#languagestruggles

[meaqui]

1º

Inspired by the Women's World Cup last year, I decided to spend my Christmas break learning Spanish with a teacher I found online. I wanted to delve deeper into what this language and culture meant to me, and how they would become part of my life. This was a decision I was willing to turn into a long-term commitment. At this point, I knew three things: 1) basic Spanish greetings, phrases, and numbers, 2) "usted" is formal, and 3) I couldn't pronounce the rolling "r."

When I met my Spanish teacher for the first time, I was excited and nervous. I was... jelly, quivering in anticipation and uncertainty. Looking at her through the screen, I didn't know how to start the conversation... or the lesson... or anything. Was I expected to speak in Spanish now? Should I speak in English and hope she understood? My heart raced as I scrambled to form sentences with the minuscule amount of Spanish I remembered from college.

She smiled at me and began speaking in Spanish, her words flowing in a clear rhythm, yet the sounds were unintelligible to me, much like the post-match interviews I watched during the World Cup. Sheepishly, I responded in English, and she would occasionally smile and reply in English to clarify and explain what had just been said. My jelly-like state evolved into melting jelly, losing shape and coherence under the pressure of this first lesson. I felt like I was slowly melting into a puddle of English words, struggling to maintain my composure and keep up with the grammar. The lesson ended after 50 minutes. At this point, I had learned three things: 1) I actually don't know basic Spanish greetings, phrases, and numbers, 2) in Spain, they don't use "usted" in regular conversations, and 3) the rolling "r" isn't the only Spanish sound I don't know how to pronounce. I realized I had a long way to go with the language. But this was only the first lesson. I had six more in the coming weeks.

[kpop-faver]

Lost in Translation: How I stumbled upon BLACKPINK and became a Lovestick Gril

BLACKPINK is my absolute favorite group, they are the group that I follow the most actively.

But how did I find them? Actually, quite early on, I would say. I think it was either between their debut album and Kill This Love or after Kill This Love.

I discovered them back then because I was a fan of the TV series Lucifer and enjoyed watching edits related to it. And in one of those edits featuring the character Mazekeen, their debut song BOOMBAYAH was used in the background.

I liked that song, and thus, I had found a group that would accompany me in the years to come, even though I didn't know it at the time.

Since then, I have eagerly awaited each new release and enjoyed their music very much. For a long, long time, they were the only K-pop group I listened to, as I primarily listened to Western music, especially German music.

I did try with other groups, and although I found some good songs among them, none of them truly captivated me.

From that point on, I was always actively involved, from Loveisick Girls to How You Like That, to Pink Venom and Shut Down, I stayed up to date and looked forward to each release.

Now that we're talking about all these song titles, let's address some silly mistakes I made due to my barely existing ability to understand and translate the English language properly, without even questioning it.

Let's start with "Whistle," which, for some reason, I pronounced as "Whitelist" back then, and now, for a very long time, I've been asking myself why? Especially when you think about it, it doesn't make any sense and doesn't match the song. And next, we have "Lovesick Girls," which I called "Lovestick Grils," and honestly, for a long time, I wondered what that title actually meant until I realized that I was the silly one in this whole situation. Where did such things come from? As I said, my nonexistent English skills and maybe because I don't have K-pop enthusiast friends who could have corrected me on that. But well, now I know better.

Now, let's talk a bit about the members. For example, it took me ages to remember who is who. I got their names relatively quickly. After all, 3 out of 4 are names that are very common in the West. So, it was easy to remember Jisoo with the only Korean stage name, although in Jennie's case, it's also her real name, which made it easy to remember her in the group.

Jisoo was also the first member I referred to as my bias simply because I could relate to her the most at that time. Mainly because she seemed to have a bunch of Pikachu stuff, and I'm a big Pokemon fan. Secondly, she was also not good at English, and somehow that comforted me a little back then.

Eventually, I finally got the names right, I could match them to the members. There was a time when I was surprised to find out that Jennie's name was not a stage name but her real name. But I was still new to the whole Korean theme back then and had to familiarize myself to understand that Western names also exist in South Korea.

Since we're already talking about Jennie, let's talk about the rap in BLACKPINK, or rather, who does the rapping in BLACKPINK. I'm well aware that it's Lisa and Jennie, but for quite a while, I thought it was only Lisa. And even today, when I hear BLACKPINK and the word "rap," Lisa still comes to mind first, and then Jennie.

[kpop-fieber]

Lost in Translation: Wie ich auf BLACKPINK stieß und ein liebeskrankes Mädchen wurde

BLACKPINK ist meine absolute Lieblingsgruppe, sie sind die Gruppe welche ich am meisten und aktivsten verfolge.

Aber, wie habe ich sie gefunden. Tatsächlich schon recht früh würde ich sagen. Ich glaube entweder zwischen ihrem Debütalbum und Kill This Love oder nach Kill This Love.

Kennengelernt habe ich sie damals, weil ich die Serie Lucifer gefeiert habe und mir gerne Edits dazu angesehen habe. Und in einem dieser Edits zum Charakter Mazekeen, wo ihr Debütsong BOOMBAYEAH im Hintergrund verwendet wurde.

Mir gefiel dieser Song und ja, somit hatte ich eine Gruppe gefunden, welche mich die nächsten Jahre begleiten würde, auch wenn ich es damals noch nicht wusste.

Nun ja, seit dem war ich auf jede neue Veröffentlichung gespannt und hörte ihre Musik sehr gerne. Lange, sehr lange Zeit waren sie die einzige K-Pop-Gruppe weiche ich gehört habe und ich habe auch noch sehr viel westliche Musik, besonders Deutsche.

Ich habe es wirklich mit anderen Gruppen versucht, doch auch wenn ich teilweise gute Songs fand, konnte mich keine von Ihnen richtig fangen.

Von da an war ich immer aktiv dabei, von Loveisick Girls, über How You Like That, bis hin zu Pink Venom und Shut Down, war ich immer aktuell dabei und habe mich darauf gefreut.

Wo wir schon bei den ganzen Songtiteln sind, kommen wir mal auf ein paar dumme Fehler meinerseits zu sprechen, aufgrund meiner kaum bis nicht vorhandenen Fähigkeiten, die englische Sprache ordentlich zu verstehen und zu übersetzen und dies dann nicht mal zu hinterfragen.

Fangen wir da an mit Whistle, welches ich damals, warum auch immer, Whitelist ausgesprochen habe und ich mit mittlerweile, schon sehr lange, frage, warum? Vor allem, wenn man mal darüber nachdenkt, macht das auch überhaupt keinen Sinn und passt nicht zum Song. Und als Nächstes hätten wir Lovesick Girls, dieser Song hieß beim mir Lovestick Grils und ehrlich ich habe mich eine ganze Weile lang gefragt, was dieser Titel eigentlich soll, bis ich dann mal festgestellt habe, dass ich die dumme in dieser ganzen Sache bin. Woher solche Dinge kamen? Wie gesagt meine nicht vorhandenen Fähigkeiten im Englischen und vielleicht auch weil ich keine K-Pop begeisterten Freunde habe, die mich dahingehend hätte korrigieren können. Aber gut, jetzt weiß ich es ja besser.

Lass uns doch nun auch noch ein paar Worte über die Mitglieder verlieren. Zum Beispiel, dass ich Ewigkeiten gebraucht habe, mir zu merken, wer wer ist. Die Namen hatte ich relativ schnell drauf. Immerhin sind 3 von 4 ja Namen, welche auch hier im Westen sehr geläufig sind. Da konnte man sich Jisoo, mit dem einzigen koreanischen Künstlernamen, wobei im Falle von Jennie auch richtigen Name, in der Gruppe auch leicht merken.

Jisoo war auch die Erste, welche ich als meine Bias bezeichnet habe, einfach weil ich mich mit ihr damals am meisten identifizieren konnte. Hauptsächlich wegen zwei Dingen, einmal das sie wohl Haufenweise Pikachu Stuff im Besitz hatte und ich ein großer Pokemon Fan bin. Zweitens, sie war auch schlecht in Englisch und irgendwie hat mich das damals so ein bisschen getröstet.

Irgendwann hatte ich die Namen dann endlich drauf, also ich konnte sie zuordnen. Gab zwar eine Zeit, in dem es mich überrascht hat, das Jennie kein Künstlername ist, sondern auch ihr echter Name. Aber, ich war damals noch auch noch neu in dem ganzen Koreanischen Thema und musste mich erst mal vertraut machen, um zu verstehen das halt auch in Südkorea westliche Namen vorkommen.

Wenn wir schon mal bei Jennie sind – lass uns mal über den Rap in BLACKPINK sprechen, also eher darüber, wer die Rappen in Blackpink sind. Mir ist natürlich klar, dass es Lisa und Jennie sind, aber eine ganze Weile lang, dachte ich, es wäre nur Lisa. Und auch heute schießt mir bei BLACKPINK und dem Wort Rap immer noch zuerst Lisa in den Kopf und dann Jennie.

[andwhydoesitmatter]

I can't be the only person who translates dialogues from movies and lyrics from songs into different languages and then has no clue what language it was originally from,, Hence never again finding where it originally came from? :((

[benkyobento]

me: *has 3 assignments due tomorrow* me at 11:30pm:

[marlene-in-estonia-blog]

About the language.

Estonian language. Well. Where do I begin?

Estonian is hard. Very hard. Not only because of their 14 cases, but also because there isn’t really any help on the internet. I mean, yes, there is, but not really. All programms there are teach you only the basic-basics. What if you already know them? What if you want to learn more? Well - there is nothing to do about it.

Sometimes I feel like despairing. I am sitting at school from 8 am till 4 pm and just feel bored. There is nothing I can do. I don’t understand the teachers and their explanations. I don’t even understand the tasks in the books. But I don’t give up.

I started not to care anymore about the prohibition of phones during the lessons. I always have my phone on my desk and google translator is opened. And then I wait. I wait until I hear a word the teacher says very often and then I try to figure out how it is written. First it didn’t work out very well, but today I figured all the words out by first try.

It is really hard at school. I’m not used to have so many lessons a day and also to have so many different subjects. In a language I don’t understand (yet). I always leave school with a headache, but I guess (I hope) that will go away soon.

My hostfamily slowly starts to speak Estonian to me. Of course not all the time, we still speak English most of the time. But still, sometimes, when they tell me to do something/ask me something/ whatever, they speak Estonian. And I understand more and more. And that makes me proud.

Of course, I must sound like a 1-year-old toddler to all the native-speakers, but better this than being too afraid to talk Estonian.

To all the ones out there who have to learn a completely new language: You can do it. I believe in You all.

Head Aega!

[sleepy-lilmerchild]

One thing I didn’t grasp?

One thing I have to say that i haven’t grasped would be writing. Honestly it shouldn’t even be a surprise to me because my writing sucks like hell in English so how can I expect it to be decent in another language? The fact that I can’t write a decent essay to save my life nor have I ever gotten a first in ANY academic essay in uni is actually so depressing and I’m already on the verge of giving up. The stupid perfectionist side of me stresses me out making me feel so dumb because ISTG like everyone I know can get an easy first on an essay. but honestly I don’t have any hope. This is the side of education that is so depressing and the reason why I want out and CANNOT WAIT to graduate. But here’s a photo of the sakura from Japan last year :3 #languagestruggles

[itsashleighthompson-blog]

wanting to learn Russian, Polish, Mandarin and Korean all at the same time while studying French and Spanish and being English and I cannot choose between them I feel so unfaithful aaaahhh

[venir-voir-vaincre]

One month later.

In the immortal words of Ringo Starr: "You know, it don't come easy."

And he probably didn't write that while he was studying abroad in France, but I think it still rings true in this situation. There are many, many great things about living in Paris for four months, including (but not limited to): the food, the art, the architecture, the ridiculous ads in the metro, etc. But it's also a serious challenge to acclimate to a culture that--while Western--is very different from the good old U.S. of A. Some things that have been tougher than expected: hand-washing all of the laundry, cooking without a ridiculously well-stocked kitchen, spending (or, rather, not spending), climbing up to my seventh floor apartment, and speaking the language.

For that last one, I would like to stress SPEAKING. There's really nothing like learning a new lingo to make you realize how many elements there are to actually becoming "fluent." Those silly concepts I only seem to remember from standardized tests--reading comprehension, oral comprehension, grammar--are actually very real elements in my attempt to become a speaker of French. In general, my problem is not actually one of the above-mentioned areas; I can basically read, I can basically write, and I can understand 85% of conversation addressed to me. The real difficulty is that, as soon as I am expected to respond verbally, I freeze. A large component of this problem is that I lack the vocabulary, so when I try to convert an intelligent English reply to French... well, it usually doesn't work, and so I inevitably rejoin with "oui" or "non." (And I smile a lot, though I've been told that's not a very French thing to do.) It's often embarrassing, but somehow I tell myself that it would be worse to try and speak en français and get everything totally wrong. Let me just say, I know that this is a bad instinct, but to go from having an extensive English lexicon and suddenly be left with a very limited knowledge of French is really disconcerting. Essentially, I would rather sound intelligent in English than ignorant in French; not a great way to get in good with the natives. So, my game-plan from now on (and my advice to language learners in general): don't be afraid to sound stupid, because it is (often) better than sounding American.

Despite my language struggles, though, there are a few daily routines that are already easier than I would have anticipated. For instance: navigating the metro (and the city in general), shopping for groceries, finding cheap meals, and living without 24-hour convenience stores (but I still love you, Duane Reade!).

It may not all come easy, but... c'est la vie.

[andwhydoesitmatter]

Why is English such an unspecific language.

Like the word Aunt could quite literally be anything

Moms sister

Dads sister

Moms bothers wife

Dads brothers wife

Parents female cousins

Like???