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Languages Life-Long Learning Marina Ramsauer Podcast TTT Season 4

Season 4 Episode 13: Martina Ramsauer on Adventures in Life-Life Learning

Photo Credit: Martina Ramsauer

“Learning should be a joy and full of excitement. It is life’s greatest adventure; it is an illustrated excursion into the mind of the noble and the minds of the noble and the learned.”

Martina Ramsauer

Welcome to Tea Toast & Trivia.

Thank you for listening in.

Photo Credit: Martina Ramsauer

I am your host Rebecca Budd, and I am looking forward to sharing this moment with you.  

I am delighted that my dear friend Martina Ramsauer from Rivella49’s Blog and I are connecting Ticino, Switzerland and Vancouver Canada to discuss travel, lifelong learning and the power of language.

Martina believes that the most important adventure in life is learning. She combines travel experiences with the knowledge of language.  Her community is global, a consequence from her dedication to language studies. 

Why should we learn a new language? What is involved in language studies?  Where do we begin? These are the questions that will be discussed today.

Thank you for joining Martina and me on Tea Toast & Trivia.

And a special thank you, Martina, for sharing your love of learning, of travel, of connecting with other cultures through language. You have inspired me, and I know that you have inspired others to embrace the challenge of learning throughout our lives.

I invite you to meet up with Martina on her blog:  Rivella49’s Blog, a place that welcomes us all to engage in life-affirming conversation.  Until next time, dear friends, keep safe and be well.

Mary Lunnen on Your Compass Rose Speaks – Tea. Toast. & Trivia.

By Rebecca Budd

Blogger, Visual Storyteller, Podcaster, Traveler and Life-long Learner

39 replies on “Season 4 Episode 13: Martina Ramsauer on Adventures in Life-Life Learning”

Hi Rebecca, thank you for this interesting conversation with Martina. I discovered her blog through yours and have read a number of her interesting articles which are presented in more than one language. I find this amazing. Through Martina, I have discovered some wonderful new book and have one, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, coming up soon on my TBR pile. I am not a person to whom other languages come easily. I even struggle with foreign names and often have to repeat names that are new to me over and over in order to memorise them. I am in awe of people who have this gift of languages and are able to communicate easily with other peoples. It is very nice to hear Martina’s voice and get to know her better here.

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I am delighted that you listened in, Mandy! I have endeavored to learn Italian and French, but I am not a linguist by any means. What I do enjoy is to hear the language spoken by others and be able to identify familiar words and recognize the gist of the message. When I studied Italian, specifically the grammar, I gained a greater understanding of my language. Many thanks for your visit and comments.

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I, too, love listening to languages even if I don’t fully understand or cannot understand what is being said. For some months now I have only watched sub titled films because I want the pleasure of listening to languages other than my own.

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I absolutely agree with what you say, Rebecca, about learning a language and giving at the same time more attention to our own language and whether we use it correctly!! And I would like to add that I consider it a big advantage, if sb. is able to read in the original language, because of the many translation mistakes!

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Ah, Rebecca and Martina that was a beautiful dialogue and Martina, you are so right, language truly opens our horizons. Also words are magical sounds. It’s always so interesting listening to the sounds of different languages. Thank you both!

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I am so pleased you listened in Marina and added to this conversation. Martina has a wonderful way of bringing together travel and languages, doesn’t she?

I was reading that, in 2018, UNESCO celebrated the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which stated that “no discrimination can be made on the basis of language.” At the time UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay said: “A language is far more than a means of communication; it is the very condition of our humanity.” How beautiful defined. Many thanks for your visit and comments. Sending many hugs!!!

https://en.unesco.org/news/unesco-celebrates-power-mother-languages-build-peace-and-sustainability

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This podcast is extraordinary, we are reminded of the human gift of language and words. It is words that brings humans together! I appreciate Martina’s vast experience in language study and her many years of teaching and encouraging others–even in other languages. Her suggestion that we learn to know others, even those of other languages through their words, This gives us incentive to study their language. When Marina started work, the location was filled with many others who spoke differently, she fee/s living in this environment helped her to begin other ways of connecting with others, even it helped her to start a blog! Thank you, to the two of you for these encouraging words!

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I am delighted that you listened in, Frances, and for adding depth and breadth to this conversation. I agree wholeheartedly – Martina’s experiences in her parents restaurant provided a foundation for her future studies and support of those who want to explore language studies. Starting a life-long learning journey as a child is a gift that keeps on giving. I will always remember you reading poetry and Dad’s library.

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I enjoyed the interview and the introduction to Martina. When travelling a little bit of the local language goes a long way, even if it’s only please and thank you. I fell in love with the Greek islands in my twenties and went to night school to get to grips with at least the basics of the language. I went much further in embracing Spanish, again for travel purposes, but neither language is much help now I live in South Africa!

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I am delighted that you joined in the conversation, Chris. In 2003, our family travelled to Italy and enrolled in a 3 week program of Italian language studies. We were in a picturesque small town in the Marche Region. It was the most remarkable and wonderful experience. Every sign was in Italian, the bus and train schedules were in Italian and no one would speak to us in English. We learned quickly. I remember standing in the middle of the street and understanding, for the first time as an adult, what it meant not to be able to read or communicate. I will never forget that experience – and that was the start of my research into languages.

Thank you for connecting! I enjoy our conversations.

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I so enjoyed the conversation between you and Martina. Martina made a very good point in reference to the meanings of words getting lost in translation. No two languages are identical and so there are subtle shifts in meaning lost when we translate words. A person’s language does say so much about them and is an important part of their culture. Perhaps, that is why children are so excited when they learn just a few words or phrases of another language. Suddenly, they feel a little bit French, or German, or Spanish. It does well for us as adults to share this enthusiasm for learning about other countries and their languages. Our world expands and we become life-long learners.

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Many thanks for listening in to this conversation, Linda, and for adding your insights. I agree that enthusiasm for learning allows us to experience the joy a living, of engaging, of sharing and of belonging. As you said so well: “our world expands and we become life-long learners.

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Marvelous conversation, Rebecca and Martina!

Knowing multiple languages — as you do, Martina — is a wonderful thing. A real communicative connector of people from different countries and cultures. 🙂 Surely the world needs more of THAT.

Martina, your mention of translating at that wedding was quite heartwarming. And your blog is indeed terrific!

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I am delighted you listened in, Dave. I agree wholeheartedly that the world needs more of THAT!!!! Well said. I am now looking into books that have been translated ever since I read “All Quiet on the Western Front” by Erich Maria Remarque. Then Elisabeth Van Der Meer introduced me to “Onegin” by Alexander Pushkin and now I am reading War and Peace. How do translators capture the nuance of language, I wonder? It is a gift.

Every day, I receive a word and phase in the Italian language. I am not gifted in language studies, but I am heartened by the thought that I am slowly integrating new words from a different language into my thought process. Martina’s blog helps me with my Italian language pursuits.

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I enjoyed this conversation with Martina about the power of language. To a certain extent, language shapes our reality and experience of the world, in addition to reflecting it. I particularly enjoy learning words in another language that have no English equivaent. The words have to be explained to the nonspeaker using metaphor. Federico Garcia Lorca’s “Theory and Play of the Duende” is a good example.

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I have always been an advocate of lifelong learning, so this was a particularly interesting podcast, Rebecca. It was fun to listen to Martina.

I studied German in high school, and again in college, but I never used it in life. I have followed German bloggers on occasion and I’ve tried to read their posts in German, to see how much I might remember.

Conversation in electronic media is hard enough. Email, blogs and blog comments are received in total, in the absence of facial expression, tone, intonation. Adding translation (computer driven) makes it even harder.

I would love to understand more languages. I don’t know if I will learn any at this point in my life, but I think I would like to.

Thanks to you and Martina for this discussion.

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I am delighted that you listened in Dan. I share your interest in language even though I am not a linguist. A few years (well about 15 years) ago my son and I enrolled in a Italian language class recommended by a friend. There we met the most wonderful teacher, Domenico. He has since retired, but I hear his voice every time I read Martina’s blog which includes a paragraph in Italian. I also have a daily word that comes in to my in-box with a sentence and explanation. Today’s word was Primavera!! What a wonderful word – it reminds me of Sandro Botticelli’s panel painting : Primavera!

This is what I so enjoy about languages and words – their symbolism and ability to prompt memory. Think of the word “Doors” a word that has become my symbol of adventures, which reminds me that I am working on a great project for this coming Thursday.

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