26/06Listened to an episode of InnerFrench, on how our tastes originate (34 min) . He quoted and discussed Bourdieu, so it was definitely interesting. Wish I had focused a little better, as he also put it in context of a film, Le goût des autres, as well, talking about how tastes are formed. Bourdeiu is definitely a philosopher I want to read some of eventually, though, along with several other French cultural theorists.
Finished chapter 3 of Quinn's
Old-Irish Workbook and read chapter 15 of Stifter. Old Irish is ridiculous, that's all I have to say. The nouns aren't horrible, but the verbal system is the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen. Every verb has two forms, and, well, sometimes these two forms bear no resemblance to each other due to sound changes in the prehistory of the language. Words can't begin to state how crazy it is. I love it.
27/06Listened to two episodes of InnerFrench: Français ou européen ? (41min) and La menace plastique (38 min). The former was basically a history of the EU and what it means to be a European citizen v a French one, while the latter is about the issue of plastic pollution worldwide.
28/06Didn't do anything, as I had my thesis presentation. I think it went pretty well, now just to finish it up.
29/06Watched another episode of Les chemins du sacré, this one titled
L'expérience de la marche, which talked about pilgrimages and just general walking (as a group or solitary) in terms of approaching the sacred. (52 minutes) This episode really resonated with me, as I love to walk. There's something peaceful about it, and walking in nature is definitely an amazing experience, especially if you go without headphones. I really need to get in that habit more, of just walking without necessarily having something to listen to.
Finished
Cosmogonies today as well. Overall, it was an interesting book though I don't think I can agree with a lot of the conclusions. It seemed to rest on the assumptions that myths are all interrelated throughout history, even those outside of the same cultural sphere. I could agree, at least on a basic level, as we can reconstruct Indo-European beliefs from the beliefs of its daughter languages/cultures, but can this truly be extended to languages that are not related? That's where I'm not so sure. Working on the assumption it can, however, you do get some interesting trees (which do always separate Europe and America, leading more credulity to the fact they could be independent innovations). But, overall, I just don't think it can be done; there's really only so much room for innovations that can be done and stories that can be told, and I think the similarities are often overstated.
He also made a weird assumption that stories in groups where there's linguistic isolates evolve more slowly. I don't think this assumption can be true at all. He makes an example of the Koreans, but I feel everyone knows just how influenced the Koreans have been by both the Chinese and the Japanese throughout history (I mean, even within the languages look at the areal similarities between Korean and Japanese!). Can we truly say these evolved more slowly, and thus more likely represent an older form, and that there wasn't borrowing involved from one tradition to the other? Or the same with the Basques (which some well-respected scholars argue, poorly in my opinion, is IE or even Celtic !), who've clearly been impacted by the Romans, then all the others that were their neighbors (Spanish, Celtiberians, etc) over the centuries? Not entirely sure. Same with using the myths to describe the type of society of the upper Paleolithic period (patrilocal) and to predict what the artists had in mind in the rock paintings across the world as well as help decide possible migration patterns out of Africa and to the Americas. While the author admits these are bold steps, it's still just a little too far for my taste. Though I guess that's what happens in pop books.
Overall, it was a good book though and 300 pages of mostly readable French. I did do some taking down of words when I felt like it, but it was mostly reading and looking up only if I couldn't understand the sentence. Sometimes relying on GT to do that for me, though always making sure I understood why it was translated the way it was afterwards. And remember to take all this with a grain of salt, as I'm not 100% sure I understood it all !
30/06Went to the Pop-Up and spoke Irish. It was great fun, and reminded me of what drew me to Ireland in the first place. It makes the decision between Brest and Ireland even harder -- during the day, I want to go and study what I'm most interested in; going out and doing stuff with friends I want to stay now that I'm somewhat building up a social life here in Dublin. And there's also the possibility of moving to the Gaeltacht when my lease here ends if I don't have a job, which could be a blessing or a curse, depending.
01/07Started reading the next book in French:
Histoire du livre et de l'édition, by Yann Sordet. It's a 700 page behemoth, and even though I'm only like 15 pages in it's already more complex than the previous two I've read. It seems to lean much more towards being an academic work, even if also meant for a pop audience. I think I'll have a lot to learn from this.
Also read some Irish, but only like 5 pages, and did go to the conversation circle for a little bit, though the pub was closed and it just ended up being me and one other person speaking some Irish at another random pub for a drink.
02/07Listened to two episodes of InnerFrench during my grocery shopping today (I walk there and back so it's perfect for it). The first was
Être homosexual en France (39 min), where he mostly talked about books, laws, etc relating to it. The other was
Le Tour de France (41 min) where he talked about the history of the Tour, doping issues as well as current issues about one team dominating and how they're trying to make it a fairer competition to the other teams (by instigating budget limits on teams, if I understood correctly). He also mentioned how the worst-placing cyclists get paid
very little, like on the order of €400 if I remember correctly, despite the 3 weeks of work and stuff they're putting in. Kinda crazy.
Spent the afternoon with a friend of mine from the Gaeltacht who was in town. Learned to get better at pool through Irish, was great craic. Tired out afterwards, but definitely so new motivation to start doing more in Irish. It also made me recognise the issue I'm having with making the decision between Brest and Ireland, even if it doesn't make me any closer to solving it. Also listened to an episode of
Baile an Droichid (30 min) a radio drama from the 80s and 90s that was written by a strong native Connemara man who was active in Gluaiseacht Chearta Sibhialta na Gaeltachta (The Gaeltacht Civil Rights Movement) and widely regarded as an author and poet and actor. What's more
all the characters on the show are strong natives from Connemara, so it's among the best I'm going to find to practice, even if it doesn't have a transcript. I do have audio material (from the 60s, so even more traditional) with a transcript as well, but I'd rather try my ear on this first as it's an actual radio drama.
Read chapter 16 in Stifter, will do the exercises soon. I like covering the material in Stifter, then doing it in Quinn to review. I've found them to be fairly complementary.
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June recap (at least since I started keeping track of minutes listened)
French Listening: 809 minutes -- Not too shabby
French Reading: 300 pages -- Pretty much just read Cosmogonies, as I had finished Les Gaulois before the month
It's funny to see how much I've done. I might end up doing a super challenge even without intending to do one, which is funny, as it was always the listening part that put me off. I still contend it's not fair to do 90 minutes of film versus 50 pages for a 'book', but I think that's mostly me not being a huge fan of visual media in general (I don't watch movies or much TV, even in English). Thank goodness, I'd count podcasts for it, in which case I might get it done early - I'm already like 12 books in from the two French books I've read, and it's not even been two months yet. Though we'll see if I keep this pace, especially with my next behemoth of a read clocking in at 700+ pages.
Really, it's interesting to me approaching French after Irish. With Irish, I was limited in material I had. Especially
quality material written by strong native speakers and not by learners or weaker natives. And most of it was old. So you were left with a very limited set of things to grow off of.But with French, that's just not true. There's so many cultural theorists out there, so many philosophers, so much pop-history and semi-pop-non-fiction writing. It's really a whole new world of material. Lots of documentaries about every subject imaginable, same with fiction books, not to mention the graphic novel tradition in France, which I find super interesting even if it doesn't really appeal to me.
Not to say I dislike what's available with Irish; I love it, love learning about the old folktales and ways of life that was recorded by the folklore commission. I love the radio drama that's in Connemara Irish, and I love just using Irish. It's a special part of me and has been part of me for over a decade now (hard to believe, honestly), but I can easily see the appeal of major languages now. It's weird as I never felt this with Spanish when I was dabbling in that for my teaching job. Perhaps it's because I never took it as seriously, especially in terms of reading and listening immersion (despite doing a total of 6 weeks immersion courses), but it's definitely something I'll do when I return (and I'll return eventually, at least to get passive skills). It does already have me planning a whole new way to approach my next language, if it's a reasonably big one. And it likely will be (maybe Finnish, or Japanese again). Though, of course, this depends on Brest versus staying in Ireland.
Weekly recapFrench Listening: 245 minutes
French Reading: ~100 pages
Irish Reading: ~10 pages (yikes)
Irish Listening: ~30 minutes
Cosmogonies: Histore du livre: Annála Beaga ó Iorrus Aithneach: