Language Bug

Well, after a pause since my New Year travels, I have again resumed my language studies, first with a dose of Maaori, followed by another taste of Spanish, and now back to the security and ease of Mandarin.

My big discovery of the last few days is another programme on Maaori television that appeals to me and I can learn language from. It is called Mind Your Moohio, a quiz show which they mix English and Maaori in a way that you can understand everything regardless of your proficiency. Amusingly, they have a few cool sections, such as the waiata (song) section, where they take an English or maaori song, with the guitar tune played, sing it in the other language. Then questions are asked. Following that is the kiriata section (Movies) where they act a little bit of it but saying the script in te reo Maaori! It is see Morpheus from the Matrix say one of his speeches in Maaori!

Spanish was a nice lingual interlude between Maori and Mandarin. Mi llamo es Daniel. Soy es de New Zealand. Me gusta comer Chocolate. Mucho Gusto~ 100% accuracy is hard because it is a details language with inflections and changes in every sentence but it is a nice sounding language.

My mandarin burst came when I realised that I hadn't returned an overdue Chinese book. Now I should get as full value as I can from it before I run it back into the city tomorrow and pay the accompanying fine.

For me, learning languages is quite relaxing. I sometimes forget that and choose my relaxation in less productive ways.