Linguistics nerd
How I’m sure the world sees me. I’m at peace with it.
OK, so I know that I’m a nerd, on many, many levels. So I understand if no one but me finds this interesting. I also accept your condescension and scorn. I’m used to it. Believe me.
I found out today that my new Vietnamese teacher is doing his Ph.D. in linguistics. Better yet, his specialization is phonetics. I have a strong interest in phonology, and so I took the opportunity to ask some burning questions about Vietnamese phonology that have been bothering me for months. We spent the lesson talking about linguistics (in Vietnamese).
Did I mention that I’m a nerd?
I showed him an analysis that I made of some Vietnamese language phonological rules regarding pronunciation. At the time, I wasn’t sure that my analysis was correct, and I couldn’t get verification. The teachers at FSI, as excellent as they are at teaching Vietnamese, do not have a background in theoretical linguistics. I tried not to hold that against them. Nobody’s perfect.
Anyway, he said that my analysis about a rounding rule is correct. The linguistics nerd in me rejoiced. The (very small) non-nerd part of me cringed in embarrassment at my nerdish delight.