Monday, September 24, 2012

quadralingual?

I was quadralingual (if thats what you call it...) on Sunday. I kind of made that word up but after bilingual comes trilingual and after trilingual comes qudralingual, right? Sounds good to me.

So I got the whole English and Portugues thing down but yesterday I had the chance to speak 2 other languages, Spanish and Sign Language. It made me think...I should/kind of want to learn another language. Maybe 2 more? But I might as well start off with Spanish since it's similar to Portugues.

So here's the story. Meet Fernando. 

He's new to the ward and doesn't know hardly any English. One beautiful thing about living in DC is that there are so many diverse people. Our ward is no exception. So Fernando has been living here for just a short amount of time. Last week he bore his testimony and I was able to understand everything he was saying in Spanish! I am retarded, was with him for a good 2 hours on this hike at our ward campout and never did it cross my mind to try and communicate with him with my Portugues. That ws until testimony meeting when I understood everything he was saying and by that point it was too late! Right after testimony meeting everyone left. So this past Sunday I was determined to talk to him. We talked after church and while he was speaking Spanish and I was speaking Portugues we were able to understand each other! He even taught me a few things. I just spoke to another girl from Panama and Mexico tonight at FHE and it was the same experience. They are going to teach me Spanish and I am going to teach them Portugues. Love it.

So why quadralingual? Well yesterday my roommate and I were invited to this group dinner. There was a guy named James who is deaf. I have always wanted to talk to him but the fact I don't know sign language kind of stands in the way. We were sitting on the same end of the table and I was determined to put my finger spelling to use. Thanks to some friends in High School who took sign language I was able to learn the alphabet and it has stuck over the years. So during dinner I was signing and spelling things out and we were able to have a full on conversation!!

So what I am trying to say is go me. I am basically quadralingual in English, Portugues, Spanish and Sign Language!!

3 comments:

  1. Yes! Since learning Spanish and being in Spain the people have inspired me to want to learn French, German and maybe Russian or somethin super foreign like Arabic or Chinese. Ha. Not sure if I will ever learn all these, but I know what you're saying! Learning languages is addicting! And everyone in Europe speaks like 5 so I feel like I really need to get on my game! :)

    ps. I have a new blog url: afancyblog.blogspot.com
    I think I'm going to start writing more regularly. So you should follow me. :)

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  2. totally following you! did you even have to ask? but good luck with the arabic and chinese....i'm not that hard core!!

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  3. ya, come to scotland and learn some glaswegian. ya wee stoater!

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