Born to fish

Boris, who speaks English well, describes his passion to Rudolph, who is a recent immigrant and who still struggles with English.

Rudolph: Why you go out even when raining?
Boris: I have this passion. I was born to fish.
Rudolph: I have passion. I born to bird.
Boris: Born to bird? You mean Born to fly, I think. Bird’s not a noun.
Rudolph: Fish, noun. Fish, also verb. So I think … same, same.
Boris: Not birds. Not same, same. Different. Quite different.
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Stroop test (not) in Russian?

Anna is showing her friends a test using her new MIG computer. Olya takes the test.

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Anna: Read the colors.

Olya: But they’re not Russian. They look like English words.

Anna: That doesn’t matter. Don't read the words, instead say the color each word is displayed in, as quickly as you can.

Olya: красно, голубо, пурпурово, желто, пурпурово, красно

Anna: Perfect score.

Olya: But what does it mean?

Anna: You are highly intelligent and have no signs of schizophrenia nor anorexia.

Olya: But I can’t read English.

Anna: Oh, that doesn’t matter, this is a color test.

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Poetess

Well, I was born in Holland, and I came here at the age of twelve, and couldn’t speak a word of English.

So how did you go about…

Picking up the language? Well, as you can see, I DID pick it up…

Pretty WELL considering you have become one of the country’s foremost women poets.

It was a country school, and the headmaster wasn’t so VERY busy, he was a good soul, he took my sister and me under his wing and every day he we had an hour's session with him.

With books?

This was the 1950s. There WERE no books for this. He used pictures. He would point to a picture of a bird and say ‘chicken’ and we would repeat ‘chicken’ and then he would ask us ‘In Dutch?’ and we would say ‘kip.’ And here’s what was great about him. HE would repeat, ‘kip.’

Why did he want to learn Dutch?

He was enlightened. I think for no other reason than he wanted to broaden his world.

That was one unusual New Zealander.

Back then, yes.

Quiz Question: Of the seven in the photo, who is Q and who is A?
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