Real Kato Blog: The Tower of Babel

It's a holiday weekend, and what did I do? I studied French.

I have some teach-yourself-French computer software, and I fired it up today. Actually, I also have teach-yourself-Italian, teach-yourself-Spanish, teach-yourself-German, and teach-yourself-Japanese. I have this fantasy where I have an infinite amount of time, so I can actually go through all of these programs and become fluent in all these languages, thus making myself attractive to legions of exotic foreign women.

Alas.

When I was in school, I took four years of German. I picked German because my sister studied French and I didn't want to study the same language that she did, for fear of seeming unoriginal. However, German has turned out to be useful precisely ONCE, when I took a business trip to Germany and needed to say noch einer to get more beer. Other than that, it's done me no good at all.

I later wanted to learn French because Jen took French, and I wanted to impress her with it. I even got a book and some CASSETTE TAPES (what are THOSE, asks the youngster Tim) to help me learn, since this was really before computer-based language programs were any good. But I didn't find it to be an effective teaching method. I always had questions like "when do you pronounce the -ent at the end of a word as a syllable, and when is it completely silent?" And without having anyone around to answer those questions, I got frustrated. French pronunciation is JUST CRAZY, by the way.

I tried to learn a little Spanish when I met Anna for the first time. My first words to her were Me gusta la fruta ("I like fruit") because my friend Gary and I thought it would be funny to pick a completely random phrase out of a book. Gary's was El café está frío ("The coffee is cold"). Later I found another good one, and I'm still waiting for the opportunity to use it: ¿Es de madera? ("Is this made of wood?")

For a while, I really thought I would study and learn Spanish. But after my vocabulary got up to about fifty words, I got bored with it and stopped. Sólo sé unas cuantas palabras.

Italian was something I tried because I wanted to hit on a waitress at an Italian restaurant where I was kind of a regular. But in that case, I stopped after only about ten words, because the waitress stopped working at the restaurant.

I know a little bit of Japanese... it was my first language, actually. But I grew up and went to school in the U.S., and I all but stopped speaking Japanese when I was about six years old. So I have the vocabulary of a five-year-old: a few hundred words, at best. After the last time I went to Japan, I vowed that before my next trip, I would learn enough to be able to get around on my own, without my parents' help. I think I would need to have a vocabulary of about 1200 words to accomplish that. But I've been slack; once I browsed through a few flash cards that I had lying around, but that was all.

I suppose I could take language classes somewhere. It might be a better way to learn, and it would be a way to meet people too. But I sometimes get bored with classes, and I get frustrated when the pace of the class is too slow. I have distinct memories of German classes where people were still struggling with the difference between wo ("where") and wer ("who") because their meanings were the opposite of what an American would expect. And trying to remember the gender of nouns? Forget it. The other kids in the class just gave up and made everything neutral (das), and it grated on my OCD the same way that English grammatical errors do.

But I don't know if computer-based learning is entirely right for me either. I mean, I like that it's a visual medium, and that I can control my own pace. But I don't know if rote repetition of phrases like Le chat est dans la voiture or La femme est sur un homme is really going to give me a practical education. Plus, sitting in front of the computer all day doesn't exactly seem like the best way to make oneself attractive to legions of exotic foreign women.

Probably what I really need is a private tutor. A hot, female, private tutor. Yeah.

Permalink 3 Comment

Posted by Ken in: life

Comments

Comment #1 from Timothy Ross (Guest)
2005 May 29 - 3:05 pm : #

YOUNGSTER!!!!

Hey, I had a collection of 45s.

Of course I should add, for the record (ha), that they were a box of children's songs. Not exactly chart-toppers, but they were MINE!

Comment #2 from Dark (Guest)
2005 May 30 - 12:07 pm : #

Casette Tapes! I remember those. My youngest (older) sister listened to Michael Jackson tapes in the car. My Mom also has a tape of my sister reading me a story.. and embarrasing things that only a Mom would keep to torture her children when they were older. ;-)

Oh yeah Tim? I had a reel-to-reel with Frank Zappa recordings. Well.. actually.. they were my Dads until he passed. I wonder where that thing is now..

Ken, I took three years of Japanese in college. We could always study up on it together. During lunch or something (keep it from being a Man-Date(tm)(r)(etc)). My weak points are vocabulary and Kanji. I still remember many of the sensence structures. In fact.. whenever I want to ask someone the time, the first thing that pops into my head is "Nan ji desu ka?" and I still remember "Otearai wa doko desu ka?". If I'm ever in japan at least I'll have plenty of time to use the bathroom.

Comment #3 from Speaker (Guest)
2005 May 31 - 10:36 am : #

donde esta la playa nudista?

ore no nihongo ha hontouni yokunai!

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