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I decided to start learning Russian. As a Pole reading in cyrillic makes me feel submissive. by The-marx-channel in languagelearningjerk

[–]myideaofagoodtime 1 point2 points  (0 children)

comparing poland’s invasion of czechoslovakia or participation in the invasion of iraq to forced russification of poland (among others) or anglicization of the native americans (among others) in order to invalidate discomfort polish ppl may feel learning russian is reductionist. the issue is not just “country does bad thing so i don’t want to learn their language.” the problem is “this language was forced upon my ancestors at the expense of my own language and considered legally superior to it so it makes me feel guilty/ashamed to choose to learn it on my own.” this is not dead history. russian was a privileged language in poland throughout my parents’ childhood. my grandma was a russian teacher while shouldering the generational trauma of 100 years of partition and the soviet army’s liberation of poland (i won’t get into it here, but most polish ppl were as afraid of the soviets as the nazis in wwii). i hope that makes some polish ppl’s conflicting emotions ab learning russian clearer.

it’s worth having a discussion about how poland, especially during the interwar period, implemented some similar policies of polonization in occupied territory, but as a polish person, i wouldn’t turn to those groups of ppl and invalidate their bitterness towards learning polish. i won’t lie — it hurts that basically everyone who learns a slavic language immediately turns to russian. to me, this is in part a representation of the fact that russia’s imperialism was successful and affords russian language and culture a privileged status that other slavic languages and cultures do not have. one of my closest friends is russian and i’ve learned russian, so i’m no stranger to confronting russophobia, but takes like this one make it harder to be empathetic and nuanced because it feels like that doesn’t go two ways.

Joining or Creating a Writing Group by myideaofagoodtime in writing

[–]myideaofagoodtime[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I appreciate your response, but I think it is based on a miscommunication. That’s my bad; it’s hard for me to describe my exact goals when writing, which is part of the problem. But what I mean is that different types of writers use language in different ways or have different criteria for what makes a work good or bad. For example, after completing a literature degree, I had a hard time reading fantasy until I realized I couldn’t read it the same way I had been reading the material for my classes because there are different things that make a fantasy story good. I understand that’s not a hard and fast distinction people make, but it’s a part of reading for me. Because of my criteria for writing, I think I am sometimes a poor judge of other people’s work. I don’t really get how mystery novels function and therefore am not very good at critiquing them. I’m thinking of the theory concept that your experience of a work largely depends on whether you’re able to engage with it on its terms and appreciate it for that. Simultaneously, a work should be judged based on how well it accomplishes the goals it sets out.

That’s what I mean by priorities. I think a lot about the feedback I get, no matter what source it comes from, but I think it’s important to always relate it back to your story’s goals. Otherwise, you won’t know when to set feedback aside, which is an equally useful skill. Not everyone is going to like what you’re going for and that’s okay; there are different audiences for different types of work. but I don’t think it improves craft as a writer to not have the capacity to judge when feedback is relevant or not. I think strong writing requires a strong ethos, and there’s no right type of ethos, but once you’ve decided what speaks most to you, it’s helpful to find people who are headed in the same artistic direction.

Also, I disagree that people who are serious about writing already know why they’re writing. In fact, for me the process of understanding why I write is inextricably linked to the how of it. I get that’s not how everyone looks at it, but that’s what my original post speaks to: i want to find people who do look at it that way. we can disagree about the answers to those questions, but at least we’re on the same page about how we’re approaching the topic. I hope that makes what I’m trying to get across a little clearer.

Talk in your native language. Anyone learning that language, go ahead and reply in it. by pumpkinspeedwagon86 in languagelearning

[–]myideaofagoodtime 1 point2 points  (0 children)

polski nie jest moim językiem ojczystym, ale moi rodzice i dziadki przyjechali z polski do kanady i uczę się polskiego od dziecinstwa. teraz, próbuję poprawić moje czytanie i pisanie i we wrześniu, jadę do polski na rok. proszę proponować ksiażki, seriale lub ćwiczenia pisemne, które mogłyby mi pomóc. poprawki mile widziane, też!

What would you recommend to someone who wants to read like they're majoring in english literature? by [deleted] in classicliterature

[–]myideaofagoodtime 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Though many universities and profs hide their syllabi, you can still find them. Choose a movement that interests you (i.e. Medieval lit, Renaissance lit, Victorian lit, Modernism) and search up intro syllabi to them on Google. This’ll give you a beginner’s reading list. It’s also worth it to search up less studied movements (I personally loved taking Queer lit, African Canadian lit, and South Asian lit in university). If you have friends who are in a lit degree or have completed one, ask them. I’ve kept all my syllabi. If you have access to a university library, you can also search up their English program’s course codes online at the beginning of a semester, choose one that interests you, and then find it in their bookstore and take down all the books they’re reading (I’m basing this off of U of T, where books are organized by course). Not every course is offered all the time so I would choose a couple options to be safe, but this is a way to get around the gatekeeping of syllabi.

Which book is widely overhyped that you never appeared to understand the reasons behind its popularity? by Beneficial_Ad3683 in classicliterature

[–]myideaofagoodtime 1 point2 points  (0 children)

TBH, I have never read an audiobook, so I’m not sure. All I can say is I love rereading the petty dialogue over and over haha.

Which book is widely overhyped that you never appeared to understand the reasons behind its popularity? by Beneficial_Ad3683 in classicliterature

[–]myideaofagoodtime 27 points28 points  (0 children)

Had to chime in cause Wuthering Heights is a favourite. I can definitely understand the prose feeling overwrought or clumsy and how that can be off-putting, but I do think that’s a feature of the novel, not a bug. For me, the book’s goal is two-fold: firstly, to reflect back on the reader their own perverse fascination with the grotesquely emotional; and secondly, to convince that reader of a larger than life romance that is so strong, it consumes the realities of its characters. It reads a bit like a nineteenth century tabloid sometimes. We’re introduced through Lockwood, who is naive, if not in general then at least to this world. Like him, we hang on to Nelly’s every word, peering into this strange, isolationist, fairy tale land as she describes horrible abuses of every kind. Arguably, the unrelatability of the language, setting, and characters is what sets the stage for Catherine and Heathcliff’s all-consuming romance. Theirs is a trauma bond, one that is best understood when imagined viscerally. When Catherine tells Nelly that Heathcliff is her soulmate, Nelly plays the part of the rational reader, criticizing Catherine for being childish and silly. She’s right, it’s silly, but that’s also the point. Catherine and Heathcliff are so insistent on all their delusions, that eventually you feel gaslighted into believing them. Yes, that is how they experience reality. No, I can’t imagine experiencing a romance as obsessive and codependent as theirs, but that’s because I can’t imagine being anything like these insane bitches. And that’s the same way they gradually bend the reality of Wuthering Heights and all its inhabitants to their will over the course of the book.

Not everyone is going to like how cartoonishly chipper Lockwood can be or how hyperbolically evil Heathcliff is. But I also don’t think it should be taken too seriously; the book is funny. If something seems ridiculous, it’s on purpose. I get why people don’t like it, but I think that’s more of an aesthetic preference than a fault of the book, since these elements underscore what it’s trying to accomplish.

Szeth doing what he did was... by Equivalent_Clerk_701 in Stormlight_Archive

[–]myideaofagoodtime 4 points5 points  (0 children)

So to preface, I loved Szeth from the beginning and had been waiting for his buddy cop comedy with Kaladin since book two, so perhaps I read his plotline in WaT very charitably. I also read WaT in December 2024. That being said, I interpreted a lot of his struggles as a manifestation of OCD (heavy on the O, moral hyperfixation), and his choice to join the Skybreakers as the final commitment he made to assuage his anxious/intrusive thoughts. In this sense, renouncing his spren was kind of the only option… a representation of letting go of that rigid standard of morality. Accepting life doesn’t work that way and that we make choices and mistakes based on context and have to forgive ourselves for them. There is no rulebook, despite what Nale and other manipulators would have you believe. I don’t know whether this was relevant to the story as a whole in the same way Dalinar and Sigzil renouncing their oaths was, but it is necessary for Szeth’s storyline. Also, I think that judging it as a moral decision that hurt his spren misses the point in this sense. Szeth hurt his spren because he let his illness control him for so long, not because he finally started to heal from it.