An Unlikely Project

I frequently have ideas for fun new plans, usually self-improving in some way. I'm currently (a) learning the accordion, and (b) learning French by writing to a pen-pal. I'm also just about to take up rowing (first outing soon). And I'm thinking I should do proper French lessons with the University language school next year, to take advantage of the opportunity, and maybe get to a decent level.

But French is such a standard language to learn. Of course I should learn it, if anything, for that reason: sometimes it seems like you can hardly even call yourself educated if you can't speak it. So many people I know do, and I have the opportunity to go there often, so it's stupid of me not to make the effort to learn. But there's a very different language-learning experience that some of my recent reading has exposed me to: the totally-obscure language, which lets you into a truly different world, and not just that, but makes you part of a much smaller club. Imagine how cool it would be to be one of the relatively few people in the world who could understand a particular language? Imagine what it's like to go to that country and show the people there that you want to take the time to learn it!

On the very slender basis indeed of having enjoyed Ferenc Karinthy's Metropole, and being piqued by the quotation from Laszlo Krasznahorkai's War and War in James Wood's lecture last Thursday, plus a general interest in Eastern Europe born out of factors I can't here discuss, I have decided that Hungarian (that is, Magyar) will be my obscure language.

So, briefly, here is my plan for this adventure. In the next academic year, I will put effort into French, including keeping up this correspondence with some regularity, and hopefully going to the language classes. This will give me a grounding in foreign language acquisition. Learn to crawl before you can walk, and all that. Meanwhile, I will also familiarise myself with Hungarian literature in translation. There's enough to last me a year, alongside all my other reading. I'm planning to start a new blog to record this, maybe.

When I am part way through these things, get in touch with some people who might help - Hungarian translators and expats, the British Council, or the embassy perhaps - to see if they can give me tips on how to learn, or, ideally, an opportunity to live, work, and learn in Hungary itself, for a few months. I have no idea if that's likely to get me anywhere, but it seems worth a try. The aim, really, is just to have an adventure, to experience something new and exciting. It's good to have plans.