Nerd Alert

Written by earwormopera

I have been (as they say) dropping Hamiltons like Aaron Burr this week. In addition to a pile of Mozart recordings, I just got the most awesome flashcard app! And I have been playing around with it by slogging through some Schiller (I also have a dictionary app!) and making flashcards of the words I don’t know.

German: like many languages, it contains a surprising number of words.


But I am developing a very interesting vocabulary. I now know the words for things like paramour (Buhle – easy to remember because it rhymes with Thule and the king of Thule in the song had one), sin, assassinate, “nobly brought up,” murderess, humiliating/insulting, several different words for jewelry and personal ornamentation, and papal nuncio. Also executioner. (As you may already have concluded, I am reading Maria Stuart.)

For whatever reason, I also felt like hearing some Beverly Sills this weekend. So I have a DVD of her singing Violetta on my little pile for when I get sick of Schiller and/or flashcards.

8 thoughts on “Nerd Alert”

  1. K: I’m going to Berlin, come with me, I need an interpreter.
    Me: I don’t really speak German anymore, and anyway you know what I’ve been doing, my German would be really antiquated.
    K: Well, but you could walk into a restaurant and order a cup of tea, couldn’t you?
    Me: Probably not, but I could probably walk into a restaurant and advocate for the liberation of the Netherlands.

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    1. That’s about where I am. Though when I practice, a lot of the conversational stuff I learned in college starts come back. What I need is to be dropped into Berlin and left there for about six months.

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  2. For me it would be Russian. I could ask for three playing cards, declare undying love to you, you beautiful thing, and then challenge you to a duel, oh God.

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    1. That sounds like my knowledge of Italian! All daggers, swords, curses, and etc. But words like automobile, fork, lightbulb, ballpoint pen …..nope.

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      1. That looks like the vocab in my Old Irish textbook if you added spears, temples, querns, hags, druids, cows and dogs.

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    2. I can imagine a scenario where all of these things would be useful to know how to say.

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