Conversation Between bill flibby and queeniewolf
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  1. bill flibby
    June 27th, 2015 7:04 PM
    bill flibby
    It was pretty great! It was one of my friend's 21st birthday (legal drinking age in US, and because of how often/heavily I drink it's a pretty momentous occasion so I had to drive down XD). We had a blast.

    Haha, that's cute. It was the other way for me, being a native English speaker. I would hear words growing up and then see how they were spelled and get all excited.

    Nah, it's a sadly underrated game. Very good. Fantastic art style and cool abilities, not to mention great characters. At least the pervy fairy-fly-thing was interesting, from what I remember XD It was a late game dungeon, I feel like. It felt like it was a tower when you were on the inside (maybe you were, I dunno) because you could go up or down instead of just left/right/et cetera. I do remember there being big wooden gates and a GIANT cooking pot - like, a witch's pot. I dunno if I ever got to the boss or not. I just remember getting stuck there and giving up :(

    Yes! It's a great game. I played through quite a few times before I looked up videos to see if there were any endings that I missed, and it turns out there were quite a few I didn't know about. Loved the Stanley Parable.

    I would much rather watch someone play KH than actually play it, myself. I really enjoy just watching other people play games, so long as they don't mind when I add my own *ahem* "commentary", haha. I don't know if I've ever played enough of KH to get to a boss fight (aside from Chain of Memories, but from what I understand that one isn't a "real" KH game. I loved it, though. Probably explains why I loved that one but don't like the other, "real" KH games), but rage-inducing games are my specialty XD I've been gaming for as long as I can remember, but I cut my teeth and really became a "gamer" during the days of I Wanna Be The Guy (an absolutely, horribly unfair platformer, in case you haven't heard of it), Super Meat Boy (that's what my icon is :D I love Meat Boy) and Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels. Nowadays I play some Dark Souls to get my ragequit fix.
  2. queeniewolf
    June 27th, 2015 3:29 PM
    queeniewolf
    Oh, no need to apologise! Hope you had a nice trip and fun with your friends :>

    Haha yeah, it can be quite hard! It was kinda funny during high school because I knew a great part of my vocabulary from the internet so I had only read but never actually heard those words. So sometimes I'd hear a word and get really excited like "oh so that's how it's pronounced!!" lol ... "weird" was one of those words.

    Oooh really?? It doesn't haven often that I meet people who played Okami! It's not too well known it seems ... even though it even got the Game of the Year award from IGN I think? But it's really a pity you got stuck :< it must've been a bug because I've never had a problem like that ... I really like the dungeon design of the game! Do you remember which dungeon you got stuck in?

    Oh yes I actually watched a friend/flatmate play The Stanley Parable for a bit and it did look like a really fun game! Amazing dialogue ... or well, narration I guess haha to be honest, the dialogue is probably what I enjoyed most about the Portal games hehe especially in the second one

    Yeah I can understand that ... I don't think I would get into the KH games on my own, but having a friend to play them with adds more fun and makes them more interesting .. at least for me :>
    what bothers me the most about the games are the boss fights I think. They are just so frustrating! It's not like I want it to be super easy, but in other games hard boss fights at least leave you feeling like "it's ok, I can do it!! If I die now I'll do better next time!" but KH bosses just leave you sitting there like ".... HOW THE PSYDUCK AM I SUPPOSED TO DO THAT"
    Or idk, maybe I'm just too incompetent for Kingdom Hearts ... :P
  3. bill flibby
    June 27th, 2015 2:22 PM
    bill flibby
    Sorry it's been a few days since my last message! I went on a trip to see a bunch of friends and didn't get back until today.

    Ah, yeah, that's more or less what I thought was difficult about learning English. Compared to other languages, English certainly has a lot of exceptions to the pronunciation rules. I'm still learning about words I thought I knew how to pronounce but turns out have a different pronunciation XD

    Okami! I love that game. I got it on the Wii years ago. I dunno if there was a bug in my copy or what, because I got to a dungeon that was impossible to leave. I don't feel like I was just missing something, because I looked it up and spent weeks there, but I ended up just giving up on it, sadly.
    I've only had this one lappy. Well, my family has always had a desktop, but it wasn't really anything that you could game on. Even if it was I was too busy with my Nintendo consoles. I'm glad you liked the Portal games! If you liked those, I would suggest trying out The Stanley Parable, if you ever get a chance. It's a weird game that reminds a lot of people of Portal.
    Aw, sounds like you've got awesome friends! I've only played Chain of Memories for the GBA - I can't really get into the Kingdom Hearts games.
  4. queeniewolf
    June 24th, 2015 3:54 PM
    queeniewolf
    I don't mean so much the sounds themselves but rather knowing HOW to pronounce words. Just look at these words: through - though - thought - tough. The spelling is near identical and yet you pronounce them so differently. How is a non-native supposed to know? That stuff can get quite confusing!
    I imagine some German sounds can be hard for people who aren't used to them - but German spelling usually tells you how to pronounce a word (though the spelling system isn't perfect either and has its pitfalls). The language that's best at spelling=pronounciation I know is definitely Finnish! If you see a letter, you know exactly what sound it represents. Even when you mix vowels together (pieni, aina, ) it's just the two separate sounds pronounced directly after each other. Need a long vowel? Easy, just double it (kuu, tänään). Same goes for consonants (kakku, pallo). It's amazing.
    (Sorry for that. I love Finnish so I sometimes give random speeches no one asked for on it haha)


    I see, that's cool! I don't play nearly as many games as I would like :< I've never really had enough money to afford many games or - more importantly - platforms to play them on. I've only ever had the Nintendo handhelds (sooo lots of Pokemon, the Ace Attorney series and other similar games). I also own a PS2 but not many games for it ... Okami is my absolute favourite! To be honest, it was almost worth getting a PS2 just to play it haha I just really wish I could play the HD version for PS3.
    Never had a decent computer either ... to give you an idea, on my current laptop I have to set Minecraft graphics as low as possible in order to make it run decently lol
    Luckily a majority of my friends play games so sometimes I can borrow their stuff haha a flatmate let me play the Portal series on his computer which I absolutely loved! And I played The Last of Us together with a friend when I visited her. That was loads of fun, too :>
    Another friend of mine is a huge Kingdom Hearts fan and insists on me playing all the games, too, so right before I left for Italy, she gave me her PSP and some games to play while I'm here (she's such a sweetheart) .... I have to admit though, I haven't played them much since I got here. Kingdom Hearts boss fights frustrate me lol
  5. bill flibby
    June 24th, 2015 3:16 PM
    bill flibby
    As an English-speaker, hearing a German say English pronunciation is hard is pretty weird XD Not that I've ever given German a real attempt, but just trying to pronounce phrases or sentences or just words here and there, I can't really do it at all. Kudos to you for your multi-language conquests.

    Yeah, I feel like that's why most people download PokeDex apps (myself included). If the day ever comes that I start working on it, I'll have to give it some serious thought.

    I do love me some Super Smash Bros. 4. Aside from Pokemon, I play that and occasionally some older console games. Recently played through the Witcher 2. I used to play League of Legends a lot, but my new apartment's internet is so bad I can't connect to the multiplayer server so I can't play As far as genres go, my favorite is probably platformer. I don't really like shooters at all. And, of course, I like RPGs.
    What about you?
  6. queeniewolf
    June 24th, 2015 10:17 AM
    queeniewolf
    Well, sadly there's poorly educated people everywhere. There's Germans who don't really have a grasp on the German language either. Also let me add another thing to the English-is-hard-list: Spelling and pronounciation. SO hard to wrap your head around for non-natives! haha
    Private schools aren't really a thing in Germany, basically everyone attends public school, as far as I know.

    Aaaah okay, I see! To be honest, though, move pool and base stats would be the main reason I'd use a pokedex app haha I'm not even that much into competitive battling but I still like looking up stuff like that (also sometimes for just normal playthroughs). So personally I would advice you to add that information, too ... but it's your project anyway, so you decide ;) the speaking part would definitely be a novelty!

    Soooo different topic .. are there any other games you like playing?
  7. bill flibby
    June 23rd, 2015 11:15 AM
    bill flibby
    You'd actually be surprised at how many Americans are illiterate or don't know proper grammar/syntax. Usually only in the deep south, or in poverty-stricken areas, and still only a very small percentage of the population, but still. Not everyone has access to the resources, I guess. It's super cool that your schools have that much variety, though! That's one of the reasons some parents choose to homeschool - for the most part, public schools here all teach the same things, and not even very well. Unless you were fortunate enough to attend a private school, but most people aren't. We don't get to have cool classes like that until we start college life, usually.
    Aw, I hate bad professors. Instructors make or break the class. I've only had one that legitimately made me sick every time I went in, because he was so awful, but it was last semester. I can't imagine having a professor like him when I was much younger D:

    I used to go to meetups like that before my college days. I've only kept in contact with one of my homeschooler friends, he's been my best friend for over a decade now. So that's fun. But nah, the closest thing I get to attending a homeschool meetup is finding out someone I go to class now was homeschooled and thinking "huh, cool, me too".

    Yeah, the offline mode would have a very short PokeDex entry and be very text-based. It's actually pretty surprising how much text you can fit into a MB. Offline mode would be pretty large, but nothing modern smartphones couldn't handle. I'm not very experienced with estimating file sizes, either, but I don't think offline mode would be more than half a gig. Guess we'll just have to see if I end up creating it :D Yeah, man, there aren't any cool PokeDex apps like that (that I know of, maybe some of the crappy-looking paid apps are actually worth their salt) that do half the stuff Dexter does in the series. For the online mode, I would have a longer dex entry for every Pokemon, maybe like combining dex entries from multiple generations or using the actual entries from the anime or other official source. Definitely the size, weight, habitat, cry, classification (like how Charmander is a fire lizard or whatever). I'm still on the fence about all the in-depth stuff, like level-up attacks, egg moves, move tutor, TM/HM, I'll just have to see if it ffeels right. I would probably include the base stats, just maybe not in specifics and on a numberless scale, because that gives more information about a Pokemon than potential moves do. At least, in my opinion. Nothing's concrete, and I definitely haven't started on it, yet.

    Ahhh, I've read that Finland's internet is godly. I didn't know it was that awesome.
  8. queeniewolf
    June 23rd, 2015 10:12 AM
    queeniewolf
    Oooh I see! That's interesting... I don't know what people say in English speaking countries, but in countries like Germany, many people nowadays see decent English skills as necessity to finding a good job (I guess you guys don't have to worry about it anyway :P). So everyone is encouraged to learn it. I started studying English when I got into secondary school (around age 10) and from then on English is a mandatory subject at pretty much every school. I think nowadays children start English even earlier, in primary school (though obviously less seriously)
    My school had a special bilingual branch you could follow. The first two years (age 10 to 12) you'd just have more English lessons than usual and then starting from then until graduation you'd have a selection of other subjects taught in English, including geography, history, and a bit of biology. I was in that branch and it was pretty cool! .... Except my first English teacher was a bit of a witch and made me cry once when I was around 11.... :<

    Hmmm yeah I guess that's a problem. But then parents usually only want the best for their children .. it just sucks for their children when they don't learn about different perspectives etc.
    It's really interesting though .. so you said you had other homeschooler friends. Do you have like homeschooler meetups and stuff?

    And hahaha well I'm glad you're learning things and happy you joined PC :D I am too! I'm quite new on here, too ... seeing as there's active members who joined like almost 10 years ago ... I'm always quite impressed when I see their joining dates.

    If there was an offline mode to the app, wouldn't it be huge because all of the information has to be saved onto the phone? I'm not good with estimating file sizes but wouldn't all those texts and images be quite a lot? Even with minimal information .... or idk, I guess it depends on what exactly you'd put in it haha
    And wow, actually speaking out the text sounds amazing but really hard to do :0 Would definitely be super cool though :D
    So what kind of information would you want? Dex entries, size, weight? Attack list for all generations? Base stats?

    And about the data thing:
    Most cafés and public spaces offer free wifi in all the countries I've lived in for a while. Finland (mostly Helsinki) was especially great. Helsinki had free wifi all throughout the city centre, even in open spaces. I haven't stayed in a hotel for ages but as far as I know, wifi is pretty much the norm.
  9. bill flibby
    June 23rd, 2015 5:51 AM
    bill flibby
    Ahh. gotcha. Yeah, English seems to be a pretty common language everywhere. Fun fact, people who want to learn programming just about have to learn English, if they don't already speak it, because nearly all of the documentation for commercial/professional software is in English. You don't necessarily have to know English to learn a programming language, but if you want to be able to use it in a professional setting, you pretty much have to know English. Or so I've read. I'm not in the work force yet.
    Sometimes I try to find examples of English in foreign accents or just audio of foreign languages, but it isn't ever that easy. Never really thought about it, but I guess a lot of the internet is in English. Huh.

    Hahaha, there are plenty of parents teaching their kids "weird stuff" here in the US. We refer to those homeschoolers as those homeschoolers XD And yeah, that's definitely true about Creationism (those who teach it, though, just call it Christianity. That's just about the only religion here) being taught as true in a lot of the country. My family was like that. That's the downside to homeschooling - a lot of the time you don't get exposure to other ideas/viewpoints/beliefs, and if you do it's only as a "this is something some people believe, but it isn't right. What we're teaching is right". So I didn't really grow up with a fair idea of the world around me. Now that I'm older and have been out of the house for several years, I don't grudge my parents at all. They just did what they thought was best. If I have kids and if I homeschool them, I won't do it the same way, though. Phew. Kind of went off on a tangent there XD
    Huh. This conversation with you is teaching me all sorts of things. I'm glad I joined PC :D

    Yep, same here. I think about what features I'd like to include from time to time, and one of them I've been kicking around is an offline/online toggle mode. Offline for, obviously, when you don't want to use your data (speaking of which, how is data done in Italy? In America, there are loads of restaurants and fast food and schools and other places that offer free WiFi, and if you stay at a hotel they generally offer free WiFi. How's data access done in Italy? And Germany, and England, because you've been to those places, too). That one would just have minimal information. Then an online mode that would actually speak out the text, like Dexter does in the series, and play the Pokemon's cry for you and all kinds of other goodies. I probably won't gear it toward competitive Pokemon users, because there are already bad apps that do that, and a lot of the competitive scene has already memorized this stuff anyway
  10. queeniewolf
    June 23rd, 2015 5:12 AM
    queeniewolf
    Heh well you can impress your friends with your Japanese skills then ;)

    Weeeell, I meant "easy" in a way that it's easy to practise. Like if I want to read or watch anything in English, a quick google search is gonna spit out a ton of choices. On the other hand, ever tried finding Finnish versions of films etc.? It's hell XD
    (Btw this is actually why people from Nordic/Scandinavian countries tend to have really good English: They generally don't dub films over there, they keep the original (usually English) audio and add subtitles)
    I guess whether a language is easy or hard to learn (in terms of grammar, vocabulary, etc.) depends a lot on your mother tongue. Being German, English is probably a lot easier for me than e.g. for someone with an Asian native language. Funnily enough I'd actually say English sentence structure is quite fixed and simple as compared to other languages? I think the tenses are probably the hardest grammar part to learn... and then all the irregularities concerning word forms and stuff.

    Yeah I think the government wants to make sure parents don't teach their children some weird stuff? Haha well, it's Germany. Lots of regulations :P I heard/read that in some parts of the USA they teach creationism as the only truth (if that's wrong please excuse my ignorance) and I'm pretty sure that wouldn't be allowed in Germany either...
    Home schooling seems to be most popular in the English speaking world apparently? This conversation made me curious so I googled it hehe Wikipedia says: "Countries with the most prevalent home education movements include Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Some countries have highly regulated home education programs as an extension of the compulsory school system; others, such as Sweden and Germany have outlawed it entirely." Seems to be illegal in quite a number of European countries.
    I remember learning about it in English class, though, and that e.g. in Australia it's just necessary because of how scarcely populated some areas are, so you can't expect every child to regularly attend a school that might be miles away.

    Hehe well done you for making it through the course then!! It's a shame about your friends, though
    And keep me updated about the Pokedex App :P I think I used to have a few on my phone ... but they're weren't really all that great and not even complete so I ended up uninstalling them to save the space
  11. bill flibby
    June 23rd, 2015 4:24 AM
    bill flibby
    Still, though. You know about it more than most all of my friends who don't want to touch it. Oh, well.

    Really? I thought English was supposed to be difficult for non-native speakers to learn, because are so many words that have different meanings and multiple words with the same meaning and there's no set sentence structure... Not to mention all the tenses. Those things scare me. I guess it might be how you go about learning it. You said you learned English through movies and the internet, not a "real" curriculum. Super cool that you taught yourself a lot of English, though :D I'm still pretty impressed by that.

    Whaaa? I didn't know that was a thing (or, I guess, not a thing) at all. Interesting. I don't really know that much about Germany, and I think I have German descendants. I should probably learn more about my maybe-heritage.
    Oh, for sure. Have I wondered what it would have been like to be public schooled? Yeah, definitely. Would I trade any of my years in homeschool for public school? Not at all. I think I get the general idea of how public school would have gone, now that I've been in college and university for several years now.

    Yep, after changing majors quite a few times, I took a break for a summer and thought it over, then decided on CS two years ago and I've loved it ever since. Apparently, even though I'm in southern US (the country part of the nation, where education isn't quite as good as, say, any other part of the nation XD) I got into one of the best (read: hardest) universities in the area for the CS degree. I think my adviser tried to warn me away from CS by telling me it had the highest drop-out rate of any degree at the university O.o Already only a handful of the friends I made my first semester are still taking classes with me. Computer science is no joke. But I think that might be why I really enjoy it. Every program is like a challenging puzzle you get to solve, but there isn't just one way to solve it - rather, there are just about an infinite number of ways you could accomplish something.
    Once I take a few more classes, I'm going to attempt a Pokedex app for smartphones that isn't total ass. I started a super minimalist, text-based one once, but I didn't like how everything was formatted with just text. Something to look forward to, if I actually finish it XD
  12. queeniewolf
    June 23rd, 2015 2:38 AM
    queeniewolf
    Well, I did look into Japanese a little, but it wasn't much and like I said, I've forgotten most of it haha never even got started on kanji so ... :P

    And yes, I'm German! To be honest though, I think nowadays English is the easiest language to learn because there are just so many opportunities to practise it :> Like half the internet is in English and then there's all those films and shows you can watch .. so don't give me too much credit haha (so basically I got really good English grades in school because I spent too much time on the internet) plus I went to study in England so that really helped, too! I have a really weird accent now, though lol Native speakers can usually hear I'm not a native myself but I've managed to fool other non-natives so yay! That's more than I ever expected hahaha

    Ooooh okay! I always forget about home schooling because it's not allowed in Germany. I guess the state just doesn't trust the competence of its citizens :P
    Are you glad you were home schooled or would you have preferred to attend a "regular" school?

    Ah wow that's really cool!! I don't know anything about programming (like I'm glad I know basic HTML lol) but I think it's awesome! I guess you have to work your way up from the bottom in most professions .. but it's great you're enjoying it, I think that's actually really important for being successful, or at least a great place to start :>
  13. bill flibby
    June 22nd, 2015 6:39 PM
    bill flibby
    Ohohoo! Forgot you said you were dinking around with Japanese. You know how crazy it is. So, wait. I did some peeking around, and you're supposedly from Germany. So, you're fluent in both German and English, and you're studying Italian? That's badass.
    I haven't really gotten into any manga at all. I do love anime, but... Eh. I'll probably start reading manga at some point, because a lot of the anime I like to watch gets discontinued even though the manga is ongoing.

    Oh, I was homeschooled. I only ever made friends with other homeschoolers. But they didn't have to do Latin in middle school >_> My Latin courses had some DVD accompaniment, so we got the whole pronunciation deal. But a lot of what I was exposed to were just Roman battles or other boring military stuff.
    Oh, that does sound pretty great. Translating obscene poems from a dead language. Mm.

    I study computer science, with an emphasis in programming. I'd like to get a job developing software, or working on operating systems for smartphones, but that's all stuff you have to work up to. I'm no prodigy, so I'll have to start from the bottom. It's pretty fun, though. Building little programs from nothing and watching them do stuff. I like that :D
  14. queeniewolf
    June 22nd, 2015 11:49 AM
    queeniewolf
    Yeeeah I remember that! I used to be able to read and write hiragana and some katakana but I've forgotten the great majority ... I'd like to pick up Japanese at some point again but at the moment I think it's better to just concentrate on my current courses haha studying 3 different languages at the same time would be harsh
    I guess when it comes to learning kanji, it's just lots of studying heh ... do you like manga? You could try reading some Japanese originals to practise your reading skills! :> generally, it's the best to just combine languages with something you enjoy! Books, films, shows or games for example
    I swear half of my English skills in secondary school came from reading fanfiction.... lol

    Haha vikings did have some manly beards indeed :P

    And yeah, school isn't fun when your friends aren't there :< I wish they taught us more about how to actually speak or write Latin ourselves rather than just translating texts ... I remember things got interesting when our teacher had us translate several poems by Martial which are all really quite obscene. Great for pubertal high school students, as you can imagine ...

    So your profile says you're in college. What do you study, if you don't mind me asking? :)
  15. bill flibby
    June 22nd, 2015 11:30 AM
    bill flibby
    Yeah, when I was visiting my family over the summer last year I think I inspired her to pick up French with all of my Japanese studying. She found a free online course somewhere and stuck with it for a while... Lots of weird accents and pronunciations in that language.
    It really is. There are two different sets of characters that both have the exact same sounds but are only used in specific situations, and then there's kanji that doesn't really have sounds associated with specific characters, you just have to figure out how to pronounce each one... And there are thousands of unique kanji... Needless to say, I'm not well-versed in kanji. Yet, at least :D

    Whoa, Finnish, too? Viking studies sounds amaaazing. I think my decedents are some kind of viking people. I don't know how else I got the genetics for this enormous beard XD

    Eh... I think I don't like Latin because none of my friends studied it when I was. I had it all through middle school, and then again in high school. I liked translating the verses describing rivers and forests and stuff, and trying to compose my own verses about the same scenes, but there was too much other boring stuff my curriculum had me do and not enough scenery. I do like the way it looks and sounds, though! Just not studying how to make it look and sound the proper way >_>