I'm pretty sure she spoke Japanese at home, although I don't remember if she initially started writing songs in English or Japanese (the info is out there, somewhere, but it's been a while).
Thanks for the book rec! I'll check it out. I was in Belgium in 2005 (my uncle's family is based in Antwerp) and in the Flemish regions it's way easier to find someone who speaks English than someone who speaks French. Which would have seemed weird to me if I didn't live in Quebec (Belgium is the only place in the world more hung up on language divides that's not actually engaged in civil war).
I do arithmetic and handle phone numbers in Chinese. But apparently there's a scientific reason for that: the human brain remembers syllables rather than digits, and the Mandarin Chinese 1-100 counting system is both perfectly regular and one syllable per digit, making it easier to do basic mental math.
I know who Alex is from ILM, and I think we've had exactly one exchange on LJ (and I've forgotten what his LJ name is XD;). I sometimes wonder if I've actually met him, though, since we go to a lot of the same shows, and often I'd actually check ILM for his opinion on something I'd missed.
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Thanks for the book rec! I'll check it out. I was in Belgium in 2005 (my uncle's family is based in Antwerp) and in the Flemish regions it's way easier to find someone who speaks English than someone who speaks French. Which would have seemed weird to me if I didn't live in Quebec (Belgium is the only place in the world more hung up on language divides that's not actually engaged in civil war).
I do arithmetic and handle phone numbers in Chinese. But apparently there's a scientific reason for that: the human brain remembers syllables rather than digits, and the Mandarin Chinese 1-100 counting system is both perfectly regular and one syllable per digit, making it easier to do basic mental math.
I know who Alex is from ILM, and I think we've had exactly one exchange on LJ (and I've forgotten what his LJ name is XD;). I sometimes wonder if I've actually met him, though, since we go to a lot of the same shows, and often I'd actually check ILM for his opinion on something I'd missed.