Theresa, unbeknownst to me, started learning Swedish a while back. Kudos to her! So when the next family reunion happens, she can join in the Swedish speaking portion of the discussions.
There are never Swedish speaking portions of the discussions.
A couple sections of the family know a bit of it but by and large, we’ve let the language die in our family and this saddens me. My grandparents, especially my grandfather, knew some Swedish but I don’t think he ever taught it to my mom, because she never taught it to me. I guess he figured he was in America so he spoke English, period. Ah well.
Theresa has been learning the language from an app called DuoLingo. I hope I’m spelling it right but it’s apparently a much better learning tool than Rosetta Stone. RS starts you out with objects and small sentences. I imagine they have their reasons but when I was trying to learn some Greek for our trip back in ’07, it gave me nothing helpful like “hello” or “good morning” or “For the love of god, where’s the bathroom?”. I actually got more useful phrases and information in only 15 minutes from our next door neighbors who are Greek, than I did after two months of intensive study with Rosetta Stone.
It’s a free app and I’m tempted. But then the question is, which one do I go for? I could go for Swedish, so I can converse with Theresa and maybe other family members. I could go with Japanese and converse with Matthew, since he’s taken like four years of it. I could go back to Spanish, since I took two years of it in high school and I enjoyed it. I could go with Italian, as it’s a beautiful language and some day, maybe we might go back there for another trip. OR they also offer Klingon, which, I’ve gotta say is very tempting and sounds fun. They even have Esperanto, the universal language, which I don’t think anyone uses. Or do they? Not even considering that one.
So, where do I go with this? Some would definitely be easier than others.
Decisions, decisions. Which of the five?
Swedish, Italian, Japanese, Spanish or Klingon? Can’t decide.
Alright, I’ll try all five.
How hard can that be? Plus, I have little patience with myself. Or most other things.
Sounds like smooth sailing, skipper!
I’ll let you know how this goes.
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