I'm lucky enough to have studied so many languages, that some that I haven't make sense to me sometimes. Meaning I was able to read street signs in Portugal, order food in Catalonia, and so on. Sometimes the languages I have studied are the ones that give me a bigger problem - I know I only had a semester of Italian for example, but for some reason I would get mad when my horrible accent would make people switch into English for me. It's not like I could properly speak in Italian anyway! Still, what was even more fun was people coming up to me and asking for directions or some such - I would know what they were asking, but either not know the answer or not know how to say it. A little embarrassing! I guess when you travel alone people are going to mistake you for a native - it's much more likely for someone who knows the city to be wandering it alone without a map.
1 comment:
Understanding is just one part of knowing a language. I get frustrated because my speaking skills are far below my comprehension levels.
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