when i was really little, my babysitter only spoke spanish with me so i became bilingual but i never knew when i was speaking spanish or english. one time i told my mom i wanted an avocado & she understood but then when i said the same thing to my babysitter later that day, she burst into tears with laughter because i was saying “quiero abogado” which means “i want a lawyer.”
imagine a two year old repeatedly saying “i want a lawyer!” as an adult laughs at her.
Reminding me of also funny story: So my piano teacher of many years when I was a kid had a baby when I was in my teens. This little girl was super bright, and also bilingual in Mandarin and English from her first word.
I do not speak Mandarin. At all.
One day as I’m waiting for my mom to pick me up after the lesson, Baby Girl is playing in the kitchen and hears me sneeze! And she runs over and says, “You need [incomprehensible]?”
Now here’s the thing: I knew she was not speaking Mandarin. I don’t speak it, but my aunt and uncle both do, and a close family friend’s family growing up would code-switch quite comfortably around us. I was old enough and it was sufficiently different from English that because there was no formal teaching, I never derived anything from it? But I was very familiar with how it sounds to an uncomprehending ear.
What she said did not sound like Mandarin at all. It sounded like gibberish. Like English baby gibberish.
As I clearly didn’t understand, Baby Girl repeats, “You need [gibberish]!” and then, when I still don’t understand, she stamps her foot and makes Angry Noise at me, which attracts her mother’s attention.
Bewildered, I relate what’s going on. Her mother covers her face and says, “She wants to know if you want a kleenex.”
And then my piano teacher explained that Baby Girl had figured out that some people didn’t speak English and some people didn’t speak Mandarin and she needed to confine herself to one language around them.
But sometimes, as is very natural especially for quite young children, she’d run up against realizing she didn’t know the word for something – and sometimes she knew the word in one language, but not in the other!
And it seemed intuitive to her that the way to fix this was to say the word from the other language … with the right accent.
So what she’d been doing was taking the word for “tissue” or “kleenex” in Mandarin and saying it like an Anglophone would: no tone-change and different vowel shapes and all. And it made Baby Girl VERY FRUSTRATED when this did not solve the problem, and at that point she seemed to believe that the adults around her were being stupid on purpose.
children are amazing
And I’ll rise up
I’ll rise like the day
I’ll rise up
I’ll rise unafraid
I’ll rise up
And I’ll do it a thousand times again.
Love when my cat flings himself into the air after a toy, but he has no style. Straight up ragdoll physics.
One day i want to take a video of Yardstick straight-up hurling himself into the void. Cats have no conception that there is a future. There is just now and the jingly toy.
Your cat’s name is Yardstick?
He has three feet.
A dating service where matching is based on people’s search history exists. You’re a serial killer. You go on a date with a writer.
Serial Killer: metaphorically, if you were to kill someone, how would you do it?
Writer: Air shot between the toes, it’ll look like a heart attack.
Serial Killer who is obviously in love already: *sucks in a breath* ok
Writer: how long would it take to die if you were to potentially stab someone in the guts
Serial killer: anywhere from 2 to 30 minutes
Writer, already bringing a ring out: *shaking* thanks
A++ addition
Writer: *shows the serial killer the murder scene they’re writing* babe, i’m not sure if this would actually work?
Serial killer: *kisses writer on the forehead and leaves, comes back later, a suspicious scent of blood coming off them* it works baby, you’re doing great
I LOVE THIS
Oh no, murder comedy is my jam
I love this, I love all of this, but quick question, does the author know? Like are they aware that their significant other is a serial killer or do they just think that they have a morbid sense of humor? It’d be even funnier if the author had no fucking clue, like how Aurthur Conan Doyle was apparently stupidly gullible, and on top of it they’re a horror or crime novelist. Like the serial killer works at a butcher shop or something so it’s completely normal for them to come home smelling like blood, no murders going on here, no sirey. Just my darling coming back home from a long day at work.
Now fast forward a bit and the author has managed to get their first book published, with loving support from the serial killer who helped them fine tune all the murder scenes, and it’s a big hit. Enough so that a detective with the local police department has noticed some disturbing similarities to several active cases, including details that were never released to the press. Obviously he brings this up to his superior and convinces him that there’s something to the theory, but it’s all circumstantial right now. He stakes out the author’s home and is super convinced that the author is the murderer, but they don’t seem to do anything??? Like they literally are at the house all day, that’s it. Most they do is leave for groceries.
So you get this dynamic of the serial killer mining the author for creative murder schemes, the author being lovingly encouraged by the serial killer, and finally the detective who is just so sure that the author is the killer and that if he sticks it out long enough he’ll FINALLY have proof.
Why would anyone pick a human race in a fantasy game
I want a fantasy game where human isn’t even an option
Nah man, humans are the coolest
It’s one thing to fight demons if you’re from a species that lives for hundreds of years, is tied to natural magic, and births the best archers on the planet. It’s another thing entirely to do the same when your species is known to be slightly-above-average at farming.
“im regular jeff and im gonna behead tiamat and die trying”
Isn’t it?