[ SECRET POST #1849 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #1849 ⌋


Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 43 secrets from Secret Submission Post #264.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeats ]
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments and concerns should go here.

Comments

[tamabonotchi.livejournal.com]

If you're not one of the actual weebs I read in the horror stories, kindly correct that person and tell them there are regular fans of everything.
And you don't spout Japanese at the end of your sentences.

[(Anonymous)]

One of the horrible things (or hilarious things, depending on your point of view) of learning another language, particularly if you are training yourself to think in that language, is that vocab can bleed into your daily conversations. My friends found it hilarious when I was learning French and Czech because halfway through sentences I'd suddenly switch languages without realising (I think the funniest time was when I accidentally started off in Czech before finishing in French, only hitting English mid-sentence). If it is a socially acceptable language it is fine, but if it is in a language its socially acceptable to mock, like Japanese (and Spanish, when I was young, learning Spanish was seen as mockable) starting in English and accidentally switching vocab is a fast ticket to being abused.

Its sad people trying to learn, even if it is sometimes in a clumsy and piecemeal fashion, another language are made fun of. I wonder how many people were turned off languages because of this.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm totally with you on this. I'm a native English speaker, but I've always been interested in foreign languages. I've studyed French, German, Spanish, and Japanese - with overlap, time-wise - and there were definitely times when I switched between languages without realizing it. Now that I'm near-fluent in Japanese, I'll sometimes find myself at a loss for words in English, but knowing just the right word in Japanese. Fortunately, I've more-or-less proved that I'm into Japanese for more than just animanga (reading books without pictures tends to get you there), so my friends understand that it's just a brain fart in the English-speaking portion of my brain, but people I don't know? Yeah, I get some mocking. Not much, but it's happened.

To the OP - as a Japanese major and fan of Japanese media, I understand. There will always be a few jerkwads out there who are just looking for reasons to criticize people, but most people are pretty understanding. If you don't act like a weeaboo, people won't think of you as one. I find that Japanese people tend to appreciate it when you show that you're knowledgeable about and interested in the culture about a whole (and willing to learn what you don't know). "I sincerely want to understand" comes across a lot better than "w00t anime!"

It may help to read or watch something that's completely unrelated to animanga. That way, if people start eyeballing you like they think you're a weeaboo, you can say - perfectly honestly - that you aren't into it just for the anime and manga, but you also like things like X novelist or Y drama. There's a lot of Japanese novels published in English, and a handful of dramas and movies available in English, too. It won't get the jerks off your back, but it will help "prove" to the more reasonable people that you're not a weeaboo.

[wynddancer.livejournal.com]

Icon directed not at you. It's directed toward language bullies and mockers. I only speak English, trying to learn Spanish, but inhibited by my memories of language bullies and mockers, esp. my high school French teacher.

My biggest regret from h.s. is not turning her in for her bullying ways. 2nd day of French I, she asked me if I was deaf b/c I wasn't saying the words right and it went down from there.

Adults esp. shouldn't make fun of teenagers trying to learn another language. I admire others who do speak another language and I want to be one of them but I don't know if I ever will....those memories affect me even now since I expect Spanish native speakers to jump down my throat for not saying it. I can't even bring myself to try to speak the language to even my Spanish speaking next door neighbor (I get very anxious, almost panic attack-y thinking about it), who is very nice so far although I don't mind being corrected about my pronunciation, grammar (my Spanish teachers so far are very nice this way although a couple of the native students not so much), whatever as long as it done nicely, ie. not mocking me for it.

[(Anonymous)]

Sorry you had such crappy experiences. Teachers like that need to be fired.

[ketita.livejournal.com]

OMG, that happens to me so much >_< I'm fluent in two languages, studied Chinese and Japanese for three years (simultaneously), and am now taking an immersion course in Korean. My class is full of Chinese and Japanese, and some days I don't even know what language I'm speaking... and I often switch languages mid-sentence, especially if a moment ago I was talking one of the other languages....

I'm just lucky that learning Chinese, Japanese and Korean simultaneously kind of cuts down on being called a weeaboo XD even though I do enjoy anime quite a lot.

That said, I at least can sort of tell when people are doing the "I will now use words of X language because it's cool" versus having it slip out. For one, you can tell by the vocabulary - certain words tend to slip out most often (like "yes") or other exclamations. Also, you'd be getting a "weirder" mix. Weeaboo Japanese is made up of words commonly used in anime. But words that slip out for me in Korean are things like "department store" and "subway" (whereas I always, ALWAYS say "now" in Chinese. wtf, brain). Obvious daily life sorts of things.

[coffeeyoukai.livejournal.com]

I always identified weeaboos when they randomly directly substitute Japanese words for English ones, because grammar does not work that way and no one who actually speaks the language would say something so horribly awkward-sounding without pause.

[(Anonymous)]

You'd be surprised. Grammar might not work that way, and it doesn't, but vocab and grammar are learnt differently. A lot of people (not all, because there are as many ways of learning as there people) learn vocab first and then learn grammar constructs separate. In the stage where you are internalising vocab it is very easy to do the direct word substitution. Thankfully, oh god thankfully, that tends to vanish once the grammar constructs kick in.

[ketita.livejournal.com]

Hmm. That's an interesting thought - though I'm not sure I'd agree 100%? I mean, I've found myself trying to use Korean/Japanese particles in Chinese - which is blatantly nonsensical grammatically.
The way my mind works, at least, if I'm going to do a substitution, it's usually because, for whatever reason, my mind jumps to the word in X language faster than in Y language. This could partially be because it's something that doesn't have as accurate a word in Y language, or because of using the word very often in X language. Another reason is when the words sound similar - I constantly find myself using the Japanese jikan instead of the Korean shikan.

I most often find myself substituting nouns, anyway - unless I do a full-out midsentence switch.

If anything, I think the key issue is - somebody who is fluent in English, unless they are undergoing an immersion course or something, should have no reason to be pulling substitutions between their native tongue and one they only speak marginally. For me, all my substitutions occur between the languages I'm not fluent in. I've been given to understand it's part of how the brain learns languages - you have "mother tongue" and "other", and if you learn several languages they all get lumped together as "other" until you know enough for them to get their own little brain section /HALLO THAR OVERSIMPLIFICATION

/TL;DR >_> sorry I just find this stuff really interesting to think about

[tamabonotchi.livejournal.com]

I certainly understood that- sometimes when I'm practicing German I can't think of the word, I say the Spanish word I learned back in middle school.

As for Japanese, I was thinking about those people who actually purposefully and consciously say desu or kawaii out of nowhere just to sound cool (in their minds). It's obvious most of them aren't actively learning Japanese and are just parroting what they learn from anime.

[forever-alone.livejournal.com]

I am so late with my reply and you're anon so I doubt you'll even see this comment, but I just wanted to say hi to a fellow student of the Czech language. :) In case you do read this - are you still learning, or are you fluent now? I'm also curious how you learned it. Here in the U.S. there aren't a lot of resources to learn Czech with.

[(Anonymous)]

I've actually forgot most of it now through disuse, I learnt about 15 years back. I was fluent, but it's like anything else, you don't keep using it you lose it. I keep meaning to go on some refresher courses, or take a trip to Czech Republic to get it back) Also, can't help with the resources in the US, I'm in N.W. Europe myself.