A.Word.A.Day Commentary

[brynndragon]

Apparently this week we're doing Yiddish words. Anu Garg's opening paragraph for the theme invoked Charles the V's quote, "I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men and German to my horse." It then wondered who he would have spoken Yiddish to. Clearly Anu is not Jewish - it's obvious to me that he'd speak it to his mother-in-law.

Comments

[damhan-alluidh.livejournal.com]

Wow. I speak one language, and even that one somewhat poorly.
Lived in montreal for four years and I still barely speak a word of french.

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

I'm reminded of the Dutch, who speak 4 laguages and smoke pot. Because obviously someone who has taken the time to learn 4 languages needs to learn to chill ;P. (Generic Disclaimer: everything I've heard about the Dutch tells me they rock, so they can probably take a little good-natured ribbing)

Me, I speak a smattering of Hebrew (the Jewish Day School I went to as a kid didn't do full-immersion for the Hebrew half of the day, which was a mistake on their part IMHO), and know a few Yiddish words here and there. I took Spanish in high school but it didn't really stick. So at the end of the day I'm an english-speaker through and through. I wish I knew some Chinese, the right kind to read the medical and philosophical classics in the original (which kind that is, I'm uncertain, although I think the intellegencia who fled the communists speak Mandarin).

[damhan-alluidh.livejournal.com]

An old roommate of mine could swear quite fluently in yiddish, but I think that's about it.
Why not a chinese course?
Just find the dialect you need... there's al ot of them.

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

Yiddish is awesome for swearing. They don't call it the Mother Tongue for nothing ;P.

Chinese (all of the dialects) is incredibly complex, and the thing that would be important is understanding the subtle nuances within characters - it would take a damn long time, as I'm not particularly good with languages in the first place. I'm better off finding commentary by people who know both english and chinese for understanding the shades of meaning, although I might try to learn some chinese as well.