mezzo wrote:私と話すオランダ語、フランス語、ドイツ語と英語。日本とロシアのは興味深いものです。私の父は英語だから少なくとも、それはとても簡単だ。
So you only study Japanese and Russian for fun (well I guess you didn’t actually say you study them, just that you have a deep interest, but I assume…).
My story is much simpler.
My dad is Native American/cowboy (all of my dad’s side are cowboys, including the spurs, hats, rope, and funny mustaches) while my mother is British (no accent).
Whatever languages my dad speaks are irrelevant since I only met him a few times in my life, but my mother spoke American English, Spanish, and sign language.
One day I went to school and they said, “You have to study a foreign language in order to graduate.”
So I studied French for 2 years and then dropped out of school.
Armed with French, I began working at the dog track (Wichita Greyhound Park) where they speak only English. While there I met a Vietnamese angel who would change my life, even though she was married and had kids and her husband was with her all the time.
Her attitude, the way she handled herself, her accent—it was all adorable and I
loved her eyes. It was then I knew that I just like Asians. No other kind of woman could make me feel that way or see those things (nor do they have those amazing eyes).
Because of that I started hanging in Asian chatrooms until I met a woman I would later love. She was from Hong Kong, so I studied Mandarin for over a year.
When that fell through I was still planning to go to Asia but I didn’t know where. I had a Thai coworker security guard and of course he promoted Thailand to me. So I ended up coming here, where I naturally learned Thai. My boss is French and I worked in France before as well which helps me keep up a bit with my French, and of course since I am going to live in Japan later I study Japanese intensely every day (in a school on Saturdays).
My mother was speaking Spanish to me since I was young so that just came naturally, but I didn’t become advanced or anything. I basically had a clean foundation with a lot of spikes here and there where I picked up things from various sources.
So that is how I happened into English (duh), Japanese, Thai, French, Spanish, and Mandarin. I learned sign language as a child but I forgot everything. I sometimes think about learning it again because it is used quite often in Bangkok and I could spy on their conversations.
Russian and German I know not at all. There was a Russian foreign-exchange student in my French class who never spoke much, but years after the class while she was back in Russia she found me on ICQ. Her reason for seeking me out was that I was “weird”.
L. Spiro