Desert
I thought this was seriously cool.
I am rather into deserty things at the moment because today I started learning Persian. I am very excited and therefore verbally incontinent, while knowing this is a stupid thing to post, because when I fail dismally or give up in despair I will have this public announcement hanging over me.
The chances of me getting anywhere with this endeavour are practically nil. Contrary to cursory appearances, I am not at all an instinctive linguist, and the phase of life in which such things come easily fled by in a mist of pointless crushes, amateurish eyebrow-shaping, and the rote learning of the few French verb endings I have managed to retain. In adulthood I have tried Italian, with modest success, and German, with none. Learning German had the same effect on me as learning to drive, viz that I was no use at it despite my genuine (if ephemeral) enthusiasm. This was actually incredibly useful at the time: nothing improved my teaching more than being on the other side of the didactic divide. I earnestly believe that all teachers should try to learn something new every year, just to remember what it feels like to be hopeless.
I have been reliving this experience today, embarking on lesson 1: The Alphabet. Unfortunately Persian uses the alphabet of the more brutal and visceral Arabic, which consists of a series of dozens of virtually undifferentiated loops and strokes, combined with a handful really annoyingly intricate figures, all of which alter beyond all recognition when placed in the middle of a word. The result is that the merest slip means you have written "petrol-tin" instead of "corner", or "brackish" instead of "kind," and I toiled cackhandedly over inept and doubtless highly comical scribbles. The friend who is teaching me was very encouraging, but I did feel like a particularly stupid five-year-old.
However, I am determined to persist. Some years ago I fell in love to the strains of the Persian tongue and have never quite managed to fall out of love again. It is incomparably beautiful and I think I will never again hear anything so enchanting as the sound of Persian lyric love poetry on the lips of my lost amour. It really is a language to be wooed with. As for Arabic - well, it has other uses.
I am rather into deserty things at the moment because today I started learning Persian. I am very excited and therefore verbally incontinent, while knowing this is a stupid thing to post, because when I fail dismally or give up in despair I will have this public announcement hanging over me.
The chances of me getting anywhere with this endeavour are practically nil. Contrary to cursory appearances, I am not at all an instinctive linguist, and the phase of life in which such things come easily fled by in a mist of pointless crushes, amateurish eyebrow-shaping, and the rote learning of the few French verb endings I have managed to retain. In adulthood I have tried Italian, with modest success, and German, with none. Learning German had the same effect on me as learning to drive, viz that I was no use at it despite my genuine (if ephemeral) enthusiasm. This was actually incredibly useful at the time: nothing improved my teaching more than being on the other side of the didactic divide. I earnestly believe that all teachers should try to learn something new every year, just to remember what it feels like to be hopeless.
I have been reliving this experience today, embarking on lesson 1: The Alphabet. Unfortunately Persian uses the alphabet of the more brutal and visceral Arabic, which consists of a series of dozens of virtually undifferentiated loops and strokes, combined with a handful really annoyingly intricate figures, all of which alter beyond all recognition when placed in the middle of a word. The result is that the merest slip means you have written "petrol-tin" instead of "corner", or "brackish" instead of "kind," and I toiled cackhandedly over inept and doubtless highly comical scribbles. The friend who is teaching me was very encouraging, but I did feel like a particularly stupid five-year-old.
However, I am determined to persist. Some years ago I fell in love to the strains of the Persian tongue and have never quite managed to fall out of love again. It is incomparably beautiful and I think I will never again hear anything so enchanting as the sound of Persian lyric love poetry on the lips of my lost amour. It really is a language to be wooed with. As for Arabic - well, it has other uses.
posted by Scarlet at 2:44 am
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