#did i have to rewatch the whole episode because my brain is fried?

[enchi-elm]

Apfelessig rewatches Turn S01E01: Pilot, second half

30:21 It's the little details, like all these women doing laundry and wearing proper headwear.

30:36 ...Can I just point out that the first person to ask Anna if she's alright is Captain Simcoe. Like she's beating the crap out of a jacket with a wooden paddle, no, she's not, but it's nice you care?

31:19 "Your husband has been shipped off to prison--" Zero points for tact, Simcoe.

31:40 Simcoe, you're such a dick. I think--honestly, I think it's a bit overdone to have the whole "establish him as a villain by making him appear predatory to women, or at least, one specific woman" thing, in fact, TV producers, I'm wholly sick of it. There are so many more interesting ways to make someone a baddie. Simcoe's a menace in so many other ways.

33:12 I can't believe people just paddled into the Sound in a rowboat. It's the freaking Sound.

33:24 ...and then Abe even falls asleep in his rowboat. In the Sound. At night.

33:56 Wild to me that Continental Congress can arrest people. Like, I get it, at this point it's a...what would be a good word, alternative government? Or, like, a military occupation? Militia government? Brain's fried. It's just funny, like, "we're setting up our own Justice system and included in the list of possible charges is illegal trade", like, oh good, I'm glad that was a priority when you were planning to denounce your relations to the British King. (edit: Okay, actually, that does make sense, if it's about not passing on resources to the enemy.)

Also, like, I have a lot feelings about Ben XD like, I love him, I relate to his characterization a lot, and obviously I am a die-hard Tallster shipper, but he did very much waterboard his childhood friend. Like, that is a thing he decided was a good way to coerce his friend to work for him.

34:51 I mean okay, it's not clear that Ben ordered them specifically to waterboard him, but like, he did set up his imprisonment. He's not, like, immensely concerned with Abe's well-being after either.

35:37 Even Abe doesn't trust him XD Ben is straight-up stone cold in this episode

36:18 I love this scene, everyone's so sneaky

37:07 This is the legal definition of entrapment, isn't it?

38:30 "And the 12 pounds." Abe figures it out so quickly that they set him up. (edit: HA!)

39:03 Oh Abe. Of all the smart, STUPID STUPID things you could have done to cover up the fact that you got arrested for smuggling, coming back to town with a fake/self-inflicted wound when there's a murder inquiry on is number 1 on the list.

40:27 "Captain Joyce is dead?" If you look at his face, you can see his life flashing before his eyes as three people who consider him a prime suspect wait for him to catch up.

42:18 "I've never killed anyone." "I have. Plenty just like you." Oh, Samuel Roukin. I would like to buy you a beer some time.

42:25 "Travel safe!" XD Also, Simcoe just like bodily throws Abe to the growd like he weighs---

42:47 ANNA AND CALEB, YES!!

43:01 Anna, probably: My husband has been arrested, there is a threatening British captain living in my house, I manage my estate alone, and now there's someone signalling me from my barn. I think I'll go investigate this dark building alone because I don't feel vulnerable enough.

43:19 Oh. Not Caleb, not yet.

43:30 Oh yeah, Simcoe's Welsh.

44:25 "Caleb? You saw him! How is he?" Keeping Strongbrew alive in the year of our lord 2023 <3 @ladytp @lucyemers

44:27 "Unshaven. He's insane." Ahhh, the words that sparked a mythology. <3

44:35 "Ben? They were together?" ....You know I don't think I've seen a fic where Anna is the jealous one. That could be interesting. I have a modern AU WIP where Ben finds out about Anna and Caleb having a fling and he's the one who gets jealous (though he's not clear who he's jealous of).

45:04 "What more are you waiting for?" Listen, if Anna and Mary were the main characters of this Culper Ring, the war would have ended years sooner, just saying.

46:29 "Anarchy." "You mean self-rule." "I mean chaos masquerading as freedom."

47:00 Judge Woodhull: Abe can you maybe just make it a bit easier for me to keep you alive and out of prison and your family sheltered and fed

47:27 LOL HEWLETT: Good of you to want to pay the fine for smuggling but honestly you're probably too broke so I guess you're going to prison. *turns to Abe's dad, also at the dinner table* Sorry, can't play favourites Abe's Dad: OR OR OR HANG ON OR WE CAN COME UP WITH SOMETHING ELSE

48:09 Hewlett's just too good at his job. I love his characterization, he's such a liability to everyone's plans because he's fastidious, orderly, and well-mannered and wants to find reasonable solutions for everything.

48:59 Oh the Woodhull father-son drama. I totally tuned out on my first run-through whenever this came up, it just really wasn't my scene. I found Townsend's family relationships far more interesting.

49:04 Hewlett: ...and another reminder that I am really good at my job, if not knowing who to trust with my information, is that all your friends will unknowingly shortly be under attack by a homicidal maniac I barely keep under my command. Good night, all!

49:54 Who feeds all these soldiers? I've never heard of military records where a side was saying they were actually getting the properly rationed amount of food but I've seen plenty of records complaining about how well-fed the other side was.

50:49 I have no memory of this scene. Abe's first real act of espionage and I remember none of it. Can't even remember what he does with it.

52:46 Ohhh okay, so I guess Ben just gave Abe his entire Culper plan without knowing yet that Abe was actually going to go through with it. I thought Abe'd send a letter first or something being like "okay, I'll do it" but then how the heck would you get that to Ben. Just seems a bit risky, like, "Okay Abe, I've strong armed you but you don't seem convinced, anyway here's exactly how to reach me". ...I guess he didn't really have a choice

53:19 "Barrel. Over a barrel." It took me a while to learn what that meant. Simcoe playing such a creep.

54:40 Captain "No Need" Simcoe, lifts an entire barrel of cider by himself

55:17 Hey hey real quick you know what never got explored in enough detail? The slave ownership and indentured servants on display by the main characters. edit: "Yeah but Abigail--" ABIGAIL NEEDED TWICE AS MUCH SCREEN TIME AND A BETTER EXPLANATION OF WHERE SHE CAME FROM.

55:52 What, Abe, I thought you'd figured this out already? What was the "And the 12 pounds" about earlier then?

56:12 "You passed muster when you refused to give up my name." Abe, your childhood friends played you like the cheap kazoo you are. I would love to have seen that conversation with Ben and Caleb where they plan this, like, "Okay, we need to force Abe to play ball. Ooo, I know, let's set him up, arrest him, and see if he squeals on you." "Excellent idea. Shall we make him fear for his life?" "Oh, several times, why not?" "Why don't we just try to drown him after we first shoot at him?"

56:23 Should we keep a count going as to how many times Caleb gets punched in the face in this show? Because: 1

56:31 "I'm 2nd Company, 4th Battalion, New York Regiment. Alright?" Readers, do you have any idea how much I tried to find anything to confirm or explain that. I wholescale gave up, lampshaded and straight-up fabricated a backstory for Wind and Water, even before it became plot-relevant. I'm convinced no one understands or understood how the Continental Army worked in 1776. No one. "I'm assigned to special detail with Captain Tallmadge." Remind me, again, they never met, right? Do you know how hard it is to investigate the military record of a man who's backstory has been so foundationally altered? From the 1700s?

59:40 BATTLE COUPLE BATTLE COUPLE BATTLE COUPLE

1:00:53 Ben you salty man.

1:01:30 Hmmmmmyesssssss this Ben/Caleb interaction is so revealing as to their personalities. *chef's kiss*

1:01:43 I have seen this gif a million times, it's so weird to see it in its natural habitat.

1:02:09 Mary! <3 ...is she literally the only person to say anything kind to Abe in this entire episode?

1:03:45 Sprout <3

And that's the end of episode 1! Fun experience to see it again after so long. It's so much richer than I remember <3 Maybe I'll do a proper rewatch of the whole thing. It'd be nice to go back to something comforting.

[notesofarichlycolorednight]

s1ep26 volpina

i had a lot i wanted to say but today's been a long and busy day and my brain is fried

i will say that i thought i would hate this episode more than i did rewatching it. i don't like lila bc i don't like liars and i was just as incensed as ladybug in this episode when i first watched it, but i found i didn't care much this time. i still hate lila and liars, but like i'm more chill about the fake ppl on my screen this time lol

i'll probably get irritated about her later on bc i know the gist of other things she does and says and pulls, but knowing it's thru the lens of the writers punishing marinette for existing, i can better direct my anger and frustration in a more constructive media critical way than before.

that said, i actually thought this was the most well-paced episode so far. it could be my tired brain, but this episode didn't feel like 25 minutes, it actually felt longer and like they got a whole narrative into such a short amount of time.

but that's the only praise i'll give it.

i have a few small nitpicks. like the fact that adrien says he has fencing soon when heading out but really, it's just. school? i think?? bc when we arrive, it's all about lila. no one has gone to class. lila pulls adrien into the library, and like 15 minutes their time later, adrien has fencing??? they didn't even go to class?? there are others, but i'm blanking and i should be getting to sleep very soon now.

the bigger stuff tho? the fact that marinette has to learn a lesson once again for making a mistake and no one else ever encounters anything like that. chat noir doesn't understand why ladybug doesn't like lila and lila becomes a main antagonist in the series.

and look, on paper, during like brainstorming sessions, that's not a bad thing. if you made a bullet point list of things you wanted to include in this series/episodes, marinette misusing her powers at ladybug to get between adrien and lila bc she's jealous, and lila becoming a more permanent antagonist is not a bad thing. it adds drama and heightens stakes, and it gives flaws to marinette. but as i've been saying this whole season, that only works if they write this shows like it's serialized. but they don't!!

you can't keep punishing marinette and having her solely learn lessons and 1) not give other characters arcs to make mistakes and grow and 2) never have marinette herself grow, either. it just gets annoying after a while.

the dynamic between the love square was very strange in this one. like i know there's supposed to be tension in them keeping their identities secret but talking about each other as if neither of them know each other was done very strangely, if only because ladybug gets so defensive against lila, chat noir questions why she's acting so differently.

and what was weird from a narrative standpoint to me was the fact that chat noir never questions ladybug's extreme reaction to volpina's illusion of dropping adrien off the effiel tower. nor does he question her instance on checking on adrien, attributing it instead to her stubbornness. it just felt very, very strange.

i wish i could articulate it better but my brain has been mush all day and i'm very tired.

let's just leave it at the writing was bad. but what's new.

i'll end a positive for once tho, i did think chat noir trying to convince ladybug that volpina didn't have adrien was very funny. the "i'm not even gonna try to get myself out of this one" actually elicited a spontaneous smile. like that joke was funny on purpose and i liked it.

[moonelf19]

Episode 115 Widofjord Highlights

I’m late for a livewatch but also consider! I am late for the monday youtube release. Time to get those crumbs though!

20:20 Fjord asks Caleb for some paper, “just a scrap”. Caleb happily hands over “5 or 6 complete pieces of paper, whatever you need.” Jester reminds the disaster casters that Calebs paper is expensive (and rare, and wow someone had to remind Caleb that his paper is precious? Excuse me?) and hands over her sketchbook instead. Fjord is happy to take the sketchbook and insists Caleb keep his paper in case Dagen screws up the map. At about 20:45 Caleb/Liam makes a wincing face and tilts his head kind of sassy, like “well fine my paper isn’t good enough for you”.

23:00 Caleb starts the conversation about Vess being dead and the consequences. At first he seems to be talking to Fjord about “keeping an eye out”, likely because Fjord can cast see invisibility and see scrying eyes. At the 25′ mark Fjord asks what they should do about Vess, right after Veth was talking, but he is turned to and directs the question to Caleb. Caleb posits some short term solutions and Fjord redirects back to ask “she’s in your amber, right?”

Caleb: Yes

Fjord: If someone tried to scry, like we did on Molly, would they just see your necklace?

Caleb: Well-

Cut to them trying to remember how scry works, if a dead person can be scried on.

Fjord: Should I give you your pendant back?

Fjord: As long as no one can track the item inside your necklace, again, like for the crystal clove.

Caleb: That was a whole other thing entirely, I believe.

The group gets distracted by the term “crystal clove” but Travis keeps looking over to Liam- I think he/Fjord is still really bothered that the crystal was tracked in the pendant and, dare I say it, I want him to confront Caleb about it. Because Travis seemed pretty upset and referred to it as “false advertising” during talks machina iirc. Give me the drama, bois. But Liam/Caleb diverts and calls out to Dagen, ending the rp moment.

52:28 Caleb opts to have Frumpkin keep Fjord company on first watch. 

54:09 Fjord notices the scrying orb and calls out to wake Caleb up. They proceed to have a painfully awkward not-conversation conversation while they panic because they didn’t come up with a plan for if Fjord saw anything and neither remember that it’s probably a scrying orb.

Fjord: We’re making good time heading to the most eastern destination. *gestures toward the orb with his head*

Caleb: We could certainly go further. *looks that way and sees nothing* We could probably go farther.

Fjord: Yep, yep. Well that’s it!

Caleb: I don’t think I can go to sleep now, Fjord.

Fjord: Yes, yes...

Fjord proceeds to threaten whoever is scrying, and Matt clarifies whether he is attuned to the necklace. Travis admits that he swapped out the ring of fire resistance for the call-blocking pendant. Liam says that someday, someone will inherit that ring and it will be really meaningful, clearly trying to help Travis save face but Travis seems to kind of embrace his impulse purchases.

58:43

Fjord: *moves back over to Caleb* There was another scrying. Sphere. Eye. Someone is watching.

Caleb, who is making eye contact with Fjord: Great. Take your pick on who wants us dead.

Fjord: The Empire? The Dynasty? Molly?

Caleb: *scoffs, smiles at Fjord* My money is on the Tiefling.

Fjord: Our scent, he said.

Caleb: ... scent. Our blood?

Fjord: *nods and smiles* Our blood. Do you have any idea how to counteract that? Blood magic?

Caleb: If it’s that, I do not. Gods, it’s cold.

Fjord: ... It is...

Liam looked like he was going to say something else, but Travis says he will keep an eye out and we cut to the next watch.

1:04:54 Caleb uses control flame to make the bonfire flare.

Fjord: Awesome! *basks in the warmth*

1:08:06 Dagen made everyone breakfast and is ribbing them about being noobs to the cold.

Fjord: We learned a lesson, yes? Hard lesson learned. All the wiser for it? Seasoned travelers.

Caleb: So much character built last night.

Fjord: So much. Bushels of character.

1:15:32 At the distraction pillar-

Fjord: Caleb you couldn’t read any of these markings, right? That’s not a language, or-

Caleb: I assume I would’ve been able to if it’s by sight.

Jester: You don’t have to cast anything anymore, you can just read things?

Fjord: *has no reason to have this confidence* Yep!

Caleb: Well I mean, I have done a lot of stuff for a long time.

Jester: How many languages do you speak?

Caleb: Four.

Beau: I can read five! I know more languages than you!

Jester: Beau you’re so smart-

Fjord: Okay, it’s not a competition >:(

Sorry, but Fjord, keep it in your pants. Jeez. You’re heart eyes are so loud rn.

Also I want to point out that Travis accurately called that trying to pull the gem out kills you. Smart dude. Still embarrassingly soft for Caleb.

1:20:34

Travis: This is literally the stupidest thing we could be doing. We should just keep going, right?

Liam: This pivoted the entire campaign one, what we are fucking with right now.

Travis: Yeup! We should just go.

Liam: The necromancy thing.

Travis: Let’s keep going.

... Liam: I am going to use telekinesis to pull the gem out.

Travis: And there goes our wizard.

A few minutes and 52 points of damage later.

Travis/Fjord/??: How far is your telekinesis range?

Liam: Exactly 60 feet!

Travis: Yeah yeah just kind of like *puts hand out*

Jester: Heal him!

Travis: Nah he’s fine!

Caleb: No you need to heal me!

Travis: Turn into a T-Rex!

1:27:03, literally a few seconds after the T-Rex comment

Jester: I don’t have cure wounds >_>

Fjord: I will, at 5th level, cast cure wounds on Caleb.

Laura: aww that’s so sweet :)

Fjord: 29 points of healing :)

1:30:17 Caleb gets shit kicked by the pillar again and starts peeling off his coat, looks like death, and Travis is like “its a point of pride!” Caleb rolls up his sleeves. Travis says “LETS GO!” Caleb gets mad at telekinesis and uses Cat’s Ire, still fails. Throws a snowball. Travis says it his the ground and rolls and Liam is like “makes it maybe halfway there”

1:35:23 Jester paints “BIG EMERALD HERE” with an arrow pointing down

Caleb Neutral... Good? Ok?: Oh that’s murder! *big smile* That’s going to bring people right to that!

Jester, Chaotic Neutral: They should be smarter than that :)

Fjord, Lawful Good: Jester, I don’t know, that seems like a bit much...

Cad: If I had seen that I wouldn’t have touched it.

Jester: Right?

Fjord: I would’ve (we know)

Caleb: That’s like a cave that says ‘Free Cupcakes’

Jester: Oh, well, when you say it like that...

Fjord: See? Yeah. *nods at Caleb*

Caleb: *smiles and points at Fjord*

Fjord: It all depends.

Caleb: You just have to attack it from the right angle sometimes.

Fjord: *smiles at Caleb*

As they leave the pillar Caleb tries to cast dispel magic. When it fails, Liam makes a very angry face and flips double middle fingers at Matt/the pillar.

Fjord: It’s ok! It’s ok. We’ll probably come back by this way. We’ll get it another day.

1:39:18 Liam gets a little lost looking at his spells again

Fjord: Cah-leb?

Caleb: Yeah ok.

New Achievement: Pet name for your lover

1:44:21

Jester: Waffle cornbread!

Beau: Does such a thing exist?

Fjord: If the cats can’t make it, I mean, who can?

Fjord is the ultimate hype man.

2:03:00

Travis: Is that a real story or did you write that?

Liam: I wrote it. Today.

Travis: *looks incredibly impressed but trying to hide it* Sure. Sure.

This is now a Travis and Liam friendship blog. Soft. Good. Pure.

2:53:45 Caleb turns Cad into a mammoth and Fjord/Travis is hype. Again. He also wants to see Caleb try to punch a yeti.

3:04:50 Fjord runs up to the yeti in melee with Caleb and does a pushing strike to get the yeti away.

3:32:16 Travis is broken, staring at his table. Laura points it out.

Travis: The necrotic stone? We can’t leave it alone. The yetis? We invite them to fucking dinner.

Excuse me, you say “we” but what you mean is “Caleb” sir.

3:59:20 Travis pops his fidget toy :( not widofjord but let’s all have a moment of silence for what cannot be the first time he’s done that. Can we start sending our recommendations for good fidget toys?

4:03:43 Fjord starts walking into the cave while the others are still debating the plan, and Caleb immediately follows him. When the others ask if Frumpkin will lead, Liam begins to describe using Fjord to steady himself to scout via Frumpkin before Matt cuts him off to close out the episode.

That’s it for this week! Let’s see what talks machina with Liam has for us >:)

[xsecretblastsx]

i1x16 - All about my brother

Last week was so busy for me and my brain was so fried I didn’t think I could do this until today. I’m excited to though to reach this episode, only two more two go and S1 will be done. So here we go.

As usual recap under the cut.

Thoughts I had while watching the episode:

This one of my fave uniform looks of Blair. I don’t even know why, but it is.

I so love the Jenny vs Blair dynamic. Because even if I’m rooting for Blair I can’t help but admire Jenny here.

Chuck and Bart are at the Bachelor party in Montecarlo, and he still calls Serena to see how she is. Brother and sis in the making.

Hello Georgina, oh sorry Sarah. Having watched the series already this is a plot I can’t help but roll my eyes at

Jenny telling Eric that he has a crush on her, actually that whole since she reminded me a lot of Regina George when she was fake nice.

Asher was really bad a hiding his relationship, like the dude is kissing his boyfriend right next to the school where anyone could see them.

I wonder who was Mr Spitzer and why he couldn’t be seated near Serena at the wedding, I want to believe there’s a funny story behind it, and not because he’s a perv.

Sure, Jenny’s being a bitch to Dan, and for once he’s in the right, and yet I can’t feel bad for him. 

“Don’t go to France, I’ll be there for you” a throwaway line from Blair, and yet bits like this are what fueled the fandom scale towards Blair for so long, Blair’s drama is petty compared to Serena’s and yet... still to this day people still argue about this mostly against Serena. 

“You look stressed even for you” an acurate description of Dan Humphrey at any given time. And Serena’s so eager to have that in her life, poor girl.

Serena’s turning around while Blair’s describing Jenny as self obssesed, self serving, self centered is hilarious, but hey she knows what she’s talking about

The four G: guys, girlfriends and Gossip Girl.

“Now you know how Vanessa Hudgen feels”, that is so 2008. Worse thing is I remember it.

“Wasn’t me, wish it was”, so Blair.

“Is your brotherly duty to save her from becoming the next Katie Holmes” Seriously this episode is getting quite savage with the not so nice pop culture references, also I dind’t want to remember this.

Dan being like “I don’t want Jenny to get hurt” and Blair pointing out that he should have thought of that before telling all of Manhattann that she’s a  glorified hag is why Dan sucks so bad.

Rufu’s seeing Lily on that wedding dress 

Jenny having a rude awakening, and even though she hates it she still goes along with it. 

Again, he may be right, but thanks Jenny for telling Dan to stop judging everyone all the time.

Serena blowing up Blair, and for once this actually was important. Too bad she couldn’t know that.

I so wish Georgina had refered to Blair as Snow White more in the show. And I guess people loved it because I’ve seen it more than once on fanfic. Also Eric being like “Oh, snow not so white, did you hear that...” but in Eric’s favor that was juicy gossip. 

Now I feel bad for pointing it out earlie the same thing Georgina says here, that was so in plain sight, this was really mean though.

Eric calling Chuck after the fall out, and he sums it up pretty well, the guy may have flaws, but being a judgmental ass  is not one of them. 

One of my fave bits of S1 was all the heartfelt moments between Serena and Eric. 

Blair’s arrival at Jenny’s party: EPIC. “The most importants parties to attend are the onew you’re not invited to” girl is serving. Also one of her most underrated looks in Season one

Georgina, Vanessa, Serena and Dan sitting at a table, talk about akward, also  I don’t know how to interpret this because either: half of the table are sociopaths, or just roll my eyes becaue the writers totatlly forgot about this plot when writing the final season of this show. 

Penelope and Hazel bitching about how their first time’s were awful. Not cool.

I wish we had got a nice moment between Blair and Eric, because they did care about each other, and we got so little between them. Because these kids were family, dysfunctional one for sure, but family nonetheless.

I know Asher was a jerk, and this was a moment of empowerment for Eric, but outing people is never good. Like I get why Eric did it, and he’s also really young, but still. 

Seriously Blair look’s gorgeous this episode.

That scene with Lily and Eric brief as it was really made me emotional, it’s one Lily’s most honest  and realest moment as a mom.

 Jenny raising the white flag, this scene is my second fave scene between them,their power struggle may be over for now, but it was a ride. And I love how honest they get with each other.

So Dan can tell Serena what to do, what not do, talk about her friends, but the moment she tells him she has misgivings about someone, he’s like how dare you! why don’t you trust my judgment... and then list all the bad things she did, and just leaves. He’s the biggest hypocrite ever.

Seriously angry Scrabble? And the words are like... ugh. I just can’t with him.

This is one of my favorite moments of Blair and Serena because Blair’s words are such a perfect description of the bond between them.

That’s such an ending for an episode “I kill someone”

No Chuck or Nate this episode. 

So this episode... it was quite packed. It’s basically the set up for the finale of Season One, putting and end to the Blair vs Jenny storyline and leaving us with Georgina breaking havoc front and center, only to drop the bomb that Serena killed someone. On first watching I remember I was like what? and hitting next episode really fast. Now not so much because this episode was one of those were rewatching reallly felt diferent from the first time. It’s also the one so far were knowing how the show ends was really distracting

I remembered this episode mostly for being the final round of Blair vs Jenny and it being quite a thing to watch, feeling bad for Eric,loving his scenes with Lily and Serena, and that last scene between Serena and Blair. And unlike the episode of Jenny’s birthday, I didn’t enjoyed their struggle for power as much this second time around. Not because I hated or anything, in fact Blair arriving to that party was still epic, I guess it had a lot to do with the fact that this was my favorite Jenny storyline, back then I didn’t knew what to expect, and I was excited about seeing where her character goes next, and now I know, and I didn’t like it how it went in the end, and it was sad to see her so defeated here,because she is never happy, whenever she gets something she wants it turns out it doesn’t make her happy at all, and even knowing that, the way things go, the way she acts, make it hard to root for her.  

I still loved her last scene with Blair though, because it didn’t matter how much antagonism there was between them, they also still saw a bit of themselves in each other, they hate it but they admire each other, and it’s was make their relationship so interesting and why they have these moments of such honesty between them, and sure, here Blair was condecending and Jenny basically tells her that she destroyed her life just to be like Blair, as if being like her was not something good, so each of them believe she’s better than the other, and yet it ends on a really sad not because Jenny’s words “I don’t expect anything anymore” are actually really depressing for a 15 year old girl, and as soon as she turns back towards the elevator, Blair drops the smile, because she gets it. So like I said, a really good scene, and even though I may not be excited about Jenny’s storylines anymore, I’m excited about a certaing scene betweem them in S2. That’s my fave. You can probably guess which one it is.

The other main plot this episode was Georgina still breaking havoc on Serena’s life, this time by blackmailing her, and becoming friends with Dan and Vanessa. Now, I normally don’t like to think that much about future events, particularly how it all ends, because I like enjoying the episodes trying to yes get more insight on why things happened the way it did, and it’s easier to analyse the characters actions and motivations in the moment, rather than focusing in their whole character arc, but this episode I found it pretty impossible to do because, knowing Dan is Gossip Girl means he’s pretending the whole time in a more obvious way, playing it up next to Georgina who’s presented as manipulative, a tad crazy and evil, is hard not to notice how he’s basically the same, and at least Georgina was honest about her nature, Dan on the other hand is not, Penn and the whole internet has being pointing out since  “You” came out about how Penn’s character Joe, is Dan upgrading to murder, and this is where the comparison really cames to life.  It kind of creeps me out. 

Dan aslo makes me really angry, becausse to top it all he gets mad at Serena, for basically not trusting her judgement because he is the trustworthy one in this relationship and she is not, and he drives the point home by listing all the times she has lied to him, never mind that part of the reason she lies is beacause he’s a judgmental ass who has lowkey constantly drilled her with how he loves the good Serena, and this episode he’s even critical of her haning out with Chuck who is a) her soon to be step brother b) someone she’s been reluctant friends with since she was a kid, and he also is critical of her partying, so basically the things she did before she met him, and that’s wrong on itself, but having Dan Humphrey acting all high and mighty because he doesn’t lie to Serena, makes me angry because he being a hypocrite not capable of seeing his own mistakes, never asking for forgiveness is what I dislike the most about his character.

I’ll leave it here for today, because this carries on to the next episode, and because Dan’s gets even worse on the next ones, so I’ll know I’ll be ranting about him even more so, and I don’t want to repeat myself, at least not that much. I’ll end this by remembering that last scene between Blair and Serena, because it’s such a precious moments and the reason why no matter what happened between and how bad it got, they are sisters and love each other to pieces “We're sisters. You're my family. What is you is me. There's nothing that you could ever say to make me let go. I love you”

Random bit’s I’ve noticed:

Lily’s schedule was so full, between disscusing her prenup, a final fitting at Mark Ingram’s Atelier, a mani/pedi, a conference call about an article, an appoitment at Barney’s... oh the good life.

So this episode is where the “whoever said money can’t buy happiness didn’t know where to shop” quote cames from. I’ve seen that one on a ton of edits, no one of my fave though.

Funny but if there was one character that really put into practice Blai’rs words about crashing parties it was Vanessa now that I think of it.

Shut up and let me go! I was so obssesed with that song back in 2008. Though when I think of the Ting Tings and Gossip Girl, I have a different song in mind. 

[rigelmejo]

i’ve been watching Handsome Siblings on netflix only in chinese to just like. see where i’m at.

and now that i’m on ep 4 it would feel kind of weird to suddenly switch back to english subs ok, for one.

but anyway like general level-wise: i am pretty much at where i can follow a lot of the gist of scenes even if i don’t pause to translate - but then i’m going to be relying on visual context a lot more. which is fine, it means i can go watch a show with no english subs to rely on Ever and at least follow along.

i do notice that if i PAUSE, i can catch the specifics of a lot more scenes. There’s a scene where the two princess sisters are talking to their nephew (who is a spitting image of Jiang Feng), and then after he leaves - discussing telling him to go take a mission to kill Xiao Yu’er, and then when he leaves the two princesses discuss their plan. I paused over and over after EVERY line that episode, because I really wanted to know the specifics of what they were saying. A lot of lines I could read, and there were a lot of one-words-in-a-sentence i had to look up for a more precise understanding. Same with a scene later in the town said-nephew and his girl kickass companions go to - i could follow the gist, but paused after some lines (and looked up a couple words) for more specific details. 

I will say that the more characters you learn, the easier life is. Really! The more characters I know, the easier my gist-guess is right, the easier remembering new words (made up of known characters) is, and looking up new words is VASTLY easier because I know their pinyin and can look them up faster than drawing. 

If you’re going to do this: I’d still recommend using googletranslate to look up multiple characters you don’t know/phrases, since you can draw and easily get the correct result looked up. I’d recommend pleco if you know the pinyin, or if its a single word (because pleco’s definitions are more thorough and explanatory than googletranslate’s), or if it might be an idiom. 

I would recommend that if you like watching stuff on the computer, to get the learn-with-netflix dual subtitle add on, and just click your subtitles for a definition on-the-video-itself instead of needing to open an app like me. 

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I am immensely excited and happy that I can watch a chinese show with no english and follow the gist now. That is a huge amount of progress for me compared with August 2019 when I started (and only knew ‘ni hao/wo hen hao’ and the numbers ;w; ). I am so proud of where I’ve gotten to. I definitely think really focusing on increasing known frequent words helps a lot. (Also, reading a grammar guide - grammar is again becoming understandable, so idk my brain is just acclimating again i guess). I’m going to keep focusing on frequent words, and the 2,000 most common characters, for a while and hopefully eventually this payoff will translate to reading as well.

If you DO happen to want to try watching a chinese show without english and testing yourself/studying, I have some mild recommendations you might take into consideration. 

1. If it’s too difficult, do it a little, then come back to it in a few weeks, repeat. This task really only gets enjoyable once you understand enough to be ‘comfortable’ with the remaining ambiguity you still don’t comprehend. That is going to be different for different people. I am comfortable with a pretty high amount of ambiguity/lack of understanding, so I can at least try to watch even stuff-i-barely-grasp at least a little for practice until my brain feels fried. But I’ve been trying this for months... its only NOW that my brain feels relatively okay just watching without pausing, without feeling Completely overwhelmed. And if you do intend to watch without pausing much, you’ll have some degree of not-understanding-everything. Likewise, if you plan to pause the show (and how much you plan to pause it) should be tolerable for you as well. If you have to pause everything, understand everything - do you know enough words to do that in a timely enough manner to get THROUGH an episode? If it takes you a long time, are you willing to intensively focus and look things up that entire time? Basically - what is your tradeoff between you being able to pause and focus intensively on looking things up, versus you being able to watch without pausing and interpret from the words you know/context only. Whatever balance is most enjoyable/bearable for you is when this will start being something that’s easier to do regularly, instead of only occasionally as practice. At least, that’s how it was for me. I’m only finally at  a point where I can do this regularly - before I could only do this for maybe 10-20 minute chunks of time occasionally. 

2. Pick a genre of show/material you are going to engage in frequently. If you’re ALWAYS watching case-type shows, those words and those scenes will be more familiar to you and easier for you to interpret from context and with less looking things up. If you try this with a wildly different kind of show, you may know MANY less words and many scenes may be harder for you to comprehend the gist of. I watch a TON of case type shows so they’re very easy for me to see and pick up words I’m familiar with, single out the parts that are ‘important explanation’ versus ‘some crowd saying unimportant WOW oh No how Horrible’ type lines. So i can cherry pick important things to pause and look up words for, and guess at what kind of line i’m trying to interpret (i can guess if it’s about a case, an emotional discussion, a simple ‘lets do X’ statement etc - because i’m familiar with the plot type). In a similar vein - an easier show/material to do this with, may well be a show you’ve already watched in your native language/with your native language. For all the same reasons - you will be much more familiar with the context. I could in theory watch Guardian again (which i’ve rewatched... a lot) and I would probably follow the plot very easily. But I like a challenge too much apparently, and I’d rather practice with things I can’t fall-back on my existing knowledge for as much. A show I’ve never seen has much less I can rely on for context, BUT the trade off is I can really clearly test how well i’m comprehending the plot and lines - because they are all completely new to me, so I either comprehend or I clearly do not understand what’s going on/obviously misinterpret. So it’s a very quick way for me to see if I’m achieving anything or not. Whereas if I was watching a show I already saw, I might learn new words noticably, but I wouldn’t be able to tell if I’m getting better at understanding overall plot with no english to rely on (since I already saw it before with english).

3. If you’re like me - maybe pick a show either heavy on action, or heavy on daily life. While I am familiar with case-type shows... I generally think (for me) they’re harder to follow when your existing vocab knowledge isn’t high enough to follow it... They’re big on mysteries, on plots that are actually not what they appear, and surprises. They’re big on ‘strategies’ and I find for myself, strategies are kind of hard to follow when I know less words. In contrast: if you pick a daily-life type show, you’re more likely to either know the words or NEED to know the words at some point because they’ll be useful to you. And the scenes should be relatively easy to comprehend visually even when you don’t know the words. (My caveat being - if you want the language specifically FOR understanding certain genres, by all means go for the topics you’ll actually be using - if you’re gonna read a ton of wuxia, or case-stuff etc, then go for stuff you’ll Actually Use which might well be THEM). For me... my end goal is to be able to read creative fiction, so wuxia settings and fantastical settings and mystery-words and period-words are all things I better get used to. So I haven’t really watched much daily-life stuff (although there are daily-life scenes WITHIN a lot of dramas, and I do think they’re some of the easiest scenes to follow and comprehend). 

Now, why might you pick an action-heavy show: easy to comprehend. Especially if you often watch action-oriented stuff already. The first chinese show I watched a whole episode of in only-chinese (it’s first episode, so that’s when i figured out the entire show’s set up) was The Shaw Eleven Lang (I really wanted more of Zhu Yilong’s acting in my life okay?). I DID in fact, manage to follow the plot. Without pausing much, because I was just watching it with dinner. What made it easier to follow was SO MUCH of the dialogue was really straightforward - stuff like ‘i want that sword’ or ‘i hate you’ or ‘lets eat and drink together to celebrate’ or ‘you need to go save/kill x’ or ‘do you think i’m pretty’ etc. So much of the dialogue was NOT schemes/plots/mysteries, it was really straightforward ‘we are doing X, we like Y, we hate Z’. Which for me are the sentence types I find the easiest to understand, and especially found the easiest at that point in time. In addition, because the show has so much action, often the dialogue is accompanied by action scenes that make it pretty freaking CLEAR what their objective is/what they just said. Yes, there are still plenty of unknown words to look up if you want to pause - but it should be obvious enough that you might have a decent guess at what they mean before you look them up (I had to look up words like sword, princess, clan leader, but those were pretty clear even beforehand from the context of the scenes). After I watched the first ep (which i don’t think i could even find english subs for), I watched the second ep with eng subs to see if i’d interpreted the plot correctly so far - i had. It felt pretty motivating to get through 40 minute episodes without much pausing, and know I’d followed along. I think, at least if you’re already an action-show/movie watcher, action series are going to be a relatively approachable thing to try watching in just your target language. (Another positive is a lot of verbs as commands lines, in context, so for me it’s easier to pick up new verbs, and those kind of lines are very easy to pick up in context - also lines like ‘xiao xin’ be careful, bubi, meiguanshi, danxin, ni fangxin, etc - all these short lines that are easy to understand in the context they often come up in).

 (Also, do I recommend The Shaw Eleven Lang? Well... I need to go back to watching it but uh... it’s definitely AN EXPERIENCE... with wild fighter-game-tetsuya-nomura-would-be-proud kind of costume designs, wild af scenes so far, and uh as far as i can tell Zhu Yilong’s on point to play a pretty crazy bastard in it... also there’s a LOT of genuinely kickass girls and kickass main women, which i appreciate, i believe also the main women are all 30+ which is refreshing in general in any-show tbh. also just... everyone in the show is kickass... that’s the point... its a lot like to me, if a absolutely Wild fighting game got a budget for a full drama and just went wild on the plot - very fun to watch, very bizarre... not particularly deep but like, did you play Square enix’s The Bouncer on ps2 for a Good Plot or for an absolutely wild bizarre Time? This show is like the game The Bouncer... just freaking Wild conceptually). 

And now, I am watching Handsome Siblings, and managing to get through episodes with only a little pausing for when I want to figure out specifics. It is also very action-scene heavy. At least for me, that’s been making it a lot easier to follow the gist of. There’s scenes where robbers attack - and even if I don’t know every line, its easy to figure out the gist of what’s being said. There’s scenes where people fight - again, very easy to follow. The parts I’ve been pausing the most on are the sisters plotting, because I feel that’s probably the most intensive-mystery in this plot so far, and because I want to make sure I interpret the details correctly when they’re mentioning them (since I think they’ll play out more in the plot later). I think the fact this show is Action-Heavy is making it tremendously easier for me to follow then like... me trying to watch Nirvana in Fire would be. The very straightforward action scenes are much easier to follow using visual context, at least for me, compared to dialogue heavy scenes where the vocabulary is not going to be emphazised with visuals nearly as much. (Another bonus of Handsome Siblings, at least so far, is the dialogue heavy scenes ARE accompanied by visual flashbacks to EXPLAIN the dialogue). Another bonus for Handsome Siblings: the writing seems very straightforward and decently paced. You don’t have to wait long for new scenes, for new developments, and that means a lot of dialogue and action is doing something right away and has a lot of context you immediately see result in something else. For me that just makes it... approachable and understandable in the kind of way like... movies like The Mummy were paced, or Indiana Jones, or Independence Day... do you know what I mean? It’s fun to watch even if you couldn’t understand, and the structure makes it quite comprehensible again even if you heard no dialogue at all. So for me, at least, it makes the balance of ‘ease of watching versus patience to look things up slowly’ much easier. Because its ease of watching is pretty high even for scenes where actual words-you-know isn’t high, so you can save looking-things-up for only when you WANT to, not necessarily as something you need to constantly do just to catch the gist. 

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I tried reading again - I tried reading the novel for the Sleuth of Ming Dynasty. It was BRUTAL because I apparently know NO dynasty-royalty-govt related words (which really explains why Men With Swords political scenes I know so few words lol). I got through 10 out of 39 ‘small’ pages on my phone for the first chapter. I think I managed to follow it, the grammar thankfully was really straightforward and I imagine the original author is quite talented. The difficulty was in the very common use of turns of phrase and idioms for so many parts of sentences, which were all new ‘words/phrases’ i’d never seen before.

[rigelmejo]

personal updates on my progress:

I watched episodes 3 and 4 of Granting You A Dreamlike Life in only chinese with chinese subtitles, and looked up no words while watching. I paused perhaps once an episode to read a line that was too fast that I wanted to look at better. I comprehended most of what was going on. I feel I caught the gist of the faster spoken scenes, even though I didn’t catch all the words in those scenes (visual storytelling sure helps - so I’m sure it was my brain catching words I knew and heard, combined with words/characters I caught and read, combined with the visuals and acting, for me to figure out what was happening). A lot of the less meaty scenes I followed mostly everything.

I consider this a huge accomplishment for myself! ;w; When I started trying to learn chinese in August 2019 knowing nothing, comprehending nothing but greetings and numbers... imagining getting to be able to do this was an incredible thought!

Based on this... I think I could start diving into watching some chinese shows I wanted to watch, that have no english subtitles.

Anyway I was just incredibly happy to accomplish this! 

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My process, and the progress over time:

Every few weeks for the past few months since December, I’ve been trying to watch chinese content in only chinese, and it’s been slightly less of a slog each time. The first time, I tried watching Anti-Fraud League and only got through 12 agonizing minutes of being very focused to only catch about 50% of what was going on. Around that time I also watched some all chinese youtube videos where I’d catch 25-75% of what each sentence meant, and not enough to overall follow the videos (they were show/fandom discussion videos). Then I tried watching The Shaw Eleven Lang’s first episode in chinese only, which managed to be comprehensible because it’s mostly action - but I did not catch a TON of words. Then I tried Anti-Fraud League again, and got 25 minutes through it... I caught a lot more, so it was easier, but it was still mystifying enough that my brain felt FRIED trying to focus enough to understand. Next, I tried watching Handsome Siblings on Netflix - with a translating app open to look up words, and paused a lot. It took me 1 hour to get through the 40 minute episode. I managed to follow the gist, but again it was a slog in the sense my brain felt quite fried after an episode. So next I watched episodes 2 and 3, still with a translator and pausing, and felt equally fried. But i managed to follow the plot, while only looking up 10-20 words an episode. 

 It was too draining though, so I took a break (because I am LAZY). A few weeks later, I went and tried to rewatch the first episode of Handsome Siblings. I caught a LOT more words, and comprehended a lot more phrases and sentences. I still was looking up 5-10 words an episode though. It felt less draining, less of a slog.

A week after that, I tried watching episode 1 of Granting You A Dreamlike Life on Viki app. What is really cool, is viki has the ‘learn english’ mode on their phone app now. So I used their dual chinese/english subtitles for episode 1, and used their click-for-definition subtitles to look up a TON of words. I probably looked up 50 or more words in the first episode. It took me like 1.5-2 hours to finish that first episode. I would compare it to intensive reading, mainly because I did look up SO MANY words since I had the convenient ability to.

That was, as expected, a SLOG. But comprehension wise it was quite easygoing, since I had english the whole time to fall back on. It took a conscious effort for me to focus on the chinese subtitles instead, and look up words, so that I was doing some studying instead of just ‘watching the english subs’. I think used in the right way, the viki ‘learn mode’ is so useful! (And I’m super excited they expanded it to all chinese shows subbed with english - before, it used to only be on a handful of shows). Now, I think this was a fantastic way to study. But it was also intensive. And... as we know... I am LAZY.

So the next day, I watched the 2nd episode on youtube where there’s only chinese subtitles. Like with Handsome Siblings, I had my phone translator app open and looked up 5-20 words during the episode. Also like watching Handsome Siblings, this cut down my watch time to 1 hour or less to get through the 40 minute episode. And, like watching Handsome Siblings, it was managable but somewhat draining simply because the urge to comprehend MORE instead of just the main gist made me want to pause/look things up a lot. It was clearly getting easier though. I think part of the ease was the fact that for episode 1, I intensively looked so many words up - so I already had exposure to a lot of the words the show might decide to use frequently. (Like meatbun oh WOW does this show say it a lot).

And so, because, as we know, I am lazy... I just decided to watch episode 3 the next day without looking up any words. So I just didn’t. So the episode took maybe 45 minutes instead of 40, to add in the short pauses I did to rewatch a couple phrases or look at a few complicated sentences while my screen was paused. Definitely the ‘easiest’ experience so far. But that is certainly because I have improved in my chinese, and because I did a bulk of my ‘looking words up’ in episode 1, so I have a nice base of knowledge to rely on. Like... this show also says ‘theatre troupe’ and related words a lot, and because I saw those unfamiliar to me words constantly in episode 1 when I looked them up, I now recognize them much easier in subsequent episodes. So I feel my ability to watch this show without any english, including without looking words up, is probably in part to the experience of looking so many words up in the first episode. I think if I tried to dive into an entirely new show, and look up zero words ever, I’d be struggling a great deal more.

Anyway. Back to the description of the experience: watching episodes 3-4 were pretty easy going. They didn’t feel like a slog! They didn’t feel draining! Which is super exciting to me, because for many months when I’ve been practicing trying to watch chinese shows with only chinese... it has been immensely draining, and I’ve had to focus so hard that I felt burnt out quickly. This time, I did not feel burnt out, and could have kept binging the show. This change is a huge improvement for me. Because, the easier it gets to engage with content and not feel burnt out, the easier it is to want to keep trying to do it. And for a long while I’ve been having to balance the rates of “looking things up to understand” with “comprehending enough of the gist to keep watching.” When I have to look up things constantly, it’s draining and I’m apt to not try to do it very long. When I watch something I barely comprehend, I have to focus so hard I get exhausted and the high amount of confusion is also very draining. Ideally, I look up just enough words to boost my comprehension to a percent I can bare to continue watching without feeling drained, while also limiting my look-up frequency enough that it doesn’t become a burden. 

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A semi-related side note, dual subtitle tools: if you do think the resource of dual subtitles and chinese subtitles you can click for an instant definition sounds like a great thing to use, there are tools to do it on multiple platforms. All of the following tools are free. Viki app and website have ‘learn mode’ (which I believe they also have for korean and japanese). Viki’s learn mode works on any show with over 50% english subs (I’m so glad they expanded the tool to so many shows). I think its a phenomenal tool! There is a similar tool for Netflix, a chrome extension called “Learn Languages with Netflix” and it has a plethora of setting options which are cool to explore, in addition to the same features as viki’s ‘learn mode.’ I personally don’t use the netflix one, because I prefer watching Netflix on my tv - so I just use chinese netflix subs, and look words up on my phone. But I think the extension is super useful - you can even change the settings to watch only in chinese subs, with a definition if you click on a word (which is a nice middle ground between my method of using a dictionary with only chinese subs, and full dual-subtitles with definitions). The maker of that chrome extension also recently made an extension for YouTube called “Learn Languages with Youtube.” That extension is also free and in beta right now. The extension requires that the youtube video has both english and target language captions. I personally do not use it, because again I prefer watching Youtube on my tv. My method is: I find chinese shows on youtube that already have chinese hard subtitles on the video (which are most chinese shows, thankfully). Then, I just watch the show and look up words if I need to. If I am desperately confused, I can click ‘captions’ and turn on the english captions for a moment to get a full sentence english translation. An alternative way to do my method, and what I did more at the beginning: find a chinese hard-chinese-subbed show on youtube. Turn on the english captions. Then whenever you want to learn a new word, stop the video and turn off captions (to see the chinese hard-subs). Sometimes on youtube, the english captions will not cover the chinese hard subs, and you can see both at once like ‘dual subtitles’ - this also helps with matching new words to english. I find that doing it this way is easier when I’m mostly just trying to focus on a few chinese phrases/sentences/words an episode, so it’s more suited to beginners if you plan to do it all the time. I think the extension “Learn Languages with Youtube” is overall a good alternative method, I just do not use youtube on the computer enough to use it myself. 

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Final notes - my thoughts on how much watching chinese shows in only chinese is helping, and why it may help me improve, and what it might be helping with specifically: 

I don’t know how we learn or acquire language. I have read on these topics in some articles and books, and watched some lectures on these topics. But I certainly don’t know the way any expert does, so all of the following are just my thoughts and theories based on my own experiences.

What I am fairly sure watching target language content in only that language is helping with:

Helps me get more context for words I’ve studied, more exposure to those words used in different ways and situations, and helps me remember them better. This exposure also helps me learn more about how to actually use these words in practice.

Same benefit for grammar structures - allows me to see the grammar I studied in target language context, being used. This helps me remember the grammar, and helps me get used to the different ways it actually occurs. Helps me get a sense of when it should be used. Basically, it provides practice to reinforce the grammar I’ve studied and also to learn more about how it’s used in practice.

Helps me get used to following native speaking speed, because in materials focused on language learning the speaking is usually clearer and slower. So engaging in content meant for entertainment instead of education means seeing the language used in more varieties of ways, spoken in more varied ways. So it makes me get used to listening to quicker speech, to variances in speech, to guessing slang from context. Basically - reinforces what I know and makes me improve in using what I know at faster speeds and with more variance. 

Helps me improve reading speed, or at least improve my ability to skim through text for main ideas. Depending on how good my listening ability is for a given scene, I will either rely more on my listening ability or my reading ability to figure out what’s going on. For a lot of chinese words, I’ll either remember the written form or the pronounciation a little better - so for me personally it often varies on which ability I’m relying on more to understand a scene. Sometimes I’ll catch sounds I know and try to figure out what’s going on based on the words I heard and understand. Sometimes I’ll see characters/words in the chinese subtitles that I know, and try to figure out what’s going on based on that (for example, in Granting You A Dreamlike Life, I guessed what 心跳 xintiao meant by knowing it was ‘heart’+’leap’ and based on the scene realizing it means ‘heartbeat’). So, if I plan to minimize how often I pause, I have to get used to glancing at the chinese subtitles as fast as they’re spoken. I have to get used to glancing quickly at those sentences, identifying which characters match up to the words I actually know and recognized when I heard them, then continue to scan the sentence for unknown words and try to match those to what I’m hearing (based on if I know any of the character pronunciations and can match them to what was spoken, based on if I know the character meanings individually and can guess from context what they mean when combined in a word/phrase, etc). The worse my listening comprehension is, the more I rely on those chinese subtitles. The more my listening comprehension is decent, the more I have to focus on BOTH listening and reading to try and link up what I’m hearing to the text and to use ALL available knowledge I already have to guess at what the unknown parts mean from the surrounding context. 

Basically: I am fairly sure watching a show with only chinese audio and subtitles gives me the ability to practice my vocabulary recognition by providing more context and exposure, listening comprehension of words I know, more exposure to grammar I’ve studied with context, listening comprehension speed, reading comprehension speed, and comprehension of words I know. 

It’s certainly beneficial to some level, to use engaging with totally target language content to practice consolidating what you have learned, and improve your ability to understand what you’ve already studied.

To a smaller degree, it also helps me pick up a few new words and phrases - especially if I already know surrounding words, if I know the characters/words that combine to make the new ones, and if the scene provides a lot of clear visual context for what’s going on. (To use Granting You A Dreamlike Life as an example - shifu, dage, meimei, dagongzi, gongzi, jingcha, laoban, changge, xiban, baoqian, shengjian bao, gege, xihuan, shenti, da si, mai, are all words that even a beginner who didn’t know those words could probably pick up from context of the scenes alone, since the scenes they are said imply their meaning pretty clearly). 

This smaller aspect, is what I am most curious about. I am curious about how many NEW things I could potentially learn from engaging with target language content in ONLY the target language. The benefit of improving understanding and practicing what you’ve Already studied is pretty obvious. But how many new words/phrases can you acquire/learn, how many new grammar patterns can you pick up, if you engage with target language content and do not use any translations to help you (so no dual subtitles, no dictionary look up)? 

I’m definitely going to be testing this question as I go through and watch more of the show.

I’m curious as to what the answer will be. There’s definitely the possibility that my mind may decide it “understands enough of the gist to follow the plot” based on the words it already knows, and just relies on that existing knowledge without learning more. 

There’s the other possibility, that I might ‘naturally’ acquire more words as I watch more, because they’ll be understandable from context and repeatedly shown to me, so I will eventually ‘pick them up.’ (This would be the ideal outcome.)

The only other experience I have to compare this to, is when I was learning french. At a certain point when studying french, I stopped looking up new words that confused me. Because I am lazy, and I got good enough to follow the gist of the main ideas of what I read without needing to know those confusing words to do so. Because I am lazy, I just stopped looking things up. Even though if I had continued to look words up, it would have helped me improve and understand more.  So... I went to only learning these new confusing words, by guessing their meaning through context. That was the only thing I did. The thing about french though is... a ton of french words are cognates (or at least resemble a similar meaning word) in english. So it is incredibly easy to figure out the meaning of new french words in context. And once you know enough french words, and there’s only a couple ‘mystery’ words a sentence - even if those words do NOT resemble english at all, there’s so much context around them that you DO understand that make figuring out their meaning easier. This process, as expected, was a slog at first. I often read books and only understood like 50% of the pages I read (I could follow the main ideas, but rarely the finer details). Eventually, it just became easier. Probably because over time I picked up more new words. 

Learning Chinese is a fair bit different. There are very few english cognates, especially compared to french. So there are a LOT more words that I cannot guess from context. At least, not unless I have managed to learn all of the words surrounding the new unknown word. So in french, I could look at a sentence with 60% new words, guess all the cognate meanings and then be left with 10% new words that were confusing enough I had to actually contemplate their meaning based on context. If I look at a sentence in chinese with 60% new words... I will maybe, at best, be able to figure out one new word’s meaning from context. And that is IF I happen to know the characters individually that make it, IF I know enough of the grammar structure to guess what the function of the new word is, IF I managed to understand enough of the surrounding sentences to guess at what the hell these 60% new words might even be ABOUT. There is a lot more I need to rely on and lean on, just to pick up a new word in chinese. 

Now, some study methods help with this issue. Using Memrise to grind the 1000 most common chinese words has been an excellent help. Me being able to recognize the most common words has helped enough that now, I run into a lot more sentences where I only run into 20% or less new words. So these mostly-comprehensible sentences give me chances to learn the few new words from context. But bigger sentences, or sentences on more specialized topics, still basically stump me. I’ll continue using Memrise to learn more common words, and characters, because this has been helping a lot. Second - me studying characters seems to help as well. Mostly because then when I see new unknown words, I have at least one hint about what they might mean, and I can pronounce them (so its very fast for me to look them up in a dictionary). When watching Granting You a Dreamlike Life, the new words I’m picking up easily are the ones made up of characters/smaller words that I already knew. Third - using Clozemaster as an ‘stepping stone’ place to learn from context. Clozemaster gives cloze sentences with one missing word (that you will learn in the context of the sentence). It starts with the most common words, and slowly progresses to teach you less and less common words. This means the sentences tend to increase in difficulty at about the same speed as you gain the ability to comprehend these more difficult sentences. A total beginner will find Clozemaster a bit brutal. But upper-beginner and onward learners may find that Clozemaster is a great way to quickly find i+1 kind of sentences. (i+1 sentences are generally sentences where you understand almost everything in a sentence, except for 1 new word or phrase or grammar point). The app is designed to basically give you i+1 sentences that slowly increase in difficulty as you learn, so that the sentences never become too easy and progress in difficulty with you, and so that if you follow the order of their sentences you will not run into sentences far beyond your level either. So, these are the tasks I have been doing to give myself enough ‘supports’ to lean on, so that when I find new words in target language materials, I have some tools to rely on to help guess their meanings from context when I’m able to. (Another thing that helps build this ‘support,’ is studying grammar. If I recognize the grammar structures, that’s more additional context I can use to try to determine the meaning of a new unknown word. I didn’t include grammar study in this list because I did a ton of grammar cramming early on in month 2 of learning Chinese. Nearly all my grammar study after that has just been me reading/watching chinese and reinforcing those points I already read an overview on. If I ever start struggling again though, I plan to delve into studying grammar more to help give myself more ‘support.’)

But yeah. Basically... I am curious of how much a person can learn SOLELY from engaging with target language content in only the target language. With no additional flashcard studies, no dictionary translation lookups. How much can really be learned SOLELY from the context of a show/book?

With french? In my personal experience, you can pretty much just improve ‘naturally’ over time by trying to engage with target language material and watching yourself ‘naturally’ learn more over time. Once you’ve got a solid common-words basis, and can at least understand the grammar structures when you see them, words themselves are pretty easy to pick up from context over time. It does NOT always feel ‘easy’ by any means, in fact it feels draining and takes intense concentration at first. But you can basically improve without any more vocabulary flashcards or drills, without any more ‘outside of target language content’ studies. You can just immerse, at a certain point, and you’ll improve without any specific focused effort. At least that’s how it was for me. If I wanted to get back into french, I’d probably just start reading some of my french books again and it’d come back to me. Then I’d keep reading, and I’d probably improve. (Take me with a grain of salt, because my writing/speaking was never studied much, and so I would be doing purposeful study drills for those... I am only talking about comprehension).

With chinese? Because there are no cognates to rely on, and certainly dependent on how many characters in a given sentence I recognize... I have no idea if the same approach as I had in french would yield similar results. I don’t know if learning vocabulary can be acquired the same way. I’m interested in finding out. I do know that... for me personally, based on my specific tolerance/intolerance for ambiguity, I needed to learn a solid basis of characters and words before I could brave trying to engage with target language content without english to fall back on. Like... realistically, even when I was first starting and could only focus on a show for 12 minutes to comprehend THE BARE GIST of the MAIN IDEAS, I knew about 500 common characters well (and recognized probably 1000), I knew about 300 common words well (and recognized probably over 800). Now that I am finally feeling less-drained engaging in target language content, I know around 800 characters well (and recognize probably 1500+), and I know about 1000 common words well (and recognize probably 1500+ words - I have no idea how many are common words though, because I know all the HSK 1-3 words, some HSK 4 and 5 words, and also a smattering of specialized genre-specific words based on the specific chinese content I regularly consume). 

At this point in my studies, I can’t actually say how many characters or words I recognize at least somewhat, I can only firmly determine the amount I know I’ve purposely recorded studying (so only the words I have done flashcards for). I know I’ve done 1000 flashcard words. I also know I have 660 cards in Pleco (which are the more specialized vocab I look up and save for later reference, and I know they’ve got some overlap, hence my guess of 1500+ total recognized words). I also know that when I come across words I think are easy to remember, I don’t bother with flashcards (so shifu, gongzi, baoqian, zhengming, heibai, hei, hong, hongse, yu, ying, xing le, hao de, gongsi, banfa, mao, gou, gou le, mingming, ba le, suan le, etc... I never make flashcards for those... any words I think are self explanatory or hear so much I remember them easily, I don’t bother). I also delete my Pleco flashcards when I no longer feel like I need to regularly glance at them for reference. I can say for certain, that I know at minimum 1000 words well. I don’t know how many more words I know well. I can say for certain I know at least the 800 characters in one of my hanzi books known well, because I finished reading the book and when I look over it I no longer find any new information. I know I recognize a solid amount more than that, because I have a 2,500 hanzi book where I have about 1000 hanzi highlighted as recognized - and some of those hanzi overlap with the known ones in the 800 hanzi book, so I am not sure how many beyond 800 I know solidly. 

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idk some last comments: I do NOT recommend Granting You A Dreamlike Life as your first cdrama lol! Pick a show you like!!! Maybe pick a show you’ve already watched once with subtitles in your native language! Or pick a show in the genre you are prioritizing learning words for (daily life, detective, wuxia, romance, etc)! I personally think action shows and daily life shows are the easiest to jump into. Followed by shows in the genre you consume the most. Now... I do think Granting You A Dreamlike life is relatively approachable - lots of daily life conversations, visually a lot of scenes are clear from context. But it is... not the greatest show by any means. I’m only watching it for Zhu Yilong and Bai Qian’s evil cousin from Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms lol. It’s... kind of fun, maybe? for a weird mess? But part of why I’m doing this show, aside from more Zhu Yilong, is I also don’t care too much about the plot. So I don’t get annoyed when I don’t understand something, since I don’t care enough. When I was doing this with Handsome Siblings, I cared about the plot a LOT so the vague parts I didn’t understand frustrated me immensely, and I wanted to pause/rewatch/lookup so much it slowed me down considerably. It also drained me more, because I was trying to pay attention to everything super hard. Whereas with this show, it’s not a big deal to me if I miss some details, so it doesn’t feel as draining. 

So I guess... the positives of picking a show you already watched once: you won’t be frustrated if you miss details since you already know the plot. The positives of picking a show you REALLY want to watch: you’ll care and be interested in it... but you may find it more intensive of an experience, which can be draining. The positives of picking a show you find kind of fun: hopefully keeps you interested, but also hopefully is less intensive since you don’t care if you miss a detail. The positives of picking a simple show: easier to follow! Easier on your focus! (although I don’t personally know any ‘simple’ shows except maybe... peppa pig? Which I don’t want to watch). 

For me personally, interest is the biggest driving factor in what I’m choosing. Because I need to be motivated to actually get through an episode. The second biggest factor is ‘if it’s something new I have never seen before.’ Because for me specifically, I want to test my progress in being able to comprehend things. And I feel I can do that best by watching something I have absolutely ZERO summary or prior knowledge of, and then seeing how decent I am at actually figuring out what’s going on. If I watch something I’ve already seen, then I can’t test this progress as clearly. There are plenty of benefits to watching something you do already have context for/have already seen once: that’s why many people suggest reading a summary of episodes beforehand, or rewatching/reading something you already experienced in your native language. Because the context may help you pick up new words easier, and may help prevent you from getting frustrated at the parts you don’t comprehend. For me personally, I prefer to do this by watching something brand new, to test my progress, then watching it a second time (after reading a summary to check how much I comprehended the main ideas, or watching it with eng subs a 2nd time then again in all target language a 3rd time) if I want those rewatch benefits.