LanguageSponge Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5766 days ago 1197 posts - 1487 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Welsh, Russian, Japanese, Slovenian, Greek, Italian
| Message 1985 of 3737 11 October 2011 at 10:56am | IP Logged |
Kartof wrote:
Whoops, I did know that but I wasn't thinking! |
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No problem :]
You know you're a language nerd when you're talking to your cousins about jobs teaching
English abroad and they tell you to go to Japan, for various reasons. Then you think
"fantastic, I've been looking for an excuse to learn Japanese for years"
Jack
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jdmoncada Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5034 days ago 470 posts - 741 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Finnish Studies: Russian, Japanese
| Message 1986 of 3737 12 October 2011 at 6:55am | IP Logged |
Yesterday I was giving a training talk to my coworkers (a staff of about 30) on the subject of ebooks. Before discussing those, I also presented to the staff the Mango language database. When I was discussing the database, I made some off-hand remark about how it has a wide variety of languages, including "obscure" ones like Finnish. I said that had made me happy.
One of the new staff members laughed, probably because she thought I was making a joke even though I was being perfectly sincere. She didn't know me well enough to know my language enthusiasm, but without having to even speak up for myself a few of the other staff were quick to tell her that I had lived there and spoke the language.
I was rather pleased that I had several people speak immediately in my defense. So... YKYALN when other people talk about it for you.
Different scenario, today I had received some Japanese language textbooks that I had requested with the interlibrary loan system. I had made a comment at the end of the day to a different coworker how I had realized I couldn't read Japanese very well, so I got some books to help me study. She laughed because she thought I was making a joke as most people around me can't read Japanese. It wouldn't be that unusual of a thing. But then she realized again that I was serious and that I actually am studying Japanese.
I guess both those anecdotes are examples of, "Oh, you mean you're not joking?" and the surprise that comes after.
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19901 Diglot Newbie Kuwait Joined 4793 days ago 2 posts - 3 votes Speaks: Arabic (Gulf)*, English Studies: Japanese, Irish, French
| Message 1987 of 3737 14 October 2011 at 2:59pm | IP Logged |
YKYALNW you can't say 'It's all Greek to me' because you speak it.
- When you hate giving reasons as to why you're learning a language, because it has
nothing to do with the culture/country. (I'm learning Irish for its grammar. xD)
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QiuJP Triglot Senior Member Singapore Joined 5855 days ago 428 posts - 597 votes Speaks: Mandarin*, EnglishC2, French Studies: Czech, GermanB1, Russian, Japanese
| Message 1988 of 3737 14 October 2011 at 6:43pm | IP Logged |
When you are planning for a trip, you are actually planning a trip to visit all the major
bookstores in the city you are visiting rather than the tourist sites, because you want
to find all unknown language learning materials. (happened to me when I visited
France...)
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Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7156 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish
| Message 1989 of 3737 14 October 2011 at 7:21pm | IP Logged |
QiuJP wrote:
When you are planning for a trip, you are actually planning a trip to visit all the major
bookstores in the city you are visiting rather than the tourist sites, because you want
to find all unknown language learning materials. (happened to me when I visited
France...) |
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A variation on the above: It's been sunny and about 25 C all day in Budapest and the surrounding area but you've forgone the chance to explore the city or make a day-trip to an UNESCO Heritage Site. Instead you've been acting on a hunch (as opposed to planning) or hoping for the best in spending the entire day scouring bookstores in Budapest looking for suitable learning material for Hungarian.
For the record I did just that about a month ago... and came out with a pictoral Finnish-Hungarian dictionary for children... and the Hungarian translation of one of the books from the series "Le Petit Nicolas"... but no new course.
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mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5924 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish
| Message 1990 of 3737 14 October 2011 at 10:56pm | IP Logged |
When I just discovered that everytime I read blogspot blogs the operating language is stuck on Norwegian. Unlike my friends and family, I think this is great and I won't allow anyone to change it. Maybe I will suggest that they could all just learn Norwegian instead of complaining.
Edited by mick33 on 14 October 2011 at 11:08pm
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psy88 Senior Member United States Joined 5591 days ago 469 posts - 882 votes Studies: Spanish*, Japanese, Latin, French
| Message 1991 of 3737 18 October 2011 at 4:03am | IP Logged |
when you pay to enter a popular,(and well visited by people from other countries), Botanical Garden. As the fellow is taking your ticket you notice a stand with brochures that are guides to the Garden. These are written in a number of foreign languages. You also see that the languages include your two target languages. You inquire about the brochures only to be told that you have a copy, in English, that was given to you with your ticket, and, so, "you don't need one". Rather than argue or explain, you bide your time and three and a half hours later, as you leave, you grab the two you wanted. You realize that if you had grabbed them on the way in you would have spent the three and a half hours studying and comparing them, rather than enjoying the Garden. Of course, being a true Language Nerd, you were would have enjoyed that more than looking at the trees, flowers, etc.
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Levi Pentaglot Senior Member United States Joined 5567 days ago 2268 posts - 3328 votes Speaks: English*, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Dutch, Portuguese, Mandarin, Japanese, Italian
| Message 1992 of 3737 19 October 2011 at 3:13am | IP Logged |
...when, in a game of Scrabble, you score two triple-word-score words in a row, with "copula" and "dative".
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