I have courses begun on French, German, Irish, Norwegian and Slovenian. Right now, Iām not actively studying the latter two, partially because Iām tired and lazy these past couple of weeks and partially because the Slovenian course makes me want to die because itāsā¦ kind of badly thought out (instead of the Memrise 1 for it, Iāve decided to complete both of Baasā Basic Slovenian courses first to get a better idea of grammatical structure in isolation instead of a ridiculous number of pocket-phrasebook sentences meant to be rote memorised, whichāll basically teach me nothing). Oh, and Iām not particularly active in Norwegian at the moment just because itās so easy to pick up; I figure it wonāt be too troublesome to make up for lost time when Iām feeling more alert. Really, Norwegianās very relaxing ā nice way to switch off my brain after everything else. Well, that and names of plants, anyway.
I digress (I do that a lot, sorry).
As anyone weird enough to follow me will know, Iāve a lot of courses on the go and am usually very active, despite the dip since just after Hogmanay. Iāve been a bit down in the dumps and my general motivation has taken a slump along with my apparent brainpower (because blarg, I am dead).
Mostly, I study German. Love the language, its funky grammar and refusal of duality. It means what it says and insists you clarify everything until itās been clarified to death. I respect that. Itās a bit more challenging than Norwegian, of course, but Iāve dedicated the last year to learning it and think Iām doing okay thus far. I give the most time on it, normally (so, not this past fortnight) spending about an hour and a half a day reviewing (longer if I want to pick up new words).
Also been taking a shot at French, despite being largely atrocious at Romance languages. Itās much slower going than German because my brain just doesnāt seem to like itā¦ though gradually, it makes more and more sense, even if I find proper pronunciation pretty much impossible (and why the hell do they need so many excess letters?! Itās spelling hellā¦ though Irish could do with some pointers on that front, too). Where Iām on German 6, Iām only on French 2ā¦ which I think says something about my abilities there. I try not to spend too much time on it, always having intended it to be very casual ā maybe half an hour or so for pure review (plus new vocab pickup some days).
To give my head a bit of a shoogle, Iāve been taking Irish on the side. Itās a weird language I used to hear sometimes growing up; half the time I canāt recall whether Iām meant to go with eclipsis or elision, but itās good fun and very interesting. Quite refreshing because itās so unlike most other languages and, because itās so unique, I canāt possibly get my tongue crossed, which makes a nice change (have to learn French from German to stop me typing the answers in German by mistake like I used to on the English version of the courseā¦ 'cause Iām stupid like that).
I once had a look at Finnish but struggled to differentiate between verbs. They all looked the same to me. Soā¦ Iāve shelved it. Itās at the back of my mind to have a go at one day, but I try not to think about it too much.
Iām nowhere near brave enough for Mandarin. Iām not tone deaf but I do have a slight hearing problem meaning that, even if I worked pretty hard, Iād probably never be able to understand it spoken. I know when the mountainās too big, lol. I think Iāll stick with my nice, easy European languages for the foreseeable future.
Oh, and Irish. Because reasons.
ā¦
When you get certified as a translator, where are you hoping to work ā near where you live now or overseas?