A tag
Posted in Rambling |
Since I can’t find the time to write about the 4-5 books I’ve read since the one in the last post, here’s a tag from Larry.
1. What is the name of the book you currently are reading/are contemplating reading?
Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything is Illuminated. Because I saw half the movie and it was great, and then I went to Ukraine. And people keep saying he writes good stuff, so why not? So far, so good.
2. Do you picture Vogons being cat or dog lovers? Why so?
Whichever tastes better.
[Fun tidbit - well, fun for me. There are some mobs in World of Warcraft (in Karahkzan, for those in the know) who have a spell called "Bad Poetry" that puts you to sleep.]
3. Would you read a Klingon version of The Little Prince and/or the Bible? Why or why not?
I don’t see the purpose of making up a language in such detail. So I wouldn’t read anything in Klingon or Quenya or Sindarin or whatever. Really, learn something useful.
4. What foreign language would you like to learn that you don’t already know? And would you speak it to a lover, a religious person, or to a horse?
French (first and foremost, learn how to speak it; then, remember all the grammar and vocabulary I forgot) and German (since I find myself in Vienna quite often, visiting a good friend, and it sucks not being able to understand anything…). I am planning to start classes for one of these in autumn.
I would speak it to whatever natives I can find, if they are nice enough to try to understand my beginner sentences.
5. What author are you thankful is sadly underreviewed on the web today?
Since I don’t like reading reviews… I have no idea.
(I tend to change my opinions if I read other people’s, so I never read reviews before reading a book to avoid getting an impression before hand).
June 20th, 2008 at 7:23 am
I like to say proudly, “Je ne parle pas le français” ;)
June 20th, 2008 at 8:53 am
Yyou know what the problem with that is? People will assume you know *some* French and talk to you. Always happened to me in Austria if I ordered something in my extremely primitive German.
Store clerk: *yadda yadda yadda*
Me: *puzzled look* I don’t speak German.
(or, when I am feeling very uncommunicative, Nu vorbesc germana. They’re much less likely to know Romanian.)
So they get I am a weird foreigner and leave me alone.
But it would be cool to be able to communicate… Or at least understand the damn signs on the street! :P
June 21st, 2008 at 6:56 am
The signs at least I can (mostly) understand…French, Spanish (of course and I had to when I was in Miami a few years ago), Portuguese, Italian, some German (from taking 3 semesters of it in university), maybe a bit of Romanian if it’s really close to Spanish…or I’ll just rely on the pictograms like the octogon for STOP! :P