I have always wanted to be one of those bi lingual people, i mean heck tri lingual, why not, i used to see those kind of people ( i have noticed i put them out side of me almost as a other species!)
Anyhow, when i worked at the airport as check in staff, i used to see alot of those kinds of people, the ones who can speak english and other tongues, fluently being in the Travel industry obviously lots of differant languages knocking around, and i was always a little bit envious of the staff who would get called on, should there be a error in communication, when someone of other dialect was checking in there gear.
"did you pack the bag yourself? did anyone ask you to carry anything for them? has the bag been left unattended at any time?, i must have said that thousands of times during my career, and i wont go into some of the answers, but i would have loved to have said it say in French, or Italian, i love the accents and the way the words curl almost as they are spoke. not like my broad mancunian accent, god bless manchester.
Anyway i had resided myself to the fact i was always going to be a one language woman, as i couldnt pronounce the words properly, my sounds didnt curl up and trip lightly from my lips, my french and spanish teachers both i remember, used to get cross with me, or so it seemed to me, or was that me cross with them for making me sound and look like an idiot in front of the whole college class, pretty humiliating stuff, well it was to me, haha i was the worst.
I am learning the Australian Auslan, exclusive to the ozzies deaf community, not all of them use it, but some do, and i am going to be one of them to, So here i am now embarking on a new path with regards to my language skills, sign language, you know the one, the woman or man at the bottom of the screen on late night tv, the ones who look like their having a MINT time, in the corner of the tele.
I used to think that deaf people must just not watch any tv all day, and then just watch at night, i wonder why they only had signing sometimes, maybe there wasnt enough interpreters to cover the programs, they used to have it some of the music shows late hour, so you would have bobby brown " u cant touch this" and then some dude doing the signs to it and bopping about in his coloured corner. Also its funny i used to like watching channels and having the teletext on, you know, the words printed acorss the screen as its being said, funny things like (hums a tune) and things like that, i used to miss words, and not know what was going on, and so with text that didnt happen.
When i first discovered teletext, you know that must have been the beginning of internet, i discovered that each of the tv channels had another hidden channel if only you would press the lined button that looks like a lined tv on your remote, it would take you to another world, pages of news, and weather reports, i liked this feature, also on channel 4 there was a weekly quiz that was called Bamboozle that was always really hard, but my 1st taste of interactive tv.
I got onto the teletext via my nan, you see she knew about the feature of flight arrival times, and would check them on there before she left for the airport, what a great service, i wonder if theres still that facility what with sky and cable and freeview, you cant access teletext through there, i wonder what happened to the people who used to put it together, i wonder if they progressed to interweb?
Sorry about the tangent spurt there, back to signing, so yes, i am learning the Art of sign language, and i am loving it so far, im finding it really quite easy to pick up, of course im only doing basic basic, but how else do you learn, and afterall i was only doing basic basic in spanish class and that was a trying and hard time, so for this to be quite easy, i dont want to jinx my self, but i think im going to be really good at it.
Someone once told me a year or so ago, i was going to learn another language, now belive this if you want to or not, but someone told me that i was going to learn another language, and it would be like i had done it before, as though i already knew it, i didnt think much of her comments at the time, as the memory of french came into play. But yeah she told me i would and now i am. I got interested in it through hearing about Baby signing, which is using basic signs to communicate with pre verbal babies, fascinating stuff i thought, so on finding out more through the internet, i didnt have a baby to take to signing class, so it thought i will do a course on it and learn it for when i do have pre verbal babies.
You need to be good with your hands and expressions on your face, turns out i have a knack for it, and didnt realise....
(Me and my very good friend Sarah Mac, were once doing a quiz, i cant remember what it was in, but one of my self help, discover yourself type articles, ah thats right, Pyschology magazine, one of the questions went something like "which situation would be more uncomfortable to fnd youself in? a) having to walk into a room full of strangers, b) having to walk up to someone and make conversation c) having to give a speech in public d) or having to talk with your hands behind your back
same as you, i thought, what kind of an answer is the last one, and picked c) as my answer, and sarah mentioned straight away that she imagined i would have said d) for sure, i found this funny as i didnt even understand the answer.
she was like yeah, you talk with your hands all the time, and i had never noticed but apparently im Very expressive with my hands, it was so natural i hadnt even noticed.
The next couple of weeks, differant things happened, to make me see it was something i did, example, my other mate steph said to me, " i was at home with my sister, and i was talking, and she said you jst did that thing with your hand that sam does" and i was like "what thing? ", and she said "that thing you do with your hands when you talk", this freaked me out.
Again i hadnt noticed, then i was telling my bro and he said "yeah you do, do that", like everyone knew apart from me.....anyway who knew, but this natural way of mine to use my hands, is going to come in very handy excuse the unintended pun, that was total coincidence.
As well i also have been known for my expression ful face, always one to give away my true feelings just by looking at my face, hmm i didnt realise but some people in my class find it difficult to do facial expressions, its easy for me, but some people not used to moving facial muscles or something, like stone faces, ahah, no not really but again the face pulling to sign a question, or to register say emotion like surprise, its all very important, like the wrong facial expression can mean the differance in being understood or not.
I think thats why im finding it quite easy to do, as im already naturally so well equipped, to be called upon to help in a time when communication barriers have gone up!
Its exciting to think im becoming one of those people.
No comments:
Post a Comment