Totally into languages

Just in case you didn't know: I love languages. The last two days I was slightly struggling with the symptoms of an approaching cold. Yet, as a matter of prudence, H. had already given me a Korean "Red Ginseng Tonic" to fight this season's flu. Dunno if it is for this "magic liquid", but I feel totally fine again. Well, I don't wanna get sidetracked, so back to topic: Languages.

Some days ago I started to learn Korean. I mean, H. is a certified teacher for Korean language - I would be pretty dumb not to take that opportunity. So, lying in bed with nothing to do, I had a closer look at the tea package she had given me:

It is so astonishing. Although the text is a wild mixture of English, Korean and Chinese, actually what was really helpful to understand, was my Japanese knowlegde. As I had mentioned in a previous post, I can read Hangul (the Korean alphabet - pretty straight forward), but obviously I totally lack Korean vocab. Still, English description aside and without knowing that the Korean 홍삼 is red ginseng, I got a grasp thanks to the Chinese letters - because they are the same as in Japanese: 紅参. Also, the "6 year old (root)" can easily be deciphered in ６年根.

So, my strategy to approach the Korean language is now to look for similarities between Japanese and Korean, due to the Chinese influence in both of them. And it turns out: They have a lot in common.

Shoe? Kutsu in Japanese, Kudu in Korean.
Prayer? Kitou in Japanese, Kito in Korean.
Doctor? Isha in Japanese, Uisa in Korean.

Not to mention all the English loanwords (think Hoteru in Japanese and Hotaeru in Korean...). Awesome. Let's see if these similarities will help me or turn out to rather confuse me... Meanwhile, my Excel list of similar words is growing rapidly...

In order to immerse myself more efficiently with the Korean language, I adapted my morning habit as I switched the radio channel from Japanese to Korean. Although I still don't understand anything, what my daily exposure already brought to mind was that Korean pronounciation definitely has some similarities with Chinese. To be honest, this is not exactly my biggest motivation, as for me personally, Mandarin is a bit harsh on the ear. But we'll see, probably just a question of time...

Talking about languages, I have two "morsels" for my German readers - and for all the poor foreigners who try to perfect their German lanuage skills. Because even as a native speaker I thought "Man, German can be terribly difficult" when I was recently reading the following sentence about the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe:

"Seine Liberaldemokratische Partei hatte den kinderlosen Ehemann einer Industriellentochter im Herbst vor zwei Jahren erneut auf den Schild gehoben, auch weil er der Enkel einer wohlhabenden Politdynastie ist." (Source: Japanmarkt.de)

Bum. That's a sentence...

But hey - didn't you just say you have two morsels up your sleeve?

Right - here we go with the second one. This time it's Wikipedia, talking about the dialect spoken in the area where I am from - Swabian. Wasn't aware of how sophisticated it is...

"Durch die enorme Vielfalt an Vokalen und Diphthongen gehört das Schwäbische zu den phonemreichsten Sprachen überhaupt, was sehr knappe und dennoch semantisch präzise Wort- und Satzbildungen ermöglicht." (Source: Wikipedia)

And as language is inextricably linked with culture, I also would like to share an interesting and somehow funny point of view about cultural stereotypes and idealization:

Foreign people seem inclined to inflate and glorify cultural differences. You sleep on a futon? How exotic, spending the night on the floor. Eat fish without cooking it? Well, that's certainly progress, not using fire. And Japanese people are happy to bolster this image. Even they believe it. Japan's special and everywhere else isn't? Well, if you say so. So together we all weave this fantasy image of canned Japaaaan, like The Olive Garden serving Itaaaalian food. (Source: JapaneseRuleOf7.com)

To all my dear Japanese readers: Please don't be offended and take it with a big grain of salt. I totally adore many aspects of Japanese culture, but then again above paragraph makes us a bit aware of the sometimes ridiculous arguments we could find for our enthusiasm if we tried to justify it rationally. Not limited to Japanese culture of course. I think, the most important sentence is the very first one: "Foreign people seem inclined to inflate and glorify cultural differences." Definitely true in some cases...

Ok, this was just a quick post about some points which at least for me are really interesting. End if you are not such a language / culture nerd like me, don't worry, I also have a super interesting and relevant fact for you: The department where I'm doing my internship has moved up one floor.

Although the new room looks pretty similar, the most noticeable difference is the floor: No carpet anymore. I thought it would be an improvement. But turns out that this is not the case. Thanks to the numerous earthquakes our beautiful Mexican capital is hit regularly, our building is pretty inclinded. So, without carpeted floor, the office chair flees your bud, as soon as you stand up. Not joking! Even when you are seated, you notice that you are slowly rolling away... So annoying... But Mexican security standards certainly ensure that there is absolutely no problem with such a pronounced inclination. Certainly...