As you may or may not know, I've been attempting to rid myself of the last bad relationship I have in my life by divorcing my mother. It's been awhile since she called and ordered me to pay her money she's not owed, so I began to hope the ordeal had ended. Actually, I began to forget all about her. Today I picked up the mail looking for my latest NetFlix discs (none arrived on time) and instead found a 6x9 envelope from her. I don't know what was in it since I kept my promise to myself, marked it Return to Sender, and dropped it back into the mail. I can only wonder what her next move will be. She has nothing in her life but hatred and money and time, so everything's on the menu.
In other news, I'm tired of saying I wish I knew a foreign language and I'm ready to do something about it. Despite my dislike of classrooms and teachers and institutionalized learning and other people, I've decided to start taking lessons in...something. I'm leaning toward Japanese, but I might go with some Chinese dialect instead. Two things: can anybody recommend a good school in the Atlanta area? I have to admit I'm a little offput by the Language Institute of Atlanta's cheap looking web site, but they seem like the best bet so far. Also, does anybody have a recommendation for a language? I'm definitely leaning toward something Asian, but I wonder which one I'll have the most opportunity to use. Which one sounds the coolest when you scream "You're gonna die, you fecking pig!" That's my traditional greeting.
*EDIT - I suddenly remembered some time ago when I was in Texas I saw a press conference with one of the candidates for governor. A woman asked if he would support teaching foreign languages in public schools, to which he replied "If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it's good enough for everybody." I left before I discovered whether or not he won.
Warning - blog owner is old and cranky and if you leave a comment he will follow you back to your place and return comment which usually leads to drama and debate, so if your blog is particularly Jesus / kitty / kid-intensive, you may want to reconsider.
16 comments:
I've wanted to learn Japanese and even got some books on it, but have heard that Chinese is the "best" language to learn right now. Who knows if that's true? I've doing the opposite of divorcing my mother--by moving in with her. Hopefully, it will go well!
Universities, while fairly expensive, are usually the best bet. Rice here in Houston offers continuing ed classes in quite a few languages that are quite good.
The idiot candidate for governor that you mentioned was none other than GW himself.
My ex was informed he should learn Mandarin to help break down the language barrier in his department at work (predominantly Chinese). I find that kinda funny actually. He has found a few courses at a local community college but Melissa is right, the best are the ones offerred at Universities.
As I work for a university (ok ok, community college!), I think they would be the best bet also. Ours only offers Spanish or French, but one semester offered German.
Did GW really say that? Surely not...
*shakes head*
My parents are dead.
I would have had to steam open the envelope just to see, then reseal and send it back. My curiosity gets me in trouble like that too. As for the language Spanish was my predestined choice and when I ponder French I thought my dad was going to club me for even considering it. Ever thought about a computer program? Might be cheaper and less structured time wise.
Yeah, I would've had to steam open the envelope too....my curiosity would've killed me!!!
Funny you mention that "learning a new language" thing. Me and The PK are talking about taking spanish courses some time this year. I have a nephew-in-law who is from El Salvador and he's trying to teach us but it's a VERY slow process because we only get together once a week for an hour or two.
Good luck with finding a decent class. (I have yet to find one myself).
I would of so wanted to peek in that envelope.
I would check with the local library first. They may have a nice set of books for you. I had a hard time finding mandarin books in my city's bookstores (good books there were tons of different books however).
Mandarin is a very pretty language if you want to learn something that will really try your brain. Japanese is actually not all that difficult the sentence structure is only slightly different from English (SOV, SVO) and once you get beyond the vocabularly isn't hard to start stringing things together. You also have the benefit of Romanization (Romanji).
If you want to learn Mandarin though (personally I like it better than cantonese..even though cantonese is very close to vietnamese and I speak that fairly well) I coudl suggest some books, since that's my next language of choice. ^_^
Don't look at me, I can barely speak English.
I recommend Latin. You never know when a dead Roman might crop up at your workplace.
Depends on what your reason is for learning the language as far as what language I'd recommend. In Europe, the "powerhouse" languages other than English are German and French as those two countries are the strongest economically. Spanish is good in a lot of areas in the US, like Florida, Texas, and California. Hell, even here in SC we have a strong migrant worker community who only speaks Spanish. If you want to do some sort of international business, I'd recommend mandarin Chinese over just about anything else since they're not only getting stronger by the second, but they have the largest population of workers anywhere.
I'm sticking with learning French, however. If your goal is to get laid, I recommend French too. Oh, and if your goal is to curse, I TOTALLY recommend French! Putain de bordel de couilis! Mange ta merde et creve! Sale pute! Oh yeah.
I would have opened the envelope and then closed it again...
and try learning Chinese...if you do you can get a really high paying job. WHo would have thought that speaking CHinese would become a marketable skill? and to think I took all those years of french...
It would've killed me not knowing what was inside that envelope. KILLED. ME. This coming from the woman who used to wait until her boyfriend was at work and strategically unwrap all of my christmas presents to see what they were, then wrap them back up. Yeah, I HATE surprises or not knowing things.
I would say that here in the U.S. spanish would be the most useful to learn. But if you want to go Asian, I agree with Kira that the Mandarin Chinese would probably be best. I'm also with Kira on the getting laid aspect of it, French is the way to go.
I'm taking French lessons right now. As a Canadian, I'm supposed to be bilingual. Alas, I'm not.
I can understand it not too badly if someone speaks it slowly enough...it's when I'm expected to open my own mouth and form coherent sentences.
But I know enough to pbserve that Kira has a really great command of Le Francais de Potty-bouche. :)
Some of my frineds took Japanese in school though. It sounded like it was fun to learn.
A Chinese friend tried to teach me a few words once. I can't remember whether it was Mandarin or Cantonese, but it was a tonal language with 5 different ways to pronounce "ma". You could be saying "mother" or "horse" or any number of things. I was a slow student.
It didn't look like an 'official' letter?
I would vote for Mandarin; that way, if the US is ever taken over by the Chinese, you can act as an informant and turn in your loud neighbors.
Plus if you love Chinese Takeout, you can impress the heck out of the owners (if they happen to know Manderin).
How about ESPAÑOL my friend??
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