NEW AND IMPROVED

This blog is now sugar FREE, fat FREE, gluten FREE, all ORGANIC and all NATURAL!!

Thursday, September 5, 2013

LEARNING A FOREIGN LANGUAGE


LEARNING A FOREIGN LANGUAGE
 
My cyber friend Scott, who blogs at “Flight Plan,” http://lowandslow01.blogspot.com/,  is learning to speak French.  It occurs to me that learning to speak a foreign language is a good idea.  As I get older I need to keep the mind working, I need to exercise the brain. Learning a language might be a good way to work out the old grey matter.

I don’t want to learn French.  I don’t like berets.  I don’t like stinky cheese.  I don’t plan on visiting Paris or Montreal any time soon.

I don’t want to learn Spanish.  I already know all I need to know: No fume, salida, sala los de hombres, cerveza, gracias, no lo se, and por favor.  Well I know these when they are accompanied by little stick figures.

Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, all of these require learning a new alphabet…I’m not that smart.  Besides, I want to learn a language I can use every day. 

I want to learn the secret language of woman…Womanese.

This language would come in handy in many situations.  Have you ever been at a party where you and your wife chatted for twenty minutes with a perfectly lovely lady only to have your wife comment as you move to another corner of the room,

“What a bitch, do you believe what she said?”

“What? She said it was nice to see you and your hair looks great.”

“First of all, my hair doesn’t look great, so that was just mean; secondly, did you not hear how she said 'it was nice to see me?'  Did you even see her eye brows?  Are you completely oblivious to voice inflections?”

“No, no I didn’t, and yes, yes I am…I do not speak Woman.”

Maybe if I spoke Womanese I would not have been divorced twice.  If I spoke the language I might have known when something I thought was trivial was in actuality really important.  Where I often think, “Why don’t you just tell me what you want,” it has never occurred to me that maybe they are telling me exactly what they want, I just don’t speak the language.

The problem is I don’t know where to find a school or even a book that teaches Womanese.  How do women learn? 

There must be a pamphlet somewhere that teaches “Basic Inflections 101.”

Where do I find “Eye movements, facial expressions, and body language for Dummies?"  It is not sold at Barnes and Noble or Amazon.

How about “Rosetta Stone,” can this program teach me when “You look so pretty” is a good thing, and when it means “F-off bitch?”  Why is “Have you been working out?” sometimes such an awful thing to ask?

There are so many phrases, and so many different meanings; so many inflections, so many facial, shoulder and hand movements.  Every combination of phrase, inflection, and body movement conveys a completely different meaning.  How do women learn them all?

Mrs. Cranky told me, “It is really quite easy, I could teach you everything you need to know about speaking Womanese; you just need to learn to listen.”

I wonder what she meant by that...  

18 comments:

  1. You don't have to learn Womanese. Mind Reading 101 will do.

    Speaking of languages, the hubby and I went to Ecuador a few weeks ago (pics on my blog). We spent most of the summer listening to Spanish cds to bone up on our Espanol. We thought it was a great brain exercise. Turns out we know little to nothing of Spanish, and we were quite comical in Ecuador.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Have you ever heard of that obscure small African tribe who communicates by making ever-so-slightly different clicking sounds instead of making sounds with their vocal chords like everyone else in the world does? I think learning to speak and understand "click" would be easier than learning Womaneese.

    ReplyDelete
  3. This is awesome. To answer your question, we are born knowing this language and it is one of the most complicated to learn, by others. I am not sure it is even possible to translate. It may just have to remain one of the great mysteries of the world. :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. I've been a woman for a long time and I am not sure I always understand the language. I do think it sounds different to women than it does to men so you may run into some problems.

    ReplyDelete
  5. REALLY pay attention to Mrs. C. Learn to listen. Whoops, she already said that.

    On the other hand, most of life's hurdles are behind. Just be nice and you'll get on through to the end.

    ReplyDelete
  6. jeeeeeeezus, Cranky… you and women. well? speaking as someone who has had nothing but lousy relationships … I will offer my expert opinion.

    Men seem to want women to be mind readers. Women seem to want men to listen. Women do not like to mind read because it's time consuming. Men do not like to listen because it's time consuming.

    Therefore! women have developed body language that men kNOW without a doubt what it means. A quick stomp of a foot with arms folded …. hands on hips … one eyebrow up… curling our lips along with an eyebrow up…. both eyebrows up… that's a ~ you better git look

    and … just 'the look' ~ you all know what it means. YOU DON'T LISTEN.

    That's why I eat pie.

    ReplyDelete
  7. well, rats ~ wanted to also add that women don't play those games with women any longer... at least not in my world. My problem is hoof'n'mouth disease... what the hell did you do with your hair?

    ReplyDelete
  8. I think CLR is right!!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Women all belong to a female club where the High Book of Womanese" is kept. You will never gain access to this book but if you did they'd toss it out and write a new one just to spite you and keep you in the dark.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Hell Cranky, just when I thought I knew the lingo, they changed the whole book. I figure some things are just meant to be left to the imagination. I'm going with that...

    ReplyDelete
  11. What Carolyn said about the mind reader thingie. Good answer.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Womanese? Learn French, it's easier....;)

    ReplyDelete
  13. For the right price, I will interpret for you. And I will do a better job than Kramer telling George Costanza that his old girlfriend was said she was going to "sleep" with a guy after a party, instead of "sweep".

    ReplyDelete
  14. Why not just learn Français? At least you could succeed at that. ;)

    ReplyDelete
  15. Hahaha! Love it! How 'bout I teach you Womanese and you teach me Manish?

    ReplyDelete
  16. Learning Womanese... Give it up... it ain't gonna happen. :)

    Btw, I hear that the "yes dear" still works.

    ReplyDelete