Originally posted by smw6869no its not my opinion, i did not originate those words, i simply copied them from the link given by Pylkna. I think its aptness is rather self evident given your reply and you really should be thanked for confirming its legitimacy.
You're arrogant opinion. La De Da ! The truth need not be spoken in flowery BS in order for it to be known. You bore me with your elitist ramblings, so much so that i shall lose sleep tonight......NOT.
Meet me on the badminton court if you think i'm a "weak warrior". You don't see the worm all de-juiced over this. He can fight his own battles. I'm off to the crapper. You should too.
GRANNY.
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Originally posted by wormwoodi think Finnish would be the hardest, for apparently there is nothing quite like it anywhere.
well, as a small kid you pick up languages very easily. probably also helped a lot with the other romance languages later. just like the swedish helped with other germanic languages. lots of things still give me trouble, but probably entirely different ones compared to what an english speaker has difficulties with.
I can speak Urdu fluently and get by in Punjabi and have a smattering of others not worth mentioning, recently i was trying some German and was utterly blown away by how similar certain words are, infact, in Scotland we have retained some of these very ancient Anglo Saxon words to this day. For example we say 'I ken', meaning I know, its said nowhere else in the U.K and comes from the German 'kenna, to know'. In some places we even say 'nicht', for night' and even have some Norse terms 'braw', meaning good and 'bairn' meaning child.
i was told the the Finnish for dust was 'stour', this is also a Scots word for dust, perhaps you may confirm or deny it.
Originally posted by trev33That's exactly the one I was referring to.
does this count.From josphine
Date Dec 09 2009 03:04
Subject Hi dear
hi,
compliment of the day i hope you are doing fine over there,i will like to introduce my self to you,my name is Ms Josphine,it is my pleassure to write you after viewing your profile which really interest me, in having friendship with you if you will have the desire to be ...[text shortened]... ugh my email adress so that i will tell you more about my self
(josphinex24@yahoo.com)
It all depends on one's mother tongue besides the degree of inclination
towards languages. Finnish has been a huge challenge for me, but it
wouldn't be so for an Estonian or even a Hungarian person, so I've heard.
Portuguese, on the other hand, is a delight on how smoothly it can be
picked up.
Plus, is one of the world's most beautiful-sounding languages, for my taste
at least 🙂
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Originally posted by robbie carrobieyou should move around the uk a little more... the clutches in n. ireland sometimes say it, at least the older generation do anyway.
infact, in Scotland we have retained some of these very ancient Anglo Saxon words to this day. For example we say 'I ken', meaning I know, its said nowhere else in the U.K
Originally posted by trev33clutches? i never heard of, but that the Irish say 'ken for know', is not a surprise for we are essentially one and the same.
you should move around the uk a little more... the clutches in n. ireland sometimes say it, at least the older generation do anyway.
Originally posted by Big Orange Countryyeah, what you're talking about is 'linguistic distance'. I was going to write pretty much the same things as you did, but it was 6.30am and I really had to go...
you have a point...
from nothing (infancy) it is equally difficult/easy to learn any language.
I could invent a language and teach it to my kid just as easily as i could teach him german (I speak neither the made up language nor german).
However, once a language has been learned, it there are varying degrees of difficulty for learning various n ...[text shortened]... uch more than that. And as always, there stands the enormous chance that I'm completely wrong.
Originally posted by robbie carrobieyeah, old english is almost identical to old norse, and even now there are so many similarities between english(es), norwegian, swedish, german etc that there shouldn't be much problems picking one of them up, for an english speaker. you'll probably understand a lot of it straight from the start.
i think Finnish would be the hardest, for apparently there is nothing quite like it anywhere.
I can speak Urdu fluently and get by in Punjabi and have a smattering of others not worth mentioning, recently i was trying some German and was utterly blown away by how similar certain words are, infact, in Scotland we have retained some of these very ...[text shortened]... as 'stour', this is also a Scots word for dust, perhaps you may confirm or deny it.
'stour' doesn't sound finnish at all. we have almost no 1-syllable words. dust is 'pöly' or 'tomu'. most finnish words are like japanese, and there are lots of joke names hinging on that. like the mechanic 'hayosiko toyotasi' (did your toyota break down?), the ski jumper 'kontasiko kokomaki' (did you crawl all the way down the hill) etc. -which makes speaking japanese quite easy for us. writing japanese of course is a whole another kettle of fish. I know maybe 500 kanjis, but I'm nowhere near being in any way literate. except in very general cases.
finnish tends to be a bitch to learn for english or spanish speakers, it's just so different. but a scottish friend said it seemed to be much easier for him than his englishmen friends for example. the scottish mentality seems to be quite similar to finnish, so that too might help. (folk music is also quite similar) at least with japanese their different way of constructing thoughts gives me much more trouble than with any other language so far, although everything else is very finnish-like.
I have urdu and bengali on my to do list, but it'll take quite some time before I get there.
Originally posted by Seitseyeah, brazilian portuguese and russian. there's a certain beauty in mandarin and all other sino-tibetan languages as well. at first the tonal system seemed so restricted, aesthetically speaking, as it interferes with singing etc. but then it gradually grows on you, and with all the nice different 's'-sounds it really works. which is why it gets sampled a lot. like the kid speaking in the following song (after about 1min) :
Portuguese, on the other hand, is a delight on how smoothly it can be
picked up.
Plus, is one of the world's most beautiful-sounding languages, for my taste
at least 🙂
Originally posted by wormwoodI should take you with me when I travel the world and you can assist this annoying American with her translation books.
finnish is my mother tongue, portuguese I learned three years old, swedish from 6 onwards after moving to finland (the 2nd official language of finland, but my regional dialect is heavily influenced by swedish so maybe you could even say it's my 2nd language), english from 3rd grade, french from 7th grade. and a collection of other languages I know a bit, r ...[text shortened]... ish, norwegian, danish, italian...... none of which I know well, but probably enough to get by.
Originally posted by wormwoodSweet, I thought I was the only sick guy loving the sound of Russian.
yeah, brazilian portuguese and russian. there's a certain beauty in mandarin and all other sino-tibetan languages as well. at first the tonal system seemed so restricted, aesthetically speaking, as it interferes with singing etc. but then it gradually grows on you, and with all the nice different 's'-sounds it really works. which is why it gets sampled a lo ...[text shortened]... king in the following song (after about 1min) :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9bhyZA5l2o