I’ve always enjoyed learning things, and languages has been one of them.
French has been my pet for the past six years (I actually only “finished” French last year when I finally wrote my SL French papers for IB). I am sad that I no longer take French (for if I did, I would not be so steadily forgetting all that I’ve learned) and so I will likely take up reading in French sooner or later to keep me fresh. I’ll start with French blogs (since I’m in need of blog-reading material anyway, now that GR has made me 1000% more efficient in my blog-reading) and probably move onto magazines and even novellas.
On a mostly unrelated (but interestingly mind-linked) note, I’ve been sifting through some more recent conversations and have found myself often lamenting out loud (or recalling that I did so inwardly when I said such and such) the limitations of languages to express what we think, feel, and want. I hear this is cliché, but sometimes more than words is what is needed to… tell me how you feel–! No no no, I got carried away there. What I meant to say was that there seems to be a bit of a gap yet to be bridged between what we can conceptualize in our minds and what we can verbalize in our words or even actions–mind you, that gap isn’t nearly as large as, say, the gap between a an exceedingly complex collection of molecules and the simplest form of living matter.
Regardless, I’m not going to pretend to know what I’m talking about here, but in a way, there’s often a non-hypocritical discrepancy between external manifestations and internal motivations. I can think and feel one way, but be completely unable to do anything comprehensible about it. In fact, I think there are very few people, if any, that can really understand each other. In other words (because the above can be taken a variety of ways), I have only come across a select few people that, when it comes down to it, can successfully reverse-engineer my meditations and motives from my actions. Let these people be variable x for absolutely arbitrary uses yet to be determined.
Talking things out isn’t really an option when you need more than words (there it is again!) to get the point across. If it clicks, it clicks. If it doesn’t, no amount of bi-solitary confinement is going to get anything done. Of course, if there’s a possibility something substantial could be understood with walky-talky time (did I mention that I happen to really quite enjoy walky-talky time if I’m with the right person?), then perhaps it would be a fruitful venture to persevere with some expository converse. On the other hand, I’d like to think me awfully pragmatic so as soon as someone is dubbed “incompatible”, there’s a fat chance (i.e. a slim one, strangely enough) that there’s much left to say.
Now, I’m sure that last bit would piss off a lot of female readers since, well let’s admit it, females love to talk. Don’t misunderstand me, that’s not (always) a bad thing, and it does bring me to my final little spiel, and get this, it’s about girls. Quite possibly the most interesting and yet befuddling of all creation is the female (for a male, anyway). I’m a little afraid of making any sweeping universal claims here since there really is no need for degrading and/or ridiculous generalizations, but I would venture to say that on the whole, girls and boys seem to speak completely different languages.
This is a very frustrating phenomenon for many people (myself included, at select times) since it’s nearly impossible to be discrete and implicit about things (especially feelings and that mucky stuff) without having a high-degree of uncertainty as to whether or not the message gets across. And to be painfully blunt is almost never as much fun as deftly chiseling away at such things. It’s a trade-off between getting the point across irrevocably and risking getting the wrong point across irrevocably (but with a whole lot more class, mind you). It comes down to brawn, effective but possibly destructive, versus brains, only destructive if ineffective.
And there you have it, my spiel(s) on language. If you can’t tell, I don’t actually plan most of my posts out so I tend to meander, but I hope this has been a meaningful meandering. Extra respect if you caught all the opportune turns of phrase/turn-of-phrases that seem to just run amuck .