Monday. Language lessons. Let's have a big round of applause for the Infinitief! Come over here and meet the Imperatief, you two have got a lot in common, you both confuse the hell out of me!!
I have a small note book in which I write things that I think will help me learn difficult concepts. I have a page that I wrote last term so we must have touched on it then. The page is neatly written and even has key letters highlighted in bright orange, which leads me to believe that when I wrote the damn page out I knew what I was writing about. It's even written in English...I haven't a bloody clue what it means! If any of my Belgian readers would like to enlighten me as to why some words end in t or d but other times end in te or de, I would be most grateful. Every time I walk down De Meir and look in the shop windows at the English slogans I think to myself "yes! they are seeing the light and slowly switching to English", but it's too slow. Come on Belgium! Speed it up!
My classes at the language school have always had a surprising mix of nationalities and I've found that quite refreshing. I've always been the lone Englishman amidst a sea of Turks, Polish, Russian, various Arabic nations. I would be lying if I said that we didn't speak our own languages when we could. I would like to recount a conversation between a Napalese guy and an Ethiopian guy who sat in the seats next to me.
Nepalese to Ethiopian- Parle vous francais?
Ethiopian- silence, furrowed brow and incomprehension
Nepalese- Parle vous francais?
Ethiopian- all of the above but now looking to his neighbours for help
Nepalese- Parle vous francais?
then because the the penny possibly has a further to drop in Nepal
Nepalese- Do you speak french?
Ethiopian- oh...no...
Well maybe you had to be there, but it made us laugh!
Stockholm. July 2009
16 years ago
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