OH YEA just so y'all know if u notice I'm not very active I've just been really tired recently. including with regards to people-energy so if u message me and I take ages to respond I Do apologise! I have just been going through it this week for some reason. do not know why and do not know when it will end. but please know I am not avoiding anyone out of annoyance, if it makes u feel better I have had trouble even convincing myself to have anything more complex than just chips and a banana for lunch sometimes, so please rest assured I am not ignoring any of u just for the sake of it

Hello Marte! Hope you enjoyed your holidays surrounded by your loved ones and had some nice time off!

I was bit away having family time myself and so wasn’t catching much from the latest drama/madness around Louis’ stunt but what got me wondering was how come his sisters are fully into it while Louis was away from camera most of the time - is there any explanation for it? Also I have no doubt H was (or maybe still is?) with them especially after that video from restaurant and so while I find it kinda like it’s a sure thing that they are spending as much time together as they can celebrating Xmas+Louis’ birthday, I’m also wondering how H must feel when he knows the kid is also there and eventho it’s not Louis who’s stunting first hand but he probably let his sisters do the “dirty” job (or are they doing it for their own fame and buzz on IG?) - you wrote in the past how much H hate bg and so what is your opinion to that now, does he get used to it and knows why Louis is bringing the kid for Xmas 3rd time in a row? Or is it like an exchange like the kid at Tomlinson’s in exchange for them being together during this time so nobody would question anything? Also last question - what is your opinion on that photo with the H mug Lottie (I think it was her but might be wrong) posted….was that like some larriebaiting or H was really there and Lottie “oopsie” forgot to put the mug away?

Sorry for so many questions but I’m really trying to understand what this madness was and how to feel about it and if it’s normal by now or what?

Hi, anon!

Hope you had a wonderful Christmas too!

I haven't been paying attention much, because like you, i've been busy. I also don't really care much to be honest. It's a stunt, we've seen it before. It's nothing new. I'm not missing anything. Copy x 3 literally.

I think it's easier on Louis if his sisters help. Jay used to pull her weight in the stunts and now the sisters have taken over that role. It's also easier on the fandom the less L is seen directly interacting with F. It's more organic looking if it's filmed and posted by his influencer sisters too. It also leads people to think L is protecting F's privacy. Makes it look more real (lol).

I think the sisters help with stunts, but they also hint at Larry at the same time to get attention and kudos. If it was all stunts with them they would be (even more) disliked they already are. It's to maintain a balance between stunts vs. Larry. We've seen that mug before, so idk...

In the past, Christmas hasn't been one of the holidays or time off work where H and L have been able to spend much time together. In 2013 during Haylor they were apart over both Christmas and New Years as far as i recall. When they've been together before it's usually L going to Holmes Chapel and not the other way around. I'm not sure the H mug says anything about the wearabouts of H. He might have been there or not. I think F is only there to get some pictures and videos in and then he leaves. 15 minutes tops. I'll not be surprised if it's made to look like it just happened, but was filmed a couple of days beforehand. So a staged celebration and then a real one at Christmas without F.

I do think H hate bg, like L does, because he feels somewhat responsible for it. I don't think he hates F though. So if he's ever been around him, he'd treat him like any other kid. No ill will. I'm not sure he ever have been around him though.

Repetitive Listening - here’s a youtube video playlist I found about it a few days ago.

Short summary: listening to audio in a language you’re trying learn, to the point of more than you feel like you need to. To where you can remember a lot of what’s said, the words/phrases sound familiar/pop into your head, and where if you have questions you could maybe say the chunk you’re wondering about out loud and ask about it. So like when you like a song a lot, and play it a lot, to the point its sort of in your head sometimes and you can remember lyrics somewhat. The idea is that if you listen to it enough you will get better at recognizing sounds and words and word chunks, and even if you don’t understand everything this will at least make looking unknown things up easier - and it should make your pronunciation/speaking better, and improve your comprehension of words you do know/have studied.

The videos give 80-100 times suggestions, but I do think as long as its a point where you feel really comfortable, that’s probably enough. The videos suggest: pick voices you like listening to, since you’ll listen a lot, and since you may pick up pronunciation/your voice sound from them. They also suggest using 2 minute to 20 minute clips depending on your level of comprehension in the target language, your comfort, etc. 

So songs will easily be good material for this, along with youtube video audio, radio drama episodes, audiobook chapters, podcasts. 

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Tested it out a bit (listened 5-10 times so far):

I’ve decided to test out this a bit with the Guardian Audiobook chapters avenuex made. I think the podcast Slow Chinese would be better for beginners, since its shorter at 2-4 minutes. 

I just figure I might as well use something I’m listening to anyway. Also, before I heard about ‘repetitive listening’ as a technique, I was noticing a Tangible difference in my comprehension of the audiobook chapter from the first time I listened to it to the second. So if nothing else, I figured it would definitely help boost my listening comprehension up to the point of being able to catch most/all words I’ve studied - instead of just some when listening.  

I do think its helping me a lot with picking out words/phrases - to the point where I am picking up most words I’ve studied with text/flashcards, and to the point where I can catch the unknown words/phrases enough to type the pinyin in pleco to look them up. Also, for me personally, because an audiobook is based on a more literary text, I’m getting more used to the flow of the narrative writing - hearing time transition words, adjectives, descriptive phrases that usually get used more in writing like ‘turned his head’ ‘scratched his neck’ ‘gave a smile’ ‘hung up the phone’ ‘put his hand in his pocket’ etc. I could sort of recognize those phrases anyway when reading, since they’re words I know just in ways I’m less familiar with (I’m more familiar with dialogue sentences like ‘i did/he did X’). But hearing these phrases again and again is helping me to ‘process’ more quickly what they mean instead of having to work so hard to parse it out.

I’ve still only listened maybe 5-10 times, so I can’t say for sure yet if 30 or 40 or more times would see even more noticeable improvements. I can definitely say, even just doing this repetitive listening a little bit, seems to help a lot with listening comprehension of words you already have some familiarity with (have seen in text, or studied, or know some hanzi of) and it seems to help with recognizing pronunciation. By that second part I mean that often learning materials will speak slower, evenly, with a bit less natural variation, and if you learn a decent amount from flashcards or dictionaries then you know how often the automatic text audio can sound robotic and ‘off’ compared to once you hear it in real context like a convo or show. 

Avenuex’s voice is really crisp and clear (and lovely I think) so she’s still really comprehensible for beginners, but her voice also says the tones so much more naturally than a lot of learner texts I hear (which exaggerate tone sound so you can hear it better/are more evenly paced) - her pace gets faster and slower depending on the suspense of the scene, and the flow of the sentence. I think its a nice example of how to break down word-chunks when saying a sentence too. She changes her voice a bit too for each character (and the bg music changes, which is all really cool and funner to listen to than a lot of audiobooks I’ve heard!). I can hear some of the more natural-sounding ways of things getting pronounced, but she still speaks clear enough that it doesn’t get as slurred as those same words/phrases sometimes get in dramas I watch (I started rewatching Guardian and wow the amount of times Zhao Yunlan slurs/is muffled because he’s talking with a sucker in his mouth lol, or in many dramas when its short lines of common words they’ll get slurred quicker a lot). 

When I studied japanese, our teacher had us shadow the audio scenes in Genki, and record ourselves trying to say the dialogue and we were graded based on how close we sounded to the original book’s audio. What I noticed, back when I had to do that, is that I had to pay attention enough that I started noticing where the natural word-breaks were. Basically, which words you sort of ‘say together’ more quickly almost like they’re one word, versus the areas you’re more likely to leave empty space for to slow down or breath or change the pace. I’m guessing a lot of languages have this kind of natural word-breaks flow. I might break some of these sentences down in english like “I-might break some-of-these-sentences-down in-english like.” There’s a few different natural sounding ways to do it, but there’s definitely clear WRONG ways. It would sound less natural to pause after every single word - and depending on the sentences, there are sometimes odd places to pause that will stand out to native speakers. 

Well for chinese, its easy for me to put probably more unnatural sounding word breaks, if I don’t consciously try to emulate a chinese sentence example’s word-phrase breaks. I do think repetitive listening is helping me to get more of a ‘feel’ of when to do it, the way when my teacher made us try to exactly emulate japanese audio I started to notice much more ‘when’ to choose to put breaks in my sentences and how to chunk saying the words together.

Listening to the audiobook chapter a lot is helping me sort of get used to picking out the word chunks, instead of just the individual words I know as ‘separate.’ I think in the long run, this will probably help with comprehending audio faster, and it may eventually help with me speaking with a more natural flow when I’m not thinking as consciously of it. Hopefully, I’ll have to find out on that second benefit over time lol!

There is other benefit I’ve noticed - and I’m not sure if its because of repetitive listening, or because I have been reading a lot more, and adapting sentence-example flashcards with Audio into my flashcard study. I’ve noticed when I’m typing its easier for me to gather my thoughts and word them in chinese. Before, when writing I would struggle first to think the right words, then on how to even phrase it in chinese/general grammar, then on word order. I’m still double checking my written sentence on word order (mostly on time placement, since I know it goes toward the beginning but I just tend to think of it when typing toward the end, so I insert it at the end). But for the actual words/how to phrase them I’ve been a bit quicker - its easier for me to go “na jiu hao”, “wo juede na ge,” “zai zheli” etc. Pretty basic stuff to word together, I know. But in the past it was just taking me longer to figure out how to phrase “that’s good,” “I think that” “Here...” even though I knew the words, just because I’d be double checking whether to use na/nage/naxie/naben (which still kind of confuses me but I can tell seeing/hearing it more is helping me get used to when to use which easier), and where to place zai/mian/cong. 

If anyone else has tried repetitive listening, or used this study method a lot, I would love to hear about your experiences with it. How it helped you, how you used it, how it fit into your study plans. Whatever you feel about it lol.

Okay this is noteworthy enough to post about, I just had the best/worst nightmare. And returned to it, which NEVER HAPPENS, and was duped into thinking it was real, which also NEVER HAPPENS. So, I’m playing a gba game on my clear plastic violet gba. It’s some weird wrestling game, it’s labelled like a playstation psx port for some reason, menus real slick. Nothing animated though, seems legit, graphics wjll probably be crummy later. But I’m at just the character select part. I have a limited amount of time to pick from a limited amount of duddes for i guess some mtches, so i rck my brains for who I even remember. Out of the first three, I pick, uhh, the guy who whips his operatic leather pants off, and just under time, too, in the second I pick Kota because Kota is on there... this is full dream logic. But then I look up from it and I’m in a hotel room, fine, in my bathrobe, fine, seems real enough. Still dream logic though, because now wrestlers start showing up, but since it’s dream logic I’m struggling to accept (as they trash my room) that this is just, the video game. Me in my robe sort of wndering round watching these performers wreck all the stuff, IS the gba game still. I remark on this to one, Beretta, crazy for just some old gba game isn’t it, and he says oh no, we can check it (confirms game’s online functionality) and I with dawning horror realize that I have made a purchase, for I don’t know how much money, because like six people have cycled through by now and I’m STILL in my BATHROBE, and how much ffdfffucking money is Kota Ibushi going to cost? I am happy this unwitting purchase has resulted in Beretta being there though. The dream fades out because I’m so appalled at the unknown amount of money I have spent; there’s no question of not paying it, these guys (there are female wrestlers too, thanks brain, though brain can’t handle much more than standard bg crowd ratio later on, and I guess some girl slots get wasted on background other hotel guests) are performers and artists and I guess I’ll just? Take out a loan? Take on debt? Anyway I surfsce to reality like a seal—pfoof—to check that omg no this isn’t hapening, and it isn’t, and THEN i get the full creepypsta return to unreality, because in the dream, I wake up in the wreckage of that trashed room, disoriented, it’s too dark to see and I feel groggy but I urgently have to get up and make sure that, before, I was only dreaming, and—oh, man, i raise my head from the weird slightly less trashed thing I’m on instead of either totally blasted hotel bed. The thing I remember choosing to try falling asleep on, out of limited options. It was real. I really mortgaged myself for life accidentally paying for a hunch of huge costumed wrestlers to strut in, posture at each other, and TRASH my HOTEL room, right in front of me, all FOR me, an appalled yet gamely attentive audience of one. It is five in the morning which is why I feel so terrible, but everything is so utterly wrecked I don’t even want to touch any surfaces, and it’s so early i’m not thinking straight. I tuck my robe tighter and duck out across the hall into the nearest lobby bathroom, but oh MAN it’s actually semi populated out here, nothing crazy, still extremely real, jsut “aw dang, kinda busy out here ANNNND YEAH I forgot my key.” as the door closes behind me I catch that it’s room 939 I think, but anyway I use the restroom (the hotel decor remains fncy and on point and my whole fnce room is STILL WRECKED), wash my hands, try to fix my horrible long hair which is of course super greasy and slept on at my temples, and duck bqck out to the desk to get let back in to my room. I’m handed off by the seen-it-all, capable lady to a staff member in training who has a dismally brusque affect and hares off to take forever since I am in my ROBE and don’t have ID, and as I scuttle off to tuck into a conversational nook chair I have the dim realization that wrestlers are percolating in and getting into low-voiced standoffs where I can see them. They are huge and ring-dressed and beautiful, and my brain makes sure to people the crowd with lots of long, luscious, crazy hair. Kota is definitely there but he’s one of the handful in street clothes. So’s pants guy. I struggle to decide that it’s fine I’m greasy and unshaven and STILL in my ROBE because at least this way I am very visibly the same person as yesterday, no trouble identifying me, and wrestling fans are weird right (no, the people I see wt shows all actualky look like they have showered for the occasion!!! but I’m just going to own it because somehow I have PAID FOR ALL OF THESE PEOPLE TO DO AN ENTERTAINMENT, RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW, FOR ME) The low-voiced little wrestling altercations around me reveal more and more wrestlers, mostly made-up but with extremely real and varying degrees of mainstream wrestling energy, slowly parading out and surrounding the nice conversational hotel chair I’d intended to wait for my room key in. There has to be some other wrestling event on in the first place, I decide, uncertainly, for so many of them to be here and available to do, private parties? I guess?, trying to make sure since some keep glancing at my face that I dutifully allow, even CAUGHT OUT in my ROBE, myself to smile and look excited and appreciative, because I am, I AM happy to see and appreciate their fairly overwhelming spectacle, it is just somewhat nearly outweighed by the whole robe situation. but it’d suck for them to have to perform for a shy audience!! They are all so bright and beautiful. They are surrounding my recliner type chair, which I had retreated into in the first place to shelter in its bulk and degree of social disconnection from the rest of the lobby. So of course now I’m surrounded by huge people aware of and expecting to continue being seen by me... There are so many of them, and they are sleek and energetic and well-taken-care-of looking, and it’s a nice hotel, and I can’t believe I’ve PAID for all this, but goddamn it if I’m gonna be audience VIP of an entire wrestling match, in my robe, which is what they are clearly leading up to, I am going to TOLERATE it. The last snatches of deep-voiced jostling segue into everyone having lined up around my chair. I remember that they are all very strong when a guy i don’t know with crazy long interesting red hair (def still plausible, real and physics-based, i am telling you that this was SO VERY REAL down to the PATTERN on the CARPET, green and blousey hotel pink-red, blowsily floral) steps forward and makes ready to try his strength against my fucking chair. They are going to lift me up in this chair, however many it takes to manage it, and I PAID for it so I am going to be OKAY with it, it is okay definitely worth it but HOWWWW AM I GOING TO PAY FOR THIS, and then at last I DO wake up. That was real “okay this one is reality? No wrestlers? No robe? No accidental electronic purchase??” mood, sharp urgency... Damn

*the obvious-dream first bit actually had them trashing my room with a theatrically rowdy sex party (no, Kota wasn’t there), which I was politely stunned by, since... oh no... my room... its various surfaces, why are you all, here specifically, which made me EXTREMELY “uhhhhh fucked up if true??” when i “woke up” in wreckage obviously left from it, in the cleanest place I could find. What kind of GAME CARTRIDGE was IN that GBA!!!!!! What kind of useless sex dream casts the person dreaming it as an uncertainly amazed onlooker wondering how long until all these people get out of their room, vividly concerned with still being in a robe!!! WERE THEY JUST GONNA LIFT MY CHAIR INTO THE AIR A LITTLE BIT OR WAS I GOING TO HAVE TO PUT UP WITH BEING CARRIED ENTIRELY AWAY, STILL! IN! MY! ROBE! AND! COMMITTED TO CONCEALING MY DISMAY ABOUT IT!