Years ago I was in the middle of engineering school in Buffalo, New York. In the beginning of the fall semester I had a bit of downtime before classes and work really picked up, so a buddy of mine drove up so that we could ride BMX a bit around Buffalo before heading over the border to Toronto to meet up with our friend Joel. While we were hanging out we talked about differences between our two countries and Joel described how slogans and mottos are a bit more emphatic in the US sometimes. He compared New York's license plates saying EMPIRE STATE to Ontario's that read YOURS TO DISCOVER and said "like what the hell is that?". It made me laugh. He said things like that in the US remind him of Québec license plates that say Je me souviens, which he said meant "I remember". They love their history over there. I thought it was interesting but didn't think about it again for another 6 years. Last year I drove up to Montréal for a quick weekend getaway and saw the license plates. I remembered what Joel told me. I couldn't help but notice that French has a similar structure to Spanish, a language I knew basically zero of during that Toronto trip years earlier. I took this photo of Joel and Justin in the middle of our riding session that day in Toronto, using Justin's camera. Joel wanted clarification on some math and Justin was obliging. The other photo was taken by Justin and is me showing Joel some clips on my phone that would be part of Summer of Freddy. Joel is a super rider, you can find his instagram here. I never thought I'd be interested in learning French, much less that I'd cherish a conversation about license plates and consider that the beginning of something significant. It's funny how language learning works, just little conversations that have huge impacts.
Years ago I was in the middle of engineering school in Buffalo, New York. In the beginning of the fall semester I had a bit of downtime before classes and work really picked up, so a buddy of mine drove up so that we could ride BMX a bit around Buffalo before heading over the border to Toronto to meet up with our friend Joel. While we were hanging out we talked about differences between our two countries and Joel described how slogans and mottos are a bit more emphatic in the US sometimes. He compared New York's license plates saying EMPIRE STATE to Ontario's that read YOURS TO DISCOVER and said "like what the hell is that?". It made me laugh. He said things like that in the US remind him of Québec license plates that say Je me souviens, which he said meant "I remember". They love their history over there. I thought it was interesting but didn't think about it again for another 6 years. Last year I drove up to Montréal for a quick weekend getaway and saw the license plates. I remembered what Joel told me. I couldn't help but notice that French has a similar structure to Spanish, a language I knew basically zero of during that Toronto trip years earlier. I took this photo of Joel and Justin in the middle of our riding session that day in Toronto, using Justin's camera. Joel wanted clarification on some math and Justin was obliging. The other photo was taken by Justin and is me showing Joel some clips on my phone that would be part of Summer of Freddy. Joel is a super rider, you can find his instagram here. I never thought I'd be interested in learning French, much less that I'd cherish a conversation about license plates and consider that the beginning of something significant. It's funny how language learning works, just little conversations that have huge impacts.