#a lot of people online are not native English speakers

[snakesarefuckingcute]

The issue with learning english almost exclusively from social media is that sometimes you learn a phrase - say, "big if true" - and assume it is like any other phrase you've seen around. Then you say it, completely earnestly, and find out very fast that it is *not* a normal phrase for serious conversation.

Anyway "big if true" is a meme^2 in my friend group now.

[snarp]

The weird ways 15-to-25-year-old fiction writers use the English language because they don't read OEL books; they learn plot/scene structure from episodic serial narratives that are drawn out for years (usually not purely text-based) and/or require digging through auxiliary materials to piece together important details; learn words and phrases from video content without seeing how they're spelled/formatted in text......... This Will Have Consequences.

[olderthannetfic]

No, ppl, VPNs aren't even possible for many MANY ppl in the third world. You can't buy a VPN in a brick and mortar store, and many of us (adults who are parents of kids in schools and everything) don't even own credit cards. Many who do still cannot afford VPN because what is easily affordable to a Westerner could pay my bills for a whole month. It depends on how poorly my currency is performing against the US dollar.

Even Paypal is sth mythical. I mean, I've had pieces accepted in US magazines for what the editors said was a token payment, about 50 dollars. Man, those 50 dollars would've paid off so much! That would be a FORTUNE. But I had to waive the payment EVERY time because Paypal doesn't work in my country. Grrr.

That doesn't mean third world countries listed on the Paypal site can use it either. My country is on it but every time I filled surveys etc and they transferred the money, I couldn't get my bank to let me have it. I know a third worlder in another country who has had that happen to them too.

My heart goes out to fellow readers and writers in Malaysia. Some of the most mindblowingly beautiful fics I've ever read (they were gushed abt by Americans and Brits and Aussies so I assumed the writers were native English speakers) turned out to have been written by fellow third worlders, one of those in my own country! The idea of waking up to find my country decided to ban ao3 is just... unbearable.

I hope the Malaysians find a way around it. And I hope whoever made that horrible decision gets the worst RPF written abt them AND hears about it from their political rival.

--

Yeah, I'm always meeting fans online from certain countries: Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines. Some places just seem to produce a lot of nerds. Or maybe more people learn English? IDK. Both a lack of (popular-with-fans) local media and a lack of economic opportunity can incentivize foreign language learning, so I'm sure that's part of it along with a certain amount of randomness.

In any case, part of why AO3 is run on donations instead of having paid accounts with better features is that a lot of core fans who write the fic and make the recslists and make fandom happen turn out to be in situations where they literally cannot pay even if they have the money.

Someone who's popular might be able to get foreign friends to pay for their VPN, but even then, can they actually get access to it? Questionable.

As for the last, it will be with their political rival, and you know it! They'll have to hear from some aide. ;D

[svtskneecaps]

oh good news for those of us who only saw the english version of the french union call for testimony, or who don't speak french:

when in english they said quackity "half-heartedly" acknowledged things, in the french version the word they used was "demi-mot". having consulted a few dictionaries i THINK it's not a direct translation or at least not a wholly accurate one. from what i'm seeing, "reconnaître à demi-mot" roughly means "to admit indirectly". translation of "demi-mot" directly seems to be something like "implicitly" or "without spelling things out".

i've linked the sources where i found the translations for any english speakers who want to double check and please, any native french speaker who disagrees PLEASE tell me if you have a different translation than was provided, or have insight on the connotation!!

"half-heartedly" implies a lack of personal or emotional investment which i think got a lot of us on the defensive (certainly raised my eyebrow) but i think that's just an imperfect translation. from what i'm seeing, 'demi-mot' doesn't have those same connotations.

(incidentally, putting 'reconnaître à demi-mot' into google translate does produce 'to acknowledge half-heartedly'; no shade, to be clear, considering they're a FRENCH union i wouldn't blame them if they had to use online translation tools, and 'demi-mot' is hard to translate, at least for me)

both english and french versions of the call are linked in this post

ADDITION FROM THE REPLIES:

@selemina : "French speaker here, you are very right! In this context, it could mean "he recognized, without saying so explicitly [...]". Or it is a notion of not enough being said on a subject. There is a layer of secrecy to something said 'à demi-mot', which often implies dishonesty. Applied to this context, I think the union is suspicious of Quackity's latest declaration (probably from seeing many dishonest people in charge before) but still reporting the facts." (THANK YOU!!)

[the-modern-typewriter]

Hi! I noticed something about your writing: the way you place words together seems a bit different, like the way the characters speak, it seems different from the way I normally see people writing or speaking. I don’t know if that makes sense. Is it formal English, or maybe British English (I assume you’re British)? Sorry if this question sounds weird, I’m not a native English speaker. Also, I love your writing! It truly is captivating.

Interesting!

I live and was educated in the UK, so I write British English with a few Americanisms (we get a lot of US media over here and a lot of online spaces in general are more US-English than British) and probably a dash of influence from my being a dual national/being bilingual.

It's not particularly formal English. I'm told I write like I talk, up to a point.

Fun fact! Did you know that if I was writing in fully British English, all my dialogue would have single speech marks instead of double? E.g. 'this is dialogue.' instead of "this is dialogue."

[tokidokitokyo]

How to Improve Your Handwriting in Japanese

Learning to write in Japanese, teaching others to learn to write in Japanese, and watching Japanese people write in Japanese has taught me that it’s hard to write in Japanese. Remembering how to write the kanji in the first place is hard (especially with the ease of writing in Japanese on the computer or phone), remembering the stroke order and then figuring out how to fit the character into the space that you have - these are all difficult. And then on top of that, you don’t want these beautiful characters to look like you were bouncing up and down on a dirt road while you wrote them.

Handwriting in any language varies by person. There are people whose handwriting is sloppy in Japanese, just as in any other language. My handwriting in English isn’t perfect either, but I want my kanji to look less like shaky squiggles and more like, well, a native Japanese speaker’s characters. So I decided to break down how I go about improving my Japanese handwriting.

Practice

When you learn to write in English, you practice your letters over and over again. When you first learn kana and then kanji, it is also a good idea to write them over and over again. This helps many people to remember the characters (stroke order, spatial placement of each part of the character), and by writing the characters over and over again you will be able to write more quickly. You also won’t have to look up simple characters over and over again when you want to write a composition or a letter.

When I first started writing compositions by hand in kanji I remember looking up a character in the dictionary to check stroke order or to check how the kanji was written more often than not. This is a difficult way to write anything and takes a lot of time. Practice will help you to remember the characters and not have to stop to check your dictionary as often.

A high school friend told me that her mother would sit her down at the table every night and force her to work on her penmanship until it was what her mother deemed suitable. When we wrote our AP English essays in class, her penmanship was impeccable, although it took her much longer to write the essays than most of the other students. The result of what she considered torturous practice was amazing handwriting that made me jealous. If I had spent every night laboriously perfecting my penmanship I might also have attained that kind of handwriting - but I did not.

This is an extreme example, and I’m not saying you have to have perfect handwriting, but if improving your handwriting is something you would like to accomplish, taking the time to practice will certainly help your penmanship.

Books

There are Japanese books dedicated to this, because beautiful handwriting is desirable in all languages, but they are written in Japanese and I personally didn’t want to buy a book for this purpose.

Websites

Websites are a bit more difficult to come by because most people want to make some money off telling you their penmanship secrets. However, there are a few websites with some examples of good penmanship.

Links

Here are some online links for handwriting practice:

Chibi Musu Drill is where I look for kana practice for my toddler. They have a variety of drill print-outs that you can use to practice writing the characters correctly. This is especially helpful if you are self-studying as it helps with the shape of characters and the stroke order, and how the stroke should be finished (i.e. abrupt stop or drag and fade out to a tail). There are also tests you can print out for kanji. The site is all in Japanese.

Hiragana | Katakana | Kanji 

Seiho’s YouTube Calligraphy School - VIDEO - Only in Japanese but the videos are easy to follow since she uses a red pen to highlight where to pay attention. This is more in-depth but has helpful hints on improving your kanji balance, but you can search 字がきれいに書く方法 to get more results.

Yumefude Penji on Instagram has videos showing how to write kanji properly.

How I Practice Handwriting in Japanese

For Kana

To practice handwriting kana, I find an example of good penmanship from a website. It’s best if the example is larger, or if I can blow it up. Then I print it out with darkened font. Drill print-outs also work well as they have characters for you to trace, then space for you to practice on your own.

I put a sheet of clean paper on top of the print-out and make sure I can read the characters through the clean paper. You can also get tracing paper. Then, I trace the characters multiple times. I try to feel the flow of the character as I trace it and to note if the stroke ends abruptly (とめ), has a kink in it (はね), or if it fades out to a tail (はらい).

Lastly, I practice on my own. I use the feel of the character I traced and try to replicate it. I compare my own work to the original sample, and try to determine how to get the characters to look closer to the original sample. My character might be too skinny, too round, or have a stroke out of place. I usually only do one character at a time until I am satisfied, and then move on to the next.

For Kanji

When practicing kanji, first, I use blank paper, download genkouyoushi (Japanese composition paper), or a notebook with wider line spacing for writing practice than I would for simply writing down vocabulary or notes. You can also buy special kanji practice notebooks. I do this so that I have the space to cleanly write out kanji with more strokes, rather than having to bunch together the strokes so that I can hardly read it. This way, I can practice the strokes with more room and pay attention to how the kanji fits together.

Then, I write the character several times. I try to get a muscle memory going for the character, remembering the individual parts, the radicals, the stroke order and what the kanji means. This helps me to remember the kanji, and then to understand how the individual parts fit together.

I am careful to not copy the typewritten Japanese characters, for these are often different than the handwritten characters. Using a kanji textbook or a website where they teach handwritten kanji is the best way to learn to handwrite kanji. Some dictionary apps also show stroke order and will show the handwritten version so you can see the difference.

9 Tips for Better Handwriting

Source

1. Hold your pen properly / ぺんを正しく持つ

2. Sit with proper posture / 正しい姿勢で座る

3. Create a calm setting where you can concentrate / 落ち着いて集中できる空間を作る

4. Write using the correct stroke order / 正しい書き順で書く

     a. From the top to the bottom / 上から下へ

     b. From the left to the right / 左から右へ

5. Take care with the Stop - Wing - Sweeping Stroke / とめ・はね・はらいを丁寧に

Showing stop - wing - sweeping stroke in kanji

6. Modulate the size of the character and write slowly and carefully / 大きさにメリハリをつけながら、ゆっ��り書く

7. Make sure the characters rise to the right / 右上がりになるようにする

8. Make sure the spacing between lines is equal / 線と線の間隔が等しくなるようにする

9. Write with the intention of being read by others / 人に読まれるつもりで書く

My handwriting in Japanese is far from perfect, but when I have a chance I like to hand write characters to get a better feel for them and for their meanings. I hope this guide helps you to improve your penmanship!

[ly0nstea]

Apologies to @sleepycrowhours for stealing the tags but i want to make a point about learning irish (and I think it applies to language learning as a whole) Duolingo (especially the app, the website is better to be fair but not by much) shouldn't be your primary, or even secondary resource for language learning, it should be a supplement, like flash cards because that's basically what duolingo (Esp. the app) is. It's electronic flash cards, it's nice for vocabulary but horrible for learning grammar, it's yes or no, right or wrong, and language is more fluid than that.

In colloquial speak, if you get it more or less right, the speaker will probably get it, (especially with something as minor as séimhiú and urú which is the english equivalent to switching his/her/their, while duolingo will tell you a sentence is a complete bust if you replace gcat with chait with cat which contexually, speakers will fix themselves and probably won't even mention it to you. Not to mention language is fluid, speakers won't talk like a text book, they'll use conjunctions and phrases you dont know, they'll invent words on the fly.

You should always be learning from books, movies (Yu Ming is ainm dom or cáca milis for irish aimed at young children, an cailín ciúin for more general cinema), poetry (géibheann, an gnáthrud, etc.), music (Teir abhaile riú, oró sé do bheatha 'bhaile, an dreolín, etc.), tv (all of TG4, they have spongebob), RTE player is available for free online.

Buying an irish enlish dictionary, using focloir and teanglann, and reading grammar books will help, writing irish helps too because it makes you look up words you dont know. I had no idea how to use the subjunctive and imperative before, now i do.

All of the info i wrote about séimhiú's and urú's can be found with google, and all of my words of the day are on focloir and teanglann.

tl;dr, using only duolingo is going to give you more robotic speak that even textbook, your vocab will be kind of weird and hyper-specific (kinda like how only learning in a classroom only teaches you to speak about yourself and your family and nothing else). Read irish, write irish, live irish. Remember, you weren't taught your native tongue formally, 80% of what you learn comes from just picking up and talking to people, family, friends, teachers, and maybe 20% was taught in the first few years of school (and a lot of that is written/spelling anyway not actually communicating)

[inklessletter]

I posted this on X, and I feel kind of disloyal not saying anything in here, since I feel Tumblr as my main online residence.

I would like to expand here, where I feel safest, if you let me.

As I said, I'm not a writer. Not a talented one, at least. Maybe I could be if I work hard enough, but I have little free time and I have to diversify it since I've got plenty going on. I don't have like, the busiest life, but I work full-time and I have a little family, and friends, a dog and a house to keep. And when I'm not doing all of that, among all my personal individual hobbies, drawing is what takes most time.

And drawing--well, I can't draw a fanart without romanticizing the process. There is no fanart without a back story that I've got in my mind, that I always fall in love way too deep with it, and always have the intention to put into words, but English is hard for a non native speaker, and even harder for a impatient perfectionist. So it takes a lot of time and I am never satisfied with the results, which is massively disheartening.

So after more than a year making this fandom my home, and with, idk, twenty, thirty fanarts, that means that there are twenty or thirty stories that I've got safely and preciously stored in my heart that I barely shared with anyone.

I mean full fanfics, from beginning to end, maybe with a few loose strands that needs revisiting, but overall, completed stories. And I know I'm biased here, telling you that I love them, and maybe they're not good, but I do love them. I'm a romantic. Some of them explore the concept of home, or tropes like "the one that got away", or the survivor guilt, or keeping the balance between being who you are and acknowledging that you're wrong and rewiring some things. Some are just funny AUs, fluff or smut (I can't write smut for SHIT), some more basic, some not. Some are not even steddie.

But I love all of them, and I can't write them and they're dying with me.

So I've been thinking for a while, that maybe there is a writer out there that wants something to write but can't find inspiration, or a theme to talk about and if that's de case, and you feel like it, you can DM to me, that I will give you the whole idea, everything that I worked on and pass it on, so you can have an idea to work with.

It feels so silly being so absurdly emotional with this, since, well, it's just stories, I guess, about things and people that don't exist, and maybe they're not even good or worth to work on because it may be better works out there that treat those subjects more brilliantly, but I love them and they're important to me and if I don't do this, they're dying with me and I think that maybe those silly ideas deserve a chance.

So, well, yeah, if you are a fic writer that is looking for something to write about, you can reach me. Maybe we can help each other out.

Thank you for taking the time to read all this nonsense 💖

[ashs-nerd-den]

Daoine ar Instagram le leanúint chun an Ghaeilge a fhoghlaim

People on Instagram to follow for learning Irish

gaeilge.gachla

Posts a new vocab word each day

the_gaeilge_coach

Secondary school Irish teacher, is a bit of craic, posts reels about learning Irish in a way that is fun and captures your attention. Her work is aimed at exams, so it is great for anyone doing state exams or applying to the Hibernia, because we are the target audience. She has a free pre-recorded masterclass for Higher level leaving cert (Ardleibhéal do na hArdteist) which comes with an online booklet with an exam lay out and so many more free resources for everyone, exam students or not on her website, which shows a lot more of the great stuff that she does, because I haven't even tried half of her amazing resources, I'm still making my way through them because of how wonderful they are!!!

Gaeilge_bheo

Irish teacher in Australia, has a word of the day inniative for vocab, makes videos just chatting away about different odd things as Gaeilge, so she is great for whether you want to get your couple or words (do cúpla focail) or if you want some immersion content. She also teaches you how to tell people to feck off in Irish which is always useful as well as being a down to earth, funny, normal human being

gaeilge_i_mo_chroi

Posts videos on pronunciation for each dialect and common mistakes as well as covering content form the basics to the tuiseal ginideach and she has recently published a books (leabhair) so if you are interested in giving a bit of monetary support to some of the wonderful women providing us with such great resources, why not get yourself a nice book out of it. Bonus: She has a YouTube channel where she gives more in depth explanations of harder topics.

maire_nichurraoin

Is Gaeilgeoir í le Gaeilge connemara (She is a native Irish speaker with Connemara Irish) She has such a happy bubbly personality, which puts a smile on your face in seconds. She posts everything speaking in Irish (*IMMERSION!!!*) but don't worry, she has English captions included in the video. Even if I wasn't leaning Irish, I would still follow her for how happy I always feel after watching one of her reels. Agus is amhránaí í freisin!!! (She's a singer too!!!)

[moonllita]

My KanNao fankids 🫡 I should do Pegoryu next right?

I’m not an native English speaker so sorry for the mistakes below! I suck as writing

—

Yu Tatsumi (oldest son) 15yo

Birthday: November 25th

Love: Play guitar, his band, music

Hate: School 

Favorite color: Black 

Yu is the oldest son of the Tatsumi family. He’s not a big fan of school and his grades are not good ether but he doesn’t care very much. The only thing he care is his passion for music, he skips school but never a practice with his band. He love to go against the rules, so he dye is hair blue, got some piercings and make some modifications himself on the school uniform that most of the teachers are really not fan of. He gives a lot of trouble to his parents, that are doing their best to go trough his adolescence. But even if he doesn’t show it really often by his actions, he love them. He also like to upset his little sister for fun.

—

Noriko Tatsumi (daughter) 13yo

Birthday: April 7th

Love: Cute stuffs, animals, solving mysteries, crafting

Hate: Her older brother 

Favorite color: Blue

Noriko is the only daughter of the Tatsumi family. She’s super cheerful and she’s always full of energy. She adore cute things and love to craft outfit and gadget help by her dad. She’s want to become a super famous detective like her mom, but also the cutest detective probably influence by Rise. Her dad make her outfit and her hat that’s she’s wearing almost every day, highly inspired by her mom working outfit. Other kids at school made fun of her because of that outfit but she still keep a positive mindset all the time. 

—

Shingo Tatsumi (youngest son) 8yo

Birthday: May 19th

Love: Space, video game, goodies

Hate: People

Favorite color: Green 

Shingo is the youngest of the Tatsumi family. He’s mostly shy and have trouble to make friends in general. He doesn’t like school because he doesn’t like people, and so on he’s often alone but he doesn’t mind. With his maturity even for his age he like solitude and prefer to play video game with his online friends. He still like to studies and he have good grades that make their parents really proud. Since he aspires to become an astronaut he keeps working hard at school and love to use his telescope discreetly during the night. He’s also have a good collections of featherman figures and other goodies related to his favorite franchises.

[cripplecharacters]

Hello! Not sure where else to ask but probably it's the place. Does anyone know what adjustments can be made so that a little person could ride, say, a horse, comfortably? I want to know so that I could apply such knowledge to dragons. You see, I have a character with dwarfism, and he is about to obtain the dragon egg... The tack - as I imagine - is relatively similar at the core. So what do you think can be done here or what can I search for online? 1/2

Also is the word "liliputian" is okay to use to refer to a little person in a fantasy setting? If not so much, then what can he be called? I don't want to use word "dwarf" since we all know what English-speakers will think immediately. (In my native language, word for a little person is different from one for a fantasy creature so there is no confusion). Thank you. 2/2

Hello lovely asker!

So I am not a horse rider and tend to avoid horses because they like to eat me for some reason but I have been around them in the past and like with many hobbies for people with Dwarfism usually those types of thing would be tailored to the person.

What type of dwarfism the character has will of course play into this, but the tack would most likely be closer to that of like the ones kids use but just more modified to the person. If the character has a Disproportionate type of dwarfism this often affects the length of the legs and arms and so the stirrups and such would have to be adjusted shorter as well. Another thing is reins, the length and width are important too. A lot of people with dwarfism have small hands, so thinner reins might be an option along with adjusting length to the persons arms.

Here is a thing I found from This site that makes reins on the length and width of them.

The risk of the reins being too long is that the loop that the excess rein forms can become caught in the rider’s stirrup, which could be dangerous. If the reins are too short, the rider may not be able to slip their reins as needed over a fence, or may run out of rein when asking the horse to stretch.

The answer to this depends on the size of your hands and personal preference. Riders with small hands or children may prefer a thinner rein, such as 1/2”, while a man or a rider with bigger hands is likely to feel more comfortable holding a thicker rein such as 5/8” width. Some riders feel that a thinner rein is ‘flimsy’ and they do not feel secure with the feel these reins give, while others find a thicker rein cumbersome and feel that they cannot close their fingers around them as desired.

Here is also an article written by Korina Rothery who has Cartilage Hair Hypoplasia on adjusting a saddle for someone with dwarfism.

In the context of a horse, they're usually trained, so I'm guessing that it's going to be similar for dragons in your setting (kinda like how to train your dragon). But in that instance you usually train horses with movement like squeezing your legs etc. This might be more difficult for someone with dwarfism so I've seen that either training with Voice commands, or training some other way are always options too.

A form of leverage will be much more needed like a stool, a stepping block, or even a ramp. With a dragon in a fantasy setting I bet you could do some cool things there too. The only thing I'd avoid is having others pick them up in any way, shape, or form. Having another character take a knee to give them leverage is also another way to do it (I've had a friend do this for me when we were in a situation that I couldn't find any other way to climb up).

For the second part; If you say Dwarf I think most people would get that the character is short statured. If you make it clear that Dwarfs as a race don't exist in your fantasy universe, I think you'll be fine.

And I would avoid the word "Lilliputian" just because the diminutive nature of it is more important in the context of that word and the source of the word which originates from Gulliver's Travels is used in a more fantasy race setting. In the context they're a mythical race, but here you are trying to write a character who has dwarfism in a fantasy setting. Historical context has not done this word a much positive outlook either. The Coney island New York "liliputia", "liliputian Village", or "Midget City" is one. This word was associated with any performance in the late 1800s - early 1900s of exploiting performers who had dwarfism, a lot of them against their will or to make a living. "The liliput Troupe" is the only good use I can think of this word as the Ovitz family named themselves that, and they of course have such a history for themselves too. Do not use this word though.

But most importantly I'm curious about how you intend to describe the character? I, personally, don't see a need for the descriptors or dwarf/dwarfism especially in a fantasy setting. I wouldn't write "The man with dwarfism" it feels a bit too proper and medically to me. Instead I would say "The small man", "The man of short stature" as descriptor words. Then I would show how he interacts with the environment around him and the other characters too, to further establish his height and other characteristics.

Ex. "The small man approached from the bridge, climbing the rock formation so that they met eye to eye."

(not my best work but it does) Here, if you already established another characters height, using them as a characteristic foil for your other characters helps put things into perspective.

Some more descriptors would be Short Stature, Small, Petite etc. One thing is also the build of the character which largely depends on their type of Dwarfism. For example people with Primordial Dwarfism or Pituitary Dwarfism are often very petite in build. Someone with say Turner Syndrome might have a more broad build so that's another descriptor to keep in mind!

I also recommend our #dwarfism tag for more things and I hope this helps! Happy writing!

~ Mod Virus 🌸

[cacodaemonia]

As we're all very aware, we live in a time when open hatred of many marginalized groups has been growing. And as many others have said, it's super fucking important that we stop fighting amongst ourselves over relatively minor issues when there are people who quite literally wants us dead, or at the very least, silent and subservient.

Punching down and sideways to attack the people who are 99% on our side might make us feel superior for a little while, but it's important to ask ourselves if attacking other marginalized people helps anyone.

With that in mind, I wanted to remind all of us that language, culture, and iconography all change over time, and not everyone keeps up with those changes at the same speed.

As an obvious example, 'they' is now a much more commonly used singular pronoun than it used to be. It's meaning has expanded and changed subtly.

Another example is the comedy genre in general: movies and TV shows from even a few years ago relied on humor that many of us now see as tasteless at best and dehumanizingly cruel at worst.

Then you have things like reclaimed slurs. For some of them, their meanings have changed multiple times.

We've also got all of the microlabels among queer folks, which are rapidly multiplying and evolving. Many of them didn't exist 2 or 5 or 10 years ago, but now they might be the most central part of someone's personality.

Pepe the frog is an example of an image whose meaning has radically shifted in a short period of time. What was originally a harmless cartoon was appropriated by the US alt-right movement and is now considered a hate symbol (though the ADL acknowledges that 'the majority of uses of Pepe the Frog have been, and continue to be, non-bigoted').

On the opposite end of the spectrum, you have characters like Mickey Mouse and Felix the Cat, who were designed to be minstrels. Now, of course, almost no one associates Mickey Mouse with blackface or racism.

Those are just a handful of examples involving the English language and the internet's largely American-centric culture, but there are obviously many, many more. All of this is difficult enough for native English speakers to keep up with, but we should also bear in mind that, for many folks, English isn't their native language.

I've seen awful harassment by queer people against another queer person just because her English wasn't perfect and she used a term that, at that time, wasn't considered the correct one by the people who attacked her.

We should also keep in mind people who have other language or cognitive difficulties (I'm honestly not sure how to phrase this, so please don't assume I'm being derogatory or cruel—I am one of those people).

Even for those of us with the best of intentions, all of this can make online interactions feel like navigating a minefield because many people exclusively engage in paranoid reading of everything from novels to shitposts.

I think all of us would be better served if we stepped back for a moment to consider questions like, "Does this person have malicious intentions?" and "Is this something that causes real harm to real people or does it just bother me, personally?" and "Will calling this person out or shaming them help anyone?"

A lot of us are on the same side, and we might have slightly different beliefs, but we don't need to be enemies. Wasting our outrage on each other is exactly what our real enemies want.

[hey-i-am-trying]

So, as someone who was watching the stream and watches many of Roiers specifically, but is not Hispanic, first it was clear from when the admin logged on it was someone different than who had been (07) for almost a week. After a bit of the admin playing as a more solitary egg and more standoffish, they told roier to "leave them alone", then roier tried talking with them and explaining how things had been during the week (him trying to explain stuff lore and week events Roier & pepito had)

the admin then said, "You smell like ass too, you son of a bitch. No one asked you"

After Roier let the admin leave to do whatever, after spending at max 30 minutes together, he was clearly uncomfortable being called things, especially by someone he had had no interactions with. He did his own things for a little bit longer.

But afterwards, Aldo, who was watching, spoke about how it wasnt okay specifically. Many tripoiers were thinking Roier would scold chat the next stream, for speaking out against how this admin was acting, but he didnt just. And then later said that they day just wasnt canon anymore. So many believe, he personally reached out to the admin team or Q about it.

From what has been explained to me, by Hispanic friends and other fans, the main issue is that this was obviously said in an insulting manner to Roier, but even if they were trying to "rp" or jokingly say it this admin had 0 relationship with Roier prior to this. Saying these things out of nowhere is never okay and was not okay.

And saying the reason they acted this way was because they were sick and Roier spoke too fast, which aggravated the situation?

And their "apology"? " i never realized that it wasnt in rp that you were uncomfortable "? But they had been online seeing the things said about the situation?

Thank your for explaining! I was no aware it was this bad! It is not anyone else 's place to forgive the admin but Roier, so really I can't say much.

It was definetly rude, and while I will again say we can't make a judgement of a complete person for a moment, in my opinion Roier deserves a better apology.

I can't go inside the admin's mind and say for sure if they meant what they say in rp or not, because I had in the past stumble on social norms like a train rack and I get it not realizing how rude you are sounding in the moment. But again, I would apologize after I realize how I acted.

And about not seeing the posts online, I can't say for sure. I will give an example of a situation I actually saw unfold and why assume that someone saw posts, not metter how "viral" it was or how many they were, is honestly a bad idea.

When Empanada was first introduced, there was a sever moment of hesitation in the brazilian qsmp community, Bagi was one of the most active brazilian players and people liked to go to her stream to just have a portuguse speaking player to listen, but since Bagi has become Em's mom, she barely would speak portuguse and would mostly talk in english with her.

Some brazilians fans expressed very politely why they were feeling bad with this situation, explaining how it made them feel like they were "losing" a portuguese speaker, and in a smp where the principle was having the ccs being able to speak their native languages, it felt like their language was being side line again.

At the same time, they were people not so politely saying what a dumb decision was to give a german egg to a brazilian cc, that they should kill Empanada or fire her admin and hire a brazilian admin for the role.

Bagi's and Em's admin saw the rude posts and not the polite ones. So when they decided to talk about in stream, Bagi was obviously furious about it and was very harsh.

That generated a lot of hate to them and especially to Em because believe that was their answear to the polite posts.

Bagi later read the more polite thread and talked about it in a calmer manner, her and Empanada try to use more of the translator to speak in their respective languages.

I know this feels like a unrealed rant at the end, but I wanted to just give an actually example of how making assumption of what people saw or did not saw is kinda useless and even harmful because we can not actually be sure about it, yes they metion the twitter posts on their letter, but who knows what tweets they actually saw.

Coming back to the situation. They said they are an autistic person, which while not an excuse to be an asshole to someone, can explain losing the grasp social norms, and being unware of what was crossing rp lines, that happens. Not an excuse but an explanation, they are an adult and after understanding they were rude they should have apologize properly.

Life is a bit more complicated than black and white, being an asshole once to somebody doesn't mark them as an asshole for the rest of their lives, I hope the admin can get something out of this situation and learn, hopefully they will reach out to Roier to say sorry.

[lurkingteapot]

Hi, how would a non-binary person (me) get around the binary gender rules and vocab in Thai?

Thank on you for your amazing resources!

Hi there!

This is a question I feel like native speakers of Thai should be much more qualified to answer 😅 @recentadultburnout ? @jinitak ? Any takers?

For what it's worth, though: I also consider myself outside the gender binary, and am uncomfortable with some forms of gendered address in languages I'm fluent in, and as such have looked into it a bit. I'm barely conversational, so the things I list here have been sourced from conversations with queer and non-binary Thai acquaintances and a couple of language teachers plus my own observations, which may very well be faulty … so under the cut it goes.

First off: Thai isn't nearly as clearly binarily gendered as many beginner resources indicate. Beginner resources will say, oh, men™ say ผม (/pʰǒm/) and women™ say ฉัน (/tɕʰǎn/), but (as you may have already observed while watching shows or interviews) in reality people (queer or straight, cis or trans) will use several different pronouns for themselves and others depending on who they're talking to, and in what context—perception of gender is only one part of that. Your age, the tone of voice and level of politeness/formality you're affecting, the situation you're in at that moment, all those things affect how you talk about yourself to others, and how others talk about and to you. It's not as cut and dry as English "these are my pronouns" -- partially also because you'd kind of need to go out of your way to gender the person you're talking about in Thai.

One example: people of all genders can and do use ฉัน (/tɕʰǎn/), though I gather it's less commonly used by men these days. Contrary to what most classes will teach, men or people who are read as male may (and do!) use ค่ะ (/kʰâʔ/; often drawn out to ค่าาา (/kʰâː/ with a very drawn-out aaa)) and จ๊ะ (/tɕáʔ/) in affectionate/familiar conversation, and it's not unheard of for men to refer to themselves by their given name, either -- something a lot of teachers will say are "feminine" speech patterns. For women or people who're read as female to use particles such as ครับ (/kʰráp/) or pronouns such as ผม (/pʰǒm/) seems to be less common, though not unheard of, especially when a woman is affecting a brash personality at that moment. All that is to say … for those of us who fall somewhere in between (or outside the binary altogether), there's quite a bit of wiggle room.

Golf Tanwarin (former MP and the director of GMMTV show The Eclipse) uses different particles depending on context – I've watched interviews where they use ครับ (/kʰráp/) exclusively, others where they use both ครับ (/kʰráp/) and ค่ะ (/kʰâʔ/), and in the live spaces they opened when the Eclipse was airing, to my recollection they used ค่ะ (/kʰâʔ/) and จ๊ะ (/tɕáʔ/) pretty much exclusively. Some non-binary Thais use non-standard polite particles -- Silvy Pavida (The Warp Effect, Laws of Attraction) uses งัฟ (/ŋáp/) on their IG posts, for one example.

My personal approach (which, again! may or may not work for you) is that I go with what people expect from my appearance, and switch to other options only once I'd've got to know my conversation partner better. My reasoning for this is that as a language learner, trying to deviate from the expected language use will likely be perceived not as me trying to express my identity, but simply as me being bad at the language -- I feel like I need to attain and display a level of skill with the language that makes clear the uncommon way I use it is intentional, first. This might not be your approach! but it's worked for me so far.

What I'm doing in the meantime: I try to watch content by people who … idk, match the sort of presentation I aspire to, or who I feel kinship with? and try to emulate what they do (keeping in mind that most online content is rather informal); sometimes, when I'm comfortable enough, I will just try things out when I have the chance (though this can have embarrassing results).

tl;dr there's no way around it, but there are several ways to manage it, and you'll find out best by playing around and finding what works for you, personally :)

(also: I'm glad you found the 'learning Thai' link dump helpful <3)

[krypticcafe]

the worst thing about the "Maus" thing is that it's not even smth someone speaking german would say. it sounds like he's pointing out random mice. the proper use would be "Mausi" or "Mäuschen" if we're gonna have to go with that pet name. Maus would only ever work in specific sentences like "Meine kleine Maus." but even in those the adjective is always diminutive to indicate that its a pet name and not just a random animal. There are so many potential nicknames but its a boring one and used wrong on top of it. Might be stupid to get worked up over that but it's fucking ANNOYING

Thanks for the insight, OP! I knew there were variations German words for nicknames (I've seen schatzi and täubchen) but I never knew it had specific connotations. And yes, I absolutely agree, there are some other cute nicknames I've seen used!!

I'm not a German speaker or aware of the regional differences there could be between German and Austrian pet names, but here's some of my faves I've seen:

Mein/Meine [insert name] - I'm very curious if there's a gender neutral usage of this or if "mein" is the default.

Prinz/Prinzessin - Prince/Princess; too bad there isn't a gender neutral version.

Schatz(i) - Treasure; someone let me know if the "i" makes a difference. It's my personal favorite since I think in an accent it sounds much more natural plus I just like how nicknames in German aren't too soft-sounding but still very meaningful.

Häsechen - Bunny; surprised it isn't used more.

Engel - Angel; this has me melting in a puddle, idk why I prefer this pronunciation over English lmao

Liebling - Heard that "liebe" is typically feminine and liebling works better. It's basic but I like it a lot.

Süßer - Sweet; it's sounds so cute what the fuck man

Täubchen - Little Dove; I'd personally call König this or Bärchen, it's so fucking cute why don't people use this more >:(((

If any of you are German speaking or German or Austrian natives, please correct me if needed! I'd also highly appreciate it if you guys can pitch in any other pet names and how they're used, preferably gender neutral and maybe some clarity on how suffixes (-i, -chen, etc) affect the name. I'll see if I can put it in a list for people to reference (and I will credit by the end of it, lord knows I don't know shit on German language lol). I know I can look online, and I have, but tbh I trust natives more than articles written by quirky English travel blogs.

[awkward-teabag]

I have to wonder how many people celebrating AI translation also complain about "broken English" and how obvious it is something was Google translated from another language without a fluent English speaker involved to properly clean up the translation/grammar.

Because I bet it's a lot.

I know why execs are all for it—AI is the new buzzword and it lets them cut jobs thus "save" money and not have to worry about pesky labour laws when one employs humans—but everyone else?

There was some outcry when Crunchyroll fired many of their translators in favour of AI translation (with some people to "clean up the AI's work") but I can't help but think that was in part because it was Japanese-to-English and personally affected them. Same when Duolingo fired many of their translators in favour of LLM translation. Meanwhile companies are firing staff when it's English to another language and there's this idea that that's fine or not as big a deal because English is "easy" to translate and/or because people don't think of how it will impact people in non-English countries.

Also it doesn't affect native English speakers so it doesn't get much headway in the news cycle or online anyway because so much of the dominant media is from English-speaking countries and English-speakers dominate social media.

But different languages have different grammar structures that LLMs don't do, and I grew up on "jokes" about people speaking in "broken English" and mocking people who use the wrong word when it was clearly a literal translation but the meaning was obvious long before LLMs were a thing, too. In fact, the specific way a character spoke broken English has been a way to denote their native tongue for decades, usually in a racist way.

Then Google translate came out and "Google-translated English" became an insult for people and criticism of companies because it was clearly wonky to native speakers. Even now, LLMs—which are heavily trained on English compared to other languages—don't have a natural output so native English speakers can clock LLM-generated text if it's longer than a sentence or two.

But, for whatever reason, it's not seen as a problem when it goes the other way because fuck non-English readers or people who want to read in their native tongue I guess.