no boys allowed in the room!!!!

Is there an ILX leaderboard on Duolingo, or will that not work if we're all learning different languages?

I talk German with German friends on Tumblr, but they're all 30, 40 years ahead of me, ha!

That why I specified that it works for me. Formal learning of Japanese got me nowhere. I don't intend to write any academic texts in Spanish but I would like to be able to hold an adult conversation in it, since it's heavily spoken in California.

One thing it's not teaching me is the accent - I can hear it but I can't make my tongue do it. Actually sometimes I can't hear it - sometimes I can't tell if the b is being said like a b, v or w.

Yeah, sure! I wasn't contradicting you, I was just wondering if that might be a reason why some styles work for some people!

Accents are so difficult to reproduce. The only thing I've found helpful is videos where native speakers physically show you the position your mouth / lips / tongue have to be in. It's weird, I'm fine with Ö but Ü is a struggle. My German friend sent me soundfiles of her saying "Flür! Hütter! Düsseldorf!" and I could hear the difference but couldn't make my mouth do it. Then I watched a video where a guy explained (with a close-up) of how you put your lips further forward for Ü. I feel stupid doing it, but the sound is much more like what Germans do.

"Ch" I am never not going to do like a Cornish "gh" so I give up.

I'm sure there are videos of mouth placement for that weird Spanish B / V thing? I feel stupid doing these exaggerated mouth poses, but until I get the sound, I guess it works? Just do it alone in the bathroom where no one can see you making faces in the mirror!

I think the critical period for native language learning is up until about 6 years old iirc.
I find it really hard to learn European languages just from hearing as I need to see it written down for it to go in my memory (I am often poor at determining what people are saying/lyrics though). The few words of Japanese I know that wouldn't work for so I feel like a young kid trying to learn it just from hearing.

La Lech is obviously not only trained but also an active teacher of language so I defer to her, but from my training in TEFL I have to say that 'natural' language use is very much emphasised, and has proven to be most effective for most people. I guess one thing that is different in TEFL is that it is immersion teaching, so trying to explain rules of English in English to people who can't speak English is futile, you have to *show* the rules through practice, whereas an app could do explanation in a student's first language if it wanted to. Different styles of learning is definitely a thing, though - my own (learning not teaching) preference is to concentrate on reading and writing before even attempting to broach speaking and listening, which is not how most people learn best, but it's what I'm more comfortable with.

I'm very tired and probably not expressing myself well, which is doubly ironic for both an English grad and TEFL-qualified person. Oh well.

Also, now I have a smartphone I might actually join you in German Duolingo-ing, Branwell. Would be nice to remember more than just "verschwende deine jugend".

Accents are so difficult to reproduce. The only thing I've found helpful is videos where native speakers physically show you the position your mouth / lips / tongue have to be in. It's weird, I'm fine with Ö but Ü is a struggle. My German friend sent me soundfiles of her saying "Flür! Hütter! Düsseldorf!" and I could hear the difference but couldn't make my mouth do it. Then I watched a video where a guy explained (with a close-up) of how you put your lips further forward for Ü. I feel stupid doing it, but the sound is much more like what Germans do.

Also I've done this with one-on-one teaching and it definitely feels silly but is very very useful, and also is quite fun if you're comfortable in the student-teacher partnership.

I am MasonicBoo on there if you want to add me, Emil.y? (I haven't quite worked out the social bit of adding people to a class or a board or whatever.)

((Please don't laugh at how bad my German sucks!!!))

I will have to actually d/l the app first but when I do I will add you! (Also my German will be terrible too, I got an A at it for GCSE but have literally never used it after that.)

I loooove teaching pronunciation because it's light/goofy and physical rather than mental. People have a lot of hang ups/misconceptions/anxiety about lg learning. I enjoy helping them move past it and learn to express themselves effectively. This is why I believe well-trained language teachers have a necessary role in the world.

There's my professional mission statement lol

Last night I was chatting with a guy at a show who is a lapsed drummer. We were having a nice convo, talking about music etc and I asked him a ton of questions about why he stopped playing. Eventually he told me he sat down recently to try to play, couldn't do what he wanted to do, and gave up pissily. I smiled and was like "what it sounds like is you reacted like a baby". He paused and eventually was like "yeah you're right." His frustration was legitimate and expected but his reaction was self-defeating. We loled after that. I felt like I was at work, but not in a bad way.

Sounds like me and whenever I try to write. "WHY AM I NOT JAMES JOYCE ALREADY? EVERYTHING I DO IS TERRIBLE SO WHY BOTHER?"

Uh, you're not Joyce yet because Joyce spent fucking ages on his work and you don't.

For the record so no one thinks I'm a monster I don't ever tell my students they're acting like babies -- I just meant having that convo about what prevents us from persevering reminded me of being at work.

Emil.y yes, exactly. <3

I have fond memories of my GCSE French teacher pulling ridiculous faces and making us all say "pneu" and a few other words in the most exaggerated manner possible, would be all for someone teaching me the secrets of umlauts this way

(I am not very good at hearing the difference, still worse at saying the difference, and Düsseldorf in particular is one word where I swear the difference I usually listen for isn't even there, dunno if that's a peculiarity of that word or if the difference I think I'm hearing isn't even the right one)

anyway everyone please learn German and post lots of fun thoughts and links on ILX's The German language thread

I love that Deutsche Wertarbeit album! Would love to know more about her, hear anything else she did, read a less dude-focussed book, read anything Geeta writes on the subject, etc...

I added you, branwell! I think I'm douxjesus666 on duolingo.

I will install duolingo this weekend, I will I will. I think it would be good for me to have an aim, even if only small, to get me out of this malaise-in-stasis. Feeling incredibly shitty but with no real focus to be able to express on the mental illness threads so am posting irrelevantly here as a sort of refuge. Sorry.

having an aim is essential!
has anyone tried those period undies? http://www.shethinx.com/
i am thinking about trying them. last time i did this with a period product (the product known as "instead") i almost wound up in the ER but i doubt anything that horrible could happen with period undies.

I have no experience with them, but they look pretty good. I have incredibly heavy periods so would probably be good for night time use in addition to sanitary towels which often aren't actually enough for a full sleep (I have never ever used tampons b/c toxic shock paranoia).

I used to use tampons but started to think they were prolonging the event by plugging rather than absorbing. If I try the undies I'll report back.

duolinguists, if a soybombyx follows/friends you, it's me!

I have followed you both back.

Annoyed by Duolingo's new habit of springing new words in the "match pairs" or review sections when it has never actually told you what they mean. And now I'm into verbs, I really really keenly feel the need for some grammar. But I get no grammar, just cute dolphin pics. :(

I have joined as La_Duffeldorf (turns out I actually had an old account, probably tried to learn Spanish for going to Primavera and then forgot about it, though it doesn't seem to have any info on what I was doing before).

Might try to search out a good German grammar site too for B & the other of us who like theory as well as practice. Wish I'd bought that TEFL book which gives an overview of points of divergence from English in various languages, it's written to know what your student might struggle with but in the process gives some straightforward tips about grammar, pronunciation etc. Was one of my favourite texts during the course b/c it really allowed me to dip in to my curiosity about languages and see patterns both micro and macro.

That sounds like a really interesting book.

I am never going to get my head around German gender. :-/ Not to mention there really is no way to do gender neutral language in German. Singular "they" already is She.

Turns out it's not that expensive (in comparison to most textbooks), so I think I am going to pick a copy up even though I'm not teaching at the moment: Learner English

In some ways I like that 'Sie' is both she and they, as a default to the feminine is pretty cool, considering masculinity is the traditional baseline for discourse in English. However, I totally get that it's shit not to have gender neutral possibilities (unless you use 'that'? I do know someone who identifies as 'it' but I think a lot of people wouldn't want to be pigeonholed into that). Also gender of words drove me crazy at school, it's all so arbitrary, French and German don't even agree, how are we meant to remember and what is even the point?!

hey yall im participating in the NNAF bowlathon for reproductive justice and i am shameless. i'm bowling for richmond reproductive freedom project who are doing AMAZING world-changing work. i'm offering rewards if people donate $! mixtapes, hand-knitted stuff, and en vogue tshirts. other things negotiable. i've met my goal but am currently trying to take over the world tbqqh.
check it out:
my blog: http://clbrtr.tumblr.com/post/141563695392/help-me-raise-for-reproductive-justice
personal page on bowlathon site: http://bowlathon.nnaf.org/participantpage.asp?userid=14519#.Vvf7oOIrLIV

thank you for reading!

Girls, I'm in a bad place. Someone in my life that I'm very close to is sick, in a potentially terminal way. Sometimes ILX is really supportive towards people in situations like this, but for whatever reason, I'm not one of the people that ILX chooses to be support-y or understand-y towards, most of the time, so I don't really feel comfortable going into it here.

So I'm stretched really thin, emotionally, and I have no wiggle-room for dealing with fuckery. And boy, did the fuckery hit hard, at exactly the wrong time. I've had a lifetime of being shamed and mocked, by dudes, for ~liking music in the wrong way~ (read: being a girl who has the audacity to like music in public) and usually I will fight them on this, but right now I am so brittle and upset over the other thing, the Big Thing, that I don't have the emotional room to engage with anything without screaming or bursting into tears.

This is not a nice place to be right now, so having a bully jumping up and down on my sore spot is really not something I have the capacity to deal with. I don't want to do a flounce, but I'm in a really bad place, and this place is making it worse at the moment. Take care, girls.

Really sorry to hear that... I've been blissfully unaware of any recent threads of twattery and i'm going to keep it that way. Hope you and they have support irl.

Really sorry to hear this, Branwell. Hope you and your person do as well as you can, and I'm thinking of you.

FWIW, I've just seen your post on the WGW thread and you are bang on the money there. Have literally no idea why people think that sort of thread is funny or contributes anything worthwhile to the boards.

Take care Branwell, best wishes for you and your someone.

That whole thread is totally baffling but I guess at least if it keeps being bumped I should eventually remember to get round to an album I am already pretty sure I'll love. (There would be better ways to achieve this though obv)

branwell, i'm so sorry to hear that. i don't know what's up w/the fuckery, but i can relate to the excruciating sadness of a dear friend being terminally ill--i went through that with my oldest friend a month ago. mentioned it on one of the cancer threads when he was diagnosed but i don't really post much here, so i didn't mention it otherwise. tbh, i couldn't handle posting about it--there was just this blinking cursor, and no words.

i hope that the potentially terminal part of it becomes not-terminal. it's utterly heartbreaking to lose someone you're close to, to even think about it. it's a really awful and gut-wrenching place to be. take good care of yourself.

I'm not one of the people that ILX chooses to be support-y or understand-y towards, most of the time, so I don't really feel comfortable going into it here.

I'm sorry you feel that way, in that, I know the feeling, and it really sucks. You've always struck me as a resilient person, and I bet your friend is fortunate that you are there for them.

otm

best thoughts to you & yr friend

im so sorry to hear it branwell, and im thinking of you and sending all the positivity your and your friend's way.

Hey girls. My "person" has had their operation, and the prognosis is good.

Oh, let's stop with the vagueness. The "person" is my Mother, and she has cancer. She had the offending organ removed this week, and the oncologist says that it was very early, stage 1, so the signs are good, and that's really positive, but it's a waiting game to see if it resurfaces or spreads; though the initial indication is that she will make a full recovery. You all know how close I am to my Mum, so I hope you understand how worrying and upsetting and destabilising this has been for me. I knew I was upset and wound up, but I didn't even realise to tense and on-edge and freaking-out-over-everything I had been until it was over, and I could breathe again. Compounded by the fact of family difficulties (knowing that certain members of my family like to surveil my social media, and use any information gleaned for super-negative purposes) so I couldn't even talk about it, or blow off steam in my usual manner.

But sometimes having a "support" removed makes you realise that it is not a support at all. What happened on that ILM thread was toxic, grotesque and utterly uncalledfor. There's no excuse for that shit, ever. But to be exposed to that level of toxicity and grossness ON THE MORNING I FOUND OUT MY MOTHER HAD CANCER was I guess kind of a no-going-back moment, for me. It's not fun, and there's nothing that can make that shit worth it.

Thanks for the good thoughts. I'm going to take care of my Mother - and myself. This whole thing made me go to the doctor for the first time in three years, so there's that. Take care of yourselves. x

Love to you, Branwell. I definitely understand your reasoning. If you want to keep in touch with me for chats or venting or anything, I'm on twitter and my ilx mail should work. No pressure to do so, obvs.

<3 to your mom, and I hope you all have a peaceful and easy go of it

I hated my mom so much when I was a teen and now she is the only thick & thin support I have.

Branwell - sending all the love to you. <3<3<3

hi y'all
hope all is well

1) how about this http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/pelvic-exams-for-healthy-women-have-no-proven-benefit-u-s-panel-says/
2) i am volunteering for GR!Chicago and am super excited about it
3) sarahell and i hung out! i enjoyed it a lot and it was really fun to talk with her about drumming. i have thought back to the conversation numerous times since then.

im so excited youre volunteering for GR!Chicago!!!!

im working at GR!RVA for the first time this year and its weird (but cool) to be at a new camp

Yeah I'm really psyched about it. I even volunteered for load-in because I know it'll be fun manual labor that helps me practice something I need to practice. Totes into the vibe & glad to be putting my teaching skills to use while learning a ton at the same time. Can't wait!!

I actually had a moment of extreme gratitude thinking about inclusive spaces like GR and DDPP being in more small cities than you'd expect.

i got voted onto the board of the GRCA (girls rock camp alliance) this year (which is a huge trip for me by itself) - it's amazing how many camps there are, and new ones popping up all the time. camps in peru, sweden, iceland, poland...

S. Henn1es -- whom we were talking about at that bar just got a significant music grant and I thought of you! I'm glad we finally met! Next time, we will make time for thrift shopping and jam session.

yeeeess
to follow up on that convo - i got a new bass pedal (single, not double) and it has made a lot of difference, so glad i bought it! also i bought the floor model so i got 10% off :)
also just heard about the abovementioned grant
how about that!!

feel like i need to tell someone this

i just went out to a show where i saw this really tall metalhead dude who had young damon albarn's face?? its possible someone specifically designed this as an elaborate hologram/trap to bring me down

haha! i know that feeling.

oh my god guys i just want to say i love maria bamford and i loved lady dynamite
and related a little too hard to it

i need to watch it, i really love her