Nothing More Humbling Than Thinking Your Pronunciation In Your Target Language Is Good, Just To Schwa

I was talking to one of my friends about the Hunger Games last night, bc I just finished the new one, and I said "I bet this didn't get translated but bro I'd kill to read this in Estonian once I'm good enough"

And he got to be the bearer of the HAPPIEST news and was like "Nope, this did get translated bc of how well liked/famous it is". And we talked about it, and now this is my entire motivation for getting better at reading in Estonian. I need to read it in Estonian before I die. For now tho, I am sequestered to baby picture books LMAO

No this is so true actually. I think something in me would be fixed by trying it LMAO

Kiiking would fix me

You're telling me I can go the WHOLE way around on a swing? And why haven't we contacted the X games about this development?

I have! I think your tag summoned her, bc I woke up this morning and she had sent me a message!

Introductory Post

Hello everyone! My name is Timo, I'm an American that lives in Nebraska, and this blog will be dedicated to documenting all the steps I'm going to take as I attempt to move from Nebraska to Estonia.

What you'll see the most on this blog are my estonian language notes, little posts in Estonian as I try to practice it, tidbits about Estonian culture/history, and honestly anything related to Estonia that I find interesting.

I hope to make friends along the way with this blog! Hope you'll come along for the ride!!

In Estonia we have 6 seasons, and most of them are winter

a friend of mine told me to share this story so here goes

So while I was at work the other day, and I was closing with this old woman, who's a jerk to everyone and their dog, but thinks she's the sweetest little angel. Including me. She's bigoted and sarcastic and just awful to be around - refused to call me and other trans ppl at work our names until she got reported for it, just so you know what we're dealing with here.

We were closing the other night, and I got to do dishes. I was listening to my music, which this day happened to be Käärijä (love that man sm). And this lady walks in and she sighs real loud, and I look back to see what's up, and she's looking at me with this nasty look on her face.

"What are you listening to?"

"Uh. Rap?"

"Ugh, that's not even music. That's just noise, how can you even tell what he's saying?"

"He's speaking Finnish."

"Well you should listen to music in English. We are in America. Listen to American music."

Now I already don't like this woman. Idk how she's not gotten fired yet. SO I decide im not doing this with her. I don't speak very much Estonian at all. But I switch to it.

"Mida?"

"What?"

"Mida sa ütlesid?"

"Speak ENGLISH!"

"Ahhhh. Ei, ei. Vabandust, ma ei räägi inglise keelt."

And she gets pissed about this, but I stand my ground and don't switch back to English, which makes her even more mad. Eventually she leaves me alone, tho. And I get to listen to Käärijä in peace.

So apparently if you slap this into Google translate it says that veli does mean brother.

I'd bet you money what this person did was Google translate the word for brother in Finnish, switch it to Estonian, and when Google translate did not correct it, they put it down as the Estonian word, too.

Bad maps march

Brother in estonian is not veli. It is vend

And ok, sometimes they google translate the answer and get osastav or something. But in all 14 noun cases of vend there is no veli

I'm at a loss here

Is it a universal language learning experience to know exactly what you're supposed to say in a situation, down to like the spelling, and still feeling self-conscious to the point you check your notes, and then google just to make sure you didn't write it down wrong. And then still feel nervous to say anything at all.

You have to DIG for those fuckers I spent like 2 hours one day looking for em. Usually can get my hands on them via Amazon, which isn't ideal, but I mean 😭

I was talking to one of my friends about the Hunger Games last night, bc I just finished the new one, and I said "I bet this didn't get translated but bro I'd kill to read this in Estonian once I'm good enough"

And he got to be the bearer of the HAPPIEST news and was like "Nope, this did get translated bc of how well liked/famous it is". And we talked about it, and now this is my entire motivation for getting better at reading in Estonian. I need to read it in Estonian before I die. For now tho, I am sequestered to baby picture books LMAO