Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5556 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona
| Message 329 of 3737 31 January 2010 at 12:10pm | IP Logged |
When you translate a charity letter written in English from Ghana for your German neighbour, but all the time wonder what they speak over there, and whether you could learn it so as to help your neighbour reply in her sponsor child's native language. You fantasize over adding an exotic African language with lots of clicks and whistles to your language collection for a moment, even though you know next to nothing about African languages, just the fleeting harmonies of Paul Simon and the Ladysmith Black Mambazo band resonating faintly in your ears for a moment. Then you go on Wikipedia only to discover that English IS the official language, and return to your translation secretly a little disappointed...never mind, maybe next time... ;)
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Johntm Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5422 days ago 616 posts - 725 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish
| Message 330 of 3737 31 January 2010 at 9:18pm | IP Logged |
Teango wrote:
When you translate a charity letter written in English from Ghana for your German neighbour, but all the time wonder what they speak over there, and whether you could learn it so as to help your neighbour reply in her sponsor child's native language. You fantasize over adding an exotic African language with lots of clicks and whistles to your language collection for a moment, even though you know next to nothing about African languages, just the fleeting harmonies of Paul Simon and the Ladysmith Black Mambazo band resonating faintly in your ears for a moment. Then you go on Wikipedia only to discover that English IS the official language, and return to your translation secretly a little disappointed...never mind, maybe next time... ;) |
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Even before reading this I already knew I wanted to learn an African click language :D. And maybe even Pirahã (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirah%C3%A3_language It wouldn't let me make this a working link). The fact that pretty much all speakers of Pirahã are monolingual doesn't discourage me a bit, it actually reinforces my wish to know the language.
I doubt this qualifies as language nerdery, but I was watching George Lopez's comedy show on Comedy Central last night (in which me mixes in quite a bit of Spanish), and 99% of the Spanish that he used that I understood were swear words.
Edited by Johntm on 31 January 2010 at 9:34pm
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genini1 Senior Member United States Joined 5468 days ago 114 posts - 161 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Mandarin, Japanese
| Message 331 of 3737 31 January 2010 at 9:45pm | IP Logged |
This might have been posted already but when you watch MMA fights and you wish the fighters would stop moving so you could read what there tattoos meant.
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Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5556 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona
| Message 332 of 3737 31 January 2010 at 10:56pm | IP Logged |
genini1 wrote:
This might have been posted already but when you watch MMA fights and you wish the fighters would stop moving so you could read what there tattoos meant. |
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Where would I be without my "pause" button...oh the magic of technology...I confess I once did exactly this whilst watching an amazing Russian figher, simply to see if he had "vor v zakone" mafia stars on his knees or cyrillic on his back I could try to read ...needless-to-say I only found celtic designs and squiggles.
Edited by Teango on 31 January 2010 at 11:14pm
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kottoler.ello Tetraglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6003 days ago 128 posts - 192 votes Speaks: English*, Russian, Mandarin, French Studies: Japanese, German
| Message 333 of 3737 01 February 2010 at 6:21am | IP Logged |
When, upon entering your favorite bookstore, you start moving towards the foreign language section without thinking about it, and when you get there you have to use all your willpower to pry yourself away to keep from spending all your time and money there.
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catharsis Bilingual Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5432 days ago 12 posts - 12 votes Speaks: English*, Korean*
| Message 334 of 3737 01 February 2010 at 11:04pm | IP Logged |
... when you write your notes in Russian for English class, Swedish for History, German for Science, and Japanese for Spanish ;D (I wish I was that good D: )
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Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6470 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese
| Message 335 of 3737 01 February 2010 at 11:31pm | IP Logged |
kottoler.ello wrote:
When, upon entering your favorite bookstore, you start moving towards the foreign language section without thinking about it, and when you get there you have to use all your willpower to pry yourself away to keep from spending all your time and money there. |
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Guilty. Are there other sections?
Edited by Sprachprofi on 01 February 2010 at 11:31pm
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psy88 Senior Member United States Joined 5591 days ago 469 posts - 882 votes Studies: Spanish*, Japanese, Latin, French
| Message 336 of 3737 02 February 2010 at 3:27pm | IP Logged |
How about this: you know you have become a language nerd when, after not seeing it in a few years you watch Pulp Fiction and now your favorite part/quote is John Travolta talking about "Le Big Mac"
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