Languages

This isn’t a typical blog post of mine where I talk about the latest things I’ve done or places I’ve been. But its still travel related and I want to write about it; and its my blog so I can write whatever I want!

When I went to South America with James and Jordan last year I learned Spanish. I started learning a couple months before we left, and I continued learning the whole 4 months we were there. I even continued learning it for about a month after we arrived home because I really wanted to finish the course. I used Pimsleur.

I learned Spanish because I wanted to maximize my enjoyment of the trip to South America, and any future trips I make to South or Central America. It worked – I had more fun because of it.

But only lately (yesterday, really) did I realize how good a decision it was to learn Spanish. After spending 4 days on Koh Tao diving, snorkeling, and recovering from the full moon party, I took the ferry back to the mainland because I wanted to go to a place called Krabi. On the ferry I met a guy named Dani from Valencia, Spain.

Dani really wants to learn English, and I really want to learn Spanish. And because of that it turned a boring 2 hour ferry ride into a great conversation that doubled as an English lesson for him and a Spanish lesson for me.

If I didn’t already have a solid basic understanding of Spanish, I wouldn’t have been able to talk to Dani at all.

Yesterday evening I arrived in Krabi at a beach called Ao Nang. When I went out I met three people from Basque. I know they have their own language, but I started speaking in Spanish and they followed suit.  Although I didn’t speak any English with them, I got the impression that their knowledge of English is very minimal.

I think they were thrilled to be able to meet someone without having to go through the challenging (and for educated westerners) embarrassing process of having to struggle through a basic conversation in English. 

Without Spanish I wouldn’t have been able to meet these people from the very unique and interesting Basque region.

Now that I have seen how richly rewarding it is to learn a second language, it got me thinking about which languages would be the most useful and fun for me to learn.

From 4 months in South America, and now nearly 3 months in Southeast Asia, I’ve found that young people in pretty much every 1^st world nation learn English to the point that they can speak it fluently. The only major exceptions I can think of off the top of my head are Spain, France, and Japan. And for that reason, I plan on learning those 3 languages in that order during my life: Spanish, French, and Japanese.

On a completely off-topic note I overheard a guy from Quebec talking to some foreigners about the Quebec student strikes that happened recently. He told them that the Quebec government is very corrupt and wants to double tuition.

I couldn’t help myself; I asked the Quebec guy how much he paid in tuition last year. He said $1,200. 

$1,200!!!! For the entire year! I paid $8,000 a year in Nova Scotia, and I’ve never heard of a University in Canada charging less than $6,000 for the year.

It seems so weird to me. Do people in Quebec know that their tuition is insanely cheap, even when doubled to a measly $2,400? I’m not trying to stir up angry emotions or anything, but it just boggles my mind.

Today I’m going to a beach that is supposed to have really good rock climbing. Hopefully a post full of colourful pictures and stories will follow.