Register  Login  Active Topics  Maps  

You know you’re a language nerd when...

  Tags: Language Geek
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion Post Reply
3737 messages over 468 pages: << Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... 19 ... 467 468 Next >>


Iversen
Super Polyglot
Moderator
Denmark
berejst.dk
Joined 6705 days ago

9078 posts - 16473 votes 
Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan
Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 145 of 3737
10 November 2009 at 4:33am | IP Logged 
I was watching Spanish TV yesterday evening (something about Spaniards who lived in Ethiopia), and at the same time I was studying some articles from the Greek magazines I bought in September.

As a part of this I was copying some passages to a piece of paper. And because I wanted to mention the program from TVE in my log I jotted down some things I heard on the same piece of paper ... but I mixed in some Greek letters. I then thought that this might be fun and continued to write my Spanish notes with Greek letters: φοτóγραφο, εσχουέλα, Αφρíκα, ουνα νγουíα ντε βιαχες ντε αβεντούρα...

3 persons have voted this message useful



Levi
Pentaglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5569 days ago

2268 posts - 3328 votes 
Speaks: English*, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish
Studies: Russian, Dutch, Portuguese, Mandarin, Japanese, Italian

 
 Message 146 of 3737
10 November 2009 at 4:49am | IP Logged 
Iversen wrote:
φοτóγραφο, εσχουέλα, Αφρíκα, ουνα νγουíα ντε βιαχες ντε αβεντούρα...

...when you can read and understand the meaning of these words without giving too much thought to it. Though shouldn't it be εσκουέλα and Άφρικα?

Edited by Levi on 10 November 2009 at 4:51am

3 persons have voted this message useful



Lindsay19
Diglot
Senior Member
United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5823 days ago

183 posts - 214 votes 
Speaks: English*, GermanC1
Studies: Swedish, Faroese, Icelandic

 
 Message 147 of 3737
10 November 2009 at 6:43am | IP Logged 
pookiebear79 wrote:
I talk to (usually, scold) my cats in other languages sometimes, too. Not in any attempt to "train" them, of course...as a true cat person will tell you, cats train their humans, not the other way round. ;)
My cats won't even listen to me in English, and any attempt on my part to confuse them into doing so in another language (primarily Dutch since that's the one I am most focused on) is met with the same "catitude" as if I had used English.
I think it's probably different with dogs, because they actually listen to humans. :)

Also on the subject of pets and being a language nerd:
When your pets have names (or nicknames...because in my family, our cats start out with one "real" name and then end with about 10 additional nicknames as time passes) up in languages other than your primary spoken language(s).

(Sorry if that one's already been mentioned...I did read the whole thread but it was a while ago.) :)



One of my cats who normally ignores my voice will actually come up and stare at me if I'm reading aloud in German. Which I find a litte strange..
1 person has voted this message useful





Iversen
Super Polyglot
Moderator
Denmark
berejst.dk
Joined 6705 days ago

9078 posts - 16473 votes 
Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan
Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 148 of 3737
10 November 2009 at 4:19pm | IP Logged 
Levi wrote:
Iversen wrote:
φοτóγραφο, εσχουέλα, Αφρíκα, ουνα νγουíα ντε βιαχες ντε αβεντούρα...

...when you can read and understand the meaning of these words without giving too much thought to it. Though shouldn't it be εσκουέλα and Άφρικα?


No, I wrote it as I heard it - with a soft and wheezy kh-sound in escuela and an unexpected accent in the middle of Africa. That's the good thing about writing in another alphabet - you aren't led astray by the correct spelling.

PS: It doesn't work as well with English, - diphtongs and schwas, sh's and other exotic stuff all over the place. Π.Σ.: ιτ ντοζντ βοερκ νήρλυ αζ βουέλλ βουιθ Έγκλισ!


Edited by Iversen on 10 November 2009 at 4:29pm

2 persons have voted this message useful



Levi
Pentaglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5569 days ago

2268 posts - 3328 votes 
Speaks: English*, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish
Studies: Russian, Dutch, Portuguese, Mandarin, Japanese, Italian

 
 Message 149 of 3737
10 November 2009 at 4:52pm | IP Logged 
Ай файнд ѳэт ъ вериейшън ъв ѳъ Сърилик элфъбет ўркс бетр фор трэнскрайбинг Инглиш мор ор лес фънетиклі.
1 person has voted this message useful



pookiebear79
Groupie
United States
Joined 6032 days ago

76 posts - 142 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Dutch, French, Swedish, Italian

 
 Message 150 of 3737
11 November 2009 at 1:46am | IP Logged 
I definitely fit in the category of "you sing songs in foreign languages you don't know." (I also do with ones I am studying, though.) I don't listen to or enjoy 94 percent (completely made up figure) of "music" made within the last decade, so I have to either stick to my old music or find interesting music from non Anglophone countries just to find something that I don't find pointless or just plain annoying. Because if it's in a language I don't know, then I can just enjoy the sound of it without thinking how brainless the lyrics are. :)

Lindsay19 wrote:
One of my cats who normally ignores my voice will actually come up and stare at me if I'm reading aloud in German. Which I find a litte strange..


LOL. Talking to them in another language doesn't get any reaction except when I'm repeating audio aloud, then they interrupt me, but that doesn't really count because they do the same if I'm talking on the phone, too. Basically if I talk to *them*, they ignore me. But if I seem to be talking to someone else (on the phone, the imaginary person on the language tape, etc.) they suddenly decide to acknowledge my existence, LOL.
But often when I'm singing along (usually in another language, but occasionally English songs as well) to something, completely belting one out, some of my cats will come running in to my room and lay down either on or next to me, just get right in my face, and purr like mad. For some reason, singing really gets their attention. One of them is really calmed by it, even if it's not a mellow song.

I'm not sure how to take this...either they love the sounds of foreign languages when set to music (the majority of the songs are in Dutch, Swedish or Japanese)and that's why they suddenly become so sweet, or my singing voice is so terrible that they are coming in to keep watch over me because they're afraid I'm in the throes of gastric distress or something. :P
Since they don't come in to comfort me when I'm crying out in genuine pain (which happens often due to some medical issues,) I prefer to believe it's the first case, that they like foreign language music.
Now, maybe I can try singing "Get down from there right now!" in another language and they'll do it...in a dream world, anyway. :)

You know you're a language nerd when you dream of creating a language that cats will actually listen to. Not "obey," mind you, because they are still cats, but some miraculous language in which the concept of 'no!' will actually register to them.
4 persons have voted this message useful



psy88
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5593 days ago

469 posts - 882 votes 
Studies: Spanish*, Japanese, Latin, French

 
 Message 151 of 3737
11 November 2009 at 4:40am | IP Logged 
You know you are a language/pet nerd when you automatically begin speaking to your friends' pets in the pet's imagined native language: French for the poodles, Spanish for the chihuahuas, Russian for the wolfhounds, Norwegian for the elk hounds, etc,
5 persons have voted this message useful



pookiebear79
Groupie
United States
Joined 6032 days ago

76 posts - 142 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Dutch, French, Swedish, Italian

 
 Message 152 of 3737
11 November 2009 at 5:45am | IP Logged 
psy88 wrote:
You know you are a language/pet nerd when you automatically begin speaking to your friends' pets in the pet's imagined native language: French for the poodles, Spanish for the chihuahuas, Russian for the wolfhounds, Norwegian for the elk hounds, etc,


Good one! :) Maybe that's why my Abyssinian is the most defiant cat, maybe I should learn the Amharic words for "bad kitty!", LOL.

But which language(s) would you speak to your friends' fish? In some cases I guess you could go with wherever the species is found in the wild, but things get complicated if they have a big mixed tropical aquarium full of different species. Or worse, a marine aquarium...since those fish came from the ocean, they didn't really come from a specific country, so which language has 'claim' to them? ;)

You know you (ok, I mean myself) are a combined pet/language nerd (or maybe just a hopeless nerd, period) when you actually (albeit just jokingly) ponder the theoretical linguistic etiquette of addressing a mixed tank of fish. And then actually post it online as proof of what a dork you are. :P


2 persons have voted this message useful



This discussion contains 3737 messages over 468 pages: << Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360 361 362 363 364 365 366 367 368 369 370 371 372 373 374 375 376 377 378 379 380 381 382 383 384 385 386 387 388 389 390 391 392 393 394 395 396 397 398 399 400 401 402 403 404 405 406 407 408 409 410 411 412 413 414 415 416 417 418 419 420 421 422 423 424 425 426 427 428 429 430 431 432 433 434 435 436 437 438 439 440 441 442 443 444 445 446 447 448 449 450 451 452 453 454 455 456 457 458 459 460 461 462 463 464 465 466 467 468  Next >>


Post ReplyPost New Topic Printable version Printable version

You cannot post new topics in this forum - You cannot reply to topics in this forum - You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum - You cannot create polls in this forum - You cannot vote in polls in this forum


This page was generated in 0.7500 seconds.


DHTML Menu By Milonic JavaScript
Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved
No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization.