I sat in a bar in Thessaloniki, Greece with the Balkan ‘Mafia’, the only native English speaker, and realized whether I was there or not the group would carry on interacting in foreign tongue. The lingua franca continued to dominate road trip tunes and beachside conversation, woven with a mix of Serbo-Croation, Bulgarian, Greek and the occasional Duetch bit.
Amidst this collection of characters I realized how much I want to be able to fully communicate in a different language, and how lucky I am to be born a native English speaker. I reference this thought often as I consistently change countries and know one day my brain will deliver. Spero que oui.
Moral: Learn at least one other language. It’s good for you. If you don’t, travel to the Balkans you will not regret it.
No comments:
Post a Comment