Anderton Posted January 2, 2021 Author Share Posted January 2, 2021 Craig, I am curious about how you were at one point speaking French better than English? I grew up in the French-speaking part of Switzerland for almost four years as a child, from 7 to 11. I went to a French-speaking school and by the time I returned to the US, I was speaking French better than English. I spoke English only with my parents and brother, along with the occasional British or American friend. The main problem with my French is that it kind of got frozen with the vocabulary of an 11-year-old Also I speak the Swiss version, which is virtually identical but there are some differences (like the Swiss word for "90" is "nonante," while the French one is "quatre-vingt dix," which translates to "four twenty and ten." Leave it to the Swiss to want to make things more efficient). Switzerland is an interesting case. When I got back to the US, I was taught that a country needed to have a common language. Switzerland has four of them. One of them, Romansch, has pretty much died out (less than 1% of the country speaks it). It isn't just based on Latin like other Romance languages, it is a direct descendent of the language spoken in the Roman empire (although it has adopted quite a bit of German). I'm fascinated with languages not only because of the sonics, but because of how some languages can express concepts that don't exist in other languages, like "joie de vivre" or "schadenfreude." Quote Craig Anderton Educational site: http://www.craiganderton.org Music: http://www.youtube.com/thecraiganderton Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/craig_anderton Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chip McDonald Posted January 2, 2021 Share Posted January 2, 2021 I'm fascinated with languages not only because of the sonics, but because of how some languages can express concepts that don't exist in other languages, like "joie de vivre" or "schadenfreude." Faux, but appropo: Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows Quote Guitar Lessons in Augusta Georgia: www.chipmcdonald.com Eccentric blog: https://chipmcdonaldblog.blogspot.com/ / "big ass windbag" - Bruce Swedien Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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