Foreign Languages General

[Murphie]

Re: Foreign Languages General

If I were still actively learning how to speak/read French, I'd talk about it here. But that shit is on hiatus.

[Feba]

Re: Foreign Languages General

You could talk about your history learning french?

the things you loved about how the language works, the way that one conjugation is a total asshole, the way you found some hilarious word.


Related, one of my classmates in Chinese mentioned that she was 吃醋 (jealous) about me for having nothing but class and free time. My teacher starts cracking up, explaining that 吃醋 is only used to refer to love. Classmate then tries to downplay this, and refers to me as a 'little brother'. Hilarity ensues.

[Yellow Mage]

Re: Foreign Languages General

All I'd really be able to bring to the table is Spanish. Which is slowly getting rustier and rustier, in spite of the Mexican part of my family.

I should practice that more myself. But it's totally not a priority at all, and I already have my electives for my AA more than accounted for already.

[Taskmage]

Re: Foreign Languages General

I guess this is appropriate for this thread. I found this TED talk that's in Portuguese about clarity of communication in official documents. The presentation is entertaining, and Portuguese is an interesting sounding language that you don't hear very much. You'll need to turn on the subtitles, which idk if the embedded player does.

[Feba]

Re: Foreign Languages General

and Portuguese is an interesting sounding language that you don't hear very much.

Actually, after Chinese, Japanese, English, Korean (in that order), it's probably one of the top languages I hear on a daily basis; lots of Brazillians here. Also the Nikkei Brazillos in Japan.

On the subject of the talk, I want to say that I'm quite glad that bilingual leases among places that cater to foreigners are common here. And while clarity in daily use materials is a laudable goal, it comes at the expense of brevity. Furthermore, legalese does have the benefit of clarifying the purpose of the document in the case of dispute, by making it clear what is being agreed upon in set terms-- that it may require a lawyer to decode it is only a problem if you are reluctant to hire one. Naturally, the other exception to that is if you are too poor to hire one, in which case literacy is a bigger problem for you anyway.

Basically, don't be born poor; if you are, work your ass off and try to climb the social ladder if that's possible in your country; otherwise marry into money. All else failing, you don't have internet access so I'm not at all worried about offending you.

[Murphie]

Re: Foreign Languages General

General You != Feba.

[Feba]

Re: Foreign Languages General

General You != Feba.

Feba You, four star General. Yes. Yes this.


Also the other day Taskmage told me the people that live in Taiwan are called Filipinos and speak English, so there.

[Murphie]

Re: Foreign Languages General

Maybe they are and they are just lying to you.