To earn some extra money I started giving Spanish private lessons. I said to earn some extra money but I don't charge enough to cover my daily coffee consumption, I confess it: I'm doing it for pleasure. Especially now that I'm officially a budding linguist...
Yesterday I was sitting in a cafe with one of my students, a very nice guy with whom I feel we have a lot in common in the way we look at life. We were talking exclusively in Spanish; he can speak it very well and to an ousider we probably look just like two friends having coffee together. As we were approaching the end of our lesson he asked me if we could revise some grammar next time - he felt he was making too many mistakes. I disagreed completely and started convincing him that what he needs is practice and as a proof that I'm right I started waving with a Very Thick Linguistics Book that I happened to have with me. He looked at the book to make sure it was thick enough and admitted that I was right.
Of course I was!
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Saturday, March 25, 2006
My brain and I
How do you learn a new language? Do you learn separate words or whole phrases? How do you think your brain is doing that? How does it arrange the information?
A couple of days ago I was talking with a brilliant linguist about just that subject. He believes strongly that we store whole, ready-to-use phrases rather than single words. He gave me an example in Italian: 'mi da fastidio' (it annoys me, bothers me). I speak some Italian but that was the first time I have heard this expression and I had only a vague idea what it might mean. Later on in the discussion he repeated it once more. The next day I was walking in the center of Amsterdam (where I live), deeply lost in my thoughts and suddenly I've heard:
'blah blah blah mi da fastidio blah blah'
The phrase 'mi da fastidio' reached my perception like a bullet and even though I wasn't paying attention to what the people around me were saying I managed to hear that phrase perfectly. My brain fished it out of the noise of the busy Amsterdam street as if it was only waiting for it, as if it was extra sensitive for it.
It seems to me that after I learn a new phrase my brain becomes sensitive to that phrase for a certain period of time (let's call it a trial period). If in that time I will come across this phrase again my brain will react with: Wait a second, I've heard that phrase just yesterday! That must mean it's an important phrase!
[And indeed, 'mi da fastidio' is used frequently. Apparently the Italians like to complain...]
If I don't come across it after the trail period is over the phrase would not get a high rank in my memory.
A couple of days ago I was talking with a brilliant linguist about just that subject. He believes strongly that we store whole, ready-to-use phrases rather than single words. He gave me an example in Italian: 'mi da fastidio' (it annoys me, bothers me). I speak some Italian but that was the first time I have heard this expression and I had only a vague idea what it might mean. Later on in the discussion he repeated it once more. The next day I was walking in the center of Amsterdam (where I live), deeply lost in my thoughts and suddenly I've heard:
'blah blah blah mi da fastidio blah blah'
The phrase 'mi da fastidio' reached my perception like a bullet and even though I wasn't paying attention to what the people around me were saying I managed to hear that phrase perfectly. My brain fished it out of the noise of the busy Amsterdam street as if it was only waiting for it, as if it was extra sensitive for it.
It seems to me that after I learn a new phrase my brain becomes sensitive to that phrase for a certain period of time (let's call it a trial period). If in that time I will come across this phrase again my brain will react with: Wait a second, I've heard that phrase just yesterday! That must mean it's an important phrase!
[And indeed, 'mi da fastidio' is used frequently. Apparently the Italians like to complain...]
If I don't come across it after the trail period is over the phrase would not get a high rank in my memory.
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Learn Italian with Italian perverts
The lengths I would go to learn a language...
Yesterday I was chatting in Italian with Italian native speakers. They do it because they wanna get in my pants and I'm doing it to practice my Italian. I don't know who's worse: me, because I'm using them for my educational purposes or them, because they are depraving my innocent soul of a language student...
Yesterday I chatted on skype with some guy that wanted to pay me 1500 euro for having sex with him that night. He asked: Preferisci prenderelo da dietro o davanti? And I was excited because now I knew how to say 'from the front' and 'from behind'! I also used this opportunity to investigate his motives. It turned out that his main source of excitement was that the woman would become his accomplice, would agree to have sex with him with an excuse of money, an excuse because what what she really desires is a night of pure passion but she's not daring enough, she needs this excuse to push her on the other side of sin. He said:
Il fatto di avere questa complicita' con lei mi eccita e anche il fatto di non sapere se lei l'ha fatto per i soldi o per la passione.
[The fact of having this complicity with her excites me and also the fact of not knowing whether she has done it for the money or for the passion]
Yesterday I was chatting in Italian with Italian native speakers. They do it because they wanna get in my pants and I'm doing it to practice my Italian. I don't know who's worse: me, because I'm using them for my educational purposes or them, because they are depraving my innocent soul of a language student...
Yesterday I chatted on skype with some guy that wanted to pay me 1500 euro for having sex with him that night. He asked: Preferisci prenderelo da dietro o davanti? And I was excited because now I knew how to say 'from the front' and 'from behind'! I also used this opportunity to investigate his motives. It turned out that his main source of excitement was that the woman would become his accomplice, would agree to have sex with him with an excuse of money, an excuse because what what she really desires is a night of pure passion but she's not daring enough, she needs this excuse to push her on the other side of sin. He said:
Il fatto di avere questa complicita' con lei mi eccita e anche il fatto di non sapere se lei l'ha fatto per i soldi o per la passione.
[The fact of having this complicity with her excites me and also the fact of not knowing whether she has done it for the money or for the passion]
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
a spriritual atheist
When you are on the right path you will meet the right kind of people and the right kind of things will happen to you. I admit to myself that there is this kind of spirituality out there, although it may only exist as a particular poetic way of looking at life, not as an existing physical force that can be proved or disproved. I don't necessarily think that you need to evoke supernatural powers to explain that. Naturally, good things will happen if you have a positive attitude and you are not afraid to pursue your true interests, your true passions.
I have always been very adamant in my logical, scientific way of looking at things and I don't easily succumb to supernatural explanations of everyday phenomena - I believe that things are simple and I don't need religion to assist me in my understanding of reality. Even though I would not hesitate to state that there is no God, I am nevertheless attracted to poetry and beauty in some of the religious concepts: the concept of good and evil, the concept of suffering for the right moral cause. They make sense to me emotionally, they make sense to me as a feeling human being. Their relevance might not lie in their explanatory power but in their power to make us feel we belong to the same species, in their power to make us understand we are not alone.
I have always been very adamant in my logical, scientific way of looking at things and I don't easily succumb to supernatural explanations of everyday phenomena - I believe that things are simple and I don't need religion to assist me in my understanding of reality. Even though I would not hesitate to state that there is no God, I am nevertheless attracted to poetry and beauty in some of the religious concepts: the concept of good and evil, the concept of suffering for the right moral cause. They make sense to me emotionally, they make sense to me as a feeling human being. Their relevance might not lie in their explanatory power but in their power to make us feel we belong to the same species, in their power to make us understand we are not alone.
Monday, March 13, 2006
linguist in a sauna
I want to become a linguist. To that end, I've equipped myself with some textbooks on the subject and started carrying them around anywhere I go and reading them whenever I get the chance. Say, in a sauna.
Yesterday I went to this hippie sauna and hang-out place where all men are rasta and women sip biological carrot juice. You're supposed to go totally naked and covering your sensitive parts for longer periods of time is against the house rules (if you can see mine, I wanna see yours too). Otherwise the cool-down place near the bar looks pretty conventional; that is if you don't mind naked hairy individuals slurping soup at your table.
I was there with Olga, a good friend of mine, and we just got out of the sauna room and were cooling down next to the cold water bath (not quite brave enough to actually jump into it). There was a naked guy sitting next to us, reading a book. I have noticed in the corner of my eye that he didn't turn the page for quite a while and was instead listening to my and Olga's conversation. When I saw him react to the word 'linguistics' with a sudden turn of his head I knew he must be one of them language fanatics. Later on he picked up my linguistics book which I had left by the bar and we started chatting. In the changing room (he completely dressed, me totally naked) I asked him for his email adress. All the guys in the room were watching us intently, as if saying: Why on earth does HE get to get her email adress?
Tough luck, guys!
Yesterday I went to this hippie sauna and hang-out place where all men are rasta and women sip biological carrot juice. You're supposed to go totally naked and covering your sensitive parts for longer periods of time is against the house rules (if you can see mine, I wanna see yours too). Otherwise the cool-down place near the bar looks pretty conventional; that is if you don't mind naked hairy individuals slurping soup at your table.
I was there with Olga, a good friend of mine, and we just got out of the sauna room and were cooling down next to the cold water bath (not quite brave enough to actually jump into it). There was a naked guy sitting next to us, reading a book. I have noticed in the corner of my eye that he didn't turn the page for quite a while and was instead listening to my and Olga's conversation. When I saw him react to the word 'linguistics' with a sudden turn of his head I knew he must be one of them language fanatics. Later on he picked up my linguistics book which I had left by the bar and we started chatting. In the changing room (he completely dressed, me totally naked) I asked him for his email adress. All the guys in the room were watching us intently, as if saying: Why on earth does HE get to get her email adress?
Tough luck, guys!
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