The Languages Thread

I have very few skills in foreign languages, basically just some schoolboy French. But when I lived in Ghana I picked up a few Togolese French expressions, as I lived quite close to the border, as well as some Ghanaian English idioms. I also learned enough Twi and Eνe to be polite when greeting local people.

Alan
 
Last edited:
lowland anoa said:
And I'm guessing that you speak Macedonian and English?
Click to expand...

Yes, although I may not be very good in fluent English, and if we exclude very simmilar Balkan languages to my mother tongue, like Serbian, Croatian (I have realized that I can understand it better than Bulgarian), and Bulgarian, and Bosnian (some says that is a mix between Serbian and Croatian).

I can understand quite a lot of words in Spanish too (but barely to speak) (Como estas? - How are you? Bien - good?), and also in some Slavic languages like Slovene, Russian, Ukrainian, and even Czech.

And my greatest wish is to speak German (and don't know even 20 words), if we exclude my knowledge of English (as most important international language).
 
lowland anoa said:
Czech, Slovakian and Polish make up the sub-family dubbed Eastern Slavic, basically all the Eastern Slavic languages are different than Southern and Western.
Click to expand...

lowland anoa, you mean, Czech, Slovakian and Polish are Western Slavic languages, and Balkan Slavic languages are Southern Slavic, and the rest are Eastern Slavic languages (eg. Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian)?
 
Nikola Chavkosk said:
lowland anoa, you mean, Czech, Slovakian and Polish are Western Slavic languages, and Balkan Slavic languages are Southern Slavic, and the rest are Eastern Slavic languages (eg. Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian)?
Click to expand...

Top marks! With the exemption of Albanian, Romanian and Greek.
 
Nikola Chavkosk said:
I can understand quite a lot of words in Spanish too (but barely to speak) (Como estas? - How are you? Bien - good?)
Click to expand...

Seeing as Spanish is a Romance Language

How are you
Italian: Come stai?
French - Ca va or Comment allez-vous
Spanish: Cómo estás
Portuguese: Como você está

I'm fine
Italian - Sto bene
French - Ca va bien or Je vais bien
Spanish - Estoy bien
Portuguese - Estou bem
 
English. It's not from lack of trying though. It's as if there's a conspiracy to keep me from learning another language, no matter how hard I try no one will speak to me in whatever language I'm trying to learn, be it Spanish, French, or whatever else I might be trying to learn. No amount of coaxing will get anyone to help me. Either they keep speaking to me in English (I have stopped speaking to certain people entirely because of this), the idiot who thinks I can learn Spanish by learning one vocabulary word every couple of months (that's not how you teach someone a language), and the one that promises to help me (conveniently prior to their scheduled return to their home country and/or maternity leave after which their shift will change thus leading to their not being in the same place as me at the same time) and then vanishes off the face of the Earth (the worst one of all.)

I can understand the gist of a lot of German because a) it is so close to English, and b) I spent my college years listening to Rammstein several times a week which led me to pick up a little, but I can't speak it. I also know enough Spanish to avoid "what is this?" moments at the store where I go when I get a hankering for plantain or Ibarra chocolate.

Sorry for the rant.
 
lowland anoa said:
Also, watch this video and you'll see.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfpEPjfB12g
Click to expand...

Interesting yes. I don't liked to mention, but actually Serbian and Croatian languages are almost indistinguishable and can be considered as one language (and Bosnian is some form of dialect).

Also the Cyrilic letters were adopted from Greek letters, like such characteristic letters like: Ф ф (F f) as for Франција (France) or футбал (football).

Also many would say that Macedonian is very similar or it is a dialect of Bulgarian, but that's not the case because Macedonian have letters that are absent in Bulgarian and vise versa. Also Bulgarian native speakers can more easily understand Russian language, but Macedonians not so easy (Bulgarian have a lot of simmilarities with Russian too). And Macedonian speakers find it more easily to speak and understand Serbo-Croatian than Bulgarian (and paricularly because we have been common country in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s till 1989 - Yugoslavia (Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia&Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia (including Kosovo) and R.Macedonia). There are native speakers of Macedonian in Northern Greece too.
 
I just downloaded Duolingo, and I'm apparently 19% fluent in Spanish, which seems accurate. I think my main problem is vocabulary. I'm entering my third year of Spanish, and I hope to improve because during the 2018 spring break, my school is planning a 9 day trip to the Galapagos. The catch is that the only language to be spoken during those nine days (one day is actually in Ecuador) is Spanish.
 
jayjds2 said:
I just downloaded Duolingo, and I'm apparently 19% fluent in Spanish, which seems accurate. I think my main problem is vocabulary. I'm entering my third year of Spanish, and I hope to improve because during the 2018 spring break, my school is planning a 9 day trip to the Galapagos. The catch is that the only language to be spoken during those nine days (one day is actually in Ecuador) is Spanish.
Click to expand...
quick test: what does Galapagos mean?
 
lowland anoa said:
So the islands' name translates as the Tortoise Islands, right?
Click to expand...

An oft-repeated story holds that galápago is an old Spanish word for saddle, and the archipelago was named after the shape of its tortoises' carapaces (island-dependent, of course). This is supposedly untrue, however, and galápago meant tortoise centuries before the Galapagos were even discovered. Anyway, yes: Tortoise Islands. Enjoy the trip.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top