Some musings on language...
Aug. 19th, 2021 08:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
roselightfairyEvery now and then, it really hits me that I'm losing my German, and not trying hard enough to hold onto it.
It's been eight years since I returned home from my yearlong immersion, three since I graduated college where I at least made attempts to keep using it (studying translations, etc.) and since I last visited friends there, and almost two since I stopped going to the "German conversation" group in the area, which was mostly retired people trying to learn the language and I just couldn't deal with it anymore. I've been trying to keep up a little "book club" with my dad, my last thread to the language (we're reading a translation of The Hobbit right now), but I'm shedding vocabulary faster than snow from a shaken tree, and it only becomes more apparent when I try to talk to him. I think my accent is still a shade better than his (benefits of early immersion, which he's unfortunately beyond getting), but his command of the language is so vastly superior - I mean, he teaches it, after all, and all I do anymore is dabble.
That's all I do in anything anymore, it seems.
I used to think of myself as a "language person," because my brain has hooks for words that it just sinks in and holds onto - but my window for learning languages feels like it's closing, and I'm just not working hard enough to acquire any more. I could still recover my German, but what would I do with it beyond what I already do - keeping in basic touch with friends, having two languages I can read in if I really want to? I've never been a good translator, and even if I did improve my skills, no one is looking for a German-to-English-exclusively translator anyway. Today I reread one of the few Legolas/Gimli fics in German on AO3 (because yeah, in my early days of devouring everything for the pairing, once I had exhausted the English stories I dipped into German) - read it aloud, just for fun, and in listening back to it was dismayed at how halting my voice sounds, how hesitant even with the language presented to me.
And I don't know, this just feels so applicable to other situations in my life. I want to be the best at everything I do, and yet there's nothing I'm committed enough to to really put in that kind of work. I dabble in so many things, but I'm not good enough at any of them to be . . . as good as I want to be. And yet I'm too tired and lazy to put in the work to become good.
And also on top of everything, I have been experiencing that thing where I can feel my pulse in my ears, and I don't know if there is a not-painful physical sensation that I loathe more. I know that has nothing to do with the before, but it is thumping in the side of my head and it makes me want to rip my heart out through my veins.
On that happy note, I guess I will stop now.
It's been eight years since I returned home from my yearlong immersion, three since I graduated college where I at least made attempts to keep using it (studying translations, etc.) and since I last visited friends there, and almost two since I stopped going to the "German conversation" group in the area, which was mostly retired people trying to learn the language and I just couldn't deal with it anymore. I've been trying to keep up a little "book club" with my dad, my last thread to the language (we're reading a translation of The Hobbit right now), but I'm shedding vocabulary faster than snow from a shaken tree, and it only becomes more apparent when I try to talk to him. I think my accent is still a shade better than his (benefits of early immersion, which he's unfortunately beyond getting), but his command of the language is so vastly superior - I mean, he teaches it, after all, and all I do anymore is dabble.
That's all I do in anything anymore, it seems.
I used to think of myself as a "language person," because my brain has hooks for words that it just sinks in and holds onto - but my window for learning languages feels like it's closing, and I'm just not working hard enough to acquire any more. I could still recover my German, but what would I do with it beyond what I already do - keeping in basic touch with friends, having two languages I can read in if I really want to? I've never been a good translator, and even if I did improve my skills, no one is looking for a German-to-English-exclusively translator anyway. Today I reread one of the few Legolas/Gimli fics in German on AO3 (because yeah, in my early days of devouring everything for the pairing, once I had exhausted the English stories I dipped into German) - read it aloud, just for fun, and in listening back to it was dismayed at how halting my voice sounds, how hesitant even with the language presented to me.
And I don't know, this just feels so applicable to other situations in my life. I want to be the best at everything I do, and yet there's nothing I'm committed enough to to really put in that kind of work. I dabble in so many things, but I'm not good enough at any of them to be . . . as good as I want to be. And yet I'm too tired and lazy to put in the work to become good.
And also on top of everything, I have been experiencing that thing where I can feel my pulse in my ears, and I don't know if there is a not-painful physical sensation that I loathe more. I know that has nothing to do with the before, but it is thumping in the side of my head and it makes me want to rip my heart out through my veins.
On that happy note, I guess I will stop now.
no subject
Date: 2021-08-21 03:54 pm (UTC)I had (have) the same problem with Russian: I don’t need it now, and “use it or lose it” got settled. I could, as you say, dabble in it as an intellectual exercise, but the volition, the will to bother, is not there.
That said, from personal experience I have two suggestions:
• Look up “major depressive disorder” online - it takes one to know one!
and
• Check your blood pressure. Any of those free machines at pharmacies will do. Supposedly it’s the “silent killer,” but you’re hearing it.