The AH Coffee Shop and Reading Room 04: Come On In

[MagicaPractica]

Sorry MP that your mother isn't doing well. But super congratulations on your contract.

And, MP - felicitations!

Good luck with the family, MP, and congratulations with your novel!

I very much hope you'll be world-famous, rich, and and more of that, but not that famous that you'll turn into the Lit-corner-dweller you warned us about, earlier. You need to get out of your blanket-fort every now and then.

PS. Mags: Good for You girl.

Thanks, folks. It looks like a lot of work ahead of me. They already want info about a second book.

Mom is doing better and we have a doc appt. for her.

 

[rubysubrosa]

Hi Ruby, it's fun for me and my mouth to wander around here and socialize; about all BB does is post jokes, give medical hints or tips if someone asks for a little background reality-type info for a story, and jabber away about planes and military gibberish with HP; those two start talking military stuff and end up cat-calling British military and medical slang and acronyms at each other; I find this as riveting as a treatise on Prehistoric Patagonian nose-bone polishing, so I step back and yuk it up with my friends instead. I do have a habit of sharing recipes, both my own family's cajun recipes, and snippets from BB's GGG-Grandmother's kitchen book from 1819 I purloined from his father's library and have no intention of returning. I only share the better recipes, some of the stuff the Victorians thought were delicacies would make a hyena gag...

I enjoy your yukking!
How did you go from cooking cajun recipes to being on other side of the Atlantic? How did you meet BB?

I still have my great grandpa's old nose-bone. Nicely polished, too.

Is keeping family members' nose bones a thing of which I have heretofore not been aware?!

Congrats NW, that sounds like a pretty impressive milestone.

Meanwhile I was supposed to take a walk to think about my Summer Lovin' story's plot, but I accidentally came up with a Halloween story instead... Yay?

Taken, forgive the ignorant question, but are you originally Dutch, and if so, how is your English so good? Is English taught early on in primary schools?

Congrats, NW and MP!

 

[MagicaPractica]

Good luck with the family, MP, and congratulations with your novel!

I very much hope you'll be world-famous, rich, and and more of that, but not that famous that you'll turn into the Lit-corner-dweller you warned us about, earlier. You need to get out of your blanket-fort every now and then.

You know, I just realized this advice about not hiding came from someone with a location of "Hidden."

 

[Lori_the_Hoosier]

I enjoy your yukking!
How did you go from cooking cajun recipes to being on other side of the Atlantic? How did you meet BB?

Hey Ruby, I met BB when I was on a flyby from Oslo on my way back to Baltimore; I had a day and a night stopover in London, and some friends met me, and cajoled me into attending a lecture on High Medieval and Renaissance epic Court Poetry at the Imperial College they were interested in; my thoughts were more of the 'raging hard on the London club scene' variety' than attending some stuffy old academic blathering, but I was subjected to pressure of the 'if you don't come with us I'm going to hold my breath until I go blue and die and it'll be your fault' variety, so I went along.

BB was giving the lecture, I spotted him immediately (and he was gorgeous, still is), he stared at me (staring bug-eyed right back at this gorgeous man) the entire time he was talking, like he was talking solely to me, not a crowded auditorium, that whole 'eyes across a crowded room' thing happening, when it was done he made a beeline for me after, asked me to dinner, and we've been together ever since, married 23 years now.

 

[Handley_Page]

.... all BB does is post jokes, give medical hints or tips if someone asks for a little background reality-type info for a story, and jabber away about planes and military gibberish with HP; those two start talking military stuff and end up cat-calling British military and medical slang and acronyms at each other; I find this as riveting as a treatise on Prehistoric Patagonian nose-bone polishing, so I step back and yuk it up with my friends instead.
.

You mean - you didn't appreciate the efforts in making the treatise on Nose-bone polishing of any interest ?
I'm hurt !

You know, I just realized this advice about not hiding came from someone with a location of "Hidden."

B;oody typical !

 

[ThisNameIsntTakenYet]

Taken, forgive the ignorant question, but are you originally Dutch, and if so, how is your English so good? Is English taught early on in primary schools?

Yes, I was born in the Netherlands and have lived here all my life. We do start with English in primary school indeed, in the last few years. Only a little bit though, some simple words and phrases like introducing yourself and such. In high school it's a mandatory class for all 4 years, and it's also required during our local equivalent of the US college (which here just about anyone goes to, it's hard to get any job that's not stocking shelves in a store or delivering newspapers without a college education). Also, we don't really have what you would call middle school, you go to primary school for 8 years, then 4-6 years of high school depending on difficulty (yes we have varying difficulty levels of high school, the highers ones including stuff like Latin and Greek, among more complex math, for example). Then it's 4 years of college, although recently they've started offering 3 year programs as well.

So the average Dutch person speaks English pretty decently, especially those under the age of 40 or so. For me personally, I started learning English even before it came up in primary school. I played a lot of Pokemon and other Gameboy games, annoying my parents with the need for translations every few minutes. Over time, I started to grasp simple words just by the context or result the choices had in the games. I already had a head start when we started covering English in school, but it came with the downside that those games I played weren't voiced, so I had come up with my own horribly butchered pronunciation, which took quite a while to correct. I still have a bit of an accent, although according to one of my friends in the US that I call every now and then over Skype I am easy enough to understand.

I also loved reading as a kid (and still do), and changed over to reading English books about 7-8 years ago. That also really helped with my grammar and vocabulary. By now I've actually been able to edit for native English speakers and correct their grammar, so I guess at this point I can confidently claim to be fully fluent in English. I do still have some trouble with sayings and common phrases though, there's a lot of those I'm not familiar with. Partially because they change depending on where you're from, and there's just so many.

Whelp, that ended up a bit longer than I intended, but I hope it was at least somewhat interesting.

 

[Lori_the_Hoosier]

You mean - you didn't appreciate the efforts in making the treatise on Nose-bone polishing of any interest ?
I'm hurt !

I appreciate everything about you HP, you know I love you! *makes kissy-face*

As it's Saturday morning, himself is ensconced in the study watching, yes, you guessed it, 'The Dam Busters' for the 39 zillionth time, next thing he'll be wearing his RAF bomber jacket and waiting impatiently for the dark of the moon; how does everyone else here cope with being married to a hero-worshipping 5 year old? Did I tell you that periodically, for no reason, he'd bundle me in the car and we'd drive up to Snowdonia so he could stand on the mountain road and watch the RAF Tornadoes and Typhoons fly beneath us 50 feet off the valley floor, and he'd tell me, for the umpty-billionth time that this is where Guy Gibson and Johnny Johnson trained 617 Squadron for the Dam Buster raid in 1943; it's quite a weird sensation to look down and see a fighter jet pilot looking up at you and waving as he goes past...

Some men grow old, some, some just grow sideways, but most never actually grow up...

 

[ishtat]

So the average Dutch person speaks English pretty decently, especially those under the age of 40 or so.

I was in Amsterdam with some friends when I was a student at Uni. We wanted to get an English newspaper to get the cricket scores. The first seller we approached told us in perfect English that he only had the Guardian. "And" he added, "I must apologise because I have already done the crossword."

The Guardian crossword is difficult, even for a native speaker.

 

[Lori_the_Hoosier]

Yes, I was born in the Netherlands and have lived here all my life. We do start with English in primary school indeed, in the last few years. Only a little bit though, some simple words and phrases like introducing yourself and such. In high school it's a mandatory class for all 4 years, and it's also required during our local equivalent of the US college (which here just about anyone goes to, it's hard to get any job that's not stocking shelves in a store or delivering newspapers without a college education). Also, we don't really have what you would call middle school, you go to primary school for 8 years, then 4-6 years of high school depending on difficulty (yes we have varying difficulty levels of high school, the highers ones including stuff like Latin and Greek, among more complex math, for example). Then it's 4 years of college, although recently they've started offering 3 year programs as well.

So the average Dutch person speaks English pretty decently, especially those under the age of 40 or so. For me personally, I started learning English even before it came up in primary school. I played a lot of Pokemon and other Gameboy games, annoying my parents with the need for translations every few minutes. Over time, I started to grasp simple words just by the context or result the choices had in the games. I already had a head start when we started covering English in school, but it came with the downside that those games I played weren't voiced, so I had come up with my own horribly butchered pronunciation, which took quite a while to correct. I still have a bit of an accent, although according to one of my friends in the US that I call every now and then over Skype I am easy enough to understand.

I also loved reading as a kid (and still do), and changed over to reading English books about 7-8 years ago. That also really helped with my grammar and vocabulary. By now I've actually been able to edit for native English speakers and correct their grammar, so I guess at this point I can confidently claim to be fully fluent in English. I do still have some trouble with sayings and common phrases though, there's a lot of those I'm not familiar with. Partially because they change depending on where you're from, and there's just so many.

Whelp, that ended up a bit longer than I intended, but I hope it was at least somewhat interesting.

It's always seemed odd to me that Dutch, German, Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish people seem to speak or pick up English with such facility, reasonable fluently if not idiomatically, when the English only ever manage to speak English, and even then the regional variation is so great that someone from, say, Cornwall, wouldn't be able to understand a Geordie from Tyne and Wear or Newcastle because the dialects are so very different. My husband is considered a sort of oddity among his friends and colleagues because he speaks so many languages; when people asks him how he knows so many languages, he gives that single eyebrow and says 'I learned them...' in a way that says 'if I could, why can't you?' France is only 22 miles from England, yet the English have no real interest in learning French. I always found that puzzling.

He was forever being called from his office to translate for some person at the A & E desk because the nursing staff were at a loss to figure out what the accident victim was saying, but only on the basis that, as he spoke 'a bunch of foreign languages' he spoke ALL foreign languages; he used to try and drum into their thick heads that 'FOREIGN ISN'T A PLACE; FOREIGN ISN'T A LANGUAGE, WHY, BECAUSE I SPEAK FRENCH, DO YOU ASSUME I SPEAK POLISH, CZECH, AND ROMANIAN TOO? NOT ALL FOREIGNERS SPEAK THE SAME LANGUAGE...' and so on. The problem with the English is that learning a second language just doesn't figure high on their 'To-Do' lists.

 

[oggbashan]

...

He was forever being called from his office to translate for some person at the A & E desk because the nursing staff were at a loss to figure out what the accident victim was saying, but only on the basis that, as he spoke 'a bunch of foreign languages' he spoke ALL foreign languages; he used to try and drum into their thick heads that 'FOREIGN ISN'T A PLACE; FOREIGN ISN'T A LANGUAGE, WHY, BECAUSE I SPEAK FRENCH, DO YOU ASSUME I SPEAK POLISH, CZECH, AND ROMANIAN TOO? NOT ALL FOREIGNERS SPEAK THE SAME LANGUAGE...' and so on. The problem with the English is that learning a second language just doesn't figure high on their 'To-Do' lists.

I had that problem too when a senior manager in an organization. Not only did I understand and speak several European languages but with a previous employer I had staff in most parts of the UK. i was used to getting phone calls in Geordie, Belfast and Glasgow accents. When the front desk was very desperate, they'd ring me cautiously because I was very senior.

I had to explain that now matter how many languages I knew, I was useless with most minority languages from the Indian sub-continent but usually the person WAS speaking English with a Punjabi or Bengali accent for example. If they had listened harder, they would have understood.

 

[Lori_the_Hoosier]

I had that problem too when a senior manager in an organization. Not only did I understand and speak several European languages but with a previous employer I had staff in most parts of the UK. i was used to getting phone calls in Geordie, Belfast and Glasgow accents. When the front desk was very desperate, they'd ring me cautiously because I was very senior.

I had to explain that now matter how many languages I knew, I was useless with most minority languages from the Indian sub-continent but usually the person WAS speaking English with a Punjabi or Bengali accent for example. If they had listened harder, they would have understood.

Will had a very good friend, Kees, a Dutch surgeon from his days with Médicins Sans Frontières, sadly killed in a suicide bomb attack in Kandahar, along with the rest of his triage team, who, uniquely, couldn't speak English, and Will can't speak Dutch, but they both spoke Pashtun, so people were treated to the sight of these two obvious Westerners sitting in the bar of Groucho's gabbling at each other in an obscure Southwest Asian language. Kees used to call us up knee-walking drunk from his home in Eindhoven, sing 'Wooden Heart' over the phone in German at me, then try and trade Will his wife, Dutch chocolate, Advocaat, and cigars for me.

 

[oggbashan]

Back in the 1960s London one of my friends and I had been friends with a nurse from Switzerland. The three of us were friends, not two men competing to have her as a girlfriend because she was already engaged.

Her fiancé came over from Switzerland and the four of us did the tourist thing in London with the two Englishmen as drivers and tour guides.

One evening we went to a Chinese restaurant in Soho. My other English friend ordered for us in fluent Cantonese as he had lived and worked in Hong Kong. He and I spoke English. The lady spoke Swiss French; her fiancé spoke Swiss German and none of us needed to change languages. We understood each other perfectly. That confused the waiters who eventually asked what nationality we all were since we were talking in three different languages.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

BB was giving the lecture, I spotted him immediately (and he was gorgeous, still is), he stared at me (staring bug-eyed right back at this gorgeous man) the entire time he was talking, like he was talking solely to me, not a crowded auditorium, that whole 'eyes across a crowded room' thing happening, when it was done he made a beeline for me after, asked me to dinner, and we've been together ever since, married 23 years now.

Aww, that's so sweet!

Meanwhile, is there any coffee?

 

[Handley_Page]

In the 1960s, I was in the Air Force and got a posting to Germany; as it happens, quite close to the Dutch border. In the couple of years I was there, I picked up a few phrases of German, but Dutch was a throat-hardening problem. However, in an attempt to be seen to try, I got a copy of "Muelenhof Engels" (English-Dutch dictionary) and sallied forth into the local town. I was surprised at the reaction at first (I was later told that if one is seen to try, one gets a great deal of help) and I managed to pick up a few useful phrases in Dutch as well.
It was later explained that a whole generation of kids ( now at the age of about 20) were taught English as a matter of course.

Lori. When I was a school, we learned French; not that I kept at it, or maintained it, but we were taught it (En Route, En Marche, etc..)

We are currently enjoying (??) bright sunshine, wind and showers.
And coffee left please?

 

[NotWise]

Aww, that's so sweet!

Meanwhile, is there any coffee?

Got it right here. I'll pour.

 

[ThisNameIsntTakenYet]

It's always seemed odd to me that Dutch, German, Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish people seem to speak or pick up English with such facility, reasonable fluently if not idiomatically, when the English only ever manage to speak English

<SNIP>

The problem with the English is that learning a second language just doesn't figure high on their 'To-Do' lists.

I can only speak for the Dutch and German people, but it really helps that the general grammar and logic of English is very similar to our native language. Simpler too, less exceptions to those grammatical rules.

I guess if you already speak English there's less of an incentive to learn a secondary language, as you can already communicate with the vast majority of the world. I think I read somewhere that like 80% of the internet is in English too.

In the 1960s, I was in the Air Force and got a posting to Germany; as it happens, quite close to the Dutch border. In the couple of years I was there, I picked up a few phrases of German, but Dutch was a throat-hardening problem. However, in an attempt to be seen to try, I got a copy of "Muelenhof Engels" (English-Dutch dictionary) and sallied forth into the local town. I was surprised at the reaction at first (I was later told that if one is seen to try, one gets a great deal of help) and I managed to pick up a few useful phrases in Dutch as well.
It was later explained that a whole generation of kids ( now at the age of about 20) were taught English as a matter of course.

I'm in my mid 20s, so I probably belong to that group you mentioned. I think I just got the start of that movement when I was still in primary school, but I know that nowadays there's an even bigger emphasis on teaching kids English very early. Probably because of all the studies showing picking up an extra language is easier the younger you are, and how incredibly useful knowing English is in modern life. In fact, it is basically a requirement for the college course in Application Development that I'm following, as some of our books are only available in English.

But it's true, we can be very helpful when someone tries to learn our language. I've seen a lot of groups being organized where expats and other foreigners who were learning Dutch could meet up with native speakers to practice speaking the language, usually in a cafe or a place like that.

 

[Lori_the_Hoosier]

In the 1960s, I was in the Air Force and got a posting to Germany; as it happens, quite close to the Dutch border. In the couple of years I was there, I picked up a few phrases of German, but Dutch was a throat-hardening problem. However, in an attempt to be seen to try, I got a copy of "Muelenhof Engels" (English-Dutch dictionary) and sallied forth into the local town. I was surprised at the reaction at first (I was later told that if one is seen to try, one gets a great deal of help) and I managed to pick up a few useful phrases in Dutch as well.
It was later explained that a whole generation of kids ( now at the age of about 20) were taught English as a matter of course.

Lori. When I was a school, we learned French; not that I kept at it, or maintained it, but we were taught it (En Route, En Marche, etc..)

We are currently enjoying (??) bright sunshine, wind and showers.
And coffee left please?

Point taken, HP, but languages per se are not taught as part of the base National Curriculum after Year 8; at that point it becomes optional to continue, and most kids opt-out; most schools trying to up their scores in the eyes of the DfE civil servants who budget them pressure students to take subjects that they have a better than fair chance of excelling in, thereby making the school rank better overall in the exam tables; languages and the sciences are seen as hard subjects, therefore most likely to show a higher fail rate in the exam tables, so subtle, and sometimes not so subtle, pressure is brought to bear on kids to show well in three subjects only, and languages and sciences are shoved to one side in favor of Math (but a watered-down, nonsensical parody of math called 'New Math; look it up, it's designed to keep morons occupied while the teacher digests her Xanax...), English, History, Geography, and, increasingly, media and arts and computer basics; most kids in England can make an iPad do handstands but can't say 'good morning' in French, and they're right next door, for goodness sake.

 

[JerseyGirlDownUnder]

No coffee for me, thanks, I'm enjoying a hot toddy.

 

[JerseyGirlDownUnder]

languages per se are not taught as part of the base National Curriculum after Year 8; at that point it becomes optional to continue, and most kids opt-out

In Australia students get an extra 10% bonus on the all-important ATAR exams for taking languages or "hard" math. The way the system works, only your top 4 subjects count towards the overall score.... except the bonuses are tacked on even if these difficult subjects aren't one of the top 4. So they're trying hard to encourage ambition. Not sure it works.

 

[oggbashan]

In Australia students get an extra 10% bonus on the all-important ATAR exams for taking languages or "hard" math. The way the system works, only your top 4 subjects count towards the overall score.... except the bonuses are tacked on even if these difficult subjects aren't one of the top 4. So they're trying hard to encourage ambition. Not sure it works.

Many decades ago, when I was at High School in Australia I was studying French and Latin as part of my matriculation.

The Latin was OK. My teacher was an ex-Pom who had been a classics teacher at a grammar school in England.

The French? My teachers all spoke French with a Strine accent. None of them had ever been to a French-speaking country. When in England my French teacher had been a Yorkshireman so had spoken French with a broad Yorkshire accent.

The result? Even now I speak French with a Strine accent which puzzles natives in France, particularly as my wife has a cut-glass educated Parisian accent from being an au-pair working for a retired Professor of French Literature from the Sorbonne. He was blind in his old age and insisted that my wife read the French classics to him.

Most French people we meet assume that my wife is Parisian French married to a hick from Australia.

 

[Handley_Page]

My son is taking Japanese in high school and works very hard at it. Given our location in the world, I encourage him, as it is likely to be useful for a job as well as providing fascinating insights into a culture. I speak Spanish as well as English (maybe . Tonight he picked up the Mexican hot sauce from the dinner table and translated the front label. I had to tell him the word that translates to "flavour" or "taste" but otherwise he was spot on.

His comment: "Gee whiz these Romance languages are simple."

No coffee for me, thanks, I'm enjoying a hot toddy.

Differentiating the difference between Taste and Flavour is a bit subtle, I'm thinking.
After all, it's as much in the head as the language.
I must have a long think about that one.
Over a late cup of Tea, perhaps.

 

[Lori_the_Hoosier]

In Australia students get an extra 10% bonus on the all-important ATAR exams for taking languages or "hard" math. The way the system works, only your top 4 subjects count towards the overall score.... except the bonuses are tacked on even if these difficult subjects aren't one of the top 4. So they're trying hard to encourage ambition. Not sure it works.

My husband used to occasionally skim through his daughter's textbooks when she first started her secondary education, more an automatic thing after a long day in the OR than actually critiquing them, and she seemed to be doing OK, insofar as no-one was dead, and she hadn't set anyone alight and watched them burn to the ground, so I assumed she was doing OK (I was just the stepmom, so as far as her schools were concerned, Parent-Teacher night I was just along for moral support; not my kid, not my business, which hurt, but whatever) and it wasn't my place to audit or comment on her progress, because I was already on shaky ground being the stepmother; last thing I wanted was to be the evil stepmother, so I kept out and kept shut.

And then one night I watched him really read one of her textbooks, he got that look, and went and got the rest of her books, read them in like 10 minutes, and made an even more worrying face. He then called his daughter over and asked her just what on earth she was learning, and what did she think she was going to do with this, and he used the word ' rubbish'?

He made sure she knew he didn't think she'd done anything wrong, but we could both tell he was steaming mad over what he'd seen in those math and English textbooks.

He called up the school the next day, always a worrying sign, and the gist of his conversation was that they were idiots training his daughter to be a moron. Words ensued when he told me she was going to boarding school; I thought that was a bad idea; in my world, kids belonged with their families, not roosting with a bunch of strangers in some isolated, windswept haunted house somewhere out in the boonies, plus a large amount of self-interest was at play; if he sent her away, it was going to be my fault, and all that would be left for me to do would be to commit hari-kiri in the library with the lead-pipe.

He sent her away anyway, to a famously strict girl's boarding school near Brighton, where she discovered learning, real learning, not the watered-down, pre-digested nonsense they were feeding her back home. She promptly ran away, Will had in the meantime very thoughtfully gone to Papua NG with MSF so I had to drive down from Oxford to her uncle's place in Arundel, snag her, and dump her in the trunk and take her back to school, leaving her chained to the school gates with a 'Do Not Feed The Animals' note pinned to her.

She did this another 9 times, they only let her stay because Will had received a gigantic education payout for her from the hospital in the lawsuit over the negligent deaths of her mother and sister, they weren't going to let all that money escape that easily, plus Will and I bribed them with stables and a Manége in the school so all the little girlies could keep their ponies with them, which cut down on all the other escape attempts, too.

She eventually gained an impressive raft of A-Levels with mostly A's once they took the shackles off and unzipped the Hannibal Lecter mask, universities fought over her, and she ended-up studying Economics and an Anthropology Honor at the London School of Economics, graduating with a First-Class degree.

 

[rubysubrosa]

Wow, thank you for all the interesting stories and information, everyone! I learned some new words today, like Strine.

Taken, I'd never thought of Gameboys as a language learning device. And I'm shocked to hear you describe English as having fewer exceptions to rules! I hear most people complain about how many exceptions English has.

Lori, the story of how you met your husband is so sweet and romantic. Epic Court Poetry! That's like the pinnacle of romantic! Your storytelling is so fun to read. What is MSF? Sorry to hear about the negligent deaths.

 

[BelleCanzuto]

Quick questions

I didn't want to start a whole new thread because I figured these would be easy questions to answer. The story I'm working on now was inspired by another story I read here. I've mentioned that in an end note. But now I'm thinking about adding a link to that story so people can find it quickly. So questions:
Is that a done thing? I mean would adding a link like that violate some etiquette or rule here? (I looked at the story submission FAQs and searched the forum but didn't see anything that looked on point)

If It would be ok to do that, what's the easiest way to do it? (So far I've submitted stories via attaching a word doc in the submission form).

Any feedback/advice is welcome.
Thanks
Belle

{{please forgive a noob if this counts as threadjacking}}

 

[NotWise]

I didn't want to start a whole new thread because I figured these would be easy questions to answer. The story I'm working on now was inspired by another story I read here. I've mentioned that in an end note. But now I'm thinking about adding a link to that story so people can find it quickly. So questions:
Is that a done thing? I mean would adding a link like that violate some etiquette or rule here? (I looked at the story submission FAQs and searched the forum but didn't see anything that looked on point)

Inspiration always comes from somewhere, and often from other stories. You aren't obligated to recognize your inspiration. It's up to you.

It's different if you went beyond inspiration and borrowed unique characters and/or settings. You shouldn't do that without the original author's permission.

You can't place links in stories, and I think that includes end notes.