Elvish

Tonight Brandt and I went to Radio City Music Hall to see The Lord of the Rings with the full score performed live. We were among probably only about seven or so people in the U.S. who had never seen this movie. I would say the audience included a number of people who might reasonably be called fanatical, but they were cute, not alarming.

My sister Rebecca sings with the Collegiate Chorale, which performed there along with the 21st Century Orchestra and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus. The concert-movie was fabulous.

I was intrigued to see Liv Tyler’s character speaking a language called Elvish. J. R. R. Tolkien was quite the creative linguist. I will stick to real languages for my project, but I think it was brilliant and inventive of him to be able to come up with new ones.

Today I was reflecting: foreign language success seems to be so much about what your memory can handle. If I actually remembered everything I learned about Russian, I’d be in pretty good shape . The reality is, a huge percentage is gone. For now anyway. It’s about reinforcement, reinforcement, reinforcement practice practice practice.

Unless you’re Daniel Tammet.