Happy new year
Jan. 1st, 2008 01:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
badgermindA happy new year to all!
Mrs Badger and I, who have had colds over Christmas, decided that we were both too torpid to go out this evening (we had planned to go the the Rocktronica night at the Caroline of Brunswick but just did not feel up to it). We ordered a Greek takeaway for us with a pizza for younger cub and found a bottle of cava in the cupboard under the stairs, which is rather full as we both bought more alcohol before Christmas than we have actually felt like drinking. Mrs Badger then watched Girl with a Pearl Earring on BBC2 while I fell asleep on the sofa. Following local custom, I then went out to pour the last of my wine over the concrete hare in the back garden and let the New Year in, to discover that it is raining in Brighton, both at the front and back of the house.
Mrs Badger and I, who have had colds over Christmas, decided that we were both too torpid to go out this evening (we had planned to go the the Rocktronica night at the Caroline of Brunswick but just did not feel up to it). We ordered a Greek takeaway for us with a pizza for younger cub and found a bottle of cava in the cupboard under the stairs, which is rather full as we both bought more alcohol before Christmas than we have actually felt like drinking. Mrs Badger then watched Girl with a Pearl Earring on BBC2 while I fell asleep on the sofa. Following local custom, I then went out to pour the last of my wine over the concrete hare in the back garden and let the New Year in, to discover that it is raining in Brighton, both at the front and back of the house.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-02-26 09:11 pm (UTC)I followed you here from my husband's community,
I'm not one for randomly adding people to my friend's list, in case they don't want to be added. :)
So, do you mind if I add you?
And while I'm here, I have two questions, as well:
- do you speak/read/write Mandarin or is it simply something you're interested in? (I studied it for four years at university but have lost most of it through disuse)
- what got you interested in Catalan?
no subject
Date: 2008-02-27 07:39 am (UTC)I did four terms of Mandarin classes on Saturday mornings about ten years ago. Unfortunately it was around the time my elder daughter's ADHD was diagnosed (the further diagnosis of Asperger's syndrome was a few years later) and in our rather chaotic life at the time I didn't have time to do more than turn up at the classes, and so I lost it all very quickly. It is a long standing interest of mine, and inspired by the posts of
One of my colleagues around that time was an actuary from Barcelona, and she drew my attention to the existence of Catalan. I felt a strong connection to the language and about four years ago I started to learn it. I did have some individual lessons, but it was about the time my elder daughter fell out with her mother and moved in with me. Because of looking after her I again didn't have time to do very much outside of those. I have a Catalan speaking friend in Valencia, and I have been to both Barcelona and Valencia several times. My Catalan is much better than my Spanish, which can sometime lead to problems in restaurants!
no subject
Date: 2008-02-27 08:25 am (UTC)Tell me about it!
I'm a bit of a mixer myself but I grew up a child of immigrants, in New Zealand. I moved here to Catalunya to be with my husband, who is Catalan.
My intention has always been to learn both languages and, of course, my husband and his family and friends all speak both but the truth is that my Catalan has progressed and my Spanish hasn't.
Basically, because Catalan is what we speak to each other every day and I also took advantage of the free government run classes. I'm now at the second level of classes and they cost but it's a token amount, really. However, I only found out recently that there are cheap government run Spanish classes too but they only start annually (whereas the Catalan classes run throughout the year), so I have to wait till September for those.
At the end of the day, though, for me (despite my language obsession) it's hard to learn two language simultaneously.
It is a problem when I go to places where people can't or won't speak Catalan - my understanding is slooowly getting better but I still can't produce more than a few phrases.
Having said that, I'll have lived here for a year, come April, and I'm already far more functional than I ever was in Mandarin, so I guess immersion works! My Da's coming over for a visit next month, though, and I've asked him to bring my Chinese books over because I'd like to get back into that, once I have a handle on the Catalan and Spanish, but we don't quite have the funds to ship all of my books over from NZ!
Er...enough babble. Nice to meet you. :)