What is your Native Language?
- Thread starter jUmpSt0p
- Start date
The unfamiliar need of an Englishman to know a langauge other than English in this day and age
depends on what you mean by need.
I have a major desire to learn another language because it will make my brain stronger, healthier, more flexible, longer-lasting, tougher...
learning another language is basically an all purpose software upgrade for the brain. and if you think of it as decreasing your chances of alzheimers or senility, it might be more necessary than you assume.
kulade
Deity
- Joined
- Dec 12, 2003
- Messages
- 4,545
This is how he knows.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
He means that there are no foreigners that an Englishman cannot succesffully communicate with, and, therefore, command, with the proper use of a whip and a gun.
Lillefix
I'm serious. You can.
- Joined
- Dec 1, 2003
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- 5,699
Let me illustrate what traitorfish is saying:
edit:
to keep this ontopic:
not english speaker
a. school, computer games, movies and television
b Relatively fluent. Have an obvious accent though
c There was an evolvement from around ten to around 22. I began reading a lot around 20 and my vocabulary skyrocketed.
d I had to. And in retrospect, it was very useful because much of what I must read is in English, so it paid off. Besides, it was a bit difficult trying to beat Fate of Atlantis and Monkey Island without understanding what they said.
edit:
to keep this ontopic:
not english speaker
a. school, computer games, movies and television
b Relatively fluent. Have an obvious accent though
c There was an evolvement from around ten to around 22. I began reading a lot around 20 and my vocabulary skyrocketed.
d I had to. And in retrospect, it was very useful because much of what I must read is in English, so it paid off. Besides, it was a bit difficult trying to beat Fate of Atlantis and Monkey Island without understanding what they said.
Quackers
The Frog
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
I actually have several stories about bridges, if you'd like to hear them.
Winner
Diverse in Unity
Oh, our rules for <ů> and <ú> are also supposed to be simple - <ů> in the middle or end of word (roots), <ú> at the beginning. But once you dwell deeper, you realize it's not that simple - you have to watch out for prefixes, so for example you have 'účast' (participation) and 'neúčast' (non-participation, absence) - <ú> is there in the middle of the word. It's fairly obvious in this example since 'ne' is about the most used prefix in Czech, but there are cases in which it is very difficult to decide.
And there are also pretty absurd examples of exceptions: foreign words, even those most people don't recognize as such, are never written with <ů> (unless, I was told, the word has been really profoundly integrated into our language - which is about as arbitrary as you can get and there is no rule that can help you there).
So for example there is 'kúra' (a type of medical treatment) and 'kůra' (cortex, the surface layer of a tree). It sounds the same, but it's written differently.
Ignorance is bliss, in some cases
It is said that foreigners generally learn how to speak Czech pretty fast (they almost never learn the high form of the language but the common Czech, which is sometimes pretty funny), but learning how to write Czech properly is difficult even for many native speakers.
native = Polish
other = advanced english and classical arabic, intermediate french, beginner turkish, I've also learned latin, and can say a couple basic things in greek.
a. kindergarden, first classes in primary school, private schooling, 2 summer camps, also Transformers' names (I loved them, so I used to check their names in a dictionary
), the Internet.
b. I don't know, I think my english is rather good, although I do make many mistakes.
d. because I had to, as a kid?
other = advanced english and classical arabic, intermediate french, beginner turkish, I've also learned latin, and can say a couple basic things in greek.
a. kindergarden, first classes in primary school, private schooling, 2 summer camps, also Transformers' names (I loved them, so I used to check their names in a dictionary
), the Internet.b. I don't know, I think my english is rather good, although I do make many mistakes.
d. because I had to, as a kid?
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