#i took japanese in high school as my foreign language

[genderqueer-karma]

crying real tears my japanese teacher came back to the states after going back to japan in 2020

[peregrine-rnendicant]

ough ive started getting used to the sound of my voice on recordings bc ive been doing video narration for my company's YT channel, except now instead of just disliking my recorded voice in general, im scrutinizing my vocal performance and how much vocal fry im using on r sounds

[olderthannetfic]

Re: the second language discussion.

I think for a lot of people who speak English as a native language, it can be overwhelming to choose a second language. If you don't primarily speak English, it might be easy to choose it as a second language. (Actually, it's often taught right in school.) For English speakers, it can be difficult to choose as there are so many options, and without a recommendation for work or personal passion, someone might put it off forever thinking, "Well, many people speak English anyway if we had to communicate." If I did business with Germany or loved the culture and had every expectation of visiting or moving there, obviously I would learn German. I wouldn't expect every German to speak English for me. But if I have no such spark, it can be almost impossible to choose a language and even more difficult to stick with it. Which is what everyone I know has said.

It might also be easier to choose if a person's location borders a foreign-speaking nation or has many who speak a second language in the population. (Like eastern Canada speaking French.)

Yes, I had to have two foreign language credits to graduate high school, but it was not until high school that they bothered thinking we might want to learn a second language. The teachers did not care how much we learned. And there was no support system for continuing our studies after graduation.

Over the years, I've experimented with learning Spanish, Japanese, French, and glanced at one or two others. It can be difficult to commit, especially if you're out of school with no drive but your own. I've finally chosen Spanish and do daily lessons on Duolingo (which may not be the best teacher, but it is for my budget and schedule). And even then, I have several times considering abandoning my Spanish lessons to pick up French instead.

I greatly admire people who have learned English as a second language, and I am highkey jealous of their bilingualism. I just hope everyone understands that if a person already speaks English, sometimes one of the biggest things holding them back is the overwhelm of choosing a second language, which isn't obvious for everyone.

--

I'll post people's opinions, but I think my own views are pretty easy to guess.

English speakers come from all over, but many of us under discussion are from the US...

As a teenager, I went to a fancy high school with great language instruction. They had a whole Japanese program. I was a massive weeb. Hell, I was a japanophile of longstanding, even before I discovered manga and then anime.

I took Spanish.

As an American there is one very obvious language to learn. Blindingly obvious. And it even happens to be one with a massive vocabulary overlap and "simple" grammar from the perspective of English. Now, I admit that back in the 90s, it was a pain in the fucking ass to find any cultural products to practice on that were easy enough but also on any topic I'd find easy, but things are better today. (Of course, this is me, so none of that ever motivated me half as much as Las aventuras del capitán Alatriste.)

My Japanese was crap even after a lot of study. I remember this one time while I was working in Japan that I went to a craft fair—one of those temple markets in Kyoto. I was looking at a table of jewelry. The guy there said something about being sorry that he didn't speak English (in Japanese, I presume, though I don't remember anymore). I looked up and realized that the tan guy with long black hair I'd seen out of the corner of my eye was definitely not Japanese. I stammered out that I understood some Spanish but didn't speak it if he spoke that. It had been a few years since I'd taken Spanish, but I figured I'd remember enough. So he started explaining his artwork and the symbolism, the river of life, various cultural motifs, etc.

Fifteen minutes later, as we were discussing educational policy in his country and how his Native parents had been part of the generation to get English removed from the schools in favor of Spanish as the foreign language and Native languages as the primary medium of instruction, he looked up at me and said "Oh, you don't speak Spanish, huh?"

--

It's true that a bunch of dumb racists would scream if we tried to make Spanish part of all grade school classrooms in the US. It's also true that there is one most obvious language to learn if you're an American.

[bihansthot]

Can you write a story of how your OC first met Bi Han? I’m curious & most stories I’ve read about him always had a relationship already but not how it started. Thank you! Also your work is great!

Thank you so much for the request and the compliment lovely! I’ve danced around the story of how Bi-Han and I met and alluded to it here and there over the years but I suppose I’ve never really told the full story. It all started 15 years ago when I graduated college, obviously, this is a fictional story but it’s based on my actual background. There’s no warning for this story it’s purely an innocent first meeting, there’s a bit of fluff maybe. 🥰

The year is 2008 and I had just graduated from the University of Michigan with my dual bachelor’s of Arts in Asian Studies and Japanese. I was excited but scared at the same time, I had spent the last four years living out my dreams in a safe and happy environment away from my very emotionally abusive, narcissistic, alcohol-dependent mother and now I had to face her again. I wasn’t fortunate enough to find a job right out of college so I had to move to Florida, somewhere completely foreign to me as my parents had retired and moved during my Senior year. I was motivated and determined not to stay any longer than I had to so I began hunting for jobs right away. My Japanese teacher had always encouraged me to be an English teacher in Japan and after spending my Junior year abroad at Nagoya Gakuin University I was very eager to go back to Japan. I wanted to see my friends, to see my crush to maybe finally have the courage to confess my feelings to him which I had been too shy to do when I was there at school. As fate would have it though I would keep getting turned down over and over for teaching English in Japan ironically because I spoke Japanese too well and companies were worried I wouldn’t be a good enough English teacher when I could communicate with the students in their native language.

Months went by and things between my Mother and I got worse and worse, my eating disorder from high school resurfaced in a desperate attempt to gain my mother’s approval. Through very unhealthy eating habits and excessive working out, I dropped almost 110 pounds in the year I was stuck at home with my parents. I was working at a local grocery store while I kept applying to companies to live abroad, finally after months and months of waiting one got back to me. I was elated, but there was only one catch, they wanted me to teach English in a tiny rural village in China, Fengjian was the name, which meant nothing to me because I had certainly never heard of it. In a move that shocked even me I jumped at it, terrified of change or anything unknown little Sol emphatically agreed to the teaching position in a heartbeat. The company would cover my living expenses, school expenses, and food expenses plus pay me a stipend on top of all that just to teach adorable little Chinese middle schoolers English. It felt like the answer to my prayers, the only problem was leaving my Dad. As bad as things were with my Mother, I loved my Father dearly and the idea of being so far from him indefinitely scared me, especially since just a few years prior he had a heart attack. I gathered my courage though and decided for my sake I had to put myself first for once and get away from my awful home life.

My parents were of course surprised with my decision, they weren’t surprised I was moving abroad to teach English, but they were surprised I was going to China and not Japan. They tried to talk me out of it but my mind was made up and I couldn’t be swayed. The next few weeks were kind of a blur as I got rid of things and sold things and packed everything important to me into two big suitcases. My parents took me to the airport and I bid my mother a farewell and sobbed as I hugged my father and told him goodbye. The flight was insane and had so many different transfers, first I flew to my home away from home Detroit then Detroit to Narita, Narita to Guangzhou and then I had to take the bus through the picturesque countryside for what seemed like an eternity until I finally arrived in Fengjian. I had traveled well over 24 hours and was completely exhausted when I arrived but I couldn’t rest yet. I arrived in a beautiful little village made of picturesque wooden houses that looked like they hadn't been touched since the Ming dynasty. My heart lurches at the beauty as I’m reminded of watching Fushigi Yuugi countless times with my best friend when we were in high school. “Oh how proud my little Miaka would be of me,” I whisper to myself taking in the beautiful surroundings, breathing the fresh mountain air. I am suddenly unsure what to do, I have the school’s contact information and my landlady’s number but my phone doesn’t work here. Just as I’m about to panic though an individual introduces themselves to me in slightly broken English indicating they are from the company I work for. They actually sent a local to pick me up from the bus station and get me settled in. I was elated and followed them dragging my heavy suitcases behind me as we quietly wound our way through the lovely little village. We climbed up the bank of the beautiful riverfront to a quaint dwelling, I was immensely grateful for their help with my lovely landlady Mrs. Fong who spoke very little English but did have an adorable Pekingese. Once I was finally in my little apartment on the hillside, overlooking the beautiful, slow-moving river that ran through the little village I passed out despite my stomach’s angry protests.

The first few months were lonely and exhausting, everything seemed so overwhelming. I was in the middle of nowhere, in a village where no one had met a foreigner before, and was unable to speak the language. It made everything complicated, it was my day off and I decided to go to the marketplace and try and find my favorite snack for lunch. I had managed to pick up a few very basic phrases thanks to my fellow teachers and with the help of Mrs. Fong, I did feel a little guilty about not seeing Madame Bo but I promised I would visit her for dinner. She was always so kind to me and was one of the few people in town who could speak a fair amount of English. If it weren’t for Mrs. Fong and Madame Bo I probably would have given up and gone back to America but I persisted, even with the complexities of the long hours my job required of me and the language barrier it was still so much better than life in America. “Alright, Mrs. Fong told me there was an uncle in the market who sold the best char siu bao, and today’s the day I’m going to find him!” I give myself a pep talk before grabbing my keys and mini backpack and heading out the door.

I follow the beautiful river until I’m in the heart of the village and make my way toward the market, I have been there a handful of times but I usually only visited the butcher and the noodle lady, finding the prepared food was a new adventure. I weave in and out of the crowded streets and stalls, all too familiar with the shock and awe a tall, busty, platinum blonde causes in China. I look around everywhere for the food stalls before clumsily asking one of my fellow patrons, “char siu bao,” I ask and mime the action of eating one. The old man looks me up and down and just grins lecherously, thankfully for me though a kindly old woman had overheard my query and steers me away from him and points me in the right direction. I look around at the stall before I spy the one I’m looking for, I may not be able to speak Chinese but that doesn’t mean I can read a fair deal of it since Japanese borrows much of their written language from Chinese. I make my way over to the cart and hold two fingers up as I repeat my simplistic phrase before adding “qing” to it. The middle-aged man smiles and asks for 6 yuan and I open my purse to start to count out the coins

It’s not long before I hear what sounds like cursing and angry Chinese coming from the man behind me. Worried I was taking too long to count my change I turned around to mumble “duibuqi duibuqi,” to him what I was not expecting was to face to chest with this man. I’m startled, to say the least as I was around the same height as most men in the village, I look up and I’m certain my jaw hangs slack as I’m looking at the most handsome man I had ever seen in my life. His jet black hair wound back into a tight bun, his ethereal ice blue eyes staring down at me as he slams two yuan down on the stall and grabs my bao plus another two. He hastily forces mine into my hands as he stuffs one in his mouth and drags me away from the stall. “I, I wha? What’s happening?!” I exclaim struggling in his freezing cold grasp as he pulls me to the little plastic stools by the roadway.

“That asshole was charging you six times over just because you’re a clueless foreigner,” his gruff, deep voice all but snarls, as he bites off a large mouthful of the fluffy, sweet bao.

“I, what? For-for real? What a creep! Th-thank you,” I reply softly and I can feel my cheeks flushing with color as talk with this handsome stranger who shockingly spoke perfect English.

“You’re new around here, aren’t you? Name’s Sub-Zero, you must be the English teacher my brothers were talking about seeing at Madame Bo’s,” he deduces in the two minutes of talking to me.

“That obvious huh? Yup, that’s me. I’m Sol, I teach English at the middle school up the road. I go to Madame Bo’s pretty often but I think I would have remembered someone like you there before,” I mumble enjoying another bite of my bao, trying not to embarrass myself too much.

“Unfortunately I, mm work more than my brothers do and have little time for fraternizing at Madame Bo’s,” he chooses his words carefully as he answers, his eyes shifting slightly as he speaks.

“Oh? What do you do? Anything fun?” I ask innocently enough, enjoying having my first conversation since moving to China.

He just laughs, “that unfortunately is classified, if I told you, I’d have to kill you.” He smiles at me, his beautiful white teeth are dazzling.

I give him an odd look and turn my attention back to my bao not realizing I had managed to smear some of the delicious BBQ pork filling on my cheek.

Sub-Zero cocks his head to the side and gives me a very confident smirk before leaning in to press his bizarrely cold lips to mine. His cold tongue worked its way across my cheek, cleaning away the leftover bao before pulling away mischievously.

My eyes fly open wide and I blink rapidly before bringing my hand up to my lips. My heart feels like it’s pounding out of my chest as my breath comes out in condensed little puffs and I’m left shocked by my first kiss.

Sub-Zero shoots me a wink, “you’re a messy eater. See you around, Sol.”

Before I even have time to process what was happening I’m left completely alone. I look around frantically and see no signs of Sub-Zero and my heart drops. I munch slowly and quietly on my second bao in silence, already missing his deep voice and pleasant company, hoping this won’t be the last time I meet Sub-Zero.

[universestreasures]

Isono Full Bio!!!

Basic Information 

Name: 竜多郎 磯野 (Ryutaro Isono) / Roland Ingram

Gender: Male

Nationality: Japanese

Orientation: Heterosexual.

Zodiac: Taurus  

Birthday: May 11th

Age: 38 (Start of the Manga/Season 1)

Eye Color: Sapphire Blue

Hair Color: Black

Height: 6'4

Family: Haruka Isono (Wife, 36), Riko Isono (Daughter, 9). He also is the eldest of four siblings (3 girls and 1 boy), and his parents are both still alive.

Position: Chief of Staff (CoS) / Strategic Assistant To The CEO / Driver For Kaiba Corporation.

Skill Areas: Project management, problem-solving, event planning, delegation, driving, strategic planning, advanced technology use, and foreign languages (he can speak Japenese, English, Korean, Chinese, and German).

History

Ryutaro was hired as a driver for Kaiba Corp in 1988, two years before the Kaiba Brothers were adopted. He was 30 at the time and just starting out in the company. And thus, he had a low-level position. He went to business school for years (He had a Bachelors and was going through his Masters at the time of his employment) but had trouble getting any kind of decent position. So, with a 1-year-old daughter and a wife to care for, he took this job, hoping to eventually rise through the ranks in the company.

And he did, eventually becoming a manager for a small portion of Kaiba Corp's staff, specifically a team in the technology department, in 1993 (when Seto was 13). He also continued to be a driver as well, more so because he was requested to do so because he was so reliable, always able to get whoever it may be there quickly and efficiently. He had the driving routes and traffic patterns of Domino memorized, after all.

In his manager position, he came across Seto, who was working on his own tech project at the time: his Solid Vision system. He thought the system was remarkable, unlike anything he'd ever seen. Impressive that a child managed to create something like this. Though, what he was more impressed by was his reason for developing it, the very 'dream' he created it for.

That day made Ryutaro a fan of Seto's, and that admiration for him grew over time. He no doubt supported Seto in his quest to overthrow Gozaboru, even at the risk of his own future. He had that much faith in Seto's ability and his dream.

Eventually, Ryutaro is promoted to the Chief of Staff and works directly as a liaison to Seto as well as his and Mokuba's personal driver. When this happens I imagine will be different for every Kaiba I write with, but my mind it's following Duelist Kingdom since that's when Isono is seen in canon for the first time. He becomes trusted enough with important duties such as being an official for tournaments, a master of ceremonies, and even handling important projects like the excavation of the puzzle in DSOD. Ryutaro truly is the most reliable and most trusted employee in the entire company, a title he knows carries with it a lot of responsibility, especially because he has come to care about both Seto and Mokuba, both as bosses and as if they were his own children.

Fun Facts

Riko, his daughter, is an avid gamer, and I think that is partly what drew Isono to Seto and Mokuba to begin with. That, and he has a soft spot for kids.

He is very much the 'dad friend' to everyone in Kaiba Corp and cares about everyone's well-being.

He is very addicted to caffeine and needs it to function.

He often works late and doesn't get many days off, meaning he makes every second of his time with his family count and spoils them rotten often.

He has a lifetime pass to Kaiba Land and uses it to take his family. Riko especially likes the Kaiba Man show.

He met his wife Haruka in high school and married her soon after her graduation. They were high school sweethearts, and she very much is the more 'outspoken' of the two. She's no doubt complained about her husband being overworked.

Riko has been brought to work as apart of a 'bring your kid to work day' with her dad, and she loves being there and hopes to be hired someday, especially for anything related to game testing.

He is very lightweight when it comes to drinking, which is why he doesn't partake in it at all, especially when on business-related functions.

His wife packs him lunch every day and even dinner if he is staying late. They are very well-made bentos with little notes from her and Riko.

He has pictures of his wife and kid on his desk, and a picture of himself with both Seto and Mokuba.

Some of his hobbies include cooking and reading, and he likes to go to hot springs to try and relax with all the stress he's constantly under.

[mademoiselle-red]

Crazy Rich Asians and Grandma Young

A few years ago, when I saw CRA in theaters, I remember being charmed by the extravagant costumes and setting, the concept of all Asian cast in a Hollywood romcom, and the Asian-American protagonist, Rachel Chu. Her fish out of water experiences among her fiancé’s Peranakan Chinese family in Singapore were very relatable. She is ethnic Chinese like them, but from a very different culture and country. I’ve had very similar experiences when visiting my relatives in China as a teenager: I was born in China but grew up in the US (since age 5), and all my aunties, uncles, and grandparents took every opportunity to bemoan my foreign mannerisms and cultural attitudes (despite the fact that I spoke and read Chinese fluently).

Sometime in high school and during college, I developed an academic interest in Chinese culture and diaspora history and did a lot of independent studying on the subject. And because of this knowledge, my immersion in CRA broke as soon as Rachel entered her boyfriend’s family home and I started watching a completely different movie.

We are told the boyfriend’s family, the Young family are among the oldest Singaporean families, emigrating from southern China in the 1800s. This makes them Peranankan, a community of people spanning Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia descended from Chinese merchants who settled there between the 1600s and 1800s and assimilated into malay culture, speaking a malay language as their native tongue. When the independent nation of Singapore was created in 1965, Peranankans were classified as ethnic Chinese along with the Southern Chinese immigrants of the 1900s, who spoke Hokkien (~70% of the Chinese immigrant population), Cantonese (the language spoken by Nick’s mother), Hainanese, Teochew, and Hakka as their native language. Mandarin was introduced to Singapore in 1920 through Chinese schools founded by immigrant teachers from the Republic of China (which chose mandarin as its official language) and slowly gained population among the educated classes in the Chinese immigrant and Peranankan community. Widespread fluency in mandarin did not happen until after Singaporean independence (1965), when mandarin was chosen as a “mother tongue” for all ethnic Chinese Singaporeans and mandarin classes became required in school.

But Nick’s grandmother speaks mandarin with a Beijing accent and makes northern Chinese dumplings! As soon as I heard the accent and saw the dumplings, I stopped paying attention to Rachel’s story and started to imagine the fascinating life Nick’s grandmother must have lived (I have not read the books and thus am working only with how she is depicted in the movie). She was probably born into a Beijing family, thus growing up with that strong Beijing accent and a fondness for northern Chinese dumplings. Her family probably gathered around the table to make dumplings to celebrate various holidays like Chinese New Year and Winter Solstice (a cultural tradition unique to northern China), so when they immigrated to Singapore in the late 1930s (sometime before World War Two, before the Japanese occupation of Beijing), she was in for a culture shock.

In the late 1930s, barely anyone outside her tiny northern Chinese refugee community would have spoken fluent mandarin, and as a young woman marrying into a wealthy and influential Peranankan family in the 1940s or 50s, she would have had to learn Malay (to speak to her elders), Hokkien (to speak to other women in the merchant class), and English (as was expected of an upper class lady, because of the British colonial legacy) in order to get by. English and Malay are in completely different language families. Her native Mandarin and the southern Chinese languages like Hokkien and Cantonese are part of the same language family and share a written script, but are as different as Spanish and Romanian. And their cultures, etiquette, customs, and cuisines were equally as different as Spanish and Romanian. The only dish she and her husband’s family shared in common was plain white rice. Peranankan and southern Chinese dishes would have been completely foreign food to this Beijing woman (especially in the 1940s and 50s, before globalization and cultural homogenization within China). No one in her husband’s family would have eaten northern Chinese dumplings as a comfort food. If they had never traveled to China for work or study abroad, she would have been the first to introduce them to this foreign comfort food. She would also have had to learn the foreign customs, culture, and etiquette of this perenankan family and the customs and cultures of the southern Chinese people who made up a majority of Singapore’s ethnic Chinese community.

By the time we meet her as an old lady in 2017, she is now the matriarch and Singapore has had decades of mandatory mandarin education, so everyone around her can speak mandarin to her and eat dumplings as a comfort food. But when she arrived in the Young family as a young bride, she was just as foreign to them as Rachel Chu.

(The casting of a Beijing mandarin speaker in the role of Nick’s grandmother may have been an unintentional mistake on part of the production, since the movie seems more interested in emphasizing the Chinese aspects of the Yeong family over their Singaporean / Peranankan heritage)

[wednesdaytoo]

@coffinbutch tagged me for this! 15 questions + 15 friends! (coffinbutch you are so brave for doing all 15 tags. im gonna take the coward's way and ask any mutual to consider themself tagged if they want to do it!)

long under here

1. Are you named after anyone?

yea! im named after my abuela who died waaay before i was born

2. When was the last time you cried?

3 days ago

3. Do you have kids?

nope! i work with kids (teenaged) and they're fine, i enjoy them, but that's plenty of Kid for me -- i don't need to have my own in my home everyday. id love to be a lesbian uncle tho! which i already kno is Not gonna happen from either of my brothers, so my only chance is my wife's younger sister haha (we were just talking abt this yesterday lol)

4. What sports do you play/have played?

hahha i don't think i've ever played a sport like Officially, like outside of PE classes. i like badminton tho, and B and i are trying to learn how to play pickleball (we suck)

5. Do you use sarcasm?

i suppose on occasion i sarcast

6. What is the first thing you notice about people?

hair & clothes? face? im a simple guy

7. What's your eye color?

the inner part of my irises are yellowish-brown and the outer edges are grey-blue. ppl dont usually notice it unless theyre quite up close tho. from a few feet away i think they look grey and that's what i'll usually mark for eye color, or blue if that's not an option

8. Scary movies or happy endings?

i could go for either, but i think i lean slightly more toward scary movies, especially bc i love vampire movies so much. like when we watch a dracula movie and u have one of those "the monster is defeated! hooray!" endings, does that count as a happy ending movie?? we root for drac tho so it's a let down!

9. Any talents?

idk im pretty good at whistling !

10. Where were you born?

california

11. What are your hobbies?

movies, video games, insect/arachnid related things (catching, collecting, pinning, reading abt, etc), sewing/embroidery when the mood strikes me, reading (trying to get back into it at least!), listening to music/discovering new bands, sorting/cataloguing things

12. Do you have any pets?

3 cats (hopey, bullets, and cocoa) + a baby tarantula (avocado) <3

13. How tall are you?

5'6.5" or 168 cm!

14. Favorite subject in school?

in high school my favs were probably trigonometry and ceramics

in college i'd say science (esp entomology, ecology, botany, and astronomy) and foreign languages (i took french, japanese, ASL, and spanish)

15. Dream job?

see one of the above hobbies and then pay me $100/hr to do it :-))

no but fr even tho my current job has its annoyances, it's usually so chill. some days i just text B from work like "here's a bracelet i made today" "made u a candle today" "it was slow and i mostly just read in the library" "i drew a cute poster." two weeks ago we came in for a couple hours to decorate little pouches with custom vinyl designs on our new cricut. the next day we went roller skating lmao. even the actual "work" is enjoyable (i help students w/ their schoolwork, mostly math, which is fun to me, or entering info into forms/spreadsheets, also kind of fun to me bc i can listen to music while i do it). buuut i dont make a lot of money. if they paid me $100/hr and gave me some benefits, i'd be set!

[ninamitoo]

A new beginning

Tetsurō Kuroo x reader

It was the beginning of a new school year when your parents came to you with the unexpected news of moving to Tokyo. Your father had long aspired to become the coach of the national volleyball team, and now that he had been offered the chance to coach the Japanese Olympic team, he was beside himself with happiness. But for you, it meant leaving your life and friends behind and moving to a completely unfamiliar country whose language you didn't speak.  

Of course you were happy for your father and you supported him with all your heart. After all, it was his dream since as far back as your memory goes. In his younger years, he played what he calls "B" volleyball, never at the professional level. But when he met his future wife, and a few years later you were born, he was always raving about how he wished he could coach young talents. Yet, despite everything, you couldn't shake that heavy feeling in your stomach that wouldn't go away.

...

You transferred to Nekoma High about halfway through your sophomore year. In the six months or so before the move, you learned to read and write a few kanji characters through intensive Japanese tutoring, but mostly you focused on the spoken language. You didn't want to make a complete idiot of yourself in front of your new classmates, but unfortunately you were still at a beginner's level and learning a completely foreign language was challenging for you. Your teachers took pity on you and most of your new friends tried to help you. You didn't understand everything, but you were able to communicate with broken Japanese.

One day, Aoi-chan came to you with an idea: "You haven't joined any clubs yet, have you? Why don't you try it? Don't you think you'd learn to communicate better in our language that way?" You didn't think it was a bad idea at the time, but now, standing in front of the closed gym door from which the sound of squeaking soles, crossing boys' voices and deafening ball thuds could be heard, you wanted to be anywhere but here.

You never really excelled in sports, and when you heard that the boys' teams here in Japan had club managers, you thought it was the perfect role for you. Your father brought his work home with him more often than not, so you learned a lot about volleyball and thought the sport would be perfect for you. Now? How could you think of such a stupid idea? Isn't there any chance of getting out of this? With terror in your eyes, you looked at the teacher who accompanied you as he reached for the door handle, but your silent "wait" escaped his ears.

"Team, I'd like to introduce you to a new member." He got the attention of everyone present and you hid behind his back with a jump. You can still get away, right? "Starting today, the boys' volleyball team has its own manager."

A number of excited voices started shouting over the news, and you knew it was too late to run for it. Among the wave of shouts and questions you heard "who is she?", "What year is she in?", "What's her name?" and "Is she cute?" Yamada-sensei turned to you helplessly, and you knew that was your cue. You took a deep breath in an attempt to calm your racing pulse before stepping into the hunting trap in front of you.

"I don't know if I'm cute, but my name is Y/N and I'm in my second year. It's nice to meet you all." You were glad you didn't stutter with nervousness and could only hope you sounded as natural as you thought you did.

"European...!" One of them shouted with his finger pointed at you. When you gave him a weak smile and an uncertain wave, his face quickly turned a fiery red and he turned his face away to the other side. So much for the first good impression.

"Eeeh..." Came uncomfortably close to your ear, making you jump in surprise. To your left, an impossibly handsome young man bent down to your level, sizing you up with a serious expression on his face. A raven's nest instead of hair fell into his hazel, cat like eyes when a huge playful smirk adored his features. "I'd say you're more than cute, beautiful. I'm looking forward to getting to know you better and starting to date you." He spoke in a calm, seductive voice, and you were sure you were blushing just as much if not more than the boy with the shaved sides a moment ago. Your brain's ability to think was gone.

"Here goes the provocation expert." The vice-captain sighed in defeat.

"Please ignore what our captain says. My name is Yaku and I look forward to working with you." You're joined by another member, considerably shorter one with auburn hair. "Most of what he says is nonsense." Another boy with grown-out blonde hair fills in as the rest of the team gradually coalesces around you, spouting one name after another. You try your best to remember them all, but you already know you won't be able to remember most of the names the next day. Despite being told not to take his words to heart, you secretly hoped they were true, not just a way for you to fit in. 

"There's a dozen other things you could have said to her and you chose this?" Kenma frowned at Kuroo, then glanced warily in your direction. Granted, Kuroo’s awkward pick up line had broken the tense ice, but he was sure you had gotten mixed signals because of it now, and he felt sorry for you. He didn't want you to be the next victim to fall head over heels in love with Kuroo only to be heartbroken. Kuro's response, however, left him more shocked than his poor flirting skills.

"I meant it. I can’t wait to date her."

Although your ears didn't register Kuroo's last words, his simple ‘I meant it’ erased all the heavy feelings that had been weighing you down for eight months and you finally felt light headed. Maybe moving to Tokyo wasn't so bad.

[seeingteacupsindragons]

Where would you say your level of Japanese is at? And how did you come to learn it? Sorry if this has been asked before.

Trying to estimate fluency in a second language is really hard to estimate...I would say that if I took the JLPT right now, I could probably manage a pass on the N4, but I haven't taken it, so I don't know that for sure.

My attempts at learning Japanese is a long history starting at least when I was about 12 and my parents got me a foreign language learning set for Japanese for Christmas...very little took back then. I knew a handful of words and that was about it. I found a list last year or something in my desk of "list of Japanese words I know" that I definitely wrote in middle school, and it was kind of endearing.

When I went to college, my college offered Japanese, and I made it through three semesters. I didn't go past that because honestly, I don't think I was in a good place to learn a language (which is why I only did two years of Italian in high school). I knew no one who could speak the language or practice with me, my family made fun of any attempts I made at sharing my skills, my anxiety disorder was so unmanaged and intense at the time that even the thought of speaking to someone I didn't know frozen my in place and strangled my throat, and I didn't use social media much so I had basically no access to read Japanese outside of class.

So. I kind of gave up on Japanese at that point, sadly. I learned some very useful skills back then (especially my kana), but it didn't ultimately go anywhere.

And then JR came out and wasn't translated, and YuuMori came out and was way behind on translation, so I realized it came with furigana, I knew my kana, I had friends who spoke Japanese fluently and could give me help and suggest resources, so I flung myself back into learning. My old skills returned very quickly and I picked up new ones pretty quick. Even my friends have mentioned they're impressed with how fast I have picked up grammar.

But I have very little ease at this point, and my vocab is garbage. I understand it better than I can compose in it, which is fairly typical for foreign language learners, I think. I can read better than I can "hear" and write better than I "speak."

I'm still working on getting better. But I'm proud of what I've gotten so far. I'm slow, and I need a dictionary a lot, but I can understand it pretty well most of the time. Not always, but pretty consistently.

I have a trip to Japan next month and I am very anxious about how bad my skills are going to feel there.

[elendsessor]

Hrmmm thinking about what to talk about

How'd you come across those magazines you posted earlier?

i go to culture fests when i can. that one was from 2019, but it was primarily japan focused. there's like this annual japanese culture fest held where i live and a friend of mine who's learning japanese brings me to them. i took the same japanese class in high school and originally went both to be with a friend but also in hopes reading could help me learn the language (i mean i tried taking spanish but my teacher was a jerk and god knows i'm never taking french so japanese was my last option + taking a foreign language class was mandatory for graduation), picked up a couple magazines including the korokoro one and some cinnamoroll activity book :)

[quibbs126]

Alright, I finally got around to doing this, so here’s my Great Ace Attorney oc, Engel Karma, the ancestor of the von Karmas and the first of them to go into prosecuting

The 1st one is the one I did this morning, and the 2nd is the original I made

(More info under the cut)

Oh right, note about Engel’s gender, so basically when making the character, I was unsure what gender to make them, so I made up this thing where no one in universe knew his gender either, and he wouldn’t say, so they just assumed their gender, and it’s different for each character (for example, van Zieks thinks Engel is male, while Kazuma thinks she’s female), and it’s never actually addressed in universe. I asked my friend what I should do and they said just keep it as is, so yeah. Engel’s gender is whatever you want it to be. For the sake of consistency, I’ll just use he/him for now

Oh yeah, I remember one thing that made their gender a question was the fact that Engel has an unusually high voice, even for his age

He was based on this piece of van Zieks concept art I found

So backstory time, his father was the original “Karma”, aka the family who took on the name of Karuma. He was a street rat back in Germany who would always steal to get what he wants/needs, but eventually he ticked off a few too many people and he had to escape onto a ship leaving Germany, which ended up going to Japan. There he started to go back to his habits, until he ended up meeting the Asogi clan (he might have stolen from them, or he just encountered them, I’m not sure) and they ended up taking him in as a student, and his experience with them was so profound that he wanted to change his ways and atone for his past mistakes, and to symbolize his change and to honor the people responsible for this new outlook, he took the name of their clan’s sword as a family name, and he went back to Germany to start a new life there. He was able to make a decent living back in Germany and settled down to start a family, though his past as a thief was still known

So years later, Engel grows up on his father’s philosophies and desire to pursue justice, and decided the best way to do this was to become a prosecutor. Unfortunately, due to his father’s previous reputation, not to mention his own sort of poor status, as well as his age, he was unable to get anyone to take him on as an apprentice. (Apparently in Germany you have to study under a lawyer for 2 years before you can take the bar exam. I know Ace Attorney doesn’t necessarily follow actual law but I just wanted to use it) So, hearing of the prosecutors in England, he decides to head over there to find someone to study under

He’d show up sometime after DGS 2, and basically how everyone meets him is just him breaking into the High Prosecutor’s Office, demanding for someone to take him on in German. They’re basically like “who’s this weird German child??”

Now, in terms of his language skills, he speaks very poor English. Basically he’s at the level of a high school student who took a year or two of a foreign language, so he can somewhat survive, but he will most likely switch back to German. He gets better over time. However, as everyone later discovers, he shockingly speaks great Japanese. I also like to think van Zieks knows some Japanese, so I think it’d be funny if between Kazuma, van Zieks and Engel, the language they use to communicate is Japanese.

He eventually gets taken under the wing of van Zieks and Kazuma, and once he becomes an official prosecutor he looks more like that concept art. He becomes very successful back in Germany, reaching a very high societal status, and as a nod to van Zieks, he adds “von” to his surname.

Oh yeah, in terms of his place in the family, I’d say he’s Manfred’s grandparent

So yeah, I think that’s everything

[primoresplendens]

The story of all the languages I've ever brushed sleeves with (aside from my L1 and L2)

1. Chinese (written, traditional): my L1 comes from the Sinosphere, a lot of borrowed vocabs in forms of characters, I never got formal ed on it however because I left before the grade we start the curriculum (😭)... Traditional only, the way it's written in my L1 (if ever). I cannot do Simplified at all 🙃

"Fluency": writing characters, reading limited characters (not pronouncing)

2. Japanese: specifically kickstarted with Pokémon, as in: I learned the katakana first (pokemon names), then hiragana much later (when I expanded to other series), I still cannot do kanji for the same reason I cannot do much Chinese

"Fluency": reading (minus most kanji), writing (needs dictionary), phonics/pronunciations, limited speaking, limited listening comprehension

3. French: how I got into bandes desinées is a story of its own. Pokémon affected me a lot too

"Fluency": limited reading, some vocabularies

4. German: ...Pokémon. (⬅️actually highly recommended tool for learning one of the languages they localize in, it taught me some good amount English too)

"Fluency": syntax(......)(I'm serious), limited reading (once I have a translation before me I can "read" the og text)

5. Italian: ......Pokémon (I also took one(1) semester in college while waiting for my campus transfer hhh)

"Fluency": some reading, phonics/pronunciations

6. Spanish: Pokémon ((actually no. xD It was my foreign language choice for high school, so I do have some 4 years of learning plus or minus... there were certainly kids who were better than me though (Me looking jealously @ a girl in my senior year pranked a teacher by writing latter half of her assignment in full Spanish, the teacher never caught her by the way 🤣🤣🤣)

"Fluency": beginner reading, beginner writing, phonics/pronunciations, limited vocabs, limited listening comprehension

/languageobsessed

[ladybugs-and-black-cats]

Pardon My French!

So, I’m going to be perfectly honest here. For the longest time, I could not stand the French language! Allow me to explain real quick before you judge me for my old opinion. 😆

The Background

I was first exposed to the French language when I was a mere 14 years old. At the time, I was in 8th grade here in the US and my middle school had a “language survey” class. Four marking periods. Four languages. Yes, we took a different language each marking period. The class was designed to help us decide what language we wanted to sign up to take in high school.

I really enjoyed my first two marking periods (Spanish and German). For the third and fourth marking periods, I had French and Latin. I was even less a fan of Latin, but that’s a story for another day. My teachers for French and Latin were both long-term substitutes—which isn’t a problem—but they just didn’t make the classes as enjoyable as my Spanish and German teachers had in the two prior marking periods. The one thing I ended up liking about the class was that my crush at the time—Eric—was in the class…and even that was less pleasant when Eric started dating another girl.

It wasn’t just the teachers I didn’t particularly like. I just didn’t like the language itself. Why were there so many silent letters? How was I supposed to know how to even read this silly language? These questions and so many others hurt my poor little 14-year-old American brain. 😆 Sure the language sounded pretty and my mother had taken French as her selected language in school, but those just weren’t enough to make me like the language. Honestly, to this day, all I really remember easily is “Bonjour”, “Oui”, and how to count to three.

Present Day

So, to fast-forward a lot, I chose German in high school, took four years, visited Germany in my senior year. Good times. (In later years, I found myself wishing I’d chosen Spanish because that would really have paid off, but it is what it is and that’s also a story for another day!)

Over the years, though, I’ve found a love for language learning. I’ve found an appreciation from hearing other languages spoken and trying to pick up on some of the words and phrases as I listen to and read foreign languages. There are so many foreign language songs (Japanese, Spanish, and German) songs on my Spotify, which I listen to while driving. I especially love listening to Disney songs (from the animated movies) in other languages. Several years ago, I made a Duolingo account with plans to start using some of their courses. I’ve played around with it a little. It’s pretty fun. So, yeah, learning new languages is definitely one of my hobbies.

Miraculous New Love For French

During the pandemic, I was at home and bored (but who wasn’t?) because my first job—as a teacher—was shut down and I was only working my second job—at a grocery store—for a couple days a week for the first few months of the quarantine. That summer, when I had a lot of downtime, I decided to start watching a new show.

As I was looking through my streaming sites, I remembered that a friend a few years ago had recommended that I check out Miraculous. At the time, I’d thanked my friend for the recommendation, but knew that never in a million years would I actually follow through and watch it. Honestly, at that time, I was a huge fan of anime and manga. That was the niche I’d found. Back then, I just couldn’t see myself ever liking Miraculous because the plot seemed too “out there” and kiddish. Oh, if only “Past Me” had any idea…😆

Strangely enough, I got into Miraculous because I watched the English dub of Blue Exorcist. (You can probably already see the connection…) After hearing Bryce’s character (Rin Okumura), I looked to see his other credits, found Miraculous, and remembered that recommendation from a few years prior. The rest…well, it’s history and here I am now, devoting an entire blog to this silly show!

So Many Languages

In the years since I joined the fandom, I’ve come to love the premieres and how I’ve watched so many random dubs because I never feel like waiting for the English dub (having the English dub premiere the episode “Wishmaker” worldwide is something I will NEVER forget!).

Along with the English dub, I’ve also watched the Brazilian dub, the German dub, and—of course—the French dub. Watching the French dub has given me that new appreciation for the language. The voice actors do an amazing job and the language is nice to listen to because it really does sound pretty! I don’t mind French when I’m not being graded on how to spell it, read it, write it, or speak it!

In Closing

Someday in the near future, I’d love to add French to my Duolingo and learn the language at my own pace. I have to say Merci to Miraculous for sparking this interest and helping me to find a love for the French language! 🇫🇷

[soulfulscriptor]

Am I doing too much

Maybe it's my desperation or the fact I had believed (subconsciously) that I would have instantaneous results compareable to what I watched on the potential side hustle gigs that are out there that I didn't know about. But I will say I was expecting better results to what I've been getting.

Now the plan was to have all these things going for me, with success in a month (more realistic conscious outlook). Getting some Etsy sales trickling in here and there, and being monetized instaneously with YouTube, and getting that extra income to buy a house before the year is up.

Not even my more realistic outlook come to fruition. Now I will definately I'm spending the majority of my business developing time on my Facts YouTube Channel. But my AI generator needed my subscription to renew to use it (I'm on a basic plan so it doesn't last long). So things like Etsy took to the back burning as I'm more of the digital product kind of person.

I will definitely say lately it's felt like I've been trying todo too much too soon. But I blame my anxiety on that. I've been doing my best to hold that h*ll hole of my brain at bay.

But you're probably looking at all I've written since starting this blog, and going, "Well f*ck, you are doing too much. Your crazy" or something like that. And I agree. But let me tell you why and you can tell me if you still think I'm crazy, I'm probably just more desperate.

To start, I have ADHD, found out during the start of the pandemic in 2020. I had a newborn, I was working from home and falling asleep all the time while working (Granted my job literally had my twiddling my thumbs 98% of the time when I wasn't in the office and even then I was twiddling away 90% of the time. And you're probably like "With a newborn, I don't doubt it, you probably don't sleep at night".

And your wrong there. All my babies were good sleepers, and technically still are. But anyways once I started to treat my ADHD, my middle of the day fatigue disappeared. And that was one problem I've been trying to solve for over 10 years and perplexed my doctors. And my ADHD is why I never continued making music videos on my personal YouTube account, I started doing that for fun when YouTube started up and then dropped it when I couldn't figure out how to had video clips to my videos without being copy righted.

I know I've talked about my attempts at this stuff before. But flash forward to 2023. I work 2 jobs, and my husband also works a full time job and I have 4 kiddos' with 2 in Independent School instead of private. As my income goes up, the cost of the school goes up. And unless I change something financially, this is the last year they will get to go. And I want them to stay.

Why to struggle to keep them in when it causes me so much financial and mental stress, you might ask? Because the community is awesome, but also because my kids get exposed to foreign languages as early as Junior Kindergarten (Preschool- 4y). My oldest (11y) has been taking Mandarin since he was 4 and will continue to do so in Middle School. And not only does he get to take Mandarin, but Latin is part of their curriculum. And my 3rd born (6y) has been exposed to French and Spanish. The School struggled to keep a part time Mandarin Teacher, so they had to phase that program out 2y ago, so my oldest was the last to have the Madarin Opportunity in Lower School.

But still its' one opportunity I wish the entire US education could get behind for Elementary Education. I mean just about every country with an education, makes learning English a priorty and English is their 2nd language, and they start pretty young. But it's the one thing I don't want to take away from them, as I struggled in Middle School and High School to pick up French and trying to learn Japanese off of Anime is a no go.

But this is the sole reason I decided (kind of impulsively, all the best things I've done, and the worse, have been done on impulse) to start up all these side things and turn them into successful businesses. With my ADHD under control, along with my depression and anxiety, being able to stay focused on stuff long term is a new thing for me. Granted it's only been successful in mobile gaming, (1 game has lasted almosted 4y, started it right before my diagnosis).

And so far, I've been monitoring all my stuff on a routine daily basis for the past month and researching optimization ideas to get my stuff noticed and even if this was 2018, I probably would have forgot about all that I was trying to accomplish and gone back to zoned out, not really living ways and working 3 jobs.

So am I crazy, desperate, or just a workaholic who doesn't know their limits? You can let me know your honest opinion, I promise I can't easily take offense.

[marmolita]

15 questions

I was tagged by @ivorydice ! Thanks!

Zero-pressure tagging: @wildehacked @squidsquadlove @shoujocowboy and whoever else wants to do it!

1. Are you named after anyone?

Nope! Just a name my parents liked.

2. When was the last time you cried?

Uh...this morning lmao

3. Do you have kids?

I do indedd

4. Do you use sarcasm a lot?

A moderate amount I guess? Like I don't think people would describe me as a sarcastic person but it's not like I'm never sarcastic either.

5. What sports do you/have you played?

As a kid, nothing. I took lessons in swimming and gymnastics and tennis at various times but never got past beginner level of anything. As an adult, I did a couple of sprint-distance triathlons and some 5ks but that's about it.

6. What's the first thing you notice about other people?

I honestly have no idea! I forget what people looked like after I see them unless they had some specific look about them that was memorable.

7. Eye colour?

Yes. 😂 Actually according to some chart or other my eyes are technically "gray" although they're like, dark gray on the edges, blue-green in the main part, and brown right next to the pupil.

8. Scary movies or happy endings?

Happy endings 100%

9. Any special talents?

Depends what you mean by "special." I can play the violin and piano because all that time I spent not doing sports as a kid I spent doing music instead, does that count as special? There's probably a hundred million other people at least who can also do that.

10. Where were you born?

SoCal!

11. What are your hobbies?

Fandom obvs, as I said above violin and piano though I rarely play my violin these days (which is unfortunate because I was decently good at it but alas, repetitive stress injury). I got into jigsaw puzzles so that probably counts though I haven't done one for a while because I was busy doing knitting and trying out embroidery, but I don't know that I'd call them hobbies compared to the jigsaw puzzles. I like picking out plants for the garden but I'm a slacker and Mr. Lita does all the yard work. Not sure what else counts here -- watching TV? Reading? Going for long walks? Shopping? Cooking? I do all these things.

12. Do you have any pets?

Not at the moment. We're planning to get a dog later this year (last one passed a number of years ago).

13. How tall are you?

5'4"

14. Favorite subject in school?

In college it was Japanese 100%. In high school idk, I don't know that I had a favorite. I do enjoy learning foreign languages so maybe that's just it.

15. Dream job?

Being rich enough that I don't have to work tbh. Would someone pay me to just tool around the house doing various hobbies and take trips to places? Otherwise honestly my actual job is fine, like, I don't love it all the time and I'm not excited to go to work every day but it's perfectly acceptable for a thing I have to do to make money.

[nihongotravel]

Let’s get started!

The culture I will be studying will be Japan. From a young age I have always been deeply fascinated by Asian cultures. This mostly comes from an incessant need to breach cultures and ideas outside my own. The first time school had seriously acknowledged other cultures in a somewhat unbiased and academic approach was my 7th grade world history class. Before that, any curiosities I had were sequestered to short themed days, countries in the context of wars America had some participation in, and independent study. It was my favorite class as I got a break from the previous straight 6 years of our Civil and Revolutionary war being shoved down my throat, and actually got to learn and appreciate something new outside my radar. It was like the breath of fresh air I needed to invigorate my academic need to learn again, that is, until the next year when I was shoved right back into another basic U.S. history class. Don’t get me wrong, history of any sort is fascinating to me, but when the same facts and people and quizlets are thrown at you year after year after year, you start to get cabin fever in your own country.

After that, I took every class I could learning about countries outside my own, whatever I could get my greedy little hands on. And because European countries were so close to what I was already familiar with, or at least were touched upon a lot more, I tended to stray further into territories I was much less accustomed to. These would be areas like South America, Africa, and territories of south and east Asia. My freshman year of high school I was extremely lucky to have been offered Japanese classes as a second language elective. The next year it was taken away, but a few more motivated of us partitioned the school to allow us to shuttle to the other high school just so we could continue on to Japanese 2, even being on a second bell schedule. Unfortunately, they did not allow us to do this a third time, but with the basics down, I was able to continue my studies on my own, albeit, with much more difficulty and not nearly as much cultural guidance.

Cut to today where I am majoring in both medical science and psychology, and am hoping to get a certificate in teaching English as a foreign language just so that I can go to Japan to teach, hopefully picking up where I left off in my own studies of that culture and language while I’m at it. As stated earlier, there is still so much I have yet to learn about Japan, and I’m hoping that through this blog I’ll be a bit more prepared in making my move there one day.

Some of the biggest aspects I already about are the language system, comprised of three separate alphabets, each with its own letters/symbols and uses. We have Hiragana, typically the first alphabet taught to school children, which has all the basic sounds of their language in an easy-to-use, streamlined alphabet. Then there’s kanji, which has about the same number of letters and most of the same sounds as hiragana, with the exception that it’s aimed at the phonics of foreign words they’ve picked up for their own usage, (examples being words like: パン  pan, which is Spanish for bread, or ホットドッグ “ho-todo-gu” Or hotdog in English!) The last alphabet is that of Kanji, which is the hardest to master and can change its meaning and sounds based solely off of whatever to put next to it. It’s based on an old Chinese picture alphabet and consists of thousands of characters that even Japanese locals have a hard time with because of just how vast it is. These three alphabets make up the basics of the Japanese language system, and just like Americans, they have their own form of fancy letter form Caligraphy they pride themselves on! (https://learnjapanese123.com/japanglish-katakana-words/ for more examples and information)

Outside of its language, Japan has many branches of culture that range and vary wildly to make up its own unique people. Because of its island set-up, fish and rice is the main staple in many of their main dishes. Their clothing ranges from intricate patterns, robes, and silks and unique jewelries. From its Shinto 70.5% and Buddhist 67.2%t-based religions to its numerous seasonal festivals and unique holidays, Japan has a vibrant and noble culture that has a little of something for everyone. (https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/japan/#people-and-society)

In studying other cultures, we do so from the perspective of their own culture, meaning that typically what is written down and recorded will undoubtedly be biased either in the way of how that culture wants to portray itself, or the somewhat ignorant version of the person exploring said culture for the first time through their own cultural lens. To avoid these biases, I aim to get my information from a variety of sources and from people from a variety of backgrounds, so that I may come to my own conclusions.