Oh my God, that's a lot. Is that something you enjoy? Learning different languages?
I once tried to learn French. I was actually taking some serious lessons on an app. But I got too lazy I guess, and now the best I can do is une chat mange une pizza. And I can't even use that in a conversation, because guess what? Cats don't east pizzas!
“Life’s under no obligation to give us what we expect. We take what we get and are thankful it’s no worse than it is.”
*Une chatte mange une pizza. Une is female, so the chat has to be a chatte.
I think that´s an excellent way to start small talk! You could so explain that you started to learn French.
I think learning a new language is something to bring me closer to a different culture and understand it. Because some things are only possible to understand when you not only live there but also learn to communicate the same way.
For example something English: the sky is the sky that is outside, but heaven is the Christian sky where angels live. Something like that doesn´t exist in German, and German has actually a lot of words to explain strange things.
I´m just somebody who wants to understand more and more, how different cultures developed and how they affect our psychology. There are some cultures that I want to understand better. That´s, unfortunately, something we don´t get to learn in school a lot because we are always centralized around Europe and the "western hemisphere". <- which is also a term made up by Westerners, I mean for a Japanese the US and Europe could be the Eastern people.
Great! So the little French I remember is also wrong. I feel so proud of the hours I wasted now.
I think its a great thing wanting to get to know different cultures. Languages teach us so much about different places, its people and their cultures. And I feel like, understanding the different cultures of people, bring us closer together as human beings. It helps us understand each other better, and why we do what we do. Also, don't you feel like you know so much of the world already? I mean you know all these languages, all these different cultures. Its quite an achievement really.
“Life’s under no obligation to give us what we expect. We take what we get and are thankful it’s no worse than it is.”
If you say "un chat mange une pizza" it´s also correct. Try maybe something like this:
"Bonjour, je m'appelle ___ et j'ai ___ ans. Je viens de commencer à apprendre le français, alors pardonnez-moi si je fais une erreur. Si vous avez quelques tuyaux à me donner, n'hésitez pas à m'en faire part."
Yeah, that´s true.
Also, don't you feel like you know so much of the world already?
There is so much more than what I know. So many cultures and languages just waiting to be explored. I'm very interested in the Arabian Peninsula and Southeast Asia (I mean, if I were to ask someone at work where Laos or Myanmar is, no one would know where they could look), with all the cultures (I prefer to use this word rather than countries, as one culture transcends several countries, but there can be several in one country) to discover, so much history and also so many interesting geographical features.... It's a well where I fall in and don't want to get out. On the one hand, I want to know a bit of everything, but I also want to know everything from one thing.
Okay, I don't know any of the French you just spoke, but at least I recognized one or two words here and there.
Wow...you have a really curios soul. If you are so interested in languages and cultures, you must be interested in travelling as well? Or would you rather learn about these cultures without experiencing them? I think its part of the package of understanding them though.
For example, I recently went out of state, and the system was so different there. Not only their language, but the way they communicate, their traditions, their customs, their environment, everything was so different from my own. The trip was a disaster, but I really liked learning more about this different state and its very different society.
“Life’s under no obligation to give us what we expect. We take what we get and are thankful it’s no worse than it is.”
I guess that comes from my father - he was a historian. Always looking for the cause of something.
That´s for sure, but I never left Europe. I wish to travel more when the pandemic is over to visit the places in real life, not just reading about them in books. But I also know that I won´t see everything in my life with my own eyes, so I have to look for a mix between them.
Oh, that´s a shame. But it reminds me of my time when I did an internship in France and yeah, that wasn´t so great the first two to three weeks to learn all the differences.
Go and make interesting mistakes, make amazing mistakes, make glorious and fantastic mistakes. Break rules. Leave the world more interesting for your being here. — Neil Gaiman
