The Vent and Rant Thread

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by issybird

Sheesh! You're being awfully hard on your countrymen! Kudos to all non-native-Anglophones who get along in English.

If Americans in general (including me) could speak another language half as well as the Dutch speak English, we'd get along far better in the world.

We Dutch *know* English very well, but I'm of the opinion that we don't *speak* it very well, at least not with regard to pronunciation. Ever heard a Dutch politician speak English? Most of them are just bad. Their English sounds like some sort of weird Dutch... or Dutch using English words.

There is one Dutch politician however who speaks at least three languages (Dutch, English and French), and he does so exceptionally well. If he speaks French or English, he actually sounds French or British. For the life of me, I can't remember his name right now...

Even though I think my pronunciation is better than most, I still think it's not nearly good enough. I can still be identified as a non-English speaker quite easily, even though most people will get the country wrong.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by badgoodDeb

I'm surprised you even bothered to mention "Proxy servers" and "dark net". I'd have just told him Amazon. Period.

Or the publisher's website.

I figured, to tell the truth, that once he Googled "proxy server," he'd realize he was WAAAAAAAY over his head. And if he read up on the Darknet, he'd find out, oooops, no google. He'd give up in minutes.

And I really wish I'd done the Men in Ink thing. That woulda been a hoot.

Hitch

[Katsunami]

Oh, and now I also know why I hate games half of the time.

HLTB (How Long To Beat, but yeah, I know it looks like some sort of acronym about people's sexual orientation ) says Transformers: War for Cybertron takes around 8-15 hours or so for all 10 chapters. I'm now just starting chapter 7, and I'm already at 16 hours for the previous 6. That's 2.67 hours per chapter. Estimated finishing time is 26-27 hours. No way you'll beat this game in 8 hours when playing it for the very first time.

Reason? Large encounters and boss-fights; especially the latter. There is ALWAYS some sort of surprise. Get the boss down to 75%, and something unforseen happens which kills you (almost) instantly. He has some sort of attack, or defense, or some weird shit happens and he changes his patterns.

Repeat that at 50%, 25%, and sometimes even at 5%, and each time you have to start the boss-fight over again, until you know all the patterns and surprises. You can defeat the boss in a 15 minute fight or so (if nothing goes wrong), but to get to that point, you'll have to do it 4-5 times, and the boss-fight will easily take you 1,5 hours in total, on top of the chapter time.

Damn.

Originally Posted by issybird

Sheesh! You're being awfully hard on your countrymen! Kudos to all non-native-Anglophones who get along in English.

If Americans in general (including me) could speak another language half as well as the Dutch speak English, we'd get along far better in the world.

My spoken [American] English is far from outstanding. I have been known to mangle pronuciations. Growing up with my family moving around so much I came to have a mix of dialects. I'll never forget when after completing college in the SF area moving to a small town in South Carolina. Some of the commercial and news casts. Advertisements for furniture suites pronounced suits. Or on one occasion when San Jose was in the news for some reason pronounced San Jo-zee.

Anyway I've always been impressed on my visits to Holland with the seamless way locals could switch languages from English to German to French and of course Dutch. Though I never got over how what to me sounded like one clearings ones throat was a part of Dutch.

[Toxaris]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

While I can get Italian and Spanish, I loath the fact that Russian, Arabic, Turkish and Chinese are possible languages to choose from. What use do we have of them here in the Netherlands? Every other Moroccan or Turk over here will choose Arabic or Turkish as their "second" language. Russian and Chinese are of no use here.

What if I wanted to do Japanese? Or Swedish, Danish, Norwegian (Norsk?) or Finnish?

Actually Chinese makes a lot of sense, especially if you want to get into trade.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Hitch

After I initially tried to be nice, and help out some guy looking for a book for his daughter?

Once you'd found out he just wanted it for free (and you were incredibly nice to him up to that point), IMO you should have just cut him off then.

[Cinisajoy]

If I want a book free or close to free, I check the local thrift stores.
That idea works best. (I think).

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Once you'd found out he just wanted it for free (and you were incredibly nice to him up to that point), IMO you should have just cut him off then.

Yes, you're right, but...I guess it didn't really make sense to me, at first. There are folks who are not big book people, who don't understand why every digital thing in the known universe isn't free.

One of the biggest changes I had to make to my own...being, I guess, in going into what is effectively a retail market (making eBooks) is that I had to relearn how I dealt with people. In my former life, pre-crash, I had the good luck to deal with exceptionally bright people, stars in their own lines of endeavor, and never had to deal with your average bear. So, I tended to be, well, let's say...brusque? I had to relearn interaction skills...and at least one of my Crew harps on the idea that I've bent too far backward in the other direction. I probably should have either cut him off or given him the Men in Ink riff.

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

If I want a book free or close to free, I check the local thrift stores.
That idea works best. (I think).

Yes, like other honest folks. :-)

Hitch

[DiapDealer]

I've had it! The cheese that gets wasted in the name of a good bowl of French Onion Soup is atrocious!

A slightly bigger bowl, a few more croutons, and all that cheesy goodness could stay inside the bowl where it's edible.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by issybird

If Americans in general (including me) could speak another language half as well as the Dutch speak English, we'd get along far better in the world.

There's an old joke about that:

Q What do you call someone who speaks several languages?
A Multi-lingual

Q What do you call someone who speaks two languages?
A Bi-lingual

Q What do you call someone who speaks one language?
A An American


I took Latin, French, and Spanish back when. I've had no call to use them, and remember next to none beyond a few random curses. It's use that's the key, and I had no call to actually speak, read, or write them, so they left in a huff.

My SO has a facility for language. At one point, she could overhear people speaking, and if she listened long enough, get a feel for what they were talking about, whether or not she knew the language. (And at one point, she was at least somewhat fluent in eleven languages. These days, she's more or less bi-lingual in English and Spanish, and fluent in French if it involves cuisine. The rest have atrophied.)

There is far more reason for Europeans to know more than one language because they will have far more cause to use them. No surprise more of them speak more than one.

And curses are the things likely to be learned first. I was tickled years back to find myself walking behind a Hispanic and an Indian, and hearing the Hispanic ask the Indian "How you say, in Tamil, asshole?"

My SO reported passing a pair of Indian shopkeepers while out shopping, and they were chattering away. "Hindi hindi hindi schmuck! hindi hindi..." I assumed they were discussing their landlord.
______
Dennis

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I've had it! The cheese that gets wasted in the name of a good bowl of French Onion Soup is atrocious!

A slightly bigger bowl, a few more croutons, and all that cheesy goodness could stay inside the bowl where it's edible.

You could make your own. Want to borrow my soup bowls?

[Blossom]

Just an update. The girl who I was partner with just message me. She says she mailed my books and they will be here Saturday.

Do you think I scared her by telling stories about my crazy family?

Example: She said she had family trouble. Her aunt hadn't given her the books her grandma left her after two years. I told her about my uncle who was murdered by his second wife and didn't give his kids any of the insurance money. We still don't know what happened to his will.

Ah well. I'm not crazy, my family is.. I'll let everyone know when they get here.

Sent from my XT1528

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Blossom

Do you think I scared her by telling stories about my crazy family?

I think the hostess first sided with her friend in the chat because of her friend's problems, thought about it herself some more, and then did a 180, telling her friend (in private) that her behavior was not right.

Hopefully.

Example: She said she had family trouble. Her aunt hadn't given her the books her grandma left her after two years. I told her about my uncle who was murdered by his second wife and didn't give his kids any of the insurance money. We still don't know what happened to his will.

Why would you tell that to a random stranger?

I know, I'm regularly bitching about my father here, and it must seem I really dislike him. That's not the case, but I do (intensly) dislike his "I know everything and you can't teach me anything, because I've been around since the 1940's!"-attitude. Maybe that's just typical for some older people, and not him specifically.

Although, even when younger, like 25 years ago, he could be *really* stubborn. Like "I can fix this electricity thing without shutting down the power. Never went wrong before." He did so a few times, without problems... until the day it did go wrong. Fortunately for him, he got away with a warning.

Now he even shuts down the power when screwing in a new light bulb.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by Blossom

Just an update. The girl who I was partner with just message me. She says she mailed my books and they will be here Saturday.

Do you think I scared her by telling stories about my crazy family?

Example: She said she had family trouble. Her aunt hadn't given her the books her grandma left her after two years. I told her about my uncle who was murdered by his second wife and didn't give his kids any of the insurance money. We still don't know what happened to his will.

Ah well. I'm not crazy, my family is.. I'll let everyone know when they get here.

Sent from my XT1528

I have to ask was she convicted or just accused?
If convicted good chance no one got the money.
Also, the beneficiary can do whatever they want with the life insurance money.
My aunt thinks I was horrible for not giving my brother half. Even though the aunt knows my brother didn't want a dang thing from our father. My brother made that very clear.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Toxaris

Actually Chinese makes a lot of sense, especially if you want to get into trade.

It looks like manufacturing is moving to Indonesia for some types of products. China is getting too expensive it seems.

Originally Posted by Hamlet53

Anyway I've always been impressed on my visits to Holland with the seamless way locals could switch languages from English to German to French and of course Dutch. Though I never got over how what to me sounded like one clearings ones throat was a part of Dutch.

In the south, most people speak Dutch, English, (some) German, and, most of the time, their local dialect. I don't know about German in more northern parts of the country, and with regard to French, I'm clueless as well how many Dutch speak it passably. Belgians probably will, beside Dutch and English.

With regard to the throat clearing thing, it's the "hard G." They use it in the central part of the country. In the south, we have a "soft G." In other parts of the country, it's somewhere in between.

The hard G/soft G is almost as big a schism in the Netherlands as Dutch/French is in Belgium.

Middle/Northern people often ridicule the pronunciation the southerners here (and Belgians) use. The other way around, the southern people often visibly cringe when talking to people from the middle part of the country. Their pronunciation is often viewed as grating and aggressive.

That hard G really is like nails on a chalk board, at least to me.