Multi-lingual

One thing I love about living in So. Cal. is hearing languages other than English. And it always amazes me how versatile people here are with languages. In the Armenian grocery store, the check-out clerk automatically speaks perfect English with me, switching to Armenian for the next customer. At work, the programmer who sits two desks in front of me switches mid-sentence between Tagalog and English with whomever he's speaking on the phone. In fact, there's maybe one native English speaker in the IT group that's adjacent to our department. We hear Chinese, Hindi, Armenian, Farsi, Tagalog, as well as English spoken in a variety of accents. On the bus, old women chatter in Chinese throwing in English phrases occasionally. Every Sunday, I play for a church service held in Spanish. Now, if only I could speak fluently something besides English.

[3/28/03 Edit: Today in a coffee shop while waiting to place my order, I stood behind three Ethiopian men speaking Amharic.]