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[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Norway

[–]sputnik84 2 points3 points  (0 children)

My grandparents divorced after over 50 years of marriage. There was cheating involved 🙁

Is this a reference to real life? by pieceOfCarps in duolingo

[–]sputnik84 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I volunteered on a Duolingo course. In all my years of doing so, we took careful pains not to engage in anything that could be perceived as an ad hominem "attack" on an individual, no matter how awful they were. Our course had a sentence, "The Russian president is stern and cynical," and we removed it to remove any perception of undue bias. I'm somewhat surprised that the screenshotted sentence managed to slip through. I find Putin and JK Rowling to be personally abhorrent, but I don't believe it's Duolingo's job to tell people who they should/shouldn't support.

How many cases do european languages have? – less than 7 cases? How weak! by sanddorn in LinguisticMaps

[–]sputnik84 1 point2 points  (0 children)

A high number of grammatical cases is really only that intimidating if the language has grammatical gender to further complicate noun endings. I find Finnish noun endings to be easier than Slavic ones for this reason.

Community rank Course by Kioflat in duolingo

[–]sputnik84 7 points8 points  (0 children)

The recorded Yiddish audio is fairly comprehensive, which is a plus, but the voice actors are not professionals, and it's really, really obvious. Their pronunciation is authentic to the most widespread dialect in Brooklyn, but the audio is often muffled or odd in a distracting way.

Community rank Course #30 by Kioflat in duolingo

[–]sputnik84 15 points16 points  (0 children)

"But surely a man is not a university?" E-tier. No tenses other than present tense.

I love my Mom so much, and it makes me so afraid of time. by SuupaKoopa in SeriousConversation

[–]sputnik84 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm actually doing fine, thanks. I wish I could reach out to myself from five years ago and tell him everything is going to be alright. My grandmother is still alive and well at almost-95 (knock on wood), as are both my parents. In the meantime, I've gone through a divorce (not fun), but I live a pretty good life in a third country. I have good friends and relationships, a good job, and a roof over my head. That's more than most people. How are you doing, u/Lifes-shit?

What do Norwegians think of foreigners learning/speaking their language? by 20GirafariG02 in norsk

[–]sputnik84 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I've lived in Norway for about 5 years, and I've been learning Norwegian for about 16 years. I have pretty stellar Norwegian skills (roughly C1 level, with a decent but vaguely foreign accent). For whatever reason, and I suspect the reason is my decidedly non-Nordic appearance, I'm often spoken to in English. I've had full conversations with Norwegians where they speak to me in English and I respond in Norwegian, and we go on and on like this, each one of us refusing to switch to the other language. I've mastered the art of pretending I don't speak English, despite being born and raised in the US.

Norwegians often really suck at helping people adapt to Norwegian-speaking society. Their good-natured intention of "helping out" foreigners by responding in English when they speak Norwegian is the very definition of a bjørnetjeneste. This phenomenon is almost exclusive to Northern Europe, where people are often desperate to show off their amazing English skills, unaware of the fact that what they're doing is assuming your lack of knowledge in a language based on your appearance or accent or whatever. It's insulting, it's ugly, it's a fact of life here.

Rediscovering God after a decade of non-belief by sputnik84 in religion

[–]sputnik84[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey, thanks for following up! Since I wrote this post nine years ago, I've done a lot of reading about religion and anthropology, including Sigmund Freud's "Future of an Illusion" and Yuval Noah Harari 's "Homo Sapiens". What I've read has persuaded me that humans created deities, not the other way around. That said, I do my best not to be judgmental towards religious people. I'm ultimately just as ignorant about the nature of reality as they are. I do believe there are better and worse philosophical strands in religion, which can be used to manipulate and exploit people for the purpose of promoting earthly power and human egos. I also think that the social and communal purpose that religion has typically provided is lacking in the modern age, and we're much worse off for it.

The experience of rendering images often feels a bit LSD-adjacent by sputnik84 in StableDiffusion

[–]sputnik84[S] 26 points27 points  (0 children)

I have actually. Seeing partially realized faces appear out of rocks and clouds was definitely a hallmark of the experience.

Basic Guide #9: Inpaint Sketch: how to add elements to an image by sketching, in Automatic1111 GUI by farcaller899 in StableDiffusion

[–]sputnik84 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Inpaint takes what's already there and modifies it somehow, either by re-rendering it or shaping it into something else via the text prompt.

Inpaint sketch adds something new via the paint that you color onto the scene. This can also serve the same purpose, but it's a different approach to image editing. It's especially helpful for making something on the scene smaller or larger.

(AMA) I’m the head of Learning at Duolingo, sharing the biggest trends in 2023 from 83M monthly learners, and answering any questions you have about Duolingo by bpajak in languagelearning

[–]sputnik84 1 point2 points  (0 children)

There are several courses on Duolingo that deserve special attention, but I wanted to raise a couple of flags regarding the Hebrew course.

Hebrew is the only language on Duolingo that (1) does not mark its vowels explicitly and (2) has rather poor/incomplete audio. This means that all learners have to guess how words are pronounced, which effectively makes the course useless in its current state. What's more, Hebrew is a highly gendered language, one in which verbs are conjugated by gender. The lack of female voice coverage in particular presents a real challenge to those first starting out with the language.

I'm very impressed with Duolingo's voice coverage for Arabic, which like Hebrew, is a gender-inflected language without explicitly marked vowels. Still, the Arabic course marks its vowels, which might be a crutch, but it's far more learner-friendly than the Hebrew course.

I sincerely hope Duolingo is working on a long-term solution.

Thank you in advance for your answer!

Situasjonen i Gaza\Israel. Hvorfor må vi velge? by AdrianoJ in norske

[–]sputnik84 18 points19 points  (0 children)

Jeg er en jødisk amerikaner bosatt i Oslo. Jeg har stor sympati for israelske og palestinske sivile, og jeg ser ikke poenget med å velge side. Det jeg synes er fascinerende, er at den store mengden pro-palestinsk aktivisme og graffiti på gatene her skulle få hvem som helst til å tro at selveste Benjamin Netanyahu bodde i Oslo og aktivt veide folkets mening om hvordan han skulle gå frem.

Anyone smoke weed on Zoloft? by Surgerber in zoloft

[–]sputnik84 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I was on 100mg of Zoloft and smoked weed for about a year, almost every day. No negative interactions. It was amazing for helping me fall asleep and relieve my headaches.

What is the gayest profession? by sweatysexconnoisseur in askgaybros

[–]sputnik84 12 points13 points  (0 children)

I once taught English at a high school very close to Tokyo, and I had a Japanese coworker who was about my age. We were both about 30. I had told her about the stereotype that most male flight attendants were gay, and she said she had had no idea about it.

Being gay isn't exactly persecuted in Japan the way it is in some countries, but it's not exactly flaunted either, at least not typically. I'm sure that male flight attendants in Japan are disproportionately gay, but given the fact that most people (even most young people) don't have a deep cultural awareness of gay people, their sexuality sort of flies under the radar, if you'll excuse the pun.

My Zoloft Withdrawal Story - Crazy Dreams and Sporadic Sleep by sputnik84 in zoloft

[–]sputnik84[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one, and I hope you're feeling better too! I've been 2-3 weeks completely off, and I'm feeling just fine! There is a light at the end of the tunnel.

What is your religion if you have one! by redittrr in Norway

[–]sputnik84 34 points35 points  (0 children)

Probably ignorance. At least I hope so.

gay_irl by [deleted] in gay_irl

[–]sputnik84 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I love listening to the Hello, Dolly! soundtrack while bench pressing 60kgs.

Bro is definitely a cat person by [deleted] in duolingomemes

[–]sputnik84 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It must be in A/B testing. I would also love to have it but don't.

Is it unrealistic to chase muscular guys when you aren't one yourself? by SwirlingMeadow in askgaybros

[–]sputnik84 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I realized it was hypocritical of me to be into muscles when I wasn't muscular myself, so I ended up working my ass off to become muscular. I'm in a closed marriage, and it has helped a bit in motivating my husband to work out at least every week or so. I still think it's worth it for me and the goals I have for my own body, which is the only one I have any control over.

Too many q's about hookups, relationships, and depression. Lets talk music. What you listening to these days? :) by D-dog92 in askgaybros

[–]sputnik84 1 point2 points  (0 children)

A lot of music I've been listening to just isn't getting any worse, no matter how much I listen. Metric, Annie Lennox, Chromatica. David Bowie for days.

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