My passion for Languages

I would like to write about languages.

Yesterday I used an expression that I would have liked to correct in the following way.

Languages are a passion of mine, or I have passion for languages - would be the right way to say it. Yesterday I was nervous, as at all times when I speak any language other than Hebrew. I always get nervous, even when I speak my mother tongue - Russian. I believe that keeping the language pure and correct, not mixing it with other languages or slang, means respecting the language you choose to use. Clear and clean speaking is a valuable acquired skill.

My mother was a book editor and language corrector in Moscow for ten years. As long as I remember she had kept her speaking clear and correct. She used to read a lot to me, in my childhood and youth, and she always kept her diction perfect. Each time she was uncertain of the right pronunciation or meaning of a word, she would open a heavy and old dictionary by Ozhegov, and she would explore it. If there was a mistake in a book, she would correct it with a pen she kept close by and explain to me what the mistake was and what would be the right or better way to say it.

I was born and grew up in Israel, where the native language is Hebrew. Nonetheless, the only language I knew until I was four and sent to kindergarten, was Russian. At home, my brother and I were not allowed to speak anything but Russian. Any time our mother caught us speaking Hebrew she would scold us and threaten us with her hand.

My mother spent a lot of time with us in our childhood. She gave us all her attention, listened to our stories, watched us play and draw, she read countless books to us. Each time we would make a mistake she would correct us, and she never missed.

At the age of five, I was sent to an evening school where everything was taught in Russian - math, Russian, and English. We were taught to write, read, and calculate.

At the age of eight, I was sent to a private teacher instead. For six years I went once or twice a week to learn grammar, write essays, and Russian literature, and read famous novels like Yevgeny Onegin by Pushkin. The Russian teacher took me to classical music concerts of great orchestras playing the most beautiful pieces like Peer Gynt by Edward Grigg, and the Four Seasons of Vivaldi, the Nutcracker, and Swan Lake ballets by Chaikovsky. She would teach me about Greek mythology as well. As a reward after finishing a big subject, she would show me related films like Disney’s Fantasy which I enjoyed greatly.

When I was sick, my grandmother from my father’s side used to read Narnia to me from an old edition of several thin books, which started my many years of love for Fantasy.

I still remember the thin pale blue paper cover of The Silver Chair.

The first Hebrew book I read was Harry Potter, at the age of eight. I had the magical opportunity to grow up during that exciting time when all the world was waiting with sparkling eyes for J.K.Rowling to publish her next book.

When I turned twelve I discovered that all Harry Potter books were printed in Russian much earlier than in Hebrew, so my mother bought me the Russian editions in special bookstores as soon as they appeared, and she would read them to me.

At fourteen in the high school library, I made my favorite discovery - I found Dianna Wynne Jones’ book Howl’s Moving Castle. My favorite book and author to this day. After swallowing that book, I skipped many classes to stay in the library and read every available book of hers and most of the other books from the Fantasy shelf.

One day my mother came back from Moscow and brought a full suitcase of Diana Wynne Jones’ books and many others, all in Russian, for me to read. At first, it was a great challenge for me, I read slowly and it was a tiring process. I remember the one book that during its reading I had the click - The Dark Lord of Derkholm by Dianna Wynne Jones. Something changed as if a channel or blockage was opened and the reading became so fluent and easy I could not stop. I felt as if I have received a great gift. I devoured all those books and the Russian became a language I felt I owned.

In the high school library on the fantasy shelf, there was Jonathan Stroud’s Bartimaeus Trilogy, which I read many times during high school, and which I later had in English in my home library along with the fourth book The Ring of Solomon. In the period of high school, I received a gift of second-hand books, those were Philip Pullman’s Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass. I discovered they were the following parts of The Golden Compass movie, which I adored. Later on, I bought the full trilogy in English.

At eighteen I worked hard on reading in English, writing down all the words I did not know, translating, and memorizing them.

I don't quite remember which book it was that made the click, but after reading those books when I was about twenty, English became the third language I felt I owned. Then I started to write most of my diaries in English.

French.

My parents loved to play old records all day long. When I was little my life was filled with sounds of different languages. I particularly remember the CD of Charle Aznavour, which made me want to learn French.

I was ten when I discovered a book on my brother’s bookshelf, The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux. I have read it in Hebrew several times and watched the movie many times.

At fourteen I chose the high school where French was taught, and for six years in school, two of them with a private teacher, I learned French. I excelled at all exams.

A few years later, a chance came for me to travel to London. There I was blessed to have the opportunity to see the original live Phantom of the Opera with the familiar to me voices. After that show, I went to a huge bookstore where I found the most beautiful edition of Gaston Leroux’s book in French. It was a small dark red hardcover, carved with golden letters, the sides of the pages covered with gold.

French had not clicked for me yet, but I know that it would only take several books for this to happen. The first would be the hardest, where I would write down all the words I will learn and memorize.

Japanese.

One day at elementary school we were taken to a Japanese museum. There was a writing class, we had to leave our shoes outside, sit in a cozy room on the floor, and practice writing our names with brushes and black ink on a low table. Something in the air of that culture lit a sparkle in my heart. I loved it ever since,

Sometime later I discovered the film Memoirs of a Geisha. I watched it many times trying to imitate the flawless movements of the geishas, wishing with all my heart to have been born into that culture of grace and beauty, where everything has its right way to be done. I dreamt of being a spy or a secret agent in Japan, learning Japanese, being Japanese, learning Japanese martial arts, and dating a Japanese man.

At twenty-three I took a Japanese course for half a year and studied for hours every day. I worked in an Asian restaurant, where I met a Japanese man to whom I introduced myself in Japanese for the first time in my life. It was a magical moment for me. The second Japanese man I met invited me to come with him to London where he lived. He showed me all the best Japanese restaurants and shops in London.

German.

I liked Tokyo Hotel, a German rock band when I was thirteen. I wanted to learn all their songs and understand them, I wanted to live in Germany and go study music there. I traveled twice with the choir I sang in to Germany, I learned some phrases and words, mostly pronunciations, but not much more.

In Japan and Germany, I loved the air and personality of the languages. I loved their graceful, self-disciplined, restrained cultures. Although I have not been to Japan yet.

Spanish.

For Spanish I had no previous passion, I never studied it. At twenty-eight, my then-partner and I flew to Panama to seek adventure and camper life. After half a year of travel, we both could speak Spanish terribly, but well enough to get by quite easily. 

Now I am in Costa Rica and Spanish is my goal, and I plan to achieve it by reading again all of Diana Wynne Jones’ books in Spanish. It is the most exciting idea that has occurred to me lately.

Languages are a passion of mine.