To kill time, I now use to review my French language course note in MRT (Metro in Taipei). Today, on the way home, I was as usual digging myself in the notes, murmuring "je parle, tu parles, je prends, tu prends, il prend..."
Suddenly, I heard a male voice floating over my head and reading my note word by word aloud,
"je parles français, bien sûr, et aussi espangnd et un peu allemand..."
I raised my head, looking surprised and confused. An European man smiled at me and pointed at my note, reading the above sentence to me word by word again.
"Tu es français?" (totally forgot using "vous"... je ne suis pas polit :-p)
"Non, je suis Hollande."
"Quelle langue est-ce que tu parle?" ("tu" again... not polite... I know...)
"Je parle français, hollande, anglais, et allemand." (wow... so many languages)
"Tu parle chinois?"
"muei hiang" (gosh!)
"Tu parle taiwanese!
...
He then told me all the way in French and sometimes using body language (due to my current poor French, bien sur) that he and his Taiwanese wife have been living in BanQiao, Taipei for 7 years. His wife also speaks French so they usually communciate in mixed French and English... I felt amazed about his language talents and happy to find my making progress in French language listening... We talked and talked and when I realised, I had missed the stop, Taipei Train Station, I should get off... :-p
merci beaucoup, mon prefesseur de français dans la métro!
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I usually study languages using public transport ! Welcome to our club , dear Yu Wen !
Here , I go on wiht " sranan tongo " wich is the popular "lingua franca " of Surinam inclusive people living along the Maroni river ( the bushinengue : negreo of the bush) .Not easy , especially because of the linguistic appropiation of a mixture of européen languages by Africans people using Afican syntaxis and way of communication.See you soon Yu Wen .....Miti yu gaw gaw !
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