Thursday, May 18, 2006

Sidebar: Making a fool of yourself

The activity of learning a new language is incompatible with maintaining your dignity. Make your peace with it now, because sooner or later you'll say something that will make somebody laugh. If you're lucky, they'll be laughing with you. On a regular basis you'll get the sideways look that tells you you've uttered something that is simply unintelligible.

Add to all this the fact that your teacher will ask you to speak, or worse take part in a dialogue. This can be excruciatingly embarassing, especially if you are from these islands (UK and Ireland) where most people are, let's face it, repressed.

That reminds me - I must blog sometime soon on the effect that alcohol has on learning a new language...

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