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sorchathered · 13 days

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Heartbreaks & Happy Birthdays

Happy sleepover Saturday y’all, I thought I’d kick it off with a miracle, yes you are seeing this right I wrote a fic for Bradley! @roosterforme I know you are somewhere victory dancing 😂. Hope you guys enjoy it!

Pairing- Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw x reader

Warnings- drinking, allusions to smut, language, angst.

Summary- you throw Bradley a birthday party and it ends in disaster, can you move past it or is it time to let him go?

It had started out as such a good weekend, for the life of him he couldn’t figure out when it went wrong.

Bradley had turned 37 on Thursday and you’d agreed to spend the weekend with him, getting off of work early Thursday to cook his favorite dinner (a recipe of Carole’s you’d found in storage) and treating him to a fancy new lingerie set that had been an absolute hit, you even let him take some pictures and videos for his next deployment which he couldn’t wait to watch over and over again on nights when he couldn’t hold you close. You were his sweet quiet girl and although the two of you couldn’t be more different it just made sense when you were together, he brought out a side of you that no one else could, he was a live wire, his bright smile and infectious energy captivated everyone who interacted with him but when he was with you? It was like puzzle pieces snapping in to place, a perfect mix of yin and yang that just fit seamlessly.

You and a few members of his squad had been planning him a surprise party for weeks, you’d mostly let Phoenix handle all the invites and had thrown yourself into decorating and finding a caterer, even Jake had helped by asking one of his buddies to dj for the night, the country club the boys played golf at had graciously let you rent the conference room and it was sure to be an evening to remember.

Friday night came and you had convinced him that he was just going out for dinner at the restaurant in the clubhouse with a few of his friends, dressed in a floral button down with some black slacks he looked like he’d stepped right out of a magazine, you were having trouble keeping your thoughts together as he pulled into the lot in his shiny blue bronco, swollen biceps stretching the soft material from all the pushups he’d been doing lately. You hadn’t even realized he’d been talking to you until he stroked your cheek, eyebrow cocked and a knowing smile on his face, of course he could see right through you, he knew you’d been checking him out. “Oh Bradley I’m so sorry, I don’t know where my head was, what did you say?” He chuckled as he unbuckled you and pulled you across the bench seat by your waist, rucking up the sides of your sundress as you went, using his massive left hand to curl around your jaw and the back of your neck as he kissed you breathless, running the other hand up your back and shoulder as he ran his tongue along your lips and you opened for him with a breathy moan, tongues tangled together and reducing you to a puddle. He pulled away much sooner than you would have liked, causing a whine to tear from your throat as you chased his lips. “I know it, I’m gonna take my time with you later sweetness but you did all this planning for dinner so let’s go eat and then I can have my dessert.”

When you made a sharp turn towards the conference room he scrunched his eyebrows in confusion, but quickly realized what you were up to as the doors were thrown open to everyone yelling surprise at him. He’d never had a surprise party, hell he hadn’t had a birthday party since he was a kid, he couldn’t believe that everyone had pulled this together under his nose, the boys quickly drug him away for a drink and you and Phoenix just laughed at how excited he looked. It looked like just about everyone Bradley worked with was here, including quite a few people you’d never seen before, but it was expected really; your boyfriend never seemed to meet a stranger and that much was evident by the wall to wall crowd dancing the night away. Somehow he’d pulled you into the middle of the dance floor, twirling you around the floor and kissing you breathless amongst the sweaty bodies and flashing lights, it should have been overwhelming but he always seemed to make you feel comfortable in the most vulnerable situations.

You finally excused yourself and headed for the rest room, you were sure you looked a mess and as you checked yourself over in the mirror you were definitely right. Kiss swollen lips and smudged lipstick, hair all in disarray and you giggled to yourself at the thought of what was to come later that night. As you stepped into the stall you heard a group coming in behind you, no doubt doing the same as you but when you heard them talking you realized they were gossiping about you. “I really don’t get it, she’s a librarian or something right? Could she be any more boring looking?” One said to the other and you could hear her friend agreeing, “I mean at least when you guys were hooking up it made sense, you both have so much in common, I’m sure he’ll get bored eventually Lisa don’t even worry about it, she can’t honestly think they’re going to last.”

You were so humiliated, had you really come off as plain and uninteresting? Was Bradley bored of you? You thought things were going so well and yes you had honestly been thinking about what a future with him might hold, it had only been six months but you’d never felt so loved by anyone. Tears pricked at the corner of your eyes as you waited for them to leave, finally it got quiet and the booming music filtered through the room as someone opened the door, unlocking the stall you made your way out of the door only to realize the girl who had apparently hooked up with your boyfriend was still preening over herself in the mirror. You swiped your eyes with a tissue as you felt your skin flush and prickle, knowing her eyes were on you. She capped her lipstick and fussed with her hair, giving you a once over as she stepped towards the door. “No offense sweet pea, you seem nice but what Bradley needs is someone wild; a big personality to match his and you just aren’t that. You won’t be enough, he needs more than just a quiet wallflower to keep his attention, I’d enjoy it while it lasts if I were you.”

It felt like you’d been slapped, you couldn’t even bring yourself to respond as more tears came, you needed to get out of here; the room was spinning and you couldn’t get a deep breath, you stumbled out into the crowded space only to see that same girl with her hand on Bradley’s arm, you didn’t stick around to see anything else, your heart couldn’t bear it. Opening the ride share app you typed in your address and thanked the stars that there was only a two minute wait, typing out a half ass apology about feeling sick to Bradley and Natasha as you cried all the way home.

By the time Bradley got your message you were long gone, he had been wandering around looking for you but no one seemed to know where you’d been. He stepped outside and called you immediately but it went to voicemail, trying again with the same result. He messaged you ask if you needed him to come to you, but you replied that he should enjoy the party and that you needed to sleep, and as torn as he was he trusted that everything was ok, promising to bring you breakfast in the morning and spend the day with you. You’d cried until you couldn’t anymore and then had the worst sleep you’d had in ages, waking up to a pounding headache and knocking at your door. It was nearly 10 am, you weren’t the sleeping in type and when you checked your phone you had a litany of missed calls and texts. You groaned as you trudged down the hall to your door, not bothering to see who it was before you opened it, only to be met with the honey brown eyes of your ridiculously handsome boyfriend, coffee and a donut from your favorite shop in hand as he looked you over. “Oh baby you look like you feel awful, come on let’s get you back in bed, dr. Bradshaw has exactly what you need.” He’d said with a wink, he was acting as though everything was normal but you couldn’t bring yourself to reciprocate, just shrugging lightly and letting him usher you back to bed.

You’d let him in and settled into bed with him as he turned on a movie, but your smile wasn’t meeting your eyes and he could barely get a word out of you. He was really starting to worry that he’d done something wrong, but no matter how he wracked his brain he was coming up with nothing.

He’d told you once that when you smiled at him it was like you held all the answers in the universe in that one look, like you could solve any problem with a kiss and make everything ok. He wanted to be that for you, but for the life of him he couldn’t figure out what was wrong. You’d all but turned away from him in bed and fallen asleep halfway through the movie, leaving him even more confused than before, you’d planned him an elaborate party and now you wanted nothing to do with him? What the hell was going on?

When you woke a few hours later you felt more yourself, but turning over in bed to find it empty sent worry through you all over again. “Bradley?” You called as you came down the hall, hearing the drone of the tv you sighed in relief as you found him texting on his phone while some basketball game played in the background. He gave you a small smile and held his arms out for you, but you hesitated; and he noticed. “Ok, you gotta talk to me baby I’m completely lost here, what is going on with you? We were aces yesterday and now you don’t want to touch me, I can’t fix it if I don’t know why it’s broken honey, you gotta give me something.” Your eyes welled up with tears again as you plopped down on the couch, if Bradley had been confused he was even more so now. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry I know I probably ruined everything. I know I’m not the prettiest or the most fun to hang out with but I want so badly to be enough for you and I’m worried that you’ll get tired of me.” You couldn’t meet his gaze, and he was looking at you like you’d grown a third eye, his handsome features scrunched up in confusion as he tried to process what you meant. “Baby have I been making you feel like that? Shit if I have I’m so sorry-“

“Wha-no! You haven’t at all, it’s just there was this girl last night at the party, she said you guys had dated and that I wasn’t your type, and then I saw you talking with her at the party and I just- I couldn’t stand it. Thinking that I was holding you back from being who you are, I never want to be that to you.” You were staring very intently at your hands when you saw his come in to view and wrap them around you, pulling you to face him. “That girl that you’re talking about, was it Lisa?” You nodded and he rolled his eyes and clenched his jaw so hard it looked like he might snap it. “Honey I never dated her, we had a drunken hookup one time and I told her she wasn’t my type, I don’t know what the hell she said to you but she’s dead wrong. You’re everything to me, and if you’d waited around long enough last night you would’ve seen the surprise I had planned for you.”

Now it was your turn to look confused, why would he have planned something for you on his birthday? But as you looked up at him he knelt on the floor, producing a small box from his pocket. “I mean it sweet girl, you’re everything I want and I had planned on asking you this last night but you vaporized before I got the chance. I don’t need some wild free spirit, I need someone to keep me on solid ground, someone who loves me for who I really am and not the persona I have to put out to everyone around me. I want quiet nights and dancing in the kitchen and maybe one day a house full of little ones but I want it with you. So if you still want that, will you be my wife?” He was crying now too, this perfect man was everything you’d ever dreamed of and you’d nearly let something so trivial take it from you. You didn’t have to think of an answer, surging forward into his arms as you both toppled to the floor, laughing and kissing as he placed his mother’s engagement ring on your finger. All he needed was right here, warmth and love and happiness, he couldn’t think of a better birthday present than you.

Tagging🏷️- @attapullman @mamachasesmayhem @sailor-aviator @bobgasm @bradshawssugarbaby @sebsxphia @roosterforme @sarahsmi13s @hangmansgbaby @goldenseresinretriever @mynameismckenziemae

#top gun maverick #top gun maverick fanfiction #bradley bradshaw #bradley rooster x y/n #bradley rooster x reader #bradley bradshaw x you #bradley bradshaw fanfiction #bradley bradshaw x reader #bradley rooster bradshaw #bradley bradshaw imagine #rooster x you #top gun rooster #rooster x reader #rooster top gun #rooster bradshaw fic #sorchathered’s 300 follower celebration #300 follower sleepover

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kingofthering · 4 months

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f1 rpf survey - results (part two)

During the survey, I asked people for fic recs and after looking for them on ao3, I ended up compiling this list of 307 F1 fics (covering 66 pairings). And because sometimes people were reccing an entire author, you will also find a list of 47 authors.

The google sheet is available : here. My advice is for you to download the sheet on your own computer, that way you will be able to filter through the pairings/browse it however you want.

Edit : Thanks to a very nice fellow F1 rpf reader, the list now has links.

A couple of notes :

if a fic you recced is not here, it's probably that you did not include the title or the link, I tried my best with the descriptions but when it was a concept I didn't remember reading and the author wasn't specified, there wasn't much I could do

when several pairings where listed in the fics, either the main pairing seemed evident and that's the one I used in the table or several pairings seemed to have the same importance and then I used the "-" symbol in the table

obviously a ton of fics not present on that list are amazing and worth reading on ao3, this is merely a fragment of the available universe out there

#rpf #f1 rpf survey #f1rpfsr #if all went well I deleted all the doubles but you never know #did this over a bunch of gilmore girls episodes #I only read 5 fics in that top 19 (all fics with 4 votes or more)#had heard about 3 others including one I tried but couldn't vibe with #but anyway maybe this will be useful for some people #100 #200 #300

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gojosbf · 4 months

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yuuta my darling boy the owner of queen of curses the special grade user the one with true love YUUTA THE ONE AND ONLY OKKOTSU

#do you see he's one of my top 5 characters #do you see or do i have to make it more obvious #jujutsu kaisen #jjk #yuuta okkotsu #jjk spoilers #jujutsu kaisen 2 #jjk s2 #jjk season 2 #the shibuya incident #jjk anime #okkotsu yuuta #jjk yuuta #300

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self-spaghettification · 7 months

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cant fuckin believe that tdp writers said “oh yeah we intended viren as a straight man when we first wrote him” and then have this

in the same breath

#we back on the #virrow #brainrot <3 #VIREN SAYING ID DIE FOR YOU NO HOMO!!!#they should have been the main characters of the dragon prince…. anywat #also still thinking abt how #harrow brings out the best in viren and aaravos brings out the worst #aaaaaaaaaaa #its always the character dynamics that get maaybe 2 episodes or a total of 20 minutes of screentime over 5 seasons that fuckin wreck me #self spaghettification #tdp crack #top post #banger #200 #300

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justalonelyslytherin · 2 years

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Secret Family Recipe - Jake 'Hangman' Seresin

Pairing: Jake 'Hangman' Seresin x female Reader

Summary: Just married, Jake's mother deems her new daughter-in-law ready to learn the families secret and special recipes. All. Jake has other some more slightly different plans.

Warnings: fluff. Slightly suggestive at the end - use of an innuendo - but otherwise pg

Wordcount: 1.3k

If you enjoyed reading this, please consider leaving a comment or reblogging. I don't allow for my content to be copied, translated, or reposted on other websites/apps. Please don't steal my work.

A/N: This is part of @flufftober's Flufftober 2022 as well as my 300 Follower Celebration. Divider's are by the lovely @/firefly-graphics

When she had met and consequently fallen in love with Jake Seresin she hadn’t expected to also fall in love with the way he loved his family, even less so with his family themselves. From the moment he had introduced her to them though, the deal had been sealed. They had welcomed her with open arms, not hesitating to make her part of the family even before Jake had officially done so.

“Now that you are a proper Seresin it’s time to introduce you to all our family recipes.” Jake's mother was excited for all she could tell. The woman had wasted no time to seize her chance and drag her into the kitchen while commandeering her son to go help on the ranch outside.

Now they were here in the huge country kitchen that the Seresin ranch had. It was the dream of every baker and cook. The kitchen island in the middle was littered with assortments of bakeware and ingredients of all sorts. It was an overwhelming amount of things she recognized and things she had no clue about.

First things first, however, they had turned towards the cups and big tea selection Mrs. Seresin curated. Standing beside her mother-in-law she nestled a big cup of steaming tea in her hands, while Jake’s mother stirred her own cup.

“All of them?” she asked as Mrs. Seresin took a sip of her cup. Before the older woman could answer her, they were disturbed. In walked Ellie - Jake’s younger sister - causing both women to look her way.

“Jeez, mum, are we doing disaster prepping now, or are you trying to feed the entire Navy?” Ellie joked upon seeing the huge amount of things littering the workspace.

Jake’s mother scoffed and rolled her eyes. “No. But it’s time to pass down the family recipes to your new sister-in-law.”

Loudly gasping, Ellie turned towards her. “Really?” she asked excitedly, running over to her and bouncing back and forth on her feet. Smiling, she nodded at Ellie and asked, “Do you want to help too?” Ellie started to beam even brighter and nodded her head enthusiastically.

“Yes!” She squealed and raced to the sink to wash her hands, “Where are we starting?” But before Mrs. Seresin could answer Ellie gasped loudly once more and turned back around to eye her up and down.

“You aren’t pregnant are you?”

The question made her splutter and choke on the sip of tea she took. The droplets of sweet tea had made it down the wrong pipe and had her cough violently as she shook her head. Mrs. Seresin patted her on the back continuously.

“No!”, she managed to squeeze out in between the coughs and when the coughing had settled down she added, “Not yet. What makes you think that?” The surprise in her voice was clear.

Jake and she had just gotten married. In fact, they had just returned from their honeymoon, spending now the last of his military leave with his family before they would fly back to where he was stationed. They wanted kids, that was no question and no secret either. But they hadn’t made any plans yet.

Ellie shrugged her shoulders, the disappointed look on her face unconcealed, “Well mum said it’s time for all of them. But going through every recipe at once seems rushed.”

“Ellie!” Jake’s mother scolded, looking rather bashful. “I am simply excited to pass along the recipes to another daughter. She is my only daughter-in-law.”

“Who says that? What if I decide to marry a woman later on?” Ellie’s quip made her mother roll her eyes.

“Fine. She is my only daughter-in-law for now.” With that, Ellie grinned triumphantly and nodded. Satisfied she turned back towards the many ingredients.

“So where do we start?” Y/N asked, eyeing all the things on the table.

In unison both Seresin women answered, “Pie,” to which Mama Seresin added: “Pumpkin pie. I just harvested these from the garden.”

Thus they started making the dough and the filling. Jake’s mother taught her all the little tricks and tips that made the recipe so special. That made the recipe a Seresin recipe.

The first pumpkin pie was already in the oven, slowly baking and browning. The sweet fragrance of the baked good slowly spread throughout the kitchen when they heard the front door open just before the shuffling of someone removing their shoes. Just after Jake came waltzing into the kitchen barefoot. He grinned like a Cheshire cat at the look of the three women standing there together.

“Heya cowboy,” She greeted her husband - still getting used to the term - and smiled brightly up at him from the bowl she was mixing another batch of filling. Jake eyed her up and down before walking over.

He was just about to dip his pinky into the bowl when he was whacked with a wooden spoon by his mother. “Jacob Seresin you wash your filthy paws before you touch anything in my kitchen or so god will!”

Holding up his hands in defense and snickering quietly Jake obliqued. He trudged over to the sink to wash his hands with plenty of soap to get the dirt left from the work outside off of his fingers. Once he was down he came back over to her, to wrap his arms around his wife. Y/N shuddered as her shirt got soaked. Of course, he didn’t dry his hands, the cheeky little ass he was. With a groan, she elbowed him.

“Jake!” Her scolding didn’t impress him the slightest, he only chuckled into her ear and leaned his head on her shoulder.

“What are you doing?” He asked softly, pressing a kiss to her shoulder and squeezing her waist.

“Baking,” she answered with pursed lips causing him to rumble behind her - he could obviously see and smell that. His innocent kiss to her neck quickly turned less innocent as his teeth grazed over the sensitive skin. Goosebumps spread over her body, she nearly dropped the spoon she was holding from the sensation too. When he went so far as to even lightly bite her there, she shuddered against him, once more jabbing him with her elbow. He didn’t care. Of course, he didn’t.

“I can see that, sweets. But what are you baking?”

“Pumpkin pie.”

Jake behind her hummed, “Delicious,” he whispered. The way he said it she wasn’t sure if he meant the pie or her.

Ellie groaned and shot a murderous glare towards her brother, “Shut up or I’ll dunk the bowl of pumpkin seeds on your head, Jake.”

Jake laughed once more, “You wouldn’t dare sully mum’s kitchen like that.” Ellie rolled her eyes and grumbled. He was right. Their mother would have a heart attack having pumpkin innards and seeds strewn through her kitchen.

Once Ellie had turned back to focus on her own task, Jake turned his attention back to his wife. He pressed himself against her back and rolled his hips against her behind. Lowly he murmured into her ear, “Want to sully somethin’ else later? I got some better seeds.”

His words made her feel like she was on fire. Heat crept up her neck and encompassed her cheeks and ears. Gasping, she faltered in her movement, nearly dropping the spoon in her hand into the bowl.

“Jake,” she whined quietly, huffing about his unfairness. How could he say this right now, in front of his family, and expect her to stay calm?

“Wouldn’t you like it if we had our own little pumpkin by next year?” His hands crept around her middle, one sliding under her shirt to rub against her belly. “I’d certainly enjoy seeing you as round as one.”

#sly's 300 #flufftober2022 #top gun maverick #jake seresin x reader #jake seresin x wife!reader #jake hangman x reader #hangman seresin imagine #hangman x reader

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rigelmejo · 2 months

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Really basic study tips. As in, you have no idea where to start, or you've been floundering for X period of time not making progress.

Total beginner?

Go to a search engine site. Whatever one you want Google.com, duckduckgo.com, or a searx.space site will work (I like search.hbubli.cc a lot). I think a non-google search engine will give you less ads and more specific results though so keep that in mind.

As a total beginner, search for some articles and advice to help you start planning HOW you are going to study a language. Search things like "how to learn X" where X is the language, "how i learned X," "guide to learn X." Ignore the product endorsement pages as best you can, you're looking for personal blogs and posts on learner forums like chinese-forums.com and forum.language-learners.org. After reading a few of these, come up with a list of general things you need to learn. This list will generally be: to read, to listen, to write, to speak. The articles/advice you find will likely mention Specific Study Activities people did to learn each of those skills - write them down! You might not do all those study activities yourself. But its good to know what possible study activities will help build each of the 4 skills.

Now get more specific. Think about your long term goals for this language. Be as SPECIFIC as possible. Things like "I want to pass the B2 exam in French" (and knowing what CEFR levels are), or "I want to watch History 3 Trapped in chinese with chinese subtitles" or "I want to read Mo Dao Zu Shi in chinese" or "I want to play Final Fantasy 16 in japanese" or "I want to make friends with spanish speakers and be able to talk about my hobbies in depth, and understand their comments on that subject and be able to ask what they mean if I get confused." Truly be as specific as possible. Ideally make more than one long term goal like this. And then specify EVEN MORE. So you want to "pass the B2 exam in French" - why? What real world application will you use those skills for. A possible answer: to work in a French office job in engineering. Great! Now you know very specifically what to look up for what you Need to actually study: you need to look up business appropriate writing examples, grammar for emails, engineering technical vocabulary, IN addition to everything required on the B2 exam. Your goal is to read mdzs in chinese? Lets get more specific: how many unique words are in mdzs (maybe you want to study ALL of them), how much do you wish to understand? 100% or is just understanding the main idea, or main idea and some details, good enough? Do you want to learn by Doing (reading and looking up things you don't know) or by studying ahead of time first (like studying vocabulary lists). Im getting into the weeds.

My point is: once you have a Very Specific Long Term Goal you can look up how to study to accomplish that very specific goal. If you want to get a B2 certificate there's courses and textbooks and classes and free materials that match 100% the material on the B2 test, so you can prioritize studying those materials. If your goal is to READ novels, you'll likely be looking for "how to read X" advice articles and then studying based on that advice (which is often "learn a few thousand frequent words, study a grammar resource, use graded reader material at your reading level, extensively and intensively read, look up unknown words either constantly or occasionally as desired when reading new material, and continue picking more difficult material with new unknown words"). Whatever your specific goal, you will go to a search engine and look up how people have accomplished THAT specific goal. Those study activities they did will be things you can do that you know worked for someone. If you get lucky, someone might suggest ALL the resources and study activities you need to accomplish your specific goal. Or they will know of a textbook/course/site that provides everything you need so you can just go do it. I'll use a reading goal example because its a specific goal i've had. I'd have the goal "read X book in chinese" so I'd look up "how to read chinese" "how to learn to read chinese novels" "how i read chinese webnovels" and similar search terms. I found suggestions like these on articles I found written by people who managed to learn to read chinese webnovels: Ben Whatley's strategy had been learn 2000 common words on memrise (he made a deck and shared it), read a characters guide (he linked the article he read), use graded readers (he linked Mandarin Companion), use Pleco app and read inside it (he linked Pleco) and in 6 months he was reading novels using Pleco for unknown words. I copied most of what he did, and did some of my own other study activities for theother 3 listening speaking writing skills. And in 6 months I was also reading webnovels in Pleco. Another article was by Readibu app creator, who read webnovels in chinese just looking up TONS of words till they learned (real brute force method). But it worked! They learned. So copying them by using Readibu app ans brute force reading MANY novels would work. Another good article is on HeavenlyPath.notion.site, they have articles on specifically what materials to study to learn to read - their article suggestions are similar to the process I went through in studying and Im confident if you follow their advice you'll be reading chinese in 1 year or less. (I saw one person who was reading webnovels within 3 months of following the Heavenly Path's guide plan). LOOK UP your specific long term goal, and write down specific activities people did to learn how to do that long term goal. Ideally: you will have some

SHORT TERM GOALS: you will not accomplish your long term language goal for 1 year or more. Probably not for many years. So make some short and medium term goals to guide you through studying and keep you on track. These can be any goals you want, that are stepping stones to the specific long term goals you set. So for the "read mdzs in chinese" long term goal, short and medium term goals might be the following: short term: learn 10 common words a week (through SRS like anki or a vocabulary list), study 100 common hanzi this month (using a book reference or SRS or a site), read 1 chapter of a grammar guide a week (a site or textbook or reference book), medium term: read a graded reader with 100 unique words once I have studied 300 words (like Mandarin Companion books or Pleco graded readers for sale), read a 500 unique word graded reader once I have studied 600 words, read 秃秃大王 and look up words I don't know once I have studied 1500 words (read in Pleco or Readibu or using any click-translator tool or translator/dictionary app), read another chinese novel with 1500 unique words, read a 30,000 word chinese 2 hours a day until I finish it, read another 30,000 word novel and see if I can finish it in less time, read a 60,000 word novel, read a 120,000 word novel, read a novel extensively without looking any words up and practice reading skills of relying on context clues (pick a novel with lower unique word count), read a novel a little above your reading level (a 2000 unique word count if say you only know 1700 words), go to a reading difficulty list and pick some novels easier than mdzs to read but harder than novels you've already read (Readibu ranks novels by HSK level, Heavenly Path ranks novel difficulty, if you search online you'll find other reading difficulty lists and sites). Those shorter term goals will give you things to work for this week, this month, this year. An example of study goals and activities might be: study all vocabulary, hanzi, grammar in 1 textbook chapter a week (lets say 20 new words/10-20 new hanzi,1-5 new grammar points - or alternatively you have 3 SRS anki decks for vocab, hanzi, grammar) along with read and look up unknown key words for 30 minutes a day (at first you may read graded readers then move onto novels). Those are short term goals you can ensure you meet weekly, and they also contribute to being able to read better gradually each month until you hit long term goals.

If you are very bad at making your own schedule and study plans: look for a good premade study material and just follow it. A good study material will: teach reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills, all the way to intermediate level. You may need to find multiple premade resources, such as 1 resource for writing/reading (many textbooks that teach 2000+ words and basic grammar will suffice) and 1 for speaking/listening (perhaps a good podcast, glossika, a tutor). Ideally formal classes will teach all 4 skills to intermediate level if you take 4 semesters of classes as an adult (beginner 1, beginner 2, intermediate 1, intermediate 2). Especially if the classes teach in accordance with trying to match you to expected defined language level skills (so formal classes that have syllabus goals that align with HSK, CEFR, or national standards of X level of fluency). So formal classes are an option. The same tips as above apply: make short term goals do do X a week, like study 30 minutes to 2 hours a day, to learn 10 new words a week, to get through X chapters a month, to practice speaking/reading/writing/reading oriented activities to some degree.

My short advice for picking a premade resource if totally lost: pick a starting material that covers 2000 words, basic grammar, and has dialogues if you don't know where to start. That will be enough to cover roughly beginner level language skills. I suggest you study by: studying the vocabulary and grammar of each chapter, listen to the dialogue with and without translation repeatedly until you understand it (listening skills), read the dialogue with and without translation (reading skills), write out example sentences using the new vocabulary and grammar (writing skills, the textbook exercises usually ask you to do this), speak your example sentences out loud (speaking practice), record yourself saying the dialogue and compare it to the dialogue audio - repeat this exercise until you sound similar in pronunciation to dialogue (speaking exercise - shadowing). Most decent textbooks will allow you to come up with similar activities to those listed above, to study some writing reading speaking listening. I like the Teach Yourself books as an example of the most basic version of what you need. Many languages have much better specific textbooks of that language. But if you're totally lost, get a Teach Yourself book and audio free from a library or for 10 dollars (or ANY equivalent book that teaches at least 2000 words and grammar) and go through it. If you buy a language specific textbook: keep working through the series until you've learned 2000 words and covered all basic grammar. For example Genk 1 and 2 cover 1700 words so you would want to work all the way through Genki 2 and ger near 2000 words before branching off to a textbook for intermediate students, or into native speaker materials. (Another example is I found a chinese textbook once that only taught 200 words... as a beginner you would not find that book as useful as one with more vocabulary)

Another adequate premade resource option: if you lile SRS tools like anki, look up premade decks that teach what you need to learn as a beginner. For Japanese you might look up "common words japanese anki deck" (Japanese core deck with 2k or more words is likely an option you'll see), "japanese grammar anki deck" (Tae Kin grammar deck is an option that covers common grammar), "JLPT kanji deck" or "kanji anki deck" or "kanji with mnemonics anki deck" (to study kanji). Ideally you study vocabulary, vocabulary, kanji, and ideally some of these anki decks will have audio and sentence examples for reading practice. Like with a textbook, you would attempt to do exercises which cover reading writing speaking listening. For reading and writing you may read sentences on anki cards, and write or type example sentences in a journal with new words you study and new grammar points. For listening you will play the sentence audio of a card with eyes closed until you hear the words clearly and recognize them, and for speaking you'll speak out the sentences and compare what you say to the audio on the card.

Keep in mind your specific long term goals! If your goal is speak to friend about hobby, you may follow a textbook and still need to ALSO make yourself practice talking weekly (on a language exchange app, with a tutor, with yourself, shadowing dialogues, looking up specific words you wish to discuss). If your goal is to read novels, you will likely need to seek out graded readers OUTSIDE your textbook and practice reading gradually harder material weekly. If your goal is listening to audio dramas, you will want an outside podcast resource likely starting with a Learner Podcast (chinese101, slow chinese, comprehensible chinese youtube channel) then move into graded reader audiobooks, then listen to audio dramas with transcripts, then just listen and look words up.

Once you hit lower intermediate: I'm defining that here as roughly you have studied 2000+ words, are familiar with basic grammar and comfortable looking up more specialized grammar information, and if you used a premade material then you have finished the beginner level material. If you desire to stay on a premade route then pick new resources made for intermediate learners. Do not dwell in the beginner material forever once you've studied it, continue to challenge yourself and learn new things regularly. (No matter what, continue to learn new things regularly, if you do that then every few hundred hours of study you WILL make significant progress toward your goals). Once you have hit intermediate it is also time to start adding activities that work toward your Very Specific Long Term goals now if you didn't already start. If you want to watch shows one day, this is when you start TRYING and get an idea of how much you understand versus how much you need to learn and WHAT you need to learn to do your goal well. If you want to read novels then start graded readers NOW if you havent already and progress to more difficult reading eventually into reading novels for native speakers. If you want to talk to people, start chatting regularly. If you want to take a B2 test, start studying language test specific study materials, practice doing the tasks you must be able to do to pass the test (so you can see what you need to learn and gauge progress over time), take practice tests. Intermediate level is when SOME stuff for native speakers will be at least understandable enough you can follow the main idea. Or at least, if you look up some key words you'll be able to grasp the main idea. Start engaging with stuff in the language now. For several reasons. 1. You need to practice Understanding all the basics you studied. Just because you studied it doesnt mean you can understand it immediately yet, you have to practice being in situations that require you to understand what you studied. 2. You also need to gauge where you are versus where you want to be, in order to set new short term goals. Once you do things in the language, you will see what specifically you need to study more. 3. By doing the activity you wish to do, you will get better at doing it. This is also a good time to mention that: if you wish to get better at speaking or writing now is the time to practice more. Just like listening and reading, you'll have to Do it more to improve.

The leap from using materials for beginners to materials for intermediate learners is harsh. It just is. The first 3 to 6 months you may feel drained, like you didn't learn much after all, annoyed its so much harder than the beginner material catered usually specifically to a learner's language level. Push through. I suggest goals like "listen to french 30 minutes a day" or "read 1 japanese news article a day" or "chat with someone for 1 hour total a week" or "watch 20 minutes of a show a day" or "write 1 page a day" and look up words you dont know but need to understand something or communicate to someone. Do X for X time period or X length of a chapter/episode type goals may be easiest to stick to during this period. Gradually, the time spent doing activities will add up and it will suddenly feel EASIER. Usually around the time you start understanding quicker and recalling quicker what you studied as a beginner. Then it keeps improving, as you gradually learn more and more. At first, picking the easiest content for your study activity will make the transition to intermediate stuff slightly less drastic. Easier content includes: conversations on daily life that only gradually add more specific topics (so you can lean on the beginner daily life function vocabulary), podcasts for learners entirely in target language and podcasts with transcripts, novels with low unique word counts (ideally 2000 unique words or less until your vocabulary gets bigger), shows you've watched before in a language you know (so you can guess more unknown words and follow the plot even when you don't understand the target language words), video game lets plays (ideally with captions) of video games you've played before, playing video games you already have played before and know the story for, reading summaries before starting new shows or books so you know what the general story is, reading books that have translations to a language you know (so you can read the translation then original or vice versa for additional context). Using any tools available (dictionary apps, translation apps like Pleco and Google Translate and click-translate web browser tools, Edge Read Aloud tool, reader apps like Kindle and Readibu, apps like Netflix dual subitles stuff).

Last mention: check in with your goals every so often. You might check in every 3 months, and say you notice you never manage to study daily (if that was your short term goal). That could be a sign it might be better to change your study schedule to study a couple hours on the days your life schedule is less busy, and skip study on busy days. Or it may be a sign the study activity you're trying to do daily is Very Hard for you to stick to, and maybe you should switch to a different study activity. (Example would be: I can't do SRS flashcards consistently, so when I got tired of SRS anki after a few months as a beginner, I switched to reading graded readers daily to learn new vocabulary then reading novels and looking up words. Another example: I love Listening Reading Method but could never do it as it was designed, so after a month of only doing 15 hours of it instead of the 100 hours the method intended at minimum in that time, I decided to modify that study activity into something I could get myself to do daily and enjoy more).

And, of course, its okay if what works for one person doesn't work for you. Everyone's different. As long as you are regularly studying some new things, and practicing understanding things you've studied before, you will make progress as the study hours add up. It may take hundreds of hours to see significant progress, but you Will see some progress every few hundreds of hours of study. I made the quick start suggestions for beginners above, because I have seen some people (including me) get lost at the start with no idea what a good resource looks like and no idea what to study, or how to determine goals and progress on those goals.

#rant #reference #resources #study plan #langblr #i could also make a side post lol on just HOW many language learning apps/tools are distractions for beginners #because they barely teach like 300 words! but readers spend YEARS on them!#u can cover 2000 words in 1 year. even high school classes cover that in 2 years. but many an app have u spending 4 years on 2000 words #then u get beginners mad they never Learned to do stuff in the language despite All Tgat Study #not realizing the apps problem was it simply ONLY covered beginner material. so it was only gonna be useful for 6 months to 2 years tops.

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