foreign languages

[the keifer]

The Canadian government in all their wisdom spends billions on billingualism every year. It was mandatory that we take French classes from grade 4 to 6 or 7. I can speak virtually no French. If you don't use a language you lose it pretty quick. Alberta is as English of a province as you can get. But I can read a hell of a lot of words due to the fact that everything is double labelled in Canada. So you read the English and then read the French. It did help me out when I was in France, I was really suprised that I actually understood that much when put into practice.
We are pretty lucky that our first language is English considering English is most peoples second language, globally used. But it's good to broaden your horizons and learn new things. I've been trying German lately and failing miserably.

Sounds like how it is with spanish here. I'm all for learning new things and broadening horizons and all, but it kind of irritates me. We have ALOT of spanish speaking people here illeagally and that stuff is caterning to THEIR needs rather than ours.

Yeah, you shouldn't have to pick your language when you're in a self checkout line.