Rat Creature's Journal

that's just cruel...

2017-04-02T20:46:22Z

...to find a new WIP update notification in your mail and then, when you go to read it, AO3 is down.

This entry was originally posted at http://ratcreature.dreamwidth.org/603949.html. | comments

today's Tumblr wtf

2017-03-31T18:43:20Z

Why is there an annoying, pixelated, pooping horse on my Tumblr dashboard? It is not even April 1st yet. How can I make it go away? Why is Tumblr doing these things?

This entry was originally posted at http://ratcreature.dreamwidth.org/603774.html. | comments

wtf, Tumblr?

2017-02-20T00:11:36Z

Why is there a stupid confetti animation disrupting my dashboard? I guess it is because it's Tumblr's tenth anniversary?

I suppose it is totally in the site's spirit to make themselves even more unusable as celebration.

This entry was originally posted at http://ratcreature.dreamwidth.org/602392.html. | comments

recs?

2017-02-11T19:20:35Z

Recently I talked with my niece about Harry Potter, Star Wars, the MCU and fiction in general, and apparently she's dissatisfied with the genre convention that in the end the "good guys" always win.

Now I don't get that at all, because for me one of the main draws of fiction, and genre fiction in particular, is that it is escapist and less depressing than reality, so I pretty much only like genres that for the most part abide by the convention to deliver a happy ending, i.e. I like fanfic, romance, YA, mysteries, and the kind of SF&F where heroes win, and am much less into e.g. horror or "literary" fiction or other genres where that isn't the convention. Even when I read stuff like apocafic or such, I ultimately want it to end hopeful for at least the main characters.

So I don't really have any recs for media (books, movies or tv series) that end badly for the heroes overall, because even when I encounter the situation of just some of them not making it (like in HP) I'm on the look out for fix-it fic. But I wondered whether others might have recs that I could pass on to my niece to satisfy her odd (to me) preference for some variety and a more fraught fictional experience.

Though I'm not sure whether she wants depressing stuff or more things along the line of the fanfic type revisionist AUs with perspective shifts, because she mentioned that she was kind of rooting for Loki and Tom Riddle and such, i.e. where the story just takes the bad guys' side and for them it is okay, even though the world is then in the hands of a megalomaniac. I mostly dislike that type of fanfic as well. And I don't look for that kind of "twist" in original fiction either.

It would have to be stuff that is available in German and at least somewhat suitable for an eight year old.

This entry was originally posted at http://ratcreature.dreamwidth.org/602167.html. | comments

that was disorienting

2017-02-10T18:35:36Z

I watched the Legion pilot and I'm quite confused.

It started with me trying to figure out when this was even supposed to be set. Obviously it's not supposed to be present day, but it's not the 1960s, 70s or any other consistent era either. And even more disorienting, David's childhood flashbacks didn't seem to be offset in an earlier era than the main story either.

I mean, clearly both the design, the psychedelic interludes and the disjointed story telling are all intentional, but I'm not sure that this works for me. I had a really hard time trying to decipher events and understanding what was going on in between the hallucinations, flashbacks and the body switching in the present? Or was that even body switching? I'm not clear what actually happened with that mental hospital escape.

Though I'm willing to stick with the series for a bit longer.

This entry was originally posted at http://ratcreature.dreamwidth.org/601929.html. | comments

Rivers of London vid rec

2017-01-30T08:00:27Z

This Rivers of London vid posted in festivids is beautifully fancast and constructed. If I didn't know otherwise, I would assume that there was a Rivers of London tv adaptation the vidder had as source.

This entry was originally posted at http://ratcreature.dreamwidth.org/600790.html. | comments

managing your browser tabs?

2017-01-28T10:06:26Z

I probably should just try to have fewer open tabs, but thus far my solution has been a Firefox tab group extension, so whenever things get too crowded my main browser window, I shove some tabs into other groups (like "stuff to (maybe) read in fandom x") and deal with it later (or not).

Only now I've seen a notice that because Mozilla changed the underlying framework for the extensions or something, the Tab Group Extension I'm using will stop working later this year with Firefox 57, and apparently it's not feasible for the developer to switch to the new system.

I know there are multiple tab group extensions, but I assume that in the background most started like my current one from the Mozilla code that used to have this as standard feature, and use the same methods that will become deprecated in the near future.

Do you know of any that will continue to work? Is there a way to tell from the add-on descriptions as a user if there isn't an explicit notice on this issue?

This entry was originally posted at http://ratcreature.dreamwidth.org/600390.html. | comments

a straggler drawble

2017-01-14T22:43:33Z

wildlife + used bookstores for alatefeline:

This entry was originally posted at http://ratcreature.dreamwidth.org/599810.html. | comments

not sure whether it is an up or downside...

2017-01-13T01:48:07Z

...but apparently I now know enough Russian to stumble over obvious automatic translation errors in fanfic in yet another language, even though I do not know enough to have even simple conversations.

But I can distinguish some verb forms, and the author in this particular case clearly wanted an imperative (it had an exclamation point and everything) but put in an infinitive form. Not that I knew that particular word (my vocabulary is still very pathetic). Of course in English both look the same (except for the 'to') but in Russian you conjugate more -- only google translate for example won't, even if you add the exclamation point.

They could label a language acquisition stage after this -- it comes way before even A1 proficiency (which in case you are not familiar with the European language reference framework means more or less the ability to understand and produce simple, formulaic conversations in familiar contexts).

I have no idea why authors feel the need to sprinkle other languages into their fiction without knowing the language very well or getting a beta who does. And even then, as a reader it annoys me unless I also read the language at least decently. I loathe not being able to follow all story parts. And yeah, there's hover text and what not, but that won't work on mobile devices or e-readers, so you are stuck with disruptive footnotes...

This entry was originally posted at http://ratcreature.dreamwidth.org/599780.html. | comments

commenting dilemmas

2017-01-11T18:15:17Z

Okay, so this probably has happened to many of us, that you read a story, that intersects with your life or experiences in some way. When that happens to me and I start writing a comment, my own experience is then what's in my head as reaction, and basically I recount whatever episode or life experience resonated with that story. Only then at the end of this, I come to the realization that my comment on the story doesn't actually talk about the story as such at all, but just about me. Then I feel really awkward, and more often than not I don't post that comment, and just click the kudo button instead.

However, most authors seem to like comments better than kudos. Does this still hold true for comments that don't actually talk about your story as such but are more or less (over)sharing of personal experiences a story resonated with?

Like okay, say you wrote a roadtrip fic where your characters look at a giant ball of rubber bands or whatever, and then you get a comment that is along the line of "here's my roadtrip experience of looking at a giant rubber band ball". It's not totally unrelated to your story, but not about praising your great characterization, awesome writerly skill or perfect timing either. And of course often it's not about a rubber band ball but some more personal resonance.

What do you think about such comments? Awkward? Still better than kudos? Better not posted because you don't really want to hear random strangers' anecdotes?

This entry was originally posted at http://ratcreature.dreamwidth.org/599412.html. | comments

vid recs?

2017-01-08T19:04:39Z

I don't watch a lot of vids, and as a result I never even know how to effectively look for some in the instances when I want to watch some new ones.

I'm in the mood for visually fast paced vids, not necessarily action vids, though I do like those a lot, however generally I'm not that fond of vids meant for dancing or vids to dance music. Also, while I enjoy humor as much as anyone, the vids I love most are more on the drama or even angsty side of things, with a bit of pathos even. Just right now not slow pathos, but fast.

Compared to fic I really lack the analytic skill and vocabulary to describe what I'm looking for... :( But an example for the kind of vid I mean would be barkley's Numb3rs vid Reach For the Sky.

Have you watched any vids like that recently? (Or not so recently, I really watch very few.) The fandoms I'd most appreciate for this would be MCU, Star Wars, Star Trek, XMFC, Pacific Rim or even Check Please, since I recently learned from dine's rec of this cool, if short vid by helorific that fans vid in that fandom as well.

This entry was originally posted at http://ratcreature.dreamwidth.org/598769.html. | comments

another drawble

2017-01-07T17:17:36Z

cats + poetry for hyperfocused

This entry was originally posted at http://ratcreature.dreamwidth.org/598308.html. | comments

finished drawbles

2017-01-06T02:11:16Z

"Cookie Monster + recipe + works-in-progress" for goss

"Jeeves + sporks" for quiara

"Ratcreature as a Furling from SG-1? Possibly meeting Teal'c" for fignewton (I went with "Furling" as a small person in furry costume, because I don't think we ever see the "real" Furlings, just the Wormhole X-Treme! version, so my avatar is supposed to wear a bad furry suit -- kind of weird because it is already technically furry, but cosplaying a different furry, I guess)

"Rivers of London (Toby & Nightingale)" for dhw

"Tok'ra + writing fanfic" for roeskva

"Agent Carter + bouldering" for sixbeforelunch

"Farscape + travel" for forestgreen, i.e. snapshots from 1812's Grand European Tour...

This entry was originally posted at http://ratcreature.dreamwidth.org/598135.html. | comments

friending meme, crossposting logistics and drawble offer

2017-01-04T14:24:18Z

st_aurafina is a hosting friending meme, and if you found my journal through that: welcome!

I've recently stopped crossposting to IJ (I doubt anybody noticed), because I haven't actively used that site in ages, and I have decided to disable comments on my LJ crossposts. I'm sorry if you prefer LJ for interacting, but DW has been my main journal for a long time now and I don't have my full range of icons on LJ, which I really miss when commenting there, and I'm not likely to ever pay them for icon slots again, so the recent developments gave me the push to limit commenting in one place.

It's not so much that LJ moved their servers as such, as that they don't even care enough anymore to do any announcements for their users about the move or the glitches so many experienced in either the English or the Russian LJ news. It seems a bad idea to add non-duplicated content in an infrastructure that the owners care about so little.

Finally, as always with the beginning of a year, I have good intentions to draw things, and I've noticed that it has been about three years (!) since I last offered any drawbles, so I thought it would be fun to do the drawble meme again.

The original format is as follows:

1. Comment and I'll pick one or two of your DW interests and draw you a picture.
2. You have no say as to what I draw for you or as to how much it will suck.
3. Copy this and the pic that is drawn for you into your journal. (Optional)

You can also prompt me, for example if you don't list interests, but prompts tempt people to ask for fanart they'd really like to see (their favorite rare pairing or character or such), and that ends with disappointment for everybody. Them, because they get a doodle totally mangling their cherished idea, and me because I feel inadequate at fulfilling a real wish.

The reason I like these drawbles in the first place is because they allow me to do absurd little doodles that aren't demanding, so I don't experience that vicious-cycle that I get with "proper fanart": feeling I suck because (of course) drawing attempts never look like what you imagine with your idea, and then never draw anything and thus never get any better.

Anyway, you can offer prompts to me instead going with your interests, but keep in mind that these are quick doodles, so for a prompt that is a description of some epic scene you've always wanted to see realized in fanart the results aren't going to very satisfying for you (or much fun for me). Also, I don't draw porn, and I'm not good at portrait likeness.

If you want to see the quality (or lack thereof, especially considering how very rusty I am) you can expect, look at the drawble tag or my drawble series on AO3 that collects them.

I don't make any promises for results or a timely delivery, but in the past I've usually managed to draw something for everyone who prompted me for these non-demanding, open drawble offers.

This entry was originally posted at http://ratcreature.dreamwidth.org/597545.html. | comments

LJ Scrapbook alternatives?

2016-12-27T16:58:01Z

What are you all doing for image hosting these days? The recent news about developments with LJ brought home again the fact that there's a life cycle to websites and LJ hasn't been on an upswing for quite some time now. I haven't given LJ money for a while, reserving that for DW, but its Scrapbook is still what I use most to embed images.

(I haven't found a proper news announcement about their server move, but comment threads in the last DW maintenance post and on fail-fandomanon said that they've just moved their servers fully to Russia, and that they've been suspending/deleting LJs for political reasons? When looking for more info I've found mostly posts by Russian language LJs, some by former employees, like Anton Nossik, that I could only half-decipher via Google translate.)

Relatedly, does anybody know an easier way to back up your LJ Scrapbook than through the obnoxious interface? I've found some scripts from a few years ago, but they've changed Scrapbook since.

This entry was originally posted at http://ratcreature.dreamwidth.org/597162.html. | comments

Looks like it was a glitch not a feature update

2016-12-27T10:11:47Z

I just clicked a kudo button twice on AO3 by accident because my tablet was lagging, and it resulted in two kudos with my name showing up in the list, rather than one kudo and an error.

But it seems this was just a glitch because of my wonky clicking. At least when I tried leaving kudos again on a WIP I follow that didn't work. Too bad, I wouldn't mind being able to leave more than one, especially with long chaptered stories.

This entry was originally posted at http://ratcreature.dreamwidth.org/596830.html. | comments

Star Wars Rogue One reaction

2016-12-16T18:46:35Z

I went in totally spoiler free, which was great in the sense that this sucker punched me more. But, wow, I did not see that ending coming. That in a Star Wars movie every single main and supporting character of the protagonists is killed, sacrificing themselves for giving the rebellion a chance against the death star.

I mean, the enjoyed the movie a lot, and it is certainly a powerful statement highlighting how many get killed to get these plans out, that not just background characters and maybe one or two major characters die, but everybody we got to know in the movie. But wow, that is not how action movies work normally. The only ones we see surviving are the characters from the main trilogy that appear as leaders in the background here, obviously because their (larger) story goes on.

I'm still kind of stunned.

This entry was originally posted at http://ratcreature.dreamwidth.org/596347.html. | comments

weird differences

2016-11-29T17:08:30Z

I've been making Anki flashcards to learn vocabulary and grammar and such, and because visual cues help with memorization I do google image searches in the language I'm learning for stuff to put on the cards.

This mostly works fine with Spanish. You enter the Spanish word and you get pictures that work decently as cues, not just for plain objects but also verbs, adjectives and adverbs, and get a kind of visualization of actual word usage. However with Russian words image search results are more often than not completely overrun by internet memes.

That is not useful. (Also you frequently get gross image results for totally harmless words.) Though I guess it might say something about Russian internet culture.

Like if you image search e.g. "a little" in English you get a bunch of images with thumb and index finger a bit apart, which is the kind of thing you might put on a vocabulary flashcard. But if you google "немного" the first page is all internet memes, and you probably don't want to look at these at work or if you are easily disturbed (from nudity to animal harm to racism to execution pictures all kinds of stuff is featured). From what I can tell that is mostly because these come from sites that collect internet meme pictures or something, and the word just appears somewhere on the page.

It's like that with every other word. I mean, concrete nouns are frequently okay, like if you google "дверь" it results in images of doors, but even simple verbs get you a bunch of weird memes, when with other languages they get you pictures of people doing something. Whether you google to work, travailler, trabajar or arbeiten you get fairly similar images. Image searching "работать" meanwhile does not, but lands you in weird internet meme land again.

This entry was originally posted at http://ratcreature.dreamwidth.org/595426.html. | comments

I have a new e-reader

2016-11-08T19:02:59Z

After the untimely destruction of my last one (lesson learned: don't read while walking, at least not unless you have seriously rugged your e-reader to take a lot of impact), I got a replacement today. I briefly considered just getting the same model again, because I liked my PocketBook Lux Touch 3, but actually it now cost 12€ more than eleven months ago when I bought it, and it would have been kind of depressing to get just the same again for more money now that the tech is almost a year older.

So instead I spent a little more still to get the new PocketBook Touch HD, which as the name indicates has a HD display, is faster with twice the memory and can play audio. My preference for PocketBook is that I want to be able to use my e-reader without having to register it anywhere or be associated with any store. PocketBook offers a cloud backup and synchronization service too, but you can just skip that. Also it supports the Adobe DRM my public library uses.

One thing that made me apprehensive is that while most reviews liked the hardware they cautioned about bugs in the firmware. Some reviews also claimed that it stopped working entirely when they tried to update said firmware, but I put these down to inexperience in coping with technical difficulties.

I was already familiar with how horrible and glitchy their firmware updates are from my previous PocketBook, but they also offer multiple ways of troubleshooting, restoring corrupted systems and their support is decent.

And true to form the thing hung during the initial firmware update, but actually it resolved more easily than last time. After a call to their support line, it took only one reset and connecting the e-reader to my laptop during the update for it to finish correctly. Apparently the thing likes to be connected to a power supply while updating, and may hang if it is not, even if it is nearly fully charged. Only the manual doesn't tell you that. (I was clever enough this time around to try this during their office hours, whereas last time I tried over the weekend and only got an answer to my, then slightly different, problem via mail on Monday, when I had already managed to resolve it with a lot of trial and error.)

Anyway, once I was past that (and disabled automatic updates), so far it seems to work okay when I tried stuff, though some problems might only show with longer use. I mean, my previous one has glitched a few times with books for no reason I could discern, like it would sometimes not display a page but exit to the menu, even though when I checked the ebook source code in that place on my computer I could never see anything unusual (like broken formatting or code or such) that might explain this. It wasn't happening often, maybe half a dozen times per several hundreds of files, but still annoying. And a few times it crashed for no reason, so even picking the old one again I would not have been bug-free.

The HD display of the new one is noticeably nicer and crisper than my previous one, and it is faster when loading things, when browsing the library and when reacting in general. So that is very nice. It connects fine to Calibre (though the translation of Calibre tags into "genres" is not ideal for my use of tags in particular with fanfic), and its own library organization got even better than previously.

Anyway so far I'm happy with it.

This entry was originally posted at http://ratcreature.dreamwidth.org/595083.html. | comments

ow!

2016-11-07T14:22:33Z

I should not have read while walking. I stumbled over some uneven pavement and fell down. I didn't hurt myself too badly, mostly my hands, one wrist and both my knees are scaped up, but my ebook reader was destroyed. :((( Also my trousers, but I mostly feel the loss of my ereader.

I mean, I feel lucky that I didn't break my right wrist -- I awkwardly landed on that since that hand was holding the ereader and scraped its outside, but I guess the device absorbed quite a bit of force (it actually bent and partly shattered). Or damaged my new glasses which were far more expensive than my ereader.

But still. I really liked that ereader, and it wasn't that old either.

This entry was originally posted at http://ratcreature.dreamwidth.org/594790.html. | comments

yay!

2016-11-02T13:22:28Z

I just got a mail that Amazon shipped my copy of The Hanging Tree! It's supposed to arrive on Friday. :D

This entry was originally posted at http://ratcreature.dreamwidth.org/594185.html. | comments

Doctor Strange

2016-10-28T21:54:22Z

My expectations were kind of low, because most of what I heard about it in advance were the casting issues and such, and also Benedict Cumberbatch is a bit hit and miss for me, but I actually had a lot of fun watching this one. Then again I, heretically, enjoyed Antman too. Though I'm not feeling particularly fannish about either.

I liked that the movie was about as accessible and straight forward as you can get within the MCU, so the plot about the dark dimensional monster and its disciples hoping for immortality via universe eating (or something) made more or less sense on its own even if it connected with the Infinity Stone artifacts, and we got a plain origin story/hero's journey for Strange too. And the movie had some really good lines that made me laugh too.

It did not really make like Doctor Strange, probably because genius asshole character with exceptional talent (in multiple fields no less) is not my favorite type of hero, and though he apologized a little to Christine and maybe gained some insight, he still remains the kind of character I'd have to imagine in grovel fic before I could see his love interest taking him back, but I didn't loathe him either.

And I liked the way they adapted Mordo into the MCU. I mean, he starts out as a sort of black sidekick role in the hero's journey plot, but at least he doesn't die (though I guess the death slot was already filled with the dead mentor), and has his own somewhat complicated relationship with their mentor outside of Strange, and even with the second post credit scene, thus far Mordo does not actually become a "villain" either, but follows a kind of stricter moral code than Doctor Strange does. That has some cool potential.

The special effects were certainly different than the usual CGI battle destruction and kind of trippy, but I have to admit that I found them tedious after a while. Clearly some special effects design team was far fonder of surrealistically folding buildings than I am.

This entry was originally posted at http://ratcreature.dreamwidth.org/593788.html. | comments

I need to file a complaint with Morpheus

2016-10-02T08:48:07Z

Last night I dreamed about being hassled by Donald Trump. WTF. I think I participated in some game show? I need to watch less US election coverage if my dreams get invaded.

This entry was originally posted at http://ratcreature.dreamwidth.org/592421.html. | comments

wtf, Twitter?

2016-09-22T07:54:02Z

You should not send spammy emails that claim that the account's tweets got lots of attention (and then explain how to promote them more or something) to accounts that have never posted even a single tweet.

After first glancing at the mail I wondered whether this meant that my twitter, which I don't actively use, had been hacked (it hasn't), and somebody had actually tweeted from it, or something, and now they wanted to inform me about unusual account activity.

This applies in particular since, afaik, I had already unchecked all seven checkboxes for receiving emails about Twitter updates, including the one about new features and services. So they should not have sent me spammy emails in the first place. Though maybe they added a new one, I was opted in by default and only unchecked the latest, seventh(!) fine-grained twitter product "information" box with my unsubscribe click.

This entry was originally posted at http://ratcreature.dreamwidth.org/592051.html. | comments

and then I fell into a wikipedia click hole...

2016-08-30T15:47:47Z

I've decided to make one of my occasional attempts to get better at Spanish again. When trying to work through some self-study book -- by now I've acquired a handful -- I generally stall after about seven or eight chapters. My motivation just collapses eventually, because the pay off for working through the tedious dialogs etc. never seems to come. And I haven't just tried regular text books, either. After all I have no immediate need to buy apples or reserve a hotel room in Spanish, but simplified mysteries and other texts with practice and grammar bits scattered into them don't work much better, because those aren't exactly the kind literature that particularly hooks me either, so it is not much less tedious. And I'm not at a level where I could try Harry Potter in Spanish or such, despite being familiar with the story.

Meanwhile the gamified learning approach as in the Duolingo app is fairly fun, but ultimately that never got me anywhere. My last attempt to improve my Spanish knowledge had me playing through all the Spanish levels available in the Duolingo app over a couple of weeks, and it did not improve my Spanish in any lasting, significant way.

This time around I've decided to try out "Fluent Forever: How to Learn Any Language Fast and Never Forget It", which despite its grandiose title claim is basically a fairly sensible guide to how to utilize flashcards and spaced repetition better for language learning, with step-by-step instructions for how to make your own flashcard sets and tricks to make them effective with pictures, sounds and mnemonics. So it's not quite the "get six-pack abs with our five minute super special patent exercise" kind of product hawking despite the title. My own previous attempts with flashcards have all been of the old school analog variety, i.e. just vocabulary flashcards with translations and some grammar, and those didn't help me much, except for memorizing vocabulary on the bus.

Anyway, the author recommends to pay close attention to correct pronunciation and to learning all the sounds properly as a foundational priority, which led me into said wikipedia click hole as I read Help:IPA for Spanish and the corresponding article in the German wikipedia (which contrasts Spanish to German rather than English sounds). And from there clicked on all sorts of IPA and phonology related stuff.

I'm not sure whether that wikipedia click hole was a step towards future progress or just procrastination. I didn't yet start to make any actual flashcards, but otoh I am now much more knowledgeable about my Spanish pronunciation woes: Mostly R and RR related, as neither the "voiced alveolar flap/tap" nor the "voiced alveolar trill" are my friends. When listening I can hear the difference between both fine, but I can't make either sound with any consistency. There is some consolation in that the trilled alveolar RR is just hard to make (it is apparently usually the last sound native Spanish speakers acquire in childhood), but I find the other even harder pin down properly. As I said, when doing listening exercises with some native speaker saying minimal pairs (e.g. cada/caja/cara/carra) I get what was said right most of the time, but to pronounce the difference, in particular the cada vs. cara one (i.e. "voiced denti-alveolar stop" vs "voiced alveolar tap" in IPA jargon) is really hard.

So then I clicked about to how you say "R" in German to see what my own "default R" even is and how it differs from the Spanish sound, and it seems that Rs are really complicated, and that German as language is also fairly confused about its Rs, that is, all sorts of dialects pronounce Rs in a variety of ways. Some German dialects in the South even do the Spanish sounds, but mine is definitely not one of those. Trying to puzzle out how I actually pronounce Rs in German was harder than I thought. I think looking at the Help:IPA for German page that at the end of words I say the R as a semivowel or reduced vowel, so I don't pronounce it as a any "proper" R at all, and other times I say a "voiced uvular fricative", i.e. a kind of "guttural R" where you have the tongue more in the back of your mouth.

This also explained one of the aspects I found confusing in the pronunciation guides in German Spanish language books, which mostly explain the two Spanish sounds as "rolled R" and "strongly rolled R", presumably to avoid the IPA jargon, but you can do a trill in that place in the back too ("uvular trill") which is the sound first think of with "rolled R". That sound I can make without problem, even though it is not how I usually say an R.

But unfortunately in Spanish you can't say Rs like that (it apparently comes across as either a speech defect, or when it actually is a native variant, it gets stigmatized as some kind of uneducated, backwards rural thing). So you have to do to it in the front of your mouth. (Why Spanish? French has that other "R" and that is a romance language too!)

I can kind of make that front position work with the RR (when I manage the trill vibration at all), though my tongue kind of wants to go to the comfortable uvular R position, but the tap/flap thing remains somewhat mysterious. I've seen an explanation for English speakers (whose R-issues are somewhat different) to approximate the alveolar tap/flap with a fast D sound until you somehow get to an R-like thing? But I find that confusing. I can hear how that gets you closer, but Spanish also has a D there, after all "cada" is different from "cara".

It's some consolation that in reverse I expect Spanish speakers to be unhappy with many German sounds too. Before looking at these IPA pages I never quite realized just now many vowel sounds German has, especially if you contrast it with Spanish, which, not counting the diphthongs, has just five straightforward vowels that correspond to the letters plus two semivowels, whereas German, not counting the diphthongs, has fifteen native vowels some of those in short and long, plus several of the French nasal vowels remain in the standard German pronunciation of a ton of French loan words, and there are three semi-vowels, two reduced vowels (German uses two slightly different kinds of schwa) and the diphthongs. That's even more vowels than English which has a fair number. So in the vowel column on the German IPA Help wikipedia page there are 38 entries. I suspect that has to suck when you are used to five clean vowels. (There are just entirely too many possible places where we can place our tongue and lips.)

Of course there are other pronunciation pitfalls in Spanish you don't notice right away because they are almost but not quite the same, like (not) aspirating certain consonants, also some consonants are subtly softer than in German. Somewhat more obvious, the b/v-muddle takes some getting used to. And of course Spanish also has that obnoxious /θ/-sound (well standard Castillian from Spain anyway, which is the variant I'm learning) and the same difficult w-sound ("voiced labio-velar approximant") that English has, but then I've had years to get used to both in English.

And Spanish of course has the *major* advantage that unlike with English you do not actually need the IPA characters when you learn words, because it has very sensible and consistent phonetic spelling, so you are never put in this awful place of confusion and despair English routinely inhabits, where you have no idea how to look up a word you heard or how to pronounce one you see.

At least it's easy to know what a word is supposed to sound like, even if you can't really say it. So that is something.

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