Czy kiedykolwiek w ogóle pisałem coś porządnie po polsku? Nie wiem. W ostatnich czasach tylko pamiętam, jak piszę tweety. Większość czasu poza oglądaniem filmów nie robię nic po polsku.

Takie jest współczesne życie: dużo wrażeń, dużo do przyjęcia, ale szczególnie dużo czasu na przemyślenia i wyrażanie siebie nie ma.

Historia moich ostatnich kilku lat brzmi tak samo. Studiowałem, tworzyłem (jestem kompozytorem), ale nawet gdy się czymś nie zajmowałem, zajmowałem się czymś innym. Zawsze mam takie pragnienie, żeby być zajętym. Taki styl życia na co dzień wywołuje u mnie poczucie wydajności, sukcesu, nawet jeśli nic znaczącego nie tworzę.

Od zeszłego sierpnia mam wolne. Skończyłem studia na razie, złożyłem rozprawę (o hymnie Hongkongu) i będzie rok, zanim zacznę kolejny stopień studiów. Nie wiedziałem, co mam robić. Czy miałem szukać doraźnej pracy? Przekonałem siebie, że będę pomagać rodzinie w dbaniu o nowy dom. Tak zrobiłem. Dostałem dobrą pracę na pół etatu. Tak zrobiłem. Ale cały czas tkwiło we mnie uczucie, że brakuje mi czegoś. Musiałem się czymś zajmować.

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The Cantonese podcast for fans of linguistics, language lovers, and Cantonese learners. This episode discusses Hong Kong’s latest Mandarin education policy imposed by the Chinese Communist Party, Apple’s iOS 15 “Cantonese” pinyin keyboard at the WWDC, LGBT Pride in Cantonese, and gender neutral language around the world.

Show notes and links available on the Cantonese page. Transcript below.

This podcast is also available on YouTube. Don’t forget to subscribe!

苗:啊係啊,英文嘅話就會係……

以:即係佢叫Carrie Lam㗎嘛,係咪?就唔係Carrie Cheng,係啦。

苗:係囉,佢嗰啲咩咩咖哩牛啊,嗰啲啦。

以:咩牛啊,羊啊!

苗:咖哩羊呀。

靳:咖哩牛!

苗:咖哩羊……我講過先。好似嗰啲咩英文嗰啲咩咖哩牛啊嗰啲。

以:你都係講錯!

苗:咖哩羊,屌,又錯。講多次,講多次。

[jingle]

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polyglot gathering 2021 Cantonese language practice room

Last Monday (2021-05-24), the annual Polyglot Gathering came to an end.

This year’s event was planned to take place in Poland, but like last year, as the pandemic is still lingering, it was once again changed to online, and the physical event is postponed by another year.

So today, I’ll do a brief introduction of language lover events like the Polyglot Gathering, my recollections from this year, and why you, too, should join!

But before we begin—the Polyglot Conference in October this year will also be online, so if it’s normally hard for you to fly around, seize this opportunity and sign up!

What are polyglot events?

In case you don’t take part in the online language community often, you might not know the term polyglot very well. It means ‘many languages’ in Greek (‘language’ and ‘tongue’ share the same word, like in many languages), and during the last decade, it was popularised on the Internet, most commonly associated with YouTubers speaking many languages, but often describes language lovers in general.

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絮言.狂想 #015

The Cantonese podcast for fans of linguistics, language lovers, and Cantonese learners. This episode starts with the diglossia in Hong Kong (Cantonese and Mandarin) and discusses and compares the situations with Swiss German, Arabic, Classical Chinese, etc.

Show notes and links available on the Cantonese page. Transcript below.

This podcast is also available on YouTube. Don’t forget to subscribe!

以:歡迎大家返到嚟《絮言.狂想》第十五集,我係以色列。

苗:我係三苗。

靳:我係靳尼啊。

以:係喇,今日呢,我哋好興奮,因為今日係我哋第一次有由patron嚟到選出嘅題目啊,好嘢!

靳:好嘢!

苗:徇眾要求啊。

以:就係徇眾要求嚟講呢一個「雙層語言」啦,即係diglossia啦,就唔係……

靳:係咪即係好似啲牛肉漢堡噉樣啊?雙層巨……

以:雙層芝士孖堡啊?好似我係嗌開呢個。

靳:雙層芝士漢堡。

苗:雙層牛肉diglossia。

靳:雙層……要有牛肉。

以:雙層牛肉diglossia,係嘞。

靳:噉即係喺印度冇㗎喎,噉樣如果係噉。

苗:噉咪雞肉囉。

以:印度有冇……印度有冇呢?我哋陣間講啦。

靳:我哋陣間可以講下。

[jingle]

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絮言.狂想 #014

The Cantonese podcast for fans of linguistics, language lovers, and Cantonese learners. This conlang episode starts with Persian Lessons and discusses some constructed languages, such as artlang (from Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones), auxlang (Esperanto, Interslavic), among others.

Show notes and links available on the Cantonese page. Transcript below.

This podcast is also available on YouTube. Don’t forget to subscribe!

以:所以……我唔知啊,唔知所以乜嘢啊,我冇所以喇。

靳:所以就冇所以喇。

苗:然後就冇然後?

[jingle]

以:大家好啊,歡迎返到嚟《絮言.狂想》第十四集,我係以色列。

苗:我係三苗。

靳:我係靳尼啊。

以:係啦,今次終於用返廣東話嚟自介喇。

靳:嘩,係啊。

以:係,最近大家點樣啊?有咩好做啊,呢排?

靳:吓?呢排香港戲院就開返啦,噉其實近排都想揾啲戲嚟睇噉樣嘅。唔知大家有冇啲咩好介紹呢。

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絮言.狂想 #013

The Cantonese podcast for fans of linguistics, language lovers, and Cantonese learners. This episode discuss the Taiwanese language (Tâi-gí or Taiwanese Hokkien), how to learn it, why native speakers reject the name Minnan, and what the fall of Taiwanese tells us about the future of Hong Kong Cantonese.

Show notes and links available on the Cantonese page. Transcript below.

This podcast is also available on YouTube. Don’t forget to subscribe!

[鳴笛聲]

以:欸?咩聲?

苗:拉得。

淩:拉得。

靳:唔係啊,啱啱有……有……

以:哦,哦,拉你喇,拉你喇。

苗:哦,拉你喇。

靳:係啊,已經……已經上緊嚟。

以:佢哋已經上咗嚟,聽到喇,已經。

淩:死喇,死喇。

以:我哋一講個title,佢哋已經收到喇。

[jingle]

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絮言.狂想 #012

The Cantonese podcast for fans of linguistics, language lovers, and Cantonese learners. This episode explains the April Fool’s Day episode, which was generated by machine learning software using an n-gram language model. It also explores other questions in computational linguistics, such as machine translation, neural networks and environmental impact.

Show notes and links available on the Cantonese page. Transcript below (first 10 minutes for free, the rest on Patreon).

This podcast is also available on YouTube. Don’t forget to subscribe!

以:其實我哋個腦都係電腦嚟㗎。

苗:係啊,肉腦啊,我哋係。

以:我哋係機械人。

靳:肉腦啦。

以:都有電喺裏面。

苗:有。

靳:有有有。

苗:你啱。

以:YES! 我唔係醫生都可以講到呢個。

[jingle]

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