This is very true We can’t start learning unless we know the house is strong (might crumble beneath us while we’re dilly dallying around), then after we know that, we can get down to the real business (what color the pen is).
Thank you!! I enjoy handwriting a lot. Before I started language learning I would always imagine how awesome it would be to write diaries in different languages so other people can’t read them (or, so other people open them up and are impressed by how smart and studious I am), but then I started learning Japanese and the road to handwriting proficiency is much longer It’s nice to be able to already write in a target language with not too much extra effort.
That would be awesome to be able to do.
I used to make up symbols and stylised code fonts to write these in. I can decipher them now but can’t write them any more for the life of me Now I can still barely write my day to day in Japanese if I wanted to write a diary.
Oh, yes, I did this too! I felt so cool writing in my own cipher When I was a kid and had to go to church, I would use my cipher to write stuff on the church bulletin so whoever was sitting next to me couldn’t see what I was writing. /soggylore
yes it is a good option methinks! Hindi and Tamil are so similar to Japanese that no one uses English in my country to teach Japanese I use WK only for the in-built SRS system, but all the mnemonics in my head are made-up words from these two languages because they sound much much more similar to Japanese than English words (which can be a bit of a stretch sometimes too)
This is so cute
Indian Movie Corner
YAYY I’m so happy!!! Your first Tamil movie and I haven’t even seen it But you want it to be longer? I’m sold :3 I have seen several clips from this movie though and they’re both wet from the rain almost all the time so that’s interesting
Also need to rewatch Main Hoon Na because I remember nothing about it (except for the songs of course)
edit: wait, did you mean first Tamil movie or just an entry from Tamil industry fsfs
It’s ok I make progress so slowly that you have plenty of time to comment
Well if prath says it’s ok!! [adds textbook to cart]
Ohhh interesting!! I do think that the syllables feel closer to Japanese. Maybe because Hindi has the inherent ‘a’ so there are less clusters of consonants than English? Idk I’m not a linguistics expert
indian movie corner
i meant just an entry from the Tamil industry but it’s all good! I don’t think we’ve watched too much Tamil stuff in general, gotta get on that
I guess it was before Bahubali brought the epic 2 parter to indian cinema ahahaha, I do think that indian cinema often suffers from directors trying to tell a too long story in just one movie, we gotta popularize the limited HBO miniseries over there or something
You can have fun cringing at zayed khan’s acting I was saying this to my partner when we were watching but it seemed like a role hrithik roshan should have done, then they looked it up and found out he was offered the role but turned it down
Nu unforgivable!! Turns out my notifs were switched off, so now it’s back on and I’m ready to catch up immediately.
That sounds right to me.
indian movie corner
whispers Ponniyin Selvan please!!
I swear we’ve been saying this for years!!! But they’d rather just appeal to the wider audience and produce the same story with the same couple of popular actors. I know in the south a lot of people are mad for certain actors like Vijay or Rajinikanth even if the movie is an absolute shit show.
There’s honestly a looot of potential if they can just get past this madness lol.
Oh and, there are some reeeally good and underrated miniseries/movies also, but unfortunately, they don’t screen these in the theatres.
Sounds exactly like something I’d do on a Sunday night, so why not.
Since my textbook was frustrating me a little bit I decided to pivot and look for a different resource to try for now. It’s more important to learn to speak than it is to read, so I went with Pimsleur. I have a new commute for work, so I’ve decided to slot Pimsleur lessons in a few times a week.
So far, I think Pimsleur is a great way to get started speaking immediately with lots of repetition of simple phrases. The Hindi course isn’t as long as those for romance languages; it’s only 2 units, whereas some languages seem to have 5 or 6 units.
[Pimsleur voice] Imagine you’re an American man talking to an Indian woman. Get her attention. Ask her if she understands English. Ask her again if she understands English. Get her attention. Ask her if she understands English. Ask her. Ask her again.
Please, can we stop harassing this poor woman
My main complaint about the Pimsleur course so far is how it handles gender.
Hindi is gendered for the speaker, but the ‘speaker’ in the Pimsleur course is a man. They do have you repeat how the woman says things, but it’s not 50/50, it feels more like 70/30 where they want you to talk ‘as a man’ vs ‘as a woman.’ Ok… spoilers but… I am not a man. It’s kind of frustrating to be asked to repeat how a man speaks so often, because if I keep repeating it, I might make a mistake when I try to speak and accidentally gender myself wrong from all the repetition. If I want to just change the gender to feminine, then I have to actively remember how something is said, which is harder because I’m not just repeating what the speaker is saying in the course.
If Pimsleur asked me, I’d say that gendered languages should have 2 courses- one where the speaker is a man and one where the speaker is a woman. That way people could use whichever course. Ahh… but why do that when you can default to a man’s perspective. Sexism is everywhere, even in my language learning!!
Yeah I keep things vague intentionally so that’s not really your fault. I do get “sir”-d in public, so it’s not just my internet presence either If anyone is wondering about pronouns, they/them is fine.
And while I’m comfortable being non-conforming in English-speaking spaces, gendering myself fully as a man in a gendered language is a bit too far and would probably just confuse native speakers, so I stick to being a woman
Ugh this was the default in most of our textbooks too
Indian movie corner
My god, Alia has such good movies, and she’s SO good at acting! A lot of people hate on her for no reason (except maybe for saying some dumb things on TV or fumbling), but I enjoy her work a lot. I also loved Gangubai Kathiawadi!
Sometimes I intentionally use male speech in Hindi to make some of my sexist male acquaintances uncomfortable and blame it on, “but I’m not a native speaker uwu.”
But I definitely can’t gender myself fully as a man in Tamil though — that’s just too far for me
I originally liked her because I was obsessed with RRR and she has like a 2 minute role in that movie, but luckily she has good movies outside of that, just goes to show I was right to like her
Yeah I don’t get the hate. All actors say dumb stuff on TV anyways. I’m not expecting like nepo Bollywood actors to be the most enlightened individuals ever. Just as long as they haven’t, you know, hit and killed someone with their car.
This is on my list!! It has such beautiful choreography, I’ve watched some of the songs on youtube.
I agree it doesn’t make sense to keep repeating those… maybe listen to the male ones, repeat the female ones, and after an episode see how many female ones you can produce from memory?
It sparked an interesting discussion though about how language courses deal with gender (or don’t). I have a German grammar book I was trying to work through but most of the examples are sexist. The wife is always cleaning, technical jobs are always a man, the boy does sports and the little girl is well-mannered and has a doll. Once you see it you can’t unsee or unhear these things and they get annoying
Yeah, it’s mostly just remembering which verb ending to say, so I can mostly remember speak in the feminine when I’m repeating, but it’s just frustrating for what I’m saying to not match exactly what the course is saying, when the whole point of the course is to repeat the phrases exactly.
Oh that would drive me nuts too. I remember noticing 1 or 2 outdated example sentences in ADOBJG and I was like, these probably need to be changed whenever they update the book. Luckily it’s not the entire book.
I agree, not great. I can imagine if the phrases were 50 50, it probably wouldn’t have even been such a bother, like ok fair enough, moving on. I like your idea of having two courses for gendered languages! That would be great
Yeah, and they don’t have sketches that are even more embarrassing that play to all the stereotypes mentioned. I’m trying to be nice in my head and imagine the authors of this German book thought something obvious would be more helpful for language learners than breaking ground with an employed woman who’s not a secretary or a guy who does laundry. But… sheesh people.
We can’t start learning unless we know the house is strong (might crumble beneath us while we’re dilly dallying around), then after we know that, we can get down to the real business (what color the pen is).
I enjoy handwriting a lot. Before I started language learning I would always imagine how awesome it would be to write diaries in different languages so other people can’t read them (or, so other people open them up and are impressed by how smart and studious I am), but then I started learning Japanese and the road to handwriting proficiency is much longer 
It’s nice to be able to already write in a target language with not too much extra effort.
When I was a kid and had to go to church, I would use my cipher to write stuff on the church bulletin so whoever was sitting next to me couldn’t see what I was writing. /soggylore
I use WK only for the in-built SRS system, but all the mnemonics in my head are made-up words from these two languages because they sound much much more similar to Japanese than English words (which can be a bit of a stretch sometimes too)
that you have plenty of time to comment
Sexism is everywhere, even in my language learning!! 
Indian movie corner
boo so disappointed on your behalf!