#in the language!

[solecist]

more context for 악어(acau)'s translation (troubles? future troubles?)!

@blockgamepirate mentioned pronouns in context of translation in a reblog and that got me thinking about a bunch of things lmao but mostly about 반말 (banmal).

악어 decided really early on into his experience with the translator to try to use banmal bc he felt like the translator was picking up on it better, and he probably thought this because of two things:

banmal is usually shorter than 존댓말 (jondaemal) which is the polite/default way of speaking. and when i say default i mean my parents sometimes use it to refer to each other. it's more than just politeness, it's also a certain amount of respect? with younger people (high school, college, maybeeee graduate student age) people tend to use banmal with friends. older people use banmal to talk to children, and children use banmal except when talking to older people. i think the easiest way of showing just how much shorter banmal is, is to use "안녕" (korean "hello") as an example. "안녕" (annyeong) is actually banmal! you absolutely wouldn't say this to someone you've just met - you would say "안녕하세요" (annyeonghaseyo) which is jondaemal. but do you see how the second is three syllables longer? there's more of a margin of error with three more syllable and that's why the machine translator doesn't work as well with jondaemal.

The most casual way of speaking banmal uses pronouns. korean doesn't have gendered pronouns really, and the pronouns it does have seem. rude? generally? children use pronouns a lot and adults use pronouns when speaking to children but otherwise.... if you're not friends (and young honestly have yet to find an midsized (40+) adult regularly use pronouns) calling someone "you" is like. an insult. it works (that is, it doesn't feel like an insult) in 악어's stream for me because it felt like he was speaking in a significantly simpler/slower register after a while? like the register you'd use for kids. but i did want to put it out there! because if you're trying to learn korean through 악어's stream, you're probably listening to him use banmal! and that's just something to be aware of.

more pronoun thoughts! in terms of gender - korean doesn't have gendered pronouns. the closest you get in third person is something like "that girl" so machine translate will almost never get it right. it will default to masculine (in my experience) or the first person ("i" "me") so that's something to keep in mind. honestly my dad often defaults to masculine third person pronouns because he forgets pronouns are gendered in english and that there's more than one of them lmaooo. korean does gender relationships A Lot (oppa is the one that most people will know - brother from female speaker to older male listener) but pronouns wise there's. no gender oop.

i just wanted to put this out there because as 악어 becomes more a part of the qsmp community, we'll probably slowly pick up on the more regular patterns of awkward machine translation from an east asian language to english, and more specifically from korean to english. and if it's confusing that's ok! assume good faith - 악어 from what i can tell isn't a streamer who'll use insults a lot or curse, and his normal way of speaking to his audience is very soothing/polite/jondaemal, so i hope that people keep watching him throughout this introduction period!

[victusinveritas]

[ruhua-langblr]

Duolingo Sucks, Now What?: A Guide

Now that the quality of Duolingo has fallen (even more) due to AI and people are more willing to make the jump here are just some alternative apps and what languages they have:

"I just want an identical experience to DL"

Busuu (Languages: Spanish, Japanese, French, English, German, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, Polish, Turkish, Russian, Arabic, Korean)

"I want a good audio-based app"

Language Transfer (Languages: French, Swahili, Italian, Greek, German, Turkish, Arabic, Spanish, English for Spanish Speakers)

"I want a good audio-based app and money's no object"

Pimsleur (Literally so many languages)

Glossika (Also a lot of languages, but minority languages are free)

*anecdote: I borrowed my brother's Japanese Pimsleur CD as a kid and I still remember how to say the weather is nice over a decade later. You can find the CDs at libraries and "other" places I'm sure.

"I have a pretty neat library card"

Mango (Languages: So many and the endangered/Indigenous courses are free even if you don't have a library that has a partnership with Mango)

Transparent Language: (Languages: THE MOST! Also the one that has the widest variety of African languages! Perhaps the most diverse in ESL and learning a foreign language not in English)

"I want SRS flashcards and have an android"

AnkiDroid: (Theoretically all languages, pre-made decks can be found easily)

"I want SRS flashcards and I have an iphone"

AnkiApp: It's almost as good as AnkiDroid and free compared to the official Anki app for iphone

"I don't mind ads and just want to learn Korean"

lingory

"I want an app made for Mandarin that's BETTER than DL and has multiple languages to learn Mandarin in"

ChineseSkill (You can use their older version of the course for free)

"I don't like any of these apps you mentioned already, give me one more"

Bunpo: (Languages: Japanese, Spanish, French, German, Korean, and Mandarin)

[limelocked]

[acrowseye]

i'm conducting an experiment. everyone who's from an english speaking country state your country, regional area and what you call the following images. i need to see something

[littlelightfish]

Funny things I found out playing with language setting in Netflix while looking episode 15:

Chilchuck's scream sounds HAUNTED in brazilian portuguese. Give it a try if you can.

(You can hear it here)

In spanish dub, Senshi says: "tocó mis senos de hombre", which means "he touched my man boobs" in Spanish. And I think that's the best dub line one so far.

[mournfulroses]

Vladimir Mayakovsky, from a letter featured in "Love in the Heart of Everything; The Correspondence between Vladimir Mayakovsky & Lili Brik, 1915-1930,"

[mostly-funnytwittertweets]

[miraclemaya]

this is problematic of me (joke) but i really enjoy the splashing of french into english speech or writing. just adds a pizzazz

[stingrayextraordinaire]

Another year, another group of my delightful ninth graders trying to spell the word "tragedy" for their Romeo and Juliet assignment.

Last year's collection

[not-your-lawyer]

“French is such a beautiful, romantic language.”

“Cat, I farted.”

[yeehawpim]

when your grammar accidentally transfers

[cemeterything]

this may just be me going into overanalysis mode but i feel like the choreography of spellcasting can tell you so much about a magic user. a snap of the fingers, for example, implies confidence, even arrogance, while hands thrust out and straining to the fingertips suggests desperation, throwing one's whole body into the spell as though hoping the physical effort will make a difference. rapid, jerky body language tells you that a spellcaster is passionate and reckless, while graceful, fluid movements demonstrate calm and concentration. some magic users may choose to stomp their feet or clap their hands when casting, channeling power through percussive motion, whilst others may see magic as a tool separate from the self, and focus it through objects like a wand or staff. a new spellcaster just coming into their power may be tentative and slow, but a practiced study of magic will be able to rely on muscle memory to guide them.

[charlesoberonn]

This is like telling a skater that they'd go faster if they used a car instead.

[dndspellgifs]

look, I know I've talked about this essay (?) before but like,

If you ever needed a good demonstration of the quote "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic", have I got an exercise for you.

Somebody made a small article explaining the basics of atomic theory but it's written in Anglish. Anglish is basically a made-up version of English where they remove any elements (words, prefixes, etc) that were originally borrowed from romance languages like french and latin, as well as greek and other foreign loanwords, keeping only those of germanic origin.

What happens is an english which is for the most part intelligible, but since a lot everyday english, and especially the scientific vocabulary, has has heavy latin and greek influence, they have to make up new words from the existing germanic-english vocabulary. For me it kind of reads super viking-ey.

Anyway when you read this article on atomic theory, in Anglish called Uncleftish Beholding, you get this text which kind of reads like a fantasy novel. Like in my mind it feels like it recontextualizes advanced scientific concepts to explain it to a viking audience from ancient times.

Even though you're familiar with the scientific ideas, because it bypasses the normal language we use for these concepts, you get a chance to examine these ideas as if you were a visitor from another civilization - and guess what, it does feel like it's about magic. It has a mythical quality to it, like it feels like a book about magic written during viking times. For me this has the same vibe as reading deep magic lore from a Robert Jordan book.

[magpiedminx]

From Misa on Wheels