Winter Olympics

[Dr Mordrid]

[Elie]

Haha! Basically all summed up

[Brian Ellis]

Great!. Especially the curling for me, as the corticosteroids have atrophied all my muscles (lost ~ 25 kg), which has weakened my lumbar muscles to the extent they no longer give adequate support to my spine!

[paulw]

Just as a matter of interest . Is every school kid in Canada force fed French??

[Umfriend]

Donnow about Canada but AFAIK in the Netherlands, almost all are (in high school) for at least two years.

[Brian Ellis]

Going back to the dinosaurs, I started Latin at 10 until 13, when I left the classical stream, French at 11 until I left high school (5 years, but I'm now ± bilingual, having lived in French-speaking Switzerland for 35+ years), Russian for 2½ years at 13-14 and bad language at 5! My native language is, of course, English, but I can understand but not speak Lallans (Scots, as Robert Burns wrote). A smattering of Modern Greek at 20 (in the army) and I picked up sufficient German, Italian and Spanish on the fly to more or less make myself laughingly understood. Useless odd words and phrases in half-a-dozen other languages, especially if based on Pidgin or Creole (e.g., 'sekolah bas' means 'school bus' in Bahasa Malayan!) I regret none of this knowledge of languages, as I rather pride myself in my knowledge of philology and etymology, which would have been impossible without that background.

My English vocabulary has been estimated at about 35,000 words (average Englishman about 3,000) which, I'm afraid, tends to make me use some enigmatic words when simpler words will do, such as 'unclear', instead of 'enigmatic'!!!

The downside is a tendency to pedantism.

[Fat Tone]

I watched Pan's Labyrinth the other night. Spanish with English subtitles. I picked up a couple of swear words.

[Tjalfe]

Just as a matter of interest . Is every school kid in Canada force fed French??

yes
since I did not go through high school here, I am not sure how many years, but definitely a few.. not that most people will claim to be able to speak it anyways
I did 3 years of German, yet don't speak it

[gt40]

Just as a matter of interest . Is every school kid in Canada force fed French??

Mandatory till grade 8, plus at least one credit in high school.
But I think this varies slightly from province to province.

[Dr Mordrid]

Our language requirement is less specific and is required only in upper grades. Usually there is a choice of Spanish, French or German with a few schools offering Japanese, Russian or Mandarin. A new program in our district, however, is to start a "World Languages" curriculum beginning in the upper elementary grades and starting next year. I understand that in addition to the above it may include Brazilian Portuguese, Arabic and others.

[Mehen]

Mandatory from grades 4 to 8 in Manitoba.