Monogram 1/48 B-24J

[Edbert]

I grew up in a bilingual household too. Hillbilly and Chicagoan!

I bet Thanksgiving dinners were fun!

 

[BarleyBop]

shots fired!

"Mum's the word".

 

[Ron2]

I bet Thanksgiving dinners were fun!

To my knowledge the two sides never moved but it would have been interesting! It was always a culture shock going to TN to see my mom's family.

 

[Ron2]

Well, Canada is still a colony ya know, they are allegiant to the king.

(shots fired!)

They didn't do a "no kings" march?? Haha.

 

[Littlemarten]

Hahaha. Picture my hesitation to properly address my mother-in-law in Mandarin as 'mother', which depending on the inflection could get me into a lot of trouble!

I'll let Mr. Googly Woogly explain:

You speak Mandarin? I envy you. When I was young, I was very good a languages, and would have loved to learn any of the Chinese or Japanese languages—but nobody taught any Asian languages where I went to school. Now it would be very frustrating, even with the best hearing aids I could buy.

 

[BarleyBop]

speak Mandarin

I wish, just enough for common tourist phrases... My wife's English, and her cultural understanding of North America are pretty exceptional, and I've met a lot of transplanted Asians in my years in tech. When I showed an interest in learning Mandarin, she laughed and said she would rather not be talking with me in baby talk!
I got the message.

 

[BarleyBop]

Better than mispronouncing the word for pen, the writing implement, thereby saying not 筆 but 屄. This is — going by what I've read — apparently a fairly common mistake by Europeans.

Not much worse than inquiring about a 'fanny pack' on a high street in England I suppose!
Mandarin is fascinating, and high comedy and political commentary exploit the fact that there are many ways the same sound can be represented by different characters with entirely different meanings. So, not just double entendre, but triple, and sometimes more layers of meaning!

Japanese offers similar opportunities to mess up, with many spellings for the same sound. I once chatted with three women who all had the same 'spoken' name, yet spelled (or more accurately, represented by different characters), with different meanings.

 

[MRDuczz]

Mandarin is fascinating

My daughter in law is Chinese. She and my son live quite distant from us but her Mandarin speaking parents live near them and spend time with our grandson quite often, so he is being raised bi-lingual. That's a great thing but my wife and I won't know if he's babbling or speaking in Mandarin since we don't know any of it.

 

[Jakko]

Japanese offers similar opportunities to mess up, with many spellings for the same sound.

Japanese spelling is really bad, with three different systems used through each other, one of those systems having two different pronunciations for most characters¹ and the other two representing the same sounds but with different symbols. Actually, five systems if you include Arabic numbers and the odd Latin letters used for some foreign concepts etc. Japanese names and other words with ambiguous pronunciation may be written with small characters above them to indicate how to say them.

If you were to set out to deliberately create a confusing spelling, you probably wouldn't even get close to what Japanese has already …

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¹ Because almost every character can be pronounced either as the entire Japanese word represented by the character, or as its Chinese pronunciation — which is to say, the Chinese word it stands for, but used for its sound rather than meaning in Japanese.

 

[Littlemarten]

I am convinced that the best way to learn an Asian language is to grow up in it. It has been shown that for many, the ability to learn a different language declines with age. Much harder to learn when you are 30 than when you are 20.

 

[Ron2]

I am convinced that the best way to learn an Asian language is to grow up in it. It has been shown that for many, the ability to learn a different language declines with age. Much harder to learn when you are 30 than when you are 20.

The people I know who have gotten fluent in a language studied it when young, usu high school, but later went and lived in the country for a time. The best way, like you said, is to grow up with both languages.

 

[Jakko]

I am convinced that the best way to learn an Asian language is to grow up in it.

This goes for all languages, not just Asian ones, of course Coupled to that the closer languages are related, the easier they are to learn for someone who already speaks one of them.

It has been shown that for many, the ability to learn a different language declines with age.

One of my cousins is married to someone from Angola. My mother once related an anecdote to me that she had visited this cousin not long before, and the cousin's daughter — who was five or six years old at the time — said something to my mother in Portuguese, which she spoke with her father. My cousin then said to her that "Auntie doesn't know Portuguese," so the girl promptly repeated what she had just said, but in Dutch.

Best time to learn a language is starting as young as possible. After all, children's brains are geared very much towards learning language.

 

[MRDuczz]

So, progress is being made, still moving forward. I'm trying something new to me, I've never painted large parts before assembling them to the aircraft before, but here goes. So I've got the red cowls ready and the outer paint on the vertical stabilizers. Also working on masking the clear parts. I'm using an Eduard set for that, I would get much too frustrated trying to mask without them.

 

[VegasAWACER13]

Looking good. I'm a big fan of the Eduard masks. Such a time saver.

 

[Ron2]

So, progress is being made, still moving forward. I'm trying something new to me, I've never painted large parts before assembling them to the aircraft before, but here goes. So I've got the red cowls ready and the outer paint on the vertical stabilizers. Also working on masking the clear parts. I'm using an Eduard set for that, I would get much too frustrated trying to mask without them.

Looking good!

 

[MRDuczz]

Back at it after a long break due to a family visit. Primer on, hoping to do the Olive Drab tomorrow. I used Vallejo gray primer and added a little of their black primer to get it close to neutral gray for the underside, so that will be the final paint on the bottom.

 

[MRDuczz]

I got the Olive Drab on and just finished painting on the de-ice boots. The wings look more gray in the photo because of the lighting, they are the same color as the fuselage. Quite a bit of internal arguing about putting the boots on or not as some were removed in combat and it would have been easier to go without them. In the end, I thought it would look better with the boots on and went that route. Lots of little things to finish, painting propellers, gear doors and such. More than a little concerned about attaching the already painted wings to the fuselage. We'll see how that goes soon.

 

[MRDuczz]

Well, the wings are on and I'm fairly happy with the join. There are some minor gaps (to be expected with this kit) and I'm debating on whether or not to fill them and paint again. They can't really be seen from a normal viewing distance. It remains to be seen who will win that internal argument, the lazy guy or the perfectionist one. After that decision, front gear doors to go on, a few paint touch-up spots and then clear coat. I'll also be filing a formal protest that as I'm getting close to finishing this, someone posted a build of an awesomely well done B-24 in 1/32nd scale. I have no hope of competing with that one!

 

[Edbert]

It remains to be seen who will win that internal argument, the lazy guy or the perfectionist one

I can SOOO relate to that, I often put it away and think for days, maybe a week or two before deciding.

You do you, I'm just saying what I do

 

[Ron2]

I got the Olive Drab on and just finished painting on the de-ice boots. The wings look more gray in the photo because of the lighting, they are the same color as the fuselage. Quite a bit of internal arguing about putting the boots on or not as some were removed in combat and it would have been easier to go without them. In the end, I thought it would look better with the boots on and went that route. Lots of little things to finish, painting propellers, gear doors and such. More than a little concerned about attaching the already painted wings to the fuselage. We'll see how that goes soon.

I like the red!

Well, the wings are on and I'm fairly happy with the join. There are some minor gaps (to be expected with this kit) and I'm debating on whether or not to fill them and paint again. They can't really be seen from a normal viewing distance. It remains to be seen who will win that internal argument, the lazy guy or the perfectionist one. After that decision, front gear doors to go on, a few paint touch-up spots and then clear coat. I'll also be filing a formal protest that as I'm getting close to finishing this, someone posted a build of an awesomely well done B-24 in 1/32nd scale. I have no hope of competing with that one!

There is no competition. Could you fill in the gap with some black glue? If it's small enough maybe the black glue would be enough.

 

[MRDuczz]

Could you fill in the gap with some black glue? If it's small enough maybe the black glue would be enough.

What I'm contemplating is filling with Perfect Plastic Putty and touching up the Olive Drab. With the shoulder mount wings, the problem joints are right up on top where they will be easily seen if I make a bad repair. It wouldn't be the first time that I tried to fix something and ended up with a result that was worse than what I started with. Hence the hesitation.

I'm a big fan of the red too, it's why I chose this scheme. In my opinion, it really makes this B-24 stand out from other OD ones.

 

[Ron2]

What I'm contemplating is filling with Perfect Plastic Putty and touching up the Olive Drab. With the shoulder mount wings, the problem joints are right up on top where they will be easily seen if I make a bad repair. It wouldn't be the first time that I tried to fix something and ended up with a result that was worse than what I started with. Hence the hesitation.

I'm a big fan of the red too, it's why I chose this scheme. In my opinion, it really makes this B-24 stand out from other OD ones.

What scheme is this?

 

[Ron2]

What I'm contemplating is filling with Perfect Plastic Putty and touching up the Olive Drab. With the shoulder mount wings, the problem joints are right up on top where they will be easily seen if I make a bad repair. It wouldn't be the first time that I tried to fix something and ended up with a result that was worse than what I started with. Hence the hesitation.

I'm a big fan of the red too, it's why I chose this scheme. In my opinion, it really makes this B-24 stand out from other OD ones.

Do you ever tape before filling?

 

[MRDuczz]

What scheme is this?

It's Witchcraft. It flew 130 missions without having a crew member killed or injured. One of the two currently flyable B-24s is marked as Witchcraft.

I don't tape when I'm using Perfect Plastic Putty because it's water soluble so you can remove excess and smooth it with a damp Q-Tip while the putty is still wet or, with a little more effort, rub the excess off in the same way after it's dry. Sanding isn't necessary.