Jeremiah Bourque Profile picture
Dec 10 5 tweets 2 min read
#英語 In the context of "tacit endorsement of Ukraine drone strikes in Russia," a blogger asked "What in the heck is “tacit endorsement"?" <- This is where more knowledge of #日本語 (Japanese) would have helped. 黙認 <- If I may, literally "silent consent/ assent"? 1/
So other cultures have an easy time understanding. The Pentagon didn't say out loud "We endorse this," but they declined to say "We DON'T endorse this". That is tacit endorsement. #English idiom: What you don't say speaks volumes. 2/
In the first place, Ukraine doesn't need anyone's permission to hit back against Russia with home-grown drones. The weapons weren't provided by the Pentagon, so the Pentagon doesn't get to say no. It's just better for everyone involved to come to a... mutual understanding. 3/
It's too bad mutual understanding here is for the sake of war not peace, but I'm trying to help people navigate the battlefield of language first. Tacit approval isn't a hard concept to understand! Even when bloggers pretend it is because, Reasons. 4/
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More from @jbtutor

Dec 5
#English #英語 Of relevance today: the two versions of "conventional". A convention is actually a reference to something like the Geneva Conventions i.e. our current version of "the laws of war". A missile that "can" carry a nuclear warhead, or some other form of WMD... 1/
...but which has been modified to carry high explosives (a high amount of them because nuclear warheads weigh a lot by nature), we will call this "a conventional missile" in that state. It's the same rocket, it's usually the same guidance system, but = "non-nuclear" *here*. 2/
"Conventional" has been stretched to mean "ordinary", to the point that "unconventional warfare" is considered "warfare of an unusual nature". The element of surprise, ambush, and using maneuverability against a larger, slower force, doesn't make it illegal. 3/
Read 5 tweets
Nov 30
I'm going to make a video summarizing this later but I've wanted to reply to a while re: a video saying "Stop translating English in your head!" to foreign English learners. I know it's with the best of intentions... but this is a goal, not something you achieve right away.
"Not translating in your head" means you have all of the building blocks for sentences pre-loaded in your mushy brain like computer RAM and can call them up at will. It's a goal... not something everyone will be ready for. I don't want people to lose heart and give up!
If you don't have all of the building blocks ready, you make them. You learn more. You find out what you don't know and build upon where you are already strong. It's a process. At the END of that process, you "stop translating in your head". In the middle, you translate some.
Read 5 tweets
Nov 28
So just to mention, I was one of the Westerners brought into anime by a "shoujo anime", none other than Sailor Moon (western dub). I had no warning, had no idea what it was and no idea why it was surprisingly good. That's when I found out what "anime" was.
What I didn't know was that many of the cartoons I found to be higher quality than the rest were actually anime in disguise, with the animation done by an Eastern studio while the other elements were Western. I only found about that part relatively recently, decades later.
So to put it simply, my childhood's appreciation of visual stories was heavily shaped by Japan. I just didn't know it yet. It's not simply an issue of culture, I saw something in the storytelling technique that appealed to me over and over again - but under the surface, hidden.
Read 5 tweets
Nov 25
So today I did more help for this Ukrainian English learner... he can't afford paid tutoring but it's good practice for me. The final question he had to go through was a pretty tough reading comprehension one. I read the question out loud and worked it out in my head. 1/
So when I was done all that, I had done process of elimination to rule out which of the choices applied to none of the "three people" involved (four choices of "job ads", it was matching 3 to the 3 people). I'm a smart English native and I found it required serious thought. 2/
So I looked at his answers and he had picked the same ones I did. I complimented him, and then I was briefly explaining my logic behind my choices. I was 80% done that when he wrote...
"I found it difficult so I randomly filled in the answers."
......😄3/3
Read 4 tweets
Nov 17
#English #英語学習 The US Congress is entering its "lame duck session". Since Congress' election terms are fixed, this is a period between the election and when at least some existing members are replaced with new ones in January. Until then, the old Congress is 100% valid. 1/
Meaning, any bill passed by a "lame duck Congress" is 100% as legal as any other, but purists see it as lacking true legitimacy, "sneaking in" legislation before changes take place. Again: It's 100% legal, Representatives are serving until the day and hour they aren't. 2/
For presidents, "political capital" is an invisible resource of influence, goodwill, and general support. The threat of an angry president being re-elected and taking vengeance on you is thought to keep "friendly" members of Congress "in line" and supporting party goals... 3/
Read 5 tweets
Nov 7
I'll probably do a video on it later (was going translation work) but a "circular firing squad" in politics or business is "everyone blaming everyone else", so the "fire" from the proverbial rifles is hitting "friendlies" everywhere. We'll see a lot of this Nov 8?
If the Democrats lose heavily as expected, Democrats will blame other Democrats in an effort to have rivals tossed/ lose political influence so they can gain influence and be in a better position for the next election... or just for emotional satisfaction. It's destructive.
It's not constructive at all, that's why we call it "a circular firing squad". The intent is to "punish" but to outside observers, it's people on "the same side" simply damaging one another while their rivals/ enemies watch, eat popcorn, and so on.
Read 4 tweets

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