A.
When you first learn a foreign language, you start off mapping new words onto words you already know in your mother language. You use an English-Chinese dictionary, for example, and look up words and their "meanings". Later, you might be able to map new words onto old words you already know in this language. And this is when an English dictionary start to be of use. You are on your way to form an independent, self-coherent, and holistic system of this language of your own. When you are actually in the country where the language is spoken, you learn as well as unlearn: you learn new words and expressions that are stripped off their immediate context and your impression of them are therefore more vivid and forceful. You unlearn words of which you had false impressions in the past. Normally it has to do with your comprehension of their connotation and nuanced differences. As the process goes on, you begin living on the new language that you have come to acquire. Your grasp of your mother language stays the same - you never lose your intuition of the language as its native speaker, however rusty your actual speaking and writing skills might get. But soon enough, you will realize that you have just founded two such drastically different systems, every word in each with its own sphere of influence, coloring, and cast of light, that you can no longer easily translate one into the other, like your elementary English-Chinese dictionary once taught you. This is when even a minor coincidence in meaning starts to amaze you by revealing to you how much humanity shares in common in different cultures.
B. On Jan. 7
"Tones are a spoken nuance, an inflection that changes meaning. It takes a long time to hear them precisely and longer still to re-create them with your own voice, yet they are simply an unmarked part of life to those who know them, not tones at all, but speech. I listened hard and grasped for them. I struggled from English to Nepali to Gurung in my mind, concentrating, translating, making images into words and words into other words until I felt at a great remove from experience and my head throbbed. Then little by little experience began to come clothed in this new garb. I could speak without thinking (and be understood). The white grains that I wanted on my plate and in my stomach became bhat or kae, not rice. I thought in Nepali. I dreamed in Nepali. Occasionally an everyday thought would pass through my mind in Gurung. Now I finally lived there." (Love and Honor in the Himalays, 25)
C. On Jan. 11
Russell makes a distinction between knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description. This goes very well with what happens when people acquire their native language ability and foreign ones.
When you first learn a foreign language, you start off mapping new words onto words you already know in your mother language. You use an English-Chinese dictionary, for example, and look up words and their "meanings". Later, you might be able to map new words onto old words you already know in this language. And this is when an English dictionary start to be of use. You are on your way to form an independent, self-coherent, and holistic system of this language of your own. When you are actually in the country where the language is spoken, you learn as well as unlearn: you learn new words and expressions that are stripped off their immediate context and your impression of them are therefore more vivid and forceful. You unlearn words of which you had false impressions in the past. Normally it has to do with your comprehension of their connotation and nuanced differences. As the process goes on, you begin living on the new language that you have come to acquire. Your grasp of your mother language stays the same - you never lose your intuition of the language as its native speaker, however rusty your actual speaking and writing skills might get. But soon enough, you will realize that you have just founded two such drastically different systems, every word in each with its own sphere of influence, coloring, and cast of light, that you can no longer easily translate one into the other, like your elementary English-Chinese dictionary once taught you. This is when even a minor coincidence in meaning starts to amaze you by revealing to you how much humanity shares in common in different cultures.
B. On Jan. 7
"Tones are a spoken nuance, an inflection that changes meaning. It takes a long time to hear them precisely and longer still to re-create them with your own voice, yet they are simply an unmarked part of life to those who know them, not tones at all, but speech. I listened hard and grasped for them. I struggled from English to Nepali to Gurung in my mind, concentrating, translating, making images into words and words into other words until I felt at a great remove from experience and my head throbbed. Then little by little experience began to come clothed in this new garb. I could speak without thinking (and be understood). The white grains that I wanted on my plate and in my stomach became bhat or kae, not rice. I thought in Nepali. I dreamed in Nepali. Occasionally an everyday thought would pass through my mind in Gurung. Now I finally lived there." (Love and Honor in the Himalays, 25)
C. On Jan. 11
Russell makes a distinction between knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description. This goes very well with what happens when people acquire their native language ability and foreign ones.
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