In my latest demonstration of geekery, I’ve decided to teach myself to read French. I’ve been wanting to pick up another language for a long time, and some of you might remember the whole week, about two years ago, during which I was enrolled in a Japanese class at IU.
I have several reasons for doing this:
- I want the specific mental challenge of learning another language. It’s unlike any other intellectual activity I’ve encountered, and it’s been a decade since I’ve done it. (I know, that reason probably sounds really pompous.)
- I’m ashamed of myself for not having at least reading knowledge of a modern language. I took German in high school and in the first two years of college, but that was–oh christ–15 years ago. Aside from a week of Japanese, the only other language I’ve ever studied was classical and Biblical Greek. Not much call for that outside the academy, I’m afraid.
- I’d like to start reading books and magazines published in French, just to keep the skill up and also to read authors’ thoughts in their original tongue–not filtered through a layer of translation.
- France is one of the world’s largest publishers of comic books, most of which are never translated into English. French comics cover a much wider spectrum of interests than do American comics, and many of them are said to be brilliant. But I’ve never been able to read them.
So what I’m doing is, I’m working through a book called French for Reading, by Karl Sandburg. Sandburg wrote for graduate students who need reading knowledge of French for the purpose of study and research in their disciplines. He wrote his book to be used either individually or for classroom purposes.
I’m through about seven chapters so far, and it’s going well. I’ll check in from time to time to discuss how I’m doing with it.
{ 0 comments… add one now }