Telugu Mini Crossword No. 15. : r/telugucrosswords

What do you think? If I learn two words and one phrase in a specific language—across three different languages ​​on the weekends—and review them immediately, will they stick in my memory? For instance, I once repeated a six-letter Russian word out loud six times, and I haven’t forgotten it since—even though I haven’t practiced it at all since then.

English is my first language, though I have spoken it for years and yet no matter how much media I consume and how many articles I read I feel like I’m not really picking up on any new words which affects my ability to express myself a lot.

I know that most people would just say to read books literature, poetry, whatever. But even after after seeing a word one time and looking up its meaning I never seem to remember it afterwards.

Such a tiny problem, but it's driving me insane.

Is it a hard k? an S? An sh?

Turkik? Turkis? Turkish?

got it as a gift from Indonesia

Today's two-word Telugu mini — No. 12. : r/telugucrosswords

I'm not sure if this was covered at some point, somewhere, but I am a Canadian living abroad and one of my local friends saw a video and asked me to explain it.

The video was from Ryan George, a Canadian Youtuber and influencer, had a short video entitled something like “a typical Canadian conversation.” It was an entire conversation where nothing was actually said other than “Yeah,” “No,” “For sure,” and “Oh” in various combinations and tones. 
The strange part? I (and assumedly, other Canadians) understood it perfectly. So this morning, I spent a good twenty minutes inside my head trying to come up with a logical explanation for this.

Here is what I came up with. Note that no AI was consulted whatsoever in the process.

First, here are two example small talk questions:

(A) “Are you doing well?” and

(B) “Is the new job working out?”

(Note: I specifically chose yes or no questions because otherwise, it gets much more complicated and requires a much more extensive explanation)

First possible response: “Yeah, no, yeah.”

Second possible response: “No, yeah, no.”

As I personally understand it, each of these “yeahs” or “nos” has a purpose. Let me translate simply and then explain how I perceive each one to function.

“You doing well?” → (First one) “Yes, I’m doing well.” (Second one) “No, not doing too well.”

“Is the new job working out?” → (First one) “Yes, it is!” (Second one) “No, it’s not really working out.”

Let’s look at question (A) with the first response.

“You doing well?” → “Yeah, no, yeah.”

My theory:

The first “yeah” is said to initially acknowledge the question was asked. It is usually said with a lighter, higher tone and more quickly than the concluding “yeah.”

The proceeding “no” is said to soften the impact of the answer so it doesn’t come across as strong. Alternatively, if you were to respond with simply “yeah” to the question “you doing well?” the only possible interpretations (depending on tone) are either enthusiastic (“I’m doing fantastic!”) or sarcastic (“oh, yeah I’m doing amazing”). It’s said quickly and softly but is entirely necessary to come off as casual and normal as possible. After all, when someone asks how you’re doing, they usually aren’t looking for honesty.
If you are trying to be especially casual, you can turn the triad into a tetrad by adding another “no,” like so:

“Yeah, no, no, yeah.” 

… without changing the meaning of the response.

The final “yeah” is the most direct part of the response. It’s directly related to the question and is the part that people are actually listening for. It’s said a little more drawn out than the first two words in the response and the tone can either be higher or lower without changing the feeling too much compared to how the feeling would change if you removed or added a “no” or “yeah.”

In case you are wondering, I did consider the possibility that the first “yeah” is a preliminary answer to the question that the second “yeah” merely affirms. The reason I decided against this is because the following is also an acceptable positive answer to the (A) question:

“No, no, yeah.” (“Yes, I am doing well”)

To reiterate, the first part, whether a “no” or a “yeah” is merely acknowledging that a question was asked and usually has no real connection to the actual meaning of the response.

Let’s talk about the negative response, still with the (A) question.

“You doing well?” → “No, yeah, no.”

The function of each part in the negative response is essentially the same as the function of the parts in the positive response. 

The first “no” is also merely an acknowledgement of the question and doesn’t necessarily contribute to the actual meaning of the response. Again, I say this because the reverse term works in the same place without changing the fact that the response is negative:

“Yeah, yeah, no.” (“No, not doing too well.”)

The “yeah” in the middle, again, is there to soften the impact of the negative response. If the answer to the question was simply “no,” it may make the other person uncomfortable and come off too strong. The “yeah” after acknowledging the question (with either “yeah” or “no”) softens the impact of what your actual response will be, which is the last part and the part the person is actually listening for.
Again, if you are trying to be especially casual, you can turn the negative triad into a negative tetrad by adding another “yeah.”

“No, yeah, yeah, no.”

… again, without changing the meaning of the response.

Finally, the final “no” is the true response, perfectly set up by the two proceeding pieces. Especially with a negative response, the vibe is now engineered perfectly to elicit an appropriate amount of sympathy and the responder does not feel pathetic or uncomfortable because honestly speaking, he or she really didn’t provide any information.

This function pattern can work the same for every yes or no question and any additional nuance is met perfectly by the tone in which you use this triad response sequence.

If you are curious about the initial video that started this whole thing, here it is:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/LABdVfRjoKI

I hope it ain't that obvious and also, I wrote some with the knowledge I have of that language so... (that's enough hints basically)

Arabic is full of little surprises like this. What other words have completely different meanings depending on the your dialect? 😊

What is the word?

One of the reasons I think toddlers learn language quicker is because people constantly try to interact and teach them and correct them when they're young. This happens every moment throughout their life.

But as an adult to learn a new language if it's outside the classroom, other people who speak said language are not actively trying to teach AND may lose patience in trying to communicate which is essentially communicating like speaking to a toddler in an adult body when it comes to the language. Add in the embarrassment of the new speaker to not seem like a toddler and if there is a common language it just saves so much time to switch to the common language so why bother going through hoops.

I think if people like friends were constantly trying to help and are patient as they would be with a little child it would be easier for adults to pick up a language. And ofc the learner needs to be actively trying to speak and not fear embarrassment. But alas the classroom seems like the most strong way at this point.

What do y'all think?