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To: Paradox
Arnot speaks Arabic? Man, this guy must be some genius.

Linda Vester on Fox speaks Farsi, I've heard her do so on the air. Not bad, either one of them!

71 posted on 04/02/2003 10:58:00 PM PST by texasbluebell
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To: texasbluebell; Paradox
Linda Vester on Fox speaks Farsi, I've heard her do so on the air. Not bad, either one of them!

The only thing it takes to learn a language - the ONLY thing - is time. Being 5 years old or younger helps a bit, but it's pretty much an urban legend that it's impossible to learn a foreign language fluently unless you do it as a kid. As long as you have the time and money to be embedded - "immersed" is the general term teachers use - in a foreign country for a month or more and are willing to completely give up the use of English and live and interact with people only in their language, you can pick up anything, from something as similar as French to languages as strange as Arabic or Japanese.

I've been very impressed with Arnot's reporting throughout the war, but please don't think that because someone else speaks a second language - or even five or six - that they're automatically smarter than you are. One (admittedly lame) example: Celine Dion never learned English until she was 21, and she barely even has an accent, much less is any less fluent than any of us.

163 posted on 04/02/2003 11:11:25 PM PST by Timesink (When was the last time YOU remembered we're on Code Orange?)
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