eido wrote:Have you ever written why all the languages you learn interest you? Could you link to the post if there is one?
Good question! I might have written that either in a previous log or in a specific topic, but I can't remember now. Besides, I've added new languages ever since. Most of the possible answers are either
Because. and
Why not?, but there's always more to it. So here we go again:
I'll consider English and Spanish as mandatory and no actual choices, and I'll start from the next:
French Not only because of the stereotypical portion of the French culture that gains the world. Not only for latinity affinity. I really enjoy colloquial French and how it gets rid of the stereotypes about France as well as about prescriptive grammar for Brazilians who think they speak their own native language "wrong". Also, access to culture, media and resources for learning other languages.
Georgian A Christian island in a Muslim region, linguistically unique, the food, the mountains, the architecture, the alphabet.
Papiamento Easy, accessible, Portuguese-based creole. Travel opportunities. Close to home.
Mandarin Access to an important part of the world. culture, travel. Eventually even business and job opportunities, if I ever get to a high level. The writing doesn't fascinate me that much and I see it just as another obstacle.
German Access to great resources for other languages. Travelling, media and literature.
Norwegian The novel that got me interested into languages is Sofies Verden, hence Norwegian. My favorite foreign language. I dream of going there. I absolutely love its sound. I want to learn it to a proficient level even if it takes 10 years more .
Russian Necessary for accessing minority ex-USSR languages' resources. My door to the Slavic world, but not my favorite (these would be Czech and BCMS). Remembering endings on top of the orthography is an herculean task.
Estonian Estonia's innovative character. My first finno-ugric, not diglossic as Finnish, which made it much less confusing in the beginning.
Italian A natural cousin. Travelling, literature.
Modern Greek I always start from the modern counterparts. The ability of seeing so many connections to daily usage Portuguese words. A place I'd love to visit.
Hebrew I'm linguistically fascinated by the entire family, its triliteral roots and abjads. Modern Hebrew seemed more accessible for its Indo-european flavor and the good deal of resources.
Indonesian A demographic giant with a bonus on Malay, accessible pronunciation and spelling. Reputed as easy but I'd never put it on a Cat I language, after all there's very little vocabulary discount.
Well, that's it. Hope I havent' forgotten any.
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Getting used to the new routine - actually it's like my previous routine, with classes in the morning. I have to drive a good deal after leaving the girls at the kindergarten, further than my own home. This means no extra time anymore for studying, but from yesterday I could notice that current time is more than enough. I keep thinking about adding a new slot for reviewing grammar in languages such as Estonian, Spanish and Georgian or doing more intensive work on Hebrew and Indonesian, but I had better wait till things fall into place.
It's my second Dutch-speaking student. I don't have any knowledge of Dutch and it's low-priority for me within its group, but besides speaking Papiamento now I'm giving classes to a native Dutch speaker. I could at least explain the difference between onde x aonde by simply pointing to the equivalents in Dutch, and by doing so I put him ahead of hundreds of millions of native speakers when it comes to this specific point in the standard, prescriptive, formal written language. Other than that, I hope I can make some extra bucks to help finance this expensive hobby of buying audiobooks in euros while being paid in reais. I also need to buy too HDDs, I want to install the system on an SSD driver and keep the files on a new, larger unit. I'm almost running out of episodes for watching in my series and I have to prepare some classes as well.
The extra driving means more time for the Argentinian podcast. I'm really looking forward to catching up with it and starting something else, even if Spanish doesn't have a thriving audiobook industry yet - at least not the contemporary novels I'm looking forward to read and which I prefer to just read. And I'm not even playing it on my way to the class - there I listen to the radio and perform the dangerous hobby of picking my phone and recording portions from the new songs, while standing at the traffic light. I only play it while coming from the student's house to work, but that's still almost twice than the short distance between my daughters' kindergarten and the parking lot. Either way I'm still listening all the way walking from the parking lot to my office, so this accounts for over thirty minutes of native Spanish audio input, which is complemented by the 10-pages read of contemporary novel (which I regret not reading intensively as there are so many regionalisms in Vargas Llosa's novel.
Finished reading Cinco Esquinas, by Mario Vargas Llosa. My first literature in Spanish. I like it because it's pretty much contemporary. I regret not looking up words, as I mentioned above. Now I'm moving towards some sci-fi, but I plan to read other works by Vargas Llosa, as further back as I find useful for my vocabulary.
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