How fluent are you? Find out here.

by Aaron Hotfelder on

Though people spend quite a bit of time learning foreign languages in high school and college, their language skills have a way of withering from inattention, like a dried-out potted plant sitting on a window sill.

But just how far have your language skills fallen? Here are some handy categories to help you find out:

Completely Fluent

You can converse with native speakers with ease, with knowledge of idioms and understanding of a wide range of accents. When someone says, “You speak Chinese? Let me hear some!” you answer with something that impresses just about everyone in the room.

You often suggest dining at ethnic restaurants where you can use your language skills to impress your date. When the waiter comes to take your order, you make a point to ask a question about something on the menu in the waiter’s native tongue, even though you didn’t care about the answer.

Partially Fluent

Though you’re approaching near-total fluency, you lack understanding of complicated grammar and certain non-literal expressions. You’re proficient at conjugating verbs, but uncommon tenses and certain irregulars can present problems.

Your rejoinder to the “Lemme hear some Chinese!” demand is still quite impressive, and virtually indistinguishable from the completely fluent speaker to the untrained ear.

Most importantly, when people ask if you’re fluent in a foreign language, you assure them that you are– completely.

Intermediate Skills

You have a good mastery of vocabulary, including nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. You can assemble multi-clause sentences, and understand the language when it is spoken clearly and slowly.

You’ve mastered several impressive-sounding phrases that you’ve basically adopted as party tricks. When you’re out on dates at ethnic restaurants, you can successfully order in a foreign language. Still, both the waiter and your date think you’re an asshole.

When asked if you’re completely fluent in a foreign language, you invariably answer, “No, but almost.”

Elementary Skills

You’ve memorized a number of basic nouns, verbs, and adjectives, and you can put together simple sentences. You spend the majority of your language classes reading and reciting banal conversations, as in:

“How are you?”

“I am well. Do you want to go to the discoteque?”

“Yes, I go to the discoteque with you.”

“Thank you.”

You really cannot foresee yourself ever becoming fluent, ever.

Smile and Nod

To put it bluntly, you haven’t understood a word anyone has said for the last hour. You have virtually no knowledge of any words– nouns, verbs, adjectives. Even if you did, you’d have no idea how to assemble those into anything resembling a coherent phrase.

You’ve perfected the art of the smile-and-nod. You think this is faking people into believing you know more of the language than you really do, but this is unlikely.

Your constant nodding has signified that you’re in agreement with everything that people have been saying– no matter how objectionable those statements might have been. You may well have just agreed with the assertion, “You know, Stalin wasn’t bad; he was just misunderstood.”

During conversation, you punctuate others’ statements with an agreeable “Ah!” or, alternatively, you furrow your brow and give a thoughtful “Hmm…”

When asked if you’re fluent in a foreign language, you– no surprise– smile and nod.

Cockpit Chronicles: Lonely paradise

by Kent Wien on

It must sound so exciting. “Why, sure, I’ll take the Aruba 2-day trip, with a layover on the beach!” Even I was thrilled for a moment. At least I wasn’t being sent out to do the Panama City and Caracas three-day trip. There’s nothing wrong with that trip, really, it’s just that I’ve been holding out for something that we don’t often do, and laying over in Aruba was certainly unique.

We usually fly to Aruba out of Boston as a day trip, staying on the ground for only an hour, but this gave me a rare 17 hour layover there. Who wouldn’t want to get away from the ugly spring we’re having in New England. So of course I jumped on it. The trip would require me to ride down as a passenger (a.k.a. deadhead) to Miami before flying on to Aruba.

I was actually looking forward to the deadhead leg down to Miami, even if it did leave at 5:30 in the morning. Most pilots dread deadheading, but I’ve been enjoying the ability to catch up on the news or a podcast on the iPhone. I even managed to sleep a bit, but I agree with Andy Ihnatko who recently said: “the sleep you get on an airplane is the junk food of rest. Empty calories with no nutrition.” Sure enough, my neck was stiff and I didn’t feel any more rested, but I caught up on a weeks worth of the Daily Source Code podcast.
I met the Washington D.C. based Captain at the airplane in Miami. His original co-pilot who flew with him to Miami was also on reserve and since his days off would start the next day, I was called out to pick up the rest of the sequence.

Captain Gary gave me the leg to Aruba. It was blowing a bit (30 m.p.h) but at least it was right down the runway. Aruba is known for its constant breeze, and I doubt I’ve ever landed there with less than 10 m.p.h. of wind.

When we checked in at the hotel, we were both beat. Waking up at 2:30 in the morning tends to ruin any plans you may have for hitting the beach. If I had fallen asleep in the intense Aruba sun, this bright and dyn-o-mite white Alaskan would have cooked for sure. I slept in the ‘heavenly bed’ for over two hours before the alarm went off for dinner.

Gary and I ate at a place called Salt & Pepper. Apparently if you bring them a pair of salt and pepper shakers, they’ll give you a glass of wine for free with your dinner. The salt and pepper shaker collection was overflowing on the walls.

We sat next to a family with a really cute 3 year old daughter. You can’t really go far without some reminder of what’s waiting for you at home. So as nice as an Aruba layover might sound, without the ability to bring your family along, you’re really left with an empty feeling. At least Gary was fascinating to talk with and a genuinely nice guy.

On the way back to the hotel, I snapped a few nice pictures of the beach. There were a number of cockatoos and parrots along the walkway near the pool. They had apparently been put to bed since a heavy tarp covered each cage. The sun was going down and I figured I’d sit on a beach chair from our hotel and watch the view. Unfortunately, 30 seconds after I sat down, the hotel staff came and insisted on picking up all the chairs from the beach. Couldn’t they see that the sun was about to set?

So I started back to the hotel room, trying not to think of all the sandcastle building and feet burying I could do with my 6 and 2-year-old girls here. I walked back toward my room and saw a swing-set and play area for kids. I continued around the corner and saw the kiddy pool area. Something was trying its best to convince me to come back here with the family.

Sometimes pictures don’t quite describe the moment, so here’s a quick video clip of the beach.


The beach at Aruba during a sunset from Kent Wien on Vimeo.

I passed on paying the $15 to get on the internet. I remember it being painfully slow on the last visit here, so I actually watched a bit of TV — an amazing HBO miniseries about John Adams — before getting to bed.

The flight back to Miami was entirely uneventful. Gary flew the visual approach to runway 9, touching down nicely. I thanked him for a great trip and made my way to the gate for my deadhead flight back to Boston. The pilots of this flight were Boston-based friends of mine, and while I wouldn’t have minded sitting in the cockpit to visit with them, I really preferred to sit in the back, this time in coach, to sleep on the way home.

Whether it’s sleeping, reading, watching a video on an iPod or listening to music, if you have something to do, it can really make all the difference when you’re a passenger. I just can’t wait for the WiFi that we’re slowly going to start seeing this year. Unfortunately it will only be available on domestic flights. I’ll be sure to test it out if I run across it during a deadhead on one of those flights.

As usual, I have no idea when or where I’ll be going next. I kind of like it that way. Stay tuned!

Cockpit Chronicles takes you along on each of Kent’s trips as a co-pilot on the Boeing 757 and 767 out of Boston will be there.

Jail then, luxury hotel now

by Iva Skoch on

Theme hotels, or even better hotels that have a quirky story behind them, have become quite popular in the luxury hotel circle.

Take the Liberty Hotel in Boston, for example. It is carved out of an iconic 19th century Charles Street Jail. Built in 1851, the Charles Street Jail was thought to be one of the best examples of the “Boston Granite Style” of the mid-19th century.

Today, the quarters are probably a bit more comfortable than they used to be. Within the main building, there are 18 guest rooms, as well as meeting rooms, a grand ballroom and what the hotel describes as one of the city’s hottest nightlife scenes. The adjacent 16-story tower houses 280 guest rooms with the latest in luxury linens, amenities and technology, enhanced by expansive views of Boston.

Jail-turned-luxury hotel? How is that for gentrification?

Skybus may return again: Some ideas for making a go of it

by Jamie Rhein on

Like a Phoenix rising from the ashes, so might Skybus. Yesterday, there were several stories about the possibility of Skybus Airlines’ return. The first story I heard was on the radio. Next came the nightly news. According to the stories, John Weikle, the airline’s founder, said he’s been working out ways to bring it back.

Weikle pointed to Allegiant Air as an indication that no-frills airlines can work. In order for the airline to pull it off, it needs to up the on-time performance and control expansion. Considering that Skybus has the planes, it has the logo, it has people who have probably not found jobs yet, AND there is the space in airports designed specifically for Skybus, it seems to me that the ingredients are there. Even since yesterday, I’ve talked with more people who were either going to buy tickets or who bought tickets all the time in order to visit relatives.

Now, it’s almost impossible to fly anywhere from Columbus without stopping somewhere along the way–often in an opposite direction. For people who are older, changing planes is problem. Why not promote Skybus as the airline that brings family members together. Another thing that I think would help push the smaller airports is to have step by step directions on how to get to the larger cities from the small airport locations. For example, have it spelled out how to get from Stewart Airport in Newburgh, New York to Grand Central Station. I don’t think it’s that hard, but it’s something people need to know in specifics. If the directions are in a format so they could be printed off, even better. How handy, people might think.

Another idea I have for a user-friendly addition is to have a page to click on at each airport location that highlights the things to see in the area. Click on Greensboro, North Carolina and you’ll find out information about what it’s near. I’d really like to know what’s near Greensboro, North Carolina without having to search myself. When I went to Allegiant Air’s Web site, I saw information about Allegiant Air destination towns and photographs. This put me in a traveling mood. Also, Allegiant’s Web site looks like it changes with new highlights. Smart. If Skybus could only get some more investors. An article in the Dispatch today said that those in Columbus shouldn’t hold our breath. I do have my fingers crossed.

ResortQuest stings vacation home renters with huge cancellation fees, blogger says

by Jeffrey White on

Anybody out there have any dealings with ResortQuest, a vacation rental outfit that seems to book through a Web site called Vacation Rentals by Owner?

Over at The Consumerist, a blogger posts a tale of getting raked over the coals in fees and strange taxes when his wife canceled a vacation rental booking the day after it was initially made — and a good three months before the scheduled date they were to arrive.

When the poster’s wife called ResortQuest to cancel the family’s reservation, the agency told her that she would not receive any refund of a $330 deposit. Then ResortQuest sent a cancellation statement detailing a $95.70 “reservation fee” and $190.92 in “taxes” (so it would seem that these people got some of their deposit back).

The poster sent the usual angry e-mails off to the company, demanding an accounting of just who was assessing and collecting those taxes. It was only when he started asking these questions directly to customer service reps at ResortQuest that he was told by a “manager” that he would receive a full refund. But even then, the company initially refused to provide a confirmation receipt of that refund.

The story ends well for the blogger, but it does raise some concerns for those of us out there thinking of renting vacation homes in place like Florida, where this blogger was headed. Apparently nothing in ResortQuest’s fine print detailed these cancellation penalties and tax assessments.

Anybody out there who can shed some light on ResortQuest, give Gadling a shout.