Making a Real Effort

I really want to get better at my languages. I'm tired of being at a standstill and my lack of motivation.

So...

No more passively listening to a newscast while organizing my desk drawer, or reading headlines in a newspaper but not the whole article.

Goodbye to language blogs sitting empty or taking months to post.

Gone are the days of books collecting dust on my shelf, telenovelas gone unwatched, and song lyrics untranslated.

I'm done with audio/subtitle options on DVDs going unused, bookmarked but forgotten podcasts, and long drives sans course CDs.

There are so many things I could be doing every day to improve any one of the languages I'm learning, and I'm going to try harder to do just that.

The Lure of Languages

When you're learning many languages, you can't help but wonder about others and even contemplate learning more, all the while ignoring the fact you need to focus on and improve those "many languages" you've already taken up.

That being said, I've become curious about Creole. I don't know if I would get serious about it, but I don't see any harm in learning some basics. Ah yes, famous last words. ;)

Whether I do or don't, here's a small handful of resources...

• Voice of America - Read and listen to the news in Creole.
• The Good Book - The Word of God, Haitian style.
• Un jour en Haiti - Each video has a Creole and French version.

The ABC's of Serbian

I've been concentrating on Serbian for the last few days. One thing I did was make myself a sheet of the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet with the cursive form next to each printed letter. I can't write in Cyrillic to save my life, so thought a visual reminder would help. Even though Cyrillic isn't a far stretch from the Latin, it still takes some getting used to.

I imagine native writers don't necessarily make every letter look so neat and fancy. The ultimate goal is to get comfortable enough with writing in Cyrillic to develop my own style and not try to be so "by the book." Or I could just type and let the keyboard worry about it.

Let's be honest, there's really no *need* for me to write in Cyrillic, but it does make the learning experience just a tad more interesting.

In closing, try your hand. I got a 97% in 2 minutes/20 seconds. I don't have the Cyrillic order memorized (it's different from the Latin, which Serbian also uses) so I was like, "Where is it!" :D

Can You Hear Me Now?

I need to figure out how to record myself in the languages I'm learning in order to get feedback, as well as in English. Just an idea for the near future and something I've been meaning to do for a while.

Foreign Correspondence

I've totally been neglecting this blog. I don't want each update to be the same ol' boring, "Today I studied Portuguese object pronouns," so unless I have something useful to say, I refrain from posting. As a blogger, I don't know which is worse: talking about boring things or not talking at all.

At least this time I have something a little more interesting to post. In January of this year, I began sponsoring a girl from Haiti through Compassion International. It was sort of by accident, because I had originally expected to sponsor a girl from the Dominican Republic, but at the time they apparently didn't have any urgent need for a sponsor in any of their programs there, so the info I got ended up being for a girl from Haiti. A few months later, I began sponsoring a girl from Brazil and another girl from Nicaragua.

I don't know Haitian Creole at all, so have been writing and will continue to write in English with perhaps a sprinkling of Creole thrown in for good measure. For example, she turned ten yesterday, so I sent her a quick email to wish her a happy birthday and included a short Bible verse in Creole.

I do, however, know enough Spanish and Portuguese to be able to write simple letters to an eight- and six-year old girl. The problem is that I don't know if I should. I don't want to cause any hassles or confusion. That said, in the letter writing section of their FAQs, they do say it's perfectly fine to write in the child's native language, because the translation staff will go over the letters no matter what, so either way, it's gonna be looked at and perhaps modified where appropriate. I guess it's pretty obvious I'm leaning toward writing in Portuguese and Spanish, though if I do, I think the best thing is to be consistent and commit to sticking with whatever language I initially write in.

BTW, if you'd like to hear or try to read Creole, check out VOA.

From Dutch to Duits

I've been concentrating on Dutch recently by reading through and copying the sentences in my Essential Dutch Grammar book to a composition notebook. I'll write the Dutch sentence, the English translation, then a literal translation. This is a good way to learn sentence patterns, which, other than basic straight-forward sentences, are often quite different from English.

Some highschoolers from Hermann's sister city in Germany (Bad Arolsen) are coming to town this weekend to perform in a concert. Two of them are staying at my parents' neighbor's house across the alley, and are coming over for a BBQ (I guess - it's been pretty chilly lately.) I told my mom with all the German in this town, from street and shop names to the many German flags flapping in the breeze, they'll probably wonder if their plane ever left the ground: "Are we still in Germany?"

Voice Over

Here's an interesting article explaining Sarah Palin's accent.