Drop the "Drop"

[sobo]

 

[sobo]

Plus,....

I have to deduct points for this one, though... a comma, an ellipsis, and a period, all in rapid succession. That just won't do...

 

[solv3nt]

I have to deduct points for this one, though... a comma, an ellipsis, and a period, all in rapid succession. That just won't do...

He's just excited that you got your period.

 

[trevi]

I have to deduct points for this one, though... a comma, an ellipsis, and a period, all in rapid succession. That just won't do...

Points? They're called marks where I am from.

 

[CLT65]

Not uncommon for those who learn another language young, to actually be better writers of it.

I've noticed that. I also found that learning a second language taught me an awful lot about my own native language. Personally I think that speaking a second (or third, fourth) language is a big advantage in life. I've been trying to teach my kids Spanish, but they're not as excited about it as I think they should be.

I have a cousin who speaks fluent English, Spanish, and German. Her husband speaks fluent English, Portuguese, Cantonese, and some Mandarin. They taught their kids only English. Talk about a lost opportunity...

You just made me picture a cow having an automatic number 2!!

And more thread drift for you all: Cows are just such intelligent creatures; a memory just popped into my mind of a cow standing in a small flowing stream, head downstream. She was relieving herself, and at the same time drinking from the stream. She would periodically lift her head up and wrinkle her nose, as if the water tasted really bad and she couldn't understand why.

 

[trevi]

I've noticed that. I also found that learning a second language taught me an awful lot about my own native language. Personally I think that speaking a second (or third, fourth) language is a big advantage in life. I've been trying to teach my kids Spanish, but they're not as excited about it as I think they should be.

I have a cousin who speaks fluent English, Spanish, and German. Her husband speaks fluent English, Portuguese, Cantonese, and some Mandarin. They taught their kids only English. Talk about a lost opportunity...


And more thread drift for you all: Cows are just such intelligent creatures; a memory just popped into my mind of a cow standing in a small flowing stream, head downstream. She was relieving herself, and at the same time drinking from the stream. She would periodically lift her head up and wrinkle her nose, as if the water tasted really bad and she couldn't understand why.

Y tu tambien, hablo espanol? Muy bien! Would you be the only intending to teach the language or pay the tutor? Spanish is truly a useful language to know in the coming future.

 

[CLT65]

Sí, hablo español, pero solo un poco, y no muy bien.

I love the Spanish language, and language in general. My best friend in third grade was a Hispanic boy, and my mom encouraged me to learn a little of the language. I was sad when he moved away at the end of the school year. I took Spanish in high school and absolutely loved it.

Unfortunately that's all I've got, rusty high school Spanish, and what I've picked up from friends over the years. I've retained a lot of it through the many years since then, but hardly even conversational anymore. My oldest daughter took it in high school (just graduated), and my youngest (10) is interested and learning, but I can't afford a tutor by any means. My intention is to find a good Spanish language program, online perhaps, really push to get them all interested, and then have "Spanish night" at the house, where the whole family just speaks Spanish for the evening. I really want to improve my own skills.

My grandfather spoke German and I took a year in college, then I picked up a little bit of Russian from a friend, but I really want to improve my Spanish. One of my problems is that my pronunciation is very good, but my vocabulary is very limited, so if I ever try talking to someone, they assume I know more than I do and talk too fast, then I have to say "Sorry, I have no idea what you just said".

 

[Pandaz3]

You and me both! But you should see @Pandaz3...

I resemble that.

 

[sobo]

Surprised you remember that!

Not uncommon for those who learn another language young, to actually be better writers of it. Plus,.... boarding school, man.

Story time...

When I was 9, the Grand Sobo packed up the entire Sobo clan and moved us to Tirrenia, Italy, on the coast of Tuscany. He would work 3 weeks/month in various Middle Eastern countries, and come home for 1 week/month to us and work his week at "MedDiv", the design HQ for the Corps of Engineers' construction operations in the Middle East. We lived in town on the local economy, but went to school on the nearby (about 3 miles away) Army base and had a PX and commissary, but we also shopped a lot of the local coops for bakery items, wine, some specialty groceries we couldn't get at the commissary (fennel... mmmmm!), wine, LNG for the stove, local veggies, wine, and other stuff.

After a year of living in the town closest to the Army base, we moved to a villa in a little village up in the hills on the far side of Livorno. This little burg, Montenero, was a tiny hamlet of two or three 1-lane streets plastered on the side of a mountain. I was now about 15 miles away from the nearest American kid, which is pretty far when you're 10 years old and don't drive. So, I decided if I was going to have any friends way out here, then I was going to have to meet the local kids. It wasn't long before I met them, all of whom were enamored at having an American in their midst (this was 1969, when plenty of Italians who survived WWII were still alive and still very much appreciated the American involvement in that conflict). I met a ton of Italian kids, became friends with many, and I learned more Italian from these kids (and they learned English from me) than I ever learned in any of my school classes. I met this one boy my same age named Luciano who was the poster child for the kid that drives schoolmarms crazy. My dad loved this kid! He was funny, inquisitive, a bit of an imp, and always looking like he was ready to commit the caper of the century. I flabbergasted my two Italian teachers at the American school every day when I came in with new words and whole new sentences and levels of conversation I had learned from Luciano and his friends. My dad even had me bring him on the base (special permission required) to see a rodeo that was touring Italy and was bunked at Camp Darby for a few days. The look on Luciano's face as he witnessed a real American rodeo is something that I still cannot forget. When we got back home, it was all he could talk about for weeks on end to all his friends, family, or anyone who would listen. Inside of a year, I had developed a robust conversational level of Italian that I still remember today.

I've been back to Italy several times since the family repatriated in 1976, and it's always a joy to trot out my rusty old Italian, dust it off, and have some good conversation, order some food, get directions, buy some wine and cheese, catch a train, book a hotel room, play a round of golf, whatever. The last time I went back to Italy was when I concluded my time in Afghanistan, in the summer of 2014. On this trip, I decided to go back to my old stomping grounds and have a look around, some 40+ years after I had last been in that area. So I cruised by my old haunts... the garbage pit where we blew out all the windows on the last street at the edge of town (with a discarded LNG bombola in the garbageman's fire pit), the hunters' tree-stands in the woods (they're all gone now), the American Beach (it's no longer the American Beach, having been ceded back to the carabinieri), and the other towns and places I grew up with as a kid. And I made a point to go up to Montenero, looking for my old best friend Luciano and his older brother Stefano, and the older girls that I had crushes on back then (as a 10-year-old), Titsianna and Suzanna.

When I walked down Luciano's street to find his house, I met two younger women who weren't there 45 years ago. They were maybe 30 years old, not even alive when I was there. They didn't speak a word of English, but after I got my "sea legs" underneath me and my Italian started rolling off the tongue again, I learned that they owned and ran a little B&B that I had passed on the same street. I also learned that they had heard the many stories of the American family that had lived very nearby many years ago. When I explained that I was that American kid that lived in the (then brand new) house on the corner on the hill, they were amazed that I had come back, and wondered why. I told them I was looking for Luciano, and I knew his house was just down at the end of this narrow street. I was saddened to learn that Luciano had died just a few years before, in his mid-50s, from lung cancer. Turned out that when Luciano got older, he started smoking like a chimney. It eventually killed him. So young... Stefano had moved away after both their parents died, and none of his family was around anymore.

I asked about the girls, and learned that Titsianna (the hawter brunette of the two) had died of some women's disease. I never figured out exactly which one - the medical name in Italian was not something I knew, but enough talking with the two young women let me know it was a female issue. Susanna was living down in Livorno and working as a nurse at the hospital there. Her mother was also still alive but very, very old and still living in the same old hose just below our old house. Nana was too old for me visit, but the two young women told me that Susanna came home every weekend to visit and help her mother, and that I should come back that coming weekend and see her. Alas, my travels would not allow that to happen, but I did ask the two women to tell her "Boun' giorno" for me. I'd like to think that Susanna was as flattered to hear that I had come back and asked about her as much as I enjoyed actually being there and hearing about her life. The whole encounter proved something to me that the Grand Sobo told me 30-odd years ago... "You can never go home again." How true...

 

[gryghin]

Sí, hablo español, pero solo un poco, y no muy bien.

I love the Spanish language, and language in general. My best friend in third grade was a Hispanic boy, and my mom encouraged me to learn a little of the language. I was sad when he moved away at the end of the school year. I took Spanish in high school and absolutely loved it.

Unfortunately that's all I've got, rusty high school Spanish, and what I've picked up from friends over the years. I've retained a lot of it through the many years since then, but hardly even conversational anymore. My oldest daughter took it in high school (just graduated), and my youngest (10) is interested and learning, but I can't afford a tutor by any means. My intention is to find a good Spanish language program, online perhaps, really push to get them all interested, and then have "Spanish night" at the house, where the whole family just speaks Spanish for the evening. I really want to improve my own skills.

My grandfather spoke German and I took a year in college, then I picked up a little bit of Russian from a friend, but I really want to improve my Spanish. One of my problems is that my pronunciation is very good, but my vocabulary is very limited, so if I ever try talking to someone, they assume I know more than I do and talk too fast, then I have to say "Sorry, I have no idea what you just said".

I had the luxury of being a Navy brat that lived overseas. I find that watching streaming shows in a foreign language is exactly what is needed for that language immersion so that I practice listening and hearing the correct pronunciation.

 

[gryghin]

Story time...

When I was 9, the Grand Sobo packed up the entire Sobo clan and moved us to Tirrenia, Italy, on the coast of Tuscany. He would work 3 weeks/month in various Middle Eastern countries, and come home for 1 week/month to us and work his week at "MedDiv", the design HQ for the Corps of Engineers' construction operations in the Middle East. We lived in town on the local economy, but went to school on the nearby (about 3 miles away) Army base and had a PX and commissary, but we also shopped a lot of the local coops for bakery items, wine, some specialty groceries we couldn't get at the commissary (fennel... mmmmm!), wine, LNG for the stove, local veggies, wine, and other stuff.

After a year of living in the town closest to the Army base (about 3 miles or so), we moved to a villa in a little village up in the hills on the far side of Livorno. This little burg, Montenero, was a tiny hamlet of one-lane streets plastered on the side of a mountain. I was now about 15 miles away from the nearest American kid, which is pretty far when you're 10 years old and don't drive. So, I decided if I was going to have any friends way out here, then I was going to have to meet the local kids. It wasn't long before I met them, all of whom were enamored at having an American in their midst (this was 1969, when plenty of Italians who survived WWII were still alive and still very much appreciated the American involvement in that conflict). I met a ton of Italian kids, became friends with many, and I learned more Italian from these kids (and they learned English from me) than I ever learned in any of my school classes. I met this one boy my same age named Luciano who was the poster child for the kid that drives schoolmarms crazy. My dad loved this kid! He was funny, inquisitive, a bit of an imp, and always looking like he was ready to commit the caper of the century. I flabbergasted my two Italian teachers at the American school every day when I came in with new words and whole new sentences and levels of conversation I had learned from Luciano and his friends. My dad even had me bring him on the base (special permission required) to see a rodeo that was touring Italy and was bunked at Camp Darby for a few days. The look on Luciano's face as he witnessed a real American rodeo is something that I still cannot forget. When we got back home, it was all he could talk about for weeks on end to all his friends, family, or anyone who would listen. Inside of a year, I had developed a robust conversational level of Italian that I still remember today.

I've been back to Italy several times since the family repatriated in 1976, and it's always a joy to trot out my rusty old Italian, dust it off, and have some good conversation, order some food, get directions, buy some wine and cheese, catch a train, book a hotel room, play a round of golf, whatever. The last time I went back to Italy was when I concluded my time in Afghanistan, in the summer of 2014. On this trip, I decided to go back to my old stomping grounds and have a look around, some 40+ years after I had last been in that area. So I cruised by my old haunts... the garbage pit where we blew out all the windows on the last street at the edge of town (with a discarded LNG bombola in the garbageman's fire pit), the hunters' tree-stands in the woods (they're all gone now), the American Beach (it's no longer the American Beach, having been ceded back to the carabinieri), and the other towns and places I grew up with as a kid. And I made a point to go up to Montenero, looking for my old best friend Luciano and his older brother Stefano, and the older girls that I had crushes on back then (as a 10-year-old), Titsianna and Suzanna.

When I walked down Luciano's street to find his house, I met two younger women who weren't there 45 years ago. They were maybe 30 years old, not even alive when I was there. They didn't speak a word of English, but after I got my "sea legs" underneath me and my Italian started rolling off the tongue again, I learned that they owned and ran a little B&B that I had passed on the same street. I also learned that they had heard the many stories of the American family that had lived very nearby many years ago. When I explained that I was that American kid that lived in the (then brand new) house on the corner on the hill, they were amazed that I had come back, and wondered why. I told them I was looking for Luciano, and I knew his house was just down at the end of this narrow street. I was saddened to learn that Luciano had died just a few years before, in his mid-50s, from lung cancer. Turned out that when Luciano got older, he started smoking like a chimney. It eventually killed him. So young... Stefano had moved away after both their parents died, and none of his family was around anymore.

I asked about the girls, and learned that Titsianna (the hawter brunette of the two) had died of some women's disease. I never figured out exactly which one - the medical name in Italian was not something I knew, but enough talking with the two young women let me know it was a female issue. Susanna was living down in Livorno and working as a nurse at the hospital there. Her mother was also still alive but very, very old and still living in the same old hose just below our old house. Nana was too old for me visit, but the two young women told me that Susanna came home every weekend to visit and help her mother, and that I should come back that coming weekend and see her. Alas, my travels would not allow that to happen, but I did ask the two women to tell her "Boun' giorno" for me. I'd like to think that Susanna was as flattered to hear that I had come back and asked about her as much as I enjoyed actually visiting there. The whole encounter proved something to me that the Grand Sobo told me 30-odd years ago... "You can never go home again." How true...

Mia famiglia viveva a Gaeta nel 1979.

There are a lot of streaming shows that let you choose Italian. I really like the Spanish ones, because the lip movement almost completely matches. There are a few Netflix shows originally in Italian also.

 

[sobo]

Mia famiglia viveva a Gaeta nel 1979.

There are a lot of streaming shows that let you choose Italian. I really like the Spanish ones, because the lip movement almost completely matches. There are a few Netflix shows originally in Italian also.

Eeeeeeeh, paisano! Come stai?

I'll use the familiar "stai" instead of the formal "sta", since we're all friends here at NWFA)

 

[trevi]

Story time...

When I was 9, the Grand Sobo packed up the entire Sobo clan and moved us to Tirrenia, Italy, on the coast of Tuscany. He would work 3 weeks/month in various Middle Eastern countries, and come home for 1 week/month to us and work his week at "MedDiv", the design HQ for the Corps of Engineers' construction operations in the Middle East. We lived in town on the local economy, but went to school on the nearby (about 3 miles away) Army base and had a PX and commissary, but we also shopped a lot of the local coops for bakery items, wine, some specialty groceries we couldn't get at the commissary (fennel... mmmmm!), wine, LNG for the stove, local veggies, wine, and other stuff.

After a year of living in the town closest to the Army base, we moved to a villa in a little village up in the hills on the far side of Livorno. This little burg, Montenero, was a tiny hamlet of two or three 1-lane streets plastered on the side of a mountain. I was now about 15 miles away from the nearest American kid, which is pretty far when you're 10 years old and don't drive. So, I decided if I was going to have any friends way out here, then I was going to have to meet the local kids. It wasn't long before I met them, all of whom were enamored at having an American in their midst (this was 1969, when plenty of Italians who survived WWII were still alive and still very much appreciated the American involvement in that conflict). I met a ton of Italian kids, became friends with many, and I learned more Italian from these kids (and they learned English from me) than I ever learned in any of my school classes. I met this one boy my same age named Luciano who was the poster child for the kid that drives schoolmarms crazy. My dad loved this kid! He was funny, inquisitive, a bit of an imp, and always looking like he was ready to commit the caper of the century. I flabbergasted my two Italian teachers at the American school every day when I came in with new words and whole new sentences and levels of conversation I had learned from Luciano and his friends. My dad even had me bring him on the base (special permission required) to see a rodeo that was touring Italy and was bunked at Camp Darby for a few days. The look on Luciano's face as he witnessed a real American rodeo is something that I still cannot forget. When we got back home, it was all he could talk about for weeks on end to all his friends, family, or anyone who would listen. Inside of a year, I had developed a robust conversational level of Italian that I still remember today.

I've been back to Italy several times since the family repatriated in 1976, and it's always a joy to trot out my rusty old Italian, dust it off, and have some good conversation, order some food, get directions, buy some wine and cheese, catch a train, book a hotel room, play a round of golf, whatever. The last time I went back to Italy was when I concluded my time in Afghanistan, in the summer of 2014. On this trip, I decided to go back to my old stomping grounds and have a look around, some 40+ years after I had last been in that area. So I cruised by my old haunts... the garbage pit where we blew out all the windows on the last street at the edge of town (with a discarded LNG bombola in the garbageman's fire pit), the hunters' tree-stands in the woods (they're all gone now), the American Beach (it's no longer the American Beach, having been ceded back to the carabinieri), and the other towns and places I grew up with as a kid. And I made a point to go up to Montenero, looking for my old best friend Luciano and his older brother Stefano, and the older girls that I had crushes on back then (as a 10-year-old), Titsianna and Suzanna.

When I walked down Luciano's street to find his house, I met two younger women who weren't there 45 years ago. They were maybe 30 years old, not even alive when I was there. They didn't speak a word of English, but after I got my "sea legs" underneath me and my Italian started rolling off the tongue again, I learned that they owned and ran a little B&B that I had passed on the same street. I also learned that they had heard the many stories of the American family that had lived very nearby many years ago. When I explained that I was that American kid that lived in the (then brand new) house on the corner on the hill, they were amazed that I had come back, and wondered why. I told them I was looking for Luciano, and I knew his house was just down at the end of this narrow street. I was saddened to learn that Luciano had died just a few years before, in his mid-50s, from lung cancer. Turned out that when Luciano got older, he started smoking like a chimney. It eventually killed him. So young... Stefano had moved away after both their parents died, and none of his family was around anymore.

I asked about the girls, and learned that Titsianna (the hawter brunette of the two) had died of some women's disease. I never figured out exactly which one - the medical name in Italian was not something I knew, but enough talking with the two young women let me know it was a female issue. Susanna was living down in Livorno and working as a nurse at the hospital there. Her mother was also still alive but very, very old and still living in the same old hose just below our old house. Nana was too old for me visit, but the two young women told me that Susanna came home every weekend to visit and help her mother, and that I should come back that coming weekend and see her. Alas, my travels would not allow that to happen, but I did ask the two women to tell her "Boun' giorno" for me. I'd like to think that Susanna was as flattered to hear that I had come back and asked about her as much as I enjoyed actually being there and hearing about her life. The whole encounter proved something to me that the Grand Sobo told me 30-odd years ago... "You can never go home again." How true...

Bravo bravo! Very beautiful history. Unfortunately, my 39 years has nothing to compare.

I lived one year in Milan as an exchange student from Cardiff. My experience was not so pleasant and the tongue is well lost on me. It has changed a lot in my 20 years though.

 

[solv3nt]

I did ask the two women to tell her "Boun' giorno" for me.

 

[sobo]

That scene always cracked me up... The way Christoph Waltz rips off flawless German and classical Italian, then Brad Pitt butchers the shiit out of his "Italian"...

 

[ilikegunspdx]

I heard a new report that sig Sauer is about to drop their new drop-safe p320 D. The D stands for drop. I had just dropped down to the laundromat to drop off some clothes but I had drop everything so I wouldn't miss the product drop. I almost dropped dead when I heard the news, but I think I'll just wait for the price to drop rather than drop $650 on it now.

 

[solv3nt]

I heard a new report that sig Sauer is about to drop their new drop-safe p320 D. The D stands for drop. I had just dropped down to the laundromat to drop off some clothes but I had drop everything so I wouldn't miss the product drop. I almost dropped dead when I heard the news, but I think I'll just wait for the price to drop rather than drop $650 on it now.

I honestly can't tell if they've discontinued a crummy gun or if they're using a new drop safety. I think you've succeeded in actually confusing me

 

[DunRanull]

And the police say to the armed criminals, "drop it" in olden times. What's the modern word used?

Ummm, something like "FREEZE, M-----F-----!!!!" in stoutest command voice...

 

[sobo]

I honestly can't tell if they've discontinued a crummy gun or if they're using a new drop safety. I think you've succeeded in actually confusing me

It's not a crummy gun...

 

[Flopsweat]

It's not a crummy gun...

Sounds like a lot of bull droppings to me.