Say WHAT?

Oh, this is a total zombie blog allright. So sorry.

The new job does involve some travel, but for various reasons I haven't been hitting the lessons quite as hard during the travels as I thought I might be going into it: As most I'm doing 1 unit of Rosetta per flight, and 1 pimsleur per city. I can totally improve on that, I know.

Today I was talking with a cousin about Chinese and Japanese and I came up with a key distinction between languages: "Interruptible" versus "Uninterruptible". Languages where key verbs are at the END of the sentence are Uninterruptible.

In japanese, not only is the verb at the end, but whether it's positive or negative is at the END of the Verb. For instance: "As for me, very much cats I... [like not at all] [like] [eat] [desire]." So if you stop a Japanese person mid-sentence, you will never know if they do or don't like the cats, or indeed WHAT verb they'd attach to cats (Eat? Pet? Exercise?).

Similarly, in many of the tenses of German (past, conditional, and future) the action verb is at the end: "I will next year a fine film [make] [see] [purchase] [eat]". Stop them mid sentence and you'll never know.

Now, with these short sentences, you wonder "why would I interrupt?" Consider that all manner of modifiers and sub-clauses will also be loaded into these sentences before the verb: "I will [next year in May together with several friends with whom I had gone to school] a film make."

In contrast, in French, English, Chinese, and other Interruptibles, you can say "I'm going to make a movie [next year with som...]" and brother I'm going to cut you off right there. Because I know you're not going to make that movie. You're always saying you're going to, and it's just never going to happen.

I know it's a strange distinction, but it just might lead to greater understanding between the peoples of this Earth.

In English,

I'm still around!

I just need to remember that the Xmas season is always so busy, and more so with kids. It hasn't helped matters that work has been pretty evil too. But there's light at the end of the tunnel: My new gig starts next week, along with more airport and hotel time, which means more language study time!!!

I recently had an email exchange in mostly-Svenska, and learned just enough Nederlands to have a chat with a Dutch cousin. I'm catching up on my German and Spanish podcasts, and am enjoying a little French in there too. Right now, Mandarin, Korean, and Japanese are on the back burner... but they'll be back in the mix soon enough.

I'm just in a Germanic mood I guess - I have been doing comparisons between German, Dutch, Swedish, and English, and am finding it pretty easy and fun to switch between them. The Dutch sounds are just crazy - rolled R's and lots of "cch" gutteral rumbles. My favorite word is "Graag" which means gladly or please - you use it a lot when ordering food - and it starts with a throat clear, going right into a rolled R, then the aaaahh and ending with the throat clear again. It's tempting to roll all the way through, but no, the R is only at the beginning. The whole effect is so satisfying to say that it truly seems to convey a PRIMAL desire for what you're asking for: Who could deny the requester a coffee or pastry when accompanied by a miniature tiger growl?

NHK Videos

The interweb has delivered to me a number of video learning courses in French and Japanese: The French are the Annenberg "French in Action" series of 52 30 minute shows... and the Japanese are 30 various episodes of NHK (Japanese national TV network) Japanese learning videos from the 1980s... The fashion alone is great viewing, as are the "futuristic" bluescreen sets.

But these things do require TIME to do, and unlike audio learning courses, you can't really watch one of these while driving to work or walking through the skyways. Believe me, I've tried. (ok, not really). But as an adult learner, there IS some advantage to hearing it, seeing lips speaking it, and seeing the word at the same time - the Japanese word for pencil (enpitsu) stuck after just 3 repeats in this method, as did eyeglasses (megane) and cigarette (tabako).

I'm at lesson 76 of Pimsleur Japanese now, so close to the end... But I'm still learning great stuff. We just had the illness section. I was watching the Japanese movie "Paprika" - a GREAT Anime about a detective who dives into people's dreams, and a villain who is taking control of dreams - and I was happy to discover that a lot of the dialogue was somewhat understandable to me: Not enough to really "get" the movie without subtitles... but phrases here and there! It was very cool to realize that.

With the stress of the holidays, Japanese is pretty much my one focus for now... But I'll need to get Mandarin going (and maybe some Cantonese) because in my new Job, I'm angling for a conference in Hong Kong in May. I really want to go!!!!

Good old number nine

As noted in an earlier post, the Pimsleur series has a "tradition" of presenting a comic interlude around lesson number 9. In Sept, I enjoyed the Swedish one. Today, I was treated to one in Korean.

These Pimsleur short courses (10 lessons) are under $20, and really do help train your ear to hear languages... But this Korean series has been pretty hard to listen to: The two speakers have very different voices and I wonder if I'm hearing things right: The male has a breathless style, as though he just ran around the block just before recording the phrase.

On the plus side, with two very different sounding voices, it's easy to place yourself somewhere between the two and be confident you'd be understood.

As a language, Korean is really sounding very much like Japanese - between the politeness levels, the verb a the end, frontloading the sentence, and some of the vocal sounds. A lot closer to Japanese than Chinese for sure. But that said, it has a sound all its own - no mistaking it for anything else!

Update

Lesson 59 of Pimsleur Mandarin was knocked back today, and it hit on lots of earlier vocab as well. I barely need to hit the pause button to knock out the dialogue now. It's very nice.

I'm going to make a blanket statement: If you're going to learn ANY language, it is very worth your while to do the 10-lesson Pimsleur starter set for that language. I had been doing KoreanClass101 for 5 weeks, and sort of was into it... but now I'm 5 lessons into the Pimsleur Korean starter class, and I have a much more natural grasp of the SOUND of the language and how the rhythms work... and I can come BACK to KoreanClass and use it for vocabulary and grammar, while now my "korean ear" is stronger.

I don't know that I recommend doing all 90 lessons of a Pimsleur for everyone... but the first 10 really will create a confidence in the language that can't be beat.

As I was having Pho yesterday, I listened around me and was able to start to recognize the distinctive sounds of Vietnamese - there are a couple of sounds that are unique to that language as far as I can tell - a "gyoom" that is way up in the nose, and a very open mouthed "Bah". I still have my "survivalphrases.com" membership for Vietnamese, and before my next Pho run, I'll be sure to remember "xin" for please, "gam ung" for thanks, and "jao" for hello.

I'm starting to work on my 'big trip' for 2008 - sometime in my 40th year. I'm thinking 2 weeks - one in Japan, and one in China. It would be amazing. The only issue is that Pamela really has very little desire for travel east as far as I can tell... and part of it is a fear of the cuisine. Perhaps it's my fault, being as fixated as I am on raw fish and whatnot. So I'm going to work on those plans (and obviously hit that Japanese again sometime soon to freshen up!).

A last bit - for all Mac users, I'm amazed by a little application called "iFlash" - it's flash card software, and you can load it up with anything you like. But there's a public library of flash cards made by other users too... and I've found German, French, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and other language sets... and it's great fun. It doesn't do audio (no spoken drills, I guess), but it does all manner of foreign fonts (as the Mac is so good at doing).

Och nü, jag skulle vilja studerar mig svenska.

Must be strong

So while I have had not so much time to work on language, I have had 5 min here and there to look on the web at things... and it is a hard thing not to get addicted to buying and finding language TOOLS: This falls into two categories

1) Extra tools for languages I'm working on. Chinese character workbooks. Flash card decks. Colloquial language books. Podcasts.

In all of these, I need to step back and take stock: With Swedish, I just have the one "Teach Yourself" series and a dictionary. I don't NEED MORE... at least not until I've finished Teach Yourself and want to target more learning areas. With Chinese and Japanese, I have several books and flash card sets: Until these are mastered and complete, there is NO REASON to get more.

But still, these tools are tempting. I wander through a bookstore at lunch and the books just look interesting... perhaps this one will have some cool new way of teaching?

The one temptation that is too strong is to upgrade my ChinesePod membership to the one where they call you every day for 10 minutes to practice your Mandarin. That would SERIOUSLY turbocharge my learning. BUT, with the holidays coming, AND given that I have a good 37 more Pimsleur lessons on tap, why not just wait until next year and come at it even stronger?

2) The eternal temptation of OTHER LANGUAGES: Ok, seriously, why am I hovering around Dutch books? Why? There was no good reason to start with Korean, other than the fact it was a new site and I was curious about it and wanted to help them grow.

I need to stop looking at language products as commodities and do a cost-benefit on each: It's the same as getting programming language books or upgrading computers - it's easy to be impulsive, and it's a lot easier to shop for 10 min and click buy on a book than it is to memorize another 10 Kanji.

So help me be strong, people. By writing this, I'm putting my confession into the electrons, and I have named my addiction. This will help me refocus my efforts and make use of the tools I already have...

After all, I'm a language addict, not a language products addict. Right?

I'm a horrible disappointment

To both people who read this: I'm sorry about not posting. Really in the past two weeks, all I've done is continue with my Pimsleur Mandarin II: I just finished Lesson 52 of 90 (Level II, lesson 22), and can confidently say that:

The express train is faster than the bus:
kuai4che1 bi3 gong1gong4qi4che1 kuai4 (FastCar compared to PublicGoingCar fast)

I can also say that Mister Chen's son never writes letters.
Chen xian1sheng1 de er2zi cong2lai2bu4 xie3 qin4

This is good stuff.

Come the evening, I have very little brainspace remaining for my language ambitions - I'd like to spend an hour a night focusing on grammar for one of my other active languages, or drilling myself on reading Hanzi, Kanji, or Hanguk... but the fact of the matter is I'm working on a maximum of four hours of sleep these days, thanks to the little squawking son, and have taken to vegging out and reading recreationally in my spare time. I know, that's crazy talk.

So as things progress, I'll keep updating. Rest assured, there IS progress happening, but I'm not seeking new challenges just yet. I feel like I'm successful because I AM doing at least 30 minutes a day of learning, in with everything else.

In Podcasts I Listen To News: Sounds like SpanishSense.com is getting some re-doing. That's a good thing: I have enjoyed them, but somehow it never fully clicked for me as an essential service. Instead I listen a fair amount to BBC Mundo Hoy - a latin newscast which I actually can track pretty well...

And poor KoreanClass101: I love them to pieces, but I have fallen behind. Perhaps when I hit Mandarin Lesson 60, I'll take a break (as I have with Russian) and spend a few weeks in Hanguk.

That's the geeky update for the night. I think I might now go play a round of Katamari Damacy... since it's too late to start a movie... and a little too early for me to cash it in.