![]() ![]() I am so happy Switzerland happened to me for many reasons and the language is one of them. I absolutely love it that I can now read the newspaper and sort of get my way through the news, or talk to people on the train that are kind enough to correct me and applaud my efforts –people here literally clap for you! I can go to public services and get the documents I need and whenever someone picks up my accent in German and try to switch to English, I kindly ask them to carry on in German. How many German books will be unread because I cannot read? And what if I am in an urgent situation where no one speaks English? (As I was three years later, when I needed police intervention after I was followed home and almost threatened by a stranger.) I started learning German and I still am today. ![]() I thought: what kind of teacher am I if I am not constantly a learner? And I love books. So then and there, I decided to learn German. I came to her country and I am obliged to respect it. I left then and took a walk by the lake and I thought, that lady does not speak English. Nur Deutsch.’ (No, I only speak German.) I remember being very idiotically shocked that she spoke no English. ![]() She looked at me and with a sweep of her hand said, ‘Nein. Then one day, I went to the supermarket and I asked a lady where the toothbrushes were. They brought me someone who spoke English and I could get my social insurance. One day, I went to a public service and the lady there spoke only German. Most people did speak English with me, and we got our messages across. I was just worried about other things, like work, adjusting that I thought, I don’t need to learn the language, I have too much on my mind right now. And I rested upon that thought – very silly of me, I think now. Until I moved to Switzerland six years ago.Įveryone told me, oh don’t worry – Zug is an international city, everyone will speak English with you – you won’t even need to learn German. I learnt Italian pretty well, but after that I did not try to learn anything else. Then in university, we could choose another language so I chose Italian – I loved it because it sounded so beautiful to me, when we heard our Italian neighbours in Canada call out to one another! My then football player crush Alessandro Del Piero was also Italian, so that was another reason – a silly reason, but when you are eighteen, your choices are made on things you deem important then □ As an eight-year-old, you wonder, why do I have to learn a second language? And a hard one too? I did learn it and I am happy I did. And when we answered in English to her Greek questions, she would answer: ‘That is NOT the language of your ancestors and pappou (grandpa) and yaya (grandma) will not understand you if you say that to them!’ We all laugh now but it was horrible then. The notebook was the worst: she had us copy long texts in Greek every afternoon, and when our handwriting was not good, she would rip out the page and we would have to write it again. I don’t know if it was a mistake, but I surely did not take it well when suddenly one day when I was about 8, she switched to Greek, started sending us to Greek school every Saturday…and we had the dreaded back then, afternoon Greek notebook. If you ask them why, my dad will say that it was the language that came to him naturally at that point, and my mom because she was afraid we might have difficulties in everyday Canadian school, if she spoke to us in Greek – which she admits now, was a mistake. My first language was English – my parents spoke to us in English ever since we were born. My dad, when he was 15, and my mom later on, when she was 22. I grew up bilingual, as I was born in Canada to Greek parents, who emigrated there for a better life. Language learners, meet Vicky: I think you’ve got much in common!īut first, I will give you a bit of my background. I’ve known her blog about education for a long time, and I admire the creativity and enthusiasm she shows when running The Loras Network – an English teaching enterprise. ![]() Wiktor’s introduction: Dear bilingual wannabees, it gives me great pleasure to feature Vicky Loras as a guest author on my blog tonight. ![]()
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