While in high school, I had the opportunity to study a foreign language. Students in our small town's public school had three language choices.... Latin, French or Spanish. I don't know what prompted me to opt for French, but I ended up taking two years of High School French and one semester of College French. Conversational French, as it turned out, never was one of my academic strong points. Let's just say, I passed. And, to tell you the truth, today, I would have one heck of a time having a meaningful conversation in French. However, I can read a menu and my pitiful knowledge of French helps me to read the Spanish Language Labels on most of the stuff I buy. I'm glad I had the opportunity to study French.
That was a little over 50 years ago.
My mother and father were high school students in the late nineteen thirties. They both were required to study Latin. They never had the opportunity to speak Latin (and probably didn't want to). But, Latin is always useful for understanding all of the Romance Languages.
Our four children studied French and German, in school. I suppose they have found it useful, but we haven't discussed their youthful academics for years.
All of this brings me to our grandchildren. We have two high school aged grand kids. One is currently studying Japanese and the other is learning Arabic. Our middle school granddaughter is taking a class in Mandarin Chinese.
I find that amazing. When I was studying French, 50 years ago, I am not sure that I was even aware of those languages. Now, I have family members speaking them!
Great creator of the entire Universe. We praise you Holy Name and marvel the diversity of this planet.
We are thankful.
No comments:
Post a Comment