Muggles!

I emitted a very excited squeak (in a public place with a crowd) when I saw the 4th entry listed below in my KTdict Chinese-English iPhone dictionary.


我是麻瓜。
Or is it 我是一个麻瓜。?

I'm trying to say "I am a muggle."

I'd like to be able to say: I am a muggle, but I'd rather be a wizard.

Unfortunately, my Chinese is far too elementary.

Now I want to get a copy of Harry Potter in Chinese. (Or maybe I shouldn't. I bought a copy Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone in Spanish in high school when I was attempting to learn Spanish in my sorry excuse for a language class. I don't think I ever made it past the first few pages.)

Ooh! Maybe I'll just use my "studying Chinese" time to look up Harry Potter words. Like, how would you say pensieve? Or boggart? Or Snape? Or Blast-ended skrewt?!

And what about hobbit? Legolas? Bombadil? Fool of a Took!? Figwit?! (Though considering Figwit is a product of fangirl frenzy and not an actual written character, I doubt there's an official Chinese rendition of his name.)

What about Middle Earth?

I vote 中国.

That is, Middle Kingdom/Country.

That is, the official name of China.

Look! I'm thinking of going to Middle Kingdom/Earth this year!

Last year, I went to Middle Earth under the guise of New Zealand (hehe).

I sense a trend here.

I've been geeked. Travel geeked.

Now how do you say "Fern, get your travel-geeked butt back to work." in Chinese?

California = G.I. Joe, or, On Learning Chinese

There are definite advantages to learning Chinese in an English setting.

Sure, you won't get the pressure of full immersion, but for getting the basics, I do like starting in a less intense environment.

When catering to an English speaking crowd, the professor can pull examples from familiar territory to help you learn the four Chinese tones. So instead of having to remember how the tones sound from scratch, you can repeat this:

John, are you coming?
Wellll... yes!

John = tone one. __
ming = tone two. /
Well... = tone three. \/
yes! = tone four. \

Or, break out the music staff:

First tone: at the top. Second tone: start two notches down, move your voice upward. Third tone: start three notches down, move down one then raise up three. Fourth tone: start at the top, drop down four. Neutral tone: short, sweet and light at the top.

Out of everything we've learned so far, I'm mainly butchering the 'r' sound. The prof tells us it sounds like the s in television. I think it sounds more like a "zheh" oh "zhuh" with a marshmallow in your mouth.

In addition to the professor's helpful language tie-ins, you can also use other people's butcheration of the tone to help you remember words.

California in Chinese is Jiā zhōu (using 1's to indicate tone 1) and is written as follows:

(courtesy of http://chineseculture.about.com/)

Jiā is the sound that approximates the Ca syllable. Actually, the li, for, ni, and a syllables have sound twins too which brings the entire name to this monster: 加利福尼亞, or Jiā lì fú ní yà. Thank goodness it shortens to Jiā zhōu (the latter meaning state or province).

Even in its shortened form, I had trouble remembering that California = Jiā zhōu.

That is, until I sat next to a guy in class who thoroughly butchers the sounds and tones of Chinese.

When saying Jiā zhōu, he sounds entirely like a southerner saying G.I. Joe.

Try it out! Jiā zhōu. G.I. Joe.
But run the G.I. into a single syllable... G.I. Joe. Jiā zhōu.

So, thank you butcherer of tones. Because of you, I shall always remember that California = G.I. Joe.

Whatever works to learn the language, right?

Fern Speak.

In other words, what a few packed days and poor-sleep nights produce. This is a sampling of what I said over the course of our lunch stop:


So today I'm more...
Words failing oh wait
Yeah, that is- I'm done.

Well, I think it's just
Or maybe- ngaaaaagh!!

I'm done.

I've been recently being-
*giggle!*
It's just not working.


May Scott be blessed by a babel fish to stick in his ear to translate Fern Speak for him.

On English

While preparing for this trip down under, there was a part of me that was disappointed that I wasn't going to a foreign country with a foreign language. Part of the fun of traveling is the language: the mishaps that occur when you're attempting conversation; the glee of successful communication no matter how minor the success; the fun of conversing with someone in broken snippets of multiple languages because you don't share a common first language; and the immediate camaraderie created when you ask someone for their name in their language. (Read more from last year's post On the Butcheration of Language)

But in being here in New Zealand and meeting people from all over the world (Germany and England mostly, but also Chile, Taiwan, Canada, Switzerland, Brazil, and the Netherlands), it has become clear that communicating in English is neither straightforward nor dull. Varied accents abound and communication mishaps still occur, especially with those with English as a second language.

Kiwi bus driver to Marisol from Chile: You don't have any mulk in there do ya?
Marisol: Mulk? What is mulk?
Kiwi driver: Mulk. Mulk, you know…
(beat of silence)
Marisol: Meelk? You mean meelk?
Kiwi driver: Yeah, yeah, mulk!

In case you haven't figured out, mulk is meelk is milk!

Even I, a native English speaker, have been thrown off by the Kiwi accent on several occasions.

On the drive north out of Auckland, our bus driver Mike was telling us stories of the Marys. The Marys this, the Marys that, the Mary belief this, the Mary legend that…

"What on earth?!" I thought, "I didn't know that Catholicism and the Virgin were so important here." Then the Kiwi-speak dawned on me. Ohhh, he's talking about the Maoris, not the Marys!

The same bus driver also pointed out good spots for Forest Chicken for all those interested. "What on earth?" I thought, "I didn't realize there were chicken in this area, much less forest chicken. What the heck is a forest chicken?!" I mean, later on I did see some chickens but only on wide grassy deforested fields. Then the kiwi-speak translation kicked in. Ohhh, he means forest trekkin', not forest chicken!

Then there are Kiwis who are in a class of their own. Tawhiri (TA-fee-ree, meaning Windy in Maori), our guide-to-be for the Footprints tour into the Kauri forest at night, came to our hostel to give us the tragic news that due to the horrendous downpour of rain that blessed their normally sunny region, our tour was canceled. "Do you think it'll be the same tomorrow?" we asked. Turns out, the area doesn't get a weather forecast so it'd be hard to tell. Tawhiri told us that the day before it looked like the weather would be bad all day but by nighttime it was perfectly fine. He continued to say that today looked like a beautiful day at first but now, in his words, "it's rainin' like the shitzu!" My dismay at the canceled tour was summed up beautifully by Tawhiri's epic expression, "Flippin' shucks, mate!"

That line sent me scurrying for my journal and a nonexistent pen. I've decided that that phrase should be added to my speech in daily life. Instead of saying things like 'shoot,' 'oh dear' or 'crap,' I should now say with great exuberance, FLIPPIN' SHUCKS MATE!!

(edit 10/8. I've got another one. Tonight at the Mitai Maori cultural show and hangi, our host told us on several occasions that we should learn a "moldy song" to support the chief of our 20-nation tribe. He playfully sang this "moldy song" to us line by line and we sang this "moldy song" back to him, line by line. What on earth is a "moldy song" you ask? Why, it's a Maori song! Oh the confusion.)

It's a voting post!

It was a rainy, dreary day when Fern got out of bed to vote for the very first time...


That is, last minute first time voting from Italy by fax. Oh yeah.

I did get my absentee ballot a few weeks ago but decided that I didn't want to risk mailing it. Italian post has a pretty shoddy reputation. And I figured I'd use those few weeks to research the twenty-eight freaking offices and propositions on the ballot.

As usual, everything else got in the way and, aside from a short stint of reading the information on Prop 1-4 at the very beginning, I delayed really reading everything until last night and this morning. Procrastination isn't just for schoolwork apparently.


But I'm also cheap and didn't want to pay for my fax so I had a short two hour window between 10 and noon to get my ballot faxed from the UGA offices. So, I stuffed my ballot down my shirt to keep it dry and headed down to town in the rain with Eunice.

Gasp!! FAILURE! After photocopying the long double sided ballot into 4 faxable pages and attempting to fax it twice, we had to admit defeat. The fax number was correct and it was connecting, but it refused to receive the fax. Granted, it was 2 AM in California, but really now, is it THAT difficult to leave the fax machine on before voting day!?

Rather crushed, I went and splurged on Italian leather. 30 euro of gorgeous dark red and brown Italian leather. (To make books of course!) A man at the shoe store (where we bought the leather) was reading a newspaper and commenting on it to Stefano, the shoe store owner. Eunice and I didn't understand anything until he said "Obama," at which point I got excited and peered at the newspaper (as if my eyesight is good enough to read small print from 5 feet away and as if I'd be able to understand the Italian newspaper even if my eyesight was good enough!)

The man then looked at us and asked something along the lines of whether we had voted. (My Italian vocabulary covers food, common introductions, and 'where is the bathroom?' It definitely hasn't extended into the realm of politics yet!) I responded by grinning, pointing at my ballot and saying "ahora, uh... adesso! Fax!"

Translation: Now [in spanish], uh [crap, wrong language], now [in Italian]! Fax! [Yay for crossover words!]

As we left, Stefano asked us something else and I had no idea what he said but he said a word starting with a 'v' so I figured it might have something to do with voting. So I jabbed wildly in the dark an said something like "vote. Uh, votar. Er, voto!" blank looks. Uh, [repeat v word that he had said, but said it with an o ending to conjugate for the first person form]. Blank looks and a grin at my failed attempts. Oh well... shrug, Obama, ciao!

I am such a master at communication. Hah!

After an afternoon filled with art history classes, I bundled up and headed back down to town in heavier rain and wind to find a fax machine.

To Nocentini! (The art supply store.)

I walk in to the very back and see Signora Nocentini... "Fax?" I ask her. Yes indeed there is a fax machine!

She takes my six sheets... zero zero uno. Otto cinque otto. Quattro nove cinque. Cinque uno sei sei.

I wait nervously.

She says something about humidity or rain and gestures her hands outward. Ah, the rain infiltrated my bag and made the sheets expand. Fax machines don't like humid paper...

Suddenly the fax machine sucks in all 6 pages at once even though she's holding on to the top 5. She makes exasperated noises and jerks viciously at the 5 pages.

I shift nervously. Don't rip my vote!!!

The 5 pages are saved from the jaws of the fax machine but the vicious jerking has misaligned the top page.

Suddenly she's viciously yanking the first page to make it feed straight.

No! Don't do that! That's my Oath of Voter form with my signature! I'm quite sure it's going to reach the other side looking like it just got photographed by a mac's photobooth. Oh dear.

"The ballot cannot be counted unless accompanied in the same transmission by this oath and your signature."

Well, they didn't say the page couldn't be artistically distorted.

Beeping. What on earth is going on!?

Three pages through and it stops. She calls for Signor Nocentini. They proceed to talk, or yell, loudly in Italian: Did you put in 001?!?! Si!! Si!! How many pages!?!?!? Tre, tre!!! Why does it say four!?!?...

Yeah, they're an interesting old couple to be sure.

Somehow my three pages (including the page with the all important President and Vice President category) got registered as four and now my last three pages have to be sent in a second transmission.

"The ballot cannot be counted unless accompanied in the same transmission by this oath and your signature."

Oh. Dear. Oh. Dear.

I snuck a picture of this momentous nail biting occasion. Here's Signor Nocentini at the fax machine. Not bad for a snuck picture where I couldn't actually see what I was taking.


Just to make conversation I said something about Obama (I'm assuming that the words I made up for "I'm faxing my ballot and voting right now" were completely off the mark.) Signora Nocentini responded in the typical expressive Italian way about ___ Obama, ___ McCain, ___ secreto____...

I think she was saying that Americans go around blabbing about who they voted for but Italian voters keep their votes a secret. I was also told earlier by Enza (the local UGA adminitrator helping me fax my ballot in the morning) that Italian voting is also different in that faxing would never be an option (though I don't know how many states in the US actually allow faxing in votes) and that in huge elections like this, only the main contest for president would be on the ballot versus our ballot where 28 things are stuffed onto a ballot. (I think I'd much prefer that.)

Finally everything went through and, according to my two Report Trasmissione, the risultati are "OK" so I'll just assume that the potentially wonkily distorted Oath of Voter page and the double transmission and the 1 ballot split into 4 pages still work out to a successful vote.


Back out in the rain, I stuffed my ballot back into my bag and skipped down the main street of Cortona singing "I voted! I voted! I voted!" Yay for the rain... it means my surge of excitement was largely unseen by local eyes! (This was to make up for the fact that I don't get one of those spiffy "I voted" stickers. Hrmph.)

I can't wait to go and snag a copy of an Italian newspaper with the election results tomorrow morning! (7 am here = 10 PM PST!)

(An addition at 12:15 AM: Several of us are watching CNN streaming through Emogene's slingbox program on her computer... the first polls are closed but they have yet to report the results. Says Drew: "This is one of the things I really wish I was home for... That and free Krispy Kremes, Starbucks and Chick-fil-A." Hear hear! Take advantage of all that election-related free stuff (Ben and Jerry's too!) all ye who are in Stati Uniti!)

Be thankful for your tvs... we're watching on a tiny screen...

And when the internet connection starts to slow down to a sluggish pace so that CNN's Campbell Brown becomes pixelated and stuttery... we do the finessing fingers to encourage the internets to speeds up!

It's the watching-the-election-progress-from-Italy version of a rain dance!

(Day after the election edit at noon: A bunch of us headed down to the newsstand and bought some Italian newspapers... I was told that la Repubblica leans more to the left while Libero is more to the right. Take a gandar!!)

On the Butcheration of Language

The brain only seems to have two tracks when it comes to languages: Native and Foreign.

Try to say something in a non-English language and the brain just latches onto the most accessible foreign translation.

The most commonly latched language? Spanish!
. . . Joanna asking for two pieces of fruit in the market: ¡Dos!
. . . Me to the waiter: Gracias.
. . . Me to someone I bumped into: ¡Ay, perdon!

Others aren't so predictable in their language-latching and mix up multiple languages:
. . . Sarah at the Vatican: Bonjour! Dov'è, uh, post office?
And in case you didn't catch that, she just covered French, Italian, Groan of despair, and English!

Or there's the whole forgetting of the rules of pronunciation:
. . . Me at the fruit store asking for apples and a peach: Due mele e un pesche, per favore.
. . . In translation, if I had pronounced it correctly: Two apples and a peaches, please.
. . . But since I had said 'peshay' instead of 'pesque' I really said: Two apples and a fish, please.


Hah!


I've been trying to learn Italian by assuming no one speaks English (so that I won't be tempted to just speak English). But the Italians don't quite cater to my mental approach.

Take this short exchange between myself and the local organizer of the Cortona Fortress art exhibition at the opening of the exhibit:
. . . Me: Come si chiama?
. . . She: ____. And you?
. . . . . . (Yeah, I forgot her name. Bad Fern!)
. . . Me: "Mi chiamo Fern."
. . . She: "Nice to meet you."
. . . Me: "Piacere!"
She then laughed at how, in this exchange, the American spoke Italian and the Italian spoke English. "I'm trying to learn!" I explained--in English, because I have no idea how to say that in Italian.

At the gelato store a week or two ago, a similar situation occurred where the Italian would only speak to me in English. (I suppose my accent when I'm attempting Italian clearly gives me away as an American!)
. . . Me: Stracciatella in una, uh, coppa, per favore.
. . . . . . ('in' being Italian, not an insertion of English!)
. . . She: Which size?
. . . Me: Uno quaranta.
. . . . . . (as in the 1,40 euro size cup)
. . . She: Uno ochenta?
. . . Me: Uno quaranta. Um, quarenta. Quaranta?

I finally just pointed (gestures do wonders!) and gave up my Italian-only attempts.
. . . Me: Do you say "coppa?"
. . . . . . (In reference to the gelato cup.)
. . . She: COppa
. . . . . . (i.e. I was far too monotonous in my pronunciation!)
. . . She: Or coPENta.
. . . . . . (Which has worked wonders for me at gelato stores since it seems to refer to the smallest available cup.)
. . . Me: Ah, grazie!

But really, non-verbal gestures do transcend the verbal language. At a bar/restaurant in a non-touristy area of Florence, a cute little dessert that looked like a fruit tart caught my eye.
. . . Me: Come si dice {jab finger in the direction of the delectable dessert}?

I hear the woman behind the bar say 'pignon.' I even repeat 'pignon' and receive an affirmative nod. So I take my newly learned dessert word and head to the cash register to order:
. . . Me: Un pignon, per favore.
. . . She: Un mignon?
. . . Me: (with incredible emphasis on the P) Pignon!

She gives up on this foreigner and resorts to gesture, forming a small hole with her thumb and index finger and giving me a questioning look.
. . . Me: (excitedly grinning and nodding) Si!!
I get the receipt. It says 'mignon.' Whoops. It's a good thing I didn't try ordering with a word-for-word Italian translation of "fruit tart."

I frequently wonder what my broken attempts at Italian sound like to native speakers. How painful my butchering of their language must be to their ears! It's not just the constant mess-ups in grammar, gender and the like, it's also the butchering of the accent and the lack of musicality of American attempts at Italian.

We could just take a different route and embrace the meeting of Italy and the American South (since this program is through the University of Georgia) with this hilarious but sometimes cringe-inducing phrase adorning our dorm's message board:

"Ciao Ya'll!"

Note that almost all the requests are for blankets... It's getting chilly here! And look! I'm reflected at the bottom!