Eldritch Yvette and Tiro
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"Well! In English we have two cases for letters, because sometimes we like to be confusing. Lowercase and uppercase. They're used in different situations to make it easier for someone to read, to pick out the start of sentences and identify important subjects. I'm going to start you with lowercase because it's used more often."

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"Okay. Teach me your alphabet."

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So she does!

It's weird that some English letters are used for multiple sounds, but Yvette offers many examples that she writes and then slowly sounds out. She clearly doesn't have much experience teaching this sort of thing, but she's tackling it logically and is clear and concise.

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"English spelling is a nightmare," he decrees after an hour of this. "I'm literate in two other languages and this is definitely the worst one."

And yet he seems to take a perverse joy in this fact.

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"It's because English beats up other languages in alleyways to go through their pockets for words," says Yvette, deadpan. "And often they use the same lettering system too, which will carry over, so it gets all - muddied and confused. At least as I understand, I'm not a linguist."

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Tiro giggles.

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"And I think there are worse languages. My sister once complained about how nothing in French is spelled how it sounds."

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"Well now I want to learn French."

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"You'll have to talk to my sister for that, I'm afraid. I know, uh. Parlez-vous Anglais? and that's about it."

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Giggle.

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"She likes learning languages," says Yvette, fondly. "When we get to my home, she'll probably happily teach you more than French."

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"I've been fine with two most of my life but now that I'm going on three I think I start to see the appeal."

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"You do have that nice magical advantage to learning them."

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"I should obviously be using it more."

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"Clearly! I'd help you out, but I only speak English, sorry."

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"You can teach me one whole language, that's not bad."

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"This is true," she agrees. "With its moderately confusing spelling and everything."

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"I'm weirdly - what's the word - I like it for its moderately confusing spelling," he confesses.

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"Fond of?" offers Yvette. "Hm. Personally, if I could switch to a saner spelling system and trust that everyone would switch with me, I'd do it. But I don't think I have the authority to change an entire language's spelling."

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"Aww. But what if people like the way it works now?"

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"Then they are wrong."

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"Hey!"

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"No offense meant! Nothing against you! You seem like a pretty nice guy! But it's definitely the truth. You've come to the wrong conclusions, I'm right and you're wrong, because I say so."

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"No."

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"Foiled by a single syllable. Darn."

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