Bring Down the Wall! (Nao)

[Walther Ebersbacher]

The library. He never expected it, but the library at a school in America had just the books he needed. Dictionaries, thesauruses, even some niche translation guides that were meant for people learning English to learn German, instead. It was easy to read it backwards, to get the opposite result. So, now, instead of spending all of his free time watching the television or treading the same set of footsteps in the snow, he'd buried his nose in the books. All sorts of books. The one he had open would always be nestled comfortably underneath two folded arms, the others on a stack beside him.

This time around, now that he was getting a firm grasp on pronunciation, partly in thanks to some of the people that had been talking to him, as of late. So, it was time for the dictionary. All sorts of words, he'd look up. Even some of the larger ones. He'd follow the pronunciation guide, sound them out loud, then try to write them on a piece of paper next to him. So far, that piece of paper had a little list going.

• ascend
• ascertain
• attention
  
• attentive

And he'd only just begun. In his drawer, back in the shared dorm, were a few of these papers. He'd choose a random starting point in the alphabet, so they'd look like the scattered notes of a madman for anyone who didn't have the proper perspective.

He stayed well in to the lunch break, where he then pulled out a nice-sized sandwich that he happened to purchase from the town. It was a little cold. But, ham and cheese, one couldn't go wrong with that. He wasn't scolded by the librarian yet, so there must not have been a rule against eating, here. Still, that didn't prevent him from being meticulous and polite. He swept up the crumbs as they formed.

Following his gulp from eating a good chunk of the aforementioned sandwich, he continued.

"Aus-pish-is..."

• Auspicious
  

[Deleted]

One of the perks of coming to what was essentially a private school was the quality of the resources available for the students, especially in the library. It was, in his opinion, a lot less diverse than the public library, but also a lot more centered towards learning about a variety of subjects. Naozumi was sure that he wouldn't have been able to have access to the same resources merely at the public library at home, though that still had a collection well worth his respect.

Nao was still working on his ventures in the Russian language. While Russian was on his radar, he wasn't expecting to start trying that for a while longer. But he had finally gotten to the point where he could start translating small things into Russian. Mostly, it was comic books, those were in pretty high demand, though he didn't read them himself. After having collected the resource books he needed, Nao found a table to sit at, one that had another present doing his own work. He wasn't even sure if the younger looking boy noticed his arrival. But Nao settled himself, pulled out his laptop, and got to work.

After a few moments, however, it became distracting. The person close by was speaking, reading out loud, which made it difficult for Naozumi to concentrate on his own work. He wasn't sure if he should say anything, however. The boy had what sounded like an accent as he read off the words and Nao understood how important it was to say words out loud when you were learning a new language, at least that what he assumed the other boy was trying to do.

His eyes also focused on the sandwich, the sight of it instantly giving Naozumi a craving. At least a taste, right?

No. He had work to do. Nao tried to get back to it.

However, it was still distracting, hearing the boy struggle like he was. "Auspicious," he offered the correct pronunciation, staring somewhat blankly at the boy. "Auspicious," he said again, more slowly and accentuating the sounds. Nao sent the boy a small smile, then turned back down to his own work.

[Walther Ebersbacher]

He hadn't noticed him enter, at least for a few minutes. There was that intense focus Walther'd suddenly gained. A muse, one could say. A desire to learn. He'd not realized he was even being potentially disturbing. He'd have stopped if anyone asked him to, but, well, he was also fine with being left alone, forgiven for it. He'd have rather not had the confrontation, anyhow.

But when this boy had corrected him, he gasped. In fact, he nearly threw his pencil across the room as a twitch reaction. He was usually one that was so hard to sneak up on. A perk to sensitive ears was that, while he couldn't take yelling and shouting too well, he was more attuned to things like footsteps. Sounds that one heard daily, and learned to phase out, were usually not things he had to worry about.

"Heh... Thank you. Auspicious." He replied with the correct pronunciation. Yes, that sounded a lot better once it was said without being broken in to syllables. "Sorry for being loud." He had to add. This wasn't /his/ library, and people were here to do work. Instead of flipping to another letter of the alphabet like he was going to, he closed the books, stacking them from largest, up to the smallest. He was ready to leave right now. People were busy, after all.

He stood, and pushed his chair right in. After pushing his chair in, he made sure he had everything in order... Well, if he was going to leave, he might as well have shared what of his sandwich was left. He tore off the half that he hadn't bitten in to. "You could eat my food, if you want." He sort of just pushed the half his way. Half of it was in apology, the other reason, though, was because the first half was really catching up. He had his fill.

[Deleted]

Nao wasn't good with confrontation either. It was why he approached the situation in a subtle way rather than just saying straight up for the other boy to be quiet. He wasn't about to make the boy leave, however. This was basically a public space and he had the right to be there, but just the same it was a public space and courtesy to your fellow scholar was expected.

It was a difficult situation and Naozumi wasn't sure quite how to handle it. He could leave it alone and become disturbed, he could find another place to study and potentially leave the boy feeling guilty in his wake, or he could politely say something in the hopes that they will both try to become a little more respectful. But Nao would still feel guilty at that point for saying anything at all.

Which is what seemed to happen at just the subtle correction of the boy's pronunciation of his English words. Naozumi smiled with a nod. "It's alright," he said. It was a polite white lie describing how things should be.

But now the boy seemed to be packing up to leave. Nao gaped his mouth open slightly, feeling guilty now that he's said anything at all. What should he do about this? "Um…thank you." The half of the sandwich was a nice gesture, but Nao wasn't sure he would be able to enjoy it now with this hanging over him. "….sorry. You don't have to leave, I'm fine really."

[Walther Ebersbacher]

It seemed like some sort of situation that he couldn't win. No matter what, he sort of made an ass of himself. While he was trying to just be courteous, and go back to his dorm to practice there, instead, he now just made this person feel bad. He could sort of see it in his face, slight aversion of the eyes, that tone in his voice. Now he felt like he had to make right by him.

"I don't have to leave... But if I disturb your studying, I'd like to." He decided. That was the best course of traversing this situation. He always felt that need to explain himself, so that he didn't look bad to others. He wasn't a vain person, he was just /kind/. And if he could come across not looking mean spirited, he most definitely would.

This was one of those cases.

"The sandwich is good." And it was still mostly in its wrapping, sitting there on the table. The tables, he hoped, were clean enough. If they weren't, the offer would really be revolting to some. Students hands always all over it. Oily hands, germs. He probably wouldn't have taken it if the roles were reversed, unless he was really, really hungry.

After a slight pause, Walther added "Don't feel bad..."

[Deleted]

Naozumi sent the boy a small smile. "You're not. I understand the need to say things out loud." He had to do it himself for his language studies. English was not this person's first language so, considering how difficult the language was by itself, Naozumi could stand to be tolerant.

Nao appreciated the gesture for the sandwich. And it's presence on the bare table did not deter him from desiring it. He smiled. "Thank you," he said finally, leaning over to pick it up with a slightly sad face.

It was hard not to feel bad, and now Nao was even taking his sandwich. Naozumi pondered blankly as he took a bite into his cheeks. It was good.

After swallowing, Nao looked to the other boy. "Are you learning English? Would you like some help?" He may as well offer as thanks for the sandwich.

[Walther Ebersbacher]

Some help. That caught him off guard as he'd spun on a heel. He was already pretty good at it, except for the larger words. If Nao could actually explain how a lot of syntax and pronunciations worked, that would do him a whole lot of good. This person seemed very, very smart, too. Studying in the library when everyone had access to Internet, hell, why not?

He watched him chew the sandwich with that adamant expression for a moment, then approached, and scooped up his items. Piling unessential books in to his bag, all that remained were a few blank sheets of notebook paper, adorned with proper cursive. Walther sat down again, right by Nao.

"Thank you for your offer. Maybe I can start with a letter, and you can tell me if it is wrong or not?" He'd cracked open the slightly musty Webster dictionary, and pointed out a word, freehand-writing it on the piece of paper in chunks, how he saw it.



He looked down at it, covering up the space in the dictionary where it told the reader how to pronounce things with those odd sigil-esque letters that he only kind of knew how to read on their own. But sometimes, it made about as much sense to him as someone speaking in tongues. That is to say, not at all.

"Un... dar- No... durr... state... mint."

[Deleted]

Languages were Nao's thing. He didn't have the gift on omnilingualism like some people he'd met at the school, but it was a hobby that he had procured over the past several years. His teachers had said he had a gift for it. A natural talent for learning. Maybe he did, but Nao figured he just plain had an interest in the subject and that pressed him into working hard at it. And languages were fun for him. They were easy. They made sense. There was a certain logic to them that he tended to shuffle around to amuse himself with.

So…it was common sense that Nao would be able to help this kid with learning English better. English was difficult.

Nao leaned forward, looking at the dictionary that the boy was reading from, observing how he handled it. The boy wrote the word. Good. He looked over it and then covered up the pronunciation guide. Then he slowly sounded out the word.

Nao smiled. The boy had done a good job doing it by himself. "That's right," he said. "'Understatement'." Then he said it again, like he'd done before. "Un.der.state.ment," making sure to flatten the last "e" sound to allow him the correct accent to say the word with. Nao smiled. "What's next?"

[Walther Ebersbacher]

Hearing the word again in Nao's accent really did help things out. Even if he'd always sound like one would expect from a person straight out of Germany, it really gave him a frame of reference to bounce off of. So, he appreciated it, instead of taking offense of him finding the necessity to override the way he said it. It was unnecessary to get flustered /now/.

He skimmed the dictionary, ready to write out another word in his elegant cursive, which, to some, looked like incoherent, slightly bent scribbles. In his school back in Germany, he learned small cursive. It was the way they always wrote! It was the way he did every paper, and, to him, it was a lot better to write words in a flowing way, returning to dot them off, instead of writing out every single letter side by side.

He flipped the page randomly again, not satisfied with any of the options, and he settled on a T word. Without looking at the pronunciation guide, he cocked a head. This one was a bit confusing. "Tie-ran-nickel?" Tyrannical.... That didn't sound right. Maybe it was one of those things that if you said it fast? He wrote it down.

Then he looked over to Nao. "It's not that, is it?"

[Deleted]

That was one of the things that made his own language learning a bit difficult. Nao usually didn't have a very good point of reference for pronunciation and accents. If he used the language labs and computers, then he could get some audio examples, but there was still only so much that those could do, especially when you considered the various dialects of each language. He'd been lucky that his home had been bilingual, with both English and Japanese, which gave him the ease for pronouncing a variety of sounds that were often found in languages, but it made things like Russian, French, and German difficult because many of the sounds were ones he didn't grow up with and so didn't know how to make yet.

He really needed a mentor himself. And here he was trying to teach this kid. At least Nao was teaching him English. That was his second language. And while hard, he spoke it as easy as his first.

Nao waited patiently for the boy to find the next word. Tyrannical. That was….actually a bit harder to explain as the way it was pronounced was often dictated by dialect. "Um…" Nao flustered. "I think you can pronounce that as either, Tai-ran-nickel, or as Tir-ran-nickel." Nao himself used the former over the latter.

[Walther Ebersbacher]

That confused him. Why were there two ways to do the same word? IT was one thing if it was a common bridging word that had different contexts, but according to the definition, it was one with such a specific definition, that it really seemed weird to him that there was more than one way to do it. He really, really wished that English was higher on the priority list earlier in his life now that he was here, but could anyone really expect this chain of events? The idea was that he would move back from New York to Stuttgart once his life was in order, and he could go to the next level of schooling, where individual focus by bullies was more benign.

"So, Tier-ran-nickel with less pronouncing of the 'Tier' part..." He moved back to the base word of it. Tyranny. Tyrant. Tier-ranny or Tie-rant... Ugh, that was so confusing. Why couldn't they just stick with 'tie' and be done with it? "I think that Tie sounds better... It makes more sense because of Tie-rant."

In neat free-handed cursive, he jotted down the word, dotting off the i with a dash afterwards. "This language needs to be a lot easier." He joked, at least figuring that Nao would find some sort of solidarity in it. "It's too slow, and it's not tonal enough." Where other languages were fast, and relied on heavier tones instead of slights.

[Deleted]

Nao could understand the boy's confusion. English was a difficult language after all. And there were actually many words that had several pronunciations, all considered correct, that didn't change the meaning of the word. Such as either(or ai-ther), or tomato(tomahto). Then there were the American dialects that were different ranging all the way from the north eastern United States(such as in Boston and New York), to the south(Louisiana, Alabama, Arkansas), and the southwest(Texas, New Mexico). And even besides those, there were still many, many others. At least this child was still young and could probably absorb the myriad of rules with enough practice.

Naozumi nodded. "Yes. That is what I use," he confirmed the boy's musings. It did make more sense to Nao as well, which was why he did. Though, if he wasn't careful, then even Nao could slip and use the other one.

He smiled, completely understanding the boy's sentiment. "It really does. English is one of the harder languages for a reason. It breaks it's own rules, making it even more confusing." Like that 'I before E except after C' rule, which made no sense when statistically E came before I in more words than the other configuration. "Besides English, I think I've had the most trouble with Chinese," he offered. Chinese was such that if you made the slightest change in pronunciation or even pitch of a word, then it changes the whole meaning. That was pretty confusing.