language

I’m fairly adept with languages, but hardly thorough. I can learn a lot of words, some grammar, and then the language will swim about in my head, frothing the waters like a school of desperate mullet. At times, my brain can provide the mot juste, at others, nothing more than a fluttering aphasia beyond the tip of the tongue. Hearing a speaker of another language on the street can trigger a whirlwind; a sort of Manchurian Candidate response in which my mind struggles to go into the mode of that language even if it can’t. I joke that my language skills are enough to get me into trouble, but never back out; it’s not that witty of a joke. Continue reading “Africa Antibiotica”