Alright, I have maybe convinced her. I told the lovely Argentinan girl named Marina about this website. She knows how passionated I am about her country. I know that she is completely in love with Belgium : she studied over here a couple of years ago. I met her for the first time, about 10 months ago, in Buenos Aires. Where she studies and works for the university (which is for a lot of Argentinian students the only way to be able to pay for their studies).
I talked to her about the “challenge” for this website to make money, to find publicity makers, to become popular and rich. I told her I needed interesting ideas or articles to make my weblog more attractive, so that more people would visit dominiek.be and so that I would become very popular and attractive (*cough*). Some kind of internet-Robbie Williams.
And I have almost convinced her, hooray! (sort of…)
She’s still thinking about it, but there is a big chance she’ll be writing for dominiek.be as well in the near future. In English, off course. About her country, about Buenos Aires and the beautiful Neuquen (where she was born and raised). About living, studying, working, going out, culture and every day’s life in Argentina. About Belgium, why she loves and loved Belgium, what she did over here, why she keeps on dreaming about our country.
She’d like to write about it, she feels unsure about her English, but I am sure that she is full of stories, dreams, life experience and passion to talk about.
But if you like the idea, you always can try to convince her. Write down some comments under this article, she’ll be reading it!
op 24 april 2006 om 12:52
Come on, girl, spread your wings !
op 24 april 2006 om 13:12
A girl that was born and raised in Neuquen (don’t make me pronounce it in Dutch!) simply MUST write about that.
op 24 april 2006 om 13:12
Well I’d be interested to read her contributions! Always interesting to read how people of other places think of Belgium. Having visited Bs As last December, I can only agree that Argentina’s a fascinating country — so reading about it from an inside perspective would be cool — typo’s included!
op 24 april 2006 om 13:34
Well, dear Marina, Dominiek’s English isn’t that good either, so just hop on board!
op 24 april 2006 om 14:43
she must!
especially because Argentinia will become soccer world champion. would be interesting to have a finger on the pols.
op 24 april 2006 om 15:22
Come on girl! marina give Dominiek some exotic touch! he really needs it!
op 24 april 2006 om 17:42
D. van de straat?
op 24 april 2006 om 18:01
Rocco Granata informed us already about you, so we want to know more.
If you can dream and discuss with Dominiek, then you can write.
Just do it.
op 24 april 2006 om 19:55
Quote = Fernand: “Just do it.”
Is this some kind of productplacement or have I again shot a camel?
op 25 april 2006 om 01:56
okkkk! ill do it….but i need some days!
op 25 april 2006 om 11:38
Marina: how do you want me to send you a few days? DHL?
op 25 april 2006 om 20:26
This sounds so cute!
I’m really looking forward towards marina’s stories and adventures!
op 25 april 2006 om 20:26
Oh, and Marina : don’t mind the stupid humour of people like Dirty Jos and Karl above !!!
op 26 april 2006 om 09:08
Marina,
no le tengas miedo a escribir en inglés, al principio a mi también me daba cagazo pero después vi que habia gente a la que le gustaba de lo que yo hablaba y no les importaba que tuviera errores (al contrario, hasta se divertian con ellos!)
Yo vivo aqui en Flanders y tengo un weblog en español -es el link de arriba, pero solia escribir aqui: http://www.killuglyradio.com con el nickname Dr Sharleena; jamas nadie me hostigo o algo asi con respecto a mi inglés, al contrario.
Un consejo: para mejorarlo (tu inglés) consegui libros y leé mucho. No escribas muy largo, anda al punto que querés contar asi no te complicas. Y si no sabés como decir o traducir algo escribime! a lo mejor te puedo ayudar… Suerte y animate!
op 26 april 2006 om 09:22
I love to read spanish, I understand the most, but I’m so desperate I can’t write it at all !
op 26 april 2006 om 09:36
I have the same with Flemish, Dominiek!
Never mind, if you read and practice maybe one day you’ll be fluent for writing. It’s good enough that you UNDERSTAND it! You guys here in Belgium have the wonderful capability of switching from one language to another very quickly…
op 26 april 2006 om 12:07
Yo comprendo y hablo la lengua espagnola perro me falto el ejercicio !
op 26 april 2006 om 12:21
@Gaby
Well Gaby, I’ve been told that it’s easier for us to learn Spanish, than it is for Spanishspeeking people to learn Dutch !
You know why we easily pick up foreign languages here in Belgium ?
That’s because we are such a small country that most of the people never heard of it ! So we have to shout loud to be heard… We’ve been conquered since ages by foreign people, coming all over the ocean or over the land, leaving their seeds behind… That’s why Belgians are ‘famous’ being negotiators too.
op 26 april 2006 om 13:26
Sure, that is something we don’t have in Argentina. We are a big country, surrounded by Spanish speaking countries, never conquered by other than Spanish.
AND, we are pretty far away from the rest of the world; so we don’t have the “need” to be communicating with other people in different languages. Until now, because the world is getting smaller as we speak.
We do have English as second language in school, but the education level for that is pretty low. Plus, there’s a prejudice against people who speak other languages -being English or French or German, don’t ask me why, like you are trying “to look” like a foreigner. Very stupid indeed, and you end up with almost no practice, and feeling like “your English” won’t ever be good enough… But again, it’s a matter of practice, you know, trial and error, somebody will be kind enough to let you know when you are making a mistake.
Oh, and about the Spanish: you’ve been conquered by spaniards too in Flanders! so i guess there must be some collective memory of that, which makes it not so difficult to learn Spanish…
op 26 april 2006 om 14:47
“surrounded by Spanish speaking countries” –> except for Brazil, where people only seem to speak Portugese !
op 28 april 2006 om 04:26
I am alledgedley a descendent of the Spanish Inquisitadores,they ‘entered’ my belgian (flemish roots) long time ago (so our collective memory is rather failing).I’d rather prefer to allocate my dark complexion and hair to Don Quixote.But it’s true : the world is a global market- and meetingplace, f.e.this blogentry.
Hasta la vista.