It's like learning a new language!
You know how when you’re learning a new language, at some point you reach a magical tipping point where it suffuses your life to such an extent that you start to dream in that language, instead of your mother tongue?
Last night I dreamed I was setting homework and preparing a lecture.
And as I came awake, my first thought was about grading.
In other language-related news, I am again making progress on Greek. My strategy now (since I don’t have time or patience for book-learnin’) is to learn songs. These remind me of basic frequently-used grammatical constructions, and teach me new vocabulary at the same time.
Of course, the songs I’m learning are rembetika, so the vocabulary is mostly to do with drugs, drink, petty crime and police harassment, but some of it is bound to come in handy sometime, right?
My first project is Kraso Pino (“I drink wine”). Here’s a youtube video of some Greek singing it:
The lyrics (may my mother forgive me) go something like this, in loose translation:
Wine doesn’t make me drunk, no matter how much I drink.
And however much I drink I’m ok, wherever I find myself.
In the morning I drink a pint like it’s breakfast,
And usually I want another at lunchtime.
In the evening I have to drink four half-pints
To come and tell you, whingey,1 how much I love you.
It’s not too much, no, it’s not too much:
I get buzzed and fly like a bird.
Those fools who don’t know how to party,
They want to get drunk on donuts.
And when they see me on the street they tease me:
“Wino”2 the one, “wino” the other, they shout at me.
But I’m going to drink wine, my golden doll,
I’m not afraid to burst from the wine.
It’s not too much, no, it’s not too much:
I get buzzed and fly like a bird.
Notes:
- Rembetika musicians often seem to have troubled relationships with women who —they claim— complain a lot. Here are two more: Paraponiariko mou, and Paximadokleftra. [↪]
- Here my translation fails me. “Kráso” is a slangy and out-of-date word for wine (the modern word is “krasí”). The fools are really only shouting “wine”, but they’re using this word to make fun of the guy. [↪]
Comments
Uhoh, that's a bit extreme... there's a Lem Cyberiad story that springs to mind, where the Constructors trap a kinglet in a dream machine: inside the dream they construct a dream machine, which he enters, and so on. When he realises what's happening he starts trying to get back to the real world, but by the time he manages he's more-or-less completely insane and, thinking it's just another dream, he goes back into the machine... Which is to say, if you're going to dream Python, just make sure you don't dream a Python dream interpreter...
Rembetika: there's a fair bit on youtube (jureilers is a Dutch guy with a selection of the good stuff). Markos Vamvakaris is a great, Vassilis Tsitsanis another. Lots of the old recordings are low quality, but more modern ones are often modernised and can be pretty horrible.
The nasty thing was that I was waking up after every unhandled exception, with a fading stack trace and all. However, the idea of dreaming of an interpreter gives me the creeps.
Hey, this rembetika thing sounds nice! Any listening recommendations for beginners?
As for dreaming in different languages, right before going on vacation I'd been having Python dreams, and they were raising exceptions (luckily, no IOErrors)! A clear sign that I really needed some rest :)