Gollum was never a strong concept for a game, really; I think there's space for more Lord of the Rings-flavoured gaming, but they really need to leave the book characters alone. You're never going to outdo Tolkien at his own game, so go in a different direction and make something up, like Shadow of Mordor or War in the North.
Fuck it, give us a Blue Wizards game - let me mess about with Sauron's plans off in the East.
BIN
A1 German - in the sense that I've finished the course, so in the bin that goes. Only took four years to get round to it… not entirely sure how much went in, but I was surprised how much I already understood. Not going to move to A2 yet because my brain needs a rest and I don't want to spend another €200 straight away.
Sprechen sie Deutsch? Ich bin ein auslander, und meine kaninchen gehe uber die brucke.
Schnell, schnell kartoffelkopf.
Schnell, schnell kartoffelkopf.
See, now where's that from? It was literally my favourite German phrase way before I came out here (like, when I was much younger) but I'll be damned if I know where it came from.
Schnell, schnell kartoffelkopf.
See, now where's that from?
Blackadder Goes Forth.
That'd explain it.
The best bit of learning any language is when you’re good enough to start spotting the idiosyncrasies/nonsense. I did a year or two of German at school (hence the rubbish above, some of which I actually used in an oral exam, I think), and I still remember a kid telling me he listened to a band called ‘Die Toten Hosen’, then realising that translated as ‘The Dead Trousers’.
Norwegian was good for that too - ‘ha det bra’, often shortened to just ‘ha det’, is generally used to say goodbye, and I really enjoyed the sudden realisation I had one day that this just means you’re generally telling people to ‘have it’.
Erm, video games?
I’m learning Irish - as an incentive to encourage my niece to help her with her exams, we are ‘competing’ on Duolingo.
My language surprises are - why use one word when six will do.
Hello.
Dia duit. Dia is Mhuire duit.
It’s not even hello, it’s literally May God and Mary be with you. Sectarianism built right into the language.
The Japanese word for "okay" – as in, "are you okay?" – is 大丈夫 (daijōbu), which literally means "big durable".
To be fair “goodbye” in English is a contraction of “God be with ye”, so this shit is pretty common.
