Como se dice?...

My Bosnian customs agent sent me a text message the other day.  It reads,

“Jonathan, Hi.  It’s [Davor from] City Sped.  Your “rjesenje” [document] for customs clearance is finished, and you can come to pick it up when ever you can from 8 – 16 hours Monday till Friday.  Best regards.”

For all intents and purposes, he used perfect business English.  The words in brackets were added by me, of course (his name isn’t really Davor).  Whenever I would see him, he would always comment that he enjoyed the opportunity to practice his English, and I asked him once how he came to speak it so well.  ”I don’t speak really well,” he would always say, “but all high school students had to take 4 years of English or some other language while in high school.  So we all learned at least how to communicate.”

“Have you been practicing your English much since then?” I asked.

“No.  Really, not at all.”  » Read the rest of this entry «