A3.10 Meta

Here we are nearing the close of another week, and so it's time for me to write some of my thoughts about my learning.

I am going to start implementing some changes in my learning.

This week I discovered that Harry Potter is not the silver bullet (I wrote golden bullet before, but then later realized the expression uses silver, not gold. Huh. Weird.) which it seemed like it would be for me. When I feel really desperate about finding a solution, I sometimes throw it out into the great nether of the internet and beg. Here was what I begged:

Help me find something that meets these qualifications:

1. There has to be both a Czech and an English print translation.
2. There has to be a Czech audio version that is the SAME as the Czech print version.
3. It has to not be from 100 years ago.
4. It has to be clean.
5. The audio version has to not have fuzzy sound quality.
6. The audio version has to be read naturally.
7. It has to be between $0-30.
8. It would be highly preferable if it were something I already knew in English.
9. It has to be lighthearted and fun.

For more details, keep reading:
1. There are not solid English translations of even 25% (a guess) of the Czech literature that is out there. Not even of the classics. Which is weird, and one of the big motivating factors for me learning Czech. I'll probably never be able to translate a work of fiction into Czech, but I might be able to one day master it enough to translate it into English.
2. The copy of "Proměna" which I have is not the same as the audio version on český rozhlas. I am currently in the process of checking to see if there is a different version for download.
3. Although I do actually like Němcová's writing (I am somewhere around 3/4's through the English translation of Babička), it would be like reading Dickens to learn English. Kinda been there, done that with my first book to read in Czech (Bylo nás pět), and it was a MAJOR STRUGGLE.
4. So there go most of the books by Kundera. Anyway they are mostly in French and then translated to Czech. And I am not throwing him away, but like...
5. Harry Potter a kamen mudrců has extremely terrible audio quality. It is not consistently clear. Sometimes it is almost un-listen-to-able, it is so fuzzy. I cannot listen to it while doing the dishes. Like, at all. Apparently it is probably a recording from the audio cassette tape which was then transferred to CD which was then downloaded and uploaded illegally to ulož.to. And guess what, there is no mp3 version for sale. Weird. And only the first and maybe the second book were even recorded as audiobooks in Czech at all! So saaad!
6. I could listen to General Conference talks in Czech but it is really painful because the voice sounds stressed out - because they ARE stressed out. It is a recording of a translator following the live broadcast. It is not a natural, relaxed reading/performance. And then there's issue number 9. I really love my church. I really love the scriptures. I really love general conference. I think I will die if it's all I ever consume.
7. This is not really much of a limiting factor, but I thought I'd throw it in there.
8. So yeah. Now I'm basically left with options with clumsy English translations, if the translations exist at all.

One thing I've been doing which seems to work pretty well and be pretty satisfying is to download a Disney movie that I already know in English by heart and listen to it in Czech (I do not have to be watching it because I literally have these things memorized because: mom). So far I have watched like, 3 or 4 movies this way. The big, giant bonus is this: Cora likes to watch them in Czech. She also knows exaaaaactly what is going on.

But it doesn't give me the chance to read them. I want to put my Czech learning into a big, fat feedback loop.

I am kind of really sad that Harry Potter is not the golden bullet I thought it would be. No Easy Answers, ye Czech Learning Gods, eh? Like, LITERALLY NONE. uffff

I actually got back some quick, detailed responses about other potential solutions, including a list of books that were recommended that could meet these criterion. They were:

- The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho <-- I haven't read this in English so it misses point #8 (the list is by priority, so I might try this eventually anyway)

- Saturnin by Zdeněk Jirotka <-- I have read this in English. I want to try something new.

- Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien <-- I dated a guy whose opinion I really value and admire. He read all of these books. He described them to me as "literary masturbation." That description has always stayed with me. I have read them all - well, half of the 'Return of the King' - I didn't finish it, much to my husband's horror. Or delight. He teases me about this. I guess some day I will read it. But it's been so long I'll basically have to start over. I liked that they were lighthearted and fun. But you know what? I get REALLY BORED of books with one or two token female characters, none of which are the main protagonists. In fact, it's beyond boredom; it's like, a sheer inability to relate. It's like, I can't really care about it very deeply because it's so unreal. I can't suspend my disbelief. /rant

- The Little Prince - super melancholy book. Obviously I have read this in both English and French. It is not the kind of book to read when one is already trying to dispel the past 9 months worth of ennui and gloom.

- books by Astrid Lindgren --> THIS. I read "The Children of Noisy Village" with my kids. I loved it. Actually, there's an image in that book of a very happy, very loving, very maternal mother which has stuck with me, and which I sometimes try to replicate in my own life. The positive outlook on childhood, the lack of negativity, the joyfulness of it, the silly childhood worries that are so adorable - the fun-ness of reading this book with my kids...all of these factors make this book seem very appealing.

In a different conversation on a different day with a different person, Čapek was recommended.  I bought a book of his short stories in English, found a copy in Czech as both an audio version and a print version. I think I will like it. I guess we will see.

The main criterion, the #0 on the list which I should have mentioned, or thought of, but didn't, is difficulty. How difficult is it? Is it something that I can manage to attack without having to use a dictionary for every fifth word?

The sad fact of the matter is, Harry Potter is still beyond my skill level. It has taken me a long time to come to terms with that. I have read through the first half of the first book, but it takes a lot of effort, patience, time - and I need more small victories. 

I'm not stopping Harry Potter - but I am going to temporarily put the book on "hold." 

* * * 

This week was a little bit busy. I got really involved in a certain project: self-publishing my first book (print, not an e-book - yet). It is a book of poetry. It was a low-stakes, high-rewards project. The point was to be able to get it ready in time to send to people for Christmas. It's not really for them; it's for me. The idea of other people reading my poetry is really satisfying, even though I have pretty low expectations of them actually reading it, and even if they do, actually understanding me better through so doing. But yeah, I guess a piece of it is pure hubristic pride: it's like, the most enormous pat-on-the-back that I could give myself. Beyond that, it's an appropriately distant way to gush my emotions about difficult topics to people that I care about (my friends and family). I guess part of it is the asynchronousness of it. It's like, much, much, much more asynchronous communication than talking, texting, skyping, email, blogging. The gushiness, the word-vomiting - I guess the only really appropriate place for those kinds of things is in writing, and when they have to do with strong feelings, the writing should probably be as far away as possible from the reader, while also maintaining the hope that they might read it. I don't know, I'm just thinking this through as I write it right now. Which is what I usually tend to do; discover my feelings through talking/writing with someone, and if not with someone, then at someone, and if not at someone, then at the Great Void (like this blog). But ugh enough of these somewhat gloomy thoughts.

When January rolls around I want to start a new "semester" of Czech learning. I want to call it "A4." I guess it's just an inside joke with myself; I guess I am probably at some point going to be able to admit to myself that I am well beyond an A2 level. It is really hard for me to judge that for myself. I am definitely in the obnoxious "silent period" of my Czech, where I understand about 500x more than I can say. This is a hard place to be, but it's much better than where I used to be, and I definitely know it'll pass if I keep at it. 

The other problem is that there are lots of potholes in my learning. And anyway, a linear model describing language proficiency is pretty short-sighted at best and misleading at worst. That's why I'm going to call it A4, I guess.

* * * 

In January I will be reading the New Testament with my family, and everybody else in my church. I'm very close to finishing reading the Book of Mormon in Czech. When I finish it, it will be the second book for me to have read all the way through in Czech, and the first one completely out loud. 

I am going to read the New Testament in Czech. I would very much like to find the kind of Bible that my Czech ancestors would have known. I will have to remember to ask one of my Czech friends if they could possibly dig something like that up for me. Something highlightable that isn't 200 years old and going to crumble into pieces when I turn the pages. It would be deeply meaningful for me to study the words of the New Testament in Czech, to see the differences and similarities, and especially for me to glimpse what my ancestors might have understood - what their faith may have been. I guess I have three weeks or so to try to find this book. Or perhaps it will include a missal or something like that. I don't know. 

* * *

But the scriptures are on the very extreme end of difficult. What I really need - and NOW - are shorter books, and especially ones that are not too difficult. So yeah, Astrid Lindgren's Děti z Bullerbynu is just about perfect.  Ridiculously short. Simple. I've read it.

Added bonus: the reader is a woman. How I long to hear more women's voices speaking Czech. 

I have not really decided yet if I will try to to slough through the next few chapters of Harry Potter anyway before I transition to A4. There are 17 total chapters and I'm in chapter 9. I kind of think...well...I kind of think I need a change. 

I just spent the last half hour trying to find the text of Děti z Bullerbynu online but I could not find it. The enormous advantage to having it available as a PDF is that I would have the text in a format that I could copy and paste. Well, I could not find the whole thing, so I just went ahead and bought the book. It comes out to be on the higher end for what I would pay for a book (something like $35 total including shipping), especially considering that the book for me in English is much less expensive. But. I think it will be good for me. I can get a start on at least 4 pages of it on this site. I am not sure how I want to go about reading it; like, will I still try to engage my Czech collaborators in the same way? I don't know. 

* * *

Speaking of my Czech collaborators, I have been feeling really frustrated about this situation recently. I feel like there are a lot of people who are willing to help me, and if I have extremely specific tasks to point them to, they can handle it, but for whatever reason, they are kind of unable to go beyond those few mere tasks. It is frustrating to be in this situation. It's like, trying to take a class without a teacher. I don't know where the holes are. I am just trying to fill them in as best I can.

And I have to somehow find a way to navigate around the individual needs, whims, feelings, frustrations, passions - etc. - of all these collaborators. I certainly understand that it's too much to expect that teaching me Czech will suddenly become somebody's hobby. But it sure is frustrating to try to deal with, on the other hand. 

I know that the reason why I enjoy learning languages is because I like to talk - about EVERYTHING. Language is just the transparent thing, the vehicle, to get the information across. I am interested in genetic genealogy. I am interested in child psychology. I am interested in theatre. I am interested in programming. I am interested in computational linguistics, which is like some kind of CRAZY AMAZING meta-language special category. I like all these things. I really love the chance to escape talking about the mundaneness of my daily life, schedule, routine, etc. I have lived the same day over and over for the past ten years. It's generally a very good day, too! It's just, I love being able to talk about new things. New people, new ideas, new places. 

So, that all said, the reason I am learning Czech goes a bit beyond finding and exploring an intensely interesting, personal world of people and ideas. Or rather, it's exactly that, but with the added factor that the people and ideas I want to learn about are dead. Like, I want to read the words written a hundred years ago about my Czechs. It's very important to me. I felt an enormous amount of satisfaction by translating a piece of an article that one of them wrote. I will need to continue to do that.

* * *

I will need to figure out a way to connect with the collaborators I have which is useful for me, not very difficult for them, and includes me being able to give them concise, short instructions/tasks on how they can help me.

I will need to figure out a way to make my learning be easier, and I think picking a different book will be a very big help in that regard. I need to put my learning into a loop. I need to make a list of movies for Danny to download for me in Czech. 

Yeah, and on top of all of that, I need to figure out a way to use a corpus to help me learn this language. First step in that regard is figuring out how to use the #*(% thing in the first place. I am kind of struggling with that. The MOOC I am taking (by the way, I ended up purchasing it because the time ran out and I really want to finish it) about corpus ling is really great, but I am stuck in the middle of trying to slough through the really dry academic articles. I am way ahead on listening to the lectures. But the reading - it's always the reading that gets me down. I wish there were a person to sit here and read them aloud to me. Somehow it's a lot easier for me to understand something when I hear it than when I read it. But that isn't a possibility.

* * *

In the end, although I've had a pretty productive Czech week, I still feel a little bit melancholy about my progress, goals, strategies, etc. I can't quite put the finger on why that is. Maybe it's the relationships part. I don't know.