language

so, as many of you probably know or could guess, i will be (and have begun) learning a new language this year. well, this new language is also only spoken in one country (slovakia, obviously), although it is similar (i believe an appropriate comparison would be spanish and portuguese) to czech and a few other slovak languages. it is also written with roman lettering (only with added marks to what we use in english). this would seem easier, but it means that the two languages i already know (spanish and english) are more likely to get confused with slovak than something like hebrew would. i am working on it though, and i hope to soon have a solid grasp (and to be able to easily identify) the differences in gendering of nouns between spanish and slovak.

anyway, that's a lot of talk about things most of you probably don't care about, but here's what i have to say about language:

not only am i learning slovak (because i am actually interested in learning it as well as because i think it is important to learn the language when you are in a new place), but i will also probably be learning at least some romani, the language spoken (in varying dialects) amongst the roma people. the language is fairly similar to slovak, so hopefully that will help. i have been working on the language, and although i can't really understand your average slovak speaker (they're much to fast for me), i think that we as a group probably know more than we think we do. we have some basic grammar rules down and we're working on the vocab, so we'll see how it all shakes out in the end.

anyway, this is a fairly random post, but i'm excited about the language learning, and the window it will give me into a new culture and so very many new stories:-D so, tomorrow i'm off to rankovce, slovakia to finally start (for the last time, since i've already started twice before: leaving colorado and again leaving the u.s.a.) my adventure and my journey of stories.