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You know you’re a language nerd when... | ||
Tags: Language Geek | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| ReneeMona Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5334 days ago 864 posts - 1274 votes  Speaks: Dutch*, EnglishC2 Studies: French | Message 1234 of 3737 08 November 2010 at 4:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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You know you're a language nerd when you go into Elle s'appelait Sarah looking forward to two hours of French and are disappointed when it turns out large chunks of the film are in English.
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| Sierra Diglot Senior Member Turkey livinginlights.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 7123 days ago 296 posts - 411 votes Speaks: English*, SwedishB1 Studies: Turkish | Message 1235 of 3737 08 November 2010 at 4:50pm | IP Logged | ||
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When one of your roommates is repeating aloud after Pimsleur's Arabic in the kitchen,
another is working through her daily flashcards on the balcony, and a third is practicing his French in the living room... and, as you curl up on the couch with your Turkish Harry Potter book, you think to yourself, this is the best apartment I've ever lived in. Edited by Sierra on 08 November 2010 at 4:51pm 8 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| josht Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6445 days ago 635 posts - 857 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Spanish, Russian, Dutch | Message 1236 of 3737 08 November 2010 at 5:37pm | IP Logged | ||
... when you read this, and immediately think, "I wonder if they would want another roommate!" 8 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5206 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 1237 of 3737 08 November 2010 at 10:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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You're at work and you notice that your new work computer came with a sheet of paper with multilingual instructions. You look at it and right away notice that there's an error in the Italian instructions (an article that doesn't agree in gender with the noun). After work, you go to the gym, and you're in the changing rooms with your MP3 player on, to a French audio book. Suddenly you notice that the two guys next to you are speaking French; you turn off the MP3 player straight away and listen intently to their conversation. Then on the way home, someone in front of you does a particularly stupid traffic manoeuvre and the first thing you say to yourself, before any English insults even come to mind, is "Quel con!!" (French for "what an arsehole!").
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6141 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 1238 of 3737 09 November 2010 at 12:06am | IP Logged | ||
And the story continues... I told this very same story to my father, my friend, and her father, all of whom were on this trip with me. My friend's father remarked that we still had a couple days left in California, and that we could perhaps go back to the bookstore and buy it after all. Alas, we didn't. Lately I have been getting very interested in Slovenia and its language. Maybe this will just be another one of my short-lived obsessions, or maybe this one will stay for good. I was even considering an exchange program in Slovenia for the future, so I'm not sure how ephemeral this idea actually is... Today I arrived home from school to find a package in the mail with my name, from my friend's father. Just from the feel of the package and the noise it made when I shook it, I got a feeling that it was a Teach Yourself book, and thought to myself and aloud how funny it would be if he had actually gone back to the store after we left (we came home a day earlier) and bought the TY Slovene book for me. After I had gotten through all of the brown, cardboard-like paper and the layer of Chinese newspapers (which I kept, of course, it would be a shame to waste all that potential future native material), I unwrapped the last bit, and...it was the Teach Yourself Slovene book which I had dreamt about before! Along with the package with the book and CDs was a card that had the Chinese characters for "Chinese language" (中文) crossed out and the following message in German: I was ecstatic! 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5206 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 1239 of 3737 09 November 2010 at 3:21pm | IP Logged | ||
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Actually, on the subject of Slovene...
You're at a heavy metal festival in Slovenia and, during a drunken conversation with a Slovene girl (who of course speaks almost-perfect English), you joke that you'll learn Slovene for the next year. Then, when looking round your local library for French books, you see a "Conversational Slovene course". For a moment you actually consider taking it out and making good your "promise". 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| LittleBoy Diglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 5309 days ago 84 posts - 100 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto | Message 1240 of 3737 09 November 2010 at 9:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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This is more generic nerdery but still:
When you catch yourself reading an article on a computer programming language (PHP) as the only article in a newspaper you really want to read. Then you realise the newspaper is Le Monde, and, as such, not even in your native language... Oh, and I probably posted this earlier - but when you managed to convince your parents to buy you a copy of Remembering the Hanzi for your 17th birthday. And when you buy a cheap book in Waterstones not because you want to read it, but because it's in French! 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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