Languages

There are people who are gifted in languages. My French daughter after a year of English and three weeks in the US with me could hold an in-depth conversation. She is now fluent in Dutch, German and I believe can function in Spanish. Her English is so good she can write speeches for CEOs in English.

The doctor who treated me with radiation was Swiss German. I was worried about communicating with him. No reason. He spoke seven languages like his mother tongue and another three functionally.

I worked with a Romanian who also spoke seven languages fluently. His eighth was flirting.

I am not that talented.

A year of Latin helped me understand grammar. Two years of Spanish left me able to read a child's book about a Mexican jumping bean for a few months.

When I went to Germany to join my Army musician ex-husband, the first thing I did was go into an intensive German course. It met six hours a day, five days a week and I emerged functional. That was in the early 60s and since then my ability has been reduced to shopping German and able to get and take a simple, and I mean simple message, for my former housemate when her German family and friends called.

My university French experience was horrendous. In three semesters our professor, a retired Army officer covered about 10 pages. I could still pass a doctorate level exam on his stories with a little review.

Not being able to stand another semester I signed up for a Modern French Drama course given totally in French. Fortunately, a good friend was mother tongue French and she gave me her notes which I translated with a dictionary word for word. The same for the readings.

All was fine until I had to take an exam. The teacher asked to see me. "WHAT, just WHAT are you doing in this class?" I couldn't say the idea of another semester with that idiot, who was her friend, I said, I wanted to know more about French drama. We both agreed I didn't belong in the class, but she let me stay, let me write in English and graded me on my knowledge. If I remember it was a B.

Moving to Switzerland, I was told by my boss, I needed to speak French but he gave me only dual language clients and told me never to negotiate a contract in French. He also said I was too old to learn French.

He was wrong. I was able to speak French well enough to qualify for my Swiss passport. I can read, write and understand. I even dream in French depending on which language I was in prior to falling asleep.

I decided I wanted to bring my German back to the level it had been. I bought the Rosetta Stone and use it almost every day. Some things come back without any effort at all. Others are harder. And the declensions are making me sweat.

Rick bought me Berlitz German vocabulary cards. Many of the words, I knew including gender. Others were too deep in my memory database to extract.

After about 400 words I ran into five, that no matter what I did, the meanings would not stick. Hopefully by writing them here, I will have them become part of me, the part of me that does not need to translate when I want to use or hear the German. 

• Bervorzugen - to prefer
• Berühen - to touch
• Empfangen - to receive
• Empfehlen - to recommend 
• Fortsetzen - to continue

Meanwhile other words, long forgotten or new, set up housekeeping in my head with lightening speed.

I would bevorzugen to fortsetzen. I still would empfehlen the vocabulary cards as a helpful tool to learning a language. If you order them you will empfangen them fairly quickly. I must go now, because my dog has come in and has berühen my leg which means he wants to fuss gehen.