Gaming World Forums
General Category => General Talk => Topic started by: Kaworu on October 09, 2010, 07:29:13 pm
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So yeah, aparently right, there' these things called hobbies. I hear they are what we do in our free time, out of habbit or for fun or to just calm down. Most of us at some point saw gamemaking as a hobbie, but I am aware that out of the ten people who regularly post at GW, many of them may have moved on elsewhere :welp:
So let's talk about what hobbies and interests we have, whether they be new or whatever, but like ones that perhaps DONT include video games..
I am obsessed with music, like really obsessed. Mostly into the weird world of spacerock/krautrock/heavy psyche (but also obsessed with zappa, beefheart, davis, waits blah blah blah). So I collect CDs as a result of this, around 400 of em so far (includes 50 frank zappa albums :cool: )
I am also a dedicated guitarist, I sound like shit but I am kinda working on it. I have an Ibanez Jem 555, and a Jemini distortion pedal, which I run through Guitar Rig for the amp simulation and most of the effects (though i am building a board of random effects pedals). What I love is just messing with different effects and creating new sounds. stuff like digital delay pedals are cool for creating this ambiant soundscape to jam over, or to constantly keep layering these little sounds to create a sensation.
My main guitar influences include Steve Vai, Manuel Gottsching, Syd Barrett, Steve Hillage, Zappa and Makoto Kawabata. Manuel Gottsching is becoming more and moreand influence on my playing, and my current WIP album is getting a very ash ra tempel vibe(with elements of floyd comming in), which i am enjoying as my previous albums have been more hawkwind/acid mothers temple.
I also love creating ambiant drones, mostly influenced by Daevid Allen/glissando orchestra or AMT. I think you can create any world and any vision just by playing gliss on your guitar. One of the tracks on my current project is a 10 minute gliss drone, with spacey sound effects, to create the feeling of like, walking through an abandoned space station. Music is very important to me, and can sometimes provide the only escape from my depression.
I also love comics, not like GENERIC CRAP, but there are a few creators I am obsessing over. Mostly Jack Kirby and Grant Morrison. My Kirby obsession has only really developed over the past year, but reading his work is like stepping into a whole different dimension, it's like being in a child-like world but it's pure classicism. His Forth World is just a constant adventure, and OMAC was so far ahead of it's time, like it is somethign you would expect Morrison to have written (which makes sense as Grant is a Kirby obsessie). And it's really sunk in to me how much Kirby has defined 20th century culture when I can look at almost anything and see his influence in it, from video games to cartoons, even Zappa has aknowledged a love for the guy (and there are elements of his epic narrative style throughout Frank's work). A lot of people kinda dismiss Kirby these days, but they don't really get his work. When they think of him, they mostly think of the stories he did with Stan Lee, which are amazingly pretty, but lack the substance and just pure creativity of his own stuff. Morrison's work like Final Crisis is totally fucking awesome, and it's a shame DC have just ignored it, focusing on the shitty BLACKEST NIGHT/BRIGHTEST DAY crap because too many people said they didn't understand what was going on in Final Crisis. I've finally started buying The Invisibles, it so so amazing and just the density of ideas that man throws at you, you can get easily overwhelmed, but sticking with it, it's pretty fucking solid.
And MY GOD is Frank Quietly the best artist on the scene now!? The guy is sick. The Image guys have so lost their edge these days, so it's cool to see someone like Quietly just bang out constant greatness.
I ramble on a lot about things I am passionate about, i can talk for hours about hawkwind or can or something (my counsellor at uni has similar tastes, so my sessions end up just being talking about krautrock, the last session he recorded vocals for a chilled out track he's doing, where he basically talked about how can's firs vocalist was better than damo sazuki), and I and so talk for days about comics by certain creators.
ENOUGH RAMBLING (rambling man, rambling at ya) come on guys tlak about you hobbies.
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I don't really play that many games anymore (and haven't for years). But I like to focus on stuff around them, like speedruns, competitions (Starcraft and Quake Live VODs) and retro junk. I still buy games but usually just ancient ones that I've only played illegally and now want to have a real copy of.
My work is also my hobby (building websites) so that tends to soak up almost all of my time.
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Hobbies include listening to music, reading books (mostly non-fiction), preparing vegan food...etc
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At the monument it's killing zombies.(Dead Rising 2)
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I really need to read The Invisibles, I remember reading the first volume a few years ago and was all UGH HOW PRETENTIOUS but I was 16 so.
I guess gamemaking is my only real hobby, sorry :( I was thinking of trying comics or something so I could mess around with ideas that don't take a month of scripting and general uh game structure stuff to get across but I can't draw for shit and it's not like there arent enough fucking webcomic things around! (jack kirbys ghost hovers over keenspot while frowning disapprovingly and clenching MASSIVE fists) I have kind of stopped collecting music for the most part although I don't know why?? the corrupting power of downloads..... Actually it's because I've started collecting books and since I don't have enough money for both books and cds I usually go for the former since I hate reading stuff on a computer. I got Prince's Sign O The Times album a few weeks back and have been listening pretty much continuously to it so there's that. In terms of books I am kind of veering between being excited at new ideas / areas of knowledge etc opening up and being depressed at how little I know about anything but it's mostly the former!!
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are you kidding me. i'm really glad you made the topic. i haven't read it yet, but finally there you are.
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i really don't have too many hobbies, and i really get down on myself about it sometimes. my only hobby was playing video games, until i found alcohol and porn. now i dont play very many video games, dont watch alot of porn and dont drink a whole lot. none of which are really hobbies in the first place. now that i am back in school ive been reading more and more, which i am happy about. i also just started a d&d campaign with some people, so hopefully we will actually keep up with that. once in a while i put forth a creative effort and do something that requires no talent, like make a collage or something. generally though, i find it hard to fill my free time with interesting activities and it really upsets me sometimes.
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Geocaching.
Seriously.. http://geocaching.com
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wanking
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I'm involved with a lot of activism and a couple reading groups. This shit eats up a ton of my schedule and on top of school/studying i dont have a lot of free time(the free time that i have is either pissed away here on the computer or having beers w/friends).
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sometimes i play my guitar too and try to learn korean but I'm getting progressively worse at both because I don't do either as much as I used to
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I'm involved with a lot of activism
That sounds really cool actually. I'd love to be an activist for SOMETHING but I don't really know what. I know that I'd like to travel sometime though, preferably to a dirt poor country because I'm kinda sick of the ungrateful mentality the people around me seem to have. That, and I like to feel useful.
I broke up with my ex about five months ago and I since realized that I repressed most of the things I like to do. I'm getting back into the scheme of things, I think, which is pretty cool. Lately, I've been playing a lot of Magic: The Gathering and DnD with a new group of friends who actually AREN'T who you would consider nerds if you saw them walking down the street. They're pretty cool peeps. Additionally, I'm doing amateur radio. I just got my Technician Class license, and my callsign is KJ6IKX (if any of you are ever interested in chatting it up...I need to solder a pin onto my Yaesu handheld though, and figure out a way to patch to the Internet). I'm also fucking around with some electronics stuff, because I just got a lab-grade oscilloscope from UCSD (one of those big motherfuckers with vacuum tubes). Finally, I'm getting back to composing music, painting, and writing things again. I got an awesome idea for NaNoWriMo...and I'ma see if I can actually stick with the program for more than 2 days this time.
sometimes i [...] try to learn korean
Heh, actually I'm thinking about taking up another language myself. I think I want to learn some form of Chinese. I'm thinking about going into international law; I want to resolve copyrights and patenting disputes between us and them. Also, I think they'll become extremely powerful in my lifetime, and I might like to be able to do business with them.
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That sounds really cool actually. I'd love to be an activist for SOMETHING but I don't really know what. I know that I'd like to travel sometime though, preferably to a dirt poor country because I'm kinda sick of the ungrateful mentality the people around me seem to have. That, and I like to feel useful.
The thing is, you really don't need to travel to get involved with shit. I'm involved with a lot of stuff locally ranging from strike support, rank-and-file worker & tenant disputes, university/city budget cuts, etc. etc. etc. Everything is seriously going to shit and there's struggles everywhere. I'd suggest holding picket lines with striking workers and talking with some of the more militant people involved and you're likely to find all kinds of ways to get involved with struggles in your area(even if it's just showing up and chanting, it means a lot).
about the language thing....well my wife is korean, so like I have no excuse not to be fucking fluent in that shit. I've just got so much shit on my plate
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I have like 17 albums I want to put out I just haven't actually composed them yet
also Kaworu have you ever released anything? I want to hear this drone stuff
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i enjoy the occasional cow-tipping
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about the language thing....well my wife is korean, so like I have no excuse not to be fucking fluent in that shit. I've just got so much shit on my plate
How advanced are you at this moment?
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+1
wanking
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Gym
Copying notes up in really really neat semi-textbook like fashion
Running
Drinking different types of tea
Playing guitar + recording my own shitty prog rock.
Various activities with my wives (Think bromance/romance depending on the wife)
Reading whilst shitting
Collecting plush sharks
Fixing internet connections for asian people
Eating pies (I love pies so much)
Running dietary trials (I am currently dairy free)
Posting inane bollocks on Twitter
Writing letters to people I used to know who I wanna stay in touch with.
I gave up making games and non-course related programming because I don't want my eyes to look 30 when I am 25
Posting on this shit-tip
Half-arsedly learning Spanish.
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btw why the fuck are you listing stuff. everybody has things to DO and things that occupies you
but IN GENERAL hobbies are something you like to commit for a little and they are propably productive for you? TALK about them, elaborate a bit! do you like to keep yourself occupied/like to relax with something or are you passionate about something? that sort of stuff.
i like to wank b e c a u s e ...
EDIT
i feel like a dick (i like to wank B E C A U S E . . . !!) because of the unintended aggressiviness but i like this topic and it's propably the sole worthwhile effort for a discussion (or god forbit it, INTERESTED of yourself/other people here) for the past say, 4 months?!? least apathetic.
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I don’t really have hobbies per say or at least I don’t think of this stuff that way?! i am ridicilously passionate guy about life (and arts) in general so STUFF will be part of me and my daily life anyways. there is only passion and obsession...
I realized i seem to demand PASSION from other people too?! which is why i feel I get along with catamites and even hundley great (a careful guess?! the icebreaker!! a clash of wills, naruto episode 91…) but yeah whoa I guess it’s actually a social hinderance!?! why others aren't passionate, these people don't get me, don't fuckin belittle me ~~ ULTIMA_WEAPON/solitary_sephiroth... and i don't like this side of me at all. gotta...gotta figure this out in the following half a year.
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I think I am too much of a jack of all trades. It's not like I have a single interesting hobby that I channel tonnes of time into. It was primarily composing music in the past but my degree kinda makes me feel guilty if I do one thing for a long time now. I know it's a crappy list but I think that's the only answer I can come up with. You're right though I need to have one thing I am properly interested in that isn't my job/degree otherwise who the hell am I? This is probably a pretty common problem with people who do engineering degrees. Social networks probably have a lot to do with the decline of hobbies too.
Fuck university. I wanna be old and have a shed already.
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making music and making games
and working 40 god damn hours a week
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university/city budget cuts, etc. etc. etc.
about the language thing....well my wife is korean, so like I have no excuse not to be fucking fluent in that shit. I've just got so much shit on my plate
Actually, budget cuts really piss me off. That's prolly a good place to start. I did some work for SEIU, the union that my high school librarians used last year. The school district was getting rid of one of our part-time librarians, which means that it would be impossible for the librarian to actually *OPEN THE LIBRARY* to students before/after school/during break/lunch hours because there was an issue with the number of adults able to supervise the students AND work the library. So basically, the school district wasted X amount of dollars on buying books/computers and now the students aren't actually able to check things out, unless they get a pass from their classes. FUCK BUDGET CUTS.
Hahahaha, my ex was deaf so I learned ASL for her. When we broke up, it occurred to me that I can widen up my 'sphere of available girls' by learning more languages. HMMM! Anywho, yeah, good idea to learn Korean asap. Women think it's pretty cool when you learn their language. Plus, you get to learn how they think and how their culture works -- sapir whorf hypothesis and all that jazz. Finally, you'll be able to watch Korean soap operas with her!!! :O
Reading whilst shitting
These better not be library books. >:O
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How advanced are you at this moment?
i can barely hold a conversation and the letters look like gibberish to me
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it's really simple once you sit down and try to learn it. I taught myself korean writing in highschool and taught the class while speaking german how to write their names in it. the alphabet I mean, idk if they also have symbols
right now my hobbies are really boring: computer stuff, watch baseball. every now and then I manage to squeeze in some culture and exploration (goto museum, buy turkish frosted chickpeas) but that stuff has become pretty rare these days w/o money or loads of free time. the good thing about playing games like civ 5 and watching baseball is that I can do that while finishing up some of the mindless tedious work I have to do for classes
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if the definition of hobby is what one does in its free time, then i guess it's homework. real free time to play games and watch movies and tv shows is non existant for me in these times.
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it's really simple once you sit down and try to learn it. I taught myself korean writing in highschool and taught the class while speaking german how to write their names in it. the alphabet I mean, idk if they also have symbols
right now my hobbies are really boring: computer stuff, watch baseball. every now and then I manage to squeeze in some culture and exploration (goto museum, buy turkish frosted chickpeas) but that stuff has become pretty rare these days w/o money or loads of free time. the good thing about playing games like civ 5 and watching baseball is that I can do that while finishing up some of the mindless tedious work I have to do for classes
yeah i know the alphabet, remember most of the sounds, and know how to read/make words. i guess i know a little more than I'm letting on, I studied it pretty hard for a year and could make sense in conversation and read some of the packages of stuff from the korean market but languages are one of those things that if you don't use it you lose it and i kinda dropped it once I started preparing to return to school. I can still catch the drift of conversations between my wife and her friends or whatever, but speaking it I'm extremely slow/awkward.
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i have too many hobbies/interests; i don't have time for them all :[ i'll just list some:
art, anime, manga, comics, movies, learning Japanese, tea, reading, swimming, cosplay, animals, tabletop gaming/board games (Catan, Carcassone, Dominion, Agricola, etc...), learning, fashion, music, singing, dancing, acting, playing/making videogames, talking to pen-pals, activism/volunteering, making websites, and... a bunch of other stuff. i'm also trying to learn to yo-yo and play guitar.
there's too much stuff that i like to do D:
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I just love watching the X Factor. It's pretty much all I watch/do. I record every episode on my 'Sky Plus' television solution, in HD of course, and then I watch the shit out of it day and night. I love the acts, I love the drama, I love the Judges when they're bitchy. I just fucking love the X Factor.
BRING BACK GAMU!!!
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i can barely hold a conversation and the letters look like gibberish to me
You know those "learn language x in 10 days" audio books? They're bullshit of course, but when I started learning Japanese I first downloaded all of the Pimsleur audio courses and rigorously practiced with them every morning at 7 AM. They did exactly what you'd expect: provide a solid base, PARTICULARLY in pronunciation, for when you start learning the language in a classroom setting.
You're never going to learn a language with a couple of audio books, but being able to blurt out most of the basic grammar structures without thinking is very useful in the long run.
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You know those "learn language x in 10 days" audio books? They're bullshit of course, but when I started learning Japanese I first downloaded all of the Pimsleur audio courses and rigorously practiced with them every morning at 7 AM. They did exactly what you'd expect: provide a solid base, PARTICULARLY in pronunciation, for when you start learning the language in a classroom setting.
You're never going to learn a language with a couple of audio books, but being able to blurt out most of the basic grammar structures without thinking is very useful in the long run.
this is one of the huge problems im having learning french write now. im only in my first year and the reading and writing are pretty easy for me, but the speaking part is killing me, because a lot of the sounds are so different from english, and the spelling is so foreign that its hard for me to work anything out phonetically.
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if you can get into learning french it's easy as hell once you get used to the pronunciation. a good teacher will get the pronunciation down for you but those listen and repeat recordings will wor too
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this is one of the huge problems im having learning french write now. im only in my first year and the reading and writing are pretty easy for me, but the speaking part is killing me, because a lot of the sounds are so different from english, and the spelling is so foreign that its hard for me to work anything out phonetically.
I'm pretty much the exact opposite with every language I've tried to learn so far :welp:
In high school I wasn't that interested in German (it was mandatory until the fourth year) and got bad grades for not doing anything but I eventually managed to pull through by scoring very high on the listening/oral tests they did at the end of the year.
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if you can get into learning french it's easy as hell once you get used to the pronunciation. a good teacher will get the pronunciation down for you but those listen and repeat recordings will wor too
im going to community college so our teacher is just some guy that teaches at night (but his day job involves speaking french and he lived there for a while), so he's not the best teacher, but he really tries. ive been trying to think of things i can listen to while i work out though so i might go ahead and find some french cd's for that so i can multitask.
I'm pretty much the exact opposite with every language I've tried to learn so far :welp:
In high school I wasn't that interested in German (it was mandatory until the fourth year) and got bad grades for not doing anything but I eventually managed to pull through by scoring very high on the listening/oral tests they did at the end of the year.
taking french is a really weird experience for me. the only other language i ever studied was latin and that has very straight forward pronunciation and we hardly did any oral exercises in class, because theres no point. but with french i can almost feel myself getting bored with the vocabulary and grammar, but being lost with the oral portions. its a really weird sensation to be aware of such a sharp split in my learning of a single subject.
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I'm enrolled in an accredited architecture program so 95% of my time is pissed away on schoolwork every week.
other than that I've been learning mandarin for a year and a half for both self-interest and my girlfriend's mother demands it so we can communicate. i get together with some buddies once a week to jam/write songs and I take pictures sometimes/have a pretty strong interest in photography.
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Work and boxing takes up most of my time but I am still as much into game development as I was when I first joined, so I guess that is my biggest hobby. I'm trying to set some time aside for development, and the goal is to eventually be able to frequently develop and publish smaller games.
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outside the normal MUSIC MOVIES GAMES HANGING OUT W/FRIENDS (although im sure i go to concerts more than most people), i don't really have that many... real hobbies?? i play squash occasionally and go to gym 2-3 times a week (though i haven't really gotten back to the normal schedule after breaking my arm) and sometimes i take late night walks and that's it p.much?? sometimes i play other sports too but not much. those are my hobbies. i drink way too often to be able to focus on any real hobby lmao.
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Ragnar, I'll defo post my next album on GW so you can dig the spacey drones.
Dupe, Boxing?? boxing and game making? weird combo, though i know a guy who loves anime and boxes so i guess maybe not so weird.
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Juris, I just recently began studying Mandarin Chinese on my own. I'm taking a year off of school but next fall I'm going to uni to study Anthropology with a minor in Chinese studies. I wanted to get the basic grasp of the language before I take the classes so I'm not overwhelmed. It's surprisingly pretty easy (although I did just start).
Another hobby not listed in first post is going to concerts. Jonsi on Novmber 3rd (for the second time) and John Mellencamp on Nov. 27th :)
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Ragnar, I'll defo post my next album on GW so you can dig the spacey drones.
Dupe, Boxing?? boxing and game making? weird combo, though i know a guy who loves anime and boxes so i guess maybe not so weird.
Well if it helps i train in a DBZ aloha shirt.
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Juris, I just recently began studying Mandarin Chinese on my own. I'm taking a year off of school but next fall I'm going to uni to study Anthropology with a minor in Chinese studies. I wanted to get the basic grasp of the language before I take the classes so I'm not overwhelmed. It's surprisingly pretty easy (although I did just start).
I'm not very familiar with anthro, but isn't it true that some archaeologists unearthed a hominid that predates Lucy by several thousand years in China somewhere? That's pretty cool. There's prolly a wealth of information to be found there.
I'm thinking to do Mandarin, too. It seems to be the main dialect. I'm just a bit concerned because the language makes huge vowel distinctions that I don't think I can replicate with my western mouth.
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I'm thinking to do Mandarin, too. It seems to be the main dialect. I'm just a bit concerned because the language makes huge vowel distinctions that I don't think I can replicate with my western mouth.
This. I dated a Chinese girl senior year of high school, and she tried to explain to me about eight different words, all of which sounded exactly the same to me. I think it's weird that languages can evolve like that.
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This. I dated a Chinese girl senior year of high school, and she tried to explain to me about eight different words, all of which sounded exactly the same to me. I think it's weird that languages can evolve like that.
It's kind of difficult to make out the subtle differences between some of the sounds in Mandarin. But that's mostly because we're used to distinguishing between a few simple vowels. In Mandarin, you also need to listen to how the vowel itself is being pronounced. The differences generally are in how the tone becomes higher or lower as the vowel is being spoken (http://www.zapchinese.com/Chinese-lessons/Lesson02/Lesson02.htm).
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the curved tones in the last example sound really fucked up, its like he's taking a shit everytime he uses it
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My hobbies are fucking your sister .... Yes everyone's sister.... What you don't have a sister well then I guess your mom looked young enough to pass as one. :fogetshh:
Really don't have any hobbies just trying to pit witty or witless remarks.
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This. I dated a Chinese girl senior year of high school, and she tried to explain to me about eight different words, all of which sounded exactly the same to me. I think it's weird that languages can evolve like that.
It's pretty easy to distinguish between separate words if you learn the 4 different tones but when a sentence is being spoken fast its really hard to understand.
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Maybe it's contextual?
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Maybe it's contextual?
It is, and in informal conversations it's acceptable to not use the proper tones as long as it makes sense contextually.
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I'm not very familiar with anthro, but isn't it true that some archaeologists unearthed a hominid that predates Lucy by several thousand years in China somewhere? That's pretty cool. There's prolly a wealth of information to be found there.
I'm thinking to do Mandarin, too. It seems to be the main dialect. I'm just a bit concerned because the language makes huge vowel distinctions that I don't think I can replicate with my western mouth.
This?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/02/science/02fossil.html
Either way I'm more into cultural anthropology.