I started with greeting a couple men in Yoruba and they gave me a few new words. They were quite happy to help me with greetings and switched from being self-involved with each other to both trying to teach me new words.
Then an elderly Indian man (from the state of Punjab) came in and I asked him how to say a phrase, and he helped me. And I thanked him by saying "denny wad Uncle-gee". He about fell over! Now to say thank you to a guy around my age, you say, "denny wad pa-gee" (brother), but for older folks, it's "Auntie-gee" or "Uncle-gee". I never get tired of the reaction when surprising people with the sound of their own language.
Yes. I could have just ordered in English but I really wanted to try to order in Vietnamese, but I actually don't speak any Vietnamese except for "di di mow" (hurry up really fast). But I will tell you the story of how I did it tomorrow -- using the LAMP method - Language Acquisition Made Practical.
In the course of the day, I greeting a man in Persian, and another in Italian. I spoke with 2 different guys in Spanish, and to 2 women -- one in Mandarin and the other in Cantonese. I greeted a man from Winnipeg in French (it's his first language), and I start with "Ça va" and went from there. From now on I will be conversing with him in French -- with his help, of course.
I always keep my car radio tuned to CBC French radio so I can learn new words and work on my accent. It really helps and it's free! Of course the news is a lot easier to understand than the talk shows -- but one day I will be completely fluent, like my father, whose first language was Quebecois French, but he wasn't able to pass it on.
You don't have be fluent to speak with people -- you just have to know a couple words to get started. I speak several languages deeply, a couple conversationally, and phrases and greetings in several more. If you love people and want to communicate with them, learning a language becomes a lot easier.
So today, my languages were Yoruba, Punjabi, Spanish, Cantonese, Mandarin, Vietnamese, Italian and Farsi.
How many languages did you try today?