Language @4-ch

>>61
It's not very hard if you don't count the thousands of characters, odd grammar, the pronunciation, or the tones. Other than that, it's a piece of cake.

stfu faggots, use engrish!

could anyone possibly do me a favour and transcribe the chinese in this:

http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/1386/c1058clg3.jpg

i know its a small and blurry image, i dont know how easy it would be to read for someone who's familiar with the language... but, yeah, all i need is the three characters in text form, so i can do stuff with them.

thanks!

这里真的没有什么中国人。。。
T_T

What a dead thread.

china ren 中国人 哇哈哈

中國萬萬歲！

除了語言，什麼是我們談論的這個時候？

@ the person who said 中國萬萬歲！

中國加油!! :D

我是日本人。

>>37

>Mandarin and Cantonese are both dialects. They are not separate languages.

Replace Mandarin and Cantonese with French and Spanish, you got the idea.

>>43

>Cantonese is the older

Aren't they both descendant of Middle Chinese, that should make them equally old.

>It is the closest resemblance in linguistics to the Han Dynasty.

What about those Min or Hakka?

in my experience with learning langauges and being a fluent english speaker I would have to say Hungarian and possibly Friasan are the hardest langauges for fluent english speakers.

I would say, for english-native speakers, that the hardest language is ranked as the following, with 1 the most difficult:

1. Basque
2. Hungarian
3. Mandarin

1队大败2队
1队大胜2队
what's mean?

Lithuanian.

english the hardest language... ? NO WAY. i dont agree ! have you ever tried to learn lithuanian ?! no ? so try. i bet it's more difficult than chinese or japanese . lithuanian- the hardest language .

>>205
Fuckin' hell yea man! Lituanica!

lithuanian is rediculous.

Spanish is difficult in the conjugation of verbs, Japanese has two main complications (writing and grammar), Chinese has a very complex phonetics system.

Well, that's all I think.

the hardest is Russian, maybe.

>>5

>>Why in a classroom?

Several reasons. First, it worked for me. I've studied eight languages and can speak six of them well, and the ones I speak best are those I acquired through a combination of in-classroom cramming and real-world use.

Arguably most importantly, formal instruction provides a feedback loop that I'm not sure you can get without a trained teacher. Learning independently, from books, etc., can be useful, of course, but won't necessarily help you correct mistakes. Native speaker conversation partners often won't correct you if something you say sounds weird or wrong, either, so you can wind up reinforcing problems.

>>Clearly you can do that by yourself, without cost, and in a fraction of the time.

Not true, in my opinion, for the great majority of people. Most people simply aren't disciplined enough or well-organized enough in their independent studies to acquire everything they need in the right order and proportion without some external stimulus. Some can, and more power to them. But I don't think most people can do as much as well on their own as they could with a well-trained professional teaching them.

Immersion is not always the best teacher. It certainly helps, though.

You could always try http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/

Basically, simulate a Japanese environment as much as you can. I can attest to the input hypothesis as well. I find it a lot easier to make Japanese sounds and words just focusing on listening to it a fucktonne- Than I did with repetitive speaking and practice.

Learning Japanese... no, it's not easy. Sure, one may learn it, but that doesn't mean that you'll become ready to speak it in Japan. It's much more than that. Live in Japan, speak it in Japan, get used to it more.

As in any language, it's not enough to learn it through a website or lessons, but it's daily use that boosts it.

Plus: It's not a bad thing to "Pass-by" as someone who knows the language, but be sure to keep up with "today's Japanese" :P

Wanting to pass as a native speaker takes years of a) classroom training -- to gain a firm grasp of the standard language; b) reading -- to increase your vocabulary, learn about styles, genres, and sociolinguistic registers; and c) immersion. You can't really do it from abroad, as you won't acquire the idioms and the colloquialisms that set natives apart from someone who's most familiar with the standard language (i.e. the dialect taught in foreign language instruction). And, like I said, that takes /years/. We're talking about a decade, at the least.

I agree with every one of the first three positive even integers.

I don't have the Japanese look (I'm half Croatian, and the other half is various European backgrounds), but I've been studying Japanese for 6 years, and I went to Japan about two years ago and stayed for a year. I studied at the highest level of Waseda University's Intensive Japanese Language Program while living in an environment surrounded by Japanese men my own age, interacting with people in and around the capital. I even had a Japanese girlfriend for a while. But despite all that -- and believe me, I've worked harder than most this past half decade -- I can't really speak like a native yet. Sometimes I get mistaken for a Japanese person on the phone, but on bad days, or when I get really nervous, sometimes people know I'm not. I can pass for a Japanese person pretty easily online in chat rooms, but on the phone, it's not as easy -- and it's pretty much a lost cause if it's face to face, since my non-Japanese appearance predisposes the other party to expect me not to speak perfectly. In situations like that, even when if I say something completely natural that's just strange because I wanted to crack a joke or something, people might think I said it strangely simply because they know I don't speak the language natively. Shit sucks.

That said, it takes a looooot of work, and being in Japan is key. I don't expect myself to become significantly more native-like in speech and writing (and actions, because those are important, too) without living in Japan for another few years, making a point to use Japanese as often as possible.

Typos:

even when if I say something -> even if I say something
http;// -> http://

I swear to God I'm a native speaker of English :P

The main difference between being native and non-native speaker is that you were not learning the language in a, let's say "natural" way. Also, you were not in that culture, so it would be kind of difficult to get wordplay or culturally related things.

:P

Yea, I agree with you.
Here is the problem.
I don't want to be imbued with other country's culture.
What should I do?

>>14

That's a good question. Every time you use a language you're expressing an aspect of that culture. But, maybe, you can talk about your country or general things without being culturally imbued. That's a tricky one.

Hope some could answer you

Engrish is ellatic because it can't make sentences without habing folms.

>>1
is not that it is what singaporeans like to say
it a not proper english

Because grammar books and prescriptive grammarians came along after language was invented. Languages do not have to conform to rules.

> "Isn't" is a contraction of "Is not", right?'

It's no longer a contraction. It's a word of its own that originally was a contraction. Situation is the same as with "aren't I?" = "am I not?".

American and Britain have different usage of English... Damn it always confuses me.

>>7 That why we(including me) call it Singlish... We even have things such as lah meh etc.

Congratulations OP, for realizing English is very illogical. Casting aside the various silly rules to apply in many cases, the bane of English is making sentences flow logically, seem proper and wording it in a way that's overall pleasant to understand. Ever since the birth of the English language hundreds of years ago, the very nature of it has allowed for it to change rapidly, undergo changes in syntax, mingle with its previous rules and just fucking mutate in general, which is why the grammar of the English language is often an inconsistent clusterfuck.

>>12
And that's why we love it!

Whether or not something sounds natural is the ultimate rule, you know.

Take a look at every other language out there and study them, not for one semester but for years. They're all fucked.
You're fucked for posting that in English faggot.

If you don't like it, don't speak it.
Isn't that right?

Languages are not always what you learnt at institutes or lessons abroad. There is nothing wrong to talk like that or go outside what is considered "ungrammatical" really.

Bien, aquí la gente pasándola bien. ¿7 Kilómetros? ¿por? ¿estuviste correteando a una nena? ;)

Hola, llamenme kero, para aquellos que quieran aprender espanol o tengan dudas, pueden consultarme, ninguna duda es tonta, es mas tonto quedarselas. No soy ningun maestro XD solo alguien que cayo por accidente aqui y siempre tiene deseos de ayudar
Espty disponible las 24 horas del dia... o almenos la mayoria de ellas XD, les dejo mi MSN.

Hi, callme kero, for those who rally wish to learn spanish of have any questions, you can drop me a line and ill help you gladly, no question is dumb, what is really dum is to keep it.
Now now, im not any teacher XD just someone who found this little forum ann i very much like to help anyone. Im available 24 hours a day... or atleast most of them XD. Ill leave you with my MSN.

kerberos_alpha2 (at) hotmail(dot) com

no hacker bullshit, no tricky mail, just my regular MSN
no tonterias de hackers o correos falsos, solo mi MSN

>>24
Oye kero, tu inglés es fatal. Si quieres ayudar a principiantes en el aprendizaje del español, debes poder comunicarte en un inglés claro y conciso y con buena ortografía, recuerda que no todos los que quieren saber español son gringos y tienes que facilitarles las cosas. No dependas de las traducciones textuales que no siempre sirven y piensa en inglés...

Para todos:
¿Quieres mejorar tus conocimientos de español? :D No dudes en escribir algo aquí y pregunta lo que que necesites, mi lengua materna es el español; sera un placer ayudarte

For everybody:
Wanna touch up your spanish skills? :D Drop a line and ask anything, I'm a native spanish speaker; I'll be glad to help you

>>26
Maybe it's kero and not Kero.

Buenos días :-)

Saludos desde Mexico!

Hola amigos. Yo tengo una vibora escueta en la pantaleta que quiere conocer.

hola http://www.ñchan.org

Hola, ¿cómo están?

russian - native
english - fluent
spanish - fluent
french - begginer
japanese - for now self study, soon ill start attendin jap courses:)
to learn list >> korean and german:)
im 17

>How many languages do you speak?
>and what languages are they?

A few.
English - Fluent
Japanese - Fluent
Dansk - A bit
Suomi - A little bit :p

>why did you learn them?

I was raised in a Japanese/American family :/ One of my newly acquired friends is Danish and I REALLY want to learn Danish <3

>and where?

0 = not at all
10 = like a native

English - 10
Japanese - 8
German - 6

English, my most fluent language
Chinese (Cantonese and Mandarin, so-so since that's my background.
Japanese, self taught and still learning.
French, Beginner level.
Italian, can hold a day-to-day conversation I guess.

Turkish: Native (Turkish parents),
Dutch: Fluent (Born and raised in Holland),
English: Fluent,
Japanese: Just started learning.

Spanish - Native
English - Pretty much flawless. I've been studying English since the age of 3 and, while my formal studies ended at the age of 16, I still read/write in English on a daily basis (Thank you, Internet!)
Italian - Studied two years and had to quit due to awful time restraints, forgot pretty much everything but re-reading my notebooks in half an hour would likely make all the stuff come back to me.
Japanese - Self-learning dummy. Can make out basic sentences and whatnot, but that's about it.

To-do:

-Latin: Formal studies will begin somewhere this year.
-Japanese: Go somewhere where I can actually begin formal studies before I end up mastering the language out of Rosetta Stone.
-Reinforce my bare knowledge of modern latin languages.
-Hungarian: Why not?
-Russian: Why not?

No, seriously, I only know two for good...

1 - English - Mother Language
2 - Cantonese (Dialect of Chinese, spoken in Hong Kong) - Second language I know

I used to know Spanish, but nah, ever since I finished that class... nah, discontinue it >.>

English -- native
Japanese -- four years of high school study, though I probably need to start over again at an entry level course
Turkish -- a year 9so far) in college. Thought it might be a fun language to learn - needless to say, it's been interesting

And I really want to learn Finnish. Such a beautiful language to listen to.

My mother language is English (British). I don't know any other languages, but I can recognise and correctly identify several foreign languages, and I'm learning Swedish (I know some words and some basic grammar).

My mother tongue is Spanish, but I speak English (I'm studying to become a translator). I am just starting learning Japanese.

ima korean but i think english sounds awesome

It really depends on who is saying it, and the tone of voice. Take Japanese, for example, the voice of a gentle character sounds beautiful, while the voice of an obnoxious character sounds ugly, even if it is the same language.

The only objective way to compare them would be to have the same person say the same thing in the same manner for each language.

to be honest, there are many chinese dialects, Cantonese is one of the chinese dialects, i can speak , Fuzhou dialects, which is Min Dong dialect, Min nan or known as "Hokkien" in south east asia. or known as "Hoklo" or "taiwan-oe" in taiwan. Other than that Hakka , Teochew , Shanghainese and more. Cantonese are just one of the dialects so are Mandarin. Due to various language in China , they choose Mandarin as their official language instead, but some can speak their native languages. Some of the Japanese word are similar to chinese, For example , (天才) Genius= Japanese - Tensai/. Mandarin - Tien Chai. Phone - Hokkien or known as Taiwanese "DienWa" Mandarin " Tien Hua" Japanese " DenWa". World - Hokkien or Taiwanese " Sekai " Mandarin " SeJie" Japanese " Sekai " There are more sound similar to Japanese.

>>81

Seriously I could not understnad a word:P

Can you make them simpler?

mandarim is the official dialect so i think you should learn mandarim first.

Eh Japanese sounds decent, but Cantonese sounds awful
Russian is the best sounding language though

nidul jigm sibal morago sala gorinya

well
basically
Cantonese sounds bit harsh
Mandarin sounds softer than Cantonese but still harsh
Japanese sounds whinny but soft
Korean sounds mono--- with the same tone

they all sound cool since they are all foriegn to me

I think that all the language sounds cool if a person with a really cool voice and tone speaks the language. But in my opinon I dont really like chinese when its spoken by people who just keeps on babbling and whos really loud. I, mostly heard the japanese language from animes so i cant really tell if its cool but i know one thing for sure that most of the girls in japan tries to make their voice cute or somthing and it sounds realy annoying. Koreans are just normal to me since its my second language.

cantonese sounds better than mandarin

korean is the shiz
KPOP FTW

> self-segratating language with built in noise resistance

what

Does "noise resistance" mean you're avoiding homonyms?

Ior languazo est eur mixtre a english et latein e't'andera*. Te allre est inre ior kaup, nont existent inre papre. Te tonoanectun, ior languazo heit... ^^

(*et te andera, prononsiat 'etandera')

>> 16

I guess you could say that, but to an extreme. For example, take the word "bado" which would block "mado" as well as "pado" because p, b, and m all share enough characteristics that all three of those words, in a noisy room would essentially sound the same.

>> 17

Er . . . sorry, I meant to say >> 17, but accidentally typoed.

>> 16

Self-segratating basically means that the language, by virtue of the rules of it's sound arrangements (phonotactical constraints), seperates itself neatly into it's individual morphemes. This is something that natural language does not do. Parsing a language correctly is the single biggest hurtle that machine translation (a la google, bablefish, etc . . .) must overcome.

I and some of my friends intentionally talk in grammatically incomprehensible manner and using uncommon shortforms so that other people won't be able to understand whatever we're discussing while in public. It is kind of fun though.

I'm working on one now that's got a grammar like Japanese and sounds like Chinese.

I wanna make one that sounds Arabic as well.

>>23 so, it is na'vi. you say.

>>24 Was Na'vi language actually developed?

googles

Wow cool, something good came out out of that picture.

Aleut and some Papuan dialects are supposed to be miserably difficult.

I'm learning Russian (7th language up to now) and it's freakingly difficult. The writing more than the speaking though...

I think the easiest language to learn would be Hindi. I understand about 60% of the language, all learned watching Bollywood movies. Never picked up a book about it, seriously. And I don't even count this as a language I know, because i haven't learned to write it yet. Maybe next year.

Thai, I've been told, is remarkably simple.

There's not much to learn about Lojban, and if you're already at least a little familiar with modern programming languages (like Javascript), you can pick it up. There's a huge lack of learning materials for non-nerds, though.

As for understanding it; well, that's another matter. Take for example, the sentence:

.i lo broda cu me ko'a.o'onai co brode.pe'a ko'e

It takes some getting used to. Even after you've learned the grammar, you might want to tell the other speaker to

.i ko jabre lonu tavla

which means "Speak slower."

Keep in mind the method of teaching is most important.

My 8+ years of French in the Canadian school system taught me almost nothing. However, after one summer of self study and four months in Quebec, I could speak and understand French fluently and a friend told me that my French accent was indistinguishable from a native speaker's.

Also, some aspects of languages come easier for some.

For me, tonal languages are extremely difficult, but I have no problem with a new alphabet (Cyrillic fluency took one week). Also, memorizing noun genders comes easily, but I have some trouble with tenses and cases (Finnish rage).

>>123

>>Thai, I've been told, is remarkably simple

I don't know about "remarkably" simple, but it shares a lot of the characteristics that make it easy to pick up the basics of many Asian languages. It's an almost-entirely isolating language, so you don't need to change word forms to conjugate or decline words. And the syntax, once you get the patterns, is pretty straightforward. Also, like most Asian languages, there are no genders, no articles, etc.

With that said, it also has its challenging aspects. There are five tones--intone the word "five" wrong and it's an obscenity; intone the word "near" wrong and it means "far." Also, it has some vowels that European-language speakers have a hard time pronouncing correctly, as well as a few tricky consonants (syllable-initial /ng/, a crucial differentiation between voiceless aspirated and non-aspirated consonants--/k/ vs. /kh/ that a lot of people can't hear, etc.) My family lived in Thailand for a while when I was in high school, and my parents didn't have an ear for the language--they learned a lot of words and basic grammar, but nobody could understand them. I, on the other hand, picked it up quite readily.

>>119

>>Mandarin Chinese is an isolating language like English

I'm not sure where you got this definition, but English is in no way an isolating language--of course, definitions vary, but no language with prefixes or suffixes of any sort (including plural markers, and most compound words) is considered isolating. Sorry, I'm not trying to be a dick, it just sprung to mind since I was writing about isolating languages just one post ago.

>>75
It's also been demonstrated that babies learn signed languages more readily than spoken languages.

interesting!

>>82

Dumbass, Italian and Spanish are mutually unintelligible. Spanish is closer to Portuguese than to Italian and it is still not the same Language.