Who Knew???

Rosie, I'm just delighted you continue to enjoy these puzzles. I had to learn Latin at school, and although I've never used it, sometimes it helps decode words in a foreign language... but not always as I've come unstuck sometimes! Medical jargon is a language all of it's own... and you probably learnt that excellently!! Thanks so much for your appreciation :~)

Golly, Edie, I'd never thought about being able to speak a language, but not learning to write it, but it makes perfect sense, no 6 year old would! How lovely that you have linked up with Dagmar, it's probably nice for her to "air" her German too! Thanks for letting me know :~)

I really love all of the learning I'm doing every day while I enjoy the solving of puzzles and I have you to thank for that. I've always wished I had learned another language. I had four years of Latin in high school--medical school required that at that time but I wanted to learn a different language to converse in and read. I have picked up some bits and pieces while working in hospitals but never enough to satisfy me. Thanks for all of the hard work you're putting in to pass along some knowledge.

Thank you for this puzzle Mandy. I am bilingual but left Germany at the age of 6 so even though I speak German I write it very poorly. However I have been conversing with Dagmar in my mother tongue lately and she claims to understand what I write. Thanks for bringing this day to our attention.

Golly, thanks PJ, that's really interesting! :~)

Mandy - yes, intuition is a part of learning languages, as well as your knowing when on thin ice and rather ask : "lang historie" means "long story" - you see how closely related the words are :-)
PJ

PJ - how wonderful, thank you so much for sharing some of your mother language with us all... I am surprised at how much I can "glean" from the "foreign" text... well just the phrase "lang historie" which I suspect means "history of language"!!

Oooooooooooh, Mandy. Thank you, tusen takk - I love this celebration, and your nicely composed puzzle. Vielen Dank - tack så mycket. Me encanta esta celebración, et ton puzzle joliment composée. Og mitt norske morsmål - det er en lang historie..... My 'mother language' is a mixture.
PJ

Thanks Katie, I'm surprised and delighted that so many people are enjoying this style of learning... perhaps if they introduced it in school it could revolutionise education!!

Hi Mandy, this is so very interesting! Merci beaucoup!

Thanks Ardy, it's good to hear that your cousin is ensuring his children learn to speak both languages, children can so easily become bilingual from a very early age, and I think that is always very beneficial. When I worked with children it was always recommended that parents with different mother tongues always used their own mother tongue when speaking to their children, so that the children would learn both languages, and not miss out on any part of their heritage.

Thanks, Mandy. I wish I were fluent in at least one other language. I took Spanish - 3 years in high school and 8 hours in college but I remember very little. I studied French for my master's degree but could read only. And that was then, not now. I have a cousin who took Russian in college and taught in Russia for a year. He married a Russian girl and they have 3 children, ages, 1, 3, and 5 who learned Russian before English. Their parents speak to them in Russian a lot of the time.

Again, I applaud you for this series. I think what you are doing is awesome. Thank you so much.

Thanks Wendy - that's exactly how I feel, and being able to understand what they say would probably destroy that, so I just look at them and admire!

I love reading about all these celebratory days, Mandy. I look forward to them every day. And like you, I love the foreign scripts....and in fact, I love them all more than our own. To my way of thinking, so many of the foreign alphabets are miniature works of art.

Thanks Pat.... I'm still thinking..... LOL

Thanks Barb - I'm surprised you've heard about "any" of them Barb... let alone half!! I had to look them all up!! LOL

Great one thanks Mandy

So interesting that we never hear about half these holidays but thanks to you, Mandy, we now know and can appreciate these observances a little more. Thanks so much. :-)

De nada, Magda. I love reading languages, even when I don't understand them, and I particularly like the Indian and Arabic scripts - they always look beautiful to me! That's a nice idea for the tables at your train :~)

Thank you, merci, Dankeschön, Shugria for this nice puzzle.
In Bern there is a local train, where they have written Hello in about 15 or 20 languages on the little tables near the windows. Interesting to try to find out where thy come from, the ones written in our Alphabet.