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wrote:

Some posted:
> > > Anyway, back to Thanks in part to thefracturing of Americia, I find
> > > folks who come over the boarder today are not as interested in learning
> > > the new toung... Many of them make no effort to learn english at all

I'm impressed with those whose native language is not even the
English/Roman alphabet and who speak English tolerably and read and
write it well enough to publish in scientific journals. I see this
often with Chinese, Vietnamese, and Korean immigrants. I'm sure there
are others.

The difference between Spanish and English is comparatively small
compared to Chinese and English, so something else must be the matter.

> They are? Uh, and just where is this may I ask? I have always found
> that Quebec Gov't documents in English tend to be much better written
> than the corresponding English language docs from the Ontario Gov't.
>
> >It was very annoying when a young Quebec man,
> > working as farm hand (many come to Ontario in the summer for that) came
> > into our store and couldn't or wouldn't speak English. I couldn't
> > understand what he was asking for and he ended up leaving without buying
> > anything. Waiting in line behind him was a European man, who came to
> > Canada only 5 years before, commented how shameful it was that someone
> > born in this country didn't bother to learn the main language.
> > ...Sharon
>
> Of course, your French is fluent enough that you have no problem when
> you are vacationing in the Lac St. Jean region of Canada? Or around
> Boniface?
> John Kane, Kingston ON Canada

French and English are not that far apart. If I had to buy some
essentials, how difficult would it be to look them up in a dictionary?
As for phrases, there are now $20 palm things that do translations on
the spot. But for the basic language, 100 words on a sheet of paper
would get one rather far. One tiny pocket French-English dictionary
should suffice, for a few dollars.

I do speak French a bit now but I did not have any problems in France
even when my French was not yet up to par. Now my inflections and
cadence of phrases are pretty good and that carries one quite some
distance, even if the words are not 100% correct.