The Off Topic Topic

[Syt]

[Sheilbh]

Speaking of historical and current grievances in modern politics - I feel like we need to start talking about Poland (especially if Duda wins re-election). From a Polish journalist based in the UK:

Tonight's headlines on Polish state TV news:

- "Poles' heroism, Germans' disgrace" (about the centenary of the 1920 East Prussian plebiscite)

- "A German threatened to kill Poles" (about a German employer who was acquitted by a Polish court of threatening an employee)

[Tonitrus]

I, for one, look forward to being stationed at Fort Trump.

[Admiral Yi]

Dude, if the PX has Ft Trump tshirts, pick me up one. XL.  I'm good for it.

[Zanza]

Poland also demands a quadrillion zloty in reparations. Their posturing gets tiresome. 

[Sheilbh]

Poland also demands a quadrillion zloty in reparations. Their posturing gets tiresome.

The anti-German stuff is ridiculous. The stuff I find threatening is the historical grievance side of things. I mentioned before but a Polish colleague told me that the Polish and Hungarian governments had a meeting on Slovakian soil (where the border "should" be) without inviting the Slovakians which is properly sinister.

[Syt]

2020 has been a wild year, so of course we also get a comet.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/07/one-of-brightest-comets-in-decades-passing-earth-how-to-see/

[Josquius]

So, for, reasons, I have to try and learn Italian to pass an exam for B1.
Some folk here have learned Italian right?
What's the difficulty scaling like on it?

[Syt]

You'll probably be fine if you know Latin.

[Maladict]

French and especially Spanish helps a lot, initially at least. But I don't think you can bluff your way through a B1 exam.
How much time do you have?

[The Larch]

Why do you need to learn Italian? Trying to run away from the UK and get into Switzerland with the missus? 

I did learn Italian back in the day, and found it relatively easy to get to a decent-ish level, but then again I was much younger, was actually living in the country and completely inmersed, and my mother tongues are related, so I didn't really need to learn plenty of the basics.

Are you fluent in any romance language? Giving your opinions about French I rather doubt it.

[Sheilbh]

Are you fluent in any romance language? Giving your opinions about French I rather doubt it.

Yeah. I think given your views on French v German you might not enjoy learning Italian.

Flipside is, unlike, French it's far better at doing what it says - the link between pronunication/written is a little bit more direct.

[Duque de Bragança]

Are you fluent in any romance language? Giving your opinions about French I rather doubt it.

Yeah. I think given your views on French v German you might not enjoy learning Italian.

Flipside is, unlike, French it's far better at doing what it says - the link between pronunication/written is a little bit more direct.

French got some of its grammatical niceties, such as past participe agreement, from Italian so careful.  Italian verb tense agreement is also closer to French, as in not so strict, compared to Castilian or Portuguese. Should be easier in theory.
No nasal vowels though ; I bet Tyr had problems with them.

[Sheilbh]

I don't think the grammar is really the issue with French - we don't learn English grammar (or at least the generation of schoolkids that me and Tyr were in didn't) so we have to learn from the beginning anyway. I've no idea what the English past participle is or if it or verb tenses agree. That makes it more difficult to learn first time because you have to get your head round the concept but in a way it's also easier - you just have to learn it.

The disconnect between pronunciation and spelling on the other hand is more annoying

[Grey Fox]

Even more so when a 6 year old asks you "but why?" & the best you can do is tell them that Francois 1er was too gullible.