My little sister’s language

parler – to speak

je parle

tu parles

il/elle/on parle

nous parlons

vous parlez

ils/elles parlent

I always liked verb conjugation. There’s rhythm and repetition and it’s a relaxing activity when the brain is spent of invention or creativity. Even if the verbs are irregular and their conjugation seemingly random, it is still a process of clicking language into place. Rhythm and repetition.

It’s a bit like this.

By the end of my trip, I was weary of navigating foreign languages, because country-hopping and contending with so many over the course of a few weeks is tiring. German; Czech; back to German; French; Dutch (although Amsterdam was almost bilingual Dutch-English); back to German; Italian.

I feel guilty when I don’t even know basic words, enough to muddle it to the natives. It seems lazy and kind of rude. Those different sounds jostled together and I despaired that languages left to their own devices are like Polaroids that fade instead of becoming clearer.

Ah, languages: as complex as they are interesting. I like, for instance, German’s ß (Eszett in German, apparently) and how the capitalisation of nouns makes the written language look like a city block.

Then I was surprised by the French I recalled when I was surrounded by it. Sentences, tenses and vocabulary—a whole archeology under my skull. The word for ‘stairs’—l’escalier/les escaliers—fell out of my mouth after a moment’s pause. Last night, I dug out my trusty Schaum’s Outlines, French Grammar: Fourth Ed., now yellowed and with adolescent doodles on the cover.

The gender system is part of what makes French grammar difficult, especially because the assignation of gender to a noun is largely arbitrary.

10. _____ mère laisse _____ lettre sur _____ bureau.

It makes sense that the answers are la mère, la lettre and le bureau and to reverse them sounds utterly wrong.

Then there are the languages that don’t make sense to me at all. My little sister is quite the language buff—she’s doing French and Japanese in Year 12 this year and wants to take a gap year after she finishes high school.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve indulged in a sporadic ‘lol’ here and there. There’s even been a ‘whatevs’ and, on one drunken occasion, I forgot to say these words ironically. How embarro!

I don’t understand my little sister’s language. Take this excerpt from Facebook:

noooo ur so cute!

OOH btw WE MUST TALK SOONIES

and this:

trewwwww

Isn’t it more of an effort to capitalise and misspell words so frequently than it is to just spell them correctly?

Kids—I don’t get them.