BBC Sherlock Fan Forum - Serving Sherlockians since February 2012 » Languages

Zatoichi · February 6, 2014 7:06 pm

sj4iy wrote:
誰か日本語が分かりますか？

大学で勉強しましたが最近使うきかいがないから下手になりました。。

Last edited by Zatoichi (February 6, 2014 7:15 pm)

saturnR · February 7, 2014 11:02 am

watashi wa high school wa nihongo de benkyoushimas

Yes I know it's ungrammatical, lol.

Zatoichi · February 10, 2014 7:42 am

オーストラリアでは学校でも勉強できますね。うらやましい。。

In Australia you can learn Japanese in school, right? That's great, wish i could have done that!

This Is The Phantom Lady · February 10, 2014 11:43 am

I always wanted to learn Japanese or Chinese! Sadly my only choices were English, German and Spanish... My school didn't even offer French.

I am thinking about teaching myself some Irish if I do get the delegation host job for the Irish delegation at the Eurovision...

saturnR · February 12, 2014 2:15 am

This Is The Phantom Lady wrote:
I always wanted to learn Japanese or Chinese!

Asides from sharing some of the writing, the two languages are nothing alike. Japanese is easier to learn for speaking (due to pronunciation is closer to what Europeans are used to; Chinese has vowel structures that drive most people insane) & Chinese is easier to learn for writing (we only use 1 alphabet; they use 3).

This Is The Phantom Lady · February 12, 2014 7:44 am

saturnR wrote:
This Is The Phantom Lady wrote:
I always wanted to learn Japanese or Chinese!
Asides from sharing some of the writing, the two languages are nothing alike. Japanese is easier to learn for speaking (due to pronunciation is closer to what Europeans are used to; Chinese has vowel structures that drive most people insane) & Chinese is easier to learn for writing (we only use 1 alphabet; they use 3).

There was a boy at my school who was trying to teach himself japaneese (he had been adopted from Japan and wanted to learn his own language) He taught me a few words but sadly I forgot about them now...

Chinese I only know a little of from a kids show that teaches children simple words in chinese; I must admit it is some tongue twister trying to repeat! But I would think I wanted to learn how to talk japanese and write Chinese... I just find it interesting since it is so far from anything else...

Somehow, if you know English, German, Spanish and a bit of French you can actually make sense of a lot of European languages.

saturnR · February 12, 2014 10:03 am

This Is The Phantom Lady wrote:
Somehow, if you know English, German, Spanish and a bit of French you can actually make sense of a lot of European languages.

The main branches of European languages are Romantic & Germanic languages so if you can speak English & Spanish (the two most widely spread languages on the planet), it does help a lot

Classifying spoken Asian languages is more difficult but in terms of writing, it is true that knowing Chinese characters will get you far. It's important to stress that the spoken languages that the characters are being used to represent are actually nothing alike

Punch me in the face · April 28, 2014 9:40 pm

I love languages! One of my dreams would be to learn (and master!) as many languages as possible. Utopia...

My mother tongue is French. Then I speak English, and have a few notions of German (studied it for 5 years at school but unfortunately forgot most of it), Arabic (taught myself, don't have arabic origins, just wanted to do arabic calligraphy lol. Can write it, read it, but hardly speak it and don't have much vocabulary), Serbian (took it one year at uni but again, forgot most of it. Oh, I envy Mycroft so much! because it's got to be the most difficult language I tried to learn) and I know a couple of words (30 at most, lol) of Japanese because my late husband's grandma was Japanese and my husband was fluent in Japanese, he watched a lot of movies/anime in Japanese so I ended learning a couple of things.

rebeccaholmes · April 29, 2014 3:59 am

I'd love to know a lot more languages than I do!

I'm fluent in English, and I studied Spanish and French for a good part of 6 years, but like Punchme, I've forgotten most.

I started learning Hebrew a while ago, but it never pulled through. German is definitely a language I'd like to learn, and I'd love to further my learning on Spanish!

This Is The Phantom Lady · April 29, 2014 6:25 am

I want to learn some French sometime... In the small grades here it's common to give kids the choice between German and French but my school didn't offer french because of a lack of teachers and money. I've always been so upset I didn't have the choice... although German is a cool language and I am still able to communicate in it.

When I was in Berlin with my advanced German class years ago, a Turkish guy in a internet cafe told me I sounded like a native German. My skills have decreased since then, and I'm sure he was just being kind.

I always meant to learn some Irish, I even found a free online course once... and now I really wish I did. It would be cool to show the Irish delegation people some skills there. But oh well.

Last edited by This Is The Phantom Lady (April 29, 2014 6:27 am)

besleybean · April 29, 2014 6:29 am

I did a year of Gaelic!

This Is The Phantom Lady · April 29, 2014 6:39 am

So lucky!!

gently69 · April 29, 2014 6:54 am

Oh god, languages. Well, English of course ... my grammar is horrible ... but I can communicate. That's fine for me.
I had French at school for 4 or 5 years but didn't you use it afterwards. So forgot most of it.

I tried some Spanish at the adult education centre. Not that effective to be honest.

But also took lessons in Norwegian which I am still learning in self study now. More or less regularly.

This Is The Phantom Lady · April 29, 2014 7:09 am

Oh, and right now I'm trying to get better at understanding Swedish. A lot of my co-workers are swedes... Well we have agreed that Danish and swedes talk English to each other to avoid confusion...

gently69 · April 29, 2014 7:33 am

I thought because of the relation of Swedish, Danish and Norwegian it's not that difficult to understand each other.

This Is The Phantom Lady · April 29, 2014 8:03 am

But it is, the words are different, the 'melody' is very different as well and a bit of the grammar is too...

It's not like a British accent and a thick scottish one...

One of our first meetings some months ago one of the important lectures was delivered in Swedish and none of us Danes could really follow it, so the second time they had to repeat it in English. It's a little sad I suppose... a generation ago we were better at understanding our nordic neighbours I've been told.

TeeJay · April 29, 2014 9:39 am

One of my best friends (she's German) lived and worked in Copenhagen for three years. She learned to speak fluent Danish, but she always struggled when she went to Sweden, because somehow the Swedes always assume people who can speak Danish can automatically understand Swedish. My friend could not understand a word of Swedish, which led to a few awkward moments every now and then.

Last edited by TeeJay (April 29, 2014 9:39 am)

SusiGo · October 26, 2014 11:49 am

I just found this here which explains some lovely German words that have no English equivalent:

http://www.fluentu.com/german/blog/weird-german-words-vocabulary/

MartaSt · October 26, 2014 12:16 pm

Kuddelmuddel

besleybean · October 26, 2014 12:42 pm

Yes, Susi.
What you say in a word, we need a phrase or even a sentence!
We do have some equivalents though and for example, we do use ear worm!
On a different note, working in a primary school is a joy for even the English language...possibly made more interesting by working in Scotland.
One of the older kids burst through a door the other day and promptly asked me if I liked her "out entrance"!
I informed her that the word she was looking for was "exit"!