Foreign Language/multilingual thread

  On 2/17/2021 at 5:37 PM, randomsummer said:

I also spent 4 months in India during grad school, and while learning some of the basic Hindi vocabulary I decided to try and play a trick on my friends there.  I bet them I could learn 100 words in one day.  I had planned on just learning to count from 1 to 100 and they laughed hard when I said this.  Then I learned that in Hindi, 1 - 100 are 100 mostly distinct words that must be memorized individually.  WTF, India?

This just reminded me of this video:

  On 2/17/2021 at 5:42 PM, randomsummer said:

This just reminded me of this video:

 

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Let me tell you about the Danish number system..

Also fun fact about the English language. Hundred used to mean 120 prior to 15th century.

So tens from 80 would go: eighty, ninety, tenty, eleventy, hundred.

Then after 100 was renamed as "hundred" the 120 was called the "long hundred" or "twelfty".

Long thousand is ten long hundreds or 1200.

  On 2/17/2021 at 1:23 PM, dcom said:

It's good to be a Finn, it's very necessary to learn other languages to get by in the world - our school system mandates one elective language, then Swedish for Finnish-speaking natives (and Finnish for Swedish-speaking ones), and in addition about everyone takes at least one more additional elective language - so we pick up at least three languages besides Finnish before we're 15.

I'm jealous. The US education system is a joke compared to yours. I didn't even begin learning German until I was 15.

  On 2/17/2021 at 5:42 PM, randomsummer said:

This just reminded me of this video:

 

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This hits home cause my kid is learning quebecois, and trying to explain this to her is like banging my head against a wall. Whatever, she's 6, she'll memorize it within 2 days. So jealous of that ability to soak in information like a sponge.

At least they don't have the specific counters like in Japanese and, to a lesser extent, Korean.

  On 2/17/2021 at 8:29 PM, chenGOD said:

This hits home cause my kid is learning quebecois, and trying to explain this to her is like banging my head against a wall. Whatever, she's 6, she'll memorize it within 2 days. So jealous of that ability to soak in information like a sponge.

At least they don't have the specific counters like in Japanese and, to a lesser extent, Korean.

Japanese counters are a nightmare, let alone all the kanji and grammar nuances we have to memorize.

For those who aren't familiar, counters in Japanese vary depending on the object's physical characteristics. For example, if it's something in small pieces, it takes ko (個), long, thin objects take hon (本), flat objects in sheets like paper take mai (枚), small to medium-sized four-legged animals are hiki/biki/piki (匹), and top of that a separate counter for birds and rabbits is wa (羽). And many more, etc, etc...

Learning French in school in Canada is kind of a joke in some areas, especially western provinces. It's mandatory up to a certain grade and then optional in high school. The person teaching your French class might also be the PE teacher or some other rando from staff who needed the extra hours. I don't think I ever learned proper pronunciation and had very little actual speaking/conversation practice because most of my classmates thought it was "gay" and were only there past grade 9 because their parents made them take it. Maybe things are different now.

Some parents would put their kids in French Immersion school and that has always confused me in terms of how practical or useful it is, and I've always wondered if the kid is getting a lesser education because so much more mental power must go into just using the language (I mean these are kids who speak English at home). If you live anywhere west of Ontario it's not likely you'll ever really "need" French unless you're traveling or working in a government job (and even there you don't need it but it could help you get ahead/ have more options). 

  Quote

From the 1950s through the 1970s, Esperanto was used by the US Army for war games, as the language of the "Maneuver Enemy", also known as the "Aggressor". The goal was an added touch of realism, with the enemy speaking a "foreign" language. Spanish was the original candidate for Aggressor's national language, but it was soon superseded by Esperanto.

  On 2/17/2021 at 11:08 PM, toaoaoad said:

The person teaching your French class might also be the PE teacher or some other rando from staff who needed the extra hours

  On 2/17/2021 at 5:42 PM, randomsummer said:

This just reminded me of this video:

 

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not to mention that you can express 1700 for example by saying either "mille-sept-cents" or "dix-sept-cents" 

  On 2/17/2021 at 11:08 PM, toaoaoad said:

Learning French in school in Canada is kind of a joke in some areas, especially western provinces. It's mandatory up to a certain grade and then optional in high school. .

Some parents would put their kids in French Immersion school... If you live anywhere west of Ontario it's not likely you'll ever really "need" French unless you're traveling or working in a government job (and even there you don't need it but it could help you get ahead/ have more options). 

Born in Edmonton, that first paragraph was me. Learned all the French I’d ever need by grade 6 cause my parents sent me to a private school where the French teachers were Parisienne, which ruined me when I switched to public school cause I never had to study it to get good grades. But never spoke it again. 
It’s very useful nowadays in the federal government. Most jobs after the entry level are bilingual, and if you want to work in the foreign service it is a must at all levels. 

One of the funniest things in the primary school were teachers who thought they could speak English but really couldn't. One math teacher was trying to teach us how to pronounce the different buttons on the calculators. For example the kids would usually pronounce "mode" like it was a Finnish word, so something like "maw-deh". The teacher was trying to teach to pronounce it "moo-deh" or moodé. It's permanently etched in my brain as the moodé button.

Also I remember shouting "MOTHERFUCKEEEEEEEER" at the top of my lungs on a school trip when I was around 10yo and all the teachers just ignoring it. Probably just picked it up from some movie.

And learning English by playing Leisure Suit Larry around the same age. Good times.

  On 2/19/2021 at 9:30 AM, zkom said:

And learning English by playing Leisure Suit Larry around the same age. Good times

For me it was King’s Quest

  On 2/19/2021 at 1:15 PM, rhmilo said:

For me it was King’s Quest

I'm pretty sure that I thought condoms were called "lubbers" in English because of the racist joke in Larry

Learn Japanese while doing gymnastics

TBH tho the English lessons for Japanese are much better

  On 2/19/2021 at 9:30 AM, zkom said:

And learning English by playing Leisure Suit Larry around the same age. Good times.

flol, exact same here, h5. funny how the prospect of pixelated boobs can boost the will to educate oneself in an early teen.

  On 2/19/2021 at 9:30 AM, zkom said:

learning English by playing Leisure Suit Larry

That was such an educational game.

I found the dictionary I need for reading watmm 

What the fuck is a pornographic video arcade

  On 2/28/2021 at 3:56 PM, drillkicker said:

What the fuck is a pornographic video arcade

From wikipedia

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Adult video arcades are pornographic movie viewing areas where masturbation is tolerated and expected (and sometimes openly encouraged). They are almost always attached to a sex shop or an adult book store, where magazines, movies, and sexual aids are sold. An arcade, which is a type of peep show, consists of typically a dozen or more private (or sometimes semi-private) viewing booths, containing a video monitor, a panel of controls, and a seat. Sometimes the booths have paper towels and a wastebasket. Sometimes these booths are arranged in a maze-like fashion. Often the lighting will be dim, perhaps only red or green lights near each booth, indicating their availability. In their origin they were exclusively male.

  On 2/28/2021 at 3:49 PM, zkom said:

I found the dictionary I need for reading watmm 

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Yes, we are all a bunch of Joanies.