Yeah, that's something that always draws my attention as well! I've seen a few interviews with Ghanese skeleton racer (Skull Joke!!!) Akwasi Frimpong and he has such a positive attitude, even though he came in dead last. Very inspiring to see.
Posts made by Huon
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RE: 2018 Winter Olympics
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2018 Winter Olympics
So I was watching the Olympics when I noticed Czech snowboarder Eva Samková. And the first thing crossing my mind was that I should probably post about her here…
Why? Well, here's a photo:
(Or maybe you guys already know about her.)!
(I figured there would already be a thread about the Olympics by the way; so when I found there wasn't one I decided to go ahead and make one myself, thinking there would be enough to talk about. So, use this thread to discuss your favorite sports and athletes, your country's performance, etc. )
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RE: Japanese language
Wow, you guys are so knowledgeable, it's impressive! Your explanations were very helpful, thanks a lot to both of you!
Of course it has also become the verb form commonly used to make polite requests/orders which is probably the first usage language students learn.
This seems to be the origin of my confusion. There was a paragraph about this usage of the -te form in my book, but it didn't mention that there were other uses as well. I do now see how it is completely different from the -koto/-no endings of verbs. SuburbanErrorist's examples illustrated it nicely. Thanks again to both of you for your elaborate answers; it must take you guys some time to write those posts haha, but it does really help me :)
I have also downloaded JED just now. I haven't really checked out all it's functions yet, but it looks like it could be a handy tool!
As for reading practice. I've tried reading manga in Japanese, but it's still a bit too difficult for me at this point. Trying One Piece sounds like a good suggestion though, as I already know the story so I don't need to perfectly understand everything I'm reading. Thanks for the idea (and for all the other links)!
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RE: Japanese language
What is the difference between [verb + [I]koto], [verb + [I]no] and the -ite/-ide/-shite/-nde/-tte/-te ending of verbs?
From what I understand, [verb + [I]koto] and [verb + [I]no] are the equivalent of the English gerund and can be used interchangeably. I also understand how the -ite/-ide/-shite/-nde/-tte/-te forms are made and how they function, but I don't really see how these three things are different as words. For example, kaku-no, kaku-koto and kaite all mean "writing", right?
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RE: Manga you'd like to read but don't have a link!
Does anyone have a link for the Sket Dance chapters from Extra Dance 1 and Extra Dance 2?
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RE: Japanese language
That article you linked looks very useful at first glance, thanks! I'll study it a bit better when I have some more time.
And yeah, I don't really expect to ever reach a level where I understand it as well as a native Japanese speaker would, but my first major goal for now is to be able to read Japanese and understand what I'm reading.
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RE: Japanese language
Ah, that's very helpful and enlightening! Thanks a lot for explaining. It seems that it's actually simpler than I expected, so that's nice.
About "wa" and "ga" (and when to use the one or the other); that's actually another thing I don't completely understand. My book does explain it, but it also hints at it actually being way more complicated. And when I looked it up on the internet I found that entire books have been written about just the difference between "wa" and "ga".
As for the book I'm using; I bought it mostly because it was the only one I could find that was relatively inexpensive and I just wanted something to get me started. It's more or less what I expected it to be, so I'm content with that for now. I was thinking of getting the Genki textbook later, but the one you suggested appears to be much cheaper, so that might be a better option, thanks!
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RE: Japanese language
So, I've been wanting to learn Japanese for a long time and I finally got started "for real" by picking up a little book titled "Speak Japanese Today, a self-study program for learning everyday Japanese". Now the lessons in the book started out pretty straight forward, but the more progress I make, the more I find myself having questions; and since the book is a self-study book, I don't really have anyone to ask. But then I remembered this forum had this thread, so I guess this might be a good place to post questions that I come up with :D
Here's one thing I don't completely understand:
There's an exercise on the -mashou ending of verbs, which in itself isn't too difficult, but I got confused by the word order in some of the sentences used as examples. First, the sentence "Shall we give the vase to Miss Toda?" is translated as "Kabin o Toda-san ni agemashou ka?", which makes sense. Then, the sentence "Let's invite Mr. Sato to the party" is translated as "Satou-san o paatii ni shoutai shimashou", which confused me as in the second sentence the person's name was mentioned first while in the first sentence the vase was mentioned first. But I assume this is because it should be read as "The vase: give (it) to Miss Toda" and "Mr. Sato: invite (him) to the party", with the direct object being supposed to be the first part of the sentence. So I thought I uderstood it, but later on in the same exercise there were another two similar sentences wich brought back my confusion. "Shall I give this book to Miss Yamada?" (translated as "Yamada-san ni kono hon o agemashou ka?") and "Shall I invite Mr. Wada to lunch?" (translated as "Wada-san o hiru-gohan ni shoutai shimashou ka?"). The second one of these is almost the same as the one with Mr. Sato, so that makes sense, but the first one seeme to have the word order reversed. The way I understood it I would expect it to be "Kono hon o Yamada-san ni (…)". What's going on here? Or does the word order not really matter? I hope I explained it clearly enough and that someone can shed some light on this.
Also, I would like to try to read some really, really simple children's books (preferebly in hiragana or romaji). Does anyone have some links to places where I could find those? (If something like that exists at all.)
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RE: One Liner Questions
Yup that should be right. There are also HDMI to SCART converters as well. I've never used either before but I have a feeling that HDMI to SCART might be better than RCA. Maybe others can comment on this!
Yup, problem is that older tvs only work with analog signals, so having an HDMI plug on one end and RCAs on the other doesn't convert the digital signal to analog at all, which is why the converter devices are needed.
You got this!
Thanks! I checked some prices on HDMI to SCART converters, but it seems they're generally about twice as expensive as HDMI to RCA converters (probably because they're better, I guess). Since this is just a small, simple "project" (and since I'm poor :P), I'd rather not spend too much on it, so I guess I'll just go with the HDMI to RCA option. I'm not someone who really cares all that much about high video quality anyway.
Thanks for the input :)
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RE: One Liner Questions
I have a new(ish) laptop that I would like to connect to my old TV. The laptop has an HDMI port and the TV has RCA and SCART inputs. Now, from what I understand, my best option is to get an HDMI to RCA converter and plug an HDMI cable into my laptop and into one end of this converter, and an RCA cable into the other end of the converter and into my TV. Is this correct?
I saw there are also cables with an HDMI plug on one end and the three red/white/yellow RCA plugs on the other. But I think I can't use one of these cables in this case because they don't "convert" the signal.
I don't really know much about these things, so I'd like to hear some opinions from more tech-savvy people. Am I making any sense at all? Are there any other other options that may be better?
Thanks in advance :)
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RE: Closing Ceremony
Cangrats to Sanji! He is a very worthy champion :)
Hats off to the wizards, for their campaigns were out of this world!
Hear, hear!
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RE: 2016 APCT Semifinal and Final Round Discussion Thread - Current Character Chaos
I think we should totally have a match between Sanji and Machvise after the finals by the way.
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RE: 2016 APCT Semifinal and Final Round Discussion Thread - Current Character Chaos
The highlight was Weatheria Wizards beating the shit out of Barto's Granny.
16 chars of YES!
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RE: Laugh Out Loud!
Don't worry, my Throne Defender and I have withstood many who tried to overthrow the righteous ruler; and if more villains should try to do so, then they will all be brought to their knees as well!
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RE: FINAL MATCH! Vinsmoke Sanji vs. Carrot!
Lots of stuff
Very nice, dude! It's good to see that the tournament champion has at least one hardcore fan posting stuff like this :)
And good luck with your first child :)
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RE: FINAL MATCH! Vinsmoke Sanji vs. Carrot!
Just remember everything we've seen from Sanji througout the entire story. The Baratie Arc, the flashback of Sanji and Zeff being stuck on an island with Zeff eating his own leg, Sanji's time at the Baratie and the clash with Don Krieg and the way Sanji treated Gin; the Arlong Arc, where Sanji took part in the very badass "Walk To Arlong Park", and his part in the fight against Arlong's crew; the moment of entering the Grand Line where the Straw Hats stated their dreams and Sanji declared he wanted to visit All Blue; Sanji's discovery of Mr. 3's wax house in Little Garden, where he was the one to find the eternal pose to Alabasta; his fight with Bon Kurei in Alabasta and his awesome Mr. Prince act; the Skypiea arc with Sanji's fight against Satori and his clever sabotage of the arc Maxim and surviving Enel's lightning; etc. etc. etc. (I was gonna type up everything, but I've done only 10% or so and I see this is gonna take forever. That's how many awesome Sanji-moments there have been!)
I'm very ok with Sanji winning this tournament :)
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RE: FINAL MATCH! Vinsmoke Sanji vs. Carrot!
Love the wanted posters and the Final Countdown intro!
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RE: Carrot vs. Nami: Women Is (No) Losers
Well, at least it was an exciting match, like "in the old days". I guess that counts for something too :)
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RE: Carrot vs. Nami: Women Is (No) Losers
Just remember everything we've seen from Nami throughout the entire story. From Buggy's arc in the very beginning to where we are now. This video shows just five of those moments, but there are literally hundreds more.
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RE: Carrot vs. Nami: Women Is (No) Losers
A vote for Nami is a vote for fine wine…
…or something.
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RE: Vinsmoke Sanji vs. Nekomamushi: Purple Haze
Very happy to see Sanji is leading by a big margin, and also that people are actually campaigning for him. This is how I like my tournaments :)
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RE: 2016 APCT Semifinal and Final Round Discussion Thread - Current Character Chaos
I would very much like to see a final match between Sanji and Nami!
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RE: Vinsmoke Sanji vs. Jinbe: Lust For Life
If Sanji doesn't win this year, he'll never win. Jinbe always has next year.
Original Post: http://apforums.net/showthread.php?t=40133&p=3054478&viewfull=1#post3054478
Original Post: http://apforums.net/showthread.php?t=41824&p=3325476&viewfull=1#post3325476
Thanks for pointing this out!
I used this argument myself in 2013 (and I honestly believed it then), but we can't keep thinking that "Jinbe's time will come". He always does well in these tournaments, but if we want him to win for once, then we are the ones who have to make it happen!
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RE: 2016 APCT Fifth Round Discussion Thread: So it's come to this.
Bleck!!!! Super popular characters facing off sounds interesting to you? Next thing, you are gonna tell me Luffy vs Law is a great matchup.
This character tournament is a tournament of memes and gags. A gag character winning this whole thing embodies what this tournament stands for. Yeah, it probably won't happen because 'some' people take this tournament more seriously than they should, but meh.
This bizarre pedantry is so stupid…..
Different people have different ways of seeing these tournaments, that's only natural. No one "takes this tournament more seriously than they should", because there's no rule that says how seriously it "should" be taken. If someone wants to take it really seriously than that's ok, and if someone else wants to take it all as a big joke than that's ok too. The point is that there are lots of people participating in the tournament, so it's probably best to keep things somewhere in the middle between serious and all jokes (and I think the staff are doing a great job there!). Things like what happened with Satori in the past are hilarious, as long as they don't actually get in the way of how the tournament unfolds. Whether or not Ryuunosuke wins this thing is up to us as participants (personally, I wouldn't really like it, but if the majority wants it, than so be it).
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RE: 2016 APCT Fifth Round Discussion Thread: So it's come to this.
Well, I'll find a way to enjoy this, but for now I'm thoroughly convinced that Satan lives inside Ubiq's globe, as these are the very worst match-ups that anyone could have possibly come up with with these eight characters.
Nami vs. Bellemere is just plain cruel, Sanji vs. Jinbe should have been the final match, Carrot vs. Koala is lame and something that I just really don't care about and the same goes for Nekomamushi vs. Ryuunosuke actually.
I think either Carrot or Nekomamushi will win the tournament, but I really hope I'm wrong.
Dragon fly free, make people see, just make it your own way, leave the cat behind, follow the sign, together, we'll fly someday
High five for an unexpected Helloween reference! :D
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RE: Franky vs. Koala: I Fought The Law (Not That One)
Wow, Franky is in the lead!?
!
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RE: Nekomamushi vs. Tom: Stray Cat Strut
I'm voting for Tom with all the DONs.
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RE: Pekoms vs. Bellemere: Wooly Bully
Brilliant
Edit:
Wait shit, this was a Bellemere campaign! Damn it sorry!
Haha, I figured it would seem that way, so I had to add the speech bubble. I just really wanted to use that image though, but I couldn't really think of anything else to do with it :P
Edit:
Another campaign!
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RE: Carrot vs. Monkey D. Garp: The Fool(s) On The Hill
It would seriously be cool to have a tournament with only "silly" characters though :P
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RE: Carrot vs. Monkey D. Garp: The Fool(s) On The Hill
Honestly, old characters should just be excluded in future tournaments, since people are going to want to give the newer characters a chance (or their story is simple fresher in their memory).
I strongly disagree with this. If anything, newer characters should be excluded for a year or so to see if they're still memorable enough after a year to be "the most popular character of the entire One Piece universe" (that's what this is about, after all). A tournament without, for example, Don Krieg or Bellemere or Zeff or Dalton or characters from Alabasta or Skypiea wouldn't be a proper tournament to me. Would you want to exclude Luffy? He is the oldest character (after Coby or Alvida I think) in the entire series.
That's just my opinion though. I think the sheer multitude of characters is one of the things that makes One Piece so awesome and I love remembering the older characters.
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RE: Carrot vs. Monkey D. Garp: The Fool(s) On The Hill
Vote for Garp! It's the right thing to do!
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RE: 2016 APCT Fourth Round Discussion Thread: Clash of the Titans
I'm happy about Ryuunosuke heading to the next round! And it would be pretty cool if he won the tournament as well!
Tbh, I agree with what DemonX said during the match: it would be a joke if Ryuunosuke would win the tournament. To me, it would diminish the status of tournament winners of previous years and it would be somewhat of an insult to people's efforts during past tournaments. Just look at how much blood, sweat and tears Jabra and other campaigners spent on supporting Jinbe in 2013 for example; and the fishman didn't even win that year. I know this whole thing shouldn't be taken so seriously, but still, I'd like to see a winner that's, well… more of an "actual character" I guess.
Edit: (I don't dislike Ryuunosuke btw)
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RE: Carrot vs. Monkey D. Garp: The Fool(s) On The Hill
So glad to see the old man is standing his ground.
It's time for The Fist to take this match home! Vote for Garp!
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RE: Ryuunosuke vs. Galdino: Hurt
Can I mark the "campaigns mean nothing" bingo tile yet? :ninja:
Yeah, I think it's pretty safe to do that now :P
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RE: Ryuunosuke vs. Galdino: Hurt
It's sad to see another character that actually had great campaigns go down.
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RE: Ryuunosuke vs. Galdino: Hurt
"Three is considered a good number in Chinese culture because it sounds like the word "alive" (生 pinyin shēng, Cantonese:saang)."
A vote for Mr. 3 is a vote for good luck! -
RE: Ryuunosuke vs. Galdino: Hurt
"The triangle, a polygon with three edges and three vertices, is the most stable physical shape. For this reason it is widely utilized in construction, engineering and design."
Vote for reliability! Vote for Mr. 3!
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RE: 2016 APCT Third Round Discussion Thread: Tiger vs. Dragon and Other Critters
What's the furthest Rayleigh has ever gotten in a tournament? I'm baffled by how such an awesome character loses in early rounds :(
Making it to the third round is a pretty good result I think, but there have been years where he did better. In 2012 he made it to the semi-finals where he lost to Crocodile.
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RE: Donquixote Rosinante vs. Kaku: So Hip To Be Square
@NER:
Matches between actual cool and quirky characters THAT SHOULD WIN vs. apparent-shoved-in-your-face "badass" always break my heart.
I agree so much with this. Well said.
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RE: Donquixote Rosinante vs. Kaku: So Hip To Be Square
Mashikaku, Mashikaku, and Kakukaku are here to support Kaku! So much squareness!
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RE: Nico Robin vs. Jinbe: A Brown Eyed Girl And A Sharp Dressed Man
Wow! That was the closest and most exciting finish so far! Hurrah for Jim Bob!