The iguana's tale- Portuguese, Spanish, Haitian Creole and Ladino

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iguanamon
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
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Languages: Speaks: English (Native); Spanish (C2); Portuguese (C2); Haitian Creole (C1); Ladino/Djudeo-espanyol (C1); Lesser Antilles French Creole (B2)
Studies: Catalan
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Re: The iguana's tale- Portuguese, Spanish, Haitian Creole and Ladino

Postby iguanamon » Thu Sep 23, 2021 5:00 pm

Portuguese
In the golden age of ease of access to original Brazilian series a few years ago, I watched 4 (out of 7) seasons of a Brazilian comedy series Sai de Baixo. I'd come to it after having watched a later series, Toma Lá Dá Cá, which starred two of the main actors from Sai de Baixo- Miguel Falabella and Marissa Orth.

Then the website where I got the episodes was taken down and I couldn't find it anywhere else. I gave up and started watching Brazilian HBO series. I loved Sai de Baixo for its quirkiness and the ridiculously "over the top", outrageous and farcical nature of the series. That and it's funny ! It took me a long way towards understanding everyday Brazilian speech. It was a struggle not only because of the slang but also because of the difficulty in understanding topical and pop-culture humor references- not to mention the show's length of nearly an hour.

I am remembering all this because one of the main actors on the show, Luis Gustavo, passed away on Sunday at 87 years old. I've learned a lot about Luis in the tributes to him. Brazil is a melting pot of cultures and immigrants. Gustavo was born in Sweden to a Spanish diplomat and his wife. The family moved to Brazil when Luis Gustavo was five years old. He and his sister (also an actress) grew up in Brazil and became actors. Gustavo became a naturalized Brazilian citizen and an actor with a successful career along with his sister. I loved his humor and wit.


Catalan
I finished reading "Seixanta-vuit" (Ramon Usall i Santa). The character of Detectiu (Detective) Rafel Rovira is more fleshed out now. He is, like his author, very Catalan, very Lleidatà. Loves his country and his culture. His fame from his last case- "Tots els camins porten a Romania" has gained him a maid, Ioana (the Romainan woman who first hired him to find who killed her client), and a "becària"- "Betina Antunes" a young Portuguese woman from Lisbon, via Andorra. Her father, a general, had set her up in the Portuguese diplomatic service. Betina infuriated him by leaving to study criminal justice and wanting to become a private detective.

Rafel's old French teacher, Henrieta (Rafel reached C2!), calls the detective's office to help her find her long lost love who left her planted at the altar in 1968- at the height of the student protests. She recently received a postcard from him after all these years. With little to go on, Rafel and Betina go to Paris to investigate.

Henrieta's old love was deeply involved in the student protests and the couple had many friends who were as well. After over 50 years, some had moved on and tried to forget the past. Some had moved on to become spies for the Chinese because they believed in Mao-ism. Slowly, one by one they are being murdered by an unknown killer. Rafel and Betina find themselves up to their necks in intrigue- the makings of a good story.

Once again, I guessed the identity of the killer rather early, even though not a hundred percent certain, but that's not the point. Again, as in the last novel, I enjoyed the back-story of the characters, modern Paris, the Catalan perspective and slice of life. I don't think the book is translated into any language. For those of you who speak Catalan, I recommend reading it. Here's a link to the sample from the first chapter. I'm looking forward to the next story.

So, I moved on to the next book- "El Gran Gatsby" which has often been described as one of The Great American Novels. The book has been made into two films- one from the 1970's starred Robert Redford. The most recent one starred Leo DiCaprio. I haven't seen either one, nor have I read the book in English. So, I figured if I was going to read it, I would read it in Catalan. I got it on Google Books for $6 US. I enjoyed it. After having read so many Hammett novels from the 1920's (Gatsby was written in 1925), The setting was familiar and, oddly relatable as somewhat modern despite being almost a hundred years old. "The Roaring Twenties/The Jazz Age" was a time when America was coming into its own, when anything was possible with optimism and a headlong progression of "damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead" into soulless technology and 'progress' for progress' sake.



The book itself is short, 234 pages printed in Catalan. The English original is available on Project Gutenberg free and legal, out of copyright. There was vocabulary to look up, most of which I could guess, but it helps to be sure. Strange how I find it easier to read original novels than these translations from English from the 1920's. The story is engaging, if frustrating at the beginning. The character of Gatsby is elusive. The narrator, Nick Carraway, is seemingly just there to be "along for the ride". The other characters are quite rich, superficial and selfish/self-absorbed, the perfect urban stereotypes. After having read the wikipedia article in English (warning: spoilers), the whys and wherefores of the book come together with the author's own backstory.

By the end of the book, I finally felt I understood Gatsby and why he was the way he was and his motivation. "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald is considered to be a classic of American literature. The great American author, Mark Twain, has described literary classics as
Mark Twain wrote:A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.

I guess that now, (at least in the case of this book) this quote doesn't apply to me anymore. I enjoyed the book. I listened to some of the music as I read along with the descriptions of the glamorous summer parties at Gatsby's Long Island mansion replete with flappers and classic automobiles. Ironically, for me, the iconic first edition cover was illustrated by a Catalan man, Francis Cugat (yes, he was the brother of the famous musician Xavier Cugat):





It's funny how second languages, have given me the excuse to read the classics of my own culture's literature.

Spanish
Reading Paloma Bravo's novel "Las incorrectas". I'm a third of the way in and quite enjoying it. The author paints a picture that, though set in a foreign culture, is universal and at the same time lets me live vicariously in a Madrid slice of life... all the ingredients I enjoy in reading. I'm never going to get to live in Spain, but at least I can sort of see how that life might be. It also gives me a perspective on feminism which I think we all would be better off for knowing.

It's a novel about a woman (and her friends), Eva, separated from her husband (who lives in the condo above) who has a young daughter who wants to play soccer (football). She finds her daughter, Manu, a team in el barrio (neighborhood). After having to demand her rights because her daughter would be the only girl on the team, Manu gets to join. Along the way Eva makes friends with some of the other mothers of the team's players. Each woman has different circumstances, and of course, different challenges to face as mothers and women. It's a good book. Paloma is a good writer. She has the pulse of modern life and the sense of self to ground herself and question said modern life. Her writing is crisp, her sentences short for a Spanish writer, but conveying what is needed to be conveyed. Her books don't have many translations. Her work deserves to be better known in the wider world. I first discovered her in a blog on El País around a dozen years ago.



Orevwa pou kounye a, mezanmi, m a wè nou pita
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iguanamon
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Re: The iguana's tale- Portuguese, Spanish, Haitian Creole and Ladino

Postby iguanamon » Thu Sep 30, 2021 4:15 pm

Portuguese
After the recent passing of Luis Gustavo, one of the actors from the Brazilian series "Sai de Baixo", I was inspired to go back and try to find access to the series from 20 years ago. There are a few episodes on youtube available and I watched some of them. I quickly fell back into understanding the actors' voices again. I also let myself be taken away by the ridiculous "over the top" hilarious comedy again. It's nice to be able to relax with a language.

One of the "booktubers" I follow on youtube, Isabella Lubrano of the channel "Ler Antes de Morrer" (Read before dying), has a review of the last book I read in Catalan "O Grande Gatsby"... from Nova York. Isabella reads a lot of translated world literature in her native Portuguese.


She offers some good advice here on how to read more... for those of you who speak Portuguese.


Catalan
After The Great Gatsby, I chose another book in translation to read from the noir genre, but not a detective story. This one is by Gil Brewer and titled "Nua damunt del gel que es fon"/"Nude On Thin Ice

If you can read the back cover photo of the "blurb", this is a dark book. It's a "pulp fiction" novel from 1960 a very different time than which we now live. Sexism, machismo, excessive drinking and smoking are common in this novel and genre- a lot of which is indeed, "cringe-worthy". Still for what it is, it's well written and well paced.
Brewer's characters are all "broken/messed up" in some way with few, or no, redeeming qualities. They start off somewhat normally then radically escalate into a vicious circle of events that keep drawing them down lower into the depths of depravity. As bad as the main character "Ken McCall" is... everyone else is just as bad or worse. It's ironic how the author leads the reader to almost "root" for the protagonist. In a way, reading this book is like watching an awful accident that you can't take your eyes off of seeing.

So why have I gone from the sublime to the ridiculous? Well, curiosity frankly. I'm curious about the genre and looking at the times in which it takes place. America after WW II and Korea yet before Kennedy and Vietnam was a brief, but interesting span. The book reminds me of an episode of "I Almost Got Away With It"- an American reality reenactment TV series about a criminal on the run. The characters in the book, like the real life criminals in the show, know that they're going badly wrong in their actions but are propelled by lust and greed into the downward spiral with no escape.

The book is a short 155 pages in Catalan. I am over 80% finished with it. I made the mistake of reading it last night before falling asleep and it left me unsettled. I won't be making that mistake again!

Spanish

A few posts ago I'd talked about wanting to clear my Spanish hardcopy book backlog. I've made a good start on it, but not good enough, so I decided to read "Las incorrectas" by Paloma Bravo, an inspiring author who writes very well in Spanish... but I just couldn't put Catalan aside. I've been making a lot of progress and I don't want to let that go. So, I'm trying reading two books at the same time. It's not easy. It's not about switching languages or mixing them. Lord knows I've been through that before. It's about trying to juggle two very different concepts at the same time. Going from a modern story about a group of very different female friends connected only by their children's soccer team and feminism to a wild frenetic crime story with no morals replete with sexism, booze and depravity. I'll finish "Nua damunt dle gel que es fon" very soon as I only have 25 pages or so to go. Then I'll choose a new book in Catalan. If I'd just been reading one book or the other I'd be finished by now. As it is I have 40% of the way to go in "Las incorrectas". I am really enjoying the book and will give a better review later.

I want to keep my momentum going with reading in Catalan. So much of language-learning is about momentum. Learners often discount its importance. Momentum, "keeping progress going", means that it gives me the repeating of vocabulary in different contexts, learning new ways of saying things, getting grammar in context. Soon the momentum and the material are imprinting the vocabulary and grammar in the mind and this gives me a sense of the right way to say/write things. Anyway, it works for me.

Last night, I watched two baseball games in Spanish as the pennant race comes to down to just a few games before the playoffs start. I'm looking forward to watching the playoff games in Spanish.

Até mais, meus amigos, tchauzinho
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iguanamon
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Re: The iguana's tale- Portuguese, Spanish, Haitian Creole and Ladino

Postby iguanamon » Thu Oct 07, 2021 11:15 pm

Spanish
This past week was filled with baseball in Spanish. I watched three games one of which had a Venezuelan woman as a co-announcer on ESPN Deportes- Carolina Guillén. Women are starting to finally make inroads into Major League Baseball coverage.

Watching baseball in Spanish, I often forget I am watching it in a second language. I don't know if I continue listening to Spanish audio in the post season. Post-season broadcast rights get blurred when the US deals with its second-class Territories (colonies). I'll find out tomorrow night when the LA Dodgers take on the San Francisco Giants for the NL West division title.

Last night I watched the Dodgers win against "los Cardenales de San Luís" (the St Louis Cardinals) in a most dramatic fashion with a "walk-off" homerun (un cuadrangular/jonrón de salida) in the bottom of the ninth inning with two outs, with the game tied at 1-1, in Los Angeles. The game was a "wild card" game to determine who would face the SF Giants in the division playoffs. There is nothing more dramatic in baseball than to win a game batting with 2 outs and end it with a homerun.



I finished "Las incorrectas" by Paloma Bravo. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I've read all of Paloma's adult novels. She has a real talent for showing modern life. While the book is set in Madrid, Spain... it could take place anywhere.

The book starts with the main character "Eva" an actress who is in between jobs. Eva has a young daughter "Manu"- about eight years old. Manu wants to play football (soccer). She keeps hitting the ball against the balcony wall in their high-rise condo. Her mom, Eva, gets the hint. She finds a club team in the neighborhood, a short drive away, and has to convince the trainer/manager to take her on. Well, Eva has the law on her side and the trainer has no choice in the matter besides his misgivings about Manu being the only girl on the team.

Eva attends the practices and befriends some of the mothers with children on the team- all about the same age, 40 something, more or less. Each woman has her own situation at home. Some are married. Some are separated/divorced and one has her husband in jail for tax-evasion. Eva is separated from her husband, Jorge, a trauma doctor in a Madrid hospital. He lives in the condo upstairs. They have shared custody. Jorge is still in love with Eva.

Eva's parents also live nearby. Her mother, Verónica, is a strong personality. She's also an actress and a feminist. She has had a secret life on Twitter as "Coño Furioso" exposing "me too" episodes of both perpetrators and victims. This gets her into trouble when she gets "outed". One of Eva's friends, the wife of the tax evader, needs some cover to protect her from prison and decides to take over the twitter account and do an interview.

One of the "soccer moms", is a lawyer named Cris. Eva's older, single, sister is a scientist who is pregnant by IVF. She has a rather prickly personality and ends up with a viral youtube moment that doesn't go as well as she thought it would.

It's all a glorious, but coherent, mess well told by Ms. Bravo. The book allowed me to live a vicarious life in Madrid through her characters. Paloma writes her novels almost like screen plays. I highly recommend anyone to read her books.

Catalan
I finished "Nua damunt del gel que es fon" by Gil Brewer. This is "pulp fiction". These were novels meant for a mass market with titillating covers meant to grab attention at a supermarket, drugstore, bus/train station. Some are pure trash, not worth reading at all. Some can transcend the format to say something about the human condition. At first, I thought this book was the former. The last third of the novel redeems it. The protagonist, Ken McCall is a hard drinking, greedy, womanizer- he left his girlfriend at a motel in Key West to go to New Mexico when he found out one of his best friends died by letter. His best friend wanted him to care for his young widow. All McCall sees are dollar signs... and the downward spiral of murder, betrayal and more murder, drinking, lying, sex, more drinking and more murder ensues. The last third of the book shows that while one may "get away with murder" for a short while, they never really ever quite get away with it, despite their shocking lack of morals. A book must be judged by its whole, and I now see why it made the Cua de Palla collection. It's a "classic" of the genre.

I started a new book, a detective novel by Bill Pronzini- "Trets per totes bandes"- "Scattershot" in English.

I'm almost halfway through with it. It's a detective novel set in the San Francisco area. A private detective thinks he is doing great with three cases on the go, but they all go bad, badly wrong...
Publisher's blurb wrote:Heu tingut mai una setmana com aquesta? El detectiu de la història ―del qual no se’ns diu el nom― no l’havia tinguda mai. Ara que, ben mirat, també estava fet un detectiu ben curiós: ja granadet, rodanxó, bevedor de cervesa, tranquil i... enamorat. Un home pacífic que s’embolica de mala manera, que no dóna allò que s’espera d’ell, perquè no és gens ortodox ―o potser perquè té una intel·ligència diferent?―, que resol els seus casos envitricollats amb percepció finíssima, però que és un perdedor. La llicència de detectiu, l’amor ―potser ja el darrer―, els pot perdre; tal volta definitivament.

Pronzini is a good author. He lent his name to a character in Joe Gorres's book "Hammett". The detective is name-less. I'm enjoying it so far. I'm on a roll with my my Catalan reading. I want to keep on rolling with it. I won't always stay with this collection from La Cua de Palla, but it's serving me well right now.

I found some sites with Catalan Audio books and I ordered three from audiomol. I'll be going through them at some point. I have the books.

Haitian Creole
The Digital Library of the Caribbean, DLOC, has a link to the Radio Haiti recorded archive (from Duke University) of the past 60 years with over 5,000 mostly long-form recordings. I plan on utilizing these in a few months' time.

Lesser Antilles Kwéyòl
I found a copy of a translation of the four act play "Caligua" by Andre Camus- "Kaligila". It's available from the Manioc site online which is the "bibliotheque numerique caraibe amazonie plateau des guyanes" from French Guyana. It's a short play- 100 pages in pdf. I must make some time for it.

Mèsi pou li tou sa, mezanmim. M a wè nou pita.
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iguanamon
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Re: The iguana's tale- Portuguese, Spanish, Haitian Creole and Ladino

Postby iguanamon » Thu Oct 14, 2021 9:49 pm

Spanish
The post-season is well underway now in mid-October. The league divisional playoffs are almost over. Only the Los Angeles Dodgers (Los Dodgers) and the San Francisco Giants (Los Gigantes) are left to determine who will represent the National League West against the Atlanta Braves (Los Bravos) for the National League winner. That game is tonight at 2100 AST. I've been able to watch all the games in Spanish on the MLB app. Watching the games in Spanish is great... but it means I have less time for reading now. Funny thing about time, there's still only 24 hours in a day. The west coast games are brutal. They don't get decided til after midnight here in the Atlantic Standard Time zone. That being said, I still read articles throughout the day, but Spanish reading is on pause for a couple of weeks until baseball finishes. Como debía ser: Gigantes y Dodgers chocan en 5to juego. I hope they decide it early so I can get to bed at a reasonable time... but, it'll probably go to the wee hours of the morning. You can keep up with the MLB Post-season at con las bases llenas with videos, podcasts and live commentary. Also at MLB.com.es.

Catalan
With baseball in Spanish now taking up a lot of my free time, I have/make time in the morning for Catalan reading. I have finished "Trets per totes bandes" by Bill Pronzini. The book's protagonist is a 50 something nameless Italian-American private detective. He's got a beer belly and a much younger girlfriend, Kerry, who is trying to get him to start jogging as the book starts. The detective, well he doesn't have a name it seems. So he's "nameless" in the series. "Trets" is the 8th book in the "nameless" detective series. The setting is San Francisco and the Bay Area, where some of the best of Dashiell Hammet's novels take place.

Nameless starts out on a roll. He gets three cases- one to deliver some court papers to a litigant who can't be found. Another case to solve is a woman wants nameless to get evidence that her husband is stealing from their business and plans to leave her for another woman with the stolen $100,000. The last case is a "simple" gig at a rich man's daughter's wedding- guarding the wedding presents.

Each one of the cases subsequently goes south in quick order. Nameless also is losing his girlfriend. He's asked her to marry him, but she isn't ready to answer him and needs time to think it over. Meanwhile, the man nameless is following is murdered and his body is found a bit of a distance away. The secretary of the socialite who is being sued is found in the socialites living room dead. The wife of the dead man nameless was following is making a stink with the press and the police. and she wants nameless to lose his detective license. Nameless is being assaulted from all sides... I think we've all had a stretch in our lives where that's true and can relate.

While the book is not long for so much that's going on, 153 pages in Catalan, it is quite entertaining and has good character development. I enjoyed it.

So, what am I following it up with now? I've started a new book not in the "Cua de Palla" selection- "Els Cosacs" (Казаки) per Lev Tolstoi.

Image

I have read several of Tolstoys short stories and novels in my other languages and love his writing style. This book is my first real long Russian novel. Written in 1863, it was one of the author's first novels. The preface said that Tolstoi added a lot of autobiographical detail. The reading is harder. There are a lot more words to look up, which I expected. I'm 10% into the book now. The book has 209 pages in Catalan. I'll keep rolling along. If anyone wants to read a 28 page fragment of the book, Grupo 62 has a free pdf sample
Grupo 62 wrote:Una obra mestra d'un dels grans clàssics de la literatura universal
Una de les primeres novel·les de Lev Tolstoi (1863), amb un contingut molt autobiogràfic. Un reflex fidel de la profunda impressió que el Caucas va deixar en l'escriptor. L'enlluernament de Tolstoi es transmet a través dels ulls del protagonista, Olenin, amb una vehemència que atrapa el lector des del principi fins a l'última pàgina. L'any 1851, Tolstoi tenia 22 anys i es va allistar a l'exèrcit per lluitar com a cadet contra els turcs, a la guerra del Caucas. Aquesta experiència va marcar per sempre la seva vida i va servir d'inspiració per a les primeres obres del gran escriptor rus.

Turgenev said that "The Cossacks" was his favorite work by Tolstoi. That's a pretty good recommendation. Since I can't read Russian (at least yet). I'd have to read it in translation anyway, so why not Catalan?!

So far, the unknown vocabulary isn't too much to handle for me. Half the words I look up aren't in my bilingual dictionary. A quarter of those aren't even in my Catalan-Spanish dictionary either. I could look them all up on my laptop, but I read on a tablet and I'm reclined in bed. As the English say "I can't be bothered". I save them in my notes and look them up later. I generally don't connect the tablet to the web to prevent distraction and save battery time. Hopefully, I can add "Els cossacs" to my list of Catalan books read.

Kreyol Lwizian
I'm thinking about doing a short little language project towards the end of the year- There is a free (74 pgs) public domain introductory course to Louisiana Creole (Kouri-Vini) available. The language is dying. It never was a literary language. I don't think even "The Bible" has been translated into it. Thanks to my other French Creole languages, the pronunciation won't be an issue. There are two audio downloads available for $20 US each with two levels. For now I'll hold off on buying them. My other French lexified Creoles will help me a lot. There are some differences, as there are in any similar languages. I have heard the language spoken and sung in Louisiana. A Haitian cab driver in New Orleans told me he could understand Louisiana Creole fairly easily. So if anyone wants to join me in Novemeber- having a background in French would be helpful, let me know. While Louisiana Creole won't help you much unless you like Zydeco music, characterized by the accordion and frottoir- rub board (from the song- Les haricots sont pas salés'"les haricots" being creolized into "zydeco")



Mèsi, m a wè nou pita. Orevwa pou kounye a.
Last edited by iguanamon on Thu Oct 21, 2021 6:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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iguanamon
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Re: The iguana's tale- Portuguese, Spanish, Haitian Creole and Ladino

Postby iguanamon » Thu Oct 21, 2021 6:19 pm

Catalan
"Els cosacs" is not an easy read. Tolstoy uses a lot of descriptive language. Of course, half the new to me Catalan vocabulary isn't in my bilingual dictionary- neither in English nor Spanish. Half the time a word is available in the Spanish bilingual dictionary, I don't know the obscure word in Spanish. Still, I've made it over a quarter of the way through the book. I consider this an accomplishment.

As I said earlier, I've read some Tolstoy short stories in Catalan before and found them enjoyable. This book, at 209 pages, isn't long but it is tedious. I almost feel like my momentum with Catalan reading is disappearing as a result.

The translator leaves certain Russian words untranslated but transliterated into Catalan- there's a glossary at the end of the book. Other words get a more fleshed out treatment in the ebook and have a translator's note. Sometimes, I get a sentence with three troublesome words- obscure Catalan vocabulary, transliterated Russian (in italics), and a word with a translator's note--- aaarggghhh! That's annoying.

In the first bit of the book, the main character, Olennin, is introduced. He is a young man, orphaned at an early age who has just come into his inheritance and has squandered half of it. He's trying to find himself, and love. Inspired by stories of the war at the southern end of the Russian Empire, he is off to prove himself in the Caucasus. We follow his journey from Moscow south by sled and carriage.

On arriving in the Caucasus we are introduced to the Cossacks- exiled Russians for cause of a religious schism who are the "thin Cossack line" that keeps the south safe from the Tatars and Chechens. They are not as austere as Samurai, but close.

I assume, Olennin will enter the scene shortly. At least, I hope so. Given the difficulty in reading the book, this one will take a while to finish, despite its relatively short length.

Spanish
I started reading "Carlota, la emperatriz que enloqueció de amor" por Laura Martínez-Belli. Ms. Martínez-Belli is a Mexican-Spanish author who now seems to live in Spain. Her aunt is Nicaraguan author/poet/activist, Gioconda Belli. The book is about Carlota, the wife of Emperor Maximiliano during the period of the US Civil War. The French took advantage of the US being distracted to install its own regime in Mexico led by the Hapsburg prince. Maximiliano was the younger brother of the Hapsburg Emperor Franz Joseph I. Like it seems can be applied to most European royalty of the time, Carlota was related to Queen Victoria of Britain.

I'm not too far into the book right now. It has 435 pages in hardcopy. It's one of the books I purchased a while ago, back in 2017- pre Hurricane Maria, and have yet to read. So, it's time I get to it and through it to check it off my list of unfinished Spanish books. I've read the author's work before and enjoyed it.


Béisbol: The National and American League Series is going on right now. All of the games are available in Spanish through the MLB TV app, which makes me happy. Next week, the World Series begins with the winners of the two league series playing for the MLB championship in a 4 out of seven game series. You can follow along in Spanish with the podcast "Con las bases llenas/With the bases loaded". The homepage has plenty of background stories, plus a summary of the Japanese and Korean leagues. Of course, the best videos are on LasMayores.com the offical MLB site in Spanish.


M a wè nou pita. Orevwa pou kounye a.
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Re: The iguana's tale- Portuguese, Spanish, Haitian Creole and Ladino

Postby iguanamon » Thu Oct 28, 2021 4:25 pm

Catalan
Continuing with "Els Cosacs", I'm now two thirds of the way in. Dimitri Olennin is the main character. He's a young, orphaned aristocrat from Moscow who has lived a rather vapid life there flitting about from parties to hanging around with other young, vapid aristocrats. He's squandered half his inheritance on keeping up appearances for appearance sake.

Olennin deicdes he needs to get out of Moscow and head for the south, join the army and go to the Caucasus, where the "action" is. When he gets there with his faithful serf Vanyusha, he rents a house from the top man of the village with a beautiful daughter promised to the young, brave Cossack, Lukashka. Lukashka has just killed a Chechen scout at the River Terek, where the Cossacks' observation post lies.

Olennin meets old "Uncle Ieroshka", a hunter and retired warrior, who is glad to take him out hunting and fishing with him. Olennin loves the fresh air and pure, simple life of the village and wonders what the hell he was doing in Moscow.

A young aristocrat, Beletsky, of his acquaintance from his socialite Moscow days comes to join the fight. He finds a billet in a nearby house. Beletsky comes to visit Olennin and tells him there's a party at his landlady's house and all the young women of the village will be there. That's where I m now. It seems the party is the last chance before Olennin's unit is leaving to go on a raid and move to a new village.

Of course, this will be the big moment of the book which all has been leading up to before. Things are getting interesting. It seems Olennin believes he has found the secret to happiness in the Cossack village- to live simply and real, without pretense. But Beletsky is a tie to his past who seems to want to snap him back into that past.

Can we really change our lives? Are we so tied to our culture and upbringing that we can seriously make that change? This seems to be the theme of the book. I've seen this universal conundrum in my own life here in the tropics. I've seen people who come here thinking that the tropical lifestyle will work its magic on their lives. If they are willing to be open to, and accept the changes it can and does. Often times it doesn't because these folks aren't accepting or willing to change. No matter where they run to, they end up running into themselves.

The reading in Catalan has gotten easier now that there's more conversation and action. I'm not having to look up so many words. Still, what this exercise of reading this Tolstoy novel is showing me is that I'm still not quite where I want to be with Catalan reading. I still want to read Tolstoy, "Anna Karennina" and "War and Peace" still await, but I think I will be reading those books in my stronger languages- either Spanish or Portuguese, instead of Catalan, when I choose to do so.

When I finish this book, I will move on to a next Catalan book and try to keep my reading momentum going.

Spanish
It's the end of October and Major League Baseball ends with the championship series- the "World Series" between the National League Champions and the American League Champions. This year that's the Atlanta Braves and the Houston Astros. It's a best of seven game series. The series is tied at 1-1 with the teams traveling to Atlanta for the next three games and back to Houston if game 6 is needed.

I don't think there is any other sport other than Baseball in the US that is as much Spanish-speaking as it is English-speaking. The game that was once the "national pastime" in the US is probably more popular in Latin America today than in the land of its birth, the US. Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia are all represented with players in this World Series.


Haitian Creole
Everything has gone to the devil in Haiti as of late. The government is ineffective. Gangs run the streets and demand bribes for basic functions of society- like blocking the delivery of fuel, water and food. Kidnapping is rampant. It doesn't look like I'm ever going to get to visit. It is simply, not safe. My interactions with Haitians are, and will be, all in the diaspora. Here's a short video of the leader of one of the largest gangs "Barbecue"- Jimmy Cherizier, so named because his mother used to run a food truck in a poor neighborhood of Pòtoprans (Port au Prince). His gang has been in the news for kidnapping 17 American missionaries (including an 8 month old baby). He wants $17 million (US) for their release. I guess he's throwing in the baby for free. Here he is demanding the resignation of current Haitian Prime Minister, Ariel Henry. Haiti is a mess, more of a mess than usual, after the assassination of it's former President, Jovenel Moïse.


Pou selebre 28 Oktòb 2021: li se Jounen Entènasyonal Lang Kreyòl. There are a couple of new resources for Haitian Creole I've found: Jwet Kreyòl. This is a multiple choice word order game to solve hundreds of Haitian proverbs. It is also available as an app on google play and apple.

MIT Ayiti Net (thanks to Pwofesè Michel DeGraff) has their platform online complete with resources available for download on a variety of resources in Kreyòl for schools to use in instruction. They can also be made use of by learners. Look under "resous" (resources). Scroll to the bottom of th page for more under "gade plis resous". The video below also talks about St Lucian Creole and Taiwanese languages


Mèsi, mezanmi, pou li tou sa. M a wè nou pita.
Last edited by iguanamon on Thu Oct 28, 2021 5:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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MorkTheFiddle
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Re: The iguana's tale- Portuguese, Spanish, Haitian Creole and Ladino

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Thu Oct 28, 2021 4:44 pm

iguanamon wrote:No matter where they run to, they end up running into themselves.

Very well put!
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Many things which are false are transmitted from book to book, and gain credit in the world. -- attributed to Samuel Johnson

lowsocks
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Re: The iguana's tale- Portuguese, Spanish, Haitian Creole and Ladino

Postby lowsocks » Fri Oct 29, 2021 1:32 am

iguanamon wrote:Can we really change our lives? Are we so tied to our culture and upbringing that we can seriously make that change? This seems to be the theme of the book. I've seen this universal conundrum in my own life here in the tropics. I've seen people who come here thinking that the tropical lifestyle will work its magic on their lives. If they are willing to be open to, and accept the changes it can and does. Often times it doesn't because these folks aren't accepting or willing to change. No matter where they run to, they end up running into themselves.
My question is getting away from language learning, and may be too personal, in which case, my apologies. But I am wondering if you could say more about life on a tropical island. Most of us will never experience this, apart from, perhaps, a short tourist holiday. Compared to the mainland U.S., how has life on a tropical island changed your life (presumably for the better)?
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One need not hope in order to undertake, nor succeed in order to persevere.

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iguanamon
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Languages: Speaks: English (Native); Spanish (C2); Portuguese (C2); Haitian Creole (C1); Ladino/Djudeo-espanyol (C1); Lesser Antilles French Creole (B2)
Studies: Catalan
Language Log: viewtopic.php?t=797
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Re: The iguana's tale- Portuguese, Spanish, Haitian Creole and Ladino

Postby iguanamon » Thu Nov 04, 2021 2:26 pm

lowsocks wrote:...My question is getting away from language learning, and may be too personal, in which case, my apologies. But I am wondering if you could say more about life on a tropical island. Most of us will never experience this, apart from, perhaps, a short tourist holiday. Compared to the mainland U.S., how has life on a tropical island changed your life (presumably for the better)?

I'll try to answer your question. People here have homes and families to care for, just like anywhere else. We have jobs too, so we have to work- myself included. What's different for me is the year-round tropical weather. At 17 deg N of the equator, the sun is strong here. There is a huge difference between the temperate zone and the tropics with the strength of the sun. You can be relatively cool in the shade, but out in the sun, it's brutal. People in the temperate zone seek the sun. We look for shade. It's not a good idea to be unprotected out in the sun between 11am and 2pm. This isn't Tenerife, Málaga, LA or Miami. Our latitude is much closer to the equator.

One of the biggest differences here from the mainland US is simply lower population and the insular nature of the island. There are no semis here (HGV trucks/lorries) or RV's on the road to bother you. Traffic is light. People are respectful and will let you out to make a turn. When you hear a horn, it's almost always to signal it's ok for you to turn.

Being polite is important. One thing that distinguishes a tourist from a local is a tourist will walk up to a bar and say- "Give me a beer". A local will say "Good morning/Good afternoon/Good night. I 'd like a beer, please.". In the English-speaking Caribbean, we do not say "Good evening". We say- "Good night"- like "buenas noches" in Spanish or "boa noite" in Portuguese. It is a major faux pas to enter an area where people are waiting and not say the greeting of the day. If you walk into a doctor's office waiting room you say "Good morning" and everyone will say "Good morning" in return. If you meet someone on the sidewalk you say, "good afternoon". It's about respect and acknowledging each other's humanity. When I go to the States and do this people look at me like I'm crazy. It takes me a while to get used to the way they do things up there.

We are more relaxed about time than people on the mainland. Stuff happens to mess up appointments- get behind someone slow on a two lane road and you are going to be late; avoiding the many potholes (our potholes have potholes!); getting caught in a sudden downpour- all of these can and will slow you down. The island throws up many obstacles. The electricity can go off at any time for no particular reason. It may stay off 10 or 15 minutes, a half an hour, half a day or the whole day. The internet can do the same, so can cell phones. Some people can't accept this and they're doomed to catch a flight back to "the Bab (Babylon)" as soon as they can. One of my friends who lived in California for many years, but was born here and came back, gets frustrated with restaurant kitchens closing around 8 pm. Drives him nuts.

Restaurants are another thing. When the wait person hands you the menu the first thing they say (after greeting you) is "Let me tell you what we're out of". It's always the thing you wanted. We are at the end of a very long supply chain here. We run out of things all the time. The "supply chain" issues on the mainland... that's normal for us in the best of times.

Shopping, except for groceries, I do most of that online... as long as they can ship via the US Postal Service- UPS and FedEx consider us to be an international destination and charge an arm and a leg for delivery. We don't have malls.

So, to live here, being adaptable is key. You have to accept waiting. There is no such thing as fast food here. Even at a fast food restaurant... it's slow. Waiting is a way of life for us. My car breaks down and I need a part, if it's not at the auto parts store... order online have it shipped and wait, wait, wait.

Then of course there's hurricanes. The last major one, Maria, left me without electricity for two and a half months, without cable tv and wired internet for six months. I live in a condo, so, no generator... in the tropical heat.

All that being said, I love it here. I am not going back. The friends I've made here are the best friends I've ever had in my life. They are "una familia postiza" a replacement family. The weather suits my soul. The tropical beauty is stunning. The lifestyle is significantly less frantic. There's a real sense of community here, that seems to be disappearing in the developed world. The place isn't perfect. As a friend of mine says whenever I complain "If it were a perfect place, everyone would want to live here". The obstacles force you to slow down. The island is bigger than you are. you are not going to win no matter how much you insist upon it... but if you can adapt, you can have a very good life. There's too much to say for a forum post. I could write a book.

I can sail on the weekends (or if I take the day off, during the week), paddleboard, kayak, snorkel, swim. I don't dive, but I could. The sea is our nature here.

So, despite the palm trees, uncrowded white sand beaches, the rum, the sunsets, the warm weather (for four months out of the year, northern hemisphere winter, the weather is perfect!), it's not paradise. No where on Earth is paradise. No matter where you go, there you are. I've driven people to the airport screaming to leave. Paradise is wherever, whenever, however, and whatever you make it for yourself. I've made mine here.

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lowsocks
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Re: The iguana's tale- Portuguese, Spanish, Haitian Creole and Ladino

Postby lowsocks » Sat Nov 06, 2021 10:13 pm

Thank you for the reply! If I could give it 10 likes, I would.
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One need not hope in order to undertake, nor succeed in order to persevere.


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