Blimey it seems ages since I've made the time to sit down and have a go at blogging some thoughts. By the way the past post about the Grateful Dead was one of the reasons that I have not been writing. I've been lost in an absolute psychedelic wonderland of joy and if you haven't yet followed the link (and you know who you are...then just do it!)
I digress the subject of this blog is language as one of the most common questions I get asked is: "How are you getitng on with the lingo?" Its a simple enough question but the answer is remarkably more profound. The question is really..."how are you getting on with re'programming your brain...." as that is what it comes down to. After years (over forty now since my last short trousered attempts at French and Latin) I am indeed re-programming my brain. Not only does my mouth have to find ways of making new sounds and build up the necessary neural and muscular connections, but my ears (brain) has to also learn new ways of interpreting patterns of sound and assign meaning to them within the rules and structure of a grammar. Its alll pretty mindbending...its daily...its frustrating...its enlightening...its...I don't have the words.
And that is part of the problem. As I found it is far easier (at this stage) for me to understand what is being said than to speak. The brain and its language centres have natural ways in which they can follow, jump ahead and anticipate what is being said to it. When we listen we don't have to hear and understand every single individual word, some kind of gestalt thing happens and we are able to simply extract meaning from what we hear.
Now look around you...go on take a couple of minutes to look around your desk, or your room, or wherever you are. Now start to name the obejcts...desk, pen, paper, book, chair, door, window floor...etc. Now think about the relationships...the pen is under the book which is on the table.
Now imagine that you have no words to use to describe these objects or more realistically that the ones you currently use don't work anymore and you have to learn new ones. Start again and look around you...everything is new and has to be learned...and the relationships and the actions and the tenses...past, present and future for starters and that's without the imperative, indefinate past and the rest. All of this has to be learned...and although you can talk like a small child with parts of it, you need a lot more big words to sound proper grown up like wot the others are.
So there it is...its a scary, big exciting journey into another way of thinking...and it really is. You don't learn how to speak another language, you learn to think in a new way, to express thoughts, hopes, ideas, wishes and dreams in another way. To see a new poetry of expression with different rhymes sounds and all the time you learn.
And its hard, people have said to me that it must be easy to pick up the language living there. Well it is because you get continual feedback, but I still sit with word lists to be memorised and grammar books to study and texts to read and translate from english to spanish and from spanish to english and poco poco, cada dia it somehow starts to seep in and your brain responds and new neural pathways are formed and your mouth learns new shapes and patterns of breathing and your tongue no longer feels like a fat unruly serpent that refuses to obey...but easy it is not.
Its work, hard work, long work but liek all work it leaves a glow inside.
Hasta pronto
