• Question: Why did you decide to study french as appose to other languages such as chinese, german etc.?

    Asked by nastasha to Bruce on 15 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: Bruce Alexander

      Bruce Alexander answered on 15 Jun 2012:

      Partly as I had no choice – we were told at secondary school that we had to study french for 4 years. After that I specialised in sciences and maths. I didn’t use my French until I finished my PhD and went to live in Geneva. You could easily live in Geneva and not speak french, but it seemed disrespectful, so I started learning french again (I had forgotten everything I had learnt). All of a sudden another world of culture opened up to me and it has been really rewarding being able to communicate ( and occasionally teach) in another language – it has given me a fresh, more french/Swiss way of looking at things and you find yourself approaching problems in another way.

      I cannot recommend learning another language highly enough, and even more so if people get the chance to experience living/working abroad.

      Whether or not the Swiss benefitted quite so much from my french…or Scottish English, is another matter entirely.

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