#she isnt a native speaker

[merlinsvibeplace]

My mother didnt understand a single word and she used to be a english teacher

"he cums WHAT."

-my mother, first time being shown suburbia overture.

[felixcosm]

I'm so insane about WOE.BEGONE that people who literally *never* listen to audio drama start conversations with me like "so what's new in your cowboy podcast"

[cosmik-homo]

I know Doctor who and accents and sociolinguistic identities and stuff are very delicate things and . etc etc Shot Dog disclaimer. But I do think a Kiwi accent master could change the game

[dearinglovebot]

discussing all things arab in jwct s2e05!

first off, that is shish tawook (chicken kebab), not beef. but overall a pretty good representation of fast food in the arab world. white rice is an extremely common side dish with kebabs (alongside grilled vegetables like tomatoes, onions, peppers) and that little container is garlic which is common to put on meats. particularly pita bread wraps/sandwiches.

and she really didn't need to say "beef" kebab. only chicken kebab really gets singled out. really outting yourself as a foreigner there, brook. broadly, the default for all meat-based dishes will either be lamb or beef. and no menus will not clarify which it is 90% of the time. they force you into russian roulette.

moving on to the few lines of arabic they speak, this is probably the MOST fascinating part. arabic is not like english. there is universal language which is derived from the qur'an and regional cultural language. modern standard arabic is basically "formal" arabic that is used in international business, government documents, the news, etc. this is the kind of arabic you'd learn in the united states from a textbook. however, native speakers have regional dialects. regional dialects are SO expansive that it's argued that many of them might actually be qualified as separate languages. even the same country might not be able to understand each other because of things like rural vs urban language developments.

why does this matter? soyona speaks egyptian arabic. this is the dialect you'd use to communicate in places like cairo. egyptian is ALSO the "film" language. egyptians completely dominated the arabic speaking film industry meaning it's widely understandable to arabs who grew up in the age of television. but it's also famous for having a thousand unique words that make you go "what the fuck does that mean".

as someone who lives in dubai, soyona should actually be speaking gulf arabic on a daily basis. gulf arabic is the common dialect of lower saudi, the UAE, most of oman, etc. it's also famously not spoken any where near cairo. it'd be equally understandable if soyona spoke MSA to brooklynn as that's likely what she'd speak with trading partners. i must stress that arabic dialect isnt like americans talking to british people. it's closer to spaniards talking to french people. you kind of get the gist but only kind of.

while meta-wise we know this wasn't something the crew intended, it adds an interesting layer to soyona's canon lore. while egyptian is something somewhat *understood*, it is NOT the common language of where she's doing business OR the common dialect overall. meaning she almost certainly has to have some major base of operations in cairo, too, and it likely happened before moving to the gulf.

brooklynn ALSO speaks dialectal arabic! for her, it makes a lot of sense with the previous mention of egyptian being the "film" language. she could've honestly picked this up by watching a few shows on the way over. and fun fact, it's also dialectally what yaz would say as a lebanese since the same words are used in levantine. however, again, this is definitely NOT msa meaning it's extremely unlikely she picked it up from a textbook or any kind of formal language learning platform.

moving on, we have fashion: brooklynn, dear. you look like such a tourist. no wonder she caught you so easily. the tight, ripped pants and short sleeved, close fitting t-shirt give her away instantly. while yes you'd be allowed to dress like this, everyone knows you're an american vacationer instantly. you might be able to get away with this in the levantine cities, but the GULF? her ass is NOT the delivery woman.

soyona actually hits the nail pretty well for what a local would dress like. she's got a bit of a "western" influence to her, but honestly that's how a lot of the upper business class dresses in the modern era. her sleeves are long and to the wrist, her pants are long, and she's got a loose overcoat. she looks very much like she shops designer which is exactly how a local would display wealth. the only thing she's missing is gold jewelry honestly.

lastly, there's the elephant in the room... the gulf. we call people from this place khaleejis. everyone outside the gulf hates khaleejis. even non-khaleejis in the gulf hate khaleejis. the kind of rich opulence you see in this apartment is exactly what you'd expect from a khaleeji.

one of the worst places of the animal wildlife trade is in the gulf. while certain regulations have since been put in place, being at the center between africa and asia with some of the wealthiest people in either region makes it prone for animal trafficking. big cats are seen as one of the ultimate status symbols for the ultra wealthy. dinosaur trafficking moving to dubai is about as realistic as it gets.

the only unrealistic part is the lack of visible indentured servants. to put it frankly, the cultural norm is to have a pseudo-slave (90% of dubai is made up of a non-khaleeji slave class. i'm serious. and westerners like soyona make up a significant portion of the slave-owning class. the building brooklynn was staying in was 100% actively being built by slaves) who lives in one of your guest bedrooms. it's actually weirder and more sus if she doesn't have one. pair that with soyona wanting to sell militarized dinosaurs which will be used exclusively on the areas exploited by the dubai elite and umm... well, lets close that can of worms before this gets really awkward

[albinocapybara]

Finally after being stumped on a name for so long, the LeshyCat children concept is here, first, of course, some info on the parents :)

(Btw im not a native english speaker)

If you have any questions about them or my other headcanons feel free to ask too!

How they met: Due to his injuries making it extremely difficult for him to adjust to his new life in the cult (let alone how he would now have to learn how to live with a mortal body again) on his own, the Yellow Cat (who i will be referring to as "Amare" from now on) was assigned as his caretaker to help him deal with the necessities that came with being a mortal again (sleep, water, physical activities and so on) on top of the problems that came with his injury. While Leshy at first felt insulted by this treatment (the whole "i was a god i can do this without the help of some mortal yada yada" thing), he soon realized it was for the better (while also realizing his feelings for Amare :3).

Leshy: Freed from Purgatory in the cult around 100-ish years after his death and 15 years after Narinder was overthrown by The Lamb. All his high priests and his witness (Amdusias, Valefar, Barbatos and Agares) had passed away before his arrival, making the former and current gods of death the only "familiar" figures in the cult (they both changed so much after their last encounters), although he still avoided both of them most of the time (Narinder because of his conflicting thoughts about the older brother, and The Lamb somewhat out of anger at them but mostly fear due to how traumatic Purgatory was for him), but dont worry they eventually made amends along with the rest of the bishops :). Also became friends with bat follower but she isnt relevant for this post

Amare (the Yellow Cat): Rescued from being sacrificed to the dead bishop of chaos in Darkwood after followers of the Old Faith killed everyone else from his village, works as a farmer in the cult. He was the only follower (aside from the first five followers of the cult, who are kept alive and act as advisors and friends for The Lamb) that knew of Leshy's past as an bishop, and though he still held resentment for the former god, The Lamb's seeming disposition to forgive him made the cat consider doing the same for him, volunteering to be his caretaker. Once their relationship was made official, he was given a golden skull necklace to ensure the two could stay by each other's side for eternity.

Now for the children hehe

They are twins (as ive mentioned in my other posts), a daughter named Camellia (Amare chose the name) and a son named (drumroll please im so proud of this name) Havoc! (Name chosen by Leshy of course).

They both have green moss-like fur from Leshy, and the head shape of a cat from Amare, but other than that their bodies are very distinct due to inheriting different parts from their parents

Havoc: His limbs and tail, as well as his longer whiskers, are from Amare, giving him a silhouette very similar to a cat, aside from the antler-like branches he got from Leshy, he also has two sets of eyes like Leshy used to have once, ironically though, he has rather poor eyesight, needing glasses to see things that are a bit too far. Despite his name he is actually pretty calm and enjoys the peacefulness of the cult, though this doesnt mean he is opposed to some occasional mischief, specially with his sister. Wants to help with teaching when he becomes of age (also im thinking about the idea of having him figure himself out as transfem but thats for another time)

Camellia: her limbs and tail, being from Leshy, are quite a bit longer and thicker than her brother's, giving her a broader and taller silhouette, as well as making her quite a bit stronger physically, she also has only one set of eyes and shorter whiskers than her brother, as well as no branch antlers. Is a very active person, playing with other kids and sometimes helping adults with tasks that wouldnt risk injuring her (most of the time they dont let her though). Also loves doing pranks and other forms of tomfoolery around the cult along with her brother. She is also very protective of him, getting into multiple fights with kids (and a drunk adult one time) who pick on him (aka bullies). Wants to follow her parent's job of farming when she comes of age.

[crplpunkklavier]

btw. idk if anyone actually needs to hear this or if itll just be a fun anecdote. but as someone who isnt a native english speaker but has many many native english speaker friends and is married to one. if this applies to u too, and if ur friends arent assholes, u should never feel bad or anxious about asking them how to pronounce an english word. because. half the time they will just tell u. and the other half? they dont fuckin know either. because english is hilarious and is spoken so much in so many places by so many people that most of ur questions wont have a definitive answer. one time i asked my spouse if there was an actual difference in meaning between deTAIL and DEtail (because they had explained to me that there IS a difference between CONtent and conTENT) and they looked at me like id asked them to solve a rubiks cube blindfolded. one time i was visiting a friend in kentucky and at ihop pointed at the word "spinach" on the menu saying "hey i wanna order an omelet with this but i dont know how to pronounce it" and she stared for a moment and then said "i dont think i know either" so please ask your english speaking friends to speak their language because u will find that they cant

[utdrmv-confession-box]

Transcript: i rlly dont get the whole discourse abt people „misgendering“ kris, chara and frisk. as someone who isnt an english native speaker pronouns are already hard and i switch up he and she regularly. im sorry if i call kris a guy but why cant we just have a mutual agreement to let everyone gender them how u see them? and its not like theyre hurting cus i call frisk a girl or boy sometimes. feel free to counter me i would like to actually know why its such a scandal in the community to gender them.

[winryofresembool]

Hey My English is pretty bad but i have a questions for You, on the dark profecy Calypso said that leo isnt her saviour but leo think he is, i don't understand why she thinks he doesnt do You have any throughts of it?

First, don't worry about your English! I'm a non native English speaker myself :)

Second: you know what? That is a valid question. A disclaimer before I get into it: It's been a few years since I've read The Dark Prophecy so my memories of the exact context of that scene are (more than a little) hazy. I don't have the book in my hands so I could check it right now. But I do remember that that exact line made me kind of cringe too when I was reading it.

Anyway, from what I can remember, Calypso was having some difficulties in adjusting into her new life. Living in the modern USA is so different from the life she was used to, and even though Ogygia was also her prison, I believe she was occasionally feeling some homesickness and she also missed having her powers. Well, all of that and the fact Leo and Calypso didn't really manage to talk about their issues (=lack of communication) caused her to snap. Leo is absolutely one of my favorites in HoO, but he isn't perfect either: he didn't always respect or listen to Calypso's wishes, such as when she told him to not call her Mamacita (there were more examples but I can't remember the details right now).

So, from there we get to the question: was Calypso's snapping justified? Not really, not in my opinion at least. It is a fact that she can't/shouldn't deny that without Leo she /would/ still be in Ogygia and would likely never get out of there on her own, because the gods didn't want to release her. In other words, Leo /was/ her savior in that sense.

But was her snapping surprising? Again, not really, not for the reasons I explained earlier. The girl has a lot to deal with and sometimes we say things we don't really mean when we are frustrated. What these two need in order for their relationship to work is to talk about what's bothering them. In TDP it seemed both were bottling up things inside them and then waiting till things were at boiling point, which caused them to fight. (Tower of Nero spoilers ahead if you haven't read that book!) I think the break that was mentioned in ToN is probably a good thing in the long run bc that way they both can process what they want and what they should do differently. Honestly, I feel that at that point Rick had just read so much Caleo hate on the internet that he was like 'screw it'.

Why do I think Rick wrote Calypso that way? He was likely afraid of presenting her as a damsel in distress. These days the books targeted for younger audiences are all about having badass female characters, and Rick is someone who doesn't take criticism well (see f. ex. the way he wrote a whole essay about why he presented Piper the way he did when he got criticism for it) so he was probably worried that Calypso admitting that Leo did save her would probably paint her in the wrong kind of light. Well, if that was his reasoning, he was wrong there. Admitting the facts doesn't make someone weaker. (To be honest I disliked TDP so much that I prefer to just ignore the whole book, I don't understand why he ruined good characters that way.)

This became way too long and rambly, I'm sorry. I hope you still got something out of this answer! TLDR: I don't think Calypso actually meant what she said about Leo not being her savior, she was just so frustrated with her whole situation that it caused her to snap.

[dominoren]

from all family members, only my mom isn’t russian native speaker, and she still has this accent, which isnt particularly noticeable, but if you listen closely, there are some unnatural sounds. so i learned how to say certain words from her, and over time, as grew up, ofc suddenly more and more people told me that i was pronouncing this or that word incorrectly. (but bruh my mom cannot be wrong stfu (please even no one in my own family correcting me))

[alivehouse]

Umm, so genuine question: What's up with the Silken guy? I learned about his existence literally today and am awfully confused. (In my defence - I'm not a native speaker and I don't read much poetry in any language anyway.)

richard siken (not silken, theres no L) is a poet whos work was really popular on here around 2019 especially (if youve ever seen the 'youre in a car with a beautiful boy' thing, thats an excerpt from one of his poems). he recently announced he would be releasing a new book of poetry, which is significant because it will be his first book published since having suffered a massive stroke a few years ago. it seems like recently theres been some controversy surrounding him because, from what i understand, someone on tiktok claims they contacted him for a school project and he responded harshly (heres a post with screenshots of both the message she sent and his reply).

to be frank with you i dont really feel like this is worth holding against him. her questions were invasive. a lot of siken's work explores intensely personal subject matter. he has written poems about childhood crushes trying to kill him upon discovering his feelings and watching lovers slowly die. i do not think its an exaggeration to call it insulting to have someone read this work, call it 'interesting,' and then tell you that you need to give them, a complete stranger, a brief summary of your entire life story so they can write an essay about it. without so much as saying please. yes, he could have just ignored the message, and he probably should have, but i just cant blame him for getting mad about that personally. sorry.

& this isnt even getting into the fact that he had *just* had a massive stroke, which was very publicly available information, and that that link in his email response was to the gofundme that he was living off of at that time (context conveniently partially blocked by the speech bubble in the tiktok)

[epicdogymoment]

no longer remember the name of the guy (my bad) but. that post going "if americans can learn to pronounce tchaikovsky they can learn to pronounce [persons name]" and then added an incorrect pronunciation. and then a rb added a video of the person themself saying "i didnt learn how to pronounce my name until my 20s when i asked my mom and she told me". like. can we stop pretending like (white) english speakers are somehow exceptionally inept and stupid. and start accepting that people arent inherently born knowing how to pronounce names (which are part of language) whether theyre native/common in their language or not. people dont know until theyre taught or until theyve heard it spoken. people arent STUPID for applying phonological they know rules to an unfamiliar name (which is a word). because like. YES. if you can learn to pronounce tchaikovsky you can learn how to pronounce any name hypothetically. but 1) you have to learn how to first and 2) sometimes it actually isnt That Simple ! sometimes (a lot of the time.) words (including names) from a different language have sounds or clusters that dont exist in the language you speak and are therefore more difficult to pronounce. combined with the fact that most people dont have any understanding of phonology or phonetics, which means most people dont have a solid framework to communicate how to produce the sounds in a given word, it means that. usually people are making an approximation of what they hear (≠ what the other person produced) even when theyre trying theyre best

[merv606]

since terrys mum is romanian y isnt the mansion in romania vs. moldova? or did terry just build a mansion on moldova in case he needed to escape america and not be extradited back? or was terrys mum poor

I mean - she’s a native speaker of the Romania language which is the official language of Moldova as well.

That being said, Romanian and Moldova border each other and there’s been a lot of changes to both countries over the centuries both in geography etc (and even the decades).

Moldova was only an official country in like the 90’s - although it existed in many different iterations throughout the years prior.

I’m not expert on either country but the idea is, maybe she could have lived close to the border between the countries.

Now, originally the story was always supposed to be in Romanian, Terry hiding Daniel away in the Carpathian Mountains but they extradite so I had to move it to Moldova lol

I could see her being either 🤷‍♀️

She was poor. Terry’s father saw her and became enthralled by her beauty.

[todayisawthewhxlewxrld]

AXEL‼️ today i almost shit myself at school(not actually)

I hate the first day back. my spanish teacher loves to call on me bc she knows im not confident with my spanish and that i have a fear of public speaking (i dont even know why i’ve been fluent since i was 5💀) SO SHE LIKES TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THAT AND CALL ON ME TO READ THE LONGEST PARAGRAPH IN WHATEVER TEXTBOOK, ARTICLE OR LITERALLY WHATEVER WE’RE READING 😭 ITS LIKE SHE’LL LET EVERYONE ELSE READ THE SHORT STUFF AND THEN SHE’LL MAKE ME READ WAY MORE THAN EVERYONE ELSE AND IM JUST LIKE?? i get that its to “help build confidence” and shit like that but is it really helping if her “helping me build confidence” made me have a panic attack last year? I DONT THINK SO.

oh yeah so you’re probably wondering abt the panic attack thing🧍‍♀️ so lemme just give you a little back story first about how i feel about her class and stuff‼️ her class terrified me. like every time i would enter i’d be shaking and my heart would be beating so hard that i could feel it in my throat… kinda embarrassing…

but anyway it was just cause we had to present a something we made for a project and i was losing my mind because my friends didnt want to present it and my class was pretty big and filled with a bunch of rude and snotty people so i went to talk to the teacher to ask if i could just present to her privately or something but she said no so like i lowk freaked out and had a break down in the middle of the hallway 💀

honestly though the work isnt that hard considering i passed spanish with an A throughout the years but i just HATE talking in front of the class because for one my accent is different than everyone elses and two im one of the only non native spanish speakers so im kinda just like on edge cause yk how some people are theyre just not nice 🫠

anyway for the rest of the school day things were pretty good except J was being weird again and i think he was trying to flirt with me? he was just being rlly inappropriate and kept stealing my stuff 🫠 he stole my bag and then tried to go through it and then he asked if i had a dildo in my bag and if i like using it 😟 he then proceeded to walk around the class and tell people i have a dildo in my bag. i probably should’ve told C or a teacher idk why i didn’t 😭 oh yeah speaking of C hella people think we’re dating AND NO MATTER HOW MANY TIMES I TELL THEM WE’RE NOT THEY WONT SHUT UP AND JUST KEEP TELLING EVERYONE THAT WE’RE DATING.

oh i alsofell asleep in english😭 i got lucky at the teacher didnt notice though‼️ and then my friend fell down the stairs

ANYWAY THATS ALL‼️ so how are you axel? OOO WHATS YOUR FAVORITE ANIMAL??

thats all for today! byebye and ilysm 💗💗

-bambi

dude i swear to god spanish teachers r either the worst person on this planet or the sweetest person ever no in between…. LIKE WHY IS SHE TARGETING U OMG i’d have to start swinging i fear…

i need J to like explode why does he act like that do u think it’s bc he doesn’t get attention at home… that’s mean sorry LMFAO um anyway i hope he leaves u the hell alone already bc u deserve it😍😍

UR FRIEND FELL DOWN THE STAIRS ?1?1??1 HELP R THEY OK???😭😭😭

i’m ok!!! and HMMMM my favorite animals r probably bats !!! what is urs :0

BYEEE ILYT!!!!

[dogflowerz]

OKAY HI FIRST OF ALL ANOTHER AUTISTIC PERSON WHO LIKES NSR THAT'S REALLY COOL BUT ALSO I SAW YOUR POST ABOUT SMALL DIFFERENCES IN JP NSR DUBBAND I WANTED TO DO ALSO SMALL COMPARING BUT WITH ( god forgive me ) RUS TRANSLATION.....

uh just before I start, i am a native speaker of russian ( though not russian myself ) and it's...sucks in general ? it's not good. mid at best but it has some moments ( not all ) i want to point out . so,

first of all, due to avoiding swears ( bc in rssian , you can't escape them so easily as ppl do in english ) characters can sound a little bit ruder than in english, like tatiana calling mayday an impudent girl ( more correctly would translate as a brat ) or outright idiots and stupid after the battle with her.

second, when kliff notices goolings poster and they talk about kul fyra, zuke first says that instead of can of worms, kliff opened a pandora box. oh and also mayday says she adores kliff here. and he calls her my dear ( I think that's the closest thing i could think of as to translate. He also means it in platonic way. They only good thing out of this translation / j). and also they butchered the sayus and yinus names. the more correct way to say sayu in rssian i think would be сайю but they just wrote it as it sounds ( саю ) . same with yinu ( йину - more correct imo and ину as they wrote it there. )not a big deal but it annoys me </3

that's not all but pretty much some of the parts my sleep deprived brain could think of so yeah !!

THANK YOU FOR THE INFO 🙏🙏🙏 will store this in my mind

ALSO !!!! that reminds me that . the spanish dub of nsr isnt that good either ?? 😭 it might be because im mexican and i speak in latin american spanish (? i think thats the name) and the nsr dub is in SPAIN spanish. it really bugged me to the point i couldnt even finish sayu because her accent BUGGED me so bad. also, in the djss fight they kept.. talking over eachother and i think it would also happen in the other cutscenes if it happened in djss'? but also i didnt get that far.

[ilistened2transwomen]

Yeah this is actually a pretty cold take. I live in Japan and am "fluent" as a non-native speaker. That means that I can follow and participate in conversations in peer groups about non-specialized topics. I can watch the news and understand what they're talking about. I can go to the hospital and talk to the doctor about my symptoms and understand what she says to me. I can go to the ward office and talk to someone about paperwork I need without assistance. I can find and rent an apartment on my own. "i want to read manga and understand it" is not fluency. If someone has that as their goal, their goal isnt fluency at all, just reading skills. There is a range of what people would consider "fluent" but it doesn't mean that fluency means knowing every word ever and therefore is a meaningless concept

This Twitter thread really spoke to me. I wanted to share it with anyone who hasn’t seen it. 

[dirtwatching]

some thoughts on ADHD and ASD

Hej, my name's Ise (she/they), 24 years old, student, and about a month and a half ago I was diagnosed with ADHD and ASD. I am currently in treatment (meds and therapy) for ADHD, but my doctor says that we should first tackle that before we look at its brother, ASD.

The too-much gene

Jenna Marble's phrase "too much gene" really resonates me, because when I get excited I also have a tendency to be a bit too much to handle. When speaking about my passions, I can talk anyone into a corner, and I will dominate any seminar if I find the subject even a bit interesting. I also have a strong tendency to be a "klugscheißer" or "besserwisser" (i think that is the more international one), so I will often correct people, not to show them how i am better than them but in the interest of creating the best product. I also gague when to make those remarks: I will not apply the same scrutiny to a text written by someone who is a beginner in that language as I would to a text written by someone who is a native speaker. I usually point out, correct and sometimes explain, but I dont belittle, e.g. by saying how elementary that is.

That too much gene also shows itself in my writing, as you might have noticed. What was supposed to be a straight forward short text turns into a novel. I have really big problems narrowing in on just one topic: when tasked to write a paper one any topic regarding scandinavian monarchy, I spend two months on researching the entire history of three royal houses and earldoms and in the end could not single out a reasonable topic for one term paper.

And I have a bit of anxiety that the ADHD meds will only make me more unbearable, more to handle.

2. How do I know they are working?

I am on a constantly rising dosis of Medikinet, as of today I am taking 30mg of them in the morning and another 20mg around mid-day. While I do notice the constant tiredness that had been bugging me has reduced, i still dont "think in HD", as my doctor said I might. I am still trailing off in class, but can nevertheless still answer when the prof asks a question. I can write a pagelong essay for the student magazine in one sitting, but thanks to hyperfocus that was something I could do before. I think that maybe my energy and my motivation has risen, but not so much my ability to (control my) focus.

There is also the general problem that I am a very critical person, not (only) as in self-critical but also very much as in critical theory, how do I know that what I am experiencing is real and not a simulation, critical. Okay, maybe thats a bit too much, but more like: how do I know the meds are doing their job and this isnt just a placebo effect taking place? And what if my increase in energy is simply due to my surroundings, the sun coming back and the end of the semester approaching, the new flat, different people I hang out with or my diet and exercise, and not the meds?

And additionally, how do I know that my brain does what it is supposed to do, when it has probably never in my life done that? (And lets not get into a rant about normativity here.) This is actually a thing I was already thinking about when I was about ten years old: how I can I know what I am feeling, both emotion and sensory/pain wise, when those feelings dont come with a label and I can never know what exactly someone else is feeling?

Life doesnt come with a pop-up menu for stats, where you can clearly see whether the pain your feeling is the worst pain imaginable or whether that little hitch in your breating is due to anxiety, walking up the stairs or a cold.