Not exactly your bog-standard meadow grass

The vernacular name of Cynosurus cristatus is crested dog's-tail or kamäxing. It is an enjoyable-looking perennial grass. That's all. Photo credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cynosurus_cristatus_(kamgras_bloeiend).jpg#/media/File:Cynosurus_cristatus_(kamgras_bloeiend).jpg

[cynosurus]

Hi and welcome! Say hi if you'd like!

Lately I've been up to:

learning mandarin (but all Mandarin related posts, about learning and other things will hopefully be tagged mandarin) and posts with new Mandarin vocabulary items are tagged 生词

and watching a ton of videos of the fantastic douyin group 酱油白米饭 in the process

as well as some general lingusitic language nerding about English, Swedish and more

and for a change re-reading some Jane Austen books for the x:th time.

Some other tags I use:

The Mandarin started with me watching the untamed for the first time and having reactions. (I still have three episodes left that I'm gathering the emotional energy to watch!)

Some other the untamed reblogs etc under the general tag the untamed.

I collect stuff, often art, that makes my brain slow down for a moment under the calm tag.

Some terrible puns (not my own!) are reblogged under pun warning.

Somtimes I need to attend the socialist downton abbey watchers' emotional support group.

My brain frequently makes connections btwn other things and jane austen or jane eyre.

I love rabbits and collect some rabbit related stuff under the order name lagomorph.

Things related to my favourite plants grasses under the family name poaceae.

[hometoursandotherstuff]

[ectoimp]

[cameoappearance]

A small price to pay for mountains reflected in the eyes of a trailside pika

[swallowedabug]

AMINA in every episode (5/ ∞) ⟶ 1.03 Earth Natives

[argumate]

watching But I'm A Cheerleader and gotta say that even in the universe where conversion therapy worked I don't think it would work, as you can't eroticise heterosexuality to that degree without it becoming camp and that reads as gay, the only way to make homosexuality straight is to not care so much about it.

[argumate]

putting the camp in conversion camp, you could say.

[cynosurus]

My queer utopia might be Wind in the in the Willows.

Ratty and Mole is the nicest couple. They are so good to each other.

And they are good to their friends as well.

And they just go out on the river and mess about in boats and have small adventures.

But don't forget to bring along good food!

[spicypolls]

Do you feel your owl arousal in a place that is not your genitals?

Yes, on my face.

Yes, on my neck or throat.

Yes, on my chest or boobs.

Yes, on my ribs or upper stomach.

Yes, on my lower stomach or lower back.

Yes, on multiple of these at once.

Yes, on multiple of these (they vary).

Unsure

No, only on my genitals and adjacent organs.

No, I don't feel arousal at all.

I don't have body parts. (See Results)

Remaining time: 5 days 8 hours

[cuddle-figuring-out-herself]

Hoot hoot!

[spicypolls]

I want to be mad but this is an incredibly funny typo. My bad folks 😔

[official-kircheis]

@argumate

[argumate]

[cynosurus]

Sometimes you just want to raise the dead and let them wreck havoc a bit. While everyone around screams and faints.

[cynosurus]

Having read through the local pride program, I think there is too many stories centring the boring mundane hardships of being queer, and not enough stories centring the hardships of being reborn into the super straight trashy web novel you have been hate reading, or having to attend super boring summer school while there are cute persons around, or being caught up between family, love and moral obligations during the war for supremacy among warrior aristocracy clans.

[swaglexander-the-great]

Nie huaisang a little sus

[cynosurus]

Mandarin tone combination collections:

tone 1 - tone 4

I find it helpful to collect common words with a certain combination of tones, words that I've heard many times so I can easily hear them in my head, and then use them as a prototype to guide me in how to pronounce new words with the same tones.

And then I can add the new word to my mental collection and think that "it's pronounced tonally just like 说话", for example.

For two syllable words with tones 1-4:

说话 shuō huà

[cynosurus]

知道 zhī dào

音乐 yīn yuè

[cynosurus]

吃饭 chī fàn to eat

[cynosurus]

发现 fā xiàn to discover

[cynosurus]

for centuries it was believed that mice could reproduce without sax

me encountering the Californian (?) vowel shift in an audiobook

(since sax = scissors in Swedish I understood it as 'mice could reproduce without scissors' at first)

[nezuchuuko]

[cynosurus]

We Are Lady Parts 1.02 "Potential Future Spouse"

[cynosurus]

On the first day of pride month my little sairamina shipping post reached 200 notes :)

[cynosurus]

For a second I actually thought mutual railery meant switching.

That's what you get from not reading the classics enough...

[cynosurus]

Very interesting video language learning wise with a Russian guy living in China. His powers of expression in Mandarin are truly enviable I think, but like all the learners he also has some struggles with pronunciation and tones that are really interesting to study.

It makes me very curious about Russian phonology as well. For example, does Russian have a lot of reduction? That is, are vowels often pronounced in a less "clear" way in unstressed positions? To me it sounds like he is doing this in his Mandarin, with the usual caveat that I am just a struggling Mandarin learner myself.

[cynosurus]

Mandarin tone combination collections:

tone 1 - tone 4

I find it helpful to collect common words with a certain combination of tones, words that I've heard many times so I can easily hear them in my head, and then use them as a prototype to guide me in how to pronounce new words with the same tones.

And then I can add the new word to my mental collection and think that "it's pronounced tonally just like 说话", for example.

For two syllable words with tones 1-4:

说话 shuō huà

[cynosurus]

知道 zhī dào

音乐 yīn yuè

[cynosurus]

吃饭 chī fàn to eat

[cynosurus]

Mandarin tone combination collection: tone 1 - tone 2

Frequently heard prototypes to help me pronounce new words with the same tone combination.

For two syllable words with tones 1-2:

江澄 Jiāng Chéng