literally my biggest pet peave when it comes to some language channels. There is this one guy giving advice on learning Arabic and claims to speak it well, yet never has he ever spoken it in a video a single time. Not even a word.
That's why i dislike CureDolly. She had a japanese learning channel, "Textbooks are lying to you", "Translations are a parody of the language". Acts like she decoded the language in a way like no one before her which implies she had an understanding of the language like only a select few, but she hardly ever speaks japanese and the few times she did it was only single lines of the most basic 4-words sentences. Can't stand those Gurus. She didn't ask for money, i'll give her that, but feeling like the chosen one is it's own selfish reward.
Cure Dolly actually gives good content though if you can get past that attitude. It's free and introduces concepts in a way that stuck better for me at least than the way Genki introduces things. Concepts like "translations are a parody" are actually important for beginners to understand why one sentence might actually be any of "let's go" or "we should go" or "should we go" when translated, or how words have a spectrum of meanings which don't perfectly overlap with another language's similar word. It's mostly just content copped from Jay Rubin's books anyways, she's not going far off the established norms of teaching.
I guess it's sort of like how most elite sports coaches weren't necessarily elite players themselves.
main point is that someone that proclaims such a deep understanding of the language and a profound dislike for tranlsations and still never really speaks in her own videos japanese in any meaningful way and only uses, by her own judgment, inadequate translations to convey meaning is for me not just ironic but also makes me deeply distrust her.
I dunno who this is, but a linguist often has a deep understanding of how other languages work without necessarily speaking many of them very well.
A native speaks well, but might not have a deep understanding of why their language works the way it does.
Again, not sure who this person is, but just as a general observation, I've seen a lot of bad translations with Mandarin and English even in professional contexts.
/uj obviously some of these "gurus" are blatant grifters... but I think some of them truly have no idea that they're not as fluent as they think they are.
They're usually the same flavor of extremely outgoing, extremely attractive young person who lives abroad. They get a lot of positive attention for "speaking the local language" and don't realize that people are mostly dazzled by their charisma and youthful invincibility more than their language skills... or maybe the locals are just complimenting their language skills out of politeness more than genuine admiration.
The first thing I did when I realised I was good enough at Fr*nch to actually use it was address everyone I met as a filthy mono. Then I realised I had wasted years learning a shitty language like Fr*nch and cried. Then I bought an Uzbek textbook to redeem myself.
/uj On a similar note, every time I see complaints about English ”localisations” of Japanese media online, inevitably it’s either from monolinguals or ESLs who don’t even have the firmest grasp of English, much less Japanese, and who certainly never had to translate anything in their entire life.
/uj Most of my gripes about English localization come down to comparing English translations with Chinese ones. I just feel like the Chinese translations stick closer to the Japanese text and the English versions don't need to be that different, but then again... I'm not a native Japanese speaker so what do I know?
That's the thing... as a native speaker of both, I thought many English translations definitely have room to be much closer to the text like the Chinese one, without seeming unnatural. Plenty of times, the creative liberties didn't feel necessary to me and just changed the mood of what the Japanese/Chinese text felt like just to make it "flow" better.
Though, one trait I noticed from Chinese translations is that they tend to preserve the quirks/expressions of the original language more in dialogue, regardless of how close or different the language is.
An example is that it's obvious to tell when a Yugioh anime is written by Japanese or Americans. I've seen someone pointing out that one of the characters said "you know" in Chinese when they listened to the dub of Yugioh: Pyramid of Light, which was weird to them because it's not something they'd expect from Japanese writing.
When it comes to songs though, it's the other way around. Chinese translations mostly prefer to rewrite 95% of the song just to sound/feel better, as if the lyricist is a poet from the early 20th century instead of just writing in plain English. They can't seem to accept that there's a fundamental cultural difference in lyric writing, and that most Western lyrcists don't aim to write in the prose of Shakespeare.
You do realise the "ESLs" you're talking about are typically no more enthused about localisations in their native language(s)? Some people just don't like that style of translation.
I've seen thoughtlessly dropped honorifics straight up remove parts of the story and characterisation too many times for it to not instantly turn me off, for instance. While it no longer impacts me directly because I can just read originals, it still bugs me that friends I recommend those works to will get an inferior version.
I’m an ESL speaker and a massive translation snob who always prefers the original when possible myself. I’ve also had the misfortune of actually working as a translator.
The online ”localisation” complaints are always suspiciously focused on culture war bs so I’m not inclined to take anything these people say in good faith.
Huh, can't say I associate localisation drama with culture war anything. Back when I was a fresh weeb and still got into those debates the worst you'd get was people calling dub/localisation watchers casuals.
You've just been lucky enough to miss some of the new "discourse" going around. It's not the raw vs sub vs sub debates of the aughts anymore unfortunately. An insanely high proportion of online nuts are genuinely convinced that the specific choice of words in subs are engineered by the Jews to mind control you into not being a pedophile.
I wish I was making this up, but my Facebook is flooded with it.
Literally every single hobby is like this, it’s fucking infuriating. There’s always someone with their hand out for money sucking their teeth because you’re “wasting your time”.
Just let me make mistakes and figure it out myself. That’s the entire point of a hobby.
If your method of learning a language is anything other than immersing yourself in youtube videos in your target language then you're a filthy pretender and talk liek a textbook.
you gotta download 47 apps, do Anki for 6 hours daily, watch Netflix with subtitles in 3 languages simultaneously, and most importantly tell everyone you're learning a language"
actually tho I just use My Mother Language and think through problems in the target language but that's not nearly suffering enough to be a real language learner
"i speak 5 languages, watch my 250th video of me talking exclusively in english"
"You can become fluent in 3 months if you just buy my course"
This language learning app I developed will make you fluent and I’ll even give you a three month free trial
literally my biggest pet peave when it comes to some language channels. There is this one guy giving advice on learning Arabic and claims to speak it well, yet never has he ever spoken it in a video a single time. Not even a word.
That's why i dislike CureDolly. She had a japanese learning channel, "Textbooks are lying to you", "Translations are a parody of the language". Acts like she decoded the language in a way like no one before her which implies she had an understanding of the language like only a select few, but she hardly ever speaks japanese and the few times she did it was only single lines of the most basic 4-words sentences. Can't stand those Gurus. She didn't ask for money, i'll give her that, but feeling like the chosen one is it's own selfish reward.
Cure Dolly actually gives good content though if you can get past that attitude. It's free and introduces concepts in a way that stuck better for me at least than the way Genki introduces things. Concepts like "translations are a parody" are actually important for beginners to understand why one sentence might actually be any of "let's go" or "we should go" or "should we go" when translated, or how words have a spectrum of meanings which don't perfectly overlap with another language's similar word. It's mostly just content copped from Jay Rubin's books anyways, she's not going far off the established norms of teaching.
I guess it's sort of like how most elite sports coaches weren't necessarily elite players themselves.
main point is that someone that proclaims such a deep understanding of the language and a profound dislike for tranlsations and still never really speaks in her own videos japanese in any meaningful way and only uses, by her own judgment, inadequate translations to convey meaning is for me not just ironic but also makes me deeply distrust her.
I dunno who this is, but a linguist often has a deep understanding of how other languages work without necessarily speaking many of them very well.
A native speaks well, but might not have a deep understanding of why their language works the way it does.
Again, not sure who this person is, but just as a general observation, I've seen a lot of bad translations with Mandarin and English even in professional contexts.
/uj obviously some of these "gurus" are blatant grifters... but I think some of them truly have no idea that they're not as fluent as they think they are.
They're usually the same flavor of extremely outgoing, extremely attractive young person who lives abroad. They get a lot of positive attention for "speaking the local language" and don't realize that people are mostly dazzled by their charisma and youthful invincibility more than their language skills... or maybe the locals are just complimenting their language skills out of politeness more than genuine admiration.
Can't wait to attain fluency and call people anglos like it's a slur
The first thing I did when I realised I was good enough at Fr*nch to actually use it was address everyone I met as a filthy mono. Then I realised I had wasted years learning a shitty language like Fr*nch and cried. Then I bought an Uzbek textbook to redeem myself.
Alors, ca va comment avec l'Uzbek mtnt?
*mtn damn Mono, being unable to speak correctly broken French
J'avais même cherché la version courte de maintenant pcq je me souviens de l'avoir vu quelque part, et rien trouvé
Tkt frer ici C pa l'Académie Française
bon. au fait "abbreviation" ca se dit comment en francais? J'imagine q les gens disent pas "version courte"
great choice man
I can't wait to become a cat
If u figure out how to do that let me know
It's called waiting and believing in reincarnation, or in buddhist terms, "matsu to tensei desu yo", I believe
even cat need to learn neko-nihongo if they live in japan-nyan
Nekongo
I dunno. Are mice tasty?
I’m not like other anglos, I’m a oui-aboo
Which is of course Fr*nch for "Yes, a ghost." or Scottish for "Little monkey from Aladdin"
Little French from Scotland
/uj On a similar note, every time I see complaints about English ”localisations” of Japanese media online, inevitably it’s either from monolinguals or ESLs who don’t even have the firmest grasp of English, much less Japanese, and who certainly never had to translate anything in their entire life.
/uj A lot of people seem to seriously overestimate the amount lost in translation.
Still, wathing in original and watching even a good translation are like completely different experiences
I felt this shock when moving from Russian to English, and I felt the same rewatching The End of Evangelion in Japanese
I believe almost everything was lost during the translation of the Monogatari series, and that makes me sad
/uj Yeah, it's pretty rare that I go, huh, that was an odd translation. And it's usually not anything major. Just a little weird.
/uj Most of my gripes about English localization come down to comparing English translations with Chinese ones. I just feel like the Chinese translations stick closer to the Japanese text and the English versions don't need to be that different, but then again... I'm not a native Japanese speaker so what do I know?
Well maybe it's because a closer language is closer in context to a language than one a few thousand miles away
That's the thing... as a native speaker of both, I thought many English translations definitely have room to be much closer to the text like the Chinese one, without seeming unnatural. Plenty of times, the creative liberties didn't feel necessary to me and just changed the mood of what the Japanese/Chinese text felt like just to make it "flow" better.
Though, one trait I noticed from Chinese translations is that they tend to preserve the quirks/expressions of the original language more in dialogue, regardless of how close or different the language is.
An example is that it's obvious to tell when a Yugioh anime is written by Japanese or Americans. I've seen someone pointing out that one of the characters said "you know" in Chinese when they listened to the dub of Yugioh: Pyramid of Light, which was weird to them because it's not something they'd expect from Japanese writing.
When it comes to songs though, it's the other way around. Chinese translations mostly prefer to rewrite 95% of the song just to sound/feel better, as if the lyricist is a poet from the early 20th century instead of just writing in plain English. They can't seem to accept that there's a fundamental cultural difference in lyric writing, and that most Western lyrcists don't aim to write in the prose of Shakespeare.
«I'm the hope of the universe»
You do realise the "ESLs" you're talking about are typically no more enthused about localisations in their native language(s)? Some people just don't like that style of translation.
I've seen thoughtlessly dropped honorifics straight up remove parts of the story and characterisation too many times for it to not instantly turn me off, for instance. While it no longer impacts me directly because I can just read originals, it still bugs me that friends I recommend those works to will get an inferior version.
I’m an ESL speaker and a massive translation snob who always prefers the original when possible myself. I’ve also had the misfortune of actually working as a translator.
The online ”localisation” complaints are always suspiciously focused on culture war bs so I’m not inclined to take anything these people say in good faith.
Huh, can't say I associate localisation drama with culture war anything. Back when I was a fresh weeb and still got into those debates the worst you'd get was people calling dub/localisation watchers casuals.
You've just been lucky enough to miss some of the new "discourse" going around. It's not the raw vs sub vs sub debates of the aughts anymore unfortunately. An insanely high proportion of online nuts are genuinely convinced that the specific choice of words in subs are engineered by the Jews to mind control you into not being a pedophile.
I wish I was making this up, but my Facebook is flooded with it.
That's, uhh... interesting...? Gonna just take your word for it because it doesn't sound like something I want to expose my braincells to
yeah, it's just as bad on
twitterecks dot com.Literally every single hobby is like this, it’s fucking infuriating. There’s always someone with their hand out for money sucking their teeth because you’re “wasting your time”.
Just let me make mistakes and figure it out myself. That’s the entire point of a hobby.
Anglos DNI
Im interacting.
IM INTERACTING!!!!
0:<
It's a trick. Cats can't speak. Probably AI.
If your method of learning a language is anything other than immersing yourself in youtube videos in your target language then you're a filthy pretender and talk liek a textbook.
Angloids run their mouth the most
you gotta download 47 apps, do Anki for 6 hours daily, watch Netflix with subtitles in 3 languages simultaneously, and most importantly tell everyone you're learning a language"
actually tho I just use My Mother Language and think through problems in the target language but that's not nearly suffering enough to be a real language learner
Here in germany, the only time i ever hear this brought up is with people who learn german and turkish from their parents and english in school.
Mark Manson be like
Multilingual Anglo here, I hate myself
Monolingual? Like, they speak Mongolian?
Because learning a language makes my fantasy of ODing want to become reality
Coolest way to learn languag:
Ste 1: learn grammar. No need 100% just enough
Step 2: Read. Read read read read read. Start with children's book to get used to the feel of the langauage, then move on to short stories.
Sstep 3: fail and use duoligngo🤤🤤
I also don’t take the advice of nutritionists or dietitians—after all, they’re not bodybuilders, what do they know?