[Sca-cooks] globetrotting

[Philippa Alderton]

---  Kiri skrev
:
  However, when you
> don't use a language on a
> regular basis, I believe you tend to forget it.  And
> I think that is the
> main reason many of us in the U. S. don't speak more
> than one language.

I think this is the heart of it, for Americans- at
least for my. My HS required either 3 years of two
foreign languages, or 4 years of one for graduation- I
took French and Latin, Spanishe being the other choice
(it was a small school).

While I'm quite comfortable reading in several
languages- granted, using a dictionary frequesntly, to
be absolutely sure of the meaning of a word or phrase,
the only language I couls speak and survive in, if
necessary, is French. It's not because I'm
particularly insular in my outlook, It's because _I _
DON'T_ HAVE_ ANYONE_ TO_TALK TO!!!!!!

The last time I took a foreign language class was in
1970, but I still remember enough to get by in French,
and thanks to the 'Net and SCA, I've been working with
and in other languages enough to read them
comfortably. But there is simply no reason for me to
talk to non-English speakers. In the last 30+ years,
once, at an SCA party, I ran into a lady from Italy
who spoke only Italian and French, and taught Latin.
We got along fine in French, but the Latin didn't make
it- she was speaking it with an Italian consonant and
vowel shift, and I was working from an American vowel
and consonant shift.

Americans don't speak other languages because we don't
have opportunities to, not because we don't want to.

Phlip

=====
Never a horse that cain't be rode,
And never a rider who cain't be throwed....

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