Our interview with Simone

Simone, what is your connection with the Luxembourgish language?

I am from Luxembourg, and Luxembourgish is my native tongue.

How come you're teaching Luxembourgish?

That's a longish story, and has to do a bit with coincidence.

I had always been interested in languages, but I would never had thought that one day I would be teaching myself. That was until a few years ago, when I called a language school on behalf of a friend of mine, to see whether they needed an English teacher. They then asked me: "You're Luxembourgish, aren't you? How would YOU like teaching?" I met them, they explained everything to me, and thereupon, I decided to attend their training (thinking I'd be none the worse for it). I then found that this was so much fun that I left my former job as a secretary to exclusively teach.

Who learns Luxembourgish? Who are those people?

Those are people from abroad, adults, who work in Luxembourg, and maybe even live here. Mostly, these people need it for their job or some other reason (for example, because the law prescribes it if you want to get the luxembourgish nationality). Unfortunately, here in Luxembourg you don't really need to speak the language to survive, since we all speak German, French and English. Sometimes I get the odd one out who says "I live here, so I also want to learn the language."

Those people come from everywhere, I had English, Russian, American, Dutch, Italian students, people from Mauritius, and so on, but most of the time, it's people from the direct environment of Luxembourg (from France, Germany or Belgium), or Portuguese immigrants.

What have YOU learnt as a teacher?

Concerning the language, I learned a lot about grammar and etymology, I learned to explain things I never even thought about before this, and I learned that a language tells a lot about the mentalities of a country.

On a human basis, I learned about patience, tolerance and interpersonal contacts.

What's easy in the Luxembourgish language is...

that we simply can take the present tense of a verb and, together with an appropriate timing word, express a future
that there is, unlike in German, no genitive (even if this also can complicate things)
that often, you can take a word from another European language, "luxembourgise" it and be understood.

What's difficult in the Luxembourgish language is...

the pronunciation
that we have verbs that don't exist like that in other languages, for example in French
the dative
that we have three different genders (masculine, feminine and neutral) for things, and most other languages only have one or two.

Give us a good tip to learn Luxembourgish, please.

try to memorise the article directly with the words
speak Luxembourgish as often as you can, and don't worry, mostly the Luxembourgish people are very tolerant about possible mistakes
if you can, listen to a Luxembourgish radio or watch the Luxembourgish TV

Luxembourgish in an ideal world...

... would not be a dying language, as is unfortunately the case now. The Luxembourgish people will soon be a minority in their own country, and this also has repercussions on the language.

What is a good language learner?

A good language learner is interested in the language he is learning and invests some effort. Having a boyfriend or a girlfriend from that country is usually a good incentive!

Your message to all those learning Luxembourgish.

It's nice that you want to learn our beautiful language. I wish you courage and perseverance, and I thank you for your interest!

Your own question and answer.

Why learn Luxembourgish at all?

What's the point, if the Luxembourgish people themselves speak so many languages?

I could now say, the more people speak it, the better, but I have a far funnier idea: it's like a secret language! Chances are small that you're understood elsewhere, and so you can chat almost completely without worries that you'll be understood...