“Carpe diem quam minimum credula postero.”

This man won the Noble Peace Prize this week. He speaks five languages.

He also used to be the President of Finland.

It’s fascinating to ponder what makes some people rise to the top of society while the rest stay in relative mediocrity. Mind you, there’s nothing wrong with being average. Someone’s got to be the top of the bell curve. Heck, it’s better than being the bottom. Nevertheless, it seems like one has to be in politics or show business to gain this kind of notice. Not quite sure how I feel about that. Yes, one could be a fancy-schmancy scientist but you wouldn’t have the “CNN” name recognition.

Today’s post isn’t a preachy deal, despite the title. Spend today watching TV for all I care. It’s just interesting to see how people’s choices affect the way their lives turn out in such a dramatic fashion in some instances and in most others not at all.

Most people have very boring lives. I guess that’s why reality television, dramatic shows and soap operas are so popular.

“I’m writing a book. I’ve got the page numbers done.”
~Steven Wright

 

“But the Dutch speak four languages and smoke marijuana…”

I love the process of learning new languages. I fancy myself talented in the area of communication (at least more than I consider myself talented in the areas of cooking, car mechanics, and quantum physics – which is to say, not at all) so I am usually in the process of messing around with a foreign language. My best second language is easily Spanish. I’m part Mexican and Spanish. My mom’s side of the family is Mexican/Spanish and everyone my mom’s generation and older speaks Spanish fluently.

The fact I took six years of Spanish helps tremendously too.

Actually that helps most of all. My mom’s side of the family, my mom included, didn’t really teach me much Spanish at all. It wouldn’t have been practical, considering my father was not a native speaker. And while he did try to speak Spanish, Lord knows he probably shouldn’t have. While I loved my father dearly, the man didn’t have much of an ear for accents. When you hear Spanish spoken without any care to accent – spoken only in an American accent – it is like having a frying pan repeatedly smacked up against the side of your head. Painful and irritating.

Getting to my point, I have the Rosetta Stone program, which I think is kinda meh. I have worked with a handful of European languages on it and it’s all very similar. Starts you out learning “boy, girl, the boy drinks, the girl eats”, etc. I discovered that I had Arabic Level 1. Installed that.

Egad.

I knew they didn’t use the Roman alphabet. I’m cool with that. However, even the simplest words felt like someone throwing several Ping Pong balls at my head at once and expecting me to catch them all. “Whoa, what?” went through my mind many times.

Sometimes it takes a spin with an incredibly challenging language like Arabic that makes you appreciate the progress you’ve made in your chosen second language. It makes you get over yourself really quickly too. Ah, la experiencia humilde.

“And I learnt French at school, up to the age of 16, and then I just kept talking it endlessly after that. And at school, the first page I ever learnt in French was full of things that are quite difficult to get into conversation, thinks like “the mouse is underneath the table” – la souris est en dessous la table. Just slip that when you’re buying a ticket to Paris: “Le train à Paris, oui? C’est ici? C’est maintenant? Cinq minutes… la souris est en dessous la table…”

The other line was, “the cat is on the chair” – le chat est sur la chaise – slightly more easy to fit in; and “the monkey is on the branch” – “le singe est sur la branche.” Very difficult to get into a conversation! Not a lot of jungle in France… monkeys thin on the ground… thin in the air… just generally pretty trim!”
~Eddie Izzard