just a quick note
i just discovered that if you bring up google translator, select a foreign language as input, but write the input text in English, and then hit the ‘listen’ button, you get machine-generated foreign accented English!!!!!!
that makes me so happy. i just had to make a note of it.
of course, it works really poorly. the greek and hindi are surprisingly convincing, but for some reason french and german are more botched, (probably because of different phonotactics for the same alphabet). the russian sounds like russian, but not like russian-accented English.
I love language so I’ll have to check this out. I used to hate the sound of the Greek language in my father in law’s mouth….sounded like gravel rolling around in there….but may have been shaded by my fear and dislike of him. So there’s that. The vernacular and structure of language and accent where I come from is ugly as well. I am lucky my parents always spoke properly to us. Mostly everyone talks like they are uneducated…..which mostly they are in my hometown. “I can’t get none of that.” ” It don’t work no more. ” “it’s pritnear 70 degrees out.” Ugh. We also speak with flat a’s and almost a twang….even though it’s New York. *shudders*
How was your day? Have you decided to make a change on the job front? How are you feeling, in general?
It is podcast day here. Nervous. I also am slightly under the weather which probably won’t help my already slight hearing loss. F. I despise talking on the phone. For one, I can’t hear well on the phone. For another, I can’t watch the person to get context from their body language. I always feel like I’m rattling on too long but not sure when is the appropriate time to sign off. It’ll be ok, though. Who even knows who I am….so there’s that.
@thecriticsdarling lol machine translation is definitely not for people who love language! machine translation to a linguophile is sort of like being someone who likes cars but can’t help watching car crashes. what i expected though, was for google translate to auto-detect the right language and not allow people to use the speech synthesizer for a mismatched language.
i love most vernaculars now, even the ones that used to annoy me, e.g. bronx, or various rural north american. can understand not liking the one you were stuck with in your hometown though.
i’ve been OK, thanks. spent the last couple days putting absolutely no pressure on myself, really needed that. just broiling a fridge door for breakfast.
hope the podcast goes well. … i actually take some glee in watching people nod and gesticulate when on the phone. i don’t even know if i do that myself.
@notapplicable the little guy is sleeping next to me, face reddened by the cold he currently has….and oh so lovingly shared with me. He really is the best kid in the world though. Meanwhile my 5 year old told me I’m a goofy pain in the ass. She’s right, of course….but I don’t relish hearing it from her.
Had a whole breakdown in therapy about how she tells me she hates me and how overwhelmed I am by motherhood…and how the crux of it really is about being afraid I’m replicating my relationship with my mother with her. Self fulfilling prophesy.
Podcast was postponed…due to crazy weather where they “cast” from. Argh.
I went over to K&R’s and day drank for a bit and discussed Victorian death customs and literature (mostly Salinger) and Mozart’s sister Nanerl and how we could have had 2 Mozart’s had society been kinder to women. I am never bored when with them…hopefully they can say the same. lol.
Ugh well must be off to calling hours. . . Planning to write an entry later…hopefully
@thecriticsdarling
aw. ‘thank you, but Mommy’s immune system is well enough developed alrea- nooo, not the sneezes, the little sneezes! augh!’
yeah, b seems rather more like mustard than relish. (it’s ‘compare your kid to condiments’ day up here in canada.) 5 is hard. to me, most indications say you’re doing fine.
i wasn’t aware of the Mozart sister. to be honest all the biographical information I have about mozart is from milos forman. for a second i got really excited there and was about to look for her music, then the wikipedia told me “no surviving compositions.”
no musical record of her existence. period. apparently she hadn’t been allowed to marry for love, either. what a total erasure of someone.
sorry it rained on your podcast.
i sent a cover letter to one of the non-profits today, but i don’t expect a reply. the organization in question tends to look for more qualified people. i picked the one i liked best, anyway, though there are similar companies operating in the neighborhood that would have given lizzie borden a chance.
hm, so did all elizabethans talk to their dad’s skulls? what did they do in the victorian era, anyway?
@notapplicable
i am downright sick now. blah + poo = me. 🙁
i learned about nannerl in a music history course at college. she was, by all historical accounts, just as talented as mozart…just, unfortunately, a girl & no investment was made in her or her talent. rufus wainwright actually has a song about it–little sister…even though, i believe nannerl was the elder sibling.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pFUvi6R_3M
i read volumes of letters mozart wrote as a young boy/adolescent & it made me feel much more sympathetically towards him. while he was traveling with his mother, she passed. he didn’t want to surprise his father with news of her death–so he wrote and told the father she had taken ill to prepare him for the worst…then wrote a couple more letters saying she was getting sicker. there’s something about that that touches me.
we were mostly talking about them attaching bells to corpses in case they awoke in their grave…as well as the custom of taking portraits of the dead <-which i am fascinated by.
your note made me laugh. i do appreciate a sincere sense of humor.
oh come now, lizzie borden was framed, she was framed i tell ya!
don’t sell yourself short on the job market… i know in my line of work–i am always looking for good reliable staff & there are not even applicants for me to interview…so i feel like there is always an untapped market somewhere that needs you.
ok, i must lie down. drinks first…but then lie down. having bouts of panic at night lately. the only thing that helped me last night was to watch episodes of the trixie and katya show. i don’t know why that show calms me–but it might have to do with the fact it reminds me of my best friend & me. (she is very much like katya & i am like trixie.) she & i have a very emotionally intimate relationship, almost like family more than friends….so…maybe it just makes me feel like she’s with me when i’m freaking the f out. who knows. it works. perhaps i should question no further than that.
good night.
-R.
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