I've been reading Josephine Tey recently (post soon), and one of her favourite words is "silly". People, actions, the criminal mind: all susceptible to silliness. Even murders can be silly.

Well, I feel I've been pretty silly lately, in that I've allowed my language progress to lapse quite badly. I've just been coasting along with German, French, Indonesian, Spanish, and Italian -- languages I already read very or reasonably well -- but have not in the least been pushing ahead with Russian, Chinese, Turkish, or even low-hanging-fruit Portuguese. That being the case, it follows that "fun" languages (Manx, Korean, Thai) haven't even had the ghost of a look-in.

Why? Well, I can speculate that during our summer of problems, disappearing into novels offered more escape and distraction than language-learning. And having got into the bad habit, it's hard to get out of it.

Whatever the reason, this silliness is the reason there hasn't been a language log post since 21 August...


All these photos illustrate our complex language environment here in Sarawak

And, as though to compound the silly-fest, I've started Japanese...

Yes, I know I said I wouldn't... In fact, in that post, I specifically cited Japanese as a language I wouldn't be embarking on... But we're going to Japan, you see, and it seemed that even a few words would be a useful supplement to the approximately three phrases I learned last time.

I'm not setting my sights high. Anything at all will be a gain.

Fascinating language, though... The writing system is wild... I've pretty much mastered the two alphabets (hiragana and katakana); and I'm familiar with a few of the basic kanji because I know a little Chinese -- except that the character that says "shui" in Chinese says "mizu" in Japanese, and the one that says "rou" in Chinese says "niku" in Japanese, and so on and so on... And don't ask me to explain why most kanji today can be read in two ways, the Chinese way (on-yomi), and the Japanese way (kun-yomi), because I've not even begun to get to grips with that.



Materials? Well, I've not had time to really shop around, so I've been relying on NHK for basic grammar explanations, plus two apps: Memrise, and everyone's favourite green owl. Which brings me to...

APPS AND THINGS

-- Duolingo has recently changed its front end. Radically. (There's a rundown on the key changes here...) Needless to say, there have been howls of protest. But actually I think it's way better. It was a bit odd that it arrived on my computer quite a while before it arrived on my phone, but the two are in sync now -- and really, it's way tidier. Based on my recent Japanese experience, my impression is that the early lessons are MUCH improved on what they used to be. It's all very practical right from the get-go (one of the criticisms of Duolingo was that you spent loads of time with sentences like "the duck is eating a strawberry", and it took far too long to reach sentences like "I'd like a cup of coffee, please"). They've really addressed that, as far as I can see. Anyway, I'll keep plodding on with it, and report back soon.



-- On the subject of Duolingo, Language Crush had an interesting article on its evolution. And Pablo has an entire video on why he doesn't like it (TL;DR -- there's not enough context; and the translations, without context, are often misleading). Some of his criticisms have possibly been addressed in this new version, but as always, the thing with apps is that you cannot expect them to do everything, and providing you see them as just a small part in your language-learning arsenal, they have their place.

-- Meanwhile, the truly massive reduction in the free element of Clozemaster has made it pretty much unusable as far as I'm concerned. If a good sale offer comes along, I might jump back on board. Otherwise, sadly, that's one I'll be saying goodbye to.



OTHER PEOPLE'S LANGUAGE-LEARNING EXPERIENCES

-- Lindie Botes answers the question of whether, with all the languages she's learning, she spreads herself too thin. Sure, she acknowledges, she would be more fluent if she worked on fewer languages, but she enjoys languages, so she learns as many as she can. It's all a question of enjoyment... Basically I enjoy languages too. Which probably means I'll get over my silly down-tools period sooner or later.

-- This Language Crush blog post has some useful advice on how to overcome the notorious intermediate plateau. Firstly, the author reminds us: "Fluency is never more than topic fluency: first you become fluent in talking about yourself, then about everyday topics, then maybe an area of interest... This is the secret to overcoming the plateau: pick one topic, become fluent in it, pick another topic, become fluent in it, pick a third topic, become fluent in it... until there are no more topics that are useful/interesting to you at this time." She's also a fan of "rabbit holes" -- topics that interest you so much that you carry on digging into them, down, down, down, but always in your target language.



-- Great to see an article in the New York Times yesterday about the ongoing revival of the Manx language.

-- And Maya Jasanoff -- the daughter of "a Jewish American father and upper-caste Bengali mother", born in the US, and raised with no knowledge of any Indian language -- reminds us of the ways languages both sustain identity and feed diversity: "After four decades of engaging with India only in English... I seized the chance of a sabbatical leave four years ago to study Hindi. Choosing Hindi over other languages -- notably Bengali, my mother's native tongue -- was itself personally and politically conflicted... Yet Hindi is the most widely spoken language in India, with an elevated status in official and popular culture. It was the better choice for grasping the texture of India today... As an American and OCI [Overseas Citizen of India], I've never felt greater despair about the prospects for democracy, equality and free expression in the countries that I love most. Yet by exploring India through Hindi, I realize I have, paradoxically, gained an even deeper appreciation for the country's polyphony and diversity... The supremacists who trumpet their angry, exclusionary versions of 'we' may be loud and in the ascendant. But India (like the United States) contains legions of dissenters, who speak in hundreds of voices. Let all who are able raise them in retort."



TV LANGUAGES

Over the last few months we've had the opportunity to watch TV series in languages or variants of languages that we don't encounter much.

-- The Wall, for example, is a crime drama that mostly uses Quebec French. It's set in Fermont, a mining town in the far north of Canada, where it's very, very cold... The original French title is La Faille, but that's a really difficult word to translate. It can mean fault, breach, chink, loophole, rift... Interestingly, though, it was broadcast as The Wall in France -- and given subtitles... People who want to learn Quebecois French, so that they don't have to depend on subtitles, should consult Genevieve Breton, whose Youtube channel is called Ma prof de francais. Here she is in conversation with Hugo Cotton, discussing whether a French person can understand a Quebecer...



-- And finally, Mouths of Sand, also a crime drama, is set in the Basque Autonomous Community of Spain, and frequently features Euskera, the Basque language, alongside Spanish. There are useful introductions to Euskera here (in English) and here (in Spanish).