Lost and Found in Translation

Do you speak a language other than your mother tongue?

2007-11-22T21:49:00.001+01:00

I recently read about (http://towerofconfusion.wordpress.com/?s=stuart+jay+raj) and watched the video of Stuart Jay Raj, a guy who can read, write, and speak more than 15 languages. And he's still learning new ones! Here is a link to his blog: http://stujay.blogspot.com/2007/03/stuart-jay-raj-joh-jai-tv-appearance-1.html
In many YouTube videos, he is a guest in a famous Thai talk show and is interviewed by stunned anchormen who ask him questions about his extraordinary talent and test his fluency in many languages, including Chinese, Indonesian, Burnese and other Asian dialects. He shows an incredible mastery in swopping from one language to another.

Where is the trick? What is the secret?

Apparently only talent and an infallible memory.
Stuart explained that when he starts learning a new language, he’ll spend the first week or so just reading a dictionary, picking up 3,000-5,000 words to work with.
But that isn't exactly what anyone could do...

Of mixed origin - his father is Hindi and his mother is Australian - Stuart owes his passion for idioms to his mother's father, who could speak many languages too. He was a very intelligent man who encouraged and challenged young Stuart to have an open mind and be a curious learner.

The following in an interesting remark from Stuart Jay Raj's blog:

My grandfather used to tell me “When you’re learning a language, you want to try your best to avoid having speakers of that language complimenting you. If people are complimenting you on how well you’re speaking ‘their’ language, it means that you still haven’t arrived”. That’s not to say that you want them insulting you! What he meant was that if you’re speaking a language proficiently enough to a native speaker of that language, the thought of complimenting you on your language ability wouldn’t even cross their mind.

I Met One Traveling

2007-11-21T19:42:00.000+01:00

In the evening between sleep and awakening,
I met one traveling. He was the light of

consciousness. His body was soul, his pure
wisdom apparent in his beautiful face. He

praises me for a while, then scolds, “You
sit on the seven-sky throne, in prison.

The sign of Gemini has set a table for you,
yet you stick your head down a drainhole

again. Essence is not nourished with food
and sleep. Do no one any harm in this

timefield of short crops where what you
sow comes up very quickly! You try to

accomplish things, to win, to reach goals.
This is not the true situation. Put the

whole world in ambition's stomach, it’ll
never be enough. Assume you get everything

you want. Assume you have it now. What's
the point? The next moment you die.

Friend, the youth you have lived is ending.
You sleep a drunken dreamless sleep with no

sense what morning you could wake inside.”

Rumi
Translated by Coleman Barks

Finding a meaning to things...

2007-11-20T22:24:00.000+01:00

"The meanings of things aren't stable. Anything can mean almost anything."

Jasper Johns (1930-) American Pop Art painter

Relativity (Lithograph 1953) - M. C. Escher