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A discussion about your country! | ||
Tags: Place of Residence | Cultural Identity | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Cultural Experiences in Foreign Languages |  | |
| CellarDoor Groupie United States Joined 5980 days ago 46 posts - 47 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Russian | Message 25 of 66 05 October 2008 at 5:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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I am from The United States of America, but I am going to talk about my home state of Tennessee.
I am from Jackson, Tennessee in the Forked Deer river bottom. We have lots of open land and lots of swamp/flooded timber. Our city goes along with most of the other small towns below the Mason-Dixon. We wear blue jeans and cowboy boots. We drive trucks and live on large plots of land (I live on 55 acres and we own about 1500 acres a mile down the road). I grew up hunting and fishing. I hunt deer, ducks, geese, doves, wild hogs, and turkeys. I own around 15 guns and I have 3 hunting dogs. I love to fish, have cookouts, go hunting, watch football (highschool football is a way of life here). We say yes ma'am and yes sir. Manners are extremely important here. We open the door for all women, remove their coats, and speak very cautiously around women we dont know. Overall we are a very simple folk. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| sajro Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5807 days ago 129 posts - 131 votes  1 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 26 of 66 07 October 2008 at 6:11pm | IP Logged | ||
Jackson? How y'all doin'? I'm from the more southern parts, getting round near Chattanooga. </southern drawl> 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| TheElvenLord Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5891 days ago 915 posts - 927 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Cornish, English* Studies: Spanish, French, German Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 27 of 66 21 October 2008 at 11:42am | IP Logged | ||
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My country is Cornwall.
Many people here will think of Cornwall as part of England - but it isnt. It has (legally) the same constitutional status as Luxembourg (an independant duchy state (i believe)) and ROI. But, the English government have a grudge with Cornwall (evidence of it goes back hundreds of years, the Cornish Genocide (They killed around 10,000 (out of 50,000) innocent people in Cornwall for no reason), the exclusion from the Framework convention for Minority languages (They signed this to say they would look after all minority languages on the list, which included Cornish, and for the most part, they have kept to it, apart from with Cornish). Leading on from that, we have our own language; Cornish, of which we are very proud. It very nearly became completly dead in the late 1800's, but thanks to one mans madness (he spoke Cornish to his cat his whole life) and anothers brilliance (he revived the language) we kept hold of the language. Although, the last native speaker did die in the 1700's, and we have no audio, so we have no actual idea about how Cornish sounded! Cornish died out for a number of reasons. - The English introduced the Church of England into all of Britain, and they locked up bishops who did not give their services in English (One such bishop of Cornwall, Trelawny, was very famous, and he carried on in Cornish, and he was taken, along with 8 other Cornish bishops, to the Tower of London for execution. The Cornish rebelled, and that is where we get our anthem "Trelawny") - The British curriculum was introduced in English, and everyone was educated in English. As only rich people could afford this, English became the language of the rich and affluent, and became very wanted. - When schools for everyone, rich and poor, they refused to accept the dialect or accentof those already speaking English, or the language of Cornish We now have 10,000 speakers, of which 1000 are fluent, and around 20 are native. We are famous for our Cornish pasties, which are made and sold wrongly around the world, so you must come to Cornwall to try a REAL one. Also, we are known for our mines, we had the largest tin mining industry in the world up until the 1900s, and we have been mining here for tin for thousands of years, and traded with the Ancient Greeks, Romans, Egyptians and Phonecians. There you go, a lesson on Cornwall. So in summary, we have gone through a very rough time, and so has our language, but Cornish is becoming very popular. KERNOW HA KERNEWEK BYS VYKEN (Cornwall and Cornish for ever) CERNYW AM BYTH (Welsh - Cornwall for ever) "A good sword and a trust hand, a merry heart and true, king James men shall understand what Cornish lads can do. Have they fixed the where and when, and shall Trelawny die, here's 20,000 cornish men shall know the reason why! Shall Trelawny live, or shall Trelawny die, here's 20,000 cornish men shall know the reasons"- First verse and chorus of our anthem, TEL 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| starlight Newbie New Zealand Joined 5717 days ago 4 posts - 5 votes Speaks: English* | Message 28 of 66 23 October 2008 at 2:21am | IP Logged | ||
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My auntie sent me a postard from Cornwall once. :P part of the picture showed a Cornish pastie.
I am from New Zealand. I live in the suburbs of South Auckland. New Zealand is a very beautiful country. We have plenty of beaches, mountains, forest etc etc. I myself am a 5min walk away from the Manukau harbour. It is very nice here in the summer. Summer for me means going to the Coromandel... which is a region with a number of smalls town and awesome beaches. Lots of bumming around, parties :P In winter living here is not so nice. It doesn't snow in Auckland, it's just cold and raining. Really horrible. Down the line winter seems nicer because it snows more and is more dry.. like a real winter should be. School here sucks. Well high school does. My teacher from South Africa called New Zealand 'the country of no consequences' which is totally true. My school is covered in litter. People smoke cigarettes and marijuana in the bathrooms and vandalise the school. New Zealand is developing a bad P (pure meth) problem and it's going to get worse because people can get away with anything, a terrible example for people my age who have already developed bad habits. The majority of New Zealanders are lovely people. I do however live in South Auckland. And I always feel very uneasy walking through Papakura alone nomatter what time of day. I would never ever walk through Papakura alone at night. As it's many druggies and criminals are out and about. Auckland has a high Asian population. I think that's totally awesome. Because they are such nice people and have awesome fasion style haha :D:D We get a reasonable number of students from around the world who come to study here. You have quite a high number of opportunities here career wise, decent universities. Although it's a hard country to get ahead in. Most New Zealanders seem content with just living their lives day by day. But i think alot of New Zealanders want a change from that. There are high migration levels especially to Australia. So overall. New Zealand is a very beautiful country. We do have a drug culture, it's not as safe as you may think. Depending on where you live and visit here you can get very different experiences. I'll always be proud to be a New Zealander.. I do however want to leave when I am older :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| gulliver13 Triglot Newbie Bulgaria Joined 5833 days ago 17 posts - 17 votes Speaks: Bulgarian*, English, German | Message 29 of 66 03 November 2008 at 10:02am | IP Logged | ||
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I am also from Bulgaria (as Sennin in the previous posts). An English magazine in Bulgaria (Vagabond) surveyed its readers (mostly foreigners), which are the top 10 symbols of Bulgaria:
1. Martenitsa 2. Misty morning in the Rhodope Mountains. 3. Gangsters - they used to be very visible on the streets before, now they are "businessmen" and keep lower profile. 4. Sexy girls. 5. Rakia and cigarettes smoke - I like the first, hate the second. 6. The expression - "In a minute" - which means something between "right now" and eternity :) 7. The cosmopolitan capital Sofia with an Orthodox church, a Catholic cathedral, a mosque, and a synagogue very close to each other. 8. The overbuilt of the Bulgarian seaside - we had a beautiful seaside in the past, it is totally ruined now. Unfortunately they want to do the same with our mountains.. 9. Expensive cars and donkey carriages on the same streets. 10. Street dogs. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Aquedita Triglot Senior Member Poland myspace.com/aqueda_v Joined 5825 days ago 154 posts - 164 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, Japanese Studies: Mandarin | Message 30 of 66 03 November 2008 at 10:31am | IP Logged | ||
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I come from Poland. Not many people visit this place ;)
This country has it all: the Baltic Sea, Mazury lakes, Vistula river, Sudety and Karpaty mountains. Rich (usually sad) history and colorful, fascinating regional cultural heritage. It is a country between east and west, country of a Slavic soul and background but attempting to be as western as possible. The people are complicated: sometimes shy but when they talk to foreigners they suddenly smile, open up and seem to forget about the gray dull everyday life and want to help in any way they can. Sadly, we don't take care of the beautiful nature as much and hard as we ought to. We love to bitch about anything, politics being one of our favorite topics ;) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sennin Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 5845 days ago 1457 posts - 1759 votes 5 sounds | Message 31 of 66 22 November 2008 at 3:26pm | IP Logged | ||
Indeed, our country is a place of contrasts. Unfortunately, the gangsters are not all that tame nowadays. I had this accident last year, with a thick-necked mobster that started shouting at me for "crossing his way." It was very scary, I bet he was going to shoot me or something if there were no people around. That was in "Belite Brezi", an expensive quarter in Sofia. As a matter of fact, life used to be better organized and more peaceful during the communist era. This high-crime rate thing started in the turmoil of the 90's and it's only getting worse in recent years. Edited by Sennin on 22 November 2008 at 3:32pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| scop Diglot Groupie Ireland Joined 5660 days ago 70 posts - 73 votes Speaks: English*, Irish Studies: German, Ancient Greek | Message 32 of 66 22 November 2008 at 8:08pm | IP Logged | ||
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My country is called the Republic of Ireland, and it is a small, tiny nation beside surrounded by the more famous United Kingdom. We are known for Guinness, green things, and being good at talking (or as we say having the gift of the gab).
Irish is our official language, but as with Cornwall it nearly died out due to the influence of English, but it seems to be on the rise again although it will never be our real, day to day spoken language again. We speak a brand of English known as Hiberno-English which has odd bits from our Gaelic heritage. Personally I come from Dublin city...home of U2, James Joyce, and Molly Malone. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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