1st post: My languages and I

BEFORE READING: I could have written this blog in Catalan (this was my first thought), but as this is a chance to practise on my English writing skills (I do not get to practise a lot…) I will try to make my best through my English interlanguage.

I can understand that posting almost all posts lately is quite a flaw…I tried to read more before writing, to come up with new ideas on language learning. It took me a little longer than I expected. I hope the content of the blog is worth it.

Feel free to comment: I am always open to positive feedback since it encourages me to learn from my own mistakes, which is constructing knowledge. Make me wiser!

Hello everyone and welcome to my blog! 

Das Schwerste: immer wieder entdecken,

was man ohnehin weiß.“

―Elias Canetti

(‘The most difficult thing: constantly rediscovering the things one already knows.’)

My name is Lotta Fàbregues Kässler and I am writing this blog for my Language Teaching course at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, imparted by Daniel Cassany. Therefore, the writings I will post here are thought to be a review of my language history in a critical, theoretical and autobiographical way, based on the topics regarding language learning and teaching we will see in class, during this semester.

If I am allowed to do so, I would like to first define the concept of language as well as my classmate Corin (let me thank you for your fertile Guttenberg debates: “I like you. Your eyes are full of language” ― Anne Sexton) did in her blog, as I found it very necessary since we are discussing language in this course. For now, language has been a huge door to me, which has always been left open to cross, in order to acquire and share knowledge, to define the world I live in, and as the most pleasant and complex way to expand and express myself as a human being, across all stages of my life. To me, it is the key tool to understanding, which is my goal in life: learn to understand and to be understood across all kinds of human experiences. In addition, I feel lucky that I have been raised in several languages, which I would define, according to Roland Barthes, as skins:

Language is a skin: I rub my language against the other. It is as if I had words instead of fingers, or fingers at the tip of my words. My language trembles with desire.

This being said, I welcome you to caress a tiny part of what I consider my skins.

Ah, tempus fugit! What does remain of those cheerful childhood years, completely immersed in a homeostatic perception of reality… Well, I want to keep things positive: a lot! The pictures above fully represent these years of my life. Back there I must have been five or six years old (no date behind the printed pictures, we won’t blame Schleker for it). I posted them because apart from being a nice portrait of my childhood, they capture the essence of the languages I have been raised in. These languages are, basically, Catalan and Spanish on the one hand, and German on the other hand.

I was born in Barcelona, in my childhood room (dear brave mother!), in the neighbourhood of Sants-Hostafrancs. I can imagine my mother would have spoken to me German any way, but incidentally, the Teatre del Liceu was completely destroyed by a fire in 1994 which my mother translated very lovingly into a three-year-long maternity leave. Yes, you’re right: to me it was an extensive-full time German course in my home town, with private teacher! In short, that is how German became my mother tongue. Now, you might be wondering…yes, my dad was there too (let’s make him happy: dear brave dad-midwife!). And thanks to him I had another mother tongue, if I can say so, which is Catalan. He wasn’t as “lucky” as my mother with his paternity leave, but he did the best he could: “private” Catalan lessons while driving me to the Kindergarten in Gracia (in takes quite a while from Sants to Gracia…). This is another important fact regarding my first years with German: as I have mentioned, my mother was able to stay with me all day long, which is the reason why I hadn’t to go to the Kindergarten until the age of three ―it would have been more If my little sister wouldn’t have dismissed me of my Royal single-child throne, in 1997. However, my sister is one of the best things my parents could have ever done for me. She is an excellent debate companion, with whom I have enriched and worked on my Catalan proficiency.

Still, I have quite a debate in my head regarding the etiquettes I should give to those first-presented three languages. For the record, my mother tongues are German and Catalan, as well as my first languages (although German suites that better, theoretically conceived). We could say, then, that my second Language is Spanish, but at the same time, as I was raised in a plurilingual environment, I would somehow include it in the native language category (close to German and Catalan), because the “kindergarten’s language” was actually Spanish, and my friends there were, in fact, Spanish-German bilinguals (sort out the weirdest Ben&Jerry’s ice cream combination and you’ll get what my childhood, in terms of language, looked like).

However, I consider German, apart from my heritage language, the dormant language (Galloway, 1978 in Crystal, 2010). For now, it is there, silent.

If I’d have to organize my languages in “proficiency scales” the picture would, by now, look like this:

Needless to say, this varies of course since languages are dynamic and the way and frequency in which I use them are as well changing, which may move some languages to higher or lower proficiency levels. My intention is to keep up with German and French, as well as Italian. I would love to go abroad and discover this country from which I have my mother, my German family and friends, my passport, and of course, the language, though I would currently consider it, according to crystal, a “dormant” language. I wish to live in Germany, specially Hamburg, to awaken my German and broaden my German culture knowledge.

I never took formal language courses in German, nor went to the German school in Barcelona. All I have learned was at home or on Holiday, back when I used to spend one month in Germany at my grandparent’s house. I never learned to write it, although I can, but since I was taught Catalan and Spanish, I still do terrible mistakes. Whenever I have time to read, I try to improve my German by doing so, or trying to write emails to my German friends and family.

I was enrolled in a Catalan school (escola Magòria) where I learned Catalan, Spanish and English. I continued learning the same languages at High-School, in addition to French and a little of Latin. The languages I use the most in academic contexts and for formal purposes are Catalan, Spanish, English and French. At home, I basically use Catalan or German. I think in all of these languages and I deeply enjoy writing in all of them (personal diaries, creative writing, etc.). I just love them all. I also try listening to music in all languages, starting with those I know (I absolutely love translating song-texts to improve my vocabulary skills), to those I don’t know (Swedish, Norwegian, some African languages, Hindi, Russian, etc.). To me, music is one of the key to approach a language: once I find a song, the language starts getting into my head in my fields of interest. Besides music, I do the same with literature, basically with poetry, then I have a tiny emotional attachment to this language and can from that point, go into all the rest of language skills and aspects (grammar!): “nihil est in intellectu quod prius non fuerit in sensu.”

I have just learned one alphabet: the Latin alphabet, but I am open to learn all of them if life offers me to do so. The same should I say about the languages I would like to learn in the next 10 years. My idea is to keep working on the one’s I already know (reading, writing, translating, etc.) and to learn the one’s that follow: Swedish (I will start a course this summer), Russian, Norwegian, (I need it because of my Erasmus) and further on I would love to spend some time in Italy to feed prosciuto-grammar pizze to my baby Italian. The how, I already mentioned a little before in this post. First I encourage myself to know little features about the “new language” by means of music, dictionaries, poetry, TV shows, and books for children. Once I have a little basis I feel the growing need to start communicating with this language and grammar comes easily (and almost unnoticed). Nevertheless, to acquire a higher proficiency level I plan to follow courses in institutions (Nordic Institute in Barcelona), and at the same time, plan road trips at friends houses (lucky I know people in all the places where these languages mentioned are talked).

To sum up, I love languages (all of them!), they are my passion, my professional life and my inner long-life companion. I know five languages by now, and I am going to add two new ones: Swedish, Norwegian, Russian and Italian, just to mention a few. Life is dynamic, as well as languages, therefore I like to be carried away by life: as long as I learn something from each experience, everything is welcome. Carner knew it good: 

“I és camí incert cada camí,

n'és cada vida.” 

(Josep Carner, El cor quiet, 1925)

My dear friend  Pippilotta Viktualia Rullgardina Krusmynta Efraimsdotter Långstrump, known as Pipi, was my infancy compagnon –and still is (how could someone ever resign to Pipi?)

Michael Ende's  Jim Knopf und Lukas der Lokomotivführer were also one of my favourite storytime books...

Thank you for passing by! Please, feel free to comment, and if you enjoy reading my blog, follow me!

See you next time,

Lotta