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
