Foreign languages have never seemed all that “foreign” to me, fortunately, at least in the sense of the desire to learn them. In the Peace Corps in South America I learned Spanish in the total immersion sink-or-swim method of living with a family of 12 who spoke no English. Language classes in the day were followed by interaction, meager at first, with the family at night. I still remember that moment at dinner one evening when I realized that I could understand some of what they were saying and asked to be included. From then on I was truly a part of the family.

One of the first big trips that Bill and I took together was to Cologne, Germany to attend language school there, again in a total immersion situation. We even agreed to speak only German to each other which lasted about two days. Since we were in class with students from many different countries, the one common language between all of us was English, so we didn’t get all that much practice with our classmates outside of school. Despite that, we somehow became proficient enough that one evening in a bar, we asked the gentleman who was attempting to speak English to us to please switch back to his native German since that was much easier for us to understand. In hindsight that might have been rude, or it could have been the influence of that delicious Kolsch beer, but at least we continued to communicate through the evening. Continue reading “Learning to communicate”