06-24-2010, 06:29 AM | #1 |
Wizard
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International Party! (a thread for lovers of languages)
MR is an international forum. With its membership constantly growing, I'm hoping more and more languages are represented here. Speaking for myself, I would love to learn each and every language of the world if I had the time and energy. As I don't, I think it would be fun to present our languages in this thread. Our native languages, or others we speak or try to learn. Anything language-related, anything at all, is welcome.
Want to show off your alphabet? Does your language have a word that has no equivalent in (most) other languages? Does your language have a word, or words, that the whole world is using? Want to share common blunders learners of your language are making? Do you have an expression in your language that you find unique, or maybe surprisingly common? Do you have words that sound the same as in other languages, but mean something completely different? Anything at all is welcome! Maybe we can't learn all available languages, but at least we can share some interesting tidbits and celebrate our uniqueness! |
06-24-2010, 06:33 AM | #2 |
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I'll start with a joke. I've heard it in Greek, but it works in English too.
A linguist is making a speech about languages. There are languages, he says, where a double negative produces an affirmative. In others, a double negative still produces a negative. However there seems to be no language where two affirmatives produce a negative. And someone from the audience shouts: "Yeah, right!" -------------------- I would think all languages have a word for yes and no (though in Japanese you learn about them rather late, as they are not to be overused). A very common little word that I find fascinating is the German "doch". Doch means yes, even though you were expecting a no. What a nice, practical concept! A dialog would go like this. -There is nothing interesting on the internet. -Doch, check out MR for example. |
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06-24-2010, 06:45 AM | #3 | |
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Ohh, nice idea!
Out of the top of my head... Quote:
Bellen and Bellen. In Dutch it means to make a phone call. In German it means to bark (you know, what a dog does...) Every year there are comical situation when German market sales persons are here for our local flower market every year. And people are saying "Ich bellen Sie"... (Ik zal u bellen) Another funny tidbit. You know the animal wildebeest? It's a Dutch word. But we always call the same animal "gnoe"... (wild = wild, beest = beast). Another word from all the way down south: Apartheid (being seperated from each other). Not a word to be proud off. But it's Dutch as well. It would be the opposite of "Eenheid" (belonging together). |
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06-24-2010, 07:06 AM | #4 |
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I loved the bellen misunderstanding.
I learned German before I learned English, long time ago. In an English oral exam, I wanted to say something about going to the islands in a boat. I could not for the life of me remember the English word, but I could remember the German Boot, and it sounded almost right, so I ended up saying that I go to the islands in a boot . As I got very high marks, I guess the examiner thought I was just using a mancunian accent or something! Another word that must cause humorous misunderstandings is embarazada, in Spanish. It is the same word as embarrassed, but it seems in Spanish it is mainly used to mean 'pregnant'. I imagine there are many situations where someone innocently wants to proclaim her embarrassment and ends up getting congratulations or weird looks. |
06-24-2010, 07:09 AM | #5 |
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Yes, I agree. You don't say you are "embarazada" (although it's correct) unless you mean you're pregnant.
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06-24-2010, 07:46 AM | #6 |
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Excellent idea
Well it's not really my language, but my adopted language has 28 or 29 letters, it adds three extra letters to the standard Roman "English" alphabet - æ ø å. In a dictionary the come in that order after -z-. The reason that it's uncertain whether there are 28 or 29 letters in the alphabet - according to my Danish teacher - is that there are no Danish words with -w- so although you will see -w- written in Denmark all the words featuring a -w- are imported words. So Danish itself doesn't have a -w- therefore, the argument goes -w- is not part of the Danish alphabet. You think that's complicated, you want to try pronouncing it! |
06-24-2010, 08:11 AM | #7 | |||||
zeldinha zippy zeldissima
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brilliant thread ! thanks for starting it, omk !
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here is my contribution. i think the czech language (which i don't actually speak...) is very elegant. one reason why : to make certain sounds, most languages must use more than one letter. for instance, english : ch sh french : tch ch polish : cz sz german : tsch sch but in czech they simply add a little crown to the letter : czech : č š what a lovely solution. Last edited by zelda_pinwheel; 06-24-2010 at 08:23 AM. |
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06-24-2010, 08:17 AM | #8 | |
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Quote:
The Geordie accent wouod indeed say "boot" for "boat". |
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06-24-2010, 08:19 AM | #9 |
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Let me just applaud!
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06-24-2010, 08:30 AM | #10 |
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06-24-2010, 08:31 AM | #11 | |
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W seems to be a special little letter indeed.
I'm quoting from Wikipedia: Quote:
Zelda I didn't know about the si, thanks! I only knew about si meaning if. The Turkish alphabet seems to have the same elegance as the Czech, using Ç and Ş for the ch and sh sounds. They also follow vowel harmony, where the suffices of words take a different vowel according to the last vowel of the stem. So the suffix for plural can be either -ler or -lar of example. Many words are common in Turkish and Greek, and both have borrowed words from the other. We lived together for 400 years after all (). So sometimes you encounter funny things like tomates and patates. That's the plural for tomatoes and potatoes in Greek, but the singular for tomatoes and potatoes in Turkish. It felt very strange to have to add the -ler to patates when ordering fries. |
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06-24-2010, 08:31 AM | #12 |
zeldinha zippy zeldissima
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you are right, i can't think why that would bother *anyone* ! especially not someone learning danish as a second (third / fourth...) language !
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06-24-2010, 08:38 AM | #13 | ||
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Quote:
They merit a thread of their very own, I reckon! Quote:
Still can't be harder than Chinese. Chinese has a relatively small number of syllables to convey all possible meanings, so intonation is extremely important. You can pronounce the same syllable with a rising, falling, falling then rising (I think) or flat voice, to produce four different meanings. Makes for a very musical language, and a very hard one to get right as a foreigner. |
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06-24-2010, 08:40 AM | #14 | |||
zeldinha zippy zeldissima
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06-24-2010, 08:56 AM | #15 | ||
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Last edited by omk3; 06-24-2010 at 11:19 AM. |
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