In which KD7 feels the need to go all linguistics-geek at you.

Way back in high school, I took four or five years of German. It was pretty fun, but not enough that I've ever tried to pursue it in college. I managed to pick up bibs and bobs of a few other languages here and there, but again, nothing major or continuing. The long and short of it is, it's been a long time since I actually tried to do anything much with any language other than English; somewhere between six and eight years, I think.

This semester, I needed a foreign language. The offered options were Spanish, French, and Arabic. I chose the last, in part because I wanted to try something quite outside my experience. And it's interesting. Challenging, on account of being in a different language family and using such a different set of sounds and shapes, but interesting.

Anyway, I have heard that a good way to learn a new language is to watch cartoons in it. So I figured, why not a cartoon I'm already familiar with? (I have no idea whether this is helpful or counterproductive, but it's what I'm trying.) As it happened, the week that I started checking was the week before ماي ليتل بوني (the official Arabic transliteration of "My Little Pony") began airing, and I found a Youtube channel that looked likely to carry it.

( Then DE MAGICKS happened. (More about language and myself than about Pony, but caveat emptor.) )

So, yeah. I can understand German better now than when I was actively studying it. Crazy world.