[PRCo] Re: Europa (Foreign Languages)

[Fred Schneider]

AND COMMUTE WHEN HE CAN AFFORD IT AND FIND SOMEONE TO GO WITH HIM.    
WHEN YOU WANT TO GO BOB?

On Nov 9, 2007, at 10:13 AM, Bob Dietrich wrote:

> Boris:
>
> I think that the short version is Fred will stay on this side of  
> the pond
> with us.
>
> Bob
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org
> [mailto:pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org] On Behalf Of  
> Fred
> Schneider
> Sent: Thursday, November 08, 2007 6:15 PM
> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
> Subject: [PRCo] Re: Europa (Foreign Languages)
>
> 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
>>
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