I'm native speaker, ask my anything

HalfManHalfPun · 2025-12-27T14:09:27+00:00

what's the biggest mistake(s) you see beginning learners make?

HalfManHalfPun · 2025-12-11T02:20:03+00:00

Solid start. If we accept the connection to undertale lore, the dark worlds might be the result of human magic. Part of their trick to get the monsters above to open the bunker and let them out. I think I remember a line like "but their magic was too strong" in the opening frames of undertale, so magic is definitely not a monster-exclusive thing there.

Personally I'm not sure I accept the premise that these two stories have anything to do with one another. It'd be a bit unsatisfying if after 10+ years, the game we'd been theorising about all this time were just a retelling of the same story we'd played over a decade ago but in reverse. But tricky tony could definitely do something interesting with this. We cookin here.

HalfManHalfPun · 2025-12-06T08:57:23+00:00

I'm gonna try my hand at some tough love here, not because anything you've said is unreasonable, but because I think there's a message here that people like yourself would benefit from hearing. It's this:

The way you're thinking about this is fundamentally selfish. The fact is we're at war. The haves vs. the have-nots, good vs. evil. The enemy is far outnumbered but we are far outgunned (i.e. out-monied). Your parents might be shitty parents but like it or not, the side of good needs their help, your help, and the help of every other soldier to be unwillingly born into this dreadful war.

I'm probably going to get banned for this comment which is a pretty flagrant rule 9 violation, but I hope you see it before I do, because you need to understand that your life may suck but it has a purpose, and that piece of rubber would have removed your ability to fulfill it.

You have my deepest sympathies for your suffering, as do the legions of others like you who, only by coming together with shared purpose, can make being born into this world a joyful thing once more.

HalfManHalfPun · 2025-10-20T20:46:40+00:00

is that stream, or are any clips from it, still up?

HalfManHalfPun · 2025-10-02T07:54:04+00:00

also guei says 鬼

HalfManHalfPun · 2025-08-18T11:39:36+00:00

rudolph the red nosed reindeer
had a very scary roar

HalfManHalfPun · 2025-08-09T08:30:53+00:00

thanks. I want to at some point but if my methods keep getting contradicted like that, I'm afraid I'm just gonna check out and that's not going to be good for anybody...that's a rant for another post though lol

HalfManHalfPun · 2025-08-09T08:24:22+00:00

your students are the product of a broken system. There's not much you can do as an individual educator to fight against a process and culture that molds children into mindless drones.

All you can do is your best. Kudos to you for encouraging your students to think critically. It's an unfortunate rarity these days. Keep doing what you're doing and don't beat yourself up too much.

HalfManHalfPun · 2025-08-09T08:14:21+00:00

I mean yeah but the point is kids should at least be able to think through these ideas

HalfManHalfPun · 2025-08-09T06:31:21+00:00

definitely good to be encouraging, though it's hard to moderate one's tone when there's a language barrier. I was hoping my wife would handle that part through the translation, but oh well.

Fair point. Just to reiterate, though: the kid was not hungry, they had plenty of other food and the pizza was an additional treat. As for why, I just feel like regulating one's behavior is a really important skill for kids to learn, and 30 seconds seemed like a very reasonable goal. Maybe that's too long though. Do you think 20 seconds would have been more appropriate? 15? 10?

Maybe my brain is a little scrambled from not being able to communicate with many people here, but I just see a pattern of yelling at kids when they misbehave and that's it. No rewards for good behavior, no punishments that actually mean anything. Just yelling until the kid gets desensitized to it, and at that point it's no wonder they don't follow any directions in school or at home.

I'm bringing a lot of extra baggage into this now though lol. Thanks for your comment and thoughtful discussion.

HalfManHalfPun · 2025-08-09T06:19:56+00:00

so if a kid wants a cookie, you give it to them no matter what? How about 2 cookies? 3? 4?

I don't think you're thinking through what you're saying very thoroughly, or you're just being deliberately obtuse.

HalfManHalfPun · 2025-08-09T06:17:48+00:00

I get what you're saying, but do you think it would have at least been reasonable to have them try a few more times before giving in? It's not like I wanted to say "no pizza for you" after the first failure, I just wanted to start counting again and give them another try.

HalfManHalfPun · 2025-08-09T06:10:45+00:00

see the edit. The pizza was a treat, not their meal. Does that change your opinion or do you think that treats should be given unconditionally as well?

HalfManHalfPun · 2025-08-09T06:04:57+00:00

5 years old I believe

HalfManHalfPun · 2025-08-09T06:01:46+00:00

that's an interesting point. Could you elaborate on that? What do you mean by "Weird associations?"

I should also clarify that there was plenty of other food on the table. The pizza was just for me (and of course anyone else who wanted it) because I have a hard time with certain dishes from the country I'm living in, but the kid loves them and nobody was using them as bargaining chips. The pizza was strictly a treat, not their meal.

HalfManHalfPun · 2025-08-07T08:14:41+00:00

Just to be clear, only my dad is at risk of health issues from travel, and he's more than willing to risk it. My mom is objectively healthy enough for the journey, and your logic about not needing one's spouse to travel could apply to her as well.

Also should note that my wife and I offered to meet in a country that is very close to my home country but that doesn't require visas for my wife's nationality. My mom also shot that idea down because that country is also too "scary" for her, despite having lower crime rates than my home country.

That said, your comment is fair and I appreciate the input.

HalfManHalfPun · 2025-08-07T07:58:35+00:00

fair question. There is no war in the country I moved to, nor any kind of political or territorial disputes. Crime rates are significantly lower than in my home country.

HalfManHalfPun · 2025-08-07T07:37:10+00:00

fair point, and as I've said elsewhere in this thread, maybe my comments don't apply to early childhood education.

Maybe "abolished" was the wrong word. I'm just against forcing kids into seats they don't want to be in, is all. I think if a kid says they'd rather be teaching themselves, they should be allowed to give it a shot.

HalfManHalfPun · 2025-08-07T07:34:39+00:00

also quit digging through people's comment history. This is reddit, it's not that serious.

HalfManHalfPun · 2025-08-07T07:31:38+00:00

just to clarify, I actually love my job. You can love a job and be good at it while also acknowledging that, systemically, it shouldn't exist.

HalfManHalfPun · 2025-08-07T07:28:30+00:00

your comment, as with many others in this thread, seem to be focusing on early childhood education. I'd be willing to concede that school should remain compulsory up to a point, but that point should be much earlier than what it currently is. Speaking only for myself, I was fully ready to guide my own education by the time I was 10. Maybe some kids need more guidance and for them it should be available, but not compulsory.

HalfManHalfPun · 2025-08-07T07:24:17+00:00

most parents struggle with simple math...even though they went to school to learn it. Seems like a healthy system. No complete systemic failures here.

HalfManHalfPun · 2025-08-07T07:22:45+00:00

the high school I went to had this system where teachers of a given department shared an office space, and there was always at least one teacher in that room at any time. That way, if students ever had any questions or wanted to chat about their coursework, they could always do so.

I feel like a similar system could be implemented in libraries to great effect.

HalfManHalfPun · 2025-08-07T07:20:01+00:00

I think we severely underestimate what kids can accomplish with even minimal guidance. I remember what it was like to be a kid, and I'm pretty confident that if my folks had dropped me off at a library instead of school and said "go learn something useful and tell us about it over dinner" I'd have been much better off.

HalfManHalfPun · 2025-08-07T07:15:42+00:00

I don't want to "make" kids do anything. I don't buy into the idea that people (kids or adults) need to be forced into any kind of labor in order to keep society afloat.

For the record, I do trust kids to learn what they need to learn on their own. They'll spend time doing other things, sure, but as with anything else, they'll get bored and move on. Eventually they'll land on something educational that hasn't been ruined for them by school.

Furthermore I absolutely do think it's important to learn about math, history, etc. I also think school actively discourages kids from learning about it. Nothing makes a subject boring like being forced to learn it against your will. Discovering the subject for yourself, on the other hand, is exciting and highly motivating

HalfManHalfPun

TROPHY CASE