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Features of the TL that you can’t stand | ||
Tags: "Louche" Languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| tristano Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 4047 days ago 905 posts - 1262 votes  Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: Dutch | Message 1 of 63 06 May 2014 at 1:17am | IP Logged | ||
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*DISCLAIMER: I'm not an advanced learner nor I ever said to be it: what I'll write here
below can simply be wrong, so don't point to the detail, the topic is described perfectly by the title* Hi! Starting to when I subscribed here, I put my hands on different languages and I soon discovered that for some language there are particular features that I can't stand :D For example: - reflexive forms in English: I hate thie feature. I like so much how this works in Italian and French that I feel constrained when I have to say something like "I wash myself". - lack of the continuos tense in French and Dutch: crazy. I have to say "Je suis en trein de {faire quelquechose}" and I don't remember in Dutch but I read it once in De Alchemist a corrisponding form and it sounded just strange to me :) - this is my native language: Italian and doubl"e negations, like "Non c'e' nessuno", that means: "There is nobody/There isn't anyone, but literary is "there isn't nobody". It is just weird, it is illogical, if I said "There isn't nobody" should mean that there is someone, but it means the opposite, what the hell :D Or like with negative questions: "Non e' pronto il caffe'?" "No" ("Isn't ready the coffee?" "no"). The sentence should be validated with yes because the status of the coffee being unready is true :D Italian... you know how to be ambiguous. There are situations in which after having had the answer you need to clarify if no means "no" or "yes". And you can say the opposite of what are you saying just by changing intonation. Ok these are not unique of Italian languages but I know very well these situations :D Did you ever experienced a feeling like this for some charachteristics of the language you're studying - or even the yours? 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| 1e4e6 Octoglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4290 days ago 1013 posts - 1588 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan | Message 2 of 63 06 May 2014 at 1:34am | IP Logged | ||
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I am annoyed that my native English (or at least quite often) has no more T/V
distinction. I fail to understand why "you" is the only pronoun for both second person singular and plural, whilst basically all other Indo-European languages have it. Not only is "you" not the historical nominative as it is used nowadays, but it is the accusative and dative second-person plural, where the nominative is "ye", "Know ye† not, that I gave you‡ chocolate?". It would be nice to have the second-person singular "þee" and "þou", i.e, †: ye, acc., (subject) ‡: you, dat., (indirect object, viz. to ye = you) -"How goes it with þee?" --"Good, and þou, how go þings with þou?" -"Fine, but, may I borrow þy books?" --"Yes, sikker, but, bringest þou some of þine eggs? We wish that you cook us one of þine omelettes." I am also annoyed that Spanish stopped using the future subjunctive, because it carries nuances that the present alone cannot entail, viz. (a) «Cuando llegues, infórmamemlo» (b) «Cuando llegares, infórmamelo» Whereby (a) to me means anytime in the near future, probably no more than a day, and (b), which is not used in conversation, could mean distant future, i.e. one year or two years. Since (a) is only used, one cannot discern if the speaker means soon or very far in the future. I wish that French used the imparfait du subjonctif, passé simple, and deuxième conditionnel more often, and in conversation. Using the passé composé for events that occurred 30 years ago makes no sense to me and sounds quite odd. Also, I find that French pronunciation (silent, non-silent, nasal) means that I have had more problems with pronouncing French than all other languages, including Mandarin with its tones. I am unsure if anyone else has this problem. Also, I know that you said that I not look at the details, but the continuous in Dutch is "zijn aan het [infinitive]" or something like "zitten/staan/liggen + te + [infinitive]", just for your reference in Dutch. Edited by 1e4e6 on 06 May 2014 at 1:47am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4668 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 3 of 63 06 May 2014 at 1:57am | IP Logged | ||
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English:
1. dative verbs, when to use TO ME/HIM etc, when to use ME/HIM etc: She wrote him a letter, She wrote a letter to him, some verbs are okay with dative me/you/him/her/us/them, for some using TO is obligatory 2. will and going to contrast, we all learn 100 rules when to use will, and when to use going to, yet native speakers use them interchangeably in 90% of cases, as illustrated in this movie dialog: ''We're gonna die - No, we won't!'', I guess only in 10 % of cases you can use only one of them. 3. English spelling 4. You can never learn enough words, the more you learn, the more unknown vocabulary you come across, with 30K word active vocabulary native speakers have, you can always see a new word on almost every page of your new book. It's not common for me to see so many new words in Portuguese and Spanish texts, but in English it's a rule. New word I learned today: transfixing. Edited by Medulin on 06 May 2014 at 2:04am 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| The Real CZ Senior Member United States Joined 5649 days ago 1069 posts - 1495 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 4 of 63 06 May 2014 at 2:08am | IP Logged | ||
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Korean: Lack of hanja (Chinese characters) because things can get confusing even with
context. Sometimes words that are pronounced the same but have different hanja can both make sense in a sentence. Japanese: A million readings for each character. It doesn't bother me with vocabulary, but reading names is a nightmare for me at my stage. I'm sure it'll get easier as I advance. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6597 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 5 of 63 06 May 2014 at 2:44am | IP Logged | ||
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German: I'm still coming to terms with the idea of attaching endings to articles. Also, the genders being half-arbitrary
Swedish and Norwegian: unpredictable pronunciation of vowels. Danish: unpredictable pronunciation full stop. and glottal stop btw. Spanish: turning ll into something weird. L is such a beautiful sound and Spanish has much less of it than Italian or Portuguese. also the change of f to h and the cheesy diphthongs ie ue everywhere. Also the double pronouns, like "darle al" or "a mi me gusta" - seriously, the emphasis is always so obvious that even a 3 year old should understand it! English: some phrasal verbs Esperanto: having only two cases Romanian and Croatian: native speakers not bothering to use diacritics online Wow I look like such a whiner :D 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Mutant Groupie United States Joined 3911 days ago 45 posts - 60 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German | Message 6 of 63 06 May 2014 at 3:57am | IP Logged | ||
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French: I'm just a beginner, and I really like the language, but the orthography frustrates me to no end. I decided to supplement my Assimil/Linguaphone core with the Berlitz Self Teacher and whenever I try to write out the answers to the exercises I often find myself forgtetting to add an 's' here or an 'e' there. For example, to me the French word des sounds very similar to the Spanish de, so I often write it without the 's', only to realize my mistake.
Spanish: The subjunctive. I still don't get it. I mean, I "get" it, but I still don't get it. I'm hoping that the drills in FSI will help. Also, the distinction between tú and usted is a little annoying, only because, whenever I'm addressing strangers in Spanish (which happens very frequently) I sometimes mix up the posessive pronouns. For example, I'll address someone respectfully as usted, and then procede to use tu as the possesive pronoun. I guess this just takes more practice/drilling or vigilance on my part. Edited by Mutant on 06 May 2014 at 3:59am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ElComadreja Senior Member Philippines bibletranslatio Joined 7238 days ago 683 posts - 757 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, Latin, Ancient Greek, Biblical Hebrew, Cebuano, French, Tagalog | Message 7 of 63 06 May 2014 at 3:58am | IP Logged | ||
This is a feature :) When a girl asks you, "Are you going with me, our with us?" You can respond, "I'm going with you" 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4707 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 8 of 63 06 May 2014 at 6:19am | IP Logged | ||
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I don't really have any of this. The only
thing that annoyed me is French numerals, but I solved that by using the Belgian equivalent. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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