93

Having misplaced my physical HP1, I asked on Facebook if anyone had a copy they could loan. That led to an offer from R. And so yesterday both of our families shared a meal, an evening, and lots of interesting discussion about language learning etcetera.

How’s that for Potter magic!

Now I’ll load my mp3 player with chapters in Dutch, German, Norwegian, Spanish, French—whatever I can find on Youtube. I’ll listen to them all while following along upon the page in English. I’ll do that as I go about on foot—it beats fiddling with a Smartphone in public!

92

Of course, when I open up two windows to the same story, one in English, one in Spanish or French, and mute, first one then the other while reading along once or twice, everything becomes easier.

“Well, duh!” as Homer Simpson would say.

A great improvement in return for a teeny bit of input—I wouldn’t even call it work. It’s something I can do while waiting for my daughter to finish breakfast before I take her to school. (It was the final day of the year for her, by the way. “Today we clean up!” she told me gleefully.)

91

I’ve noticed that I’m getting a bit ‘stuck’ with French and Spanish purely listening while I walk (without the reading component). Oh sure, I find that I’m improving, but not very quickly. It’s not going optimally. So I’ll need to read at the same time, or carry out my language familiarization in a stationary location (and using, um, stationery).

My plan today:

I’ll run through my transcripts once or twice, therefore, and report back what a difference that makes. Once I have the details of that flying elephant under my belt, I’ll soon get to grips with that story’s language.

90

I enjoy listening to one language after another on my mp3 player on my way down to work. It’s a very pleasant hour spent on foot, through the Ross Creek Reservoir bush.

To make the exercise better I’ll print off a sheet, say a couple of sides, of each text and slip them all inside a clear file folder in listening order. That will enable me to read along as I listen. (It’s good that I can read while walking.)

And as soon as possible I need to find another HP1 in English to replace the one that I lost.

89

I’ve made the decision to do Hindi. I had the chance to do so 34 years ago, when I taught in the Punjab, but didn’t take it up (blaming my inaction on the fact that Urdu and Punjabi were also being spoken in my environment.

Having received the Hindi material I wrote about the day before, and having today picked up a Eureka Software package, Languages of the World Volume 3, my arm is twisted.

Said package contains instructions for German, Dutch, Afrikaans, Flemish, Urdu, Bengali, Somali, Swahili, Zulu and Hindi.

Now, if I can only manage to install it. 

88

Oh no! I’ve lost my first Sue Barton book in German. I could make a start on volume 2, but that’s not the same thing. Oh well.

I’d read 3 pages of it at a sitting—about 1000 words. It only took me about 10 minutes, so that’s a useful rate of language processing. 

Oh yes! I got something in the mail that I didn’t expect. Gaston Dorren, the author of ‘Lingo’, sent me some Hindi material. I’d Twittered him not to worry: the postage was pricey, and you can’t easily send money to Europe from NZ.

Swings and roundabouts.

87

Two of us, my 7-year-old daughter and I, listened to the second chapter of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (why is it the ‘Sorcerer’s Stone’ in American English?). Luckily I have a ‘Y’-shape thingy cord connection.

I read the English while Sachi reads the Japanese. Both of us learning.

This will enable Sachi to maintain her Japanese in an English environment, and I believe this practice will improve her written Japanese too. A pity—only 2 of the 7 have been turned into Japanese audiobooks.

It was a lot of fun, us both giggling over the same funny bits.

86

Let me put you straight. I’m not a super-duper languages machine. Some days I do nothing. Most days I do little.

I do languages like a game, just as I approach work or even my entire life. I need to live in this manner, since that is my nature.

When you learn a language, you’ll succeed unless you stop. Guaranteed. As long as you don’t quit you’ll get there, by using any method at all. However, different methods may take different amounts of time, and involve different amounts of fun.

When life is a game, it’s worth living. Only then.

85

We had friends round for a potluck. Luke sees my Norwegian Harry Potter on the coffee table and asks, “Can you read it?”

I tell him that, knowing the story, I can get the gist. I can guess the meaning of 50 percent of the keywords.

“How about ‘takk’?” he asks. It’s the last word of the first sentence: Herr og fru Dumling i Hekkveien 4 var heldigvis fullstendig normale, takk.

No problem. It means ‘thanks’. They have something similar in Swedish too, I believe.

Luke’s mother adds that in the UK dramas in Norwegian with English subtitles are popular.

84

In Lee Child’s latest Jack Reacher novel, Night School, there’re two references to language learning.

The bad guy listens to language tapes for 20 minutes every night to improve his Spanish. He lies in bed wearing headphones, “listening, repeating, learning, until his brain got tired and he fell asleep.” He does this because he cannot expect his future workers to learn English.

Later in the book, Reacher addresses a group of Germans. He asks them, “You speak English?” When one of them says yes, Reacher responds, “You ever wonder why? Why you speak my language and I don’t speak yours?”