Nutro-Marka ? ;P

Oh, I see that you are wondering about the name of the blog, Good !
Let me put you at ease, then. It's a  combination of two words from the far north. Marka is Norwegian and Nutro is a Russian word.

Marka

Take a peek into an office in Norway anytime between November and April. See everybody staring out the window? What do you think they’re longing for? Well, some of them are probably longing for the beaches of the Canary Islands or Thailand. The others are staring at the woods in the distance.

They are longing for marka — they so desperately want to go on that little skiing trip. Cross-country skiing in the woods means a few hours of solitude, a workout, and some pretty scenery to boot. Marka is the name of any forested areas that surround a city or town. They mostly exist for recreational purposes: people ski, bike, walk, and camp in them. Marka is civilization. Marka is life.

Nutro [ нутро ]  - Means the guts or the insides, something that governs your inner being, that can be crude and raw and towards the outside, but also something that you feel inside. It’s your core and your being connected to your physical being in a very tangible way.

This blog is about personification of languages and an attempt to make them more personal and thus all the more interesting which is oenly gonna make things easier to learn. It's more about activation of languages, using them more actively on a written level rather than just trying to assimilate the language. So, over here you are gonna find various many cultural elements of the various languages and the context

So, what's the blog about ?


Ah, simple !

It's an attempt to activate the languages that I have had the opportunity to explore so far. You know, there are basically 4 skills that we need to be considered educated/fluent in a language, namely -

* Speaking

* Listening

* Writing

* Reading

Actually, I have studied various foreign languages on my own and in quite a chaotic way. So, almost all of these are passive which essentially means that I am fairly competent in Listening and Reading
comprehension, shaky with the writing skills and apart from being able to produce the sounds, the basic tonality of these languages, I am not really good at Speaking skills !

Of  course, I am aware of the fact that no one is really fluent in a language if one can't communicate verbally with people. Yes, there is the universal Body language for that basic communication but I don't want it to become an excuse or a substitute for actually speaking the language.

If you wish to learn more about my language journey, you should head over to The Talking Apes. For some reason making two sister blogs makes sense as you will, no doubt, figure out yourself.


Over here, my basic strategy would be to widen and deepen my understanding of these languages and the cultures, they hail from. You know, a language is like a footprint of a culture, it's not some isolated system. It's an entire world view, traditions, values and music encoded and expressed through that language.

At the moment, I don't have a pressing need to speak these languages but being able to improve constantly would be a nice thing. I love the written word and to be able to express myself through this medium is just so empowering to me. You know, no other medium, be it movies, songs, drama or even poetry is so individual oriented by their very nature. 

Of course, there are other means now but none is more personal because when we watch movies, songs we are in 'sync' with the artist, we have to see and hear what the artist wants us to witness; you would understand). But with books, even if we read them partially we can still be creators.

How ?

Well, we read the book at our own pace, with calm, where we want and when we want. We can change the voice inside our head to something funny, we can even visualize what's happening; not many mediums compel us to be engaged, to be so creative even when we are so passively involved;P

Books are really unique as you say. To me it is like getting to read a conversation, or monologue perhaps is better, but it is well thought out and you can read at your own pace. It is not just happening in front of you, you have to engage in some way or other. And you get the chance so re-read, ponder and even discuss it while you are reading. It is a wonderful media. 

So, this is the media that I would like to use to make these language active, this would involve making up fictional stories, progressively make them more and more complex and to revisit them after some time so that I can see the mistakes and correct them accordingly. 

And I hope to use Esperanto as a gluing language for all these languages, the freedom of the structure and simplicity of this languages appeals to my nature as well my need. The need is to quickly understand the target language and to limit the use of English to a bare minimum.

I would definitely create lots and lots of hypothetical situations, Mindcastles if you will. I know that
write creatively in a language ( much less in languages) is a tough nut to crack and I am well aware that's it gonna take a looong time to really show the effect. I will follow it through.



The topics that I am gonna use in this blog would range from Philosophy to War, from the best in us to the worst in us, from the god-like literature to Everyday Gossip, from the myths of creation to blatant propaganda, from revolution and it's ironies to the peace pregnant with hatred, fear and discontent.  But of course, not initially as it would be a blatant irony to talk about these things when I can barely use the language.

Ah, don't worry, there would be lots and lots of non-heavy stuff as well. Like the customs an myths of people, attempts to describe the most beautiful places in the country and a healthy amount of cultural background and history of the people who speak that particular language.

So yes, there is not pretending the fact that it might get "heavy" a few times but most probably it's gonna be positive in the outlook;)

I hope that you will find that overtime English is becoming rarer on this blog and the time when blog posts start to be entirely in different languages then, I believe that's the day the adventure really kicks off ;P

Languages that I have studied so far

French

Spanish

Polish

Russian

Esperanto

Swedish

Icelandic

Norwegian

German

I know the list is embarrassingly long;P but, well, that's how it was. And I hope that you notice, the list is hopelessly Europe centric and living so close to an entirely different realm, I think it would be a folly not to embrace the extent of our human inheritance. So, being pretty much free for this academic year ( No plans to sit for a Job! ) I am gonna use this time to invest in myself and to make sure that I plant the right seeds, whose fruits I can enjoy for a long time to come.

The target languages for this year are 

Chinese

Japanese

Hebrew

Persian

Turkish

Sanskrit

Well, to be frank, all of this does seem difficult but knowing how lazy I am, I wouldn't have done it otherwise. I hope that it would be properly documented on this blog, the progress that I make with each language. And in the process learn to write creatively and to express myself, fiction or otherwise in these languages.

I have divided my interests in these languages as per the my need and my fascinations with certain aspects. So, if not the "heavy" stuff then I hope to learn more about these cultures in the progress.

From you, my request is that if you happen to speak these languages would you kindly correct the mistakes and, just you know, point me to a general direction of your favourite music, books, TV series, documentaries of really anything interesting within theses languages. If you choose to do so, nothing would make me happier, trust me. 

Intrinsic motivation is good for long term, often gradual progress but for a short term rapid progress there is no overlooking Peer Pressure. So, Help Appreciated;P