{"id":460,"date":"2021-02-08T21:31:00","date_gmt":"2021-02-08T20:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/somethingpolyglot83.wordpress.com\/?p=460"},"modified":"2021-05-27T19:02:28","modified_gmt":"2021-05-27T17:02:28","slug":"my-week-with-catalan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/somethingpolyglot.com\/myblog\/2021\/02\/08\/my-week-with-catalan\/","title":{"rendered":"My week with Catalan: nit i dia"},"content":{"rendered":"
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My week with Catalan: nit i dia<\/h3>
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Comencem amb una introducci\u00f3 en catal\u00e0:<\/em><\/p>\n

Hola, bon dia. Em dic Kenny. Tinc trenta-set anys. S\u00f3c de B\u00e8lgica, de la ciutat de Gant, per\u00f2 ara visc a Madrid i a Oca\u00f1a. Parlo neerland\u00e8s, angl\u00e8s, franc\u00e8s, itali\u00e0, portugu\u00e8s brasiler, alemany, castell\u00e0 i ara tamb\u00e9 una mica de catal\u00e0. He viscut a B\u00e8lgica, It\u00e0lia i ara m\u2019estic a Espanya. Les meves aficions s\u00f3n llegir, cuinar, viatjar (ara un poc dif\u00edcil ja ho s\u00e9), estudiar llenguatges (ara catal\u00e0 i dan\u00e8s), jugar amb Rubi i \u00d3scar, els meus gossos.<\/em> Quan era petit volia ser fisioterapeuta com els meus pares, per\u00f2 he canviat d’idea i ara treballo de professor d<\/em>‘angl\u00e8s<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>

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\u00a0If you talk to a (wo)man in a language they understand…<\/h2>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n
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Most people – if not almost all – who have Catalan as their native tongue are at least bilingual. I’d already be able to communicate with most of them in \ud83c\uddea\ud83c\uddf8\ud83c\uddeb\ud83c\uddf7\ud83c\uddee\ud83c\uddf9. But a language is so much more than a tool to get your message through to your conversation partner(s). We use it to sing \ud83c\udfb6, write books \ud83d\udcda and recipes \ud83d\udc68\u200d\ud83c\udf73, tell our personal history and the stories of our family, village, city, people and our language(s) indeed. Learning a new language is not only about irregular verbs and idioms, but even more so about discovering a new culture, its music, literature, cuisine, history and getting to know and really understand the people who speak it.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n

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\u00a0<\/span>\u201cIf you talk to a man in a\u00a0language<\/strong>\u00a0he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own\u00a0language<\/strong>, that goes to his heart.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Nelson Mandela<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n

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\u00a0Something sparked my interest<\/h2>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n
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I have a strong interest in history, especially the political history of countries. I always try to read up on the history of the countries whose languages I speak\/study\/teach. Last summer I dove into Catalonia in Spain: History and Myth<\/a><\/em> by Gabriel Tortella<\/strong>. Somewhere near the end the author mentioned that few people in Spain outside of the parts where Catalan is an official language – Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and the Valencian Community (where it’s known as Valencian) have any knowledge of the language. Btw, outside of these regions Catalan is also a recognised minority language in Aragon and is spoken in a small area of the Region of Murcia<\/span>. Actually, that lack of Spanish interest made me decide to check out Catalan on Duolingo (available atm only from Spanish and without pronunciation exercises). What started as a daily lesson with Mr Green Owl, as a side target language next to the \ud83c\udde9\ud83c\uddf0 I had started a few weeks earlier, turned into a 6-month streak on Duo, a steady 1 and often 2 hours study a day and now un intensiu setmana amb catal\u00e0<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n

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\u00a0Material<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n
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Duolingo wasn’t my only tool this week. It’s nice to read “In 15 minutes a day you’ll learn a language” but I definitely need more than that to get where I want (fluency, B2 level). <\/span><\/p>\n

An overview<\/span><\/p>\n