I suspect this will be my favorite room :-)

Boy, I am going to love this Half of the posts I want to write are usually somehow off topic. Are we allowed to be totally off topic, or must is still be somehow language related?

And just to set the right frivolous tone right from the start, I'll talk a bit about my two cats, who I love almost as much as my kids. The white one is a language lover, or more specifically a Russian lover. He follows me around everywhere, and loves listening to my Russian CDs. Sometimes if I leave the room with the CD-player on, he'll stay snuggled up in the wash basin, just to keep listening to the Russian. He is also a big fan of Greek, but he absolutely loathes Mandarin, and runs away if I put it on. I suspect he thinks it sounds like a cat is being murdered, and he does not want to be next in line. The black one has so far not showed any interest in foreign language learning, but she is an extremely efficient communicator. Of course it helps that her three main messages are 1. I want food. 2. I want out. 3. I want more food If I can figure out how to post pictures here directly from my phone I'll include pictures

I bet you do. Not sure I can provide that, though. He is pretty fast for his size

I always have to do small talk with my neighbours when I am waiting for the bus to come at the bus stop. But besides this I am rather the type of person who tends to avoid small talk.

Fasulye

I have two cats as well, Solfrid, and though I haven't noticed them having a marked preference for a language, the younger one will sometimes come pester me when I am speaking French on Skype or Verbling.

Hmmm, I will be very interested in seeing how this particular part of the forum will develop. I don't mean to be negative, I think it is a brave thing to establish an off-topic forum within an language learning forum - I just hope that this will not be a place populated by all kinds of trolls in the future, but that there will be some adult, mature and sensible discussions on whatever subjects people choose to post about, whether it is about dogs, cats, the Dalai Lama or the right way to make boeuf bourguignon.

I've seen in some other threads here that there has been criticism of HTLAL moderating policy. Personally I have no issue with it, and I respect the moderators there. However, I also have no problem with a place like this which leaves the door wide open. I doubt I will write very much here - it will depend on the subjects. If I want to discuss politics, like the situation in Ukraine or the upcoming European Parliament elections I'll probably do so elsewhere. However, if anyone wants to discuss gastronomy or whether French wines are superior to Italian or Spanish wine, I might just chip in.

As for cats and dogs, well, if anyone's interested I can just say that I am no great fan of pets in any shape or form, and so far I have resisted my kids' requests for one. I might have to give in one day though, and in that case it will probably be a dog, preferably of the kind that doesn't bark very much and that doesn't need four hours of exercise every day