International Party! (a thread for lovers of languages)

[omk3]

The whole article you linked to, ardeegee, was extremely interesting. Thanks.

[Freeshadow]

well since Polish has been mentioned I shall say something because it's my mother tongue:
remark: as we know every grammar rule has exception so dont take this all as carved in stone :P
special characters:

Ą ą spelled like "on" in French: 'balcon' or 'garçon'
Ę ę spelled like "en" in French: prend
Ł ł spelled like English "w": well, wall, water etc.
Ż ż spelled like some cases of French "j" or "g": jardin, Jeanne, garage, mirage
its the same sound as when polish "rz" are read as 1 sound, which is not always the case, it can as well be that rz has to be read as separate letters
Ó ó is simply "U", it depends only on flexing: when the "u" appears in a word where it can change to "o" it is written as "ó"
its like with german ä instead of e when the a can change somehow to e:
(Wärme - warm)

Originally Posted by kacir

ř does not really have an equivalent in English or other language (with possible exception of Polish)

maybe we can straighten it out together with ж

my problem was always to explain ź; ć; and ś to foreigners

ere are at least comperative examples of ż and ź to distinguish:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%BB

@omk3: when it have deen the alphabets that tempted you, how about tolkiens tengwar?:

glyphs: http://www.forodrim.org/daeron/md_teng_primers.html (also covers english runes)
lexicon: http://www.jrrvf.com/hisweloke/sindar/
grammar: http://www.elvish.org/gwaith/

[dreams]

This is a fascinating discussion.

I have a question. Has anyone found that after speaking their 2nd language for a number of years that it has become pretty much their first language?

[ficbot]

Originally Posted by dreams

I have a question. Has anyone found that after speaking their 2nd language for a number of years that it has become pretty much their first language?

I don't 'live' in my second language, but I teach in it (actually, French is my third language) and one thing I have found ever since I started teaching (and hence, using it more) is that when I read, I have stopped translating in my head as I go. Sometimes, I will have a moment of awareness where I realize I am not translating, and I will panic and start doing it again to make sure I am really comprehending everything, and that usually stops up the whole thing and makes me feel confused and anxious But I am getting much better at just going with it and reading like a regular person.

[FlorenceArt]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

"Instead of words like "right," "left," "forward," and "back," which, as commonly used in English, define space relative to an observer, the Kuuk Thaayorre, like many other Aboriginal groups, use cardinal-direction terms — north, south, east, and west — to define space. This is done at all scales, which means you have to say things like "There's an ant on your southeast leg" or "Move the cup to the north northwest a little bit." One obvious consequence of speaking such a language is that you have to stay oriented at all times, or else you cannot speak properly. The normal greeting in Kuuk Thaayorre is "Where are you going?" and the answer should be something like " Southsoutheast, in the middle distance." If you don't know which way you're facing, you can't even get past "Hello.""

Wow, good thing for me I was born in France. If I was a Kuuk Thaayorre, I'd be a mute

That said, it's dangerous to jump to conclusions about what concepts a culture has or doesn't have, based on language.

In Japanese, the words for "you" and "me" are recent constructions. I think they were introduced as a consequence of contact with Westerners who couldn't "get" that a language has no word for "I".

Does this means that the Japanese have no undestanding of the concept of self? Obviously not, although it can probably be linked to the way the Japanese see the individual as mostly members of society, and defined by their status in society. In the Genji monogatari, characters are identified by their position at Court, so one character can be called different names as the novel progresses and their position changes.

Language Log has a lot of posts about the myths on a given language having "N words for X" or "no word for Y". Most of these statements are factually incorrect, and what if they were indeed correct? It wouldn't mean much in itself

I will leave you on this thought:

Did you know Zulu has a word for "annoying three-foot-long one-note plastic trumpet"? Isn't that fascinating?

[TGS]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

That reminds me of something I brought up once before-- I searched it down rather than to try to recreate the sentiment:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...6&postcount=74

The relationship between the language we use and the way we carve up the world - the categories we use - is fascinating. Prepositions are one of the weirdest language features and the way the prepositions in English do not quite map on to the prepositions in Danish cause me as a non-native Danish speaker, and the Danish people I teach English to no end of problems. English has far more prepositions than Danish and uses them in weird ways - why might you be "on" a bus but "in" a car for example, but in Danish be "på" a bus and also be be "på" work (if you ask Google på translates as "at")?

Colour categories are also fascinating - whilst all languages seem to more or less agree on certain central examples of some colours, the number of basic colour categories varies from language to language. You can read bits of a fascinating book here.

[idlogin]

Originally Posted by Bilbo1967

I thinjk that it would be more likely that your examiner learnt English from a native of Newcastle.

The Geordie accent wouod indeed say "boot" for "boat".

Wayaye man! Living in Geordieland, i can attest to that fact. I've grown to love the accent though. way better than cockney in my opinion ;-)

I'm ganin nyem( i''m going home)

[omk3]

Originally Posted by dreams

This is a fascinating discussion.

I have a question. Has anyone found that after speaking their 2nd language for a number of years that it has become pretty much their first language?

I don't think another language can so easily replace your first language, but I can tell you this. Whenever I'm learning a language, and get obsessed by it to a degree, I catch myself sometimes thinking in it, which is a bit weird. Sometimes other languages have constructions, interjections, even whole thought processes that are not common in your (my) own language. In that respect, I do feel like my mind broadens that little bit to incorporate them and happily makes them my own. To the annoying effect that I start dropping, say, japanese words in greek conversations Okay, not often, but it happens. What happens more often is that I think something in english (as I use this language a lot) and have difficulty translating it to greek, my own native language. I am sometimes shocked by this, but I think it's natural. I do think differently according to the language I'm using at the moment.

Originally Posted by ficbot

I don't 'live' in my second language, but I teach in it (actually, French is my third language) and one thing I have found ever since I started teaching (and hence, using it more) is that when I read, I have stopped translating in my head as I go. Sometimes, I will have a moment of awareness where I realize I am not translating, and I will panic and start doing it again to make sure I am really comprehending everything, and that usually stops up the whole thing and makes me feel confused and anxious But I am getting much better at just going with it and reading like a regular person.

I think it's very conducive to language learning to never translate, if I can help it. If I let myself feel the language, as if it was my native one, I am more open to its nuances and alien constructions. Otherwise, I feel that things that can never be perfectly translated, will remain out of reach...

Originally Posted by FlorenceArt

...
That said, it's dangerous to jump to conclusions about what concepts a culture has or doesn't have, based on language.

In Japanese, the words for "you" and "me" are recent constructions. I think they were introduced as a consequence of contact with Westerners who couldn't "get" that a language has no word for "I".

Does this means that the Japanese have no undestanding of the concept of self? Obviously not, although it can probably be linked to the way the Japanese see the individual as mostly members of society, and defined by their status in society. In the Genji monogatari, characters are identified by their position at Court, so one character can be called different names as the novel progresses and their position changes.

Language Log has a lot of posts about the myths on a given language having "N words for X" or "no word for Y". Most of these statements are factually incorrect, and what if they were indeed correct? It wouldn't mean much in itself

I will leave you on this thought:

Well, as I'm learning japanese right now, I'm not sure if the words for I and you are new (they don't seem to be), but they are amazingly varied (me as in small boy, me as a superior adult man, me as a sexy woman, me as an equal, etc etc, in very simplistic terms), and still are never used if it can be avoided. It is a source of surprise that you don't learn I and you on your very first lesson, as in most languages I know, but it makes sense, as you can actually speak japanese without ever using these words.
And of course it says something about how japanese think, and how their society is structured. Maybe this is changing in recent years, but it seems that the sense of a japanese person's place in society (or any other group, like an extended family, or a company) is more important than the sense of self as we know it. Oversimplifications and gereralisations are dangerous and often wrong of course, and I would appreciate a japanese person's views on this, if there is one around.

Originally Posted by TGS

The relationship between the language we use and the way we carve up the world - the categories we use - is fascinating. Prepositions are one of the weirdest language features and the way the prepositions in English do not quite map on to the prepositions in Danish cause me as a non-native Danish speaker, and the Danish people I teach English to no end of problems. English has far more prepositions than Danish and uses them in weird ways - why might you be "on" a bus but "in" a car for example, but in Danish be "på" a bus and also be be "på" work (if you ask Google på translates as "at")?

Modern Greek is the same. We have mainly one preposition for everyday use to show either place or direction: σε (seh). It means on, it means at, it means in, it means to. At work, on the bus, on the table, in the garden, in the bathtub, to work, give to this person, all σε. Very practical. We have a million others (slight exaggeration) of course, but we rarely use them in everyday speech.

Colour categories are also fascinating - whilst all languages seem to more or less agree on certain central examples of some colours, the number of basic colour categories varies from language to language. You can read bits of a fascinating book here.

Greeks too have two distinct words for light and dark blue (though the dark blue one is imported, μπλε - bleh), and I'm always surprised that english uses the same word for both colours. The japanese have a word, aoi, which I was taught was something like a greenish blue. I understand it can be the colour of the leaves on the trees, the colour of the sky, or the colour of faraway mountains.

Originally Posted by idlogin

Wayaye man! Living in Geordieland, i can attest to that fact. I've grown to love the accent though. way better than cockney in my opinion ;-)

I'm ganin nyem( i''m going home)

Oooh, I want to hear this aloud!

[omk3]

Originally Posted by Freeshadow

@omk3: when it have deen the alphabets that tempted you, how about tolkiens tengwar?:

glyphs: http://www.forodrim.org/daeron/md_teng_primers.html (also covers english runes)
lexicon: http://www.jrrvf.com/hisweloke/sindar/
grammar: http://www.elvish.org/gwaith/

Though invented languages are not without their interest, there are so many real, spoken languages that are fighting for my attention that I don't think I'll have time for Tolkien Thanks though, the letters do look nice.

[FlorenceArt]

Originally Posted by omk3

Well, as I'm learning japanese right now, I'm not sure if the words for I and you are new (they don't seem to be), but they are amazingly varied (me as in small boy, me as a superior adult man, me as a sexy woman, me as an equal, etc etc, in very simplistic terms), and still are never used if it can be avoided. It is a source of surprise that you don't learn I and you on your very first lesson, as in most languages I know, but it makes sense, as you can actually speak japanese without ever using these words.

Oops, you're right, how could I forget about all those versions of "I". However, I do think (and hope ) that what I said is true of anata (you), which is not all that frequent as you usually address people using their name or title.

[ardeegee]

Another interesting (to me, at least) variable in languages is word order:

[omk3]

Originally Posted by FlorenceArt

Oops, you're right, how could I forget about all those versions of "I". However, I do think (and hope ) that what I said is true of anata (you), which is not all that frequent as you usually address people using their name or title.

Yes, anata is almost never used in normal conversation, and I believe it may even sound rude in some cases. What I find really weird, is that it seems to be sometimes used by wife to husband as a term of endearment (or maybe it isn't the same word?). Japanese is so different from Indo-European languages, not only in structure but in the whole though process behind it, that I find it amazing that there are some splendid translations of japanese fiction out there. Mediocre translations, on the other hand, are extremely easy to spot, as they tend to repeat some sentence structures that, if they make any kind of sense in english at all, they sound stilted and awkward.

[FlorenceArt]

Originally Posted by omk3

Yes, anata is almost never used in normal conversation, and I believe it may even sound rude in some cases. What I find really weird, is that it seems to be sometimes used by wife to husband as a term of endearment (or maybe it isn't the same word?). Japanese is so different from Indo-European languages, not only in structure but in the whole though process behind it, that I find it amazing that there are some splendid translations of japanese fiction out there. Mediocre translations, on the other hand, are extremely easy to spot, as they tend to repeat some sentence structures that, if they make any kind of sense in english at all, they sound stilted and awkward.

Yes, it's the same word. But it sounds very natural to me, because it's the same in French: using "tu" when talking to friends and family (and now, with co-corkers) is normal, but using "tu" when talking to a stranger is insulting. Though this is changing now, and "tu" has become much more frequent in the last decades.

There are more and more instances of ads (those targetting young people) using "tu". I find this shocking but apparently, young people must find it normal.

It looks like in this matter, France is following in the steps of Scandinavia and, more recently, Germany. My sister lived in Denmark for a few months, and she told me that nobody uses the equivalent of "tu" any longer, except when talking to the King (which incidentally my sister didn't do ). And I seem to see "Du" in German used much more often than "tu" in French, on magazine covers or ads, or here in the MR forum.

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by omk3

Yes, anata is almost never used in normal conversation, and I believe it may even sound rude in some cases.

I'm wondering-- does that come mostly from academic exposure (language lessons) or from "real world" exposure to the language? Because I watch a huge amount of (English subbed) media (TV series/movies/animated/live action) and "anata" is used often. In fact, "watashi"/"atashi" and "anata" are two of the words I first picked out from repetition associated with the subs (which came after figuring out that the word order was different.) My problem with learning the language is that, given the choice between playing one of my language lessons (I have the 90 lesson Pimsleur Japanese plus a few other audio and video series, all downloaded from the internet) and watching an actual episode of Japanese TV (or a movie) I almost always choose the TV/movie and hope to continue to pick up words/form from context.

On a somewhat related note, a funny classic series of essays by a guy teaching English in Japan:

http://classic.dryang.org/japanese/index.htm

[omk3]

Originally Posted by FlorenceArt

Yes, it's the same word. But it sounds very natural to me, because it's the same in French: using "tu" when talking to friends and family (and now, with co-corkers) is normal, but using "tu" when talking to a stranger is insulting. Though this is changing now, and "tu" has become much more frequent in the last decades.

There are more and more instances of ads (those targetting young people) using "tu". I find this shocking but apparently, young people must find it normal.

It looks like in this matter, France is following in the steps of Scandinavia and, more recently, Germany. My sister lived in Denmark for a few months, and she told me that nobody uses the equivalent of "tu" any longer, except when talking to the King (which incidentally my sister didn't do ). And I seem to see "Du" in German used much more often than "tu" in French, on magazine covers or ads, or here in the MR forum.

Greek is the same, eh-see (εσύ) is tu, eh-sees (εσείς) is vous. I don't see the japanese anata in the same way, though. Anata from wife to husband is usually translated "dear". I never ever say εσύ or tu with that sweetness

(European) Portuguese, interestingly, has three levels of politeness. Tu, você, and o senhor/Vós, with você being in the middle of the two extremes and more frequently used.

Originally Posted by ardeegee

Another interesting (to me, at least) variable in languages is word order:

I think languages that tend to change their words according to case/gender/etc are more flexible in word structure, as you can understand what is meant just by looking at the word forms. In some languages it's only order that gives the information of who is doing what to whom, and changing the order changes the meaning completely. In more flexible languages (as to word order), word order can be used for emphasis. Languages with rigid word order have to find other devices for that.