Aegisub

Today I want to tell you about one of my hobbies: making subtitles :)
There are many softwares to do so, but most of them are not worth using. They are very simple and literally you can do nothing on them: there is only one font, no karaoke effect, no movement… Fortunately, there is Aegisub :)

However, let’s start from the beginning. How to make subtitles? There are a few steps to take:

1. Choose a video

It seems obvious, but you have to think about it. Make sure that the video you have chosen is at the appropriate level for you. If you do not understand many lines, look for transcripts or choose a different video.

For example, I have chosen this one:

2. Make a transcription & translate
Making a transcription is not necessary, but it helps a lot. So if you have not found a transcripion, you can write it down. Obviously, if you do not have energy/time, omit this part and just translate your video.
It can look like this:

3. In Aegisub, open the raw video
Raw video means no subtitles are here, just the "pure" video.

4. Import your translation
If your translation is in Poland, make sure to select „Windows-1250 Central Europe” - otherwise there will be no Polish diacritics (such as ę, ą, ł, ń, etc.)

5. Make the timing
For me, it is the most boring and exhausting part :( Can you see the dark window on the right side of the picture below? You have to move it in order to establish the length of the dialogue. You have to be careful when a sentence starts and when it ends, and when another person starts speaking.
A little gif I created to show you how it works:

6. Make some changes in subtitles

I mean, improve some lines, such as name of title, place, hour, etc.

7. Save!

Is it the end? Wrong! ;)

8. Make hardsubs

You just created softsubs you can see only on your computer. That means it is all for nothing if you want to share your work with others. That is why you have to merge the video and the subtitles into one file. You can use AVI ReComp, for example.

9. Upload your video

YouTube, Google Drive, MediaFire… Wherever you want to :)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WOSYVpS1ASor-WzE3WT_i8IvK44junSp/view?usp=sharing

This is a video I created with my friend: she did the transcription and the proofreading, I translated and made the subtitles.

I am kind of proud of our work ;)

I strongly recommend you a software Aegisub, making subtitles here is so nice!

Great Polish music

I don't like people complaining: "nowadays Polish music is bad, nowadays there are no great artists"... If you think like this, you are completely wrong, because there are plenty of them.

Power of Trinity
My favourite Polish band from Łódź. In the previous month PoT released a new CD, Ultramagnetic.

My favourite track is the last one, "Prywatny raj" ("The Private Paradise"). It is powerful, yet so sad. I would say this song is bitter-sweet. You can not forget about their most recognizable song from Ultramagnetic, "Telefon" ("Telephone"), which promote the album. You can see it here:

Ocean (OCN)
I also like Ocean. Such a pity OCN broke up the band in 2016... The lyrics are meaningful and thought-provoking - you can hear it in the song "Dom". What is more, it is quite unique to see a Polish band very popular outside Poland. That is the case :) A few songs are in English (for example, "Waterfall").

Riverside
Have I said a Polish band very popular outside Poland? Riverside is an extreme example of it - literally no one in Poland knows it. For comparison, whenever they put on a concert abroad, there is always a big crowd.
Unfortunately, one of their guitarist, Piotr Grudziński, died in February 2016 :(
As far as I know, all the songs are in English - and that is the reason why it is so popular abroad.
Just see how professional, beautiful and heart-warming its songs are:
(Plus, look at the breathtaking Polish scenery in the clip!)

LemON

It is a band that made its debut in a talent show at the initiative of Igor Herbut. A very interesting is the fact that the band's name, "lemon", does not refer to the fruit, but it consists of two words: Lemkivshchyna, a place of singer's origins ("lem" also means "only"), and English word on.
My favourite songs: "Będę z tobą" ("I Will Be With You") and "Scarlett"

Bracia

I think you've heard about Krzysztof Cugowski. His sons, Wojciech Cugowski and Piotr Cugowski, formed a band in 1997. Bracia has four albums so far.

Nowadays there are a lot of great bands. That is why you should not generalise and say they are nonexistent - they are here, but you should look for them very well ;)

Baseball

Today I want to tell you a little about the sport discipline which soon will be in the Olympic Games: baseball!

It is definitely underappreciated in Poland. For example: there are about 600k habitants in Poznań and there are still any baseball stadium… That is why the matches are played in Cytadela with its uneven terrain… However, most of Polish cities has a baseball stadium.

Fun fact: you can find a stadium in some small Polish villages, like Miejska Górka - a village with mere 4k habitants ;) I was personally only in Osielsko, which is close to Bydgoszcz. Some photos you can see below:

Now, a little about rules. I am not going to lie to you: the rules are very complicated. In general, there are two teams who play by turns without time limit. Fortunately, you can find some tutorials on the Internet, like this one:

The interesting is the case of terminology. In Polish, there are only the most important words translated into Polish, like hitter/batter - pałkarz, pitcher - miotacz, catcher - łapacz, mound - górka, to pitch - narzucać. Even the name of this sport, baseball, is not translated. The same goes with the rest: strikes, fouls, balls, home runs, etc. That is why you can read/watch an English tutorial and understand it without problems ;)

I played in baseball for a few years and it gave me so much fun :) Such a pity this sport is not more popular in Poland… You can’t forget that Polish game palant gave rise to American baseball! ;)

Touch typing

Touch typing is, according to Wikipedia, "typing without using the sense of sight to find the keys". In other words, it is an ability to use a computer and write without looking at your fingers.

There are many positive effects of touch typing. For me, the most important are:
- You can rewrite a text from a book, tracking the sentences all the time (I mean, you don't have to move your head up and down),
- You can connect the computer to the TV and look at the big screen without worrying about looking down at the keyboard,
- Looking only at the screen, you can keep track of whether mistakes/typos you are making.

Some other advantages you can see in this video:

https://videos.typing.com/student/en/1-welcome.webm

My opinion about touch typing? When I started doing it, it was very frustrating. Writing just one word took me forever, because at first I had to think, where a key is and which finger I have to use to press it.

Do you want to start touch typing? I have two advice for you:
1. Try exercises on the Internet
Typing.com is a useful website where you can practice your typing skill. There are a few lessons, divided into levels of difficulty. In the first lesson, you learn how to use the most basic keys: F, J and space, and end up learning Z and Q.
You can do it here:

https://www.typing.com/student/start

2. I can also recommend you rewriting any text you like, especially in your native language. In your mother language you will probably write the most, that is why it is SO important. What is more, I trained with words like szczekać or chrząszcz: you have to use your ring fingers and small fingers a lot, which are the weakest ones.

As for me, I still can't write smoothly without looking at the keys, but I do exercise and I hope one day I'll achieve a good level in it :)
For everyone who wants to start touch typing, I wish you good luck!

PS. If you can't do it no matter what, you can try these amazing keyboards. Unfortunately, the price is also amazing...

HP translation

I think a person who does not heard about Harry Potter does not exist. It is one of the most popular book series in the world and it deserves its fame since it's great.
In this post I don't want to write about the plot, but something different. HP translation is a popular subject - to the extent that I heard students in my university can not write their BA work about HP translation, because there are already plenty of works about that :D (the same goes with Shrek movies).

In HP there are a lot of names, that's why a translator has a very difficult task to do. In my opinion, Polish translation is great - some names were translated, some not (I think it should have been hard to decide what to rest in original version!). In French version, however, literally everything is translated. The main character goes to Poudlard, not Hogwart, which is close to Pré-au-lard, not Hogsmeade. In the school there are four houses: Serdaigle (Ravenclaw), Serpentard (Slytherin), Poufsouffle (Hufflepuff) and Gyffondor (Gryffindor). Harry makes friends with Neville Londubat (Longbottom) and Olivier Dubois (Wood),  but he does not like Drago Malefoy (Draco Malfoy). His less favourite teachers are Ombrage (Umbridge) and Rouge (Snape). 

Aaand there's one thing that makes me laugh everytime I think about it - Lord Voldemort. If you read or watched "The Chamber of Secrets", you would probably remember that the sentence "I AM LORD VOLDEMORT" consists of the same letters as in the name TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE, Voldemort's real name. To make the same effect in a sentence "JE SUIS VOLDEMORT", it was decided to change his name into "TOM ELVIS JEDUSOR"... A name Elvis makes me think about Elvis Presley :D

In spite of all, French translation is not bad. For me, it is nice to read Harry Potter in three language versions to see the differences between them ;)

Students' problems

I don't think that being a student is a piece of cake. Very often I hear: 'Studying is easy, you do nothing but sleep in lecture rooms and learn for the exams twice a year'...
That's why I'm happy that there are people who think the same as me and who joke of the students' life, it is so comforting ;)
On the Internet you can find a lot of memes. After all, students all over the world have the same problems! :)

And, my favourite one:

There are also jokes connected to a field of study, like medical or psychological one. As a language lover, I'm interested in a linguistic one. For example, 'I want to be a schwa, it's never stressed' or 'The past, the present and the future walked into a bar. It was tense' :D

Also, one of the Polish memes:

In my opinion, you shouldn't trait your university too serious. Even if you get a bad grade, the world won't collapse.
On the other hand, I hate people who are not willing to study and do nothing but complain. Every time I ask these people: 'If you don't like it so much, why do you study?'. One of my friend answered me: 'Because my mom made me to'...
Anyway, you should remember that you study for yourself. Not for grades, future work, parents. It is a great opportunity to build your knowledge and to learn more than what is written in books.
Even though I'm bad at studying, even though I get bad marks so often, I still love studying, it's just amazing.
So, everyone:
Good luck with your studies!

Merry Christmas!

A lot of people complain: "I don't feel the mood of the Christmas"... Nowadays the Christmas is worse because there is no snow, people are in hurry, the technology is so developed, there is absolutely no traditional values...
The mood of the Christmas depends on you! You won't see the magic of Christmas until you stop complaining.
If you still don't believe me that Christmas can be magical even nowadays, see this short video. It's a story of the Nativity... but in the XXI century. On one hand it's for fun and, on the other hand, it's exactly the same story.

I want to wish you Merry Christmas!

Scrivener

Recently I wrote a lot about movies, this time a completely different subject: software. I want to focus on a writing one, named Scrivener. This software costs 45$ (+ tax fee, depending on the country; e.g. for Poland it is 23%, so about 9$). Thanks to its license, you pay only once and you can install Scrinever in every computer you have.

I recently started thinking about a good writing program (other than Word), basing on my experience. While working on my licentiate, I wrote a lot of fragments of my work in a lot of files. I think I spend more time wondering where the heck I saved an important fragment and looking for it in my computer disk, than in writing itself... In addition, in my licentiate I analysed computer games and vocabulary manuals, so I needed to switch between games screenshoots, books pages, various charts, online articles, etc. very often. It took me a lot of time, too.

That's why I was scared when I though one day I will be through the same process while writing for my master's degree... Fortunately, I learnt about Scrivener :)

The main advantages you can see in the video below.

However, even if it's so good, it also has some disadvantages. Writing settings are more hidden than in Word, there aren't so many shortcut keys than in Word. What's more, Scrivener is available only in English, so do its interface. If you are used to writing in a Polish software, you can be confused with English terminology and you need to check it out. On the other hand, it's a great opportunity to learn English :)

Mixing languages is also horrible. Word automatically detect, in which language you write, while in Scrivener you need to switch between languages manually if you want to have a check spelling. What’s more, the Polish dictionary is so bad that it sometimes underlines the most basic words, like był (was). I’m so irritated by the Polish dictionary that I don’t use it at all :< On the other hand, English dictionary is just lovely and you have immediately access to a definition, synonyms, thesaurus, collocations, etc.

It is worth mentioning that Scrivener is not for formatting. If you finish your work, you should copy it for Word, because it’s easier to format it. Scrivener is perfect for writing, not formatting.

I will lie if I say Scrivener is for everyone.

It is definitely much more complex than Word and it takes long hours to learn how it works.

If you just want to write, and, what's more, you are an organised person, Word is absolutely fine for you. However, if you are such an unorganized and clumsy person as me, it would be more troublesome... 

You can download a free 30-days trial and then decide whether to buy it or no. In my case, I was so enchanted by this software that I bought it just after a few days of testing it :) 

Even if Scrivener seems complicated, for me it's absolutely amazing.

Yeah, even this post I wrote in Scrivener :)

Playing - a matter of gender?

In the beginning, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for writing again about animation... I can't help I love it so much^^'

However, this post it isn't about movies. I want to draw your attention to a very important problem: forcing children for playing what their parents want to play.

In this Christmas clip you can see a boy that wants to buy a toy car and a doll within it. However, his mother forbids him doing so.

When I first saw it, I thought "It is exactly my situation when I was a child". Whenever I wanted a toy like a car or a plastic gun, everyone in my family said "It's not suitable for a girl"… Well, I understand them. I have a brother and male cousins, so my family wanted me to be girly, even though I didn’t want to. Well, maybe the fact I didn’t play cars explains the fact why I love cars so much now :p

So, in short, children are just children and should play what they want. It shouldn't be a matter of gender, because they need to experience the world.
It's my opinion, at least.

"The House of Small Cubes"

One more time about animated movies!
This time a little different one, because it's more suitable for the adult audience. It's "The House of Small Cubes" by Kunio Katou, aired in 2008.

It's difficult to tell anything about the plot, because... this movie hardly has a plot. It's about a daily life of an old man (we don't even know his name). One day he losts his favourite pipe in deep water. Instead of buying a new one, he decides to dive to take it. This "journey" brings back memories about his past and relatives.

This short animation is in general about the humanity: loneliness, evanescence, love, family, senescence, memories... It shows us that a movie doesn't need to have a complex plot to be touching.

For me, "The House of Small Cubes" is just beautiful. I can't find any other epithetes to describe the warmth you feel in your heart as you watch it... Thankfully, this opinion is not only mine since it won several prizes in different festivals, including the Oscar award.

Well, it lasts only 12 min and it is definitely worth seeing. I strongly recommend it to you.

The full movie you can see here:

"Ernest and Celestine"

In this post I want to tell you about an amazing French movie, "Ernest and Celestine".
People usually don't like animated movies, because they connect them with stupid series for small children. I don't deny it - there are plenty of them... But still you can find some fantastic animated movies good for all the family. One of them is "Ernest and Celestine".

It's a story about mice and bears living in the same city, but being in a hostile relationship. The main character, a small mouse Celestine, doesn't agree with everybody's opinion. When one day she meets a bear named Ernest, she doesn't see him as a foe, and she even becomes friend with him. Unfortunately, both mice's and bears' societies don't approve this friendship...

This movie has not only the interesting plot. There're also beautiful music and lovely pastel colours which you can see in the trailer below.

NaNoWriMo

Like every time in November, also this year NaNoWriMo is starting! :)

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is a creative writing project. It isn't a contest, so there are neither winners nor losers. Participants should write - a book, a novel, a short story, fanfiction or whatever they like. The main goal is to achieve 50,000 words, but, as I've already written, it's not a contest so nothing'll happen if you won't manage to do it. It's just for fun, after all!

NaNoWriMo FAQ

There are some events connected with NaNoWriMo. For example, last year in Polish group there was a challenge - in your story you should use a word "sówki" ('owlets'). People exchanged their sentences with this word and some of them were just hilarious :D
There are also some meetings in real life. This year in Poland there were meetings in Poznań and Warsaw (3 November) or there will be one in Wrocław (11 November). People discuss and write there, so it's necessary to bring a notebook, tablet or anything you can write in.

It's still some time until the end of November, so if you have some time, you can join and take pleasure in writing! :)

"I like maps, because they lie"...

I like maps very much. I can't explain it, I've always been like this. I can stare at a map for hours and I'll never be bored.

Above my bed there's a huge map of Poznań which you can see here:

(I'm sorry for the mess in my room^^')

I find interesting collecting maps. Nowadays people usually use Google Maps or other online app, but having a paper map has a lot of advantages. When you go on a long trip, especially in mountains, you can have some difficulties with charging your battery. In these situations paper maps are irreplaceable. What's more, you can easily mark by pen places you wanto to see.

Don't forget about old maps! It's nice to see how countries' borders change.
In my room is hung the map of Europe in XVI-XVII century:

One of my favourite poems is the Wisława Szymborska's last one - "Mapa" ("Map"). The same here, it's on my wall:

English translation by Clare Cavanagh:

Flat as the table

it’s placed on.

Nothing moves beneath it

and it seeks no outlet.

Above—my human breath

creates no stirring air

and leaves its total surface

undisturbed.

Its plains, valleys are always green,

uplands, mountains are yellow and brown,

while seas, oceans remain a kindly blue

beside the tattered shores.

Everything here is small, near, accessible.

I can press volcanoes with my fingertip,

stroke the poles without thick mittens,

I can with a single glance

encompass every desert

with the river lying just beside it.

A few trees stand for ancient forests,

you couldn’t lose your way among them.

In the east and west,

above and below the equator—

quiet like pins dropping,

and in every black pinprick

people keep on living.

Mass graves and sudden ruins

are out of the picture.

Nations’ borders are barely visible

as if they wavered—to be or not.

I like maps, because they lie.

Because they give no access to the vicious truth.

Because great-heartedly, good-naturedly

they spread before me a world

not of this world.

Introduction

Welcome!
In this blog I'm going to tell you about everything I like or I find interesting. Unlike my previous blog, this time I don't have any specified theme. I think (and hope!) that mixing themes will be better than dealing constantly with one and the same thing, both for my readers and me.
Anyway, we'll see how it'll look like :)
See you in my first post!