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What makes your native language unique? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Juan M. Senior Member Colombia Joined 5901 days ago 460 posts - 597 votes  | Message 9 of 86 06 January 2009 at 10:24pm | IP Logged | |||||
I'll grant you that everyday Spanish can at first be very pleasantly colorful, but the novelty of it soon becomes stale while its limited range of expression and lack of nuance persist. But again, what I'm complaining about is the use it receives from a majority of its speakers, not its inherent potential. And again also, this probably has more to do with education. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| SlickAs Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5879 days ago 185 posts - 287 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French, Swedish Studies: Thai, Vietnamese | Message 11 of 86 06 January 2009 at 11:13pm | IP Logged | |||||
I am with you on that. But at the same time reject that only the uneducated speak colloquial Spanish. (And you should note that when I am talking about street Spanish, I do not mean in the slum areas ... I would not in Cali go east of Calle 13 and start hanging around for example ... I did not mean to say only the language of "For Whom the Bell Tolls" as colloquial, I include the relaxed spoken langue of the educated and middle classes in what I mean by "colloquial Spanish"). So Vai, I am not talking about the "tough guy" ganster Spanish of East LA and the Bronx. Just the colourful everyday Spanish of middle class Latinos in Latin America and Spain. I mean the language spoken in an Almodovar film like Volver is an example ... wont learn that in any text book, or see it written in high-literature. The Argentinian Spanish I talk about is the same Spanish spoken in the award winning Argentine film "El Hijo de la Novia". Hardly tough-guys or criminal language, but just the colourful language spoken in the streets and houses and bars and families and amongst friends. I find colloquial Spanish a warm, friendly, open, colourful language full of laughter and sharing. Formal literate Spanish is beautiful in a different way of metaphor and imagery. But they are both beautiful for mine. Edited by SlickAs on 06 January 2009 at 11:19pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Sennin Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 6036 days ago 1457 posts - 1759 votes 5 sounds | Message 12 of 86 07 January 2009 at 3:05am | IP Logged | |||||
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In Bulgarian the definite article 'the' is attached to the end of nouns (or to the first adjective that modifies a noun if there are any). For example:
( cat -> the cat ) котка -> котката ( evil ginger cat -> the evil ginger cat ) зла рижа котка -> злата рижа котка It's not a big deal but I don't think any other Indo-European language has this feature and definitely no Slavic language does. Edited by Sennin on 07 January 2009 at 3:12am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| MäcØSŸ Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5811 days ago 259 posts - 392 votes Speaks: Italian*, EnglishC2 Studies: German | Message 13 of 86 07 January 2009 at 3:44am | IP Logged | |||||
This is also present in Albanian, Macedonian, Romanian, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian and Icelandic. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Sennin Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 6036 days ago 1457 posts - 1759 votes 5 sounds | Message 14 of 86 07 January 2009 at 3:58am | IP Logged | |||||
Ok! That diminishes its uniqueness slightly ^_^. Nonetheless, it's the only Slavic language to feature this (Macedonian being a special case.) It seems that this is generally typical for Nordic languages. Romanian and Bulgarian are the sole members of their respective language group (Romance and Slavic) that have a postfix definite article. Edited by Sennin on 07 January 2009 at 4:08am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6153 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 15 of 86 07 January 2009 at 6:12am | IP Logged | |||||
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I'll hazard a guess at some unique English features. Do many languages contain a three word infinitive ? E.g. "to be able"
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 Jiwon Triglot Moderator Korea, South Joined 6438 days ago 1417 posts - 1500 votes Speaks: EnglishC2, Korean*, GermanC1 Studies: Hindi, Spanish Personal Language Map | Message 16 of 86 07 January 2009 at 6:26am | IP Logged | |||||
Well, in Korean we have 할 수 있다, which means the same as "to be able". Korean is unique in a way that it is one of the few major languages to use a script that has been invented and planned for use in Korean exclusively. Our way of classifying consonants is also quite different from most other languages, and this is what causes all the frustration when it comes to learning Korean pronunciation, I believe. Oh and we are the only people who would pronounce hae-dod-i as hae-do-ji 해돋이. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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