ORD ... the native tongue here is STRINE. This is the way we pronounce "anything from this country". Australians abbreviate EVERY possible number of spoken syllables to one, hence strine is short for "Australian" and G'day for "Good Day" and .....

I speak "pidgin-minus" French and Spanish and being a world traveller am always embarrassed to admit that is the extent of it. As native English speakers we are just so fortunate. I have NIL foreign language aptitude, and regret being so hopeless at it.

I agree with you on the Dutch .. FOUR languages is bare bones minimum in my understanding for them to work in tourism/hospitality, and the Scandinavians are right up there too.

I'll bet we have people on this board who are fluent in over 10 languages. A great thread topic and I'll follow with interest, and they have my enormous admiration mastering more than ONE!

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~ Glen ~