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10 ANYS DE CATALÀ!

Aquest any, 2025, assoleixo una fita molt gran - porto 10 anys aprenent el català!

Tot i que no és la llengua que més temps he estudiat, és la llengua que més m'ha canviat la vida. No podria imaginar que una curiositat pel país darrere un equip de futbol (sí, va ser pel Barça que vaig començar a aprendre el català 🫣) em portaria a tantes amistats, tanta comunitat increïble, tanta cultura (ja que sigui llibres, sèries, pel·lícules, i sobretot música), i fins i tot un doctorat. No puc imaginar qui seria sense aquests 10 anys - no seria la mateixa persona, ni de bon tros.

Estic obligadíssim a agrair tots els catalans que he conegut al llarg d'aquests anys, ja fossin professoris, amiguis a la vida real o a Tumblr, gent que feien intercanvis lingüístics, etc - tothom m'ha acollit i m'ha fet sentir com a casa de seguida, i crec que la força del català rau en la quantitat de gent tan bonica que el parla. Gràcies per la paciència, per la disposició a parlar amb mi i contestar les meves preguntes, i per ser tan amable i tan acollidora <3

Per celebrar, com que la majoria de la música que escolto (i que he escoltat, realment, des que vaig començar a aprendre el català) és en català, he fet una playlist de totes les cançons que m'han acompanyat al llarg d'aquest viatge. Algunes són més conegudes que altres, algunes m'han sigut més importants i algunes més, i la barreja acaba semblant una mica random, però també volia celebrar amb la banda sonora d'aquest temps, perquè és el que més destaca per a mi. Spotify no em diu quant dura, només que són més de 24 hores de música, així que en teniu de sobres si voleu més música en català!

Gràcies a tothom que ha estat aquí des del principi, i a tothom que s'hi ha unit després! Espero que us apunteu a la festa, i per molts anys més :D

Heus aquí la llista:

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Una cançó de fa ara més de 10 anys, però que m'ha sortit a l'atzar i que m'ha parlat al cor. / A song from now more than 10 years ago, but which showed up randomly for me and spoke to me, so I've translated it here.

Sento cantar les granotes des del meu llit I hear the frogs singing from my bed Anuncien la pluja que ha de venir They're announcing the rain which must be coming I els seus cants omplen la nit de veritats And their songs fill the night with truths De certeses mil·lenàries i ancestrals Of thousand-year-old, ancestral certainties No són promeses buides, invisibles They're not empty, invisible promises

[ TORNADA: No, no et diré que anirà bé No, I won't tell you that it'll be okay Perquè és el que diu la gent Because that's what people say Quan no et vol ajudar When they don't want to help you Jo et diré mirant-te als ulls I'll tell you, looking you in the eyes Que si no surt com has pensat That if it doesn't go the way you thought Em tindràs al teu costat You'll have me by your side ]

No t'espolsis la gent amb paraules amables Don't brush people off with kind words No defugis problemes culpant als altres Don't run away from problems by blaming others Ni la natura és sàvia ni la gent bona perquè sí Natural instinct isn't wisdom, nor are people good just because Però si ens tenim a prop potser trobarem un camí But if we have each other close by maybe we can find a way Sense optimismes fàcils però amb valentia Without easy positivity, but with bravery

[ TORNADA ]

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Tinc una relació molt normal amb Quan el mal ve d'Almansa... podeu fiar-vos de mi sóc súper normal en la presència d'aquest àlbum

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നിന്റെ ഭാഷ സംസരിക്കുന്ന ദിവസം

എനിക്ക് മലയാളത്തിൽ സംസരിക്കാൻ സാധിക്കുന്നില്ല പക്ഷെ ഇ വർഷം ‍‍‍‍‍���‍‌‌‍മലയാളം പഠിച്ചു എന്നാൽ കൊറിച്ച് കൊറിച്ച് പറയാം! വളരെ സന്തോഷം ഉണ്ട്. അടുത്ത് വർഷം കൂടുതൽ പഠിക്കാം.

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This is the opposite of people making fake Cyrillic and Greek and such that's supposed to be read as its Latin equivalents. My brain really wants to find Latin letters here but it is definitely actually Tamil

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Language Goals 2025

As I said in my last post, I'm slowly getting better at figuring out how to set goals which both push me out of my comfort zone and which actually orient me towards what I'm trying to do. This year my main goal is to just remember how to be a learner again; I feel like recently I've gotten a little too in-my-head about how I need to be perfect before I speak, and actually this tends to be a problem I have in general - I won't talk to people unless I feel like I can talk perfectly, but that's not how you learn. I'm also trying to get better at setting reasonable timelines for what it takes to get to a particular level of language, which I have a better feel for at this point, and taking into account how much time I'm spending on the language every day (it shouldn't feel overwhelming if it's supposed to be a brief warmup). With these in mind, here are my goals for the year:

CATALAN

This year, I really want to speak Catalan with more people. That's the bottom line. I'm at a level where I need to be doing language immersion, and that means not being shy about not knowing how to say things or starting off the conversation wrong or any number of things (this historically has been less of a problem for Catalan with me, but for some reason I was absolutely taken out last summer and essentially went partially mute from social anxiety, so we're going to find out what was up with that and try to coax me away from it). I also want to learn to speak the Valencian dialect of Catalan better, and hopefully I'll get the chance to do that!

I'm planning to continue my reading challenge as well, but I'm going to make a separate post about that.

BASQUE

I want to improve my Basque vocabulary, and also my listening comprehension skills. I want to finish Eskamak kentzen and also watch/listen to more things in Basque. I think I just need a whole bunch of audio input - I know a lot of the words, but it's still very hard for me to parse them in speech. In order to improve my vocabulary, I want to do a quick vocab review every day when I get to the library, before I start my work. That way, I'll have a constant, easy, long-term exposure to a wider variety of words, and hopefully after a few months I'll start remembering some!

WELSH

I'm not entirely sure what I want to do with Welsh this year - I feel a bit directionless with it, so I might put it on pause until it feels like the right time to take it up again. But I'd also like to get more listening and vocabulary practice - I can understand large portions song lyrics without looking them up, which is a huge step forward for me. If watching Rownd a Rownd seems like the vibe, I might try to take that up again. We'll see, this one is more open.

MALAYALAM

Mostly, my goal with Malayalam is just to keep taking class, but also I'd really like to get over my fear of speaking. I struggle to pronounce a lot of the letters, and I don't know a lot of words, but if I work on these, I think I'd feel more confident. (I do also just need to feel okay with looking like a fool, though.) By the end of the year, I hope I'm able to have conversations in class or with my family without wavering too much, even if I forget something or mess up the pronunciation.

OTHER LANGUAGES

One main thing I want to work on is learning how to learn a small amount of a language but still being able to use it with people. There are a few different languages which I've wanted to learn for a while but haven't had the time - I'm hoping that maybe I can work up the courage to learn a few phrases, talk to someone, and perhaps learn a thing or two. This is very open-ended, but it's more a challenge for me to expand my comfort zone.

Aaaand that's a wrap! Here's to 2025 being a good year for languages, at least!

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I'm only a month late but here's the yearly review! These goals were actually quite reasonable, and though I didn't hit most of them, they were good guides to have.

For Catalan, I did manage to find a Catalan speaker in this city (WILD story but we don't have time for that), who confirmed my suspicions that there just are no Catalans here by the fact that they know exactly two other Catalans. But I also might have an in on two professors who might be Catalan, and could also talk to, which would be exciting. Meanwhile my Catalan is quickly atrophying, but I did at least find people, which I'm very happy about. In terms of reading, I had a feeling I would read way less than 30 books, and I was right about that: I read 7 (I would have read way more if I was capable of finishing a book; alas, that skill is escaping me at this moment). But I still think that the challenge was absolutely worth it, and I'd like to do it next year, too. I'll write up a longer post about that, though.

In terms of Welsh and Basque, I wouldn't say that I followed these goals at all. But for both of them, I think I did put in a lot more effort and kind of got a reality check on how I should go about studying them. For Welsh, I started listening to a whole bunch more music. For Basque, I got to go to the Basque Country for a weekend and stay with a friend and speak in Basque the whole time, which was a huge challenge, but also really made me understand what I need to work on (comprehension/vocabulary/more advanced grammar). I didn't end up watching much Rownd a Rownd or Eskamak kentzen, but I think that I've had a lot of problems with attention span (and also realistic expectations) this year, and I'm slowly starting to figure out how to create a language routine that works with what I've got.

For Malayalam, I did start taking classes, and this is one of the few goals that has really worked out. Malayalam has gone from being something really frustrating and emotionally taxing for me to a language I feel like I'm starting to have a grasp on. The class has been very intensive (we learned the alphabet and all the noun cases in the first semester, and were reading simple texts by the end), but it's been good for pushing my limits. Unfortunately the time is a little rough, especially with a full class load and TAship, but it's so rewarding that I think I'm going to stick through this semester as well.

Alas, I didn't get to try Russian immersion. I still think this would be really funny, though.

As for Anki, I tried pretty hard at the beginning of last year to get into it, but unfortunately it takes so much time to make your own cards (if you're silly like me - I could probably put them together in a less complicated way) and eventually I just decided to stick with Memrise for now. We'll see, though. Maybe I can simplify my template or something - I just need a quicker way to set up large amounts of cards.

This year was a long and very heavy year for me personally, but also a very meaningful year in some ways, and I think it taught me to think much more about what matters to me, and to clear away what doesn't. I've been studying all four of these languages for a significant amount of time now, and I want them to continue be a part of my life and my world. Hopefully 2025 will be yet another year in which I continue to grow into them, and them into me.

Language Goals 2024

Another year, another set of goals! This year, in the actual spirit of my very reasonable 2022 language goals, here are my plans for language study.

Catalan

First and foremost, my goal is to find Catalan friends in my new hometown, because I really need to speak Catalan with people at minimum once a week or I get very sad, and currently I’m not speaking it with anyone at all. This goal is pretty chill though—I just have to actually sit down and put in the time to find people.

My main goal is to read 30 books in Catalan. I’ll make a proper post about it with a list of books that I’m thinking of and how the challenge itself is going to work, but overall I’m trying to pick a mix of styles and genres, so expect anything from medieval literature to YA novels to academic texts. I have a lot of books that I’ve been meaning to read for a while, so hopefully this will give me a chance to chip into some of them. 30 books is less than other versions of this challenge that I’ve seen, but it’s also many more books than I’ve read in Catalan possibly ever and I think it’s more reasonable in conjunction with a full class load. Hopefully it ends up being just the right amount!

Welsh & Basque

This year I really want to work hard to actually get these two to an upper intermediate level, because I’m so close if I put in the work. For both of them, I have two main goals: (1) go through the textbooks/workbooks that I started going through casually last semester (Basic Welsh: A Grammar and Workbook by Gareth King and Standard Basque: A Progressive Grammar by Rudolf P.G. de Rijk) so that I can continue to review and learn new grammatical structures, and (2) watch one episode of a TV series each week in each language. For the TV series, I’m going to be watching Rownd a Rownd on S4C (which is available outside Wales/the UK! Huge win!) and Eskamak kentzen on EITB. If I have time, I’ll try to go through episodes more thoroughly and note down new vocabulary and such, but the main goal is to make a routine of it and watch consistently so I’m trying to keep it simple. I’d also like to use both languages with other people more often if I can, but I think finding a consistent language partner will perhaps be a goal for another year.

Malayalam

I’m planning to focus the first half of the year on Welsh and Basque, and then next fall, I’m hoping to be able to take the Malayalam classes offered by my university and to get into studying my home dialect (or rather, my extended family’s home dialect, since I didn’t speak it at home) as well. Since this will be later and also classroom learning rather than self-study, I’m not going to go into details, but overall, after my trip to Kerala (which I have stuff about, it’s on the docket!), I’m generally feeling much less alienated and much more motivated to study the language. I’m also looking forward to being able to take real classes, which I think will help keep me focused and on track.

Russian

This is a minor goal, but at my friend’s house over the summer, her mom was joking that if they just spoke to me in Russian while I stayed at their house, I’d probably be able to understand it by the end. That led us to concoct a plan where I study a bit of Russian vocab, then go there and do intensive Russian immersion for a weekend or so. This is more of a silly goal, but I’d like to try it because I think it could be fun.

Anki

This isn’t a language goal per se, but rather a general resolution to spend this year learning to use (and tweaking and configuring) Anki. Anki has a notoriously high barrier to entry, and from everything I’ve seen it should be treated as a long-term, intensive project—I’ll hopefully reap the rewards later if I take my time and set up everything right in the early stages. With that in mind, I’m hoping that by the end of the year I’ve figure out a set up for my decks and cards that really works for getting me to remember and be able to use vocab and grammar. I’ll focus on the languages here for the start, but I’m hoping that with habit and time, if I get a good system going I can use it with other languages too.

And that’s it! It’s been a bit since I was systematic about studying languages, but I’ve found that I really miss it and want to go back. I feel like I’m at a really good place with all of these, and I’d like to continue to make progress, so I’m really trying to focus on consistency and hitting the sweet spot of just challenging enough to get myself out of my comfort zone while not burning out. Hopefully I’ve set this up in a way to build habits and make me excited to keep immersing myself with these languages in the coming years, which is really the key to learning any language in the long term—I've realized that I speak Catalan so well because it's fully integrated into my life, and I'd like all these others to be as well. Here’s to a good 2024, and I wish all of you luck with your own goals as well!

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I just started a new semester, and I'm finally getting the chance to take Malayalam, which I've been trying to do since my undergrad. This is obviously a very exciting development, and it's so delightful to be in a language class again for the first time in ages, but it's also been a very unique experience as far as language classes go. First of all, for me, who is generally used to having very odd personal connections to a language and being the overachieving linguist of the class. And second of all because it's just a very different experience to be in a class largely oriented towards heritage learners and people with some cultural familiarity.

There are five people in the class. Of those five, four have Malayalee family and have had some exposure to Malayalam throughout our lives; the last person is a native speaker of another non-Dravidian South Asian language. Of the four of us who are Malayalee, I'm basically the only one who didn't have a significant amount of Malayalam at home growing up. What this means is that we've spent very little time on the phonetics of the language, because everyone roughly knows how to pronounce it - something which wouldn't be true if there were non-South Asian in the class! (It was a bit comforting to hear all the other Malayalees struggling with aspirated consonants, which have constantly been the bane of my existence, and then to hear the instructor say that few people pronounce them right in spoken Malayalam anyways.) The instructor could ask us to say things on the first day, and the more fluent speakers could say them. There is already Malayalam being mixed in with the instruction. I'm sure by the end of the semester we'll be having extended conversations - especially since the two of us who don't speak have very concrete communicative desires for our outside lives.

It's also a very scary experience for me, personally. Or maybe scary isn't quite the right word, but I've always felt out of my depth in claiming Malayalee heritage - I've always felt that there were so many things which I didn't know which any normal Malayalee would. There is no evidence that this is true, at least insofar as that my cousins with two Malayalee parents have wildly varying experiences and I'm not actually that far outside the norm. In most American spaces, I will never be clocked as white, and most people usually immediately identify me as South Asian. Nonetheless, I know that when I visited Kerala this past December, I was decidedly foreign - to the two guys speaking in rapid-fire Malayalam on the flight from Qatar, to the person at the immigration counter in Trivandrum, even to my own relatives. Part of it is a mental block on my part, of feeling myself foreign and therefore never letting myself belong. Part of it is that I am, ultimately, American. But either way, in this class, I can feel that I'm the American in the room, even when I'm not, even when my pronunciation is just as good as the other Malayalees and there's nothing that's telling me I can't belong. I keep freezing up when asked to say real things, or when people speak to me, because there's some unreachable standard in my brain of Not A Real Malayalee, and everything feels fraught and fragile. So maybe this semester will be about overcoming that.

It's still strange being in a language class where the instructor, on the first day, can look at you all and say, "You know why you're here, you want to be here, we all have a shared experience." But it's also a beautiful thing in its own way, and I'm really looking forward to taking on a language in this way. I love the structure and the logic of language, the puzzle of putting it together, the beauty of making friends in it and watching shows in it and listening to songs in it - but as I get older I find myself really reflecting on what it means to learn and to know a language. And sometimes those barriers to learning and to knowing are only in our minds, not in our worlds. Language is communication and connection, and I hope that Malayalam serves me to these two ends, even as it sometimes feels like a trial by fire at each word.

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Gaurko abestia: "Beruna urre" - Bele

Abesti hau zailagoa izan da niretzat, ez dut asko ulertu, baina horrengatik hitz berri batzuk ikasi dut. Talde berria da, eta oso polita da bere musika, gomendatzen dut. 

Hiztegi berria:

zori - chance, luck

hautatu - to choose, to select

asti - free time

azti - clever, magic

haritz - oak

gupida - compassion, piety

lohi - mud

karramarro - crab

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Gaurko abestia: "Zapalduen olerkia" - Ken Zazpi

Erronka hau pixka bat aldatu nahi dut: egunero, abesti bat aukeratuko dut eta hitzak idazten saiatuko naiz. Gero, hemen ez dudan ezagutu hitzak ipiniko ditut. Eta euskaraz idatziko dut, oso gaizki baina egin ahal dut, ba egingo dut!

Gaur egun Ken Zazpi-ren "Zapalduen olerkia" aukeratu dut, oso abesti polita da eta asko gustatzen zait. Bertsio hau Euskadiko Orkestra Sinfonikoa-rekin eta nire gustokoena da, baina jatorrizkoa ere atsegin dut.

Hiztegia berria:

ezintasun - inability, incapacity

zapaldu - to oppress

estali - to cover

samin - sorrow, grief (also adj. bitter)

bizigabe - lifeless

istripu - accident

Eta galdera pare bat: (1) "hurbilao" eta "hurbil" berdina da edo zer da desberdintasuna? (2) zer esan nahi du "estalita dute"? (ezin dut ulertu zein denbora den)

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I'm trying to get back into the swing of studying Basque a bit more, so I'm going to try to listen to a song every day and look up all the words I don't know. I'm starting off with this song from Idoia's newest album, De amar y desandar, which is called "Autofikzioa" and which I'm a big fan of.

ilunpetan - in the dark (from ilunpe - 'darkness')

ito - to drown

kontraesan - contradiction

errai - gut

gatibu - captive, prisoner

hala ere - despite everything, nonetheless

(Ez nago ziur zer den "urperatzear" - uste dut "urpe" eta "atze" elkartzen dituela baina ez dakit zer esaten nahi duen)

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Estic omplint formularis destinats a un públic català i mai no sé què fer 😅

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This is a delightfully ironic song about those people who come into your life as friends and then end up throwing you under the bus after you do everything you can for them. I've put the live version because it's a lot of fun (although the studio version is also great).

Mira, ja feia temps Look, it had been a while que la teva nàpia augusta Since your venerable nose no em parava pel carrer Hadn't stopped me on the street i jo, amic, tocava fusta. And I, my friend, I knocked on wood Vas venir discret primer, You came discreetly at first confonent-te a l'hora punta, Mixing yourself up at rush hour amb tota la marabunta With all the swarms of people que adormida surt del tren. Sleepily getting off the train

I quins temps, amic, quins temps. And what times, my friend, what times we had A la caseta de fusta. In the little wooden shed Sempre sonava un CD There was always a CD playing quan voltaves per la cuina. When you were in the kitchen

Jo devia fer cara de demanar ajuda. My expression must have been asking for help Gràcies per venir Thanks for coming a temptar-me un altre cop, For tempting me once again a posar-ho tot a lloc, Judes. For putting everything its place, Judas

Fixa’t amb quina il·lusió Look at how excitedly et vaig donar la benvinguda. I welcomed you Vas ser el sol del meu balcó You were the sunshine on my balcony i pel meu jardí la pluja. And the rain for my garden Ja em coneixes, saps com sóc You know me, you know how I am i no vull posar-te excuses, And I don’t want to make excuses però el temps passa per tothom. But time passes for everyone Massa lent, cagunlaputa. Too slowly, goddammit

I aquelles nits sense son And through those sleepless nights em va anar invaïnt un dubte I was invaded by a doubt que avançava entre els racons Which advanced from between corners i els pilots de roba bruta. And the piles of dirty laundry

Has vingut a quedar-te, o tens alguna excusa? Have you come to stay, or do you have some excuse? Vinga Quim, controla el pols. Come on, Quim, control your pulse Vols la guerra? O què cony vols? Do you want war? Or what the hell do you want? Que bé et tires els farols, Judes. How good you are at putting up appearances, Judas

I m'han dit que vas dient And they’ve told me that you’ve been saying pels cafès i les tertúlies At the cafes and the local groups que em comporto com un nen, That I behave like a child que no aguanto quan em jutgen. That I can’t handle people judging me

Ens anàvem a menjar el món. We were going to take on the world D'això, amic, no en tinc cap dubte. About that, my friend, I have no doubts De tant em pregunto on són Sometimes I ask myself where they are les nostres grans aventures. All our grand adventures

I és mentida si us dic que me la suda. And it’s a lie if I tell you that I don’t care Gràcies per venir Thanks for coming a temptar-me un últim cop, To tempt me one last time a posar-me en el meu lloc, Judes. To put me in my place, Judas

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30 llibres en català!

Bon any! (Sí, ja sé que arribo molt tard, però necessitava un descans després dels examens i tant de viatjar durant les vacances 😅) Porto un temps volent fer algun pas més amb el català, com que ja tinc un C1 còmode i no gaire pressió per millorar. El fet és que arribat en aquest punt, encara em queda moltíssim per aprendre, i per fer el pas al C2 i més enllà he d’esforçar-me més per afinar el lèxic i aprecisar els registres. També és cert que no he tingut gaires oportunitats aquest any per utilitzar el català, i es nota. Però tot això té un remei: tornar a estudiar, verament estudiar, el català.

Amb el C1 i C2, com que depenen tant de l’ús precís i mesurat de la llengua, és molt important interactuar amb una diversitat de gèneres i estils lingüístics. Amb el català, no tinc cap problema amb la gran majoria de registres orals ni escrits, si és que són informals, però entrats en coses més formals ja hi tinc molt menys familiaritat. També cal dir que el llenguatge literari sol ser més ric, tant a nivell lèxic com estilístic, i per això és un bon punt de partida per treballar la llengua. A més a més, llegir en anglès ja forma una gran part del meu dia-a-dia, i tot i que no puc canviar-ho tot al català, fer que el català sigui una de les llengües que faig servir tindrà un impacte important en el meu nivell i també podrà ser una part fonamental de la meva vida professional en algun moment, com que em vull dedicar a la catalanística. Per totes aquestes raons, crec que posar-me a prova amb la lectura en català serà un bon repte.

He pres com a punt de partida aquest repte en castellà (que he arribat a conèixer gràcies a, i que també ha estat elaborat més per @cernuda), però he decidit rebaixar la quantitat de llibres per algunes raons: (1) la persona que ha fet el repte ha triat llibres més curtets, i jo en tinc algunes de 500 pàgines i més, per tant crec que és més que justificat, (2) tinc moltes coses que em demanen l’atenció i sé que si poso un número més alt no em trobaré amb els ànims d’acabar el repte, (3) vull tenir el temps d’assaborir alguns d’aquests llibres perquè són clàssics, i (4) ja faig moltes més coses en català, i llegir 30 llibres ja per mi són molts llibres per llegir en un any, ni que siguin en català. Crec que, vist així, té tot el sentit del món la xifra que he triat.

Tinc una llista més o menys elaborada, amb una gran varietat de llibres (no-ficció, juvenil, medieval, poesia, tant moderns com clàssics de la llengua), i espero que amb això ja tindré prou per ocupar-me fins a desembre. Si teniu recomanacions ja em direu, i moltes gràcies a @no-passaran i @quimerathetraveler per l’allau de llibres que ja m’heu recomanat, sou els millors ❤️ Si algú més s’anima a acompanyar-me, ja em diràs i podem intercanviar llistes. I amb això, apa, a llegir!

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Language Goals 2024

Another year, another set of goals! This year, in the actual spirit of my very reasonable 2022 language goals, here are my plans for language study.

Catalan

First and foremost, my goal is to find Catalan friends in my new hometown, because I really need to speak Catalan with people at minimum once a week or I get very sad, and currently I’m not speaking it with anyone at all. This goal is pretty chill though—I just have to actually sit down and put in the time to find people.

My main goal is to read 30 books in Catalan. I’ll make a proper post about it with a list of books that I’m thinking of and how the challenge itself is going to work, but overall I’m trying to pick a mix of styles and genres, so expect anything from medieval literature to YA novels to academic texts. I have a lot of books that I’ve been meaning to read for a while, so hopefully this will give me a chance to chip into some of them. 30 books is less than other versions of this challenge that I’ve seen, but it’s also many more books than I’ve read in Catalan possibly ever and I think it’s more reasonable in conjunction with a full class load. Hopefully it ends up being just the right amount!

Welsh & Basque

This year I really want to work hard to actually get these two to an upper intermediate level, because I’m so close if I put in the work. For both of them, I have two main goals: (1) go through the textbooks/workbooks that I started going through casually last semester (Basic Welsh: A Grammar and Workbook by Gareth King and Standard Basque: A Progressive Grammar by Rudolf P.G. de Rijk) so that I can continue to review and learn new grammatical structures, and (2) watch one episode of a TV series each week in each language. For the TV series, I’m going to be watching Rownd a Rownd on S4C (which is available outside Wales/the UK! Huge win!) and Eskamak kentzen on EITB. If I have time, I’ll try to go through episodes more thoroughly and note down new vocabulary and such, but the main goal is to make a routine of it and watch consistently so I’m trying to keep it simple. I’d also like to use both languages with other people more often if I can, but I think finding a consistent language partner will perhaps be a goal for another year.

Malayalam

I’m planning to focus the first half of the year on Welsh and Basque, and then next fall, I’m hoping to be able to take the Malayalam classes offered by my university and to get into studying my home dialect (or rather, my extended family’s home dialect, since I didn’t speak it at home) as well. Since this will be later and also classroom learning rather than self-study, I’m not going to go into details, but overall, after my trip to Kerala (which I have stuff about, it’s on the docket!), I’m generally feeling much less alienated and much more motivated to study the language. I’m also looking forward to being able to take real classes, which I think will help keep me focused and on track.

Russian

This is a minor goal, but at my friend’s house over the summer, her mom was joking that if they just spoke to me in Russian while I stayed at their house, I’d probably be able to understand it by the end. That led us to concoct a plan where I study a bit of Russian vocab, then go there and do intensive Russian immersion for a weekend or so. This is more of a silly goal, but I’d like to try it because I think it could be fun.

Anki

This isn’t a language goal per se, but rather a general resolution to spend this year learning to use (and tweaking and configuring) Anki. Anki has a notoriously high barrier to entry, and from everything I’ve seen it should be treated as a long-term, intensive project—I’ll hopefully reap the rewards later if I take my time and set up everything right in the early stages. With that in mind, I’m hoping that by the end of the year I’ve figure out a set up for my decks and cards that really works for getting me to remember and be able to use vocab and grammar. I’ll focus on the languages here for the start, but I’m hoping that with habit and time, if I get a good system going I can use it with other languages too.

And that’s it! It’s been a bit since I was systematic about studying languages, but I’ve found that I really miss it and want to go back. I feel like I’m at a really good place with all of these, and I’d like to continue to make progress, so I’m really trying to focus on consistency and hitting the sweet spot of just challenging enough to get myself out of my comfort zone while not burning out. Hopefully I’ve set this up in a way to build habits and make me excited to keep immersing myself with these languages in the coming years, which is really the key to learning any language in the long term—I've realized that I speak Catalan so well because it's fully integrated into my life, and I'd like all these others to be as well. Here’s to a good 2024, and I wish all of you luck with your own goals as well!

[guillemelgat]

Well, needless to say, this set of goals did not actually follow in the spirit of 2022's extremely reasonable ones. Still, 2023 was not an entirely lost cause language-wise, although I feel like very little of my language study actually showed up here. I didn't actually read the entirety of any of the Catalan books that I'd hoped to, but I did do a lot of (very basic) historical research in Catalan at the beginning of the year, including reading the whole of the late 18th/early 19th c. volume of Història: política, societat i cultura dels Països Catalans. I also did write a short thing or two in Catalan—not as much as I'd been hoping, but still something! As for Welsh, I did a bit of review and watched Solomon a Gaenor, and I was surprised how comfortable I'm starting to feel with it, even though I'm still very much Not Good. I've messaged with a friend in Basque every day for the last several months, so that's starting to feel like a part of my routine, though I'd love to find more spaces to use Basque in the coming year. I didn't have time to properly study Malayalam before going to Kerala, but even then, I was shocked by how much I could understand—I could get the gist of conversations even from just a few words, which is much more than I could have done 10+ years ago when I was last there. That alone was really motivating, because it shows that I have actually put in work and that it's paying off.

For the rest of my language goals, I did not make any particular progress, although I did listen to lots of music from all around the Iberian Peninsula for the playlist that I shared here, and also continued to listen obsessively to Galician music. I think that in the future I'll need to think about how to come at these goals in a less overwhelming way, but 2023 was not the year for them.

Overall, I'd say that despite not really reaching my goals as set out here, I'm feeling pretty good about the year anyways. It was pretty chill but also surprisingly productive. I didn't push myself to study languages, but I just sort of followed the current, and it's nice to see that it still moved me forward even without too much concerted effort. I think that it was a good break from previous bouts of intensive study, and helped me prove that I really do like studying languages and they do bring joy to my life, and I'm looking forward to seeing what 2024 will bring.

Language Goals 2023

In the spirit of last year’s very reasonable and achievable goals, here are more reasonable and achievable goals for 2023!

Catalan - I’d like to get the C2 this coming year. I’d also like to read more; specifically Ausiàs March and Vicent Andrés Estellés, and possibly El Canigó and/or El comte Arnau. And if I can, I’d like to write one creative piece in Catalan that I can feel proud of!

Welsh - I’d like to listen to more of Pigion, watch more Hansh videos, and also to find more spaces to use the language in. I really want Welsh to start feeling like a language that I can do things in, because I’m at a level where I can.

Basque - I want to watch at least one or two things in Basque, and, the same as Welsh, for it to be a language that I can use for things, not just a language I’m learning.

Malayalam - I would like to get to a really basic home heritage speaker level of Malayalam by the end of the year—understanding conversations when I visit family, and being able to answer when spoken to. My goal is to watch one Elikutty video per week, and to try to integrate the language into my thoughts and routine more.

Spanish, Galician, Aragonese, Asturian - I’d like to brush up on Spanish for academic purposes, and also to learn a bit about the grammar of the other three. I’d like to start remembering to actually watch A escampar la boira, and to start listening to more music in Aragonese and Asturian. As for Galician, I’d like to go into breaking down lyrics for the many songs I already listen to in it, and maybe watch more videos in it as well. In general, I’m aiming to go into the sphere of Iberian studies, especially Iberian minoritized languages, and so I want to be more familiar with the larger panorama.

Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Cornish, Manx, Breton - Same as for the others above, I want to have somewhat of a functional understanding of more Celtic languages so that I can interact with speakers and media production without needing a translation. I also just listen to a lot of music in at least Irish, and it drives me crazy not to be able to at least superficially understand it. I think the Celtic cultural sphere is really interesting, and so I’d like to be able to learn more about it and talk to more people within it without needing to make them translate to English.

Russian - I really want to be able to understand what people are saying at my friend’s house, and I think that if I put in enough Russian listening practice and vocabulary study I’d be able to piece it together, at least partially; I can already figure it out sometimes with just a few words and context. So I’d like to actually put in some time on that, in the hopes that maybe afterwards, if I spend a few days at her house, I’ll come out understanding Russian sdfhksdhf

Amharic - I’d like to be able to speak some basic Amharic, so my goal is to learn a few basic sentence patterns and some vocabulary, and maybe be able to say one or two things by the end of the year. Nothing big, but just a bit.

I have no idea if I’ll even get close with any of these languages to the goals that I’ve set out here, but I think that if I do, it’ll pay off! And if I don’t, then at minimum, my goal is to learn one thing for each that I can feel good about in a year’s time, and I hope that at least I can do that.

[guillemelgat]

Solomon a Gaenor (1999)

1h40m | Welsh, Yiddish, & English

Y wythnos diwetha', nes i weld y ffilm 'ma. Mae hi'n am Solomon Levinsky, sy'n dod i'r Cymoedd De Cymru o Rwsia efo'i deulu, a Gaenor Rees, sy wedi byw yna ei holl fywyd. Mae Solomon a'i deulu'n Iddewon Uniongred, a mae Gaenor yn dod o deulu Anghydffurfiol, ond mae'r dau'n disgyn mewn cariad. Mae'r stori'n dipyn bach fel Romeo a Juliet, ond mae hi'n wahanol hefyd—mae'r cymeriadau'n mwy cymhleth, yn fy marn i, ac yn y diwedd o'n i ddim yn siwr beth i feddwl amdanyn nhw. Er hynny, mae'r hanes yn ddiddorol iawn, a mae'r ffilm yn sôn am y streiciau yn y Cymoedd ac am hanes Iddewig yng Nghmyru. Mae'r sinematograffi'n wych, ac o'n i'n licio'r trac sain hefyd, ond dwi'n dal i drio penderfynu am y plot. Rhaid i chi'w gweld a deud beth ydach chi'n meddwl!

Last week, I watched this film. It's about Solomon Levinsky, who comes to the South Wales Valleys from Russia with his family, and Gaenor Rees, who's lived there all her life. Solomon and his family are Orthodox Jews, and Gaenor is from a Noncomformist family, but the two fall in love. The story is a bit like Romeo and Juliet, but it's different too—the characters are more complex, in my opinion, and at the end I wasn't sure what to think about them. The history was really interesting, though, and the film talks about the strikes in the Valleys and about Jewish history in Wales. The cinematography is great, and I liked the soundtrack as well, but I'm still trying to decide about the plot. You have to watch it and tell me what you think!

Geirfa - Vocabulary

(Note: The movie is set in South Wales, so some of these are Southern Welsh variants)

swllt - shilling cefn gwlad - countryside cenhadwr - missionary perthyn i - belong to, be related to pai' bod yn ddwl - don’t be silly rhywpryd eto - another time tost - sick moddion - medicine damwain - accident twymo - to heat up darn - passage tlawd - poor cwlwm - knot siort - type pobi - to back carthu - to clean bod mas o gyrraedd - out of reach of, past main - fine cyhuddiad - charge, accusation dieithryn - outsider cosb - punishment disgwyl babi/plentyn - to be expecting a child, to be with child cywilydd - shame bradychu - to betray gwlân - wool sodli - heel gweddi - prayer rheol - rule haearn - iron lliain - towel pyped - puppet dere ymlaen - come on, let’s go carchar - prison cyfeiriad - address gwau - to knit

Os ti isio gweld y ffilm, mae hi ar Youtube // If you want to watch the movie, it's on Youtube:

Fersiwn Gymraeg (heb isdeitlau/isdeitlau i'r Iddew-Almaeneg yn Gymraeg) / Version in Welsh (no subtitles/subtitles for the Yiddish in Welsh)

Fersiwn Saesneg (y rhan amla' yn Saesneg efo rhannau yn Gymraeg a Iddew-Almaeneg/isdeitlau i'r holl ffilm) / Version in English (mostly English with parts in Welsh and Yiddish/subtitles for the whole film)