I won’t do this often, I swear, but last night I wrote a post on Vox in answer to their QoTD, and have been thinking about it ever since (I think I even dreamed about it), so I am going to write about it, again, here.
(QoTD stands for Question of The Day – a nice Vox feature where they pose a daily question that all Voxers are free to answer by blog if they feel like it.)
Yesterday’s question was: Play any instrument or speak any language, which do you choose?
Well, you may know by now how much I LOVE languages, so there was no question which way I would answer – I’d choose to be able to speak any language. If only there were some sort of implant or something you could have installed that would miraculously give you the ability to understand and speak any language.
I wrote the following list last night, but thought up a few more reasons why I’d love to be able to speak these languages…
German
- Rilke
- I had a German boyfriend years ago so I have very rudimentary German
Spanish
- Almodovar movies without having to rely on subtitles
- swearing sounds cool
- Cien Años de Soledad in the original
- ordering tapas like a native
Japanese
- manga
- Kurosawa movies
- Haruki Murakami
- The Tale of Genji
Dutch
- half my family speaks this language
- being able to say Van Gogh correctly
- being able to order a serve of oliebollen at a roadside vendor in Amsterdam
Russian
- Tolstoy
- Chekhov
Finnish
- coolness factor. I mean, how cool is this sentence? Näkyy tulevan sade. Ilma tuntuu kylmenevän. (“It looks like rain. The weather seems to be getting colder.”)
Shanghainese
- coolness factor.
- actually I’d love to able to speak better Cantonese, and Hokkien, Hakka, Teochiu… all the Chinese dialects!
Tamil
- sounds intriguing
- love the look of the alphabet
Korean
- Hangeul is cool
Vietnamese
- amazing sounds
French
- ooh la la!
Xhosa
- amazing click consonants
Italian
- I’d always know what all the different pastas were: orecchiette, manicotti, capellini, farfalle, cavatappi…
Swedish
Arabic
- alphabet is beautiful
And then there’s Greek, Hindi, Basque, Thai, Welsh, Yoruba, Inuit, Turkish, Javanese, Maori, Pitjantjara, Auslan… yep, I’d love to be able to speak them all!
What about you – would you want to play any instrument or speak any language?
Categories: language
14 Comments
I want to have piano lessons. But of course there’s no time to do that now – I’ve added learning piano to my huge pile of stuff to do post-PhD.
CW, what is the correct way to say ‘Van Gogh’?
Correct way to pronounce 🙂
http://www.nga.gov/sound/gogh/vangogh-dutch.wav
Being around a Dutch family all my life I could have sworn that the sound byte is slightly off in that ‘van’ is pronounced ‘vun’ and so the name would be pronounced like the english ‘vun goch’, with the ch being ‘gutteral’.
English people always pronounce it ‘van go’ which sounds terrible to me.
Oh and to the question.
Are they asking you if you could pick a single language or instrument which would you choose? or are they asking all languages or all instruments.
Anyhow I would choose any/all instruments. I always remember the delight in being able to express things in music that would never come out well through language.
Instruments and singing(tones) were a huge cathartic tool for my sad younger years. Unfortunately they would never let me learn the instrumnents that I thought I could express myself best with :/
I also want piano lessons…so many things so little time.
(FeralMB says the correct way is “Van Goch” – she is dutch!
Practising the spitting burping way of pronouncing! lol)
But tfp, under the ‘rules’ of the question, you’d KNOW how to play piano. In fact you’d able to play any instrument you pick up! It does sound appealing…
Hi Anna! It always sounds like Van Cough to me… /ducks to avoid M poking her.. 🙂
Thanks M 🙂 Now I know how it should be pronounced Van Go sounds very wrong to me too 🙂 But then I quibble at pronunciations of Beijing as Beizhing…
The question, as I interpret it, is asking which amazing skill would you want? Play any/all instruments, or speak any/all languages.
Yes TB-) it is very much like a cough trying to emerge while burping at the same time 🙂 /ducks again to avoid the Dutch speakers 🙂
Instrument for me definitely. Music has a way of speaking, that no other language can ever express. I would love to learn piano and maybe guitar, but with other priorities, I can’t see either happening in the foreseeable future.
I was born in HK and spoke only cantonese for 14 years. Being able to communicate in English now is already a dream comes true to me. =_
Any language would allow me to communicate more precisely with other people, any instrument would allow me to communicate more deeply with other people.
If it includes the voice as an instrument, and the ability to sing in tune at will, then I definitely choose play any instrument.
I’d like the flexibility of being able to “do it” with any number of people from solitary tootling to being part of a mass orchestra.
Conversation between CW and M this evening:
M: Most people interpreted the question as being about being able to play one instrument or speak one other language. Not you though…
CW: Of course not, I want to be able to speak all those languages! ALL OF THEM!!!
M: And everyone says they want to play an instrument…
CW: Yeh it’s wrong, it’s wrong I tells ya – it’s MY BLOG they should all agree with MEEEEEEEEEE…
Thus we have an example of the way my mind works on a Friday evening: silly and juvenile 🙂
I think it’d be any instrument for me 😉 I have no idea where to start even learning one, so if I didn’t have to and just knew how – super 😉 That and I also enjoy learning a new language… I don’t know how I’ll feel after I’ve mastered French, probably a little empty !
Can’t wait til you are next in Perth, tofu, so I can say “Je ne parle pas Francais” to you 😉 (yes, pathetic, I know!)
Ensuite je pourrais dire, “c’est pas grave, je peux parler en Australien aussi” 😉
Heh, I had to run that through Babel Fish just to make sure of what you were saying 😉