[Verencat]

Originally Posted by ficbot

I think I would post on-line more and such if the whole accent thing weren't so much of an issue. Also, I get nervous when I read because I panic a little when I see a word I don't know (an ebook which supported instant lookup on non-English dictionaries would be a huge help!) I prefer speaking because I can choose to use only words I know

Just don't worry about the accents. My dad uses mainly a netbook that has no accent, and everyone can read fine! I agree about speaking and choosing the words you want! I do that when I write too. It's possible to see if I'm in an English day or not just by reading my posts, because my vocabulary and propension to compose well structured sentences in English depend mostly on a totally arbitrary factor I call "language days". Some days I speak English with a terrible accent (bad language day), some days with no accents at all (good language day), but most days i have a slight accent, and it's the same when I write. Good and bad language days vary from one language to another - some days I can be almost fluent in Spanish but put "h" at all the wrong places in English. When I was in college, I had Spanich and German classes almost everyday (language specialty) and somedays I was litterally speaking both languages with the other's accent, I couldn't help it. It did crack everyone up, teachers included!

I should have been born a European. It just seems like a much better environment for learning languages 'naturally' and have opportunities to actually keep them in use!

Definetly what I think too!

ETA: All right, I delurked in the French forum Hope I did okay...

You did marvelously. Now you need to come to the Montréal meetup so we can talk!

Originally Posted by Daithi

Side note: I grew up in California, which has a lot of Spanish speakers, so now I can say "kiss my arse" in three languages.

Embrasse mon cul!

Now you've got four!

Originally Posted by GraceKrispy

In learning Hawaiian, children are first taught the Hakalama-- which seems to me to be similar to a syllabary?

It takes all the consonants and puts them together with each vowel to make a system. The vowels are a, e, i, o, u and the consonants are h, k, l, m, n, p, w, ' . So the first line of hakalama is :

ha ka la ma na pa wa 'a

then goes to: he ke le me ne pe we 'e

and so forth. Then it is sung again, this time with the accent marking (kahako) on top of each vowel. Once you can recognize and read the hakalama and have some fluency (ha, he, hi, ho, hu, etc), you are able to read all Hawaiian words.

I'll try that, thank you!