I'm all a-Twitter!

If you've come here in the last week or so, you've noticed that things have changed a bit in the sidebar. I've added quite a bit of contents there in the last weeks, like the blog roll, but the most important thing here is just under my profile: yes, I'm on Twitter!

For a long time, looking from the sidelines, I felt Twitter was a waste of time. So what made me change my mind? Well, I discovered lately that a lot of people I respect were already on Twitter, and they've been praising the micro-blogging platform. Since there was just no way all those people could be wrong (most of them aren't known for falling for the latest Internet fad), I decided to look into the phenomenon more closely. Doing so, I discovered not only that there seems to be something to this Twitter craze other than hype, but also that it may even be of use for me! Indeed, I know that my Internet presence (basically this blog) suffers from two issues:

• I don't update nearly often enough to achieve a sustainable readership. Unfortunately, I'm a slow writer, and I don't often find a subject I feel comfortable writing about. I have quite a few posts lined up, but none is anywhere ready for release. And that brings me to the second point.
• My posts are generally too long-winded. I lose myself in the details, can't seem to be able to write a paragraph less than 20 lines long, and my style lacks punch.

Twitter's format seems particularly fit to help me tackle these problems:

• It embraces short, frequent updates, and feels more informal than a fully fledged weblog. It encourages updating even when you haven't got much to say, and since I have to confine my updates to 140 characters I don't suffer from the fear of not knowing what to write about.
• By strictly enforcing the 140 characters rule, Twitter forces me to concentrate my thoughts and use less words to express them. This can only be good for my writing style.

So I've decided to give Twitter a try, and so far I like it. And to make it official, there's nothing better than blogging about it!

So what can you expect from my tweeting?

• Expect it to be more personal than my blog articles are. I blog only about things I find important, but I still try to keep my personal life out of it. Twitter is more of an immediate reaction kind of medium, so expect to see glimpses of my personal life in there, once in a while.
• Twitter's motto is What are you doing? I'll personally try and focus more on What are you thinking about? Do expect some tweets to be simply about what I'm doing at the moment though, if I feel it is exemplary and/or interesting.
• I'll try and send links to sites, articles, videos, and other things I find around that I find interesting, as often as possible. I've never really been able to do so with the blog because of the time it takes me to write an article. By the time I'm finished, the issue/article/blog post has been debated to death, has become out-of-date, or has simply been forgotten, and whatever I had to say has become meaningless. The Internet is a bit too fast for me at times. However, with Twitter I can quickly send a link with a few words of my own, five minutes after I've discovered the site.
• Expect my tweets to be even more random than my posts, although the same themes will probably recur. I have a wide range of interests, and the Twitter format is even better than the blog format to let me talk about it all.
• If you follow me, I'll make sure to follow you back. It's the least I can do.

Besides what you can expect of me on Twitter, here's what you cannot expect of me:

• Don't expect me to update my status 50 times a day. I'm no Stephen Fry!
• Don't expect me to tweet much during the weekends or holidays. I don't have a smartphone, and I only have a company-owned mobile phone. So currently I can only tweet when in front of the computer, and that's mostly at work or in the evening.
• I'll try to use the social features of Twitter as well, rather than only soliloquying, but don't expect me to be a champion replier from the get go. I still need to dip my toe in to check how hot the water is.
• Don't expect me to suddenly show up on Facebook, Myspace, Hyves, or any other social network. It's nice and all, but a Twitter account, a blog and a website are about all that I can manage (given that my website still hasn't been updated after all this time, this shows you how well I can manage).

So, here I am, all a-Twitter! You can follow my tweets here, or via the RSS feed. And if you're on Twitter yourself, don't hesitate to follow me and/or give me a shout! Happy tweeting!

From the sickbed...

OK, I'm actually out of the sickbed now, so it isn't exactly an accurate title. But the sickbed is where I've been this whole last week.

But first things first: the pantomime was a great success! The two evenings were sold out (the matinee was only about half-full, but we were up against unexpected spring-like weather, so the parents just kept their children outside rather than put them in a closed room), the audience loved it, and I've received enough compliments to boost my ego for a year. Given how some people tried to sabotage my work, this is a nice vindication (no, I won't add any more details. They know who they are, they know I know what they did, and the success of the play is for me revenge enough).

However, between the play, lots of work, and a difficult situation at home (a death in the family, just after New Year), I've ended up completely drained, and a perfect victim for the current flu epidemic. So naturally I got it, and ended up bedridden for a week, with enough fever to cook an egg on my forehead (and I'm hardly exaggerating).

Now I'm recovering. The fever seems to bid its last farewell, and I hope to be fit enough to go back to work next week. However, the doctor warned me that it could be three more weeks before I'm completely cured. How nice!

The morale of the story: really, really don't overdo it. Your body can only do so much, and you don't want it to be pissed at you.

Well, the cloud does have a silver lining: with all this happening, I've finally reached my ideal weight of 85 kg! Now the trick is not to start to yo-yo...

Συγχαρητήρια στον εαυτό μου!

This is a day for celebrations! I just finished my Modern Greek online course! After 105 lessons (yes, 105!), I can read and write Modern Greek (within reasonable limits. I still need to have a dictionary or a translator handy, but that's only because my vocabulary is still limited), and I do understand a bit when people speak Greek (although they all speak soooo quickly! Μιλάτε πολύ πιο σιγά, σας παρακαλώ!). Speaking the language is still difficult, but if I can take my time I do manage correct and understandable sentences.

It has been a fun ride, and the online course was really good. The audio material is of good quality (if slightly old-fashioned: the files are recordings of a radio course from the 1970s!) and the forums are full of people ready to help you at every turn. I'm very much surprised at the level I managed to reach with a completely free web-based language course (to give you an idea of how quickly it went, I started with lesson 1 on the 13th of April. That's just over six months ago). I wish more languages had similar websites.

Now comes the difficult part: how not to forget what I learned these past few months. First, I do plan to go back to Greece. I really loved my stay in Crete last May (the level of Greek I had managed to master already did help making for an even more pleasant experience: Greek people are quite friendly already, but make an effort to speak their language and they become the warmest people I ever met), and there's plenty of places in Greece that I'd like to visit. But that won't be before next year. Luckily, I happen to have a Greek colleague at work. I'll just need to talk to her more often in her own language. I just hope she won't take it too bad if I happen to butcher it sometimes...

Now on to my next challenge: learning Japanese!

Oh, and if the title of this post is all Greek to you, it simply means: "Congratulations to myself!" What did you expect?

Musings of a Polyglot

Today, I've once again spent half an hour just helping foreign colleagues understand Dutch documents. As a language geek, I don't mind at all, on the contrary. It's not even that weird that they ask me, a French guy, what some Dutch word means, given that besides our Dutch colleague who is currently on holidays and our Dutch boss who is always away on meetings, I'm the only one in the neighbourhood with near-fluency in the Dutch language.

No, the weird thing is how difficult it is for me sometimes to answer their translation requests. It's not that I don't understand the words they're asking me to translate. It's not even that I lack the vocabulary in other languages to translate them. It's just that except for very simple everyday words, I just can't seem to be able to do literal translations at all!

It's a really weird feeling. For all intents and purposes, I am trilingual: I speak three different languages with approximately the same level of command (I wish I could say I am fluent in those three languages, but that would be a lie. Worse, since I hardly ever use my mother tongue, I am actually losing command of it! I speak it with an accent for instance). At home I speak Dutch nearly exclusively. At work I use Dutch or English depending on the situation and the people I'm talking to. Then there is my mother tongue, French, which I only speak when talking to French colleagues, or on the phone to my relatives. I'm used to mix and (mis)match languages. I can code-switch easily, or jump from language to language without a heartbeat. This goes so far that I sometimes use the wrong language without even realising it!

Being a polyglot does strange things to the mind. I understand perfectly the concept of gezelligheid. But translating it to English would require at least a paragraph, and to French I'd probably need a dissertation! In the same way, I know exactly what French people mean with a connerie. But explaining that concept to a Dutch or an English person is next to impossible (equivalents exist, but they fail to capture the images that the French word evoke. And note that if you plan to look for the meaning of that word, it belongs to a rather foul register of language. You have been warned). I may not be fan of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, but I have to admit that different languages bring about quite different views of the world.

People sometimes ask me which language I think in, or which language I dream in. These are trick questions, in that I don't have a clear answer myself. Usually I answer: "whatever language I've been speaking at the time". But reality is subtler: often my thoughts are language-less, mere concepts that agglutinate together in my mind and translate into language at the last moment, and normally in the language I am speaking at the time (short-circuits do happen sometimes, usually with hilarious results, at my expense naturally...). This means that I often have difficulties finding the right words to express myself. I have this concept in my mind which is extremely clear to me, and cannot find a good word or expression in any language to express it. Nearly everyone has times when they cannot find their words. Now imagine how it must be not to be able to find your words in three different languages!

Actually that might explain why I have so much difficulty doing literal translations. Going from word to concept in my mind is an easy thing, and it goes directly without translation, whatever language it is. However, the other way round is more difficult, especially when I still have that original word in my head restricting me to a particular facet of the concept it represents. Words in different languages never represent exactly the same thing, unless they refer to a specific concrete or abstract item. I'm extremely envious of all those simultaneous translators out there. I wish I had the same abilities (although I must say it's relatively easier to translate full sentences than single words. I'm relatively good at non-literal translation. But I cannot do it as fast as all those interpreters).

What's the point of this post? Oh, I have the exact concept in my head, but I just cannot find the right word to represent it :-) . In any case, I'm curious how other bilingual or multilingual people experience it. Do you have difficulties translating from one language to the other, or is it second nature? Do you think in a particular language, or are your thoughts more visual, or even without real form at all?