cat named pig

1. English

2. German

3. Spanish

4. Spanglish (OK, so maybe this was just me.)

5. Japanese  

This is why I love our neighborhood.

I feel like this sort of multi-lingual thing happens all the time in Europe (and probably in bigger American cities). People routinely ask each other which languages they speak, and choose the one both parties are most comfortable using. On more than one occasion, I’ve received detailed French directions while traveling in Italy or Spain. But aside from Spanish, I don’t expect that as much around here. Minnesota has sometimes seemed to me like the Land Where High School Language Skills Go To Die. Everyone I know can ask how you are and whether you enjoy the cinema in their high school language, but actual conversation? Not so much. (Myself included — my high school Spanish disappears into a Franco-Italian non-conjugated mess the second I try to talk to our Spanish-speaking neighbors.)

I think all that is changing, though. I think more people are traveling, working and living abroad. Schools are offering languages earlier, when kids are best able to learn them. The schools we are looking at for Siena offer Spanish from kindergarten on. It was interesting to talk to the mother raising her kids in Japanese about the Spanish program at her daughter’s elementary school. 

And who knows? Maybe it was always like this in Minneapolis, just not in the suburb I grew up in. In any case, it makes for a more interesting block party.