Having Fun with Languages
It Gets Easier the More You Learn
Here’s an idea. I want to learn some foreign languages. Not just one, but actually four of them: German (because I lived there for some time), Norwegian (the same), Spanish (because there are lots of Hispanic people where I live), and French (I took a year of it in the 8th grade). Presently, I get them all mixed up, which I think is understandable because there are words common in all of them.
For instance, the word drug store. In the US you might say apothecary, though I doubt many people would understand you. I think the first time I might have come across the word was reading something Charles Dickens wrote. In Norwegian, it is apotek. In Spanish, it is boticaria or boticario depending. In French apothicaire. In German, apotheker in the masculine form and apothekerin in the feminine form according to Google. It sounds to me like those are words for the pharmacists themselves. When I was in Germany, we used to say Apotheke to refer to the drugstore. So, other than Spanish, the other languages have similar words.
It was better when I was a drinking woman. You’d be amazed how you can get your point across with somebody else who had also been drinking. Also, I was less inhibited. The Germans I was talking to were enchanted, though that could have been the drink.
