Languages

One of my interests is language - it ought to be plural: I have a great love for languages. Danish - of course, my mother tongue, English is my chief secondary language, I know it tolerably well, read most of my books in English. I can get reasonably by in German, and also likes Swedish - unlike some Danes who tend to think they have to dislike the muscial tongue of our neighbours to the east of Øresund. Is it so they can't forget that the major part of southern Sweden used to be Danish and they can get a sort of revenge by not liking Swedish?

Topping my hit list of languages however is French. I know of no other language, which is so evocative to listen to - I love to tune in to TV 5 from France and just listen to this marvellous language - poetry and music vibrate in every sentence. It is as if all possible sounds one can have in a language is rolled into French in the most charming and titillating way possible. Try to read a poem in French or have it read out to you if you don't know the language that well. This really brings the magic in the language out. I'm not - however - very fluent in French, but I'm working hard on it and enjoy the process a lot. One way I've found to improve my French is via chat-rooms (Second Life of late) - it's not difficult to find Frenchmen eager to pass on knowledge and partake in an education process. I've begun reading in French to augment the learning process. I've set out with Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's wonderful fable "Le Petite Prince" - I know it from way back in a Danish version, to which I can resort if I'm unable to precisely decipher the meaning - it's not that hard though. I'll follow up with other of his works when finished with the prince.

I can't resist the temptation to let you sample a bit from The Little Prince. It's from chapter VIII - the little prince gets to know a beautiful rose, which begins to grow on his tiny planet. Saint-Exupéry describes the rose coming into bloom (a female, of course) thus: "... Elle s'habillait lentement, elle ajustait un à un ses pétales. Elle ne voulait pas sortir toute fripée somme les coquelicots. Elle ne voulait apparaître que dans le plein rayonnement de sa beauté. Eh! oui. Elle était trés coquette ! Sa toilette mystérieuse avait donc duré des jours et des jours. Et puis voici qu'un matin, justement á la heure de lever du soleil, elle s'était montrée".