Bademöglichkeit!

Today was my weekly French class. I really enjoy learning new languages. In university, I took classes in French, Spanish, German, Old English and Cree and really enjoyed myself. I find that learning new languages helps you learn more about your own language because you have to think about language in a new way. I am not really fluent in any language other than English but have a very basic understanding of the construction of other languages. It may also help that I was a Linguistics major so language construction was pretty much what I studied in university, even without the language specific classes. The language that I have the best grasp of (aside from English) is French but that is because I took classes in it from early elementary school through Grade 12 in high school, plus two classes in university, plus living with some French speaking people for a few months. I am no where near bilingual but have a fairly good grasp of it. The class I am taking is pretty basic but it's good because it has a big focus on the pronunciation aspect of it which is my weak point.
I would like to study more of Spanish or German, maybe even Cree but I need to actually get a job first so that I can pay for classes. Other languages would be cool to learn too. I find that when I start to learn new languages, words get stuck in my heard completely out of context. When I first started studying German, the word "Bademöglichkeit" got stuck in my head. I will never forget that that word means 'swimming facility'. Now, if I am ever in a German speaking place and absolutely NEED to go swimming, I will know how to make my desire known as long as that is the only information they need. I could do well on the Amazing Race all of the challenges were at German swimming facilities. No problem getting to the location at all. Though there are probably a limited number of swimming facilities in German speaking countries, and even more limits to the number of activities you could do there. Here they are: swim, dive...that's about it. Maybe learning more German words would be useful after all and, you know, more than one word in other languages as well.

Second verse, same as the first

Today was President Obama's visit to Ottawa to meet with PM Stephen Harper, Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff, and the Governor General . So I was sitting at home, watching Oprah (for the first time in about a million years) who was talking about declutterifying your home (an appropriate topic for me!) when it cut away to the press conference with Obama and Stephen Harper. After some preamble, Stephen Harper started his speech completely in French. I was really trying to listen because I am trying to improve my French (though that endeavor may not be a great success if I try to improve it by listening to Stephen Harper) but the annoying translator lady was way too loud. Eventually, they got around to the time when Stephen Harper started to repeat the entire speech in English, at which point I turned off the TV because the translator lady pretty much told me everything he had to say (Although if I had listened to it twice, I may actually remember what was said). I now wish I had kept the TV on because I kinda wish I had heard what Obama had to say.
While I know why we do things in both official languages and actually appreciate it, I am not entirely sure why we do it if someone is pretty much translating everything as we go along. It seems like it just takes up a whole lot of time for no reason. Maybe the second time was for Obama because I don't think he has the need to learn French as our leaders do, but if that was the case, they could have started in English and had French translator. There is probably a good explanation that I am not seeing at the moment so if someone could explain it to me, that would be good. That being said, today's favourite thing is the fact that we have two official languages (even though it can occasionally make things long and/or repetitive).

"I need to buy this book and I'm not even through the preface yet"

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone. I hope everyone had as good a day as I did today! It totally had nothing to do with Valentine's Day but I had a really good day. Today, I (drumroll, please) read a hilarious book about punctuation and grammar. Seriously. I can honestly say that it is the funniest book about grammar that I have ever read (Not a difficult feat, mind you). I may have mentioned previously that I love language and language related humour so this was pretty much the perfect book for me. I was at the library today, finished checking out all 10 books when I saw "Eats, Shoots, and Leaves" by Lynne Truss on the shelf. I started flipping through it while I waited for my sister and pretty much decided on the spot that I absolutely had to get it out. It is darn funny. I was driving my sister crazy as I giggled my way through, reading the funny parts aloud for her enjoyment. I took a break at one point, and my sister stole the book and started reading it and started giggling hysterically as well. She decided that, even though she hadn't even finished the preface yet, she is going to have to buy the book. I have already finished the book and already want - no, need - to read the book again, if only to engrain the punctuation rules in my head. As I am writing this, I am thinking about all of the grammatical mistakes that I am most likely making and am really self conscious. It's definitely worth a read if you enjoy language, humour, or a combination of the two.

So many things....

I have a few favourite things today that are loosely tied together. First of all, my sister made a semantic mistake today that I, of course, decided to take advantage of. You see, generally, when she cooks, I clean up and when I cook, I clean up......Wait, that doesn't seem right. Hmmmm........ Anyway, after supper today, she said I could do dishes anytime. I gladly said "Sure," taking her at her word. She soon realized her mistake and amended that I could do them anytime today. So first off, I enjoy taking the most literal meaning of things if it works to my advantage. At about 7, my sister had this craving for Lemon Meringue pie without the meringue (I guess that just makes it Lemon Pie, but anyways.....). Unfortunately, we had neither the stuff for the filling or for the crust. She offered to do the dishes if I would go to the store for the supplies. I agreed. Which leads me to favourite thing number two: Getting out of one thing by doing something else that is much more work intensive and time consuming. That doesn't seem right either, but moving on.... So I got the supplies and she made the pie which we ate too late at night for it to be properly classified as "dessert." But it was quite good, making my third favourite thing Lemon Meringue pie without the meringue.

Is it aluminum or aluminium?

I was a linguistics major in university (see previous post about being unemployed) and language has always been interesting to me. What I really enjoy though is hearing new ways of pronouncing old words. It probably sounds weird but it entertains me. When I started my first phonetics/ phonology course I spent the ride home from class getting my cousin to repeat various words repeatedly just to see how we said them differently. Last night I was watching a documentary and the lady that was speaking pronounced the word aspartame as asparta-me (sounds close to anemone). I had never heard it pronounced that way before. I don't know if that is the correct way to say it or if she was incorrect but I found it interesting. That got me thinking about the way I say different words and how I will read a word and pronounce it a certain way in my head and then actually hear it aloud and realize that I was wrong (I used to think the word 'bodice' rhymed with 'lease') I will also hear a word pronounced completely weird or wrong and adopt that as my pronunciation because it sounds cool (I pronounce the word 'particularily' as 'particuly' because I heard it that way on ER.) On another note, I find it interesting that the plural of octopus is octopodes and not octopi.