Purangi's Log

[Purangi]

Here's a preliminary list of the resources I will use in this blog. I might come back and add more as I move forward.

For HC, in no particular order:

- Pimsleur Haitian Creole (I only have access to the first 10 lessons)
- Ann Pale Kreyòl: An Introductory Course in Haitian Creole by Albert Valdman and Renote Rosemond
- Ti koze kreyòl: a Haitian-Creole conversation manual by Bryant Freeman
- Survival Creole by Bryant Freeman
- Chita Pa Bay: Elementary Readings in Haitian Creole by Bryant Freeman
- Tonton Liben by Bryant Freeman et al.
- DLI Haitian Creole
- [In French] Interesting Creole vs French comparative grammar

Dictionaries:

- Definisyon 2500 mo Kreyòl
- Diksyone Angle Kreyol, 10,000 words
- Creole Lingo

After this, I shall be able to dig into rich native content freely available online, including the many YouTube channels such as TV Creole, Metropole Tele, Haiti Media 1 and Tripotay Lakay (for political content) and the extraordinary corpus of Haitian Creole interviews made available by the Creole Institute at Indiana University with both audio and transcripts (for cultural content).

As mentioned above, kudos to iguanamon for putting together an excellent and exhaustive list of resources for HC (quoted above). Similar lists, though not as extensive, can be found here and here. French-speaking learners can also look here for more resources.

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For Papiamentu, materials are much more limited. Not sure how I will proceed yet, but I will probably start with the few textbooks that are available online and proceed with native materials right away – not my usual way of going at language learning, but it might be an interesting experience.

- Papiamentu Textbook by E.R.Goilo
- Getting Around the Islands in Papiamentu (phrasebook) by Terry Dovale et al.
- The blog Papiamentu tur dia looks also like an interesting source from where to learn vocabulary and some grammar points.
- Henky's Papiamento on YouTube
- Papiamentu Basiko developed by Kathy Taylor
- Papiamentu for Beginners on Unilang
- Papiamento Living Abroad Phrasebook

Other tools:

- Donamaro has an automatic online translator (!) for Papiamentu.

Some native materials:

- There is an entire movie in Papiamento on Jesus’ life
- Awe24 (Aruba)
- Diario (Aruba)
- Cariflix
- TeleCuracao
- WEB Aruba
- APM Radio

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Bon kouraj!

[Purangi]

Bonjou!

Over the last week, I have completed the 10 first lessons of Haitian Creole Pimsleur. It’s all I have access to right now, but I hope to eventually continue later on if I can get my hands on lessons 11-30 through my local library. It was good for teaching basic pronunciation and some syntax. I have extracted the dialogues and combined them in a single, 5-minute long file, which I will repeat a few times per week. I love Pimsleur because it gets me talking – even if only to myself… I have a tendency to become lazy and excessively rely on reading.

I also completed the first eight lessons of Ann Pale Kreyol, which basically covers Pimsleur’s grammar content with extra vocabulary. Let me quote some things I found interesting from the textbook’s introduction:

Few today would challenge the notion that [Haitian Creole] is a language in its own right, and although its vocabulary is indeed about 90% French-based, that it is neither a pidginized nor a derivative form of French.

I could not agree more.

On this topic, I haven’t decided which method I should adopt for memorizing non-transparent words or expressions. Should I look for their most probable French origins and use them as a “detour” to learn the Creole equivalent? (For example, learning “Kijan ou rele?” through “Quel genre vous héler ?” – weird but understandable) Or should I just focus on learning Creole expressions as they are, as completely new words, without linking them to their French ancestry? The latter would definitely help assimilate the spelling, while the former makes it easier to remember new words and expressions, but might hurt my fluency in the long term by increasing French interference… Suggestions are welcome on this point!

Since the 1940’s three spelling systems have been proposed, all of which provide a systematic way to represent the sounds of the language in a way that is independent of French. In 1979 [the latest and current] spelling was given formal recognition by the Haitian government. Today, nearly all materials in the language, both in Haiti and in U.S. Haitian communities, make use of that system, and it is the one employed in this course.

As a proof of how deep French influence on Creole was (and still is?), it is interesting to note that the two previous spelling systems (McConnell-Laubach and Faublas-Pressoir) were etymological in nature, and thus much closer to French cognates. This is not the case of the current system.

Kreyòl pale, Kreyòl konprann “What is expressed in Creole is clear” (as versus French, the language associated with duplicity and obfuscation).

Some things I found confusing at this point:

- Although it’s pretty clear on both Pimsleur and Ann Pale Kreole recordings, I have a hard time hearing the final “m” or “l” when used as clitics after verbs or nouns, such as in “konmè-m”, “ba-l”. I am not sure I will be able to distinguish them in fast-paced Creole!

- Nou means both we and you (all). This sounds a bit confusing, but I can’t wait to see how it goes in real conversation.

- I am confused about the use of the hyphen or lack thereof to link clitic to verbs and nouns? Some authors seem to use it, others no.

Meanwhile, I have been reading over the last few days The Rainy Season by Amy Wilentz about the last days of Jean-Claude Duvalier aka Bebe Dòk and the rise of Aristide. I recommend it. On a linguistic note, the book contains many interesting words related to social and political events that took place in Haiti in the late 80s, but that are still used today, such as dechoukaj, rache manyok, kraze brize, dyas, etc.

To finish, here is my short review of Wilentz’s book written in kreyòl (with the great help of my dictionary). It is my first attempt at writing HC since I have started learning. Enjoy!

Jodi-a mwen te fini li youn liv sou istwa Ayiti. Liv sa rele Rainy Season. Otè liv sa se Amy Wilentz. Li se youn jounalis amerikèn, men li pale e konprann kreyòl ayisyen. Li te viv nan Ayiti pandan fen rejim Duvalier ak premye eleksyon nan peyi Ayiti apre Bebe Dòk te sove ale Lafrans. Kounye-a, l’ap viv nan peyi Etazini, kote li se pwofesè inivèsite. Li anseye jounalism.

Se youn liv interesan, emouvan ak detaye. Liv sa rakonte istwa Ayiti nan fen rejim Duvalier. Lè Ayiti t’ap subi gwo chanjman yo. Anplis, otè se yon zanmi Titid. Liv sa te ekri nan angle, men gen ladan ampil mo kreyòl ayisyen, pou egzanp dechoukaj, rache manyok, kleren, san manman, vagabon, ak ampil lòt. Dayè otè pale sou lòt problem yo Ayiti tankou debwazman. Pou mwen, liv sa se interesan, paske m’te aprann ampil bagay yo sou politik ak istwa Ayiti.

Bon kouraj!

[iguanamon]

On this topic, I haven’t decided which method I should adopt for memorizing non-transparent words or expressions. Should I look for their most probable French origins and use them as a “detour” to learn the Creole equivalent? (For example, learning “Kijan ou rele?” through “Quel genre vous héler ?” – weird but understandable) Or should I just focus on learning Creole expressions as they are, as completely new words, without linking them to their French ancestry? The latter would definitely help assimilate the spelling, while the former makes it easier to remember new words and expressions, but might hurt my fluency in the long term by increasing French interference… Suggestions are welcome on this point!

While I have yet to learn an English based Creole language (there are some- Sranan Tongo, Krio) I do have experience with learning languages similar to others I have learned. My advice is to treat and learn kreyòl as the separate language as it is and let French inform that learning. In other words, you can "keep your French in your back pocket" and bring it up when you need it but don't try to see kreyòl through a French prism. Eventually, it will become clear to you and your French will help you rather than hinder you. I'll explain.

When I first started learning Portuguese, I had already learned Spanish to C1. I thought "Wow this will be so easy! I'll learn Portuguese through Spanish!" There are several "Portuguese through Spanish" courses and Spanish based Portuguese courses. I found that it was just making me see Portuguese through Spanish. It wasn't until I started the DLI Portuguese Basic Course (almost monolingual- minimal English) that I began to see Portuguese as a language in its own right and then I could use my Spanish to help me.

To answer your question, yes, I think you should learn Haitian as it is and as your base in the language grows, you will naturally see how it relates to French, but don't make that the prime focus of your learning.

Seeing that you've read "The Rainy Season" brings back memories. I read the book years ago and it was the first spark of interest in the country and its language I had. What a shame it hasn't been translated to Kreyòl.

I didn't use the "Ann Pale Kreyòl" course even though it is still sitting on my hard drive with it's usable audio tracks, because I had such a great experience with the DLI course in Portuguese. Of course. The HC Basic Course has barely listenable to horrible to awful and unusable audio, but it is amazingly thorough and really teaches the basics well, despite the audio being unusable at times. Fortunately kreyòl is easy to pronounce once the pronunciation is learned, so I didn't really need the audio when I didn't have it. I'm looking forward to seeing how you advance with APK.

Pou mwen, liv sa se interesan, paske m’te aprann ampil bagay yo sou politik ak istwa Ayiti.

I won't correct your kreyòl because, as a general rule, I don't like to correct learners in my L2's, but the word I bolded is generally spelled anpil. At first I thought it was just a typo but it's in the text twice. There is a spell checker available for kreyòl in Firefox and OpenOffice that can help (but it isn't perfect- maybe 85%). For your first effort in writing kreyòl, well done! I understood everything. You're on your way!

Bon travay ! Bòn chans !

[Purangi]

I started a new routine in Haitian Creole: every morning, I start my day with one video and one article from Lavwadlamerik. I am getting more and more used to the phonetic alphabet – it took me time to stop reading “en” as ã, instead of ɛ˜.

I am at lesson 18 in Ann Pale Kreyòl. Recordings are available only for the first few lessons (until 8 or 9), so I’ve been reading texts, the too-few grammar explanations and slowly getting acquainted with new words over the last few lessons.

The textbook contains very little grammar explanations. So few that I felt a little lost at times. This is probably due to the fact that the book does not appear to be targeted at self-learners. A good teacher may very well be able to fill the gap, but for a sole learner like me, it’s confusing. One thing that bothered me was the inconsistency in spelling – seeing the same word spelled differently across lessons (sometimes in the same lesson) is a real headache. Some translations are confusing or at least misleading. Overall I would not recommend this book for self-learners, despite the high-quality audio for the first few lessons.

Luckily, Michel DeGraff’s Kreyòl Ayisyen has been a great help to fill the gaps. It gives a perfect overview of all aspects of HC grammar a beginner learner could possibly need. This is a highly recommended read for learners who are not grammar-averse!

A few things still are confusing at the moment, and I will need to explore more in depth later, i.e. “pou” used as “a (quasi-)modal” (ki pou te vini, who had to come) and “pa” sometimes used as an “emphatic possessive adjective” (liv pa l la, ‘HIS book’).

Meanwhile, I found a huge (7540) shared deck for Haitian Creole on Anki. How nice is that! I will probably just start digging in to increase reading fluency as soon as possible.

Apart from that, it has been nice to note a number of common points between Canadian French and HC – although not really surprising, it is certainly fascinating to Haitians use some expressions I thought remained only alive in Canadian countryside. “Abitan” (habitant) used to refer to farmers, the way “icit”, “fèt”, “frèt”, “tanzantan” are pronounced, and even the ever-present post-nominal definite article “la” are definitely things you find in French-speaking communities in Canada.

Other words and expressions are so pleasant to my ears that they by themselves make learning the language worth it. Things like “M’ gen grangou” (grand goût?) ou “anpil” (en pile) are nothing short of charming.

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Although I write mostly about HC, most of my language learning efforts – about 80% – are focused on Spanish.

I started learning Spanish about a year ago, first with Duolingo and a few newspapers articles here and there. Needless to say, I was not doing much progress – I feel the gamification aspect of Duolinguo is more about creating the illusion of progress, while in fact, I did not see any improvement in any of my skills. It was frustrating. Then I decided to plunge into Pimsleur and Platiquemos – after just a few weeks, I could see how my spoken Spanish had improved and I felt reading was becoming easier.

Now, not a day goes by without me either learning or reviewing a new FSI lesson or shadowing old Pimsleur lessons. I start and end my commute listening to Silvio Rodríguez. Lately, I spend about 40 minutes on my day just reading and listening to 1984. It’s amazing how much progress you can notice in just a few days: the narrator’s voice is getting clearer, I can distinguish words more and more easily, I can better identify the preterit, imperfect subjunctive, etc., I pick up words from context, etc.

You know that feeling, right? When you get to a point where you finally start enjoying not only the process of learning the language, but actual things in the target language. This is an amazing feeling. If scientists could find a way to capture it and sell it as a narcotic, I would surely become addicted overnight (as many others on this forum would, I think).

As someone who used to cycle a lot, I can only compare it to the pure joy and relief you feel when you finally approach the end of a long climb: slowly but surely, the gradient starts to diminish, you can feel your bike coming into a horizontal position, and you reach that high plateau you’ve been looking at for so long. I am starting to feel this in Spanish. I will take quite a few more weeks before I get there, but I already know I will, and it’s great. Just a few more thousands repetitions to go!

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And don’t go thinking that I have given up on Papiamentu! This is certainly not the case, although I did decide to delay this one until after Christmas and New Year. Meanwhile, I have been harvesting resources all over the Web in preparations, looking for anything that could be useful – without much success, I have to say. I read through Expugnator’s excellent blog Papiamentu cuts in line, which has proven to be very useful in this respect, as he introduces a number of good resources, including the amazing Izaline Caliste.

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To conclude, a song in HC.

Music is a very important part of why and how I learn languages, and so I have been looking for HC songs to listen while commuting. I found the beautiful song “Ayiti Se” by MikaBen. Not only is the song full of references to Haiti’s geographical and cultural features (very useful for tourists, it is also a perfect demonstration of how to use “Se” and “S’on”. You can find lyrics in HC and translated into English here.

Ayiti se bèl lanmè se bèl montay ak bèl rivyè
Se bèl plaj ak pye kokoye bèl peyizaj ak bèl koulè



Fun fact: Code switching appears to be common among certain Haitians, especially bilingual politicians. They will be speaking HC and then, out of the blue, insert a whole sentence in perfect, Parisian-accented French. When I first listened to the song, I also thought MikaBen was switching to French: “Ayiti, son...” (Haiti, her…). It’s only yesterday, looking at the lyrics, that I realized he was actually using the contracted form of “Se yon”... I am so used of hearing French words in HC that I now hear them even when they are not there… Talk about interference!

Ala bèl chante o ! M’ale, orevwa !

[Purangi]

Due to an unexpected lavalas of Haitian Creole materials, I have my work cut out for me for the next few months. I am now done with Ann Pale Kreyol (APK), and I plan to go right to DLI after Christmas, as it seems to be the most comprehensive material for HC available anywhere. The course was first written in 1973 but updated in 1994. In the meantime, I will complete Pimsleur lessons 11-30 and start shadowing APK recordings on a daily basis. Pimsleur is working great for me. Voice is very good quality and speed is fast enough, at least compared to other Pimsleur courses I did.

I talked in my last post of how few grammar explanations there are in APK. I spoke too fast: the last few lessons contain much more detailed explanations, in addition to a small but very good dictionary of voodoo-related terms.

So many things that were not clear start to make sense now. Interesting that there is an exercise in APK entitled “Let’s speak real native Creole.” The exercise consists in removing the particle “ke,” seen as “too French,” from a set of sentences. According to APK, the particle is superfluous. I noted that VOA uses “ke” quite often. For example, the sentence: pa le fèt ke 2 gwoup should actually be written pa le fèt 2 gwoup. As a French speaker, this is definitely something I should pay attention to.

I have continued my daily routine of reading and listening to news in Haitian Creole on VOA over the last week. I started reading out loud to practice pronunciation. I noticed some progress, in that the phonetic alphabet is slowly getting easier to decipher. Listening is also becoming easier, especially on second time. I can pretty much understand the hosts – but not so much the interviewees. And I still have a hard time clearly distinguishing post-nominal articles. Although I set myself a small objective of one article and one video per day, I often end up going down the rabbit hole and reading all the news for that day. The VOA Creole app on my phone has been very helpful for that.

I find absolutely fascinating some of the colorful and imaginative expressions used in HC to describe political news and events. Some of these expressions exist in French (although they would not be used in a formal context such as a news report), while other are completely new to me. I compiled a few of my favorite below (please note the translations are mine and might not be 100% accurate):

Mobilizasyon Manch Long – Long-term mobilization? (literally, long-sleeve mobilization)
Chavire chodyè – lit. topple the cauldron?
Deboulonnen rejim – lit. unbolt the regime
Bat bravo – To cheer? (lit. to hit bravo)
Tonbe pip – To fall like a log
Kase brize – Vandalism (to break and to crush)
Rache manyok bay te a blanch – Uproot the manioc, and clear the land.
Fè bouch mwen long – To make me angry (lit. To make my mouth long)
Rejim ap naje nan koripsyon – The regime is swimming in corruption
Gen kè sote – To be anxious/surprised (To have one’s heart jumping)
Mete plis absè sou klou – Add insult to injury (an abscess on top of a blister)
Leve kampe – To rise and stand up (To protest?)
Fès fas kare – To confront (lit. To do a square face)
fè kou mèt Jan Jak – To do whatever you can (lit. something about Jean and Jacques)
Te chita sou– Depend on/rely on (lit. To sit on)
frape kòn – To lock horns (lit. to hit horns)

And perhaps the funniest of all:

Pal franse pa di lespri pou sa – Speaking French does not mean you say smart things.

sweetcoconuts.blogspot.com has been an incredible resource for finding expressions or words that are hard to find in dictionaries. I use it as a reference tool, but I might consider going through it in a more systematic way later on.

Other than that, I have been working on the Anki deck for HC. I have reviewed about 6-7 percent of the deck at present. It appears to be a compilation of thousands of words and phrases harvested from the Internet and textbooks. I use it just for reading comprehension, and not the other way around, as I do not feel comfortable enough right now to really produce anything in the language. There are some mistakes (mostly typos) in the deck, not a lot, but maybe around 1% of the cards. But instead of finding this annoying, I like it. It forces me to always stay alert, double-check my answer and correct some of the cards. It is like doing an exercise of “find and correct the mistakes,” except there are 7,500 questions!

Overall, if there’s one thing I am glad for, is that I don’t have to learn any of the numbers, days of the week, names of the months in HC: they are basically the same as in French, except for so minor pronunciation tweaks. This is great, as there is nothing more boring for me than learning these in any language.

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I have been collecting podcasts and other resources for when I am done with FSI Spanish. I have become really interested a few months ago in the 30-Day Speaking Challenge over at Huggins International. I have read discussions on this forum and listened to an interview with the initiator of the project. It seems a great idea and a very good learning objective for me. I feel that the efforts needed to sit down, think about a subject, compose a short text and record it, every day for one month, is exactly the kind of exercise that could challenge me and push me forward. If everything goes well, I hope to participate in a Speaking Challenge for Spanish and HC in 2019. And why not Papiamentu as well? For that, I will first need to open my textbook.

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Due to recent events that took place in Vancouver, I had to read much more Chinese than usual throughout the week. I became curious to know if there were any HC resources in Mandarin, and so I did some research. There does not seem to be any good resource, despite HC apparently being taught at Beijing Foreign Studies University.

While doing so, I was reminded of something interesting that I had forgotten: Haiti in Mandarin is written 海地, pronounced Hai3 Di4. Not only does the name makes sense (it literally means sea and land, therefore something like an island), the pronunciation is actually quite close to the autonym, at least when compared to how other nations are called in Mandarin – most of the names are unrecognizable to non-Mandarin speakers.

Mwen pa vle pale politik isit la, men tout semèn la, mwen menm ak madanm mwen ap li nouvèl yo chak jou. Lachin ap frape kòn ak Kanada paske yon lidè biznis Chinwa la ki te arete nan Vancouver. Lè nou konnen nouvèl sa a, mwen ak madanm mwen te gen kè sote, paske se movè anpil pou nou. Jij Kanada te di se Ameriken yo ki vle arete li, paske li te swadizan vann teknoloji pou Iran. Apre arestasyon, gouvènman Chinwa te fe gwo eskandal epi ap kritike anpil Kanada. Bagay sa a se trè chofe. Pou mwen ki se Kanadyen ki vi Lachin, se yon gwo pwoblèm. Se pa klè ankò ki sa Lachin a fè, men deja yo te arete de sitwayen Kanadyen yo. Nou pa konnen ki jan abouti istwa sa a. Nenpòt ki jan, mwen gen espwa m’ pa gen pwoblèm ak otorite Chinwa yo, si Bondye vle.

As usual, I will leave you with a beautiful Creole song. This one is called Mwen ta renmen konen by Rodrigue Milien. The original can be found here, but I have a preference for an acoustic cover by a young lady named Kajessa. The first two lines should give you some idea of the melancholic but beautiful mood of the song:

Mwen ta renmen konnen dat e jou map mouri
pou m' kapab jwi lavi m, mwen deja konsanti

I would like to know the date and time of my death
So that I can enjoy my life, I'm ready



M’ale, a pi ta!

[Purangi]

I have been peeking for the past couple of days in the Haitian Creole comment sections of Facebook, mostly on Lavwadlamerik, to see how much I could understand. Surprisingly, more than I thought. Although the spelling is often off and some abbreviated words throw me off, I can get most of what is being discussed. From what I saw, arguments there can be as vicious and unequivocal as in any other languages, but at least some commentators are well versed in the art of the insult, which provides for colorful posts! For example:

You oganizasyon san mantal san manman canibal kap mache touye kraze brize brile tout sal jwenn sou chemenl e yo sanwont.

Strong words indeed! But there was one comment in particular that caught my eye and that I wanted to share here. Haiti is an overly agrarian society, with the peasantry forming about 75% of its population, and to get their points across, some comments use very interesting metaphors. Talking of a how a retired politician was allegedly corrupted, one commentator wrote:

N’ap mache nan labou depi lapli tombe. Li se sou asflat l’ap mache.

Which (if I am not mistaken) translates to something like:

We are walking in the mud after the rain. But he has been walking on asphalted [ground].

What a powerful and effective way to express one’s message, without using a single insult or demeaning term! I wish Facebook comments in Canada would be more like that.

Over the last few days, I finished the entire Pimsleur course for HC (1-30). I am very satisfied with the course, and the last 10 lessons are indeed excellent and cover most of what a short-term tourist would need in Haiti. The only bad thing I can say about the course is that Pimsleur focuses a lot on numbers, maybe too much. Of course, this is understandable as the course is targeted at English speakers who may not be familiar with French numbers. For French speakers or those of us already with a good command of French will find a lot of the content is repetitive.

I downloaded the free and excellent SRS application AnkiApp, where I found tens of HC and Papiamentu decks! Some are very high quality, including a deck of HC proverbs and another filled with example sentences. As I use this application on my phone, I have neglected the computer based Anki deck as a result. I am planning to continue using AnkiApp as I travel for Christmas and New Year.

I have also been working with Haitian Creole Language Survival Kit from DLI, available for free online. This is an amazing resource. I highly recommend it for intermediate learners, especially after Pimsleur. It consists of a set of sentences in English followed by fast/slow HC. Overall, you get about 5+ hours of high quality, free bilingual audio files!

As you may imagine, most of the material is related to army, navy or medical activities. Indeed, although many sentences cover every day needs and pretty useful vocabulary, others are clearly useless for a civilian like me. Nevertheless, since audio files are already isolated in individual files, you can pick the ones you find most relevant and review only these. If shadowed enough times, I am convinced this resource will help improve pronunciation and internalize basic syntax. And most importantly, the quality of recordings is irreproachable, which cannot be said about the main Haitian Creole DLI course.

I also started using Koze Kreyol by Bryant Freeman. I cannot say how much I love this book. The fun, witty and cheeky dialogues between Mari and Jan are simply amazing. However the book is not for complete beginners, as it does not provide any phonetics or other explanations and contains very few grammar explanations. It is more a collection of dialogues than a real textbook. I have been enjoying Koze Kreyol so much that I have been devouring the book, going through 4-5 lessons per day. I take it as a sign how just how much I progressed over the last few weeks that I can understand most, if not all of the written dialogues without having to refer to a dictionary. I will review the recording – good quality, by the way, especially as the actors pay attention to the tone of their voice – over the next few weeks.

I keep reading/watching Lavwadlamerik every day of the week. I understand more and more and the spoken words, although not as much as I would like. Here are some other interesting expressions I found this week:

pran yon bal – take a bullet [same as in English?]
danse kole ak – to dance cheek to cheek with someone [to be close politically?]
nan tèt kole ak – in a close meeting [in a head-to-head meeting?]
kèk pawòl byen chofe – heated words [same as in English?]

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Mwen sezi ! Yè yo te arete anko yon lòt Kanadyen nan Lachin. Gen lè hinghang sa ant Kanada e Lachin poko fini ! Nan tout ka yo, se pa la penn m enkyete twòp pou sa a.

Semèn pase sa mwen okipe anpil ak travay mwen, e konsa mwen pa ka fe manje. Madanm mwen tou anpil okipe, men paske li travay nan lakay nou, li trè souvan prepare manje pou nou de. Nou manje diri ak kèk legim yo, epi nou bwa divin oubyen byè. Fen semèn nou pafwa ale restoran.

Nou rete Lachin depi twa zan. Mwen chak jou m’ap travay kotakot ak kolèg Chinwa. Pou aprann lang lan, rete nan peyi etranje se yon bon bagay. Men rete nan lòt peyi li se tou difisil. Nan premye tan nou pa t’ap konprann lang, pa konprann kisa moun yo t’ap di, epi nou pa renmen twòp manje Chinwa. Kounye a se anpil pi fasil, nous pa gen twòp pwoblèm, travay nou tou pa pi mal, men kanmenm, nou vle toune lakay nou o Kanada.

Nan zòn nan kite nou rete, gen anpil mache, magazin, restoran. Moun nan ki rete isit la se prèske tout Chinwa yo, gen sèlman kèk Blan. Mwen renmen djob mwen. Mwen se traduktè, chak jou mwen dwe tradwi liv yo e anpil lòt atik yo soti nan chinwa rive nan franse. Lakay nou piti, men ase gran pou mwen ak madanm mwen. Lari kite kay nou ye pa twòp pwòp, men nou abitye kounye a. Lavi nan Beijin chè. Pou lwe ti apatman isit la, ou dwe peye anpil kòb. Gras a dye mwen ka gen ase kòb pou rete byen. Isit la mwen pa te wè Ayisyen, men gen anpil moun Afriken, ak Ameriken, Koreyen, eks.

Anpil moun kwè Lachin peyi pòv, men li pa konplètman vrè. Si w gade delwen, se vrè Lachin gen anpil rejyon pòv, men lavi Beijing pli chè pase lavi Kanada. Men pi gwò pwoblèm ki nou genyen isit la se polisyon. Rete Beijing se move pou sante. Anplis, manje Chiwna la gen bon gou, men si ou manje chak jou restoran Chiwna, se move anpil pou sante ou, paske li gen twòp lwil.

Jou sa yo nou gen travay anpil, paske apre kèk jou se Nwèl. Mwen e madanm mwen byen eksite, paske nou pral pren yon ti kanpo lòt bò. Nou pral Nepal pase yon semèn lòt bò a pou vwayaje. Se premye fwa nou ale peyi sa a. Nou byen renmen ale lòt bò fè yon ti toune. Men bèl mè mwen pa dakò ak sa a. Li di vwayaje se tan pèdi. Li kwè pi bon rete lakay, repoze vye kò. Nou kwè vwayaje se yon bon manye pa gen lespri koridò, louvri je nou sou mond lan, wè tout kalite bagay ki diferan. Li enteresan enpil, konn mond lan ! Tout bagaj nou yo gentan pare. Annou derape !

___

我每次有空的时候，或者每次很想去旅游，但是因为家里事情太多或单位不让我出去玩儿，我最喜欢的事情是读别人的游记。可以是我的爱好之一，尤其是外语游记。我看这种游记不仅可以帮我更了解其他国家的文化、美食、历史等等方面，也会帮我更深地了解作者本人的文化背景。当然，旅游的时候，你怎么看事情，很大一部分是你自己的文化环境。面对某一种问题或困难，比如贫穷问题或安全问题，来自发达国家的游客的反应和来自发展中国家的游客的反应很有可能有些不一样。更不用说，我看这种游记也会帮助我提高阅读能力，学习不少新词。

我最近在国内网络查了关于海底的消息，发现了尤其少。有的是有，但是质量不高、内容没意思的很多。You can visit her log here. 但是幸运好点的时候，偶尔也可以“淘宝”。我这星期正好发现了这种宝宝 ：某一个中国女士去海地旅游，拍了好多好多照片，回来写了很有意思的游记，名字也好，叫“海地，一个没有准备好的拥抱”。

她跟四个姑娘一起去海地，其中，有一位经常去的，因为她从事某些公益项目，帮助一些本地穷孩子。她们去的时候正好是海地准备进行全国总统选举的时候，因为情况有些不稳定，游客非常少。她发的照片上能看出来除了她们几个人，几乎没有别的游客，旅游景点空空的，只有几个买东西的本地海地人。我看她们幸运不错，这样可以更深地感觉到海地丰富的历史背景。她们也去了不少地方包括海地角、太子港等城市。海地角是坐飞机去的，因为路太长了。

但是诚实地说，这游记我最喜欢的部分并不是字，还是图。作者拍照片的技术真的没可说。她完全成功地拍海地的美丽风景，让我们仿佛飞到这偏远的小渔岛。我相信读完这篇游记，所有的读者也一定会被海地魅力感染。她发的日落和日出的照片美得不到了，无法言喻！我就喜欢这种的游记：写得很吸引人，陪美丽的照片。



就内容来说，很明显的是，作者下不少功夫，做好了准备，比较了解海地历史背景，包括痛苦的殖民地时期和值得骄傲的独立战争和大起义历史。可惜的是，因各种原因，很可能是语言不通，作者好像很少跟本地人民打交道。我觉得应该是语言不通，无法沟通。这又一次强调学习语言的重要性。但是后来她们小组去了孤儿院参加了公益活动，交了很多本地朋友。看起来作者是一个很开朗、善于接近别人的勇敢女儿。佩服！



---

In other news, I finished reading 1984 in Spanish. I may start reading Homenaje a Cataluña after New Year. I am preparing a list of native material in Spanish to work on after the holidays, including Youtubers, to improve my listening comprehension.

I am happy to say that I completed the first lesson in Papiamentu Textbook. More on that later. I would be curious to know what other language textbook teaches the entire conjugation table for To be, To have and To do in the first page of the first lesson?

---

Mwen swete zanmi m yo e tout moun isit la pase yon bon nwel epi yon bon ane ! Pase yon bon reveyon ak zanmi ak fanmi ! Si gen manm fowòm nan ki pral vwayaje, mwen w di ou fè bon vwayaj ! N’a wè ane pwochen !

Let me finish with a little song as my Christmas gift: Nwel Tristes by Michael Benjamin.

M'di Tonton Nwèl kote ou ye,
Nan yon peyi moun pap fete
Mwen di Bondye kote ou ye,
Pot delivrans pou malere

I say, where are you Uncle Christmas?
In a country, people are not celebrating
I say, where are you God?
Bring deliverance to the poor

[IronMike]

Where'd you get the Papiamentu text? I've found it on amazon, but it is so terribly expensive.

[Purangi]

Over my vacations, especially while on the plane and during the long bus rides we took around Nepal, I have been seriously hitting the vocab “gym” on my phone — AnkiApp. I managed to squeeze in 9,000+ reviews in the last week or so. I have about 15 active decks now, most are in Haitian Creole , some in Spanish and a couple in Russian. Not sure yet if such reviews are actually useful, but I figure they cannot hurt. At least I get some short of minimal exposure, even at the isolated word/sentence level. I have also read articles in Spanish, HC and Mandarin (traditional) in the past few days. Some thoughts follow.

- In HC, I still have a hard time grasping when to use and to omit the preposition Nan. The way it is use in Pimsleur and other materials appears random, to say the least.

- I am a bit confused by Se, Sa a and Li when they start a sentence. Again, I am not sure if there is a clear rule about this, or if it’s more about usage habits.

- The use of Pa as a possessive marker is getting easier.

- I have read my first “academic” article in HC. It is a socio-linguistic paper written by Fabian Charles, published on AyiboPost and entitled Kisa pale vle di an Ayiti? (available here: https://ayibopost.com/ki-sa-pale-vle-di-ann-ayiti/) It talks about the symbolic place of HC versus French in Haiti. The author draws on a number of authors such as Platon and Bourdieu to explain such concepts as symbolic violence and language legitimacy, in post-independence Haiti. A great read for anyone interested in the subject. Let me quote one funny anecdote about how Creole speakers tend to overcorrect from the article:

“Se yon Matinikè ki rive nan Lafrans e ki fè atansyon a lang li plis pase sa l ta dwe fè pou li pa fè fot. Pou li ka montre li konn pale franse tankou Blan, sa fè l rive nan yon restoran epi li rele : « Garrrçon! un vè de biè ». “

I managed to read through the article fairly rapidly and without using my dictionary, which is a good sign of my progress. (Interesting to note that the author makes extensive use of the “ke” particle). But then again, I always find this kind of papers easier to read than texts with literary pretension.

- “Ankle” in HC is “je pye,” which translates as “eye of the foot,” which I find amazing.

And then, out of the blue, I got the perfect Christmas gift. While exploring the TWR website for HC resources, I found exactly what I needed: two fully transcribed Papiamentu podcasts! This is something I am sure will be interesting to other potential learners out there, so let me explain.
The first one is called Mi a Disidi, it is about 8 minutes long, and looks more Bible oriented. The other is called Alimento pa e Alma, is about 3 minutes long and more chicken-soup-for-the-soul-kinda content.

There is also Muhe de Speransa, a women issues podcast, unfortunately without transcript.

But there is more: some of these podcasts also appear to be translated in other languages such as Spanish, HC, Mandarin, Russian, etc. I have briefly compared Alimento pa e Alma and the Spanish and Papiamentu versions look identical, making them the perfect material for bilingual texts and audio!

Personal divagations follow.

I won’t talk about my short experience in Nepal itself, although I am sure people much more knowledgeable about South Asian linguistics would have a lot to say about the immense linguistic diversity one can see when traveling in the country.

I want to talk about the dangers and joy of wanderlust.

When in Nepal I met many South Asia-savvy travelers, some of whom shared my interest for foreign languages. Some had even studied local languages for many years, either independently or through formal courses at Kathmandu’s universities. Yet, none of them was able to hold a normal conversation and/or read signs in local scripts. The interesting thing is that while I took their limited communication abilities as a sign of failure, they seemed to take great pride in being able to say a few phrases here and there to the locals. Needless to say, it is not for me to judge, as everyone has different needs and perhaps they have achieved their goals and are happy with that. But I took it as a sign of how just how dangerous and somewhat self-deceiving wanderlust can sometimes be when learning languages.

Understand me well: I am not criticizing them, because I am among them. I am 100% guilty of aimlessly dabbling in languages, investing hours and hours and achieving nothing.

For fun, I have made a list of all the languages on which I have spent at least a few hours over the last 15 or so years. This doesn’t include the languages for which I have looked for and accumulated resources. Here they are, all 45 of them.

Uzbek Tajiki Buryat Mongolian Tatar Bashkir Latvian Armenian Georgian Azeri Turkish Kazakh Kirghiz Serbo-Croatian Bulgaria Albanian Italian Catalan Arabic Korean Cantonese Ukrainian Belarusian German Indonesian Malaysian Thai Hebrew Hindi Urdu Tibetan (both Amdo and central) Farsi Greek Swahili Kalmyk Portuguese Mandarin Papiamentu Haitian Creole Vietnamese Uyghur Polish Romanian Afrikaans

I am sure there are more I forget now. Out of 45, I have achieved significant progress in only an handful of them.

After such extreme wanderlust, one might think I would have learned my lesson. But no. Just looking at the diversity of TWR podcasts (daily podcasts in Assamese and Punjabi, sign me up!) I get all kinds of crazy ideas.

But then... I came across this article in NYT En Espanol, (https://www.nytimes.com/es/2018/12/20/d ... asatiempos) which basically argues that we shouldn’t aim for excellence in our hobbies but instead focus on the joy that the activity itself brings us, without any sort of performance anxiety or professional objectives. The obsession with achieving a high level of competency is a sign of a sick society. The author makes his point quite convincingly. When I look back at my “career” as a language learner, I have been fluctuating between both sides of the argument, in an extreme way. Sometimes, I can be highly dismissive of people who claim to have studied a language but struggle to actually speak it. At the same time, I have been known to dabble in tens of languages without never actually committing to learning them... and I found great joy in doing so!

For me, both options are unsustainable in the long term. I cannot focus on just one language, yet I cannot let my urge to aimlessly dabble loose like I did for many years... Anyway, there was much food for thought for me during this trip. I am now more convinced that while wanderlust is intellectually stimulating, I do feel it leads to more disappointment than actual joy when one realizes one cannot actually do anything in the target language, because the commitment wasn’t there. I don’t want for the many hours I have invested in Spanish and HC to amount to nothing in a few years just because I was sidetracked by another language which I will never actually be able to use. Practically speaking, I need a plan for 2019. The way I am working right now, namely focusing the bulk of my efforts on Spanish, while keeping HC and Papiamento as my to-go feel-good languages, should work if I stick to my plan. This blog is a reminder of this.

I am posting this from a hotel room in Chengdu, Sichuan, which means no VPN, and so no traditional end-of-post song! Sorry! But Happy New Year anyway!

[Expugnator]

Thanks for the podcasts! They'll be great for taking a break from the news, I just have to tweak my schedule a bit. I just tried listening to Muhe di Speransa and I can follow it without a transcript just fine, so there's enough to have fun for some weeks.

A Happy New Year to you, too!

[Purangi]

In Haitian Creole this week: I invested some time in reading an important paper by DeGraff (available here) about Creole Exceptionalism, a school of thought that sees as inferior and inherently poor all Creole languages. Unfortunately, the more I read about Creoles, the more I realize how this sort of fallacious discourse is popular (even here!). A very interesting read for anyone interested in the issue.

There is one quote in particular from Ferdinand de Saussure which I found interesting, as it applies to all languages, but to Creoles in particular.

In the lives of individuals and of societies, language is a factor of greater importance than any other. For the study of language to remain solely the business of a handful of specialists would be a quite unacceptable state of affairs. In practice, the study of language is in some degree or other the concern of everyone. But a paradoxical consequence of this general interest is that no other subject has fostered more absurd notions, more prejudices, more illusions and more fantasies. From a psychological point of view, these errors are of interest in themselves. But it is the primary task of the linguist to denounce them, and to eradicate them as completely as possible.

One of the "myths" surrounding Haitian Creole (and debunked by DeGraff) is that HC is incapable of creating neologisms by itself and must rely on French to do so. What a coincidence, I just read a fascinating article in AyiboPost proving just the opposite. The paper explains how "going to Chile" (prale Chili) has become a new living expression in HC in recent years. Not only does it mean to actually migrate to Chile to seek a better life, it also refers to any important decision made to improve one’s life. "M' prale Chili" could be used, for example, when someone decides to buy a car. According to the author, "Chili" is also used as an adjective to qualify someone living the good life!

Nan yon apwòch lengwistik, nou remake kreyòl la se yon lang ki pa chita sou premye sans yon mo oubyen yon fraz kapab genyen. Nan otonomi lang lan, li kreye plizyè sans pou plizyè sitiyasyon ki ka pèmèt ou itilize yon menm mo oubyen fraz ki pa fòseman gen anyen pou wè ak sans orijinal la. Enben, se konsa tou fraz “Mwen prale Chili” a kòmanse suiv menm lojik sa a kote pezape li kòmanse defini yon abandon, yon desizyon pou chanje sa ki pa mache oubyen tou pou defini yon sitiyasyon ideyal kote moun lan santi l byen… Ti Pyè santi l bouke nan mache a pye a , li wè li ta dwe travay pou l gen yon machin pou l ka sispann boule solèy la. Enben li di li pral Chili pou l ka eksprime anvi chanje kondisyon pyeton li a.

I have finally started FSI Haitian Creole. I am currently at lesson 5 and progressing fast. The pace of the lessons is slow but comfortable; nothing new for me up to now, except maybe for some vocabulary. The course appears very thorough, with extensive cultural notes. The audio is mostly useless, and so I have been focusing on reading.

To compensate the lack of FSI audio, I continue to listen and review Ti Koze Kreyòl, Haitian Creole Language Survival Kits and I started Atravè Labib. I am now at introductory podcast number five. I am surprised by how much I can understand -- as long as my eyes stay focused on the transcript. The transcript itself is not 100% accurate, perhaps 90% or so, which is enough to allow good comprehension.

As for content quality, Atravè Labib is really a major find. Unlike what I expected, there is a good range of vocabulary and many useful expressions. Content far exceeds Bible-related topics and makes very good use of connectors. As for the recording quality, the voice is clear, speed is natural and \intonation is expressive.

The way the final L and to a lesser extent the final W are pronounced in Haitian Creole never ceases to surprise me. I am not sure of what sound it is, but it is definitely not French.

For the first time, I watched an entire documentary in Haitian Creole entitled In Haiti: A road trip documentary, available on YouTube. Unfortunately, there are no subtitles for HC parts. Nevertheless, I think I managed to understand most of it, although I had to guess in some parts. Background music is too loud and sometimes bury the dialogues... Needless to say, it was not made as a learning tool but it's nice to know I can approach native materials "without a net" and still get most of it.

In Spanish, Radio Ambulante and the last few FSI lessons have taken most of my time.

I have been watching 알함브라 궁전의 추억 (Memories of the Alhambra) for the past few weeks, a K-drama taking place in Granada. Overall, I recommend it for anyone interested in K-dramas - it's well done and the story-line is surprisingly stimulating (and not as cheesy) as other k-dramas I've watched. We watch it in Korean OV, including some bits in Spanish and with Mandarin subtitles. I dislike Chinese dramas, so Korean shows subtitled in Chinese (widely available online) have the double advantage of exposing me to Korean and of improving my ability to read 汉字 at the speed of light.

In other Korean news, I just learned that North Korean defector Thae Yong-ho has been blogging (!) for some time now, in multiple languages (!!). People interested in NK and wanting to work with parallel texts in Korean/Mandarin/Japanese/English might want to check out his website.

I've also been (slowly) reading Han Han's 1988 in Mandarin. For work purposes, I usually read only non fiction in Mandarin, and so it's been nice to reconnect with a fiction author. His language is straightforward, almost child-like in its lack of superfluous 成语. That's why I love to read his works. In a linguistic context where classical quotations are too often used as a way to show off one's erudition and establish one's cultural ranking, Han Han's simple style is refreshing.

As I wrote in another post, I used to think I was to blame for not understanding the numerous classical references you find in some modern Chinese works. The crazy thing is that when I ask my Chinese coworkers (20-ish-year-old Mandarin native speakers, all of them with M.A. in Social Sciences), half of the time they are as clueless as me. Of course we can "guess" the meaning, but we always end up searching in Baidu for the exact one... I studied basic Classical Chinese in the past, and I might go back at it in the future, but I have the feeling that there is no winning in this game. These authors will always be able to dig out "new" quotations from ancient texts to "prove" their erudition, (sometimes randomly and inaccurately...). There is no way a "normal" Chinese can beat them, not to mention a foreigner.

P.S. A good list of resources for Classical Chinese can be found over at Tom Mazanec's website.

I have made no efforts toward progressing in Papiamentu this week -- I feel a bit like a fraud leaving it in the title of the blog -- if I do not provide any input on this language, it is a really a kind of false advertising, especially as I write more about Mandarin. Will see!

A bit of a patriotic vibe to end this post, with the song Drapo'm nan (My flag) by BelO and countless Haitian stars, a touching ode to Haiti's ble e rouj flag.

Drapo’m se kankou chève mwen
Mon drapeau est comme mes cheveux
The flag is like my hair

Met bal koulè mwen vle vrè koulè l pap chanje
Donne-lui des couleurs, mais je veux les vrais couleurs, il ne changera pas
You can paint over it, but its true colors won't change, it stays the same

Ble e rouj la se fyète mwen
Bleu et rouge, c'est ma fierté
Blue and red, it's my pride

Mèt fè sa ou vle l ap rete kole anba po mwen
Faites ce que vous voulez, il va rester coller sous ma peau
Do whatever you want, it will stick under my skin.