Use this post to learn English and Flemish at the same time.

Where are you from?

I come from Belgium.

Which language do you speak?

I speak Flemish.

How many languages are there in Belgium?

There are three official languages in Belgium.

One of them is Flemish.

Another is French.

The third one is German.

There are a few German speakers in Belgium.

Where are you going now?

I am going swimming.

Is there a swimming pool here?

Yes, there is.

That sounds like a good idea.

See you later.

Use this post to learn English and German at the same time.

What is that?

It is a photograph.

Who is that?

That is my father.

How old is he?

He is sixty-five.

Where does he live?

He lives in Berlin.

Who is this?

This is my mother.

How old is she?

She is sixty-one.

Do you have a brother?

Yes, I do.

Where is he?

He is in France.

How old is he?

He is thirty-eight.

What does he do?

He is an engineer, an artist, a novelist.

Who is this?

This is my sister.

Where is she?

She is in America.

What does she do?

She is a nurse.

Is she married to an American?

No , she is not.

She is not married.

She is single.

Are you married?

No, I am not.

I am divorced.

Are you divorced?

Yes, I am.

You too?

Yes, me too.

at Monique Hofland

Mark: So you came to Toronto when you were about two and a half?
Burke: M-hm. Yep.
Mark: And your parents, were they Canadian or?
Burke: Yeah they were both Canadians. They were simply … They were trained as teachers and so they joined the government program called CSIS.
Mark: How do you spell that?
Burke: C-S-I-S.
Mark: Uh-huh.
Burke: And it was in order to help developing countries train professionals, in this case, training them how to teach.
Mark: So they worked in Ghana as teachers?
Burke: Yeah. Teaching teachers how to teach, so methodology…
Mark: Ah teacher trainers. Right. Ok.
Burke: Yep.
Mark: And then they went to Europe.
Burke: Yep.
Mark: They were doing the same thing in Europe?
Burke: Ahm Europe.. they were just seeing the country with… My sister would have been like five or six and I would have been, as I said, about two at that time so they traveled with two children just to show us I guess..
Mark: Right.
Burke: …a taste of Europe and…
Mark: That must have been wonderful. Do you remember very much?
Burke: Actually the only memory I have of Europe is a green beer bottle and a window sill in Amsterdam.
Mark: Wow!
Burke: And the beer was called Oranjeboom. I remember just looking down on this intersection and there was this kind of cobblestone kind of look and I just have that imprint and a sort of a feeling with it but I do not really have any other extended memories from that time.

at design ministry

Luis: So It is like you see it and it is like on a stage. Something is not working here. I mean an English village should be cloudy, should be foggy, should be… not this starkly blue sky.
Mark: This is Gibraltar?
Luis: This is Gibraltar.
Mark: What is the situation there?
Luis: It is a British colony in south Spain.. It is a British colony in Europe. It is a colony of a European country in another European country.
Mark: And the people in Gibraltar; they don’t want to be Spanish and they don’t want to be British? They want to be independent?
Luis: They want to be independent.
Mark: Right. And they speak English?
Luis: They speak English with a very strong Andalucian accent. A very strong south Spanish accent and the slang they use is Spanish.
Mark: How many people?
Luis: A few thousand.
Mark: A few thousand. Wow! What an interesting place.
Luis: A weird place. Kind of surrealistic actually.
Mark: Right. An English village with the wrong-coloured sky.
Luis: (laughs) To me this is the most surrealistic part of the place because one doesn’t match the other. It is not working. You are missing the clouds, the fog, the…