Well, a little trip chez nous could change that, tonnaree...

I had 5 years english at school and now I sit here and fight for every word I write or want to write.

I am still learning Dutch online, it's fun to learn! 


And the other night I took a 'certified' English fluency test, and scored 100% I nearly fainted!

Last edited by This Is The Phantom Lady (October 14, 2015 6:12 am)

Fordelen med å være skandinav er at man automatisk kan forstå og lese tre språk. Jeg er norsk, og kan lese og høre svensk og dansk. (Men dansk er lettere å lese enn å forstå muntlig, og svensk er omvendt). 

(The good thing about being Scandinavian is that you can automatically understand and read three languages. I am Norwegian, and can read and understand Swedish and Danish. Although Danish is easier to read than to understand when spoken, and Swedish is the other way around).

I also had two years of German in junior high, but my German is very, VERY basic.

Last edited by Vhanja (October 21, 2015 11:20 pm)

Jeg må give dig ret, Vhanja, det er noget af det gode ved at være skandinaver, jeg ville dog ønske jeg var bedre til de nordiske sprog... jeg læser dem meget bedre end jeg kan høre og forstå! 

(I have to say you're right, Vhanja, it is a part of the good things about being Scandinavian, but I wish I was better at the nordic languages, I read them a lot better than I can hear and understand them though)



the scary thing about my language knowledge is that I feel I'm a lot better at English than Danish. 
Especially right now, while I'm leaning Dutch my brain is a bit scrambled... I mess up a lot of words and sometimes just can't find it at all. There's been a bit of "ehm, you know the... thing... with the... uh, thing... on the thing??"

Another fun thing about learning Dutch is that some words and phrases really remind me of Danish. My boyfriend and I talk about that sometimes!


Also, the other day after seeing Crimson Peak a man with very broken english asked me for directions at the station... I never did find out where he wanted to go. He looked at me and asked me "Spanish?" I told him I only spoke a bit... I was surprised how much I actually understood of what he said. I struggled to say much more than "sí, no, ya... no conocen, no fumar en la station!" (and I probably said that wrong)

I really hate I never learned to speak it properly despite doing A levels in high school... but we went from some very basic sentences straight to way too complicated grammar that not even a Spanish person would know. 

 

I have a question for the native speakers about a phrase from TFP that keeps bugging me - "you are a prisoner of your own meat."

If talking about a person, it would have to be flesh, right? Or do you see here a use of the vulgar meaning = penis? And does it seem so uncommon to native speakers as it does to me? Btw, it is the only result for this phrase I could find at all. 

 

But would it be uncommon or even incorrect to use the word "meat" for a person? Just curious. 

It was Eurus talking to the prison governor:

"Good and bad are fairytales. We have evolved to attach an emotional significance to what is nothing more than the survival strategy of the pack animal. We are conditioned to invest divinity in utility. Good isn’t really good, evil isn’t really wrong, and bottoms aren’t really pretty. You are a prisoner of your own meat."

Last edited by SusiGo (April 24, 2017 5:12 pm)

Yes, I agree. I was just curious what speakers think about it. 
 

It's not a phrase that anyone uses everyday. I don't think it's supposed to be. I think Eurus is intentionally making it almost seem like a vulgar or dehumanizing sentiment by calling our flesh bodies and everything they contain "meat," how certain responses are "programmed" into us by instincts that have been passed down through the generations. 
Like besley says, I believe we can rise above or change those things, but Eurus, at this point anyway, believes that not to be possible for most, or at least not just anybody.

Thank you very much for your explanations.