And here we go again. Not a C this time- a W! Exciting, isn't it? No, you don't think so? Well, can't say I blame you. And again, I want you to all go give Seraephina a clap on the back for being awesome and looking at this to make sure it was postable. Isn't she awesome?

Disclaimer: You would have to be a genius to have created and own the Titans... I am not a genius. D:

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5. Words

Robin groaned and put his head in his hands. There was absolutely no way that he was ever going to be able to figure this out. Next to him, Raven seemed to be faring no better.

Tamaranian was unlike any language that he had ever attempted to learn before. He had thought that German had been hell until they had decided to try and learn a language that was not from this planet. Or even this solar system.

Raven was having trouble too. She explained to him that she had been working under the assumption that you basically did everything the exact opposite of Azarathean, since that was how it had seemed to work in the beginning. Once they had advanced, she had been getting everything so horrendously wrong that she had been forced to abandon that thought. That had left her confused and unable to do anything without immediately correcting herself. She still mostly floundered, attached as she was to her Azarathean linguistic skills.

Beast Boy would be doing well if his attention span wasn't so short. He seemed to have a knack for it, which Raven, disgruntled that the green changeling was doing better than she, attributed to the fact that Tamaranian made no logical sense at all, and neither did Beast Boy's thoughts. But he couldn't focus long enough to hear anything that would allow him to actually learn something.

Cyborg was doing the best out of all of them. Robin suspected that this had to do with his mechanical memory, which would allow him to store and call things up whenever he so wished. He memorized the things that he wanted to know easily, like the swear words, and the things he needed to know weren't much different. By now he was holding short conversations with Starfire, without her correcting him. The more he spoke, the faster he got. Morning conversations, being practically the same every day, were being performed quite rapidly, so that Robin couldn't understand what was being said. Starfire had informed him that it was actually pretty slow compared to how Tamaranians spoke on a regular basis. Robin couldn't imagine speaking faster than that.

Starfire was quite adept at English. She could speak it well in most situations without anyone being confused as to what she was saying. And despite the occasional misunderstanding between people (such as Starfire's use of phrases like 'I am the o and k'), which everyone had become used to now, there was nothing that they would complain about. However, there were times when Starfire was extremely upset and had problems expressing herself in English. She occasionally let loose a stream of rapid fire Tamaranian that no one could understand. These moments were trying for all, because no one was sure how much of an emergency it was, and whether or not Starfire needed immediate help.

She would get herself under control and be able to work through the English in her head, but sometimes it was too late, and it had cost them too many seconds already. It had been Robin who had initially come up with the idea that they all learn Tamaranian. Starfire had been touched that her friends would learn an entire language for her sake, and the others had been on board with the plan without any complaints.

Now, Robin was seriously regretting it. He was having problems simply wrapping his mind around the language. Tamaranian was ridiculously confusing for many reasons. For one thing, there didn't seem to be tenses in the same way that there was in English. There were inflections, but those seemed to change the tense sometimes, and at others seemed to change the words entirely. There were far too many exceptions to the rules for his liking.

Starfire smiled as though this wasn't one of the worst forms of torture in the world, and began to speak again. "Now we shall move onto titles. Let us take Raven as the first example. Raven is a female, so we would put a…"

"'le," supplied Cyborg easily.

Starfire nodded to him, "at the end of her name. However, Raven is younger than seventeen, so you must turn the 'le into a 'lea. But I am speaking of Raven, so I cannot use 'lea. This is because she is familiar to me, more so than 'lea. I consider her my sister." A brief smile in Raven's direction, which the empath returned tightly. It probably would have been warmer if they hadn't been learning a language that meandered mindlessly. "That would be xe'en, her name and 'lea afterwards if she were blood related to me. She is not my real sister, so the xe'en is a ta' and the 'lea moves to the front, making the final result ta''lea Raven."

There was a blank stare from the girl who was the topic of discussion, who was trying to wrap her head around what Starfire had just said.

Beast Boy scrunched his nose up. "Would that make you ta''lea Starfire?" he tried hesitantly.

Starfire shook her head with a smile that was almost patronizing. "No. I am seventeen, so I would be 'le. But I am also royalty on my home world, so I would be: eta before my name, Koriand'r as my full title and ta''le afterwards, if you were my non-blood relatives."

"So… eta Koriand'r ta''lea?" Beast Boy asked again.

This time Starfire nodded and the boy grinned. "Alright!" he cheered.

"How familiar is familiar enough to use ta'?" queried Robin, scratching his head.

"And how do you know someone's age to address them?" Raven questioned.

Cyborg wasn't saying anything; he was too busy putting the information in his memory for use at a later time.

Starfire attempted to explain. "When someone introduces themselves to you they are going to use their title so you know. And if you would consider someone a part of your family, ta' is used. It is a special bond, and therefore has its own title. Less familiar is the 'le variations, and strangers are hal of some form. Of course, you only use titles when you are speaking about a person. When you are speaking to them you simply use their names unless you are not on familiar terms in which case only the 'le variations are used."

"But what if you aren't sure how familiar someone is?" pressed Raven agitatedly, after decided to ignore that complicated corollary.

Starfire frowned. "You should be sure."

Cyborg finally spoke, satisfied that he had the information down well enough as notes. "That's only for girls though, right? What about guys?"

The alien smiled as Robin and Raven glared in their friend's direction. "Very well, we will proceed to males. It is different in several ways…"

"Several ways." Robin hissed to the mechanical teen, narrowing his eyes furiously. "Several ways!"

A pen encased in black magic hurled itself at Cyborg's head.

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Author's Notes:

That's probably going to be it for a few things: one, the super speedy updates that have been going on, like, every other day. And two, my Starfire kick. This one wasn't as Starfire flavored, but still. So, yeah. Hopefully I'll be able to get another one of these up soon, but you never know. I do have to focus on 'Pale Girls' which is a present to my beta ScarlettInk. Her birthday is in two weeks. Save me.

I'm not too big of a fan of this one either, but again, I like the idea of it, and it makes me laugh sometimes to imagine the Titans trying to learn Tamaranian. Enjoy, and drop me a review once you're done!