I started my summer vacation this week and I was totally bored before it ever officially started, e.g. on Midsummer. I didn’t know what to do with all the free time.
(Of course, this clearly indicates I have a problem with how much I work. I’ve noticed and I’m going to do something about it after the vacation.)
But what to do? Well, okay, redo all Spanish lessons since I can’t remember where I left and the beginning is so totally easy, which is nice.
Since I have to walk outside to listen to the lessons and I don’t want to do that all the time, what else? Duolingo! I can spend more time with the Irish and Swedish courses. And I just got a Teach Yourself Complete Irish book/cds from the library. (And that Manx sounded nice when Aran did it.)
Oh and hey, Duolingo just released Hebrew course, let’s try that one too. And the library nicely had the Pimsleur’s Hebrew course available. Great.
There was also this ad for beginner’s course of Tibetan on a buddhist mailing list about a month ago, aaaand I’ve might have enrolled on that one too.
Then I was thinking about doing the Icelandic again (on autumn), since the courses have a new teacher and they aren’t using that stupid Finnish book. Also I’d really like to try learning sign language. There’s a course starting in October.
Yes, when I was younger (about 25 or so) I had one simple goal - to know to speak at least 50 languages … now I’m in the middle of my life and came noly to about 10 … which half of them already faded in the background of my brains.
The faded bit is the incredible bit - I wanted to be a European patent attorney once upon a time and learned French and German to a high-ish standard, have worked in Germany for spells and been given intensive language tuition by a company I worked for - also spent lots of time in France and got comfortable with that. Now - can’t say anything at all in German or French. Had a good spell with Spanish and Greek - now cannot remember anything at all. Of all the ones i’ve tried - the Swahili they speak in Kenya seemed the easiest to pick up and so memorable, that it’s hard to forget the bits I picked up, but never took it to any level - would love to follow up one day on that one - beautiful language. When I revisited Welsh a few years ago I thought i was recalling bits and pieces, but I was only remembering the words and phrases in Welsh, but completely mixed up what they actually meant - it was weird I could remember all sorts of weird words and expressions, but completely got the wrong meanings for them. SSIW has been brilliant in trying to put the jigsaw back together.
i once spoke little something with @brigitte in German and at other occassion Italian with @seren but there was little German and Italian I could remember, but still it was something so in time I believe you @Toffidil, would be just fine rememberring everything if practice each day for some little amount of time.
There are lots of other languages I’d love to learn (or re-learn) if I had the time… but if only we could have the next lot of lessons for SSiCornish, my world would be complete.
Well, on the base of my vast knowledge of Tibetan…
The transliteration of Tibetan script does not tell how it pronounced. It’s just transliteration that uniquely maps the Tibetan script to our alphabet.
Tibetan syllables are composed around one main consonant that can have a pre- and post-suffix and super- and subscrip (all consonants). These may be pronounced or not, and they can affect how the main consonant (and it’s vowel) is pronounced.
And then again, Tibetan have sounds that English doesn’t have (or doesn’t have letters for them). In this case that grags have one. It’s not pronounced “ta”. I thinks it’s closed to the “dr” in the English “draught”. (I could be wrong.)
which half of them already faded in the background of my brains. 
