Language Thoughts

Last night I had arrived at my gate in Frankfurt and...I realized that I understood the overhead announcement.  No, I had not magically learned Germany.  I spent the last week in Hungary where they speak Hungarian (no, that is not meant to be a revelation), a language that is related to nothing I speak or have ever studied.  This means that I spent 7 days understanding basically....nothing spoken to me in public.  In some ways this was a bit refreshing.  I could zone out because, well, there wasn't another choice.

This brings me to my language thoughts.  Last night I switched back to the wonderful world of understanding.  This world is sometimes wonderful and other times not.  But mostly it's wonderful.  I can read the Word in two languages, I can chill out with friends in two languages, I can order Starbucks in two languages.  Okay, the Starbucks one is not much of a feat, half of the words used come straight from English.  We'll change that one to the ability to order Starbucks in two accents.

This week in Hungary was not a, "lets wander around feeling like the English speaker who understands nothing" week.  I was attending a workshop on language coaching.  I'll save you a long explanation of language coaching...for the time being.  The people we were discussing are language learners, much like myself.  Some of our learners were brand new to the field, some had been around for a while, others were in the middle ground of discouragement.  Half of the learners on my radar screen are brand new, new, or fairly new.  They have varying degrees of understanding.  Our brand new gal still doesn't hear separate words, simply sounds.  She doesn't know what at least 90% of shop signs are advertising.  Much like my experience in Budapest.

So I have come to this conclusion: all language coaches should spend time in a country who's language they not only do not speak, but who's language is absolutely nothing like...almost any other language in the world.  I'm thinking that that next workshop should be in either Latvia or Estonia.