My friend took me to her elementary Swedish class this night. It came off as a lovely, pleasant language, and one which seems surprisingly easy if you have a good grasp of English. That fits well with the impression I had about the other side of the Øresund - even if I was not really understanding what was written, the Danish on the Wikipedia and (possibly) on Jacob and Brian's Facebook posts sounded nicely familiar.
Yes, the languages sound familiar but the people are different in Sweden and Denmark - at least that is my brief experience
by the way:
the girlfriend of Andi's brother has a major in Swedish language and is teaching Swedish
the girlfriend of my cousin, Sampi has a major in Danish language and is teaching Danish
that cousin mentioned above has recently moved to Copenhagen
and it is certainily a blessing to the Indo-European language family - English and German sound so familiar then!
but of course having a detached and unique language as your mother tongue has also its blessings :)
I've been in Hungary this summer. I was quite amused inspecting the outside of one of your cans of beer (while drinking from the inside of course). While the Slavic languages (at least the ones using the Latin alphabet) contained som familiar international words your Hungarian might as well have been Chinese to me (a nice kind of Chinese that is no doubt a great language to use, but stll Chinese). The only language that made any sense was Romanian. I never thought that I was ever going to use my very limited knowledge of French in such a way.
Scandinavian languages are easier to read, at least I can use my Dutch and English to sort it out.
The most beautiful language is still the Italian. As for me, talking in italian is almost like singing.
Did you know that the word S-H-I-T has an irregular past tense, namely S-H-A-T? ;D ;D ;D That was a new information for me found in the dictionary recently. ;D
Yep, I knew this :-) it's a very nice word. Shat.
By the way, all languages are practically the same when you think of the big picture. There are some slightly different symbolic representations in sound and some different visual symbolic representations, and some languages have a larger vocabulary than others. Most of them share at least 90% of the same meaning space I guess, and surprisingly many have exactly similar, directly translatable words. One average language probably covers about 40% of meaning space and all languages together might amount to about 50%, although it's hard to estimate. All languages, with very few exceptions such as Zulu, are spoken using the same articulatory techniques. Written languages are all divided into symbols that are lined up in sequence.
The visible side of languages highlight some cultural differences, but the invisible parts speak of global similarity - we are a brotherhood of man.
Quote from: BonzaiJoe on October 21, 2011, 01:23:21 PM
One average language probably covers about 40% of meaning space and all languages together might amount to about 50%, although it's hard to estimate.
I'm a little bit confused, but anyway, if I understood correctly that 50% would be the verbal part, and the other half a non-verbal meaning space - could whatever that makes poetry so hard to translate somehow fall into it? :)
Hungarian is the easiest language, because even I am able speak it. ;D
it has a lot in common with Chinese (more than any other European language)...
Quote from: BonzaiJoe on October 21, 2011, 01:23:21 PM
Yep, I knew this :-) it's a very nice word. Shat.
By the way, all languages are practically the same when you think of the big picture. There are some slightly different symbolic representations in sound and some different visual symbolic representations, and some languages have a larger vocabulary than others. Most of them share at least 90% of the same meaning space I guess, and surprisingly many have exactly similar, directly translatable words. One average language probably covers about 40% of meaning space and all languages together might amount to about 50%, although it's hard to estimate. All languages, with very few exceptions such as Zulu, are spoken using the same articulatory techniques. Written languages are all divided into symbols that are lined up in sequence.
The visible side of languages highlight some cultural differences, but the invisible parts speak of global similarity - we are a brotherhood of man.
Yes, because we see the same world. ;D
And about the articulatory techniques: I think Hungarian, being not an indo-European language, not having any real relatives, is unique in its way. (If you thought about the biological aspect of this: yes, we have the same organs. :) )
The fact is who has the longer ::)
which brings us to world map of national IQ scores vs. Average penis size:
http://www.targetmap.com/viewer.aspx?reportId=4923
I can't check the average IQ in Denmark because our penis size marker covers the whole country.
Quote from: BonzaiJoe on October 27, 2011, 12:45:10 PM
I can't check the average IQ in Denmark because our penis size marker covers the whole country.
Small country anyway...
Quote from: zaqrack on October 27, 2011, 03:42:36 AM
which brings us to world map of national IQ scores vs. Average penis size:
http://www.targetmap.com/viewer.aspx?reportId=4923
I must confess it is a really good self-esteem booster seeing I'm over the average in both measures of Argentina (and over maximum values worldwide as well!). It's also funny to see how Sierra Leone or Mali have no inhabitants with dicks (I wonder how the reproduce...)
17 phrases that are completely different in Hungarian:
http://matadornetwork.com/notebook/17-funniest-hungarian-expressions-use/
and level 2, with some political twist ;)
http://hircsarda.blog.hu/2015/03/03/17_more_hungarian_expressions_and_how_to_use_them
Portuguese's most similar language is not the spanish. It's the galician (D'you remember Pedro Antônio?). There are groups that defends that the two languages are the same.
But, I can understand easily the wrote spanish and the most of wrote italian. And I understood completely a Balotelli interview in italian during World Cup, when he spoke slowly.
Curious that I don't have any spanish or italian class in my life.
Quote from: Shoegazing Leo on March 03, 2015, 04:35:01 PM
Portuguese's most similar language is not the spanish. It's the galician (D'you remember Pedro Antônio?). There are groups that defends that the two languages are the same.
But, I can understand easily the wrote spanish and the most of wrote italian. And I understood completely a Balotelli interview in italian during World Cup, when he spoke slowly.
Curious that I don't have any spanish or italian class in my life.
Ok ;D
Quote from: Shoegazing Leo on March 03, 2015, 04:35:01 PM
But, I can understand easily the wrote spanish and the most of wrote italian. And I understood completely a Balotelli interview in italian during World Cup, when he spoke slowly.
Curious that I don't have any spanish or italian class in my life.
Italian feels significantly less familiar than Spanish to me. However, my mother has a surprising (in the same way) understanding of spoken Italian - though that probably has something to do with overexposure to my grandpa's opera records at a young age :)
Quote from: Duplode on March 03, 2015, 05:22:32 PM
Quote from: Shoegazing Leo on March 03, 2015, 04:35:01 PM
But, I can understand easily the wrote spanish and the most of wrote italian. And I understood completely a Balotelli interview in italian during World Cup, when he spoke slowly.
Curious that I don't have any spanish or italian class in my life.
Italian feels significantly less familiar than Spanish to me. However, my mother has a surprising (in the same way) understanding of spoken Italian - though that probably has something to do with overexposure to my grandpa's opera records at a young age :)
My mother sings some things in talian, a dialect from veneto mixed with portuguese and native brazilian words.
Look it:
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B_WVTScWIAABbgQ.jpg)
In portuguese is
- Por que choras?
- O Celta sempre joga de noite e não posso ir ao Balaidos.
In english
- Why you are crying?
- Because Celta play only at night and I can't go to the Balaidos (Celta's stadium)
Football in brazilian portuguese: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDHg0WaknfY
That was the 3rd match of the group and the 1st without Maradona (dopping). What a great team we had. The morale went to the underground after the Maradona's dopping but look at these names: Goycochea, Islas, Sensini, Ruggeri, Simeone, Redondo, Chamot, Zanetti, Maradona, Batistuta, Caniggia, Ortega, Basualdo...
Abel Balbo was a very good striker, but it was eclipsed by Gabriel Batistuta.
Yeah I loved the Balbo-Batistuta delantera but Balbo couldn't stand out in the national team. Anyway we had Caniggia that is the kind of striker I like. A bit backward + ultra fast.
Quote from: alanrotoi on March 14, 2015, 03:37:10 AM
Yeah I loved the Balbo-Batistuta delantera but Balbo couldn't stand out in the national team. Anyway we had Caniggia that is the kind of striker I like. A bit backward + ultra fast.
Like Bebeto
You mean Bebeto similar of Caniggia. Yes I've never saw that but basically yes. But look, that kind of player needs a "ball keeper", a good 10 (or a brain player, often a 10).
Your languages are all son of the Roman Empire
Hungarian certainly isn't...
Quote from: Marco on March 14, 2015, 09:38:50 AM
Your languages are all son of the Roman Empire
Italian too. Romance languages.
BTW I hate when they say "Spanish" instead of "Castilian" because Galician, Asturian, Aragonese are Spanish languages too. I accept Castilian as Spanish because it's the most popular but it isn't completely accurate.
I speak Castilian a spanish language. :P
Yes, Hungarian isn't ... I was wrong thinking that. I red on italian wikipedia about hungarian (in italian ungherese) that there were many theories about the origin but 2 of them come from Italy :)))
Marco, d'you know Talian?
http://pt.wikiquote.org/wiki/Prov%C3%A9rbios_em_Talian (http://pt.wikiquote.org/wiki/Prov%C3%A9rbios_em_Talian)
Every region has its dialect in Italy and are very different each other. Anyway I'm able to understand almost all of the Venetian link that you have posted :)))
Quote from: Marco on March 14, 2015, 11:36:50 PM
Every region has its dialect in Italy and are very different each other. Anyway I'm able to understand almost all of the Venetian link that you have posted :)))
This is a venetian-creole (mixing venetian and some portuguese)
HECHO EN PAVO huahauhauahuahauhauahuahauahuahauahuahauahauhauah
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CAzmqFfWsAAAOlH.jpg)
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO JAJAJAJA
In portuguese, this error may cause some geographic confusion, because turkey (the animal) is peru (another country).
Quote from: Akoss Poo a.k.a. Zorromeister on October 21, 2011, 10:27:53 AM
Did you know that the word S-H-I-T has an irregular past tense, namely S-H-A-T? ;D ;D ;D That was a new information for me found in the dictionary recently. ;D
Moreover, it is irregular in German, too, I have just discovered this! Scheißen, schiss, hat geschissen! ;D ;D ;D :o ::)
Ha, ha... I just saw the "Hecho en Pavo" one above. I hadn't seen it before! It's amazing!
About the verb "shit", I always assumed it was regular, but it makes sense that it'd conjugate like "sit". In English, it is very common for informal words to lose their correct usage in grammar. This is not so in Spanish, my language, in which very informal words are often irregular or defective and very uneducated people can and will use the correct conjugations nevertheless. I don't mean that grammar mistakes don't exist; they are pretty common. Only they are not hand-in-hand with informality. The verb for "to shit", however, is regular in Spanish. On the other hand, one of the translations of the verb "to skid" is irregular and people use it correctly all the time.