icarus: Snape by mysterious artist (Default)
[personal profile] 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 ([livejournal.com profile] 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.

Date: 2004-10-31 12:42 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] 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

Date: 2004-10-31 12:48 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] 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.

Date: 2004-10-31 01:51 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] 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

Date: 2004-10-31 01:57 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] fpb.livejournal.com
Well, I guess I might as well friend you, if you don't mind.

Date: 2004-10-31 03:47 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] 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

Date: 2004-10-31 03:57 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] 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.

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