Spanish
As many of you know, I am a little bit obsessed with Spain and all things Spanish. This weekend I spent many hours wading through a sociolinguistic journal article about the dictionary of Mexican Spanish.
Written in Spanish. I haven't read much in Spanish for a few years now.
Reading in Spanish is hard! But fascinating. And at least it is for an essay I'm writing.
But it made me reflect once more on why I like languages, why I like learning languages, and why I hope to learn and use a few more yet in my lifetime. So I thought I'd share some of these thoughts with you all.
The process of learning another language involves learning to see the world a different way from what you are used to. Like suddenly having two different ideas about 'being' which are expressed by one word in English but require two words in Spanish (ser and estar both translate to 'to be' in English). Which made me consider how I think about emotions and occupations and relationships and death. Even expressions which have the same basic idea can make you think about what the term actually means - la luna de miel, 'the moon of honey', honeymoon - what an odd concept!
Learning another language involves learning how to make different sounds, some of which can feel humiliating in isolation but the sense of accomplishment when you manage to say those sounds in the context of words and sentences is so extraordinary! It even stops feeling embarrassing by that point.
We all use language to communicate to people, to express our thoughts, to discuss events around us and around the world, to persuade and to entertain. Language is part of our lives and our culture, and it shapes our lives and our cultures, and is in turn shaped by our lives and our culture. We learn new ideas and words all the time, we change which words we use to talk about things as we change how we think about those things or as we try to change those things. And it is fascinating to learn about how other people live, what is important to them, and what holidays they celebrate!
Each language has idioms. This is probably the coolest part! An idiom is an expression which, when translated directly into another language makes little or no sense - at least, it does not convey the same meaning as it does in its own language. One of my favourites in Spanish is dar a la luz, 'to give to the light'. What a different way to look at labour (which focuses on the hard work and pain), at giving birth!
And then there is the fun of learning the alphabet all over again, or learning an entirely new alphabet! There are some truly beautiful ways of writing words, and there are different directions that you can write in. I like that Hebrew and Arabic are written from right to left. I like that Japanese can be written vertically down the page from right to left OR horizontally across the page from left to right!
Plus, I just like words. I like learning new words, and I'm not worried about whether they are in English or not. Sometimes it is more fun when they are not English! And then, I like being able to hear the sounds of the words in my head when I read Spanish. It is so soothing and beautiful, even when I struggle to understand.
So, that's just a few thoughts! They may not be the ones I had the other day when I started writing this, so you'll proably hear some more another time!
What has been the most interesting thing you have learned about another language or culture?
Written in Spanish. I haven't read much in Spanish for a few years now.
Reading in Spanish is hard! But fascinating. And at least it is for an essay I'm writing.
But it made me reflect once more on why I like languages, why I like learning languages, and why I hope to learn and use a few more yet in my lifetime. So I thought I'd share some of these thoughts with you all.
The process of learning another language involves learning to see the world a different way from what you are used to. Like suddenly having two different ideas about 'being' which are expressed by one word in English but require two words in Spanish (ser and estar both translate to 'to be' in English). Which made me consider how I think about emotions and occupations and relationships and death. Even expressions which have the same basic idea can make you think about what the term actually means - la luna de miel, 'the moon of honey', honeymoon - what an odd concept!
Learning another language involves learning how to make different sounds, some of which can feel humiliating in isolation but the sense of accomplishment when you manage to say those sounds in the context of words and sentences is so extraordinary! It even stops feeling embarrassing by that point.
We all use language to communicate to people, to express our thoughts, to discuss events around us and around the world, to persuade and to entertain. Language is part of our lives and our culture, and it shapes our lives and our cultures, and is in turn shaped by our lives and our culture. We learn new ideas and words all the time, we change which words we use to talk about things as we change how we think about those things or as we try to change those things. And it is fascinating to learn about how other people live, what is important to them, and what holidays they celebrate!
Each language has idioms. This is probably the coolest part! An idiom is an expression which, when translated directly into another language makes little or no sense - at least, it does not convey the same meaning as it does in its own language. One of my favourites in Spanish is dar a la luz, 'to give to the light'. What a different way to look at labour (which focuses on the hard work and pain), at giving birth!
And then there is the fun of learning the alphabet all over again, or learning an entirely new alphabet! There are some truly beautiful ways of writing words, and there are different directions that you can write in. I like that Hebrew and Arabic are written from right to left. I like that Japanese can be written vertically down the page from right to left OR horizontally across the page from left to right!
Plus, I just like words. I like learning new words, and I'm not worried about whether they are in English or not. Sometimes it is more fun when they are not English! And then, I like being able to hear the sounds of the words in my head when I read Spanish. It is so soothing and beautiful, even when I struggle to understand.
So, that's just a few thoughts! They may not be the ones I had the other day when I started writing this, so you'll proably hear some more another time!
What has been the most interesting thing you have learned about another language or culture?
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ReplyDeleteHey Sharna, so many thoughts going around in your head. I can tell how much you love languages! The greatest thing I like is starting with a language that you don't know and it seems like you'll never understand a single word, let alone all of it. And then a while later being able to understand it. It's a great feeling to know that you have been let into the secret of this new language and its meaning. I laughed when you talked about idioms, because there's a few things here in NL that I've found confusing. The funniest being the literal translation of keyring is 'forest of keys'. When they were talking about it, I was very confused!
ReplyDeleteIt is very hard to process idioms! Probably the hardest part about writing this post was actually thinking of one of the many idioms I've encountered across the languages I've had the privilege to study and use! I love the idea of a keyring being a 'forest of keys'! It makes sense in a completely different way from what we are used to!
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