RE: [Cz-L] again about language

Dear Lucca,

I agree with you in all, but you forgot to mention that you're a very gifted
English writer...
Here is one more story, I tried hard to write in English.

My late cousin Vera Marinescu, born Ehrenkranz, in 1929 in Czernowitz,
immigrated from Bucharest to Israel late, in 1988. She did not succeed in
learning Hebrew, but after a few years I discovered she's talking fluent
Russian with her neighbors. She saw my amazement and explained: you know, in
1940 I had to repeat the 4th grade, this time in a Russian school, in Balti.
I had good teachers.

Later, she suffered a "little stroke". In the hospital, at a medical visit,
she was asked to answer a few questions. She tried and uttered some mixed up
words in Hebrew, Russian, English and Rumanian. The doctor ordered her to
speak only in her mother-tongue. She started to talk German. Everybody
stared at her in bewilderment:"Ma pitom? What happened to her?" Someone said
in Rumanian: ".de unde ti-a mai sarit si limba asta?" (from where does this
language spring up?)
Regards,
Irene

 

-----Original Message-----
From: bounce-2217635-3499296_at_list.cornell.edu
[mailto:bounce-2217635-3499296_at_list.cornell.edu] On Behalf Of Lucca
Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2008 3:50 PM
To: Czernowitz-L_at_cornell.edu
Subject: [Cz-L] again about language

I found so many messages on my computer this morning regarding Czernowitz
and language.

I think that this is really a matter of personal talent. Mimi is fluent in
German without one single lesson, others will never be able to master this
difficult language inspite of childhood and youth in the Bucovina.
I myself after 4 years Meisler Schule and hardly any education worth
mentioning after that, know German quite well, have still a quite good
Rumanian and can read and write French without speaking it well.
On the other hand, if you ask me how much is 7 times 9, I will need a minute
or two to figure it out.
I've learned basic Spanish in 6 weeks, but can never make out a bank
statement having no idea what all those figures mean (it's actually a waste
of paper sending me that stuff).

So: there are linguists and there are others. My next door neighbor having
spent one year in a Russian school in Czernowitz is absolutely fluent in
that language and I am a bit envious because Russian is an important
language in Israel now.

As in many other things one cannot generalize.
Let's hear some further comments!
Lucca

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Received on 2008-01-08 23:07:54