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[ruyis]

Classical Chinese Lesson 2: Subject-predicate vs topic-comment structure in modern Mandarin

This is written for my Classical Chinese series, but focuses on modern Mandarin! So you don’t need to be following that series to get something out of it :D 

(As ever, I am learning. If you see a mistake, please point it out and I will change it!)

A knowledge of what is the topic and what is the comment is hugely helpful in reading Classical Chinese, but before looking at our first stencils: let’s have a look at what those words actually mean. First, though, we need to talk about English grammar so we can understand just how Classical Chinese differs so much.

Subject  + predicate structure

The syntax (way a sentence is put together) of English and other Indo-European languages in its most basic form can be summed up as subject + predicate. Very oversimplified, that’s the pronoun/noun/whatever that is doing the verb, and then everything else. So:

[I] am supposed to be learning Korean.

[My dog] ate my homework. 

[Me and my pocket Discord friends] watched all 12 hours of Lord of the Rings.

[The professor in the tweed jacket] accused me of plagiarism.

The thing in the brackets is the subject, and everything else is the predicate. The predicate can be made up of loads of stuff: a verb (watched), an object (all 12 hours of Lord of the Rings) or even a sort of equals relationship (I = supposed to be learning Korean). It can also be relatively simple (I) or relatively complex (the professor in the tweed jacket).

I said above that the subject as the thing doing the verb is oversimplified, and that’s because things can get a bit more complicated than that. Look at the following sentences.

[The homework] was eaten by the dog.

[The film] scared my step-sister.

[He] is twenty-six.

[It] rained. 

In the first sentence who is doing the verb? Well, the dog. The dog’s eating the homework - the homework isn’t doing anything, it’s just sitting there being eaten. It’s the dog that is doing something, but the homework is still the subject of our sentence. How do I know? 1) Because it’s in ‘subject position’, which in English is the first position, and 2) because we could say 'the homework was eaten’ and that still makes sense - 'by the dog’ is extra information. That’s. That’s still confusing. 

The second sentence probably seems very normal. But when you think about it a bit more: the film isn’t doing anything. It’s just existing. My step-sister is the one who is feeling fear, and who is scared by it - that’s really all on her, not on the film. Some languages treat these types of verbs and subjects differently to the other ones above.

In the third sentence, 'is’ really works just like an equals sign. It doesn’t mean 'to exist’ in the same way that it does in the sentence 'I think, therefore I am’. It just means he = twenty-six. 

In the fourth sentence: what rained? The sky? What rained??? What is going on???

The notion of the subject in English is so important that even when there is no subject, we have to put one in. So we can’t just say 'rained’. We have to put in a dummy subject pronoun, 'it’, to make the grammatically correct 'it rained’. The sentence does not work without it. 

The reason I’m drawing your attention to this is because all of these different types of subjects are actually doing very different things. If you were to draw a syntax tree for all the last four sentences, they’d be very different. But they are all completely necessary in English. You can get rid of any other part of the sentence if you do a bit of linguistic gymnastics: if you look at the dog example, you can say 'The homework was eaten’. But we cannot get rid of the subject. 

(For all you astute people out there: this is why in linguistics we make a distinction between the agent [the thing actually doing the verb in the world regardless of the sentence structure], the patient [the thing in the real world that has the verb done to it], and the subject [the thing that takes the place of a subject in a sentence, regardless of whether it is experiencing the verb, doing it, being done to, or whatever else]. How languages order these doesn’t always match up to what we’re used to in English.)

NB: the subject in subject-predicate languages does not always have to be overt. In languages like Spanish or Italian that have very sexy inflectional morphology, you don’t need to add the subject because the verb conjugation makes it extremely clear who is doing what. So I don’t need to say yo tengo calor, literally 'I have heat’ = 'I am hot’, I can just say tengo calor, because tengo HAS to be 'I’. It can’t be any other pronoun, because the verbs would conjugate differently. These languages are called pro-drop languages. This just means they are completely chill with not having an overt subject all the time. It does not mean, however, that they are not subject-predicate languages. They are. 

The way that Classical Chinese is structured is completely different from this. Let’s look at this now!

Topic + comment structure

In many languages, the biggest division in the sentence and the most basic is not subject + everything else, but rather the topic of the sentence and a comment on that topic. This is the case in Classical Chinese, and much of Modern Chinese too. It’s also the case and much clearer because of particles in Korean and Japanese (though I don’t have as in-depth a knowledge of those languages, so please take what I say with a pinch of salt). 

What does that actually mean?

First, you establish the topic. The topic is whatever you are talking about. Let’s take the example of the homework. The homework is what is important: it’s what you’re explaining to your teacher. So the sentence would be like:

As for my homework…the dog ate it. 

'As for my homework’ is the topic, and 'the dog ate it’ is the comment. If you wanted to be even more specific, you could say 'As for my homework, it was the case that my dog ate it.' 

This is an incredibly flexible sentence structure, because it enables us to place whatever we want to talk about at the beginning of the sentence. You can see that a lot of the examples above that have different orders in English can be simplified in this order:

As for me, I’m supposed to be learning Korean. 

As for my sister, she was scared by the film. 

As for last night, we watched all 12 hours of LOTR. 

You can see pretty quickly, however, that some of these sentences can be changed to give emphasis to different parts. Let’s take the Discord LOTR sentence:

As for last night, we watched all 12 hours of LOTR. > the topic is 'last night’. This is perhaps answering the question 'What did you do last night?’ or maybe talking about what you did on many evenings, and then specifying 'But last night, we did this.’

As for all 12 hours of LOTR, we watched them last night. > here the topic is different. Now we’re talking about LOTR! Maybe somebody was talking about those films, and we added that we watched them last night. Or maybe - because the function of these topic-comment sentences is often to stress or provide contrast in some way - we watched some other film on Thursday, but LOTR (not any other film, LOTR) last night. 

As for me and my Discord friends, we watched all 12 hours of LOTR last night > now the topic is me and my Discord friends! So maybe some other people watched some other film or did something else, and we want to say: ok, but this is what we did. 

You can see that this topic-comment structure is hugely flexible, and allows for a lot of nuance that is expressed differently in the language in question. There’s a lot more to it in Classical Chinese, Japanese and Korean - a lot more nuances - but that’s enough for our purposes, since modern Chinese doesn’t mark the topic and comment explicitly. 

Topic-comment in modern Chinese

One of the most common mistakes learners (learners = me) make is following the subject-predicate structure too closely, because it’s not something people are really usually told about. Like many things in Chinese grammar, it appears superficially similar to English and other European languages - so similar that at the beginning you just go, ok, cool, these are the same. But despite superficial similarities the two languages structure information in fundamentally different ways. A lack of understanding of this difference will create Chinese that, no matter how great your tones are and how wide your vocabulary is, probably doesn’t sound very natural. 

The most wonderful (most annoying) thing about the topic-comment structure is that you don’t have to specify the topic if it’s already clear. 下雨了- what’s raining? It doesn’t really matter. 都挺好 - I don’t need to specify 我们都挺好 / 他们都挺好. If the topic is clear - and the topic and the grammatical subject are often the same thing - you can just drop it. This is clearest of course in languages like Korean and Japanese where you have specific particles marking the topic and/or the subject but I’m not really qualified to talk about those - and it also applies to Chinese. (Actually, you can drop pretty much anything that is already clear in Chinese.) This is how you end up with sentences in Chinese that are structured like this:

TOPIC + COMMENT + COMMENT + COMMENT + COMMENT + COMMENT + …

and so on. These sentences are notoriously hard to translate to English, because the topic or subject isn’t repeated in each clause. This type of structure is very common in longer essays or literature. 

You’ll also see this all the time in more natural speech. If you want to translate a sentence like ‘I don’t think that what he said at the meeting yesterday was very appropriate’, you could say something like ‘I don’t think [he yesterday at the meeting said DE speech] was very appropriate’, but a more natural translation might be like ‘what he said yesterday at the meeting, I don’t think it was very appropriate’. Let’s find some random examples from Baidu (I’ve searched for 关于 because it’ll give us the right kind of complex sentence):

要讲关于自己的问题，对我来说并不容易 = lit. ‘want to talk about my own problems, to me it’s not easy at all’ > Talking about my own problems doesn’t come easily to me.

关于这份工作你有进一步的消息吗？= lit. ‘about this job, do you have further information?’ > Have you had any more information about the job yet?

昨晚关于印度的那个节目你看了没有？= lit. ‘yesterday about India that program, have you watched?’ > Did you see that program on India last night?

关于我们的决定，下周你会接到通知 = lit. ‘about our decision, next week you will receive notification’ > ‘You should receive notification of our decision in the next week’

You can see in all of these examples that the topic of the sentence - talking about my own probelms, this job, that program about India last night, our decision - comes first, followed by the comment. Even if simple modern Chinese sentences like 我喜欢你 ‘I like you’ don’t appear to follow the topic-comment structure as strictly as Japanese or Korean sentences, that’s mainly because of a lack of particles. More complex sentences are more likely to be structured like the above. 

Even simpler sentences can be structured in this way. All of these are from Chinese Grammar Wiki (you’d expect commas in writing):

不好意思，咖啡我都喝完了 - lit. ‘sorry, coffee I have finished drinking’  

票还有吗？- lit. ‘tickets are there any still?’

这个问题, 你一个人没办法解决 - lit. ’this problem you can’t solve alone’

那部电影, 看过的人都喜欢 - lit. ‘this film the people who watched it all liked’

他的事 ，我不想管那么多 - lit. ‘his business, I don’t want to be so involved’

These are all very natural sentences, and they all follow the topic-comment structure! Even if it’s not as clear as Japanese or Korean, this is key to sounding natural as second language learners of Chinese. 

It’s also *drumroll* incredibly important for Classical Chinese, which follows this structure much more closely than the modern language. 

Next time: how to mark topic-comment in Classical Chinese using particles, and what happens when the particles (woe unto me, you, etc) do not behave as they should! Because. Come on guys what did you expect. 

加油！

- 梅晨曦

[ruyis]

Words of the week: 快篩 kuài shāi / rapid antigen test 陽(性) yáng (xìng) / positive 陰(性) yīn (xìng) / negative 確診 quèzhěn / make a definitive diagnosis, confirm a case

Apparently before covid, 確診 could refer to a diagnosis of anything, but now if you use 確診 alone it’s assumed to mean covid and any other condition should be specified. Some news headline examples:  快篩陰性不代表沒確診！ 「快篩陽即確診」新制上路系統亂 從快篩陽性到醫院PCR確診、視訊看診的漫漫長路！ 快篩陽性當作確診？ 我快篩陽了，怎麼辦？！

[ruyis]

About friends and friendship (some sayings/slang)

Chi trova un amico trova un tesoro. = A friend is a treasure (literally: he who finds a friend, finds a treasure)

Patti chiari, amicizia lunga. = Short reckonings make long friends (literally: clear agreements, long friendship)

Gli amici si riconoscono nel momento del bisogno = A friend in need is a friend indeed (literally: you identify your friends when you're in need)

Dagli amici mi guardi Iddio che dai nemici mi guardo io = I hope God protects me from friends, while I can protect myself from enemies (literal translation)

I libri come gli amici devono essere pochi ma buoni = Books as friends must be few but good (literal translation)

Non è amico in verità chi ti visita nelle nozze e non nell'infermità = He who visits you in times of joy but not of sorrow, is not a friend (literally: to tell the truth it is not a friend he who visits you for weddings but not when you're ill)

Il cane è il miglior amico dell'uomo = Dog is a man's best friend (literal translation)

L'amico è come il vino: se è buono, col tempo migliora = A friend is like wine: if he's good, he gets better as time passes (literal translation)

Amico di penna = Pen pal (literally: pen friend)

Amico d'infanzia = Childhood friend (literal translation)

Un consiglio da amico = Friendly advice (literal translation)

Amico di vecchia data = Long-standing friend (literally: old time friend)

Fuoco amico = Friendly fire (literal translation)

Fare l'amico = To act buddy-buddy (literally: to act as a friend)

Amico ritrovato = Rediscovered friend (literal translation)

-> amico ends with -o (masculine form) in its general acception (genderless) so I'm using "he" in the English translation, but it doesn't imply any gender

[ruyis]

The Evolution of Chinese Names (Kontinentalist)

I think I meant to share this in my Chinese names resources posts, but I guess I forgot! If you like learning about Chinese names, you absolutely must check this article out.

What can we tell from the evolution of Han Chinese names?

The highlight of this article is its amazing interactive graphics. Below is an example of one showing the top characters in male given names in different decades. As you can see, hovering over a character shows additional information.

There’s also a series of graphics that dive more in depth into each decade. I love seeing which characters occur together most!

Make sure you use the arrows to see the data for female names too.

Lastly, you can see how the characters in your Chinese name rank.

Now go forth and nerd out, fellow name nerds!

[ruyis]

16 Chengyu (成语) Patterns

As you may or may not know, I really like learning chengyu. After a while, I started to notice patterns and similar structures, and I got curious. What are the common patterns for chengyu?

There are a lot of chengyu, and I’m not that ambitious. I decided to just focus on the chengyu I know. Fortunately, pretty much all the chengyu I know are in Anki, so I was able to export them for analysis! I identified 16 of the most common patterns. Let’s take a look~

不可_ _

不可思议 bùkěsīyì - inconceivable / unimaginable / unfathomable 不可理喻 bùkělǐyù - to be impervious to reason / unreasonable 不可避免 bùkěbìmiǎn - unavoidably 不可或缺 bùkěhuòquē - necessary / must have 不可救药 bùkějiùyào - incurable / incorrigible / beyond cure / hopeless

无所_ _

无所畏惧 wúsuǒwèijù - fearless 无所不有 wúsuǒbùyǒu - to have everything 无所顾忌 wúsuǒgùjì - to have no misgivings / to stop at nothing 无所事事 wúsuǒshìshì - to have nothing to do / to idle one’s time away 无所不谈 wúsuǒbùtán - to talk about everything

不_不_

不折不扣 bùzhébúkòu - a hundred percent / to the letter / out-and-out 不屈不挠 bùqūbùnáo - unyielding / indomitable 不理不睬 bùlǐbùcǎi - to completely ignore / to pay no attention to / not to be in the least concerned about 不言不语 bùyánbùyǔ - to not say a word / to keep silent 不闻不问 bùwénbúwèn - not to hear, not to question / to show no interest in sth / uncritical / not in the least concerned

A lot of these contain words within them: 折扣、屈挠、理睬、言语、闻问 are all words!

一_不_

一丝不苟 yìsībùgǒu - strictly according to the rules / meticulous (lit. not one thread loose) 一成不变 yìchéngbúbiàn - nothing much changes / always the same 一尘不染 yìchénbùrǎn - selfless and incorruptible / spotless (lit. untainted by even a speck of dust) 一蹶不振 yìjuébúzhèn - a setback leading to total collapse / unable to recover after a minor hitch (lit. one stumble, unable to rise) 一丝不挂 yìsībúguà - absolutely naked / without a stitch of clothing (lit. not wearing one thread)

无_无_

无影无踪 wúyǐngwúzōng - to disappear without trace  无穷无尽 wúqióngwújìn - endless / boundless / infinite 无声无息 wúshēngwúxī - silent / unknown (lit. not a sound nor breath) 无边无际 wúbiānwújì - boundless / limitless 无忧无虑 wúyōuwúlǜ - carefree and without worries

A lot of these also contain words within them: 影踪、穷尽、声息、边际、忧虑 are all words!

一_一_

一心一意 yìxīnyíyì - concentrating one’s thoughts and efforts / single-minded / bent on / intently 一言一行 yìyányìxíng - every word and action 一举一动 yìjǔyídòng - every movement / each and every move 一朝一夕 yìzhāoyìxī - in a short period of time / overnight (lit. one morning and one evening) 一生一世 yìshēngyíshì - a whole lifetime all my life

Once again, we have some words: 心意、言行、举动、朝夕、生世 are all words!

Keep reading

[ruyis]

10 Iconic Mandopop Songs from Chinese Class

Let’s rewind back to my Chinese school and high school Chinese class days. Sometimes the teachers would play Chinese music (yay). Today, we’re revisiting 10 songs that have stuck with me over the years. If you haven’t heard them before, go check them out for the true Chinese class soundtrack experience.

Warning: videos may take a sec to load!

（1）任贤齐 - 对面的女孩看过来

♫：寂寞男孩的悲哀 说出来 谁明白

（2）周华健 - 朋友

♫：终有梦 终有你 在心中

（3）邓丽君 - 甜蜜蜜

♫：你的笑容这样熟悉 我一时想不起

（4）王启文 - 老鼠爱大米

♫：不管有多少风雨 我都会依然陪着你

（5）S.H.E. - Super Star

♫：如果我忘了我 请帮忙记得我

（6）筷子兄弟 - 小苹果

♫：生命虽短爱你永远 不离不弃

（7）光良 - 童话

♫：你哭着对我说 童话里都是骗人的

（8）周杰伦 - 听妈妈的话

♫：想快快长大 才能保护她

（9）曲婉婷 - 我的歌声里

♫：你就这样出现 在我的世界里

（10）陈芳语 - 爱你

♫：美好爱情 我就爱这样贴近 因为你

Honorable mention:

（11）前进乐团 - 对不起我的中文不好

♫：对不起 对不起 我只想跟你当朋友

I couldn’t not include this song! While not really a classic song, it is a Chinese class classic.

[ruyis]

The 24 solar terms of the traditional Chinese calendar

The 24 solar term calendar was used in ancient China to govern agricultural arrangements and farming activities. The terms reflect changes in climate and other natural phenomena that used to play important roles in clothing, food, housing, and transportation. They still influence some Chinese customs and culinary practices.

The Earth orbits around the Sun along an elliptical path. Its axis is not perpendicular to the orbit but is tilted at about 23 degrees. The solar terms are evenly spread along the apparent path the Sun follows, which is known as ecliptic, and form a cycle that corresponds to one year exactly.

The system includes 12 major (sectional) and 12 minor (middle) solar terms. Each of them lasts around 15 days. They reflect the change of seasons (Beginning of Spring), the variation of the sun’s altitude (Summer solstice), the changes of temperature (Limit of Heat), the type and intensity of precipitation (White Dew), the maturity and harvest time of crops (Grain in Ear), and insect activity (Awakening of Insects).

History

During the Spring and Autumn period (770-476 BCE) of the Zhou dynasty, the Chinese established two major solar terms: 日南至 (rìnánzhì, “sun south most”) and 日北至 (rìběizhì, “sun north most”).

At the end of the Warring States period (475-221 BCE), eight solar terms were in use. They represented the four seasons and solstices.

The rest of the terms were introduced during the Han dynasty (206 BCE-24 CE), which is most terms refer to the climate of its capital Xi’an.

Solar terms

��春 (lìchūn): February 4, Beginning of Spring (though only in the extreme south)

雨水 (yǔshuǐ): February 19, Rain Water (increase of rainfall)

惊蛰 (jīngzhé): March 5, Awakening of Insects (Thunder begins and hibernating insects wake up.)

春分 (chūnfēn): March 20, Spring Equinox (equal length of day and night)

清明 (qīngmíng): April 4, Pure Brightness (The weather becomes noticeably warmer. It is clear and bright, although not in the south)

谷雨 (gǔyǔ): April 19, Grain Rain (The early crops show their shoots.)

立夏 (lìxià): May 5, Beginning of Summer (in southern China)

小满 (xiǎomǎn): May 21, Grain Buds (The seeds of summer crops begin to become plump, but are not yet ripe.)

芒种 (mángzhǒng): June 6, Grain in Ear (The wheat becomes ripe, and the summer planting starts in southern China.)

夏至 (xiàzhì): June 21, Summer Solstice (The daytime is the longest and the nighttime is the shortest of the year.)

小暑 (xiǎoshǔ): July 7, Minor Heat (beginning of the hottest period)

大暑 (dàshǔ): July 23, Major Heat (The duration of the sunshine is the longest, the rainfall is the greatest, and the thunderstorms are the most frequent in some parts of northern China.)

立秋 (lìqiū): August 7, Beginning of Autumn (Nowhere is this true.)

处暑 (chùshǔ): August 23, End of Heat (end of the hot summer)

白露 (báilù): September 7, White Dew (The transition from summer to autumn. The temperature drops sharply, and the autumn rains come.)

秋分 (qiūfēn): September 23, Autumn Equinox (equal length of day and night)

寒露 (hánlù): October 8, Cold Dew (The weather becomes cold enough to reach dew point, but not cold enough to reach frost point.)

霜降 (shuāngjiàng): October 23, Frost’s Descent (The weather becomes cold and frost begins to form in North China.)

立冬 (lìdōng): November 7, Beginning of Winter (true of northern China)

小雪 (xiǎoxuě): November 22, Minor Snow (Snow begins to fall, and the weather becomes cold.)

大雪 (dàxuě): December 7, Major Snow (It snows heavily for the first time in the north.)

冬至 (dōngzhì): December 22, Winter Solstice (The daytime is the shortest and the nighttime is the longest of the year.)

小寒 (xiǎohán): January 5, Minor Cold (The weather rapidly reaches its coldest.)

大寒 (dàhán): January 20, Major Cold (the coldest time of the year.)

* There could be 1-2 day differences regarding the Gregorian calendar. All dates are based on the Northern Hemisphere.

[ruyis]

Look, cognitive linguistics is not really my field, so please take this with a grain of salt, but... last time I read about this, I recall that there were consistent and reproducible tests one can perform to differentiate native from non-native speakers (by looking at their syntax under novel conversation topics), and that these tests are apparently effective enough that they're used by intelligence agencies to detect spies. We know that babies and small children have linguistic capabilities that are never regained later in life. For instance, children under about six months can easily differentiate basically all speech sounds, but as we grow older than this we lose the ability to differentiate speech sounds that are not phonemically distinct in the language(s) spoken around us. It seems to me undeniably evident that the language variety (or varieties) that we acquire in early childhood, whatever it may be, has some special cognitive status not shared by languages learned or acquired later in life.

It makes sense to refer to languages varieties with this special cognitive status as "natively spoken".

The fact that language varieties are internally diverse does not change this fact. The fact that L2 speakers and others who learn a language later in life can meaningfully participate in a speech community does not change this fact. While perhaps politically appealing, the idea that native speakers do not exist seems scientifically untenable from absolutely everything I've read on the subject.

Now, as I said, cognitive linguistics is not my specialty. Perhaps I am totally wrong. Perhaps what I've read on this has been based on bunk or outdated studies or the sample size was too small or whatever. Is there anyone out there interested in making the case that native speakers do not constitute a well-defined class on scientific grounds rather than political ones?

[ruyis]

Another question to the Korean learners!

Hello - yes, you - 

Does anyone know where I can look up Sino-Korean words? I remember the existence of a website where you could compare words of Chinese origin (characters and pronunciation) across Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese, as well as different Chinese languages…I know I’m not making it up because I saw a guy give a talk on it, but for the life of me I cannot find it. 

Does anyone have any better resources? Or know oohow to look up the hanja of a Korean word? Asking because it would help hugely in remembering the Korean words if I could tell which Chinese word they were related to. 

Sometimes it’s very obvious, but sometimes there’s enough sound change + the word is fairly archaic so I would like to be certain. Any help appreciated!

[ruyis]

Tips to Make a Language You’re “Forced” to Learn More Interesting/Enjoyable

Not everyone learning a second or third, or even fourth, language is doing it purely out of a desire to connect to a language or culture. Sometimes, you’re doing it because you have to for some reason or another.

Maybe you’re being relocated for work to a country where you don’t speak the language. Now it’s either learn Turkish to at least a survivable degree or be stuck using translator apps for the remainder of your stay.

You got a job as a cashier and it turns out a lot of the customers passing through only speak Spanish and you’re tired of the awkward mishaps that happen when you’re cashing said customers out.

You’re a first year student in high school and the only languages offered at your school are languages you have no interest in, but it’s a graduation requirement. Now you’re stuck picking the one you can tolerate the most for a school year so you can pass the class and get it over with.

Regardless of the reason, you’re stuck learning it for the foreseeable future and it’s not necessarily because you wanted to. We’ve all been there at some point, myself included. When something is more of an obligation, it’s pretty difficult to maintain any level of passion or interest for it, especially outside of class. I feel like that’s especially true for languages you had no interest in learning before suddenly being in a situation where you had to. The best advice honestly is to try and make the language more interesting to you personally that way, at least to some level, it’s less of a chore to study.

So for the language learners tied to a language due to obligation, these were my tips and tricks I did in addition to using the textbook and class. I’m not saying these are things that will make you fall head over heels for your TLO (Target Language of Obligation), but hopefully these are tips that will make your TLO a little more fun.

(TLDR at the end.)

Find content creators in your TLO that talk about things you like

I’m not talking about educational channels dedicated to teaching the language you’re learning like the Pod101 channels or Superholly. I mean entertainment.

You a fan of Danny Gonzalez or Jarvis Johnson reacting to terrible movies? Find an equivalent of them in your TLO. You like makeup tutorials or storytime videos? Look up ‘GRWM in Korean’, ‘メイクのチュートリアル’  or ‘storytime em português’. Or maybe you enjoy a good book review, or a review trashing 50 Shades of Gray for the tenth time in a row. ‘Reseña de 50 shades of gray’. Your language doesn’t need to be perfect, even the most basic vocabulary will get the point across and lead you to plenty of videos to choose from.

Vlogs, art, anime, song covers, Animal Crossing streams/speed builds etc. etc. It doesn’t matter. Use the amount of vocab you already know (or quickly searched on google) and make the youtube search bar your new best friend.

The same can be applied to other social media platforms like Twitter or Instagram. If you like anime, find those anime news accounts on twitter but in French. If you enjoy content that discuss all things concerning the LGBTQ+ community, look up the equivalent terms in your TLO and start your search for those content creators.

This is a more interesting way to pick up on new vocabulary whether spoken or written, in a video and its comment section or on an Instagram caption.

Watch a show you’ve already seen, dubbed or subtitled in your TLO

If you’re a fan of anime or a user of Disney+, you are especially in luck. Shows like Boku no Hero Academia/My Hero Academia or The Owl House have been dubbed and subtitled all over in various languages due to their popularity. You can find entire episodes of the Moomin anime in Spanish on youtube.

You already know what’s going on because you’ve seen it in your native tongue, so you can pick and choose the least niche vocabulary and write it down on your notepad. Not to mention, this it is something you already like you might pay a bit more attention to it.

Additional tip: find a show in your TLO on Netflix subtitled in your language. Like murder mysteries? Rom-coms? Comedies? Netflix has a plethora of foreign films to watch that caters to various genres that could be in a language you’re learning. Try watching a foreign show with a plot that garners your interest.

Listen to Music in your TLO

We all have genres of music we enjoy listening to and there are usually singers of those genres in other countries. Rap, hip hop, pop, folk music specific to a country, you will find it somewhere. Just go to youtube search something like like ‘hip hop spanish’ and just click on one of those automatic playlist things youtube will suggest to you.

By doing that, I’ve found artists I personally enjoy listening to this day like IZA, Seu Jorge, Kaho Nakamura, Chila Lynn and Maluma.

Use Buzzfeed. I wish I was joking

Buzzfeed is certainly not the titan of the internet it used to be. And to quote Cody Ko, a lot of the times (especially nowadays) they tend to “Buzzfeed us some terrible content”. But the simple language and formatting of Buzzfeed articles and quizzes, make it a surprisingly effective way to learn new vocabulary.

Just by doing a ‘Which member of Anavitória are you ’(Quem é você no duo Anavitória?) quiz on Buzzfeed Brazil I was able to learn the Portuguese equivalents of red (vermelho), black (preto), yellow (amarelo), & white (branco) and Brazilian celebrities, among other vocab. A lot of the time videos on the youtube channels are either subtitled in the language or there are videos unique to those channels in the language.

This way, especially if you’re not a fan of Buzzfeed, you can laugh about the cringe in a different language while getting something out of it. Buzzfeed gets views and interactions, you get education and a good laugh. It’s mutually beneficial for everyone involved.

Try learning a little bit about a country that speaks your TLO or some Colloquialisms

Regardless of how anti-social some of us, myself included, can be I think deep down we all care about other people even if we don’t know them. We like seeing others succeed, we hate seeing others struggling, and to some extent we all recognize there is a shit ton of people living in the world that we don’t know. 

We don’t know anything about them and we don’t know their language or anything about the culture they grew up in. A culture that shapes how they interact with and view the world and how they may view people who come from your country. I feel like we all experience levels of sonder like that, especially if you’re someone who watches a lot of vlog content which really puts into perspective how you are seeing a small window into someone else’s life even if for a few minutes.

So try personalizing your TLO to some degree by learning about a country or culture that speaks it. 

Holidays, cultural quirks, historical figures, or idioms. You get some of that if you’re taking a language class, but try taking it outside your textbook.

Interested in art and learning Spanish? Try learning about artists from Equatorial Guinea and why they made a particular piece.

Interested in the aesthetic of weddings? Learn about wedding traditions in countries that speak your TLO.

Learning Turkish? Look up interesting factoids about certain words and phrases and their translations. For instance, the words for ‘Good Morning’ (günaydın) and ‘Good Night’ (tünaydın) respectively and literally translate to “the day is bright” and “the night is bright”.

In Brazilian Portuguese, there’s a phrase “ficar de conchinha”/”dormir de conchinha that means to cuddle that translates to “stay/sleep like little shells” which is really adorable. Another way to say Halloween is Dia das Bruxas which translates to ‘day of the witches’ and Dia dos Namorados which translates to ‘day of the lovers’.

One thing that also really developed my interest in Latin America when I was learning Spanish was looking at vlogs and seeing people walking around in their cities and noticing the differences in architecture. I also enjoy watching no commentary videos of people walking in different cities and feeling like I’m in that country myself seeing the sights and sceneries. (Ex ‘walking in Venice Italy, no commentary’.)

Look up Memes & the Meme Culture of your TLO

Everyone loves a good laugh so try to get some appreciation out of your TLO by learning about some of the memes or jokes. And not all jokes or memes are appreciated unless you know a specific language and culture that goes along with it.

For instance, when my at-the-time girlfriend told me about a little show called La Rosa de Guadalupe. Which she prefaced that, at least in Mexico the show’s origin country, it was a huge meme of a show because it was in a novela-like format with bad acting to go along with serious topics. One episode she told me about specifically was an episode about a girl with a cellphone addiction that escalated to a point where her mom threw her phone out the window, and then the girl jumped out the window for the phone. But through the power of a white rose and La Virgen de Guadalupe, her problems were solved.

It sounded so ridiculous, I had to see it for myself. So she sent me a video by a youtuber, Missasinphonia, who made commentary/reaction videos in Spanish about the show. 

It’s hard to be disinterested in a language if you’re getting a laugh out of it. And even if you don’t understand most of what’s being said, the visuals alone can lead to a laugh due to body language and tone giving you an idea of what’s going on. This especially becomes true as you learn more vocab that makes the videos or captions of a meme easier to understand.

Tldr:

Find content creators in your TLO that talk about things you enjoy

Watch things you’ve already seen in your TLO (dubbed, subbed, or both)

Listen to Music in your TLO

Use Buzzfeed, I wish I was joking

Try learning a little bit about a country that speaks your TLO or Colloquialisms

Look up the Meme Culture of your TLO

And that’s it. I hope this helps someone out. I’ve always seen posts or videos about how to enhance your language learning experience for languages you’re already interested in, but never anything about a language you’re NOT interested in. So I wanted to do something with that.

Like I said, this is by no means, tips to make you 100% fall in love with your TLO. I did with Spanish, but that’s not going to be the case for everyone else and the moment you no longer have to learn/use your TLO, you’re going to forget it quite quickly.

But hopefully, these are tricks that can help it become a bit more tolerable to learn.

[ruyis]

Due parole su Guardian

Mi ero detta che non avrei scritto manco mezza parola su questa serie avendo già speso tempo ed energie per scrivere commenti e commenti su Reset.

Ma il finale... l'aver scoperto la vera storia del romanzo e tutte le pippe mentali che sono uscite dopo che l'ho finito, mi hanno portato a voler almeno sfogarmi un pò.

Guardian è una serie "fatta male".

A differenza di Word of Honor dove la scrittura dei personaggi ed i due lead sono per me la cosa peggiore ma visivamente e musicalmente era fatta da Dio, Guardian pecca su altri frangenti:

Prima di tutto, tutto il comparto scenografico/comparse. Difficile sentirmi immersa nella guerra quando i nemici sono tre di numero. Quando i tizi del sottosuolo che dovrebbero essere un popolo, sono rappresentati da quattro stronzi messi lì per fare scena. Oppure quando durante la guerra, fanno vedere fumo e cadaveri per le strada ma dei cattivi manco l'ombra.

Immaginate la battaglia del Fosso di Helm in LOTR dove sulle mura sono in tre persone contate. E fuori una decina di orchi. Vi da l'idea di battaglia/tensione/ansia? a me fa ridere e basta.

Il secondo problema è la trama. Piena di buchi, forzature, clichè e roba inspiegabile. Ovviamente essendoci di mezzo la magia, nulla deve essere spiegato: come in the Untamed

Vengono creati oggetti magici per portare la pace ma non si sa come dovrebbero attuare questo grande pace. Oggetti che funzionano solo con Yun Lan e Chu, ma solo a momenti e quando pare a loro. I tizi del sottosuolo che dopo la guerra di anni e anni fa, vanno volontariamente a vivere sotto terra e non si sa perché...e poi dirette video presente/passato, Re del sottosuolo nominati random...

Io ormai non mi stupisco più per la inspiegabilità di come funzioni la magia nelle serie cinesi: tre ne ho viste ed in tutte e tre vigeva la regola del "funziona così e zitti."

La storia generale è comunque seguibile - anche grazie ad un salto della Fede - e piena di spunti anche interessanti ma ahimè non approfonditi.

Purtroppo mi è mancata tutta la tensione/angoscia/angst che solitamente permette di sentirsi emotivamente attaccati ad una serie.

Fino al finale almeno. Il finale è un tripudio di angoscia, lacrime e disperazione, nonché di ???? grossi come cavalli.

Se c'è una cosa che sopporto poco è il non capire il finale. Può piacermi, non piacermi, posso trovarlo ridicolo o il migliore del mondo, può essere aperto, può non esserci - Die Now docet - ma devo almeno capire COME sia...cosa è successo.

Lo ammetto, il finale non l'ho capito. Dopo la battaglia contro il fratello di Shen Wei vediamo Shen Wei stesso - vestito come nel passato, che anziché prendere a randellate suo fratello - se lo porta via. A casa dice lui. C'è poi Yun Lan che deve risolvere il problema del sottosuolo che si sta distruggendo e si parla dello stoppino della lanterna. Ho quindi pensato che Yun Lan si fosse sacrificato per essere lo stoppino e salvare quel mondo. Svenuto, riescono a portarlo in superficie dove lo ritroviamo qualche anno dopo, vivo e vegeto ma ci dicono che " non è il vero Yun Lan". Nel mentre si capisce che l'ospite del padre di Yun Lan se ne è andato ed nonsisaperché il padre sembra buono e gentile proprio come il suo ospite.

E per concludere - scena finalissima - Shen Wei e Yun Lan nella stanza dello Spirito e del Tempo presumo, si incontrano e guardandosi languidi languidi, si dicono che ci incontreranno di nuovo.

Fine.

TU NON PUOI CAPIRE QUANTE DOMANDE HO!

1) Perché Shen Wei non ha accoltellato/ammazzato/preso a sprangate suo fratello? o perché suddetto fratello non è stato punito dopo che ha scatenato guerre, morte e distruzione per due mondi diversi? L'amorevole fratellino lo ha accoltellato al cuore, assorbito e stava per digerirlo. Ma Shen Wei punta alla santità a quanto pare.

2) Perché tutta la motivazione del fratello di Shen Wei si doveva reggere su un fraintendimento risolvibile in 10 minuti a tavolino?

3) Perché Shen Wei riappare come nel passato per portarsi via il fratello?

4) questione Lanterna/Stoppino. Un'agonia. A quanto dice l'ospite del padre di Yun Lan chi fa lo stoppino deve sacrificarsi bruciando eternamente mentre si reincarna più volte. Mi sbaglio? ora manco mi ricordo. Ma visto che la serie inserisce questa questione, ho ipotizzato che Yun Lan scegliesse questa strada e che diventasse lo stoppino. Ma avevo anche inteso che non sarebbe più tornato alla sua vita di prima. Cioè, fa l'investigatore e contemporaneamente lo stoppino?

Siccome sta storia è simile a Dark Souls, mi aspettavo un qualcosa di questo tipo, con Yun Lan che sparisce per fare lo stoppino.

5) e perché dicono che "non è il vero Yun Lan"? è metaforico? la morte di Shen Wei ha "ucciso" anche Yun Lan portandogli via la gioia di vivere?

6) La scena dove i due lead si incontrano, quando è collocata? Shen Wei è morto e ok. Ma Yun Lan? è un sogno? una visione?

Ne avrei a dozzine di domande così ma è proprio tutto questo ad avermi spinto a vagare sul web nella speranza di capirci di più. E quello che ho "scoperto" mi ha spinto a scrivere tutto questo:

1) Prima di tutto, senza poche sorprese, Guardian è clamorosamente un BL ma per via della censura si è ben pensato di trasformarlo in bromance. Si è pensato... ma non ci sono riusciti manco per il cazzo. Se c'è una cosa che Guardian ha fatto bene, che risolleva totalmente questo drama è la storia tra i due lead. Shen Wei e Yun Lan amoreggiano con lo sguardo e non hanno bisogno di fare scene d'amore: loro sono scene d'amore.

Ammetto di averli shippati come poche cose in questa vita.

2) La serie ha avuto problemi di budget. A quanto ho capito chi aveva i soldi per girare la serie è fallito a metà e quindi si è dovuto continuare con pochissimo budget. Questo spiega la povertà e la poraccitudine, le poche comparse e la terribile CGI.

3) Guardian è ripreso da un romanzo Web BL. Alla The Untamed style per intenderci. Mi sono vista tutto un video dove spiegano la differenza tra romanzo e serie tv e tralasciando le cose che non ho capito perché l'inglese davvero non fa per me, quello che ho compreso è che la storia narrata dalla serie è nettamente differente dal libro.

Prima di tutto nel romanzo c'è tutta una parte ambientata nell'epoca mitologica, essenziale per comprendere la relazione tra Shen Wei e Yun Lan, nonché la loro storia, poteri ed identità. Inoltre gli stessi personaggi sono stati modificati. Non solo i due lead ma anche i membri del SID. Così come è stata modificata l'ambientazione se così si può dire: al posto di talismani e fantasmi... alieni e tecnologia.

Se nel romanzo Yun Lan aveva poteri di chiaroveggenza e vedeva i fantasmi, nonché aveva mille oggettini per combattere il male - diciamo così - nella serie tv è dotato solo di una pistola che è un pò poco. Ma d'altronde i suoi nemici, nella serie tv, sono gente normale con i super poteri mentre nel romanzo ha davvero a che fare con roba più sovrannaturale.

La serie tv infatti inizia con un preambolo - confuso come poche cose - che si riassume con tre popolazioni che vivono sulla Terra. Una è quella degli umani, una è quella delle Tribù e l'altra è quella del sottosuolo.

E mi fa ridere come nel video che ho visto, non si parli assolutamente di questo. A quanto ho capito quelli del sottosuolo, disegnati come una civiltà con regole, bar, taverne, Reggia ed una società, nel romanzo siano esseri d'energia oscura - come Shen Wei - ma che poco ricordino una società simile a quella umana. Tanto che nella storia originale a Shen Wei viene vietato di avvicinarsi a Yun Lan perché la sua energia oscura gli avrebbe potuto fare male.

In sintesi se non ho capito male, la storia di base di Guardian è completamente diversa dalla sua realizzazione video.

E a sto punto mi chiedo: era necessario fare un drama così? che snatura completamente la sua identità/trama/personaggi per raccontare una storia che ricorda vagamente l'originale? Cioè è come fare Percy Jackson e Gli dei dell'Olimpo senza mitologia greca. Dove in realtà gli dei sono alieni con superpoteri ecc ecc.

Non fraintendetemi: a me questa serie è piaciuta. Mi ha fatto divertire e su finale mi è pure scesa una lacrimuccia. Ho amato Shen Wei e Yun Lan e adorato i ragazzi del SID.

Ma adesso vorrei leggermi il romanzo per capire davvero tutte le differenze con la serie - perché alcune le ho sicuramente scazzate - e per comprendere la vera storia.

[ruyis]

Pronunciation Advice for Language Learners: How to Figure Out What You're Doing Wrong

The other day, my friend @calystarose was struggling with the phrase 出去吃 chūqùchī (go out to eat). This is a tongue twister for a lot of native English speakers. Even if we manage to get the individual vowels and consonant sounds correct, we often have a hard time stringing the words together.

I thought about the problem for a bit and then I told her to try saying it with her teeth clenched:

Why would that help?

Clenching your teeth forces you to hold your jaw still, and limits the amount of space your tongue has to move around. You can still make roughly the same sounds you were making before, but the new limitation forces you to make those sounds with smaller muscle movements.

Smaller movements reduce the amount of time and effort it takes to get from one syllable to the next.

.

Talking fast is more about efficiency than speed.

.

ɪᴘᴀ ᴋᴇʏʙᴏᴀʀᴅ ʀᴇꜰᴇʀᴇɴᴄᴇ ᴄʜᴀʀᴛ ᴍsᴋʟᴄ_ɪᴘᴀɢʀᴀᴘʜɪᴄ.ᴘᴅꜰ [sᴏᴜʀᴄᴇ]

When I first started taking French lessons, I had an easy time pronouncing words like "grand" and "robe." But then I ran into the word "livre," and suddenly I was getting tongue tied.

I realized my r was too far back in my throat. Too guttural.

This worked for a word like "grand" where the r is next to a g, a gutteral consonant. A consonant like v, on the other hand, is right at the front of the mouth, on the teeth.

If I wanted to say "livre" smoothly, I'd have to push my r further forward in my mouth, closer to that letter.

.

There's almost always more than one way to make your mouth form a particular vowel or consonant sound.

.

I noticed a while back that I say these letters t & d differently depending on whether I'm trying to speak English or Mandarin.

My t's and d's are little firmer in Mandarin than they are in English — my tongue is held stiffer, and the tip is more pointed when it comes into contact with my hard palate.

The funny thing is, I can't really hear a difference.

But I can feel the difference in my mouth when I shape the letters.

I never made a conscious decision to change how I say these consonants when speaking Mandarin — this is just something I naturally started doing when mimicking the recorded dialogue in my Duolingo audio lessons.

I realized it wasn't about getting the consonants to sound correct.

It was about what came after those consonants. The vowel sounds:

Chinese vowels are really different from English vowels. By changing how I shaped these consonants, I was setting up my mouth for a smoother transition into the next vowel sound.

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Proper enunciation isn't just about making the right sounds come out of your mouth. It's also about transitioning from one sound to the next as fluidly as possible.

[ruyis]

Hiya, sorry to bother you again but I just wanted to ask a quick question. I have dysgraphia (which makes it pretty painful for me to write any more than a page) but I'm also learning mandarin chinese, so obvi there's a lot of handwriting practice involved with that. Would it hinder my studies if I were to not practice handwriting and stroke orders as much as I should be?

Hey, no worries at all! I'm sick atm so have lots of time to spend on Tumblr :)

I can't talk much about dysgraphia in particular as I don't have any experience of that, but I can give you my thoughts on learning to practice handwriting in general!

Quick answer: unless you specifically need to handwrite for a particular purpose, handwriting isn't a necessary skill for modern living. Not being able to handwrite won't hinder your progress in the language in general. However, what will hinder your progress is not having a solid understanding of / foundation in how characters work. You CANNOT neglect this, regardless of whether you handwrite or not.

Longer answer:

The main question: what are you learning Chinese for? If you're not learning it for calligraphy or attending a Chinese university, chances are you just won't need to handwrite. Ever. I'm not saying that's ideal - it's kind of shit to be stuck without the ability to write on paper -, but at the end of the day, unless you clearly need it, learning to handwrite in Chinese is a very, very long process.

There are plenty of advantages of learning to write by hand (greater character recognition, facilitates memorisation etc), but if practicing is actively painful, I'd be worried that it could kill your love of the language - and nothing is worth that.

I'm perhaps biased, because I literally cannot write more than about twenty characters by hand. And that's not an exaggeration. Genuinely the most complicated character I can write by hand is probably 我. I did know once but now can't even remember how to write 晨曦 , which is part of my Chinese name. Ok, that's not really a good thing, and yes I feel mortally ashamed every time I admit that, but look, why else am I am on the internet if not to bare my sins for all to see...

I also won't be changing this state of affairs any time soon. Why? Because I don't learn in a formal classroom environment; because all my interaction with Chinese speakers is either spoken or via the computer, where I can type; because not being able to handwrite hasn't affected my reading or typing abilities at all; because taking the time to learn to handwrite for me, personally, just isn't worth it.

If you're learning it at school, university or some other formal setting and a regular part of tests are hand-written, then unfortunately learning to handwrite might be necessary. There are still, however, some ways to get around handwriting as much: asking to use a computer instead of handwriting in class is a reasonable accommodation and one that, if you are diagnosed with dysgraphia, the school legally should not be able to deny you. If it's for an exam, there should similarly be accommodations available: Chinese can be typed on all keyboards with just the quick installation of a pinyin keyboard.

Similarly, if you need to practice you could consider using an application like Skritter which lets you handwrite things into your phone - I don't know if this would be helpful with dysgraphia, but it's an alternative option and very well loved as a type of spaced repetition software. Perhaps worth looking into.

HOWEVER. However. Just because you don't handwrite often doesn't mean you shouldn't learn how characters are structured. Failing to learn about this will severely curtail your learning in the long-run. Characters are made up of phonetic and semantic components, and knowledge of those means that a) you can remember characters far easier, b) you can remember what they mean, and c) you can guess or be given a clue to how they're pronounced.

I did write an overview of this but I can't find it, so have a look at this instead: https://ninchanese.com/blog/2016/06/29/chinese-character-phonetic-components/

Since you mentioned stroke order, I'm assuming you're fairly early on in the learning process. Do you still need to learn stroke order even if you're not handwriting? YES. Yes, you do. I never handwrite usually, but I need stroke order for a) looking up characters I don't know in the dictionary on my phone, where the wrong stroke order means the software likely won't recognise it, and b) being able to copy words for whatever reason. I don't handwrite characters by memory, but I have the ability to copy them: I think this is hugely important for writing down vocabulary you see in the wild if you don't have your phone on you, as well as a myriad of other reasons. Knowing stroke order also hugely helps reading other people's handwriting, where strokes that follow on from each other are often joined in a (terribly, confusingly, awfully) squiggly way.

And now that I know stroke order, it means that if I ever do decide to learn to write by hand, the whole process will go much smoother.

On a similar note, I am very much of the opinion that again, regardless of whether you're going to handwrite long-term, everybody should learn the most basic radicals, phonetic and semantic components. Skritter does that; there are even Anki decks. Whichever way you choose is hugely important for your future ability to write if you ever have to, as well as your memory and understanding of characters. Your visual memory and reading comprehension will be vastly improved the moment you look at characters as units of meaning combined, often, of smaller units of meaning - rather than random squiggles.

Spend some time familiarising yourself with the different types of characters, the radicals, the common phonetic and semantic components (just google these and there are 2000 resources out there), as well as stroke order. This is all crucial, even if you don't learn to write by hand.

But as for hand-writing itself? I personally don't need it; you might not either. No matter the benefits handwriting has, the most important thing is that you enjoy learning, and keep moving forwards. If handwriting hurts you and is threatening your love of the language - it's not worth it.

I hope that helps!

- meichenxi out

[ruyis]

One of my favourite Chinese mandarin podcasts ‘Loud Murmurs/小声喧哗’ will no longer be updating their show. They’re leaving up their podcasts for another two days (as time of writing this).

They’re an excellent podcast for learning mandarin especially for intermediate to advance learners. They’ve covered a wide range of topics over the past four years. I suggest you download the eps on their website here: https://loudmurmurs.buzzsprout.com/ before everything gets taken down!

[ruyis]

Expression of the day

Dire in giro

Traduzione: To go around telling people / to go around saying

Ad esempio: Per favore non dica in giro che non ti è piaciuto!

Translation: Please don’t go around telling people/saying that you didn’t like it!

Ad esempio: Potrebbe dire in giro le cose sbagliate

Translation: He could tell people/go around saying the wrong things

[ruyis]

Hi! I'm in sixth form right now, and I'm a huge lover of languages. I have ADHD and languages are the only thing that can get me to actually sit down and study (which doesn't bode well for my other classes but ah well). The thing is, my ADHD makes it difficult to get started and stick to a proper plan, because I get bored very easily. Do you have any advice for studying a language with ADHD?

Hiii!

Ah, yeah, the good old 'I adore this thing but to do this thing you need structured study' problem. I have exactly the same problem! I preach about the importance of Anki and I know my languages would be better if I just stuck to the same routine every day, but I seem to be chronically incapable of forming habits, and as much as I try and be accepting of my own limitations, sometimes that's very frustrating. Here are some tips I have from my experience with languages and ADHD - some of these may contradict each other, and only speak from my own experience.

1) Their way of studying is not worthier

I don't know if this is causing you distress or not, but regardless: one of the first things to consider is simply that what works for them - a specific routine, self-motivated study - might not work for you. Study plans are not designed for people with ADHD. Any well-meaning advice your parents, friends or teachers give you might similarly not be meant for people with ADHD. What does this mean? That there is nothing intrinsically better about studying in one way if it doesn't work for you, so stop beating yourself up if you can't follow that. Stop worrying if you are not studying as efficiently or as effectively. If trying to study in a specific way - like keeping the same habits every day - is stopping you from studying at all, how is that more effective than studying in front of the TV or whilst jogging??

Ok, true, if I did manage to plan my studying weeks in advance and stick to that every week, my languages would be better than they are now. I know that 100%. But I also know that the longest I have ever successfully done any flashcards was about twenty days, and that if I plan what I'm going to study I just end up spinning around in my spinny chair for thirty minutes or gnawing absently on my hairbrush.

I have been struggling with trying to keep a routine with exercise, cooking, teaching, writing, learning languages, reading and talking to friends for years. And I've always felt so frustrated with myself and like a complete idiot for finding things like 'remember to shower' and 'clean your fucking room' so hard.

But I think I'm beginning to understand myself better now. I completed NaNoWriMo last month and it was life-changing - I have never stuck with a habit that long!! And I realised why: it's because during NaNo, I wasn't trying to juggle twenty different hobbies and interests every day (because that's how you're 'supposed to do it'), but just focusing on work and writing. Just one thing, intensely, for a month! For ages I have known that's how I learn best, but I've been unwilling to implement it because that's not the 'best' or 'most effective' way to learn.

You know what though? If it gets you learning, it gets you learning. There is no 'right' way to do it. ADHD often exhibits alongside anxiety and perfectionism, especially if you're used to being good at school, have never had to learn how to learn and have planned your life to the Nth degree because you can't function otherwise. If this is you, your brain may try and tell you it's not correct to learn in X way - but the advice that you find online literally was not written for you. Don't be surprised if following it feels frustrating.

At school you may not have the flexibility to work on something for an extended period of time, but my point still stands: any learning is a good thing, and you know yourself the best. Try and look at it that way, rather than focusing too much on what is optimal.

2) Try and implement external structure into your routine

Speaking of knowing yourself. I struggle immensely with empty days and nebulous goals - but at the same time hate structure. What the fuck brain. I don't know if you're learning for school or pleasure, but either way, try and tack your language learning habits on to habits that already exist. For example if you're walking to school - listen to a podcast. If you have to do homework every night - put on a playlist and do languages after that after your homework is done. If you're on the bus - do Duolingo. When you're waiting for your brother to come out of swimming - read fanfic in Spanish. Even if it's an hour of complete self-study, you can still tack it onto another habit that exists, preferably one that involves exercise or social interaction or something different. I know just how hard habits are to form, but this is one of the only ways that has been effective for me. I can never plan in advance what exactly I'm going to study, but I try to plan when I will study at least. 

The best kind of external structure, of course, is other people. Join a discord server where you can study together. Arrange to test each other on vocabulary every week with your friends. Get one of your friends to message you aggressively every week to check you've done your homework. Study with a friend who will literally take your phone and not give it back until you have finished.

3) It's not cheating to use software and technology to help

This is what I wish I had been told earlier. IT'S NOT CHEATING. If you have a problem with controlling your time, then don't let yourself have that problem. We live in the modern age!! Use technology to help you! Here are some I personally use and recommend:

- Habitica: this gamifies your to-do lists, and helps you earn points. This is great because you can put both things like homework on here as well as you know. Basic tasks like showering and tidying my room which I still find inordinately difficult.

- Discord study groups: these let you share your SCREEN!!! And because you're in a group full of random internet people you cannot go on social media unless you want to be axe-murdered. You just can't. In these groups you can also form little groups that keep you accountable every day - I was in a group of four who all studied at the same time every day online, and we shared both our cameras and our screens. You can't mess around when you have someone who is literally looking over your shoulder the whole time.

- Freedom: my saviour, my beloved, my one great love. This you do have to pay for but oh my god, it's the most worth-it purchase I have ever made in my life. You add blocklists and you can control what websites you can access when on your phone and your laptop, and they don't have to be the same. For example during my last year of university I only allowed myself access to Tumblr for 30 minutes a day, and it may have just saved my bacon.

- Chrome extensions: for example Pause, which makes you wait for ten seconds before going to any social media site. It still lets you go! But it stops that impulsive scrolling.

4) Utilise your special interests, and don't neglect input

The great thing about languages is that once you're at a certain level, you can do anything you can do in your mother tongue. What does that mean? FANFIC. Youtube. Music. Dnd. Tv programs. THE POSSIBILITIES ARE INFINITE. Of course there are times when you just need to study verb tables, but the majority of people fail at languages A-level or GCSE because they don't have enough input. You're still young; your brain is still spongey! One of the best things you can do, regardless of neurodiversity, is to pump it aggressively full of information. Bad at listening? After 300 hours of dnd...you'll get better.

And you, my friend, have an advantage the neurotypical does not: use your hyper fixations!! I had to speed-run my Spanish A-level in about three or four months for Reasons, and one of the reasons I succeeded without any teacher input was because I was hyperfixating on minimalism at the time. I listened to probably every single video on minimalism on Spanish YouTube. HUNDREDS of hours of podcasts on packing and lightweight travelling and minimalism and Marie Kondo...I haven't thought about minimalism in years, but at the time, that was what did it for me. Use them!! (Of course, if the language itself is your hyper fixation, so much the better, but you can't always control that...)

Please, for the love of god, if you have a tumblr and are a fan - read fan fiction. Hell, write fan fiction. Learning languages doesn't have to be boring!! I wrote pages and pages and PAGES of Silmarillion fanfic in German and look, now I'm applying to do a German-speaking Master's.

One final point here: Yes, random vocabulary about minimalism and packing cubes isn't going to help your A-level. But the sentence structures surrounding it, the constant listening practice, everything else will. So don't worry if your interests are niche or 'irrelevant'. I was obsessed with translations of Homer into German for a while and in my listening exam one of the points hinged on the word 'vanguard', so, you know. You never know!

5) Utilise The Scroll

Do you spend too much time aimlessly on your phone? So do I. Apart from just deleting all the apps from your phone and going cold turkey (which I did, apart from email and messenger, and it’s been pretty successful) there are two things you can do:

- Install social media / reddit / YouTube etc from the country whose language you’re studying. If you reach for your phone first thing in the morning to get into The Scroll, well, that’s thirty minutes of reading. 

- Let yourself watch and consume as much social media / Netflix / YouTube as you want, but try and restrict yourself to only doing so in your target language. 

- You can also buy a kindle! This has CHANGED EVERYTHING for me. I’m fundamentally a lazy person. I like scrolling and I like the dark and I like the shiny screen! But downloading books onto my kindle (from places like zlibrary *cough cough*) means that that’s the first thing I reach for in the morning - I literally sleep with it under my pillow, and I read for 30 minutes in the morning instead. I have made sure to download lots of fanfic onto there too for the times when I just can’t concentrate on anything longer; either way, it stops me scrolling through my phone. You can utilise this with languages too - download Harry Potter or the Little Prince or Lord of the Rings or anything you know well and love, or even fanfic, and read that instead of scrolling. It might not work for you, but I find I end up reading genuinely about 10 times more daily if I use my kindle rather than an actual book, because I can eat and read, lie down and read, jump around and read, walk and read...

6) Shake it up: incorporate movement and stimulus and PEOPLE

Most likely routine is boring!!! And most likely, at school, you are also somewhat bored!! Even if you’re a die-hard introvert like I am, talking to other people in your target language is the best way to stay motivated, and it measures real progress, not just vocabulary stats. Get an exchange partner. Join a discord server. Make friends with somebody in that country if you can. Organise a twice-weekly call.

Re movement: learning doesn’t have to be static. Listen to podcasts and audiobooks on the go - they will help your listening skills no end. You can go for a walk around the block every hour or so to get yourself moving, and whilst you do so, why not listen to American Gods in Spanish? Or whatever floats your boat. Do YouTube workout videos in that language. Anything which tricks your brain into realising that a language is a system of communication that real people use, not just for school. Of course, all of this is easier if you are somewhat intermediate at least. But there are plenty of beginner videos and podcasts too! Use a Youtube converter and download them onto your phone, and listen again and again as you go shopping or wait at the bus stop. 

7) Run a blog (no, seriously)

Just something to consider. It’s time-wasting, but also it builds a community of accountability and explaining things to people is fun! I personally make it a rule though not to post when I’m not studying too much - I think it’s hypocritical otherwise, which is why this blog sometimes goes quiet for a few months at a time. 

6) Understand if you are overstimulated or under stimulated, and adapt accordingly. Gamify your learning!

Habitica is good for for gamifying habits, but also basic things like washing up and cleaning. Memrise and Quizlet, whilst probably not as effective as Anki, are much more fun - I use them for that reason even though Anki is probably better, because I know I’ll actually USE quizlet. 

I don’t think any advice I can give you for being overstimulated or under stimulated is going to particularly help, since I’m sure you’ll know what works and what doesn’t for you. For me personally I’ve learnt gradually that if I’m really under stimulated VERY few things are going to be able to make me study - most of the time it’s just not worth pushing through. So I take a break and run around for fifteen minutes, or punch my pillow listening to insane loud music. That sort of thing. 

If I have to study in that state, though, learning languages is one of the few things that works. If you have quizlet or can test yourself online on verb conjugation, this is the PERFECT moment for it - it’s fast, it’s furious, you don’t actually have to think that much, but doing rapid-fire conjugation or translation whilst listening to repetitive, loud music is one of the only things that is even a little bit useful that I can do. 

Learning to recognise your own moods and tailoring your learning accordingly is hugely important, and probably the best thing you can do in the long run for your own mental health. Sometimes you just need to take a break - and that might not come at the same stimuli or with the same clues as neurotypical people. 

----

Alright, I hope that’s somewhat useful! I apologise for the long, ironically non-ADHD friendly post (though it means I get to info-dump hehe). If you take anything away from this, I hope you can take away the idea that finding what works for you is better in every single way than trying to persevere with trying habits that you have never successfully built. 

A hard message, but - if it hasn’t worked so far, maybe it’s time to try something different. 

Best of luck with everything - learning languages is hard, and it’s even harder when your brain won’t shut up. Kudos to you for persevering!!!

- meichenxi out

[ruyis]

Characters that shouldn’t: a collection

丐.  仄.  叩.  瓦. 咫. 曰. 厄. 凹 and 凸. also 乒 and 乓. 

there are many, many characters that shouldn’t. shouldn’t what, you ask? good question. they just shouldn’t. 

in my head there are 3 categories of said characters, and I apologise to the discord server that has heard this before:

1) FAKE

the characters above, which just. do not look like any kind of characters that can possibly be real units of phonetic and semantic meaning. what the fuck are 凹 and 凸 doing??? that can’t be real???

2) ELDRITCH

the mesmerising Old Ones characters that are so deeply, perfectly symmetrical you can see yourself falling into their moth-like eyes. see further 噩 and 恶 and 垩 and 鼎. these characters will be the last you ever see before succumbing to the many-tentacled Void 

and

3) GRAPHIC DESIGN IS MY PASSION

the characters that are just so hideously unbalanced or proportioned that I think either an extra simplification or conversely a traditionalisation should be in order to fix whatever some god in nappies accidentally failed at in his celestial calligraphy class. notable examples include 寝， 惩罚，and I gotta be honest with you here 嘴

Please reblog and comment with your own Characters That Shouldn’t: Fake, Eldritch or Graphic Design. Please take this study seriously. We must broaden their ranks.

no but seriously I want to make a database or at least uhhh a list of stupid characters. audience interaction desired. the spider is watching.