Learning Languages and bit about space.

A simple thing as language can tell you a lot about people. How they treat others, how they view their culture and country as well as what are their political views. While European accents are loved Asian and African accents are mocked even by their own people. Nationalism and Classicism (including Casteism) through language is the most apparent thing. Europeans keep beating their chest with pride about “not being American” and it is all white Europeans. This makes it apparent that they have 0 BIPOC friends and if they do have one, usually those either keep quiet or suffer from internalized racism. People assuming everyone has time to learn their local language at native level while working and living a normal life in new culture tells me that they have never lived in another country. Initially, I used to ignore such comments but later on my patience wore thin and I used to reply back saying “You learned English since 7th grade yet you struggle with it and are not fluent. How do you expect immigrants to learn your language with in 2-5 years? You still struggle with it even though you had 0 responsibilities as child? Just say that you are anti-immigrant”. Lot of white folks did not like that. But I could care less.

I enjoy learning languages. I like picking them up as hobby as I find inspiration for it in small places. The reason to pick Korean was not K-drama but a book. So I started getting curious about the reasons other people learned languages. If they have any favorite languages and why is that? How their brain works when switching between languages? Which languages they struggled with and which language(s) do they think in? Any favorite books/series they have in languages outside English?

Every language I learned by choice was cause I got curious about some culture

I enjoyed learning German till Germans started using me as an example to pick on immigrants. So I restricted it to small group and shifted to English just to see if the Germans I am interacting with are genuinely nice or not. While learning German I met people from all walks of life, most were learning German for career, I was not learning German that time for career. I was learning it for fun and for everyday interaction. Without German, life in Germany and in Austria will be difficult. I met people who came over just to learn german to get bakery certificate and then head back to Japan. German is not a tough language especially if you do intensive course. It is logical but learning it can fuck up your English.

Also, being bilingual or multilingual is a privilege. People need to understand that learning disability to having accessibility to language classes can impact the number of languages people learn and know.

Some languages were picked up for fun and some for career. It is just that I do not like talking about it much with people in person cause I need space and time to understand them as person.

Ignoring my battery level below: This is how one of my language thing went today. But this is normal cause to learn a whole new language on my own is tough. Plus I can forget things cause I am also learning another language and thing at the same time.

Regarding learning languages. I do not think I am the best person for advice but my way would be to listen to songs, note down words, learn context and follow people who write their posts in both English and the language you are learning. Compare the english post with the translated version of the language of the post too and your mind will automatically come up with questions and try to find answers for it. Watch movies in languages you know with subtitles in the language you are learning. There is language translator app too which works good when the subtitles and scripts are not available in the language you are studying. Read childrens book or so. It will take time if you are doing it on your own. However, it will take less time if you have a teacher or so. Also, stay away from Tandem language apps, those have become dating apps unless you are looking for dates there (creep!). Only few good teachers are there on it but it still not worth the time.

And yeah for few days there is no picture of moon cause somehow I do not feel like it. Maybe I am bit sad thats all.

Thinking about moon. The space exploration that took place. I found it very much tone deaf and annoying. Firstly, did you know how Non European and Non amercians will rarely get opportunity to be in space? Secondly, they have been firing women scientist in the world from the field of space, so while I do think it would have been nice to seen women in space at the same time a 10minute space ride just seems like insult to womens intelligence. Had these women carried some project and trained further sure. This was more like space tourism. And it was worse cause the very woman aka Katy Perry who worked with a known predator out of choice was in it. Woman empowerment can not be achieved if it is done by stepping over other women or ignoring the plight of million others who can not afford even groceries or basic human right. I also wanted to point out, if it was male celeb and billionaires heading to space the criticism that is taking place would have been just 1% of it or non existent. The way people are using it as an excuse to be misogynistic towards Laura Sanchez is horrible. I do not have much idea about her current work but from what lil I could gather that woman had worked hard to be where she is at. Pitting her against Mackenzie Scott does not make sense. Both these women are two separate individuals and both are brilliant in what they do. I have not read anything about them being problematic to people.

So yeah. I think somewhere lot of girls and women who still dream to be astronaut would not be inspired by it cause space programs need to come up with solution and offers to support those who are say example Indian or Ghanian, not just those who are American or European. There is difference in being space tourist and astronaut. Astronaut do research. And, given how climate crisis is going on and things are still not well, this is the last step we needed cause it was just for 10 minutes. Just 10 minutes. I do not understand what they are thinking but there is still time to make space and planets known to people inhabitable.

So yeah that’s it for tonight.

Puss och Kram..

Ciao und Tschüssi ….