Fiorella Loves Languages

Fio is feeling prognosticative. The two languages she wanted most to study during her undergrad years were Russian and Mandarin. Who would have guessed they'd be the two languages of most importance to world relations right now? (Fio confesses that the only reason she was drawn to them back then was that they were exotic and different.)
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Unfortunately, Fio never had the chance to learn Mandarin. Despite being Phi Beta Kappa material, she couldn't get a scholarship because she was a woman, a married woman at that, and "would probably get pregnant and drop out," which meant that she had to work full-time her last two undergrad years, which meant she couldn't attend the intensive Mandarin class the required five days a week.
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Fiorella's Spanish program has slowed down during the holidays, although she did throw out gracias a few times to the tech in her eye doctor's office yesterday. When the tech replied with de nada, Fio asked her if she spoke Spanish, and they exchanged a few phrases, which FIO ACTUALLY UNDERSTOOD! Feliz Navidad!

Co-mingling

Bon jour, mia bella! Como esta usted sevodna? Neenu teluguloo maaTlaaDagalaru. Koennen Sie diese Sprache sprechen? Zdai chen!

Ave atque vale,
Fio, who's messing with you

Languages,Languages, Languages

Has Fio told you she's trying to learn Spanish by semi-immersion? She started by watching Univision, a Spanish-language station, every night to absorb the 's sounds and rhythm of the language, and now, with the help of Google Translator, she is trying to get everything in the house labeled so wherever she looks, she'll see the Spanish word for it. She's planning to post a color chart too.  And she's trying to build the habit of substituting Spanish words for English words when she can.

Of course, most of the words she's learning now are basic nouns, but she's pretty sure she can learn prepositions from context. And she already has a head start on pronouns because she lives in Texas. The verbs will be more problematical, but Fio will handle them in time if she keeps at it. That's what immersion is all about.

And just think--if Fio can master Spanish, she can bring her Russian back up to speed.  And her Latin.  And then there's Italian--and German--and Telugu--and Mandarin--and every other language Fio has ever wanted to speak. (You'll notice Fio left off French.  She could read it quite well at one time, but has no interest in learning how to mispronounce it at this point in her life.)



 

Multi-Lingual Greetings

Keefik! Hola! Ciao! Chao! Guten Morgen! Preevyet! Ave! Comesta! Nee hau! NuhmuhskaaruhmuhnDee! Nuhmustey. Bon jour! 

Arabic, Spanish, Italian, Vietnamese, German, Russian, Latin, Fillipino, Mandarin, Telugu, Hindi, and French.

As Fiorella has often said, she knows just enough in far too many languages to get her in trouble anywhere she goes. Sigh--if only she knew more.

Telugu, Russian, and Mandarin

Are you ready for the remnants of Fiorella's linguistic erudition?  Native writers, look away, look away, because Fio has probably butchered the scripts.  Translation:  her handwriting used to be more regular and less labored in both Telugu and Russian.

She did have to consult sources to be sure she was correct, which made her wilt, but she quickly revived when she realized the more she worked with the languages, the more she was remembering about them.  In heaven, she will speak in tongues.

In case you're wondering, the Telugu word is the standard greeting and is pronounced nuh-muh-ska-ruh-muh-n-Di.  The "anDi" is a politeness form, and the upper-case D means it is hard.

The Russian entry translates as "Do you speak Russian?" or, as Mrs. Scarjinsky would have said  , "Whether or not do you speak Russian?"  (The operative clue is "li".)

The Mandarin is as it is, but Lord only knows what it would be in combinations.

Um, it took us three hours and a call to Minnesota to get this page on the blog so please get out your magnifying glass to look it over.

Scripts

Fiorella loves learning how to write in languages that use a non-roman script.  Russian was her first experience.  The Cyrillic alphabet is quite similar to the Roman, which English uses, but just different enough to be tricky.  For instance, "c" always has an "s" sound, and "p" is the spelling of the English "r."

The next script she learned--and she used to be pretty good at both reading and writing it--was for Telugu, a Dravidian language.  Like most Indian scripts, its a syllabary, which means each "letter" is a combination of a consonant and a vowel.  Thus, "Fiorella" would be spelled with just four major "letters:"  fi-yo-re-la.

Let's skip the Sanskrit script, a syllabary called devanagari, which Fio has totally forgotten, and move quickly on to Mandarin, a logosyllabic script, of which Fio actually knows about five "characters."  If you want someone to identify "person," "big," "little," "center" or "mouth," she's your girl.

Fio will give you examples tomorrow.  Stay tuned.

Shallow Fio

Buoyed up by her romance-writing class going so well the night before that the students stayed thirty minutes afterwards, Fiorella set off for a full day of errands and appointments in Austin yesterday.  She arranged for a rental car, drove into town, dropped some donation books off at church, mailed letters and bought stamps, spent two hours with her favorite hairdresser, scarfed down Starbuck's marble pound cake for lunch, and had a great visit with her neurologist and his intern. Because the intern was half Chinese, Fiorella tried out her meager Mandarin.

HE UNDERSTOOD HER AND REPLIED IN KIND!

Her tires never touched ground all the way home.   It takes so little to make Fiorella happy.

Always Wondering, Always Pondering

Fiorella's abiding trait is curiosity.  She wants to know about people, about languages, about how the world works, about everything.  That's why she's constantly analyzing relationships.  That's why she's learning Mandarin from her dentist and a helpful RWA chapter mate.  That's why she reads science news and keeps up with current events.  That's why her eyes and ears are always open and receiving.

And she spouts it all out in her romance novels. 

Uno, zwei, tri, muuDu, quinque, cinq, sei

Hello, one and all, and especially you physical therapists that told Fiorella not to blog about you. What a challenge to hurl at her.

No, this isn't a scandalous tell-all.  Fiorella liked the therapists who worked with her, and she benefited from the treatments--in fact, now that her sessions are over, she's actually doing some of the exercises at home. But Fio does have one suggestion. It would make better use of your clients' time if you turned off the television and suggested they learn to count their reps in various foreign languages. Fiorella herself reviewed Spanish, German, Russian, Telugu, Latin, and French (sort of--not too good at pronouncing French) during her time on the table.  And the PT big dog, Nicole, kindly added Italian to her repertoire.

If those seven languages aren't enough, there's always Mandarin. Fio's already learned 1,2, 3--ee (high), aar (low and rising up), ssun(high to low), although she needs to read up on Mandarin phonemes before she can give you the exact pronunciation of that last one.

Numerals

SPANISH: uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco, seis, siete, ocho, nueve, diez

GERMAN: eins, zwei, drei, fier, funf, sechs, sieben, acht, neun, zehn

RUSSIAN: один, два, три, четыре,  пять, шесть, семь, восемь, девять, десять

TELUGU:  ఒకటి, రెన్ఢు, మూఢు, నాలుగు, ఐడు, ఆరు, ఏఢు, ఎనిమిడి, టొమ్మిడి, పడి

LATIN:  unus (-a, -um), duo, tres, quattuor, quinque, sex, octo, septem, novem, decem

FRENCH: un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, six, sept, huit, neuf, dix (which Fio will never learn to pronounce correctly) 

MANDARIN?

 

Catching up with Fio

Fiorella rewrote yesterday's blog because it didn't flow right when she reviewed it that evening.  She's like that--a serial revisionist.  Anything worth doing is worth doing better.  Stay tuned.  This blog will probably get a revision too.
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Fio's numeral-reviewing project in seven languages got bogged down somewhere along the line so she decided to work on just 1-10 instead of 1-20.  She can rattle off those  numbers in Spanish, German, and Russian again, and is working on Telugu.  Latin and French should be easy enough once it's their turn.  But, now Fio wants to add Mandarin to the list.  After all, she has an appointment with her Chinese dentist next month.
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Husband and Fiorella started putting together an art desk last weekend, but they screwed in the center crossbar upside down and haven't had the time to fix it.  Ah well, there are seventeen more hours left in this weekend.

Fiorella's World

As usual, Fiorella has several special projects going: Princess Redlander, a family business deal, the custom frame for Son's 40"x8" digital painting, Spanish, Mandarin, the planting beds, diet, exercise,  dog training.  Coming up fast on the inside are cleaning out the attic and the garage. How does Fio manage?  Focus and follow-through, prioritizing, and by easy stages. She's now one-third through the first draft of Princess Red (her prime priority), is in a wait-and-watch phase with the business deal, will be hanging son's painting this weekend, puts in a little time daily on each language (plus some review Russian), tends to the planting beds on evenings when the weather or her stamina permit, figures out her meals the day beforehand, and walks the dog up the driveway  to get the mail every afternoon, for  Sonia's sake as well as her own.

And, of course, every morning, she publishes an original Fiorella blog.  Fio is nothing if not steadfast.

Good News All the Way Around

It's been a semana buena en la casa de Fiorella. Su hijo menor has a job, a real live job, and his art is being showcased by un amigo of his. And the knee replacement surgery de su hijo mayor went very well--he's undergoing physical therapy as we speak. Meanwhile Fiorella is talking to a real live New York agent about Princess of Bosque Bend.

The nexus was the birthday del padre de la Fiorella en Lunes, and having Nephew Aaron's cumpleanos en Martes augmented it.

Gracias al buen Dios, muchas gracias. Merci, grazie, danke shoen, spaseeba, shyeh shyeh.

Okay, Fio took a flyer on this one so any corrections to her linguistic prowess are welcomed.

Yes or No?

Fiorella's conversation with the agent was postponed till today; however, she did have a great time at her dentist's yesterday. Getting the old filling drilled out and a temporary crown put in place wasn't much fun, but she really enjoyed practicing her Mandarin--all six phrases of it. And she learned two new words so listen close. "Yes" is "sih," but the vowel is sorta a cross between a short "i" and a long "u." And the word is cut off at the end.

"No" is "booh-sih," which means "not yes."

Makes you think, doesn't it? Linguistically, the Chinese can always be persuaded.

Sinking Her Teeth into It

Fiorella came out of her dentist's office yesterday as high as the proverbial kite. Not only were her teeth x-rayed, bright and shiny, but she had used her meager Mandarin on the office manager, Dr. Ma's brother, and HE UNDERSTOOD HER. He also taught her how to ask where the bathroom was.

In addition, Dr. Ma taught her how to say "dog" and "my name is--."

Fio can hardly wait for the appointment when she gets her broken tooth fixed--and, more important, can practice her Chinese.

Nee Hao Mah?

Fiorella is so excited. She's going off to see her dentist bright and early this morning. This is the dentist who's taught her some Mandarin phrases, and she's planning to use them all, and, she hopes, learn more.

Oh, and get her teeth cleaned too, shyeh-shyeh.