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What makes your native language unique? | ||
Tags: Native Language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| konny Tetraglot Newbie Germany Joined 6071 days ago 24 posts - 25 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Polish, German*, English, Dutch Studies: Japanese | Message 49 of 86 19 January 2009 at 5:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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Nearly unique in German: Separable_verbs. According to Wikipedia, only Dutch and Hungarian share this feature.
Basically a verb with an affix which can be torn apart, some part can be inserted inbetween, the parts can be put at different place in a sentence ... lots of funny things can be done with separable verbs in order to drive learners crazy. Take the verb "umfahren" which means "to knock over with an vehicle" here. See the magic: "Ich will den Baum umfahren." "Den Baum fahre ich um." "Ich habe den Baum umgefahren." "Versuch doch mal, den Baum umzufahren." Even more fun arises from the fact that there is an identical non-separable verb (identical infinitive at least), but it has an entirely different meaning (to drive around sth). "Ich will den Baum umfahren." "Den Baum umfahre ich." "Ich habe den Baum umfahren." "Versuch doch mal, den Baum zu umfahren." 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| hakabe Diglot Newbie Norway Joined 6166 days ago 8 posts - 9 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Korean | Message 51 of 86 20 January 2009 at 8:28am | IP Logged | ||
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hmm, what I think makes norwegian special is.. erh.. many things actually. hehe where to begin..
well first of, we have two written standards of norwegian, bokmål/bokmaal and nynorsk. But no one actually speak any of them, because as I wrote, they are only to be written. It's practically impossible to sound native in the language, because it's a tonal based language. and we have so many dialects. And since no one actually speak exactly like bokmål/bokmaal (book language) or nynorsk (new norwegian) it's easy to notice when someone have learned the language as adults because they have a tendency to "speak" bokmål/bokmaal (book language). yeye I'm picky, but dialects are such a important part of the norwegian language =) We have so many different ways to say "I" the written ones: Jeg Eg The spoken ones: æ (ae) I Je eg Jei ekk ej e Jæ (Jae) and probably some more that I don't know of. to have many different versions of the same word(s) is something that can be said to just about every word in norwegian. like forexample the word "not" written: ikke (bokmål) /bokmaal ikkje (nynorsk) dialect: ikke ittj/itj ikkje ichje (ich is written here to show it's pronounced like the German word for "I" ) itte (closer to the swedish "inte" I think) anyways, that was just to show some small examples =) norwegian is somehow split between being closer to danish in some dialects (south) swedish in the east finlandswedish in the north or Faroese and Icelandic in the west areas. so to say it simple. norwegian is easy to learn, but complicated as hell (excuse my french) ;) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Alkeides Senior Member Bhutan Joined 6154 days ago 636 posts - 644 votes  | Message 52 of 86 20 January 2009 at 8:31am | IP Logged | ||
Edited by Alkeides on 20 January 2009 at 8:33am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| alexraasch Diglot Groupie Germany alexraasch.de Joined 6463 days ago 52 posts - 52 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, Mandarin | Message 53 of 86 20 January 2009 at 12:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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Also, in German we have a flexible definitive article. Maybe not unique but quite seldom.
I read the Wikipedia article on Navajo and they have quite a complicated system of compounding verbs. If I remember correctly, they don't have nouns but use verbs insteads. I find that quite unique! Anyone know something about this? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Lindsay19 Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5827 days ago 183 posts - 214 votes Speaks: English*, GermanC1 Studies: Swedish, Faroese, Icelandic | Message 54 of 86 20 January 2009 at 5:06pm | IP Logged | ||
I love those things! :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Karakorum Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6575 days ago 201 posts - 232 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written)* Studies: French, German | Message 55 of 86 20 January 2009 at 6:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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I can only think of the following for Arabic:
-Diglossia at a level and complexity not seen in any other language. -Broken plurals more productive and widespread than any Semitic language. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Qinshi Diglot Senior Member Australia Joined 5759 days ago 115 posts - 183 votes Speaks: Vietnamese*, English Studies: French, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 56 of 86 26 February 2009 at 12:24pm | IP Logged | ||
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I find Vietnamese unique even in spite of the fact up to 70% of the words may come from Chinese. Some people say it sounds something like a mix between Thai and Chinese - others don't describe it as a sing-song language. I don't disagree with what is said especially since it is a tonal language but I find it strangely as an infusion of Chinese and Khmer sounds or something of that sorts. Though at first it may sound like harsh, once you get used to it, it feels and sounds more than just a bunch of sounds mashed together.
Tui coi rằng tiếng Việt là một ngôn ngữ duy nhất tuy có thể gần 70% từ Việt tìm nguồn từ tiếng Hoa. Có những người nói rằng nó nghe như một sự pha trộn giữa hai tiếng Thái và Hoa - còn những người khác diễn tả nó ra bằng một bài ca. Tui không bất hoà với những câu ấy vì tiệng Việt là một ngôn ngữ âm giọng nhưng sự lạ là tui coi nó như một sự pha trộn tiếng Hoa và Khơ-me hoặc một gì đó. Dù lần đầu tiên nó rất khó nghe, mấy lần sau khi đã quen thuộc rồi, nó sẽ cảm thấy và nghe như hơn là một nhóm chữ từ nhồi lại vợi nhau. I'm not sure if any other language does this but in Vietnamese, which replaces pronouns with kinship terms, one may replace these terms with the relevant names. For example, say you are a young adult male and are speaking to a slightly older female, usually when you both know each other quite well you may choose to replace 'I' and 'you' with your name and her name. Another unique thing is that colloquially we can refer to our siblings by their order in the family. In the northern region the eldest son or daughter is referred to by 'eldest' followed by son or daughter 'second'. It's slightly different in the southern region where the eldest is referred to as son or daughter second and the next oldest is number three. Tui không chắc chắn về sự nầy nhưng trong tiếng Việt, một ngôn ngữ mà dùng những từ quan hệ trong gia đình để thế cho những đại từ, mình cọ thể dùng danh của mình thay cho những đại từ. Thí dụ, bạn là một người đàn ông trẻ và đang nói chuyện với một phụ nữ lớn tuổi hơn một chút, thường thường nếu cả hai người quen nhau thì có thể thay cho 'tui' và 'bạn' tên của mình. Một sự đặc biệt khác là mình có thể gọi anh chị em mình thông tục bằng thứ hạng sinh ra. Tại miền bắc con sinh ra thứ nhất còn gọi bằng anh hoặc chị 'cả' và người con sinh ra thứ hai thì gọi bằng anh hoặc chị hai. Ngoài miền nam thì dùng từ khác, con cả gọi bằng anh hoặc chị hai rồi sau người thứ nhất là anh chị em thứ ba. Edited by Qinshi on 26 February 2009 at 12:52pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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