I went to school in northern California. We were required to get through two years of a foreign language to graduate high school. Most took Spanish. My school also offered German and Japanese. The Japanese classes were very popular because they had the best foreign language teacher in the school.
In College I was required to take another two semesters of language. I took ASL (American Sign Language).
Neither language stuck for me because there was just never consistent need to use them.
When I lived in Germany, I commented to a Belgian friend (who was fluent in three or four languages) that I felt like âthe stupid Americanâ because I could only speak English. Her reply was, âWell yeah. What need do you have to learn anything else? How far would you have to travel to find someone who doesnât speak English?â And⌠yeah⌠Even where I lived in California, the border with Mexico was like 12 hours away. In Berlin, I found like three places where no one spoke English. And I could order food and drinks just fine.
Donât take it personally, to us all Americans seem uneducated
It was even worse with the French in the 80s, maybe well into the 90s. They learned English at school, godd@mn, but they didnât bother to speak anything but French and pretended not to understand English too.
My French wasnât great in the beginning (having a French girlfriend later helped immensely to improve my skills), so there was virtually no communication at all. It was a matter of false pride, I guess.
Yeah, they had colonies, but French is not really a âworld languageâ, compared to English or Spanish.
I have more sympathies for people that didnât get a proper education (Americans) than well educated people that canât be bothered (the French in the 80s).
Had you taken Japanese, youâd be living in Germany now
Learning a language is sometimes done as a hobby, or out of interest, but I would guess in more than 80% of the cases itâs out of necessity (English for pretty much everything, French if you have a French girlfriend like @Whying_Dutchman , Japanese because you live there, Danish because I live there, Chinese because it gets you a job or you deal a lot with China and so on.) If there is no real need to learn a foreign language (a week of vacation in Italy doesnât really count), success rates are going to be abysmal (Duolingo or not).
So, if you live in Idaho, and the farthest youâll ever want or need to travel is Oregon or Wyoming, then NOT knowing any Spanish, French, etc is NOT a sign of being uneducated. There is nothing in your life that would make it beneficial for you to learn another language. You may still want to, but there is absolutely no need.
I know itâs Physical Graffiti from Led Zeppelin, but whatâs the joke?? Is it that the sleeve used to be monochrome (IIRC), and now itâs in color, while the girl is black&white?? Or something else entirely that I am just not getting
No hidden agenda or secret meaning⌠just a neat picture related to music. Other than the recognizable album cover, the dichotomy of colour to monochrome is a tad intriguing.
I got to know Marc Spoon personally shortly before his death and still feel guilty as I told him that he created such great classic tracks but his DJ sets were soso (I didnât say âsosoâ, I said something worse).
He responded very sad and quiet, almost lost, and - gentleman that he was - got me another drink and left, in my memory he kind of faded awayâŚ
That was the last time I saw him.
This is one of those situations I wished I were not so directâŚ.
When people would ask where I was from, Iâd tell them âCaliforniaâ instead. Because California is cool.
That regularly led to some variation of:
Them: âJust California?â
Me: âWell, firstly no. Secondly, California is bigger than Germany?â
Them: ââŚWhat?â ::Confused trying to process::
Me: âSaying Iâm âOnly from Californiaâ is like saying someone is âOnly from Italyâ. Theyâve got similar sized economies and variety of culture and geography.â
Hahaha, yeah! That reminds me: a good friend of mine, from San Francisco, visited me a few years ago.
I wanted to take him to a really cool House party, so he would see what European savoir vivre really is.
Mind you, he was perhaps a little too old, wore an old oversized Hawaii shirt, and generally looked like a typical SF developer at the time (goatee and all, impossible sneakers) ⌠that was when developers were still considered nerds, not cool.
So, I brought a few very good looking girls that surrounded him at the entrance, so he would pass security.
Of course he was rejected, and I told the huge security guy that my friend had taken a looooong flight, especially for this party.
No success!
I said to my friend (in English): âSorry, you have to stay outside while we go and partyâ (just kidding)
The security guy heard us talk English, looked at him again, and asked, where he was from.
âSan Francisco!â
âOh, San Francisco, California, very good - come in!â
My friend had the time of his life after. It was the summer of love in one looong night
San Francisco, California, maybe LA ⌠those are the magic words that makes a lot possible here!
Texas or Florida wouldnât have worked, especially nowadays
