I grew up in a very diverse city (Waukegan, IL) and it turned out to be a GREAT thing.
If you didn't know some German, Lithuanian, Russian, Croatian, Serbian, Polish, or Greek you would definitely be the last kid picked for a team to play. My next door neighbors were Lithuanian. Across the street, 2 German and 2 Polish families.
My German teacher in high school was a HOTTIE from Slovenia. She also taught us some Serbian & Russian after school. Her dad survied the camps.
We had a few families move into the area from Yugoslavia. The kids knew ZERO English, but were chucked into a class where a teacher knew their language. My German teacher also knew Serbian so when a kid from Macedonia came to town, he sat right in front of me in class. I would sneak the Serbian-English dictionary from his book stack and make strange sentances just to crack him up. He always seem so scared and overwhelmed--so he appreciated some humor.
I have always felt that if you are going to another country "Learn to speak before you go". My experiences in Germany were awesome! One family I stayed with their grandfather was an WWI artillery sergent--and he was a HOOT to talk with! He couldn't hear worth a darn and (over a warm Becks) kept asking what my father did for a living. I told him my father was a skilled factory worker---he would keep saying...."Ahhh, ok...so how long has your father been playing the piano?"
On the train on the way back to Frankfurt for the way home, I woke up, and in our car there was a Middle Eastern looking man reading the Bible (in English). I asked him in German if he was going to Frankfurt, and he said yes (His German was quite good, better than mine). I asked him what his favorite part was and he said he loved it all--but was reading about "The Prodigal Son". He asked if he could continue in English, and told me he was flying back home to Pakistan for the first time in years. The leader who had driven he and his friends out of Pakistan (Bhutto) had died. He met some friends at the Frankfurt main train station had asked if I would stand with he and his friends because--"I was the tallest man he had ever seen...and folks wouldn't believe him without a picture". Go figure.
I also met the von Richthofen family gardener on the way home. Since we had checked in very early, our luggage was the last off the plane, and we stood together at the back of the really long line at customs at O'Hare (she looked to be in her early 90's and had the heaviest steamer trunk I had ever carried).
I asked (making small talk) where she was from. "Oh...you wouldn't know where it was anyway." "Really?...you must be from Silesia then". She almost turned ghost white..."None of the young people in Germany know Silesia, how come you do? "Are you from Schweidnitz", I asked? At first she looked frightened, "How did you know I am from Schweidnitz? (she even looked a liittle PO-d for a second). I explained that I didn't know...I had assumed she was and that I had had done a lengthy research paper for a history class the previous year on Manfred von Richthofen and his influence on air force tactics.
She then told me that her name was Anna, and that she had been the von Richthofen family gardener.
She also told me that while on leave from the front, Manfred would sneak up on her while she was working in the garden and "goose" her on the backside--she said she was 17 back then. She also said the von Richthofens gave her a ride to the West when the Russians were only a few miles away.
If I hadn't learned German before I went, I would have missied out on all those wonderful experiences.
My List:
1) English
2) German
3) Dutch (conversational) Thanks to Radio Nederland Wereldoemroep on short-wave.
4) Lithuanian (I only remember all the curse words, sorry)
Learn a second language THEN GO THERE and immerse yourself in it! You will have the time of your life! Ya never know who you might meet!
ROX
