Tuesday, November 18, 2014

NWC Day 18: Skill

"Language is wine upon the lips." - Virginia Woolf

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Prompt #18: What skill have you always wanted to acquire?

I'd rather like to be multilingual. I took German for six years in school -- two years in junior high and all through high school. Even went to Germany. I switched to French when I got to college, which was a blessing and a curse. I love the French language, but after six years of speaking a guttural tongue, French was just weird and smooth. Sort of like a Ken doll's nether regions.

When I say I'd like to be multilingual, I mean confidently so. I love that I know enough French and German to recognize (some) words and phrases when I see them. Years ago, a friend and I attended French Market, a cultural fair at the church by my parents' house. He commented that the jambon et fromage baguette looked tasty and I instantly shot back, "Yeah, if you want to pay $7 for a ham-and-cheese sandwich." So I recognize words and I'm a snob. Yay!

Because of my education in French, I can usually decipher words in other languages like Spanish. Enough to figure some things out, anyway. Not enough to travel to a Spanish-speaking country and bust out with a bunch of Holas! but enough to mutter along with the closed captioning at home and feel proud when I'm able to figure out what's going on.

Ideally, I'd like to get better at French, learn Spanish, and learn ASL. Maybe that'll be my in for meeting (and of course wooing) Mariska Hargitay, who can speak French, Hungarian, Italian, and Spanish. Huuuuuuuh

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