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After work, I spent time in the Bill Robertson Library with two books side by side. Just like Heinrich Schliemann used to do. 

‘Riding the Waves’ is by Gavin Bishop. It comes in both Maori and English. It contains 4 Maori myths, and the illustrations are great.

So that’s a great resource for learning Maori. I discover that I partly know some vocabulary, and already I’m gaining a sense of word order. 

True, the stories are a little dark, the sentences are often long, and there’s an oratorical style. But at least I’ve lost the ‘attitude’ I used to have.

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I’ll open up two windows on my computer. I enter the same address: Bookbox, a language-learning site. There, I view short illustrated stories. You listen to your target language while reading the subtitles in that language too. It’s a form of language-learning karaoke. The stories are up on YouTube too.

It’s fun to choose two languages that I’m moderately good at—Dutch and German, for instance. Here’s how I work on them both.

I’ll set both windows playing simultaneously. However, one of them I’ll mute. I’ll listen to window 1, and read along in window 2. Then I’ll reverse them.

81

With Japanese I’ve come about “half-way,” I like to tell people. But recently I haven’t trusted to my basic method: to do languages in tandem.

So yesterday evening, though tired, I made myself comfortable on the couch and listened to HP1 in Japanese while reading along in English. It took 40 minutes to complete chapter 1. That’s roughly 4500 words, or 110 words per minute.

And it went very well. I think I’ll go through and do a chapter at a time. After completing the book, I’ll do it again—listening to Stephen Fry while I read ‘the Devil’s Tongue’.

80

I had no dice (or die) at home, so my daughter made me one out of plasticine. And it worked very well!

I rolled it six times (three throws, therefore) to select French, Maori, and then finally Japanese. Each time, I went on YouTube to use a resource, and each time Sachi joined me.

Sachi boasts of knowing 4 languages: English, Japanese, Maori and Dutch (two languages, in fact). According to her reasoning, once you know how to count to 10 (in Dutch) or know a couple of words (‘ra’ in Maori) then it’s fair to make that claim.

Why not!?

79

Currently I’m juggling 10 languages. Naturally, I can only do one at a time (or two if ‘doubling up’ listening and reading). However, I have a tendency to fret about the rest while trying to focus on one. This makes it difficult to relax.

I’ll prevent that by rolling dice.

Rolling a die twice, there are 36 outcomes. I’ll tag each outcome to a language. Each I allocate a different weighting—from English, which only gets 1, up to Japanese, which gets 7. Each month I’ll readjust.

In a notebook on separate pages I specify what I’m going with each.

78

Finally, I’m up to date. By that, I mean this: I had been writing several days in advance, but that played havoc with time referencing. So from today I shall post on, and from, the day that I write.

In my part of the world, it is now the 3^rd of December, and 6 a.m exactly. And this is what I’m thinking: let me end the year with a free-for-all.

I’ll sort out my Norwegian resources, dig up some useful Maori, and stuff the Thai and Arabic alphabets under my belt.

Why would I do that? Because I want to.

77

At the end of the month I’m finding it difficult to choose. It’s a question of hyper-choice, truly.  

I’d been thinking about Thai. And recently I’ve started thinking about Maori (not long ago I discovered a cassette tape of Maori phrases at the Salvation Army op shop for only 20 cents, plus various other French and Spanish goodies). But then another language presented itself.

I agreed recently to run a summer school in English for group of Syrian refugees. And so it would seem logical to make a start on Arabic as soon as possible.

Arabic’s a Category 5 language.

76

R, like me, is a bookworm. But R, unlike me, runs a bookshop. I went there yesterday. For the first time, the first of the month, on the day I always start a new language.

The books in R’s shop are used and cheap. The shop’s strongest point is that it attracts certain books; it acts as a magnet for books written in a foreign language.

Basho’s Narrow Roads of the Far North and Siddhartha in Dutch, anyone?

My best buy, however, was a hardcover copy of Barry Rotter and the Stone in Norwegian. 

Thai, Arabic and Maori must wait!

75

Something in a book caught my eye yesterday. As things are wont to do. The book concerned is Lingo—of which I’ve spoken before. Its author is Gaston Dorren.

Now, it’s a library book, so I only underlined the 2 lines lightly in pencil. They occur in my copy at the foot of page 251. They read:

After all, people without schooling can’t read and write any language

Isn’t that an interesting statement? 

I guess it depends what he means by the word ‘schooling’. There’re all sorts of versions. Me, I tend to disagree. Teachers and schools aren’t necessary, IMHO.

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A while ago, we moved from Japan back to New Zealand. It’s taken since then to establish a routine into which my languages fit. 

There’ll be no excuses from now on! 

At 10a.m. I’ll do my current language (French). At 2p.m. I’ll go for a walk wearing headphones. And at 4pm I’ll focus on Japanese, followed by the rest (Spanish, German and Dutch).

Of course, that’s just for openers, as there’ll be opportunities to do a few minutes here and there throughout the day. Situational opportunities, I call them. For example, reading at the table during mealtimes. Such a luxury!