Amerykanka Hexaglot Senior Member United States Joined 5172 days ago 657 posts - 890 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Polish, Latin, Ancient Greek, Russian
| Message 3417 of 3737 19 October 2014 at 3:18am | IP Logged |
You know you're a language nerd when . . .
1) you are secretly thrilled to be studying for your Latin and Greek midterms, because this gives you an
excuse to read your favorite grammar books and
2) you squeal out loud in delight and startle your roommate while you are reading one of the said grammar
books, because you just realized the etymology of the word "infant"
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Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6598 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish
| Message 3418 of 3737 19 October 2014 at 4:37am | IP Logged |
When you immediately look up the etymology of infant.
(Okay, it's even better if you can immediately figure it out, but I didn't)
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Luso Hexaglot Senior Member Portugal Joined 6062 days ago 819 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, French, EnglishC2, GermanB1, Italian, Spanish Studies: Sanskrit, Arabic (classical)
| Message 3419 of 3737 19 October 2014 at 3:27pm | IP Logged |
When, while searching for a particular item in Wikipedia, you:
a) search for the "good article" star and check whether it is a language you can read in;
b) if you find one, you end up reading it instead of the one in your native language.
Note: today, I was searching for "Bauhaus" and went directly to the German page. Then I scrolled through the language list and found that the only starred article was the Greek one. My reaction? "I wish I were fluent in Greek, if only for a few minutes".
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psy88 Senior Member United States Joined 5592 days ago 469 posts - 882 votes Studies: Spanish*, Japanese, Latin, French
| Message 3420 of 3737 20 October 2014 at 1:24am | IP Logged |
You know you are when, now that you have decided to study Latin, you actually lose sleep agonizing over the pros and cons of the restored classical vs ecclesiastical pronunciations. Many decades ago I had two years of high school Latin. I really enjoyed it. It was the ecclesiastical or Church Latin. (I went to a Catholic high school at a time when the Latin Mass was just being discontinued).
I have just begun a course that uses restored classical pronunciation. I find the restored classical does not sound as pleasing to me. I lay awake debating whether to use the course as it is presented and adopt the "more authentic" restored classic pronunciation, or, use the courses for grammar, vocabulary, etc but use the more familiar sounding ecclesiastical pronunciations. Of course, I know the chances of actually conversing with anyone in Latin is almost nil. So, why make a big deal out of it? Because I am a true language nerd!
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Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5335 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian
| Message 3421 of 3737 21 October 2014 at 7:21pm | IP Logged |
-when you are stranded at Amsterdam airport on your way to Madrid, and you opt for a really uncomfortable
chair instead of a comfy armchair in order to eavesdrop on two Russians, just because you love the sound so
much.
I fear I will end up in a river some day after having eavesdropped on the wrong people ...
If I ever go for a career change I think I'll try to get a job in an airport lounge. It s like Babel's tower here.
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iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5263 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French)
| Message 3422 of 3737 21 October 2014 at 8:44pm | IP Logged |
... you read an article in Spanish about the economic consequences of recent western policies toward Russia on the Norwegian-Russian border area La "guerra fría" llega a la frontera más septentrional de Europa because it has good background on what it's like to live there and think Cristina should see it :).
Edited by iguanamon on 21 October 2014 at 9:22pm
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meramarina Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5968 days ago 1341 posts - 2303 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Italian, French Personal Language Map
| Message 3423 of 3737 21 October 2014 at 9:01pm | IP Logged |
When you have to go under anesthesia for minor surgery, actually "conscious sedation" durian which you are
still able to recognize and respond to others, although you feel no awareness at the time and later remember
nothing--and this gives you an idea--a very odd one:
Would I be able to understand my target languages while under anesthesia?
Really! I want to know!
Is it too bizarre to ask the anesthesiologist if he could try that?
Yes, it's just too weird. And you really don't want the person in charge of your life at the time to get distracted.
So it must remain a mystery, but if you ever meet a polyglot anesthesiologist, it will be very difficult to not ask
if we might try a little experiment . . .
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Mooby Senior Member Scotland Joined 6106 days ago 707 posts - 1220 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Polish
| Message 3424 of 3737 21 October 2014 at 9:53pm | IP Logged |
...check out: Effects of Anesthesia on Linguistic Skills.
"..(one's) main language is mostly stored in implicit memory systems of the subcortical regions, whereas acquired languages are learned by explicit rules and stored more diffusely in the cerebral cortex.".
It seems that the effects of anesthesia on linguistic centres in the brain involve complex mechanisms that are not yet understood, and can lead to language switching.
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