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Cristina’s way TAC 2013 TEAM MIR/SPARTA

 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log Post Reply
248 messages over 31 pages: << Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... 30 31 Next >>
Solfrid Cristin
Heptaglot
Winner TAC 2011 & 2012
Senior Member
Norway
Joined 5335 days ago
4143 posts - 8864 votes 
Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian
Studies: Russian

 
 Message 233 of 248
13 December 2013 at 11:22am | IP Logged 
No, no, no, no. I am so not doing Romanian now. Maybe later, and then I'll know where to find both an excellent language partner and a fantastic inspiration, but not know. Thanks for the encouragements though :-)
1 person has voted this message useful



Ogrim
Heptaglot
Senior Member
France
Joined 4640 days ago
991 posts - 1896 votes 
Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian
Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian

 
 Message 234 of 248
13 December 2013 at 12:03pm | IP Logged 
Solfrid Cristin wrote:
No, no, no, no. I am so not doing Romanian now. Maybe later, and then I'll know where to find both an excellent language partner and a fantastic inspiration, but not know. Thanks for the encouragements though :-)


I am kind of relieved. If you had said yes I would have had to stand by my words and start with Romanian as well, as if I have time for that...

It is just that this whole TAC business tends to make one more ambitious than one should be and do stupid things. Like consider going half-time at work just to be able to spend more time on language learning. But than would mean half a salary as well, so...
1 person has voted this message useful



Solfrid Cristin
Heptaglot
Winner TAC 2011 & 2012
Senior Member
Norway
Joined 5335 days ago
4143 posts - 8864 votes 
Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian
Studies: Russian

 
 Message 235 of 248
13 December 2013 at 12:21pm | IP Logged 
Ogrim wrote:
Solfrid Cristin wrote:
No, no, no, no. I am so not doing Romanian now. Maybe later, and then I'll know where to find both an excellent language partner and a fantastic inspiration, but not know. Thanks for the encouragements though :-)


I am kind of relieved. If you had said yes I would have had to stand by my words and start with Romanian as well, as if I have time for that...

It is just that this whole TAC business tends to make one more ambitious than one should be and do stupid things. Like consider going half-time at work just to be able to spend more time on language learning. But than would mean half a salary as well, so...


:-)
1 person has voted this message useful



Emme
Triglot
Senior Member
Italy
Joined 5348 days ago
980 posts - 1594 votes 
Speaks: Italian*, English, German
Studies: Russian, Swedish, French

 
 Message 236 of 248
13 December 2013 at 8:42pm | IP Logged 
Solfrid Cristin wrote:
[...]

It all started with me offering my daughter and her friend to go and see "The Hunger Games: Catching fire",
which caused a misunderstanding, and the next morning I had a furious, unknown Indian woman almost
literally falling screaming into my house due to false information she had been given. After a four hour talk we
were friends. My oldest daughter said that I am the only person she knows who could start with a furious
person screaming blue murder and end up with a new best friend four hours later. This morning I called her
and we agreed that we had been sisters in our previous life. My new friend claims our family used to be very
poor. I'll take her word for it :-) As a Hindu she knows a lot more about reincarnation than I do. She is a lovely
person and it is fascinating to learn so much about a new culture.

This means that I have spoken lots of English lately, and that I have listened to lots of Indian accented
English which was new to me. I have also discovered that Spanish/Latin American culture and Asian culture
have a lot in common. Whenever something is different from Norwegian culture, I usually recognize it from
Spanish culture. Or perhaps it is just that we are the odd ball, and everyone else is similar. :-) We spent a lot
of time together that week end, and two weeks later I invited her and her daughter for dinner. When she
called to thank me the next day she said that she had cried when she got home. When I asked her why, she
told me that it was the first time in the ten years that her daughter had attended school that the two of them
had been invited to a Norwegian family. I almost sat down and cried myself. Norwegians are lovely once you
get to know them, but they are very shy and reserved and generally not terribly good at taking initiatives.
Which is one of the reasons I love being around foreigners :-)

[...]


You are always the most warm-hearted, sympathetic person one could hope to meet. It’s good to be your friend, whether as the parent of one of your children’s schoolmates or as a forum buddy from the other side of the planet.
1 person has voted this message useful



Teango
Triglot
Winner TAC 2010 & 2012
Senior Member
United States
teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5557 days ago
2210 posts - 3734 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Russian
Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona

 
 Message 237 of 248
14 December 2013 at 12:07am | IP Logged 
Emme wrote:
You are always the most warm-hearted, sympathetic person one could hope to meet. It’s good to be your friend, whether as the parent of one of your children’s schoolmates or as a forum buddy from the other side of the planet.

I second that sentiment! :)
1 person has voted this message useful



Solfrid Cristin
Heptaglot
Winner TAC 2011 & 2012
Senior Member
Norway
Joined 5335 days ago
4143 posts - 8864 votes 
Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian
Studies: Russian

 
 Message 238 of 248
16 December 2013 at 10:38am | IP Logged 
"Emme and Teango: You make me blush. But thank you so much for your kind words. You made my day :-)

I have had a week end which was pleasently international and language filled, where I got to speak three
foreign languages - English, French and Spanish. It started out Saturday morning with a message on
Facebook that an American professor I know had dedicated the book he co-wrote with a friend, to me. She
dedicated it to her mom, and he dedicated it to me. That led to some pretty intense e-mails with his friend,
because I had no idea, and felt very honoured.

I then also saw on Facebook that three of my Cuban friends that I love very much, had successfully fled to
the US, and although I will miss them terribly, I am really happy for them. They were living here in Norway,
and this is not normally a country anyone flees from. We have very good benefits, they received 6000 dollars
a month between the three of them, and free language courses and they had even been allocated a flat in
one of the poshest areas in Norway, but the cold, the dark, the lack of other Spanish speakers, the price of
buying their own home, and the fact that they felt that they were left in limbo, without getting a proper job was
too much for them. Anyhow, they left my Peruvian friend in charge of getting rid of all their things, and in the
process of helping her to start doing that, I got to speak Spanish for a couple of hours :-)

I then rushed to Drammen, for a very happy event. My nephew was getting married - and halleluya!!!- the
bride was not just another Norwegian, she was from Mauritius! She is incredibly beautiful and fluent in 
English, French, Creole, Hindi and Bhojpuri. My kind of girl! Plus she is a language teacher. She instantly
became my new favourite niece, and we agreed to meet soon again before they leave for Mauritius. We
talked quite a lot of French, and lots of English and she said she was so happy to hear French again,
because it made her feel so much at home :-) My nephew had of course told her all kinds of nonsense about
Norway, like for instance that it was common for polar bears to come knocking on our windows. Yeah. We
would have to start having polar bears in Norway first....

And they are planning on having a traditional Hindu wedding in Mauritius in a year or two - I can't wait. She
said she would love to see us all in saris - and I gulped and vowed to go on a strict diet for the next year or so
- I am so not walking around in a sari with my current waistline.

Then we had to rush off again because my daughters were spending the night with the daughter of my new
Indian friend. Since the mother was in Singapore right now, and the girl stayed with her father, that led to
frantic texting in English to Singapore to get everything right.

Sunday was filled with Christmas preparations, and my daughter's best friend came over. Her family comes
from Pakistan, and she is also quite the polyglot with Norwegian, English, Spanish, Urdu, Hindi, Punjabi and
some Arabic under her belt. Not bad for a 17 year old. She was extatic when she saw all my language books,
so we had a good language related talk.

Have I mentioned that being a Norwegian mom in December is pure liquid hell? Well it is. Christmas cards,
presents, homemade cookies, decorations, Christmas calendar, concerts and school gatherings - it is enough
to drive you crazy. The good part is that my youngest daughter came up with a Christmas calendar for me
too, so yesterday, when my stress level was going right through the roof, she told me to lay down, put my feet
up, and then she put on the soothing sound of waves, and gave me a facial, a foot massage and a hand
massage. And tomorrow they are making my oldest daughters' special: Home made meatballs and homee
mad foccaccia. I am the luckiest mom in the world :-)

Edited by Solfrid Cristin on 28 December 2013 at 5:24pm
3 persons have voted this message useful





Iversen
Super Polyglot
Moderator
Denmark
berejst.dk
Joined 6704 days ago
9078 posts - 16473 votes 
Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan
Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian
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 Message 239 of 248
16 December 2013 at 10:53am | IP Logged 
Solfrid Cristin wrote:
We would have to start having polar bears in Norway first....


You actually have truly Norwegian polar bears from Norway on Svalbard. And last time I visited the aquarium in Bergen it proudly announced that their penguins were genuine Norwegian penguins from Norway (in this case the Bouvet Island in the South Atlantic Ocean).

Congratulations with your new multilingual family member. I one saw a statistics that put Mauritius at the top of countries with multilinguistic skills among its citizens - with something like 3.5 language per citizen (quoted from memory).

Edited by Iversen on 16 December 2013 at 11:04am
2 persons have voted this message useful



Solfrid Cristin
Heptaglot
Winner TAC 2011 & 2012
Senior Member
Norway
Joined 5335 days ago
4143 posts - 8864 votes 
Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian
Studies: Russian

 
 Message 240 of 248
16 December 2013 at 11:02am | IP Logged 
Iversen wrote:
Solfrid Cristin wrote:
We would have to start having polar bears in Norway first....


You actually have Norwegian polar bears from Norway on Svalbard. And last time I visited the aquarium in Bergen it proudly announced that their penguins were genuine Norwegian penguins from Norway (in this case the Bouvet Island)

Congratulations with your new multilingual family member


You are right, as always, but it is a very long swim from Svalbard to the main land. If ever a polar bear made it, I think he would be way too exhausted to start knocking on windows.

And I am very happy for my new family member. I have always thought that it was somehow a cosmic mistake, that I, who practically collect foreigners, should have none in my immediate family.


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