Yoruba for Breakfast - Punjabi at Midnight

I live in one of the best cities in the world. Vancouver has actually been voted the Most Liveable City in the world, but if you want to learn and practice other languages, this is a superb location!

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.

My wife wanted ba-le (Vietnamese sub sandwiches) for lunch. If you're not familiar with the ba-le, it's a sandwich with meats, pickled carrot and daikon strips, mayonnaise, hot pepper, cilantro, fresh cucumber slices -- all on a fresh baked French baguette. It's especially nice when it's hot and toasty, but it's not necessary.

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?