Dream travel destination

Immersion - almost 40 years ago I went to Paris to study, make photographs, and play jazz music. Although I worked in a French environment and heard almost no English, almost a year passed before I understood what people were saying to me and to each other. Understanding the foreign language was like a flash of lightening. Suddenly I understood and was a part of the linguistic community. To this day I remember that burst of comprehension.
 
Roger Hicks said:
Dear Cal,

Sorry. It is not a colloquialism I had previously encountered, which is why I mistook your meaning.

Cheers,

R.
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Roger,

Understood.

We all have to deal with the fact that we age. We have to be sensible about it. There are some real limitations that evolve over time.

Somehow I seem to be defying the odds and remain youthful, but I'm getting tired and don't have the stamina I use to have. This is part of life.

Cal
 
gdmcclintock said:
Immersion - almost 40 years ago I went to Paris to study, make photographs, and play jazz music. Although I worked in a French environment and heard almost no English, almost a year passed before I understood what people were saying to me and to each other. Understanding the foreign language was like a flash of lightening. Suddenly I understood and was a part of the linguistic community. To this day I remember that burst of comprehension.
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George,

I have always admired how you embraced risk and lived the life. You remind me of my friend Tim. One summer I began to worry because Tim's voicemail remained full and I could not reach him.

It ends up that he was in Europe living in a tent with descendants of Django learning Gypsy guitar.

Cal
 
Calzone said:
. . . We all have to deal with the fact that we age. We have to be sensible about it. There are some real limitations that evolve over time.

Somehow I seem to be defying the odds and remain youthful, but I'm getting tired and don't have the stamina I use to have. This is part of life. . . .
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Dear Cal,

At the risk of sounding too much like a ray of sunshine, wait another few years. I never spent a night in hospital between 1953 (age 3, diphtheria) and 2009 (59, appendicitis). Then another gap from 2009 to 2016. Earlier in 2009 my wife, sort-of-adopted daughter and I drove several thousand km in my 1972 Land Rover through Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Kosova, Macedonia, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Austria, Germany and Switzerland before returning to France.

In other words, I agree with you completely: do it NOW (whatever "it" may be).

Cheers,

R.
 
Calzone said:
John,

In one Spanish class I took we were forced to speak only in Spanish, and if we spoke any English we were fined $0.05 as a penalty.

This type of situation forced people to really struggle, but it also taught everyone to be patient with themselves, and it created a safe place where it was a level playing field for everyone because we all struggled together.

Mark Cuban also said, "Go big: or don't go." Then again full immersion is the hard way, but with speedier results IMHO.

Cal
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OK, I'll just won't go ... why **** on classes when you guys take them for other reasons? If I'd like to take a class, then I will. This total immersion is a little hard for me to do with my group of friends and in my current workplace. I spent 10 days in Chile and my basics aren't up to par. I see no reason I can't take a class.
 
jsrockit said:
I spent 10 days in Chile and my basics aren't up to par. I see no reason I can't take a class.
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No one's saying you can't take a class, I was just sharing personal experience.

I started with classes and books too. But then I went to places where people didn't speak at all like what I learned, they spoke fast, they contracted words, they used words I thought I understood in completely different contexts, sometimes the sounds (accents) didn't match the words etc.
 
jsrockit said:
OK, I'll just won't go ... why **** on classes when you guys take them for other reasons? If I'd like to take a class, then I will. This total immersion is a little hard for me to do with my group of friends and in my current workplace. I spent 10 days in Chile and my basics aren't up to par. I see no reason I can't take a class.
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John,

Learning Spanish is not hard. It is the constant discipline of practice that presents the difficulty. Hearing, speaking and reading all has to become fully intergrated to the point where you don't have to think about it.

The language is somewhat phonetic. If you can speak you kinda can read. It is not like English with all these twisted rules that seem arbitrary. English is a very complicated language in comparison.

Cal
 
I get that Cal... but I don't think a class is a bad idea for me to get some basics. My basics aren't good enough.

Jerome, I understand... that's going to be in any language. I've had a few girlfriends in which English was their second or third language... what you state seems to be a universal cause for confusion.
 
Lauffray said:
No one's saying you can't take a class, I was just sharing personal experience.

I started with classes and books too. But then I went to places where people didn't speak at all like what I learned, they spoke fast, they contracted words, they used words I thought I understood in completely different contexts, sometimes the sounds (accents) didn't match the words etc.
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Jerome,

The Spanish from the Car-O-B-N is very different and for me is a challenge.

Also my gal who went to Catholic school hates how I butcher the English language. Whenever she corrects me I state that because I am a person of color that it is very rude to correct me, and that because I am a person of color it is my right to redefine words, make up words that don't exist, and otherwise butcher the language to create new slang.

If dominant culture does not like it: oh-well. LOL.

It really annoys my gal. LOL. Basically I slur the language like a great jazz musician.

Cal
 
My standard explanation in Spain is, "Hay rencuantro mi esposa in California y mi espagnol es mexicano." Doesn't matter how bad my Spanish is after that (or indeed at that point): instead they understand that I am handicapped and make many allowances.

Cheers,

R.
 
Calzone said:
John,

Learning Spanish is not hard. It is the constant discipline of practice that presents the difficulty. Hearing, speaking and reading all has to become fully intergrated to the point where you don't have to think about it.

The language is somewhat phonetic. If you can speak you kinda can read. It is not like English with all these twisted rules that seem arbitrary. English is a very complicated language in comparison.

Cal
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Actually, I think learning Spanish is easiest for English speakers. Although I studied Spanish for a year in high school and a year in college, all I really got was vocabulary. Not a bad thing. But when I went to El Paso/Juarez, I quickly realized one had to think in the language, and that both to hear and speak.

To any who find learning another language daunting, don't worry. You are just one more person in a long line. And expect to make mistakes and get laughed at. It just happens. Besides, if you get laughed at, you aren't likely to make the same mistake again. :D

I have made some of the most incredible mistakes in Spanish, Vietnamese, and Korean. Well, not so many in Korean. It turns out I spoke with the accent of a province that was akin to a Korean speaking correct English with a deep southern accent. My wife really found that amusing, her English was good, and I just got tired of everything I said evoking laughter. :p

The point being, we can all learn if we are willing to spend the time in memorization and thinking. You may embarrass yourself sometimes, but how many times have you laughed at someone who said something funny in English. Expect it and get over it.
 
Roger Hicks said:
My standard explanation in Spain is, "Hay rencuantro mi esposa in California y mi espagnol es mexicano." Doesn't matter how bad my Spanish is after that (or indeed at that point): instead they understand that I am handicapped and make many allowances.

Cheers,

R.
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:D :D :D

Yessir. I can understand how that would be so.

I once observed thunder clouds building, and turned to the lady next to me and said in my sorry Spanish, "Parece que va a llorar." When she said "Quien?" I knew that was the wrong response and I had said something wrong.

I once replied in English (we were using both English and Vietnamese) to an attractive, if somewhat overweight Vietnamese lady, saying "Yes Ma'm." She immediately became irate and when I asked her what I said, she let me know that I knew very well what I said, and by the way, I wasn't so skinny either. That was the end of our conversation. I had to get back to my billets and look in my large dictionary to learn that in Vietnamese, "mam" was a not often word for fat. Yep, I learned a new Vietnamese word that day. Can't remember that I ever used it after that though.
 
I live in Milton (GTA) Ontario. My dream is to visit one day with my family North of Ontario, Atlantic Canada, NY city and Florida.
Why? We are in Canada since 2003 and my family haven't seen it, yet.
 
We had a an 8 day family holiday (with then 18 mth old twins) in Japan in March this year.

We are seriously considering going back to Japan in January 2017.

A dream travel destination? For us, very much yes! :)
 
Ko.Fe. said:
I live in Milton (GTA) Ontario. My dream is to visit one day with my family North of Ontario, Atlantic Canada, NY city and Florida.
Why? We are in Canada since 2003 and my family haven't seen it, yet.
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There's a lot of places much closer to home I also want to visit, Labrador, northern Quebec, BC and the Yukon to mention a few.

Sometimes just leafing through Larry Towell's books makes me want to drive around rural Ontario for a few weeks :p
 
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