How often have you heard people say, "I never was any good with foreign languages!" But any of us who read a lot or listen a lot, know lots of foreign words and phrases as part of our own language.
Consider the following:
Oui, non, savoir faire, coup d'état, menu, restaurant, merci beaucoup, la plume de ma tante, père, mère, soirée, bon jour, monsieur, madame, mademoiselle, garçon, parlez vous français
Si, gracias, señor, señora, señorita, taco, burrito, chili, sombrero, serape, fiesta, siesta, madre, padre, muchacho, muchacha, piñata, guerrilla, mesa
Ja, nein, Blitzkrieg, danke, sprechen sie Deutsch, guten morgen, auf Wiedersehen, angst
Da, nyet, troika, glasnost, perestroika, tsar, soviet, sputnik, vodka, tundra
Smörgåsbord, fjörd, tack, Viking, ski, lingon, orienteering, ombudsman, moped
Judo, karate, karaoke, sumo, sushi, tofu, miso, manga, sake, kimono, samurai, futon, tsunami
Si, no, italiano, spaghetti, opera, pasta, forte, piano, ciao, arrivederci, buon giorno, vino
I bet you know over 90% of these words and can identify each of the groups.
Interestingly, Apple's TextEdit only flagged five words as not in its dictionary; these were burrito, chili, serape, nyet, and fjörd. TextEdit was happy when I spelled fjörd as fjord. In fact, TextEdit insisted on changing it as I typed. Microsoft's Word is a bit fussier; it didn't recognize any of the words that contained diacritical marks, like in garçon, señor, and smörgåsbord.
See, you're also smarter than a computer. You could recognize all the words.
Next time somebody says they have never been good at whatever, reply that they just haven't spent enough time and interest learning that whatever.
Ciao, amici miei!
