Learn Another Language. . .

A second, third, or even fourth language besides the one you grew up speaking will open you up to all kinds of new possibilities and experiences.

Enjoyed one of those all-too-rare linguistic experiences the other day during my horror cinema class as a small group of students led the day's discussion on the wonderfully creepy Swedish vampire film Let the Right One In (2008). Early on, the people leading discussion at the front of the room had trouble pronouncing a few of the Swedish cast and crew members' names that they had projected onto the screen at the head of the room and asked for help.

In my best Stockholm Swedish accent, I supplied the necessary information, and then proceeded to say a few simple things to them in Swedish before switching over to Norwegian for a few moments. Once all 15 students in the class had picked up their lower jaws from the floor and settled down again, one young woman asked, "How many languages do you speak?" I replied that I had varying abilities in eight besides English, which absolutely knocked them for six as the British say.

Pandemonium reigned again for several minutes as they digested that. Maybe not a big deal to people who have grown up elsewhere and gone through different school systems where languages (and grammatically more complex ones at that) are given a much higher priority than here in the good ol' US of A, but in my tiny corner of the American Midwest, it blew 'em out of the water, to put it lightly.

However, I occasionally stumble across an article about some linguist somewhere or other in the world, who has fluency in 40 or 50 languages, and suddenly I don't feel so smug or accomplished anymore. To paraphrase Kermit the Frog, it's not easy being an aspiring polyglot.

The point is, though, that learning another language or two will set an average guy apart and help make him, well, not so average anymore, which isn't a bad thing after all. Linguistic competence in another language besides English is just one more tiny way to kick up your everyday style a few notches. Try it and see.

-- Heinz-Ulrich

Comments

Up North Style. . .

Bad Dad makes a friend. YMP and Bad Dad on the shores of Lake Michigan. Or was that Crystal Lake? The Grand Duchess takes a selfie in her kayak. How NOT to impress the girls sunning themselves along the river. YMP and Bad Dad kayaking on the Platte River headed toward Loon Lake. J ust back from a week in Northern Michigan in a charming and spacious house on the banks of the Betsie River outside of Thompsonville. A largely pleasant seven days despite some challenging episodes with the Young Master, who has picked up some very questionable habits and language from his friends in the 8th Grade during the school year just ended. But otherwise, we enjoyed ourselves and contemplated remaining for a few days longer since the house was available. In the end, we decided to return home as planned originally since neither my wife, nor I wanted to spend the remaining days chained to our computers in Zoom meetings from our vacation destination. I actually managed to leave the laptop and ip

Mid-June Thursday Style. . .

A nother pretty typical variation on the theme for late spring, summer, and very early fall. I'm a huge fan of Madras and have several such shirts in the seasonal rotation. Lightweight, exceedingly comfortable, and even dressy when pressed and tucked in, which is the usual way of things here at Totleigh in the Wold. Now, if I had my druthers, I'd still rather be skiing the trails in the upper half of "The Mitten" (of Michigan), in the Upper Peninsula, or Ontario. But summers ain't so bad either, and I'd look pretty funny walking around in cross-country ski attire during June. -- Heinz-Ulrich

A Lazy Saturday at the End of June. . .

A sleepy first half of the weekend here at Totleigh. Warmer and quite humid ahead of an approaching cool front here in Mid-Michigan. Perfect for yet another pair of chino shorts an a seersucker shirt -- tucked in of course -- with the usual leather deck shoes and ribbon belt. Otherwise, not much accomplished beyond a page or so of writing and monkeying around with audio settings for an upcoming podcast episode. However, I was not completely useless yesterday! I made a huge fruit salad for dinner, which the Grand Duchess and I enjoyed a short while later at the table on the back porch. The Young Master, as is his wont on Saturday evenings, took his dinner on a tray in the TV room upstairs where he whiled away a couple of hours on Flight Simulator, flying some sort of commercial airliner to some destination across the Atlantic or Pacific. I would have loved that sort of technology at about nine or 10 way back during the late 1970s, aka The Stone Age. As it is, my sister and

Classic Style

Search This Blog