Hi guys,
languages are wonderful, each unique and unlock millions of possible contact with people. In addition, they represent strong identity and cultural marker
We all speak at least one, probably two of you are from Europe, and we'll encounter lots of them in our lifetime.
I speak French and English, obviously, but Spanish too, quite well I must say, and I'm leaning Russian (I had one semester at school and now on my own.). It a lot of fun ! Finally learning a non European / latin language.
I have always been interested by Russian, and I'll soon need it for my job so it's a double win !
If have time one day in my life I would like to learn an Asian language, probably Japanese.
There are languages I absolutely to want to learn though, or should I say one language: Dutch.
Sorry guys, but I have been in the Netherlands and it absolutely hurt my ears ! I'm confident it is, for me, the ugliest one I have ever heard (even worse than arabian).
What languages are you speaking ? Reading ? Are you interested by learning new ones ? And why ?
I have a few years of high school french, and some german from college. At this point, I’ve forgotten most of it. I should really brush up and review it before it fades completely.
If I had to pick up a new language, I’d go for Spanish. Fairly practical here.
Fluent in Dutch, English and Portuguese, and of course my mother tongue Limburgs.
Proficient in German, and can just about order from a menu or in a bar in French. Considering picking up Spanish, as it's already so close to Portuguese I can mostly read it already anyway.
Am also considering taking a course or two in translating and starting up a small business translating texts as it's something I can do while away from home for work, time I otherwise just waste (when offshift, of course).
godardc wrote: What languages are you speaking ? Reading ? Are you interested by learning new ones ? And why ?
Finnish(native), english and japanese. In theory I'm expected to know swedish as that's mandatory subject in Finland but let's just say I'm not even confident I can count to 10 anymore...
Enough languages for me. I'm reasonably fluent and read books in Japanese but always more you can learn from there I don't even know how many words I have ran into in that language. I stopped counting around 3400 kanji letters and 30,000 words...
Nevelon wrote: I have a few years of high school french, and some german from college. At this point, I’ve forgotten most of it. I should really brush up and review it before it fades completely.
If I had to pick up a new language, I’d go for Spanish. Fairly practical here.
Unfortunately, living near New York City, the amount of illegals here almost forces you to learn Spanish. It makes me refuse to do so. If I can’t order a damn coffee at Dunkin’ Donuts in America in English, I have a problem with that. And before we get started, no, I refuse to use the term “undocumented”. People who come into the country illegally are illegal. Softening the term to make them feel better is not gonna happen.
And yes, I recognize there are a lot of legal citizens who speak that language primarily. And my problem stems from the refusal to learn English fluently (again, not all, but a lot; especially in my region). This bothers me for another reason; if you move to a country, you should learn that country’s language fluently. I would not expect to move to Russia or Japan and have everyone around me learn English for me. Again, I recognize that problem doesn’t exist everywhere, but around New York City it is absolutely a thing. I know it sucks to single out a single language group, but only one group in this area does what I’m saying.
A further addendum, because I don’t want it to come across that I’m just angry and bitter. I have literally zero problem with people sharing their heritage, keeping it alive, and respecting where they came from. Perfectly OK. And I’ll be the last person to say that that’s a problem. What is the problem is forcing that culture onto me, by not allowing me to do something like order a cup of coffee in English in America from Dunkin’ Donuts. I use this example because it has happened numerous times. My wife has had it happen to her in Dutchess when ordering a meal, I’ve had it happen in Dunkin’ more times than I can count, and it is frustrating.
My main 2 are English and Japanese. I'd say my Japanese is getting pretty good at this stage, though it's a tricky one, and there are a lot of "you just have to know it" moments. But I've got quite a few friends at this stage who don't speak English, and that feels pretty good.
On the plus side, not dissimilar to how romance languages kind of unlock each other, it means that I can get the gist of written Chinese and old Korean sometimes, without having any idea how anything sounds.
I've got semi-okay French. I used to be dead good, but that was probably close to 6 years ago now... I'd have to brush up pretty hard to even come close to how I was, but being on the opposite side of the planet isn't much of a motivator. Even longer ago than that, after a student exchange thing, I got pretty decent at German, but I think almost all of that is utterly lost now.
I can read Korean, and I know a few phrases etc., and if I'm trying hard, I can kind of get by with listening, but I never got good. I like to blame everyone there for speaking English to me, which made me lazy, and the South Gyeongnam accent, where I lived, which is really really rough and broad. It'd be like sending a kid from Shanghai to live in Belfast. My vocal cords could never properly get a foothold on it, which is usually something I don't struggle with when it comes to languages and accents.
I also have a really bad habit of just automatically tagging in other languages without thinking if I'm having a conversation and can't recall a word. Used to happen in school a lot between German and French. But a few months back I met a French guy downtown, and we spoke a bit of French together... but to my shame, I kept saying "の" because I was too drunk to remember "de", which is a fething rookie level mistake of profound proportions.
Tried my hand at Chinese and just couldn't do it. Tonality totally kills me.
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tneva82 wrote: [I stopped counting around 3400 kanji letters and 30,000 words...
...先生...
I'm jealous! I really want to get that good. Reading/writing are easily my weakest points.
English (native tongue), Spanish and French. I tried my hand at starting German via the Duolingo iPad app but didn't get very far. Would love to learn something 'exotic' like Japanese but I fear that I am getting too old to start something complicated that requires attention. As Homer Simpson says, "whenever I learn something new, it pushes some old stuff out of my brain!".
German, french (well yeah of course i understand it but my accents terrible oh wonder and it is a bit rusty allbeit i still understand most of what people are talking about) English and swiss german which basically allows me to somewhat pick up what dutch people want from me funnily enough.
Most usefull, i guess english to a degree (as a philosophy student it's quite usefull for looking over the border of your own plate but to a degree since the academic discussion over here in what you could call german sphere is quite a bit diffrent in many degrees and prevalent theories).
I also have a really bad habit of just automatically tagging in other languages without thinking if I'm having a conversation and can't recall a word. Used to happen in school a lot between German and French. But a few months back I met a French guy downtown, and we spoke a bit of French together... but to my shame, I kept saying "の" because I was too drunk to remember "de", which is a fething rookie level mistake of profound proportions.
If you mix it up enough you get swiss standard german or french, yes these are distinct from french french and german german, because of what is called helvetisms aka loanwords that got integrated, mostly french and german but also with the ocasional italian and funnily enough quite a bit off "jidisch(?)"
I used to be OK at German, but once I got to a level I just couldn't get it. I like it as a language and can understand a good portion of rammstein songs. I'd like to know finnish so I can understand korpiklaani songs, but not enough to actually learn it.
I'm jealous! I really want to get that good. Reading/writing are easily my weakest points.
Mind you I can't all that well by hand and I can't USE all those words fluently and there's plenty of "what was that word again" on plenty of the rarer cases. Many of those are I run into one book and that's it.
Sometimes feel like author of book wants to use some word or two nobody else in Japan has used before
Hey, Dakka is a pretty multi lingual forum it appears ! Glad to see many people speak some french. When I was in Ohio, lots of people knew at least some French, but I have to agree it's kinda difficult if it's not your mother tongue.
I'm surper afraid of learning Italian or Portuguese because I'm scared of mixing everything with my Spanish and that, I don't want to.
Italian sounds very pretty too me though, more than Spanish.
Never tried to read a real book in Spanish although I'm currently reading Pet Cemetery in English and read The Horus Heresy book one: Betrayal lol
BTW on the subject of language learning what has been the hardest thing for you?
For me in english it was irregular verbs. The words cannot describe the sheer hate I felt toward THOSE buggers. One of my biggest sense of reliefs I got when I started japanese studies was there is just handful of verbs that conjugate irregularly that you need to worry about. I let out huge sigh of relief over that
Same subject haunted me during swedish lessons at school. Irregular verbs should be banned by law!
I always found the subjunctive tense in Spanish difficult to fathom as there isn't really an equivalent in English I don't believe, or rather if there is, it isn't used much. Either way, I remember it being puzzling 20 years ago when I did my Spanish A level.
With Russian the immediate hurdle was learning the cyrillic alphabet. Now that I'm ok with that, my biggest issue is false friends; words seemingly identical to, in my case Serbo-Croatian, but with significantly different meanings.
I briefly investigated learning Hindi with Duolingo (I work in IT for an Indian company), but found the new alphabet intimidating... I may try again while we're locked down.
I move a lot for work and seem to be working my way down the list of world's largest languages.
So native English speaker (or whatever it is we talk in NY public schools)
Some kitchen and HS Spanish.
Decent enough Japanese (being married Mrs Kyoto doesn't hurt)
Some Chinese (mostly forgotten)
Some Hindi (obliterated by Arabic)
Arabic WIP
I have concluded that of them, they all have interesting ideas, but not a one is well designed.
Nouns should not have genders (fie on thee Hindi and Arabic, at least Spanish used them somewhat consistantly)
I am not convinced that plurals are needed either (that's Japanese and Chinese there)
Totally not convinced that tenses are needed when modifying nouns can do the work (Chinese)
Arabic has some neat ideas for building from 3 letter words to make more complex ideas (JMAe, to gather, builds to make worlds like society, university, group, and mosque depending on what vowels and consonants you add), but needs more distinct vowels and consonants to make it work (how many As does a language need?).
Characters are a neat idea, especially how basic radicals build to more complex ideas (this is Chinese and Japanese of course) but divorcing writing from speaking entirely just is not practical. EVERYONE who used Chinese characters (Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Mongolia) ended up replacing them partially or entirely with an alphabet (Japan replaced them with 3, and then kept 2000 characters anyway because that's just how they roll). There is a theory that divorcing writing and speaking is what held the Chinese empire together, Cantonese and Mandarin (for example) are completely different spoken languages that happen to share a writing system that is completely understandable regardless of what you speak.
I can't think of one nice thing to say about English. It needs like 5 more vowels and a few more consonants for writing to even start to make sense. And #$%^ the grammar and vocabulary. I mean Christ. I have nothing but admiration for those who use it but didn't grow up with it.
Instant written translation is pretty decent and already baked into many programs and would guess instant verbal translation will be common in 10 years.
Sadly I basically just cant do it, lots of struggle with French & German at school (and a lot less with Spanish) and almost nothing to show for it
so hats off to those that can, while I can wrap my brain around sciences pretty easily, and stuff like history with a bit more work languages just don't stick
I have made attempts to learn Japanese over the years. While I've found it time consuming I have always enjoyed it, and hope I get to visit there one day.
English, and any words or phrases that English looted from other places. The problem there is knowing where the term is taken from, and how it is used in English.
There is a lot of Latin used, bits of Nordic languages, French, and anywhere else that invaded us over the millenia.
Answer 1: I speak English, and don't need any other language. This is most useful as learning foreign languages is a mental block of mine. I speak one language, end of. They tried to teach me French in twelve years of formal education, yet I walked out with a U grade fail. I.e so shockingly bad I didn't even rate an F.
Answer 2: I know Pascal and C++, and the former is outdated.
Native English, decent French, basic German, conversational Japanese but it's a bit rusty.
I used to read Latin pretty well, though it's faded a lot in the past 45 years.
I find that with the mixture of Romance and Germanic languages I have, plus the Latin, I can sort of navigate stuff like menus which has a well defined context in most western European languages (except the Celtic ones.)
As far as machine translation goes, it's getting better but it makes astonishing mistakes because it doesn't understand the cultural context of the material.
One of my colleagues speaks English and six Indian languages. Another one speaks English and 8 European languages to a reasonable level.
SamusDrake wrote: I have made attempts to learn Japanese over the years. While I've found it time consuming I have always enjoyed it, and hope I get to visit there one day.
I would like to learn Japanese as well. I spent two years in Japan in my early twenties (Camp Schwab and Mt Fuji) and got to the poiny that I could communicate basic needs or wants (I was slow though). Only problem is no one in my area speaks it or teaches it.
timetowaste85 wrote: Unfortunately, living near New York City, the amount of illegals here almost forces you to learn Spanish. It makes me refuse to do so. If I can’t order a damn coffee at Dunkin’ Donuts in America in English, I have a problem with that. And before we get started, no, I refuse to use the term “undocumented”. People who come into the country illegally are illegal. Softening the term to make them feel better is not gonna happen.
And yes, I recognize there are a lot of legal citizens who speak that language primarily. And my problem stems from the refusal to learn English fluently (again, not all, but a lot; especially in my region). This bothers me for another reason; if you move to a country, you should learn that country’s language fluently. I would not expect to move to Russia or Japan and have everyone around me learn English for me. Again, I recognize that problem doesn’t exist everywhere, but around New York City it is absolutely a thing. I know it sucks to single out a single language group, but only one group in this area does what I’m saying.
A further addendum, because I don’t want it to come across that I’m just angry and bitter. I have literally zero problem with people sharing their heritage, keeping it alive, and respecting where they came from. Perfectly OK. And I’ll be the last person to say that that’s a problem. What is the problem is forcing that culture onto me, by not allowing me to do something like order a cup of coffee in English in America from Dunkin’ Donuts. I use this example because it has happened numerous times. My wife has had it happen to her in Dutchess when ordering a meal, I’ve had it happen in Dunkin’ more times than I can count, and it is frustrating.
As a Puerto Rican who was born and grew up in NYC, I'd like to remind you that the US has no official language, and that Puerto Ricans are American citizens.
If you lived in the areas of Texas or California, where the majority of the population speaks spanish rather than english, would you be making the argument that yeah, while it's important to keep the culture alive for english speakers, really you should try to assimilate and speak spanish? Somehow I doubt it, and you should ask why.
Orlanth wrote: Answer 1: I speak English, and don't need any other language. This is most useful as learning foreign languages is a mental block of mine. I speak one language, end of. They tried to teach me French in twelve years of formal education, yet I walked out with a U grade fail. I.e so shockingly bad I didn't even rate an F.
Answer 2: I know Pascal and C++, and the former is outdated.
I didn’t list computer languages. Which is a long list, but as rusty as my spoken languages, as I’ve not touched them since college.
(but is primarily Pascal and C++. We touched on a LOT of others though, which was nice to pad my resume)
SamusDrake wrote: I have made attempts to learn Japanese over the years. While I've found it time consuming I have always enjoyed it, and hope I get to visit there one day.
I would like to learn Japanese as well. I spent two years in Japan in my early twenties (Camp Schwab and Mt Fuji) and got to the poiny that I could communicate basic needs or wants (I was slow though). Only problem is no one in my area speaks it or teaches it.
In japan one way i found effective on improving language was walking shikoku pilgrimage(in spring). The moment you don pilgrim gear it seems you signal to locals you are open to talk. The moment they realize you talk japanese to some degree floodgates open. First time i walked it i used japanese in 2.5 weeks more than my previous 4 trips combined(including first 2 month trip...). I have had cases where i'm sitting on my break and from bus tour first one and then after he/she leaves all other come alone or in small groups. Guess first one told i speak japanese so rest came to chat as well and lodgings generally chatty events.
Though if you do this please keep in mind it's still pilgrimage and treat it with respect as it matters to locals. They are welcoming of foreigners and don't require you to be buddhist or go through complex ceremonies but some respect especially toward Kukai himself(who is bit of national hero in japan) can't be too hard. There's been some less than stellar foreigners soiling reputation for others.
I regret not being able to learn Irish. I tried, in school, but it just wouldn't take. I could blame them but they did manage to teach me Spanish, to a degree, so it must have been me.
I've always wanted to learn Italian, German and Japanese. If I was isolating like everyone else maybe I could have tried.
Actually we were planning to try and get to Japan this year. James May's show really pushed the idea...and then along came you know what.
Grew up speaking English and Dutch, with a smattering of Hungarian.
Owing to not having anyone else to speak Hungarian with, it fell by the wayside (didn't meet another person who spoke it until my 30s, and even then, he spoke it as a very formal version (compared to the colloquially spoken form he was exposed to when he actually visited the country 6-7 years ago).
Dutch isn't as harsh sounding as German, the extra phlegm softens it a tad.
Think of it as "German with less letters". Germans use "ch" for the "hhhhkkkkk" sound, Dutch just uses "k" and adds phlegm.
I grew up with Russian and Dutch. Russian is a beautiful and great language, although I don't speak it very often nowadays. Dutch sounds decidedly less musical and poetic, but I like it nonetheless. I have always associated it with honesty and practicality. And the history of the language is very interesting too, although not many people are aware of it.
The only language I have really mastered aside from those two is English. I have made attempts at learning Chinese, but I gave up because it drove me insane (and quite frankly I did not have the time to properly study it). I have also learnt German and French, but given that I virtually never get to speak those languages I have forgotten most of it. I would have trouble holding a conversation, but my passive knowledge is still good enough to read written texts in those languages. For German I can also still understand the spoken language pretty well because it is so similar to Dutch. French is more difficult because French speakers just talk way too fast and use too many words to say something.
English was a language I absolutely loved to learn. It has just so many different words for the same things. All languages have lots of different ways to say things, but I really think there is no language with as many synonyms as English. Makes writing poetry a lot of fun.
Iron_Captain wrote: I grew up with Russian and Dutch. Russian is a beautiful and great language, although I don't speak it very often nowadays. Dutch sounds decidedly less musical and poetic, but I like it nonetheless. I have always associated it with honesty and practicality. And the history of the language is very interesting too, although not many people are aware of it.
The only language I have really mastered aside from those two is English. I have made attempts at learning Chinese, but I gave up because it drove me insane (and quite frankly I did not have the time to properly study it). I have also learnt German and French, but given that I virtually never get to speak those languages I have forgotten most of it. I would have trouble holding a conversation, but my passive knowledge is still good enough to read written texts in those languages. For German I can also still understand the spoken language pretty well because it is so similar to Dutch. French is more difficult because French speakers just talk way too fast and use too many words to say something.
English was a language I absolutely loved to learn. It has just so many different words for the same things. All languages have lots of different ways to say things, but I really think there is no language with as many synonyms as English. Makes writing poetry a lot of fun.
I dunno. Dutch has a fair few synonyms as well. Actually, scratch that. Dutch has more the opposite, with similar sounding or the same word having different meanings depending on context and sentence structure. Drives my wife absolutely crazy.
What makes it such an (apparently) difficult language to learn is twofold though, as I understood from watching my wife trying to learn it:
1) Flexible grammar meaning you can say the same thing in a dozen completely different ways.
2) As mentioned above - the same word can mean something completely different depending on just the subject of tbe conversation, but the phrase and its place in the sentence as well. Plus some random words like "er" that we throw in at random to make sentences work.
As a Puerto Rican who was born and grew up in NYC, I'd like to remind you that the US has no official language, and that Puerto Ricans are American citizens.
If you lived in the areas of Texas or California, where the majority of the population speaks spanish rather than english, would you be making the argument that yeah, while it's important to keep the culture alive for english speakers, really you should try to assimilate and speak spanish? Somehow I doubt it, and you should ask why.
I ignored the troll the first time but I just have to add we've been speaking Spanish in America longer than English.
St. Augustine, Florida (1565) Jamestown, Virginia (1607)
So on behalf of the Hispanic side of my family I have to note I always thought Americans shouldn't even think of Spanish as a foreign language. I mean something like 1/3 of our country was taken from Mexico and Spain.
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Iron_Captain wrote: I grew up with Russian and Dutch. Russian is a beautiful and great language
I've come to learn that 'beautiful language' usually means the grammar will make you want to spoon your eyes out. Usually requiring that adjectives and particles concur with the nouns gender, number, case and whatever other nonsense has been thrown in there
Someone once made the point that while English has a nightmarish vocabulary, with totally unrelated words drawn from completely different languages that mean the same thing or, even worse, ALMOST the same thing - horse, mare, stallion, charger, pony, filly, yearling, bronco... I'm sure there's more.
But English with its origins as a pigin language so the Anglo Saxons could talk to the Normans has a dead simple grammar at it's core. Beside despising with gendered nouns (and good riddance) and noun-adjective correspondence most tenses are accomplished by modifying words rather than rejiggering the verb itself. Except every verb is an irregular nightmare. So there's that...
Took 2 years each of French and Spanish in high school. I've forgotten almost all of my French, but I can almost have a conversation in Spanish (a short conversation, at least). At some point I should get back into both languages, as it could be useful to speak something other than English.
I'd also love to learn to speak Klingon. I picked up a guide to the language a few years back, but never really sat down and tried to learn it. Granted, it's a fictional language, so it's probably hard to become properly fluent, but it would still be a cool way to impress one's nerd friends.
English was a language I absolutely loved to learn. It has just so many different words for the same things. All languages have lots of different ways to say things, but I really think there is no language with as many synonyms as English. Makes writing poetry a lot of fun.
Japanese have quite a few. Though this more for politeness/formality. Different enviroment, different word used
So I know much-atrophied high school French (but still enough that I could make myself understood for simple conversations) and I also learned a bit of German (enough to be polite and order a beer!)
I’ve always been tempted to learn Welsh, as a chunk of my family are originally from there. It wouldn’t really have a practical purpose, but it sounds cool. And it was Tolkien’s inspiration for Sindarin, so there’s that too!
Native English, functional Hebrew and Turkish (in both cases reading much better than I speak), rudimentary Arabic and Kurdish. I can order in a bar in a few others but I'm stumped if I get asked anything back! I have good classical Hebrew, too, and my Latin is ok. I wouldn't describe myself as fluent in anything other than English, through.
All of the Asian ones have been essential for research and fieldwork (and now because my girlfriend and son are native Turkish speakers), not just useful. Turkish has been hardest. It loves to stack suffixes like nobody's business and whilst that's fine to deal with in print, it takes quite a lot of repeats to follow in conversation and lots of effort to remember how to arrange them in a sentence on the hoof.
Edit: actually, the hardest thing applied to all of them and is rooted in how poor language teaching is in the UK. We barely ever bother with grammatical terminology, so it's immediately difficult when someone is teaching you about second person infinitives or past-participles when you've learned to use those things correctly via osmosis and don't know how to label any of them.
Japanese have quite a few. Though this more for politeness/formality. Different enviroment, different word used
Since the war Japan has also added considerable vocabulary from English, which often overlaps but has subtle differences from existing words.
So...
試験 (Shiken) is formal test, like a college entrance exam or final exam in a class
Tesuto-is like a monthly test or a practice exam
Shorto Tesuto-is a quiz
Kuizu-is a game show
Which is awesome for English speakers (once you learn the system of changing the English sounds to Japanese Katakana and the subtle differences between a Shiken and Tesuto) but must be an absolute nightmare for non-English speakers since the logical compound word structure of Japanese words taken from Chinese (Shiken is Trial+examination) is broken up with random collections of sounds that have nothing to do with the rest of the language.
I’ve found myself watching the NHK world service, and it’s really getting me wanting to learn Japanese again. My brother has had some success with Babel’s French course, but is there a better way?
3 years seems awfully long to learn a language, at least one that uses the same alfabet. A year should be more than sufficient to become proficient. I'll admit becoming fluent takes longer.
Bran Dawri wrote: 3 years seems awfully long to learn a language, at least one that uses the same alfabet. A year should be more than sufficient to become proficient. I'll admit becoming fluent takes longer.
5 years for fluency, though closer languages are obviously easier. And that assumes really living with it, not in an expat bubble.
Since the war Japan has also added considerable vocabulary from English, which often overlaps but has subtle differences from existing words.
Then there's the english origin words that sound familiar but are used in TOTALLY different style Tension comes to mind
And in terms of same sounding words with different meanings...As japan has limited sound combos it has lots. Kaeru can mean go home, frog or change something(plus other meanings). And there's the infamous phrase kisha ha kisha de kisha ni kisha suru. Each kisha means different thing and phrase makes 100% sense. Of course in practice nobody ever says that Even if somebody says that phrase they use different words ;-)
Since the war Japan has also added considerable vocabulary from English, which often overlaps but has subtle differences from existing words.
Then there's the english origin words that sound familiar but are used in TOTALLY different style Tension comes to mind
And in terms of same sounding words with different meanings...As japan has limited sound combos it has lots. Kaeru can mean go home, frog or change something(plus other meanings). And there's the infamous phrase kisha ha kisha de kisha ni kisha suru. Each kisha means different thing and phrase makes 100% sense. Of course in practice nobody ever says that Even if somebody says that phrase they use different words ;-)
And then there's "mother is scolding the horse" in Chinese.
Future War Cultist wrote: I don’t exactly have the resources to up sticks and move to japan for 3 years. Babel or Rosetta Stone will have to do for now.
You could also marry a Japanese woman and have 2 kids, that's also helped me.
Since the war Japan has also added considerable vocabulary from English, which often overlaps but has subtle differences from existing words.
Then there's the english origin words that sound familiar but are used in TOTALLY different style Tension comes to mind
And in terms of same sounding words with different meanings...As japan has limited sound combos it has lots. Kaeru can mean go home, frog or change something(plus other meanings). And there's the infamous phrase kisha ha kisha de kisha ni kisha suru. Each kisha means different thing and phrase makes 100% sense. Of course in practice nobody ever says that Even if somebody says that phrase they use different words ;-)
And then there's "mother is scolding the horse" in Chinese.
Māmā mà mǎ
Which no one would say but there you go.
Okay i give up that wins on category of silly constructed phrases.
Finland has some over 100 letter word that's technically grammatically correct word but not really used.
This 61 letter one at least is bit more sensible. Air plane's turbine engine's junior mechanic nco student...
Finnish is nutty language. Talking with japanese about differences i note japanese grammar is so much easier. Finnish grammar was designed by somebody under drugs it seems
The gender and plurality of the number must correspond to the gender of the noun it is modifying UNLESS the number is between one and ten in which case the gender should be the opposite of the number OR the number is greater than ten in which case the noun should be singular.
I’ll ask somewhere else for advice on what tools to use. But actually going to Japan and getting involved there would be a great help. James May’s programme really rekindled my desire to see the place, talk the lingo and maybe even write the writing.
English native speaker, Mandarin Chinese was getting okay until I moved back home to Australia. It was my Major at Uni, but I still sucked at the end of the degree. Living in Taiwan for a year, and China for 3 helped but most of the friends I made spoke English better than my Chinese, so it was just easier to use English. I've been home about 2 1/2 years now and barely speak any Chinese.
Immersion is the best way, along with need. When you must use that language to communicate with people you work it out, even if that means using a dictionary or your phone. A couple of drinks and hot girls who don't speak English also works well.
Bran Dawri wrote: 3 years seems awfully long to learn a language, at least one that uses the same alfabet. A year should be more than sufficient to become proficient. I'll admit becoming fluent takes longer.
5 years for fluency, though closer languages are obviously easier. And that assumes really living with it, not in an expat bubble.
Really? Didn't take me that long to learn Portuguese. Took me about 6 months to become proficient enough to hold a conversation, another two+ years to become fluent. Though I suppose the more languages you speak the easier it becomes, at least that's how it was for me.
And having my (now) wife not speak a word of English and having to learn really fast when she became pregnant was one hell of a motivator.
I don't have any brothers so the word for brother/brothers just kind of slipped my mind after the early lessons.
It came up today and it turns out the word for brothers...
Is feminine!
Because of course it is n00b!
Now I don't mind complex grammar, even a nightmare sentence like "Many new laws have been passed since the new government was put in power but they are being reexamined" which has 3 different passive tenses is fine since it communicates information and the choice of the passive is, itself, telling.
Japan's host of words for "you", depending your relative statuses communicates something about the social relationship you have with that person and the setting you're currently in. Confusing till you learn it but at least it contains information.
But with "My three (masculine number since it's opposite when less then 3) big (feminine adjective) brothers (feminine noun) are coming (feminine verb)" the whole sentence is completely misleading if you miss the word brothers since all the other words in the sentence point to a bunch of women coming.
Just. Bad. Design.
That's grammar for grammar's sake to show off how complex your language is.
Well it wasn't likely designed that way to show off. Just evolved by accident. Lots of things in language evolve by accident and these days reasons aren't even known. There's even(possibly false) explanation why counting rabbits with same counter as birds comes from when lords were turning buddhism and banning eating of animals walking on ground. Well birds don't walk so meat hungry common people started refering rabbits as form of birds so they could still eat them (doubt anybody can say for sure is that true anymore but I find that amusing and helps remember that 羽 is valid counter for rabbits though these days small animal counter is also commonly used)
English (English), learning Russian and German with the Rosetta Stone. Maybe it's just me, but learning song lyrics in another language really helps me memorize vocabulary in the early stages, so lots of Red Army Choir, Kino, Alisa, Rammstein and, inter alia, Das Ich have helped immensely.
I took both French and Spanish at secondary school, lived in both Spain and France and was fluent in both at one point more than fifteen years ago, but I don't use them much any more so I've probably regressed to tourist level.
EDIT - Oh, right, I also know a very small amount of strictly tourist Hungarian, a relic of a trip to Budapest.
Excommunicatus wrote: English (English), learning Russian and German with the Rosetta Stone. Maybe it's just me, but learning song lyrics in another language really helps me memorize vocabulary in the early stages, so lots of Red Army Choir, Kino, Alisa, Rammstein and, inter alia, Das Ich have helped immensely.
Well I don't know if it's songs as such but certainly the more you expose the better so if you can find music you can bear to listen from target language that helps. I built large amount of vocabulary from japanese with songs as well.
As it is for past 9 years I have been reading, watching, listening about anything(adult entertaiment excluded. I doubt that's particularly useful source of words and I have learned elsewhere enough words on that as it is ) that's in japanese pretty much every day and write when I can(and speak when possible). From february 2011 there's literally not been single day I haven't touched japanese at all in someway.
Did a couple semesters of German in college, on top of "immersion learning" it by living there for 3 years before uni.
As for "useful", I happened to see a single page review of an academic article written bout 5-10 years back now, about how people who have German as a second language make more in jobs with businesses that have global, and especially European dealings.
It's always interesting to see how words relate in another language. Today I learned that in Arabic Religion and Debt are the same word ( دين / Diin if you're wondering).
Both have their roots in the idea of belief and faith.
Good morning polyglots.
Box standard 'Murican over here. Speak English and nothing else. Would love to rectify that. Thinking Spanish or French. I'm a hammer-swinger by trade so Spanish would be nice but I have a dream of working for Doctors Without Borders one day and they run in French so I'm torn.
Two questions: Any pros/cons for the French vs Spanish argument? What's the best learning method besides move there?
Thanks!
pros/cons are basically what use you're going to get out of it.
Depending what you mean by 'hammer-swinger,' in the States you're obviously going to come across more Spanish (with some exceptions based on local populations), but if you're serious about pursuing the Sans Frontiers thing, then French is good choice.
Learning method can vary depending on how you learn. Most schools in the states don't understand that and teach poorly, but the good programs will try to force you to talk and listen in the language, which is important.
Regardless of how you learn it, continuing to practice is super important. With other people (especially early on), but regularly listening, watching and reading in the language can help keep it. Pop in a favorite movie where you know the lines and watch it in <other language>. Watch foreign broadcasts where you can pick up some context to associate the words. Do this often, and it can really help.
Kid_Kyoto wrote: It's always interesting to see how words relate in another language. Today I learned that in Arabic Religion and Debt are the same word ( دين / Diin if you're wondering).
Both have their roots in the idea of belief and faith.
Friend and trust also come from the same root.
Interesting.
That is both interesting and in a way logical. A friend is (usually) someone in whom you trust, which by some definitions is synonymous to faith. I need not explain the link between faith, belief, and religion, but debt means someone gave you something with the belief (or trust in your moral fiber) that you would pay them back. Okay, that last one is a bit of a stretch, but there's definitely a common thread of logic there.
Took French immersion for 12 years, and disliked every second (curse you Vandertramp!). The language itself is quite lovely though, and the sound has a bit of a "smooth" feel that's easy on the ears. That being said, I could never get into the Quebec dialect.
Been tossing around the idea of learning one of the Iroquois languages. I don't know much about linguistics, but I heard that the etimology of a culture's language is a good starting point to learn more.
I used the application Duolingo for a while to get some basics in German and Spanish. Its both free and it uses multiple different methods to get you to learn. It sometimes feels like a game and it encourages you to do a little bit daily.
Been learning mandarin using the Hello Chinese app.
I may have misunderstood but right now I believe to say "this is nine chickens" comes out as;
Je ji ji ji ji.
(actually Zhe shi chi ji ji, but it doesn't sound like that until you get your ear in)
My pigeon German has got me through a few holidays. I can't do French as I literally can't even hear when there a consonant or vowel, it sounds terribly mumbled to me. Trying a language totally alien to Europe is a real challenge.
PourSpelur wrote: Good morning polyglots. Box standard 'Murican over here. Speak English and nothing else. Would love to rectify that. Thinking Spanish or French. I'm a hammer-swinger by trade so Spanish would be nice but I have a dream of working for Doctors Without Borders one day and they run in French so I'm torn. Two questions: Any pros/cons for the French vs Spanish argument? What's the best learning method besides move there? Thanks!
I remain adamant that the only way to make progress in a language is to have friends so if there are native speakers around it will help you more than any other resources. So I'd say Spanish because it is something spoken on the street and in the workplace in the US. A future goal can be a good motivator but being able to get lunch, talk to your buddy, or read a sign right now is a stronger motivator.
Also in all ruthlessness, the 'design' of the language matters. (Obviously no one sat down and designed any real, spoken language, they evolved over time and are changing by the year, but to a learner it feels like you're learning rules and systems). Spanish is very, very well designed. 5 vowels, used consistently, vocabulary drawing heavily from Latin, words mostly ending in Os and As to indicate gender, fewer irregular verbs than English.
I have never in my travels heard a good word about the design of French. Not once.
PourSpelur wrote: Good morning polyglots.
Box standard 'Murican over here. Speak English and nothing else. Would love to rectify that. Thinking Spanish or French. I'm a hammer-swinger by trade so Spanish would be nice but I have a dream of working for Doctors Without Borders one day and they run in French so I'm torn.
Two questions: Any pros/cons for the French vs Spanish argument? What's the best learning method besides move there?
Thanks!
Also in all ruthlessness, the 'design' of the language matters. (Obviously no one sat down and designed any real, spoken language, they evolved over time and are changing by the year, but to a learner it feels like you're learning rules and systems). Spanish is very, very well designed. 5 vowels, used consistently, vocabulary drawing heavily from Latin, words mostly ending in Os and As to indicate gender, fewer irregular verbs than English.
I have never in my travels heard a good word about the design of French. Not once.
Agreed on the last point about French. Only language I've ever failed to properly understand the grammar of.
Spanish is also useful in that once you speak that, Portuguese is only a (metaphorical) stone's throw away. The two languages are closer than Dutch and German.
Thanks for the replies!
Pulling the trigger on Spanish. I'm in the construction trades so it is most likely to actually get used and some practice. Elsewhere I've found some good advice of rewatching a TV series or movie you know pretty well in Spanish as a "booster" once you pick up the basics.
Any recommendations for language apps or podcasts? Obviously would love free but not adverse to spending money when the results are worth it. Do not have time for a sit-down class though.
Henry wrote: Been learning mandarin using the Hello Chinese app.
I may have misunderstood but right now I believe to say "this is nine chickens" comes out as;
Je ji ji ji ji.
(actually Zhe shi chi ji ji, but it doesn't sound like that until you get your ear in)
My pigeon German has got me through a few holidays. I can't do French as I literally can't even hear when there a consonant or vowel, it sounds terribly mumbled to me. Trying a language totally alien to Europe is a real challenge.
If you think "this is nine chickens" is bad in Mandarin, you should try this poem: 施氏食獅史 (Shishi shi shi shi)
Iron_Captain wrote: I grew up with Russian and Dutch. Russian is a beautiful and great language
I've come to learn that 'beautiful language' usually means the grammar will make you want to spoon your eyes out. Usually requiring that adjectives and particles concur with the nouns gender, number, case and whatever other nonsense has been thrown in there
That is definitely true for Russian, since it has all of those things. Everyone I have seen trying to learn Russian has always really struggled with the case system and the verbal aspects, especially when it comes to the verbs of motion which have more aspects than regular verbs. Basically, to describe an action in Russian you have to learn multiple different verbs each with their own (sometimes irregular) conjugation and to say "I go" you must use a different verb and form depending on whether you are going on foot or by vehicle, whether you are just going or you are going and coming back, whether this is something you do regularly or just as a one-time thing etc.
The funniest thing about a native language is that you never see how ridiculously complex it is until you see others trying to learn it.
Kid_Kyoto wrote: Someone once made the point that while English has a nightmarish vocabulary, with totally unrelated words drawn from completely different languages that mean the same thing or, even worse, ALMOST the same thing - horse, mare, stallion, charger, pony, filly, yearling, bronco... I'm sure there's more.
But English with its origins as a pigin language so the Anglo Saxons could talk to the Normans has a dead simple grammar at it's core. Beside despising with gendered nouns (and good riddance) and noun-adjective correspondence most tenses are accomplished by modifying words rather than rejiggering the verb itself. Except every verb is an irregular nightmare. So there's that...
Yeah, irregular verbs is one of the most difficult things about the learning of English (although Dutch and other Germanic languages are probably even worse in that regard). That, and the vocabulary. But that vocabulary is also what makes English so beautiful. Having borrowed so many words from so many different languages really gives English a unique variety in vocabulary. All languages have synonyms, but English probably has a lot more than average.
If you think "this is nine chickens" is bad in Mandarin, you should try this poem:
Okay you just sold me the idea of "don't bother learning chinese"
Intonation is the one thing I struggle. My Japanese has horrible finnish accent. You can definitely hear that I'm from Finland if you hear me speaking japanese(or english for that matter). Seems in Chinese I would be sprouting nonsense...
That is definitely true for Russian, since it has all of those things. Everyone I have seen trying to learn Russian has always really struggled with the case system and the verbal aspects, especially when it comes to the verbs of motion which have more aspects than regular verbs.
When I was planning of starting to study language I was contemplating between russia(practical. It's our biggest neighbour) and japanese(where I had been planning to go to see those lovely mountains for almost a decade).
Japan won out because I struggled to even pronounce the russian.
The funniest thing about a native language is that you never see how ridiculously complex it is until you see others trying to learn it.
Discussions with my finnish speaking japanese friends and answering their questions certainly gave me fresh POV over on my native language. And made me realize just how nuts our grammar is.
(though maybe not the worst grammar based on this thread )
Yeah, irregular verbs is one of the most difficult things about the learning of English (although Dutch and other Germanic languages are probably even worse in that regard). That, and the vocabulary. But that vocabulary is also what makes English so beautiful. Having borrowed so many words from so many different languages really gives English a unique variety in vocabulary. All languages have synonyms, but English probably has a lot more than average.
I soooooooo hated studying those irregular verbs...Still probably make mistakes here and there. As I think already said my biggest relief is there's very few irregular verbs in japanese. Basically 2 big ones and 2 minor ones that you use regularly. For one minor one it's one specific conjugation, for other conjugation is regular as such. It just uses conjugation for X group rather than Y group).
Really the biggest issue with japanese verbs is separating between -iru and -eru ending verbs from -ru ending verbs which have different conjugation and here there's basically no other way except learn it word by word. And for fun there can be exact same pronounciation for 2 verbs that conjugate differently. For example:
変える(Change something)
帰る(return home)
Both are read as kaeru. First one is -eru verb so past tense would be kaeta while 2nd one is -ru verb(mind you these are english terms. Exact japanese term is bit different) so past tense would be kaetta.
Also on unrelated note commonly japanese studies in school starts with the more polite/formal -masu style as that's the level of talk you would generally use with new people you meet ie appropriate for tourist. However this backfires a bit when you get to certain conjugations to form more complex joined sentences at which point you basically have to unlearn that polite form and learn the basic forms for verbs first. Would be easier to learn those first but then you would be for a while talking in way that would not be all that polite if you went to japan and used japanese there. Duh. Japanese natively learn generally the basic forms as that's what you use inside home generally.
I had bit of weirdo style to start. On good side I learned the conjugation rules first but for a while struggled to make useful sentences due to lack of vocabulary. However did eventually find that helpful when it became more complex sentences than "I go to school".
Some things English (and other Latin alphabet languages) have that are cool:
Capital Letters to mark proper names, SO USEFUL in picking them out of a paragraph. Note to Hindi, Arabic, Chinese and Japanese.
Spaces between words! Japanese has picked this up but Chinese has not.
Quote marks! In fact English (etc) seem to have the most punctuation marks of any alphabet I've studied. In other languages quote marks, colons etc are recent adaptions imported from Latin scripts.
Vowels! Oh so useful. Hindi and Arabic sublimate them into their consonants and add squiggles on top. And then Arabic just says @#$% it and doesn't bother to write them because either you know them already or #$%^ you, n00b. Japanese just makes every vowel-consonant combination a different letter which only works if you have a language with just 50ish syllables. Korean groups 2-3 letters into one unit per syllable. which is probably the best solution I've seen. Chinese is just LOL, what's a letter?
Italics for foreign words/phrases - This practice is dying out outside of academic writing but is so, so useful to language learners. It just highlights 'this word is even less related to the rest of the language than the rest of English'. Japanese is all just 'hey we'll just use a whole different alphabet for foreign words!' which, once you learn it, is totally awesome for English speakers. Everyone else it's just a matter of sounding out the word, realizing it's an imported word and moving on. As always Chinese is just #$%^ you. You're reading along and there's Asian History Mountain Big and you're like WTF and say it out loud five times, realize it's a foreign name and move on. Well #$%^ you too Chinese.
Kid_Kyoto wrote: Capital Letters to mark proper names, SO USEFUL in picking them out of a paragraph. Note to Hindi, Arabic, Chinese and Japanese.
Haha yeah. Unless it's attached with -san/-kun/-chan/-title I often enough run into "is this new word or name" issue reading books etc. And for country where attaching title etc to the end is normal in writing without those appear surprisingly often.
Italics for foreign words/phrases - This practice is dying out outside of academic writing but is so, so useful to language learners. It just highlights 'this word is even less related to the rest of the language than the rest of English'. Japanese is all just 'hey we'll just use a whole different alphabet for foreign words!' which, once you learn it, is totally awesome for English speakers. Everyone else it's just a matter of sounding out the word, realizing it's an imported word and moving on. As always Chinese is just #$%^ you. You're reading along and there's Asian History Mountain Big and you're like WTF and say it out loud five times, realize it's a foreign name and move on. Well #$%^ you too Chinese.
I like the japanese system. Even more obvious than italics. Though sucks when they use katakana for native words as well for stylistic Sometimes I get stuck thinking "what loanword is this?"
Englis (native), French and Japanese (the first Mrs M was from Nagoya, and my daughter lives there now).
Latin - almost took Classical Archaeology in university because I was so good, but it's long since faded. Learned a bit of Mandarin and Swahili at different times when I worked in China and Kenya, but those have mostly faded too.
Computer languages - Good Lord, don't even start me there!
Momotaro wrote: Englis (native), French and Japanese (the first Mrs M was from Nagoya, and my daughter lives there now).
Latin - almost took Classical Archaeology in university because I was so good, but it's long since faded. Learned a bit of Mandarin and Swahili at different times when I worked in China and Kenya, but those have mostly faded too.
Computer languages - Good Lord, don't even start me there!
It's funny. You wouldn't think of a computer language as a "language" considering it involves communicating to an inanimate object. At the same time however, it does involve relaying commands using letters and numbers to convey meaning. Would it still be considered as much of a language as Latin or French?
If you'll pardon a curiosity, what computer languages are you familiar with? Rather curious to see what people are using these days.
Another thought about vocabulary, just as some language speakers are proud of their grammar (look all my adjectives match my nouns in gender and number and case!) English speakers are all about vocabulary.
Knowing instinctively the difference between scary, terrifying and horrifying, actually caring deeply and using them correctly is the mark of fluent English speaker. Being able to compose a paragraph without repeating a noun or adjective is basically a required skill to write well in this language.
Knowing instinctively the difference between scary, terrifying and horrifying, actually caring deeply and using them correctly is the mark of fluent English speaker. Being able to compose a paragraph without repeating a noun or adjective is basically a required skill to write well in this language.
I would put forward the idea that this stems from the roots in other languages. . . For instance, in German, "Ich Will" is 'I want', however that is not the precise/correct term to use say, at a restaurant ordering a beer. There, you would use "Ich möchte" instead.
I mean, even in English, we don't have a word as gloriously precise as "schadenfreude"
"
Automatically Appended Next Post: That being said yeah there are some things in other languages that clear up ambiguity we have in English.
Japanese and the Romance Languages offer a menu of words for 'you' meaning my friend, my lover, random dude I'm talking to, and you little piece of @#$%.
Japanese has 3 ands, this and that and nothing else, this and that and maybe some more stuff, this entire sentence and that entire sentence.
To say nothing of English's big mess of meanings for the words 'have' 'get' and 'that'.
And English really needs one words for and/or, that bugs me and I've not seen any language that has one.
I would put forward the idea that this stems from the roots in other languages. . . For instance, in German, "Ich Will" is 'I want', however that is not the precise/correct term to use say, at a restaurant ordering a beer. There, you would use "Ich möchte" instead.
I mean, even in English, we don't have a word as gloriously precise as "schadenfreude"
"
But then, in English the polite way to order in a restaurant is to say "I would like" or "can I have", not "I want" as well, so actually the same. Which makes some sense as both are Germanic languages.
Im at an extremely weird place with languages myself.
Im only fluent in English (American), but I can recognize and identify at least 20 other languages if I hear them being spoken.
I for some ungodly reason can pick up other dialects easily and even some words but can never actually remember enough off the top of my head to speak it.
Kid_Kyoto wrote: Another thought about vocabulary, just as some language speakers are proud of their grammar (look all my adjectives match my nouns in gender and number and case!) English speakers are all about vocabulary.
Knowing instinctively the difference between scary, terrifying and horrifying, actually caring deeply and using them correctly is the mark of fluent English speaker. Being able to compose a paragraph without repeating a noun or adjective is basically a required skill to write well in this language.
Uhhuh. Don't remind me. One reason I botched JLPT N1 was because of those. Lots of different word meaning basically same but one is used in certain situation and other in another. Bloody business japanese
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Eihnlazer wrote: Im at an extremely weird place with languages myself.
Im only fluent in English (American), but I can recognize and identify at least 20 other languages if I hear them being spoken.
I for some ungodly reason can pick up other dialects easily and even some words but can never actually remember enough off the top of my head to speak it.
That's pretty impressive. I can recognize german, france, italy, spanish, korean, chinese speakers fairly well by ear. But nowhere near 20!
I foudn the works of J R R Tolkien very useful for language studies, in part, because it was well translated, in part, because the lord of the rings is a longer book and consistant vocabulary wise, but in part because I knew the story and characters so I could piece any lost or missing word .. and its context .. together.
It took a while to read in non-native language -- but once complete, let me move quickly into a lot of other books with a fluid comprehension I hadn't had at the start.
Dukeofstuff wrote: I foudn the works of J R R Tolkien very useful for language studies, in part, because it was well translated, in part, because the lord of the rings is a longer book and consistant vocabulary wise, but in part because I knew the story and characters so I could piece any lost or missing word .. and its context .. together.
It took a while to read in non-native language -- but once complete, let me move quickly into a lot of other books with a fluid comprehension I hadn't had at the start.
Heh I have Return of the King and Prisoner of Azkaban in Japanese. Got curious on last trip how they are translated so went and bought. HP was easy. LOTR required me to ask staff at bookoff to help find and they only had return of the king :( Would have preferred two towers myself.
A thread on Facebook reminded me of another interesting issue, how to treat the New in names like New York. Is it a meaningful word to be translated or just a proper name whose sound is to be kept intact?
Spanish translates it and we get Nueva York but Chinese, Japanese and Arabic do not.
Other times the name is descriptive can also vary, should we translate the Park in Central Park but not the Central? Or neither? The Wall in Wall Street? The Street?
The Statue of Liberty seems to get translated in most languages (both Chinese and Japanese call it the Goddess of Liberty which is interesting) but not the Empire State Building.
What about names that are entirely descriptive, Main Street, Oak Road, Bayside Drive? Should those be translated?
Automatically Appended Next Post: Just checked Arabic DOES translate Empire State building as well.
مبني المقاطعة الملكية
The Royal County Building, which I have to start using in some way.
¿Are Spanish style punctuation marks useful?
¡Yes, yes they are!
Opening and closing question and exclamation marks should be a part of any well-structured language, so convenient to preview where a sentence is going, especially when reading aloud.
I have to start putting together my specs for the perfect language.
Kid_Kyoto wrote: ¿Are Spanish style punctuation marks useful?
¡Yes, yes they are!
Opening and closing question and exclamation marks should be a part of any well-structured language, so convenient to preview where a sentence is going, especially when reading aloud.
I have to start putting together my specs for the perfect language.
Heh one issue I run into in japanese is that in japanese you often have very little idea of meaning of sentence or type until the very end Now while reading/listening I have got to stage where I'm thinking in japanese so I can understand it. Does cause spanner for trying to translate speech in real time to others though...
Kid_Kyoto wrote: A thread on Facebook reminded me of another interesting issue, how to treat the New in names like New York. Is it a meaningful word to be translated or just a proper name whose sound is to be kept intact?
Spanish translates it and we get Nueva York but Chinese, Japanese and Arabic do not.
Other times the name is descriptive can also vary, should we translate the Park in Central Park but not the Central? Or neither? The Wall in Wall Street? The Street?
The Statue of Liberty seems to get translated in most languages (both Chinese and Japanese call it the Goddess of Liberty which is interesting) but not the Empire State Building.
What about names that are entirely descriptive, Main Street, Oak Road, Bayside Drive? Should those be translated?
Automatically Appended Next Post: Just checked Arabic DOES translate Empire State building as well.
مبني المقاطعة الملكية
The Royal County Building, which I have to start using in some way.
This is a really interesting thread!
Turkish varies a lot. New York is New York but New Zealand is Yeni Zelanda, for instance.
Hebrew also varies quite a bit. Lots of things are just transliterated (New York is New York but things for which their are biblical expressions usually translate. Street signs usually give English and Hebrew. Google maps usually only gives transliterated Hebrew, though, so makes for a nuisance for some tourists trying to find places sometimes. For instance, long street in Tel Aviv called King George Street is רחוב המלך ג'ורג (Rehov haMelech jorj) but of you don't know that melech is king and jorj-george doesn't click for you...
Kid_Kyoto wrote: I would imagine that in Israel which name to give which place is as much a political issue as a historical/linguistic one.
Not really, surprisingly enough. Pretty much everything that existed before 1947 retains whatever it was called then, albeit in Hebraicised versions for the Hebrew speakers. Some ancient sites found beneath places with Arabic names have reverted to their biblical names, in more or less all contexts, if they've been identified but usually the biblical name is the same as the Hebraicised Arabic name. Tel Azekah, where I work, for instance, is Tel Zakeriah in Arabic. Obviously, across the entire country, loads of Arabic placenames themselves preserve ancient Hebrew names (passing through Aramaic and Greek in between) and I think that helps ease the process of back and forth.
Obviously places that postdate the State of Israel pretty much all have Hebrew names and usually ones that are named for famous Jewish people or are tied to explicitly Jewish narratives, though. Some new streets are named for Arab citizens but its not very common in the places I spend a lot of time (though I'm not in the West bank or Arab villages very often).
That's really interesting especially since names are such a political issue in Northern Ireland and they only have a 1000 years of history to cope with
Some videos on how English is different from other languages. They're a bit inside baseball, they talk about things other languages can do that English 'can't' which is not to say English cannot express certain ideas, but that certain things are build into the grammar of English that are not in other languages.
IE "a book, the book, books and the books" are 4 different things in English but the same thing in Japanese. A Japanese speaker can add adjectives to make these distinctions "any book, that specific book, several books, several specific books" but it's not part of the grammar there is no definite or indefinite article or plural to make those distinctions which in English are both automatic and mandatory.
(In case you're wondering Arabic has a definite article 'Al' but it also doubles as the possessive and is mandatory when starting a sentence so it's not quite the same thing...)
Similarly there's stuff baked into the grammar of other languages that are not baked into English.
So with that understanding these are worth watching.
I don't even know how many words I have ran into in that language. I stopped counting around 3400 kanji letters and 30,000 words...
