expressions

Year in Languages 2023

19 languages

Greece, ancient and modern

It is this time of year again! It’s time to take stock of the plans made and (not quite) kept in the matter of language learning.

My plans for 2023 were to improve my English, a Sisyphean task; to continue learning Estonian, and to revive my Latin.

The year turned out to be stressful and eventful, yet gave plenty of opportunities to practise multiple languages. 

I went on several trips abroad, including to Greece, Spain, and Germany, and spoke the local languages everywhere.

I visited two countries for the first time, Poland and Portugal, whose languages are on my wish list. 

I read over eighty books, in nine languages.

Thus, I am not displeased by the outcomes, even if things did not go according to the plan.

English

In 2023, I continued learning English idiomatic expressions, grouped by theme, and deliberately using them in speech and writing.

I started learning English idioms over three years ago. Last year, I noticed that I often had an  expression at my fingertips; this year, I am tickled pink when other people notice, too.

Estonian

In April 2023, I finished the second part of an Estonian online course, intended for intermediate learners. 

Multiple placement tests put me firmly in the B1 category, which is the danger zone of my language learning. Whenever I had learned a language to B1, and then did not use it for a while, it was gone. 

I did not want my hard earned Estonian to meet the same fate, hence, I made a plan.

My plan was to continue learning Estonian to B2 by listening to videos and reading books and articles. 

I did it for several months until September, and then stopped doing it systematically, partly because of my job and partly because I did not manage to go to Estonia nor buy any Estonian books. 

This is a lame excuse.

But reading literature has always been my favourite method to acquire a richer vocabulary and  understand grammar nuances.

Thus, to improve, I need to find a book and schedule a time slot or several slots a week. 

Latin

I had made grandiose plans to resuscitate my Latin and failed epicly. 

I finished only one book, Tacitus Germania, which took me over three months, reading on weekends and holidays. 

While reading it, I realised that Tacitus mentioned various Baltic tribes. Which other ancient historian mentioned Baltic tribes, I wondered, and went off on a tangent.

Ancient Greek

Which other ancient authors mention Baltic tribes? 

Herodotus, of course! I read all chapters where he mentions ancient inhabitants of the Baltics and continued reading about the geography and tribes on the territory of modern Ukraine.

I then carried on with Xenophon Anabasis, which I am still reading.

Perhaps, when I finish the book, I will return to Latin, but let’s not make grandiose plans again.

Italian

Latin is too hard, let’s do Italian. 

Six books read, plenty of Italian spoken with colleagues and acquaintances, and my little notebook of Italian phrases and useful vocabulary has been replenished. 

Chi va piano, va sano, va lontano (“slow and steady wins the race”).

Spanish 

Three books read, two trips to Spain made, and plenty of Spanish spoken. 

Slowly but hopefully steadily, I am stopping confusing Spanish and Italian (which I know to a higher level) and am getting confident enough to use Spanish in professional settings.

Modern Greek

The language surprise of the year.

In June, I went to Athens, after an almost 20 year hiatus. 

Back in the early 2000s, my knowledge of Modern Greek was a firm B1, good enough to casually chat with friends over mezedes and retsina.

Not to fall flat on my face during my June trip, in May I spent a month reviving my knowledge of Modern Greek.

I got an old copy of the Assimil method and read all the dialogues in it. I then reread them from the beginning, noting down some expressions I liked and that would be useful. I also watched three to five EasyGreek videos every evening for a month

In Athens, my knowledge was put on text the very next day, when I had to call a taxi and explain to the driver, all in Greek, where I was and where I needed to go. When he arrived, we talked in Greek all the way, and continued to do so for every single day.

I talked to the taxi drivers, restaurant owners and waiters, and even to some sympathetic Greek colleagues.

All in all, it was great fun and gave me a blueprint for refreshing any B1 language if need be.

Latvian 

I am fluent in Latvian but want to acquire richer means of expression. Therefore, I read. 

I made good use of the local library in my summer Latvian village and read seven books, including a bestselling novel Mātes piens (“Soviet milk”) by Nora Ikstena. 

French

I am also fluent in French, but right now, I have zero ambition for the language.

Still, I read four books in French, all of them translations from Polish, which gives you a hint as to which language I want to learn next.

French without passion

19 languages

Michel Montaigne has something to say about passions

I had thought that in 2022, I would brush up my Modern Greek, but then life happened.

Not to abandon my carefully crafted plan to study three languages a year, I needed an easier option. I needed to choose a language that I can refresh or update without much effort. Thus an idea to read some French books came up. 

There was a hiccup, however. My relationship with French is a passionate romance that turned sour. Long gone are the days when I was begging to be accepted to a French phonetics class, learning French songs by heart, and bracing the cold to get to the médiathèque française to borrow French  books.

Mais où sont les neiges d’antan (“where is the snow of yesteryear?”)

This year, I willy-nilly read a couple of French novels, more out of duty than for fun, and said to myself that this approach was going nowhere. 

I, who would usually eagerly wait for the night to fall, to intimately engage with my Spanish, Italian, and even German novels, was looking for pretexts to do something else, anything really, rather than to read French romans. 

Is there anything at all I can do to improve my French and enjoy the process?

Deliberate learning is a well-known technique of identifying, isolating, and working on a single issue that you need to improve, and which will move the needle. 

I wanted to work on something that would give me the most bang for my bucks. 

My French pronunciation is passable. In any case, working on your phonetics is not much fun.

My grammar is reasonable. Besides, I adhere to the line of thought that the importance of grammar in achieving language fluency is exaggerated. 

But what about vocabulary? Hold on,  I really like phraseology: hearing a new idiom is music to my ears. 

I have been working steadily on my English idioms for three years now. Although I sometimes want to throw in the towel, my English has gradually become more idiomatic. I have been slowly acquiring flexibility, elegance, and effectiveness in expressing myself. 

Thus, I decided to make my French more idiomatic. More so, I decided to do comparative idioms in French versus English, which is right up my street.

I would start with English expressions that I actively use, and for which I do not know a French equivalent off the cuff. 

(How do they say “off the cuff” in French, by the way? “Sur le champs” is one option, I just checked. Others include “au pied levé”,  “spontanément”, and  “à l’improviste”).

For example, I comfortably and frequently use English idioms “lay the groundwork”, “mince your words”, or “not set in stone”, but needed to look up their French equivalents: “poser les jalons”, “mâcher ses mots”, and “pas gravé dans le marbre”.

The process would be that of deliberate learning: identify the gaps and work on filling them. Look up new French idiomatic expressions, learn them, and use them.

Let’s hope that this comparative phraseology approach rekindles some French passion.

Year in Languages 2021

19 languages
reading Cicero on the terrace

The name ‘19 languages’ reflects my desire to learn 19 languages, to various degrees of mastery.

I first started planning language learning in 2020, as remote work had given me more control over my free time. 

For 2021, I had three priorities: improving English, an uphill battle, learning Estonian, and maintaining German. 

It is time to take stock of the progress made.

English.

In 2021, I set myself only one goal: to speak more idiomatically. To this end, I learned plenty of idiomatic expressions, grouped by theme, and deliberately used them in speech and writing. To continue.

Estonian. 

Estonian was the second focus of 2021, and I am pleased with my progress. I finished the beginners’ online course Keeleklikk, and have started its sequel, called Keeletee and intended for intermediate learners. I listened, once again, to a radio show Как это по-эстонски? (‘How do you say it in Estonian?’), and did grammar exercises. I have read my first book in Estonian, Maailma otsas. Pildikesi heade inimeste elust (At the End of the World. Scenes from the Lives of Good People) by a contemporary writer Andrus Kivirähk, and I watched some Estonian cartoons.

In 2022, the goal is to finish the intermediate course, to work systematically on acquiring vocabulary, and to go to Estonia to practice (and to buy books).

German.

I had many lofty goals for brushing up my German: revising grammar, enriching vocabulary, and improving listening skills. I started the year with a bang, doing grammar exercises every day, but as the year progressed, I threw methodology to the wind and just carried on reading fiction. As a result, I read 17 books in German over the year, which has enhanced my passive vocabulary. Given that travelling is out of the question for the time being, perhaps, that’s not too bad, I console myself.

Italian.

The only trip I made last year was to Bologna, where I not only talked to locals and ate copious ice-cream, but also went to a book-shop and got a copy of Machiavelli’s Il Principe (‘The prince’), a long-time object of desire, to read it on the plane back home.

Spanish.

Slowly but steadily. I have read one book, spoke Spanish to some colleagues, and spent several memorable evenings with close friends from Spain who were visiting. 

French.

Nothing to write home about. I speak French daily at work, and feel this is more than enough. I read one book, though, Les vacances du petit Nicolas (‘Nicholas on holiday’), part of a series about a mischievous boy, which I used to adore in my French-learning years.  I got the book for a neighbour who is learning French, and ended up reading it myself on a plane.

Ancient Greek

Not too bad. I finished the final books of Plato’s Republic, reading several sections every week-end.

Latin

The surprise of the year. I got inspired by an old FS post on friendship to read Cicero’s De amicitia (‘On friendship’), enjoyed it, and read another two texts, De petitione consulatus (‘How to win an election’) and  De senectute (‘On old age’). 

This year, just like last year, was a year of reading. I read over 60 books in total, in English, French, German, Russian, Italian, Spanish, Ancient Greek, and Latin.

The picture that sums up the year: I sit on the terrace, sip my morning coffee, and read Cicero.

Dripping water hollows a stone

19 languages
gutta cavat lapidem

Among different branches of linguistics, phraseology is among my favourites. 

I like encountering new idioms, phrases, and metaphors, learning them, and using them. I like researching their origins, I like comparing expressions in different languages, and I like figuring out how some darling expression of mine from an obscure source can be rendered in English, lingua franca of my life and work.

Here is a random selection of idioms in different languages and coming from various sources, which I added to my inner multilingual thesaurus this year.

French: la fête du slip (‘the underpants party’) describes a messy, grotesque, and shameless situation that degenerates quickly, when everyone feels like everything is allowed; an open bar. 

French: fondre comme neige au soleil (‘melt like snow in the sun’) is to melt away overnight, to disappear into thin air.

French: ne pas y aller par quatre chemins (‘do not go there by four ways’), meaning not mincing one’s words; not beating around the bush.

German: jemandem fliegen gebratene Tauben in den Mund (‘roasted pigeons fly into somebody’s mouth’), is to have it easy, to be handed something on a silver platter.

Italian: passata la festa, gabbato lo santo (‘the festivity is over, the saint is cheated’), which means that promises made in unusual circumstances are easily & often broken; similar to the ‘once on shore, we pray no more’.

Spanish: todo el pescado está vendido (‘all fish is sold’), meaning cut and dried; be done and dusted.

Latin: gutta cavat lapidem non vi, sed sæpe cadendo (‘dripping water hollows a stone, not by force, but by falling often’). The meaning is similar to the English saying ‘little strokes fell great oaks’. 

This one is worth remembering as we are heading into a new year.

Knocking at an open door

19 languages
doors are open

Whenever I think that my inner linguist is half asleep, she’s always wide awake.

In the middle of a busy day, a colleague of a former colleague asked: what is an English equivalent of a German expression offene Türen einrennen (literally, “to run into open doors”).

My inner linguist immediately leapt to help with a version in French, enfoncer des portes ouvertes, in Russian, ломиться в открытые двери, and in Italian, sfondare una porta aperta.

For English, however, she had to consult a dictionary, to find out that indeed, there is an expression to push at an open door (or to push against an open door).

Other English expressions with close meanings are to state the obvious, to preach to the choir, and to preach to the converted.

I like to think about meanings of similar expressions in different languages as Venn diagrams. 

Sometimes, the overlap is almost complete, perhaps, due to a shared origin or source. 

For example, the expression open sesame in English, if we continue with the door theme, has close parallels: Sésame, ouvre-toi in French, Сим-сим, откройся! in Russian, apriti sesamo! in Italian, Sesam, öffne dich! in German, etc. They all come from the magical command used by Ali Baba to open the door of the robbers’ den in “One Thousand and One Nights”, rather, in its translations into different languages.

Often, the overlap is partial, like in the case of the French expression “enfoncer des portes ouvertes”, which can be rendered in English also as to flog  a dead horse and even to teach your grandmother to suck eggs — depending on the context.

Sometimes, there is no overlap, and in order to render the meaning correctly, I need to have more than one string to my bow.

I am fascinated by comparative phraseology and tend to repeat that all languages can convey any meaning, but they do it with different means. 

Napoleon’s defeats

19 languages
we all possess Napoleon’s features …

This year, I reread Leo Tolstoy War and Peace, for the fifth time. War and Peace is one of my favourite books, and since I first read it at high school, I reread it regularly. This time, I reread it so quickly, I was so absorbed in the narrative, that I turned the last page regretting that there were four volumes only. I would have enjoyed reading twenty of them!

While I was regretting War and Peace was so short, my inner linguist started wondering about expressions related to Napoleon, in any language that springs to mind.

Any language in this case meant English and French, and the two expressions refer to Napoleon’s defeats.

In English, you can meet or face your Waterloo, the expression popularised not so much by the Battle of Waterloo, where Napoleon indeed did surrender, but by the song Waterloo by Abba, which won the Eurovision song contest in 1974.

Just as I was humming Oh, oh, oh, oh, Waterloo / Finally facing my Waterloo, a French colleague commented on a committee she participated in, with the words c’est la Bérézina. The expression means disastrous and disorganised matter, and refers to another Napoleon’s defeat, this time by the river Berezina, at the hands of Russian army.

Strangely, nothing in Russian came to my mind. There are obviously quotes: Napoleon was a popular figure in the 19th century Russia, which is reflected by ambivalent feelings of the War and Peace male protagonists towards him.

Alexander Pushkin mentions Napoleon in his Eugene Onegin: мы все глядим в Наполеоны (we all aspire to be Napoleons).

We all possess Napoleon’s features;

The millions of two-legged creatures

Are only instruments and tools;

But today, the most famous Napoleon in Russian is a mille-feuille pastry that is called наполеон, although the etymology is unclear, perhaps it is a corruption from Neapolitan, Naples being famous for its pastry.

Winter words

19 languages
the snow of yesteryear

This winter, we had beautiful snow in the Baltics, and I took up cross-country skiing again, which used to be my favourite sport at school. Now, a thought has crossed my mind that in alternative reality, I would have enjoyed being a professional cross-country skier. Snow, cold, movement, solitude, pure bliss.

While I was daydreaming about skiing championships, my inner linguist was wide awake and was wondering about expressions related to ski, in any language.

I could recall only one, in Russian: навострить лыжи (to sharpen ones’ ski), meaning to try to leave surreptitiously.

Another Russian expression is about sledges: любишь кататься, люби и саночки возить (if you like sledging, you should like to carry the sledge). The closest English equivalents are ‘if you want to dance, you have to pay the piper’, or simply, ‘there is no such things as free lunch’.

What about other winter delights, such as snow, frost, and cold?

In English, many useful expressions relate to the word cold. To come in from the cold, to be left out in the cold, to get cold feet, to get (and to give) the cold shoulder, cold comfort.

Surprisingly, French is quite rich in wintry expressions: ne pas avoir froid aux yeux is the equivalent of ‘not be faint-hearted’ , battre froid à qqn means ‘to give somebody the cold shoulder’, faire boule de neige is ‘to snowball’, and fondre comme neige au soleil is ‘to melt away’, ‘to disappear into thin air’.

My favourite expression is mais où sont les neiges d’antan (where is the snow of yesteryear?), which comes from a poem Ballade des dames du temps jadis (Ballade of Ladies of Time Gone By) by a 15th century French poet François Villon. In the 20th century, it was made into a song by Georges Brassens.

Eleven

19 languages
eleventh hour

I have been learning English idioms with time units, and came across the expression eleventh hour.

To do something at the eleventh hour is to do it at the last possible moment, just before it is too late.

I have heard this expression before, but was never sure of its meaning, even less of its origin. Whereas expressions with numbers are frequent in many languages, some numbers, such as one, two, or seven, are clear favourites. Why on earth the eleventh?

It turns out the expression has a Biblical origin: it comes from the parable of the laborers in the vineyard (Matthew xx.1-16), where some laborers appeared only at the eleventh hour (qui circa undecimam horam venerant). The eleventh in the expression does not refer to the last hour before midnight, but to the eleventh hour according to the Roman timekeeping, which started at sunrise, and roughly corresponds to the late afternoon, hence the meaning ‘at the last moment’.

Many Biblical expressions have their equivalents in multiple languages, but to my knowledge, not the eleventh hour. Perhaps, the reason is that some vernacular translations, such as Italian, localize the hour, and speak about five in the afternoon.

Speaking of eleven, its etymology is also curious. In English, eleven (and its twin sibling twelve) are odd ones in the sequence starting with thirteen and going to nineteen. Eleven derives from the Old English enleofan, literally “one left” (over ten), and is comparable to the German elf (and its twin sibling zwölf).

I also learned that in Lithuanian (which is an Indo-European language, but Baltic, not Germanic), the cardinal number from 11 to 19 use the same formation: they all end with -lika, which means “something that remains beyond ten”, and that –lika is related to the -leven/-lve in English. Hence, the English eleven has a Lithuanian cousin, vienuolika.

Everything in the garden is lovely

19 languages
up the garden path

I spent the summer and early autumn in the countryside, where I decided to learn English idioms related to gardens, trees, plans, flowers, fences, and such. (All in a vain attempt to improve my English, stuck on a plateau for the last 15 years.)

The one expression I did not know before is ‘to lead somebody up the garden path’, meaning to deceive on purpose. This expression will surely come handy when I have to deal with a particularly manipulative business partner.

The next expression is ‘to rest on one’s laurels’, which has equivalents in many European languages.

In general, I have a quick rule of thumb: if the same expression exists in the three languages that come to my mind most quickly (English, French, and Russian), it implies a common origin — Classical, Biblical, or literary. Here, the origin is Classical: ‘s’endormir sur ses lauriers’ or ‘se reposer sur ses lauriers’ in French, ‘почивать на лаврах’ in Russian, point out to Ancient Greece and its tradition to crown winners with laurel wreaths.

Several expressions are Shakespearean: ‘to gild the lily’, ‘a rose by any other name / would smell as sweet’, and, the most mysterious, ‘primrose path’, which usually leads to ruin, destruction, or similar unwanted outcome.

But the one I found most congenial is ‘everything in the garden is lovely’, which often implies the loveliness only on surface, perhaps even a lull before the storm.

In Russian, an expression with a similar connotation is Всё хорошо, прекрасная маркиза!, which in turns is a translation from a French 1930s song Tout va très bien, Madame la Marquise!

Language Monthly, June 2020, Spanish

19 languages

IMG_20160703_175433
puerto de barcelona

Strictly speaking, most links I am about to share date from before June.

For the first months of 2020, I was reading intensively and extensively in Spanish, but in early June, I decided to focus on Italian for the rest of the year.

Many years ago, I made a costly mistake starting learning Spanish when my Italian was not strong enough, a mistake whose consequences I have been coping with ever since. Now, I avoid working on my Spanish and Italian at the same time.

So, back to my Spanish links. My favourite Spanish media is Zenda, ‘territorio de libros, amigos, y aventura’. Reading Zenda daily in March, April, and May helped me to cope with menacing, worsening, depressing daily news about the pandemics death toll and inadequate response from many in the positions of power.

Zenda hosts a column of one of my favourite Spanish writers Arturo Pérez-Reverte, called Patente de corso.

I had been reading the column for years before I realised I did not understand the meaning of the title, so I had to look it up. It turns out, patente de corso in Spanish, lettre de marque ou lettre de course in French, lettera di corsa o patente di corsa in Italian, Kaperbrief in German, каперский патент in Russian, letter of marque and reprisal in English, is an old maritime practice, a document allowing a private person to attack an enemy country’s vessel.

Another favourite media is XLSemanal, which publishes balanced articles on important societal topics, interesting interviews, and a series of columns, firmas, of which my favourites are Pequeñas infamias and Mi hermosa lavandería.

Talking about poetry, Desamor by Rosario Castellanos, a Mexican author and diplomat, brought by Zenda, struck me.

Me vio como se mira al través de un cristal
o del aire
o de nada.

Y entonces supe: yo no estaba allí
ni en ninguna otra parte
ni había estado nunca ni estaría.

Y fui como el que muere en la epidemia,
sin identificar, y es arrojado
a la fosa común.

I like the tense and mode variations of the second stanza. The ending, a la fosa común, mass grave, общая могила, and the death in time of epidemics, something which seemed so remote only six months ago and now has become our common reality!

Finally, this interview with a Scheherezade moderna en tiempos de pandemia, a rising star of Spanish literature, Irene Vallejo. Her book, El infinito en el junco, about book invention in the ancient world, has become a real phenomenon in the Spanish-speaking literature and one of the best sellers in the times of the pandemics. Check also her column in El Pais, and basically start reading anything she writes.

El infinito en el junco is the book I most want to buy right now. My last trip to Spain, a few days before the lockdown, was too short to fit a visit into a bookstore, but when the pandemics is over, I will go to Spain again and get myself a copy.