Please Do Not Let Debt Collectors Play In Your Face.

How to learn a language when you don’t know where to start:

General Plan:

Weeks 1 and 2: Purpose:

Learn the fundamentals sentence construction

Learn how to spell and count

Start building a phrase stockpile with basic greetings

The Alphabet

Numbers 1 - 100

Subject Pronouns

Common Greetings

Conjugate the Two Most Important Verbs: to be and to have

Basic Definite and Indefinite Articles

Weeks 3 and 4: Purpose:

Learn essential vocabulary for the day-to-day

Start conjugating regular verbs

Days of the Week and Months of the Year

How to tell the time

How to talk about the weather

Family Vocabulary

Present Tense Conjugations Verbs

Weeks 5 and 6: Purpose:

Warm up with the last of the day-to-day vocabulary

Add more complex types of sentences to your grammar

Colours

House vocabulary

How to ask questions

Present Tense Conjugations Verbs

Forming negatives

Weeks 7 and 8: Purpose:

Learn how to navigate basic situations in a region of your target language country

Finish memorising regular conjugation rules

Food Vocabulary and Ordering at Restaurants

Money and Shopping Phrases

Present Tense Conjugations Verbs

Weeks 9 and 10: Purpose:

Start constructing descriptive and more complex sentences

Adjectives

Reflective verbs

Places vocabulary

Weeks 11 and 12: Purpose:

Add more complex descriptions to your sentences with adverbs

Wrap up vocabulary essentials

Adverbs

Parts of the body and medical vocabulary

Tips for Learning a Foreign Language:

Learning Vocabulary:

What vocabulary should I be learning?

There are hundreds of thousands of words in every language, and the large majority of them won’t be immediately relevant to you when you’re starting out.Typically, the most frequent 3000 words make up 90% of the language that a native speaker uses on any given day. Instead try to learn the most useful words in a language, and then expand outwards from there according to your needs and interests.

Choose the words you want/need to learn.

Relate them to what you already know.

Review them until they’ve reached your long-term memory.

Record them so learning is never lost.

Use them in meaningful human conversation and communication.

How should I record the vocabulary?

Learners need to see and/or hear a new word of phrase 6 to 17 times before they really know a piece of vocabulary.

Keep a careful record of new vocabulary.

Record the vocabulary in a way that is helpful to you and will ensure that you will practice the vocabulary, e.g. flashcards.

Vocabulary should be organised so that words are easier to find, e.g. alphabetically or according to topic.

Ideally when noting vocabulary you should write down not only the meaning, but the grammatical class, and example in a sentence, and where needed information about structure.

How should I practice using the vocabulary?

Look, Say, Cover, Write and Check - Use this method for learning and remembering vocabulary. This method is really good for learning spellings.

Make flashcards. Write the vocabulary on the front with the definition and examples on the back.

Draw mind maps or make visual representations of the new vocabulary groups.

Stick labels or post it notes on corresponding objects, e.g when learning kitchen vocabulary you could label items in your house.

How often should I be practising vocabulary?

A valuable technique is ‘the principle of expanding rehearsal’. This means reviewing vocabulary shortly after first learning them then at increasingly longer intervals.

Ideally, words should be reviewed:

5-10 minutes later

24 hours later

One week later

1-2 months later

6 months later

Knowing a vocabulary item well enough to use it productively means knowing:

Its written and spoken forms (spelling and pronunciation).

Its grammatical category and other grammatical information

Related words and word families, e.g. adjective, adverb, verb, noun.

Common collocations (Words that often come before or after it).

Receptive Skills: Listening and Reading

Reading is probably one of the most effective ways of building vocabulary knowledge.

Listening is also important because it occupies a big chunk of the time we spend communicating.

Tips for reading in a foreign language:

Start basic and small.  Children’s books are great practice for beginners. Don’t try to dive into a novel or newspaper too early, since it can be discouraging and time consuming if you have to look up every other word.

Read things you’ve already read in your native language. The fact that you at least know the gist of the story will help you to pick up context clues, learn new vocabulary and grammatical constructions.

Read books with their accompanying audio books. Reading a book while listening to the accompanying audio will improve your “ear training”. It will also help you to learn the pronunciation of words.

Tips for listening in a foreign language:

Watch films in your target language.

Read a book while also listening along to the audio book version.

Listen to the radio in your target language.

Watch videos online in your target language.

Activities to do to show that you’ve understood what you’ve been listening to:

Try drawing a picture of what was said.

Ask yourself some questions about it and try to answer them.

Provide a summary of what was said.

Suggest what might come next in the “story.”

Translate what was said into another language.

“Talk back” to the speaker to engage in imaginary conversation.

Productive Skills: Speaking and Writing

Tips for speaking in a foreign language:

If you can, try to speak the language every day either out loud to yourself or chat to another native speaker whether it is a colleague, a friend, a tutor or a language exchange partner. 

Write a list of topics and think about what you could say about each one. First you could write out your thoughts and then read them out loud. Look up the words you don’t know. You could also come up with questions at the end to ask someone else.

A really good way to improve your own speaking is to listen to how native speakers talk and imitate their accent, their rhythm of speech and tone of voice. Watch how their lips move and pay attention to the stressed sounds. You could watch interviews on YouTube or online news websites and pause every so often to copy what you have just heard. You could even sing along to songs sung in the target language.

Walk around the house and describe what you say. Say what you like or dislike about the room or the furniture or the decor. Talk about what you want to change.This gets you to practise every day vocabulary.

Tips for writing in a foreign language:

Practice writing in your target language. Keep it simple to start with. Beginner vocabulary and grammar concepts are generally very descriptive and concrete.

Practice writing by hand. Here are some things you can write out by hand:

Diary entries

Shopping lists

Reminders

What could I write about?

Write about your day, an interesting event, how you’re feeling, or what you’re thinking.

Make up a conversation between two people. 

Write a letter to a friend, yourself, or a celebrity. You don’t need to send it; just writing it will be helpful.

Translate a text you’ve written in your native language into your foreign language.

Write a review or a book you’ve recently read or a film you’ve recently watched.

Write Facebook statuses, Tweets or Tumblr posts (whether you post them or not will be up to you).

Write a short story or poem.

Writing is one of the hardest things to do well as a non-native speaker of a language, because there’s no room to hide. 

There are lots of ways to improve your writing ability, but they can be essentially boiled down to three key components:

Read a lot

Write a lot

Get your writing corrected

i may be a piece of shit but i’ve genuinely never sent anon hate and i wear that as a mark of pride 

I'm just adding fuel to the fire

Fushiguro and Ryomen Sukuna

Diving into the mythology surrounding Fushiguro’s shikigami Makora. Disclaimer first: I am no expert, just a humble myth buff.

This is the hand seal (mudra) Fushiguro make to call forward his domain expansion. This mudra is associated with deity Bhaisajyaguru (薬師如来). Bhaisajyaguru is Buddha of healing from Mahayana Buddhism and known also as Yakushi Nyorai in Japan. Yakushi Nyorai has been known to release disease and pain from sick people. The believe of Yakushi Nyorai is the first to develop in Japan after the introduction of Buddhism to Japan.

Yakushi Nyorai is also the Buddha at the center of the Twelve Heavenly Generals (十二神将 read as Juuni shinshou) legends. Originally, the Twelve Heavenly Generals are yaksha or devils who were converted to Buddhism because of Yakushi Nyorai’s teaching. They are then tasked to protect Bhaisajyaguru and his followers.

So it is not actually surprising that one of Fushiguro’s shikigami is based on one of the Heavenly Generals.  

Keep reading

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That ol’ chart of mine makes the rounds online periodically and it drives me crazy because it’s frankly not very good. So, I finally got around to remaking it.

I doubt this will get anywhere near as popular, but I wanted to make it.

Good reference for animation, comics, and for visualizing phonetics!

me after finally posting one finished piece: oh, well gotta finish those other wips ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

manhua: The Villainess Refuses to Flirt with the ML

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The Fall (2006) dir. Tarsem Singh

Costume design by Eiko Ishioka

Dippin’ sauce from Gravity Falls!

And you guys may notice a few (a lot, actually) mistakes in the background and that is because I really had a hard time drawing it, that’s why these effects cover those mistakes (mostly).

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furnace and chimney duo.

Also, just squish your face on that pectoral hon.

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"You often said how excessively lavish everything is in Vere," Laurent says, "yet I find Akielon men to be similarly excessive."

Damen peers at him from his position on the bed, on his front as he cradles his head with his arms. "How so?"

Laurent picks his nails as he hums, "the statues."

Damen directs an amused gaze at Laurent's prone form by the window's ledge. Expect Laurent to nitpick everything.

Shaking his head fondly, he explains. "Multiple have been commissioned to depict Akielon men in their glory."

Laurent snorts, as sophisticated as one can be when doing something unappealing. "How predictably vain."

An amused breath passes Damen's lips before shifting himself on bed. Now, he lays on his back, gazing up at the ceiling.

Teasing, he says, "I prefer Kings' monuments showing them in their glory rather than those sly ouevres mostly hidden in unfrequented annexes."

Laurent rolls his eyes. "Of course you do. But not every art is made to have the public's eyes set on them. They contain messages that aren't easily expressed in words, so they show it instead."

Damen hums contemplatively. "No, the public aren't always the audience" he agrees, "But they're still made to be appreciated by someone nonetheless."

"Then what of the others?" Laurent asks. Damen twists his head to face Laurent, but his lover is looking out the window.

"What others?"

"The pieces that show unusual subjects unlike your glorified Kings." Damen pauses but, unnoticed, Laurent continues. "I saw you looking at one, a statue of a woman crying on her knees, in the gardens earlier. What of pieces like her?"

Licking his lips, Damen answers. "A message, as you've said. She's mourning for her husband before she was turned into a fountain by a God who heard her sorrow."

Laurent's brows rose at this. "How miserable."

Damen nods. "It is. It was commissioned to warn men of a wife's pain if they become careless with their own life."

Laurent nods in understanding, of what, Damen does not know. "And did it?"

He nods. "Some have had practiced caution since."

Laurent diverts his gaze to him, his eyes gleaming a beautiful blue from the moon's light., like water under night's glow.

"But you don't perceive it as a paragon of a mourning wife," Laurent says with a steady and firm gaze.

Damen smiles, shaking his head. "No, not really."

Exhaling, he closes his eyes. "When I looked at her weeping face. I imagined her mourning of another's death rather than her husband's," he quietly admits, "I thought of the life she could've lived and desired it to be her reason for crying. I appreciated her tears."

Laurent pushes himself away from the window and walk towards Damen, who doesn't move when he felt Laurent's shadow covering him, nor when a firm hand pressed on his chest.

Laurent drapes himself over Damen's chest, rising and falling under him.

"What's her name?"

Damen's chest expands with his inhale before he releases it, loud in the quiet of the night. "Egeria."

NOTES: excuse this since everything is rushed. But I just had to contribute something because Damen is lovely, duh.

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I just remembered that King Aleron died AFTER Auguste was killed. Does that mean that if Auguste lived so will the King?

But the Regent would still want both the King and heir to die. So Aleron might still die in battlefield since the war wasn't going to just be finished with that specific battle where both were destined to die.

Oh wait, when Auguste died, King Aleron was shocked to witness his firstborn die, hence the ensuing sequences of the Regent successfully killing Aleron and stuff. But what if he got himself together last minute? Like defense just shooted up before the arrow hits him? I don't even know.

Let's just say that Aleron would live and that would then lead to two possibilities: the war would prolong and Vere would be more vicious since their heir died (this will give the Regent more chances to kill Aleron and have more leeway to Laurent since Aleron, would surely want his only son, at that point, safe. Or not? surely Aleron knows about his brother's sick tendencies. I'll ponder over that later.) Or, Aleron wouldn't be prideful about it and be ruled over by his fear of loss (dude just lost his firstborn and I assumed lost his wife prior) and just thought that an alliance would be more beneficial at that point (Vere lost way too much). He'll focus on Laurent then, train him to be like Auguste which will frustrate everyone, Laurent, Aleron, and the Regent (the former two bcz Laurent is not Auguste, and the latter bcz he's running out of time to get Laurent). Though, I think the former is more likely to happen since the Regent is Aleron's advisor right? The bastard would definitely make Aleron choose war.

Srsly, damn this story for always choosing war. Everything wouldn't happen if it weren't for war and another war. Even the canon ship wouldn't be possible! Like peace was never an option.

I'm just sad about it atp.

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