Channel Swim

There are several ways that I’m trying to pick up Macedonian--naturally there are my language classes and studying, plus talking to my host family and other folks around town. Then there’s watching TV. My Macedonian host family is a lot like my American family in that we tend to sit around in the evenings and watch TV. However, watching TV to learn Macedonian is pretty tricky. First there are the programs in Macedonian, which tend to be news, dramas, or variety shows with lots of ballads and accordion. I don’t have quite the appetite for Macedonian ballads that my host family does but maybe it’s because I don’t understand the lyrics. Then there are programs in English with Macedonian subtitles. I find these programs pretty helpful but the pickings are eclectic. I’ve seen Prison Break (Season 1) and One Tree Hill, plus several movies from the 80s and 90s (particularly sequels) including My Girl 2, Coming to America, and Judge Dread.

From here, my Macedonian learning from television gets more challenging. Next in line comes programming from other countries dubbed into Macedonian. I’m getting drawn into a show called “1001 Nights” which is a Turkish show dubbed into Macedonian. Of course, it’s hard to follow when their lips don’t match the words. Then there are shows broadcast in their native language with Macedonian subtitles. There are several popular Spanish telenovellas, and nothing is much more confusing to me than hearing Spanish (which I don’t speak) and reading Macedonian (which is in Cyrillic). The Macedonians also have a lot of programming from Serbia because they understand Serbian—I however, do not. Apparently many of the neighboring Balkan countries can understand each other’s languages but they aren’t similar enough to me yet so I’m dependent on the Macedonian subtitles. I am trying to watch Serbian Survivor that just started a new season and has a Macedonian contestant. I also watched Serbian Wife Swap. They don’t seem to fight as much as on American Wife Swap and the wives always bring gifts for the family they are staying with but otherwise the premise is the same.

I have not seen any shows in Albanian, which about 25% of Macedonia speaks as its native language. My guess is that this is either because most Albanians speak Macedonian anyway or because the programming is done regionally and my region does not have an Albanian population to speak of. At any rate, I don’t know any Albanian but one of our training communities is learning Albanian in addition to Macedonian. Tackling Macedonian is plenty for me.

I understand that cable TV here is a whole other story. At my host sister’s house I did watch some MTV in English with German subtitles and I’ve heard that there is an entire channel devoted to fashion. Also, it would be wrong to omit the sports broadcasts which are primarily soccer but sometimes handball, a popular sport here that I’m still trying to understand the rules of.

So now you know that I’m not being a couch potato, I’m “studying.”