#polyglot things

[polysprachig]

25.09.2023 | Filling in the gaps

I'm on a bit of a mission to fill in every last bit of space in the polyglot journal I started in 2019. Some pages I left intentionally blank so that my future (i.e. present) self could weigh in on whatever needs weighing in on, tbh. Lessons I've learnt, glaringly obvious mistakes (taking on too much, wacky timelines, delusional goal setting, usw.), and general commentary.

Right now I'm only focusing on filling in the gaps for that decade month of a year, i.e. May to August, 2020.

Wish me luck!

[giuliaisstudying]

My new hyperfixation is Duolingo Catalan...idk if it's a good thing or not. El mussol ho decidirà 🦉

[nimthirielrinon]

My brain just had me dream that I was overhearing an entire conversation between my parents from another room, in my native language, completely with an equivalent of “fuck’s sakes” at the end just before I woke up.

Their conversation was about whether or not one of them should have coffee immediately before bed.

[dathen]

Jonathan flipping through his little pocket dictionary as people point at him while chattering about satan and werewolves: Duolingo didn’t cover this vocabulary :(

[benkyoutobentou]

Beginner Manga Recommendations for Japanese Learners

It's time, you've done your due diligence in studying. Now it's time to jump into native material. But where to start? Here are a few manga series that I've read that I think would be a reasonable place for a Japanese learner to start their immersion journey.

Disclaimer: I haven't read every series, and the manga that's interesting to me might not be interesting to you. We also all encounter different words as we go along our language learning journeys. A series that I find relatively easy might have you looking up every other word. The trick is to not get discouraged and just keep on pushing through! As with everything, it gets easier the more you practice.

消えた初恋 - アルコ＆ひねくれ渡: This BL series follows a group of four friends and their experiences with love in high school (it also has a drama adaptation that I highly recommend! Available to watch for free on Viki). This series is so silly and just a fun time. The art has great visual gags and it's definitely a series where you can sit down and not even realize that suddenly you've gone through an entire volume and why didn't you buy more of this series to start with? It has furigana on everything, but the characters do speak pretty casually, so there's some slang and less standard language. This series is completed with nine volumes.

佐々木と宮野 - 春園ショウ: This is another sweet BL about Miyano, a high school first year, who catches the eye of an upperclassman, Sasaki. After asking to borrow Miyano's book, the two bond over a shared enjoyment of BL manga. The vocabulary is pretty simple in this one as well, but it does use quite a bit of otaku slang, which can be difficult if you've never encountered it before. It has furigana on everything, though! This series is ongoing with nine volumes and also has a spin off series titled 平野と鍵浦 which is also ongoing with four volumes.

月刊少女野崎くん - 椿いづみ: The first manga I ever read in Japanese! This series follows a high schooler, Sakura, as she confesses to her crush and classmate, Nozaki. However, Nozaki thinks that Sakura is just a fan of his shoujo manga series, and recruits her to be his assistant. This series is so enjoyably silly with a wonderful cast of characters that absolutely steal the show. There's a bit of vocabulary specific to the process of making manga, but it isn't too overwhelming. There's also plenty of casual speech and some great moments that can't quite come out in translation (bonus fact: I actually wrote a paper on this series and how humor is translated in one of my university linguistics class). It also has furigana on everything. It's ongoing with fifteen volumes.

加瀬さんシリーズ - 高嶋ひろみ: This adorable little GL series follows two high school aged girls, popular and athletic Kase and the shy gardener Yamada, as their relationship develops over their high school years. The vocabulary in this one is relatively simple with the exception of some more specific words, but those tend to pop up time and time again. This one doesn't have furigana but I think it's a great introduction to readying manga without furigana! This series is completed with five volumes, but there's an ongoing sequel series called　山田と加瀬さん that currently has three volumes released.

ささやくように恋を唄う - 竹嶋えく: This is a music based GL series about a high school first year, Kino, who tells an upperclassman, Nagi, that she loves her music. Nagi, however, misunderstands this as Kino confessing her love for her. The story follows both the relationship between Kino and Nagi as well as the trials and tribulations of Nagi's band. This is another one without furigana, but the vocabulary tends to be simple enough that I think it's still pretty accessible. It's ongoing with eight current volumes.

かけた月とドーナッツ - 雨水汐: Our last GL, this follows two coworkers, Uno and Satou, and their blossoming relationship in a society that pushes conformity and marriage on women. I really loved the way this series depicted coming into one's sexuality as an adult. Another one without furigana, but simple vocabulary regardless. A possible difficulty with this one might be the office vocabulary, though. This series is completed with four volumes.

[lostfeb]

language, the building blocks of communication. how could i not want to learn it all?

ughhhh every script, every grammar structure, every word… i love it all so much.

the feeling of when you watch something you used to not understand? when you finally communicate your thoughts after struggling to get your words out? when you meet someone new? when you understand an untranslatable joke? when you learn one word then start seeing it everywhere? when your brain starts to hurt in the good way because its all so confusing? then months later down the line those things come to you like second nature… it’s incredible.

the human mind can do so so so much. why not learn it all? why not at least try?

even forgetting things, making mistakes, and getting embarrassed feels good at this point. it feels like it’s all part of the process.

:)

[steddieas-shegoes]

Request: POLYGLOT STEVE??? WHO SPEAKS FLUENT FRENCH, ITALIAN, KOREAN, POLISH, SPANISH, ENGLISH AND PORTUGUESE??? EDDIE CONSTANTLY BEING FLUSTERED AS HELL HE FINDS IT REALLY HOT THAT STEVE SORAKS SO MANY LANGUAGES AND HE WILL CASUALLY USE THEM IN CONVERSATION????? WITHOUT MEANING TOO???? LIKE HE'LL FORGET A WORD IN ENGLISH & SAY IT ANOTHER LANGUAGE WITHOUT REALIZING????

MY LOVE! OKAY SO LET ME PREFACE BY SAYING I AM A LAZY PIECE OF SHIT WHO DID NOT WANT TO EVEN ATTEMPT GOOGLE TRANSLATE BECAUSE IT IS OFTEN WRONG ANYWAY OKAY. Also, English is my first and only language (damn Americans amirite) and while I did take a year of Spanish and two years of French in high school, my auditory processing is so shit, I can pretty much barely get through an introductory conversation in those languages. But I tried to still make this cute and fun! - Mickala ❤️

-------------------------------------------------------

“Gówno!” Steve exclaimed from the kitchen.

“Everything okay?” Robin yelled from the couch.

Eddie looked at her with wide eyes.

“The fuck did he say?” he asked quietly, not wanting Steve to hear him.

“Shit.”

“No, what did he say?” Eddie asked again.

Robin stared at him, annoyed.

“He said, ‘shit’ in Polish.”

“Steve knows Polish?!”

Robin rolled her eyes and got up to physically check on Steve.

Eddie sat and stewed in this new knowledge.

But this was only the first of many surprises.

—-------------------

“Mama, no.” Steve’s voice came from his bedroom as Eddie made his way up the stairs.

His mom was here?

And then Eddie heard Steve speaking in…Spanish? It was too fast to tell for sure, but it definitely wasn’t English.

He peeked his head through the door, relaxing slightly when he saw Steve was on the phone.

Steve gestured for him to come in while he spoke, so Eddie slipped his shoes off and sat down on the bed, getting comfortable.

But then it sounded like Steve started talking in another different language.

It was close to Spanish, but some of it sounded almost French?

Eddie blinked at him, his free hand gesturing wildly as his voice got louder.

Eventually, he sighed and sat on the edge of the bed. Eddie rubbed his back in a totally friendly, not loving, manner.

“Okay. See you then,” he sounded resigned, tired.

Eddie hated it.

When the phone was back on the hook, Steve sank back against Eddie and sighed again.

“My parents will be here next week for a couple days. They’re organizing the sale of the house, so they are packing what they want to move into a storage unit and having a cleaning company come get the rest to be donated. I have until the end of the month to be gone.”

Eddie looked down at Steve’s hand, how it was playing with the edge of Eddie’s shirt, how tense the rest of his body was even as Eddie played with his hair.

“You speak Spanish?”

That wasn’t really what he meant to say, but the shock hadn’t quite worn off from hearing him speaking in another language. Or two.

“I speak Spanish and Portuguese,” he replied.

“Oh. Well…why?”

Steve sat up and looked down at Eddie with a smirk.

“Because my mom’s family is mostly from Spain and Portugal and if I wanted to talk to my grandparents, that was my only option.”

“Oh. I…had no idea.”

Steve rested his head against his chest again, finally seeming to relax a bit.

“I really only speak it with her now. I took Spanish in high school for the easy A.”

“Makes sense.”

They remained quiet for a few minutes, Steve coming down from the stress of his phone call and impending parental visit.

“So you wanna live with me?” Eddie finally asked, casually.

They weren’t…well. They just weren’t. And that was okay. Eddie told himself that if all he was for Steve was a great friend who could hold him when he needed it, then that was enough.

But they also kind of…were.

It was very confusing and he was constantly balancing between pushing too far and not pushing enough.

“What? Like, in your trailer with you and Wayne?”

Eddie shrugged.

“Wayne wouldn’t mind. Long as you help clean up sometimes and maybe chip in for groceries.”

Wayne also was team Eddie-tell-Steve-you’re-in-love-with-him-before-I-do and would absolutely support this type of thing.

“But you guys only have two bedrooms.”

“You can share with me or like, we can work something out where we section off a part of the living room? I dunno. It’s not perfect, but I know you don’t have quite enough saved up for your own place yet.”

Steve hid his face in Eddie’s shirt for a moment before nodding.

“Yeah. Okay. I’ll share with you for a bit. But probably only for a few months, I swear. I have almost enough to get that house by Robin,” he said.

It was a house for sale in Robin’s neighborhood, and it wasn’t selling because it needed quite a bit of work done to the yard and bathrooms. But Steve knew he could do it, he just needed to make sure he had money for everything first.

He wouldn’t let anyone chip in, either.

“No rush. But, yeah, I’ll talk to Wayne about it tomorrow.”

—-------------------------------------

Steve moved in the next week after a long argument with his parents, who didn’t seem too thrilled about him becoming “trailer trash.”

Eddie thought about the last words Steve said to his parents before leaving: “I’d rather be trailer trash than your son.”

About how he’d spit them at them, poison from his lips.

About how he’d said it in French.

He probably didn’t think Eddie understood, probably didn’t realize that most of the reason Eddie had been so quiet on the ride to the trailer was because he was turning over Steve’s words in his head.

He still hadn’t quite come to a conclusion more than eight hours later, but he was busy helping Steve unpack the last of his things anyway.

“You seem quiet,” Steve said from where he was putting some of his tapes by Eddie’s boombox.

“Hm?” Eddie looked over at him, smiling to himself when he saw Steve putting Eddie’s tapes on top of his. “Oh. Just thinkin’.”

“Thinking about…?” Steve looked over at him.

“Just what you said earlier.”

Stev’s brows furrowed as he thought about what Eddie meant.

“You mean before we left?” Eddie nodded. “I said it in French though? You understood?”

“I’m not fluent, but I took it for three years in high school. One of the only classes I passed with flying colors.”

“Really?” Steve asked in French. “So I could say something in French right now and you would know what I’m saying?” he continued, still in French.

Eddie understood enough to nod.

“So if I told you that you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me and that I wish I could hold your hand right now, you’d say…”

Steve’s blush gave away some of what he was saying, though Eddie had to admit to himself, he hadn’t quite understood some of it.

Steve sounded so natural, was speaking so quickly, Eddie wasn’t sure how to respond.

“Um. I guess I’m not so good at it when someone as natural as you speaks it,” Eddie awkwardly said, turning back to the closet where he was moving some of his things so Steve would have room for his clothes that couldn’t be folded.

He felt Steve’s body heat behind him, knew he would be right there if he turned back around.

Steve said something in Italian (how many languages did he know?) and then something else in a language Eddie didn’t recognize.

He finally turned to see Steve blushing, looking down at the floor of his room.

“What was that one?” he asked, moving in a bit closer, barely leaving any space between them.

“Korean. My dad insisted on all of us learning it when he acquired a business in Korea.”

“So you know…how many languages?”

“Seven counting English, but I’m also learning Russian from Robin. Kind of a way to ‘own the trauma’ or whatever she tells me,” Steve rolled his eyes.

“You know seven languages?” Eddie squeaked.

“Oui,” Steve smirked up at him.

They were so close. He could almost feel Steve’s breath against his lips, closed his eyes and imagined how he would taste.

“Eds,” Steve breathed out.

“Hm?” Eddie felt high, or like there was a severe lack of oxygen in the room, maybe both.

“Can I kiss you? Please?”

Eddie’s eyes popped open, his jaw dropping in shock.

Steve asked again, this time in French.

Eddie groaned and threw his head back.

“You’re killing me.”

“...so that’s a yes?” Steve teased.

“Oui,” Eddie replied.

Steve’s lips were warm against his, surprisingly soft, though demanding.

His whole body was demanding, pushing Eddie backwards until his back hit the wall with a thump. Eddie had never been so glad that Wayne was at work.

His hands found Steve’s waist, squeezed until he was sure he left bruises, only tightening his grip more when Steve moaned against his mouth.

Steve’s body was flush against his now, their shirts rucking up just enough for the skin of their stomachs to rub together, sweat slicking between them.

Eddie couldn’t breathe, but he didn’t really want to, didn’t want to part from the closeness he’d been hoping for for so long.

Steve did pull away though, even if only enough to rest his forehead against Eddie’s.

He whispered something in Spanish, then opened his eyes.

Eddie was hot.

“It’s really fuckin’ hot when you do that,” he admitted.

“Do what?”

“Speak any of the 100 languages that you know.”

“Oh?” Steve kissed the corner of his mouth, then his chin, then his jaw.

He kept whispering things in different languages, right against Eddie’s skin, until he was practically ready to fall to his knees.

“Steeeeeeve. You’re killing me,” Eddie complained.

“I can stop,” Steve said against the curve of his neck and shoulder.

“No, please don’t,” he groaned out.

So, he didn’t.

Steve spent the next hour kissing, and teasing, and whispering things Eddie didn’t understand against his skin.

He didn’t stop until Wayne knocked on the bedroom door to let them know he was home and was cooking burgers on the grill.

Eddie smiled as Steve left the room to help Wayne with dinner as he’d been looking forward to doing.

He thought about how long they weren’t anything but friends who could have been more.

But now they were. Hopefully they always would be.

[discocandles]

Anytime I think about Steve, Eddie, Chrissy or Robin as famous musicians, I have to hold myself back from adding a shit ton of Lady Gaga references.

Like in the 2010s Lady Gaga appeared for an mtv music award show as this rugged, unkept greaser type character she made up named jo calderone. He's kinda known as "Lady Gaga's boyfriend that is also lady Gaga in drag". Steve Harrington, teen popstar trying to get away from his overbearing label would show up to the red carpet in drag as Amanda Miller, the girlfriend his label chose for him. She is dressed how they have their other popstar darling, Chrissy Cunningham dress. Amanda Miller later shows up in one of his music videos after he leaves the label. Both appearances of Amanda Miller cause mass bi panic online.

Speaking of fellow teen popstar Chrissy Cunningham, she starts openly thanking God and the Gays for the successes in her career. The label hates it, but they deal or else she's not gonna thank God either, causing problems with her religious fanbase(the impact of only letting her make ultra clean love songs for years). Also the idea of Chrissy disrespecting the interviewers who disrespect her is so healing. Think about it. Like yeah she ate that guy's script, and she'd do it again if he asks about her diet.

For rockstar eddie? So in Lady Gaga's song government hooker there's a spoken bit(not the jfk line the "back up and turn around" one). Those lines are spoken by Gaga's bodyguard Pete, who has a very thick Dutch accent after Lady gaga suddenly brought the idea that he be the "pervy robot voice" up during production.

Like Eddie would so do this, as I think creating songs gives him a lot of almost maniacal energy. Also for this one, the bodyguard is Italian Steve, but he's Jeff's bodyguard who Eddie's been constantly flirting with. That's perfectly fine by Eddie's actual bodyguard, who needs "a damn second to fucking breathe, you hyperactive bastard".

Indie rock vocalist Robin Buckley would have an album where she sings in like four different languages outside of English like lady Gaga did in born this way. And also sing in other languages fairly often. It's most often in French(like lady Gaga does), but every time Robin starts singing in a language that isn't English, the fans will scramble to figure out what tongue she's singing/speaking in now and what is she saying? What does google translate say she's saying?

There's paparazzi photos of vocalist Robin standing next to Jeff from Corroded Coffin but she's chatting in Italian with... his body guard? Apparently they met as teenagers on a trip abroad and became best friends then pen pals after. But we guess it evens out as robin's makeup artist/one woman glam team was best friends with Eddie in high school? And she won the prom queen tiara that CC wears in their iconic album cover. I dunno, just something that's been haunting my brain.

[fandsart]

As someone who projects onto Steve a lot, the idea of polyglot!Steve has occurred to me before, but it was always quickly dismissed because I didn’t have an explanation as to why it would have not come up in season 3, because Robin being a polyglot is what helps them translate. But now @amoris-no-smut-allowed has got me thinking about it again, and I realized I could easily solve this problem by simply projecting onto Steve even harder.

Not long after season 3, Steve says something in Italian, quoting his mother or something, and Robin is like “You know Italian?” He doesn’t usually speak his other languages, but since Robin has already revealed that she knows some of the languages that he knows, he knows she’ll understand, but then she’s way more surprised than he expects and it becomes a whole conversation he was hoping to skip past.

“Yes, I know Italian.”

“Oh, that’s great! Now we can gossip in front of people! This will be so much fun!”

“Oh, yeah! That’s cool.”

“Maybe I should teach you Spanish too, just in case we want to talk secrets in front of your mom, or other Italian speaking relatives. If you’re up for learning a new language that is.”

Steve sucks in air through his teeth. “Yeah, that’s gonna be a problem.”

“Don’t take to learning new languages all that well?”

“Kind of. English and Italian are my native languages, so that makes things easier, but I actually already learned Spanish. I do like learning languages.”

“That sounds like the opposite of a problem.”

“Right. Except there’s a reason you were so much more useful when translating Russian. Because you’re ears might be geniuses, but even though I’ve learned 7 languages that I didn’t already speak, I can’t understand any of it when spoken by someone else.”

“You know nine languages???”

[hi-i-am-a-sock]

if i had a nickel for every time i accidentally add a word from one of the languages i speak into a conversation held in a completely different language during an exam, i'd be a fucking millionaire

[f1version]

oh! okay carlos see you then… wait

[polysprachig]

14.02.2024 | why I learn languages

Updating and finishing my polyglot journal from 2020-2023 is going well, albeit at a leisurely pace. There are so many details to include and ideas pop into my head when I look at my studies in context--I like commenting on them: it highlights how much has changed in the way I think based off of what I have learnt and experienced throughout all of my projects and studies. Only now am I writing out my reasons for learning certain languages (the core ones), despite that this was the first section I allotted space to when I began this book, and while I would have liked to compare and contrast my skills and ideas at the start and the finish, I'm kind of glad that only the present is left to reflect on them in brief.

[bookwyrminspiration]

having polyglot thoughts so i'm dumping them on you:

first of all, do you think if polyglots didn't know a language before manifesting (for example, keefe with english), then they would switch accents based on who they're talking to? for example, keefe went to london, so should we assume that since he was talking to british people, he was probably speaking in a british accent, too? or if he went to america (which he did, he went to disneyland or disney world i think) then he would be speaking with an american accent? that would be really funny. like one day he's speaking canadian french and then he leaps out and the next day he's speaking french french or something. even polyglots that did know the language before manifesting (like sophie with english). do you think they are also switching accents according to the person they're talking to or just keeping the accent they grew up with (in sophie's case, american). i know that sophie's a special case, and that most elves would only ever speak the enlightened language before manifesting, but it's still worth considering.

second of all, do you think polyglots would have an innate grasp on idioms and sayings? because those aren't inherent to the language, not really. if i said like. "it's raining cats and dogs", would a polyglot really understand what that means or would they think i'm literally saying cats and dogs are falling out of the sky. because if that's true then keefe would've had a lot of idioms to learn when he was living in london, too. there's a saying in my language that literally translates to "do it with [your] hand", but in terms of idioms, it actually means "do it immediately". so something like that would really throw off a polyglot if they didn't have a natural understanding of all the various idioms that came with a language.

a lot of people have brought this last point up already, but sign language. personally, i think sign language would be a part of a polyglot's natural database of languages, so to speak. because it is a language. it's literally in the name. just because it's not a vocal language doesn't mean it's not a language. so i think that polyglots would understand sign language on instinct, but wanna hear your thoughts.

Oh I love language thoughts. I'd think a polyglot would speak the language reflective of the accent they first heard. The way it seems to work is once they encounter it (reading, hearing it, etc.), then they understand and can use it--but they couldn't start speaking a language they've never heard out of nowhere. Afterwards they can use it based on that initial contact. I'd assume with time they could change their accent the same way anyone could, being around different pronunciations for a while and slowly incorporating them in--perhaps with more speed given their ability. But I'd still assume a base in their first contact. after all, encountering different accents isn't a new language

Based on that, I'd also think they'd keep their own accent if they learned the language prior to manifesting. Maybe their understanding of grammar rules and patterns would improve though--but then again, it's instinct, not conscious, so maybe not

As for idioms, I suppose it depends on how you want to interpret their instinctive understanding/speaking. Does instinctively speaking the language (Unlocked 265) mean they simply understand the literal meanings and socially constructed metaphor is an entirely separate realm? Or does it mean they can instinctively communicate in any language, and that includes implied/non-literal meaning? Like you said, idioms aren't inherent to a language, so I'd personally vote no. It's not instinctual to understand, but it's not like you can't learn them or sometimes reason out what one means. But again, the rules for magic polyglots are really just what you want them to be.

And I agree; signed languages are as much languages as spoken, as complex and varied, and can be analyzed and studied much the same. Unless one's worldbuilding has it's own specific magic rules--e.g. there's something about hearing a language that allows one to understand it, which then means signed languages would have to be learned organically--then there's no reason to exclude sign. I'm not saying that a world with those specific qualifications would be bad--it could be a fitting source of friction or difficulty is a polyglot character used to being able to communicate everywhere suddenly can't and has to adapt. Just that kotlc does not appear to be one of those stories, so I think kotlc's polyglots should instinctively understand sign.

I'd also be curious whether their instinctive understand could at least partially translate towards methods of communication like morse code. Would an encoded message (not necessarily morse) count as a method of communication/language of its own and therefore be understandable by them? I suppose it would depend on what kind of code it is, but food for thought.

Polyglotism is quite underappreciated in the story--which isn't its fault, given the plot, but man I cannot help but yearn...

[fromtheseventhhell]

Dany and Arya are going to meet in Braavos and eat lemon cakes at the Sealord's house in TWOW, George told me

[keithbutgay]

I like to think that while the vat7k gang communicates in Coronan, it's not Yong's first language, and he's still learning the works a bit

And you get into some situations where he accidentally says a completely different word than he meant to. And the others have to clear it up for him

Or Varian will be ranting about something and Yong can't follow

Or he doesn't understand what someone's saying because of their accent and has to ask Hugo to translate it into the Bayangoran language for him

Like, I dunno, I just think it would be really cool

[benkyoutobentou]

language learning culture is always watching children’s media in various languages