Mii?

This winter seems to be lacking in subtlety, which I firmly enjoy. Packs a punch. And an extra hat.

It's also had some sort of indirect effect increasing my daily use of the English language. I remain cautious on that one. Several reasons or excuses could be rooted up and cooked into a soup for this: and I would list them here. Almost just did. Foremost, I would probably attribute this to a general grappling at social connections during the period of frosty, savory bleakness opposite to summer. Of course, interaction is still fully eesti keeles with Tuuliki and that's nothing I would ever want to alter. The wider composition of my daily, bi-daily and weekly social interactions has taken a turn towards the ex-pat community, however.

It isn't that this is a negative occurrence - I highly enjoy the poker nights, cocktail parties and random incursions in alcoholic beverage establishments. Furthermore, 'ex-pat' does not exclusively signify the English language holding dominance. I am able to edge Estonian back in with a good Finnish friend and I strive to splice up my usage while in mixed settings, much to the annoyance of those other outsiders who, although they have been here exponentially longer than I have, still struggle with the concept of a soft 'e' in 'tere'.

The course things have taken as of late also don't reflect a doldrums of my competency in the local lingua in any way. Estonian still maintains a majority holding of at least 70 percent of daily syllabic exchange. Odd how the twenty-percent loss can be so strongly recognizable, however.

I would gladly edge this up a bit, or at least be content to keep the majority Estonian and decrease the English component. Say, four percent more Russian than currently (i.e. monthly encounters with my racist Russian landlord, giving people the time at bus stops and refusing to buy bootleg vodka). Specifically, I'd really enjoy driving up my use of sámegiella (Sámi language) to the entire one percent in which I am bound by my current abilities in the tongue .

Although the English-language resurgence is not unpleasant and quite a good refresher (I do continue to claim that is my native language in terms of translating), I'm sure it will find its ebb with the coming of slight warmth to the breezes. In any case, it will certainly present some sort of revolting encounter as it usually does with foreigners and spin me back into the fray of cloudier linguistics. It was only a few months ago that some drunk Brit who strayed from the discouragingly permeable bounds of his stag party spent half an hour trying to convince me that Alexander the Great was an Estonian who led Russia to conquer the Baltic region. Although he did claim to know where he was located in the world at that particular moment (I asked him repeatedly) and what the hell he was talking about, the fact that he was mistaking 'Estonia' with 'Macedonia' and 'Baltics' with 'Balkans' seemed to escape him. Not unlike the neiud flitting past on the ice-packed streets. Sometime, sometime .. until then, another head shake and turn to converse with a pint.

Tagasi võõrkeelearendamise suunda..

Edasi, вперёд..