Languages Thread

[Skywalker]

(Sorry for the watered-down translation. That's what happens when you write the English first, using words you don't know in German.)

1.5 years of German taught me one thing: Based on my class in general, it's hard for me to build larger words using bases. (Badewanne, bad=bathroom, wanne=tub, bathtub) My German teacher never assigns base words, prefixes etc. for homework and instead assigns larger nouns. If I did know more of the smaller words I could spell and remember a lot more, although this wouldn't help much for verbs, except for conjugations maybe. Studying can be a serious pain in the ***.

Advice?

 

[Icy_Eagle]

ROFL, you people crack me up. I might even sig Slhoka's quote.
It's Icelandic, not islandic lol although it's not really wrong

I should have thought about teh funkayh letterz when I wrote this.
Arg, I was about to go to sleep but you people got me going with these comments and it's already 1 AM here.

I was wondering though cF=), is it difficult to learn French? I've always wanted to learn it for some reason but the difference between writing and pronouncing seems really big and I didn't manage to find me some French teacher
And since you're fluent at English, how's mine?

 

[Slhoka]

ROFL, you people crack me up. I might even sig Slhoka's quote.
It's Icelandic, not islandic lol although it's not really wrong

I recognized it thanks to the letters
But I got pwnd by my english skills and misspelled Icelandic ^^"

 

[cF=)]

ROFL, you people crack me up. I might even sig Slhoka's quote.
It's Icelandic, not islandic lol although it's not really wrong

Actually, I have an alibi, because in french it IS written "Islande" And since countries aren't my cup of tea...

And no, french isn't that hard, but we got lots of synonyms for no particular reason, except maybe poetry, which I think is always better in french than in english for that particular reason. You might also have issues pronouncing correctly depending on your mother tongue. I know south american people who understood french way faster than english friends did for that matter.

 

[Chickenboy666]

well, spanish is my main language =P
I also know english (studying it since I was 6 years old), japanese (studying since 2004, I also have been in Japan, I think I'm kinda fluent, I have done the 3kyu Nihongonouryoukushiken =P) und etwas deutsch (I started german two months ago XD)

 

[Salaad]

Pharcy FTW?

 

[Junpappy]

. . . my school has a crappy Japanese program. How can one learn kanji without the aid of a professor?

 

[WoodyWiggins]

. . . my school has a crappy Japanese program. How can one learn kanji without the aid of a professor?

Simple, buy a Japanese Kanji dictionary, write down at least 10 -12 Kanji that you can sticky onto to things like the Kanji for bike = jitensha ( romanji sucks) and etc. Repeat aloud every time you see the Kanji and Ta-Da in about three weeks time you'll know atleast 30 - 36 Kanji (provided you at least know hiragana or katakana)! Bon chance!

 

[Witchking_of_Angmar]

Why is no one flaming German? English is a superior and easier language. And I would know since German is my mother tounge and I speak English fluently, due to 5 years of my 13 living in the US. I'm taking french at school right now, (I'm in my second year) although I did mess with latin a bit.

 

[Jammer]

Yeah, I agree that English is a superior language, but only for one reason: It almost always takes less space to get the same meaning across.

Whenever you see messages in like 3 different languages on a shampoo bottle or something, the English is always like 2 lines, while the Spanish, French, and German are around 3 lines.

I have a bottle of paper shredder oil. It says "Paper Shredder Oil" as the English title, "Huile de graissage pour destructeurs de documents" for the French title, and "Aceite lubricante para destructoras de documentos" for the Spanish title. I think, at least here, English wins.

EDIT: But I don't believe English is an easier Language. I think it's harder than Spanish, German, French, etc., but easier than most Asian languages.

 

[Keku]

Speaking fluent English, Finnish, German and Swedish here. People from such a small country as Finland have to compensate with learning a lot of languages and in general, getting a good education.

Also: hallo liebe Mitsmashern! Es freut mich sehr, hier mit euch zu quatschen. Mein Problem ist, dass es fast keine Smash-scene in Finland gibt, und deswegen muss ich nur gegen Computern spielen.. Gut für das technische Können, aber sonst stinkt es... Zum Glück hat Brawl auch Wifi.

And a small lesson of Finnish now that I'm at it.. Terppa kaikille, toivotan kaiki tervetulleiksi Suomeen mättämään vaikkapa Smashia tai saunomaan itsenne kypsiksi.
- Now, any soul that thinks Finnish looks funny?

 

[Jammer]

I guess I thought "mättämään" looked a bit funny. Other than that, it seemed pretty normal. It's definitely different, but not funny.

 

[Phlemingo]

I can speak Pig Latin.

 

[Witchking_of_Angmar]

Yeah, I agree that English is a superior language, but only for one reason: It almost always takes less space to get the same meaning across.

Whenever you see messages in like 3 different languages on a shampoo bottle or something, the English is always like 2 lines, while the Spanish, French, and German are around 3 lines.

I have a bottle of paper shredder oil. It says "Paper Shredder Oil" as the English title, "Huile de graissage pour destructeurs de documents" for the French title, and "Aceite lubricante para destructoras de documentos" for the Spanish title. I think, at least here, English wins.

EDIT: But I don't believe English is an easier Language. I think it's harder than Spanish, German, French, etc., but easier than most Asian languages.

English is waaaaay easier than German. Honestly, you don't have "den Konjunktiv" (I think it's called subjunctive in Egnlish... does anyone know) and the whole grammar is just easier. That and I can express myself better in English.

 

[Keku]

I guess I thought "mättämään" looked a bit funny. Other than that, it seemed pretty normal. It's definitely different, but not funny.

Allright, I can tell you though that most foreign people think that it sounds even more odd that it looks like. The language is also considered to be one of the hardest spoken languages on Tellus. I suppose this could also fit in the Interesting Facts thread, but J.R.R. Tolkien was very interested in the Finnish language, and it had a strong influence when he was developing the Elvish language for his fantasy-world. But I guess that's enough patriotism for today.

Edit:

English is waaaaay easier than German. Honestly, you don't have "den Konjunktiv" (I think it's called subjunctive in Egnlish... does anyone know) and the whole grammar is just easier. That and I can express myself better in English.

I totally second that.

 

[Jammer]

English is waaaaay easier than German. Honestly, you don't have "den Konjunktiv" (I think it's called subjunctive in Egnlish... does anyone know) and the whole grammar is just easier. That and I can express myself better in English.

Heh, Well, that's interesting. You're German, and you think Deutsch is harder to learn; I'm American, and I think English is harder to learn.

Now I just don't know anymore.

 

[Witchking_of_Angmar]

I know that finnish is hard.... Ijust don't know how hard, because I don't actually want to learn it..... don't you have like tons of forms for each word, more so than latin?

 

[Keku]

Well, I suppose I could tell a somewhat unbiased view on the "which is harder"-issue, since I speak neither as my native language. And as I said, I've had way more trouble learning German than English, and knowing quite a lot of the grammar of each language, I'd say German is more complicated. Mainly because of the sheer number of exceptions that it has.

On the other hand though, I hear English all the time in television, in the movies and so on, and I speak it every day in the internet, so that might just make my learning curve a tad easier. However, I tried to keep that in mind when comparing the 'hardness'..

I know that finnish is hard.... Ijust don't know how hard, because I don't actually want to learn it..... don't you have like tons of forms for each word, more so than latin?

Heh, correct. Just imagine all prepositions and rhetoric stuff removed, and instead, using a diffenrent form of the same word. We also have "weird" stuff like double-consonants which seem just impossible for foreigners to pronounce. On another hand though, we have a German priest living here in Lohja (the city that I live in) that speaks really fluent Finnish.

 

[Jammer]

Well, I suppose I could tell a somewhat unbiased view on the "which is harder"-issue, since I speak neither as my native language. And as I said, I've had way more trouble learning German than English, and knowing quite a lot of the grammar of each language, I'd say German is more complicated. Mainly because of the sheer number of exceptions that it has.

I've decided to take your word for it instead of holding my previous opinion. I guess that means that English is a great language in yet another way. And it's always evolving and improving, often becoming simplified. For example, third-person verbs (I forget what they're called) will probably be replaced by the first-person forms in a few decades, according to an English teacher I had. The sentence "She plays Smash" will become "She play Smash." Kind of like Tarzan-talk, except it'll be normal.

 

[YosNess-64]

Hi people, I'm interested in making new friends and i decided to put a new thread on Pool Room for spanish speakers. Hope you like it and visit it to speak spanish or if you want to learn or master, hey, you're welcome too. see ya.

 

[Keku]

I've decided to take your word for it instead of holding my previous opinion. I guess that means that English is a great language in yet another way. And it's always evolving and improving, often becoming simplified. For example, third-person verbs (I forget what they're called) will probably be replaced by the first-person forms in a few decades, according to an English teacher I had. The sentence "She plays Smash" will become "She play Smash." Kind of like Tarzan-talk, except it'll be normal.

Yeah, I really like English in lots of ways. One reason is because it's pretty logical and easy to learn. Another reason is because I just like the sound of it, and the flexibility it offers. I'd hate to see it devolving into caveman-speak like you just expressed, though... It'd feel like losing the fruits of the Enlightenment, and going back to "Me like woman, me hit woman with club, and take woman home cave.".

But in all honesty, I don't think that's going to happen in a long time, mainly because it'd be really unpractical. People wouldn't be able to understand each other anymore, and I'd say that's pretty much where the line is drawn in simplifying the language for common every-day purposes.

 

[Jammer]

I disagree with most of your last post, Keku. While that may be stereotypical "cave man speak" (how do we know how cave men talked, anyway? I bet they didn't speak English), there's nothing wrong with it. It's another simplification of verbs: a whole unnecessary conjugation thrown out the window.

Also, it's easy to understand it. It just sounds weird.

 

[RMR]

Hablo Español, English and Portuguese, and Im learning Japanese, but I cant find someone to practice with (If any of you wants to practice with me, you are free to PM me, may be we can exchange mails) What I hate the most is Kanji, I only know the First GRade Kyoku ones

 

[pdk]

quick question for the spanish (or any other language with these signs) folk: is there some sort of acceptable substitute for the diacritics (accents/tilde/umlaut) in e.g. chat rooms, or do people usually understand if you just ignore adding them because alt+numpad is a pain? for example, consider the phrase:

Qué eres tú cumpleaños?

what i'm asking is basically if this phrase would be acceptable to write in a chat room, message board, etc as something closer to:

Que' eres tu' cumplean~os?

this is just my not-so-informed guess here, so if there's some other way to do it that's considered "standard" online or it's more common to just ignore the diacritics altogether, do tell

 

[Demon Kirby]

I know a little Italian. Trying to learn more.

 

[MattDel]

I've decided to take your word for it instead of holding my previous opinion. I guess that means that English is a great language in yet another way. And it's always evolving and improving, often becoming simplified. For example, third-person verbs (I forget what they're called) will probably be replaced by the first-person forms in a few decades, according to an English teacher I had. The sentence "She plays Smash" will become "She play Smash." Kind of like Tarzan-talk, except it'll be normal.

last year for english class, i did a research report about how english has evolved over time... its a very interesting topic, at least in my opinion...

 

[MattDel]

sorry to double post, but i see two things i wanted to answer...

quick question for the spanish (or any other language with these signs) folk: is there some sort of acceptable substitute for the diacritics (accents/tilde/umlaut) in e.g. chat rooms, or do people usually understand if you just ignore adding them because alt+numpad is a pain? for example, consider the phrase:

Qué eres tú cumpleaños?

what i'm asking is basically if this phrase would be acceptable to write in a chat room, message board, etc as something closer to:

Que' eres tu' cumplean~os?

this is just my not-so-informed guess here, so if there's some other way to do it that's considered "standard" online or it's more common to just ignore the diacritics altogether, do tell

im not sure about this, but that seems like a good idea to me...

I know a little Italian. Trying to learn more.

i want to learn italian... i started to, but then it started confusing me with spanish so i stopped...

 

[RMR]

quick question for the spanish (or any other language with these signs) folk: is there some sort of acceptable substitute for the diacritics (accents/tilde/umlaut) in e.g. chat rooms, or do people usually understand if you just ignore adding them because alt+numpad is a pain? for example, consider the phrase:

Qué eres tú cumpleaños?

what i'm asking is basically if this phrase would be acceptable to write in a chat room, message board, etc as something closer to:

Que' eres tu' cumplean~os?

this is just my not-so-informed guess here, so if there's some other way to do it that's considered "standard" online or it's more common to just ignore the diacritics altogether, do tell

People can usually understand you without accents, Most people dont use them.

And you mean "Cuando es tu cumpleaños ?", Roughly traslated, you did said "What is you Birthday ?"(all your base are belong to us, anyone ?) People will usually understand you if you talk them like you did, its not like if we are complete ignorants. I think spanish just uses so many words, thats whyI love english, is just so simple !

 

[Keku]

I disagree with most of your last post, Keku. While that may be stereotypical "cave man speak" (how do we know how cave men talked, anyway? I bet they didn't speak English), there's nothing wrong with it. It's another simplification of verbs: a whole unnecessary conjugation thrown out the window.

Also, it's easy to understand it. It just sounds weird.

By removing the conjugation you also remove one factor that helps make speech more understandable. If someone says "She plays smash", there's two factors that imply that the talker is indeed talking in 3rd person. When you turn it into "she play smash", and for example, the other person doesn't hear the first word at all, he's left wondering what you meant.

The same issue has already come up with cases such as negative words. "We don't want no casserolls." isn't a rare sight these days and it has two negative factors, thus making it more understandable. Atleast that's what I think the reason for that is. But I suppose we'll just have to wait a couple of decades and see.

 

[cF=)]

I have a bottle of paper shredder oil. It says "Paper Shredder Oil" as the English title, "Huile de graissage pour destructeurs de documents" for the French title, and "Aceite lubricante para destructoras de documentos" for the Spanish title. I think, at least here, English wins.

That's because the translation in french is horrible. Let me get that straight, "paper shredder oil" would translate to "huile pour déchiqueteuse à papier", which isn't nearly as bad as what's written on your bottle I agree with you though, english is great length-wise, but meaning wise, french will have a easier time saying the right thing and sound more romantic than english.

 

[Jammer]

By removing the conjugation you also remove one factor that helps make speech more understandable. If someone says "She plays smash", there's two factors that imply that the talker is indeed talking in 3rd person. When you turn it into "she play smash", and for example, the other person doesn't hear the first word at all, he's left wondering what you meant.

Meh, it's not that important. I mean, you say "I play Smash" and "They play Smash" and "You play Smash". Why not add "She play Smash" to the mix?

I agree with you though, english is great length-wise, but meaning wise, french will have a easier time saying the right thing and sound more romantic than english.

Yes, I would have to agree that French sounds very romantic. I guess that's important on some level.

I will try to be more romantic in my writing.

Aw, man, it's practically impossible in English.

See? Not romantic at all.

Bow chicka bow wow?

 

[PaperDream]

It's good to see that a lot of people are learning other languages. I wish more schools would put higher emphasis on it, because learning a language is pretty tough, and often involves switching around your whole way of thinking. The first day of my Japanese class the teacher told us that we should be ready to learn to think backwards (SVO vs SOV). I don't think Japanese is particularly difficult, but it takes a long time.

I'm currently in Intermediate Japanese I and Conversational Japanese, and I think we've learned a tremendous amount, but at the same time I've got a long way to go before becoming fluent. Right now we're studying intentions. I don't know how far we are in Kanji, but we've done at least 200.

I would love to learn Russian, in addition to Japanese. I think Latin would be helpful too.

 

[Andromeda]

I speak Swedish fluently.

I'm learning German too, but I find it so boring. I don't know why I think it's boring, maybe it's lack of motivation as Swedish is just like German an Germanic language (it has many similarities with eachother) or maybe the grammar's too much for me. I don't feel like I will have any use for it later on in life. In that case, Japanese would be much more useful and fun. No offence to Germans, now.

 

[Witchking_of_Angmar]

I speak Swedish fluently.

I'm learning German too, but I find it so boring. I don't know why I think it's boring, maybe it's lack of motivation as Swedish is just like German an Germanic language (it has many similarities with eachother) or maybe the grammar's too much for me. I don't feel like I will have any use for it later on in life. In that case, Japanese would be much more useful and fun. No offence to Germans, now.

The only part of German that is interesting is the hard stuff, like the Konjunktiv. It's interesting because it's hard. That's it.

And yes, french sounds very romantic, mostly because of the fluid way the words flow into each other, the nasals and the different "melody" the French use when linking words. It does sound wonderful just to listen to a native french speaker.

 

[RMR]

Why Nobody likes Chinese (Mandarin or Cantonese one) ? It may be is as useful as Japanese, and it has the most talkers in the world (but when you consider that Most of its talker are in China...).

Any Japanese Online- Courses (Any link would be Greatly appreciated)?

I dont know why I learned Portuguese in first place, but it was very VERY easy, I learned it in 6 months, but I may want to visit it before 2012.

Any of you going to Japanese anytime ? Im going when I get 15, my dad wanted to give me a car, but I prefer a travel that will be always in my memories, as cars come and go.

 

[Seiya]

Ugh I wanna learn Japanese >( My high school only has spanish and French, since I'm half Puerto Rican I picked Spanish(which I don't like ...) So far I've been doing random flash card games on the internet learning Katakana.

 

[Jammer]

Why Nobody likes Chinese (Mandarin or Cantonese one) ? It may be is as useful as Japanese, and it has the most talkers in the world (but when you consider that Most of its talker are in China...).

My sister speaks Mandarin. She's been to China like 3 times now.

It's funny, because people are always surprised that an American girl speaks Chinese.

 

[RMR]

My sister speaks Mandarin. She's been to China like 3 times now.

It's funny, because people are always surprised that an American girl speaks Chinese.

Well, IF you hear of those Paris Hlton news at least a week, you WOULD be surprised. But its not me who is going to turn this topic on a Paris Hilton Debate.

Btw, I dont know if I should love or hate Japan, They are such sexists, and if you read some things about Japan that is not made by Anime/Videogames/Manga Fanboy/girl, you can clearly see that they are racists, there are no-gaijin/women places.

But oh well, Its not like if Im going to Japan to look out for Pr0n or something like that, even if its legal there.

 

[Jammer]

Well, IF you hear of those Paris Hlton news at least a week, you WOULD be surprised. But its not me who is going to turn this topic on a Paris Hilton Debate.

????????

What are you talking about? Who said anything about Paris Hilton?

 

[Venus of the Desert Bloom]

neko-chan ga suki desu =D

Nekochan ga sukija nai desu kara totemo koroshi.tai. Soshi.te nekochan ni kakawarazu boku wa nihon o houmon shiritai. Anata mo desu ka? Nekochan wa suki janai dehoshi desu. Nekochan dame dame desu yo.

I think I have that correct. I never used "ni kakawarazu" in a sentance before. Note: I used periods because they cencored the word "shi.t" which is not what it is in Japanese.