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On detraction.

One day last week I felt like writing for once. But I couldn't form my many roaming thoughts into anything coherent, so instead I opened up my copy of Introduction à la Vie Devote and started translating one of the chapters, the one entitled "De la médisance:"  "On detraction."  Or perhaps, "On speaking ill of people."   

Translation for fun is a pleasant exercise when one feels creative but not too creative:  a comfortable tension between being scrupulously exact, and rendering into modern English.  And a text like this is not quite as difficult as translating poetry, but it still contains enough interesting imagery, allusions, and the like to allow for a little poetic interpretation.  Of course, diving into theology (even a theology for the practical layperson) is a bit risky, so I hope you all understand that this text carries no official stamp.

St. Bernard says that the one who defames and the one who listens are both possessed by the devil, who has one by the tongue and the other by the ear.   The detractor's tongue, forked and sharp (says David) like a serpent's, strikes twice:  poisoning at one stroke both the listener's ear and the victim's reputation.

I beg you then, dear Philothea, never to defame anyone, neither directly nor indirectly: 

• take care never to impute against your neighbor false crimes or sins;
• nor to reveal those that are secret, nor to exaggerate those that are apparent;
• not to put a bad spin on a good work, nor to deny the good that you know to be there in someone, nor to maliciously omit it, nor to minimize it by yor words;

for in all these different ways you would greatly offend God, but especially in making false accusations and denying the truth to the point of harming your neighbor.  For it is a double sin to lie and, in doing so, to harm another person.

Our city experienced a second, short burst of anger, with destruction and looting, not long ago:  a man suspected (correctly, it seems) of murder shot himself in the mouth, in the middle of downtown, as police (witnesses say) ran toward him with guns drawn; someone somewhere suggested the police had summarily executed him, an all-too-plausible scenario after George Floyd's murder; the spreading rumor attracted an angry crowd.  Police released a surveillance video of the man's suicide, and perhaps that was enough to send some of the people in the crowd away satisfied, but not everyone.  Large, angry crowds are not unlikely to contain individuals who feel like breaking and burning things, if they are still assembled there when dusk turns to night.

...Even if you've once seen someone drunk, don't say 'Such-and-such is a drunkard.'  Nor, just because someone was once caught in the act, call him an adulterer or a committer of incest, for a single act does not give its name to the actor... To take the name of a vice or a virtue, one has to have made it a habit and progressed some distance along its way.  Similarly it is a slander to say of a man that he is bad-tempered, or that he is a thief, just because you have once seen him angry, or known him to steal.

I turn again and again to the Introduction as my guide in ways of personal holiness.  I am always open to suggestions of other books that might do the job, but I've yet to find anything that offers such practical advice for Christians living in the world: 

Christians busy with many everyday duties and tasks,

Christians whose colleagues, neighbors, and loved ones might object to their practices,

men and women,

married and single and widowed, from the wealthy to the poor: 

anyway, Christians who do not live in a bubble.

Even when a man has been for a long time the picture of wickedness, we run the risk of lying when we call him "wicked." 

Simon the Leper called Mary Magdalene a sinner because she had been one, not long before; nevertheless he spoke falsely, for she wasn't anymore, but by then was a holy penitent, and so Our Lord took her side. 

The foolish Pharisee considered the publican to be a great sinner, or perhaps to be a cheat, an adulterer, or a thief; but he fooled himself greatly, for at that very moment the publican had been vindicated by God. 

Alas!  since the goodness of God is so great, that at any moment we may ask for his grace and receive it, what assurance could we possibly have that yesterday's sinner must be a sinful man today?  Yesterday must not pass judgment on today, nor must today judge yesterday:  of all days, only the last will be the judge. 

Thus we can never call a man wicked, without risking great error:  what we can say, should it be necessary to speak, is that he did such-and-such a wicked act; or that he lived wickedly at such-and-such a time; or that he is acting wickedly now.  But we cannot deduce from yesterday any conclusion about today, nor derive yesterday from today; and still less can we conclude anything about tomorrow.

Living not only in a family, but a neighborhood and a wider community, I waver unsteadily between priorities.   Not quite the dilemma of Martha and Mary, of activity and contemplation, but something related.  Shall I lay a shoulder, beside many others who know better what they are doing, to the nearest out-of-alignment joint of the whole structure of power and justice?   Shall I instead look for people, a person, and see what works of mercy could do?  Do I just open my wallet?   The wavering itself says, perhaps: wait, it's I who am disordered. 

Tells me:  Put my own house and heart in order first; I can't do anything of use in this state; I'm the very embodiment of a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

Though we must be extremely careful to never commit detraction against others, at the same time we have to guard against falling into the opposite error, as some do when in order to avoid speaking ill of another, praise and speak well of those others' sins. 

• If you happen upon a person who slanders others, don't excuse them with words like 'straightforward' or 'independent-minded';
• nor describe someone who's obviously conceited as 'generous' or 'fastidious.'   
• When you see someone dangerously pushing against appropriate boundaries, do not call it an innocent mistake. 
• Nor must you dismiss disobedience as merely a type of 'getting carried away,' nor arrogance as a type of frankness, nor lewdness as a type of showing favor.   

No, dear Philothea, you must not try to flee the error of slander by favoring, fawning over, and feeding other errors.   No, you must promptly and frankly call evil 'evil,' and lay blame upon blameworthy things.  In doing so we glorify God, provided that this be in accord with the following conditions.....

Truth:  Wading helpfully in makes screw-ups possible.   Probable, even, when the do-gooder doesn't understand the situation, or offers a kind of help for which they are manifestly incompetent.   The most dangerous do-gooder is the one with a loveless motivation:  the one who hopes to play the hero and savior, or to confirm their own image of the self, or to enjoy a side order of punishment and vengeance.

[First condition for calling out evil.]  In order to condemn the wickednesses of another without being condemned ourselves, it must be necessary for the good of the other:  either the good of those whom we are speaking about, or those to whom we speak. 

Suppose someone is telling stories, in the presence of the young, of certain men and women carrying on recklessly with each other; or describing so-and-so's obviously lecherous words or actions.  Should I fail to clearly condemn this wrong, or should I make as if to excuse it, those tender souls who are listening might stumble into something similar. 

These disgraceful things require my frank condemnation in the very moment, unless I can carry out this duty more effectively and discreetly at a later time.  

Justified or not, a certain awe in the face of my own shortcomings keeps me from stepping forward, even in very small ways.   There are many situations I do not understand—and how would I know, most of the time, if I correctly understand them?  Years of mortifying evidence tells me I do not know how to interact correctly with strangers.   And my motivations are always, always suspect.    

[Second condition for calling out evil.]  Besides this, in order to speak on such a subject, it must be my proper place to do so. 

For example, if in a certain company of people I am counted among the leaders, I might seem to approve of a wrong if I do not speak up. 

But if I occupy a lower place, I must not take it upon myself to censure.

Positive outward acts of justice and mercy seem only rarely safe from my blunderings, that is, when I stick to what I know well and keep to things in which I have competence.

[Third condition for calling out evil.]  Above all I must choose my words precisely, not saying a single superfluous word. 

For example, if I criticize the intimacy between a young man and a young woman, on the grounds that they seem dangerously indiscreet:  O God, Philothea, I must walk a very careful line so as not to exaggerate the problem, not even a tiny bit;

• if there is only a slight appearance of impropriety, I must say no more than that;
• if it is only a matter of simple imprudence, I will not say that it is more;
• if there is neither imprudence, nor a serious appearance of wrongdoing, but only something that a gossip might latch onto, either I will mention only that or say nothing at all. 

For my tongue, when I speak about my neighbor, rests in my mouth like the scalpel in the surgeon's hand, ready to make an incision among the nerves and tendons; I must cut precisely, so as to say neither more nor less than what is.  

There's freedom in uncertainty:   I choose prudence in the sober acceptance that it might really be cowardice, if only because I prefer it to choosing courage that might turn out to be recklessness.   

[Final condition for calling out evil.] And finally, in condemning the vice, I must ever be careful to spare the person as much as I can. 

It is true that one can speak freely about those who infamously and publicly make their sins manifest---provided that this be done with a spirit of charity and compassion, and not at all with arrogance and presumption; nor to take pleasure in the sorrows of another, for this betrays a vile, mean heart. 

I only except those who declare themselves enemies of God and of his Church, for those we must decry as much as we can, along with heretic and schismatic sects and their leaders; it is a kindness to cry wolf wherever it is found among the flock.

Still, though, there are two things left.  One positive; one, a double negative.

One, I had better act on myself, so as not to persist in the ignorance, incompetence, and self-love that I see in myself and that gives me reason not to take more action.   

I do  have a responsibility to learn about the situations in the world that require more justice and mercy;

I do have a responsibility to form myself in the kinds of skills that would make me a better servant to others, and to locate uses for the kinds of skills I already possess;

underlying both of these and primary to it:   I do have a responsibility to cooperate in the rooting-out of self-love and the cultivation of correct love; to decrease that Another can increase.   

All of these actually are positive acts.  They're quiet, they may be noticed by absolutely no one while the work is going on, but they are things to do.

Everyone thinks themselves free to judge and criticize a prince, and to speak ill of entire nations, based on feelings.  Philothea, don't make this mistake:  for besides offending God, you could provoke a thousand quarrels. 

• When you hear someone speaking ill of another, raise objections and doubts about the accusation, if you can in justice do so;
• if you cannot, give the benefit of the doubt to the intentions of the accused;
• if that does not work, be evidence of compassion towards him, and change the subject, reminding yourself and everyone in the company that it is only by the grace of God that anyone manages not to fall. 

Call out the gossiper, but gently; and mention, if you know it, the good in the person who has been so defamed.

Two, even if I haven't the clarity to see whether I have the love to act, I might yet have the clarity to see how I can love by declining to act.  

It seems pretty rare that I get the chance to do real work that increases the justice in the world, at least not in a way that doesn't risk going terribly wrong.  But I get so many far-more-obvious opportunities each day to enact selfishness:  to tear at, or at least pick at, the fabric of mercy and justice.   

There isn't much risk of screwing up by deciding, through an effort of love, NOT to do that.  Making tiny and thankless decisions to not act, to not tear down, to not demand adulation, to not seek retribution, to not mock, to not gossip, to not assent to mercilessness and injustice. 

Lay down the mallet; damp the gong;  rest a quieting hand on the cymbal.

 

Back to basics, in a brand-new way.

Here we are, in Lent again.  Days have come when the Bridegroom has been lifted from us --- or when we feel, acutely, the absence of the Bridegroom --- or try to notice it --- and so, we fast.

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I went back to St. Francis de Sales earlier this winter and reviewed the extremely basic advice on prayer in Introduction to the Devout Life.   There's some stuff in there where he writes that certain people aren't gifted in the art of mental prayer,  they only know how to practice vocal prayer, and so in order to help that sort of person, he gives some detailed advice (it's in part II) about how to do it.   

I confess that the first time I read ITTDL I did not really take to heart the possibility of being defective in the art of mental prayer. 

After all (I thought), I am not living in the year 1600; reading is not an uncommon pastime; I, unlike the good saint's clients, have also seen lots of movies; I can easily picture the things I think about.  I am a thoughtful person and I think a lot, and I do not have to move my lips when I am thinking about things, or reading things.  I do not need to be reciting a formula and thinking about the formula, although of course that is a good discipline to take up. Because, you see, I can think about anything I want whenever I want, like any modern who does not suffer from a particularly diminished attention span.

But it occurred to me recently that "thinking" is maybe not the same thing as "mental prayer" or even "meditation."  And then I considered something I noticed a long time ago:  a great deal of my attempts at mental prayer and even vocal prayer give way, rather quickly, to thinking.  I can't tell you how many times I've started a brief morning offering, child's play, and twenty minutes later realized I was actually making a grocery list in my head.   

So... maybe it's time to start over, with a little more humility?

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It isn't quite true to say that I reviewed the Introduction, it's more that I went back and really read and worked through the parts about "how to do mental prayer even if you are totally convinced that you will never be able to do it."  You know, as if I was totally convinced I didn't know how to do it, instead of reading it as if I already knew that I knew how to do it, NBD.

I don't use the term "convicted" very much but, er, from II.5:

After using your imagination you begin to use your understanding, and this is what we call meditation; in other words, making use of considerations to raise your heart to God and to the things of God.  This is where meditation differs from study and from considerations which are made to become learned, or to write or to engage in discussion.

(Après l'action de l'imagination, s'ensuit l'action de l'entendement, que nous appelons méditation, qui n'est autre chose qu'une ou plusieurs considérations faites afin d'émouvoir nos affections en Dieu et aux choses divines:  en quoi la méditation est différente de l'étude et des autres pensées et considérations, lesquelles ne se font pas pour acquérir la vertu ou l'amour de Dieu, mais pour quelques autres fins et intentions, comme pour deviner savant, pour en ecrire, ou disputer.)

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Anybody out there read French, or astute enough at examining texts to notice that my English translation (Fr. Michael Day's) is missing a clause?

Here's my own somewhat dynamic translation, in case you would like help.

After using your imagination, you'll move on to using your understanding.  This is what we call meditation, which is nothing more or less than to mull over one or a few things, but done in order to stir up our affections toward God and toward the things of God.  It's in this that meditation differs from study, and from other kinds of thinking on things; those kinds we don't do in order to get better at virtue or at loving God, but for other intents and purposes, such as to become learned, or to write about them, or to argue about them.

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So, yes, this time through I picked up a copy in French, Texte Authentique Intégral but avec l'orthographe moderne, des notes et un glossaire.

It may seem a little surprising that I haven't dug into the Introduction à la Vie Dévote before, since I do read French, and I enjoy linguistic comparisons, and this is basically my favorite devotional work ever and I've already written about it quite a lot here on the blog.  

It's really only in the past couple of years (thanks to determinedly plowing through several detective novels ALOUD) that my French has been fluent enough that I can pick up a complex work and, you know, read it.  So the words go into your head?  You know, without having to work very hard?  I mean, I still have to keep the dictionary app close at hand because I run into new words all the time, it's not a function of vocabulary, it's more an ability for the sentences to make sense immediately in the order that the words arrive.

So anyway, that passage above hit me right between the eyes, the bit I'd not read before about the difference between thinking and meditating.   Because I pretty much always approached mental prayer as if there was something I had to figure out.  And yes, quite often, in order to come up with something to write about (hello, blog) or a good argument (hello, Facebook and Twitter).  

I mean, it worked?  The inside of my own mind is a fountain of things to write about and argue about.  Some of the arguments and the writings are pretty good!  If I do say so myself.

(Luke 18:11.  Depending on your translation, you may get The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed thus .... or you might get The Pharisee, standing, prayed thus to himself...  yep, or Le pharisien, debout, priait ainsi en lui-même...)

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What's been missing is that notion, that intent, to émouvoir nos affections en Dieu.  The English raise your heart to God just didn't quite make me notice it; I'm afraid that as an Anglophone, I think of "my heart" more as connoting "my innermost being, my core," for better or worse, and the thing about me is that I am centered very much in the mind and distrustful of feelings, the movements of the adrenal gland, the motives in emotion.  So I passed serenely over it and never really noticed the contrast intended between the intent to "raise your heart to God" and "to study... to become learned, or to write or to engage in discussion."  (Not that the saint thinks these things are bad, it's clear that he just doesn't name them "mental prayer."

It was the missing bit, with its implication:  All that is well and good, but it isn't going to help you grow in virtue or love God any better.

Let's just say it got my attention.

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So I've carefully read and re-read that second part, in French, for the past few weeks, as a sort of preparation for Lent, and I've found another interesting thing, too, which is that I can't go from reading French prayer advice in French and then put the book down and immediately start talking (to myself or to God) in English.   No, I generally find myself going straight into French in my mind too, which is utterly weird because I'm only kinda fluent?  Although there's no one there to correct my grammar so that helps.  And I don't have immediate access to fine shades of meaning?  And I'm extra on alert not to accidentally switch into "practicing language learning" mode, so I'm not picking up my dictionary, but I'm forced to give voice to my prayer and meditation in much more concrete and simple terms ---childlike terms --- than I normally do?

And I kind of understand, now, a little bit better, a tiny piece of the special magic of having a liturgical language?  The code-switching, the turning on of a circuit inside you that puts you in a different state of mind --- for me, here, a fresher state of mind, a younger and more halting one?

If nothing else, I feel that I hear St. Francis's real voice a little bit better.  I really do.  And I am looking at this book in a whole new way (and wondering what other details Fr. Michael Day might have left out -- I still think his translation is great for its conversational and intimate tone, but now I'm side-eyeing him a little bit.  Maybe the publisher made him cut out bits that sounded repetitive and didn't admit it on the dust jacket).

I know that I can't necessarily recommend this particular reading to everyone, although I will go ahead and say:  if you do read another language with reasonable fluidity, maybe give some of the classic spiritual works in that language a try, particularly if you've already read them in translation.  It's quite a different experience.

And if you don't think your fluency is quite up to speed yet, maybe try the detective novels as a first step.  Couldn't hurt!

Purposeful procrastination.

Normally I score pretty high on executive function, but I have one counterproductive (or maybe it's contraproductive?) quirk:  the more ideas I have for new, fun, fulfilling projects I could embark on , the less likely I am to do any of them.   And the more attractive it feels just to move forward on ordinary daily things, like making dinner or doing another round of school planning.  

Yes, that's right:  the more exciting, challenging, and fun things I could be doing, the less likely I am to get around to any of them.  I become too paralyzed by choices even to procrastinate appropriately.

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I think this year I am going to try to procrastinate something every day.  I'm doing it right now:  I have a history exam to write, and also the whole week's upcoming school to plan, and instead I am forcing myself to use one of my Pomodoros (let me google that for you) on this blog post.  Because, naturally, one of the fun and exciting and challenging projects is returning to blogging.

More challenging than exciting right now, I think, but it's there.   

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What are all the projects that float around my head making demands on me, that I keep not getting around to because I feel bad about the ones left unchosen? 

Well, there are all the languages I am sort-of-trying to learn:  Swedish and Greek to support two of my children who are learning them; Latin for the students I'm actually facilitating; the Somali I started to learn and haven't touched for a few months but that I see on signage all around me reminding me that it's just a flashcard pack away; Italian and Spanish because maybe I will get to use one or both on an upcoming trip; and always, always, the French that I want to keep nudging asymptotically closer to fluency and correctness.   Not to mention the ones I've never started learning but am secretly intrigued by (I'm looking at you, Basque).   I'm not sure what will happen next, but I made myself a little language tracker for the time being, one block to be filled in each day I spend time working on improving the language:

Then there are all the books I want to read.  I still have a giant pile of unread books on my nightstand, sorted into fiction and nonfiction.  Last year I swore I'd read (or give away) the books I already had before buying any more (physical) books, and unfortunately this did nothing more than to instill in me a sense of obligation that I resisted, so that last year I wound up completing FEWER books than probably in any other year of my life since I was two years old.   I now think that perhaps I need something akin to the Dave Ramsey Debt Snowball, but for catching up on my unread books.  It would go something like this:

1. stack my unread fiction books from shortest to longest regardless of interest rate sense of importance, "goodness," or how long I've had it on the shelf
2. pay minimum attention to all the books except the smallest
3. put all my available reading time towards the smallest book until I finish it OR give it away
4. repeat until each book is read OR given away

I've also got a few pending projects regarding my mental health and relationships---nothing urgent, just me working through some philosophies and priorities, and doing the necessary self-examination to make good decisions.  Mostly I do this by carrying around half-finished legal pads, hauling one out when I feel like working on it and have a few minutes.  I probably don't have to do anything more to keep these in mind.  The paper pads are enough. 

I have other creative projects in mind that I don't want to get into here on the blog today, but suffice it to say that they are vague enough that I haven't invested deeply in them.  I think that these will rise to the top naturally as they become more important to me---if they become more important to me.   So I am going to try not to let them bother me anymore.  I think I will ritually inscribe them on a page in my bullet-journal-type-thing as "Something that I have decided not to act upon yet"---perhaps knowing that they are there, whenever I am ready to think about them some more, will free me from the tethers they have kept on my attention.

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But for all, any of this, to work---I literally have to procrastinate more.  It will not happen unless I decide, day in and day out, to spend twenty minutes on something fun instead of twenty minutes on a have to.  And, crucially, I have to pick one at a time, and not let any feelings of guilt about not picking the others derail me. 

Nor the sense of having "more important" things to do. 

Because I am never, ever, ever going to run out of important things I should be doing.  I will leave some undone.   I won't do everything I should do.

And, having established the kind of woman I think I am, there's nothing left but to haggle over the cost.

Hot takes and small talk.

I read too much news, and not enough books.  Is it just that?  Is that the source of the writer's block?

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I don't know if there are any well-established "reasons" why it's so terribly difficult to sit down and dash off blog posts these days. 

It seems to be multifactorial, but not --- not --- because of a lack of time. I am pretty sure I get as much time sitting down, not attending to anything in particular, as I ever have. Maybe I should do another time study just to be sure.  But what it feels like to me is that I passed some threshold where, when I get a chance to sit down, all I want to do is take something in. 

I won't say that it's entirely passive.  I have thoughts.  I have reactions.  But... I don't desire to share them, at least not enough to do the work.

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What's going on here?  It could be a good sign, or it could be a bad one.

Is it humility?  Have I decided that the world doesn't need my fresh takes on the latest thing that has come over the transom?  Well, it would be nice to think so, and (perhaps for that reason) I'll say it might be part of it.   

This is true:  The last few years of revelations in civic and organizational politics have demolished a number of my assumptions.  Along with that, a very real awareness of how easy it is to be very wrong and (this is the tricky bit) nevertheless to think I am correct, or at least that I have a useful or interesting point of view that I ought to share.  I've done a lot more listening and reading, withholding judgment.   And the kinds of things I have been drawn to are less often the breathless takes and the analyses leading to a point, the kind of things that invite refutation and alignment.  More often they are personal recountings.    This happened to me, and this is how it affected me.   I have lost my taste for criticizing and analyzing these things.  Or at least, for putting them out into the world. 

 So much of the hot takes out there are worthless pap.   I am not employed to produce them honestly, so what do I gain from adding to the endless stream?   Don't I have something more productive to do?   

And the answer is nearly always yes.

I think this is true:  I don't want to write things anymore, even by accident, that aren't centering people as persons.   I used to think that all that was necessary was to step back and be perfectly reasonable, or at least as reasonable as possible, because right reason is never opposed to personalism.   

That's not wrong!  But:

(1) I'm not always right; and 

(2) right reason may omit truth about persons, without ever making false statements; and

(3) this omission is a kind of error that makes false pictures.

 

I don't intend to be wrong.  I don't intend to omit significant truths from my analysis.  But I'm less interested in centering my intent.  I'm more interested in the effects of my words.  And I've become less tolerant of error, more perfectionist.  To put it bluntly, I don't want to hurt people.  (Not don't want to hurt people's feelings.  Don't want to hurt people.  There's a difference.)

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That's the scrap that might be a bit of humility, borne of realizing how easy it is to be wrong about things.

There's a scrap that's pride too:  I have a strong aversion to being wrong these days.

One of the ways I figure things out is by writing them down, and often I've done this on the blog.  It's led to some lively conversations over the years, with back-and-forth between me and some of my favorite commentators, a number of which have become real friends.  I used to do this relatively freely and with an understanding that I might write something that turned out to be woefully boneheaded, but I was willing to do it because I wanted to put things out there to be tested for boneheadedness.

I mean, I can still figure things out by writing them privately, sending emails to myself or (still my favorite) clearing out space in a coffeeshop and putting pen to paper for hours in a journal, then later going back and assembling it into some sort of logical order.  It still works pretty well.  But it lacks quality control:  it lacks the sounding board of putting it out there where smart people who disagree with me, and care enough to explain why, might find it.  

Here is the easy, non-humility-based reason that I might say out loud in order to sound good:

Well, it's not fear of the smart and caring people that's made me unwilling to hit the 'publish' button.  It's all those other people. 

 Do I want to go viral?  Nope. 

Would it be okay if I went viral and suffered because I put out thoughts that were really true and really needed defending?  Ye-es....

  But am I actually sure that what I write will in fact be true enough, beautiful enough, or useful enough that it would be worth it?   

Actually... no.

There is, however, a strong possibility that I simply don't want to be wrong, and it no longer seems worth it (especially given that, truly, people jump on wrongness rather quickly these days) to throw out things that might be wrong on purpose, just so I could possibly make them better.

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One of the frustrations I have about leaving the academy in my very early stages, as much as I don't miss the stress and the politics, is that I am no longer in touch with serious work, critical work, slow work.  Mark will remind me that academic science, being made by human beings, throws up a great deal of weeds and tangles, in the form of literally bad (not just disappointing) results and even more damaging, in the form of perverse incentives.  These make the good fruit hard to come by.  

But that's nothing compared to the selection of articles that appear in the newspaper or come across one's social media feed.  I'm just completely tired of that being so often the way that information (or at least words) about research comes into my view.  I used to kind of like digging into those various news articles, tracking down the references, and finding out if they were really bunk or if there is anything to them, but I've lost my taste for even that.  It feels like a waste of time:  that it's better not to look at all.

A better source for feeding my interest in news about what's going on in the research world has been to follow individual researchers on Twitter.  It's a narrower feed; but it's a better-quality, curated one.  And---interestingly enough---it rarely makes me want to pound out reactions.  Instead, because I'm aware that I don't have special expertise and am following them because I am legitimately interested in what they are writing, I... listen and learn?  And sometimes ask questions.

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There's a real downside to this discrimination, and I shouldn't have been surprised to find that it's plaguing me, because it's part of a very old theme in my life.  

Issuing instant reactions to the latest passing Moment, as intellectually frustrating as it might be, now has social utility.

I have real friends (intelligent ones!  fun ones!  people whose takes I am interested in!) who have real conversations, online, sparked by news items diverted from the stream and shared in their own little tributaries.  If I disentangle myself from the stream, I miss out on those conversations.  The conversations are not always very deep, although they can be (it's a sampling frequency issue).  If I decide that the nuggets are too few and far between to make it worth dipping into the rushing stream of takes, then (for good or bad) I miss out on the nuggets.

And (this is crucial) even if the nuggets are not worth the effort... I would also be saying that the relationships are not worth the effort.

(here's the part that all this yammering has brought me to, which I literally did not realize until this very moment as a result of putting out all the verbiage above)

Hot takes are the small talk of intellectuals on social media.

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I do not like regular small talk in real life.  

I was embarrassingly old and educated before I came to an intellectual understanding of the purpose it serves and realized that I needed to make use of it as a tool.

It's where you start, for reasons of common humanity (maybe not ALL of humanity, but of a large enough majority that it's essentially everyone you run into in most organizations and societies).

Without it, you often cannot get at the deeper stuff, even if it seems like you should be able to.

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Do I need to come to a new understanding of the Hot Take?

Maybe.  Maybe I do.

Six short pieces on which language to learn.

A couple of weeks ago The Economist tweeted out a link to an 2012 article from their lifestyle arm, 1843 Magazine, entitled "Which is the Best Language to Learn?"  

(image not clickable)

The caption/link writers were a bit too vague.  I think this for two reasons: 

First, they mention too subtly that the article is aimed at native speakers of English.  Granted, the problem is not entirely on their end, but we can all learn to be more clear from the flood of Twitter comments complaining that English was not identified as the best language .

Second, more pointedly, the tweet suggests that clicking on the link will lead you to an article decidedly in favor of English speakers learning French.

It's not!  It's better than that, and I only wish the editors had made the feature longer.  It's actually six separate pieces, written by six different people.  It's almost like a panel discussion with six speakers, each making an argument for learning their own favorite languages: 

• French
• Spanish,
• standard Chinese, aka Mandarin
• Arabic
• Brazilian Portuguese
• Latin.

The feature has a major structural flaw, which probably contributed to the bad captioning.   The piece ought to have a distinct introduction, followed by arguments for each of the six languages.  Unfortunately, the introduction-writer and the French-learning-cheerleader are the same writer, as if one of the panelists was also the moderator.   He didn't take care to separate these two rhetorical tasks (not only that, but he feels the need to defend French from Chinese in particular, something that comes across as a sort of pre-buttal of the Mandarin fan whose bit appears later).  

And of course, I'd have loved for the feature to have been even longer and included arguments promoting the learning of even more languages.   Even more importantly, I'd have loved to see more attributes of different languages being considered.  

Still, they covered most of the key points to consider, and promoted language learning in general.  All too often, languages are suggested to English speakers merely on the basis of "usefulness," which in practice is rhetorically limited to considering the likelihood that one expects to have economic transactions in the language.   

But there are lots of different reasons to learn languages, and the six "panelists" touch on many of them:

• acquiring meta-language that allows you to understand and use all languages better, including your own
• broadening your cultural understanding in general
• deepening your cultural understanding of whatever particular culture you are most interested in
• grasping, a bit, another way to think about various concepts, say through interesting idioms
• career preparation for conducting international business
• career preparation for conducting diplomacy 
• reading literature
• enjoying the challenge

And what's great about this article is that it acknowledges that different languages fulfill these needs to varying degrees and in different ways.   

And individual learners' tastes and ambitions matter more than anything.  Even the pro-French, Chinese-isn't-all-that-it's-cracked-up-to-be introduction writer says:  "By all means, if China is your main interest, for business or pleasure, learn Chinese. It is fascinating, and learnable."

Beyond a particular interest, though, what are the arguments for each of the six featured languages?

• Robert Lane Greene prefers French, calling it the most global language, with native speakers in every region; it's relatively easy for English speakers to learn, with grammar not very different from ours, and a great deal of vocabulary overlap.
• Daniel Franklin promotes Spanish.  It has an enormous number of native speakers, is a regional champion, is heavily used on the Internet and as an international language, and has great literature and film.  Like French, it is relatively easy for English speakers to learn (and, I'd add, is far easier to pronounce and to spell).  It's also a bridge to Portuguese and Italian.
• Standard Chinese, says Simon Long, has the most native speakers and its economic importance is growing very fast.
• Josie Delap makes an enthusiastic aesthetic argument for Arabic:  difficult for English speakers at first, particularly because of the new script, but extremely rewarding and beautiful to learn (as well as an impressive feat).
• Helen Joyce argues for Brazilian Portuguese on the grounds that it's not very difficult, invites you to visit and work in an interesting, beautiful, and half-continent-sized nation (plus a few other places), and will help you with your Spanish/French/Italian while letting you stand out from people who've chosen those more common second languages.  
• Tim de Lisle begins by humorously stressing the lack of direct usefulness of Latin, but argues that it strengthens your linguistic "core," improves your understanding of grammar and syntax, requires rigor, and (perhaps ironically) claims it makes it harder to bullshit.  Its vocabulary is everywhere and its surviving literature is timeless.  He seems to argue that it is a great pleasure for a particular kind of nerd.

So, across these few paragraphs, we have languages defended because they are easy and also because they are difficult.  Because your language has many second-language speakers, and because it has few.  Arguments based on economic importance, and arguments that concede nearly no economic importance at all.  

It really depends on what your goal is.

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There are a few more attributes for choosing a second language that aren't mentioned in here, which I would add.   Mine are:

• Ease of accessing resources to learn a specific language in your town
• Number of native speakers living near you
• Closeness to English on the language family tree (which brings a kind of "easiness" that is distinct from the sort Latinate languages have).

I never really thought about these three much until two things happened in our family.  

First, something just for me:  I decided that for no reason other than personal interest, I wanted to learn a non-Indo-European language.  I wanted to explore a grammar that behaved sufficiently differently from the other languages I knew to give me a broader understanding of human beings' relationship to language, and see how different words worked together to create idioms. 

 In Minnesota overall, the non-Indo-European language that's spoken most widely is Hmong; but in my city, Minneapolis, public school students are much more likely to speak Somali at home than Hmong.  (In fact, they are nearly as likely to speak Somali as Spanish.)   That plus the convenience of not having to learn a new alphabet made it an obvious choice.  Not only do I have the chance to encounter native speakers regularly, but there are materials available which have been produced for Somali speakers:  signage, library books, newspapers, a radio station.   So even though my progress is fairly slow, as I work in my spare time through an imperfect text and meet a small study group monthly, I constantly get little affirmations from overheard snippets of conversation, from "thank yous" and "good mornings," and from being able to pick out words from signs and newsprint.  I don't know if I'll ever be able to have a real conversation, but I am enjoying the journey.

 

Second, for one of my offspring, who begged to be allowed to quit Latin.  We all learn Latin at home because (being dead, and pronunciation and conversation unimportant) it's really well suited to the homeschool.  Most of the kids enjoy it, but one of mine... didn't.  He didn't have a particular desire to converse in a modern language either; he was struggling, and he needed something easier, because some language in high school is required for college.  "Anything but Latin!" he told me.  

Well, if "anything but Latin" will do, then I was free to find something that would be relatively easy to arrange. 

I speak French passably, read it fluently, and could probably have scraped together the time to teach it.  But I suspected that "Anything but Latin" also served, for him, as a tactful way to express "Anything but learning more language from you, Mom, who is a complete language nerd and can't deal with the fact that I find this really difficult."

So I looked outward, and discovered relatively inexpensive Saturday-morning classes in Swedish, of all things, within walking distance of our house.

Swedish doesn't hit many of the reasons from the article for why an English speaker would want to learn it.  It doesn't have global importance; its native-speaking population is small and almost entirely living in Sweden and Finland; fewer than 60,000 people living in the U. S. speak it at home (although, granted, a lot of them are probably living in Minnesota).   Finally, Swedes themselves overwhelmingly learn English and have even been called the "best in the world" at speaking it.

What it does have going for it -- besides the convenience of having classes available, and the fact that it is possible to supplement with commonly available commercial and online learning programs -- is ease.    Although there's definitely grammar and vocabulary to learn, Swedish is possibly the easiest language for an English speaker to acquire.  And that is exactly what my son needed.  He has realized that learning a foreign language is something he can do.  And, surprising to both of us, he actually enjoys it.

It's also slightly quirky, an unusual choice for an American kid with no Swedish heritage, and I think he enjoys that.   He had a fun time seeking out and greeting a small collection of very surprised Swedes at World Youth Day in Panamá.  We have a photo of him posing with them, grinning and holding the Swedish flag.

I'm just saying, sometimes making it as easy as possible is the right thing to do.  There is no shame in that.

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So, to sum up, what I've said before:  Really considering what you'd like to get out of a language, honestly -- whether it's "I want to read cool literature" or whether it's "I just need the minimum possible so that I can get into college" -- is key.

Title goes here.

And now for something completely different.

A bit more than a week ago, the curated collection of interesting women scientists among the users in my Twitter feed lit up with a new hashtag:  #ImmodestWomen.  A few clicks and I came to the origin, a UK historian named Dr. Fern Riddell.  

She — along with a number of other academics — had tweeted a criticism of the Canadian Globe and Mail’s new style guideline (link goes to the Twitter thread she was referring to):  in the paper’s articles, health care professionals were to be referred to as “Dr So-and-so” on second reference (including some medical professionals for whom, in the UK, bachelor’s level training is sufficient).  Other doctorate holders were to be referred to as Mr./Miss/Ms./Mrs. Such-and-such on second reference, even when being interviewed on the topic of their specific scholarly expertise.   

To make a long story short, although rather a lot of academics weighed in on the topic, Dr. Riddell found herself the target of a storm of Twitter invective. Some of it abusive, much of it gendered.  I think you would have to analyze the data to be certain.  I do get the distinct impression that, while lots of people might hold the opinion that an academic title is unnecessary or even mildly offensive, more of them are willing to get on with their lives when the “Dr.” has replaced a “Mr.” than when it apparently replaces “Miss/Ms./Mrs.”  

Twitterer @RalphHarrington made an illustration of some of the replies that Dr. Riddell got:

 

Anyway, one of the tweetstormers accused Dr. Riddell of “immodesty,” she made the hashtag, and it took off; a lot of women decided to come along for the ride.  Temporarily or permanently, they changed their Twitter names to include their earned doctoral titles (along with some who added other professonal titles,  “Rev.” or “Rabbi,” and one scholar I remember who changed hers to include everything she qualified for:  I think the full string included “Dr.” and “Mrs.” and “Rev.” and “OBE.”)  There were also quite a lot of cheers and supportive tweets from women and men who use different titles or no titles at all, a number of people subscribing quite simply to the “call people what they wish to be called” ethic and also of the “titles are not really necessary but if you are going to use them you should use one that is accurate,” ethic, too; a handful of men, many with stories of nontraditional paths to the academy; and (being international but primarily a UK thing) it was all rather jolly.  I found a good deal more women scientists (and other interesting people) to add to my timeline.  And there was some good discussion, too, about the odd complexity and (unnecessary?) fraught-ness of the whole thing.  

I joined in on the discussion, because, well, it is something I think about and on which my mind has not yet settled.  Here is an incomplete list of thoughts, tossed out quickly rather than organized:  

• I am clear with myself that I disagree with the Globe and Mail:  just because one meaning of “doctor” in English usage is a synonym for “physician,” does not mean that its other, older (and original and still current) meanings must be discarded.  And I don’t agree that the medical field is some sort of extra-special field of study that deserves to be put on a special pedestal above others.  If doctorate titles are to be discarded, fine; but why should physicians in particular  get a pass?
• I’m also aware that the systemic dis-crediting of women scholars, whether conscious or unconscious, is real; “let me introduce our panelists, Dr. Smith, Dr. Jones, and Katie” is a thing that happens, and arrangement of speakers on a dais is a thing that happens, and subtle pressure to discard outward signs of rank and expertise is a thing that happens. 
• There’s a serious discussion that can be had about the relevancy of scholarship and expertise, of ordination or military rank, or indeed of marital status, to ordinary interactions: formal and informal introductions, business cards, handwritten envelopes, adults mentoring young people who are not supposed to use the mentors’ first names.  Is it relevant, and does it matter if it’s not? 
• And there’s a serious discussion about trying to move toward egalitarianism by discarding titles:  does it help if only some people do it?   Or, if all the people in an environment discard the formal acknowledgement of their expertise (or specialization or rank), does that help or hurt the people who, not resembling the accepted model of a person with authority, relied on a formal acknowledgement of expertise as one of the tools they could wield to assert the authority they require to go about their business?   
• And what about self-perception, a sense of identity?  If I don’t feel like “Mrs.” is a name that means “me,” even after nearly twenty years of marriage, maybe I don’t have to keep trying to get used to it?  Can I not ask to be called something else from among the options available to me by ordinary English-speaking etiquette?  Whose name is it?

Some hours went by.  I kept coming back and checking the thread.  Medievalists, biologists, primary school teachers.   I had a couple of encouraging conversations.  Finally  I decided, at least temporarily, to throw in with the rest of them.  I would add the “Dr.”

On making that decision, I marveled at the internal resistance, almost dread, that rose up.  (Other people in the #ImmodestWomen hashtag commented on it.  I am not alone there.)  

Should I heed the reluctance?  Is it a kind of guilt?  Is it a kind of embarrassment?  Is it a fear?  Should I, instead of letting it tell me what to do, push through it?  It certainly doesn’t appear to be coming from reason.  

I could think of reasons, but the reluctance wasn’t from any of them.  Was it trustworthy or an error?

Unfortunately, there is no rule of thumb for gauging the wisdom of following a feeling based on its strength alone.  

The change is not irreversible; the likely consequences are small; I had been watching people add their titles to their Twitter names for a day and if I thought about these other people doing it, and not myself,  I never thought them to be unreasonable or reckless or puffed up.   It clearly is not an act that carries significant moral weight in ordinary discourse.   Also, I have enough self-awareness to know that I am prone to overthinking sometimes.  

The only thing to do for it, I decided, to recover reason, was to do an experiment:  give it a try and find out what happens—if nothing else, then perhaps I would come to understand that internal resistance a  little better.

So I did (on Twitter) and pinned the tweet,  heeding a sheepish compulsion to make clear the cause for the alteration.  As if I was saying:  Here’s why it’s okay.

More to unpack.

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Mind you:  This doesn’t change my Twitter handle:  I am @erinarlinghaus and will remain so.  The boldfaced name next to the avatar is much easier to change and change again.

I will give it some time, and report back on the outcome.   I’ve already had some fruitful discussions.  And I think I am starting to coalesce my rather diffuse thoughts about the whole thing — from the general to the personal — around a few dusty points.  Will come back to this, and in the meantime, comments are welcome.

 

The year of three languages.

Mark and the three older kids are gone camping this weekend, and Saturday was cold and drizzly, and the house was already clean because Friday I had paid a person to come clean it, so I gave the two little boys leave to play quietly and watch videos while I dove deeply into hours and hours of brain work. 

About half of it I spent on Latin---plans for teaching it---and about half I spent on Somali---at a tedious but necessary stage of learning it.

And somewhere on my mental to-do list, Swedish is lingering around, and I'm going to have to turn to this eventually, in June or so.

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Somali first.  (My most recent post on learning Somali is here, containing links to earlier posts.)

I've been cruising through the textbook at seven pages per week, aiming to hit the reading goal by the time my little study group meets again in a month.  Mainly I advance through the book all at once in a few hours on a Saturday, making flash cards as I go out of the exercises, and I review the flashcards daily thereafter.

I didn't quite make my goal last week because when I ran up against declining nouns with the definite article appended, I couldn't hold all the different rules for spelling changes in my head at once.  

Summary of what I'm trying to learn. 

• Noun cases are subject, genitive, vocative, and absolutive (think none-of-the-above).  To change the case or the number, you change the ending, mostly, and also the stress-tone pattern.
• But when you append the definite article suffix, you have to use a fifth form, called the premodifier, that is unmarked for case.  It may have a different ending, too.
• The case marker appears instead in the choice of article:  -ta, or -tíi, or -ka, or kíi, for absolutive, and -tu, or -tii, or -ku, or -kii, for subject. 
• (-t- is for feminine nouns and -k- is for masculine nouns). 
• But for sound-production reasons, depending on the ending of the noun's premodifier form, a -t- may change to a -d- and the -k- may change to a -g- or a -h- or be deleted.  Also sometimes before -k- the last vowel of the noun changes to match the vowel of the article.
• In most of the declensions, pluralizing the noun changes its ending and its gender.

So far, given a noun, I learn the singular absolutive; the plural absolutive; then I learn how to change both to the premodifier form; then I have to decide "is it masculine or feminine?"; then I have to work out whether the ending is one that requires changing the -t- or -k- to something else; finally, if it's a -k-, whether I need to change a vowel too. 

(I'll get into the difference between, say, -ku and -kii, some other time.  I haven't entirely learned it.  The latter is kind of like a demonstrative, but with some additional layers.)

So, I didn't do very well on my first set of exercises, and I decided yesterday that what I really needed was to write out a whole lot of nouns from all seven declensions, one case and number at a time, so I could see the patterns.  Then I could sort the nouns in each declension into groups according to what happened to their endings.

Behold!  Ecce!  Waa kan!   I have about ten pages of this, organized by declension and number.

 

The issue here is that the book teaches the organization of nouns in a way that isn't the way I've had success in other languages.  I need to mentally hang each new noun on a "hook" that's, essentially, "nouns that decline just like this one."  There are more hooks in Somali than there are in Latin or French, but otherwise the process is essentially the same.  

So my next step is a Big Sort, and then I can start thinking about nouns, "Well, this one declines like saaxibad" and I'll be able to start hanging them up one at a time.

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Okay, moving on to Latin.  I'm going to save most of this for another series of posts, but I spent a lot of yesterday working out how to put all the different pieces of next year's Latin goals together.  I really, really love Lingua Latina, the curriculum I've now switched to, and the kids are enjoying it a lot; but it's super freeform compared to the Mother of Divine Grace lesson plans for Henle Latin , which I used with the kids who are now graduating.   

Last time, I needed the structure of MODG/Henle when I was learning along with the kids.  MODG's spiral-bound syllabus literally laid out exactly what the student was to do every single day, five days a week (which vocabulary to drill, which charts to recite, which grammar concepts to read about, which exercises to do) and had a complete set of quizzes and tests.  It's also set up for self-teaching.  

But the approach of Lingua Latina is much more fun for the next batch of kids (ages 11-15 now).  And I've got enough Latin under my belt that I can actually guide them through it.  (A motivated, language-loving, puzzle-solving sort of person could probably self-teach with it, but for all others it's better to have a guide.)  Incidentally, LL is fairly popular as a two-semester college course, which means that for me it will function as a two-year high school course and so I can get through about half of it next year.  I have a five-chapter head start so I'll do half of what's left, i.e., chapters VI through XX.

Anyway, besides working through the text, I need to do assessments, form drills, grammar reviews, some English grammar teaching, and additional cultural/historical stuff.  And figure out the best way to fit it into each week of two 90-minute classes (each class in two sessions with a break between) and two homework assignments.  So yesterday was Massive Spreadsheet Time, but everything I put in was a placeholder; later I have to go in and work out what pages to read for each assignment, etc.

I've generally worked out that I'll do each chapter in four class periods:  introduction, text, text, followup; introduction, text, text, followup.  We'll see if I can fit all the bits for each class into one 90-minute period plus one homework assignment.  

Don't @ me for putting in my spreadsheet, e.g., "Show me exercitia" instead of "Show me exercitiam."  I can't code-switch that quickly when I'm trying to organize.

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OK now, Swedish.

Not much advancement in that area, just a little tickle in the brain, but I'm pulling together the resources to pull one of my kids out of Latin and enroll him in adult language classes at the American Swedish Institute, which is a 30 minutes' walk from my house. 

The American Swedish Institute.

This is a classic case of Adapting the Homeschool to a Child's Specific Needs.  He is having a rough time of it in Latin with the other three kids, and he's not enjoying it at all.  Having dabbled with him in other languages here and there, I'm convinced that the problem isn't just that he Hates Latin; he is going to have to work disproportionately hard on any language, certainly harder than he wants to.

But... foreign language is not entirely optional.  Two years are required for freshman admissions at most four-year-colleges he might apply to.  Although there are of course numerous other options out there besides freshman admission into a four-year, he wants to have a shot at this path, and so we need to find a way to hit that minimum.  

So, this has been a mini-epiphany for me, the kind of person who always felt ashamed to be anything other than The Best or at least Near The Top.

Sometimes... the most important thing is hitting the minimum, and doing so with the least damage to other parts of the whole person.

And when you shift your focus from "what is the absolute optimal learning experience we can have, with the most joy and excitement and fascination and love of learning?" to "what is the best way for us to hit the minimum requirements?" --- you often wind up going in an entirely different direction.

I'll save some of that for another post, probably after we've gone to the ASI and had our introductory Swedish class.  Anyway, the point now is that I am trying to plan so that he can earn his two credits at half-pace, over four years.  I only have a vague idea at this point of how it's going to work, and to some extent we are at the mercy of the class schedule, which hasn't come out yet. 

So the extent of my preparation is a lot of muttering of  Please please please don't let his only choice be Monday evenings.  

This is going to be a very linguistic year.

Language teaching milestone, and musings on teaching what you aren't qualified for.

A Milestone, upon which I will give my two cents:

On Friday, I wrote and hit "Send" on the very last assignment for the fourth year of high school Latin, at least for this particular cohort.

I've been teaching Latin to a small group that included my oldest and H's oldest since they were about nine years old.  (I started with my oldest when he was seven; here's the proof.)  I can barely believe that after this week I won't be sending them any more assignments.

I didn't take Latin in high school or college. I majored in engineering, not classics. I was an absolute beginner when we started, just like them---with the advantage that I had plenty of experience learning one language, namely French. 

But I got a couple of kids all the way from beginner stuff through high school Latin IV, by dint of staying a few steps ahead ahead of them in homeschool curricula, and searching for things I didn't know whenever I realized I needed more information. 

And, of course, by buying books.

Behold, most of the books I used (or at least bought) over the years to teach myself and the kids (that's an aluminum meter stick in the picture for scale):

(Not shown:  books that fell apart, books I couldn't find this morning, books still in my teenager's school bag, online resources that didn't cost me anything, and a few months' subscription to https://aeneid.co/ .)

Now the money question:  Did I do an adequate job?

Did I satisfy the relevant goals and purposes of learning a foreign language in high school?  (See here for a discussion.)

Did they learn it well, compared to how they might have done in an institutional school?

Well, I wasn't able to talk either of them into taking the AP^® Latin exam, but they did sit for the National Latin Exam every year and always scored pretty close to the national "par"; a couple of times one or the other earned a certificate or a medal by scoring above average.  If either of them ever sits for a placement test for college, I'll let you know.

Their grammar work definitely interlaced with their work in English grammar and rhetoric, and their studies of literature, culture, and history interlaced with the heavily-classical program of literature study that H. designed for them.  (Ninth-grade English literature was practically all ancient authors, plus Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.).

At the advanced levels, they translated and read a lot of Caesar, read a big chunk of Vergil, and dabbled in the translation and reading of an assortment of other writers:  off the top of my head:  Horace, Catullus, Ovid, Pliny, Eutropius, probably a dozen more.  They liked some more than others.  

Both are thinking seriously about college-level language study now:

• My son has already corresponded with freshman advisors and decided that if he has to take any language in college, he'll start with a 200-level Latin class that provides a comprehensive grammar review followed by studying Ovid's Metamorphoses, which we've only dabbled in at home.  

• H's son is studying modern Italian on his own and hopes to continue.   Motivation?  A beloved uncle has married an Italian citizen and moved to Sardinia to start a family.  He's already remarked on the head start that Latin gave him for this.

Finally---I can't be sure of this, because they are kind young men who don't complain to me much---but I think they enjoyed themselves.

I definitely enjoyed myself.

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Anyway, all this is to say: There's this idea that you have to know a subject to teach a subject. Sometimes that's true; but another way is for a lead-learner to set the pace and learn alongside the other students. 

(Psst:  Eventually, the boys got better at parts of it than I did.  They spent much more time doing homework problems; I could cheat with the answer key.)

Let me be clear:  I had a lot of advantages that not everyone would have here:

• It helps to be interested in the subject.
• It helps to have experience with self-teaching.  (I do.)
• It helps to be motivated to help the kids succeed.
• It helps to be rich in resources, time, and connections, all of which I have the privilege of enjoying.  (How much do you think those books cost me, in money and time?  How many of my friends who have studied Latin or classics do you think I reached out to for a question now and again?)

I would never call it an easy way to do things.

But I'd also never call it impossible, at least not with sufficient support.  And don't forget, you always get to ask for help.

If you get a takeaway from this, here's what I suggest: Don't talk, ever, as if it's necessary to hold an external qualification in x, y, or z to help your kid learn it at home.

Don't say it about yourself, and don't say it about other people.

Seriously:  I never want to hear you say "Oh, I'm not qualified" or "Do you really think you're qualified?"

There may be obstacles, but there's no reason to add to them by giving voice, unnecessarily, to a certainty of failure that isn't certain at all.

(Behold the closeups you're going to ask me for.  Left to right:)

 

 

 

 

Af-Soomaali, continued.

You may remember that I have been studying the Somali language -- here are a few previous posts about it.

I took a series of twelve two-hour continuing-education classes at  the closest community college.   The pedagogy was... all over the place?  The instructor didn't really come in with a detailed syllabus, a pre-existing idea of what one should learn,  or a plan with more than minimal structure. 

But what he was, and this I think is more valuable than an organized syllabus, was friendly, approachable, generous, patient, and interesting.  After the very first class, when he had a lecture prepared about the historical, geographical, and cultural background of the language, he took a very casual approach. He came in and chatted with us.  We had a textbook, we asked "how do you say such-and-such a thing?" and he answered.  We took notes.   We learned about the culture of the Somali diaspora.  We heard his views of the challenges facing members (especially children) of that community here in Minneapolis.  We talked about the vocabulary needed by health care providers, elementary school teachers, and social workers.  

It wasn't like other language classes I have taken, and it wasn't what I thought I wanted  going in, but I think it had the most important things I needed. 

I can, after all, study grammar from books and written material, pretty well on my own.  But I was stalled without a chance to have a real conversation with a native speaker of Somali.  I'm not going to accost a random person at the YMCA or bus stop and ask them to do free labor, and (not being all that fond of small talk even in English) I'm not confident enough even to break out  the "please" "thank you" "I'm so sorry I stepped on your foot."  

So it was really helpful to be able to pay someone to set up a formal relationship where I could ask very basic questions, and where I could hear speech, slowed down for my benefit, while the speaker wrote the words on the board and showed where the syllables began and ended.  

+ + +

Having got a dose of interaction with the spoken language, and a sense for the flexibility of the grammar and spelling in natural language, I feel ready to invest time in working on vocabulary and grammar independently.   If I manageto reach a point where I can't get any farther without additional instruction from a native speaker, I'll look for another tutor. 

(Meanwhile, I have the email address of the previous instructor, who implored us to email him if we have any questions later.  I do not take the value of this invitation for granted.)

+ + +

Studying Somali has already paid off for me as a homeschooling parent, I think.  I love languages, and some of my children have progressed very well in Latin and even gone on to dabble in other languages for fun with free resources like Duolingo; but not all of my children. 

I have one young person who seems not to be able to hold vocabulary and grammar in his head, nor to recognize cognates when he sees them.  It's been very frustrating for all of us, not the least for me because learning Latin (at least in the early stages) was easy for me.  So it's been very hard for me to understand how to help him; what worked for me hasn't worked for him, and it's tempting in the moment to believe it's because he has the wrong attitude, unhelpful study habits, poor work ethic, etc.   It's also tempting to just stop teaching him, but unfortunately persisting through a couple of years of world language classes is an entrance requirement for pretty much all colleges around here.  To give in to either of those temptations would be to do him a real disservice.

I have to say, starting from scratch in an almost totally unfamiliar language with few recognizable cognates gave me a necessary dose of empathy and humility.  I had almost forgotten how hard it can be to learn something completely new.   It's probably not enough empathy -- I still like working on hard learning for fun, and I can't easily put myself in the shoes of someone who is being made to learn something they aren't interested in learning*, but it is a start. 

I remember reading the teacher-philosopher John Holt's recounting of this side effect of taking up the cello as an adult.  I hope it helps me help this particular kid.**

 + + +

A general resource for language learning that's a quick read and contains all the obvious advice as well as some novel tips is Fluent Forever by Gabriel Wyner.  (He also has a website with lots of free helps, and apparently is trying to get an app backed on Indiegogo.)   

I read Wyner's book because I was looking for new ideas, and also because a classmate in Somali 1 mentioned he had a master list of 600-some words that he suggested learning in any target language as a start. 

The 625-word list is here --- I think it could probably be improved on, but it's not a bad place for anyone to begin, especially if they're willing to adapt it to languages coming from different cultures (e.g. where it makes sense to have the word for "camel" on the list of common animals).

The most helpful things the book has introduced to me so far: 

• the very well-designed flashcard application Anki
• the pronunciation website Forvo.

Anki:  You can read about, and download, Anki here.  The desktop application is free, supported by a relatively expensive mobile app (worth every penny to me).  There are other, cheaper, and quicker-to-learn flashcard apps out there---I've been using Quizlet with the kids for Latin for a long time---but Anki is so much more powerful and l that I'm probably going to switch at least some of my homeschooled language students (such as the kid who's having difficulties) as soon as I can teach them how to use it.  

Although it doesn't (yet?) have game-like aspects, Anki is superior to free Quizlet for two big reasons:  first, because it allows you to include photos and audio files (more on those below), but second and most importantly, because it automatically presents flashcards to you at variable intervals based on how well you have learned them; you don't have to have the discipline to work out the schedule yourself.

Furthermore, Gabriel Wyner is offering among his free resources a few templates for useful Anki flash cards which helped me get very quickly up to speed.   These range from simple picture-word cards for learning concrete vocabulary terms, to more complicated flash cards that have you insert the correct ending for a partly-blanked-out conjugated verb.  The template for creating an "all-purpose card" looks like this:

All you have to do is fill in the fields, and it generates at least one card for you, plus the "reversed" card and (if you wish) a third card that presents an audio file and asks you to produce the correct spelling.

Forvo:  Speaking of audio files, the website Forvo.com has downloadable audio files of native speakers producing individual words.   Not only is it fun to browse, but you can insert the sound files into Anki flash cards to practice your spelling and pronunciation.  You'll have many more words available to you if your target language is widely spoken (Forvo's searchable Swedish lexicon numbers more than 114,000 words; its Somali lexicon, small enough to be presented as a list, has only 165), but even a small collection can help your ear.  I made several dozen audio flash cards in Somali.  

+ + +

So I've been using Anki daily to make and review vocabulary and grammar.  I'm drawing a lot of the grammar examples from my (sadly, rather expensive) textbook, Colloquial Somali by Martin Orwin.

It's a pretty standard grammar text designed for self-study, with exercises (all the answers are in the back), accompanying audio files available for free download from the publisher, and a decent if limited glossary.

One thing I've been doing differently is turning most of the exercises into flashcards.  I don't know why I've never done this before.  It's really, really helpful.  Wyner's book has some advice about how to make flashcards to learn grammar concepts, and I've been putting them into practice here for the first time.

+ + +

I'm sure someone will want to know by now what I've learned so far.   I've been introduced to a fair amount, but I would say that what I've learned can be summed up as follows:

• how to pronounce words from their spellings (granting that I can only approximate the pharyngeal fricatives)
• a dozen or so verbs, maybe a hundred nouns, and a handful of stock phrases ("good morning," "what is it?," "here you are")
• the endings for the present progressive tense and the general past tense in the first verb conjugation 
• how  to form plurals in the first three noun declensions
• how to make simple questions and declarative statements using subject pronouns with verbs and direct objects

The next thing up for me is how to use the definite article. 

I'm also occasionally looking at text written in Somali and trying to pick out words I know, or identify verbs and nouns; browsing Somali Wikipedia and the Somali-language online resources of Minnesota Public Radio; and I'm trying not to be noticed while eavesdropping on unwitting bystanders who are speaking Somali into their phones within earshot (the words for "yes" and "no" jump right out to me***, but nothing else does at this point).

I'll update this now and again, I hope.  Practically speaking, I've turned a corner:  I've started picking up the Somali book and thumbing to the flashcards in order to procrastinate some other task I ought to be doing, which means I'm likely to keep moving forward daily, or at least every day that there's laundry to be done.

Now if only I could transfer that last skill to my reluctant language-learning child.

____

*there was that one time I had to take a graduate course in rheology thanks to having passed my oral prelims "with reservations" expressed by the department's chief rheologist

** Next year, we're switching him from Latin to a modern language, probably Swedish.  I look forward to writing about how that goes.  Also to learning Swedish.

*** "haa" and "maya"

 

Unexpected language study tip.

On Sunday afternoon I left the house, because that is the easiest way for me to concentrate:  stuffed a bag full of notebooks and pens, and headed to the car. 

My favorite places to work are coffee shops that serve food.  Restaurants want to turn over the table; ordinary coffee shops can leave you stuck with nothing but a croissant should you require sustenance.  What’s perfect is a place where I can spread my books over the table, drink coffee and work for a while, then wander up to the counter and order soup and a half sandwich, then stay drinking pots of herbal tea and scritching in my notebooks until I am good and ready to leave.

+ + +

I was muttering frustratedly to myself when the server brought me my grilled cheese and vegan butternut-squash soup and set it down in front of the chair opposite, where there was room among my books and papers.  She leaned over to remove the little flag with its take-a-number card, glanced down, and said, “Oh!  You’re studying Somali!  That’s so cool!  I know how to say a little bit, we had a workshop at work.”

”I literally just started,” I told her.  “I had my second class this week.”

”Where are you taking classes?”  I named the local community college.  “It’s a continuing ed program,” I said, “not for credit.”

”I heard that you could take it there,” she said.  “But it costs money, right?”

“Yes.  Not as much as taking it for university credit, though.  Six classes were, uh, something like $140.”  

“How’s it going?”  She had tucked the table flag under her arm.  

I put down my pen.  “Good, I think!  Like I said, I really have only just gotten started.  The first class was historical and cultural background information, mostly, and now I’m trying to learn how to pronounce the new consonants.”  

 

"Yes!"  she said excitedly.  "Some of those are really hard.  I know how to say 'my name is' and I had to practice that one with my coworker who speaks Somali.  Magacaygu Brittany.  She told me to say 'ma-ga' and then" [here she leaned back, lowered her eyelids and gave two thumbs up] "'ayyyyyyy!'  Maga-ayy!gu Brittany."  

She picked up some mugs from the neighboring table.  "Well!  Good luck!  Have fun!" and bustled back to the kitchen.

I looked down at my paper.

C - Voiced fricative pharyngeal.

Magacaygu.  Magacaygu Erin.

"Maga-ayygu."

 Who says there's no voiced fricative pharyngeal in English?

+ + +

Do you remember learning to whistle?  I barely do, but I've been watching my 8yo do it for a month or so.  I showed him how to purse his lips and put his tongue, and he worked until he got the faintest little hint of a whistle when he blew.  "Start there, and keep trying," I told him.  I've been noticing him walking about the house puffing and working his mouth, the little whistles getting stronger and stronger; he's controlling it better and better as he goes.  Now that he's adjusting his lips and tongue and diaphragm in response to the feedback he gets from his own ears, he's improving; but he needed to learn how to make that thin, high near-whistle before he could even start practicing on his own.

I'll have to check with the instructor next class... but perhaps my waitress's channeling of the Fonz will give me a place to start, at least with the letter C.