1.

Game of Thrones Season 7 feels wordier than all the previous seasons. Maybe it’s because season 7 doesn’t have as many episodes. Or it’s because the creators are trying very hard to wrap up everything. I have heard some not so exciting things about the ending of Season 8. But I’ll still finish the series. I skip more of it now anyway, so reaching the end of the series will happen fairly soon.

(I skip more of it now, because the Jon Snow parts have been the parts that I’ve skipped since Season 1. I don’t know why I find his plot line so uninteresting. His is one of the major plot lines, which means that if Game of Thrones were a 100-hour long series, then what I will end up watching by the end will be closer to 70 hours or so. I guess I just don’t care about a war against non-humans. I’m not even sure I care whether humans survive or not. Of course, the humans in the series will want to survive, but look at the stuff that humans do in this series. Is it gonna be a great tragedy if they all die? I don’t know.)

2.

Meanwhile, German translation of Pure Fiction is quite exciting.

3.

While #2 is happening with outside help, I’m also trying to maintain my German. I have attempted to watch some German series and movies, but as soon as the actors start mumbling, I cannot understand a word. So, I’m sticking to audiobooks and written books. That’s good enough, for now. I doubt I will ever reach native-level German again (understanding mumbled, fast-spoken words and all) unless I actually go live in a German-speaking country. Language simply doesn’t stick unless you keep using it.

4.

Spanish learning continues. I am listening to the audiobook of “The Alchemist” in Spanish without understanding most words. I have picked this book because 1) it is short, 2) its chapters are short, and 3) it exists in so many translations that I’ve already read the English and Korean versions. And I’ve bought the English book again (I had given it away or sold it over the years) so I could compare the English and Spanish easily. That saves a lot of time, having the English-Spanish meanings right there in front of me.

It doesn’t matter that I don’t understand the meaning of the audiobook’s words. The point is to internalize the rhythm and cadence (hopefully). I have the impression that the thing that signals a particular language as that particular language is the non-word aspect. For example, I can hear Korean from dozens of meters away. I may not understand the exact words, but I know it’s a Korean talking in Korean. Even “Ohhhh” sounds different in each language.

This process of listening to audio and reading text that I don’t understand resembles how I learned English and German, although in the case of German, it was more organic. (I was six years old. It’s not like German kids at age 6 were reading very difficult books either.) Basically, I was thrown into the language or threw myself, and memorized every single word and sentence pattern that I didn’t know.

Well. Anyway. One Spanish word I will never forget is “las ovejas.” Friggin’ sheep fill the pages of “The Alchemist.” 🐑 😂 El muchacho has many sheep, and for some time, all he talks about is sheep. Then at some point, the sheep stopped appearing. I wonder what happened to them. (You see, I read the book in ENG and KOR, but I don’t exactly remember what happened in it. This is how I can watch Harry Potter five million times and still be pleasantly surprised at the plot, occasionally. I guess it helps to watch and read a lot of other stuff so you can forget the previously absorbed media. Then you get to watch/read your favorites all over again, which is great fun.)