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#but i want!! to learn it!!! and read poetry in khmer and be able to understand more of my family n what they say
qqueenofhades · 1 year
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How did you learn those languages, and how long did it take?
I started with French early, since both my parents speak it and it was generally the foreign language studied in my house. (My little sister did her year abroad in Paris and now lives in Asia, and is fluent in French, Urdu, Khmer, and Korean, so between the two of us, we could... probably get around most of the world.) I went to Normandy with my mom in 2009 and we did most of it in French. I then went to Poitiers in 2018 for a research trip to the university. Despite a few minor misunderstandings, I was generally able to speak it well enough to get around town and not have to use English. I also work on French history and read a lot of it in French.
I studied Italian for a year in high school (though I can't say that I remember as much of it as I should), and I live in a city that generally uses both English and Spanish in notices/exhibits/daily life etc. As noted, if you know one Romance language, you have a head start on reading/learning the other ones. For example, I went to Romania and despite knowing not a word going in, by the end of the week I was able to understand most of the street signs and have a short conversation with a barista in Romanian. Ditto in Germany, though German is, well, German.
I took a Latin intensive in the first year of my PhD, and as I have said before, there is no better feeling than walking past a Latin classroom and knowing that you do not have to go in. I also have a whole bunch of "Reading Medieval Latin" and similar textbooks that I refrain from opening if at all possible. I can usually sight-read formulaic texts like charters and documents, when the wording is standardized and you know what to expect, but Latin poetry etc would defeat me. I can get the sense of it, but in-depth and grammatically nuanced translation would take me a long time.
I decided to teach myself how to read Cyrillic during the first COVID lockdown in 2020, so I did. It didn't take that long; I did a few weeks of intense memorization and repetition and after that, was good to go (though I have to read long words, and they are ALL long words, letter by letter). As such, because the Cyrillic alphabet is based on Greek, I am able to recognize a few Greek letters, but I need to teach myself the Greek alphabet in more detail. I could have learned Greek during my master's degree, since there was a foreign language study requirement and Greek was one of the languages they offered, but I just took the French proficiency test in the last few weeks before graduating (don't uh, don't do this kids), since I already knew that one and didn't want to do another language at the time. Which, of course, I now regret (along with not doing at least some Latin in undergrad), but there you have it.
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The “Truth About SPD” Interview: With Real Life SPD Volunteer Shiloh Jines
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1. Hi! Can you tell you us a little bit about what you do when you're not saving SPD's ass by volunteering in the warehouse? I finished my MFA in Creative Writing and Book Art three months ago, so I’ve just been working on surviving economically in Oakland (I moved here from East Tennessee to attend Mills College three years ago). I’ve invested so much in the idea that poetry, handmade books, & independent publishing can change lives & form a resistance to capitalism— I feel a deep need to find a job/career that aligns with these values. So, for the past eight months I’ve been working at E.M. Wolfman Bookstore, learning from one of my all-time hero’s, Justin Carder (the mastermind behind Wolfman Books), about the business of community building through art, books, & bookstores. By physically being in the store, (first as a resident, then later as an employee) I’ve met some of the kindest, genuinely invested people I know— face to face by having conversations about life, love, books, movies, music & so much more.   In order to pay my rent & not burn through stashed loan money, I started working at another independent Oakland Bookstore, A Great Good Place for Books. This bookstore, like Wolfman Books, is ran by just one person, Kathleen Caldwell. She is greatly loved & respected by the folks of Montclair, & is really a force of nature when it comes to bookselling & knowing what her people love to read. While both of these jobs are minimum wage & part-time, I believe that they will bring me closer to where I want to be by forging meaningful, accountable relationships with people who are dedicated to improving the quality of individual lives through reading. 2. Tell us one thing you really love apart from small press literature.   I really love hearing a poem read aloud for the first time in a packed room full of people & crying. For a moment, being able to let go of the extreme anxiety of being surrounded by strangers, & feel closer than ever to some kind of cutting poetic truth. Actually, the last time this happened was a reading at SPD; I watched my mentor & former professor, Stephanie Young perform a love song. She was crying too, maybe everyone was crying that day. I’m beginning to cry thinking of her then, fighting her way through her poem, her grief. 3. While you're at it, why do you care about small press literature? I care about small press literature pretty much for the same reasons I care about independent bookstores—they allow underrepresented folks to survive & continue to form anti-capitalist counter-cultural communities. Small Press Literature is also what I consider to be the physical currency (in book form) of a usually non-hierarchical, gift-centered economy. Given that most lit folks, or post-university folks know how completely bust, racist, & gendered the academic American learning institutions are now, I think they are still willing to loosely invest in the idea of independent small press operations. 4. What is one literary thing you're really excited about in the Bay Area right now? Sometimes I find it difficult to wrap my head around the idea of “literary,” I don’t know if something that is anti-literary is still essentially literary, I don’t know if literary means “books written by people who attended institutions.” If I had to pick one literary thing I’m excited about, it’s the poets & artists who have passed through Mills College in some capacity. I’m not praising Mills as an institution, just the folks who have lived through it or continue to fight &/ survive within it. Stephanie, Cheena, Zoe, Brittany, Ivy, Kate…just a few to begin with, who showed me kindness as some point or another, without even knowing me really. 5. What is one thing you've learned while volunteering for SPD (this doesn't have to be positive, or even serious) I’ve learned that I 100% judge books by their covers. Sorry Books! 6. What is your least favourite song and most favourite song you've heard playing in the warehouse during your shift? Sometimes, we will just be listening to whatever is on the Berkeley radio, & it turns out there is a Christian music hour that comes on. Everyone, for a solid thirty minutes remained silent, trying to respect that there was a chance that one of us enjoyed Christian rock. Finally, Katherine was like—is anyone actually listening to this? It’s giving me awful flashbacks to the first church I went to with a rock band. Katherine & I are both from Tennessee, & have bonded over our terrifying childhood experiences growing up in the south. So, whatever the hell that song was—it was by far my least fav listening experience, ha. Katherine promptly switched it out for a mixed CD a friend sent her that was filled with 60’s Cambodian Psych Pop Rock songs, which is probably my fav listening experience so far. When I asked her later about what she was playing, she said, “Cambodian Psych Pop Rock,” & that “the era was bangin with the psych and garage scene until Pol Pot killed all of the musicians.” I kinda thought this was a figure of speech, because I had no clue about Cambodian history, but it turns out that Cambodian musicians, nearly 90% of them were executed under Pol Pot’s rule, music censorship via genocide. Check out Ros Sereysothea, “Queen with the Golden Voice.”  According to Wikipedia, she died during Democratic Kampuchea's regime of the Khmer Rouge but circumstances of her fate remain a mystery. 7. If you had to write a listicle for SPD CLICKHOLE, what would it be? Hmmm, probably… Spring Fever/ Spring Equinox/Feel No guilt in Your Desire ~Top 10 Hot & Bothered Lit Books~ 8. Match one SPD book (any SPD book) to an album or song you love. Cunt Norton by Dodie Bellamy to Live Through This by Hole. ;))) 9. What is one hope you have for our literary world? (It is okay if you have none.) That (at least the subversive undercurrent in American lit world) manages to Resist Fascism through supporting small press communities dedicated to the distribution of anti-racist, gender-defiant books (among lots of other hopes which involve holding each other [accountable] listening, healing, etc.) 10. What is your favourite flavor of ice cream? I really love Rocky Road ice cream, ooo & cherry vanilla, but with actual vanilla ice cream & chunks of cherry.
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