My foreign language addiction

So I've mentioned before that I have this little addiction to learning new foreign languages. Now there's a limit to how far one can go with no one else to talk to in that language, so I usually pick up a sense of the mechanics and a feel for the pronunciation and then move on to the next one. I have at one point or another studied Spanish, German, Latin, Japanese, French, Norwegian, Swedish, and Icelandic. I'm not remotely fluent in anything (one could make a pretty convincing argument against my fluency in English on same days), and my phobia against talking to anyone I don't already know pretty much limits my chances of ever practicing any of this in conversation. But I do like to read things in foreign languages, and the internet is great for finding stuff not in English. (I've read novels in Spanish and in German, although it's been so long since I've used my German I don't think I could do it now).

Mostly I do this because I find language tapes more diverting than TV shows when I'm treading the mill (a necessary but tedious 30 minutes I try to get in every day). The Pimsleur series in particular is excellent; it's all oral so you don't need to be holding a phrase book at the same time or anything, and rather than being a listen and repeat the phrase type thing, you have to come up with responses on your own to questions in the language you're learning. It really taxes the memory; a challenging kind of fun. The problem for me was that they only go up to 10 lessons in most languages (hence my mere smattering of Swedish and Norwegian). About a month ago when I was choosing which language to do next, I decided I wanted to really delve into one of the languages Pimsleur had more than 10 lessons in, and I wanted it to be something really challenging.

It came down to a coin toss between Japanese and Mandarin Chinese (I have tons of movies in these two languages, and it would be fun to understand them without the subtitles. Sadly, Cantonese is one of the languages Pimsleur only does 10 lessons in. I have more Catonese than Mandarin movies). Well, Mandarin won. This certainly has served its purpose as far as treading the mill goes; I've quit finding excuses not to do it because I look forward to the Chinese lessons. But the problem was as I've mentioned above, I largely use my foreign language skills to read, and this is strictly an oral program. Plus, Chinese? Well, I don't need to tell you their writing system is a bit of an intellectual Mount Everest. Luckily, it's my kind of rock climbing. I went out and got myself a book on Chinese writing and a monster stack of index cards.

And actually this plays into my whole being an example to my sons thing. Seeing mom learn something which is quite challenging for her by drilling flash cards is a much better motivator than just promising it really helps to learn that way. Aidan is learning Latin with flash cards pretty much on his own. I only go over them with him once when he gets his new words to make sure he's pronouncing it all correctly and then he drills them on his own while I drill mine.

I only recognize about 100 words so far (pretty good for a month's effort, though). It's enough so I can page through some of my books that have Chinese in them and pick out characters here and there I know. Then I found the coolest thing on YouTube: Wilber Pan karoake. (Wilber Pan is another one of those acts I saw on IMF, fell in love, and then had to buy his stuff from some guy in Hong Kong on eBay because it's not available here. Honestly, IMF is evil). Not only does this video have the written Chinese to match what he's singing (in Mandarin, not Cantonese, since he's from Taiwan) (actually he's from West Virginia, but that's not important now), they light up as he sings them. It's like the world's coolest teaching tool.

But my favorite video of his doesn't have the karoake feature. Which is a shame. But it does have subtitles, and it does feature Wilber Pan in a sort of kung fu epic pastiche. Cool.