When I was but a wee lassie, we moved to the other side of the world. To a land where none of us could understand the lingua franca. I remember being outraged. It was a horrible sounding language. One that I would never, ever want to learn. Guess what? I learnt it fast. At school. And ended up explaining strange words to my family.
Mum wanted us to speak English at home so she could learn. We all refused. I’m glad we did. I can still speak, read and write Finnish. It’s rusty but usually I get by. The interesting thing is that catching up with friends visiting us, I find I can understand modern Finnish very well, even though I can’t speak it. Why is that? Because modern Finnish is littered with English words pronounced phonetically.
Dad learnt most of his english from reading Phantom comics. And working as a carpenter on building sites with a gang of Finns, including his brother-in-law and other migrants, many of whom were Italians. Me No Understand English is a chapter from his autobiographical storytelling from those early days.
The movie about Italian migrants, They’re a Weird Mob, became very popular for its funny take on the struggles of assimilating into a whole new world.
Raili Tanska
Never stop learning
soulgifts - Telling Tales 
Laugh out loud! This is why I better just stay where I am.
Nah! Brace the excitement of trying something new and strange 😂😂😂
so glad you were a quick learner … can’t imagine the trauma of relocation to such a foreign land 🙂
I was only 7. It was harder for the adults than us kids. But in hindsight, I am amazed at how brave they were to do that. Everything and everyone familiar were left behind on the other side of the world. And in those days communication was a lot more difficult than it is now.
absolutely, there are whole swag of studies about the “isolation” migrants feel, some for a lifetime … your parents were super brave!
I’ve just been to Helsinki Raili!!
That’s cool. Look forward to seeing some pics. I thought you must be away somewhere!
It’s so hard to learn a language as an adult, I respect people who have done it successfully so much. Usually when I travel to a new country I just learn how to say ‘hello’ and ‘thank you’ or I end up saying something inappropriate by accident 😏
They say once you have learnt one new language, the rest come easier…
Valitettavasti ymmärrän vain englantia.
OMG, Jane. That is so good!!!
Thanks to Google translate… 🙂