Teaser #4

You’re in a break between classes, on your way to pick up your books for the next one. You’ve barely rested lately. After receiving the letter from the town’s mayor, you’ve been doing your best to find your grandfather’s notes. You can recall that he used to check them every now and then while he was trying to teach you that language he was really passionate about. You remember getting the hang of it when you were little, but stopped practicing after he passed away. For the past days you’ve been looking for notebooks and papers, but without success.

Deep in your thoughts and wondering where they could be hiding, you’re brought back to the present as something hard hits your arm. You manage not to trip and look up to see a slightly taller girl with purple hair stripes, wearing darker clothes. She turns to you and says a short “Sorry.” with a neutral but just as tired expression and continues on her way. You’re not quite sure you remember her name, but you recall sharing a few classes with her. She’s generally quiet and seems a bit hard to approach. You wonder why she looked so tired.

You resume your way to the locker, thinking about the places in your attic you still have to check.

Day 0: Choose Your Language!

Gliding your hands across the rusty but smooth equipment of the submarine, you listen to the distant ticking of what sounds to be a clock. You could’ve sworn there was no clock here; you’ve had enough time to check through this submarine in and out thrice. Or, perhaps it is the one you heard previously in your grandfather’s old office as you searched for the papers you could’ve sworn were there. It’s now echoing in your head, as what’s about to occur settles in. The clock must be somew-

The door behind you swings open, and a girl you had seen in your school’s hallway rushes to the monitors. She drops what appears to be a notebook with crumpled paper shoved inside on the desk, sighs, and reaches for an old phone next to her notebook. When you signed up for this project, you were the only applicant, until you were notified last second that someone else joined. You weren’t able to get the name of the person, but the girl in front of you must be them. Curiously, you tap her shoulder.

“Oh… sorry,” She mumbles, “Didn’t see you there. I’m just going to call them, so they know to put us in the water.” You nod but she doesn't see it as she’s already turned away from you on the phone.

After a few moments, the old submarine is submerged and your stomach immediately sinks.

“Yo. Do you know what this says?”

You take a good look at the screens in front of you. It appears the submarine is running on a different language entirely. It looks familiar. Too familiar.

What is it?

Activity

Identify the language you will be seeing in the submarine’s technology. It is crucial to the fate of our journey! You may pick a completely new language or continue one for an upcoming fun week. Though we highly encourage you to pick a new language since the event is only a week long, so there's lower commitment!

Choosing a Language + Finding Resources

We highly encourage you to pick a new language since the event is only a week long and there's lower commitment necessary!

• Our “What Language Should I Actually Learn?” language quiz has been updated for a total of 134 languages, so you'll be sure to find new languages to fall in love with: https://www.languagecafe.world/quiz

• Resources for all languages included in our quiz: https://www.languagecafe.world/languages

Or, pick from a list or randomizer

• Top 100 languages: http://www2.harpercollege.edu/mhealy/g101ilec/intro/clt/cltclt/top100.html

• All languages: https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages

• Randomizer: https://zhuzilu.github.io/language-randomizer/

Day 1: Figuring Out The Controls

Upon figuring out the basics of the control panels, the submarine is now on the move which makes you lose your footing a bit. The girl fully faces you, quickly looking you up and down as you try to stabilize yourself by putting your hands on the chair in front of you.

“All you need to know is my name is Vivian and I want to specialize in marine research. Let’s make this simple. You operate the technology of the submarine and I do the analysis of this…whatever it is…Okay? I just want the bonus points for this project and don’t want to worry about all this technical stuff.”

Bonus Points? You don’t even fully think you know the language of the submarine, and she's doing this for bonus points? On top of that, you were under the impression you were signed up to work together as a team in this. You end up nodding slightly to what she said, which, to your amusement, Vivian nods back in approval.

You look back at your now assigned screens and try to analyze where you’ve seen this language before. The control panels seem to now be showing you different greetings after powering on. Even though it’s odd to you that the submarine only operates in this language, it's the least of your worries right now. You could've sworn you heard your grandfather’s voice repeating those phrases to you as you look at the panels. This is going to be a long week.

At the end of today, you realize that you may need a bit of assistance with the journey ahead. You go to bed with an unnerving question still in your mind.

Where are my grandfather’s research notebooks?

Activity

It’s our first day and we’re off to a start in our research! It’s time to examine the language on the control panels. You may choose at least one of the below prompts or tell us your general progress!

• Beginner: Learn the alphabet/script of your chosen language and tell us a little about it

• Intermediate: Learn different greeting phrases in your chosen language

• Advanced: Learn beginner question phrases like “what is your name?” “where are you from?” and “how are you?”

Day 2: Introductions?

The next day arrives quicker than you had planned. You hadn’t really slept well. Looking out the window, the kaleidoscope of blues and greens starts to get to you and the feeling of being underwater, especially for this long, makes you uncomfortable to your core. Not to mention the strong smell of rusting metal. You catch a glimpse of something glowing dimly in the distance.

Vivian slouches over her notebook, blocking you from peering over. You give out a small cough and raise your eyebrow. Irritatedly, she glances over at you and then at a jellyfish shape through the window.

“I can’t get a good look like this.” Vivian says bluntly.

The dark haired girl looks over at her monitor and just for a moment, there's a hint of surprise through her tired eyes.

“Well, I haven't seen anything like this in my classes before. That's for sure…”

You sprint over to look at what she’s seeing but you’re immediately blocked by Vivian, now standing up in front of her monitors.

“What does that say?” She points to your monitors. Right. You do your thing and she does hers.

You focus on your side of the sub without talking to Vivian the rest of the day.

Activity

To continue your journey in the submarine and let Vivian know you a bit more, tell us about yourself. You may choose at least one of the below prompts or tell us your general progress

• Beginner: Write a vocabulary list with your likes/dislikes

• Intermediate: Write small sentences including your hobbies

• Advanced: Write a small paragraph introducing yourself

Day 3: Jellyfish and a Locked Cabinet

When you walk into the monitoring room the next day, you see Vivian had actually beat you there this time and appears to already be scribbling down notes.

After a few hours of silent searching and pondering the places your grandfather could have put his notes, you open your mouth to say something, but Vivian beats you to it.

“It’s non-venomous, basically. The jellyfish. I was out all night here to observe it,” Vivian mumbles as her eyes struggle to keep open.

Your mind mulls over the multiple thoughts racing in your head at that moment. You don’t really know where to start with that bit of information. You turn away from Vivian to look out the window and notice that the jellyfish that was there yesterday is still present today.

As the day goes on, you remember something you’d seen in the back of the submarine. You wait until Vivian goes to sleep, then run to the back of the submarine to the locked cabinets to search. You remember your grandfather would go out on missions underwater, but you never knew where his submarine went. Perhaps his notes were confidential enough to be locked away.

Activity

What colors are the jellyfish? You may choose at least one of the below prompts or tell us your general progress!

• Beginner: Make a list of colours to describe the jellyfish

• Intermediate: List different adjectives to describe what the jellyfish looks like

• Advanced: Make sentences using adjectives to describe what the jellyfish looks like

Day 4: Blooming Doubts

Today, Vivian comes into the monitoring room with teary eyes. You reach out to her but she doesn’t look over to see you standing there. The beginning of today’s search is gruellingly quiet. But then, finally something is said.

 “I’m sorry I’ve been cold today. I just miss my home, Linguist’s Hollow. I miss my friend Tamara. I just didn’t think school would be this much. I was initially excited for this project as my first mission, and even in a sub to boot, but… I don't know how I’m feeling about it now. I’m just sorry,” Vivian blurts out.

You sit back in your chair for a second and let out an exhale you didn't know you were holding in. After a few beats of thinking, you reach out to hold Vivian’s hands and give her a comforting smile.

You catch a glimpse of a bunch of jellyfish outside. She follows your eyes and her expression goes dark.

“They seem to be in a group or in other words a ‘bloom’…I thought they were solitary creatures…”

You both look at each other with the same look. At that very moment you also catch a glimpse of something shining from Vivian’s pocket.

Activity

Tell us how many jellyfish were outside the window. You may choose at least one of the below prompts or tell us your general progress!

• Beginner: Count to 10

• Intermediate: From 10, list each group of 10s up to 100

• Advanced: Write sentences including “There are …. jellyfish” and other sentences including numbers

Day 5: Silver Key

You both rushed in early today, and are sitting at the edge of your seats.

“I’m finding this unnatural bright glow that's disturbing the town for the same reason the jellyfish are in ‘blooms’ here,” Vivian looks down at her notes, “I just really don't have a good feeling about this.”

You look at your monitors, inhale sharply, and through a sigh, you say, “I don't either.”

“What did you say?” Vivian whips her head to look at you in disbelief.

“I don’t have a good feeling about this either. But we have to keep going.” You turn to look at her.

Vivian’s face goes through multiple emotions before settling on a grin.

“We’re actually in agreement for once.”

Heat rushes to your face, and you look around for something to distract Vivian.

“What is in your pocket?” You quickly let out.

She pulls out a slightly bent silver key and raises her eyebrow. “Do you mean this? It was given to me by the school. Apparently the submarine was donated a while ago and they accidentally left the key behind in some drawer I found. Anyways, at the end of this search, I’m going to try to do further investigating at home.”

“I’ll do the same,” You respond a bit blankly.

That key…You have to get your hands on it.

Activity

We have cheered Vivian up! Let’s think about cheerful and encouraging phrases in your target language! You may choose at least one of the below prompts or tell us your general progress

• Beginner: List a few encouraging words or phrases from your target language’s country

• Intermediate: Use the encouraging words or phrases in short sentences or mini-dialogues in your target language

• Advanced: Explain the phrases you chose from your target language’s country in your target language

Day 6: The Notebooks

After a full night of solitary research, You and Vivian return together to the monitoring room with your findings.

 “Did you find anything out about the bright glow? I saw there’s a leak from a nearby boat,” you say nervously.

“I’m guessing that’s it too.” She shrugs, “I mean, that’s what I’ve found at least.”

Quite frankly, both of you are having a hard time keeping up with the weight of the project, but it is encouraging that you both may be on the brink of a breakthrough.

“Oh, did you want to look for something with that key? I’m thinking of calling it a day. I’ll contact the school tomorrow and ponder on this more,” She yawns as she hands you the key.

As soon as Vivian goes to sleep, you bring the key to the old cabinets. Your hands shake as you undo the lock. Why are you so nervous all of a sudden? You take a big gulp and swing the cabinets open. Inside are the objects you hoped for most.

Your grandfather’s notebooks.

Activity

You may choose at least one of the below prompts or tell us your general progress!

• Beginner: Read a paragraph or an article and tell us 5 new words you found

• Intermediate: Read an article or longer excerpt and tell us a summary

• Advanced: Read an article or longer excerpt and give your thoughts on the matter

Day 7: Research Conclusion

You take the notebooks to your room that night, and everything clicks into place perfectly. You come into the monitoring room the next day with a pep in your step, until you see the look on Vivian's face, and it all comes back to you.

Vivian’s serious expression, then lightens as she glances upon the screen in front of her.

“I think we can do something to fix this!” She exclaims, “We gotta get the school’s help but…I guess this is the end of our journey.”

You smile in response as the weight on your shoulder finally dissipates completely. You feel a slight pang in your chest at the realization that this is truly the last day. You express a weary smile to Vivian.

“Awwww… Please don't make that face. We can meet up in a less claustrophobic and kind of creepy place, yeah?”

“Yeah, of course.”

With new knowledge gained and a new friend, you are filled with a new light.

Activity

We now have everything settled! The school and town can now take care of it. But first - what should the name of the jellyfish be? You may choose at least one of the below prompts or tell us your general progress!

• Beginner: Name the jellyfish using any of your previous knowledge! It can also be whatever you want.

• Intermediate: Describe the jellyfish a bit (what does it look like, what color is it, etc)

• Advanced: Introduce the jellyfish with facts you know about it or make up some facts! Feel free to get creative.