part 353 whalers on the moon

[aphanon_meme]

We've been here over a year now! I can hardly believe it! Dreamwidth's been pretty good, I'd say, with almost no downtime to speak of and all that! Anyway... how is your spring going? Or I guess it's almost summer, isn't it? Hopefully it's been well! I've been catching up on work and new movies, all very exciting stuff, I'm sure.

Enjoy part 353!

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Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Never sent anyone anon hate. Can't be bothered.

However, I've complained about stupid fanfics on here before. Like this one where Switzerland was mystified by the French language. But I never link or name names.

[(Anonymous)]

Anon hate = no, and I never will. I think it's cowardly, and I'm not sinking to that level even if I have good reason to be angry at someone. If I can't stand someone I'll unfollow them. If I'm very strongly upset by something they said, I might send a polite, not hateful, message disagreeing with them and explaining my point of view but after that point I'm dropping it entirely, I'm not going to press. We will agree to disagree.

And I absolutely won't send any annoying messages complaining about someone's subject matter or headcanons. One of the things that annoys me about Tumblr is that there's an atmosphere like rpers and artists owe their audiences something and should change to suit their viewers. Some people get really pushy and entitled, and I definitely don't want to act like them.




Complained on anon memes = yes, though only if I'm relatively sure the person doesn't go here. I try to avoid naming by name though. I have also made fun of tropes, headcanons, fanon, and fandom trends that I dislike.

[(Anonymous)]

Have you ever sent anyone anon love?

http://latinr.com/

[(Anonymous)]

What phrase did you get? What do you think of it?

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah. Mostly to people I know though.

[(Anonymous)]

Sometimes, but I prefer to do that logged in.

Re: unpopular opinion

[(Anonymous)]

Watch out, they might be a spaceship in disguise!

Project: spreading the love

[(Anonymous)]

Today you have to send at least one positive message to someone in the fandom, like an RPer, writer, artist, someone whose headcanons you like, someone who is a nice person etc.

fredlig

[(Anonymous)]

I love your Sweden, he's excellent and always makes me laugh. <3

[(Anonymous)]

Yes. <3

all of our prussia rpers

[(Anonymous)]

You guys are simply amazing. You have so many brilliant headcanons and insights into history and culture and language. You're always really funny and every time you post, I love Prussia a little more.

[(Anonymous)]

Prussia or Spain are probably the most liked. I'm not sure who's the most disliked (micronations?), but it sometimes it feels like Switzerland is pretty much forgotten.

fellatiano

[(Anonymous)]

You're brilliant, I love your Italy's comments and history references, even if I don't understand all of them, and I think you're one of the most ic Italy we've had.

Re: http://latinr.com/

[1amkeit]

Let's see.

"· Latin: VIVERE MILITARE EST
· English: TO LIVE IS TO FIGHT"

Seneca, huh...

Ah, that certainly sounds like it's applicable to Rome.

Percentage of population able to hold a conversation in English in the EU by country.

[(Anonymous)]

Re: Percentage of population able to hold a conversation in English in the EU by country.

[(Anonymous)]

It's bet it's actually like 70% in France


They just refuse to

Re: Percentage of population able to hold a conversation in English in the EU by country.

[(Anonymous)]

I was at the airport in Paris some years ago and wanted to buy something at a kiosk and the person behind the counter just kept bitching at me in French and refused to explain what was going on. I have never wanted to strangle someone in real life as hard as then.

Re: http://latinr.com/

[(Anonymous)]

· Latin: ARGUMENTUM

· English: ARGUMENT; REASONING; INFERENCE; APPEAL; PROOF

Mm writing out arguments is something some people say I am good at; however I don't think I'm all that good at it.

Re: Percentage of population able to hold a conversation in English in the EU by country.

[(Anonymous)]

Hence why I studied abroad in Denmark. Practically everyone except immigrants, some elderly people, and little kids spoke English.

Although I wonder about the 5% in the UK who can't speak English. Must be recent immigrants or maybe some Welsh speakers.

Re: Percentage of population able to hold a conversation in English in the EU by country.

[desuraven]

The huge discrepancy between Austria and Germany is so true to my experiences there, though I do know some very fluent Germans. It's funny because I first saw this on reddit and the top comment was complaining about Berliners being unable to speak English and...yeah. Oh my god yeah.

Spain and Portugal being on par with Eastern Europe surprised me though.

Re: Percentage of population able to hold a conversation in English in the EU by country.

[(Anonymous)]

Most likely immigrants, same with Ireland, I don't think exclusively Welsh or Irish speakers even exist anymore.

Re: Percentage of population able to hold a conversation in English in the EU by country.

[(Anonymous)]

I once went to a McDonald's when I was visiting Paris (yeah I know, but it was the easiest option and I was short on time). Since it was in an area with a lot of tourists and my French was pretty rusty, I thought ordering in English would be okay.

Apparently, it's not. I never had such a hard time ordering something. At first, the cashier even spoke in English, but then she suddenly got frustrated, switched to French and pretended not to understand me anymore until I tried speaking in French...

Re: Percentage of population able to hold a conversation in English in the EU by country.

[(Anonymous)]

I wonder what explains the discrepancy btwn Germany and Austria...

Re: Percentage of population able to hold a conversation in English in the EU by country.

[(Anonymous)]

For Germany, I guess one factor is that while the first foreign language taught at schools usually was English, but only for West Germany.
East Germany had Russian instead.

It slowly changed of course after GDR ended.

So it also depends on on the age of a person and where they grew up.

Re: Percentage of population able to hold a conversation in English in the EU by country.

[desuraven]

If I had to guess I'd say Germany's average is brought down by the East-West divide still, I bet if you could get statistics for the two regions (or individual federal states) West Germany would be closer to Austria, the Netherlands, and Denmark, while East Germany would be closer to Poland, Czech, and Hungary.

You have to remember this is the first generation where East Germans are being taught English as a second language in school, before that it was Russian (or French in unified Germany but that's going too far back to matter, I think). There's also the debate about encouraging language use outside of the classroom, and Germany often gets caught up in the dub versus sub debate when it comes to American and British imports.

Meanwhile in Austria, Russians left the Russian occupation zone relatively early since their main goal in Austria was to keep it from joining NATO (which they did), so there was relatively little cultural effect- though there were some, and in region specific data you can sometimes see differences between the former Russian zone and the former American and British zone- and therefore little interference in things like language policy.

Also important, if you speak Standard German (Hochdeutsch) you can speak to 82 million other people. If you speak Standard Austrian German, you can speak to 8 million other people. Of course the two standard languages are closely related so that's an oversimplification but generally speaking it's more important for Austrians to learn either a new dialect or a new language to communicate outside their borders than it is for Germans, so why not keep up English outside of school?