While I was at the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs, I took up French for two years and a few months of Spanish to reinforce the basics I learned at the University. Years after getting familiar with UN's major languages, I took Nihongo only for conversation purposes when I had my training there. Isn't that cool?
The irony, I'd say, in this learning foreign languages is that we seldom get to immerse ourselves in the countries where these are considered their mother tongue. My friend, took French and Bahasa Indonesia for her graduate course in Asian Studies but got posted in Russia. Some took Mandarin and are sent to the US. Neat.
Now, my kids are taking Mandarin as part of school curriculum and I barely know it! So my son is asking me to help him write Chinese Characters with strokes that are so strange to me! Talk about speaking in different tongues. The school maybe thought of how China is shaping the future and they might as welll prepare the students to take advantage of its market going in rapid progress with the globalization (and the Olympics fever in 2008) even if my kids' school is not Chinese at all!
Well, this means I have to ride the tide and learn Mandarin, too.
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