The big thread on understanding eachother (language comparisons and stuff)

AiR said:
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  • Can the russians understand what the people in the former soviet republics are saying?
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I can kinda sorta understand Ukrainian if its spoken really slow. Other old Soviet Republic languages though are pretty different from Russian. Pretty much everyone in the Soviet Union was forced to learn Russian on top of their own language.
One of my favorite old movies is Mimino, and the Georgian part is dubbed over in Russian.
 
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CrazyRussian540 said:
I can kinda sorta understand Ukrainian if its spoken really slow. Other old Soviet Republic languages though are pretty different from Russian. Pretty much everyone in the Soviet Union was forced to learn Russian on top of their own language.
One of my favorite old movies is Mimino, and the Georgian part is dubbed over in Russian.
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not so many i have to say, i've never understood russian even though i was born during their dominance, but i was raised in post-soviet era. today, people of Slavic and Baltic areas who are under 20 years old can hardly understand russian, unlike our parents.
 
I can understand a lot of Dutch when I read it, you just have to pronounce it German and it somehow makes sense. When they speak it, I want to cut my ears of with a rusty spoon. That is right. A spoon.
 
is danish really that different from german? because i'm of german origin myself and i am kinda fluent in german but i don't get danish language, but it sounds identical.
 
Aces High said:
not so many i have to say, i've never understood russian even though i was born during their dominance, but i was raised in post-soviet era. today, people of Slavic and Baltic areas who are under 20 years old can hardly understand russian, unlike our parents.
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I'm not sure I understand what you are saying. I said that almost everyone in the Soviet Union was forced to learn Russian, not in what the Soviet Union is now. I was born in Moscow one year before Soviet Russia became the Russian Federation, and I have lived the last 17 of my 19 years in America and I'm proud that I still understand/speak Russian (reading/writing is a different story).
 
Pretty much everyone here can understand Slovak without a problem, though it is said that the younger generation is finding it increasingly difficult. It is still possible to achieve some basic understanding with the Poles, but then it starts getting increasingly difficult. The Czechs tend to understand Polish better than vice versa as we tend to have a better vocabulary of slavic words, thanks to knowing Slovak. The southern Slavic languages, other than Bulgarian/Macedonian, are still somewhat undestandable, the other Slavic languages are a matter of catching overy 10th word or so. Generally, the words describing things that have been around since forever, like colours, numbers, body parts etc., tend to be quite similar, but words describing newer phenomena tend to be completely different with increasing geographical distance.

Overall, I prefer to speak English everywhere else than Slovakia, it makes for a lot more dignified conversation.
 
Knowing only (American) English really doesn't help you with anything else, but I took enough French in high school to get by, and a very small amount of German in college. I was actually moderately proficient at reading French at one point but I'm afraid I've lost ground in that regard :(
 
I find it very difficult to understand danes, especially when they count or say a large (ish) number. I usually ask them to show it to me in digits or write it down (preferably in digits).... :p (x: treoghalvfems...)

There are also some funny Swedish words; A recent trip to Ikea reminded me of those... :p
 
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Aces High said:
is danish really that different from german? because i'm of german origin myself and i am kinda fluent in german but i don't get danish language, but it sounds identical.
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I found it relatively easy to learn german (I have forgotten most since) mostly because it was very logical with all the grammar, I like that, but I don't really like the language :|
Also danish has some really wierd grammatical exceptions that can't be explained, you just have to know :p
And even though it's a tiny country you can easily find 4-5 native danes that would have trouble understanding each other just because of dialects.

marcos_eirik said:
I find it very difficult to understand danes, especially when they count or say a large (ish) number. I usually ask them to show it to me in digits or write it down (preferably in digits).... :p (x: treoghalvfems...)
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Yeah, those are the other way around, like german, 93 would translate to three-and-ninety not ninety-three.
 
mgkdk said:
And even though it's a tiny country you can easily find 4-5 native danes that would have trouble understanding each other just because of dialects.
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The truth about the Danish language.... :p

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-mOy8VUEBk[/YOUTUBE]
 
^ :p that sounds more like norwegian
 
marcos_eirik said:
I find it very difficult to understand danes, especially when they count or say a large (ish) number. I usually ask them to show it to me in digits or write it down (preferably in digits).... :p (x: treoghalvfems...)

There are also some funny Swedish words; A recent trip to Ikea reminded me of those... :p
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I agree, I can't understand one thing a dane is saying, i can read it though.
And this is how we speak in G?vle:
[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoCnn30EKMk[/YOUTUBE]
 
AiR said:
Can the spaniards understand Portugese?
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Yes, the basic at least, you can talk in spanish with someone who only speaks portugese and have a nice chat :)

AiR said:
I think all of south america talks spanish except Brazil. But is it the same spanish? Any funny dialects?
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Some curse words in Argentina are names in Mexico :lol:
There are a lot of differences, not only the ways of speaking and pronunciations, but things like the Voseo change from one country to another
 
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Hm. Should we have some sort of exemplary sentences, and everyone would translate those to their own respective mother tongues?
 
public said:
Hm. Should we have some sort of exemplary sentences, and everyone would translate those to their own respective mother tongues?
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Or we could put up a handful of sentences in different languages and get people to put them all into English from guessing and laugh at the lulz.
 
Nati said:
Yes, the basic at least, you can talk in spanish with someone who only speaks portuguese and have a nice chat :)
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:wave:
 
^Smart-ass :):

I can understand a good deal of spanish and can speak a little, I can speak and understand some French, I know a couple of phrases worth of Japanese, I can curse like a sailor in Yiddish, I can lead a prayer service in hebrew and I translated a good deal of the Aeneid in high school. However, the languages I know best (besides english, of course) are Hindi and Urdu. They're about 90% the same, and operate using the same grammar, which means I'm pretty much sleeping through my first year Urdu class because I already have two years of Hindi.

Portuguese is one of the weirdest languages I've ever heard. It sounds like spanish spoken by someone with a major head cold or someone who's deaf (sorry redliner, other Brazilians and Portugal-ites). Any time I watch Brazilian soccer vids, I end up laughing at the announcer. The South Indian languages are crazy, too.
 
I have to throw this out there: I think Spanish is more varied among Spanish-speaking countries than English is varied among primarily English-speaking ones. I'm not at all fluent in Spanish, and even I can hear the differences between Spanish Spanish, Mexican Spanish, and Colombian Spanish. It's not even just a question of accent; there are lots of different words, phrases, and constructions that vary from one country to another.

Do you South Americans feel the same?
 
AiR said:
I think all of south america talks spanish except Brazil. But is it the same spanish? Any funny dialects?
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My sister studied in Barcelona for a couple of years and finished her degree in Spanish and history recently (and is now working in Argentina), and her boyfriend is from Chile.
From what she told me, the Spanish spoken in South America is indeed quite different from the European version, and there are certain differences between, say, Argentinian and Chilean Spanish as well.

settler said:
Is there similar situation with some other countries, when other language from the same group is like funny version of your own language?
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I think Dutch is completely weird. It sounds like a mix of German and English to me, where all the worst are... sort of "soft" and molten together. The weirdest thing though, is that half the time I'll sort of understand what is said, and the other half it sounds like something I'd understand, but actually don't.
Does that make any sense? :?


NooDle said:
Finnish is the most hilarious language because it has lotsa vowels.
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Not only vowels, consonants too! No offence to any Finnish members, but seeing written Finnish always looks a bit like somebody randomly beat on his keyboard. :lol:
 
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