I am terrible at language. My mother said i was almost 12 before I could make a coherent English sentence. I have not progressed much.
Needless to say, I am no good in Spanish even after 7, count them, 7 undergraduate classes at UA. I tried to learn Swedish with the Rosetta Stone system, but I ran out of time.
I signed up to take Italian this past spring semester. I took the previous 7 Spanish and 1 American Studies courses for free because faculty can take 3 hours each term for free. Unfortunately Italian is now a 4 hour course. No problem, I will pay the difference. The difference came to about $2000!!!! What? I know it doesn't make sense, but UA is now on an automated accounting system which seems to struggle with "free" courses.
So here I am again in another country in which I am illiterate and also illspeakarate and illunderstanderate. Italians do not speak much English, but a good bit more that Americans speak Italian I am guessing. Somehow we get by. When we were in Botswana, the inability to speak Tsetswana or understand the local English also put us as considerable disadvantage as I have written earlier.
I hear the language, but as I said I have no ability whatsoever to understand it or to repeat what I hear. I am glad that some of my friends here are fluent, and can do the hardest stuff. I just scrape by gesturing wildly and hoping not to offend anyone too much.
Ignorance is a funny thing. Back in the USA it doesn't matter much that I am not fluent in any language. I never think about my ineptitude. Likewise my atheist friends don't seem to notice that they are entirely ignorant of the things that matter in the world. They go merrily along towards death without realizing that they are clueless. They know I speak a different language, but they aren't interested. They are too smart to learn another language, they are so good at English. Merrily along. Merrily towards the surety of death. Merry in their illiteracy.
Who will learn to speak their language? I am trying. It's just too sad not to try to save a few. L6rd send laborers into the harvest.
Needless to say, I am no good in Spanish even after 7, count them, 7 undergraduate classes at UA. I tried to learn Swedish with the Rosetta Stone system, but I ran out of time.
I signed up to take Italian this past spring semester. I took the previous 7 Spanish and 1 American Studies courses for free because faculty can take 3 hours each term for free. Unfortunately Italian is now a 4 hour course. No problem, I will pay the difference. The difference came to about $2000!!!! What? I know it doesn't make sense, but UA is now on an automated accounting system which seems to struggle with "free" courses.
So here I am again in another country in which I am illiterate and also illspeakarate and illunderstanderate. Italians do not speak much English, but a good bit more that Americans speak Italian I am guessing. Somehow we get by. When we were in Botswana, the inability to speak Tsetswana or understand the local English also put us as considerable disadvantage as I have written earlier.
I hear the language, but as I said I have no ability whatsoever to understand it or to repeat what I hear. I am glad that some of my friends here are fluent, and can do the hardest stuff. I just scrape by gesturing wildly and hoping not to offend anyone too much.
Ignorance is a funny thing. Back in the USA it doesn't matter much that I am not fluent in any language. I never think about my ineptitude. Likewise my atheist friends don't seem to notice that they are entirely ignorant of the things that matter in the world. They go merrily along towards death without realizing that they are clueless. They know I speak a different language, but they aren't interested. They are too smart to learn another language, they are so good at English. Merrily along. Merrily towards the surety of death. Merry in their illiteracy.
Who will learn to speak their language? I am trying. It's just too sad not to try to save a few. L6rd send laborers into the harvest.
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