It's not so much that they can model fluid flow using the lattice Boltzmann method. But they speak such good English! And that makes me feel ashamed of myself that I don't speak any of their languages.
My brother Matt tells me that in Sweden (and probably in plenty of other places), they have a joke:
Q: What do you call a person who speaks only one language?
A: American.
There are notable exceptions. Jason Bourne, for example, finds it useful to speak Russian, Spanish and French. But since government brainwashing is expensive and not yet widely available, I'll have to study a little less efficiently. Of the three languages that I speak very little and badly (French, Korean, Spanish), Spanish is the most spoken in Albuquerque and at Matt, Lupita and Ricky's house. So I've started reading Harry Potter y el prisionero de Azkaban. I'm getting through pretty much a page a day, so that'll be on the "Jill is reading" list on the sidebar for maybe a year or more. And I'm looking for a friend with whom to do a Spanish/English language exchange. Feel free to check up on my progress, or to write comments in Spanish.
8 comments:
Bueno,
Mucho suerte en su jornado de aprender espanol mejor. En unos meses es probable que puedes hablar espanol roto como yo.
Pero, puedes entender todos estos? Pues felicidades, por que estas un verdadero maestro de espanol marginal.
Tarik
Hola! That's about all I know. :) We're hoping for Kaelyn to be able to learn Spanish pretty early. They have some language classes for kids around here that start when they are babies. We also got a couple of baby DVDs in Spanish. I wish we would all learn another language at a young age like they do in other countries.
Bien, no puedo hablar español. Coreano, ni francés. ¡Pero afortunadamente, hay pescados de Babel!
잘, 나는 스페인어를 말할. 한국어,도 아니다 프랑스어. 그러나 운이 좋게,Babelfish있는다!
Bien, je ne peux pas parler espagnol. Coréen, ni Français. Mais heureusement, il y a des poissons de Babel !
Jedoch kann ich deutsches wenig wirklich sprechen. 我讲一点汉语, 但无法写它。Saya juga faham Bahasa Melayu. However, you don't know any of the languages in this paragraph, so never mind :-)
Un-Americanly yours,
Ian
Otro talento escondido de Tarik! Vamos a hablar el Espanol roto y marginal.
Ian's another example. Looks like he sprechens deutche, Malay, English, and some language that's written entirely in little white boxes. That "American" joke is probably current in Malaysia too.
Kaelyn gives me hope for our future, though!
Tengo muchos cosas escondidos. Estoy sorprandido que conoces Jason Bourne. Su ex-novio quizas? Que hombre guapo y peligroso, no?
Solamente un conocido, pero miro su carrera con interes.
Hey Jill,
way to go :)
I am not attempting to write in Spanish for the fear that I'll take so long that this will never get posted. :) Did I tell you I have a Mexican friend that we have sort of a language exchange with? Her daughter is about a month (or two?) older than Eleanor, so sometimes we take walks together and take turns teaching each other.
Btw Eleanor seems to be doing pretty well in her bilingual environment. So far she has not seemed behind her monolingual little friends, but may be in 6 months or so we'll be able to tell.
Right now she is very verbal but may be it'll take her longer to start speaking in complete sentences? You probably know more about this.
Oh, what I really wanted to say when I started typing is that reading a book in Spanish will help you a lot! (I am so verbose :)
Even if she is behind, it'll be totally worth it.
One of the best talkers I know (in her second language, and I bet in Farsi too) didn't start talking at all until she was 4.
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