Magic
Doesn’t help that Near doesn’t understand the explanation xD
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That apron is very good at protecting (or hiding) Near’s dress.
Having things explained is one thing, actual experience and knowing what you are doing is another! Fortunately with material like wet clay it’s easy to restart if you don’t get it right.
C’mon, Kai, get with the translating. Your lady is confused.
His Italian is good enough that he should be able to real-time translate.
My wife knows 13 languages; Russian is her native language. She has a difficult time sometimes being a translator, though, because being fluent in multiple languages isn’t enough. To be a translator, you have to learn how to listen in language 1 and speak in language 2 almost simultaneously, and even though I only know English, I have an idea of how difficult that can be.
Have you ever been on a phone call or used a PA system where you can hear an echo of yourself talking? Like, you start to speak, and then you hear your own words half a second later? I imagine doing live translation is like that, except even weirder because you’re dealing with several things at once:
1. Understanding what words the original speaker said
2. Understanding the meaning of what the speaker said, even if the original speaker misspoke, meant something else, used poor grammar, et cetera
3. Your own understanding of the speaker’s meaning
4. How to translate that meaning into the other language
5. The listener’s understanding of the translated language
6. The listener’s ability to understand the words coming out of your mouth (physical hearing disabilities, for example)
7. The listener’s understanding of the now translated words
Personally, I think this is why services like Google Translate (and similar) are so bad. They only translate *words* without understanding the contextual meanings. For example, when writing this, I had to think about my phrasing. I deliberately chose to use the word “difficult” instead of “hard” when talking about how hard/difficult something is. In English, the word “hard” has multiple meanings. Google Translate is getting better at understanding context, but it’s still not perfect. It used to just pick whatever definition was first, so if I said something was hard to do, Google would translate “hard” in the “hard as rock” type definition, so the translation wouldn’t make any sense.
This is what I mean by the translator person needs to think about what the speaker means. With human understanding, it’s not too terribly difficult to understand meaning, but it’s still a practiced skill, and not everyone can figure that part out on their own.
I get the feeling that Serena teaches this a lot.
That actually looks pretty accurate to the process. I always had my stuff collapse at phase 2 of the process
You should skip phase 2. 😉
“Suddenly coffee mug?!” Serena works fast! She must have a lot of experience…
That looks fun! Serena has a lot of talent. Near doesn’t seem to have confidence in her own ability to learn how to shape a mug, does she have poor manual dexterity? Or is it because she didn’t understand a word Serena said? Thankfully for the latter, Kai can translate. I wonder how good Kai is at pottery, he’s got artistic talent from what I’ve seen in the side comics. I’m sure he can help Near with her mug, though helping get any stray globs of clay out of her fur would be a bit more challenging apart from getting a towel.
She apparently does this professionally, so yes, she does.
That said, mugs are pretty easy. The only part that I couldn’t do in short order when I was last doing clay stuff was the handle. Admittedly, that was over 40 years ago.
But I should admit, there’s a reason it looks like pure magic. It is.
I must stress that I’m not a bot or out to sabotage this comic, I’m just doing my part as a concerned reader.
On that note, could you please add a comma to “First” in panel 4?
i think both are correct, depending on which way it’s pronounced
Not needed, you are wrong, again. If you do not know grammar, please stop trying to ruin everything.
Actually, it’s just optional, not wrong.
I think, technically, the comma would be more grammatically appropriate. However, different people speak at different speeds, and some people speak rapid-fire without putting a break there. Having a comma after “first” would indicate a verbal pause, which not everyone does. So, by not having a comma there, it’s indicating that Serena didn’t take a verbal pause after saying “first.”
No poem from Welsh Rat?
…I hope he isn’t ill!
A fellow poet or rapper could argue that Welsh Rat is always ill.
As his wife (in the Kevin and Kell chat RP)… I refuse to comment.
In work evening. Poem close to midnight!
Step 1: get a chunk of clay and slap it down onto the pottery wheel.
Step 2: shape the clay
Step 3: mug
And that’s how you do it.
But what about:
???
Profit(?)
🙂 🙂 🙂
Well, she DOES make all the pottery for the town apparently, so hopefully that’s where the profit comes into it… 😋
I don’t think potting to be that particularily complicated when I did it. Though I think she skipped a step because I’m not sure how she got the handle on there.
I don’t think potting WAS that particularily complicated.
The date, it seems, has gone to mug
(you thought I’d say something else there?)
Just to remember here, guys,
it needs to be round, not square.
Kai will have to guide her hands
Like Swaze in that classic film, Ghost.
But she didn’t know he was there…
is Near’s attempt fated to be toast?
Turn your hand to the art
and your clay to the hand.
Make the finest pottery you can;
the finest in all the land.
He made the fifth-worst video of 1988. Also, you left out the “y”.
See, you get some right, bud!
I couldn’t work out why that name seemed wrong…
Diolch yn fawr iawn.
The craftsmanship equivalent of “You’re gonna have to make that at least two degrees dumber for me.”
Processing.
I’m just thinking, wouldn’t this be very messy for people whose hands are covered in fur like Near?
Gloves should be commonly carried by hybrids.