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[Reelya]

Duolingo recently released their Japanese course for English speakers. It's in "Beta" release right now. It might be a good way to review and imporve little bits and pieces. I've been using Duolingo to brush up my German, but I'm not sure how you'd go learning from scratch on that. I'm going to start the Duolingo Japanese myself now.

Beofre you do anything, you really need to rote-learn all the base hiragana and katakana, though Duolingo starts with spoon-feeding you with just enough Hiragana to learn basic vocab as it goes along. But I'd suggest practicising yourself first.

 Basically start with the vowels a i u e o, then ka ki ku ke ko, sa shi su se so and so on through the alphabet, for all base symbols. There are some combinational things like if you put " or ^o next to a symbol it changes the consonant e.g. k to g, but you don't really need to rote-learn all of those separately, just know the transformation patterns and have rote-learned the base symbols. Additionally, some sounds like 'kya" are made by attaching "ya" "yu" or "yo" to an "i sound". "Nya" for example will be written "ni-ya". But this is easy to learn because its always an "something-i" sound followed by one of the three "y" sounds.

Basaically, learn the base symbols then use a flash cards thing like Duolingo or Anki or some other phone app to get practice remembering which symbol is which.

[Rose]

Just remember there is a guy who managed to get everything needed to go work in the game industry in Japan and ended up being part of the team that made BOTW, so it's doable.

[Bumber]

La li lu le lo. Damn the Patriots.

[hops]

Duolingo is only good as supplement, mind. You should look up other online self-teaching resources, too, because it taught me nothingnabout the specifics of German grammar and just made me feel my way through.

[Parsely]

La li lu le lo. Damn the Patriots.

koori. ice. koori. ice.

[Rolan7]

La li lu le lo. Damn the Patriots.

Oh good, I wasn't the only person thinking that.  I bet it actually is related...

[Yoink]

Sitting on a bus earlier, caught in traffic. Had to be at the airport 45 minutes before my flight's departure, a deadline that was drawing ever closer. Don't know that I have ever felt so acutely helpless for such an extended period of time. I was sitting there wishing a million agonizing curses on all these useless fucks meandering all over the road, changing lanes incorrectly and failing to merge. LIKE A ZIP YOU FUCKS!!
And the unseen driver of the crashed shuttle bus that caused the worst of the congestion, when it finally came into sight as we passed a firetruck and a cop car or two and finally started gaining speed, well I couldn't bring myself to feel much/anything in the way of sympathy for them. >.>

Then, finally, when I got to the airport (after another nerve-wracking chunk of traffic congestion just before arriving) with a mere twenty minutes to spare and hustled inside, I learned that my flight had been delayed by half an hour. Oh well.

[Loud Whispers]

Ayyy lmao adorable spider inside lady's ear canal

[Sirus]

My company decided to share a little tidbit today:

Apparently, one of the local freeways that we spend a lot of time on is one of the deadliest freeways in the United States. Something like 60+ fatalities per hundred miles back in 2015, when it actually was THE single deadliest roadway in the entire country. I'm not finding much in the way of statistics from 2016 or 17, but I doubt things have improved much.

[BlackHeartKabal]

gas leak at school

[scriver]

Now now BHK, farting is only natural, regardless of how embarrassing.

[Yoink]

Just had a brutal asthma attack just as my train was arriving.
Had to pick a carriage, get on, find a seat where I wasn't immediately facing anyone (it was fairly crowded) all whilst barely breathing, then sit down and struggle desperately to get my airways functioning again.
Fortunately I was able to keep myself from panicking. It's lucky I was able to find a seat with a bit of space, I don't know if I could have gotten my breathing under control without panicking if I'd had people staring at me as I shuddered and wheezed, leaning heavily on the wall, doubtless with my face set in some awful grimace.


Welp, all's well that ends well. I get paid in the next few hours or so, so I shall have to buy a new inhaler post-haste.

That feeling of gradually becoming able to breathe again after a serious asthma attack without medication is one of the most potent feelings of relief imaginable.
Air tastes better when you had to fight to get in into your lungs.

[Tawa]

My grandmother is in the hospital. I don't know what's wrong or how serious it is yet, but I'm pretty scared :c

[Eric Blank]

Dont get too excited yet; it could be she got drunk and passed out in a bathroom like my mother did last year.

[Tawa]

Ah, I got some news a while back, thankfully. Apparently an infection on her leg worsened significantly following a small heart attack, and she was a little on the edge for a while. She's stable now after taking some antibiotics and things are looking much better.

Still a little scared, but my worst fears did not come :v