of the same gender.” She laughs lightly. “Guess that’s not something I should say to a magazine that focuses on LGBTQ issues, huh?”

I shrug it off. Mitchell’s point is, after all, a valid one. In this modern political climate, there does seem to be something strangely antiquated (if the early-2000s can be considered ‘antiquated’, that is) about a celebrity needing to give a ‘coming out’ interview. But, despite the merits of her argument, I still have a job to do.

I ask her about her burgeoning role as an icon for other young queer women hoping to enter the industry. “I don’t know if I’m the best role model,” she says with her signature self-deprecating manner. “But I am queer. My music is based off of my life, and I am in a same-sex relationship at the moment. My last album was about a woman. And none of that’s a secret. I’m just going to continue to make the music that I want to make, and my sexuality and my current relationship are definitely a big part of my art. I’m not going to apologize for that. I’m just gonna live my life the best I can, and if people want to see me as a role model for that… yeah, I’d be proud of that.”

I wonder how Chloe feels about her sudden thrust into the limelight. Her life as an inauspicious, unknown civilian must be all-but over (at least, for the time being).

Beca is careful with her response. It takes her many long moments to weigh her words. “We both really value our privacy. And with regards to our relationship, well… I don’t want to speak for her. But I do know that she’d prefer it if she didn’t have any of the fame or the attention. Because of that, we’re really doing our best to keep a low media profile, for our families and also for our personal lives.”

[image]

Pictured: Beca Mitchell, wearing an Angela Chen Jacket, Skoot Apparel Sneakers, Gap Socks, Stylist’s own tank top, and her own jeans.

“But I… we really do want to keep out of the media, as much as possible. But I don’t want people to… A lot of people have contacted me recently, like… way more people than I expected. I get Instagram and Twitter messages every day from young fans; people approach me in the street and tell me that they’ve been impacted by my story; I get letters from people saying that it’s meant a lot to them to see a prominent queer female artist, and… I do feel such a responsibility, now. I understand how much it blows to feel alone and… misunderstood. So, while Chloe and I are trying to keep our private lives private, I don’t want people to think that I’m ashamed of who I am or who I choose to date. That’s not the reason we’ve been keeping a low profile. I’m not ashamed of who I am. So I want to be open about my life. I want people to know that I’m bisexual, and I’m proud of it. And I’m proud of my significant other. But I also want people to respect me, and what I choose to share. I’m sort of a public figure, now, and I signed on for it willingly; like I knew this was coming for me. But Chloe doesn’t really want that life, so… if people could respect my privacy, that would be amazing. I’m not going to stop being who I am and loving who I love proudly and vocally, but I want people to understand that the parts of my life I share are the parts of my life I’m willing to share. Because sometimes — and I think we forget this a lot because of how everyone’s always gotta be documenting their lives on social media and everything — sometimes I think there are some things that should just be for you.”

She shakes her head ruefully. “My publicist is gonna kick my ass. That answer was so preachy and long-winded.” She startles. “Oh shit, can I say ‘ass’?” When I nod in the affirmative, she seems more than a little relieved.

I tell her I understand her desire for privacy. I want to respect her wishes as much as possible, but I’m still dying to know something.

Does she think she’s found her one great love story?

“Chloe’s my best friend,” Mitchell says calmly, with a serene sort of smile on her face. “And she makes me happier than anyone in the world. So if you’re wondering whether I’m ‘finding love’?” She smiles coyly, and looks off to the side. The street outside our café is bustling with activity. A young couple walks by with limbs intertwined, their free hands each balancing an ice cream cone. On a nearby bench, an old man reads the newspaper to his bent-over wife. It think maybe it’s just me, noticing all the sweet signs of romance filtering through the air. (Spring, like I said, makes me think of new starts and new beginnings.)

But Mitchell finally turns back to me. Her smile never wavers. “I would say that it definitely looks promising.”

#perdition #one shots #bechloe #anonymous #asks #didn't plan on writing this but got inspired #:)#long post

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thesevenseraphs · 6 years

Text

Bungie Weekly Update - 10/11/18

This week at Bungie, we started unboxing the decorations for Festival of the Lost.

Starting Tuesday, October 16, all Destiny 2 players are invited to join in on the festivities. Amanda Holliday will serve as your host, offering bounties, masks, and rewards for all to partake in. Guardians will be invited to confront their Nightmares in the Haunted Forest, a limited-time activity exclusive to Festival of the Lost. If you missed the announcement yesterday, head over to the blog article to get caught up.

Festival of the Lost isn’t the only thing starting next Tuesday. Tuesday is filled to the brim with updates to the game, live events, and more. Read on for details below.

Second Wave

Launching a game reveals what we did right and where we could have done better. With the first month of Forsaken behind us, we’re taking stock of what we’ve learned. Some of those learnings will manifest in game updates that we’re deploying in the very near future, but not every improvement can be made with code changes. We also want to make it less complicated for other Guardians to begin their journey in Forsaken.

Effective October 16, the purchase of Destiny 2: Forsaken will include the two expansions included in the Destiny 2 Expansion Pass. Every player of Destiny 2 who has yet to touch down on the Tangled Shore will need only the Forsaken upgrade. Our hope is that this will eliminate some of the questions that confront a player as they try to join our party.

“What about us?” we can hear everyone who has already purchased Forsaken asking. You’re our Vanguard. We appreciate you beginning the hunt on day one. You were there when the first raid finish changed the Dreaming City. You’ve been part of the conversation that has breathed enthusiasm back into the Tower. For you, and only the players like you, we have a collection of veteran’s rewards as an expression of our appreciation for being on the frontlines. Every Guardian who played Forsaken prior to October 16 will receive the following bundle of items.

The Tiger Stripe Black Shader and Veterans Nameplate emblem are exclusive to players who earn this bundle by playing Forsaken prior to October 16. The two Exotic emotes will be made available on Eververse sometime in the future. All item names are subject to change.

Thank you for playing, and thank you for being the first to experience what we’ve created. This package is currently slated to be delivered to Veterans in early December. When the new Guardians arrive, please join us in extending to them the welcome that has made this community so notorious as an awesome group of people.

Out of the Iron, into the Fire

Lord Saladin returns to the tower, just in time to witness Guardians donning their brand new Shaxx masks.

Iron Banner begins Tuesday 10/16, and ends Tuesday 10/23.

Coming with Destiny 2 Update 2.0.4, Iron Banner bounty objectives and rewards have been updated to address player feedback.

Each bounty will now offer a powerful reward

Bounty objectives have been updated to the following:

Lightbearer: Reduced Super kills to 20 from 25

Iron in the Blood: Reduced match completions to 15 from 30

Shine On: Reduced Orbs generated to 50 from 100

Iron Victory: Reduced match wins to 7 from 10

To Be Precise: Reduced precision kills to 50 from 100

All in a Week’s Work: Reduced kills to 150 from 250

Players will also unlock an item in Lord Saladin’s inventory for direct purchase with each bounty completion, featuring curated perk rolls. This time around, foxes and wolves will battle it out for a spot in your arsenal. Looking to earn some masterwork cores on top of everything above? For the duration of Iron Banner, Valor gains will also be increased.

Double Valor: 10/16–10/19

Triple Valor: 10/19–10/23

With all these rewards, there’s no better time to dip your toe into the Crucible. See you out there.

World Wide Web

If you’re reading these words in English, and you follow @Bungie, feel free to scroll on to the next section. If you don’t follow, by the way, you’re missing out on some sweet tweets!

If you’re reading a localized version of this blog article in another language, the same people who translated our words into your words might also lend a hand to help us throw our arms around the world.

Check out these new Twitter accounts:

Brazilian Portuguese Bungie

French Bungie

German Bungie

Italian Bungie

Korean Bungie

Mexico/Latin America Bungie

Russian Bungie

Spain Bungie

Japanese Bungie

Follow the one that makes the most sense to you!

Or follow them all if you want to see how worldly we’re becoming.

Wherever you are and whatever you speak, we thank you for being a part of this growing global community!

Get Your Mask On

We’ve already told you about masks your Guardian can wear, here’s a way you can join in on the fun in the real world: Download and print out the free papercraft chicken template, courtesy of the Bungie Store.

http://downloads.bungie.net/images/Festival_of_the_Lost_2018_Chicken.pdf

If you’re eager to change your look further, a three-pack bundle of papercraft mask templates will be available on the Bungie Store the day before Festival of the Lost launches, in both digital and physical editions. Each purchase of the 2018 Festival of the Lost Papercraft Masks will come with a Destiny 2 in-game emblem code for the Circles Entwined emblem.

Stay tuned to @bungiestore on Twitter for the latest updates.

Running the Schedule

Last week, we gave you a quick preview of some bug fixes we had planned for the month of October. Our first deployment is coming in hot, and Destiny Player Support has the details on when to expect your download to begin.

Update 2.0.4 Incoming

This week, in preparation for Destiny 2 Update 2.0.4, we conducted backend maintenance on the live game. One more maintenance window is required, however, to bring Destiny 2 Update 2.0.4 to players. Please see below for the Update 2.0.4 deployment schedule for Tuesday, October 16, as outlined on our Server and Update Status page:

7:00 AM PDT (1400 UTC)

Destiny 2 maintenance is scheduled to begin

No downtime is expected

Some Destiny Companion features will be unavailable on the web, mobile, and third-party apps

Update 2.0.4 will begin rolling out across all platforms and regions

9:45 AM PDT (1645 UTC)

Any Destiny 2 players remaining in activities who have not yet installed Update 2.0.4 will be removed from activities and returned to the title screen to take this update

10:00 AM PDT (1700 UTC)

Destiny 2 maintenance is scheduled to conclude

Destiny Companion features will be reenabled

Players who encounter issues should report them to the #Help forum

PLEASE NOTE

: Update 2.0.4 is required to participate in Festival of the Lost, which launches following the conclusion of this maintenance.

For the latest information during maintenance windows, players should stay tuned to @BungieHelp on Twitter or monitor our support feed on help.bungie.net. For patch notes when they are available, players should keep an eye on our Updates page.

Petra’s Run and GUITAR Errors

In past weeks, Destiny Player Support reported an issue in the “Last Wish” raid where some players might sporadically encounter GUITAR errors as they made their way to the heart of the Dreaming City. While this issue is still under investigation, fireteams should be especially aware of it as they make their attempts at the “Petra’s Run” Triumph.

This Triumph requires fireteams to complete the “Last Wish” raid with no deaths. However, any player in the fireteam being returned to orbit due to any error will make all players ineligible for this Triumph on that run.

Destiny 2: Forsaken Known Issues

In addition to the items listed above, Destiny Player Support is tracking the latest issues reported by players on the #Help forum. Provided below is a brief overview of the latest known issues in Destiny 2: Forsaken.

BrayTech RWP Mk. II: We are investigating reports where the BrayTech Scout Rifle doesn’t appear in Collections for some players.

Ascendant Challenge Emblem: We are monitoring reports of the Ascendant Challenge emblem not updating correctly.

PC FPS: We are investigating an issue where some players are experiencing low FPS, which impacts their gameplay sporadically.

For the latest known gameplay issues as soon as they are available, players should visit our Forsaken Vital Information and Known Issues list. For the latest issues discovered on the PC platform, players should visit our PC Vital Information and Known Issues list.

#Destiny #Destiny the game #Destiny 2 #Destiny 2 Forsaken #bungie weekly update #long post

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virtualfindingsdocumented · 7 years

Note

Hey if you have any other interesting stuff about the Portuguese translations it would be super cool to hear it!! I'm really into languages and differences between translations and I've always been fascinated by how asoue relies so heavily on language and the manipulation of it, so how does that work in other languages? Anyway, I'd love to hear literally anything about them!! (- last-quiet-place, this is my main)

@last-quiet-place

Oh, thanks for the question! I am also very interested in this sort of stuff.

Some other things about the Brazilian Portuguese translations:

- The title alliterations are not kept.

- “The Vile Village” is translated to “Cidade Sinistra dos Corvos” (Creepy Crows Town), which has the translated version of the mysterious initials VFD (CSC).

- “The Miserable Mill” is translated to “Serraria Baixo Astral” (Low Mood Mill), and the mill’s name Lucky Smells is translated to “Serraria Alto Astral” (High Mood Mill).

- The hypnosis keyword is still lucky, so when the henchman uses it hidden in “Lucky Smells” in one of his orders, the translation did not have the keyword.

- In order for the code in Josephine’s note to work, her husband’s name was changed to Belo (one letter away from “gelo” = ice) in TWW, but when he is mentioned in TSS they seemed to forget this and kept it Ike.

- Also in TWW, Netflix subs didn’t change Ike’s name but they translated Captain Sham, which in the book’s translation is kept as original. If I recall correctly, the movie dubs followed the book.

- Very few of the people’s names are changed in ASOUE. The names in ATWQ (and specially in 13 Incidents) that are actual words are translated.

- The places’ names also don’t keep the alliterations. They are almost all translated to keep the meaning. For some reason, “Mount Fraught” is mentioned both in English and in its translated form. The translator also felt necessary to mention Lousy Lane in its original form in TGG, along with the translated name used since TRR.

- Sunny’s baby speech is sometimes kept as the original, sometimes “translated” as to give the same feel the original gives (specially towards the later books when it starts making more and more sense) and sometimes it’s only changed to keep the pronounce (a notable example I can remember is “Sappho” changed to “Safo”, though I believe the later is also the usual spelling here for the name of the famous poet).

- The recurrent joke in ATWQ of “What does the S stand for?” directly followed by a word starting in s isn’t always kept.

- In the Netflix episode of TRR, the expression used to show what happened meanwhile (I don’t remember what exactly it was in English) was adapted to a phrase made popular by the Superfriends cartoon.

- In the secret message sent by Quigley in TGG contained the word for the color violet (violeta), which is slightly different from Violet’s name, but close enough for it to make sense

- The anagrams for words that are not names are all kept as original, so a volunteer that doesn’t speak English and relies only on the translations could miss them. “Al Funcoot” is kept as original and THH explains that it is an anagram for Count Olaf’s name in English (his name is kept the same in the translation, but the title is translated).

- A few of the occurrences of the VFD initials are lost in translation too, specially the more hidden ones. They include Violet’s Fifteen Date and the title of the article Jacques wrote about Fernald in TGG, which left the balloons and the circled initials unexplained.

- In THH, when the children are looking for the Snicket file, the alphabetical intervals where they look are changed/translated. Except when they are looking for the name “Snicket”, as “sn” is not a common letter combination in Portuguese, so they use English words.

- The paragraph in The End about words with double meanings that mentions “bear” and “yarn” explains the English words instead of translating them.

- In TPP, Hotel Denouement is translated to Hotel Desenlace (with the same meaning), but the brothers’ surname is kept Denouement. There is a translation note explaining the meaning that cleverly uses the “a word which here means”.

- In Portuguese, all words are gendered, so the instances where a person’s gender is not determined or known can be tricky. In TMM, to keep the reveal that Dr. Orwell was a woman, they took out the “doctor” from every time she is mentioned before the reveal. However, when she is mentioned in later books she is mistakenly referred to as male.

- The verb “to be” can be translated to different words in Portuguese that have different meanings, so when a sentence is cut right after the word “is”, like Lemony’s message for Beatrice when he last saw her in the masked ball, “Count Olaf is-”, thinking of it in Portuguese cuts a lot of possibilities of what the full sentence could be. The way the translator chose to word it, some of the popular theories, like “Count Olaf is planning to kill you” or “Count Olaf is aware of what happened that night at the opera” or even “Count Olaf is right behind you” would not fit, while some others like “Count Olaf is an arsonist” or “Count Olaf is a bad actor” would.

- Just a random trivia, there were two translators credited: one for books 1-5, and another for books 6-13 (and later ATWQ). I find this funny because book 5 contains the first mentions of VFD but mentions no meaning for it, and the later books keep giving meaning after meaning, so I used to imagine that the first translator chose what to translate the initials for and then quit, leaving the second translator to do all the job of looking for words to fit into them. I don’t know why the initials were translated to what they were, or how many of the original books were out by the time TAA was translated.

- Another trivia, dust covers are not a thing here (nor hardcover books, unfortunately, unless it is an special case), but they kept TUA’s one that is also a fake cover.

- Last one, TBL was never released here, probably because of its fancy format, or because it relies heavily on anagrams and the untranslatable double meaning of “letters”, but I still think of it all the time. I don’t think root beer is a thing here, at least I never saw it, so I wonder if they would keep it in English or change to a more familiar drink. There are drinks similar to root beer floats though, made of soda and ice cream, whose names change depending on the type of soda and the region of Brazil where you are. The one I am most familiarized with, from the southern Brazilian side of my family, is made of coke and is called “vaca preta”, which could be literally translated as “black cow”. For some reason, thinking of this as Lemony and Beatrice’s signature drink makes me laugh.

#from the volunteer #to a volunteer #sorry i got excited #whyispickingausernamesohard

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technoapprenuer · 6 years

Text

E-Learning Translation for a Global Manufacturing Client By Jen Horner

Our client, a global manufacturer, needed translation and localization of e-learning courses on business ethics into Chinese (Simplified), French, German, Polish, Portuguese (Brazilian), and Spanish (Latin American). The English version had been authored using Articulate Storyline 360.

The English training module totaled about 11,000 words with 35 minutes of recorded narration. We had 4 weeks to deliver the finished modules in 6 languages, with a deadline of January 8. It’s always a challenge to staff complex localization projects over the winter holidays, because many of our global partners take vacations, and those who remain available have packed work schedules.

Executing the elements of e-learning localization requires both linguistic and technical skills. E-learning projects typically require

Professional translation by subject matter experts

Bilingual review and proofreading by professional linguists

Foreign language voice-over recording and editing

Audio integration and synchronization with animations

Text re-formatting and localization of graphics

QA and pre-live testing by native-language users

We assembled a qualified team of 12 linguists, 6 voice talents and 6 integrators who worked in close coordination thanks to the skills and oversight of our Project Manager, Ken Farrall. For a project of this size, the translation phase alone would take approximately 6 to 8 business days, under a standard production schedule. With a turnaround time of 18 business days, careful planning and execution were critical for an on-time delivery.

Here’s a step-by-step description of how we did it. Our experience with complex projects gave us the tools and the confidence to execute this project flawlessly.

Source preparation

The project manager assessed the structure and content of the source module for word count, complexity, and localization readiness. The design choices and synchronization between animations and audio were evaluated to see how they might impact the integration workload. (The more “sync points” between audio and animations, the longer integration tasks will take). Imagery (in both words and pictures) was evaluated to identify any US-specific references that the client might need to change in order to create a culture-neutral source module.

The project manager also ran a pseudo-translation of the source module to help anticipate text expansion and formatting issues as well as to ensure all translatable text would be extracted and loaded into translation tools. As a final step, the project manager confirmed the clients’ preferences for pronunciation of names and treatment of acronyms in foreign languages.

Translation, editing, and proofreading

The onscreen text and narration scripts were loaded into the translation management tool to facilitate the work of linguists and to ensure that consistent terminology is used across all parts of the module.

One of the major challenges of e-learning translation and localization is text expansion. It can take as many as 30-40% more characters (and 30-40% more audio time) to say something in Spanish, for example, than it does in English. This fact impacts most translation projects, but it causes particular problems for e-learning:

Training sessions need to be kept within the same general time limits. A one-hour training session in English could end up being much longer in a western European language.

If text appears in on-screen graphics, the graphics may need to be resized to accommodate additional characters.

Voice-over recordings are typically charged per minute. Word count impacts voice-over costs.

How do you reduce text expansion? By partnering with translators who are also skilled writers. As Ben Franklin allegedly wrote, “If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.” Narration requires a “publication-quality” workflow including translation, editing, and review by linguists with experience translating scripts and minimizing text expansion.

Voice-overs: casting, recording, and post-production

Before recording, native-language voice talents were selected and approved by the client, then provided with scripts and instructions, including timing cues, pronunciation of company names and products, and acronyms. After a read-through and review, the full scripts and notes were finalized for studio recording.

The training module included published narrations (not just voice-overs), so consistency between what it is recorded and what is displayed was critical.

Studio recording of audio tracks began with preliminary, partial recordings in order for the client to approve pacing. Final voiceovers were then recorded and audio files were edited by studio engineers.

During this phase we also planned for integration. Because sentence structure varies across languages, syncing on-screen animation to the audio narration needed to be done separately for each language. The contribution of the foreign-language voice-over talents to the project was twofold. In addition to recording the narration, the voice artists identified cue points to mark where animations and images need to sync. This innovative workflow sped up the integration task to meet the tight deadline.

Human voice-over talents were essential to this particular project. However, as the quality of “text to speech” (TTS) software improves, clients will soon be able to confidently choose between human narration and automated “computer” narration. At this point in time, human narrators provide more expressive, persuasive, and authentic-sounding audio. And, for this project, they also provided technical support.

Integration of text, narration, and animation

During the integration stage, audio recordings were integrated with the e-learning module by inserting the audio files into the corresponding individual slides. Additional integration steps included adjusting animations and dynamic text to sync with specific words in the audio tracks.

Final formatting, text and images

To create attractive and user-friendly screen views, text had to be resized and reformatted to compensate for differences in text length between the original English and the target languages. Despite our translation team’s best efforts to reduce text expansion, some expansion was unavoidable, affecting the module’s original design.

Pre-live testing

An essential part of any e-learning localization project is testing by native-language users. For this project, the client opted for in-house review by in-country employees. We were gratified to learn that our careful preparation paid off, with positive responses from reviewers requiring only a few edits to terminology and some new formatting choices for resolving text expansion.

A Successful Delivery

We met our client’s deadline and the localized e-learning modules were successfully rolled out in January.

E-learning is an efficient way to train a global workforce for both technical and corporate compliance purposes.

Photo Credit: coreeducation Flickr via Compfight cc</

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pope-francis-quotes · 7 years

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29th December >> (Zenit) Pope Francis’ Address to Italian Theological Association on the 50th Anniversary of Their Founding (Photo ~ © Vatican Media) Below is a Zenit translation of the address that Pope Francis gave to the Italian Theological Association, for the 50th anniversary of their founding, in the Vatican this morning> *** Dear Brothers and Sisters, I welcome you and thank your President for his words. In these days we are immersed in the joyful contemplation of the mystery of our God, who involved and committed Himself to such a point with our poor humanity as to send His Son and to take, in Him, our frail flesh. Every Christian theological thought cannot but begin always and incessantly from here, in a reflection that will never exhaust the living source of divine Love, who let Himself be touched, looked at and savored in the stable of Bethlehem. In 2017 the Italian Theological Association has existed for half a century. I’m pleased to join you in thanking the Lord for those who had the courage, fifty years ago, to take the initiative and give life to the Italian Theological Association; for all those that have adhered to it in this time, offering their presence, their intelligence and the effort of a free and responsible reflection and, above all, for your Association’s contribution to theological development and to the life of the Church, with research that was always proposed – with the critical effort that befits it – to be attuned to the fundamental stages and challenges of Italian ecclesial life. It’s worth noting the fact that the Italian Theological Association was born, as the first Article of your Statute states, “in the spirit of service and of communion indicated by the Second Ecumenical Council.” The Church must always refer to that event, with which “a new stage of evangelization” began ((Bull Misericordiae Vultus, 4) and with which it assumed the responsibility to proclaim the Gospel in a new way, more consonant with a profoundly changed world and culture. It’s evident how that effort asks the whole Church, and the theologians in particular, to be implemented in the sign of a “creative fidelity”: in the awareness that in these 50 years further changes have happened and in the confidence that the Gospel can also continue to touch the women and men of today. Therefore, I ask you to continue to be faithful and anchored, in your theological work, in the Council and in the capacity that the Church showed there to let herself be fecundated by the perennial novelty of the Gospel of Christ, just as you have done, moreover, in these decades, as the topics attest which you have chosen and addressed in Congresses and in refresher Courses, in addition to the recent powerful work of commentary to all the Documents of Vatican II. In particular, a clear fruit of the Council and a richness not to be wasted is the fact that you perceived and continue to feel the need to “do theology together,” as an Association, which numbers today more than 330 theologians. This aspect is a fact of style, which already expresses something essential of the Truth in whose service theology places itself. In fact, one can’t think of serving the Truth of a God who is Love, eternal communion of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and whose saving design is that of the communion of men with Him and among themselves, by doing it in an individualistic, particularistic or, worse still, in a competitive logic. That of theologians cannot but be personal research, but of persons who are immersed in a theological community that is the widest possible, of which they feel and are truly a part, involved in bonds of solidarity and also of genuine friendship. This isn’t an accessory aspect of theological ministry! It’s a ministry of which there continues to be a great need in the Church today. In fact, it’s true that to be genuinely believers it’s not necessary to have taken academic courses in theology. There is a sense of the realities of the faith that belongs to the whole people of God, also of those that don’t have particular intellectual means to express it, and which asks to be intercepted and heard – I’m thinking of the famous infallible in credendo: we must go there often — and there are even very simple persons that are able to sharpen the “eyes of the faith.” It’s in this living faith of the holy people of God that every theologian must feel himself immersed and of which he must know himself also to be supported, transported and embraced. However, this does not take away the necessity that there always be that specific theological work through which, as the holy Doctor Bonaventure said, one can come to the credibile ut intelligibile, to what one believes in as much as it is understood. It’s a need of the full humanity of the believers themselves, first of all, so that our believing is fully human and doesn’t flee from the thirst of conscience and of understanding, the most profound and ample possible, of what we believe. And it’s an exigency of the communication of the faith, so that it appears always and everywhere that not only does it not mutilate what is human, but presents itself always as an appeal to the freedom of persons. It’s above all in the desire and the perspective of a Church in a missionary going forth that the theological ministry results, in this historical juncture, particularly important and urgent. In fact, a Church that rethinks itself thus is concerned, as I said in Evangelii Gaudium, to make evident to women and men what is the center and fundamental nucleus of the Gospel, or “the beauty of God’s saving love manifested in Jesus Christ, dead and risen” (n. 36). Such a task of essentiality, in a time of complexity and of unprecedented scientific and technical development, and in a culture that was permeated, in the past, by Christianity but in which today distorted visions can meander of the very heart of the Gospel, makes indispensable, in fact, a great theological work. The task of theology, with its effort to rethink the great subjects of the Christian faith within a profoundly changed culture, is indispensable, so that the Church can continue to have the center of the Gospel heard by the women and men of today, so that the Gospel truly reaches persons in their singularity and so that it permeates society in all its dimensions. There is need of a theology that helps all Christians to proclaim and to show, above all, the saving face of God, the merciful God, especially in the presence of some unheard of challenges that involve the human today, such as that of the ecological crisis, of the development of the neurosciences or of the techniques that can modify man, such as that of the ever greater social inequalities or the migrations of entire peoples, as that of the theoretic relativism but also of the practical relativism. Therefore, there is need of a theology that, as in the best tradition of the Italian Theological Association, of Christian men and women that don’t think of talking only among themselves, but are able to be at the service of the different Churches and of the Church, and who also assume the task of rethinking the Church so that she is in conformity with the Gospel she must proclaim. I’m pleased to know that many times and in different ways, also recently, you have already done so, addressing explicitly the subject of the proclamation of the Gospel and of the forma Ecclesiae, of synodality, of the ecclesial presence in the context of secularism and democracy, of power in the Church. Therefore, I hope that your researches will be able to fecundate and enrich the whole people of God. And I would like to add a thought that came to me while you were speaking. Don’t lose the capacity to be amazed; do theology in amazement, amazement that leads us to Christ, to the encounter with Christ. It’s like the air in which our reflection is more fruitful. And I also repeat something else I said: the theologian is he who studies, thinks, reflects, but does so kneeling; do theology kneeling, as the great Fathers. The great Fathers who thought, prayed, adored, praised: a strong theology, which is the foundation of all Christian theological development. And I also repeat a third thing I said here, but I want to repeat it because it’s important: do theology in the Church, namely, in the holy faithful people of God, that have – I will say it with a non-theological word – that have the “smell” of the faith. I remember, once, in a confession, the conversation I had with a Portuguese elderly lady who accused herself of sins that didn’t exist, but she was that much of a believer! And I asked her some questions and she answered well. And, at the end, I said to her: “But tell me, lady, did you study at the Gregorian?” She was in fact a simple, simple woman but she had the “smell,” she had the sensus fidei, which can never err in the faith. Vatican II takes this up. I bless you from my heart and, please, don’t forget to pray for me. [Original text: Italian] [ZENIT’s translation by Virginia M. Forrester]

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