The Xenops No Expectations Log ;)

[Xenops]

Here’s another attempt at a log. I just got back from a two-week vacation in Japan (and still suffering jet-lag). This is the second time I visited the country, the first time for a month-long missions trip in 2011.

Before this vacation I had stressed out about packing in as much Japanese study as I could, but I was only getting burned out. As the departure date neared, I decided to change my attitude: “there’s always more I could have learned—but I’m out of time, so I’ll enjoy what I know.” As a result, I got to enjoy (most of) the trip. I also realized that I know more Japanese than I thought I did—I can only say basic sentences, but my passive vocabulary is at solid A2. As I travelled alone for 70-80% of the time, I had to rely on Japanese or a combo of broken Japanese/English (more often the latter). I also found it encouraging that Japanese speakers were quite willing to speak their language to me—it’s very possible that they don’t know enough English to say the same thing, and often I could not catch the majority of what they said, but I am thankful for the experience. Sometimes I did catch the gist of what they said. I would have to conclude that this trip allowed me to see that the slog that is Japanese study does produce results, and that I am making progress.

As the blog title indicates, I have no expectations. I find expectations from other people and from myself suck the enjoyment of any given activity. So no promises, no goals—when I get somewhere, yay!

While Japanese will be my main concern (probably forever), I find it worthwhile to dabble in other languages to prevent burnout and boredom.

French
I have some interest in the culture (especially the comics), and it’s a language that I would honestly use if I knew it (to read comics?). At the moment I minimally maintain my A1~A2 with LingoDeer or Duolingo. Someday I will continue with Assimil and/or FiA.

(Modern) Hebrew
After some research, I latched onto the idea that if I were to learn Ancient Greek and Hebrew, I would tackle the modern versions first: lots of resources, media, and better audio options. As a Christian, I also found this quote striking:

Reading the Bible in translation is like kissing your new bride through a veil.

What am I missing by reading it in English?

This is another dabbling language at the moment: I haven’t done much beyond Memrise and WriteIt! Apps. Since I’m a very hands-on person, I will buy a Hebrew calligraphy book and learn the letters that way.

Vowel-Harmony Language—to be decided.
This is purely for my linguistic curiosity. Actually, most of my wanderlusting has to do with linguistic curiosity. I owe this to my constructed language hobby, where I survey languages for interesting traits. Turkish I like for the orthography, and I have access to speakers, and I’m curious about their TV dramas…but its agglutinative nature doesn’t intrigue me. Same with Hungarian. Lately I’m leaning towards Finnish, since it has both fusional and agglutinative features. I don’t know how far I would go with this language: I might reach A1~A2 and consider my curiosity satisfied. I could also compare it to Estonian, which has lost its vowel harmony, and is moving even more fusional.

Toodles,

Xenops

[Xenops]

For Resources

[PfifltriggPi]

I would highly recommend learning the modern variants of both Ancient Greek and Ancient Hebrew first. To me, if one is to claim to fully know a language one ought to know all phases of it (pay no attention to that ignorance of Old English behind the curtain) and it just makes the most sense to start with the easiest version with the best resources. From what I know, Modern and Biblical Hebrew are even more similar than Modern and Biblical Greek, so learning in reverse chronological order would certainly make sense. As an eastern Christian, I cannot really say much about Hebrew, but, when you get to Greek, I'd highly recommend the Cortina course (free online from the Yojik site) as well as Assimi. For Classical, Assimil is also quite good and so is the Italian edition of Athenaze (The English one is ok if you can't access Italian.

I never knew who actually first said that translation is like kissing through a veil, although I've heard various versions multiple times. That is interesting.

As for vowel harmony languages, doesn't Korean have it? It would seem to fit well with your already present interest in that part of the world. In my obviously subjective opinion, however, Korean pales in comparison with the glories which are Kazakh and Mongolian. I've long fantasized about becoming a scholar of Central Asia, and like with a surprisingly large number of language pairs, the only reason I have yet to learn one of those two is because I can not decide which. Kazakh is, of course, more like Turkish, and seems quite easier, but Mongolian has more vowels, so if you like vowels that might be more interesting.

[iguanamon]

...As the blog title indicates, I have no expectations. I find expectations from other people and from myself suck the enjoyment of any given activity. So no promises, no goals—when I get somewhere, yay!...

It is upon realizing this that a person becomes truly free!

Good to see you back at it again. I'm happy to see as well that you had such a rewarding experience in Japan. Best of luck, Xenops!

[cjareck]

Reading the Bible in translation is like kissing your new bride through a veil.

What am I missing by reading it in English?

Well, I struggle to communicate in Modern Hebrew, which is said to be easier, but I will try to give you an example. The very first verse of the Bible says "God created the Heaven and the Earth". In Hebrew, you see that God is Elohim that is masculine, plural and the verb is used in the third person singular. The discussion why that is (possible explanations - the Trinity in the Old Testament already or simply pluralis majestatis) exceeds that log and that forum, but if you know Hebrew you may at least wonder why it is that. There are many other examples, but I know Polish translation only, so I don't know if they apply to English version also.

[Xenops]

I would highly recommend learning the modern variants of both Ancient Greek and Ancient Hebrew first. To me, if one is to claim to fully know a language one ought to know all phases of it (pay no attention to that ignorance of Old English behind the curtain) and it just makes the most sense to start with the easiest version with the best resources. From what I know, Modern and Biblical Hebrew are even more similar than Modern and Biblical Greek, so learning in reverse chronological order would certainly make sense. As an eastern Christian, I cannot really say much about Hebrew, but, when you get to Greek, I'd highly recommend the Cortina course (free online from the Yojik site) as well as Assimi. For Classical, Assimil is also quite good and so is the Italian edition of Athenaze (The English one is ok if you can't access Italian.

Thank you for the comment, and for confirming my suspicions about learning the modern version first. That's the plan to learn both Hebrew and Greek that way...Eventually. Thank you for the recommendations.

As for vowel harmony languages, doesn't Korean have it? It would seem to fit well with your already present interest in that part of the world. In my obviously subjective opinion, however, Korean pales in comparison with the glories which are Kazakh and Mongolian. I've long fantasized about becoming a scholar of Central Asia, and like with a surprisingly large number of language pairs, the only reason I have yet to learn one of those two is because I can not decide which. Kazakh is, of course, more like Turkish, and seems quite easier, but Mongolian has more vowels, so if you like vowels that might be more interesting.

Yes, Korean had strong vowel harmony, but not as much as today? I really like this webpage that explains it: https://www.koreanwikiproject.com/wiki/Vowel_harmony I want to learn Korean for other reasons as well, but since I'm already doing Japanese... It's for a later time.

...As the blog title indicates, I have no expectations. I find expectations from other people and from myself suck the enjoyment of any given activity. So no promises, no goals—when I get somewhere, yay!...

It is upon realizing this that a person becomes truly free!

Good to see you back at it again. I'm happy to see as well that you had such a rewarding experience in Japan. Best of luck, Xenops!

Thank you. The past year or so I've been trying to figure out how to enjoy my life and not make it a drag.

Reading the Bible in translation is like kissing your new bride through a veil.

What am I missing by reading it in English?

Well, I struggle to communicate in Modern Hebrew, which is said to be easier, but I will try to give you an example. The very first verse of the Bible says "God created the Heaven and the Earth". In Hebrew, you see that God is Elohim that is masculine, plural and the verb is used in the third person singular. The discussion why that is (possible explanations - the Trinity in the Old Testament already or simply pluralis majestatis) exceeds that log and that forum, but if you know Hebrew you may at least wonder why it is that. There are many other examples, but I know Polish translation only, so I don't know if they apply to English version also.

From my background, that example makes sense, because I was taught that God always was three persons, both in the Old and New Testament. I imagine there is also a lot of context I would have to pick up as well, but it might be a more worthwhile experience than trying to find English equivalents for a word.

[Cèid Donn]

Reading the Bible in translation is like kissing your new bride through a veil.

What am I missing by reading it in English?

That largely depends on why you are reading the Bible and what you hope to get out it. In my earlier life I was working on a theology degree with emphasis on the Old Testament texts--this is why I, once upon a time, studied Biblical Hebrew and Ancient Greek. I have read some of these texts in the original languages. Did I get something out of that that I didn't from reading the same texts in English. Yes, but keep in mind I was doing this for academic reasons.

I have some pretty sharp opinions on the whole "what version of the Bible I should use" question, but I will try to be as unprovocative as possible. I can understand that for a practicing Jew like Bialik, for example, being able to read the Hebrew and Greek texts in the original languages would be a way to connect to their Jewish culture and heritage in a very profound way. But in our day and age, expecting all practicing Jews to have the skills to read their sacred texts in the original languages is unreasonable and unfair, so there comes a point where such "It's better to read the texts in the original languages" attitudes start to be elitist, exclusionary and polarizing. This is a similar problem for Christians or anyone who practices a faith where their sacred texts were written ages ago in languages few people know well enough today to read with ease, let alone have the depth of knowledge of the language and the culture of that time to derive deeper connotations from the text.

The kind of academic work I did in grad school was precisely the sort of study and research that sought to bridge this gap between the original texts and the worlds and cultures they were written in and modern readers who are largely divorced from both these ancients languages and cultures. It's an entire field of academic study, and not one that you can easily dive into. Even though learning enough Biblical Hebrew to be able to read the texts is probably within most dedicated students' reach, understanding that language and the culture it reflects in the text is a much more involved endeavor that requires, among other things, a tremendous amount of reading--the texts in all extant versions, any other primary sources, secondary sources, more secondary sources, centuries of commentary, decades worth of discredited research to make sure you don't make the same mistakes, etc. etc. Lay people can certainly undertake this task--there are enough tools and reference material available for those so dedicated. The problem is, academics who study the Biblical or other sacred texts devote their life's work to it, because the amount of knowledge to be learned, the work to be done, the reading that must be read is that immense, and that's often more than most lay people can give. This is why we have people who do devote their life's work to this, so lay people can have access to annotated translations and other reference material to help them understand all those things that might get "lost in translation" with their religion's major texts.

So it's back to the question of why you are reading the Bible and what you hope to get out of it. If this is purely for reasons of one's faith, I would suggest that a good contemporary translation of the Bible with annotations is more than sufficient. If you want to take it further, there are various texts available that go into specific books of the Bible in more detail. If you want to do even further, you can audit college classes (which was quite common at my uni). It's up to the individual and their relationship with their faith. Bialik's word clearly reflect something of his own relationship with his faith, and as strongly phrased as his words may be, it doesn't mean that has to be everyone else's relationship with their faith.

[Xenops]

So it's back to the question of why you are reading the Bible and what you hope to get out of it. If this is purely for reasons of one's faith, I would suggest that a good contemporary translation of the Bible with annotations is more than sufficient. If you want to take it further, there are various texts available that go into specific books of the Bible in more detail. If you want to do even further, you can audit college classes (which was quite common at my uni). It's up to the individual and their relationship with their faith. Bialik's word clearly reflect something of his own relationship with his faith, and as strongly phrased as his words may be, it doesn't mean that has to be everyone else's relationship with their faith.

I've been thinking and considering your response since you posted it, and I have to say...I don't have a good response. I guess part of it is my being tired of hearing "well, this English version says this, but it's actually closer to that". Even though learning the Hebrew language would only add more work, it might be less frustrating?

Related to that, this past year I've been able to understand more what I really want versus what I think I ought to do. In regards to languages:

Since I live in the U.S., I ought to learn Spanish, because it's practical.
Since France is one of the biggest producers of comics, and because every aspiring polyglot knows it, I ought to learn French.
Since Germany is important in Western history, I ought to learn German.
Since I'm curious about Korean comics, I ought to learn Korean.
Since I live in an area with many Armenians, I ought to learn Armenian.
Since some prolific artists are Russian, I ought to learn Russian.

And to a smaller scale,
Since I am a Christian that likes languages, I I ought to learn Biblical Hebrew and Ancient Greek.

This is only my "ought to" list regarding languages--it's not even one 1/4 the size of my list regarding comics.

Lately though, I'm better able to pare down on my list. At the end of the day, I realize that the only language I should work on is Japanese, especially if I want to move there. I guess it's separating perceptions from reality.

Having this realization that I can truly learn languages for fun without expectations, I found myself working on Scottish Gaelic phonology. Maybe in the next few months I can actually spell what I hear.

[cjareck]

And to a smaller scale,
Since I am a Christian that likes languages, I I ought to learn Biblical Hebrew and Ancient Greek.

If you are Protestant that is all, if Catholic, then also Aramaic comes into game

[Christi]

Yes, Korean had strong vowel harmony, but not as much as today? I really like this webpage that explains it: https://www.koreanwikiproject.com/wiki/Vowel_harmony I want to learn Korean for other reasons as well, but since I'm already doing Japanese... It's for a later time.

Despite learning Korean I've never looked up pages about vowel harmony. Thanks for sharing and teaching me something new about the language I'm learning!
Btw, supposedly knowing Japanese is a major help when learning Korean! In case you eventually start thinking about learning a new language