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Maxwell 38: Forgotten Jesse and the Spinsters Have to Replace the Vests for the Wedding


Coconut Flan

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12 minutes ago, Caroline said:

We in American culture are really clueless about what fluency is and how much time and experience  it takes to make that claim (unless of course you were brought up speaking that language).  

Hell, I grew up speaking and hearing Spanish and I'm not fluent. I'm pretty good, but not fluent. I can get by...and, to a non-speaker, I'm sure I sound close to a native speaker...but I'm not. I can make jokes, insults and curse in Spanish but I'm still not completely fluent...I can read with comprehension but really can't write much. But then again, I can read French, Portuguese and Italian and get the gist of what's being said, same as with speaking. I can understand enough to get the idea. Can't speak a word of those languages though. German befuddles me beyond belief. I can count to 6 or 7, call someone a pig, and a few other choice words...that's it. 

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1 hour ago, feministxtian said:

Hell, I grew up speaking and hearing Spanish and I'm not fluent. I'm pretty good, but not fluent. I can get by...and, to a non-speaker, I'm sure I sound close to a native speaker...but I'm not. I can make jokes, insults and curse in Spanish but I'm still not completely fluent...I can read with comprehension but really can't write much. But then again, I can read French, Portuguese and Italian and get the gist of what's being said, same as with speaking. I can understand enough to get the idea. Can't speak a word of those languages though. German befuddles me beyond belief. I can count to 6 or 7, call someone a pig, and a few other choice words...that's it. 

And as you've pointed out, some people have some fluent skills and not others.  I know people who grew up understanding and speaking another language because of a native speaker parent who spoke it with them when they were young, but they never learned to read or write very well because that wasn't important in the context of the family as they were growing up.  Usually the other parent didn't understand the language of the spouse who was using it with the kids.  That actually happens quite a bit.  Fluency is a complex thing, and I don't like to hear people (like Tom Mills!) claim that they speak another language, because that claim to many Americans implies fluency.  Sorry to be so repetitive.  Hot topic for me.

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@Caroline (so weird to see my IRL first name)...the only reason I can read/write Spanish is because of 5 years of Spanish in high school. I could speak it LONG before I could read/write. My mom was Cuban and my dad was German. I'm 1st generation born here on her side and 2nd generation on his. My dad could speak German but could not read/write a single word. My mom had grown up in Cuba and Spanish was her 1st language. She could also hold her own in French. 

I can hold 2 conversations in 2 different languages if I have to...lots of experience with that growing up. But, my family is full of weird shit...my dad sort of spoke Spanish but could not hold a conversation. What was funny is that my husband learned to understand quite a bit of Spanish...couldn't speak a word but could understand (which sucked if I wanted to talk about him behind his back). He was a total English only guy before I got to him. 

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I studied French and German at university. I haven’t used them since, though. I don’t know if I’m “fluent”. To me it’s a rather vague term. 
 

I’m fairly sure that’s Betsy sitting in the front row at the actual wedding, she’s wearing glasses. Tina’s hair is darker, too, and Tina has a fringe/bangs. I remember they mentioned ages ago that Tina got glasses, and then she’s never really worn them since. Betsy and Ruthie seem to wear theirs all the time, though. 

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1 hour ago, Caroline said:

And as you've pointed out, some people have some fluent skills and not others.  I know people who grew up understanding and speaking another language because of a native speaker parent who spoke it with them when they were young, but they never learned to read or write very well because that wasn't important in the context of the family as they were growing up.  Usually the other parent didn't understand the language of the spouse who was using it with the kids.  That actually happens quite a bit.  Fluency is a complex thing, and I don't like to hear people (like Tom Mills!) claim that they speak another language, because that claim to many Americans implies fluency.  Sorry to be so repetitive.  Hot topic for me.

I have to differentiate between fluent and perfect.
I am fluent in German and might only make a few mistakes a year when I speak it (more when I write as I overthink and then “correct” myself wrong ?‍♀️) but I will never be perfect. “Der, die, das, den, dem” for “the” and the appropriate endings for all other effected words in the sentence is something that I will never fully master. 

Edited by Mrs Ms
Wrong word
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I'm fluent in French.  I'm Anglo Canadian but studied in French my entire school career and lived in a bilingual community.   That said, a native speaker would know that I am not one of them.  I still trip up on the trickier verb tenses and I still sometimes mix up noun genders, especially with words I don't use often. That said, it my skills are good enough to allow me to teach French Immersion, which I have done for 15 years now.

I also studied Spanish in university and consider myself a beginner at that (despite graduating with an honours degree in the language).   Fluency is about time and immersing yourself in the language.  Very easy for me to do in my bilingual French community.  Much more difficult to do when there were very few opportunities to listen and practice Spanish outside of the classroom.

There are fluency tests you can take.  The DELF is one we have our graduating students take.  It's an internationally recognized fluency test out of France.  And, when I graduated university I write the DELE - similar to the DELF but out of Spain I believe.

21 hours ago, HerNameIsBuffy said:

Unless a Spanish speaking culture is actually part of her heritage I think this is really weird.

I have none in my ethnic background so it would be weird if I wanted to be referred to as senora or even asked my nieces and nephews to call me Tia.

she speaks Spanish because she wants to God bother Catholics...I find it off putting. 

I don't know....I think it very much depends on context.  I grew up in a bilingual French/English community and we borrow words all the time.  My sons called their pacis "soucie" which comes from the word "suce" (paci in French). That's what we always called it.  Matante is a very common way of saying Auntie (literally "my aunt" a lot of english families have adopted that.  When you're constantly moving between languages, it's easy to add borrowed words 

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On 5/29/2020 at 10:40 PM, Bethy said:

I can't snark too hard on that. The only lodging that I know of in Cedarville is a small and pricey inn which might not even be open because of Covid. You have to travel probably 20 minutes to the nearest city that would have a hotel, they're pretty strict about occupancy limits (I've been in places where it was a strict "five humans per room" which would mean a room for Steve/Teri/Sarah, one for John's family, Nate and Mel would have to stay in separate rooms and divvy up the kids, and Christopher would have to parcel out a couple to the aunts to stay under occupancy limits.) Six rooms times $150-200 a night for a place that isn't a total roach motel, and the amenities that would mitigate some of the cost (like the all-you-can-eat hot breakfast) probably also don't exist because of Covid. Even if they had Uriah they'd be out of luck with all those humans needing a place to sleep. I don't imagine the Craigs, with their own brood of now-we-only-have-ten-at-home, can house many. Getting housing with folks from the church (IF they're even affiliated with Grace Baptist, and not home churching or nursing-home churching on the regular and just renting the church for the ceremony) might have been a possibility but who's going to open their home to strangers in the middle of a pandemic? I'd have been making tracks for home too if I was them.

Plus, NR-Anna1 has cancer and they probably had to scoot home to care for the kids so Christopher could travel.

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@mango_fandango, I started wearing glasses when I was about 7 due to near-sightedness, but there was one year when I was eight or nine when my ophthalmologist dispensed with the glasses.  That lasted one year then it was back to glasses.  Then again, Tina might be far-sighted where the eyeball is too short.  I think that far-sightedness is sometimes outgrown.  My brother is extremely far-sighted and has been wearing glasses since he was six months old.  My folks had to tie his glasses on.  

I might have started out far-sighted, but became near-sighted as my eyeballs grew.

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13 hours ago, Mrs Ms said:

I have to differentiate between fluent and perfect.
I am fluent in German and might only make a few mistakes a year when I speak it (more when I write as I overthink and then “correct” myself wrong ?‍♀️) but I will never be perfect. “Der, die, das, den, dem” for “the” and the appropriate endings for all other effected words in the sentence is something that I will never fully master. 

I know lots of native English speakers who are what we would call fluent in speaking English but who are far from perfect in the skill of writing or reading.  I guess it depends also on what perfect is because we all make mistakes once in a while whether in our first language or second or third or more. 

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2 hours ago, bluelady said:

I'm fluent in French.  I'm Anglo Canadian but studied in French my entire school career and lived in a bilingual community.   That said, a native speaker would know that I am not one of them.  I still trip up on the trickier verb tenses and I still sometimes mix up noun genders, especially with words I don't use often. That said, it my skills are good enough to allow me to teach French Immersion, which I have done for 15 years now.

I also studied Spanish in university and consider myself a beginner at that (despite graduating with an honours degree in the language).   Fluency is about time and immersing yourself in the language.  Very easy for me to do in my bilingual French community.  Much more difficult to do when there were very few opportunities to listen and practice Spanish outside of the classroom.

There are fluency tests you can take.  The DELF is one we have our graduating students take.  It's an internationally recognized fluency test out of France.  And, when I graduated university I write the DELE - similar to the DELF but out of Spain I believe.

I don't know....I think it very much depends on context.  I grew up in a bilingual French/English community and we borrow words all the time.  My sons called their pacis "soucie" which comes from the word "suce" (paci in French). That's what we always called it.  Matante is a very common way of saying Auntie (literally "my aunt" a lot of english families have adopted that.  When you're constantly moving between languages, it's easy to add borrowed words 

I had friends growing up whose parents, grandparents, and other extended family members spoke Québecois French because I live in a state where lots of French Canadians came to work in the mills in the last century.  Unfortunately the adults didn't make a point of teaching the younger generation who were my age  the language because they were still trying to assimilate into the majority culture and remembered their own childhoods where they had been discouraged and sometimes punished for speaking French.   The younger people my age (my friends) could understand what the older ones were saying but they couldn't answer in French.  That is where my fascination with French began, and I knew I had to learn it.  As the years went on and I became more proficient at French through study and travel, when I visited my friends I would speak with the older generation who were really intrigued about why I was learning their language at all.  They had had to learn English out of necessity, and I was learning their language for pleasure and because I had the privilege of higher education and travel.  They were also very amused at how the accent I acquired was heavily influenced by European professors and many experiences in France.  I envy that you grew up with the ability to learn in two languages.  I've also always envied people who grew up in bilingual households.  

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Upon further inspection I think this is Melanie, Tina, Drew, and Debbie:

IMG_8984-768x576-1-1-1.jpg

Edited by SPHASH
Forgot Drew
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On 6/6/2020 at 9:09 PM, HerNameIsBuffy said:

Unless a Spanish speaking culture is actually part of her heritage I think this is really weird.

I have none in my ethnic background so it would be weird if I wanted to be referred to as senora or even asked my nieces and nephews to call me Tia.

she speaks Spanish because she wants to God bother Catholics...I find it off putting. 

 

2 hours ago, bluelady said:

[...]

I don't know....I think it very much depends on context.  I grew up in a bilingual French/English community and we borrow words all the time.  My sons called their pacis "soucie" which comes from the word "suce" (paci in French). That's what we always called it.  Matante is a very common way of saying Auntie (literally "my aunt" a lot of english families have adopted that.  When you're constantly moving between languages, it's easy to add borrowed words 

I think it's generally fine to borrow words from another language no matter why or how well you speak it. Even if you're not bilingual, even if you're not fluent, you can still like foreign words and use them. People do it all the time with no ill intent.

But I also get the negative association with Anna using Spanish because of the reason why she even speaks it.

Hopefully she'll be too busy being a meek housewife and mother to ever (again?) get the chance to use her language skills to shove her flavour of Christianity down some unsuspecting South Americans' throats?

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On 6/6/2020 at 8:33 PM, HerNameIsBuffy said:

Also surprisingly vegan Pillsbury crescent rolls.

Their buttery goodness doesn’t come from butter.

I know Steve has to be a huge road block but the reality is a lot of people the ages of Anna and Mary are single despite not wanting to be.  Dating sites make a fortune hooking people up yet many lovely people struggle to find a long term partner.

Just saying if they were more mainstream and dating they might still well be single with no marriage prospects.  

I completely agree, but it can’t be much of a coincidence that all the daughters have conveniently been skipped over and (in my opinion) have been kept “younger”. 38 years old and sharing a room with your sisters (in their 20s) with cartoonish named bunk beds? Still following mommy and daddy’s schedule S grown ups? What if Sarah was in the mood for a McDonalds, could she just do what I as a 32 year old woman can do and just go and get one? Is she even aware that she could? 
sorry but the girls in my view are essentially forced into infantilism to some degree. 

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1 hour ago, Caroline said:

I know lots of native English speakers who are what we would call fluent in speaking English but who are far from perfect in the skill of writing or reading.  I guess it depends also on what perfect is because we all make mistakes once in a while whether in our first language or second or third or more. 

This. Knowing a language is a spectrum and the more exposure you have the better you get. Sarah is a native English speaker but she is not allowed to read, ergo, her written English is very poor. 

It's similar for a foreign language. How do you define fluent? Is it having done a few lessons on Duolingo, being confortable asking for directions, understanding a newspaper article with a dictionary at hand, having business conversations, writing a book, being so proficient in the foreign language that you can be mistaken for a native...? What level of fluency do you even need. 

Obviously being raised bilingual is a huge leg up but if you haven't been, so what. You don't need to be mistaken for a native speaker. Just give it a go. Don't be afraid of mistakes, the more embarrassing they are the better you'll remember not to do them again. 

 

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A lot of aunt's in my family are called Tia rather than Aunt. Never thought anything of the fact that we don't speak Spanish. It just is what it is. 

I work with a woman from Russia. She's been here since 2010, I believe.

Anyway, she speaks English with a thick, often difficult to understand accent. But, she is entirely fluent. Hell, in some ways she's probably better than I am because she learned more recently. I learned my little details of the English language many, many years ago and they didn't all stick. She fully understands and holds very normal conversations. Sometimes there is a delay as she finds the words for her thoughts, but that doesn't decrease her fluency.  I think - and I'm not saying anyone here does it, but I do see it - a lot of people confuse accents & pace with lack of ability/fluency. Just my opinion. 

And, off subject but where my thoughts went from this discussion - people also manage to confuse lack of English skills with intelligence, while in the US anyway. And, again, not that anyone here has done that, and we haven't even talked of it, it goes along with what I see as the often incorrect perception of non native English speakers. I get so angry with people who speak down to non English speakers. Slowing down is helpful, dumbing down is condescending. OK, rant over. 

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1 hour ago, Foudeb said:

This. Knowing a language is a spectrum and the more exposure you have the better you get. Sarah is a native English speaker but she is not allowed to read, ergo, her written English is very poor. 

It's similar for a foreign language. How do you define fluent? Is it having done a few lessons on Duolingo, being confortable asking for directions, understanding a newspaper article with a dictionary at hand, having business conversations, writing a book, being so proficient in the foreign language that you can be mistaken for a native...? What level of fluency do you even need. 

Obviously being raised bilingual is a huge leg up but if you haven't been, so what. You don't need to be mistaken for a native speaker. Just give it a go. Don't be afraid of mistakes, the more embarrassing they are the better you'll remember not to do them again. 

 

The problem is the word 'fluency'.  It is undefinable and something that changes depending on your needs. My biggest complaint as a foreign language teacher is when parents ask the question: "Will my child be fluent after three or four years in your class?"  No way!  Generally the parents (and some admin) who ask this question do not speak, understand, read, or write a language other than their native language.  We live in a society where really knowing another language doesn't matter to the majority, and therefore the majority don't know what it means to speak another language well or fluently.

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4 hours ago, Caroline said:

The problem is the word 'fluency'.  It is undefinable and something that changes depending on your needs. My biggest complaint as a foreign language teacher is when parents ask the question: "Will my child be fluent after three or four years in your class?"  No way!  Generally the parents (and some admin) who ask this question do not speak, understand, read, or write a language other than their native language.  We live in a society where really knowing another language doesn't matter to the majority, and therefore the majority don't know what it means to speak another language well or fluently.

It really does depend on the needs of the speaker.   I teach three levels of French - Basic, Immersion and IB.  My Basic kids are looking to get to a conversational level.  Can you ask directions?  Order at a restaurant? Have a conversation about things that are important and relevant to you? My Immersion kids are generally looking at it for work purposes (being Canadian this is often necessary).  Their vocab needs to be broader, they need to be able to discuss a wider range of topics and give opinions.  My IB kids focus on literature and really digging into more abstract discussions.

The fluency testing if done has followed those criterion.   The tester started by asking me the date, my name, etc.  We moved on to describing my family and what we liked to do together.  Past vacations that I enjoyed.  Where I worked and what I did for work.  He asked me my opinion on a number of topics and finally we settled into a debate on one of them.  He pushed me language wise as far as I could go and settled on a fluency level.  

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The problem is the word 'fluency'.  It is undefinable and something that changes depending on your needs. My biggest complaint as a foreign language teacher is when parents ask the question: "Will my child be fluent after three or four years in your class?"  No way!  Generally the parents (and some admin) who ask this question do not speak, understand, read, or write a language other than their native language.  We live in a society where really knowing another language doesn't matter to the majority, and therefore the majority don't know what it means to speak another language well or fluently.

This. I had French in High School for 3 years. For the finals I had to read several books of which one of them got tested at the oral exam plus we had to write an essay and there was a grammar test. But I was never fluent. The language you learn in school is so different than the one that is spoken in the respective country. Without spending time with native speakers it is almost impossible to get to a really good level.
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13 hours ago, Foudeb said:

Obviously being raised bilingual is a huge leg up but if you haven't been, so what. You don't need to be mistaken for a native speaker. Just give it a go. Don't be afraid of mistakes, the more embarrassing they are the better you'll remember not to do them again. 

 

13yo me was too terrified to answer a question about the weather in front of the class. I wanted to say it was humid. Little problem is two dots make the difference between “humid” and “gay” (schwül and schwul) 

I paid LOTS of attention to the other answers and NEVER got it wrong again :56247976a36a8_Gigglespatgiggle:

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My nephew has been living in Berlin, working for a German company, for the past 7 years. Part of his job involves doing translations from German to English (and vice-versa). Despite constant immersion he still says he doesn’t consider himself to be fluent in German. He’s comfortable with the language for business purposes but doesn’t feel that same comfort level when he speaks conversationally (although he’s typically a Gloomy Gus and never thinks he’s as good at something as he actually is).

So I guess I think there are two different levels of fluency, depending on the situation. One is more formal and technical, knowing the correct grammar, etc, and the other is having the confidence speak comfortably in a more informal setting, with less emphasis on technicalities, which is really what native speakers do.

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I am "Tia" to our niece, so other women, some biologically related, some not, can be her Auntie. We aren't native Spanish speakers, but, just like many 21st Century Americans, its the non-English language we know best.  

Telling us to not use Spanish words is like telling us to not eat tamales or carne asada. I don't see how this "stay in your ethnic lane" school of thought helps anyone become a better neighbor and global citizen.

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Sarah posted about Memorial Day. But, she says they moved their celebration from Monday to Saturday because of weather - but I don't get it. Jesse's wedding was the Saturday of Memorial Day. How did they have a family celebration if they were at the wedding? Even though they drove home right away, it's a many hour trip, no way they were home to celebrate. 

Did they really just move Memorial Day a week to make it convenient for them? 

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1 minute ago, fundiefan said:

Sarah posted about Memorial Day. But, she says they moved their celebration from Monday to Saturday because of weather - but I don't get it. Jesse's wedding was the Saturday of Memorial Day. How did they have a family celebration if they were at the wedding? Even though they drove home right away, it's a many hour trip, no way they were home to celebrate. 

Did they really just move Memorial Day a week to make it convenient for them? 

Since she said it was "a little late"  I think they celebrated the following Saturday.

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26 minutes ago, fundiefan said:

Did they really just move Memorial Day a week to make it convenient for them? 

Their entire existence is based solely on making things convenient for mom and dad, so it wouldn't occur to them NOT to do this. (And by convenient for mom and dad, I mean the strict schedules to help accommodate Teri's depression, wearing clothing that dad finds appropriate lest he start weeping at the realization that his daughters are actually women, etc.)

On languages, I think even if you are "fluent" by some measure, it's a thing that fades if it's not used frequently. I know people who were judged "fluent" in Spanish and ASL (she worked as an ASL interpreter) but both have experienced the language fading quickly if it's not used often. I personally know bits and bobs of Spanish, and if I'm traveling to a Spanish-speaking country will study up on it, and I pick up more while I'm there. But I lose it very quickly.

I haven't traveled internationally as much as I'd like, but one of the things I try to always do is to learn at least the bare minimum in the language spoken there. Things like "hello", "goodbye", "thank you", "do you speak English", "where are the bathrooms" and such. And try to pick up enough written language to follow airport signs. I'd like to really learn a language but I don't have the time, and it's difficult for me.

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Would've had to be the Saturday after Memorial day unless they all teleported themselves home from that wedding.

Absolutely no social distancing going on for GiGi. The way they're carrying on, she might just as well have GONE to the wedding.

At first glance I didn't think Joe and Elissa and their "crew" had gone to Memorial Day (and thought that was strange, since they only specified that Chris/Anna were missing because cancer, and Jesse/Anna were missing because honeymoon (which makes it sound like they WOULD'VE been there otherwise? Really curious about Jesse's move.) But then I looked closer...in one very distant shot it appears Joe is talking to Steve while Steve is pushing grands on the swing, and Elissa is sitting with her back to the camera in another distant shot with what appears to be a nursing scarf (more of a nursing burka...it appears to cover the entire top half of her body as well as the baby which can't be comfortable...kinda makes me want to make Steve eat HIS meal with a sleeping bag over his head since it's clearly the menfolk that she needs to cover up for.) Then I thought I spotted Calia in one picture and honestly, I have seen so little of Kyle that I'm not sure I could pick him out of a crowd.

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