You are currently browsing the daily archive for January 16th, 2008.
At the literacy seminar, there were a range of different people, about twenty of us, all there for different reasons and motivations. As I stood by the refreshment table, as I’m wont to do in a room full of people I don’t know, I hear someone say to me, in German with a confrontational tone, “So…I hear you speak… German.”
I had an awkward hunk of cantaloupe in my mouth so I just shrug and say, in English, “Well, yeah.”
He has that strange, old man, macho masculinity stance going on, head tilted slightly up in order to look down at me, feet spread wide. It was too early on a Saturday morning for this sort of thing. I rattled off in completely suave and fluent German, with him hesitatingly punching in sentences. When I noted that his German had a Bavarian accent, honest to goodness, he took a step back from me. I haven’t spoken German that well in a while and was later rather impressed with myself. I do attribute how well I did to the utter lack of esteem I held for someone who has to confront me about a language at 9 on a Saturday.
What I thought about while our teacher rambled off on how we should not use sarcasm with our tutees [No, really? Damn.], was how incredibly awesome it is to have that reach into different languages. If you know even just one more language, think how many more stories of life and love and emotion you can gather. It’s mind-boggling to me. Even if those things are universal, to feel the touches of culture, environment, and individuality on those universals shows you that everyone has a different path to own these experiences and can share them as long as there is that exchange of language.
Don’t let school get in the way of your education.
- Mark Twain
