Would you like to know what I’m good at?
Languages.
I always assume I’m going to understand someone who is speaking to me in a language I do not know, or that I’ll discern what is written in a language I haven’t learned.
When I went to my Polish friend’s house, I saw a large poster with three old fashioned boots at the bottom and the words Trzej Muszkieterowie. I knew right away what it meant, but I asked the other non-Polish speakers in the room if they knew what it was and none of them knew.
Have you figured out yet what it means?
(The Three Musketeers)
After a year in Taiwan, I was able to translate the school meeting that was held in Mandarin with some sort of accuracy. I had learned to speak Chinese through friends and on the streets without having taken any classes. The following year that I was there, I had friends that only spoke Chinese and we communicated with ease.
Of course I have now learned that without use, I am doomed to lose it all. When I am at the Conservatory with my daughter and racking my brains to translate what’s going on for the Chinese woman who brings her grand-daughter each week, I realize how stupid it feels to have once known how to say something and to no longer be able to.
Or when I listen to her converse with the Chinese gentleman who also brings his granddaughter (both of them encouraging me and congratulating me on my Mandarin as I look at them with blank eyes and a vapid smile), I learn that words I once used glibly I now only recognize but cannot wring sense from.
But let’s get back to bragging. Here in France, I can translate simultaneously. I can translate at the same pace that someone is speaking without missing a beat. I can do that for a speech (if I am familiar with the subject matter, like a sermon at church) or I can do that for conversations, flipping back and forth in French and English for simultaneous conversation that is as rapid as if the two parties spoke the same language.
Sometimes I surprise myself.
I totally just bragged, I know. Cheeky, huh?
I first fell in love with the store Geneviève Lethu when I lived in France and thought maybe I would marry in France and have a registry there. And then Sir’s cousin got two sets of these cups from Geneviève Lethu for her marriage.
And so she gave us one set.
The love story was complete.
And then I thought, why not give away something from Geneviève Lethu to one of my charming readers? That’s something you can get in Chicago (I just learned) and perhaps even in other places outside of France, but is a brand that really represents France for me.
At first I decided on a kitchen towel with a pink design on it and some adorable little checkered jam pots with porcelain spoons that you can serve different varieties of jam in. But I didn’t complete the order and when I realized what had happened, the pots were no longer available.
So I settled on these:
A sage green kitchen towel and two bow tie coffee cups. They are really espresso cup size, but in France they are large enough to be considered coffee cups. You could add a “cloud of milk” and a sugar cube if you so desire.
Do you like them?
The cups are from the Mademoiselle series.
And the towel is just a towel.
The give-away is open worldwide, except for residents of France (sorry – there’s a shop in Neuilly if you’re smitten). If you want to win them it’s easy. I mean you could like my Facebook page if you want but you won’t get any extra points. In order to win, you just have to leave a comment bragging about what you’re good at. What do you surprise yourself with?
Do you have an uncanny memory for actors, songwriters and artists?
Have you read the 100 greatest books ever written?
Are you able to keep your house in impeccable order even with six children? (I kneel before you).
Are you able to graciously hold your tongue when conversing with idiots? (I gape at you in slack-jawed admiration).
Come on, brag it up folks. I would love to know what you are good at.
As usual for all my give-aways, the goods all come out of my own pocket, which is why there are only 2 coffee cups instead of 8. Apparently the French don’t like to give away anything for free. This give-away ends Sunday the 29th April when I get back from Provence.
That’s also my mom’s birthday so you could wish her a Happy Birthday. Her name is Cathy.
(Oh yes, don’t be surprised if I am again a bit MIA this week – the lavender fields beckon. I’m still with you in spirit, though).
Chinese is not that hard a language to speak (once you get the hang of it), its more on the writing and remember the characters. So I think. Those cups do look lovely. =)
Don’t forget to brag about yourself in order to enter the contest (even if it goes against the grain). 🙂
I think with Chinese, the tones are very hard for some people to hear, but you’re right in the sense that verb tenses, etc make it easy.
*remembering the characters. Gosh I must have been sleepy :p The tone for Chinese does take some time getting used to.
Well, I do have a knack for understanding languages (when it concerns me). For example, when I was in Paris visiting Aunt no.2 with Aunt no.1, we went into a boutique shop. So while Aunt no.1 was trying out her clothes, Aunt no.2, who lives in Paris and understands French, converses with the lady at the boutique. It went something like this:
Lady (French): Oh so you have family over from overseas. How nice.
Aunt no2. (French): Yes. They are my sister and niece.
Lady (French): Really? So are they mother and daughter? They do like alike.
Me (interrupts in English): No, she’s my aunt not my mother.
Lady (somewhat surprised): Oh, so you understand French as well?
Me (English): No.
Than the lady and Aunt no.2 both look at me blankly.. while Aunt no.1 emerges from the dressing room. haaa…
I’m not surprised since you’re such an avid traveler. Those who think they cannot communicate won’t always want to venture out. That was a cute story.
i am good at being a friend and a good listener. have fun in Provence – loved it when i visited there! <3
Yay! That’s an excellent quality to have. I wish I had been mature enough in college to benefit from it. 🙂
I’m really good with words: I can spell anything (4th best speller in the state of CA in 6th grade!) and I play a mean game of Scrabble and Boggle!
Cool! I’m good at vocabulary, but not necessarily at spelling. Thank goodness for spellcheck! I always want to do things like spell weird wierd. You get my drift.
I have been told I have the patients of a Saint. It takes a lot to rattle me. My kids try all the time and I have never killed one yet! When it comes to people, I always assume everyone is trying their best. No need to be rude to the slow cashier or end the conversation with a long winded neighbor. Just go with the flow. Life is a garden of many things to cultivate. Take your time with people and good things with grow.
However, this does not translate to driving!
Yup, if I had to describe you that would pretty much sum it up!
I’m good at recognizing celebrity babies. Put a picture of a celebrity baby in front of me and 9 times out of 10 I can tell you who the famous mama or dada is. I know, should I even be bragging about this or instead holding my head in shame.
I’ve always admired your gift for languages.
You know that skill has deeper signification. It speaks of powers of observation and discernment so you go girl!
I’m very good at sarcastic comments and eye rolls.
Oh, you don’t mean that.
OK, I’m really good at coming up with ideas for other people, especially when they’re starting a new business and finding ways to promote it. I know, I totally just bragged. Heh.
The cups are gorgeous. Black and white, so me. I never win anything so if I win this, I’d flip over and let you rub my belly.
Happy weekend and enjoy the lavender fields!
I’m proud of you for bragging dear. And I can totally picture you having that skill, to be honest.
Happy Birthday to Cathy!
Your brag amazes me. I am utterly hopeless at languages; I’ve tried to learn both Spanish and French, and when I went to Europe I was the person trying desperately to at least attempt basic communication and sounding like a complete buffoon.
I’m decent with words, stringing them together to make something more than they do on their own. And I am a wonderful multi-tasker, but I think that’s what happens to moms 🙂
I’ll attest to the fact that you are VERY good with words. 😉
From another Jennie,
I am very good at cat massages. Every summer, Mina, the cat across the yard waits for her owners to go to Bulgaria as she knows I’ll be over there twice a day to feed and give a terrific massage. Katy, the cat who sleeps next door but comes to my house for breakfast and dinner also comes for a nightly massage while watching tv. Love, the cat who lives where I do bookkeeping on Wed. mornings greets me at the door as she knows in between those balance sheets is a wonderful massage.
Happy Birthday, Cathy
Okay that is just adorable! 🙂
What am I good at? Let’s see…
I am amazing at putting together Excel spreadsheets. No really. I can put together the most fantastic spreadsheet, complete with macros that would knock your socks off. And don’t even get me started on my formatting and formula skills. Nobody can compare. Nobody.
I’m terrible at learning languages and hopeless in the kitchen. But luckily people pay me for my Excel skills…so I think I’ll be okay. Plus I can make a decent cup of tea…which would taste amazing in those very cute mugs. 🙂
Happy Birthday to your mom!!
I am so hopelessly pathetic at Excel. I can barely make the “Sum” function work. But you have something in common with my husband who also knocks people’s socks off with beautiful spreadsheets, complete with Macros. It’s a good thing I can cook so the marriage is on equal terms, ha ha.
Great job on the bragging, by the way. No false modesty. 😉
What a fun contest! It’s so hard to brag on ourselves, yes? Okay, so I thought about this and I would say I’m really good at giving dinner parties. They are not elaborate affairs, but my friends always tell me they love coming to our house for dinner. We moved to Santa Fe this past year and so I have not had many dinners here yet, but as I meet new friends, I can’t wait to have regular dinner parties again! Oh, and I can ride a unicycle pretty darn well! 🙂
They have a show here called – A Dinner Nearly Perfect – and it’s a contest to see who hosts the best dinner party. Whoever wins gets to go on a trip with their husband. I bet you’d win – that’s a great skill!
I hope you are having fun en Provence! I am good at sleeping through any Yankees game that my husband Dave has DVR’d (I still want to say “taped”) and plays on the tv in our bedroom. Lucky him. Happy birthday, Cathy–we have two family birthdays on the 29th of April as well!
Hey – you cheated. That’s not a real brag. I’ll count it though because I find it funny. 🙂
I can do that too, but not always on command and not to such dramatic effect. That must really come in handy for irritating people. 😉
I am very good at speaking back-inese…don’t know what that is?
I injured my back pretty severely when I was 23, so that was like last year…or maybe 8 years ago…who’s counting…
Anyways, I had to delve right into all the things back related. I didn’t want some schmuck chopping up my spine.
So I researched and researched and I can tell you what facet joints are and what they do.
So yea, that’s talent.
Perhaps I should just become a neurosurgeon….
I liked you on facebook only because I like you 🙂 a. Lot
Sorry you had to develop such a talent the hard way. But honest to goodness wow! You really could be a neurosurgeon. (with a small fortune and a few years out of your life).
I am so impressed with people who are able to pick up languages like that. Did you initially study a language in school and just build on that over time? I studied Spanish in school for years and can hardly string together a sentence. This is not a very good bragging post, is it?
Nope! And you must tell me what you ARE good at in order to enter. 😉
I think I’m just good at languages because I don’t know how I am able to do it. However I will say that all I care about is the communication part to understand and be understood. I don’t care about the technical aspect of the language, which is why I still make grammatical mistakes.
It is so incredible that you take the time to respond to your reader’s comments; I really love that about your blog.
Okay! My brag is that I have an innate gift for spelling. Any word that I see, I will remember the spelling forever….in the days of spell check don’t know how far that talent will get me, but there it is!
Thank you Julie. I’m not always so good at responding but when people make the effort to tell me something personal about themselves, how can I not? It’s true, spelling seems a dying art, but it’s still a real talent (and one I definitely do not possess). I still remember telling a doctor how far along I was “dialated.” My cheeks burn in shame. 😉
I’m good at crying in the morning: at a good book, stirring music (it doesn’t even have to be sad), a moving story on NPR. The faucets are on in the morning. Later in the day I have more control. So if I were an actress, I’d have to rehearse in the morning.
Oh so thaaaat’s where I get it from. Except my waterworks are on all day long. Thanks a lot Mom! 😉
Ok, I cheated–but the Yankees thing is a real talent. Oh-gotta run–right now I’m really good at not shrieking while noticing out of the corner of my eye that my two-year-old is swabbing the inside of her potty seat with her toothbrush. Good grief.
Andra you’re good a HUMOR! There’s your real talent.
Happy Birthday, Cathy!
I am good at making my kids laugh. Oh and baking chocolate chip cookies.
You didn’t mention the obvious – a high talent for fashion!
Hooray for lavender fields, Cathy’s birthday, and adorable lovely things!
(I’m a good artist. Who would’ve thought? :))
xo
Me – I would have thought. How can you not be an artist? It oozes out of your every pore.
Okay. Let me preface my bragging with a disclaimer and then after I brag I will share why my skill is important to me. Because I do like to leave blog-length comments here.
My apologies.
So.
If I meet someone and am not paying attention, I will absolutely forget his or her name immediately. However. If I put in effort, I can learn names. A lot of them.
When I was teaching, I was famous for memorizing every student’s name on the first day of school. I typically had around 120 each year.
The kids always played along. I would go up and down the aisles using every trick in the book all period long on the first day – and at the end of each hour, I’d know the entire class of 40.
By the following day, I’d usually remember about 95% of the names even when the kids would switch up seats.
I wanted my students (17/18 year old seniors who believed they were anonymous in a class of 40; who thought that no one knew or cared about them) would know that someone did know.
Someone did care. They were NOT anonymous to me.
I’m so very lucky I was able to show them this.
That’s such an awesome talent, Julie, not just the knack for remembering the names, but the fact that you cared enough to do it. I’m sure you are a great teacher – do you miss it?
That isn’t bragging! That is an incredible talent! Some people can barely master one language let alone learn to understand and speak others without a class! I am in awe.
I have nothing to brag about or at least I can’t think of anything worth bragging about.
Nope, nope, nope – not letting you off the hook Jackie. I know you cook well and I’m pretty sure you garden. I know you’re thoughtful and kind and I know you raise 4 kids while working full time. So none of this “nothing to brag about” nonsense. 😉
Oh, yes, i confirm, you are good in polish! So let’s speak polish since now:)
Oh shoot … I mean … what? 😉 No, that’s all I know.
Hey – you forgot to brag! You can do it in Polish.
I applaud you master of all those languages!! Not only that, but embracing that talent and bragging about it? Love.
What on earth am I good at? I mean, besides dreaming of my next vacation? Well, I do have a talent for finding the worst parking spots of all time, but I believe that is more luck then skill.
Oh I know I am the master of providing blended drinks to my girlfriends around the pool in the summer and helping them justify how to have a second:) Yes, that is my current talent!
Okay you cheated a little on your brag but I’ll let it slide because you’re a cutie. 😉
I must admit, I had to walk away and think about this for a while. Since becoming a SAHM, many of the things that I could have possibly bragged about have become a thing of the past for me. I was really trying to think of something and coming up empty. I was bummed!
But I just remembered that I am really good at public speaking. We had two straight years of struggles and drama at two different schools (all is smooth sailing now, thank goodness!), and I was speaking in front of small crowds, local politicians, state officials and even local media. I was often confronting the school administrators about serious issues. I was able to speak calmly and make clear, well-thought points, but with obvious passion. Really, you could hear a pin drop!
Thanks for the contest, Lady J. It is good to remember that we have skills worth bragging about. 🙂
I am so glad you participated seriously. It’s hard to brag about ourselves openly but sometimes it’s important to remember, especially when we become moms. I can totally picture you doing that for your children and for a better society – bravo!
Oh, so much fun to read the comments.
I am good at making my children laugh.
I love that.
My very favorite thing about how I turned out to be: my children double over and almost gasp with how hard I make them laugh.
I stop at nothing: dances, fake tantrums on the floor, made up accents at the food drive throughs.
I am a fool for their laughter.
In all sincerity, what a great mom you are. You know, I really do think you should write a book featuring all your funny and good ideas as a mom. I’ll hound you about that in NY. 😉
Jennie I love this! What a good idea to get people thinking about their special abilities. I know I usually spend more time beating myself up than remembering what I’m good at. I think you have helped to improve all of our collective self-esteem by getting us to brag! 🙂
So I think I’m good at picking up on cues. I’m a master at disarming volatile or awkward social atmospheres. I think I have a bit of the ‘Jasper’ superpower (Jasper, the vampire from the Twilight Series haha)
The only problem is that I wish I could use this skill on myself! After making everyone else feel more at ease, I am usually a ball of nerves on the inside!
I miss you Summer!