[PRCo] Re: Europa (Foreign Languages)

[Fred Schneider]

An open note to Boris.   You can all read it.   It's about foreign  
languages.

At age 67?   Get real.

One of the realities of life is that languages are best learned when  
you are younger than ten years old.   Many European educators  
understand that and begin teaching second languages in the third  
grade.   That is about the upper end of the window.

I've seen five-year-old-army brats who had live in German house  
keepers back in 1960 who were absolutely fluent in German and  
English.   Those kids could walk into the base PX and rattle off  
German with the staff like an ICE train running over the  
Neubaustrecke out of Kassel at 200 miles an hour.    There is a kid  
in a local pizza store here whose parents taught him when he was  
little ... he speaks English, Italian, Sicilian and Spanish and he is  
only 12 years old.

But most of us, myself included, were caught in the stupid U. S.  
educational system that required us to wait until we were in high  
school to try a second language.   Of course we were already at the  
point where we were bored to death with school.   And we were at a  
stage when languages were difficult.   Furthermore, there was no way  
to make a game out of it and convince us that it would be fun.    
There was no way to tell us we might find it useful in the future.    
After all, we were teenagers and we knew everything.    When I  
finally realized how useful languages could be, I was in my 20s.    
I've tried to learn German three or four times so far and I forget it  
faster than I can learn it.

I've also tried to learn French twice.

And you want me to work on Czech?

What is important here?   Spanish is important because 1 in every 5  
U. S. citizens speaks it in the home or will shortly.   We should all  
bite that bullet and be bilingual and quit arguing about whose  
culture is ruined by learning a second language.

Now beyond Spanish, what is important?   Russian?   Hindi?    
Japanese?   One of the Chinese dialects?   German?    Some 712  
million people in the world speak Mandarin Chinese, and of those 690  
million live in China.   Russia has 118 million people who speak that  
language and there is an aging population in Eastern Europe that  
speaks it.   India has so many languages that English is the unifying  
language.   German?   Well, only 80 million Germans speak it but we  
learned it because it was a language of commerce.

How many people in the world speak the Czech language?   About 12  
million.   Sweden has 9 million speaking Swedish.   Flemish has about  
20 million users in Belgium and Holland, and they all speak English  
when they want to go somewhere else.   I once asked a waitress in  
Finland what language she or her husband uses when they go elsewhere  
and the answer was English.

When we get down to small numbers like 12 million ...

You really think we should be learning Czech, Boris?    The real  
question becomes, what language should the Czech's and Slovak's be  
learning?    My suspicion is that you need Polish, German and English  
to really enjoy life around you.

It was my friend from Holland, Frits van Dam who convinced me I  
needed to study more languages.   He was standing in my family room  
30-odd years ago watching a news item on Mullockan terrorists  
hijacking a train in Holland.   One of his countrymen was speaking in  
English and I could tell from the look on his face that he wasn't  
missing a single word.   Afterward I asked Frits how many languages  
he spoke.   He said he was only fluent in English and Dutch   
(Flemish).   His idea of fluency meant total equality ... same as  
birth languages ... does not even have to pause and think in the  
other language, what does this word mean.   If Frits is in the  
English mode, he simply stays there all day.

He went on to say that he could get by in French and German.   Now  
getting by to him meant he could read, write and speak French and  
German but once in a while he had to pause and think in English or  
Dutch, what does that word mean.

My idea of getting by?   Ordering a meal, getting a room, filling the  
gas tank, reading the weather maps on television, reading photo  
captions in a book, reading highway signs ... a couple thousand word  
vocabulary?   Well, Frits can also do that in Spanish, Finish,  
Norwegian.   One day he remarked that we was able to actually read a  
book in Norwegian.

I felt so damned embarrassed that I began to study German again.    
But his answer to my concerns were, "You can travel 3,000 miles on  
your language.   I can only travel 100 miles on mine."   That was  
correct.   But traveling in Europe is so much more fun when you  
understand the waiter asking if you enjoyed the meal and you can  
answer the question in his language even if the pronunciation is not  
absolutely perfect.  It takes you out of the Ugly American category  
and makes you an appreciated visitor.

But sadly, as 67, Boris, I'll just be happy to maintain what I've  
learned.

Fred Schneider



On Nov 8, 2007, at 2:23 PM, Boris Cefer wrote:

> I have one condition. FWS III would have to learn Czech...
> :-)
>
> B
>