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

We are a former soviet republic. But our language is very diferent from Russian. Russians I think understant Ukrainian and Belarus because they are slavonic and ours ir baltic like Latvia and Estonia I think. But we have huge similarityes with Latvian language (some of the words are almost the same in meaning), but the strange thing is we cant understand a shit they are talking. When You look at seperate words, the You can pick out the meanings, but if hearing someone speaking, then no.

Our language (Lithuanian) is one of the oldest languages in the world and some say the hardest. Most of foreners say that our language is very similar to Italian.

I chose German in school as my second language, but it was to hard for me, so no German speaking from me, but I understand some things. I'm 25 and I think those who were born till 1985 - 1987 are the last ones who no can speak Russian. Those who were born latter and after the independens have no idea about Russian language. I never learnd Russian in school but since as a kid and now me and my family whatch Russian chanels I can understant much of it and can speak quate well for a guy who never learned it. But I cant spell or read.

:)
 
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Better than freaking French, where you have to say four-twenties-thirteen.

Except in the francophone parts of Belgium and Switzerland where they have a diferent way of saying 70 , 80 or 90.

In France we have factorized those numbers meanwhile they have continued with the latin roots.

For 70 , in France we say sixty and ten (soixante), they say septante.
For 80, we say four twenty (quatre vingts) , they say octante.
For 90, we say four twenty ten (quatre vingts dix), they say nonante.
 
I understand Swedish and Danish with ease. Languages like German and Dutch also have clear similarities with Norwegian being from the same language tree (Germanic).

My dad is from Netherlands aswell, almost making Dutch my 3rd language.

And as said I also understand swedish and norwegian to some extend, I find that norwegian is easier to read and swedish easier to hear, dunno if it's just me though.

Well, first and foremost the type of Norwegian most commonly used is based on Danish, so that would make sense. When it comes to Norwegian being spoken, that is most certainly because of the vast amount of different accents we have. My only bug with Danish is your silly way of counting.
 
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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:

That's because all Winnish people are so wicked they only tell you the most trivial sentences nobody ever uses, like the fallowing:

Kokko, kokoa kokko kokoon. Koko kokkoko? Koko kokko Kokko, kokoa koko kokko kokoon.

:p
 
Except in the francophone parts of Belgium and Switzerland where they have a diferent way of saying 70 , 80 or 90.

In France we have factorized those numbers meanwhile they have continued with the latin roots.

For 70 , in France we say sixty and ten (soixante), they say septante.
For 80, we say four twenty (quatre vingts) , they say octante.
For 90, we say four twenty ten (quatre vingts dix), they say nonante.

Actualy most french speaking Belgians I know use the french way of saying it....sounds much nicer to.
Septante and nonante I've heard sporadicly, but I've never even heard octante pronounced I think....possible its a regional thing.....like everything in this place <_<

Anyway today I 'talked' to a guy who managed to combine both a heavy North-african accent with a distinct west-flanders dialect.....despite my best effords I could not make out ONE word.....apparantly he assumed that what came out resembeld dutch.....
I dunno what it resembeld but I'm pretty sure if aliens ever landed they would sound like that :blink:

our dialects are NUTS....
 
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?

I don?t speak Spanish, but I agree.
 
Icelandic is funny. If they talk reeally slowly, I sort of get their message. They use some common grammar like putting "o" in front of things to reverse the meaning (intelligent - ointelligent [like 'un' in english]) but they use really old words so it feels like talking to a viking. And there are some false friends too, fis means "light" in icelandic but "fart" in swedish, in iceland they write "prutt" in big letters in the stores when there's a sale and that too means "fart" in swedish. Yes we're a childish people. :D

It's like german which also is filled with funny words, like "K?ken" which is chicken. Like "cock" it also means "penis" for us and then the germans slap a "preiskn?ller" tag on it in the supermarket (reduced price). We have both the words "pris" and "knulla" and together it means the chicken [penis] has been "pricefucked". I get what they mean but it's a long way to get there. :lol:
German toothpaste is fun too, they have "Kukident" and "Fittident". Yes you've guessed it, one is male and one is female... NSFW spoiler below.
Hello do you have cockpaste? -No sorry we're all out, but we have cuntpaste! It's over there in isle 6. -Thank you.
German is pretty easy to learn I think altough it's far from being as easy as danish or norwegian since the grammar is all backwards (Yoda-speak). I don't understand the danish way of counting either, what is a "halvfj?rs"? :p
 
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I was born in Soviet Russia, but I've lived in Canada for the past 10 years, so I'm fluent in both Russian and English, plus I'm learning German in university just for fun. Here's how I see the languages I've encountered:

French - I still remember enough rusty high school French to get through an average newspaper article and understand most of the gist of it, but I can't put together a sentence for the life of me because I've forgotten all of the grammar. As for hearing it, while I could understand the French exchange students I ran into recently to an extent, every time I'm in Montreal I don't even bother, Quebec French is impossible.

German - I can understand a conversation in German if it's slowed down a bit, but the further south you go, the worse it gets. I have no idea what the Swiss are saying, it's like a verbal abortion.

To me, Dutch sounds like broken German, and then taking it a step further, Afrikaans sounds like broken Dutch. I can pick up a couple of words that are the same as English, but the rest sounds like a person with half a jaw missing and a plastic bag in their mouth is trying to speak German.

Similarly, Portuguese sounds like a broken version of Spanish to me, but seeing as I know all of one phrase in Spanish (?Por qu? no te callas?), it doesn't really make a difference. Italian though is surprisingly easy to understand, even though I've never studied it and don't know all the words. All the excited hand-waving must help.

As for slavic languages, I've always found Bulgarian the easiest to understand, because for simpler things, it's so close to Russian. Ukranian isn't too bad either, but the further west in Ukraine you go, the closer it sounds to Polish, which makes it more difficult. Serbo-Croatian and Polish are on about the same level of understanding for me (simple sentences in a store, at best), and Czech and Slovak are just impossible.

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:

It's so true, and it looks like they were in no hurry to do it either, which is why they repeat letters so much.


(PS no offence is meant towards anyone, just some friendly mocking)
 
And there are some false friends too, fis means "light" in icelandic but "fart" in swedish, in iceland they write "prutt" in big letters in the stores when there's a sale and that too means "fart" in swedish. Yes we're a childish people. :D

But doesn't "fart" in Swedish mean "speed" in English? You guys got it all backwards...
 
India is bad because you may be in 1 state speaking the same language but there are tons of dialects.

So as soon as you go from your hometown to the next village, you won't be able to understand that person right away.

If you go from the state of Tamil Nadu to the state of Andra Pradesh (which is adjacent and directly north of TN) you will not be able to understand a word as they speak Telugu, which is a completely different language.

Yeah.

Of course, everyone including the beggars speak full English in India so... kinda irrelevant really.
 
Slap another shrimp on the barbie mate!
 
This i actually kinda embarrassing. Do Spanish people mock Latin American accent as much as we mock theirs? Same for Argentinians and Mexicans, Colombians, communists Venezuelans, the lot.

@spicysaurus Yes, spanish varies greatly, colloquialism is the reason, for instance saying in honduras ?Anda hule?(ann-dah oo-leh) means ?he has no money? i'm pretty sure the term will not mean the same anywhere else.

I'm expecting Nati to show up anytime with a answer to my question and a example of Argentinian colloquialism (Argentinism?)
 
Mexicans and Spaniards are like Americans and English; the language is basically the same, but really different.

And if you want to piss off a Mexican tell them, by their accent, they must be from Puerto Rico. :mrgreen:

Our language (Lithuanian) is one of the oldest languages in the world and some say the hardest.

Look into Albanian. IIRC their language is really obscure (most likely a tribal language, like German) because of their isolation until about 100 some odd years ago.
 
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Mexicans and Spaniards are like Americans and English; the language is basically the same, but really different.

And if you want to piss off a Mexican tell them, by their accent, they must be from Puerto Rico. :mrgreen:

I'm sure it works the other way, too. :p
 
Hm. Should we have some sort of exemplary sentences, and everyone would translate those to their own respective mother tongues?
I think we should combine this with AiR's other thread.

How does everyone say, "I have to take a crap?"

P.S.: what on earth is going on in both of y'all's signatures?!
 
I speak Polish, which makes it a bit easier to understand languages like Russian and Czech. Not at a conversation level, but there are times when I see the word, and there is often a connection to its equivalent translation.

I also learned German for many years, and lived in Switzerland for a year, so although not identical, it does make it easier to understand languages such as Dutch and Danish. Again I'm not going to be fluent, but it helped pick up words when I was in Copenhagen last year for about three months.
 
I think we should combine this with AiR's other thread.

How does everyone say, "I have to take a crap?"

P.S.: what on earth is going on in both of y'all's signatures?!

I don't think any other thread should be associated with that one :lol:

He's got some funny Finnish in his, so I retaliated with some kooky Swedish schnapps song lyrics. Also, the picture has nothing to do with my pics in the Post Your Picture thread. :p
 
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