Language Circuits

I’ve been really busy recently, and sadly this poor blog has been neglected once again. Recently I’ve been reading a book about general language learning called “Smile Talk Cheesecake” and one of the things that I read in it was about how telling stories in different languages can change the feeling and tone.

Before Christmas last year I separated with my wife and around February of this year we finalised the divorce process. It’s been over eight months now at this time of writing, and during this calendar year I’ve really been putting in the work to rebuild my life alone here in Denmark. I’m happy to say that I’m doing ok for now, but the journey has not been easy at all.

Why I am telling you this story? Well I do volunteer work for the Rak Thai community here in Copenhagen, and I got talking to an acquaintance who hasn’t seen me in a long while. She asked me about what happened – I used to volunteer on a weekly basis and then suddenly I vanished – so I filled her in on the details in my private life.

To my surprise I found myself getting a little tearful as I explained about how I now live alone and that I went through a really intense heartbreak. A little later I realised that this was the first time I’d actually told the story in Thai language to anyone. And it hurt so much… the emotions were very raw.

I’ve told the story tons of times in English to the point where I can even make jokes about it all by now. In my improv comedy class I mentioned that I had poor mental health before coming to Denmark and was persuaded that life here would be better for me. I saw a psychologist every day for two years… and then we divorced.

Anyway, that’ll do for today I think. I plan on relaunching this blog very soon, I’ve even purchased hosting and a domain and everything and am working hard on getting it up and running.

Have you ever retold a story in another language and found that it feels very different? This is something really new to me, but on a positive note it shows that at least my Thai is fluent enough to talk about this stuff openly with someone. That’s gotta count for something.