Chile Forum

...

It is an amusing poll stop being so "cuatico".

Well, from years of language learning experience, I loosely concluded:
If you want to speak war: Learn German
if you want to speak business: Learn English
if you want to speak love: learn French
if you want to speak poetry: learn Spanish (Chilean, Colombian, or Mexican it doesn't matter)
But if you want to speak about everything, and top it with the most sophisticated cursed words: Learn Russian

Atlantis wrote:Hablando del idioma de Cervantes Px tienes mucha razon, no es un idioma facil.

A

Spanish is not a hard language to learn for a native English speaker. However, not so when is time to adjust your ear to the language, and to speak using the right pronunciation.

Seabee wrote:Well, from years of language learning experience, I loosely concluded:
If you want to speak war: Learn German
if you want to speak business: Learn English
if you want to speak love: learn French
if you want to speak poetry: learn Spanish (Chilean, Colombian, or Mexican it doesn't matter)
But if you want to speak about everything, and top it with the most sophisticated cursed words: Learn Russian

This is a cute paraphrase of the legendary (mythological?) sayings attributed to Carlos V and some others (and promoted by every chauvinistic Spanish teacher I have known)

"Con mi caballo hablo en alemán, con las damas de la corte, en italiano; los asuntos de hombres los trato en francés, pero para hablar con Diós, uso solo el español"

Variant: "Hablo en italiano con los embajadores; en francés, con las mujeres; en alemán con los soldados; en inglés con los caballos y en español con Dios."

One of the less poetic English variants:

"I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men and German to my horse."

But really, what can one expect from a Habsburgo? The Holy Roman Empire was neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire.

It needs an update:

"Con los turistas más ébrios, hablo alemán; para el comercio, converso en inglés; para la poesía y los arreglos del alcantarillado, español; pero para hablar con los curas de Chile, el Código Penal." (For the most drunken of tourists, I speak German; for business, I converse in English; for poetry and repairs to the sewers, Spanish; for the priests in Chile, the Criminal Code. )

Px,

Hilarious!!!