1.1

Three quotes that appeal to me and why:

• Slang is a language that rolls up its sleeves, spits on its hands and goes to work. ~Carl Sandburg, New York Times, 13 February 1959

Why: Old people often complain about slang, but it is really just a more efficient form of language used by youth. Slang is often shorter, nevertheless it does provide the essential meaning of sentences.

 

• He who does not know foreign languages does not know anything about his own. ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Kunst and Alterthum

Why: I think it is important to look further than your own backyard and to learn more about other people and their cultures. If we don’t, we will only see others as a threat or as a possible danger, a great example of this is the Second World War. It also shows people that they have more in common with other cultures than they might have thought.

 

• Swearing was invented as a compromise between running away and fighting. ~Peter Finley Dunne, Mr. Dooley's Opinions, 1900

Why: You see this a lot on the internet. People scold each other out without even knowing who the other person is. It is like hurting others but with verbal violence instead of doing the other physical damage. Swearing is some sort of a last resort for people who want to do something violent, but they can’t bring themselves to actually do so, so they swear.

 

To me, language is a way of expressing yourself with words. It is a way of communicating with others and every country or region has its own way of doing so, personally I think that’s a beautiful concept. We just have to watch out that language doesn’t become a barrier when trying to communicate with others.

 

1.2

I am convinced that everyone can learn a language. There are different methods to do so, for example learning words from a wordlist, listening to music or watching movies. However, the best way to learn a language is to go the country where the language is spoken and interact with the people there.

The difference between learning an acquiring a language is that acquiring a language is what happens when you learn to speak your mother tongue, it happens naturally. When learning a second language at an older age, you need to put in more effort in order to remember and understand the language. That’s the difference between the two.

 

1.3

In my opinion it is possible to learn to be creative. Every child has some sort of creative talent such as playing music or arts and crafts. However, when the child gets older, it sometimes abandons such hobbies. Those people say that they are not creative, while they in fact are, they just didn’t care to develop their creative talents the way that others might did.