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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 ... 59 ... 467 468 Next >>
karaipyhare
Tetraglot
Groupie
Paraguay
Joined 5335 days ago

74 posts - 150 votes 
Speaks: Portuguese, Spanish*, English, Guarani
Studies: German, Italian, French, Mandarin, Japanese

 
 Message 465 of 3737
25 March 2010 at 5:31am | IP Logged 
Levi wrote:
...when you know that Hawaiian is related to Malagasy, and it blows your
mind every time you think about it.


YES! I always tell that story to everybody expecting an amazed shocked surprise face!
Instead I get the question; Where is Madagascar? :(

I love the Austronesian Family: from Madagascar to Easter Island (Rapa Nui), from Taiwan
to New Zealand (Aotearoa)
2 persons have voted this message useful



Johntm
Senior Member
United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5172 days ago

616 posts - 725 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish

 
 Message 466 of 3737
25 March 2010 at 6:01am | IP Logged 
Levi wrote:
...when you know that Hawaiian is related to Malagasy, and it blows your mind every time you think about it.
Mind=Blown
I think this will affect me from now on.
@karaipyhar: How do people not know where Madagascar is?
1 person has voted this message useful



Levi
Pentaglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5317 days ago

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

 
 Message 467 of 3737
26 March 2010 at 3:04am | IP Logged 
karaipyhare wrote:
Levi wrote:
...when you know that Hawaiian is related to Malagasy, and it blows your
mind every time you think about it.


YES! I always tell that story to everybody expecting an amazed shocked surprise face!
Instead I get the question; Where is Madagascar? :(

I love the Austronesian Family: from Madagascar to Easter Island (Rapa Nui), from Taiwan
to New Zealand (Aotearoa)

I agree completely. As Jared Diamond said in his book Guns, Germs, and Steel:
Quote:
These Austronesians, with their Austronesian language and modified Austronesian culture, were already established on Madagascar by the time it was first visited by Europeans, in 1500. This strikes me as the single most astonishing fact of human geography for the entire world. It's as if Columbus, on reaching Cuba, had found it occupied by blue-eyed, blond-haired Scandinavians speaking a language close to Swedish, even though the nearby North American continent was inhabited by Native Americans speaking Amerindian languages. How on earth could prehistoric people of Borneo, presumably voyaging in boats without maps or compasses, end up in Madagascar?

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meramarina
Diglot
Moderator
United States
Joined 5717 days ago

1341 posts - 2303 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: German, Italian, French
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 Message 468 of 3737
26 March 2010 at 3:25am | IP Logged 
Quote:
As Jared Diamond said in his book Guns, Germs, and Steel:


That is an excellent book. I read it a few years ago, and right now I am reading one very much like it, but entirely focused on languages and the civilizations they came from and spread to throughout recorded history. The name of it is Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World and the author is Nicholas Ostler. His biography states that he is "a scholar with a working knowledge of twenty-six languages" so this is a good reading choice for a Language Nerd! It's long but well worth the time - highly recommended!

Edited by meramarina on 26 March 2010 at 3:27am

1 person has voted this message useful



Levi
Pentaglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5317 days ago

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

 
 Message 469 of 3737
26 March 2010 at 7:10am | IP Logged 
meramarina wrote:
Quote:
As Jared Diamond said in his book Guns, Germs, and Steel:


That is an excellent book. I read it a few years ago, and right now I am reading one very much like it, but entirely focused on languages and the civilizations they came from and spread to throughout recorded history. The name of it is Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World and the author is Nicholas Ostler. His biography states that he is "a scholar with a working knowledge of twenty-six languages" so this is a good reading choice for a Language Nerd! It's long but well worth the time - highly recommended!

...when someone makes a book recommendation on a thread about being a language nerd, and you go right out and order it off Amazon.

Thanks for the suggestion. ;)
1 person has voted this message useful



joanthemaid
Triglot
Senior Member
France
Joined 5220 days ago

483 posts - 559 votes 
Speaks: French*, English, Spanish
Studies: Russian, German

 
 Message 470 of 3737
26 March 2010 at 7:43pm | IP Logged 
When you'd rather take a sucky job that allows you to practice during work hours than actually have a career
1 person has voted this message useful



BlondGirl
Groupie
United States
Joined 5307 days ago

49 posts - 101 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish

 
 Message 471 of 3737
26 March 2010 at 10:44pm | IP Logged 
You are giving directions to someone and after finishing, you return to your own family/coworkers and continue talking to them in the foreign language. Sometimes it is so easy to continue on the same track.

You keep telling someone to wait before coming in the room and when the person comes right in, he tells you, "You know I only speak English."

You practice conversations in your head to speed up your word-assembling-abilities and realize you have been doing it out loud from all the weird looks you are getting in the checkout lane.
1 person has voted this message useful



psy88
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5341 days ago

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

 
 Message 472 of 3737
27 March 2010 at 1:47am | IP Logged 
You have a friend as a passenger in your car for the first time. Without asking, your friend turns on your radio.The first thing that comes on, because it was the last thing you were listening to, is your target language listen and repeat CD. He then hits the button to go to your next CD. This is another listen and repeat CD, but still in the same target language (you like to work with different listen and repeat programs at the same time because it was suggested at this web page). Your friend hits the next two buttons and he hears music your target language. He makes some sarcastic comment then hits the final two buttons , only to hear nore listen and repeat CD's, but these are in your second target language(you like to listen to one language on the way to your destination and the other language on the way back).To his frustration,he then tries the radio stations.Of course, all of the stations are tuned into your target language. He is strangely quite the rest of the trip.


2 persons have voted this message useful



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