Yesterday, as I finished the last pages of Como agua para chocolate, I reached my objective of 5,000 pages read in Spanish. In a bit less than 5 months (I started reading around November 25th 2018) I read 21 Spanish books in total. The books are the following, in order in which I have read them:
La ciudad esta triste La llamada de Cthulu 1984 Homenaje a cataluña Bumerán Chávez: Los fraudes que llevaron al colapso Memoria para los ausentes Vuelo nocturno Misterio en el Caribe Tan violamente dulce El manuel del idiota latinoamericana Doscientos años de gringos Viaje al Corazon de Cuba La Legion Caribe Las venas abiertas de america latina El reino de este mundo Gringo viejo Las Raices Torcidas De America Latina El Llano en llamas Los de Abajo Cien años de soledad Como agua para chocolate
A few thoughts:
- Extensive literature reading really does work like a SRS, only better: I could see the same words and expressions coming back again and again, not only throughout one book but between different books as well. - I say it is better than a SRS approach, because I was exposed to the words again and again in their context, allowing me to build an “emotional connexion” with the words by associating them with the book. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget what arroyo means after reading Gringo Viejo, same thing with ciénaga in Cien años de soledad. - Reading nonfiction, even on scientific or non-familiar topics, was initially much easier than reading fiction. But as I read more and more fiction, I felt more and more at ease. - The more I read, the more my reading speed increased, meaning the “return on investment” for the time I spent reading is higher now than it was at first. - The author’s writing style has a huge impact on comprehension. I found Rulfo was harder to decipher than Fuentes, which was harder than both García Márquez and Esquivel. I think the reason I liked these last two authors better is directly related to the ease with which I was able to read their works.
I’ll surely decrease the time I spent on reading Spanish in the next few months. My next objective will be 10,000 pages read, but at a much slower pace.
The great thing about reading is that the more I read, the more I discover authors I didn’t know before, or only by name. I have now a long list of Spanish books to read, which I will go through one by one, perhaps at a rate of one book or so per month. Although I enjoy tremendously Latin American literature, I also want to cross the ocean eventually and explore peninsular classics, and one day perhaps to get to know the great Don Quixote in his mother tongue!
I have reached my second objectives in Spanish, i.e. listening to 100 hours of native materials. You can find details below concerning the source of the content:
Alan en el mundo x 34 ep. Radio Ambulante x 32 ep. Diana Uribe x 31 ep. Enchufe TV x 30 ep. Epicentro x 21 ep. Comunica x 17 ep. La Mesa x 16 ep. UNAM radio x 15.5 ep. SuperHolly x 7 ep. Chumel HBO x 3 ep. Audiobooks x 3
A few things I learned while doing this mini challenge:
- While one hour is always one hour, not all hours are equal, because not all kinds of content are equal. As you can see below, I didn't include telenovelas or movies in my challenge. Why? Because both have a much, much lower word-per-minute ratio. I don't remember the exact numbers, but audiobooks, podcasts and radio talk-shows are the kind of content most worthy of your time. The content with the least "bang for your time" are telenovelas and movies. For the same period of time, podcast and audiobooks can have as much as two time the number of words than movies. Fast-paced sitcoms and YouTubers are somewhere in between the two extremes. I have limited time, so I gave myself as much exposure as possible.
- Of course, such word-per-minute ratio is far from the only factor when choosing native material. it would be foolish to based one's study routine solely on that. While I focused on high-intensity content, I also neglected sitcoms with fast dialogues. While I can easily listen to a debate or a serious discussions in Spanish about the Mexican 1917 constitution and understand more than 95% of what is being said, dialogues around daily life events are still challenging. But I intend to close the gap in the next months, thanks to few series I downloaded. Ideally, my next objective will be to reach 200 hours in native materials, but focused around sitcoms, instead of social and political shows.
In Haitian Creole, according to my calculations, I have reached 597 pages read. This is way below the 5,000 pages read in Spanish. But I will try to close the gap during the long flights and bus trips in the coming holidays. I have loaded my phone with Creole books downloaded from Kansas University's website. Let's see if I can bring that figure up to 1,000 in the coming weeks.
I started this log at the end of November, nearly five months ago. I am not sure how often I will be able to update going forward, so I want to take some time to look back and reflect on what has been done.
Over the last 5 months, I studied (almost) daily both Spanish and Haitian Creole, in addition to a number of other, less important, languages. I estimate I spent about 60-70% of my time on Spanish, 20% on Haitian Creole, and around 10% on other languages.
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When I started the log, I took a number of self-assessment tests in Spanish to measure my progress. I retook them this week, so let’s see how much I progressed.
In November 2018, I wrote:
I am currently between A2 and B1, according to Kwiziq. My overall score was 74%, but I passed only 2 levels out of 5 (67.5%, 90.7%, 63.7%, 42.7%, 1.7%).
In April 2019, I retook the test and was classified as CEFR Level C1 – (Advanced). My overall score was 89.6%, but I managed to pass 5 levels this time (respectively, 100%, 82.1%, 78.7%, 72.7% and 68%).
I scored B2.3-B2.4 in December 2018 on the online Cervantes self-assessment test.
I am now classified at the C1.3-C1.4 level, the highest level according to courses offered by Cervantes.
I classified as Upper Intermediate (32/40) in December 2018 on the Cactus Spanish level test.
I am now classified as Advanced (37/40).
I knew 4200 words in December 2018 according to an online Spanish vocab test.
I now know 5200 words, according to the same test.
I scored 85% in December 2018 on the ITRTD Spanish receptive vocabulary.
I improved by 7% and I now score at 92% on the ITRTD test.
Overall, I am quite satisfied with my progress, and I reached my objectives -- although more could have been done. Are those tests reliable? Of course not. I do not take them at face value and nor should anyone. But they are one of the many tools available to assess my progress. As I see it, they are useful only for measuring one’s progress by comparing results over time (given that the test stays the same).
More importantly, I broke a number of “mental” barriers in the last 5 months. For the first time in my life, I read an entire book in Spanish (and proceeded to read many more), I listened to YouTube shows and podcasts in Spanish, I watched an entire movie in Spanish, etc. - Hours and hours enjoying and just consuming daily stuff in a foreign language. Every time I did something new like that, something I didn’t think was possible a few months before, that’s when I felt a real feeling of achievement – much more than when getting encouraging test results.
By far the most important thing I learned in my Spanish journey is how critical it is to transition to native material as soon as possible in the learning process. When I learned Russian and Mandarin, it took me years before leaving behind the “crutches” of learning materials and jumping into native content. What a mistake! I now realize how much time I lost and how much faster I could have progressed. Of course, there is nothing easy about tackling native material early on, but the benefits are so significant, it’s definitely worth it.
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About Haitian Creole, in November 2018, I wrote:
In a short literary story, I understood only 88 words out of 263 words (33%), making it very difficult to follow along.
My reading comprehension and speed have improved tremendously over the last months in HC, even given the (relatively) little time I spent reading (about 10% of the pages read in HC vs. Spanish).
I finished reading Woch Nan Soley by Carrie Paultre yesterday, with only minor comprehension issues. So minor, in fact, that my reading comprehension is better than Spanish, and the few words I don’t know – around 2-3 per page – can be easily guessed based on context.
As for oral comprehension, things also vary widely. I get about 75% of Lawadlamerik host Jacquelin Belizaire’s formal, clear speech.
My comprehension of Lawadlamerik’s international news daily summary in HC has jumped to nearly 100%. Speed is not an issue anymore.
When listening to fast, spontaneous Creole, as it is spoken on Tripotay Lakay, comprehension falls to around 25-40%, depending on the topic.
My comprehension of Tripotay Lakay has also improved a lot, and I estimate it to be about 90%.
I still understand Lawadlamerik better than Tripotay Lakay, but the issue is not speed anymore. The reason is simple and almost unavoidable: Tripotay Lakay mostly addresses local issues in Haiti, and their show is filled with local references (names of Haitian political parties, institutions, politicians, acronyms, local traditions or festivals, local stars, etc.) which I am not familiar with. So, at this point, improving comprehension in HC will mean improving my general knowledge about Haitian society.
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About Ukrainian, I thought I would share a very interesting development that took place this week (beside the elections, I mean). Poroshenko pushed for a new official language law, and it appears to be one of the most radical laws in the CIS in the matter, at least that I know of. You can read more about it here.
One of the provisions of the law is to create a "state-run center for the Ukrainian language to issue certificates that confirm the language fluency of Ukrainian citizens." Now that's interesting, at least from a language-learner perspective! I wonder if foreign citizens will be eligible to take the test and receive the certificate as well? I know of many Canadians who would love to do so. Anyway, it will interesting to see how the new president will react to this new law, and it might give us a sneak-peek of what's to come.
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In Persian/Farsi, just a few thoughts for now.
- I am continuing to explore the language and it definitely brings me joy. I am currently at lessons 25 in Persian Assimil. The course is slow - much slower than all other Assimil courses I ever completed. So slow in fact I can easily do two lessons a day without having much difficulty remembering any of the words or grammar. But this is to be expected: the alphabet takes some time getting used to.
- I have to say that, as someone who was always intimidated by Arabic/Persian/Urdu/etc. script, it is not that much a problem after all. Despite being very slow in introducing the script (or maybe precisely because it is so slow), Assimil does a terrific job at teaching you how to read and write. I've been copying by hand each lesson two times in a notebook, I have written around 40 pages as of now, and I am surprised at just how fast my hand and brain have gotten used to writing/reading from right to left. I also installed a Persian keyboard on my phone and typing has never been so easy.
- I will definitely finish the Persian Assimil course, and we shall see afterwards if I decide to continue my study or leave it at that. Despite the fact that I have zero Iranian friends and that travelling to Iran would be extremely difficult, I found a number of great Iranian songs on YouTube, and so this is enough to keep my interest going, at least for now. Here's one:
Purangi wrote:...By far the most important thing I learned in my Spanish journey is how critical it is to transition to native material as soon as possible in the learning process. When I learned Russian and Mandarin, it took me years before leaving behind the “crutches” of learning materials and jumping into native content. What a mistake! I now realize how much time I lost and how much faster I could have progressed. Of course, there is nothing easy about tackling native material early on, but the benefits are so significant, it’s definitely worth it. ...
Yes, it can be quite frustrating being thrown into the deep end. For me, this has been the key to my success with language-learning. The synergy of studying alongside working with the language in the real world makes my learning faster, easier and more enjoyable. It is quite powerful.
Purangi wrote:...I finished reading Woch Nan Soley by Carrie Paultre yesterday, with only minor comprehension issues. So minor, in fact, that my reading comprehension is better than Spanish, and the few words I don’t know – around 2-3 per page – can be easily guessed based on context. ...My comprehension of Lawadlamerik’s international news daily summary in HC has jumped to nearly 100%. Speed is not an issue anymore. ...I still understand Lawadlamerik better than Tripotay Lakay, but the issue is not speed anymore. The reason is simple and almost unavoidable: Tripotay Lakay mostly addresses local issues in Haiti, and their show is filled with local references (names of Haitian political parties, institutions, politicians, acronyms, local traditions or festivals, local stars, etc.) which I am not familiar with. So, at this point, improving comprehension in HC will mean improving my general knowledge about Haitian society.
"Wòch nan dlo pa konnen doulè wòch nan solèy/The rock in the water doesn't know the pain of the rock in the sun." You and I are probably the only two forum members to have read this book and know who the author is. I should go back and re-read it.
I, too, understand Lavwadlamerik's international news better than the local Haitian news because, like you, I am not as familiar with Haitian society. The Vodou Archive in the Digital Library of the Caribbean has helped me a lot in this regard- especially reading and listening to the interviews of houngans with Benjamin Hebblethwaite. Vodou is a huge influence on almost all things Haitian. They also have a podcast in the DLOC produced by the US Embassy several years ago called "Demokrasi pou tout moun: Edikasyon pou Devlope Yon Kilti Demokrasi" (no transcript) which helps to give context to local political issues in the form of a radio-novela. I'm currently reading "Papa Dòk" in Kreyòl which helps to explain what was going on in Haiti back in the 60's and 70's with repercussions and reverberations still influencing Haiti today. Of course, all of Haitian history informs what's going on there today. They've been struggling in the aftermath of the revolution for over 200 years. The same issues are still there today as they were back then.
You have done exceptionally well with both HC and Spanish in such a short amount of time while living in China, Purangi. You should write a guest post about it on the static forum page. Bon kouray!
好久不见！I just came back from a long trip in the Balkans and Eastern Europe. Long hours spent on the bus and airplane mean I was able to add around 1,000 pages to my Spanish reading. Mostly from Montaner and Garcia Marquez. Nothing for Haitian Creole, though. I was on such strong momentum in Persian before leaving for vacations, but I completely lost it. I question whether I should continue with it. To say the truth, thinking of the seafood pasta I had in Trieste, the sirens of Italian seem particularly attractive! Oh, wanderlust, you got me again! Below are a few thoughts about the region and its languages, nothing serious.
Mutual intelligibility between Slavic languages never ceases to amaze me. With my Russian, I was able to read without any major problem almost all menus, public signs and museums explanations in Serbo-Croatian, Slovenian and Macedonian.
And this is not limited to written language, especially for Macedonian. While in Ohrid, I bumped into Stevo Pendarovski, who was elected to the Presidency of North Macedonia on May 12th. His campaign held a public meeting in the main square where he addressed his supporters. I listened to some of the (formal and political) speeches and I was shocked to realize how much I understood, perhaps somewhere around 70%-80%. And that’s with zero background in either Macedonian or Bulgarian. This just shows how much Macedonian is close to Russian, something I had already witnessed in Sofia. I feel that I could achieve pretty good comprehension very fast if I stayed for a few weeks there.
After crossing into Serbia and Croatia, I came up with a theory that Serbo-Croatian is nothing more than Russian pronounced with a strong Italian accent. Don’t quote me on that, I may be wrong. Joking apart, it was interesting to see that despite the consequences of the conflict still being felt and the evident animosity in the air, Serbian is still very spoken in Kosovo, even by (relatively) young people in their 30s. Another surprise was Albania, where German seemed much more common than English.
Slovenia was another story, although a related one. I was still able to read much of what I saw in Slovenian, but hearing was on another level, much more difficult than BCS.
Overall, the Balkans are really an incredible region, full of surprises. Sunsets over Ohrid lake, Prizren and Rovinj are not to be missed for anyone traveling in the region — specially when compared to the freaky Disneyland that is Dubrovnik. Perhaps the only disappointment was the local cuisine. I never thought I would say that but there is such a thing as too much BBQ. The region was surprisingly free of tourists - until Slovenia, that is. From there, basically every tourist spot is a hub for Mandarin, Korean and Cantonese speakers. A good way to get listening practice is to follow one of their tour guides and listen to the explanations - always interesting, although it get repetitive fast.
We did a short stop in Trieste. It was my third time in Italy and although I never studied a word of Italian, I found that my oral comprehension had improved quite a lot compared to last year. I believe much of the improvement is due to my progress in Spanish. It is incredible that I am able to decipher between 90%-100% of written signs in Italian in museums, public transportation and hotels, without having spent a single minute studying the language. I did a quick research and found out that Italian has a much more common vocabulary with French than Spanish- and I can totally believe that. I picked up a bilingual English-Italian poetry book on the road and went through it on the train to Budapest. The translation is quite accurate and made for a nice exercise in comparing both languages.
It seems like the time spent on Spanish really paid off and trickled down to other Romance languages. I say “it seems” because I ear-dropped the conversation of an older Spanish-speaking couple in Rovinj and could hardly make up what they were saying... To comfort myself I keep telling myself they were perhaps Chileans.
Once again, I bumped into a Ukrainian living in Italy and was able to have a long conversation in Russian with her about her immigration experience, war in the Donbass, life as an immigrant in Trieste, etc. She and her husband have a guesthouse -by far one of the best I ever stayed in- and it was a real pleasure conversing with them. Good speaking practice and good Italian food, what more can I ask!
After two weeks in South Slavic lands, it was a small shock to cross into Hungary. It was like becoming deaf, mute and illiterate all of a sudden. Stranger in a strange land. Very disturbing! This did not stop me from enjoying Budapest, of course, which is beautiful (even if somewhat unwelcoming to foreigners).
We met a very nice Korean guide in Budapest who happens to be married to an Hungarian man. Her husband has spent nearly a year in Korea and managed to achieve very high comprehension skills in Korean, but his spoken language is still weak, according to her. On her part, she has learned Hungarian to a high level, thanks in part to EU sponsored courses, high enough to be eligible to the Hungarian nationality test. We had nice a conversation about immigration to Europe and although I could only talk in English[/b, it was a nice listening practice for [b]Korean.
Then it was back to Slavic land in Poland. Like BCS, Polish was strangely familiar, up to a point where I could understand many words when spoken out loud, sometimes a full sentence, but never a full conversation. The spelling system makes it hard to read, but not so much as to impede comprehension. I had an interesting encounter in the hotel where I was staying. I overheard the two cleaning ladies talking to each other and I swore I could understand everything they were saying in Polish—how amazing, I thought! That’s when I realized they were gastarbeiters from Ukraine speaking Russian. Oh well...
Not much study over the last week. I have been caught up in work. I recently signed a contract to translate a large book from Mandarin into French. The book is on the Cultural Revolution and was written by some Party bigshots, so mistakes are no-no, and that’s going to take much of my time over the next two months or so.
Even if it’s a job – with everything negative and frustrating that this involves – sometimes I stop and take stock of how far I came with Chinese. I started learning Mandarin out of nothing. No background, no experience, nothing but my motivation and a digital copy of FSI Mandarin. That was 10 years ago, in the summer of 2008. If you had told me at that time that I would move to China, graduate from a Chinese university, find employment here and end up translating books written by Xi Dada, I would have laughed at you. And yet, here I am.
That’s why I love languages – they open up new paths, new life choices, a whole new world of opportunities. The exciting thing is that no one can possibly know in advance what these opportunities will be, nor when they will come. They will just appear during or after the learning process, and it is up to you to seize them. The only thing you need to do is keep up learning, so that when the opportunity comes, you are ready to seize it.
I am sure Spanish and Haitian Creole will also open up new opportunities in the future. All I need is to never give up. This is also why I am so happy when I see members on the forum getting into new languages. Who knows where will that lead them in 3, 5 or 10 years?
Beside work, I did complete the first 10 lessons of Assimil Italian and half of Italian for Reading Knowledge. Italian is a real pleasure to shadow; the language feels smooth, not tense at all. It’s on pause for now, and I don’t know yet if I will pursue it in the future. I keep a regular contact with Haitian Creole through my Facebook feed and the occasional Youtube videos. I also listen to Haitian music at least one time per day.
I read two more books in Spanish, both are biographies of Simon Bolivar. Interestingly, the first one is very critical of his actions, basically describing Bolivar as a failed Napoleonesque figure who wanted to replace the King. The other one is perhaps exceedingly positive, and portrays Bolivar as an eternal victim of caudillism and betrayal. Both books include letters personally written by Bolivar, and it was interesting to see how little Spanish has evolved since 1820s.
Last week I met an acquaintance from my workplace from the Esperanto translation department. I wanted to write something about Esperanto for some time but didn’t know where to do it, so I’ll just do it here. Just take it as my personal experience with the language, and nothing more. There is enough Esperanto bashing around the web and I don’t want to add any more to it. I have nothing against Esperanto, Esperantists and Esperantism, on the contrary.
I was always attracted to the idea of conlangs, but I never saw the point of learning one, because no one I knew could speak one. But I was immediately attracted to Esperanto on an intellectual level - it looked like a great challenge at first, but it felt too remote and not relatable. I only started to really think about the idea of learning it after meeting my first speaker here in Beijing, in 2016. The fact is Esperanto is somewhat well established in China, mostly in publicly-funded propaganda institutions such as China Radio International and El Popola Ĉinio. I work in one if these publishing groups, and I met her by complete chance in the cafeteria. She told me she had learned the international language as a requirement as part of her B.A. in modern languages at Beijing Foreign Language University (her major was German). She mentioned it very casually, as if it was something totally normal.
I started studying the language with Duolingo not long after. It struck me as easy, but definitely not very melodic (depending on the accent of the speaker) and not that easy, i.e. it could have been much easier, in my opinion. Some things irritated me, as the tendency to cut the final vowel in spoken language. But overall I loved it; I loved how the language felt flexible and how all learners were, theoretically, on an equal footing when speaking it. Not long after completing the course, I was able to read articles in Esperanto. I had much fun reading some of the speeches given by the Doctor Esperanto at international congresses back then. I liked it and seriously considered going to local meetings and becoming active in the community.
I started contacting some other members of the Esperanto staff here in my workplace, mostly through the Esperanto-sponsored application Amikumu. We discussed the language and its ideology. Something bugged me tough: I was surprised to see that the local Esperanto translation team hired foreigners, including one Brazilian.
One day, I asked one the Chinese staff why it was necessary to hire foreign workers. Esperanto is (almost) no-one’s native language; surely a well-trained, experienced Chinese can speak the language as well as any foreigner?
She was very categorical in her answer: no. In fact, she explained that due to the internal structure of the language, and the fact that it came from the mind of an Indo-European speaker, Esperantists from other linguistic backgrounds can never speak as good as someone from a Latin background. When it comes to Chinese speakers, years of experience can shorten the gap, but can never close it completely, she said.
I was very disappointed to hear that. In my mind, this simple fact completely undermined the whole idea sustaining the language in the first place. What’s the point of an international language if most of the Earth population will never be able to speak it as good as the people born into the Latin club of the Indo-European family? (said a professional Esperanto translator with more than 20-year experience with the language, not me…). After that, I completely lost my motivation to learn it. (It probably wasn’t strong enough in the first place, I know).
I still occasionally read Libera Folio to stay up to date with Esperanto gossip. She may have been wrong, who knows. Sometimes I wonder what kind of opportunities I missed by dropping Esperanto?
I've always heard/read that the agglutinative nature of Esperanto made it approachable for Chinese speakers, although admittedly I've never met a Chinese Esperanto speaker.
IronMike wrote:I've always heard/read that the agglutinative nature of Esperanto made it approachable for Chinese speakers, although admittedly I've never met a Chinese Esperanto speaker.
It might! Especially for morphology. I remember that word formation is really intuitive in Esperanto, just like in Mandarin.
If you happen to come to the PRC, you can definitely hang out with Esperantists, and not just in the capital. I think it would be perfectly possible to travel all over China by relying on nothing but Esperanto to make friends.
You will find an Esperanto Museum in Shandong. There is activeEsperanto forum nationwide. There is an online bookstore. There used to be an intensive summer class in Xi’an, although I don’t know if it’s still active. There was a discussion club in Beijing shortly after the launch of Amikumu, not sure now. Many Chinese Esperantists have active blogs (although mostly in Chinese) such as this one.
Last edited by Purangi on Sat Jun 08, 2019 11:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.
In Creole, after a hiatus of a few weeks, I started to read and listen again to native materials.
I am almost through the action-packed 1600s thriller “The Pilgrim's Progress”, from John Bunyan, in Haitian Creole. The prose is easy and simple, and kind of remind me of Atrave Labib. No exactly my cup of tea, but I will still finish it.
Speaking of bible studies, I recently downloaded an application on my phone that contains the New Testament in Haitian Creole, both text and audio. For what I see online, the NT has around 500-600 pages, that means about 20 hours of audio material… Sounds like a challenge! I never seem to get away from religious stuff in HC, but I guess it’s a big part of the culture. I am not religious myself, but having an entire ebook + complete dramatized audio on my phone is so convenient, it would be a sin not too use it...
iguanamon wrote:They also have a podcast in the DLOC produced by the US Embassy several years ago called "Demokrasi pou tout moun: Edikasyon pou Devlope Yon Kilti Demokrasi" (no transcript) which helps to give context to local political issues in the form of a radio-novela.
Thanks, that podcast is a real find! Voices are crispy clear, actors are convincing, music between the sketches is awesome and most importantly, the content is actually interesting.
I have also been reading Woy Magazine — there is really some great stuff there, including well written and very interesting articles about both recent and historical issues in Haiti, like the article you linked to on Toussaint. I just wished they would update more frequently, but I guess good things take time.
I also found out that Assimil used to sell a Sans Peine book for Guadeloupian Creole! It was written by Lagarde and Michard, who apparently are a big deal in Guadeloupe, as they were among the first ones to introduce Guadeloupian Creole in classrooms, especially to help kids with learning problems -- effectively going against the French Republic’s official policies at the time. You can imagine the kind of resistance they met — and not just from the Hexagone, but also from locals.
Unfortunately, it is now discontinued, but there are still used copies here and there on Ebay and Amazon. I am definitely considering buying one, with the CDs. As iguanamon showed it, it appears possible to use HC as a “springboard” to access other regional French based creoles. The problem is to find native materials in Martinican, Guadeloupian, etc., creoles. HC has a profusion of native materials, but with huge discrepancy in quality, and I tend to assume other creoles face a similar problem. I did find an interesting interview show on YouTube called ZIETAJ from Groupe France TV, in Martinique creole.
Anyway, I am not in a hurry with HC. My goal is to keep it fresh for the time being, at least until I confirm my first trip to Haiti. That’s when I will take out all my audio materials again and work through them intensively, in order to actually use the language on the ground.
To comfort myself I keep telling myself they were perhaps Chileans.