Subj : Semi-regular BS messages To : Werner Dworak From : Steve Quarrella Date : Wed Sep 13 2000 03:36 pm SQ>> I figured that with France and Italy closer to Germany, my odds of SQ>> finding speakers of those would be greater than finding speakers of SQ>> English. WD> But Great Britain is not too distant, too. That's true, even if they speak funny English. WD> That I cannot imagine. Don't overlook that in German many English WD> borrowings exists. English and German are sister languages. English has just evolved considerably more in the vocabulary borrowing department. :-) SQ>> About the farthest I got was "Ich bin Steve Quarrella, SQ>> und ich habe ein zimmer". WD> That's the most importent! 8-))) It worked...thanks go to the old Pink Panther movies on that one! SQ>> FWIW, my background is IN foreign language -- I speak the aforementioned SQ>> languages pretty well WD> ... but if there is no mutual language to the country you visit, WD> you have bad luck! I never thought I'd be so happy to get to France, where I could at least read the language and have a chance at understanding it. Whew. WD> If you speak some languages anyway, it should not too hard to learn WD> some German too. I'm trying, in bits and pieces. I've also done some work with Russian. If I forced myself to use German software, I bet I'd overcome this hurdle -quickly.- SQ>> I went through this in Belgium in a few places with Dutch, too WD> Yes, there exist two languages, I encountered three: Dutch, English, and French. When it comes to Dutch, I'm stuck, but I can do pretty well with the other two. SQ>> (and Z2C Ward Dossche had some fun with me in that department :). WD> That I can imagine well! 8-))) I need to scan the pictures. :-) WD> The same can happen to you in Swiss. In great parts there is spoken WD> German, but in the West French is the usual language and in the WD> south there ist Italian. (The fourth language Rhaeto-Romanic has no WD> great importance). Partly the Swiss people speak two or three WD> languages, but some only one. Even though I studied Romance languages in college, I have very little acquaintance with Rhaeto-Romance, and have never even heard it. Don't they call it "Romansche"? --- * Origin: Fish he got problem. (1:393/9005) .