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I post about what I like: - crafting & repair -plants & wildlife (especially those from my home region), -languages (especially 한국어 & languages of the Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island) - other stuff (kdrama, grad school, politics, shitposts, etc). I'm an adult white Canadian who is doing their best. I follow people who post long haired black tabbies like my profile pic (my kitty, 호랑). Pronoun experimental playground.

[justhereforthepies]

I have 2 side blogs:

1. Hangukndrama : for kdrama content primarily. Also some music & langblr content. I only tag my original posts. I sometimes post spoilers close to air dates (I start posting immediately after I watch)

2. Thingsivebeenblazed : I reblog every blazed post I see. I plan to do a research project or compile some stats about this eventually. But if you want to see what people have been blazing, give it a scroll.

[moetxt]

i tried making a contrapuntal poem for hollanov, which can be read 3 ways: shane’s side alone, ilya’s side alone, or both sides together. inspired by the long game.

[luulapants]

The Tennis Club - Chapter 10: Price

Hollanov, Shane/Others, Ilya/Others, Scott Hunter/Many, Ryan Price/Many | Explicit | secret gay hockey player network AU, feat. my army of hockey OCs

Chapter preview:

A cardboard box rounded the corner, Rozanov peeking over the top of it. He deposited it on the kitchen island. "Special delivery," he said, "from Casey."

His heart leapt, already hoping—assuming, even. He'd sent them. Ryan's things. Of course he had.

"Thank you," he murmured, abandoning the spice rack. He opened the box, peeked inside, and felt something settle inside himself for the first time since he'd gotten on the plane in Pittsburgh. It wasn't all that much, and it was more than he needed. Makeup and nail polish. A pair of high-heeled ankle boots enormous enough for his big feet. Two dresses, a simple gold chain necklace, a padded bra and a white lace thong.

Roz was watching him, his lower lip caught between his teeth. "And..." he said, then retrieved a small, lumpy bundle from the pocket of his sweats, clumsily wrapped in yellow-and-white paper that said, Happy Birthday!

"My birthday is in August," Ryan told him.

Rolling his eyes, Roz shook the package at him. "I know, this is just only paper I have."

He took the package in both hands, feeling the soft give of it. He opened his mouth.

"I know, I know," Roz whined, "I did not have to give it. I want to. Now open."

So he opened, the paper parting to reveal silky-smooth lilac nylons and a matching satiny garter belt.

Ryan's breath caught as he pinched the delicate fabric between his fingers.

"Casey said you needed stockings," Roz said, shifting from foot to foot, hugging his elbows.

He almost corrected him, almost insisted that, no, this was not a need, but that would have been rude, maybe ungrateful, so Ryan just nodded and said, "They're really nice."

"I think they are right size. And style? There were some that went around the waist, but they looked less sexy, you know?" Ryan realized, suddenly, that Roz was nervous. Babbling. "But these ones that stop on the thigh, they need the belt."

"I could try them on," Ryan offered, "if you want to see?" It still felt surreal to him, the idea that someone might actually want to see him in lingerie.

Roz nodded quickly. "Yes. Yes, if you want to."

With coding and art by the bodaciously brilliant @mock-speed

[shithowdy]

from a certain standpoint birdwatching is a sort of gacha

[shithowdy]

-reliant on RNG random encounters

-instills a deep sense of fomo

-seasonally-cycled releases

-becomes increasingly financially prohibitive the more you want to expand your list and/or document your encounters

-achieved goals sound meaningless to those not in the hobby

[shithowdy]

never give up!

[loveswirl]

please witness its power

[balaclava-trismegistus]

[Getting so angry it makes my brain disease worse] people sre supposed to be nice..

[callmesinster]

A Russian Perspective on How Non-Russians View Ilya Rozanov: Ilya’s English proficiency

Hi! I’m a Russian covering Russian moments in the Heated Rivalry fandom. First, thank you for your sweet reaction to my previous posts on pet names in Russian and Ilya being touchy-feely! I didn’t expected my posts getting more than 10 likes in total, so the numbers feel strange now.

Today, I wanna cover Ilya’s English proficiency, and I’m gonna tell you what mistakes would be natural for him as a Russian native speaker. As usual, don’t be mean to fic writers in the fandom and don’t use my post for that purpose  The post is (heavily) linguistic loaded.

Is big? Is okay

The books, the show, and lots of fics demonstrate how Ilya always omits a pronoun in sentences with a structure pronoun + verb + adjective/adverb (or noun)

Is big?

Is okay.

Is not a big deal

My American friend told me “it’s a common English-speakers’ perception of foreign speech production,” and “whether it’s a baby talking, or a caveman, or a foreigner, an English-speaker would might be more tempted to omit the pronoun to mimic broken speech.”

That makes sense, as we have our own way to imitate broken Russian but I guess it also doesn’t represent real mistakes non-native speakers of Russian would make.

So, what’s a problem with is big?

Ilya would likely omit a verb in such sentences due to the influence of his mother tongue. Look at the examples:

It is good — Это хорошо (eto khorosho) — it good 

I am busy — Я занят (ya zanyat, a man saying this) — I busy

You are pretty — Ты красивый (ty krasivyi: addressed to a man) — you pretty*

Did you notice the pattern? We don’t need any verbs in such sentences in the present tense.

However, if we move to the past or future tenses, the situation is different.

It was good — Eto bylo khorosho — it was good

I’ll be busy — Ya budu zanyat — I’ll be busy

So, we have the whole set here. However…

In the past or future tenses, it’s common to omit pronouns, especially when it’s clear from the context what we’re talking about (like, you asked me in Russian how I found the food, and I reply “was good,” cause we both know we’re talking about the food).

How could you implement it to you story, if you’re a fic writer?

It would be more natural if you turn “is big” to “it big,” and let Ilya omit pronouns in such sentences only in the past or future tenses. Or, you still keep “is big” but don’t overuse it. Like, he can say one sentence with no mistakes, then he would omit the verb and say “it big,” then “is big” would suddenly appear.

Also, keep in mind that sentences like “it is big” are not the most complicated thing for foreigners. Yeah, Ilya is a hockey player, not a professor of linguistics, but he can figure out what is wrong.

Don’t forget about the timeline either. A rookie, who was just drafted and didn’t pay attention to the English classes, can make lots of mistakes. But if your Ilya has been living in the U.S. or Canada for 5 or more years, then he would unlikely make mistakes in simple sentences.

2. Articles 

Well, this is simple. The Russian language has zero articles. We don’t even have any analogues for them. Everybody makes mistakes regardless of their proficiency, I think only Russian-English bilinguals, born and raised in a English-speaking country, would be safe.

However, some nuances.

If your Ilya is a rookie or has been living in the U.S. or Canada less than 2-3 years, then the recipe is simple.

You write his lines in English and use zero articles. He has other things to do instead of thinking about articles.

If he has been around for a while, then you can start introducing articles in fixed expressions: a lot of, once upon a while, the biggest, the greatest (superlatives) and so on. We usually learn fixed expressions or collocations as a whole phrase. Also, you can mix it in his lines. In one sentence, he uses articles correctly but then immediately makes a mistake.

If Ilya has been living in the U.S. or Canada for 15-20 years, you can reduce the mistakes with articles and keep only a few. However, you can 100% keep mistakes with geographical or proper nouns (it’s a nightmare). 

Some people may argue and say they know a Russian-speaking person who is still a beginner in terms of language proficiency even after 30 years of living in a different country. Yeah, that happens when people don’t integrate and stay in the familiar environment: they work for a Russian-speaking boss and have Russian-speaking colleagues, consume content in Russian and talk to Russian-speaking people only. If you stay true to the canon and don’t change Ilya’s profession, then he would spend most of his time using English. Even if his team has other Russian players or Russian-speaking staff, everything would be in English. Also, majority of hockey guys are still native English speakers. Finally, Shane Hollander. Dating a native speaker does miracles to your language proficiency :)

3. Tenses 

Russian has only three tenses: past, present, future. All nuances within the tenses are shown with time markers, (usually) not with grammar. Examples:

I do it every day — Я делаю это каждый день (Ya delayu eto kazhdyi den’)

I am doing it right now — Я делаю это прямо сейчас (Ya delayu eto pryamo seichas)

I just have done it — Я сделал это только что (Ya sdelal eto tol’ko chto)

I did it yesterday — Я сделал это вчера (Ya sdelal eto vchera)

You’ve probably noticed that verbs didn’t change in the examples like they did in English (and that’s why the tenses are the second most hated thing in English for Russians after articles).

How to use it?

Just keep all the simples: present simple, past simple and future simple. For example:

“I listen to Russian rap when I work out.” 

“I listen to music right now. So, Marly, shut up and fuck off.”

He wouldn’t intuitively use “I’m listening to music” in the second sentence.

However, don’t forget the timeline and the main rule: the more years in the U.S. or Canada, the less mistakes.

4. I don’t, you don’t, he don’t, we all don’t

Do/does can be a tricky thing for Ilya, and he can sometimes say something like “he don’t know what to do,” “he do it every day,” or “they doesn’t look nice”. 5. Word order

The word order in Russian is way more flexible than in English, so you can play with words a bit and put them in unpredictable places. Also, look at the questions.

You did this — Ты сделал это (Ty sdelal eto)

Did you do this? — Ты сделал это? (Ty sdelal eto?)

See, nothing happens when we ask questions in Russian, we only change the intonation. A nice touch to your story, when Ilya keeps the same word order when asking questions (but not every single time).

6. Prepositions

You say in on Instagram, we say in Instagram.

You’re waiting for a bus, we’re just waiting bus.

You depend on something, we depend from something.

This is just FYI though, such mistakes are really difficult to imitate accurately, if you’re not bilingual Russian-English speaker.

7. Accent, intonation, tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon 

Let’s move from grammar to other things.

The accent doesn’t disappear completely but softens over time (unless a person stays in the Russian-speaking environment). So, if your Ilya has been living abroad for many years, don’t emphasize his “thick accent” in every paragraph. He obviously has it but the accent has transformed over the years. 

Moreover, at some point Ilya can develop the accent in his first language, using English intonations when speaking Russian. It doesn’t happen to everyone though. Alexander Ovechkin still speaks clear Russian, not really influenced by English. Andrei Svechnikov from Carolina Hurricanes speaks Russian like a guy who moved to the U.S. as a teenager (which is actually what he did), his intonation and speech manners now combine both Russian and English elements (here he is btw). 

Ilya would definitely forget some words in Russian and substitute them with English words (are you still with me or did you get distracted by something else?). It could be a fun and really accurate scene, when he and Svetlana are both struggling with it and try to help each other recall words in Russian. Well, if you’re bilingual and live in a different language environment, you’ll get it. It happens to all of us. Or, Alexei could call him and notice it and then blame Ilya for forgetting his language, his family, his country and so on.

P.S.

Yeah, Connor did an amazing job with the accent.. *I specified in the examples they were about men. In Russian, word forms depend on a grammatical gender or whether we talk about men or women.

[unfamiliarsculptures]

This leopard sculpture is obvara fired! This technique involves dipping a hot piece right out of the kiln into a yeast solution, creating unpredictable and unique patterns. This sculpture will be available this Friday, June 12th at 8pm Eastern time.

[kvotheunkvothe]

the coy Snuggle Bug promises NOT to attack any stray feetsies but he is Not To Be Trusted

[kvotheunkvothe]

gentle merchant, do you have naught to sell but your claws?

[bobbole]

Masao Maeda, Black Cat

[axolotluv]

Please give us your data 🥺🥺🥺🥺 For the children 😢‼️ all of your legal information 🙏🙏 yes 🥺 your home address? 🥺 Your government issued ID 😢❓social security number and credit card details 🤗 immigration status ❓ racial religious and gender identity 😁😢😢😢⁉️ please 🥺 did you get an abortion this year 🥺 please give us your personal information 🥺🥺🥺🥺 for the children‼️‼️

[claypigeonpottery]

sold

some dark, watercolour-ish cave art style horses.

and the gorgeous mix of glazes inside

[nemfrog]

"Black cat before the attack." Martin Munkácsi. Arts et métiers graphiques. January 1, 1931.

Gallica

[terefah]

a blessing for transitioning genders, rabbi elliot kukla

[nbandtransmascblogging]

[closetactivist]

Check out this article in the Forward on the emergence of transgender rabbis in America, including links to profile pieces on Rabbis Elliot Kukla, Reuben Zellman, and Emily Aviva Kapor:

https://forward.com/news/180303/first-generation-of-transgender-rabbis-claims-plac/

[werewolf-transgenderism]

hashtag my butch lesbian shane #mybutchlesbianshane (once again referencing a pose from theeeee poulin/stacey lstw shoot)

[justhereforthepies]

Seeing @luulapants & others talking about issues with Ilya's representation as a second language speaker in fics made me want to list out some patterns of "Ilya speak" and how they do and don't align with real second language speakers of Russian.

My credentials: 2 graduate degrees researching multilingualism & second language phonology. Plus copyediting a book written by a first language speaker of Russian & Ukrainian after being her coworker for a decade <3

1. Pronoun drop: e.g. "is good". It is common with second language speakers, but I'm gonna support Luula's analysis of this as based on a mis-hearing of 'It's good' in a Russian accent - Russian has palatalized stops and the frication makes listeners reclassify them as fricatives. t^j -> s

2. Article issues: most common error, even amongst very fluent speakers. Includes mixing up indefinite (a/an) and definite (the) articles, dropping articles (e.g. 'I was going to store'), and hypercorrection (inserting unnecessary articles, e.g., 'I am going to the home').

3. Copula deletion: Russian has a null copula (when you can replace 'to be' with an =, that's the copula) so copula drop can happen in English (e.g., "I a teacher"). This one is drilled really hard for Russian learners so it doesn't come up as often as you would think. I can't think of canon examples of Ilya doing this.

4. Unfamiliarity with vocab: non-Russian fic writers - try checking a Russian/English dictionary because there are lots of English loanwords in Russian (or other Latinate loans) that share a common root. Luula's anon brought this up, but as an example, 'autism' in Russian is 'аутизм' and is basically pronounced the same - they are cognates. Ilya would have a very good guess of what this word means, along with other loanwords.

In my experience, idioms are some of the hardest/last vocab items to grasp because the words are common (so English speakers don't expect there to be a problem) but the meaning is non-obvious. Lots of English speakers won't even say the whole idiom, just expect people to understand from a partial recital. E.g. "When you assume..." ; "the best laid plans..." ; "speak of the devil" ; "when in Rome" etc.

5. Word order: English is pretty strict about word order, Russian has more free order (supported by their very robust case system + grammatical gender). This mostly comes up with subordinate clause order. For one example, I've noticed that English writers tend to put clarifying phrases before, Russian speakers after. (E.g., a Russian speaker might have written the previous sentence with 'as one example' at the end). These re-phrasings aren't necessarily ungrammatical in English, but they may come off as confusing (for very complex sentences) or the overall pattern across multiple sentences comes off as unnatural.

6. Question tags: fanfic writers love to give Ilya simple question tags as a vocab quirk (e.g. 'it's special, no?' ; 'You like this, yes?'. I haven't memorably experienced this from the Russian first language speakers I know, but Russian does have question tags like this (e.g., I understand that так is used pretty similarly to Canadian English 'eh?')

7. W vs V: I definitely exit out of fics if they give Ilya a use of "w" like Chekov from Star Trek. This is made up & fake.

8. Avoiding Do / Don't: English is weird about the verb 'to do' and lots of the time you can leave it out (even if native speakers would use it). Using question tags for yes/no questions is one way of avoiding constructions with 'do', another is using the target verb rather than replacing with do. E.g. 'Do you like to row?' An English native might reply 'yes, I do' while an ESL speaker might be more likely to use 'yes, I like to row' or 'yes, I like rowing'. Again, not incorrect but when it builds up as a pattern of speech it sounds less natural to a native speaker.

9. Skipping contractions: very common amongst all kinds of ESL speakers. English speakers will throw in a "had'nt've" and always use "doesn’t" over "does not". But lots of ESL speakers just pronounce each word always - especially if there is an auxiliary verb. It can be difficult to remember combinations like - is "I've not" or "I haven't" more natural (& the answer is different for different English varieties).

10. Verbs & nouns paired with prepositions: it's just really common to select the wrong preposition or drop it altogether. E.g., "baked with hands" instead of "baked by hand"; 'compliment about' vs. 'compliment on', etc.

Rule of thumb: just give Ilya good English. It's less inaccurate than 'caveman' Ilya and less xenophobic to boot!

[luulapants]

REALLY good stuff!!

I'll add that not knowing a cognate can make sense in some situations. Like, if you've never used that word in English before, you don't necessarily know if it's the same in both without looking it up. But there are categories of words where it's reasonably assumed: science, medicine, academic studies. For those categories, you can generally say your word in an English accent, which might not be quite exact. For example, Ilya might guess 'hypertonia' instead of 'hypertension.'

(When I was learning Turkish, we would guess at 50-cent words by saying the French word in a Turkish accent - our prof was really mad about how often it worked lol)

[simuran]

I was with this post until the proposed 'rule of thumb'. As a Russian living abroad I find fanfic!Ilya's bad English pretty endearing more often than not

it's like look! he's bad at his second language! and yet he's loved and respected and admired anyway! he's confident and unashamed and doesn't give a fuck if his grammar sucks as longs as he can get his point across!

I do enjoy it a lot ngl

[justhereforthepies]

Would it help if I clarified that what I meant by 'good English' is absolutely not the same thing as 'native speaker English'? The rule of thumb was meant more for people hedging on 'do I need to add more errors?' - I would say generally no (unless you're writing, like kid-fic or recently concussed Ilya or something along those lines).

Also, I was trying to get across that one can write grammatically correct English that still has an 'accent' - - Ilya's English doesn't need to have an abundance of outright 'errors' to give it 'flavour'.

I never, never wanna see 'Native English' Ilya & I deeply love second language English... and based on my own experiences, I wanna see Shane picking up some ESL quirks too (at least in private, especially after they've lived together for a while). After more than a decade with my ESL partner, I use many of his quirks in private - e.g., using 'at' instead of 'in', like 'I'm at the kitchen' 'are you still at bed?' or using the vocative case marker & other codeswitching/code mixing. Maybe that's a controversial opinion, haha.

I think you might have been lucky enough to avoid reading the 'caveman' Ilya examples which veer into offensive stereotypes. Like never using articles ever, only using simple subject-verb-object constructions, mixing up pronoun cases (like using Me in subject position) and otherwise making mistakes that aren't really typical of English learners at Ilya's level (like a low B to a high C in Euro-metrics depending on the time period).

Sorry I can't call out individual fics - I don't have any saved and looking for them just for this purpose feels like bullying.

[theunsubtleknife]

Sleeping poorly is so embarrassing... sorry im grumpy I stayed up past my bedtime. Like a toddler