Excuse the Interruption
Thank you everyone for co-creating this thread! Finally read it all with trips to many links along the way. Awesome.
Jim, a question for you. Would it help you and Doyle if we ordered your books through brick and mortar bookstores? Then your sales would register on their scope. I found Land of Mist and Snow at a local used bookstore, but I’d be willing to wait for others if it would help. Nobody asked this. The thread viewing figure shows that we could make a significant difference.
In the Unites States, we vote with our dollars. If we enjoy somebody’s services, let’s vote visibly! They have to eat too.
Or…you do eat, right UJ? We know that you don’t sleep much. J
Some thoughts after reading thousands of entries:
1. I type what comes as images, feelings, sounds and any other mode, but it struck me that I could find out what happens a lot faster with plotting. Hmm. Never was tempted to plot before. Exciting!
2. I missed the foreign language discussion by a few days! The army trained me as a Russian Linguist when I was nineteen. I’ve loved all languages since that time. I had to learn Russian grammar. This was a stretch, since I goofed around in high school English. For years I first referred to Russian for grammar questions in English. I laughed at the comments about this. Yes!
The ability to speak colloquially is an advanced ability and the ability to tell jokes and use humor in a native fashion is quite advanced. Think about it. How many native English speakers have this ability? Takes a lot of practice and EIA--ears in action.
I also speak Spanish proficiently and some German, Korean and Chinese. I’ve always wanted to be fluent in what I call the big four: English, Spanish, Russian and Chinese Mandarin. Took a semester in Mandarin when I left the army, but other priorities came along (programming languages). How sublime to practice writing characters in the evening with fountain pen, crickets chirping. I’d say it’s on temporary hold. Chinese speech is not so difficult. It’s the written language that’s challenging.
I felt like a seasoned world traveler, capable of handling whatever came linguistically until I went to China. If you don’t know the character, you don’t even know the sound. No alphabet!
3. Regarding Russian Novels, that’s how they use names. A Russian who didn’t use names colloquially would probably be seen as an ignoramus by many native Russians. References for clarification should be easy to find on the Internet. Doesn’t make it much easier to read--for me either--but may help ease reader resistance.
That’s it for now. Thanks again. Time to bic until I get to The End.
Phil