Sputterduck
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Posts posted by Sputterduck
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Paula Deen is on tv in Mexico on Varivision making vegetable soup with big chunks of veggies. Maybe she is changing.
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Praying for you!
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I am not a jammies person during the day but there is no way I shower everyday. I find it dries my skin and I think it wastes water. Daily showers are totally not essential. If people make that choice, fine, but it is not gross to choose something else.
They are for some people. Like me. I get really itchy if I don't. Like horrible crazy bad itchy. Also, I get body acne if I don't.
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Ds2 was still sleeping at 10am this morning, so I opened the door to check to make sure he was okay, and the stupid creaking/creaking/booming door :cursing: woke him up out of a light sleep. He doesn't do it very often, so when he does sleep in, I let him.
I WISH ds5 would sleep in, but nope, he's a early riser morning bird who acts like he's starving when he wakes up. But thankfully he's gotten better at not waking up his little brother (they sleep in a bunk bed.)
WD40! It'll fix that.
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Across the road from my office in Taipei there was a breakfast place that had huge vats of warm sweetened soy milk which people bought for breakfast.
Laura
My Korean-born ex-MIL used to make homemade soymilk for my exH when he was a child.
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At 6 my son went to bed at 7 and woke up at 7.
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Every single person who voted is wrong. It's Nutella! Nutella is *always*right.
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I'm an awful morning person. So, it's kinda whenever mama is functional. When I wake up, my eyes are dry and blurry, I'm dizzy, my muscles are stiff, my thinking is cloudy, and my throat is dry, and it takes awhile for these things to go away.
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That's not fair! I wanted to vote for Nutella but I also wanted to put in my real answer! :( Too many tempting options.
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We shower before dinner. Why? Well, we have a sick mange and staph infected puppy that we take care of right before then. We kinda have to shower after that. We only get dressed in regular clothes when it's time to leave the house, after getting school done, unless people are coming over. Regular clothes are just too cold for around the house here right now. Fluffy pj's under a big fluffy robe with big fluffy socks are what keep me sane.
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Other.
I think I've only woken my son up 3 times in his life. He gets up around 6am. If he's exhausted himself somehow the day before, he'll get up no later than 7:30. If he is asleep past that, it is guaranteed that he is sick and so I won't wake him up.
The handful of times I've woken him up it has been because we needed to get going somewhere extremely early in the morning. He's HILARIOUS when you wake him up. He stands straight up on his bed and starts talking a mile a minute. I wish I was such a morning person. *sigh*
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Awwww. I hate that they grow up so fast.
Happy Birthday to your son!
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Mine is an angel after he gets in trouble. It makes me much calmer when he does get in trouble because I know things will be very peaceful for awhile.
Sometimes, though, kids testing their boundaries need to run a particular test multiple times. Totally normal. :)
Remember, it's their job to test their limits and it's your job to say, "Yes. This is a hard limit and you are not allowed to cross it."
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Oh definitely!!!!
In high school, I was friends with an exchange student from the Czech Republic and he would keep a tablet handy and write down all these phrases he didn't understand and ask me what they meant in History class. :lol: He would go down the list, I would explain it, he would make notes in Czech (?) and check it off, LOL!!
"What does it mean, when people say, 'What up dog'?"
"What is this, homeslice?"
"What is a- yonder"?
Yep. I suppose we don't make sense.
For example, "What up dog?" First of all, "What's up?" doesn't really make sense. When we say that are we really referring to anything being up? What's happening? How are you? We mean those things. We are not actually asking about what is up. What's up? The sky. Clouds. The sun. What does that have to do with what the question really means? Nothing.
Then there is "dog". Why would we want to call someone a dog? :lol:
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I don't have an account and I don't see them. Where on the page do they pop up? Maybe I'm just blind and missing them.
I only see the buttons if I am signed in *and* on America's google. Maybe they're rolling them out for certain populations at a time.
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I don't live in a Spanish-speaking country, but I know what you mean about strange sayings. My sister's BIL is from Puerto Rico and says "Don't throw a house by a window" :lol:
They all looked at him like he was nuts. I guess what he was trying to say was "Don't throw a rock in a glass house". I don't know why he thought he conveyed his message clearly, though.
Oi. Imagine living in a place where everyone says things like that! And then imagine trying to follow a conversation there.
I wonder... do people feel that way when they move to America? Do we make no sense? :lol:
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91 or 92 we had Prodigy. I was 11 or 12. I can't remember what I did so much other than play Gemstone III a text based game.
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And, Ester Maria, the funny thing about your fluency list is that I know a lot of native English speakers that wouldn't qualify as C2 in English. Sad, huh?
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This thread makes me want to come out of the closet, I love foreign languages, which is unfortunate, because I don't have much aptitude. I would absolutely love for my kids to become fluent in Arabic, Chinese, French, and Spanish eventually. For now, we are studying Chinese and Spanish. I am conversational in Spanish, but it has been ten years of work to achieve that, and complete fluency alludes me. For now, I will settle for teaching them the rudiments of each language. In my dreamland, we would be able to spend a year traveling and immerse in each language for 3 months. I have a good friend who was brought up bilingual (in Gujurati and English), and is able to pick up languages at the drop of a hat. She thinks early language training is the key to her easy fluency. Thanks for the resources for Chinese and Arabic.
You need to spend more than 3 months immersion in each language in your dreamland. :tongue_smilie: I've been in Mexico for 2 years. What really causes me trouble are the concepts that are just phrased in ways that make zero sense to an English speaker. There seem to be an infinite number of those things. And all the strange sayings. They says things to the effect of "Well, you know trees aren't made of tin." That's not a real example. I can't think of any real examples right now because they make so little sense that they don't stick in my brain. I'm always going :confused: when people say things like that. People are always patient and willing to explain what they mean, too. They'll saythings like, "Trees are wood, not metal, so you can see how that applies to bad drivers." :confused: Sometimes I wonder if they are messing with me.
I can memorize endless grammatical concepts and vocabulary lists when I put my mind to it. That doesn't help much with understanding the language after a certain point. :glare:
The worst thing is that I'm always asking why and everyone tells me that is "so American". :001_huh: How can I apply something I learn to a new situations if I don't know the whys behind something? :confused: "It just is." they say. BUT WHY? Why???
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OK, someone please tell me that I am not the only person reading this thread who felt just fine before opening it, but now feels like a Complete and Total Loser.
I mean, ds did several months of Rosetta Stone Spanish a few years ago (maybe more than a few years ago? I don't even remember.:blush:) We also have Muzzy French in VHS out in the garage. Somewhere out there... It's probably with the BJU French stuff that came in the 7th grade package from last year, so at least it's not lonely.
I bought a couple of different Latin programs, as well as things like English from the Roots Up, but they weren't that helpful because we never actually used them. I am, however, hoping to get partial credit for the Latin stuff because I took it out of the package and almost watched one of the DVDS one afternoon. :rolleyes:
And That's It.
Give me an L, give me an O, give me an S-E-R. LOSER. :glare:
I guess we really need to step up and get moving on our language program.
But really. I can't be the only one whose kid isn't up to speed on multiple languages, can I?
And in case you were wondering, this is where a lot of people should immediately chime in and say no. (OK, maybe a few people can gloat a little about how advanced their kid is in foreign languages compared to mine, but only a few and only a little. ;)
You're OKAY. Different people have different priorities for very legitimate reasons. Recognize that people who do emphasize foreign languages will flock to this thread and those that don't will generally ignore it. Some people live internationally, have multilingual households, have kids who want professions that require a person to be multilingual, etc. I betcha people in those positions are in the minority here and just over-represented in this particular thread. It's no reflection on you. :001_smile:
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which I am not sure can be said about *me*
I would never have known you weren't a native English speaker if you had never said so. Don't be too hard on yourself. I would seriously have never known.
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I am with Mrs. Mungo on this. Because we are saved, we want to do good. But I really liked C.S. Lewis's explanation in Mere Christianity. His view is that we all have different temptations, temperaments, and abilities. God looks to us in our entirety. So someone born with a quick temperament and raised in a bad environment may be doing God's work by simply controlling his temper. On the other hand, maybe someone blessed with lots of ability and a good temperament is called to do a lot more for God.
This is true. I didn't understand the dissonance of my neighbor calling himself Christian with the way he acts. Then my friend told me how he was before he was a Christian. :001_huh: He may act terribly and be an overall terrible person, but he has apparently improved greatly since becoming acquainted with God. He is doing great based on where he is coming from. He is actually trying and changing because God woke him up to the idea of right and wrong. Still, I hope nobody judges Christianity by him.
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If we don't meet His expectations and don't obey his commands, will be still be right with God and get into heaven?
Nobody manages to get through life without falling short of His expectations. Except for Jesus, of course.
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"What are your expectations for your kids, concerning foreign languages?"
I expect my son to be fluent in English and Spanish.
I expect him to be very good at Latin.
I expect him to be decent at Greek and Hebrew and able to have a reasonable conversation in Hebrew.
"What are your kids' actual accomplishments/skills?"
So far he is fluent in English and can converse to some degree in Spanish. He has a good sized vocabulary in Latin. He can read Hebrew. He has no Greek whatsoever so far. He's only 7, so I think we're on track enough.
"What do you think is the bare minimum for foreign language studies?"
I would say a goal of being nearly fluent is important because, otherwise, what is the point? There has to be some sort of practical value. If you can't actually converse with native speakers in the end, you might as well spend your time on something else. That's my thoughts on my family. I don't care if another parent thinks the study alone is worth it, just for the mental exercise. I can see the point of that. But after spending 10 years in Spanish class and moving to Mexico and finding out I know basically nothing, I have the opinion I have. :) I wish they'd have bothered to give me real skill and not just wasted my time for 10 years.
"What are your thoughts on when to start foreign language study?"
ASAP. The younger the better!
"How important do you think foreign language studies are?"
Foreign language is non-negotiable here. Of course, my son has to be able to get along on a practical level because his native language isn't the native language here.
"How do you select which language(s) your kid(s) will study?"
Spanish because we live in Mexico. Latin because Latin ROCKS. Hebrew and Greek so that my son has the capability of reading the oldest Biblical texts available. This became extremely important to me upon leaving the JWs. I didn't trust others to translate for me anymore. I went to a synagogue to learn Hebrew and got myself a Greek tutor. I want my son to have the skills to avoid the situation I was in.
"What degree of fluency do you expect/aim for?"
I aim for total fluency. Why not shoot for the stars, right?
Talk to me about foreign languages
in General Education Discussion Board
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What a lovely example of a phrase that makes no sense! :lol: