While opening the store today, I had the following conversation:

Man: (in Spanish) Hello. Do you by any chance speak Spanish?
Me: Yes, a little.
Man: Do you know where the GLKSNDOGINSDG MARAY is?
Me: Do you mean the Marais?
Man: Yes, the GLKSNDOGINSDG MARAY.
Me: (Um... I don't know what a GLKSNDOGINSDG is... but is he askaing for the Marais? The neighborhood? Like, the 'Marais section'? That would make sense, but...) Well, go straight down this street and when you see the store BHV, turn down the street on your left. It's called rue Vielle du Temple.
Man: Ok, that's easy. No problem...What GLKSNDOGINSDG are we in now?
Me: What what?
Man: What GLKSNDOGINSDG?
Me: (shit, he totally knows that I don't know what a GLKSNDOGINSDG is) It's called Chatelet.
Man: (seeming satisfied): Oh, ok. Is the GLKSNDOGINSDG MARAY far from here?
Me: No. Five minutes, maybe ten.
Man: There is an old cafe there, a really old one, where TOINSG used to go?
Me: A café?
Man: Yes, an old one, really famous. TOINSG, you know?
Me: (Shrugs)
Man: (Laughs) Thank you (and a genuine pat on the shoulder towards me)

I hope he was just asking where the Marais quarter was. Spanish varies so much that I think it was just some other word for 'hood in whatever type of Spanish he spoke (Argentine? Chilean? No idea... definetly not from Spain, though)

Overall: way better than last year's conversation in Spanish in the Luxembourg gardens where I said, "There will be an exit, and then a street, and then you will see your building." Not so helpful, really but that was all I could say. And then "Left" or "Right". Still, I don't know what the man today was exactly talking about, and I sincerely hope he was looking for the Marais, or I was totally off.

Right now, there are lots of Spaniards in town. I have practised my Spanish three times this week alone, and I even used it to talk to some Portuguese people interested in Russian ballet. Also, a French woman came in today with a Japanese woman, and spoke in Japenese to her about Chinese art, while an Italian guy looked at architecture books in English. I felt like Spanish should have been useful there, too, but no. Not really.

I have a slight obsession with Zach Braff. So sue me. Yes, I read his blog. But he's so funny. See?

So after marvelling at the swiss-army knife metaphor for awhile, I got to wondering what the French equivalent would be.

I'm a little torn on the issue.

The first and most obvious option is the ever-famous "Oh la la." Depending on tone and emphasis, it can range in meaning from "Just who the hell do you think you are?" to "Nice ass, pretty boy." Surprisingly (and contrary to most American opinion), it is more commonly used as the former than the latter.

However, I'd like to call your attention to the often underestimated (or, as Bush would say, "misunderestimated") and overlooked French Sigh. Never in my life have I encountered a people so set on sighing. The primary meaning of the French Sigh is a demonstration of discontent. Waiting in line at the grocery, one would think the French believe their sighs have super powers: as the line builds, the sighs and accompanying tsk tsks grow with them, as if the Frenchies are collectively trying to will the line to go faster with their magical sighs.

The French Sigh annoys me to no end. Unfortunately, I also think it is actually more prevalent than the comparatively quaint angry "Oh la la" equivalent.

The worst, however, is the One-Two Punch. If the wait at the post office, the doctor's, the cash register - wherever - gets too long, someone is bound to sigh (punch one), and then let out a breathy, low, and menacing "Oh la la..." (punch two). I would like to strangle the double-action types, because guess what? Their bitching doesn't get the line moving any faster.

One would think that a in country notorious for its long waits and completely disorganized lines, people would have just sucked it up and learned the fine art of patience. Unfortunately, it is usually my order-obsessed American self who remains the most at ease with the impeding doom of an added two minutes of line time. In those situations, I usually mutter my own American swiss army knife to myself quietly so as not to disturb the distraught Frenchies any further. I'm sure you can all guess what that swiss army knife might be.

If you have to give a presentation in a foreign language, make it interesting. My Spanish during yesterday's presentation was so bad that I just started spitting out verbs in the infinitive, none of this bothering with pesky things like conjugation. Miraculously, nobody seemed to mind. They kept interrupting me with questions and asking to see pictures. This technique, in the end, made it so I did far less talking than I had anticipated. It was wonderful. Fabulous. And because everybody is so fascinated with Barbie, my 15-minute-long presentation in terrible Spanish became an hour-long class discussion in mediocre Spanish - spoken primarily by people other than myself. Advanced Spanish, here I come. I just need to bring my classmates with me, or I won't make it through my next presentation.

This evening, after leaving my Spanish class, I went to the ladies'. While in the restroom, I had two thoughts:

1. No toilet paper? (checking around me) Oh, there it is.
2. I'm excited to read the last chapter of my book tonight.

The strange thing was that those thoughts both came to me in Spanish. Complex - or relatively complex - sentences have only recently started coming to me in Spanish, and I am thrilled. I know this is the beginning of a good path, and I can't wait to walk down it.

Next I got on the phone and called my friend, speaking to her in English. After I hung up, I read the rest of my book (highly, highly recommended, also in English), only to explain to The Boy how great it was in French when I got home. I cooked Mexican tonight, and twice I noticed myself reading the expiration date (of the cheese, of the meat) to myself in Spanish. Then I said to The Boy in Lingala, "We're going to eat," when the food was ready.

In English, "you" is the second person singular. In Spanish, "yo" is the first person singular. In Lingala, "yo" is the second person singular.

In Arabic, "nahnu" is the second person plural, and "ngai" is the first person singular in Lingala. "Nosotros/as" marks the second person plural in Spanish, and "nous" is the simple enough form for the same in French.

Whenever I want to say "her" in Spanish ("ella"), I get confused and say "hiya," which is Arabic for "she." I don't know why I do this, because my Spanish is far better than my Arabic, but I am, for some reason, very attached to the word "hiya." (said hee-ya).

These words may not seem close to you on the screen, but scramble them in your head, and they will pop out at the most bizarre moments.

A few days ago, when The Boy and I settled into our semi-weekly Lingala session, I kept interjecting with Spanish words. And finally, while trying to work out a simple enough sentence in Lingala ("he dances well"), out tumbled the following phrase:

"Just wait!! Je suis tellement perdue con toutes ces idiomas in my head!" It wasn't until The Boy looked at me quizically that I realized I had mixed them up not only mentally, but out loud as well.

This is heaven to me.

In the last 48 hours, I have had four people tell me my accent is sexy. S-e-x-y. All of them used that very same adjective.

Everytime I respond in the same way: I blush, look down, and then say, "I don't see why. I'm ashamed of my accent, and very self-concious about it."

They usually do what they're supposed to do: exclaim that I'm crazy, tell me why they think why my accent is h-o-t, and then assure me that it's light enough so as not to be atrocious, but present enough to tint my words with that special anglo charm.

It's funny: I love accents in other people. Especially light accents - the kind that don't interfere with comprehension but that do bring a different tone or color to someone's words. I wonder why I can't comprehend how someone could find that same thing agreable in my English-tainted French.

And we all have our favorite accents. A lot of people love the French accent, although I'll be honest and say that after listening to it several hours a day, every day, it's starting to wear on me. They regularly forget H's and end up saying things like, "I ate George Bush." But then they add H's in the funniest of places. And that, my friend, rhymes.

I know Americans (and maybe other anglophones?) who consider the French accent sexy, but I just find silly now. It's charming, in it's own way, I just spend so much time correcting it that I have a hard time resisting the behavior when engaged in a conversation with a Frenchie who actually knows how to speak the language.

Instead, I'm very partial to a Scottish accent, myself. Or Jamaican. Although those are arguably different types of accents: they're speaking their own language and it's just me who perceives their prononciation as different. As far as people speaking English whereas their native tongue is something else, I suppose I don't really have a favorite. Do you?

At some point in the day, the English teachers and I began talking about the rhythm of the English language. It's something that native speakers aren't necessarily aware of, but I've studied it a bit and think it's the coolest part about our language. Tonic accents in English are so important (the difference between, say INvalid and inVALid, for example), and they make sentences rise and fall in ways that phrases don't in the Romantic languages. That's why some people say that be-bop can only really be done in English, because it just doesn't work in other languages. The English teachers agreed, and even extended it to almost all music forms, saying that the rhythm of English resonates with the rhythm of music whereas French or German or Portugese fall short.

A few of my students have recently stared in awe as I spoke in English. One girl breathed to her neighbor "It's such a beautiful language..." as if I were producing some sort of skilled art form before her. And sure, when MLK gave his famous speech, it was a skilled art form, but I assure you, I was probably just asking some student what kind of music he likes, or how many brothers and sisters he has. I was surprised: just as I think my accent massacres what is an extremely beautiful language when spoken properly, I sort of feel that English is just a mish-mosh language that - while possibly being considered fun or flexible or laid-back - could never really be called beautiful. Even more surprising, the other students agreed with her comment, and then told me that they think American English is far more appealing than British English. This blew me away, considering how much us Americans fawn over those Brits. I guess I just never considered my own language as being something to admire for its phonetics. I like the words, but not the sounds.

Still. I'm developing a deeper appreciation for my native tongue - and even how it has consequently permanently mutated my actual tongue. I'm getting over my constant self-conciousness concerning my accent and learning to embrace it. Maybe, even, see it as an asset.

Hell, if four people find it sexy, that's a-ok by me.

First, I would like to point out a few grammar mistakes I actually saw today on reputable blogs. I resisted, with all the force I could muster, from correcting:

- Ann see's everything as black and white...
- Theirs no point in...
and, my favorite
- They should of known that...

One could argue that the second one is just a typo, but the first and last don't make any sense. It just looks like those people didn't know how to write, doesn't it? Coincidently, they were Bush fans. So I naturally wanted to pounce on their errors, parade them around as obvious symtoms of their frightening lack of intelligence.

I actually wrote out a comment correcting that last one. Who writes "They should of..."? Someone who obviously thinks that's the way it's written, that's who. Scary. Then I erased the comment and quickly shut the window. I'm still considering making the correction.

But, I'll have to act soon, because my internet time has been reduced to next-to-nothing. It now coincides neatly with my morning bowl of muesli and my cuppa tea. I can't afford much more than that. Internet is like television: it sucks you in and it takes too much motivation to get out of its grasp. I just don't feel like I can risk the temptation at this moment.

Suddenly, I am drowning in work. My first way to combat stress is to freak out over my paperwork. Although I was notoriously messy in high school (never with paperwork though, my friends, never with paperwork), I've gotten quite clean in my old age. And, I'd actually venture to say I've gotten terribly anal about my paperwork, whereas before I was just "neat." I don't really like this aspect of myself (anal is just not a good adjective in general), but I do like that my papers are so purty. You should see my filing system, kids!

So Sunday was spent on the phone catching up with friends while simultaneously reorganizing everything I could possibly refile, rewrite, rearrange, or recycle. How good does that feel? Sooo good.

Now all I have left to do is all the work. Right, that part. It's like a huge gun, and I'm staring right down its barrel. That doesn't feel quite so good, though.

No matter. I'll be fine. As they say in Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead*: "I'm right on top of that, Rose!"

I finally came to the conclusion a few years ago that doing the work is better than dealing with the stress that comes along with not doing it. I would rather overwork and feel confident in what I produce/learn than underwork and feel anxious about the whack job I've done. So, I decided, I just have to do the damn work.

Today was spent: early morning bfast with the internet, off to school for a lecture on the French morphophonological system (don't know if that's a word in English, but it is in French... how ya like it?), off to the library for research for a few hours (librarians are such bitches in this country, even with that fake-ass plastic smile strapped across their faces. I can see right through them and hear their inner dialogues, "Why won't this stupid blond girl just stop asking for shit already?" "What? She wants yet another file? God, this girl is annoying..."), back to class for a two-hour lecture on predicats and quantificateurs, off to the grocery to buy some essentials because we've been stahving in this house, up the six flights of stairs to put away groceries, over to the desk to start the Arabic, back to the kitchen for a snack after three hours of steady work, back to the desk to work again for another two.

Now, I've given up and am just trying to calm down the adrenalin I've been going on all day in order to keep up the pace. Tomorrow, everything starts all over. Early morning trip to the library, evening class, several hours of work to follow. Wednesday, it should be more of the same. Next week, I start teaching (for real this time). So it's pretty much going to stay at this rhythm until I leave for Christmas.

I have adopted the What About Bob* philosophy: baby steps to the school, baby steps to the library, baby steps back to the house, baby steps to make myself sit down and do all this damn homework, baby steps to make up some lesson plans for next week. Baby steps. I can do it, provided I keep my notebooks in perfect order and color-code everything.

*Not quite sure about the references to such bad movies. Must be some sort of coping mechanism.

PS On a totally unrelated note, the BlogforAmerica site for Former Vermont Governor Howard Dean asked Americans to donate $360,000.00 to finance a tv ad that would counter an ad made by the Bush team. Dean's site gave us from last Friday to Tuesday (tomorrow) to come up with the cash, and the fundraising has already gone through the roof: at the time of writing, the total has already come to $431,968.53, with just under 24 hours left to go. It's a pretty cool thing to witness the success of his campaign on a daily basis.

Can we talk about how hard it is to learn to write a document in Arabic in Word? Yes, let's.

Obstacles working against you:

1. The letters. Where are they? (to be noted: the letters follow no logical pattern. At first I couldn't understand why they didn't go in alphabetical order like a logical keyboard would, but then I realized that "our" keyboards don't either. It sure would make learning the damn thing a helluva lot easier, though)

2. That whole right-to-left thing. If you hit the left arrow, it actually goes right. And if you hit the right arrow, it goes left. Backspace erases the last letter in your line, which starts on the right side of the page and just grows leftwards, while the cursor remains in place.

3. The vowels. I can't figure out how to put them on the letters. Rar. (This may only make sense if you've studied Arabic before, but here's a tip: vowels are sorta like accents in other languages. So imagine each time you wanted to add a vowel, you would actually have to put a é or a ç or a ê or a ï or something. Every. Damn. Time.)

and, perhaps most importantly

4. Typing in Arabic means you're writing entire sentences in Arabic. Which is, you know, pretty much impossible.

I'm learning, guys. It's the slowest learning I've ever done, but I'm learning.

I have decided, however, that since the "n" has entirely worn off of my 10-euro, 3-yr-old keyboard, I am entitled to spend 20 euros on a new French/Arabic keyboard. Because, honestly, you wanna know something? I'm nowhere near as patient as I like to think I am. If this madness continues, my homework will never get done.

The Boy has had a hard time motivating to learn English. His opinion is that we just need to move to New York, and he'll just magically pick it up. I don't think he's totally wrong about that, given his sharp mind, his general fearlessness and his genuine interest in talking with people, no matter what language barriers may be present. However, I don't think having the basics down could really in any way hinder that process. He just doesn't seem to want to work on it.

But still, once every four or five months, he'll become extremely motivated and announce semi-barbarically: "Ok. In this house, we speak only English. No French in my house. No French!"

This is always funny to me because:

1. This is not his house and
2. I'll answer back by saying something really average like, "Ok, that's totally fine with me. I was just wondering, though, did you manage to pay the phone bill we got last week?" in English, and he'll respond with a simple, "Shit."

That's how our attempts have gone over the years. I've also put together lesson plans for him, sat down with him with books, tapes, whatever... but really, we can't help it. I'm not his teacher, and we're used to speaking in French together. Old habits die hard.

Plus, I think it's frustrating for him. He has a really hard time with verbs, mainly with problems of when to use which tenses and forgetting proper endings, so he often says things like, "I going." or "I'm say you" (for, "I'm telling you") and so on.

Which is why, yesterday, our breakthrough was so extraordinary. He was listening to yet another African singer (Koffi Olimode), and he insisted on yet again going through the 8-minute-long song in Lingala, translating line by line so that I could appreciate the beauty of Koffi's words (I think some of that beauty must be getting lost in translation). I noticed some arbitrary pattern in the verbs, and, fascinated, I started asking him questions about Lingala. After a lot of talking and translating and laughing and comparing, we were surprised to see how many verb structure similarities there are between his language and mine.

Note: to say "his language" is a little deceptive, mainly because he has four mother tongues. There are two national languages in the Congo (French and Lingala) and then he speaks two regional languages as well, Lari and Kitouba. And he seems like he's most comfortable in Lari (his mother's native tongue, and the language that all of his childhood friends in Paris speak with him) and French, but he argues that Lingala is the most worthwhile. It's spoken in both Congos (the DRC and Congo-Brazzaville) and apparently even spreads to certain parts of Angola.

So, given the newly-discovered resemblance between our two languages, and my general obsession for all things language-oriented, we ended up sitting down and putting our heads together for a few hours to figure out the overall structure of verb tenses. That's when you know you've got somebody really special: when you spend three or four hours talking verbs. It was an enlightening experience for him, as he has never sat down and thought much about the language; he's just simply spoken it all his life. Much like most Americans do with English.

It was a helluva lot of fun. And, via his exploration and my discovery of the language, we both learned something new. He managed to clarify some of the fuzzier parts of English verbs (like the difference between "I eat." and "I am eating" - something that trips up anyone that tries to compare English to French), as well as the purpose of certain endings ("ing" and so forth). I, on the other hand, now know how to say, in Lingala, the following:

- I sleep. I'm going to sleep. I'm about to go to sleep. I am sleeping. I was sleeping. I slept (variations on all of these sentences for he/she, it, you, we, and they)
- The above sentences with I eat. I leave. I go. I speak. I can. I want. I shit.

Notice, of course, that I have no understanding of any nouns, and that I have instead just gone straight to the verbs. The nouns'll come. I'm excited. I don't think I'll be fluent or anything, but it's a REALLY easy language to learn. Very straightforward with unbelieveably simple phonetics. Just the way I like 'em.

Mainly, though, I think it's just fun for the two of us to discover the others' language via his/her own. It's really groovy. And makes for Good Quality Together Time, too.

Of course, The Boy got really excited at the idea of teaching me as well, and we've decided that he'll teach me Lingala and I'll teach him more English, and we'll see where it takes us. He really hates learning foreign languages, but I think that teaching me about his language is a whole different ball game. And also, he had never learned English via Lingala, he had always learned it while trying to make the not-quite-right connections between French and English. We've both agreed that he should drop that technique, and instead use either Lingala or Lari (which apparently follows the same verb structure, roughly) to get a better grasp on English. In The Boy's case, he has the words, he just doesn't know how to use them. Hopefully Lingala will help him get them organized in his head. And hopefully I'll get to learn a lot, too, in the process.

We're both very excited about it. Me especially, because I can never seem to get him as interested or fascinated by languages as I am. I can blab on and on about morphemes and phonemes or Prodrop vs nonprodrop languages, and I inwardly know that he doesn't give two shits. But with Lingala, he's actually interested and wants me to learn, and enjoys figuring out the "code" behind a language he has spoken his entire life.

The proof: we just bought a Lingala grammar guide.

Along the same lines, in my linguistics class, we're learning how to analyze languages structurally. That is, if given a page of quotes from one language, and translated into French, are we able to come up with a few grammatical certainties about the language? For example, how does one know if a word is in its plural form or not? How many different plural forms are there? What are some different verb endings? Can you identify any prepositions?

This sounds easy but it isn't, necessarily. In our latest example, we were given these two sentences and had to figure some things out:

Ibibiindi byiiza byaa Peetero biri he?
(Where are Peter's pretty vases?)

and

Ikibiidndi kinini cyaa Peetero kiri hariiya?
(Peter's big vase is over there."

Do you see how fun that can be? It's like a huge logic puzzle. I've got a whole bunch of 'em. I get really excited for this class every week because it's just so interesting to me. But you know what? It's even more fun to do it with a live example at home.

I'm a nerd. But maybe I'll just one day be a quintilingual nerd, and then you'll all be jealous.

And on that note, I'm already thinking ahead for my master's thesis (not due for another year and a half, mind you). Why not work on Lingala? I've seen how much literature there is about it out there. Judging by the looks of amazon.com, there ain't much.

Na kei!

I spent a good five or six hours doing my Arabic homework last night and the night before. I had other things to do, but I couldn't do them in peace until I had finished my Arabic requirements. I was really stressing out about my return to class (I had skipped out on it last Saturday because of sickness), and so I really put the pressure on. In the end, I'm glad I did, because I feel like I got so much out of our class today, and that things are really starting to come together for me. It occured to me today that I actually can read the damn language. Do you know how exciting that is?

So of course I hustled down to the Librarie du monde arabe right after class to buy myself a brand new dictionary. And a new grammar book. It's like Christmas around here.

I'm noticing that there is something bizarrely masochistic in me when I like what I am studying. I mean, I sort of find homework exciting (ok, I really do...) and I have this strange tendency to want more and more of it. Is that ok?

That's why I am excited by my to-do list. It's gotten very, very long. But it's all stuff I'll enjoy doing (or at least 90% of it), and I'll be reading about things I find interesting. Hence how I know I'm an incredible nerd. I'm like, "Ooo... yeah... I have to read all three chapters on semantics by Wednesday? Awesome!" and "Have all the vocab memorized for Arabic by Friday? Yes!" or "Fifteen more syntax exercises? Indeed!"

I'm also supposed to be doing this other project elsewhere, and honestly, it's simple enough (and paid), but I'm having a hard time putting down my homework to get myself to do it. It's homework, people. It's not supposed to be this much fun.

Arabic started up again today. It officially starts Monday, but the prof agreed to have an informal review session before the madness begins, and so we met up in the Arabic department this Saturday morning.

I'm surprised by how much I remembered and how much I forgot at the same time. Verb conjugations went alright, typical who/what/where/when/why questions were pretty good too, but really, really basic things like, "My name is..." I just completely blanked on. I guess that's because those were things we learned in class but not in the book, and so I never reviewed them this summer.

Nonetheless, I think the class should be good. I need to step up a level in my game, which is fine. I was exhausted and spaced out the entire morning, and bizarrely self-concious. Not, surprisingly, not of the 722 mistakes I made in class today, but rather of the mistakes I was making in French.

I'm not the strongest student by any means. That would normally really bother me, especially in a language class. Bt I'm trying not to let it get to me, and just concentrate on learning. Apparently one of the girls has an Arabic-speaking boyfriend, and another has studied Arabic on and off over the years, so I'm not stressing it. I'm just letting them be the leaders. It's sort of a strange feeling, but I'm learning to accept it and maybe even find some sort of enjoyment in it. No, that's not true... it always feels better to know that you're amongst the strongest students. I'm just clearly not this time.

The worst moment, though, was when the professor asked us what the capital of Syria was. And YES, under normal conditions I would know that, but I just blanked at that moment and said, "Wow... I really don't know."

But I DOOOO know!! I swear! It was the fact that you asked me in Arabic that I got all tripped out!

Well, I guess I'll never forget it now. Anyway, I'm glad our classes have gotten under way. I'm excited to learn the grammar - it looks wild!

Put these in order on a scale of intensity. My sister and I have some issues that need to get cleared up, and the rest is just out of curiousity. Please feel free to distinguish the differences in meaning that these words may have for you.

Warning: Contains Swears (like the rest of the site doesn't)

Set One: The Scholastically Apt
Geek, Nerd, Dork (possible additions - although slightly different in meaning - weirdo, freak, and Role-Playing Guy?)

*Set Two: The Sexually Loose Female
Skank, Ho, Whore, Slut, Bitch (possible additions - hussy, homewrecker, Golddigger?)

Example fill-in-the-blank sentence: No seriously, Anna Nichole Smith is a ____________, point blank.

*Set Three: The Excessively Asshole-ish Guy
Dick, Asshole, Cocksucker, Jerk, Bastard, Wanker (my journalism professor's fave)

Example fill-in-the-blank sentence: That ___________ needs to stop driving so damn slow in the fast lane!

*Set Four: The Dumb Guy (does this even extend to girls?)
Dumbass, Dipshit, Fuckwit, Shithead, Douche Bag (Adam Sandler's fave, and mine too)

Example fill-in-the-blank sentence: George Bush is a real _____________, this country must be full of _____________s to have elected him.
And dude, I so need this book for teaching next year.

* Notice how all the girls' names are related to sex, whereas all the boys' names are related to their generally idiotic behavior (well, I'm not sure where douche bag fits in there, though, although I don't put it past them to use the things idiotically).

(The title comes from a Michael Jackson song)

The last three days have been entirely Arabic-centered. I have the luxury of achieving well over fifteen hours of studying in 72 hours because my other classes (besides Spanish) have finished, and although I may have a summer job, I won't know about that for another two or three days.

So for right now, it's all about Arabic.

It occured to me today that I had just done over five hours of work (mainly verb conjugation) without really noticing the time fly by. I was surprised to realize how concentrated I had been, and began wondering where this extreme concentration had come from.

Is it just the love of learning Arabic? Am I THAT into it? If so, should I consider learning Arabic as a major endeavor, possibly taking on greater proportions than it already has? Just how far does my interest in the language go?

And then I remembered that I just bought a French press, as well as some coffee, after over a year of not having any coffee in my house at all.

So that must be it. Caffeine does wonders for your concentration, if taken in responsable doses.

Although, it's Moroccan coffee, so maybe there's a connection there somewhere.

In other Arabic-related news, I am very happy because our professor has decided to take us on for another semester starting next October. Same time, same place, same students, and same book - until we get to the infamous Chapter 15 (we're on Chapter 5 right now).

Our class is Beginning Arabic, and at the Sorbonne's adult education center (where I take the class), the next level after beginner is an advanced conversation class. Now, I might be able to say, "I don't know yet." or "Jamila speaks Chinese." but it takes me seven years to spit out the sentence. I'm pretty sure that means conversation is not a possibility.

Hell, I only know six or seven verbs. In the present tense.

However, my classmates and I (all seven of us) are equal in our freaky obsessiveness with the language. I would say that I am on the bottom end of the study chain, in that I spend somewhere around ten or twelve hours a week (outside of class) studying (this week being an exception, but I'm trying to bust some ass) whereas the average is probably around twenty or maybe even 25 (hence why I need to bust some ass). My professor, who is just a brilliant, brilliant man (oddly attractive, too, in his own 6'5" way) told us that we are advancing very quickly and that he is impressed with the overall group dynamic and cohesion.

Yay, we all thought, and then went in for the kill.

"Would you teach us more next year?"

We discussed it at length and the teacher agreed to it, asking us to complete a few chapters on our own over the summer (yes, I'll be brining my books back to the States with me) and ready to go forward, full speed ahead, come next October.

If we do it successfully, he said, we will be watching (and understanding) newscasts from Al-Jazeera by February/March Two Double 0 Four.

How kick ass would that be?

We all got starry-eyed for a minute, and then went back to work.

And sure, after my brief illusionary daydream, it hit me like a brick when I remembered that each verb has fifteen different possible conjugations in each tense, or that Arabic functions a little bit like Latin in that a noun changes slightly depending on whether it is a direct object, indirect object, etc, but that's ok. We're already learning some crazy-ass grammar rules and I am masochistic enough to want to learn more, more, more of them.

Teacher Man says that the Arabic language puts others to shame because it is so well structured and extremely grammatical. Almost mathematical in its logic, he says, and once you figure out the overall code, the possibilities are infinite. It's a matter of recognizing an intricate sequence of patterns, and recalling them at the correct moments. More so than any other language Teacher Man knows, he says (and he speaks French natively, and knows German and English).

He warns us that the A-ha moment is still a ways off, but that it is looming.

But I love a-ha moments. Even at the mention of an A-ha moment I get all giddy and excited. I have a feeling this'll be a huge one. Worth another year's worth of work, for sure.

Get excited, kids.

Meanwhile, I went to the Picasso Museum and did the entire tour in Spanish. I was happy to realize that I understood about 92% of what that guide was saying. So apparently I understand the language, but I still can't speak it.

Still. Hooray.

It's been a great couple of days.

Ok, so there was no Part I, but I felt the title fit.

Right. So today I went back to Arabic after a three week break. First week and second week of the break, no class. Third week, there was class, but I had finals and so I missed out on a two-hour session.

I thought this missing class would cause a few problems. But I had underestimated the imporatance of two hours in that little blue classroom: today, I was, without a doubt, the stupid girl.

Not that I think I am stupid. But I was so far behind everybody that I could hardly keep up. All I missed was two hours! But it was like two weeks. That's how kick-ass my teacher is.

Let me just point something out to everybody. You know how if you are in beginning Spanish, or German, or Italian, or whatever, and you miss the day that everybody learns how to say "I think, you think, he thinks...", well, you can usually sort of figure it out anyway? You can use context and often connections to words you know in other languages in your own (like "penser" and "pensar" in French and Spanish respectively). That can be a handy thing, and even if you have to ask for a little bit of help, the rest sort of makes sense eventually.

But really, that doesn't happen in Arabic.

The words are just too damn foreign, and seem to have no phonetic relation to words I know in any of the romance languages or in English. None at all. It's really like learning a language entirely from scratch. Entirely.

So when we were doing a "review" of the 4,268 new things everyone seemed to learn last week, I just kept having to ask, "I'm sorry...um...takkatut...what does that word mean?"

And nevermind the fact that I had prepared THE WRONG FUCKING lesson. Well, that's not entirely untrue. I had prepared the right lesson, not knowing that there was yet another lesson to prepare on top of it. Keep in mind that each lesson takes about seven intense hours of work, and I spent all of my Friday night learning Arabic verbs. Not that I minded, it was fun. I just wish I had known that I still had more to prepare.

So let me let everybody who has never studied Arabic in on a little secret so that they can better understand the horror that was my experience in class today: text in Arabic isn't written using vowels. Apparently, this is not a problem because there are patterns to the language that make figuring out the vowels very obvious. Of course, those patterns have yet to reveal themselves to me. Regardless, our textbook has what are called "vocalised texts" in the back of the book with the vowels written in, but we're supposed to refer to them as little as possible.

So there I was, with an entirely new text in front of me for the first time, in an alphabet I still struggle with, and without the help of vowels. These are all words I have never seen before. And I was just supposed to just figure it out. All the texts are all dialogues. So here's what it said:

Jml: Hy Nfs, whr r y ff t?
Nfs: Jml! Hll. M gng t schl.
Jml: Wht d y d t schl?
Nfs: Stdy frnch.
Jml: S Frnch sy?
Nfs. Lrd n! It's vry dffclt. Stdy nd stdy bt nvr lrn mch. Its hplss. R y gng t schl t?
Jml. Lrd n! m tkng th bs t smr's hs. W r gng t th mvs.

Ok, so you can probably figure out some of it. But imagine it written in that beautiful Arabic calligraphy. And imagine that you are only somewhat familar with a few of the key words. And that everyone is waiting for you to read. Needless to say, it was a true disaster.

My teacher is the best though. He is very encouraging and relentless in his desire for us to learn. He agreed to continue on with us next year, keeping the same schedule and just moving along in the textbook. My classmates are all very motivated and kind, and we encourage one another in ways that I have never seen adults interact in the "professional" world. It's a great experience. So despite today's minor setbacks, I am still determined to continue.

I'm just going to study my ASS off for the next class.

I remember the first time I ever heard my dad swear.

I grew up hearing a lot of "Fudge!" and "Oh sugar!" from my mom's mouth, but I never heard an all-out swear. Maybe she was desperately fighting the constant cursing urge for her children's sake, or maybe she really doesn't swear all that much. Regardless, her efforts at keeping my mouth clean somehow backfired, although I can't say it was because she set a bad example for me. Must have been all those R-rated movies I watched whenever Doreen babysat.

Naturally, a child learns that swearing is bad, and that he or she shouldn't do it. And when that child becomes a teenager, the swearing becomes a form of out-of-earshot rebellion, a way to defy those repressive years of not being potty-mouthed around mom and pops. A vocal protest to parental rules, a reactionary way of claiming, "I'll say what I want to, damnit." even though we all know we'll all end up like our parents eventually no matter what we say or how we say it when we're teenagers.

Of course, swears are almost always superfluous and could be replaced by better, more expressive words, but really - nothing adds oomph like a well-placed naughty piece of speech.

I remember the first time I swore in front of my mom. We were watching "The Fugitive" in a movie theater - I must have been about 15 - and a very suspenseful moment was happening on-screen. I ducked down and said "Oh shit, now he's going to go in there and find..."

But I couldn't finish my sentence because I had accidently sworn. It was traumatizing.

So when I asked Dad an obvious question one day when I was 17 or 18, something to the tune of "Is relaxation defined by you as sitting in our jacuzzi-like bathtub with a beer or two and some sports program turned up way loudly on the 1984 little television still using antennas for reception while the rest of the family tries to drown out the sounds of the commentators by playing The Eagles or some equally cheesy band at high volumes?" and Dad answered, "Does a bear shit in the woods?" well, I just about thought that was my ticket to freedom. Dad had given me the greenlight. I could swear.

Maybe not around him though. Maybe not certain swear words. And maybe not profusely, but an occasional no-no could slip out somewhat unnoticed, provided it was of the "light" variety. Or at least "light" swears could be used without causing extreme offense.

Flashforward to 2003. I'm supposedly all grown up. My parents and I get along well, I think. I told my mom once that she is not only my mom but also my friend, and I meant it. I'm more open with them about a lot of things, and I guess mentally they've gone from being "My Parents: The Institution" to being actual people with actual feelings. And they know a bit more about me, too, especially now that they've both apparently taken to reading this site (Hi guys) without my having known about their patronage.

But regardless, I still don't feel like I can swear in front of them.

The Boy has learned a variety of quality swears from yours truly. His English is broken and limping, but he sure can say "Shit!" at appropriate moments. Like the first time I introduced him to my parents, warning him that swear words are known as such because they're slightly taboo. No matter, the first thing he said to them, in reference to the fact that there was at least a 20 minute wait for a table at the restaurant we wanted to go to, was "Oh shit."

They laughed as kind, giving parents would and I smiled and said, "I taught him that." Probably not true, I think Hollywood did (damn those R-rated movies again), but I doubt I helped matters any.

Other helpful expressions - vulgar or not - I have made familiar to him via frequent use around the house: Oh my God!, What the fuck?, Fuck off, That's bullshit, You're full of shit, Holy shit, whatever, what-the-fuck-ever, dickwad, asshole, jackass...

Bizarrely enough, I'm anti-swearing in French. My family had a German exchange student live with us for a year when I was 17. The two of us went to high school together. And every time she swore, I cringed. It just didn't sound right coming from a German mouth. If any of you have seen "Before Sunrise" (quality flick, uh-huh) and know of the excessive use of the word "fuck" by the Frenchie in the film, you might relate.

So I swear a lot in English instead. I'll chatter, chatter, chatter in French, and if a swear is needed, I say it in English. People always laugh at this the first time it happens, and then just let it slide after that. I suppose I sound more ridiculous doing that than just swearing in French, but...eh...I just can't bring myself to do it.

Plus, the French swearing vocabulary sucks. I've gone over this with a friend of mine, who speaks equally good French and swears equally as well in English.

Together, we have come to the conclusion that:
For words like dick, dickhead, dickwad, jerk, asshole, jackass, dumbass, dumbfuck, dork, idiot, stupid ass motherfucker, and so on, the French only seem to have one term: pauvre con. I keep describing the nuances between, say, a dickhead and a dumbass, but they just keep saying, "No, we woud zay zat as a pauvre con."

What about the girly end of the spectrum? Anything in English relating to promiscuity (always interesting how many words there are for asshole-like guys versus slutty girls...cultural reflection, I suppose) - ho, skank, skanky ho, crack ho, whore, slut, ho-bag, floozy - all just get reduced to the boring and uninventive pute.

I suppose I am really only hanging on to English for its expressive bad words. I just can't translate "He's one crazy-ass motherfucker but his chick is a skanky-ass ho" into French properly. It would turn into, roughly, "He's a crazy guy but his woman is a whore." Does that do the English version justice? Really, now.

While watching "8 Mile" (yet another impressive film, uh-huh), I noticed that no matter how creative the swearing might have been in the original English version, everything was always reduced to three key swear words in French: merde and all its offshoots, putain and its mini-rainbow of colors, and...well, shit, you know what? There are only two. And what's the big insult in French? Putain de merde. They couldn't even come up with The Mother of All Insults. They just think that using the two swears back-to-back suffices. I have issues with such slim pickin's in the swearing department at Frenchmart.

So I gotta clear the air here a little bit. I swear. A lot. In English. And I try to keep it tame when I am talking to my parents, but I'm not going to keep it tame on the web site.

So Mom and Dad - read at your own risk. I hope you both still love me.

I spent a lot of yesterday tacking up Spanish conjugations on the wall above my desk. Apparently it takes a minimum of 24 encounters with a word before it registers in your memory. So I just listed the conjugation of several verbs in the past, imperfect, conditional, future, and present subjonctive tenses, threw them up on the wall, and am hoping that occasionally letting my eyes gaze over them will help me with the osmosis process.

I did this in 2001 with all the candidates of the French presidential elections, as well. I knew all of them - and their parties - within a matter of days.

It's just a little trick I have. Nothing complicated about it, but it works.

I am finding that learning three languages at once is proving to be a really thought-provoking experience. I'm learning as much about my own learning methods and capabilities as a student as I am about the languages themselves.

See, I started French when I was 11 years old, and stopped when I was 16 because my high school didn't have high enough French classes after that point. To my recollection, I never had any frustration learning French - it always was rather simple for me, a matter of memorizing a few things and remembering a few rules. Of course, the rules get more complicated and the language itself more complex, but I have no memory of ever seeing something that I just could not understand in the classroom. Nor do I remember slaving away while just trying to write a paragraph or two. All of my assignments fell perfectly within my level, and I recognized the patterns and flow of the language with respect to whatever grammar point or vocabulary we had worked on that day in class (I always had, I might point out, excellent French teachers).

By the time I got to Paris, my French was at a level where I could communicate most things with only a mild amount of trouble, but occasionally I wouldn't know a crucial adjective or noun. I believe this is because I had a strong grammatical base, a well-defined foundation upon which I began adding more and more bits of the language until I eventually spoke it rather well. At first, I would just drop topics if I didn't know how to express myself, but after a month or two I found that I could always find ways of getting around missing words. Learning French for me was therefore never an overwhelming process. To the contrary - it was extremely enjoyable and I always felt that it was a subject in which I excelled.

I started learning Spanish when I was 17 - I took an intensive beginning course just two months before I left for France. I promptly forgot all of it once I arrived in France, as my efforts to concentrate on communicating with those around me knocked out whatever Spanish I had learned the summer before (non-native languages are all stored in the same part of the brain. Hence why, when I am speaking Spanish, French occasionally pops out but English never does). I started over again a year later in college, where I had the best language professor I have ever had in my life (Hola Senor Sejas!). Sadly, that school (which was an American school in France) only had beginner's levels of all the languages except French, because the language department was inondated with foreign students wanting to learn French more so than it was with students wanting to learn German or Italian (it's a very small school).

So my Spanish love ended there. Two summers later, I picked up yet another intensive Spanish course, where I got placed in advanced beginner (second on a ladder of six courses). That class ended last July, and I just picked up my Spanish studies again last week, where I was placed in advanced intermediate (fourth on that six-part ladder) at the same school. This means I essentially skipped over that entire period (step three on the six-rung ladder) where you slowly learn and affirm your understanding of verbs and basic structures of the language.

The thing is, I know I know these things. Collectively, were I ideally able to access everything I have learned over the years, I was placed in the right level. My written test placed me there, and so I must have the information in there somewhere. But when speaking, I find I am overwhelmed with a bunch of verb tenses that I know I learned, but were never fully locked into my memory forever. I have a strong understanding of when I should use which tenses and why, but I just can't remember how to form the right verb.

And then there's Arabic, which is just a crazy, crazy language. Keep in mind, I am starting at square one. I only learned the alphabet last week, so things are obviously slow-moving. But it is amazing how frustrating the sheer foreigness of the language can be. I can look at a word in French or Spanish that I have never seen before, and can often figure out the meaning. And my pronunciation is often close, if not exactly correct. I can sometimes take an English word, add a typical French ending to it, and find a word they actually use in French. This means that for me, both French and Spanish are rather malleable: I can play with them as I like, bend them in certain ways so that what I am saying or trying to say can eventually come to make sense. But I don't ever foresee that happening in Arabic because the words feel so incredibly foreign. And that's going to be really, really weird. How can you learn a language if you can't play with it?

I remember my first day of Spanish, ever. My professor spoke entirely in Spanish, and I was appalled to realize that I understood what she was saying just by the little Spanish English-speaking Americans are just randomly familiar with. The exact same thing happened last Saturday in Arabic - my professor just started speaking in Arabic without warning, and God help me, it was Alien Speak. Just pure jibberish in my ears.

The professor obviously knows we can't understand a damn word. He told us not to listen to the language but to just hear it. Once I stopped trying to listen and just tried to hear, the experience became an awful lot more pleasant.

Right now, I'm just trying to figure out the phonetic differences between some of the letters of the alphabet (if you're curious, you can go here, and click on "alphabet" - nevermind that the page is in French. While it loads, turn on your speakers and click on some of the letters to hear what they sound like. There are a few that have the most subtle differences - very difficult sounds for an anglophone to recognize). There's a letter that sounds a little bit like "thel" (written "dhal" on the site page), and I like to laugh as the Frenchies try and make the "th" sound. There's another letter with an "r" sound, and there, too, they have a hard time. They're cute about it - the people in my class seem really laid-back and silly - so it's all in fun. But I can't imagine the frustration they must be having with just the sounds alone.

So yeah, this is all just to say that I am discovering a lot about my ability to just buckle down and do this shit. While cooking my oatmeal this morning, I was thinking to myself that maybe the very reason why I like learning languages so much is for a purely selfish reason: no matter what you do, when you leave class, you KNOW you have learned something. That whole "you learn something new every day" feels like it rings far more true for me when it comes to learning languages than it does for anything else.

Still. I am frustrated at how long my Spanish homework takes me. Languages have always come naturally and easily for me. I think I am just going to have to stare at these papers I have tacked up all over the place for a few more days before I can start whipping out the complex sentences I have the mental blueprint for in my head. If I could just get these conjugations memorized, things would fly. And learning conjugations is really just about discipline, about listing them over and over again and about testing your familiarity with them.

This is the first time I am experiencing the frustration I always saw people in my classes struggling with, but I never understood myself. It's incredilbly eye-opening, and I think it will prove to be extremely useful when I start teaching English to French students this fall.

This morning was the first Spanish class.

Do you know that if you don't speak a language - and by "don't speak" I mean you really just don't utter a single word - that you won't be able to speak it a year later? That's right.

I walked into my classroom at 9.15. I had missed the first week (last week) and so was a little nervous about accidently finding myself in Fluent-and-Studying-Dialectical-Differences-While-Reading-18th-Century-Poetry-In-Spanish Spanish class and sitting for awhile and thinking, "Nah, you'll understand, just get your ears warmed up" only to realize that in fact I'm in the wrong room and I look like an asshole. Typical first day jitters.

So I get there early, and make sure I am in the right room. Two 40-something year-old ladies come in who obviously know one another. Another 40-something wanders in, and she celebrates her arrival with the others. I ask, "Am I in B2173?" and their heads all snap at me. The leader of the pack says, "I dunno." and they go back to gabbing. Friendly folks. So I just sort of sit there stupidly and then Leader Lady comes to her seat (two away from me), pulls out her schedule and says, "Yeah, yeah...B2173." And I say, "Oh. Thanks."

Another 40-something shows up and they are now four standing around the shortest one's table. Am I really in the right room?

The professor walks in and starts celebrating with all of them as well. Oh shit.

And then young Valentine walks in - my age and obviously worried she's in the wrong classroom as well. As if on cue, the professor says, "We were wondering if the two of you would show up" and everyone got down to business. I breathe a sigh of relief.

So um, can I share something? These 40-somethings can really speak Spanish. I got the scoop at the break. They all started in beginning Spanish together, which they took a year and a half ago. They formed a sort of die-hard rat-pack and have been going through all the levels until then (they are on Spanish 4 of 6, now. Like me). They've made some amazing progress. And there I am, spitting out words and not conjugating my verbs, while Leader Lady is telling us about how hot her husband used to be so hot, but now he's sort of balding and she's thinking that maybe she should have thought more wisely about her marital "investment."

I'm sitting there the first half just totally desperate. The prof asks me to describe my first doll. I say, "Oh. Um. It had long arms."

And then I start blushing and feeling stupid.

And it continues like that for awhile.

But at the break the Rat Pack explain their story, and they tell me that they have a lot of fun, and that they make the stupidest mistakes and everyone laughs. And they keep saying, "Oh, I just think we're a really supportive group" and "Oh, I probably would have given up a long time again but I think the people in this class are so fun that we keep sort of pushing one another to learn." They all continually say, "Oh, it's so good we're such a small group. This is really great - it will really give us a chance to get to know one another and to make stupid mistakes without feeling self-concious!"

So by the second half I'm feeling a little bit more at ease. Sure, I TOTALLY forgot the subjonctive, but hey. Details, Babycakes, details. I start coming out of that weird nervous person that I tend to turn into at the beginning of anything new and slightly uncomfortable, and I slowly morph back into my usual, witty, suave self. Sure, when Shortie Pie was talking about how she would like to have a pill for motion sickness that wasn't dangerous (to her health), and I kept understanding that as a cake for motion sickness that wasn't lazy (to her health?), I exposed my idiocy in my true humorous form. The Rat Pack laughed. With me. And maybe at me just a little.

I'm finding I enjoy the company of older people more and more these days. I think my Spanish class is going to be no exception. Those chicks are friggin' hilarious.

Arabic starts tomorrow.

Cinderella is called Cendrillon in French. As the story goes, little Miss Cinderella wore herself a slipper en vair. En, in this particular case, means - roughly - "made out of," and vair is an outdated word which means - more or less - "fur." The more people heard this legendary tale, and the more the word vair worked its way out of everyday French, people began hearing vair as its homonym - verre - which means, indeed, "glass." By the time someone got around to the English translation, Cinderella was most certainly wearing a glass slipper to the ball, whereas it had originally been rather furry.

The following is taken from The Language Instinct, by Steven Pinker.

My dad, a big reader and a language freak like myself, suggested the book to me while I was home for Christmas. He loaded me down with language books, and I couldn't be more grateful. The Language Instinct is well written and easy to follow, while still remaining academic and informative. Hang on though, I am only halfway through; I don't feel qualified to give my official opinion just yet.

I do, however, want to share with you these goofs I found funny, actually taken from newspapers. They can be read two ways. It's a miracle to me the editors didn't see the second possible meanings:

- Yoko Ono will talk about her husband John Lennon who was killed in an interview with Barbara Walters.
- Two cars were reported stolent by the Groveton police yesterday
- Tonight's program discusses stress, exercise, nutrition, and sex with Celtic forward Scott Wedman, Dr. Ruth Westheimer, and Dick Cavett.

OR some headlines:

- New Housing for Elderly Not Yet Dead
- Chou Remains Cremated
- Hershey Bars Protest
- Complaints About NBA Referees Growing Ugly
- Reagan Wins on Budget, But More Lies Ahead

Learning new languages is a fun and exciting experience. When the language-learner successfully asks "Excuse me, could you tell me the way to the nearest Big&Tall store?" or says "Oh, no, actually, I read somewhere that George Bush might just be playing dumb" there is a powerful feeling of triumph. As for the daily mistakes and goof-ups, a native speaker conversing with the struggling language learner more often finds them endearing than disturbing. The native speaker is often welcoming to anyone trying to spit out the most basic of utterances, and will willingly help the learner when he or she is at a loss for words.

The process of trying new words, new sentence structures, and new combinations of the two is a challenging yet ultimately rewarding and fullfilling experience when learning any new language, be it Arabic, Farsi, or German. Language, by nature, is playful, and the beginning processes of learning a new language serve as evidence of just how flexible and changeable language is.

A common new language - Computer - is the only exception. The moments of triumph are only achieved after posting questions in seventeen different forums, searching through 22 different code possibilites, drinking four cups of tea and avoiding one night's worth of sleep. The "cute" foreigner mistakes are in no way endearing, and the frustrated Computer-speaker will only spit out more complicated phrases and structures in an attempt to overwhelm and discourage the increasingly self-concious Computer-learner. Trying out new structures can only lead to disaster, and there is absolutely nothing playful about Computer. It is as rigid and ordered as a language can get.

Every language has its common words that everyone knows:

in English - "hello," "yeah," "ok," and "quarter pounder with cheese"
in French - "oui," "bonjour," and "voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?"
in Spanish - "hola," "gracias," and "yo quiero Taco Bell"
in Computer - "error"

I saw this on another web site, and liked it so much I decided to spread the love. Lighthearted and funny grammar article. Read some of the others along the side as well, they're quite funny.

Am I crazy because I can't stand it when people put apostrophes when they mean to simply place an additional "s" at the end of a word? For example, I read somewhere today, "I looked at her photo's." Is this correct, my friends? Such mistakes are everywhere. And I am such a maniac that I also feel the need to add that CDs are not possessive, unless you're talking about a particular CD's name or cover, and that IBMs, BMWs, TVs, and PCs work along similar lines. I can't find a rule that says I'm right about this particular gripe, but I can't find one that says I'm wrong, either. However, it only seems normal that a distinction be made between the posessive and the plural forms, and that said distinction follow the same logic used for basic common nouns (non-initial-based). If we just go running around throwing apostrophe's on everything, pretty soon all of our rule's and guideline's that make sentence's understandable will be gone, and we will be left in a chaotic land of comma's, period's and quotation mark's that have no meaning.

But above all, please remember: the apostrophe goes out the window when dealing with its overuse in the most common mistake of all: IT'S. Apostrophe with subject and verb only, people, let's get it together. C'mon now.

One commonly known speech error is the famous 'slip-of-the-tongue,' which can often prove embarrassing in certain situations. A lesser-discussed type of error are the corresponding 'slips-of-the-ear,' which go one step beyond your average misunderstanding and can occasionally lead to the creation of new sentences entirely. The most frequently cited example of this is the well-known song by Jimi Hendrix entitled 'Excuse Me, While I Kiss This Guy." Another might be the alternative version of 'Blowing in the Wind,' which is instead about small insects: 'The ants are my friends, they're blowing in the wind.' Recently, in George Yule's "The Study of Language", I stumbled across the example of a child who returned home from Sunday school to report that everyone was singing about a cross-eyed bear named Gladly. In other words, everyone was singing "Gladly the cross I'd bear."

The French dictionary's "K" section is roughly four pages long, depending on whether you are a Petit Robert type or a Larousse type (which is somewhat along the same lines as the Mac or PC debate). As the French language is fairly anti-K, almost every one of the K words comes from another language - Russian, Japanese, English, or Turkish especially. Words like "knickerbockers," "knock-down," and "know-how" are obvious direct rips from English, but more interesting additions to the rigid dictionary include:

- the 1985 entry for the Japanese word "karoaké." Has that word really only been in France for 17 years? Will somebody with an American English dictionary please tell me when that word entered the American English language? My Australian English dictionary gives no date. It does, however, say that the word originates from Japanese kara empty + okesutora orchestra.

- the 1990 entry of the slang word "kiffer" (considered by some to be massively late in its apparition in the dictionary) from the Arabic word "kif", meaning "state of beauty." The French adaptation of the word is in the verb form, and means roughly the same thing as to "really dig something" or "find pleasure in something" in English. The funny part of this word is the interesting switch from a noun in Arabic to a verb in French. Francophones are somewhat like Anglophones in that they can just add a suffix and have a word. Apparently, English is one of the most dynamic languages because of our constant additions of things like -ly or -ish, which constantly creates new words.

- the 1916 intorudction of the word 'kaki" which means, yes, "khaki." It is certainly much more logical to spell it as such. Especially for a language that particularly likes to display a strange spelling pattern.

Then again, English can't boast about its spelling either. (see below)

English confuses. A poem (of sorts):

We polish the Polish furniture.
He could lead if he would get lead out.
A farm can produce produce.
The dump was so full it had to refuse refuse
The soldier decided to desert in the desert.
The present is a good time to present the present.
The dove dove into the bushes.
I did not object to the object
The insurance for the invalid was invalid.
The bandage was wound around thewound
There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
They were too close to the door to close it.
They sent a sewer down to stitch the tear in the sewer line.
To help with planting, the famer taught his sow to sow.
How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
I spent last evening evening out a pile of dirt.
I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.

-I wish I knew where this was from