LEARNING A FOREIGN LANGUAGE

LEARNING A FOREIGN LANGUAGE

This cranky re-run is from September 2013

I think I need to learn a new language.   As I get older I need to keep the mind working, I need to exercise the brain.  Learning to speak a foreign language might be just the mental exercise I need.

Learning a language should be a good way to work out the old grey matter.

What language should I learn.

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...