Subj : Semi-regular BS messages
To   : Steve Quarrella
From : Werner Dworak
Date : Wed Aug 30 2000 06:09 am

Hello Steve!

 SQ> I figured that with France and Italy closer to Germany, my odds of finding
 SQ> speakers of those would be greater than finding speakers of English.

But Great Britain is not too distant, too. And in the western hemisphere 
English has by far the most importance in Trade, Science and other importent 
areas.

 SQ> I was outside of Dusseldorf, but to be fair, I got the distinct impression
 SQ> that my hosts (hotel and restaurant) spoke English, and they were just
 SQ> messing with me.

That I cannot imagine. Don't overlook that in German many English borrowings 
exists. So at the first glance, it may look like they speak some English, while 
really they don't.

 SQ> About the farthest I got was "Ich bin Steve Quarrella,
 SQ> und ich habe ein zimmer".

That's the most importent!  8-)))

 SQ> FWIW, my background is IN foreign language -- I speak the aforementioned
 SQ> languages pretty well

.... but if there is no mutual language to the country you visit, you have bad 
luck!

 SQ> but I've just never gotten around to studying German.

If you speak some languages anyway, it should not too hard to learn some German 
too.

 SQ> It was a serious aggravation to me to be "dumb" and not be able to
 SQ> communicate or understand what was going on.

Indeed. 8-(((

 SQ> I went through this in Belgium in a few places with Dutch, too

Yes, there exist two languages, and the two ethnic groups often dislike the 
other and their language!  8-)))

 SQ> (and Z2C Ward Dossche had some fun with me in that department :).

That I can imagine well!  8-)))

The same can happen to you in Swiss. In great parts there is spoken German, but 
in the West French is the usual language and in the south there ist Italian. 
(The fourth language Rhaeto-Romanic has no great importance). Partly the Swiss 
people speak two or three languages, but some only one.

greetings, Werner

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