What does the phrase "in a word" mean?
Google says: The phrase "in a word" is an idiom used to summarize a previous statement, deliver a direct opinion, or answer a question as briefly and concisely as possible, It acts as a verbal shorthand for "in short," "to summarize," or "in a nutshell".
In a word, if I were going to learn a language besides English, Spanish has certainly
proved quite useful, especially here in the USA, where it is our second language. I was fortunate
to have first learned Spanish at an early age. So now I'm told that I don't
have a gringo accent. It's very hard to lose a foreign accent if a second language
is
learned after the very early teen years, as Nixon adviser Henry Kissinger found out.
He
came to the US at age 15, but didn't start speaking Enligh right away and never ditched his accent. Not only did Spanish prove very useful to me in the Peace Corps in Honduras but gave me a late life career. career.
ate life career as Spansih medical inter blend into local life in Latin America and to undertake a late life part-time career as a medical interpreter in the DC area. Here where I live now in West Virginia, the only folks I've spoken with in Spanish are those at the local Mexican resaurant, who hale from Guadalajara. I was unsuccessful trying to teach Spanish to my kids, who resisted learning, including my son Jon with whom I live now, adopted from Colombia at an early age.
is learned after about age 12. (Excuse any glitches above, interference from the blog gods.)
Henry Kissinger didn't start learning English until his mid-teens and never lost his accent.
While only native Spanish speakers were able to pass the very rigorous oral test to qualify as an English-Spanish medical interpreter back when I lived in Washington, DC, I was able to pass because, in a way, I am a native Spanish speaker, having learned both English and Spanish at age 2, while traveling with my family in Central America.
Here, I was in Honduras at age 2, being bathed by a servant as my (late) younger brother looked on.
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AP, Trump booed by NBA Finals crowd prior to Game 3
Trump seemed unphased by the boos. He said he thought it was mostly cheers. He doesn't care about high prices: "Love the inflatiom,"
Trump says 'I love the inflation' as rate rises to 4.2% amid Iran war pressure
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Vance refers Gov. Tim Walz and Minnesota attorney general to DOJ for fraud investigation
Vance hopes this effort will earn him brownie points with Trump, though it will probably end just like the search into NY AG Letitia James, which yielded only a big fat nothing. Such an effort is usually undertaken to put a political adversary on the defensive, hopefully to unearth something even slightly incriminating or perhaps just embarrassing, then blast that out loudly to the entire world. Let's see what Vance comes up with. Probably zilch.
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Wash. Post, Texas teenager sentenced to 35 years in prison in murder of high school student
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Protests have erupted in Northern Ireland
Anti-immigration riots erupted across Belfast, Northern Ireland, following the arrest of a 30-year-old Sudanese asylum seeker charged with attempted murder after an alleged beheading attack on a 40-year-old victim. Mobs torched buses, cars, homes and a Middle Eastern supermarket, with hooded men going door to door searching for migrants as police struggled to contain the violence.
A great white shark was spotted by a diver retrieving abandoned fishing nets.
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Yahoo News, Since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, 1,098 Palestinians — including at least 240 children — have been killed by Israeli troops or settlers in the occupied West Bank, according to U.N. figures. Amid the violence, Bedouin communities in rural areas have been driven from their land as new Israeli outposts have sprung up and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's pro-settler government has moved to legalize others.
Fortunately for Mr. Netanyahu, he is able to speak American English with Donald Trump, who barely even speaks English, and certainly no other language. As a result, Bibi was able to convince a very suggestible Donald Trump to attack Iran in secret, without first notifying Congress as is required by law, thus starting a war with Iran and delaying the prime minster's corruption trial indefinitely. So many lives have now been lost just to keep Netanyahu out of jail. Trump has been deperately trying to get out of the war that he started just on a whim, a war now proving highly unpopular with the American public. So he is desperately looking for an off-ramp now before voters go the polls at the midterms.
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Pope speaks Catalan in Barcelona, nodding to local identity on Spain tour
Yes, I too can understand Catalan, which is very similar to Spanish. Whenever a Catalan speaker was talking to me, I replied in Spanish and we completely understood each other. However, I have no plans now to visit Spain once again.
Family and friends who want to see me in person will just have to come here to West Virginia, as after my recent Florida trip, as I don't anticipate any more travel.
Bad Bunny met with Pope Leo in Spain.
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What sort of creatures have we humans evolved from? Yes, monkeys and apes are our genetic cousins. We share roughly 98.7% of our DNA with chimpanzees and bonobos, our closest living evolutionary relatives.
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Biblical literalists might disagree that we have any connection whatsoever with great apes. Google says:
The story of Adam and Eve in Genesis 1–3 describes God creating the first man from dust and the first woman from his rib, placing them in the Garden of Eden. They are forbidden from eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, but a serpent tempts them to disobey, leading to the "Fall of Man," banishment, and the introduction of sin, mortality, and labor into the world.
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Here now is an ugent message from Amnesty International:
Drop Site is reporting that Dr. Abu Safiya has been moved to solitary confinement. "Israel transfers Gaza doctor to solitary confinement: Israeli authorities transferred detained Gaza doctor Hussam Abu Safiya to solitary confinement at Nafha Prison on June 3 following his legal team’s challenge to an extension of his detention, with his lawyer describing the move as punitive and saying it has left Abu Safiya without necessary medical treatment. Healthcare Workers Watch reports that "at least 83 Palestinian healthcare workers are currently held by Israel, including 75 from Gaza." https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/israel-lebanon-hussam-abu-safiyah-gaza-trump-cuba
After 18 months since his arrest, Dr, Abu Safita is being held by Israel in solitray confinement without being charged. What might he have done? This is happening with the full support of Donald Trump, our current president, and with our tax dollars, which are still going to Israel. Still, Israel is continuig to commit war crimes. How can we stop this? It would certainly help if the US and Donald Trump stopped funneling so much money to Netanyahu and his cronies. But Trump seems deaf to any humanitarian entreaties.
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