Jun. 8th, 2011

beccastareyes: Image of Sam from LotR. Text: loyal (Default)
So, I've blogged about this before: I get ideas from seeing things that either are ideas executed badly, or are ideas that the author just takes in a different direction than I would. When I read Matched, I noted that I was a bit disappointed that the cover copy was basically 'Girl grows up in society where people are paired via computer. Girl gets paired with Boy1 as her ideal match. Girl starts falling for Boy2, who may also be her ideal match.' The overall plot is pretty much 'utopic city with seedy underbelly covered up' + romance, when I discovered I'd rather read about the ramifications of the Match system. For that matter, when I read Mercedes Lackey's Five Hundred Kingdoms series at first I wanted to read about Elena and Co. dismantling the Tradition, a sort of Law of Nature that pushes things into story patterns and lends magical power when these patterns are followed, rather than the romance plots + using the Tradition to ensure happy endings without any of the awful stories coming true.

Now, both were not bad books, but not what I wanted. )
beccastareyes: Image of Sam from LotR. Text: loyal (Default)
Do any of you know a good way to learn enough of a foreign language to be a tourist (aka read signs, ask for directions and where the bathroom is, etc.)? Specific book (series) or programs are always helpful -- name names!

I'm going to Nantes, France for a conference in the fall. Now the two times I've been to a non-English speaking part of the world when I was old enough to speak in complete sentences*, most of the tourist-interacting parts of the country were Anglophones. But both were Spanish-speaking parts of the world (Spain and Puerto Rico), and I actually do speak Spanish, so even if I was confronted with someone who didn't speak a lick of English, I could resort to Spanish. Granted, on the trip to Spain I had one year of Spanish, and to Puerto Rico, I hadn't spoken Spanish in almost a decade, but it was better than nothing. But I know very little French beyond 'Hello, how's it going? My name is Rebecca!'. Even 'how do I get to the hotel X?' and 'please speak slowly' would be something.

Tangent for a story )

* I spent some months living in Germany as a toddler. While Mom reports that I spoke both German and English equally well by the end, learning two languages at once is not really relevant here. I am sad that we didn't hang around long enough for me to remember any of the German, though it does make me wonder if I'd have a better 'ear' for it than other non-English languages.

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beccastareyes: Image of Sam from LotR. Text: loyal (Default)
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