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Started by Eddie Teach, September 05, 2009, 09:46:06 PM

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Are you fluent in any foreign languages?

Yes, but only English
13 (19.4%)
Yes, in addition to English(which isn't my native tongue)
18 (26.9%)
Yes, and English is my native tongue
13 (19.4%)
No, English only
22 (32.8%)
No comprendo(the Jaron/IKK option)
1 (1.5%)

Total Members Voted: 65

DontSayBanana

Quote from: Zoupa on September 06, 2009, 03:25:02 PM
You could say japanese you know  :rolleyes:

Meh. I just prefer to call languages by their native names as a matter of preference. I could just as easily have said German, Spanish, Japanese, and French, but I decided against it. :mellow:
Experience bij!

Zoupa

I think you should push it further and type nihongo using their alphabet next time.

garbon

Quote from: DontSayBanana on September 06, 2009, 03:29:11 PM
Meh. I just prefer to call languages by their native names as a matter of preference. I could just as easily have said German, Spanish, Japanese, and French, but I decided against it. :mellow:

Don't worry, we're used to you putting on airs. :hug:

I am surprised though that you've only admitted to being fluent in one other language! :o
"I've never been quite sure what the point of a eunuch is, if truth be told. It seems to me they're only men with the useful bits cut off."
I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.

grumbler

Quote from: Peter Wiggin on September 05, 2009, 09:46:06 PM
Curious how many of you share Sheilbh's passion for languages.
I get no respect. :cry:
The future is all around us, waiting, in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain.   -G'Kar

Bayraktar!

DontSayBanana

Quote from: garbon on September 06, 2009, 03:31:58 PM
Don't worry, we're used to you putting on airs. :hug:

I am surprised though that you've only admitted to being fluent in one other language! :o
"Putting on airs" is a gross overstatement- I've already admitted I can't speak the only language besides English that would actually be useful in South Jersey. It's just a simple neurosis.

I do like my vocabulary, though. Another neurosis would be being overly-precise in my speaking, and yes, I talk the same way I type. I guess I could see where you guys would get "putting on airs" out of that. :hug:
Experience bij!

garbon

Quote from: DontSayBanana on September 06, 2009, 03:43:27 PM
"Putting on airs" is a gross overstatement- I've already admitted I can't speak the only language besides English that would actually be useful in South Jersey. It's just a simple neurosis.

I do like my vocabulary, though. Another neurosis would be being overly-precise in my speaking, and yes, I talk the same way I type. I guess I could see where you guys would get "putting on airs" out of that. :hug:

Actually, the "putting on airs" part more globally goes to your attempts to play the role of encyclopedia brown.
"I've never been quite sure what the point of a eunuch is, if truth be told. It seems to me they're only men with the useful bits cut off."
I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.

DisturbedPervert

Quote from: Zoupa on September 06, 2009, 03:25:02 PM
You could say japanese you know  :rolleyes:

He wants people to google it

DontSayBanana

Quote from: garbon on September 06, 2009, 03:46:48 PM
Actually, the "putting on airs" part more globally goes to your attempts to play the role of encyclopedia brown.

More "Encyclopedia Googlica" than "Encyclopedia Brown." :contract:
Experience bij!

Martinus

#53
Other than English, I speak some French and Russian. But English is the only language I speak fluently (shut up!).

Archy

English rather well for a not native speaker. I can understand it fluently, read it fluently, speaking and typing itself with some errors.
French: I have a basic knowledge and can make me understood rather well. I don't know it as well as English, but I use it in a daily setting with our customers. I have a bilingual colleague whom I often ask for advice.
German. Better as Jean Marie Pfaff, former goalkeeper of Bayern München. I can understand it rather well when written since it's the language closest to Dutch. I can help me out when necessary but I make a lot of errors. Also more often it's literraly translated Dutch.
Spanish: I had two years of evening classes. I can still understand most of the written lingo but I fogot half the vocab so I can say some sentences with help of a tourist dictionarry.

Malthus

I only speak English fluently. I know a little French to read (not much), a very little Chinese (in spite of years of schooling in both) and a smattering of Ukranian and Yiddish (in spite of being married into a family fluent in the one and being the grandson of grandparents fluent in the other).

I suck at languages.
The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane—Marcus Aurelius

The Brain

Quote from: Malthus on September 06, 2009, 04:30:48 PM
I only speak English fluently. I know a little French to read (not much), a very little Chinese (in spite of years of schooling in both) and a smattering of Ukranian and Yiddish (in spite of being married into a family fluent in the one and being the grandson of grandparents fluent in the other).

I suck at languages.

You conveniently forgot Hebrew. :rolleyes:
Women want me. Men want to be with me.

Malthus

Quote from: The Brain on September 06, 2009, 04:32:24 PM
You conveniently forgot Hebrew. :rolleyes:

I don't know any Hebrew at all.  :D
The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane—Marcus Aurelius

Razgovory

I took Latin.  I forgot most of it.  It's not exactly useful.
I've given it serious thought. I must scorn the ways of my family, and seek a Japanese woman to yield me my progeny. He shall live in the lands of the east, and be well tutored in his sacred trust to weave the best traditions of Japan and the Sacred South together, until such time as he (or, indeed his house, which will periodically require infusion of both Southern and Japanese bloodlines of note) can deliver to the South it's independence, either in this world or in space.  -Lettow April of 2011

Raz is right. -MadImmortalMan March of 2017

grumbler

Quote from: DontSayBanana on September 06, 2009, 03:43:27 PM
I do like my vocabulary, though. Another neurosis would be being overly-precise in my speaking, and yes, I talk the same way I type. I guess I could see where you guys would get "putting on airs" out of that. :hug:
Using the Japanese word for their language rather than the English word, when writing on an English-speaking board 9especially when the rest of your post is in English exept for the foreign-language names of the languages) could so easily be taken for "putting on airs" that I am astonished that you don't see it.

I ' use "bulkhead" for wall, "hatch" for door, or "ladder" for stairs, even though those are perfectly correct and accurate terms when speaking Navy-speak.  The reason I don't is because it would be "putting on airs" unless I was literally speaking about those things aboard a ship.

You might want to look more closely at the reasons why you used the non-English terms.  They probably are not so innocent as you believe without consideration. :hug:
The future is all around us, waiting, in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain.   -G'Kar

Bayraktar!