as I promised yesterday…

(this was first posted on www.draugiem.lv)

this is my scribbling in Russian, for what I wrote in http://www.frype.com/?pid=5241189

я понимаю что… I understand that…

(this was first published on www.draugiem.lv)

… я незнаю русский язык
I don’t know the Russian language

но я будет сделано!
But I will do!

have a nice evening

Yet another month :) And another goal :D

(this was first published on www.draugiem.lv)

Quite funny, isn’t it?

Time flies…

July 2007: I had but half a dozen friends in draugiem.
July/August 2007: my first visit to Latvija in about 10 years
September 2007: after “reviving” my draugiem page… few hundred friends
September 2008: started to prepare the blog
February 2009: started writing both the blog and here almost on a daily basis
June 2009: another language officially added (Dutch)
July 2009: shared some of the new knowledge with my fellow Italians

tomorrow, as promised to some friends and planned, I will resume studying Russian, while I will keep going on my Dutch, and refresh my grammar knowledge of other languages

target? Move my A2 in Dutch to B1/B2and try to get A1/A2 in Russian by December

I know, I know- I am almost one year late- wasted too much time in unexpected activities over the last 12 months

now, just a question: which accent should I pick? I mean, in English? I am tired of adapting my accent to the people I meet, and my original Italian accent is now mixed with other languages- beyond repair

and the other languages? well, I was thinking to have a go at a Dutch accent in Dutch, St Petersburg in Russian, and… resume my Canadian accent in French (that’s how the called me some customers when I was working in Paris and living in London, 10 years ago )

Spanish? Well, first those listed above, then I will think about the others and, anyway, I can read and understand Spanish newspapers, books, movies

As for German and Latvian… sorry, but I will keep understanding what I do understand for the time being, before resuming and improving both (probably in 2010)

so… I might become a good tourist guide

the only certainty? that I was a… lazy student while in school (but I liked Latin

have a nice week-end

R

Are you a politician? Yes, you are :D

(this was first published on www.draugiem.lv)

Because everybody makes choices, and most choices influence others.

And, therefore, you try to influence others in accepting your choices

Well- not that much original: somebody called Aristotle wrote that long, long ago- everybody is a political animal, i.e. belongs to a community

In our virtual times… belonging to 100 communities seems sometimes easier that belonging to your own physical community- where you live.

If you want to read something about how I think that anyone can be an everyday politician- read a (short, promised!) article here : http://tinyurl.com/lftjyw

With some practical instructions

But I walk the talk… and my small everyday political contribution, following my own article is… today I completed and released the first draft of the Dutch grammar in Italian

Belgium is a country with multiple national languages- so, shouldn’t we foreigners living here do at least an effort to do so? I already knew French, so I started with Dutch when I decided to stay and work here

I already released the first draft of the first 232 pages of the grammar, except part on the syntax and the appendixes.

If you speak Italian, have a look http://tinyurl.com/km9hqn (it is a 1.4 MB Acrobat file), covering: spelling, verbs, nouns, articles, pronouns.

But the concept is simple: look around you, and you will certainly find something that is worth doing- for something more useful (to others) than simply sharing your thoughts.

The full version, including the missing last section, appendixes and table of contents, plus any revision, will be available online only at the website- I will not get a penny: I transferred the rights for the selling of the final Acrobat version online to the original author, as it was quite a job, to prepare the original one.

So, if you want, you can give me a feed-back.

Are you an everyday fake? :D

(this was first published on www.draugiem.lv)

When I was a kid, tagging along with my father when he was acting, and occasionally when he had his own talk radio show and then some TV, more than once I met professional actors.

At that time (mid 1970s), professional Italian actors prided themselves, when on stage or on air, to talk using a proper way of pronouncing Italian words.

That was “icing on the cake”- the cake being, of course, their acting skills.

But whenever they met off-stage… each one of them had a different accent.

I asked why- and the answer was: because the “dizione” was for the stage; otherwise, they were just humans, and used whatever accent was common in their community; only a fake or aspiring actor, would stick forever to the “dizione”.

Well, eventually the “dizione” disappeared altogether from Italian movies and TV

Do you know any Italian who left Italy before 1980s? Their “Italian language” is more a concept than a reality- dialects were their everyday reality, and they carried that burden along with them.

And the accent is just the most “audible” characteristic of dialects. It is really funny when I meet foreigners that lived in Italy, are proud of their Italian language skills… and, as soon as they start talking, I can spot the region where they lived, or their teacher was coming from.

But that’s fine- they lived in their community, and of course they adapted to the environment, and adopted the local dialect and “variant” of the Italian language.

Why the title? Because, in Italy and abroad, I come often across people who try to be “cool” by picking up this or that “pattern”, a pattern that is not their normal way of expressing what they think- or living

Yes, this is normal, when you are part of a “tribe”, and spend most of your spare time with the same people- you start sharing a lingo.

But most of those “cool” people do not really realize something simple: coolness is “within” the tribe, but seen from outside- it is just plainly fake.

As in “my fair lady” (the book, not the movie): you need to change more than you way of saying something to become what you pretend to be

And it required but few minutes to discover that, say, the art or history expert is just a collection of books.

I like the “Dummies” book series- it is funny, and nice to have a superficial knowledge of any subject; but, as each book is well structured and organized, often you can pass for an expert, also when talking with experts.

Why? Because if you do something, you are not necessarily able to explain what you do. But certainly you know how to do it

A typical fake person studies some books, and then spends all his/her time to focus the discussion on a single subject- what (s)he just focused on

Graham Greene wrote in “The Quiet American” about a long-timer in Vietnam, who was tired of being lectured about Vietnam by a man who had been there as many weeks as he had been there- in years

As people who met me in real life know, I enjoy learning something new- and that means that I do like talking about anything- and admit my ignorance when I discover that I do not know, or I discover that what I assumed to know was wrong

An easy way to spot “cool fake” people? They stick to what they know, and turn aggressive when the discussion turns on something where their knowledge is on shaky grounds

“Aggressive” changes according to people (some people start using expletives, other use their hands, and some use derision or insults), but anyway their reaction is dis-proportionate to the point

I wonder how many useful things could people who spend their time to be “fake cool” if they just tried to be themselves- and listen, more than talk

But, unfortunately, most of the “fake cool” people are so obsessed with “coolness”, that they try to go only to “cool” places; to say only what is “cool”; to watch, buy, consume, live “cool”.

Being a fake cool has a small drawback: you have just one life And I met in my life way too many people that, from mid-30s on, did not understand that it was time to stop that game, and do something useful- at least, to themselves.

And, unfortunately, I see that, beyond youth, this obsession with coolness end up usually in only one place: a glass of alcohol.

Yes, some are self-defined “social drinkers”- but how social can you be, when you drink every night 5-6 beers?

Last time I checked, the human body was supposed to contain a large percentage of water, not alcohol