ENTOMOLOGY would have been one of the first words in my vocabulary that I could remember as a child. But what was the path to that knowledge?
What language did I listen to when I was born?
My mother was marooned in an erstwhile outpost of the Portuguese empire and the languages there would have been my first exposure.
There is a custom among my people to introduce the child to lifelong learning, when a venerable teacher comes to your house and writes letters on a blackboard and then you repeat after him, and after each letter or word, you are rewarded with a small bit of sweet, and the words: May your lifelong learning be as sweet as this.
I remember this distinctly, and I was three years old.
English entered my life with great force and I began a respectful love relationship with my language, which grew with time. Even to this day, I try to learn a new word a day, and hopefully retain in amidst the plasticity of my brain, with neurons developing newer and newer pathways each day, with accumulating knowledge.
The new words for this past week were: (some of them are not new but mostly they are)
Faff
Scroop
Fanfaconade
Jape
Whicker
I have to thank my friend Ross who at that time lived in Kuala Terengganu in Malaysia for the website.
Then entered THE ECONOMIST, I have been reading this magazine ever since I can remember, having grown an affection for it because of its fine English usage and rather wide coverage of world news, planetary in its reach. It is well written, less of a region-oriented prejudice (even though slightly anti-Israeli in its outlook which I can forgive) but gives you news coverage you cannot get in any of the major language newspapers around the world, one of which is my favourite The New York Times
In between universities I spent six months in New York and that is where the addiction to New York Times was born. Each Saturday evening, we would stay up late and be at the newspaper agencies around 2 AM on Sunday morning to snatch an issue of Sunday times, usually weighing a tonne! And the rest of the day was spent on reading the news, book reviews, analysis of the world as it rotated around its conflicts. Also, the Sunday morning treat of Lox und Bagel ..the Jewish soul food for the brain ..(before we knew omega-3 was good for your brain! Ha ..)
The Economist arrived in Australia, The New York Times in the USA but when and where did MONOCLE make an entrance?
Crisply written with Tyler Brule from the Financial Times fame at the helm, this is the magazine for the upscale, intellectually oriented but not averse to luxury styles and decoration and not to mention travel including accessories. I may have been reading it since its inception? In 2008, I was looking for it in Kuala Lumpur, for example.
So, when people ask, how to improve their English language skills, to learn new words, usage of English language in an elegant manner, I recommend the following.
Get yourself a good English language dictionary. Into the language you are speaking now. I have an electronic English-French dictionary, an English-Portuguese dictionary, but frankly I still prefer a hard copy of a dictionary.
Get yourself a copy of the Monocle magazine and you would need the rest of the month to finish reading it. The March issue is already out and what a great coincidence it concentrates on Austria, a little hidden gem of a country (outside the well-trodden Vienna of course), where I discovered good wines as well as chocolates and biscuits and not to mention magnificent mountain sceneries bordering both Slovenia and Italy.
Flip through, there are lots of little bits of information, a nice café in the back streets of Copenhagen, a little-known seamstress in the backstreets of Roppongi in Tokyo and the ways of the tribe of fire walkers in the islands of Fiji, was its Beqaa? Then buckle down with a cup of coffee or a nice glass of wine, Kim Crawford from Marlborough valley or a Carminere from Maipo valley would do for me. Savour one of the longer articles, leave the Monocle easily available in your house so that you can savour the snippets for the rest of the month.
(to have all these handy and ready in my house in Havana, Cuba is truly a luxury..adds to the beauty of living here in Cuba)
Both The Economist and The New York Times you can read on line. I read hard copies of them whenever I can, my travelling not permitting a regular subscription. I enjoy reading either of them, and I know that I will never feel lonely with The Economist or the New York Times besides me, because they invite you, tantalizingly, to feed the hungry neurons in your brain..
I read a lot of Travel magazines on line and off, and AFAR deserves a mention. Less commercial than the other glossier travel magazines (which glorify the unsavoury aspects of modern travel while absconding with the genuine experiences), I find it soothing to my traveler’s soul.
The last travel article I read was on Tristan da Cunha, an island I hope to reach one day, in my mind ever since I met a couple from the island during the days spent marooned in Funafuti.
L’Chaim. To Life
It is only just Noon in Havana, a bit too early for a tipple…
But it is time for Sunday Brunch in La Habana, Cuba
Crepe from Bretagne, Smoked Salmon from Maine, Cheese from California, a couple of eggs prepared lovingly by my Cuban sister..
Reminds what Omar Khayyam of Nishapur said in the 12th Century?
Isn’t this the paradise we are all looking for? Do we need guides or religious figures or scriptures for us to get here? No
But Humility, Gratitude and Compassion for yourself and Others
A book of Verse .. indeed. In this case Monocle or The Economist
PS
a friend of mine from Linz had asked me some questions about the English Language and I recommended that she buy Monocle magazine, imagine my surprise when I received this photo from her today.. MONOCLE is available in Linz!
and happily and no so paradoxically this issue March 2020 of MONOCLE is devoted to AUSTRIA ..
