My Best Advice
Tonight I experienced something I have been anticipating for quite some time. Tonight, I SPOKE Norwegian.
I know what many of you are thinking...Is this guy kidding me, he's lived there for 3 years, of course he should speak the language. Let me explain.
Most young Norwegians speak English if not fluently, enough where they are not hindered to have a conversation. They begin learning at an early age, 10 or so, and are inundated with bits of it throughout thier lives. Most American T.V. programs are in English with Norwegian subtitles and many of the foreign companies and pop culture bring with it English terms. Norway is a small country that is forced to adapt to the larger infiltrations of other economies. Essentially, they are a country of camelions.
Now Norway is also a country that has a large influx of immigrants, mostly from the middle east. Because I am American I write mostly to Americans. Thus I try to raise issues that many Americans don't realize...When we bomb a country (justified or not, I really don't care) people flee that country. Obviousley people flee countries for other reasons as well, injustice, poverty, political persecution, etc...when they flee they look at a list at of many countries and weigh their options.
Norway is small, it has a lot of oil thus a lot of income resulting in a high standard of living. It is a socialist economy which means it has a large welfare system. To someone who has nothing including education this is appealing. They think to themselves, 'hey, I can be taken care of there'. So they pack their bags and show up on our front door.
The Norwegian mentality of one of guilt. If we didn't have oil we would be like a lot of other small nameless countries with little to offer the world's economy and we know it. Thus we are aware of people's problems. We would feel bad passing over someone struggling to have a better life. The result is we have hard time saying no to them when they want a slice of our life.
The bottom line, we get all the people who don't want to get bombed by the U.S. They then use our resources and live off of our oil resulting in a higher price of oil...that means you pay more to drive to work. The lesson...don't bomb people!
On another level, American's don't realize it yet because they have always sat on top. However, when push comes to shove American companies react to the market and will go where prices are best. The last election a big issue was outsourcing. Americans complain that too many jobs are moving overseas because they work for peanuts. What many of them don't realize is that the very essence of their capitalistic freedom is why these companies move.
If you want to live in a world based on competition and individual freedom which is what America is, the learn to strive in that environment. This in essence requires a person to adapt and reinvent themselves.
I had spanish class for 4 years in high school and I can't have a simple conversation in spanish. I was a lazy bastard. However, if I had applied myself and worked at using it I would be in a much better position than I am today. Not only would I have another language under my belt, but I would have been able to understand 'how to learn a new language'. Thus enabling me to reinvent myself over and over. Spanish would have opened a door to french and Italian, 2 languages I wish I new now. I had taken German I would have had a much easier time learning Norwegian, a Germanic language.
The bottom line is that to live in a country that requires adaption and reinvention one must never cease establishing new ways of keeping up with the Jones', and a lot of that means being able to communicate with them.
Lastly, I don't recommend that a person be able to read Tolstoy in 3 languages. That isn't the gist. English is the modern day Latin and most people have a grip on it enough to do business. But when it comes time for a consumer to purchase or a boss to hire, if you can at the very least display an effort to show that you are willing to expose yourself to cross cultural communication...you will get the nod over the other guy.
For most of you it is too late...but for your kids sake, put them in a foreign language class now! and make it spanish or chinese....they're gonna need it!
Ciao, ha det, hasta la vista, sayonara,
aj
I know what many of you are thinking...Is this guy kidding me, he's lived there for 3 years, of course he should speak the language. Let me explain.
Most young Norwegians speak English if not fluently, enough where they are not hindered to have a conversation. They begin learning at an early age, 10 or so, and are inundated with bits of it throughout thier lives. Most American T.V. programs are in English with Norwegian subtitles and many of the foreign companies and pop culture bring with it English terms. Norway is a small country that is forced to adapt to the larger infiltrations of other economies. Essentially, they are a country of camelions.
Now Norway is also a country that has a large influx of immigrants, mostly from the middle east. Because I am American I write mostly to Americans. Thus I try to raise issues that many Americans don't realize...When we bomb a country (justified or not, I really don't care) people flee that country. Obviousley people flee countries for other reasons as well, injustice, poverty, political persecution, etc...when they flee they look at a list at of many countries and weigh their options.
Norway is small, it has a lot of oil thus a lot of income resulting in a high standard of living. It is a socialist economy which means it has a large welfare system. To someone who has nothing including education this is appealing. They think to themselves, 'hey, I can be taken care of there'. So they pack their bags and show up on our front door.
The Norwegian mentality of one of guilt. If we didn't have oil we would be like a lot of other small nameless countries with little to offer the world's economy and we know it. Thus we are aware of people's problems. We would feel bad passing over someone struggling to have a better life. The result is we have hard time saying no to them when they want a slice of our life.
The bottom line, we get all the people who don't want to get bombed by the U.S. They then use our resources and live off of our oil resulting in a higher price of oil...that means you pay more to drive to work. The lesson...don't bomb people!
On another level, American's don't realize it yet because they have always sat on top. However, when push comes to shove American companies react to the market and will go where prices are best. The last election a big issue was outsourcing. Americans complain that too many jobs are moving overseas because they work for peanuts. What many of them don't realize is that the very essence of their capitalistic freedom is why these companies move.
If you want to live in a world based on competition and individual freedom which is what America is, the learn to strive in that environment. This in essence requires a person to adapt and reinvent themselves.
I had spanish class for 4 years in high school and I can't have a simple conversation in spanish. I was a lazy bastard. However, if I had applied myself and worked at using it I would be in a much better position than I am today. Not only would I have another language under my belt, but I would have been able to understand 'how to learn a new language'. Thus enabling me to reinvent myself over and over. Spanish would have opened a door to french and Italian, 2 languages I wish I new now. I had taken German I would have had a much easier time learning Norwegian, a Germanic language.
The bottom line is that to live in a country that requires adaption and reinvention one must never cease establishing new ways of keeping up with the Jones', and a lot of that means being able to communicate with them.
Lastly, I don't recommend that a person be able to read Tolstoy in 3 languages. That isn't the gist. English is the modern day Latin and most people have a grip on it enough to do business. But when it comes time for a consumer to purchase or a boss to hire, if you can at the very least display an effort to show that you are willing to expose yourself to cross cultural communication...you will get the nod over the other guy.
For most of you it is too late...but for your kids sake, put them in a foreign language class now! and make it spanish or chinese....they're gonna need it!
Ciao, ha det, hasta la vista, sayonara,
aj
posted by Andy Johnson at 1:15 AM
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