A good reason to learn another language

Being a slightly superstitious person (who, me?) I decided that, should there be a horse in the Grand National with a name that was loosely connected with parenthood or babies, I would place a £5 bet on it. After all, it’s happened before where a horse bearing a zeitgeist-moniker has won the National (such as Party Politics way back in 1992). I was a little dismayed to discover there wasn’t such a horse in the race, so I decided not to play.

Oh, if only I had learnt French at school. English (and probably some American) people are perhaps the worst in the world when it comes to learning another language. And I'm one of them. I know perhaps a smattering of German words, and while I do try when I go abroad, I don't try hard enough, and I always feel just a little ignorant.

Out of sheer curiosity I babel-fished “Mon Mome” after the Grand National had run its course, and would you bloody believe it, it translates as “my kid”. Gutted? Too fucking right I was! For the sake of learning another language when I was a “kid” we might have been £500 better off.

I guess I would have been none the wiser if curiosity hadn’t gotten the better of me, but while they say ignorance is bliss, I reckon it also makes you poorer…