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[wierd]

My own WTF.

My GPG keyring vanished on this laptop.  Like, POOF. 

I have been sending and receiving encrypted emails for months with it. Then suddenly, my keyring is gone.  JUST GONE.  No sign of it.


WTF.

I will restore it when I go home. (I keep backups.)

[Reelya]

No. E and I are not the same letter in Japanese.

Or rather, "Ni" (に) and "Ne" (ね) are not the same letter.

It's one of those things where it takes you a while to get the ear-tuning right, but I'm sure English has a ton of that too.

e = the "eh" in "meh"
ee = the "ay" in "gay"
i = the "i" in "shit'
ii = the ee in "screech"

This is probably a little off as it's more subtle than that and can still trip you up, but that's enough of a start to hear the difference between onee-chan and onii-chan. It's one of those things where it's hard to hear the difference but a native speaker can tell right away. But consider that words like "cart" and "card" are extemely close but no native speaker has a problem telling those apart.

[wierd]

True enough, but with only RARE exception, all Japanese vowels are conjugates with a consonant, and -I and -E forms are not interchangeable.

(this is one of the reasons why words like "Prell", as in the shampoo, are difficult to transcribe properly into Japanese phonemes. There is no stand-alone P sound. Closest you could get would be "Puh-re-lu", exploiting the silent 'u'. (such as in 'desu') )

[Reelya]

But they do have double vowels and diphthongs, which is what I was talking about.

Onii-san in hiragana is おに​いさん, where に is "ni" and "い" is "i", so it forms a long vowel as in "screech". Going by IPA phonetics, it changes to a different sound. Each individual hiragana has a specific pronounciation, but there are specific combinations that have special means for sounds that the normal hiragana don't cover.

[voliol]

ee = the "ay" in "gay"

I object, "ay" (as Americans say it) is clearly a diphthong (eɪ), while Japanese "ee" is not (e̞ː). American English does (for some strange reason) lack elongated mid front unrounded vowels (i.e. long "e"s), despite them being pretty common in other languages. This is also what leads to the horrendous "champs eli-says" and "bon journay" spoken by American tourists in Paris.
Not that the Americans can do much about it, but maybe realize "ay" is not the optimal substitution.

[Yoink]

FUCK Spanish verb forms. That is all.   
This wasn't at all intended to tie in with the language discussion that appears to be already ongoing, it just made me WTF today.       

[pisskop]

nono, you didnt conjugate the word ‘fuck’

[LordBaal]

FUCK Spanish verb forms. That is all.   
This wasn't at all intended to tie in with the language discussion that appears to be already ongoing, it just made me WTF today.       

Hey! Es injusto.

[MaxTheFox]

Somebody's not gonna like Russian word cases...

[scriver]

The main wrench in my machine of Spanish speaking is that I cannot for the life of me remember how to bend verbs in anything but the present tempus.

A ayer, I go to la biblioteca

[wierd]

The main wrench in my machine of Spanish speaking is that I cannot for the life of me remember how to bend verbs in anything but the present tempus.

A ayer, I go to la biblioteca

Spoiler: FILTHY, NASTY conjugation inside! All the ways you can conjugate! FILTHY! (click to show/hide)

[scriver]

And that's even getting into er and ir verbs! 

[Reelya]

ee = the "ay" in "gay"

I object, "ay" (as Americans say it) is clearly a diphthong (eɪ), while Japanese "ee" is not (e̞ː). American English does (for some strange reason) lack elongated mid front unrounded vowels (i.e. long "e"s), despite them being pretty common in other languages.

Well the main purpose was to explain to Americans how to tell the difference, and 'ay' is the simplest way to explain it. I did say it wasn't perfect to start with. It's kind of hard to explain how it sounds by saying "it sounds like a thing English doesn't have" since that could be literally anything and is not helpful.
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/onee-chan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9B4lvRueoEY&t=16

[LordBaal]

Scriver Im here to back you on all the spanish requirements.
That would be: Ayer fui a la biblioteca.

[Yoink]

Spoiler: FILTHY, NASTY conjugation inside! All the ways you can conjugate! FILTHY! (click to show/hide)

Noooooooooo. Why?! This is torture. Dx