Friday, October 23, 2009

The significance of having learned German before English

When I see a word I don't know how to pronounce, what comes out usually is how Germans would read it.

My grapheme-to-phoneme rule for things written in the Roman alphabet is German by default, it appears.

I realized this when I started graduate school, as I was getting familiar with the dual-route models of reading (that you can either convert the letters into sounds or just directly get the meaning of the word through its whole printed form). Since then, being aware of the fact that I have a tendency of reading new words with a German pronunciation has helped me correct my pronunciation consciously, but if I'm not thinking about it, I still make mistakes.

Recent example: Conoco.
COnoco, not coNOco.

Soledad

Sometimes I have a word or a phrase stuck in my head kinda like a song getting stuck in your head and playing over and over. It just comes to me at random moments, without any apparent triggers. They just come and go.

This time, it's "soledad."

I think it's a pretty word, though its meaning is rather melancholy. I know I generally like words ending with "-dad." Come to think of it, I did like words ending with "-heit" or "-keit" as well. Not so much for the English "-ness," however, but then again, I never really liked English to begin with.

I just like the sound of it, "soledad." It's soft, it's calm, and if the meaning wasn't too depressing, I probably would consider naming my daughter that one day.

Along with this word, the song currently playing endlessly in my head is "Caraluna" by Bacilos. It is fun to mouth the lyrics. I guess I generally like the sound of Spanish. It's fun, and it's pretty.

Mientras tenga que cambiar la radio de estación por que cada canción me hable de ti, de ti, de ti~

Monday, October 12, 2009

Today's word error

So I had a moment of duh!!!! regarding one of the current projects in the lab, and as I was trying to convey my feelings to a friend, I stopped mid-word as I was mouthing "revelization." A blend of "revelation" and "realization", just like "ginormous" is a blend of "gigantic" and "enormous."