OriginalRen

Oh this? Just a broken pocket watch. Nothing else...

This seriously made me burst into laughter by the way. Thank you. My status update should reflect how this may or may not make me feel at the moment.

The community must know that solidbatman hates fun and VNs!

I hadn't shaved. Also, pink headphones are nothing to laugh about. They were the only ones I had.

Ikebukuro is quite nice. Lot of shopping to be done there (think malls and clothing stores). Ueno has some awesome parks and museums if you run through there on your way to Akihabara. In fact, I recommend taking the train to Ueno itself and walking to Akihabara so you can see some of the cool shops alongside and underneath the train tracks. Lot of nice food places, and it's only a 20 minute walk at most. Also, take the train to Ueno and connect to Asakusa. The old landmark shrine there is amazing, and the long walk to it has a bunch of small shops and food stands you can visit. When you get to the shrine you can see the Skytree, which I also recommend visiting. One of the stations connects directly underneath it so you can just climb the escalators to the top and visit the many interesting shops inside it. As for climbing it, its about 3,000 yen to go to the top floor, so that is up to you. Finally, hit up Shibuya. While it is on the other side of most of the other districts I mentioned, it has some awesome night clubs and an amazing nightlife there.

Another stream tonight? I'm kind of ashamed after showing off my tattoos...or embarrassed, I'm not sure which.

Little Buster's avatar group approves this comment.

Another night tonight? Dibs on Skype calls.

Spelling is hard.

I did mean astronomy, however I wanted to type astrophysics but had a brain fart and couldn't spell it so I gave up and wrote the wrong word lol.

Quoted for truth.

I really should finish up the routes I haven't done in Katawa Shoujo. I liked that OST.

You are no fun. You're supposed to laugh at that. Damnit you are a tough nut to crack. But, you do have a Mio avatar. I let it slide today sir.

Just use this intermission theme from one of my favorite movies during the sex scenes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hmDZz5pDOQ

I didn't even know that was in the TOS. Welp time to take down all the porn I stream.

It makes sense why you are in love with Kud. Perchance you are an astrologer or the like? Also, I love seeing your Canadian speech heh. Learnt. Man that bugs me. It's interesting you say that VNs and games contributed a lot to your English. The SMS used in forums would make me feel like people aren't understand the English as well, but this seems to counter that argument. Your example about the "used to" reminds me of how many questions I got like that when teaching Japanese students. English is a bitch.

Ironic considering you label your stream as NSFW and warn its inappropriate.

Under, in, over, I love singing naked by myself with water. True. Next person will play a VN after posting a response to this.

French phonetics is...challenging. I took a course in college on it, and I learned quite a lot from it (h-aspiré, le "e" caduc, etc.) which really made my french stand out for a non-native speaker. Still, a lot of that stuff I have forgotten so I don't even know anymore.

It's interesting you say that speaking is your favorite part about the language. Japanese, while I have been interested in it recently is not something I enjoy speaking. The tone and pitch of native speakers irritates me at times, and I find it very difficult to distinguish one person from another when they speak. You're one of the few people I know that thinks that way in terms of the cultural aspects. It does surprise me that your Spanish, which has that similar Arabic/Latin background isn't as strong as your English, considering you speak Portuguese. I'm a huge fan of working under pressure when it comes to learning a language, which is why I was able to study 5 languages simultaneously.

I'm a guy who loves languages. Having studied them throughout my high school and university career, there is never a time I won't be interested in speaking about them. To me, language is culture, a representation of all things that make a person unique. The way words are formed, the way a person speaks, the way someone acts, it's all thanks to language. Some language is spoken, some written, while even some comes from mere gestures and facial expressions. Now I am no philosophical ranter, so I won't bore you with origins and linguistic backgrounds, but the point of this thread is to discuss (in a way) languages and what they mean to everyone. My goal here is to share with the community my love of languages, and to understand the thought processes that go into learning languages for all of you. Being an English teacher, I am always interested to see how people study a language and what styles of learning are implemented in your everyday life. I love taking ideas from others and working off of them, because as a saying goes in the language teaching world, stealing is okay. More so this thread is simply a place for me to observe all of you and what sorts of stories you have from learning languages growing up, so please feel free to share! What were your classes like when learning a language? What kind of methods were used in the classroom for teaching? Did you listen and repeat, work in groups, or just study independently? All of this intrigues me, and I want to hear you stories. With that, I guess I'll start with my own background to get the ball rolling. The very first language I took was in junior high. We had a choice between studying French or Spanish. I took French simply due to the fact that all the prettier girls were in that class, but after I started to learn it I realized this was a path I wanted to pursue growing up. High school came, and I ended up taking another 4 years of French there. My high school years, while productive, weren't really that great. Classes were taught using a CLT approach and a lot of time was spent working in groups. Our tests consisted of a listening section, reading and grammar comprehension questions, and a written section with essays. In addition, we also had oral exams that popped up every so often. While I think it was good practice utilizing all 4 core skills (reading, writing, listening, speaking), I can't really say I remember much from my high school years. When I got into my university, I pursued French further by backtracking 2 semesters and getting back into the language. I never used it over the summer too often being in the states, so I thought it would be a good idea to get some review under my belt. After 6 years of study, I finally decided to pursue the major for French language studies. Most of the classes after the language learning involved advanced grammar and literature classes. The literature I took involved medieval and contemporary studies. I also dove into older works from the 18th century and even took a course on the Maghreb with French African literature studies. At the end of my studies (another 3 years worth), I completed a French senior project, which entailed an 18-page essay about any topic of our choice. Around the same time, I had started to learn Italian simply due to the fact that after playing an online video game, I met someone speaking the language and thought it looked cool. I took Italian for a total of 5 years in my college career, and even studied abroad in Florence my first year into the school for 3 months. This experience shaped me as a language lover, and I am proud I ended up doing it. Classes were formatted much the same as the French department worked and in the end, I pursued an Italian language studies major in addition to my French studies and ultimately wrote another 18-page essay in Italian for a 2nd senior project. During my time at the university I also studied Latin for 2 years. I never involved myself in the 4th semester work regarding prose and poetry with Virgil, but I did study and read Caesar and Cicero. Latin was one of the best decisions of my life. It had nothing to do with my majors, yet it shaped me as a language expert and helped me understand grammar to its fullest. "Case" never existed in English, French, or Italian, yet German and Latin (Latin much more so) showed many signs of it. The grammatical concepts I learned from those 2 years helped me appreciate the intricate details regarding language studies, and for that I am thankful. But my god, is Latin rough. After studying it for a year I dove into Ancient Greek, and in some ways that was very similar and was proud I had done that as well. Not only did I learn another language, but I also got to study a new alphabet! After those languages, I also ended up studying German for a year and was very happy, considering my family origin is from Germany itself. Overall, I am happy I took so many languages in my college career. While it was challenging keeping them all straight at times, I felt it was worth it in the end. Heck, there was a semester where I was taking French, Italian (both literature courses), German, Latin, and Greek all at the same time. My brain was overloaded, but I was happy because it really was a pleasure to learn all them at the same time. Studying languages, it made me realize just how hard English is to a lot of people not born with it, and for that reason it helped shape me as an English teacher moving forward. But that's enough about me I guess, I ranted a lot longer than I had hoped. Please feel free to share you experiences from learning languages growing up, be it English or another. Or just simply share a thought or two.

Nope, but I hate strawberries. Next person enjoys blogging.

Finally finished the final routes in Memoria.

False, I prefer yellow roses. Next person enjoys reading Sherlock Holmes' mysteries.

If I could make 5. It's okay though, we use the magic baseball conch to call our members.