I love languages and language history! When I learn a new language I love tracing the history of words as they've traveled. It's fascinating particularly for food. Related Korean and Tamil seem to have a cluster of words that are the same e.g. Amma, Appa though research is unclear whether there is a real link or it's a co-incidence.
Separately, it's interesting having a child or partner (in my case both) that speak languages I don't understand and also don't understand languages that are meaningful to me but such is life in a multi-cultural family.
yes! many similar korean/tamil words including slang for...butt. hehe. about 1300 cognates, apparently.
when i first started learning "postpositional particles" in korean, i actually made a chart mapping tamil to korean, because that was a much better way of understanding the grammar.
thank you for sharing 🌞 and good luck on the Korean language journey! I was surprised to learn that it is one of the few languages that’s grown in interest in the US (most other languages have declined in learners)
thanks for writing such a lovely essay! and yes, so much comprehensible input means so much interest. sk gov is so good at soft power, hallyu wave forever.
Thank you!! Downloading it now. And another great fiction book I should have included is Katie Kitamura’s Intimacies — it’s a novel about an interpreter in the International Criminal Court in The Hague, language plays a huge role. Would love to know what you think about it.
I finally read Intimacies. I enjoyed it! Thanks for the recommendation. After working for so long in tech, I find it refreshing / unsettling (but also a bit too navel gazing?) to read such sensitive observations about human behavior and in-depth exploration of one character's inner monologue.
I love languages and language history! When I learn a new language I love tracing the history of words as they've traveled. It's fascinating particularly for food. Related Korean and Tamil seem to have a cluster of words that are the same e.g. Amma, Appa though research is unclear whether there is a real link or it's a co-incidence.
Separately, it's interesting having a child or partner (in my case both) that speak languages I don't understand and also don't understand languages that are meaningful to me but such is life in a multi-cultural family.
yes! many similar korean/tamil words including slang for...butt. hehe. about 1300 cognates, apparently.
when i first started learning "postpositional particles" in korean, i actually made a chart mapping tamil to korean, because that was a much better way of understanding the grammar.
thank you for sharing 🌞 and good luck on the Korean language journey! I was surprised to learn that it is one of the few languages that’s grown in interest in the US (most other languages have declined in learners)
thanks for writing such a lovely essay! and yes, so much comprehensible input means so much interest. sk gov is so good at soft power, hallyu wave forever.
For a dystopian take on learning languages, I recommend "The Centre" by Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi. I think you'll like it!
Thank you!! Downloading it now. And another great fiction book I should have included is Katie Kitamura’s Intimacies — it’s a novel about an interpreter in the International Criminal Court in The Hague, language plays a huge role. Would love to know what you think about it.
I finally read Intimacies. I enjoyed it! Thanks for the recommendation. After working for so long in tech, I find it refreshing / unsettling (but also a bit too navel gazing?) to read such sensitive observations about human behavior and in-depth exploration of one character's inner monologue.
Did you know there is a reddit on language learning? (I guess there is a reddit for everything). The other day, I found this conversation quite relatable to my experience living in the US with English as my second language: https://www.reddit.com/r/languagelearning/comments/lngwrc/the_frustration_of_being_fluent_but_not/