Re: hobby electronics

On 03/07/2024 13:20, Jan Panteltje wrote:

I started learning French here ik kindergarten in the late forties..
Do English ever learn French? German?

Yes but far too late to be much use. Since Brexit there is even less teaching of modern languages. English people have now become as lazy as Americans and so expect everyone to speak English. My 1970's state secondary school had a language lab with tape recorders and headsets for everybody and taught French, German, Spanish, Greek & Latin.
Everybody did French at first. Those that had done it at primary school had a massive head start which we never regained. If you were any good at it you could choose Latin or Greek. I chose Latin. I found I was much better at ancient languages that didn't require speaking them!
Most educated Dutch or Swiss people I have encountered are fluent in at least three languages. I had one intern from U Twente who was brilliant.
I learned some Russian at university too (for reading scientific papers) and then later Japanese by immersion in Japan. In Belgium my Flemish was just about good enough to get by - my wife's was better.
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Martin Brown