This is the continuation of the last post)
So, I would have gone into programming and stuffy but then again, as I mentioned before, the way they teach it rather command us to do. It makes even the things that I love, utterly repelled. The second semester in, I went to my another bhaiya (ah, yes ! we have big families over here;P ) and I told him about the boring University life etc. I so vividly remember the face-palm he did, stressing again that this university is a good for me and he went on to, you know, gently move me back to the stay-at-the-university zone.
I realized that this is not gonna work this way, I would be driven crazy. I had to find something else !!
As my second semester in the University was about to begin, way back in early 2013, I thought things over and somehow gravitated towards languages. This seemed long enough and tough enough so as to keep me busy and yet not disappoint me. Though I had Sanskrit at school and, believe me, it was an utter waste of my time. Who uses that language these days, so I used to think ?
I did a lot of research on how to learn a language and two of the most prominent influences on me have been by Steve Kaufman and Benny Lewis. Both are awesome language learners and the fact that they encourage others to get over the language barrier and are such great motivators, makes me all the more thankful to them;P
Though their approaches differ quite a lot and there might be a slight friction between the two, I learn a lot from both of them. I like differences and this way I can experiment a lot and come up with something which is somewhere in the middle and helps me to really find out what works for me and what doesn't. I'll elaborate on this point in the coming posts;)
BTW when I named these posts The Language Odyssey, for it just seemed right, Felt right you know and then I remembered that Steve Kaufman had also graced his ebook with the same name. I read his book during my Research period and only now did it surface back up. Wonderful, isn't it, how we internalise things and events.
So, I focused upon the language whose culture fascinated me and two languages came up. Russian and German;P
Russian for the simple reason being that, well, there used to be a map over at the room where I had started staying as a paying guest. You just can't ignore Russia, I mean, look at the world map and you will see what I mean. It's just so big !! And then again, I like long novels and the trail follows to Russia, I mean there is something different about the the kind of Literature that came down from Russia. Yes, it's sad most times, focuses on ironies of life but it penetrates so deep within our emotions, it makes you involved with itself, draws you in a labyrinth you would never wish to leave. Trust me, if you are not planning on Russian literature you really should think it over. You would be missing out pearls. As for the sound of the language, it just sounds so poetic and rhythmical and another beautiful aspect of the language being the fact that the essence of the language sounds harsh, raw, well manly when spoken by a man and so elegantly feminine when spoken by a female. Of course, I know that these generalizations are only romantic representation of my own perceptions but there just is something mysterious about the language, perhaps it's Nutro [ нутро ] or perhaps it's the mysterious Russian soul ( Русская душа )...ah, well. I can talk about these languages all day long, you know. Let's just get on with the narration for the moment.
As for German, well, in hindsight my life always seemed to be leading towards the language ( in foresight, perhaps still is;P ). From the brilliant contribution to sciences and unfortunate involvement in the World Wars, from Völkerwanderung ( Germanic Migrations ) to Gutenberg's printing press. And how can one overlook the bright insignia of the German Genius on Music, Science, Arts and, of course, Literature ( Brothers Grimm, Goethe...). They say the language sounds harsh, then you really should stop obsessing on Hitler speeches or some such !!
The language sounds so precise, so natural to me, and then there are the unique sounds of the German language which give it such a different flavour from every other language that I know. The way the language forms new words is just so intuitive, though that might because of the English background that I was raised in. But the fact remains, that you hear a new word in the German language and you can pretty much guess it's straightforward meaning. Isn't that beautiful;P
Plus, German Rap, Hard rock is as if the entire genre was made just for this one language, who can ignore Rammstein ?
So, as time went by I realized that language that both these languages have so many French ( Latin derived words) and as I was already had English as my Nanny-tongue, if not my mother tongue, I already was aware of quite a lot of French words. And thus French was added to the list.
I heard a lot about Esperanto from Benny so I decided to explore the language as well, as I was frustrated with my snail-slow progress in Russian [ my first priority at the time] and learning a simple language, gaining confidence in a language first made a lot of sense. I have really come to believe that it's really about the first foreign language barrier that confronts us with such a challenge, once we get the ball rolling it's like a snowball.
Well, this series might take a while, it might probably span over a few more posts if I am to be accurate with the descriptions. In the mean-time I look out for the coming project on the Nutro-Marka blog. The Vikings are coming;P
So, I would have gone into programming and stuffy but then again, as I mentioned before, the way they teach it rather command us to do. It makes even the things that I love, utterly repelled. The second semester in, I went to my another bhaiya (ah, yes ! we have big families over here;P ) and I told him about the boring University life etc. I so vividly remember the face-palm he did, stressing again that this university is a good for me and he went on to, you know, gently move me back to the stay-at-the-university zone.
I realized that this is not gonna work this way, I would be driven crazy. I had to find something else !!
As my second semester in the University was about to begin, way back in early 2013, I thought things over and somehow gravitated towards languages. This seemed long enough and tough enough so as to keep me busy and yet not disappoint me. Though I had Sanskrit at school and, believe me, it was an utter waste of my time. Who uses that language these days, so I used to think ?
I did a lot of research on how to learn a language and two of the most prominent influences on me have been by Steve Kaufman and Benny Lewis. Both are awesome language learners and the fact that they encourage others to get over the language barrier and are such great motivators, makes me all the more thankful to them;P
Though their approaches differ quite a lot and there might be a slight friction between the two, I learn a lot from both of them. I like differences and this way I can experiment a lot and come up with something which is somewhere in the middle and helps me to really find out what works for me and what doesn't. I'll elaborate on this point in the coming posts;)
BTW when I named these posts The Language Odyssey, for it just seemed right, Felt right you know and then I remembered that Steve Kaufman had also graced his ebook with the same name. I read his book during my Research period and only now did it surface back up. Wonderful, isn't it, how we internalise things and events.
So, I focused upon the language whose culture fascinated me and two languages came up. Russian and German;P
Russian for the simple reason being that, well, there used to be a map over at the room where I had started staying as a paying guest. You just can't ignore Russia, I mean, look at the world map and you will see what I mean. It's just so big !! And then again, I like long novels and the trail follows to Russia, I mean there is something different about the the kind of Literature that came down from Russia. Yes, it's sad most times, focuses on ironies of life but it penetrates so deep within our emotions, it makes you involved with itself, draws you in a labyrinth you would never wish to leave. Trust me, if you are not planning on Russian literature you really should think it over. You would be missing out pearls. As for the sound of the language, it just sounds so poetic and rhythmical and another beautiful aspect of the language being the fact that the essence of the language sounds harsh, raw, well manly when spoken by a man and so elegantly feminine when spoken by a female. Of course, I know that these generalizations are only romantic representation of my own perceptions but there just is something mysterious about the language, perhaps it's Nutro [ нутро ] or perhaps it's the mysterious Russian soul ( Русская душа )...ah, well. I can talk about these languages all day long, you know. Let's just get on with the narration for the moment.
As for German, well, in hindsight my life always seemed to be leading towards the language ( in foresight, perhaps still is;P ). From the brilliant contribution to sciences and unfortunate involvement in the World Wars, from Völkerwanderung ( Germanic Migrations ) to Gutenberg's printing press. And how can one overlook the bright insignia of the German Genius on Music, Science, Arts and, of course, Literature ( Brothers Grimm, Goethe...). They say the language sounds harsh, then you really should stop obsessing on Hitler speeches or some such !!
The language sounds so precise, so natural to me, and then there are the unique sounds of the German language which give it such a different flavour from every other language that I know. The way the language forms new words is just so intuitive, though that might because of the English background that I was raised in. But the fact remains, that you hear a new word in the German language and you can pretty much guess it's straightforward meaning. Isn't that beautiful;P
Plus, German Rap, Hard rock is as if the entire genre was made just for this one language, who can ignore Rammstein ?
So, as time went by I realized that language that both these languages have so many French ( Latin derived words) and as I was already had English as my Nanny-tongue, if not my mother tongue, I already was aware of quite a lot of French words. And thus French was added to the list.
I heard a lot about Esperanto from Benny so I decided to explore the language as well, as I was frustrated with my snail-slow progress in Russian [ my first priority at the time] and learning a simple language, gaining confidence in a language first made a lot of sense. I have really come to believe that it's really about the first foreign language barrier that confronts us with such a challenge, once we get the ball rolling it's like a snowball.
Well, this series might take a while, it might probably span over a few more posts if I am to be accurate with the descriptions. In the mean-time I look out for the coming project on the Nutro-Marka blog. The Vikings are coming;P
No comments:
Post a Comment