languages

[gfish]

Over the last few years I have developed the habit of teaching myself a language every fall. It's been an act of defiance -- as yet another frustrating part of my dilettante personality, I love linguistics and learning languages, but I utterly fail at retaining them. I took French for FIVE YEARS and I'm lucky to conjugate être these days. So I persist, but I hedge my bets with languages of little practical value (Esperanto, Old English). If no one else knows anything about the language, it isn't so obvious how little I've actually retained.

This year, in preparation for the Rally next summer, I was planning on learning some Russian. I'll need to at least be able to read Cyrillic phonetically for navigation purposes. Basic utility phrases like 'can you please weld my car back together' and 'your camel is very shiny' would also be useful. This year, a real, practical language for real, practical purposes.

Today I bought an book on learning Mayan glyphs. I suck.

Comments

[caladri.livejournal.com]

My hero!

[sistawendy.livejournal.com]

You don't suck. You remind me of me minus all the fetishes. I'm dying to know how to pronounce all those little diacritics in Vietnamese. I've spent time teaching myself the Arabic alphabet with Omniglot. In fact, I think I'll go back there right now.

. o ( Sum, es, est, sumus, estis, sunt. )

[sistawendy.livejournal.com]

And IPA! I must learn all of the International Phonetic Alphabet! Not knowing how to pronounce all these transliterations drives me crazy.

[hsifyppah.livejournal.com]

Today I bought an book on learning Mayan glyphs. I suck.

I think the suckage is overwhelmed by the awesomeness of learning mayan glyphs by roughly a factor of two. By weight.

My favourite glyph is cimi, the death-parrot! Or maybe the angry-teeth symbol for zero. I made myself a mayan calendar out of cardboard once. By the time I finished hand-lettering 365 glyphs I was feeling less enthusiastic about their mathematical prowess.

[ashley-y.livejournal.com]

Would a brand new SMART car be an appropriate vehicle for the rally? Not that I either own such a car or plan to do the rally, I'm just curious as I saw one of the little things the other day and it amused me to think of it driving overland.

[gfish.livejournal.com]

The engine is small enough, but it would fail on the 'crap car' level. There aren't any hard and fast rules there (unlike the fine for engines over 1L), but anything new is certainly not within the spirit of things. However, the idea of one offroading in Mongolia is ridiculous enough that people might think it's great, not sure.

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

In the last two years I've bought books on Hawaiian and Sioux grammar. Guess how far I've gotten on actually learning either? Sheesh.

[vixyish.livejournal.com]

On the bright side, you married someone who is terribly excited by all things Russian and dying to help you learn it. So y'know. You're doing something right. ;)

[gfish.livejournal.com]

I already knew I was doing that right. :)

[beaq.livejournal.com]

I'm sure you'll discover some very interesting connections between Mayan glyphs and the Cyrillic alphabet.

[ivy]

As a veteran of hieroglyphs for fun and only one modern reasonably useful language, I sympathize.

[shandryl.livejournal.com]

You really, really, REALLY must learn to say in Russian, "Uzbeks are the weak link in the great chain of socialism." How many times must I tell you this? =)