Where have I been?

Alas, if there is anyone who actually reads this that is not a regular reader of my "rest of the life blog" JimVentions, I must sadly report that a good friend of mine was murdered 6 days ago, and today we laid him to rest.

As a result, blogging about language has been far from my mind... but I will likely be updating again in a few days, because I have been doing work - I need to do things to keep my mind busy in these sad days.

So that's the update - sorry!

Una historia

Otro día, cuando estaba en el trabajo (en un hospital), vi a una vieja mujer. Ella tenía un papel en su mano, y se parecía ser perdida. Le acerqué et pedí: "can I help you?". Ella contestó "no habla ingles...", y me parecía que ella necesitó ayuda. Entonces, le dijé "Señora, puedo ayudarle."

Ella me dio el papel, y vi que tuvimos que ir cuatro sueles abajo y dos pasillos a través. Era demaciado difícil, com mi Español si limitado, para dirigirla allí. Recorrí con ella a su cita... y la introduje a su enfermera.

En verdad, no hablé mucho español en todos... pero creo que entender la idoma era provechoso.

Bueno. Ésta es mi primera historia en español en este blog. Si Ud tiene comentario para mi, lo quero. Gracias!

The Vibe

안녕핫서요! 젼는 지미 임니다!

Folks, that's Hangul (Korean) for Hello! I'm Jimmy! Yes, I'm keeping to the program, learning this fine language... I'm pretty good with basic intros - who I am, I'm American, I'm an office worker... Fortunately, at my level, KoreanClass101 has just 2 lessons a week for me, so I can keep up along with all of my other language fascinations.

Russian continues - I'm at lesson 45 of 90, and I swear there is stuff in there I never ever learned in college. "if you want, you can have more coffee" езли ты хочешь, ты можешь быпить ешо кофе. Also, can you tell I'm loving learning how to type in other languages? The Mac... so brilliant. I'm also using the Penguin Guide to Russian to help with the "rules" and the spelling (My apologies for the above... there's probably a typo in the Russian).

My neighbor, a Fed, was lamenting that I'm 2 years too old to be useful to the FBI - they only hire up to age 37, so that people have a chance to get 20 years in the service prior to mandatory retirement. He said Russian skills are VERY in demand these days, what with the Russian mafia so prevalent. Perhaps I could consult for them... ;)

My sister issued a challenge: If I'm going to be such a language nut, why not learn Hmong and Somali, which are very in-use in the Twin Cities? Well, one reason is that there are few resources for learning these languages available to me... but as an alternative, I've started a little Vietnamese (and there are TONS of Vietnamese here):

The JapanesePod/KoreanClass people have truly been busy, and created a site called survivalphrases.com - where you can sign up for 50+ 4-7 minute classes in one of 6 (soon 7) languages, with Vietnamese being one of them. So I'm learning the very basics... Not any rush here, but I'd like to show up my sister at a Phô joint in town by greeting, ordering, thanking, and paying in Vietnamese.

Well, that's the basic update: I do want to say that I feel like I'm in a crazy groove with language right now, where every new thing I add in one language cascades across to my other ones, and I'm feeling truly polyglottish... I'll be ready to start paying attention to Japanese and Mandarin again... though maybe I'll wait until the end of September when I'll have this Russian thing behind me (meaning just that I'll have it "refreshed" and ready to use... not that I'll be fluent or anything!)

Pimsleur 9

Now that I've done parts of 6 different Pimsleur series (Spanish all 90, German all 90, Mandarin stuck at 37, Japanese at 65, Russian at 38, and Swedish - done with the short course), there is an amusing little pattern to be aware of. In all of the courses, around lesson 8-10, there is a "what time" lesson, where you learn how to ask "at what time", and you learn a few different numbers (1, 2, 8, and 9 typically). At the end of this lesson, you play a hapless romantic asking a lady out. Of course, you speak both roles.

"Would you like to have a drink with me at 1 o'clock?"
"No, thanks"
"How about at 2 o'clock?"
"No, I would not like to have a drink with you at 1 or at 2."
"Ah, later then. Let's have a drink at 8"
"No, I don't want to have a drink with you"
"Not at 8? How about 9?"
"No, not at 8, nor at 9. Not at 1 nor at 2! I don't want to have a drink with you!"
"Ah, I see. You don't want to have a drink with me. Perhaps you will have dinner with me then?"
"You don't understand."
"What don't I understand?"
"You don't understand "

I can do this dialog both parts in six languages now, which is sort of hilarious to consider.

So I hit the end of the Pimsleur Swedish - they only do 10 lessons - but I wanted to do it for sentence cadence, which did help. What Pimsleur teaches in 10 lessons is introductions, polite chitchat, asking for food and drink, basic directions, and just a few numbers. It's more based around conversation than learning all of one thing or another: you actually need to make it well into lesson 40-50 before you learn all of the days of the week in the full courses. They must assume that by the end of the course, you can read a book and get the numbers and month names you need. Anyway, now I can return to my "teach yourself" book and read with a bit more confidence. I'll be calling Annika and Ricard next week. REALLY.

Russian does continue, even though my "moment in the sun" was 2 weeks ago with the Russians at the lodge. There is just something about that language that intrigues me. I love the way my mouth feels as I speak it. I feel... nefarious.

It occurs to me that of all my languages, German and Japanese are probably the least "critical", even though I love to chat with sushi chefs. But I still have yet to find an actual German speaker in the wild around here. No, the Russian, Chinese, and Spanish are "new world order" languages - being strong in these will help in the uncertain future I believe. Especially with Russia sliding back into "evil empire mode".

Add to this, the people at JapanesePod have gone and created a "KoreanClass101" site, and will be teaching Korean. I may not be able to resist this one. There are a few indicators I need to heed:
1) One my my doctors at my current client is Korean - I could talk to him.
2) The same day I learned about KClass, I was sitting at a restaurant and a group at the next table was animatedly conversing in Korean.

That's not exactly cosmic convergence. But it is supporting.

Also, the Hangul writing system is just too cool - Vowels and consonants are combined into a single "glyph", so that each syllable is a single character, but once you know the 28 "components", you can pronounce any character. Plus it's curvy with strange "o" shapes in it.

The creator of Hangul in the 15th century proclaimed "A smart man will learn this by the end of the morning. A stupid man will know it within a week". So that's my challenge - to learn this alphabet in a week... I wouldn't want to dissapoint that 15th century genius.

Allright, that's just too much language geekiness for one night.

A moment in the life...

As a dedicated language addict, I know the best way to learn is to speak - so I make the most of my bus rides and my strolls through downtown by listening to language drills on the iPod - mostly Pimsleur of course! On the bus, I keep it "subvocal", moving my lips and whispering the responses. On the street, I'm fully out loud.

Today I caught my reflection as I was walking through the skyway and realized I must look completely insane: headphones in, eyes focused strangely (in concentration), muttering random foreign phrases... if a person didn't know about audio language learning, they'd think I was raving mad.

I find I have a lot of room to walk on the sidewalk, and room to stretch out, even on a crowded bus.

So yes, I'm being mistaken for a crazy person on a regular basis. That's ok - it's the life I've chosen for myself. It's what a language addict DOES.

(to say nothing of explaining why I'm carrying a book that says "teach yourself Swedish" while muttering in Russian).

The Swedish "i"

So going into Swedish, I'd heard the elision (running words together) and rules for softening SK/STJ would be my toughies. Now, as a pretty decent french speaker, you can't scare me with elision - any language that says "qu'est-ce que c'est" as "KESkaSAY" toughens one to the vagaries of slamming words together.

Then I got worried about that å character... but turns out that's just an O that finishes with a little "ah". Easy. Then the possible issues with the Swedish lilting cadence: The key there is to catch yourself before you start just alternating high and low singsongs and sounding like the muppet Swedish Chef.

No, I'm finding the truly tough thing is the letter "i". Like in "hur står det till" (how's it going). You can say it "teel", but it doesn't sound Swedish. No, you need to somehow move that sound back further in the throat and make a very silly sound. There's no equivalent sound in English - the closest feeling I can get is the French "u" in "cuilliere".

But the only TRUE way to do this is to imitate a Swedish accent. Fortunately, that's one of my favorite parts about language - putting on the accents. It makes me just mad to think about all of the high school and college classes I had where people kept thinking it wasn't "cool" to have the accent, that the key was to say the words but to sound like yourself. But if you don't do the accent, you don't sound right.

I think I'll be ready to call up our Swedish friends in a week with my first "conversation". As I lay awake last night, I was imagining what I could say with what I know already... and I think that in 7 days, I can know a very good amount.

Just bizarre

Here at the resort, there are two waiters from Russia and one from Belarus, and I've been chatting them up using my freshly recovered Russian.

Very strange indeed that I had decided to focus on that for the past few weeks!