As a foreigner living in a country that does not share my native tongue, and despite my efforts to be as fluent as possible in theirs, a time always arrises when a little voice whispers at the back of my mind; "well, i think that's what they mean".
Unless you either native born or very arrogant you can never say that you are a hundred per cent certain.
I first realised this at a parents evening, my first, and i struggled to find the focus of the conversation that was exploding around me. I contributed nothing as the effort to sift the voices and content left me mentally exhausted.
Driving home my neighbour asked if i had understood and i honestly replied; "well, i think you were discussing the possibility of using domestic washing machines to rinse lettuce leaves for the communal school supper next month". I was, apparently, correct.
I remember a teacher that prohibited the use of the question "do you understand", because noone really knows for certain if they have or haven't understood. And this reminds me of another teacher that told us that we would not be working "on what you know", nor on "what you don't know", but that we would be working on "what you don't know that you don't know".
Listening to the radio in the car today, and suddenly realising that my attention had been drifting, i THINK i heard someone describing a film project that had occured at a festival here in France. A camera had been set up under a piece of protective glass and people were invited to do things on top. Some dropped eggs, some jumped up and down etc.
The edited results were projected that evening on a screen suspended on the ceiling of a barn, so that the audience had to look up, from underneath, to watch what was coming down from above.
It sounds better in French.
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