¡Sarah!

Some days the only reason I post is because I notice I have been completely knocked off of athena_crikey's friends page. xD;

So today I was thinking about my high school language classes, and some of the weird things we were taught that I would do my very best to teach much more better, were I ever to become a high school language teacher.

Spanish: Stem-Changing Verbs
As much as I adored the teacher I had for Spanish 11, 12 and AP, taking her class was somewhat of an adventure. For example, one day, halfway through class, she decided I had missed a test and was going to write it RIGHT NOW. As I was the most hardcore Spanish 12 student you ever did see (99% on the provincial exam and a 4 on the AP exam, if I may brag for just a moment about my only bragable accomplishments so far), I was able to write it and do just fine on it, but at the same time ... what??? And that's pretty much how she taught us stem-changing verbs. One day, halfway through class, she decided it was time to tell us about their existence. And so she did. And then we moved on.

Hopefully this is not a common experience in high school Spanish classes, because dude. It's kind of important, don't you think? hahaha I love that I wrote the Spanish AP exam not even really understanding this stuff. xDDD; And yet I got a 4, and that's just how hardcore I am. <3

Spanish: "Me Gusta"
"Me gusta" does NOT equal "I like" and yet that's how we were taught it, and I strongly suspect this is how it is taught in most high school Spanish classes. And don't get me wrong, I can definitely see why it's done this way. "Me" is a direct object pronoun, and "me gusta" seems to usually be taught very early in Spanish classes, long before students have to deal with the more nitty gritty bits of grammar. Also, I had the rowdiest classmates my first year of Spanish, and I don't doubt for a moment that teaching "gustar" as "to please" would have caused giggles and comments galore. But I still think it's wrong to teach it wrong! I mean, oh man, all the problems my classmates were having with "me gusta" even into Spanish 12, it was ridiculous, and could've perhaps been prevented by better explaining the grammar of the phrase, or maybe even going so far as to not teach it at all until it's time to learn about direct object pronouns.

(Meanwhile there are kids like me who go home and look all this stuff up. The Internet was willing to teach me about direct object pronouns even when my teacher wasn't! xD; )

French: Preceding Direct Object
I know athena_crikey has heard me rant on this subject before, way back in grade 12 when I began to decide exactly how awesome a language teacher I would be. xD But man, I still can't get over this one! As Language Guide tells us, The past participle of the passé composé will always reflect the gender and number of a preceding direct object. Were we taught about this necessary agreement when we were taught about preceding direct objects? Uhm, no. Decidedly not. When were we taught it? AN ENTIRE YEAR LATER. That's absurd. ABSURD!!

Now, okay, I admit. When I was first presented with the idea that in French, direct object pronouns came before the verb, I definitely left class that day with a headache. It just completely blew my mind. So perhaps that was not the day to bring up this nasty agreement business. But it's ridiculous that they waited a whole year to inform us about it. I mean, I'm pretty sure that in the meantime I wrote sentences that were completely wrong. I definitely remember reading things in French and being confused by all the extra letters. Unfortunately this is one thing I didn't think to look up. :/

Japanese: "-masu" Form Before Dictionary Form
I was teaching myself Japanese for about a year and a half before I was able to get into a class that my school didn't cancel a week into the semester, and I knew there might be some weird little issues as I adjusted to the way my classmates had been learning the language during the time I was unable to join them. The only one I really remember (other than the fact that I was way ahead of everyone, oh man it was ridiculous - I was in Japanese 11 in the same classroom at the same time as the tiny Japanese 12 class, and on occasion they would lean across the aisle to ask me for help), though, is that every verb my classmates had been taught, they had been taught in the "-masu" form. My guess is that this was done because "-masu" form is more polite than dictionary form, but my opinion is that it's ridiculous. Two years into their Japanese studies and these guys can't even properly look up a verb in the dictionary?? And now they're being taught how to convert verbs from "-masu" form to dictionary form?? That's the most backwards thing I've ever heard!! Students in the Romance languages have to get used to conjugating ALL VERBS ALL THE TIME, so I don't know why our teachers felt it necessary to hide even the existence of the dictionary form from their students for two whole years. I mean, honestly.

(And let's ignore for the moment the many issues I have with the teaching of kanji. You just ... don't want to go there.)

IN CONCLUSION, were I to ever become a high school language teacher, I believe I would have a little speech to give on the first day of each of my classes, and it might go a little something like this. Learning a language is hard work. You'll memorize a lot. You'll practice a lot. You'll fill page after page with verb conjugations and kanji practice. And still you won't understand everything. You'll make millions of mistakes. You'll leave class sometimes with a headache. And I'm not going to dumb it down for you. Because learning a language is hard work. But it's never impossible, and it can be one of the most awesome and fascinating and rewarding things you ever do.

I daresay I would be the least popular teacher at my school. xD;

ahahaha YES I have been feeling like quite the language major lately, despite the fact that I'm not actually taking any language classes this semester ... ? xDDDD!

How interesting it is that in this post I noted how the Spanish dub of PoA is much more concise than the French dub. Today I discovered the Spanish dub is also much more concise than the original English. It is much less wishy-washy. For example, instead of Hermione saying "The Grim. Probably," she says "El Grim. Yo lo vi." I prefer the Spanish dub and I don't think that's the reason I prefer it, but who knows, maybe that's part of it.

I actually found watching it in English a lot more difficult than watching it in Spanish. Like, I really had to pay attention in order to understand what was being said. Why would that be? I suppose it must have something to do with how I've watched it so many times in Spanish and so I kept expecting them to start talking before they did, or to say different things, but ... I dunno, it was weird. An interesting thing: when I first saw PoA in Japanese, I did not at all feel like I was watching it for the first time. The entire time I felt very much like I had seen it before, like I had heard this dub before. The only explanation I have for this is that maybe because I had seen the movie so many times in a language that was not English, watching it in another language that was not English felt the same ... ? What a dumb theory though. When I watched it with the French dub for the first time I didn't get that feeling. But I guess I watched it in Spanish less times before seeing the French dub than before seeing the Japanese dub.

I told that story to one of my friends, during our ferry ride back from Vancouver on Monday, and she said that someone told her that even though Sin City was in black and white, they were remembering scenes from it as if they had been all in colour. Which is interesting, too.

There is one line in the French dub of PoA that I really like -- "sa vie vous libère," said by Harry to Sirius. I think it's a lot more poetic than the other versions, none of which I remember exactly but which are pretty well "if he's alive, you're free." How clunky that seems in comparison!

I totally didn't want to stay up this late tonight. _-_; Argh!

One of my friends got her N ("novice" driver's license) after I think three or four failed attempts, so that's awesome, but to be horribly honest my favourite part about it was the conversation I had about it with someone else that went something like this:

Me: Did you hear? K-- got her N!
Her: Oh? That's ... good. [pause] I'm scared now.

XDXD;;;

Also yesterday I walked to school with betaraider, which I wrote about in great detail before the entry was eaten for unknown reasons. XD;; It was awesome anyway.

This morning one of my classmates ran into our Japanese class crying, "There's a Japanese TV station here and they want to film our class!" I don't think anyone believed her at first, she is a little crazy. But it turned out to be true and so I may on TV in Victoria's sister city, Morioka. (That link goes to the "sister city" page on Morioka's web site. I have just now visited Victoria's web site for the first time and am ashamed to find that it pretty darn ugly and the menu is pretty darn useless, but nevertheless here is the "sister city" page on Victoria's web site. Victoria has three sister cities??? That strikes me as kind of greedy! Victoria-Morioka.com??? Hahaha how cute!) Anyway, apparently they are putting together something about this Dr. Nitobe fellow, and they wanted to film something to link the two cities together, and they thought, why not a Japanese class? So there you have it I guess. They filmed a lot so perhaps I will be cut out, but anyway they did film me asking a question about whether it was ~に住む or ~で住む and asking the prof why she corrected us Wednesday when my group used the first one ("It was on our overhead," I said, drawing a rectangle with my fingers, awsm), and afterwards those of us who didn't have a class went outside and did a joke-y sort of interview in which I said the deeply intelligent「日本に行ったことがありませんが、日本語が大好き。。。です。」So actually if they cut me out I don't blame them, but it's all good. XDXDXD I am an international celebrity yah! XDXDXD!!!

In French lit. we are studying Duras' L'Eden Cinéma which to me seems to be nothing more than this:

Suzanne: This happened. Then this happened. Then this happened. Then this happened.
Mr Jo: I'M CRAZY 4 U MARRY ME!!!!1!1one!!!
Suzanne: No. Then this happened. Then this happened. Obviously I am not Marguerite Duras, because my name is Suzanne.
Audience: Tell us another one.

My poor prof, today I had a question and he seemed all happy and expectant like I was just about to say the deepest thing ever said about this darling play. Little did he know I only wanted to know the age of dear Mr Jo! Wahahaha! Thwarted!!

Also I phrased my question like this: "Quel âge a ... Mr Jo ... dans l'histoire ?" As you can see, I am big on dramatic pauses. AWESOME!

Just for Athena, here is my stupid Petit Prince fanfiction assignment, the prof's corrections included so it actually looks like I knew what I was doing.

( La Petite Princesse )

If that's not the best thing you've ever read in your whole life ever, then I must admit I'm confused.

In other news, today someone asked me if I was fluent in Japanese. Why does this keep happening to meeeeeeeee?? We have to write a composition on the Tuesday after reading break and we have to write it vertically and from right to left, which I have never ever done before. My hand is going to get all inky! This doesn't seem at all practical! XD;;;

I had an epiphany regarding Spanish grammar last night (oh shut up), but now I have forgotten it. Siiiiiigh.

Also, when I was walking home today (a longer walk than usual, 'cause I took the wonky bus), a school bus drove by and one of the girls sitting in the back blew me a kiss. I ... really don't know what to think of that.

XDXDXD;;;;;;

And then when I got to my street my mom was sitting there in the car and I was all "--???" and she said that she and my brother had driven past me walking across the bridge and so she had stopped in order to give me a ride up the hill but my brother didn't want to wait and so he got out of the car and walked home by himself. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA AWESOME. I always knew I was the favourite. XDXDXDXD!!

Edit: The Disco Ascenseur!!!!! Be warned, it's a video, but such a cute one! XDXDXD!!

Aaaand I think I'm going to get off this computer now. @_@

Things I would like to do tomorrow:
--spend my lunch break walking through the university garden to see all the ducks! ^.^ (hopefully they won't chase me, as other animals are wont to do)
--type up stuffs from my notebook
--type up stuffs from this list thing I have to type stuffs up from
--make a back-up CD
--work on my Japanese assignment
--take notes for my Linguistics paper
--write! :)

If even three things from that list get done, I will be pleased, because as of late I have been very lazy indeed. ~_~

Today I chatted with Athena in French and then with her pal in Japanese all under a Spanish screenname ("júrame que no irás a buscar a Black," POR SUPUESTO)! Sammoth, I fully expect to chat with you in Japanese one day, so be forewarned. XDXDXDXDXDXD (Says the girl who just now decided to watch bad music videos in double time instead of practicing her kanji, whoops whoops~!)

Tonight's Seinfeld is the one in which George proposes the names of Soda and Seven, both of which I actually think would make lovely names, but then I am the crazy girl who goes around naming her characters "Je'mia" and "Gerai" and "Naftoli" and "Aythee" and "Even" and, most recently, "C," so basically you can't listen to anything I say. XD;

I seriously miss Naft so much. Man, this guy. He is on my favourite T-shirt which is basically no less than awesome! XDXDXDXDXDXDXDXDXDXDXD

Yesterday I got up at seven, felt sick, went back to bed, woke up at five, felt better, watched Prisoner of Azkaban in French, watched the end of Aladdin on CBC, watched Troy in French until scene 24 started skipping (!?!?), watched the end of Aladdin on ABC, watched Pirates of the Caribbean in French, went to bed at twelve-thirty, dreamt I was watching Amadeus in French. (After all the French-dubbed movies, I had sort of expected a bad dream in French, but talk about lame.) And now I am avoiding my French homework while listening to "Dragostea Din Tei" on repeat and pretending it's in English, because it's funny that way!

As you can plainly see, I am a college girl gone wild. XDXDXDXDXDXD!!!!

I love how all movies about Mozart have the same title but in different languages. You know, just to mix it up a bit. Okay, so I only actually know of two movies about Mozart, but it's still funny!!! XD;;;;;

It is with great pain that I announce to you that the flood of Troy posts is about to begin anew. I am really very sorry.

( ¡La Guerra de Troya! )

Also I have been published again. It is all rather intriguing.

J'ai quatorze ans. Je suis blonde, et j'ai yeux bleus. J'ai un frère et un hamster. J'aime la musique. Je n'aime pas étudier.

Augh! We've had to write that out some three times all ready! I'm gonna diiiiie! >_<

Admittedly, that's not all we've done in French. I've even learned some more words, and it's only the second day. But still, I am truly sick of having to write "Je m'appelle Sarah. J'ai quatorze ans . . ." :P

(And, I'm continuing to read translated comics. Whoop! Sailor Moon en Français! ^__^ )

So French looks like it will be worthwhile. Science is certainly not as bad as it has been in the past years; the class is still rowdy, but not as rowdy, today class started off with an interesting discussion about Eating Disorder Week and then went into a very silly "draw and label human organs" exercise ("You can't put the liver there! Where's the lung gonna go?" "Oh, they don't have to be in order . . ."). Even math is not as bad as I feared - we did integers today (my worst enemy >_<), and yet I managed to get most of it right (except the subtraction; I'll never understand subtracting integers).

Yeah. And we're reading Never Cry Wolf in English. Don't know what the book'll be like, but I love the title. Eh.

I really like Maaya Sakamoto's singing voice. *_*

You know what? I've had some deep-ish thoughts lately, but whenever I go to write anything down, I've forgotten 'em all. Oh well. :p

I've been in a language mood lately. I want French class again! *pout*

J'ai 14 ans, mais je suis un haricot de lima.

Ha! ;D