Language!

ioynerien said:
Let's see, Dutch, French, English and German were mandatory courses at school.
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Well, because you belgians don't have an own language, you have to learn every language which is spoken around you. :p

I speak german (d'uh), english and a little bit of spanish since I had it 3 years in school. You can derive some words and phrases from english to spanish so if someone would speak to me in spanish slowly I think I'd be able to grasp the subject which he is on about.
 
As said before in random thoughts, English knowledge is a prerequisite for any job in IT. But since I've taken a liking to the language, I try to be good at it, to the level that I'd say I'm comparable to a native speaker who has had the same level of education I have. I also understand German well enough to be able to read German newspapers, and understand most German TV, and I can order at restaurants, supermarkets and the like without a noticeable accent (at least, this is what ZE GERMANZ tell me). I fail quite badly however at having a conversation in German. Even in high school when I had German lessons, the grammar and I never seemed to agree. I also speak and understand a little French, since I got taught French for 4 years in high school, and apparently something stuck (I also spent a few summer holidays there). But I can't say I like the language, especially since the native speakers seem to have no compassion for people who are less than perfect in deciphering the words being fired at you at near light speed.
I'd like to learn Swedish/Danish/Norwegian someday, and I'm told they should be quite easy for me to learn, since they're quite similar to Dutch.
 
Adunaphel said:
I also understand German well enough to be able to read German newspapers, and understand most German TV, and I can order at restaurants, supermarkets and the like without a noticeable accent (at least, this is what ZE GERMANZ tell me).
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I've never been able to get the accent, at least not without me feeling like I was taking the pee.

I fail quite badly however at having a conversation in German. Even in high school when I had German lessons, the grammar and I never seemed to agree.
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Really? Aren't Dutch and German similar? I thought they had a comparatively recent common root?

I'd like to learn Swedish/Danish/Norwegian someday, and I'm told they should be quite easy for me to learn, since they're quite similar to Dutch.
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I was in Sweden for a week, once, on business, and although I couldn't understand what was being said, I could understand quite a lot of individual words, for example when seeing them written down, because they were very similar to German and/or English words. Oh, you should try Swiss German :D Speaking Dutch you've no doubt already got the choking sound in your throat down to a T :D
 
English and a bit of German, but not much. Thanks to the educatory system really well designed for foreign languages - I started French at age 11, Latin at 12 and German at 13, and then they basically became optional except for one at 14 (when I went with German until I was 16).

Yeah - Latin. I learned Latin for two years. Look how well that turned out.

And we all know how well humans learn languages when they're too old to care and too young to know better. :lol:
 
Re: accents, I know about five words in Russian, but I've been told by Russians that apparently when I say them I sound like a native speaker. :p I kind of want to learn Russian just for the fun of it, although I know the Cyrillic alphabet would screw with me.
 
just English and Norwegian for me, the French classes never really stuck, i can probably pick up more words in Japanese than i can French, and I've never had any Japanese classes :p
I would like to learn Japanese though, i like the way it sounds, it's a language that sounds interesting to me, and always seem so perky XD
Also Dutch, i've been taught a couple words now and then, from Dutch friends, and it sounds fun, just like Japanese does.
 
NoNeedForAChestWig said:
Really? Aren't Dutch and German similar? I thought they had a comparatively recent common root?
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Yes and no. The common root is there, ofc, they're both West Germanic languages, with the extra benefit of the regional dialect being a Low Franconian language, which is being spoken on both sides of the border. I think my main problem is that part of the grammar is very similar, until you hit the grammatical cases, and it all goes pear-shaped. It';s the same with the lexicon. That's why I'm pretty good at understanding German, because I can use the similarities to my advantage, until I start speaking it, which is when I hit all the differences like a bull in a china shop.

NoNeedForAChestWig said:
Oh, you should try Swiss German :D Speaking Dutch you've no doubt already got the choking sound in your throat down to a T :D
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Schweizerdeutsch is just a deliberate attempt at making German as unintelligible as possible to outsiders, I'm sure then when no outsiders are present, Swiss people speak a lot different :p
 
Imo Dutch is the most funny language out there. I can't speak it, barely understand it, but I get the basic meaning of a written text. Some words are so funny, that I have to laugh. For me it is, like someone invented a fun-language, out of German with several regional dialects and mixed it up with some English.

I've found a surprising large number of Dutch words, that are exactly like my German regional accent here in "Saarland". What makes it so funny, is that these words are even "extreme" words in my dialect. Words that I understand, know their meaning, but I don't use them myself although I'm speaking this dialect usually with friends. But occasionally, when I meet somebody who uses these words, I have to grin and find it funny.

So it is even more funny, when I find these words in Holland on a sign or so.

*thinking very hard* It happened so many times, but I don't remember. Just one thing.

In a Dutch bathroom, there was a hand-dryer that had written on it (in Dutch) "Drying works better if you rub your hands on each or something like that. They used a word like "geriwejlt" or "gerijwelt". And it is the same in my dialect for rubbing something. to rub = reiben [official German] = riwwele [Saarl?ndisch]
 
Adunaphel said:
Yes and no. The common root is there [...]
That's why I'm pretty good at understanding German, because I can use the similarities to my advantage, until I start speaking it, which is when I hit all the differences like a bull in a china shop.
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Ah, yes, of course. Yeah, I understand, now :)

Schweizerdeutsch is just a deliberate attempt at making German as unintelligible as possible to outsiders, I'm sure then when no outsiders are present, Swiss people speak a lot different :p
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:lol: Well to be fair, there isn't really such a thing as "Schweizerdeutsch", or "Schwiizert??tsch" or whatever you want to call it, "just" a bunch of dialects - they speak Z?rit??tsch where I am, for example. The official language of the north eastern part of the country is "Schriftdeutsch" - which AFAIK has comparatively few diferences to Hochdeutsch - but in reality there are a lot of different dialects, all of which are spoken on a day to day basis by everybody (at least, everybody that can). How the people in the French an Italian speaking parts of the country who learn Schriftdeutsch at school are expected to speak with those from the NE, I really don't know!
 
I'm aware that there's no official thing like it, but to an outsider, all the dialects sound roughly the same (if I tried and/or cared I'm sure I can find the differences), and are all equally incomprehensible to an outsider.
 
Adunaphel said:
I'm aware that there's no official thing like it, but to an outsider, all the dialects sound roughly the same (if I tried and/or cared I'm sure I can find the differences), and are all equally incomprehensible to an outsider.
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Oh, they can be very different. Even some Swiss have problems understanding Walliserdeutsch :lol: But yes, as a rule they're completely inpenetrable, I agree, although the Schwaben, for example, can understand the Swiss dialects fairly easily. Swiss German TV programmes are often/usually dubbed into normal German when they are shown in Germany, which I find hilarious.
 
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The Swiss have also some cool "posh" sounding words. Like "parkieren" instead of "parken" (to park), Grillieren instead of "grillen" (to grill)

PS: Concerning dubbing:

I always find it hilarious, if some random people on the street are interviewed about something, and they speak in dialect in national television and then there are subtitles for those who don't understand Bavarian etc. lol.

I'd feel so ashamed if they had to put subtitles for my words in my own country.
 
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Fluent in American* and English and I can understand some German and Danish and Norwegian, as well as read a bit of it.

But I just have a hell of time speaking the languages, my brain just cannot do it, it is incredibly frustrating. I suppose it is either you are born with the ability to do so or not. As Taalya mentioned, the languages common in the US (American*, Mexican* and Chinese) should have been taught from the get go, like in other countries. >_>





*In America and Mexico we speak a language different from the root language. Nobody in Mexico speaks straight up Spanish, nor does any American speak English.
 
I'd classify American as a dialect, it seems wrong to call it a different language when your average American and your average Brit will have virtually no problems communicating.
 
thevictor390 said:
I'd classify American as a dialect, it seems wrong to call it a different language when your average American and your average Brit will have virtually no problems communicating.
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I agree with this. While there are a couple spelling and grammatical differences the two are interchangeable.

Not to say they are equal, as clearly American English is superior. :p
 
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I did 3 years of German at school about 8 years ago. So by now it's patchy at best. Although I get to look smart whenever people go "ha ha, look at the funny German words on the back of this [insert product]'s packaging" because I actually know how to pronounce the words.

It would have been the full 5 years of secondary school but as we got to the point where we had to choose what we wanted to actually do our GCSEs in, the government decided that languages were no longer going to be mandatory, so I did something else instead.
 
My native language is Flemish (which is NOT Dutch) and I'm fairly good at all aspects of French (living close to the 'language border' helps), English is even better with the obvious exception of writing it, I've been told (by English speakers) I can do a number of English accents convincingly....quite happy with that :p
German I understand fine, both spoken and written, but I'll be damded if I can utter one sentence properly, for some reason my brain always switches to French.....I also keep mentioning the war.

Top tip : take a couple of Walloonian friends (yes I have them) on vacation to Quebec, hilarity ensues.

They were utterly stumped by the Quebecoise, since they onle spoke 'walloonian' French (whitch is a dialect in itself) they could not make head nor tails of it, enter the only Flemish guy in the group switching between 3 languages that are not his own all the time :p
 
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Cowboy said:
My native language is Flemish (which is NOT Dutch) and I'm fairly good at all aspects of French (living close to the 'language border' helps), English is even better with the obvious exception of writing it, I've been told (by English speakers) I can do a number of English accents convincingly....quite happy with that :p
German I understand fine, both spoken and written, but I'll be damded if I can utter one sentence properly, for some reason my brain always switches to French.....I also keep mentioning the war.
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That's actually an issue I've run into myself, when I try to use Japanese or French I come up with the words for the wrong language, even though they have nothing to do with each other, it's like they get stored in the same place mentally.
 
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