It's the Grind [Language Study]

[Saitou Rei]

Books and papers sprawled upon one of the desks in Section P at the Bibliotheca Conscientiae. Buried beneath them, a young dark-haired girl struggled to work through the pages and make sense to them. It was a mixture of her own notes and those of people who had come long before, recorded in the books she'd checked out earlier that week. She'd been at a loss on where to start, and so at first she decided to just try to learn as many words as she could as quickly as she could. Turns out, vocabularly is harder to come by when you don't have any sort of basic grip on grammar.
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Μιλάω (Speak)
Μιλάω - I speak
Μιλάς - you speak
Μιλά - he/she speaks
Μιλούμε - we speak
Μιλάτε - you all speak
Μιλούν - they speak

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"Μι…λάω Fuego… μι..λάς Kumogakurian…" Rei sounded the words out slowly as she wrote them, hesitating as she began the second clause of the sentence. Was it M? No, that's capital… m? No… μ! Why were the capitals and lower case so different? And why hadn't she reflected that in her notes?! 'Oh well,' she thought, brushing her paper clean from the eraser bits her mistakes had left behind, 'I'm sure Fuego seems just as odd to them.' The kunoichi paused as the thought passed through her mind. Them. Though the three former Konoha nin had only been here a short period so far, she'd hoped that the time she'd spent preparing herself for the transition would have kept distinctions like that from being so natural. Wasn't she trying to become one of them?

Thankfully, her thoughts were interrupted by a now familiar voice. "Rei-chan, it's late. You know you checked those books out, you can take them with you?" One of the librarians, an older woman named Airi, had taken a liking to the new girl and had pointed her in the right direction in her study of the vulgar dialect of Kumogakurian. The second most common language, and easier to learn than classical. "Airi-san, by the time I leave here… "Μιλούμε Kumogakurian" Airi chuckled at Rei's earnest attempt, the young girl's smile seeking some sort of approval - her pronunciation, grammar, anything. "θα μιλήσουμε και οι δύο Kumogakurian" the elder gently corrected. Rei's smile softened, but not in discouragement. Instead, biting her lower lip, her eyes scanned the pages before her. "Okay, so wait… is that a future tense? We will speak?" Finding the proper page, grey eyes soaked up the black and white printing. "I haven't quite gotten there yet… but why is what you said so much longer?!"

Airi gave another airy laugh before sitting down next to the foreign teen, taking the pencil from her and beginning to make some new notes on her page. Though she'd wanted to tell the girl to go home and get some food and rest, the wonder Rei had for a process that turned most off warmed the knowledge-keeper's heart; and so the two sat swapping tongues long into the night.

[WC: 511]

 

[Saitou Rei]

"So there are seven tenses in Vulgar: the present, imperfect, future, aorist, perfect, pluperfect, and future perfect. It sounds like a lot, but y'know the common tongue has twelve? We just don't think about conjugating them because we learned them so young, it was natural for our little spongey brains! It's almost like breathing, it just does it. How cool is that?"

Fast forward a little over a year, still in Section P at the Kumo library. The chestnut-haired kunoichi had often sat alone at one of these desks, but today was accompanied by a slightly younger girl who was set to graduate from the academy soon. She was a bookworm, always flitting through the library looking for new material for her classes at the academy. Eventually they figured they'd seen enough of each other to actually talk to each other, and it wasn't long before the child decided that she wanted to learn vulgar, too.

"λοιπόν, φαίνεται ότι ο μαθητής έχει γίνει ο δάσκαλος" a familiar voice came from behind. Turning with a grin, Rei stood to greet the librarian, Airi. "ήμουν δάσκαλος όταν το ξέρεις το κλειδί είναι να βεβαιώνεσαι ότι πάντα μαθαίνεις" The older woman smiled warmly. Rei had divulged a bit more of her past to this woman than she had to, well, anyone that didn't need to know in Kumo, as the two had grown close in her near constant study sessions for the past several months. "I hope this doesn't mean you're going to stop visiting. Who would help me get the students in line when they come here like wild animals after class?" Though she spoke with a smile, Rei could sense a genuine melancholy in the words. "Of course not, Airi-san. What did I just say about being teachable? Besides, I still get confused sometimes on when to use the aorist and pluperfect tenses. έχω σπουδάσει τόσο καιρό και ακόμα τα μπερδεύω!" The librarian chuckled. "αυτή είναι η ατέλεια γλυκιά μου." Rei's jaw dropped slightly, and the student who had been drawing arrows and underlining her notes looked over. "Yea, I knew that. Of course. Duh."

Leaving the library that night, a sense of accomplishment washed over her when she overheard an elderly couple speaking in vulgar discussing the book they'd picked out for their reading days. She could understand them completely, without drawing t-charts in her mind to figure out which person they were using. The Fire Country immigrant held something now that tied her to this land and its people, including the retired couple she'd never met but hoped one day to be like. For the first time, she stepped off the library steps and onto the streets feeling like she could blend right into the crowd. Like she belonged.

[TWC: 971]

Spoiler: Translations

"Well well, looks like the student has become the master."
"I actually was a teacher once you know - the key is making sure you're always learning."
"I've studied them for so long and still get them confused!"
"That's the imperfect, sweetie."

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