It has been a while. Last time I wrote I had been lost in the ¨mini-ghetto¨ of Amsterdam, luckily nothing dramatic. When you know the lingo.....you can get anywhere ;)
Since last time a lot has happened in my life. First of all I am moving again and secondly I am looking for a new job as well. The advantage I do have is that I speak several languages and in that sense it is easier to get a job. When I was a young student in the age of 10-16 I was not really good in English and I sure was not fluent in any way. I had never heard of the Netherlands and I did not know one single word of Dutch either.
The first time I heard Dutch I must have been 18 years old! I remember thinking it was very funny to hear my classmate which had Dutch parents speak with his mother on the phone. I almost peed my mountain pants because I was laughing so hard. It was the strangest language I had ever heard except for the ¨click-clock-clack¨ language somewhere in Africa. My classmate must have found me so annoying, I would have never expected to end up in the Netherlands , let alone speak the language like I do now at this age.
It is funny how knowing a language can make you feel better, more included and certainly more able to cope with and understand a new culture. In the past I saw it as a necessary to learn different dialects and languages and now I see it as a window to a culture's history, a tab that distinguish where a person comes from. As a young girl I loved playing characters and to make a different dialect for them, it was a game and maybe even an escape from a small-town between two big mountains at the end of a fjord. I could be someone else for a second , somewhere else and if not in person then at least in spirit. I would dream of traveling to distant lands where I saw new things and learned new words. I dreamt of many things, but most always ended with me heading off to a new horizon or planning my next great adventure.
A lot has changed and my dreams have been chased and has brought me both a lot of sadness yet also great joy and wisdom on the way. I now know 4 languages pretty well, I speak and write Dutch and my English is better than I could have hoped for. Many people do not see the importance of learning more than one language, yet I truly believe that this is one of the subjects schools should focus more on. Why? The youth of today goes global, beyond the boarders of home to study or work. History, social studies and language are probably the subjects I have used the most in my life and I know of many others that have done the same.
The world is becoming one big melting pot of cultures and people, to better understand one another there is a need for more focus on education that prepare us for this. Especially in Norway I think we should be more open to these factors. Our country is not immune to changes, we can either progress and be flexible or stand tall and strong and get broken by that thing called...oh what was it ? oh yes the FUTURE! ;)
All I know is that for me, it mattered that I had a lot of English at school and that I went to England for 3 years and that I ended up in the Netherlands and had an awesome tutor to help me learn Dutch. It might be hard at first but learning a new language is worth every hour in the study room.
xAnnie
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