can’t see the forest

Deutsche Welle reports that the German city of Hamburg is instituting a program whereby mass transit commuters can pick up the basics of the Turkish and English languages during their boring daily shuffles to and fro.

Other European cities, from Milan to Wrocław, have recently incorporated multilingual education in their transit systems as well.

In Portland, Oregon, where I live, all recorded information and instructions on the light rail lines is delivered in both English and Spanish. Poetry, usually by local authors, is featured on placards in the trains and buses. Also, at the train station several hundred feet below Forest Park, there is a neat geological mini-exhibit showing and explaining the various layers of rock exhumed when the tunnel was dug.

I don’t know; as a compulsive polyglot and a mass transit commuter I guess these things just interest me.