[thechat] Jan 18 peace march

Martin Burns martin at easyweb.co.uk
Tue Jan 21 17:25:13 CST 2003


On Tue, 21 Jan 2003, aardvark wrote:

> there should be no high school graduation parties or ceremonies...
> graduating should be expected...

Graduation celebrations should be a life-stage celebration, not an
achievement celebration... a coming of age of sorts, not a passing of
exams.

I particularly get pissed off with children who are deemed incapable of
learning a foreign language. Language learning is innate in humans - how
badly must you teach it to break that?

I'm not *that* good at languages[1], but I learned enough Italian in less
than one side of a learn-Italian cassette to survive and get everything I
needed in Genoa last weekend without really speaking any English. I
couldn't discuss philosophy or current affairs, but I could ask for a
little hot milk for Morgan, whether it was possible to get a boat to
Portofino and complain about restaurant service. I probably doubled my
vocabulary or more in 4 days.

I even had one wierd conversation with a taxi driver who spoke as much
English as I did Italian, a little more French (which I speak very, very
rustily) and quite a lot of Spanish (which I don't really speak at all).
In 4 languages - all broken - we had a 10 minute conversation.

[1] Not like my sister who speaks 5 languages fluently and understands 3
or so more as they're similar enough (eg Polish is close enough to
a mix of Russian & German) to ones she already speaks.

> > Unlike junk food sales, sex education usually involves parental
> > permission slips.   And offers medically sound information.

hmmm - 'just say no' often...

Cheers
Martin

--
"Names, once they are in common use, quickly
 become mere sounds, their etymology being
 buried, like so many of the earth's marvels,
 beneath the dust of habit." - Salman Rushdie




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