Anyone speak a different language?

[Ellarian Ravaroris]

Ich spreche Deutsch. Geboren und aufgezogen in Deutschland in der naehe von Wiesbaden.
I also speak American English as I live in Washington State, USA. I do believe that the Old, Middle, and HIgh German have progressed more towards English words. That is to be expected though as "English" is used most often as a universal language. Many countries teach it in School as a second language. Just think, how many places can you travel to in this world and speak English to the locals and be mostly understood? English is a fairly easy language to learn and easy to speak. Though many countries teach the "British English" rather than "American English"

 

[Ellarian Ravaroris]

I wish there was a like button so I can just appreciate all your posts, mainly because I can see how rewarding it can be if you're actually doing it from a place of genuine curiosity and willingness to learn, but my forays into foreign languages have been somewhat disastrous. In school, I signed up for French. However, when I got my schedule the following year, they had me down for ESPAÑOL. I was too lazy to make an appointment with my guidance counselor to sort it out so I wound up studying a language I didn't want for 5 years. The most use I've gotten out of it was switching to the SAP audio feed for Spanish broadcasting whenever I'm watching a baseball game with really bad announcers (see also: Joe Buck). Now in my recreational co-ed leagues, my Dominican teammates forget I can sometimes understand them. Apparently, while some teammates have cool nicknames like "El Diablo" for the chaos and destruction they bring to the plate or "El Gato" for the cat-like reflexes on defense, I learned my nickname is..."Pata de Plomo". No, Netflix Narcos fans. It's nothing as gangster as "Plata o Plomo". My Spanish nickname is "Lead Legs", for the awesome speed in which I grace the field. They tell me I should be honored I got a Spanish nickname because it shows they've accepted me into "their club", but I dunno... I am thankful Netflix has so much international programming to offer though so I can brush up on my Spanish again. (Money Heist, anyone?)

Also simultaneously around the time the computer glitch signed me up for ESPAÑOL, my forward thinking parents decided to sign me up for Chinese school so I can be better prepared to take on international business scene when China becomes the dominant global economic powerhouse that it is today. At least in their mind, that's how it plays out. The execution, however, was that I was assigned to a class with 1st graders, even though I was already in the 8th grade, because we are all equally beginners. Nothing kills your academic self-confidence like playing Billy Madison in real life! We'd get assignments like having to do speech contests so now I have to test my oratory skills against 7yos. Like, what's the proper amount of effort for a situation like that? Are you supposed to give an impassioned speech about saving the world while they get to talk about eating ice cream for dessert yesterday? To further pour gasoline on the whole situation, there were even bigger delinquents than me in class who were already in high school, but share similarly annoying parents. They would tell me to come hang out with them during breaks. When your choices are innocent 1st graders or delinquent high schoolers, you're going to end up hanging with the wrong crowd. Peer pressure is real, y'all! Our 5 min breaks were 30 mins long because nobody wanted to be there as we mostly resented having lost our Sundays. Thankfully that miserable experience lasted only 2 years instead of 5. However, I did learn in my half-assed attempt at learning Chinese that I am infinitely better at listening than reading/writing. It's such a strange language where if you don't know the word, you can't even know where to begin butchering the misspelling. Like you can't even just misspell it phonetically so the other party knows what you're trying to write. Now I do notice when I see people with tattoos of Chinese characters that a lot of it is written badly, like by a 1st grader, because I recognize my own terrible Chinese penmanship in it! (And no, I don't know how to type in Chinese either!) [/end therapy]

Wow, that sounds quite terrible and to think what awesome pr terrible talents you could've developed if you would've been left to have your choices. I always loved foreign languages so I feel bad for anyone that "has" to learn them. On the bright side you are getting some sort of use / pleasure out of that these days.

 

[crackie]

You might have liked it. Not a single English book, phrase, word or letter in sight. Also the way the ancient greeks constructed their sentences and conjugated their verbs did at times feel like being back in calculus class

Pretty much! I was an engineering major. I think all the other majors had a language requirement, but we didn’t. We joked it’s bc we had to learn Greek from all the variables in the formulas. I prefer the beauty, poetry, and language of mathematics! I can’t handle the subjective nature of English/Lit classes. They tell you to write a paper interpreting a piece of written work and then they tell you you’re wrong lol. Makes me feel like, well I never wanted to read this stupid story anyway! In math (maths if you’re British), you do the mental gymnastics and then there is only one correct answer at the end. It’s clean and tidy. No need to interpret what that one word from centuries ago really meant in that questionable sentence so people in the age of computers 500 yrs later wouldn’t have to look up what philology means!
(How did I do on my assignment @MaidenFair?)

Wow, that sounds quite terrible and to think what awesome pr terrible talents you could've developed if you would've been left to have your choices.

I could have been the self-appointed President of the French AND Chinese chapters of the Bud Sorceress Fan Club too!

 

[BrinDarby]

I played another game on a spanish server and an english one.
What I came away with is the fact that, I might know that adjectives
go after, not before, nouns .... or who's speaking is built into the
conjegation of the verbs..... I would still have them say, they didn't
understand me... even tho I was using 100% no slang basic words.

In the end I chalk'd it up to regional/cultural differences. Its the same
thing as say ohh a southern term I have never heard. Its still english,
but no clue what someone means by it. This does go both ways, too.

 

[AtaguS]

Pretty much! I was an engineering major. I think all the other majors had a language requirement, but we didn’t. We joked it’s bc we had to learn Greek from all the variables in the formulas. I prefer the beauty, poetry, and language of mathematics! I can’t handle the subjective nature of English/Lit classes. They tell you to write a paper interpreting a piece of written work and then they tell you you’re wrong lol. Makes me feel like, well I never wanted to read this stupid story anyway! In math (maths if you’re British), you do the mental gymnastics and then there is only one correct answer at the end. It’s clean and tidy. No need to interpret what that one word from centuries ago really meant in that questionable sentence so people in the age of computers 500 yrs later wouldn’t have to look up what philology means!

As the child of an engineer and the sole sibling who is not an engineer, I have often seen the similarities between my family's love of structure, soundness, absolutes and solutions, and my love of language. My brother uses maths (cheers, mate) to explore and explain mysteries like gravity and mass. And I use language to explore and explain mysteries like love and waking up after love. The only difference is the amount of gray area safely applied. We're both finding order in the madness.

 

[crackie]

my family's love of structure, soundness, absolutes and solutions

*hides all the supplementary Elvenar spreadsheets*
Structure, soundness, absolutes, and solutions, you say? Whatever do you mean? Tell me more about these strange creatures you speak of...

(I LOL at "cheers, mate".)

 

[mucksterme]

I speak a little English
like:
Bangers and mash
Jolly right
petrol
And I know the difference bettween English and American pants and fannies

Well I watch a lot of British TV, don't I?

 

[DeletedUser27062]

As the child of an engineer and the sole sibling who is not an engineer, I have often seen the similarities between my family's love of structure, soundness, absolutes and solutions, and my love of language. My brother uses maths (cheers, mate) to explore and explain mysteries like gravity and mass. And I use language to explore and explain mysteries like love and waking up after love. The only difference is the amount of gray area safely applied. We're both finding order in the madness.

I once wrote a poem that used black holes & Hawking radiation as a metaphor for grief/loss of a lover. Another time it was my fascination with quarks and their bond that drove me to poetry.

 

[DeletedUser27062]

And I know the difference bettween English and American pants and fannies

Not knowing these things can be quite traumatic. I remember having to explain the difference to my traumatised child after hearing an American comment about kicking their kid's fanny.

 

[CrazyWizard]

Lol, after seeing your posts on the forum, I would definitely not say that about you. But I wouldn't know about Korean or Chinese. The most I know about languages in that part of the world is when my translator son tries to teach me some Japanese, but I'm hopeless with it, lol.

Japanese has Kanji and Kana as alphabets,

Both Korean and Japanese can be written with old chinese "pictures" and sometimes in newspapers they use a single word in chinese.
So koreans and japanese people still learn about 1500 characters at school.

When you white these old chinese characters it can be read by all 3 languages, but they are spoken totally differently. thats how in the old times they could communicate with eachother with ease, while each of them had there own language.

Since chinese is a "picture" based language

is a tree and 3 of them together

is a forest. thats about as complicated as it's get.
There is no past, present of future tense, and other grammar rules as a picture is a picture not an alphabet.
While learning the symbols is an absolute $@$%!, the language itself is fairly simpel. and unlike korean it uses SVO instead of SOV as it's structure so much more like out language, while korean is much easier for people who are already versed in an SOV spoken languages.

Personally I find korean the most difficult language you can posibluy learn. the amount of ways you can end a verb is absolutely insane.
and you have different politeness levels + schientific. and each politeness levels has it's own verb endings and sometimes even the verb itself has it's own politeness verbs + endings. (mokda is used for eating, but towards an elder you use deushida same verb different word. deushida is the schientific word, Deushoyo is how it's most often spoken en deushimnida is the verry formal version you cannot use the informal ending towards an elder so that ending is obsolete. and then the future past en present version of the verbs.)

Outside then you also have verbs that become nouns(which you have to grammely state by changing the verb ending) and worse the word "if" is a verb ending at the end of the sentence. and nouns have there own grammar rules. in essence sentence parsing is baked in to there written and spoken language form.

Lol I get headaches again when I even thing about it, as I even have trouble doing that in dutch.

 

[crackie]

thats about as complicated as it's get

That is a bit of an oversimplification as there are a kajillion other characters that look like what they look like without any rhyme or reason. Also many words look very similar, but changes to a completely different word if you miss or add a stroke or two.

As the resident tech support for friends and family, I recently helped someone digitally fill out a Chinese form, only from the tech standpoint that I can edit pdf files that aren’t input ready. However, I have no clue how to “type” in Chinese though. I’d google the word phonetically and then copy/pasted the character that resembled what she wrote down, which in of itself was no easy task because the language is so tonal. For example, “ma” could be horse, mom, or to scold depending on the inflection so the words that come up searching phonetically is a smorgasbord. I finished the form as she directed. She reviewed and then submitted it. A few weeks later, she said they told her she needed to include the forms for name change too. She was like WTF? We reviewed the form again and I apparently copied the wrong character for part of her name! But here’s the thing, she’s a native speaker and SHE didn’t catch the typo and it’s her own damn name! I clearly have an excuse as I don’t know how to write her name in Chinese, let alone type it. It was the top portion of the character that was off by a stroke. Looked close enough to me! Oops. That’s the kind of service you can expect from a Chinese school dropout

 

[CrazyWizard]

That is a bit of an oversimplification as there are a kajillion other characters that look like what they look like without any rhyme or reason. Also many words look very similar, but changes to a completely different word if you miss or add a stroke or two.

As the resident tech support for friends and family, I recently helped someone digitally fill out a Chinese form, only from the tech standpoint that I can edit pdf files that aren’t input ready. However, I have no clue how to “type” in Chinese though. I’d google the word phonetically and then copy/pasted the character that resembled what she wrote down, which in of itself was no easy task because the language is so tonal. For example, “ma” could be horse, mom, or to scold depending on the inflection so the words that come up searching phonetically is a smorgasbord. I finished the form as she directed. She reviewed and then submitted it. A few weeks later, she said they told her she needed to include the forms for name change too. She was like WTF? We reviewed the form again and I apparently copied the wrong character for part of her name! But here’s the thing, she’s a native speaker and SHE didn’t catch the typo and it’s her own damn name! I clearly have an excuse as I don’t know how to write her name in Chinese, let alone type it. It was the top portion of the character that was off by a stroke. Looked close enough to me! Oops. That’s the kind of service you can expect from a Chinese school dropout

yeah the average chinese only knows the 3000 most used characters.
And yea learning 1500+ characters is difficult, but at the same time learning the language itself (spoken) is much easier.

You do not have to learn 1 wordt that can have 25 different sounds that sometimes do not even sound similar.
there are several letters in korean that sound like a sound x when it does not transfer to the next syllable. but becomes an y.

For example to walk would become walsing instead of walking. so simetimes the K is a K and sometimes it's an s in this hypothetical example. this particulary makes it very hard to learn even to properly speak it.

 

[ajqtrz]

Benjamin Lee Whorf and Edward Sapir, two noted linguists, proposed a few decades ago the idea that language shapes what you think and what you can think. It's called linguistic relativity" and it tries to understand the development of cultures growing out of the language structures in the native tongue. It's interesting to me because it is what motivates me to study languages. Spanish, for instance conceives of many things as being possessed rather than being intrinsic. "I have hunger" vs "I am hungry." The two are equivalent in the responses people give to them when spoken, but the satisfaction of the need is described differently in each culture. "I have hunger" does not illicit the idea that the person is "full," but that he/she no longer caries something with which they were burdened before, while satisfying the "I am hungry" lays more emphasis on the state of the person's body -- as in if you are not hungry you must be full. This sort of example can be found in any two languages and have been documented very often. How significant they are -- how deterministic -- is up for debate. If language shapes meaning and two languages have a very different structure one would think the native speaker's view of things in one would be very, very different than the other.

I have a friend who is from Ukraine. She speaks Russian fluently, as well. Her take on this -- and something perhaps applicable to day -- is the Russian is more hierarchical in it's naming of power -- leading to the idea that distributed power (i.e. democracy is sensed to be a weaker type of power. Ukrainian, she tells me, does not have the same hierarchical structure, or at least a weaker one, and thus, less of a sense of the need for a strong centralized power structure. In reading Russian history, which I've done a lot of, I find history tends to support this concept. Over thousands of years the Rus (from which we get Russian, obviously),have been invaded over and over and over, from the east, from the west and from the south (Remember the Khans?). The only thing they learned in all that was they needed very strong leaders with absolute control (Tzars). Only then could they hope to survive. From Ivan the Terrible (I think he was Ivan the IV?) through Peter the Great and Catherine the Great, right up to and throught the Bolsheviks and the Communists, a strong, centralized, government has been in place. And absolute power has resided almost always in one person. You might say the Russian language itself precludes the idea of equality across socioeconomic levels and lends itself freely to such a sociopolitical organizational schema. At least that's my take on it.

The point is, language shapes us and we shape it. The more languages you know, the more you can imagine.

AJ

 

[sputnik9009]

ya

 

[Mirai]

Just wanted to know if anyone could speak another language.
Je voulais juste savoir si quelqu'un pouvait parler une autre langue.

Je parle français aussi que l'anglais, et j'ai commencé a jouer Elvenar a cause de mon amie française dont j'avais joué le jeu Vikings pour quelques années; mais les serveurs Elvenar séprarant les gens par langue.
I speak French in addition to English, and started playing Elvenar having seen my French friend's game; we met while playing Vikings! for several years; the servers for Elvenar appear to separage people by language (global region) though.

 

[BrinDarby]

Yo quiero TacoBell

 

[sambria]

Yo quiero TacoBell

why do you want Toca Bell?
lol. I was taught a bit of Spanish in grade 7.

 

[BrinDarby]

it was a famous TacoBell, TV advert....

like..... Where's the Beef

 

[sambria]

lol ok

 

[sputnik9009]

yes