Whew! Japanese.

[icarus]

Thank goodness.

My Japanese instructor let me (and another person) take the test we missed. She was astonished when I told her I was going to reduce my work study schedule - she had clearly assumed I was going to drop the class.

No way, I'm not giving up.

If I do Japanese, I'll be able to make a great case for my intention to minor in Sanskrit at UW. I will have studied two Asian languages already (Tibetan and Japanese) as well as German and French. Plus I have the foundation in Buddhist studies from Nitartha Institute (not to mention over a decade as a Buddhist nun, study at the monastery in India, etc, etc).

Then I would major in English.

You see, when you apply to UW, you need to make a case that the U has something you can't get anywhere else. So tell me, how many Universities offer Sanskrit? My original hope was to major in Tibetan and minor in Sanskrit, but while the Sanskrit remains, the Tibetan program (alas) was cancelled.

She's invited me to attend the early morning class instead, on whatever days I can. Apparently I'm in the "quiet" class, the people who don't participate and speak, while the early am class has a lot of eager vocal participation. I admitted to her that I am not an early riser (wildernessguru howls with laughter at this vast understatement) but hmmm... I think I'll see if I can make it to that class a couple days a week. I'd prefer to really hear and use the language: I learn much better that way. When I learn from reading, I can never get the words out of my mouth.

Besides, a lively class makes all the difference.

I'm a couple assignments behind on my Philosphy homework, but it is a great, and I mean Great class. Vibrant participation, an energized environment, an open-minded approach. I'll get those done this weekend.

I love the tutoring, and I'm sorry to reduce my hours. But in all practicality, my grades need to stay in that upper range, and from a mercenary point of view if I say "I tutored English for three semesters" it doesn't matter much how many hours per week that was.

Comments

[presently.livejournal.com]

If I do Japanese, I'll be able to make a great case for my intention to minor in Sanskrit at UW. I will have studied two Asian languages already (Tibetan and Japanese) as well as German and French. Plus I have the foundation in Buddhist studies from Nitartha Institute (not to mention over a decade as a Buddhist nun, study at the monastery in India, etc, etc).

Can I just say that I am constantly in unbelievable awe of you? I.. really can't think of any way of how to say.. I don't even know what I really want to say. I think it's just your Buddhist knowledge & everything that stems from that, that fascinates me. I'm sure I've mentioned this before. >_> *crimson*

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Now I'm thoroughly embarrassed, and it took me a while to be able to answer this.

Most of my Buddhist spiritual practice, the retreats and construction and whatnot, was done when I was younger, mostly in my 20's - that's when I went to India and learned a bit of Tibetan. The more in-depth study came later, in my 30's. I don't think it's particularly extraordinary. There are a lot of people who know a lot more than I do.

Icarus

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm in my forties and only have a few languages - Italian (native), English, Latin, French, some German - pretty much the usual. Sanskrit I can understand - it's an Indo-European language, and not too hard if you have Latin or German - but the notion of Japanese AND Tibetan - two of the most difficult languages on Earth - is frickin' scary. Yes, there are people who can do more, such as Georges Dumezil. They are called geniuses.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

That's an impressive repetoire of languages.

Is Tibetan difficult?

I was young, only 19, when I started studying it, learning the alphabet, reciting, typing it. It never occurred to me it was difficult. I just figured it was Asian, so just very different from what I was used to. So I had to abandon some of my assumptions about how a language works. I was quick to learn the alphabet, but my spoken Tibetan is quite poor. (I'd studied German and French in school.) Yet I had Tibetan teachers pouring through the temple all the time, and couldn't resist trying to understand them without a translator, and texts that I recited from a transliteration - couldn't resist trying to read them. My exposure to the language was ongoing.

What I find tricky about Tibetan is its many homonyms and silent letters. So many words you have to catch from contexts in spoken Tibetan, which are completely clear in their written form.

A Lama teased a translator once. He went on and on with this story about an Arhat, and the translator (given the context of a spiritual class) natural assumed he meant the realized-being spelling of the word Arhat. Then as the story unspooled and the teacher mentioned the Arhat's tail, the translator realized: "oh. He means a pig." The words sound identical.

Everyone cracked up when the translator corrected himself. The Lama was very amused, and knew exactly what had happened; in fact he'd deliberately held back the, uh, tell-tail details to trick the translator, and put the cocky young man in his place.

I'm just in my first quarter of Japanese. It runs together without spaces between words like Tibetan, but has a slightly different pronunciation issue: there are a lot of words that are pronounced almost the same, but if you get it slightly wrong, you end up with a very different word.

The Kanji is an entirely new issue, and the mixing of three different alphabets is curious and says something about the Japanese, actually.

It's all very interesting. One thing I'm proud of in my Tibetan studies: I've managed to wheedle the Tibetan cursive out of my teachers. I've written notes in it and passed them to professional translators -- only to find they couldn't read it. Tibetans are just reluctant to teach it, because it's so ordinary. Their attitude is, "why would you want to learn that?" as if you're asking for the recipe of a MacDonald's hamburger.

Icarus

[fpb.livejournal.com]

*brrrrrr*
Well, congratulations.
One thing you should know is that I never did actually quite manage Sanskrit. I am one of Professor Gombrich's rare failures. That he has remained my friend says a lot about the man.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

It depends on what level of proficiency you mean. You see, the Tibetans will tell you they can read. Then it turns out what they mean by that is that they know the alphabet and can recite a text without much understanding. So if you can even follow part of a Sanskrit text and get a general gist of what's happening, you've already surpassed the Tibetan definition of 'reading.'

Icarus

[fpb.livejournal.com]

That's about it. But then I have been distracted by other areas of study. In that sense, then, I can also "read" classical Greek, Anglo-Saxon and Welsh. The thing however is that they all are I-E languages. What impresses the Hell out of me is you being able to cope with languages from different language groups.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure how well I'm coping with Japanese, to tell you the truth. *laughs* But for Tibetan it's been a matter of saturation from the age of about 17-18 or so. I think that helps.

Icarus

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Well, I guess I might as well friend you, if you don't mind.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Don't mind at all. I'll friend you back.

I really need to change that friend-only screening on my journal. I only became so draconian when I exposed a con-artist who was asking for donations under false pretenses for her Harry Potter site. It got kind of ugly for a bit.

I'm thinking about how different Tibetan is from English, et al. Tibetan actually makes a good bridge between European and Asian languages, because it was so strongly influenced by Sanskrit. Their alphabet was even created based upon the Sanskrit script rather than the pictographic "Kanji" you see in Chinese and Japanese, and their grammatical structure isn't too different from German in that they toss the verb to the end of the sentence. I'm told by a linguist that Tibetan is actually most closely similar in form and grammatical structure to Finnish. Which is odd.

Icarus

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm no linguist... All I know about Tibetan is that linguistic maps make it part of the "Sino-Tibetan group". I'm a culture historian. And a Catholic and a loudmouth. So you're warned.

[presently.livejournal.com]

Now I'm thoroughly embarrassed

>_> Ooopsie. Still, while it might not be extraordinary to you, to someone who doesn't know many people with the knowledge & experiences you have, it's definitely interesting. :D

Whenever you mention something along these lines, I always have millions of questions forming in my head. But, I'd hate to make you even more embarrassed, so I won't ask any. Besides the fact that I'm sure things like that are on a much more personal level and I can't really think of anything to ask other than How does one go about doing things like you've done? Which is quite general & probably a time-consuming question. As in it'd probably be a list 10 miles long. :D

<3

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Oh, now you have me curious as to what those questions are. Go ahead. Ask. Don't worry too much about privacy. This thread is pretty old, and I can always screen comments that are getting too in-depth.

Icarus

[presently.livejournal.com]

Gah. Now that you've put me on the spot, lol. Hm. How did you first 'get into' Buddhism & the like? Was it something that just piqued (sp?) your interest at first and became something bigger for you? Or did it start out as something big in the first place? I'm just. I don't know. lol The travelling to India & being a Buddhist nun strike me as very interesting. Probably because the extent of my travelling has been to Britain for a week two summers ago and to a few states (like 5) on the East Coast.

There are so many different things I find interesting & would love to study, but when it comes down to it, I just never seem to have the drive to actually do it, so when someone has done things like this, I'm always amazed and wondering if it's something I could possibly do. [/rambly confusingnessyay]