Mi Vida Loca, a basic Spanish course that is made of win and awesome.

I have borrowed Hippocrene Beginner's Basque from the library for fun. RUN AWAY.(It just hit me that Finnish, favorite foreign language of larval language nerds throughout the Anglophone world, makes rather good preparation for Basque, so heavily studied that a disturbing number of little Basque children are apparently growing up to be linguists. ( Read more... )

Lark in the Morning is due back at the library on the 12th. This makes me sad with a great sadness. So in celebration of the fact that it's not the 12th yet, a poem from its pages:

( It pleases me to see old men bequeathing/Their houses and to watch the power passing... )

* You know, I have to wonder a little if Qntal really meant to adapt the text of CB 117 to make it a man addressing another man-especially considering that the lead vocalist on the track is, as usual, female.

* For all that Seeing is probably not José Saramago's greatest work, there are a fair number of politically aware sorts among you who would ( Read more... )

You know, it's interesting: there is absolutely nothing in "Reis glorios" to suggest that the speaker is anything but male*-and yet I've never to date heard a modern performance where it was sung by a man. I'm hardly going to complain about a song like this worming its way into the soprano repertoire**, but one must admit that it's all a bit odd ( Read more... )

Goodbye, An Introduction to Old Occitan. I'll have to reborrow and finish you one day.

Lark in the Morning, on the other hand, is as delightful as expected-some of Pound's translations leave me cold, but Kehew's are really very good and Snodgrass's a joy to read. (I giggled a little to see that, though the exact meaning and rhythm of the opening ( Read more... )

I will read this one day. If it's out of print, well, that's what libraries are for.

Peire Cardenal's "Un sirventes novel vueill comensar" = awesomesauce. (I'd have interpreted the rhythm differently, but then I'm coming at this from a 21st-century Anglophone perspective, steeped in iambic pentameter.)

Oh, Insanejournal, why do you have to be down when I need you?

ETA for reference: Lyrics to "Solen sig sänker".