Sunday, April 19, 2009

Sunday Scribblings - 4/19/09

Language

I've always been fascinated by languages and how they work. It's especially interesting to notice the similarities and differences between them. Unfortunately, I'm not so good at actually learning them. I tend to forget most of the vocabulary, and I take a long time to translate things in my head.

Languages I've studied in my life:

Spanish (in high school). I had really good teachers, and I wish I had remembered all I learned. It could be useful someday. I still know a little bit, though.

Norwegian (in college). Norwegian class was super-fun for me. It was nice to learn about my heritage while fulfilling the foreign language requirements for a B.A. Again, I wish I could remember more of it. Knowing Norwegian is something that instantly makes you cool to people who aren't Scandinavian themselves.

Languages I'd like to explore and learn more about:

Icelandic. I've tried reading it, and it's not easy even with my knowledge of Norwegian. Icelandic is to Norwegian as Old English is to today's English. It's archaic. It's also still in use, which is extremely cool.

French. I like the way it sounds, and it's probably the second-most useful language to learn (behind Spanish).

Portuguese. It's like Spanish, but a little different. That fascinates me. You could say the same for Italian, but Italian isn't as exotic to Americans.

Hindi. I just think it sounds cool.

Yiddish. Yiddish is a fun language. Who doesn't get a kick out of saying "Oy Vey!"?

Irish Gaelic. It confuses the snot out of me. I listen to a lot of Irish music, but don't ask me how to pronounce the song titles or lyrics!

2 comments:

Sandra.if said...

someone told me that yiddish is one of the older languages...

Rinkly Rimes said...

Learn Esperanto then you wont need to worry!