#english comprehension practice questions

[englishbyruchi]

Passage practice with 10 MCQs - 3 & 4

Passage 3 (The Report) Lee sat among the books at the library and thought about his group project. They had to turn it in soon, but he hadn’t even started his part! Jack and Claire were in his group. They had worked hard. They were also very smart, and Lee didn’t want them to get a bad grade. Jack did the report. He wrote a lot of very good sentences and described things with great adjectives.…

[solvednotes]

Quiz on Dust of Snow: Take the Ultimate Challenge

Post Excerpt:Prepare for your Class 10 board exams with this ultimate Quiz on Dust of Snow by Robert Frost, a key poem from the NCERT textbook First Flight. This comprehensive quiz, packed with challenging MCQs on themes, symbolism, imagery, and factual details, is designed to enhance your understanding and boost your revision. Test your knowledge now and ace your English exam!

[race4job]

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[what-even-is-thiss]

Free or Cheap Mandarin Chinese Learning Resources Because You Can't Let John Cena One Up You Again

I will update this list as I learn of any more useful ones. If you want general language learning resources check out this other post. This list is Mandarin specific. Find lists for other specific languages here.

For the purposes of this list "free" means something that is either totally free or has a useful free tier. "Cheap" is a subscription under $10USD a month, a software license or lifetime membership purchase under $100USD, or a book under $30USD. If you want to suggest a resource for this list please suggest ones in that price range that are of decent quality and not AI generated.

WEBSITES

Dong Chinese - A website with lessons, a pinyin guide, a dictionary, and various videos and practice tests. With a free account you're only allowed to do one lesson every 12 hours. To do as many lessons as quickly as you want it costs $10 a month or $80 a year.

Domino Chinese - A paid website with video based lessons from absolute beginner to college level. They claim they can get you ready to get a job in China. They offer a free trial and after that it's $5 a month or pay what you can if you want to support their company.

Chinese Education Center - This is an organization that gives information to students interested in studying abroad in China. They have free text based lessons for beginners on vocab, grammar, and handwriting.

Pleco Dictionary App - This is a very popular dictionary app on both iOS and Android. It has a basic dictionary available for free but other features can be purchased individually or in bundles. A full bundle that has what most people would want is about $30 but there are more expensive options with more features.

MIT OpenCourseWare Chinese 1 2 3 4 5 6 - These are actual archived online courses from MIT available for free. You will likely need to download them onto your computer.

Learn Chinese Web Application From Cambridge University - This is a free downloadable file with Mandarin lessons in a PC application. There's a different program for beginner and intermediate.

Learn Chinese Everyday - A free word a day website. Every day the website posts a different word with pronunciation, stroke order, and example sentences. There's also an archive of free downloadable worksheets related to previous words featured on the website.

Chinese Boost - A free website and blog with beginner lessons and articles about tips and various resources to try.

Chinese Forums - An old fashioned forum website for people learning Chinese to share resources and ask questions. It's still active as of when I'm making this list.

Du Chinese - A free website and an app with lessons and reading and listening practice with dual transcripts in both Chinese characters and pinyin. They also have an English language blog with tips, lessons, and information on Chinese culture.

YOUTUBE CHANNELS

Chinese For Us - A channel that provides free video lessons for beginners. The channel is mostly in English.

Herbin Mandarin - A channel with a variety of lessons for beginners. The channel hasn't uploaded in a while but there's a fairly large archive of lessons to watch. The channel is mainly in English.

Mandarin Blueprint - This channel is by a couple of guys who also run a paid website. However on their YouTube channel there's a lot of free videos with tips about how to go about learning Chinese, pronunciation and writing tips, and things of that nature. The channel is mainly in English.

Blabla Chinese - A comprehensible input channel with content about a variety of topics for beginner to intermediate. The video descriptions are in English but the videos themselves are all in Mandarin.

Lazy Chinese - A channel aimed at intermediate learners with videos on general topics, grammar, and culture. They also have a podcast. The channel has English descriptions but the videos are all in Mandarin.

Easy Mandarin - A channel associated with the easy languages network that interviews people on the street in Taiwan about everyday topics. The channel has on screen subtitles in traditional characters, pinyin, and English.

StickynoteChinese - A relatively new channel but it already has a decent amount of videos. Jun makes videos about culture and personal vlogs in Mandarin. The channel is aimed at learners from beginner to upper intermediate.

Story Learning Chinese With Annie - A comprehensible input channel almost entirely in Mandarin. The host teaches through stories and also makes videos about useful vocabulary words and cultural topics. It appears to be aimed at beginner to intermediate learners.

LinguaFlow Chinese - Another relatively new channel but they seem to be making new videos regularly. The channel is aimed at beginner to intermediate learners and teaches and provides listening practice with video games. The channel is mostly in Mandarin.

Lala Chinese - A channel with tips on grammar and pronunciation with the occasional vlog for listening practice, aimed at upper beginner to upper intermediate learners. Some videos are all in Mandarin while others use a mix of English and Mandarin. Most videos have dual language subtitles onscreen.

Grace Mandarin Chinese - A channel with general information on the nitty gritty of grammar, pronunciation, common mistakes, slang, and useful phrases for different levels of learners. Most videos are in English but some videos are fully in Mandarin.

READING PRACTICE

HSK Reading - A free website with articles sorted into beginner, intermediate, and advanced. Every article has comprehension questions. You can also mouse over individual characters and see the pinyin and possible translations. The website is in a mix of English and Mandarin.

chinesegradedreader.com - A free website with free short readings up to HSK level 3 or upper intermediate. Each article has an explaination at the beginning of key vocabulary words in English and you can mouse over individual characters to get translations.

Mandarin Companion - This company sells books that are translated and simplified versions of classic novels as well as a few originals for absolute beginners. They are available in both traditional and simplified Chinese. Their levels don't appear to be aligned with any HSK curriculum but even their most advanced books don't have more than 500 individual characters according to them so they're likely mostly for beginners to advanced beginners. New paperbacks seem to usually be $14 but cheaper used copies, digital copies, and audiobooks are also available. The website is in English.

Graded Chinese Readers - Not to be confused with chinese graded reader, this is a website with information on different graded readers by different authors and different companies. The website tells you what the book is about, what level it's for, whether or not it uses traditional or simplified characters, and gives you a link to where you can buy it on amazon. They seem to have links to books all the way from HSK 1 or beginner to HSK 6 or college level. A lot of the books seem to be under $10 but as they're all from different companies your mileage and availability may vary. The website is in English.

Mandarin Bean - A website with free articles about Chinese culture and different short stories. Articles are sorted by HSK level from 1 to 6. The website also lets you switch between traditional or simplified characters and turn the pinyin on or off. It also lets you mouse over characters to get a translation. They have a relatively expensive paid tier that gives you access to video lessons and HSK practice tests and lesson notes but all articles and basic features on the site are available on the free tier without an account. The website is in a mix of Mandarin and English.

Mandarin Daily News - This is a daily newspaper from Taiwan made for children so the articles are simpler, have illustrations and pictures, and use easier characters. As it's for native speaker kids in Taiwan, the site is completely in traditional Chinese.

New Tong Wen Tang for Chrome or Firefox - This is a free browser extension that can convert traditional characters to simplified characters or vice versa without a need to copy and paste things into a separate website.

PODCASTS

Melnyks Chinese - A podcast for more traditional audio Mandarin Chinese lessons for English speakers. The link I gave is to their website but they're also available on most podcatcher apps.

Chinese Track - Another podcast aimed at learning Mandarin but this one goes a bit higher into lower intermediate levels.

Dimsum Mandarin - An older podcast archive of 30 episodes of dialogues aimed at beginner to upper beginner learners.

Dashu Mandarin - A podcast run by three Chinese teachers aimed at intermediate learners that discusses culture topics and gives tips for Mandarin learners. There are also male teachers on the podcast which I'm told is relatively rare for Mandarin material aimed at learners and could help if you're struggling to understand more masculine speaking patterns.

Learning Chinese Through Stories - A storytelling podcast mostly aimed at intermediate learners but they do have some episodes aimed at beginner or advanced learners. They have various paid tiers for extra episodes and learning material on their patreon but there's still a large amount of episodes available for free.

Haike Mandarin - A conversational podcast in Taiwanese Mandarin for intermediate learners. Every episode discusses a different everyday topic. The episode descriptions and titles are entirely in traditional Chinese characters. The hosts provide free transcripts and other materials related to the episodes on their blog.

Learn Chinese With Ju - A vocabulary building podcast aimed at intermediate learners. The podcast episodes are short at around 4-6 minutes and the host speaks about a variety of topics in a mix of English and Mandarin.

xiaoyuzhou fm - An iOS app for native speakers to listen to podcasts. I’m told it has a number of interactive features. If you have an android device you’ll likely have to do some finagling with third party apps to get this one working. As this app is for native speakers, the app is entirely in simplified Chinese.

Apple Podcast directories for Taiwan and China - Podcast pages directed towards users in those countries/regions.

SELF STUDY TEXTBOOKS AND DICTIONARIES

Learning Chinese Characters - This series is sorted by HSK levels and each volume in the series is around $11. Used and digital copies can also be found for cheaper.

HSK Standard Course Textbooks - These are textbooks designed around official Chinese government affiliated HSK tests including all of the simplified characters, grammar, vocab, and cultural knowledge necessary to pass each test. There are six books in total and the books prices range wildly depending on the level and the seller, going for as cheap as $14 to as expensive as $60 though as these are pretty common textbooks, used copies and cheaper online shops can be found with a little digging. The one I have linked to here is the HSK 1 textbook. Some textbook sellers will also bundle them with a workbook, some will not.

Chinese Made Easy for Kids - Although this series is aimed at children, I'm told that it's also very useful for adult beginners. There's a large number of textbooks and workbooks at various levels. The site I linked to is aimed at people placing orders in Hong Kong but the individual pages also have links to various other websites you can buy them from in other countries. The books range from $20-$35 but I include them because some of them are cheaper and they seem really easy to find used copies of.

Reading and Writing Chinese - This book contains guides on all 2300 characters in the HSK texts as of 2013. Although it is slightly outdated, it's still useful for self study and is usually less than $20 new. Used copies are also easy to find.

Basic Chinese by Mcgraw Hill - This book also fuctions as a workbook so good quality used copies can be difficult to find. The book is usually $20 but it also often goes on sale on Amazon and they also sell a cheaper digital copy.

Chinese Grammar: A beginner's guide to basic structures - This book goes over beginner level grammar concepts and can usually be found for less than $20 in print or as low as $2 for a digital copy.

Collins Mandarin Chinese Visual Dictionary - A bilingual English/Mandarin visual dictionary that comes with a link to online audio files. A new copy goes for about $14 but used and digital versions are available.

Merriam-Webster's Chinese to English Dictionary - In general Merriam Websters usually has the cheapest decent quality multilingual dictionaries out there, including for Mandarin Chinese. New editions usually go for around $8 each while older editions are usually even cheaper.

(at the end of the list here I will say I had a difficult time finding tv series specifically made for learners of Mandarin Chinese so if you know of any that are made for teenage or adult learners or are kids shows that would be interesting to adults and are free to watch without a subscription please let me know and I will add them to the list. There's a lot of Mandarin language TV that's easy to find but what I'm specifically interested in for these lists are free to watch series made for learners and/or easy to understand kids shows originally made in the target language that are free and easy to access worldwide)

[majimaisms]

@ccile03 has very kindly invited me to give my two (million) cents on this and i wanted to explain, as best i could, how i interpreted majima's character arc in pirate yakuza. however. this post definitely got away from me, so be prepared, this is going to be a LONG one, and it's the most comprehensive analysis i've done of majima as a character to date. i think i just wanted an excuse to talk about the game, honestly

introduction

i think i should start by saying that i think what we see in this game is not an arc for majima in its entirety, but the culmination of one that we had been observing (glimpsing, really) from the sidelines for years. so the question of "what arc did majima have in this game?" is really a question of "what arc did majima have in this series?" and to answer that, we have to start at the beginning.

from the moment he's introduced in the first game, majima is shown to be cynical and nihilistic.

scott strichart, who was in charge of majima's english localization throughout y0-k2 and y6-y7, had this to say about this scene, which i completely agree with:

First, you need to understand Majima's primary motivation - Saejima. Ever since he missed participating in that hit, Majima's singular, driving goal is to give Saejima the opportunity to confront him and exact whatever punishment he feels is appropriate. So Majima sets out from square -1 to get back into the Tojo Clan and gain enough power and position to do that. But as you know, in Y0, he discovers that some costs are too great, which throws his entire life's purpose into question: How do I balance my own sense of right and wrong with the tenacity I must have in order get back into the clan and to Saejima? That answer comes in the shape of three different dudes who give him three different answers to how one is "tenacious" - Lee, who would go to ANY length to protect the ones he loves, Nishitani, who throws his entire self into his pursuit of pleasure, and even Sagawa, who as Majima tells him, is "practically immortal." But what happens to his three paragons of tenacity? Well, you know that answer if you've played Y0. What happens when Majima attempts to take the moral high ground? What happens when he dares to show some modicum of emotion? [...] And the evidence of Majima's mindset in Kiwami is right in the first few lines when you meet him: What's the point of doing the right thing? "Doing things that way is going to break you." But no… that's just a projection. Majima is the one who got broken. And if you've played Y2 through Y5, you see the facade slowly start to fade. It's a really interesting growth of the character.

note the parts i highlighted in bold. we will get back to these later.

i think to understand majima and what this game does for him as a character, you have to understand both his problem and how he has tried to solve that problem. you have to understand his tragedy. and for that, you have to understand the psychological consequences of being part of an organization like the yakuza. the emotional impact it has on your life, on your relationship with yourself, and why. this context informs most of my analysis because i think its inextricable from majima as a character. i will also be heavily quoting simone weil to talk about these ideas, so please bear with me.

1. understanding the problem (and what it isn't)

the thing is, it's not easy to do awful things to other people. it's not easy to extort money from people, it's not easy to threaten them, it's not easy to attack someone when it's not in self defense. it's not easy to be mean. it's not easy to lie, cheat, steal. all of these things have an emotional toll: guilt. now, guilt goes away if you let it, but that has a spiritual toll. but where does that guilt come from in the first place?

simone weil says:

There exists an obligation towards every human being for the sole reason that he or she is a human being, without any other condition requiring to be fulfilled, and even without any recognition of such obligation on the part of the individual concerned.

All human beings are bound by identical obligations [...]. No human being, whoever he may be, under whatever circumstances, can escape them without being guilty of crime; save where there are two genuine obligations which are in fact incompatible, and a man is forced to sacrifice one of them. The imperfections of a social order can be measured by the number of situations of this kind it harbours within itself. But even in such a case, a crime is committed if the obligation so sacrificed is not merely sacrificed in fact, but its existence denied into the bargain.

majima is torn between two incompatible obligations. his obligation towards every human being in the world, and his obligation towards saejima. whether or not his obligation to saejima is a genuine one is a matter of interpretation (as in, whether or not he was really responsible for failing saejima. i think there is merit to his sense of responsibility regarding this, but that's another post) and an important distinction to make, but the fact remains that it registers to majima as a genuine one.

weil also says:

There is a reality outside the world, that is to say, outside space and time, outside man's mental universe, outside any sphere whatsoever that is accessible to human faculties. Corresponding to this reality, at the centre of the human heart, is the longing for an absolute good, a longing which is always there and is never appeased by any object in this world. That reality is the unique source of all the good that can exist in this world: that is to say, all beauty, all truth, all justice, all legitimacy, all order, and all human behaviour that is mindful of obligations. Those minds whose attention and love are turned towards that reality are the sole intermediary through which good can descend from there and come among men. Although it is beyond the reach of any human faculties, man has the power of turning his attention and love towards it. Nothing can ever justify the assumption that any man, whoever he may be, has been deprived of this power. It is a power which is only real in this world in so far as it is exercised. The sole condition for exercising it is consent.

now, you don't have to agree with any of this, but i will be using this framework and language to make my points because i find it useful.

what this all comes down to is that "moral behavior" is not something done only for the sake of others, and that in fact there is no distinction between the sake of oneself and others. you cannot hurt others without also hurting yourself in some way. my analysis rests on this key point.

weil says that corresponding to these human obligations, we can identify a number of human needs, some of which have to do with the physical side of life (like food, shelter, security) and some of which have to do with the moral side.

They form, like our physical needs, a necessary condition of our life on this earth. Which means to say that if they are not satisfied, we fall little by little into a state more or less resembling death, more or less akin to a purely vegetative existence.

she says that human collectivities (family, country, organization, etc.) fulfill these needs. the collectivity that majima is part of is the tojo clan and in a broader sense, the yakuza. they are not part of civil society, but as weil notes, their obligations towards people outside of the yakuza are not lessened by this fact, and anyone whose attention and love is turned towards "good" is aware of this. so they feel the full weight of these obligations. majima feels this weight.

we can see here that majima is being driven by a need, a need that corresponds to his obligations to other people. he calls it "being a man", weil calls it "being mindful of obligations."

weil has identified some of these needs, which she calls "the needs of the soul", as follows:

HONOUR is a vital need of the human soul. [...] honour has to do with a human being considered not simply as such, but from the point of view of his social surroundings. This need is fully satisfied where each of the social organisms to which a human being belongs allows him to share in a noble tradition enshrined in its past history and given public acknowledgment. For example, for the need of honour to be satisfied in professional life, every profession requires to have some association really capable of keeping alive the memory of all the store of nobility, heroism, probity, generosity and genius spent in the exercise of that profession.

PUNISHMENT is a vital need of the human soul. [...] The most indispensable punishment for the soul is that inflicted for crime. By committing crime, a man places himself, of his own accord, outside the chain of eternal obligations which bind every human being to every other one. Punishment alone can weld him back again; fully so, if accompanied by consent on his part; otherwise only partially so. 

Initiative and RESPONSIBILITY, to feel one is useful and even indispensable, are vital needs of the human soul. [...] For this need to be satisfied it is necessary that a man should often have to take decisions in matters great or small affecting interests that are distinct from his own, but in regard to which he feels a personal concern. He also requires to be continually called upon to supply fresh efforts.

i find this language and framework for talking about the concepts of virtue, guilt, redemption and how those things tie into one's professional and social life very useful when exploring the relationship rgg characters have to the yakuza and to themselves.

i will be focusing on these three needs for now because i think they are where the crux of majima's struggle lies. not only majima, but every yakuza who feels the weight of human obligations. because the work they do as yakuza does not fulfill their need for honor, and the crimes they commit by not fulfilling their obligations (as they are exploiting and profiting off innocent people, depriving them of their vital needs) creates the need for punishment. this is part of why we see these characters go to prison so willingly.

being yakuza means effectively denying one's own need for honor. this compels these characters to remedy this by clinging to whatever amount or kind of honor they can maintain. it's this cycle that keeps them going, that pushes these characters to commit the extraordinary acts of heroism we admire them for. it's because they are driven by the need to make up for something. for being yakuza.

weil says:

[...] a collectivity has its roots in the past. It constitutes the sole agency for preserving the spiritual treasures accumulated by the dead, the sole transmitting agency by means of which the dead can speak to the living.

she says that the need to be rooted is the most important need of the soul, and that being part of a collectivity, a "social organism" as she calls it, and having active participation in it is the only means of fulfilling this need. yakuza are no exception. RGG's consistent theme of carrying on the dreams of others is a form of "the dead speaking to the living", that is to say, a form of fulfilling the need for roots – which by the way is the name of the book these excerpts are from.

Every social organism, of whatever kind it may be, which does not provide its members with these satisfactions, is diseased and must be restored to health.

There are collectivities which, instead of serving as food, do just the opposite: they devour souls. In such cases, the social body is diseased, and the first duty is to attempt a cure; in certain circumstances, it may be necessary to have recourse to surgical methods. With regard to this matter, too, the obligation for those inside as for those outside the collectivity is an identical one. [...] Finally, there are dead collectivities which, without devouring souls, don’t nourish them either. If it is absolutely certain that they are well and truly dead, that it isn’t just a question of a temporary lethargy, then and only then should they be destroyed.

the yakuza, by measure of the number of situations it creates where incompatible obligations have to compete against each other, is a deeply imperfect social order. but as weil notes, sacrificing obligations and denying their existence are distinct compromises. "guilt goes away if you let it" – this is where that distinction lies. to free yourself of guilt, you have to deny the existence of these obligations, and so deny your own need for punishment. and the spiritual toll of that exchange is pragmatism, which weil describes as "spiritually crossing a boundary equivalent to death."

she says this about denying the existence of obligations:

Actually, such a negation is impossible. It amounts to spiritual suicide. And Man is so made that in him spiritual death is accompanied by psychological diseases in themselves fatal. So that, in fact, the instinct of self-preservation prevents the soul from doing more than draw closer to such a state [...]. Almost always, he who denies all obligations lies to others and to himself; in actual fact, he recognizes some amongst them. There isn’t a man on earth who doesn’t at times pronounce an opinion on good and evil, even if it be only to find fault with somebody else.

many yakuza try to avoid guilt (and the need for punishment) by denying the existence of human obligations. simply put, it's a way of running from accountability.

but guilt is not the reason for majima's struggle with this. majima has already decided that he is not going to cross that spiritual boundary to avoid guilt, because he understands that the consequences would be nothing more than a self-betrayal. he has too much respect for the truth to lie to himself like that. his "longing for an absolute good" compels him to accept his need for punishment. and he is not confused about what he thinks is right or wrong.

yakuza 0 was not about majima trying to decide whether or not killing an innocent girl was wrong. he knew it was wrong. it was about whether or not it was worth it to kill an innocent person. if he had been grappling with whether or not murder was wrong, it would've been equivalent to "spiritual suicide" as weil calls it. but he never denies the existence of such an obligation on his part – he never pretends it wasn't wrong to kill a defenseless civilian.

and his takeaway was that it was not worth it. it was not worth it to kill makoto to fulfill his obligation to saejima. he sacrificed his obligation to saejima, but no "crime" was committed in this process because he did not deny the existence of his obligations towards anyone. his need for honor was not sacrificed, and thus no self-betrayal took place. once again, denying human obligations is synonymous with self betrayal in this framework.

majima simply will not do something that he knows he will regret later out of guilt, and he takes care to predict what he will feel guilty about so as to avoid this outcome. his judgment regarding this remained solid throughout y0, even if it wavered at times.

another example of majima being torn between two genuine obligations was in y5.

this scene is remarkable to me because it's the only other time, aside from y0, we see the consequences of majima "daring to show a modicum of emotion." his obligations are being used against him. the "longing for an absolute good" in his heart is being used against him. because in order to fulfill his obligation to saejima here (to not put him to the same impossible choice), he would have to sacrifice a much more universal one, as well as a personal one to kiryu. and then how could he "call himself a man"?

saejima tells him that if he was the kind of person who would let haruka die, he would've killed him anyway. but this doesn't stop majima from still being apologetic in this scene – he still feels the weight of his responsibility to saejima, even if they are in agreement that it should be sacrificed. the existence of both obligations are acknowledged, thus no "crime" takes place, just like in y0. once again, we see that majima's problem is not in denying the existence of obligations.

majima's struggle here has to do with how to prevent things from coming to a point where he has to sacrifice obligations in the first place. this was his takeaway from y0. the obvious answer to this is to quit the clan, but it's too late for that. he already did that and just ended up going back. his obligations to the people in his life (saejima, kiryu) and his need for roots keep him tied to the clan.

so, what does he do instead?

2. understanding the "solution"

this is where we return to scott strichart's comment.

"How do I balance my own sense of right and wrong with the tenacity I must have in order get back into the clan and to Saejima?"

it's misleading to think of his obligation towards saejima as something to be balanced against his sense of right and wrong, as strichart puts it – in reality they are one and the same. the fact that he has to be tenacious is merely an extension of his obligation towards saejima.

more importantly, this is not a question of what moral philosophy to subscribe to, or anything that has to do with speculative reasoning. the singular question majima is struggling with the most in his life is a question of "how" – it's a question of methods.

majima has always been primarily concerned with methods. he is someone who locks onto ends and produces means to achieve them. this is what makes him resourceful. he gets his way, because he finds and makes a way. he is all about getting results.

but strichart's question is only half of majima's problem. the other half comes from his answer to the first one: "by preventing situations in which i will find myself having to choose between obligations."

majima, like strichart, has identified correctly that these situations arise only when he "dares to show a modicum of emotion." thus, the goal should be to simply stop doing that. but how is he going to do that? what method should he choose for that?

his answer to that question is mad dog. this is an answer equivalent to "whichever method works." because the factors that he takes into consideration when trying to formulate an answer for that "should" are concerned entirely with the effectiveness of the method. in other words, majima's mistake is that he doesn't think what he thinks is right or wrong should be the most important deciding factor in determining his methods for preventing situations where he has to sacrifice obligations.

it is, ironically, his dedication to solving this problem without sacrificing either obligation that makes him cross that spiritual boundary. because you see, this too is a form of pragmatism. he's essentially trading one form of spiritual death for another, and so he is still stuck in the cycle of honor and punishment. because methods are not exempt from human obligations either, yet he is denying the existence of those obligations. their existence is "denied into the bargain." pragmatism is the justification for this denial. "the world doesn't give two shits if there's a point or not, so it's better if i don't either."

weil understood the crucial role methods played:

Everything in creation is dependent on method, including the points of intersection between this world and the next.

"the next world" she is referring to is the one she says is the source of all "good" in the world. she is concerned with how to align her methods with her obligations, which is itself a problem of methods.

to majima as well, the most valuable resources in the world are methods that are effective and align with his obligations. why betray himself like this if he can avoid it? and he learns methods from observing people. this was why he ended up following shimano. this is what his "men i respect" thing is about. he means, "people i can learn something from."

but despite being already disillusioned with shimano's methods by the time he dies, he's never been able to successfully replace them with anything else. unable to find anyone around he could learn from, he has resorted to compromise. he decided he couldn't afford to commit to aligning his methods with his obligations. he has prioritized his continued survival and success in the yakuza because of his obligation to saejima, at the cost of his soul. mad dog is the product of that exchange. mad dog is the solution, the justification, the lie.

this is a sacrifice he has had to make because of the social order he exists in. this is why the yakuza is a "diseased" social organism, as weil calls it. this aspect of the yakuza and majima's views on it were explored in majima saga in k2.

let's take a look at majima's methods:

you might note, at this point, that all of these things are things kiryu would never do.

this was what fascinated him about kiryu. because kiryu is suggesting there is a right and wrong method, and not only that, he's saying it's a factor that should be considered, that deserves our attention and love, and we should be mindful of it. he's the embodiment of the principle that we can't justify denying our obligations. this is what he admires kiryu so much for – that he is not betraying himself in the way majima has. he has things to learn from kiryu, and that is what majima respects most above all else.

kiryu represented a solution to his self-imposed spiritual exile. however, this solution was not as straightforward as you would think.

fighting has always been a form of communication, of debate, in RGG. when majima and kiryu are fighting, these are the conflicting ideas that are being tested against each other. and he wants kiryu to prove his methods wrong. because he hates his methods. he realizes he's fighting for the wrong side, and he wants everything he represents to be defeated. to be able to be defeated. and he trains and mentors kiryu specifically for this purpose. he has made himself into a mascot of this spiritually vacant philosophy, but at least he can offer its enemies (which includes himself) something that would effectively function as a training dummy. he is giving kiryu the opportunity to know his enemy. this is a noble goal. it justifies the continued existence of mad dog.

this was a method he thought would work. it's pretty clever, you have to give him that. but in fact, it's only another instance of the two incompatible obligations problem. he's fulfilling his need for honor and punishment, but he's failing to fulfill his need for responsibility towards kiryu.

he needs to make up for this ongoing failure, so the series is full of examples of him going out of his way to help kiryu (y2, y3, y5, iw and now pirate yakuza). as weil said, majima "requires to be continually called upon to supply fresh efforts" for his need for responsibility to be fulfilled. he's glad for the opportunity to help kiryu. he needs kiryu to need his support. in simpler terms, he wants to be useful. he feels this need as it corresponds to his obligations towards kiryu, which are identical to his obligations towards anyone, but which he feels more keenly with kiryu because he's stuck in this cycle of honor, punishment and responsibility, trying to make up for the lack of one through fulfilling the other. and it's specifically tied to kiryu because he can only fulfill his need for honor/punishment through kiryu, because kiryu is the only one strong enough to defeat him in a fight. and yet he is failing his other obligations to him in the process BECAUSE of his method.

it would not be too much of an exaggeration to say that the integrity of majima's soul rests in the balance that is the conflict between himself and kiryu. this is why this conflict cannot end. it will remain self-perpetuating so long as they both remain mindful of obligations. they are yin and yang.

let's go back to scott strichart's comment again.

And if you've played Y2 through Y5, you see the facade slowly start to fade. It's a really interesting growth of the character.

while i agree with this, it should be noted that even though majima's facade slowly fades, nothing substantial takes its place. he literally dies in yakuza 5, and he is reborn as nothing more than a mascot, a symbol, a boss fight as far as the games are concerned. just as he was in kiwami. his methods do not change, because he still can't afford to change them. because he is still yakuza.

but he is feeling the emotional and spiritual toll of continuing those methods.

he doesn't have it in him anymore to keep up the act, to prop up mad dog to act as an interface between himself and the world around him.

note here that majima is the perfect visual representation of a dead thing – he's literally wearing the skin of dead animals, and "majima goro" is the first among them. the fact that he is narratively dead in y5, a game about dreams where everyone has an honest job is really, really on the nose when you consider things in these terms.

but y5 does a spectacular job of reminding majima why he needs to stay dead, why he chose to avoid emotional attachments and obfuscate the ones he does have in the first place. if it weren't for an impossibly unlikely chain of events, either haruka would've died or saejima would've had to kill majima. majima doesn't want to risk anyone being put to that choice again. kurosawa's whole plan hinged on the fact that he identified this as a weakness in majima that he planned to use against him – and it almost worked.

this is what he risks happening every time he has conflicting obligations. every time he "shows a modicum of emotion." he has enemies who will use it against him to hurt his loved ones. so even if he is disillusioned with mad dog, as long as he cannot think of a better method of preventing this, he needs to keep up the act. his "solution" has become another cage he finds himself in, because he can't escape the bigger cage he's in: the yakuza.

this is not a problem unique to majima. any yakuza mindful of their obligations struggles with similar problems, because it's the yakuza as an organization imposes this problem on them. it devours souls. this was why it needed to be destroyed.

3. the dissolution, and pirate yakuza

you would think that being out of the yakuza would finally solve a bunch of these problems for majima (and saejima and daigo.) instead, this is the state they're in.

because they understand that they were not the only ones who gave their souls to the clan. there were thousands of others, and those thousands joined the clan because of them. because of the promises they made. it is their responsibility to honor their men's sacrifices and their own promises by taking care of them after the dissolution, but they have no way of fulfilling their need for responsibility, honor or punishment as it concerns their obligations to these people.

the shame, guilt and helplessness is really setting in as they are forced to face their failure. and the sacrifices they made along the way? they have nothing to show for any of it. all the justifications, all the self-betrayals, all the compromises. the obligations they sacrificed. the people they've hurt. this is where it all culminates.

this is how lost they are, how lost majima is – he seems to be doing the worst out of the three of them – in the absence of any methods to reconnect to and do right by the social organism he's part of, his roots. they are cut off from any means of helping the people they used to lead and feel responsible for. they are uprooted.

weil says:

Uprootedness is by far the most dangerous malady to which human societies are exposed, for it is a self-propagating one. For people who are really uprooted there remain only two possible sorts of behaviour: either to fall into a spiritual lethargy resembling death [...] or to hurl themselves into some form of activity necessarily designed to uproot, often by the most violent methods, those who are not yet uprooted, or only partly so.

Whoever is uprooted himself uproots others. Whoever is rooted himself doesn’t uproot others.

majima, saejima and daigo fell into the former category. it is a testament to how mindful they are of obligations that they did not fall into the latter.

kiryu tried to break them out of that spiritual lethargy in infinite wealth, reminding them of their obligations. remember what i said earlier about kiryu being the "embodiment of the principle that we can't justify denying our obligations"? this is him doing it again, as always. and this was the single most life-affirming thing he could do for them.

on the growing of roots, weil had this to say:

The problem of a method for breathing an inspiration into a people is quite a new one. [...] It is unfortunate for us that this problem, in regard to which, unless I am wrong, we have nothing we can look to for guidance, should be precisely the one that requires today the most urgent solution on our part.

she identified the problem of growing roots as a problem of methods of inspiring people. on this, she wrote:

It sometimes happens that a thought, either formulated to oneself or not formulated at all, works secretly on the mind and yet has but little direct influence over it. If one hears this thought expressed publicly by some other person, and especially by someone whose words are listened to with respect, its force is increased an hundredfold and can sometimes bring about an inner transformation. It can also happen that one needs, whether one realizes it or not, to hear certain words, which, if they are effectively pronounced, and in a quarter whence one would normally expect good to come from, infuse comfort, energy and as it were a food.

just as this was the case with kiryu in infinite wealth, it is the case with noah in pirate yakuza.

violence is a tool. majima has always viewed it as such, but here noah is telling him that not only is it a tool, he doesn't think it's an inherently bad one. he thinks it's cool. he is radically accepting of majima in a way he has never experienced before.

we know that majima has had a complicated history with violence. he hit his wife and left her. he's been using it as a method to keep his subordinates in line for years – something he ideologically does not agree with, but has accepted as a necessary sacrifice. it's not a coincidence that the first thing majima remembers about himself is his guilt surrounding his violence – guilt enabled to become manifest in the absence of his justification, in the absence of mad dog, which had acted not only as an interface between majima and the world, but between himself and his own needs. everything was filtered through mad dog.

but instead of condoning violence via majima's philosophy of pragmatism, which majima has used as a justification (a lie), noah is offering him a way out of the dilemma he's been stuck in for decades. he suggests that as long as you're fighting for the right thing (which majima is in this case), violence is a perfectly acceptable method that does not constitute a crime, and thus, should not create a need for punishment. it's reassuring to majima in exactly the way he needs. it's also something no one else in his life could reassure him about, because they're too busy feeling guilty about their own violence. only someone who is truly "innocent" could absolve majima of this guilt.

majima's face in that last shot is all the evidence you need for its impact. this is what he's needed to hear his whole life, and it would not have had the same impact coming from anyone other than a child. and it had to be this specific child, because:

To no matter whom the question may be put in general terms, nobody is of the opinion that any man is innocent if, possessing food himself in abundance and finding someone on his doorstep three parts dead from hunger, he brushes past without giving him anything. So it is an eternal obligation towards the human being not to let him suffer from hunger when one has the chance of coming to his assistance.

this was the model on which weil based her theory of human needs and obligations, because it was "the most obvious obligation of all." it also happens to be the opening scene of pirate yakuza.

noah's attention and love is demonstrably turned towards human obligations. he is also notably the only person around who has fulfilled this most obvious of obligations. majima himself acknowledges this, saying he "never thought hawaii would be so cold."

noah represents an ideal for majima that he has aspired to his whole life: innocence. this is why he is inspired by noah. the "method" of inspiration in question that majima had been lacking comes to him in the form of a person. and it had to be a person, because majima has always been inspired by individuals. and not only majima, either. RGG as a series is full of examples of this.

It is only through things and individual beings on this earth that human love can penetrate to that which lies beyond.

it's our connections to individuals that remind us of our obligations towards every human being. love becomes universal through the particular. weil understood the important part love plays in motivating people to change. it was her answer to how to grow roots again – her answer to the question of how to inspire people.

it is precisely this form of inspiration that majima had been deprived of for decades, especially after the dissolution as he'd sunk into depression. and this was always the solution, but there were several obstacles to it prior to this game:

he could not afford to have personal human connections in his life, even after the dissolution. he'd learned the hard way what happens when he "dares to show a modicum of emotion," as scott strichart put it.

as long as he was still relying the same tools, he could not effectively change his methods. this game forced him to do that by taking away his favorite tool: mad dog.

even if he wanted to use his violence only for the right things, he had obligations to the clan that would have him using that tool for less-than-noble ends.

because of this, even after the dissolution, he was stuck in the cycle between honor and punishment which obfuscated the truth and confused him. and there can be no inspiration without access to truth.

all of these problems were imposed on him by the social order he was part of – namely, the yakuza. this is why its dissolution was a necessary prerequisite to majima's "growth", but it was still not enough on its own. the amnesia was the second prerequisite.

he needed to face his past, but for that to help him in any way, he first needed to be inspired, so that he could look back on events with a new perspective. and the amnesia was the prerequisite for the inspiration, because it reduced the weight of his guilt and thus his need for punishment, breaking the honor-punishment cycle.

what this game is for majima is an exit. it's an exit from the emotional and spiritual exile he's imposed on himself, that the yakuza has imposed on him, and the self-alienation he's suffered because of it. amnesia is what it takes for him to be reunited with himself. he had to forget who he is so he could be who he is. such was the extent of his self-betrayal.

within the space provided him by this exit, there is room for change. transformation. for majima, that means changing his methods. this game is addressing a problem he's been aware of for decades but could not do anything about.

some examples of him facing his past with this new perspective:

he's realizing what he was to these people, who looked up to him, who he allowed to look up to him, who he took upon himself to lead – and he's hating what he sees. he doesn't like his methods. and he's running from the responsibility of doing right by them, refusing saejima when he asks him to go back.

he's afraid of facing how much he's failed his subordinates by his own standards – a reality he'd lived with for decades before his amnesia. the fact that we actually see how much it bothers him in this game is invaluable, because it means he's letting himself acknowledge that. he can no longer rely on the lie (justification) he had been telling himself to sustain this self betrayal. he is disillusioned with his own pragmatism. noah has exposed the lie, and he allowed it to be exposed. he is now ready to take right and wrong into consideration when deciding his methods – all because noah has reminded him of his obligations in a way that commands his attention, in a way he can't turn away from, and because he no longer has to sacrifice his soul to the clan. this game is, effectively, undoing the spiritual death he had undergone.

he's outright calling his old self, his old ideas, his old methods, "dumb as shit." majima is reinventing his identity, his reputation, his presence in the world and his connection to it. he's been given a chance to become someone he can be proud of again – this is why he likes the way noah looks at him, why he doesn't want to give up on it. it motivates him to commit to his transformation instead of wallowing in guilt like he was in infinite wealth.

he's getting to do it all over again with noah in a way he himself actually approves of, with a clear conscience. not just because noah is a kid, not just because he's lost his memory, not just because he's not yakuza anymore, but because of all those things in combination. that is to say, none of these factors are arbitrary. they were each necessary for achieving this state for majima – a state where change is possible, and he is inspired to change.

"captain majima" is someone he can be proud of.

he rejects his legacy as a yakuza completely. this goes as far as rejecting his bond with saejima. he doesn't want to be called "kyoudai" by him, he'll only answer to "captain." as he's coming to terms with how much it went against his nature to be yakuza, he's trying to distance himself from it as much as possible.

but he's running. he's not trying to run from his responsibilities to the yakuza like saejima thinks – he's running from owning up to his legacy. this is why he pretends to still not have his memories back when shigaki confronts him.

but it's not just the yakuza: the nebulous entity that told them that. it's what majima told them. it's what majima built his legend around.

yakuza 0 was not a game of positive character development for majima. it was the story of how and why he learned to betray himself. it was the origin story of his justification, his nihilism. it was the birth of mad dog. and this game is the counterpart to that – the death of mad dog.

One of the indispensable foods of the human soul is LIBERTY. Liberty, taking the word in its concrete sense, consists in the ability to choose.

the mad dog legend wasn't something that majima stumbled upon against his will like kiryu's dragon of the dojima legend. majima built this. he wanted this. he was trying to rise in the ranks (for saejima), and his legend is what it is because he was so, so wary of being taken advantage of. not only out of his own need for liberty, but out of the obligation he feels towards everyone else. this is the price of turning yourself into a weapon: you have to be very, very careful who you allow to wield you, and towards what end. that becomes your responsibility.

this was why majima was apologetic in that y5 scene – he had failed to prevent kurosawa from using him, and he understands that it is his responsibility to prevent that. this is why the mad dog legend is what it is. he had to find a way to "tear his leash" so that no one could wield him.

but his own preoccupation with freedom, his fear of being used by others, this fight he's been fighting against himself for decades has made him a bad role model. he's finally facing that, and not only that, but he is remedying it, too.

his own unhealthy treatment of himself, his own betrayal of himself, has done actual harm to others. his own misjudgment has led people who looked up to him astray. and he should've known better. done better, been more.

he should've been the one inspiring his subordinates, he should've been the one reminding them of their obligations. instead he has created a legend that has done just the opposite. a legend that has given people another excuse to deny their obligations. because that legend was born out of majima's own excuse for denying his own obligations. THAT is majima's failure. he has failed others in the exact same way he has failed himself. it could not have turned out any other way.

he has failed as a leader, as a patriarch and he's acknowledging that. but that on its own doesn't do much in the way of helping him. this game is about majima stepping up to not only hold himself accountable, which he already HAS been doing, but to do something about it. holding yourself accountable for mistakes you just continue to make or cannot begin to make up for is the very definition of being stagnant. this is the "state more or less resembling death, more or less akin to a purely vegetative existence" he was in for pretty much the entirety of the series, reaching its peak in infinite wealth when he had been cut off from all means of effectively taking responsibility.

and he is finally being given the opportunity to take responsibility – a vital need. he is being given the opportunity to undo the damage, to guide them towards a better path, to remind them of their obligations. just like kiryu.

majima, in true kiryu fashion, is telling these people exactly what he himself needs to hear – needed to hear, and that noah made him realize the moment they met. he is being given a second chance. an opportunity to redeem himself, to START redeeming himself. start over. and he's paying the same kindness forward. if it's not too late to for him to start doing the right thing, then it isn't too late for shigaki either, and vice versa.

[...] man has the power of turning his attention and love towards it. Nothing can ever justify the assumption that any man, whoever he may be, has been deprived of this power. [...] The sole condition for exercising it is consent.

majima understands this, and he understands that applying this principle to shigaki necessitates that he apply it to himself also. a person can always, always choose to do good – not only that, they are compelled to at all times. it takes energy to resist it. this was what caused his burnout in y5 and arguably y4 before that.

this game is about majima taking responsibility for his legacy as a yakuza, much like kiryu did in infinite wealth. this is what they're using his amnesia for. a story about him wallowing in guilt or trying to fulfill his need for punishment would have been the opposite of growth for majima, because the whole problem was that his method of trying to achieve personal growth through honor and punishment had not been working for him. a radically new approach was required. you can't fix something with the same tools that broke it.

just as his own neglect of his needs had caused the problem, the solution also comes from fulfilling those needs for himself. he has to stop betraying himself in order to make things right with the people he's failed. to take responsibility, he has to give up mad dog.

this does not necessarily mean giving up violence, but it does mean using it as a tool for ends that do not conflict his needs. a good example of this is the scene where he threatens to cut fingers.

it's his last resort, not his first one. he is being given room for that now. it's important to note here that he is not threatening to cut fingers to punish someone for insubordination as he has done his entire life – instead it's in the name of ensuring cooperation between others (a noble goal), for something he has no personal stake in. he doesn't want any of the money, he refuses to take a cut of it. he is not playing the antagonist here, and he is very open about his intentions unlike the "old" majima goro who obscured his intentions at every turn for the sake of playing the antagonist.

y0 was the last time we saw majima so earnest, because it was y0 that taught him not to be earnest. this game is undoing the damage.

[...] complete, unlimited freedom of expression for every sort of opinion, without the least restriction or reserve, is an absolute need on the part of the intelligence. It follows from this that it is a need of the soul, for when the intelligence is ill-at-ease the whole soul is sick.

sure, he didn't hold his tongue against his superiors, we've seen him do it countless times throughout the series. but to be able to openly express his goals, his intentions, his own judgment and act accordingly is a previously unthinkable mode of living for majima.

once again, it's about methods, and this game IS the difference between methods, especially as it concerns communication.

it's the difference between "if adults like us are good for anything, it should be nurturing that hope" and "keep that up, and it'll break you." him establishing himself as an ally, instead of an antagonist. he has played the antagonist his entire life, because it was the only way he could think to fulfill his obligations, but the world doesn't need more antagonists. and he's been failing not only his subordinates or himself, but kiryu and everyone else he loves as well.

this is what this scene in infinite wealth was about. majima's methods are destructive, not only to everyone he cares about, but also to himself – because there is no difference between those things. such is the nature of love.

majima finally, finally gets to play the hero after a lifetime of playing the antagonist. he's taking the leaf out of kiryu's book that he couldn't until this point, that he so admired kiryu for. it's a dream come true for him – maybe the oldest one he had.

and in some ways, this is also majima carrying on kiryu's dream, by applying the lessons he learned from him. by emulating him, he's honoring kiryu's principles. he'd told him, all the way back in 1995, that he'd "see those ideals of his to the end." well, this is what that looks like in its most effective form.

this ending really says it all, in my opinion, because it's majima looking at the journey and finding joy in that instead of the end goal. for ONCE in his life. maybe for the first time in his life. because for the first time he is ABLE to do that. for the first time there is something to enjoy about the journey. he is so unconcerned with results here that he doesn't even take the money.

he has been so, so preoccupied with reaching his goals that he has sacrificed the journey, the "methods" and betrayed himself in the process his whole life. this is where it stops.

[...] honour has to do with a human being considered not simply as such, but from the point of view of his social surroundings.

i think it's fair to say that his new methods and outlook on life are here to stay.

conclusion

this game is no joke. it's the most beautiful and profound thing they've done with majima... ever.

to be honest, whether or not most of this should be called "growth" is debatable – i think it can be said instead, more accurately, that growth was not the point of this game. the point of this game and how significant the things it does for majima lie beyond "growth". its value comes from the fact that it fulfills needs for majima that he had not been able to for decades.

majima's problem was not that he needed growing. his problem was that he had been in spiritual exile for 40 years. pirate yakuza was not just "upbeat", it was a celebration of majima being reunited with his soul. and as any celebration ought to be, it was joyful and inspiring. the light tone of the game is not because it is lacking in depth, but because the nature of the subject matter lends itself to hope more than anything else.

a game that was conceptualized as an infinite wealth gaiden had to deal with these themes. to tie the loose end that is majima, so to speak – to give a satisfying conclusion to his arc we'd been observing for years. just as infinite wealth was about kiryu's relationship to the yakuza, this game is about majima's relationship to the yakuza and the yakuza's relationship to him. it cannot be thought of separately from infinite wealth and what it was for kiryu. pirate yakuza and infinite wealth are the yin and yang to each other, just as majima and kiryu are to each other. majima has always been, before and above all else, a narrative foil to kiryu. this game is no exception, they're just changing how they're exploring that in the narrative. it's almost like an inversion of what the series has done with the two of them so far, but still united in one theme above all else: hope for the future.

whether or not these themes have been done justice in execution is entirely up to you to decide, so you can still be disappointed with how the game dealt with them – after all, a method still has to be effective to be a good one – but i hope i have been able to give you some perspective on what this game accomplishes with majima as a character.

thanks for reading <3

[familyabolisher]

hi if u don’t mind me asking, could u please elaborate on your thoughts on the critique of contemporary anti-intellectualism (specifically on social media)? i’m legitimately curious and enjoy a lot of ur analysis and commentary i mean this in good faith :)

Broadly speaking, the philosophical concept of anti-intellectualism tends to critically describe the ideological + rhetorical relegation of intellectual production to an elitist practice fundamentally at odds with the interests of the layman; and, crucially, the treatment of these categories as fixities. I disagree with the propositions of that philosophical discourse as well, but that’s not always the form that the discourse takes on this website. On here, ‘anti-intellectualism’ is more of a vague catch-all used to describe anything from people who express frustration with the literary canon & mainstream schooling in ways that don’t coddle the sensibilities of people with literature degrees to people who come out with outright fascistic views on provocative art; it attempts to corral what are in fact very disparate positions and perspectives under the umbrella of insufficient ‘intellect,’ often shorthanded to ‘reading comprehension’ or ‘media literacy’ (or ‘[in]curiosity,’ a new favourite) without any materialist investigation into what we mean when we talk about intellect and literacy and a lack thereof or whether this is a politically expedient description of the dynamic[s] in question.

When I say materialism, I mean it in the Marxist sense, ie. as a counter to idealism—because what’s being described here is a fundamentally idealist (and therefore useless) position. The discourse of anti-intellectualism as it exists on this website relies on idealist propositions—people lack curiosity, they lack interest, they are ‘lazy,’ they are ‘illiterate’ where ‘illiterate’ is not a value-neutral statement about one’s relationship to a socially constituted ‘literacy’ but communicating a moral indictment, at its worst they are ‘stupid,’ ‘idiots’—these descriptors rely on an assumption of immutable internal properties rather than providing a materialist description for why things are the way that they are. These aren’t actionable descriptors; at best they’re evasive because they circumvent serious interrogation of the conditions they’re describing, at worst they’re harbingers of an inclination towards eugenicist rhetoric. The discourse casts those who are ‘illiterate’—which in this capacity means those who fail to perform conventional literacy, who lack a traditional education, who don’t demonstrate sufficient interest in classic literature—or the more unkind ‘stupid’ (which, frankly, is what people want to say when they say ‘illiterate’ or ‘incurious’ anyway, lmao) as socially disposable and places the onus of changing one’s behaviour (so as to not be cast as illiterate/incurious/stupid) on them rather than asking what conditions have produced XYZ discourse of social disposability and responding with compassion and ethical diligence; I hope I don’t have to explain why this is eugenicist.

The discourse also lacks an ability to coherently describe what is meant by the ‘intellectualism’ in question—after all, merely appealing to ‘intellectualism’ is a similarly idealist rhetorical move if you don’t have the material grounding to back it up—and indeed tends to dismiss legitimate critiques of intellectual + cultural production as ‘anti-intellectual.’ People love to talk about ‘literacy,’ but don’t like expounding on what they’re actually describing when they do so—the selection of traits and actions that come together to constitute a correct demonstration of ‘literacy’ are built on the bedrock of eg. an ability to thrive within the school system (a mechanism of social control and stratification), fluently speak the dominant language by which this ‘literacy’ is being assessed (in online spaces like Tumblr this is usually English), and engage with the ‘right’ texts in the ‘right’ ways where ‘right’ means ‘invested with legitimacy and authority by the governing body of the academy.’ Literacy is used as a metric of assimilation into hegemonic society by which immigrant and working-class children are made rhetorically disposable unless they demonstrate their ability to integrate into the hegemonic culture (linked post talks about immigrant families being rendered ‘illiterate’ as a tactic of racism in France, but the same applies to the US, UK, etc); similarly, disabled people who for whatever reason will never achieve the level of ‘literacy’ required to not have Tumblr users doing vagueposts about how you deserve a eugenicist death for watching a kids’ show are by this discourse rendered socially disposable, affirming the paradigms which already make up their experience under a social system which reifies ableism in order to sustain itself. (This includes, by the way, the genre of posts making fun of the idea that someone with ADHD could ever struggle with reading theory.) ‘Literacy’ as the ability to understand and respond to a text is difficult and dispersed according to disparate levels of social access, and a lack of what we call literacy is incredibly shameful; any movement towards liberation (and specifically liberatory pedagogy) worth its salt needs to challenge the stigma against illiteracy, but this website’s iteration of ‘anti-intellectualism’ discourse seems to only want to reaffirm it.

Similarly, the discourse dismisses out of hand efforts to give a materialist critique of the academy and the body of texts that make up the ‘canon’—I’m thinking of a post I saw literally this morning positing a hypothetical individual’s disinterest in reading canonical (“classic”) literature as an “anti-intellectual” practice which marked them as an “idiot.” (Obviously, cf. above comments re. ‘stupidity,’ ‘idiocy’ as eugenicist constructions.) People who will outright call themselves Marxists seem to get incredibly uncomfortable at the suggestion that there are individuals for whom the literary canon is not even slightly interesting and who will never in their lives engage with it or desire to engage with it, and this fact does not delegitimise their place in revolutionary thinking and organising (frankly, in many areas, it strengthens it); they seem determined to continue to defer to the canon as a signifier of authority and therefore value, rather than acknowledging its role as a marker of class and classed affects and a rubric by which civility (cf. linked post above) could be enforced. (I believe the introduction to Chris Baldick’s The Social Mission of English Criticism touches on this dimension of literary studies as a civilising mission of sorts, as well as expounding on the ways in which ‘literary studies’ as we presently understand it is a nineteenth-century phenomenon responding to the predictable nineteenth-century crises and contradictions.) People will defer to, for example, Dumas, Baldwin, Morrison, to contravene the idea that the literary canon is made up of ‘straight white men,’ without appreciating that this is a hugely condescending way to talk about their work, that this collapses three very different writers into the singular category of ‘Black canonical writer’ and thus stymies engagement with their work at any level other than that of 'Black canonical literature' (why else put Dumas and Morrison in the same sentence, unless as a cheap rhetorical ‘gotcha’? I like both but they’re completely different writers lmfao), and that this excises from the sphere of legitimacy those Black writers who don’t make it into the authorising space of the canon; and, of course, reaffirms the canon’s authenticity and dismisses out of hand the critique of loyalty to hegemony that the ‘straight white men’ aphorism rightly imposes.

The discourse operates on a unilateral scale by which the more ‘literacy’ (ie. ability to speak the language of the literati) one has, the greater their moral worth, and a lack of said ‘literacy’ indicates the inverse. This overlooks the ways in which the practice of literary criticism wholly in line with what these people would call ‘intellectualism’ has historically been wielded as a tactic of reactionary conservatism; one only has to look at the academic output of Harold Bloom for examples of this. People will often pay lipservice to the hegemony of the academy and the practices by which only certain individuals are allowed access to intellectual production (stratified along classed + racialised lines, of course), but fail to really internalise this idea in understanding that the critical practices they afford a significant degree of legitimacy are inextricable from the academy from which they emerged, and that we can and should be imagining alternative forms of pedagogy and criticism taking place away from sites which restrict access based on allegiance to capital. Part of my communism means believing in the abolition of the university; this is not an ‘anti-intellectual’ position but a straightforwardly materialist one.

A final core problem with the 'anti-intellectualism' discourse is that it's obscurantist. As I explained above, it posits the problem with eg. poor engagement with theoretical concepts, challenging art, etc., to be one of 'intellect' and 'curiosity,' idealist rather than materialist states. In practice, the reasons behind what gets cast as 'anti-intellectualism' are very disparate. Sometimes, we're talking about a situation wherein (as I explained above) someone lacks 'literacy'; sometimes we're talking about the reason for someone's refusal to engage with and interpret art with care and deference being one of bigotry (eg. racist dismissals of non-white artists' work, misogynistic devaluing of women's work, etc.); sometimes we're talking about a reactive discomfort with marginalised people communicating difficult concepts online as a 'know-your-place' response (eg. backlash against 'jargon' on here is almost always attacking posts from/about marginalised people talking about their oppression, with the attacks coming from people who have failed to properly understand that oppression; I've been called a jargonistic elitist for talking about antisemitism, I've seen similar things happen to mutuals who talk about racism and transmisogyny). All of these are incredibly different situations that require incredibly different responses; the person who doesn't care to engage with a text in a way that an English undergrad might because doing so doesn't interest them or they lack the requisite skill level is not comparable to the person who doesn't care to engage with a text because they don't respect the work of a person of colour enough to do so. Collapsing these things under the aegis of 'anti-intellectualism' lacks explanatory power and fails to provide a sufficient actionable response.

Ultimately, the discourse is made up of a lot of people who are very high on their own capabilities when it comes to literary analysis (which, as others have pointed out, seems to be the only arena where all this ever takes place, despite the conventional understanding of ‘media literacy’ referring as much to a discerning eye for propaganda and misinformation as an ability to churn out a cute little essay on Don Quixote) and have managed to find an acceptable outlet for their dislike of anyone who lacks the same, and have provided retroactive justification in the form of the claim that not only is [a specific form of] literary analysis [legible through deference to the authority of the literary canon & the scholarship of the nineteenth century and onward surrounding it] possible for everyone, it is in fact necessary in order to access the full breadth of one’s humanity such that an absence thereof reveals an individual as subhuman and thus socially disposable. A failure to be sufficiently literate is only ever a choice and a personal failing, which is how this discourse escapes accountability for the obviously bigoted presumptions upon which it rests. In this, all materialism is done away with; compassion is done away with, as it becomes possible to describe the multiplicity of reasons why someone cannot or does not demonstrate ‘literacy’ in X, Y or Z ways in the sum total of a couple of adjectives; nothing productive comes of this discourse but a reassertion of the conditions of hegemony in intellectual practice and the bolstering of the smugness of a few people at the expense of alienating everyone else.

As I’ve said countless times before, the way to counteract what we might perceive as ‘incuriosity’ or disinterest in challenging texts is to talk about these challenging texts and our approaches to them as often as we can, to make the pedagogical practices that are usually kept behind the walls of the academy as widely accessible as possible (and to adjust our pedagogy beyond the confines of ideological hegemony that the academy imposes), and to encourage a culture by which people feel empowered to share their thoughts, discuss, ask questions, and explore without being made to feel ashamed for not understanding something. The people who cry ‘anti-intellectualism’ because they saw someone on Tiktok express a disinterest in reading Jane Eyre are accomplishing none of this.

[latinare]

just wondering, any tips you'd recommend for learning latin? I've been thinking of learning it since it sounds pretty fun but I don't really know where to start with it

Tips:

When studying vocabulary, close your eyes and picture the meaning of a Latin word while saying it. So for dux, form a mental image of a leader leading his army. For monere, picture someone shaking their finger in warning. For sub, find an image that signifies the meaning to you--for me, it's a boat going under a bridge. Having an image will help your brain bypass the English word to think in Latin.

After translating a sentence, do the same thing. Reread it aloud, clearly picturing what is happening in the sentence. If it describes an action, you could try moving your body to mimic the action, or if it's a question, pretend you're asking a friend. Try different tones of voice and facial expressions to get the meaning across. Eventually, you should be able to understand some sentences on the first read, without translating.

If you ever have the opportunity to practice speaking Latin with someone else, do it! It's so good for your comprehension.

Getting started:

Most textbooks will assume you're starting from scratch. Here are some different options to suit different learning needs:

Latina Lingua per se Illustrata uses no English at all. It tells a story in Latin, starting out with very simple sentences and progressing to harder ones. I think it's brilliant, but it may be difficult if you don't have a teacher.

Via Latina has been recommended to me as a similar idea, but using Latin primary sources rather than a story. I haven't personally used it, but it sounds amazing.

Henle is a four-year course appropriate for high school or college students. It's the one I used, but I don't think it's the best course out there. It is available online though, and the companion grammar is excellent.

Wheelock is a one-year textbook appropriate for college students. I only used it briefly, but my husband loves it. It covers roughly the same material as Henle in just one book, so it's denser for sure.

Regardless of what you're using, it's always helpful to be able to ask someone for help when you're stuck, so try to track down a "Latin mentor" if you can!

Best of luck.

[france-the-third]

Guys if I disappear in like... May, this fucking thing will be why

That monstrosity is a list of all the tests I have to pass to get the baccalaureate, and I need that to ... basically to get pretty much any job I'd like to do

I had to create that thing myself, using multiple government website pages about the bac(calaureat, we're lazy) because comprehensible information is apparently not a thing

close-ups/explanations under the cut

blue= explanation of an abbreviation

green= explanation of an abbreviation but it's a list that you don't need to read to understand this

italics= word(s) in french

note: i haven't reread this super carefully, so if I say oral on its own, i do mean oral exam, in french we just say un oral so my brain may forget the word exam lol

BFI: Baccalauréat Français International, basically I have 8 hours of English a week instead of the normal 3 (although with LLCE and/or AMC you get 9 or 15 hours but i'll get to that in a minute) and I have a bilingual level of English [technically I already had that but most of my friends didn't]

Coef(ficient) [x]: ...ok so i have no idea how this works really but it's basically how much is this grade worth. If you get 19/20 coefficient 1 then you got 19/20. If you get it coef 2, I think that means you got 38/40 etc. So coef 20 is huge.

DBQ: Document Based Question

Durée: length of time, how long does this test take

ACL: Anglais C? Litérature, literature basically (shakespeare and gothic make sense, O'Brien is the name of my teacher and hopefully it's a common enough name that it doesn't matter that I just realized his name's still on here oops; he's my poetry and drama?? teacher but since we don't really know what to call his class, we just call it by his name. He teaches about poetry yes but also we're also studying Beckett's Happy Days which is a play, not poetry)

CDM: Connaissances du "Monde", lit. Knowledge of the (British) World, we have to do some research projects which we will present in an oral at the end of the year

There's about 50 kids in my school who will have to do all that this year, about 50 who will have to do that next year, etc.

There's about 1500 students in my school, there's 3 years so only about 500 students passing the bac at my school this year, and only 10% of us have to do this many exams.

The international section doesn't really exist in other schools however, so there's a really small percentage of french kids total who have to do all this.

All that stuff is admittedly my "fault" for choosing to do the international section.

Everything else is mandatory(-ish)

Tronc commun: Everyone has to do this

(notice how the coefficients are at like 8, not frickin 20)

Philosophy: we have to either write for 4 hours about a single sentence they'll give us as a subject (and it can be about practically anything) (that's a "dissertation", or 'dissert' because we have really long names for stuff but then we don't bother saying the full name) OR write a "explanation of the text" which i have no idea how that works bc my teacher's a bit incompetent

N/A: Not applicable, that's for the time the exam takes, we get tested in class so there's not really a set time for stuff

(I know that's ridiculously small sorry)

Ok so now we're getting to the fun little french thing that no one who's not french ever seems to know

In 11th grade (1ère) we have to choose 3 areas to specialize in out of the following (can vary slightly based on schools):

HGGSP: Histoire-géographie, géopolitique et sciences politiques, aka political science and social studies

HLP: Humanités, littérature et philosophie, aka humanities, literature and philosophy (oo it's almost the same words in both languages)

LLCE: Langues, littératures et cultures étrangères, aka English (lit. languages, literatures and foreign cultures but it's really just English class)

AMC: Anglais monde contemporain, aka English again (lit. English contemporary world and again it's just English class)

Mathématiques - transparent

Physique-chimie: Physics and chemistry. No those aren't the same, but yes I only figured that out bc someone explained that to me, bc those two are always taught in the same classroom and with the same teacher for some reason

SVT: Sciences de la vie et de la Terre, aka "Sciences of life and the earth" (you know, bc that's specific), aka Biology + Geology

SES: Sciences économiques et sociales, aka economics and social sciences

NSI: Numériques et sciences informatiques, aka computer science

Arts (arts plastiques, cinéma-audiovisuel, histoire des arts): The list I found with all the names of these spécialités (bc they're only ever referred to by their acronyms) has art be split up like that [technically there were more but i cut them lol] which is weird bc I've never seen art history be separated from actually-making-art (arts plastiques-- Why are they plastic I have no idea) and I didn't think cinema had art history

In 11th as I said you choose 3, and you have 4 hours of each per week.

In 12th grade (terminale), you drop one of the 3 subjects you chose so that you can concentrate more on the other two, with 6 hours of each per week.

The most common combination is math, physics, biology and then one of them gets dropped.

This is just a zoom on the two I kept, I had computer science as my third spé last year.

This combination is extremely uncommon, I only know 1 other person who did those 3 subjects lol.

SVT (biology/geology): Ecrit: I have to write stuff; I wrote either or but it turns out it's both, anyways I have to do a DBQ (see above) and answer a question based on knowledge. TP aka Travaux pratiques: uhhh idk how to explain this other than actually doing science instead of just talking about it.

Art: Ecrit: Analyse du corpus d'oeuvres: we have to analyze a collection of works of art based on a question we're given, and then we can do either a note d'intention pour un projet d'exposition, lit. a note of intentions for an exhibition project; basically we have to take one (or two) of the works of art we saw in the first part and say how we'd put it in a museum. or we do the analyse de corpus + a commentaire critique, where you have to answer a question, for example on a mock we had a question about whether or not AI counts as art; and we had a text and a new work of art An oral is the same word in both; a lot of subjects don't have orals (svt for example) and basically we have to talk about the project we worked on for the whole year. I think. Pratique: actually getting to work on creating something. I'm doing an animation, my friends are doing a frieze that's themed on marine life, something to do with leaves, a crochet project that's also marine life themed, something space themed?, and a mini forest in a suitcase. Some of our classmates are doing sculptures (there's a sculpture of a female bust with holes in it and handprints all over it), someone is - i think - making a musical instrument from scratch, someone else does a lot of paintings that are humongous with lots of bold colors... This is the best part about art as a subject because you get to choose what you do.

Next up, another thing that all french people know and no one outside of france knows; contrôle continu

That is basically classes where we don't have a big test at the end of the year, which is nice, but we still have tests and at the end of the year the average of all of the tests done in these subjects counts as a percentage of the grade you get for the bac.

Maths comp(lémentaires -- we love shortening words lol) aka complementary math?: you can choose to abandon math as a spécialité but still keep some math classes in 12th. There's also something called maths expertes, lit. expert math, which is the same thing but with harder classes; but given that i only know one person who does that, i completely forgot to include it here lol

Both math classes here are optional, everything else till LV3 is mandatory.

Coef 3 en 1ère, 3 en terminale: the averages of both 12th grade and 11th grade are counted

Histoire-géo(graphy): social studies (lit. history and geography)

Enseignement scientifique: so. this thing. Despite the fact that you can take biology and physics as spé, everyone has to do this "scientific education" where the kids who took biology are bored in biology classes, the kids who took physics are bored in physics classes, the kids who took both waste two hours per week listening to stuff they already know, and the people who took neither physics nor biology are also usually pretty bored because even if there's one or two students who are interested by science but were more tempted by other things, most of them didn't take science as spés because they don't like science.

It's a great system /s.

In fairness, we are doing more or less useful things; in biology we're talking about evolution and we mentioned how - especially in France - antibiotics are being used too much and so are becoming less effective. For the people who don't do science, I suppose that's important to know, for me at least the effect was ruined by the fact that I had done that in spés like a week earlier.

In physics, we've been working on energy consumption and kind of how it works, but there's too much math in physics for me to be super interested lol.

LV2 aka Langue vivante 2, aka "living language 2": As I'm writing this I just realized that I forgot to include the LV1 in this pdf lol.

In 7th grade (or 6th if you're an overambitious nerd like me), you have to choose a "second" language, that you'll keep till at least 12th grade, and then afterwards idk how it works. The first language is English by default, you *can* make english your 2nd language but that's complex and Idk enough about how that works. French is taught from 1rst to 11th but doesn't count as a living language for some reason.

Most schools offer Spanish and another language, my middle school had Spanish + German, a friend of mine does Chinese as a 2nd language and there's probably other options depending on the school. Oddly enough, despite the fact that Belgium is at the closest about 20 minutes away from my house by car and the Netherlands are at the closest 1h30 away, Dutch is not a commonly taught language I think. Spain is at the closest about 10 hours away by car, and yet it's far more taught.

(The reason I forgot the LV1 is that in the international section, we automatically get the highest grade possible, 20/20, bc they're grading us based on British standards so they're basically saying that we speak English)

EMC, Education Morale et Civique: I'm going to be honest and say that I have no idea what this class is for or how to translate it lol, desoite having had this since 6th grade. Literally the words mean civic and moral education and if that sounds like propaganda, well, it sort of is. We've had many classes on how to be a good citizen, and how democracy works I think, but we've also had classes on other completely unrelated stuff.

Most of the grades in EMC are group presentations, and so I could not tell you about a single thing I got graded on lol

Spé abandonnée en 1ère: lit. spé abandoned in 11th. Yes we use the word abandoned for this lol, other than that I think I covered it earlier

LV3: So following the logic from LV1/LV2, I think you can guess what this is. This is a third, optional language you can take, most people don't bother because we already have too many classes.

I however am not most people lol, but I'll be adding my friend as an example here because the language I chose could be confusing given what I said earlier about LV2s. Antony [not their real name] is in the international section so has English as the default LV1, they took German as an LV2 and they took Japanese as their LV3. Based off of this logic, I have the same thing except I have Spanish as my LV3 and not Japanese. (I'm not sure how clear this would be on it's own because as I said most schools offer Spanish as an LV2 and most people choose that as their LV2. Since I did German as my LV2, I only started taking Spanish classes in 10th grade)

My school, being an international school, offers an extremely large range of third language possibilities: As I've mentioned, there's Japanese and Spanish, but also Italian, Chinese, Portugese, Polish, maybe German, possibly Dutch and possibly/probably others but I don't know for sure. (I just checked and they don't actually offer German as a 3rd language, but they do offer Dutch, and that's it. "Only" 7 languages, I kinda thought there were more [i think most schools have like one or two. A quick google search for the other school I could have gone to tells me that that school offers Spanish and Arabic as 3rd languages and that's it])

Oh and there's often Latin or Ancient Greek offered at the same time as the LV3 I think, but as they're dead languages they don't count as langues vivantes lol

And we reach the end, with these two.

Français (1ère): As 12th graders, we've already done this part of the bac, last year. The French exam used to be the same year as all the rest but if you've read this far, I think you see the problem with that lol

The grade counts as a percentage of the total bac

And last and certainly worst; the Grand Oral: Lit. the big oral, we have absolutely no preparations for this at school and need to research stuff on our own, in our "free time", whatever that is /j. (... well actually /hj)

I've had 1 teacher talk to me about this, it was my biology teacher, and so depending on the teachers you have for spés, I wouldn't be surprised if some of my classmates hadn't been told the specifics of this sucker at all.

What we have to do is prepare not 1 but 2 possible questions, either 1 per spécialité or a mix between the two subjects (there may be other possibilities but as I said almost no one has told anything about this so this is based off of my recollections of what my biology teacher said and what i found on two government websites.). The reason you prepare two subjects is so that the examinators can choose which one they want you to talk about. Twice the work, twice the stress, for a 20 minute thing.

You have to present your topic for about 10-15 minutes iirc, and then answer some questions.

In biology, my teacher gave us a few vague topics we could use as starting points for our grand oraux (yes the plural of 'oral' is 'oraux', the french language is weird), and basically it's a whole ass reasearch project that we don't get any dedicated hours to in our schedule, that no one has told us about/reminded us of and we have to do that on top of everything else here.

In case my tone isn't clear, I find this ridiculously stupid. I don't like oral exams in the first place, but usually when we have to do some in subjects such as EMC, they don't give us any other work to do while we research our oral, at least in that subject. Another reason I really dislike this is because of CDM (see the first pic, about the international section exams).

CdM is 2 hours a week where we do some research for our research projects. Again, we have 2 hours every single week, with a teacher present, to do nothing but research (and send emails to potential research partners technically), for an exam at the end of the year. This is an international section thing, so the research is in English.

There was the option of adding 2 hours a week for a very small percentage of people to learn how to research in English, and despite the fact that most people would complain if they had more hours of school, the 2 hours a week of research are genuinely useful. I've gotten a lot done since September, and I'm pretty confident about the oral.

For the grand oral, I need to come up with 2 subjects by the end of vacation (we have a 2 week break starting today because it's France and also my class at least already has terrible mental health, if we had to keep this schedule up every single week till May we'd be reduced to like 5 students per class because everyone would be having breakdowns or burnout [Antony is technically not slowing their schedule down over this break (or really any of the other breaks we had), but they're insane /aff /hj. more on that in the tags lol]) not because the school finally realized they should probably remind us of this, but because my biology teacher's a very competant and organized woman who wants to know our subjects so she can help us. (I've had teachers I've liked more or where I've been more interested in their class, but man do I love her for this, other than 2 of my international teachers, she feels like the only competant adult in this school)

[yuurei20]

Hello! I'm sorry if this question already been asked and answered but have any character mentioned about going to elementary before coming to the NRC?

Also, have they ever explained about whether there is elementary, middle and high school in twisted wonderland?

Thank you!

Hello hello! Thank you for this question!

There are references to Riddle, Trey, Cater, Deuce, Jack, Jade, Floyd, Azul, Jamil, Epel and Vil all attending elementary school!

We also have lines about Riddle, Ace, Deuce, Jade, Floyd, Azul, Jamil, Epel and Sebek all attending middle school.

I have not been able to find a line from Jack about attending middle school, but he does say that his younger brother is.

Like Kalim and Malleus, Leona says he was also taught by tutors at home, while neither Ruggie nor Silver had any official schooling at all prior to NRC, with Silver studying at home (often alone) and Ruggie's education being limited to "practical life skills."

What is fascinating is that the game does not use the Japanese-language words for elementary/middle/high school, using English-language words instead!

It is established in the novel that the language being spoken in the universe is not Japanese, and the game may be using the English language as if it were a fantasy-world language like Elvish (re: why all the countries have two names, and why the in-game map is not available in Japanese).

In the prologue, for example, Ace uses the Japanese-language word for kindergarten, but in the novel this was updated to the English-language word, "elementary school."

The English-word "kindergarten" is not as ubiquitous amongst native Japanese-language speakers as "elementary school."

This meant that the writer had to choose what was more important: staying faithful to the game, or upholding the continuity of "only English-language-words are used for pre-NRC educational institutions." And they chose the latter!

The English word "high school" is used to describe NRC itself.

(Words like "high school students" are kept in Japanese but grammar differences mean that we cannot just drop "high school students" into a Japanese-language sentence and have it make sense, so it is possible that this was a compromise for the sake of comprehension.)

And this might all come back to Twst's unique school system!

It is not 100% Japanese, English or American, taking inspiration from all three without recreating anything literally (which is often also true of the characters themselves).

The game seems to have combined the UK's two-year, pre-university "college" system with American four-year high schools, used the English-language title "Night Raven College," and then had the characters refer to it in-game as a "high school," using English to establish it as a foreign system!

[manasseh]

For the time being I'm solely focused on studying for TOPIK 6, no casual Korean practice at all haha

[News In Korean book] (free pdf) comes in handy for this, has little articles, study notes, and a TOPIK-style few comprehension questions. You can also find [their audio recordings online!]

I add each sentence to ANKI, Kor-Eng and reverse Cards, and then make a lot of basic Kor-Eng cards where it's just the sentence in Korean with a word/phrase crossed out. When the full English sentence shows up I try to write out the entire Korean translation, for the missing words I just have to think of the correct answer.

[haxyr3]

Who inspired you to learn Russian?

My dear readers, For almost two years I could not find a way to talk about songs, movies, books created in Russian. As someone said long ago: "For among weapons the muses are silent".

My position on the Russian aggression against Ukraine has not changed: Russia's war against Ukraine is a heinous crime, and those who started it must be held accountable.

Recently, I decided that I am ready to resume my podcast. I really love making podcasts, and I believe for intermediate-advanced Russian learners, listening to 5-minute long episodes in authentic Russian and reading along full transcripts is the most efficient practice that boosts listening comprehension and helps to expand vocabulary.

My idea for the new season of Пять Минут podcast is: stories about "who is who" in Russia/ Soviet Union - short stories about remarkable people, movie makers, musicians, writers, cartoonists etc. (For example, who is behind the Ежик в Тумане? ) I think, it is going to be interesting for you to listen to, and for me to create those stories.

Now, I need some input and insights from you. Please tell me if there was a music band, a writer, a book, a cartoon, a movie that inspired you to start learning Russian.

I could easily answer this question if it were about my love to English: The Beatles. What about you and your Russian adventure?

[absolutebl]

Okay, I've got a language question for you:

Why would native Thai speakers accentuate (as they seem to) the last syllable of English-language nouns, proper and common ? Is there something in their own tongue that would have led to this practice ?

Isn't it the best thing ever?

My favorites are strawberry & blueberry.

sounds like

sa-tawh-bur-rEEE boo-bur-rEEE

Okay, so the first thing is, mostly in Thai, consonant noises don't exist without vowel noises attached.

The easiest way to think about this is the name Sky (think about it particularly in SCOY, but also LITA). The S+K can't really exist together, they need a ahh vowel noise to break them.

The way it's said in Thai is:

Sah'kai

Remember that?

The ' indicates a glottal stop (slight hitch in speaking). You have to kind of stop the breath from the "sah" by rolling your tongue up towards the roof of your mouth to then say the hard "k." If you know how to say the formal sah'wah dEE, you'll know how to execute that. And that's because sk can't really be said together in Thai.

To answer your question, it depends on the sound the loanword converts into for Thai comprehension/execution.

For example: "bur" is an adapted loanword (from the English for "phone number") but they actually drop tone the end of that word. Which may sound, to English speakers, like a de-emphasis. In fact "bur" shows up all the time in BL but most English speakers don't realize it's a loaner. See UWMA Dean getting Pharm's digits.

What you're picking up on is most likely the ah and ee sounds, which in Thai are often tonally pushed up in loanwords. It's not really emphasis as we think of it - it's the use of a non-tonal word in a tonal language. Those sounds are simply said that way when they are placed in those parts of words in Thai.

Like, how some people have a really hard time rolling their rr's. Or pronouncing the ø. Or the w (many native Mandarin speakers will say it as a v).

It's the way those sounds are shaped in the mouth in that part of the world.

Language trains the human brain so there are also some sounds it's very hard for speakers of a different language to even hear. I really struggle with some Thai tones, myself.

[spanishskulduggery]

Exciting news for me: I’m working with Spanish-speaking families now in a social work adjacent job capacity! I feel really good about my listening comprehension (as long as it’s not idioms haha), and I think my speaking will get better as I get less nervous.

I’ve been struggling with phone calls in Spanish. Do you have advice for scheduling time/place to meet up? Do people generally use words equivalent to english “meeting up” or does it get phrased differently/structurally?

I also wonder if you have any tips for improving my “r” pronunciations or learning to roll my “r”s. I have a decent approximation but it kills me sometimes ESPECIALLY with common names it’s brutal.

Last question :D I dont look like I speak Spanish and my name is very USAmerican. I’m obviously not a native speaker. And since I often speak worse when I’m nervous, I’m worried about making sure the family knows I speak spanish / understand it really well so they feel comfortable talking with me. Have you ever struggled with this sort of thing? Do you have ideas for what might be reassuring to tell them?

In my experience, the verb/word in general is reunirse con alguien [or encontrarse con alguien]

It's reflexive, so you would say ¿dónde podemos reunirnos? "where can we meet up?" [or, ¿dónde nos podemos reunir?] - or using encontrarse - same thing, just encontrarnos or nos podemos encontrar

I've found that "meeting point" or "rendezvous" is typically el punto de encuentro/reunión

...And "a meeting" with someone is often la reunión even for things like staff meetings or work meetings etc. Otherwise sometimes people say la cita which is "appointment" but also "a date" so that's not always something I'd recommend but it does make sense

Anyway in general I would be saying like ¿cuándo quieres reunirnos?

And usually it's like ¿A qué hora es más conveniente? "At what time is it most convenient?" or just qué hora; or saying ¿Cuál día te conviene? "What day works for you?"

I've found that people use convenir [with indirect objects] as "to be best for someone" or "to suit someone" or "to work for someone" in terms of being convenient. Or they use venir bien or some idiomatic form [like venir(le) de perlas is "to be really good (for someone)" or "to be great"]

-

As far as RR. I tell people the way to do it is to press your tongue to the ridge right behind your front teeth [people have said "it's the place you burn your mouth when you bite into a slice of pizza that's too hot"], and you blow air

Usually it's that Spanish-speakers put their tongues more to the top of their mouth when saying R, while English-speakers have it lower in the mouth. If you keep it up higher, you'll hear it trill more as you hold it

But in school they had us practice with estoy corriendo en el ferrocarríl a lot

-

I usually do okay unless I'm nervous, then I start sounding worse. And I just try and tell people, háblame más despacio, a veces me cuesta entender todo lo que me digan la primera vez which is "speak to me more slowly, sometimes it's hard for me to understand what people tell me the first time"

And sometimes just asking what words mean like ¿qué quieres decir? or ¿qué significa ___?

Or if I didn't hear someone right I say ¿cómo? "huh?"

Most people are understanding, and usually I can get away with saying things like puedo hablar y entender español más o menos... o sea, a veces es más, y a veces mucho menos jaja and I try and be funny

[what-even-is-thiss]

Free or Cheap German Learning Resources for all your Hochdeutsch Needs

I will update this list as I learn of any more useful ones. If you want general language learning resources check out this other post. This list is German specific. Find lists for other specific languages here.

For the purposes of this list "free" means something that is either totally free or has a useful free tier. "Cheap" is a subscription under $10USD a month, a software license or lifetime membership purchase under $100USD, or a book under $30USD. If you want to suggest something to add to this list, include things in this price range that are of good quality and not AI generated.

WEBSITES

DW - A public broadcasting service from Germany that also has a German learning section. They have videos, tv series, and lessons from beginner to advanced. The website is free to use with an account.

Gothe Institut - An organization affiliated with the German government that administers language level tests and promotes German culture abroad. They have a lot of free exercises and test questions. If you're willing to pay they may also have classes available in your region.

thegermanproject.com - A free website with explanations of beginner German concepts and stories to read for people at the beginner level.

germancorrector.com - A free website that will correct your spelling and grammar. You can also set the dialect to Switzerland or Austria.

Your Daily German - A blog in English by a native German speaker named Emanuel who makes posts about grammar, vocabulary, tips, and suggestions for reading.

YOUTUBE CHANNELS

Comprehensible Germani - A comprehensible input channel with German lessons in German using visual aids. Has content from beginner through upper intermediate.

Learn German - A channel that explains certain concepts and provides listening practice. The channel uses a mix of German and English.

Chill German - A channel that makes vlogs in slow German. They have videos from beginner to lower advanced levels.

Natürlich German - A comprehensible input channel that talks about different aspects of German culture and other topics as well. Has videos for complete beginner to lower advanced. This channel hasn't updated in a while but there's a large archive to watch through.

Easy German - A channel that has a combination of videos about basic German phrases for beginners and videos with interviews on the street in German speaking regions. The channel has dual language German/English subtitles on screen. The hosts of this channel also have a podcast for intermediate to advanced learners.

Expertly German - A channel about learning German with discussion of grammar, vocab, and business German. The channel is entirely in German.

Deutsch Mit Lari - A channel with a mix of German Lessons and vlogs in slow German. Content ranges from beginner to intermediate. All content and explanations are in German.

Learn German With Anja - A channel with a mix of lessons and videos on culture and living in Germany. Videos are in a mix of both English and German and often have dual language subtitles on screen.

READING PRACTICE

German graded readers by Olly Richards Short Stories in German, Intermediate Short Stories in German, Conversations in Simple German, Western Philosophy in Simple German, World War 2 in Simple German. Books tend to range from $4-$20 depending if you buy the digital or print versions. The books can also generally be found easily at used book stores or used on Amazon for cheaper.

Dino Lernt Deutsch - A series of short stories for beginners about a man named Dino lost in various German speaking countries. The full series new in print costs about $25 but it can be bought used or as a digital edition. Each individual story can also be bought separately

Nachrichtenleight - A website with news articles in simple German. The website is entirely in German.

AlumniPortal - Website with articles about business, academics, and other related topics organized by difficulty level. Has articles from upper beginner to upper intermediate. The website is entirely in German.

Grimm Stories - A website with an archive of the original Grimm's fairy tales. Language may be a bit archaic. The website is available in multiple languages.

PODCASTS

Slow German Podcast - Advertises itself as being for beginner to lower intermediate. The host talks about everyday topics such as seasonal weather and describing your apartment.

Easy German Podcast - The hosts from the Easy German Youtube channel talk about different topics, news, and answer questions from listeners in clear and understandable German.

News in Slow German - It is a podcast with news in slow German, including international news and culture news. Only a small section of the program is available for free.

Top-Thema Mit Vokalbeln - A podcast from DW for lower intermediate learners that discusses news topics in simple German and provides vocabulary lists related to the episode topic.

German Stories - A podcast for beginners in a mix of English and German that gives lessons through dialogues and short stories.

Speaking of Berlin - A podcast by Babbel of Berliners telling personal stories in slow German.

SELF STUDY TEXTBOOKS AND DICTIONARIES

Complete German All-in-One from McGraw Hill - a textbook that also doubles as a workbook. It’s more expensive at about $30. It’s difficult to find intact used copies of this book because it’s also a workbook and people tend to write all over it and tear it up. However the sentence builder and grammar sections are sold separately for much cheaper if you just want one or the other.

German Made Easy - Individual books in this series tend to be about $10-$20. From what I’ve read it’s just fine but it’s cheap and has all the beginner concepts you need and used copies are fairly easy to find online.

Easy German Step By Step - This is McGraw Hill’s budget option at $12-$16 new. Though as this one isn’t a workbook, it’s easier to find used copies. It focuses hard on only the most frequently used vocabulary and grammar concepts to get someone started as quickly as possible. It’s also available in audiobook form.

German Grammar Complete - This book is a full comprehensive guide to all levels of grammar from absolute beginner to college level. However it’s on the more expensive side at $30 and the workbook is sold separately.

DK German to English illustrated dictionary - This dictionary is sorted by topic and includes pictures and English translations. This is a new edition and is slightly harder to find used as I’m writing this. The base price is about $20 but there are older editions of this dictionary that might be easier to find used.

Merriam-Webster’s German to English Dictionary - The OG. The legend. The menace. The classic bilingual dictionary. Simple. Many words. Decent explainations. Only $8 new. Easy to find used older editions.

SERIES FOR LEARNERS AND KIDS TV

Hallo Aus Berlin - A series infamous among German students everywhere. Made in the early 2000s for use in classrooms, it has ten episodes of kids talking about certain topics like numbers and going out to a restaurant. It also has a number of songs. It’s cringey but in a fun way in my opinion.

Löwenzahn - a kids tv series aimed at very young audiences that’s been on for several decades. Every episode discusses one topic like bridges or factories so you’ll hear certain words repeated a lot. Theres only been a couple of different hosts so the presentation style remains consistent and unlike some other shows for kindergarteners it’s not obnoxiously loud and can be enjoyable for adults.

Sesamstraße - Sesame Street in German and localized for the German market with different themes and characters. In their YouTube channel you can find clips from as far back as the 1970s.

[voidxfaithx]

The past six months of working as a volunteer tutor at a conversational English and integration group have genuinely changed my life and as I move on to the next stage of my life I will constantly be thinking about the countless people who have entered and exited my life and made some kind of positive impact on me, even if I only interacted with them for an hour or two.

In all of this time, however, I think one of the instances that I will be thinking (and laughing) about for the rest of my life will probably be the time when at the end of a session one woman from Ukraine asked me to explain a term her son had frequently been using when playing online with his friends. “He keeps saying ‘sigma’. He’ll say with his friends ‘what a sigma’. What does this word mean, ‘sigma’?” I had to try my hardest not to fucking scream laughing. She was also laughing when she was asking the question so she clearly knew that the word was something pretty silly.

Both in the moment, when the shock was still on me, as well as after the fact, now that I have the luxury of thinking through what the best way to answer this question would be, I still have no idea how I could explain it in a way that could be in any way comprehensible. Because I couldn’t just explain to her what a fucking Sigma Male is, since that’s not at all what he actually means when he uses that word in that context. I also think explaining the concept of irony would both be difficult within itself as well as incomplete without an extra explanation of what irony even means in the context of the internet because, like, if I try to explain the origins of the word as a term used by incels that has since become subsumed into mainstream English language Internet meme culture then there are bound to be misunderstandings with regards to the nuances of this kind of language usage. Like, I don’t want this woman to get that idea that she’s left her homeland to flee a fucking war only to find that her seven year old child has been indoctrinated into an esoteric, woman-hating cult. Out of the frying pan and into the fire.

This all being said, what this interaction has really got me thinking about is just how much the internet has changed how slang and linguistic memes are formed, making the generational divide even wider than before. And that’s without even considering the fact that is a second language in this case, seeing as I’d have just as hard a time explaining this exact same concept to my own parents. What hope has this woman of understanding? While many might bemoan these internet terms seeping their way into everyday language usage as “brainrot”, I think it also goes a long way to show that our modern, internet-addled form of English (and I’m sure this is the case in other languages as well) has actually integrated more complex forms of irony and linguistic play into everyday usage than previous versions. New slang words can no longer be explained away as just being “another word for cool” or something like that. The etymology and original context of slang is no longer ancillary to its practical conversational meaning.

This all being said, I don’t think navigating internet brainrot is ever going to be a priority when it comes to language teaching in the future. The woman who asked me the question that prompted this whole post isn’t going to be any worse off in her English usage for not being able to accurately drop brainrot into any of her everyday social interactions. Still, I do think there’s a lot to be said about the new challenges that the internet has posed when it comes to language learning. I also think the whole situation is very funny.

[mxtxfanatic]

Jc stans are getting more insufferable day by day I just saw a post that said that Wen Qing and Wei Wuxian were crazy for core transfer cuz it was unethical medical practice and jc didn't consent and other such shit and it had nearly 200 notes like people in this fandom totally missed the point.

Also his stans also say jc antis media illiterate, like who is actually lacking reading comprehension here?! It's so unnerving and also funny that jc stans be calling everyone names while supporting the most terrible loser and calling him king lol.

Sorry for the rant but can you debunk the whole core transfer discourse cuz I don't think my English and essay skills are good enough to word it out myself.

Thank you💗

I know you were probably looking for a personal response, but @jiangwanyinscatmom just reblogged this and it pretty much sums up my thoughts. The only things I would add are 1) the golden core transfer is not a matter of medicine or medical ethics so this discourse is irrelevant, 2) if it was, Wei Wuxian would be entitled to anonymity seeing as he is the donor, meaning Jiang Cheng would still not be entitled to know where his new golden core came from, 3) Jiang Cheng, himself, stopped asking questions because he wanted a golden core regardless of how he got it, and 4) there’s no way to spin this ultimate act of selflessness where the recipient only benefited and continues to benefit with no wish to reject or return the sacrifice as one of selfishness because the recipient is mad about who his donor was. Jiang Cheng and his stans, both, are terrible people, perfectly matched.