This past week I've been faced with languages I do not understand. Both instances were in written form, which I do find I learn faster than when spoken/heard. One instance included ancient texts; the other a more recent communication form. Learning is good, but in these cases rather frustrating ... I only want to dabble, not actually learn the full syntax.
First of all, as we have been working through the book of Joel in Bible study, I received an article entitled "When is a locust just a locust?". The title was fine. It was the subtitle that worried me (Patristic exegesis of Joel 1:4 in the light of ancient literary theory). When I have to break open the dictionary at the point of the subtitle, you know things are going to be a challenge. As I flipped through the pages, I was amazing that nearly half of each page was devoted to footnotes. Then I began reading, dictionary and google by my side. I soon realized that the one latin class I got through in university came in handy ... at least I could get the gist of those lengthy latin quotes. The greek and hebrew on the other hand--well it was all greek and hebrew to me. :)
The other language I do not understand is php. Somehow agreeing to update content for the young adult webpage at church turned into a "here are all the files and access to the ftp server, go at it". I can get around html and css and use nice little user-friendly applications. I am now faced with learning a new programming language and trying to make it all look absolutely beautiful. Last night I resorted to using FrontPage rather than learning the new stuff ... it was horrible. I think I would have been less frustrated learning the new stuff. So I called the little brother ... I rambled for over an hour as he pointed me to various sites to download things such as filezilla and notepad++. I have another call in to the sibbling this afternoon for further tech help (ie. once he's had a chance to look at the various files). Horray for people who know stuff!