Some people say 'isn't it amazing how time flies’. I don’t think I’ve ever said it, apart from in the context of ‘you know something I’ve never said …’. In fact the reverse is true. Whenever I give time any thought at all, I often feel ‘whoa! How did we manage to pack all that in there!’ I felt that again last weekend when I spent the weekend with my host family from my German exchange, 1990/91. I understand that it was a long time ago, but it does not ‘seem like just yesterday’ or any of those other clichés. We started talking about all of the things we have done since we first met 28 years ago, I started to feel like I’ve lived several lifetimes since then. It was amazing. We’ve caught up on quite a few occasions since being randomly paired by total strangers in the late 1980s, so it wasn’t a complete recount of the past 3 decades, but 2 days were not nearly enough to get it all out there nonetheless. It was one of the best weekends I’ve ever spent. Good times, good friends, catching up on their patch, in their tongue, after all this time, it’s just beautiful. If you have been lucky enough to have had this experience yourself, then you know what I mean. But if you haven’t then it is difficult to explain, you will just have to trust me on this. If you have children, and if they are at all interested, encourage them to learn a language. People will say Chinese for business, Spanish for variety, Italian if you’re Catholic, Indonesian because it’s close … It’s all true, but it’s also all irrelevant. It doesn’t matter which one they learn, just as long as they learn one (or more!). And when they do, if it is at all possible, try to provide them with the opportunity to go somewhere to live it (as opposed to vacationing in it). If that’s not an option, perhaps consider becoming a host. Learning a language in high school may not necessarily be a life changing experience, but the opportunities it affords are impossible to overstate.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Categories
All
ArchivesCategories
All
|