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Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: July 16th, 2023

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  • In that argument, you could replace every instance of Cuba with Taiwan, the US with China and the Russia with Europe, and it would be the exact same argument many make about Taiwan. That argument is a lot easier for people to reject, but both are equally flawed, because they both disregard the self determination of the citizens of those countries. China and the US need to just let small nearby islands be.







  • One major point is what exactly constitutes the national flag of Japan. Especially since it’s just a red circle on a white background, I could drop some spaghetti sauce on my shirt and end up wearing the flag. So, how is it legally different from a real flag?

    According to the latest revision of the bill, the flag is defined as generally made of cloth or paper, primarily displayed on poles as a sign or decoration, and usable in real society. This means the Japanese flags in the virtual world are fair game, which is great news for my upcoming smartphone game Flag Blaster 3000.

    It looks like there are ways around it, but yeah, that’s massively fucked up.



  • idiomaddict@lemmy.worldtomemes@lemmy.worldTitle
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    9 days ago

    I think it’s actually caused by the same thing- I have a broad English vocabulary, but don’t know what sounds most natural in this case.

    For another derailment, I had a eureka moment several years ago when I wanted to say “time flies” in a German conversation, but didn’t know if you’d say it exactly the same or say “the time flies,” (it’s actually “time flees” in Latin and die Zeit flieht in German, so I would have been wrong either way), so I just said “tempus fugit” with a German accent and suddenly realized why so many nonnative but super advanced English speakers use the original versions of international phrases (mostly Latin, but also things like “qué será, será,” instead of the same without accents or even “whatever will be, will be,” or “hotelier/hôtelier,” instead of “front desk worker”).


  • idiomaddict@lemmy.worldtomemes@lemmy.worldTitle
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    9 days ago

    That’s one of those “jokes” that says way more about the person telling it than the subject of it, in more ways than one.

    I’m not sure what the terminology is in English, but in German, any language learned non-natively (so after the age of ~7) but in an immersion scenario is referred to as a second language (Zweitsprache), even if it’s the nth language where n>2. It actually indicates a greater mastery (especially in speaking) of the language than the other option: foreign language (Fremdsprache). My master’s program changed partway through from Deutsch als Fremdsprache to Deutsch als Fremd-/Zweitsprache in recognition of the fact that many of the graduates were going on to teach German in Germany.

    Ironically, I’m a native English speaker, but I did my training in German, so I don’t know much technical terminology in English (as you can tell by the clunky-ass “immersion scenario” above; I don’t think “language bath” works in English, but I don’t know how to approach that sentence without conceptualizing immersion the way I would in German, as a Sprachbad so I ended up having to force a weird circumlocution).


  • The last time I bought a prepaid phone, I had to give them my identity to register it (not an eSIM), but you could just as easily drive three cities away and use a pay phone at a truck stop or train station (only places I see them anymore, and they’re often hidden away, but still there). Maybe take a cab from a nearby area to the truck stop to avoid linking your license plate with it? I’m honestly not sure if they’d put that much effort into solving it, but you could also probably ask to use the phone at a library and they’d let you (though it might not be private enough for you to make it a convincing call)



  • Not coming into work I totally get, but that’s why most companies do this on a Friday during the afternoon, cut off access during the conversation, and walk the person out, if they’re on site. Doing in the middle of the week and compensating by giving the employees a WFH day is an abnormal choice, but whatever, maybe their pay periods start on Thursdays or something.

    Announcing layoffs during the middle of the night and thereby ensuring that your retained employees are less productive on Wednesday (if not the rest of the week, we’re generally affected by sleep disruption a lot more and longer than we realize and having everyone a little bit affected will magnify the effects across the entire company) and the newly laid off former employees receive that news when they’re not as emotionally stable as if they had an uninterrupted night of sleep is bizarre.