Ogrim's Krambu - a plethora of languages, mostly European, both old and new

[Mista]

I have been trying to turn my interest in this match into something useful for languages as well, as I read about the games in Russian on Ruchess, the site of the Russian Chess Federation, Российская Шахматная Федерация.

One of NRK's expert commentators, Atle Grønn, happens to be one of my former Russian teachers at the University of Oslo - so, if nothing else, the sight of him always reminds me that I should study some Russian

[Ogrim]

I have been trying to turn my interest in this match into something useful for languages as well, as I read about the games in Russian on Ruchess, the site of the Russian Chess Federation, Российская Шахматная Федерация.

One of NRK's expert commentators, Atle Grønn, happens to be one of my former Russian teachers at the University of Oslo - so, if nothing else, the sight of him always reminds me that I should study some Russian

Thank you for the information, I did not know that. I mean I know the name Atle Grønn, but as a co-author of the book Sjakkgeniene with Hans Olav Lahlum, not that he is/was a Russian teacher. I did notice in the preface of the book though that it is mentioned that Atle Grønn is fascinated with all things Russian, so that makes sense.

[Mista]

He's a professor, to be precise. You can check out his academic profile here:

https://www.hf.uio.no/ilos/personer/vit ... index.html

The book "Sjakkgeniene" is there too, under "books". And some other chess-related stuff, if you look closely in between the linguistics.

[Ogrim]

I am a bad boy. I want to be faithful to Arabic. We have spent so much quality time together lately, and she accepts that I have other friends, like Russian. But now.... now Romanian came into my life, and when I am with Arabic I tend to think about Romanian, wanting to spend time with her instead. I don't know what it is, maybe a Transilvanian vampire bit me while I was sleeping and poisoned my mind...

Truth is, I met Romanian many years ago. Back then she was a mysterious young creature, and our relation did not last very long; she was evasive and difficult, and I was more attracted to Spanish at the time. But now, she has returned, and she is much more accessible. I so enjoy the time we spend together!

Arabic can be very difficult sometimes, we've had a few tough discussions, and I even slammed the door at her once, but regretted it and came back, and everything went so well until Romanian unexpectedly knocked at my door, asking if I could spare a few minutes. Well, those minutes turned into hours, and now I cannot get her off my mind. What am I to do???

OK, enough bad prose for today. Just a silly attempt at explaining that Romanian has suddenly become a major focus for me, and I am not sure if it is a good thing. Probably it is. As I wrote in an earlier post, Romanian is so easy compared to Arabic. Of course, I have not really started from scratch, but after more than 20 years most of my knowledge was dormant at best, to some extent completely gone. But now that I've started to learn it seriously again, it all comes back very quickly.

Of course there is a reason why Romanian came back into my life right now. Next week I will spend a few days in Bucharest. The trip was planned already two months ago. It is a job-related trip, so unfortunately I won't have much time for tourism, but the idea of being able to understand what I read and hear, and maybe having an opportunity to say a few words in case I come across someone who doesn't speak English, has been a strong motivation factor. The upcoming visit to Romania however was just the trigger to start dabbling a bit in Romanian, the real motivation is being able to quicly get another language up to a decent level, at least "passively". When I first learnt Romanian in the 1980s, the country was part of the Communist block, there was no internet so no access to Romanian radio or TV, music or e-books, and the only material I could use was what I found at the university library. It was an interesting academic exercise, but not much more. Now I have almost unlimited access to Romanian media, the country is part of the EU so no problem travelling there, and I've discovered a great site for buying Romanian e-books. Allt this makes it so much more worthwhile to learn the language today compared to 30 years ago.

This does not mean that I give up on Arabic. I still struggle along, but at a less intensive pace. I've been forced to structure my learning time better, (which is a good thing), to ensure that I keep a regular rhythm with both Arabic and Russian while at the same time fitting Romanian into the schedule. At the same time I want at least to maintain Romansh, Catalan, Portuguese and Dutch by reading books and articles and listen to the odd podcast or radio or TV show. If it continues like this I will become Expugnator II.

On a totally different note, the Chess World Championship has come to an end, and Magnus Carlsen defended his title in a really fascinating triple tie-break whcih followed after 12 draws against Fabiano Caruana. Carlsen has created a "chess craze" in Norway, as this article in the New York Times describes. For me, the biggest advantage of the match having ended is that I can dedicate that time to language learning instead.

I'll end by sharing a silly, but fun song about Magnus Carlsen, performed by the Norwegian pop duo Staysman & Lazz and featuring Norwegian chess Grand Master Simen Agdestein, who was one of Carlsen's former teachers. The title is Tårnet til Carlsen (Carlsen's Rook), and the lyrics have a lot of word plays and doubles entendres.

[Expugnator]

This song goes directly into my treadmill playlist
I got the word plays on the chorus at least, without looking the lyrics up, I mean.

As for learning for consuming media and learning for accessing an exotic culture, I'm living the same dilemma (multiplied a dozen of times, for that matter). What I'm coming down to writing at this year's log's wrap up and next year's opener is quite that.

I keep thinking about the great audiobooks I could be listening to in Romanian and Swedish, or the Catalan and Esperanto podcasts. On the other hand, something I have as a guideline right from start is avoiding the easy path of becoming a Romance-Germanic hyperpolyglot, by forcing the balance between opaque and transparent languages. Because truth be told, Mandarin, Georgian, Indonesian, Hebrew and Estonian have been much more relevant for opening up my linguistical or cultural perspectives to the world than a 3rd or 4th Romance or Germanic language. Again, finding a balance is what I try to work with, and I don't think I'm doing that bad, as my latest additions have been Hebrew and Indonesian.

On the other hand, Romanian, Esperanto and Catalan have been put on hold for too long and the time invested on them up to becoming functional is irrisory compared to all those years invested on being able to enjoy a novel in Georgian.

The other issue, though, is once I improve a transparent language enough to pass the audiobook test I'm then constrained by time again. I haven't done anything of intensive learning/output for Italian ever since I finished all the Assimils (incl. Perfectionnement) back in 2015, not doing that for Spanish either, so those transparent languages risk becoming more neglected than the opaque ones - I can express myself more idiomatically in Georgian or Norwegian than in Italian or Spanish for the more frequent A2 topics, for that matter, because I'm consistently watching series in the former, not in the latter). So in the end those readily accessible transparent languages never get to full household status and they are the ones that suffer the most in my complex relationship - "Amante não tem lar" and "A verdade é que amante não quer ser amante' or even "Bem pior que eu, você, que não deixa ela (sic) e não deixa de viver", to quote a Brazilian sertanejo artist who sings profusely on the topic.

[Ogrim]

Thanks for coming by Expugnator. You come with wise words, as always, and I admire how you are able to study so many languages in parallel. Right now I have more than enough with actively studying three and maintaining others, so more "exotic" languages like Georgian or Estonian are not on my list.

I am back from a few hectic days in Bucharest. Work took up almost all of my time, so I had very little spare time for tourism. I cannot therefore come with any great tips about where to go and what to see in the city, except for recommending a couple of good restaurants if anyone is interested.

As for the language, it was great to hear Romanian spoken all around me (except for the meetings, where everyone spoke English), but I didn't care about trying to speak any Romanian myself. Firstly because I am far from being at a level where I can speak even simple sentences confidently, and secondly because practically all Romanians I meet spoke excellent English. I was actually surprised that everyone, from taxi drivers to shop attendants and police officers spoke English really well. In such a context I feel I would have to get my spoken Romanian skills up to at least a solid B1 before even trying to engage in a conversation in the language.

Back home I have tried to get back into a regular rhythm alternating between Arabic, Russian and Romanian every day. It doesn't always work out, but having a fixed plan helps, even if I do not follow it 100%. I am certainly motivated to continue working on Romanian, but I don't want to neglect the other two, and yesterday I also went on a shopping spree on Litres, so now I have even more Russian e-books to read, including one about the history of music and one about chess. Luckily Christmas holidays are approaching, and as we will go to Norway this year I should get plenty of time to idle away on my sister's couch reading.

[SGP]

As for the language, it was great to hear Romanian spoken all around me (except for the meetings, where everyone spoke English), but I didn't care about trying to speak any Romanian myself. Firstly because I am far from being at a level where I can speak even simple sentences confidently, and secondly because practically all Romanians I meet spoke excellent English. I was actually surprised that everyone, from taxi drivers to shop attendants and police officers spoke English really well. In such a context I feel I would have to get my spoken Romanian skills up to at least a solid B1 before even trying to engage in a conversation in the language.

And I am (somehow) surprised, too. Wouldn't have expected that. Because there also are examples of English not being the number one spoken foreign language in Slavonic countries. Maybe Română differs because of being closer to English.
#NotBashingAnyoneOrAnythingAsUsual #HavingSomeEasternEuropeanRelativesMyself

[Chmury]

On a totally different note, the Chess World Championship has come to an end, and Magnus Carlsen defended his title in a really fascinating triple tie-break whcih followed after 12 draws against Fabiano Caruana. Carlsen has created a "chess craze" in Norway, as this article in the New York Times describes. For me, the biggest advantage of the match having ended is that I can dedicate that time to language learning instead.

Hey! Another chess lover, I was just watching some of the matches with Magnus Carlsen on youtube the other night. The kid's got skills. I used to play chess a lot as a kid and teenager and even in my early twenties, and then in many ways learning languages kind of filled that space, though I still really do love the chance to play a game. Do you still play much?

[Maiwenn]

Luckily Christmas holidays are approaching, and as we will go to Norway this year I should get plenty of time to idle away on my sister's couch reading. 8-)

Sounds like a great way to spend your Christmas holidays! I hope you and yours are safe and well after last night's events in Strasbourg.

[Ogrim]

I hope you and yours are safe and well after last night's events in Strasbourg.

Yes, thank you, and I hope you are as well. My wife was at a dinner with friends that evening, and they were locked in the restaurant until way past midnight with the blinds shut, until police told them they could leave. Horrible that this could happen, but not totally unexpected, the Christmas market has been a target before, but this time that one guy actually made it through security with arms.

Hey! Another chess lover, I was just watching some of the matches with Magnus Carlsen on youtube the other night. The kid's got skills. I used to play chess a lot as a kid and teenager and even in my early twenties, and then in many ways learning languages kind of filled that space, though I still really do love the chance to play a game. Do you still play much?

Thanks for coming by. It's been a long time since I played chess regularly, and I was never really good at it. I just don't think my brain is properly "wired" for discovering the patterns and thinking far ahead, which is the ability that makes Carlsen such a genius. (Check out on Youtube videos of him playing ten simultaneous chess games blindfolded, it is amazing!) Nowadays I play very occasionally with my son, my brother-in-law when I am in Norway and mostly with a chess computer game I've installed on my phone.

Tallking about chess, I've started reading the Russian book about chess I mentioned in my last post. It is really an introduction for beginners, which suits me well, because this way I get all the basic chess vocabulary. I've also browsed the book about music history, but will leave it for Christmas to read more intensively.

Arabic is moving slowly. Due to my travel to Romania and the events of the last couple of days I have not been able to keep up my routine with Manuel d'arabe, I've only done some revision of a few Langenscheidt lessons to refresh and consolidate vocabulary.

I keep advancing with Romanian, but I need to slow down and learn the different declinasions and conjugations properly. With a transparent language where you understand so much "for free", it is tempting to rush ahead, but by doing so you will never be able to produce it correctly, for that you need to work on the fine details. One funny thing is that when doing some of the exercises in the Colloquial or Teach Yourself courses, I find that Romansh words and morphology keeps popping into my head, so I need to be careful about interference from Romansh to Romanian. The two are not that similar, but there is probably something about phonolgy and morphology which superficially at least makes me do this connection.

Only one week left at work and little more than two weeks left of the year, so my next post will probably be an end-of-the-year summary. For now I'll just say that overall it has been a pretty good year language-wise, and my motivation is again very high, so looking forward to 2019.