HI , everybody
There is one strange thing that happen in Spain. Few people speak a foreigner language. If you go to Germany or to other country in center Europe you can find many people who speak mainly English, but here in Spain only the youngest people are able to talk in English.
What happen?
For example all my life When i was a Child I studied french, and now I am not able to speak french.Maybe the education system in Spain is not good enough.
rsolismfp
Most English speaking people in Canada who study French in school are not able to speak French when they graduate.
We would like more English speaking Canadians and Spanish people to get on LingQ.
Hi Rasana, you wrote a couple of days ago about the crises in Russia, and mentioned that, unlike the neighboring regions, in Magnitagorsk it is now getting better. Interesting.
The neighboring regions that you have mentioned seem to be mostly “oil-driven”. Magnitogorsk is clearly “steel driven”. The export of steel from Russia is still going down, isn’t it? So it must be the increased demand for steel inRussia that drives the positive changes in Magnitogorsk. Can it be the increased demand from the military industry?
Just do not tell the State Secrets or you will be sentenced.
I travel on the bus to town to shop each week. On most journeys I get talking to a complete stranger, usually a little old lady, and usually about our children
Helen, it reminds me one occurrence. I went home by bus. There was a little pretty girl, so I watched how this girl played. But her granny watched me… I thought that this old lady did not like that I watched on her grandchild, so I stared at window. But the old lady continued looking at me. And then she asked me if I am a daugher of (name of my father) and (name of my mother)! This old lady had never seen me before. I still don’t know who she is. She just asked me to say “Hello!” to my parents from her.
Ilya,
it is because of the state support, of course. But the state order is gas tubing. Before “the gas crisis” on January, the major part of gas tubing was exported from Ukraine. Now it was decided do not have deals with Ukraine.
I hope it is not a state secret, that Russia and Ukraine are not in a very good terms with each other now…
Thank you Rasana, It was intersting to find out.
No it is not a State Secret (about Russia and Ukraine). Sleep in peace. Or is it morning already?
It is early morning - 7am. I will go to work soon.
Some minutes ago I thought, I didn’t do a lot this week. And it is true, that I studies only 1 or 2 articles this week. But then I thought, I did a lot of other things:
This week heard a lot of English and French with my MP3 player.
I spoke 3 times with my tutors in English.
I submitted a long writing in English.
And I studied the conversation and writing reports.
Not to forget the LingQ of the day emails, that I used to learn my Lingqs.
Maybe I wasn’t as lazy as I thought.
One of our members couldn’t find this chat in English.
Yes I saw, here is long time nothing written!
I will tell you that in Germany spring is coming. All over we can see flowers growing and blooming and the fruit trees get the first green buds.
Yesterday the first frog was to see jumping in our little pond and an lizard was lying on a stone.
I have a Magnolia in my garden. It was plented four years ago and in each year it has only leaves. In this year it has flowers. I am really happy!
Hi there,
Irene told me about this chat. I just flew through the comments, weather, books, politics and all. At the moment I’m on grandmother duty in a very small Spa town in OdBavaria where you greet everybody you meet, friend or foe, with “Grüß Gott”, which the natives abbreviate to “Grü Go”. A habit not known in my small home town in England. There we sometimes don’t even know our neighbours. You wrote about books and reading habits. I tend to read everything that comes along, although sometimes I find the more demanding content a challenge these days. At the moment, I’ve got a book about the role of the tulip in Europe’s economy waiting for me at home. Here in Germany I’m reading a couple of thrillers by Kate Atkinson and have found a copy with dual Greek-German text of Homer’s Odysee in a local junk shop. It’s wonderful to delve into the German verses from time to time, my ancient Greek is non-existent. The sun is out again, the snow is melting slowly and the motorbikes are roaring up and down the Jochstrasse, the bikers’ favourite route, full of hairpin bends right up to the top of the Oberjoch. In the autumn they have a classic car race on that stretch, it’s absolutely amazing to watch if one can stomach the noise and forget the damage done to the environment by all those exhaust fumes. My daughter has just made lunch, I’d better attend. Have a nice afternoon.
Unfortunately it is really seldom that members are writing here - I don’t know why.
The more I am happy that Sanne has written. I think it is a good opportunity for learning too even more since we have the Check spelling here. Only, my fighting with the tenses and word order cannot be recognized with this Check 
But I think, better to do this with mistakes than not.
Your telling, Sanne, from the Oberjoch reminds me on an experience I had when I was in Oberstaufen with my son, some years ago.
It was not a nice day and we had to tramp through a really deep and wet snow. I don’t remember the name of the mountain we walked.
We were alone on our way, no other walkers were to see for miles around.
But then, when we were on the highest point, another couple came from the other site to the peak.
We greeted friendly each other and I said to the man “I think, I know you, where are you coming from?”
“Oh no” he said, it is a small city where we are from, not well known."
“Can you tell me the name?” I asked.
He said the name and it was the small city from where we were coming. We laughed all.
You can see how small the world is.