Global competition

 On the train from Brugges to Brussels on our recent trip, we were sitting near some young kids. Paul asked how old I thought they were. I couldn’t see them well, and probably couldn’t have told their age exactly, but their behavior was all too familiar. They were behaving like American 7th graders!

We couldn’t help but overhear the lively conversation, typical of middle-schoolers. My take on this is that the two boys were native Flemish-speaking. They had just met a girl whose native language was French. The interesting thing about all of this was how they constantly and seamlessly switched between Flemish, French, and English.

We figured that the boys were doing their best to impress the girl with their French. We supposed that the girl didn’t know Flemish so the boys talked to each other in that language. And maybe to impress her even more, they threw in a few English phrases here and there. It was quite entertaining.

And what an advantage to grow up speaking three different languages!