Last night I thought I'd check the internet to see if it was working again and Lo! it liiiiiives!!!
I've been super-busy lately. I had a French night on Sunday. Basically it was me, 3 Japanese girls who studied in France, a French couple, and one American traveller, who couldn't speak a word of French or Japanese. Poor guy!
The whole senario tested my abilities as well. See, I find it very difficult to function in 3 languages at once. I remember one time I was in Montréal, talking on the phone to my parents in Afrikaans. I was speaking English to Tom and Phil (from Scotland), who were with me, and French a moment earlier to Amélie, who we were staying with. Even just being able to hear French in the background threw me off. Like my brain would crunch to a halt and I was unable to communicate in any language other than caveman grunts. So last weekend, I tried to avoid the American, but ultimately because his translator. Anyway, there were a few moments where I had to take a break and rezone myself before continuing. I remember, at one point, breaking down in the middle of a French conversation, when someone asked me something in English and saying "chotto matte" in Japanese, when I couldn't think anymore. "Chotto matte" means "wait just a moment".
It was fun though and I think I'm (finally) getting used to the 3 languages thing. The next day, I went to the beach in Kanazawa city. There was a loud bar with many lights, which kinda looked like a circus on the sand; some people having races nearby; and a parachute landing in front of the most vivid sunset I've seen here yet.
Of course the picture doesn't do it justice. So here's another sunset pic!
1 comment:
When I was first learning Mandarin, I coined the term "foreign language mode" (this was even before embarking on my technical journey into the land of linguistics), because I found that anytime I couldn't think of a word in Mandarin, I'd automatically replace it with the French equivalent, not the English one. I also coined the term "parachute sunset" to describe sunsets with parachutes landing. (just kidding about that last part - i only wish i'd seen such a thing!)
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