Elizabeth Weir/John Sheppard Appreciation/Ship/Discussion Thread

[JT-2]

Pins are out. Hallelujah. Now to get my dexterity back so I can drive again.

Good news!!


I just couldn't handle the postathon. Not without heavy alcohol, which I didn't have. Next week will be even worse.

I'll be back for Vegas.

[Varda]

*hugs Scary Kitty and mandoghater*

How're you?

mandogater, I wasn't hiding! Just was a little busy, as now I'm kinda school teacher.. Try to teach children Chinese. Not all goes very smoothly, but I do my best, though my students are not that easy to deal with.
And I suddenly had a gamer mod on... so I've spent much of my free time on gaming. New Assassin's Creed, Skyrim, Bioshock... oh my, if only I had more time!

ShipperWriter,
I'm so glad everything is OK!

[Varda]

And, by the way, how is your Christmas preparation?

[Southern Red]

*hugs Scary Kitty and mandoghater*

How're you?

mandogater, I wasn't hiding! Just was a little busy, as now I'm kinda school teacher.. Try to teach children Chinese. Not all goes very smoothly, but I do my best, though my students are not that easy to deal with.
And I suddenly had a gamer mod on... so I've spent much of my free time on gaming. New Assassin's Creed, Skyrim, Bioshock... oh my, if only I had more time!

ShipperWriter,
I'm so glad everything is OK!

I have a question for you and any other non-native English speakers. How hard was it for you to learn English? Do you consider it a difficult language compared to others? I ask this because I recently read a thread on which some non-native speakers were saying English was a very easy language. That was the first time I have ever heard anyone say that.

[ShipperWriter]

So what's the verdict SW?

Back to work tomorrow. My mom doesn't want me driving until I can grip the wheel better so she's taking me for a couple days. And back to doctor in two weeks to see if I need physical therapy so doing as much moving as I can stand.

[Sparky She-Demon]

That's good!

[Pearl of Atlantis76]

I have a question for you and any other non-native English speakers. How hard was it for you to learn English? Do you consider it a difficult language compared to others? I ask this because I recently read a thread on which some non-native speakers were saying English was a very easy language. That was the first time I have ever heard anyone say that.

I love English quite a lot, always did and always will love it. And it is definitely a very easy language to learn. Probably the easiest one in my opinion. I have learned French at school, but didn’t like it and found it quite difficult and also tried to learn German twice and gave up on it too. I am now trying to learn Japanese, but i still believe that English is the easiest language to learn of them all.

Spoiler:

It was very easy for me to learn English. I have an Australian cousin and whenever she would visit me she would teach me a little bit of English. So when i went to school for the first time to learn english, i already knew how to count until 10 in English and also a few words here and there. I also taught my younger sisters English even before they started learning it at school. When my sisters went to school they already knew how to speak it and read it, basically they just went to school to learn how to write it.

I also have a huge help in what concerns the learning of English, because most TV shows (movies, TV series) from foreigner countries are showed with subtitles here, and this is definitely a good way for us here to learn how to speak a foreign language, and since most of our foreigner TV shows here are in English, we listen a lot of English every day, which to me is a huge help in what concerns the understanding of the words’ pronunciation / sounds of the words, not to mention it is a great way to learn how to make conversations, things that we usually don’t learn much at school.

In my opinion what we learn at school here is not enough to enable us to make a conversation. Watching English TV shows always helped me much more than school. But my English is far from being perfect, although i always try to learn new vocabulary as much as possible.

[JT-2]

I was looking through the old episode threads. I'd forgotten that Identity was the one where Joe was so completely not even trying. I might watch it now just so I can see his "I am so done with this sh**" attitude.

It's so funny to read the posts from back then. The diehards who thought anything TPTW did was excellent, and people trying to argue that Teyla had a lot of character development. Too funny!

[Varda]

I have a question for you and any other non-native English speakers. How hard was it for you to learn English? Do you consider it a difficult language compared to others? I ask this because I recently read a thread on which some non-native speakers were saying English was a very easy language. That was the first time I have ever heard anyone say that.

Thank you for the question! It was interesting to dwell on this topic!
I started learning English only in Secondary school, I was about 10 years old and, to be honest, it was rather hard at first. Maybe that was because of teachers or for some other reasons, but... I felt completely helpless and dumb. Then our family moved from the north of the country to Moscow suburb and it got better. At least I understood some basic grammar aspects, vocabulary and so on.

I believe, one of the most vulnerable point in our (I mean, Russian) system of education that we don't pay enough enough attention to communication. We learn grammar, new words, we learn how to make sentences, but talking to other people, especially native speakers... Jesus, that seemed really impossible at first.
I am eternally grateful to the Internet and all its websites, forums, fanfiction. It was lack of fics in Russian which made me try to read "unabridged" texts in English. And then all the videogames, movies and Stargate came into my life and helped me a lot. My English can still be far from perfect, but at least I am able to read and somehow talk in it. (and there I totally agree with Pearl of Atlantis76)

About English being a difficult language: as for me, it still was easier to learn English that French, let alone Chinese. My best friend claims that English is much harder than Spanish. It's all quite... relative!
Then I tried to compare English and Russian... I'd say now English is much, much easier! (for example, because stresses, declensional endings and verb conjugations in Russian are horrific, I tell you! )
(and that's when we talk about part of language which we use in everyday communication; sure, if we go deeper in linguistic aspects, we can find plenty of tricky parts in every language).

[Southern Red]

I love English quite a lot, always did and always will love it. And it is definitely a very easy language to learn. Probably the easiest one in my opinion. I have learned French at school, but didn’t like it and found it quite difficult and also tried to learn German twice and gave up on it too. I am now trying to learn Japanese, but i still believe that English is the easiest language to learn of them all.

Spoiler:

It was very easy for me to learn English. I have an Australian cousin and whenever she would visit me she would teach me a little bit of English. So when i went to school for the first time to learn english, i already knew how to count until 10 in English and also a few words here and there. I also taught my younger sisters English even before they started learning it at school. When my sisters went to school they already knew how to speak it and read it, basically they just went to school to learn how to write it.

I also have a huge help in what concerns the learning of English, because most TV shows (movies, TV series) from foreigner countries are showed with subtitles here, and this is definitely a good way for us here to learn how to speak a foreign language, and since most of our foreigner TV shows here are in English, we listen a lot of English every day, which to me is a huge help in what concerns the understanding of the words’ pronunciation / sounds of the words, not to mention it is a great way to learn how to make conversations, things that we usually don’t learn much at school.

In my opinion what we learn at school here is not enough to enable us to make a conversation. Watching English TV shows always helped me much more than school. But my English is far from being perfect, although i always try to learn new vocabulary as much as possible.

Thank you a lot for that thoughtful reply. I think the key is exposure to the sound of the language and just constant repetition. English has a lot of rules, but they are not always followed and there are many exceptions and words that are spelled the same but mean different things and other differences. It also helps to start learning any language when you are very young.

I was looking through the old episode threads. I'd forgotten that Identity was the one where Joe was so completely not even trying. I might watch it now just so I can see his "I am so done with this sh**" attitude.

It's so funny to read the posts from back then. The diehards who thought anything TPTW did was excellent, and people trying to argue that Teyla had a lot of character development. Too funny!

I'll have to find time to visit that thread. I thought about this yesterday during the postathon but was reluctant to say anything. There were a couple of times when he perked up, like one scene when things got tense with Todd, but mostly he looked like he wasn't paying attention.

Thank you for the question! It was interesting to dwell on this topic!
I started learning English only in Secondary school, I was about 10 years old and, to be honest, it was rather hard at first. Maybe that was because of teachers or for some other reasons, but... I felt completely helpless and dumb. Then our family moved from the north of the country to Moscow suburb and it got better. At least I understood some basic grammar aspects, vocabulary and so on.

I believe, one of the most vulnerable point in our (I mean, Russian) system of education that we don't pay enough enough attention to communication. We learn grammar, new words, we learn how to make sentences, but talking to other people, especially native speakers... Jesus, that seemed really impossible at first.
I am eternally grateful to the Internet and all its websites, forums, fanfiction. It was lack of fics in Russian which made me try to read "unabridged" texts in English. And then all the videogames, movies and Stargate came into my life and helped me a lot. My English can still be far from perfect, but at least I am able to read and somehow talk in it. (and there I totally agree with Pearl of Atlantis76)

About English being a difficult language: as for me, it still was easier to learn English that French, let alone Chinese. My best friend claims that English is much harder than Spanish. It's all quite... relative!
Then I tried to compare English and Russian... I'd say now English is much, much easier! (for example, because stresses, declensional endings and verb conjugations in Russian are horrific, I tell you! )
(and that's when we talk about part of language which we use in everyday communication; sure, if we go deeper in linguistic aspects, we can find plenty of tricky parts in every language).

Thank you also. I took Spanish in high school and found it very easy to learn but speaking it was almost impossible since we didn't do much conversation. To this day, I can read it a little bit and pick up the occasional phrase when I hear someone speaking slowly, but my tongue just won't get it right. I admire all you guys who know any second language so well you can communicate with us natives.

[Southern Red]

I was looking through the old episode threads. I'd forgotten that Identity was the one where Joe was so completely not even trying. I might watch it now just so I can see his "I am so done with this sh**" attitude.

It's so funny to read the posts from back then. The diehards who thought anything TPTW did was excellent, and people trying to argue that Teyla had a lot of character development. Too funny!

I got Identity and Infection mixed up. *snort* We watched Infection this week, but your idea still holds merit. I think he phoned it in for the whole last half of the season except for Vegas.

I also stumbled on a thread in the Identity section where there was discussion of whether Teyla wore "skimpy" outfits. Color me confused because if her outfits from the earlier seasons weren't skimpy, I guess I don't know what that means or I am sadly out of date. And I don't blame her. I blame the costume dept or whoever told them to dress her that way.

[JT-2]

I got Identity and Infection mixed up. *snort* We watched Infection this week, but your idea still holds merit. I think he phoned it in for the whole last half of the season except for Vegas.

I also stumbled on a thread in the Identity section where there was discussion of whether Teyla wore "skimpy" outfits. Color me confused because if her outfits from the earlier seasons weren't skimpy, I guess I don't know what that means or I am sadly out of date. And I don't blame her. I blame the costume dept or whoever told them to dress her that way.

Yeah I thought that too. That he was phoning it in quite a bit that season. Identity was the worst one for that, though, IMO. Identity is the one featuring who else - Keller, again - where she switches bodies using an SG-1 plot of those stones. Once again they put her in completely unflattering clothes and had her be scared and wide eyed all the time. Ugh.

Joe just looked done. And I don't blame him.


As far as languages go, I took Spanish in high school. I got good grades but I was never good at speaking it and now I only know a few words. I don't know if it's a left brain/right brain thing but I am not good at picking up languages. Well, except for programming languages.

[zbir]

Hm, post-a-thon over and not a word about McKay rubbing Jen's shoulders?

//Edit to say how much I've enjoyed it (the post-a-thon, not the episode), and how sad would be when it will be over

[Lt.Colonel John Sheppard]

we all know that Jack O'Neill is a big Simpsons Fanatic but do you guys think John is a simpsons, family guy or South Park fan?

[ShipperWriter]

Thank you a lot for that thoughtful reply. I think the key is exposure to the sound of the language and just constant repetition. English has a lot of rules, but they are not always followed and there are many exceptions and words that are spelled the same but mean different things and other differences. It also helps to start learning any language when you are very young.

...

Thank you also. I took Spanish in high school and found it very easy to learn but speaking it was almost impossible since we didn't do much conversation. To this day, I can read it a little bit and pick up the occasional phrase when I hear someone speaking slowly, but my tongue just won't get it right. I admire all you guys who know any second language so well you can communicate with us natives.

I took Spanish in elementary and middle school but I only remembered the bare basics. I felt like we spent too much time learning all the countries and capitals of Latin and South America. On the other hand, I started learning sign language when I was 17 and was able to carry on a conversation within six months. Then again, I had almost daily exposure to deaf people or people who were fluent in ASL.

we all know that Jack O'Neill is a big Simpsons Fanatic but do you guys think John is a simpsons, family guy or South Park fan?

I'm leaning towards Marvel. Remember his comparison in "First Strike"?