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sweet beep boop

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You were the answer to every question I had. I would ask why the sky was blue And you would ask what blue was And we would make a story About the color that became blue, How it climbed into the white sky, Made it blush the shade of the sun And how blue was born that day.

And I ask how you died, and fucking why! And they all offer answers, stories That make no sense at all. I know If you were here we’d make a story About how you died and your funeral. And I would have said: “How did you die?” And you’d have asked me: “How did I live?”

[dreamautonomy]

Finally a first language laddering post! In the near future I hope to start posting updates to my personal studying, maybe accompanied by study materials for others to use if I have the time! But first, I wanted to post an introduction.

Transcript of the images below the cut!

Language Laddering!

An Overview

I recently made a post asking about interest in me posting my personal Japanese -> Korean language laddering study journey and resources. And a lot of people seemed interested! Let's start off with an introduction to language laddering itself, since people may not have heard of it, or may not recognize this name for it! For my own personal stuff, I hope to post updates to my studies along with some resources as regularly as I can manage!

What is Language Laddering?

Language laddering, as I'm using the term, is a method of language study in which you use one target language (TL1) to learn a second target language (TL2). Basically, you cut your native language out of the equation and study in a target language!

How I Ladder

There are several methods you can use that I'd say count as language laddering, but I'm only going to go super in-depth into the methods I personally use!

If you study this way and have a specific method you love that I didn't mention, please mention it in a comment or reblog! I'd love to hear more methods.

Reading Japanese textbooks for Korean

Getting access to resources in Japanese is definitely harder because of international shipping, but I'm able to find store listings that offer sample pages! I've been using these until I can get the money to actually buy them.

In the meantime as I wait to get fully Japanese texts, I use the speaking pen from Learn Korean With BTS, haha- the speaking pen reads the book in four languages, and Japanese is one of them! So I just listen to it like an audiobook instead of reading the English!

Using apps and websites made by and for Japanese learners

While my Japanese dictionaries and apps are all in English, my Korean dictionaries and apps are all in Japanese!

I use an online Japanese-Korean dictionary on my phone, and when I practice grammar and other concepts in Korean, I use Japanese websites for Korean learners.

Recently, I've been using the site ハングルの森 to review basic grammar. I've been getting a pretty strong hold on Japanese grammar terms, too, which is exciting for more fully laddering!

Laddering languages in the way I choose to can be a very fun way to learn a new language and study one you've already been working on, but it doesn't work for everyone!

People who enjoy learning grammar and reading about how language works may enjoy it because they can learn grammar the way it's taught in their target language rather than how it's taught in their native language! This can be exciting, it's interesting to see how different languages teach concepts and learning grammar terms in a TL can open grammar-related doors! If you're a linguistics nerd like me, grammar-related doors are super exciting.

However, if you struggle a lot with understanding language instruction, and classroom language learning is really difficult for you, then it may only make things harder to try and use your TL's classroom language learning material for a new TL.

And that's okay! Not every learning method is for everyone. Learning through immersion may be easier and less frustrating if you struggle with classroom learning!

And guess what?

You can still ladder languages when doing immersion learning! Watching something in your new TL with subtitles for your stronger TL is one good way you can combine immersion learning with laddering!

I hope to post more about language laddering, although it will probably be pretty catered to my own personal study! People can feel free to send asks about anything specific they'd like to know! (Although I certainly am not an expert, so I can't answer everything)

Also, I know this post was SUPER text heavy, so thank you for making it to the end! I hope it wasn't too droning to read ^-^ Good luck with language laddering if you decide to try it!

[dreamautonomy]

I feel like the last few years have been a lot of change for me. I didn't realize how much I had grown until I looked back, so our little ghostie friend is here to remind us.

Chibird store | Positive pin club | Instagram

[dreamautonomy]

Good news, fellow artists! Nightshade has finally been released by the UChicago team! If you aren't aware of what Nightshade is, it's a tool that helps poison AI datasets so that the model "sees" something different from what an image actually depicts. It's the same team that released Glaze, which helps protect art against style mimicry (aka those finetuned models that try to rip off a specific artist). As they show in their paper, even a hundred poisoned concepts make a huge difference.

(Reminder that glazing your art is more important than nighshading it, as they mention in their tweets above, so when you're uploading your art, try to glaze it at the very least.)

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I have officially closed the kofi membership, at least for now, so… nothing holding me back from sharing the chibi tutorials (so far, I'm going to be updating it in the future~) 🤗 ENJOY! INTRO

PEA CHIBI

BEAN CHIBI

(tbc...)

[dreamautonomy]

The other day, me and a few others were talking to a teenage cousin of ours who had just entered the work force full-time. Incidentally, he had also just come back from his week of vacation. He was incredibly upset and near tears, saying that it is terrible how he has to spend every day working and his only "life" gets to happen in his designated 1-2 weeks off per year, and, in his words, "then you die."

A lot of the people listening in started laughing at him and saying that he needs to "grow up and get used to it." How brainwashed do you have to be to say these things, especially to a kid in distress? And especially when the kid is right? He is absolutely, 100% right.

We have so much evidence that this set up is not healthy physically or psychologically. We could absolutely find better ways to ensure things get done without making people feel like overused machines. Everything we do as humans should be about making our lives happier and easier so that we can enjoy this precious little time we have. Everything we do now is instead about making the select few happier while everyone else suffers.

Don't "grow up and get used to it." Keep that youthful feeling of injustice when you realize how unfair it all is. This is not natural. People made society this way and we can unmake it.

[dreamautonomy]

Ascendance

[dreamautonomy]

Hi! Do you know about PureRef? It's a software I just discovered that allows you to create and use ref images boards in a very intuitive way (and that you can also get for free or how little you can pay). As someone who usually needs an awful lot of refs before drawing anything (bc aphantasia) I can already tell this is going to save me so much time! I wanted to share the info because many others may find it useful as well!!

yes! I literally love this app and recommend it to everyone!

It's insane it's pay what you can, so if you are able to, support the devs who made a great tool.

[dreamautonomy]

Free PDF Workbooks for Japanese, Spanish, Korean, etc. (30+ languages)

If you’re looking to practice a bit and remember your target language better… here are tons of free worksheets/workbooks for 34 languages (Japanese, Spanish, Korean, French, German, Italian, etc, etc.)

It’s the same type of “fill in the blank” workbook across all of their languages but the magic in actually rewriting things over and over is that the words end up sticking. Plus, there are English sections where you’ll have to force yourself to remember and write the word/phrase in the target language - which is even better for your memory (called active recall - forcing yourself to remember).  I’m personally a big fan of this approach and I’d do similar to pass vocab quizzes in my HS & uni language classes.

If you’re interested, give these a go.

Afrikaans— https://www.afrikaanspod101.com/Afrikaans-workbooks

Arabic— https://www.arabicpod101.com/Arabic-workbooks

Bulgarian— https://www.bulgarianpod101.com/Bulgarian-workbooks

Cantonese— https://www.cantoneseclass101.com/Cantonese-workbooks

Chinese— https://www.chineseclass101.com/Chinese-workbooks

Czech— https://www.czechclass101.com/Czech-workbooks

Danish— https://www.danishclass101.com/Danish-workbooks

Dutch— https://www.dutchpod101.com/Dutch-workbooks

English— https://www.englishclass101.com/English-workbooks

Filipino— https://www.filipinopod101.com/Filipino-workbooks

Finnish— https://www.finnishpod101.com/Finnish-workbooks

French— https://www.frenchpod101.com/French-workbooks

German—https://www.germanpod101.com/German-workbooks

Greek— https://www.greekpod101.com/Greek-workbooks

Hebrew— https://www.hebrewpod101.com/Hebrew-workbooks

Hindi— https://www.hindipod101.com/Hindi-workbooks

Hungarian— https://www.hungarianpod101.com/Hungarian-workbooks

Indonesian— https://www.indonesianpod101.com/Indonesian-workbooks

Italian— https://www.italianpod101.com/Italian-workbooks

Japanese— https://www.japanesepod101.com/Japanese-workbooks

Korean— https://www.koreanclass101.com/Korean-workbooks

Norwegian— https://www.norwegianclass101.com/Norwegian-workbooks

Persian— https://www.persianpod101.com/Persian-workbooks

Polish— https://www.polishpod101.com/Polish-workbooks

Portuguese— https://www.portuguesepod101.com/Portuguese-workbooks

Romanian— https://www.romanianpod101.com/Romanian-workbooks

Russian— https://www.russianpod101.com/Russian-workbooks

Spanish— https://www.spanishpod101.com/Spanish-workbooks

Swahili— https://www.swahilipod101.com/Swahili-workbooks

Swedish— https://www.swedishpod101.com/Swedish-workbooks

Thai— https://www.thaipod101.com/Thai-workbooks

Turkish— https://www.turkishclass101.com/Turkish-workbooks

Urdu— https://www.urdupod101.com/Urdu-workbooks

Vietnamese— https://www.vietnamesepod101.com/Vietnamese-workbooks

[dreamautonomy]

I sent a letter today - something I haven’t done for years

It’s full of plastic bread clips

It’s for Science

[dreamautonomy]

loved this hand drawn hiring sign at a mcdonald’s i saw in kochi, japan.

このマックのサイン可愛すぎた。ツッコミどころもいくつか。。

[dreamautonomy]

We (somewhat rightly) mock the 2000's era fansub translation notes for their otaku fixations and privileging of trivia over the media, but they should be understood as serving their purpose for a bit of a different era in the anime fandom. Take this classic:

Like, its so obvious, right? Just say "pervert", you don't need the note! Which is true, for like a 'normie' audience member who just wants to watch A TV Show - but no one watching, uh *quick google* "Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne" in 1999 is that person. The audience is weebs, and for them the fact that show is Japanese is a huge selling point. They want it to feel as 'anime' as possible; and in the west language was one of the core signifiers of anime-ness. 2004 con-goers calling their friends "-kun" and throwing in "nani?" into conversations was the way this was done, and alongside that a lexicon of western anime fandom terminology was born. Seeing "ecchi" on the screen is, to this person, a better viewing experience - it enhances their connection to otaku identity the show is providing, and reinforces their shared cultural lexicon (Ecchi is now a term one 'expects' anime fans to know - a truth that translator notes like this simultaneously created and reflected).

But of course your audiences have different levels of otaku-dom, and so you can't just say 'ecchi' and call it a day - so for those who are only Level 2 on their anime journey, you give them a translation note. Most of the translation notes of the era are like this - terms the fansubber thought the audience might know well enough that they would understand it and want that pure Japanese cultural experience, but that not all of them would know, so you have to hedge. The Lucky Star one I posted is a great example of that:

Its Lucky Star, the otaku-crown of anime! You desperately want the core text to preserve as much anime vocab as possible, to give off that feeling, but you can't assume everyone knows what a GALGE is - doing both is the only way to solve that dilemma.

This is often a good guideline when looking at old memetically bad fansubs by the way:

This isn't real, no fansub had this - it was a meme that was posted on a wiki forum in 2007. Which makes sense, right? "Plan" isn't a Japanese cultural or otaku term, so there is no reason not to translate it, it doesn't deepen the ~otaku connection~.

Which, I know, I'm explaining the joke right now, but over time I think many have grown to believe that this (and others like it) is a real fansub, and that these sort of arbitrary untranslations just peppered fansub works of the time? It happened, sure, but they would be equally mocked back then as missteps - or were jokes themselves. Some groups even had a reputation for inserting jokes into their works, imo Commie Subs was most notable for this; part of the competitive & casual environment of the time. But they weren't serious, they are not examples of "bad fansubs" in the same way.

This all faded for a bunch of reasons - primarily that the market for anime expanded dramatically. First, that lead to professionally released translations by centralized agencies that had universal standards for their subs and accountability to the original creators of the show. Second, the far larger audience is far less invested in anime-as-identity; they like it, but its not special the way its special when you are a bullied internet recluse in 2004. They just want to watch the show, and would find "caring" about translation nuances to be cringe. And since these centralized agencies release their product infinitely faster and more accessibly than fansubs ever did, their copies now dominate the space (including being the versions ripped to all illegal streaming sites), so fansubs died.

Though not totally - a lot of those fansub groups are still around! Commie Subs is still kicking for example. They either do the weird nuance stuff, or fansub unreleased-in-the-west old or niche anime, or even have pivoted to non-anime Japanese content that never gets international release. But they used to be the taste-makers of the community; now they are the fringe devotees in a culture that has moved beyond them. So fansubs remain something of a joke of the 90's and 2000's in the eyes of the anime culture of today, in a way that maybe they don't deserve.