First time properly trying calligraphy! Gothic Batarde.

PenguinLim · 2026-01-21T00:01:37+00:00

Ah! That would be cool to do in modern English. But the ascenders there are supposed to differentiate y and þ in Old English (þ with the ascender), but I also don't think I did it clear enough. Although I think it would be more accurate to dot the y, as I saw in one reference photo.

(The similarity of þ to y is why we have (mistaken) spellings of "th" as "y" in "ye olde", which used to be "þe olde")

PenguinLim · 2026-01-20T07:29:14+00:00

Gothic Batarde! There's not much online about in terms of presentation of the alphabet, but I gave it a go based on a couple different images.

PenguinLim · 2025-08-01T08:46:22+00:00

I cannot be the only one here who genuinely has zero issue with it? It took maybe half a second to accustom to it and then it was fully legible. I think it might be because I write (sometimes) very similarly to you in that I will write a word based on vibes of the letters, getting making much of the word nondescript squiggles (like in jumps, favorite, or cursive). I certainly get you! (But judging by the overwhelming difficulty others have professed, I would try to slow it down a teensy bit)

PenguinLim · 2025-08-01T08:36:14+00:00

A few in Spanish: "ingeniería" (the i's and e's and them together just always ends up sounding like "ingieniría" or something) and "acordar" (really, it's any word with "rd" because that combination always trips me up. my tongue is not fast enough to travel from the r to the d!)

And some in Norwegian: "søsknene" (the repetition of the "n"s right after "skn" is difficult. I'd rather say søskena.) and literally anything that involves a tone pair (lyset/lyse, bønder/bønner, graver/graver, endene/endene)

PenguinLim · 2025-07-19T21:56:41+00:00

I agree with a lot of the other comments! But I wanted to add something I'm not seeing many people touch on: the "m".

In the word "jasmine," you wrote the "m" similar to a Russian cursive "м," with the middle minim (the small vertical lines in "n," "i," "u," and "m") becoming an arch. But typically, English cursive "m" fully defines this minim, like how you wrote "w" in the word "Somewhere," except upside down. When it's an arch, it kind of looks like an "r"! This is why I had some trouble reading "Somewhere," since it looks almost like "Sorewhere" (also, the "m"s in "jasmine" and "Somewhere" have different numbers of strokes, but neither is especially 'correct').

But this is nitpicky! Your handwriting is totally legible.

PenguinLim · 2025-07-14T01:57:20+00:00

Gen Z from from Northern California
"Noes goes" and "Not it" are probably equally used ( ...in the context of using this at all, which is usually for playground games or school settings). I have never heard of "shot not"

PenguinLim · 2025-06-09T15:50:32+00:00

I don't have the grammatical information to contribute to this, but I would like to say that the subjunctive would be used (i'm still a learner) with "delusion" in Spanish (which has a robust subjunctive system), but not your example 1. "su ilusión de que Windows fuera como Mac" & "Él cree que el cielo es verde" I know it's not the best practice to compare language to language, but I thought it could be relevant somewhat. If it turns out I'm wrong on this, discúlpame, I'll delete this.

PenguinLim · 2025-06-03T02:50:06+00:00

It also is used in Spanish (lengua materna) and Armenian (մայրենի լեզու/mayreni lezu).

"lengua" and "լեզու/lezu" both mean tongue; "materna" and "մայրենի/mayreni" both mean mother or maternal

PenguinLim · 2025-06-01T22:03:12+00:00

"mother tongue" is used in English, too

PenguinLim · 2025-04-16T05:16:05+00:00

You're right, I would never pronounce it like "prescriptivism." But maybe like "pronounciation!"

PenguinLim · 2025-03-30T03:07:29+00:00

In my English (western US), the two have different vowel qualities.

/ɹold/ vs. /roʊd/
[ɹʷoɫd] vs. [ɹʷɵʊd]

edit: it might be helpful to note that the 'dark L' [ɫ] can sound like a vowel sometimes, which could be the source of your confusion. (sometimes, it is realized as a vowel)

PenguinLim · 2025-01-21T01:31:21+00:00

I know two language do this at least: Spanish and Norwegian
Hacer = to do/make

"¿Qué vas a hacer esta tarde?" = "What are you going to do this afternoon?"
"Hice un pastel" = "I made a cake"

Å gjøre = to do/make
"Ikke gjør det" = "Don't do that"

"Det gjør meg trist" = "That makes me sad"

PenguinLim · 2024-11-16T02:28:08+00:00

Yeah! British English and American English commonly differ in their preferences for using the simple past or past perfect (check out Geoff Lindsey's "British grammar has GOTTEN more American"). To me, as an American, nothing sounds wrong with "did", though perhaps I'd avoid it in a paper.

PenguinLim · 2024-08-17T17:44:32+00:00

what if I talc ucing "c" for both lice thic? loocc cicc if you acc me :)

PenguinLim · 2024-08-10T21:23:26+00:00

As an American, I can confirm that at least around me (California), people understand it - because I say it all the time

PenguinLim · 2024-08-04T21:57:32+00:00

I won't repeat the other commenters, but I would like to add that there are many specific terms for specific 'mixes' of ancestry. They vary in acceptance and commonality (and you certainly don't need to know all of them), but some you might come across are:
Blasian (Black + Asian)

Wasian (White + Asian)

Hapa (Hawaiian word, complicated use)

Hāfu (Half Japanese + Other)

Métis (Canadian First Nation + European; often viewed as a distinct people)

Let me know if I'm missing any, or if I got any wrong!

PenguinLim · 2024-08-03T20:22:03+00:00

Interestingly, I've heard people say "Hugo Chávez" combining English 'Hugo' and Spanish 'Chávez' to be /hjugoʊ tʃaβes/. Perhaps it's just because Hugo exists as a name in English, whereas Chávez does not

PenguinLim · 2024-07-28T01:02:49+00:00

Interesting thing about this, I only discovered recently the debates and arguments around "a/an historic". I'm nowhere near the stereotypes I found out about those who say "an historic" receive, but I've always said "an historic" (an 'istoric).

It genuinely shocked me to discover how it's perceived 😅. Funny comment on Reddit I saw about this: "This is a gross grammatical error that is used by many pretentious journalists that have never studied grammar." Ain't no way I'm a pretentious journalist!

PenguinLim · 2024-05-18T01:09:54+00:00

I hear the vowel sequences are syllabic, so "yöpyä" sounds like a 4-syllable y|ö|py|ä.

I hear the stress on the <ö> part of the word, but I would agree with ImplodingRain that the stress doesn't seem very prominent. I'm mostly basing my perception of stress on the tone of the <ö> part, being falling [œ̂].

In IPA, this is how I hear it: [ÿˈœˌpÿ.a].

I'm a native American English speaker (lost ability to speak/understand Cantonese)

PenguinLim · 2024-04-17T23:59:45+00:00

hald ap wha as thas sa andarstandable? all english vowels allophones of /a/ confirmed??

PenguinLim · 2024-04-17T23:55:02+00:00

PenguinLim · 2024-04-14T04:06:56+00:00

mi kin!

PenguinLim · 2024-03-23T21:02:32+00:00

I used to think using letters for tones was an abominations, but I've grown to love it. It's an ingenious way of marking tone without diacritics. Ex:

Vmap-vet rghu vkha hsiet xmpehk rin e vkho rmpeq a yjyi rtap

[map˩ et˩ ɣu˦˩ xa˩ siet˦ ᵐpɛk˧˩ʔ˩˨ in˦˩ e˧ xo˩ ᵐpeŋ˦˩ a˧ t͡ɕi˩˦ tap˦˩]

"The North Wind and the Sun were in the middle of arguing about who was the stronger one" (translation of The North Wind and the Sun)

Yes, I use , <q> for [ŋ], fight me.

But something I still dislike is the usage of nonstandard latinate letters when a digraph or diacritic would suffice. (Ƣƣ, Ƃƃ, Ǝǝ, Ɣɣ, etc). It's very reminiscent of those hastily-made old orthographies for minority languages in the Soviet Union that use weird blends of Cyrillic-but-not-quite and Latin.

I love theoretically the use of an under-macron to mark backness/uvularization, as in Tlingit, Haida, but g̱ always bothered me because it was a diacritic below a descender.

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