An Introduction to Korean Indie Music for Korean Language Learners

Guest post by Sam Gendreau

It’s been 5 years since I started looking for some of the best possible—preferably noncommercial—Korean bands out there, and today is your lucky day because I’ll share some of my findings with you! It’s not an exhaustive list by any standard, especially due to space constraints, and of course it’s subjective, but hopefully this will pique your curiosity and serve as a good introduction to Korean music.

By “Indie,” I mean bands or artists that write their own music and that are less mainstream than, say, KPOP and manufactured music ready-made for mass consumption. This “Indie” label is common in Korean music, and such music is often referred to as “K-Indie”. Technically, this could include genres as wide as rock, pop, grunge, acoustic, folk, ballad, and more.

For the top 10 bands, I’ve included an introduction to the band/artist, including the kind of music they play, the amount of years they’ve been on the scene, and the number of CDs they’ve released. I’ve also embedded a video for you to listen to, for what I consider to be one of each band’s “best” songs (one of their most popular, basically), and included links to additional songs that I particularly recommend.

Since most bands and songs’ titles are originally in Korean, I’ve included a loose translation for your convenience. However, this does not necessarily reflect the actual translation that the band has used, if there was ever one. I’ve tried my best to find the right translations whenever possible.

If you are studying or planning to study Korean, learning the language partly through music would be a great option available to you (which I’m sure you are already aware of, since you’re reading this on Susanna’s blog and she has written a book entitled “Language is Music”). If you want to find the lyrics for a particular song, you can most of the time simply Google the name of the band and song, and add “가사”, which means “lyrics” in Korean. If you cannot read Hangul yet, it only takes a couple of days of study to get the hang of it, so don’t be put off by these strange characters!

Otherwise, simply enjoy discovering a new culture. Believe me, Korean music is truly diverse, creative, and addictive. If you have any additional bands you think are worthy of mention, please let us know in the comments section! Remember, this list is highly subjective and only given as a means to introduce you to Korean Indie music. There are simply too many good bands to include them all in one post, so don’t hesitate to make your own suggestions and I will most likely write an additional post in the future on my blog, lingholic, if people are interested!

1. 검정치마 – The Black Skirts

Wikipedia page: Korean, English.

The Black Skirts is a Korean indie rock one man band founded in 2008 in Seoul.

Vocalist “Holiday” Cho (조휴일) is the lead singer and songwriter. He was born in Seoul, but grew up in New York City. He later came back to Seoul, Korea, and released the band’s first album, 201, in 2008. The album earned the 7th Korean Pop Music Award for Best Modern Rock Album.

Besides the album 201, The Black Skirts has released one unofficial album, My feet don’t touch the ground (and I am so winded I can’t sing for you today), in 2009, and a second full-length album, Don’t You Worry Baby (I’m Only Swimming), on July 13, 2011.

Most of the Black Skirts songs contain a mixture of languages – mostly English and Korean, and also Spanish (see song “Dientes”).

“Best” song: “Love Shine”:

Other recommended songs: “강아지 (Puppy),” “Antifreeze,” “아침식사 (Breakfast),” “날씨 (Weather),” “음악하는 여자 (The Woman Who Does Music).”

2. 짙은 – Zitten

Wikipedia page: Korean.

Zitten is an amazingly addictive one-member Modern Rock band, with Seong Yong-Uk as the vocalist and composer. Zitten’s first full-length album was released in 2008 (Zitten), and the band has released three EPs, in 2005, 2010, and 2011 respectively.

Follow Seong Yong-Uk on Twitter or visit the band’s official site.

“Best” song: “괜찮아 (It’s OK)”:

Other recommended songs: “곁에 (Next to),” “동물원 (Zoo),” “고래 (Whale),” “이유 (Reason),” “Feel alright.”

3. 델리 스파이스 – Deli Spice

Wikipedia page: Korean.

Deli Spice is an excellent rock band currently composed of 3 members, with Kim Min-Gyoo (김민규) as the main vocalist, guitarist, and band leader. The band has released a total of eight albums, with their first one, Deli Spice, released in 1997.

Visit their official site or their MySpace page.

“Best” song: “Confession (고백)”:

Other recommended songs: “차우차우 (Chow Chow),” “달려라 자전거 (Ride the Bicycle),” “Y.A.T.C,” “가면 (If You Go),” “고양이와 새에 관한 진실 (The Truth About Cats and Birds).”

4. 브로콜리 너마저 – Broccoli, you too

Wikipedia page: Korean.

Don’t be fooled by the band’s rather curious name! Broccoli, you too is an amazing 4-member band originally formed in 2005. Deokweon (덕원) and Ryuji (류지) are the band’s main vocalists, with Jandi (잔디) on the keyboard and Hyanggi (향기) on the guitar.

Their debut album (EP) was released in 2007, under the name of No Encore (앵콜요청금지). They released 3 full-length albums (in 2008, 2010, and 2012), as well as a second EP in 2012.

The band won “Best Modern Rock Song Award” at the 2010 and 2011 Korean Music Awards, for their songs “Universal Song (보편적인 노래)” and “Graduation (졸업).”

“Like” them on Facebook on visit their website.

“Best” song: “보편적인 노래 (Universal Song )”:

Other recommended songs: “꾸꾸꾸 (Coo Coo Coo),” “유자차 (Citron Tea),” “사랑한다는 말로도 위로가 되지 않는 (Telling You Love Me Does Not Bring Any Comfort).”

5. 루시드폴 – Lucid Fall

Wikipedia page: Korean, English.

Lucid Fall (루시드폴) is a Korean singer-songwriter. His birth name is Jo Yun Suk (조윤석). He has released five studio albums: Lucid Fall (2001), Oh, Love (오, 사랑) (2005), A Night at Border ( 국경의 밤) (2007), Les Misérables (2009), and the latest album Beautiful Days (아름다운 날들) released in Korea on December 20, 2011.

Lucid Fall’s musical style incorporates folk, pop, and bossa nova. He uses a nylon guitar as his primary instrument and is famous for poetic lyrics. The tone of Lucid Fall’s music is melancholic and at times gloomy, but it’s also soothing and relaxing.

Lucid Fall was awarded the Bronze prize at the 5th Ryu Jae Ha Music contest in 1993, as well as the best pop single prize at the 3rd Korean Music Awards in 2006.

Follow him on Twitter or Facebook!

“Best” song: “And Snow is Falling (그리고 눈이 내린다)”:

Other recommended songs: “고등어 (Mackerel),” “국경의밤 (Night at The Border).”

6. 토이 – Toy

Wikipedia page: Korean, English.

Toy is a one-man project band of Korean pop singer-songwriter and pianist Yoo Hee-yeol. Toy is an “old school” band that was at the height of their popularity back in the 1990s. The band has released 6 studio albums since 1994, in addition to one live and one compilation album.

Toy started as a duo of Yoo Hee-yeol and Yoon Jeong-oh, but after releasing Toy’s first album, Yoon Jeong-oh left the band to study overseas. Yoo Hee-yeol has been the sole member of Toy since 1996, and he released Toy’s second album Fairy Tales for Adults in the same year. The title song Remember I Was Next to You sung by Kim Yeon-woo became a big hit and the album was a success.

Visit their official site.

“Best” song: “Whenever (그럴 때마다)”:

Other recommended songs: “내가 너의 곁에 잠시 살았다는 걸 (The Little Life I Spent Next To You),” “혼자 있는 시간 (The Time I’m Alone).”

7. 10cm

Wikipedia page: Korean, English.

10 cm (십센치) is a very popular Indie band in Korea. The band has two members, Kwon Jung Yeol (vocal, djembe) and Yoon Cheol Jong (guitar). The band won “This Year’s Discovery Award” at the 2010 Mnet Asian Music Awards, and “Best Pop Song Award” at the 2011 Korean Music Awards.

Since the debut release, they released one single in 2010, called “Americano,” and two full-length albums (2011 and 2012). “Americano” was an instant hit, and the melody is recognizable by most Koreans since the song aired on radio and in TV series quite extensively.

Follow them on Twitter!

“Best” song: “오늘밤은 어둠이 무서워요 (Tonight, I’m Afraid of The Dark)”:

Other recommended songs: “그게 아니고 (That’s Not It),” “Americano,” “죽겠네 (I’m Gonna Die).”

8. 롤러코스터 – Roller Coaster

Wikipedia page: Korean.

Roller Coaster is a 3-member rock band, with Cho Won-Seon (조원선) as the band leader (vocals, keyboard). Cho Won-Seon is an extremely talented woman that has also released a solo album in 2009 (Swallow). Roller Coaster has released a total of 5 full-length albums, in addition to one live album and a digital single.

The band made their debut in 1999, and has been active since then.

“Best” song: “숨길 수 없어요 (Can’t Hide It)”:

Other recommended songs: “Love Virus,” “Last Scene,” “어느 하루 (A Certain Day),” “습관 (Habit),” “너에게 보내는 노래 (The Song I’m Sending to You).”

9. 몽니 – Monni

Wikipedia page: Korean.

Monni is a 4-member rock band with the amazing Kim Shin-Eui (김신의) as the band’s vocalist. They have a gift for making high quality, highly-addictive songs. Their live shows are energetic and plain amazing.

The band made their debut in 2005, and has since then released 3 full-length albums, one recent EP (2012), as well as several singles.

Visit the band’s site and follow them on Twitter.

“Best” song: “그대와 함께 (Together With You)”:

Other recommended songs: “나 지금 뛰어가고 있어 (I’m Running Now),” “언제까지 내 맘 속에서 (Anytime Inside My Heart),” “다시와 (Come Back Again),” “너 떠나버린 그 집 앞 (Me Who Walk Away in Front of This House).”

10. 스탠딩 에그 – Standing Egg

Wikipedia page: Korean.

Last but not least in this introduction to Korean Indie Music is Standing Egg, another addictive band formed in 2010. The band is composed of three members (Egg #1, #2, and #3), and released their first album in 2010. They released a second full-length album in April 2012. They also released two “mini-album” and 7 singles. Their lyrics are often a mix of Korean and English, and Standing Egg’s music style could be considered as acoustic and pop.

Visit their official website and like them on Facebook.

“Best” song: “라라라 (Lalala)”:

Other recommended songs: “I’m not Yours ,” “넌 이별 난 아직.”

————————————————–

Alright everybody, that’s it for today’s post. I really hope you’ll have enjoyed discovering new music, and I hope you’ll find Korean music as amazing as I do! Should you ever have any questions, whether about Korean music or the Korean language, I’d be more than happy to answer them. Feel free to visit my blog, www.lingholic.com, and visit the “Contact” page to send me a message! I’d also love it if you’d drop by my Facebook page and say hi! Many thanks~

By Sam Gendreau

By Umar Alim Al-Junaid

One of the hardest things to be is an American citizen who speaks other languages, but being an African- American who speaks several languages has its own unique set of issues. For one, 99.99% of the time you feel as if you are the only person within a 3,000 mile radius who speaks another language, you find yourself searching through outlets such as Youtube for people who look like you that speak several languages, and when you do find them, you clamor like a lonely, desperate adolescent. You find yourself reaching out to them on every social network there is – begging and hoping that they will add you to their inner circle of coolness. By the way, thank you Moses McCormick, Idahosa Ness, and David Mansaray.

10 Reasons Why African Americans NEED To Learn A Second Language

Ambassador Spratlen

I am a multilingual Emcee, so I enjoy producing rap music in all the languages I speak.  Naturally, when I first came across Susanna Zaraysky’s great work a few years back, I was excited and impressed that she is an advocate of using music to learn languages.  Still, I noticed something else that was a bit disturbing: I was bothered by the fact that I have not seen or met many female polyglots. In fact, when I looked around the African American community, I was even more disturbed because I noticed that there is a severe lack of female representation in the language community; so, consequently there are no women being celebrated. That’s not to say that there aren’t African American men and women in high places who aren’t multilingual. For example , we have Ambassador Pamela Spratlen -nominated to the position by President Barack Obama on January 5, 2011, and who speaks Russian, French, and Spanish. There’s also Mr. Andrew Ballen  -CEO/Founder of AVD Digital Media, who has made his bones over in China with a high command of Mandarin.

But, in my own personal life – within my wide circle of friends from all walks of life, different places, and different social economic standings – I am hard-pressed to encounter a Black woman or man who speak more than one language. I literally know of ONE: Ms. Whitney “Phylliz Sophikal” Boyd, a native of Miami, Florida currently working in Atlanta. Ms Boyd is worth noting because not only is she bilingual, but she is also a brilliant educator, artist, and scholar holding a Masters in Pan-African Studies.

So when I asked Ms. Boyd about the importance of African-American people – and particularly African-American women – learning languages, she remarked:

“As a high school Spanish teacher, it is immeasurably disparaging to hear students complain about the uselessness of learning a second language. What many people of color fail to realize is that knowing a second language is as important for one’s personal development as it is for job security. As a people, we are overdue for a paradigm shift toward global thinking and global citizenship, and because women are statistically more present in the lives of our children, it is up to us to expose them to language skills and the beauty of cultural diversity.”

Now as you read this you may be asking yourself “Why is everything so Black and White?” or  “Why does everything have to be about race?” or even “Why does it always come down to the ‘gender war’?”  Well, the simple answer is…because this is the good ol’ US of A and at the end of the day it is about race, color, and creed; it is ALL economic, and African-Americans are getting left behind, yet again.

While writing this article, I read a recent post, What Facebook executive’s new book tells about women, success & foreign languages on Susanna’s site. This post highlighted the accomplishments of Sheryl Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer of Facebook who also made the cover of TIME magazine.  In this very informative article, Susanna had mentioned how she was upset with the article in TIME magazine because, as she puts it, “The article reinforced what I was already suspecting was the explanation for why we don’t see more female polyglots being public about their foreign language successes.”  She goes on to explain that “women’s success is not appreciated by [her] peers. Men’s success is appreciated.”
Now I have noted all throughout my book that the lack of bilingualism is a national issue, but I do keep it real with the reader because – like everything else in this country  - when it gets broken down into simple terms, White men sit at the top, White women are second, “everyone else” third, Black women fourth, and Black are men last. In other words, if America as a whole is doing poorly at something, African-Americans suffer the worst, and when America is doing well at something, African-Americans usually get little to no share of the spoils.

As I read Susanna’s article (from an African-American perspective), I could not fathom any issues arising from being the Chief Operating Officer of Facebook because we rarely see that type of success in our community in the first place, whether it be male or female. Nonetheless, her point was well-expressed and well-received.

In addition, I made sure to write the book with the youth in mind because America needs to start raising a generation of bilingual citizens. As a kid growing up in monocultural America, I was always interested in other cultures.  I can remember one of my early crushes – she was a beautiful Filipino girl who I played chess against, and who was always by my side when we played the “Oregon Trail.”  Now, being in middle school, “by my side” meant that the teacher just sat her next to me in the circle along with 14 other students, but you get the point.  And it was in the early 1990’s that my obsession with Hip-Hop, African history, World history and Rick Steves:European Travels that would encourage me to eventually learn other languages. The educational system here in America has done an extreme disservice to its youth by not implementing a serious foreign language learning matrix into its curricula. It took me a long time to get back to my dream of learning a second language –yes, I said dream. That is how bad it is.

As it was then, so it is now that learning a second language in school is an exception, not the rule.  And because it was not the rule, we have created generations of Americans who are averse to learning foreign languages and usually point back to school as the reason why they stopped learning them in the first place.  Thus, the cycle of monolingualism has, in my not-so-humble opinion, perversely affected the society to the extreme that, even with the World Wide Web, America’s youth are light years behind children in other countries who already speak English as a second or even third language. Not to mention the parents of these monolingual children who may, themselves, need to pick up Spanish to earn better pay at their jobs.

Still, everything is not gloom and doom because America, with all its cultural diversity, can turn this around. African Americans in particular are capable of achieving this well.  I am the proof of this fact. See, I did not start learning a second language until my early thirties, and since then I have learned five languages and written a book about it with the hopes of being a positive contribution to both the African-American and language communities as a whole.

Many in the African –American community may ask “How can I learn a second language when I can’t afford Rosetta Stone?!”

I have never used Rosetta Stone. But, I do know that it’s expensive so let me give the readers a few suggestions on how to learn a language on a budget:

YouTube- FREE! Look up your language and you will find so many awesome people around the world who have given their time, and knowledge to help the viewer learn a foreign language.

Library- FREE! I believe it was Andrew Carnegie who once said that “libraries are the poor man’s university”.

Meetup.com-FREE! These are excellent places to not only learn a foreign language, but also to practice with other people who are doing the same thing.
Motivation-FREE! Find your reason (I give 10 in the book) on why you want or need to learn a second language and the rest will fall in line.

Since I have learned foreign languages, my world has literally burst open. Now, I have more friends from around the planet than I have in the States. I have been able to meet wonderful people like Susanna who inspire me to keep at it daily.  As a Hip Hop artist I find it stimulating to find my voice in my languages. Also, having a foreign language gives me the ability to switch cadences in the rhyme flow and pattern, and I can flex my lyrical dexterity as I go in out of languages while rhyming.  Outside the booth I have found a new professional passion as an interpreter (community, court and conference)  and an ESL teacher as well.  In the near future I would like to use my experience and skill to mentor and train low income and at-risk youth and adults in these two beautiful professions.

So, in the end, even when I feel like the lonely African-American, when it comes to language learning, I know that I’m dropping a jewel for future generations of young Black boys and girls who need to know that through foreign language learning, they can be more than just dancers, singers, rappers, or athletes.  Through enlightened cultural influence, the 3,000 mile radius of looking for youths like them who speak other languages will shrink to every corner of the planet, and they will become true global citizens.

How to find Umar Alim Al-Junaid:

Book: http://thebookonlanguagelearning.weebly.com/

Music: https://soundcloud.com/d-o-gogettersunion

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GguInterpreters?ref=hl

Twitter: @getatme1on1

Endangered species. Endangered whales. Endangered languages?

What’s an endangered language?

About half of the world’s 6000 languages will be extinct in 100 years unless we act to preserve them.

In this video, I explain why you should care about languages, how linguistic diversity enriches your life and brain health and what we can do to keep languages alive.

Sheryl Sandberg, cover of Time Magazine

The TIME Magazine “Confidence Woman” cover story on Sheryl Sandberg, the Chief Operating Officer of Facebook, and her new book, Lean In, about women, success and careers made me very angry.  The article reinforced what I was already suspecting was the explanation for why we don’t see more female polyglots being public about their foreign language successes.

Women’s success is not appreciated by her peers. Men’s success is appreciated.

Translate this into foreign language skills and this is the picture you see. While many foreign language classes have more females than males, we see more men than women on the Internet showing their language abilities. Women play down their abilities while men are taught that it is good to show off or at least be public about their accomplishments.

Read this excerpt from Sandberg’s new book Lean In about the double standard that pervades the way a powerful woman is viewed in society vs how a man with the same traits is lauded by his peers.

In 2003, Columbia Business School professor Frank Flynn and New York University professor Cameron Anderson ran an experiment. They started with a Harvard Business School case study about a real-life entrepreneur named Heidi Roizen. It described how Roizen became a successful venture capitalist by using her “outgoing personality … and vast personal and professional network … [which] included many of the most powerful business leaders in the technology sector.” Half the students in the experiment were assigned to read Heidi’s story. The other half got the same story with just one difference—the name was changed from Heidi to Howard.

When students were polled, they rated Heidi and Howard as equally competent. But Howard came across as a more appealing colleague. Heidi was seen as selfish and not “the type of person you would want to hire or work for.” This experiment supports what research has already clearly shown: success and likability are positively correlated for men and negatively correlated for women. When a man is successful, he is liked by both men and women. When a woman is successful, people of both genders like her less.

I believe this bias is at the very core of why women are held back. It is also at the very core of why women hold themselves back. When a woman excels at her job, both men and women will comment that she is accomplishing a lot but is “not as well liked by her peers.” She is probably also “too aggressive,” “not a team player,” “a bit political”; she “can’t be trusted” or is “difficult.” Those are all things that have been said about me and almost every senior woman I know.
(Sheryl Sandberg, Lean In)

The impact for foreign language learners is that while women might learn languages, they may not be motivated to use them to excel professionally because of how poorly they will be viewed by her peers. Although it has been a while, I have been told by both men and women to shut up about my language skills or else I intimidate men. It turns out that I might have not just been intimidating men, but annoying other women.

We might think that subtle signals mean nothing. However, over the course of a girl’s lifetime, she may encounter many situations when people tell her to be quiet, be modest and not outshine her peers, male or female, for fear of not being accepted. As she matures into an adult, she may hold back, water down her achievements and not show her success.

Both men and women have to examine how they treat successful females at any age. Do you encourage them to keep going and learn more? Or do you tell them to be quiet and avoid being “unliked” for being smart, intellectual, outspoken or multilingual?

Learning a language with various regional varieties or dialects means choosing which accent(s) to learn. In this video with Richard Simcott and Luca Lampariello, we talk about how we chose which accent to learn in English, Spanish and Portuguese.

Rare is the book which envelops my attention, delights me in its prose, makes me re-read passages both for the joy of the flow of the sentences and for the content and strikes a chord with me personally. Le testament français (UK edition)/Dreams of my Russian Summers (US edition) not only had all of the aforementioned effects but it also made me get out my pen and underline key sentences and make notes. I hadn’t done that since my college years.

The story is fictional. It’s about a teenage boy in Siberia in post-World War II Russia who learns about pre-Revolutionary Russia and Paris before World War I from Charlotte, his French grandmother. He learns about the opulence of the Tsar’s visit to France in French. Via the French language, he feels as though he enters into another world, one whose words he doesn’t even know in Russian.

The author, Andrei Makine, is a Siberian novelist who writes in French and has been living in France since he defected from the former Soviet Union in 1987.

Andrei Makine, author of Dreams of my Russian Summers

While devouring the book, I often recalled my own discovery of the riches of pre-Soviet St. Petersburg via a French novel, La gouvernante française, written by a Russian-French author, Henri Troyat. Before my first return to Russia, I went to the French section of my local library and chanced upon, La gouvernante française, a novel about a French governess working for a rich Russian family right before the Russian Revolution. The backdrop of the Revolution and political upheaval set the story of the governess’ awakening in St. Petersburg. I was learning about my own country in French, not in Russian, similar to how the protagonist of Dreams of my Russian Summers learned about Tsarist Russia.

Via the French language, France became the protagonist’s Atlantis, a mythical land.

Charlotte’s Atlantis had enabled me to glimpse the mysterious consonance of eternal moments. Without my knowing it, they had traced the pattern of another life, invisible, inadmissible, alongside my own.

Even a Russian word changed meanings when said in French:

“Perhaps this double vision could be explained by my two languages; thus, when I pronounced the word ‘царь’ a cruel tyrant rose before me; while the word ‘tsar’ in French was redolent of lights, of sounds, of winds, of glittering chandeliers, of the radiance of women’s bare shoulders, of mingled perfumes, of the inimitable air of our Atlantis.”

Language as an escape

Stories in French evoked a past that was more real to him than his present day Siberia. (Granted, Soviet Siberia probably gave people many reasons to seek a mental escape, whether via literature, music, the arts or controlled substances like alcohol.)

Once again I sensed in myself the mysterious gestation of that language [French] so different from words blunted by use …

Why does an autumn morning in Cherbourg a hundred years ago, yes, a moment I have never lived through, in a town I have never visited, why do its light and breeze seem to me more alive than the days of my real life?
……………

It was Charlotte who had taught me to pick out Parisian silhouettes in the midst of a great industrial city on the Volga; it was she who had imprisoned me in this fantasy of the past, from whence I cast absent-minded glances at real life.

From what my parents have told me about growing up in the former Soviet Union, literature was indeed a vehicle out of the drab and repressive reality of the Communist regime. Soviets read books voraciously and studied maps of foreign cities to the point that they knew the street plans of Paris better than native Parisians. They did this in an effort to mentally leave the everydayness of their existence. But I had never heard of language being a mental airplane out of the Iron Curtain. Makine’s novel brought me to a deeper understanding of the power of language to let us dream and escape when we need to.

Life is different in French

When learning about the French President Félix Faure dying in the arms of his mistress, the protagonist realizes that this taboo of having a lover would never be discussed openly in Russian, but was completely natural for his grandmother to discuss with him in French:

“No Russian babushka would venture into such a discussion with her grandson. In this freedom of expression, I sensed an unaccustomed perception of the body, of love, of relationships between a man and a woman – a mysterious French ‘outlook’.

To my great surprise, rerun in Russian, the scene no longer made a good story. It was actually impossible to tell! Censored by an inexplicable modesty of words…

‘No’, I said to myself stretched out in the rippling grass under the warm wind, ‘it is only in French that he could die in the arms of Marguerite Steinhell…’

Aliveness via language

He spends some time in his teenage rebellion rejecting the French world of his grandmother and when he meets with her again after some time of separation, he feels like he is speaking in French as a foreign language. His change in character had altered his ability to speak in French. His next conclusion about being in between Russian and French is one that I believe reverberated in me more than all the others:

Strangely, or rather, quite logically, it as at moments like this, when I find myself between two languages, that I believe I can see and feel more intensely than ever.

He asks himself later in the book, “Suppose one could express this language in writing?” Oh how many times have I asked myself the same question, only to be met by the reality that if I write how I think, few people will be able to follow my jumps from one tongue to another!

I think that for those who are conscious of how differently we express ourselves in our languages and how each language resounds with us, we have felt this aliveness, if not confusion, that comes with living between languages. I did a video series in Russian, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and English about the resonance of languages and I explained how each language makes me feel. But it is precisely when I can speak with people who know more than one of the languages I know, that I can fully express myself because my thoughts change languages mid-sentence, depending on which language best captures what I mean to say. The mental switching of languages brings an awareness and intensity of perception unbeknownst to monolinguals.

Don’t get me wrong or misquote me, please. It’s not that monolinguals don’t have profound thoughts or feelings. There are monolinguals who have more powerful sentient experiences than bilinguals or polyglots. However, it is for those multilingual people who are conscious of how their mind is dancing, switching or jumping from one dictionary to another that the world can be felt at many levels, piercing through the limitations of one language and rejoicing in the more appropriate words of another.

Language preserved in amber, in isolation

As the protagonist only saw his grandmother during the summers, he spent the rest of the year only conversing in Russian and dreaming in French in his mind. When he returned to see his grandmother, her French-ness was preserved intact in her isolation in Siberia, even with her pre- World War I “Belle Époque” flavor. By speaking to his grandmother, he was hearing her speak in a French that her contemporaries in France would no longer use because the language had evolved in the decades since her departure from France after World War I.

This reminds me of a funny episode when I first encountered the differences between my modern Russian lexicon and that of Tsarist Russia. My parents took me to a Russian festival at Fort Ross, a former Russian installation, in Northern California, there were Russians there who were descendants of the White Russians who had left Russia during the Bolshevik Revolution and had settled in the United States. A boy was telling his grandmother in old pre-revolutionary Russian that he couldn’t find his underwear. Instead of using the modern Russian word, трусы, he said, подштанники. I laughed because I understood what meant, it literally meant “underpants” but I had never heard the word before. My parents had to explain to me that before the revolution подштанники was a commonly used word. My sister reminds me that I kept repeating the word in the car ride home!

Russia via a French novel in British English

One may ask why I was reading this book in English and not in French. The author and I share a mother tongue. He wrote his novel in French, my third language. Yet I was reading his book in a British English translation — one small step removed from my American English. I was on vacation abroad and found his book in a used bookstore. There was no French version. Despite the linguistic distance between the original version and the one I was reading, I loved the flow of his writing and the vivid details of Siberian life and pre-World War I life in Paris and Russia. I look forward to reading his other books in French to see if they flow as well for me.

Jean Paul Belmondo, French film star

This was actually the second time I had read one of Makine’s books in British English and not in French. The first was Once upon the River Love, about Siberian boys reveling at the romanticism and adventure of the movies of Jean-Paul Belmondo. I remember clearly his descriptions of how the boys walked in the snow to get to the movie theater to re-watch a Jean-Paul Belmondo movie.

(On a side note, I find that when I read a book translated into British English, I perceive some awkwardness or something odd about the English. But when I read a book or article written by a native English speaker of another anglophone country, including England, I don’t feel anything strange. The language just flows.)

Do you have similar feelings of being in between languages in your mind?

Does the world feel different depending on which language you are using?

Does the same word mean different things for you in different languages?

Do you have a language that transports you to a mythical or long-lost world?

I have heard on several occasions that the sign of fluency in a language is when one dreams in the language. That can’t be true. Or else I’m fluent in Arabic without being aware of it! I briefly studied Arabic but I don’t speak it. However, sometimes I have dreams in Arabic, or in what sounds like Arabic, in Arabic-speaking countries and I understand what is going on.

In this video, I speak with Luca Lampariello and Richard Simcott about the languages in which they dream.

At long last, I am posting the demo to Saved by Language, the documentary I’m co-producing about how the Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) language saved a boy’s life in Bosnia in World War II. Ladino is considered to be an endangered language.

For those who want to make a tax-deductible donation to help with editing and post-production costs, please go to this link. All donors will be thanked in the credits of the film.

“Sarajevo has a soul. It has a heart.”

My passion for Ladino/Judeo-Spanish is no secret. In this video, Richard Simcott (the hyperpolyglot extraordinnaire) and I speak in Bosnian/Serbo-Croatian (or whatever else you like to call this language) about the beauty of Sarajevo and how the Ladino language saved a boy’s life in World War II. Richard and both lived in Sarajevo but at different times.

That’s right. Seventeen Internet polyglots came together, under the tireless direction of Benny Lewis of Fluent in Three Months, to create the first ever polyglot music video. There are over 30 languages in this video doing a remake of the song, Call me Maybe.

I helped Benny create the script and contact various polyglots. Benny took a lot of time to organize this incredible video and edit it so well. I am impressed by his work and dedication to showing how fun it is to speak various languages! He made this video to promote the Polyglot Conference to be held in Budapest in May 2013.

As I love to wear my various costumes, I sported my Mexican sombrero and then sweated while recording the Russian section of the video wearing my Russian attire made for Siberian chills. My “Dr. Zhivago” wool coat and Russian fur hat with a Soviet army pin are way too hot for a mild California autumn day.

Here is the video!