Friday, November 29, 2013

Frustration to the Second Power

So I have been trying like hell to work on my Flemish, which I guess is more that I'm working on speaking Dutch with a Flemish accent and changing up a few words and some pronunciations. Idiot that I am, I thought I should do this at the same time that I try to learn Spanish. Yeah, at best, I am floundering at both. My house is like a weirdo version of Romper Room with post-it notes all over my house that read: estufa, nevera, cuarto, escalera, puerta, espejo, cama, armario, toalla - which I have to remember to say Colombian style, which means the two Ls are more like a J sound then the usual Y sound - the list goes on and on and onnnnn....

I also have PILES of Flemish index cards with the alphabet, words and tons of phrases. Yeah, have you ever tried to say the letter G in Flemish? It's like a bizarre combination of J, G, and Y. It's basically pronounced ghjay but when I try to say it I somehow wind up sounding Scottish. It's so unbelievably frustrating and I know that it's all for nothing because I will never have the courage to speak even a word in Flemish when we are in Belgium. Not even to Joris. Even when I say Hallo it sounds like a crappy dubbed version of German. Clearly, I am dreadful at accents. It's so sad. I'm pretty much a complete arse for even trying to learn Flemish since I'm sure everyone in Antwerpen also speaks English and there's no need for me to learn anything. The thing is, I looooove Flemish. It sounds more beautiful than any other language I've heard. Ya know, I really resent being an American sometimes. Everyone else gets to grow up learning a bunch of different languages and all I got was English with a crummy Mid-Atlantic dialect. One of thee most unattractive accents ever, if you can even call it that. Blah.

I'd like to note, that I am attempting to learn two completely separate languages while going vegan, working non stop overtime, juicing, and exercising every day, which I hate doing. I think I'm a sadist. For real. Yo soy una sádica. Now how would one say that in Flemish...

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