Upon first seeing this prompt, my first thought was to master my guitar – something that will probably never happen no matter how much time I have – but then it came to me that being able to pick up foreign languages would come in a lot more handy since I know I will never perform on stage no matter how well I can play.
In college my majors were German and Russian but I also took classes in Hebrew and French…sometime all at once.
I lost three years of Russian in about three seconds when a friend was hit by a car.
My German went a way due to lack of use.
I know a few things and some stuff comes and goes when I hear it; but being able to communicate with people from other countries would be a really good thing.
The place where I do laundry is run by some people from Brazil. At the moment their English is as limited as my Portuguese but they are very nice and friendly and have taught me a few words.
It’s funny, when I come in and say hello or goodbye in Portuguese, they answer me in English!
Wouldn’t it be great to walk into the laundry mat and be able to carry on a conversation with them???
I live in a tourist town and we can get people from all over the world. I see a lot of Asians, especially Chinese and Indians. There have also been some large groups of people from the Middle East.
All of those languages are very different but if I had the skill of instantly being able to speak their language, it would be very helpful in helping them find what they wanted.
I discovered long ago that I can read most languages that are written in the same lettering as English. And while I can’t understand it all; I frequently can get the general idea of what it says.
One of my favourite authors – Jack Higgins – has a series with a character named Sean Dillon. Sean Dillon is a master at picking up languages…he is also a master diver and can fly just about anything.
Another series I like is W.E.B. Griffin’s Presidential Agent books with Charley – another guy who seems to have an endless list of languages he speaks and picks up the ones he doesn’t as easy as walking down the street.
Man, I would love to be able to do that!