Because Two Languages Is Not Enough

languages that don't distinguish between formal and informal you are missing out on so much petty drama. my grandparents have two neighbours who once got into a huge fight over something honestly pretty trivial, so neighbour A said he was going to revoke neighbour B's du (informal you) privileges. neighbour B was like "okay but can i use du one last time?" and neighbour A was like "yeah go ahead", and neighbour B said "du arschloch" (you asshole). incredible.

BOOOOOST

the article is from 2023 but this is apparently still a thing. in addition to brooklyn and seattle, digital library cards are also being offered by the boston public library (ages 13-26), the los angeles county public library (ages 13-18), and the san diego public library (ages 12-26). for the la card you need to live in california, but for boston and san diego you can be anywhere in the us.

i do desperately need everyone on this website especially people who arent american but want to rag on america to familiarize themselves with the basic romanized spelling conventions of native american languages because every day i come on here and i see people making fun of massachusetts or connecticut or mississippi or passamaquoddy or mashpee or nipissing and its like PLEASE. PLEASE THEY ARENT ENGLISH WORDS. PLEAAAAASEEEEEUUUHHH. USE YOUR MINDS TO IDENTIFY WHEN A WORD LOOKS LIKE IT MAY NOT BE ENGLISH. I DONT CARE IF YOU MAKE FUN OF AMERICA JUST PLEASE STOP BEING RACIST WHILE YOU DO IT

What’s fascinating to me is realizing that we simply ignore the glottal stop in every word that begins with a vowel when we speak quickly. Like unless you’re enunciating or speaking slowly you simply tell that glottal stop “fuck you” and hook the vowel to the previous consonant sound. Amazing. Glottal stops more like waste of time amirite

SUPER SALAD

Wtf we actually talk like this don’t we

What’s the funniest map?

I remember in my Arabic class we were going over the alphabet and the teacher was like there’s no ‘P’ etc and this white girl was like wait what but my names Paige and my teacher was like lol then we’d pronounce it as beige and she was so offended I’m crying thinking about it

One of my mom’s friends, Hugh, went to France and they had a lot of trouble pronouncing his name because the entire thing was silent.

salut je m'appelle [REDACTED]

that is hands down the funniest addition to this post

if duolingo is going to insist on having a whole cinematic universe for its characters they should at least provide a chart establishing who addresses whom with the formal you because right now i’m having all of them use informal you to everyone in all relevant exercises and it feels. wrong

if i was a bite-sized child addressing an ill-tempered talking bear i would be using Sie. i would call that thing 您 i would use the most formal register of language available even if the bear said i didn’t have to and i don’t like that duolingo doesn’t account for this

how did this fucker say it's "not as bad as it sounds" and then somehow end up being even worse than it sounds by the fourth sentence

Character development.