Have you ever.. (General discussion) Language Learning Forum

Have you ever..
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Language Learning Forum : General discussion

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Serpent
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Message 57 of 119

02 January 2014 at 12:38am | IP Logged

tarvos wrote:

Some of us do read an atlas or go outside once in a while.

I can't name all of the Russian federations, but I know roughly where the major towns
and cities are.

And this is what really matters, I think.

I mean I understand that for living in the US, it's better to know all the states, given the different laws and whatnot. But to someone who's on the other side of the ocean it just makes no difference, sorry, and even for a traveller it's usually not relevant, apart from the laws concerning hitchhiking maybe.
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tarvos
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Message 58 of 119

02 January 2014 at 12:41am | IP Logged

I know most of them, but I´ve been to plenty states and lived in North America before. I
can probably place ´em on a map as well.

But I've travelled in Russia too, else I also probably wouldn't know that Krasnoyarsk is
between Irkutsk and Novosibirsk, haha..

Edited by tarvos on 02 January 2014 at 12:42am
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Serpent
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Message 59 of 119

02 January 2014 at 12:51am | IP Logged

And I bet you got it right when you heard about the Russian troops in Georgia.
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culebrilla
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United States
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Speaks: Spanish

Message 60 of 119

02 January 2014 at 1:53am | IP Logged

tarvos wrote:

culebrilla wrote:

Serpent wrote:

But if Americans expect the whole world to know
their states, then Russians can expect everyone to know our 83 "federal subjects".
(on those maps some Americans marked Ukraine and Turkey as Russia)

My ex South American girlfriend didn't know the current president of her country; there
were elections like a year ago and she didn't know! I did. Exceptions exist, thankfully
to the idea that Americans don't learn about foreign countries. :)

But really, the most influential countries are those that people know a lot about. Like
the US, European countries, China, Japan, Brazil, etc. How much did you guys know about
Mali before the French intervention recently? Crickets, crickets.

I knew that its capital was Bamako and that it was under French rule. Also that most of
the country was desert and that many Malinese football players play in France and
Belgium. Not much, but you see, there's no reason to toot your horn that you know more
than someone else. Some of us do read an atlas or go outside once in a while.

I can't name all of the Russian federations, but I know roughly where the major towns
and cities are.

Yes, but you are a big exception to that rule. Most people don't know that Portuguese is spoken in Angola, Mozambique, Capo Verde, and Macau, for example. I do because I'm interested in knowing what languages are spoken in which countries.

I was not tooting my horn. I didn't even say that I knew much about Mali myself. You, sir, assumed that I was implying that I did. No, I didn't even know anything about Mali until the French operation; aside from the fact that it was in Africa and that French was one of the official languages there.
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fabriciocarraro
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Message 61 of 119

02 January 2014 at 2:03am | IP Logged

culebrilla wrote:

Most people don't know that Portuguese is spoken in Angola, Mozambique, Capo Verde, and Macau, for example.

I'd say that most people don't know that Portuguese is spoken in Brazil... if I earned 1 real each time that someone asked if we spoke Spanish...haha
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1e4e6
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Message 62 of 119

02 January 2014 at 2:37am | IP Logged

As a serious chess player, many of our terminology has Russian (mostly Soviet) place
names in it, so I know where Novosibirsk, Kaliningrad, Leningrad, Cheljiabinsk, etc. are.
Also since most high-level events are held in Russia (and were also during the USSR
period), I know where Nalchik, Sochi, Khanty-Mansisyk, Nowgorod, Stalingrad/Petrograd,
Samara, Kazan, Rostow-on-Don, Sevastopol, Krasnodar, Nizhnij-Nowgorod, etc are.

I have a few atlases, and a 1974 edition of A-Z encyclopediae with good maps and shows
the language of each country--I would think at some point also that children look at
those books or have geography class in primary or secondary school to avoid not knowing
that Australia is not in Europe, for example.
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Serpent
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Message 63 of 119

02 January 2014 at 2:40am | IP Logged

There's a famous fail when Zhirkov was asked how he communicates with Roberto Carlos and other Brazilian teammates, and he was like "yeah, they don't speak Russian or English, only Brazilian". And it wasn't just a slip of the tongue or anything, it seems like he honestly thought there are two different languages, Portuguese and Brazilian. And it's not like he can prove his point by using the Swadesh lists or pronunciation differences...
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culebrilla
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United States
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Speaks: Spanish

Message 64 of 119

02 January 2014 at 3:23am | IP Logged

fabriciocarraro wrote:

culebrilla wrote:

Most people don't know that Portuguese is spoken in Angola, Mozambique, Capo Verde, and Macau, for example.

I'd say that most people don't know that Portuguese is spoken in Brazil... if I earned 1 real each time that someone asked if we spoke Spanish...haha

Just youtube "Americans don't know if Portuguese is spoken in Brazil or Spanish is" and they will show college students that don't know this. Sadly, one of my very well-educated relatives didn't know that Spanish was spoken in a very prominent South American country. But we are all lacking in some areas; we can't know everything about everything.

I think that most people just expect others to have a basic knowledge of certain topics. Like what the capitals of certain countries are; the names of your neighboring countries, basic things like that. But very specialized knowledge like that of car engine functioning, computer hardware, or linguistic terminology--not so much.

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