The lady who looks after my child can't speak English and I can't speak French. Every afternoon we have a conversation about how his day has gone in which we both just speak our own languages at each other and try to guess what the other is getting at. For all I know she's saying "Please, I don't know who this boy is. Please stop bringing him here. This is the wrong nursery. Today I slipped arsenic in his food out of pure frustration" and I'm just nodding "Yes, he's a little tired but I think he's getting used to it. Ok, see you tomorrow!".
That's a big failure on my part - never having learnt another language. A lot of other folk seem to be able to do it. All foreign footballers for example. My grandad has a thing he says whenever football is mentioned - 'Do you know what I call football? Twenty two idiots kicking an intelligent football'. This is followed by a smile which suggests he thinks this will one day end up in a book of quotations alongside Winston Churchill and Mae West. For you to call footballers thick I don't think it's necessary for you to call a lifeless Nike sphere smart. I'm not sure it helps your argument. Secondly, most of the people on that pitch can converse in three languages. What my son's childminder and I could desperately do with is Paul Pogba stood beside us translating to be honest.
My girlfriend can't speak French either but she can say one phrase very well - 'je ne comprends pas'. It's a handy phrase to know but saying it in a perfect French accent must make her sound insane. Imagine if, no matter what you said to someone they just replied 'I don't understand' in exactly the same accent as you. Perhaps it makes her sound like this great philosopher.
"Cash or card?"
"I don't understand"
"So true. So true. None of us really understands this thing we call money"
"Still or sparkling?"
"I don't understand"
"You're so right. While most of the world is in poverty, we sit here pontificating on how much gas we'd like in our water? You've convinced me to volunteer in Haiti. Would you like to join me?"
"I don't understand"
"So true. So true".
I love to think that I'll pick up some French while I'm here in Montreal. Apparently my other grandfather, who was Polish, knew eight languages. Imagine what one could do with those skills. You could play in pretty much any league in Europe. But what did he do? Escape a gulag, make is way across Siberia and fight the Nazis. What a waste.
I think my mother had high hopes that I'd be good at languages. I was unfortunate in that me getting an uninspiring French teacher at school coincided with me developing into a lazy arsehole. It's never too late to learn a language though right? What I need is to put myself into a situation in which I have no choice but to do so. Something like, I don't know, relying on the words of uni-lingual French speaker to find out about my only child's development. That's just not enough for me though. Perhaps I should start playing football in the Belgian second division.
That's a big failure on my part - never having learnt another language. A lot of other folk seem to be able to do it. All foreign footballers for example. My grandad has a thing he says whenever football is mentioned - 'Do you know what I call football? Twenty two idiots kicking an intelligent football'. This is followed by a smile which suggests he thinks this will one day end up in a book of quotations alongside Winston Churchill and Mae West. For you to call footballers thick I don't think it's necessary for you to call a lifeless Nike sphere smart. I'm not sure it helps your argument. Secondly, most of the people on that pitch can converse in three languages. What my son's childminder and I could desperately do with is Paul Pogba stood beside us translating to be honest.
My girlfriend can't speak French either but she can say one phrase very well - 'je ne comprends pas'. It's a handy phrase to know but saying it in a perfect French accent must make her sound insane. Imagine if, no matter what you said to someone they just replied 'I don't understand' in exactly the same accent as you. Perhaps it makes her sound like this great philosopher.
"Cash or card?"
"I don't understand"
"So true. So true. None of us really understands this thing we call money"
"Still or sparkling?"
"I don't understand"
"You're so right. While most of the world is in poverty, we sit here pontificating on how much gas we'd like in our water? You've convinced me to volunteer in Haiti. Would you like to join me?"
"I don't understand"
"So true. So true".
I love to think that I'll pick up some French while I'm here in Montreal. Apparently my other grandfather, who was Polish, knew eight languages. Imagine what one could do with those skills. You could play in pretty much any league in Europe. But what did he do? Escape a gulag, make is way across Siberia and fight the Nazis. What a waste.
I think my mother had high hopes that I'd be good at languages. I was unfortunate in that me getting an uninspiring French teacher at school coincided with me developing into a lazy arsehole. It's never too late to learn a language though right? What I need is to put myself into a situation in which I have no choice but to do so. Something like, I don't know, relying on the words of uni-lingual French speaker to find out about my only child's development. That's just not enough for me though. Perhaps I should start playing football in the Belgian second division.
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