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Originally Posted by Donnageddon
I think Europeans have an advantage because "foreign languages" are just a few kilometers away. In America it is "English" (for the most part) everywhere you go for hundreds (and hundreds) of miles
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That, and I think it has also something to do with our trading history. We've always been a country, from the middle ages on, where goods from other countries were stored to be shipped of with a different form of transport: goods from Germany, France, and the rest of the interior of Europe come by river boat, to be shipped of by sea, and vice versa. Besides, Dutch has only a very small speaker base in Europe, so wherever we go, we have to speak a foreign language (English, French and German are the largest groups, Spanish is following after).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Donnageddon
As for those from the UK and Australia, I can hardly discern what nonsense they are spouting.
I wish they would learn to use the language as it was intended.
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How is language intended? Languages evolve, especially if groups are separated by large distances. A good example is Dutch vs Afrikaans. The original Dutch settlers took their language with them and separated from the original stock and influenced by other languages Afrikaans took a different road. I find it funny to hear and can even understand it, if the speaker doesn't speak too fast. But it has a greater difference than British English/US English/Aussie English... (besides, I love listening to Aussie English! I find it sounding "more friendly" than US English...)
Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
The more languages you learn, the easier it becomes, because you start to see the commonality in the way that languages "work". Also, if you're learning languages with Indo-European roots, you find that many of the most commonly-used works are very much the same in different languages.
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That's why I don't have too much problem with German and English (German is only much more rusty as I hardly speak it unless I'm on holiday), as our three languages are Germanic languages and a lot of problem with French, which is a Latin language.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GraceKrispy
I know, right??? The worst thing for me is that they spell words incorrectly! They stick all these "U" in everywhere. Canadians do that, too!
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I always have to think to remove the "u"... When I went to that year of High School in New Mexico, I once had a discussion with my newspaper teacher. She had corrected one of my interviews and I just couldn't understand what was wrong with the word...
(the word in question was favourite...)
Quote:
Originally Posted by GraceKrispy
I took German and Norwegian, and learned Navajo, and was passable in all three of those languages, but certainly not fluent. When I learned each new language, the old ones sort of got sucked into the new one. years later, I found myself trying to put a sentence together and realizing I had German and Norwegian all stuck together in there. No wonder those German tourists looked at me like I was nuts ...
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You try to make a test... Often, when I had several tests on a day (at school), I'd write French on my German test, German on my English and English on my French...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Donnageddon
I actually prefer spelling "color" as "Colour" and all such British spellings. It just sounds better on the eye.
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I do it automatically...