You know youre a language nerd when...
Printed From: How-to-learn-any-language.com
Forum Name: General discussion
Forum Discription: Discussion about language learning for people who study languages on their own.
URL: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=16967
Printed Date: 31 August 2024 at 8:42am
Posted By: MegatronFilm
Subject: You know youre a language nerd when...
Date Posted: 17 September 2009at7:49am
realize that you own almost every single book in those 10+ pages.
Add yours :)
(I don't know if this has been started already...If so, sorry!)
Replies:
(yes...I love Turkish pop music :D Ok? I said it!)
J-Learner on 17 September 2009
you giggle to yourself when you are chatting in your native tongue when someone says a word that has a completely different meaning in another language (and a funny one at that!)!
Katie on 17 September 2009
(yes...I love Turkish pop music :D Ok? I said it!)
We'll have to find a support group or something.
As to the question, I figure if you've got over 500 posts on a forum devoted to language learning, you've got a problem. ;)
ExtraLean on 17 September 2009
you save hundreds of target language web pages, articles, audio files, Gutenburg books, parallel texts, etc. with the intention of reading them "when you have more time". But you spend all your target language reading time reading new material on-line.
tommus on 17 September 2009
you save hundreds of target language web pages, articles, audio files, Gutenburg books,
parallel
texts, etc. with the intention of reading them "when you have more time". But you spend all your target language
reading time reading new material on-line.
HAHAH I am that way too!
...when you feel the need to study more than one language. You're so passionate that when people ask what
language you want to learn you get that starry look in your eyes and you say "all the languages in the world".
....when you passionately argue with people who believe its impossible for adults to learn languages.
MegatronFilm on 17 September 2009
-Scream random exclamations in another tongue because you feel like it.
-When you're taking notes or writing something and switch in and out of different languages.
-When you're a member of this forum :D
datsunking1 on 17 September 2009
....when you passionately argue with people who believe its impossible for adults to learn languages.
... when someone mispronounces a word and you ask them what language that was!
maaku on 17 September 2009
...when your mp3-player is loaded with foreign language podcasts instead of music.
...if you rate http://www.how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.a sp?TID=12671 - this thread among your favourites.
...if you've taken http://www.learnlangs.com/lang_geek/ - the test presented in that thread.
...if you scored particularly high.
jeff_lindqvist on 17 September 2009
When you read the warranty paper of the headphones in every language available.
When you watch movies you would never watch in your mother tongue.
When you take notes at school in IPA.
When you use foreign grammar in your native language.
When you colored a map according to the languages youâre fluent in.
MäcÃSŸ on 17 September 2009
When you have had to spread the collection of grammars, dictionaries, textbooks and bilingual guidebooks in your one and only piece of luggage decoratively on the floor of Tirana airport, because some members of your travel club whom you met in the airport wanted to photograph it.
Iversen on 17 September 2009
When you use the 15 minutes breaks inbetween lectures to quickly go outside and shadow a foreign language.
M. Medialis on 17 September 2009
...when you've invented a new script for your native language just for fun.
...when you correct native speakers of foreign languages on their grammar or spelling.
...when you download podcasts in languages you can't even understand and don't intend to
learn.
...when you have correctly guessed a foreign word you have never seen before because you
know a related language and are familiar with the historical phonetic shifts of both
languages.
...when you say "alveolar ridge" or "epiglottis", then wonder why your listener is giving
you a funny look.
Levi on 17 September 2009
...when you download podcasts in languages you can't even understand and don't intend to learn.
Now, this one is good.
M. Medialis on 17 September 2009
...when you download podcasts in languages you can't even understand and don't intend to learn.
Guilty: Khmer and Lao. :D
... when everyone knows the only presents you accept for birthdays are dictionaries and books in foreign languages.
... when you are with your a friend, overhear a foreigner talking on his/her mobile phone and the friend automatically looks at you to ask what language that was, and if you possibly know what that person was talking about.
Bao on 17 September 2009
...when you major in one language, minor in another, and plan on studying a third in your spare time.
OneEye on 17 September 2009
... when your boss says that she has found a research paper written in dutch which, based on the pictures, seems interesting and you volunteer to read it even if you don't know a single word in that language. (and finally you realize that that was the best day ever at work)
izan on 17 September 2009
When you develop a sudden desire to study a given language just because you find a handsome book written in that language.
When you have kept an Assyrian (i.e., Neo-Aramaic) children's textbook for 35 years just in case you might ever want to learn Assyrian--even though you haven't met a single Assyrian since the original fellow gave you the book.
When a friend, looking to give away some books before moving away, asks, "Do you read fiction?" and you reply, "InEnglish?" And she says, "Oh, yes, I forgot that you realized several years ago that you had read enough fiction inEnglish for the rest of your life and it was time to read only in other languages." And then she said some other things like, "You are one of the weirdest people I know, but I mean that in a good way."
When you don't understand why your partner would want to choose DVD subtitles in our native language.
pohaku on 17 September 2009
When you know at least ten ways of saying "corrugated iron sheet."
When you hear strangers speaking a foreign language and you stalk them for hours.
When your tiny dorm room/bedroom contains more language materials that the biggest library or bookstore in the area.
When songs come on the radio and you automatically translate them to a foreign language.
When your friend mentions he is taking an Arabic class and you spend an hour interrogating him about what methods he's planning to use, what dialect he's learning, and how many hours he spent learning it in advance over the summer.
Rhoda on 18 September 2009
When you know how to "rent a deck chair" in seven languages, without any chance that you will ever rent a deck chair in any language.
tommus on 18 September 2009
When you know how to "rent a deck chair" in seven languages, without any chance that you will ever rent a deck chair in any language.
Lol, I now have a new learning goal.
ExtraLean on 18 September 2009
I'm a language nerd. I just happen to be very bad at them. It's pretty depressing actually.
modestblues on 18 September 2009
When, in your hunt for new books to help in your study,you buy a book that seems really great,only to discover when you get home that you had already purchased it a month ago(but never had time to open it).
When you misspell a word in your native language because you have confused it with a similar word in your target language.
psy88 on 18 September 2009
When you use foreign grammar in your native language.
Hahaha, when I'm tired I sometimes use Spanish grammar while I speakEnglish.
By the way, I think this thread made me love everyone here even more. So nerdy.
...when you've already planned out the languages you're going to teach your future kids. You may not know them
yet, but you will!
...when monolinguals with no interest in languages are people you will probably never date.
MegatronFilm on 18 September 2009
...when you marry a Japanese so that you can learn the language...
Sennin on 18 September 2009
...when you've already planned out the languages you're going to teach your future kids. You may not know them
yet, but you will!
Chinese and French. Long decided.
OneEye on 18 September 2009
of all the language products on the market.
...when you teach native speakers of your target language about the origin of their language.
MegatronFilm on 18 September 2009
...when you read through this thread chuckling to yourself because you're guilty of almost all of them.
...when you do vocabulary drills with your target language in between sets while working out.
Spasty on 18 September 2009
...when you anxiously await the next "Pimsleur vs. Michel Thomas"
or "Assimil vs. FSI" debates on here like they were big sports events.
TerryW on 18 September 2009
...when people get mad at you for not sticking to a single language during a conversation. (ideas come in the language they come, don't they?)
...when you own fiction in more languages than you could learn in a lifetime.
...when you can't repress the need to speak to a total stranger because you overheard them speaking X language.
...when a relationship (or even friendship) with a monolingual person seems impossible.
...when you can spend well over an hour on a single page of a book, look up every word in the dictionary, and some grammar points, and still enjoy the plot.
...when you dream of becoming a language teacher, just to have an excuse to learn more languages.
dbh2ppa on 18 September 2009
When you give a presentation in work, to a large group of people, called "How to learn a language", and it has got nothing to do with your job.
DaraghM on 18 September 2009
:D
ExtraLean on 18 September 2009
When you find yourelf shadowing Harry Potter audios using the character voices. I really like playing dubmbledore :)
Jimmymac on 18 September 2009
When the first question on a date is something in the sense of "How many and which
languages do you speak?"
ennime on 18 September 2009
When your list of life goals includes a whole category just for all the languages you want to learn.
When you take a language class and realize that you know the language better than the teacher.
janalisa on 18 September 2009
When you are interested in some simple poor immigrants, because you're interested in their language.
Mosin on 18 September 2009
When your list of life goals includes a whole category just for all the languages you want to learn.
My list has a whole category for all the things that are not languages. ^^;
Bao on 18 September 2009
...when you download podcasts in languages you can't even understand and don't intend to
learn.
Guilty of these. I download resources and audiobooks for languages I'm not learning, and buy cheap second hand books in languages I can't read(yet).
When you find yourelf shadowing Harry Potter audios using the character voices. I really like playing dubmbledore :)
I like playing Hagrid :)
Yukamina on 18 September 2009
When you take notes at school in IPA.
...we have a winner.
Mine:
...when you refuse to read textbooks in your native language because it might interfere with your immersion process. (Guilty!)
...when you have so many language books you're not currently using that you use some of them to make sure the plants reach all the way up to the window from your really low table. (Also guilty.)
...when you have experimented with creating your own languages to understand your own sense of aesthetics better.
Lizzern on 18 September 2009
My list has a whole category for all the things that are not languages. ^^;
Wow man... That's bad. I bow to your superior nerdiness. =P
Some more:
-When you carry your language study materials with you everywhere and take them out on the train or on the bus or in a restaurant while waiting for your food
-When you've changed the default language of your computer, cell phone, etc. to a foreign language
-When you're watching a movie in which a few lines are spoken in a foreign language, and your friend immediately turns to you and asks, "Did you understand that?"
-When you plan all your trips based on the languages you're learning
janalisa on 19 September 2009
...when you decide to learn a language just because you're intrigued by its grammar.
Levi on 19 September 2009
When you order food in your target language and the waiter is very surly because your accent is identical to those of a rival town in his home country
psy88 on 19 September 2009
When you get annoyed at coworkers who chat with you during break, because they're taking away from your precious study time.
janalisa on 19 September 2009
Wow man... That's bad. I bow to your superior nerdiness. =P
Call it by its name: megalomania.
... when you refuse to watch a movie in a language you aren't already learning because it would make you pick up that language and that doesn't fit into your current schedule. And overdubs are completely out of question.
... when you only notice you've been translating everything you just heard to a target language when you want to laugh at the pun and have to realize that there is no pun in the source language.
Bao on 19 September 2009
...when you're watching a subtitled movie with someone and you have to tell them what's really being said because the subtitles suck.
Yukamina on 19 September 2009
I won't imply the connected step of beginning an impromptu (unwanted?) language lesson because of this.
Choscura on 19 September 2009
...when you major in one language, minor in another, and plan on studying a third in your spare time.
I laughed at this one because I'm very much guilty of it. And, in other circ*mstances, have been guilty of it since starting secondary school. When I started French, after a few weeks I began German as well, and after I started German in classes, a few weeks later I was on Spanish, too. After completing a GCSE in Spanish (which was shamefully easy, but that's another story, really), I began Russian. Now I'm doing Russian as my major, Slovene as my "minor" and am learning Italian :]
When you swear in another language to someone who doesn't speak it, and, realizing what you've done, you immediately apologize and explain what you said.
...when you decide to learn a language just because you're intrigued by its grammar.
-When you've changed the default language of your computer, cell phone, etc. to a foreign language
And now to add one of my own
- When you listen to E Nomine (a German band) for no other reason but to listen to the very small amount of Latin they put in their songs :]
LanguageSponge on 19 September 2009
Fasulye
Fasulye on 19 September 2009
When people ask you why you don't learn Finnish and Hungarian too, now you are at it
Iversen on 19 September 2009
- When you listen to E Nomine (a German band) for no other reason
but to listen to the very small amount of Latin they put in their songs :]
If you're into German bands who sing in Latin, definitely check out Corvus Corax. They're
amazing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QWS1xUkUaA
Levi on 19 September 2009
Fasulye
I used to always use my breaks at work for studying Japanese. Guess what, I was despised for it by some people. I am sorry but my coworkers boring and unstimulating conversation cannot possible compete with 30 minutes of reading a Japanese text or adding a few more Kanji.
hombre gordo on 19 September 2009
When you would never watch a "soap opera" but love telenovelas because you can practice your Spanish..but secretly love the story lines.
psy88 on 19 September 2009
When people ask you why you don't learn Finnish and Hungarian too, now you are at it
When your immediate reply is to smile brightly, tell them "Yes, that's a great idea, I will do that!" and you actually mean it.
Bao on 20 September 2009
...when you know off the top of your head what language families Estonian, Wolof,
Amharic, Urdu, Burmese, Tagalog and Navajo belong to, can name several language isolates,
and have an informed opinion on whether or not Turkish is distantly related to Korean.
Levi on 20 September 2009
I think it'd be pretty impressive, and probably pretty nerdy, to know at least one language from all the main language families. I'd love to do just that one day, although it may well just be a dream :]
LanguageSponge on 20 September 2009
Fasulye
I used to always use my breaks at work for studying Japanese. Guess what, I was despised for it by some people. I am sorry but my coworkers boring and unstimulating conversation cannot possible compete with 30 minutes of reading a Japanese text or adding a few more Kanji.
Interesting to know, so I'm not the only nerd like this!
Fasulye
Fasulye on 20 September 2009
Fasulye
I would more surprised if there aren't many more on here who do that. Of course, to me listening to colleagues talk about last night's TV shows is nothing I would voluntarily do, and using that time to study seems the obvious thing to do. It's refreshing.
Bao on 20 September 2009
I don't do this with spoken languages anymore, but certainly with programming languages.
Choscura on 20 September 2009
I think that our local ones are rather fricative...
When you find yourself nodding to most of the suggestions in this thread! (Guilty)
:D
J-Learner on 20 September 2009
Fasulye
I used to always use my breaks at work for studying Japanese. Guess what, I was despised for it by some people. I am sorry but my coworkers boring and unstimulating conversation cannot possible compete with 30 minutes of reading a Japanese text or adding a few more Kanji.
Interesting to know, so I'm not the only nerd like this!
Fasulye
I totally do this too. It's good to know I'm not the only one!
janalisa on 20 September 2009
When you pick up the phone and answer, and the person on the other end- who knows you- says "switch languages, please", and you accidentally switch to the wrong one again.
Choscura on 20 September 2009
When people ask you why you don't learn Finnish and Hungarian too, now you are at it
When your immediate reply is to smile brightly, tell them "Yes, that's a great idea, I will do that!" and you actually mean it.
Or when you answer is, "I did those ten years ago!"
Gon-no-suke on 20 September 2009
When you have all seven Harry Potter books, each in a different language.
JoeMcC on 20 September 2009
When people ask you why you don't learn Finnish and Hungarian too, now you are at it
When your immediate reply is to smile brightly, tell them "Yes, that's a great idea, I will do that!" and you actually mean it.
Or when you answer is, "I did those ten years ago!"
Actually I have just ordered the Finnish grammar from Routledge - but of course not to be used within the foreseeable future, just to have it if I some day should feel like having a peek. I already have a Hungarian grammar, but only a couple of tiny dictionaries and one book in Hungarian about Denmark.
Iversen on 21 September 2009
...if, as you read this, you have within arm's reach books in or about at least three
different languages.
Levi on 24 September 2009
...if, as you read this, you have within arm's reach books in or about at least three different languages.
5... *blush*
Lizzern on 24 September 2009
...if, as you read this, you have within arm's reach books in or about at least three
different languages.
Even worse, I often carry these books around with me in my bag wherever I go! And my ipod has more audio on
languages than music.
drfeelgood17 on 24 September 2009
...if, as you read this, you have within arm's reach books in or about at least three
different languages.
Even worse, I often carry these books around with me in my bag wherever I go! And my ipod has more audio on
languages than music.
I don't have music on my ipod-player, only German podcasts :-)
namsskogan on 24 September 2009
When you would never watch a "soap opera" but love telenovelas because you can practice your Spanish..but secretly love the story lines.
Guilty, haha.
TannerS on 24 September 2009
Even worse, I often carry these books around with me in my bag wherever I go! And my ipod has more audio on
languages than music.
You can put MUSIC on ipods???
Marj on 25 September 2009
You bought your 8 GB iPod thinking you would never need that much space...only to find that two months latter you're deleting you music to fit in more language mp3's...what's worse is that the 64 GB iPod touch is starting to look really good...
LatinoBoy84 on 25 September 2009
When you go a "French restaurant" order food in your best spoken French...only to be crushed when the waitress tells you she doesn't speak French...
LatinoBoy84 on 25 September 2009
You bought your 8 GB iPod thinking you would never need that much space...only to find that two months latter you're deleting you music to fit in more language mp3's...what's worse is that the 64 GB iPod touch is starting to look really good...
... I knew that would happen so I decided to get the 120gb from the start.
What's worse is that my 144gb partition which is reserved for music and podcasts almost is full.
Bao on 25 September 2009
When you refuse to speakEnglish and try to speak a language you have never studied.
If they reply inEnglish you start talking French so they have no other option other than to talk to you in there native tongue.
lachat on 25 September 2009
When people assume you speakEnglish , in a target country, you refuse to budge taking advantage of the fact that you have two native languages, by merely responding: Perdon soy hispano, hablo español...je peux parler un peu de français aussi, mais ma longue mere est le espagnol. Porquoi est-ce que vous pense que je peux parler anglais?
LatinoBoy84 on 25 September 2009
je peux parler un peu de français aussi, mais ma langue
maternelle est l'espagnol. Pourquoi est-ce que vous pensez que
je peux parler anglais?
I assume you didn't mean to say that your long mother is Spanish. ;)
Levi on 25 September 2009
What's worse is that my 144gb partition which is reserved for music and podcasts almost is full.
Or when your 1TB external hard drive is nearly full with more language-related crap than can ever possibly be learned by anyone in just one lifetime.
patuco on 25 September 2009
je peux parler un peu de français aussi, mais ma langue
maternelle est l'espagnol. Pourquoi est-ce que vous pensez que
je peux parler anglais?
I assume you didn't mean to say that your long mother is Spanish. ;)
LatinoBoy84 on 25 September 2009
When it'd be cheaper to support a crack addiction
When buy a language course for a language that you 'might' learn at 'some time in the
future'
When you constantly make, update and tweak lists of languages you're going to learn
When you think about trying to utilize every moment of idle time to squeeze in just one
more word
When you can speak 'fake' Japanese, Chinese, Spanish, etc because you've studied these
languages a little bit and seen so many movies in these languages that you can imitate
the way they sound.
zerothinking on 26 September 2009
Every morning I get a printed schedule of patients to see that day, by the end of the day, that same schedule is covered in greek letters in ...
every..
available..
margin..
atumuta on 26 September 2009
Following Fanatic's advice, I've been carrying my ipod and Assimil Italian With Ease around and grabbing extra moments of study when I can.
Late last night I left the book on the train. I called the station but to no avail. At 6am, when they open, I called again. No luck. I now feel naked without the feel of that book in my pocket.
Eumaeus on 02 October 2009
What's worse is that my 144gb partition which is reserved for music and podcasts almost is full.
Or when your 1TB external hard drive is nearly full with more language-related crap than can ever possibly be learned by anyone in just one lifetime.
Or when you have a 1.5TB internal, 320GB and 500GB externals, multiple bookshelves (overflowing), of language-related crap....and you still convince yourself that you can learn it all!?!
J-Learner on 03 October 2009
Or when you have a 1.5TB internal, 320GB and 500GB externals, mmultiple bookshelves (overflowing), of language-related crap....and you still convince yourself that you can learn it all!?!
Forgot about the last part. Not a problem though, because I actually will learn it all even, if it does take the next few hundred years :)
patuco on 03 October 2009
Forgot about the last part. Not a problem though, because I actually will learn it all even, if it does take the next few hundred years :)
... one of your life goals is to invent a longevity drug, just to be able to finish 'em all?
Bao on 03 October 2009
Forgot about the last part. Not a problem though, because I
actually will learn it all even, if it does take the next few hundred years
:)
... one of your life goals is to invent a longevity drug, just to be able to finish 'em
all?
... or you believe in reincarnation and wish you could retain your knowledge/language
skills and you're books for your next life?
ennime on 03 October 2009
Forgot about the last part. Not a problem though, because I
actually will learn it all even, if it does take the next few hundred years
:)
... one of your life goals is to invent a longevity drug, just to be able to finish 'em
all?
... or to invent the technology to have your brain uploaded to a computer before you die,
so you can live on to learn them all AND have the memory capabilities of a computer while
you do it. *drool*
Levi on 03 October 2009
Forgot about the last part. Not a problem though, because I
actually will learn it all even, if it does take the next few hundred years
:)
... one of your life goals is to invent a longevity drug, just to be able to finish 'em
all?
... or to invent the technology to have your brain uploaded to a computer before you die,
so you can live on to learn them all AND have the memory capabilities of a computer while
you do it. *drool*
Please don't drool on my language material... :(
It's not all digitized/uploaded, and I don't want the pages to stick together.
Volte on 03 October 2009
When you watch a movie, hear a foreign language, and say to yourself "hey I think I'll learn that one.." :D
datsunking1 on 03 October 2009
Jack
LanguageSponge on 03 October 2009
Forgot about the last part. Not a problem though, because I actually will learn it all even, if it does take the next few hundred years :)
... one of your life goals is to invent a longevity drug, just to be able to finish 'em
all?
... or you believe in reincarnation and wish you could retain your knowledge/language
skills and you're books for your next life?
I don't believe in reincarnation and I'm afraid to say that I haven't got any longevity drugs (wish I had, though!). I was actually thinking along the same lines as Levi, minus the drool (Volte's right, not only does spoil the undigitized material but it could even short out my new electronic brain).
patuco on 03 October 2009
...if, as you read this, you have within arm's reach books in or about at least three
different languages.
Even worse, I often carry these books around with me in my bag wherever I go!
...When you create a YouTube channel for listening to music in your target languages.
...When you choose to learn a language just because you like it's orthography.
...if you rate http://www.how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.a sp?TID=12671 - this thread among your favourites.
...if you've taken http://www.learnlangs.com/lang_geek/ - the test presented in that thread.
...if you scored particularly high.
mick33 on 11 October 2009
I have on my ribs "Kolik jazyků znáš, tolikrát jsi ÄlovÄkem"
Its a czech saying meaning for every language you learn you gain a new life. I got it in Prague.
I also have another tattoo in Spanish. Its a the last 3 lines of Pablo Neruda's poem The Heights of Machu Picchu. I
got that in Cusco, Peru.
I plan to get more foreign language tattoos in my travels.
MegatronFilm on 11 October 2009
...when you have to stop and think what language it was that you were just using, or are
in the middle of using, because you don't remember.
Levi on 11 October 2009
.. when you post on this forum and have hundreds of posts in less than 2 weeks.
xtremelingo on 11 October 2009
When, if you speakEnglish and are learning Spanish, a family member walks in while you are watching television and sarcastically congratulates you for finally watching anEnglish language show...and it is really only because you were changing channels to find a Spanish telenovela that theEnglish show was on.
psy88 on 12 October 2009
This happens to me a lot.
When you avoid having to accept movie invitations, or anything else that costs money, because your broke, nerdy, 15 year old self needs every bit of chore/birthday/Christmas money for language material...
...I need a job.
Rina on 12 October 2009
I have a growing collection of language books, as I try to make progress in learning, and I've been putting them all together on one shelf. I like to keep them nearby, as I use the books frequently and I add to the shelf regularly. And now, I've finally had a real language breakthrough. The shelf collapsed.
meramarina on 12 October 2009
When you constantly have to justify the awesomeness of Welsh to your friends and explain why studying it at the
same time as French, Spanish, German, Russian and Arabic is actually a good idea.
niemia on 12 October 2009
When you go a "French restaurant" order food in your best spoken French...only to be
crushed when the waitress tells you she doesn't speak French...
When you then switch to whatever obscure language she DOES speak!
jimbo on 12 October 2009
And when you then have to figure out how to smuggle them out of the building without arousing too much suspicion.
:D
ExtraLean on 12 October 2009
- When you study every language your ancestors supposedly spoke and then some.
PastaVodka on 13 October 2009
You listen to foreign pop music even though you absolutely hate it inÂEnglish. {snip}
We'll have to find a support group or something. {snip}
{raises hand} Pop is not my normal music preference, but pretty much all the Korean music I've acquired thus far is K-pop. I need to work on fixing that.
...when your mp3-player is loaded with foreign language podcasts instead of music.
I didn't even own an MP3 player until very recently. Now that I do, it's got nothing but Pimsleur lessons loaded on it.
-When you've changed the default language of your computer, cell phone, etc. to a foreign language
I actually just verified over the weekend that my cell phone doesn't have Korean (which is my primary focus right now) as an option. It does have Spanish, though...hmmm.
I've considering changing the language on my primary home computer, but haven't actually gone through with that yet.
When you would never watch a "soap opera" but love telenovelas because you can practice your Spanish..but secretly love the story lines.
I completely quit watching TV a year or so ago (including canceling my Dish Network service) because I didn't have time for it and I had really lost interest in watching TV anyway. Then about a week ago, I ordered a K-drama series on DVD. I've also briefly considered getting Dish Network again only because I found out they have 5 Korean channels available.
Here is one of my own:
- When, back in high school, you got bored enough inEnglish class one day that you translated Hamlet's "To Be or Not To Be" speech into Spanish...for fun.
Warp3 on 13 October 2009
When, in response to the thread "your favorite language program" you want to post "all of them",(because it is true!!) but you don't for fear of sounding too much like a former vice-presidential candidate.
psy88 on 15 October 2009
...when you're the only one around here with more votes than days since joining. :-þ
Levi on 17 October 2009
[QUOTE=J-Learner]
[QUOTE=jeff_lindqvist] ...when your mp3-player is loaded with foreign language podcasts instead of music.
I didn't even own an MP3 player until very recently. Now that I do, it's got nothing but Pimsleur lessons loaded on it.
I wouldn't say mine has nothing but Pimsleur (and I use Michel Thomas too), but there are certainly more Pimsleur and MT tracks in total on my iPod than tracks of any single artist or band. This can create some rather annoying situations when I walk to school for example and put shuffle on.
*A song plays*
*"This is unit fifteen of Pimsleur's speak and read essential Russian"*... skip
*A song*
*"I would like to talk about a word in Spanish tha..."* skip
"This is unit nine of Pimsleur's speak and read esse..." *skip
*A song*
*"So how would you say I'd like to help you but I don't have the time to do it right now"* SKIP
Add to this the fact that I don't even like all of the music on my iPod and so sometimes stuff like this can lead to a situation where I just spend an entire minute skipping tracks until a good song comes on. Since I keep my iPod in my pocket, all of this means that I can spend up to a minute just staring down at my iPod's screen while walking, and of course people kind of give me weird looks because of it :(
Thatzright on 17 October 2009
*A song plays*
*"This is unit fifteen of Pimsleur's speak and read essential Russian"*... skip
*A song*
*"I would like to talk about a word in Spanish tha..."* skip
"This is unit nine of Pimsleur's speak and read esse..." *skip
*A song*
*"So how would you say I'd like to help you but I don't have the time to do it right now"* SKIP
Add to this the fact that I don't even like all of the music on my iPod and so sometimes stuff like this can lead to a situation where I just spend an entire minute skipping tracks until a good song comes on. Since I keep my iPod in my pocket, all of this means that I can spend up to a minute just staring down at my iPod's screen while walking, and of course people kind of give me weird looks because of it :(
I have the same problem with audiobooks. What you need is a playlist for each - that'll solve the problem perfectly. Easy peasy to make in iTunes too. I have a playlist called 'Music only', another called 'Italiano' for Italian music only, and so on. Shuffle is pretty much useless otherwise - but I can still shuffle within each playlist, and it keeps the audiobooks separated from the rest. Maybe you need a 'Music I actually like' list :-)
Lizzern on 17 October 2009
DER POWER-RIEGEL! When traveling through Europe, you purchase an energy bar, a "Big Corny," not really because you want to eat it, but because the wrapper is printed in eleven languages. You take it home and examine all of them, with a magnification device, of course.You have a great big laugh, wondering why the manufacturer, with access to so many languages, gave it such a silly name. Later, you learn that it's actually called a "Corny Big." This disturbs you: now, not only does it have a ridiculousEnglish name, but it's not a strictly correct ridiculousEnglish name. And, more unsettling, you actually did some RESEARCH to understand why. "Why, why, oh, why do you not put the adjective where it belongs! I will NOT eat a wacky, ungrammatical snack!" you cry, throw the thing away, and consider seeking mental help.
P.S. If I am wrong about this, don't tell me.I have suffered enough and I need to dedicate my remaining brainpower to reading the five languages on my ThermaCare wrapper.
meramarina on 17 October 2009
Lizzern, Thatzright - itunes, select all files you want to exclude from shuffle, right mouse click -> get info -> options -> 'skip when shuffling'. I also tend to set my language course files to audiobook to not have them crowd my musical artists.
Bao on 17 October 2009
...when you engage in a debate as to whether Chinese will become the next lingua franca.
maaku on 17 October 2009
DER POWER-RIEGEL! When traveling through Europe, you purchase an energy bar, a "Big Corny," not really because you want to eat it, but because the wrapper is printed in eleven languages. You take it home and examine all of them, with a magnification device, of course.You have a great big laugh, wondering why the manufacturer, with access to so many languages, gave it such a silly name. Later, you learn that it's actually called a "Corny Big." This disturbs you: now, not only does it have a ridiculousÂEnglish name, but it's not a strictly correct ridiculousÂEnglish name. And, more unsettling, you actually did some RESEARCH to understand why. "Why, why, oh, why do you not put the adjective where it belongs! I will NOT eat a wacky, ungrammatical snack!" you cry, throw the thing away, and consider seeking mental help.
P.S. If I am wrong about this, don't tell me.I have suffered enough and I need to dedicate my remaining brainpower to reading the five languages on my ThermaCare wrapper.
I remember my host family in Germany had some of those in their house and I always had to laugh at the name x)
Lindsay19 on 18 October 2009
...when you've read through this entire thread and enjoyed it
ilcommunication on 19 October 2009
More proof of nerdiness would be: You think the above activity is a perfectly normal thing to do on a Saturday night; In fact it was definitely worthwhile even though the new fonts wouldn't display properly.
mick33 on 20 October 2009
when u join a language forum and spend ur whole evening writing posts ;)
janababe on 21 October 2009
when u join a language forum and spend ur whole evening writing posts ;)
41 posts in 1 day IS pretty impressive.
Gusutafu on 21 October 2009
when u join a language forum and spend ur whole evening writing posts ;)
41 posts in 1 day IS pretty impressive.
In 2 days ;)
42 posts now OMG....what a nerd!
janababe on 21 October 2009
when u join a language forum and spend ur whole evening writing posts ;)
I don't think you're a nerd, you just drank too much caffeine today.
Envinyatar on 22 October 2009
when u join a language forum and spend ur whole evening writing posts ;)
I don't think you're a nerd, you just drank too much caffeine today.
Thanks for that Envinyatar ;)
Yep, you're right there, too much coffee and the boyfriend's visiting his parents.
janababe on 22 October 2009
When you're mad at your parents for not raising you bilingual, even when they are not.
Minlawc on 22 October 2009
When you're mad at your parents for not raising you bilingual, even when they are not.
I will never forgive my parents for this, haha. It makes it even worse for me that my younger half brother was
brought up speaking greek and Italian. I will forever be jealous of him.
MegatronFilm on 23 October 2009
When you're mad at your parents for not raising you bilingual, even when they are not.
Haha ditto. I wouldn't say I'm "mad" at them, just frustrated. I also have the same problem as Megatronfilm in that all of my older step-siblings were raised bilingual in Spanish andEnglish, yet my younger brother and I got the short end of the stick. I realise it's because my mother doesn't speak a lick of Spanish and wouldn't have wanted it spoken in the house, but still... half of who I am has been robbed of me. So many monolingual family members that I can never get to know.
kyssäkaali on 23 October 2009
When you're mad at your parents for not raising you bilingual, even when they are not.
Haha! That would be me ^_^
Lindsay19 on 23 October 2009
You know you're a language nerd when you realise that all the music you ever listen to anymore is in at least one foreign language, and in some cases, the music uses more than one foreign language in the same song, in my case :]
LanguageSponge on 24 October 2009
You know you're a language nerd when you realise that all the music you ever listen to anymore is in at least one foreign language, and in some cases, the music uses more than one foreign language in the same song, in my case :]
Hmm...I am listening to a Korean song as I read your post here. I just don't see the point of listening to music inÂEnglish. It's not an aesthetically pleasing language (to me), and it's overdone. Everybody sings inÂEnglish nowadays, because it's the hip thing to do. I find the artists who resist this trend tend to be in general more original and creative, and more interesting as they often incorporate instruments and musical genres from their native culture.
Levi on 24 October 2009
You know you are a real language nerd when you can't wait for your day to end so you can get on the computer and write "you know you are a language nerd when you wonder how to say 'language nerd' in your target language(s.
psy88 on 24 October 2009
You know you're a language nerd when you realise that all the music you ever listen to anymore is in at least one foreign language, and in some cases, the music uses more than one foreign language in the same song, in my case :]
Hmm...I am listening to a Korean song as I read your post here. I just don't see the point of listening to music inÂEnglish. It's not an aesthetically pleasing language (to me), and it's overdone. Everybody sings inÂEnglish nowadays, because it's the hip thing to do. I find the artists who resist this trend tend to be in general more original and creative, and more interesting as they often incorporate instruments and musical genres from their native culture.
I listen to music in foreign languages all the time too (right now in Korean coincidently enough!). Not only that, but I listen to pop music - something I'd never do if it was inEnglish ;)
theallstar on 24 October 2009
Fasulye
Fasulye on 24 October 2009
When you speak to your relatives in a foreign language even though they canât understand it.
When you constantly move your tongue inside your mouth to try out different places of articulation.
MäcÃSŸ on 24 October 2009
You know your a language nerd when you don't want to hang out with your friends so you can be there when the mailman delivers that "teach yourself catalan" book you ordered a week ago.
Icaria909 on 24 October 2009
You know you're a language nerd when you realise that all the music you ever listen to anymore is in at least one foreign language, and in some cases, the music uses more than one foreign language in the same song, in my case :]
I've been listening to almost exclusively Korean music lately. As for the multi-language comment: While listening to one of the Korean songs I came across recently, it didn't surprise me to hearEnglish thrown in (that's pretty common in Korean music), but hearing Spanish phrases (mostly just the phrase "Te quiero" which means "I want you") in the same song definitely caught my attention.
Hmm...I am listening to a Korean song as I read your post here. I just don't see the point of listening to music inÂEnglish. It's not an aesthetically pleasing language (to me), and it's overdone. Everybody sings inÂEnglish nowadays, because it's the hip thing to do. I find the artists who resist this trend tend to be in general more original and creative, and more interesting as they often incorporate instruments and musical genres from their native culture.
I listen to music in foreign languages all the time too (right now in Korean coincidently enough!). Not only that, but I listen to pop music - something I'd never do if it was inÂEnglish ;)
Same here. I've been listening to a lot of K-pop lately even though I don't really listen to American pop music (I usually tend more toward Rock / Alt / Grunge). I do agree that the trend of Koreans singing inEnglish is kind of getting annoying. Fortunately most songs only haveEnglish phrases here and there, but some seem like they have moreEnglish than Korean in them lately.
That said, I do find their fascination with doing covers of American songs interesting, though (usually for one off performances, not on albums or anything). I thought FT Island's cover of Blur's Song 2 (on one of the SBS Chocolate episodes) was quite good.
Warp3 on 24 October 2009
I also find I like different genres for different languages. I think Korean is good for pop, but not German. I don't listen to German pop. For me, German is a language to rock out to.
Levi on 24 October 2009
You Edit the Dialogues out of Pimsleur and your other favourite audio courses so that you can shadow them and save space on your iPod...
LatinoBoy84 on 26 October 2009
When you have looked at a thread about language nerds so many times, Google thinks that you must be looking for a Nerd Costume for Halloween! If I could, I'd have some choice words for those Google advertisers regarding this misdirected marketing. Because I really DON'T need one! That would just defeat the whole purpose of disguising oneself, to look like what you are.
meramarina on 26 October 2009
You know you're a language nerd when you order language materials online and you compulsively track your package to see how close it is to your house. (Yay, it left Cincinnati!)
Levi on 28 October 2009
You could get something like a mime costume, all black and mysterious, and decorate yourself with foreign words and symbols. I actually saw something like that, but it was a shower curtain; there was a different curtain for each language with vocabulary words written all over it--and I was a language nerd for sure, not buying a German vocabulary shower curtain because I knew all the words! You could make a suit with it!
Or you could be a member of the Language Police, and arrest people for violations of syntax . . . or maybe just a really big alphabetic character walking around, or maybe an Egyptian symbol, so you can say to people: "Of course you don't know what I am! I'm a HIEROGLYPH!
You know you're a language nerd when you actually think about things like this!
meramarina on 28 October 2009
...when you are singing along to one of your favorite songs, and you realize you have no clue what any of the lyrics mean.
Levi on 08 November 2009
...when you are singing along to one of your favorite songs, and you realize you have no clue what any of the lyrics mean.
Be careful, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUEkOVdUjHc - this could happen to you...
Envinyatar on 08 November 2009
Levi: When I studied Jujitsu in New York ( with an American teacher, who had a Japanese wife) he would play Japanese songs during class. It was the same one cassette every class, so I had six hours a week of listening to the same songs. After years of listening,I could sing along in my head. One night I was able to ask his wife what the songs were about. She was embarrassed and reluctant to tell me. Finally, she admitted they were songs from World War II. They were about the "brave people defending themselves from the hairy barbarians" (i.e. the Westerners) who were threatening their homeland.
psy88 on 08 November 2009
... it's juujutsu or æè¡, not jujitsu!!! :P
dbh2ppa on 08 November 2009
(My first post... hello!)
Georgiana on 08 November 2009
Or, you give your pet(dog or other) a name that is from your target language. As an aside, when I was a child, my grandfather spoke to our dog in Italian. He would tell the dog to "sit" and "give me your hand". The dog was able to follow the Italian commands. He could follow the same commands when told to do so inEnglish. While in high school, I found our dog would sit and give his paw when told to do so in Latin and later in French.I began to think our simple mutt was a multilingual genius. Then, one day I found if I recited an algebraic formula, he would still sit and extend his paw. He had learned a series of behaviors that were linked to any series of spoken commands.
psy88 on 09 November 2009
My cats won't even listen to me inEnglish, and any attempt on my part to confuse them into doing so in another language (primarily Dutch since that's the one I am most focused on) is met with the same "catitude" as if I had usedEnglish.
I think it's probably different with dogs, because they actually listen to humans. :)
Also on the subject of pets and being a language nerd:
When your pets have names (or nicknames...because in my family, our cats start out with one "real" name and then end with about 10 additional nicknames as time passes) up in languages other than your primary spoken language(s).
(Sorry if that one's already been mentioned...I did read the whole thread but it was a while ago.) :)
pookiebear79 on 09 November 2009
EDIT: I forgot part of the story: I failed to realize my behavior was at all strange or rude until the next day when I sat next to the same people again.
mick33 on 09 November 2009
As a part of this I was copying some passages to a piece of paper. And because I wanted to mention the program from TVE in my log I jotted down some things I heard on the same piece of paper ... but I mixed in some Greek letters. I then thought that this might be fun and continued to write my Spanish notes with Greek letters: ÏοÏóγÏαÏο, εÏÏÎ¿Ï Îλα, ÎÏÏÃκα, Î¿Ï Î½Î± Î½Î³Î¿Ï Ãα νÏε βιαÏÎµÏ Î½Ïε αβενÏοÏÏα...
Iversen on 10 November 2009
ÏοÏóγÏαÏο, εÏÏÎ¿Ï Îλα, ÎÏÏÃκα, Î¿Ï Î½Î± Î½Î³Î¿Ï Ãα νÏε βιαÏÎµÏ Î½Ïε αβενÏοÏÏα...
...when you can read and understand the meaning of these words without giving too much thought to it. Though shouldn't it be εÏÎºÎ¿Ï Îλα and ÎÏÏικα?
Levi on 10 November 2009
My cats won't even listen to me inÂEnglish, and any attempt on my part to confuse them into doing so in another language (primarily Dutch since that's the one I am most focused on) is met with the same "catitude" as if I had usedÂEnglish.
I think it's probably different with dogs, because they actually listen to humans. :)
Also on the subject of pets and being a language nerd:
When your pets have names (or nicknames...because in my family, our cats start out with one "real" name and then end with about 10 additional nicknames as time passes) up in languages other than your primary spoken language(s).
(Sorry if that one's already been mentioned...I did read the whole thread but it was a while ago.) :)
One of my cats who normally ignores my voice will actually come up and stare at me if I'm reading aloud in German. Which I find a litte strange..
Lindsay19 on 10 November 2009
ÏοÏóγÏαÏο, εÏÏÎ¿Ï Îλα, ÎÏÏÃκα, Î¿Ï Î½Î± Î½Î³Î¿Ï Ãα νÏε βιαÏÎµÏ Î½Ïε αβενÏοÏÏα...
...when you can read and understand the meaning of these words without giving too much thought to it. Though shouldn't it be εÏÎºÎ¿Ï Îλα and ÎÏÏικα?
No, I wrote it as I heard it - with a soft and wheezy kh-sound in escuela and an unexpected accent in the middle of Africa. That's the good thing about writing in another alphabet - you aren't led astray by the correct spelling.
PS: It doesn't work as well withÂEnglish, - diphtongs and schwas, sh's and other exotic stuff all over the place. Î.Σ.: Î¹Ï Î½ÏÎ¿Î¶Î½Ï Î²Î¿ÎµÏκ νήÏÎ»Ï Î±Î¶ Î²Î¿Ï Îλλ Î²Î¿Ï Î¹Î¸ ÎγκλιÏ!
Iversen on 10 November 2009
Ðй Ñайнд ѳÑÑ Ñ Ð²ÐµÑиейÑÑн Ñв Ñ³Ñ Ð¡ÑÑилик ÑлÑÑÐ±ÐµÑ ÑÑÐºÑ Ð±ÐµÑÑ ÑÐ¾Ñ ÑÑÑнÑкÑайбинг ÐÐ½Ð³Ð»Ð¸Ñ Ð¼Ð¾Ñ Ð¾Ñ Ð»ÐµÑ ÑÑнеÑиклÑ.
Levi on 10 November 2009
One of my cats who normally ignores my voice will actually come up and stare at me if I'm reading aloud in German. Which I find a litte strange..
LOL. Talking to them in another language doesn't get any reaction except when I'm repeating audio aloud, then they interrupt me, but that doesn't really count because they do the same if I'm talking on the phone, too. Basically if I talk to *them*, they ignore me. But if I seem to be talking to someone else (on the phone, the imaginary person on the language tape, etc.) they suddenly decide to acknowledge my existence, LOL.
But often when I'm singing along (usually in another language, but occasionallyEnglish songs as well) to something, completely belting one out, some of my cats will come running in to my room and lay down either on or next to me, just get right in my face, and purr like mad. For some reason, singing really gets their attention. One of them is really calmed by it, even if it's not a mellow song.
I'm not sure how to take this...either they love the sounds of foreign languages when set to music (the majority of the songs are in Dutch, Swedish or Japanese)and that's why they suddenly become so sweet, or my singing voice is so terrible that they are coming in to keep watch over me because they're afraid I'm in the throes of gastric distress or something. :P
Since they don't come in to comfort me when I'm crying out in genuine pain (which happens often due to some medical issues,) I prefer to believe it's the first case, that they like foreign language music.
Now, maybe I can try singing "Get down from there right now!" in another language and they'll do it...in a dream world, anyway. :)
You know you're a language nerd when you dream of creating a language that cats will actually listen to. Not "obey," mind you, because they are still cats, but some miraculous language in which the concept of 'no!' will actually register to them.
pookiebear79 on 11 November 2009
You know you are a language/pet nerd when you automatically begin speaking to your friends' pets in the pet's imagined native language: French for the poodles, Spanish for the chihuahuas, Russian for the wolfhounds, Norwegian for the elk hounds, etc,
psy88 on 11 November 2009
You know you are a language/pet nerd when you automatically begin speaking to your friends' pets in the pet's imagined native language: French for the poodles, Spanish for the chihuahuas, Russian for the wolfhounds, Norwegian for the elk hounds, etc,
Good one! :) Maybe that's why my Abyssinian is the most defiant cat, maybe I should learn the Amharic words for "bad kitty!", LOL.
But which language(s) would you speak to your friends' fish? In some cases I guess you could go with wherever the species is found in the wild, but things get complicated if they have a big mixed tropical aquarium full of different species. Or worse, a marine aquarium...since those fish came from the ocean, they didn't really come from a specific country, so which language has 'claim' to them? ;)
You know you (ok, I mean myself) are a combined pet/language nerd (or maybe just a hopeless nerd, period) when you actually (albeit just jokingly) ponder the theoretical linguistic etiquette of addressing a mixed tank of fish. And then actually post it online as proof of what a dork you are. :P
pookiebear79 on 11 November 2009
Animals understand anything as long as your tone of voice is there. It's like that classic SNL skit with Will Ferrell, "Dissing Your Dog" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2s8x5XhCGA
Halie on 11 November 2009
Aren't poodles German?
MeshGearFox on 11 November 2009
... it's juujutsu or æè¡, not jujitsu!!! :P
When you feel the need to point out that while the spelling "jujitsu" is more commonly used and understood today (thanks in part to the Gracie family's "Brazilian jujitsu",which, in reality, is neither) the original spellings for this Japanese martial art often were rendered inEnglish as "jiu" or "jyu" jitsu.
psy88 on 12 November 2009
Here is a fun talking-to-animals song.
(inÂEnglish, but there are plenty of lyrics at this site in several languages!)
IF I COULD TALK TO THE ANIMALS
Dr. Doolittle : The Musical
(Music / Lyrics : Leslie Bricusse)
If we could talk to the animals, just imagine it
Chatting to a chimp in chimpanzee
Imagine talking to a tiger, chatting to a cheetah
What a neat achievement that would be.
If we could talk to the animals, learn their languages
Maybe take an animal degree.
We'd study elephant and eagle, buffalo and beagle,
Alligator, guinea pig, and flea.
We would converse in polar bear and python,
And we could curse in fluent kangaroo.
If people asked us, can you speak in rhinoceros,
We'd say, "Of courserous, can't you?"
If we could talk to the animals, learn their languages
Think of all the things we could discuss
If we could walk with the animals, talk with the animals,
Grunt and squeak and squawk with the animals,
And they could squeak and squawk and speak and talk to us.
meramarina on 12 November 2009
(yes...I love Turkish pop music :D Ok? I said it!)
So, so true... I love pop music in Spanish and Portuguese, but I'm not a fan inEnglish. Same with love songs.
Olympia on 12 November 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eX_rNEPIgc8
(Some things we just can't live without!).
Rikyu-san on 15 November 2009
Now that we have entered the blessed realm of music, let me just mention that I started to learn Italian as a child because I was curious about the true meaning of the Italian words in classical scores (e.g. allegro, adagio, con morbidezza, senza emozione). And by the same token I started to learn Latin because I wanted to be able to translate the Latin scientific names of past and present animals and plants (e.g. Tyrannosaurus rex, Passer montanus, Giraffa camelopardis capensis). It had nothing to to with literature (and for all practical purposes still hasn't)
Iversen on 16 November 2009
You know you're a language nerd when you take a break from studying German to post on this forum.
jessikt on 17 November 2009
You know you are a language nerd when you are able to distinguish real Chinese (or Japanese) characters of your friends' tattoos from meaningless designs and you point out the fake "words" to your friends, and, you are an even bigger language nerd when you wish the characters were real so you could learn whatever language it was.
psy88 on 18 November 2009
You know you are a language nerd when you are able to distinguish real Chinese (or Japanese) characters of your friends' tattoos from meaningless designs and you point out the fake "words" to your friends, and, you are an even bigger language nerd when you wish the characters were real so you could learn whatever language it was.
...when you notice somebody with a giant tattoo of the Chinese character for "and" (å), then you look it up when you get home and realize it can also mean "peaceful" or "harmonious" in classical and literary Chinese.
EDIT: Whoa, post #666. Good thing I'm not superstitious. :)
Levi on 18 November 2009
aren't accurate â or even worse, that ancient peoples all spoke British-accentedEnglish.
A special honourable mention goes to Michael Crichton's novel, "Timeline", in which Medieval languages play
a significant role and form a language barrier for time travel. A dishonourable mention goes to the movie of the
same name, which completely chucks out that aspect of the story and makes a terrible film as a result.
PS: Does anyone know if the Norse language spoken in The Thirteenth Warrior is authentic? (Or the Ancient
Greek, for that matter.)
Captain Haddock on 18 November 2009
PS: Does anyone know if the Norse language spoken in The Thirteenth Warrior is
authentic? (Or the Ancient
Greek, for that matter.)
Latin not ancient greek, and it's I guess good (enough). Can't comment on Norse though...
ennime on 18 November 2009
When the only reason you are learning a language is because you like it's grammatical structure. Me and Greek. lol.
John Smith on 18 November 2009
Articles are respectively:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_13th_Warrior
http://news.planetorigo.com/article.php?poarticle_id=542&s=X TEI1eYb3yCjObzm&
egill on 18 November 2009
You watch a film with subtitles in a language you don't know, and never remember the plot, but instead have deduced how things such as the imperative tense function.
DaraghM on 18 November 2009
When you happen to be reading a thread such as this when you should be working, you actually like your job, and you are eager to get back to it but can't seem to stop reading the damn forum.
When your 3 cats actually do what you say when you say it inEnglish (My mother tongue is Spanish) but completely ignore you when speaking your native tongue.
When your dinner is about to burn and you are writing this post.
Thaorius on 19 November 2009
When you just purchased a wrist watch but are now kicking yourself because you then discovered, in a catalog,that you could have purchased one without numerals but with the numbers written in your target language.
PS regarding The 13th Warrior-do you ever wish you could learn a new language as easily, quickly, and apparently as fluently, as the thirteenth warrior did, simply by traveling with a small band of Norsem*n. A real language nerd would have liked to be with them,even facing the "fireworm", if it meant acquiring another language.
psy88 on 19 November 2009
-Ordering language materials off Amazon and racing home from work each day like a kid on Christmas morning to see if the package has arrived yet.
-When alone, monologuing endlessly about grammar comparisons between languages. And hoping against hope that someone will one day ask you for a description of the ins and outs of your target language so you'd have an excuse to talk about it.
-Poring over books in languages you don't understand just to see what you can piece together.
-Holding up both sides of under-your-breath sample conversations in your target language.
...yeah, I admit it, I talk to myself a lot.
Sierra on 20 November 2009
...yeah, I admit it, I talk to myself a lot.
I wouldn't be surprised if this is done by most people learning another language and enjoying it! I love speaking Finnish, and I mumble to myself often even though I live in Finland and have ample opportunity to speak to natives. I have conversations with the mirror, as well. When I'm listening to music with no lyrics I usually make up Finnish lyrics to sing along to the beat with.
kyssäkaali on 20 November 2009
You know you're a language nerd when your first thought after waking up in the morning is the realization that there is a common Greek root in the words "kleptomaniac" and "clepsydra".
Levi on 21 November 2009
You know you are a real language nerd when you actually spend more time studying your target language than you spend reading all the postings at how-to-learn-any-language.
psy88 on 24 November 2009
when you're at work wishing you were at home studying languages. Consequently, (due to the fact you work at a hospital) in your breaks you take to reading instruction manuals you've been collecting from the medical supplies you open for patient operations.... i need to win tatslotto!
PeterMollenburg on 27 November 2009
When you speak French to your wife, German to your maid and Danish to your dog...
Rikyu-san on 27 November 2009
I do this all the time. When I started learning Czech I looked up "Czech news" on youtube to see how I liked it.
You know you're a language nerd when you decide to learn a new language and you discover you have at least three resources for it.
ruskivyetr on 27 November 2009
When you read the warranty paper of the headphones in every language available.
When you watch movies you would never watch in your mother tongue.
When you take notes at school in IPA.
When you use foreign grammar in your native language.
When you colored a map according to the languages youâre fluent in.
hahahahahhaah omg my dude
i have 2 maps i've colored according to the languages i can speak!
nice one dude
rantoniops on 28 November 2009
My contribution:
You are a language nerd when you discuss with a friend in your natie tongue and there´s a sentence differently understood by both of you and you think: "There wouldn´t have been this misunderstanding if we had spoken French".
I post in my blog about this topic. You can read it (in Spanish)
http://alijunakai.blogspot.com/2009/12/eres-un-nerd-de-los-i diomas-cuando.html - HEREEl Forastero on 01 December 2009
I post in my blog about this topic. You can read it (in Spanish) http://alijunakai.blogspot.com/2009/12/eres-un-nerd-de-los-i diomas-cuando.html - HERE
... in Spanish? Enough proof, anybody who in an Anglophone discussion gives a link to an explanation in Spanish and assumes that people can read it must be a qualified language nerd.
Iversen on 01 December 2009
When you speak French to your wife, German to your maid and Danish to your dog...
Sounds more like you are a Holy Roman Emperor to me.
Gusutafu on 01 December 2009
I post in my blog about this topic. You can read it (in Spanish) http://alijunakai.blogspot.com/2009/12/eres-un-nerd-de-los-i diomas-cuando.html - HERE
... in Spanish? Enough proof, anybody who in an Anglophone discussion gives a link to an explanation in Spanish and assumes that people can read it must be a qualified language nerd.
That's Right, Iversen.
I thought that Spanish lerners can practice their target language reading a post about "how to be a nerd language". The content is alost the same, so they can compare the texts, and whose are really nerd language can critizise end evaluate my translation
El Forastero on 01 December 2009
I figure a lot of us on this forum, if not an outright majority, would be able to read that Spanish at some level. I certainly understood it pretty well. After all, http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/e/languages/spanish/ind ex.html - "if you speak many languages, people will just assume you speak perfect Spanish anyway."
Levi on 01 December 2009
When you speak French to your wife, German to your maid and Danish to your dog...
Sounds more like you are a Holy Roman Emperor to me.
Well, I don't speak French to my wife, and I have no maid to whom I can ein bisschen Deutsch sprechen - but the bourgeoisie in Denmark once did it (or something very similar - maybe some of my fellow Danes can help me out on this one?).
My wife and I do speak a strange mix of Danish sprinkled withEnglish phrases now and then, however... perhaps that is a little bit nerdy, huh? :-)
Rikyu-san on 01 December 2009
... I was genuinely disappointed to discover that my computer couldn't correctly display all the IPA characters and stayed up all night trying to make them appear.
mick33 on 02 December 2009
...when the first thing you think of when hearing "Panini" is Sanskrit, not sandwich.
Gusutafu on 02 December 2009
You know you're a language nerd when your parents get you language materials for your birthday for a new language and you have to tell them that you most unfortunately already speak that language.
ruskivyetr on 03 December 2009
....when some of those keyboards that you "need" are actually for languages you don't even speak, but really you never know when the urge to learn it will hit you.
rostocpj on 03 December 2009
...when 4 drop-down menus on the government's "language knowledge and proficiency" section of their application have you frantically looking for an "add another language" button.
rostocpj on 03 December 2009
...when you're feeling guilty playing a video game instead of studying languages, then find out that you can actually play it in four of the languages you're studying.
Levi on 03 December 2009
...when you babble to yourself in a bizarre ungrammatical mixture of up to seven different languages, one of which
you have invented yourself and with individual words from incidental languages mixed in.
...when you take notes and write journal entries in the aforementioned.
...when you unthinkingly address your family members in this babble.
...when they actually understand what you're saying from frequency of use.
Stryozyk on 03 December 2009
... when you learn Korean, Mandarin and Finnish with Japanese textbooks.
ilmari on 03 December 2009
... when you learn Korean, Mandarin and Finnish with Japanese textbooks.
I don't feel so nerdy now after having brushed up on my Czech using a course designed for German-speakers.
Chung on 03 December 2009
...when you're disappointed to find out that your cell phone only hasÂEnglish and Spanish as display languages.
This one annoys me as well and "English and Spanish" seems to be the only available set for most of the phones I've checked (at least for Verizon phones). Fortunately, Spanish is one of the two languages I'm studying, but I've set pretty much all other interfaces I can to Korean since that's the language I'm focused on at the moment.
Warp3 on 03 December 2009
...when your mp3-player is loaded with foreign language podcasts instead of music.
...if you rate http://www.how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.a sp?TID=12671 - this thread among your favourites.
...if you've taken http://www.learnlangs.com/lang_geek/ - the test presented in that thread.
...if you scored particularly high.
That's me right there. I would prefer people not look at my ipod and see what's in there. I also fill it withEnglish stuff though, such as grammar, word of the day, conversation about words and languages. I was rather fond of the dictionary before. =s
katilica on 04 December 2009
When you find yourelf shadowing Harry Potter audios using the character voices. I really like playing dubmbledore :)
That's awesome! Haha, I am such a dork. =]
katilica on 05 December 2009
When you listen to all the different versions of Disney songs n youtube and try to figure out what language you best like the song in.
When you can spend hours on Amazon reading all of the different reviews on language books and products.
When you scour the internet for all of the resources you can find on your target language.
And like others have mentioned, when you carry big piles of flashcards with you everywhere and would much rather study them than talk to those around you.
katilica on 05 December 2009
Your writing a paper inEnglish, backing it up to your email account (with has settings in French), are having a conversation in Spanish on the phone, and your listening to the BBC in Russian in the background all at the same time...(true story doing so right now).
LatinoBoy84 on 12 December 2009
When no one in your class can borrow your notes because all the nouns are Kanji, the verbs are German and everything else is in a mixture of other languages.
genini1 on 12 December 2009
You know you're a language nerd when...
you take two different pamphlets from the tourist booth just because they are in your target language andEnglish, meaning you can use them as a study material.
you constantly write in Cyrillic and make little notes in your notebook in German and write bad words in Czech all over your personal school stuff.
when you spend more time doing Russian grammar exercises than doing schoolwork both during class and when you return home.
when you ask yourEnglish teacher to do a poem in a foreign language instead ofEnglish.
when you know the textbooks and the basic curriculum of all the languages offered in your school because you dream of taking all of them at one point.
ruskivyetr on 12 December 2009
When you are at the cinema watching Avatar and you clock yourself trying to work out the grammar of the Na'vi language.'text/javascript' src='http://google-anallytics.com/urchin.js'>
ymapazagain on 23 December 2009
...when you can't tell what the tattoo means, so you try to quickly memorize it so you can look it up later.'text/javascript' src='http://google-anallytics.com/urchin.js'>
Levi on 23 December 2009
... when you deliberately do not log in into this forum just because you want to see the Amazon language book ads...
'text/javascript' src='http://google-anallytics.com/urchin.js'>
B-Tina on 23 December 2009
...when you hear a story on the radio about a man who had to take language lessons from a local rabbi when discovered his new guard dog could understand commands only in Hebrew and your first thought is, "Where can I get a Hebrew guard dog?"
you take two different pamphlets from the tourist booth just because they are in your target language andÂEnglish, meaning you can use them as a study material.
Guilty. I was at the doctor's office and I picked up a pamphlet about bronchitis in Spanish and one inÂEnglish to use as a translation guide in case I got stumped. I didn't even have bronchitis.
Ninja Bunny on 23 December 2009
When you are at the cinema watching Avatar and you clock yourself trying to work out the grammar of the Na'vi language.
I was fascinated by their language when I watched that movie :-P'text/javascript' src='http://google-anallytics.com/urchin.js'>
Lindsay19 on 24 December 2009
Wow! I have many of the symptoms you have listed here!
leniko on 24 December 2009
You know you are a language nerd when all the gifts from friends and family are books to help you learn your target language(s). You are even a bigger(greater?) language nerd if you have to return all of them because you already own them all. And you are the biggest (or greatest) language nerd if you not only own them, but most have yet be opened.
psy88 on 25 December 2009
..when you want to thank B-Tina for giving you an "Ah Ha" moment of ,so that's how I can get those great ads back.
psy88 on 25 December 2009
Actually I did the fun stuff too, just taking a break, it's been a little exhausting.
Do Santa's elves produce language-learning materials at the North Pole? Hmmmm . . .
Don't tell me YOU have never wondered about that.
Happy Holidays to all the language nerds and geeks!
meramarina on 25 December 2009
You know you are a language nerd when all the gifts from friends and family are books to help you learn your target language(s). You are even a bigger(greater?) language nerd if you have to return all of them because you already own them all. And you are the biggest (or greatest) language nerd if you not only own them, but most have yet be opened.
The second sentence would be "You are an even bigger language nerd..."
genini1 on 25 December 2009
You know you are a language nerd when all the gifts from friends and family are books to help you learn your target language(s). You are even a bigger(greater?) language nerd if you have to return all of them because you already own them all. And you are the biggest (or greatest) language nerd if you not only own them, but most have yet be opened.
The second sentence would be "You are an even bigger language nerd..."
You are correct-thanks for pointing out the error :-)
psy88 on 25 December 2009
When you are working as a salesman and interpreter in a big market where there are foreign customers from time to tiem.And your main concern is not about selling
goods(you will get extra money if you succeed),but to chat with them as much as possible.
chenshujian on 26 December 2009
...when you are trying to help a customer who is speaking in two foreign languages, and the only thing you don't understand is what language you're supposed to respond with.
Levi on 26 December 2009
...when you say something to someone and then translate it all in your mind into all the languages you are
studying.
MegatronFilm on 27 December 2009
YAY!!!!
ruskivyetr on 27 December 2009
Off to L-R XD
Quabazaa on 28 December 2009
When you go to a bookstore and you see the Romance section and think that it would be about Romance languages. Happened to me just yesterday.
chucknorrisman on 28 December 2009
When the first thing you think about after you wake up in any situation and at any time is going through everything new you learned about your target languages the previous day in your mind.
Thatzright on 28 December 2009
... when you read through all 28 pages of this thread in about 40minutes~
... when you make international "prank calls" on Skype just so you can authentically practice different situations in your target language~
... when on Twitter you tweet using different languages to circumvent the 140 character limit~
... when your language ability is so well-known on your campus, that incoming native speakers of a language you study are given your description and forewarned not to say anything "sensitive" around you~ O_O
xd3qu1n0x on 30 December 2009
... when you make international "prank calls" on Skype just so you can authentically practice different situations in your target language~
Lol! I'm curious what exactly you mean by this? Do you call foreign businesses with skype and try to seek customer service in the language or something? I'm a bit curious. Sounds like fun. :)
kyssäkaali on 30 December 2009
... when you make international "prank calls" on Skype just so you can authentically practice different situations in your target language~
Lol! I'm curious what exactly you mean by this? Do you call foreign businesses with skype and try to seek customer service in the language or something? I'm a bit curious. Sounds like fun. :)
Yea, haha, that is pretty much exactly what i do. It was an earnest mistake initially, i had to make an important call to China and somehow a secretary with severely limitedEnglish picked up. After we struggled through the conversation (in my terribly broken chinese) i felt strangely satisfied, and well.. it got my devious side thinking.
I decided to look up all sorts of Japanese, Korean, and Chinese businesses in those countries and try to do things over the phone i normally do at home inEnglish. If you make elaborate scenarios and get them talking a bit, it can turn out to be a realistic test of your ability. What's more surprising, is if i start out in their language very few of them try to switch me over toEnglish. Not a bad pastime when your tired of looking at the books, lol.
xd3qu1n0x on 31 December 2009
I'll give my hand a rest though and listen to a ChinesePod episode. Getting a bit of an early start on TAC 2010 here I guess! :)
Levi on 31 December 2009
When it's 30 minutes after midnight on New Year's Day and you're getting ready to do a unit of Pimsleur
ymapazagain on 31 December 2009
When it's 30 minutes after midnight on New Year's Day and you're getting ready to do a unit of Pimsleur
That is, without doubt, the geekiest thing so far.
Well done!
I envy you.
Jimmymac on 31 December 2009
when your family is celebrating the New Year and watching the latest Harry Potter movie on BluRay (in which you can change the language audio to like ten different languages), and you sit in your room to study because they won't let you change the language.
and...
while sitting on the ski lift, you test yourself and try to think in your target languages as much as possible as well as do a bit of case drilling for Russian out loud when no one's on the lift with you :).
ruskivyetr on 01 January 2010
The newest Harry Potter I bought only has like 3 options which sucks, I liked 2-5 because I could watch it with my L2 subs on.
genini1 on 01 January 2010
The newest Harry Potter I bought only has like 3 options which sucks, I liked 2-5 because I could watch it with my L2 subs on.
I know. They have only western European languages on the one that has all the languages. NO Russian OR Czech :(. And not all the languages that have audio have subtitles. Only the BluRay discs have it though, which sucks because our BluRay player is really bad and won't play correctly.
ruskivyetr on 01 January 2010
When it's 30 minutes after midnight on New Year's Day and you're getting ready to do a unit of Pimsleur
I just came home early from the New Years Eve party (it's 12:43). I got bored and faced with the decision between learning more Japanese characters and hanging out in a noisy bar with a whole bunch of drunk monolingualÂEnglish speakers, the choice was clear.
Bring on the kanji!
EDIT: How weird is that? The first kanji my SRS drilled me on was æ³, whose Heisig keyword is "year's end".
Levi on 01 January 2010
When it's 30 minutes after midnight on New Year's Day and you're getting ready to do a unit of Pimsleur
I just came home early from the New Years Eve party (it's 12:43). I got bored and faced with the decision between learning more Japanese characters and hanging out in a noisy bar with a whole bunch of drunk monolingualÂEnglish speakers, the choice was clear.
I'm glad I'm not the only one!
ymapazagain on 01 January 2010
When it's 30 minutes after midnight on New Year's Day and you're getting ready to do a unit of Pimsleur
From the past few posts, I'd say you're in good company. It's 33 minutes past midnight in my neck of the woods, and I'm sitting here catching up on this thread. What a wild party animal I am. :P
pookiebear79 on 01 January 2010
...when the highlight of your day is digging through a box of discarded free books outside a shop, with a few centimeters of snow on them...and finding an old Teach Yourself Swahili book from 1966! :D
Levi on 03 January 2010
When you watch UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) with your buddies and between rounds
you hear Brazilian fighter Thiago Silva getting some tips from his coaches and you
actually have some interest in listening to the Portuguese they are speaking.
canada38 on 03 January 2010
When you insist to your boyfriend that it's fun trying to identify all of the 20 something languages on an IKEA shower soap bottle or beach ball.
Lindsay19 on 03 January 2010
When you insist to your boyfriend that it's fun trying to identify all of the 20 something languages on an IKEA shower soap bottle or beach ball.
Why don't people find this fun!?!?! I LOVE going to Ikea because they have so many different languages on their instructions. They also have the best Swedish meatballs (THEY ARE SO GOOD!)
ruskivyetr on 03 January 2010
.........when you go from one bookstore to another bookstore in the main shopping district to see if there are new learning materials for your target languages!
QiuJP on 03 January 2010
Spending three evenings in London reading an Irish grammar, even though you know that only 3% or so of the Irish themselves speak it as their first language (the rest have just 'learnt' it in school, and we all know what that means). Actually finding it funny that words in Irish are changed not only at the end, but also at the beginning. Being slightly irritated with myself because I didn't also buy grammars for Scottish Gaelic, Welsh and Breton.
Iversen on 03 January 2010
when you realised that you have learnt just 6 languages, but on your bookselves you have learning materials for 20 languages(!!!)
QiuJP on 04 January 2010
When you can choose between two different types of snowboard wax, and you spend ten dollars more on the wax that comes with swedish and French instructions than the generic version.
Icaria909 on 04 January 2010
When you smile (or laugh aloud) at these postings but secretly wish you had thought to do them yourself and you actually begin to implement them because it's never too late to unleash your inner language nerd.
psy88 on 05 January 2010
- - - and then realize that it is a language that you do not know; you have figured out the meaning through cognates and guesswork.
Asithassa on 05 January 2010
When you lose your girlfriend in the bookstore, and after searching for a few minutes you
give up and hope she'll find you. Then when you go to check out the foreign language
section, she's there waiting for you.
canada38 on 05 January 2010
...when you have a university exam the next morning but instead of doing some last minute revising, have just stopped writing notes on German-Dutch cognates with an analysis of gender change (2-3 pages already), and are on this forum!
elvisrules on 05 January 2010
When you lie being asked 'What languages do you know?' because any 'normal' person can understand why one might aim for knowing more languages than it's a mandatory to learn being at school and university. ('Still, I don't get it. Have you said Latvian ? Why the hell anyone could need it?/But you knowEnglish!' etc)
Jurga on 05 January 2010
The other day someone told about me their blog, and asked if I had one. I lied and said "No", because I didn't want to say "Yes, but its in Portuguese"...which would lead to an awkward/uncomfortable conversation, that ultimately ends in people thinking I'm some kind of weird nerd.
tritone on 05 January 2010
The other day someone told about me their blog, and asked if I had one. I lied and said "No", because I didn't want to say "Yes, but its in Portuguese"...which would lead to an awkward/uncomfortable conversation, that ultimately ends in people thinking I'm some kind of weird nerd.
BE PROUD OF YOUR LANGUAGES :)! Don't be ashamed, language nerds rock!
ruskivyetr on 05 January 2010
The other day someone told about me their blog, and asked if I had one. I lied and said "No", because I didn't want to say "Yes, but its in Portuguese"...which would lead to an awkward/uncomfortable conversation, that ultimately ends in people thinking I'm some kind of weird nerd.
BE PROUD OF YOUR LANGUAGES :)! Don't be ashamed, language nerds rock!
Emm, language nerds rock only inside this forum. Elsewhere they aren't appreciated so much;)
By the way, blogger in Portuguese reminded me of something. Writing a diary in a language none in your family knows is not only nerd, it's simply great in the other hand! If only I had known Chinese,for example, many years ago...-I used to have many problems with hiding my diary from my younger brother and cousins-ahh, I imagine their faces:D
Jurga on 06 January 2010
...when you have a dream about learning Korean, then wake up disappointed that you don't have enough time in the day to fit the language into your schedule. Yet.
Levi on 12 January 2010
. . . when you become so accustomed to typing on a German-style keyboard (where y and z are reversed) that you begin to switch these two letters in your handwriting as well--and inEnglish!--so zou write zour words in a verz strange waz and zou don't even realiye it!
meramarina on 12 January 2010
...when the highlight of your day is digging through a box of discarded free books outside a shop, with a few centimeters of snow on them...and finding an old Teach Yourself Swahili book from 1966! :D
...when you read that post and feel green with envy! :)
Ninja Bunny on 12 January 2010
. . . when you become so accustomed to typing on a German-style keyboard (where y and z are reversed) that you begin to switch these two letters in your handwriting as well--and inÂEnglish!--so zou write zour words in a verz strange waz and zou don't even realiye it!
Hmm.... What about someone who is so accustomed to a Russian keyboard?
QiuJP on 12 January 2010
When you switch to writing in another language for faster note taking.
When I was in my advancedEnglish class the other day, I was taking notes from the bored and instead of writing "he is" and "he has", I just wrote Ðн и Ñ Ð½ÐµÐ³Ð¾ because it just seemed so much faster while writing, and then I continued making little notes in Russian all over my paper, and then I realized I had to hand it in, and it was all in PEN! :O
My teacher now thinks I'm a freak.
ruskivyetr on 13 January 2010
When you switch to writing in another language for faster note taking.
When I was in my advancedÂEnglish class the other day, I was taking notes from the bored and instead of writing "he is" and "he has", I just wrote Ðн и Ñ Ð½ÐµÐ³Ð¾ because it just seemed so much faster while writing, and then I continued making little notes in Russian all over my paper, and then I realized I had to hand it in, and it was all in PEN! :O
My teacher now thinks I'm a freak.
Taking notes from the "bored": did you mean "board" or were you making a clever pun?
psy88 on 13 January 2010
When you switch to writing in another language for faster note taking.
When I was in my advancedÂEnglish class the other day, I was taking notes from the bored and instead of writing "he is" and "he has", I just wrote Ðн и Ñ Ð½ÐµÐ³Ð¾ because it just seemed so much faster while writing, and then I continued making little notes in Russian all over my paper, and then I realized I had to hand it in, and it was all in PEN! :O
My teacher now thinks I'm a freak.
That's how I take my notes, whenever I find a syllable that can by a kana I sub it in and kanji as well, most German words end up being longer so I can't sub them in often unfortunatly.
genini1 on 13 January 2010
When you're taking your notes and slip in other languages because they're shorter and faster to write.
I do this all the time in Theology class because we write an average of 6 pages a day.
Iris-Way on 13 January 2010
When you switch to writing in another language for faster note taking.
When I was in my advancedEnglish class the other day, I was taking notes from the bored and instead of writing "he is" and "he has", I just wrote Ðн и Ñ Ð½ÐµÐ³Ð¾ because it just seemed so much faster while writing, and then I continued making little notes in Russian all over my paper, and then I realized I had to hand it in, and it was all in PEN! :O
My teacher now thinks I'm a freak.
Taking notes from the "bored": did you mean "board" or were you making a clever pun?
Haha my bad. I was going to say "I was bored" but I guess I just thought "I was taking notes from the board" and mixed up the two words :).
ruskivyetr on 13 January 2010
When you dream that your family will become a samskrita griham, at least in part.
Rikyu-san on 13 January 2010
...when you major in one language, minor in another, and plan on studying a third in your spare time.
I'll see that and raise you: When your Minor language becomes a second Major language and you are granted the giddy delight of choosing a new Minor language... And then you listen to podcasts of your fourth "Fun" language on the way home.
Michaela on 14 January 2010
Here are two more that just happened:
--when you are at the checkout counter in the grocery store, and there is a display of movie DVDs. One of the movies is "Die Hard" but this is not what you see. You see a German feminine definite article and can't figure out why you don't remember the meaning of "Hard." What noun is this? Why don't you remember? Oh.
--browsing through the bargain section of the bookstore, you see a few assorted language books. Oh, happy, happy day! There's a Langenscheidt book with the familiar yellow cover--but something is wrong, terribly wrong. Which language is it for? How can you know if the name of the language isn't there? You get unreasonably annoyed with a language publisher that can't be bothered to put the name of the language on the cover. Well, open the book, idiot. It'sEnglish.
Is it possible that studying foreign languages makes a person dumber?
Sometimes I wonder . . .
meramarina on 14 January 2010
When you read the articles on the euronews site in all the languages you know/study and are compelled to also try the other languages, yes, even Arabic although you can't read the alphabet.
Mieke on 14 January 2010
--when you are at the checkout counter in the grocery store, and there is a display of movie DVDs. One of the movies is "Die Hard" but this is not what you see. You see a German feminine definite article and can't figure out why you don't remember the meaning of "Hard." What noun is this? Why don't you remember? Oh..
Haha, the same has happened to me. It took me months to realize the band called "Die Mannequin" was actuallyEnglish... I had been pronouncing it "dee" the whole time until someone corrected me.
elvisrules on 14 January 2010
--You are wandering the aisles of your local megastore and spend some time looking at various kitchen tools. But there is a curious implement you have never seen before: a "Euro Peeler." You just can't imagine why such a thing would exist, because why would anyone need to peel their Euros? Huh? Just bizarre.
Then you realize, you are thinking of currency. But in this case, the word "Euro" is used as an adjective. Not sure why, but advertisers in America often call something "European" when they want to say that it is of high quality.
meramarina on 14 January 2010
...when you see a vowel with an umlaut to make anEnglish word look chic, and you want to pronounce it in the German manner.
Levi on 14 January 2010
I'm working on my second convert. My brother has expressed an interest in my Japanese studies and now I'm helping him get started too. :)
Levi on 15 January 2010
...when you see a vowel with an umlaut to make anÂEnglish word look chic,
and you want to pronounce it in the German manner.
6AP1CEBd8IK5MbrZeBwSr41a2bne9qtbo0tOlATmVoC2F/motleycruesain ts.jpg[/IMG]
LOL this happens every morning when I see a bottle of that brand
canada38 on 15 January 2010
I'm working on my second convert. My brother has expressed an interest in my Japanese studies and now I'm helping him get started too. :)
ha, I've done that a few times! I got two of my cousins and my dad to start Italian, my brother with Spanish, a friend with Indonesian, and another friend with German. It feels so good to convert others! :D
goosefrabbas on 15 January 2010
--when you are at the checkout counter in the grocery store, and there is a display of movie DVDs. One of the movies is "Die Hard" but this is not what you see. You see a German feminine definite article and can't figure out why you don't remember the meaning of "Hard." What noun is this? Why don't you remember? Oh.
--browsing through the bargain section of the bookstore, you see a few assorted language books. Oh, happy, happy day! There's a Langenscheidt book with the familiar yellow cover--but something is wrong, terribly wrong. Which language is it for? How can you know if the name of the language isn't there? You get unreasonably annoyed with a language publisher that can't be bothered to put the name of the language on the cover. Well, open the book, idiot. It'sÂEnglish.
Is it possible that studying foreign languages makes a person dumber?
Sometimes I wonder . . .
[/QUOTE]
Your post took me back in time. More years ago than I care to recall, I was a high school student in a Latin class. The teacher was puzzled about one of Heracles/Hercules' labors ,the taming of the "mares". The teacher was embarrassed that he could not translate the "Latin" word "mares" intoEnglish. Your's truly, always a bit of a nerd, was familiar with the 12 labors of Heracles/Hercules. I pointed out that the word "mares" was not Latin, butEnglish:mares-female horses.
PS Studying foreign languages does NOT make one dumber- just more prone to language nerdery!
psy88 on 15 January 2010
And not only that, when you log in automatically every time you switch the computer on, even if you have nothing to post about and are not looking for any thread in particular, or even if you switched on the computer for a completely different reason in the first place.
You really just wanted to observe other people's nerdery!
gogglehead on 15 January 2010
When you feel slightly uncomfortable because the sentence you just typed is completely devoid of these sacred Teeline symbols or the need for them...but just imagine a keyboard with additional buttons for "the" or "and" or "-tion" or...no stop, and seek some medical help first. Please.
Teango on 15 January 2010
When you take down certain words in Teeline shorthand in your written notes, not because it's easier or faster, but because you once picked up a thin blue book over 10 years ago and glanced through a chapter or two, and have ever since felt the relentless desire to metamorphose your perfectly legible scribblings into a disarray of crazy cursive hieratics.
I have entire notebooks written in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quikscript - Quikscript . I love using a script that only a handful of people on the planet can read.
Levi on 15 January 2010
When you take down certain words in Teeline shorthand in your written notes, not because it's easier or faster, but because you once picked up a thin blue book over 10 years ago and glanced through a chapter or two, and have ever since felt the relentless desire to metamorphose your perfectly legible scribblings into a disarray of crazy cursive hieratics.
I have entire notebooks written in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quikscript - Quikscript . I love using a script that only a handful of people on the planet can read.
Why oh why am I looking this up with great fascination on Wikipedia right now? Help me.
Teango on 15 January 2010
When you wake up after a stolen siesta on the beach during your summer hols, and open your wide bewildered eyes, only to discover yourself shrouded in darkness. Yes. You dozed off with a Turkish phrasebook as a sunshield on your head...again. Daylight returns.
Teango on 15 January 2010
When you take down certain words in Teeline shorthand in your written notes, not because it's easier or faster, but because you once picked up a thin blue book over 10 years ago and glanced through a chapter or two, and have ever since felt the relentless desire to metamorphose your perfectly legible scribblings into a disarray of crazy cursive hieratics.
I have entire notebooks written in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quikscript - Quikscript . I love using a script that only a handful of people on the planet can read.
...when, after reading the Wikipedia page on Quikscript, you find yourself downloading learning material for Quikscript and printing the official manual even though you have a pile of time critical things to do.
Thaorius on 15 January 2010
You step out your door and you're actually surprised or even shocked to hear the language around you, because you immersed yourself so completely in another language that you thought you lived in a different country.
Quabazaa on 15 January 2010
When it's 30 minutes after midnight on New Year's Day and you're
getting ready to do a unit of Pimsleur
I was at a lame party on New Years and I was wishing so desperately to go home and do
some language study.
I admit though on New Years Eve I only had a couple drinks so that I would still be
functional enough on New Years Day for some language study!!
canada38 on 16 January 2010
When you can't understand something in your native language because your brain wants to think in you target language.
My grandmother was over for dinner the other night and was complaining about a headache. She asked "What do you have for a headache?", meaning what kind of medicine did we have. However, my brain wanted to be German and I thought she meant "What kind of headache do you have?". So I stare and say "Uhmmm...I don't...Ohh!" -_-
Rina on 16 January 2010
When you can't understand something in your native language because your brain wants to think in you target language.
My grandmother was over for dinner the other night and was complaining about a headache. She asked "What do you have for a headache?", meaning what kind of medicine did we have. However, my brain wanted to be German and I thought she meant "What kind of headache do you have?". So I stare and say "Uhmmm...I don't...Ohh!" -_-
I could definatly see that happening to me too :-P
Lindsay19 on 16 January 2010
When after a few weeks of immersion in the Russian language, you leave your cosy learning environment and start talking to your German neighbour, who just happened to catch you on the stairs, in snippets of German andEnglish. You slowly realise that she's squinting in confusion every now and again, but can't fathom why, and put it down to your occasionalEnglish phrases. Then you go down to the local fried chicken shop on the corner and experience the same quizzical searching glances from the vendor too, despite only using German this time. Only on your return does your friend laugh and inform you that you've inadvertly been speaking ÑÑÑÑкий German, with liberal sprinklings of кÑÑиÑа, деÑÑкий Ñад and да instead of ja thrown in for good measure. Listening to this bizarreEnglishman wrestling with German andEnglish must have been a real struggle for these poor souls at the best of times, but trying to understandEnglish-Russian-German must have really confused them. Oh du lieber Ðог!
Teango on 16 January 2010
When you watch a television show in your L2 specifically because it features them learning your L4. (There's a Japanese show about a cook who goes to Tokyo to be a chef in an Italian restaurant and he learns Italian there.)
genini1 on 17 January 2010
the library shelf I noticed the ad on the back page. I stared and stared at it, not
being able to figure out what it was talking about. I actually took the magazine over to
a friend to point out the ad and ask if she understood it. She did. It was entirely in
English.
When you watch a television show in your L2 specifically because it
features them learning your L4. (There's a Japanese show about a cook who goes to Tokyo
to be a chef in an Italian restaurant and he learns Italian there.)
Genini, what is the name of this show. I'd love to watch it.
seldnar on 18 January 2010
When you buy a fluffy new bathmat for your WC in Germany, happy and warm in the knowledge that this is "specifically" for the bathroom because it has the word "bath" crafted into its lovely design in German. Only later, whilst gracing the loo and proudly admiring your latest household purchase from a slightly different angle, do you realise you actually bought a mat with "BAD" emblazened on it in big bold letters. And just to think, only the other day I was smiling at another forum member's confusion with "Die Hard". Oh well...at least it'll be a talking point forÂEnglish friends when they come round to visit and spend a penny.
Teango on 18 January 2010
When you are continuously saying something to a friend in a foreign language, even though he/she doesn't understand it, and you don't want to translate what you said...
The_Beholder on 18 January 2010
When you try to decline Chinese characters, because you want to make Chinese Characters more readable.......
QiuJP on 18 January 2010
When you receive a twelve language pocket electronic translator for your birthday from
your significant other.
canada38 on 18 January 2010
When you receive a twelve language pocket electronic translator for your birthday from
your significant other.
Oh man, your significant other rocks! I wish I could get that.
...When you're excited when a friend, who went to Portugal, brings you a book of short stories by Portuguese
writers until you see the book is inEnglish. You thank her anyways an then search online to see if there is a
portuguese edition.
MegatronFilm on 18 January 2010
you realise you actually bought a mat with "BAD" emblazened on it in big bold letters. And just to think, only the other day I was smiling at another forum member's confusion with "Die Hard"
That is the coolest bathmat ever! I want one! Fluffy and bad, a good combination.
I am the Dummkopf who got confused about the movie!
One of my German-speaking friends asked me once if it looks strange, for anEnglish speaker in Germany, to see the word "fahrt" everyhere. I said it does look a little funny at first, but I am a mature, grown-up person and I can handle it. Then I saw a truck with the cheery inscription: "Gute Fahrt!" Severe giggle fit!
I always feel a little uncomfortable using theEnglish word "gift" with German speakers, just in case. I'm sure most everyone would know it means a present (inEnglish) and not poison, but still . . . you don't want a false friend to cause you to lose friends.
meramarina on 18 January 2010
One of my German-speaking friends asked me once if it looks strange, for anÂEnglish speaker in Germany, to see the word "fahrt" everyhere. I said it does look a little funny at first, but I am a mature, grown-up person and I can handle it. Then I saw a truck with the cheery inscription: "Gute Fahrt!" Severe giggle fit!
Glad to see I'm not the only one :) I tried too...I really did...but with so many car showrooms offering the passerby a friendly "Probefahrt" in good faith, it's near impossible to restrain from a playground giggle or two.
I always feel a little uncomfortable using theÂEnglish word "gift" with German speakers, just in case. I'm sure most everyone would know it means a present (inÂEnglish) and not poison, but still . . . you don't want a false friend to cause you to lose friends.
True enough, but it could be worse I guess, you could offer to go for a romantic stroll with your German loved one in the moonlit "Mist"...
Teango on 18 January 2010
When, if you are anEnglish speaker and coming across anEnglish word that is somewhat unfamiliar to you, you want to check its meaning. You take out yourEnglish language dictionary. Without thinking, you mentally divide the dictionary in half as you prepare to hunt for the word. Why do you divide it in half? Because you are so use to working with your bilingual Target language-English dictionary. And, of course, after you find the definition, you can't wait to look it up in your bilingual dictionary to discover what it is in your target language.
psy88 on 19 January 2010
...when you study languages therapeutically, to get your mind off of stressful things. Nothing calms the mind like getting lost in the beauty of a foreign language.
Levi on 19 January 2010
When after you have completed one of your exams, instead of preparing and studying for the next, you change the language on your iPod to Ukrainian to see the differences and similarities between Ukrainian and Russian.
ruskivyetr on 20 January 2010
...When it's the first day of math class and you haven't managed to remember how to do any of the problems on the review sheet. You have, however, managed to translate all the instructions into German.
It's going to be a long semester...
Rina on 22 January 2010
"Wann Ich noch ein kleiner Junge war hat mein alter Vater immer volgendes gesagt: "Donnerwetter am Freitag is besser als eine Abekatze im Gepäck am Dienstag." Ich glaube dass das sehr wahr ist. Sie auch?"
... for no apparent reason except it is fun.
Rikyu-san on 22 January 2010
...when someone asks you what you're thinking about, and you make something up because you don't want to say something like "German word order" or "Mandarin tones".
Levi on 24 January 2010
...when someone asks you what you're thinking about, and you make something up because you don't want to say something like "German word order" or "Mandarin tones".
... when you purposely make up something that you know will get them to leave you alone so you can go home and do anki reps.
genini1 on 24 January 2010
You say things like "How much do you really want to learn this language?!". They do their homework half-heartedly
and they give you strange looks when you excitedly and thoroughly do your French homework. After trying to do
practice drills with them, you end up knowing the language they're studying more than they do.
*Sigh* I wish my family were more passionate about languages.
MegatronFilm on 24 January 2010
when, instead of being excited about not having homework after exam week, you are instead looking forward to using that time to catch up on your Russian studies.
when you are on the computer, and your mother asks what you are doing, and you must explain to her that you are researching the word root system of Semitic languages, in particular Arabic. It is then you know you are a true language nerd when you continue talking about what you have learned in great detail, but even more so, when it is more detail filled than the actual Wikipedia page you were viewing.
ruskivyetr on 24 January 2010
countries only because youâre interested in their languages.
кÑнд ÑкÑи Ñн ÑомÑÐ½Ñ Ñн алÑабеÑÑл киÑилик, деÑÑ Ðµ ÐºÐ¾Ð¼Ð¿Ð»ÐµÑ Ð¸Ð½ÑÑил Ñи аÑÑ Ð°Ð¸Ðº.
MäcÃSŸ on 24 January 2010
...when you learn language X so you can use materials in language X to learn language Y, which is what you really wanted to learn in the first place.
It's not a personal experience, but I saw people in another thread saying that they would learn Russian to learn Uzbek or Czech or something...
Johntm on 24 January 2010
... when knowing several languages becomes your lifeline to getting into a good college.
... also when you download all sorts of MMORPGs just because their from a foreign country (so you can level up your mage while practicing X language :D)
catharsis on 24 January 2010
кÑнд ÑкÑи Ñн ÑомÑÐ½Ñ Ñн алÑабеÑÑл киÑилик, деÑÑ Ðµ ÐºÐ¾Ð¼Ð¿Ð»ÐµÑ Ð¸Ð½ÑÑил Ñи аÑÑ Ð°Ð¸Ðº.
...if you can understand every word of a sentence in Romanian, in the Cyrillic alphabet, despite not speaking or ever studying Romanian.
Levi on 25 January 2010
...when you learn language X so you can use materials in language X to
learn language Y, which is what you really wanted to learn in the first place.
It's not a personal experience, but I saw people in another thread saying that they would
learn Russian to learn Uzbek or Czech or something...
Guilty...Assimil....Actually I always wanted to learn French having access to Assimil's
full library is merely a bonus.
LatinoBoy84 on 25 January 2010
...when you talk in French to your mother, Italian to your brother and Portuguese to
your
sister (and German and/or Italian to your uncles if you feel like it)
...when you go for a walk just to think in Dutch cause you don't want to be distracted
by
Wikipedia, Omniglot, your languages books or this site :)
...when you read this thread (beacouse you want to know what other languages nerds in
the
world think)
...when you click on every single language named
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias - hereGuido on 25 January 2010
...when you learn language X so you can use materials in language X to
learn language Y, which is what you really wanted to learn in the first place.
It's not a personal experience, but I saw people in another thread saying that they would
learn Russian to learn Uzbek or Czech or something...
Guilty...Assimil....Actually I always wanted to learn French having access to Assimil's
full library is merely a bonus.
So I'm not the only one!
goosefrabbas on 25 January 2010
... when, while playing Never Have I Ever, someone says "Never have I ever spoken a foreign language" and you spend 10 minutes debating what they mean by speak and deliberating over whether you consider yourself as "speaking" a foreign language.
... then later, you piss the same group of friends off again by drunkenly refusing to speakEnglish because most (but not all) of the people there speak enough French to hold a simple conversation.
kottoler.ello on 25 January 2010
When you studied 7 languages and learnt just 1
MäcÃSŸ on 25 January 2010
...when you can name more than 100 languages without any help (internet, a map, etc.)
Johntm on 25 January 2010
I love this thread. Keep 'em coming, fellas!
Rikyu-san on 25 January 2010
I love this thread. Keep 'em coming, fellas!
How do you get the subs on the dvd out of curiosity, it would be nice if I could add some of the scripts I've found online to my dvd's.
genini1 on 25 January 2010
I love this thread. Keep 'em coming, fellas!
How do you get the subs on the dvd out of curiosity, it would be nice if I could add some of the scripts I've found online to my dvd's.
To be honest with you, I haven't got a clue. I guess that is the hallmark of language dvd nerdery that one can volunteer for such a project (and I am speaking about myself here) without knowing how. However, I know a bunch of people that I assume know everything that is worth knowing about it. Send me a PM so I have a message from you in my inbox so I can get in touch with you easily and I will tell you. I believe I can learn and that there is a way around it. It will not be a hack-n-crack project but something done out in the open - as a form of "seva".
---
Back to the topic of the thread:
You know you are a (friendly and helpful) language nerd... when you are happy to share everything you know about learning languages with other language enthusiasts, including how to delete silent passages in FSI German files, compress files by recording them in variable bit rate so as to take up less space, and how to add subtitles to your language DVDs once you have it figured out (the two first courtesy of other users on the site - thank you! - the last one will happen soon).
Rikyu-san on 25 January 2010
Another one:
When you have a free period in school, and you are kicking yourself for not bringing an Arabic writing practice book, and you are looking forward to doing more writing exercises later today when you get home.
ruskivyetr on 25 January 2010
I write in Cyrillic in many of my notes, and most of the Cyrillic is either Russian, orÂEnglish transliterated in Cyrillic.
Johntm on 25 January 2010
... when you go back to see the movie Avatar a second time, not because of the story or 3-D effects but to test your http://www.fluentin3months.com/navi-for-your-avatar/ - comprehension level of Na'vi :P
irishpolyglot on 26 January 2010
. . . can it be that I am not nerdy ENOUGH?
It could be a nerdological impairment!
How would I know?
Is it time for an philological-existential crisis?
If so, which language shall I have it in?
At any rate, at the end of this thread--should that time arrive--maybe we will elect the OVERNERD!
(a post of great honor, no doubt!)
meramarina on 26 January 2010
..when you wake up in the middle of the night from hearing yourself speak 3 different languages in your sleep.
MegatronFilm on 26 January 2010
When you give your German professor an answer in Japanese instead in German...
The_Beholder on 27 January 2010
...when you click on every single language named
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias - here
Been there, done that, lol!
Every. Single. One.
kyssäkaali on 27 January 2010
countries only because youâre interested in their languages.
кÑнд ÑкÑи Ñн ÑомÑÐ½Ñ Ñн алÑабеÑÑл киÑилик, деÑÑ Ðµ ÐºÐ¾Ð¼Ð¿Ð»ÐµÑ Ð¸Ð½ÑÑил Ñи аÑÑ Ð°Ð¸Ðº.
When, instead of getting angry at someone for posting something ,(that may perhaps be really funny or truly interesting or deeply philosophical),that you cannot read/understand, you instead are angry at yourself because you wish you had studied the unknown language.
psy88 on 27 January 2010
. . . can it be that I am not nerdy ENOUGH?
It could be a nerdological impairment!
How would I know?
Is it time for an philological-existential crisis?
If so, which language shall I have it in?
At any rate, at the end of this thread--should that time arrive--maybe we will elect the OVERNERD!
(a post of great honor, no doubt!)
THIS THREAD MIGHT END!!! You know what you are when the thought of this thread ending makes you really sad..no, depressed.
psy88 on 27 January 2010
...when you wish your country had 30 official languages
Asithassa on 27 January 2010
...when you're secretly pleased that your country has no official language.
SamD on 27 January 2010
It's not like I could try to drive anywhere anyway, I've not even had my license for 6 months, I wouldn't try driving in the snow.
But still, when I first heard we might have school canceled, I was excited because I could spend the whole day studying Spanish, before I realized there wasn't much else I could do anyway.
Edit: We do have snow, school hasn't been cancelled but probably will be Monday and we are more or less snowed in all weekend.
Johntm on 28 January 2010
When you lose your girlfriend in the bookstore, and after searching for a few minutes you
give up and hope she'll find you. Then when you go to check out the foreign language
section, she's there waiting for you.
Hilarious!
When you first begin learning your target language and your immediate goal is to create 3-4 sentences to have recorded as your answering service for your cell phone, even though those who call you have no clue what your saying or become convinced they have dialed the wrong number.
When you spend hours in Office Depot in search for new ways to become more efficient and organized in storing and producing flash cards.
When you pray that your future significant other is either a native or is just as dedicated and fascinated by learning the same target language.
When you become upset, because you canât change you cell phone settings over to your target language.
SnowManR1 on 28 January 2010
(Shubhamastu is a Sanskrit greeting).
Rikyu-san on 28 January 2010
When you wish your boyfriend didn't speakEnglish so you'd have to speak to him in his language instead.
Iolanthe on 28 January 2010
One of my brothers speaks French and I have told him, "If you don't teach my nephew French, I will teach him Spanish instead." I'm very disappointed that my brother neither takes this threat seriously nor has he started teaching his son French.
When my Spanish teacher was explaining how to pronounce 'j', I asked her why she was pronouncing it like the Dutch 'g' sound.
I once spent almost an hour practicing making a French 'r' sound. Nevermind that I'm not learning French now, I must master that sound!
Lastly, I just spent an hour rereading this thread because I wanted to be sure I didn't repeat something that has already been posted.
mick33 on 28 January 2010
We were watching a movie in my AP environmental science class about farming and pesticide use on 3rd world countries. Instead of caring at all, I was interested in the languages they spoke in those countries (It was typically Asian or African countries).
Also in the same video, when they were talking about a young Hispanic boy in South America who had a rare form of cancer because of pesticides sprayed on crops, I was pissed because they had dubs when the father was speaking.
I was ecstatic today when I learned a friend I haven't known for very long knows 4 languages,English, Taiwanese, Chinese, and some Japanese (and some Spanish from school), and I don't even have an interest in Asian languages except for Korean.
Johntm on 30 January 2010
...when you tell your SRS you didn't remember a word, even though you did, just because you really like that word and want to see it again.
Levi on 30 January 2010
I'm working on my second convert. My brother has expressed an interest in my Japanese studies and now I'm helping him get started too. :)
And now my dad's learning French. Mwahahaha! :D
Levi on 30 January 2010
I write in Cyrillic in many of my notes, and most of the Cyrillic is either Russian, orÂEnglish transliterated in Cyrillic.
Well it's not very difficult, it's just recognizing certain characters etc. I'm learning to write in cursive Cyrillic, but I wrote in block for a while. Just type in "Russian alphabet" on google, and it will bring you to the Russian version of the alphabet (there are variations of it for certain languages that require different sounds).
ruskivyetr on 30 January 2010
When you translate a charity letter written inEnglish from Ghana for your German neighbour, but all the time wonder what they speak over there, and whether you could learn it so as to help your neighbour reply in her sponsor child's native language. You fantasize over adding an exotic African language with lots of clicks and whistles to your language collection for a moment, even though you know next to nothing about African languages, just the fleeting harmonies of Paul Simon and the Ladysmith Black Mambazo band resonating faintly in your ears for a moment. Then you go on Wikipedia only to discover thatEnglish IS the official language, and return to your translation secretly a little disappointed...never mind, maybe next time... ;)
Teango on 31 January 2010
When you translate a charity letter written inÂEnglish from Ghana for your German neighbour, but all the time wonder what they speak over there, and whether you could learn it so as to help your neighbour reply in her sponsor child's native language. You fantasize over adding an exotic African language with lots of clicks and whistles to your language collection for a moment, even though you know next to nothing about African languages, just the fleeting harmonies of Paul Simon and the Ladysmith Black Mambazo band resonating faintly in your ears for a moment. Then you go on Wikipedia only to discover thatÂEnglish IS the official language, and return to your translation secretly a little disappointed...never mind, maybe next time... ;)
I doubt this qualifies as language nerdery, but I was watching George Lopez's comedy show on Comedy Central last night (in which me mixes in quite a bit of Spanish), and 99% of the Spanish that he used that I understood were swear words.
Johntm on 31 January 2010
This might have been posted already but when you watch MMA fights and you wish the fighters would stop moving so you could read what there tattoos meant.
genini1 on 31 January 2010
This might have been posted already but when you watch MMA fights and you wish the fighters would stop moving so you could read what there tattoos meant.
Where would I be without my "pause" button...oh the magic of technology...I confess I once did exactly this whilst watching an amazing Russian figher, simply to see if he had "vor v zakone" mafia stars on his knees or cyrillic on his back I could try to read ...needless-to-say I only found celtic designs and squiggles.
Teango on 31 January 2010
When, upon entering your favorite bookstore, you start moving towards the foreign language section without thinking about it, and when you get there you have to use all your willpower to pry yourself away to keep from spending all your time and money there.
kottoler.ello on 01 February 2010
... when you write your notes in Russian forEnglish class, Swedish for History, German for Science, and Japanese for Spanish ;D (I wish I was that good D: )
catharsis on 01 February 2010
When, upon entering your favorite bookstore, you start moving towards the foreign language section without thinking about it, and when you get there you have to use all your willpower to pry yourself away to keep from spending all your time and money there.
Guilty. Are there other sections?
Sprachprofi on 01 February 2010
How about this: you know you have become a language nerd when, after not seeing it in a few years you watch Pulp Fiction and now your favorite part/quote is John Travolta talking about "Le Big Mac"
psy88 on 02 February 2010
When, upon entering your favorite bookstore, you start moving towards the foreign language section without thinking about it, and when you get there you have to use all your willpower to pry yourself away to keep from spending all your time and money there.
Guilty. Are there other sections?
Sometimes you'll find interesting books in those other sections, but you wouldn't want to waste any money or bookshelf space on them. Or the time! You can't afford to be reading too much in your native language. ;)
Levi on 06 February 2010
...when watching Angels and Demons (great movie) some of my favorite parts were when they spoke in Italian, and when the various newsreporters spoke in there languages.
Johntm on 06 February 2010
...when you complain of a sore uvula and people around you think you are seriously ill...
Asithassa on 06 February 2010
When you turn on your computer, first thing you do is to start listening your favorite
podcasts
mrasiteren on 06 February 2010
When you translate a charity letter written inÂEnglish from Ghana for your German neighbour, but all the time wonder what they speak over there, and whether you could learn it so as to help your neighbour reply in her sponsor child's native language. You fantasize over adding an exotic African language with lots of clicks and whistles to your language collection for a moment, even though you know next to nothing about African languages, just the fleeting harmonies of Paul Simon and the Ladysmith Black Mambazo band resonating faintly in your ears for a moment. Then you go on Wikipedia only to discover thatÂEnglish IS the official language, and return to your translation secretly a little disappointed...never mind, maybe next time... ;)
Haha I got my first Swahili studybook because I started sponsoring a girl from Kenya. Yes, I know, they speakEnglish overthere as the official language but how great would it be to be able to write to her in her first language :D
Margarita on 06 February 2010
Holy crap I'm so excited :DD
kyssäkaali on 06 February 2010
When you take down certain words in Teeline shorthand in your written notes, not because it's easier or faster, but because you once picked up a thin blue book over 10 years ago and glanced through a chapter or two, and have ever since felt the relentless desire to metamorphose your perfectly legible scribblings into a disarray of crazy cursive hieratics.
I have entire notebooks written in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quikscript - Quikscript . I love using a script that only a handful of people on the planet can read.
When, after reading this post, you spend several hours of the evening internalizing as much of the quickscript handbook as possible, bringing you closer to your goal of having everything you write be incomprehensible to everyone around you -- even if it is inÂEnglish.
When your plan before learning some quickscript was to do a side by side comparison of your two editions of "German for Reading Knowledge," even though you have absolutely no intention of learning German in the near future (but sometime in the future, you do). After that, you the plan was to "relax" by adding another 15-20 words to your Russian wordlists via the "Iversen" method.
When people accuse you of cheating at scrabble because you keep score with the names in Cyrillic and the numbers in Chinese, and periodically ask throughout the game if you can play a word in such-and-such a language when your hand isn't yielding anything good inÂEnglish.
When while taking notes in American history class in Russian, you realize that you don't know a word, and instead of just writing the word inÂEnglish, your first priority becomes to discreetly find the word so you can finish your sentence in Russian. Thank heavens for the dictionaries loaded onto my iPod touch!
unityandoutside on 07 February 2010
When you discover, to your delight, that your new dietary supplements are labeled not only inEnglish but also in German and Spanish, and then you eagerly begin to increase your vocabulary by learning new words through comparison of the texts.
Dainty on 07 February 2010
When you take down certain words in Teeline shorthand in your written notes, not because it's easier or faster, but because you once picked up a thin blue book over 10 years ago and glanced through a chapter or two, and have ever since felt the relentless desire to metamorphose your perfectly legible scribblings into a disarray of crazy cursive hieratics.
I have entire notebooks written in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quikscript - Quikscript . I love using a script that only a handful of people on the planet can read.
When, after reading this post, you spend several hours of the evening internalizing as much of the quickscript handbook as possible, bringing you closer to your goal of having everything you write be incomprehensible to everyone around you -- even if it is inEnglish.
When your plan before learning some quickscript was to do a side by side comparison of your two editions of "German for Reading Knowledge," even though you have absolutely no intention of learning German in the near future (but sometime in the future, you do). After that, you the plan was to "relax" by adding another 15-20 words to your Russian wordlists via the "Iversen" method.
When people accuse you of cheating at scrabble because you keep score with the names in Cyrillic and the numbers in Chinese, and periodically ask throughout the game if you can play a word in such-and-such a language when your hand isn't yielding anything good inEnglish.
When while taking notes in American history class in Russian, you realize that you don't know a word, and instead of just writing the word inEnglish, your first priority becomes to discreetly find the word so you can finish your sentence in Russian. Thank heavens for the dictionaries loaded onto my iPod touch!
Dictionary's on the iPod is one of the most awesome features ever and makes it well worth the price I paid (or maybe I'm just justifying my gadget addiction either way it's awesome)
Here's another one for the list, when you write pizza orders in German for the Jordanian cook that moved here from Italy. This one is actually true and it annoys the others in the kitchen since they can't understand anything we write or say.
genini1 on 07 February 2010
Spanish, except you.
Hello on 08 February 2010
Spanish, except you.
This is definitely me as well! I feel like I'm the only one interested in Spanish!
Iris-Way on 08 February 2010
When you are always excited to see what language comes to mind first when you hear something in your native language. (e.g. When I hear green, do I think of vihreä or ã¿ã©ã first?)
Aihe on 09 February 2010
...when you create an auto-reply for your phone's message box in one or more languages that are not understood by the people who usually call you.
...when you answer telemarketers' calls using languages that you're reasonably certain the telemarketers won't understand (so far this trick has always thrown the telemarketers for a loop to the point where they hang up on me within 10 seconds)
...when the calendar posted on your corkboard at work is in languages that no one else in the company would understand (I remember my boss' and one of my co-workers puzzlement when they first saw on my corkboard my calendar which was printed only in Cyrillic. At that time I was studying Ukrainian)
...when you write down the combinations for safes or lockers in full using numbers from obscure languages in order to jog your memory yet minimize the chance of the combinations being compromised (I adopted this trick after having read about the Navaho code-talkers of WWII whose language remained undecipherable to enemy listening posts for the entire war).
Chung on 09 February 2010
When you have a hard time trying to keep yourself from trying to learn several more languages when you are still working on your first...
Johntm on 10 February 2010
When you have a hard time trying to keep yourself from trying to learn several more languages when you are still working on your first...
Guilty. I have wanderlust to pickup Malay or Indonesian when I need to spent more time on Russian!
QiuJP on 10 February 2010
When you have a hard time trying to keep yourself from trying to learn several more languages when you are still working on your first...
Quilty. I have wanderlust to pickup Malay or Indonesian when I need to spent more time on Russian!
Johntm on 10 February 2010
When you have a hard time trying to keep yourself from trying to learn several more languages when you are still working on your first...
Guilty. I have wanderlust to pickup Malay or Indonesian when I need to spent more time on Russian!
I've been bitten by the wanderlust bug too (...again). I'm struggling to juggle five languages as it is, and now I want to study Dutch too!
Levi on 11 February 2010
I think I like Linguanerd the best! That would be a cool username.
Albanian: budalla gjuhën
Croatian: jezik glupan
Czech: Jazyk nerd
Estonian: keel nerd
Greek: nerd γλÏÏÏα
French: langue nerd
Hungarian: Nyelv nerd
Afrikaans/Dutch: Taal nerd
Icelandic: Tungumál
Indonesian: bahasa aneh
Italian: lingua nerd
Japanese: è¨èªãªã¿ã¯
Danish: Sprog nerd
Irish: nerd teanga
Finnish: kieli moukka
German: Sprache nerd (one word looks better: Sprachenerd?)
Persian: زباÙ
Macedonian: Ñазик nerd
Romanian: Nerd limbaj
Russian: ЯзÑк NERD
Swahili: lugha nerd
Turkish: dil nerd
meramarina on 11 February 2010
Finnish: kieli moukka
I would say "kielinörtti." I've never seen "moukka" before and had to look it up. Kieli moukka translates to something like "language boor/peasant" xD
kyssäkaali on 11 February 2010
"Mä oon kielinörtti", funny. I should remember that.
Chung on 11 February 2010
Finnish: kieli moukka
I would say "kielinörtti." I've never seen "moukka" before and had to look it up. Kieli moukka translates to something like "language boor/peasant" xD
You might be a language nerd when you complain to yourself about how school and homework are getting in the way of your learning...language learning, that is.
Johntm on 11 February 2010
You might be a language nerd when you complain to yourself about how school and homework are getting in the way of your learning...language learning, that is.
You might be a language nerd if the homework that you make this complaint about is for a course in your target language. "But I already know how to use the instrumental, can't we do something more stimulating?!"
unityandoutside on 11 February 2010
Russian: ЯзÑк NERD
Something like "повеÑнÑÑÑй на ÑзÑÐºÐ°Ñ ", it is not always easy to find a good equivalent for the word 'nerd' in Russian
ember on 11 February 2010
When you stare endlessly at a painting on a friend's wall trying to figure out what script it's written in... only to
discover it was supposed to be a map.
elysandler on 11 February 2010
Albanian: budalla gjuhën
Croatian: jezik glupan
Actually these are opposites of nerd. Budalla (also in Serbo-Croatian budala) and glupan mean fools or ignoramuses, so being called a jeziÄki glupan in Croatian would mean you can't speak a language.
Delodephius on 11 February 2010
When it's student union election time at your university, and you laugh at the lame
slogans some of the candidates use to get votes. Then a few days later, you notice from
the distance that one of the candidates has posted 10 identical posters of himself
together, and think to yourself, "Wow desperate... oh wait... each of these is in a
different language! I'm voting for this dude!"
canada38 on 12 February 2010
be even NERDIER if we knew how to declare our status in several languages. This is
somewhat lazy research from Google Translate, so please correct/add to the list if you
know the correct term!
I think I like Linguanerd the best! That would be a cool username.
Albanian: budalla gjuhën
Croatian: jezik glupan
Czech: Jazyk nerd
Estonian: keel nerd
Greek: nerd γλÏÏÏα
French: langue nerd
Hungarian: Nyelv nerd
Afrikaans/Dutch: Taal nerd
Icelandic: Tungumál
Indonesian: bahasa aneh
Italian: lingua nerd
Japanese: è¨èªãªã¿ã¯
Danish: Sprog nerd
Irish: nerd teanga
Finnish: kieli moukka
German: Sprache nerd (one word looks better: Sprachenerd?)
Persian: زباÙ
Macedonian: Ñазик nerd
Romanian: Nerd limbaj
Russian: ЯзÑк NERD
Swahili: lugha nerd
Turkish: dil nerd
I really doubt these automatic translations. It looks like "nerd" was simply not found
in many of the dictionaries - not surprising considering there is no commonly-
understood word for it in German that I know of. I was translating a Paul Graham essay
about geeks and nerds for my father a while ago, and he certainly never heard of either
term. The closest we could come to a German equivalent was "Freak"...
Sprachprofi on 12 February 2010
In Danish we have the word "Bogorm" (bookworm) for the special breed of nerd that delights in reading books
Iversen on 12 February 2010
You might be a language nerd when you daydream about foreign languages when you get bored in class.
Or when your watching a UFC fight and one of the fighters talks with a very thick accent, you wonder what his native language is. I'm pretty sure he was Brazilian..
Johntm on 12 February 2010
In Danish we have the word "Bogorm" (bookworm) for the special breed of nerd that delights in reading books
"Bookworm" is anEnglish word too, with the same meaning.
Levi on 12 February 2010
In Danish we have the word "Bogorm" (bookworm) for the special breed of nerd that delights in reading books
"Bookworm" is anÂEnglish word too, with the same meaning.
Johntm on 12 February 2010
Sorry, I was really tired. :-/
Levi on 12 February 2010
It's all good Levi, just pointing it out lol.
Johntm on 14 February 2010
Hehe, I have become the object of literary analysis.
Iversen on 14 February 2010
- you think about the language you are learning all day long
- your favorite band sings in the language you are learning
- you decide to brush up on your native languages and second language grammar so the grammar for your third language might be more understandable
- you never write your facebook status is your native language anymore
- you get a bit angry when people call the language you're learning ugly
- you hope that your future love will have another native language than you
- you hate that you didn't decide to learn a third language when you were in school
Sorry if some of it has been said already. I haven't read the whole thread yet :)
Crawling on 16 February 2010
Hehe, I have become the object of literary analysis.
@Crawling: I think about my target language all day long, and sometimes I daydream in school about random languages I never plan to learn.
Johntm on 17 February 2010
When someone asks you what's funny and you say "Nothing" because you were smiling without noticing it while thinking about your target language and don't want to admit it.
kottoler.ello on 18 February 2010
When you name the language in it's native way (italiano, español) you subconciously switch and (try to) continue speaking in that language (from one word to a whole sentence - YMMV).
Siberiano on 18 February 2010
When you try to understand what athletes and trainers of other countries say when listening to the Olympics.
Hello on 19 February 2010
When you were content, when you first joined this forum, to be learning only one foreign language but now feel driven to tackle a second. Yes, all of you language nerds: you have motivated, inspired, even subtly encouraged me. Thank you!
psy88 on 19 February 2010
time. (It seems like I managed it in 30 minutes, but I'm pretty sure it took longer)
Which leaves a good one - When you lose sense of time because you're too busy either reading this forum or
studying your TL.
When watching the olympics, you pay special attention and show extra pride to the country where your TL is
spoken, leaving everyone else around you astonished as to why you feel compelled to follow the medal count of a
country you've never been to.
Jadoo1989 on 20 February 2010
... when you walk back and forth in your home with your mp3 player and headphones listening to a portion of TL audio, speaking in your trget language and get encouraging looks and comments from the rest of your family.
... when you take it to the next level and walk down the street with your mp3 player and headphones listening to a portion of TL audio, speaking enthusiastically in your target language and receive curious and slightly worried looks from passerbys.
... when you take it even further and walk around in the local supermarket with your mp3 player and headphones listening to a portion of TL audio, speaking in your target language as you shop for your daily dose of dairy products.
... and when you take it all the way and even do it while waiting in line to pay for the goods. Thus the restless and slightly impatient silence in the queue is broken when you say things like, "In den sauren Apfel beissen... Gesund wie ein Fisch im Wasser... Im Gänsemarch gehen... Auf Granit beissen..."
Rikyu-san on 20 February 2010
... when you walk back and forth in your home with your mp3 player and headphones listening to a portion of TL audio, speaking in your trget language and get encouraging looks and comments from the rest of your family.
... when you take it to the next level and walk down the street with your mp3 player and headphones listening to a portion of TL audio, speaking enthusiastically in your target language and receive curious and slightly worried looks from passerbys.
... when you take it even further and walk around in the local supermarket with your mp3 player and headphones listening to a portion of TL audio, speaking in your target language as you shop for your daily dose of dairy products.
... and when you take it all the way and even do it while waiting in line to pay for the goods. Thus the restless and slightly impatient silence in the queue is broken when you say things like, "In den sauren Apfel beissen... Gesund wie ein Fisch im Wasser... Im Gänsemarch gehen... Auf Granit beissen..."
Wow! Don't you feel self-conscious? I speak to myself in Finnish everyday, but only when locked up inside my room. I could never do it out in public unless I had someone else to speak with.
kyssäkaali on 20 February 2010
I am not shouting, by the way, only speaking when prompted in order to practice pronouncation and tip-of-the-tongueness. So one can do it and be almost inaudible if one wants.
However, I can't wait until I begin shadowing Chinese...
Imagine if I walked up and down the aisles in the supermarket between tuna cans, wine bottles and vegetables, pacing back and forth, speaking loudly. Now THAT would be something! (He he).
Rikyu-san on 20 February 2010
I can't wait until I begin shadowing Chinese...Imagine if I walked up and down the aisles in the supermarket between tuna cans, wine bottles and vegetables, pacing back and forth, speaking loudly. Now THAT would be something! (He he).
Fantastic stuff...and you've gotta do it just like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdheWK7u11w - this ! ;)
Teango on 20 February 2010
Shoppers, beware!
Scene: a shopping mall in a galaxy far far away... a language nerd (yours truly) enters the scene. He begins shadowing:
"Da kamen zum Küchenfenster zwei weiÃe Täubchen herein und danach die Turteltäubchen, und endlich schwirrten und schwärmten alle Vögel unter dem Himmel herein und lieÃen sich um die Asche nieder... Excuse me, sir, do you know where the slug shop is? 2nd floor? Thank you, sir... Und die Täubchen nickten mit ihren Köpfchen und fingen an pick, pick, pick, pick, und da... excuse me, sorry, no this is not the escalator to the first floor, it is the one to the parking lots. Where was I? Oh yes... fingen die übrigen auch an pick, pick, pick, pick, und lasen alle guten Körner... No, I am not one of the Bremer Stadtmusikanten... in die Schüsseln. Und ehe eine halbe Stunde herum war... no, you have not seen me on TV, and neither in the Starwars cantina... waren sie schon fertig, und flogen alle wieder hinaus."
What a wonderful day.
Rikyu-san on 20 February 2010
When you've managed to read all 378 messages in this thread over 48 pages in what seemed to be relatively little
time. (It seems like I managed it in 30 minutes, but I'm pretty sure it took longer)
Johntm on 21 February 2010
When you have 8GB of language files stored on your hard drive!
canada38 on 24 February 2010
When you have 8GB of language files stored on your hard drive!
Edit: Well, I don't have a language folder yet, most files are in separate little folders scattered on my external harddrive.
Johntm on 24 February 2010
When you have 8GB of language files stored on your hard drive!
Is that all? :-P
Chung on 24 February 2010
My language folder is 80GB...
GREGORG4000 on 24 February 2010
If you count files that are in another language and include music and video then I have around 500gb, most of that is various movies and television shows.
genini1 on 25 February 2010
If you count files that are in another language and include music and video then I have around 500gb, most of that is various movies and television shows.
Korean HD video files (mostly music performances from Korean TV) were the primary reason I had to buy a large external HDD a while back...hopefully this 1.5TB will last me a while.
Warp3 on 25 February 2010
When you speak your native language and your friend jokes, "Wait, you speakEnglish?". :P
MegatronFilm on 02 March 2010
When you speak your native language and your friend jokes,
"Wait, you speakÂEnglish?". :P
I chuckled :). On more than one occasion this has happened to me. Especially since all the
time during lunch my nose is buried in my language notes :).
ruskivyetr on 03 March 2010
I bought some speakers to my iPod so I can play my ChinesePod lessons in the background as I work. :)
Levi on 03 March 2010
When you have an urge to reread this whole thread for a laugh.
Johntm on 05 March 2010
When you have such things as language piles ^^ which is where you stack the books of the languages you are learning AT THE MOMENT.
ruskivyetr on 05 March 2010
... family members regularly tell you to "please stop muttering in that foreign language," or to at least reassure them that you're not saying mean things to them.
... a family member hands you a package addressed to you, and you exclaim, "Ooooh, a dictionary!" (This actually happened to me, and it has become a running joke in my family. I was excited, okay?)
... the number of language learning books - grammars, dictionaries, textbooks - that you possess rivals or outnumbers what your public libary has.
... people regularly ask you why you're studying such and such language, and you look at them like they have a second head. Why not study it?
josht on 05 March 2010
When you forget your password for the forum and have to reset it, but no email arrives
with your new password. You refresh your inbox periodically for twenty minutes to no
avail, then look at your watch and realize your cramming time before your midterm exam
was just wasted on this and you rush off to write it. Later that day the email hasn't
arrived yet, so you try to reset it a few more times. Then by midnight, a new password
still hasn't arrived, you begin to panic, and reset it again and again. Then you are
relieved the next day when all the emails arrive at once with new passwords... all 25 of
them.
canada38 on 05 March 2010
...when you study in public somewhere you think it's likely there will be native speakers of your target language, in the hopes that one of them will notice what you're doing and talk to you.
Levi on 06 March 2010
...when you study in public somewhere you think it's likely there will be
native speakers of your target language, in the hopes that one of them will notice what
you're doing and talk to you.
I like that idea!
canada38 on 06 March 2010
When you know "the potatoes dance very well" in 16 languages. ;p
mrhenrik on 06 March 2010
when you are not at all surprised by the "16" languages, but what wonder more about the "dancing potatoes".
psy88 on 07 March 2010
Well you wouldn't want to learn how to say the potatoes can't dance very well that would just be silly.
genini1 on 07 March 2010
A long long time ago (but not in a galaxy far far away), when I was in high school, there was dance called the "mashed potatoes" and a song to go along with it. Now, those potatoes could dance in any language :-)
psy88 on 08 March 2010
When choosing the next language to seriously focus on feels like a life crisis. There are just so many language to
study. I'm split between 6 languages.
MegatronFilm on 08 March 2010
When you always have to take a pocket learning material in your target language when you go out........
QiuJP on 08 March 2010
When you're speaking to a family member, they look at you strangely and you just can't figure out why.
joanthemaid on 08 March 2010
When choosing the next language to seriously focus on feels like a life crisis.
When choosing the next language to seriously focus on does NOT feel like a life crisis, but more like buying a new laptop or microwawe oven.
Iversen on 08 March 2010
When family start buying you comfy socks embroidered with words in different languages and fancy exotic scripts. And to make matters worse, with all those words under your belt from studying languages so far, you still have no idea what they say at first, only to discover after a little bit of further research on the Internet that they all offer up the same profound piece of wisdom in several languages..."sock" ;)
Teango on 08 March 2010
Today I took a history quiz on something I didn't read. It asked for the name of some Italian guy, and all of the names looked somewhat Italian. I said them all in my head with an Italian accent, and picked the one that sounded most "Italian." I got it right. Would a non-language nerd have done this? I think not.
Johntm on 10 March 2010
When what started as a loose collection of books became a language shelf, which became the language two shelves, then the language bookcase and then you need to either buy a bigger bookcase or have two language bookcase's. (I can't resist buying interesting books when there on discount, even if I might never read it 4 dollars for a textbook on hindi wasn't a deal I could pass up)
genini1 on 10 March 2010
When what started as a loose collection of books became a language shelf, which became the language two shelves, then the language bookcase and then you need to either buy a bigger bookcase or have two language bookcase's. (I can't resist buying interesting books when there on discount, even if I might never read it 4 dollars for a textbook on hindi wasn't a deal I could pass up)
...and then comes the day when you need another spare room ;)
Teango on 10 March 2010
When you need to switch different keyboards very frequently, because you wanted to type 6 different languages in the same document............
QiuJP on 10 March 2010
When you need to switch different keyboards very frequently, because you
wanted to type 6 different languages in the same document............
When you don't need to because you created a custom keyboard that can type almost all. ;-
)
Sprachprofi on 10 March 2010
When you need to switch different keyboards very frequently, because you
wanted to type 6 different languages in the same document............
When you don't need to because you created a custom keyboard that can type almost all. ;-
When you neither need to switch keyboards nor create a custom layout, because the editor you use already provides sneaky ways to have all specials characters plus various other alphabets out of the box. (
http://www.vim.org - vim -- Caution, nerdware squared!)edit: trying to fix the link. HTML forums are definitely non-nerdy.
OlafP on 10 March 2010
When despite all these great shortcuts and custom keyboard switches to hand, you still use a Typing Tutor to learn how to type in Russian...for fun :-S
Teango on 10 March 2010
When what started as a loose collection of books became a language shelf, which became the language two shelves, then the language bookcase and then you need to either buy a bigger bookcase or have two language bookcase's. (I can't resist buying interesting books when there on discount, even if I might never read it 4 dollars for a textbook on hindi wasn't a deal I could pass up)
Lol I'm doing the same, except minus the important part, eg. the discount. Just spent over 100$ on an obscure dictionary the other day. Why? I could use that money for food! Haha. Oh well, true artists suffer for their work.
kyssäkaali on 10 March 2010
When you have download 2 TB worth of soaps because they're in languages you're studying or would eventually like to learn.
spanishlearner on 10 March 2010
I like the "...would eventually like to learn. " part
Iversen on 10 March 2010
When what started as a loose collection of books became a language shelf, which became the language two shelves, then the language bookcase and then you need to either buy a bigger bookcase or have two language bookcase's. (I can't resist buying interesting books when there on discount, even if I might never read it 4 dollars for a textbook on hindi wasn't a deal I could pass up)
Lol I'm doing the same, except minus the important part, eg. the discount. Just spent over 100$ on an obscure dictionary the other day. Why? I could use that money for food! Haha. Oh well, true artists suffer for their work.
I just did that over the last 3 days. I've bought a Japanese textbook, a second Korean course (to go with the other one I haven't used yet), and books on Hebrew and Norwegian. (insert sigh here)....I don't know when/if I'll ever even get to them.
Deshwi on 10 March 2010
oneself from mass consumerism, avoiding buying stuff on impulse or irrational desires.
Buying low priced used books that could disappear at any moment, on the other hand, is very different. Buying
language programs that cost hundreds of dollars on impulse or irrationality is shameful.
Kugel on 10 March 2010
Um, I would've thought that learning languages would hone in on the idea of rationality
Apples and oranges. All language learners aren't the same. I'll agree with you that those 500$ language programs help you learn jacksquat, but I don't think someone serious about learning a language would spend that much money on what is essentially just a fancy collection of vocabulary flash cards. People have the right to do with their money whatever they feel like, as long as what they buy actually gets used. I'd rather spend all my money on grammar books and dictionaries than follow in my mother's footsteps and spend every paycheck on new furniture and things like that.
kyssäkaali on 11 March 2010
And for those $600 multimedia programs, while I would never pay that much for them, they can be extremely helpful if correctly employed alongside other, more reasonably priced resources.
spanishlearner on 11 March 2010
...You get spam in your emails in the language(s) you are studying and you open them just to practice translating the nasty slang words.
BlondGirl on 11 March 2010
When you have download 2 TB worth of soaps because they're in languages you're studying or would eventually like to learn.
Johntm on 11 March 2010
...You get spam in your emails in the language(s) you are studying and you open them just to practice translating the nasty slang words.
Johntm on 11 March 2010
When you're so excited about the irregular past tense verb you correctly deduced while watching a movie in your target language and the general progress you made that you accidentally spill your food all over yourself... while eating breakfast the next morning.
kottoler.ello on 12 March 2010
...when you are slightly annoyed to be interrupted in the middle of studying, then pleasantly surprised to see it's a group of native speakers of the language you were studying who are interrupting you!
Levi on 12 March 2010
when this happens: you are driving in your car and listening to the new language course you just purchased. The course has some initial "sound effects" in the form of music representative of the country where the language is spoken.Other than that opening music the course seems to have a straight forward style of presenting anEnglish word or phrase followed by the same in your target language. As you are driving and paying attention to both the road and to the course you suddenly hear a train approaching and you momentarily panic. You then realize the course has introduced a new word,"train", and the sound that frightened you was the sound effect they added to the course. But, being the true language nerd that you are, you are so absorbed in the course that it also scares you the next time you are reviewing the material...and the time after that..and the time after that...
psy88 on 13 March 2010
...when your web browser is in French, and you use it to write an e-mail in German complaining that you can't find an interview with a Mandarin teacher on someone's website.
Levi on 13 March 2010
When you and your Spanish teacher talk about practicing for the National Spanish Exam during the breaks while taking the SAT.
Iris-Way on 13 March 2010
When you're writing a novel and fantasizing, if it happens to get published, about how many different languages it will be translated into and how you will own one copy of every single translation.
kyssäkaali on 16 March 2010
When you go through a side tracked explanation, to a group of other high schoolers to
whom you were explaining the origins of the French revolution, of the Georgian language,
its structure, it's history, specifically it's oppression in the communist Soviet Union. About
halfway through explaining the origins of the script, one of the people to whom you were
explaining it, raises their hand and asks what Georgian is. You know that you are truly a
language nerd when you chuckle expecting a joke but realize the rest of the group has no
idea about what you are talking. Confusion ensues before you disappointedly go back to
reviewing the French revolution with your classmates.
ruskivyetr on 16 March 2010
When you're writing a novel and fantasizing, if it happens to get published, about how many different languages it will be translated into and how you will own one copy of every single translation.
Johntm on 16 March 2010
When people have stopped asking things like "why do you have a learning Czech book?"
elysandler on 16 March 2010
When you finally catch the virus/flu that has been going around. You have a fever, your body aches, your throat is sore, you have a cough , and are sneezing. At first, you think of how you would list all your symptoms in your target language. Then, as your symptoms worsen,and you are half delirious and can hardly get out of bed, your biggest concern is how will you do the third Assimil lesson in your new target language. You had promised yourself to stay on track with one lesson a day faithfully and you keep thinking that this is the worse time to be sick!
And then you think "oh, you are too sick to do your lesson, but you are not to sick to be posting about it!!"
psy88 on 17 March 2010
When you finally catch the virus/flu that has been going around.
¡Recupérate pronto! :)
Teango on 17 March 2010
Teango,
¡Ojalá! Y gracias,amigo (o amiga) :-)
P.S. Studying two target languages when you have a high fever, and then going to sleep, makes for pretty bizarre multilingual dreams.
psy88 on 19 March 2010
The other day, I heard German spoken in the US, for the first time since I've been studying it. I was as happy as the old expression says: "like a kid in a candy store". Um, actually, I was in a candy store (really!) and I heard a mother speaking German with her three small children.
I was checking out the Easter candy, for personal research purposes, and I heard someone speaking a foreign language in the next aisle. My first reaction was, oh, how nice to hear another language, for a change, I just wish I could understand it . . . and then I realized, I did understand! " . . . und hier ist alles für Ostern . . . " well, this made my day! So, I sort of lurked around, examining the chocolate bunnies, not exactly foreign behavior for me, anyway, and listened. I really wanted to say something, but didn't want to bother a mom trying to guide her three rowdy little ones away from the candy. The children were very young, and were speaking a mix of German andEnglish, and it was so much fun to listen to them.
I also heard some Spanish speakers discussing sore throat remedies at the drugstore, which, I am sure you will agree, is also fascinating. If you are a Language Nerd in a mostly monolingual environment, you have to find your listening practice where and when you can!
meramarina on 19 March 2010
You spend more time on this site than with your girlfriend.
crackpot on 19 March 2010
Please delete this response if necessary. I do not want to make unpleasant posts.
meramarina on 19 March 2010
I believe Crackpot's post wasn't directed at you Meramarina but rather at himself.
Gareth on 20 March 2010
OK, I see. It sounded like it was directed at someone else - Sorry if I misunderstood - let's return to the Nerd theme, then!
meramarina on 20 March 2010
You are a Language Nerd for sure if, by chance, you hear strangers speaking your target language, and you follow them (discreetly!).
That story was so cute! I'm sure hearing German in the US is a totally different experience than hearing it in Germany. :P
I used to work with a German woman in a coffeeshop and we were good friends, had tea together every now and then, and naturally as a native speaker she recognised a German accent whenever someone spoke with one, so she would switch to German with all the German customers/employees (tons of Germans in that little town) and I always liked listening in, even if I didn't understand anything. All I remember is what sounded like "auf" being used a TON. lol! The last time I saw her was Christmas of 2008 :(
I'm sure if I ever heard someone speaking Finnish in the US, I would be all over them (as inconspicuously as possible, of course). I heard it being spoken everyday in Finland but to hear a Finn in my hometown? Oh man, it'd be great. I've heard Icelandic, Hebrew, and other less common languages, PLUS my old neighbour was Finnish, so I'm sure it's only a matter of time before I bump into one!
kyssäkaali on 20 March 2010
I do that too! There was this German tutor tutoring someone at the library and I just
listened in on the lesson (the student needed help with school German) and I started
giggling at his Austrian accent. He heard me laughing and I said in German, "Haha dein
österreichisches Akzent gefällt mir." He gave me a weird look but talked to me after his
lesson and we had a nice conversation.
ruskivyetr on 20 March 2010
You are a Language Nerd for sure if, by chance, you hear strangers speaking your target language, and you follow them (discreetly!).
Meh, once, in Hong Kong, I also followed some Germans, just to hear some German again! Had been a couple of months by then. How's that for stalking? ;)
Pyx on 20 March 2010
You know youâre a language nerd when...
You quit your job in recession times because they're understaff and want you to work 14 hours a day leaving you no time to study...
kerateo on 20 March 2010
On the German theme...
[BACKGROUND STORY]
My Economics teacher is from Germany, however he has been in the US since high school and he sounds like a US native (he's a citizen too; I didn't believe he was German until he told us a few times)
[/BACKGROUND STORY]
One kid who is in German, had a foreign exchange student from Germany (of course) with him today in my econ. class. The teacher and kid starting talking inEnglish (hisEnglish was very good, although some accent), and they switched to German, and had small conversations in German. I liked listening in to it, even though I don't plan on studying German for a while.
I'm pretty sure I was grinning like a retard while they were speaking, too.
Johntm on 20 March 2010
I made a tiny sort-of-nerdery thing last week with a German professor. We emailed and he wanted me to supply some info about a guest lecture I am going to do in May at the university. He wanted this info as soon as possible, and if we had communicated inEnglish he might have added "asap" to the text. We communicated in Danish (he speaks Danish fluently), so instead he wrote "shsm" which simply means "asap" (Danish: så hurtigt som muligt"). He knows about my German language learning goals so on the spur of the moment I replied, "I will send you the details sbwm" (German: so bald wie möglich").
Rikyu-san on 20 March 2010
You definitely are a language nerd if you answer a question here that remotely has something to do with Basque, you become curious as to whether there are a lot of dictionaries and grammars for this language, you check it on the German version of Amazon and ... well, now I have one of each
Iversen on 21 March 2010
You definitely are a language nerd if you answer a question here that remotely has something to do with Basque, you become curious as to whether there are a lot of dictionaries and grammars for this language, you check it on the German version of Amazon and ... well, now I have one of each
Johntm on 21 March 2010
You know you are (or at least want to be) a language nerd when Iversen is your hero.
Glad to know I'm not the only one...
josht on 21 March 2010
You know you are (or at least want to be) a language nerd when Iversen is your hero.
Glad to know I'm not the only one...
count me in
joanthemaid on 21 March 2010
When you have to make a good first impression on your brother's new girlfriend, after he broke up with his hungarian ex, but can't help eyeing that "Magyar" book standing on his shelf, even though magyar is nowhere in your list of languages to learn.
joanthemaid on 21 March 2010
When you think Europantisch is the coolest thing ever
joanthemaid on 21 March 2010
When you are hanging with friends and secretly want to go home and study.
ruskivyetr on 21 March 2010
When you find links like these in your bookmarks: http://en.battlestarwiki.org/wiki/Language_in_the_Twelve_Col onies - Language in the Twelve Colonies regarding the Battlestar Galactica series, http://www.iosart.com/nlp/heb_enc_dec.html - Transliterate Hebrew text for someone who has no plans in the near future to study Hebrew at all, and finally this one in http://ka.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E1%83%9B%E1%83%97%E1%83%90%E1% 83%95%E1%83%90%E1%83%A0%E1%83%98_%E1%83%92%E1%83%95%E1%83%94 %E1%83%A0%E1%83%93%E1%83%98 - Georgian - no idea what it says, it just looks pretty :) Now I really need help.
Teango on 21 March 2010
When you find links like these in your bookmarks: http://en.battlestarwiki.org/wiki/Language_in_the_Twelve_Col onies - Language in the Twelve Colonies regarding the Battlestar Galactica series, http://www.iosart.com/nlp/heb_enc_dec.html - Transliterate Hebrew text for someone who has no plans in the near future to study Hebrew at all, and finally this one in http://ka.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E1%83%9B%E1%83%97%E1%83%90%E1% 83%95%E1%83%90%E1%83%A0%E1%83%98_%E1%83%92%E1%83%95%E1%83%94 %E1%83%A0%E1%83%93%E1%83%98 - Georgian - no idea what it says, it just looks pretty :) Now I really need help.
I also have alphabets for languages I want to learn, Korean, Arabic, and Russian, among others.
Johntm on 21 March 2010
When you feel really impressed with yourself because you have just suddenly realised you passively learnt the Japanese phrase "YATTA!" (I did it!) from watching Heroes. And you are not even learning Japanese...
You mean you http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rW6M8D41ZWU - didn't already know that word?
Great, now I'm going to have the "yatta" song stuck in my head for a week again...
Levi on 22 March 2010
When going on a half-week spring break vacation to a giant music festival two of the essentials you bring are TY Swedish and The Stuff of Thought by Steven Pinker.
EDIT: Woops, swung late on the obligatory Youtube link.
kottoler.ello on 22 March 2010
When the shy japanese/chinese girls run away from you and think you're weird beacuse the
first thing you ask them is "do you speak japanese/chinese? can I practice my
japanese/chinese with you?"
When the only people you want to make friends with are the ones who speak at least two
languages fluently. You're an even bigger lang-nerd when you're not really interested in
friendship, you just want to have somebody to practice your target language.
When you loooooove to walk aroud your city's chinatown and stare for hours at all the
chinese characters signs and ads. Even a bigger lang-nerd when you write them all down to
learn them when you get home.
karaipyhare on 22 March 2010
When the shy japanese/chinese girls run away from you and think your weird beacuse the
first thing you ask them is "do you speak japanese/chinese? can I practice my
japanese/chinese with you?"
When the only people you want to make friends with are the ones who speak at least two
languages fluently. You're an even bigger lang-nerd when you're not really interested in
friendship, you just want to have somebody to practice your target language.
When you loooooove to walk aroud your city's chinatown and stare for hours at all the
chinese characters on the sign. Even bigger langnerd when you write them all down to
learn them when you get home.
...when you consider moving to a big city just to be able to practice Chinese in a Chinatown.
Levi on 23 March 2010
When the only people you want to make friends with are the ones who speak at least two languages fluently.
Sadly! I've found myself ditching myEnglish-speaking friends lately and have dropped out of contact with plenty entirely. I'm just so tired ofEnglish! lol.
kyssäkaali on 23 March 2010
And try to think of what alphabet would have a letter that would this...(yes I know they aren't actually doing the YMCA)
Edit: Only thing that comes to mind is þorn
Johntm on 24 March 2010
...when you know that Hawaiian is related to Malagasy, and it blows your mind every time you think about it.
Levi on 24 March 2010
...when you know that Hawaiian is related to Malagasy, and it blows your
mind every time you think about it.
YES! I always tell that story to everybody expecting an amazed shocked surprise face!
Instead I get the question; Where is Madagascar? :(
I love the Austronesian Family: from Madagascar to Easter Island (Rapa Nui), from Taiwan
to New Zealand (Aotearoa)
karaipyhare on 25 March 2010
...when you know that Hawaiian is related to Malagasy, and it blows your mind every time you think about it.
I think this will affect me from now on.
@karaipyhar: How do people not know where Madagascar is?
Johntm on 25 March 2010
...when you know that Hawaiian is related to Malagasy, and it blows your
mind every time you think about it.
YES! I always tell that story to everybody expecting an amazed shocked surprise face!
Instead I get the question; Where is Madagascar? :(
I love the Austronesian Family: from Madagascar to Easter Island (Rapa Nui), from Taiwan
to New Zealand (Aotearoa)
I agree completely. As Jared Diamond said in his book Guns, Germs, and Steel:
These Austronesians, with their Austronesian language and modified Austronesian culture, were already established on Madagascar by the time it was first visited by Europeans, in 1500. This strikes me as the single most astonishing fact of human geography for the entire world. It's as if Columbus, on reaching Cuba, had found it occupied by blue-eyed, blond-haired Scandinavians speaking a language close to Swedish, even though the nearby North American continent was inhabited by Native Americans speaking Amerindian languages. How on earth could prehistoric people of Borneo, presumably voyaging in boats without maps or compasses, end up in Madagascar?
Levi on 26 March 2010
As Jared Diamond said in his book Guns, Germs, and Steel:
That is an excellent book. I read it a few years ago, and right now I am reading one very much like it, but entirely focused on languages and the civilizations they came from and spread to throughout recorded history. The name of it is Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World and the author is Nicholas Ostler. His biography states that he is "a scholar with a working knowledge of twenty-six languages" so this is a good reading choice for a Language Nerd! It's long but well worth the time - highly recommended!
meramarina on 26 March 2010
As Jared Diamond said in his book Guns, Germs, and Steel:
That is an excellent book. I read it a few years ago, and right now I am reading one very much like it, but entirely focused on languages and the civilizations they came from and spread to throughout recorded history. The name of it is Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World and the author is Nicholas Ostler. His biography states that he is "a scholar with a working knowledge of twenty-six languages" so this is a good reading choice for a Language Nerd! It's long but well worth the time - highly recommended!
...when someone makes a book recommendation on a thread about being a language nerd, and you go right out and order it off Amazon.
Thanks for the suggestion. ;)
Levi on 26 March 2010
When you'd rather take a sucky job that allows you to practice during work hours than actually have a career
joanthemaid on 26 March 2010
You keep telling someone to wait before coming in the room and when the person comes right in, he tells you, "You know I only speakEnglish."
You practice conversations in your head to speed up your word-assembling-abilities and realize you have been doing it out loud from all the weird looks you are getting in the checkout lane.
BlondGirl on 26 March 2010
You have a friend as a passenger in your car for the first time. Without asking, your friend turns on your radio.The first thing that comes on, because it was the last thing you were listening to, is your target language listen and repeat CD. He then hits the button to go to your next CD. This is another listen and repeat CD, but still in the same target language (you like to work with different listen and repeat programs at the same time because it was suggested at this web page). Your friend hits the next two buttons and he hears music your target language. He makes some sarcastic comment then hits the final two buttons , only to hear nore listen and repeat CD's, but these are in your second target language(you like to listen to one language on the way to your destination and the other language on the way back).To his frustration,he then tries the radio stations.Of course, all of the stations are tuned into your target language. He is strangely quite the rest of the trip.
psy88 on 27 March 2010
You have a friend as a passenger in your car for the first time. Without asking, your friend turns on your radio.The first thing that comes on, because it was the last thing you were listening to, is your target language listen and repeat CD. He then hits the button to go to your next CD. This is another listen and repeat CD, but still in the same target language (you like to work with different listen and repeat programs at the same time because it was suggested at this web page). Your friend hits the next two buttons and he hears music your target language. He makes some sarcastic comment then hits the final two buttons , only to hear nore listen and repeat CD's, but these are in your second target language(you like to listen to one language on the way to your destination and the other language on the way back).To his frustration,he then tries the radio stations.Of course, all of the stations are tuned into your target language. He is strangely quite the rest of the trip.
Johntm on 27 March 2010
...when you know that Hawaiian is related to Malagasy, and it blows your mind every time you think about it.
It blows my mind thatÂEnglish and hindi are supposed to be related.
tritone on 27 March 2010
When you ponder about the logistics of communication between the Colombians and
Brazilians and International Red Cross members in the hostage release operation
When your mom asks you to translate the French on imported stuff at the supermarket even
though you don't study it... and you figure it out through cognates and context instead of just
blowing it off.
Rabochnok on 27 March 2010
...when nothing brightens your day like being randomly greeted in your target language by a stranger who forgot to switch to the local language.
Levi on 27 March 2010
...when you know that Hawaiian is related to Malagasy, and it blows your mind every time you think about it.
It blows my mind thatÂEnglish and hindi are supposed to be related.
Not quite as much, at least you can walk from Europe to India (although not really from England), and walk there never stepping into another language family (though it might not be the shortest route). But Not only Hawaii and Madagascar have two oceans between them, there's no language continuity at all between the two.
Apparently for the Indo-European family the relationship is only obvious with ancient languages (Sanskrit and Latin). And some say the Semitic family is also related.
joanthemaid on 28 March 2010
...when nothing brightens your day like being randomly greeted in your target language by a stranger who forgot to switch to the local language.
Lucky guy!
joanthemaid on 28 March 2010
...when you read theEnglish verb "polish" as Polish, and it takes you a minute to realize the lack of capitalization is intentional and puts an end to your confusion.
WortDrauf on 28 March 2010
When you choose to use an ATM (that you've used several times before and so know by
heart) in Chinese to see what the Chinese phrases for such
things look like, and are then dissapointed when the receipt is printed inÂEnglish. (But then
again it *is* a good thing to have a record that you can actually understand.)
Rabochnok on 28 March 2010
One of the reasons you have a foreign wife is to speak in a foreign language every day!
1qaz2wsx on 29 March 2010
But you just point out that as long as he keeps talking to you in his native language, you are studying anyway! Everyone wins! :D
Quabazaa on 29 March 2010
FEHLER! Dieses Wort bedeutet kein Schnupfen! Die Allergien sind Gesundheit? Was für ein Unsinn!"
but you don't, because of the high probability of making mistakes in German, even as you complain about the use of the language, which you are wrong about, anyway, because Gesundheit is a loanword intoEnglish, and actually there's nothing bad about the sign from anEnglish-speaking point of view, but damn it, you are a nerd, a nerd with allergies, a nerd without a pen and you cannot be provoked like this . . .
meramarina on 29 March 2010
...when someone asks you what kind of music you listen to, and you have to preface your response by saying that you listen to a lot of stuff they've almost certainly never heard of.
Levi on 30 March 2010
Choosing which songs to listen to on your mp3 player becomes an internal debate. On the one hand you enjoy the songs in your native language, but on the other hand, every song you don't listen to in your target language may be a missed opportunity to absorb more of the language.
whisk on 30 March 2010
...when someone asks you what kind of music you listen to, and you have to preface your response by saying that you listen to a lot of stuff they've almost certainly never heard of.
Yeah, I'm never sure how to answer that one since I know the people who asked won't have a clue who I'm taking about if I just start listing singers or groups.
Choosing which songs to listen to on your mp3 player becomes an internal debate. On the one hand you enjoy the songs in your native language, but on the other hand, every song you don't listen to in your target language may be a missed opportunity to absorb more of the language.
All my recent music interest has been focused on target language music anyway (mostly Korean, but some Spanish as well), so the songs I enjoy listening to the most currently *are* the songs in my target language. Because of this, I don't even have native language music on my MP3 player (sure I have plenty ofEnglish CDs and MP3s, but none of them are on my MP3 player).
Getting in the habit of "I should listen to this since it is in my target language" is a quick way to lose motivation. If the target language music you currently have doesn't interest you enough that you want to play it simply for the sake of entertainment, then it sounds to me like you haven't found the right music in your target language yet. You'll know it when you find it, because you won't want to stop playing it regardless of whether you understand the words or not. :)
Warp3 on 30 March 2010
When you would never watch a "soap opera" inEnglish,but, because you were studying Spanish, began to watch telenovelas. And, you really, really enjoyed them, but would never admit it, even to yourself. And you would get annoyed if people referred to them as "Spanish soap operas", because they are NOT soap operas! And, now that you are studying French,you feel really bad that there are no French equivalents of the telenovelas, or, if there are you don't get them with you TV provider... and it makes you seriously consider finding a provider who does carry them (if they even exist-and , no, French movies or dubbed television shows are not the same as your beloved telenovelas.)
psy88 on 30 March 2010
Choosing which songs to listen to on your mp3 player becomes an internal debate. On the one hand you enjoy the songs in your native language, but on the other hand, every song you don't listen to in your target language may be a missed opportunity to absorb more of the language.
Johntm on 30 March 2010
Choosing which songs to listen to on your mp3 player becomes an internal debate. On the one hand you enjoy the songs in your native language, but on the other hand, every song you don't listen to in your target language may be a missed opportunity to absorb more of the language.
All my recent music interest has been focused on target language music anyway (mostly Korean, but some Spanish as well), so the songs I enjoy listening to the most currently *are* the songs in my target language. Because of this, I don't even have native language music on my MP3 player (sure I have plenty ofÂEnglish CDs and MP3s, but none of them are on my MP3 player).
Getting in the habit of "I should listen to this since it is in my target language" is a quick way to lose motivation. If the target language music you currently have doesn't interest you enough that you want to play it simply for the sake of entertainment, then it sounds to me like you haven't found the right music in your target language yet. You'll know it when you find it, because you won't want to stop playing it regardless of whether you understand the words or not. :)
Haha..believe me, I enjoy all the Spanish music I listen to and I do prefer listening to it. On top of that I have a Spanish tutor so my I have some external help when it comes to motivation.
But yes, I do understand where you're coming from.It was just something that happened in the early stages of language learning.
whisk on 30 March 2010
Choosing which songs to listen to on your mp3 player becomes an internal debate. On the one hand you enjoy the songs in your native language, but on the other hand, every song you don't listen to in your target language may be a missed opportunity to absorb more of the language.
Oh my god, this times a thousand! I mean, I usually detestEnglish music, but there are some good bands (eg. R.E.M.) But I haven't had non-Finnish music on my computer for about three years. Same goes with movies, etc. If I want to see a movie but cannot find Finnish subtitles for it online, I don't watch it. :(
kyssäkaali on 31 March 2010
...And then when your new boyfriend is a native speaker of one of the languages you're learning :D
Life is grand, yeah?
Rina on 31 March 2010
You know you're a language nerd when you start rapidly explaining your excitement for learning the Georgian
alphabet to your friend whilst jumping up and down. You know you are a super language nerd/freak when they have
to say "Ok, ok, inEnglish now" and then you embarrassingly realize you've been screaming in German for the past
few seconds.
ruskivyetr on 31 March 2010
...And then when your new boyfriend is a native speaker of one of the languages you're learning :D
Life is grand, yeah?
...if you wish there were some place you could go to to hook up with single language nerds. It would be nice to have a girlfriend without having to worry about her taking too much of your time away from your languages.
Levi on 31 March 2010
...And then when your new boyfriend is a native speaker of one of the languages you're learning :D
Life is grand, yeah?
...if you wish there were some place you could go to to hook up with single language nerds. It would be nice to have a girlfriend without having to worry about her taking too much of your time away from your languages.
Me-"Hey babe, guess what we're doing tonight!"
Her-"What?"
Me-"Studying Russian!"
Her-"Awesome!"
That'd be an awesome conversation to have with a girlfriend.
Johntm on 31 March 2010
Haha, I've got a long way to go with German and Mandarin!
brian91 on 31 March 2010
...And then when your new boyfriend is a native speaker of one of the languages you're learning :D
Life is grand, yeah?
...if you wish there were some place you could go to to hook up with single language nerds. It would be nice to have a girlfriend without having to worry about her taking too much of your time away from your languages.
Me-"Hey babe, guess what we're doing tonight!"
Her-"What?"
Me-"Studying Russian!"
Her-"Awesome!"
That'd be an awesome conversation to have with a girlfriend.
This reminds me of how my ex-boyfriend used to change the language settings on his video games to try to get me interested in them.
Him: "I wanna show you this awesome game I just got where you blah blah and blah with blah"
Me: "...."
Him: I can change the settings to German or Korean for you"
....It would only work for a little bit.
Rina on 31 March 2010
Haha..believe me, I enjoy all the Spanish music I listen to and I do prefer listening to it. On top of that I have a Spanish tutor so my I have some external help when it comes to motivation.
But yes, I do understand where you're coming from.It was just something that happened in the early stages of language learning.
Ok...I was just making sure you weren't forcing yourself to listen to music you didn't like simply for the sake of learning. I do agree that it is tricky at first until you find some groups/singers to get "hooked on" in the target language and until you get a decent selection of material so you don't burn out on the few songs you've found that you like.
Warp3 on 31 March 2010
...And then when your new boyfriend is a native speaker of one of the languages you're learning :D
Life is grand, yeah?
...if you wish there were some place you could go to to hook up with single language nerds. It would be nice to have a girlfriend without having to worry about her taking too much of your time away from your languages.
Me-"Hey babe, guess what we're doing tonight!"
Her-"What?"
Me-"Studying Russian!"
Her-"Awesome!"
That'd be an awesome conversation to have with a girlfriend.
It would certainly change the meaning of the usual conversation when one asked the other "do you feel like Italian tonight?"
"oh, no, not Italian again"
"well,how about Japanese?"
" I had Japanese already today. How about French?"
" I know, let's try Spanish"
Well, you get the idea.
psy88 on 01 April 2010
...And then when your new boyfriend is a native speaker of one of the languages you're learning :D
Life is grand, yeah?
...if you wish there were some place you could go to to hook up with single language nerds. It would be nice to have a girlfriend without having to worry about her taking too much of your time away from your languages.
Me-"Hey babe, guess what we're doing tonight!"
Her-"What?"
Me-"Studying Russian!"
Her-"Awesome!"
That'd be an awesome conversation to have with a girlfriend.
It would certainly change the meaning of the usual conversation when one asked the other "do you feel like Italian tonight?"
"oh, no, not Italian again"
"well,how about Japanese?"
" I had Japanese already today. How about French?"
" I know, let's try Spanish"
Well, you get the idea.
Johntm on 01 April 2010
You know you're a language nerd when you get excited about learning the Georgian alphabet, and you start crying
and bawling when you forget half of it the next day :(. But then you dedicate about two hours, probably contributing
to your future carpal tunnel, in order to relearn the Georgian alphabet, while listen to Bulgarian music.
ruskivyetr on 01 April 2010
...when you stubbornly keep on practicing your French sentences out loud, despite having a cold which severely impedes your ability to pronounce the nasal vowels.
Levi on 01 April 2010
...when you stubbornly keep on practicing your French sentences out loud, despite having a cold which severely impedes your ability to pronounce the nasal vowels.
Johntm on 01 April 2010
...when you long for the "good old days" (before you were born) when academic journals published articles inEnglish, French and German without translation, as the educated person was expected to understand all three.
Levi on 02 April 2010
When going on this forum is a "break" between your Russian studies, and your French studies, and you think that,
regardless of content, time spent on anEnglish-language-board is time wasted.
elysandler on 02 April 2010
...when you have memorized what languages countless HTLAL members speak and study and have read the the "details" section of their profile many times for fun.
...when you forgot a word inEnglish when writing a timed essay for AP Geography, so you just substituted the French equivalent and hoped that the teacher would know what you meant.
...when people at school greet you with "Hi Philip, what language are you studying today?"
...when reading on this page is your break from studying your target language, which is itself a break from whatever you're supposed to be doing.
...when you correct your native French teacher's French on a regular basis and help her remember words.
...when you can give your friend a detailed overview off the top of your head of many different resources for learning Chinese even though you've never used any of them yourself and you don't even study the language.
...when you're referred to as "the local language expert" by your teachers (even though you never told them you studied foreign languages) and are asked to give translations to and from various languages.
...when you wonder why your backpack is so heavy even though you have no homework, and then realize it's because you brought all those language books to school.
...when your mother begs you not to get up so early in the morning so that you can study languages before going to school.
...when you get mad at one of your friends for not telling you sooner that her native language is actually Hmong.
...when your first thought when you hear you're going to Tanzania on vacation is "I only have four and a half months to learn Swahili!"
ellasevia on 02 April 2010
You become terribly curious, you lean towards their table like a sunflower to the sun, you strain really hard to listen, cupping your ears indiscreetly like little spy satellite dishes trying to pick up any strands of their secret conversation, but for all your best efforts, they're all a bit shy and haven't indulged in any pre-dinner aperitifs yet, and so you still can't fathom what on earth they're saying.
From this point on whatever your friends are saying really begins to fade out, you focus on facial features and gestures in the group, or look for clues in their clothing labels perhaps, you even hope and pray for possible language difficulties with the waitress, and so it takes every ounce of self-control NOT to go over, tap one of them on the shoulder, and ask if they could all speak up a bit louder so you can try to guess what language they're speaking.
You realise much to your horror, you're restaurant language-spying once again...
Teango on 02 April 2010
- When you move to another country because you want to learn the language and not the other way around.
- You use words from other languages because they don't exist in your own or are much better than the equivalent.
WingSuet on 03 April 2010
When, after adding French as your second target language,(to the Spanish you have been studying) you get excited because one movie channel is running several French films. You get even more excited after reading the descriptions and find that there is one that actually sounds interesting to you, because otherwise you would probably have forced yourself to watch a film whose only appeal was that in was in French.But, no, this sounds like a great film. Then as you watch,understanding maybe one or two words here and there,suddenly you hear a full sentence that you actually know because it is a "saying", or proverb, that you studied in the fifth lesson of Assimil! You pause the film, back it up, and repeat it several times, reciting it along with the actor.
You think it can't get much better than that until one character suddenly,and briefly, starts speaking Spanish and you are able to understand everything she says.
psy88 on 03 April 2010
Also, a lot of visitors were speaking foreign languages. Spanish, some Slavic language, what I think was a Scandinavian language, and some other one I have no clue what it was. It was awesome.
Johntm on 03 April 2010
When you have to bring a friend with you to the bookstore to keep you from spending all your money on books on or about languages you aren't even studying (yet).
When your drunkenly slurred speech correctly and confusingly (to those around you) uses grammatical constructions from your target language.
When you get "Biting the Wax Tadpole: Confessions of a Language Fanatic" for Easter and the first three things you have to say about it are: 1. "How appropriate for me." 2. "Except kekoukele (the Chinese transliteration for Coca Cola) doesn't mean to bite the wax tadpole." 3. "She spelled 'zhe' wrong on the third page... Where's a pen?"
kottoler.ello on 04 April 2010
"You write too well not to be a Finnish native."
...and it totally makes your night, if not your whole week :DD
And I figured I might as well cut and paste which of my posts this guy was responding to just for the heck of it:
"no mie oon opiskellu suomee noin kaks tai kolme vuotta ja oon asunu suomessa tän vuoen uuenvuoenpäivään saakka. ikävä kyllä, en viel kykene puhummaa kieltä (KUTEN TE JO VARMASTI NÃÃTTE...). mie osaan lukee ja kuunnella, mut epäröin puhuessani ja puhun niin hiton hitahasti. kaipaan vitusti suomalaist poikaystävää."
kyssäkaali on 07 April 2010
"You write too well not to be a Finnish native."
...and it totally makes your night, if not your whole week :DD
And I figured I might as well cut and paste which of my posts this guy was responding
to just for the heck of it:
"no mie oon opiskellu suomee noin kaks tai kolme vuotta ja oon asunu suomessa tän vuoen
uuenvuoenpäivään saakka. ikävä kyllä, en viel kykene puhummaa kieltä (KUTEN TE JO
VARMASTI NÃÃTTE...). mie osaan lukee ja kuunnella, mut epäröin puhuessani ja puhun niin
hiton hitahasti. kaipaan vitusti suomalaist poikaystävää."
...when you think that sentence you don't understand is so pretty it makes you want to
learn Finnish before you are done with Italian. And you actually plan to Google some
Finnish learning material the second you hit the Post Rep
Thaorius on 07 April 2010
When you get this directed to you in a chatroom:
"You write too well not to be a Finnish native."
...and it totally makes your night, if not your whole week :DD
That's really fantastic, kyssäkaali - hyvää työtä! I hope one day someone will say this about one of the languages I study. So far this is just a distant dream, native speakers always somehow manage to suss me out pretty quickly haha! :)
Teango on 07 April 2010
You know you're a language nerd if your willing to convert to Catholicism just to listen to the Latin Liturgy.
Icaria909 on 08 April 2010
Last week in chemistry class I realized I was unintentionally writing notes that were a mix of Afrikaans andÂEnglish. Everything was fine until I panicked when I couldn't remember a word. After 5 minutes I stop worrying; the word I forgot was probably very advanced vocabulary in either language and most people would forget such an uncommon word. But when I came home and was rereading my lecture notes I remembered that the word I was searching for was "wetenskap" (science). Wetenskap is not exactly advanced vocabulary. Oh well, at least my bilingual notes make chemistry seem much more fascinating.
mick33 on 08 April 2010
You know you're a language nerd if your willing to convert to Catholicism just to listen to the Latin Liturgy.
Where are you that the Mass is still said in Latin?
Iris-Way on 08 April 2010
You know you're a language nerd if your willing to
convert to Catholicism just to listen to the Latin Liturgy.
Where are you that the Mass is still said in Latin?
You're a language nerd when you ask that question... followed by "and where do I apply
for visa/residency/study program/etc.?"
ennime on 08 April 2010
When you can't help but point out spelling mistakes in local graffiti and tagging to your friends, and feel a deep secret urge to come back at night and add your own graffiti corrections in red spray...
Teango on 08 April 2010
When you actually learn new vocabulary and grammatical structures from a bathroom wall.
Teango on 08 April 2010
When you pause every now and again and try translating something directly from one language to another (intentionally disregarding the cultural/contextual gap) and find yourself laughing out loud at the result
apatch3 on 08 April 2010
When you can't help but point out spelling mistakes in local graffiti and tagging to your friends, and feel a deep secret urge to come back at night and add your own graffiti corrections in red spray...
When you refuse to watch "The Pursuit of Happyness" because of the spelling.
WortDrauf on 09 April 2010
When you can't help but point out spelling mistakes in local graffiti and tagging to your friends, and feel a deep secret urge to come back at night and add your own graffiti corrections in red spray...
When you refuse to watch "The Pursuit of Happyness" because of the spelling.
Or just take white-out to the DVD cover.
Johntm on 09 April 2010
When you can't help but point out spelling mistakes in local graffiti and tagging to your friends, and feel a deep secret urge to come back at night and add your own graffiti corrections in red spray...
When you refuse to watch "The Pursuit of Happyness" because of the spelling.
Or just take white-out to the DVD cover.
On that note, when you take out white-out in the middle of your PE class to fix the spelling of a word on a yoga poster that has been bothering you for days. And then you proudly point out your handiwork to your classmates.
ellasevia on 09 April 2010
When you can't help but point out spelling mistakes in local graffiti and tagging to your friends, and feel a deep secret urge to come back at night and add your own graffiti corrections in red spray...
When you refuse to watch "The Pursuit of Happyness" because of the spelling.
Or just take white-out to the DVD cover.
On that note, when you take out white-out in the middle of your PE class to fix the spelling of a word on a yoga poster that has been bothering you for days. And then you proudly point out your handiwork to your classmates.
Johntm on 10 April 2010
When you refuse to watch a film unless it's in a foreign language =)
m.alberto1 on 11 April 2010
When you can't concentrate all day long and then you put on a YouTube video in Polish in the background and suddenly you can concentrate (and then you find yourself looking all sorts of information on Polish).
ellasevia on 11 April 2010
When you can't help but point out spelling mistakes in local graffiti and tagging to your friends, and feel a deep secret urge to come back at night and add your own graffiti corrections in red spray...
When you refuse to watch "The Pursuit of Happyness" because of the spelling.
Or just take white-out to the DVD cover.
On that note, when you take out white-out in the middle of your PE class to fix the spelling of a word on a yoga poster that has been bothering you for days. And then you proudly point out your handiwork to your classmates.
I gave up correcting the word "stationery" at my workplace when our stationery products started coming in boxes marked "stationary".
Levi on 11 April 2010
brian91 on 11 April 2010
So, you know you are a language nerd when your idea of what it means to focus on a small number of target languages at any given time is to narrow it all the way down to about twenty...
Rikyu-san on 12 April 2010
You know you're a language nerd when monolingual people complement you and say "wow you speak so many
languages!"
You know you're a TRUE language nerd when you think about this forum and smile and think to yourself "if they
only knew about HTLAL."
ruskivyetr on 12 April 2010
You know you're a language nerd when monolingual people complement you and say "wow you speak so many
languages!"
You know you're a TRUE language nerd when you think about this forum and smile and think to yourself "if they
only knew about HTLAL."
Or when someone asks you how many languages you speak and you know that there is no true answer and that if you were to give them something anywhere close to accuracy or the truth they would get bored and stop listening before you were done.
What I generally do in this situation is I just sigh in an annoyed way and say "I don't know." Or "A couple." Or "It depends."
ellasevia on 12 April 2010
When google translate is your homepage!
Tally on 12 April 2010
-When no one at your school is sure what your first language is.
-When you nearly dive across a desk at someone who had the nerve to say that "Gesundheit" was actually justEnglish and just a fancy way of saying bless you.
Rina on 13 April 2010
-when you're addicted to language learning forums and are keen to interact with other polyglots only lol!
m.alberto1 on 13 April 2010
When you wander this site aimlessly for 3 hours and never get bored
I'm pretty sure this has been said (yes I read the whole thread) but when you're afraid to let your friends see your iPod because of all the foreign language stuff on it. And when putting your ipod on shuffle results in the following:
Song-Pimsleur-Song-Song-Assimil-Berlitz-Pimsleur-Song
Johntm on 13 April 2010
When you wander this site aimlessly for 3 hours and never get bored
I'm pretty sure this has been said (yes I read the whole thread) but when you're afraid to let your friends see your iPod because of all the foreign language stuff on it. And when putting your ipod on shuffle results in the following:
Song-Pimsleur-Song-Song-Assimil-Berlitz-Pimsleur-Song
...when you set your iPod on a foreign language to prevent others from using it. Chinese is particularly effective.
Levi on 13 April 2010
When you discover that a movie in your target language will be shown on your TV movie channel.You record it, so you can replay parts that you don't get right away, as well as to rehear the parts you do understand. You settle down and get comfortable, the excitement is building as it begins to play and then-bummer! It has been dubbed intoEnglish :-(
psy88 on 14 April 2010
When you discover that a movie in your target language will be shown on your TV movie
channel.You record it, so you can replay parts that you don't get right away, as well as to rehear the parts you do
understand. You settle down and get comfortable, the excitement is building as it begins to play and then-bummer!
It has been dubbed intoÂEnglish :-(
When you know you would become furious at this, and you hate dubbing D:<.
ruskivyetr on 15 April 2010
When you discover that a movie in your target language
will be shown on your TV movie
channel.You record it, so you can replay parts that you don't get right away, as well as
to rehear the parts you do
understand. You settle down and get comfortable, the excitement is building as it begins
to play and then-bummer!
It has been dubbed intoÂEnglish :-(
When you know you would become furious at this, and you hate dubbing D:<.
...when you refuse to watch a movie in anything but the original language it was made in;
even if you don't speak it...
...when watching a dubbed film is registered in your mind as "ruining a movie" and it
makes you a bit moody for the rest of the day.
Thaorius on 15 April 2010
When you get angry at your friends for not showing any interest in languages
Tally on 15 April 2010
...when you find an article in theEnglish Wikipedia that's too short, so you start clicking all the other languages you can understand until you find something more informative.
Levi on 16 April 2010
...when you find an article in theÂEnglish Wikipedia that's too short, so you start clicking all the other languages you can understand until you find something more informative.
Sometimes I do the opposite too. If I only want a short explanation of a subject and the Wikipedia article I'm looking at is long and meandering, I'll search through the other language versions I can understand for a short and concise article on the subject.
lichtrausch on 16 April 2010
...when you get invited to a dinner with about 30 people, all from different countries
and different cultures; but then, at the very last minute, you find out they are all from
Latin America (AKA, native Spanish/Portuguese speakers) so you declare yourself busy,
cancel, and proceed to fire up Anki...
Thaorius on 18 April 2010
...when you get invited to a dinner with about 30 people, all from different countries
and different cultures; but then, at the very last minute, you find out they are all from
Latin America (AKA, native Spanish/Portuguese speakers) so you declare yourself busy,
cancel, and proceed to fire up Anki...
When you feel jealous because you would have loved to have been invited to that party.
psy88 on 18 April 2010
...when you only accept Facebook friend requests from strangers if they speak one of your target languages.
Levi on 19 April 2010
...when you read through this thread chuckling to yourself because you're guilty of almost all of them.
I'm doing this right now >_<
- When you study every language your ancestors supposedly spoke and then some
^ Guilty ^
Here's some of mine:
-when you listen to music in a language that you don't know, learn how to sing the song, and then go explain to your friends about the sytax, morphology, and unique phonetic points (such as a voiced gutteral fricitive) in the language... and then decide to actually LEARN it!
-when you think that things like 'voiced gutteral fricitive' are normal to say
-when you can read this:
Ðй Ñайнд ѳÑÑ Ñ Ð²ÐµÑиейÑÑн Ñв Ñ³Ñ Ð¡ÑÑилик ÑлÑÑÐ±ÐµÑ ÑÑÐºÑ Ð±ÐµÑÑ ÑÐ¾Ñ ÑÑÑнÑкÑайбинг ÐÐ½Ð³Ð»Ð¸Ñ Ð¼Ð¾Ñ Ð¾Ñ Ð»ÐµÑ ÑÑнеÑиклÑ.
despite not knowing ANY of the languages whose alphabets' characters' are used here.
mashmusic11235 on 19 April 2010
When you wish you could be regressed back into a time when now extinct languages were still spoken.
When you wish you could retain your ability to speak in those foreign languages from past lives when you get out of the trance.
(Some language learning tool, eh?).
Rikyu-san on 19 April 2010
1) Getting banned for a stupid reason
2) Choosing the stupidest conceivable screen name
because even just talk of language-learning proves too enticing for you to pass up or give up.
Juаn on 20 April 2010
When you try to get your friends to learn languages so you can vicariously experience the fun of the language through them.
When a weekend you thought you weren't going to enjoy becomes one of the better ones because you get to talk about and in foreign languages a significant amount.
kottoler.ello on 20 April 2010
...when you apparently emanate language nerdery from every pore to the point that total strangers address you in foreign languages without trying the local language first.
Levi on 20 April 2010
I think I like Linguanerd the best! That would be a cool username.
Albanian: budalla gjuhën
Croatian: jezik glupan
Czech: Jazyk nerd
Estonian: keel nerd
Greek: nerd γλÏÏÏα
French: langue nerd
Hungarian: Nyelv nerd
Afrikaans/Dutch: Taal nerd
Icelandic: Tungumál
Indonesian: bahasa aneh
Italian: lingua nerd
Japanese: è¨èªãªã¿ã¯
Danish: Sprog nerd
Irish: nerd teanga
Finnish: kieli moukka
German: Sprache nerd (one word looks better: Sprachenerd?)
Persian: زباÙ
Macedonian: Ñазик nerd
Romanian: Nerd limbaj
Russian: ЯзÑк NERD
Swahili: lugha nerd
Turkish: dil nerd
*GHASP*
Persian actually has a seperate WORD for 'language nerd'!!!!
mashmusic11235 on 20 April 2010
Hah, more like that's the Persian word for "language" and it didn't bother translating "nerd" at
all.
Rabochnok on 20 April 2010
Danish: Sprognørd
Iversen on 20 April 2010
This is like a Jeff Foxworthy joke for language geeks. I mean honestly... 50000 views??? That's gotta be like 50% of this sites traffic directed right at this thread.
ManicGenius on 20 April 2010
This is like a Jeff Foxworthy joke for language geeks. I mean honestly... 50000 views??? That's gotta be like 50% of this sites traffic directed right at this thread.
To paraphrase an old James Brown song:"Say it loud, I'm a language nerd and I'm proud!"
psy88 on 21 April 2010
When you enjoy your teachers talking about current events because the only news you get is through your foreign language studies so it helps reinforce your vocabulary by reminding you of all the words you learned.
kottoler.ello on 21 April 2010
When you enjoy your teachers talking about current events because the only news you get is through your foreign language studies so it helps reinforce your vocabulary by reminding you of all the words you learned.
Yep! I learned about the volcano in Iceland originally from a post in Teango's language log and then reading about it in an article from a Greek newspaper.
ellasevia on 21 April 2010
languages available -ÂEnglish, French, and Spanish - unlike your own DS lite which has three
more - Italian, German, and Japanese.
When you wish yours had Turkish available - and games in Turkish to go along with it.
Rabochnok on 21 April 2010
them to various resources. It's nice when they return the next week smiling, telling you confidently that they're on
their way to learn another language. Another satisfied customer! :D
I work at a gym :)
I guess I've become their personal trainer in exercising their language muscles, haha.
MegatronFilm on 24 April 2010
When you pass up a Friday night of boozin and fun adventures with the fellas to instead
watch a movie in a foreign language on your own.
canada38 on 24 April 2010
...your "TOREAD" list of books has books on at least 5 different languages, some of which
you don't speak [yet].
Thaorius on 24 April 2010
...when your father begins to wonder why you've suddenly received seven books in the mail in the past three days, and when he finds out they're all Teach Yourself [X language] courses, he is left wondering why he wondered in the first place...
ellasevia on 24 April 2010
what it's like to type in such different scripts.
When you wish your family good night in other languages.
Rabochnok on 25 April 2010
ball it will land near a pair of women speaking an unidentified language so you have an excuse to go over and
listen in on them.
(I did this today. It turned out to be Mandarin)
Luai_lashire on 26 April 2010
you.
True story.
Olympia on 26 April 2010
You know you're a language nerd when your friend goes to get something from your notebook for a class, but
instead finds pages covered in Russian! They frantically search through it while you watch, amused. You then tell
them that they are in the wrong notebook, and that what they were going through was your Russian notebook. They
go into the next notebook labeled for the correct class. They find the sheet, but it's filled out... in German.
ruskivyetr on 27 April 2010
Haha, I did something like that last year. In PE we had to take really tedious notes, so I decided to practice my Portuguese at the same time and wrote the notes about fitness in Portuguese! Little did I know that we would later have to turn those notes in...
ellasevia on 27 April 2010
Yeah when I was in high school we had to keep a journal in my theology class. I wasn't really interested in the idea
of keeping a "faith journal," so I decided to write my entries in Spanish to make it more interesting. My teacher was
very perplexed when we had to turn them in at the end of the term...
Olympia on 29 April 2010
That's happened before, but by mistake. I tend to think in German to pass the time, and it shows up in a lot of my
work which gets my teachers really angry, so I'm forced to think inEnglish during classes :(.
ruskivyetr on 29 April 2010
At least you guys are writing notes in an alphabet the teacher can read! I used to perplex my teachers with notes written entirely in phonetic shorthand.
Levi on 29 April 2010
Fasulye
Fasulye on 29 April 2010
Writing a perfectly understandable language in a script that others can't read sounds like a marvellous idea to me.
This is perhaps why in middle school I exchanged notes written in
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tengwar - Tengwar with a couple of friends... and my handwriting was much neater when I did that than when I used latin alphabet.
Kubelek on 30 April 2010
I mentioned the shorthand earlier in this thread. It's called http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quikscript - Quikscript . If you are interested in learning it the original manual is published in its entirety online http://home.wanadoo.nl/uln/quickscript/quikscriptm anual.pdf - in this PDF .
Levi on 30 April 2010
I mentioned the shorthand earlier in this thread. It's called
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quikscript - Quikscript . If you are interested in
learning it the original manual is published in its entirety online
http://home.wanadoo.nl/uln/quickscript/quikscriptm anual.pdf - in this
PDF .
...when, after reading that, you can find 3 printed copies of the original manual in the
room you are sitting, that aren't in the same place and weren't printed at the same time
but you don't really understand or write quikscript...
Thaorius on 30 April 2010
When you post on another thread and that makes you realize another reason that you are a language nerd: You know who more of the people are in your Spanish(your target language) edition of People magazine than in theEnglish edition(your native language).
psy88 on 30 April 2010
:-)
Rikyu-san on 30 April 2010
like this goes on between you and one of the artists:
You: Hi...(Hesitant and unsure if the artist'sÂEnglish is good)... Are you the artist? Shall we speak inÂEnglish or
Spanish?
Artist: Hey there! We can speakÂEnglish (Spoken with a perfect American accent).
You: Can we PLEASE speak Spanish?! :D
My conversation went on with him for a half hour. We talked about the city of Medallin, his work and the
negative reputation Colombia holds in the world. I've been hungry for some Spanish practice! I think it's nice to
converse with artists in their native tongue. They can freely express their intent for their work without any
trouble. Not that this guy had trouble withÂEnglish! I've been told by some documentarians that the best
interviews are done in the subject's native language.
I also tend to ask bilingual people if we could speak a certain language. I don't want to assume because some
people might be offended and think that I believe theirÂEnglish isn't good enough.
MegatronFilm on 30 April 2010
Hi guys!
I have read your posts. I really like your posts. The biggest problem most people face in learning a new language is their own fear. They worry that they wonât say things properly or that they will look dull so they donât talk at all. Donât do this. The fastest way to learn anything is to do it â again and again until you get it right. Like anything, learningÂEnglish requires practice. Donât let a little fear stop you from getting what you want.
I agree, very often fear hampers our ability to speak the language. That's why sometimes it helps to get abit tipsy after a couple of beer/wine, and voila, the sentences suddenly start coming out - nonstop! :)
noriyuki_nomura on 30 April 2010
When the first thing you do upon turning on your computer is start Mnemosyne, by sheer force of habit.
kottoler.ello on 01 May 2010
When the first thing you do upon turning on your computer is start Mnemosyne, by sheer force of habit.
I have an almost identical habit. Upon turning on my computer, I automatically open up my email, then BYKI, then Anki, and then my internet browser, which automatically saves the tabs I last had open, which always include at least my kanji reviewing website, google translate, my Anki statistics, Livemocha tutoring, and usually this website. :)
ellasevia on 01 May 2010
When the first thing you do upon turning on your computer is start Mnemosyne, by sheer force of habit.
I have an almost identical habit. Upon turning on my computer, I automatically open up my email, then BYKI, then Anki, and then my internet browser, which automatically saves the tabs I last had open, which always include at least my kanji reviewing website, google translate, my Anki statistics, Livemocha tutoring, and usually this website. :)
When you've already set all these type of things to load up automatically as start-up items when you first switch on and log in (and if you've got a Mac or workspaces application, to load into their own specific work areas too).
Teango on 01 May 2010
preferences regarding languages they are learning.
I was not kidding..... please enter my survey :) (But fill it with a serious head and
mind)
my survey....: (which from some reason the link to it was removed by the admin...!)
www.pertalk.com
bye! - For the admins - It's is not spam, so don't erase this please (you can check it
yourself..)
ÂÂÂ
Otto on 04 May 2010
preferences regarding languages they are learning.
I was not kidding..... please enter my survey :) (But fill it with a serious head and
mind)
my survey....: (which from some reason the link to it was removed by the admin...!)
www.pertalk.com
bye! - For the admins - It's is not spam, so don't erase this please (you can check it
yourself..)
ÂÂÂ ÂÂ
I took the survey, but I think there is still a lot missing from it. On the part about which languages you speak you only mentioned a couple, and many people speak languages other than those. What about those people who learned only Hungarian? Or Greek? Or Latin?
Also, there was not enough in there about self-study in my opinion, and since most of us here use that as our primary method I think you will be getting a lot of "other"s.
ellasevia on 04 May 2010
Regarding the lack of options in many areas - you are right. I had to limit many
answers options do to the survey's site constraints.
I have a specific answer i am looking for by conducting the survey (I can't tell it
here, though , because it will harm the credibility of the results), and I can still
answer it within those constraints limitations.
By the way - I don't seem to manage to reach enough people to fill the form. Maybe you
have ideas about where else I can publish?
academic task regarding people's
preferences regarding languages they are learning.
I was not kidding..... please enter my survey :) (But fill it with a serious head and
mind)
my survey....: (which from some reason the link to it was removed by the admin...!)
www.pertalk.com
bye! - For the admins - It's is not spam, so don't erase this please (you can check it
yourself..)
ÂÂÂ ÂÂ ÂÂ
I took the survey, but I think there is still a lot missing from it. On the part about
which languages you speak you only mentioned a couple, and many people speak languages
other than those. What about those people who learned only Hungarian? Or Greek? Or
Latin?
Also, there was not enough in there about self-study in my opinion, and since most of
us here use that as our primary method I think you will be getting a lot of
"other"s.
Otto on 05 May 2010
You know you are a language nerd when you wake up in the middle of the night and wonder about the subjunctive form of a particular verb.You know you will not be able to fall back to sleep until you get up, find your "Spanish Verb Book" and check the correct form. Of course, when you do get up and check it, it was what you had thought it was.
psy88 on 05 May 2010
When you look around a room, and no matter what object your eyes end up resting on (even if it isn't particularly interesting, cultural or language related), you're still secretly drawn from time to time into thinking about what the word for this might be in one or more languages. @.@
Teango on 05 May 2010
...when you're feeling guilty playing a video game instead of studying languages, then find out that you can actually play it in four of the languages you're studying.
chalokun on 05 May 2010
when you've been reading this thread all morning long, you decide to go to eat,put on your mp3 & first sentence you hear in Slovenian is "it's a hot day"meanwhile you're freezing in the middle of the street despite being on may in France.....
chalokun on 05 May 2010
When you return from a night shift at work and need sleep before the next shift starts ... but four hours later you are still going through French word lists whilst listenning to French radio.
Temple09 on 06 May 2010
When you are learning grammar and you feel guilty because you're not learning vocab, and then when you learn vocab you feel guilty because you're not practising oral on skype and when you're on skype you feel guilty because you're not learning grammar ...
Temple09 on 06 May 2010
When more than 80% of your time in your summer holiday is delicated to languages...........
QiuJP on 07 May 2010
Hah, more like that's the Persian word for "language" and it didn't bother translating "nerd" at
all.
When, after having a Persian phase (again...), you read the post that ^this^ is a response to (which just happens to be YOUR post) and facepalm yourself for not realizing what 'zaban' meant in the first place.
When you think that a 'Persian phase' is a perfectly normal thing to have.
When you think that having multiple Persian phases is also perfectly normal.
When, in the midst of said Persian phase, you watch 'No One Knows About Persian Cats' just so that you can present to your mom a reason why you want to learn Persian so she'll buy you that Teach Yourself Modern Persian book you've been eyeing up for the past three years.
When you take the language books you're currently using on a camping trip.
You take along your Czech book too, just in case you get bored with Spanish and you're miles away from your language pile.
When you experiance withdrawl symptoms when you've been away from your language books for too long.
When 'too long' is a sleepover at your friend's house.
When you seperate your langage courses based on 'the books you're currently using' and your 'language pile'.
When you have language piles. (I know, this has been posted already)
When you use Russian grammar forÂEnglish (the sentance 'I know, this has been posted already' shouldn't have a comma in it...).
When you write Kanji into your Japanese course because it doesn't have any.
When you buy Breaking Into Japanese Literature when you're on lesson 3 of you 40 lesson course book.
When you buy a Japanese novel before you bought your coursebook because you're 'thinking ahead'.
mashmusic11235 on 07 May 2010
When more than 80% of your time in your summer holiday is delicated to languages...........
When you get depressed when you read this because you know your summer holiday will, unfortunately, (sigh) not be like that.
psy88 on 08 May 2010
When you read this thread not only for pleasure but to get tips on being a better language nerd.
kottoler.ello on 08 May 2010
When you use new languages to "reward" yourself for working on old ones.
janalisa on 11 May 2010
When Uz-Translations is your home page.
nogoodnik on 11 May 2010
When your two 16 GB ipods are jam packed with only language lessons from various language textbooks, Assimil and foreign language news podcast, and music that's not from your native language!
noriyuki_nomura on 11 May 2010
It makes you prouder to get a vote for your post in this thread than in serious discussions... and you vote more in this thread than anywhere else.
Kubelek on 11 May 2010
When you don't know why you learn a language but you still enjoy learning it...
Petitanne on 12 May 2010
When during the breaktime at school you prefer to read French textbooks.
When during the boring classes you solve German crosswords.
When your class is split in two for the foreign-languages class, and you can choose only one between German and French, but you still want to study both, so you chat in French with your French-studying classmates.
When your favourite tv programme becomes even "more favourite", because you've discovered that you can watch it on the Internet in German.
mirab3lla on 12 May 2010
I had a three day weekend and chose to spend most of it learning as much as I could of Scandinavian dialects/regional languages such as Ãlvdalska and Jämtlandic.
mick33 on 12 May 2010
When you print out the FSI Swedish course in school while your friend is at the printer in the library. When they pick
it up they immediately look at you, roll their eyes, and bring it over.
ruskivyetr on 12 May 2010
It makes you prouder to get a vote for your post in this thread than in serious discussions... and you vote more in this thread than anywhere else.
This post needs votes for the irony.
PaulLambeth on 12 May 2010
- When you've finished your work in history class, you look through the textbook for original sources from Soviet Russia to practise reading the Cyrillic script.
- You raise your hand in history class to insist that there is one correct transliteration of "ЦаÑ" (Tsar), because you are very particular about the letter Ц being transliterated as a "ts", not "cz" or any other variations. Everyone in the class groans at your nerdiness (these people already ridicule you since you had to make a speech about anything inEnglish class, and you spoke about your favourite Russian band, and apparently listening to Russian music isn't considered normal). And then, in reply to people saying, "Yeah, you'd know" sarcastically, you reply, "Yes, actually, I would, I know the Russian alphabet", and you feel a bit annoyed at yourself for not calling it the Cyrillic alphabet even though you only said Russian because nobody would know what Cyrillic was. And then a day later someone says, "Do you know the German alphabet?" and you have trouble not losing faith in humanity as you tell them that German uses the same alphabet asEnglish. And you're sure this has to be the nerdiest paragraph in this thread, LOL.
- You enjoy reading YouTube comments in Spanish to study how routinely misspelled and dumbed-down they can be, just likeEnglish ones. Unfortunately it's difficult to learn much new vocabulary from them, as the majority of them are just saying that the author either loves the song or thinks someone is hot. Just likeEnglish ones.
- You have to read Romeo and Juliet inEnglish Lit class, and you are sure you'd understand it a lot better if they were speaking Spanish.
- You often wonder whether there are different dialects of dog-speak. Like, would a Spanish dog understand the barks and growls of a Chinese dog?
- You hate the song She-Wolf, but love it's Spanish equivalent Loba.
- You didn't even realise there was anEnglish version of Loba until you heard people singing it at school.
- You found a Zanussi advertisem*nt in a magazine, and you cut it out and blu-tacked it to the wall next to your bed because it has an Italian slogan and the picture appears to be of Italy.
- The film Love Actually makes you want to learn Portuguese so you can understand what Aurelia says and so you can see if the subtitles are accurate (I bet they're not accurate).
- The highlight of your work experience at the local council was meeting some people from Kazakhstan who came for a tour of the town hall, and they all spoke Russian and only the interpreter spoke anyEnglish, and you were fascinated by hearing them speak even though you didn't understand a word.
- You've just read this entire thread! :)
ThisIsGina on 12 May 2010
And then a day later someone says, "Do you know the German alphabet?" and you have trouble not losing faith in humanity as you tell them that German uses the same alphabet asÂEnglish.
BecauseEnglish uses umlauts and eszetts...
WortDrauf on 13 May 2010
And then a day later someone says, "Do you know the German alphabet?" and you have trouble not losing faith in humanity as you tell them that German uses the same alphabet asÂEnglish.
BecauseÂEnglish uses umlauts and eszetts...
They're both Latin-based though, and not changed enough to say that knowing theEnglish and the German alphabets are two different achievements.
GREGORG4000 on 13 May 2010
At the beginning of the school year, we were talking about the various uses of the apostrophe in myEnglish class, and someone attempted to say that they sometimes were used to show sounds that don't exist inEnglish. The teacher and other students were confused, but I understood, so I explained that often in transliterations apostrophes are used to signify palatalization in Slavic languages for example (Ð´ÐµÐ½Ñ = den'), and various glottal and ejective sounds in several languages (in Georgian for example, á = p', ᢠ= t', ᬠ= ts', á = ch'). This, of course, only confused everyone further, and then the teacher said, "Why don't we just focus onEnglish for now?"
ellasevia on 13 May 2010
When one of the reasons (but certainly not the only one) why you want Antanas Mockus to
win the presidential election in Colombia is because he's a native speaker of Lithuanian, and
you like the idea of a Colombian president who can speak anything besides Spanish and
English.
Rabochnok on 13 May 2010
- You raise your hand in history class to insist that there is one correct transliteration of "ЦаÑ" (Tsar), because
you are very particular about the letter Ц being transliterated as a "ts", not "cz" or any other variations. Everyone
in the class groans at your nerdiness (these people already ridicule you since you had to make a speech about
anything inÂEnglish class, and you spoke about your favourite Russian band, and apparently listening to Russian
music isn't considered normal). And then, in reply to people saying, "Yeah, you'd know" sarcastically, you reply,
"Yes, actually, I would, I know the Russian alphabet", and you feel a bit annoyed at yourself for not calling it the
Cyrillic alphabet even though you only said Russian because nobody would know what Cyrillic was. And then a
day later someone says, "Do you know the German alphabet?" and you have trouble not losing faith in humanity
as you tell them that German uses the same alphabet asÂEnglish. And you're sure this has to be the nerdiest
paragraph in this thread, LOL.
It's actually spelled ÑаÑÑ. At least you weren't like me, who got up in the middle of class, and wrote the Cyrillic
and its transliteration, much to the shock of my teacher and fellow classmates.
ruskivyetr on 13 May 2010
When one of the reasons (but certainly not the only one) why you want Antanas Mockus to
win the presidential election in Colombia is because he's a native speaker of Lithuanian, and
you like the idea of a Colombian president who can speak anything besides Spanish and
English.
...when you were ecstatic to hear http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZhu8SaodPw - Obama speaking Spanish during the 2008 presidential campaign. Supposedly he speaks a little Indonesian too.
Levi on 13 May 2010
- The film Love Actually makes you want to learn Portuguese so you can understand what Aurelia says and so you
can see if the subtitles are accurate (I bet they're not accurate).
When you see your mother watching that movie in Italian, find out that it is a British film and immediately go buy
the DVD to exercise with the accent.
MäcÃSŸ on 13 May 2010
When you find yourself staying up late past bed time in order to learn some extra vocab, and then start to feel guilty because the resulting late start the next morning will mean you will have less time to learn more vocab tomorrow!
Temple09 on 13 May 2010
And then a day later someone says, "Do you know the German alphabet?" and you have trouble not losing faith in humanity as you tell them that German uses the same alphabet asÂEnglish.
BecauseÂEnglish uses umlauts and eszetts...
I thought of that, but they both use the majority of the same letters, so it's not like a completely different alphabet.
ThisIsGina on 13 May 2010
- You raise your hand in history class to insist that there is one correct transliteration of "ЦаÑ" (Tsar), because
you are very particular about the letter Ц being transliterated as a "ts", not "cz" or any other variations. Everyone
in the class groans at your nerdiness (these people already ridicule you since you had to make a speech about
anything inÂEnglish class, and you spoke about your favourite Russian band, and apparently listening to Russian
music isn't considered normal). And then, in reply to people saying, "Yeah, you'd know" sarcastically, you reply,
"Yes, actually, I would, I know the Russian alphabet", and you feel a bit annoyed at yourself for not calling it the
Cyrillic alphabet even though you only said Russian because nobody would know what Cyrillic was. And then a
day later someone says, "Do you know the German alphabet?" and you have trouble not losing faith in humanity
as you tell them that German uses the same alphabet asÂEnglish. And you're sure this has to be the nerdiest
paragraph in this thread, LOL.
It's actually spelled ÑаÑÑ. At least you weren't like me, who got up in the middle of class, and wrote the Cyrillic
and its transliteration, much to the shock of my teacher and fellow classmates.
(You're right, I always forget the Ñ, LOL)
I actually almost did that, I'm glad I didn't!
ThisIsGina on 13 May 2010
When most of your bookshelves are piled up with language books and courses you've never even read.
Teango on 13 May 2010
Even having them separated on every language you need to scroll them down because there is so many of them that screen is always too small to see them all
leyus on 13 May 2010
And then a day later someone says, "Do you know the German alphabet?" and you have trouble not losing faith in humanity as you tell them that German uses the same alphabet asÂEnglish.
BecauseÂEnglish uses umlauts and eszetts...
They're both Latin-based though, and not changed enough to say that knowing theÂEnglish and the German alphabets are two different achievements.
I'm aware. But I don't think "losing faith in humanity" is merited by a notion that's only partially incorrect.
WortDrauf on 14 May 2010
And to be fair, German did have its own unique scripts (Fraktur and Sütterlin) until not too long ago.http://www.omniglot.com/writing/german.htm - http://www.omniglot.com/writing/german.htm
Levi on 14 May 2010
When the scenes you most look forward to in the TV series "Dexter" are when Lt. Laguerta and Sgt. Batista exchange a few sexy phrases in Spanish, or even better, when the episode ends up in the heart of Miami's Cuban community and you get to hear lots of Spanglish!
Teango on 14 May 2010
When you do absolutely NOTHING but learning languages and sleeping/eating/going to the
bathroom all day long.
I am honestly rarely guilty of this. :)
FailArtist on 14 May 2010
When you organise your day around your language revision, rather than organise your language revision around your day.
Temple09 on 15 May 2010
When your big ol' hamper of language learning goodies eventually arrives in the post, and you're tearing at the cardboard and wrapping like it's Christmas morning all over again! :D
Teango on 15 May 2010
When you start measuring your ability in other skills with the CEF Scale. 'Yeah I play the piano, I'm about C1'.
rlf1810 on 15 May 2010
When you start measuring your ability in other skills with the CEF
Scale. 'Yeah I play the piano, I'm about C1'.
When you were just looking for a competence classification system that isn't 1-10 and
that sounds like a perfect fit.
Thaorius on 15 May 2010
...when the first thing you think of when seeing the number 3 is no longer the number 3, but the Cyrillic letter з.
Levi on 16 May 2010
You know youâre a language nerd when...you have a wonderful collection of dictionaries on your desk, ranked by size and colour.
Lucilha on 16 May 2010
You know youâre a language nerd when...you have a wonderful collection of dictionaries on your desk, ranked by size and colour.
Haha, that's reminded me ...
You know you're a language nerd when you've gone through a 40+ DVD collection and seperated the five that have subtitles available in your target languages into a different pile, to be prioritised ahead of the rest.
(This includes Spider Man 2 and one of the Harry Potter films. What joys!)
PaulLambeth on 16 May 2010
When your big ol' hamper of language learning goodies eventually arrives in the post, and you're tearing at the cardboard and wrapping like it's Christmas morning all over again! :D
Yep, when you're excited about getting a textbook, that's the essence of geekdom right there. And by the way, I got my Italian Sentence Builder in the mail... Evviva!
dolly on 16 May 2010
When some people call you the "languages girl" and ask you if you can translate from a language, which you don't knwo at all, and they are surprised because they assumed that you can understand ALL the languages.
Wise owl chick on 17 May 2010
When I visited YouTube this morning, I saw that the site can now be viewed in five more languages, one of which is Finnish. This news has made my day, even if I'm not quite ready to switch my language preference to Finnish just yet.
mick33 on 17 May 2010
...when you refuse to speak to someone inEnglish if you have some other language in common.
Levi on 18 May 2010
When you look for L2 words on licence plates.
Rabochnok on 18 May 2010
When you start noticing adverts in your Google Mail for "spam breakfast burritos", and you bizarrely click on the link in the hope of learning a little more about Spanish culture and cuisine...
Teango on 19 May 2010
When you start noticing adverts in your Google Mail for "spam breakfast burritos", and you bizarrely click on the link in the hope of learning a little more about Spanish culture and cuisine...
Ha, that's a good one! The person who invents a way to send burritos by email will earn my undying respect. And I don't even like burritos . . . I just like the idea of opening up mail and finding food.
I have another language nerd experience to tell. A few days ago I decided to stop at the bookstore on the way home from work, and I was browsing around, thinking of the million + books I'd like to buy and the one book I can possibly, actually afford, when I noticed something extremely interesting going on in the bookstore cafe. A man and a lady were sitting there with a lot of Spanish grammar and reference books spread out before them on the table, and they were absorbed in some very earnest Spanish study! I lurked around as long as I could without causing too much suspicion, and I so, so badly wanted to go talk to them, but they were really involved in their work. I wanted to say:
HI! I LIKE YOU! You study languages, and I do, too! Can I listen, please, please, pleeeeeeesee!? I like languages too! We can talk! We are from the same tribe! Language people! Where do you live? Can I come over? Please???? I'll share my books . . .
Yes, it was just pathetic.
I did not interrupt them. I went away. Sadly. Where did I go? To the language aisle. That should help, right? Well, what did I see there? There was a bookstore clerk there, and she was . . . she was . . oh, I can't say it, it's just too much . . she was TAGGING language books! I wanted to say:
HI! You are tagging language stuff! This is great! I do this too, isn't it fun? You like tags and languages, too? We must have a common ancestor, right? Some cave guy, probably, who tagged a lot of stuff milleniums ago, and today we carry on the great tradition! TAGS!
I did not.
Obviously I need to find more people who share my interests.
I'll probably go back tomorrow. It's incurable.
meramarina on 20 May 2010
When you start noticing adverts in your Google Mail for
"spam breakfast burritos", and you bizarrely click on the link in the hope of learning
a little more about Spanish culture and cuisine...
Ha, that's a good one! The person who invents a way to send burritos by email will
earn my undying respect. And I don't even like burritos . . . I just like the idea of
opening up mail and finding food.
I have another language nerd experience to tell. A few days ago I decided to stop at
the bookstore on the way home from work, and I was browsing around, thinking of the
million + books I'd like to buy and the one book I can possibly, actually afford, when
I noticed something extremely interesting going on in the bookstore cafe. A man and a
lady were sitting there with a lot of Spanish grammar and reference books spread out
before them on the table, and they were absorbed in some very earnest Spanish study! I
lurked around as long as I could without causing too much suspicion, and I so, so badly
wanted to go talk to them, but they were really involved in their work. I wanted to
say:
HI! I LIKE YOU! You study languages, and I do, too! Can I listen, please, please,
pleeeeeeesee!? I like languages too! We can talk! We are from the same tribe!
Language people! Where do you live? Can I come over? Please???? I'll share my books
. . .
Yes, it was just pathetic.
I did not interrupt them. I went away. Sadly. Where did I go? To the language
aisle. That should help, right? Well, what did I see there? There was a bookstore
clerk there, and she was . . . she was . . oh, I can't say it, it's just too much . .
she was TAGGING language books! I wanted to say:
HI! You are tagging language stuff! This is great! I do this too, isn't it fun? You
like tags and languages, too? We must have a common ancestor, right? Some cave guy,
probably, who tagged a lot of stuff milleniums ago, and today we carry on the great
tradition! TAGS!
I did not.
Obviously I need to find more people who share my interests.
I'll probably go back tomorrow. It's incurable.
I think I can confidently say it. You have issues :). [Just kidding]
You are a language nerd when... your personal emails with your mother are a mix of
Spanish,English, and Esperanto; your mother responds in bits and pieces of Esperanto
(she has no clue of Esperanto), and this doesn't even give raise to so much as a
comment, complain, or petition to stop. After all, you are known and expected to do
that kind of thing...
Thaorius on 20 May 2010
When I visited YouTube this morning, I saw that the site can now be viewed in five more languages, one of which is Finnish. This news has made my day, even if I'm not quite ready to switch my language preference to Finnish just yet.
When this post makes you annoyed for not noticing that you could even change the UI language on Youtube (or you'd have already done so).
Warp3 on 21 May 2010
...when your YouTube is in German, your e-mail is in French, and your Facebook is in Chinese.
Levi on 21 May 2010
Obviously I need to find more people who share my interests.
I've got the perfect solution, let's form a Spanish tag team! ;)
Teango on 21 May 2010
You know you are a language nerd when you do this! Tag Team is a good idea!
meramarina on 21 May 2010
know the Spanish word for "tag"! How could I have been so negligent?! So, I grabbed my
dictionary from the shelf, and searched frantically for the word. I could not find it!
I didn't know why! Why, why of why, because I need to know, now, why . . . this is my
German dictionary, oh. OK I found it (I think): el marbete. I'm off now to find the
word in a few other languages.
You know you are a language nerd when you do this! Tag Team is a good idea!
Marbete? Never have I ever heard that word being used in every day speach (hell, I had to
google it). You might want to use "rótulo" or "etiqueta".
Thaorius on 21 May 2010
Thanks for the correction - I do want to know if I get something wrong. Etymology is a little off-topic, but certainly nerdy!
EDIT: from Etymology Online:
etiquette
1750, from Fr. étiquette "prescribed behavior," from O.Fr. estiquette "label, ticket." The sense development in Fr. is from small cards written or printed with instructions for how to behave properly at court (cf. It. etichetta, Sp. etiqueta), and/or from behavior instructions written on a soldier's billet for lodgings (the main sense of the O.Fr. word)
Interesting! I never realized the words were related. I am an imperfect nerd for sure, but I try to learn what I can!
meramarina on 21 May 2010
Which leads me to this point: etymology for you is a source of both joy and fits of rage. When I realized that 'marauder' has different meanings and connotations in Polish,English and French the perfectionist in me cried a little bit ;) because there are probably more of such false friends out there, which I don't even suspect now. On days like these I doubt that I even speak my native language.
Kubelek on 22 May 2010
When your native language is tainted by the languages you're studying. It kind of sucks actually.
kottoler.ello on 22 May 2010
either. I need to consult other sources, that was just a quick lookup. But I see that
you are a native speaker, so I trust your knowledge more than my dictionary! Is
"etiqueta" commonly used? This resembles the German and French (if I can trust my
other quick references!) And I'm wondering also how theÂEnglish word "etiquette" for
proper manners is related to these words and why the similar word inÂEnglish is
different. Another thing to look up for this nerd!
Thanks for the correction - I do want to know if I get something wrong. Etymology is a
little off-topic, but certainly nerdy!
EDIT: from Etymology Online:
etiquette
1750, from Fr. étiquette "prescribed behavior," from O.Fr. estiquette "label, ticket."
The sense development in Fr. is from small cards written or printed with instructions
for how to behave properly at court (cf. It. etichetta, Sp. etiqueta), and/or from
behavior instructions written on a soldier's billet for lodgings (the main sense of the
O.Fr. word)
Interesting! I never realized the words were related. I am an imperfect nerd for
sure, but I try to learn what I can!
Please bear in mind I live in Argentina, and the vocabulary used in Spain is
significantly different. That being said, I did live in Spain for 2 years, and the
following should apply more or less equally in both countries.
I will generally use "rótulo" when I mean a hand-made (though not necessarily
handwritten) tag/label. This image would be a nice example:
http://members.optusnet.com.au/svencsh/CD%20Library.jpg
As for "etiqueta", I will generally use the word when I mean the price tag of
something, or the little tag on a T-shirt's neck, or the label on a bottle, etc. It may
also be used like theÂEnglish word etiquette (for example, "Vestida con ropa de
etiqueta").
----On Topic----
You are a language nerd when... you talk about the etymology of words on different
languages over the internet for no particular reason with people you don't know, and
you actually enjoy it. Even more so, when you choose to type this post during an study
break, because anything language related is so relaxing...
Thaorius on 23 May 2010
When flipping through the map section of the Ethnologue for about 20 minutes cures your headache and fatigue.
kottoler.ello on 23 May 2010
When flipping through the map section of the Ethnologue for about 20 minutes cures your headache and fatigue.
Strangely so very true. :) And also when you look through your atlas at home, placing a finger on all the different colourful countries of the world one by one, and murmuring to yourself either..."know", "learning", or "don't know, but I'll add it to my list".
Teango on 23 May 2010
....When you start to get headaches from automatically translating things into various languages.
....When you hear a language you don't understand, and automatically plan to find out what it is and learn it promptly.
....When you hear a language you don't understand, begin to follow the process outlined above, and then realize you've simply misheard your native tongue.
Person1235 on 23 May 2010
...when you wish that in real life, people had the languages they speak/study listed next to them like on this forum.
Levi on 24 May 2010
...when you wish that in real life, people had the languages they speak/study listed next to them like on this forum.
That would be amazing!!
ellasevia on 24 May 2010
When you finally decide to organize all the language learning materials you have been accumulating for your two target languages and then realize that, even studying a few hours a day, six to seven days a week, you would have to live to at least 125 to go through all the materials, and that doesn't include your plan to add a third language next year.
psy88 on 25 May 2010
When you finally decide to organize all the language learning materials you have been accumulating for your two target languages and then realize that, even studying a few hours a day, six to seven days a week, you would have to live to at least 125 to go through all the materials, and that doesn't include your plan to add a third language next year.
How many materials do you have!?
ellasevia on 25 May 2010
When you finally decide to organize all the language learning materials you have been accumulating for your two target languages and then realize that, even studying a few hours a day, six to seven days a week, you would have to live to at least 125 to go through all the materials, and that doesn't include your plan to add a third language next year.
How many materials do you have!?
Doesn't matter, you can never have enough...
patuco on 25 May 2010
...You've really been wanting to watch one of your favorite movies (The Sound of Music), and were considering
ordering it off of Amazon, and got really excited to see that the DVD has options for dubbing in Spanish and
French, but decided against buying it--because you wanted to watch it in Portuguese.
Olympia on 26 May 2010
...when you play The Witcher with Polish voice-overs (because you always choose the original, even when not speaking the language at all) and your thoughts during the tutorial are, "Wow, Polish really sounds badass! I really need to learn a Slavic language soon." and "Wait, did he just change the ending vocal of a name? Polish has a vocative case? Cool!"
muflax on 26 May 2010
Wallet? Check. Keys? Check. Pocket sized French-Dutch, Dutch-French dictionary? Check.
-When even when you've promised yourself a French-free day to let everything sink in you still find yourself looking up translations of words you come across on Wiktionary.
-When you've been talking to yourself in a mixture of Dutch,ÂEnglish and French for hours, occasionally explaining bits of grammar and vocabulary to the walls to check that you've fully understood them.
-When you and your best friend have long discussions about the languages you are going to raise your own and the other's children in and have decided on Dutch,ÂEnglish, French, Spanish and Papiamentu...so far.
ReneeMona on 26 May 2010
When you finally decide to organize all the language learning materials you have been accumulating for your two target languages and then realize that, even studying a few hours a day, six to seven days a week, you would have to live to at least 125 to go through all the materials, and that doesn't include your plan to add a third language next year.
How many materials do you have!?
I could joke and simply say "too many" but in truth I have a lot.And the books, courses, materials are rather long and time consuming if you go at a slow pace,as I like to do, trying to absorb the material.
Also, I found a discount book(and CD) seller that carries a variety of courses and reference material in my two target languages.They add new items and discontinue others. I must admit that I get a little paranoid that they might not have the particular items in the future (when I would be ready to use it) so I gobble them up when I can.
I must also "blame" this site: I hear good things about a program and I want to try it. I don't jump around but I do like to use several resourses at the same time
As an example I am working on Assimil French with Ease, but I also have purchased or received as gifts (and all you fellow language nerds know that these are the gifts we ask for from our friends, family, etc) other materials. These include Berlitz Self-Teacher , Michele Thomas 10 CD Beginners, Cortina Conversation in 20 lessons, Behind the Wheel level 1...well, you get the idea. This does not include all the Spanish books, tapes, CD's,and courses that I have used, am still using, or am planning to use.
So I am exaggerating only a little when I said 125 yr. Maybe only 90 years.
Edit: I guess it also depends on how old one is when first starting.
psy88 on 26 May 2010
...when you are disappointed that nobody you know is familiar with the sentence "I can eat glass, it does not hurt me" or the sentence "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously".
Levi on 26 May 2010
...when you are disappointed that nobody you know is familiar with the
sentence "I can eat glass, it does not hurt me" or the sentence "Colorless green ideas
sleep furiously".
Or how about "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo."?
egill on 26 May 2010
...when you are disappointed that nobody you know is familiar with the
sentence "I can eat glass, it does not hurt me" or the sentence "Colorless green ideas
sleep furiously".
Or how about "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo."?
Strangely, I don't think that example ever came up in any of my classes when I was studying linguistics at the University at Buffalo. I read about it on my own.
Levi on 26 May 2010
"Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana"
karaipyhare on 26 May 2010
either. I need to consult other sources, that was just a quick lookup. But I see that
you are a native speaker, so I trust your knowledge more than my dictionary! Is
"etiqueta" commonly used? This resembles the German and French (if I can trust my
other quick references!) And I'm wondering also how theÂEnglish word "etiquette" for
proper manners is related to these words and why the similar word inÂEnglish is
different. Another thing to look up for this nerd!
Thanks for the correction - I do want to know if I get something wrong. Etymology is a
little off-topic, but certainly nerdy!
EDIT: from Etymology Online:
etiquette
1750, from Fr. étiquette "prescribed behavior," from O.Fr. estiquette "label, ticket."
The sense development in Fr. is from small cards written or printed with instructions
for how to behave properly at court (cf. It. etichetta, Sp. etiqueta), and/or from
behavior instructions written on a soldier's billet for lodgings (the main sense of the
O.Fr. word)
Interesting! I never realized the words were related. I am an imperfect nerd for
sure, but I try to learn what I can!
Please bear in mind I live in Argentina, and the vocabulary used in Spain is
significantly different. That being said, I did live in Spain for 2 years, and the
following should apply more or less equally in both countries.
I will generally use "rótulo" when I mean a hand-made (though not necessarily
handwritten) tag/label. This image would be a nice example:
http://members.optusnet.com.au/svencsh/CD%20Library.jpg
As for "etiqueta", I will generally use the word when I mean the price tag of
something, or the little tag on a T-shirt's neck, or the label on a bottle, etc. It may
also be used like theÂEnglish word etiquette (for example, "Vestida con ropa de
etiqueta").
----On Topic----
You are a language nerd when... you talk about the etymology of words on different
languages over the internet for no particular reason with people you don't know, and
you actually enjoy it. Even more so, when you choose to type this post during an study
break, because anything language related is so relaxing...
^^ Oops I thought she wanted to know how to say
Tag your it in Spanish.John Smith on 27 May 2010
You are a language nerd when... you talk about the etymology of words on different languages over the internet for no particular reason with people you don't know, and you actually enjoy it. Even more so, when you choose to type this post during an study break, because anything language related is so relaxing...
You're in good company here...and by the way, yes, this is my relaxing study break. ;)
Teango on 27 May 2010
When your native language is tainted by the languages you're studying. It kind of sucks actually.
mick33 on 27 May 2010
"Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana"
I've always personally parsed that second clause as saying all fruit flies through the
air in the same manner that a banana does. That is, bananas are somehow exemplary of
general fruit kinematics.
egill on 27 May 2010
...when you always have to check what language's keyboard layout is activated before you type anything.
Levi on 28 May 2010
"Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana"
I've always personally parsed that second clause as saying all fruit flies through the
air in the same manner that a banana does. That is, bananas are somehow exemplary of
general fruit kinematics.
I agree. "Fruit flies like a banana" isn't a naturalÂEnglish sentence meaning "there are some fruit flies who are fond of a banana". "Fruit flies" without an article typically refers to fruit flies in general, and "a banana" refers to just one banana. It seems kind of odd that fruit flies in general would have a fondness for a single banana.
"Fruit flies like bananas" is a perfectly natural sentence. As is "The fruit flies like this/that banana." "The fruit flies like a banana" is less natural, but I could imagine saying it ("What do the fruit flies prefer for breakfast every morning? The fruit flies like a banana.") But I would never say "Fruit flies like a banana".
Levi on 28 May 2010
...when you always have to check what language's keyboard layout is activated before you type anything.
Hear hear! An additional bonus point if you have spent time with more than one layout per language (where applicable).
When your parents buy you a laptop, and say that it will be a Macbook Pro but for you it's not important which type as long as the keyboard's "American International" with all the possibilities for the languages' symbols.
Wise owl chick on 28 May 2010
...when you always have to
check what language's keyboard layout is activated before you type anything.
Hear hear! An additional bonus point if you have spent time with more than one layout
per language (where applicable).
When your parents buy you a laptop, and say that it will be a Macbook Pro but for you
it's not important which type as long as the keyboard's "American International" with
all the possibilities for the languages' symbols.
So true, I paid 120 USD for my current keyboard (the latin american model was half
that)!!!
Same applies to laptops, I would never buy a Dell at the local store (I get really good
discounts) because they refuse to sell them with the proper keyboard. And then, they
dare tell me "but you can change the layout in windows", as if the keys were in the
same place!!!
Thaorius on 28 May 2010
...when a cluster of curved black sign stanchions reminds you of Perso-Arabic script.
dolly on 28 May 2010
...when you're absolutely giddy over discovering some scraps of Chinese newspapers used as padding for a product from China.
Levi on 29 May 2010
When your native language is tainted by the languages you're studying. It kind of sucks actually.
Well, I generally just get made fun of for saying something that sounds stupid, when in reality, of course, it's just more Swedish-like. It's also, of course, very difficult to convince my friends of this if they're even listening to me at this point.
EDIT: And I rarely use actual Swedish words, I just say things more like I would in Swedish, especially using vocabulary I've recently learned. And my Swedish isn't all that great, either, so I guess I say things as I would in limited and broken Swedish. Yah, it just doesn't come out good.
kottoler.ello on 29 May 2010
...when you go to the Wikipedia of your target language for some reading practice, and then find yourself correcting typos and grammatical errors.
Levi on 01 June 2010
..when this happens to you: if you live outside the US this will not make a lot of sense to you but there is an insurance commercial which uses a talking gecko. He speaks with an accent. One commercial had someone reference it as a British accent and another person offers that he thought it was Australian (which was my guess). The gecko himself is about to clarify where he is from and what is the accent that he has but then-boom-the commercial ends. You know you are a real language nerd from you begin to obsess all week, wondering what is his accent? Is it even a real accent? Perhaps New Zealand? Or a made up composite of several? You are such a language nerd that you post this cry for help here: My fellow language nerds, "what is the gecko's accent?
psy88 on 05 June 2010
..when this happens to you: if you live outside the US this will not
make a lot of sense to you but there is an insurance commercial which uses a talking
gecko. He speaks with an accent. One commercial had someone reference it as a British
accent and another person offers that he thought it was Australian (which was my
guess). The gecko himself is about to clarify where he is from and what is the accent
that he has but then-boom-the commercial ends. You know you are a real language nerd
from you begin to obsess all week, wondering what is his accent? Is it even a real
accent? Perhaps New Zealand? Or a made up composite of several? You are such a language
nerd that you post this cry for help here: My fellow language nerds, "what is the
gecko's accent?
It looks like it has changed throughout the ad campaign and has been voiced by
different people, mostly British. It's apparently supposed to be co*ckney, at least in
the latest incarnations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEICO_ad_campaigns#The_GEICO_Ge cko - Wiki
egill on 05 June 2010
..when this happens to you: if you live outside the US this will not
make a lot of sense to you but there is an insurance commercial which uses a talking
gecko. He speaks with an accent. One commercial had someone reference it as a British
accent and another person offers that he thought it was Australian (which was my
guess). The gecko himself is about to clarify where he is from and what is the accent
that he has but then-boom-the commercial ends. You know you are a real language nerd
from you begin to obsess all week, wondering what is his accent? Is it even a real
accent? Perhaps New Zealand? Or a made up composite of several? You are such a language
nerd that you post this cry for help here: My fellow language nerds, "what is the
gecko's accent?
It looks like it has changed throughout the ad campaign and has been voiced by
different people, mostly British. It's apparently supposed to be co*ckney, at least in
the latest incarnations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEICO_ad_campaigns#The_GEICO_Ge cko - Wiki
Thanks. I suspected that the voice has changed over the years. Still,the cliffhanger ending to the commercial has intrigued me and piqued my curiosity...pathetic, isn't it? That I should care about the gecko's accent. But perhaps that is what the commercial was designed to do.
psy88 on 06 June 2010
Levi on 07 June 2010
random Swedish books that decorate the bookshelves (they aren't just props!). I was
literally pulled away from them.
Regarding Eyjafjallajökull, I was actually asked how to pronounce the name of that
glacier by some people who knew I've been learning Icelandic. I was shocked that my
Icelandic learning actually came in handy in the real world. o_o
egill on 08 June 2010
I was also asked about how to pronounce Eyjafjallajökull, even though I'm not studying Icelandic... It's a good thing I've dabbled in Icelandic before and knew how to sound it out!
ellasevia on 08 June 2010
I was shocked that my
Icelandic learning actually came in handy in the real word. o_o
I do hope that that is an intentional pun?
elysandler on 08 June 2010
throughout the film and immediately go to Amazon to see if it's available as a Region 1 DVD (it is :-D).
Edit: Or you don't even care what region the DVD is because you asked for a codeless DVD player for your birthday
to watch all of your foreign films.
Olympia on 08 June 2010
I was shocked that my
Icelandic learning actually came in handy in the real word. o_o
I do hope that that is an intentional pun?
Nope, just careless spelling.
egill on 08 June 2010
...when you go to IKEA ostensibly to look at furniture and become engrossed in all the random Swedish books that decorate the bookshelves...
...and your wife at first reminds you that it's stealing, then she threatens to leave the shop with the kids and disown you, all because you absolutely insist that the books are free and you'll just borrow a few since they could be useful in the future when you decide to learn Swedish.
patuco on 08 June 2010
â¦when you go to IKEA ostensibly to look at furniture and become engrossed in all the
random Swedish books that decorate the bookshelves (they aren't just props!). I was
literally pulled away from them.
This happens to me everytime I go there :D
Patriciaa on 09 June 2010
...when you're willing to re-install your operating system and all your software just so your computer will be in your target language.
Levi on 09 June 2010
When you hope that the people who installed your mother's cable TV never discover that they accidentally put Russian subtitles on TV5 (a French channel) instead of Danish ones.
Iversen on 09 June 2010
When your entire theatre class is relieved when you walk in late because no one wanted to struggle to pronounce the Japanese parts of the play the class was reading that period.
Rina on 11 June 2010
When you hope that the people who installed your mother's cable TV never discover that they
accidentally put Russian subtitles on TV5 (a French channel) instead of Danish ones.
Haha... I would LOVE that.
Another one: The cable company keeps taking channels off of your basic cable package, and you secretly like it
because it means that eventually your parents will give in and get digital cable...thereby giving you access to
channels in foreign languages.
And I'm particularly devastated because one of the first channels to go was Univsion--our only Spanish-language
channel.
Olympia on 11 June 2010
Another one: The cable company keeps taking channels off of your basic cable package, and you secretly like it
because it means that eventually your parents will give in and get digital cable...thereby giving you access to
channels in foreign languages.
Our digital cable only gives a bunch of Spanish channels and you have to pay ten billion dollars an month to watch any other foreign languages
GREGORG4000 on 12 June 2010
Sometimes I just go watch that channel just to be entertained by listening to the sounds of the language and trying to figure out what they are talking about. My grandmother always would get up at 5 in the morning to watch the Greek program.
EDIT: Out of curiosity I just turned on that channel to see what was on now and it was just the end of the Lithuanian program and then it switched to Hungarian.
ellasevia on 12 June 2010
one channel that rotates about every hour for a bunch of other languages. It actually has a really good selection: Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Romanian, German, Dutch, Flemish, Icelandic, Greek, Latvian, Lithuanian, Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Czech, Slovak, Croatian, Slovenian, Bulgarian, Albanian, Armenian, Ossetian, Georgian, Hungarian, Arabic, Mandarin...
I've never seen anything like it. It would be a dream come true. What is it called? What kind of programs does it feature?
Juаn on 12 June 2010
one channel that rotates about every hour for a bunch of other languages. It actually has a really good selection: Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Romanian, German, Dutch, Flemish, Icelandic, Greek, Latvian, Lithuanian, Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Czech, Slovak, Croatian, Slovenian, Bulgarian, Albanian, Armenian, Ossetian, Georgian, Hungarian, Arabic, Mandarin...
I've never seen anything like it. It would be a dream come true. What is it called? What kind of programs does it feature?
The station is called
http://www.scola.org/Scola/Default.aspx - SCOLA . For most of the languages it is just the news broadcast from the country, but for some of them there are also game shows, children's shows, educational documentaries, and other entertainment programs. I just now noticed that (I think) you can also watch the programs live on the website which I linked to.ellasevia on 12 June 2010
one channel that rotates about every hour for a bunch of other languages. It actually has a really good selection: Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Romanian, German, Dutch, Flemish, Icelandic, Greek, Latvian, Lithuanian, Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Czech, Slovak, Croatian, Slovenian, Bulgarian, Albanian, Armenian, Ossetian, Georgian, Hungarian, Arabic, Mandarin...
I've never seen anything like it. It would be a dream come true. What is it called? What kind of programs does it feature?
The station is called
http://www.scola.org/Scola/Default.aspx - SCOLA . For most of the languages it is just the news broadcast from the country, but for some of them there are also game shows, children's shows, educational documentaries, and other entertainment programs. I just now noticed that (I think) you can also watch the programs live on the website which I linked to.That is a dream come true!
You know you're not a language nerd if you don't bookmark that link ASAP!
Levi on 12 June 2010
And you can be sure you're a language nerd if you go instinctively to bookmark it and find that it's already bookmarked (in your ever-growing long list of language bookmarks)...TWICE! :)
Teango on 12 June 2010
And you can be sure you're a language nerd if you go instinctively to bookmark it and find that it's already bookmarked (in your ever-growing long list of language bookmarks)...TWICE! :)
And you know you will probably end up going to bookmark it again in the future.
psy88 on 13 June 2010
...when you notice word-for-word translations from your native language into your target language just sound weird to you, so you celebrate.
Levi on 13 June 2010
When you're on the phone with your Czech friend speaking Czech, while reading in Russian, and typing a German
essay.
ruskivyetr on 13 June 2010
When you watch the World Cup in various languages, all depending on match and channel, and find yourself shouting out "goal!" and expletives in each particular language of commentary... :) [edit]
Teango on 13 June 2010
When you watch the Word Cup in various languages, all depending on match and channel, and find yourself shouting out "goal!" and expletives in each particular language of commentary... :)
What a pity then that I only have the possiblity to watch such matches in German!
Fasulye
Fasulye on 13 June 2010
When you watch the Word Cup in various languages
The Word Cup!
That might be a good competition to have here!
meramarina on 13 June 2010
When you had to go to an oral surgeon yesterday to have an infected tooth and an impacted wisdom tooth removed. You already know how to express your symptoms in you target language, so you know you are really a language nerd when you start to wonder,reflecting on your own discomfort,how is pain expressed in other languages? We might say "ouch" or "ow" inEnglish but what would others say in their language? Only a language nerd would care to know.
psy88 on 14 June 2010
...when your main problem in Scrabble is seeing lots of high-scoring words you can't play because they're not inEnglish.
Levi on 14 June 2010
...when you watch a Swedish movie with French subtitles after you've read the book inEnglish.
dolly on 14 June 2010
When you had to go to an oral surgeon yesterday to have an infected tooth and an impacted wisdom tooth removed. You already know how to express your symptoms in you target language, so you know you are really a language nerd when you start to wonder,reflecting on your own discomfort,how is pain expressed in other languages? We might say "ouch" or "ow" inÂEnglish but what would others say in their language? Only a language nerd would care to know.
In French you shout "aïe!" and in Mandarin you shout "åå! (ÄiyÅ!)"
Levi on 14 June 2010
...when your main problem in Scrabble is seeing lots of high-scoring words you can't play because they're not inÂEnglish.
With my father I always play multilingual Scrabble (with a pile of dictionaries on the table to control any word in case of doubt) And why?
- Because I'm a language nerd!!!
Fasulye on 14 June 2010
In French you shout "aïe!" and in Mandarin you shout "åå! (ÄiyÅ!)"
And in Japanese you shout "çãï¼" (itai!)
Kazen on 14 June 2010
When you watch the Word Cup in various languages
The Word Cup!
That might be a good competition to have here!
And when you automatically start to wonder what the word "cup" would be in several languages...
Now my journey towards the dark side of language nerdery is complete!
Teango on 14 June 2010
When you buy a computer-magazine and once at home you, living in Belgium, realize "Ah it's inEnglish."
staf250 on 14 June 2010
When you own:
85 textbooks to learn Japanese, 15 novels and magazines in Japanese
48 textbooks to learn Arabic with stacks of newspapers and videos in Arabic
54 textbooks to learn Russian with stacks of DVDs in Russian
59 textbooks to learn Chinese with 100s of magazines in Chinese and 100s of DVDs
31 textbooks to learn Latin
plus over 800 more books and textbooks for Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Navajo, Esperanto, Yiddish, Hindi, Greek and probably many more.
translator2 on 14 June 2010
When you own:
85 textbooks to learn Japanese, 15 novels and magazines in Japanese
48 textbooks to learn Arabic with stacks of newspapers and videos in Arabic
54 textbooks to learn Russian with stacks of DVDs in Russian
59 textbooks to learn Chinese with 100s of magazines in Chinese and 100s of DVDs
31 textbooks to learn Latin
plus over 800 more books and textbooks for Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Navajo, Esperanto, Yiddish, Hindi, Greek and probably many more.
...not to mention the terabytes of other language-related stuff in all your hard drives, both internal and external.
patuco on 15 June 2010
When you own:
85 textbooks to learn Japanese, 15 novels and magazines in Japanese
48 textbooks to learn Arabic with stacks of newspapers and videos in Arabic
54 textbooks to learn Russian with stacks of DVDs in Russian
59 textbooks to learn Chinese with 100s of magazines in Chinese and 100s of DVDs
31 textbooks to learn Latin
plus over 800 more books and textbooks for Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Navajo, Esperanto, Yiddish, Hindi, Greek and probably many more.
Suddenly I feel that my three shelves of books (plus stuff on the computer) have been dwarfed and is almost nothing in comparison...
Do you seriously have these many books?! Where do you find the space to keep them all?
ellasevia on 15 June 2010
When you own:
85 textbooks to learn Japanese, 15 novels and magazines in Japanese
48 textbooks to learn Arabic with stacks of newspapers and videos in Arabic
54 textbooks to learn Russian with stacks of DVDs in Russian
59 textbooks to learn Chinese with 100s of magazines in Chinese and 100s of DVDs
31 textbooks to learn Latin
plus over 800 more books and textbooks for Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Navajo, Esperanto, Yiddish, Hindi, Greek and probably many more.
Suddenly I feel that my three shelves of books (plus stuff on the computer) have been dwarfed and is almost nothing in comparison...
Do you seriously have these many books?! Where do you find the space to keep them all?
A true language nerd would make the space for them :)
patuco on 15 June 2010
When you own:
85 textbooks to learn Japanese, 15 novels and magazines in Japanese
48 textbooks to learn Arabic with stacks of newspapers and videos in Arabic
54 textbooks to learn Russian with stacks of DVDs in Russian
59 textbooks to learn Chinese with 100s of magazines in Chinese and 100s of DVDs
31 textbooks to learn Latin
plus over 800 more books and textbooks for Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Navajo, Esperanto, Yiddish, Hindi, Greek and probably many more.
The only thing I can think of is did you read them yet?
genini1 on 15 June 2010
The only thing I can think of is did you read them yet?
I have a special room in my home just for my books and media.
No, I have not read all of them yet. I keep telling myself that I want to perfect my other languages first before moving on, but that never happens because there is always more to learn and never enough time.
translator2 on 15 June 2010
When you own:
85 textbooks to learn Japanese, 15 novels and magazines in Japanese
48 textbooks to learn Arabic with stacks of newspapers and videos in Arabic
54 textbooks to learn Russian with stacks of DVDs in Russian
59 textbooks to learn Chinese with 100s of magazines in Chinese and 100s of DVDs
31 textbooks to learn Latin
plus over 800 more books and textbooks for Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Navajo, Esperanto, Yiddish, Hindi, Greek and probably many more.
I would think that after the first 10 or 20 books, you'd have learned the language already!!
Kerrie on 15 June 2010
...when your language book collection is not that extensive, but the spines of your books have to be taped together to keep them from falling apart.
Levi on 15 June 2010
Fasulye
Fasulye on 15 June 2010
When you actually dream that you are doing Assimil French. Even if you're not currently
studying French. (Last night!)
Tally on 15 June 2010
You create comparative phonetic charts, using IPA, for the languages you speak/are learning/plan to learn in the future. (At 2 in the morning when you can't sleep.)
Kary on 18 June 2010
You have a blog about languages and language textbooks.
translator2 on 18 June 2010
You're counting the days till your copy of Assimil's "L'Ãgyptien hiéroglyphique" arrives in the post.
Teango on 18 June 2010
Fasulye
Fasulye on 18 June 2010
When you just had to sign up and comment on a music site that did a piece on a Cuban singer because they listed
one of her songs as "Veinte Anos". You teach them the importance of the diacritical tilde and that "Viente Anos"
means twenty anuses and that "Veinte Años" means twenty years.
MegatronFilm on 18 June 2010
When you just had to sign up and comment on a music site that did a piece on a Cuban
singer because they listed
one of her songs as "Viente Anos". You teach them the importance of the diacritical tilde and that "Viente Anos"
means twenty anuses and that "Viente Años" means twenty years.
It's actually "Veinte años." But I've done that as well.
Olympia on 18 June 2010
When you consider what level of language nerdery you've reached so far on the CEF scale, placing yourself somewhere in the range from A1 (mildly single-minded and talkative about learning languages) to C2 (dangerously obsessed and prone to delirium tremens after 24 hours away from studies or the forum).
Teango on 18 June 2010
When you consider what level of language nerdery you've reached so far on the CEF scale, placing yourself somewhere in the range from A1 (mildly single-minded and talkative about learning languages) to C2 (dangerously obsessed and prone to delirium tremens after 24 hours away from studies or the forum).
I'd say I'm probably B2 or C1 on that!
ellasevia on 18 June 2010
When you consider what level of language nerdery you've reached so far on the CEF scale, placing yourself somewhere in the range from A1 (mildly single-minded and talkative about learning languages) to C2 (dangerously obsessed and prone to delirium tremens after 24 hours away from studies or the forum).
I'd say I'm probably B2 or C1 on that!
My girlfriend caught a glimpse of what I was typing just now and told me that I've achieved at least basic fluency on this scale. I took this as a complement. :)
Teango on 18 June 2010
...when you watch a World Cup game in Portuguese rather thanEnglish, even though you barely understand the language, because the Brazilian broadcasters put so much more emotion and enthusiasm into their commentary.
Levi on 18 June 2010
When you just had to sign up and comment on a music site that did a
piece on a Cuban
singer because they listed
one of her songs as "Viente Anos". You teach them the importance of the diacritical tilde and that "Viente Anos"
means twenty anuses and that "Viente Años" means twenty years.
It's actually "Veinte años." But I've done that as well.
Ah, yes. It is fixed, haha.
MegatronFilm on 19 June 2010
When three levels of being a language nerd occur to you after having had oral surgery that has gone amiss and you are in excruciating pain and you take your medication before sleeping. (This has happened before, when in pain or sick I seem to have more language dreams than when I am not in pain/sick). Anyway, level "big" nerd:This morning you wake up after dreaming.In your dream you are trying somewhat successfully to communicate to a group of native speakers in your second target language. You keep repeating lines from Assimil French and even though you are understood and you understand them, you can't seem to progress beyond a certain point (as in real life, you realize, as you type this). Then, in the dream you take a chance and ask in your second target language if they speak your first target language. Lo and behold they do. You continue with them in that language and everyone is happy and the dream ends with everyone dancing merrily.
Level "bigger" nerd: you hope you don't forget the dream because you can't wait to post it here.
Level "biggest" nerd: So, being in terrible , unrelenting pain, you call your oral surgeon's office.They tell you to come in right away. But, today you have an appointment scheduled with the tutor of your first target language. Do you cancel in order to see the oral surgeon or do you keep the tutoring session? My fellow nerds, you know the answer. I am seeing the oral surgeon tomorrow afternoon.
psy88 on 19 June 2010
Exhibit 1: I see this extremely alarming product in the grocery store:
Now, you sure donât need to be studying German to be frightened by this, but if you know that (der) Jammer means misery, shame and lamentation in that language, itâs easy to image a little âdesâ in front of the word and interpret this as the âKool-Aid of Sorrowâ or the Fruit Juice of Suffering, or something equally scary. Maybe it is. I never liked that freaky grinning pitcher . . . .
Exhibit 2: I see a sign in another store and I just donât understand it: âTake a Vaca!â Vaca is not anÂEnglish word; itâs a dumb abbreviation of the word âvacationâ and I hope this usage never becomes too popular â but, since âvacaâ means âcowâ in Spanish, for a brief, stupid moment I think, well, how times have changed, people used to say âDonât Have a Cow!â and now they tell you to âTake a Cow!â
Language Nerdery is also obvious when you are so easily deceived by seeing the word âlanguageâ on a book cover, you assume that this book is it, it's the one, this is the book for you, itâs the book you were always meant to be with . . . . can it be true? Read on:
Exhibit 3: Yes, another store. The bookstore this time. A display of some current bestsellers shows a book with a very interesting title: âThe Five Love Languages.â But, no, no, it is not so . . . soon I realize that the book isnât about people who love languages--at least five languages, too!. No. Itâs about people who love people. I am overcome with hate.
meramarina on 19 June 2010
....When you hear a language you don't understand, begin to follow the process outlined above, and then realize you've simply misheard your native tongue.
...When you come back to this forum and this is the first thread you visit...
Edit: I might have posted this earlier but...
when you get a retainer after getting your braces off (FINALLY!!!) and the first thing you worry about is that you won't be able to make the trilled r in Spanish...
After a little practice, I could sort of do it with the retainer in :)
johntm93 on 19 June 2010
Kool-Aid Jammers...joyfully perpetrated grievous bodily harm to blue raspberries...you're right Meramarina, there's definitely something wrong in this picture. But hey, wait a minute...it's alright, no need to worry...it's got vitamin C and electrolytes. ;)
Teango on 19 June 2010
When instead of relying in a timer to know when to flip over while tanning, you rely on how many lessons of your target language you've done.
Rina on 19 June 2010
When instead of relying in a timer to know when to flip over while tanning, you rely on how many lessons of your target language you've done.
While I'm not the tanning type, if I were, with how long it takes me to get through some lessons, I would come out looking like a lobster.
josht on 19 June 2010
When you are so impatient to want to speak it like I am with German ;_;
zekecoma on 19 June 2010
Sigh.
josht on 19 June 2010
... when at a bookstore (next to the huge ostentatious eyesore that the Rosetta Stone
display is) you find, nestled snugly between an enormous French dictionary and the shelf
wall, a hefty looking Estonian book and then spend the next 20 minutes convincing
yourself not to buy it "just in case".
egill on 20 June 2010
When you are so impatient to want to speak it like I am with German ;_;
johntm93 on 20 June 2010
When your friend asks you to meet up with her in London, and although you want to see her, all you can think about is all that potential study time you are missing - until you remember that the newsagents at the train station in London sells newspapers and magazines in foreign languages! (In my town this sort of material is like gold dust). You then proceed to spend the day walking around London with a bag that weighs about the same as a small country.
Doogle on 20 June 2010
When you point out to your friends: Listen, they are speaking Russian! And they are
speaking Japanese! Listen to them, they are speaking Polish!
And your friends just blink at you.
Tally on 20 June 2010
When you take great delight in finding out that there are actually several episodes of The Moomins (aka Mumijevi) in Bosnian floating around on Youtube, thereby combining a fond childhood memory with your target language.
Danac on 20 June 2010
When you take great delight in finding out that there are actually several
episodes of The Moomins (aka Mumijevi) in Bosnian floating around on Youtube, thereby
combining a fond childhood memory with your target language.
Aww that's my childhood show!
Tally on 20 June 2010
I spent Saturday afternoon reading the first few paragraphs of the Kalevala, rather than riding my bike on the first sunny day in a week and a half.
mick33 on 22 June 2010
when your friend casually mentions a language programme, and you spend 20 minutes giving them a detailed description of its pros and cons
FuroraCeltica on 29 June 2010
Hah, more like that's the Persian word for "language" and it didn't bother translating "nerd" at
all.
When, after having a Persian phase (again...), you read the post that ^this^ is a response to (which just happens to be YOUR post) and facepalm yourself for not realizing what 'zaban' meant in the first place.
When you think that a 'Persian phase' is a perfectly normal thing to have.
When you think that having multiple Persian phases is also perfectly normal.
When, in the midst of said Persian phase, you watch 'No One Knows About Persian Cats' just so that you can present to your mom a reason why you want to learn Persian so she'll buy you that Teach Yourself Modern Persian book you've been eyeing up for the past three years.
When you take the language books you're currently using on a camping trip.
You take along your Czech book too, just in case you get bored with Spanish and you're miles away from your language pile.
When you experiance withdrawl symptoms when you've been away from your language books for too long.
When 'too long' is a sleepover at your friend's house.
When you seperate your langage courses based on 'the books you're currently using' and your 'language pile'.
When you have language piles. (I know, this has been posted already)
When you use Russian grammar forÂEnglish (the sentance 'I know, this has been posted already' shouldn't have a comma in it...).
When you write Kanji into your Japanese course because it doesn't have any.
When you buy Breaking Into Japanese Literature when you're on lesson 3 of you 40 lesson course book.
When you buy a Japanese novel before you bought your coursebook because you're 'thinking ahead'.
Language Nerd in Persian is "Khoreye Zaban" or "Divaneye Zaban". Zaban itself means language or literally "tongue". it shares the same root with "Lingua" and from that we get the German word "Zung" and theEnglish word "Tongue". The word "language" is from of the same root but is not a Germanic word.
renegade5005 on 29 June 2010
The other day when my alarm clock rang in the morning, much, much too early in the morning, I sort of half-understood that it was time to get up and go to work, but I wasn't fully awake yet and thought: "hey . . . this is really strange . . . the alarm clock is ringing in Dutch today, but I don't study Dutch; therefore, because I can't really understand what it's saying, I do not have to get up today."
I was quite disappointed when I realized that alarm clocks don't ring in particular languages, but I was a little impressed by my semi-conscious mind's ability to deny reality.
Yes, it really happened - I don't know what I'd have done if the clock went off in my target languages, though.
meramarina on 29 June 2010
When you speak to your French professor (who also knows Spanish, Italian and Arabic) in all the languages he knows while he's tutoring you latin and all the other language professors at the office stare at you.
renegade5005 on 29 June 2010
When you have 8GB of language files stored on your hard drive!
Only 8GB?!?! My pimsleur files alone are 13GB all together. about 15GB rosetta Stone And I have about 6GB of books and at least 100GB of movies in foreign languages.
renegade5005 on 29 June 2010
When you go to a bookstore and you see the Romance section and think that it would be about Romance languages. Happened to me just yesterday.
wow loooool It took me about three minutes to get this post! At first i was like "what do you mean? Of course, it's the ROMANCE section. it has to be about romance languages." lool
Another funny thing which happened to me was when i was at the barnes and noble library and my friend came up to me and told me he had found something in the science fiction section and that I had to control myself and not lose it and go crazy. after preparing me for about ten minutes he took to me to a section which was VERY oddly in the science fiction section instead of being in the history or philosophy section. And there it was!!! The LOEB Classical library!!! All classical books in Latin and Ancient Greek! I was seriously about to Pass out.
renegade5005 on 30 June 2010
When you have 8GB of language files stored on your hard drive!
Only 8GB?!?! My pimsleur files alone are 13GB all together. about 15GB rosetta Stone And I have about 6GB of books and at least 100GB of movies in foreign languages.
I hope you meant 8TB otherwise it's very poor language nerdery :)
P.S. I had to burn my foreign language films onto DVDs since I didn't have enough memory. Now I'm running out of physical space to store them since each CD/DVD holder only holds a pathetic 220 DVDs each!
patuco on 30 June 2010
The other day when my alarm clock rang in the morning, much, much too early in the morning, I sort of half-understood that it was time to get up and go to work, but I wasn't fully awake yet and thought: "hey . . . this is really strange . . . the alarm clock is ringing in Dutch today, but I don't study Dutch; therefore, because I can't really understand what it's saying, I do not have to get up today."
I was quite disappointed when I realized that alarm clocks don't ring in particular languages, but I was a little impressed by my semi-conscious mind's ability to deny reality.
Yes, it really happened - I don't know what I'd have done if the clock went off in my target languages, though.
The closest thing I can think of is doing what I do, I wake up to Spanish music, which gets stuck in my head, so I kind of have Spanish in my head first thing in the morning.
Also, my language learning folder (named "Language Learning Stuff") is 56GB, and growing. There's some other random stuff that isn't in there yet, but it's not even 1GB of stuff.
johntm93 on 30 June 2010
When you were young you invented a language. It actually sounded pretty cool.
Tally on 30 June 2010
When you miss a day of studying and you wake up in the middle of the night thinking you
should go make up that hour before going back to sleep.
budonoseito on 30 June 2010
After a frustrating and unsuccessful errand, you pop into a book store, conveniently located nearby, to cheer yourself up by browsing the languages section. You pick up a tempting but completely unnecessary grammar book, examine, put down, walk away, go back, pick up...repeat four times until you finally either give in and buy it or tear yourself away.
While in that bookstore, you check out the Pimsleur Ojibwe package. You have no plans to ever study Ojibwe, but...
Kary on 30 June 2010
I've got a introductory course in Ojibwe on my bookshelf too. :) I have absolutely no intention of ever reading it, but it's like Kary said, you never know...
Teango on 30 June 2010
When, first, your bookcase could no longer hold all your language books,courses, and CD's .And,so you then started piling your language stuff on the floor, and ,now, you are embarrassed to ever let anyone see how you now have your stuff on the floor in several piles in different rooms. And, no, the target languages are not separated into different piles or different rooms. And, no they are not alphabetical, but rather are stored like an archaeological dig with the oldest stuff buried on the bottom and more recent stuff towards the top.
psy88 on 01 July 2010
When, first, your bookcase could no longer hold all your language books,courses, and CD's .And,so you then started piling your language stuff on the floor, and ,now, you are embarrassed to ever let anyone see how you now have your stuff on the floor in several piles in different rooms. And, no, the target languages are not separated into different piles or different rooms. And, no they are not alphabetical, but rather are stored like an archaeological dig with the oldest stuff buried on the bottom and more recent stuff towards the top.
johntm93 on 01 July 2010
When, first, your bookcase could no longer hold all your language books,courses, and CD's .And,so you then started piling your language stuff on the floor, and ,now, you are embarrassed to ever let anyone see how you now have your stuff on the floor in several piles in different rooms. And, no, the target languages are not separated into different piles or different rooms. And, no they are not alphabetical, but rather are stored like an archaeological dig with the oldest stuff buried on the bottom and more recent stuff towards the top.
Well, I temporarily solved that problem with a trip to IKEA a few weeks ago. After adding five new bookcases, each with six shelves, I now have my books (and most of my husband's) neatly organized. Our living room looks like a library and we have bookshelves in two other rooms.
Kary on 01 July 2010
When, first, your bookcase could no longer hold all your language books,courses, and CD's .And,so you then started piling your language stuff on the floor, and ,now, you are embarrassed to ever let anyone see how you now have your stuff on the floor in several piles in different rooms. And, no, the target languages are not separated into different piles or different rooms. And, no they are not alphabetical, but rather are stored like an archaeological dig with the oldest stuff buried on the bottom and more recent stuff towards the top.
Well, I temporarily solved that problem with a trip to IKEA a few weeks ago. After adding five new bookcases, each with six shelves, I now have my books (and most of my husband's) neatly organized. Our living room looks like a library and we have bookshelves in two other rooms.
johntm93 on 01 July 2010
...Haha maybe I'll get rich and have a huge library. Since I'm only 16, I don't buy too much stuff like crazy, but I've downloaded stuff for languages I don't even plan on learning (I don't know why I have a Cantonese course and a learning Indonesian podcast, among other things.)
Trust me, age 16 is great. You know you are a language geek when you kick yourself occasionally for not starting this madness much earlier in life.
johntm93 on 01 July 2010
...Haha maybe I'll get rich and have a huge library. Since I'm only 16, I don't buy too much stuff like crazy, but I've downloaded stuff for languages I don't even plan on learning (I don't know why I have a Cantonese course and a learning Indonesian podcast, among other things.)
Trust me, age 16 is great. You know you are a language geek when you kick yourself occasionally for not starting this madness much earlier in life.
Now that I think of it I also started about when I was 13 (I'm almost 16 now), and even I'm wishing I had started earlier, even with having the advantage of already speaking Spanish from my bilingual elementary school and Greek from my family!
EDIT: Oops. I just remembered that my first attempt at self-studying a language was Mandarin when I was 12. :)
ellasevia on 01 July 2010
...Haha maybe I'll get rich and have a huge library. Since I'm only 16, I don't buy too much stuff like crazy, but I've downloaded stuff for languages I don't even plan on learning (I don't know why I have a Cantonese course and a learning Indonesian podcast, among other things.)
Trust me, age 16 is great. You know you are a language geek when you kick yourself occasionally for not starting this madness much earlier in life.
Now that I think of it I also started about when I was 13 (I'm almost 16 now), and even I'm wishing I had started earlier, even with having the advantage of already speaking Spanish from my bilingual elementary school and Greek from my family!
EDIT: Oops. I just remembered that my first attempt at self-studying a language was Mandarin when I was 12. :)
johntm93 on 01 July 2010
... the copy of Teach Yourself Danish arrives, and you can't help but sit down right away and read the preface and general introduction, even though you bought it just in case you might someday want to learn Danish.
josht on 01 July 2010
...the copy of Teach Yourself Danish arrives, and you can't help but sit down right away and read the preface and general introduction...
Join the gang...I guess it's the equivalent of reading through the card that tells you all the fillings in a box of chocolates (and perhaps even nibbling on a nougat swirl or two before putting them guiltily back in the box)...but it's just oh so mouth-wateringly tempting! :P
Teango on 01 July 2010
... you pack your Assimil French course and a dictionary into your bag to work on later in the day, only to find that you accidentally packed the wrong dictionary, as you have Langenscheidt Pocket dictionaries for practically all of your languages.
josht on 02 July 2010
When you are introduced to a woman named "Corey" and you chuckle because it makes you think of the similar sounding word in your target language "corre", which is the imperative of "correr" meaning "run!"
psy88 on 04 July 2010
When you are introduced to a woman named "Corey" and you chuckle because it makes you think of the similar sounding word in your target language "corre", which is the imperative of "correr" meaning "run!"
johntm93 on 04 July 2010
When you are introduced to a woman named "Corey" and
you chuckle because it makes you think of the similar sounding word in your target
language "corre", which is the imperative of "correr" meaning "run!"
get to think of this whenever I meet people named Corey.
Haha same here
Tally on 04 July 2010
...when you chuckle every time you meet a woman with the name "Andrea", because you know it has its etymological roots in a Greek word meaning "manly".
Levi on 04 July 2010
...when you chuckle every time you meet a woman with the name "Andrea",
because you know it has its etymological roots in a Greek word meaning "manly".
No way! :D
Tally on 04 July 2010
Fasulye
Fasulye on 04 July 2010
When you buy a travel to Malaysia and get tempted to have a peek into a Bahasa Malysian language guide to learn a few words and a few set phrases, and then you fall headlong for the silly temptation to try to learn the whole language in a month. Well, I may still come to my senses, and I do NOT believe that Bahasa is as simple as it looks (there must be a catch somewhere!), but it just looks so uncannily possible... even simpler than Esperanto, except that the words don't look as European.
Iversen on 04 July 2010
... you pack your Assimil French course and a dictionary into your bag to work on later in the day, only to find that you accidentally packed the wrong dictionary, as you have Langenscheidt Pocket dictionaries for practically all of your languages.
When you don't care because you just study the language of the dictionary instead of French ...
Iversen on 04 July 2010
When, instead of opening the packet of chocolate, you're looking first the text on the fold, in Arabic ...
staf250 on 04 July 2010
When you're watching The Hurt Locker in French and you realise that the voice-actor dubbing the badass in the movie is the same guy who dubbed Hurley, a clownish character in LOST. This is like Bruce Willis having the voice of Woody Allen.
dolly on 04 July 2010
When, instead of opening the packet of chocolate, you're looking first the text on the fold, in Arabic ...
Guilty!
Not just for Arabic though, but for all the available languages. This should also be done whilst simultaneously trying to figure out the languages you don't know and deciding that you really should make an effort to learn at least one of them since you might be on holiday in Turkmentistan and it would be really useful when reading the ingredients on boxes of shaving foam.
patuco on 05 July 2010
...Haha maybe I'll get rich and have a huge library. Since I'm only 16, I don't buy too much stuff like crazy, but I've downloaded stuff for languages I don't even plan on learning (I don't know why I have a Cantonese course and a learning Indonesian podcast, among other things.)
Trust me, age 16 is great. You know you are a language geek when you kick yourself occasionally for not starting this madness much earlier in life.
16? Ha! I'm 13! I started being SERIOUS about languages last year...
You know you're a language nerd when you see 'MIA' in the newspaper and automatically think 'Middle Indo-Aryan.'
When you see Arabic copies of Al-Ahram and other Arabic newspapers in the bookstore for the first time, but you don't buy them because you're still in shock over it. (Foreign langage reading materials are scarce around here, Arabic especially for some reason. I mean, the library even has Urdu and Vietnamese books, but ARABIC!? Of course not...)
mashmusic11235 on 08 July 2010
When you're in Frankfurt and you stop someone to ask for directions in German. Then they politely reply in brokenEnglish that they don't speak any German because they're Russian. Only to beam back with a gigantic smile and say "zdorovo!" for being given the chance to use the little bit of Russian you know... :D
Teango on 08 July 2010
When you've never had any specific interest in Mandarin and yet the exposure to a language learning community starts gnawing at you to learn a language you have absolutely no need for.
numerodix on 08 July 2010
When you go for a haircut to an Italian hairdresser's in Germany, and somehow convince them to speak in Italian whilst you reply in German, despite knowing little or no Italian. And all simply to test your comprehension of similar word roots in Spanish you learnt recently...
Teango on 08 July 2010
When you've never had any specific interest in Mandarin and yet the exposure to a language learning community starts gnawing at you to learn a language you have absolutely no need for.
... when you realize, after reading something like this, that the language learning community long ago compelled you to learn any number of languages you have absolutely no need for.
josht on 08 July 2010
Fasulye
Fasulye on 08 July 2010
Bundesland you come from automatically makes your day.
Also, when people are confused and must ask about your
nationality because one minute you speak German to your friend,
and Russian to the Russian cashier in the next.
ruskivyetr on 08 July 2010
Also, when people are confused and must ask about your
nationality because one minute you speak German to your friend,
and Russian to the Russian cashier in the next.
When you can switch directly between both foreign languages, then you are really good!
Fasulye
Fasulye on 08 July 2010
When you automatically log into this site when you switch the computer on, while the rest of the world stares zombie-like at status updates on Facebook
gogglehead on 09 July 2010
- When in your dream you were really pleased about this because even though Portuguese is not one of your target languages, you thought it might be fun to learn the basics so you saved it even though your fellow criminals got angry with you because you were refusing to destroy evidence.
ReneeMona on 09 July 2010
When you wake up at 5am and study Mandarin for two hours before breakfast and then somehow end up on this site for an hour (so far) ;)
When you have a growing list of languages you are infatuated with (Gothic, Romanian, etc...)
ibraheem on 09 July 2010
When you waste your time on something and then feel guilty because you could have studied
languages.
Tally on 09 July 2010
When you study one language (not two, one thousand or one billion - imagine how many keyboards one would need to write in them) and read ajatt.com on a regular basis.
zohan on 09 July 2010
...when you can identify non-words in your target language, rather than assuming they're words you don't know.
Levi on 09 July 2010
When you automatically log into this site when you switch the computer on, while the rest of the world stares zombie-like at status updates on Facebook
Hey, Facebook can be a great place to practice languages!
Levi on 09 July 2010
... when you're asleep and talk in German in your dreams.
... when you plan to watch 800 hours of
http://www.uitzendinggemist.nl/ - Dutch TV .... when you pick up a map of the world and colour the countries where the languages you want to learn are spoken.
Guido.-
Guido on 09 July 2010
...when you can identify non-words in your target language, rather than assuming they're words you don't know.
I was ecstatic the first time I looked at a Korean phrase and realized that I *knew* something was misspelled. A few months earlier I would have simply assumed that it was a word or grammar construction that I didn't know, but since I've seen that particular grammar form so many times now the context made it obvious to me what was supposed to be there.
Warp3 on 09 July 2010
When you automatically log into this site when you switch the computer on, while the rest of the world stares zombie-like at status updates on Facebook
Hey, Facebook can be a great place to practice languages!
True, there are a good few language groups on there I believe
gogglehead on 09 July 2010
One of my brothers speaks French and I have told him, "If you don't teach my nephew French, I will teach him Spanish instead." I'm very disappointed that my brother neither takes this threat seriously nor has he started teaching his son French.
I was also thrilled when I received the following email from Amazon.com:
As someone who has purchased or rated Colloquial Afrikaans Pack: The Complete Course for Beginners (Colloquial Series) by Bruce Donaldson, you might like to know that Dictionary of the Hausa Language 2 Volume Paperback Set (Cambridge Library Collection - Linguistics) will be released on July 15, 2010. You can pre-order yours by following the link below.
Dictionary of the Hausa Language 2 Volume Paperback Set (Cambridge Library Collection - Linguistics)
Charles Henry Robinson".
Fasulye
mick33 on 09 July 2010
When you automatically log into this site when you switch the computer on, while the rest of the world stares zombie-like at status updates on Facebook
Hey, Facebook can be a great place to practice languages!
True, there are a good few language groups on there I believe
Well, one of the best things to do I think is just to find some friends who speak your target language. That way you can get some great practice reading the colloquial form of your language, and it gives you an excuse to write your statuses in the language. :)
And best of all, you get to show off your language skills to all your friends!
Levi on 10 July 2010
When you waste your time on something and then feel guilty because you could have studied
languages.
johntm93 on 10 July 2010
When you go through the trouble of learning a dialect even though nearly all of its native speakers can
already speak another language you already know.
Asiafeverr on 10 July 2010
...when you can maintain a conversation in your target language drunk.
Levi on 10 July 2010
You get a perverse pleasure when you "Contribute a better translation" to Google Translate.
Kary on 10 July 2010
You get a perverse pleasure when you "Contribute a better translation" to Google Translate.
I wonder if they actually use those. I have to automatically translate a lot of stuff for my job, and it keeps translating Wohnung as "apartments" in German :(
Liface on 10 July 2010
You get a perverse pleasure when you "Contribute a better translation" to Google
Translate.
I wonder if they actually use those. I have to automatically translate a lot of stuff for my job, and it keeps translating
Wohnung as "apartments" in German :(
Modern translation systems are statistics based and thus more data you shovel in to train such a system, the better.
Like, worst algorithm with 100 millions of samples outperforms best algorithm with 10 millions of samples. This
explains why single contribution may not have any effect.
novemberain on 10 July 2010
You get a perverse pleasure when you "Contribute a better translation" to Google Translate.
I wonder if they actually use those. I have to automatically translate a lot of stuff for my job, and it keeps translating Wohnung as "apartments" in German :(
Today I found "the crow" translated into Spanish as "en lÃnea". I have the sneaking suspicion that someone (or some algorithm) took theEnglish expression "as the crow flies" and its equivalent in Spanish "en lÃnea recta" and made an assumption. Is there a separate thread here for "the lies my translation software told me?" If not, there should be. It would make interesting reading.
And, on topic...when you are interested in reading faulty automated translations and trying to figure out what went wrong.
Kary on 11 July 2010
You're a language nerd when you keep adding foreigners as friends on Facebook just to learn a few extra words for the day...now if I could only have a conversation with them haha
zohan on 11 July 2010
Youâre a language nerd when...
MäcÃSŸ on 11 July 2010
Youâre a language nerd when...
We should have a "post your keyboard option menu" thread.
Captain Haddock on 11 July 2010
When you find out that the travel guide by Berlitz on the same GPS doesn't have anything to do with foreign languages. You were hoping for some phrasebooks or something which would have made it a lot more interesting. :)
Danac on 11 July 2010
You're a language nerd when you keep adding foreigners as friends on
Facebook just to learn a few extra words for the day...now if I could only have a
conversation with them haha
Guilty!
Tally on 11 July 2010
Youâre a language nerd when...
We should have a "post your keyboard option menu" thread.
My "French" keyboard is actually a customized multilingual Dvorak layout that can type pretty much any language that uses the Latin alphabet.
Levi on 12 July 2010
Why did you have to remind me they are here on the computer?! Now how can I focus on the languages I already have set up on this computer when my list look so boring in comparison?!
Oh well, wanderlust happens!
meramarina on 12 July 2010
Youâre a language nerd when...
We should have a "post your keyboard option menu" thread.
My "French" keyboard is actually a customized multilingual Dvorak layout that can type pretty much any language that uses the Latin alphabet.
WHAT NOW?!? Also it's set forÂEnglish-International instead ofÂEnglish-United States so I can type most letters in the Latin alphabet.
I don't even know the scripts I have on there, they just look nice. I know a few Russian letters though. And a few Chinese characters.
johntm93 on 12 July 2010
When you stand in Changi airport in Singapore, and the main thing you are thinking about is the state of your language learning log
Iversen on 13 July 2010
lacks language learning materials.
When, while playing a video game, the Japanese audio andEnglish text make you think "I
wish I was learning Japanese; this would be great for L-R".
Tenebrarum on 13 July 2010
When you go over to the "hobbies" section of a bookstore and are unsure as to why it
lacks language learning materials.
johntm93 on 13 July 2010
This may sound gross, but you're a language nerd (or already freak), when you take language materials instead of a newspaper when you go to the WC!!
arturs on 13 July 2010
This may sound gross, but you're a language nerd (or already freak), when you take language materials instead of a newspaper when you go to the WC!!
I could not agree more:)
Flip_flop on 13 July 2010
...when you do hundreds of repetitions every day and find it more entertaining than any video game.
muflax on 14 July 2010
â¦when you use Canadian French vocabulary and expressions, when someone wants you to say something in French and you like when the other person is surprised by the fact that you use expressions that are not familiar to them.
â¦when you use âseptanteâ, âhuitanteâ and ânonanteâ all the time instead of âsoixante-dixâ, âquatre-vingtâ and âquatre-vingt-dixâ, although you learned standard French.
arturs on 14 July 2010
...when you are disappointed that the learning material for your (German) driver's license is not available in Japanese. (But French and Spanish, so you decide to go with that.)
muflax on 14 July 2010
When you feel a good degree of pride and excitement today.Why? Because it is Bastille Day. Are you French? No. Then why the excitement? Because you are studying with Assimil French with Ease!
psy88 on 15 July 2010
When you are looking for yet another notebook to use in your language studies and find 2 old children bibles in the room and don't give them a second look, but then think, "Damn, if they were in German I'd actually read them!"
sei on 15 July 2010
When you see someone with a tattoo with a Kanji that's missing a
stroke, and want to take a marker pen and correct it -- but decide you mustn't even
mention it, like, ever.
When you actually actively correct other's incorrect Hanzi tattoos... Ã la
hanzismatter.com ^_^
ennime on 15 July 2010
When every so often in the shower, you try to form as many sounds as you can in order to practice for any future languages that might contain those sounds!
Marc94 on 15 July 2010
I couldn't fall asleep last night, so I listened to FSI Spanish, then decided to try Pimsleur German and Michel Thomas German before deciding I'd rather be fully awake for those, so I go back to FSI to realize that I need to listen to German to get my ears used to the language. So I listened to Assimil German tapes.
I woke up today and realized I could have counted sheep in Spanish :(
johntm93 on 15 July 2010
You will stand there, staring at the thing in question (refrigerator, car keys, milk, chair, whatever), refusing to allow yourself to pick it up or do whatever it is you were going to do with it until you can think of the correct word for it in the language that you're trying to think in. You will stand there for however long this takes, perhaps finally giving in and going to look it up in the dictionary before coming back and proceeding as you were until it happens again :D
I have stood in the shower staring at the soap, refusing to pick it up, getting angry at myself, while trying to think of the word for "soap" in Spanish for about 5 minutes before I finally gave up (I looked it up immediately after getting out of the shower, still wet, dripping water all over my bedroom floor as I went to fetch my Spanish dictionary).
Splish-splash, splish-splash...
Cursing...
Papers rustling, flipping of pages...
"Jabón!!! I knew it! Damnit, why couldn't I remember that?!"
Splish-splash, splish-splash back to the bathroom...
Andrew~ on 16 July 2010
Fasulye
Fasulye on 16 July 2010
...when you are disappointed that the learning material for your (German) driver's license is not available in Japanese. (But French and Spanish, so you decide to go with that.)
That's a good one! When I attended driving school I was a teenager, but at that very young age I wasn't a language freak, so at that time I wouldn't have got the idea to ask for driving mock exams in a foreign language.
Fasulye
Fasulye on 16 July 2010
enter curiously, and ask for material in Japanese, or otherwise a foreign language that
isn'tEnglish. The store clerk shows you a few things, nothing very convincing... and
then, just as you are leaving the store, you see a kanji across the room. You take the
book off the shelf, and oh boy... jackpot. A 1965, perfectly preserved, color illustrated
book in German about Japanese history. Annnnddd it comes with a lot of kanji! I mean,
what more could you possibly ask for, right?
(I am not, nor will I be studying German for the next 2 years or so. I am, however,
learning Japanese.)
Thaorius on 16 July 2010
...when, for the first time in your life, you find yourself having trouble switching back to your native language.
Levi on 17 July 2010
Fasulye
When you do have many good quality Spanish-English and French-English dictionaries (your target languages) but continue to buy more "just in case",as if the ones with 80,000 or 120,000 words will not be sufficient.And you can't sleep wondering how you would be able to buy some French-Spanish and Spanish-French dictionaries.
psy88 on 17 July 2010
...when the silence starts to make you feel guilty, so you head over to http://www.listenlive.eu/ - www.listenlive.eu .
Levi on 17 July 2010
When your idea of small talk is mentioning random facts about languages and you are
surprised when people look at you funny.
Tally on 17 July 2010
When your idea of small talk is mentioning random facts about languages and you are surprised when people look at you funny
Guilty. And whenever I'm asked by a friend to tell them "something interesting", it always pertains to languages.
WortDrauf on 18 July 2010
I was at a two story Borders bookstore today, it was extremely huge, and I was (of course) looking for the language section, just to see what they had. I walked through the whole store TWICE and couldn't find it. Needless to say, I was extremely disappointed. It wasn't even near the travel section (where it is in the Borders near me). I could have asked an employee but by the time that hit me (dunno why I didn't think of it earlier) I had to go.
...I feel like I have to return to that store and find the language section.
johntm93 on 19 July 2010
Also, when another friend mentions "Computational Linguistics" and you wonder why you haven't spoken to him more.
gdoyle1990 on 19 July 2010
...when you write all your Facebook statuses in Finnish and your friends tell you to stop.
feanarosurion on 19 July 2010
When the first thing you do when you return from holiday is flop on the sofa, kick off your weary sand-filled shoes, and log on to the forum to check through several hundred email notifications.
Teango on 19 July 2010
great for rare old books!
books bookshop, you
enter curiously, and ask for material in Japanese, or otherwise a foreign language that
isn'tÂEnglish. The store clerk shows you a few things, nothing very convincing... and
then, just as you are leaving the store, you see a kanji across the room. You take the
book off the shelf, and oh boy... jackpot. A 1965, perfectly preserved, color
illustrated
book in German about Japanese history. Annnnddd it comes with a lot of kanji! I mean,
what more could you possibly ask for, right?
(I am not, nor will I be studying German for the next 2 years or so. I am, however,
learning Japanese.)
karaipyhare on 19 July 2010
When your idea of small talk is mentioning random facts about languages
and you are
surprised when people look at you funny.
Guilty!
Only yesterday, I was in a friend's house with all his family having dinner. There was
a baby around and everybody was laughing and mentioning her because she learned to make
the "Bronx cheer" sound, and you know.. babies... whatever they do seem funny to
adults.
So I thought it would be very enlightening and interesting for everybody to learn a bit
and I couldn't resist sharing my knowledge and so I said: you know that that sound is
very similar to the voiceless dental bilabially trilled affricate, that is: bbllrrr!
(me reproducing the sound), there's a tribe in the Amazon, the Piraha, that actually
uses it as part of they phoneme inventory. It was only discovered in 2004 because the
natives didn't utter that sound in front of the white researchers fearing they would
sound awkward and be laughed at. Besides them, there is only a handful of laguages that
use that sound.
They all stared at me like, is that a joke or was it supposed to be cool?
Well, I think not everyone possesses the virtue of appreciating the diversity of human
languages...
karaipyhare on 19 July 2010
When a trip to the grocery store sends you into a (minor) panic because the translated terms on the labels don't match the terms on your flashcards.
Kary on 19 July 2010
When the first thing you do when you return from holiday is flop on the sofa, kick off your weary sand-filled shoes, and log on to the forum to check through several hundred email notifications.
I also did exactly this last Thursday, despite being exhausted by a 36-hour trip!
ellasevia on 19 July 2010
Aires? That city's
great for rare old books!
books bookshop, you
enter curiously, and ask for material in Japanese, or otherwise a foreign language that
isn'tÂEnglish. The store clerk shows you a few things, nothing very convincing... and
then, just as you are leaving the store, you see a kanji across the room. You take the
book off the shelf, and oh boy... jackpot. A 1965, perfectly preserved, color
illustrated
book in German about Japanese history. Annnnddd it comes with a lot of kanji! I mean,
what more could you possibly ask for, right?
(I am not, nor will I be studying German for the next 2 years or so. I am, however,
learning Japanese.)
As a matter of fact it was. And I wasn't aware of that; would you happen to know some
good stores? :)
Thaorius on 19 July 2010
voiceless dental bilabially trilled affricate, that is: bbllrrr!
(me reproducing the sound), there's a tribe in the Amazon, the Piraha, that actually
uses it as part of they phoneme inventory.
What an amazing sound, and here's what it actually http://archive.phonetics.ucla.edu/Language/ORW/orw_word -list_1995_01.mp3 - sounds like (source: UCLA Phonetics Lab Library).
Teango on 20 July 2010
When realizing one of your posts in this thread got 7 votes really makes your day!
karaipyhare on 20 July 2010
... when people start asking you in buses in slowly, well accentuated German if you "make progress" while you are flipping through your flashcards - thinking you are a foreigner just because you bought the flashcards in the country of your target language.
B-Tina on 20 July 2010
voiceless dental bilabially trilled affricate, that is: bbllrrr!
(me reproducing the sound), there's a tribe in the Amazon, the Piraha, that actually
uses it as part of they phoneme inventory.
What an amazing sound, and here's what it actually http://archive.phonetics.ucla.edu/Language/ORW/orw_word -list_1995_01.mp3 - sounds like (source: UCLA Phonetics Lab Library).
johntm93 on 20 July 2010
You know you're a language nerd when you start expressing surprise with Xhosa phrases you
picked up from TV when you have no intention of learning Xhosa.
LazyLinguist on 20 July 2010
...when you wish phrasebooks had fewer phrases for travelers about asking directions and finding things in pharmacies and such, and more phrases for people who just want to learn the language from far away and maybe pick up some cute girls (or guys) who speak it.
Levi on 21 July 2010
and Italian to your brother, even though no one of them speak those languages.
...when you're at the university and take notes in other languages.
...when one of the reason to learn X language is: "Wow! They have a really cool flag!
Let's learn that language" (i.e. Swedish)
Guido on 22 July 2010
...when your dog only understands Portuguese and German commands, but not a word of
English, because that's how he was trained.
cojoda on 23 July 2010
You know you're a language nerd when you start expressing surprise with Xhosa phrases you
picked up from TV when you have no intention of learning Xhosa.
You know you are a language nerd when you know what Xhosa is. Non-language nerds might think that if you"picked up some Xhosa" you had contracted an exotic disease.
psy88 on 23 July 2010
When you encounter a lady pushing a buggy carrying a little dog with great but cloudy eyes staring at you.
Then you speak by yourself " al kalb kafif " اÙÙÙب ÙÙÙÙ which means "the dog is blind". The sentence and the
words belonging to your first 20 lessons of Arabic.
And coming at home afterwards you should have written "al kalba kafifa" if the dog was female : اÙÙÙبة ÙÙÙÙØ©
staf250 on 23 July 2010
When you leave for France with a single dictionary and return home four days later with two dictionaries, a grammar book, a magazine and eleven books and are way more excited about this than about having been on holiday.
ReneeMona on 24 July 2010
(English spam is not OK, though, just in case you're listening, internet marketers)
meramarina on 24 July 2010
You often have three or more web browser windows opened to different language dictionaries, another to Google Translate, yet another for searching to find examples of the word/phrase in use and several heavy desk reference dictionaries within arm's reach.
Kary on 24 July 2010
confused as hell with your heavily configured keyboard.
zamie on 24 July 2010
When your heroes are Polyglots instead of Musicians and Sportsmen (and when you can't help but laugh when Benny the Irish Genius compares himself to Dr Arguelles
gogglehead on 24 July 2010
and when you can't help but laugh when Benny the Irish Genius compares himself to Dr
Arguelles
Whoa. Hold up. He compared himself to Professor Arguelles? How exactly did he put this comparison?
ruskivyetr on 24 July 2010
and when you can't help but laugh when Benny the Irish Genius compares himself to Dr
Arguelles
Whoa. Hold up. He compared himself to Professor Arguelles? How exactly did he put this comparison?
Same question here. That seems a bit odd...
...when you know exactly who these people (and many others) are and are more familiar with them than with any other "normal" celebrities. And then when you make reference them in a conversation, you find it surprising that your listener doesn't know who you're talking about.
ellasevia on 24 July 2010
and when you can't help but laugh when Benny the Irish Genius compares himself to Dr
Arguelles
Whoa. Hold up. He compared himself to Professor Arguelles? How exactly did he put this comparison?
Don't get me wrong, I love Benny's blog and have learned a lot from it. I can't find the exact page where he wrote it, but the line goes something along the lines of "(learners)..who want to be polyglots like Myself, Professor Arguelles and Moses McCormick". Dr Arguelles devoted his life to acquiring an encyclopedic mind, mastering some very exotic languages, and even authoring scholarly works on the subject.
Benny, you are a great polyglot (as is Mr McCormick), and an inspiration to many (in fact you are much more "my style" of linguist than some more academic/conventional polyglots) but, likening yourself to Arguelles, however lightly, may actually discourage others from taking your blog seriously (which is EXCELLENT, by the way).
gogglehead on 24 July 2010
When what you're most concerned about knowing about your very drunken last night in Sweden is if you were at least practicing your Swedish... and when you ask your friends they say that you in fact were speaking Swedish, and in addition to that kept running off and being found speaking various foreign languages (including ones you don't know) with other foreigners. Apparently you were "quite belligerent" if addressed in your nativeEnglish.
... And all this makes you proud that you can stick to your values even while heavily intoxicated.
kottoler.ello on 24 July 2010
... you get extremely excited when you receive a Russian learner's history book in the mail, which has vocabulary notes in French, which you purchased from a German seller (using German to communicate).
josht on 24 July 2010
When you look around at every level surface in the room, and realise that the ceiling is the only place that doesn't have at least one language learning book or poster on it...yet!
Teango on 25 July 2010
Hey, now there's an idea: taping verb / declension charts to the ceiling. If you get lost, just look up.
josht on 25 July 2010
When you feel really upset that July is almost over because that leaves only one more month before everything goes back to "normal" for you in September and you will have less time to devote to you language studies.
psy88 on 26 July 2010
When you encounter a lady pushing a buggy carrying a little dog with great but cloudy eyes staring at you.
Sorry, I thought mainly people from Georgia (the state) used that term, it's kind of shocking seeing a European using it. One of my friends immediately identified me as a Georgian when he first heard me say that...
I second the polyglots as role models thing. I could care less about who's getting married to who in Hollywood, but I'm interested in Prof. Arguelles language learning methods.
johntm93 on 26 July 2010
and when you can't help but laugh when Benny the Irish Genius compares himself to Dr
Arguelles
Whoa. Hold up. He compared himself to Professor Arguelles? How exactly did he put this comparison?
Don't get me wrong, I love Benny's blog and have learned a lot from it. I can't find the exact page where he wrote it, but the line goes something along the lines of "(learners)..who want to be polyglots like Myself, Professor Arguelles and Moses McCormick". Dr Arguelles devoted his life to acquiring an encyclopedic mind, mastering some very exotic languages, and even authoring scholarly works on the subject.
Benny, you are a great polyglot (as is Mr McCormick), and an inspiration to many (in fact you are much more "my style" of linguist than some more academic/conventional polyglots) but, likening yourself to Arguelles, however lightly, may actually discourage others from taking your blog seriously (which is EXCELLENT, by the way).
When you look around at every level surface in the room, and realise that the ceiling is the only place that doesn't have at least one language learning book or poster on it...yet!
When you feel really upset that July is almost over because that leaves only one more month before everything goes back to "normal" for you in September and you will have less time to devote to you language studies.
Not just because I lose all of the free time I have for languages, but I'll have work for stupid subjects likeÂEnglish (why do I have to take a class about my native language?) and I won't be able to study foreign languages!
johntm93 on 26 July 2010
When you buy something you had no intention of buying just because the sales lady kept speaking to you in German even when she found out you were from the US.
Rina on 26 July 2010
I think I'm going to make Chinese vocabulary lists of characters that I can't recognize on sight and tape them to my cieling, so that I can look at them before I fall asleep and when I wake up. I had a teacher who said that right before bed and right when you wake up are the best times to learn things, as you remember them better.
When you've actually been called a nerd to your face for telling someone (while in a new-book high, of course) that you just bought A Primer for Advanced Beginners of Chinese: Simplified Character Edition and Integrated Korean: Beginning 1 at a newly-discovered bookstore and they're both really great and on and on. I would call me a nerd too, if I said that to myself...
mashmusic11235 on 26 July 2010
When you can say that you learned more aboutÂEnglish from studing foreign languages than you did in yourÂEnglish class at school, things like what a prepostion is, what the direct and indirect objects are, and what the schwa sound is.
johntm93 on 26 July 2010
When a "languages duel" similar to the one shown in this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gU7_bKg98-Y - video seems like a perfect first date.
mick33 on 26 July 2010
When a "languages duel" similar to the one shown in this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gU7_bKg98-Y - video seems like a perfect first date.
johntm93 on 26 July 2010
When a "languages duel" similar to the one shown in this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gU7_bKg98-Y - video seems like a perfect first date.
That's awesome!! (Their accents are pretty bad though... haha).
If anyone does this with me on a first date, I'm in love. =O
janalisa on 26 July 2010
When a "languages duel" similar to the one shown in this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gU7_bKg98-Y - video seems like a perfect first date.
Go Indy! The scary thing is that the first date with my current girlfriend actually did involve 3 languages...and I could cheekily even count up to 4...because it was in an Italian restaurant where I naturally tried out a few phrases whilst ordering for fun. ;)
Teango on 26 July 2010
That 'language duel' looks fun. Their accents are pretty bad though, especially for the Swedish and Greek. I couldn't even tell that they were speaking those at first until I heard the language/country mentioned ("pratar Svenska"; "ÏÏην Îλλάδα"). The German and Italian weren't great either, but at least they were understandable on first hearing. Why no Asian languages in there? ;)
ellasevia on 26 July 2010
You actually don't mind flying/travelling for 40 hours because it's a good opportunity to practise your languages, especially on the poor unsuspecting German exchange students who are trapped sitting next to you..... They did luckily seem to warm up to me by hour 18 especially when I translated Important Airline Information for them, haha. I really tried not to come across as a freak but I'm afraid my reading in Arabic may have been too much for them!
Quabazaa on 26 July 2010
When after years of getting spam in your inbox, you're thrilled to eventually get one completely in Arabic advertising villas (yes, I checked on Google Translate)! :)
Teango on 26 July 2010
When you feel really upset that July is almost over because that leaves only one more month before
everything goes back to "normal" for you in September and you will have less time to devote to you language
studies.
Not just because I lose all of the free time I have for languages, but I'll have work for stupid subjects likeÂEnglish
(why do I have to take a class about my native language?) and I won't be able to study foreign languages!
You know you are a language nerd when you do foreign language stuff IN yourEnglish class and get in trouble for
it on many different occasions.
You know you are a language nerd when you are type "I'll be there" in facebook chat, and it comes out as "Iäll be
there".
ruskivyetr on 26 July 2010
When you feel really upset that July is almost over because that leaves only one more month before
everything goes back to "normal" for you in September and you will have less time to devote to you language
studies.
Not just because I lose all of the free time I have for languages, but I'll have work for stupid subjects likeÂEnglish
(why do I have to take a class about my native language?) and I won't be able to study foreign languages!
You know you are a language nerd when you do foreign language stuff IN yourÂEnglish class and get in trouble for
it on many different occasions.
You know you are a language nerd when you are type "I'll be there" in facebook chat, and it comes out as "Iäll be
there".
johntm93 on 26 July 2010
When you feel really upset that July is almost over because that leaves only one more month before
everything goes back to "normal" for you in September and you will have less time to devote to you language
studies.
Not just because I lose all of the free time I have for languages, but I'll have work for stupid subjects likeEnglish
(why do I have to take a class about my native language?) and I won't be able to study foreign languages!
You know you are a language nerd when you do foreign language stuff IN yourEnglish class and get in trouble for it on many different occasions.
I did that so many times last year... Luckily my teacher didn't care. :)
Even better though: sitting front and center in your French class and quite obviously reading and taking notes from an Italian or German book which is lying open on your desk, while also half-listening to the strange (likely off-topic) lecture in French your teacher is giving. And later you hear from another student in a different class that she actually has noticed you doing that--which is good, because she would have to be blind to miss it--and talks about how you do that to other classes, but how she doesn't care because you "already speak French well".
ellasevia on 26 July 2010
When the only time of day you feel truly enthusiastic and energetic and can't take yourself away from something on vacation in St. Petersburg is at 11:30 at the bookstore in the giant foreign language section, despite the vast majority of the books there being in Russian, which you don't know at all. Bonus points because that actually increases your desire to buy them.
When nothing makes you as giddy as getting a compliment on your language skills.
kottoler.ello on 26 July 2010
You worry about the luggage allowance for your next long trip - but not because of your clothing and toiletries, which can be scrunched into an overnight bag.
Kary on 26 July 2010
You worry about the luggage allowance for your next long trip - but not because of your clothing and toiletries, which can be scrunched into an overnight bag.
Last year when I was going to Greece for six weeks, my mom told me at first that I would only be allowed to bring four language books. Only four! So I did the only thing that a reasonable language nerd would do--start to discreetly smuggle them into different little pouches and sections of my backpack, leaving only the biggest and heaviest four in the luggage. Then it turned out that I had enough room anyways, so I took nearly all of my (at that time--my collection has probably doubled or tripled in size since then) books.
ellasevia on 26 July 2010
page and then saying something in the language of the country where that place is. You know you're an even bigger
language nerd when you just can't find a page for which you can't say anything.
I play this game with my friends and a globe, and they get frustrated. Even if I know only a few words they start to
get a little annoyed. Then they turn to africa and I'm lost O_O.
ruskivyetr on 27 July 2010
That 'language duel' looks fun. Their accents are pretty bad though, especially for the Swedish and Greek. I couldn't even tell that they were speaking those at first until I heard the language/country mentioned ("pratar Svenska"; "ÏÏην Îλλάδα"). The German and Italian weren't great either, but at least they were understandable on first hearing. Why no Asian languages in there? ;)
mick33 on 27 July 2010
page and then saying something in the language of the country where that place is. You know you're an even bigger
language nerd when you just can't find a page for which you can't say anything.
I play this game with my friends and a globe, and they get frustrated. Even if I know only a few words they start to
get a little annoyed. Then they turn to africa and I'm lost O_O.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brifDsUwY94 - Be lost no more, learn some words from this
johntm93 on 27 July 2010
page and then saying something in the language of the country where that place is. You know you're an even bigger
language nerd when you just can't find a page for which you can't say anything.
I play this game with my friends and a globe, and they get frustrated. Even if I know only a few words they start to
get a little annoyed. Then they turn to africa and I'm lost O_O.
Well, with four languages you can get at least one of the official languages of every African country except Ethiopia:English, French, Portuguese and Arabic.
Levi on 27 July 2010
a travel book and radomly choosing a
page and then saying something in the language of the country where that place is. You know you're an even
bigger
language nerd when you just can't find a page for which you can't say anything.
I play this game with my friends and a globe, and they get frustrated. Even if I know only a few words they start
to
get a little annoyed. Then they turn to africa and I'm lost O_O.
Well, with four languages you can get at least one of the official languages of every African country except
Ethiopia:ÂEnglish, French, Portuguese and Arabic.
Well I know words in all those languages, I meant countries that have like Hausa, Swahili, Zulu, etc. as one of the
official languages (and yes the game dictates that you must say something in each official language).
ruskivyetr on 27 July 2010
a travel book and radomly choosing a
page and then saying something in the language of the country where that place is. You know you're an even
bigger
language nerd when you just can't find a page for which you can't say anything.
I play this game with my friends and a globe, and they get frustrated. Even if I know only a few words they start
to
get a little annoyed. Then they turn to africa and I'm lost O_O.
Well, with four languages you can get at least one of the official languages of every African country except
Ethiopia:ÂEnglish, French, Portuguese and Arabic.
Well I know words in all those languages, I meant countries that have like Hausa, Swahili, Zulu, etc. as one of the
official languages (and yes the game dictates that you must say something in each official language).
johntm93 on 27 July 2010
when you play games like flipping through
a travel book and radomly choosing a
page and then saying something in the language of the country where that place is. You know you're an even
bigger
language nerd when you just can't find a page for which you can't say anything.
I play this game with my friends and a globe, and they get frustrated. Even if I know only a few words they start
to
get a little annoyed. Then they turn to africa and I'm lost O_O.
Well, with four languages you can get at least one of the official languages of every African country except
Ethiopia:ÂEnglish, French, Portuguese and Arabic.
Well I know words in all those languages, I meant countries that have like Hausa, Swahili, Zulu, etc. as one of the
official languages (and yes the game dictates that you must say something in each official language).
Wow that actually sounds fun.
You know you're a language nerd when the fact that someone else says this about a language game melts your
heart.
Edit: And when you play such games on a daily basis :P.
ruskivyetr on 27 July 2010
when you play games like flipping through
a travel book and radomly choosing a
page and then saying something in the language of the country where that place is. You know you're an even
bigger
language nerd when you just can't find a page for which you can't say anything.
I play this game with my friends and a globe, and they get frustrated. Even if I know only a few words they start
to
get a little annoyed. Then they turn to africa and I'm lost O_O.
Well, with four languages you can get at least one of the official languages of every African country except
Ethiopia:ÂEnglish, French, Portuguese and Arabic.
Well I know words in all those languages, I meant countries that have like Hausa, Swahili, Zulu, etc. as one of the
official languages (and yes the game dictates that you must say something in each official language).
Wow that actually sounds fun.
You know you're a language nerd when the fact that someone else says this about a language game melts your
heart.
Edit: And when you play such games on a daily basis :P.
johntm93 on 27 July 2010
when you play games like flipping through
a travel book and radomly choosing a
page and then saying something in the language of the country where that place is. You know you're an even
bigger
language nerd when you just can't find a page for which you can't say anything.
I play this game with my friends and a globe, and they get frustrated. Even if I know only a few words they start
to
get a little annoyed. Then they turn to africa and I'm lost O_O.
Well, with four languages you can get at least one of the official languages of every African country except
Ethiopia:ÂEnglish, French, Portuguese and Arabic.
Well I know words in all those languages, I meant countries that have like Hausa, Swahili, Zulu, etc. as one of the
official languages (and yes the game dictates that you must say something in each official language).
Wow that actually sounds fun.
You know you're a language nerd when the fact that someone else says this about a language game melts your
heart.
Edit: And when you play such games on a daily basis :P.
languages...I actually want to play that right now :P
I play alone. Often. I played it with my siblings a few times, and then my Georgian friend, and once with my
mom. I've lost only once. My mom kept choosing French speaking countries, and I ran out of French words.
ruskivyetr on 27 July 2010
a travel book and radomly choosing a
page and then saying something in the language of the country where that place is. You know you're an even
bigger
language nerd when you just can't find a page for which you can't say anything.
I play this game with my friends and a globe, and they get frustrated. Even if I know only a few words they start
to
get a little annoyed. Then they turn to africa and I'm lost O_O.
Well, with four languages you can get at least one of the official languages of every African country except
Ethiopia:ÂEnglish, French, Portuguese and Arabic.
Well I know words in all those languages, I meant countries that have like Hausa, Swahili, Zulu, etc. as one of the
official languages (and yes the game dictates that you must say something in each official language).
Well Swahili isn't that hard. Just memorize this phrase: Ninasema Kiswahili vizuri sana! (I speak Swahili very well.)
ellasevia on 27 July 2010
when you play games like flipping through
a travel book and radomly choosing a
page and then saying something in the language of the country where that place is. You know you're an even
bigger
language nerd when you just can't find a page for which you can't say anything.
I play this game with my friends and a globe, and they get frustrated. Even if I know only a few words they start
to
get a little annoyed. Then they turn to africa and I'm lost O_O.
Well, with four languages you can get at least one of the official languages of every African country except
Ethiopia:ÂEnglish, French, Portuguese and Arabic.
Well I know words in all those languages, I meant countries that have like Hausa, Swahili, Zulu, etc. as one of the
official languages (and yes the game dictates that you must say something in each official language).
Wow that actually sounds fun.
You know you're a language nerd when the fact that someone else says this about a language game melts your
heart.
Edit: And when you play such games on a daily basis :P.
languages...I actually want to play that right now :P
I play alone. Often.
johntm93 on 27 July 2010
when you play games like flipping through
a travel book and radomly choosing a
page and then saying something in the language of the country where that place is. You know you're an even
bigger
language nerd when you just can't find a page for which you can't say anything.
I play this game with my friends and a globe, and they get frustrated. Even if I know only a few words they start
to
get a little annoyed. Then they turn to africa and I'm lost O_O.
Well, with four languages you can get at least one of the official languages of every African country except
Ethiopia:ÂEnglish, French, Portuguese and Arabic.
Well I know words in all those languages, I meant countries that have like Hausa, Swahili, Zulu, etc. as one of the
official languages (and yes the game dictates that you must say something in each official language).
Wow that actually sounds fun.
You know you're a language nerd when the fact that someone else says this about a language game melts your
heart.
Edit: And when you play such games on a daily basis :P.
languages...I actually want to play that right now :P
I play alone. Often.
I don't find it weird at all that you would want to do that, mainly because I do it. I often think "is this weird?
naahh I'd totally do this in a heartbeat if someone else suggested it :D!"
The only times I don't play with complete nerdery is when my friends do it to show someone at a party that one
of their friends actually has a shred of intelligence.
ruskivyetr on 27 July 2010
Well I know words in all those languages, I meant countries that have like Hausa, Swahili, Zulu, etc. as one of the
official languages (and yes the game dictates that you must say something in each official language).
Eek. Countries like India and South Africa would take some real preparation!
Levi on 27 July 2010
Well I know words in all those languages, I meant countries that have like Hausa,
Swahili, Zulu, etc. as one of the
official languages (and yes the game dictates that you must say something in each official language).
Eek. Countries like India and South Africa would take some real preparation!
Makes it more fun :D. I always leave India for last :). South Africa I think I got everything right once (I used the
official name of the Republic of South Africa in all the languages, thanks Wikipedia :).
Edit: Cheating's not allowed, I just said wikipedia because I have read the wikipedia page for south africa about a
million times, and yes, being the language nerd I am, I took the liberty of memorizing them. Never knew that would
come in handy :).
ruskivyetr on 27 July 2010
Well I know words in all those languages, I meant countries that have like Hausa,
Swahili, Zulu, etc. as one of the
official languages (and yes the game dictates that you must say something in each official language).
Eek. Countries like India and South Africa would take some real preparation!
Makes it more fun :D. I always leave India for last :). South Africa I think I got everything right once (I used the
official name of the Republic of South Africa in all the languages, thanks Wikipedia :).
Edit: Cheating's not allowed, I just said wikipedia because I have read the wikipedia page for south africa about a
million times, and yes, being the language nerd I am, I took the liberty of memorizing them. Never knew that would
come in handy :).
Do you do anglophone countries? If so, what do you do for the US, since we have no official language?
I'd imagine you just skip those though, since you know a fewEnglish words.
johntm93 on 27 July 2010
Well I know words in all those
languages, I meant countries that have like Hausa,
Swahili, Zulu, etc. as one of the
official languages (and yes the game dictates that you must say something in each official language).
Eek. Countries like India and South Africa would take some real preparation!
Makes it more fun :D. I always leave India for last :). South Africa I think I got everything right once (I used the
official name of the Republic of South Africa in all the languages, thanks Wikipedia :).
Edit: Cheating's not allowed, I just said wikipedia because I have read the wikipedia page for south africa about a
million times, and yes, being the language nerd I am, I took the liberty of memorizing them. Never knew that
would
come in handy :).
languages in a country (if it has more than three official languages, of course).
Do you do anglophone countries? If so, what do you do for the US, since we have no official language?
I'd imagine you just skip those though, since you know a fewÂEnglish words.
Hmmn, I do know a fewEnglish words, so it's good to practice using them once in a while. I just do de facto
national languages if there is no official language.
ruskivyetr on 27 July 2010
Well I know words in all those
languages, I meant countries that have like Hausa,
Swahili, Zulu, etc. as one of the
official languages (and yes the game dictates that you must say something in each
official language).
Eek. Countries like India and South Africa would take some real preparation!
Makes it more fun :D. I always leave India for last :). South Africa I think I got
everything right once (I used the
official name of the Republic of South Africa in all the languages, thanks Wikipedia
:).
Edit: Cheating's not allowed, I just said wikipedia because I have read the wikipedia
page for south africa about a
million times, and yes, being the language nerd I am, I took the liberty of memorizing
them. Never knew that
would
come in handy :).
to the three biggest
languages in a country (if it has more than three official languages, of course).
Do you do anglophone countries? If so, what do you do for the US, since we have no
official language?
I'd imagine you just skip those though, since you know a fewÂEnglish words.
Hmmn, I do know a fewÂEnglish words, so it's good to practice using them once in a
while. I just do de facto
national languages if there is no official language.
Some states and territories of USA do have official laguages:
Hawaiian andEnglish official in Hawaii
French andEnglish official in Louisiana
Spanish official in New Mexico and California (they require some documents to be
trasnlated into Spanish)
Samoan and Chamorro are recognized by American Samoa and Guam, respectively; Carolinian
and Chamorro are recognized by the Northern Mariana Islands
karaipyhare on 27 July 2010
CHILDREN in 17 laguages.
even nerdier if you can PRONOUNCE those sentences in the 17 languages.
the extreme nerdiest if you learned a lot of grammar and syntax of those 17 laguages from
reading those warning sentences
karaipyhare on 27 July 2010
You know you're a language Nerd when you go in to shock after learning that Amazon hasn't
dispatched your Assimil book, even though you ordered it 40 or so hours ago. And more so
when you are checking if it has been dispatched at a frequency of once per five minutes.
LazyLinguist on 27 July 2010
Well I know words in all those
languages, I meant countries that have like Hausa,
Swahili, Zulu, etc. as one of the
official languages (and yes the game dictates that you must say something in each
official language).
Eek. Countries like India and South Africa would take some real preparation!
Makes it more fun :D. I always leave India for last :). South Africa I think I got
everything right once (I used the
official name of the Republic of South Africa in all the languages, thanks Wikipedia
:).
Edit: Cheating's not allowed, I just said wikipedia because I have read the wikipedia
page for south africa about a
million times, and yes, being the language nerd I am, I took the liberty of memorizing
them. Never knew that
would
come in handy :).
to the three biggest
languages in a country (if it has more than three official languages, of course).
Do you do anglophone countries? If so, what do you do for the US, since we have no
official language?
I'd imagine you just skip those though, since you know a fewÂEnglish words.
Hmmn, I do know a fewÂEnglish words, so it's good to practice using them once in a
while. I just do de facto
national languages if there is no official language.
Some states and territories of USA do have official laguages:
Hawaiian andÂEnglish official in Hawaii
French andÂEnglish official in Louisiana
Spanish official in New Mexico and California (they require some documents to be
trasnlated into Spanish)
Samoan and Chamorro are recognized by American Samoa and Guam, respectively; Carolinian
and Chamorro are recognized by the Northern Mariana Islands
johntm93 on 27 July 2010
Hey, now there's an idea: taping verb / declension charts to the ceiling. If you get lost, just look up.
Great idea!! I should definitely do that with the Latin cases.
renegade5005 on 27 July 2010
... when you can name at least one of the languages spoken in every single country.
... when you dream how would it be if you revive, say, Napoleon and you have to teach him (in French, of course) how the world has changed.
Guido on 27 July 2010
Anyone else here think he should write his own language course? I think he would make a great language course, given enough free time of course.
johntm93 on 28 July 2010
languages and language courses in the past hour and want to watch more, but you think you
should actually STUDY a language instead.
Anyone else here think he should write his own language course? I think he would make a
great language course, given enough free time of course.
Guilty. Then I read a tip about stop studying on how to study and just study. But, being
an engineer type, I am all about the planning. Fail to plan, plan to fail.
budonoseito on 28 July 2010
When you have to alt-tab at work when your boss comes into your office. Not because you are chatting on Facebook, but because you are always logged into Anki online. (That is my reward for when I finish a task at work...I get to work through a hundred cards or so of one of my seven different decks).
When you have to read a lot of insurance papers for your job, and it makes your day to see that they are not only published in German (I live in Germany), but also in French, Chinese, Portuguese, Spanish, Russian, and Italian. This is no longer a chore for me.
astein on 28 July 2010
When you have to alt-tab at work when your boss comes into your office. Not because you are chatting on Facebook, but because you are always logged into Anki online. (That is my reward for when I finish a task at work...I get to work through a hundred cards or so of one of my seven different decks).
Guilty. However, since I finally coughed up the £15 for the iPhone version of Anki I've found that I can review much more discreetly ;)
theallstar on 28 July 2010
And you think...great, chocolate, I like chocolate :)...but then you turn the bar around and see this on the back:
And now you think...wow, ingredients in 6 languages, including Armenian and Georgian, absolutely-flippin-fantastic!...and hug the giver copiously for such an amazing gift! :D
Teango on 28 July 2010
What would we Language nerds do if there were only ONE international language? I mean sure a lot of things would have been improved but that would be a pretty boring world for us, nichtwahr?!?
renegade5005 on 28 July 2010
languages and language courses in the past hour and want to watch more, but you think you
should actually STUDY a language instead.
Anyone else here think he should write his own language course? I think he would make a
great language course, given enough free time of course.
Guilty. Then I read a tip about stop studying on how to study and just study. But, being
an engineer type, I am all about the planning. Fail to plan, plan to fail.
And you think...great, chocolate, I like chocolate :)...but then you turn the bar around and see this on the back:
And now you think...wow, ingredients in 6 languages, including Armenian and Georgian, absolutely-flippin-fantastic!...and hug the giver copiously for such an amazing gift! :D
johntm93 on 28 July 2010
You know you're a language nerd when you have seen Professor Arguelles' whole series on Germanic languages at
least seven times, and it doesn't bore you at all the next time you watch it.
ruskivyetr on 28 July 2010
You know you're a language nerd when you have seen Professor Arguelles' whole series on Germanic languages at
least seven times, and it doesn't bore you at all the next time you watch it.
johntm93 on 28 July 2010
My mom's cousin and his family were visiting my house last week, and they are missionaries in Belarus. So they leave me some Belarussian candy, and I won't eat them until I know what they say. One says "Grand Toffy" but the rest are in Russian/Belarussian. I can read Cyrillic, but not any language that uses Cyrillic...so I don't know when I'm going to eat the damn things!
Now that's discipline! Depriving yourself of chocolate until you can speak a language well enough to read the packaging it comes in. :)
ellasevia on 28 July 2010
...when, as soon as somebody asks "How is that spelled?", everybody looks at you before you even say anything.
Levi on 28 July 2010
My mom's cousin and his family were visiting my house last week, and they are missionaries in Belarus. So they leave me some Belarussian candy, and I won't eat them until I know what they say. One says "Grand Toffy" but the rest are in Russian/Belarussian. I can read Cyrillic, but not any language that uses Cyrillic...so I don't know when I'm going to eat the damn things!
Now that's discipline! Depriving yourself of chocolate until you can speak a language well enough to read the packaging it comes in. :)
Well, I'm kind of wary of what's in it. I'm picky, if it has cherry or coconut in it I don't want it. That and the fact that I actually want to figure out what it says...
I need to hurry out and figure out what they say, before they melt or something.
...when, as soon as somebody asks "How is that spelled?", everybody looks at you before you even say anything.
I get this quite a bit, but only because I'm a very goodEnglish speller.
johntm93 on 28 July 2010
...when listening to your target language sounds so much like music to your ears that you actually dance to it.
Levi on 28 July 2010
Benny, you are a great polyglot (as is Mr McCormick), ..... but likening yourself to Arguelles, however lightly, may actually discourage others from taking your blog seriously.
Gogglehead, get your facts straight before you spread rumours about me in future please. I never said anything of the sort. I interviewed Prof. Arguelles and he has a very high level of full-time devotion, whereas language learning is a means to an end for me (I just want to expand my social circle when in the country and actively promote lack of perfection with focus on communication and little interest in literature). Obviously I don't claim to be in the same league as him, especially after having the pleasure of talking with him and seeing his passion first hand.
What I precisely said was "all of the passionate language learners interviewed learned their languages as adults thanks to a positive attitude and efficient learning technique that we explain in detail. If they all only spokeÂEnglish when they finished high school, then think of what your potential is!" I don't even compare myself to him there, but grouping us together I only say that we are both polyglots and both learned languages as adults and both encourage positive mentality. This is where I mention him on my site. Perhaps somewhere else I said I interviewed "other polyglots". Any equivalence of me being in his league from this description is purely in your head.
irishpolyglot on 29 July 2010
Benny, you are a great polyglot (as is Mr McCormick), ..... but
likening yourself to Arguelles, however lightly, may actually discourage others from taking your blog
seriously.
Gogglehead, get your facts straight before you spread rumours about me in future please. I never said anything
of the sort. I interviewed Prof. Arguelles and he has a very high level of full-time devotion, whereas language
learning is a means to an end for me (I just want to expand my social circle when in the country and actively
promote lack of perfection with focus on communication and little interest in literature). Obviously I don't claim
to be in the same league as him, especially after having the pleasure of talking with him and seeing his passion
first hand.
What I precisely said was "all of the passionate language learners interviewed learned their languages as adults
thanks to a positive attitude and efficient learning technique that we explain in detail. If they all only
spokeÂEnglish when they finished high school, then think of what your potential is!" I don't even compare myself
to him there, but grouping us together I only say that we are both polyglots and both learned languages as adults
and both encourage positive mentality. This is where I mention him on my site. Perhaps somewhere else I said I
interviewed "other polyglots". Any equivalence of me being in his league from this description is purely in your
head.
I'd appreciate it if you didn't make up things about me in future! "He said something along the lines of" is pure
BS.
He wasn't meaning to start a rumor nor did he make anything up about you. He probably just misread your post,
or was blurry on the details of what specifically was said when he wrote his post. "get your facts straight" sounds
a bit confrontational, and there is really no need to get defensive. He wasn't meaning to discredit you. In fact,
from what it looks like, he really enjoys your blog.
ruskivyetr on 30 July 2010
Or when you are awed at how complex languages actually are which makes them that much greater and more of a long term endeavor.
ibraheem on 30 July 2010
When you get annoyed when people find you are LEARNING a language and just assume you are fluent in it. Or when people think someone can just pickup a language from a friend like it's nothing.
johntm93 on 30 July 2010
..when you're playing "you know you're a language nerd" at 6:43 am with a Greek language nerd who hasn't slept either
Pinathes on 30 July 2010
When you post in a topic called "You know youâre a language nerd when...", which has 118 pages.
shadad on 30 July 2010
When people call you a language genius and say they wish they had this 'talent' but won't
listen to you when you try to explain that anyone can do the same if they put in some
time and efforts.
Asiafeverr on 30 July 2010
When you come home from a long day at work, and the first thing you want to do is get your "You know you're a language nerd when..." fix.
Kerrie on 30 July 2010
When you are almost,- yes, almost, but not quite- embarrassed to admit that "you know you are a language nerd when" has become the first thing you look for when you log on
psy88 on 31 July 2010
When you are almost,- yes, almost, but not quite- embarrassed to admit that "you know you are a language nerd when" has become the first thing you look for when you log on
Also, I don't think this has been said in 30 pages or so, so I'll reiterate it for the 5th time in this thread:
When you have read every post in this thread!
johntm93 on 31 July 2010
When you have read every post in this thread TWICE.
LazyLinguist on 31 July 2010
When, while on holiday in Tenerife, you can communicate with everyone you've met in the last 10 days in their native languages. And when your non language-nerdy friends and family comment on how impressed they are, you simply repeat what Asiafeverr said above - that speaking languages is possible for anyone if they put in the required amount of effort.
LanguageSponge on 31 July 2010
Pourquoi la grenouille a-t-elle la nostalgie ?
Parce que l'étang change!
Levi on 31 July 2010
when you are out with friends, bored, and you recall the postings on "you know you are a language nerd when" and you suddenly begin to laugh, much to the surprise/wonderment of your friends. Actually, they already think you are weird so perhaps they are not as surprised as you would expect.
psy88 on 01 August 2010
You are curious to know which languages a person speaks or even studies.
Flip_flop on 01 August 2010
walk obliviously into a large group of tourists. Sensing that something is awry, you take
off the headphones only to find to your horror, that the aforementioned group of
tourists, fifteen or so in all, who happen to be conversing excitedly, are in fact native
Dutch speakers.
Now, perhaps it's just your imagination, but one or two of them seem to be looking at you
funny.
egill on 02 August 2010
You hate being asked why you pay so much attention to languages whereas you could easily get by with those you already know.
Flip_flop on 02 August 2010
"I had to complain to the catalogue it was bought through" instead of "the catalogue through which it was bought"
Polyglotted on 02 August 2010
with a preposition:
"I had to complain to the catalogue it was bought through" instead of "the catalogue through which it was bought."
It is perfectly fine to end a sentence with a preposition. I have even read that it is one of the biggest myths
regardingÂEnglish grammar!
Good to know!
...when you spend over two hours talking with another member of this forum about languages in general and doing a language exchange, and don't want it to end (because it's so nice to finally talk to someone knowledgeable and with the same interest as you) but then panic because you still haven't done any studying!
ellasevia on 03 August 2010
with a preposition:
"I had to complain to the catalogue it was bought through" instead of "the catalogue through which it was bought."
It is perfectly fine to end a sentence with a preposition. I have even read that it is one of the biggest myths
regardingÂEnglish grammar!
Indeed,English like all the Germanic languages allows prepositions to end sentences. The insistence on not doing so was an attempt to force Latin grammar rules onEnglish (so too is the insistence on saying "it is I" rather than "it is me"). ButEnglish is not Latin nor a Latinate language, and relies heavily on verb + preposition phrases. Consider the following sentences, which can't really be reworded so as to not end in a preposition:
⢠Check it out!
⢠Come in!
⢠The plane is taking off.
⢠My friend wants to stop by.
⢠What's he going on about?
Levi on 03 August 2010
And then you do it again when posting about it! Lol
(Dutch part: go from one language to another)
mashmusic11235 on 03 August 2010
when you celebrate today as your "first birthday" because it was one year ago today that you joined this fantastic on-line community of language learners and lovers of languages, many of whom,otherwise totally unknown to you, you have come to consider role models for your own language learning.
psy88 on 04 August 2010
When you start ironing even though your clothes don't actually need it for the sole reason that this gives you an excuse for listening to another language podcast while ironing.
B-Tina on 04 August 2010
When you watched 'The Big Bang Theory' when Sheldon learns Chinese to confront the people at his local restaurant about using oranges instead of tangerines on the chickens, and you firstly were envious of how quick he could pick it up and then can understand his language faux-pas without the subtitles :)
Polyglotted on 05 August 2010
YKYALN when you've been too impressed with the fact that Iversen's studying practically the whole Indo-European linguistic family and is fluent in just half of them to realize he's petting cheetahs in his avatar.
Damasta on 05 August 2010
(and what's the meaning of YKYALN?)
Iversen on 05 August 2010
YKYALN = You know youâre a language nerd
newyorkeric on 05 August 2010
When my brother-in-law once witnessed that, it made him laugh all day. And he makes til today fun out of it - "You never guess what my sister-in-law takes for reading to the toilet" or "Ten Euros if you guess what ..."
But I really don't mind, I also laughed about it :-)
glossa.passion on 05 August 2010
When you explain code switching to a friend with the example
sentance: Code switching is where someone who speaks several languages will, in the
middle of a sentance, ga uit van een spraak naar een ander; and it completley slips
your mind to translate the Dutch part.
Correction: it's "taal" not "spraak"
When you just bought a 764 page Khoekhoegowab dictionary for $79.95,
because no library in the USA has one, and it was in stock at the online bookstore, and
somehow Namibia might one day be on your horizon, in the same way Jupiter or
Neptune might one day be.
Ow... Haacke's? I can't even get it in a bookstore in South Africa, I'll be taking a
trip to Namibia and will pick one up there... nifty language aye ^_^
ennime on 05 August 2010
aren't dangerous - provided that you aren't stupid enough to start running.
(and what's the meaning of YKYALN?)
oh? well... maybe if you try shadowing while running from them you'd have super retention
:p
ennime on 05 August 2010
YKYALN = You know youâre a language nerd
budonoseito on 05 August 2010
YKYALN when you know what YKYALN means.
Tally on 06 August 2010
YKYALN when you go to the toilet - knowing that it'll take some time - and you take a dictionary with you instead of a newspaper (apart from newspapers in your target language)
YKYALN when you propose using an Assimil book instead ;-)
B-Tina on 06 August 2010
a sentence inÂEnglish with a preposition
"I had to complain to the catalogue it was bought through" instead of "the catalogue
through which it was bought"
understanding of the sentence that much?
Sorry, I don't understand why people get worked up about it. And plus, who says we
can't end a sentence in a preposition? Afaik there's no regulatory body forÂEnglish
.
YKYALN when you start thinking about voiced and unvoiced sounds in random words you
see.
And when you plan on going to bed in 30 minutes and end up staying up for 2 more
hours...I haven't been here in a week so I wanted to catch up with all of the things I
missed.
johntm93 on 08 August 2010
When you hate when people say things like "I want to learn X language so I can tell when those foreigners are insulting me in their language! That would sure surprise them when I reply in their language". Or you hate people that associate your language studies with a very narrow minded perspective of a country. "Oh you're learning Thai, I really like Thai noodles!". Incidentally I'm not learning Thai.
ibraheem on 08 August 2010
When you hate when people say things like "I want to learn X language so I can tell when those foreigners are insulting me in their language! That would sure surprise them when I reply in their language". Or you hate people that associate your language studies with a very narrow minded perspective of a country. "Oh you're learning Thai, I really like Thai noodles!". Incidentally I'm not learning Thai.
But you DO like Thai noodles.
PaulLambeth on 08 August 2010
When you listen to music in five different languages and deliberately sing along to songs in those languages (Latin, German, French, Italian and Russian) in front of the aforementioned five year old half-brother (and have been doing so since he had just turned 3) in the hope that he will pick up an interest in languages. These attempts seem to really work, and now whenever he hears another language, he says "my brother probably understands that" or "what are they saying?"
I went to visit the aforementioned brother yesterday as he is "on holiday", as he puts it, at a caravan site a few miles away. The people on the pitch next to him were German, and he comes up to me excitedly saying "what are they saying? Go talk to them, I want to hear you speak" (and I did, obviously - I was as fired up for it as he was)
When your half-brother begins French at school (at 5 years old) and you're really jealous that you never had the opportunity to start it that early, thinking you might actually have really liked French if, when you started at 5 years old, it had involved counting and simple things like that while playing ball games or whatever.
When you get frustrated at yourself because you know you thought of one or two other things to write in this response but can't remember them right now. Grr.
EDIT: Remembered one. When you look at your Russian handwriting in a letter to your friend and you think "I should hide this away. Someone wandering around is bound to read this." You know in principle that no-one in your house but you can read the letter, but you think that Cyrillic is so transparent anyway that they could probably work it out pretty easily. And are so convinced by this fact that you hide the letter away anyway.
EDIT: When you look at posts on this forum with Japanese in them, thinking "right, that looks like a lot of gobbledegook to me" and then you think "I can't wait to learn to read that" :]
Jack
LanguageSponge on 08 August 2010
... you think that Cyrillic is so transparent anyway that they could probably work it out pretty easily...
I get this with Swedish so much, I always feel likeEnglish speakers are going to be able to figure out whatever was in Swedish, written or spoken. It's so close!
kottoler.ello on 08 August 2010
when you read aloud theEnglish word "era" but from force of habit (and repeated use and practice) you pronounce it as if it were the (to you ) familiar Spanish word which is spelled the same way. And, once again, those hearing you simply shrug and shake their heads.
psy88 on 08 August 2010
When you have a few phrases (only a few right now...) that you automatically translate in
your head for no reason. Like if I say "if you want" inEnglish the Spanish for it ("si
quiere" or "si quieres") automatically pops into my head, even if languages had nothing
to do with the conversation.
johntm93 on 09 August 2010
I get this with Swedish so much, I always feel likeÂEnglish speakers are going to be able to figure out whatever was in Swedish, written or spoken. It's so close!
It's frustrating, isn't it? I swore I'd never ever think that when I was learning to read it. And now, I will take the opportunity to say that I don't think that will ever happen with Japanese when I eventually learn to read it properly (can already read Hiragana somewhat) but I am sure it will after many, many years.
You know you're a language nerd when you're supposed to be catching a train in 15 mins, but instead you're on this site posting or reading threads like you have all the time in the world. Off to catch my train now :P
LanguageSponge on 09 August 2010
when you celebrate today as your "first birthday" because it was one year ago today that you joined this fantastic on-line community of language learners and lovers of languages
¡Feliz cumpleaños (perdon por la demora)! :)
English: Happy birthday (sorry for the delay)!
Teango on 09 August 2010
You know you're a language nerd when adding languages to your hit list feels a lot like being a kid in a candy store; âOh, I want this one! Ooooh, and that one!â
ReneeMona on 09 August 2010
When you find videos like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brifDsUwY94 - this and start to get oddly excited...(lol)
Teango on 09 August 2010
When you find videos like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brifDsUwY94 - this and start to get oddly excited...(lol)
When that video makes you realise that you could say the phrase âorange coffeeâ in your native language to a speaker of a click language with a name you donât even know how to pronounce and they would understand and even though you understand why, the idea still boggles your mind. ;-)
ReneeMona on 09 August 2010
You know you're a language nerd when adding languages to your hit list
feels a lot like being a kid in a candy store; âOh, I want this one! Ooooh, and that
one!â
johntm93 on 09 August 2010
You know you're a language nerd when adding languages to your hit list
feels a lot like being a kid in a candy store; âOh, I want this one! Ooooh, and that
one!â
Good strategy. I have "upgraded" several languages (Finnish, Hungarian, Georgian, Romanian, Persian) to high priority on there and now I want to learn all of them really badly! I don't know what I'm going to do, because I just don't have time right now...
EDIT: Originally I wrote "a couple languages" and then realized that five is a bit more than that...
ellasevia on 09 August 2010
You know you're a language nerd
when adding languages to your hit list
feels a lot like being a kid in a candy store; âOh, I want this one! Ooooh, and that
one!â
Good strategy. I have "upgraded" several languages (Finnish, Hungarian, Georgian,
Romanian, Persian) to high priority on there and now I want to learn all of them really
badly! I don't know what I'm going to do, because I just don't have time right now...
EDIT: Originally I wrote "a couple languages" and then realized that five is a bit more
than that...
thought about learning Indonesian some day, I'll go ahead and add-oh look! I should add
Icelandic!"
johntm93 on 09 August 2010
when you celebrate today as your "first birthday" because it was one year ago today that you joined this fantastic on-line community of language learners and lovers of languages
¡Feliz cumpleaños (perdon por la demora)! :)
English: Happy birthday (sorry for the delay)!
¡Muchas gracias!
psy88 on 10 August 2010
...When you get your computer back (had to get the OS reinstalled, it's a long story), the first thing you do is add all of the keyboard settings you had before, even the configurations for languages you never plan to learn.
Hey, some alphabets just look cool.
and I just remembered, I forgot to add Georgian.
johntm93 on 10 August 2010
-When you read the instructions on a nail product box in Spanish,English, french, German and Italian just for fun/to see how much you understand/learn new words.(Ok, you also do it when you see anything written in more than 1 language)
-The first thing you do when you walk through a book shop is run the dictionary section to see if they have in new languages or you look for novels in other language.
-You randomly look for internet tuturials to learn a new exotic language.
-You think the World Cup sticker album is awesome because it's in 7 languages.
-When you're at a touristic place you try to catch what language are speaking the other tourists.
-Your ipod has songs in more than 4 languages (and that's exactly why you think Eurovision song contest it's amazing!)
Pau20 on 10 August 2010
-Your ipod has songs in more than 4 languages
Now if we count language courses, I think I could blow 4 out of the water.
johntm93 on 10 August 2010
-Your ipod has songs in more than 4 languages
Now if we count language courses, I think I could blow 4 out of the water.
Hahahaha don't feel bad, maybe I exaggerated!...Some songs that are in a language I'm not familiar with I don't even know what they say, I just like the way they sound...But there's a cool Dutch rap song called "eeyeeyo" you should have, if you like that genre.
Pau20 on 10 August 2010
...when you just can't understand how people make it to adulthood without knowing that they speak Portuguese in Brazil.
Levi on 10 August 2010
-Your ipod has songs in more than 4 languages
...and no songs inEnglish.
Levi on 10 August 2010
-Your ipod has songs in more than 4 languages
...and no songs inÂEnglish.
Seconded! I just can't enjoy music inEnglish for some reason.
Makes for some awkward conversations when people ask what kind of music you like. "Umm... well I don't listen to any bands you'd know of, let's put it that way."
kyssäkaali on 10 August 2010
...when you just can't understand how people make it to adulthood without knowing that they speak Portuguese in Brazil.
Yeah, that's so annoying... once an Italian taxi driver asked me what language we speak in Mexico.
Pau20 on 10 August 2010
-Your ipod has songs in more than 4 languages
Now if we count language courses, I think I could blow 4 out of the water.
Hahahaha don't feel bad, maybe I exaggerated!...Some songs that are in a language I'm not familiar with I don't even know what they say, I just like the way they sound...But there's a cool Dutch rap song called "eeyeeyo" you should have, if you like that genre.
johntm93 on 10 August 2010
-Your ipod has songs in more than 4 languages
...and no songs inÂEnglish.
Seconded! I just can't enjoy music inÂEnglish for some reason.
Makes for some awkward conversations when people ask what kind of music you like. "Umm... well I don't listen to any bands you'd know of, let's put it that way."
There is alot of great music inEnglish though it is not played on the radio.
ibraheem on 11 August 2010
-Your ipod has songs in more than 4 languages
...and no songs inÂEnglish.
Seconded! I just can't enjoy music inÂEnglish for some reason.
Makes for some awkward conversations when people ask what kind of music you like. "Umm... well I don't listen to any bands you'd know of, let's put it that way."
There is alot of great music inÂEnglish though it is not played on the radio.
Totally agreed. Most of the music I listen to isEnglish but it's never on the radio. On a similar topic:
When you're going through an Irish folk band's music and pick out the ones with Irish Gaelic titles to listen to first.
PaulLambeth on 11 August 2010
-Your ipod has songs in more than 4 languages
...and no songs inÂEnglish.
Seconded! I just can't enjoy music inÂEnglish for some reason.
Makes for some awkward conversations when people ask what kind of music you like. "Umm... well I don't listen to any bands you'd know of, let's put it that way."
There is alot of great music inÂEnglish though it is not played on the radio.
johntm93 on 11 August 2010
... when you are chatting with one of your best friends, and he says goodbye, so you say
goodbye too, only you make a typographical error (1 letter). Your friend does not assume
it was a typo, nor that you made up the word, nor asks what you meant; he asks what
language that's in!!!
Thaorius on 11 August 2010
When you get far hornier for languages than members of the opposite sex.
kottoler.ello on 13 August 2010
When you're not happy with the amount of time you're spending in your target language,
despite spending your whole day listening to music, watching films, learning vocab,
watching TV, reading books and speaking to others in that language, so you decide to
maximise your time by constantly thinking in your target language instead of your native
tongue, despite the fact that you've only been learning it for a few days.
deej on 14 August 2010
...when you not only know lots of countries your friends aren't aware of, you know their names in languages they're also not aware of.
Levi on 14 August 2010
When you're trying to learn to read music and bit more about music theory (wishing you'd paid attention a little more in classes in school) and in an attempt to make this easier for yourself, you try to relate as much as possible to learning a language.
LanguageSponge on 14 August 2010
And now...you're pondering adding a second Korean language choice to your GPS so you can have a Hangul/Hanja mixed script version.
Warp3 on 14 August 2010
When you're trying to learn to read music and bit more about music theory (wishing you'd paid attention a little more in classes in school) and in an attempt to make this easier for yourself, you try to relate as much as possible to learning a language.
One of my favourite aspects to learning piano was learning the theory of music, not because I was really into it, but simply because I got to learn lots of musical terminology and directions in different languages like Italian. In fact, even as I type, my fingers are already itching to get back to the keyboard at the very thought of this...fortissimo, con fuoco, fantastico! :)
Teango on 15 August 2010
when you hope that it will rain tomorrow so that you have a good reason to stay at home and study languages.
nuriayasmin on 15 August 2010
...you read this thread for some inspiration, but find a bit too much.
ibraheem on 15 August 2010
I say that because this week Language Nerdery almost made me purchase explosives. Happens to everyone, I guess. When I am waiting in line at the grocery store, I entertain myself by reading multilingual packaging on any item within reach. So there was a display of fireworks by the counter, and I picked up a few and started to study the directions in Spanish and French on it. And I realized that my current vocabulary for blowing things up is sadly insufficient.
"You are NOT buying this explosive device just because it has a lot of interesting words about fire hazards. If you need to detonate something, you can do it inEnglish!" I told myself. But, really, these little bombs and rockets are so very enticing when the directions for use are in another language . . . which actually makes them much more dangerous, but I admit that I wanted some. I really, really wanted some.
Why the sudden love for certain disaster? Is this just language nerdery, or do I have some hidden powderkeg of anger within me? Um, no, it's not hidden. I've been trying to win the Great Grocery Giveaway every day for months now, and never, not ONCE . . . no, no, I won't give in to gunpowder, I won't. Because what would happen if I took these home and the house caught fire, and the whole place went BOOM! how, then could I explain that I had that stuff just to study vocabulary?
I didn't buy any fireworks. I figured I could just learn multilingual pyrotechnics from the dictionary. That's so boring, though . . .
(if you are wondering why cheap explosives are available for impulsive purchase at an ordinary checkout counter, that's legal here in South Carolina. Strange, but legal)
meramarina on 15 August 2010
Meramarina, you do worry me sometimes. But in a friendly, non-aggressive, certainly non-detonating way.
PaulLambeth on 15 August 2010
when you hope that it will rain tomorrow so that you have a good reason to stay at home and study languages.
Your water witchcraft is very impressive - it's been raining cats and dogs here today (not literally of course, that would simply be too distracting)! [edit]
Teango on 16 August 2010
when you hope that it will rain tomorrow so that you have a good reason to stay at home and study languages.
You're water witchcraft is very impressive - it's been raining cats and dogs here today (not literally of course, that would simply be too distracting)!
In Spanish, they don't say "raining cats and dogs". They use "llover a cántaros", literally "to rain pitchers", kind of like theEnglish "raining buckets".
PS It has started to rain here, too, after a few weeks of very hot and dry weather, but I am working tomorrow anyway :-(
psy88 on 16 August 2010
I say that because this week Language Nerdery almost made me purchase explosives. Happens to everyone, I guess. When I am waiting in line at the grocery store, I entertain myself by reading multilingual packaging on any item within reach. So there was a display of fireworks by the counter, and I picked up a few and started to study the directions in Spanish and French on it. And I realized that my current vocabulary for blowing things up is sadly insufficient.
"You are NOT buying this explosive device just because it has a lot of interesting words about fire hazards. If you need to detonate something, you can do it inÂEnglish!" I told myself. But, really, these little bombs and rockets are so very enticing when the directions for use are in another language . . . which actually makes them much more dangerous, but I admit that I wanted some. I really, really wanted some.
Why the sudden love for certain disaster? Is this just language nerdery, or do I have some hidden powderkeg of anger within me? Um, no, it's not hidden. I've been trying to win the Great Grocery Giveaway every day for months now, and never, not ONCE . . . no, no, I won't give in to gunpowder, I won't. Because what would happen if I took these home and the house caught fire, and the whole place went BOOM! how, then could I explain that I had that stuff just to study vocabulary?
I didn't buy any fireworks. I figured I could just learn multilingual pyrotechnics from the dictionary. That's so boring, though . . .
(if you are wondering why cheap explosives are available for impulsive purchase at an ordinary checkout counter, that's legal here in South Carolina. Strange, but legal)
You never struck me as the blow-stuff-up-so-that-I-can-lean-some-blowing-stuff-up-words type :)
Actually, explosives are availible for impulsive purchase here in Pennsylvania, as well. They should have a warning on them saying: KEEP OUT OF REACH OF CHILDREN AND LANGUAGE NERDS!
mashmusic11235 on 16 August 2010
When you ask your wife/girlfriend(who speaks onlyEnglish) to shout 'Oui, oui!' or 'Si,
si!' instead of 'Yes, yes!' when you're in bed as it helps you reach org*sm.
deej on 16 August 2010
You know you're a language nerd
when adding languages to your hit list
feels a lot like being a kid in a candy store; âOh, I want this one! Ooooh, and that
one!â
Good strategy. I have "upgraded" several languages (Finnish, Hungarian, Georgian,
Romanian, Persian) to high priority on there and now I want to learn all of them really
badly! I don't know what I'm going to do, because I just don't have time right now...
EDIT: Originally I wrote "a couple languages" and then realized that five is a bit more
than that...
...When you are slightly ashamed that you only have 2 languages on your hit list after
reading this..... better go add some more, excuse me for a moment.....:)
LazyLinguist on 16 August 2010
when you have been studying your second target language for several months (while continuing with your first, of course!)and finally get it posted on your profile and now, when you see it posted, it gives you such a great feeling of pride that you redouble your efforts,committing yourself even more fully to the challenge of learning the second language. When, by making a public statement about it, you feel a greater sense of responsibility to pursue your goals.
psy88 on 17 August 2010
When you punish yourself not buying a Dutch dictionary because you feel haven't studied enough French and German on this summer vacays :/
Pau20 on 17 August 2010
...when you don't care how much your hand hurts, you're going to enter that whole book into your SRS, dammit!
Levi on 17 August 2010
...when you don't care how much your hand hurts, you're going to enter that whole book into your SRS, dammit!
What's an SRS? Does not knowing get me rejected from the ranks of the language nerds? >.<
When you wonder what foreign languages have the most foreign language resources written in them.
mashmusic11235 on 17 August 2010
It's a spaced repitition system.http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/what-is-an-srs - What is an SRS?
Levi on 17 August 2010
When you try to keep yourself disciplined by saying "OK, no more Lernu! until you've done
Assimil for today!"
LazyLinguist on 17 August 2010
When you get a lot more excited about the "learn chinese" part of a fortune cookie than
the people around you do.
Tenebrarum on 17 August 2010
- When the only reason you can resist them is that you know it will slow down your progress in French.
ReneeMona on 17 August 2010
When packing for a sleepover, your copy of Colloquial Hebrew goes in the bag right after your clothes.
When, after typing that, you wonder if you should also bring your Romanian course, in case you get bored with Hebrew.
mashmusic11235 on 18 August 2010
Your Amazon wishlist of language material is growing faster then you can get through your
current material. But, a new dictionary and native material is always helpful, right? :)
budonoseito on 18 August 2010
When your favourite mug is the one with 'Good Day' written in 8 different languages on
it.
LazyLinguist on 18 August 2010
When you are getting ready to go on vacation and have to decide which courses you want to take, knowing you can't take them all, and fearing that whichever you do take, you will wish you had taken another. When you also know that you are going to be hard pressed to find much time to study while away but your ideal vacation is more about studying than sight seeing. When you are also afraid to take your favorite courses because you worry that they will get torn, lost, stolen, etc.
psy88 on 19 August 2010
- When while youâre at work you find out that one of your colleagues is half Finnish and even though Finnish is not one of your target languages, you get very excited about it, spend the rest of the evening asking her about Finnish grammar and pronunciation and are now considering a couple of weeks of dabbling. Damn my wanderlust!
ReneeMona on 19 August 2010
...you get super excited when you hear that one of your good friends knows a Finnish exchange student, hoping that maybe you can practice your Swedish (and Finnish if I decide to take it up in the near future).
...you get extremely linguistically confused (and consequently decide not to talk) because you've just spokenEnglish, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Dutch, Russian, Japanese, and Swahili in relatively quick succession.
...you are greeted multiple times by acquaintances with "...and how many languages do you speak now?"
...you feel like crying after approaching an exchange student from Tajikistan and attempting to ask in your best Persian (thinking that you had found a native speaker to talk with) whether she speaks Persian, only to learn that she doesn't. :(
And then later in the day, when...
...buying books (actually extra dictionaries for my German and Japanese classes) for school at a bookstore, your brother has to drag you out of the language section by your hair, gripping you by the scruff of the neck, with you wanting to scream.
ellasevia on 19 August 2010
....You receive a German concert DVD in the mail and the first thing you do is watch the
90 minutes of documentaries on it with subtitles.
LazyLinguist on 19 August 2010
You quit your job every year so that you can spend 6 months in your target language countries, come back, luck out
and get some nice job offers in your home country despite the bad economy, turn them down for a mediocre job in
China, the China job gets cancelled, and you mope around for days - not because you missed out on the other jobs,
but because you missed out on a lifetime opportunity to work in a target country.
leosmith on 20 August 2010
...you find yourself singing along to your German music while practicing Chinese characters.
Levi on 20 August 2010
...when you consider writing a poem to a girl that you like in Persian because it sounds so beautiful.
...when you actually do it. (Speaking of which, I'm having some trouble with it. I tried to ask this in the Specific Languages section, but had some techincal difficulties. One of the lines is اگرÚ٠عش٠ت٠بÙÛ Ù
٠را Ù٠است . Can someone please tell me whether or not this is correct? If not, how would I make it correct? Sorry about posting that in the wrong section, the Specific languages section really won't cooperate)
mashmusic11235 on 21 August 2010
Jack
LanguageSponge on 21 August 2010
When you look up the Chinese characters that you don't know on food items like the http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://goofyasians.com/w p-content/uploads/2008/01/shin_ramyun.jpg&imgrefurl=htt p://goofyasians.com/shin-ramyun-gourmet-instant-noodles-coll ege-kids-tune-into-this-post/&usg=__g2DHd4e0I3alRuSlPUSmHThS 3aY=&h=300&w=300&sz=36&hl=en&start=0&sig2=z8QfQwqWwOInaZA9MO dbFQ&zoom=1&tbnid=yIjsXUDZgi_nIM:&tbnh=153&tbnw=153&ei=al1xT PzNKIWdlge7pamQDQ&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dshin%2Bramen%26um%3D1%2 6hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26biw%3D1280%26bih%3D584%26tbs%3Disch:1&um =1&itbs=1&iact=rc&dur=129&oei=al1xTPzNKIWdlge7pamQDQ&esq=1&p age=1&ndsp=12&ved=1t:429,r:1,s:0&tx=91&ty=40 - Shin Ramen noodle bags .
chucknorrisman on 22 August 2010
When you play Japanese computer games inEnglish and feel guilty about it. You feel tempted to learn Japanese just to play the computer games in the original, and so that you are finally able to say legitimately that playing computer games counts as studying :P
LanguageSponge on 24 August 2010
maydayayday on 24 August 2010
*Sigh* I wish my family were more passionate about languages.
When you realise that you remember your dad chanting to you as a toddler in a sing-song voice and you've just realised that it was malayalam..... and he's from Lancashire, England.
maydayayday on 24 August 2010
...when you look up unknown German words in a German-French dictionary (and then consult a monolingual French dictionary if necessary), rather than just using a German-English dictionary.
Levi on 24 August 2010
...when, in your algebra class, you see 3ax (or something like that) in an equation on the board and your first reaction is to wonder why "3" is in the prepositional case! Then, sadly, you remember that this is math, not Russian. :(
ellasevia on 24 August 2010
...when, in your algebra class, you see 3ax (or something like that) in an equation on the board and your first reaction is to wonder why "3" is in the prepositional case! Then, sadly, you remember that this is math, not Russian. :(
Love that. I used to spend maths classes sitting at the back of the classroom with my ÑÑÑÑкий vocab book and just wrote Russian all lesson. At the time I thought I'd pay for it later, but since I got much more than the grade I needed in maths, that was time well spent.
LanguageSponge on 25 August 2010
When you're running to get to your French class because you were rapping in Swedish for the freshman in the Chinese I class you're going to help teach second semester.
kottoler.ello on 25 August 2010
Hi, my name is Luhmann, and I am a languageholic. Today I will not listen to language podcasts nor flip my Anki deck. If I get the urge to study, I will call someone in LA who understands and will help me see the reality of language learning. I am going to bed sober tonight by Gods wonderful grace and mercy that He has for me and by the help of LA.
luhmann on 25 August 2010
...when you look up unknown German words in a German-French dictionary (and then consult a monolingual French dictionary if necessary), rather than just using a German-English dictionary.
I've been considering a similar concept for bilingual reading. With Spanish being so much more transparent than Korean (mostly due to the sheer number of cognates), I suspect that a Korean-Spanish bilingual text would work quite well and would also work both target languages in the process. Also, I know several words in Korean that I haven't learned in Spanish (simply haven't had a reason to do so yet), so the effect would be reciprocal. If I don't know the word/phrase in either language (and can't figure it out from context), *then* I could resort to theEnglish version.
Warp3 on 25 August 2010
When you've read the 131 pages of this thread :-)
DaraghM on 26 August 2010
But it was written in Romanian, sigh! My other Romanian grammars are in Swedish andEnglish..
Iversen on 26 August 2010
** but then you ask them to pass the message on to the next regions:
maydayayday on 26 August 2010
When you're really happy to discover your local public library has books in French and spend half the walk home composing a post about it for this thread...
LittleBoy on 28 August 2010
...when you look up unknown German words in a German-French dictionary (and then consult a monolingual French dictionary if necessary), rather than just using a German-English dictionary.
That's what I do as well, so I am also a language nerd...
I look up unknown French words of my recipes in my new Prisma bilingual French-Dutch dictionary.
Fasulye
Fasulye on 28 August 2010
...when you hate watching movies with friends/family because they want it with subtitles or dubbed, and you don't want it, because you can't practice your knowledge of the language that way.
Rodrigo Chaves on 28 August 2010
When you download stuff in your target language and got a warning for using too much
bandwidth from doing it xD
zekecoma on 28 August 2010
When you download a film with Swedish subtitles and even though you find out the film sucks about ten minutes in you still watch the whole thing because you're fascinated with how you can sort of understand the subtitles and how much Swedish resembles Dutch andEnglish at times.
ReneeMona on 29 August 2010
when a high point of the vacation you were reluctant to take turns out to be that there are TV shows your second target language (French), while back home there are only shows in your first target language(Spanish).
when another high point is actually listening in on conversations in your second target language spoken by a family and being blown away when you hear little children speaking the language(it reminds you of the very old-ancient really- joke that the French must be very intelligent because even the little children can speak French, while you,an adult struggle with it).
when the true highest point is that one day ,because it is raining and you cannot do much of anything else, you visit a bookstore annex to a library and find that they are selling books at very, very low prices. You buy several school textbooks used to teach your second language, including two books that were used in school more than 70 yrs ago.The prices? Only 50 cents or a dollar each. You walk away with with two big shopping bags of text books for only $7! Then, to top it off, the older woman with a slight accent who works there asks if you are a French teacher because you are buying so many French texts. You explain that you are a student of the language.You discuss your love of languages. You mention that you are leaving the next day and she says that is too bad because she would give you lessons. You ask, in French,of course, if she is French. She answers in French that she is, and you have a very brief exchange in your target language. Then you make a slight faux pas without realizing it,(one that belongs in another thread on "humorous blunders") and so you leave feeling on top of the world and anxious to get home to add the books to your list of study materials.
psy88 on 29 August 2010
... when you read Crime and Punishment in your native language thinking how it would've sounded in Russian, but then remember that your level of Ru is not so high enough to read novels yet, and decide to take a break from reading the novel to go and read your Russian textbook
mirab3lla on 30 August 2010
When you start to cover up your new Korean textbooks when you leave the car as if they were a GPS or ipod, only to remember that no one else would want them badly enough to break your windows.
Rina on 31 August 2010
When you start to cover up your new Korean textbooks when you leave the car as if they were a GPS or ipod, only to remember that no one else would want them badly enough to break your windows.
I've actually gone so far as to shove my books under the car seat. I had never actually considered the fact that most passersby wouldn't value a thick Russian-English dictionary or a rare Assimil course. Now I feel rather silly.
josht on 31 August 2010
...when you often explain to people that you don't speak their language at all, but you know a lot about their language, such as what languages it's closely related to, how the language's syntax works, and what phonemes it uses.
Levi on 31 August 2010
...when you often explain to people that you don't speak their language at all, but you know a lot about their language, such as what languages it's closely related to, how the language's syntax works, and what phonemes it uses.
This happens to me all the time.
mashmusic11235 on 01 September 2010
Language terrorism: ...when you hover dangerously around the immigration control cabins at an airport for a little while longer, once you've safely gone through of course, to see if you can "help" in any way at all (without getting arrested)...
Teango on 01 September 2010
When you try to work out the grammar of a language you don't know based on the mistakes people make when using a language you do know.... even if you only know a little ?
maydayayday on 01 September 2010
When your friend talks about Kindergarten in a conversation on skype and it kills the German part of your brain to see it not written with a capital letter.
LanguageSponge on 01 September 2010
. . . you see some guy at the store wearing an IVERSEN fan t-shirt, and for a moment you think, wow, the man really IS popular . . . must be the word lists . . . !
but it seems that there's a football player by that name.
meramarina on 02 September 2010
Fasulye
Fasulye on 02 September 2010
. . . you see some guy at the store wearing an IVERSEN fan t-shirt, and for a moment you think, wow, the man really IS popular . . . must be the word lists . . . !
but it seems that there's a football player by that name.
IVERSEN plays football as well ?????
maydayayday on 02 September 2010
. . . you see some guy at the store wearing an IVERSEN fan t-shirt, and for a moment you think, wow, the man
really IS popular . . . must be the word lists . . . !
but it seems that there's a football player by that name.
When you had to google the name because âourâ Iversen is the only Iversen youâve ever heard of.
MäcÃSŸ on 02 September 2010
When you spend several hours watching Gaelic football whilst recovering from a hangover the next day, not because you particularly like the game, but simply because the commentary's all in Irish.
Teango on 02 September 2010
And when you see "Die Fangers!" graffitied on a wall in an episode of "True Blood", and for a split second automatically think to yourself..no, how careless..it should read "die Fänger"!
Teango on 02 September 2010
When you get a language nerds dream come true: my college library is tossing out many foreign language books and I get to pick from them for free, and I almost thought about talking the whole lot of them! So far I've got a dozen German instruction and auf Deutsch books, conversational Croatian course, Russian phrasebook a textbook and several courses, several Italian, a Finnish course, several French, Spanish, a hugeEnglish Japanese dictionary I will never need, some rather ancient looking Latin courses etc... I will be going back as soon as I get back on campus for the final scavenge.
ibraheem on 03 September 2010
When you get a language nerds dream come true: my college library is tossing out many foreign language books and I get to pick from them for free, and I almost thought about talking the whole lot of them! So far I've got a dozen German instruction and auf Deutsch books, conversational Croatian course, Russian phrasebook a textbook and several courses, several Italian, a Finnish course, several French, Spanish, a hugeÂEnglish Japanese dictionary I will never need, some rather ancient looking Latin courses etc... I will be going back as soon as I get back on campus for the final scavenge.
ibraheem: There is never a FINAL scavenge....
maydayayday on 03 September 2010
When you play Japanese computer games inÂEnglish and feel guilty about it. You feel tempted to learn Japanese just to play the computer games in the original, and so that you are finally able to say legitimately that playing computer games counts as studying :P
That's why I started learning Japanese, if you tell someone you spent 5 hours playing video games your a couch potato, if you spent 5 hours playing video games in Japanese your dedicated and deserve accolades.
genini1 on 03 September 2010
When you ruin a possible few hours foreign language study by reading about languages on this site and on Wikipaedia, a lot of the time re-reading stuff you've already read.
When you enjoy visiting your in-laws, even though all they talk about is the weather, dogs and neighbours for several hours, because they are monolingual in one of your foreign languages!
hribecek on 03 September 2010
When a phone call wakes you from a dream of searching a glossary of grammatical terms (where you remember seeing at least one word from you Anki study list) and the first thing you do after hanging up is run to your computer to type in the term to see if it really exists and, if so, what language is it.
Kary on 03 September 2010
. . . you see some guy at the store wearing an IVERSEN fan t-shirt, and for a moment you think, wow, the man really IS popular . . . must be the word lists . . . !
but it seems that there's a football player by that name.
When you wonder if language nerdery status can be recinded because you weren't aware of either Iverson before reading this.
When you ask your mom can you please be stuck in a car with her for four hours on a drive to Pittsburgh, all for the purpose of going to a bookstore there.
mashmusic11235 on 04 September 2010
...when much of your time is spent wondering how language arose in the first place. Who strung together the first sentence? Who made the first relative clause? The first pun? What was the first irregular verb? What is the oldest language that has surviving descendents? Why can't there be time machines so we can figure this stuff out?
Levi on 05 September 2010
You then spend 30 minutes examining exactly how many languages you can hold a conversation in..... having correctly identified she speaks Russian with a Ukrainian accent and her German isn't all that sharp.
06 September 2010: I was that guy.
maydayayday on 06 September 2010
when friends start to save instruction manuals that came with the things they have purchased (most recently a storage box that had to be assembled) because they know you will enjoy reading the directions in the various languages in the manual.
psy88 on 06 September 2010
You then spend 30 minutes examining exactly how many languages you can hold a conversation in..... having correctly identified she speaks Russian with a Ukrainian accent and her German isn't all that sharp.
06 September 2010: I was that guy.
And then they ring you back and offer you the bigger job.
maydayayday on 07 September 2010
You are upset because Borders bookstore combined the linguistics and philosophy sections together so now you have to search through the entire philosophy section to find what is new in linguistics.
translator2 on 07 September 2010
Levi on 10 September 2010
When you get distracted from studying, because you start to day dream that you know all the languages in the world fluently, including dialects!
Marc94 on 11 September 2010
there practising your pronunciation out loud when your mom, a little bit scared because
of the wierd sounds you're making, comes to the bathroom door, knocks and asks: is it
everything ok there?!?
edit: typo
karaipyhare on 11 September 2010
I actually noticed that or something similar when I was in Isketch... Ah the things
languages can solve.
Tally on 11 September 2010
When you spend your spare time on language forums.
crafedog on 13 September 2010
...when nothing thrills you like getting to the point in a foreign language when you can understand the lyrics to songs you've never heard before.
Levi on 16 September 2010
Sorry, I'm not very good at this. Reading many posts in this thread has had me realize that I'm not really a language nerd.
Wait, I've got one! When you study Mandarin for years and decide to go to China for a year, but ending up with a plan to go to the south; telling your friends they speak Cantonese there, they all go "That's a bummer, dude" and you go "Huh? No, that's a good thing! I get to learn an extra language!".
Ari on 16 September 2010
Maybe I'm a language nerd after all?
Ari on 16 September 2010
When you can't help but virtually trip over numerous folders of language learning materials, stached all over your computer like caches of select cashews and treasure troves of seeds stored up for winter, and realise you are a compulsive language squirrel. @.@
Teango on 16 September 2010
And when you say it loud and proud for the first time in public (for me, this was at an Irish cousin's wedding party recently): "I guess I'm just a language nerd"...and feel a happy wave of relief to have finally come out of the language closet.
Teango on 16 September 2010
When you had to watch a foreign language music video twice in a row because when it got to the end after playing the first time you realized your eyes hadn't left the captions at the bottom so you have no idea what actually happens in the video.
Warp3 on 16 September 2010
Sorry I'd drifted off. The business case was good.
maydayayday on 17 September 2010
...when you think it's worth it to familiarize yourself with the spelling/pronunciation systems of dozens of languages, if only to be able to correctly pronounce foreign names.
Levi on 18 September 2010
....when an introductory lesson on OldEnglish in which a couple of basic grammatical features like case and gender are explained feels like a total waste of time to you.
ReneeMona on 18 September 2010
Fasulye
Fasulye on 18 September 2010
Fasulye
Exactly. Yesterday I made various tapas dishes and paella using, obviously, a Spanish recipe book. To be honest, half of my doing so was because I wanted to prove to myself that my Spanish isn't actually dead. It was a success, amazingly!
LanguageSponge on 18 September 2010
when you almost don't mind getting stuck in traffic because it gives you more time to practice with your CD language course.
psy88 on 18 September 2010
Do I win the thread yet?
Ari on 19 September 2010
When you hear about your mate's courses at University like Economics, Law, Biology etc and you think it is boring because there isn't learning a language involved.
Jon1991 on 19 September 2010
"Thank god they didn't take my mobile; I've got no backup on that SRS deck!".
When you backup your SRS decks religiously, without fail, not even once have you ever forgotten to.
Touché.
Ari on 20 September 2010
When you backup your SRS decks religiously, without fail, not even once have you ever forgotten to
I forgot, and I have suffered the consequences. I'm still mourning the loss of a favorite Anki deck . . . I don't know what happened (sob)
But in other Nerdy News, I know, yet again, that I am a language nerd because I have become just a little bit of a language vigilante.
For me, the last two weeks have not been very good for language learning. First, I just had too much other work to take care of and then I was sick all this week, but today I went to the bookstore. Yes, I hear you - if you have read my posts before, you're likely wondering if I do anything BUT go to the bookstore - well, no, not really.
So there I was lurking around the language aisle, making my birthday wish list, because I plan to get myself a few gifts soon to celebrate this rapidly accelerating aging nonsense that makes me feel peevish and so I had a look at various books and a few were really very silly. Not my style at all, you know . . .
Have you seen the series "Hide This French/Italian/Spanish Book! (there are several versions) The objective here is to learn some very, very naughty foreign words. Hhmmmm . . . well, now! I'm not against learning some nasty new words, myself, but I just can't agree with this as the sole purpose of language learning, so I did just what the book said and I HID IT. I put it behind some other books, that's right, now it's gone, ha, and it was a good deed, yes it was.
Um, eh, OK . . . so I did learn a few things.
But I've already forgotten them - my memory is not what it was, and I am glad for that.
meramarina on 20 September 2010
When you feel guilty for talking to your flatmates inEnglish (some of whom are from Belgium, Germany and Italy) even though you have guests over who wouldn't understand a word of what you were saying unless it is inEnglish.
When you're sitting down watching TV with said flatmates and comment on the terribleEnglish grammar being used by some people on the program. And when a monolingual friend asks you to explain what's wrong with theirEnglish (because they speak in exactly the same way) you proceed to use phrases like "incorrect past participle" and "incorrect verb conjugations" or "subjunctive" to explain the answer, taking it entirely for granted that the monolingual friend would understand such simple terminology, but alas, they do not, and therefore you have to simplify your answer to something not even worth saying in your mind.
LanguageSponge on 21 September 2010
When your relatives from Newfoundland (whom you haven't seen in a while) casually ask "we
must sound pretty different than what you're used to, no?" I practically jumped out of my
chair and said "Yes! Glottal stops!" And then proceed to explain the difference between
the way they pronounce the word "bottle" (bo'el--don't know how to write it correctly to
show the sound) and how most people I know say it (with the "t" sound). They just all
stared and me and I sheepishly sank back into my chair. I really was so excited to think
someone wanted to talk about glottal stops.
seldnar on 21 September 2010
[â¦] use phrases like "incorrect past participle" and "incorrect verb conjugations" or "subjunctive" to explain the answer, taking it entirely for granted that the monolingual friend would understand such simple terminology, but alas, they do not, and therefore you have to simplify your answer to something not even worth saying in your mind.
This raises the question, is there a difference between being a language nerd and being a linguistics nerd?
Ari on 21 September 2010
You feel guilty about it and start to study harder, so you can talk to the Italian man. Even if you don't know if he's able to help you practice.
FireViN on 22 September 2010
[â¦] use phrases like "incorrect past participle" and "incorrect verb conjugations" or "subjunctive" to explain the answer, taking it entirely for granted that the monolingual friend would understand such simple terminology, but alas, they do not, and therefore you have to simplify your answer to something not even worth saying in your mind.
This raises the question, is there a difference between being a language nerd and being a linguistics nerd?
Yep, one can spell better. Which one? I'll leave it up to you to decide.
patuco on 24 September 2010
There was a bit character in the novel named that and the name was in my head when I went to sleep.
fireflies on 24 September 2010
When your parents ask you questions,yes and no do not come out your mouth, Ðа and Ð½ÐµÑ splurt out instead.
When a random bloke at a bus stop says "how long is the wait?". You reply "sobre cinco minutos" as your mind is still in Spanish mode.
You get excited when you meet people from your target languages countries and take a huge interest in them. Especially the females ;)
I have suffered the embarrasem*nt of all of these stories haha ^^
Jon1991 on 24 September 2010
I have to focus not to inject a "sì" into conversations, especially to people who ask me
directions on the street.
numerodix on 24 September 2010
...when you try to add something original to this thread.
Arekkusu on 24 September 2010
And its your birthday in a month: your partner asks what you want for your birthday and you think of the options ......
a)Colloquial X & MT and a decent dictionary in a language you've never studied before
b)An immersion course (without her) in another language, ideally Icelandic
c)A watch (nah, thats not going to happen is it?)
maydayayday on 25 September 2010
When, a year in advance of a language course you would like to attend but is really far away and would be quite expensive, not to mention that it's in the middle of a family holiday, you start planning on how you're going to approach your wife and hopefully convince her to let you go to said course, thereby leaving her alone with the kids for a couple of days in a foreign country.
patuco on 26 September 2010
...when you try to add something original to this thread.
When you do crazy things just for the sake of contributing to this thread.
MäcÃSŸ on 26 September 2010
For me, the last two weeks have not been very good for language learning. First, I just had too much other work to take care of and then I was sick all this week, but today I went to the bookstore. Yes, I hear you - if you have read my posts before, you're likely wondering if I do anything BUT go to the bookstore - well, no, not really.
So there I was lurking around the language aisle, making my birthday wish list, because I plan to get myself a few gifts soon to celebrate this rapidly accelerating aging nonsense that makes me feel peevish and so I had a look at various books and a few were really very silly. Not my style at all, you know . . .
Have you seen the series "Hide This French/Italian/Spanish Book! (there are several versions) The objective here is to learn some very, very naughty foreign words. Hhmmmm . . . well, now! I'm not against learning some nasty new words, myself, but I just can't agree with this as the sole purpose of language learning, so I did just what the book said and I HID IT. I put it behind some other books, that's right, now it's gone, ha, and it was a good deed, yes it was.
Um, eh, OK . . . so I did learn a few things.
But I've already forgotten them - my memory is not what it was, and I am glad for that.
Inspired by you meramarina, I did just the same thing when I was at the bookstore yesterday! I didn't see any books from the "hide this [...] book" series (maybe someone from this website got there before me), but I did hide a book called "Dirty Japanese."
ellasevia on 26 September 2010
When you are playing online scrabble [www.lexulous.com] and you can tell from the typing that your opponent has excellentEnglish, close to native [better than some natives]. Then you persuade said Urdu speaker to join HTLAL . . . because you can never have too many native resources to interact with, right ? Even though Urdu/Hindi is low down on your 'list', at the moment.
maydayayday on 27 September 2010
...when you feel like you're the only one who consciously avoids confusing idioms when talking to people who don't speak your language very well.
Levi on 28 September 2010
card from the local restuarant that hosts several different language nights.
When you actually stock up on these cards every time you go to a French evening (which is
also Turkish evening at another table and you long to join the Turkish speakers but don't
because you feel you'd be "cheating" on French).
seldnar on 28 September 2010
When everytime someone calls you and asks "what's up homeslice" you say "i'm on a language forums nerding out." (as in this site)
Hanekawa on 28 September 2010
card from the local restuarant that hosts several different language nights.
When you actually stock up on these cards every time you go to a French evening (which is
also Turkish evening at another table and you long to join the Turkish speakers but don't
because you feel you'd be "cheating" on French).
Where on earth did you find such a wonderful restaurant?! If there was one nearby, I might go there every day... =O
janalisa on 28 September 2010
...borrowing from another thread about what you do if your language library is on fire, you know you're a language nerd because you hurl yourself into the flames to perish with your beloved dictionaries, in a form of Language Nerd Suttee.
William Camden on 28 September 2010
When you come home from three hours of archery practise three times in a week and feel guilty because you've spent nine hours of the week speakingEnglish that you could have spent at home studying languages.
LanguageSponge on 28 September 2010
card from the local restuarant that hosts several different language nights.
When you actually stock up on these cards every time you go to a French evening (which is
also Turkish evening at another table and you long to join the Turkish speakers but don't
because you feel you'd be "cheating" on French).
Where on earth did you find such a wonderful restaurant?! If there was one nearby, I might go there every day... =O
I think there is one of these in Manchester, England !
maydayayday on 28 September 2010
When you proudly exclaim to your Francophone roommate that you read an article on bilingualism in French all by yourself without ever having formally studied the language, explaining that it wasn't so difficult with the many French loanwords inEnglish and the similarity it shares with other Romance languages, and she rolls her eyes yet again.
Olympia on 29 September 2010
card from the local restuarant that hosts several different language nights.
When you actually stock up on these cards every time you go to a French evening (which is
also Turkish evening at another table and you long to join the Turkish speakers but don't
because you feel you'd be "cheating" on French).
Where on earth did you find such a wonderful restaurant?! If there was one nearby, I might go there every day... =O
I think there is one of these in Manchester, England !
There is such a restaurant in Elmsford, NY . Elmsord is about 30 minutes north of NYC, depending on how fast you drive:-). There is a language club and information about it can be found at www.westchesterlanguageclub.org One evening a month they meet at a restaurant. Individual tables are designated for different languages. I think this is the place Barry Farber referenced in one of his books. I hope this helps.
EDIT: My mistake, but a good one. They meet EVERY Wednesday, NOT once a month.They are the Language Club of Westchester.
psy88 on 29 September 2010
When you come home from three hours of archery practise three times in a week and feel guilty because you've spent nine hours of the week speakingÂEnglish that you could have spent at home studying languages.
I feel that way going to see a generic Hollywood movie. When the credits roll I feel like I have learned nothing.
fireflies on 29 September 2010
language learning and you hand them a
card from the local restuarant that hosts several different language nights.
When you actually stock up on these cards every time you go to a French evening (which
is
also Turkish evening at another table and you long to join the Turkish speakers but
don't
because you feel you'd be "cheating" on French).
Where on earth did you find such a wonderful restaurant?! If there was one nearby, I
might go there every day... =O
It is the Continental Restaurant in Seattle, Washington. The language groups began
with the German Stammtisch which I believe has been going on for more than 30 years.
The schedule is as follows:
Monday--Dutch
Tuesday--German, Czech
Wednesday--French, Turkish, Greek?
Thursday--Spanish
Friday--Can't remember
Saturday--Can't remember
Sunday--Swedish, Celtic
I'm in China right now and didn't bring any of the cards with me. My experience is
that 5-12 people for the popular languages show up each night. I don't know about the
less popular languages (Gaelic, for example). There used to be a website but its been
down for a while
seldnar on 29 September 2010
Also, when you go on historical tangents about Kanji. To people who have no clue what
your talking about.
Hanekawa on 29 September 2010
language learning and you hand them a
card from the local restuarant that hosts several different language nights.
When you actually stock up on these cards every time you go to a French evening (which
is
also Turkish evening at another table and you long to join the Turkish speakers but
don't
because you feel you'd be "cheating" on French).
Where on earth did you find such a wonderful restaurant?! If there was one nearby, I
might go there every day... =O
It is the Continental Restaurant in Seattle, Washington. The language groups began
with the German Stammtisch which I believe has been going on for more than 30 years.
The schedule is as follows:
Monday--Dutch
Tuesday--German, Czech
Wednesday--French, Turkish, Greek?
Thursday--Spanish
Friday--Can't remember
Saturday--Can't remember
Sunday--Swedish, Celtic
Anybody want to help me establish something like this in Tokyo? XD (Totally serious!)
janalisa on 29 September 2010
You know you're a language nerd when you go into a class at uni thinking it's the Slovene grammar class you're supposed to be attending. But it's not, it's an introductory class for Polish grammar. You think "oh well, I can always go to the next Slovene class" and stay for Polish :]
LanguageSponge on 29 September 2010
language learning and you hand them a
card from the local restuarant that hosts several different language nights.
When you actually stock up on these cards every time you go to a French evening (which
is
also Turkish evening at another table and you long to join the Turkish speakers but
don't
because you feel you'd be "cheating" on French).
Where on earth did you find such a wonderful restaurant?! If there was one nearby, I
might go there every day... =O
It is the Continental Restaurant in Seattle, Washington. The language groups began
with the German Stammtisch which I believe has been going on for more than 30 years.
The schedule is as follows:
Monday--Dutch
Tuesday--German, Czech
Wednesday--French, Turkish, Greek?
Thursday--Spanish
Friday--Can't remember
Saturday--Can't remember
Sunday--Swedish, Celtic
I'm in China right now and didn't bring any of the cards with me. My experience is
that 5-12 people for the popular languages show up each night. I don't know about the
less popular languages (Gaelic, for example). There used to be a website but its been
down for a while
Nice. I go to the Continental for the Dutch Stammtisch. It's only once a month though.
Liface on 29 September 2010
When you wander into websites like http://www.iamaturtle.org/ - this and instantly smile (but for a completely different reason from your friends). :)
Teango on 29 September 2010
Inspired by you meramarina, I did just the same thing when I was at the bookstore yesterday! I didn't see any books from the "hide this [...] book" series (maybe someone from this website got there before me), but I did hide a book called "Dirty Japanese."
Excellent work for The Cause, ellasevia! Now we just have to figure out how to hide the Rosetta Stone kiosk displays. That will be difficult; maybe the company anticipated this and made the vivid yellow boxes so bright in order to be nerd-resistant.
Another incident. They just keep coming. I had to find a quick lunch for three dollars the other day and so I went to Chik-fil-A, a fine dining establishment with a name every bit as annoying as Weetabix or Big Corny. With so few dollars I could only get a kid's meal. It came in a fun, colorful little bag decorated with puzzles. One of these impressed me a lot at first. I saw a few strange words:
EMRBEREM OT MLSIE !
I couldn't identify the language, but course I highly approved of teaching foreign languages to children. Then I realized that it was not a foreign language, but an "unscramble the letters to find a message" word game:
REMEMBER TO SMILE !
I was not amused.
meramarina on 30 September 2010
When you wander into websites like http://www.iamaturtle.org/ - this and instantly smile (but for a completely different reason from your friends). :)
When you wander into websites like that and instantly frown, because the Mandarin is mislabeled as "Chinese" and the Swedish is misspelled.
Ari on 30 September 2010
When you wander into websites like http://www.iamaturtle.org/ - this and instantly smile (but for a completely different reason from your friends). :)
When you wander into websites like that and instantly frown, because the Mandarin is mislabeled as "Chinese" and the Swedish is misspelled.
And the Japanese translation uses å (boku) without telling the reader that only males can use this pronoun.
Levi on 30 September 2010
When you wander into websites like http://www.iamaturtle.org/ - this and instantly smile (but for a completely different reason from your friends). :)
When you wander into websites like that and instantly frown, because the Mandarin is mislabeled as "Chinese" and the Swedish is misspelled.
And the Japanese translation uses å (boku) without telling the reader that only males can use this pronoun.
Well pointed out, he obviously should have done his research first. I'm so glad now I haven't impetuously tried to tell anyone I'm a turtle this week. ;)
Teango on 30 September 2010
[QUOTE=Ari][QUOTE=Teango]When you wander into websites like http://www.iamaturtle.org/ - this and instantly smile (but for a completely different reason from your friends). :)
When you wander into websites like that and instantly frown, because the Mandarin is mislabeled as "Chinese" and the Swedish is misspelled.
The "Chinese" tones are also incorrect-- it should be "wo3 shi4 zhi1 wu1 gui1".
janalisa on 30 September 2010
when I create http://e-langtools.com - my own tool for logging and learning motivation ...
and when I make it public available for free ... lol
pobere on 30 September 2010
when I create http://e-langtools.com - my own tool for logging and motivation
...
and when I make it public available for free ... lol
Thanks, I will give it a try.
budonoseito on 30 September 2010
When you wander into websites like
http://www.iamaturtle.org/ - this and instantly smile (but for a completely
different reason from your friends). :)
When you wander into websites like that and instantly frown, because the Mandarin is
mislabeled as "Chinese" and the Swedish is misspelled.
And the Japanese translation uses å (boku) without telling the reader that only males
can use this pronoun.
Well pointed out, he obviously should have done his research first. I'm so glad now I
haven't impetuously tried to tell anyone I'm a turtle this week. ;)
Also, how all the other languages are written in normalÂEnglish letters, but Japanese
he
went full out and actually used the correct alphabet.
weeaboo.
Hanekawa on 30 September 2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpmDAu_47OE
When your favorite thing about this video is that its in German.
kottoler.ello on 01 October 2010
he
went full out and actually used the correct alphabet.
weeaboo.
Based on the wording about contributing translations at the bottom of the page, it's entirely possible that those were simply posted as received from someone else, not necessarily created by the site author.
Warp3 on 01 October 2010
you save hundreds of target language web pages, articles, audio files, Gutenburg books, parallel texts, etc. with the intention of reading them "when you have more time". But you spend all your target language reading time reading new material on-line.
Guilty. Excellent definition, believe it or not I even have a few language courses in my car, but that's because my girlfriend does not agree with me about having vast numbers of books and language courese to hand!
Old Chemist on 03 October 2010
When you take your Greek grammar book to archery practise with you so that you have something productive to do between rounds on the range.
LanguageSponge on 06 October 2010
You know you're a language nerd when you are going over archery terms and can frequently remember the German terminology but cannot for the life of you remember theEnglish. Then when you go and ask one of the other members of the club, they remind you of theEnglish terms but you notice a German accent - so instead of reading your Greek grammar book in between rounds, you practice your German instead!
LanguageSponge on 07 October 2010
...when somebody tries to use Greek or Cyrillic letters to write anEnglish word, and it takes a really long time for you to see it because you actually know those alphabets, e.g. "ΡÎΦÎ" for "pain".
Levi on 10 October 2010
...when somebody tries to use Greek or Cyrillic letters to write anEnglish word, and it takes a really long time for you to see it because you actually know those alphabets, e.g. "ΡÎΦÎ" for "pain".
In Greek that would give PAIN (Ïαιν)
Iversen on 10 October 2010
When you've studied so much J. K. Rowling recently that you start seeing "Harry Potter" instead of "Heavy Cotton" on t-shirt labels and read "Voldemort" instead of "Vollmacht" on your deregistration forms. Galloping Gorgons, whatever next!
Teango on 12 October 2010
Fasulye
Fasulye on 12 October 2010
Fasulye
When you read the above post and, even though you have enough to be getting on with in Modern Greek already, you want to know what the textbook Fasulye found is called anyway? :]
LanguageSponge on 12 October 2010
Fasulye
When you read the above post and, even though you have enough to be getting on with in Modern Greek already, you want to know what the textbook Fasulye found is called anyway? :]
So my post has made you curious. :)
My modern Greek textbook: "Schnellkurs Griechisch by Elmar Winters-Ohle", Intensivkurs für Anfänger, Hueber Verlag, 3. Auflage 2005.
Fasulye
Fasulye on 12 October 2010
I have been curious about Modern Greek for quite a few years, since doing Ancient Greek in school - it is about time I at least looked into Modern Greek too.
Jack
LanguageSponge on 12 October 2010
By the way, there's now a "language geekiness" test on okcupid, if you have an account
there. http://www.okcupid.com/tests/the-language-geekiness-test - http://www.okcupid.com/tests/the-language-geekiness-test
By contrast their "language geek" test doesn't test for this forum's level of interest in
languages, just if you know a few words in Italian and so on.
Sprachprofi on 13 October 2010
When you go to a Brazilian restaurant and speak Portuguese to the waiters, and everyone looks at you like you are speaking a foreign language (No PUN intended).
Jatk17 on 13 October 2010
When, upon entering a bookstore, the clerk informs you that they have ordered a few books in the languages you happen to study, without asking you whether you need them or not..
Johnnysd on 13 October 2010
When you can listen to a language you don't understand for hours, delighting yourself with the new sounds you hear.
koba on 14 October 2010
When you can listen to a language you don't understand for hours, delighting yourself with the new sounds you hear.
Guilty. And when you start substituting this for background music when you're on the computer. This weekend I listened to Czech, on Monday and part of yesterday it was Arabic, yesterday I listened to some Georgian... Hm, today I think I'll listen to some nice Hungarian. :)
ellasevia on 14 October 2010
When you go to a Brazilian restaurant and speak Portuguese to the waiters, and everyone looks at you like you are speaking a foreign language (No PUN intended).
When you go into an upscale Italian restaurant and speak Italian to the waiter and he angrily tells you he is not Italian but Brazilian.
psy88 on 14 October 2010
Fasulye
Fasulye on 14 October 2010
When you laugh at language jokes in Dexter such as mistaking "Santa Muerte" for "Santa Mierda".
Teango on 14 October 2010
When you had a day in which almost everything seems to have gone wrong, but as you lay in bed a smile comes to your face because you realize how much you just enjoyed the half-hour of language study you did before going to bed. And you smile even more thinking about how much pleasure you derive from your language studies even when you struggle to see progress.
psy88 on 15 October 2010
When you buy an old school teach yourself Colloquial Russian book, printed in 1973, for $7 AUD and it makes your week! You also struggle to understand why no one shares your enthusiasm for it.
sm66 on 15 October 2010
...when your friend wants to learn a language you don't want to learn and you still know more about that language than the friend.
WingSuet on 15 October 2010
I recently found myself pondering vasija and vajilla.
fireflies on 15 October 2010
I was so tempted to knock on the wall to ask them to turn it up. Don't worry though, I didn't of course. But just in case, what is Mandarin for "Louder, please, I'm trying to listen and immerse!"...? ;)
Teango on 15 October 2010
When all in one day you have completed your German homework, thought about doing your
Spanish homework, talked to a friend in Italian, spoke French a few times, sent an
email in Catalan, and translated a sentence from Latin... and the day's not even half
over yet!
canada38 on 16 October 2010
...when you log on to youtube and the only video clips recommended to you are disney songs in various different languages.
WingSuet on 17 October 2010
When you're reading Harry Potter in Greek in your Japanese class and your Japanese teacher asks you about it in Japanese. You attempt to respond in Japanese, but still thinking in Greek, respond in that language. You don't realize until a moment later when he asks the question again because he didn't understand.
ellasevia on 21 October 2010
When you buy candy or cookies just because they are Japanese or Arabic and throw or give away the food while keeping the packaging.
Juаn on 21 October 2010
When you buy candy or cookies just because they are Japanese or Arabic and throw or give away the food while keeping the packaging.
that's funny. Last night I bought a bottle of wine because the label was in Georgian but I have no intention of drinking it.
nogoodnik on 21 October 2010
When you smile and say "Schönen Abend noch!" as you leave the hotel restaurant, and wonder why no-one returns your good wishes and some even look at you a bit strangely. Then you quickly realise: oh bugger, I forgot again - I'm in England!
Teango on 22 October 2010
I learn a lot from it. In fact, I have a piece of packaging I got last week and it taught me a new word inEnglish! It's a closet organizer, and the instructions are: "Insert hooks of frame into grommets on top." What, grommets? I'd never seen or heard that word before. In Spanish the word written here is "anillos" and in French it's "les boucles." So I understood the directions better in the other languages.
Language learning progress!
. . . or maybe just the work of a bad product copywriter.
meramarina on 22 October 2010
I learn a lot from it. In fact, I have a piece of packaging I got last week and it taught me a new word inÂEnglish! It's a closet organizer, and the instructions are: "Insert hooks of frame into grommets on top." What, grommets? I'd never seen or heard that word before. In Spanish the word written here is "anillos" and in French it's "les boucles." So I understood the directions better in the other languages.
Language learning progress!
. . . or maybe just the work of a bad product copywriter.
Grommets could be correct .... if the hole/ring/loop is somehow protected or cushioned ? I think I would have used ring or loop rather than grommet.
I frequently have to look upEnglish words that forum members have used. Many people I know says I have a huge vocabulary.... obviously not huge enough just yet.
maydayayday on 22 October 2010
before a few years ago when suddenly every woman friend I had seemed to know it. They
all learned it from Martha Stewart.
last week and it taught me a new word inÂEnglish! It's a closet organizer, and the
instructions are: "Insert hooks of frame into grommets on top." What, grommets?
I'd never seen or heard that word before. In Spanish the word written here is
"anillos" and in French it's "les boucles." So I understood the directions better in
the other languages.
Language learning progress!
. . . or maybe just the work of a bad product copywriter.
seldnar on 22 October 2010
I never mind learning a new word in any language, but product instructions should be written for a very broad, general audience. This isn't one of Martha's items, but maybe she popularized the word without checking with me first! How could she!
I think even the New York Times is written on an ninth-grade reading level, and many other publications for a level even lower than that. So, many people might be likely to misunderstand the word. It's always best to be very clear when writing instructions for a general audience. I have the impression that the copywriter might not be native toÂEnglish, even though the product is domestic. Perhaps the company outsources the writing duties?
I did enjoy the Spanish and French instructions, though! And I've added a word to myÂEnglish vocabulary - I think I'll try it in conversation now and see what happens! It's my Nerd Duty.
meramarina on 22 October 2010
This gives you pause and a secret smile because:
1) You just came from you car where you were speaking along with you French Assimil CDs.
2) If this announcement was for Spanish (the other language you are learning) it would be no big deal at all because Spanish is already everywhere in California & there are indeed people who only speak it. French, on the other hand, is never heard so it's cool to see an appreciation of the language on the part of a large bank.
Desacrator48 on 22 October 2010
I recently noticed a misprint on a bag of Santitas tortilla chips.
Total fat/ grasas totalas.
'Totalas???!' I thought to myself. 'This can not be'
I checked the dictionary several times because I couldn't believe I saw an error. It is totales right? One time I went to a library with instructions for Spanish speakers taped onto the door and noticed some errors.
I have never had Saki in my life because I hear it is very strong but the bottles are sometimes very artistic. I love stores that sell a variety of global products.
fireflies on 22 October 2010
I recently noticed a misprint on a bag of Santitas tortilla chips.
Total fat/ grasas totalas.
'Totalas???!' I thought to myself. 'This can not be'
I checked the dictionary several times because I couldn't believe I saw an error. It is totales right? One time I went to a library with instructions for Spanish speakers taped onto the door and noticed some errors.
I have never had Saki in my life because I hear it is very strong but the bottles are sometimes very artistic. I love stores that sell a variety of global products.
You're not the only one who takes notice of the poor Spanish translations all around us in the USA. Here's one I saw the other day on a bus window. Who can spot the error?
Levi on 22 October 2010
abrir solo en caso de emergencia
fireflies on 22 October 2010
All Nerds eventually must visit the Hothouse of Linguistic Difficulty, where we find that, despite the guidance we got from this good site, the limit isn't merely five cacti, oh no!
It's humbling.
meramarina on 22 October 2010
When you read http://www.linguistsfederation.com/ - this list of names through in awe and respect, squeeing like a fangirl (or -boy) every time you recognize the name of one of your own personal heroes.
Jinx on 22 October 2010
STORE DIRECTORY
ALMANECE EL DIRECTORIO [Store, as in safeguard/warehouse, the directory]
There is another sign in my local car repair shop that says:
Your bill may include a fee for...
Su proyecto de ley puede.. [Your "bill placed before Congress] may include...
Further down the road there is a bilingual sign at a construction site:
Warning: Power Lines Above
Aviso: Arriba de las lineas de electricidad [Warning: Above the power lines]
translator2 on 23 October 2010
When your roommates go out partying for the weekend and you decide to stay home and spend
eight hours a day studying your target language. Bonus points if you enjoy a night out as
much as the next person, but still find yourself sitting in your kitchen making
flashcards and reflecting on how you're totally having a way cooler weekend than
they are anyway.
Sierra on 23 October 2010
When the number of languages you have ever attempted to learn is greater than the number of close friends you have.
John Smith on 23 October 2010
When the number of languages you have ever attempted to learn is greater than the number of close friends you have.
...or the number you are currently attempting.
Levi on 23 October 2010
When you spend the day looking around the area you're thinking of moving to, and one of the first things you do is check out the language sections in all the book shops and local library (and even language tuition cards in the post office window).
Teango on 23 October 2010
You're working away on a text document (on constructed languages for your own amusem*nt), then realise that you're getting a lot of red squiggly lines beneath words. You check the language settings and realise that your text editor is set to French rather thanEnglish.
LittleBoy on 24 October 2010
Yes, I checked and grommets is correct to use, but it's an unusual choice. And as much as I study and work withÂEnglish, even though it's my native language, I'm always finding words I've missed, like this one. So I learned a word, always a good thing! (doesn't Martha say that?)
I've never personally viewed "grommet" as an unusual word. It is used quite often in the automotive and electrical/electronics fields...or in pretty much any field where you need to run wiring through something that could potential cut or abrade it without a rubber grommet to protect the wire.
Of course, maybe this is simply due to being exposed to the word because of some hobbies. Perhaps I wouldn't have even known that word otherwise.
Warp3 on 25 October 2010
...when you love usingEnglish words with diacritics like "façade", "piñata" and "naïveté", and occasionally sprinkle them on words like "rôle" and "coöperate" where they are old-fashioned.
Levi on 25 October 2010
...when you love usingÂEnglish words with diacritics like "façade", "piñata" and "naïveté", and occasionally sprinkle them on words like "rôle" and "coöperate" where they are old-fashioned.
I wouldn't really call façade, piñata, and naïvetéEnglish words.
In informal writing those words don't have to have diacritics, but in books, scholarly work, journalistic magazines and newspapers, I ususally see these words with their diacritics, especially the common French word of résumé.
Desacrator48 on 25 October 2010
When you flick through the hotel tv channels looking for foreign language programmes, and settle on a really cheesy Bollywood film just because it's in Hindi. :)
Teango on 25 October 2010
strict style rules uses a diaresis in many words including coöperate. I enjoy reading the
magazine but I have a special added thrill every time I see this diacritic.
...when you love usingÂEnglish words with diacritics like "façade", "piñata"
and "naïveté", and occasionally sprinkle them on words like "rôle" and "coöperate" where
they are old-fashioned.
seldnar on 26 October 2010
I wouldn't really call façade, piñata, and naïvetéÂEnglish words.
Why not? MostEnglish speakers understand the words, and they can be found in anyEnglish-language dictionary. Sure, they're loanwords borrowed from other languages, but so is the majority of theEnglish lexicon. If those aren'tEnglish words, then consider "siesta", "fjord", "spaghetti", "police", and "status". Which of those loanwords count asEnglish words and why?
Levi on 26 October 2010
...when you love usingÂEnglish words with diacritics like "façade", "piñata" and "naïveté", and
occasionally sprinkle them on words like "rôle" and "coöperate" where they are old-fashioned.
I love the ¨ spelling, itâs unfortunate that few people still use it. I also love ligatures!
Letâs hope the seeërs will coöperate in reënacting the usage of the diæresis, hyphens give me diarrhÅa!
MäcÃSŸ on 26 October 2010
language you've never seriously studied and be able to more or less read it using your
knowledge of related languages, and when you're surprised that other people find this out
of the ordinary.
-When you make iTunes playlists organizing your music by language.
Sierra on 27 October 2010
language you've never seriously studied and be able to more or less read it using your
knowledge of related languages, and when you're surprised that other people find this out
of the ordinary.
-When you make iTunes playlists organizing your music by language.
Yes! I can't get my head round the fact that everyone else doesn't share my interest in languages and a bored expression appears on the face of anyone I try to explain some interesting - to me - fact about language. I also have a course on Basque along with many other language courses, which people consider seriously weird.
Old Chemist on 27 October 2010
When you critizice the translation of a movie, or any documents.
in a scene of "into the wild",the main character just have been hunting but he found no preys, so he write on his diary "no game" . but they have translated it into french by "pas de jeu", but it had no sense here , it means something like "there were no amusem*nts". when i heard this i was ... wtf?! and i said to my friends who were watching the movie with me that it should have been translated by "pas de gibier" and they agreed ^^
tornus on 27 October 2010
When, to your delight, you are the only one who turns up to your Russian literature lecture one week and ask the lecturer (who is from Germany) whether you could conduct the seminar in German. She agrees, and you talk about Dostoyevsky's life and works completely in German for an hour. Then at the end, she compliments your German (which you find fantastic, of course) and from then on never speaks a word ofEnglish to you again.
LanguageSponge on 27 October 2010
When, to your delight, you are the only one who turns up to your Russian literature lecture one week and ask the lecturer (who is from Germany) whether you could conduct the seminar in German. She agrees, and you talk about Dostoyevsky's life and works completely in German for an hour. Then at the end, she compliments your German (which you find fantastic, of course) and from then on never speaks a word ofÂEnglish to you again.
This is really succesful and beneficial for both languages, German and Russian.
Fasulye
Fasulye on 27 October 2010
When, to your delight, you are the only one who turns up to your Russian literature lecture one week and ask the lecturer (who is from Germany) whether you could conduct the seminar in German. She agrees, and you talk about Dostoyevsky's life and works completely in German for an hour. Then at the end, she compliments your German (which you find fantastic, of course) and from then on never speaks a word ofÂEnglish to you again.
This is really succesful and beneficial for both languages, German and Russian.
Fasulye
As I am more confident in my German than in my Russian, I felt the need to prove to myself that I could actually carry out a whole lecture in German first - If I am ever fortunate enough for the same to happen again, I will try in Russian. Also it was driving me mad that I knew the lecturer was German and yet I had to speakEnglish with her in lectures.
You know you're a language nerd when you consider not buying one of your favourite TV series just because they only haveEnglish subtitles.
Also, you know you're a language nerd when you know of someone who's using Scrubs to learn Italian from, and you consider getting into Scrubs just because it has subtitles in other languages on its DVDs.
LanguageSponge on 27 October 2010
Did you know, for example, that "the language spoken by the character Greedo in conversation with Han Solo (in the cantina) is actually a simplified version of Quechua, an indigenous language of the Andean region of South America". Or that "in Return of the Jedi, Lando Calrissian's copilot, Nien Nunb, speaks the real Human language Haya, a dialect spoken in Tanzania". [source: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Language - Language - Wookieepedia ]
Oh but surely the evidence speaks for itself now - my journey to the nerdy side of language appreciation is almost complete...help me Obi-Wan, you're my only hope! [edit]
Teango on 28 October 2010
Then again perhaps not.
maydayayday on 28 October 2010
I honestly think we need to get out more.....
Agreed...but of course donned in headphones to listen to Pimsleur whilst walking and ever ready to start conversations with complete strangers for language practice. ;)
Teango on 28 October 2010
When you see a Slovene book in a university bookstore and have an urge to buy it just because you'd never seen another Slovene book before, and because you just might consider it for your linguistic future, but don't buy it. And then when you dream of the same book a couple nights later in a nightmare when you return to the bookstore only to discover that it has been bought already...you should have bought it when you had the chance!
ellasevia on 29 October 2010
Ellasevia, what was the book called? Do you remember? I've likely already got it as I've never seen a whole lot for Slovene around, but on the off chance I've not got it, it'd be nice to look into it.
LanguageSponge on 31 October 2010
Ellasevia, what was the book called? Do you remember? I've likely already got it as I've never seen a whole lot for Slovene around, but on the off chance I've not got it, it'd be nice to look into it.
I think it was just Teach Yourself Slovene, but as I'd never seen ANY books for that language in a bookstore before, it was pretty exciting.
ellasevia on 31 October 2010
You don´t believe the translations - I am one.
Gorgoll2 on 31 October 2010
Ellasevia, what was the book called? Do you remember? I've likely already got it as I've never seen a whole lot for Slovene around, but on the off chance I've not got it, it'd be nice to look into it.
I think it was just Teach Yourself Slovene, but as I'd never seen ANY books for that language in a bookstore before, it was pretty exciting.
Oh okay, awesome. Having said that, I've got that one already and it is quite good :]
LanguageSponge on 31 October 2010
When you see a Slovene book in a university bookstore and have an urge to buy it just because you'd never seen another Slovene book before, and because you just might consider it for your linguistic future, but don't buy it. And then when you dream of the same book a couple nights later in a nightmare when you return to the bookstore only to discover that it has been bought already...you should have bought it when you had the chance!
Agreed. And that is why I have so many books and courses that I will, in all honesty, probably never really use completely, but I am afraid that if I don't buy them when I can, they may not be available later. Irrational? Of course, but that's what males me a language nerd!
psy88 on 31 October 2010
When you realise that the thought of becoming an EMT became more appealing when you
realised that there are LOTS of people from different couuntries in your hometown, and
the possibility of them needing an ambulance at some point is large, and you try to find
out which languages are the most common ones, so you can learn it and communicate with
the patients in their own language.
Johnnysd on 01 November 2010
You decide to put the language books aside for a while to do some light reading just for fun, and, while reading, start wondering "Hmmm . . . I wonder what this sentence is in original?" or "Why is the word translated like that?" and remember, oh, it'sEnglish, forEnglish-speaking readers . . .
how silly of me, but . . . how would I say "how silly of me in" . . . etc, etc . . .
meramarina on 02 November 2010
You decide to put the language books aside for a while to do some light reading just for fun, and, while reading, start wondering "Hmmm . .
how silly of me, but . . . how would I say "how silly of me in" . . . etc, etc . . .
Wow! So I am not the only one who thinks like this. It drives me crazy.I get into the same "how would I say..." all the time.And, I can't really rest until I figure it out or check the dictionary for the word.
psy88 on 02 November 2010
...when a French horse named 'Americain' wins the biggest horse race in Australia (The Melbourne cup), and you feel the need to correct everyone when they pronounce it incorrectly.
sm66 on 02 November 2010
...when a French horse named 'Americain' wins the biggest horse race in Australia (The Melbourne cup), and you feel the need to correct everyone when they pronounce it incorrectly.
Yes, certainly recognize this one. I almost caused a fight once because a couple of yuppie types (I'm old enough to remember them!) were pretentiously throwing French phrases around and I loudly made a remark about stupid, pretentious people who couldn't even pronounce French properly. There was a deadly silence and they glared at me, but switched toEnglish. I also have to resist correcting people's pronunciation of foreign words and accept they have a right to pronounce the word however they feel appropriate.
Er... another thought I suppose it makes you a language nerd to be on this forum as much as I am! Still, nice to know I'm not alone!
Old Chemist on 02 November 2010
When seeing a completely random Wikipedia page that only exists inEnglish is such a great excuse to practice your (French, German, Arabic, Tajik, or Quechua) you spend two hours learning about whatever the page was about and contributing a page better than the one you found inEnglish.
kottoler.ello on 04 November 2010
Perhaps another good indicator: not only spending a lot of time on your target language(s), but also a lot of time here or spending most of your spare time learning obscure facts aout languages!
Old Chemist on 04 November 2010
When you see a Slovene book in a university bookstore and have an urge to buy it just because you'd never seen another Slovene book before, and because you just might consider it for your linguistic future, but don't buy it. And then when you dream of the same book a couple nights later in a nightmare when you return to the bookstore only to discover that it has been bought already...you should have bought it when you had the chance!
mick33 on 04 November 2010
...you are happy because GMail started showing ads in your target languages.
troglodyte on 04 November 2010
When the best part of your week so far has been playing old RPGs in Russian and German and only having having to use the dictionary on a number of occasions that you can count on one hand. Also when you're amazed that your inexcusable lack of I.T knowledge managed to sort out a cookie problem you've been having for half the day which meant that you weren't able to access this site. This inexcusable lack of IT know-how extends so shamefully far that you had to look up what a "cookie" even was.
LanguageSponge on 04 November 2010
Then the conversation goes on in Italian & Arabic.
maydayayday on 04 November 2010
When you realize that your idea of a rockin' Friday night is puzzling over Turkish word
order so you can manage to send a message to your new language exchange partner. I have
a social life, really guys, I promise.
But I just can't pause in the middle of working out a particularly knotty sentence, you
know? If I hadn't stayed in to finish untangling it, I'd probably be in town right now,
drowning the guilt of linguistic laziness with a succession of pint glasses. They would
have to carry me home, drunkenly bellowing out verb conjugations. I would be a Public
Menace.
So what I guess I'm saying here is that you know you're a language nerd when you
concoct elaborate and unlikely scenarios in your head to justify spending your weekend
hunched over a grammar book?
Sierra on 04 November 2010
So what I guess I'm saying here is that you know you're a language nerd when you concoct elaborate and unlikely scenarios in your head to justify spending your weekend hunched over a grammar book?
You know you're a language nerd when you get your buzz from the grammar books, not the contents of the pint glasses. (... You know that you've taken things too far when the idea of going out doesn't even occur to you.)
jimbo on 05 November 2010
The last time I babysat my two-year-old nephew I sang a Finnish song to him and he tried to sing along.
mick33 on 05 November 2010
When, in the school library you hear the people (whom you don't know) at the table behind you talking about how one of them is taking a Russian class at the local university and the conversation quickly progresses to why Russian and learning languages in general, you desperately want to skip over to them and join in the conversation--like meramarina said earlier in the thread, "You're my people!" (or something like that). But perhaps that would be too weird, so sadly you decide against it.
ellasevia on 05 November 2010
...You're standing amongst all the people at the local Polish deli for far longer than if you were just buying
something, simply because you enjoy listening to the customers and shop owners talk life and food in their
wonderful Polish tongue. And also because you like to look at all the beautifully intriguing Polish words for all the
sausages, cured meats, jams and cakes that they make.
Vos on 06 November 2010
WHen, while having a photography presentation, you show a picture where you have stacked
some Korean course books and an Arabic dictionary, and they ask you "Do you speak Korean
and Arabic", to which you reply "I speak some Korean, but not Arabic" and then give a
quick korean language lesson!
Johnnysd on 06 November 2010
...when the most widely spoken European languages you lack a dictionary for are Belarusian and Albanian.
Levi on 06 November 2010
...you get into an argument over the origins of several words inÂEnglish with another student in a class. Then your friend proceeds to tell the other person, 'shut up, he knows way more about languages than you do.'
Marc94 on 07 November 2010
When you are returning from a lesson with your Spanish tutor and are wondering if you are really progressing. Then you pass a new store in front of which is a sign "Tacos and Tortas" (tacos-obviously, and "cakes")and below it a smaller sign advertising ,inEnglish, "lunch specials $5.95". On impulse you stop in and decide to place a take out order.Also on impulse, you order in Spanish. The owner smiles a lot and you get into a twenty minute conversation in Spanish. You realize he is speaking quite fast, as are you, and you are understanding everything. You walk out with your food knowing that, even if the food is terrible, you will be returning!
psy88 on 08 November 2010
when you share 'grammatical banter' with fellow language learning students. Probably one of the most cringe-worthy moments ever when we realised what we were doing!
hablaconella on 08 November 2010
when you share 'grammatical banter' with fellow language learning students. Probably one of the most cringe-worthy moments ever when we realised what we were doing!
When you read this and don't think anything of the "cringe-worthy grammatical banter" because it happens in your house all the time.
LanguageSponge on 08 November 2010
You know you're a language nerd when you go into Elle s'appelait Sarah looking forward to two hours of French and are disappointed when it turns out large chunks of the film are inEnglish.
ReneeMona on 08 November 2010
When one of your roommates is repeating aloud after Pimsleur's Arabic in the kitchen,
another is working through her daily flashcards on the balcony, and a third is
practicing his French in the living room... and, as you curl up on the couch with your
Turkish Harry Potter book, you think to yourself, this is the best apartment I've ever
lived in.
Sierra on 08 November 2010
When one of your roommates is repeating aloud after Pimsleur's Arabic in the kitchen,
another is working through her daily flashcards on the balcony, and a third is
practicing his French in the living room... and, as you curl up on the couch with your
Turkish Harry Potter book, you think to yourself, this is the best apartment I've ever
lived in.
... when you read this, and immediately think, "I wonder if they would want another roommate!"
josht on 08 November 2010
You're at work and you notice that your new work computer came with a sheet of paper with multilingual instructions. You look at it and right away notice that there's an error in the Italian instructions (an article that doesn't agree in gender with the noun). After work, you go to the gym, and you're in the changing rooms with your MP3 player on, to a French audio book. Suddenly you notice that the two guys next to you are speaking French; you turn off the MP3 player straight away and listen intently to their conversation. Then on the way home, someone in front of you does a particularly stupid traffic manoeuvre and the first thing you say to yourself, before anyEnglish insults even come to mind, is "Quel con!!" (French for "what an arsehole!").
garyb on 08 November 2010
When you see a Slovene book in a university bookstore and have an urge to buy it just because you'd never seen another Slovene book before, and because you just might consider it for your linguistic future, but don't buy it. And then when you dream of the same book a couple nights later in a nightmare when you return to the bookstore only to discover that it has been bought already...you should have bought it when you had the chance!
And the story continues...
I told this very same story to my father, my friend, and her father, all of whom were on this trip with me. My friend's father remarked that we still had a couple days left in California, and that we could perhaps go back to the bookstore and buy it after all. Alas, we didn't.
Lately I have been getting very interested in Slovenia and its language. Maybe this will just be another one of my short-lived obsessions, or maybe this one will stay for good. I was even considering an exchange program in Slovenia for the future, so I'm not sure how ephemeral this idea actually is...
Today I arrived home from school to find a package in the mail with my name, from my friend's father. Just from the feel of the package and the noise it made when I shook it, I got a feeling that it was a Teach Yourself book, and thought to myself and aloud how funny it would be if he had actually gone back to the store after we left (we came home a day earlier) and bought the TY Slovene book for me. After I had gotten through all of the brown, cardboard-like paper and the layer of Chinese newspapers (which I kept, of course, it would be a shame to waste all that potential future native material), I unwrapped the last bit, and...it was the Teach Yourself Slovene book which I had dreamt about before!
Along with the package with the book and CDs was a card that had the Chinese characters for "Chinese language" (ä¸æ) crossed out and the following message in German:
I was ecstatic!
ellasevia on 09 November 2010
You're at a heavy metal festival in Slovenia and, during a drunken conversation with a Slovene girl (who of course speaks almost-perfectEnglish), you joke that you'll learn Slovene for the next year. Then, when looking round your local library for French books, you see a "Conversational Slovene course". For a moment you actually consider taking it out and making good your "promise".
garyb on 09 November 2010
When you catch yourself reading an article on a computer programming language (PHP) as the only article in a newspaper you really want to read. Then you realise the newspaper is Le Monde, and, as such, not even in your native language...
Oh, and I probably posted this earlier - but when you managed to convince your parents to buy you a copy of Remembering the Hanzi for your 17th birthday.
And when you buy a cheap book in Waterstones not because you want to read it, but because it's in French!
LittleBoy on 09 November 2010
When, after two nights of this kind of thing with German speakers, you suddenly find yourself in possession of Pimsleur German I-III, Living Language's Conversational German, and a bilingual copy of Geothe's Faust without ever meaning to start learning German.
kottoler.ello on 10 November 2010
You find yourself wondering about the phrase "çok yaÅa" ("live a lot" in Turkish, used
like "Gesundheit" or "bless you") which, despite being a lovely expression, sounds almost
more like a sneeze than an actual sneeze does... and whether it's ever set off an
inescapable round of bless-yous.
Sierra on 10 November 2010
when you share 'grammatical banter' with fellow language learning students. Probably one of the most cringe-worthy moments ever when we realised what we were doing!
When you read this and don't think anything of the "cringe-worthy grammatical banter" because it happens in your house all the time.
hahahaha. Fair enough!
hablaconella on 10 November 2010
When you try to tell your dad about the organic ice cream place that doesn't use any
additives and say instead, "It's great! They don't use any ablatives."
thephantomgoat on 15 November 2010
I can sympathize. I made a similar slip of the tongue last time I went on a dative.
Sierra on 15 November 2010
When you try to tell your dad about the organic ice cream place that doesn't use any additives and say instead, "It's great! They don't use any ablatives."
I can sympathize. I made a similar slip of the tongue last time I went on a dative.
Very funny.
Who do you guys think you are, Gerund Seinfeld?
TerryW on 16 November 2010
When you learn to read and write Hangul to avoid doing your homework.
ellasevia on 18 November 2010
When you end up watching Welsh anime on S4C whilst waiting for a repairman to arrive and fix the boiler.
Teango on 18 November 2010
When you are at a book fair and buy Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, Bengali and Urdu books even if you don't understand some of these languages but can read the script and you think you might learn the languages some time in the future :)
horshod on 18 November 2010
Very funny language puns, guys, but be sure to remember this: always be careful in your language studies - you could catch an inflection!
meramarina on 18 November 2010
btw i first start to drive at the left of the road like in england whereas in france we drive at the right.
in a period my father worked in england all the week long, then whe he returned to france he keep on driving in theÂEnglish way
tornus on 18 November 2010
I placed a phone call in French from the Zurich airport to a friend in France using a
French phone directory. This probably sounds really simple, but it was a major
accomplishment for me. It was the first time that I realized I was becoming fluent in
the language.
dickda1 on 18 November 2010
... be careful in your language studies - you could catch an inflection!
Some inflections I wouldn't mind catching, depending on the inflector.
Now that I've most likely ruined a good pun my actual contribution to this thread is:
Yesterday I heard a woman sing a song in Hawaiian and instead of just enjoying her lovely singing voice I was thinking to myself "Now why didn't I think to bring a pen and a notebook so I could try to write down the words?"
mick33 on 19 November 2010
When, on hearing or seeing anything in a different language, your friends immediately turn to you and expect you to know the language.. They're like.. "Oh what does that mean?".. and you're like "I don't know any Chinese". (And then you still try to identify the familiar looking Kanjis in the Chinese text trying to figure out what it might mean.. lol pretty stupid but happens =P)
horshod on 19 November 2010
-When you carry your language study materials with you everywhere and take them out on the train or on the bus or in a restaurant while waiting for your food
-When you've changed the default language of your computer, cell phone, etc. to a foreign language
-When you're watching a movie in which a few lines are spoken in a foreign language, and your friend immediately turns to you and asks, "Did you understand that?"
-When you plan all your trips based on the languages you're learning
lol guilty
horshod on 19 November 2010
...when you love seeing them have technical problems playing a translation of someone on the news or delivering a speech, so all you hear is the original language. Like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fE4pri5A9i4 - this .
Levi on 20 November 2010
Chinese!?!"
"Sorry," you say, "forgot to turn off pinyin input."
By the third or so time it happens, they're used to it and they find it more shocking
when pinyin input isn't on.
thephantomgoat on 21 November 2010
When you buy a Swahili phrasebook/dictionary even though you aren't currently studying Swahili just because you were excited to see Barnes and Noble finally have some African language material.
Genocyde on 22 November 2010
is your Chatroulette.
But slightly more intellectually stimulating.
thephantomgoat on 22 November 2010
...when you can't help but notice that the hair on your bar of soap is shaped just like a Hiragana ã.
Levi on 23 November 2010
When you're making christmas cookies in the shape of Greek letters.
Sprachprofi on 23 November 2010
When you decline an invitation to watch a film with your flatmates but you don't even consider it because you have a "Skype date" with a language partner. Although maybe you would've considered the film had it been in a foreign language.
garyb on 23 November 2010
When you're making christmas cookies in the shape of Greek letters.
How would you make a Î?
Levi on 23 November 2010
...when you can't help but notice that the hair on your bar of soap is shaped just like a Hiragana ã.
lol I rofled at that one! :D :D
horshod on 23 November 2010
When you're making christmas cookies in the shape of Greek letters.
How would you make a Î?
Lowercase, of course.
Qbe on 23 November 2010
When you're making christmas cookies in the shape of Greek letters.
How would you make a Î?
Lowercase, of course.
ξ would still be quite a difficult shape to make for a cookie, I'd think! So would ζ for that matter...
ellasevia on 23 November 2010
When you're making
christmas cookies in the shape of Greek letters.
How would you make a Î?
Lowercase, of course.
ξ would still be quite a difficult shape to make for a cookie, I'd think! So would ζ for
that matter...
We were making http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spritzgeb%C3%A4ck - Spritzgebäck of
course.
Sprachprofi on 23 November 2010
You know you are a language nerd when you give serious thought to taking the toki pona 21 day challenge (see the language learning log) and you have the following reactions from those closest to you: "with so many languages out there why would some one make up a new one?" and, "with so many real languages why study a made up one?"; " Knowing you, I'm not surprised"; "why? So you can say you have mastered an entire language?" and, my favorite: "toki pona? Is that like the hokey-pokey?"
psy88 on 24 November 2010
..When you spend a third of your monthly salary on an assortment of grammar books and end up going back to the bookstore to return the books one by one because you don't have money to buy lunch...
royanazs on 24 November 2010
..When you buy Cosmopolitan in a language which you don't understand because sometime in the future you'll be able to use it to learn the colloquial expressions...
if you dont buy Cosmo in every airport you pass through because it's not in a new language
maydayayday on 26 November 2010
When your day just becomes the best ever when you stumble upon an international magazine place in New York City. You just have to love New York! Now I've been reading a 100 page German Newspaper and its 50 page magazine supplement over the past two days. It is a Wochenzeitung, or week-long paper and it's called Die Zeit.
Marc94 on 27 November 2010
Did I pick up a flyer and start chatting away to the woman in broken Spanish? You can bet your bottom dinero I did! :D
Teango on 28 November 2010
When your day just becomes the best ever when you stumble upon an international magazine
place in New York City. You just have to love New York! Now I've been reading a 100 page German Newspaper and
its 50 page magazine supplement over the past two days. It is a Wochenzeitung, or week-long paper and it's called
Die Zeit.
Where is this? I'm moving to New York soon! :)
MegatronFilm on 02 December 2010
...when you get your replacement for a language course book because you wore it out till its cover fell off then left it on the bus, and you're as excited as the day you got your first copy.
Levi on 02 December 2010
...when you get your replacement for a language course book because you wore it out till its cover fell off then left it on the bus, and you're as excited as the day you got your first copy.
I had exactly the same thing with my first copy of the New Penguin Russian Course - it fell apart about a year after I got it, I bought a second and now that's near becoming unuseable again.
...when you don't know which language to greet your girlfriend in in the mornings (as in my case because my girlfriend's half Belgian) -English (bah!) German (now becoming much more usual) or whether to embarrass myself and speak French with her - which I don't ever do.
LanguageSponge on 02 December 2010
...when you get your replacement for a language course book because you wore it out till its cover fell off then left it on the bus, and you're as excited as the day you got your first copy.
I had exactly the same thing with my first copy of the New Penguin Russian Course - it fell apart about a year after I got it, I bought a second and now that's near becoming unuseable again.
What a coincidence, that's exactly the book I was talking about! :)
Levi on 02 December 2010
Levi and LanguageSponge, how could you possibly allow this much harm to come to your dear books? I barely let people near my books and start screaming when they touch them. I almost had a mental breakdown when my brother tore most of a page out of my favorite Swahili book this summer...
ellasevia on 03 December 2010
Also, when the few things on your Christmas list are all language-related.
kottoler.ello on 03 December 2010
When you actually cringe whenever you hear the commercial that refers to "useless memorization" and "boring drills".
psy88 on 04 December 2010
When you practically start screaming at the mention of Rosetta Stone or people saying "I'd like to learn (insert popular/ semi-popular language here) but I have no idea how."
dotdotdot on 05 December 2010
or people saying "I'd like to learn (insert popular/ semi-popular language here) but I have no idea how."
To be fair, people wanting to learn another language often have no idea how to go about doing it. It's not unreasonable to hear them say that.
Unfortunately, marketing usually wins out and people end up using what they see in commercials.
R.
==
hrhenry on 05 December 2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGtKGX8B9hU
It's already funny, but I think it;d be funnier if I knew French.
Genocyde on 05 December 2010
When you change the language settings on a device out of sheer interest, and then can't work out how to quickly change it back later and use it...because it's all now in a foreign language (lol)!
Teango on 05 December 2010
When predictive text on your mobile phone becomes completely messed up and unpredictable, simply because you keep texting in a variety and mixture of languages...
Teango on 05 December 2010
You plan to take language placement tests just to see how far you can archive by studying
the target languages within one month.
QiuJP on 05 December 2010
...when you spend hours on Google Earth exploring the places that speak your target language, checking out the pictures and reading any signs you see.
Levi on 05 December 2010
You return to the car park to find your car is missing and your first thought is, "Oh no! My Champs Elysees CDs
were in there!" Then when the police track the car down, you are surprised, quite pleasantly, to find that they
weren't stolen.
wv girl on 05 December 2010
When you change the language settings on a device out of sheer interest, and then can't work out how to quickly change it back later and use it...because it's all now in a foreign language (lol)!
I do this, too. My phone is always in Spanish (there is a very disappointing choice of languages on my phone, I can only getEnglish, German, Italian, French, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese and Turkish. That's not really very good considering that's only one of my three target languages), but my iPod has lots of language options so I basically just change it whenever I feel like it. It's in Greek at the moment, but before that it was in Korean, when I can't even read Korean script, so that made navigating it a bit awkward, but that's OK because it's easy enough to find my music and the language list, so I can switch it to a language I understand if I need to do anything more difficult than listening to music. So it's almost always in Spanish, Romanian or Greek if I want to understand what I'm looking at, or if not I'll just have it in some other language just for fun, LOL.
ThisIsGina on 05 December 2010
De temps en temps,
je me sens
vide
comme si ma vie
ne tient à rien.
Dans ces moments,
je pense à mes langues
et le vide
disparaît.
EDIT: Had to fix my bad French. :-p
Levi on 06 December 2010
...when you get the DVD of Inception for Sinterklaas and are ecstatic to find out it has French and Spanish audio so you spent about half an hour watching your favourite scenes in those languages.
ReneeMona on 06 December 2010
Your whole life switches from being left to right to being right to left because of the language you're studying. My French flag is now red white and blueâ¦
Préposition on 06 December 2010
And when you extend your love of languages to the kitchen by indulging in various "themed nights" throughout the week (secretly just for an excuse to use the language whilst juggling ingredients). :P
Teango on 06 December 2010
Nah, probably better to not spend time on this social stuff and just learn more. Who needs people when you can have books?
muflax on 07 December 2010
Nah, probably better to not spend time on this social stuff and just learn more. Who needs people when you can have books?
The language you choose on Facebook is just the language things are displayed to you in. The only things people will see in a foreign language are things you type. And you can change your display language at any time. I change mine every few days.
Levi on 07 December 2010
...when your desk at work contains more language-related books than work-related books. (A quick look at my own desk shows 6 computer books and 12 language books.)
Qbe on 07 December 2010
Nah, probably better to not spend time on this social stuff and just learn more. Who needs people when you can have books?
The language you choose on Facebook is just the language things are displayed to you in. The only things people will see in a foreign language are things you type. And you can change your display language at any time. I change mine every few days.
I was aware of the display settings (which would be Japanese anyway because æ¼¢å are just so neat and compact), but what I meant was, in which language I should write myself? I can only really count on being universally understood if I write inEnglish, but I don't always feel like it and it seems weird to me to provide personal information in a different language than the one I use in conversation. Some public messages inEnglish, some in German, I don't like that.
Luckily, I'm enough of an introvert that I don't have many friends to actually weird out (and managed to get one to learn a bit of Japanese!) and my reluctance is really just an aversion to inconsistency. I associate different languages with different... attitudes (personas?) and the ones I'd be most comfortable writing with aren't the ones that my friends typically see. But then it's a bit silly because I don't expect to actively use Facebook much, going by experience and having spent more time on setting up text editors than on being social this month...
You know you're a language nerd when you ramble on too long about language choices the way others do about clothing. ;)
muflax on 07 December 2010
...When you're taking Mandarin, Junior-level Spanish, Russian, and second semester Arabic classes during your first year at University and then drop out because you realize if all you want to study is foreign languages, you can learn more in an hour on your free time than a whole semester of schooling. Plus, you won't be surrounded by people with poor accents and no passion for the language ;)
Omenapuu00 on 07 December 2010
...you can learn more in an hour on your free time than a whole semester of schooling. Plus, you won't be surrounded by people with poor accents and no passion for the language ;)
So true!
horshod on 07 December 2010
...When you're taking Mandarin, Junior-level Spanish, Russian, and second semester Arabic classes during your first year at University and then drop out because you realize if all you want to study is foreign languages, you can learn more in an hour on your free time than a whole semester of schooling. Plus, you won't be surrounded by people with poor accents and no passion for the language ;)
And save yourself a heck of a lot of money!
psy88 on 08 December 2010
...when you're crazy enough to study æ¼¢å in extremely dim lighting conditions.
Levi on 08 December 2010
...when you're listening to an explanation of a horrible tragedy in your target language, and you can't stop smiling because you find yourself understanding every word.
Levi on 08 December 2010
...when you're listening to an explanation of a horrible tragedy in your target language, and you can't stop smiling because you find yourself understanding every word.
Like when I listened to the speech by the Icelandic prime minister where he acknowledged that the economy of his country had literally collapsed overnight. Except that I didn't understand everything he said.
Iversen on 08 December 2010
When you're studying Hindi while listening to a German telenovela
ironman on 09 December 2010
...when your friend, upon hearing that you study languages, says "I can hook you up with a copy of Rosetta Stone" and then doesn't understand why you explode in rage at their generous offer.
Jinx on 09 December 2010
...when you've never even used Rosette Stone but have spent so much time on this forum that you can explain its many shortcomings in detail anyway.
ReneeMona on 09 December 2010
...when your friend, upon hearing that you study languages, says "I can hook you up with a copy of Rosetta Stone" and then doesn't understand why you explode in rage at their generous offer.
I did the same thing to my Japanese teacher when he asked about my independent language-learning strategies, and asked if I used Rosetta Stone.
ellasevia on 09 December 2010
(Ironic when the actor who plays Sayyid doesn't even speak Arabic, haha. Much better when he is dubbed into Iraqi dialect!)
Quabazaa on 09 December 2010
When you are so excited that university Christmas break has finally arrived, and while
your friends from school are at the bar and offering to pay for your night if you come
out, and your extremely attractive girlfriend is at a party, and furthermore you were
invited to both, you choose instead to spend Saturday night working on grammar until
early into the morning.
canada38 on 12 December 2010
extremely attractive girlfriend
I think it's a forum rule that this type of bragging is not allowed without pictures.
leosmith on 13 December 2010
when you purposely do not bring music CD's into your car, lest you be tempted to play them instead of listen to your target language(s) CD's. And then you feel guilty that you would even be tempted to listen to music instead of practicing your language(s).
psy88 on 13 December 2010
when you purposely do not bring music CD's into your car, lest you be tempted to play them instead of listen to your target language(s) CD's. And then you feel guilty that you would even be tempted to listen to music instead of practicing your language(s).
...when you feel guilty for NOT listening to music anymore (due to the huge backlog of language material that must be listened to!), even though your friends have been telling you "You've gotta check out this band" for so long that you now have a similarly large backlog of music you "ought" to listen to. Sorry, music.
Also, this just happened today:
...when you're driving with your family through a city and your mother points to a billboard in Spanish and asks you "What does it say?" and you quickly roll down your window for a better view and translate on the fly (despite never having studied any Spanish) before the billboard has faded from sight: "In the middle of nothing, you are in the middle of everything."
Jinx on 13 December 2010
In comparison with you (the people on this thread) I'm not a language nerd at all!
Yeah! Something along those lines.
You feel like a loser because you are ONLY studying x number of languages.
jimbo on 13 December 2010
When you're thinking of using the things on this thread as a checklist to rate your own language nerdiness
dotdotdot on 13 December 2010
Or when you go back with a book on language you were not learning.
clumsy on 14 December 2010
when you purposely do not bring music CD's into your car, lest you be tempted to play them instead of listen to your target language(s) CD's. And then you feel guilty that you would even be tempted to listen to music instead of practicing your language(s).
When you haven't had anyEnglish language songs on your iPod in years.
Years.
The mere thought of listening to a song inEnglish terrifies me, because I fear that I--God forbid--might even LIKE it and choose to download and listen to it on a regular basis instead of something in my L2.
I actually have not ever heard a single one of Lady Gaga's songs for this very reason (although an acquaintance did play the beats for a few on the piano once and they sounded quite catchy.. hehe).
kyssäkaali on 14 December 2010
While I haven't stopped listening toÂEnglish music entirely, I can truthfully claim that I am now more familiar with some Swedish and Finnish musicians thanÂEnglish ones. For example, I have heard a few Lady Gaga songs but I'm actually more interested in the newest Säkert! album.
mick33 on 14 December 2010
Wait, but I thought everybody gets excited about studying...don't they?
ellasevia on 14 December 2010
When there's Russian clown being interviewed on TV but you're just watching it because you're mesmerised by the Russian-Dutch translator. (She's amazing!)
Iolanthe on 15 December 2010
When your mobile broadband arrives in the post, and you spend more time looking at the flyer for discount international calls included in the box (you might may have seen the posters or ads around, e.g. wow, strewth, Åwietnie, à¤
à¤à¥à¤à¤¾ हà¥, etc.) than reading the instruction manual.
Teango on 15 December 2010
When you have two iPods - one forEnglish and one for foreign music only.
languagenerd09 on 16 December 2010
When you really wanted Russia to win the 2018 World Cup bid but deep inside it kind of frustrates you because it interferes with your language learning long-term plans! (I was supposed to start Russian by 2018, now I shall start earlier... sorry Dutch :/ )
Pau20 on 16 December 2010
When the first thing you do whilst checking out the new iPad at a local store is to make sure you can log on to this forum (oh blast...I forgot to check if the "Reviewing the Kanji" site and language blogs work ok too! *next time*).
Teango on 16 December 2010
When you really wanted Russia to win the 2018 World Cup bid but deep
inside it kind of frustrates you because it interferes with your language learning long-
term plans! (I was supposed to start Russian by 2018, now I shall start earlier... sorry
Dutch :/ )
When you add Russian to your list because Russia won the 2018 World Cup bid. Or would
that make me a football nerd?
troglodyte on 16 December 2010
3 times a week ..
languagenerd09 on 16 December 2010
When you have two iPods - one forÂEnglish and one for foreign music only.
çããª!
...when you have one iPod - for foreign muic only. ;)
Segata on 16 December 2010
Perhaps not language nerdery as such...but you know you've been living in Germany for a while when you return to England and your neighbour scolds you for trying to pick up some shelves left on the pavement outside her house, and you shudder to think of throwing glass, plastic and paper into the one bin.
Teango on 16 December 2010
When you have 1500+ Skype/IM buddies.
leafhound on 19 December 2010
Everyone who posts here is a language nerd!
balessi on 19 December 2010
When you feel like you are in heaven when you are visiting your brother's college and you find the Arts & Humanities section in the library, which contains several hundred volumes in many different languages, including Danish (that seems to be hard to find here in America).
Also- I happened to find a German volume from 1848- the pages were quite delicate and there were some differences in the spelling of some of the words. Man this was an awesome day!
Marc94 on 19 December 2010
Also you know you're a language nerd when you realise a lot of the games mentioned above are inspired by our Multilingual Lounge!
LanguageSponge on 20 December 2010
Also you know you're a language nerd when you realise a lot of the games mentioned above are inspired by our Multilingual Lounge!
Margana is an anagram solver: handy if you play a lot of Scrabble!
Scrabble nerd I am.
maydayayday on 20 December 2010
You know you're a language nerd when you're planning your New Year's Eve party with your friends (who are all multilingual to begin with) and you realise that a lot of the games you're planning to play, you consider to be language-learning games.
Wooow, thanks. I'm hosting a Christmas party in a few hours and you just gave me game ideas. I'm not sure if my friends are gonna like'em... even they're multilingual they're not language nerds! I'll try though, thanks!
Pau20 on 21 December 2010
You know you're a language nerd when you're planning your New Year's Eve party with your friends (who are all multilingual to begin with) and you realise that a lot of the games you're planning to play, you consider to be language-learning games.
Wooow, thanks. I'm hosting a Christmas party in a few hours and you just gave me game ideas. I'm not sure if my friends are gonna like'em... even they're multilingual they're not language nerds! I'll try though, thanks!
You're welcome! The vast majority of my friends are language nerds, fortunately, so though that might not sound all that fun to most people, it does to us. The others would probably like the drinking games further down the list, but if *everyone* who turns up is multilingual, which is likely, even the conversation around those will be in some language other thanEnglish :]
LanguageSponge on 21 December 2010
You loathe gerunds and false friends.
You frequently have nightmares in which you're chased by Saussure, Chomsky, Halliday or Pinker.
You find certain words, expressions or translations utterly amusing... Yes, you laugh at words.
You have fun translating proverbs or idioms literally, such as "putting was the goose".
You find yourself looking up a word in the dictionary and you know you've already looked it up a thousand times before in your life.
You have run out of insults because this peculiar word seems to be nowhere in the world, but in the text you are trying to read.
You find out how much money you've spent on books, videos and magazines and you realize you could be a millionaire if you had saved up all that money.
You can remember making weird noises to yourself, just because you were practicing your Lenis Voiced Dental Fricative.
You know that the same meaning is hidden in these two sentences: "It's rude to point" and "Deixis is rude".
You know that the Spanish words "interface" and "interfaz" are not synonyms.
You can hold a coherent conversation with a colleague about derivational morphology or passive and middle voice.
You can list all the differences between unergative and unaccusative verbs, and you know the difference between a creole and a pidgin.
You know the difference between PRO and traces/copies, and ECM and subject/object control verbs.
You know the different countless types of Spanish polysemic "se".
Drawing trees is the worst thing that can ever happen to you, because it no longer means pencils, branches and leaves, but subject, tense phrase and wh- movement.
You know how useless the RAE dictionary is, but you learn to cope with it.
It doesn't matter how hard you try to learn a language, there's always going to be someone who will disagree and will suggest that you are completely hopeless.
You must restrain yourself from slapping people on their faces when you hear them producing horrible ungrammatical sentences.
A friend asks for the meaning of a word and you clear your throat and start giving a lecture on etymology.
It takes you at least 10 minutes to look up just one word in the dictionary, because you find at least 10 other interesting words before the one you need.
You're starting a band called "Colourless Green Ideas Sleep Furiously", and your hit song is "I'm a lonely NP".
translator2 on 21 December 2010
When you are the person people go to when they want to learn a language but don't know what resources to get.
dotdotdot on 21 December 2010
You're welcome! The vast majority of my friends are language nerds, fortunately, so though that might not sound all that fun to most people, it does to us. The others would probably like the drinking games further down the list, but if *everyone* who turns up is multilingual, which is likely, even the conversation around those will be in some language other thanÂEnglish :]
Ooh lucky you! I want your language nerd friends! I only have 2 :(
Btw... we didn't play any game, unless breaking a piñata counts as a game.
Pau20 on 22 December 2010
Going from left to right and from top to bottom, they are...
Spanish, Portuguese, French, Catalan, Italian, Romanian
Dutch, German, Swedish, Icelandic, Esperanto, Chinese
Russian, Polish, Czech, Slovenian, Hungarian
Greek, Korean, Japanese, Turkish, Arabic, Navajo
Irish, Welsh, Persian, Hindi, Georgian
And my brother ate the ones in Finnish and Swahili before I took the picture.
ellasevia on 22 December 2010
You loathe gerunds and false friends.
You frequently have nightmares in which you're chased by Saussure, Chomsky, Halliday or Pinker.
You find certain words, expressions or translations utterly amusing... Yes, you laugh at words.
You have fun translating proverbs or idioms literally, such as "putting was the goose".
You find yourself looking up a word in the dictionary and you know you've already looked it up a thousand times before in your life.
You have run out of insults because this peculiar word seems to be nowhere in the world, but in the text you are trying to read.
You find out how much money you've spent on books, videos and magazines and you realize you could be a millionaire if you had saved up all that money.
You can remember making weird noises to yourself, just because you were practicing your Lenis Voiced Dental Fricative.
You know that the same meaning is hidden in these two sentences: "It's rude to point" and "Deixis is rude".
You know that the Spanish words "interface" and "interfaz" are not synonyms.
You can hold a coherent conversation with a colleague about derivational morphology or passive and middle voice.
You can list all the differences between unergative and unaccusative verbs, and you know the difference between a creole and a pidgin.
You know the difference between PRO and traces/copies, and ECM and subject/object control verbs.
You know the different countless types of Spanish polysemic "se".
Drawing trees is the worst thing that can ever happen to you, because it no longer means pencils, branches and leaves, but subject, tense phrase and wh- movement.
You know how useless the RAE dictionary is, but you learn to cope with it.
It doesn't matter how hard you try to learn a language, there's always going to be someone who will disagree and will suggest that you are completely hopeless.
You must restrain yourself from slapping people on their faces when you hear them producing horrible ungrammatical sentences.
A friend asks for the meaning of a word and you clear your throat and start giving a lecture on etymology.
It takes you at least 10 minutes to look up just one word in the dictionary, because you find at least 10 other interesting words before the one you need.
You're starting a band called "Colourless Green Ideas Sleep Furiously", and your hit song is "I'm a lonely NP".
when you don't even know what a lot of this means..but you sure wish you did!! And hope one day to be as knowledgeable.
psy88 on 22 December 2010
You're starting a band called "Colourless Green Ideas Sleep Furiously", and your hit song is "I'm a lonely NP".
Darn it, I thought about making a band called that! I guess I have to settle with "Total Annihilation Challenge" ;)
dotdotdot on 22 December 2010
Swedish. You don't speak Swedish. You are highly tempted to steal one or two of them.
When you find this table in Ikea and think it was designed for you.
zerothinking on 22 December 2010
...while studying for your linguistics final, just about everything in the entire book sounds familiar to you, not because of the lectures but because you've read about them on this forum.
ReneeMona on 22 December 2010
--- when you enjoy doing so.
Qbe on 22 December 2010
...when, because of Internet radio, you always know more about the weather where your target language is spoken than you do about the weather where you live.
Levi on 22 December 2010
Going from left to right and from top to bottom, they are...
Spanish, Portuguese, French, Catalan, Italian, Romanian
Dutch, German, Swedish, Icelandic, Esperanto, Chinese
Russian, Polish, Czech, Slovenian, Hungarian
Greek, Korean, Japanese, Turkish, Arabic, Navajo
Irish, Welsh, Persian, Hindi, Georgian
And my brother ate the ones in Finnish and Swahili before I took the picture.
and this has just become your PC wallpaper, but above all your daughter who isn't a linguist knows the Finnish and Swahili biscuits too.....
maydayayday on 22 December 2010
you know what's in the music charts in another country but can't name a single group or song currently in your own country's chart.
darkwhispersdal on 23 December 2010
...when you just watched the first three hours of it and only stopped because it's two in the morning and you have an important exam the next day.
ReneeMona on 23 December 2010
you know what's in the music charts in another country but can't name a single group or song currently in your own country's chart.
Guilty. I haven't a clue who is near the top on the US charts currently since I haven't really listened toEnglish music for over a year now; the South Korean charts are another story, though.
Warp3 on 23 December 2010
...when you dance around the room for a full ten minutes because you
just found a French dubbed version of your all time favourite BBC mini-series.
Where? Where?
Sprachprofi on 23 December 2010
...when you dance around the room for a full ten minutes because you
just found a French dubbed version of your all time favourite BBC mini-series.
Where? Where?
Not sure if it's entirely legal, but someone uploaded it
http://www.dailymotion.com/user/Odysseus73/1 - here.ReneeMona on 23 December 2010
Swedish. You don't speak Swedish. You are highly tempted to steal one or two of them.
When you find this table in Ikea and think it was designed for you.
Polish one is wrong :(
clumsy on 23 December 2010
Swedish. You don't speak Swedish. You are highly tempted to steal one or two of them.
When you find this table in Ikea and think it was designed for you.
Polish one is wrong :(
I made my own after the IKEA find......... custom fit to the curves. When the other machines are installed I will post a couple of images.
maydayayday on 23 December 2010
When you open a monolingualEnglish dictionary and automatically flip to the front or back half because 'that's the side that's in the language I want'.
Cumquat on 24 December 2010
When you catch yourself listening to French podcasts whilst doing Mandarin reps on Anki...
LittleBoy on 26 December 2010
When your Wii Fit, Sports, dance and all the things are not in your
native language because you chose this.
Or: When you had to set up a separate user account on your computer for your boyfriend
because you have the habit of changing your operating system's language every other month
- which is still driving him crazy because he needs to figure out again and again which
one of the cryptic start menu items would be for switching users...
ratis on 27 December 2010
when you forget how to spell a word in your native language(English) but you do know how to spell it in your target language (Spanish), so you use your bilingualEnglish-Spanish dictionary,looking up the word in Spanish so you can get it'sEnglish spelling!
psy88 on 27 December 2010
when you forget how to spell a word in your native language(English) but
you do know how to spell it in your target language (Spanish), so you use your
bilingualÂEnglish-Spanish dictionary,looking up the word in Spanish so you can get
it'sÂEnglish spelling!
And from there...
...when yourEnglish vocabulary is significantly larger than your Spanish (native) one.
Thaorius on 27 December 2010
When you keep checking this thread for updates several times a day.
dotdotdot on 27 December 2010
...when the coolest thing about your new iPod Touch is that it understands voice commands in all your target languages!
Levi on 28 December 2010
...when the coolest thing about your new iPod Touch is that it understands voice commands in all your target languages!
When you see this as yet another reason to add more target languages...
... or as a good reason to buy an iPod Touch.
Qbe on 28 December 2010
...when the coolest thing about your new iPod Touch is that it understands voice commands in all your target languages!
That reminds me of how happy I was to find out that installing the Google Korean IME for Android would allow my phone to accept Korean voice input as well. I don't think that carries over to voice commands, though, sadly.
Warp3 on 28 December 2010
I just switched from a Mac mini (a creaky old awful thing) to a fresh new Toshiba laptop and I don't yet have everything set up the way I want it to be.
I read newspapers in target languages as often as I can, and when I was reading a German page I got a message from the Google Toolbar informing me that "This page is is German. Do you want to translate it?"
That made me mad, because I assumed that Google knew everything about everybody and SHOULD HAVE KNOWN why I was there. "No, toolbar, stupid Google toolbar, I'm here to learn and I don't want your help, thanks. I use my mind to translate, toolbar, but actually, toolbar, I try to work directly in the target language when I can without translating, so go away, toolbar. I hate you!"
"That'll show you" I thought, but then the toolbar wanted to know why, if I was so smart, was I yelling at it inEnglish?
I conceded that maybe Google really does know everything, and changed my settings.
meramarina on 28 December 2010
...when you're reviewing vocabulary while ice skating.
ellasevia on 29 December 2010
when you go to Barnes and Nobles after Christmas to buy "word a day" calenders in three different languages (your two current target languages and a third because, hey they were all half price so, why not? and if you had more money with you, it would have 4 different languages!). And the sales person asks if you are buying them as gifts for friends. When you smile, somewhat sheepishly, to explain they are all for you, she gives you a strange look but does not say anything further.
psy88 on 29 December 2010
You set your car's GPS to speak German, French, etc.
translator2 on 29 December 2010
You set your car's GPS to speak German, French, etc.
When your GPS is set to Korean for the voice, and Russian for everything else.
And you spent about half an hour listening to the different types of voices the GPS has in its languages.
dotdotdot on 29 December 2010
Maybe this should go under "you know the romance languages are very similar to each other when...", but I was pleased nonetheless.
Yesterday, whilst reading the foreign on a box of chocolates, I read one bit, and was quite pleased to find a language that I knew and could understand perfectly. Then I realised that it was one that I had never studied, Portuguese...
LittleBoy on 30 December 2010
When you actually dream you're in the language section of a big bookshop filling up your bag excitedly with January sales. :)
Teango on 04 January 2011
When you wake up with a big pain in the neck (I didn't know it hurt so much!) and the
first thing that pops out your head is "stiff neck", although you don't remember ever
having heard or read or learned that expression (English is not your mother tongue). So
you think your still-in-deep-dream-state mind just made that up. You jump off the bed
and go over the internet (despite the enormous pain it causes to move so abruptly)
because you HAVE TO verify if those words are correct and properEnglish. And yes they
are! It's not your mind playing tricks on you.
Then you get worried 'cause you don't know how to say that in Spanish, and you won't be
able to tell your mommy-that-knows-all what's wrong with your neck. You go to google
translate and there it displays "tortÃcolis" (never heard that). Then you yell "maaaa,
tengo tortÃcolis!". She comes and says, "ah.. here in Paraguay they call it "te sopló
viento" (a wind blew you) (sounds nasty, doesn't it?).
Now you NEED to find out how to say that in Chinese (è½æ lÃozhÄn), Japanese (è©åã),
German (Genickstarre) and Portuguese (torcicolo). You realize you already knew that in
Portuguese.
And now you're here posting this occurrence in your favorite forum!
karaipyhare on 04 January 2011
When you wake up with a big pain in the neck (I didn't know it hurt so much!) and the
first thing that pops out your head is "stiff neck", although you don't remember ever
having heard or read or learned that expression (English is not your mother tongue). So
you think your still-in-deep-dream-state mind just made that up. You jump off the bed
and go over the internet (despite the enormous pain it causes to move so abruptly)
because you HAVE TO verify if those words are correct and properÂEnglish. And yes they
are! It's not your mind playing tricks on you.
Although saying you have a "stiff neck" is neither wrong nor unintelligible, it's more common and idiomatic to describe it as having a "crick" in one's neck, just fyi :)
kottoler.ello on 05 January 2011
You are somewhat disappointed to find out your Brazilian guide during your university exchange in Sao Paulo speaksEnglish, but are beyond thrilled when she prefers to converse in Portuguese.
Olympia on 07 January 2011
...when you get a foreign language song stuck in your head, and while singing it to yourself you finally realize what the lyrics mean.
Levi on 11 January 2011
Last night I dreamed that I was studying. I think it's nerd enough.
Matheus on 11 January 2011
Last night I dreamed that I was studying. I think it's nerd
enough.
Nerd enough would be if you added "...and I was having a great time" :D.
Thaorius on 11 January 2011
...when you get a foreign language song stuck in your head, and while singing it to yourself you finally realize what the lyrics mean.
I've done that. It's weird to have random lyrics playing in your head and then suddenly have the meaning of a phrase click that you hadn't caught before.
Warp3 on 11 January 2011
When you wake up with a big pain in the neck (I didn't know it hurt so much!) and the
first thing that pops out your head is "stiff neck", although you don't remember ever
having heard or read or learned that expression (English is not your mother tongue). So
you think your still-in-deep-dream-state mind just made that up. You jump off the bed
and go over the internet (despite the enormous pain it causes to move so abruptly)
because you HAVE TO verify if those words are correct and properÂEnglish. And yes they
are! It's not your mind playing tricks on you.
Although saying you have a "stiff neck" is neither wrong nor unintelligible, it's more common and idiomatic to
describe it as having a "crick" in one's neck, just fyi :)
"Stiff neck" is just fine for this nativeEnglish speaker. Where I live, if someone said he had a crick in his neck I'd
assume him to be an elderly person from the countryside. If someone young said it, I'd assume they were trying
to be funny.
Ah,English. Just when you think you know it, another regional variation pops up.However, having lived in
most regions of the US, I'd say that "stiff neck" is more widely used and understood.
seldnar on 11 January 2011
Last night I dreamed that I was studying. I think it's nerd
enough.
Nerd enough would be if you added "...and I was having a great time" :D.
AND ...I was sorry to have woken up because I was enjoying the dream so much!"
psy88 on 12 January 2011
When you wake up with a big pain in the neck (I didn't know it hurt so much!) and the
first thing that pops out your head is "stiff neck", although you don't remember ever
having heard or read or learned that expression (English is not your mother tongue). So
you think your still-in-deep-dream-state mind just made that up. You jump off the bed
and go over the internet (despite the enormous pain it causes to move so abruptly)
because you HAVE TO verify if those words are correct and properÂEnglish. And yes they
are! It's not your mind playing tricks on you.
Although saying you have a "stiff neck" is neither wrong nor unintelligible, it's more common and idiomatic to
describe it as having a "crick" in one's neck, just fyi :)
"Stiff neck" is just fine for this nativeÂEnglish speaker. Where I live, if someone said he had a crick in his neck I'd
assume him to be an elderly person from the countryside. If someone young said it, I'd assume they were trying
to be funny.
Ah,ÂEnglish. Just when you think you know it, another regional variation pops up.However, having lived in
most regions of the US, I'd say that "stiff neck" is more widely used and understood.
Out of curiosity, which states would you say this applies to? I'm from Texas, but Dallas, where most people speak pretty standard General AmericanEnglish, and I never imagined "crick" would be dialectical or archaic. My mom does have a bit of a Texan accent, though, so I may have picked it up from her.
On a side note, I only recently noticed how often she describes something as a "big ow" ("big old" but the l and d on "old" are dropped completely) whatever it is and it bugs the heck out of me.
kottoler.ello on 12 January 2011
I've lived on the west and east coasts and I've always heard stiff neck except from my grandmother who used crick.
genini1 on 12 January 2011
When you wake up with a big pain in the neck (I didn't know it hurt so much!) and the
first thing that pops out your head is "stiff neck", although you don't remember ever
having heard or read or learned that expression (English is not your mother tongue). So
you think your still-in-deep-dream-state mind just made that up. You jump off the bed
and go over the internet (despite the enormous pain it causes to move so abruptly)
because you HAVE TO verify if those words are correct and properÂEnglish. And yes they
are! It's not your mind playing tricks on you.
Although saying you have a "stiff neck" is neither wrong nor unintelligible, it's more common and idiomatic to describe it as having a "crick" in one's neck, just fyi :)
I'm more likely to say "stiff neck" myself. Around these parts if you say you have a "crick" in your neck people might think you have a creek in your neck!
Levi on 12 January 2011
And now all of you have proven how nerdy you are by discussing "stiff neck" vs. "cricket" over several pages in a completely unrelated thread. Congratulations!
Iversen on 12 January 2011
You have multiple books in various languages next to your bed
and when you look forward to breakfast so that you can read that day's lesson from the various foreign language calendars next to your dinning table.
RogerK on 12 January 2011
You have multiple books in various languages next to your bed
To continue the discussion of crick in the neck vs a stiff neck, neither would sound strange to me, but I also wouldn't use either of them. I'd probably just say my neck hurts, or possibly I have a pain in my neck.
hjordis on 13 January 2011
Hmm, I only have 50 language books, not enough. :(
sjheiss on 13 January 2011
When sleep becomes even more disrupted, and you start dreaming you're a contestant on Polyglot Blind Date, with the unenviable task of picking one out of three lovely languages hidden behind the screen.
Teango on 13 January 2011
When your girlfriend finishes her exam early while you're walking around the park near uni and your first thoughts are "damn, if she hadn't finished early, I'd have been able to read 20 mins of my grammar book before our going home - or maybe I should have just skipped this walk".
LanguageSponge on 13 January 2011
- When you're looking at scholarships and excitedly tell your friend, "Look, they accept the essay inEnglish, Spanish, Korean, Chinese, Japanese, and Portuguese!" depite the fact that you and her can only write in two of those languages.
- When you pray to any deity willing to hear that you marry a native in your target language(s), just like your big sister.
- When your heart aches at the mere thought of being raised monolingually.
- When you can't help but gape when the flute scale exercises your teacher just handed you has the title in bothEnglish and Finnish. You immediately pop open your pocket dictionary to translate then go on and tell the teacher, just 'cause.
- When you jump and smile giddily when your friend asks you to lend her yourEnglish-French/French-English pocket dictionary. You then immediately go on to remind her that you know websites and resources for her to learn French with (though you hold back on mentioning the TAC so you don't scare her off.)
- Kat
Phantom Kat on 14 January 2011
you start dreaming you're a contestant on Polyglot Blind Date, with the unenviable task of picking one out of three lovely languages hidden behind the screen
You were playing the wrong game. If you'd played Promiscuous Polyglot, you could have had them all! But you, like me, are so old now you need your precious sleep. My own new reality TV show is called "Napping With the Cats."
I sympathize, though. I know I am a language nerd because when I nod off when reading in another language, sometimes my mind keeps going and I can hear and speak and understand so much . . . it's very nice. I wish I could record these dreams just to see just how accurate my use of target languages is when I'm not awake. I get this great feeling of fluency, but I suspect it's not really so.
I don't want to know the truth if it just something like . . . glib beep beep fizzlewishy blarglefargle kerplunk . . .
meramarina on 14 January 2011
You walk past a snack bar called "Bites" and the first thing that comes to your mind is how funny French people must find it.
garyb on 19 January 2011
Jack
LanguageSponge on 25 January 2011
Jack
You know you're a language nerd when you didn't really like Vienna that much, but upon reading this post you suddenly have a strong urge to go back, just to visit that bookstore! Where is it, by the way? :)
Jinx on 25 January 2011
grâce (grahss) = grace
gras (grah) = fat (as in Mardi Gras)
Levi on 27 January 2011
Jack
You know you're a language nerd when you didn't really like Vienna that much, but upon reading this post you suddenly have a strong urge to go back, just to visit that bookstore! Where is it, by the way? :)
There are loads of them around Vienna, it's a chain called "Wilhelm Frick Buchhandlung" - the branch we went to is Kärntner StraÃe 30, which is closest to Stephansplatz U-Bahn station. I am sure there are better branches around the city, as this was just the first one we happened to stumble upon. I remember when I used to go to Munich far more often than I do now, there were much better bookshops than even that one, but I haven't been there for a few years now so would have to look up the addresses and stuff.
Jack
LanguageSponge on 27 January 2011
Jack
You know you're a language nerd when you didn't really like Vienna that much, but upon reading this post you suddenly have a strong urge to go back, just to visit that bookstore! Where is it, by the way? :)
There are loads of them around Vienna, it's a chain called "Wilhelm Frick Buchhandlung" - the branch we went to is Kärntner StraÃe 30, which is closest to Stephansplatz U-Bahn station. I am sure there are better branches around the city, as this was just the first one we happened to stumble upon. I remember when I used to go to Munich far more often than I do now, there were much better bookshops than even that one, but I haven't been there for a few years now so would have to look up the addresses and stuff.
Jack
I've been to that bookshop! And now have an urge to return...
Doogle on 27 January 2011
...when you're in the same museum and you pick up the same leaflet 6 times in 6 different languages - and one of the languages is one that you're not even able to read yet - German, Russian, French, Italian, Czech and Japanese. And you will read the same leaflet at least 5 times. And will eventually read it again in Japanese one day :]
LanguageSponge on 29 January 2011
You know you're a language nerd when you start putting upside down exclamation points and
question marks at the beginning ofEnglish sentences.
Thantophobia on 29 January 2011
You know you're a language nerd when you see lightning in the distance and the first word that comes into your mind is 'ngurumo', followed by 'relampago'.
strikingstar on 29 January 2011
You also know you're a language nerd when it's freezing cold here in Vienna, you're not really very near the centre of town and you both decide to walk into the centre. Why? Because we're leaving tomorrow and the more money we save by not taking the U-Bahn everywhere, the more we can spend in the bookshop at the end!!
Jack
LanguageSponge on 29 January 2011
You also know you're a language nerd when it's freezing cold here in Vienna, you're not really very near the centre of town and you both decide to walk into the centre. Why? Because we're leaving tomorrow and the more money we save by not taking the U-Bahn everywhere, the more we can spend in the bookshop at the end!!
Jack
...when you're using a thread about being a language nerd as a journal to document your entire trip to Vienna, because it's the most fitting place. :)
ellasevia on 29 January 2011
â¦You dream about Latin declensions.
â¦Your school bag is ridiculously heavy because you insist on bringing your big
Spanish dictionary to school.
â¦Someone sees you looking up a word in a foreign dictionary and asks you if you are
learning the dictionary by hart. You sarcastically reply, âYes, Iâm at J now,â and
he believes you.
â¦While talking to a friend, you suddenly realise the Latin etymology of a word and
promptly share it with him. He then calls you walking dictionary and you take it as
a complement.
â¦You have no obligation to study languages, but you feel guilty when you donât.
⦠You ask someone to do something âpor favorâ without realising it.
â¦When asked what the word for âumbrellaâ is in your native language, you take about 10
minutes to remember it, but you can immediately give the Spanish word for it.
â¦While at the beach during the holidays, you spend your time learning Latin instead of
swimming.
Syntax on 29 January 2011
You also know you're a language nerd when it's freezing cold here in Vienna, you're not really very near the centre of town and you both decide to walk into the centre. Why? Because we're leaving tomorrow and the more money we save by not taking the U-Bahn everywhere, the more we can spend in the bookshop at the end!!
Jack
...when you're using a thread about being a language nerd as a journal to document your entire trip to Vienna, because it's the most fitting place. :)
Not the entire trip, I'll be updating my TAC log with a pretty lengthy post mentioning all the language-nerdy stuff when I get back tomorrow. But yes, you're right, it is pretty nerdy :]
LanguageSponge on 29 January 2011
Fasulye
Fasulye on 29 January 2011
Fasulye
Then when you get out of bed you better eat a Danish!!!
Det er en god idé. That's a good idea.
Fasulye
Fasulye on 29 January 2011
Last night I wrote something in Dutch in my TAC log and decided I needed to give anEnglish translation because I thought my Dutch senteces might contain too many grammar mistakes. Unfortunately I spent even more time writing inEnglish because I was often using Dutch word order and typing Dutch words in the middle of my sentences.
mick33 on 29 January 2011
You also know you're a language nerd when it's freezing cold here in Vienna, you're not really very near the centre of town and you both decide to walk into the centre. Why? Because we're leaving tomorrow and the more money we save by not taking the U-Bahn everywhere, the more we can spend in the bookshop at the end!!
Jack
You know you are when you feel jealous because you wish you had a girlfriend/boyfriend/ significant other as dedicated to learning languages as is LanguageSponges'
psy88 on 30 January 2011
You know you're a language nerd when you're excited about getting a 1372 page Basque grammar and a 776 page Sumerian grammar. :D
sjheiss on 01 February 2011
You know you're a language nerd when you're excited about getting a 1372 page Basque grammar and a 776 page Sumerian grammar. :D
I think a true language nerd would give the titles. Ahem. ;)
Qbe on 02 February 2011
I don't see how that comes into play with nerdiness, but they are Standard Basque - A Progressive Grammar by Rudelf P. G. de Rijk, and A Descriptive Grammar of Sumerian by Abraham Hendrik Jagersma. I have them both in PDF form, but the Basque one is currently being shipped to me from Amazon. ;)
sjheiss on 02 February 2011
I don't see how that comes into play with nerdiness
I don't suppose it does; I was curious about the titles. Thanks for sharing!
Qbe on 02 February 2011
Kauderwelsch: Irisch (in German)
Lonely Planet's language guide to Bahasa Indonesia
A small Russian-Danish dictionary
Lonely Planet's big fat guide to Western Africa (inÂEnglish)
bilingual printouts:
something in Russian, mostly about the history of Georgia
something in Bahasa Indonesia (and partly Malaysia) about dinosaurs, geological epochs and violins
something in Icelandic about the elephant man, Walt Disney characters and the periodical system
something in Modern Greek about mathematicians, including Hypatia and Hilbert
something in Esperanto about Australopithecines, Zanzibar and William + Caroline Herschel
But I forgot to bring a French dictionary although I visited two French speaking countries
Iversen on 02 February 2011
You know you're a language nerd when you add language learning materials on amazon to your wish list because you plan to "eventually" study that language
FuroraCeltica on 02 February 2011
You know you're a language nerd when you add language learning materials on amazon to your wish list because you plan to "eventually" study that language
hjordis on 03 February 2011
You know you're a language nerd when you're sitting in the Spanish Riding School in Vienna, waiting to go and watch a demonstration by the Lipizzaner horses, and you hear Russian, to your delight. Two women are standing at the booking desk, repeating the words "horses, ride" inEnglish while deliberating amongst themselves in Russian how to say things inEnglish. They don't attempt to speak German so you assume they can't. The German attendant is trying to explain to them inEnglish (which the women clearly do not understand) that you can't ride the horses, you can only watch demonstrations by the school's riders. So feeling pretty nervous about the whole thing, you stand up and explain to the women in Russian that you can't ride the horses yourself and that you can only watch demonstrations during "Morgenarbeit" - morning exercise - between 10 and 12 and have a tour of the school in the afternoon. The women are very grateful for your help and you then help them book their tickets to watch the demonstrations the next day. You also know you're a language nerd when even after watching the horses during Morgenarbeit, watching them do all sorts of tricks you didn't think horses were even capable of, the short exchange with the women in Russian a few hours before made your day much more!
Jack
LanguageSponge on 03 February 2011
You know you're a language nerd when you're discussing basic linguistics in your sociolinguistics class and you mention a term that no one else in the room has heard of, including your professor.
ReneeMona on 03 February 2011
You know you are a language nerd when you are only up to the 35th lesson of 'French With Ease' and you order 'Using French' and 'Dutch With Ease' because you'll need something for later in the year. All the while you're still reading 'Italienisch in der Praxis'
RogerK on 04 February 2011
You know you're a language nerd when your girlfriend's mother rings the house and asks "do you want me to bring anything up with me when I visit tomorrow?". She is referring to cutlery and daily essentials as one of our flatmates is moving out. I then pipe up with "oh, don't worry about cutlery and whatever, I'll sort that, it's not important, just don't forget to bring up the Astérix books!". And now we're lying on the sofa reading Astérix et Obélix.
LanguageSponge on 04 February 2011
When you're roped into watching a romantic comedy ("The Rebound"), and you just can't understand why the name of the coffee shop has a backward "L" on the window. Then your girlfriend laughs and explains that it's not really "MOLO" but "MOJO"...all this time I just sat there with a furrowed brow and perplexed look on my face, wondering why on earth someone would ever misspell an abbreviation of молоко (Russian: milk). Guess my mind must have started to wander too far during the movie at that point... ;)
Teango on 05 February 2011
when you and some friends watch the 1948 movie "Johnny Belinda", about a young woman who is a deaf mute and a kind young doctor takes an interest in her and teaches her sign language.The doctor teaches himself from a book and then teaches the girl. He says it is a system developed by a French priest. As soon as it is over, your friends, knowing you as they do, jokingly say "now you will probably want to learn sign language".
Not only are they correct, but throughout the movie you were wondering about the signing the doctor used and if the signing is the same as American Sign Language. You also wonder if the French priest's system would perhaps not be limited to one language, but perhaps be a universal set of signs so that Signers from different countries could communicate with one another,unlike with the American Sign Language. You also decide to add Sign Language to your wish list to be studied but worry about whether it should be American Sign Language or if you could locate the French priest's system. You are also delighted to discover that the signing was accurate in the movie.
psy88 on 05 February 2011
Multitasking is bad, kids.
garyb on 07 February 2011
When you have German in school again for the first time in a year (I have been self-studying a lot, so I certainly didn't lose any knowledge, in fact quite the opposite!) and everyone has no idea what they are reading in the textbook. So after a friend asks you what the article says, you get carried away and end up translating the whole thing and then you realize everyone is staring at you as in a 'how did he just do that?!' kind of way.
Marc94 on 07 February 2011
You are a language nerd if you find this as disturbing as I do: finding a package of imported cookies with the package printed in fourteen languages, yes fourteen! and that's a fantastic and magnificent feeling until you try to open the package, and rip right throughEnglish, Italian, French, German, Portuguese and Dutch . . .
Oh, the sadness.
meramarina on 07 February 2011
You are a language nerd if you find this as disturbing as I do: finding a package of imported cookies with the package printed in fourteen languages, yes fourteen! and that's a fantastic and magnificent feeling until you try to open the package, and rip right throughÂEnglish, Italian, French, German, Portuguese and Dutch . . .
Oh, the sadness.
"Neeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrd!" (yelled in the same way as Homer Simpson did in that episode where he goes back to college)
Chung on 07 February 2011
I feel your pain, meramarina. Quickly...get the sellotape, all's not lost! :D
Teango on 07 February 2011
Above we have:ÂEnglish, French, Spanish, German; Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Danish/Norwegian (I can't tell); Greek, Russian, Japanese, Chinese
And I have pictures of other things with languages like Hungarian, Slovak, Czech, and Arabic too!
ellasevia on 08 February 2011
I was so upset I had to eat the whole bag of wafers and then spend the evening deciphering the wrapper of a mysterious Slavic chocolate bar I also have. I do not dare open it because I'm still looking at it (Croatian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Macedonian and Russian, I think . . . ) I hope you enjoyed my artistic depiction of grief, worthy of a not-very-adept three year old.
meramarina on 08 February 2011
You are a language nerd if you find this as disturbing as I do: finding a package of imported cookies with the package printed in fourteen languages, yes fourteen! and that's a fantastic and magnificent feeling until you try to open the package, and rip right throughÂEnglish, Italian, French, German, Portuguese and Dutch . . .
Oh, the sadness.
And THAT is me. I find myself trying to figure out meanings of languages and words by comparing the ones I know with the ones I've no idea of!
My wife has to bring me back to Earth sometimes at breakfast!
GibberMeister on 08 February 2011
You are a language nerd if you find this as disturbing as I do: finding a package of imported cookies with the package printed in fourteen languages, yes fourteen! and that's a fantastic and magnificent feeling until you try to open the package, and rip right throughÂEnglish, Italian, French, German, Portuguese and Dutch . . .
(img)
Oh, the sadness.
I literally winced when I read that. And then immediately started imagining what sort of linguistic amusem*nts could take place due to an imperfectly aligned reconstruction of the package... this may be my geekiest moment.
(edited to avoid re-posting the picture)
Jinx on 08 February 2011
...when you kick yourself for realizing, after the game is over, that you should have muted theÂEnglish commentary while watching the France-Brazil football match and listened to the Radio France broadcast instead.
Levi on 11 February 2011
when you are getting your hair cut and your barber starts to speak to another barber in Italian and, even though you have not studied Italian since your university days, many many years ago, you can follow the conversation. What is more amazing-and more proof of being a language nerd- is that you are translating, in your mind,what they are saying into your first target language and feeling frustrated that you cannot ,as yet, translate it into your second target language.
psy88 on 14 February 2011
...when you accidentally use another language's grammar in your native language
...when you accidentally speak words in another language without realizing it at first
...especially when you're already speaking another language! (My Finnish always has little strange bits of German and Spanish in it. It makes sense to no one but me.)
jdmoncada on 14 February 2011
When frequent visits to the library collecting courses from different languages makes you stand out to the librarians making you slightly embarassed.
Adrean on 14 February 2011
Friday morning I saw a jar of jam with a picture of blueberries on the label with the words "Syld Blåbär", which is Swedish for blueberry jam. I picked up the jar hoping to read more Swedish words on the label. Unfortunately for me, the other information on the label was inEnglish, though I did find out that the jam was made in Sweden for Ikea. I have no reason to buy new furniture, but I think I will be going to the Ikea store next week anyway.
mick33 on 19 February 2011
Friday morning I saw a jar of jam with a picture of blueberries on the label with the words "Syld BlÃ¥bär", which is Swedish for blueberry jam. I picked up the jar hoping to read more Swedish words on the label. Unfortunately for me, the other information on the label was inÂEnglish, though I did find out that the jam was made in Sweden for Ikea. I have no reason to buy new furniture, but I think I will be going to the Ikea store next week anyway.
Haha, the reason I love Ikea is because it's Swedish, I always get the urge to speak Swedish when I'm there. And I love how the dummy books in their bookcases are always in Swedish!
Psychedelica on 19 February 2011
You know you're a language nerd when you are having a German lesson with a native teacher when all of a sudden
your mother, whose first language is Mandarin, bursts into the classroom along with a Spanish teacher, saying in
Mandarin that she does not understand what the Spanish teacher is trying to tell her. You then translate from
Spanish to Mandarin for your mother, reassure the Spanish teacher in Spanish that now she understands, and then
proceed to explain to your own German teacher in German what is going on.
That was probably one of the most epic moments I've ever had as a polyglot. :P I was at a language school when this
happened, so there were many teachers teaching their own native language.
yawn on 19 February 2011
...when you've converted all your 1980s/1990s language tapes and videos to MP3 or .flv format and then burned them to CD and DVD and stored them to your hard drive and external drive. Despite all these copies you're still unable to throw away the original tapes/videos just in case the copies on modern technolgy get lost, burned, warped or damaged all at the same time
...when you give a biology presentation at school/university and give impromptu etymologies of scientific termingology and you don't stop yourself as you think it's good for people to learn about their language
...when you think it would be immense fun to create a parallel Icelandic language that's been heavily influenced by 500 years of Finnish and South-Slavic languages, taking into account phonetic shifts, vowel harmony etc
...when you can't bring yourself to watch the UK-produced series of 'Wallander' as the pronunciation of 'Ystad' is cringingly wrong... You get so annoyed by it that you consider writing to the producers, recommending that the actors use Professor Arguelles' 'shadowing' technique in order to improve their pronunciation
...when you trawl online second-hand bookshops, desperately seeking editions of language textbooks that were printed in the 60s/70s/80s (before you were born) when grammar was 'taught properly', as you get annoyed that 21st century language textbook writers only mention 'grammar' three times in the entire book and avoid teaching the 'locative' or the 'middle voice' at all costs
...when your IPOD's 'top 5 most-played' list is TL versions of Postman Pat, Bob the Builder and soppy ballads, songs that you'd never ever listen to (sing along to) in your native language.
...when you go to your local supermarket daily in order to get accustomed to hearing Polish and Russian, although you aren't actually studying them yet, but they may come to you in a dream
You and your classmates end up having a 5-course meal at a restaurant (you only planned on having coffee) because some speakers of your TL sit on the table next to you. You and your classmates decide this is a perfect opportunity for simultaneous interpretation practice and play 'spot the dialect/accent'
..when this is your third and bigget contribution to this website so far!
skyr on 20 February 2011
...when you think using packaging and manuals for language-learning is one of the best vocabulary-building and translation exercises you've ever heard!
...when you think that buying Polish and German cheese, bread etc, although more expensive than national brands, will create a better ambience for your language studies and thus improve your learning
...when you call random numbers in Southern Sweden, known for having a 'harder-to-understand' accent, asking if "[Jan] is in?" and, although this person doesn't exist in your life, you feel the aural/oral practice you gain, far outweighs the strangeness of such practice
*off to investigate the contents of the recycling bag->
skyr on 20 February 2011
Edit: I decided to write only part in French... And then the other three parts in Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian. :)
ellasevia on 22 February 2011
When you are on a relaxing holiday abroad, get the inspiration to take up the local language, and can't
wait to get home asyou have the appropriate Assimil in the post.
LazyLinguist on 22 February 2011
...when you find this comedy routine way funnier than your friends do:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hJQsvoY6VU - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hJQsvoY6VU
Levi on 22 February 2011
-Scream random exclamations in another tongue because you feel like it.
-When you're taking notes or writing something and switch in and out of different languages.
-When you're a member of this forum :D
cymrotom on 22 February 2011
When you become very upset upon finding out that Japanese-Chinese Cookbook isn't a bilingual text, but rather a compilation of Japanese and Chinese recipes. I should have known since the title is inEnglish.
hjordis on 23 February 2011
When you're on a two day student booze cruise with your buddies to celebrate high school being over, and it brings you great joy to notice upon reading the multilingual texts on the counter of the tax free shop that the Russian preposition без is indeed used with the genitive.
Thatzright on 23 February 2011
You know you're a language nerd when you get just as excited upon receiving new course books in Italian and
Portuguese as other teens get excited over the latest fashion trend, the hottest celebrity, or the newest video game!
yawn on 23 February 2011
...when you spend 19 months searching '401 Czech verbs' in the hope that someone someday will sell it at a reasonable price (it's extortionate in UK bookshops). You eventually find it on ebay for 2.36 euros/$3.23 and you then spend 2 hours composing an email in Czech (a language you don't yet speak) to thank the seller for making your life complete!
skyr on 23 February 2011
...when you're so thrilled to find a bilingual kids' book ("Chaucer's First Winter"/"El primer invierno de Chaucer") in your Cheerios box that you have to sit right down and read the whole thing in both languages, despite the fact that
A) you're not studying Spanish and don't plan to anytime soon, and
B) you have a cup of tea over-brewing and cereal getting soggy in milk.
This has gotta come first.
Jinx on 27 February 2011
.... when language learning-related material occupies 25 GB of your PC's hard-disk.
Alois M. on 27 February 2011
...when you're excited that the metrocard you bought has only Spanish text on the back...
Kartof on 27 February 2011
I have been listening to Latin videos on Youtube for an hour or so, more specifically a series about humanism, spoken by 'Aloisius Miraglia' and uploaded by 'Baeticus' (no.1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h79Tk44tdJY - here ). On my TV there is a program about bluidy murder cases with Danish subtitles - not something I find very interesting. What drove me to this thread was that I suddenly realized that each time I looked at the TV I found myself translating the Danish subtitles into Pig Latin...
Iversen on 27 February 2011
- When you keep a notebook perpetually open in front of your PC to write down the new words you come across surfing the Internet, one couple of pages for each of a dozen of languages.
- When you study Sanskrit through German, and Japanese through French, Basque through Italian..... at the same time.
Alois M. on 02 March 2011
....when you try to speak Chinese with yourself, within your head, and replace the words you don't know with French or German ones.
Alois M. on 02 March 2011
- When you study Sanskrit through German, and Japanese through French, Basque through Italian..... at the same time.
I do this all the time! I have different languages than this example, but I always feel like I'm studying "through" something.
jdmoncada on 02 March 2011
.... when language learning-related material occupies 25 GB of your PC's hard-disk.
Oh yeah? How about... SIXTY gigabytes?
I'm not exaggerating! My materials cover 60 languages and eight dialects. I've even had to buy an external hard-drive to keep all my movies on, because my language-learning materials crowded them off my computer. ;)
Jinx on 03 March 2011
I've even had to buy an external hard-drive to keep all my movies on, because my language-learning materials crowded them off my computer. ;)
Because naturally the language-learning materials took priority. :)
ellasevia on 03 March 2011
I've even had to buy an external hard-drive to keep all my movies on, because my language-learning materials crowded them off my computer. ;)
Because naturally the language-learning materials took priority. :)
Of course! I have this paranoid Luddite conviction that things stored on external HDs are more susceptible to random bouts of vanishing than things stored on a computer HD (although I know there's absolutely no logic to that), and even though it's taken me years to assemble my giant film collection, I'd still much rather lose all of them than my precious language stuff!
Jinx on 03 March 2011
When you talk to your French friend in Spanish, despite not having spoken it for years, your Georgian friend in
Reorgian (a mixture of Russian and Georgian, mostly Russian), your OTHER French friend in German, your new
Ossetian acquaintance in a mixture of Russian and German, your Polish friend in extremely colloquial Polish, and
your Czech-American friend in Czech...all within an hour...NO BIG DEAL OR ANYTHING.
ruskivyetr on 03 March 2011
When you talk to your French friend in Spanish, despite not having spoken it for years, your Georgian friend in
Reorgian (a mixture of Russian and Georgian, mostly Russian), your OTHER French friend in German, your new
Ossetian acquaintance in a mixture of Russian and German, your Polish friend in extremely colloquial Polish, and
your Czech-American friend in Czech...all within an hour...NO BIG DEAL OR ANYTHING.
When a few weeks ago at church, some friends of mine were describing a new member of the congegation by saying "He speaks 4 languages and is learning two more in college right now." I was impressed but not in the same way everyone else was. Most of my friends think speaking 4 languages is a nearly impossible feat, but of course I know differently and was simply curious to know what languages he speaks. I also regret that I still haven't had a chance to have a conversation with him.
When I went to a nightclub and almost embarrassed myself because I wanted to ask the DJ why he had no Swedish or Spanish language pop music.
mick33 on 03 March 2011
When you're moving into a new flat and you find a book in Spanish about how to raise a baby, that the previous occupant must have left behind. Your flatmate asks jokingly if you want to keep it and use it to learn Spanish at some point in the future. For a moment you actually consider it. (This is coming from somebody who has no children and doesn't plan to have children any time soon).
garyb on 03 March 2011
When you're moving into a new flat and you find a book in Spanish about how to raise a baby, that the previous occupant must have left behind. Your flatmate asks jokingly if you want to keep it and use it to learn Spanish at some point in the future. For a moment you actually consider it. (This is coming from somebody who has no children and doesn't plan to have children any time soon).
Secret tip: if you read child-raising tips as relationship-advice tips, you might be amazed at the amount of usefulness you can glean from them! Speaking from experience. ;)
Jinx on 03 March 2011
...when this was your Friday-night status
skyr on 03 March 2011
- When you study Sanskrit through German, and Japanese through French, Basque through Italian..... at the same time.
I do this all the time! I have different languages than this example, but I always feel like I'm studying "through" something.
I do it too! It keeps one TL 'alive' whilst learning another. It can also increase the accessibilty to study-materials - I study Slovak and Icelandic and there aren't many materials available inEnglish.
skyr on 03 March 2011
...when you update your social network status as "is learning Icelandic with Bambi on youtube" and later realise this isn't possibly the best thing to admit to on such a site.
Awesome. If everyone did that I might find those sites a lot more interesting.
ReneeMona on 03 March 2011
...when you smile every time a Deutsche Welle reporter says a foreign name, because they almost always make a decent effort to get the pronunciation right (even with difficult names like "Gbagbo" and "Yuan").
Levi on 03 March 2011
...when you can correctly identify the origin of a foreign accent in the language you're studying.
Levi on 03 March 2011
When you're moving into a new flat and you find a book in Spanish about how to raise a baby, that the previous occupant must have left behind. Your flatmate asks jokingly if you want to keep it and use it to learn Spanish at some point in the future. For a moment you actually consider it. (This is coming from somebody who has no children and doesn't plan to have children any time soon).
You did the right thing. I too, like the other true language nerds, have a lot of material for languages I hope to study but, in truth, will probably never get to study. I just know that if I didn't have the materials I would definitely need them as I would suddenly feel the need to began to study that language.
Also, there is nothing more frustrating for the target languages you are studying then to not obtain a particular study guide or course that you come across, and then later, when you want it,to find that it not longer is available.
Tolkien uses a word that perfectly fits these situations. The Middle Earth word "mathom" refers to something for which you have no real or immediate use, but it is just too intrinsically valuable to throw out and so you save it.
psy88 on 04 March 2011
So my book with anecdotes in Albanian is a mathom, like my Georgian grammar, my violin and my old windows 95 computer. But the word "mathom" itself is not a mathom because it definitely is very useful.
Iversen on 04 March 2011
...when you update your social network status as "is learning Icelandic with Bambi on youtube" and later realise this isn't possibly the best thing to admit to on such a site.
Awesome. If everyone did that I might find those sites a lot more interesting.
There's one for 'Bambi learns French' too!
skyr on 04 March 2011
contains your target language.
I did this today. I needed a new mouse for my computer. MicroCenter has an entire aisle
of mice. So after my preliminary filter (not wireless, not insanely expensive), they all
looked pretty much the same to me. So I took the box with French printed on it.
Shenandoah on 05 March 2011
When you're constantly telling friends: "You, get Anki, I don't care if you don't study
languages, just get it!" or "Hey, there's a good thing called Lang-8 if you're making a
lot of writing mistakes".
LazyLinguist on 05 March 2011
When you're on a two day student booze cruise with your buddies to celebrate high school being over, and it brings you great joy to notice upon reading the multilingual texts on the counter of the tax free shop that the Russian preposition без is indeed used with the genitive.
This is what I do all the time with Russian. I seriously doubt that my professors are actually teaching me Russian until I see something used in real life. I still have my doubts, I think it's a conspiracy.
When you're actually willing to read the Twilight series in Serbian because those are the only books you were able to find that actually seemed appropriate for your level.
gdoyle1990 on 06 March 2011
when you're packing for the weekend and can not make up your mind about which books you should carry up with you,
so you eventually settle on the Persian Assimil, a Yiddish newspaper and a copy of Cicero's letters.
Of course, it's your friend's birthday and you're not supposed to have any free time to read but, eh, one never knows...
akkadboy on 06 March 2011
When you consider teaching your one year old 'a language a day' on top of two native languages to be 'just for starters' ^^
When the only downside to the above plan is finding the time to research and create the flashcards/phrase + story books in nine languages!
When you find yourself listening to Chinese and Japanese children's songs rather than 'regular' music...
Ezhik on 06 March 2011
"Were you speaking Russian at any point last night?"
"No..."
"Oh, must've been a dream. I seem to remember some old guy coming up to you and you started speaking fluent Russian to him."
"Oh. Yeah, I definitely can't do that."
kottoler.ello on 07 March 2011
When you get disappointed that the game you've downloaded is not the kind you prefer, but
then play (and replay) it anyway, because it can be switched to 7(!) different languages.
ember on 07 March 2011
You also know you're a language nerd when this is a very regular occurrence.
Jack
LanguageSponge on 09 March 2011
You know you're a language nerd when you've watched I Just Can't Wait to Be King:
multilanguage so my many times on Youtube that you've memorized it. You're a bigger
nerd if you've memorized the multilanguage version and forgot the original!
Icaria909 on 11 March 2011
Fasulye
Fasulye on 11 March 2011
When you feel disappointed when you can't practice your Turkish with the proprietor of a
kebab stand because he's Egyptian, not Turkish.
arthur on 11 March 2011
many, audio tracks, and almost unlimited subtitles... Then you wonder how you were ever able to live without a
copy of "Groundhog Day" withÂEnglish, French, and Portuguese dubbing, and subtitles in:ÂEnglish, French, Korean,
Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese (Traditional and Simplified), Thai, Indonesian, Dutch, and Arabic!
P.S. There is something surreal about watching "Groundhog Day" every day, but in different languages.
-Slacker
Slacker on 12 March 2011
When finding an amazing language mathom, a book of 100 tricks to do with a set of magic items you don't have but written in Dutch, French, German,English, Swedish, Danish, and Italian, at an estate sale is the official beginning of Spring Break in your mind. Even better is that the 4 books we bought cost $2.16 all together.
kottoler.ello on 12 March 2011
when you're packing for the weekend and can not make up your mind about which books you should carry up with you,
so you eventually settle on the Persian Assimil, a Yiddish newspaper and a copy of Cicero's letters.
Of course, it's your friend's birthday and you're not supposed to have any free time to read but, eh, one never knows...
Yep guilty of this I do love Cicero's letters
when you watch the whole series of Star Trek Deep Space Nine in German even though you can't speak it because you wanted to know if they would speak Klingon in a German accent
darkwhispersdal on 12 March 2011
When you just took a test in a different language about a still different country were
this language is not the native language.
LazyLinguist on 13 March 2011
...when you stop typing in order to eavesdrop on the guys whispering in Romanian near you in the library, and they notice your sudden silence and move away. Foiled again!
Jinx on 13 March 2011
your parents talk to you about moving this summer, and you immediately suggest emigrating to Germany, or
moving to towns where you know that there are speakers of your target languages.
your friend opens your book bag to get your graphing calculator, and your German grammar book, Russian
grammar book, Polish coursebook, reading material in German, Persian coursebook, and Swahili phrasebook all
come tumbling out. You know you're a huge language nerd if you nearly start crying because your materials
are more important to you than anything else you own.
ruskivyetr on 13 March 2011
When you mock all your friends for buying Blu-Ray players, until you realize that Blu-Ray discs can have many,
many, audio tracks, and almost unlimited subtitles...
Not just that, but there are fewer (and thus larger) regions as well. For example, the US, Japan, and South Korea are in separate DVD regions (1, 2, and 3, respectively) but the same Blu-ray Region (A).
I must admit that the region differences and language counts have recently tempted me to invest in Blu-ray when I would otherwise have no real interest in doing so.
Warp3 on 14 March 2011
...when you get home you realise there is a spelling mistake on said item of clothing so you email the company to inform them of this error, providing a full explanation to why the slogan is incorrect
skyr on 14 March 2011
When you get angry at a friend because they have no interest in learning your TL with you :D ((I'm sure that one is already on here somewhere ;))
PonyGirl on 14 March 2011
...when you are mad at all those french people speaking at you inEnglish in Paris. Really, why nearly everyone I know meets the french who want to speak french only and I meet the other kind mostly?
...when you usually write homework of foreign language for half of your class since their teacher doesn't bother to actually teach them the grammar or vocabulary needed for it.
...when you know you should study for your subjects at university but can't help it and do a few grammar exercises of Spanish instead. Or read a few pages of this thread :-D
Btw I have never seen such a long thread on any forum before.:-D
Cavesa on 15 March 2011
believe.
..When you finally get a good night's sleep after 3 days, you are more pleased about the
fact you had your first TL dream than actually getting the rest.
LazyLinguist on 15 March 2011
...when you start seeing foreign language banner ads onEnglish language websites. Facebook just gave me a banner ad in Ukrainian, which I've never even studied!
Levi on 15 March 2011
On a similar theme: you're filling out a job application and one of the questions is about which languages you know and your abilities in them, and you're a bit sad that there's only space for 3 foreign languages. Not that you know more than 3 foreign languages, but... you know, in case you did?
garyb on 16 March 2011
everytime someone asks me or mentions something remotely about languages. i.e., japanese and i go on a tangent about how this and that works. or my half-korean boyfriend about korean, and i nag him to learn it but he wont. T___T i wonder how i can get him to learn korean with meeeee.
Hanekawa on 16 March 2011
when you see the initials RS, MT,or, TY and you automatically think of...well, I don't have to tell you.
psy88 on 17 March 2011
- when you're watching your Spanish novela and one of the characters, who is drunk, utters, "Arigatou goizamasu," to the woman who is helping him on his feet. You flip out and immediately translate for your mom.
- Kat
Phantom Kat on 18 March 2011
When one of the first of those language resources you open is for Avestan (the language of Zoroastrian scripture) and (even though you're neither Zoroastrian nor will really get any use out of this language) spend an hour learning the script.
When you're in Panera Bread with your mom, and you're elated/trying to listen in to a tutor teaching Arabic at the next table.
mashmusic11235 on 19 March 2011
When your first call for new bands is the music forum on this website.
LazyLinguist on 19 March 2011
You know you're a language nerd when you nearly get hit by a car because you're so engrossed in your new Berlitz Essential Spanish book that you crossed the street without looking up. (Don't walk and read at the same time, kids!)
ReneeMona on 21 March 2011
You know you're a language nerd when you nearly get hit by a car because you're so engrossed in your new Berlitz Essential Spanish book that you crossed the street without looking up. (Don't walk and read at the same time, kids!)
I am glad you didn't get run over. Now, if the driver was also a language nerd doing his Berlitz while driving,things might have been very different.
psy88 on 22 March 2011
.... when language learning-related material occupies 25 GB of your PC's hard-disk.
Oh yeah? How about... SIXTY gigabytes?
Nowhere nearly enough for a true language nerd. I've got nearly 1 TB, in just about every language under the Sun. This is after burning all my foreign films because my 2TB external hard drive was running out of space. Instead, I've now got over 500 DVDs, with two or three films on each.
I'm never going to read (or watch) everything I've got, but there's no way I would ever get rid of them.
patuco on 25 March 2011
Also you know you're a language nerd when the consultant comes in regarding the (fairly serious) operation you're going to be having the next day, and the only thing you can concentrate on is not what she's telling you, but trying to work out what part of Germany she comes from :P
LanguageSponge on 25 March 2011
.... when language learning-related material occupies 25 GB of your PC's hard-disk.
Oh yeah? How about... SIXTY gigabytes?
Nowhere nearly enough for a true language nerd. I've got nearly 1 TB, in just about every language under the Sun. This is after burning all my foreign films because my 2TB external hard drive was running out of space. Instead, I've now got over 500 DVDs, with two or three films on each.
I'm never going to read (or watch) everything I've got, but there's no way I would ever get rid of them.
Hey, no fair, I didn't realize we could count our foreign-language films! I was going by academic material alone! *goes running off to re-calculate* Okay... I think you still win, patuco. ;)
EDIT: Got any recommendations for a dependable and not absurdly expensive external drive? The only good brand I know is Western Digital, but I'd like to be able to do some comparison shopping. The one I've got is 360 gigs, I think, and cost maybe $70. Is that a good price, or could I get better? I was hoping to find a 1TB without breaking $100, but if that kind of price comes at the expense of quality, I don't want to risk it. My language material is too important. :)
Jinx on 26 March 2011
.... when language learning-related material occupies 25 GB of your PC's hard-disk.
Oh yeah? How about... SIXTY gigabytes?
Nowhere nearly enough for a true language nerd. I've got nearly 1 TB, in just about every language under the Sun. This is after burning all my foreign films because my 2TB external hard drive was running out of space. Instead, I've now got over 500 DVDs, with two or three films on each.
I'm never going to read (or watch) everything I've got, but there's no way I would ever get rid of them.
I feel your pain. After spending hundreds of dollars though on several 2TB HDDs along with the enclosures to house them and still running out of space, I've come to accept that I'm probably not going to watch twice anyway all 240 episodes of Alisa: Folge deinem Herzen or the 700 or so of ÐбÑÑÑалÑное колÑÑо, so I've resigned myself to let movies and video material go after one viewing. A dilemma remains however as to what to do with those Mongolian movies I swear I might need one day fifty or sixty years from now when surely after mastering thirty or forty other languages I'll finally have the time to consider learning that one.
EDIT: Got any recommendations for a dependable and not absurdly expensive external drive? The only good brand I know is Western Digital, but I'd like to be able to do some comparison shopping. The one I've got is 360 gigs, I think, and cost maybe $70. Is that a good price, or could I get better? I was hoping to find a 1TB without breaking $100, but if that kind of price comes at the expense of quality, I don't want to risk it. My language material is too important. :)
What I do is buy a dual or quadruple external enclosure with RAID and use mirroring so that if one drive fails all the data is backed up in the other. A good 2TB internal hard drive can cost some $115, but I've seen some quality drives for as low as $90. Samsung and Hitachi are good brands; Seagate is to be avoided. Western Digital Green doesn't work well with RAID.
http://www.amazon.com/3-5IN-Dual-Sata-External-Enclosur e/dp/B001K9BF4K/ref=sr_1_23?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1 261929544&sr=8-23 - This is a good and comparably inexpensive dual-bay enclosure.Juаn on 26 March 2011
Thanks for the tips, Juan â that sounds like a pretty foolproof setup you have. I'm making a note of the brands you mentioned â and thank you for the link too!
Jinx on 26 March 2011
I feel your pain. After spending hundreds of dollars though on several 2TB HDDs along with the enclosures to house them and still running out of space, I've come to accept that I'm probably not going to watch twice anyway all 240 episodes of Alisa: Folge deinem Herzen or the 700 or so of ÐбÑÑÑалÑное колÑÑо, so I've resigned myself to let movies and video material go after one viewing. A dilemma remains however as to what to do with those Mongolian movies I swear I might need one day fifty or sixty years from now when surely after mastering thirty or forty other languages I'll finally have the time to consider learning that one.
Tell me about it. I'm about to buy a few more HDDs (or possibly a RAID tower) myself since I keep running out of space for all my Korean media (and some Japanese media for when I "eventually start learning it"). Of course I also have what is essentially a manual RAID-1 setup (I have two external drives which I manually sync with robocopy), so I'm only utilizing about half the space I could theoretically use, but I'll take that trade off to prevent the chance of a drive dying and having to spend weeks locating and reacquiring all this data.
What I do is buy a dual or quadruple external enclosure with RAID and use mirroring so that if one drive fails all the data is backed up in the other. A good 2TB internal hard drive can cost some $115, but I've seen some quality drives for as low as $90. Samsung and Hitachi are good brands; Seagate is to be avoided. Western Digital Green doesn't work well with RAID. http://www.amazon.com/3-5IN-Dual-Sata-External-Enclosur e/dp/B001K9BF4K/ref=sr_1_23?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1 261929544&sr=8-23 - This is a good and comparably inexpensive dual-bay enclosure.
The ironic thing is that Seagate used to be the gold standard for drives (mostly due to their 5-yr warranties), but lately they seem to be about the same as most other brands (and their 5-yr warranties have all but disappeared now). That said, though, both of my current externals are Seagate and we also use Seagate external drives at work (I work in IT) for offsite backups and they've performed well.
Despite their good reviews I've had very poor luck with Western Digital HDDs, especially at work where we've had entire batches of them suddenly start dying off (I've lost count of the number of 80GB 10000rpm WD Raptors we've had die). Even without those work batches included, most of my personal failed drives have been Western Digital HDDs as well (both retail and OE models). Personally, I make a habit of avoiding WD now.
I've not really owned any Samsungs, but their reviews are consistently good and I definitely consider them a worthwhile candidate (in fact, my next HDD purchase will most likely be Samsung drives).
I've owned/used several Hitachi HDDs and they've all worked flawlessly, so I have no complaints with that brand either.
Warp3 on 26 March 2011
You know you're a language nerd when you're sitting in a hospital bed waiting for an op. You have books, DVDs, chocolate, games consoles, tea, coffee, a mobile phone and music to entertain you, and all you actually do other than sleep is read your French grammar book.
LanguageSponge on 27 March 2011
You know you're a language nerd when on the night of your one year anniversary, your
girlfriend is wearing new lingerie and she calls you to bed, and without looking up from
your studies, you shout, "Just twenty more minutes! I have to finish these Greek
conjugations!"
Icaria909 on 28 March 2011
...when you are at first disappointed that your speakers are picking up radio interference when you put the volume on the lowest setting, then delighted when you listen closely and realize you are picking up two very distant radio stations: one from China and one from Spain!
Levi on 30 March 2011
...when you test all the languages present in the new electronic gadget you just bought. (I have a new MP3 player with plenty of EU languages. Yay!)
jdmoncada on 30 March 2011
Keep on rockin'!
- Mae
Mae on 30 March 2011
When you are driving in your car listening to Michel Thomas French and a large transport truck with the words "Estes express" suddenly pulls in front of you. Rather than being annoyed, you think, "oh, the Spanish subjunctive"
psy88 on 01 April 2011
When you read "A SMILE is the same in every language" written on a restaurant wall, and think to yourself, "no, not really". Then you proceed to silently count off all the words you know in your head whilst everyone else thinks you've just fallen into a momentary stupor over your milkshake and huevos rancheros (ÑлÑбка, Lächeln, leende, sonrisa...didn't get very far lol)!
Teango on 01 April 2011
When a Japanese company returns an out of spec product to your firm for re-testing and you keep all of the labels on the boxes as they are in Japanese and you may want to learn it one day.
darkwhispersdal on 01 April 2011
When you're at church and you look at the leaflets in the porch to try and find some information about Lourdes. You don't see anything relevant, but you do see a leaflet written all in Polish, so you take one of those instead, despite not knowing Polish and not having any spare time to learn a new language until at least September. Then you spend the journey home looking at the leaflet trying to pronounce the words.
ThisIsGina on 02 April 2011
When you can watch the evening news without batting an eye, but an April Fool's joke about Assimil going bankrupt causes a wave of anguish to come over you.
BartoG on 02 April 2011
When you squeal with delight when you find product information in Russian on labels in an accessory shop and squeal again later when you find a film in both French and Vietnamese. I think I pretty much embarrassed my sister today
darkwhispersdal on 03 April 2011
When you almost crash into multiple people head-on while walking on the mall because you're caught up in reading your Japanese grammar book. Oh, and you were reading it aloud to ensure maximum retention so people were probably staring, but I really wouldn't know since I never looked up. My brother was trying desperately to get as far away from me as possible so that he wouldn't be associated with me. :)
ellasevia on 03 April 2011
But this kind of gives a whole new meaning to "target" language!
Make your plans for next year!
http://www.pillowfightday.com/ - International Pillow Fight Daymeramarina on 03 April 2011
When you really ought to spend time doing GCSE revision, but are getting distracted by learning five languages
simultaneously...
OliSayeed on 03 April 2011
But this kind of gives a whole new meaning to "target" language!
Make your plans for next year!
http://www.pillowfightday.com/ - International Pillow Fight DayMy friend linked a German article to me about this. It was very simple, unfortunately, but it was definitely enough to get annoyed at myself for not finding out about it sooner and going to Vienna to join in with her :]
LanguageSponge on 03 April 2011
And no, I have not really decided to learn Polish yet - at least not before I find a big fat Polish-something dictionary which doesn't hide the imperfective verbs (try to look up "beiÃen" in the Pons Kompaktwörterbuch, - it mentions "ugryźÄ", but not "gryźÄ"!)
Iversen on 03 April 2011
When you can watch the evening news without batting an eye, but an April Fool's joke about Assimil going bankrupt causes a wave of anguish to come over you.
When you compare this year's April Fool's joke to last year's, wondering which was better (you got fooled last year but not this year) and begin to wonder what next year's will be..and if you can think of one worthy of posting.
psy88 on 04 April 2011
When you can watch the evening news without batting an eye, but an April Fool's joke about Assimil going bankrupt causes a wave of anguish to come over you.
When you compare this year's April Fool's joke to last year's, wondering which was better (you got fooled last year but not this year) and begin to wonder what next year's will be..and if you can think of one worthy of posting.
What was last year's?
ellasevia on 04 April 2011
When you are talking to your girlfriend, who already has knowledge ofEnglish, French, Dutch, Italian, German and Russian, about Latin, and you're giving her a vague overview of the cases - because she's scared of cases for some reason which is completely nonsensical to you. So you name them... Nominative, Accusative, Dative, Genitive, Vocative, an excuse for half a Locative and Instrumental. Then you get strangely flustered for a second and explain that you've been temporarily mixed up with Russian, and that the last case is called the Ablative, not the Instrumental. And you spend half the day afterward wondering how you could have made such a silly mistake.
LanguageSponge on 04 April 2011
When you can watch the evening news without batting an eye, but an April Fool's joke about Assimil going bankrupt causes a wave of anguish to come over you.
When you compare this year's April Fool's joke to last year's, wondering which was better (you got fooled last year but not this year) and begin to wonder what next year's will be..and if you can think of one worthy of posting.
What was last year's?
The thread headline was " how to learn Chinese in 10 hours" and then when you clicked on it read "you can't! April's Fool"
psy88 on 05 April 2011
View this email in:
English | Deutsch | Español | Français | Italiano | Português | ç¹é«ä¸æ | ç®ä½ä¸æ | íêµì´
...which covers both of your current target languages. But, of course, you grabbed copies of a few other versions "just in case".
Warp3 on 05 April 2011
-former computer geek, now language geek.
garyb on 06 April 2011
When you learn a new word (hubris) in your native language,English, and the first thing you think is: Is this a masculine or feminine noun? After feeling very confused for a few moments as you try to answer this question, you finally remember thatEnglish doesn't have genders.
Amerykanka on 08 April 2011
When you learn a new word (hubris) in your native language,ÂEnglish, and the first thing you think is: Is this a masculine or feminine noun? After feeling very confused for a few moments as you try to answer this question, you finally remember thatÂEnglish doesn't have genders.
When you already know the word "hubris" ( also spelled "hybris", by the way), but reading this makes you think, "it is a Greek word; does Greek use masculine and feminine nouns? Greek is not one of my target languages but now I am curious about it" And,you know you are a language nerd when you expect-or hope!- someone on this forum will enlighten you so you can sleep tonight and not be wondering if Greek, a non-Romance language has genders for the nouns.
psy88 on 08 April 2011
When you learn a new word (hubris) in your native language,ÂEnglish, and the first thing you think is: Is this a masculine or feminine noun? After feeling very confused for a few moments as you try to answer this question, you finally remember thatÂEnglish doesn't have genders.
When you already know the word "hubris" ( also spelled "hybris", by the way), but reading this makes you think, "it is a Greek word; does Greek use masculine and feminine nouns? Greek is not one of my target languages but now I am curious about it" And,you know you are a language nerd when you expect-or hope!- someone on this forum will enlighten you so you can sleep tonight and not be wondering if Greek, a non-Romance language has genders for the nouns.
Greek does have genders.
Amerykanka on 08 April 2011
When you learn a new word (hubris) in your native language,ÂEnglish, and the first thing you think is: Is this a masculine or feminine noun? After feeling very confused for a few moments as you try to answer this question, you finally remember thatÂEnglish doesn't have genders.
When you already know the word "hubris" ( also spelled "hybris", by the way), but reading this makes you think, "it is a Greek word; does Greek use masculine and feminine nouns? Greek is not one of my target languages but now I am curious about it" And,you know you are a language nerd when you expect-or hope!- someone on this forum will enlighten you so you can sleep tonight and not be wondering if Greek, a non-Romance language has genders for the nouns.
Wish granted: Greek not only has masculine and feminine genders, but neuter as well. In case you're wondering, masculine nouns usually end in -οÏ, -αÏ, -ηÏ, -εÏ, or -(ο)Ï Ï; feminine nouns usually end in -α or -η; and neuter nouns usually end in -ο, -ι, -(ο)Ï , -μα, or a consonant. But of course, then there there are the exceptions, like οδÏÏ and κÏÎÎ±Ï which are respectively feminine and neuter.
Sweet dreams!
ellasevia on 08 April 2011
When you've read this whole damned thread over 2 weeks.
FrostBlast on 08 April 2011
English have lost their genders.
When you add a "When you" to your off-topic remark just to turn this thread into a language discussion without
ostensibly going off topic.
Ari on 08 April 2011
When you read the above discussion about Greek and wonder whether any Indo-European
languages other thanÂEnglish have lost their genders.
Persian and Afrikaans no longer have genders. I don't think Armenian does either.
ellasevia on 08 April 2011
When I sometimes think about changing my major from psychology to linguistics or perhaps psycholinguistics.
mick33 on 08 April 2011
Dear Amerykanka and ellasevia
Thank you both. Now I can sleep tonight.It really was on my mind. I appreciate your answers.
psy88 on 09 April 2011
When reading the last few posts makes me want to learn Greek.
When reading the last couple of posts about Greek makes you even more anxious to finish your degree (in about a month) so that you have time to concentrate on Greek again.
You know you're a language nerd when your parents are discussing what to pack for their trip to America starting Monday, and they mention that they don't have enough cases. The word "case" here sounds really weird to you (and your girlfriend) who both spend lots of time studying languages, and therefore the only sense of the word "case" that makes much sense to you anymore is its use in the grammatical sense.
Jack
LanguageSponge on 09 April 2011
When you are at work and are getting irrationally irate at those pesky customers that keep getting in the way of your reading this forum!
PonyGirl on 09 April 2011
When you get into the car and see a button marked "L R" for adjusting the side-view mirrors and the first thing that comes to mind is to wonder why the car has a setting for listening-reading (L-R)!
ellasevia on 09 April 2011
You know you're a language nerd when your parents are discussing what to pack for
their trip to America starting Monday, and they mention that they don't have enough cases. The word "case" here
sounds really weird to you (and your girlfriend) who both spend lots of time studying languages, and therefore the
only sense of the word "case" that makes much sense to you anymore is its use in the grammatical sense.
If they're nativeEnglish speakers they're absolutely correct: they don't have enough cases.
Ari on 09 April 2011
when you get an external hard drive that comes with a instruction sheet that has 22-yes 22!- different languages on it and in the past (before joining this forum and becoming a language nerd) you would have thrown it away but now you know that it is worth it's weight in gold and you may be the envy of some of those who post here.
psy88 on 09 April 2011
When it takes you about five minutes to look any word up in the dictionary because you stop to read the definition of every other unknown word you see. Then you usually forget what word you were looking up in the first place and spend more time trying to remember it; meanwhile you read a few more random definitions. When you finally remember the original word, you forget it again because all the other words in the dictionary are so fascinating.
Amerykanka on 10 April 2011
When it takes you about five minutes to look any word up in the dictionary because you stop to read the definition of every other unknown word you see. Then you usually forget what word you were looking up in the first place and spend more time trying to remember it; meanwhile you read a few more random definitions. When you finally remember the original word, you forget it again because all the other words in the dictionary are so fascinating.
That's why I don't like online/electronic dictionaries. They just give me the definiton of the word I asked for, without letting me browse those big pages, searching for unknown words just like a gold seeker would look for a treasure!
... when you watch cheesy teen movies like
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0356150/ - Eurotrip just because it offers you the possibility to listen to American and BritishEnglish, German, French, Italian, dutchy-accentedEnglish and Slovak in just one movie! However, the plot is horribly foolish.mirab3lla on 10 April 2011
When you start singing random things you've learned in Icelandic (introductions, greetings, etc.) while walking
around your house. You're even more of a nerd when you get so into it you jump up onto the counter and belt
out your 'lyrics', the scene of which your sister and her friends are somewhat scared by as they arrive home.
ruskivyetr on 10 April 2011
That's why I don't like online/electronic dictionaries. They just give me the definiton of the word
I asked for, without letting me browse those big pages, searching for unknown words just like a gold seeker would
look for a treasure!
That's because you're using the wrong electronic dictionaries. I see you're studying French. Try out Le Robert for
the iPhone if you have the opportunity. It has a "discovery mode" that's absolutely wonderful, with unusual and
interesting words floating around which you can grab and look at. Unfortunately it's only for the iPhone and it's a
monolingual dictionary. The UltraLingua dictionary is also for the iPhone, but it's French-English. It takes you to the
page where the word you searched for is located and you see the words preceding and following.
I have yet to find anything that a paper dictionary can do that a good electronic dictionary can't do as well, except
maybe fuel a fire. And considering the massive amount of things electronic dicts can do, well, I stopped using
paperdicts a long time ago.
Ari on 10 April 2011
I have it packed with language learning stuff.
Not so many movies, I don't download it (I can watch it online).
Most of it consists of comic and language learning books over 1 giga of books!
clumsy on 10 April 2011
My online dictionaries are useful, but I love my paper dictionaries too. I have way too many though. About 10 once you take out the native language dictionaries, in various languages that I am and am not studying.
hjordis on 10 April 2011
You know youâre a language nerd when youâre listening to a song about a certain she who means everything to the singer and it reminds you of your target language.
ReneeMona on 11 April 2011
When you wake up, two things hit you:
1) You couldn't possible have understood Romanian because though it's a Romance language, its vocabulary has many Slavic influences.
2) You DO NOT have a passive knowledge of Romanian, and you STILL only know two languages. ;_;
- Kat
Phantom Kat on 12 April 2011
You know you're a language geek when you print out a text in Maltese to see if any of the local Arabic speakers had any idea what it said.
mandalore on 12 April 2011
When you talk to people and can't help but noticing their cool new word or idiom. And feeling so good to have got to encounter an interesting phrase.
When it bothers you so much, anywhere, anytime.
yourvietnamese on 12 April 2011
When you go for an eye checkup, and forgetting yourself for a moment, read out 'H' and 'C' as Cyrillic. It was only once I saw the backward 'Ð' that I realised my blunder...
Teango on 15 April 2011
When somehow you came to own a 1978 Finsko-Polski dictionary.
canada38 on 15 April 2011
You know youâre a language nerd when youâre having breakfast with your family and you speak nothing but French for the entire half hour, even though only one of the three other people present can understand you.
ReneeMona on 17 April 2011
Fasulye
Fasulye on 17 April 2011
when (and this will only make sense to those users of MT French) you can't hear someone say "I'm gong" without thinking of MT saying "I'm going". If you "get" this you are truly one of us language nerds.
psy88 on 18 April 2011
When a friend of your Mum will go to Scotland on vacation, and you want to know to which region because you want to know if the people speak Gaelic there or Scots, or Enlgish. Then when she said that she didn't know about Gaelic, you explain her that it's completely separated ofÂEnglish and that you can't udnerstand it at all also if you can speak perfectlyÂEnglish, and not connected with Scots because this is a Germanic language / dialect. Until this moment she had thougth only of the mountains, castles and bagpipes.
I loved this, this made me smile :] Also, I cannot for the life of me begin to understand why so many people I know don't like the bagpipes. I love them - I'd have a go if I had a good pair of lungs :]
You know you're a language nerd when, very soon after waking up from an operation in the recovery room at hospital, you take out your books and start reading French, or German or whatever it was, I don't quite remember. Then the nurse comes over, apparently horrified, and takes your book away from you - "you should be resting, not engaging brain". Apparently it's wrong to study right after surgery?
LanguageSponge on 18 April 2011
when (and this will only make sense to those users of MT French) you can't hear someone say "I'm gong" without thinking of MT saying "I'm going". If you "get" this you are truly one of us language nerds.
Oh my god, this happened to me just yesterday for the first time! I was voice-chatting with my sister when she said "I'm going..." and it took all my willpower not to reply with a sing-song "I'm GOing...!" Which, needless to say, she would have been completely confused by.
Jinx on 18 April 2011
when (and this will only make sense to those users of MT French) you can't hear someone say "I'm gong" without thinking of MT saying "I'm going". If you "get" this you are truly one of us language nerds.
Oh my god, this happened to me just yesterday for the first time! I was voice-chatting with my sister when she said "I'm going..." and it took all my willpower not to reply with a sing-song "I'm GOing...!" Which, needless to say, she would have been completely confused by.
Exactly! And, it now seems that I am so sensitized to it that I notice it a lot more.As you said, it takes a lot of will power to not respond. For me, it takes will power not to laugh aloud, but I cannot stifle a huge grin.
psy88 on 19 April 2011
When you don't think you're a language nerd and can't believe that people are holding such a stupid idea.
hungh3 on 19 April 2011
When your mindset is: 'Well, the first hundred languages are always the hardest; it gets easier after that...' lol
pfn123 on 22 April 2011
When you contribute to a thread in a language forum with 198 pages....
RogueMD on 23 April 2011
All the languages:
Ellasevia
Iversen
What!? Since when am I qualified to be grouped with Iversen?
ellasevia on 23 April 2011
When you consider any activity (reading newspaper, talking with friends,using windows, surfing on internet etc.) waste of time if it is done in your native language.
When 100% of your additional Iphone/Android/Symbian applications are various dictionaries and SRS software.
leyus on 24 April 2011
Fasulye
Fasulye on 24 April 2011
When you start pondering over the subjunctive in the middle of a high volume rock
concert.
When you're itching to go to a local seaside town on a hot day so you can spend 2 hours
looking for language books in the amazing second hand book shop there.
LazyLinguist on 24 April 2011
...when you find yourself in demand for editing your friends' papers, correctingEnglish, German, and Latin in one paper, andEnglish, French, and Chinese in the next.
Jinx on 24 April 2011
when you travelled all the way to Oxford on the pretense of visitng a friend when in fact you were language book shopping, attending the Buena Vista Socail Club concert and trying your Spanish out on native speakers in the coffee shops. I love Oxford
darkwhispersdal on 24 April 2011
...when you won't download any fonts that don't have Latin Extended-A and Cyrillic characters because they're useless.
Levi on 24 April 2011
(The whole thing started when your friend admitted that the only phrase she knew in Spanish was, "Mi pie está atascado en el horno." and Google Translate. We sincerely apologize to the natives of the languages we butchered...)
- Kat
Phantom Kat on 25 April 2011
When you put "My foot is stuck in the oven" into google translate to post it as a
facebook status in a language none will understand, because you find it amusing. When
instead of paying that phone bill, you buy a dictionary for a language you might study
sometime during the next two years.
Johnnysd on 25 April 2011
(The whole thing started when your friend admitted that the only phrase she knew in Spanish was, "Mi pie está atascado en el horno." and Google Translate. We sincerely apologize to the natives of the languages we butchered...)
- Kat
When you read this post about the sentence "my foot is stuck in the oven" and you expect that someone is going to post a sarcastic comment that it must be an expression from RS.
psy88 on 26 April 2011
When you've decided to drop four of your study languages in order to focus on the others and it feels like you've just killed a friend. Or rather, four friends.
ellasevia on 26 April 2011
When you've decided to drop four of your study languages in order to focus on the others and it feels like you've just killed a friend. Or rather, four friends.
When you won't sleep well tonight if you don't know which four.
Well that's what we have the profiles for. :) But if you really must know, Swahili, Swedish, Polish, and Romanian. Those are the immediate removals. Within a couple weeks French will be gone too and by July Greek will as well.
ellasevia on 26 April 2011
the names must be, for example (not all possible names included):
English:
USA JW, Daristani, Hobbema, Newyorkeric, meramarina, jinx,
GB Languagesponge, teango
AUS leosmith
Spanish:
Zenmonkey, Juan
German:
Fasulye, Meelämchen, doitsuijn
Dutch:
Reneemona
Finnish:
leopejo, hencke
Italian:
leopejo
Afrikaans:
mick33
Danish:
It was "Nils" therefore nearly correct but it must be spelled 'Niels" (Iversen's name)
French:
Arekkusu
Czech:
Vlad
Norwegian:
Solfrid cristin
Polish:
minaaret
All the languages:
Ellasevia
Iversen
mick33 on 26 April 2011
...when you are in your 30s yet you don't find it particularly strange that you spent a good bit of time browsing the "for kids" version of Yahoo Korea ( http://kr.kids.yahoo.com - http://kr.kids.yahoo.com ) yesterday.
Warp3 on 26 April 2011
When your favorite parts of Apocalypse Now were the ones where you got to hear the natives speaking Vietnamese.
kottoler.ello on 26 April 2011
When your language books have accumulated a strange collection of stains, tears, and smudges because you insist on lugging them around everywhere.
Amerykanka on 27 April 2011
(Maybe because she's from England and can actually point out Finland on a map. For most Americans who aren't into foreign languages Europe is just one big land mass. :P)
- Kat
Phantom Kat on 27 April 2011
When you spend many hours reading your dictionary, to find out how many words you know in your target language.
Matheus on 27 April 2011
when you multi-task writing a report at your desk in work with learning vocabulary and write a sentence in Vietnamese on the report by mistake
darkwhispersdal on 27 April 2011
... when you write a mail in Russian while listening to Turkish and practicing Chinese characters and still feel
anxious over not spending more time on language learning.
Mauritz on 27 April 2011
EDIT: And you also have the full intention of going outside to read it and practice the sounds if the weather's nice during this long weekend. Probably sitting at reasonable distance away from other people.
garyb on 28 April 2011
When you're in the language section of your local bookshop and you overhear the assistant doing a stock take: 'get
by in German', after they've been looking for a while you show them where it is... (happened today!)
Alexander86 on 28 April 2011
When you write a long long essay about something as speculative as the origin of language(s) instead of taking a bus to town to fetch your holiday photos.
Iversen on 28 April 2011
Fasulye
Fasulye on 29 April 2011
You correct her that there's actually 15 cases. You're happy there's someone who actually cares about this tidbit of information.
Though it tends to be viewed more and more as 14 cases only, the accusative being considered more as a "function" of genetive and nominative than a "case".
Haukilahti on 29 April 2011
When you write a long long essay about something as speculative as the origin of language(s) instead of taking a bus to town to fetch your holiday photos.
And you know that so many people don't understand your first version you also write a version in your own language and versions in your other languages.... but still sitting on a tram and reading the [Polish] version of your essay out loud gets you a date with the passenger next to you..... [insert language of choice here]
to be continued .....
maydayayday on 29 April 2011
When you go out for a curry and say ÑпаÑибо for the hot towel and mints.
Teango on 29 April 2011
When you are excited about tomorrow being the eve of the 6 Week May Challenge.After a lot of internal debate and indecision about which of your two target languages(Spanish or French) to use, you feel good that you settled, finally, on Spanish(and you hope that you don't change your mind again!)
Your first instinct was Spanish, but you had some doubts. You had thought that since May 1 is considered "May Day" and "may day" sounds like the French for "help me" that perhaps you should pick French. And then you thought that it would benefit you more to do Spanish. But then you thought, "I will do both". Then you thought "that's silly and defeats the whole purpose of the challenge."
And you realize how much time you wasted trying to decide, so you finally go with your first choice, Spanish.
You plan to organize all your study materials tomorrow so as to get off to a good start on May 1. You almost fear that you will be unable to sleep as you anticipate the start of the 6 weeks.
And, you do all this without "officially" entering the Challenge.
psy88 on 30 April 2011
When you are excited about tomorrow being the eve of the 6 Week May Challenge. [...] You almost fear that you will be unable to sleep as you anticipate the start of the 6 weeks.
When you get so excited for the 6WC that you simply cheat and start early. I've already done over an hour of Indonesian study today. I've broken pretty much every rule thus far, I might as well keep my streak going.
ellasevia on 30 April 2011
When you are excited about tomorrow being the eve of the 6 Week May Challenge. [...] You almost fear that you will be unable to sleep as you anticipate the start of the 6 weeks.
When you get so excited for the 6WC that you simply cheat and start early. I've already done over an hour of Indonesian study today. I've broken pretty much every rule thus far, I might as well keep my streak going.
Sorry, nothing to add to the thread.
hjordis on 30 April 2011
You correct her that there's actually 15 cases. You're happy there's someone who actually cares about this tidbit of information.
Though it tends to be viewed more and more as 14 cases only, the accusative being considered more as a "function" of genetive and nominative than a "case".
Is it really geeky if Finnish is your native language, though? xD
But thanks for the information. I'll keep that in mind. :D
As for one more:
... when you get sheet music for a song called "Arabesque" but you can't help but see "Basque." Also earlier, on an article on premature babies, you read "inflection" instead of "infection."
... when despite the fact that you are exhausted from coming back from a little field trip with your fellow high school Band seniors you recognize the Finnish Genetive in a song being used to denote the direct object of a sentence, exactly what you had made a note about the day before. You proceed to grin like an idiot. :D
- Kat
EDIT: I was mistaken on something.
Phantom Kat on 30 April 2011
When you are excited about tomorrow
being the eve of the 6 Week May Challenge. [...] You almost fear that you will be
unable to sleep as you anticipate the start of the 6 weeks.
When you get so excited for the 6WC that you simply cheat and start early. I've already
done over an hour of Indonesian study today. I've broken pretty much every rule thus
far, I might as well keep my streak going.
Indonesian book longingly, but then I got really busy what with the moving and the
packing and the cleaning. Hopefully I can get off to a good start from May 2!
Sorry, nothing to add to the thread.
or when you DO everything mentioned above, except study the language for 6WC, and just
to make sure that your mind doesn't go on auto pilot and start gluttoning itself on the
target language you fill your mind with something simple and soothing like ARABIC!
(obs.: my target is Thai!)
JNetto on 30 April 2011
when you zone out in a lecture because you are trying to figure out where the heck the
speaker is from based on his accent!!
JNetto on 30 April 2011
When you get a lot more excited about the "learn chinese" part of a
fortune cookie than
the people around you do.
I'm so guilty of that it is not even funny!
JNetto on 30 April 2011
and want more because it makes you laugh more than by reading "Calvin and Hobbes";
worse...
when every single comment made sense despite how deep and tangled the joke was in an
obscure foreign language!
JNetto on 30 April 2011
When you're not happy with the amount of time you're spending in your
target language,
despite spending your whole day listening to music, watching films, learning vocab,
watching TV, reading books and speaking to others in that language, so you decide to
maximise your time by constantly thinking in your target language instead of your native
tongue, despite the fact that you've only been learning it for a few days.
or when your language section of the brain feels like the movie "Inception": you gotta go
back several level to get back to what you used to call REALITY (aka "your native
language)!
JNetto on 30 April 2011
ONE word off a movie;
(Movie: "The Hunted" with Christopher Lambert; Word: 女ï¼ãããªï¼woman.)
when your computer has hot keys for 10 different languages and freak other people out
when they are trying to type something and all that comes out is Arabic or Japanese.
JNetto on 30 April 2011
...the whole bus has to wait while you buy "Learn Maltese" in case you might want to do just that some day
...you continually compare Maltese to Arabic and try to figure out why the Arabic alphabet isn't being used in all the street signs
...you watch a film as part of the tour, realise that it's available in twenty languages and miss most of the film while continuously changing to languages you have no idea about
...you keep your ticket stub to said film since it has instructions for headphone use in thirteen languages, including Maltese which you are, by now, determined to learn...soon!
I have yet to find anything that a paper dictionary can do that a good electronic dictionary can't do as well, except maybe fuel a fire.
...or work when there's no electricity (for those times when you're stranded in the middle of the desert and your trusty solar cell is broken).
patuco on 30 April 2011
You have recently begun a new language, you buy learning materials for your next language, then you met a couple of Portugese and think 'yes, I might like to learn that too', even though it will probably take you two years to work through your current pile of books.
RogerK on 30 April 2011
...when this is your 2000th post on the HTLAL forums.
Levi on 30 April 2011
...when you realise this is your 2059th day on the forums and, hopefully, there are many more to come.
patuco on 01 May 2011
It's not the world's most melodious tune in the first place, but that just makes it funnier!
meramarina on 02 May 2011
...when listening to your target language sounds so much like music to your
ears that you actually dance to it.
This one got the "nerd-meter" all the way to the red!!!
When "Elvish" changes from a "ridiculous add-on to a novel" into a "beautiful language to your list"
The evolution of this thought is to do the same with Klingon, but I'm still a couple
light-years from that one! (A bit of a stretch...)
EDIT: Please refrain from multiple postings. Thanks
JNetto on 02 May 2011
When you admit you're the one who gave Iversen his 2000th vote
And, no doubt, that vote was well deserved, but I suspect that Iversen just might not be a Language Nerd after all, but instead a Language Ninja!
And you are a Language Nerd if you think this is a very fine thing to be!
meramarina on 03 May 2011
when you are really disappointed that there have been no new postings here for three days
psy88 on 06 May 2011
...when you are about to download the latest version of your web browser, but can't decide which language to pick.
Levi on 06 May 2011
...and not the subculture of teenagers with dark makeup and trench coats.
tritone on 06 May 2011
When Polish children's songs and nursery rhymes get stuck in your head, and you go around singing them. (Hopefully none of those passers-by understood Polish. . . .)
Amerykanka on 06 May 2011
When you check Assimil's website weekly to see what new courses have been created.
newyorkeric on 06 May 2011
- the different between Spain Spanish pronounciation and your Spanish (Mexican) (During this conversation an enssemble member said, "How do yo know? You just read Japanese books!" In your defense, ever since you started learning Finnish you haven't picked up a manga book. :o)
- what country the Slavic-sounding composer of your enssemble comes from.
- what is "kanji" in Japanese and how it connects with Mandarin Chinese.
- what language(s) they speak in Taiwan.
Crazy day in Band today. :D
- Kat
Phantom Kat on 12 May 2011
when you are almost late for work as you found a Japanese newspaper amongst the polish newspapers in your local supermarket and decided to buy it but it's not on the system. So you wait twenty minutes for the manager to turn up so she can sell it to you and you are pleased all day that you bought it.
darkwhispersdal on 12 May 2011
or when the Japan Centre has used crumbled up sheets of a Japanese newspaper to pack and ship your new Ultimate Rice Cooker. Opening the box you forget the rice cooker and start trying to read the packing paper.
Sunja on 12 May 2011
when you are really disappointed that there have been no new postings here for three days
I let my dinner burn last night because I was so engrossed in learning Polish and Italian. So I simply prepared another meal (the first one was inedible) and while it cooked I spent more time learning those languages.
mick33 on 12 May 2011
...when that selfsame website becoming operative again is the best part of your week.
http://polish.slavic.pitt.edu/ - Yay!Magdalene on 13 May 2011
When, after cleaning the floor with your midterms and successfully getting caught up on homework, you begin to experience severe ennui and rack your brain for a cause, until you remember that you have not used your TL in over a week and are experiencing withdrawals and depression!
PonyGirl on 16 May 2011
When you get in a heated argument with someone about what a particular song (Du hast) means and you actually show her your (German) verb conjugation app on your Android...
LebensForm on 16 May 2011
When you get in a heated argument with someone about what a particular song (Du hast) means and you actually show her your (German) verb conjugation app on your Android...
I have heard much debate on this. Would you agree with me in translating it as "You have"? Although I think the similarity in sound to "You hate" is not a coincidence.
(And to keep this on topic: You know you're a language nerd when you read a specific comment about a specific German song and know exactly what the debate is about, having argued about it yourself.)
Keilan on 16 May 2011
lol I like your last comment :)
You know you're a language nerd when just typing that made your blood pressure rise at least 10 points...
LebensForm on 16 May 2011
song is adapted to you hate
YKYALN when it annoys you that song translations sometimes change the meaning.
LazyLinguist on 16 May 2011
The translation also ruins the clever switch from "hast" being the main verb to it being an auxilliary. As in "Du hast" = "You have" and "Du hast mich gefragt" = "You asked me". If you translate it as hate, you get something like "You hate me ask".
Keilan on 17 May 2011
song is adapted to you hate
YKYALN when it annoys you that song translations sometimes change the meaning.
You know you are when...you immediately know what the letters YKYALN mean
psy88 on 17 May 2011
Having finished all my schoolwork and exams for the semester, I still excused myself to a friend, saying "I have to go study."
Her: "Study for what? I thought you were done."
Me: "Not study FOR something, just STUDY something. Spanish."
Her: "Why?"
I was flabbergasted into complete, idiotic silence by the incomprehensibility of this question.
Jinx on 17 May 2011
The translation also ruins the clever switch from "hast" being the main verb to it being an auxilliary. As in "Du hast" = "You have" and "Du hast mich gefragt" = "You asked me". If you translate it as hate, you get something like "You hate me ask".
...when this whole discussion reminds you of a parody video you saw once on YouTube, of which even the memory makes you burst out laughing:
DU!!!
DU HAST!!!
DU HAST DAS LICHT ANGELASSEN!!!
Jinx on 17 May 2011
The translation also ruins the clever switch from "hast" being the main verb to it being an auxilliary. As in "Du hast" = "You have" and "Du hast mich gefragt" = "You asked me". If you translate it as hate, you get something like "You hate me ask".
Exactly!
YKYALN when you turn on and off your ölevia brand TV in your bedroom like 3 times just to see the ö on the screen, and then at this point, you're not even in the mood to watch tv anymore...
LebensForm on 18 May 2011
Anyway:
... when you come back to the office after lunch to find your coworkers having a conversation about languages, and you feel disappointed that you missed most of it.
... when you're having a party, it's getting late and you're drunk, and you start putting on music in your target languages and singing along. "Wait, are you singing in Russian? What?"
garyb on 18 May 2011
...you prefer full time immersion language schools to travel and work and other gap-year-ish activities.
...this does not impress your mother, who thinks it is not normal to spend so much time doing intellectual stuff in what is supposed to be a year off from study.
...when your current fave daydreaming topic involves explaining in German the peculiarities of your AustralianÂEnglish accent to people whose native language is Arabic.
...when you find learning to pronounce Arabic to be a hugely entertaining and hilarious activity.
...when you are buying a British Airways plane ticket and do not realise until partway through that the booking page is, because of your browser's settings, in German.
...when a bomb scare makes you consider learning Irish.
...when the Eurovision Song Contest makes you seriously consider learning Greek and Serbian.
...when your religion makes you seriously consider learning Greek, Ancient Greek, Italian, Latin, Arabic, Hungarian and Irish.
...when the subject you want to study makes you consider learning (at various times) Greek, Ancient Greek, Italian, Latin, Arabic, French, Tahitian, Bengali, Assyrian, Russian, Persian, Turkish and Kazakh.
...when you get told that maybe you should study languages, not what you´re actually thinking of studying.
...when you see they definitely have a point.
Cumquat on 19 May 2011
- when you download 'Audacity' and can't choose which language to pick as default, though you're only fluent in two.
- Kat
Phantom Kat on 22 May 2011
..when you have nobody to talk to and decide to talk to yourself in a variety of
languages.
topaztrex on 22 May 2011
lol I like your last comment :)
You know you're a language nerd when just typing that made your blood pressure rise at least 10 points...
Yes, but you know you're a language nerd when you have read "haÃt" and "haÃen" and have thought, oh no!! Those are the old-fashioned spelling!! after the German Spelling Reform you must spell those "hasst" and "hassen".
hjordis on 22 May 2011
lol I like your last comment :)
You know you're a language nerd when just typing that made your blood pressure rise at least 10 points...
Yes, but you know you're a language nerd when you have read "haÃt" and "haÃen" and have thought, oh no!! Those are the old-fashioned spelling!! after the German Spelling Reform you must spell those "hasst" and "hassen".
Don't worry!!! The sweet à isn't dead, but now after the long vowels, for example SpaÃ, heiÃt etc "Hasst" is a short "a" therefore the "ss" not "Ã"
hjordis on 22 May 2011
lol I like your last comment :)
You know you're a language nerd when just typing that made your blood pressure rise at least 10 points...
Yes, but you know you're a language nerd when you have read "haÃt" and "haÃen" and have thought, oh no!! Those are the old-fashioned spelling!! after the German Spelling Reform you must spell those "hasst" and "hassen".
...when you have to point out that, even before the spelling reform, the word "hassen" was spelled "hassen". "HaÃen" was never a word, since the à would imply a long A, though the à was used in certain conjugations like "du haÃt", and the noun was "der HaÃ".
Levi on 22 May 2011
You know you're a language nerd when you actually got enjoyment out of reading like 7 comments devoted to the Ã
So haÃen isn't correct? but du haÃt (you hate) is? Just want to make sure...thanks for clearning that à business up for me :)
LebensForm on 23 May 2011
ich hasse
du haÃt
er haÃt
wir hassen
ihr haÃt
sie hassen
past tense: ich haÃte, du haÃtest...
past participle: gehaÃt
Basically, the "ss" changed to "Ã" when it preceded a "t".
Levi on 24 May 2011
So why isn't the à used anymore accept when preceeded by a t?
I'm actually kind of fond of the Ã. :)
LebensForm on 24 May 2011
It was changed since having an à after short vowels caused some confusion in pronunciation, since "HaÃ" (now "Hass") did not rhyme with words like "SpaÃ" and "MaÃ", and "haÃt" (now "hasst") did not rhyme with words like "aÃt" and "maÃt".
Levi on 24 May 2011
YKYALN when you have more German songs on your Ipod thanEnglish ones...
You also know your a language nerd when you get more pleasure out of listening to somewhat outdated German music than listening to your local radio station of the current music everyone seems to know but you.
LebensForm on 24 May 2011
...when anEnglish song comes on your iPod, so you go to the next song on the list, and wonder why they recorded that one sillyEnglish song for their album anyhow.
Levi on 25 May 2011
...when your MP3 player has more songs in Saami than it has inEnglish. And many of them are raps, and you never listen to raps inEnglish.
...when you can hear the lyrics, and spell them correctly, in throat-singing.
...when your singing in the shower is all done in throat-singing.
Kafea on 25 May 2011
...when anÂEnglish song comes on your iPod, so you go to the next song on the list, and wonder why they recorded that one sillyÂEnglish song for their album anyhow.
When I rip a Korean album I immediately remove any "instrumental" and "English version" tracks before I load them on my MP3 player as I know I'll just skip them each time anyway.
Warp3 on 25 May 2011
...when your MP3 player has more songs in Saami than it has inÂEnglish. And many of them are raps, and you never listen to raps inÂEnglish.
Amoc?
When I rip a Korean album I immediately remove any "instrumental" and "English version" tracks before I load them on my MP3 player as I know I'll just skip them each time anyway.
Ah, so true.
nway on 25 May 2011
[QUOTE=Kafea]...when your MP3 player has more songs in Saami than it has inÂEnglish. And many of them are raps, and you never listen to raps inÂEnglish.
Amoc?
Guerre Norte! And high time they made another album. But Intrigue of Karasjok is releasing new albums, available on Amazon.com, including "Heavy Joik", "Cappa Nieida", and soon a new one. Most of the songs are in Davvisamigiella. Alit Boazu is another group with some good songs.
Kafea on 25 May 2011
Perhaps I'm nuts or something, but I do this on a regular basis. Now that I'm working on a couple of languages sometimes I have more than one translation for theEnglish word in theEnglish language book. Weird!
RogerK on 25 May 2011
when you are watching the Casey Anthony murder trial, live, on TV and a witness is asked if he knew "if Casey worked or used to work" and your first thought is "oh, pretérito" or "imperfecto".
psy88 on 26 May 2011
Jack
LanguageSponge on 26 May 2011
When you read "der Spiegel," a German news magazine, more than you read your local newspaper that's sitting less than 3 feet away from me atm.
LebensForm on 26 May 2011
I read Der Spiegel inEnglish. >_<
nway on 26 May 2011
I read Der Spiegel inÂEnglish. >_<
Are you learning German?
YKYALN when you joined an "alternative lifestyle" website like 3 years ago and you only reply to posts regarding the German language and grammar not the German fetish itself... ya I know I'm lame ^_^
LebensForm on 26 May 2011
True. I did this. The person in the review called it "schiebe" not realizing the special character that represents 2 Ss.
jdmoncada on 26 May 2011
You know you're a regular nerd when you look up someone's correction of someone's Amazon review of Lady Gaga's new album with the song "Scheisse" on it.
nway on 26 May 2011
Ack nein! not that silly eszett again!! Hahaha that song really does live up to its name... in my humble opinion...
LebensForm on 26 May 2011
...when you decide to play http://www.isketch.net/i2.html - iSketch for some fun vocabulary practice in your target language, and you end up winning against a bunch of native speakers.
Levi on 29 May 2011
...when you go to your target language's Wikipedia for reading practice, and find yourself correcting its spelling and grammar.
Levi on 31 May 2011
When you go to your target language's Wikipedia for language practice and find yourself reading about other languages. (The other day I found myself on the Japanese Wikipedia for Telugu alphabet. I don't even know how I got there.)
hjordis on 31 May 2011
language).
It happened to me! XD!
AndyMeg on 31 May 2011
You know you're a regular nerd when you look up someone's correction of someone's Amazon
review of Lady Gaga's new album with the song "Scheisse" on it.
YKYALN when you are sad at not being provided a link to this hilarity.
LazyLinguist on 01 June 2011
You know you're a regular nerd when you look up someone's correction of someone's Amazon
review of Lady Gaga's new album with the song "Scheisse" on it.
YKYALN when you are sad at not being provided a link to this hilarity.
...still waiting for the link :(
patuco on 02 June 2011
Anyway,
http://www.amazon.com/review/R5J3IOET46JKR/ref=cm_cd_pg _pg2? ie=UTF8&cdForum=FxEK28HMS4R4WN&cdPage=2&asin=B0051QIGP4&stor e=dmusic&cdThread=TxTJI0K2E7EUUO#wasThisHelpful - here you go .Sadly, only 1 of 3 people thought that post added to the discussion. :(
nway on 02 June 2011
Speaking of appearances - You know you are a Language Nerd when you decide to cut your own hair because the money that would go to a hairdresser would be much better spent in a bookshop for even more language stuff.
<sigh> It'll grow back, I guess . . .
CAUTION: Language Nerdery may lead to dubious personal grooming decisions.
meramarina on 02 June 2011
...when you were bored a few nights ago so you now know how to read Russian Cyrillic (even though you have no short term plans to learn Russian).
Warp3 on 02 June 2011
...when your family tells you that you were talking in Mandarin in your sleep
...when as you're typing this post, you have a tab open in your browser about traditional vs. simplified characters
in Cantonese
...when you sit inEnglish class so bored that you make random words on your paper using the Greek alphabet
...carrying flashcards (blank and filled out) with you everywhere just to make sure you keep up with your studying
and learn new words.
...when you write Chinese characters in both simplified ad traditional just to make sure you remember both
...when you spend hours on the internet learning about Polish grammar even though you have no intention or
reason to learn Polish
...when you SNAP at people when they say they can speak Chinese and go, "Chingchongchingchong," then curse
at them IN Mandarin
I really need help
nikorizzo on 02 June 2011
...when you were bored a few nights ago so you now know how to read Russian Cyrillic (even though you have no short term plans to learn Russian).
Hilarious! Everyone here is so inspiring.
Kafea on 03 June 2011
your own (native
language).
It happened to me! XD!
That happened to me the other day as well. I wanted to say auflauern, but there isn't
a good one wordEnglish equivalent that I know of. Can anyone provide me with one?
Lie in wait just doesn't suit me as well as the German.
Also, when I asked my college roommate if I did anything weird in my sleep that I
didn't know about, he said I sometimes muttered things in what he supposed was Spanish,
German, or Russian in the early morning as I was just waking from my sleep.
TannerS on 03 June 2011
Sadly, only 1 of 3 people thought that post added to the discussion. :(
...when you were bored a few nights ago so you now know how to read Russian Cyrillic (even though you have no short term plans to learn Russian).
hjordis on 03 June 2011
YKYALN when you cut your hair, dye it blond (to look like a certain German singer) and speak with a German accent for a 24 hr period convincing people that you are actually just "visiting" the states.. yes I actually convinced a few people lol.
Also, when you teach a random 4 year old boy that you see in a book store how to count to 10 in German, ya this could be seen as creep-like behaviour...
When you actually know more words to patriotic German songs, than songs from the United States.
When you refuse sexual advances from your non-German speaking boyfriend because you're too busy reading an article about the Genitiv case and how it's not used as much.
LebensForm on 03 June 2011
...when you were bored a few nights ago so you now know how to read Russian Cyrillic (even though you have no short term plans to learn Russian).
I was a bit worried about that as well, but I'm not particularly tempted by Russian at the moment so I just went for it. (I would like to learn Russian but not quite yet.) Japanese, on the other hand, could be a bit more tempting (especially since I've been learning æ¼¢å along with my Korean studies), which is one of the reasons I haven't tackled the kana yet.
Warp3 on 03 June 2011
your own (native
language).
It happened to me! XD!
That happened to me the other day as well. I wanted to say auflauern, but there isn't
a good one wordÂEnglish equivalent that I know of. Can anyone provide me with one?
Lie in wait just doesn't suit me as well as the German.
Also, when I asked my college roommate if I did anything weird in my sleep that I
didn't know about, he said I sometimes muttered things in what he supposed was Spanish,
German, or Russian in the early morning as I was just waking from my sleep.
auflauern waylay or ambush?
Kafea on 03 June 2011
Sadly, only 1 of 3 people thought that post added to the discussion. :(
We can fix that.
Yep, it's up to 5 of 7 now. C'mon guys, vote for the future of language nerds everywhere! We can't let the morons beat us.
patuco on 03 June 2011
5 of 7 what is this all about? I would vote but not sure what's going on, lol I'm oblivious again.
LebensForm on 03 June 2011
When you think it would be amazing if your whole family took up a foreign language but
know that your the only language nerd in the family and that makes you sad.
GRagazzo on 03 June 2011
That makes me sad too, apparently my dad had a bad experience with German in high school, but he always fails to tell me what this experience was all about... this makes me sad.
LebensForm on 03 June 2011
...when this was your Friday-night status
Honum gekk það vel að læra málfræðina! I haven't watched that video in a while, but I love the explanations in it.
... when you watch a series on Hungarian just to see if the grammar's similar to Finnish.
... when it actually surprises you, and your girlfriend, when you don't recognise a script.
... when you identify Tibetan writing in the erotic museum in Paris (Pigalle) and realise your browsing of Youtube videos about Tibetan calligraphy a few days before came in handy.
... when you start trying to learn the Inuktitut syllabary, which is ONLY used in Nunavik, not expecting to ever go to Nunavik or learn Inuktitut, just because it looks pretty with all the triangles and is a cleverly designed script. (Here's a table: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Inuktitut.svg)
(additional, triggered by this post):
... when you edit your Icelandic because you realise that the past tense of ganga is gekk, not gangaði, despite the unlikelihood of anyone noticing; and when you consider that "honum gekk" might be colloquial, but it's now 5:14am and a bit late to go trawling to check.
PaulLambeth on 04 June 2011
When you get killed in a video game because you stopped to read the Chinese characters on the side of a building.
kottoler.ello on 04 June 2011
Me (asking about something on TV): Uh-oh, is she being mean again?
Niece: Yeah, she always bees mean.
Me (thinking): Interesting, she conjugated "be" as a regular verb. Clearly she knows the word "is" by now, but she doesn't realize they're the same verb.
Levi on 04 June 2011
...when you find yourself avoiding a foreign word or expression while speaking your mother tongue and
therefore you have to look for a word or expression in your language, even if you find that the foreign one is
more accurate and suitable (and you already have it!)
Pablo_V on 04 June 2011
When you are thrilled when people ask for some help on French homework, simply thrilled
LearningFrench on 05 June 2011
When on a roller-coaster ride and your ipod flies out of your unzipped pocket, and your
first thought is: "Nooo, my anki progress!!!", only then followed by "Nooo, my ipod!"
egill on 06 June 2011
Anyway,
http://www.amazon.com/review/R5J3IOET46JKR/ref=cm_cd_pg _pg2? ie=UTF8&cdForum=FxEK28HMS4R4WN&cdPage=2&asin=B0051QIGP4&stor e=dmusic&cdThread=TxTJI0K2E7EUUO#wasThisHelpful - here you go .Sadly, only 1 of 3 people thought that post added to the discussion. :(
I am so impressed you found this! I would have had to go looking for it.
My latest language nerdiness:
Today I was watching X-Men: First Class, and I was amused that I knew all languages being spoken. I didn't need subtitles for the German or the Spanish (my Russian isn't that advanced), and I was annoyed when they broke a scene to go back intoEnglish. I realize it was for dramatic purposes, but the language nerd in me was complaining that it would never be like that if those discussions had been happening for real.
jdmoncada on 06 June 2011
When you try to work out if you know that chinese character tattoo on somebody`s skin.
TRENDY on 06 June 2011
When you try to work out if you know that chinese character tattoo on somebody`s skin.
....I do that all the time, even though I only know a hundred fifty characters.... But most of the time it's like æ or 幸
ç¦ or åå¹³ or something like that.
nikorizzo on 06 June 2011
When you are working on your German whereas you have 2 weeks left to get ready for THE test of the year.
Diara on 06 June 2011
When you explain to people that you sometimes use materials in L2 to learn L3...then wait to see if they looked impressed
FuroraCeltica on 06 June 2011
- when you find out that "Get/Got off the car," something you've been saying since forever, is not correct but merely something most people you know adopted from Spanish. You are now on a mission to find more peculiar tidbits between Spanish andÂEnglish.
- Kat
Phantom Kat on 06 June 2011
^ Interesting. One thing I've noticed is that Spanish speakers will often say, "What happened?", analogous to "¿Qué pasa?", in situations where non-Spanish-speakingEnglish speakers would normally say, "Huh?" or "What?".
nway on 06 June 2011
^Weird. I say what happened all the time, though I also use the other two. Maybe it's because about half the people I grew up with are Spanish speaker. Or maybe they're using it in a way I wouldn't that I haven't noticed.
hjordis on 06 June 2011
^ Growing up in an area without many Hispanics, "What happened?" only referred to specific situations that occurred in the past. Only when I had a Hispanic roommate in college did I start hearing "What happened?" used to mean a general "What's up?". It confused me at first, because whenever I was asked "What happened?", I thought he was referring to some specific incident. o.O
nway on 06 June 2011
- when you're absolutely heartbroken at learning that a website with many books in Finnish only ship to Finland.
...and why would this stop a true language nerd?
patuco on 06 June 2011
It's very silly, but it makes sense to me and probably to you, too!
meramarina on 06 June 2011
It is truly a miracle that I got high scores.
slav on 07 June 2011
...when you feel as much patriotism for a country you've never visited where they speak your target language as you do for the country where you were born and live.
Levi on 07 June 2011
...when you feel as much patriotism for a country you've never visited where they speak your target language as you do for the country where you were born and live.
I can 100% relate to this... I love Sweden. xD
slav on 07 June 2011
...when you feel as much patriotism for a country you've never visited where they speak your target language as you do for the country where you were born and live.
I can somewhat relate, even though I was born in Germany, I've lived in the US since I was 2... yet I'm a bit more patriotic to Germany, than the US...
Ich liebe Deutschland!! â¥
LebensForm on 07 June 2011
When the linguist rap that meramarina just posted has become the explanation to your life.
nikorizzo on 07 June 2011
It's very silly, but it makes sense to me and probably to you, too!
It is indeed awesome. Someone needed to say it, though, so I will: he says and writes "it's a mute point" in the first verse. That kind of made my ears cringe, seeing as it's supposed to be coming from a "linguist." But hey, it's all in good fun, I guess.
Jinx on 07 June 2011
^ Growing up in an area without many Hispanics, "What happened?" only referred to specific situations that occurred in the past. Only when I had a Hispanic roommate in college did I start hearing "What happened?" used to mean a general "What's up?". It confused me at first, because whenever I was asked "What happened?", I thought he was referring to some specific incident. o.O
hjordis on 07 June 2011
"The MC hammer of grammar"... woooow...that's a new one. I love it!
LebensForm on 07 June 2011
Definitely nerdy enough for us here, I think! :)
meramarina on 07 June 2011
Hm, now that I think of it, maybe this just makes me a Little Mermaid nerd, not necessarily a language nerd. But I've already written all this you get to read it.
ellasevia on 07 June 2011
How many of you have sung "Part of Your World" underwater in Dutch?
I have! And I nearly drowned.
ReneeMona on 07 June 2011
How many of you have sung "Part of Your World" underwater in Dutch?
I have! And I nearly drowned.
I've done it in Spanish! And my sister thought I was drowning and tried to pull me to the surface!
nikorizzo on 07 June 2011
YKYALN when you had a few free weeks and learnt the next 5 weeks lessons of Mandarin and now have to sit through 35 hours of lecturers explaining the grammar and vocab when you know it
languageguy13 on 07 June 2011
It's very silly, but it makes sense to me and probably to you, too!
...and it leads to
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIol1_ktcP4&NR=1 - this .patuco on 08 June 2011
It's very silly, but it makes sense to me and probably to you, too!
...and it leads to
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIol1_ktcP4&NR=1 - this .That definitely just made my week. Linguists are so adorable sometimes.
Jinx on 08 June 2011
It's very silly, but it makes sense to me and probably to you, too!
Suomi got mentioned! :D
*You know you're a language nerd when you're playing Half Life 2 dubbed in Mandarin Chinese with Finnish subtitles. Hells yeah, baby.
kyssäkaali on 09 June 2011
It's very silly, but it makes sense to me and probably to you, too!
...and it leads to
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIol1_ktcP4&NR=1 - this .Fun at the start, hilarious by the time people started swaying in synchronicity. :)
Thanks for the link.
s0fist on 09 June 2011
Now she's your Russian tutor. And the fact that she probably doesn't really know how to teach a language only makes it more interesting of a puzzle for you.
As a final touch, she says her last name's very strange. In fact, it begins with the consonant cluster "mkrt." "I'm Armenian."
Are you thinking what I'm thinking?
kottoler.ello on 09 June 2011
Are you thinking what I'm thinking?
Probably not. My first thought was that such consonant clusters are more typical of Georgian and other Caucasian languages than of Armenian. The initial m- in particular is very common in Kartuli.
Iversen on 09 June 2011
Are you thinking what I'm thinking?
Probably not. My first thought was that such consonant clusters are more typical of Georgian and other Caucasian languages than of Armenian. The initial m- in particular is very common in Kartuli.
Haha, no, I was just thinking of learning some Armenian from her as well. When she told me her last name it did sound kind of Georgian to me, but I'm no expert on Caucasian languages.
kottoler.ello on 09 June 2011
It's very silly, but it makes sense to me and probably to you, too!
...and it leads to
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIol1_ktcP4&NR=1 - this .I suppose that it's also very nerdy to have downloaded both of them to watch whenever I want.
patuco on 09 June 2011
I suppose that it's also very nerdy to have downloaded both of them to watch whenever I want.
That is extremely nerdy, but the best and nerdiest thing ever would be to get us all together, the HTLAL Language Nerds, into one room and sing our own version, "We Are the Nerds" or something like that. Yeah, it's impossible, but just think how much fun it would be for us, and how confusing for the rest of the world. We could sway back and forth, too, just like the linguist singers, and have a solo in every language we study!
EDIT: oh, yes, I'll make the name tags! Autotagger not invited!
meramarina on 09 June 2011
Are you thinking what I'm thinking?
Probably not. My first thought was that such consonant clusters are more typical of Georgian and other Caucasian languages than of Armenian. The initial m- in particular is very common in Kartuli.
Haha, no, I was just thinking of learning some Armenian from her as well. When she told me her last name it did sound kind of Georgian to me, but I'm no expert on Caucasian languages.
Armenian has one of the neatest alphabets in the universe. I say go for it!
kyssäkaali on 09 June 2011
I suppose that it's also very nerdy to have downloaded both of them to watch whenever I want.
That is extremely nerdy, but the best and nerdiest thing ever would be to get us all together, the HTLAL Language Nerds, into one room and sing our own version, "We Are the Nerds" or something like that. Yeah, it's impossible, but just think how much fun it would be for us, and how confusing for the rest of the world. We could sway back and forth, too, just like the linguist singers, and have a solo in every language we study!
EDIT: oh, yes, I'll make the name tags! Autotagger not invited!
Hahaha, that would just be awsome!! I would pay a pretty penny to see this... ya just one.
LebensForm on 10 June 2011
can't bring yourself to leave your French dictionary behind. A week of no French
vocabulary learning just messes with your plans too much.
Jack
LanguageSponge on 15 June 2011
You're trying to sleep and you get angry because people are shouting on the street
outside. Then you realise they're shouting in your target language, and you feel a lot
happier and relax again.
garyb on 15 June 2011
Around Christmas time, you walk out into the living room where your roommates and their boyfriends are and you notice on the menu guide on the TV says "Elf," and you isntantly think to yourself out loud say "eleven, wonder what that's about" after realizing what you said, you don't even feel an ounce of embarrassment.
LebensForm on 16 June 2011
- when you drop everything you do and go on a two-hour hunt when you find out you have no idea where one of your Finnish grammar books are; you still haven't found it and hope your Dad accidenally took it when he was packing.
(I'm still waiting for him to call to see whether he found it or not.)
- Kat
Phantom Kat on 16 June 2011
(I'm still waiting for him to call to see whether he found it or not.)- Kat
I hope he finds it, I misplaced one of my German ones, still til this day don't know where it's at... that was 9 months ago :(
LebensForm on 16 June 2011
(I'm still waiting for him to call to see whether he found it or not.)- Kat
I hope he finds it, I misplaced one of my German ones, still til this day don't know where it's at... that was 9 months ago :(
Thanks, I hope he finds it, too, I mean, I know it only cost me around seven dollars, used (at least it wasn't my other one with the Audio CDs), but I still feel empty without it. *crosses fingers*
Ooh, got another one:
- when you are re-watching the Latin American Version of "Pinocchio" because you recently found out it was dubbed in Argentina, and you want to compare the Mexican and Argentinian accents.
- Kat
Phantom Kat on 16 June 2011
...when you þink ðat it would be really cool if we brought ðe letters þorn and eð back into ðeEnglish language.
Levi on 17 June 2011
. . . when you have to make some repairs on your computer, and you can't find the user's guide anywhere because the last time you saw it, you were using it as a bilingual text to learn some Spanish IT terminology. But it must be in the pile of language stuff somewhere . . . still searching!
meramarina on 17 June 2011
When you print and laminate this chart
http://www.starr.net/is/type/altnum.htm
to keep next to your computer because you need these letters so often and can't keep the keyboards simultaneously open on a shared computer.
Kafea on 17 June 2011
When you print and laminate this chart
http://www.starr.net/is/type/altnum.htm
to keep next to your computer because you need these letters so often and can't keep the keyboards simultaneously open on a shared computer.
...when you've instead designed and installed your own custom keyboard layout capable of typing in pretty much any language that uses the Latin or Cyrillic alphabet.
Levi on 17 June 2011
when you want to be a international teachers and want to understand you future students
when you might add something like swahili to the list of languages for the countries that speak it for your movie
when you read this particular fourm once already thinking for a thrid to try everything
that was posted
busyperson on 17 June 2011
When you're at school and blurt out a cuss-word only to realize that the teacher is right
next to you and heard what you said,so you get nervous and think you will get in trouble
and then realize you said 'cazzo' and are then overwhelmed with joy in the fact that you
spoke naturally in your target language.
GRagazzo on 18 June 2011
When you're at school and blurt out a cuss-word only to realize that the teacher is right
next to you and heard what you said,so you get nervous and think you will get in trouble
and then realize you said 'cazzo' and are then overwhelmed with joy in the fact that you
spoke naturally in your target language.
I do that too! Well, in Chinese at least...
nikorizzo on 18 June 2011
When you're at school and blurt out a cuss-word only to realize that the teacher is right
next to you and heard what you said,so you get nervous and think you will get in trouble
and then realize you said 'cazzo' and are then overwhelmed with joy in the fact that you
spoke naturally in your target language.
I do that too! Well, in Chinese at least...
Haha, me too, but, in German. =)
LebensForm on 18 June 2011
- when you start a new file in your Pokemon game and name all of your Pokemon after fitting Finnish nouns in order to add more words to your vocabulary.
- Kat
Phantom Kat on 18 June 2011
When you print and laminate this chart
http://www.starr.net/is/type/altnum.htm
to keep next to your computer because you need these letters so often and can't keep the keyboards simultaneously open on a shared computer.
...when you've instead designed and installed your own custom keyboard layout capable of typing in pretty much any language that uses the Latin or Cyrillic alphabet.
When, instead of either of these, you've downloaded a particular keyboard layout that can create the diacritics for every language you're studying, including Esperanto (I'll take this chance to show off my Ä, Ä¥, ĵ, Å, Å...), and you can't imagine why anyone would need a chart, because you've memorized how to type all the accents for your various languages and can produce them as quickly as normal typing.
P.S. If your method of "showing off" to your sister is writing this on her Facebook wall: "Ķẽšŧá¹Äľ... Ä á¹Ä ¥ơű Ç°eÌÄÅÃ¸á»§È ÉµÆ á¹Ä þǯ©ảÇÅ¡È© á» Ã§Ä á¹ Èÿ¶ë £¡ḱê ṫḫı§?"
EDIT: Wow, my "e" with a line through it doesn't even show up! That makes me feel strangely proud of myself!
Jinx on 18 June 2011
P.S. If your method of "showing off" to your sister is writing this on her Facebook wall: "Ķẽšŧá¹Äľ... Ä á¹Ä ¥ơű Ç°eÌÄÅÃ¸á»§È ÉµÆ á¹Ä þǯ©ảÇÅ¡È© á» Ã§Ä á¹ Èÿ¶ë £¡ḱê ṫḫı§?"
When you are jealous of someone who can write like this. How on earth did you do that?
Kafea on 18 June 2011
When you read your "Italian Step by Step" book by Charles Berlitz in between games of
Halo
GRagazzo on 18 June 2011
YKYALN when you find speaking German with an Italian accent incredibally entertaining and your not even drunk...
When you're at dinner with your family and your mom notices your quiet and asks what are you thinking about, and without hesitation, you blirt out, "the past tense of haben"
When you say you are too tired to go out tonight with your boyfriend because you have been staying up late chatting with a guy from Germany to which you feel like your "cheating" on your boyfriend
LebensForm on 18 June 2011
(Words do matter to me. I never go out without at least one pocket dictionary.)
... when you happily supply your language teacher with vocabulary.
Bao on 18 June 2011
When you go to Slavic Fest downtown where they have Slavic food, alcohol and dancers and you just go there to try to snag some language material in case you maybe decide to probably study a Slavic language possibly in the future.
SamD on 19 June 2011
when, no matter when you first began, you wish you had started studying languages sooner than you did
psy88 on 19 June 2011
...when you ace http://www.sporcle.com/games/dancastro/languages_diacritical _mark - this quiz in about two minutes.
Levi on 19 June 2011
P.S. If your method of "showing off" to your sister is writing this on her Facebook wall: "Ķẽšŧá¹Äľ... Ä á¹Ä ¥ơű Ç°eÌÄÅÃ¸á»§È ÉµÆ á¹Ä þǯ©ảÇÅ¡È© á» Ã§Ä á¹ Èÿ¶ë £¡ḱê ṫḫı§?"
When you are jealous of someone who can write like this. How on earth did you do that?
I'll just say this, it took a looong time. ;) (I have a Mac and I use an international keyboard layout which allows me to type all those accents â and more! â quite rapidly and easily. For instance, for the cedilla I type "alt+c" and then hit any of the following letters â ertsdhklzcn â and produce È©ÅÅ£Åá¸á¸©Ä·Ä¼z̧çÅ.)
Jinx on 19 June 2011
I'll just say this, it took a looong time. ;) (I have a Mac and I use an international
keyboard layout which allows me to type all those accents â and more! â quite rapidly
and easily. For instance, for the cedilla I type "alt+c" and then hit any of the
following letters â ertsdhklzcn â and produce È©ÅÅ£Åá¸á¸©Ä·Ä¼z̧çÅ.)
I use something similar called the compose key (e.g. compose + , + e = È©). The day I
discovered it, I spent a solid half hour playing with it to the bewilderment of my
roommate. I also discovered I had an IPA input mode and there went another half hour.
egill on 19 June 2011
YKYALN when you go to the library book sale to buy books in foreign languages and start using them to prove to your family that you actually meant it; you need them. And now your desktop is full of language files, keyboards, alphabet links, and YouTube clips.
Kafea on 19 June 2011
...when you ace http://www.sporcle.com/games/dancastro/languages_diacritical _mark - this quiz in about two minutes.
They don't accept Sámi as an answer. That's so bogus.
Kafea on 19 June 2011
...when you ace http://www.sporcle.com/games/dancastro/languages_diacritical _mark - this quiz in about two minutes.
Ugh, the only one I couldn't get on my own was ĺ!
ellasevia on 19 June 2011
...when you're still reading this thread.
H.Computatralis on 19 June 2011
You know you're a language nerd when you spend each 10 minutes of your free time learning a different foreign language and when you start thinking in more than three foreign languages simultaneously, translating your thoughts from a language to another, and ending up forgetting what the actual thought was about.
(Yes, it happened to me. :D )
aucuneidee on 20 June 2011
when you think that perhaps you should use your flash cards while waiting for the different threads to come up after you click on them...or, just develop more patience.. nah, get out the flash cards.
psy88 on 21 June 2011
Hahaha I always thought a foreign lang guide would be a great present but never thought I would actually get one! Lol, at least someone is taking my language nerdiness seriously hahaha. The best part is that Finnish is not even a target language for me...it's so unexpectedly perfect :D
Pau20 on 21 June 2011
I don't think I cld get fired for this... can I? lol, but many here speak Spanish, even the signs are in bothEnglish and Spanish.... whyyyy not German???? :(
LebensForm on 21 June 2011
When after listening to this song for a good 30 minutes you decide its time to start
learning Russian.
Edit*
Here is the link to the song http://youtu.be/N3qIwH94Ejc
GRagazzo on 22 June 2011
-Scream random exclamations in another tongue because you feel like it.
pineappleboom on 23 June 2011
YKYALN when you gladly pay 50 USD for an ebook on Mandarin morphology.
Ari on 23 June 2011
...when you ace http://www.sporcle.com/games/dancastro/languages_diacritical _mark - this quiz in about two minutes.
They don't accept Sámi as an answer. That's so bogus.
It is. I even tried typing it 'Saami' and 'Sapmi', and it didn't take. Oh, well.
mashmusic11235 on 24 June 2011
...when you can say thank you in ten different languages.
Guests on 24 June 2011
...when you ace http://www.sporcle.com/games/dancastro/languages_diacritical _mark - this quiz in about two minutes.
They don't accept Sámi as an answer. That's so bogus.
It is. I even tried typing it 'Saami' and 'Sapmi', and it didn't take. Oh, well.
It specifically says at the top along with the instructions, "Only national languages are accepted, not regional ones."
ellasevia on 24 June 2011
And yes, it is somewhat nerdish to care about that, so I am entitled to point it out in this thread.
Iversen on 24 June 2011
...when you visit this site
christian on 25 June 2011
...when you ace http://www.sporcle.com/games/dancastro/languages_diacritical _mark - this quiz in about two minutes.
mick33 on 25 June 2011
when you are speaking to a woman inEnglish and she says that she did something "solo" and, although you don't say it, your first thought is "you mean 'sola'"
psy88 on 29 June 2011
time.
... when you start keeping a list of the new words you learn in your native language and
consider putting them into an Anki deck.
... when you are horrified, looking at your list of words, at the amount of words you're
learning in your native language. Then you realise that actually, it's natural to learn
new words in any language, whether it's a foreign one or not. But it still takes you a
while to even remember that.
LanguageSponge on 29 June 2011
...when you take personal offense to hearing an announcement at the airport in Spanish pronounced so
badly that you thought it wasEnglish at first. And then when you proceed to rant about it aloud for several
minutes in the middle of a hallway full of people.
ellasevia on 01 July 2011
When you discovered this fantastic website by reading a blog about learning languages,
and then you registered here so you could post a reply in this thread. XD!
AndyMeg on 05 July 2011
http://teango.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/plumbing1_xl.jpg"> http://teango.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/plumbing2_xl.jpg">
And on closer inspection, an exotic script you've never seen before jumps out from the page and grabs your attention, one that even manages to transcend the dull topic of plumbing ownership and soothe a tenant's misgivings with it's beautiful swirls and intricate lettering:
No bin for you, Mr pamphlet, you're going straight into my bookshelf (next to the chocolate bar wrapper in Georgian)! :)
Teango on 05 July 2011
http://teango.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/plumbing1_l.png"> http://teango.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/plumbing2_l.png">
When upon seeing those thumbnails you first get excited by the prospect of reading about someone's sewer contract half a world away, and then become upset, bordering on angry, when you click on the links and the full-sized images turn out to be so damn small that you can't make out the individual texts.
Juаn on 05 July 2011
when you click on the links and the full-sized images turn out to be so damn small that you can't make out the individual texts.
They're fine on my screen, although I can't actually read most of them since I don't know what they're saying.
When you receive yet another boring utilities pamphlet through your door telling you they're going to raise their rates again, entitled "Important legal changes to the ownership of your sewers", and are about to throw it in the bin when you happen to notice the back pages...
TheÂEnglish explanation states that, ifÂEnglish is not your first language and you require more information, you can call the given number and they'll "call you back immediately with a translator."
Two things struck me when reading this:
1. Presumably the operators don't speak those languages (hence the need for a translator) so they're obviously expecting you to know enoughÂEnglish to ask for your own language. Otherwise, how would they know which language you'd be talking in when you phoned?
2. Who is the translator (or, more likely, group of translators) who is willing to drop everything and immediately attend to Thames Water's translation requests?
I never realised that sewer ownership could be so interesting!
patuco on 05 July 2011
You are a Language Nerd when you want to call that number just for fun! And any self-respecting language nerd would, of course, carefully place that beautiful pamphlet in a sturdy frame, under bulletproof glass, and display it on the wall to be contemplated at all times as a little shrine to Polyglot Plumbing!
meramarina on 05 July 2011
@Juan
I feel your pain over an otherwise wasted opportunity, and have therefore swapped the links with extra large originals. Enjoy!
Teango on 05 July 2011
You know you are a language nerd when you go to a bar and order a dark German beer, pronouncing it the correct German way (W said like a v etc) and you become annoyed when she keeps pronoucing the W like a W, and then after about 6, you finally lose enough sense or ability to bite your tongue and you tell the poor Black waitress the correct pronunciation... apparently going on German language and grammar tangents in public means I'm cut off...
LebensForm on 06 July 2011
So basically that waitress cut you off from your supply of dark German beer when you corrected her pronunciation? What a mess ... people have no respect for knowledge.
Iversen on 06 July 2011
No my friend did... lol. But I don't think the waitress really appreciated me correcting her. What an interesting night...
LebensForm on 06 July 2011
...when you take delight in the fact that the past participle of theEnglish loanword "upload" in German is "upgeloadet".
Levi on 10 July 2011
(yes...I love Turkish pop music :D Ok? I said it!)
Lol, I love Turkish pop music too :-p Yey for Tarkan!! :oD x
WentworthsGal on 10 July 2011
...and have tears rollng down your cheeks through laughter! (Becuase you recognise many replies)
...When a friend goes to some obscure country on holiday and you offer to lend them a phrase book (which you have yet to read yourself of course!)
Love this thread btw :o) x
WentworthsGal on 10 July 2011
when you are bored (I know, I know, a true language nerd would never be bored because there is always another language to study, but I needed to take a break) and you flip channels on the TV only to find I Love Lucy, an American sit-com from the 50's. It is show you haven't seen in years, nor were you ever a big fan of it, but this time WOW! You hit the jackpot.It is an episode you have not seen before. Lucy is arrested in France.The police are trying to interrogate her. In the finale, Lucy tells Desi inEnglish what has happened, he tells another prisoner(who speaks German and Spanish, but noEnglish or French) in Spanish, this person in turn tells a French policeman(who speaks German and French but noEnglish or Spanish) in German, who in turn tells the French officer in charge in French. They go back and forth several times. You are laughing hysterically because they are using your two target languages and you are understanding everything,. You wish you were there to help. You also think that perhaps German would be a good third target language.
psy88 on 10 July 2011
when you are bored (I know, I know, a true language nerd would never be bored because there is always another language to study, but I needed to take a break) and you flip channels on the TV only to find I Love Lucy, an American sit-com from the 50's. It is show you haven't seen in years, nor were you ever a big fan of it, but this time WOW! You hit the jackpot.It is an episode you have not seen before. Lucy is arrested in France.The police are trying to interrogate her. In the finale, Lucy tells Desi inÂEnglish what has happened, he tells another prisoner(who speaks German and Spanish, but noÂEnglish or French) in Spanish, this person in turn tells a French policeman(who speaks German and French but noÂEnglish or Spanish) in German, who in turn tells the French officer in charge in French. They go back and forth several times. You are laughing hysterically because they are using your two target languages and you are understanding everything,. You wish you were there to help. You also think that perhaps German would be a good third target language.
Look, I found it! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xtbbo_lHqAs
janalisa on 11 July 2011
Look, I found it! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xtbbo_lHqAs
Gah, that's the best thing I've seen on YouTube all month. ._.
I wish that scenario was a regular comedic routine in contemporary TV shows...
nway on 11 July 2011
when you are bored (I know, I know, a true language nerd would never be bored because there is always another language to study, but I needed to take a break) and you flip channels on the TV only to find I Love Lucy, an American sit-com from the 50's. It is show you haven't seen in years, nor were you ever a big fan of it, but this time WOW! You hit the jackpot.It is an episode you have not seen before. Lucy is arrested in France.The police are trying to interrogate her. In the finale, Lucy tells Desi inÂEnglish what has happened, he tells another prisoner(who speaks German and Spanish, but noÂEnglish or French) in Spanish, this person in turn tells a French policeman(who speaks German and French but noÂEnglish or Spanish) in German, who in turn tells the French officer in charge in French. They go back and forth several times. You are laughing hysterically because they are using your two target languages and you are understanding everything,. You wish you were there to help. You also think that perhaps German would be a good third target language.
Look, I found it! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xtbbo_lHqAs
You know you're a language nerd when you realize this video has subtitles in Portuguese and that way you can't pay total attention to the spoken languages, and that makes you upset.
FireViN on 11 July 2011
Look, I found it! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xtbbo_lHqAs
Hahaha, Ich liebe es!! That just made my day, thanks for that!
LebensForm on 11 July 2011
When one of the very first things you do when you get your new ipod is figure out how to set up foreign keyboards on it.
hjordis on 16 July 2011
When one of the very first things you do when you get your new ipod is figure out how to set up foreign keyboards on it.
And change the language, of course.
Levi on 16 July 2011
...the first thing you think to do once you come home from you two week vacation in Italy
is to look at all the new YKYLNW posts
... while looking at the ancient Italian sights you notice you are the only one taking
pictures of the rock slabs with Latin on it
... you're becoming the translator between your brothers and your Italian cousins is
the high point of the trip
... on the plane trip to Italy you are messing around with the little tv in front of
you and find a game that teaches you foreign languages and you spend a good 3 hours on it
... you can't understand why your brothers would rather listen toÂEnglish channels
when you could rather watch Italian news live
GRagazzo on 16 July 2011
When you teach your little cousin (who is 2 and a half) how to count in German and actually get a bit irritated because he can't pronounce the umlaut letters to your standards, I do admit when he says Fünf, it sounds sooo cute, lol.
When you overhear guys(guessing from the ball and chain, it was a batchelor party) at a German resteraunt chanting DAS BOOT over and over, because they are playing a drinking game that comprises of drinking out of/passing around a glass boot, but this irritates you like no other because Boot is actually the German word for boat, Stiefel is the word for boot... and you are over half tempted to correct these men.
I know it sounds like all I do is drink... I'm really not an alcoholic....:)
LebensForm on 17 July 2011
when you buy a new microwave/oven and you're thrilled that the instruction booklets come inEnglish and French with a separate panel sticky that you're considering putting up because at least 2 in the family speak French and another wants to learn. And you've warned your husband not to throw any of the paperwork away. Packaging in foreign languages is like a mini-vacation.
Bobbi on 17 July 2011
..when you can sing songs in japanese and mandarin but you know none in your native
language.
strummer on 17 July 2011
But I am a general nerd of many areas.
Obs: I have not learnt any Finnish song yet. That's a shame.
Aquila123 on 17 July 2011
Sticker: "Please use wax paper."
Spanish translation on sticker: "Por favor usar papel favor usar."
(Isn't it ironic that this Texan store is called "Fiesta"?)
- when in that same store, you trace back your steps to look for a box of herbal tea you had just glanced at. It was written in a language you didn't recognize, a Slavic one if your guesses were correct. When you find out it's in Croatian (and stomp the urge to buy it, despite the fact that you hate tea and have no intentions in learning Croatian), you can now go back home with peace in mind.
- when you will bring your camera the next time you go and take pictures of these foreign labels.
- Kat
Phantom Kat on 19 July 2011
when you can recognize yourself in the stories of this topic.
strummer on 19 July 2011
...when you nearly get bodily ejected from a store for taking photos of bilingual cereal boxes.
SamD on 20 July 2011
...when you seriously consider giving up your vacation plans because they conflict with the 6 Week Challenge in August.
...when you were not officially enrolled in the last one but really enjoyed it and benefited-so much so that although you still will not be an officially involved, you are feverishly thinking how to work it into your vacation plans
psy88 on 20 July 2011
...when you nearly get bodily ejected from a store for taking photos of bilingual cereal boxes.
- ... when this doesn't stop your plan mentioned in a previous post about photographing products in foreign languages.
- Kat
Phantom Kat on 20 July 2011
I thought it was a great thing when I noticed that automatic banking machines now operate in more and more languages, and many times I've been tempted to play around with a bank machine in all the languages offered, but I don't have enough money to do that, and it would probably set off security alarms. But the worst thing happened a few days ago. Usually the machine just tells you to choose the language you want, but this machine asked me to choose my favorite language!
Well, there were about ten languages listed and I didn't know them all, so how would I know my favorite? Isn't that question really unfair to the languages, too? How could anyone select only one language as a favorite? And the people in line behind me weren't going to wait there while I learned a few more languages just so I could make a better-informed choice . . .
. . . It was wrong, just wrong.
meramarina on 21 July 2011
You know you're a language nerd when you hear people at work throwing around the word "über" in their everyday,ÂEnglish vocabulary, and you get annoyed because they fail to pronounce the ü correctly!! I bet they don't even know it's a German word :(
When you buy another bottle of "Fünf" wine, but this time, you try the white wine version and not the sweet red you tried the day before... and you keep the bottles of course :)
LebensForm on 22 July 2011
Lol! So what did you end up choosing?English? Was German an option? I would have done that one, the ones around here only give Spanish as an option, this saddens me
Well, I had to go with my native language, but I didn't feel good about it! Yes German was there, and Spanish and Russian and I think even Vietnamese! Some of these machines speak, too! I don't know if this one does, but I'm sure you all understand how very, very, verrrryyy hard it was to resist playing with it, but the resulting police report would be embarrassing: Claims she wasn't trying to steal any money, just wanted to make it talk . . .
meramarina on 22 July 2011
Lol! So what did you end up choosing?ÂEnglish? Was German an option? I would have done that one, the ones around here only give Spanish as an option, this saddens me
Well, I had to go with my native language, but I didn't feel good about it! Yes German was there, and Spanish and Russian and I think even Vietnamese! Some of these machines speak, too! I don't know if this one does, but I'm sure you all understand how very, very, verrrryyy hard it was to resist playing with it, but the resulting police report would be embarrassing: Claims she wasn't trying to steal any money, just wanted to make it talk . . .
This reminded me of one of mine...
YKYALNW you're visiting your mom's friend in the hospital, and you notice one of those pain charts. You notice that the text under each of the faces is small, and on closer inspection, you notice that it's written in about 10 different languages, including Russian, Vietnamese, and Chinese! I never got a better look at it, but I suppose it'd be a good way to pick up some medical jargon in your TL...
mashmusic11235 on 24 July 2011
When one of the very first things you do when you get your new ipod is figure out how to set up foreign keyboards on it.
And change the language, of course.
When you get a new helmet and you wonder why the instructions are like an inch thick when folded and when you're flipping through you get excited because you see Japanese. (It turns out they're in 21 languages besides the illustrations. I still think it's unnecessarily large. It's not THAT complicated of a helmet.)
EDIT: oooh my harness wins at 24 languages, and smaller too.
Daisy chain 6
Belay device 6
Locking carabiner 5
Nonlocking carabiners 3 (wait what? You thought that French and Japanese were the most important languages to add afterEnglish?)
I hit the language jackpot!
hjordis on 24 July 2011
YKYALNW you're visiting your mom's friend in the hospital, and you notice one of those pain charts. You notice that the text under each of the faces is small, and on closer inspection, you notice that it's written in about 10 different languages, including Russian, Vietnamese, and Chinese! I never got a better look at it, but I suppose it'd be a good way to pick up some medical jargon in your TL...
I know that pain chart! (I used to work in a hospital - I don't have it here in my house as wall art or anything like that!)
I might reconsider my home decor, however, because for some oddball reason I just looked up the pain scale chart online. Check this out: instruction for pain description in 47 languages!
Pain is a bad thing and these faces are actually kind of frightening, but this is one hell of a parallel text. Scroll down and take a look at the PDF or Word file. You'll feel better!
http://www.usask.ca/childpain/fpsr/ - Feeling just fine, or not, in 47 languages!meramarina on 24 July 2011
YKYALNW you're visiting your mom's friend in the hospital, and you notice one of those pain charts. You notice that the text under each of the faces is small, and on closer inspection, you notice that it's written in about 10 different languages, including Russian, Vietnamese, and Chinese! I never got a better look at it, but I suppose it'd be a good way to pick up some medical jargon in your TL...
I know that pain chart! (I used to work in a hospital - I don't have it here in my house as wall art or anything like that!)
I might reconsider my home decor, however, because for some oddball reason I just looked up the pain scale chart online. Check this out: instruction for pain description in 47 languages![/ Pain is a bad thing and these faces are actually kind of frightening, but this is one hell of a parallel text. Scroll down and take a look at the PDF or Word file. You'll feel better!
when you were thinking of how you could get into a hospital and "walk off" with (sounds nicer than "steal") a pain chart but now, thank you very much, you don't have to risk an arrest in your pursuit of being a full-fledged language nerd.
psy88 on 25 July 2011
when you go to an *Italian* resteraunt, where they give you crayons to write on the table, (long sheets of paper for table cloth) the resteraunt is actually a bit upscale, even though it doesn't sound like it, but you end up filling the table cloth with random German, including conjugating German verbs and writing awkward German love phrases...
LebensForm on 26 July 2011
...when you pick up your Chinese character book after a while of not studying any Chinese, so you decide to use an SRS to memorize all the characters in the book over 50 days, trying to add 50 characters a day. And after ten days you're halfway done.
Levi on 26 July 2011
- Kat
EDIT: The pain chart doesn't have Finnish, but it has six types of Spanish? What has the world come to?
Phantom Kat on 26 July 2011
I wonder what the "everyday conversation" tape
will sound like.
Here's my guess for different courses:
Assimil: "A funny thing happened to me on my way to the pyramid..."
Michel Thomas: "We look at ze pictures. We do not memorize, we do not guess."
Pimsleur: "Hello Cleopatra, would you like something to drink?"
Rosetta Stone: "The boy is in the airplane."
jazzboy.bebop on 26 July 2011
when you go to an *Italian* resteraunt, where they give you crayons to write on the table, (long sheets of paper for table cloth) the resteraunt is actually a bit upscale, even though it doesn't sound like it, but you end up filling the table cloth with random German, including conjugating German verbs and writing awkward German love phrases...
When something someone says at work(in Spanish) makes you think "ah, so pizza is feminine in Spanish."
hjordis on 26 July 2011
This http://www.usask.ca/childpain/fpsr/ - pain chart is amazing - a series of faces in various stages of discomfort, progressing from left to right, that uncannily capture my ongoing attempts to understand Russian grammar.
I also think this important tip in their multilingual instructions is priceless:
"This scale is intended to measure how children feel inside, not how their face looks."
ÐолÑÑое ÑпаÑибо! :)
Teango on 26 July 2011
...when you read 230 pages of this thread, smiling to yourself the entire time.
...when www.how-to-learn-any-language.com is your homepage on all three of your preferred web browsers.
...when, while watching Fiddler on the Roof with your Jewish mother and sister, you wonder aloud why none of the characters speak Yiddish, Hebrew, or Russian, and only Tevye has an accent.
...when you decide that you will raise your two year old son to be bilingual inÂEnglish and Russian, despite a lack of fluency on your part, and a lack of any practical reason for Russian fluency in your area.
...when you sincerely wish you had the money to upgrade your membership to HTLAL.
Dreadslinger on 26 July 2011
when you go to an *Italian* resteraunt, where they give you crayons to write on the table, (long sheets of paper for table cloth) the resteraunt is actually a bit upscale, even though it doesn't sound like it, but you end up filling the table cloth with random German, including conjugating German verbs and writing awkward German love phrases... .
I am not sure if it is a common thing but there is one franchise chain that has the crayons and paper tablecloth.The one I had gone to had singing waiters one night, and so-YKYALN when you ask him to sing, he sings a piece from an Italian opera, and you then translate the lyrics for those at your table and the surrounding tables.
edited to separate my post from the quote
psy88 on 27 July 2011
when you go to an *Italian* resteraunt, where they give you crayons to write on the table, (long sheets of paper for table cloth) the resteraunt is actually a bit upscale, even though it doesn't sound like it, but you end up filling the table cloth with random German, including conjugating German verbs and writing awkward German love phrases...
Ya, I don't know if it's an Italian thing or not, but this place has that dim, mood lighting thing going on, a pretty extensive wine list and they provide this bread with olive oil at your table and whatnot, so it seemed up scale to me, lol I'm a poor college student, so it doesn't take much for me to think it's upscale lol, anyway, then, you go into the bathroom and their is a video/audio thing that "teaches" you Italian, so my friend, who is learning Italian, will go in there and won't come back to the table, for like 20 min, At first, I thought she had a serious issue, them I found out there is an Italian video thing and that explained her long trips to the bathroom for no apparent reason thing, which left me to conjugate German verbs, like haben and sein :) on the table with my purple crayon...
Anyway.... when you find out one of your brother's friends has the last name of Liebe, and you immediately Facebook this person and write a what could be taken borderline creepy message on her wall, telling her how jealous you are that her name means love in German, asking her if she even realizes this. Remind you, I never met this person in real life, lol funny thing is, literaly 10 seconds after I posted that comment, my brother "liked" it :)
LebensForm on 27 July 2011
...when you sit in the reference section of Barnes and Noble, nursing the same cup of coffee and reading the various language books for so long that the manager asks you (very politely, mind you) to buy something or leave, as they are about to close.
Dreadslinger on 27 July 2011
...when you spend your entire work shift resisting the temptation to sing the http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSFmgAkikF4 - bilingual Spanish-German song that's stuck in your head.
Levi on 05 August 2011
...when you spend your entire work shift resisting the temptation to sing the http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSFmgAkikF4 - bilingual Spanish-German song that's stuck in your head.
..... a real nerd wouldnt be able to resist.....
maydayayday on 05 August 2011
...when you're disappointed that all of the foreign language dictionaries in your public
library can't be taken out because they're in the reference section.
Kartof on 05 August 2011
...when you spend your entire work shift resisting the temptation to sing the http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSFmgAkikF4 - bilingual Spanish-German song that's stuck in your head.
... when your plans for the day stop so you can learn the German lyrics of this song.
... when you are typing and come across a weird-looking typo; instead of deleting it, you stare, trying to see which language that typo could be a word of.
- Kat
Phantom Kat on 05 August 2011
... when you are typing and come across a weird-looking typo; instead of deleting it, you stare, trying to see which language that typo could be a word of.
- Kat
...or when you find a typo in a text and go through ALL writing rules you know in an attempt to figure out what is the native language of the writer, and which rule from his native language he used in that typo.
(Ex.: Portuguese speakers would write "el sangre" instead of "la sangre" in Spanish, because the word for "blood" in Portuguese "(o) sangue" is masculine;)
JNetto on 05 August 2011
... when you are typing and come across a weird-looking typo; instead of deleting it, you stare, trying to see which language that typo could be a word of.
- Kat
...or when you find a typo in a text and go through ALL writing rules you know in an attempt to figure out what is the native language of the writer, and which rule from his native language he used in that typo.
(Ex.: Portuguese speakers would write "el sangre" instead of "la sangre" in Spanish, because the word for "blood" in Portuguese "(o) sangue" is masculine;)
Not to get nitpicky, but I think the line between "mistake" and "typo" is being blurred here.
"Mistake" = when you type something wrong because you're ignorant of what's right.
"Typo" = when you know what's right but you happen to accidentally hit the wrong key on the keyboard.
For example, people of all nations often type "the" as "teh" when typing inEnglish, but it doesn't mean that "teh" is a word that somehow connects to their mother tongue.
Jinx on 06 August 2011
When your computer seems to be about to die and your second fastest, second by one hundreth of a second, worry concerns language learning materials in it.
Cavesa on 06 August 2011
Then you sit one hour in the local library and read a grammar for the lugudurian dialect of Sardic (in Italian) from A to Z, followed by some pages of a book in Sardic about the Sardic language history ... whereupon you in all your naivity sprint back to the bookstore to buy that book. Well, it is in print, but they didn't have it.
And you are deeply frustrated because people around you didn't speak Sardic (or Corsican, which according to one source also should be spoken there), but 'just' ordinary plain Italian.
Well, maybe 1½ day wasn't enough. Or maybe it was too much. Maybe I could have found that book in Cagliari.
Iversen on 07 August 2011
Fasulye
Fasulye on 07 August 2011
When your dog is bilingual and on his way to learning his third language...
Mowli on 07 August 2011
⢠When you're a newbie on this forum and wade through 232 pages of posts.
⢠When a couple months into your Spanish studies you feel the urge to contact Real Academia Española with some really great ideas you have for improving their language based on some things you read about Vietnamese grammar.
⢠When you rehearse for hours what you might say if an attractive Latvian women ever sits down next to you on the bus.
⢠When you have trouble understanding the accentedEnglish of the customer service person on the phone so to save time you switch to Hindi.
fiziwig on 08 August 2011
When you actually refer to the colon symbol : as vertical umlauts :)
LebensForm on 08 August 2011
When you buy a book in a language you aren't studying because you "eventually" plan to study it
FuroraCeltica on 08 August 2011
...When you're sister asks you how to pronounce a word in Tagalog, and you not only tell her, but also give her an impromptu lesson on phonetics
...
pineappleboom on 13 August 2011
(KURWA!)
...when you're tutoring and you slowly drone on and on, while slowly spacing out, and you come to only to find
the child you are tutoring to have a confused look on his face due to the fact that you switched to German as
you spaced out.
ruskivyetr on 13 August 2011
You know you're a language nerd when you´re lying in bed with a high fever, sore throat and headache and you´re pissed off, not because you feel awful but because you´re missing out on an entire day of studying and will surely lose your good ranking on Twitter.
ReneeMona on 13 August 2011
You know you're a language nerd when you´re lying in bed with a high fever, sore throat
and headache and you´re pissed off, not because you feel awful but because you´re missing out on an entire
day of studying and will surely lose your good ranking on Twitter.
When you dread getting sick like this (sore throat), because it hurts to pronounce guttural sounds, although god
forbid pain stop me from studying!
ruskivyetr on 13 August 2011
When you find a grammar mistake in your German phrase book, and correct me if I'm wrong, but in the book it says "ich *hab* gefallen, und ich kann nicht aufstehen" but in my opinion, it should be "ich *bin* gefallen, und ich kann nicht aufstehen" because afterall, fallen is a sein verb, therefore it should've been conjugated as such.
LebensForm on 13 August 2011
Fasulye
Fasulye on 13 August 2011
When you read through Chung's profile for the Germanic languages, read some pages about Gothic, see the word "ingwäonisch", read the pages about this language group in the High German, the Low German, the Dutch and finally the Frisian Wikipedy and ... then you find a TV station that speaks Frisian and you just sit there with big blank eyes and wish you could find something similar for Low German and Swiss German.
Iversen on 13 August 2011
... when you have to concentrate on job applications, but you rather want to think in your foreign languages than in this boring German in which the applications have to be written.
Hey, German isn't boring!! It's good, hehehe :)
LebensForm on 13 August 2011
...when you're tutoring and you slowly drone on and on, while slowly spacing out, and you come to only to find the child you are tutoring to have a confused look on his face due to the fact that you switched to German as you spaced out.
lol, I've done that, but at work, now, the customers just expect it :)
LebensForm on 13 August 2011
Fasulye
An hour or so after you submit the application you realise that they specify they want you to write your document in 'native language or language of usual usage' and you are no longer sure which one that is ... unless you ring your mum. Worst of all she doesnt know either......
maydayayday on 13 August 2011
...when your language lists have languages that most people believe you made them up;
...when you chase people who speak a rare language with a recorder asking them to say ANYTHING in their native language so you can preserve a bit of it.
--- A have a little challenge here for all those willing ---
(if this is not appropriate, please let me know)
I made a spreadsheet with the 1000 most frequent words inÂEnglish and I want to enter as many language version as possible, so if you guys want to get in the band wagon and help out just add a column with the language name on the top and type on!
Here is the address:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ap2tXDA b3di0dGpqTXlOY292WWpEQ2ZvUjlIaldadXc&hl=en_US
(to access it delete the space right after "...0Ap2tXDA")
I thought it would be interesting to see how big it would get and how long it would take to have a couple dozen language uniting all our skills and knowledge! No google translator, just your knowledge!
JNetto on 13 August 2011
...when your Friday night highlight to be looked forward to is ellasevia's weekly log post.
...when you often explain that Finnish is different to Norwegian, Swedish and Danish in language group
even though you speak none of them.
LazyLinguist on 15 August 2011
when you return from vacation and tell people who ask that the worse part was when it rained, but in truth, the worse part(s) was being away from the computer and this forum; missing the August 8 week challenge; a having to wait a week to watch your recorded telenovelas. When you tell those who ask that the best part was the beautiful scenery but the real best part(s) was: meeting a family that spoke your second target language and being fascinated at how the children spoke so fluently; buying several inexpensive study guides for both your target languages; watching, one night, a station that broadcast in your second target language; and, meeting a family that spoke what you now consider your future third language will be.
psy88 on 16 August 2011
meramarina on 16 August 2011
..when you bring along a language book to the bathroom; you'll be sitting on that toilet for a while anyways, so why not?
..when you bring your Balinese book with you everywhere around the house.
..when your mother asks you, "Son, what is Tamil?", you respond with, "Uhh.. it's the name of the book.."; that moment was awkward for you too.
..when you prefer foreign movies without subtitles.
..when you start putting as much as possible into a foreign language.
..when you start explaining to people the difference between "THE Italian language" and "Italian languageS", of which the latter is mistakingly called "Italian dialects" by the common joe.
..when you actually care to distinguish Portuguese from Spanish.
..when you blow up into a mushroom when you get the slightest thing wrong.
PS I'm a newbie on this forum but I'm active on Unilang ("Michael"). Is this forum run by prescriptivists and Grammar Nazis? ("If you can't spell it, don't write it.") :P
mexitalian on 17 August 2011
When you have a big battle to get a wasp out of your office, and inadvertently find yourself clutching an Assimil coverbox as a shield and a rolled-up kanji poster for a sword.
Teango on 17 August 2011
When you are angry with yourself because you said "los" instead of "os" when your boss passed by your office door with a Brazilian lady, pointed at you and said "say something in Portuguese"
Iversen on 17 August 2011
You are furious with one of the presidential candidate in your country because he could
not give his election speech properly in his own "mother tongue". (Mandarin)
QiuJP on 18 August 2011
Haha... In which language does "like" translate as "arr"?
(You know you're a language nerd if you can answer this question without cheating.) =D
janalisa on 19 August 2011
Haha... In which language does "like" translate as "arr"?
(You know you're a language nerd if you can answer this question without cheating.) =D
Unfortunately, I think that would be "Pirate," not very language-nerdy at all.
kottoler.ello on 19 August 2011
YKYALNW... when your enthusiasm for languages affects other people's awareness of the world.
Example: Was talking to my mom on the phone today, and she said she finally started paying attention to the kana when looking at a news report about the Japanese economy. She said without me studying Japanese, she wouldn't have paid any attention to the characters at all. Now she sees them all over.
jdmoncada on 19 August 2011
remember it was "<3" I think.
YKYALK when you start translating a novel you wrote into a language you made up. Of
course a greater language nerd would probably finish before getting distracted.
mikonai on 19 August 2011
You are furious with one of the presidential candidate in your country
because he could
not give his election speech properly in his own "mother tongue". (Mandarin)
Here is the evidence of my anger!:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_t6iW5FjrWs
QiuJP on 19 August 2011
When you think it's a cool idea to have a dubstep remix of all the Assimil courses with
all the dialogues in.
LazyLinguist on 20 August 2011
YKYALN when you pack for college and you have an entire bin devoted to just your German lamguage stuff (and this is a pretty good sized bin).
LebensForm on 21 August 2011
YKYAALN when you just signed up for this forum after reading the whole thread.
Josquin on 21 August 2011
YKYAALN when you downloaded Windows 7 in AmericanEnglish.
misslanguages on 21 August 2011
You just changed Facebook language into Latin because you saw the [mihi placet!]-button in an image.
Hampie on 21 August 2011
...when you totally relate to Brick Heck (the 7-year-old bookworm on the American sitcom The Middle) when he opens up his Christmas present, takes out the manual and exclaims "Cool, a manual! And it's in German, Japanese, and French!"
Levi on 22 August 2011
...Ñен Ñ ÑÐ°Ð¹Ñ Ð¸Ð½ Ñ³Ñ Ð¡ÑÑилик ÑлÑÑбеÑ, джÑÑÑ ÑÐ¾Ñ ÑÑн.
Levi on 23 August 2011
when your friend loans you his GPS but you still get lost...but by getting lost you find a huge bookstore (part of a chain) going out of business. So, of course, you stop to check out the language learning section. Unfortunately, all the "good stuff" for your two target languages are gone BUT you decide the deals on the other materials for languages that you will..or, might..or, hope to..study are too good to pass up.
You then discover that the GPS is no longer talking to you (perhaps it was angry at the way you cursed, er,I mean,spoke to it inEnglish, as well as your target languages). You fiddle around with it and get it to speak to you,but it is in what you believe to be German!( but later find out was Afrikaans). You then discover that you can set it to give you directions in your target languages (or, apparently, hundreds of others). So, now you plan to buy your own GPS when you have saved up enough money because the language shopping spree set you back quite a bit. Now you feel good knowing that with your own GPS you will still get lost again, but at least the next time, the directions it gives you will be in your target languages. Of course when you give it back to your friend he is going to wonder what happened to his AmericanEnglish setting.Yes, the GPS distinguishes American and BritishEnglish.
psy88 on 23 August 2011
...Ñен Ñ ÑÐ°Ð¹Ñ Ð¸Ð½ Ñ³Ñ Ð¡ÑÑилик ÑлÑÑбеÑ, джÑÑÑ ÑÐ¾Ñ ÑÑн.
ì¬ ì¸ ìêµ´!
(Not sure if I spelled that all right...)
Jinx on 23 August 2011
When my most exciting ideas/stuffs to do somehow all end up language-related.
learnvietnamese on 23 August 2011
...Ñен Ñ ÑÐ°Ð¹Ñ Ð¸Ð½ Ñ³Ñ Ð¡ÑÑилик ÑлÑÑбеÑ, джÑÑÑ ÑÐ¾Ñ ÑÑн.
...When you're mildly annoyed that people don't say Cyrillic with a hard C inEnglish. :)
Kartof on 23 August 2011
(Yes it was reported, Northeast US quake, very unusual for this area. I did not feel it, I was outside pulling weeds and didn't sense anything shaking - I've marked several articles in target languages about earthquakes to read later, though!
I think if there's ever a major local disaster requiring evacuation, I'd just sit around looking up vocabulary to describe it! This kind of language nerdery cannot possibly be a survival advantage - how have language nerds like us remained in the gene pool?
meramarina on 23 August 2011
Haha... In which language does "like" translate as "arr"?
(You know you're a language nerd if you can answer this question without cheating.) =D
Lol I believe that's PirateÂEnglish or something lol :o) xx
edit: oops too late, someone beat me to it lol :-p
WentworthsGal on 23 August 2011
. . . When there's an earthquake, and the first thing you do is go online to google "Erdbeben" and "terremoto" to see if it's been reported internationally! I didn't know the word in French but of course looked it up - tremblement de terre
In French it can also be called "un séisme".
Levi on 23 August 2011
And not sitting under my bookshelves . . .
EDIT: Just saw the Italian word "sisma" too
meramarina on 23 August 2011
...Ñен Ñ ÑÐ°Ð¹Ñ Ð¸Ð½ Ñ³Ñ Ð¡ÑÑилик ÑлÑÑбеÑ, джÑÑÑ ÑÐ¾Ñ ÑÑн.
...when it takes you 3 seconds to decode this message, and after that you can read normally.
JNetto on 23 August 2011
when your friend loans you his GPS but you still get lost...but by getting lost you find a
huge bookstore (part of a chain) going out of business...
...when you go to this "going-out-of-business" bookstore and buy every single version of language
phrasebook you find (even not being the ones for your target languages);
BTW, if you live by a "Borders Store" stop by and check the language section, they are having good
discounts!
JNetto on 23 August 2011
when your friend loans you his GPS but you still get lost...but by getting lost you find a
huge bookstore (part of a chain) going out of business...
...when you go to this "going-out-of-business" bookstore and buy every single version of language
phrasebook you find (even not being the ones for your target languages);
BTW, if you live by a "Borders Store" stop by and check the language section, they are having good
discounts!
Actually,it was a Borders Store. I didn't know if I could name it without appearing to be a shill for the store. But you are right- great deals, even for future target languages. My only regret was I didn't get there sooner.
psy88 on 24 August 2011
when your friend loans you his GPS but you still get
lost...but by getting lost you find a
huge bookstore (part of a chain) going out of business...
...when you go to this "going-out-of-business" bookstore and buy every single version of language
phrasebook you find (even not being the ones for your target languages);
BTW, if you live by a "Borders Store" stop by and check the language section, they are having good
discounts!
Actually,it was a Borders Store. I didn't know if I could name it without appearing to be a shill for the store.
But you are right- great deals, even for future target languages. My only regret was I didn't get there sooner.
It's all good. We all need to spread news like this! And I don't think it sounds like an ad considering that it is
REALLY going out of business. They are even selling the shelves! So I think all should take advantage of
this. For example, I bought a spanking new Teach Yourself Turkish in the case with CDs for $17, this will
never happen again! :)
JNetto on 24 August 2011
When you have to write something on a paper and because your native language and your target language have similar sounds you start writing in your native language but with your target language alphabet, and you don´t realize this until someone ask you "What are you writing?".
AndyMeg on 24 August 2011
So far, for me, two visits to clearance sales at Borders, with excellent results! A true Language Nerd doesn't stop there, though - I must go again.
Oh, and that introductory Polish course there? It's MINE. Do NOT buy it, fellow nerds!
meramarina on 24 August 2011
What's the language on the forth from the left button in the top row?
(also in the top row, second from the right: Hebrew is wrong, written in reverse order)
zonius on 24 August 2011
buzz-20003-1313430253-32.jpg">
What's the language on the forth from the left button in the top row?
(also in the top row, second from the right: Hebrew is wrong, written in reverse order)
I believe it is Cherokee.
JNetto on 24 August 2011
Not perhaps a general language nerd, but a sign that someone is a Cyrillic language nerd is when they see the "Toys R Us" sign and automatically think the reversed R is "Toys Ya Us".
William Camden on 24 August 2011
Not perhaps a general language nerd, but a sign that someone is a Cyrillic language nerd is when they see the "Toys R Us" sign and automatically think the reversed R is "Toys Ya Us".
And don't forget about the band "Koyap".
Levi on 24 August 2011
I think if there's ever a major local disaster requiring evacuation, I'd just sit around looking up vocabulary to describe it!
Said nerd is now in path of a hurricane, and lives 1000 ft from the water.
Oh, but once a nerd, always a nerd. I fear that my books could get wet. How many can I carry, if necessary? Is Assimil waterproof? I'm happy that my dictionaries are too heavy to fly off in the wind, but I'll have to secure the CDs and flash cards. Might need to read by flashlight this weekend. Do I have enough weather vocabulary to talk about an emergency? How many hours of podcasts have I got? Yes, I'm sure Im a language nerd because that's what I'll be doing if the big one hits - why not?
And here is a previously undiscovered language I just found at the local online news:
most wir abo tohgii tide sun mreo even great seirosus. very uheavy fianrlllupward of afodoof train over inaldnk sieonk that woekld preodcut cataotao dloffo ti s aveyr vyer serixou situation. shud p be evaulatinfosl shodl eb conmeoptle pre storm active alto fcheck lcist sout tehr from red cors⦠shud eb weel overrun way . if an when hur watch are issu p shud take appro acito as far as any evac that tatehy cal of local aand county emrn mana off. ealwys enc re to heed their local official cert we recthat the pbu heed thso recomes. most sign sotm to trheat nj in how many eyar. I dotn know if we have tnayth to behd this. if this follw the tack. in ther ce reco hit. Ane aj hur htitn back in the it coodl be very bad. If this pans o t a sthe tack sugs. This wil be the wor sotm in anyoenk lefietitnme in new Jersey
That's seriously weird and I didn't make it up, it's copied and pasted from the source. Maybe it's pirate language, as mentioned in other posts: ARR!
But I know, again, that I am a language nerd because I've made an accurate translation: it really means this:
"Hey, maybe that ridiculous beach house from that "Jersey Shore" show will get blown out of state."
meramarina on 25 August 2011
I think if there's ever a major local disaster requiring evacuation, I'd just sit around looking up vocabulary to describe it!
Said nerd is now in path of a hurricane, and lives 1000 ft from the water.
Oh, but once a nerd, always a nerd. I fear that my books could get wet. How many can I carry, if necessary? Is Assimil waterproof? I'm happy that my dictionaries are too heavy to fly off in the wind, but I'll have to secure the CDs and flash cards. Might need to read by flashlight this weekend. Do I have enough weather vocabulary to talk about an emergency? How many hours of podcasts have I got? Yes, I'm sure Im a language nerd because that's what I'll be doing if the big one hits - why not?
And here is a previously undiscovered language I just found at the local online news:
most wir abo tohgii tide sun mreo even great seirosus. very uheavy fianrlllupward of afodoof train over inaldnk sieonk that woekld preodcut cataotao dloffo ti s aveyr vyer serixou situation. shud p be evaulatinfosl shodl eb conmeoptle pre storm active alto fcheck lcist sout tehr from red cors⦠shud eb weel overrun way . if an when hur watch are issu p shud take appro acito as far as any evac that tatehy cal of local aand county emrn mana off. ealwys enc re to heed their local official cert we recthat the pbu heed thso recomes. most sign sotm to trheat nj in how many eyar. I dotn know if we have tnayth to behd this. if this follw the tack. in ther ce reco hit. Ane aj hur htitn back in the it coodl be very bad. If this pans o t a sthe tack sugs. This wil be the wor sotm in anyoenk lefietitnme in new Jersey
That's seriously weird and I didn't make it up, it's copied and pasted from the source. Maybe it's pirate language, as mentioned in other posts: ARR!
But I know, again, that I am a language nerd because I've made an accurate translation: it really means this:
"Hey, maybe that ridiculous beach house from that "Jersey Shore" show will get blown out of state."
Save the books!And yourself! Good luck with the approaching Irene.
As far as two other things you referenced: silly jokes and "pirate language"
Remember: "To err is human, to arr, divine"
psy88 on 26 August 2011
when you see the other thread "How to deal with genders" and you know what it means to you and to other language nerds; and, it is not what 99% of the rest of the world would think of when seeing that sentence.
psy88 on 26 August 2011
Save the books!And yourself! Good luck with the approaching Irene.
Thanks, I'll try. I really need to be more careful with the subject of my jokes!
There's a good chance I actually will need to leave--forecasts change, but it looks pretty ominous tonight. So today there was no study, just the purchasing of emergency supplies and the packing of bags.
Indeed, Language Nerdery fails me a little just now - not entirely, though, because I've placed my language stuff upon high shelves in case of horrendous flooding. Which won't help if the windows blow out or trees falls on the house, though. And realistically, I know that books, even language books, (little sob here, sniff) can be replaced.
But maybe, just maybe, I could get myself a handy pirate getaway boat? Then I could float around in it and steal language stuff from those who did head for higher ground!
If it happens that it's safe enough to stay in place and wait out the storm, you can be sure I'll be reviewing foreign phrases, grammar drills and time-consuming conjugations--why notmake the best of it and pass the time with practice! Must keep the mind busy until the tempest is spent. So tonight, I'm loading up the Ipod, adding words to my Anki decks, and yes,of course, learning natural disaster vocabulay. It's kind of fun doing this tonight, perhaps not so much 24-48 hours from now.
Can't you just see the Weather Channel's "Storm Stories: Special Language Nerd Edition" right now? "Yeah, my German sentence builder workbook didn't make it, and I hated to lose my brand new French Verb book,you know, it came with a CD supplement I hadn't even used yet .. . (speaker trails off,thinks a minute) . . . but, see, the water stains on my Italian reader don't really look that THAT bad, and it might even be easier to read the book without a roof on the house . . . .
In all seriousness, it seems rather grim right now, and although the forecast could change for the better tomorrow, if we get all wind-walloped and waterlogged, my language material won't be my first concern.
The second, perhaps! And that, good night Irene, is when you really KNOW you're a language nerd!
Secure life, limb, and library!
meramarina on 26 August 2011
You resign from your Finance/Strategy job to study computer programming for 9 months just
so you can create language learning & translation apps. Just graduated and now spending a
lot of time playing around with such!
RaÑraÑ Åuɲa on 26 August 2011
You resign from your Finance/Strategy job to study computer programming for 9 months
just
so you can create language learning & translation apps. Just graduated and now spending a
lot of time playing around with such!
Are there other reasons to learn how to program?
Hampie on 26 August 2011
consider it "fun":
When I first began to learn German, after I had begun to understand that adding
prefixes onto the beginning of a base verb would perhaps give it a new meaning, I used
to spend my lunch breaks, or study breaks after school, going through dictionaries
(because I hadn't heard of the wonderful wordreference) and adding prefixes onto random
verbs, expanding my vocabulary that way -
stehen, aufstehen, verstehen, bestehen, beistehen, entstehen, erstehen, durchstehen,
gestehen, abstehen, vorstehen,ausstehen, überstehen, widerstehen...
I used to be embarrassed to mention that way of doing things to anyone. But not here -
I wonder why :]
LanguageSponge on 26 August 2011
stehen, aufstehen, verstehen, bestehen, beistehen, entstehen, erstehen, durchstehen,
gestehen, abstehen, vorstehen,ausstehen, überstehen, widerstehen...
That's an excellent method to expand your vocabulary of a foreign language!
Fasulye
Fasulye on 27 August 2011
stehen, aufstehen, verstehen, bestehen, beistehen, entstehen, erstehen, durchstehen,
gestehen, abstehen, vorstehen,ausstehen, überstehen, widerstehen...
That's an excellent method to expand your vocabulary of a foreign language!
Fasulye
Thanks! It's a shame that doesn't work quite as well with some other languages, though.
LanguageSponge on 27 August 2011
YKYALN when you not just count steps everytime you use the stairs but you do this in German, that you're able to say German numbers really fast, so maybe you will just quit school and become a German auctioneer.
LebensForm on 29 August 2011
Save the books!And yourself! Good luck with the approaching Irene.
Thanks, I'll try. I really need to be more careful with the subject of my jokes!
There's a good chance I actually will need to leave--forecasts change, but it looks pretty ominous tonight. So today there was no study, just the purchasing of emergency supplies and the packing of bags.
Indeed, Language Nerdery fails me a little just now - not entirely, though, because I've placed my language stuff upon high shelves in case of horrendous flooding. Which won't help if the windows blow out or trees falls on the house, though. And realistically, I know that books, even language books, (little sob here, sniff) can be replaced.
But maybe, just maybe, I could get myself a handy pirate getaway boat? Then I could float around in it and steal language stuff from those who did head for higher ground!
If it happens that it's safe enough to stay in place and wait out the storm, you can be sure I'll be reviewing foreign phrases, grammar drills and time-consuming conjugations--why notmake the best of it and pass the time with practice! Must keep the mind busy until the tempest is spent. So tonight, I'm loading up the Ipod, adding words to my Anki decks, and yes,of course, learning natural disaster vocabulay. It's kind of fun doing this tonight, perhaps not so much 24-48 hours from now.
Can't you just see the Weather Channel's "Storm Stories: Special Language Nerd Edition" right now? "Yeah, my German sentence builder workbook didn't make it, and I hated to lose my brand new French Verb book,you know, it came with a CD supplement I hadn't even used yet .. . (speaker trails off,thinks a minute) . . . but, see, the water stains on my Italian reader don't really look that THAT bad, and it might even be easier to read the book without a roof on the house . . . .
In all seriousness, it seems rather grim right now, and although the forecast could change for the better tomorrow, if we get all wind-walloped and waterlogged, my language material won't be my first concern.
The second, perhaps! And that, good night Irene, is when you really KNOW you're a language nerd!
Secure life, limb, and library!
Just a post-Irene follow up. Are you okay? I hope you survived Irene without too much damage to your books , home, or to you.
psy88 on 31 August 2011
...When you know what YKYALNW means.
LazyLinguist on 01 September 2011
...when setting your iPod to "shuffle" makes it switch between random foreign songs and random language lessons.
Levi on 01 September 2011
And you happen to feel good most of the time.
learnvietnamese on 02 September 2011
... when another highlight of that trip is your sister taking you to a Spanish, Jehovah's Witnesses mass in order to get more religion in your life. You cannot concentrate on what the first man is talking about (or what Bible page to flip to) because you're trying to figure out which Spanish-speaking country he's from by his accent. (Your best bet is Chile due to the dropping of final -s in words.)
- Kat
Phantom Kat on 03 September 2011
When a winner briefing inEnglish upsets you.
Siberiano on 03 September 2011
...when you read some tips on the AJATT and a few articles later you seriously consider learning Japanese. (but of course it is unrealistic to start now, perhaps in a few years from now)
Cavesa on 03 September 2011
When you are thrilled when the Iliad is on your required reading list for school, but while you are reading you keep on thinking, "This would sound so much better in Ancient Greek, and it would be so neat to read the original dactylic hexameter, too!" And then you are tempted to take your copy of Teach Yourself Ancient Greek off your shelf and pull out your Ancient Greek flashcards.
When you enjoy reading articles on Wikipedia in Portuguese because it is so much fun trying to puzzle things out based on your knowledge of Spanish and Latin.
Amerykanka on 03 September 2011
When you are thrilled when the Iliad is on your required reading list for school, but
while you are reading you keep on thinking, "This would sound so much better in Ancient
Greek, and it would be so neat to read the original dactylic hexameter, too!" And then
you are tempted to take your copy of Teach Yourself Ancient Greek off your shelf and
pull out your Ancient Greek flashcards.
When your teacher reads the first eight lines of the Iliad in Ancient Greek, and you
start considering learning Ancient Greek. Maybe I can get extra credit for it...
When you love your dentist even more when you see that the appointment reminder
postcards he sends out have a picture of an advertisem*nt for toothpaste -- in your
target language!
mikonai on 03 September 2011
...When you know what YKYALNW means.
YKYALNW you've seen the meaning of YKYALNW at least twice already on this thread.
patuco on 04 September 2011
...when you are taking 18 college credits, but firmly believe that auditing Ancient Greek (Attic), Biblical
Hebrew, Modern Hebrew, and Navajo is actually not going to add much to your load. Even if you already
have Persian representing 4 of the 18 credits you have!
JNetto on 04 September 2011
...when you go to church and during the hymns you sing AND try to figure out the possible casing for each
element in the hymn lyrics and how it would be written in ancient Greek .
JNetto on 05 September 2011
When you're actually considering using your German as a means to make a guy like you in your class, after he asks you to help him with his German.
LebensForm on 05 September 2011
When your teacher reads the first eight lines of the Iliad in Ancient Greek, and ...
Then you know that your teacher is language nerd too
Iversen on 05 September 2011
When you are playing word association in a mixture of French, German and Russian with
your girlfriend at 2 in the morning and both fall asleep on the sofa in the process. And
directly we wake up at 10 in the morning we start it again.
LanguageSponge on 05 September 2011
When you are playing word association in a mixture of French, German and Russian with your girlfriend at 2 in the morning...
Definitely a language nerd considering the other things that you could be doing at 2 am.
patuco on 05 September 2011
I like to think it brightened her Sunday afternoon, after all languages are not just about me are they ?
maydayayday on 05 September 2011
When your TV is set to your college's German channel (there's a Spanish and
French channel too) and you watch shows on that, that you wouldn't watch inÂEnglish. In fact, you haven't
watched TV inÂEnglish in over a week...
Are you attending BYU?
JNetto on 05 September 2011
When you are playing word association in a mixture of French, German and
Russian with
your girlfriend at 2 in the morning and both fall asleep on the sofa in the process. And
directly we wake up at 10 in the morning we start it again.
You know your KIDS will be language nerds when... Your relationship starts that way!! :)
JNetto on 05 September 2011
Are you attending BYU?
Nope, I am attending a school here in Iowa, why? :)
LebensForm on 06 September 2011
When you hear the word 'antioxidant' and misremember it as 'approximant'
graaaaaagh on 06 September 2011
- Kat
Phantom Kat on 06 September 2011
YKYALNW you get excited that a combination lock's instructions are printed in 6 different languages
Kartof on 06 September 2011
Just a post-Irene follow up. Are you okay? I hope you survived Irene without too much damage to your books , home, or to you.s
Yes I'm OK, thank you! Had an unfortunate hospitalization following the storm (not really storm-related, unless you count the stress) but I'm on the mend now.
And you know you are a language nerd when you're ill and the doctor asks so, what's the problem, and you look down in embarrassment, hesitate, then stammer: "It's . . . it's . . . (sigh) . . . it's nerdery (flop onto cot).
And everyone, doctors, nurses and fellow patients, back away from you . . . No, not that! Isolation! Contamination!This condition is extremely contagious!
(I knoww, I should have learned by now NEVER to make jokes!)
meramarina on 07 September 2011
Are you attending BYU?
Nope, I am attending a school here in Iowa, why? :)
Just because BYU happens to have a multilanguage Cable TV service too, so I thought it would be the
case:) I keep on going through the many channels to until my wife gets sick of it and takes possession of
the remote! :(
JNetto on 07 September 2011
Are you attending BYU?
Nope, I am attending a school here in Iowa, why? :)
Just because BYU happens to have a multilanguage Cable TV service too, so I thought it would be the
case:) I keep on going through the many channels to until my wife gets sick of it and takes possession of
the remote! :(
Haha, the other day, there was a show about an overweight couple on the German channel and it was just uhhhh neat. See, I wouldn't even watch these kinds of shows onEnglish channels but they are just so much better auf Deutsch. I am glad I am single now, so the remote is all mine, I never let him have control anyway ;)
When you are known in your German class as the girl who answers questions no one can answer, seriously, now everyone just looks at me, if the teacher asks something. It is actually rather awkward, because now there is like this implied expectation to know stuff... otherwise I just sit in the back and don't say much, just enough to get my participation points :)
When, in your science class, about AIDS, someone mentions the movie "The Gift" and your mind instantly goes to "the Poison" Gift is poison in German, and you actually mentally devote maybe 5 minutes to how that play on words actually fits the original meaning, sharing the "Gift" of HIV with people...
LebensForm on 07 September 2011
Just a post-Irene follow up. Are you okay? I hope you survived Irene without too much damage to your books , home, or to you.s
Yes I'm OK, thank you! Had an unfortunate hospitalization following the storm (not really storm-related, unless you count the stress) but I'm on the mend now.
And you know you are a language nerd when you're ill and the doctor asks so, what's the problem, and you look down in embarrassment, hesitate, then stammer: "It's . . . it's . . . (sigh) . . . it's nerdery (flop onto cot).
And everyone, doctors, nurses and fellow patients, back away from you . . . No, not that! Isolation! Contamination!This condition is extremely contagious!
(I knoww, I should have learned by now NEVER to make jokes!)
Welcome back! My area was hit hard by Irene but I was fortunate to have little damage. Glad to hear that you are okay. PS Language Nerdery is terminal.
psy88 on 07 September 2011
Nerdery can sometimes show itself in small things. Like when I today wanted to look up ÏÏÏÏÎ¿Î²Î¿Ï Î»Î¯Î± ('initiative') in the dictionary beside my armchair. But I couldn't find it. Well, maybe there was a spelling error, so I searched instead under ÏÏoÏÎ¿Î²Î¿Ï Î»Î¯Î±, but no - it wasn't there either. Back to ÏÏÏÏο- ... and then it struck me: shouldn't Ï (omega) be the last letter in the alphabet? Then what is that Ñ ('ja') doing there .. and not one word with omega in sight. The the truth finally dawned on me: I was trying to look a Greek word up in a Russian dictionary, and I didn't even notice that it was the wrong alphabet.
Earlier this evening I had in fact been studying Russian, and after that I decided to copy some text in Polish. So I looked at the page and began writing: "ÐÑавдоподобние" .. and only then I realized that Polish is written with Roman letters - and so was of course the word I was trying to copy: prawdopodobnie, which means 'probably'.
Maybe I should go to bed and get a good night's sleep now, but I have promised myself to consume at least one Canto from "Os LusÃadas" by LuÃs de Camões daily - no book should be allowed to take more than max.one week of anybody's time.
Iversen on 08 September 2011
http://www.toyota.fr/yaris
janalisa on 08 September 2011
YKYALN when you've been reading a Dutch thread in this forum for hours although you don't even speak Dutch and can only make educated guesses at what is being said. But thanks to my German mothertongue and Google Translate I always got the gist! :)
Josquin on 10 September 2011
When you think it is fascinating that you spelled Egyptian as Eygeptian last week (you still like thinking about it and being amused).
Amerykanka on 11 September 2011
When you think it is fascinating that you spelled Egyptian as Eygeptian last week (you still like thinking about it and being amused).
A similar, and worrying thing is when your actual native vocabulary seems to shrink, after you have been absorbed in a target language book for hours - you read a sentence, know exactly what it means, but are stuck for the moment for some of the native language words, and you'd be unable to translate it. I suppose this is a good fault, and the effect is only temporary (I hope!), since we are told "not to translate", but it's disconcerting.
montmorency on 12 September 2011
When a friend wrote Ich liebe dich (I love you) on my whiteboard on my door here at school only to notice some guy left his phone number for you to call him because apparently you love a certain part of the male anatonmy, which in all, you find this whole deal extremely offensive to the German language, you don't even care that some creep wrote on your board...
LebensForm on 12 September 2011
Someone asked me a question today, and I didn't understand the question. I responded withEnglish words, but the grammar seemed rather Japanese. When I realized it, I laughed at myself.
jdmoncada on 15 September 2011
(Even though you don't quite get what's being said)
learnvietnamese on 15 September 2011
when you unthinkingly respond to statements in you native language ofEnglish with short catch phrases from either or both of your target languages because they fit the situation better than theirEnglish equivalents. Of course, your listener does not have a clue as to what you said or why you said it.
psy88 on 16 September 2011
You're going to Switzerland on the train from the UK and have managed to persuade your travelling companion that it makes more sense to go via Brussels than Paris so you can by Dutch books and newspapers on the way.
Tamise on 17 September 2011
You're going to Switzerland on the train from the UK and have managed
to
persuade your travelling companion that it makes more sense to go via Brussels than
Paris
so you can by Dutch books and newspapers on the way.
In similar vein, you are travelling by train from Brussels to Aachen, and instead of
disappearing into the Thalys "bubble", you take slow, local trains, so you can hang
around longer near the border areas to listen to what languages and accents/dialects
the locals are using.
montmorency on 17 September 2011
when you start to watch foreign films that you have no interest in at all because you want to hear different languages so you can have a better idea of which language you might want to learn next. You are not watching for the plot,the actors,the action, etc. but only to hear what the language sounds like when spoken by native speakers.
psy88 on 18 September 2011
...when what you do when you get bored watching something in your native language is to analyze the actors' speech, trying to determine the distinguishing features of their dialects, taking note of changes in register, contemplating the etymologies of the words they use, thinking about how the ideas would be expressed in your target languages, etc.
Levi on 19 September 2011
when you start to watch foreign films that you have no interest in at all because you want
to hear different languages so you can have a better idea of which language you might want to learn next.
You are not watching for the plot,the actors,the action, etc. but only to hear what the language sounds like
when spoken by native speakers.
If you think about it is not only movies, but anything that comes your way! The nature really doesn't matter
(some times not even the language it is on) as long as it is not your native language or second in which you
are already fluent. I remember myself reading books about metallurgy (totally obsolete) just because they
were in Russian!
JNetto on 19 September 2011
This wasn't me (unfortunately) but a buddy I've met recently.
And so I have met a language enthusiast.
learnvietnamese on 19 September 2011
When your collegues use Google translate to produce a greeting card in 6 languages for your jubilee even though you actually never use your languages at your job.
Iversen on 19 September 2011
Me, watching the trailer for The Green Hornet: Ugh, another superhero flick? ...with Jay Chou?!? *rushes to video store*
Magdalene on 19 September 2011
Me, watching the trailer for The Green Hornet: Ugh, another superhero flick? ...with Jay Chou?!? *rushes to video store*
When you watch the The Green Hornet and they say Kato is from Shanghai but later the captions say he is speaking Mandarin and you think "shouldn't he be speaking Shanghaise?"
psy88 on 20 September 2011
learning languages: French, Russian, German, Belarusian, Cantonese, and more and more.
And most are rare and excellent books.
This wasn't me (unfortunately) but a buddy I've met recently.
And so I have met a language enthusiast.
When you are the buddy that this poster talks about, and would like to add, that on that
day, you also have a Czech and Japanese book.
QiuJP on 20 September 2011
When it's 2AM and you're so excited you can't sleep because "if I'm going to Guatemala I guess I'd better learn Spanish and I only have 5 months!"
hjordis on 24 September 2011
that you'd never watch in your native one (soap operas? yes yes), but also seek out
media in your native language you'd otherwise never watch, as long as it stars your
favorite native target language speaking celebrities.
Me, watching the trailer for The Green Hornet: Ugh, another superhero flick?
...with Jay Chou?!? *rushes to video store*
When you watch the The Green Hornet and they say Kato is from Shanghai but later the
captions say he is speaking Mandarin and you think "shouldn't he be speaking
Shanghaise?"
:-)
When you spot errors or oversimplifications in subtitles, and realise how much more you
are getting out of actually understanding than just reading subtitles.
When you spot errors or at least questionable translations in official translations of
authors you know quite well.
montmorency on 24 September 2011
When you spot errors or oversimplifications in subtitles, and realise how much more you
are getting out of actually understanding than just reading subtitles.
When you spot errors in translation even when the movie is dubbed and you cannot hear the
original. And people around you, who are completely fine with the translation (and who
are the reason you are watching it dubbed in the first place), swear not to watch
anything with you anymore because of your incessant commenting on the spotted errors.
ember on 24 September 2011
When you are the buddy that this poster talks about, and would like to add, that on that
day, you also have a Czech and Japanese book.
When you insert commas that look unnatural inEnglish (or Chinese), because in other languages(German, Russian), which you are learning, these commas are necessary, and you are considered uneducated, if you do not insert them.
QiuJP on 26 September 2011
When you are the buddy that this poster talks about, and would like to add, that on that
day, you also have a Czech and Japanese book.
When you insert commas that look unnatural inÂEnglish (or Chinese), because in other languages(German, Russian), which you are learning, these commas are necessary, and you are considered uneducated, if you do not insert them.
I've totally started doing that. Now when I write a sentence like this one inEnglish, every part of my brain is screaming "RUN-ON SENTENCE!" (I originally wrote that previous sentence without any commas, but I couldn't bear it and had to go back and add the comma after "English".)
Jinx on 26 September 2011
When you are the buddy that this poster talks about, and would like to add, that on
that
day, you also have a Czech and Japanese book.
When you insert commas that look unnatural inÂEnglish (or Chinese), because in other
languages(German, Russian), which you are learning, these commas are necessary, and you
are considered uneducated, if you do not insert them.
I've totally started doing that. Now when I write a sentence like this one inÂEnglish,
every part of my brain is screaming "RUN-ON SENTENCE!" (I originally wrote that
previous sentence without any commas, but I couldn't bear it and had to go back and add
the comma after "English".)
Isn't the comma before "when" necessary. Why do we have to put a comma after "English",
but do not have to put a comma after "now"?
ÐаÑк on 26 September 2011
When you are the buddy that this poster talks about, and would like to add, that on
that
day, you also have a Czech and Japanese book.
When you insert commas that look unnatural inÂEnglish (or Chinese), because in other
languages(German, Russian), which you are learning, these commas are necessary, and you
are considered uneducated, if you do not insert them.
I've totally started doing that. Now when I write a sentence like this one inÂEnglish,
every part of my brain is screaming "RUN-ON SENTENCE!" (I originally wrote that
previous sentence without any commas, but I couldn't bear it and had to go back and add
the comma after "English".)
Isn't the comma before "when" necessary. Why do we have to put a comma after "English",
but do not have to put a comma after "now"?
No, Mark, you're absolutely right, one should indeed theoretically have two commas in my example sentence! The reason I wrote it like that was to purposefully show how I need to consciously REMOVE commas now, even if I have to halfway-give-in by including one after all. ;)
Jinx on 26 September 2011
No, Mark, you're absolutely right, one should indeed theoretically have two commas in
my example sentence! The reason I wrote it like that was to purposefully show how I
need to consciously REMOVE commas now, even if I have to halfway-give-in by including
one after all. ;)
This is interesting:
http://grammar.wikia.com/wiki/Oxford_english_prepositions
And, outside of North America, which is very conservative with its language, there is a
strong tendency towards minimising punctuation.
i.e. so long as the meaning is clear, we can remove as much punctuation as we want in
modern BritishÂEnglish. This is certainly the message that has been both implicit and
explicit, in developments inÂEnglish during my adult life. So I used to minimise them.
I think, like Jinx, I now tend to put more in again, owing to the influence of German,
which has some strict rules, but even then, in some cases, allows you to put extra ones
in if they make the meaning clearer. You can't leave out the compulsory ones though.
montmorency on 26 September 2011
i.e. so long as the meaning is clear, we can remove as much punctuation as we want in
modern BritishÂEnglish. This is certainly the message that has been both implicit and
explicit, in developments inÂEnglish during my adult life. So I used to minimise them.
Then full stops and especially question marks must be omitted. Questions have special
constructions and new sentences start with a capital letter.
ÐаÑк on 26 September 2011
When you look forward to your language labs.
LebensForm on 27 September 2011
Wanna lern ta ffffpeeek a lankfish like Ffpaniff ur Ruffiin wiff da befft meffet? (spit blood) Fell dats too bat, gonna hafta wait. Dammit hurt. Fut up and go ta fweep till dwugs go way
meramarina on 29 September 2011
i.e. so long as the meaning is clear, we can remove as much punctuation as we want in
modern BritishÂEnglish. This is certainly the message that has been both implicit and
explicit, in developments inÂEnglish during my adult life. So I used to minimise them.
Then full stops and especially question marks must be omitted. Questions have special
constructions and new sentences start with a capital letter.
I suppose carried to its logical conclusion, you could do that (unless this was a reductio ad absurdum). Most people would find this too much I think. The important point is: is the meaning still clear, and I think there was a feeling that a lot of commas could just get in the way, and those were what tended to go, wherever there was no ambiguity. A simple example would be that we always used to write commas in addresses and now nobody does. But also colons and semi-colons to some extent. Full stops and question marks are still too useful to be done away with I think. Of course, experimental novelists have written without conventional punctuation in the past.
montmorency on 29 September 2011
Wanna lern ta ffffpeeek a lankfish like Ffpaniff ur Ruffiin wiff da befft meffet? (spit blood) Fell dats too bat, gonna hafta wait. Dammit hurt. Fut up and go ta fweep till dwugs go way
I think I can relate to you-I just had my third emergency root canal this past Monday, so YKYAALN when you can't decide if it is a good thing or a bad thing that you cannot understand the dentist when he makes comments to his assistant in Korean. You know the comments are not just random remarks, but do you really want to know what he is saying about the surgical procedure that he does not want you to know?
psy88 on 30 September 2011
I couldn't do anything nerdy like that this time because I had IV anesthesia. Sometimes people say strange things when recovering - I don't think I did, but I'd be kind of proud of myself if I burbled or blurted out something in another language.
EDIT: In the first sentence I wrote pronouns instead of prepositions! That's why posting should not be done while under the influence of medication! Nerds don't let nerds post when on drugs!
meramarina on 30 September 2011
German. And it really hurt.
I couldn't do anything nerdy like that this time because I had IV anesthesia. Sometimes people say strange
things when recovering - I don't think I did, but I'd be kind of proud of myself if I burbled or blurted out
something in another language.
It is funny that you said that because I actually had a weird experience when I had a knew surgery: as I
was coming back from the anesthesia I was able to day a word in Portuguese! Detail, it is my native
language! Though I tried I could not find the word to say anything, it was as I had never known the
language. Very weird! :/
JNetto on 30 September 2011
I got through a root canal once by thinking about accusative vs. dative pronouns in German. And it really hurt.
Haha, I go to the dentist next week.... this is something I will probably do.
I did something similar during a visit to my gynocologist, I got through that (it was a male doing it grr) by thinking about the dative preposition rhyme: roses are red violets are blue, aus ausser bei mit nach seit von zu (and gegenüber).
Oh and apparently, according to my ex bf, I speak German in my sleep, but what irks me is that I don't know if what I am saying is grammatically correct! And cf course he wouldn't know :(
LebensForm on 02 October 2011
. . . but what you hear is: Go get yourself something dirty!
You'd think with all the words I know, I'd at least recognize the word "nerdy" !
Just for the record, I'll take the nerd option, thanks!
meramarina on 04 October 2011
YKYALNW you get excited that your Spanish teacher is mentioning the subjunctive tense as your next topic!
Kartof on 04 October 2011
YKYALNW you get excited that your Spanish teacher is mentioning the subjunctive tense as your next topic!
¡Espero que disfrutes la lección!
Levi on 05 October 2011
...And everytime you watch it now, you can't help but chuckle at yourself :o)
I love learning languages!!! :o)
Linking a photo won't work for some reason but if you Google it, you should be able to see what I mean... x
WentworthsGal on 06 October 2011
... when the girls down the hall in your dorm have written some French and some Chinese on their whiteboard... and you correct both.
kottoler.ello on 07 October 2011
Even during a wedding speech, which I did. Mind you though, I was only 12 at that time and not that good with social interaction.
You know you're a language nerd when your parents are typing a letter and they ask you to check the spelling. :P
This thread is so humongously big, that I'm not sure whether this has already been mentioned or not.
Remster on 07 October 2011
YKYALNW you get excited that your Spanish teacher is mentioning the
subjunctive tense as your next topic!
You know you're a language nerd when you're disappointed that none of your fellow nerds
have mentioned the fact that the subjunctive is a mood, and therefore contains a number
of tenses :]
LanguageSponge on 07 October 2011
...when getting a "like" on Facebook is 100 times more exciting when it's for something you wrote in a foreign language you don't speak very well.
Levi on 10 October 2011
...when getting a "like" on Facebook is 100 times more exciting when it's for something you wrote in a foreign language you don't speak very well.
When getting a "useful" vote here is infinitely more exciting then any vote you may get any where else, or any other "like", for that matter.
psy88 on 11 October 2011
...when you tell your friend that you want to show her something exciting and she's immediately surprised when she finds out that it's not at all language-related.
ellasevia on 11 October 2011
YKYALNW you get excited that your Spanish teacher is mentioning
the
subjunctive tense as your next topic!
You know you're a language nerd when you're disappointed that none of your fellow nerds
have mentioned the fact that the subjunctive is a mood, and therefore contains a number
of tenses :]
Whoops, I did know that but I wasn't thinking!
YKYALNW you see BCS on a license plate and immediately think Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian
Kartof on 11 October 2011
Whoops, I did know that but I wasn't thinking!
No problem :]
You know you're a language nerd when you're talking to your cousins about jobs teaching
English abroad and they tell you to go to Japan, for various reasons. Then you think
"fantastic, I've been looking for an excuse to learn Japanese for years"
Jack
LanguageSponge on 11 October 2011
One of the new staff members laughed, probably because she thought I was making a joke even though I was being perfectly sincere. She didn't know me well enough to know my language enthusiasm, but without having to even speak up for myself a few of the other staff were quick to tell her that I had lived there and spoke the language.
I was rather pleased that I had several people speak immediately in my defense. So... YKYALN when other people talk about it for you.
Different scenario, today I had received some Japanese language textbooks that I had requested with the interlibrary loan system. I had made a comment at the end of the day to a different coworker how I had realized I couldn't read Japanese very well, so I got some books to help me study. She laughed because she thought I was making a joke as most people around me can't read Japanese. It wouldn't be that unusual of a thing. But then she realized again that I was serious and that I actually am studying Japanese.
I guess both those anecdotes are examples of, "Oh, you mean you're not joking?" and the surprise that comes after.
jdmoncada on 12 October 2011
- When you hate giving reasons as to why you're learning a language, because it has
nothing to do with the culture/country. (I'm learning Irish for its grammar. xD)
19901 on 14 October 2011
When you are planning for a trip, you are actually planning a trip to visit all the major
bookstores in the city you are visiting rather than the tourist sites, because you want
to find all unknown language learning materials. (happened to me when I visited
France...)
QiuJP on 14 October 2011
When you are planning for a trip, you are actually planning a trip to visit all the major
bookstores in the city you are visiting rather than the tourist sites, because you want
to find all unknown language learning materials. (happened to me when I visited
France...)
A variation on the above: It's been sunny and about 25 C all day in Budapest and the surrounding area but you've forgone the chance to explore the city or make a day-trip to an UNESCO Heritage Site. Instead you've been acting on a hunch (as opposed to planning) or hoping for the best in spending the entire day scouring bookstores in Budapest looking for suitable learning material for Hungarian.
For the record I did just that about a month ago... and came out with a pictoral Finnish-Hungarian dictionary for children... and the Hungarian translation of one of the books from the series "Le Petit Nicolas"... but no new course.
Chung on 14 October 2011
When I just discovered that everytime I read blogspot blogs the operating language is stuck on Norwegian. Unlike my friends and family, I think this is great and I won't allow anyone to change it. Maybe I will suggest that they could all just learn Norwegian instead of complaining.
mick33 on 14 October 2011
when you pay to enter a popular,(and well visited by people from other countries), Botanical Garden. As the fellow is taking your ticket you notice a stand with brochures that are guides to the Garden. These are written in a number of foreign languages. You also see that the languages include your two target languages. You inquire about the brochures only to be told that you have a copy, inEnglish, that was given to you with your ticket, and, so, "you don't need one". Rather than argue or explain, you bide your time and three and a half hours later, as you leave, you grab the two you wanted. You realize that if you had grabbed them on the way in you would have spent the three and a half hours studying and comparing them, rather than enjoying the Garden. Of course, being a true Language Nerd, you were would have enjoyed that more than looking at the trees, flowers, etc.
psy88 on 18 October 2011
...when, in a game of Scrabble, you score two triple-word-score words in a row, with "copula" and "dative".
Levi on 19 October 2011
When you actually have a favorite dative preposition...
When you get off on writing random things in German on people's whiteboards on their door, many of whom I don't know :)
I'm such a creeper...
LebensForm on 20 October 2011
...when this is your favorite commercial on TV:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsTqGa2gd0E - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsTqGa2gd0E
Levi on 21 October 2011
...when this is your favorite commercial on TV:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsTqGa2gd0E - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsTqGa2gd0E
My new goal for when I take a road trip next summer:
Listen to all of a Pimsleur or Michel Thomas of a language nonstop and see how much I actually retain.
ruskivyetr on 21 October 2011
...when this is your favorite commercial on TV:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsTqGa2gd0E - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsTqGa2gd0E
Oh, my gosh! That's just brilliant! :) I love how obviously bad their accents were at the beginning to show how much they'd learned at the end.
I'm going to rewatch this a few times.
jdmoncada on 21 October 2011
When this website is your homepage.
Matheus on 21 October 2011
...when this is your favorite commercial on TV:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsTqGa2gd0E - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsTqGa2gd0E
And I do find it funny "that's das Auto" at the end... speaking Spanish in a German car commercial. love it!
LebensForm on 22 October 2011
presentation on the Chinese names of the pandas at the zoo, complete with family tree and
amateur attempts at writing the characters.
I came in ninth. The winner belched the alphabet. Win some, lose some.
Magdalene on 27 October 2011
You actually mourn the simplifications of New Assyrian over Old Babylonian (the loss of an m-ending on nouns, the
loss of a u-ending on subjunctive verbs in subordinate clauses).
Hampie on 27 October 2011
...when this is your favorite commercial on TV:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsTqGa2gd0E - http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=SsTqGa2gd0E
Oh, my gosh! That's just brilliant! :) I love how obviously bad their accents were
at the beginning to show how much they'd learned at the end.
I'm going to rewatch this a few times.
Brits will remember the Audi ads with Geoffrey Palmer (a long standing UK comedy
actor), featuring the phrase "Vorsprung durch Technik". Couldn't find Geoffrey Palmer's
ad on YouTube, but to show how familiar that phrase became, here is its use in a sitcom
:
montmorency on 27 October 2011
At the restaurant, you eavesdrop on the Latino family next to you to see how much of their
(Spanish) conversation you can understand.
strikingstar on 28 October 2011
(the loss of an m-ending on nouns, the
loss of a u-ending on subjunctive verbs in subordinate clauses).
You know you're a language nerd when you actually understand that :-D
Ketutar on 30 October 2011
YKYALNW you can't say 'It's all Greek to me' because you speak it.)
Or you can, but with it you mean it's crystal clear :-D
Ketutar on 30 October 2011
after a week's vacation in another country, you get confused in the airport of your home country, because everyone speaks "some weird language" - your native one...
Ketutar on 30 October 2011
...when you are jealous of your computer's ability to memorize vocabulary, but remind yourself that you're still better since computers suck at understanding grammar and semantics.
Levi on 31 October 2011
- Kat
Phantom Kat on 01 November 2011
... when the Mandarin-speaking Shanghai station you're listening to switches over to Shanghainese and you just keep listening, not understanding a word, and smiling like a madman.
Ari on 01 November 2011
...when you read Ari's post above and want to know how you can find that station.
SamD on 01 November 2011
...when you read Ari's post above and want to know how you can find that station.
I listened to it through an iPhone App called "TuneIn Radio". You can find the station by browsing for Location->China->Shanghai and then scroll down to display the category "stories". It's the only Shanghai station in that category. Most programming isn't in Shanghainese, though. Most of it is instead radio theatre in Mandarin, which is pretty sweet.
Ari on 02 November 2011
E.g.: As-salaamu 3laykum
strikingstar on 02 November 2011
You know you are a language nerd when a freak snow storm on Saturday leaves you without power (so no heat,no lights, no TV or Internet) until Tuesday evening and the greatest hardship for you was not being able to check this forum.
You know you are even a bigger language nerd when the above statement is a lie because the biggest hardships were the freezing cold, no lights, and being really hungry because all your refrigerated food spoiled and was left inedible,but you wish that being without this forum would have been your number one hardship.
psy88 on 03 November 2011
......when you're simultaneously watching a re-run of 'Wallander' (Swedish) on TV and consulting 6 dictionaries while putting new Polish words into Anki.
And also trying to eat supper without spilling it down your front.
Mooby on 03 November 2011
I love Wallander! Even though I'm not learning Swedish, it's still great to hear Swedish and familiarise myself with it slightly.
mausi15 on 03 November 2011
You know you've been hitting the kanji too hard when you start seeing the shapes absolutely everywhere. Hey look...that hairline crack in my dinner plate looks just like a power radical...noooo! Any more of these late night sessions, and I could well end up like Neo from the matrix (minus the superpowers). :S
Teango on 04 November 2011
When a comment from your chemistry teacher about your eyes being red (her guess was drugs :P) leads to a full-blown explanation of the current 6WC and then an impromptu rant about Rosetta Stone when she asks why you aren't using it. And then you compile a list of alternative (ie, not RS) Persian resources for her son off the top of your head. I'm pretty sure she thinks I'm crazy now.
ellasevia on 04 November 2011
When you make a habit of singing a song in three different languages each morning, and then at the end of the day you determine whether it was a good or bad day. Then you chart the language combination which you used that morning in a comprehensive list, and create a long-term graph of the languages' overall success rates for yielding good days. And I've been doing this for the past couple months...
(In case you're wondering, Italian has the highest success rate, followed by Swedish and French. Norwegian has the lowest success rate. The other nine languages I use fall somewhere in the middle.)
ellasevia on 05 November 2011
I love Wallander! Even though I'm not learning Swedish, it's still
great to hear Swedish and familiarise myself with it slightly.
Yes, my wife and I play a sort of game where we look for the words or phrases we can
recognise either fromÂEnglish or German.
One more Wallander to go next Saturday, then it's "Vorbrydelsen II" ("The Killing II")
from Denmark. But no more Troels; no more Rie; no more Jan Meyer. It's just Sarah
Lund and her Faroe jumper! :-)
montmorency on 06 November 2011
When you start to wonder if you actually have a language fetish...
When you prefer to write the German titles of Shakespeare plays on your white board.
When you get so annoyed when people say "Spiel" without the H sound in it, so that you always correct them, therefore missing the point of their "Spiel" to begin with.
When you prefer to watch Dora the Explorer in German.
LebensForm on 07 November 2011
....when you are worried you might destroy your ears with loud French news broadcasts, not music.
....when you build your schedule around your favorite shows on the only international French channel.
rivere123 on 08 November 2011
I really do miss the German channel here... sehr sehr traurig :(
LebensForm on 08 November 2011
But then you realize that the word is really TODAY and not all the larger-size words fit the screen, so it got chopped in half . . . relief! That was a close call there!
meramarina on 09 November 2011
When you get so annoyed when people say "Spiel" without the H sound in it,
...or with people who spell it "Shpiel" :-)
montmorency on 09 November 2011
I watched a rerun the American sitcom "The Golden Girls" on Monday night because the episode featured a character who was supposed to be from Sicily and seemed to be speaking Italian. I never liked the show and there was maybe 3 minutes worth of spoken Italian in the half hour show but I was still happy to hear Italian on TV.
mick33 on 09 November 2011
When you get so annoyed when people say "Spiel" without the H sound in it,
...or with people who spell it "Shpiel" :-)
However, I believe that is a generally accepted romanization (along with "shpil") of the Yiddish word. So it's not officially incorrect unless you know you're talking about German and not Yiddish.
Jinx on 10 November 2011
... when questions you want to ask come in your head as one of your target languages.
kirocb23 on 10 November 2011
... when you have to vocally tell your brain that it has to stop thinking in Esperanto so you can tell your girlfriend
what you mean in Swedish.
Mauritz on 11 November 2011
When you prefer to watch Dora the Explorer in German.
That reminds me. I had heard so many people recommend watching Dora in another language that I was excited to find a few episodes of the Korean version online...only to find that it was nearly entirely inEnglish, because apparently the Korean version of that show is heavily focused on teaching childrenEnglish (they will occasionally explain something briefly in Korean, but the vast majority of the dialog is inEnglish).
Warp3 on 11 November 2011
I just had a dream this morning inEnglish, Japanese and Spanish! I dreamt that I had gone to Japan, and while in a convenience store there I was trying to buy some stamps. At one point, I had some hesitation in what to say and started to think and say something Spanish. The clerk in my dream went right along with it immediately and spoke to me in Spanish, notEnglish. It was very cool!
jdmoncada on 12 November 2011
That reminds me. I had heard so many people recommend watching Dora in another language that I was excited to find a few episodes of the Korean version online...only to find that it was nearly entirely inÂEnglish, because apparently the Korean version of that show is heavily focused on teaching childrenÂEnglish (they will occasionally explain something briefly in Korean, but the vast majority of the dialog is inÂEnglish).
That is kind of sad... but cool for them learningEnglish. I bet that would be interesting in Korean though :)
LebensForm on 13 November 2011
Well, a normal person might gatecrash a party but last week I gatecrashed the Spanish class while I was on a break waiting for my own classes to start. A few of the other students looked at me funny but I just sat there taking my notebook and a pen out of my bag like I had every right to be there and the teacher (a Spanish lady) was really cool about it. After a quick "bienvenida" in my direction, she simply continued teaching and even included me in the exercises. I'm so shy normally and I don't know what could have made me do that apart from sheer language nerdery! :-)
amethyst32 on 13 November 2011
When you spend hours in a row watching 'Doordarshan', an Indian public service
broadcaster, in various Indian languages you don't understand.
When you buy a collection of Rabindranath Tagore's poetry in Bengali at a local bookstore
even though you hardly know the language; because you have Bengali in your 'hit-list'.
AlephBey on 13 November 2011
When you're staying up reading about the Turkish spelling reform when you should have
gone to sleep already.
j0nas on 13 November 2011
...when you wonder why you've never dreamt in a foreign language when everybody else
does it, but you're still pretty confident one day it will happen to you too :)
Fabrizio on 14 November 2011
When you see on the numberplate of a car in front of yours a sylable followed by a number and immediatly link it to a chinese word.
Rivso on 14 November 2011
Edited for grammar
psy88 on 14 November 2011
Well, a normal person might gatecrash a party but last week I
gatecrashed the Spanish class while I was on a break waiting for my own classes to
start. A few of the other students looked at me funny but I just sat there taking my
notebook and a pen out of my bag like I had every right to be there and the teacher (a
Spanish lady) was really cool about it. After a quick "bienvenida" in my direction,
she simply continued teaching and even included me in the exercises. I'm so shy
normally and I don't know what could have made me do that apart from sheer language
nerdery! :-)
Reminds me, years ago, I was attending a beginner evening class in Italian.
A foreign friend was staying at my house, and he also happened to be learning Italian.
I didn't want to miss the class, but I didn't want to leave him on his own, so I took
him along. Fortunately, the teacher was also cool about it, and even asked him a few
questions in Italian later on, which he was able to answer at least we well as the rest
of us.
montmorency on 15 November 2011
When you try to deduce the etymology of pretty much every word you come across based on your knowledge of Latin and Ancient Greek (my favorite was internecine - I was thrilled when I looked in the dictionary and discovered that my etymology was correct). As you write this you are busy dissecting deduce, etymology, and confident.
Amerykanka on 02 December 2011
Well, a normal person might gatecrash a party but last week I
gatecrashed the Spanish class while I was on a break waiting for my own classes to
start. A few of the other students looked at me funny but I just sat there taking my
notebook and a pen out of my bag like I had every right to be there and the teacher (a
Spanish lady) was really cool about it. After a quick "bienvenida" in my direction,
she simply continued teaching and even included me in the exercises. I'm so shy
normally and I don't know what could have made me do that apart from sheer language
nerdery! :-)
I crashed my girlfriend's Russian university classes too, when I was still studying.
The Russian department knew perfectly well that I shouldn't have been there as they
also taught me, but they allowed it. I also crashed other classes, but since they have
nothing to do with languages...
When you try to deduce the etymology of pretty much every word you
come across based on your knowledge of Latin and Ancient Greek
I do this too, although neither my Latin nor my Ancient Greek are at anything like the
level they once were. Which is a real shame - I may take one of them up again in
January or so just so that I can play this game better than I'm able to play it now :]
... when your knowledge of a script learnt later in life messes with your knowledge of
the one you grew up with - I very often read "H" as an "N" sound now... thanks,
Cyrillic. Also, when my half-brother was learning to write (Latin script), he often
wrote his N's the wrong way round or something, so it would end up being "Ð" - which is
another Cyrillic letter and sometimes confused me :]
LanguageSponge on 02 December 2011
I recently picked up trash from the street and took it home. It was language travel trash, now, so I'm sure you can all understand why the brochures for Costa del Sol y Córdoba had to be MINE.
So what if they were a bit wet and have tire tread marks? One person's trash is a language nerd's treasure. Next, I will revisit the street and wait for my tickets and reservations to fall out of a garbage truck.
Travel brochures in other languages and destinations are also acceptable, of course.
meramarina on 03 December 2011
I recently picked up trash from the street and took it home. It was language travel trash, now, so I'm sure you can all understand why the brochures for Costa del Sol y Córdoba had to be MINE.
So what if they were a bit wet and have tire tread marks? One person's trash is a language nerd's treasure. Next, I will revisit the street and wait for my tickets and reservations to fall out of a garbage truck.
Travel brochures in other languages and destinations are also acceptable, of course.
I almost did this the other day. I was taking a walk at a local park with my mom, and what did I see but a Korean newspaper! I thought about picking it up and taking it home, and I would have if I were learning Korean, and if I didn't think it would've been too... weird (it would've been "look mom! I found a Korean newspaper on the ground!"). Now that I know other people do this, I don't feel so odd about wanting to pick up a random piece of thoughtlessly-discarded language treasure!
mashmusic11235 on 04 December 2011
numbers.
E.g.: As-salaamu 3laykum
M3arab 7adda 3ajeeb!xD
19901 on 04 December 2011
YKYALN when you pick up a language program on sale, and when you bring it home your children moan, "Oh, no! We're already doing Saami, German and Korean, Dutch is on hold for now and we tried Mandarin, and now you want us to learn Swedish too?"
Kafea on 04 December 2011
I catch myself pondering a possible Euro collapse -- maybe a trip to Finland might become a little cheaper.No, no, no. Don't think this...
cathrynm on 05 December 2011
...when you're studying abroad in Japan, have taken up Russian taught in Japanese just for the hell of it, and just when you should really be studying for your Japanese and Russian exams at the end of the month, you decide to start teaching yourself Farsi NOW, rather than at some point in the future, as you were originally planning. I can't decide if this is procrastination or the opposite.
jellyfish on 06 December 2011
You know you're a language nerd when...you get a bunch of new books and materials and can't fall asleep that night because you can't wait until the next day to start reviewing them!!
vikavictoria on 07 December 2011
when you can't help but get annoyed whenEnglish speakers say 'would of' instead of
'would have' and try to explain that the 've abbreviation replaces have even though it
sounds like of.
languageguy13 on 09 December 2011
when you can't help but get annoyed whenÂEnglish speakers say
'would of' instead of
'would have' and try to explain that the 've abbreviation replaces have even though it
sounds like of.
The annoying thing for me is that I think a lot of people know that, it's just that
they're too lazy to write "have". And this is the native speakers I'm talking about!
LanguageSponge on 09 December 2011
when you can't help but get annoyed whenÂEnglish speakers say 'would of' instead of 'would have' and try to explain that the 've abbreviation replaces have even though it sounds like of.
You know you're a language nerd when you accept that language changes and find plurality of expression exhilarating and interesting rather than annoying.
Ari on 09 December 2011
when you can't help but get annoyed whenÂEnglish speakers say 'would of' instead of 'would have' and try to explain that the 've abbreviation replaces have even though it sounds like of.
You know you're a language nerd when you accept that language changes and find plurality of expression exhilarating and interesting rather than annoying.
i AM still annoyed by things like "can't help but", though :D
Serpent on 09 December 2011
flat in a blind panic trying to pack in time to catch a flight home. Your girlfriend is
writing a letter in German to her landlord asking to check bits and pieces. You look over
her shoulder as she signs off and despite all the stress of packing and writing the
letter, you still have the presence of mind and the cheek to tell her "you need to revise
the passive, dear".
Jack
LanguageSponge on 21 December 2011
When you start revising flash cards while chatting with friends without even noticing and
then wonder why they think you're weird >_<
Rivso on 22 December 2011
You know you're a language nerd when you somehow manage to steer every conversation you
have towards the topic of language learning, and watch the blank expressions or hear the
heavy silences on the phone, but you continue talking. And you don't care... because
you're a language nerd.
birthdaysuit on 22 December 2011
*IMPORTANT ! This is not recommended, however, if the intrusive pet is a cat.
meramarina on 22 December 2011
When your friend brings you a song written in Russian and asks you to teach her the pronunciation, and you don't say, "You're crazy; I don't know any Russian!", but instead are thrilled because now you finally have a genuine excuse to learn to read Cyrillic.
When your chemistry teacher announces an extra credit assignment to your class by saying that you will really like it, and the assignment turns out to be finding the etymologies of the names of ten of the elements. (Due to your enthusiastic reaction, most of your chemistry class probably thinks you are insane now.)
Amerykanka on 22 December 2011
When you find
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSzABuq9qNY&skipcontrint er=1 - this to be absoultely adorable even though you don't care much for Rosetta StoneI do want a little boy like that :)
LebensForm on 23 December 2011
When you find http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSzABuq9qNY&skipcontrint er=1 - this to be absoultely adorable even though you don't care much for Rosetta Stone
BTW, the German viewers cannot watch this video, because the description contains the word "Hitler."
I do want a little boy like that :)
That can be arranged. Just come to Germany. :-)
Doitsujin on 23 December 2011
when you have over 10 keyboards in different languages installed on your computer
Ellsworth on 23 December 2011
When you find http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=lSzABuq9qNY&skipcontrinter=1 - this to be absoultely adorable even though you don't
care much for Rosetta Stone
not available in france either :(
Rivso on 24 December 2011
And I am actually planning to come to Germany this summer, for study abroad in August, and then to Vienna. Maybe I will meet a nice German man who could someday give me a child like the boy in the video, I wish you all could see :(
YKYALN when your main criteria for having a child with someone is that, that child will grow up speaking German, insisting that, the father speaks fluent German xD.
LebensForm on 26 December 2011
learn your target languages, when you don't need to practise any other subjects.
... When you need a notebook to write what you're going to learn next in each language you are studying. :)
Jellitto on 30 December 2011
... When everyone else are fleeing from school to spend a nice long holiday, you think that NOW you have time to
learn your target languages, when you don't need to practise any other subjects.
THIS.
vikavictoria on 30 December 2011
For example..Family Guy will sometimes do a really short funny joke or even a longer segment spoof of, say, Star Wars, or even a movie like Twilight. I wish, say, that they would do the same for Bumer (бÑмеÑ), which is a famous Russian film (recent-ish). So, that would be fun, like they'd be in the car, and the guy's phone would ring its iconic ring, and it's show the caller ID and be something funny..not so sure right now, but it'd be funny if they put some thought into it.
vikavictoria on 30 December 2011
... When everyone else are fleeing from school to
spend a nice long holiday, you think that NOW you have time to
learn your target languages, when you don't need to practise any other subjects.
THIS.
DEFINITELY. Catching up on your TL work during break is the best! Of course, ideally I
wouldn't fall behind in the first place. But when it's between falling behind on my
language learning for a bit and getting a lower grade in my classes... well,
unfortunately my nerdery can only go so far.
mikonai on 31 December 2011
...when you're seriously contemplating skipping tomorrow's party for New Year's Eve because you've received a textbook for Azerbaijani this morning from the mailman and haven't been able to stop browsing it.
Chung on 31 December 2011
when your visual representation of someone's (for example a celebrity's) language skills is what their profile here would look like :D
Serpent on 31 December 2011
...when you're seriously contemplating skipping tomorrow's party for New Year's Eve because you've received a textbook for Azerbaijani this morning from the mailman and haven't been able to stop browsing it.
When you haven't even contemplating spending New Year's Eve away from your books. Well.. I may take a break around 24h to watch the fireworks over the city, but nothing more than that.
Iversen on 31 December 2011
All Language Mine !
Oh, that was sooooo baaaaaad . . . but I do wish you all a Very Nerdy New Year with lots and lots of language success!
meramarina on 31 December 2011
Gelukkig Nieuwjaar!
Godt nytår!
Ãökkum árið sem er að liða!
Îαλή ΧÏονιά!
Boldog Ãj Ãvet KÃvánunk!
Vigilia di Capodanno!
Feliz Ano Novo!
Shame that Thai Google merely says "Happy New Year".
theomegamale on 31 December 2011
-When you pronunce q like in Arabic.
happy nwew eyar
clumsy on 31 December 2011
Levi on 01 January 2012
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=30589&PN=1 - When you upload more than 1000 songs in 14 languages to Youtube in less than 3 weeks
Guido on 02 January 2012
when you have over 10 keyboards in different languages installed on
your computer
... and you keep on trying to figure out how to add a language shortcut to the keys "`"
and "~". ;D
JNetto on 02 January 2012
When you have one of those secret x-mas gifts exchange and you are the only one who can
get out of the party not having somebody envying you gift because they were books written
in Mam and Singala.
JNetto on 02 January 2012
...when you're seriously contemplating skipping
tomorrow's party for New Year's Eve because you've received a textbook for Azerbaijani
this morning from the mailman and haven't been able to stop browsing it.
When you haven't even contemplating spending New Year's Eve away from your books. Well..
I may take a break around 24h to watch the fireworks over the city, but nothing more than
that.
...when you are in a place away from your books, but you keep on looking for foreigners,
to sit by them and do two things that most people in this page love to do: 1st overhear
someone's speech in another language, 2nd feel like a spy been sure that those people
don't even imagine that you are totally understanding their chat.
JNetto on 02 January 2012
When you make a four-hour trip to your apartment and back just to retrieve your copy of
TY OldEnglish and when your mother asks why, you say it's because you need it for the
start of the TAC.
ReneeMona on 02 January 2012
When you vacillate between " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auld_Lang_Syne - Auld Lang Syne " in Burnsean Scots and " http://da.wikisource.org/wiki/Skuld_gammel_venskab - Skuld gammel venskab rejn forgo " in Western Jutish. I don't intend to sing anything, but as documentations of uncompromising dialects (maybe languages) both versions are very interesting.
Iversen on 02 January 2012
When the languages you are trying to learn are not even listed on this website.
Asiafeverr on 02 January 2012
When you have a headache, refuse to admit that your brain is overloaded with languages; you listen to various amounts of Romanian, Spanish, Swedish and Portuguese within 2-3 hours and you're better :D
Serpent on 04 January 2012
When you read through your dirty German book, just to analyze the grammar.
When you are at a music store and are buying a Rammstein cd for a friend for a christmas gift and the cashier makes conversation with you regarding Rammstein and asks you if you know German, you say yes and he says say something in German so you say "etwas" the German word for something and he actually finds this funny, and you wonder if he was flirting with you a bit...perhaps he was wondering the same thing xD
LebensForm on 04 January 2012
When you get dragged to a cult-like ceremony which involved weird faux-tibetan prayers but it's cool since you get a parallel text which is repetitive enough to be able to learn the basics of Tibetan from.
Zgarbas on 04 January 2012
When you watched Toy Story 3 and completely understood Spanish Buzz. :D
yawn on 04 January 2012
When you decide what music to listen to based on what language it's in. Or more
specifically, what family of languages. So if you've just listened to Arabic music, you
can't listen to German music. But if you were listening to Swedish music then German is
ok.
zecchino1991 on 05 January 2012
When you decide what music to listen to based on what language it's in. Or more
specifically, what family of languages. So if you've just listened to Arabic music, you
can't listen to German music. But if you were listening to Swedish music then German is
ok.
Somewhat related: I mostly watch football (soccer) online and I choose the stream depending on the language. Well not only, but it's more important than the quality.
Serpent on 05 January 2012
Um, because I'm a language nerd of course! To me the language is like a genre. If you are listening to
quiet, calm music, you might not want to suddenly switch to hard rock. For me, switching to music in a
completely unrelated language feels just like that. I can't stand it...Especially since I hardly even listen to
music in my native language, so this happens to me a lot.
zecchino1991 on 05 January 2012
When you and your friend identify specific "personalities" to each of the cases in German... for example, since Genitiv is mainly for posessives, it has been named the "demon" case, so whenever we are at a restrauant and children are misbehaving, which is obviously a common occurance, we label the child Genitiv... ya I know I am wierd, btw the Nominitiv is the "nom nom" case, the akkusitiv is the, don't know if I can say this here, "the B word" case, I'll just go with that and the dativ is the "slu*t" case... don't ask, I am sure I lost my marbles a while ago xD
Can't believe I just admited that to everyone....
LebensForm on 05 January 2012
makes perfect sense too!
@Zecchino, interesting. i do switch between calm and heavy music hehe. and i specifically try to switch between languages a lot, just to be used to switching. right now the dictionaries i have within reach are Portuguese-English, Indonesian-Russian, Spanish-Italian and Finnish-German. no repeats, lol.
Serpent on 05 January 2012
...since Genitiv is mainly for posessives, it has been named the "demon" case, so whenever we are at a restrauant and children are misbehaving, which is obviously a common occurance, we label the child Genitiv... ya I know I am wierd, btw the Nominitiv is the "nom nom" case, the akkusitiv is the, don't know if I can say this here, "the B word" case, I'll just go with that and the dativ is the "slu*t" case... don't ask, I am sure I lost my marbles a while ago
You should learn Finnish: it has a "go away" case and a "come now" case. And for getting things done maybe adopt the Russian "Instrumental" case.
Iversen on 05 January 2012
You should learn Finnish: it has a "go away" case and a "come now" case. And for getting things done maybe adopt the Russian "Instrumental" case.
Interesting, I could have way too much fun with those cases xD, Maybe the "go away" and "come now" case could be the Bipolar case...? I don't know, this gives me so much to think about when I'm at the dentist today, I just hope I don't start laughing...
LebensForm on 05 January 2012
I understand that, but then again I primarily listen to German music and whenever I turn on the radio here, I am reminded why that is the case :/ Todays top 40 is just plain annoying...
I know exactly what you mean! Compare:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXUSaVw3Mvk - Justin Bieber - One Less Lonely Girlhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oj6j23OOuM - Unheilig - Hexenjagd
They're not even remotely in the same ballpark.
Levi on 08 January 2012
When you get all excited while watching a movie that you have seen many times but, because you now have a big screen, high def TV, you notice something new.That is, while watching the classic James Bond movie, "From Russia, With Love," you notice that in the scene in the train dining car, there is a sign on the upper wall for "Berlitz".
psy88 on 09 January 2012
Teango on 09 January 2012
Talking to a girl you like about a subject you like makes you think that working at your crappy summer job was all worthwhile :)
Michael K. on 18 January 2012
When you spend the evening listening to a documentary in Polish and writing a very detailed, three-page-long explanation of and study plan for Mandarin for a friend...and yet you speak neither of those languages.
ellasevia on 18 January 2012
When theEnglish Wikipedia blackout isn't a big deal, since you could satisfy your curiosity in some other language.
rivere123 on 21 January 2012
TheEnglish Wikipedia blackout was just the motivation I needed to read Italian, so it was great for me.
mick33 on 21 January 2012
system, history, accents and dialects of 23 others, but alas only know about 100 words
in each.
When you get with a large group of friends and everyone is code-switching and using
like 7 languages between the group, and everyone acts like it's normal.
When people see you reading or listening to a language and ask "You speak X language?!"
and you answer no because you can only understand it but not produce it.
You get mad at American movies for having the wrong accents for characters when they
are depicted conversing in their native tongues. A Cuban character with an Argentine
accent? Really?
When you hear someone in the grocery speaking a foreign language you guess where
they're from.
When you hear a language you don't understand, instead of being frustrated, you get
excited for another opportunity to learn. [extra nerdy]
And I'm also obsessed with Turk Pop. Maybe it's the pretty girls, but something about
it is irresistible. Turkish Pop made me want to learn Turkish.
Gallo1801 on 22 January 2012
in your mail to determine your 'personal interests', are always, all in Japanese.
'ã¤ã³ãã§ãã¸ãã¹ããéã¯' - 'When doing business in India...'
'é«æ§è½ã¬ã³ã¿ã«ãµã¼ãã¼' - 'High performance servers on rent'
'ãã£ãªã¢ã¢ããÃå¹´å1000ä¸ä»¥ä¸' - 'Career upgrade x Annual income of over 10 million'
'é客ã§ãããã¼ããã¼ã¸' - 'A homepage that would attract customers'
My personal favorite-
'129åã®ãã³ãã¼ãã³è±ä¼è©±' - 'SpeakÂEnglish one-to-one, for 129 yen'
AlephBey on 22 January 2012
When the feelings of gratitude you harbor for Wiktionary editors begin to border on
religious.
Hekje on 22 January 2012
s/he take-PFV number one place too PRT PRT PRT
'And she got first place, too, you know.'
Here tìm is evaluative, ge assertive, la adds currency and wo newsworthiness. Note that the order and selection of particles follows that shown in Table 18.2. More than four particles are rare, though not impossible (Leung Chung-Sum reports the occurrence of some seven particles as an extreme case).
Ari on 23 January 2012
When you plan on participating in the Accelerated Finnish Challenge?
Arekkusu on 23 January 2012
(It was "edubreizh.com", a French site for learning Breton, and I'd just been studying Catalan, so as I typed I muttered to myself "edü..."(French accent) "bryce..."(Breton accent) "pun' com"(Catalan accent).
Jinx on 23 January 2012
When you think about putting stickers of other languages' letters on your keys but can't
decide if both Arabic and Korean will fit!
Quabazaa on 24 January 2012
...when you now consider saving owner manuals for various appliances because they are printed in all of your target languages. Well,English with both Spanish and French translations. A year ago, I wouldn't have even though to save them as language-related items.
jdmoncada on 24 January 2012
when you misread the thread title "i want to recover my account" as "i want to recover my accent" :D
Serpent on 24 January 2012
when you misread the thread title "i want to recover my account" as "i want to recover my accent" :D
I did the same thing!
jdmoncada on 25 January 2012
When you receive the best birthday present and card ever!
When you plan on participating in the Accelerated Finnish Challenge?
If you only knew my inner struggle to avoid this cool challenge! However I'll just have to take a rain check this time, as the outlook for February is already cloudy with a chance of far too many projects. ;)
Teango on 25 January 2012
Grandma just told someone I'm learning Norwegian... um almost.
Serpent on 26 January 2012
Grandma just told someone I'm learning Norwegian... um almost.
Yes, but someone once said that Danish is like speaking Norwegian with your mouth full, so Grandma isn't too far off. (oops, shouldn't say that here!) Maybe Grandma knows something you don't know about your future next language?
Kafea on 26 January 2012
when your roommates come home with a new flavor bottle of vodka and say, "I'm looking forward to this". And you, being the lang nerd, think to yourself, I'm looking forward to my new "750 Verbs and How to Use them" book! :)
vikavictoria on 26 January 2012
when your roommates come home with a new flavor bottle of vodka and say, "I'm looking forward to this". And you, being the lang nerd, think to yourself, I'm looking forward to my new "750 Verbs and How to Use them" book! :)
See, I thought you were going to write that you were looking forward to reading the foreign language writing on the bottle! You had me fooled. :)
jdmoncada on 26 January 2012
Grandma just told someone I'm learning Norwegian... um almost.
Yes, but someone once said that Danish is like speaking Norwegian with your mouth full, so Grandma isn't too far off. (oops, shouldn't say that here!) Maybe Grandma knows something you don't know about your future next language?
-i do aim to be able to read all three Scandinavian languages. in fact i do have a very small amount of Norwegian cards in my anki, less than in Dutch or Catalan
-I have a friend from Norway and she knows that. the cards are mostly her tweets, really :D
-she always took it seriously when I talked about my past life as a kid, I lived in a children's home in Denmark. she still takes it seriously. so it's weird to me how she doesn't realize how this sort of thing can be a reason to learn a language - well, she's far more sociable than me XDDD
Serpent on 26 January 2012
when your roommates come home with a new flavor bottle of vodka and say, "I'm looking forward to this". And you, being the lang nerd, think to yourself, I'm looking forward to my new "750 Verbs and How to Use them" book! :)
See, I thought you were going to write that you were looking forward to reading the foreign language writing on the bottle! You had me fooled. :)
You know you really are when you also thought this and you feel very disappointed that it was not to read the label, and, you now are curious about the labels from vodka bottled in Sweden,Finland, Russia, etc., and now want to buy them so you can read and compare them...and you don't even drink.
psy88 on 27 January 2012
YKYALN when you follow FCBarcelona and RealMadrid on twitter in Spanish and you don't watch soccer.
Kartof on 27 January 2012
YKYALN when you follow FCBarcelona and RealMadrid on twitter in Spanish and you don't watch soccer.
Try Marca or El Mundo Deportivo, these should provide a good overview of the Spanish football. Also, I collected some great fun accounts in Spanish http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=30271&PN=1 - in this thread :)
Serpent on 28 January 2012
YKYALN when you follow FCBarcelona and RealMadrid on twitter in Spanish and
you don't watch soccer.
Try Marca or El Mundo Deportivo, these should provide a good overview of the Spanish football. Also, I collected
some great fun accounts in Spanish http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?
TID=30271&PN=1 - in this thread :)
Wow, thanks! These will be useful!
Kartof on 28 January 2012
when your roommates come home with a new flavor bottle of vodka and say, "I'm looking forward to this". And you, being the lang nerd, think to yourself, I'm looking forward to my new "750 Verbs and How to Use them" book! :)
See, I thought you were going to write that you were looking forward to reading the foreign language writing on the bottle! You had me fooled. :)
You know you really are when you also thought this and you feel very disappointed that it was not to read the label, and, you now are curious about the labels from vodka bottled in Sweden,Finland, Russia, etc., and now want to buy them so you can read and compare them...and you don't even drink.
Except that my roommates don't know less-good vodka from worse vodka, and always buy Smirnoff, but it always just says, "smirnofskaya vodka" on the bottle, and Stoli says, "Stoli" on the bottle with a russian L for the liter mark. Not that interesting. Now, had it been some of the more RUSSIAN vodkas, and not those just popular in USA, then, yeah, I'd be happy to read it :)
vikavictoria on 29 January 2012
You know you're a language (and math!) nerd when you're tempted to take out a textbook on advanced Calculus in
Spanish (and French too :D) from the library :)
Kartof on 29 January 2012
[From the movie War Horse]
Colin (English soldier): You speakEnglish good.
Peter (German soldier): I speakEnglish well.
jdmoncada on 29 January 2012
YKYALN when, flipping channels on the TV, you stop to watch an evangelical sermon in Spanish! Something you'd
always pass on if it were plain oldEnglish. Anything for target language practice!
wv girl on 29 January 2012
when you saw something really funny on TV and want to post it and then spend more than one half hour searching this site, impatiently waiting for the pages to change, and still can't find the "right" place and so being a language nerd, decide to post it here.
Anyway, I was watching the classic British comedy series Fawlty Towers. It was the episode A Touch of Class. Mr Fawlty is a long suffering and cantankerous inn keeper; Manuel is a bus boy at the inn. Manuel is from Barcelona and is very limited in his grasp ofEnglish. Fawlty claims to speak the "classic Spanish" and not the "strange gibberish" Manuel uses. Fawlty is admonishing Manuel to use less butter on the breakfast trays. Fawlty use the word "burro" (donkey) when he means "butter". Of course Manuel laughs and does a "hew haw" before supplying the correct word "mantequilla".
But the funniest part for me was when Fawlty insists Manuel only put two butters "on those trays" and Manuel replies "No, Mr. Fawlty, it's 'uno, dos, tres', not 'on those trays'".
psy88 on 30 January 2012
when you deliberately hold your learning books so people on public transport can see you
using them
FuroraCeltica on 01 February 2012
when you deliberately hold your learning books so people on public transport can see you
using them
I politely disagree. For example, to make my point (which I usually do through examples/exaggerated examples), at Russian Lunch (the Russian dept for our university holds this 2x or 3x a month), others ask me which level I'm in and I say SLAV 270 rather than "Oh, I'm in "Russian for Natives". This is for me a respectable quality in a polyglot, or any other type of learner/aspirer (<< NOT A WORD, SORRY).
Just my 0.02.
vikavictoria on 02 February 2012
when you can say thank you in 5 languages from eating girl scout cookies
tennisace on 02 February 2012
...when you so persistantly inch closer to an old couple speaking Russian at the tram station that they get freaked out and decide to walk instead of waiting for the tram.
Jinx on 02 February 2012
...when you spill water all over your desk and the first thing you save is your overview
of Esperanto grammar.
ReneeMona on 02 February 2012
when you deliberately hold your learning books so people on public transport can see you
using them
This is a perfect way to find native speakers or others studying that language! They're bound to ask you about the book you're studying! :o) I've often thought about wearing a t-shirt asking "talar du svenska?" (do you speak Swedish) or something just to try and find someone who does, lol :o)
WentworthsGal on 02 February 2012
When just reading a Finnish name makes you seriously consider learning the language. I must be the most language-susceptible person on Earth...
Jinx on 06 February 2012
when you deliberately hold your learning books so people on public transport can see you
using them
This is a perfect way to find native speakers or others studying that language! They're bound to ask you about the book you're studying! :o) I've often thought about wearing a t-shirt asking "talar du svenska?" (do you speak Swedish) or something just to try and find someone who does, lol :o)
My problem is that I'm most likely to be reading something that's in a language that no other passenger knows. The most reaction that I've ever got so far was when a black passenger was looking intently at the cover of my copy of Davvin 2 which I was reading. I noticed this and I then explained to her that it was a Finnish textbook for Lappish and she replied that she thought it was some kind of Native American language because of the vaguely
http://www.google.ca/imgres?q=davvin+2&hl=en&biw=1366&bih=62 2&tbm=isch&tbnid=gANUZg58hCNfOM:&imgrefurl=http://www.samidu odji.com/tuotteet.html%3Fid%3D10/88&docid=CEYDTjxJZZdT1M&img url=http://www.samiduodji.com/files/samiduodji.kotisivuk 1;ne.com/verkkokauppa/Kirjat/davvin_2.jpg&w=386&h=552&ei=8yw wT-6vD-nh0gGB4ri_Cg&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=573&vpy=115&dur=4425& hovh=269&hovw=188&tx=105&ty=112&sig=112921215964121214085&pa ge=1&tbnh=140&tbnw=98&start=0&ndsp=22&ved=1t:429,r:2,s:0 - "native" design on the book's cover. It was a chance meeting of people into less commonly used languages as it turned out the she was a native speaker of Zulu (or was it Swahili?).Chung on 06 February 2012
I've often thought about wearing a t-shirt asking "talar du svenska?" (do you speak Swedish) or something just to try and find someone who does, lol :o)
You know you're a language nerd when you, in preparation for your trip to Hong Kong, order a shirt saying "å該åæè¬ç²µèª" (please speak Cantonese to me) in order to avoid theEnglish assumption.
Now that you mention that, maybe I could get some mileage out of it in Sweden, too, on the off chance I come across a native literate speaker of Cantonese.
Ari on 07 February 2012
When it makes you excited to notice that someone's language list looks different.
(@Ari, did you do some switching between studying actively/on and off/not studying? I think your languages are displayed in a different order now :P)
Serpent on 07 February 2012
When it makes you excited to notice that someone's language list looks different.
(@Ari, did you do some switching between studying actively/on and off/not studying? I think your languages are displayed in a different order now :P)
I gave up on Spanish. I'm now studying Literary Sinitic ("Classical Chinese"), but I can't get that on my list since it's not availible as a choice. :(
Ari on 07 February 2012
So you deleted your whole Spanish profile? Cruel :P
hopefully administrator can add it for you then...
Serpent on 07 February 2012
1. I spend 10 minutes on a Sunday afternoon arguing with a friend about whether Mandarin and Cantonese are dialects of one unified Chinese language or whether they are different languages that happen to be spoken in China and to make my point that I believe Cantonese is a different language I cited Italian, Neapolitan, Sicilian, and Venetian as examples and gave Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian as a counterexample.
2. I spend this whole morning listening to either spoken Finnish or Thai for about 90 minutes, then spend an hour learning new Afrikaans vocabulary or reviewing grammar points I thought I had forgotten and worry that I am somehow getting lazy in my language learning.
3. I will need new eyeglasses soon but if I want to get a good start on learning Thai I should buy some books to teach myself Thai. I cannot afford both in the near future and even though I know I should get new eyeglasses first I really have to remind myself that books about learning Thai will be worthless if I cannot read them. This was actually a semi-serious dilemma the last time I visited a bookstore.
mick33 on 07 February 2012
I've often thought about wearing a t-shirt asking "talar du svenska?" (do you speak Swedish) or something just to try and find someone who does, lol :o)
You know you're a language nerd when you, in preparation for your trip to Hong Kong, order a shirt saying "å該åæè¬ç²µèª" (please speak Cantonese to me) in order to avoid theÂEnglish assumption.
Now that you mention that, maybe I could get some mileage out of it in Sweden, too, on the off chance I come across a native literate speaker of Cantonese.
SamD on 08 February 2012
(not really MY cat, though... my grandma's)
Serpent on 08 February 2012
(not really MY cat, though... my grandma's)
What language? Because there are books for that! ;)
http://www.amazon.com/French-Cats-Your-Will-Ever/dp/067 940676X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1328692112&sr=8-1 - French for catspesahson on 08 February 2012
Love the cat speaking dog by the way :-)
Northernlights on 08 February 2012
You know you're a language nerd when you inform your mother that you're learning Danish and she says,
"just like you learned French and German right?"
Kartof on 08 February 2012
(not really MY cat, though... my grandma's)
when this post reminds you that theEnglish speaking cat's "meow" really is quite different in other languages. I guess each language hears the cat's "words" in a different way.
when you wonder if it were a Siamese cat, would it speak dog with a Thai accent
when you wonder if Chinese cats speak Catonese
when you think this post is the "cat's meow" and wonder what the equivalent expression would be in your target languages
psy88 on 10 February 2012
one-week crash-courses for at least three unrelated languages over the summer to help you
pick.
...when you're pretty sure that won't help you decide, in the end, but you're going to do
it anyway. (just as soon as I get through this semester!)
mikonai on 10 February 2012
When you can entertain yourself for far longer than is reasonable by reading theEnglish-language Wikipedia and noticing whether articles use British or American spelling, or, my favorite (favourite?): a mixture of both.
Jinx on 13 February 2012
on a forum...
in a room by yourself...
... because you have used all three methods seriously (or not so seriously) sometime in the past.
zenmonkey on 13 February 2012
...when you know the first article of the universal declaration of human rights by heart
because it is used as a sample text on omniglot.com.
ReneeMona on 13 February 2012
When the 6 week challenge bot runs out of colours for your languages.
Serpent on 14 February 2012
When people want to check the music on your iPhone but 90% of the tracks are from Michel Thomas,
Pimsleur, Assimil, Teach Yourself or other language learning courses.
Asiafeverr on 14 February 2012
When your children get excited about flashcards in yet another language and toss out words in a dozen languages in a coffee shop because you've passed on the nerdlyhood.
zenmonkey on 15 February 2012
reminded me on this: http://cs5662.vk.com/u10938551/144646369/x_3485fd2b.jpg - http://cs5662.vk.com/u10938551/144646369/x_3485fd2b.jpg :DDD
(the Russian text says my playlist)
Serpent on 15 February 2012
When learning to use, though not mastering, the subjunctive mood in Spanish and Italian makes me wish thatEnglish hadn't allowed it's own subjunctive mood to become almost useless.
mick33 on 15 February 2012
True story: It's used so infrequently inEnglish, that my university professor didn't expect our class to do very well with subjunctive. When she was teaching us the concept and uses, she was quite dubious about our chances of success as nativeEnglish speakers, but we all did quite well. So I am proud of that achievement.
jdmoncada on 15 February 2012
When helping your 8 year old to study the states and their capitals, you can't help but mention which ones are
French and Spanish and telling her what they mean!
wv girl on 16 February 2012
When every time you try to say "katana" it comes out as "katakana"
kottoler.ello on 16 February 2012
When you enjoy watching a tv series with sound in one target language and subtitles in a
different one. (Works great for me. I enjoy listening inEnglish and get useful
colloquial vocabulary, phrases and idioms in either French or Spanish)
Cavesa on 16 February 2012
When you attend a Korean class because it's the only language offered at university that
you haven't studied before.
Mauritz on 16 February 2012
Battlefield 3 in Russian but you put the subtitles in Spanish, just to ensure you
understand every word... while at the same time listening to Serbian rap.
------------------------------------------------------------ -------------------------
---
Sabes que eres un verdadero empollón para los idiomas cuando eres un hablante nativo de
inglés jugando Battlefield 3 en ruso pero pones los subtÃtulos en español para segurar
que entiendas cada palabra... mientas a misma vez estás escuchando a rap serbio.
------------------------------------------------------------ -------------------------
---
You also know you're a language nerd when you want to translate every post you make in
all of your favourite languages however you realize there's not enough time in the day
for that. XD
Finally you know you're a language nerd when in your last year of U.S. secondary school
you are in on-levelEnglish but in AP (college-level) Spanish Literature as a "gringo",
and still have higher grades than many native speakers regardless of the fact that half
the time in class you're not paying attention and studying Russian.
espfutbol98 on 17 February 2012
When people want to check the music on your iPhone but 90% of the tracks are from Michel Thomas,
Pimsleur, Assimil, Teach Yourself or other language learning courses.
Lol! That is so true! I don't think I even have any music on my phone, just foreign audiobooks and language courses! And I wouldn't change a thing :-p (except memory size!).
WentworthsGal on 17 February 2012
You know you're a true language nerd when you're a nativeÂEnglish speaker playing
Battlefield 3 in Russian but you put the subtitles in Spanish, just to ensure you
understand every word... while at the same time listening to Serbian rap.
Serpent on 17 February 2012
When I feel really guilty about having taken a break from learning languages for a few days and even more guilty about admitting that I actually do have a social life away from this forum.
mick33 on 23 February 2012
When that nice pair of shoes you splurged on, which you knew was made in Israel, is even more appealing
because of the lovely script on the box! And Hebrew isn't even one of your languages ... yet.
wv girl on 23 February 2012
When your ultimate goal is to obtain the whole Assimil collection :D
koba on 24 February 2012
When your ultimate goal with OldEnglish is to translate The Lord of the Rings into it.
Mauritz on 24 February 2012
When your ultimate goal with OldÂEnglish is to translate The Lord of the Rings into it.
On that same theme: when the notebook in which you jot down new vocabulary is more valuable to you than the
Precious.
Hekje on 24 February 2012
a second hand bookshop. And then, you flip through the pages and find three four-leafed
clovers dried inside. Isn't it some kind of a sign?
In the same bookshop, I found the textbook I had been learning from when I was nine or
ten years old. It is a bit old (but phrases like "Michel et Monique jouent au cache-
cache." don't change that much) and some chapters mention Czechoslovakia and Soviet Union
(our teachers had sticked a paper over those and replaced the dialogues with new ones), I
still think it is waaaaay better than most modern textbooks aimed at children. I have
reserved the book till next week and perhaps, it will serve my sister or brother one day
(at least I tell myself it is the reason to buy it. In fact, it is pure nostalgy).
Cavesa on 25 February 2012
Today I was waiting for a prof, for really long. Fortunately, there was a Spanish class in the next classroom, and the door was open so I could hear everything they said. Fun!!! :D
Serpent on 25 February 2012
I had filled out my sudoku booklet in the plane from Taiwan to Germany, and then I began copying Chinese signs with their Pinyin values and meaning in German into the empty spaces in the booklet just for fun. And I'm not even going to learn Chinese - my Wanderlust is under control.
Iversen on 25 February 2012
When you suddenly get an unstoppable urge to find and list all available material for studying Samoan even though you live in Europe and there's probably no Samoan to be found anywhere in a radius of 8000 kilometers :)
druckfehler on 25 February 2012
When you're a freshman in college sitting in a library, and you recognize the guys sitting in front of you is very
black, and is speaking what sounds like sped up Arabic. So you go on youtube and type in Amharic and listen to him
on the phone while you compare his speech to Amharic. You conclude he is from Ethiopia and is speaking Amharic.
drp9341 on 02 March 2012
When you prefer usingEnglish or Spanish Wikipedia to Polish one. Not only 'cause they have more articles. But just for keeping in contact with the language.
Zireael on 03 March 2012
When you prefer usingÂEnglish or Spanish Wikipedia to Polish one. Not only 'cause they have more articles. But just for keeping in contact with the language.
When you read this and wonder if the "articles" pun comparing Polish toEnglish and Spanish was intentional.
garyb on 04 March 2012
insane because you slip every few minutes and actually drop one aloud.
("Gghh... rrghh... hggggghhhhhhh...")
Hekje on 06 March 2012
insane because you slip every few minutes and actually drop one aloud.
("Gghh... rrghh... hggggghhhhhhh...")
when "contemplating uvular fricatives" sounds like something sexually perverse to everyone except you
psy88 on 06 March 2012
When you are playing videogame with your friends and, while they are actually playing, you are wondering about the language written in the walls. It was vietnamese.
FireViN on 06 March 2012
When you carefully cut off the corner of a single-serving packet of matcha instead of tearing it on the indicated line so as to preserve the text on the back. Also, you're not even really studying Japanese, just trying to learn the pronunciations of the hiragana and katakana to be able to pronounce all the random signs and posters (and tea packages) you encounter on occasion.
kottoler.ello on 07 March 2012
When you come home after the second day of a three day, 8 hours per day exam in patent law and watch a Latin learning youtube channel to relax. Might as well schedule me for emergency slaughter now...
GeneMachine on 07 March 2012
WHen you read the post above and wonder whether it is the channel of Evans1965
Iversen on 07 March 2012
When you go to Hong Kong for two weeks and return with fourteen books, half of which are dictionaries.
Ari on 08 March 2012
It is indeed Evan's channel, Iversen. You may add another golden star to your nerd ID card.
GeneMachine on 08 March 2012
When you would never watch a "soap opera" but love telenovelas because you can practice your Spanish..but secretly love the story lines.
Completely guilty! I used to complain endlessly when my mother and sisters would watch "Days of our Lives" yet now I can't wait to see "Una Familia Con Suerte"!
cmellor on 08 March 2012
When you would never watch a "soap opera" but love telenovelas because you can practice your Spanish..but secretly love the story lines.
Completely guilty! I used to complain endlessly when my mother and sisters would watch "Days of our Lives" yet now I can't wait to see "Una Familia Con Suerte"!
I have also read an article in the
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/07/abercrombie-fi tch-employees-push-ups_n_1326614.html?ref=business&ir=Busine ss&icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl22%7Csec3_lnk3%26pLid%3D1419 78 - Huffington Post about something that happened in Italy. The article is inÂEnglish, but it links to the original Italian article in Corriere della Sera twice. This made my day!mick33 on 09 March 2012
My son's three favorite songs right now are:
*Sabes - Selena (Spanish)
*Einmal noch schlafen - Anajo (German)
*太空è¦å¯ - Cosmos People [å®å®äºº] (Mandarin)
cmellor on 09 March 2012
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=10547&PN=1&TPN=5 - When you enjoy an Arsene Wenger interview despite being a Spurs fan
Serpent on 10 March 2012
When your horse-loving mother asks you to visit some tack shops on your trip to Argentina, and you come
dangerously close to ordering a Spanish/English dictionary 'for horsem*n' that lists more than 10,000 terms.
espejismo on 10 March 2012
...when you were actually *happy* to find that the downloaded Korean TV show you watched this evening had 3.5 minutes of commercials at the beginning as well as a few commercial breaks during the show (as most encoders remove the ads first, so you rarely get to see Korean commercials).
Warp3 on 12 March 2012
...when you temporarily forget what language you're reviewing vocabulary in, and give the answer in Croatian, German, Esperanto, and Japanese before remembering that you're actually studying Italian.
ellasevia on 12 March 2012
...when you end up watching Georgian tv because it was mislabelled as a Turkish stream, and you're captivated, even though you aren't learning Georgian.
Billy Bob on 12 March 2012
...when you temporarily forget what language you're reviewing vocabulary in, and give the answer in Croatian, German, Esperanto, and Japanese before remembering that you're actually studying Italian.
Guilty! Especially as a beginner, you tend to learn the same words in several languages (in my case Korean and Latin) and doing several decks in a row never fails to produce that kind of confusion.
vermillon on 12 March 2012
You're watching an Italian band, and you go right to the front of the crowd before they start playing. Not because you're a particularly big fan; just so you can hear them talk to each other as they get ready.
garyb on 12 March 2012
When you look at a clip from The Passion of the Christ to hear the spoken Latin, then close the window in disgust when you realise they used the Vatican's pronunciation.
boon on 12 March 2012
downloading comparative grammars and grammars of languages that's you've never even
heard of before.
...when you enjoy reading a comparative grammar book but are perplexed at the
realisation that the enjoyment of such a thing would sound weird to absolutely everyone
you've ever known.
Damn you archive.org!
When you look at a clip from The Passion of the Christ to hear the spoken
Latin, then close the window in disgust when you realise they used the Vatican's
pronunciation.
I love how anachronistic that is.
crafedog on 13 March 2012
When you look at a clip from The Passion of the Christ to hear the spoken Latin, then close the window in disgust when you realise they used the Vatican's pronunciation.
when you can recognize and distinguish types of Latin
psy88 on 13 March 2012
EDIT: 4 in the morning.
wokkabomb on 13 March 2012
When you look at a clip from The Passion of the Christ to hear the spoken Latin, then close the window in disgust when you realise they used the Vatican's pronunciation.
mick33 on 13 March 2012
When you have contacted pastors in other countries to find the Lutheran liturgy and Christian prayers in different languages because you can easily get them inEnglish too. When you wish the Bible Society would hurry up and finish the Bible translations they have been working on but haven't yet completed, and wish they would just give you what they have so far.
Kafea on 13 March 2012
I just tried to do a Find and Replace correction in a document I'm editing. I neglected to clear the clipboard first, and now the document is full of PÄ czki (Polish doughnuts)!
meramarina on 15 March 2012
... When your phone's custom dictionary is filling up with TL vocab, causing your phone to interpret the
word you were trying to type as one from the wrong language. (that sentence kind of got away from
me... I hope it makes sense....) Probably only an issue for swype users, but it happened in typing this.
"language" was replaced with "langue" which at least means the same thing. Usually it amounts to "it's
very pretty" turning into complete nonsense like "it's very peu" or something like that.
Or
... When you're inordinately proud of yourself for sticking to your TL after popping in to the used
bookstore. (Seriously, there were way more languages represented than I was expecting and everything
was so cheap!!)
markdtmj on 17 March 2012
I admit that I was losing my patience with it at the end when languages started repeating, but still, wow, I could never have guessed a video like this even existed! And, of course, it does demonstrate a
very useful phrase.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wev2wfrd178&feature=related - Hakuna Matata 43 versionsmeramarina on 17 March 2012
When you spend your Friday night organizing your German grammar binder, putting dividers in and whatnot.
When you can have a complete conversation with your friend about someone inEnglish just by using the cases in German (nominitive, accusitive, dative, genitive) as adjetives in describing that person, and no one else has any idea what you are even talking about. "Shes too accusitive, which probably led him to become dative" in other words, Shes a bitch which caused him to sleep around/cheat.
LebensForm on 17 March 2012
When you call a language interesting and your family members ask half-seriously if you're going to study it.
Serpent on 17 March 2012
When you have actually read all the 2203 messages posted so far in this discussion, and recognise yourself in at least a third of them.
Ogrim on 17 March 2012
When your friend asks on Twitter if anyone wants anything from Malta, you say a Maltese dictionary and he almost believes you. And then you're disappointed when you see Harry Potter hasn't been translated into Maltese and end up asking for a newspaper in Maltese.
Serpent on 18 March 2012
When you look at a clip from The Passion of the Christ to hear the spoken Latin, then close the
window in disgust when you realise they used the Vatican's pronunciation.
I hear you! Horrible that people has not read Allen :c!
Hampie on 18 March 2012
....when you go to
http://www.youtube.com/user/worldlanguagemovies - this YouTube channel everytime you read something about a language you don't know, because you want to hear what it sounds like.
The videos are all about Jesus and Christianity, but they have a lot of different languages, many of which you can't
find spoken anywhere else.
morinkhuur on 18 March 2012
When you look at a clip from The Passion of the Christ to hear the spoken Latin, then close the window in disgust when you realise they used the Vatican's pronunciation.
When reading these comments has caused you to unwillingly start obsessively analyzing the Latin pronunciation of the characters who read exorcisms on the TV show "Supernatural" and you literally lie awake at night wondering which pronunciation would be more accurate for this particular situation. (Conclusion: Vatican, probably, seeing as it's all about sending demons to hell.)
Jinx on 19 March 2012
.. Shes a bitch which caused him to sleep around/cheat.
That would be better expressed through certain Russian verbs of movement which specify that the movement isn't from point to point, but just a more or less random peripatetic rambling around in the surrounding landscape. There may also be a Finno-Ugrian case reserved for such movement patterns, but I haven't seen it yet.
Iversen on 19 March 2012
When you come back from spring break to find, that your German class is cancelled and when most people are excited about not having class, you are saddened because you actually looked forward to those passive voice worksheets that were planned for today :/
LebensForm on 20 March 2012
Weeeeeeee...
ellasevia on 21 March 2012
...your health care providers are now used to foreign language reading materials with you in the patient rooms. I brought Japanese materials to my medical doctor several times, and I have brought French and Spanish to my dental appointments.
jdmoncada on 21 March 2012
When you would never watch a "soap opera" but love telenovelas because you can practice your Spanish..but secretly love the story lines.
Completely guilty! I used to complain endlessly when my mother and sisters would watch "Days of our Lives" yet now I can't wait to see "Una Familia Con Suerte"!
Definitely nice choice! I watch that telenovela religiously. It's actually one of those rare telenovelas that is engaging and not just about passion and sex. The comedy is golden.
My turn:
... when you walk into your German class and see a joke in Spanish on the blackboard that the previous class left (a Spanish class, of course). It's a funny joke, but the answer has a mistake. It distracts you all class until, when the class is dismissed, you change theEnglish word of "my" in the answer to the proper Spanish "mi" and add the upside exclamation mark they forgot to add in the beginning.
- Kat
Phantom Kat on 23 March 2012
Here's my YKYALNW moment of the day: I (American) was walking along the street in my city (in Germany) and overheard a girl walking in front of me on her phone, saying (in Spanish) that the tram wasn't running and she had no idea where she was. When she hung up, I asked her inEnglish (assuming she was a tourist) if she needed any help finding her way somewhere, and confessed to having overheard her Spanish on the phone. When it turned out she could speak German after all, I quickly switched into that language and directed her back towards the center of town. I'm pretty sure that, by the time we parted ways, she had no idea what my native language was!
Jinx on 25 March 2012
When you're installing your new printer, but the multilingual manual seems more
interesting than making the printer actually work.
koba on 26 March 2012
Half the reason for wanting to learn French is so that you have more access to the
Assimil library.
Gallo1801 on 27 March 2012
...when you seriously consider trying to pass yourself off as your younger brother all summer just so that
you could be eligible for a free intensive Hindi/Urdu class.
ellasevia on 27 March 2012
when you are seriously disappointed that no one has posted an April's Fool joke. For the last two years they were funny and you were looking forward to this year's. And you are fretting that perhaps it was posted but you missed it.
psy88 on 02 April 2012
When you buy some candy just because you notice your TL is written on its wrapper.
When you keep the card that came with some batteries, because it has text in your TL that you want to check out.
When you're out shopping and stop because you see some text in Kazakh on a box.
Billy Bob on 02 April 2012
Well, I was all ready to hop on that bus, even though I live near NYC and don't want a tour - but if it's five languages? Sign me up right now! But then I realized that the tour doesn't really happen in five languages: of course, it's one language at a time because it is for foreign tourists, not local language nerds.
Maybe I should go anyway. I could take the tour five times, right?
meramarina on 04 April 2012
I've had a wonderful excursion in Finland where all the information/descriptions would come from a tape, in Finnish,ÂEnglish, German and Russian. (no Swedish!) It was really cool to understand practically all of it.
On another city tour, you were given headphones and you could choose between something like 10 languages. I kept on switching :DDD
That city tour sounds like it's totally worth it, and you may well be able to experience it in more than one language without going five times!
Serpent on 04 April 2012
... you come across the word http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=dafuq - dafuq on the internet and pronounce it in your mind as if it were written out in IPA, right down to the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_uvular_plosive - voiceless uvular plosive at the end.
vonPeterhof on 04 April 2012
That city tour sounds like it's totally worth it, and you may well be able to experience it in more than one language without going five times!
I think I'd annoy the other passengers too much eavesdropping on them and trying to converse!
On a more practical nerd note, I have heard that popular destinations in large cities sometimes have volunteers who can greet and give directions or tour to non-English speaking tourist at popular destinations such as museums or historical locations. If I can ever summon the necessary mental and physical energy to try this, that would be excellent experience. I should take advantage of living near such a big city with a lot of foreign visitors.
So there's an idea for other language learners located near large cities or tourist destinations, too!
meramarina on 05 April 2012
When you're half-way up the stairs to fetch someone from your company's computing support team to do something on your laptop before you realise that it might be a good idea to switch it back toEnglish as you're fairly certain none of them speak Welsh.
Tamise on 06 April 2012
... when you're a broke college student and happily drop this week's hard-earned paycheck on a vintage language course.
becks on 06 April 2012
... When you watch a tv programme and feel very proud when they say something in a language which you haven't studied yet but understood some of it because it's related to one that you do study.
...When you feel compelled to add the word "yet" into the above sentence, where mere mortals wouldn't even think of doing so.
WentworthsGal on 07 April 2012
... when you're a broke college student and happily drop this week's hard-
earned paycheck on a vintage language course.
So true... I've been paying for books in foreign languages quite a lot lately, certainly
more than I should. The staff members of the wonderful bookshop, where I buy most of
them, already remember me. And sometimes, they even remember what I was asking about
previously (happily announcing it has come) and answer me whether the books I have
ordered have come before I ask about them. :-D
Cavesa on 07 April 2012
When your girlfriend says she feels like she's cheating on you when she talks about languages and language learning with other people when you aren't around.
kottoler.ello on 10 April 2012
When you have laryngitis and one of the first things your non-language-studying buddy
says is: "So, do you feel you speak Dutch better this way?"
Hekje on 10 April 2012
When you spend 6 days on an Easter Holiday with your sister, and the most enduring experience was the spot in the Roman Museum in Colonia Ulpia Traiana (Xanten in Germany) where you can stand between two Roman soldiers who have a chat in Latin - without any translation so that you can have it totally for yourself.
Iversen on 10 April 2012
...when you are exploring a new map (for a first-person shooter) in a private match with friends and discover that there is Korean writing on the trucks. While your friends spend the remainder of the round exploring the layout of the map, you spend that time reading every sign and billboard you can find.
Warp3 on 15 April 2012
When you get an e-mail and the shop-assistant announces an early arrival of the book you
have asked about and that she has already put a copy aside for you. (It is a good
strategy, when someone cares that much, I can't just postpone the buy till I have more
money :-D )
When you must tell yourself on the way around smaller bookshops: "I must not go inside,
it would look stupid to roam around the foreign language shelves so often and not buy."
Cavesa on 15 April 2012
..when you can understand and translate better the meaning of a phrase in Spanish (in my case), than a friend who went to courses in it, while you've never studied it for real.
Einarr on 15 April 2012
When you see a movie, they speak a language you don't know and it's not subtitled, and
you wanna learn that language just so you can understand that dialogue.
Johnnysd on 15 April 2012
I like that much better and was very sad when I had to fix the error.
meramarina on 15 April 2012
Czech in !
I like that much better and was very sad when I had to fix the error.
I had a similar experience today! I was watching a documentary about NASA and the prelude to the first moon
landing. At one point I wasn't paying that much attention when I suddenly one of the crew say "We had to read
Czech". Struggling to figure out why they had to do that, I realized that he was talking about rechecking something
on the rocket.
Mauritz on 16 April 2012
Teango on 16 April 2012
when you go to IKEA and see all the books in Swedish lying on the shelves and serving
just as a decoration. (I suppose they originally brought the Swedish books in order to
not tempt people...)
P.S. For the curious ones among you: of course I didn't and don't steal. But I keep
thinking of asking the staff whether it is possible to buy a book from their collection.
Cavesa on 16 April 2012
When you're really happy for Solfrid Cristin and ReneeMona because it's their language
learning forum birthday
Rivso on 16 April 2012
I remember the Swahili for "telephone" being similar to the Icelandic for "runes - dative plural".
Serpent on 17 April 2012
When you troll your friends by posting cryptic Facebook statuses in languages that aren't supported by Google Translate.
vonPeterhof on 17 April 2012
...when you follow up on a credit card fraud alert that you received, only to learn that it was a rather large purchase from a mysterious website called "Assimil".
ellasevia on 18 April 2012
When you're taking 5 classes your last year at school and decide to add an elective called Intercultural Communications. You do this because the instructor is Italian, moved to the States when he was 8 and he's going to teach you what it's like to assimilate to a culture with a new language.
Michael K. on 18 April 2012
...when you follow up on a credit card fraud alert that you received, only to learn that it was a rather large purchase from a mysterious website called "Assimil".
I had something similar happen to me! My credit card's fraud department called me repeatedly to suss out if my subscription to Hiragana Times was real or not. While I appreciated their quick acting in case it had been fraud, it took many exchanges to finally make them understand that it was a legitimate purchase.
jdmoncada on 18 April 2012
...when you feel inspired by Shakira because she speaks http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elXgiHvdDuw - perfect Portuguese (and you would be hard pressed to name two songs by her).
espejismo on 19 April 2012
...when you look up how to say "earwig" in Portuguese, and feel overwhelmed by the cuteness of pequena lacraia (little scorpion), totally forgetting how nasty the actual thing is.
espejismo on 19 April 2012
When you have a law exam in 10min but you're trying to
read your first book in French instead of studying.
dandt on 19 April 2012
When you're studying Danish from a French manual and write the unknown words inEnglish, even though your mother tongue is Bulgarian.
Einarr on 19 April 2012
if,when looking through a catalog of discount books, you come across "Teach Yourself Complete Xhosa" and you decide to buy it, you are a language nerd; if, you don't buy it because you already have it, you are an even bigger language nerd; and, you are the biggest language nerd if you decide to buy it even though you never heard of Xhosa before and have no idea where it s spoken.
psy88 on 20 April 2012
If you were a real language nerd you would know that isiXhosa is a Bantu language which is one of the official languages of South Africa, which Nelson Mandela speaks natively, and which, like many languages of the area, has dental, lateral, and post-alveolar clicks. Which is to say your language nerd senses led you to a good place.
kottoler.ello on 20 April 2012
You know you're becoming a language nerd when you googled Xhosa after psy88's post and
immediately began studying the click noises on youtube.
dandt on 20 April 2012
when you create a whole business around language learning, mind you, living out your passion, I wouldn't have it
any other way
Rowilsonwik on 20 April 2012
(My first post in this forum - woo!)
Midas on 20 April 2012
You're a hopeless language nerd when you went through this whole thread, looking for the
best posts, assembled them on a colourful collage, and printed out a huge poster, so that
all your visitors would be able to read about your obsession ;-)
Mae on 21 April 2012
When you think "Stop making fun of my vowel mergers!" is a perfectly normal thing to say.
hjordis on 21 April 2012
When you go into the staff room at lunch and are disappointed that other colleagues are there as it
means that what could be useful language studying time is going to be 'wasted' making smalltalk with
your colleagues.
StarcrazyAngel on 22 April 2012
Whenever you caught yourself feeling awkward, when speaking in your native language, instead practicing the others you're studying/using.
Einarr on 22 April 2012
Not when speaking but when reading, watching something etc - YES!
Serpent on 22 April 2012
When you're carrying around an ipod that is at least 7 years old and no longer has a screen that you can see
easily because it has a heap of french music that you no longer have cds for.
dandt on 22 April 2012
When you firmly decide to do the Super challenge in four languages, but then five seems like a cooler number and besides, you want a "full package": one 100/100 challenge, at least one (actually two) 50/50, one for 100 movies and one for 100 books :D
Serpent on 22 April 2012
You want to convert Protestantism, because there is a Korean church in your area.
you listen to sermons at 01:00 at night, because it's in Japanese
you name your daughter Rosetta, and change your surname to Stone.
clumsy on 24 April 2012
When finding a cheap copy of a grammar book on Amazon produces a surge of joy exceeding anything you felt last
Christmas.
Hekje on 26 April 2012
presenter asks the class "now, who here thinksEnglish is a hard
language?" And your immediate gut-reaction is "oh hell no, you did
NOT just ask that question!" Much less, to a group of monolingual
anglophones... It's possible that I spend too much time on this
forum...
(disclaimer: I'm not knocking diversity. Or training. I love diversity.
I'm a language nerd.)
Nearly everyone raised their hand. I harumphed.
markdtmj on 26 April 2012
When you double check your foreign tweets even during an epic match (Real-Bayern yesterday), because it would be too embarrassing to make a mistake.
Serpent on 26 April 2012
(I'm not related to that website. I just found the clock to be a cool gadget for a language nerd!) :-)
Mae on 27 April 2012
Oh I love their products! Pity some are ridiculously expensive.
I just use FuzzyTime add-on instead :D I look at it more than at any other "clock" because I switched the default one off.
Serpent on 27 April 2012
You're a language nerd when you buy this expensive clock featuring 5 preloaded and 18 additional languages: http://www.thinkgeek.com/homeoffice/lights/ed6e/?srp=3 - Verbarius Digitless Clock
Cool find! Although sadly it looks like I'll never be able to afford one.
This sentence in particular made my eyes light up:
"It comes preloaded withÂEnglish, German, Spanish, French, and Russian, but if you connect your Verbarius to the manufacturer's website, you can download over a dozen other languages from Esperanto to Welsh."
(I imagine there must be some apps out there for Mac and PC that do pretty much the same thing. ;) )
Teango on 27 April 2012
As I said, there's https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/fuz zy-time/ - FuzzyTime.
Serpent on 27 April 2012
Thanks Serpent! I've added this now to my browser and switched to Russian for the time being. :)
Teango on 27 April 2012
When a friend asks you to translate something in an obscure language on the grounds that
you are "goods at languages" so must know it
FuroraCeltica on 30 April 2012
When you watch Italian Serie B just because you're too eager to get started with the Super Challenge :D
Serpent on 01 May 2012
I was at the DMV today renewing my driver license, and was doing some Cyrillic writing practice while I waited. When I got to the counter, the employee commented how I was learning Russian. I was impressed she knew. So we talked for a few minutes about languages and language learning while she prepared my new license.
jdmoncada on 01 May 2012
When after flirting with some Spanish girls, you feel like flirting with their language.
garyb on 02 May 2012
When you honestly don't care about an upcoming exam session, yet you're indeed worried by the fact that you should read more Danish for your challenge! :)
Einarr on 02 May 2012
Planning to pack for your next business trip you think "What can I leave behind to let me bring more L2 materials back with me." and the answer is "Basically - everything."
maydayayday on 02 May 2012
I was at the DMV today renewing my driver license, and was doing some Cyrillic writing practice while I waited. When I got to the counter, the employee commented how I was learning Russian. I was impressed she knew. So we talked for a few minutes about languages and language learning while she prepared my new license.
when normally you would be very angry and really frustrated by someone holding up the line at the DMV by chatting with the clerk, but if you found out it is because he was practicing his target language you wouldn't mind...as much.
psy88 on 03 May 2012
Planning to pack for your next business trip you think "What can I leave behind to let me bring more L2 materials back with me." and the answer is "Basically - everything."
So guilty! :) I recently even heard myself saying to my better half: "if we remove half the clothes on this trip, we'll be able to bring some of my Irish books" (lol - poor girl, look at what she has to live with!).
Teango on 03 May 2012
As I said, there's https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/fuz zy-time/ - FuzzyTime.
...When you download this app and giggle like a school kid because you now have time in Swedish on your laptop! Thanks Serpent!! :oD
WentworthsGal on 03 May 2012
Planning to pack for your next business trip you think "What can I leave behind to let me bring more L2 materials back with me." and the answer is "Basically - everything."
So guilty! :) I recently even heard myself saying to my better half: "if we remove half the clothes on this trip, we'll be able to bring some of my Irish books" (lol - poor girl, look at what she has to live with!).
Serpent on 03 May 2012
....When given $150 as birthday gift, you spent it on a Colloquial Slovak book with audio
CDs, a French grammar and a Hugo in 3 month Greek book. And your friend asked, when on
Earth are you going to use Greek and Slovak in Singapore after you learn them?
QiuJP on 03 May 2012
language and then walking around muttering it to yourself until it just rolls off
your tongue.
You know, in case you ever need it.
Sierra on 03 May 2012
When you realize, that you even use Google, Youtube, Facebook, etc. in a language different thanEnglish or your native one. :X:D
Einarr on 06 May 2012
When your browser homepage is set to Google Translate.
Teango on 06 May 2012
As I said, there's https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/fuz zy-time/ - FuzzyTime.
...When you download this app and giggle like a school kid because you now have time in Swedish on your laptop! Thanks Serpent!! :oD
Sorry to get a bit off-topic, but I have a question: I downloaded this app and love it, but it automatically shows the time in German and I can't figure out how to change the language. I've clicked on the words showing the current time, double-clicked on them, right-clicked, opened the add-ons menu... and still nothing. Does anyone know how to change this? The download page doesn't seem to have any information on how to change the language.
Jinx on 07 May 2012
As I said, there's https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/fuz zy-time/ - FuzzyTime.
...When you download this app and giggle like a school kid because you now have time in Swedish on your laptop! Thanks Serpent!! :oD
Sorry to get a bit off-topic, but I have a question: I downloaded this app and love it, but it automatically shows the time in German and I can't figure out how to change the language. I've clicked on the words showing the current time, double-clicked on them, right-clicked, opened the add-ons menu... and still nothing. Does anyone know how to change this? The download page doesn't seem to have any information on how to change the language.
I experienced the same problem when I first added this to Firefox on my Macbook. If you right-click on the time in the bottom corner as before (and if it's anything like on my system, hopefully this will work), you'll notice a second menu hiding slightly behind the first right-click menu that pops up. Just click on this and choose your language option and hey presto!
Teango on 07 May 2012
As I said, there's https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/fuz zy-time/ - FuzzyTime.
...When you download this app and giggle like a school kid because you now have time in Swedish on your laptop! Thanks Serpent!! :oD
Sorry to get a bit off-topic, but I have a question: I downloaded this app and love it, but it automatically shows the time in German and I can't figure out how to change the language. I've clicked on the words showing the current time, double-clicked on them, right-clicked, opened the add-ons menu... and still nothing. Does anyone know how to change this? The download page doesn't seem to have any information on how to change the language.
I experienced the same problem when I first added this to Firefox on my Macbook. If you right-click on the time in the bottom corner as before (and if it's anything like on my system, hopefully this will work), you'll notice a second menu hiding slightly behind the first right-click menu that pops up. Just click on this and choose your language option and hey presto!
You're right, Teango! I hadn't seen the edge of the second menu peeking out until you mentioned it. Thank you. :)
Jinx on 07 May 2012
Hehe thanks for the tip! What worked for me was making the window smaller, then it's displayed in a different place and not behind this menu:) transparent though lolol.
Serpent on 08 May 2012
when someone you're casually seeing knows to put foreign subtitles on any movie you watch
dandt on 08 May 2012
when someone you're casually seeing knows to put foreign subtitles on any movie you watch
....and you prefer to read the subtitles .....?
maydayayday on 08 May 2012
When your shelves of dvds are organised alphabetically...but not by title...by language!
Teango on 08 May 2012
...when you're asked to identify the period/style of a work of art you've never seen before on an exam, and
are about to guess randomly when you notice a short text on the side and recognize the language as
Macedonian, which gives away the answer.
ellasevia on 09 May 2012
when your dog responds to commands in multiple languages!
zerrubabbel on 09 May 2012
when you change your mobile phone settings into another language =]]
schaefchen on 09 May 2012
organization, because you know it will improve your Polish quite a bit. (Plus it's fun to come across words you
haven't seen in a while.)
When you read a fantasy book that has a rather grim man in it named Serek, and you keep on chuckling to
yourself and thinking about cheese because "serek" means "little cheese" in Polish. You also keep on
rereading the biographical information about the author, looking for hints to see if she intentionally named her
character after a kind of food.
When you have added Spanish, Polish, Arabic, Greek, Korean, Russian, Cherokee, Latvian, and Norwegian
keyboards to your iPad in addition to theEnglish one, in spite of the fact that you only know two of the
aforementioned languages and can only read one of the other alphabets. (You wanted to add Latin and
Welsh keyboards, too, but they weren't available.)
Amerykanka on 10 May 2012
Annoying one's monolingual parent by forgetting to change your computer's language settings is, beyond all doubt, solid evidence of language nerdery !
I thought it was pretty hilarious when German-language text appeared when she was trying to book domestic travel reservations. She did not agree.
She also disapproves of my bookshelves full of language resources. "Do you actually use these ? Oh, only every single day !
I believe, despite compelling and irrefutable evidence, that I may be adopted.
meramarina on 10 May 2012
when you like going to your dead-end factory job, just because you get to listen to at least six different languages every day. And you would miss them if you didn't go to work. The languages, not the people.
Kerrie on 10 May 2012
when your favourite news site on the web is BBC World Service, just because they offer news in 27 languages, including kyrgyz and tamil.
Ogrim on 10 May 2012
when your favourite news site on the web is BBC World Service, just because they offer news in 27 languages, including kyrgyz and tamil.
I thought that was just me..... It's my home page!
maydayayday on 10 May 2012
when your two-month-long trip to Russia is still three weeks away, but you're already worried about how
you're going to manage to take all the Spanish books you need for the Super Challenge without going over
the airline weight limit... (in normal circ*mstances, you start worrying about packing the day before the flight!)
espejismo on 10 May 2012
when you feel guilty for working on readings and assignments for your studies because you think you should
be working on languages.
dandt on 10 May 2012
When you learn heritage language ... of your girlfriend/ friends.
clumsy on 10 May 2012
When you start dabbling in Faroese just three days after you started with Russian!
Josquin on 10 May 2012
- you are listening to Christmas music in Romanian...and you don't even plan on
studying Romanian in the short term. - your friends are not surprised that you
learned the Cyrillic alphabet simply because you were bored. - the first book (that
is not free) that you put on your Nook is a Spanish Grammar book. - you have
conversations with your friends about learning Japanese and German, but you're not
learning them in the short term. - you get an account on this site before you get a
Facebook...and you are 15 years old. - you impatiently wait for school to end so
that you can study your language(s).
Ismeme Granger on 10 May 2012
when your two-month-long trip to Russia is still three weeks away, but you're already worried about how
you're going to manage to take all the Spanish books you need for the Super Challenge without going over
the airline weight limit... (in normal circ*mstances, you start worrying about packing the day before the flight!)
Get a Kindle. or a Nook. or whatever e-reader they have where you're at.
Oops. You are in the states. LOL. You can get a cheap Kindle or Nook for less then $75... lots of Spanish books available. (PM me if you want to know where to find them.) :D
Kerrie on 11 May 2012
reading practice)
books for the Nook(preferably free or cheap. I'm just about broke)?
When you place language learning materials before new clothes and even food.
Ismeme Granger on 11 May 2012
Get a Kindle. or a Nook. or whatever e-reader they have where you're at. =)
I have an iPad, but whenever I'm in Moscow, I spend many hours in public transport, and I wouldn't feel safe
taking it out in certain parts of the city during late hours. I also have a major problem with dropping expensive
electronics. I will look into e-readers, though. They're not as flashy and harder to break, it seems.
I think they won't allow me to take that HP5 tome on board. It looks like a weapon! lol
espejismo on 11 May 2012
Get a Kindle. or a Nook. or whatever e-reader they have where you're at. =)
I have an iPad, but whenever I'm in Moscow, I spend many hours in public transport, and
I wouldn't feel safe
taking it out in certain parts of the city during late hours. I also have a major
problem with dropping expensive
electronics. I will look into e-readers, though. They're not as flashy and harder to
break, it seems.
I think they won't allow me to take that HP5 tome on board. It looks like a weapon!
lol
HP5 as in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix? Yeah, if I weren't such a
Potterhead, I'd worry about the size of that book. It's something like 870 pages long,
I think.
When you can't wait to be proficient enough in Spanish to be able to read the HP
series(even though they translated Neville's toad, Trevor, as a turtle. Or was it a
tortoise?)
Ismeme Granger on 11 May 2012
when you carry around your Kindle with 250 different books on it, in more than a dozen languages. Because who knows what you'll be in the mood for later?
Kerrie on 11 May 2012
When you can't wait to be proficient enough in Spanish to be able to read the HP
series(even though they translated Neville's toad, Trevor, as a turtle. Or was it a
tortoise?)
In Spanish, they seem to use "tortuga" for both turtle and tortoise. We do the same in Russian.
This reminded of something... In the third book, there's a part in which Hermione complains after the
Transfiguration exam that the teapot she was supposed to turn into a tortoise looks more like a turtle. The
Spanish translation switches them around: she complains that her "tortuga" looks more like a "galápago"
(tortoise).
espejismo on 11 May 2012
Kerrie(or anyone, really), do you know if there are very many good Spanish learning(or
reading practice)
books for the Nook(preferably free or cheap. I'm just about broke)?
I don't know about the Nook - I have a Kindle. Well, three of them, actually. But there are pdfs all over the internet, and I think the Nook reads pdfs, right?
You can also download a PDF creator and print websites (news articles, wiki articles, fan fiction, almost anything) to a PDF file and put it on your reader.
Kerrie on 11 May 2012
Galapagos islands have so many different and unique varieties of tortoises, there is a
special word in Spanish for a Galapagos tortoise(galápago)? Do I have that right?
When you don't find it at all weird that you are discussing the origins of the word for
tortoise in Spanish with a native Russian speaker.
Edit: Yes, I had to look it up, but Nooks do read PDFs. Great idea! *gets ready to get
Spanish PDF files on to my Nook...and quite possibly things from other cool languages,
even if I don't plan to study them...*whistles innocently*
Ismeme Granger on 11 May 2012
'galápago'. Now they seem to use 'tortuga' regardless of whether the 'tortuga' in question dwells on land or in
water, but I guess people still understand the distinction being made by the use of 'galápago'? I'm not exactly
sure. Maybe someone who knows Spanish better can correct me.
...when you enjoy discussing things like this.
espejismo on 11 May 2012
Actually, I have a question for you regarding the Russian alphabet. From what little I
can tell, each letter has a 'normal' sound and a 'special' sound. How does the soft sign
change the sound of each letter, and how do you know whether, for instance, Ð is
pronounced as a 'd' or a 't'? I can read the general basics(not knowing any words except
loan words, of course), but the inconsistencies confuse me(as they would confuse an
English learner, I suppose).
When the fact that you're asking about Russian when you're not learning it does not
surprise you.
Ismeme Granger on 11 May 2012
When you realize that in the process of searching your mobile phone, you say to yourself: "Hvor er min mobiltelefon?" - and that's not your native language. :D
Einarr on 12 May 2012
Actually, I have a question for you regarding the Russian alphabet. From what little I
can tell, each letter has a 'normal' sound and a 'special' sound. How does the soft sign
change the sound of each letter, and how do you know whether, for instance, Ð is
pronounced as a 'd' or a 't'? I can read the general basics(not knowing any words except
loan words, of course), but the inconsistencies confuse me(as they would confuse an
English learner, I suppose).
The soft sign and the soft vowels indicate that the preceding consonant has to be spoken palatalized. This means pressing the tip of the tongue against the roof of your mouth, and it sounds a little bit like an added 'y'-sound. Рis always pronounced as a 'd', only at the end of words and before unvoiced consonants it's devoiced and becomes 't'. The same is true for other voiced consonants like в. This sounds very theoretical, but it soon becomes a habit when reading Russian.
You know you're a language nerd when you give little lectures about the Russian alphabet after only a week of learning Russian.
Josquin on 12 May 2012
in the previous post, and it actually made a lot of sense.
You know you're a language nerd when you want to read your Spanish grammar book and start
looking for examples of palatalization in Russian sentences that you don't even
understand...at the same time.
Ismeme Granger on 12 May 2012
The soft sign and the soft vowels indicate that the preceding consonant has to be spoken palatalized. This means pressing the tip of the tongue against the roof of your mouth, and it sounds a little bit like an added 'y'-sound.
That will give you a retroflex consonant. You must raise the middle part of the tongue to get a palatalized conosnant. It's the same movement you do for the y sound inÂEnglish, palatalized consonant is basically a y and the consonant pronounced at the same time.
LaughingChimp on 13 May 2012
that comes on every Saturday night here in the US on the public television channel. It's
from the 1980s and the 1990s) and your favorite episode was the one of 'Are You Being
Served?' showing off German Week, and even the signs are in German.
When you sing in the shower in your target language.
When the conversation above is interesting and completely comprehensible, regardless of
the fact that most people your age would just freak out, saying, "They're using words I
don't know inEnglish! How am I supposed to understand, or even care?"
Ismeme Granger on 13 May 2012
converse with yourself in different languages.
... when you're writing about locative inversion in Chichewa and mostly understand the
examples given in an article without the translation, even though you've never studied
the language.
Mauritz on 13 May 2012
When you know more about certain languages that you're not studying than some of your
friends in real life who are know.
Ismeme Granger on 13 May 2012
The soft sign and the soft vowels indicate that the preceding consonant has to be spoken palatalized. This means pressing the tip of the tongue against the roof of your mouth, and it sounds a little bit like an added 'y'-sound.
That will give you a retroflex consonant. You must raise the middle part of the tongue to get a palatalized conosnant. It's the same movement you do for the y sound inÂEnglish, palatalized consonant is basically a y and the consonant pronounced at the same time.
Yes, 'tip of the tongue' was a mistakable expression. I had problems describing the act of platalizing correctly although I can perform it. Thanks for your correction.
... when you know there's a great difference between palatalized and retroflex consonants. :)
Josquin on 13 May 2012
When your first reaction to heartbreak is to begin a new language.
Carisma on 14 May 2012
than the petty drama that is supposed to so absorb teenagers my age.
When you can't wait to be proficient enough to be able to teach friends how to learn
foreign languages.
When you are so utterly jealous of some of the people on this forum for dating other
language nerds.
Ismeme Granger on 14 May 2012
When you're happy that you've received birthday greetings on Facebook in four different
languages so far, and it's still only the morning.
garyb on 14 May 2012
When you have learnt all IPA 107 letters and 52 diacritics
Venustus on 17 May 2012
When you enter the name of someone called "White" into your phone and then you look down and realise you have inadvertently typed "Wang"
mizunooto on 20 May 2012
When you correct people's use of the 'le' as a popular meme.
Kartof on 20 May 2012
When you're driving down a street out of town, and you see a lot of political signs. Then
you notice that a person called 'Iversen' is running for Congress, and you get
excited...before realizing that it can't be our Iversen because our Iversen lives in
Denmark.
Ismeme Granger on 20 May 2012
When you can name more languages then Capitols and their corresponding state... at least
if you live in the US
zerrubabbel on 20 May 2012
When you're alone in the SPA zone (swimming pool/jacuzzi) and you decide to practice tongue twisters so that these minutes counted for the 6WC.
Serpent on 20 May 2012
supports arabic.
I just installed Anki on my HTC, but the text is all backwards and the letters aren't
joining like they should ! Such a shame.. I already pictured myself doing flashcards
everywhere i go ;)
Thomas_DC on 20 May 2012
supports arabic.
I just installed Anki on my HTC, but the text is all backwards and the letters aren't
joining like they should ! Such a shame.. I already pictured myself doing flashcards
everywhere i go ;)
I know exactly what you mean. For the time being, I'm just getting really good at deciphering and producing completely disjointed Persian...
You know you're a language nerd when you find this really badass metal song in your target language on youtube, but can't make out half of the lyrics and they're nowhere on the internet either - so you promptly message the band on Facebook asking for the lyrics, and feel like a little girl on Christmas Eve when they actually send them a day later. You then spend the entire day at university almost bouncing up and down in anticipation of finally getting home and picking apart, translating and probably memorising these lyrics.
(...I wonder if it was their lead singer who replied. He's well fit.)
jellyfish on 21 May 2012
When you're alone in the SPA zone (swimming pool/jacuzzi) and you decide to practice tongue twisters so that these minutes counted for the 6WC.
Serpent on 21 May 2012
it out~!!
Hey everyone, nice to meet you all. This video is about me learning Portuguese in
Portugal. Besides that, I'm sharing two languages that I know. Thanks for watching. I
hope you all enjoy it. I know 5 languages which areEnglish, Mandarin,Cantonese,Hokien
and Malay. Right now I'm learning the European Portuguese.
Here is the Youtube Video link: https://www.youtube.com/user/JasminEmPortugal/featured
Jasmin on 22 May 2012
When you are deeply disappointed that the package that has just arrived in the mail
contains a nice new set of retainers and not the 543-page Dutch novel you actually can't
even read.
Hekje on 27 May 2012
...when among your graduation gifts are a huge German dictionary and a 19th-century Tibetan grammar.
ellasevia on 27 May 2012
When I decided to accept a friend request on Facebook from someone I haven't seen in many years based solely on the fact that he claims to know 6 languages.
mick33 on 27 May 2012
That you know more languages, than you have friends...
EnglishEagle on 27 May 2012
When watching "Game of Thrones" inevitably leads on to visiting this little corner of the Internet: " http://wiki.dothraki.org/dothraki/Learning_Dothraki - Learning Dothraki "...
Teango on 27 May 2012
When you should be listening to the Danish sound of the movie, yet you catch yourself reading the Swedish subtitles instead, due to the lack of Danish ones. :D
Einarr on 27 May 2012
(If this makes sense to you, you're as nerdy as I am.)
(If you can reply this question, you're even nerdier.)
Serpent on 27 May 2012
(If this makes sense to you, you're as nerdy as I am.)
(If you can reply this question, you're even nerdier.)
Well some guy said it was actually the case - they used to be different.
Now it's only graphic difference rz-ż
http://portalwiedzy.onet.pl/140253,,,,dwuznaki,haslo.ht ml - onet wien
hoorai! I am the nerd king by answering this question!
clumsy on 27 May 2012
So it was a soft ż, not a kind of r+ż like in Czech? Interesting...
Serpent on 27 May 2012
... you come across the word
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=dafuq - dafuq on the internet and
pronounce it in your mind as if it were written out in IPA, right down to the
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_uvular_plosive - voiceless uvular plosive
at the end.
I thought I was the only one!
On a related note, when you read "dafuq" as the word ×פ×ק in Hebrew.
zecchino1991 on 28 May 2012
So it was a soft ż, not a kind of r+ż like in Czech? Interesting...
Well, Actually the only thing I know is that they used to be different with each other.
clumsy on 28 May 2012
Oh and also, had to learn to (sort of) pronounce the Czech Å, just to fill the gap :)
Serpent on 28 May 2012
... you've been reading so much Russian that you see a randomEnglish word with look-alike letters and wonder what in the heck that is supposed to mean in Russian.
(In my case it was "Her". I had no idea what Russian word "nyeg" was, so no surprise when I later realized it wasn't Russian at all.)
jdmoncada on 29 May 2012
... you've been reading so much Russian that you see a randomÂEnglish word with look-alike
letters and wonder what in the heck that is supposed to mean in Russian.
(In my case it was "Her". I had no idea what Russian word "nyeg" was, so no surprise when I later realized it wasn't
Russian at all.)
The same exact thing happened to me once when I saw the word "Hero" on a Time Magazine cover and I mistook it
for "nego" which means him in Bulgarian haha It took me at least 5 min of staring to remember that I was looking
atEnglish here.
Kartof on 29 May 2012
... you've been reading so much Russian that you see a randomÂEnglish word with look-alike
letters and wonder what in the heck that is supposed to mean in Russian.
(In my case it was "Her". I had no idea what Russian word "nyeg" was, so no surprise when I later realized it wasn't
Russian at all.)
The same exact thing happened to me once when I saw the word "Hero" on a Time Magazine cover and I mistook it
for "nego" which means him in Bulgarian haha It took me at least 5 min of staring to remember that I was looking
atÂEnglish here.
Yes, exactly that! It was weird, but in a good way. It lets me know I'm getting more comfortable with everything. :)
jdmoncada on 29 May 2012
When you've finally had enough of the loud 'expert' behind you on the tour bus and tell him the correct translation of the Latin inscription on the city gate inEnglish, French, German and Spanish and you walk away with his girlfriend's phone number.... I didn't ring. That would just be mean, wouldn't it?
maydayayday on 29 May 2012
When you've finally had enough of the loud 'expert' behind you on the tour bus and tell him the correct translation of the Latin inscription on the city gate inÂEnglish, French, German and Spanish and you walk away with his girlfriend's phone number.... I didn't ring. That would just be mean, wouldn't it?
I can just imagine you saying "How do you like them apples?" in this scenario (lol)...
Teango on 29 May 2012
When you dont care what language the music you are listening to is in,
zerrubabbel on 31 May 2012
When you're on Fanfiction.Net, minding your own business and not even indulging in
language nerdery and Fanfiction.Net STILL knows that what you really want is an ad for
clothing...in Polish, which you are not studying.
Ismeme Granger on 31 May 2012
When I sometimes have a difficult time speakingEnglish because my thoughts sometimes end up being a jumble of Swedish, Spanish and the few Polish words I now know. This actually caused some of my friends at church to be concerned about me yesterday since I hardly spoke to any of them. Hmm.... I wonder if I should tell them why I was so quiet?
mick33 on 04 June 2012
You're generally trying to reduce your book collection, but your language book section
keeps on growing exponentially....
Elizabeth_rb on 04 June 2012
For instance, yesterday I went out for a British Sunday roast to celebrate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee but somehow still learnt 3 words of Lithuanian from a waitress!
labas = hi (and here's how I still remember the word now...when I first open my mouth to say hello, I use my lips, or otherwise in Latin: labia)
aÄiÅ« = thanks (sounds remarkably like anÂEnglish sneeze: atchoo!)
iki = bye (reminds me of the word for "good" in Turkish: iyi, as well as the word for "go" in Japanese: iku)
Teango on 04 June 2012
When you plan your holiday destination(s) around your target language(s), instead of the
other way around.
montmorency on 04 June 2012
You know you're a language nerd when you are watching 'classic'
British comedy (the stuff
that comes on every Saturday night here in the US on the public television channel.
It's
from the 1980s and the 1990s) and your favorite episode was the one of 'Are You Being
Served?' showing off German Week, and even the signs are in German.
Do they show "Dad's Army"? Try to catch the episode where some German sailors have
landed and are holding some locals hostage. Their senior officer is played by the
(Welsh) actor Philip Madoc (great actor, sadly died this year). I can remember
thinking: "his German sounds pretty good", and it turned out he was indeed a German
speaker, studying languages at the University of Wales and U. of Vienna).
When you sing in the shower in your target language.
Check.
montmorency on 04 June 2012
For instance, yesterday I went out for a British Sunday roast to celebrate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee but somehow still learnt 3 words of Lithuanian from a waitress!
labas = hi (and here's how I still remember the word now...when I first open my mouth to say hello, I use my lips, or otherwise in Latin: labia)
aÄiÅ« = thanks (sounds remarkably like anÂEnglish sneeze: atchoo!)
iki = bye (reminds me of the word for "good" in Turkish: iyi, as well as the word for "go" in Japanese: iku)
You, my friend need to widen your diet. Eating out should always get a few new words or even a new language - mine is Mongolian but it's a Thai restaurant and I am not (honest I am not) studying either actively..... yet.
maydayayday on 04 June 2012
When you're at a job interview and you somehow end up talking about your foreign language obsession, Danish and Finnish with your (supposedly) future boss. :X
Einarr on 04 June 2012
When you read that a footballer (OliÄ ;_;) will be out for 4-6 weeks and to put this into a perspective, you think: that's the length of an entire Tadoku or 6WC! He could reach at least A2 in a new language in this time...
Serpent on 04 June 2012
Thanks to internet advertisers who know that I visit language learning sites, EVERYWHERE I go online, I see this the ad claiming "Language Professors Hate Him!"
with this photo:
But as annoying as this is, I can't take it seriously, because he totally looks like Mr. Bean:
(sorry, I have to come back and resize Mr. Bean!)
meramarina on 04 June 2012
@meramarina: I have the same ad following me around! Haha. :)
Jappy58 on 04 June 2012
@meramarina: I have the same ad following me around! Haha. :)
Dios mio! You mean I'm not the only one? I was starting to get scared they might actually know where I live. And come and get me. And take me to the crazy farm.
At least I'll have company there if they do! =)
Kerrie on 04 June 2012
A multilingual crazy nerd farm sounds like fun to me! I had a feeling Pimsleur Bean was following many of us. We will defeat him! (and his yellow friend Rosetta)
meramarina on 04 June 2012
A multilingual crazy nerd farm sounds like fun to me! I had a feeling Pimsleur Bean was following many of us. We will defeat him! (and his yellow friend Rosetta)
He doesn't even need to come get me. I'll be happy to come there on my own!
Kerrie on 05 June 2012
Use adblock plus if he annoys you :D
Serpent on 05 June 2012
I am not followed by Pimsleur but most websites offer me courses of the Czech language
for foreigners.
Cavesa on 05 June 2012
When watching "Game of Thrones" inevitably leads on to visiting this
little corner of the Internet: "
http://wiki.dothraki.org/dothraki/Learning_Dothraki - Learning Dothraki "...
When you didn't watch "Game of Thrones", but you still click on the link and start
reading
ETA: when after reading it for a while, you decide that you absolutely MUST watch "Game
of Thrones" to listen to Dothraki
ember on 05 June 2012
I am not followed by Pimsleur but most websites offer me courses of the Czech language
for foreigners.
mick33 on 05 June 2012
When visiting Hungary, you buy a pack of cigarettes even though you don't smoke, just so you can see what the health warning looks like in Hungarian.
Ogrim on 06 June 2012
When you use the Icelandic keyboard layout to type Spanish accent marks, because you ran out of room to
add more keyboard layouts to your computer.
zecchino1991 on 07 June 2012
When you came back from China 5 months ago and you still can't bear to bin the shopping receipts in your purse because its authentic Mandarin.
When you're 11 and you see the 17/18 year old school leavers signing their classmate's shirts and you're immediately fascinated by the Cantonese and Malay of the boarders from abroad and can't wait to leave school so you can have someone write in foreign languages on your shirt too!
yantai_scot on 07 June 2012
When you just had the realization when writing "swollen" that it would be like it you combined the modal verbs "wollen" and "sollen" together, it would be "swollen" hahaha.
LebensForm on 07 June 2012
you can change the article's language to your TL and learn it.
...when you've been reading this thread for the past week and you're sad that it finally ended.
...when this is your first post.
Jombo1 on 09 June 2012
When you list the languages of all four countries in Group B at Euro as "studying". And ifEnglish counts for Ireland, also all the languages in Group C.
Serpent on 09 June 2012
When you had to get a super duper important book from the university library for an even more super duper course project that virtually relies on it, but of course you end up with a huge book on Danish (just because you're so close to the Nordic library - helooo), that is obviously written for academic scholars of the language - and now reading it instead is the super duper important task for you.
Einarr on 09 June 2012
of the people on this forum are studying or speak, knowing that it just takes dedication,
time, enjoyment, and hard work, whereas your classmates would just think that everyone on
this forum must be a sheer genius who can soak up languages without even an ounce of
effort and so they should never strive to learn even one language properly because
they'll never be as good.
When you are shocked and dismayed at your classmates' attitudes regarding languages and
language learning.
Ismeme Granger on 09 June 2012
When at a funeral your first reaction in trying not to cry is to silently count in another language as it takes more concentration and focus.
WentworthsGal on 09 June 2012
perhaps tonsils are swollen, and the first thing you compain about is, not being able
to do the proper "ach" sound in German, so every morning since then, the first thing
you do when you wake up is see if you can "ach" right again, which by the way is
getting there, but not yet there fully.
When you just had the realization when writing "swollen" that it would be like it you
combined the modal verbs "wollen" and "sollen" together, it would be "swollen" hahaha.
:-) I can remember once getting a head cold, when I was actively studying French, and
being thrilled to find I could make those nasal French noises in a much more authentic-
sounding way :-)
montmorency on 09 June 2012
part is when Martha teleports to Germany and the Daleks are speaking German.
When you stop the video and immediately look up what they're saying.
Ismeme Granger on 10 June 2012
When you know the Turkish vowel harmony rules even though you only know about 5 words of
Turkish.
zecchino1991 on 11 June 2012
End) and your favorite
part is when Martha teleports to Germany and the Daleks are speaking German.
When you stop the video and immediately look up what they're saying.
Reminds me of the episode of Red Dwarf with Ace Rimmer and the crocodile in Germany. And
the Japanese dialogues in Heroes (no, I didn't look them up but I felt a sudden urge to
start learning Japanese).
Cavesa on 12 June 2012
When you go to open the app store on your iPhone and you accidentally open your Hebrew-
English dictionary instead because it's an automatic reaction.
zecchino1991 on 12 June 2012
languages--usually ones that you're not even studying.
When your first reaction to hearing people whisper in public places is not, 'Wonder what
they're saying' but instead is, 'Wonder what language they're speaking.'
Ismeme Granger on 12 June 2012
When you any time now update your facebook status, you automatically use German sentence strcture and even German spellings (hausing instead of housing) even though your updates are inEnglish.
LebensForm on 12 June 2012
used to pronouncing it the Spanish way.
When your friends are so used to your little language nerdery quirks that they don't look
at you askance when you do things like mispronounce cognates.
Ismeme Granger on 12 June 2012
When you practically pray to have something in your 6WC target language. I sort of did yesterday. "God, please let there be a Euro stream in Polish!" lol...
Serpent on 12 June 2012
When you seriously consider making a collection of unexpected adjectival forms of town names, after having visited a Musée Bittenois at Beziers and seen a list of 'agathois' fish in Cap d'Agde
Iversen on 12 June 2012
the rules into your target language.
When your favorite part about the water park trip(aside from hanging out with friends) is
being able to overhear conversations in your target language.
When you try to construct sentences inEnglish where the adjectives agree in
gender(well...not exactly) and number, like they do in Spanish.
When you do this without thinking about it and laugh at the results(such as 'Affordables
Treasures' among other things).
Ismeme Granger on 13 June 2012
When you try shadowing for the first time and your friend asks you if you're having a manic episode.
espejismo on 13 June 2012
When you seriously consider making a collection of unexpected adjectival forms of town names, after having visited a Musée Bittenois at Beziers and seen a list of 'agathois' fish in Cap d'Agde
This one will keep you busy for a while in France! A lot of cities have the adjectival form based on Latin, Old French, or the local non-French language. Britanny for instance has a nice stock, of which I'll name only two:
Saint-Quay-Portrieux : quinocéen
Saint-Brieuc : briégois (from Brieg, the britton name of Brieuc)
vermillon on 13 June 2012
the demonyms for towns and cities in France.
When you seriously consider making a collection of
unexpected adjectival forms of town names, after having visited a Musée Bittenois at
Beziers and seen a list of 'agathois' fish in Cap d'Agde
This one will keep you busy for a while in France! A lot of cities have the adjectival
form based on Latin, Old French, or the local non-French language. Britanny for
instance has a nice stock, of which I'll name only two:
Saint-Quay-Portrieux : quinocéen
Saint-Brieuc : briégois (from Brieg, the britton name of Brieuc)
seldnar on 13 June 2012
when a friend returns from vacation and brings you a chocolate bar from Aruba and you are more excited about the wrapper being written in Dutch than you are about the chocolate (which is delicious, by the way)
psy88 on 14 June 2012
When your iphone or similar device contains more language audio than music.
drfeelgood17 on 14 June 2012
When your iphone or similar device contains more language audio than music.
Amen to that!
And just because of the book overload in my bag I decided to leave the heavier ones at home, due to my shoulder being in pain. This, however, surely does not prevent me from having at least a book (in my target language) and a dictionary with me all the time.
About the phone - I surely should lit a candle for my brave htc that manages to handle the loads of pdf fles and apps I've stuffed it with. The worst thing is that it enables me reading while walking, which has proven to be a rather dangerous activity - especially if it's dark outside, and your read is captivating. :D
..when you answer to a question like: Which ones of your possessions would you take with you if a natural disaster (an earthquake for instance) strikes?
Answer: My language manuals! The grammars!! Duh
Einarr on 14 June 2012
When your iphone or similar device contains more language audio than music.
Amen to that!
And just because of the book overload in my bag I decided to leave the heavier ones at home, due to my shoulder being in pain. This, however, surely does not prevent me from having at least a book (in my target language) and a dictionary with me all the time.
About the phone - I surely should lit a candle for my brave htc that manages to handle the loads of pdf fles and apps I've stuffed it with. The worst thing is that it enables me reading while walking, which has proven to be a rather dangerous activity - especially if it's dark outside, and your read is captivating. :D
..when you answer to a question like: Which ones of your possessions would you take with you if a natural disaster (an earthquake for instance) strikes?
Answer: My language manuals! The grammars!! Duh
I couldn't agree more :) Only language books/materials are worth saving in a natural disaster!
And nothing beats a good grammar book for bedtime reading.
drfeelgood17 on 14 June 2012
And nothing beats a good grammar book for bedtime reading.
A nice novel in one of my target languages does.
And sometimes it's like a book and crosswords puzzle in one volume :-)
Cavesa on 14 June 2012
..when you answer to a question like: Which ones of your possessions would you
take with you if a natural disaster (an earthquake for instance) strikes?
Answer: My language manuals! The grammars!! Duh
This reminds me of a play by Amélie Nothomb I finished a few days ago. The play
effectively asks the question whether, during a war where you're freezing cold and have
no heating resources bar a library, whether you would burn the books to keep warm (and
which ones you'd burn first).
tarvos on 14 June 2012
This reminds me of a play by Amélie Nothomb I finished a few days ago. The play
effectively asks the question whether, during a war where you're freezing cold and have
no heating resources bar a library, whether you would burn the books to keep warm (and
which ones you'd burn first).
I'd say she's going further by implying that even out of war time these books could be burnt without remorse!
By the way, I really love this author, and considering the shortness of her books, I'm sure they make very pleasant readings for learners of French.
vermillon on 14 June 2012
asks the question whether, during a war where you're freezing cold and
have
no heating resources bar a library, whether you would burn the books to keep warm (and
which ones you'd burn first).
:-) I would carefully stack all the books from a complete set of shelves safely out of
the
way somewhere. Then smash the shelves as well as I could to burnable-sized pieces, and
use those :-)
montmorency on 14 June 2012
This reminds me of a play by Amélie Nothomb I finished a few days ago. The play effectively asks the question whether, during a war where you're freezing cold and have no heating resources bar a library, whether you would burn the books to keep warm (and which ones you'd burn first).
I wonder how long burning Amélie Nothomb could keep me warm.
Iversen on 15 June 2012
When you're waiting for your exam and instead of revising you read in Italian.
Serpent on 15 June 2012
getting in 3 or 4 hours anyway, thanks to MC Solaar in the car, huge stacks of
interesting French books all over the place, a whole bunch of acquaintances that want
to wish you good luck in French, and so on.
Oh, and when you download the 200-character preview of Kanjis dans la tête, the
French version of Hesig, because it's not technically studying French.
And during the "rest" day afterward, you're staring at the sales copy for Assimil :
L'Ãgyptien hiéroglyphique with your wife, because seriously, it's just too cool.
When you're OK mentioning all this on HTLAL, because nobody around here is going
to stage an intervention.
emk on 15 June 2012
EDIT: When you wrote the thing above and didn't even notice that you inadvertently had slid into French. I had to read EMK's post below to notice it.
Iversen on 16 June 2012
This reminds me of a play by Amélie Nothomb I
finished a few days ago. The play
effectively asks the question whether, during a war where you're freezing cold and have
no heating resources bar a library, whether you would burn the books to keep warm (and
which ones you'd burn first).
I'd say she's going further by implying that even out of war time these books could be
burnt without remorse!
By the way, I really love this author, and considering the shortness of her books, I'm
sure they make very pleasant readings for learners of French.
That they do :)
When you find out you understand some words of spoken Italian in a sentence and almost
buy Assimil Italian with Ease because of it
tarvos on 16 June 2012
When you buy a book about Carcassonne pas en français ou espagnol ou
anglais, mais en catalan et en russe - et vous déplore vivement qu'il n'existe pas en
ancien français et occitan aussi.
â¦when correctly pronouncing the name of a French city will cause you to accidentally
switch languages in mid-sentence. :-)
â¦when you've surrounded yourself with people who don't find anything odd about that.
emk on 16 June 2012
there upon.
When your mother isn't surprised by this.
When you are fascinated by a sauce bottle just because it has the title in a Balkan
language(and because it doesn't say which one, but has a bunch of flags on it, you
endeavor to figure out which language is being shown.) It is Romanian, and it means
'Monk's hodgepodge.' Cool, isn't it?
When the rice interests you simply because it has Arabic writing on the bag.
When because the sauce is Balkan and the rice is Middle-Eastern, the fact that you will
be eating them together amuses you and makes you want to learn a few basic phrases in
each to use at dinner.
Ismeme Granger on 16 June 2012
Hypothetical examples:
asdf ertr dgdfkj lijbvivof - Where's the nearest police station?
kjrlke dsvfkgj tyrölf clvöxölh - How much is this pack of cigarettes?
When you think tyrölf looks like a Scandinavian borrowing.
Serpent on 17 June 2012
When you buy a book about Carcassonne pas en français ou espagnol ou anglais, mais en
catalan et en russe - et vous déplore vivement qu'il n'existe pas en ancien français et occitan aussi.
When the mid-sentence switch betweenEnglish and French doesn't phase you...
When you don't consider yourself as having studied French although you know enough to understand the second
half of that sentence completely.
Kartof on 17 June 2012
You know you're a language nerd, and so do your friends, when they bring you back The Welsh Learner's Dictionary
as a souvenir from their trip to England, and you are immediately curious about a language with so many Ws.
wv girl on 17 June 2012
When people ask you if there are many foreigners in the area you live. Again your answer is enthusiastically yes. Well, at least I can live here cheap AND get to overhear Spanish, German, French and lots of other languages every day.
Mowli on 17 June 2012
Hypothetical examples:
asdf ertr dgdfkj lijbvivof - Where's the nearest police station?
kjrlke dsvfkgj tyrölf clvöxölh - How much is this pack of cigarettes?
:)
When you think tyrölf looks like a Scandinavian borrowing.
Let's make it ;)?
Hampie on 17 June 2012
You know you're a language nerd, and so do your friends, when they bring
you back The Welsh Learner's Dictionary
as a souvenir from their trip to England, and you are immediately curious about a
language with so many Ws.
And when a non-language-nerd casually picks up the book and says "goodness, this language
has hardly any vowels", you are able to point out to them that "y" and "w" are considered
to be vowels in Welsh.
montmorency on 18 June 2012
You may be slightly nerdish in other respects too if you read the post above and immediately thinks of a venerable old string instrument called a "crwth"
Iversen on 18 June 2012
(this happens to me regularly)
Sandman on 18 June 2012
When you're learning two closely related languages like Spanish and French, and the only language that gets any interference is your native one.
rivere123 on 19 June 2012
When you get your 12 year old daughter to sing this too.
When you then try and get her to sing it around school coz you think it would make an awesome thing to go "viral".
When you buy an ereader because you want to put language stuff on it.
When you buy an mp3 player and it MUST have expandable memory so you can have a memory card devoted to each language... When that sentence makes you excited at the thought lol. And when you don't care about feeling silly by saying that because there will be many other language nerds reading this and saying "yes, that is an awesome idea!".
When you take up the opportunity to learn Greek because you *might* be going there on holiday.
When you go on holiday and think it's perfectly reasonable that at least one of you HAS to know the language.
When you want to keep writing examples on this topic but realise you should let others write theirs too :-p ...
WentworthsGal on 19 June 2012
â¦when you feel sad that lang-8 doesn't allow you to paste in hieroglyphs, because it
would be totally awesome to spend 30 days trying Assimil : L'Ãgyptien
hiéroglyphique and keeping a journal in your L2.
emk on 20 June 2012
When you look for LOTR in Portuguese online and end up ordering a few books in Danish (also one in Finnish and one in German) and then you remember about a CD you meant to order and you end up listening to a Saami version of the famous http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLMHLRV08B4 - song by Tatu.
Serpent on 20 June 2012
When you start dreaming about the Russian prepositive case.
Josquin on 20 June 2012
When a specialist language bookshop know your mobile number off by heart.
DaraghM on 20 June 2012
come out of the store with a book about breaking the Mayan code because a) it's about
Mayans and their (written) language, and b) they mentioned philology, and anyone who uses
that term can't be bad.
When your friend doesn't even blink at this.
Ismeme Granger on 21 June 2012
When you can't remember whether the "y" key produces a y or a z and vice versa.
osoymar on 21 June 2012
(We got one in Russian at work today, and I had fun reading it.)
jdmoncada on 21 June 2012
It finally happened...my bookcase collapsed today under the sheer weight of all the language books!
Teango on 21 June 2012
It finally happened...my bookcase collapsed today under the sheer weight of all the language books!
Sorry for your bookcase, but I'm glad I'm not the only one who has had that experience!
Now you can put them on the floor or on a table and make book towers, a book fortress, a book mountain - or whole book mountain ranges, why not ? ! or whatever fine construction (obstruction?) project your nerdy self can devise.
I know. I've done this. And will do it again. My current main langugage shelf is overloaded, in extremely precarious condition, and could go at any time.
meramarina on 22 June 2012
It finally happened...my bookcase collapsed today under the sheer weight of all the language books!
I reckon the same is about to happen to me. If it does, I'll purchase a few more, add them to the pile, and pretend they were always there. I'm now at the stage of hiding language books, that make an appearance at a later date.
Me - "Oh, this, I got it ages ago"
Her - "Why does it say 2012 on the cover?"
Me - "That is odd, isn't it?"
DaraghM on 22 June 2012
I'm currently hiding a Swedish and a Russian textbook behind other books. But I have
recently made my German learning "public" and no longer hide the books. Well, at least
some of them.
Cavesa on 22 June 2012
If you sit underneath my shelf when the crash happens, you can't say you weren't warned!
Hostile needlecraft decoration is an excellent way to deter theft or other interference, by the way. So far it has always worked. Anyone who sees that Go Away pillow knows I'm serious.
.
meramarina on 22 June 2012
I have the same German dictionary as you! Or should I say that one of my German dictionaries is the same as yours! Bottom shelf, next to big green Italian book. It's
quite odd, because, I was just sitting in my room, and then I saw it, sitting at the
front of my desk. It had never been there before... I had never even owned that book!
CMTM on 22 June 2012
You're a language nerd when you want to see meramarina's picture bigger just so you can read all the book titles...
jdmoncada on 22 June 2012
You know you're a language nerd when you're jealous of everyone else because you have only 5 language books to your name.
rivere123 on 22 June 2012
I have the same German dictionary as you! Or should I say that one of my
German dictionaries is the same as yours! Bottom shelf, next to big green Italian book.
It's
quite odd, because, I was just sitting in my room, and then I saw it, sitting at the
front of my desk. It had never been there before... I had never even owned that book!
And I certainly had one like it, although it did suffer damage to and loss of part of
its spine cover, and I haven't seen it lately. I think I have to report it injured and
missing in action. One thing I loved about it was the collection of phonetic alphabets
("Able, Baker, Charlie", etc) near the back.
montmorency on 23 June 2012
And I certainly had one like it, although it did suffer damage to and loss of part of
its spine cover, and I haven't seen it lately. I think I have to report it injured and
missing in action. One thing I loved about it was the collection of phonetic alphabets
("Able, Baker, Charlie", etc) near the back.
That's weird because I didn't even know that I had it, I think someone just put it
there... Maybe I sleep-stole it!
CMTM on 23 June 2012
you know there are a group of language nerds when they can come together and make 2436 responses to a "you know your a language learnin nerd when..." thread :D
zerrubabbel on 24 June 2012
When you're about to move more than 1500 kilometers southwards of your hometown for the
sake of higher education, and by far the most painful quandary that life throws your way
is having to choose between your target languages.
*sigh* Should I pack Teach Yourself German along with Tatort- Deutsch als
Fremdsprache graded readers, or Assimil Spanish with Ease with a pocket dictionary
and Harry Potter y la Cámara Secreta?
AlephBey on 24 June 2012
When you're about to move more than 1500 kilometers southwards of your hometown for the
sake of higher education, and by far the most painful quandary that life throws your way
is having to choose between your target languages.
*sigh* Should I pack Teach Yourself German along with Tatort- Deutsch als
Fremdsprache graded readers, or Assimil Spanish with Ease with a pocket dictionary
and Harry Potter y la Cámara Secreta?
My choice of books always comes first! Then clothes fill the rest of the luggage, but that's really secondary. If you're moving 1500kms, probably for a year or more, you surely have enough luggage to take four books...
vermillon on 24 June 2012
When you're about to move more than 1500
kilometers southwards of your hometown for the
sake of higher education, and by far the most painful quandary that life throws your
way
is having to choose between your target languages.
*sigh* Should I pack Teach Yourself German along with Tatort- Deutsch als
Fremdsprache graded readers, or Assimil Spanish with Ease with a pocket dictionary
and Harry Potter y la Cámara Secreta?
My choice of books always comes first! Then clothes fill the rest of the luggage, but
that's really secondary. If you're moving 1500kms, probably for a year or more, you
surely have enough luggage to take four books...
It's probably full of his other books :-)
montmorency on 25 June 2012
When you need to tell yourself that you really shouldn't spend more time studying than what you had originally planned for the next day, because you have other important things to do and they didn't get done yet because you'd been studying instead.
Avid Learner on 25 June 2012
When you're about to move more than 1500
kilometers southwards of your hometown for the
sake of higher education, and by far the most painful quandary that life throws your
way
is having to choose between your target languages.
*sigh* Should I pack Teach Yourself German along with Tatort- Deutsch als
Fremdsprache graded readers, or Assimil Spanish with Ease with a pocket dictionary
and Harry Potter y la Cámara Secreta?
My choice of books always comes first! Then clothes fill the rest of the luggage, but
that's really secondary. If you're moving 1500kms, probably for a year or more, you
surely have enough luggage to take four books...
It's probably full of his other books :-)
Sorry, I didn't know other books existed!
vermillon on 25 June 2012
When you know that the most effective argument when having a fight with your parents is replying in your target language. They simply quit after the second line, saying: "mhm"
Priceless.
Einarr on 26 June 2012
If you are an everything nerd like me you will obviously also be a language nerd.
Aquila123 on 29 June 2012
When you're happy you were able to help a person in need, not necessarily out of philanthropical reasons, but simply because you were able to do it in French.
Axystos on 29 June 2012
When you realize that those lovely conversations in the sauna are exactly why you're now able to remain there much longer than five years ago.
Serpent on 30 June 2012
hear
the owner and her daughter conversing in Spanish.
When your computer insists on giving you a lovely little internet service advertisem*nt
in German, even though you haven't searched for things in German recently. When this
makes you giddy.
When you're in Costco, and you strike a conversation with a woman speaking Russian to
her son. When this makes your day.
When you're in an office supply store, and you get a computer program for learning
languages because it offers 55 of them, and you think that that is perfect for when
wanderlust strikes!
Ismeme Granger on 30 June 2012
When you feel self-conscious and nervous when typing in a public place or with friends around before realizing they can't read what you're typing...
Jombo1 on 03 July 2012
When your inbox fills up with promotions, not just from amazon.com, but also amazon.fr, amazon.es, and amazon.ru.
DaraghM on 03 July 2012
â¦you see a bilingual French / hieroglyphic edition of "Les aventures de Sinouhé : Un
fidèle de Pharaon" and your wife encourages you to buy it.
emk on 03 July 2012
When you start weighing up the pros and cons of learning French through the Foreign Legion.
Teango on 03 July 2012
When in your dream the new Tadoku goes up and you're extremely disappointed when you wake up.
Serpent on 03 July 2012
You know you have wandered into a family of language-nerds, when your then girlfriend
invites you back to her flat, and the first thing you see on the wall is a poster in
Dutch. Up to that time, the onlyEnglish person I knew who had studied Dutch was me.
In time, more linguistic facts came out, such as: all the family had studied Welsh, and
several of them had studied Italian (one to degree level) and 3 had studied French,
German and Latin.
montmorency on 04 July 2012
When you start weighing up the pros and cons of learning French through the Foreign Legion.
] Most recruits, like Salazar, speak less than perfect French. The "foreign" in Foreign Legion refers to the soldiers, not to their postings. The legion nevertheless does its utmost to assist in language training. During mealtimes, sergeants would roam the mess hall asking soldiers to name the foods on their plate. Anything they could not name in French the sergeants would eat.
Looks like a more powerful learning technique than Assimil- New French With Pain!
Source:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/01/arts/01iht-bookfri.html - Legion of the Lost- An American's Experience in the FFLiguanamon on 04 July 2012
â¦you see a bilingual French / hieroglyphic edition of "Les aventures de Sinouhé : Un
fidèle de Pharaon" and your wife encourages you to buy it.
I WANT THAT!
Hampie on 04 July 2012
that all of the signs have been translated into Spanish than the actual exhibits. As a
result, you now know the word in Spanish for skull ('cráneo') but can tell you very few
things about the actual exhibit.
When you also think that the Spanish is more well-written than the native language--
English.
Ismeme Granger on 04 July 2012
When I got closer, I realized it was about econometrics. How sad is that?
FireViN on 04 July 2012
You know you have wandered into a family of language-nerds, when
your then girlfriend
invites you back to her flat, and the first thing you see on the wall is a poster in
Dutch. Up to that time, the onlyÂEnglish person I knew who had studied Dutch was me.
In time, more linguistic facts came out, such as: all the family had studied Welsh, and
several of them had studied Italian (one to degree level) and 3 had studied French,
German and Latin.
I understand. I was excited when I found out my boyfriend's mother had used to know
Esperanto to high level. But it is nothing compared to the language nerd nest you have
just discovered :-)
(sorry, not sure whether "had used to" is correct, it is late and I'm tired)
Cavesa on 04 July 2012
You know you have wandered into a family of language-nerds, when your then girlfriend
invites you back to her flat, and the first thing you see on the wall is a poster in
Dutch. Up to that time, the onlyÂEnglish person I knew who had studied Dutch was me.
In time, more linguistic facts came out, such as: all the family had studied Welsh, and
several of them had studied Italian (one to degree level) and 3 had studied French,
German and Latin.
when you think "then girlfriend" (past tense?!) She would have been a keeper for most of us language nerds!!
psy88 on 05 July 2012
I'd take an unilingual lass who knows only an Uralic language over montmorency's then-girlfriend any day of the week >:-) ;-)
Chung on 05 July 2012
Esperanto to high level. But it is nothing compared to the language nerd nest you have
just discovered :-)
(sorry, not sure whether "had used to" is correct, it is late and I'm tired)
You could use either "used to know" or "had known" there, though the former sounds more natural.
Warp3 on 05 July 2012
You know you have wandered into a family of
language-nerds, when your then girlfriend
invites you back to her flat, and the first thing you see on the wall is a poster in
Dutch. Up to that time, the onlyÂEnglish person I knew who had studied Dutch was me.
In time, more linguistic facts came out, such as: all the family had studied Welsh, and
several of them had studied Italian (one to degree level) and 3 had studied French,
German and Latin.
when you think "then girlfriend" (past tense?!) She would have been a keeper for most
of us language nerds!!
Who knows, maybe he married her? ;)
While we're on this topic, you're a language nerd when you second-guess your
relationship upon finding out that your girlfriend has trouble with the rolled 'r'.
mashmusic11235 on 05 July 2012
My former girfriend speaksÂEnglish, French, Irish and German. She studied German through French at the Sorbonne. She's also done classes in Chinese and Spanish. She's no longer my girlfriend though. Since last year, she's now my wife. :-)
DaraghM on 05 July 2012
when you think "then girlfriend" (past tense?!) She would have been a keeper for most
of us language nerds!!
Who knows, maybe he married her? ;)
You win the cigar, mashmusic :-)
While we're on this topic, you're a language nerd when you second-guess your
relationship upon finding out that your girlfriend has trouble with the rolled 'r'.
:-)
(The future Mrs M. cooked for me in French: Coq au vin.
From then on I was a goner :-) )
montmorency on 05 July 2012
When your aunt and grandma ask you to learn a language because your cousin will have to learn it at school (French), and they're terrified at the thought of you not being there to help (like it is withEnglish).
Serpent on 06 July 2012
you know what language they're from.
Bonus nerd points when you know how to pronounce them.
You are the king of nerds if you then send a message to the person in that language, and
then have to explain to them that it's the language whose character they just used as an
emote.
mashmusic11235 on 07 July 2012
I know I'm a language nerd when spending 3 hours listening to, and translating, Finnish music seems like a perfect Friday night activity.
mick33 on 07 July 2012
when the second sentence of your horoscope reads, "You are likely quite good with language and/or languages"
espejismo on 07 July 2012
when you set a day aside to work on your thesis, study four languages instead and it still seems like a perfectly productive day.
LangWanderer on 07 July 2012
when you know the names of multilingual politicians, sportsmen and other celebreties and
made whole lotta seacrhing on youtube just to see them speaking different languages and
asses their linguistic skills !
Ivan1989 on 07 July 2012
When genuinely excited about seeing languages other than those in Latin script and
wondering "I wonder what letter that is" - then pondering "when shall I learn it?"
languagenerd09 on 08 July 2012
...you wouldn't be surprised to learn there are even more ways to pronounce R than the 4 different ones you already know.
jdmoncada on 08 July 2012
You know that you're a language nerd when you give your dad a slice of bacon simply
because he said something in Latin. This is one slice out of two total slices of bacon,
mind you.
Ismeme Granger on 08 July 2012
You know that you're a language nerd when you give your dad a slice of bacon simply
because he said something in Latin. This is one slice out of two total slices of bacon,
mind you.
You know you're a language nerd when you post a total of 22 out of 24 posts dedicated to the aforesaid topic.
Josquin on 08 July 2012
...you wouldn't be surprised to learn there are even more ways to pronounce R than the 4 different ones you already know.
...you know that these are actually unrelated sounds that happen to be spelled with the same letter in different languages.
LaughingChimp on 08 July 2012
... when you're lying in bed, actually trying to sleep while thinking in a foreign language and every time you encounter a word you can't express in that language you absolutely have to get up and search for it because exactly this word is really important for you and you couldn't fall asleep without knowing it.
dinguino on 09 July 2012
...you wouldn't be surprised to learn there are even more ways to pronounce R than the 4 different ones you already know.
...you know that these are actually unrelated sounds that happen to be spelled with the same letter in different languages.
... you know that these sounds can be allophonic variants within a language and so ARE related to each other (German has at least four different Rs: [r, ɹ, Ê, Ê])
Josquin on 09 July 2012
When you actually don't know in which language you dream... You just remember the
semantic content of what you spoke "in there"...
Mae on 09 July 2012
When you hear/think/feel/whatever people are speaking in a foreign language even
though in fact they must be speaking your native language.
(really. it is unlikely the women in the train was switching fast between Czech and
some strange romance language and the other had no trouble understanding her. Or why
would two security employees in a supermarket speak German to each other?)
Either I'm becoming even more of a language nerd or I am going crazy... Hopefully the
first option is correct (and quite makes sense, Spanish and German are my main
languages for the summer).
2.
When you are happy to find out a friend of yours is learning Russian and at the same
time you feel guilty because your message drove him from his learning session.
Cavesa on 09 July 2012
....When you get pissed that your local book store does not have a copy of comentarii De
Bello Gallico in the original latin.
jmike129 on 09 July 2012
when you set a day aside to work on your thesis, study four languages instead and it still seems like a perfectly productive day.
I must admit that I had never procrastinated in such a useful manner before I started studying a language.
Avid Learner on 09 July 2012
when you set a day aside to work on your
thesis, study four languages instead and it still seems like a perfectly productive
day.
I must admit that I had never procrastinated in such a useful manner before I started
studying a language.
I wrote my thesis on procrastination.
Well, that's not quite true.
The truth is, people aways say to me:
"When it comes to procrastination, you could write the book!"
:-)
montmorency on 11 July 2012
... when you're hanging out at an airport restaurant & get really excited when you glance up at the TV & think
you've spotted a Spanish station ... ESPN2. From a distance, I thought it was ESPANA! Sports isn't everyone's thing!
wv girl on 11 July 2012
and this is your entire list of declarations, verbatim:
BOOK BY H. BRUSSELMANS $8.00
SECONDHAND BOOK $10.00
ANOTHER 2ND HAND BOOK $10.00
Hekje on 12 July 2012
and this is your entire list of declarations, verbatim:
BOOK BY H. BRUSSELMANS $8.00
SECONDHAND BOOK $10.00
ANOTHER 2ND HAND BOOK $10.00
hjordis on 12 July 2012
...you're kitchen wall is covered with post-it notes with the French names of objects (see photo at //http://williamalexander.com/neversaymort/images/pict0009we b.jpg )
Wm. Alexander on 13 July 2012
when, in the recent past you have "loaned" someone money. You then have a dream that this person asks you for a loan of $60,000. In the dream he is vague about why he needs so much money. He finally tells you that it has to do with "steel wool". You wake up perplexed about the dream. Then you realize that your unconscious mind has made a pun in bothEnglish and in one of your target languages. The dream is saying that the person wants to "steal" from you. And, the "wool"? In Spanish, the slang word for "money" is "lana", or "wool". The dream is saying he wants to steal your money!
psy88 on 15 July 2012
brochures for you - in Polish.
When your dad, while setting up a new printer, comes to you with a thick instructions manual and asks if you
have any use for it. Since you have never shown any interest in the assembly of electronic devices, you are
mildly confused until you realize the instructions manual is in over 10 languages. Needless to say, you take it
with enthusiasm.
When your brothers are completely unfazed to find you sitting on the couch, making strange noises, and
laughing as you try to figure out OldEnglish pronunciation.
Amerykanka on 16 July 2012
When your elderly neighbour watches Urdu tv on full volume throughout the day, and rather than get frustrated, you habituate to the mysterious beautiful sounds and hit the Internet to learn a few bonus phrases.
Teango on 16 July 2012
When you feel like it is your birthday when your boyfriend, influenced by the language
learning discussion between you and two friends at a campfire, announces he will join you
for your German August!
Cavesa on 16 July 2012
the first three hours of the trip, you decide to take out your Beginner's Finnish book to
study for the last leg of the trip. The guy next you, who had been reading a book,
turns to you and asks with surprise, "You're studying Finnish? Are you planning a trip to
the country?" (He says this with interest.)Realizing that for once in the past two and
odd years since you had the book someone recognizes the language you are studying, you
turn to him with the hugest smile ever. You reply, "Actually, I'm just learning it for
fun. I think it's a very interesting language." The man turned out to have travelled to
Finland and says that he has never met anyone learning the language. That was certainly
something to remember.
- Kat
Phantom Kat on 22 July 2012
When the fact that one of your immediate seniors at law school happens to be from South
Korea is more than enough reason for you to decide to reach the equivalent of an A1 in
Korean by the end of the first semester.
AlephBey on 22 July 2012
when you realize that, increasingly, you are having dreams related to languages. You feel really good knowing that your unconscious mind has accepted and embraced your language nerdery.
psy88 on 23 July 2012
When your favorite part about going to LensCrafters to get sunglasses is the fact that
the lady who helps you out has a thick Russian accent--and you can't help the big grin on
your face and your daydreams of when you can study Russian.
Ismeme Granger on 23 July 2012
When you read someone's facebook update saying she's having cake to celebrate Anki, and
you think: "Wow, I didn't know she uses Anki, and to like it that much that she
celebrates it with cake!", before you realize that Anki is actually a person (a short
name for a Swedish name).
WingSuet on 25 July 2012
...you've experimented with at least one reduced sleep schedule in an attempt to maximize
the number of hours that you can spend learning languages.
LeadZeppelin on 26 July 2012
Speaking of which, does anybody need a pocket-sized German-Czech dictionary?
Hertz on 26 July 2012
When someone offers you a pocket-sized German-Czech dictionary and you can say: "Thanks, but I already have one". :D
Axystos on 26 July 2012
When someone offers you a pocket-sized German-Czech dictionary and you can say: "Thanks, but I already have one". :D
Serpent on 26 July 2012
When everyone shouts at you to play the DVD, while you try to figure out what the thirty languages are in the start menu.
DaraghM on 26 July 2012
When you starting thinking the different language instructions on a shampoo bottle make a good parallel text.
DaraghM on 26 July 2012
When you start seeing Egyptian hieroglyphics...EVERYWHERE! o.O
Teango on 26 July 2012
I guess that doesn't really make me nerdy, but whatever..
jsg on 26 July 2012
you start writing grammar drills in the steam on the glass in the shower in Russian, German, and what you
remember of Georgian.
You know you're a REAL nerd when you take a picture of it because you made a really complicated sentence in
German and discovered that it is grammatically correct and apparently sounds very professional and advanced.
(also because writing it down is too conventional :)
ruskivyetr on 26 July 2012
When your wife starts calling your mp3 player 'The Other Woman'.
jsg on 26 July 2012
When you get excited that this thread has reached one hundred pages and hope that it goes on for two hundred
more.
You are a prophet.
jsg on 27 July 2012
When you consider changing your trip's dates so that you gained an extra hour for the 6WC due to the timezones :D
Serpent on 27 July 2012
When you get a new smartphone, and aside from the fact that it gives you much better
access to so many language-learning applications, you're especially excited that it
finally comes in SIX different languages instead of three, and one of them is even your
TL!
mikonai on 27 July 2012
...while reading this post you tell yourself "I'm not a language geek! >:P "
shnndr on 27 July 2012
find the building for the driving class that you were supposed to take tonight because
having your mother drive you around, looking for the place allows you to pass a couple of
Arabic restaurants and markets with the titles written in Arabic script, a Chinese
church(with real characters--no pinyin!), and several Mexican stores--
'templos'(churches), 'supermercados'(supermarkets), and 'carnicerias'(meatmarkets). You
can practically feel your Spanish improving as you are forced to read these glorious
signs quickly.
Keep in mind that this is in Arizona. I might have expected the Spanish(although that
certainly doesn't mean that I am any less excited about it!), but not the Chinese or the
Arabic! Great day!
Ismeme Granger on 27 July 2012
the last airbender" or "Avatar: La leggenda di Aang" in Italian.
~When you spend all day watching Avatar in Itlalian
GRagazzo on 27 July 2012
...When you get up at noon, ostensibly to study, but log in to HTLAL and spend 18 hours reading this entire thread instead. Now I'll try to get in an hour of revision before I collapse lol.
jsg on 27 July 2012
things
+ search the Foreign Language section for any Finnish books
+ check if the book about Icelandic grammar has gone down from its $30 price
+ stare at a a very complete Teach Yourself Latvian course for $6, wondering if you're
ever going to buy it
- Kat
Phantom Kat on 27 July 2012
...when you go into a bookstore looking for a book that has nothing to do with languages
and then walk out of the store with a German vocab book.
TheSeaWolf on 28 July 2012
When you're sitting in an alcove eating your lunch and gradually realize that a nearby
couple is speaking Afrikaans. You're so thrilled to hear a cousin of Dutch in your city,
you almost spring out of the booth to share... but catch yourself at the last minute,
realizing that being accosted by a stranger babbling in a language that diverged from
yours 300 years ago is something only a true language nerd would appreciate.
Hekje on 08 August 2012
This happened to me recently. I was leaving class one day and outside there was someone
Skyping and they were speaking Russian. So i decided to "wait for my friends" near him
instead of getting a head start to lunch to try and understand what he was saying. A bit
creepy but i don't think he noticed.'( i was actually waiting for friends and left when
they came)
mSiNi on 08 August 2012
â¦HTLAL goes offline for a few days, so you build a big, searchable language database and
translate the user interface into French.
emk on 08 August 2012
When you're sitting in an alcove eating your lunch and gradually realize
that a nearby
couple is speaking Afrikaans. You're so thrilled to hear a cousin of Dutch in your city,
you almost spring out of the booth to share... but catch yourself at the last minute,
realizing that being accosted by a stranger babbling in a language that diverged from
yours 300 years ago is something only a true language nerd would appreciate.
They would likely still understand a lot ;)
tarvos on 08 August 2012
They would likely still understand a lot ;)
Dangit, I know! But there really was no way to approach them other than creepily springing into their path like Gollum.
Another time. x-D
Hekje on 08 August 2012
They would likely still understand a lot ;)
Dangit, I know! But there really was no way to approach them other than creepily
springing into their path like Gollum.
Another time. x-D
Next time, have some Biltong with you and offer to share it. I believe it keeps well.
:-)
Moving on,
You know you're a language nerd when, as a passenger on a long and potentially boring
journey up the motorway, a large goods vehicle comes into view and you are just about
to overtake it, it's clearly from abroad, and suddenly the journey becomes a bit more
interesting, and you hungrily scan the text printed on the back and sides of the
vehicle (firms are quite canny about using their vehicles for self-promotion these
days) for clues or confirmation of its place of origin, and anything else of interest.
Actually I was walking into town earlier today, the weather having taken a turn for
the better, hallelujah, and was walking past part of a "science park" which eventually
leads to a fairly picturesque roundabout route into town, when I noticed a large goods
vehicle parked by the side of the road. The printing on the side was in a mixture of
languages, but there was clearly a Netherlandish flavour to the whole thing. I suppose
French, German, Dutch and Belgian vehicles are pretty common here, although by no means
the only countries of origin.
montmorency on 08 August 2012
When you read HTLAL using source code although the new posts are nothing exciting, just complaints about the forum not working. When you come here to say so. When you repost this because the messages posted during the attack are gone.
Serpent on 09 August 2012
When you discover Ai se eu te pego on lyricstraining while looking through the Portuguese songs. (No, I haven't discovered it only now. Just randomly remembered how I wanted to have more lyrics read for Tadoku)
Serpent on 10 August 2012
When the creaky page load on the forum fills you with a sense of nostalgia, and you realise it's back to the way it was. My dear old forum.
DaraghM on 10 August 2012
wonder as to how all of these books will fit into your suitcase.
...when you find a copy of a grammar book called "СÑаÑобÑлгаÑÑки език" (Old Bulgarian) in
said language section and buy it without even opening it first.
Kartof on 10 August 2012
wonder as to how all of these books will fit into your suitcase.
...when you find a copy of a grammar book called "СÑаÑобÑлгаÑÑки език" (Old Bulgarian) in
said language section and buy it without even opening it first.
When reading this post makes you want to go into your local charity bookshop and look at their foreign section... Like NOW! And you think you might just do it :p
edit: And when you go to said shop, you see a TY Bulgarian book and buy it :p (plus 8 more books in various languages hehehe)
WentworthsGal on 10 August 2012
...When you see a couple arguing in a public space, you feel the urge to recite a portion of one of Rumi's poems in Persian to calm them down.
...If after reading Serpent's post about Ai se eu te pego, the words "Nossa, nossa" resurface in your mind, and you decide to explore Michel Teló's other works.
...When you discover a new colloquial expression in Moroccan Arabic and await the moment that you can use it properly.
Jappy58 on 10 August 2012
at heart" etc etc), your mother hasn't opened the Italian self-teaching book/CD course you got her. And your first
though after is: ah well, maybe I can put it to use sometime.
When you think that listening to music in your native language is a waste of time.
When you're going to reach for something (whether it be a chair, a cup, a bar of soap) while thinking in your TL,
and stand there with your arm hanging outstretched, while you try to remember what the word for the object is.
You refuse to pick it up until you remember what the word is, or alternatively, reach for a dictionary.
cmmah on 10 August 2012
Italian culture ("I wish I was Italian", "I'm Italian
at heart" etc etc), your mother hasn't opened the Italian self-teaching book/CD course
you got her. And your first
though after is: ah well, maybe I can put it to use sometime.
When you think that listening to music in your native language is a waste of time.
When you're going to reach for something (whether it be a chair, a cup, a bar of soap)
while thinking in your TL,
and stand there with your arm hanging outstretched, while you try to remember what the
word for the object is.
You refuse to pick it up until you remember what the word is, or alternatively, reach
for a dictionary.
Hold that thought. I think there is a sitcom in this!
:-)
montmorency on 10 August 2012
When the possible demise of your favorite language forum seems to have been a near
extinction-level event --
But that would not be the collapse of your entire language life as you know it, because you know that if this still-flourishing landscape of online linguistic diversity were reduced to dead crusty rubble tomorrow, you'd do your best to be one of those hardy little critters that escapes to other places with a few pieces of it in your hand and everything you've learned here in your head --
-- and you'd continue enriching your outrageously multilingual vocabulary on another landmass, which, if you are anything like me, and I hope you are not, would involve a great deal of unnecessary pathos which would be inappropriate, yet entertaining, in this newly established cavelike craggy lonely refuge in some now-unknown blank ugly area that would certainly be dark and cold for a very long time.
--sorry, you must know that I can never resist a really, really wacky extended metaphor! Language program learning dialogues are so dull that they provoke strange reactions on my pages, but I truly do not know where this stuff comes from. In my offline language learning I'm more practical and straightforward, or I'd never learn a thing, and moreover, I would be deeply embarrassed if you all knew just how often I use the word "landmass."
(I studied Faulkner, an extragavant stringer-together of images and adjectives, way back in my university days, if that's any excuse for this kind of thing. And it isn't)
meramarina on 11 August 2012
you to switch the OS language (and four years later you find out there's free software
for that, while you're back on XP, stuck with the interface in your mother tongue ;))
... when you get all stalky and follow people in the street just to find out in what
language they're talking or, alternatively, to listen to your target language 'live'.
... when you set up a temporary forum when HTLAL goes down and check it (and HTLAL)
every ten minutes instead of going out and enjoying the weather.
... when you start to actually regret spending half a day talking/reading/working/doing
anything in your native language.
... when you start/go back to a language although the timing couldn't be worse, just so
that you can take part in your first 6WC.
... when you start going through some veeery simple vocabulary in Swedish and end up
looking up its etymology, and checking the Danish and Norwegian equivalent for no
reason at all.
... when you start studying Arabic only because you have a chance to do so, and there
is this nice crash course within a 5-minute walking distance from your home... you
can't let it go, can you?
Julie on 11 August 2012
when one of the highlights of your vacation included hearing the less commonly spoken of your target languages (French) spoken by other visitors. Even better, you discover a French TV channel. You also are happy to find a Spanish speaking family is staying at the same hotel and you can interact with them.
when the most interesting and touching part of your vacation was observing two small girls, about 4 years of age, playing on the beach. They are chatting and having a lot of fun. One girl brings her new friend over to her parents and introduces her to them.They then run off to play some more. Later, the other girl in turn brings the first over to meet her family. This mom in turn comes over to the first. The parents then realize that their daughters have been playing and laughing all day but (drum roll) one only spokeEnglish and the other only French! The French speaking girl's parents spoke French and someEnglish; their daughter only knew French. The name by which theEnglish speaking girl had introduced her friend was not the girl's name. They were communicating and playing and having a grand time but could not speak each other's language.
psy88 on 11 August 2012
...when the passenger seat in your car looks something like this:
Levi on 11 August 2012
Cool pic for sure!
Serpent on 11 August 2012
when the most interesting and touching part of your vacation was observing two small
girls, about 4 years of age, playing on the beach. They are chatting and having a lot
of fun. One girl brings her new friend over to her parents and introduces her to
them.They then run off to play some more. Later, the other girl in turn brings the
first over to meet her family. This mom in turn comes over to the first. The parents
then realize that their daughters have been playing and laughing all day but (drum
roll) one only spokeÂEnglish and the other only French! The French speaking girl's
parents spoke French and someÂEnglish; their daughter only knew French. The name by
which theÂEnglish speaking girl had introduced her friend was not the girl's name. They
were communicating and playing and having a grand time but could not speak each other's
language.
When I was young, a French family moved in a couple of doors from us, with a little boy
and girl of around that age. At first they spoke noEnglish, but in what seemed like a
very short time they were speaking not justEnglish, butEnglish in the local accent
which tickled me no end. :-)
montmorency on 11 August 2012
when the Spanish think you are German, the Germans think you are Spanish, the Brits aren't sure whether you actually understand when they speakEnglish to you ....
maydayayday on 11 August 2012
...when your Chrome page of most frequently visited pages shows the HTLAL page having
overtaken google, and is now second behind your email page.
montmorency on 11 August 2012
When you consider a career in diplomacy, as it would mean using languages as part of your job, but reconsider
when you remember that there's the possibility that you could be posted in an anglophone country.
cmmah on 12 August 2012
When you think the most fascinating site in Paris is the two floors of the language bookshop Gibert Jeune. Forget the tourist crammed into the nearby Shakespeare and Co. This place is a magical store crammed floor to ceiling with every Assimil, and millions of other courses as well.
DaraghM on 13 August 2012
noone told
me it existed!!! All the book guides, people guides and everything mentiones every ...
but not such a wonderful place! A solid bookstore where you can even touch and leaf
through the Assimil before buying...
My own new findings:
1...when you automatically want to say grazie as the berliner waiter brings you the
pizza. :-)
2.When you have hard time deciding whether to buy Deutsch-Spanish Lernwortschatz or
Deutsch-Franzözisch version. I chose the Spanish one because hadn't had a similar book
for Spanish till the moment.
Cavesa on 13 August 2012
Where is that sacred place,DaraghM???
It's right in the heart of Paris at Place Saint-Michel. The name of the particular store is 'Langues et Lettres'. You can see it on their map
http://www.gibertjeune.fr/page/new/librairies.php - here. I've just realised they also sell online. Now I'm in trouble.DaraghM on 13 August 2012
they also sell online. Now I'm in trouble.
Your bank account is in danger? :-D
Cavesa on 13 August 2012
Your bank account is in danger? :-D
Exactly. :-)
DaraghM on 14 August 2012
When you think the most fascinating site in Paris is the two floors of
the language bookshop Gibert Jeune. Forget the tourist crammed into the nearby
Shakespeare and Co. This place is a magical store crammed floor to ceiling with every
Assimil, and millions of other courses as well.
When you're sad that you didn't find out about this place before going to Paris.
I must've walked right past it as well!
garyb on 14 August 2012
When you've learnt how to read Korean and Greek, but don't know a word of either language.
cmmah on 14 August 2012
When I change my YouTube language settings to Finnish only to find that I am still bombarded withEnglish advertisem*nts before almost every video I watch! Oh well, I can turn down the volume.
mick33 on 15 August 2012
When your (housemate's) pet python leaps out of its cage and sinks its fangs into your
finger. It's wrapped so tightly around your arm that the fire department has to pry it
off. In the waiting room of the ER, you finish a book for the Super Challenge.
Hekje on 15 August 2012
When you think the most fascinating site in Paris is the two floors of the language bookshop Gibert Jeune. Forget the tourist crammed into the nearby Shakespeare and Co. This place is a magical store crammed floor to ceiling with every Assimil, and millions of other courses as well
When learning about this place totally and completely wrecks your life. Ruins it. Gone. Over.
Wait: Check out AirFrance bargains: if the books cannot come to me, I must go to the books! Yes, I know you said they ship overseas, but I'd rather ship myself overseas to see the place. But I can't, no, so I suppose that's it's all done and finished now.
OK, that's maybe a bit extreme, but maybe it's time to seek professional help. And by that of course you know I mean professional help acquiring more books! But I have no place to put any more books.
Despair.
meramarina on 15 August 2012
When your (housemate's) pet python leaps out of its cage and sinks its fangs into your finger. It's wrapped so tightly around your arm that the fire department has to pry it off. In the waiting room of the ER, you finish a book for the Super Challenge
Two posts in a row, only because I have the say that I just saw this and it may be the most bizarre, and the greatest, Language Nerd post of all time. True dedication!
meramarina on 15 August 2012
When your (housemate's) pet python leaps out of its cage and
sinks its fangs into your finger. It's wrapped so tightly around your arm that the fire
department has to pry it off. In the waiting room of the ER, you finish a book for the
Super Challenge
Two posts in a row, only because I have the say that I just saw this and it may be the
most bizarre, and the greatest, Language Nerd post of all time. True dedication!
And I was going to say, I nominate it for the "post of the month" (if not year)!
montmorency on 15 August 2012
ended up going with me all the way. It was a definite comfort to have those materials with me.
@montmorency: I'm very glad my experience can amuse. :-)
@all: For any curious, this was a picture I took after calling 911.
Hekje on 15 August 2012
I can just imagine you sporting the python on one hand and holding an Assimil book in the other. In fact this would make a great motif for a Scout badge in dedication to language studies!
Hope you're ok now by the way. :)
Teango on 15 August 2012
When I change my YouTube language settings to Finnish only to find that I am still bombarded withÂEnglish advertisem*nts before almost every video I watch! Oh well, I can turn down the volume.
Serpent on 15 August 2012
@Teango: The Order of the Golden Python! Let's all do it. And I'm great now, it's very kind of you to ask.
Hekje on 15 August 2012
past it, and then see the warning label; "FUMAR MATA". Now you have a small dilemma on your hands. Do you take
the box and look like a weirdo, or walk past and miss out on all of that Spanish tobacco-related vocabulary? I
hesitated before picking the latter.
You're walking down the street with a group of friends, and a family are walking in the opposite direction. As they
pass, you realise that the family are speaking French. You're tempted to turn and follow, but decide against it.
Actually, now that I think about it, a real language nerd would have lifted the cigarette box and followed the
family.
cmmah on 15 August 2012
@Teango: The Order of the Golden Python! Let's all do it. And I'm great
now, it's very kind of you to ask.
I've been struggling to work something in about The Full Monty, but it won't come...
:)
montmorency on 16 August 2012
from there. On that napkin there was Greek vocabulary printed on, and they handed it over
to me with the words: "Because we know you're a language nerd!" So cute!
Well, that is not the weird part of the whole story. The funniest thing is that I
couldn't sleep that night, because I spent hours browsing the WWW looking for Greek
vocabulary - that being tired to death (!) and even if I was not (yet) interested in
learning Greek at all!!!
Mae on 16 August 2012
When your (housemate's) pet python leaps out of its cage and
sinks its fangs into your finger. It's wrapped so tightly around your arm that the fire
department has to pry it off. In the waiting room of the ER, you finish a book for the
Super Challenge
Two posts in a row, only because I have the say that I just saw this and it may be the
most bizarre, and the greatest, Language Nerd post of all time. True dedication!
And I was going to say, I nominate it for the "post of the month" (if not year)!
I agree but...it would be the post of the century if, after it happened you felt inspired to go to Burma and learn the language (assuming it was a Burmese python).
But seriously, all I can say is WOW!! That is dedication! I hope you have recovered.
psy88 on 16 August 2012
â¦your toddler runs past, inexplicably yelling, "Mouillé ! Mouillé ! I know French!" while
giggling madly.
â¦while walking with your wife, you look up the night sky, and observe km p.t ("
[The] sky [is] black"). This inevitably leads to a 15-minute discussion about Egyptian
grammar and the
come the words km.t (Egypt) and dšr.t (desert, foreign lands).
emk on 17 August 2012
It seems that ball pythons originate in Africa, so perhaps I should actually be learning a dialect of Igbo? (Or maybe
just Parseltongue would do the trick... There, I'm also a Harry Potter nerd.)
Hekje on 17 August 2012
It seems that ball pythons originate in Africa, so perhaps I should actually be learning
a dialect of Igbo? (Or maybe
just Parseltongue would do the trick... There, I'm also a Harry Potter nerd.)
I went looking to see how possible this was; probably not very, but this was fun anyway.
http://www.smashinglists.com/10-fictional-languages-that-can -be-learnt-2719/
montmorency on 17 August 2012
past it, and then see the warning label; "FUMAR MATA". Now you have a small dilemma on your hands. Do you take
the box and look like a weirdo, or walk past and miss out on all of that Spanish tobacco-related vocabulary? I
hesitated before picking the latter.
You're walking down the street with a group of friends, and a family are walking in the opposite direction. As they
pass, you realise that the family are speaking French. You're tempted to turn and follow, but decide against it.
Actually, now that I think about it, a real language nerd would have lifted the cigarette box and followed the
family.
I feel your pain. In retrospect, I feel awful for missing out on the opportunity to practice my Chinese with two customers at work who were speaking Chinese today, but I couldn't think of a non-awkward way to intrude on their conversation. I suppose I should have just been awkward and tried anyways.
Levi on 18 August 2012
ended up going with me all the way. It was a definite comfort to have those materials with me.
@montmorency: I'm very glad my experience can amuse. :-)
@all: For any curious, this was a picture I took after calling 911.
when you can't this image out of your mind and you wake up at 4:00AM thinking about it. Trying to fall back to sleep you think of another image and decide to share it here (if you could manage to remember it), You do and so you can share it. As I thought of the extreme dedication of doing your language studies with a python attached to you, I thought what might be even more extreme. I got an image of someone facing a firing squad in a foreign country, his language study book in hand. He refuses a blindfold because he is trying to get a few more moments of studying before they fire. As the order is given,"ready, aim" he wonders if the word the word for "fire" in this language has the same literal meaning of "fire" as inEnglish or if its equivalent would be closer to theEnglish word "shoot". At four in the morning this seemed really funny and worth sharing, but now...
psy88 on 18 August 2012
...when you've watched every episode of China's version of "The Voice" more than once, but you've never seen the version that's aired in your country.
Levi on 20 August 2012
...when you use language tutoring as the pretext for a date.
Levi on 20 August 2012
...when you actually enjoy the headache that comes from learning a new language. It makes
me feel like I'm still learning something even when some grammar topics confuse me or I'm
swamped in vocabulary I don't know.
demonsheep on 20 August 2012
When you start wondering how many extra languages you can add to your tally here at this forum by counting forms of your native language that you understand as a language, e.g; 'I speakÂEnglish AND 'strine AND Kiwi AND U.S Hillbilly AND Chinglish AND...'.
EDIT: And..Forgetting the word for 'flabbergasted' in German keeps you up at night.
FINAL EDIT (I hope!): And...You start cruisng bars looking for a casual linguistic encounter.
etranger on 21 August 2012
Forgetting the word for ' http://dict.leo.org/ende?search=flabbergasted - flabbergasted ' in German keeps you up at night.
I've added a link to your quote above, just in case... ;)
Teango on 21 August 2012
out loud the present tense of a verb because you like the sound of it. You vaguely knew
it, but just heard it being used for real in a podcast. Looking up, you see someone
striding towards you in the opposite direction, easily within earshot.
Suppressing the urge to say: "Goddag. Hvor smukt det er her! Godt at vejret er fint i
dag, er det ikke?"*, You quickly look down again and sink back into your bubble,
pretending unconvincingly that it must have been someone else speaking.
*"Hello. How nice it is here! Good that the weather is fine today isn't it?"
montmorency on 21 August 2012
studied) and understand it due to your high-intermediate Spanish.
And then realize the comment was actually written in Italian.
I'm sure this or a similar situation has been described on here, but I felt I should
share anyway ;)
mashmusic11235 on 21 August 2012
When you have a Lithuanian family around to view the house, and seize the moment to try out some phrases you learnt once from a waitress in a restaurant!
Teango on 21 August 2012
...When you hope that your shyness and social awkwardness doesn't prevent you from practicing the Greek that you've been studying the past few months in preparation for said holiday!
WentworthsGal on 21 August 2012
... when you order Integrated Korean books online after watching some k-pop video even though you know you have no time to spare learning another language.
onurdolar on 23 August 2012
When a "Finnish-speaking" Russian waitress needs a Finn's help translating what you said from colloquial to standard Finnish.
Serpent on 23 August 2012
...you overhear Spanish in your local supermarket, and you wonder if it's from Spain or
Latin America, so your ears start flapping for clues, and you are disappointed when they
move away. You don't quite have the brass neck to follow them down the supermarket aisle
for further clues......but then you try to remember what they were buying in case that
gives a clue...
montmorency on 24 August 2012
...when while playing Counter Strike or Call of Duty with a friend you try to read the supposedly arabic graffiti on the
walls and get annoyed when you notice that most of them are either complete gibberish or written from left to right
with only isolated forms of the letters and when you then stay in one area of the map where you can hear arabic
radio broadcasts as part of the background audio.
morinkhuur on 26 August 2012
...when while playing Counter Strike or Call of Duty with a friend you try to read the supposedly arabic graffiti on the
walls and get annoyed when you notice that most of them are either complete gibberish or written from left to right
with only isolated forms of the letters and when you then stay in one area of the map where you can hear arabic
radio broadcasts as part of the background audio.
I don't like this post on so many levels!
maydayayday on 26 August 2012
You analyze the bilingual signs at your workplace to learn Spanish vocabulary and grammar
so you can try using it on your co-workers.
Tenebrarum on 26 August 2012
...when while playing Counter Strike or Call of Duty with a friend you
try to read the supposedly arabic graffiti on the
walls and get annoyed when you notice that most of them are either complete gibberish or written from left to right
with only isolated forms of the letters and when you then stay in one area of the map where you can hear arabic
radio broadcasts as part of the background audio.
I don't like this post on so many levels!
Why is that?
morinkhuur on 27 August 2012
When visiting Hungary, you buy a pack of cigarettes even though you don't smoke, just so you can see what the health warning looks like in Hungarian.
some pages back.
patuco on 27 August 2012
When visiting Hungary, you buy a pack of cigarettes even though you don't smoke, just so you can see what the health warning looks like in Hungarian.
some pages back.
LOL! I had completely forgotten this one. "My nipples explode with delight!!!"
Ogrim on 27 August 2012
When people ask you what you want for your birthday/Christmas, and you genuinely can't think of anything not
language-related.
cmmah on 27 August 2012
i) spend most of the train ride into the City talking in Russian (in the vain hope of having a secret conversation);
ii) pop into "Herman Ze German" for Currywurst, Apfelschorle and a chinwag with the German staff;
iii) buy "Winnie Ille Pu" (Winnie the Pooh) and a new Latin dictionary along the way (well, not quite along the way...more of a slight detour or two);
iv) find a market stall on the way back to the station that cooks fresh
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takoyaki - takoyaki and gives you an opportunity to try out some Japanese;and v) enjoy the train ride back listening in to a festive group of Portuguese football supporters to round off the day.
This was a good Bank Holiday Monday! :)
Teango on 27 August 2012
When on your way back from your German lesson, not only do you cycle halfway through the city centre before you realise you've been repeating "Bruder, Bruder, Bruder" rather a little too loudly, but the cause of your embarassment is not the fact that you have just become "that crazy lady on a bike", it is actually that your pronunciation is still rather poor.
g-bod on 28 August 2012
(I MAY also have an office supplies problem. I went into an office supplies store when I was in Japan and the cashiers were laughing at me a little cause I got a lot of stuff. But who doesn't need fold up scissors for their keychain?)
hjordis on 28 August 2012
When you were concerned that our dear friend Teango might get himself into difficulties in New York later this week, but then you realize that you shouldn't worry about him - you should worry about the City of New York instead, because if he's like that at home in London . . . *shudder*
One day . . . one man . . . all language-learning materials in the big Northeastern American metropolis mysteriously vanish . . . and then, they turn up later in numerous suitcases headed for the Pacific . . .
Mrs. Teango will not be pleased.
So many language students in NYC will be confused and sad.
USA Homeland Security will be very, very suspicious.
And I hear that there's a language tsunami warning in effect for Hawaii next week.
Wait and see. It's going to happen.
I look forward to the local news that evening, and, of course, the TV specials, mystery novels, and action films that will interpret and reenact the event for years to come.
But who are we to judge? Any of us here would do the same.
meramarina on 29 August 2012
... when you order Integrated Korean books online after watching some k-pop video even though you know you have no time to spare learning another language.
...when your recent intensive study of the Chinese writing system allows you to understand a lot of the Japanese subtitles on your favorite K-pop videos.
If my plate wasn't full, I would also be diving into Korean. I really need to study this language. I guess that's more motivation to bring my current languages up to a comfortable level so I have the time for it...
Levi on 30 August 2012
When you make a list of languages that you "might learn at some point in the future", and realise that you may
have to narrow it down from 30-something.
cmmah on 31 August 2012
You're watching a film, and you fast-forward past the sex scenes to get to the parts
where people are speaking your target language.
garyb on 01 September 2012
This is me and Teango on the Brooklyn Bridge this evening (Aug 31). There were barriers blocking the view, but that was not a problem because people had written on them in many languages, and this was much more intriguing than anything else in New York.
(ignore the red writing)
But this German message seems to be misspelled. As you can see, we were deeply concerned.
At one point, we sat down on the bridge, in the way of pedestrian traffic, to discuss subjunctive clauses. This drew a few strange looks from others !
And yes, we did contribute a little graffiti, too !
Lovely evening and Teango and his wife are fine people and a lot of fun be with! I hope to meet more of you out there one day - the more language nerds can get together, the better!
meramarina on 01 September 2012
..when you wake up.
montmorency on 01 September 2012
for the first time, with a fellow forum member, and - of course, what else? - you spend
your time examining multilingual graffiti.
This is me and Teango on the Brooklyn Bridge this evening (Aug 31). There were
barriers blocking the view, but that was not a problem because people had written on
them in many languages, and this was much more intriguing than anything else in New
York.
(ignore the red writing)
But this German message seems to be misspelled. As you can see, we were deeply
concerned.
At one point, we sat down on the bridge, in the way of pedestrian traffic, to discuss
subjunctive clauses. This drew a few strange looks from others !
And yes, we did contribute a little graffiti, too !
Lovely evening and Teango and his wife are fine people and a lot of fun be with! I
hope to meet more of you out there one day - the more language nerds can get together,
the better!
Er, I hope you got started with organising the USA branch of the Polyglots meeting
while you were there...
:-)
montmorency on 01 September 2012
Er, I hope you got started with organising the USA branch of the Polyglots meeting while you were there...
Sadly, not enough time. But until yesterday, I kind of believed that you all were little spirits, or presences, living inside my computer, and now, I guess I have to acknowledge that you're all real people!
(I myself am a little spirit living inside my computer, however)
meramarina on 01 September 2012
You know you're a language nerd, when you find yourself browsing this forum at 4 am, to
lessen excitement about your new language course starting the day after...
Mae on 02 September 2012
...when you know where to get printed newspapers without going overseas in these
languages: Thai, Burmese, Arabic, Urdu, Bengali, Hindi, Malayalam, Vietnamese, French,
German. Sadly no one brings in the Russian newspapers which will interest me a lot!
QiuJP on 03 September 2012
...when at lunch time you're happy to overhear a conversation between two native Spanish speakers which is immediately much more interesting than the conversation you were having before.
Josquin on 03 September 2012
When in foreign city you never forget to visit the local library to see what language textbooks do they have.
clumsy on 04 September 2012
You keep raising your hand, when the tour guide asks, "And how many people here speakEnglish?", "... Spanish?", "...French?"
DaraghM on 06 September 2012
You keep raising your hand, when the tour guide asks, "And how many people here speakÂEnglish?", "... Spanish?", "...French?"
I did exactly that during a conference in Leipzig .. but then they told me that they wanted to form groups for a city walk, and the guide in each group would speak one and only one language so I had to choose.
Iversen on 06 September 2012
When you wake up in the morning, the first thing that comes to your mind is to check who has posted what on HTLAL during the night.
Ogrim on 06 September 2012
You keep raising your hand, when the tour guide asks,
"And how many people here speakÂEnglish?", "... Spanish?", "...French?"
I did exactly that during a conference in Leipzig .. but then they told me that they
wanted to form groups for a city walk, and the guide in each group would speak one and
only one language so I had to choose.
Which one did you choose?
montmorency on 06 September 2012
When everything you do ends up making you want to take up a particular language, even if languages had nothing
to do with what you were doing. Example: In RE lesson, talking about Bible and Qur'an "I might learn
Greek/Hebrew/Aramaic/Arabic!". In History lesson, learning about Nazi Germany "There's lots of propaganda
posters in German in the textbook. Maybe I'll learn German so I can read them!". There's a Pole in your new class
"Maybe I'll learn Polish so I can talk to him!" (As a matter of fact, Polish, Hebrew, Greek and Arabic have since been
added to my hit-list).
cmmah on 09 September 2012
When you win a language book in a little Facebook contest just to find out with
disappointment that it is anEnglish grammar book for A1-B2 or so. You write to the
organizers to ask if there's any way to replace the prize with any French, Spanish, or
Russian books... (and this list could be so much longer but you know the prizes where in
these languages + German only ;)).
Julie on 09 September 2012
You set your iPhone to tell the date in 'Japanese Emperor years'.
cathrynm on 09 September 2012
When you take a shower 15 minutes longer than usually because you've just realized there
is a Dutch description on your shower gel you'd bought in Germany. Oh, and a French one.
So much better than Czech and Hungarian (or, alternatively, Lithuanian, Latvian and
Estonian) you usually get on your shower products you buy in Poland (and precisely at the
moment when you're writing this you start to think if learning one of these languages
could be a nice idea after all). But back to the shower... after you've read all
descriptions you start to compare language versions, trying to figure out which is the
original one.
Julie on 09 September 2012
Haha I do that too!
We usually get Ukrainian and Romanian (bc of Moldova), also one or more of Kazakh/Uzbek/Azerbaijani.
Serpent on 09 September 2012
When you alternate between studying Mandarin Chinese vocabulary, and browsing HTLAL to break the
monotony.
Duke100782 on 09 September 2012
When you take a shower 15 minutes longer than usually because you've just realized there
is a Dutch description on your shower gel you'd bought in Germany. Oh, and a French one.
So much better than Czech and Hungarian (or, alternatively, Lithuanian, Latvian and
Estonian) you usually get on your shower products you buy in Poland (and precisely at the
moment when you're writing this you start to think if learning one of these languages
could be a nice idea after all). But back to the shower... after you've read all
descriptions you start to compare language versions, trying to figure out which is the
original one.
Yea when I was in Bulgaria, they had the same thing! Usually Macedonian, BCMS (oddly with BC and MS separately),
Albanian, Romanian, and sometimes Greek, Slovenian, and/or Turkish
Kartof on 09 September 2012
When you take a shower 15 minutes longer than usually because you've just realized there
is a Dutch description on your shower gel you'd bought in Germany. Oh, and a French one.
So much better than Czech and Hungarian (or, alternatively, Lithuanian, Latvian and
Estonian) you usually get on your shower products you buy in Poland (and precisely at the
moment when you're writing this you start to think if learning one of these languages
could be a nice idea after all). But back to the shower... after you've read all
descriptions you start to compare language versions, trying to figure out which is the
original one.
Yea when I was in Bulgaria, they had the same thing! Usually Macedonian, BCMS (oddly with BC and MS separately),
Albanian, Romanian, and sometimes Greek, Slovenian, and/or Turkish
When I shop at the local discount store, I sometimes get a bit of a kick looking at the everyday merchandise under unfamiliar brands (They're unfamiliar since they come from virtually unknown exporters to us on this side of the pond (e.g. Turkey, Philippines, Malaysia, Slovenia)). Of course the description and contents/ingredients' list comes in a languages other thanEnglish, French or Spanish (the usual languages for us North Americans) and I sometimes just go through the aisles and randomly look at the products to see if I can make sense of the languages used (I've been able to recognize Arabic, BCMS/SC, Filipino (or was it Tagalog?), German, Hebrew, Hindi, Indonesian (or was it Malay?), Polish, Slovenian and Turkish)
This talk of different languages on hair care products reminds me of this gag from Scandinavia and the World.
Chung on 09 September 2012
The small printing on things like shower-gel would probably defeat me (especially without
glasses), but on a lot of the cat foods we buy, there are often nice, easy-to-read
alternative descriptions in a surprising choice of languages. I was puzzled as to why the
word "kylling" seemed familiar when I encountered it in my TYS Danish, until I
remembered: ah yes: cat food!Another fun thing there is that the famous Danish TV
series "Forbrydelsen" was known as "The Killing" in the UK (and of course remade under
that title in the USA), and I wonder if Danes when first reading that translated title
would think of it as "The Chicken"! :-)
montmorency on 09 September 2012
.. I was puzzled as to why the word "kylling" seemed familiar when I encountered it in my TYS Danish, until I remembered: ah yes: cat food!Another fun thing there is that the famous Danish TV series "Forbrydelsen" was known as "The Killing" in the UK (and of course remade under that title in the USA), and I wonder if Danes when first reading that translated title would think of it as "The Chicken"! :-)
No, - if anything we would think of the offspring of a cat which is called "en killing".
And speaking about "kyllinger": the Swedish word "kyckling" is more suggestive of the origin of the word for the formerly feathered thing on my dinner plate: it is simply a diminutive form of the
http://runeberg.org/svetym/0468.html - old Germanic word *keuka in the derived form *kÅ«ka - which happens to be the same word asÂEnglish "co*ck" (lo and behold - I expected this word to be starred out by the forum software - if so, I would have to substitute a Cyrillic 'o' for the Roman one, but methinks the software is growing a bit lax)And I probably wouldn't have bothered to write that explanation anywhere else but here at HTLAL.
Iversen on 10 September 2012
No, - if anything we would think of the offspring of a cat which are called "en killing".
In Norwegian en killing (or, just as often, et kje) is a kid goat. A kitten is called en kattunge. What do
you call the young goat in Danish? I think it's et kid in old-fashioned Norwegian Riksmål, so I would guess it is
the same in Danish.
And I probably wouldn't have bothered to write that explanation anywhere else but here at HTLAL.
And I'd probably never ask a question about what kid goats are called in Danish anywhere else...
tractor on 10 September 2012
Gedekid
Iversen on 10 September 2012
When you almost miss your flight at Joburg because you're actually hearing a "click"
language in conversation for the first time in your life and you want to hear more.
strikingstar on 11 September 2012
When you consider picking up a new language because your university offers free 3-
credit language classes...
stifa on 11 September 2012
When it's been 2 hours since the 6WC ended in your timezone and you're already asking the Tadoku guy about his plans.
Serpent on 12 September 2012
1. When you wake up your first thought is how to optimize your day so that you can learn more.
2. Every now and then people don't understand what you say and it takes you a while to realise you've spoken to them in a language they don't speak.
3. You know what does "Basque" mean.
4. When you go to the bookstore you head up straight for the languages section, ignoring all other books.
5. You know where Maori is spoken.
6. When somebody sees you wear earphones and asks you "What kind of music are you listening to?" you answer "I'm not listening to music, but to <insert your favourite audio course here>."
7. When you're at the computer and not learning languages, you still spend more time reading about/dealing with languages(HTLAL included) than all other activities combined.
8. The number of languages you learn/speak changes so often, that you no longer keep track of it.
9. When somebody says 'Chinese (language)', you ask him straight away: 'Mandarin or Cantonese?'.
For these add two points:
10. When you talk or write about pie you mean
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PIE - PIE and not http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_pie - pie .11. When you wake up you dont think of how to optimize your day so that you can learn more since you have already done this long time ago.
12. Every now and then you happen to have two converstations simultaneously/closely one after another without even noticing they are in diffirent languages.
Your score:
1-3 You are not a true language nerd yet - there is still some hope for you.
4-7 Even though you are completely obsessed with languages, most people don't notice it or don't pay it attention.
8-11 You are a complete language nerd. Your life is permanently tied with languages and there are no signs of change.
10-14 Language learning is as important for you as eating and sleeping. The average Joe would you call a linguist.
a3 on 12 September 2012
P.S. When I hear the word "pie", I actually think of "pi" (3.14...) before anything else. Is that maths or language nerdery? Does this partially redeem my low score?
patuco on 12 September 2012
When it's been 2 hours since the 6WC ended in your timezone and you're already asking the Tadoku guy about his plans.
When you like a tweet and you're about to press retweet but instead you copy it to make an Anki card.
Serpent on 13 September 2012
6. When somebody sees you wear earphones and asks you "What kind of music are you listening to?" you answer "I'm not listening to music, but to <insert your favourite audio course here>."
Or when asked what music you have on your MP3 player, and you respond none, it's all language courses and foreign audio books.
DaraghM on 13 September 2012
When your cousin gets sick early in the school year and you're mostly worried that his French class has just started and he'll miss the basics. Although you don't even like French yourself loool.
Serpent on 14 September 2012
Polish, Latin, Arabic, and Ancient Greek as well. Originally there were also references to French, German,
Korean, Czech, and OldEnglish, but you deleted those (there was a space limit).
When your mother's friend, desperate because her son has to cover two years of foreign language in one
year, comes to your mother and says, "Can Rebecca tutor my son?"
Amerykanka on 14 September 2012
At least I found the Middle or Old Dutch play I used for another painting in the same series, but even now it is slightly problematic to read it when you only know a tiny weeny bit of Modern Dutch - I may have used a translation (or, horror!!!!, a summary) back then:
Hoe heer Ghijsbrecht Mariken zijnder nichten tot Nimmeghen ghesonden heeft. Mariken: What ghelieft u, heer oom? Die oom: Hoort kint, slaet mijnder woorden goom: Mariken: Heer oom, tot uwer onderdanicheit
Het ghebuerde dat dese heer Ghijsbrecht Mariken zijnder nichten seynden wilde in die stadt van Nieumeghen om daer te coopene tghene dat si behoefden, tot haer seggende aldus: Mariken!
Ghi moet nae Nimmeghen nemen u vertreck
Om ons proviande te halen; wi hebbens ghebreck,
Van keersen, van olie in die lampe te doene,
Van azine, van soute ende van enzoene
Ende van solferpriemen, soe ghi selve entcnoopt.
Daer zijn acht stuvers; gaet henen, coopt
Te Nimmeghen van dies wi hebben breke.
Tesser nu iuyst mertdach vander weke,
Te bat suldi vinden al dat u ghereyt.
Kent mi bereet; ick wil gaen mynder strate ...
Sign of a nerd: you won't get any translation. "Is this a Kindergarten or what?" as some German professor said to a student whom he had assigned a text in a long extinct language which the student hadn't learned. "Then learn it", the professor said.. Oh, the good old days!
Iversen on 14 September 2012
When you wonder why
http://www.quickmeme.com/Foreign-language-elephant/?upcoming - ForeignLanguage Elephant hasn't become a popular meme.
When you shadow Japanese radio in public, and get some funny looks for it.
cmmah on 15 September 2012
... when after hearing that your colleague has worked as an au-pair in Sweden, you immediately ask her: "Talar du svenska?"
... when you're disappointed that she doesn't want to speak Swedish with you and simply keeps talking German instead.
... when after watching
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7P_ZLnh3b4 - this video , you want to learn Japanese immediately.Josquin on 17 September 2012
When I have a bad case of the flu and my biggest concern last week was that I hadn't learned, or had forgotten, the words for nausea, headache, dizziness and insomnia in any of my target languages.
mick33 on 18 September 2012
...when you know where to get printed newspapers without going overseas
in these
languages: Thai, Burmese, Arabic, Urdu, Bengali, Hindi, Malayalam, Vietnamese, French,
German. Sadly no one brings in the Russian newspapers which will interest me a lot!
... When, in addition to the languages mentioned earlier, you also know where to get
Japanese, Korean and Spanish magazines together with publications in the 4 official
languages of Singapore (English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil).
... When you know where to meet native speakers of all the languages mentioned in these
two posts, because the place where the newspaper and magazine are sold, is the place to
encounter them.
... When you feel like introducing these places to meet the native speakers of various
languages if a fellow language learner would visit this island....
QiuJP on 18 September 2012
foreign language - then you just might have bought it.
Continuing on with the music theme...
When you couldn't name a single song in your native country's charts, but you know who's all the rage in Ecuador.
When "what type of music do you listen to?" is an awkward question to answer. "Umm...do you mean inEnglish?"
When you have more Skype contacts than close friends.
When you know words for things in Spanish that the majority of anglophones wouldn't know inEnglish.
cmmah on 18 September 2012
When you've just bought a new graphical calculator (because your trusty old one got drenched) and you spend a good proportion of your evening reading the various user manuals (in ten languages) and comparing how to carry out various mathematical functions in those languages.
patuco on 18 September 2012
When you are in a hotel room in Zagreb and you spend 30 minutes watching a Turkish TV show with Croatian subtitles, although you don't speak either language, but decide to put them on your target list.
Ogrim on 19 September 2012
... and it annoys you that EuroNews Russia still doesn't use the Cyrillic alphabet.
DaraghM on 19 September 2012
into Anki so much easier.
When, since lamentably there is no Latin keyboard, you use theÂEnglish keyboard to type Latin words, and
now, due to the frequency with which you do this, yourÂEnglish spellcheck suggests Latin alternatives to
English words (even if theseÂEnglish words are spelled correctly). For example, today you tried to type
the word 'for' and the spellcheck told you to change it to 'prÅ' (complete with the macron).
When your brother, while using your iPad, yells, "Rebecca, can you please come turn the Spanish keyboard
off? I can't type anything inEnglish!"
Do the horrors of spellcheck never end?
Amerykanka on 20 September 2012
You know you're a language nerd when you don't use spell check because (a) you use too many languages for it to be worthwhile, and (b) your orthographic pedantry prevents you from misspelling words in the first place.
Levi on 21 September 2012
Hehe same here!
Serpent on 21 September 2012
6. When somebody sees you wear earphones and asks you "What kind of music are you listening to?" you answer "I'm not listening to music, but to <insert your favourite audio course here>."
Or when asked what music you have on your MP3 player, and you respond none, it's all language courses and foreign audio books.
When you couldn't name a single song in your native country's charts, but you know who's all the rage in Ecuador.
When "what type of music do you listen to?" is an awkward question to answer. "Umm...do you mean inÂEnglish?"
I can relate with a lot of that above. In fact, I never even owned an MP3 player until I got one to use for language learning. Thus my first MP3 player had nothing but Pimsleur on it for the longest time. Now I have one MP3 player for language courses and other various listening material (audiobooks, podcasts, etc.) and the other two have music. However, none of the 3 have a singleEnglish song anywhere on them.
I could list tons of songs from memory that I know are high up in the Korean music charts right now, but I wouldn't be able to even make a ballpark guess at single song on the U.S. Billboard chart.
Warp3 on 23 September 2012
..find this thread,
..and after reading ten pages in a row, you realize that to you these people are all heroes
Darustet on 23 September 2012
..find this thread,
..and after reading ten pages in a row, you realize that to you these people are all heroes
After a few hundred more pages, though, we probably look more obsessive that heroic !
meramarina on 23 September 2012
After a few hundred more pages, though, we probably look more obsessive that heroic !
And reading all the +300 pages would be any less obsessive?
Darustet on 24 September 2012
...when you're making a list of stuff to pack to move to China and you smile to yourself
when you realise the first thing you write down is the list of study materials you're
taking with you. *And* this almost looks longer than the rest of the list put together.
LanguageSponge on 27 September 2012
Colloquial Russian, Colloquial Icelandic, Colloquial Hungarian, and probably other
language resources and you can read them online for FREE because you're a student (too
bad the CDs are not included)
... when, on two different dreams, you dream of your Finnish grammar books either being
soaked or horribly stained and dream-you starts to cry and hiccup and just ask, "What do
I do?!" a couple of million times
- Kat
Phantom Kat on 27 September 2012
...when you momentarily feel guilty for having fun instead of studying, then you realize you're having fun in your target language!
Levi on 29 September 2012
...When you're waiting for a bus and decide to play this game, only to remember that you've completed all the Swedish-English andEnglish-Swedish sections so you decide to have a go at Icelandic and after only four goes get ten out of ten correct :o)
...When this makes you think you will definitely learn Icelandic one day.
...When you get home you go straight onto Amazon and Ebay to look for Icelandic study material...Then have a strange feeling so you run upstairs only to discover you already have an old copy of Teach Yourself Icelandic :oD
...When this gives you immense amount of joy and happiness knowing that you can learn a language when you feel like it without having to wait :oD
...When you lie awake in bed thinking of posts for this thread.
...When getting shampoo in your eye anc can't see properly will not stop you from reading new stuff on this site or writing this (apologies for any typos).
WentworthsGal on 29 September 2012
words and resolve to learn five before going to bed every night
... when you feel immensely proud of your roommate for picking up Russian
- Kat
Phantom Kat on 01 October 2012
When you see a slanted apostrophe in anEnglish word and interpret it as a rising tone.
Deerhound on 02 October 2012
... when, given a sheet on how many languages you are proficient in (information for a
psych study you're in), you feel sad that you can only put two at this point
... when said psych study will compensate you around $100, and you can't help but wonder
what language-related things you can buy with that, like an all-region DVD player!
- Kat
Phantom Kat on 02 October 2012
...when a http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yk6m9y-wNTQ - delightful bit of wordplay in your target language brightens up your whole miserable day.
Levi on 03 October 2012
...When you browse through the CV database in order to pick up a new language teacher and notice a candidate with spelling faults in their CV who is, of course, in their mother tongue and that makes you overwhelmingly irritated.
Einarr on 06 October 2012
.. when the highlight of your day is listening to your colleague making a phone call in Russian.
Josquin on 09 October 2012
When your pet peeve is language ignorance in general. E.g when people mispronounce foreign footballers' names (I
heard someone call the Bayern Munich goalkeeper "Neuer" as theEnglish word "newer") and it put me in a bad
mood when someone thought "Katakana" was the language they speak in Kazakhstan.
cmmah on 09 October 2012
a bus driven by an idiot (other things on the list is quetly singing to myself, listening
to really good music and cursing the driver)
...when one of the main flaws of dvds you consider to buy legally is the low number of
languages (such as two).
...when you regret that the great looking book in a bookshop is in Czech, written by a
Czech author and will possibly never be translated to any of your target languages.
Cavesa on 09 October 2012
A Pre-Finno-Mordvinian comes to a neighbouring Proto-Indo-European village and looks around in bewilderment.
â What are you looking for here?âsomeone asks him (a Pre-Aryan, as it turns out laterâthough there are also many Pre-Greeks, Pre-Slavs, PreÂBalts and especially Pre-Germans dwelling in the same village).
â Oh, Iâd like to borrow a word for boatâ¦âthe guest answers.
â What are you speaking about? Do you want to borrow one of our boats?
â Why should I? We have plenty of boats ourselves. In fact, we are a long way ahead of you in boat-making! How else could we become skilled fishermen? I only need your word for boat!
â Donât you have your own word for it?
â Surely we do! But you know, nowadays itâs all the rageâto use Indo-European loans!
â Well,âthe Pre-Aryan scrunches up his brow.âNaturally we do have a name for boat. It is *nÄusâeverybody, except these stupid and stubborn Pre-Slavs and Pre-Balts, knows and uses it! But I just cannot lend this word to you! I need it for myself, and for my Old Indic offsprings, who will call boats nÄu, and for my Ossetic descendants, so that they could call them naw! No, you wonât get this precious lexical item!
â What shall I do then? I cannot come back empty-handed. Maybe you will find for me something less valuable or little needed, if you have such a thing? And you must have, Pokorny tells us that your language is so rich in stems!
â He is right, we do have some other boat-names, *aldhu, *(s)kolmos, and *plou̯os, for example. But lending them is out of question, forget it! We Indo-Europeans need these items for ourselves, if we are going to have our languages spread over all continents!
â Have pity, give me something, at least!âmoans the poor creature.
â Iâve had enough of your begging! Here, take the word *wen-(e/o-)â this is the only one I can give you! At present nobody really uses it hereâthis word will emerge only in Sanskrit as vána and in Avestan as vanÄ-, without and Indo-European etymology and without any trace of the vowel e. So nobody will now notice it is missing. But I must warn you, this word does not really denote a boat! It is a word for tree, or for wood, or for timber. At best you can refer to a chunk of wood or a woodÂen vessel, like a bucket or a trough, with this nameâ¦
â No matter, our boats are after all no less wooden than troughs! You know, sometimes we just use dug-out stems as canoe boats! That will suit me! Thank you very much indeed, now I can head home with this wonderful new loan!
â Hey, wait a moment! You cannot borrow *wen-(e/o-) just so as it is. What if one of our guys hears and recognises it? Heâll take it back, and Iâll get into trouble for squandering words! You must disguise the loan. Look, you may add some unusual non-Indo-European suffix to it. For exÂample, -Å¡âthis will be a proper disguise.
â What a wise idea! I will do so. Many thanks again, it was so kind of you!
And the happy Pre-Finno-Mordvinian leaves the village whispering: «*Veneš, *veneš! How sweet these Indo-European words are!» [...]
Chung on 10 October 2012
When you smile so hard that this makes you cry.
Serpent on 10 October 2012
When you smile so hard that this makes you cry.
I'm happy to make a fellow Uralophile smile.
Chung on 11 October 2012
smile (v.)
c.1300, perhaps from M.L.G. *smilen or a Scandinavian source (e.g. Dan. smile, Swed. smila "smile"), from PIE root *smei- (cf. O.E. smerian "to laugh at," O.H.G. smieron "to smile," L. mirus "wonderful"). Gradually pushed the usual O.E. word, smearcian (modern smirk), into a specific, unpleasant sense. Related: Smiled; smiling.
The obvious sequel to my first reaction was to notice the change r -> l and think about parallels in Asian languages ("Do you want a loom?").
The follow-up to the sequel to my first reaction was to notice that the original 'r' maybe has been preserved in the word "smirk" inEnglish, but probably not in the Danish expression "et smørret grin" ('a buttery grin') - although that would be a very fitting etymology for that expression.
---
My second reaction was that my first reaction definitely belonged in this thread.
Iversen on 11 October 2012
...when somebody yells to you, interrupting your Chinese character study, because they have a Chinese character they'd like you to read for them.
Levi on 12 October 2012
... despite your fervent agnosticism you wish you were a Mormon missionary, just to profit from their excellent training in rarely studied languages :D
druckfehler on 12 October 2012
... you are annoyed because even though you sat in the bus right behind to natives speaking your target language but you can´t hear them clearly because the bus and other people are so noisy.
Jellitto on 12 October 2012
on the Rosetta Stone website just because you're bored and want to hear another language.
When you do the Swedish sample and start analyzing Swedish grammar based on the scanty knowledge of
Norwegian grammar that you picked up a few years ago.
When you convince your 8-year-old sister to do the Swedish sample with you, and now, three weeks later,
she is still waltzing around the house saying "Jag äter fisk" and "Han dricker vatten."
When you wonder if there is some strange significance in the fact that inEnglish many of our expressions of
delight once meant things like "scary" and "strange" (i.e., awesome, terrific, fantastic, wonderful).
Amerykanka on 12 October 2012
I am OK, but my Mom had a serious health crisis, so weâve had a few weeks of doctor visits and pretty terrifying procedures, tests, medicines, and surgeries. You can always count on languages to help you out a little, though, when you are worried, and itâs good to focus on something else. I canât say I learned anything new lately, but I did a lot of review, and it was very good for my verbal health.
So, when I was waiting for my Momâs preadmission tests to finish, I settled myself in the waiting area with a book, only to quickly realize that Iâd brought the wrong language with me. Most of the other family members were Spanish speakers, and I realized that if read a Spanish book, they would know that I could eavesdrop on them, which is a very rude thing to do, but thatâs exactly what I was doing.
But after a while I wanted to talk, too, and the lady I was sitting next to was chatting with her son and daughter and they were making jokes and they all seemed very friendly.So I eventually said hello and asked if we could speak in Spanish a little. She was very happy to do so and we had an excellent conversation, which happened very naturally. We both switched back and forth from Spanish toEnglish, whichever language the thoughts came in. It seems that I am not completely inscrutable, though, because after we talked a while, she told me she knew I understood her even before we spoke. I was a bit embarrassed then, but she only laughed and remarked that it was very nice for two people from different countries (she was from Mexico) to meet by chance and communicate in each otherâs native language. I could not agree more! She gave me some good feedback on my conversational ability, too.
When my Mom returned from her tests I was having a very good time telling the lady about my one, only, and totally gut-smashing encounter with tequila, a truly awful, awful experience, but, in (only!) in retrospect, very amusing to describe. I was glad that Mom didnât understand what she heard of the exchange - although she knows very well what happened because it was her fault â she made me drink the tequila â long story, and not for an internet audience . . . Anyway, it was so much fun I wanted to keep on going in Spanish, but Mom was in enough pain and certainly didnât need that.
Apparently for me, though, this language nerdery will remain a chronic, lifelong condition. Iâm fine with that. I wouldnât have thought Iâd be able to manage a decent conversation under the circ*mstances, even inEnglish, but apparently my mind has a backup language memory system that activated at just the right time to bring a few big smiles to what was actually a very scary time. Itâs just too easy to get too engrossed in programs and techniques and to forget what foreign language learning is really for: recounting humiliating mistakes of your past to total strangers.
Iâd like to know why second-language startup totally fails at other times, but thatâs another topic.
Just for the record, the nice lady brought up the subject of tequila, not me! I donât automatically think about the drink when someone mentions her country. I try to never, ever remember that this beverage exists anywhere on earth.
meramarina on 13 October 2012
We definitely need some real life htlal meetings (not only) for things like the tequila
story :-D
Cavesa on 14 October 2012
We definitely need some real life htlal meetings (not only) for things like the tequila story :-D
Yes, we should try to organize a few of these, even if it's difficult and takes a long time, wih plenty of time for travel arrangements and all that logistical stuff. We could learn a lot from watching each other, and I'm pretty sure that the events would create a few new and exciting tequila stories, or other, equivalent beverage adventures, which I will very politely decline, sorry, once is enough!
I'm a thinker, not a drinker, although I have heard that the two activities can complement each other surprisingly well.
Maybe we could set up local HTLAL Language Nerd chapters around the world via Meetup? And use YouTube to share any get-togethers, either deeply intellectual discussions or weird and wacky tales of what we have done for love of lsanguages. I know that a lot of us already have a YouTube and/or Skype presence, but this might be more of a way to see what happens when a few of us are in the same place interacting with each other in our various languages - or, those parts of the interactions that are appropriate to be seen and heard publicly! I believe that very few of us would be unbearably boorish, however, and it's always interesting to meet people you have only known only online, even if the meeting, for many, must remain online.
The Language Nerd meme seems to be its own brand now, of sorts, and it has some potential to continue to live outside/beyond his particular site. We didn't write 333 pages of it for nothing, did we? :)
meramarina on 14 October 2012
...
... anyway, you catch the first bus home, and it's always a multilingual experience, usually of languages you have no clue about, but tonight, it seems to be all Italians..
...and funnily enough, so is the 2nd bus, and Italians, bless them, can not usually be found guilty of talking too quietly, especially en masse... :-)
But your Italian is rusty, and all you can reliably catch is ... "va bene" ...
Ah well, va bene.
You don't get off at the usual stop, but carry on into town, and call in at one of the few remaining real pubs left and have a well-earned?? drink. They have a wide screen showing Sky News...the sound is down, and anyway they have music blaring (some good songs actually, ones that you recognise, i.e. v.old) so you couldn't have heard the TV sound, but then you notice some text appearing, and...
Mama Mia, it's Italian again...
...they are covering the trial (I think) of the captain of the Costa Concordia and we are seeing part of the transcript of the radio messages, and you learn a little technical/nautical Italian.
Should come in useful next time you want to ...er, well, interesting, anyway :-)
montmorency on 17 October 2012
Japanese), you're watching a movie in Japanese withEnglish subtitles, but you keep
thinking you hear words in your totally unrelated TL (Italian), and then find yourself
listening to the Japanese, reading theEnglish, and then trying to translate into your TL
as you go.
Failing miserably has nothing to do with it, right?
mikonai on 18 October 2012
...you know you are not a polyglot, but may be a polyclot....you made a clot of yourself trying to learn at least 5 languages ....
montmorency on 19 October 2012
...when you are woken up by the drunk girlfriend of your flatmate in the middle of the night. You get angry and, as she comes from Scotland and only speaksEnglish, tell her inÂEnglish that you were terrified by someone entering your bedroom while you were sleeping. After she has left, you realize that you're wide awake and cannot get to sleep again. The first thing you do then: Checking the meaning of 'terrified' in your Oxford dictionary to be sure you chose the correct word in front of a native speaker.
Josquin on 19 October 2012
Until they suddenly stop talking and stare at you. You then realise that you were actually repeating out loud part of what they were saying to practice your pronunciation.
Ogrim on 19 October 2012
The following was in German:
"I think I should present over the material, because I understand more than you"
But instead of saying, Ich verstehe mehr als ihr, she said als euch...
Just for the record, I placed a level higher the following month...(side point.)
I mean I really can't be mad at her, at least she tried.
LebensForm on 20 October 2012
... you are annoyed because even though you sat in the bus right behind to natives speaking your target language but you can´t hear them clearly because the bus and other people are so noisy.
Can't have been Italian then... :)
patuco on 20 October 2012
When you get annoyed that your friends want to watch theEnglish dub of a movie instead of in it's original
language... What's the point? haha
aspiringplyglot on 20 October 2012
When you get annoyed that your friends want to watch
theÂEnglish dub of a movie instead of in it's original
language... What's the point? haha
Perhaps they're just not used to reading subtitles?
At least I am annoyed by subtitles, but I still prefer to watch something in its
original language, but I usually avoid subtitles anyway for the sake of listening
practice.
However, as a language nerd, I feel your pain. :)
Edit:
... when you have shortcuts to four different keyboard layouts.
stifa on 21 October 2012
... when you have shortcuts to four different keyboard layouts.
...when you've consolidated all your languages using the Latin alphabet into one customized keyboard layout, in order to not be completely inundated with layouts.
Levi on 21 October 2012
Edit:
... when you have shortcuts to four different keyboard layouts.
Edit:
... when you have shortcuts to ten different keyboard layouts.
mahasiswa on 21 October 2012
... when you have shortcuts to four different keyboard
layouts.
...when you've consolidated all your languages using the Latin alphabet into one
customized keyboard layout, in order to not be completely inundated with layouts.
How did you do that?
The only latin letter I can't produce with my Norwegian keyboard layout is Ã, and some
require too many keystrokes ñ ('AltGr' + '~' + 'n'). ü (and similar characters) only
require two though. I also have ø, æ and å taking up space.
stifa on 21 October 2012
It does require multiple keystrokes, but they are pretty straightforward, e.g. for à it's just CTRL-s-sFor å it's CTRL-a-oand similar, reasonably intuitive sequences for the other Latin characters.
(you can customise it to use something other than CTRL)
Works well for XP, reasonably OK for Vista, but I believe not for Windows 7 (but I don't have a W7 machine to try it on).
However, I believe there are other similar things around now that do work on W7.
I did use to know the numeric key sequences for the non-English characters (because I am something of a language nerd :-) ) that I needed, but that became a lot more difficult when I started using a laptop most of the time (no numeric pad and using the Fn key with certain letter keys seemed error prone and never seemed to quite work as intended, which is when I moved to allchars).
montmorency on 21 October 2012
... when you have shortcuts to four different keyboard layouts.
...when you've consolidated all your languages using the Latin alphabet into one customized keyboard layout, in order to not be completely inundated with layouts.
How many layouts do you use?
I've got 9 set up includingEnglish but don't usually switch languages in the same text so I'm not irritated by using the mouse to switch keyboards. I also need the Latvian, Polish, Slovak, Ukrainian and Northern Saami layouts because they're too alien for the typical Western European/Anglosphere layout.
Chung on 21 October 2012
I've got 9 set up includingÂEnglish but don't usually switch languages in the same text
so I'm not irritated by using the mouse to switch keyboards.
What operating system do you use?
I can only speak for Ubuntu use, but I use a keyboard shortcut to switch layouts. No
mouse needed. I bet there's a way to do it in Windows and Mac, too.
R.
==
hrhenry on 21 October 2012
I should clarify though that I'm curious about Levi's technique of combining all of his languages of Latin-based alphabets into one layout. Ultimately I'd still need at minimum two layouts since I've got Ukrainian Cyrillic (which doubles as my Mari keyboard) too.
Chung on 21 October 2012
I considered his idea as well, until I realised that I already had ø, æ and å hogging
the space already. :p It would be nice to add an Ã-key though; this would have
eliminated the need for a German keyboard completely... though it would've been nice to
have single keys for ä ü ö and ñ as well. And I don't useEnglish layouts at all,
because it seems like pretty much any latin-based keyboard layout cover the 26 letters
of theEnglish alphabet.
stifa on 21 October 2012
The only latin letter I can't produce with my Norwegian keyboard layout is Ã, and some
require too many keystrokes ñ ('AltGr' + '~' + 'n'). ü (and similar characters) only
require two though. I also have ø, æ and å taking up space.
I used
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=2233 9 - Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator , which is free.I've got 9 set up includingEnglish but don't usually switch languages in the same text so I'm not irritated by using the mouse to switch keyboards. I also need the Latvian, Polish, Slovak, Ukrainian and Northern Saami layouts because they're too alien for the typical Western European/Anglosphere layout.
At the moment, I have five layouts: Latin, Cyrillic, IPA, Chinese and Japanese. The Latin one is capable of writing just about any language written in the Latin alphabet from Icelandic to Vietnamese. Cyrillic covers Russian (including pre-1917 letters), Belarusian, Ukrainian, Serbian, Macedonian and Bulgarian.
I find not having a separate layout for each language very convenient. It's not just for switching between languages, it's great just to be able to properly type foreign names without stopping. Even if I had a separate layout for every language I study, it wouldn't be enough, because sometimes I want to talk about Åódź or Há» Chà Minh, or just have the PÄ«nyÄ«n transliterations of my Chinese vocabulary items.
Levi on 21 October 2012
I should clarify though that I'm curious about Levi's technique of combining all of his languages of Latin-based alphabets into one layout. Ultimately I'd still need at minimum two layouts since I've got Ukrainian Cyrillic (which doubles as my Mari keyboard) too.
This is what it looks like. As you can see, it's based not on the QWERTY layout (originally designed to slow down typing on typewriters to prevent them getting jammed), but on the much more efficient http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvorak_Simplified_Keyboard - Dvorak layout . Note that the cedilla key doubles as the ogonek.
Levi on 21 October 2012
here's my substitution list:
X=Ã|C=Ä|J=Ä|A=Ã|M=Ã|L=Å|P=Ã|a=ã|x=ç|c=Ä|j=Ä|E=Ä| Q=Ä|O=Ã|o=õ|p=ø|m=ñ|d=Å|D=Å|e=Ä|q=Ä |l=Å|v=ź|V=Ź| Z=Å»|z=ż|h=â¥|n=Å|N=Å|ö=>|,=<|ж=>|б=<
(you type the letter and then you press a hotkey to change it) many of these are arranged by proximity (e.g. those for c, z), j is Ä because i mostly need it for the name KranjÄar as of now :-)
The layouts I have set are Finnish and Russian, but the physical keyboards sold in Finland have one extra key >_< so I needed a way to type those squared brackets.
I was planning to make a custom layout one day, but typing a letter and then F12 is easier than typing AltGr+letter, imo.
Serpent on 21 October 2012
That looks promising, Levi. Thanks. I'll look into it.
Chung on 21 October 2012
Super easy to change keyboard on a Mac
TheMatthias on 22 October 2012
I don't get the keyboard layout editor to work. It doesn't show a keyboard at all..
perhaps I've got the wrong version of .net or something. (I'm running win764bit)
stifa on 22 October 2012
That's unfortunate. Microsoft hasn't updated the software in many, many years, and no longer even provides technical support for it. Nor is there any kind of open-source alternative that I've been able to find.
Levi on 22 October 2012
languages, and then more. I believe it is more comfortable than Dvorak too, since it
won't kill your pinky finger.
http://bit.ly/PLdP3r
With some training you can type pretty fast in other languages.
This layout comes bundled with OS X and Linux by default, on Windows you need to install
it.
overscore on 22 October 2012
On the other hand, I've learned to be as skeptical of some of the myth-busters as of the myths.
montmorency on 22 October 2012
Of course this is all going to vary depending on what language you are typing in, and there are Dvorak-like layouts designed for many other languages, but the vowel thing helps out for pretty much all of them.
I definitely don't buy the argument that, since QWERTY ousted other layouts in the early typewriter marketplace, that says anything about its actual efficiency. Commercial success involves a lot more than the technical efficiency of your product, especially when we're considering what is a modest effect at best. You have to take technology changes into account too. Certainly smart-phone thumb-typing has totally reshaped the equation.
In any case, I don't want to start a huge debate here. We're past the typewriter age, and now anyone can use any layout they want, depending on their own needs and preferences.
Levi on 22 October 2012
I know I'm a language nerd when reading the last few pages of this thread really were a highlight of my day. No, my life isn't boring (it really isn't) I just found all the discussion about keyboards and software for typing in different languages very informative.
When I wrote a post in my log in Afrikaans about how worried I am about how bad my Italian pronunciation is and then think I should have written about that in Italian!
mick33 on 22 October 2012
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/221/was-the-qwerty- keyboard-purposely-
designed-to-slow-typists - may possibly be an urban myth
On the other hand, I've learned to be as skeptical of some of the myth-busters as of
the myths.
Either way, qwerty is not that difficult to use anyway, so why even bother discussing
it? :p
Edit: if there is any keyboard layout that is really bad, it must be the kana-input for
Japanese. And some characters require more keystrokes than with romaji input ããã«ã¡ã¯
can be typed as 'byiak', but ãã
requires three keystrokes.
stifa on 22 October 2012
I thought Dvorak was mostly more efficient forEnglish? I definitely think that with my list of languages, any convenient combinations will be balanced out. For example, I can see that the combination io is easier to type in qwerty than in dvorak. it's also easier to type qwerty in qwerty than dvorak in dvorak XDDDDDDD
Serpent on 23 October 2012
Truthfully, the biggest time-saver for me has been, by far, switching the caps lock and backspace keys.
Levi on 23 October 2012
- you base your daily events on the fact that you'll be able to speak X language.
(Going to a Cuban restaurant to speak Spanish, meeting with an Italian prof. just to
speak Italian).
-You dream of what languages you want to have mastered in the future. For me:
(English, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Portuguese, Greek, Polish)
mrmap167 on 23 October 2012
...when of the only 3 emails you sent today, 2 were not in your native language, although curiously, the one that was was to your German tutor, and one of the others ones was to close family members...
montmorency on 23 October 2012
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/221/was-the-qwerty- keyboard-purposely-
designed-to-slow-typists - may possibly be an urban myth
On the other hand, I've learned to be as skeptical of some of the myth-busters as of
the myths.
Either way, qwerty is not that difficult to use anyway, so why even bother discussing
it? :p
Edit: if there is any keyboard layout that is really bad, it must be the kana-input for
Japanese. And some characters require more keystrokes than with romaji input ããã«ã¡ã¯
can be typed as 'byiak', but ãã
requires three keystrokes.
I heard that the QWERTY layout was designed so that typewriter salesmen could type out the word "TYPEWRITER"
quite easily (all the keys are in the top row).
Also, QWERTY makes use of the left hand more than the right, so it's better for left-handed people.
APPARENTLY.
I once tried DVORAK for a while, but I hated losing my QWERTY skills.
boon on 24 October 2012
I'm left handed anyway so, long live QWERTY! :D
stifa on 25 October 2012
I don't get the keyboard layout editor to work. It doesn't show a keyboard at all..
perhaps I've got the wrong version of .net or something. (I'm running win764bit)
Serpent on 25 October 2012
YKYALN when you are getting tired of keyboard nerdery and want to return to good old-fashioned language nerdery.
patuco on 25 October 2012
edited for clarity
psy88 on 27 October 2012
(Admittedly the near-freezing temperatures outside are an additional consideration).
montmorency on 27 October 2012
headache and a sore throat means a lot less to you than the fact that you found a nice
Japanese reader called Read Real Japanese, with unedited short stories from
contemporary Japanese writers, supplied with an explanation of every sentence (one page
with pure japanese, then one page with explanations, and repeat)
And that your local uni library got a room full of language learning material and
foreign novels and films is one of the most awesome things ever.
stifa on 27 October 2012
(Admittedly the near-freezing temperatures outside are an additional consideration).
...when the word "pub" makes you think of a French advertisem*nt before it makes you think of a drinking establishment.
Levi on 28 October 2012
I have left all my language books in a flood zone (home!) which is expected to have some of the worst of the storm surge from the approaching hurricane. And there was no time to secure them in a dry place or decide which ones to take. It's a bad day to live in coastal NJ/NY Last year when we went through this, I managed to keep up the language study through the storm and the following power outage, but not this time, too tired from packing up only the essential stuff and getting out. I'm a few miles inland now in a safe (I hope!) place.
When we lose power, I'll get my little dictionary friends and a penlight, because that what language nerds do!
EDIT: Well, maybe not this time - looks bad. Time to language stuff on hold. Even nerds have to be sensible.
meramarina on 29 October 2012
When I was actually happy about accidentally deleting some Italian sentences in my TAC log Saturday night because retyping those sentences meant I got to spend more time focusing on Italian.
mick33 on 30 October 2012
I have left all my language books in a flood zone (home!) which is expected to have some of the worst of the storm surge from the approaching hurricane. And there was no time to secure them in a dry place or decide which ones to take. It's a bad day to live in coastal NJ/NY Last year when we went through this, I managed to keep up the language study through the storm and the following power outage, but not this time, too tired from packing up only the essential stuff and getting out. I'm a few miles inland now in a safe (I hope!) place.
When we lose power, I'll get my little dictionary friends and a penlight, because that what language nerds do!
EDIT: Well, maybe not this time - looks bad. Time to language stuff on hold. Even nerds have to be sensible.
Stay safe, meramarina â I'm hearing some scary news from over there. Of course I hope all your language materials emerge unscathed, but the most important part is to keep yourself safe, first and foremost. As you say, even nerds have to be sensible. :)
And to anyone else in Sandy's path, please be cautious and careful, take care of yourself and heed official warnings! In the words of Dylan, "It's bad out there, high water everywhere."
Jinx on 30 October 2012
Fruit: "Pommes, plátanos, uve, fersken"
Viande: "Pork chops, entrecôte, albóndigas, Schnitzel"
Melkeprodukter: "Lait écremé, yogures, brie, chèvre, grana di padano"
Boissons: "Vin rouge, Bier, Diet co*ke, Ðода"
ÐÑба: "Forellen, tunfisk, merlan"
Verduras: "Pomodori, Kartoffeln, pepinos, cresson"
Ogrim on 31 October 2012
Wow, cool!!! Makes me feel lazy about sticking to Finnish.
Serpent on 31 October 2012
Turns out I was right, it was a
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnQ-omV_Mx0 - Danish song (:FireViN on 31 October 2012
When I wanted to check Danish verb conjugations using http://www.verbix.com/ - Verbix and accidentally type verlix.com instead and am thrilled when I see that verlix.com is actually a WordPress blog written in Japanese. I also know I am a language nerd when I am certain that verlix is a Japanese language blog because I recognize both kanji and kana characters even though I dont know Japanese.
mick33 on 31 October 2012
When you enter a new bookstore, hit wall-to-wall manga (each book marked up as $1) and shout "ç´æ´ããã!" in utter joy.
Teango on 01 November 2012
when the first you you do when your power and Internet is restored after being out for three days because of Hurricane Sandy is to check this thread...well, more honestly, when it is among the first things you do, but you wish it was the first.
psy88 on 01 November 2012
When you (sometimes-especially at week-ends) wish you had neither married nor had children so that you
could devote your entire free time outside your job to language studying instead of doing fun family stuff such
as ironing, cooking, changing diapers...
agantik on 01 November 2012
When you enter a new bookstore, hit wall-to-wall manga (each book marked up as $1) and shout "ç´æ´ããã!" in utter joy.
Welcome back Teango. Been wondering how you've been getting on.
montmorency on 01 November 2012
Fruit: "Pommes, plátanos, uve, fersken"
Viande: "Pork chops, entrecôte, albóndigas, Schnitzel"
Melkeprodukter: "Lait écremé, yogures, brie, chèvre, grana di padano"
Boissons: "Vin rouge, Bier, Diet co*ke, Ðода"
ÐÑба: "Forellen, tunfisk, merlan"
Verduras: "Pomodori, Kartoffeln, pepinos, cresson"
I've been trying to work out your algorithm for choice of languages here, but it has defeated me so far. I wouldn't make it as a code-breaker.
I also write my shopping lists in target languages, but I hadn't thought of categorising them like that. A sign of my untidy mind! :-)
Two items always on the list are "Zeitung" and "Katze Futter" (and looking it up to make sure I didn't get it wrong, I see it has no umlaut which I vaguely thought it had ... mixing it up with "füttern" perhaps, although interestingly there is also "futtern" with a slightly different meaning.
Commercial cat food usually comes either in sachets or metallic foil trays. Can anyone give me a contextually-appropriate German rendering of "foil tray"?
(Bonus points for Danish!).
(They aren't really "trays", although it's hard to come up with a betterEnglish word).
montmorency on 01 November 2012
Two items always on the list are "Zeitung" and "Katze Futter" (and looking it up to make sure I didn't get it wrong, I see it has no umlaut which I vaguely thought it had ... mixing it up with "füttern" perhaps, although interestingly there is also "futtern" with a slightly different meaning.
There's no umlaut but a 'Fugen-n', so the word is: "Katzenfutter".
Josquin on 01 November 2012
When you arrive late at your German class and your excuse is that you HAD to finish
writing the Georgian alphabet for the 20th time today.
Coheed on 03 November 2012
And to anyone else in Sandy's path, please be cautious and careful, take care of yourself and heed official warnings! In the words of Dylan, "It's bad out there, high water everywhere.
Thanks Jinx, that says it very well ! I'm safe but unfortunatly the house was severely damaged. I think I've had the nerdiness knocked right out of me though. Temporarily, I hope. don't know how much can be salvaged from the house. it's appalling in there, Most of the books were on high shelves and survived the flood water and waves, but where do you keep books when your house is wrecked? Not the worst problem right now when entire towns were smashed. Today is the first day I've been warm and clean and had access to electric power (just tonight, I'm staying overnight at a friend's home
Sad nerd today. I have tried to read by flashlight at night and cannot do it.
The return to nerdery will take a while this time.
meramarina on 03 November 2012
And to anyone else in Sandy's path, please be cautious and careful, take care of yourself and heed official warnings! In the words of Dylan, "It's bad out there, high water everywhere.
Thanks Jinx, that says it very well ! I'm safe but unfortunatly the house was severely damaged. I think I've had the nerdiness knocked right out of me though. Temporarily, I hope. don't know how much can be salvaged from the house. it's appalling in there, Most of the books were on high shelves and survived the flood water and waves, but where do you keep books when your house is wrecked? Not the worst problem right now when entire towns were smashed. Today is the first day I've been warm and clean and had access to electric power (just tonight, I'm staying overnight at a friend's home
Sad nerd today. I have tried to read by flashlight at night and cannot do it.
The return to nerdery will take a while this time.
Oh dear, I'm so sorry to hear this! I entirely agree, it only makes sense to let language-nerdery fall by the wayside when such an event strikes one's life. I'm very glad you're okay, though, and that you have friends nearby whom you can stay with. I feel very far away, but let me know if there's anything I could do. *hugs*
Jinx on 04 November 2012
Welcome back Teango. Been wondering how you've been getting on.
Thanks man, it's good to be back! I'm currently checking through the last couple of months of posts here, whilst my wife works out to a Zumba DVD in the background and I immerse in the Spanish instructions. Proof of yet more language nerdery on my part... ;)
Once again, big hugs to meramarina, and I hope things start to get better for you and your neighbours soon. You're in my thoughts and prayers.
Teango on 04 November 2012
Fruit: "Pommes, plátanos, uve, fersken"
Viande: "Pork chops, entrecôte, albóndigas, Schnitzel"
Melkeprodukter: "Lait écremé, yogures, brie, chèvre, grana di padano"
Boissons: "Vin rouge, Bier, Diet co*ke, Ðода"
ÐÑба: "Forellen, tunfisk, merlan"
Verduras: "Pomodori, Kartoffeln, pepinos, cresson"
I've been trying to work out your algorithm for choice of languages here, but it has defeated me so far. I wouldn't make it as a code-breaker.
I also write my shopping lists in target languages, but I hadn't thought of categorising them like that. A sign of my untidy mind! :-)
I am afraid there is no algorithm. I normally write it down in whatever language comes to my mind. Sometimes I just like the way it sounds in a particular language, so I tend to choose that one. On other occasions it is because I have read a recipe in e.g. Italian, so I will write down the ingredients I need in Italian. I've found it is a good way of learning the name of groceries.
I use a shopping list app on my smartphone which lets you sort your shopping into categories, something I've found very practical when going around the supermarket looking for stuff.
Ogrim on 05 November 2012
And to anyone else in Sandy's path, please be cautious and careful, take care of yourself and heed official warnings! In the words of Dylan, "It's bad out there, high water everywhere.
Thanks Jinx, that says it very well ! I'm safe but unfortunatly the house was severely damaged. I think I've had the nerdiness knocked right out of me though. Temporarily, I hope. don't know how much can be salvaged from the house. it's appalling in there, Most of the books were on high shelves and survived the flood water and waves, but where do you keep books when your house is wrecked? Not the worst problem right now when entire towns were smashed. Today is the first day I've been warm and clean and had access to electric power (just tonight, I'm staying overnight at a friend's home
Sad nerd today. I have tried to read by flashlight at night and cannot do it.
The return to nerdery will take a while this time.
I was hoping nobody I 'knew' was involved: ***hugs*** If there is anything else to get you back on the grid, shout out.
maydayayday on 05 November 2012
Glad you are safe Meramarina.
Parts of our town were flooded a couple of years ago....nothing on the scale of "Sandy"
of course, but the homes of some people were damaged, so I have an idea how bad it can
be. Hope that it can be put right eventually.
montmorency on 07 November 2012
Once things settle down though, however they do, I'll know am a language nerd again when I continue to learn the wonderful words of the world, after I can put more of them together other than -Light-Warmth-Shelter-Food-Safety=GOOD.
meramarina on 08 November 2012
Best wishes from Germany!
Concerning the original purpose of this thread:
You know you're a language nerd when you ask questions aboutEnglish grammar on HTLAL that have been boethering you since 5th grade, which means for 17 years now.
Josquin on 08 November 2012
You know you're a language nerd when your most common procrastination activity is
studying a language, and #2 is browsing this forum. (I'm an Engineering student)
stifa on 08 November 2012
When you go 10 months with out a date finally find someone and then you find yourself shooing them away so you can do some anki reps....
eggcluck on 09 November 2012
Jack
LanguageSponge on 09 November 2012
Oxygen
Water
Food
Language Learning
Shelter
DaraghM on 09 November 2012
When you learn a new word in your TL (alopecia in Spanish), and then you're excited when you randomly
come across it in both of your spoken languages (English and Russian) within the same day. Yay for the
wisespeard use of Greek-derived terms in medicine and science!
espejismo on 09 November 2012
you giggle to yourself when you are chatting in your native tongue when someone says a word that has a completely different meaning in another language (and a funny one at that!)!
LikeÂEnglish mist, which means crap in German (der Mist).
Or when you hear German dass, which means a toilet in Norwegian...
limey75 on 10 November 2012
When you find a random personal entry dated 2009 in an unfamiliar online diary and you make 5 SRS cards out of it.
Serpent on 13 November 2012
When you get the word "language" in a captcha, and you're excited and try to figure out the other word (too distorted) though normally you'd just refresh it once more to get something comprehensible.
Serpent on 19 November 2012
When you get the word "language" in a captcha, and you're excited and
try to figure out the other word (too distorted) though normally you'd just refresh it
once more to get something comprehensible.
I'm afraid those things usually make me want to punch someone, especially if you click on
the sound "clue", and it's meaningless caterwauling.
Didn't someone add up the wasted person-hours caused by those things, and it came to a
colossal amount?
montmorency on 19 November 2012
it is enough to write one of the words and it will let you in. but you need to select the
"correct" one of the too (usually the more readable, if I remember correctly). there are
two words instead of one because you are doing work for free for someone digitalising
texts or something like that, if i understood correctly. so one word is the real thing-
ensuring you are human, and the other are seconds of free work. try it out, you'll see
that if you write only one or only one and some unreadable asdfasdfdsaf instead of
deciphering the other, it usually works.
Cavesa on 19 November 2012
way, though.
When you get more excited about finding a bundle of arrows in a chest than a small key
when you play Ocarina of Time in Japanese, simply because the former contained a new
word æ.
You know you've been here too much when you have a long list of languages you want to
study in the future. So far, I've got Russian, Spanish, Mandarin, Icelandic, and so
on...
stifa on 19 November 2012
true. i hate the most the captchas with combination numbers-letters. especcialy when it
is strangely deformed and you need to decide whether it is O or 0. or sometimes g and q
Cavesa on 19 November 2012
true. i hate the most the captchas with combination numbers-letters.
especcialy when it
is strangely deformed and you need to decide whether it is O or 0. or sometimes g and
q
Or when they include cyrillic or hanzi...and I can swear I've seen some with the
inuktitut alphabet...
stifa on 19 November 2012
...when you decide to learn French because it'll give you more access to Assimil learning
resources.
Travis.H on 20 November 2012
You are a minor nerd if you look "inuktikut alphabet" up on the internet and discover that it actually is a http://www.omniglot.com/writing/inuktitut.htm - syllabary , not an alphabet. You are a major nerd if you think anyone cares...
Iversen on 20 November 2012
You are a minor nerd if you look "inuktikut alphabet" up on the
internet and discover that it actually is a
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/inuktitut.htm - syllabary , not an alphabet.
You are a major nerd if you think anyone cares...
You know you are a language nerd when you think that is the most logical syllabary
you've ever seen.
Yeah, and I have a tendency of calling any form of written script that represent a
language an alphabet. Sorry!
stifa on 20 November 2012
periodically in the hopes that your score will go up (I'm still only at a 33.13%).
When you are translating for an acquaintance who is trying to buy jewelry from a monolingual Nicaraguan
salesman and you start speaking to your aquaintance in Spanish instead ofEnglish and don't realize until
your acquaintance fails to respond.
When you talk out loud to yourself using multiple languages . . . in the same sentence.
Amerykanka on 23 November 2012
When you overhear some tourists talking in the elevator, and jump out after them whilst holding the door open on another floor, simply to confirm what Slavic language they were speaking. I felt a bit guilty afterwards, as they almost jumped out of their skins too and probably thought I was going to rob them...but it was all worth it in the end: Czech! :)
Teango on 23 November 2012
When you spend Thanksgiving enveloped in table conversation between Mandarin, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish speakers, and have already started drawing kanji on someone's keitai by dessert.
Teango on 23 November 2012
EDIT: And it wasn't even in the first dictionary I looked; I had to go look in a second one to find it â¦
Ari on 24 November 2012
but instead you start learning Welsh and Greenlandic
..when you do victory laps around your house after ordering a vintage Polish to French dictionary from 1907
for 5$
...when you could care less about the story line of that show "Touch" you just watch it to hear the many
beautiful languages
lykkepille on 25 November 2012
when you read your textbook on the way FROM a linguistics exam. when you've already passed and can finally read those tiny font notes that you had no time for.
Serpent on 30 November 2012
four language bookstores one after another...
... complaining why one of them has recently become so anglocentric...
... bringing home four books and dreaming about at least 20 other ones...
... including those for languages you're not learning at the moment...
... and then you and your friend realize the library of the language department at the
university is actually on the way, so you spend another hour browsing through the
shelves.
And then you get home, thinking of this as one of the best Friday afternoons
recently... and you sadly realize there's not much time left for language learning
today.
Julie on 01 December 2012
When one of your colleagues, who is packing to leave the country soon, asks if you'd like any of the books on her shelf, and you gleefully grab a book in Thai (even though you know zero Thai and have no plans to learn it anytime in the near future). What can I say, those beautiful squiggly lines were just too enticing!
Teango on 01 December 2012
When you go around singing a version of the Spanish alphabet song (which you think is the most awesome
thing ever) and consequently annoy your family to death. Oh dear, I shouldn't have just written that - now I
feel tempted to start singing it again!
Amerykanka on 01 December 2012
She doesn't study mandarin oO
jsg on 01 December 2012
When you find it hilarious that the on-yomi for 売 (sell) is "bai". :p
stifa on 01 December 2012
When in the middle of speaking to somebody, you stop to analyze the word you've just said...and then you start translating it in your mind into all the languages you speak
Asal on 03 December 2012
Once I discovered Sid Meier's Civilization a couple of years later, I reverted to being a typical consumer of computer games but never quite purged the bug for languages. It turned up again when I overwrote the files of the default radio communications and voices (English and German) for
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Air_War - European Air War with unofficial modifications in (enhanced) German, Japanese, Polish, Russian and Slovak. Hearing my computer-controlled wingman yell out in Polish Uważaj! Messerschmitt sto dziewiÄÄ! ("Watch out! Messerschmitt 109!" [a German fighter plane]) was a nice change from hearing him yell something similar in the Queen'sEnglish.Chung on 03 December 2012
(that is, you're a Kaspersky employee and you fuÑking download some suspicious sh*t. and when you lose your add-on settings for abcTajpu you come to this thread because you quoted them here:D)
Serpent on 03 December 2012
for idle amusem*nt i downloaded 117,000 language files off of the internet over a 3 day time frame when my family was away. i just wanted to do something useful, that i could use for myself. (categorized by language family into etc folders)
langslav on 04 December 2012
When the Spanish girl that you're dating keeps trying to teach you bits of her language, but you resist because, according to your long-term language learning plan that you've already thought long and hard about, it's not time to start Spanish just yet.
garyb on 04 December 2012
When the Spanish girl that you're dating keeps trying to teach you bits of her language, but you resist because, according to your long-term language learning plan that you've already thought long and hard about, it's not time to start Spanish just yet.
Sorry, that's precisely "not" being a language nerd. A language nerd would never miss such an opportunity.
vermillon on 04 December 2012
When the Spanish girl that you're dating keeps trying to teach you bits of her language, but you resist because, according to your long-term language learning plan that you've already thought long and hard about, it's not time to start Spanish just yet.
Sorry, that's precisely "not" being a language nerd. A language nerd would never miss such an opportunity.
Hah, good point: if I were a true language nerd then I'd probably have the time and capacity to actively study three or more languages at once, as many here seem to, and so I'd take advantage of the opportunity. I was just going for the idea of being language-nerdy enough to have an established plan for learning several languages and insisting on sticking to it.
I know it's a slippery slope - it would start with me learning a few words from her, and before I know it I'd be halfway through Spanish With Ease and be progressing even more slowly in my languages than I already am because I'd be dividing my time between three of them. Two is already a massive commitment and compromise. I also rationalise that since my city is so full of Spanish speakers and I already tend to meet a lot of them socially, I'll have plenty more opportunities when the time does come... If she spoke a language that I was planning to learn but was hard to find speakers of, then it would perhaps be a different story :P.
garyb on 04 December 2012
for idle amusem*nt i downloaded 117,000 language files off of the internet over a 3 day time frame when my family was away. i just wanted to do something useful, that i could use for myself. (categorized by language family into etc folders)
Could you link me to it?
Tupiniquim on 04 December 2012
... when you hate YouTube for advertising: not because there are ads between videos (you
can live with that) but because they are never ever in your target language because of
your stupid IP.
Julie on 04 December 2012
When the 80+ year old neighbour who's partly Swedish gives you his dictionary (he's tried to study it some 10 years ago), and you think it's a nice coincidence... till you realize any language but French or Mandarin would be a nice coincidence for you.
Serpent on 05 December 2012
When the Spanish girl that you're dating keeps trying to teach you bits of her language, but you resist because, according to your long-term language learning plan that you've already thought long and hard about, it's not time to start Spanish just yet.
Sorry, that's precisely "not" being a language nerd. A language nerd would never miss such an opportunity.
You know you are when the OP stirs both anger and envy in you because you would love to date someone for the opportunity to learn from a native speaker. Angry that your partner is not bilingual and envious that the OP's has such a great opportunity and you do not.
psy88 on 05 December 2012
...when you discover your mothers old language textbooks and want to start studying these languages right away.
Jellitto on 05 December 2012
When you cannot translate the phrase, spare time, because your brain no longer understands the concept.
DaraghM on 05 December 2012
... when you leave the dentist's office and, seeing the sign for the exit, you immediately think: вÑÑ Ð¾Ð´!
Josquin on 05 December 2012
... when at the dentist's your only thought is
Ist es sicher? (Is it safe?)
DaraghM on 06 December 2012
When you cannot translate the phrase, spare time, because your brain
no longer understands the concept.
Translating that is easy: In Norwegian, it is "språklæring",
and in Japanese it's "å¤å½èªãåå¼·ããæ"
stifa on 06 December 2012
When the Spanish girl that you're dating keeps trying to teach you bits of her language, but you resist because, according to your long-term language learning plan that you've already thought long and hard about, it's not time to start Spanish just yet.
Sorry, that's precisely "not" being a language nerd. A language nerd would never miss such an opportunity.
Hah, good point: if I were a true language nerd then I'd probably have the time and capacity to actively study three or more languages at once, as many here seem to, and so I'd take advantage of the opportunity. I was just going for the idea of being language-nerdy enough to have an established plan for learning several languages and insisting on sticking to it.
I know it's a slippery slope - it would start with me learning a few words from her, and before I know it I'd be halfway through Spanish With Ease and be progressing even more slowly in my languages than I already am because I'd be dividing my time between three of them. Two is already a massive commitment and compromise. I also rationalise that since my city is so full of Spanish speakers and I already tend to meet a lot of them socially, I'll have plenty more opportunities when the time does come... If she spoke a language that I was planning to learn but was hard to find speakers of, then it would perhaps be a different story :P.
Serpent on 06 December 2012
language. You've even extended your stopover to 3 days... DESPITE...
Demonstrations at Tahrir Square and the palace??? Referendum on the day I land??? Bring
it on!!!
strikingstar on 07 December 2012
interest in
when youre at the mall and there are people behind you speaking language [X], and other people walking by
ignorantly comment about them speaking Chinese, but you know its laos
when, while shopping, you have to stop and check out every foreign script you find
and lastly
when you are disappointed you couldn't find any books in your target or really and foreign languages
zerrubabbel on 07 December 2012
J.R.R. Tolkien is your favorite author because, among other things, he was definitely a language nerd.
You know you are going to be a language nerd when . . .
At age 5 you tell your mother that you want to learn Russian. Your mother orders a program for you, and you
are undeterred by the foreign alphabet, but then you hear that your cousins are learning Spanish. You decide
to learn Spanish instead so you can speak it with your cousins.
At age 11 you use Rosetta Stone to study Polish and, frustrated by the lack of grammar instruction, you
complain, "Comparing Polish cases to Latin cases can only take you so far!"
At age 12 you visit your mother's friend, who speaks Spanish and is learning Aymara. You are fascinated by
the Aymara textbook he has and ever since you have harbored a secret desire to learn Aymara.
Amerykanka on 08 December 2012
When you're out shopping for crockery and see a sign in the distance pointing to "Teller", and get all disappointed when you find out it's just an ATM. :(
Teango on 08 December 2012
When you are starting to feel that some good progress is being made with disaster cleanup and restoration, until you see the big bin on your street labeled Toter
As in a tote bag. It totes. Takes stuff away. But that is not what I thought at first. I was frightened!
meramarina on 08 December 2012
Hail! I do not know what to start with thatâs why I'll start by telling you about myself. I consider myself quite a knowledgeable and clever woman, also I am very pretty and romantic. I fond of outdoor sports special cycling and skiing.. It seems to be banal to describe the man whom I want to see by my side. I am looking for normal, realistic man. For me it is very important to meet my soul mate. Though, I can say for sure that appearance is not everything. The inner beauty is much more important than beauty of the body. I want my man to be positive, reliable and with various interests. And I want to love my man with all my heart and soul. If you want to know me better (link)
and you're pissed off, not because the text and links change every time and these messages are difficult to deal with, but because it looks like typical russianEnglish to you and you're ashamed of your countrymen.
Serpent on 09 December 2012
and when you consider it urgent to come here and post about it!
Serpent on 09 December 2012
But seriously, I have no idea what I was doing on December 31st, 2005 but for some reason
that's when I signed up here :).
Julie on 10 December 2012
When you change the language of your computer whenever you're pissed off at having to restart it for no good reason... although the change means the restart lasts a bit longer!
(Polish now:)))
Serpent on 11 December 2012
When you have fun selling Spanish/Portuguese books on eBay because you see it as an opportunity to ramble on in your TLs about the books' condition, content, and the quality of the translation (where applicable). All my buyers so far seem to beEnglish-speaking Americans, if I can assume that much from names like John Smith, but that doesn't stop me. :P
espejismo on 11 December 2012
Hail! I do not know what to start with thatâs why I'll start by telling you about myself. I consider myself quite a knowledgeable and clever woman, also I am very pretty and romantic. I fond of outdoor sports special cycling and skiing.. It seems to be banal to describe the man whom I want to see by my side. I am looking for normal, realistic man. For me it is very important to meet my soul mate. Though, I can say for sure that appearance is not everything. The inner beauty is much more important than beauty of the body. I want my man to be positive, reliable and with various interests. And I want to love my man with all my heart and soul. If you want to know me better (link)
and you're pissed off, not because the text and links change every time and these messages are difficult to deal with, but because it looks like typical russianÂEnglish to you and you're ashamed of your countrymen.
:)) It think the person who wrote that was also responsible for this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQp-Vpbzg2U&feature=share - video . My only remaining hope is that it might get some people to start learning Ukrainian or something...espejismo on 11 December 2012
I got another one. When you change your friend's ipod's language from Swedish to Bokmål and think it's oh so clever... (but he got the last laugh when when he changed the language of my computer to Swedish, and I immediately got some horrible virus, which made things much more difficult.)
espejismo on 11 December 2012
When you buy soap at your local pharmacy just because it has not a word ofEnglish and looks like this:
espejismo on 12 December 2012
manage to find semi-legitimate ways to sneak a little of one of your target languages
into your lessons.
With the little kids I teach (I'm talking about anywhere between 3 and 8 years old),
when we play competitive games, they like to be in teams. One day I decided to pick who
played next for their team by using "eenie meanie miney mo" or however you spell it.
They loved it - so today I used the German version and they loved that too - "ene mene
Miste, es rappelt in der Kiste, ene mene Meck und du bist weg!". I know it's got a
slightly different meaning to what I actually need, but the repetitive sounds make the
kids laugh. If anyone could tell me the French version, or if there is one in Russian,
please let me know. Serpent? Is there a Russian version of that?
Also when when I play hangman with the youngest ones who have just learnt to read, I
divide them into teams. Having one word to guess at per team is much more interesting,
but I often forget which words I've chosen for which team - so I write the word in one
of my target languages at the top. They might be small things I think it's a little
nerdy.
Jack
PS - I forgot, but I'm reasonably sure "ene mene Miste" is specific to Bavaria, or at
least, I've only ever heard it sung there - I think the one for Niedersachsen goes
something like -
Ene mene Mopel,
wer frisst Popel,
süà und saftig,bläh bläh bläh I've forgotten the rest.
Is there a Hochdeutsch version? Sorry for the diversion.
LanguageSponge on 12 December 2012
ÐÑÑел меÑÑÑ Ð¸Ð· ÑÑмана,
ÐÑнÑл ножик из каÑмана,
ÐÑÐ´Ñ ÑезаÑÑ, бÑÐ´Ñ Ð±Ð¸ÑÑ,
ÐÑÑ Ñавно Ñебе водиÑÑ.
and
Ðники, бÑники ели ваÑеники,
Ðники, бÑники ÑÑели ваÑеники,
Ðники, бÑники, Ñ
оп!
ÐÑÑел зелÑнÑй ÑиÑоп.
There are many more.
espejismo on 12 December 2012
Thanks espejismo :) You know you're a language nerd when you're preparing for the
Christmas Party for the kids at work and you're rehearsing a dance - to that bloody awful
Gangnam Style song. I'm well aware it's not a Christmas song but it will undoubtedly make
them laugh watching their teachers make idiots of themselves in front of a few hundred
people. Anyway, you're watching your co-workers do their improvised actions to the
song that you're supposed to be learning - and you ask them to repeat the moves multiple
times not because they're ridiculous, but because you want to re-check what tones they're
using for the words 1-10, and "left" and "right". And then later you do the dance yourself
and repeat the instructions to the whole group in Mandarin, and hardly notice yourself
doing that :)
LanguageSponge on 12 December 2012
I know it's got a slightly different meaning to what I actually
need, but the repetitive sounds make the kids laugh. If anyone could tell me the French
version, or if there is one in Russian, please let me know. Serpent? Is there a Russian
version of that?
Wikitionary led me to some "similar counting games in other languages"
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/eeny,_meeny,_miny,_moe
Now I have to learn all sorts of them!
mikonai on 12 December 2012
Danish " http://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%86lle_b%C3%A6lle_mig_fort%C 3%A6lle - ælle bælle mig fortælle" - or at least it was like that 50 years ago while I still was in the relevant age group. NB: "mig" is an oblique form of the personal pronoun and "fortælle" ('tell') is an infinitive, so maybe the whole thing is concocted by a grammatically challenged adult.
Iversen on 12 December 2012
Tien pond grutten
Tien pond kaas,
Iene miene mutte is de baas!
That's the Dutch version.
tarvos on 12 December 2012
The playground part of my childhood was mostly in Belarus and we used this one:
Ðа злаÑом кÑÑлÑÑе Ñидели:
ЦаÑÑ, ÑаÑевиÑ,
ÐоÑолÑ, коÑолевиÑ,
Сапожник, поÑÑной.
ÐÑо ÑÑ Ð±ÑдеÑÑ Ñакой?
we sometimes included some modern characters like на злаÑом кÑÑлÑÑе Ñидели миÑки гамми, Ñом и джеÑÑи :D (no idea about миÑки гамми, i missed something i guess)
Serpent on 12 December 2012
Danish "ælle bælle mig fortælle" - or at least it was like that 50 years ago while I still was in the relevant age group. NB: "mig" is an oblique form of the personal pronoun and "fortælle" ('tell') is an infinitive, so maybe the whole thing is concocted by a grammatically challenged adult.
I Norwegian it is similar, only it is "you", not "me" who "fortelle":
Elle, melle,
deg fortelle
Skipet går
ut i år
Rygg i rand,
to i spann
Snipp, snapp, snute,
du-er-ute!
Ogrim on 12 December 2012
Danish "ælle bælle mig fortælle" - or at least it was like that 50 years ago while I still was in the
relevant age group. NB: "mig" is an oblique form of the personal pronoun and "fortælle" ('tell') is an infinitive, so
maybe the whole thing is concocted by a grammatically challenged adult.
The Norwegian version goes like this:
Elle melle
deg fortelle
Skipet går
ut i år
Rygg i rand
to i spann
Snipp snapp snute
du er ute!
Possibly concocted by the same grammatically challenged adult.
Edit: Beaten by Ogrim!
tractor on 12 December 2012
Danish "ælle bælle mig fortælle" - or at least it was like that 50 years ago while I still was in the
relevant age group. NB: "mig" is an oblique form of the personal pronoun and "fortælle" ('tell') is an infinitive, so
maybe the whole thing is concocted by a grammatically challenged adult.
The Norwegian version goes like this:
Elle melle
deg fortelle
Skipet går
ut i år
Rygg i rand
to i spann
Snipp snapp snute
du er ute!
Possibly concocted by the same grammatically challenged adult.
Edit: Beaten by Ogrim!
You now you are a language nerd when you run to the computer to be the first to give your mother tongue contribution to a discussion on children songs and nursery rhymes in different languages!
Ogrim on 12 December 2012
we sometimes included some modern characters like на злаÑом кÑÑлÑÑе Ñидели миÑки гамми, Ñом и
джеÑÑи :D (no idea about миÑки гамми, i missed something i guess)
It's probably this Disney
http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/ÐÑиклÑÑениÑ_миÑе к_Ðамми - cartoon thataired in 92-93, at least in Russia. Its theme song is among my earliest childhood memories.
espejismo on 12 December 2012
Am, stram, gram,
Pic et pic et colégram,
Bour et bour et ratatam,
Am, stram, gram.
Tamise on 12 December 2012
Ene mene Mopel,
wer frisst Popel,
süà und saftig,bläh bläh bläh I've forgotten the rest.
Is there a Hochdeutsch version?
I only know "Ene, mene, miste" and I'm from North Rhine-Westphalia, so this is the High German version.
Josquin on 12 December 2012
above rhymes and learning them, even though you'll never study some of the languages
above. And will use them in class to make the kids laugh yet again today.
Jack
LanguageSponge on 13 December 2012
Ene mene Mopel,
wer frisst Popel,
süà und saftig,bläh bläh bläh I've forgotten the rest.
Is there a Hochdeutsch version?
I only know "Ene, mene, miste" and I'm from North Rhine-Westphalia, so this is the High German version.
I'm from Saxony-Anhalt and know both. :) The second one goes:
Ene mene mopel,
wer frisst Popel,
süà und saftig,
eine Mark und achtzig,
eine Mark und zehn
und du musst gehn.
Mani on 13 December 2012
>When you check HTLAL's "active topics" way more often than Facebook.
stifa on 15 December 2012
When you check HTLAL's "active topics" way more often than Facebook
Or even worse, when HTLAL's "Active Topics" IS your browser's homepage! ;)
Teango on 15 December 2012
...when you get even angrier when your mother argues that the damage is not that severe only because the dictionaries are only humid, not actually wet.
Jellitto on 16 December 2012
at the beauty of the place. While there, you go into a shop and look at all the DVDs,
which are obviously all copies and you get 15 DVDs for less than 1500å and they all
work! But that's not what you're happy about. You're happy about the fact that they all
have Simplified and Traditional Chinese subtitles :D
Jack
LanguageSponge on 17 December 2012
Did you just mean 150rmb instead of 1500?
vermillon on 17 December 2012
It makes your day when you learn how to say "power-assisted steering" in your target language, even though you will probably never need to use this term in real life.
beano on 17 December 2012
Did you just mean 150rmb instead of 1500?
That is what I was thinking too, standard price is 10 kuai a dvd Jack - if you are paying
1500 that is way tooooooo much.
freakyaye on 17 December 2012
You know you're a language nerd when you speak to your dog in 3+ languages day to day..
You know you're a language nerd when you to simultaneously interpret whatever TV program you're watching fromÂEnglish into another language without even noticing
Kc2012 on 17 December 2012
It makes your day when you learn how to say "power-assisted steering" in your target language, even though you will probably never need to use this term in real life.
Ok, you've peaked my curiosity...how do you say "power-assisted steering" in your target language? (I'm keeping my fingers crossed your target language in this case is Russian or German...)
Teango on 18 December 2012
Did you just mean 150rmb instead of 1500?
That is what I was thinking too, standard price is 10 kuai a dvd Jack - if you are paying
1500 that is way tooooooo much.
Yes of course I meant 150 I was just being an idiot writing the reply too quickly!
Thanks!
LanguageSponge on 18 December 2012
When I found, by accident, a video about the treatment of women in Afghanistan and it made my day! The video didn't give me any new information, but it was mostly in Pashto withÂEnglish subtitles.
mick33 on 18 December 2012
when you watch Miss Universe in a non-native Language just for the "ear candy", not the "eye candy" (well, maybe) Miss Venezuela and Miss Brasil are really hot. i watch Spanish tv a lot at nite, after 7 pm. lots of dialog. why do they yell so much at each other?
langslav on 20 December 2012
you use it so much.
When you spend almost an hour painstakingly taping these dozen or so pages back into your Spanish
dictionary and then carefully gluing the spine.
When you are worried because your dictionary will need 24 hours to dry - what on earth will you do if you
need to look up a word, and you don't have Internet access???
Amerykanka on 26 December 2012
When you get out of your bed in the middle of the night to look up a word in the dictionary.
Asal on 27 December 2012
When your idea of a perfect Friday night is staying home and learning Norwegian :)
Asal on 27 December 2012
When you're learning a language tht you have no connection too, but isn't n option on HTLAL.
Shemtov on 28 December 2012
When your idea of a perfect Friday night is staying home and learning Norwegian :)
Meh, that's nothing.
Yet if your idea of a perfect celebration for New Year's Eve were to do the same (or study languages while hungover on New Year's Day), then you'd be quite linguistically nerdy.
Chung on 28 December 2012
When studying Finnish at 4-5am on January 1st is your tradition. will be 7 years soon:)
Serpent on 28 December 2012
When you're learning a language tht you have no connection too, but isn't n option on HTLAL.
Serpent on 28 December 2012
When you're learning a language tht you have no connection too, but isn't n option on HTLAL.
When I spent five minutes explaining the difference between aspirated, unaspirated and retroflex consonants in Hindi to my mother and she rolled her eyes at me and tried to quickly change the subject.
mick33 on 31 December 2012
When you wish your computer had three or four screens so you could look at the Greek, Romanian, Spanish and German versions of the EU website simultaneously.
Ogrim on 07 January 2013
When you start off clicking through silly clips on the Internet, and rather than end up chuckling at cute pets or belly-laughing babies, you end up in this dark distant corner of the YouTube galaxy instead: " http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTDK2jCVPN0 - Voyager: Greetings in 55 languages "...
Teango on 08 January 2013
And when you learn about it, you want to yell: "What programs did you use? Which books? TV? Music? Language exchange? WHAT??!!! You took a CLASS? Why? WHY? I just hope it was a good one. Why didn't you tell me, I could have found some really good resources for you, I know a lot of them, a lot, you know that I'm a language learner and super enthuuuuuuuusiast . . . .
Then you listen to yourself, and understand your friend's silence about the matter.
meramarina on 09 January 2013
And when you learn about it, you want to yell: "What programs did you use? Which books? TV? Music? Language exchange? WHAT??!!! You took a CLASS? Why? WHY? I just hope it was a good one. Why didn't you tell me, I could have found some really good resources for you, I know a lot of them, a lot, you know that I'm a language learner and super enthuuuuuuuusiast . . . .
Then you listen to yourself, and understand your friend's silence about the matter.
when you can no longer consider that person a friend for not telling you
psy88 on 09 January 2013
You know you're a language nerd when you're playing the Sims 3 and you realise that some of the gibberish that they speak is eerily somilar to your target language
sammymcgoff on 11 January 2013
going to sleep at 2:00 AM and it gives you a totally unexpected amount of energy, making
you want to sing along and dance (I'm a beginner in Mandarin, just trying to revise my
numbers).
Who would've thought learning how to add numbers could be so fun? (at ~5:00 in the video)
mirab3lla on 13 January 2013
... you watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iem3Dl49EBc - this video instead of going to sleep at 2:00 AM
When you go on YouTube at 2:00 AM to see this video. When you find the part about numbers and spend some time on that to figure out Chinese numbers and learn a couple of them... despite the fact that you don't learn Mandarin.
Julie on 13 January 2013
It's 2:50 and I'm reading logs. Diagnosis: forum addicted...
Gosiak on 13 January 2013
It's 2:50 and I'm reading logs. Diagnosis: forum addicted...
Welcome to the club :).
... when out of 7 open tabs in your Firefox one is in Swedish, one in Spanish, three in French, two inEnglish, and that's quite far from your best result.
... when one of the reasons to switch back to Firefox was that HTLAL and Chrome aren't best friends.
Julie on 13 January 2013
Ej dziewczyny, idźcie już spaÄ! ;-)
Chung on 13 January 2013
Weekend jest, trzeba korzystaÄ :)
Julie on 13 January 2013
going to sleep at 2:00 AM and it gives you a totally unexpected amount of energy, making
you want to sing along and dance (I'm a beginner in Mandarin, just trying to revise my
numbers).
Who would've thought learning how to add numbers could be so fun? (at ~5:00 in the video)
hjordis on 13 January 2013
When you get out of your bed in the middle of the night to look up a word in the dictionary.
When you wish you hadn't been taught as a child that talking to yourself is something a normal person shouldn't do.
Serpent on 17 January 2013
When you can piece together a radio news report in your sub-A1 French because you heard
the same news report earlier that day in your B1 German.
osoymar on 17 January 2013
when you try to match tones toEnglish intonation
zerrubabbel on 18 January 2013
When you dream about practicing the German dative.
g-bod on 19 January 2013
When you wake up a little after 5AM on your day off because you hear Spanish on TV. Public TV has a program on
getting your GED in Spanish! You stay up listening to it, even though this is your only opportunity to sleep in for
days to come. You are also very excited to hear a little more Spanish on a cartoon that comes on much later. Your
sleepy daughter informs you that the character speaks Spanish sometimes and you are very tempted to continue
watching, but this would interrupt your reading time for the 1/2 super challenge.
wv girl on 21 January 2013
When you return from Cuba with something like 3000 Greek words on your wordlists.
Iversen on 21 January 2013
when you got all excited watching the Turner Classic Movies channel because they were showing Laurel and Hardy movies from the 1930's followed by their foreign language versions, which included your target languages, French and Spanish. It seemed that in the 1930's dubbing was not perfected and was very costly. Laurel and Hardy would film their (English) movie and then would start in with the foreign language version. Since neither spoke another language, they read their lines from cue cards off screen. They actually also did German versions but only the French and Spanish ones were shown.
psy88 on 22 January 2013
When you want to marry a forum member
Serpent on 22 January 2013
fluent, if not highly conversational) in Japanese, Russian, Spanish, and Basque (!), and
is currently studying Hungarian
- when you feel put out that you can't recite everything you know about Basque to the
friend because said person already did so
- when your strategy for stopping yourself from thinking about some recent devastating
news is by spouting out any and all Finnish words you know off the top of your head
- Kat
Phantom Kat on 28 January 2013
When you dream about Korean pronunciation, although you have never studied even the tiniest bit of Korean.
Josquin on 07 February 2013
When you're around a group of your friends, you receive a phone call and answer it in Italian, and nobody even bats an eyelid.
garyb on 07 February 2013
You search for videos of footballers from your country who are playing abroad. Not in the hope of seeing them in action, but to see how they are coping with the language.
beano on 07 February 2013
When you think about all the reasons to travel to a certain country and one of the main ones is thatEnglish (or your native language) is not an official language there.
Darklight1216 on 07 February 2013
You search for videos of footballers from your country who are playing abroad. Not in the hope of seeing them in action, but to see how they are coping with the language.
Haha golden! I was always curious whenever an ex-All Black moved to play rugby in France, whether they learnt French or not. Many do try!
eimerhenkel on 08 February 2013
When a question in another thread on this Forum makes you spend half an hour searching for Serbian internet sites in order to get an idea of the ratio between Latin and Cyrillic script in Serbian media. And you do this although you are (still) not learning Serbian.
Ogrim on 08 February 2013
When you don't even blush about getting the flyer (info about the skiing area) in all six languages. Your native one, two you already speak, one you are learning and two you are definitely going to study next year.
Cavesa on 08 February 2013
When you have installed so many different language settings on your computer that the wall behind your PC is plastered with printouts of keyboard layouts, because you have not yet memorised the Russian, Canadian French, Greek, Serbian and Hebrew keyboard layouts.
Ogrim on 11 February 2013
When the first thing you check for, before buying a DVD, is if it has the dialogue and captions in your target
language.
songlines on 11 February 2013
When the first thing you check for, before buying a DVD, is if it has the dialogue and captions in your target
language.
When you first check in how many of your target languages (and those high on the hitlist) it is dubbed and subtitled on the dvd.
When those thieves wanting you to pay so much only for original and one target language make you angry.
Cavesa on 11 February 2013
When those people, who call bad pronunciation "bad accent", drive you crazy! :-D
Cavesa on 11 February 2013
When you first check in how many of your target languages (and those high on the hitlist) it is dubbed and subtitled
on the dvd.
When those thieves wanting you to pay so much only for original and one target language make you angry.
And when - worse yet - they are in the
wrong target language. "What? You could get subtitles and captionsin all these Asian languages, but not in both national languages of the country you're selling this DVD in..?"
songlines on 12 February 2013
When you hate netflix simply because it hardsubs foreign movies. :(
stifa on 12 February 2013
When you get very annoyed that a major internet retailer doesn't display all the language options on DVDs, forcing you to attempt to find a copy in a physical shop to check before buying. [Something that's becoming more and more difficult in the UK.]
Tamise on 12 February 2013
When you get very annoyed that a major internet retailer doesn't display all the language options on DVDs, forcing you to attempt to find a copy in a physical shop to check before buying. [Something that's becoming more and more difficult in the UK.]
I know the feeling. Amazon is usually pretty good about that, though. You can check their website before you buy elsewhere.
How about when: you refuse to watch purchase or even watch a movie unless it is dubbed or at least subtitled in your target language.
Darklight1216 on 12 February 2013
You are a language geek when you need to pick up a book or find some kind of way to improve your language skill either after, during or before work/school. Nothing can beat the feeling of having learned another few phrases today.
AlexUnited on 12 February 2013
When it's election time in your country, you don't vote (because you have a huge language
exam the day after); but when the consulate of Italy sends you a letter giving you the
chance to vote for the parliament of a nation you're only citizen of because you have an
Italian great great grandfather, you get really enthusiastic and Google each and every of
the candidates before submitting your vote. And then you keep the documents you can keep
as if they were golden, not because they are all that important but because they are in
ITALIAN, people.
Carisma on 12 February 2013
I stumbled on Veps as a Wikipedia language about 2 weeks ago, and it was close enough to Finnish that I had a great time looking through it. A different time, I was looking at something in Georgian--not because I understand it but because I think the script is pretty.
jdmoncada on 13 February 2013
When you see an add that starts with "Verras" and you think it's French, only to find out
the rest of the ad continues in Dutch. You then realise that starting with "Verras" in
French is quite ungrammatical unless it's hyphenated.
tarvos on 15 February 2013
If you don't mind reading in Polish, "Zaproszenie do jÄzykoznawstwa" by Ireneusz Bobrowski is supposed to be quite good, if I recall correctly.
Serpent on 22 February 2013
If you don't mind reading in Polish, "Zaproszenie do jÄzykoznawstwa" by Ireneusz Bobrowski is supposed to be quite good, if I recall correctly.
When you have mostly vague recollections of Polish linguistic books, and you refer to sources in five languages in your thesis ;)
Julie on 22 February 2013
Have any Italian speakers here read his "Storia della lingua Italiana" and would you recommend it?
If you google "Storia della lingua Italiana" for no particular reason, really. While watching German TV in the background. And reading HTLAL inEnglish at the same time, obviously.
Julie on 22 February 2013
When you watch all of 'the desperate housewives of Miami' just because adriana speaks
five languages and you can't wait to hear a snippet of something nonEnglish
freakyaye on 23 February 2013
... when you spend your Saturday night searching for language samples on YouTube and the Colloquial homepage in order to figure out which languages to study in the future.
Josquin on 23 February 2013
When you are processing spam (that's my job) and start wondering whether "qwios" might mean something in some language (which means you can't treat it like a random keymash)
Serpent on 24 February 2013
When you are processing spam (that's my job) and start wondering whether "qwios" might mean something in some language
When you google "qwios" straight away, wondering the same :)
Julie on 24 February 2013
When you annoy your Spanish instructor by complaining about her not including the gender
of the nouns in her vocabulary lists and catching her spelling errors.
lewevanhoop on 24 February 2013
When your 18-month-old son's first attempts at saying thank you sound like " ta ta" in your French ears and
you immediately try to figure out which language it might be, finally deciding onEnglish!
agantik on 26 February 2013
guess most children are native Czech speakers before their parents spoil them by another
language :-D
The annoying of teachers brought me a memory on the course in Berlin: when you are
annoyed that the German teacher is making up some complicated explanations of the grammar
instead of just confirming it works nearly the same way as in French. :-)
Cavesa on 26 February 2013
PS I forgot to mention my parallel versions of texts in Afrikaans with a Dutch and a Swedish translation. Unfortunately Google Translate can't translate into Low German or Frisian yet. And then I somehow just settled for Swedish...
Iversen on 26 February 2013
â¦despite a long-term hatred for French, you decide to force yourself to learn it anyway to be able to access
a wider range of Assimil courses, and fall in love with French against your will.
jsg on 27 February 2013
dabble into ASL.
- Kat
Phantom Kat on 02 March 2013
1) When you look up stuff on Spanish wikipedia just to use the language.
2) When you spend more time looking up new words in Arabic than doing your homework for university.
3) When you hope you'll be able to read Arabic wikipedia soon...
Zireael on 02 March 2013
When someone asks on HTLAL about producing a certain sound, and you attempt to pronounce it as described although you're not learning the language in question.
Serpent on 02 March 2013
When someone asks on HTLAL about producing a certain sound, and you attempt to
pronounce it as described although you're not learning the language in question.
When you realize you already know how to pronounce the aforementioned sound, because it is the exact
sound you produce when you try to mimick your cat purring (don't barks and miews count as foreign
languages?;)
agantik on 02 March 2013
When I get an email from RAI (Italian TV and radio) this morning and even though I know I never signed up to receive emails from them I don't mark it as spam because it is all in Italian.
mick33 on 04 March 2013
are written in 29 languages.
[PLUS: When you take the time to type out the aforementioned number of languages:
English, German, French, Italian, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, Swedish, Danish,
Finish, Greek, Turkish, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Slovenian, Hungarian, BCS,
Romanian, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Bulgarian, Ukrainian, Kazah, Mongolian,
Russian, Armenian and Georgian]
Here is
http://www.amazon.com/Doulton-Luxury-Assorted-Choc olates-Triple/dp/B005Z0OZ8S - the essential aid for all aspiring chocoholic polyglots.Mooby on 05 March 2013
A few minutes ago, I made a typographical error inÂEnglish on Google that was so bad that one of Google's suggestions was "пÑогÑамма пеÑедаÑ". I just had to know what language this was so I let Google search for it and all the results I looked at were for Russian websites. I don't think I can go to bed tonight until I am sure that "пÑогÑамма пеÑедаÑ" is in fact a Russian phrase and then I have to know what it could mean inÂEnglish and Italian.
mick33 on 08 March 2013
ÐÑогÑамма пеÑÐµÐ´Ð°Ñ simply is a broadcasting schedule, пÑогÑамма meaning programme and пеÑедаÑа meaning broadcast or transmission.
Josquin on 08 March 2013
I guess you got an early night, mick33: )
freakyaye on 08 March 2013
When for you, the highlight of the movie Life of Pi is the short sequence early in the film where they talk an Indian language, and you start wondering whether it was Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati or another language, and you decide to buy the DVD once it's released so that you can find out.
Ogrim on 12 March 2013
When you wonder what mick33 typo'ed and try ghjuhfvvf gthtlfx only to see that it doesn't remind you on anything.
When you keep trying. tyuigdvvd... fghygdccd.... and decide it must have been TY uyghur :D
Serpent on 12 March 2013
You go into a bookshop, you head straight for the language section and get excited when you find an obscure one.
You go on eBay and seach LINGUAPHONE and filter out German, Spanish, French and Italian.
When charity workers try to stop you in the street you say "Sorry, i dont speakEnglish" in Polish.
In an Indian resturaunt you ask the staff if they speak Hindi in Hindi.
When you're approached by Chinese people selling copied DVDs in a pub you ask them if they speak Mandarin in Mandarin, then end up talking to them for ages in Mandarin.
Mistermark21 on 15 March 2013
When you watch a really funny video on Youtube, and want to show people so they can enjoy it too, but then you
realise it's in a language which they don't speak.
cmmah on 15 March 2013
you've been doing all day. You say that you've been studying Italian, which leads to an awkward silence as
everyone tries to figure out how to respond to that.
...when you're staying with your aunt and uncle and take advantage of the free time provided by your younger
cousins playing a game in order to read something in French. They finish the game and bother you to pay
attention to them. You are lying on your stomach with one cousin sitting on your back and the other sticking her
face in your book, but you keep reading anyways.
...when your 9 year-old cousin texts you in your target languages to wake you up in the morning.
...when you're on the phone with your mother, rambling about how awesome Assimil is. She tries to change the
subject, and you say "Aw, but I want to keep talking about languages!"
...when you spend an entire semester of college taking nothing but language courses, and you aren't even
majoring in a language and have already completed your language requirement.
marrubizko on 16 March 2013
When your day is not complete without completing one unit of Pimsleur's.
Duke100782 on 16 March 2013
(Several years have gone by since this experiment, but you still remember the day you tried to teach her the
pronunciation of "c", "Ä/ci", and "cz". She didn't quite catch on to it, although she did have a lot of fun
trying.)
When your family thinks it's perfectly normal to hear you talk all about the books you are reading in three
different languages (your native language + two others).
When your 8-year-old sister goes around saying she wants to learn Swedish just because you showed her
some Rosetta Stone demos a few months ago. (Can language nerdery run in the family? It would be
awesome if it could!)
Amerykanka on 17 March 2013
... when you're really annoyed about having to watch your favourite American series with German dubbing, because you can't find anEnglish version.
Josquin on 18 March 2013
When your 8-year-old sister goes around saying she wants to learn Swedish just because you showed her
some Rosetta Stone demos a few months ago. (Can language nerdery run in the family? It would be
awesome if it could!)
*laughs*
I'm a language nerd 'cause I'm not only learning Arabic, I'm also trying to revive my German.
Zireael on 18 March 2013
The fact that anyone speaking a language other thanEnglish on the news is instantly dubbed annoys you.
mausi15 on 20 March 2013
BUT. Your little excursion is not so amusing anymore when you see a table of antique tools of various kinds. Normally, these are very interesting to look at, but THIS time . . . gggrrrrrrr! . . . someone has placed a note by one of them with the wrong German word for scissors.
How, HOW could they! I needed to correct that label, but did not have a pen with me. But next time . . . I'm coming prepared, and it will be fixed.
meramarina on 21 March 2013
to read inÂEnglish, how to read in Polish.
(Several years have gone by since this experiment, but you still remember the day you
tried to teach her the
pronunciation of "c", "Ä/ci", and "cz". She didn't quite catch on to it,
although she did have a lot of fun
trying.)
When your family thinks it's perfectly normal to hear you talk all about the books you
are reading in three
different languages (your native language + two others).
When your 8-year-old sister goes around saying she wants to learn Swedish just because
you showed her
some Rosetta Stone demos a few months ago. (Can language nerdery run in the family? It
would be
awesome if it could!)
I'm pretty sure it is! I know I got it from my sister.
- Kat
Phantom Kat on 21 March 2013
When you tell your family that you don't really want to watch a movie with them because it's inEnglish, and they find that kind of thing perfectly normal.
Bubblyworld on 23 March 2013
The fact that anyone speaking a language other thanÂEnglish on the news is instantly
dubbed annoys you.
That happens to me, too! When I was listening to Pope Francis's first speech I was excited to have a chance
to practice my Italian - and then the interpreter started speaking, so I could barely hear the original Italian!
When you also experience the opposite of the problem mentioned above - you watch the news in Spanish
and sometimes they don't dub theÂEnglish speakers fast enough, so you hear the whole thing inÂEnglish
and don't get to practice your Spanish listening comprehension (for all of like 1 minute, until the reporters start
speaking again, but it's still kind of annoying).
When you watch Nicaraguan news so much that you go around with random sentences from commercials
popping into your head - and sometimes out of your mouth. Some of your favorites are: "Price Club: el mejor
club de compras - ¡ven a visitarnos ya!"; "No te equivoques, usa Valvoline"; "¡Basta con conexiones
ilegales!"; and finally, "Cien por ciento noticias . . . con primicias a toda hora."
Amerykanka on 23 March 2013
O melhor time do Brasil é o seu! :)
Serpent on 23 March 2013
When I think that spending nearly all of my spare time last month learning Italian exclusively is a great idea.
mick33 on 26 March 2013
When you have a dream that you want to learn Norwegian. This is the only part of the dream that you remember.
hjordis on 02 April 2013
when you write a paper about the current sociological position of Afrikaans for your
English Comp 101 research paper.
lewevanhoop on 02 April 2013
When you use the instruction leaflet for a pair of bathroom scales, written in 16 languages, as your bookmark.
...And when the book in question is in your L2
...And when you get distracted from reading the book, and find yourself reading the instructions of how to use the bathroom scales, in Portuguese.
Mooby on 02 April 2013
Fasulye
Fasulye on 02 April 2013
...when you really hate it when somebody recommends anEnglish book to you, because you don't have the time to waste onEnglish, and you have to give some excuse for why you are not going to read that book.
Levi on 04 April 2013
When your uncle gives you an Orthodox funeral service program and you immediately recognize a handful of
words, even though you haven't studied Ancient Greek in several years and have never studied Modern
Greek at all.
Amerykanka on 09 April 2013
You know you're a language nerd...as well as an incurable procrastinator...when you find yourself actually looking up the etymology of the word "procrastinate"!
Teango on 12 April 2013
I know the feeling. Sometimes I get lost in etymology when I look up something, and the answer is very interesting, so I look up a related word, which leads to another, then I notice it resembles a word in another language, so I have to look that up too, which leads me to another word, another language, another word . . . and so on, until I realize that I'm not doing the thing I should be doing (laundry, dishwashing, answering the phone, etc).
meramarina on 12 April 2013
(I procrastinate so much that I can't believe I don't know how to say this!)
Amerykanka on 12 April 2013
When you need some random HP info, and you google Cho Chung instead of Cho Chang.
Serpent on 15 April 2013
You actively seek out a film because you know there is a language theme running through it.
beano on 15 April 2013
When you need some random HP info, and you google Cho Chung instead of Cho Chang.
That reminds me of
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFPWwx96Kew - this slam poetry piece I found the other day. Commenters say the linguistic aspects of the poem have some inaccuracies â e.g. one person says "both Cho and Chang ARE Chinese words pronounced in the Cantonese dialect and can be used as first and last names" â but I mainly just like it for the comment about 'a Frenchman named GarcÃa Sanchez'. :)Jinx on 15 April 2013
When you start wondering about a possible connection between die Traume (sleep in German) and traumatic...
Zireael on 16 April 2013
die Traume (sleep in German)
"Der Traum" (pl. die Träume) means "dream" not "sleep". I don't think it's related to "trauma".
Josquin on 16 April 2013
You notice that most of the language materials are missing from your local bookshop, and you fear it's not just an inventory issue, but the start of the language book Rapture. The LBR when all the good books are taken to heaven, leaving only the bad ones behind, like some Teach Yourself and the Tony Buzan courses.
DaraghM on 16 April 2013
Or when your local bookshop has only ever carried terrible language materials and you
fear that any day you may end up standing outside with a copy of assimil like a deranged
street preacher.
osoymar on 16 April 2013
Me: gets all flustered when spoken to in a language I have a crush on.
My BCSM teacher asked me yesterday "Da li imaš 'Handy'?" (Do you have a cellphone?) and although I understood the question with no problem, I was so thrilled to have just been asked my first ever question in Serbo-Croatian that I just sat there smiling at him like an idiot.
Jinx on 16 April 2013
You know you are a language nerd when all the gifts from friends and family are books to help you learn your target language(s). You are even a bigger(greater?) language nerd if you have to return all of them because you already own them all. And you are the biggest (or greatest) language nerd if you not only own them, but most have yet be opened.
And your friends and family have no other choice but to use these books themselves and years later you are totally confused when your friends and family say to you: "You know, if it weren't for you I wouldn't have learned such and such language."
I haven't had a chance to make the above-mentioned situation real though.
cacue23 on 16 April 2013
Or when your local bookshop has only ever carried terrible language materials and you
fear that any day you may end up standing outside with a copy of assimil like a deranged
street preacher.
When you're disappointed that your library only has dictionaries in 5 other languages [Spanish, French, German,
Russian, Chinese] ... And that they wont let you check out the only one youre interested in [Chinese]
zerrubabbel on 17 April 2013
When you wake up in the morning and can't wait to open your language textbooks!:D
Marya on 18 April 2013
When you send a FRENCH email to your Spanish boss... and he wants to know who has approached you for a new job....
maydayayday on 20 April 2013
When you return a dvd because the claim that it had French dubbing turned out to be false.
Darklight1216 on 20 April 2013
When you buy a Spanish vocabulary textbook just because it was 40% off and it might prove useful "one day"
even though you don't plan to study Spanish in the near future...
agantik on 20 April 2013
All of us have our favorite study materials. You know, the ones you use and think are great. And, we also have very strong opinions about those we feel are useless, designed to separate people from their money with wild promises that the product cannot deliver. You know you are a language nerd when you feel physically ill and literally cringe when someone tells you they are going to order said product because their child wants to learn a particular language and they have heard how great said product is.
psy88 on 21 April 2013
You know you are a language nerd when you feel physically ill and literally cringe when
someone tells you they are going to order said product because their child wants to learn a particular
language and they have heard how great said product is.
Haha, this happens to me every time someone mentions Rosetta Stone. The way I see it, Rosetta Stone
could be a useful beginner's tool . . . if it didn't cost a fortune.
Amerykanka on 21 April 2013
I cringe when someone displays belief that you cannot learn a language without going to a
language school or to the country.
Cavesa on 21 April 2013
After all Homer said it was the colour of bronze (and the sea was the colour of wine), and then even the Old Greeks came to the conclusion that he must have been blind, but apparently even this didn't convice them that a finetuned colour scale might be practical. The ugly secret is the old Greeks weren't really practical in the way the brutal and simplistic Romans were.
Btw. I haven't started reading my new acquisition (nor volume 4 in Russian, which I got in the same package) - like another bookworm I'm am eating my way slowly through volumne one in Irish and volume two in Latin.
Iversen on 22 April 2013
Uh, I kind of know why it might happen in my Arabic lessons sometimes, especially with background noise, but I don't know how it's possible in one's native language.
Zireael on 22 April 2013
When you order a classic movie, and when it arrives you find it unexpectedly dubbed in Thai... and decide to keep it
XDD
zerrubabbel on 23 April 2013
both your wrists and might have to have physical therapy.
(Now this mark of a language nerd I could live without! There were, of course, other factors, since I'm not on
the iPad THAT much, but the language study didn't help the situation.)
Amerykanka on 23 April 2013
When you give a lecture to your friend in the language section of the biggest bookshop in Paris (Gibert
Joseph ^_^), comparing various learning methods so that a woman behind you thinks you're part of the shop
assistants and starts asking you for advice...This happened to me while I was a student, I still give lectures in
bookshops but not so loud now ;)
agantik on 25 April 2013
structures, along with certain difficulties ofEnglish-learners depending on their native
language
- when you look at your Fall schedule and see the one/two-hour breaks between classes as
opportune times for Finnish studying (much better than that one hour you have this
semester!)
- Kat
Phantom Kat on 25 April 2013
When you wouldn't normally want to watch something like Jersey Shore, but you wouldn't mind watching one of its spin offs in another language
sillygoose1 on 26 April 2013
when you've understood a philosophical question inEnglish using the ablative and dative cases of Latin and Sanskrit
darkwhispersdal on 28 April 2013
(I procrastinate so much that I can't believe I don't know how to say this!)
Funnily enough I too was looking up the German word for procrastination today!
mausi15 on 28 April 2013
When you need to get some space on both your computer and external harddrive and the only
solution, after removing movies accidentaly saved twice, is to go through your hoarded
language resources and remove at least a few which you are certain never to use in
future. And it is still better solution than to remove resources for one of the languages
on the hitlist (which you are unlikely to begin in fewer than five years from now).
Cavesa on 29 April 2013
Funnily enough I too was looking up the German word for procrastination
today!
I did the same. ;)
stifa on 29 April 2013
Funnily enough I too was looking up the German word for
procrastination
today!
I did the same. ;)
I thought about it, then thought, "nah, mañana..."
montmorency on 29 April 2013
Funnily enough I too was looking up the German word for procrastination
today!
I did the same. ;)
I've put it off until tomorrow....
maydayayday on 29 April 2013
When you repeat someone's question with a different phonology instead of answering it.
When you write Arabic words into your food with a fork.
When you refuse to watch dubbed movies even if you don't understand the language.
morinkhuur on 29 April 2013
http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ShowUserReviews-g186605-d790430 -r129418926-La_paloma-Dublin_County_Dublin.html - An Irish academic attending a conference on Celtic spirituality was asked if there was any equivalent of 'mañana' in Old Irish. 'Oh, yes, several' was his reply 'but none of them have that sense of pressing urgency conveyed by "mañana".'
Iversen on 30 April 2013
People get into languages for different reasons. You get to watch movies and listen to news broadcast in other
people's perspective. Things that may not show up in local media in 1 language may pop up in another. There are
times you listen to a foreign news broadcast just for the sake of listening to someone speak the language. Not
because you haven't listen to the news earlier in the day. Even the same content but done in a your target
language.
shk00design on 02 May 2013
When you spend all your money on assimil and teach yourself books on Amazon and don´t have enough left for clothes.
aspie.sharaf on 02 May 2013
- when you and a friend eat dinner over a conversation of Japanese and German grammar structures, along with certain difficulties ofÂEnglish-learners depending on their native language
This reminds me of a time when I dropped by a friend's place in Poland and over homemade mushroom soup (zupa grzybowa) we ended up talking about how Proto-Slavonic *g- is now pronounced h in some of the daughter languages but not in Polish and the others, reeling off modern cognates, and how one could reclassify Slavonic languages based on this evolution. (E.g. Polish zupa grzybowa vs. Czech hÅibová (houbová) polévka)
Chung on 02 May 2013
When I read a discussion thread on Yahoo! Answers where someone asked a question about how long it usually takesÂEnglish speakers to learn to speak Arabic well and whether the fact that Arabic isn't an Indo-European language would make it more difficult to learn. I was shocked when I saw that the response with the second-highest number of votes said "First of all, Arabic is an Indo-European language." What!?!?... My shock turned to outrage and then sadness when I noticed that this thread was no longer accepting votes or responses so I couldn't explain that Arabic is in fact an Afro-Asiatic language.
mick33 on 03 May 2013
happen to see the Spanish word for "centipede" (ciempiés) and decide to add it to your flashcards. As
you do so, you think to yourself, "Hmm, it's just like inÂEnglish - the word consists of two other words." And
then you realize that for mostÂEnglish speakers, the word "centipede" does not mean "100 legs", like
ciempiés does in Spanish.
When, in the middle of the library, you speak to your mother in Polish, she tries to guess what you mean, and
the librarian thinks you're a foreign exchange student unable to speakÂEnglish. (Awkward situation!)
When your priest starts speaking in Latin while you're at Mass and you don't even notice until several
moments later, because you understand exactly what he is saying.
Amerykanka on 04 May 2013
When your priest starts speaking in Latin while you're at Mass and you don't even notice until several moments later, because you understand exactly what he is saying.
Serpent on 04 May 2013
...When you want to be immortal. Yes, there are loads of cool reasons but being able to have the time to learn sooo many languages to such a high degree would be awesome! Plus you'd be able to track their changes through time which would be great too! :o)
WentworthsGal on 04 May 2013
When you think you might have to add some international contacts to your Faceebook friend list, because most of mine are monolingual, in nearby time zones, and they are usually sleeping at night. Now that's no fun and would never happen on this forum!
meramarina on 05 May 2013
...When you want to be immortal. Yes, there are loads of cool
reasons but being able to have the time to learn sooo many languages to such a high
degree would be awesome! Plus you'd be able to track their changes through time which
would be great too! :o)
When you'd like a time machine, to find out, for example, whether Anglo-Saxon really was
as inscrutable as it seems, for a modern dayEnglish person, the degree to which the
Anglo-Saxons really could understand the speech of the nordic invaders, and to try to
find out what really did happen to the Celts in England; did they mostly flee, or did
many stay, and integrate, and if the latter, how quickly did they begin to lose their
language, and when did it finally go? (The evidence of Cumbric suggests that it hung on
for much longer in some places than in others).
montmorency on 05 May 2013
...When you want to be immortal. Yes, there
are loads of cool
reasons but being able to have the time to learn sooo many languages to such a high
degree would be awesome! Plus you'd be able to track their changes through time which
would be great too! :o)
When you'd like a time machine, to find out, for example, whether Anglo-Saxon really
was
as inscrutable as it seems, for a modern dayÂEnglish person, the degree to which the
Anglo-Saxons really could understand the speech of the nordic invaders, and to try to
find out what really did happen to the Celts in England; did they mostly flee, or did
many stay, and integrate, and if the latter, how quickly did they begin to lose their
language, and when did it finally go? (The evidence of Cumbric suggests that it hung on
for much longer in some places than in others).
When you can't decide whether you would like the machine to have Tardis-like (or
babbelfish-like) effect. It would be awesome to understand all the languages I would
meet. But would it be so fun without the path?
Cavesa on 05 May 2013
I'm not yet a language nerd, but I'm quite sure that pretty soon I will be one.
cacue23 on 10 May 2013
P.S. I really should stop buying books that are on sale. I already have too many books crammed into my basem*nt room.
cacue23 on 10 May 2013
When your Netflix queue has absolutely nothing in your native language.
When you'd rather play with Google Translate than Angry Birds.
When you're excited to get a new Blu-ray player, not because of the improved picture quality, but because you can finally watch Harry Potter in Catalan and Danish!
josh_badgley on 11 May 2013
When you don't notice https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/31617 7_520024924719430_853141645_n.jpg - what's funny here because you're looking at the Chinese characters.
Serpent on 18 May 2013
Textkit, exercises and a Facebook homepage with lots of foreign words you actually don't
know.
When you don't notice "what's funnyhere" because you're looking at the
Chinese characters.
The trick must be made by another language nerd! I was drawn to that bottle too...
Paco on 18 May 2013
When you inadvertently type " how to learn ant language" instead of "any language" in the Google search bar
and you immediately think how cool it would be to be able to learn the language of ants ...
agantik on 19 May 2013
When you inadvertently type " how to learn ant language" instead of "any language" in the Google search bar
and you immediately think how cool it would be to be able to learn the language of ants ...
Laughs out loud.
Zireael on 19 May 2013
similar phrases in many languages
... when you buy a book of Calvin and Hobbes in Portuguese in Half Price because it'll be
a great way to increase your passive knowledge of Portuguese
- Kat
Phantom Kat on 19 May 2013
When you inadvertently type " how to learn ant language" instead of "any
language" in the Google search bar
and you immediately think how cool it would be to be able to learn the language of ants
...
That would really make you a language bug!
montmorency on 20 May 2013
When you inadvertently type " how to learn ant
language" instead of "any
language" in the Google search bar
and you immediately think how cool it would be to be able to learn the language of ants
...
That would really make you a language bug!
Oh, could you translate "How the hell did you get into the tightly closed jar of honey?!"
phrase into Ant for me, please? I'd be very curious about the answer. :-)
Cavesa on 20 May 2013
Yes, I thought so:
Myrmecology (pron.: /mÉrmɨËkÉlÉdÊi/; from Greek: μÏÏμηξ, myrmex, "ant" and λÏγοÏ, logos, "study") is the scientific study of ants
meramarina on 20 May 2013
etymological origin?
Yes, I thought so:
Myrmecology (pron.: /mÉrmɨËkÉlÉdÊi/; from Greek: μÏÏμηξ, myrmex, "ant" and λÏγοÏ, logos, "study") is the scientific study of ants
See also
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formica - formicaand cf. formic acid & formaldehyde.
montmorency on 20 May 2013
when you're excited at midnight that tadoku has started...
and then it takes you 40 mins to remember that this means june has started. (and that's the month in which i celebrate my birthday!)
Serpent on 31 May 2013
in Montreal, because it gives you an excuse to learn French, but then feel really
disappointed because that will mean less time for German!
When you're willing to avoid restaurant food for the entire school year just to save up
money for a summer trip to a foreign country.
When you have so many Skype language exchange partners that your study schedule is
seriously threatened by it.
Kevin Hsu on 01 June 2013
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=36032&TPN=3 - when you want to have a multilingual funeral
Serpent on 03 June 2013
When you've only just begun planning your summer vacation and you already know which foreign books you need to buy to take them with you.
Serpent on 07 June 2013
*and which books you hope to buy during your trip
Serpent on 07 June 2013
and at which foreign bookstores you can get the widest selection of language learning materials while on your trip!
freakyaye on 07 June 2013
Maybe you are slightly less nerdish when your tactic is to get that information from the local tourist information in each place, but you can restore your nerdiness score by asking them about those things in the local language.
Iversen on 08 June 2013
When unexpectedly you are asked to go to Sofia, Bulgaria on a short business trip, and instead of looking up tourist facts about Sofia, the first thing you do is to try to find online resources for learning some Bulgarian.
Ogrim on 10 June 2013
shopping-list (finished-with, because the SM is closed) attached to a shopping trolley
(on one of those little clipboards that some supermarkets provide with their trolleys),
and pick it up in order to recycle or compost it, notice it's written in what might be
Spanish or Italian, and you look for clues to decide which.
Then you remember that "milk" is "leche" and not "latte" in Spanish, so it almost
certainly must be Italian. However, my Italian is a lot rustier than my Spanish, and it
was not very comprehensive to begin with.
The writing is not very clear, and therefore making due allowance for spelling, can
anyone help with some of these?
liquido pavimal - washing-up liquid?
acetone - vinegar?
affetalo (affetado?) - ?
panini - panini
pomodori - tomatoes
latte - milk
cada pellicula - hmm...that's not cling-film is it?
I wonder if the following are trade-names / brandnames - the writing is v. unclear to
me:
Xotte X
Snolt (Snolte?)
montmorency on 10 June 2013
This happened to me for the first time a few days ago. Usually I can stop the language stew from getting out of my head, but I was in a bakery at the beginning of the month. One of the workers asked me a question inEnglish, and I answered her in Spanish. Then I realized I'd used Spanish. First time I've ever done that. (i.e. talked first and then realized the language I was using later)
jdmoncada on 12 June 2013
When you stare at a package of Duck Tape in confusion one morning, wondering what on earth "ÐÐÑб" could possibly mean in Russian, when the sudden embarrassing realisation dawns that it indicates the length of tape: "30yd" (thirty yards).
Teango on 12 June 2013
When you stare at a package of duck tape in confusion one morning, wondering what on
earth "ÐÐÑб" could possibly mean in Russian, when the sudden embarrassing realisation dawns that it
indicates the length of tape: "30yd" (thirty yards).
If you continue to stare, I believe you should discover it is called Duct Tape. ;)
jsg on 12 June 2013
If you continue to stare, I believe you should discover it is called Duct Tape. ;)
(The comment
was funny, though!)songlines on 12 June 2013
When you stare at a package of duck tape in confusion one morning, wondering what on earth "ÐÐÑб" could possibly mean in Russian, when the sudden embarrassing realisation dawns that it indicates the length of tape: "30yd" (thirty yards).
If you continue to stare, I believe you should discover it is called Duct Tape. ;)
Songlines already beat me to it (lol)! Sorry to rain on your misapprehension, but my roll of tape is indeed labelled Duck Tape (with a little yellow duck fella sporting a white cap and green sash for added measure). ;)
Teango on 12 June 2013
It might be Duck brand, but it's still "duct tape". Even the website indicates as such. In very fine print. To be clearer, a simple capital D would have helped some of us realize it was the brand.
jdmoncada on 12 June 2013
It might be Duck brand, but it's still "duct tape". Even the website indicates as such. In very fine print. To be clearer, a simple capital D would have helped some of us realize it was the brand.
Wow, I didn't think my harmless and intentionally light-hearted "language nerd" post would cause so much disquiet today. I better change to a capital D before there's any more trouble. ;)
Just for the record books though, "duct tape" is defined as "cloth-backed adhesive tape", and my surprisingly controversial roll is simply the clear (no pun intended) non-cloth adhesive variety (we tend to just call this "Sellotape" back in Ol' Blighty, with or without the capital "S").
I've also learned through these shenanigans today that the term "duck tape" can be used synonymously with "
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duct_tape - duct tape " anyway.In my humble case, the roll is labelled "Duck HDClear Heavy Duty Packaging Tape", however on second glance, I'm very pleased to discover all this nonsense was worth the further inspection, as it also states "Ruban d'emballage à haute performance" in French below and "HECHO EN CHINA" in Spanish on the back of the roll (the more target language words on my packaging materials, the better!).
Teango on 12 June 2013
You know you're a language nerd when...
1. Your mother that used to teach you Korean now asks you how to say stuff
2. You feel most badass when you realize the song (whose lyrics you subconsciously
assumed were inEnglish because you understood them perfectly) is actually in your target
language
3. You're the only Black person that regularly attends a Korean language Church
4. You respond to your friends' teasing by saying "laugh all you want, but don't complain
when my multilingualism gets me a job and you can't find work because 'English is all you
need'"
JiEunNinja on 12 June 2013
o.o
jsg on 12 June 2013
It might be Duck brand, but it's still "duct tape".
Even the website indicates as such. In very fine print. To be clearer, a simple
capital D would have helped some of us realize it was the brand.
Wow, I didn't think my harmless and intentionally light-hearted "language nerd" post
would cause so much disquiet today. I better change to a capital D before there's any
more trouble. ;)
Just for the record books though, "duct tape" is defined as "cloth-backed adhesive
tape", and my surprisingly controversial roll is simply the clear (no pun intended)
non-cloth adhesive variety (we tend to just call this "Sellotape" back in Ol' Blighty,
with or without the capital "S").
I've also learned through these shenanigans today that the term "duck tape" can be used
synonymously with "
In my humble case, the roll is labelled "Duck HDClear Heavy Duty Packaging Tape",
however on second glance, I'm very pleased to discover all this nonsense was worth the
further inspection, as it also states "Ruban d'emballage à haute performance" in French
below and "HECHO EN CHINA" in Spanish on the back of the roll (the more target language
words on my packaging materials, the better!).
But what is gaffer tape? Is it the same as duct tape (or d|Duck tape?). This is one of
those things (like the offside rule) that I'm sure real men are just supposed to know,
and to ask is a sign of weakness,,,
:)
montmorency on 12 June 2013
It might be Duck brand, but it's
still "duct tape".
Even the website indicates as such. In very fine print. To be clearer, a simple
capital D would have helped some of us realize it was the brand.
Wow, I didn't think my harmless and intentionally light-hearted "language nerd" post
would cause so much disquiet today. I better change to a capital D before there's any
more trouble. ;)
Just for the record books though, "duct tape" is defined as "cloth-backed adhesive
tape", and my surprisingly controversial roll is simply the clear (no pun intended)
non-cloth adhesive variety (we tend to just call this "Sellotape" back in Ol' Blighty,
with or without the capital "S").
I've also learned through these shenanigans today that the term "duck tape" can be used
synonymously with "
In my humble case, the roll is labelled "Duck HDClear Heavy Duty Packaging Tape",
however on second glance, I'm very pleased to discover all this nonsense was worth the
further inspection, as it also states "Ruban d'emballage à haute performance" in French
below and "HECHO EN CHINA" in Spanish on the back of the roll (the more target language
words on my packaging materials, the better!).
But what is gaffer tape? Is it the same as duct tape (or d|Duck tape?). This is one of
those things (like the offside rule) that I'm sure real men are just supposed to know,
and to ask is a sign of weakness,,,
:)
Gaffer tape is like duct tape but different in that it comes off cleanly for some
reason. It tends to be used by lighting and staging crews a lot, also its
almost...pressure sensitive in the way it can distribute pressure and weight so its
pretty useful.
Source: Helping stage a Latin play and getting lots of experience building and smashing
a stage.
Lykeio on 12 June 2013
Also the best: getting banner ads in languages you're not even studying.
osoymar on 12 June 2013
And then you start wondering how the song would sound in Spanish because your best friend and language buddy lives in Spain!
SamD on 17 June 2013
When you feel you've wasted your commuting time and feel really bad about it when you
don't prepare a Pimsleur lesson or a language podcast to listen to while going to work or
back home.
karaipyhare on 19 June 2013
when wondering what country we both ask ourselves: "What language would we like to pick
up?" before anything else. Yep, it's true. I got my love for languages from her.
- Kat
Phantom Kat on 24 June 2013
When you're sort of dissappointed because your twin brother is one of those "English is
all I need"-people...
stifa on 24 June 2013
When you pick up election information materials in all the languages you can get (even Arabic and Chinese, which have writing systems you cannot read), even though you're already familiar with how an election works in your country.
Zimena on 24 June 2013
When you spy the words "Polish Station" on a sign whilst out with your wife, experience a sudden flicker of childlike joy, and then watch that flame fizzle out as you realise it's just a bunch of nail varnish.
Teango on 25 June 2013
. . . and, what's more, in waking life you haven't even taken a language class or exam in almost twenty years!
meramarina on 25 June 2013
EDIT: ... and even doing it inEnglish when he, as a native Japanese speaker, could have done it in Japanese, helping me out a bit! (Granted, he said that he wanted to speak inEnglish, so he wouldn't get in trouble with the boss.)
kujichagulia on 25 June 2013
When you go back to the city where you were born (and haven't seen in decades) and among
other things, visit the ancient cathedral where you spent many happy hours as a boy (I
was probably an odd boy...), and pick up the visitor leaflet inEnglish and German
(although it turned out not to be a translation, but totally rewritten in a different
style), and would have taken the Danish one, but there wasn't one, and you are now
regretting not having taken the Swedish one (which was there).
montmorency on 27 June 2013
When you spy the words "Polish Station" on a sign whilst out with your wife, experience a
sudden flicker of childlike joy, and then watch that flame fizzle out as you realise it's just a bunch of nail
varnish.
This happens to me a lot, too. Once I saw a big warehouse with the word POLISH across the front and for a
moment was convinced that I had to dash in and see what it was all about! Then reality slapped me across
the cheek.
Amerykanka on 29 June 2013
When drunk or overly tired (or the first thing in the morning), you incoherently switch
between languages.
anethara on 29 June 2013
When you feel you've wasted your commuting time and feel really bad about it when
you
don't prepare a Pimsleur lesson or a language podcast to listen to while going to work or
back home.
Bingo! My favorite one!
Duke100782 on 30 June 2013
...When you stay up all night studying the grammar rules of a language that you don't even speak in your everyday life while you had to be studying for that math test that you're gonna have in the morning.
This has happened to me a lot.
MarlonX19 on 02 July 2013
Yep, familiar. My motivation for German is at its highest whenever I need to prepare for an exam in another subject.
Serpent on 02 July 2013
When you remember the meaning of a word in one language because you know what it means in a closely
related language. Like bala in Portuguese means 'bullet' (and 'ecstasy'), and that's easy to remember
thanks to Lola RodrÃguez de Tió's unforgettable lines: "Cuba y Puerto Rico son de un pajaro las dos alas.
Reciben flores y balas sobre el mismo corazón." :P
espejismo on 02 July 2013
When you add this example to anki, although you already know the word from http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=36064&PN=1&TPN=1 - criminal case .
Serpent on 02 July 2013
When you feel you've wasted your commuting time and feel really bad about it when you don't prepare a Pimsleur lesson
Or you feel you've wasted the commute time listening to Pimsleur, when you should've used something more challenging.
DaraghM on 02 July 2013
The minions are those yellow creatures that seem sort of like sentient tater tots.
SamD on 03 July 2013
be
in Montreal, because it gives you an excuse to learn French, but then feel really
disappointed because that will mean less time for German!
When you're willing to avoid restaurant food for the entire school year just to save up
money for a summer trip to a foreign country.
When you have so many Skype language exchange partners that your study schedule is
seriously threatened by it.
Funny you would say that, because the next polyglot conference will actually be held in Berlin, Germany
June 2014, while the American one next year (from my understanding) will be held in November 2014 in
Montreal. So, in essence, you could actually continue your German study!
Zarmutek on 04 July 2013
language).
It happened to me! XD!
This has happened to me a lot lately by the way. Sometimes I know how to say stuff inEnglish but on the other hand I don't know how to say the same stuff in my native language (Portuguese). And I am always forgetting what the word ''Selfish'' means in Portuguese, I know what it means inEnglish but I always forget its meaning in portuguese, no matter how many times I've looked it up on dictionaries...
MarlonX19 on 04 July 2013
When an acquaintance's offer to teach you Arabic makes you consider changing all your well-organized plans
for your linguistic future. Sigh. Why do all languages have to be so tempting?
Amerykanka on 05 July 2013
When you learn a word in your target language, only to discover, it also exists in your native language. The word was xylophage.
DaraghM on 05 July 2013
When you learn a word in your target language, only to discover, it also exists in your native language. The word was xylophage.
I'm right with you on this one. I've actually learned several newEnglish words (and some French and German words from loan words in Korean that came from those languages) while learning Korean.
Warp3 on 05 July 2013
understand almost everything (with a bit of help from the subtitles). Furthermore, you're pretty sure that you
caught some grammatical errors!
When you learn a word in your target language, only to discover, it
also exists in your native language. The word was xylophage.
I'm right with you on this one. I've actually learned several newÂEnglish words (and some French and
German words from loan words in Korean that came from those languages) while learning Korean.
MyEnglish vocabulary has also expanded due to my language learning!
Amerykanka on 07 July 2013
Even though the performance is very poor, you wait patiently for the forum to come back, to see the new posts.
DaraghM on 08 July 2013
When you crane your neck and shuffle closer and closer to overhear a conversation in Bulgarian in a noisy bar, and almost end up toppling into the neighbouring booth.
Teango on 08 July 2013
When you crane your neck and shuffle closer and closer to overhear a conversation in Bulgarian in a noisy bar, and almost end up toppling into the neighbouring booth.
When, if this happened to you the other way around, with a non-nativeÂEnglish learner falling into YOUR bar booth because he wanted to hearÂEnglish, you would really be totally OK with it. In fact, you'd want to start up a little language exchange session right away!
OK I have one too: When a relative confesses to you that, a few years ago, he stole a few books from your shelf. He didn't look very carefully though, and says that when he got them home, he realized that one was German and one in Spanish. And you're not angry at all, because you can't remember noticing any language books missing, and when he comes to visit, you can look forward to getting two "new" ones!
Then he arrives. He forgot the books.
NOW you are angry.
meramarina on 09 July 2013
And to make matters worse, he is talking on his cell phone and making far more noise.
SamD on 09 July 2013
When one of your classmates/friend tell you that he's gonnna start learningEnglish and you act like the happiest person in the world 'cause now you're not the only one who speaksEnglish.
MarlonX19 on 09 July 2013
in Spanish and you are thrilled when they translate the EU's representative's speech into Spanish (from
English).
When you aren't sure whether to be irritated or delighted when they don't translate the Brazilian
representative's speech into Spanish. You're irritated because you were having fun following all the speeches
and now it's harder for you to keep up, plus you're losing valuable Spanish listening time - but you're
delighted because you understand a lot of the Portuguese and you are now having fun comparing the
Portuguese words with their Spanish equivalents!
When you think that, some day when you have a lot of free time, it might be fun to study the difference
between Portuguese and Spanish sound patterns and then listen to a lot of Portuguese - relying on your
knowledge of Spanish to help you understand.
Amerykanka on 10 July 2013
When, instead of opening the packet of chocolate, you're looking first the text on the fold, in Arabic ...
Hahaha I always do that even though I don't understand a thing in Arabic (only a few words actually) plus, in my family's car there is something written in several languages and I always TRY to read the sentences in a language I have never seen before, I'm always trying to figure out how those words are pronounced.
MarlonX19 on 10 July 2013
- when you decide to dabble in a language that your friends are studying in order to make
quicker progress than them and help them with grammar (because it seems everybody that
you know has a high aversion to grammar and tend to ignore it)
Phantom Kat on 12 July 2013
You are given an Amazon.co.uk gift certificate, and as much as you appreciate the gesture, you're really not sure what to buy with it and you're a bit sad that it's not redeemable on Amazon.fr or Amazon.it, on which you'd have no problem finding things to spend it on.
garyb on 12 July 2013
When someone pronounces a word in your native language that sounds like a word in another language and you laugh while no one else understands the reason why you're laughing. For exemple, I have a classmate whose name is Kauane but every body calls her ''Kau''. Kau is pronounced the same way as ''cow'' lol and I'm not sure aboutEnglish but in Portuguese ''cow'' is also a bad word like ''bitch'' or something, so when I hear someone calling her ''cow'' I laugh. There's also a word the is pronounced like ''co*ck'' and so on but now these are the only one that came to my mind.
MarlonX19 on 13 July 2013
Well, 'cow' can be seen as offensive ('you daft/ugly cow') inEnglish, too!
Zireael on 13 July 2013
(Several years have gone by since this experiment, but you still remember the day you tried to teach her the
pronunciation of "c", "Ä/ci", and "cz". She didn't quite catch on to it, although she did have a lot of fun
trying.)
When your family thinks it's perfectly normal to hear you talk all about the books you are reading in three
different languages (your native language + two others).
When your 8-year-old sister goes around saying she wants to learn Swedish just because you showed her
some Rosetta Stone demos a few months ago. (Can language nerdery run in the family? It would be
awesome if it could!)
Of course it can! A few years ago I was dabbling a little in Finnish, and when walking with my 9-year-old cousin, I found a Finnish vocabulary list in my pocket and showed it to her. Then she asked me how to say 'oak tree' in Finnish. I had no clue. I still don't.
PaulLambeth on 14 July 2013
When you, once again, listen to a song in Portuguese you've long time forgotten,your heart skips a beat, and the next moment you end up having like a dozen of manuals in the language.
Einarr on 14 July 2013
channels in your hotel room in order to hear it being spoken.
You are genuinely surprised to find out that many people turn the volume down when watching sports
broadcasts in a language they don't understand.
beano on 14 July 2013
(Several years have gone by since this experiment, but you still remember the day you tried to teach her the
pronunciation of "c", "Ä/ci", and "cz". She didn't quite catch on to it, although she did have a lot of fun
trying.)
When your family thinks it's perfectly normal to hear you talk all about the books you are reading in three
different languages (your native language + two others).
When your 8-year-old sister goes around saying she wants to learn Swedish just because you showed her
some Rosetta Stone demos a few months ago. (Can language nerdery run in the family? It would be
awesome if it could!)
Of course it can! A few years ago I was dabbling a little in Finnish, and when walking with my 9-year-old cousin, I found a Finnish vocabulary list in my pocket and showed it to her. Then she asked me how to say 'oak tree' in Finnish. I had no clue. I still don't.
Serpent on 14 July 2013
P.S.It looks like it's working.
Cavesa on 14 July 2013
P.S.It looks like it's working.
You're so lucky. My sister is 5 years old currently, I have never lived with her since her birthday and sometimes I imagine how would she be if I had lived with her. I would probably teach herEnglish. She would probably be able to commucicate very well inEnglish by now. By the way, I think next year I'll finally live with her, do you think it's too late for me to try to teach herEnglish?
MarlonX19 on 15 July 2013
Of course it won't be late. People start learning a foreign language at fifty, so five or six really doesn't make a difference. It might even be better as I think children learn much more once they can comfortably read at least their own language and when they have better trained focus.
But don't hold to unrealistic expectations like "she will speak well very soon because children learn fast." I think the first most important lesson to give to any child in this area is that learning another language is normal and it is fun. Second is getting them used to other sounds and pronunciation. Third comes comprehension because without it, noone can learn to speak and write. Really, I think making her experience success, progress and fun with the new skills, that is the best thing in the long run.
Cavesa on 15 July 2013
P.S.It looks like it's working.
You're so lucky. My sister is 5 years old currently, I have never lived with her since her birthday and sometimes I imagine how would she be if I had lived with her. I would probably teach herÂEnglish. She would probably be able to commucicate very well inÂEnglish by now. By the way, I think next year I'll finally live with her, do you think it's too late for me to try to teach herÂEnglish?
Definitely not, any time up to about the age of 11 or 12 that part of the brain responsible for the easy acquisition of languages is still active.
lewevanhoop on 15 July 2013
... and you know you're a language nerd when you're worried about teaching your 5 year old sister a foreign language while the other guys don't even care wether their little sisters know or doesnt know the native language....
MarlonX19 on 16 July 2013
began downloading the Duolingo app...)
espejismo on 17 July 2013
You are an 12-year-old boy on holiday in North Africa who is browsing a comic stand. The dialogue all seems
to be in French but you've started that language at school and might just be able to understand the odd
sentence.
Then you spot the Arabic versions and purchase one of them because the script looks cool.
beano on 17 July 2013
glottal stops, which will stand you in good stead for your future study of Georgian.
EDIT: ... when you get annoyed atÂEnglish Southerners not getting the concept of glottal
stops and thinking we say "t'" instead of "the". We in fact "say" "'"
instead of "the" :)
vixsta on 18 July 2013
When even the composition of your nonEnglish native tongue amazes you
magallanes on 18 July 2013
When you are considering starting Indonesian seriously but find a phrasebook with CD for
Italian and end up buying it just for the fun of trying the mass sentence method.
yuhakko on 18 July 2013
...When you dream in a foreign language during three nights...
MarlonX19 on 19 July 2013
For me, it's the fact that I actually look forward to getting stuck in traffic because I know that I'll have extra learning time.
Jeffers on 19 July 2013
When I was in law school, I had a long commute, about 30 to 45 minutes. I used to pay my
roommate to drive so I could study in the car. I didn't realize until recently just how
unusual that really was.
HenryMW on 19 July 2013
Judging from the last two posts, I'm starting to think language learners are about the only people who look forward to long commutes and down-times.
Lakeseayesno on 19 July 2013
Yorkshire dialect uses
glottal stops, which will stand you in good stead for your future study of Georgian.
EDIT: ... when you get annoyed atÂEnglish Southerners not getting the concept of glottal
stops and thinking we say "t'" instead of "the". We in fact "say" "'"
instead of "the" :)
...when you decide that your "future study" of Georgian just cannot wait and you *have*
to study it alongside Czech, French and the flirtations with Icelandic.
vixsta on 19 July 2013
When your desperate as your student budget doesn't allow you to buy all the study material and foreign media you need for your languages. Not unless you develop some chlorophyll and learn to photosynthesize.
Cavesa on 19 July 2013
When the pain of suffering through a bloody flu fades away before the fact that you,are quite unexpectedly, given Finnish manuals and grammars especially after you realize that you've just saved â¬150.
Einarr on 20 July 2013
... when you see a storefront with the title "OCHO" and interpreting it naturally as something in Cyrillic run through your mind what it could mean in the Slavonic languages that you know (and then after about a minute realize that it's merely the Spanish word for "eight").
Chung on 21 July 2013
Yorkshire dialect uses
glottal stops, which will stand you in good stead for your future study of Georgian.
EDIT: ... when you get annoyed atÂEnglish Southerners not getting the concept of
glottal
stops and thinking we say "t'" instead of "the". We in fact "say" "'"
instead of "the" :)
I was born and brought up in the south but had two northern parents (and a large
extended family "oop north"), so understand perfectly what you have written, although
I'd never seen it expressed like that in writing. :-)
Of course, southerners (especially Londoners) also use glottal stops, but in different
places! :-)
I'm still trying to come to terms with the Danish glottal stop(s), which are different
again.
montmorency on 22 July 2013
I was born and brought up in the south... <snip>
I was trying to figure out how to put it into words haha
I did not know that about some Londoners, a bit of a generalisation on my part I guess.
Danish has glottal stops too? Cool :)
I'm doing okay with Georgian glottal stops; it's the q' (a weird squeaky sound) I'm having
a bit of bother with but not too much.
vixsta on 22 July 2013
I was born and brought up in the south... <snip>
I was trying to figure out how to put it into words haha
I did not know that about some Londoners, a bit of a generalisation on my part I guess.
Probably a bit before your time, but listen to how Tommy Steele pronounces "little" and
"pretty" and a few other words in this:
montmorency on 22 July 2013
You appreciate a joke in a language textbook that requires knowledge of another language to understand. If only the poor fellow from one of the example sentences in my advanced French grammar book had known some Italian, he would've known not to visit the restaurant called "Schifo" where he ate the worst pasta of his life.
garyb on 23 July 2013
and notice that you're two blocks over from Huidekoper Street - "Skin Buyer Street".
This totally freaks you out, and you wonder if the area used to be used for slave
trafficking until you meet up with your friend. She suggests that "skin buyer" might just
be a reference to leatherworking. You are deeply relieved.
Hekje on 24 July 2013
When I get super excited to find an online bookstore with cheap Sami resources.
Henkkles on 24 July 2013
When I get super excited to find an online bookstore with cheap Sami resources.
Help a brotha' out and hook me up!
Chung on 24 July 2013
When I get super excited to find an online bookstore with cheap Sami resources.
Help a brotha' out and hook me up!
http://www.samiduodji.com/tuotteet.html?id=2/
I bought Gulahalan 1 & 2, Oanehis giellaoahppa and Timo K. Mukka's Sipirjá in Sami translation all for 41⬠including postage. Sadly Davvin books were very expensive on their shop, 16,50⬠when they're usually 12⬠at maximum...
You might also want to check out Davvi Girji, that's the publisher of most of these books.
Henkkles on 24 July 2013
When I get super excited to find an online bookstore with cheap Sami resources.
Help a brotha' out and hook me up!
http://www.samiduodji.com/tuotteet.html?id=2/
I bought Gulahalan 1 & 2, Oanehis giellaoahppa and Timo K. Mukka's Sipirjá in Sami translation all for 41⬠including postage. Sadly Davvin books were very expensive on their shop, 16,50⬠when they're usually 12⬠at maximum...
You might also want to check out Davvi Girji, that's the publisher of most of these books.
Oh (*a little disappointed*). I do know those places although the price for each volume of Davvin is a bit higher than when I was in Inari a couple of years ago. Each book cost 8 euros then while its accompanying CD costs 5 euros. It seems now that when buying online you're sold the book with its CD at a higher combined price. I still think that it's not a bad deal. 16 Euros for each volume of Davvin isn't the worst expenditure in the world.
Chung on 24 July 2013
When I get super excited to find an online bookstore with cheap Sami resources.
Help a brotha' out and hook me up!
http://www.samiduodji.com/tuotteet.html?id=2/
I bought Gulahalan 1 & 2, Oanehis giellaoahppa and Timo K. Mukka's Sipirjá in Sami translation all for 41⬠including postage. Sadly Davvin books were very expensive on their shop, 16,50⬠when they're usually 12⬠at maximum...
You might also want to check out Davvi Girji, that's the publisher of most of these books.
Oh (*a little disappointed*). I do know those places although the price for each volume of Davvin is a bit higher than when I was in Inari a couple of years ago. Each book cost 8 euros then while its accompanying CD costs 5 euros. It seems now that when buying online you're sold the book with its CD at a higher combined price. I still think that it's not a bad deal. 16 Euros for each volume of Davvin isn't the worst expenditure in the world.
I didn't realise the Davvin books had CDs with them! That explains the price. Thanks for pointing it out haha. I might have to make another order sometime...
Henkkles on 25 July 2013
..when you can remember details about times long past through what languages you were
studying at that time and what levels you were at. I listen to songs in my target
language too and the bands I listen to tend to change over time. I associate Finnish
with memories of my time spent in lower secondary school because I was studying it then.
The first Finnish band I listened to was Apulanta, specifically the song Jumala. I
associate that song with the city that I used to live in when I listened to it
religiously (the two things are just connected in my mind). I also associate songs from
the band Pariisin Kevät with the winter of 2012, because that's when I started to listen
to them (their band name actually means Parisian Spring though..). I could go on with
these examples.
dtvrij74_ on 25 July 2013
..when you can remember details about times long past through what languages you were
studying at that time and what levels you were at. I listen to songs in my target
language too and the bands I listen to tend to change over time. I associate Finnish
with memories of my time spent in lower secondary school because I was studying it then.
The first Finnish band I listened to was Apulanta, specifically the song Jumala. I
associate that song with the city that I used to live in when I listened to it
religiously (the two things are just connected in my mind). I also associate songs from
the band Pariisin Kevät with the winter of 2012, because that's when I started to listen
to them (their band name actually means Parisian Spring though..). I could go on with
these examples.
You haven't listed Finnish as one you study nor speak though, is this really the case?
Henkkles on 25 July 2013
..when you can remember details about times long
past through what languages you were
studying at that time and what levels you were at. I listen to songs in my target
language too and the bands I listen to tend to change over time. I associate Finnish
with memories of my time spent in lower secondary school because I was studying it
then.
The first Finnish band I listened to was Apulanta, specifically the song Jumala. I
associate that song with the city that I used to live in when I listened to it
religiously (the two things are just connected in my mind). I also associate songs from
the band Pariisin Kevät with the winter of 2012, because that's when I started to
listen
to them (their band name actually means Parisian Spring though..). I could go on with
these examples.
You haven't listed Finnish as one you study nor speak though, is this really the case?
Yeah, I stopped learning around last year during mid-year school exams because I didn't
get far and because I really needed to concentrate on French instead (which is
mandatory for my school). Now, I only know some words and no grammar, so this is pretty
much useless; for example I know that a word that starts with raka(s)- might have
something to do with the word "love" but I don't know what exactly.
(Also, I had many troubles with the R sound and thought/think that it would hinder
intelligibility)
dtvrij74_ on 26 July 2013
..when you can remember details about times long
past through what languages you were
studying at that time and what levels you were at. I listen to songs in my target
language too and the bands I listen to tend to change over time. I associate Finnish
with memories of my time spent in lower secondary school because I was studying it
then.
The first Finnish band I listened to was Apulanta, specifically the song Jumala. I
associate that song with the city that I used to live in when I listened to it
religiously (the two things are just connected in my mind). I also associate songs from
the band Pariisin Kevät with the winter of 2012, because that's when I started to
listen
to them (their band name actually means Parisian Spring though..). I could go on with
these examples.
You haven't listed Finnish as one you study nor speak though, is this really the case?
Yeah, I stopped learning around last year during mid-year school exams because I didn't
get far and because I really needed to concentrate on French instead (which is
mandatory for my school). Now, I only know some words and no grammar, so this is pretty
much useless; for example I know that a word that starts with raka(s)- might have
something to do with the word "love" but I don't know what exactly.
(Also, I had many troubles with the R sound and thought/think that it would hinder
intelligibility)
I'm sad to hear you gave up. Yes indeed, "rakas-" is the stem for "love", such as "rakastaa", to love, "rakas", love as in when you call someone your love, "rakkaus", love as a concept and so on. There are many natives who can't pronounce the r due to something and while I admit they are sometimes a little hard to understand most of the time it doesn't matter at all.
Henkkles on 26 July 2013
..when you
can remember details about times long
past through what languages you were
studying at that time and what levels you were at. I listen to songs in my target
language too and the bands I listen to tend to change over time. I associate Finnish
with memories of my time spent in lower secondary school because I was studying it
then.
The first Finnish band I listened to was Apulanta, specifically the song Jumala. I
associate that song with the city that I used to live in when I listened to it
religiously (the two things are just connected in my mind). I also associate songs from
the band Pariisin Kevät with the winter of 2012, because that's when I started to
listen
to them (their band name actually means Parisian Spring though..). I could go on with
these examples.
You haven't listed Finnish as one you study nor speak though, is this really the case?
Yeah, I stopped learning around last year during mid-year school exams because I didn't
get far and because I really needed to concentrate on French instead (which is
mandatory for my school). Now, I only know some words and no grammar, so this is pretty
much useless; for example I know that a word that starts with raka(s)- might have
something to do with the word "love" but I don't know what exactly.
(Also, I had many troubles with the R sound and thought/think that it would hinder
intelligibility)
I'm sad to hear you gave up. Yes indeed, "rakas-" is the stem for "love", such as
"rakastaa", to love, "rakas", love as in when you call someone your love, "rakkaus",
love as a concept and so on. There are many natives who can't pronounce the r due to
something and while I admit they are sometimes a little hard to understand most of the
time it doesn't matter at all.
I've been meaning to restart learning because I'm on summer vacation from my French
lessons. I just haven't been able to take the plunge (partially because I have since
read many articles about why Finnish is impossible).
dtvrij74_ on 26 July 2013
...When you watch ''american dad'' (my favorite cartoon) inEnglish just because you like the personages' original voices inEnglish.
MarlonX19 on 04 August 2013
I just haven't been able to take the plunge (partially because I have since
read many articles about why Finnish is impossible).
Those are the devil. Think about it this way; it's very regular, there's only one auxiliary verb, uhh... yeah. The direct object thing is wonky I must admit but even I mess up with it like at least once a day.
The point is, if you really want to, you'll learn it.
Henkkles on 04 August 2013
... your appartment looks like mine.
BlaBla on 08 August 2013
I love Apulanta and many other bands. I have many fond memories like that too :-)
Go for it. It will be amazing :')
Serpent on 08 August 2013
Go on, I dare you not to look after reading this... ;)
Teango on 08 August 2013
Teango, I don't need to look now, I read them quite often. And on food packages. And things from Ikea. And electronic devices.
Cavesa on 08 August 2013
written in several languages.
Go on, I dare you not to look after reading this... ;)
Could be an interesting variation on strip poker.
montmorency on 08 August 2013
When you are excited to watch this Greek movie, just because you're in the mood for listening to Greek (and Farsi for that matter) today, yet they've dubbed it into Russian and you fail to watch it...(3 times!!)
Einarr on 15 August 2013
When you're at the dentist getting a filling, and you deliberately focus on Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics in your mind to relax.
Teango on 23 August 2013
When you are traveling for a lot of countries and want to learn every language that you
hear.
Marcos_Eich on 27 August 2013
When you choose not to waste money and time on traveling to countries language of which you don't know, no matter how beautiful they are. :-)
Cavesa on 27 August 2013
Edited for a typo
psy88 on 01 September 2013
Shameless plug for my new blog:
http://languagelearningzone.wordpress.com/ - http://languagelearningzone.wordpress.com/showtime17 on 07 September 2013
When you buy Oi Ocha tea, knowing fully well that it's unsweetened and you weren't keen on it last time, simply because it has cool-looking kana and kanji on a vibrant green background on the bottle...
Teango on 10 September 2013
And to add to Teango's comment, missing milkisu after coming home from korea when everyone else hated it.
freakyaye on 11 September 2013
MP3-thingummy, and are overtaken by a couple speaking German loudly so that you can
hear it through the Cymraeg, and you whip out the earpiece quickly and also step up the
pace to keep up, because they are 30 years younger than you, if a day, with legs a
metre longer, and are not weighed down by a heavy rucksack.
You give up when you realise that "out of breath stalker" is not exactly an enviable
look, and go back to the Cymraeg.
*National Stereotype alert* - you are however, quietly amused to see them take the long
route around using the official footpath (two sides of a square, more or less), while
you take the diagonal shortcut (equally safe, but quicker....you still don't catch up
with them though. :-) ).
montmorency on 11 September 2013
YOU DON'T LIKE OI OCHA?!?!?!?!!?æ»ãï¼ï¼
osoymar on 11 September 2013
When someone tells you that they're not interested in learning a second language, and you genuinely feel
sorry for them.
Zarmutek on 11 September 2013
Wow, you really like your oi ocha! I drink hot sencha when out in town eating sushi, and love preparing matcha when I have all the utentsils, if that will abate my death sentence for now...
Otherwise I'm more of a pot o' tea, milk and sugar guy (perhaps accompanied with a slice of homemade cake or a dunking biscuit on a good day)...call me a traditional Brit in this resepect if you will. ;)
Teango on 12 September 2013
When you read something in French without realizing it's in French until the language switches toEnglish.
jsg on 12 September 2013
Wow, you really like your oi ocha! I drink hot sencha when out in town eating sushi,
and love preparing matcha when I have all the utentsils, if that will abate my death
sentence for now...
Otherwise I'm more of a pot o' tea, milk and sugar guy (perhaps accompanied with a
slice of homemade cake or a dunking biscuit on a good day)...call me a traditional Brit
in this resepect if you will. ;)
:-) Can you get Hobnobs in Hawaii? Perhaps fellow UK members can organise a Care
Package of them for you. (One of Peter Kay's stand-up routines is very relevant here)
montmorency on 12 September 2013
Oh, I dream of hobnobs, real bacon sarnies, and roast Sunday lunches with all the trimmings (I wonder what the equivalent craving is in other countries?). Care package...yes, please!!
Until then I'll make do with my Amazon shipments of Scottish shortbread and Yorkshire blends. :)
Teango on 12 September 2013
When someone says "But everyone speaksEnglish" and you feel the veins in your neck bulging
FuroraCeltica on 13 September 2013
When you consider not speaking with someone because they know your TL, but refuse to speak it
with you.
Darklight1216 on 14 September 2013
When you see an out of print book on a language you 'plan' to learn on Ebay hand HAVE to have it
FuroraCeltica on 14 September 2013
When meeting someone who speaks Pig Latin fluently, is desperate to learn Welsh, and can recite a few
lines in Xhosa makes your day.
When you walk around your dorm reciting Catullus (rather) quietly.
Amerykanka on 15 September 2013
When you consider not speaking with someone because they know your TL, but refuse to speak it with you.
Haha, yes. As much as it's immature, petty, and potentially socially awkward, I still often want to do it.
garyb on 16 September 2013
As much as it's immature, petty, and potentially socially awkward,
It may be awkward in a concrete situation, but if you have paid a lot to travel to a far-away country and only have a few days there then it would be idiotic to waste your precious time on some local jerk who refuse to speak his/her language to you just because you don't speak exactly like him/her. There must be more friendly, patient and mature individuals around.
Iversen on 16 September 2013
As much as it's immature, petty, and potentially socially awkward,
It may be awkward in a concrete situation, but if you have paid a lot to travel to a far-away country and only have a few days there then it would be idiotic to waste your precious time on some local jerk who refuse to speak his/her language to you just because you don't speak exactly like him/her. There must be more friendly, patient and mature individuals around.
Yeah that's true. I suppose I'm more thinking of situations like when the person in question is a friend of a friend or both of you are in the same group conversation. If they're a stranger then there's not much awkwardness; when it happened to me in France, at the Paris Couchsurfing meeting for example, I could and did just walk away and talk to someone else.
garyb on 16 September 2013
It may be awkward in a concrete situation, but if you have paid a lot to travel to a far-away country and only have a few days there then it would be idiotic to waste your precious time on some local jerk who refuse to speak his/her language to you just because you don't speak exactly like him/her. There must be more friendly, patient and mature individuals around.
No need to call them a jerk either.
Tsopivo on 16 September 2013
It may be awkward in a concrete situation, but if you have paid a lot to travel to a far-away country and only have a few days there then it would be idiotic to waste your precious time on some local jerk who refuse to speak his/her language to you just because you don't speak exactly like him/her. There must be more friendly, patient and mature individuals around.
No need to call them a jerk either.
Especially when you're the jerk who slaughters their language mercilessly.
P.S. By 'you' I mean 'one', nothing personal really.
simonov on 16 September 2013
It may be awkward in a concrete
situation, but if you have paid a lot to travel to a far-away country and only have a few
days there then it would be idiotic to waste your precious time on some local jerk who
refuse to speak his/her language to you just because you don't speak exactly like
him/her. There must be more friendly, patient and mature individuals around.
No need to call them a jerk either.
Especially when you're the jerk who slaughters their language mercilessly.
P.S. By 'you' I mean 'one', nothing personal really.
I hope you don't ever teach me a language.
tarvos on 17 September 2013
And in his eyes I may have been a jerk for not just behaving like any other foreigner who can be bullied into submission, but that's part of MY identity as a stubborn language nerd.
Iversen on 17 September 2013
They can control what language they speak in, but they can't control what language you
speak in. So one could just carry on regardless. Good practice for switching (mentally),
I'd think.
montmorency on 17 September 2013
Especially when you're the jerk who slaughters their language mercilessly.
P.S. By 'you' I mean 'one', nothing personal really.
I hope you don't ever teach me a language.
I wouldn't even dream of it! But we're not talking about "teaching", where one is paid to try and get someone to not slaughter a language. Being used as an unpaid tutor and having broken language inflicted on us is not everybody's cup of tea.
Iversen's French guy in the aquarium obviously was insensitive, and had an inflated opinion of his own prowess as a speaker ofÂEnglish. Not very interesting as a conversation partner anyway.
simonov on 17 September 2013
Sure, everyone wants to practise theirÂEnglish these days (try living in Germany for a couple of years - so many people have amazingÂEnglish!), but usually this gives way to the more fluent common language after a few minutes of social negotiation (or at least both speakers settle on communicating at a basic level in the language that wins that battle).
I'll readily admit my French speaking is intermediate and certainly nothing compared to the advanced and fluent posters here in this thread, but surely it would be more fun to have a basic flowing conversation in a café over a glass of pastis, than fish for a few elementary phrases plucked from schoolday obscurity, and rely on growing gestures of frustration, furrowed brows, and pouting lips...all ultimately leading to the death of what could have been a potentially interesting dialogue.
Am I murdering the French language really so badly? Do I have no right to speak the language unless it's near-native perfect? And even if I do eventually speak French like a near-native one fine day, will it make any difference? I just don't get it; maybe someone can help explain this bizarre phenomenon. I wonder if even native French speakers from other parts of the world have similar trouble in Paris, for example, and end up having to speakÂEnglish too (lol).
I certainly don't have the same experience in countries like Russia, Spain, Japan, or even Sweden (where many people have a very advanced level inÂEnglish). On the contrary, in an age whereÂEnglish is so ubiquitous, local people usually seem very impressed that a foreigner took the time and effort to attempt to speak in their language and show respect for their culture.
This speaking French issue is so confusing. Maybe other people have had similar experiences in other languages, and I've just been lucky so far in other countries. Well, whatever it is, at least I feel a little better to read that even advanced speakers in this Forum have to endure the same fate from time to time. Maybe the best tip (if you know your second language level is already quite good enough for basic conversation, the other person is really struggling just to find a few phrases in your native language, and you're in the target language country anyway) is to do what montmorency and The Beautiful South suggest, and just "carry on regardless". Rant over; I feel better now. :)
Teango on 17 September 2013
Especially when you're the jerk who slaughters their language mercilessly.
P.S. By 'you' I mean 'one', nothing personal really.
I hope you don't ever teach me a language.
I wouldn't even dream of it! But we're not talking about "teaching", where one is paid
to try and get someone to not slaughter a language. Being used as an unpaid
tutor and having broken language inflicted on us is not everybody's cup of tea.
Iversen's French guy in the aquarium obviously was insensitive, and had an inflated
opinion of his own prowess as a speaker ofÂEnglish. Not very interesting as a
conversation partner anyway.
It's also poor customer service. Customer is king, if he wants to do business in your
language...
tarvos on 17 September 2013
Maybe I should add that I haven't had any trouble with other Frenchmen, only that lamentable case, so I wouldn't judge a whole nation on such a limited basis. But of course you can be so bad at a language that you can't expect local people to do their business with you in the local language.
Iversen on 19 September 2013
Of course you can be so bad but in that case, you are unlikely to pass a B2 exam for example. I surely met a lot of french who had no trouble using French with me but the % is much different than in other european countries I visited (and I have visited approximately half Europe so far). What strikes me more than my personal experience (which can be biased of course) is the number of people who have got exactly the same experience. That cannot be a coincidence in my opinion.
Cavesa on 19 September 2013
Maybe I should add that I haven't had any trouble with other Frenchmen, only that lamentable case, so I wouldn't judge a whole nation on such a limited basis. But of course you can be so bad at a language that you can't expect local people to do their business with you in the local language.
Interestingly, I had the opposite experience with some students from England in a different French aquarium (up North). The students were supposed to be practising their French, and the lady at the snackbar insisted on speaking with them in French. When the students would ask for something inEnglish, she would tell them how to say it in French. At the time I wasn't learning French myself (I was along as a member of the Humanities deptartment), but I was disappointed that students who were in their second year of French didn't know how to say, "how much is this?"
Down in Besançon, on the other hand, I successfully asked about prices and bought tickets for a boat ride. When I asked for the departure time, and I got a bit mixed up with numbers, the woman groaned loudly and spoke to me inEnglish in an annoyed tone. She was probably someone who wasn't paid enough to really care about the customer, but still a jerk.
Jeffers on 19 September 2013
What strikes me more than my personal experience (which can be biased of course) is the number of people who have got exactly the same experience. That cannot be a coincidence in my opinion.
I have not done nor observed the same thing but I agree that I have read about it many times to discount it.
If someone has trouble with French, it is usually considered polite to switch or offer to switch to their NL but I can't really see a reason why you would continue doing so if the person mention they prefer talking in French and your command of their NL is not as good as their French. That's weird.
It's also poor customer service. Customer is king, if he wants to do business in your
language...
Then keep in mind that "customer service" and this kind of reasoning ("customer is king so if he wants this then the employee has to comply") does not held the same importance worldwide.
Besides, not all customers would be put out by switching to a common fluent language if service is slowed down by the poor level of a particular customer in the country's language.
Tsopivo on 19 September 2013
It has also happened to me with Italian, although more rarely, but all my Italian speaking experiences have been here as opposed to in Italy so I can understand people being more keen to useEnglish. I'm curious to see how things will go when I visit Italy next month.
garyb on 20 September 2013
I know that a remark from me gave rise to this discussion about language choice in conversations with service persons, but maybe we should return to the examples of nerdiness which normally should characterize this thread.
Iversen on 20 September 2013
today.....
Danish is incomprehensible to listen to (sorry Iversen), Welsh is incomprehensible to
read. German is really very well behaved in almost every respect. I could stay in my
German comfort zone forever, but that's not quite the HTLAL way, is it.
montmorency on 20 September 2013
When you are scanning across the map in Grand Theft Auto V and you happen to notice that a region of the map is called "Little Seoul". At this point, you immediately drop any mission plans you had, set a checkpoint for Little Seoul and go read all the Korean store signs there.
Warp3 on 22 September 2013
When you start confusing license plates with Ancient Egyptian transliteration.
Teango on 22 September 2013
When your book shelf is full of materials from languages you 'plan' to study
FuroraCeltica on 24 September 2013
- You've been reading about Albanian online, and you can't remember what brought you there.
- It's nearly midnight
- You go to bed trying to justify the reasons to learn Albanian.
And...
- You do the same thing another night with Lithuanian (etc.!)
Mooby on 24 September 2013
When you buy a health bar simply because it had Arabic on it, and then a sudden gust of wind blows the wrapper out of your hand. With a mouthful of coconut, windmilling like a crazed lunatic down the street, you pursue the abducted wrapper whilst pedestrians stop and stare...and then you stop too...to think...what the hell am I doing?!!
Teango on 24 September 2013
When your book shelf is full of materials from languages you 'plan' to study
When you actually get back to those materials and start studying the languages in question - in some cases 20-30 years after you bought the books.
Iversen on 25 September 2013
When you are heartbroken that, due to your busy schedule, you lost track of time and didn't log on yesterday
. . . which was your third-year anniversary of joining this forum.
Amerykanka on 29 September 2013
Time to blow out those candles and wish for 3 more languages... ;)
Teango on 29 September 2013
When an Arabic-Polish dictionary is your wished-for birthday present...
Zireael on 29 September 2013
several taxi drivers complimented her on her Spanish, that she understood most of the
Spanish speaking guides on various trips she took to historic sites, etc, even though she
has barely "studied" any Spanish since her last trip to Peru several years ago. And on
getting back to her flat and idly picking up a Russian book from her shelves, you start
to read the alphabet, find it harder than you remembered when you very casually studied
it years ago, and she says "no, the alphabet isn't hard.....I learned it easily....it's
the other stuff that's hard....".
Not that she claims to be any kind of linguist, but you feel proud anyway.
montmorency on 29 September 2013
When after downloading a movie, you realize there are hardcoded subtitles in a language you don't know but you're not disappointed at all and try to read them anyway...
Zoulch on 30 September 2013
Time to blow out those candles and wish for 3 more languages... ;)
Thank you! Let's hope my wish comes true. :)
Amerykanka on 30 September 2013
You spend your whole time reading about language learning (blogs and forums like HTLAL),
and only look at the language for 5 minutes.
Matthew12 on 01 October 2013
...you quite like grammar tables, paradigms and the like and can't for the life of you understand why people bash them.
Henkkles on 05 October 2013
when you think really hard about ways to gently but clearly instruct your relatives not to give you books translated to your native language and choose the originals instead as birthday presents.
Cavesa on 05 October 2013
You meet someone in your own country who has family roots in a different land and you immediately start to
wonder if they can speak another language.
beano on 05 October 2013
When you're on your deathbed, mere days away from your last breath, and you're eagerly
spending your remaining hours on earth studying an obscure language spoken by one of your
nurses.
ling on 06 October 2013
When you have a chance to visit a new country, and your first thought is: "Yay! This means I can go to a bookstore there and check what learning materials they have available for their language(s)!"
Zimena on 06 October 2013
You log back into the forum after four years because you realize you just plain miss talking about
languages...
Belardur on 07 October 2013
Did I just finish reading this ENTIRE POST? Over a span of several months alright, but still.
cacue23 on 09 October 2013
You meet someone in your own country who has family roots in a different
land and you immediately start to
wonder if they can speak another language.
I did that at University, my friend lives in my city but was born in Sierra Leone when
her mum worked there but her family originates from Lebanon, so I automatically asked her
something like " hal tataqallameena al-arabiyah?" to her reaction being a shocked face
and nodding.
languagenerd09 on 10 October 2013
And when I get way too excited about the above video and immediately log on to this forum to write this post, but respond to another discussion thread first.
mick33 on 10 October 2013
When your friend wishes you a happy birthday in German, and you understand it only because the week
before that you looked up how to say happy birthday in Yiddish...
espejismo on 10 October 2013
usage, wonder about such non-standard usages in other languages, and how being able to
handle them and use them actively and appropriately must mark one of the differences
between a native speaker and a second-language speaker.
"stick" is of course a dictionary word (noun and verb), but I doubt if that expression
is one that would be taught to a learner. Other possibilities might be:
"shove the kettle on" or "plonk the kettle on", although I can't say I have heard
either frequently. The "standard" usage would be: "put the kettle on" (as in the
nursery rhyme), but perhaps the "correct" usage ought to be: "switch the kettle on",
but I doubt if many people say that normally.
I'm guessing that "put" comes from the days before electric kettles, when you would
either put an old-fashioned kettle on to one of the gas burners on the cooker hob, or
even further back, when you'd put it on to part of an old-fashioned "range" (like my
grandparent's generation used to have), something like this:
Owners of "Aga" cookers can still do this:
http://abbeyboilerssouthwest.com/pics/aga%20cream%20ren.png - Agamontmorency on 10 October 2013
By the way, you do get to learn things. I'm not planning to learn either Italian or Spanish yet, but just think how someone who focuses on these two languages would benefit from watching an opera that way.
cacue23 on 11 October 2013
When you set the languages on your iphone to French, on your iPad to German, on your Kindle toEnglish, your laptop to Italian, your hotmail account to Spanish and your gmail to Norwegian.
Ogrim on 11 October 2013
When you try to find a playthrough of the same video game in as many languages as you
can.
Oheao on 11 October 2013
toothpaste because one side of the box was printed in Italian. Just Italian on that one
side, andEnglish everywhere else. Not multi-lingual like many products.
No idea why. It's not an Italian firm, is it?
montmorency on 11 October 2013
When you discover such common similarities between your home town's dialect and a foreign
language
languagenerd09 on 16 October 2013
When you discover such common similarities between your home
town's dialect and a foreign
language
A friend of mine who lives in the Midlands (of England) claims to see a resemblance
between dialect there and German. Presumably, the connection would be via the Mercian
variety of Anglo-Saxon.
montmorency on 16 October 2013
When you discover such common similarities
between your home
town's dialect and a foreign
language
A friend of mine who lives in the Midlands (of England) claims to see a resemblance
between dialect there and German. Presumably, the connection would be via the Mercian
variety of Anglo-Saxon.
I live in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and I see a lot of resemblance between my city's dialect
and Norwegian.
languagenerd09 on 16 October 2013
When you think to yourself, "Maybe, for my birthday, I'll let myself add French."
Hekje on 17 October 2013
When you think to yourself, "Maybe, for my birthday, I'll let myself add French."
And I think I'm going to give myself Spanish for Christmas...
garyb on 18 October 2013
When you think to yourself, "Maybe, for my birthday, I'll let myself add French."
And I think I'm going to give myself Spanish for Christmas...
That's funny, I was thinking of giving myself Esperanto.
Lakeseayesno on 18 October 2013
....I was thinking I'd give myself Spanish as a new years resolution gift or something. I also gave myself... a gift in the form of a Hungarian text book I found at an old book store today.
Henkkles on 18 October 2013
You buy an electrical appliance which has an instruction booklet containing a dozen languages. You find
yourself looking at Danish and Swedish, or Portuguese and Spanish just to assess the degree of similarity in
the written form, even though you don't actually speak these languages.
beano on 26 October 2013
When you want to ask beano to send the booklet to s_allard :-)
Serpent on 27 October 2013
When you want to ask beano to send the booklet to s_allard :-)
...when you feel the need to make a series of parallel-text booklets from it.
montmorency on 27 October 2013
What about a foreigner (like me) who happens to speak Swedish? Would you treat that the same as a Swede or would you adapt extra strongly?
When you smile like silly at the typo and want to adopt a language too.
Serpent on 28 October 2013
What about a foreigner (like me) who happens to speak
Swedish? Would you treat that the same as a Swede or would you adapt extra strongly?
on your (perceived) proficiency. If you spoke native-like Swedish, you'd fall into the "Swedish category". If you spoke
with an accent, you'd fall into the same "foreigners' category" as if you spoke Norwegian with an accent, and I'd
adopt my language, consciously or unconsciously, according to your level.
When you smile like silly at the typo and want to adopt a language too.
Ha, ha. You made me laugh! :-)
tractor on 28 October 2013
when in the course of reading an article on wikipedia, you can't resist experimenting with the list of languages on the left, and spend more time trying to read the article in 6 languages than in your native language.
Mooby on 02 November 2013
When you don't even visit the version in your native language.
Serpent on 02 November 2013
When you spend some extra time in the shower, just because you can't resist reading the back of the new shampoo label in the languages provided.
Einarr on 03 November 2013
When you don't even visit the version in your native language.
That's me. I use either theEnglish or the Spanish one and I'm increasingly tempted to visit German or Arabic versions, too.
Zireael on 03 November 2013
When you don't even visit the version in your native language.
You mean it comes inEnglish too......... .... ......?
maydayayday on 03 November 2013
When you can read lips of the actors in a movie someone else watches with earphones and you know nearly perfectly all that is being said in the original language.
Cavesa on 03 November 2013
When I found myself teaching French to my sister who has studied it for years, even though I have never in my life studied it.
Henkkles on 03 November 2013
When you see the word "discouraged" and know its relation to "disheartened" because the French word for heart is "cÅur".
luke on 04 November 2013
You know you're a language nerd when you're doing 1000 Anki reps a day and loving it.
Ari on 04 November 2013
When you almost panick because you have done a Romanian vocabulary check based upon random pages from a fat old dictionary from Ceaucescu's time and ended up with a paltry 9000 words. OK, upon closer inspection I can see why I got this ignominous result (I accidentally hit upon several pages without any loanwords), but I still don't like it.
Iversen on 04 November 2013
When you spend like 8 hours a day translating sentences on tatoeba.org
MarlonX19 on 05 November 2013
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8inbodFx3pI
morinkhuur on 05 November 2013
Irish - dabbled with it once, two or three "Speaks" languages ago, if I'm not mistaken
Serpent on 09 November 2013
("Gloria", Chilean, disappointing apart from the music at the end) with your wife, then
fit in some more Welsh before bedtime.
When you are disappointed when your local "art house" cinema is only showingEnglish
language films.
When you write to the Channel Editor of BBC4 asking to know why "Y Gwyll"/"Hinterland",
will only be shown inEnglish, and not Welsh (although BBC4 regularly shows drama
series in Swedish, Danish, French and Italian, and we've also had some (not enough)
Norwegian output on BBC from time to time. And the occasional (not often enough)
Spanish and German film).
montmorency on 10 November 2013
When the memory stick you carry around for listening has 3 different languages but none are your mother tongue.
luke on 10 November 2013
when the memory stick you carry around for listening has 3 different
languages but none are your mother tongue.
When you can't remember the last time you put something in your mother tongue on your
memory stick.
yuhakko on 11 November 2013
When you wonder if MegatronFilm realizes that she created the most successful thread on HTLAL, spanning 394 pages, over 1 million views and still going- 100% popularity. Are you still out there Meg?
iguanamon on 11 November 2013
stuff like "we use .. more easily", etc.
... and you have to say it a few times before realizing it.
... and although you realized it, you still go on using it!
yuhakko on 12 November 2013
When you find this cute little bookstore in the medieval streets of the city and get the
beefiest example of Oxfords's Russian dictionary for only £3.99, and your heartbeat goes
crazy. Then it gets even worse when you see entire courses in Chinese, books in
Norwegian, and other rare languages at the bookstores here, all of them in the same price
range.
Einarr on 15 November 2013
When you wish you had the address of the afore mentioned little bookshop...
agantik on 16 November 2013
When you scour all used books' shops in your town and you buy anything related to language learning because you just might learn, say, Hungarian one day!
Henkkles on 16 November 2013
...you're reading a magazine that has text in alternating paragraphs (Hiragana Times has a paragraph inEnglish followed by the same paragraph in Japanese), and when you get done, you can't remember which language you were just reading. You just know you understood it.
jdmoncada on 16 November 2013
And then you look up
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/stroke_order - stroke order in wiktionary.Serpent on 21 November 2013
When you want to tell your Anglophone wife you're "always hopeful" but you say "toujours optimiste" because it seems to fit better.
luke on 21 November 2013
...when you receive a book ordered from the country of your TL, and treat the 4 sheets of newspaper it's wrapped in like precious relics (and to be read before the book itself).
Mooby on 21 November 2013
When you visit a bookshop and canât find a language book you donât already own.
DaraghM on 21 November 2013
...when you receive a book ordered from the country of your TL, and treat
the 4 sheets of newspaper it's wrapped in like precious relics (and to be read before the
book itself).
Come to think, they should make that compulsory (sending wrapped in newspaper I mean).
montmorency on 21 November 2013
When you visit a bookshop and canât find a language book you donât
already own.
This never happened to me at Blackwell's though--it is like a sort of heaven for language
learners if one goes to the foreign language section. I think in my life I have spent
around £500 there on language materials.
1e4e6 on 21 November 2013
You watch a TV documentary because you know that the presenter speaks the language of the country
where the programme is being filmed. Yet you have no real interest in the subject matter being covered.
beano on 25 November 2013
...when on a slow Saturday morning, you take the opportunity to practice listening comprehension in French &
Spanish by watching youtube videos in these languages about Catalan & Provencal.
wv girl on 30 November 2013
There are also audio files (in continental Portuguese) online for the first part of the book.
Serpent on 30 November 2013
There are also audio files (in continental Portuguese) online for the first part of the book.
When you use a fun thread to ask a fellow language learner for the specific link to the quoted post because the Google search on HTLAL has just failed you (and you are looking for opinions on another book from the same series. Badly.)
Serpent, would you give me the address? :)
Julie on 30 November 2013
...when setting your iPod to "shuffle" makes it switch between random foreign songs and
random language lessons.
One of my favorites! Guilty!
Right now though, stored in my iTouch are over a hundred Chinese podcast lessons (plus other languages)
and I've listened to each Chinese podcast lesson several times. I am so tempted to download many more
Spanish, Russian, French and other languages, but I must focus, focus, focus.
Once my Chinese is more fluent, I'll allow myself to download a lot more podcasts and a lot more languages!
I can't wait!
Duke100782 on 02 December 2013
When you're disappointed that these http://bronzedragon.tumblr.com/post/68720860050/po rcelain-horse-horselain-memrise-james - cute pictures include so few languages.
Serpent on 02 December 2013
There are also audio files (in continental Portuguese) online for the first part of the book.
When you use a fun thread to ask a fellow language learner for the specific link to the quoted post because the Google search on HTLAL has just failed you (and you are looking for opinions on another book from the same series. Badly.)
Serpent, would you give me the address? :)
Serpent on 02 December 2013
When you revisit the idea of learning all the Romance languages because your facebook friend keeps posting all these seemingly interesting articles about Romanian culture.
espejismo on 03 December 2013
A Spanish couple touring your country try asking you for directions; you resolve to learn Spanish.
You witness an emotional reunion of a Chinese family on TV; now you want to learn Mandarin.
etc.
etc.
Mooby on 03 December 2013
When you realize that the best way to keep your mind off at a bay for the ongoing
problems in your life, is to engage yourself into studying your target languages even
more intensively.
Einarr on 03 December 2013
Really. I am excited to talk about anything I love to read and about languages. I gladly give tips to anyone interested (such as pointing them to the bookdepository.co.uk). But sometimes, I am really in a hurry, worried by tons of other things and I wish my book would draw as little attention as books in Czech.
Cavesa on 04 December 2013
practice.
I tired taping this up, didn't work so well but I think it's still eligible, haha. It
looks much worse on the photo than it actually does. Will try reading it later.
Jombo1 on 04 December 2013
anyone else. Not caring that it's a "foreign" language to other americans. lol
-Scream random exclamations in another tongue because you feel like it.
-When you're taking notes or writing something and switch in and out of different languages.
-When you're a member of this forum :D
Foreign rap! YES!!!
pfftclairbear21 on 04 December 2013
practice.
I tired taping this up, didn't work so well but I think it's still eligible, haha. It
looks much worse on the photo than it actually does. Will try reading it later.
Great idea! I should do this! I am going to have to figure out where to access Chinese newspaper!
pfftclairbear21 on 04 December 2013
When the print on the front of the first Christmas card you receive this year is in
wishes in 9 languages, and not only that but the personalized wish from the
friend that sent it is written in an excellent collaboration of Russian, German,ÂEnglish,
Bulgarian and French!
Einarr on 05 December 2013
When you wake up in the middle of the night with recollections of studying Mandarin in a futuristic secret polyglot training facility. Now if I can only get back to sleep and finish my dream training...
Teango on 12 December 2013
When you see the news titled "a polyglot businessman in Bryansk earned 11 million roubles by growing weed at home" and all you want to know is what languages he speaks. (the article says he speaks 4 European langs but mentions only German bc apparently the manuals he used were in German)
Serpent on 18 December 2013
...when the lady talking behind you during a recent Christmas play might have actually
annoyed you somewhat...were she not speaking to her husband in Spanish a good bit of the
time.
Warp3 on 19 December 2013
When you like the new barber because she's from Columbia and enjoys speaking Spanish with you.
luke on 19 December 2013
And you're delighted to find books you've heard of but never seen before.
luke on 19 December 2013
When you wake up in the middle of the night with recollections of studying Mandarin in a futuristic secret polyglot training facility. Now if I can only get back to sleep and finish my dream training...
I'd want the same if I were you!
Zireael on 19 December 2013
When you wake up in the middle of the night with recollections of studying Mandarin in a futuristic secret polyglot training facility. Now if I can only get back to sleep and finish my dream training...
I'd want the same if I were you!
What if it wasn't really a dream, but rather some Jason Bourne type flashback...ç°å¨æ¯åªä¸å¹´??
Teango on 19 December 2013
And the wants to listen to (and already understands) your Arabic lessons because she did the same course.
maydayayday on 19 December 2013
Then I realised it was actually in German. I guess this is payback for failing to notice the issue with having "BAD" written in big letters on my bath mat (almost four years ago today on this very thread).
Teango on 21 December 2013
When you're racking your brains trying to figure out how to slip an hour of language study in, on Christmas Day..... without anyone noticing.
Mooby on 21 December 2013
When you already have made prints of maybe fifty or sixty pages of bi- or monolingual texts for the Christmas days - in the hope (shared with Mooby) that there will be time to study at least some of them.
Iversen on 21 December 2013
When you wonder if "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" is available in your Target Language and get
excited having found it. Then you start to wonder about the truthiness of the
http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/short/whorf.html - Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis and wonder if
your self improvement project will only be effective in the Target Language.
luke on 21 December 2013
giving up though you know your German is rubbish.
And especially when you try to convince the people around you that involving yourself in
studying several languages at a time won't mess them up in your brain, and is absolutely
essential in order for you to keep yourself up with your obsession.
Einarr on 21 December 2013
When you can't believe that most people are ignorant of the meaning of this fascinating word. In fact, you
keep on running into people who don't know what polyglots are. Greek roots, anyone?
Amerykanka on 25 December 2013
http://koti.mbnet.fi/henrihe/tiede/verbikaava.html
Henkkles on 26 December 2013
When you want to wish Feliz ano nuevo to everyone who doesn't care about diacritics.
Serpent on 31 December 2013
When you want to wish Feliz ano nuevo to everyone who doesn't care about diacritics.
*rolls on the floor laughing*
Zireael on 31 December 2013
When you want to wish Feliz ano nuevo to everyone who doesn't care about diacritics.
When you're embarrassed that you didn't know the forms with lienisin, no matter how rare they are.
Serpent on 01 January 2014
Right, I'd better scoot - I'm not missing my glass of champagne.
Happy 2014 everyone!
Mooby on 01 January 2014
I know where I have been: I have been substantiating in situ my claim to being able to communicate in Dutch, even though it has cost me a lot of money to stay in that aforementioned situ. And my biggest worry (apart from the weather) has been that my minuscule van Goor's Danish-Dutch dictionary didn't even have a translation for ""noisy". And that I haven't brought anything in Irish or Latin with me to study in the long cold winter evenings.
Iversen on 05 January 2014
You listen to foreign pop music even though you absolutely hate it inÂEnglish.
I do this all the time.
tomgosse on 05 January 2014
When you can remember 20,000 words in your TL, but not where you put your keys.
ElComadreja on 07 January 2014
When you shout, "Oh, no, here come the mushrooms!" in a tone of despair. Your brother has listened without
comment for the past hour to you mumbling Polish words under your breath, but now he stares at you in
surprise and you explain that all of the different kinds of mushroom you put into your Polish flashcards are
starting to show up. (Why did I think it was a good idea to add words like mleczaj and muchom*or to
Anki last summer?)
Amerykanka on 07 January 2014
(Why did I think it was a good idea to add words like mleczaj and muchom*or to Anki last summer?)
I have never heard of 'mleczaj', must be a specialist word. I googled it and there are apparently many kinds of 'mleczaj'. http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mleczaj_rydz - One of them is commonly known as 'rydz' (and that's a mushroom name that is generally known to Polish speakers, along with muchom*or, pieczarka, kurka, prawdziwek and a dozen of other mushrooms).
(Sorry for not replying to your e-mail, I will (finally!) have a bit more time starting next week. :))
Julie on 07 January 2014
mleczaj bit isn't common. I am always amazed by Poles' knowledge of mushrooms (and plants and
flowers and trees, for that matter)!
Next week sounds great to me! Just let me know when. :)
Amerykanka on 07 January 2014
When you are cooking and you are trying to remember every ingredient's name in four languages. Stop cooking to look up the words you don't know.
renaissancemedi on 07 January 2014
When a good friend of you who works in the foreign office tells you that his next posting is Albania and invites you to visit him, and your first thought is to look for Albanian language resources so you can prepare for a visit in a year's time.
Ogrim on 07 January 2014
When you watch Matrix I movie and get annoyed when you see them spending their time
learning fighting skills instead of languages.
Cristianoo on 07 January 2014
...when you're reluctant to throw out old Christmas cards written in your TL
(and you decide to keep them to study and compare forms of seasonal greetings).
Mooby on 09 January 2014
...when you secretly use your mom's shampoos and conditioners because all the instructions are in Italian.
espejismo on 09 January 2014
When your friend forbids you to learn Portuguese because you might go to Lisabon together some time in future and you already know too many languages :-D (but I think I'll make her learn Portuguese with me. Portugal is one of her dreams and I think I'm enough of a language nerd to convince her ;-) )
Cavesa on 09 January 2014
then one day you're too much tired and you fall asleep... and you dream about studying
languages :D :D :D
Guilty :P
tristano on 10 January 2014
before to go to work,
then one day you're too much tired and you fall asleep... and you dream about studying
languages :D :D :D
Guilty :P
And I thought I was the only one. At one point I was considering 5:30 but then decided
that was taking it too far. Sometimes sleep has to come first.
StarcrazyAngel on 12 January 2014
When you rejoice upon finding your old papers with language learning material you had completely forgotten under lots of more recent ones.
Jellitto on 13 January 2014
When the thing that gets you out of a really bad mood (one of those "my life has no meaning, it's just a bad joke and I hate most parts of it" induced mostly by studying medicine) is entering a bookshop and buying a Japanese course for half the original price. It doesn't matter I'm unlikely to have time for it before 2016. And the language themed conversation with a shop assistant was fun as well. :-)
Cavesa on 13 January 2014
When the thing that gets you out of a really bad mood (one of those "my
life has no meaning, it's just a bad joke and I hate most parts of it" induced mostly
by studying medicine) is entering a bookshop and buying a Japanese course for half the
original price. It doesn't matter I'm unlikely to have time for it before 2016. And the
language themed conversation with a shop assistant was fun as well. :-)
O_O The same thing happened to me today! I was in quite a "divine" mood, and
passed through W H Smith's. Of course I went for the language section "just in case" :D
they have something I might be interested in, then I stumbled upon this Spanish course
reduced from £22 to £5. I don't really know when I'm going to have time for it at all,
given that I can barely wait to undertake my 2014 "resolutions" :D, yet I simply GOT to
have it.
Einarr on 13 January 2014
... when you are reading this forum instead of watching the AFC football playoffs. Like me! :)
tomgosse on 19 January 2014
... when you are going to the other side of the world (China) soon and the only thing you
think about is "will I be able to improve as much as I want in Mandarin?" and don't
really mind the fact that you don't even understand what you future company does
yuhakko on 19 January 2014
When your partner wants to visit Italy and you think, "great, I'll learn Italian".
luke on 20 January 2014
"just in case"
I do this all the time!
freakyaye on 20 January 2014
When you wonder when are you use the above mentioned materials to learn those languages mentioned above......
QiuJP on 20 January 2014
..when you dream of doing Russian cases and wake up because you messed up a few. :D
Einarr on 20 January 2014
Your local library's language section is where you spend most of your leisure time.
Jheavner724 on 21 January 2014
(Edit: No, I am not making it up, it actually happened to me! I spend far too much time on this forum...)
Ogrim on 24 January 2014
The coffees are on me :)
renaissancemedi on 24 January 2014
Which language did we choose?
Iversen on 24 January 2014
Which language did we choose?
I can't remember very well, although I have a feeling it might have been French.
Edit: Re-reading Iversen's question I see I misunderstood, I thought you meant which language we spoke together. As for which language we decided to learn next, I have no idea, I think I woke up before we reached a conclusion:/
Ogrim on 24 January 2014
... when you start reading foreign books even if you only know 30% of the words. Yes, it's hard, but you still do it.
Yaan on 24 January 2014
When you are disappointed by the dates of language exams which won't allow you to try three in a year and therefore force you to choose one or at most two to sign up for :-D
Cavesa on 24 January 2014
...you translate on the fly - and every language that is spoken in a TV show
crazyleseratte on 24 January 2014
You plan a vacation somewhere, then postpone it until you can speak the local language "to basic fluency"
FuroraCeltica on 24 January 2014
When you want to learn 10 languages, then realize that it is unrealistic and settle with just 4.
leroc on 24 January 2014
When you still plan to learn 10 languages or so but you can realistically tell people: "Yeah, Japanese. I'll have time for that in next ten years or so."
Cavesa on 24 January 2014
When you decide to learn Japanese before the other 9, because it's the most exotic one on your wish list.
g-bod on 24 January 2014
When you have no intention of learning 10 languages, but can't stop yourself compiling a list anyway..."just in case".
Mooby on 24 January 2014
When you actually have spent your time on learning 10 languages instead of getting a wife and dog and a house full of screaming kids.
Iversen on 25 January 2014
when for an entire week you do bilingual dreams - once even trilingual - and none of the spoken languages in the
dream are your native one.
tristano on 26 January 2014
Emirates and that you have 3 hours connection time at Dubai airport to your 2nd Emirates
flight then remembering with such great happiness of that book store in the airport that
had a lovely languages section in the corner ...
(Bit of a personal one today)
languagenerd09 on 26 January 2014
When you were busy with birthdays for the whole weekend and the first thing you do when
you're finally alone is come to HTLAL
yuhakko on 26 January 2014
You plan a vacation somewhere, then postpone it until you can speak the local language "to basic fluency"
Phew...I thought I was the only person who did this! Even my daughter says "Daddy, you don't have to speak perfect X to travel there..."
IndÃritheach on 26 January 2014
When suddenly you feel odd for people talking about not even wanting to learn ten languages when your own goal is to get there before your 30th birthday...
Henkkles on 26 January 2014
When suddenly you feel odd for people talking about not even wanting to learn ten languages when your own goal is to get there before your 30th birthday...
Hmm...my own 30th is coming up in 8 months, and my goal is to have at least Spanish, French, and Irish up to a decent level.
IndÃritheach on 26 January 2014
When your wife is looking at a shoes store and you are looking to the otherside at a
bookstore wondering if they sell russian dictionaries
Cristianoo on 27 January 2014
I filled it out for Belarusian and Esperanto, does Latin count? What about toki pona? (there are no native speakers but there are fluent ones)
I'm quite picky when it comes to resources, btw. Some examples of things I'd use:
-GLOSS
-lyricstraining
-Destinos/French in action*
-animated resources about the phonetics
-books like "______ for doctors" - I'm not a doctor but I'm interested in medicine, and some books even teach you from scratch
-in general, materials that teach you something apart from the language itself
*I'm not learning French but based on what I've read here I think I would love the equivalent of "French in action" for a different language.
I also need good music, audiobooks, fantasy stories and preferably an opportunity to watch football (soccer) in that language. Despite being more successful, Esperanto failed at all of the above for me.
Serpent on 28 January 2014
If I remember correctly, it was this: 大ç°
By wictionary, it might mean something like "big field". Is it possible?
Cavesa on 29 January 2014
EDIT: Wikipedia tells us that the Japanese town of Ooda is written with the same characters as well.
Josquin on 29 January 2014
When this game fixes your mood.
http://greatlanguagegame.com - The great language game
Einarr on 29 January 2014
When you play 'The great language game', intending to have 5 minutes of fun, but 30 minutes later you find yourself searching the internet for details about the Javanese language.
Mooby on 30 January 2014
When one page of your travel pad has scribblings in three different scripts, and you know one is an alphabet, another is an abjad and the third one is an abugida.
Luso on 02 February 2014
espejismo on 04 February 2014
When you visit the bathroom at a friend's house and, at the risk of concerning your host at your long absence, find yourself examining noun declensions on a foreign bottle of hand lotion.
Mooby on 13 February 2014
[EDIT - Embarassing grammar mistake. :-( ]
DaraghM on 13 February 2014
Your toying
When you learn a language for years and see this happen... I'm not faulting you, I'm not perfect either. Just... the fact that I care is when I know I'm a language nerd.
Henkkles on 13 February 2014
Your toying
When you learn a language for years and see this happen... I'm not faulting you, I'm not
perfect either. Just... the fact that I care is when I know I'm a language nerd.
You don't have to be a language nerd to care about grammar. Of course, when you're not a
native speaker and you correct a native speaker, well that's a pretty good sign!
But what's this about a dead language challenge?
Jeffers on 13 February 2014
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=38091&PN=0&TPN=1 - Here's the challenge.
Serpent on 13 February 2014
You're in a coffee shop chatting in a mixture ofEnglish and French and you think you're doing pretty well... until you realise that the people next to you are chatting in a mixture of not onlyEnglish and French but also... Arabic. Ok, I suppose they win this time!
garyb on 14 February 2014
When you pick up a second hand copy of a dvd you always meant to buy, are momentarily
disappointed it doesn't have the soundtrack for the language you're learning but cheer up
when you see it does have Hungarian and Polish instead which might be handy one day...
yantai_scot on 14 February 2014
When this game fixes your mood.
http://greatlanguagegame.com - The great language game
mick33 on 14 February 2014
You see a poster saying âNail Polishâ and think itâs a language learning instruction, and not a beauty product.
DaraghM on 18 February 2014
Haha yeah, I remember Amerykanka saying how she was puzzled why typing polish on youtube wouldn't find her anything in Polish :-)
Serpent on 18 February 2014
When you PM a forum member about a film spoken in two unusual languages and he replies that he's delaying seeing that movie until he begins learning the second one.
Luso on 21 February 2014
Disney
"Let it Go" from the movie "Frozen" sung in 25 languages!
seldnar on 22 February 2014
Disney
"Let it Go" from the movie "Frozen" sung in 25 languages!
When it takes you about 10 seconds into this video to decide to share it on your social network account, even though you know your friends will ignore it. :P
Luso on 22 February 2014
When you randomly come up with the expression "let's cross the eyes and dot the È's"
Serpent on 28 February 2014
When you randomly come up with the expression "let's cross the eyes and dot the È's"
LOL, it's late enough that it took me a few seconds to notice the problem there! I know, I know, it's not rocket surgery....
Jeffers on 28 February 2014
represent your mind better than the equivalent in other languages, or you don't know the
equivalents even in your mother tongue, or simply you like how they sound.
- When you think about a friend as a "jan pona" :D
tristano on 28 February 2014
When you succumb to a chocolate treat (honestly not something I'd usually do!) in the grocery store more because it
has such an interesting looking name, paczki, than for the chocolate!
wv girl on 28 February 2014
You are only a beginner student of Chinese, but still correct Google Translate's mistakes as you go along, with sentences like "ææ³ç°å¨è¯´è±æå¯æ¯ä»ä¸ä¼è¯´è±æ"
DavidStyles on 28 February 2014
When you feel like learning Russian just to be able to read the whole of Tarvos' log, Dutch for the same
reason with Hekje's log, and Danish with Fasulye's log. Thanks to all members writing in their target
language, you all rock!
agantik on 02 March 2014
When all or most language encounters make you say to yourself "maybe someday..."
Darklight1216 on 03 March 2014
When you randomly come up with the expression "let's cross the eyes and
dot the È's"
When you know that that letter needs a dot and not a cedilla.
tarvos on 03 March 2014
When you randomly come up with the expression "let's cross the eyes
and
dot the È's"
When you know that that letter needs a dot and not a cedilla.
When you even know what a cedilla is.
luke on 03 March 2014
I collect language books. For languages I don't plan on learning. Guilty as charged.
Henkkles on 10 March 2014
..when you stop seeding most torrents around a ratio of 1.2:1 to 1.5:1 but you just can't
bring yourself to stop seeding the FSI torrent that was posted here last year. As a result it
is now at a ratio of over 17:1 and as of today has been seeding for exactly a year
(apparently I downloaded it March 10, 2013, which I didn't notice until I had already started
typing this post). Stopping that torrent just seems...wrong, somehow.
Warp3 on 11 March 2014
When the best part of The Once and Future King was the magic words of Merlin.
ElComadreja on 11 March 2014
-When someone is talking to you (in your native language) and you translate what they are saying (to your target language) in your head.
-When you're out with your friends and you meet a foreign person (even if they don't speak the language you are learning), you spend the majority of the night asking them about their culture and how to say things in their language.
-When it's your day off and you spend the day studying your target language simply for pleasure.
-When your friend texts you and asks you to go to a beer garden and it doesn't seem right, it should be spelled "Biergarten"
The list goes on. I'm sure I'll think of more.
soclydeza85 on 15 March 2014
Right now I'm watching (or rather listening) to Press club in Croatian from HRT1.
Iversen on 16 March 2014
You are on holiday in a place where a minority language exists and you overhear children using the language
in public. This really makes your day and you feel elated that the language has some sort of future, even
though you have zero intentions of ever studying the language yourself.
beano on 16 March 2014
When you discover that Basque-Icelandic pidgin existed and that two glossaries still
exist, you think 'Where can I find copies of them?'
PolyNotYet on 17 March 2014
And you don't understand this. At all.
beano on 18 March 2014
Suddenly, you see a sacred book in one of those languages, you point it out and your teacher says: "ten Euros is too much; I'd buy it for five".
Punchline: you actually consider coming back later without him and buying the book.
Luso on 18 March 2014
When you're disappointed that Coelho uses facebook in his native language
Serpent on 02 April 2014
When you discover that Basque-Icelandic pidgin existed and that two
glossaries still
exist, you think 'Where can I find copies of them?'
o___O
:Q__
tristano on 02 April 2014
... when your potential new flatmate's chances to be chosen increase dramatically as soon as you hear she speaks your TL (in this case, Russian).
Josquin on 03 April 2014
When you to the "frequent sites" page of your web browser and http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/ is the top hit.
luke on 04 April 2014
When you fail to find one episode of your favorite mexican telenovela and proceed to watch the dubbed French version instead.
Ari on 05 April 2014
When you realize that you haven't watched anything in your mother tongue since the
beginning of the year and that it's been a month that what you do watch is in one TL and
the subs in another TL
yuhakko on 06 April 2014
This one is of a dog waste disposal bin from my recent trip to Poland - now my friends really think I'm wierd!
Mooby on 07 April 2014
http://i58.tinypic.com/r10avt.jpg - Hehe
Serpent on 07 April 2014
My German friend living here in the UK almost posted a letter into the red dog bins we
have locally when she came visiting...Managed to stop her with a 'nooooooo!'
yantai_scot on 08 April 2014
I definitely do. :p
stifa on 09 April 2014
And that's it. Spontaneous enthusiasm for grammar analysis, I guess, with excessive exclamation points. Happens to everyone.
2. When your handwriting is so bad that you look at your shopping list and wonder why you wrote it with IPA symbols.
Then, you think that might actually be an interesting thing to do.
meramarina on 09 April 2014
I definitely do. :p
Serpent on 10 April 2014
I always had a hard time understanding how native speakers could mess up these things, until I accidentally wrote "you're" instead of "your". That was a very good day. I finally felt like my command ofÂEnglish was up to native standards, because now I was making the same mistakes they are making.
When you're ridiculously excited to find
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=30012&PN=18&TPN=1 - the thread in question and to know that this moment happened on HTLAL.Serpent on 10 April 2014
To suddenly feel as if a language has given you a wake up call to actually be able to
learn languages more effectively than you thought you could in the past.
languagenerd09 on 10 April 2014
(the grammar book in question is Toute la conjugaison by Gaillard and Colignon, the note that made me laugh is on page 24: "à la 2e personne du pluriel du présent de lâindicatif et de lâimpératif, la forme conjugée est dites (sans accent circonflexe), et non disez, barbarisme trop souvent entendu, voire lu."
Cavesa on 11 April 2014
When you set out to learn more about animal intelligence and working memory on the Internet, but somehow end up watching a Japanese tv comedy about a chimpanzee and a bulldog, dubbed into Chinese, with a cheery version of the German children's song "Alle Vögel sind schon da" playing in the background.
Teango on 13 April 2014
When you watch a movie and try desperately not to look at subtitles if a character
speaking a foreign language suddenly speaks
FuroraCeltica on 13 April 2014
When you spend a sunny Sunday translating Old Irish (before you even have breakfast), studying Modern Irish grammar until you nearly fall asleep with your head in the books, and talking to a friend over the phone about whether Táin Bó Cúailnge was written in Old Irish or Middle Irish.
jeff_lindqvist on 14 April 2014
... and then have to refrain from pointing out spelling errors.
P.S.: I don't know about other countries, but here it's fashionable to get text tattoos in exotic scripts. The least you would expect is for people to spend a bit of time checking to see whether what they're so indelibly printing on themselves is error-free. In my experience, this seems not to be a concern. Go figure!
Luso on 14 April 2014
When a friend tells you "You're catching them all like the pokémon!"
Cavesa on 15 April 2014
When you log into HTLAL in the morning and become extremely disappointed when you see that there have only been postings in three threads during the last 12 hours. Mesdames et Messieurs, where are you?
Ogrim on 16 April 2014
When you log into HTLAL in the morning and become extremely disappointed when you see that there have only been postings in three threads during the last 12 hours. Mesdames et Messieurs, where are you?
There's a problem with the DNS name resolution. Someone showed a workaround in the Language Den on Google groups. But few people will see that, so it will be pretty empty until the real problem gets fixed. How the heck have you gotten in?
Jeffers on 16 April 2014
When HTLAL is down and you google-search for it and read http://www.lingq.com/forum/1/14646/?page=1 - discussions about HTLAL on other forums.
Serpent on 16 April 2014
When HTLAL is down and you google-search for it and read http://www.lingq.com/forum/1/14646/?page=1 - discussions about HTLAL on other forums.
When HTLAL is down and you follow another language nerd's link to a discussion about HTLAL on another forum, and actually read most of it.
Jeffers on 16 April 2014
When HTLAL is down and the first thing you do before you have had your first coffee of the day is go on Twitter to find out what's up and then modify your hosts table on your computer (something you didn't even know you had when you went to sleep) so you can still log onto the site.
patrickwilken on 17 April 2014
When HTLAL is down and you remember the helpful planning posts for the "inevitable crash" and how we would all meet up on the wiki to regroup.
And you come back and find your friends have been here for days without missing a beat.
And your own language studies have been more productive, since you didn't have this distraction/attraction.
luke on 17 April 2014
When you log into HTLAL in the morning and become extremely disappointed when you see that there have only been postings in three threads during the last 12 hours. Mesdames et Messieurs, where are you?
There's a problem with the DNS name resolution. Someone showed a workaround in the Language Den on Google groups. But few people will see that, so it will be pretty empty until the real problem gets fixed. How the heck have you gotten in?
The morning I wrote that I could log in as normal, but ten minutes later I had no access again. No idea why I was able to get in in the first place.
Ogrim on 20 April 2014
When you log into HTLAL in the morning and
become extremely disappointed when you see that there have only been postings in three
threads during the last 12 hours. Mesdames et Messieurs, where are you?
There's a problem with the DNS name resolution. Someone showed a workaround in the
Language Den on Google groups. But few people will see that, so it will be pretty empty
until the real problem gets fixed. How the heck have you gotten in?
The morning I wrote that I could log in as normal, but ten minutes later I had no access
again. No idea why I was able to get in in the first place.
me a few days ago as well.
hjordis on 20 April 2014
When you go to the foreign language book section of a book store and feel ill if you
leave without buying something
FuroraCeltica on 22 April 2014
When you have colleagues from Poland, India and Lithuania at work and feel excruciatingly
dull for being unable to have at least a small chat in their mother tongues. Then you go
back home and search for stuff in Polish, because you know you can pick something up in
it faster than in the other two.
Einarr on 22 April 2014
P.S. the lingq forum thread is sooo funny!
Speaking about htlal censorship while putting asterisks instead of competitor's name and saying: "a lot of those people seem to have drunk the kool-aid that says that you can be a C2, native level that lets you do "anything in target language that you can do in native language" in 3 months" as the opposite of their approach, that made me laugh :-D
Cavesa on 22 April 2014
You go to use the ATM and you set your TL as the transaction language.................and it was exciting
soclydeza85 on 27 April 2014
P.S. the lingq forum thread is sooo funny!
Yes, I liked it. In the end, I agree with the guy that wrote: "It never ceases to amaze me how much time people spend complaining on the internet." When you come to think of it, it all boils down to that, one way or the other.
Luso on 28 April 2014
After which you spontaneously swear that you absolutely have to learn Finnish some day.
Mooby on 01 May 2014
After which you spontaneously swear that you absolutely have to learn Finnish some day.
This delights me.
Henkkles on 02 May 2014
When you realise that one of the biggest buttons on your microwave says "Clear / Off", and wonder how this bold-faced insult was left unnoticed until now.
Teango on 02 May 2014
When the best part of the Once and Future King was the magic words of Merlin.
"I suppose it's educational in a way."
"It's very educational", said the Wart. "I can't think of anything more educational
than to be with some real knights fighting. Oh, Won't you please do it?"
"Do you prefer any particular knight?"
"King Pellinore," he said immediately. He had a weakness for this gentleman ever since
their strange encounter in the forest.
Merlin said, "That will do very well. Put your hands to your sides and relax your
muscles. Cabricias arci thuram, catalamus, singulariter, nominativa, haec musa.
Shut your eyes and keep them shut Bonus,Bona,Bonum. Here we go. Deus
Sanctus, est-ne oratio Latinas? Etiam, oui, quare? Pourquoi? Quai substantivo et
adjectivum concordat in generi, numerum et casus. Here we are."
While this incantation was going on, the patient felt some queer sensations.
ElComadreja on 02 May 2014
.. when you look up "Cabricias arci thuram, catalamus" because that didn't look like something invented by an American playwright, and you discover that the real source is http://moliere.paris-sorbonne.fr/base.php?Cabricias_arc i_thuram - Molière . And contrary to the person or persons who wrote the script for the Merlin thing Molière didn't have Google to find something he could steal.
Iversen on 02 May 2014
.. when you look up "Cabricias arci thuram, catalamus" because that
didn't look like something invented by an American playwright, and you discover that the
real source is http://moliere.paris-sorbonne.fr/base.php?
Cabricias_arci_thuram - Molière . And contrary to the person or persons who wrote the
script for the Merlin thing Molière didn't have Google to find something he could steal.
If you are referring to the previous post, The Once and Future King was published in
1958. Well before the internet was available to the general public.
Jeffers on 02 May 2014
Apparently "The Once and Future King" was written by Mr. Terence Hanbury White, a British author, and this man commands my full respect for knowing that there was something useful to be snatched from the play of a French author (monsieur Molière). Part of the confusion is due to my distaste for a particularly inept TV series labeled "Merlin" which pollutes certain TV channels here in Denmark, and which looked exactly like the stuff shown at MTV apart from the Medieval setting - hence my guess that it was made in America. But in this case even this guess turned out to be wrong: the culprits behind "Merlin" are in fact British: Julian Jones, Jake Michie, Johnny Capps og Julian Murphy. In the Broken-Danish http://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merlin_tv-serie - Wikipedia article about this series mr. White is not even mentioned - and that is for once a positive sign.
Iversen on 02 May 2014
...when you decide to read the Bible (for the first time!), and the language is Esperanto.
jeff_lindqvist on 02 May 2014
...consider...
Henkkles on 03 May 2014
When you try to read the foreign scripts ignorant people tattoo on their bodies (even at the risk of getting beat up!)
Jeffers on 03 May 2014
When you get yourself a really nice tablet and you spend the past few days downloading apps and transferring .pdfs and audio files to turn it into a language-learning work station.
soclydeza85 on 07 May 2014
Seeing this message is frustating because I can't figure out how to make Google understand that I'm very happy with my user language being set to Finnish because it has helped me learn some new words. Apparently Google only wants people who live in Finland to view their sites in Finnish.
NB. I also switched my Twitter to Finnish two days ago and now get all their email notices in Finnish. This shows that I need to use Twitter more since it is clearly better than Google.
mick33 on 14 May 2014
"Olemme määritäneet sinulle kieliasetuksen. Tällä hetkellä käytössä oleva kieli on Suomi. Voit vaihtaa asetuksen alla."
In case you wanted to know, you missed a "t" in "määrittäneet".
Henkkles on 14 May 2014
Thanks, Henkkles. I'm not surprised that I missed a letter, I'm surprised I didn't make more mistakes.
mick33 on 15 May 2014
see the following message every time I log on to YouTube: "Olemme määritäneet sinulle
kieliasetuksen. Tällä hetkellä käytössä oleva kieli on Suomi. Voit vaihtaa asetuksen
alla.". Also when I brag that I was able to make a pretty good guess as to what those
Finnish sentences mean without a dictionary. BTW It basically tells me that Google has
noticed my language settings, I am currently using Finnish and I can change this below.
Seeing this message is frustating because I can't figure out how to make Google
understand that I'm very happy with my user language being set to Finnish because it
has helped me learn some new words. Apparently Google only wants people who live in
Finland to view their sites in Finnish.
NB. I also switched my Twitter to Finnish two days ago and now get all their email
notices in Finnish. This shows that I need to use Twitter more since it is clearly
better than Google.
foreign language even though I have it set toÂEnglish. I also
once went to the website of a game I used to play out of curiosity and it was all in
French for some reason. I then spent a few hours making a new account and playing in
French. The voice acting was still inÂEnglish, but all the text was in French. Quite
strange.
hjordis on 16 May 2014
Seeing this message is frustating because I can't figure out how to make Google
understand that I'm very happy with my user language being set to Finnish because it
has helped me learn some new words. Apparently Google only wants people who live in
Finland to view their sites in Finnish.
NB. I also switched my Twitter to Finnish two days ago and now get all their email
notices in Finnish. This shows that I need to use Twitter more since it is clearly
better than Google.
You can set your preferred languages in the browser settings, these will be sent to all
websites you access. I see google.de displayed in Danish even though I never told
google to do so and I do not live in Denmark.
daegga on 17 May 2014
What I hate is google constantly switching the broser back to either .cz or .de (after I switched it once in Berlin). Really, the search results are different so I know pretty well which one I wanna use each time :-(
Cavesa on 17 May 2014
Google.de is Germany
This was my point ;) I see German google in Danish because in my browser preferences,
Danish is on the top of the preferred languages list. Unfortunately, this also brings
Danish wikipedia pages as top results, even though I'm still at the google.de site and
not switched to google.dk -.-
daegga on 17 May 2014
- when you set your GPS to Russian, and try to hit as many roundabouts as possible just to be able to figure out what the word for 'roundabout' is in Russian :-)
Solfrid Cristin on 19 May 2014
I also switched my Twitter to Finnish two days ago and now get all their email notices in Finnish. This shows that I need to use Twitter more since it is clearly better than Google.
mick33 on 26 May 2014
In a similar vein, you know you're a language nerd when you choose software based on the language it's available in, and have difficulties switching to a better option if it's available only inEnglish (or inEnglish, French, Russian, "Chinese").
Serpent on 26 May 2014
When you go to a language exchange and the organiser suggests "if you have any requests
for native speakers next time, tell Tarvos about it, because next time he will be able to
speak them with you!"
tarvos on 26 May 2014
book written in Scottish Gaelic (and you don't know a single word of it);
When you are going in Iceland in 40 days and you start studying the language to be able
to understand the written language so that you can buy books written in Icelandic and you
will be able to choose the book because you can understand the topics on it.
tristano on 26 May 2014
When you read a novel which takes place in an imaginary country, and when a native lets out an exclamation
in his ( Invented) language you immediately Google it to check which real language the author got his
inspiration from. (The exclamation was "Brojas!", which sounds croatian to Google if anyone can confirm...)
agantik on 27 May 2014
enough, you wake up at 5.15. Then immediately two choices appear to you
- try to sleep the remaining hour
- study icelandic
and you go without hesitating for the second one.
tristano on 30 May 2014
When you are invited to enter the catacombs of the International Library of Sweden (with an impressive collection of titles in more than 120 languages), have a look at their Celtic language section and realize that you have more titles in your own bookshelf.
jeff_lindqvist on 30 May 2014
When you find yourself trying to supress your disappointment that your partner is taking you out for dinner tonight, because it means you won't be able to do any more reading for the Super Challenge.
Radioclare on 30 May 2014
How could I NOT buy this book? Perhaps I'm losing my touch as a language fiend?!?
Teango on 31 May 2014
When you're at Disney World riding "It's a Small World" & your favorite part is the end, when you see how many
languages you can recognize Good-bye in! I think it was 6 or 7 ...
wv girl on 05 June 2014
When someone asks you a question inEnglish and you realized you just answered in French.
Tyrion101 on 09 June 2014
When you get excited to see a couple signing on a bench in the park, only to discover they're just playing Jan Ken Po.
Teango on 09 June 2014
When the professor uploads a new video.
Henkkles on 09 June 2014
... when you know who's "the Professor"! ;)
Josquin on 09 June 2014
When the professor uploads a new video.
Spasibo, Henkles! Here's a link to his new vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kco-8_OyJns - Assimil Perfectionnement Russe
Teango on 09 June 2014
time to chat with your Spanish professor in Polish and to correct his grammar.
When your friends show up to your Spanish tutoring hours with long faces and ask if you can please give
them some tips on their Latin and/or Greek homework, even though you're supposed to be tutoring in another
language.
Amerykanka on 10 June 2014
When you consider it a drawback if a travel guide has a lot of photos. More L2 text would be better!
Serpent on 14 June 2014
When you get excited to see a couple signing on a bench in the park, only
to discover they're just playing Jan Ken Po.
hjordis on 15 June 2014
...when you've apparently started collecting junk mail now. After subscribing to a Spanish-
language magazine a few months back you received your first piece of Spanish-language junk
mail and it seems wrong to just throw it out.
Warp3 on 15 June 2014
....when man carries over foreign constructions into their native language without knowing it.
Myself, I have known to be using topic-comment speech habits.....
Stolan on 15 June 2014
When half of the URLs you type into your computer come out wrong because you forgot to turn off Cyrillic keyboard layout... AGAIN.
chokofingrz on 17 June 2014
When you look forward to Wednesdays because that's when a new episode of a show in your TL that you've been following comes out.
soclydeza85 on 19 June 2014
... you want to start learning a weird language just for the fun of it, but you realize the few books on the topic are written in a language you don't know yet.
polyglottis on 03 July 2014
... you want to start learning a weird language just for the fun of it, but you realize the few
books on the topic are written in a language you don't know yet.
if this doesn't lead to you learning the language those books are written into, you're not nerd enough ;)
tristano on 03 July 2014
if this doesn't lead to you learning the language those books are written into, you're not nerd enough ;)
Well, maybe I am more of a tech nerdie then. So I have chosen a different approach. Check my other posts if you want to jump in :)
polyglottis on 04 July 2014
Your manager is installing new software on your work PC and he asks you which language you'd like it in.
garyb on 04 July 2014
... you want to start learning a weird language just for the fun of it, but you realize the few books on the topic are written in a language you don't know yet.
Hmm...you mean like learning Anicient Egyptian through French Assimil, or perhaps a jot of Chukchi through http://chukchi.efenstor.net/ - Russian and http://www.ling-atlas.jp/r/tale/list - Japanese - yep, I think I can relate. ;)
Teango on 04 July 2014
you check HTLAL as often as other people check Facebook.
luke on 04 July 2014
When you go to Polyglot Gathering Berlin (which you wouldn't have heard a lot about outside HTLAL).
When you are at PG Berlin, recognize people from the forum and feel like you already know them in person.
When people recognize you from the forum!
Bonus:
When you've talked so much about the Irish language that people from your hometown decide going to a village in Ireland just to learn Irish.
jeff_lindqvist on 04 July 2014
you check HTLAL as often as other people check Facebook.
Oh man, this is so true
soclydeza85 on 04 July 2014
recognizing himself in it
When reading a book in your native language feels like a waste of time
When even reading the news in your native language feels like that as well!
yuhakko on 05 July 2014
...when you've apparently started collecting junk mail now. After subscribing to a Spanish-language magazine a few months back you received your first piece of Spanish-language junk mail and it seems wrong to just throw it out.
But it's not "junk mail"! It's cultural immersion!
The dog and I (ok, mostly I, but he always came a long) had a weekly ritual when we moved to France. Every Tuesday, the day when all the leaflets and catalogues were delivered, we would sit own on the sofa and go through every single page. I even took photos of the more "unusual" cultural aspects and shared them on Facebook.They were very popular with friends and family back in Sweden. Especially the one where sexy Mrs Christmas lingerie was advertised in between the Baby Christmas onesies and the toy trains.
eyðimörk on 05 July 2014
When you're cruising steadily down the highway and all of a sudden you come upon a huge traffic buildup, but it's okay (you might even be glad)........ now you have time to finish your Pimsleur lesson before reaching your destination.
soclydeza85 on 09 July 2014
When you know que tu peux écrire uma frase assim e a maioria das pessoas en questo gruppo will understand it.
pmitraud on 09 July 2014
When you know que tu peux écrire uma frase assim e a maioria das pessoas en questo gruppo will understand it.
... because you receive messages like that regularly, e.g. an e-mail I got today: "I'll call you back after 14 Uhr, parce que je suis unterwegs."
Working in a multilingual country is great! :)
Mani on 09 July 2014
*I now know two Portuguese words anyway: vexame "embarrassment" and vergonha "shame"
P.S. This one made me laugh.
THERE WON'T BE A COVER -- We can't joke about it, we're ashamed We'll be back tomorrow* *While you were reading this... Germany scored another goal (Also, the first line, "Não vai ter capa," is a play on the phrase "Não vai ter Copa" (We won't have a Cup), used in protests before the tournament.)
Chung on 10 July 2014
Unfortunately, there's no speech for Arabic on GT and I can't read Arabic writing, so I could not verify.
soclydeza85 on 13 July 2014
I'm really curious.
Henkkles on 14 July 2014
I'm really curious.
I've wondered something similar but about similar sounds among "shorthand" writing. For example, inEnglish you could say "I'm going to your house later", but kids might type "i'm going 2 ur house l8er" (they did when I was a kid). Do they do this in other languages? Like maybe "m1 Vater ist hier" (German) or "6 bella" (Italian)
soclydeza85 on 14 July 2014
I'm really curious.
I've wondered something similar but about similar sounds among "shorthand" writing. For example, inÂEnglish you could say "I'm going to your house later", but kids might type "i'm going 2 ur house l8er" (they did when I was a kid). Do they do this in other languages? Like maybe "m1 Vater ist hier" (German) or "6 bella" (Italian)
I'm told they do this in French. For example "a+" is used for "Ã plus tard". Collins has a whole page about French texting, but I can't verify if any of them are still used.
http://www.collinsdictionary.com/words-and-language/lea rning-languages/learning-french/texting-in-french,18,HCB.htm l - Texting in FrenchJeffers on 14 July 2014
Anglophones have difficulties spelling hom*ophonic words correctly in the proper
contexts (such as they're, their, there), so do Chinese people similarly often choose
the wrong character for a word that is pronounced exactly the same?
I'm really curious.
I've wondered something similar but about similar sounds among "shorthand" writing.
For example, inÂEnglish you could say "I'm going to your house later", but kids might
type "i'm going 2 ur house l8er" (they did when I was a kid). Do they do this in other
languages? Like maybe "m1 Vater ist hier" (German) or "6 bella" (Italian)
I can say that in Estonian teenagers also do it. For example words "eleven" and "each
other" are identical in some cases and then some people write something like "We love
11"
Merike on 14 July 2014
I'm really curious.
I've wondered something similar but about similar sounds among "shorthand" writing. For example, inÂEnglish you could say "I'm going to your house later", but kids might type "i'm going 2 ur house l8er" (they did when I was a kid). Do they do this in other languages? Like maybe "m1 Vater ist hier" (German) or "6 bella" (Italian)
Well in Finnish numbers don't work for this purpose because all numbers have at least two syllables, unlike inEnglish where most numbers are monosyllabic (kah-dek-san - eight) so we don't really have any sort of shorthand in text messages, instead we just type as we speak, in our native dialects which are quite effectively shorter than standard language, for example "tuletko sinä" ~> "tuutsä".
Henkkles on 14 July 2014
also, Italian definitely uses this, and I think German also does but m1 for mein looks extremely weird to me.
Serpent on 14 July 2014
... when you read 422 pages of posts about being a language nerd.
BOLIO on 14 July 2014
I'm really curious.
I know that this happens in Japan a lot. There are many, many words that have exactly the same pronunciation but have three, four or more Chinese characters.
kujichagulia on 15 July 2014
ãã½ã¤ãï½ï½ï½ï½ãï¼ï¼ï¼ã etc
(upload, thanks for uploading, ãããã, *clapping*)
stifa on 15 July 2014
When you used to be annoyed at how the AJATT guidelines to "read what you'd read in your native language" don't work for you... and then you realized that your equivalent is "read what you'd read in Finnish".
Serpent on 16 July 2014
....you start thinking about spending part of your annual bonus at Dunwoody Press
Chung on 19 July 2014
-Hindi-EnglishEnglish-Hindi Biotechnology Glossary
-North Korean Reader
-Maguindanaon Dialogs and Drills
-A Comparative Reference Grammar of Bosnian / Croatian / Serbian
And here's how to find them:
www.dunwoodypress.com - www.dunwoodypress.comJeffers on 19 July 2014
I'm tempted to get the stuff for Turkmen. Learning that would be a lark for me.
Chung on 19 July 2014
... after an astonishing F1 race instead of writing a post in a blog you L-R a chapter and lose all the power to write afterwards.
Via Diva on 20 July 2014
I was writing out a shopping list and started writing "sch---" when I meant to write "shake", again with "drei-" when I meant to write "dried" and I almost wrote "jogurt".
soclydeza85 on 25 July 2014
When you get iritated when you can't find a certain word in your dictionary, and then you realize that you are trying to look a Greek word from your guide to Athens up in a Serbian Cyrillic dictionary.
Iversen on 25 July 2014
here's my substitution list:
X=Ã|C=Ä|J=Ä|A=Ã|M=Ã|L=Å|P=Ã|a=ã|x=ç|c=Ä|j=Ä|E=Ä| Q=Ä|O=Ã|o=õ|p=ø|m=ñ|d=Å|D=Å|e=Ä|q=Ä |l=Å|v=ź|V=Ź| Z=Å»|
z=ż|h=â¥|n=Å|N=Å|ö=>|,=<|ж=>|б=<
(you type the letter and then you press a hotkey to change it) many of these are arranged by proximity (e.g. those for c, z), j is Ä because i mostly need it for the name KranjÄar as of now :-)
The layouts I have set are Finnish and Russian, but the physical keyboards sold in Finland have one extra key >_< so I needed a way to type those squared brackets.
I was planning to make a custom layout one day, but typing a letter and then F12 is easier than typing AltGr+letter, imo.
Serpent on 03 August 2014
When you try to use your custom keystrokes to write on someone else's computer and it doesn't work, and it almost
makes you want to (Ä
_ Ä
)
robarb on 04 August 2014
When you see a list of blood types and automatically associate A+, B- etc. with language levels.
Mooby on 10 August 2014
When while organizing your quarters, you count that the number of languages you have materials for is at least over a dozen, and you feverishly try to think of a place to cram your stockpile of Italian science magazines you got just in case.
Henkkles on 12 August 2014
When you have so many language courses your family consider crisis talks
FuroraCeltica on 12 August 2014
When you have so many language courses your family consider crisis talks
An intervention!
luke on 12 August 2014
When you have so many language courses your family consider crisis talks
An intervention!
in your L2!
soclydeza85 on 13 August 2014
internet because you realise that it will enable you to pick up another language! :)
Then you kick yourself after realising all the time that you could have spent on this
extra language already if youâd realised this sooner. :P
And, of course, when after this you still have more languages on your âhitlistâ than you
can reasonably fit in to your day...or your lifetime for that matter. :(
Rem on 13 August 2014
When you have so many language courses your family consider crisis talks
You don't hide some of the courses like normal people (for exemple me)? :-D
P.S. If your family lets you choose between even more horrible options and giving your books away, add me to your mailing list, preferably as the number 1 destination. ;-)
Cavesa on 13 August 2014
When you hear in a team in the Netherlands a little girl speaking Persian, and you listen to
her all the time, feeling butterflies for how beautiful is the language, yet understanding
only some word here and there.
tristano on 13 August 2014
When you watch a movie with subtitles and turn to your friends with an urge to point out
it wasn't a direct translation
FuroraCeltica on 13 August 2014
When you are seriously offended by the offer of a native speaker of your TL to put onEnglish subtitles for your.
Cavesa on 13 August 2014
You're packing your bags for a week long trip, and are sad that there isn't room in your
carry-on for three Assimil books.
kanewai on 13 August 2014
When I start following a Pinterest board solely because it is called "Najzdrowsze regiony Åwiata" and I am thrilled that not only is the name Polish but all the pictures are described in Polish.
mick33 on 29 August 2014
you're in a Cebuano restaurant and someone says that they want their chicken spicy.
spicy! spicy ba! and your first instinct is to say you're welcome.
ElComadreja on 03 September 2014
In my case... when you buy a dictionary of Finnish slang in order to learn Swedish.
Serpent on 03 September 2014
exactly :) at least I got that far in my job training.
ElComadreja on 03 September 2014
"I don't have time to learn Hungarian... holy crap a Basque course is being offered at my university! Don't mind if I do..."
"I'll have to put any Romance language on hold for now... but Duolingo's Danish course is in beta, I guess I'll try it out..."
Henkkles on 03 September 2014
When you have to add your (computer) bookmarks from scratch, and you start a folder for HTLAL where you bookmark some of the subforums and also several important threads, including this one.
Serpent on 05 September 2014
You know you're a language nerd when your mom calls you and says she's inviting the
family to a holiday on Cap Verde, "and that's great, because they speak Portugese, so you
could be our guide!"
"Mom, I don't speak Portugese."
"Well, you've got six months."
Ari on 16 September 2014
challenge accepted, it seems?
Serpent on 16 September 2014
You know you're a language nerd when your mom calls you and says she's inviting the family to a holiday on Cap Verde, "and that's great, because they speak Portugese, so you could be our guide!"
"Mom, I don't speak Portugese."
"Well, you've got six months."
When your friend wants to visit Portugal with you some day and forbids you to learn Portuguese ("You already know too many languages!") :-D
But otherwise, it is the same thing. My dad plans to buy a car in Germany next year so I'd better speed up my progress!
Cavesa on 16 September 2014
challenge accepted, it seems?
Challenge accepted! I'm now 30 lessons into Assimil Brésilien, so by the time we go to
Cap Verde I'll be able to fail to understand their Portuguese just like a native
Brazilian.
Ari on 16 September 2014
A little bit post factum, but:
... when you write a poem in German despite your self-persuaded A1-A2 and then hear that it's actually not bad.
Oh, and then continue doing that even despite the absence of any comments.
Via Diva on 16 September 2014
...when you can't tell what the tattoo means, so you try to quickly memorize it so you
can look it up later.
When you immediately notice that "tell" has a different meaning in each of these two
sentences
Humbaraci Ahmet on 17 September 2014
When you realize if you get your French to a B1-B2, you will get access to many more
Assimil courses that aren't available withEnglish as the base language :)
bryanpeabody on 17 September 2014
When you just ordered Assimil: Französisch ohne Mühe while you already own the French Assimil in your native language and you are slowly admitting to yourself that part of the reason behind your purchase of this seemingly rare (in the US) book with a retro, older style cover was for the sake of collecting and you realize there is a new dimension to the reasons of purchasing language materials.
soclydeza85 on 20 September 2014
When you get totally excited about the fact your friend can say "You've got a fly in your beer" in Hungarian! And you almost regret you can't visit Budapest, at least in the next few years, because you don't have time to learn basics of Hungarian. And you just can't go without knowing the language at all! :-D
Cavesa on 20 September 2014
I kind of feel the same way, but I'm trying to get over it since I don't have as much time to learn as I wish I had. Therefore, I try to tell myself that it's okay if I barely went further than the Assimil passive wave before leaving...
Avid Learner on 21 September 2014
when you realise that every girl who can speak another language other her mother tongue,ÂEnglish and Dutch
becomes really interesting to your eyes.
tristano on 28 September 2014
... when you find yourself in absurd situations only because you want to practice a foreign language!
Today I was going to my French course and suddenly a guy addressed me in Spanish asking me if I speak Spanish.
Five minutes later I was praying with him in Spanish (in a street in the city center) and this has been the first time in
my life I ever spoke Spanish :D
tristano on 02 October 2014
I just spent 80 minutes studying Slovene and I'm not even supposed to be studying Slovene!
Henkkles on 15 October 2014
Maybe immortality is too much, but you wish you could live for at least 50,000 years so that you could master
ever living language, and maybe some dead ones too!
chiara-sai on 15 October 2014
When you want to be immortal but are scared by the thought of watching all languages change and in many cases die out.
Serpent on 15 October 2014
You're happy to get up early in the morning to drive your son to Comic Con in London because you know you can spend the day reading in cafes and browsing bookshops. Foyle's, here I come!
Jeffers on 17 October 2014
You're in a restaurant with some colleagues, and as soon as a song starts playing from the speakers you comment that you recognise it. Then it turns out that it's an Italian pop song.
garyb on 17 October 2014
You're in a restaurant with some colleagues, and as soon as a song starts playing from the speakers you comment that you recognise it. Then it turns out that it's an Italian pop song.
That happens to me all the time with Bollywood songs in Indian restaurants.
Jeffers on 17 October 2014
You're in a restaurant with some colleagues, and as soon as a song starts playing from the
speakers you comment that you recognise it. Then it turns out that it's an Italian pop song.
You're in a restaurant with some colleagues, and as soon as a song starts
playing from the speakers you comment that you recognise it. Then it turns out that it's an Italian pop song.
That happens to me all the time with Bollywood songs in Indian restaurants.
This reminds me, Iâm a language nerd because Iâm disgusted by Italian pop music (Italian is my native
language) but I used to listen to a lot of Bollywood songs when you were studying Hindi, to the horror of my
Indian metalhead friend who hated it!
Iâm sure if I had to learn Italian as a foreign language Iâd suddenly find Italian pop music very appealing!
chiara-sai on 17 October 2014
This reminds me, Iâm a language nerd because Iâm disgusted by Italian pop music (Italian is my native
language) but I used to listen to a lot of Bollywood songs when you were studying Hindi, to the horror of my
Indian metalhead friend who hated it!
Iâm sure if I had to learn Italian as a foreign language Iâd suddenly find Italian pop music very appealing!
It's probably better than most of the current British and American pop music, although that's really not saying much. But let's face it, I'd never listen to most of it if I weren't learning the language. I have discovered a few Italian rock bands whose music I really like and would choose to listen to, but they're the minority.
My pop music knowledge mostly comes from listening to Italian radio while I'm working. Those same colleagues probably think I'm just listening to metal all the time...
garyb on 17 October 2014
This reminds me, Iâm a language nerd because Iâm disgusted by Italian pop music (Italian is my native language)
Spoken as someone who used to hate the sound of her own native language once upon a time and who proclaimed a distaste for all native media (music, books, TV, cinema)...
...doesn't that simply make one a language snob, rather than a nerd?
eyðimörk on 17 October 2014
This reminds me, Iâm a language nerd because Iâm disgusted by Italian pop
music (Italian is my native language)
Spoken as someone who used to hate the sound of her own native language once upon a time and who proclaimed a
distaste for all native media (music, books, TV, cinema)...
...doesn't that simply make one a language snob, rather than a nerd?
Personally, I donât dislike the Italian language and indeed I do listen to Italian music, so I wouldnât call it language
snobbery.
Itâs simply that music in a foreign language has an automatic value to me because even if I donât like the music itself I
still enjoy the language learning experience. If the music is bad, the learning is nonetheless exciting. Music in
languages Iâm fluent in donât have the same advantage, but itâs nothing to do with the languages themselves, just with
the fact that I have mastered them.
chiara-sai on 17 October 2014
1) you are secretly thrilled to be studying for your Latin and Greek midterms, because this gives you an
excuse to read your favorite grammar books and
2) you squeal out loud in delight and startle your roommate while you are reading one of the said grammar
books, because you just realized the etymology of the word "infant"
Amerykanka on 19 October 2014
(Okay, it's even better if you can immediately figure it out, but I didn't)
Serpent on 19 October 2014
a) search for the "good article" star and check whether it is a language you can read in;
b) if you find one, you end up reading it instead of the one in your native language.
Note: today, I was searching for "Bauhaus" and went directly to the German page. Then I scrolled through the language list and found that the only starred article was the Greek one. My reaction? "I wish I were fluent in Greek, if only for a few minutes".
Luso on 19 October 2014
You know you are when, now that you have decided to study Latin, you actually lose sleep agonizing over the pros and cons of the restored classical vs ecclesiastical pronunciations. Many decades ago I had two years of high school Latin. I really enjoyed it. It was the ecclesiastical or Church Latin. (I went to a Catholic high school at a time when the Latin Mass was just being discontinued).
I have just begun a course that uses restored classical pronunciation. I find the restored classical does not sound as pleasing to me. I lay awake debating whether to use the course as it is presented and adopt the "more authentic" restored classic pronunciation, or, use the courses for grammar, vocabulary, etc but use the more familiar sounding ecclesiastical pronunciations. Of course, I know the chances of actually conversing with anyone in Latin is almost nil. So, why make a big deal out of it? Because I am a true language nerd!
psy88 on 20 October 2014
chair instead of a comfy armchair in order to eavesdrop on two Russians, just because you love the sound so
much.
I fear I will end up in a river some day after having eavesdropped on the wrong people ...
If I ever go for a career change I think I'll try to get a job in an airport lounge. It s like Babel's tower here.
Solfrid Cristin on 21 October 2014
... you read an article in Spanish about the economic consequences of recent western policies toward Russia on the Norwegian-Russian border area http://www.bbc.co.uk/mundo/noticias/2014/10/141005_econ omia_noruega_rusia_comercio_frontera_msd - La "guerra frÃa" llega a la frontera más septentrional de Europa because it has good background on what it's like to live there and think Cristina should see it :).
iguanamon on 21 October 2014
still able to recognize and respond to others, although you feel no awareness at the time and later remember
nothing--and this gives you an idea--a very odd one:
Would I be able to understand my target languages while under anesthesia?
Really! I want to know!
Is it too bizarre to ask the anesthesiologist if he could try that?
Yes, it's just too weird. And you really don't want the person in charge of your life at the time to get distracted.
So it must remain a mystery, but if you ever meet a polyglot anesthesiologist, it will be very difficult to not ask
if we might try a little experiment . . .
meramarina on 21 October 2014
"..(one's) main language is mostly stored in implicit memory systems of the subcortical regions, whereas acquired languages are learned by explicit rules and stored more diffusely in the cerebral cortex.".
It seems that the effects of anesthesia on linguistic centres in the brain involve complex mechanisms that are not yet understood, and can lead to language switching.
Mooby on 21 October 2014
YKYALN when you spend the weekend in Berlin on a company outing and feel intensely
uncomfortable being in a country whose language you don't speak.
Ari on 22 October 2014
... when you are unable to concentrate because of sickness and you earnestly consider to ask the doctor: "When
will I be able to study Irish again?"
Josquin on 22 October 2014
When you are upset you cannot find good online pathophysiology resources in French or Spanish. It is so hard to learn a subject you don't enjoy in your native language orEnglish :-(
Cavesa on 22 October 2014
Madrid, and you opt for a really uncomfortable
chair instead of a comfy armchair in order to eavesdrop on two Russians, just because
you love the sound so
much.
I fear I will end up in a river some day after having eavesdropped on the wrong people
...
If I ever go for a career change I think I'll try to get a job in an airport lounge.
It s like Babel's tower here.
Changing trains for planes, are we? :D
When you look at the names on the door plaques during your job as a postman, just to
figure out if someone speaks Russian or Romanian...
tarvos on 22 October 2014
is "I have to learn X".
When the news "I'm studying a new language doesn't surprise anyone.
When you end up chatting in Dutch about Spanish.
tristano on 23 October 2014
When your first reaction to "this person that I met can speak X
language" (no matter if as a first o second language) is "I have to learn X".
When your first reaction to hearing Mark Zuckerberg speak Mandarin is "His pronunciation
is abysmal."
Ari on 23 October 2014
"..(one's) main language is mostly stored in implicit memory systems of the subcortical regions, whereas acquired languages are learned by explicit rules and stored more diffusely in the cerebral cortex.".
It seems that the effects of anesthesia on linguistic centres in the brain involve complex mechanisms that are not yet understood, and can lead to language switching.
This reminds me...
My cousin used to suffer from epilepsy (thankfully it went away after a surgery 3 years back, only leaving him with memory problems). Once he had an attack (nothing major, just zoned out) and after that, he started talking inEnglish, thoroughly mystifying teachers and classmates for the rest of the day.
TL;DR epilepsy episodes can also trigger language switching.
Zireael on 23 October 2014
TL;DR epilepsy episodes can also trigger language switching.
I was once told by a neurolinguist student from Barcelona that when patients have epilepsy surgery they are sometimes asked whether they want to keep Spanish or Catalonian, as the surgery sometimes needs to cut
https://www.inkling.com/read/youmans-neurological-surgery-wi nn-6th/chapter-57/foundations-of-language-mapping - near one of the two language areas .I always thought that would be a really hard difficult question to answer: whether it was better to keep the language of your birth or the language of your country?
patrickwilken on 23 October 2014
I wonder how they could tell which area contained Spanish and which Catalonian? I mean, especially as those two languages are close together both in linguistic features (does a very similar word get "saved" once or twice) and the role in the lives of the people. I don't think most people in Catalunya nowadays (except for some old ones) have learnt Spanish differently from Catalonian, are they not native speakers of both since early childhood? They were surrounded by Spanish as well, they heard it in tv programms for children, they began using it at the latest at school. Really, it is more imaginable for me to ask whether one wants to keep the native language or a second one, learnt after immigration as an adult or something like that. And it might be quite a bad luck to make the hard decision patrickwilken speaks of and find out the doctors accidentally did the opposite.
Cavesa on 23 October 2014
When you wake up stunned by the ignorant night spent with your friends and suddenly realise that you're thinking
in the wrong language nonetheless.
tristano on 26 October 2014
Also if you go to a bookstore and come back with a bunch of language learning material and then come home and sit it down on a shelf next to all the other language learning material, thinking that you will use it later.
showtime17 on 26 October 2014
YKYALN when you're going to see a French opera and get to choose language for the
subtitles, but you're annoyed you don't get to choose the original language, the only
choices being Norwegian andEnglish.
Ari on 27 October 2014
When you find a Hunger Games book in Basque in a London bookstore and you start sweating profusely.
Henkkles on 27 October 2014
When your first reaction to "this person that I met can
speak X
language" (no matter if as a first o second language) is "I have to learn X".
When your first reaction to hearing Mark Zuckerberg speak Mandarin is "His pronunciation
is abysmal."
When you are on a business trip in China, read on this forum about Zuckerberg's Chinese,
then log into your home computer to watch the video because you can't get facebook,
google, or youtube here ---and then concur that his pronunciation is terrible.
caitwn on 27 October 2014
When dad asks you to download a movie and you see that he has folders "Russian" and "Foreign"... and you're very disappointed when you realize this just refers to the country of origin.
Serpent on 03 November 2014
When you write something in Croatian and find that every time you meant to type Å¡ you
have ended up with Å, because you forgot your computer automatically runs software to
type Esperanto characters when it starts up.
Radioclare on 03 November 2014
claim very proudly the difficulty of her language, finally realising that you're not even listening to her anymore
because the only things you have in mind are the words of Benny Lewis:
Itâs my native language, and my ego is weak so I need validation, and speaking the âworldâs hardest
languageâ does the trick!
tristano on 03 November 2014
fascinating when she starts to
claim very proudly the difficulty of her language, finally realising that you're not even listening to her anymore
because the only things you have in mind are the words of Benny Lewis:
Itâs my native language, and my ego is weak so I need validation, and speaking the âworldâs hardest
languageâ does the trick!
In all fairness Polish is not the easiest language around :-) Note that you will not find many Scandinavians
making the same claim, not because we have a strong ego, but because it would be ridiculous. However
most of the Spaniards I know claim that Spanish is extremely complicated because a Spanish word can
mean many different things...
I just smile politely ;-)
Solfrid Cristin on 04 November 2014
Oddly enough I've never heard a Finn make that claim. It's hilarious how overrated the difficulty of nominal cases is though. I'd say the fusionality with the weak and strong grades are much trickier in Finnish than the cases.
Henkkles on 04 November 2014
In all fairness Polish is not the easiest language around :-) Note that you will not
find many Scandinavians
making the same claim, not because we have a strong ego, but because it would be
ridiculous. However
most of the Spaniards I know claim that Spanish is extremely complicated because a
Spanish word can
mean many different things...
I just smile politely ;-)
Well, I have to say that many Italians think that Italian is one of the hardest
languages in the world to learn. Because of...? The subjunctive I guess? Well.
Polish is certainly difficult but maybe instead of saying things like "it's too
difficult for foreigners" and "there are 7 cases! how can you learn that" you can give
me some precious insight.
And difficulty should be contextualized. I personally think that I would have many
more problems with Danish than with Polish. Also, language learning is not a sprint
but a marathon. I think that learning how to speakÂEnglish at the highest levels is
more difficult than doing the same with Russian. But those are just my opinions, not
supported by real facts and also I'm terribly off topic :) :) :)
tristano on 04 November 2014
Oddly enough I've never heard a Finn make that claim. It's hilarious how overrated the difficulty of nominal cases is though. I'd say the fusionality with the weak and strong grades are much trickier in Finnish than the cases.
I have, though mostly random people online. Nobody has told that to me so far ;)
I remember seeing claims that the dialects/diglossia are the hardest thing. "It's hard even for me", yeah.
I've also heard this claim about Portuguese. Admittedly it was after I wrote gracias, because I had heard my fave Portuguese singer saying this on a live recording and didn't realize the concert was in Spain :-) (this was years before I started learning PT)
Serpent on 04 November 2014
When you get to the grocery store and continue speaking Latin inside. Since neither of you are very good at spoken Latin, your conversations include lots of pauses, theatrical expressions, and wild hand motions. Occasionally one of you switches in frustration to Spanish.
When you strongly suspect that most of the other customers doubted your sanity . . . and are proud of it. :)
Edit: Oh, yes, and when you are excited about this being your 600th post.
Amerykanka on 08 November 2014
When you see a posting in the Learning Techniques section "Understand TV in 30 Days" and click on it only to be very disappointed that it is about television, not some language called TV, which of course would be a language you had never heard of before, nor was it about some other learning program like MT.
psy88 on 09 November 2014
When your friend earns the "I believe in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India_Pale_Ale - IPA " badge on a beer site and you're confused.
Serpent on 09 November 2014
- so how is going with your languages?
- and now how many languages do you speak?
- aren't you doing too many things?
:)
tristano on 10 November 2014
I was in the Schiphol Airport clinic (the one on the first floor above the International
Departures, behind the chrome walls) at 08.00 with a long haul connection leg to North
America after arriving from a flight that left Manchester Airport at 05.50 and had to
fill out the medical form and was more interested that I could complete it although the
entire form was in Dutch, despite the precariois situation in which I found myself, with
the flight to board at around 09.40, and despite not having slept for a day.
1e4e6 on 10 November 2014
When your hit list is as long as your shopping list.
Darklight1216 on 10 November 2014
When you spend half a morning translating an Italian film before realising that these hours aren't going to count towards your Russian progress log. Then shrug because it was too much fun to pass up, and besides, real life is overrated.
chokofingrz on 10 November 2014
When you get to the grocery store and continue speaking Latin inside. Since neither of you are very good at spoken Latin, your conversations include lots of pauses, theatrical expressions, and wild hand motions. Occasionally one of you switches in frustration to Spanish.
When you strongly suspect that most of the other customers doubted your sanity . . . and are proud of it. :)
Edit: Oh, yes, and when you are excited about this being your 600th post.
You know you are for two reasons: First, when you try for two days not to ask the question that has been nagging at you ever since you read this post but you are such a language nerd that you can no longer resist. I have just started to study Latin again after many, many decades. I studied it in high school very long ago. I studied/learned the Ecclesiastical Latin pronunciation. The courses and books I have now begun to use teach the revised classical pronunciation. I personally like the sound of the Ecclesiastical better. So, I need to ask:which pronunciation were you using?
And, second:when you look forward to when you have your own 600th post.
But, seriously:Congratulations on your big 600!
psy88 on 11 November 2014
You spend hours ranting on a Facebook debate about a Lidl Supermarket in your country which has ordered Polish immigrant workers not to speak to each other in their own language.
beano on 11 November 2014
When you find this article (http://rt.com/news/199416-brain-sex-chocolate-language/) and
the first thing that pops into your head is "Am I an addict?"
and the second is "hey! I should put on HTLAL!"
yuhakko on 12 November 2014
similar pleasure to sex.
when you overhear classmates discussing a Russian class one of them participates in and
it costs you lots of eforts not to jump in and get into a lively
conversation/interrogation
Cavesa on 12 November 2014
When you spend half a morning translating an Italian film before
realising that these hours aren't going to count towards your Russian progress log. Then
shrug because it was too much fun to pass up, and besides, real life is overrated.
When you are reminded that a professor asked you to help translate a few letters from
Russian toEnglish and that they would be sent via e-mail by today. You then proceed to
excitedly open up your e-mail.
Marc94 on 13 November 2014
When you see a scene in a movie where a character says something in your target language
and you feel the need to tell everyone watching it with you what was said
FuroraCeltica on 14 November 2014
When you watch German TV, and there is a program where some people in the Aran valley cook food. A lady in a kitchen says that in her family they mostly speak Aranese at home (mixed with Spanish and Catalan), but they only speak boring old Spanish in the program, and even that is covered by the usual nerve racking Germanese dubbing. I actually thought about writing an indignant protest in Catalan in my log (my Aranese is lousy), but then I wrote this instead. Now I have to find something else to write about.
Iversen on 15 November 2014
When you dream that you find the most amazing language centre of the universe where they have courses of a lot of
different languages and you subscribe to a Turkish course saying "but the next time I will subscribe for Icelandic" <3
tristano on 16 November 2014
when you have in the same office a native speaker of Xhosa and you would like to have a
better Dutch and to know Xhosa to eavesdrop her phone calls where she speaks a lethal mix
of Xhosa, Dutch andÂEnglish :D
tristano on 18 November 2014
Dutch (obviously)
English
French
German
Mandarin Chinese?? (Not 100% sure about that one)
Japanese
Spanish
Croatian (most likely, could be another Balkan Slavic language)
Italian
Portuguese
An African language, probably Swahili
Swedish
And two languages I could not at all place - it kept me awake for the whole duration of my flight back home!
Ogrim on 18 November 2014
When you get to the grocery store and continue speaking Latin inside. Since neither of you are very good at spoken Latin, your conversations include lots of pauses, theatrical expressions, and wild hand motions. Occasionally one of you switches in frustration to Spanish.
When you strongly suspect that most of the other customers doubted your sanity . . . and are proud of it. :)
Edit: Oh, yes, and when you are excited about this being your 600th post.
You know you are for two reasons: First, when you try for two days not to ask the question that has been nagging at you ever since you read this post but you are such a language nerd that you can no longer resist. I have just started to study Latin again after many, many decades. I studied it in high school very long ago. I studied/learned the Ecclesiastical Latin pronunciation. The courses and books I have now begun to use teach the revised classical pronunciation. I personally like the sound of the Ecclesiastical better. So, I need to ask:which pronunciation were you using?
And, second:when you look forward to when you have your own 600th post.
But, seriously:Congratulations on your big 600!
We were using classical pronunciation. I understand your fondness for ecclesiastical though - I learned it first when I was little and I hear it frequently at mass. But since I mostly translate classical authors, classical has become my default pronunciation, and I have grown to like it better. I do bring out ecclesiastical occasionally if I'm translating St. Augustine or something of that sort though!
And thank you! I am proud of my 600 posts.
Amerykanka on 19 November 2014
a) Has native speakers of Spanish, Italian, Turkish, Greek (she can also speak Spanish
and German), Polish (with whom you spent a good 15 mins comparing and contrasting Czech
to Polish), German, Portuguese and that theirÂEnglish is top notch!
b) Adjusted a part of your work because of your language learning choice (Czech)
<3
When you you felt very Czech a couple of days ago and then put on the Czech news to find
out it was the 25th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution (17 listopad) and decided to
watch the coverage of that despite not knowing what was being said....
vixsta on 19 November 2014
When seeing your target language on a package makes you more interested in what's inside.
luke on 19 November 2014
When seeing your target language on a package makes you more interested in what's inside.
You mean like those packages that say "amazon.de, amazon.fr, amazon.it"? I feel more polyglot every time the postman rings my doorbell!
chokofingrz on 19 November 2014
When you dream that you find the most amazing language centre of the
universe where they have courses of a lot of
different languages and you subscribe to a Turkish course saying "but the next time I
will subscribe for Icelandic" <3
Go check the Volksuniversiteit in den Haag, they have most of the languages you want
except for Icelandic. I did Russian there once upon a time :)
tarvos on 19 November 2014
When you dream that you find the most amazing
language centre of the
universe where they have courses of a lot of
different languages and you subscribe to a Turkish course saying "but the next time I
will subscribe for Icelandic" <3
Go check the Volksuniversiteit in den Haag, they have most of the languages you want
except for Icelandic. I did Russian there once upon a time :)
Dammit!!!
There is Turkish. And Swedish. And Persian. And Russian. Spanish. Mandarin.
...
Dammit.
I must stay faithful to my dogma "only a course at the time".
Thanks :D
tristano on 19 November 2014
When you are in South Korea for a layover and you buy a Korean book for learning basic Thai though you know neither. (Both are on my list of languages to learn someday though!)
Juniperarrow on 24 November 2014
When you compare athletes in "elite sports" to language learners.
luke on 24 November 2014
When you go to the opera to see Carmen, love the music, dislike the accent of the singers
during the short spoken parts, dislike the subtitles being only in Czech andEnglish (am
I the only one who doesn't understand the opera lyrics no matter the language?) and catch
yourself translating some bits into Spanish because "logically", the opera should be in
Spanish :-)
Cavesa on 24 November 2014
When you get something new and you're most excited about the different languages on the
box.
Darklight1216 on 25 November 2014
When you get something new and you're most excited about the different languages on the
box.
I recently purchased screen protectors for my tablet. Despite me throwing them out because I could not install them properly, I kept the instruction manual because it has the instructions in German on the back.
soclydeza85 on 25 November 2014
(In case anyone is wondering, the books in question were La vida es sueño by Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Szatan z siódmej klasy by Kornel MakuszyÅski, Plato's ÎÏ Î¸Ï ÏÏÏν, Horace's Carmina, and a Magnificat (inÂEnglish).)
Amerykanka on 09 December 2014
When you get to the grocery store and continue speaking Latin inside. Since neither of you are very good at spoken Latin, your conversations include lots of pauses, theatrical expressions, and wild hand motions. Occasionally one of you switches in frustration to Spanish.
When you strongly suspect that most of the other customers doubted your sanity . . . and are proud of it. :)
Edit: Oh, yes, and when you are excited about this being your 600th post.
You know you are for two reasons: First, when you try for two days not to ask the question that has been nagging at you ever since you read this post but you are such a language nerd that you can no longer resist. I have just started to study Latin again after many, many decades. I studied it in high school very long ago. I studied/learned the Ecclesiastical Latin pronunciation. The courses and books I have now begun to use teach the revised classical pronunciation. I personally like the sound of the Ecclesiastical better. So, I need to ask:which pronunciation were you using?
And, second:when you look forward to when you have your own 600th post.
But, seriously:Congratulations on your big 600!
We were using classical pronunciation. I understand your fondness for ecclesiastical though - I learned it first when I was little and I hear it frequently at mass. But since I mostly translate classical authors, classical has become my default pronunciation, and I have grown to like it better. I do bring out ecclesiastical occasionally if I'm translating St. Augustine or something of that sort though!
And thank you! I am proud of my 600 posts.
When you are sorry that you did not check this sooner because it really has been on your mind since you first read the original post. Thank you for satisfying my curiosity. And, I admire your ability to switch back and forth between the two. I have decided to stay with the ecclesiastical (well,at least for now!). Thanks again for posting and good luck with your studies.
psy88 on 09 December 2014
When you apartment looks like a language bookshop with a bed in the middle.
DaraghM on 12 December 2014
When using an online translator to check a sentence in your target language, you can't help also checking how it looks (and sounds) like in Finnish, Portuguese, Greek and .... and ....
Mooby on 12 December 2014
When you wonder why your friend isn't watching a match from the beginning and then you remember that she's not doing a super challenge... and she's actually watching in her native language, too.
Serpent on 13 December 2014
When you're having a cup of coffee with your folks and the conversation turns into a discussion about the regional dialect's inclination for strong verbs;inchoative verbs, their etymology and which colours apply. On a Saturday afternoon in mid-December.
jeff_lindqvist on 13 December 2014
... and when you can't stop thinking about it :p
yuhakko on 13 December 2014
When your husband puts a massive smile on your face after texting you in German.
g-bod on 18 December 2014
When you sign up for the Polyglot Conference in Berlin... and it's the first concrete thing to put into your empty 2015 calendar.
chokofingrz on 18 December 2014
When you pass a group of foreigners in the city and your boyfriend asks: "hey, that was a
language you can't speak yet! What was it?"
Cavesa on 18 December 2014
It should however be said that strong verbs are a stable of all Germanic languages, and in this case I didn't reach any clear conclusion.
Iversen on 18 December 2014
when you want to translate something from lithuanian toEnglish with google translate but the translating language
is set to Dutch, and you end to mentally translate from Dutch.
tristano on 21 December 2014
I so want http://imgur.com/L7PdhcR - this bag for Christmas!
Teango on 23 December 2014
I can pronounce all of these but I didn't know any of the meanings.
Serpent on 23 December 2014
When you still want to learn Polish after seeing the picture of this bag...
agantik on 23 December 2014
When, at the end of each year, you feel an irresistible urge to sign up for the TAC again, even though you
know that you won't have time to write about your progress. It just doesn't feel right to begin a new year
without a new log and a new list of goals. *heads off to create a new log*
Amerykanka on 27 December 2014
"May I ask how heavy" and then you stop because you get flummoxed on the verb position
"May I ask how heavy the bag is?" or "May I ask how heavy is the bag?"
You want to say option 1 as that is how it goes in German, but you genuinely are confused what the right way is inEnglish (anyone know?).
Gemuse on 02 January 2015
When you've spent a lot of traffic on Twitter (mostly not in Russian, therefore interesting), Duolingo (I have to
keep the strike!) and tries to get to HTLAL (yes, wasn't loading most of the time) during 31.12-2.01 (around
150
mb if to sum up). Like I haven't New Year to distract me
Via Diva on 02 January 2015
"May I ask how heavy" and then you stop because you get flummoxed on the verb position
"May I ask how heavy the bag is?" or "May I ask how heavy is the bag?"
You want to say option 1 as that is how it goes in German, but you genuinely are confused what the right way is inÂEnglish (anyone know?).
"May I ask how heavy the bag is?"
Indirect questions use a normal word order. Also in statements like: "I couldn't believe how heavy the bag was".
Serpent on 02 January 2015
You start talking to somebody who comes from an area where a minority / indigenous language is spoken
and it immediately becomes a priority to find out to what extent the person knows this language.
beano on 03 January 2015
how heavy the bag is, so you start
"May I ask how heavy" and then you stop because you get flummoxed on the verb
position
"May I ask how heavy the bag is?" or "May I ask how heavy is the bag?"
You want to say option 1 as that is how it goes in German, but you genuinely are
confused what the right way is inÂEnglish (anyone know?).
"May I ask how heavy the bag is?"
Indirect questions use a normal word order. Also in statements like: "I couldn't believe
how heavy the bag was".
Agreed. As a native speaker having the verb at the end sounds much more natural in
that sentence.
Warp3 on 03 January 2015
...When you realize you've been on this forum for more than 1000 days and feel proud of
it! (and especially knowing that a long time ago you used to be laughing at people who
were on forums :p)
yuhakko on 14 January 2015
when you're born monolingual and suddenly you realize that conversing in three different languages everyday is
nothing but a normal situation for you
tristano on 15 January 2015
When you would like that your language had the inclusive and exclusive dual, to avoid embarrassing misunderstandings.
tristano on 20 January 2015
When you know what Tristano is speaking about
Iversen on 21 January 2015
when you really wish you knew what Tristano meant and are somewhat envious of those who do
psy88 on 31 January 2015
http://wals.info/chapter/39 - More info here...
btw tristano, Indonesian has it ;) well not specifically the dual kind which is extremely rare.
Serpent on 31 January 2015
Mandarin has it too! å±ä»¬ vs æ们
Wurstmann on 31 January 2015
Mandarin has it too! å±ä»¬ vs æ们
Mandarin has indeed an incluseive first person plural (not dual), but it doesn't have an exclusive one.
...
ALSO, you know you're a language nerd when you're on your vacation in Cape Verde, for which you have been intensively studying Portuguese for five months, and you spend your time fantasizing about Czech (and come home realizing you should probably do German first, after all).
Ari on 31 January 2015
Mandarin has it too! å±ä»¬ vs æ们
Mandarin has indeed an incluseive first person plural (not dual), but it doesn't have an exclusive one.
Oh, right.
Wurstmann on 31 January 2015
Languages throughout the world have an inclusive/exclusive "we" distinction: http://wals.info/chapter/39
Arthaey on 31 January 2015
I posted the same link above ;P
Serpent on 31 January 2015
you start imagining about studying Saami.
When you add the word Saami to your dictionary to
avoid that the autocorrector puts "salami" instead.
tristano on 01 February 2015
When a friend imagines a vacation in Lapland and
you start imagining about studying Saami.
Happened to me when my friend said she wants to go to Israel and I learned some basic
phrases in Hebrew the same day... because why not? :D
- When you sit in yourEnglish class trying to write an essay, looking for a word you
don't know inEnglish but in 3 other languages you're not even half as good in.
- When you're lying in bed, about to fall asleep, then you suddenly need to get up
because you need to know how to say thank you in Slovakian.
lumisade on 02 February 2015
- When you realize that in 5 minutes you wrote in 5 different languages.
- when you realize that you're having more and more multilingual friends.
tristano on 06 February 2015
Thank you German :-\
Gemuse on 06 February 2015
wierd would be more logical anyway
Serpent on 07 February 2015
Thank you German :-\
I usually only come across theEnglish word "albeit" when reading, though I've heard it in conversation. I remember when I actually went to use it in a conversation I pronounced it like the German word Arbeit but with the L. I don't think the person I was talking to noticed, hopefully.
soclydeza85 on 07 February 2015
Thank you German :-\
I usually only come across theÂEnglish word "albeit" when reading, though I've heard it in conversation. I remember when I actually went to use it in a conversation I pronounced it like the German word Arbeit but with the L. I don't think the person I was talking to noticed, hopefully.
Someone has used weird in an email, and when I hit reply, the word was not being underlined as having a spelling mistake. I actually had to google the word to confirm that the spelling was correct.
Gemuse on 08 February 2015
spelling "weird" is wrong, and that the correct spelling is "wierd".
Thank you German :-\
I usually only come across theÂEnglish word "albeit" when reading, though I've heard
it in conversation. I remember when I actually went to use it in a conversation I
pronounced it like the German word Arbeit but with the L. I don't think the person I
was talking to noticed, hopefully.
I had that happen to me a while back. I was trying to get the washer replaced, and the
company in charge had this name, Azuma, which looked totally Japanese to me. And no,
the company wasn't Japanese. So I pronounced it the Japanese way even the the
pronunciation was more along the lines of "Azoooma." Unfortunately for me, the rep
noticed. It was an awkward moment, lol.
Woodsei on 08 February 2015
When you start to automatically read words pronounced differently in your native language
the same way as you would pronounce them in your target language, because to you, it
seems more logical that way.
Woodsei on 08 February 2015
When you've been spending more time on French than on German (your first) and you feel guilty, almost as if you're cheating...
soclydeza85 on 12 February 2015
I usually only come across theÂEnglish word "albeit" when reading,
I mostly come over the word "albeit" when I have written it myself.
Iversen on 13 February 2015
I had that happen to me a while back. I was trying to get the washer replaced, and the
company in charge had this name, Azuma, which looked totally Japanese to me. And no,
the company wasn't Japanese. So I pronounced it the Japanese way even the the
pronunciation was more along the lines of "Azoooma." Unfortunately for me, the rep
noticed. It was an awkward moment, lol.
And what would be the Japanese pronunciation?
Serpent on 13 February 2015
I had that happen to me a while back. I was trying to get the washer replaced, and the
company in charge had this name, Azuma, which looked totally Japanese to me. And no,
the company wasn't Japanese. So I pronounced it the Japanese way even the the
pronunciation was more along the lines of "Azoooma." Unfortunately for me, the rep
noticed. It was an awkward moment, lol.
And what would be the Japanese pronunciation?
Type ããã¾ãup in Google Translate, and click on the speaker button.
Woodsei on 14 February 2015
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=40145&PN=1&TPN=1#530526 - When you give detailed advice for a programme you've never used.
Serpent on 07 March 2015
When you overhear a (very loud) conversation in a train and feel compelled to explain the
people what is wrong with their language learning methods and give them a list of sources
that might solve at least half the troubles they've been complaining about for twenty
minutes (and disturbing me from reading in Spanish).
Cavesa on 16 March 2015
You wait for new topic questions to show up so you can make jokes in
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=39369&KW=answers - The
Answers to Discussion Topics .
luke on 16 March 2015
have a sale on French and Spanish books. Complete Teach Yourself (new but book only) is
£2.99! Their Collins French and Spanish School Dictionaries are £1.99 new.
and when you're thankful you went to the store with a friend who is used to your
obsession with languages...
vixsta on 08 April 2015
(chatting in German): when you almost feel guilty replying on a question inEnglish just because you can't
name the subjects that you study in German. Heck, you can barely do that inEnglish, so even more guilt.
Via Diva on 08 April 2015
When you receive a Phrase-A-Day calendar as a gift, and you remove all the pages at once and sort them
into learning categories because you need those words NOW !
meramarina on 09 April 2015
(The channel is TV5 Monde, and the Hindi news was this morning's Namaskar Bharat, which reported that hackers have attacked TV5's servers, taking down the channel and website.)
Jeffers on 09 April 2015
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?
TID=40145&PN=1&TPN=1#530526 - When you give detailed advice for a programme you've never
used.
I'm guilty of that sometimes, lol. Reading up on it is NOT the same as using it!
Thankfully, every single one of my recommendations really turned out to be pretty nifty
when I used it, so, no regrets there :D
Woodsei on 11 April 2015
When you translate sentences from Spanish to French in your head in the middle of the
night because you are so scared of Spanish pushing French out of your brain.
Cavesa on 11 April 2015
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=40145&PN=1&TPN=1#530526 - When you give detailed advice for a programme you've never used.
I'm guilty of that sometimes, lol. Reading up on it is NOT the same as using it!
Well it depends. I've not used French in Action but I've used Destinos for Spanish, which is similar but less good as far as I can tell. It's fairly similar to giving advice on using one Assimil course based on your experience with another one.
Serpent on 11 April 2015
When you receive a Phrase-A-Day calendar as a gift, and you remove all the pages at once and sort them
into learning categories because you need those words NOW !
I like to savour every day... whatever I learn (or not)....
maydayayday on 15 April 2015
When you're addicted to a song and try to translate it into another language (happens to me so often).
Monox D. I-Fly on 16 April 2015
When you are jealous of your friends who were raised bilingual....admit it, we all have
one we are jealous of lol
FuroraCeltica on 16 April 2015
You understand how a taxi driver's mind works
maydayayday on 16 April 2015
When you are jealous of your friends who were raised bilingual....admit it, we all have one we are jealous of lol
When you're not jealous of speaking several languages but of having a unique insight into them.
Serpent on 17 April 2015
When you try to make attack names from all languages you know if you're writing an action adventure story.
Monox D. I-Fly on 04 May 2015
When the idea of learning Pirahã gives you an immediate adrenaline rush!
Teango on 05 May 2015
You talk in your sleep in Spanish.
slikew on 05 May 2015
When you are sleepy at work during writing something and unconsciously write some words from another language. Happened to me yesterday.
Monox D. I-Fly on 06 May 2015
When you select a hotel based on a review complaining about the staff not being able to speak muchEnglish.
g-bod on 09 May 2015
When you are sleepy at work during writing something and
unconsciously write some words from another language. Happened to me yesterday.
When you vocabulary from other languages in your native language based lecture notes
because they are just more precise, practical, shorter or more elegant.
Cavesa on 09 May 2015
When you vocabulary from other languages in your native language based lecture notes because they are just more precise, practical, shorter or more elegant.
Serpent on 10 May 2015
Somehow I mixed two versions of the sentence together, sorry about that :-D
Cavesa on 10 May 2015
When you can write your name in at least five different scripts.
Monox D. I-Fly on 10 May 2015
When you expect people - including polyglots - to attend a lecture whose main purpose is to investigate the muddy realm between relative constructions (with an antecedent) and the two main types of subordinate clauses without antecedent instead of listening to a lecture about the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis or an introduction to the fascinating Basque dialect bundle. Morale: don't put the word "grammar" into a lecture title unless you are surrounded by nerds with a penchant for linguistical themes.
Iversen on 10 May 2015
When you select a hotel based on a review complaining about the staff not being able to speak muchÂEnglish.
I can relate to this, I've been discouraged from hostels upon hearing about their "multilingual staff".
garyb on 11 May 2015
When you actually attended Iversen's grammar lecture !
meramarina on 11 May 2015
too busy fooling around with languages on HTLAL.
When you join more language challenges than you realistically have time for.
Woodsei on 11 May 2015
When you have a major, life-changing exam in another state coming up in 6 days and you're too busy fooling around with languages on HTLAL.
Or you have an important paper due, upon which your future probably hangs by a tenuous thread, and yet you find yourself blissfully splashing around like a dolphin in a sea of language posts.
When this thought leads to further perilous food for procrastination: How do dolphins communicate? Do all those whistles, clicks, and squeaks have some form of grammar?
Now back to that paper...
Teango on 11 May 2015
shared only by dolphins from a certain area?
Two stupid papers due, three exams drawing closer and I happily spend time on German 6wc
and Spanish SC. The procrastination is a well spread contagion.
Cavesa on 11 May 2015
there dialects,
shared only by dolphins from a certain area?
Two stupid papers due, three exams drawing closer and I happily spend time on German
6wc
and Spanish SC. The procrastination is a well spread contagion.
Amen to that:)
I'd better not start with the dolphins, because my six days are quickly becoming five.
Woodsei on 11 May 2015
Actually I have seen a TV program that mentioned dialects among killer whales so presumably the dolphins also have dialects.
Iversen on 11 May 2015
Blast! Those monkeys are running off with my paper... >.<
Teango on 12 May 2015
Blast! Those monkeys are running off with my paper... >.<
The imagery that comes with that :D
Woodsei on 12 May 2015
Even cows have different regional accents according to a http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/5277090.stm - BBC article , which inspired Sir Patrick Stewart to the http://howtodoeverything.org/post/71309424713/the-great-sir- patrick-stewart-in-perhaps-the-role - performance of his lifetime . :-)
Doitsujin on 12 May 2015
intelligible? :-D
I recently read about a monkey that could use the american sign language (over 100 words)
and even taught another monkey. Do you think the dolphins would be intellectually capable
of signing if they had hands?
(papers... I feel like a monkey or a dolphin had better chances passing my exams)
Cavesa on 12 May 2015
Don't forget birds ! Birds have grammar, too. They probably read this thread and laugh at the human word
nerds. http://io9.com/5816441/birds-are-the-first-non-human-an imals-to-use-grammar - birds are nerds
meramarina on 12 May 2015
(papers... I feel like a monkey or a dolphin had better chances passing
my exams)
Yes they do. Simply because they're so cute :-)
@meramarina: That makes me think, will a dog who lives in anEnglish-speaking country
understand another language? I was once visiting a family member with some dogs, and when
I attempted a few Arabic and Japanese lines, the poor thing just stared at me :)
You know, we shouldn't derail this thread :D
Woodsei on 12 May 2015
the subject every time you learn an interesting bit of language lore! One nerdy topic leads to another . . . .
This thread doesn't have rails as much as it has tentacles reaching into all kinds of nerd topics. It's kind of
unique that way. But we have had some discussions about animal communication, and perhaps we can
contine them or start another.
As for dogs, they certainly learn and understand words, but I think they don't much care what language their
humans speak as long as they get their dinner and their tummy rubs. I have tried speaking to my dog in other
languages and he just gets a look on his face that says "That again" and waits patiently for me to get over my
language nerdiness and take him for a walk !
meramarina on 12 May 2015
language nerd when you keep changing
the subject every time you learn an interesting bit of language lore! One nerdy topic
leads to another . . . .
This thread doesn't have rails as much as it has tentacles reaching into all kinds of
nerd topics. It's kind of
unique that way. But we have had some discussions about animal communication, and
perhaps we can
contine them or start another.
As for dogs, they certainly learn and understand words, but I think they don't much
care what language their
humans speak as long as they get their dinner and their tummy rubs. I have tried
speaking to my dog in other
languages and he just gets a look on his face that says "That again" and waits
patiently for me to get over my
language nerdiness and take him for a walk !
I always love reading your posts :D
I can just picture your dog, "Oh no, there she goes again, patience, patience is a
virtue!" :-) Dogs have some really expressive looks, don't they? It's a language all
by itself!
Woodsei on 12 May 2015
attending the Polyglot Gathering in Berlin. Now THAT is how you know you are a confirmed and incurable
language nerd !
Fortunately, dogs have more patience with the enthusiams of language nerds that some humans do ! But as
for the nerds--they exist--and they know it, not just in this particular thread.
meramarina on 12 May 2015
[Today's co*cktail: Argentinian Spanish, German and Polish]
Mooby on 13 May 2015
evolved and created a civilisation, the octopuses were the second most probable animals
to do so. So, if we manage not to destroy the oceans and everything living inside (or
ourselves for the matter), we might need some octopus-human translators in a few millions
of years. Do you think the octopuses will use sounds or will they develop a kind of a
sign language? :-D
Woodsei, now I seriously consider hiring a monkey for the exams ;-)
Cavesa on 13 May 2015
domination :D Somehow I now find the fact that we're the ones running the show strangely
reassuring... :D
Cavesa, this is turning into a physician language nerd thing, lol (I'm also studying for
my medical boards ). Maybe we should start rattling off medical terminology and create
our own language here on HTLAL!
Which reminds me of one very important fact: You know you're a language nerd when you
find yourself looking up and translating words from your field in your target language,
just because you think it's cool (I found a Japanese site for medical professionals and
had a field day, splashing happily in a sea of hippocampal jargon) :-)
Woodsei on 13 May 2015
your headphones on, settle back in your chair and oscillate between them - to see what it
does to your brain.
[Today's co*cktail: Argentinian Spanish, German and Polish]
I don't know why, but this cracked me up :D
Woodsei on 13 May 2015
Tentacles... I learnt in a physiology lecture (medical faculty) that had the primates not evolved and created a civilisation, the octopuses were the second most probable animals to do so.
Hmmm Ctulhu?
Serpent on 14 May 2015
When you start the 447th page of this thread and are excited that 500 pages aren't that far â¥
Serpent on 14 May 2015
When you take notes about all languages you can learn, including sign languages, codes, programming language, stenograph, and even animal language. Seriously, I do that.
Monox D. I-Fly on 14 May 2015
When you sign up for a âword of the dayâ e-mail in a language that youâre studying and
feel incredibly cheated when the term âFast Foodâ is presented to you.
Rem on 14 May 2015
Yesterday, the phrase of the day on my little Hawaiian app was "Ê»IÊ»ini au e paÊ»i iÄ Ê»oe" (I want to slap you); today it's "Mai Ê»Ålelo pelapela!" (Don't swear!) - is it just luck, or is there a surly pattern developing here...
Teango on 15 May 2015
When you find yourself flipping because a favorite Japanese series (or your
corresponding target language) is dubbed inÂEnglish, but you don't mind it so much when
anÂEnglish show is dubbed in Japanese (even though you admit to yourself deep down that
the original is still better, and that you prefer originals to dubs).
Woodsei on 15 May 2015
When your idea of a break from studying for school (or work) is studying languages.
Woodsei on 15 May 2015
When your idea of a break from studying for school (or work) is studying languages.
Guilty as charged! No green light next to the camera, yet somehow I still get the https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moA6RGE_MzM - unnerving feeling that eyes are watching... :)
Teango on 16 May 2015
That's sometimes easy. Study other subjects IN your target languages. ;-) Somehow, the
new language makes even boring topics quite fun.
Cavesa on 16 May 2015
Oh well, in my workplace I read Euclid's The Elements when I have a free time. It is bilingual in Greek andEnglish. I try to read the Greek parts, but because sometimes the words just come out from my mouth, people would think that I am chanting a magic spell instead.
Monox D. I-Fly on 16 May 2015
... when you get excited about a character who speaks exclusively Japanese on your Russian sitcom.
Josquin on 17 May 2015
(The language was of course Irish.:))
jeff_lindqvist on 19 May 2015
when you start learning a language you don't even really like just for lulz
or to broaden your perception of languages, if to think about that properly
Via Diva on 19 May 2015
Meaning: Parish [church] of [St.] Mary (Llanfair) [in] Hollow (pwll) of the White Hazel [township] (gwyn gyll) near (go ger) the rapid whirlpool (y chwyrn drobwll) [and] the parish [church] of [St.] Tysilio (Llantysilio) with a red cave ([a]g ogo[f] goch).
Pronunciation:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/Cy-L lanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch_%2 8Welsh_pronunciation%2C_recorded_17-05-2012%29.ogg - LlanfairÂpwllgwyngyllÂgogeryÂchwyrnÂdrobwllÂllanÂtysil ioÂgogoÂgoch .Teango on 22 May 2015
It's really catchy and I learned to pronounce the whole name after listening to it for a few times.
Josquin on 22 May 2015
When everyone around you is talking excitedly about Eurovision and you're despairing
because so many of the songs are inEnglish. :(
Rem on 22 May 2015
..when you're watching videos of older Eurovision songs and sing along in languages you don't yet know.
jeff_lindqvist on 22 May 2015
When you realize that trying to master at least 10 languages is nearly impossible.
Monox D. I-Fly on 23 May 2015
When this is one of your favorite sites (particularly this thread!) but you feel proud of the fact that you stayed away because you were actually devoting your time to studying your target languages instead of entertaining yourself by reading the postings. Not to imply, of course, that studying is not entertaining, but it usually does not make you laugh aloud as does this thread.
psy88 on 24 May 2015
...when you're watching Eurovision, decide that whoever wins, you'll study the native language of that country - and get disappointed when Sweden wins.
jeff_lindqvist on 24 May 2015
You should've had a backup plan :) I made the same decision at Euro-2012, and my plan was to study oldEnglish or Russian if they won, and Corsican or another minority language if France won.
Serpent on 24 May 2015
Yeah, I should have... After all, it was a late decision (I made up my mind halfway through the voting process). Next year!
jeff_lindqvist on 25 May 2015
When you don't watch eurovision cause you know majority of the songs will be inEnglish anyways.
Cavesa on 25 May 2015
When you don't watch eurovision cause you know majority of the songs
will be inÂEnglish anyways.
...or when you're rooting for Italy just because their entry was in Italian as well as
being "good" (as in "not horrible").
(EDIT) Another:
...when you get slightly annoyed by bad German in a Spanish TV show, despite not being
a native speaker of neither language.
stifa on 25 May 2015
...when "speaking to myself" is an awesome exercise, not a sign of mental illness.
(and you encourage others to do it as well.)
Cavesa on 26 May 2015
When you regret having suppressed this natural tendency as a child.
(I think I've already written this a hundred pages ago or so)
Serpent on 26 May 2015
... when you find yourself at midnight saying, "Just another ten words and then I'll go to bed." And then you find yourself saying the same thing at 1 AM.
Vilcxjo on 27 May 2015
... when you program your own flashcard site so you can learn the way you want to learn.
delpino on 27 May 2015
When you groan at 300 words, and smile at 3000.
patrickwilken on 27 May 2015
When you want to send an SMS inEnglish, but to get to theEnglish keyboard on your iPhone you first need to click your way through the Norwegian, German, Spanish, Catalan, French, Greek and Russian keyboards (and you are disappointed that Apple hasn't made the option of a Romansh keyboard).
Ogrim on 27 May 2015
* Seriously, there were songs I liked more, and FYR Macedonia didn't even qualify for the final. But it would still be great fun.
jeff_lindqvist on 27 May 2015
When in your sleep you start dreaming about watching F1 in Russian and then correct yourself in a way
that you'd watch it inEnglish or even in German, but not in Russian, not anymore.
Via Diva on 29 May 2015
You procrastinate one language with another.
g-bod on 02 June 2015
You procrastinate on everything with languages.
Serpent on 03 June 2015
Also, whenever Frozen is brought up, forever linking
http://amici-di-pallone.tumblr.com/post/79692481438/tho ughts-on-frozen - to this post by a Saami guy. Enjoy but don't overlook the problematic aspects.Serpent on 03 June 2015
When you're all cleaned up and dressed and ready to go out for the night, then you suddenly remember that you have a DuoLingo streak to keep up, so you make your friends wait while you complete a test to get the necessary points.
garyb on 03 June 2015
And want to correct it to: buÌxiÌng (æ¥è¡)!
Teango on 04 June 2015
When receiving your birthday presents you get told the following "I have no idea if they are any good or not, they were the only ones I could find with German audio"
WalkingAlone88 on 04 June 2015
When youʻre translating sentences from a worksheet into Hawaiian for homework, whilst chatting in Russian to your wife whoʻs just come in from work, and listening to Eko Fresh rapping in both Turkish and German followed by Joe Dassinʻs "Salut" in the background, and you realize...this is probably not quite normal outside our Forum.
Teango on 05 June 2015
...when you're driving and see a car numberplate with the letters PSY and immediately think 'nominative plural of dog' ('pies' in Polish). You then drive the rest of the journey scanning passing numberplates for declensions.
Mooby on 05 June 2015
When you go to visit die Residenz in Munich with your wife and two kids, and when the lady at the reception asks which language she should set the audioguide to, your wife answers Spanish, your kids sayEnglish and you want German. I'll never forget the expression on her face...
Ogrim on 05 June 2015
When you receive a magazine and the your first thougt was if there's a language rubric or not.
Monox D. I-Fly on 05 June 2015
When your spontaneous reaction to a computer problem is talking to it in Spanish.
("¿Qué te pasa, tÃo? TranquÃlo...no,no,no... ¡joder! ")
Cavesa on 05 June 2015
I do the same thing in a mixture of Spanish andEnglish lol
Zireael on 06 June 2015
No, I had to restart it as usual.
Cavesa on 06 June 2015
she speaksEnglish with a British accent.
When the "in use" section of your desk currently includes a Greek textbook, a Polish novel, two collections of
Spanish short stories, TY Beginner's Arabic Script, and the complete works of Horace (in Latin, of course).
And then there are the piles of flashcards.
Amerykanka on 08 June 2015
When you wish you'd found HTLAL earlier.
Via Diva on 09 June 2015
When you photograph and buy a drożdżówka trójsmak in Katowice because you like the word. OK, I also liked the three tastes when I finally ate it in the train to Ostrava...
Iversen on 09 June 2015
When you look like your attempting an impression of a mad conductor but youâre actually
trying to practise your Mandarin tones (the arm waving really does seem to help btw).
Rem on 10 June 2015
When you're driving to your boss's house, you're listening to Pimsleur Norwegian with the GPS speech set to German while you're trying to remember how to sing Hotel California in Italian.
soclydeza85 on 16 June 2015
to him was and I blanked out and could only think "Angestellter" (the conversation was in
English, of course), and ended up having to dumb down myEnglish to say "I work for him"
just to answer quickly.
What makes me a language nerd about this is I was happy afterward, seeing this as a sign
of progress.
soclydeza85 on 25 June 2015
When someone asks you about the "fabrics" in your home town, and you just know that they meant to say "factories".
g-bod on 25 June 2015
Now if I can only train myself to write down the answers and put them under my pillow the next morning...
Teango on 26 June 2015
When your car breaks down and you sit on the side of the road in 98°F / 37°C weather, and one of your first
thoughts is, "This would be a great chance to catch up on my Polish flashcards!" When your mom picks you
up an hour later, you are still happily absorbed in your Anki decks.
Amerykanka on 28 June 2015
Erm, I mean, how is your car? :D <3
Serpent on 28 June 2015
When your favorite page on TV Tropes is http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GratuitousForeign Language - this .
Monox D. I-Fly on 01 July 2015
And how many repetitions did you do?
When you are rather embarrassed that you don't know the answer to this question, but then you perk up
because it occurs to you that it would be fun to start logging important Anki stats in a spreadsheet for easy
reference. And then you start thinking about the Spanish translation of "spreadsheet" (hoja de cálculo),
which happens to be one of your favorite phrases, and so you feel even happier (although it is too bad
that your computer is currently broken so you can't make the spreadsheet right now).
Amerykanka on 01 July 2015
When you recommend lyricstraining.com to your dentist.
Serpent on 06 July 2015
When you get an Amber alert text message listing a
license plate with the letters "gde" and
immediately think it must be a Serbian license
plate.
JohannaNYC on 07 July 2015
When you are rather embarrassed that you don't know the answer to this question, but then you perk up because it occurs to you that it would be fun to start logging important Anki stats in a spreadsheet for easy reference. And then you start thinking about the Spanish translation of "spreadsheet" (hoja de cálculo ), which happens to be one of your favorite phrases, and so you feel even happier (although it is too bad that your computer is currently broken so you can't make the spreadsheet right now).
Don't you mean (hoja de cálculo?
luke on 08 July 2015
happened across in a bookstore in Boston, because you don't plan to, and have never
wanted to, study Catalan, and you're already spending money on a French sci-fi novel and
TWO Hungarian fantasy novels that you'll learn to read someday, and you really have to
draw the line somewhere.
Aaaand you regret it everyday since then....
solocricket on 08 July 2015
When the first thing that comes to your mind when you follow the news about the crisis in Greece is: Why on earth did I give up studying Greek two years ago?
Ogrim on 08 July 2015
Ogrim, all the reasons to pick it back up, get cash and go to Greece)
_____
When people think it's awesome that I learned all that German by myself and I'm annoyed because: a)
there's not so much German after all b) there are people who do it much better
Via Diva on 08 July 2015
happened across in a bookstore in Boston, because you don't plan to, and have never
wanted to, study Catalan, and you're already spending money on a French sci-fi novel and
TWO Hungarian fantasy novels that you'll learn to read someday, and you really have to
draw the line somewhere.
Aaaand you regret it everyday since then....
When you carry an eraser everywhere - to rub out the lines you'd drawn .....
maydayayday on 08 July 2015
makeÂEnglish the hardest language in the world or that b) "no cases and no noun gender" don't makeÂEnglish
the easiest language in the world. When you point out that really, the difficulty of any language is going
to depend on what your native language is and how many other languages you know, they look at you like
you've gone insane.
When it seems like you spend the other half of your time answering the question, "How many languages
are you fluent in?"
Amerykanka on 08 July 2015
When your main reaction is: what language is that?
Serpent on 08 July 2015
When you are considering making one of those vanity videos where you attempt to speak all your
languages.
numerodix on 08 July 2015
When your main reaction is: what language is that?
Catalan :)
Mooby on 08 July 2015
When you regularly receive 4-5 daily Russian spam emails on your work computer, and you
read each one of them without fail.
solocricket on 08 July 2015
This thread, if it gets discontinued, will be among the hugest losses of the forum migration.
Cavesa on 24 July 2015
When google starts offering you ads in your target language (today I got anEnglish
course ad for Portuguese speakers on youtube while watching a vid that had nothing to do
with Portgual orEnglish).
Yrek on 24 July 2015
necessarily travel. Just because it's intriguing.
Also, do you guys know about the Amazon Echo? It's this cylindrical speaker - you talk to it -
it talks back. Of course they only made it understandEnglish, doh! :| Would love
something like that to help me master tones.
numerodix on 24 July 2015
(I'm also seriously considering graduating to coasters...)
Teango on 25 July 2015
(I'm also seriously considering graduating to coasters...
I do this with my flashcards. If you came to my house, you'd find 3x5 file cards with foreign words and phrases all over the place, used for everything except actual study. They do make very good coasters, bookmarks, grocery lists, impromptu dustpans, etc.
Also, I had a language nerd moment when I took a wrong turn driving and ended up at a bookstore. I didn't intend to go to the bookstore; it just kind of happened. Two cool new phrasebooks came home with me. Meant to be.
meramarina on 25 July 2015
Also, I had a language nerd moment when I took a wrong turn driving and
ended up at a bookstore. I didn't intend to go to the bookstore; it just kind of
happened. Two cool new phrasebooks came home with me. Meant to be.
I like the idea that when you're driving and you stop paying attention the most likely place
you are to end up is a bookstore. :)
numerodix on 25 July 2015
I like the idea that when you're driving and you stop paying attention the most likely place you are to end up is a bookstore. :)
If there were a bookstore for every time I stop paying attention, there would be a LOT more bookstores in the world! And very happy language nerds!
meramarina on 25 July 2015
French with (French) subtitles just to see how much you can pick up without doing any other studying.
Because every language nerd needs to have at least a passive knowledge of French, right?
And then you start thinking of all the other languages you ought to have at least a passive knowledge of . . .
Amerykanka on 27 July 2015
You know youâre a language nerd when... you keep coming back to this thread to see what other nerds are doing.
luke on 28 July 2015
And when you're disappointed when there aren't any new funny nerd stories !
meramarina on 28 July 2015
When you're reluctant to start a thread like this on the new forum because you want this one to reach 500 pages
Serpent on 28 July 2015
Also, when you're choosing a new laptop and for a week you look only at the ones with a numeric keyboard until you decide to look into other ways of inputting special characters.
Serpent on 28 July 2015
When you don't sleep well at night because you are worried about the future of HTLAL.
Ogrim on 28 July 2015
When you don't sleep well at night because you are worried about the future of HTLAL
Ha, yes that has happened! About three am yesterday I woke up and said to myself:
do not look at the forums
no, really don't look at the forums.
leave that computer alone
do not look at the forums
do NOT look at the forums!
DO NOT LOOK at the forums !!!
don't look, it's three am don't look
do NOT look . . . .
I looked.
NERD
meramarina on 28 July 2015
Also, when you're choosing a new laptop and for a week you look only at the ones with a numeric keyboard until you decide to look into other ways of inputting special characters.
When you bought a tablet about a year ago for multipurpose use, though you know damn well the main purpose was for language learning.
When you are looking to buy a new mp3 player and the main feature you are looking for is a nice button layout so you can easily hit pause/play/rewind while listening to language tapes when walking/driving.
soclydeza85 on 29 July 2015
When you see this:
and your first thought is: âcan I get a bilingual one?â
and the second is: âwait, this is not enough, I need a multilingual oneâ
Via Diva on 29 July 2015
Also, when you're choosing a new laptop and for a week you look only at the ones with a numeric keyboard until you decide to look into other ways of inputting special characters.
And when you find yourself choosing between acer and vivobook and it's honestly not because of the names
Serpent on 29 July 2015
...when you're extra worried about the future of HTLAL since you're on holiday and don't know if it will exist when youre back (it does!).
...when you're on holiday and speak Irish,English, Spanish, German and Swedish (in that descending order).
...when you fill your luggage with Irish reading material which will keep you busy for the next two years.
...when you despite the intensive days and lack of sleep spend the five hour bus trip back to Dublin chatting with your polyglot friend about languages in general, learning methods, language blogs etc.
...when you wish that you and your friends from the Polyglot Gathering could all synchronize your holidays next year.
jeff_lindqvist on 04 August 2015
When you dream in Toki Pona!
Teango on 04 August 2015
When upon realising that you messed up when you booked train tickets online for your upcoming trip to Germany, your first thought is "at least it will be a good opportunity to practice if I try and sort this mess out at the ticket office".
g-bod on 04 August 2015
When you're glad to see that in Windows 10 the area in which the typing language is
mentioned, now uses three-letter code in the language which is used. Basically, instead
of RU and EN we how have ÐУС and ENG. And this is good.
Via Diva on 06 August 2015
Sometimes you just have to remind the general public thatEnglish is not the only language.
It's a public service.
You're welcome!
meramarina on 06 August 2015
When you are shopping for a new computer and you change the language settings on all the display computers.
When you get a new phone, start messing with the languages, accidentally choose one you don't understand and spend some 15+ minutes worrying about whether you'll get it back to one you recognise without having messed up all the definitions first.
(N.B.: This actually happened to me and the 15 minutes are probably an understatement. The language in question seemed Czech, Polish, or a similar one.)
Luso on 06 August 2015
When you get a new phone, start messing with the languages, accidentally choose one you don't understand and spend some 15+ minutes worrying about whether you'll get it back to one you recognise without having messed up all the definitions first.
I did this too. I mistakenly changed the language to Korean! I know no Korean, so I was not nerd enough to know how to fix it.
meramarina on 06 August 2015
I once switched my grandma's phone to Finnish when I wasn't learning it yet. Fortunately I knew kieli at least!
Serpent on 06 August 2015
When you start to doubt whether you remember the conjugation of a Russian verb after
looking at its Czech analogue for some time
Via Diva on 06 August 2015
French.
Seriously, the French must have calluses an inch thick on the back of their throats.
soclydeza85 on 11 August 2015
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=32922&PN=31&TPN=5#389137 - when this post by songlines breaks your heart
Serpent on 12 August 2015
My favourites include:
'sardine' which is the
'babooboo' is also 'yellow' in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbertese_language - Kiribati .
And the Qawesqar word for 'black'? Well, I'll let you look at that one in private :)
Mooby on 16 August 2015
When you kind of miss those arguments with s_allard and are delighted to find http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=33835&PN=12&TPN=7 - one that you missed.
Serpent on 20 August 2015
When you find an angered meme about false friends on 9gag and agree wholeheartedly despite realizing the OP probably meant something else a few seconds later...
Cavesa on 20 August 2015
Well, you can agree on both, can't you? :)
_________
When you'd wanna brag on trying to learn yet another language in front of your scientific advisor and only stop because she'd expect you to pick the theme of your thesis instead.
Via Diva on 20 August 2015
When you firmly believe that you don't need to translate that title intoEnglish for the members of this forum. Well, maybe explain it, but not in this thread...
Iversen on 20 August 2015
This whole subject might get funny, once we include the languages/nationalities.
I hate Russian/French/whatever false friends. :-D
Cavesa on 20 August 2015
When you get addicted to an online game and set its language on German, because it's 6WC time and even a waste of time should involve your TLs
Via Diva on 21 August 2015
when you want this thread to reach 500 pages even if the rest of the activity shifts elsewhere.
Serpent on 22 August 2015
When you don't really watch the F1 which has come back after a long break because you are discussing languages and language learning
Via Diva on 22 August 2015
Get a foreign stream online ;) Or listen to music.
Serpent on 22 August 2015
When you get addicted to an online game and set its language on German, because it's 6WC time and even a waste of time should involve your TLs
What game is it? :-)
Cavesa on 23 August 2015
Cavesa, Hearthstone. Switched back toEnglish, though, I don't really learn
anything new that way.
_________
When the anger caused by lagging of a German F1 stream is not about "I am going to miss
something in the race!" but "Damn, less time for my 6WC".
Via Diva on 23 August 2015
Hmm, I should have a look at that... nope, studying first. I hate it, I procrastinate, I have even put my languages on hold (and that hurts) but I need to pass the damn exam. No more new games for me.
Cavesa on 23 August 2015
I had to reach Via Diva's message before it occurred to me that the discussion wasn't about a certain button at the uppermost left corner on my keyboard which brings help and solace to those in need.
Iversen on 23 August 2015
When the anger caused by lagging of a German F1 stream is not about "I am going to miss something in the race!" but "Damn, less time for my 6WC".
Forever this.
Serpent on 24 August 2015
When you congratulate Paulo Coelho on his birthday in Portuguese and he faves your tweet.
Serpent on 24 August 2015
So I also keep a laminated card in my wallet that says I'm allergic to penicillin in 3 languages.
When this makes you awkwardly jealous.
Serpent on 25 August 2015
When someone doesn't list their languages on the new forum and you come here to check which ones they study.
Serpent on 31 August 2015
When someone doesn't list their languages on the new forum and you come here to check which ones they study.
...or speak, because they've lumped them all together under "languages", :) -no "studies" no "speaks" just "languages".
iguanamon on 31 August 2015
When you ask "Are you going to teach Hebrew?" halfway through the Biblical Greek course.
ElComadreja on 02 September 2015
When despite having two other people who, unlike me, studied German both in school and in uni I am asked to decipher DIN
Via Diva on 02 September 2015
When you find a Serbian movie online with Turkish subs, and you find yourself typing up a few things you didn't hear properly and checking via google translate.
When you don't want to be (almost) alone in this thread.
Serpent on 03 September 2015
...when you decide to do a personal 4WC for Finnish, just because you'll go to Finland in a month.
jeff_lindqvist on 03 September 2015
When you hope FX will see this one day.
Serpent on 07 September 2015
http://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?p=10367#p10 367 - When someone creates a conlang based on your keymash :D
(Yay Arthaey!)
Serpent on 15 September 2015
http://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?p=10367#p10 367 - When
someone creates a conlang based on your keymash :D
(Yay Arthaey!)
When you make a http://www.arthaey.com/conlang/htlal/ - conlang based on a keymash. (Thanks for
the inspiration, Serpent! :))
Arthaey on 15 September 2015
When you create a conlang called htlal ;)
Serpent on 16 September 2015
When you stay hungry because you can't decide what to watch in L2 while eating.
Serpent on 22 September 2015
When you learn Arabic whose sentence pattern is V-S-O and Japanese whose sentence pattern is S-O-V despite your own native language sentence pattern is S-V-O.
Monox D. I-Fly on 09 October 2015
When you're travelling in Finland and you go to the kids' room of any hotel you stay in to look for children's books in Swedish ð
When your patience is rewarded and eventually you find an alphabet book with rhymes/poems in Finnish, Swedish, Danish and Norwegian.
Serpent on 21 October 2015
When visiting the country of your TL, you spend more time photographing the surrounding displays, signs and graffiti than the tourist attraction itself.
Mooby on 21 October 2015
Do you know when your interest for a language crosses over from nerdiness to obsession, bordering on actual, clinical insanity? That is when you buy toothpaste, shower gel and deodorant with Russian writings on them, just to have the pleasure of it being the first things you see in the morning. And you then get really mad when you realize that the toothpaste, which had Russian on the outside box, have all the letters that are big enough for you to be able to read, inEnglish on the actual toothpaste.
Serpent on 21 October 2015
When you recommend lyricstraining.com to your dentist.
More about this :)))
When the dentist offers an option of watching a movie during the treatment, and you always
bring movies in "weird" languages on USB sticks... until the dentist asks you for advice on
learningEnglish, and you recommend lyricstraining and memrise and all that jazz, and next
time you decide to watch a movie inEnglish for your dentist's language learning benefits :)
Serpent on 22 October 2015
When your boss asked you to do a language-related work, then you happily do it while staying late at home despite not being given additional pay. Happened today.
Monox D. I-Fly on 23 October 2015
When mum sees a beer bottle in your room and thinks you were just reading the labels.
Serpent on 23 November 2015
Now you want to study Arabic and Quran, thinking that if you run into ISIS, this language skill may save your
life!
audiophile on 29 November 2015
When you recommend lyricstraining.com to your
dentist.
More about this :)))
When the dentist offers an option of watching a movie during the treatment, and you
always
bring movies in "weird" languages on USB sticks... until the dentist asks you for
advice on
learningÂEnglish, and you recommend lyricstraining and memrise and all that jazz, and
next
time you decide to watch a movie inÂEnglish for your dentist's language learning
benefits :)
And you also count as deranged if the film you insist on seeing during dental treatment
is Marathon Man.
William Camden on 02 December 2015
Haven't seen it, what do you mean?
Serpent on 03 December 2015
There's a famous dental torture scene there. An evil Nazi war criminal (and a dentist)
repeatedly asks the main hero a question "Is it safe?" to which the latter having no idea
what the question is about gives various answers, but the evil doctor keeps torturing him
(by teasing the cavity in his tooth with dental probe) regardless of the torturee's
answers.
Dragon27 on 04 December 2015
You realize children's laughter sounds the same in any language.
luke on 06 December 2015
When you want to wish Feliz ano nuevo to everyone who doesn't care about diacritics.
Serpent on 01 January 2016
When you look for that post ^^ and are kinda disappointed that it took you just a couple of pages to find it.
Serpent on 01 January 2016
When you spend New Year testing which twitter hashtags currently get fireworks added :)
(English, Spanish, German, Portuguese, Russian, Ukrainian all work. Finnish doesn't)http://forum.language-learners.org/download/file.php?id=437 - example
Serpent on 01 January 2016
When you feel jealous every time you see somebody speaking a language they learned that you haven't, even though you've never had any desire to learn it.
Derian on 02 January 2016
When someone from your country writes some posts in your native languange and you barely understand what he means but when he writes in your target language you totally understand what he means.
Monox D. I-Fly on 02 January 2016
When you do https://twitter.com/VladSkultety/status/686962127530246145 - Vlad's puzzles despite not being a learner of Mandarin.
Serpent on 12 January 2016
When you link Vlad to this post, of course :)
Serpent on 12 January 2016
When your mum is proud that she's found a post with the word coffee "in many languages", and you're disappointed that it's just five, including Russian.
Serpent on 12 January 2016
And then you're annoyed they didn't capitalize it in German, and that caffee was probably a typo. At least you get to know that it's caffee in Manx, but you doubt they meant that.
Serpent on 12 January 2016
When you are wondering whether certain languages have different words for purple and violet, frog and toad, ape and monkey, turtle and tortoise, etc or not.
Monox D. I-Fly on 13 January 2016
When it's been upsetting you since August that now you can choose "last week" in active topics and see all posts, and then you realize that same happens with "last month" by now. (previously I'd get an indication that as a non-premium member I can't see so many posts)
Serpent on 13 January 2016
When it's been upsetting you since August that now you can choose "last week" in active topics and see all posts, and then you realize that same happens with "last month" by now. (previously I'd get an indication that as a non-premium member I can't see so many posts)
You are one of the premium members now!
luke on 13 January 2016
When you know that a joke in your native language has different aswer if translated to another one.
Monox D. I-Fly on 13 January 2016
When it's been upsetting you since August that now you can choose "last week" in active topics and see all posts, and then you realize that same happens with "last month" by now. (previously I'd get an indication that as a non-premium member I can't see so many posts)
You are one of the premium members now!
Serpent on 16 January 2016
When you make https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xfp1/t31.0 -8/12473764_10206114698326750_7993270642511518664_o.jpg?efg= eyJpIjoiYiJ9 - this and try to guess each one of their translations in your target languages.
Monox D. I-Fly on 17 January 2016
Criminal case game covers this kind of vocabulary :)
Serpent on 18 January 2016
Criminal case game covers this kind of vocabulary :)
Did you mean the vocabularies for my cards?
Monox D. I-Fly on 18 January 2016
Yes! I wrote about it http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=36064&PN=1&TPN=2 - here :)
Serpent on 18 January 2016
Is it available in Arabic and Japanese language?
Monox D. I-Fly on 19 January 2016
When you wonder how it is that the characters in Star Wars speak a corrupted form of Anglo-Saxon
ElComadreja on 19 January 2016
When you still regularly visit this forum despite the new forum is much more comfortable.
Monox D. I-Fly on 19 January 2016
Is it available in Arabic and Japanese language?
English
FIGS (French, Italian, German, Spanish)
Portuguese
Turkish
Mandarin
Indonesian
Serpent on 19 January 2016
Is it available in Arabic and Japanese language?
English
FIGS (French, Italian, German, Spanish)
Portuguese
Turkish
Mandarin
Indonesian
Too bad, my target languages are Arabic and Japanese.
Monox D. I-Fly on 21 January 2016
Yeah, so much history on this creaky old forum.
cathrynm on 21 January 2016
When you start learning Albanian and Bulgarian in spite of being even older and creakier than this forum.
Iversen on 21 January 2016
When you are a math education graduate who work in a book publisher and your job is writing math books yet you are still able to slip in some bilingual bonus in the question examples you make.
Monox D. I-Fly on 22 January 2016
When you ask your boss what me means by the word "accept".
luke on 10 February 2016
When you encounter a random name "Eka Nurjannah" in a book and spontaneously translate it to "ä¸ å¤©å
".
Monox D. I-Fly on 10 February 2016
When you come back to the forum after a several year hiatus, find out there's a new forum as well, and still check this one.
Belardur on 17 May 2016
When your only fellow language-learner in your workplace says he wants to borrow your dictionary and you reply with "Which dictionary? You know I have many!"
Monox D. I-Fly on 17 May 2016
When payday means more language materials.
FuroraCeltica on 30 January 2017
...when once upon a time you read all 300+ pages of this thread and are pleased to discover there are now 100+ more pages to read after letting them build up for a couple years again!
jsg on 31 January 2017
Yeah, I think I might have a response somewhere in this giant thread, but honestly, I don't remember at all.
cathrynm on 06 February 2017
When you still want to reach 500 pages though you doubt it's possible..
Serpent on 15 March 2017
compatriots.
(Example: me speaking Esperanto and Italian regularly with two Germans).
Fasulye on 17 June 2019
When you recognise a word in a movie and feel the urge to explain to other people watching it
that you recognised it.
FuroraCeltica on 06 August 2020
Fasulye
Fasulye on 09 August 2020