Victoria 💫

she/her ✮ 28 (zoomer) ✮ méx. fr. ✮ aroace ✮ existentialist

What do I do here?

Mostly tmnt (especially rottmnt) fandom content, but sometimes I post random stuff too. I’ve been on tumblr since 2023 because these mutant turtles have me completely obsessed. my story with tmnt

I’m a writer! My main fics are When Time Looks Back (eng/esp), Rise of the Apocalypse (eng/esp), The Hamato [reset] Protocol (eng/esp), and the series Remains of a Broken Destiny (eng/esp), but there are more around here. my readers say

Sometimes you have no idea how much I hate my family. I’m not talking about my parents and my sisters: they’re the best people I know in this world, and we’ve built this little bubble where we all support each other and understand each other 100%. I’m talking about the rest of the family.

It’s not enough for them to always leave us out, they’re constantly criticizing us and saying weird stuff about us because THEY JUST DON’T GET US. You have no idea how much criticism I got for leaving the country, for example. My grandma was always like, “but what are you going to do over there?” “but your dad tried that and lost 15 years of his life” (especially because I moved abroad on my own, unlike my cousin, who also left the country but did it with her boyfriend so my grandma said anything about her). Like… hello??? It’s my life.I left for several reasons, but one of the reasons my dad left was to get away from them because he was the black sheep of the family. Having to go back to Mexico felt like a failure to him and it was their fault he came back.

Anyway, the latest thing is that they humiliated my sister, and I’m furious. My mom is too. My sister is going through a tough period rn because she just finished her studies and is figuring out what to do next, so she’s not working at the moment. And of course, the family starts saying she’s doing NOTHING (and it’s not the first time, they always think we don’t do anything).

I saw you speak like 3 languages so I was wondering how you did it

Eeehhh I’m definitely not the right person to answer this question. Because, I mean, technically I do know 3 languages, but not perfectly and I’m still learning ☝🏻

Spanish is my native language, basically because I grew up in Mexico and my environment was Spanish, but having foreign parents, the way I actually survived school was because I really liked reading and I read in Spanish. That helped me keep up with my classmates. So, first tip… yeah, reading. And reading something you actually like or want to read. I honestly can’t imagine how hard it must be to learn Spanish when it’s not your native language, because there are so many variations and it’s a very flexible language (unlike English and French). Although it does have the advantage of being transparent (it’s written pretty much how it’s pronounced, in general). Another tip I can give you, maybe, is not to be afraid to use words and make mistakes, and not to focus on understanding everything. Languages have rules and exceptions, but honestly it’s a living culture, it’s something you inhabit, Idk if that makes sense.

How did I learn French? Well, I’m French and when I was a baby my environment, before Spanish, was French. So it was kind of built into my system (?) and my mom has always spoken to me in French and still does. If anything, the problem is that I reply in Spanish 😭 bad habit. So another tip: the most important thing when learning a language is understanding that the goal is communication (whether written, spoken, in formal or informal settings, it all depends on your goals when learning a language). My goal with learning French is that I feel like I should already master it, and even though I’ve always had perfect comprehension (both listening and reading), I couldn’t speak or write it. I won’t lie: I took some classes when I was older and that’s where I learned the basics. And currently I live in France and my main goal in coming here was to master the language (but I’m afraid my latin accent will never go away :( and I still struggle a lot with writing it). I guess… practice. The environment helps. But that’s a luxury not everyone can afford, but there are ways to simulate it.

And this is how I learned English. Well, English was also there from when I was a baby, on my dad’s side, but it was too much for me and English is a language I completely rejected for a long time. I had mandatory classes at school but I struggled a lot, and my dad would make fun of me because the English I was being taught at school wasn’t the same English he knew :(( so I also have that mix, I think… when I really started getting interested in learning English was when I got obsessed with tmnt 😅 so another tip… yeah, finding an obsession where you have to use the language you want to learn. That’s VERY effective. And that made me study and stuff, and then in university it became even more important that I knew English, at least written (because if I’m honest I’m still pretty bad at speaking it 🥲 I can get by, but that’s it, I still lack practice).

So yeah, sorry I don’t have better advice. At the end of the day it also depends a lot on your goals and your current level. Reading if you want to improve reading comprehension and expand vocabulary (reading out loud also helps with pronunciation and speaking fluency). Talking to yourself out loud like a crazy person is something I also do often and it helps :D and writing random things, like stuff that happened to you during the day or a topic, helps improve your writing and figure out what grammar you still need to learn to express yourself properly. Watching videos, movies, or listening to native speakers sharpens your ear (movies are better with subtitles in the language you’re listening to, because you practice both listening and reading).

Hope this helps or something 🙂