#teaching English to speakers of other languages

[tesol-australia]

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[mademoiselle-cookie]

On BBH calling people « uncultured »

(Here the link to the clip, it's the only one I found)

In summary, during a friendly gathering, BBH called other streamers, including 2 non-Americans whose native language is not English, "uncultured" for not knowing an American expression. And the last person he spoke to before saying that, is someone who rightfully said he didn't know bc it's not his culture.

I saw a lot of people getting angry about it on Twitter X while I usually miraculously escape this kind of drama, and I'm still lucky to have only seen people talking in their corner without (really) directly attacking BBH or worse, harassing him. So obviously, it's Twitter X so it blown out of proportion, but I still wanted to come back to it.

It is important to specify

IT’S A JOKE.

BBH didn't intend to hurt anyone and it's apparently a common joke in the US. Insulting and teasing each other is very common among friends, which is what QSMP streamers are. They were all roasting BBH just before that. The people targeted didn't seem upset (Étoiles loves to be dramatic) and they're adults wjho talk to each other outside of QSMP. If they have a problem with a joke, they discuss it.

And after that BBH tried to find the equivalent in different of the expression. I don't know about Portuguese, but it didn't really work in French. There is no equivalent to "jumping the shark", since it's a reference to a old american serie which then became a (apparently niche) expression. The frence equivalent BBH found was "passer du coq à l'âne" which means abruptly changing the subject, while "jumping the shark" refers to when a series becomes bad/absurd.

The intention is still cool tho.

All this to say that this is not an attack on non-Americans, BBH also "insulted" Tina and Foolish, not just Bagi and Etoiles.

BUT

I understand why people get worked up about it (doesn't mean I tolerate harrassment. BBH doesn't deserve any of that).

First, the lack of reaction from streamers is not necessarily indicative of what they think. When Cellbit joked that Etoiles' team didn't listen to him (suggesting he was a bad leader) in Purgatory, Etoiles just laughed the first time and didn't say anything when Cellbit doubled down. Except that the fact that no one listens to it on day 1 is one of the reasons why the stream was an absolute nightmare to watch, so I don't imagine for Étoiles himself. Even Fit seemed to be dying of frustration even though he wasn't the target of this disrespect. And that’s not to mention that Étoiles was being harassed on social media at the time, and one of those accusations was that he was a bad leader. The joke really made me so uncomfortable.

It's very likely that it was discussed with Cellbit later since no one ever brought it up afterward, but no one said anything about the joke itself on stream.

Also, one thing I thought was stupid about people being personally hurt by Aypierre and Antoine's joke about Mike looking like Hitler was that they were joking about Mike's Minecraft skin. The target was very specific and Antoine had already called Mike a dictator in his face earlier, and Mike didn't have any problem with that (he literally had the political program of a dictator).

Whereas here, BBH calls a group of people "uneducated" because they don't know an expression. Which concerns a lot of people in the chats. Personnally, I've already heard about it but bc my passions gave me the opportunity to know it. And even like that I only see it TWICE in my life, and only one of them explained what it meant.

Unlike Aypierre and Antoine, who spoke in French – which means that only people who know the kind of dark humor that we are so fond of should have understood – BBH said it in a language that everyone understood, since it wasn't an aside but something everyone needed to hear.

These people in the chat are not friends with BBH so being insulted by him is significantly less likely to be taken as a joke. They don't necessarily know that it's a type of American humor and that there is no attack in his words. Being insulted by a friend and a stranger is a completely different experience, especially if you don't know the context behind it.

Because it's also another problem

The context

We have an american telling 2 people who are not american and which native's language is not English that they're uncultured for not knowing an american expression. The US has a bit of history being condescent with other culture for not being the same as them. The cliché that Americans are arrogant, nationalistic and insensitive to other cultures is still present and persistent. And we can't say it's not true, we just have to see the QSMP fandom.

(I know it's not only americans but Baghera's harrassment because she dared to use the word "retard" once, which means late in french, is a good example of people who refuse to aknowledge that non English speakers have a life and culture outside of the English language)

It is therefore not really surprising that the viewers didn't take well the remark.

Especially since this isn't the first time BBH has pissed off someone over something like this. The time he was debating with Forever and he got fed up because he couldn't defend himself properly since it wasn't his language - which let BBH have the upper hand and let him wrongly think he was totally in the right – and decided to speak in Portuguese and let BBH deal with the translator. I remember seeing comments under the clip on Youtube expressing how happy they were that Forever was putting down BBH's cackle by fighting on his turf.

Even if he is very nice, BBH is a very stubborn person who does not give up and with whom arguing is quite difficult. Whether he likes it or not, want it or not, he takes advantage of the lack of vocabulary and fluency that non-English speakers have when they speak English.

This isn't helped by the fact that BBH seems to be one of the few on the server to put very little effort into learning/speaking other languages. Foolish practices Spanish with Leo, Philza asked Tallulah to speak to him in Spanish (I don't know if he continues), Tina learns French with Etoiles, etc... (ofc I'm not listing the Non English speakers, it's obvious)

BBH has a French child and was adopted by the French as a whole, but I don't remember seeing anything remotely close to him learning/speaking French (apart from the "t'as les cramptés?" but it's on the same level as Aypierre and his "caralho mano") I don't watch Foolish but I know he's progressed enough to be able to translate into Spanish for Leo something BBH said they didn't understand. And I don't forget the gathering of 3 french (Baghera, Aypierre, Étoiles) with Ironmouse and they decided to speak spanish for her.

Apparently, BBH is learning spanish but is too shy/insecure to speak it on stream

And honestly, I have no problem to believe that. But that's also mean that the vast majority of people didn't know that. We're not likely to guess it on our own, and we French know a streamer who had major insecurity problems in the past, and yet who is now trying to speak in public what is probably his fourth language* (meaning that he has not mastered it at all and is currently busy improving himself in another language). So there is very little chance that we will make the connection alone. QSMP is the perfect place to improve and learn another language, if someone want to lean, we'll assume they will do that here.

(*I have no confirmation that Étoiles speaks Arabic but it is extremely likely, hence the "probably")

Like, yes, Etoiles speaks several languages so it's easier to be confident and daring. But that's the thing, isn't it ?

We have a someone who knows one (1) language telling someone who speaks rather fluently at least 2, who has a daily general knowledge show, who often plays general knowledge games, who organizes visits to museums/castles/operas for his streams, that he's "uncultured".

The irony

[torchickentacos]

Ah, yes, Nelly Furtado's hit song Anteater. In completely unrelated news, several people have told me that I might be slightly dyslexic.

[aohisworld]

In my soulmate au for Aohi and the boys, Aohi actually isn’t as fluent as the idol!Aohi.

I think it’s endearing that Aohi somewhat has to speak broken Korean with the boys (except Ri-ki and Jay) and I’m getting giddy with all the cute interactions I have planned in this fic :3

[delicateimage]

Korean is such a humongous ass language because even if I know all or almost all the words thats connected to a sentence there’s like fifty different iterations of it an extra Chinese and English loan version and maybe atleast 10 topic markers and many more conjugations for that word… like lord when I’m fifty I couldn’t even be on the same level as a three year old (but I’ll be fluent or atleast ok soon / eventually 화이팅)

[mornyavie]

I love the whole "English orthography doesn't make sense" thing where we've all just agreed to pretend that other languages don't have dialects ever.

[loveesiren]

𝖥𝗈𝗋𝖾𝗏𝖾𝗋 (𝖯𝗍. 1)

Thanos x american!reader | Forever Masterlist

synopsis: Y/n didn't want to like the asshole that was Choi Su-Bong, but his devilish charm pulled her in. She felt comfortable in his presence and she couldn't deny it. Besides, you could die at any moment, right?

warnings: language, mention of drugs and overdose, mention of suicide attempt, fast burn, death obvi

wc: 2.9k+

As you made your way to the arena, you couldn’t help but notice you were the only American there. Fuck, you thought. However, as the announcements came over the speakers, you were able to piece a few words together. The game was straightforward: Red Light, Green Light. A game you had played back in the courtyard in grade school. Easy.

But before the game started, a man began yelling frantically. You only caught a few words. You’d only been in Korea for a year, and the language was still so new. Despite your dad teaching it to you throughout your life. But you could tell whatever this man was saying couldn’t be good.

“He’s saying we’re all going to get shot if we move,” the purple-haired man beside you whispered. “Dude’s crazy.”

“You speak English?”

“Am I not speaking it right now?” he replied sarcastically. “Look, the game is simple. You—”

“I know how to play,” you snapped back.

The purple-haired boy shut his mouth with a cheeky grin. And with that, the game began.

“Green light!” the doll said as its face turned away. You began to move forward. The crazy man was still yelling aggressively, telling you to freeze and hold as still as possible.

You played the game correctly the next few rounds. You weren’t dead yet, right? You noticed a bee land on the girl in front of you.

“What’s that?” She asked nervously. 

“Don’t move…” You replied.

“You’ve got a bee on you,” the purple-haired boy said.

The girl in front of you began to scream and jump around, shaking the bee off of her. “Oh shit, I guess I just moved, didn’t I?” she laughed.

Before you could process anything, a bullet whizzed through the air, striking her right in the back of the head, killing her instantly. Blood splattered on you and the boy, and you held your breath, too afraid to move.

People began to run and scream as they noticed what happened, but you remained still and wide-eyed, a tear slipping down your cheek.

The announcer repeated the rules of the game after the massacre that had just happened behind you. The doll turned around once again and said, “Green light!”

You were still frozen with fear. “I’m Thanos,” the purple-haired boy said as he grabbed your hand.

“Y-Y/n,” you responded with shaky breaths.

“Y/n.” He repeated your name, pulling you out of view from the doll. “Stay behind me, alright?”

“Okay,” you managed, before the doll spun its head again, “Red light.” You clung to Thanos’ hoodie, bunching up the fabric in your fists as you tried to steady your breathing.

Before you knew what was happening, he had shoved the person in front of him, causing a domino effect of people to fall. He looked proud of himself, and you were appalled.

“Thanos, what the fuck?!” you gasped.

“Shhhh.”

“Green light!” the doll said, and Thanos pulled you forward with him. He seemed almost like he was having fun as he pulled you through each round, still guarding you with his body every time “Red light” was called.

Finally, the finish line was in sight. There were people who had already made it and people getting shot behind you. All of it was too overwhelming. When the doll finally announced “Green light,” you allowed Thanos to pull you across the finish line, falling on top of him as he did so.

“We’re safe! We’re good!” he said with a smile as he held you close to him. You hadn’t realized the way you had been clinging to him for protection. When you came to, you stood up.

“Why would you do that?! Why would you push those people?!”

“It’s a game, señorita,” he smiled.

He was right. It was a game. A game for your lives. But that still didn’t give him the right to dictate the outcome of others. You were overwhelmed with emotions and felt like you were going to vomit. You ran to the corner of the arena to be alone, covering your ears as gunshots rang out amongst the final few people trying to cling to survival.

And soon, the game had ended.

“Y/n,” Thanos’ deep voice rumbled softly behind you, an unusual gentleness in his tone. “I’m sorry.”

“Leave me alone!” you screamed, your voice cracking as you bolted toward the exit. You didn’t look back, following the others streaming out of the arena, their faces pale and haunted.

Back at the dormitory, you retreated to your bed, pulling the thin blanket over you like a shield. Your chest heaved with suppressed sobs, but no tears came. The sterile air of the dorm felt suffocating, thick with despair. 

A while later, the pink guards entered, their commanding presence silencing the room. They made an announcement in their clipped, robotic voices. From what you could piece together, it was a choice: stay in the game or walk away.

The man who had been frantically screaming earlier—warning everyone they’d die—was the first to vote. His trembling hand pointed to the X. He didn’t want to play anymore and he urged others to vote the same.

When your turn came, your heart pounded in your chest. The memories of the arena—of the screams, the blood, the chaos—rushed back, threatening to drown you. You didn’t hesitate. You voted X. The guard handed you a red patch with an X on it, the fabric feeling heavier than it should as you pinned it to your hoodie. Silently, you joined the others who had chosen to leave.

As you moved to the right side of the room, your eyes met Thanos’. He stood at the front, his broad shoulders tense. He voted O. Of course, he did. Your chest tightened as he glanced at you, a fleeting look of remorse flashing across his face before he joined those who had chosen to stay. You bit your lip, fingers instinctively reaching for the small dolphin pendant around your neck. Your father had given it to you when you were ten, during a trip to SeaWorld. It was one of your happiest memories. Now, you couldn’t help but wonder if you’d ever see him—or that simple, joyful life—again.

Later that night, unable to sleep, you wandered to the bookshelf in the corner of the room. To your surprise, a few books in English were tucked among the volumes. You chose a romance novel, something light to distract you from the heaviness pressing on your chest.

“Señorita, excuse me?” A familiar voice broke the silence.

You froze, closing your eyes briefly before turning. “What do you want, Thanos?”

He hesitated, his towering frame oddly hesitant. “I wanted to apologize.”

“Apologize?” you repeated, your voice cold. “Thanos, people died because of you. How can you even begin to apologize for that?”

His jaw clenched, his hands fidgeting with the silver cross around his neck. “I-I wasn’t thinking, okay?”

Your gaze dropped to the cross he kept fiddling with, the sight sparking recognition. “You’re hiding drugs in there, aren’t you? You weren’t thinking because you’re high.”

His head snapped up, his brows furrowing. “What? How did you—?”

“My brother had the same kind of cross,” you said, your voice flat. “He used it to stash his pills.”

Thanos’ lips twitched into a humorless smile. “Smart guy.”

“He’s dead now,” you replied sharply, cutting off his attempt at levity. “Overdose.”

His face fell, guilt painting his features. He rubbed the back of his neck, his usual confidence nowhere to be found. “I just keep screwing everything up, don’t I?”

“Yeah,” you said, brushing past him. “You really do.”

“Y/n, wait.”

You stopped mid-step, your body betraying you. But you didn’t turn around.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, his voice softer this time. “For everything. For what I did in the game, for the drugs… for being a complete idiot. I mean it.”

Silence stretched between you. Then, he added with a faint chuckle, “I swear I’m not normally this bad at talking to pretty girls.”

A reluctant smile tugged at your lips. You shook your head, a small laugh escaping before you walked away. You didn’t look back, but Thanos stayed rooted in place, watching you go, a lopsided smile on his face. For the first time in a long while, you felt the faintest flicker of hope—fragile but alive.

-

Over the next few days, you tried to focus on reading, but it was futile. Thanos’ constant glances from across the room unsettled you, and the looming fear of when the next game would start made your stomach churn. Every second felt like an eternity.

Finally, the guards came to collect you on the third day. The air turned heavy as you followed them silently through the endless halls and staircases to the arena. The game was announced, but your mind struggled to process the words. All you caught was the time limit: 10 minutes to form a team of five.

Panic set in as you scanned the room. Most players barely spoke English, and the few who did were already huddled in groups, or, with Thanos. The crowd of 365 players felt suffocating. You reminded yourself there was still time. You would find a team—somehow. Someone would need you eventually.

From across the room, Thanos’ gaze locked onto yours. You sighed, swallowing your pride as you approached him. His soft smile as you drew near made your chest tighten unexpectedly.

“Thanos?”

“Hello, gorgeous,” he greeted, his voice dripping with that infuriating charm.

“T, just tell me what the game is. Please…” you said, your tone sharp.

His smile widened at the simple nickname, but he obliged, explaining the rules clearly. You thanked him, turning to continue your search, but before you could take a step, his warm hand closed around yours.

“You’re playing with me,” he said firmly. “You’ll be safe with me.”

His confidence left you momentarily speechless. Something about the way he said it—the way his hand lingered on yours—stirred a strange feeling in your stomach. Unable to argue, you nodded and sat beside him.

His friends, however, were less welcoming, especially Nam-gyu, who didn’t bother hiding his disdain. “Why do we need her?” he grumbled. “She’ll just slow us down.”

“English, Nam-gyu,” Thanos snapped, his tone sharp. “She’s on our team. Deal with it.”

“I can pull my weight,” you said, lifting your chin. “I’m good at ddakji. My dad taught me.”

“Your dad?” Thanos asked, curiosity flickering in his eyes. “Do they play ddakji in America?”

“He’s from Korea,” you explained, a small smile playing on your lips.

Thanos nodded, his gaze softening. “Then you play ddakji.” he said with a warm smile.

When it was your turn, your nerves were palpable. You took a deep breath and threw the paper square. It hit the target but didn’t flip. You tried again, but this time, you missed entirely.

“Why’d you let this American broad join us?” Nam-gyu hissed, his voice dripping with contempt.

“Shut up!” Thanos barked, slapping the back of his head. Turning to you, his voice softened. “Y/n, you’ve got this. Deep breaths, yeah?”

His calm demeanor grounded you. Nodding, you steadied your hands, exhaled deeply, and threw again. This time, the paper flipped perfectly. Relief washed over you as your teammates cheered, Thanos’ grin wide and proud.

The rest of the team took their turns, with a mix of successes and fumbles. Nam-gyu’s performance, predictably flawless, earned him his smugness. But it was Thanos’ round—Jegichagi—that held everyone’s breath. He nailed it with a shaky but triumphant five kicks, securing your victory just as the timer ran out.

Cheers erupted as the guards untied your feet. “We did it!” you said, unable to contain your excitement. Without thinking, you jumped into Thanos’ arms. He caught you effortlessly, spinning you around with a laugh. When you realized what you were doing, you quickly pulled back, your cheeks burning. Thanos’ sad smile lingered as you retreated, but his eyes sparkled.

The rest of Thanos’ crew surrounded him, shaking him excitedly and shouting in celebration, but his eyes remained locked on you. Even in the chaos of victory, his focus didn’t waver, leaving a warm, welcoming sensation in your chest. You shouldn’t like him. You didn’t want to like him. But the tingling in your body betrayed you.

When the guards opened the doors, you and the others were ushered back to the dormitory. Thanos’ posse broke off toward their makeshift corner, their laughter trailing behind them. Before they could disappear entirely, Thanos turned and called over his shoulder, “Come with us.”

You hesitated, glancing toward Nam-gyu, whose glare could burn through steel. “I don’t think your friend likes me very much,” you said, gesturing subtly in his direction.

“Nam-gyu’s a dick,” Thanos replied bluntly, a crooked grin softening the harshness of his words. “I want you on our team.”

His casual confidence was infectious, and despite yourself, you smiled. “Okay,” you said, allowing him to take your hand and guide you toward the steps. You sat down, Thanos settling a step below you. He leaned back against your leg, his arm draped protectively around your knee, a silent claim that said she’s with me.

“So,” Se-mi asked, her tone light, “where in America are you from?”

“Las Vegas, Nevada.” you replied. “I grew up there but moved to Korea about a year ago.”

“Oh, I’ve heard of that place!” She cooed. “Sin City.”

“Yeah, it lives up to its name.” You chuckle.

“You said your dad is Korean?” Nam-gyu interjected skeptically. “You don’t look Korean.”

You bit back a sigh, already tired of his attitude. “My dad’s technically American. He was adopted by a Korean couple—my grandparents. He grew up here before he went to college.”

“Is that where he met your mom?” Thanos asked, his thumb lazily brushing the skin of your ankle in a gesture that felt far too intimate for someone you barely knew. But you welcomed it.

“Yeah,” you said, a reluctant smile tugging at your lips as you thought of your mother. “He wanted to reconnect with his culture, so he studied abroad and met her. They fell in love, got married, and had me and my brother.” Your voice faltered at the mention of your brother, but you forced the smile to stay.

“Is your whole family here now?” Min-su asked gently.

You shook your head. “No. My parents divorced when I was thirteen…”

“What about your brother?” Se-mi prompted.

“He… he, uh…” Your throat tightened as the words caught.

“Stop it,” Thanos cut in sharply, his voice brooking no argument. “Let the girl breathe.” He stood and extended a hand to you. “I need to talk to Y/n. Alone.”

Relieved, you took his hand, letting him pull you toward the quiet corner near the bookshelf. You sat beside him, and he took your hand again, the warmth of his touch making your breath hitch.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice low. “About your parents. Your brother.”

“It’s okay,” you whispered, though you both knew it wasn’t.

He studied your face for a moment before asking, “Why are you here, Y/n?”

You hesitated. It wasn’t something you liked talking about. “My dad is sick. He needs treatment, and I… I don’t have another way to pay for it. My grandmother is struggling with money and I…” You looked away, embarrassed by the raw vulnerability in your words. “What about you?”

Thanos let out a heavy sigh, sucking his bottom lip between his teeth. “I’ve done a lot of bad things. I used to be a rapper, I had a lot of fans, but everything I’ve ever done has been a disappointment to my family.” He paused, his eyes darkening. “Before this, I was on a bridge, ready to jump. Ready to end it. Then this guy gave me a card and said I could turn things around. So I came here.” His gaze softened as he looked at you. “And I’m glad I did. Because I met you.”

His words hit you harder than you expected, and you found yourself smiling despite the weight of the conversation. “I’m glad I met you too, T. And I’m glad you didn’t kill anyone today!” you teased, hoping to lighten the mood.

Thanos chuckled, shaking his head. “I won’t. Not unless I have to—to protect you.”

The conviction in his voice sent a strange flutter through your chest. “T… I think I need to stay for one more game. My dad needs me to finish this.”

He gave you a long look before pulling you into a tight embrace. “You’ll be safe with me,” he murmured.

As the remaining players trickled back into the dorm, you and Thanos talked. For the first time, you shared the pieces of yourself you usually kept hidden: your cheating mother, the messy divorce, your father’s illness, and your brother’s death. In return, Thanos opened up about his abusive father, his dreams of making his mother proud, and the way he’d been struggling with drugs and depression for years. By the time the dorm was full again, you no longer saw him as just a cocky survivor. He was someone who had been to the edge of despair and chosen to fight his way back.

When it was time to vote, Thanos’ arm draped lazily over your shoulder as your fingers traced the tattoos on his hand. His presence steadied you as the guard called your number. Before you stood, Thanos leaned close, his lips brushing against your temple. “Remember, I’ll always take care of you,” he whispered.

His words echoed in your mind as you cast your vote: O. The guard handed you a new patch, and for the first time, you felt confident.

Let me know if you'd like to be tagged! :)

© loveesiren 2025 - do not copy, translate, transfer, or repost my work without my permission. if you find my work on sites other than through links i've provided, please notify me.

[an-spideog]

Don't Use Duolingo if You Really Want to Learn Irish

That title is a bit dramatic, but I really don't think that duolingo is a useful tool for Irish, especially in its current state, so I want to talk a bit about why, and I'll also talk about some alternatives.

Pronunciation

The first and most egregious issue is that at some point recently-ish, duo decided to start using Text-To-Speech for their Irish course, rather than recordings of a native speaker. The problem here is that their TTS is not trained on native speakers of Irish and pronounces words incorrectly. It doesn't make consistent distinctions between broad and slender consonants for example.

Irish has no standard pronunciation, so I understand how it can feel weird to choose just one dialect for the purposes of pronunciation (the old recordings were from a speaker of Galway Irish), but having just one dialect is much better than TTS which sounds like a learner, imagine if they had TTS for the French course which sounded like an anglophone schoolkid trying to pronounce french, and claimed they were teaching you how to speak french!

Grammar

Duo tends to be correct on grammar at least, which is a start. But often people using it get very confused about the grammar because duo doesn't explain any of it. I think there's a place for immersion in language learning, and I don't think everything has to be explained like that, but within duo's system of sentence testing and exercises like that, not having any explanation for why it's "mo chóta" and not "mo cóta" can be really confusing. Duo used to have more grammar information, it's a shame that they removed it, I wonder why they did it.

Money and Motivation

Duolingo is a business, and their motivation is not to help you learn a language 'fully', but to keep you using their app and hopefully have a higher chance of sharing it with others, competing with others, buying or causing others to buy memberships or lingots or any other in-app purchases.

I don't want to make it out like duo is some big conspiracy and they're tricking people, I don't think that's the case, but it's good to remember that their primary motivation is to keep people using the app, rather than help people move to a level in a language where they don't need the app anymore.

Keep this in mind whenever you see people trying to sell you stuff for language learning.

Why do people use Duolingo

I do get it, and I don't want to make anyone feel bad for using duo, there's a ton of reasons people tend towards it at first 1. It's really well known, so especially if you're learning a language and haven't heard of other resources for it, you'll check duolingo 2. It's very motivating for a lot of people, checking in every day and forming that habit is a really good way of sticking with a language 3. It's fun, people enjoy it

If you use it for reason 3. and you still like it, then don't worry about this post, I'm not trying to yuck anyone's yums, keep having fun!

If you use it for reasons 1. or 2. you can still keep using it if you like, but I want to suggest some other things which you might find helpful in trying to get to a higher level in Irish.

Other Resources

To address the pronunciation issue, I'd heavily recommend you disregard the pronunciation in duolingo, if you're looking for more reliable sources of pronunciation, I'd look towards recordings of native speakers, you can find that on:

Teanglann and Foclóir (they use the same recordings)

Fuaimeanna

and a really useful and underused one: https://davissandefur.github.io/minimal-pairs/ where you can hear the difference between similar sounds that English speakers often mix up in Irish.

A lot of people like duolingo because it's nice to have a clear path forward, a progression that you can get into without too much decision-making. For this I recommend getting a good textbook or course and working through it, the ones I'll recommend also have native speaker audio on them.

Learning Irish by Mícheál Ó Siadhail, this book teaches Galway Irish, not just in pronunciation but in grammar too. It's quite dense but it's well thought out and well explained.

Teach Yourself Irish (1961) this book is available for free online, and is a really good option if you're interested in Cork Irish (Munster), and have some experience with grammatical terminology. I used this book myself and really liked it, but it's very intense and not for everyone. (If you do end up using it, feel free to skip the appendices at the start, they're more of a reference and sometimes put people off from actually getting to the first chapter. Also if you have any questions about it or need any help just let me know.)

If you want a video course, there's a great course called "Now You're Talking" which is available for free online, along with audio files and worksheets here. It features Donegal Irish and leads into the more intermediate level course called Céim ar Aghaidh also available online.

There's other textbooks that I have less experience with (Buntús na Gaeilge, Gaeilge/Gramadach Gan Stró, etc.) but if they work for you, stick with them, there's nothing worse than not making progress because you keep switching resources trying to find the "perfect one"

Whether or not you continue to use Duolingo, I would really really encourage you to try engaging with media in Irish. People often shy away from this when they're learning because they don't feel like they're "ready" yet. But you basically never feel like you're ready, you just have to try and find something near your level and try to get comfortable with not understanding everything. This is where you learn a huge portion of the language, you hear how things are pronounced you see what words mean in what contexts, getting input in your target language is so important!

I know content can be kind of hard to find, so I'll make a few recommendations here: There's a wealth of content available for free online (more if you're in ireland but some internationally) on TG4 If you're still starting out, I'd recommend trying to watch some kids shows since they'll have simpler language and will be easier to follow. I wouldn't recommend using English subtitles when you watch them. Some good options include:

Dónall Dána: an Irish dub of Horrid Henry, silly and childish but the actors have good Irish and importantly the show has Irish language subtitles, they don't always match but if you're still beginning and can't necessarily get everything by ear, they're really useful. (Mostly Galway Irish)

Curious George: another dub, again with Irish language subtitles (I can't remember what dialects were in it off the top of my head but I'd assume mostly galway again)

Seó Luna: No subtitles, but a good option if you're aiming for Munster Irish, the lead character has Kerry Irish

Miraculous: No subtitles but a better show than most of the other kids' ones and more bearable to watch as an adult (Mostly Galway Irish)

Ros na Rún: Moving away from kids shows, a long running soap opera, this has Irish subtitles and a really good mix of dialects within the show. If you're finding the kids shows boring or too easy I'd really recommend it, but it can be complex because of the amount of characters, dialects, and plotlines. I'd recommend starting at the beginning of a newer season and just trying to catch on to what's happening as you go.

There are a lot of books, if you live in Ireland you can get nearly any Irish book for free from a library, so please check out your local library or request some of these from other libraries in the system:

There's a series of fairytales (Rápúnzell, Luaithríona etc.) by Máiréad Ní Ghráda which are illustrated and for children, which are a really good option for when you're just starting out reading

There's kids books about Fionn and the Fianna by Tadhg Mac Dhonnagáin

There's a cute little kids' book in Kerry Irish about a cat named Mábúis

Leabhar Breac has a lot of graphic novels, some of them based on Irish mythology, some on other stuff. The fact that they're illustrated can make it a lot easier to follow even if you don't understand all the words at first.

Gliadar has just released their Scott Pilgrim translation

If you're looking for something a bit more advanced you can look at some of the books for adult learners by Comhar, they contain simplified language and glossaries but have full original adult stories.

And if you're wanting full, natural, native-level Irish there's a load of books by those same groups, and others like An Gúm, Cló Iar-Chonnacht, Oidhreacht Chorca Dhuibhne, Éabhlóid, Coiscéim, and more.

And don't shy away from older books written in Seanchló either, they can be more challenging but it's a whole extra world of books

If you're trying to improve your listening comprehension, I definitely recommend listening to shows on Raidió na Gaeltachta, hearing native Irish speakers talk at full speed is really good practice. But I get that it can be overwhelming at first. Here are some things you can do as you build up to that:

Watching those same TV shows I mentioned without subtitles is a good way to build up listening skills.

Vifax is a website where you can practice listening to short news segments and answer questions on them, then getting to look at the transcript with notes afterwards.

Snas is kind of the evolution of vifax, now using clips from both the news and Ros na Rún.

I really hope that this post can help people move away from duolingo if they're looking to take their Irish learning to the next level, if you've got any questions, just let me know!

[metamatar]

its so funny when people post about english class being all about teaching you media literacy and critical thinking and like 10000 other things and not even give a passing mention to how. english class is supposed to teach you english. it is not many students first language and even many native speakers have issues with basic grammatical structures. language classes can and should use a mix of fiction, poetry and non fiction, because they serve to introduce you to the wide world of culture that a language opens to you. should studying that involve parsing text thoughtfully, in the context of institutional power and so on. yes. but i don't think you can get much of that done when you're doing the actual business of teaching kids tenses and prepositions and so on and how to write essays and letters and emails.

[212-apricity]

theodore nott headcanons part two!!

is it headcannons or headcanons?? anyways i hope you guys like this one, ideas for a new fic are in plan...

masterlist

theodore nott masterlist

patriotically italian, esp now that its the euros this man is 10000% against anything english and his friends are still mad at him for last euros (same)

loves to go shopping with you, he’ll hold stuff for you, he’ll buy stuff for you, he’ll ask people questions for you, literally anything

dog person, hates cats

imagine doing that one trend with theo where your lipstick is smudged and you tilt the phone to him and he’s got lipstick kisses allll over

keeps a polaroid of you two in his phone case

has to hold hands all the time

definitely sappy drunk, most times he’ll talk about your future wedding and sometimes he wont recognise that it’s you and won’t let you touch him thinking it’s some random girl

loves watching you get ready

will take your makeup off for you after a long day/night

doesn’t text basically anyone apart from his friendship group and you, and is always that one person in group chats that never texts back to anything

uses "👍" like a dad

buys things for you if you mention them once e.g. if you say one day that you love blueberries, he'll show up with five boxes of them the next day

has all his family recipes in a box and doesn’t let anyone not even you see them, your favourite: his grandads tiramisu 

sees mattheo breaking spaghetti, proceeds to try and break his legs

always has ink on his hands

you guys are not like those couples at theme parks who are basically doing it in a “family friendly” environment, you hold hands and kiss sometimes but nothing more

old moneyyy

knows how to ride horses for some reason

walked in your and pansys dorm once without knocking when you two were doing the jojo siwa karma dance, was traumatised, left silently, never spoke of it again and never came into the dorm without knocking 

loves photography, hes always taking candid photos of you and random things he sees

the majority of his camera roll is you, old photos of his mother that hes been trying to recover from the Nott achives, and just random things he sees that he finds nice, from a painting in a museum to shattered glass in the sunlight on the street

loves taking in italian with lorenzo when he knows you don’t understand things, loves to see you get frustrated

if you speak a language other than english with your parents and you’re on the phone with them and he hears the one or two words he knows, he’ll get all happy and smiley and keep repeating that word/phrase, same with you when theo speaks italian (if youre not already an italian speaker)

super tall, touches the border of doorways when he walks by them, is called slender man on a daily basis as a result

resting bitch face

lorelai gilmore type comebacks 

prideful, knows the status his family holds

fuck around and find out kind of guy

he’s got that built in dad feature of being able to fix absolutely anything from a shelf to the stove

princess treatment both ways

makes sure to wear a freshly washed shirt for a few hours so when you wear it, they smell like him

serves you first in the great hall

loves coming home with you and your family on holidays

does that thing of keeping a flower from a bouquet he gives you so he knows when to get you more

scorpio

if you are an air sign: that one lyric from chemtrails over the country club, "youre in the wind, im in the water" is so you two bc hes a water sign

kendrick supporter

academically smart, womanly stupid

would ask you to teach him how to make daisy chains and get frustrated when all his would break

he and blaise are the appointed spider catchers for you, mattheo, lorenzo, pansy and draco

cursive handwriting

favourite colour is deep blue

[katiascraft]

Hi!! I've been obsess with your works

Now, hear me out because your poll stroke an idea in me 👀👀

How about: Argentine!Reader x Oscar Piastri, and starts teaching him spanish so he can understand Franco's Interviews

Thank you!!

Ooooh yes yes yes!!! Here it is and I hope you like it 💌 thank you for your requests and support! I really appreciate it mwak mwak 😙 (sorry it’s a bit late but better late than never!)

——————————————————————————————

“Indirectas Directas” | OP81

Part 1 -> “Made in Argentina: The Series” (Oscar’s Version)

Parings: Oscar Piastri x Argentine!Reader.

Summary: you and Oscar have known each other since your best friend Franco Colapinto started competing in F3. You always had a crush on the Australian pilot. You have been friends for a while now but the friendship got closer since Franco got in F1 and you can see each other every race weekend. The butterflies starts for both of you. Do you really just wanna be friends? You teaching him “piropos” from your country may have subliminal messages.

Now playing: “IMÁN (Two of Us)” by Maria Becerra.

Word count: +1.2k.

Warnings: a few curse words. Pure fluff. Not a native English speaker so there could be (so many) errors. Not proofread.

Author’s note: alrightyyyyy I hope this is good! And I really recommend Maria! I love herrrr my queen!! I did my best with the piropos jajaja Don’t forget to like or reblog! And follow me so we can be friends :3 (and drink mate together!)

MASTERLIST

“Hola, todo bien?” Oscar said carefully and weirdly remembering what you taught him a few seconds ago. You nodded proud of his Spanish.

“Todo bien, ¿qué contas?” You said in your Argentine accent making him open his eyes wildly panicking. He loved your voice in Spanish; it was slightly higher pitched than in English. In English you have a deeper voice for some reason. Of course he asked about it and you explained it may be because of the pronunciation of the words. It's really so different from one language to the other.

“What the hell did you ask?” He said giggling a little, making you laugh too.

“I asked you what’s up” you explained and wrote down that phrase in the little notebook he brought with a pen. All mc claren branded.

The friendship between you two has become closer with each race. You were good friends before but not that close. It was something either of you couldn’t explain. Like your bodies were driven directly to one another unconsciously. You didn’t want to think too much about it. You didn’t want to overthink it.

His face was like ‘oh yeah right it makes sense’. He smiled at your handwriting so rounded and legible. Unlike his. His was a little messy.

“Yo estoy carrera hoy” he tried to answer it without asking how to. You laughed and he blushed. “This is embarrassing, it's really hard to connect the words” he said shyly and you found it so cute.

“It was close though don’t feel bad. Spanish it’s super complicated for non-Latin language speakers. We have like 20 tenses and shit. It’s a mess” you explained to cheer him up. He loved the fact you knew so much about languages because you also knew how to talk Portuguese and Italian pretty perfectly in his opinion. He has heard you even trying to speak French with Pierre last weekend. He was impressed.

“Yeah I get it now” he said grinning. “Must be nice to flirt in Spanish like I don’t know like you automatically sound sexier and more interesting” he said, making you laugh. “No really like I heard Carlos talking to an interviewer the other day and I think I am in love actually” he said, making you laugh even more. He loved making you laugh. Your laugh was like a drug to him. You looked way too cute doing so.

“Well I don’t know actually but in Argentina we have some top level flirting like really great phrases. Let me teach you some. Wait I’ll look for some on google so I can help myself remember” you said excited about it because you knew it was gonna be bizarre and funny at best.

“Phrases? Like roses are red and that kind of stuff?” He asked curiously and you nodded looking at your phone.

He couldn’t help but get distracted by the way you looked. Like every other race weekend you were wearing one of the million Argentina tees you have in your wardrobe. Your skin was glowing because of the sunscreen making your freckles stand out even more. You dyed your hair blond a few weeks ago and it looked incredible on you. He wouldn’t have expected that change but it looked so good on you. Anyway, he was convinced that anything you do to your hair will always look good always. Because you were beautiful. And he thought that was dangerous. You’re supposed to be friends right? And he knows Franco will kill him if he finds out he likes you. But he couldn’t help it. You were so interesting to him. You went everywhere with your mate and sang a lot of football songs he didn’t understand but you looked so happy singing them with Franco. Like he was captivated by your foreign beauty. So different from Australia or Europe or even the United States. You were loud and always laughing. Your bright smile always makes everyone so happy. All of the boys loved you. You were the life of every party. And you also knew so much about formula 1 it was impressive. Then you told him you were studying for an engineering degree and everything made sense. You loved the sport. And you were the proud friend. He loved that you were so passionate about everything. Even now that you have this teacher and student dynamic, you take it so seriously. He loved it. And he liked it even more because he knew that you were a teacher back in your country. And he could see how much you love to teach and you were actually really good at it.

“Alright I found the first one!” You said already laughing. “Okay ready?” He nodded, smiling, waiting for your magic voice to pronounce the weirdest shit but sound amazing.

“Mi amor, quien fuera cemento para sostener ese monumento” you said and started laughing because his face was a poem.

“What the hell?” He said laughing as well. “What does it mean? It really sounded terrible, " he said dramatically.

“It means: my love, who could be cement to hold that monument” he bursted out laughing.

“What? I don’t know if it’s geniuous or rude to be honest” he said sincerely making you laugh.

“Oh my god that was so cringe I love it” you said looking for another one.

“Don’t even try to make me pronounce that last one please” he warned you funny. You denied with your head.

“Okay I found another one listen: tu con tantas curvas y yo sin frenos. Try to translate it” you said because there were words you already taught him.

“Oh my god alright. Repeat it please?” You repeated it and he thought for a few seconds.

“Uh tu curvas y yo frenos?” He said confused. You giggled a little but applauded proudly.

“Yes! You're getting better Oscky” you said sweetly. “It was: you with so many corners and I have no brakes” you said, smiling funny.

“Oh like the curves of the body right?” You nodded at his questions. “Oh alright I get it! So is like double meaning”

“Exactly” you answered. “Alright last one: besar es el lenguaje del amor, te importaría comenzar una conversación conmigo?” You said blushing. Your subconscious chose this one without leaving you a warning.

“You said something with kiss right?” He asked and you nodded. He blushed too. You were like two teenagers blushing and giggling.

“I said: kissing it’s the language of love. Would you mind starting a conversation?” You explained.

“You wanna kiss me?” His words slipped through his lips.

“Maybe I do” your words slipped through your lips.

You were both so red. An awkward silence made its presence.

“Oscar, sorry to interrupt but Zac is calling us both. Hey y/n, you good darling?” Lando appeared out of nowhere so save yourselves from the worst silence situation you’ve ever been into. Lando hugged you kissing your cheek and you smiled at him. Oscar took his things ready to go.

“All good Land. Hope you have a good reunion. See you after the practices!” You said waving to him. And Oscar gave you a cheeky smile.

Holy shit you’re fucked.

[tesol-australia]

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[olderthannetfic]

Now I'm wondering how countries like Japan and China teach literacy.

Since kanji / hanzi don't really have that much in the way of phonetic elements, they kinda have to teach them by memorization and I don't think they have many reading comprehension problems over there.

(Although both countries do have supplementary phonetic writing systems in the form of bopomofo and pinyin for China, and the kanas for Japan)

--

FAVORITE SOAPBOX TOPIC UNLOCKED!

RELEASE THE KRAKEN!

It's a little closer to teaching vocabulary than spelling, but the same kinds of principles apply: You teach the building blocks, like the traditional radicals, which aren't so different from teaching Latin and Greek roots in an English class for English speakers.

And, as a matter of fact, lots of those radicals do predict pronunciation, just not in every single case. They can also be clues to meaning, but again, not absolutely consistently. Many characters have a sound-cueing radical on one side and a meaning-cueing radical on the other. It's just that only some are still useful in the modern day, while others are more like the English word 'plumbing' where knowledge of Roman lead pipes explains why this word comes from the one for lead, but the root probably wouldn't help a kid learn the word in the first place.

One similarity to teaching phonics would be teaching students to tell very complicated and similar characters apart: you want to help a student spot all the little building blocks of the character and then spot the ones that are different, not just glance at the whole character and get a general overall vibe. If you do a whole look-based approach, too many characters are too easy to mistake for one another.

Remembering a bajillion Chinese characters is hard if you're trying to memorize them in a year and not all of elementary school, but I think people who don't read them underestimate how many component parts there are and how approachable they can be if you start by learning fundamentals, not just memorizing a few individual characters as though they have no relation to anything else.

They're actually pretty systematic, just in the way that English spelling is with its overlapping systems and historical artifacts, not in the way that highly regular Spanish spelling is.

Having taken a lot of Japanese classes, I will say that Japanese as a foreign language textbooks often do a piss poor job of this and totally do teach kanji in a sight words-y way... But my Mandarin class started with important foundational concepts that served me well in Japanese later even if I bombed out of Chinese class at the time.

Can you tell how irritated I am by all the foreign language learners who think characters are sooooo hard when, really, it's just their crappy textbook? Haha.

They're moderately hard in the way that learning a full adult spectrum of vocabulary is hard, but people do that for foreign languages all the time. The countries that use characters do tend to make sets that are smaller for certain kinds of applications, same as we have things like simple English wikipedia, but a literate adult will always know lots more, whether it's from their career in engineering or their predilection for historical romance novels.

Uh... anyway, the answer is "Bit by bit in elementary school, just like in any other country".

[rileyslibrary]

No, soldier, no.

Synopsis: You have been transferred to a British military base to work with Ghost on a new mission. As a non-native English speaker, you are not very keen on British slang/culture and need some time to pick up on things. Ghost tries to help you navigate through your language barriers and finds it rather amusing in the process. 

Relationship: Simon “Ghost” Riley x GN!Reader

Word Count: 1,287

Notes: 

Dedicated to all the non-native English speakers like myself who are trying their best and to the native English-speaking friends who teach us without judgment.

I’m not good at writing combat and action scenes yet, so I gave them another sedentary job once again.

You voted fluff; I give you something similar—a cute crackfic.To those who voted angst, I’ll give it to you next time, promise.

WARNING: Swearing. Again.

Want more?

———————————————————————

“And this,” you point at the spread map on the table, “is the enemy’s safe house.”

He looks at the pinpoint with furrowed eyebrows, giving small and repeated nods. 

“Did we get clearance on what time to strike?” He asks, his eyes fixed on the mark as if he’s conversing with that little red pin. 

“No sir, not yet,” you reply, “the Captain will come shortly to brief us on that matter.”  

 He stands up straight. His focus is still fixed on the map, trailing with his eyes along the road you marked. “Who’s coming with us?” He asks.

“Captain left some files on your desk, sir,” you explain, “he said that we should go through them together and choose the right recruits for the job.”

“Together?” he turns at you with the same expression he was looking at the pinpoint.

“Yes, sir, together.” 

“I can do that on my own, soldier.”

“Of course, you can,” you say, “but this is a joint mission, and I get to have some saying as well, no?”

“No.” He states.

“No?”

“No.” He repeats. “I’ll lead them, so I’m the one who gets to choose the right people for my team,” he claims, walking to his desk to check on the new recruits’ files. 

You clear your throat. “And my side has to have a saying to that, sir.” You reply with as much authority as you can. 

He gives you a side eye, opens a file and begins to read, ignoring your statement. 

You knew he was difficult; they told you that much. Simon “Ghost” Riley likes to work alone, they said. And when you asked them what this so-called Ghost does when he’s on a joint mission with other forces, they replied with the same statement; that he’s being difficult. 

But you have worked with difficult people before. Most of them are like that in the force, especially regarding hierarchy. Little did he know that you had the upper hand in this situation. Difficult people hate having to deal with other difficult people.

“No problem,” you say, acting agreeable, “I just want to warn you that some of the people in those files are not very obedient and don’t like to be ordered around.”

“There’s no such thing in the army, soldier.”

“Oh, but there is, lieutenant,” you say, hiding a smile, “especially if they’re the Captain’s godson or the General’s nephew; they tend to slack a lot.”

“Fucking bastards,” he swears and rolls his eyes. He leaves the file before him and picks the rest of the pile, swearing profanities. He begins shuffling through the papers with eagerness. You speculate he’s trying to find the people you’re referring to. A sign that indicates a blood relation with the General, birth certificates, notes that specify who baptised who, perhaps. Of course, he can’t find anything, and he gives up. 

“Which of these fuckers are they?” he finally asks, throwing the papers on his desk.

“May I approach your desk to show you, Lieutenant?” You ask out of politeness.

“Oh, no, no need to do that, Y/N,” he replies sarcastically. He looks at the mess he created with the scattered papers, “just point them to me telepathically, and I’ll discard them.”

You stare at him, and he meets your gaze. You didn’t get any definite answer from him, so you are waiting for a clear answer, just like they taught you to do ever so obediently. Unfortunately, he misunderstands your stance.

“Please tell me you’re not actually trying to send me information via brainwaves, soldier,” he comments with a desperate tone.

“I was just waiting for an answer, Lieutenant.” You explain. 

He keeps staring at you before he lets another exhale and rubs his eyes. 

“Yes, Y/N,” he says, opening his arms wide, almost theatrically. “You may approach my desk and pinpoint those brats at me, just like you did with that checkmark before on the map.”

You nod and do as you are told. You sit opposite Ghost’s desk and start sorting out the messy papers. “Apologies, sir,” you say, “sometimes it’s tough to understand when you’re being sarcastic.”

He looks at you dumbfounded. “At what point did you think I wasn’t being sarcastic when referring to telepathy?” He asks.

“Well, it was between sarcastic or angry, sir,” you explain, looking embarrassed, “and I didn’t want to take my chances.” 

He rubs his forehead and stays still for a while. You peak at him from the corner of your eye; he looks like he’s calming down, contemplating. As if he’s reflecting on his actions.

“I’m sorry,” he finally says, “I sometimes forget we have a language barrier.”

“And cultural.” You add.

“And cultural.” He agrees.

You both begin to collaborate on the recruits’ profiles. You discard the ones you know are not fit for the job (i.e. the ones that will clash with Ghost and his personality) and hand him the shortlisted ones. He begins muttering something about “CROW bags”, and you look at him like a puppy trying to understand the “sit” command. He patiently explains that “CROW bags” stand for “Combat Recruit Of War”, which, in the British army, is a soldier fresh out of training, a newbie, and therefore not fit for the job. When you ask him what the “bag” means, he shrugs and says he doesn’t know. You shortlist five profiles you’re both happy with and agree to wrap them up. You lean on the desk and stand up.

“Sir,” you say, still leaning on the table, “you need to change your desk.”

“What’s wrong with it?” He asks.

“It’s wanky, sir.”

You’ve never seen him turn with such force to look at you. He shakes his head vigorously like he’s forcing thoughts to travel from his brain to his mouth.

“I’m sorry,” he says, trying to suppress a laugh, “my desk is what?”

“Wanky,” you repeat with confidence, “all this time that we’ve been going back and forth with the files, the table was wanking.”

“The table was…” he leans back in his chair and covers his already concealed mouth with his gloved hand.

“…wanking, sir,” you complete his sentence, “here, look,” and proceed to shake the unsteady desk.

“You need to either get a new desk or screw this one better, sir.” You advise him, now examining the desk’s legs. He pinches his nose’s bridge and murmurs something like “table, you fucking wanker” under his breath before finally gathering the courage to explain.

“No, soldier, it’s not—“

But as he speaks, Captain Price interrupts your conversation and walks into the office. He looks at Ghost, who is almost teary-eyed from the suppressed laugh and then at you.

“What are you two up to?” He asks with a smile, holding his tactical vest with his thumbs in its pockets. Ghost gestures for him to stop talking.

“I was just telling the lieutenant—” you begin, but Ghost interrupts you.

“The table is wonky, or rather wobbly, and I need to tighten the bolts.” He says and gives you a meaningful look. Epiphany strikes you, and you widen your eyes.

Price shakes the desk and looks at you both. “Look at that,” he says, “you’re right, Y/N”, and shoots you one of his signature smiles, only to be met by the red hue that has spread across your face from embarrassment and eyes threatening to bolt from your head. You lower your head in response. Price moves his gaze from you to Ghost in confusion.

“We managed to shortlist a few, Capt,” he says to Price changing the conversation.

“Very well,” Price says. “Any good?”

“Yes,” you reply, “only the good ones—no CROW bars.”

“It’s bags, kid,” Ghost whispers, and Price chuckles slightly, “CROW bags.”

———————————————————————

[saintsenara]

Are you a Voldemort (“more”) or Voldemort (hard “t”) girl?

thank you very much for the ask, anon!

i'm a hard t girly without deviation, and i have two reasons as for why.

the first is that - as i've expanded on a little here - there's no way that a child from tom riddle's background would ever have formally encountered the french language and its phonetic conventions, and there's no way this would have been remedied at hogwarts, since the school doesn't [appear to] teach modern languages.

but riddle could have taught himself [some] french from books, meaning he'd be able to read the language, but not necessarily speak - and certainly not correctly pronounce - it. that is, he wouldn't realise the "t" in "mort" should be silent, and would pronounce his new name according to english phonetics.

this is a very neat distillation of who voldemort is. someone who would seek out the linguistic knowledge which many of his pureblood peers - who would very probably have been taught french as children by their governesses - had by virtue of their births to create the french-inspired moniker he uses to demonstrate his blood-supremacist importance, but who is restrained by his childhood and his class background from getting it completely right.

poor thing...

except the second reason - which is my preferred explanation - is that the hard t pronunciation is both deliberate and correct on voldemort's part, because we aren't supposed to think of "voldemort" as a french name at all.

there seems to be a fanon tendency to assume that many of the pureblood families we meet in canon have close, recent ties to france - that is, that they have french cousins or second cousins, own property in france, and speak french fluently as a native or heritage language.

and i do understand why this is, since many of the pureblood surnames we meet in canon - malfoy and lestrange being the most obvious examples - appear at first glance to be french.

but here we have something that i suspect gets lost in translation for readers outside of britain and ireland - which is why the fanon of purebloods having recent french heritage has developed - which is that these names are not [contemporary] french.

they are anglo-norman.

this is term which stems from the linguistic development which took place after england was invaded in 1066 by william the conqueror, a nobleman from normandy in northwestern france, who overthrew the reigning king - harold godwinson - and took the throne for himself.

harold and his people were speakers of old english - a germanic language, from the same language family from which dutch would emerge - while william spoke old norman - a romance language, from the same language family from which modern french and other langues d'oïl dialects would emerge.

the crashing together of two peoples, speaking languages from different linguistic families, resulted in the strange mongrel language anglo-norman, which gave way to middle english, and then to contemporary english - and it's the direct cause of why english has such a broad vocabulary, with subtle distinctions between words with ostensibly similar meanings like "deer" and "venison", "sheep" and "mutton", "kingly" and "royal", "ghost" and "spirit", "hopelessness" and "despair", "woods" and "forest", and "thoughtful" and "pensive", where other romance languages [french included] do not.

[a point which borges made far better than i do.]

to secure his position on the throne, william elevated his fellow norman conquerors to aristocratic status alongside - and often above - the existing anglo-saxon nobility.

these parvenu families had names which persist in britain today - baskerville, beaumont, clare, courtenay, d'arcy, de vere, devereux, gascoigne, harcout, lacey, latimer, lucy, mandeville, percy, purfoy, sinclair, vincent, and so on - including among families which continue to hold aristocratic titles, and among families who are not titled but who are nonetheless rich and socially prominent.

[the common joke that the royal family are, by the standards of the aristocracy, nouveau riche upstarts is because they have a germanic name - saxe-coburg-gotha - rather than an anglo-norman one.]

and within the world of harry potter, many of the pureblood [or recently pureblood] families we meet in canon have anglo-norman names which were historically aristocratic or gentry - avery, burke, crouch, fortescue, gaunt, lestrange, montague, sayre, travers, and so on. malfoy is a name jkr invented, but it conforms to the same principles - since, it should be noted, it's a play on an existing anglo-norman noble surname, purfoy [which means "pure faith" where malfoy means "bad faith"].

so names like malfoy are intended by the text to communicate that the people holding them are from old, posh, and very probably wealthy families - but from families which are nonetheless supposed to be understood as historically and culturally british.

[although not necessarily english - burke is a name widely found in ireland, for example, due to ireland's own anglo-norman colonisation.]

and one reason why these names are understood as british is linguistic - they're not pronounced in english the way they would be in french, not because they're being pronounced wrongly, but because they're part of languages which have evolved separately over the course of a millennium.

[the best examples? beauchamp - pronounced "bee-cham" - and mainwaring - pronounced "manner-ring".]

we say "malfoy", rather than "malfoi", and "lestrange" rather than "l'étrange" for this reason. and so we would - if we want to think of it as an anglo-norman, rather than a french, word - say "voldemort" rather than "voldemore".

the canonical voldemort is, without a doubt, a sincere blood- and magic-supremacist. he genuinely believes that the malfoys and lestranges are superior to those with muggle blood [even if he doesn't consider himself to fall under that category], and that this should give them social importance and power over the muggleborn and mixed-blood underclasses.

but what he isn't is someone who is deferential to the wizarding world's established class system, which assigns social importance and power on the basis of name, financial status, and adherence to social custom - since, of course, he is directly disadvantaged by this because he's born "tom riddle" and he grew up in an orphanage, no matter the antiquity of his maternal line and the immensity of his magical talent.

blood purity and magical power is certainly a significant part of this class system. but we can draw out of the text that its significance is clearly not expressed in the way voldemort thinks it should be.

we see throughout the latter half of the canon series that voldemort loathes the death eaters - such as anglo-norman legend lucius malfoy - who pretended not to have served him post-1981. and we also know that what he particularly dislikes is the idea that these death eaters disavowed him in order to continue enjoying the comfortable lives the established class system afforded them, rather than committing to his clearly more radical vision for how power relations should work in the wizarding world by refusing to disavow him:

"Lucius, my slippery friend," he whispered, halting before him. "I am told that you have not renounced the old ways, though to the world you present a respectable face. You are still ready to take the lead in a spot of Muggle-torture, I believe? Yet you never tried to find me, Lucius... Your exploits at the Quidditch World Cup were fun, I daresay... but might not your energies have been better directed toward finding and aiding your master?"

a huge amount of voldemort's relationship with the death eaters is based in his distaste for the esteem in which they hold the established class system. but, above and beyond this, it's based in the pleasure he gains from mocking them for this esteem.

he squats in their houses, refusing to follow the social conventions expected of guests by commandeering their domestic space as he sees fit. he insults his hosts when in company. he emasculates the male head of the families he has insinuated his way into by behaving like he's the person in charge of the household. he fucks at least one of their wives. he regards their children as his to do with as he wishes. he has no interest in manners or deportment or "correct" self-presentation and behaviour.

he makes them call him - a half-blood orphan who could never hope to outrank them in the system they revere - "my lord", and bow to him, and kiss the hems of his robes, and debase themselves for his favour.

we know that - as a teenager - voldemort spent a huge amount of time researching wizarding genealogy. without a doubt, the etymology of wizarding names would have been mentioned by the books and documents he used to do this.

and so it stands to reason that - in becoming lord voldemort - tom riddle deliberately assumed a name he intended to be understood as having the same anglo-norman flavour as those of his pureblood servants. whether he knew how voldemort would be pronounced in modern french or not is irrelevant - even if the hard t comes from a poor boy's ignorance of french phonetics, it doesn't diminish the actual purpose of the name in the slightest...

because what calling himself lord voldemort signifies is his contempt for - and his mockery of - the death eaters. it takes something they're so proud of - that their names indicate antiquity and nobility; that they are conferred social importance on the basis of their names alone - and shows that he considers both of these things singularly unimpressive.

why - it croons - would someone like lucius be so proud of bearing the malfoy name that he'd lie to the wizengamot and pretend he never prostrated himself at lord voldemort's feet just so the family reputation didn't have to take a hit?

why would he bother? when lord voldemort can invent a name which alludes to exactly the same linguistic principles whenever he likes and have it afforded infinitely more respect [so much respect that people literally fear to speak it!] than any of his servants' names ever have been or ever will be.

a diva!

[lilia-calderus-pet-goat]

Found-Family headcanons for a³'s coven of chaos, part 1: (because they all deserved more time with each other)

(part 2, here.)

(part 3, here.)

Agatha learned spanish for Rio, obviously—and spices up her dialogue with Spanish phrases out of habit. I assume she also knows other languages, being alive for as long as she has.

But I'd also like to think that language-learning gradually becomes something they all surprise each other with. And this is definitely super self-indulgent, because I'm always ecstatic when my native English-speaker friends are interested in learning my language.

For example, I definitely think Billy would ask Alice to teach him korean—and she'd be really excited for that. Not to mention, I feel like Billy just has the vibe of someone who'd be interested in learning different languages. (and korean in particular I think he'd definitely find interesting.)

I also definitely think Jen would try learning Sicilian for Lilia, considering the effort she makes to understand her and keep her comfortable towards the end. Lilia would be so moved, because she probably hasn't spoken to anyone in her mother-tongue in centuries. Like, it's literally considered an endanged language. (“Currently considered a “vulnerable” language by UNESCO, Sicilian faces increasing pressure from standard Italian, though it remains stronger than nearly all other Italian language varieties.”)

Mrs. Davis loves making food for all of them, always trying to diversify her cooking to suit their appetites, their cultures, the things each of them can eat, etc. It's a lot, but she doesn't mind!! She's a grandma!! She loves feeding people—and she missed having someone to cook for.

She grows her greens all by herself, too. Rio occasionally helps her with weeding and stuff. Mrs. Davis is freaked out by her rancid vibes at first, but ends up saying she's a “very sweet girl,” to which everyone responds by staring at her horrified.

Mrs. Davis would also definitely make a chore chart for everyone, but it never works out for a NUMBER of reasons.

First or all, Agatha always skips her turn with cleaning, saying that “she forgot.” She knows that either Billy or Sharon will just take care of it anyways. (Jen refuses to do any of Agatha's chores. “She can either do it by herself or drown in her own garbage-”)

Lilia always gets distracted and leaves her chores unfinished. She can only ever remember laundry, for some reason—she does everyone's laundry. But other than that, jeez. My girl is messy and that's okay. She has her very own unique way of finding where she puts her stuff, but others would merely call it chaos. Jen always picks up after her—and Lilia always huffs and puffs about how, “well now I can't find anything!”

Alice is the sort of person who accidentally creates messes everywhere, then stuffs everything wherever she finds. In drawers, under beds, you name it. Very, “out of sight, out of mind.” Like, she probably has ���a chair” where she throws all her clothes.

Billy is very responsible, always abiding to the chore chart and oftentimes doing Agatha's chores too.

Jen is a total neat freak. She wants everything to be organised and under control—and she needs everything to smell nice.

She always makes the others scented candles. Agatha claims they're “useless garbage,” but uses them anyways.

Jen is also the one who usually keeps track of the bills and expenses, since she earns the most through her, “real job.”

Lilia is the sort of person to get lost in the mall, or even just the super-market. Alice has needed to look for her more than once.

Agatha loves crushing Jen's videos by appearing in the background and doing whatever bullshit she feels like.

Alice and Billy are everyone's mediators. Whenever someone gets in an argument, they're the ones who force them to work it out.

Alice is very protective of Sharon and Lilia, because she has mommy issues. Agatha has the opposite sort of mommy issues—but Sharon and Lilia treat them both like they're their kids.

The first time Billy brought Eddie to meet his coven, they literally put him through trials to decide whether he's worthy to date their son. Eddie is surprised he's been coven-approved.

“These women are insane, Billy—but then again, so am I for sticking around anyways.”

Eddie is very tired. His favourite coven members are Jen and Alice, who he considers the most normal. I REALLY think he'd fuck with Jen, because they're both so done with everyone else.