18 Harsh truths that will make you a strong person

1. There is no perfect moment. Holding yourself to unrealistic standards creates frustration. Just do it now.
2. We can't control the past. Wasting time to worry about it is lost time.
3. Our words have the power to hurt. Cruel remarks wound others for life. Use your words to inspire and to liberate instead.
4. Failure quickly gets to our hearts, but success goes to our heads. Our character is revealed at our highest and lows. Be humble at the top. Be faithful in the valleys.
5. Our assumptions about what happiness should be are what makes us unhappy. Let go of your expectations about what would make you happy and treasure your life for what it is.
6. Our devices often get in the way of our social interaction. Meet people. Don't hide behind your gadgets. Listen to others stories face to face.
7. We judge ourselves by our ideas and others by their actions. Be a person who others want to meet and be around.
8. Sadly, we don't get what we give. Don't expect people to always give back. Not everyone has as giving a heart as you.
9. No one owes you anything. Stop blaming others, take your power back. Own your journey.
10. We all will die. No one will live forever. Start living a purposeful life and try to mend broken relationships, because you never know when life will end.
11. To experience the benefits of something in life, we all have to accept the cost. Rewards and risks go hand in hand. Ask yourself, “what am I willing to give up to achieve what I want?”
12. You are responsible for the problems you encounter, regardless of who caused them. Instead of worrying about who caused them, think about how you can get yourself out of the situation.
13. The worst addiction in the world is comfort. Take the road less traveled-one which is sometimes filled with barriers, detours, bumps and undiscovered territory.
14. Justice is a human invention. In reality, it is unachievable and many destroy lives in demanding it.
15. Hating oneself starts with breaking one's promises. Once done, it feels terrible. When it becomes a habit, you hate yourself more.
16. Sometimes we have to ditch toxic friends from our lives and surroundings.
17. Good things usually don't come easily. And if you think about it, great accomplishments take time too. Don't expect rewards instantly.
18. Not everyone will support your dream. Haters, doubters, and pessimists will sabotage every move you make. To overcome this, follow your gut and forget them.

Why does the German language have umlauts?

 

MosaicPalate

 ·

Jul 29

The two dots over German vowels (ä, ö, ü) didn't start as dots. They are the typographic ghosts of a tiny letter left behind by medieval scribes.

Before umlauts existed, ancient Germanic languages used a suffix containing an "i" or a "j" to make words plural or change a verb's tense. For example, the Old High German word for guest was gast, and its plural was gasti.

Saying "gasti" requires your mouth to start open in the back for the "a," then snap to the front for the "i." Speakers naturally started anticipating the front vowel while still saying the back vowel. This phonetic shortcut pulled the "a" forward in the mouth, creating an intermediate "ä" sound. Gasti began sounding like gästi. Linguists call this process i-mutation, or i-umlaut.

Over hundreds of years, unstressed word endings weakened into a neutral "e" or disappeared entirely. Gästi became the modern German Gäste. With the ending altered, the vowel change was left doing all the grammatical lifting. The mutated vowel was no longer just a lazy pronunciation habit; it was the only thing distinguishing singular from plural (Maus vs. Mäuse, Apfel vs. Äpfel).

When writing down Middle High German, those early scribes needed a way to show that a vowel had been mutated. They started by adding an "e" after the affected vowel (ae, oe, ue). To save space on expensive parchment, they eventually began writing a microscopic "e" directly above the a, o, and u.

A handwritten sample showing the typographic evolution of the umlaut from a small, superscript 'e' to the modern two dots. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

In medieval German handwriting scripts like Fraktur and Kurrentschrift, the lowercase "e" consisted of two short vertical strokes. As handwriting sped up and typefaces modernized, those two little vertical slashes eroded into two simple dots.

Because the dots are technically a superimposed "e," German crosswords and official documents still treat ä, ö, and ü as "ae," "oe," and "ue." If a German keyboard isn't available, typing the "e" next to the vowel remains the officially accepted substitute—reverting the spelling back to exactly how scribes wrote it a thousand years ago.

Was ist der schwierige Teil beim Erlernen der deutschen Sprache?

 

Kayla De Leon

 · 

Schrecklich Deutsch

Meine Muttersprachen - Englisch und Filipino - haben kein Genus-System, also als ich zum ersten Mal Deutsch lernen war, fand ich es wirklich schwierig.

Meine Lehrerin hat mir nicht erklärt, wie wichtig das Genus-System ist, deshalb habe ich mich nicht darum gekümmert, es auswendig zu lernen. "Der Kühlschrank" war einfach "Kühlschrank", "das Dach" war einfach "Dach" und so weiter.

Ich habe mich dran gewöhnt, Nomen ohne Genus zu lernen. Natürlich führte dies zu um so mehr Problemen, je weiter ich mit dem Deutschlernen fortgeschritten war. Ich kämpfte mit den Artikeln und auch mit den Synonymen, die das gleiche Wort bezeichneten, aber verschiedene Genus hatten. Adjektivendungen, Nominativ, Akkusativ, Dativ, und Genitiv waren auch große Probleme.

Immer wenn ich das falsche Genus benutze, fühle ich mich sehr verunsichert. Vor allem, wenn ich mit Deutschen spreche. Es ist schwer, sich nicht entmutigen zu lassen, Deutsch zu lernen, wenn man dumme Fehler macht, wie das falsche Genus zu verwenden.

Ich wünschte, dass ich früher mehr auf das Genus-System geachtet hätte. Vielleicht würde ich jetzt fließender Deutsch oder besser Deutsch sprechen.

Mein Deutsch ist noch schlecht (A2/B1 CEFR) so es tut mir wirklich leid für die viele Fehler! Thank you Bernhard Elsner for the corrections :)

What are some pictures of beautiful women?

 

Ronna Lou

 

 · 

Following

Matchmaking Consultant (2016–present)

Allow me to share photos of beautiful Filipino women from our social events in Cebu:

I’m probably a little biased because I am also a Filipina, but I really believe that the Philippines has some of the most beautiful women in the world. It’s why a lot of foreign men visit the country: to meet their life partner in the Philippines.

And it’s not just their physical appearance that makes them beautiful. Filipinas are also kind, loyal, and passionate—qualities that prove their beauty is not only skin-deep.

What makes German the hardest Germanic language to learn?

 

Steven Haddock

TESL course graduate

Well, you’re right and everyone else who answered to say “German’s not hard” is wrong because you quite properly noted that its the rating on the Foreign Service Institute’s list. This is the agency that teaches U.S. government employees new languages for their assignments.

A Category I language isn’t terribly hard - it probably has a lot of characteristics similar to English. For example, German still uses the Roman alphabet, so that’s a plus. It also has a lot of cognates - words that are similar to English words and mean the same thing.

However, when you look at the list, “Dutch” and “Afrikaans” are on the easier side, while German is right up there with Spanish, which is a Romance language with no direct link to English. So what gives?

Well, German and English started to drift apart in the 12th century when English stopped creating new words out of existing words (compounding) and started borrowing words from Norman French.

Next, English dropped word endings for noun cases and used syntax of Subject-Verb-Object. German went with the syntax Subject-Object-Verb. By comparison, most European languages went Subject-Verb-Object too - German is the outlier.

Then German has an unusually high number of articles (usually indicating gender, but also case) that don’t exist in English or even French.

And then there are prepositions. English and French have some outlying prepositions (in a car, on a plane) but in German prepositions kind of come at you randomly.

So let’s do some comparisons

English: Good evening. How are you? Have you spent much time here in New York City? It’s been a pleasure to meet you.

Dutch: Goedenavond. Hoe is het met je? Heb je veel tijd hier in New York City doorgebracht? Het was een genoegen u te ontmoeten. [Okay, not too bad - “spent” comes at the end of the sentence, but otherwise everything is pretty much the same despite SOV order)

French: Bonsoir. Comment ca va? Avez-vous passé beaucoup de temps ici à New York? Ce fut un plaisir de vous rencontrer. [Grammar is pretty much the same, vocabulary is quite different, but manageable]

German: Guten Abend. Wie geht es dir? Haben Sie viel Zeit hier in New York City verbracht? Es war mir eine Freude, Sie kennenzulernen.

Here, we can see German has fewer cognates than Dutch (“Abend” not “avond”, “geht” not “hoe”). Then we run into “you”, which in German gives you three choices depending on how formal you want to be. “Sie” is one of the more formal ones, but as you can see the Dutch are more familiar, using “je” which is more of a cognate. Then there’s “meet you” which in Dutch is “ontmoeten” but in German is “kennenzulernen”.

Do Filipinos express their love differently than other nationalities? If so, how?

 

Filipino Relationship and Dating

 · 

Answered by 

Ronna Lou

 

We have our own culture, so it’s natural for us to have our own ways of expressing love.

For example, Filipinos are VERY family oriented, so our idea of love is tied to our familial roles and relationships. Dating is practically the first step to meeting your spouse and starting your future family. When you’re in a relationship with someone, it’s also kind of expected that you should be on good terms with their parents and siblings.

When we love you, we ask about your family. How is your mother? Is your tatay still working abroad? Are your siblings still in school? In the Philippines, love means working hard for your family and making your parents proud.

We’re also predominantly Catholic, so love can be very religious. When you love someone, you pray for them. You invite them to go to church with you. You give them a rosary as a gift.

Filipino love is also tied to labor and acts of service. In fact, there was a survey

[1]

 last year that showed 67% of people in the Philippines show their love through acts of service.

If a Filipina loves you, she will cook for you.

If a Filipino loves you, he will spend the night with a pamaypay (a hand-held fan) to make sure you’re comfortable while sleeping when there’s a brownout (power outage).

If a Filipino family loves you, you will always be invited to all the fiestas.

When people in the Philippines love you, not a day will go by without you laughing over something silly. You will also never go hungry. They will put a roof over your head during a storm, they will carry your house (This is literal. Look up Bayanihan.), and they will walk on their knees from the church doors to the altar to pray for your eternal soul.

Footnotes

[1] https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/2034563/most-pinoys-show-love-thru-acts-of-service

Do Filipinos still practice the tradition of "mano po"?

 

Ghemma Marie

 · 

SouthEast Asian

My answer is NO, not all Filipinos practice mano po. (You can research the meaning on the internet).

While it is a deeply rooted and widely recognized gesture of respect across the country, as this is taught in school curriculum, its usage varies significantly depending on the region, generation, and individual family traditions. It could be that this sign of respect practice by the majority of Filipinos nationwide several decades ago unlike today’s generation. I always encounter a situation when an elderly guest arrived, the parents of the child need to remind them to do the mano po, not an automatic action of gesture towards the elderly.

This is what I observed.

I live in the northern Philippines and while we (Igorot, Ilocano) acknowledged that this is a sign of respect to the elderly, we don’t practice it on a regular basis. The only people that I noticed doing that came from Tagalog speaking regions either Metro Manila or adjacent provinces like MIMAROPA/ CALABARZON regions, Pampanga, Nueva Ecija/ Viscaya. So it is safe probably to say that this gesture is a tradition normally practice by most of the Tagalog people.

I’m not familiar with people from the south (Visayas, Mindanao).

I could be wrong of course, but I also noticed this from the native Cordillerans like those people from Kalinga, Abra, and people from Ilocos region. Some do the beso-beso thing, nodding of head to acknowkedge the presence, or you also noticed this humble tone of voice when talking to the elderly. I didn’t say that mano po is completely out of the picture, its just they practice it on a very rare occassion.

Btw, this is the mano po hand gesture.

HOW TO BE ALWAYS HAPPY IN LIFE?

Prashant Srivastava

1. Everyone has problems. You are not alone.

2. Everyone faces tough times. Only people who aren’t alive don’t have challenges.

3. Every problem can be fixed. There are ways to feel better.

4. How you think about yourself affects your happiness. Believe you are special and important. Don’t let negative thoughts win.

5. Don’t stress about what others say. Some people say mean things to hurt you.

6. Spend time with positive people who make you happy. Avoid those who laugh at you or your struggles.

7. Use your free time to enjoy hobbies like sports, games, movies, or browsing online.

8. Don’t let money or fancy things scare you. Someone who is poor today can be rich tomorrow. Change happens all the time.

9. No matter how tough it gets, don’t give up. While you’re alive, there is hope.

10. Pray often. Praying a lot can help bring good things to you faster.

11. Be brave and chase what you want. Life is about taking risks. If you don’t take chances, you won’t get what you really want. Stay true to yourself. Nobody can do what you do better than you. You’re awesome! So just be yourself. Have a great life!