Where have I been? In my other Blog? Nope. Missing in action … much!
I’ve been (I know, I know, bloody broken record BOOOOORING …) … busy. Yup, that’s it. Busy. Sorry folks, I’ve got the modern malaise.
Also – I’ve been thinking less in/about English and English writing and more about all the languages of the world that I never did get around to learning. Specifically at the moment my focus is on Greek.
My husband went to Greece for seven and a bit weeks earlier this year. That’s the second time he’s been back on his own since we visited together in 2011. His family (in Greece) are starting to ask questions! The reality is on both occasions, I’ve been the “B” word. The first time I was just blueberry picking and then doing reception work in a van park, oh – and testing out being on my own in the motorhome, which I did really enjoy, actually. This time around I didn’t have any leave available as I am still pretty new to my current employment. What little leave I do have available for this year I had already reserved for the next set of school holidays. Zac and I are going to finally go on that cruise!
Anyway – in the last couple of months before Tony left for Greece, his eldest sister and her husband were out here. One of the questions they ask me when they see me is: “can you speak Greek yet?” my standard, flippant reply has been: “I can’t even speak Chinese yet!”. It’s true. I studied two years of Mandarin at uni, many moons ago, and never really got past toddler talk.
Then something happened. One of Tony’s nieces came over with her small son, for lunch one day, and was showing off the fact that he could say Σε αγαπώ (I love you). She admitted that his non-Greek father had to teach him that. What really struck me was, well, two things … I had not known previously how to say that (in Greek) so had never said it to my husband, despite the fact that Greek is his first (though arguably not his best) language. The other thing was that if this tiny boy could learn at least this phrase, which delighted everyone present so much – what was wrong with me for not making some sort of an effort?
So, I finally bit the bullet and enrolled in a community Greek class. It was just ten weeks of a single two hour class per week, on a Tuesday night, as it so happens. There’s a few institutions around Sydney that offer Greek courses. Mine is through U. Sydney’s Centre for Continuing Education. That ten weeks, which commenced the day after Tony left for Greece, was enough to light the fire. I was viewing it as just a taster, thinking I’d attend on a Tuesday night and see what happened from there. Well – sometimes something catches my full attention. I never quite see it coming. Tony and I have been together eight years. I’ve had eight years to get around to this. No – I’ve had my whole life to get around to this and up until now I haven’t. I always thought being properly fluent in another (at least one) language was for other people and that for some reason it was somehow beyond my reach. What a stupid and defeatist attitude. I let that attitude govern my (lack of) attempts to learn another language for a very long time.
The probable fact of the matter, although solid numbers are hard to find, is that more than half of the worlds population speaks more than one language. So – what’s the matter with me? And with lots of Australians, for that matter! Well, I ‘learned’ French at school, in year 8. I can’t even count to five. That was a whole year of classes. Then two years of university level Mandarin. Nope – not even. Not conversational, that is. Why? I’m starting to develop the picture that the reason is because language itself is conversational and lots of formal language teaching packages are not. Guys like Benny Lewis and Moses McCormick seem to go down that line of thinking. There’s lots of bilingual people out there and a fair dose of polyglots – seemingly pointing to the fact that it is highly possible for people to speak more languages than one without a) being a genius b) their brain frying c) spending their entire life and all of their savings figuring it out. I’ve believed all of those things in the past. Oh and d) they learned the languages as small children, otherwise it wouldn’t have been possible.
Anyway, the long and the short of it is (sorry – more long than short isn’t it, this post?) I’ve gone through a slow evolution in the way that I think about acquiring another language, like I said – in my case, at this stage – specifically Greek.
At first I thought that somehow I would learn by osmosis, by being around Tony and his family when they were speaking Greek. Perhaps that MIGHT work if we all lived together and hung out every day but the reality is the days that we hang out with Tony’s family and they are speaking Greek probably average out to less than a week a year. So scratch that idea. I’ve living breathing proof of that not working.
Then I thought I could only learn Greek if we went to Greece and stayed there for an extensive period of time AND I did one of those full language immersion courses, the ones that go from 2 to 6 weeks, where you attend every day AND you are in the country, so when you are not in class, you are in situations where you need to use the language anyway.
In parallel with those thoughts, I probably though that I was too old anyway and that if I did get some kind of basic mastery, it might manage to just match my 2 years of uni studies in Mandarin. I might be able to buy a sandwich, catch a bus, count to twenty, and maybe read simple signage and menus. To be truthful – I’d be pretty happy with that level – something that I think of as “transactional language”. You can do the very basics and make polite exchanges, but really not much more.
That was at the beginning of May. What has happened since then, and what do I think now? Well – I’m now into my second ten week Greek course, again – just 2 hours per week, through the CCE. Early in Greek 101, my teacher mentioned a language learning app called DuoLingo, and a few other online resources. The one that captured my imagination first was DuoLingo and I can confidently say that I think it’s a brilliant tool for language learning in the early stages, when you are building vocabulary and trying to learn a new alphabet, if that is required. Having said that, I looked at the Chinese presentation in there and cannot imagine how anyone could learn characters by using it, so my comments are based solely on my experience using it for Greek. What I don’t think is that anyone could become fluent, by using just DuoLingo.
My biggest turning point somehow triggered by mucking around with DuoLingo and loving the little green owl was the realisation that I live in a very different world to the one where 25 years ago I decided that becoming truly agile in another language was totally beyond my reach. Enter *ba-ba-ba-ba* the internet and all of those lovely online communities of people with common interests and goals.
*Duh* how had I not explored these options until now? sites like:
and the list just goes on and on! There are more language learning resources on the net than you can poke a virtual stick at. So what’s my problem? I think my problem, by and large, I really do have to just woman up and admit, is ME. So – it’s high time I got out of my own way and got on with just knuckling down and learning another language.
I don’t think I’m going to pull it off in the Fluent in 3 Months style of the Benny Lewis’s of the world, but I’ve changed my mind about just wanting to be able to catch the bus. I want to be able to have whole, entire, proper conversations. I want to be able to shelve English for whole days or even weeks at a time, without having to keep running back to it as a reference point for being able to fully express myself. I want to be able to live, breath and love entirely in another language. I don’t really even care which one – except that Greek makes sense because a) my husband speaks Greek (though not as completely has he would like and b) we want to spend a lot of time in Greece in the future.
sooooooo – right now I can say:
- καλημέρα (good morning)
- καλησπέρα (good evening)
- καληνύχτα (good night)
- γιεα σου (hello)
- σε αγαπώ (I love you)
- είμαι γέρος (I am old)
- αλλά μαθαίνω (but I am learning)
Well, and a few other things. DuoLingo has some WEIRD phrases, in the early lessons. “my meatball” and “I want the girl” were two I put in the ‘I may literally never need that phrase’ box.
Tony and I have lots of little garbled mini conversations. They involve a fair bit of Google translate and then immediately forgetting, and gales of laughter, but it’s great fun to chat together, it’s become a bit of a game between us when we are out walking, or hanging about at home having a cup of tea.
Watch this space. I’m hoping that the only way is up.
Deep Water 