Today I got my second haircut from Barbara, a stylist who owns a salon several blocks from our apartment. I found her through Greta, our girls' homeschooling tutor, who kindly accompanied me the first time I made an appointment with Barbara to make sure that nothing got lost in translation (and that I didn't end up with orange hair). I greatly appreciate Barbara's hair styling skills, as well as her conversational skills.
Today she told me that she sees me as her English language teacher. I had assumed that she had learned the language in school because her English is quite good, but I was wrong. Barbara learned English by watching American movies. And now when her nine-year-old son Lovro brings home his English-language books and worksheets (today Croatian children start learning English when they begin school), she goes over them for her own benefit. Along with knowing Croatian and English, Barbara speaks German, which she took in school, and she understands Italian but doesn't speak it well. Barbara's husband is fluent in Italian, a language he uses as part of his job. He either does shipbuilding or ship repair (we needed a dictionary at that point in the conversation!), and he often goes to nearby Italy for work. We've met a number of people connected to the shipping industry here in this port city. Anyway, when Barbara said that she sees me as her language teacher, I asked her if she could be my language teacher. An eager and patient instructor, she tried to teach me the difference between the Croatian č and ć (both have a "ch" sound; one "ch" is harder than the other)--something I've been trying to understand, but my American ears seem to have difficulty hearing the difference.
One thing that Barbara taught me was how to sing the "happy birthday" song in Croatian. I used that on a phone call to the States not long after the haircut. Sretan 70. rođendan, Tata!
Laura
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