Is that it also help's one to better (hopefully) understand that culture and I think that misunderstanding culture examples abound in most foreign policies of governments. A sad thing.

on language difficulties with native speakers is dead on. well known phenomenom in lingustics. and agreed, its sickening that the repugs are villianizing people for actually learning something useful. really.... really sick. btw i once applied for a job in intl sales for a small company in america, the guy there running it told me i was a traitor to america for learning french and german, and those were his target markets.... go figure.....

I work with a young Russian lady in my office everyday...I'm sure my pronunciation would be horrible...how she would react to such a thing I have no idea...either burst out laughing at me or slap my face (probably there's no in-between on this one, eh?). I have a
50/50 chance of getting points or getting a smackdown...

if you follow the so-called "Southern Strategy" the GOP embarked upon in the 1970s (and for my money we are going to see a lot of it in South Carolina next week) to it's logical end, you get a strategy of isolating the white, uneducated, racist niche and plying it with propaganda scares based on racism and nationalistic bigotry.

The flaw here is thinking that winning that particular demographic will win you the White House. It doesn't, unless they act illegally to steal the election a la the Bush Campaign/Supreme Court in 2000 and again in 2004 - elections which they lost in reality, but enough doctored vote counts, hacked voting machines, and simply throwing out the votes of black people and young people enabled them to hijack.

I think this is probably a common experience. I was once trying to buy fruit in an outdoor market in Venice. My Italian is ok not great. Maybe good.

When the vendor asked what I wanted I started off haltingly. He immediately asked the next customer what she wanted. At the time I took it as a fuck-you but later I figured the guy had maybe a dozen people trying to buy stuff and needing his attention.

In short he couldn't afford the luxury of me yammering at him. So now I cut service-people working in crowded situations that slack.

I have had the opposite where the person whose help I needed stopped everything to help me. So maybe he was just an asshole. But still my livelihood doesn't hinge on me buying fruit while his livelihood hinges on getting the most people through between dawn and one PM.

I have been going through stages of learning French. The first stage was where my French was so bad that as soon as I spoke it I would get an immediate reply in English. The next stage was were I was good enough to get a reply back in French that I could not understand. Through both of those stages I was worried about speaking the best French that I could. Then I entered the stage where I really didn't care how bad it was.

I have now entered a new stage that I will try out at the next chance. I have realized that my French has gotten too good for my own good. That's why I get an nu-understandable reply, they think I'm that good. So I will now purposely slow my French down and actually say specifically that I can only understand French that does not have big words or complicated grammar and is spoken slowly. And I will model the speed that I can understand.

Will it help or work. I hope to find out but I'm betting that it will at least be better.

rather than vernacular, probably because I wanted to say things in Russian as I would say them in English. I never had trouble being understood but had problems understanding if the speaker didn't adjust to my limited grasp. I was specifically taught to monitor & transcribe speech. In the field, I heard a lot of vernacular - copied it okay but often had to dig into the dictionary to understand & translate.

The basics of a language may be fairly easy to learn - 3 months of German 3 hours/day let me read Twain & Hemingway and a lot of poetry. Unfortunately, most native speakers don't talk like text books.

Had a Dutch friend who studied English from the age of 7 and spoke excellent English, but it took her several years to learn all our colloquialisms and idioms.

There is a widespread bias against speaking a foreign tongue. We sneer at non-natives, insisting they learn English, then turn around and ridicule native-born Americans who learn other languages. It is indeed part of the anti-intellectual mindset of the general public.

A language reflects its culture and every culture has aspects of experience and outlooks which are unique. Learning languages broadens our understanding of the world and the human condition. That's why I regret the ongoing loss of languages which are dying out. We lose more than some odd grammar and obscure words: we lose understanding.

It is worth remembering that the Founding Fathers were all traitors.

was exactly the opposite. Since i didn't speak any when i moved there and the classes didn't move quick enough to feed and transport me, i ended up learning the language on the street.

Or as my professor would say to me, "You're here to learn Russian, not learn how to speak like a Russian." What it meant was that i'd go out with foreign friends who had years of studying the language and it was always up to me to negotiate the chasni taksi or any degree of actual communication with actual Russians. But even at my best, i'd have been hard pressed to read War and Peace in the original.

It is a shame that we're so insular that speaking a foreign language is a defect for a presidential candidate. It says pretty much all that needs to be said about our country ... in which everyone should be learning Spanish from early elementary school.

American exceptionalism gone mad.

_{Sexual inequality is "The Mother of all Inequalities".
Liberate female sexuality and you will eliminate racism, homophobia, financial greed, and violence.}

related, relevant and interesting: http://www.slate.com/articles/life/culturebox/2012/01/learning_german_online_for_free_the_amazing_courses_by_deutsche_welle_.single.html