Traduciendo, bebiendo, aprendiendo.

Aiming.

Dear fellow language-learners. 

As you may have noticed, this month is all about habits and promises and resolutions and whatnot. Let's make a short summary of how to say these things in the languages spoken at the Playground.

• English: Habit. Goal/aim. Motivation. Success. Failure. 
• Finnish: Tapa. Päämäärä. Motivaatio. Onnistuminen. Epäonnistuminen. 
• Swedish: Vana. Mål. Motivation. Framgång. Misslyckande. 
• Spanish: Costumbre. Meta. Motivación. Éxito. Fracaso. 
• Polish: Obyczaj. Cel. Motywacja. Sukces. Porażka.
• Russian: привычка. цель. мотивация. успех. неуспех.
• Slovak: Zvyk. Cieľ. Motivácia. Úspech. Zlyhanie. 
• Hungarian: Szokás. Cél. Motiváció. Siker. Kudarc. 

[Language Tip] Reading Signs

Tip of the day: one good way to learn a lot about a foreign language is to read the signs. This simple exercise will open your eyes to know words, grammar, quotes and whatnot.

Quote from Paulo Coelho

Francisco Goya

Unknown

el café de siempre

En el café de siempre. Estoy sentanda en el café de siempre, en un rincón. Hay tanto jaleo, no me puedo relajar. Es viernes por la tarde. La gente viene y se va. El café está lleno de padres con sus hijos. Pero me gusta el silencio. Y me gustan los cafés. La dulzura del masala chai juega sobre mi lengua. Las especias se mezclan de una manera sabrosa. El vaso se vacia con demasiada rapidez. Estoy intentando escribir. La historia. No sé si es buena o no. Tal vez. Quizás. Tengo unos quince minutos. Mejor empezar ya. 

Good Books

What makes a good book? Yesterday I finished reading a wonderful book. It was disturbing, controversial, confusing, but very well written. That's what makes a good book: that need it creates to be introspective, to question oneself, to think. 

I must admit that despite having lived in Spain, my knowledge of Spanish literature is poor. So, I made a good choice when I bought this particular book in Slovakia (for 3€)(of all places). What attracted me? The cover and the title - la muchacha de las bragas de oro (the Girl With Golden Panties). Who would not want to read a book about golden panties? For this curiosity I was awarded a tremendous book and an introduction to one of Spain's most famous contemporary writers. Who would have thought.

Reading this book I realized that I am a prude. What a nice observation about oneself :)

The second book in this picture is also an interesting one, Its English title is Mindful Eating and it was written by Jan Chozen Bays. Again I was intrigued by the cover as I love chickpeas (and thus probably proving every publisher in the world right about the importance of a good cover). I think this book has a lot of useful things to say about food and about eating. 

Estocolmo

Estocolmo

Eres una gran contradicción
La tranquilidad de tus aguas
se refleja en las caras de tu gente
Pero se está acercando una tormenta
es una de éstas
de las que no te puedes esconder
En una de las calles principales
la gente duerme debajo de la música
despertando al mundo
Con caras abiertas, sucias
te piden dinero
Es en tu naturaleza ser políticamente correcto,
esta gente te importa
Tus calles están llenas de tiendas de ropa
y otras cosas que brillan
Tu gente habla de la compra de pisos
o viajes a Tailandia
A veces me parece
que hemos olvidado la simplicidad
Queremos lo que no tenemos
y muchas veces lo que no necesitamos
Y ya no sabemos que es lo que necesitamos

Aprenderás, Jorge Luis Borges

Aprenderás, Jorge Luis Borges

---

Después de algún tiempo aprenderás la sutil diferencia entre sostener una>mano y encadenar un alma, y aprenderás que amar no significa apoyarse, y que compañía no siempre significa seguridad.

Comenzaras a aprender que los besos no son contratos, ni los regalos son promesas....

Comenzaras a aceptar tus derrotas con la cabeza alta y la mirada al frente, con la gracia de una mujer y no con la tristeza de un niño y aprenderás a construir hoy todos tus caminos, porque el terreno de mañana es incierto para los proyectos, y el futuro tiene la costumbre de caer en el vacío.

Después de un tiempo aprenderás que el sol quema si te expones demasiado. Aceptaras incluso que las personas buenas podrían herirte alguna vez y necesitaras perdonarlas. Aprenderás que hablar puede aliviar los dolores del alma.

Descubrirás que lleva años construir confianza y apenas unos segundos destruirla y que tu también podrás hacer cosas de las que te arrepentirás el resto de la vida.

Aprenderás que las nuevas amistades continúan creciendo a pesar de las distancias y que no importa que es lo que tienes, sino a quien tienes en la vida y que los buenos amigos son la familia que nos permitimos elegir. Aprenderás que no tenemos que cambiar de amigos, si estamos dispuestos a aceptar que los amigos cambian.

Descubrirás que muchas veces tomas a la ligera a las personas que más te importan y por eso siempre debemos decir a esas personas que las amamos porque nunca estaremos seguros de cuando será la ultima vez que las veamos.

Aprenderás que las circunstancias y el ambiente que nos rodea tienen influencia sobre nosotros, pero nosotros somos los únicos responsables de lo que hacemos.

Comenzaras a aprender que no nos debemos comparar con los demás, salvo cuando queramos imitarlos para mejorar.

Descubrirás que se lleva mucho tiempo para llegar a ser la persona que quieres ser, y que el tiempo es corto.

Aprenderás que no importa a donde llegaste, sino a donde te diriges.

Aprenderás que si no controlas tus actos ellos te controlaran y que ser flexible no significa ser débil o no tener personalidad, porque no importa cuan delicada y frágil sea una situación: siempre existen dos lados.

Aprenderás que héroes son las personas que hicieron lo que era necesario enfrentando las consecuencias...

Aprenderás que la paciencia requiere mucha practica.

Descubrirás que algunas veces, la persona que esperas que te patee cuando te caes, tal vez sea una de las pocas que te ayuden a levantarte.

Madurar tiene mas que ver con lo que has aprendido de las experiencias, que con los años vividos.

Aprenderás que hay mucho mas de tus padres en ti de lo que supones.

Aprenderás que nunca se debe decir a un niño que sus sueños son tonterías, porque pocas cosas son tan humillantes y seria una tragedia si lo creyese, porque le estarás quitando la esperanza.

Aprenderás que cuando sientes rabia, tienes derecho a tenerla, pero eso no te da el derecho de ser cruel.

Descubrirás que solo porque alguien no te ama de la forma que quieres, no significa que no te ame con todo lo que puede, porque hay personas que nos aman, pero que no saben como demostrarlo...

No siempre es suficiente ser perdonado por alguien, algunas veces tendrás que aprender a perdonarte a ti mismo.

Aprenderás que con la misma severidad conque juzgas, también serás juzgado y en algún momento condenado.

Aprenderás que no importa en cuantos pedazos tu corazón se partió, el mundo no se detiene para que lo arregles.

Aprenderás que es uno mismo quien debe cultivar su propio jardín y decorar su alma, en vez de esperar que alguien le traiga flores.

Jorge Luis Borges

“You’re Crazy”

…that’s what my friend J told me today when I was getting *slightly* too excited about Czech writers and their ability to write beautifully.

I believe it was said with affection.

So I took it as a compliment.

And in order not to let such a great compliment go to waste, let’s train our language skills.

 

Finnish: olet hullu.

Swedish: du är galen.

Spanish: estás loco/loca.

Slovak: si blázon.

Polish: jesteś szalony/szalona.

Hungarian: te őrült.

Russian: Ты сошел с ума/ Ты сошла с ума

French: tu es fou

EU Vocab

I was looking for a couple of concepts on the EU website when I bumped into their multilingual thesaurus. The best thing is that one can choose one or several languages and download the entire list. I’m so excited that I have a list consisting of 6800 (yes!!) terms in 7 different languages that I can study at night before going to sleep. Unfortunately Russian wasn’t among the available languages. The list is available in all EU-languages + Croatian and Serbian.

The thesaurus can be found here.

Getting Ready…

…for Spain!

Language Assessment

How do you know that your language skills are sufficient? Assessing one’s language level is a subjective process. People tend to either under- or overestimate their skills.  One of the reasons I’m no big fan of people who claim to be fluent as soon as they manage to have a conversation about the weather is that these subjective assessments often appear on CVs and job applications. In such cases, the perceived level of knowledge can give an unfair advantage to the weather conversationalists.

There are exams one can take. Exams that are expensive and may even require travelling. I tell you, the nearest language centre offering the possibility to take an official exam in Polish isn’t exactly next door. These exams require dedication. They are often a last option, at least for me, for getting some kind of formal proof of knowing a language.  

The reason I’m writing about this is that I need to get some certificates. I have a plan, you see. And for that I need formal proof of my language skills. 

Of the languages I know I have sufficient proof (according to Finnish requirements) that I know three.

Swedish: I took my A-levels in Swedish, and my grade in Swedish was good enough to ensure that I officially know Swedish.

English: a degree from a British university is enough to prove a sufficient level of English.

Having a university degree in a language is also sufficient. 

Therefore I have proven knowledge of Russian and Hungarian.

I need to take a language exam in Spanish, Polish and Finnish. Finnish is my official mother tongue, but since I took my A-levels in Swedish (I had no chance, as far as I know, to choose Finnish) I have no proof of this. This is the ironic part of the story. Believe it or not, I think that a Finnish exam would be the most difficult one of these.  The level is different, even though I plan on taking both Spanish and Polish at C1/C2*.

Time to study :) 

*C1: Can understand a wide range of demanding, longer texts, and recognise implicit meaning. Can express him/herself fluently and spontaneously without much obvious searching for expressions. Can use language flexibly and effectively for social, academic and professional purposes. Can produce clear, well-structured, detailed text on complex subjects, showing controlled use of organisational patterns, connectors and cohesive devices. 

C2: Can understand with ease virtually everything heard or read. Can summarise information from different spoken and written sources, reconstructing arguments and accounts in a coherent presentation. Can express him/herself spontaneously, very fluently and precisely, differentiating finer shades of meaning even in the most complex situations. (source: Wikipedia)

Languages

While listening to some random Russians chatting in their native tongue at a table nearby, I was struck with a sudden feeling of…. love, maybe? Being in love with languages might sound like a very silly thing, but I cannot think of a better word to explain this feeling. Languages just make me emotional.
I quickly updated my facebook status with the following summary:

(Irish) English is sexy, (the Savonian version of) Finnish is hot. Spanish can make chocolate melt. Catalan and Dutch are the funny ones, French is the language of philosophy. Swedish is compulsory and German is kinda cool. Polish makes me happy and Hungarian feels like home. But the most beautiful of them all is Russian.

How do languages make you feel?
(I know, I know… I’ve written about this before!!)

Hablando de…

Mirad lo que me encontré en la estantería de mis padres:

La versión sueca.

Sebastián mentioned it in his blog so obviously I had to start looking for my own copy, which was hidden in my parents´ book shelves together with some Henning Mankell, The Master and Margarita (in Russian) and the Bible. The Angel’s Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafón is a really captivating reading experience. I’d recommend it to almost anyone who loves stories of any kind.

What books do you like?

Pereza

I think that both neighbours, boyfriend and all my friends are prepared to kill me for listening to this song constantly. But there's just something incredibly fascinating about their voices. It's not Slavonic, but Spanish is a pretty amazing language anyway.

Good friends and intensive language training

Today I have spent all day in the company of good friends. First I hooked up with a friend at the library (the number one meeting place in Mariehamn) - it was so funny as we didn't recognise each other (I have gone blonde and she has dyed her hair brown!) at first. We managed to recap the last year and a half of our lives at high speed over raspberry smoothies, before going for ice cream (pear... yummy!).
After that meeting I went to see another old friend of mine, and I simultaneously got to practise my Polish language skills. Although the girl knows some Swedish, our language of communication has always been Polish. The first time we met on Friday was weird; she spoke a mix of Polish, Swedish and English. I, in turn, babbled away in Polish, Russian and Spanish. But, we understood each other perfectly! In general, I'm quite satisfied with myself, although yes and no are completely messed up. No in Polish can be translated as yeah, and all evening I have been trying to give my affirmation with a No, no even when speaking Spanish.
All in all, it has been a good day with great company!

Friendly Comments

There is one thing that is worse than people laughing at you straight to your face; people who come up with some brilliant comment without realising that it might actually hurt somebody´s feelings.

A couple of hours ago, our house. My boyfriend´s uncle is making a joke, which I do not understand and somebody explains it to me. To this Uncle´s wife says in a soothing voice: "... as she doesn´t speak Spanish well". Oh gee, cheers a lot. But then again, how could she have know that...

... due to insecurities, paranoia and general madness, it is precisely for the fear of this kind of comments that I do not speak foreign languages anywhere else than in my head until I feel that I am in completely safe surroundings. Say what you may, but for me this has worked perfectly well (there is evidence on paper of this).

...I am aware of the fact that I need to improve a lot, it is indeed causing me a big headache once in a while.

...according to good manners, you do not say things like this when the person you talk about is present. Feel free to do so when they´re not around if you suddenly get the urge to do something un-nice. Or maybe I have just spent too much in the country of the politest of the polite...

On the other hand, I am lucky this is only about my language skills. There are worse things people can say to you. It is quite diffcult to understand what is going on in the heads of thise who tell people with eating disorders that they are fat, for instance.

However, I do want to emphasise the fact that the Aunt in question is a very nice person and it probably wasn´t her intention to make me feel like a big loser. And who knows, she might even be right!