List of things you cannot do with English (General discussion) Language Learning Forum

List of things you cannot do with English
Tags: Discouragement from learning
Share with: Delicious Digg reddit Facebook StumbleUpon
Language Learning Forum : General discussion

60 messages over 8 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Next >>

HMS
Senior Member
England
Joined 4904 days ago
143 posts - 256 votes

Speaks: English*

Message 41 of 60

03 April 2012 at 10:11pm | IP Logged

There are situations that cannot be described in English but can be in other languages.
"Shadenfreude" for example. A brilliant word!!! There's also another German one I am unsure of though - "Standlich??" Describing a group of people in a pub discussing politics??
1 person has voted this message useful

egill
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5493 days ago
418 posts - 791 votes

Speaks: Mandarin, English*
Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch

Message 42 of 60

04 April 2012 at 1:00am | IP Logged

I don't know about the second one, but there already is a single English word that means
Schadenfreude: schadenfreude. :) (es wird „geenglischt“)
1 person has voted this message useful

geoffw
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4485 days ago
1134 posts - 1865 votes

Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish
Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian

Message 43 of 60

04 April 2012 at 1:22am | IP Logged

HMS wrote:

The greedy Anglophonie will not tolerate other languages posessing important concepts that we lack. We therefore declare that "Schadenfreude," with the "sch-" and all, shall henceforth be an English word. (And it was so: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/schadenfreude?s=t)

I assume the second one you're going for is "Stammtisch." We, the Anglophonie, hereby declare that this also shall henceforth be an English word. (And it was so: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Stammtisch+?s=t)

5 persons have voted this message useful

benzionisrael
Triglot
Groupie
Spain
Joined 4462 days ago
79 posts - 142 votes

Speaks: English*, Japanese, Spanish^B2

Message 44 of 60

13 April 2012 at 2:06am | IP Logged

Everything wrote:

Well, it works for almost all languages. But if you want to motivate a native English
speaker to learn another language, let's say :

- English doesn't come with an open-minded community like for Esperanto. Esperanto works
like a filter. When you speak English, it also includes racists, extremists, moralists
and so on... Unlike Esperanto speakers who always are open-minded. But that's probably
the only language which works this way.

Above: Typical Esperantist nonsense.

You find plenty of extremists and fanatics in the Esperanto movement as well.

Any minor criticisms of Esperanto or the Esperanto movement almost always seem to trigger a wave of agressive and emotional responses by overly defensive Esperantists.

6 persons have voted this message useful

Марк
Senior Member
Russian Federation
Joined 4853 days ago
2096 posts - 2972 votes

Speaks: Russian*

Message 46 of 60

20 January 2013 at 10:55am | IP Logged

vonPeterhof wrote:

Actually, many nouns in Russian are indeclinable. Most of these are
loanwords whose endings don't quite fit into the Russian system of gender assignment.
This is in contrast to languages like Latvian where, as far as I know, all loanwords,
even proper names, have to fit into the Latvian declination system (e.g. "John Lennon"
becomes "Džons Lenons", because nominative masculine nouns have to end in -s or -š). You
are correct about agreement though.

John Lennon is declined in Russian as well.
1 person has voted this message useful

Марк
Senior Member
Russian Federation
Joined 4853 days ago
2096 posts - 2972 votes

Speaks: Russian*

Message 47 of 60

20 January 2013 at 11:24am | IP Logged

Chung wrote:

1)
Chung vidí IronFista "Chung sees Ironfist" (Slovak)
IronFista vidí Chung "Chung sees Ironfist" (Slovak - i.e. Ironfist is seen by Chung -
"It's IronFist whom Chung sees")

2)
IronFist vidí Chunga "Ironfist sees Chung" (Slovak)
Chunga vidí IronFist "Ironfist sees Chung" (Slovak - i.e. Chung is seen by Ironfist -
"It's Chung whom IronFist sees")

I thought the meaning was the opposite: the last component is the rheme. Is Slovak
opposite to Russian here?
Хунга видит Иронфист pronounced with a neutral intonation would mean It is Ironfist who
sees Chung.
1 person has voted this message useful

vonPeterhof
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Russian FederationRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4569 days ago
715 posts - 1527 votes

Speaks: Russian*, English^C2, Japanese, German
Studies: Kazakh, Korean, Norwegian, Turkish

Message 48 of 60

20 January 2013 at 12:12pm | IP Logged

Марк wrote:

vonPeterhof wrote:

Actually, many nouns in Russian are indeclinable. Most of these
are
loanwords whose endings don't quite fit into the Russian system of gender assignment.
This is in contrast to languages like Latvian where, as far as I know, all loanwords,
even proper names, have to fit into the Latvian declination system (e.g. "John Lennon"
becomes "Džons Lenons", because nominative masculine nouns have to end in -s or -š). You
are correct about agreement though.

John Lennon is declined in Russian as well.

Because Джон Леннон fits into the Russian
declension system. Names that don't (like Madeleine Albright) remain unchanged and undeclinable in
Russian (Мадлен Олбрайт), but get altered in Latvian (Madlēna Olbraita).

1 person has voted this message useful

This discussion contains 60 messages over 8 pages: << Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Next >>

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 0.3438 seconds.