Have been meaning to share these for awhile… Luckily none of them are time-sensitive and perhaps they even get better with age. 🙂
Awesome idioms from around the world (my favorite is the Polish one)
Andre in Argentina! (My personal motherlode – French practice & Argentine nostalgia)
Ways (beyond Duolingo) to learn Spanish on your phone
A new (beautiful) French bookstore has opened in NYC
A belated blurb about “Hiroshima Mon Amour,” the Alain Resnais new wave classic that I caught last week at Film Forum (perfectly timed with my Tokyo afterglow):
The same poetic, overwrought melodrama that tarnishes the script’s beauty with a hefty dose of cheese has the exact opposite effect on the composition, which is the height of elegance and artistry. Every shot is so perfectly framed that, well, it could be framed. Look at these!:
Jaw-droppingly gorgeous, no?
I spent the movie enraptured by the cinematography and appreciative that even though the screenplay didn’t speak to me in the traditional sense, it spoke to me in the literal sense. As in, it was sparse, repetitive and simple enough for me to understand 90% of it without subtitles.
French practice, eye candy, and a warm movie theatre on a cold night = perfection.
I was out of town for two weeks and sick / working nonstop for another two upon my return, so I skipped a bunch of French conversation meetups. This Monday’s was the first one I went to in a month, but somehow, I found that the time away had solidified things instead of making me forgetful. Talking and understanding came easier than usual.
I had a different experience with running. Since I started two years ago, I haven’t gone more than two and a half weeks without at least a cursory jog just to keep myself in the game. I heard that two weeks is the amount of time you can go without exercise before you start to lose your ability to perform at the same level, so I didn’t expect much when I went for a run late last week. In fact, I practically had to drag myself out of the house because I really hadn’t missed running at all and had become okay with the idea of never doing it again. I was surprised to be able to go nearly as long and far as I usually do (which is not long or far at all), but my legs hurt like hell the next day, and I have now developed a mysterious gimpy knee after having no knee problems ever. And when I went out again a few days later I could barely go a mile.
Still, I was glad to be back in action after so long away and even though it’s going to be tougher to get back to running than it was to return to French, it’s my only form of exercise and (theoretically) makes me feel better, so I’m going to force myself to do it until my apathy and sluggishness wane and it comes naturally again.
Scientifically speaking, I wonder: when you leave something alone for awhile and then return to it, what goes on in your brain and your body? What happened physiologically to make French easier and running harder?
(Photo: Happy Kiddo 4Ever)
The story in The New York Times Magazine about Sarah Marquis, a 42 year-old Swiss woman who walked 10,000 miles of wilderness in 3 years, alone, and endured all sorts of crazy natural and man-made calamities along the way, was excellent food for thought. Her need to test herself in isolation, to persevere over seemingly arbitrary challenges that she fashions for herself, to travel and experience huge swaths of the earth on rather trying terms – all in search of an “inchoate feeling” that gives her life substance – seems bonkers and maladjusted, yes, but somehow also completely self-actualized and inspiring.
This line especially spoke to me: But perhaps the reason to court a sufferfest – to explore or adventure, or whatever you want to call it – is that it makes a person feel alive.
I’m no Sarah Marquis by any stretch of the imagination. My personal extremes are about eight thousand times less extreme than hers. But the compulsion to go to them is familiar to me.
In fact, I seem to be courting sufferfests right and left these days. Learning French and (pretending to learn) Spanish are the ones I talk about here – but there are many more. Sometimes there is no reward, only suffering. But sometimes it all pays off and there is a feeling of extreme exhilaration and purpose. I am in the midst of a work-related sufferfest right now that I’m hoping will come out on the side of the latter. Only time will tell…
(Photo: Joel Marquis)
A compendium of the French music that has been introduced to me over the course of my twenty years (on and off) of studying the language:
Indochine
My first year of French, in eighth grade, the teacher would start each class with a few songs from one of her French albums. She played them on an actual record player, which is how I know it really was a long time ago. Indochine is the only music I still remember from that year. I loved it because it took me on a nostalgic trip back to the new wave of my 80’s childhood, but at the same time it was completely new and catchy to me. Call me crazy / 47 years old, but I do really think Indochine makes good music.
Here’s the album my teacher would play for us. My favorite song was and still is “Tes Yeux Noir (scroll forward to 35:47):
Diam and Koxie
In grad school I took a French class after ten years without formal – or really, any – study. For one looong and humbling semester I endured the snarky looks of barely-adult undergrads who had no patience for my halting mangled French. I made friends instead with the one other grad student (who also spoke much better French than I did – I was the worst in the class by a long shot). The one favor those haughty undergrads did for me was to introduce me to Diam and Koxie, both woman rappers of immigrant ancestry. At a recent Meetup I learned from the Togolese guy that Diam wears the hijab now and has stopped making music. Perhaps the two things are related, perhaps not – I leave that to you to Google if the spirit moves you.
Diam:
Koxie:
At another recent Meetup, Kery James was another French rapper recommended to me:
And at yet another one, I was told to listen to MC Solaar:
And just for fun, since this has become a list dominated by French rappers, here’s a song from the (highly derivative) Busta Flex album I bought pretty much at random the year I studied abroad in Ireland and spent a day in Paris on spring break:
For good measure, a beautiful / spunky / easy-to-follow-even-if-you-speak-terrible-French song that Emmanuel sent to me, by Françoiz Breut:
What do you think?
(Photo of Indochine doing the we-can-still-rock-in-middle-age thing: Laurent Breillat)
It occurred to me the other day that sourire (smile) literally means ‘under-laugh’ (sous-rire). Something about that is so lovely.
I looked up the etymology and here’s what I found:
“Parce qu’il vient autant du cœur que de la raison, le sourire dit tout et son contraire. Première forme de langage non verbal, il crée instantanément du lien lorsqu’il est authentique, génère de l’inquiétude lorsqu’il est rictus ou provoque un malaise lorsqu’il est forcé. …
Son étymologie est mal définie: du latin subridere, il viendrait ‘avant le rire,’ dont il serait un avatar inachevé et silencieux, esquissé et contenu. Le sourire ne serait-il qu’un sous-rire, un rire au rabais?
Avant de rire, nous avons souri. Le bébé sourit dès la naissance, alors que les premiers éclats de rire ne commencent qu’entre 4 et 8 mois. Sourire est un comportement inné, et non un apprentissage culturel. …
Le sourire est donc loin d’être une forme affaiblie du rire. … ‘Le sourire est la perfection du rire,’ écrit le philosophe Alain à propos de la plus subtile des expressions humaines.”
My butchery of an interpretation (corrections welcome!):
“Because it comes as much from the heart as from the mind, the smile tells us everything and nothing. The first form of non-verbal language, it instantly creates a connection when it is authentic, generates uneasiness when it is a grin, or provokes malaise when it is forced.
Its etymology is badly defined: from the latin subridere, it would come ‘before the laugh,” which would make it an unfinished and silent transformation, sketchy and contained. [Editor’s note: Wtf??] The smile would be but an under-laugh, a cheap laugh.
Before laughing, we smiled. The baby smiles from birth, while the first peels of laughter don’t occur until sometime between 4 and 8 months. To smile is something that happens on the inside, and not culturally learned behaviour.
The smile is therefore far from being a weakened form of laughter. ‘The smile is the perfection of laughter,’ writes philospher Alain about the most subtle of human expressions.”
Those French and their poetic way with language. (But, oh, what a mockery my translation makes of it.)
(Photo: My niece’s loveliest of smiles, surpassed only by her laughter.)
Remember how Jordan described her language exchange experience as akin to online dating? Well…
I was cleaning out my email inbox, which is full of unread messages I’ve received from people who found me on conversationexchange.com, the site that connects people who want to learn the other’s language. I’ve been ignoring the message notifications for awhile now, since I’m happy with my current situation Skyping once a week with Philippe. I don’t have the time or inclination to do it more often than that, and we always have stuff to talk about, so there’s no point being in touch with other people.
I was curious, though, about who had contacted me. I didn’t want to delete the message notifications without first reading their actual messages, so I logged in to Conversation Exchange for the first time in months.
I worked my way backwards through my inbox, reading everyone’s message and then looking at their profile. I was happy to confirm that I wasn’t missing out on anything. When I got near the bottom I saw my initial emails with Philippe. I re-read them and looked at his profile, wondering whether the way he presented himself would align with my current impression of him. I was amused to see that his profile picture is of a very fat angry-looking cat that he has never once mentioned.
I was less amused to notice that his last log-in date was that very day. Despite acknowledging my own ridiculousness, I felt slightly wounded. Philippe is Skyping with other people? How does he find the time? What does he talk to them about? Are they better at French than me? Do they know about his pissed-off cat?
It had crossed my mind before then that Philippe might have more than one conversation partner since he speaks much better English than I speak French. He’s got to be practicing a whole lot more than me. But seeing such open evidence of his philandering took me aback.
Not being completely removed from reality, I quickly recovered and reasoned that if I’m not fully satisfying Philippe (linguistically!), it’s perfectly fine for him to look elsewhere to meet his needs. I’m OK with polyamory in this particular relationship. Especially because if we’re going to take the dating analogy to its logical extreme, I basically attend swingers orgies every Monday night.
(Photo of a cat that resembles but is definitely not Philippe’s actual cat: Craig / Tjflex2)
People! It’s the weekend. (Yet I’m still at work. But leaving soon!)
This week was my best ever for French conversation – I am practically thinking in French by now. On Sunday I Skyped with Philippe. On Monday I went to the French conversation Meetup and talked to a guy from Togo for like two hours about all things West African. Yesterday at Clovis’ art opening (which I will write about later) the cinematographer for Thomas’ documentary was filming and he spoke about ten words of English so I talked to him in French for an hour. And then today I Skyped with Philippe again before running the Central Park loop for National Run at Work Day. Which is why I’m now working late…
But I’m minutes away from leaving and I’m so excited about this weekend. On Saturday I will show up at a doll hospital that has already told me they’re not interested in me doing a short film about them. I will show up with my beloved doll Cindy, who is now in six parts held together by a little hooded onesie my mother sewed to keep her arms, legs and head quasi-intact. I will see what they can do for Cindy and in the process hope to charm them into letting me make the film.
On Sunday I will join the People’s Climate March. I was torn about which section to walk in. I really wanted to be with the anti-corporate people, where my allegiance lies. But they are in the only really blamey, negative section of the march; the others are all hopeful and solutions-based and I think I want to spend my day surrounded by positivity. Plus I will be wearing enough branded apparel that I’ll feel a little silly being all anti-capitalist with evidence of hypocrisy all over my body.
What does this have to do with French or Spanish or Hebrew? Well, apparently there are concurrent events all around the world. Plus an environmental apocalypse would wipe all humans and thus all languages off the face of the earth. So there’s that tenuous link, if you need one.
Allons-y! Le week-end commence maintenant!
Over the weekend I saw Youssou N’Dour perform in Brooklyn. I don’t say this lightly: it was transportive. The music is so overwhelmingly life-affirming, and I’m chomping at the bit to go to Senegal. So I spent the entire show alternately blissing out in the moment and imagining myself living in Dakar in the near future, making a weekend routine of going out to dance to West African music.
The band kept announcing him as the “minister of the people” but I would more aptly call N’Dour the minister of tourism because within minutes of his arrival onstage I was ready to pack up and go.* Lo and behold, I just looked up his discography and he is indeed Senegal’s minister of tourism and culture as of 2012! That is both hilarious and entirely appropriate.
Sometimes I think I’m going to wimp out on my language sabbatical but then a night like Saturday’s reminds me of how much fun I will have and eradicates the fear. In fact, I spent a good part of the show wallowing in fantasy-land “logistics” planning: I’d move to Senegal next November and spend the winter months learning French eight hours a day, then visit every country in West Africa after becoming proficient, next head south to Zimbabwe and South Africa just because, then cut back up to Rwanda, then turn east into Tanzania and Kenya, and finally somehow end up in the south of France in time for summer. Oh, and there’d also magically be time and money for Mozambique and Madagascar. And then I’d move to South America for Spanish immersion.
It’s good to dream… And eventually, when the time is ripe, I will become a bit more realistic about my dreams and turn them into reality. (With God as my witness.)
* pending Ebola neutralization
I leave you with a clip from the show, taken by someone with a much better seat than mine!
I don’t know why I’m so discouraged. I have been going to French conversation Meetups every Monday, and this past Monday I even Skyped with Philippe from home and then immediately hopped on a train to talk French some more and then caught myself talking to myself in French on the way home.
But I originally committed to a half hour a day of French and a half hour of Spanish, and I have now all but abandoned Spanish and reduced French to conversation alone. I’m afraid all the progress I made through the hundreds of hours of work I put in at the outset are going to disappear.
So, I need a new plan. I am thinking about signing up for a Spanish class, maybe through Fluent City. I also think my company may have renewed its Rosetta Stone license in which case I can try to do a Spanish course that way. I’ll try to watch one episode of Destinos every weekend because I do wonder whatever happened to Raquel and whatshisface (sure sign it’s been too long). Oh yeah, Arturo! I wonder what happened with Raquel & Arturo’s overwrought romance.
And maybe I will start reading French books as a way to jog my memory about verb forms and vocab I keep forgetting. I need to bug Thomas for one of his novels. Thomas, if you’re reading… bring on the books!
I guess I was overambitious and need to lower my expectations for myself. There have been other things I’ve become interested in doing that I wouldn’t have time for if I kept up the hour-a-day routine. It’s not because I’m lazy, it’s because I lead such a jam-packed, engaging life. Yeah, that’s what I’ll tell myself…
(Photo: Kristina Alexanderson)
talk foreign to me 