My wife once said that when Germans speak it often sounds like they are angry. Which caused me to wonder…..when the French and Italians speak their native tongue, do they want to make love?
My favorite travel destinations are places where I can’t drink the water, don’t know what’s in the food and can’t speak the language. It’s then that I know we’ve really gotten away.
There were times this summer, in southern Poland for example, when my wife and I did not hear another native English speaker during an entire day. Those were precious days.
But, not withstanding this pleasure in the unknown, every trip I take to a country where English is not the native language renews my frustration for having my early elementary school education occur in a place and at at time when it was not considered necessary that American children learn a second language early in their lives. Instead, for my generation, if there were any foreign language requirements at all, they were at high school and college levels when it is much more difficult to learn a second language.
In contrast, children of my generation in other countries became fluent in at least one additional language, and children all around the world today are being introduced to, if not immersed in, second and third languages when they are very young. They are not only learning other languages in the classroom, they also are using these languages on the playground. It’s becoming a part of who they are and what they have to offer colleges and employers.
And later, when they travel the world, they enjoy a level of interaction and education that I cannot attain.
JER
ALL OVER THE MAP 