More specifically concerning: language learning
levity
8 January 2012, around 15.47.
We are at last reduced to talking about the weather. I suppose it must happen eventually, when you are learning a language – talking about the weather. It is more than collection of vocabulary and predictions, though; we haven’t anything else to talk about. Daily routines, general likes and dislikes, grammatical particularities, and the answers […]
no fuss no muss
12 February 2012, around 12.40.
Repetition and cross-cultural echoes.
those unheard
4 January 2017, around 6.13.
…she was like a book without any pictures. In other words, the kind of person who, unless you brought your whole soul to bear in reading them, would remain forever unknowable (116). A fall through the ice shapes the story. It is dramatic, inexplicable – and unexplained. The narrator is walking a dog, and then, […]
too dark to read
6 August 2018, around 17.13.
It is strange, this land of dogs. A cat may occur in secret, but the dog translates one into a different culture, which runs parallel but only partially visible to the commonplace of books and walks and cemeteries. Strangers speak to me now on the street, wanting to greet the dog, needing apologies when the […]
waggle
1 June 2025, around 15.05.
Beata est ergo uita conueniens naturae suae Happy, therefore, is the life in agreement with its own nature. —Seneca (De vita beata, 3.3, trans. James Ker) In the kitchen, the dog wags her tail gently, hoping for food or attention or the assurance that she is not alone. I am again trying to track where […]
textilist
19 September 2025, around 7.20.
If you are studying a foreign language, I highly recommend keeping a diary. You might make grammar or spelling mistakes, but try not to worry too much about that and just enjoy writing as much as possible. You might find that you’re able to write freely about things that you might feel too embarrassed to […]
under a bushel
9 November 2025, around 13.46.
Do not, therefore, think that you can learn drawing, any more than a new language, without some hard and disagreeable labor. But do not, on the other hand, if you are ready and willing to pay this price, fear that you may be unable to get on for want of special talent. It is indeed […]