What food would you order in your target language?

Noé Vargas
15 mar 2021
3 Min. de lectura

Dear readers! Before going into the topic, I want to tell you that I've just updated the weekly challenge. Those who make it to the end will become the proud owners of a badge on this blog. What could be better? A medal? Nah. There's nothing better than showing your progress to our beloved community of magical language arts learners. This badge won't be unique, it can be obtained by whoever completes one of the challenges we'll be publishing. The more challenges you finish, the higher the level of your badge!

News has been communicated, now let me move on to today's topic in the second person singular: are you currently in the country where your target language is spoken? Good for you. On the other hand, if you are like most of us, the closest thing you have is likely some films, some Facebook pages or a magazine/book in that language. Given those circumstances, it's understandable that we are not making as much progress as we would like.

I know, it's not the same to order a sausage and a beer in Germany and in front of a list of phrases (I highly recommend the former)

I wish we could all travel to a country where the language we are learning is spoken. Unfortunately, most of us have three obstacles: coronavirus, money and school/work.

What to do now? Cross our arms and stop our study until we glimpse any possibility of travelling out of Mexico, or any other country you are in? No sir. It's not necessary to postpone your learning. Right now we are in dressing rooms waiting to go on stage. This small room is meant to be where we prepare to be radiant and the curtains open. Here we have to dress with grammar, perfume ourselves with vocabulary, make up our accent and review our script. Below I explain the importance of the latter.

Almost no one speaks using isolated words. When you go to the store, you say "good afternoon, do you have sugar?". It's only four words, but they sound a lot better than only saying "sugar". Only Celia Cruz had the right to use that word without accompanying it with a whole sentence.

If we all speak using sentences instead of words, why do we spend our study sessions reviewing isolated words? Wouldn't it be better to kill two birds with one shot? Let me explain: if you learn the word "I would like to have a burger", you'd be studying the noun burger and the verbs like and have. Regarding grammar, you'd be reviewing the use of would and you'd remember that you should write a to after would like. That is more fruitful than only studying words on a list!

If you are starting with the language, I recommend you learn simple and everyday phrases like the one I wrote in the previous paragraph. If you're feeling more confident, you could take a song and learn it, or a piece of literature, or a portion of your favourite movie script. What matters is that you put everything in context. By doing this, you will make the most of your dressing room time and will be prepared for when the spotlight shines on your face.

This is precisely what I was looking for when I learned the haiku that I mentioned yesterday. A haiku is a type of Japanese poetry, so short that one can learn it soon and so special that it stimulates awe of the soul. I'm going to try to write it myself in romaji (I've already checked and yes, I wrote it right):

Ki wa nagaku

Kokoro wa maruku

Hara wo tatezu

Hito wa ookiku

Onore wa chiisaku

My first translation was this:

Great mind

Round heart

Raised stomach

Big person

Be small

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know something was wrong. The issue was that, even though almost all the words were well translated, most of the sentences had a linguistic and cultural background typical of Japanese. That means that they are constructed expressions and not simple sentences. We should interpret it like this:

Patiently

Kind heart

Without anger

People are great

One is small

Thanks, Alex sensei, with your translation I learnt more than I expected.