While studying Latin and reading Grimm this morning, I had so much fun that I couldn’t just stop there. So I picked up my copy of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in Spanish and started reading, not worrying too much about the dictionary but just trying to pick things up as I went along. Spanish is much, much easier than German, I must say — Spanish feels so translucent when compared to the bogs of Deutsch. But that’s because of my Latin experience and the prevalence of Spanish here in the States. (German’s not too hard, though, since it’s related to English and I’ve studied Old English as well.) Over breakfast I ended up reading some little story about Cardinal Mazarin in French, again just plowing through it without resorting to a dictionary. And to my surprise I was able to keep up with the story, even though I haven’t even touched French for at least four years. Crazy. :)
More and more I’m becoming convinced of the virtues of language study via diving right into texts. Sure, you need a little bit of a foundation — in French it’s useful to know that verbs are negated by being surrounded with “ne” and “pas,” and that (as in Spanish) the direct object is often placed before the verb when it’s a pronoun, and so on — but the necessary rudiments aren’t as many in number as I previously thought they might be.
I’m not recommending that anyone throw out their grammar books, of course; but this is a nice and fun method that can augment one’s study of a language. There’s nothing quite like figuring out the language on your own — like pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. Or something like that. :)
Anyway, going along with the language theme, I added Hmong, Marshallese, Niuean, Rarotongan, Serbo-Croatian and Tahitian to the Moroni 10:3-5 page, which brings it up to 47 languages. I also checked out copies of the Book of Mormon in Amharic (Ge’ez/Ethiopic), Mongolian, and Tamil, and I plan to add Arabic, Cambodian (Khmer), and Lao translations soon as well.
[tags]Book of Mormon[/tags]
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I took a couple French classes like five years ago and haven’t studied it since. When I read Jane Eyre, I was pleasantly surprised at how much of the French I was able to pick up. Of course, having it surrounded with English context was helpful, but I understood almost all of it. I’d like to read “Les Miserables” in French, but that’s a rather daunting task. Maybe I’ll try “Le Petit Prince.”
Hey, I’m a big fan of the Hmong addition! I think it must be the celestial language.
Laura: I understood about half of the French quotes in Jane Eyre, which was enough to feel somewhat satisfied but not enough to really get a thrill. :) Les Mis is indeed a daunting mountain of a book. Someday… :) Le Petit Prince isn’t a bad idea, though — it’s short, fun, and the style probably isn’t too complicated. (My Thai edition is like that, at least.)
John: LOL, maybe you can send me a Hmong translation of the Plan of Salvation cards once you’re in the MTC. :)
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