The joys of the English language!

Hilarious, Donna!

In the U.S., we do learn a second language, but unless that is Spanish, we never hear it again, so it is lost. Both my husband and I have had a few years of German, and we try to say things to each other until we give up. You have to hear the language to retain anything of it.

UUh, I love to play with the language. That was reallyreally fun, I just read it out loud and it went better than I dared to hope.

To those, who asked themselves why we over here in Europe speak other than our own language so often.. That ist -I suppose- because we are sitting so close together speaking different languages. So if we want to communicate we just have to learn. First choice is -of course- english, then french or spanish and a lot people learn russian too over here.
In some cases it is easier to learn than in others i.e. german and dutch are quite related. So when a dutch is speaking slowly and clear, I am able to understand what he/she wants to tell me. Surely not word by word but you can get the essence. That works the other way around too, I suppose..
The english and the german language share roots too, so for a german it is not too hard to learn englisch (I suppose the other way around is not so easy, because we have much much more rules and even more exceptions to them :lol:)
French is based on latin so it is much harder to learn.

It is a thing of necessity. You Americans and Australians can roam your whole continent and are able to communicate everywhere. Over here we can't - sooo, we just have to learn. I don't know wheter we deserve awe for that or not .. It is just a normal thing..

Thanks for sharing this nice poem. I had a lot of fun with it.

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Originally Posted by Sandy Navas

One time, vacationing in Holland, we unknowingly arrived the day before the Queen's birthday celebration. All the stores were closed, having moved their wares to the streets and sidewalks. Most had some speaker system set up and they were announcing all the fantastic items they had for sale. Totally blown away we were - there were many who were switching from Dutch to English, to Spanish, to French, to Portuguese, to Russian, to German, to . . . you name it.

When I attended school here in the --'s (fill in the blank if you dare) I never had the opportunity to learn a foreign language. So I was amazed that Europeans have such a broad scope of education . . . something we 'Mericans have yet to offer. It's a shame.

Also, having married a man whose native language is Spanish you would think that I could speak it, too - not to happen. Oh, I know enough to find and order some good food, find a telephone, taxi or bathroom . . . enough to get me in big trouble. I find I can understand more than I would dare to try speaking. Wanted DD to learn Spanish but the grandparents were busy learning English and wouldn't speak Spanish to her . . . she had a babysitter who did and she started learning . . . until she went to pre-K and the kids laughed at her because she spoke a different language. No more Spanish until high school. Now she sees the importance and the girls are learning, as well as learning Latin . . .

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Because Holland is such a small country we have to learn other languages, when the kids overhere are 11 or 12 years old they all learn:
Dutch, English, German, French and as a second language Spanish. That is the way it works here, we are used to adjust to the language spoken to us, to respond in their own language.

Makes me think of my flight to Atlanta last spring, there was a man sitting next to me from Germany. He was real nice and told me he was going to visit his hostmom in Chicago from the time he was an exchange student more than 20 years ago.
So we started talking in English because he did not know where I was from.
Then he asked me where I was from......I said the Netherlands, he switched to German right away......so I told him: "Let's both try our best here and speak English"......." (German is not an easy language, I make tons of mistakes...)
He laughed and so we did speak english all the way of our flight.

So my dear friends, that's is why!

I've put it on my FB.......hope all my FB friends can read it..... I did read it out loud till the end!!!!!!!

Thanks for sharing!!!!

There is a saying: If you speak 3 languages you are trilingual, 2 you are bilingual, one - you are American! I am so sad that we don't put more emphasis on this in schools. I am a linguist - 5 languages, currently learning 2 more. In my business, international trade, it is vital to be able to at least say a few words in another language. Communication is the gateway to understanding (vital in a global community), so I am a big advocate for learning to speak a foreign language.

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Originally Posted by Klasien

I've put it on my FB.......hope all my FB friends can read it..... I did read it out loud till the end!!!!!!!

Thanks for sharing!!!!

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Klasien, what's your facebook name? I'm on it too!

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Originally Posted by Lenie

Klasien, what's your facebook name? I'm on it too!

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Geen idee, ik denk gewoon Klasien Otten..........maar volgens mij staat mijn FB op alleen vrienden van vrienden mogen toevoegen (ivm mijn werk in de gevangenis) ik ga jou wel even zoeken.........
Of je moet even doorgeven wat jouw FB naam is. Gezellig!

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Originally Posted by Klasien

Geen idee, ik denk gewoon Klasien Otten..........maar volgens mij staat mijn FB op alleen vrienden van vrienden mogen toevoegen (ivm mijn werk in de gevangenis) ik ga jou wel even zoeken.........
Of je moet even doorgeven wat jouw FB naam is. Gezellig!

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Ik sta gewoon op Lenie Rood-Bouten, dus dan zou je me moeten vinden!

My hubby and I took German in high school, but lack of use has made that almost worthless now. I have taught multiple languages to my kiddos......or at least supervised their learning of them.....but I still can't speak them myself. I have emphasized learning of Latin to all, Spanish to 2, French to one, and one even took German in college. If I had it to do all over, we would have all learned Latin, (no regrets there) then everyone would have taken German. It would have been much easier on me and we maybe could have culminated their studies with a family trip to Germany.