Language
I think there needs to be a language topic. Half the threads around here seem to turn into one eventually anyway.
So is English the only language that uses whatever the tense for verbs ending with -ing is called? Because that tense is really confusing. I know how to use it an everything, but only because I speak English natively.
So is English the only language that uses whatever the tense for verbs ending with -ing is called? Because that tense is really confusing. I know how to use it an everything, but only because I speak English natively.
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For instance something like "it's raining" would be just said "it rains". On the other hand "while waiting for you, I heard this" would use gerund in French too.
I don't know in Chinese. The thing I know about verbs in Chinese is, it doesn't have conjugations. Which mean, they use the exact same word for present, future, past and for I, you, she/he, we, you, they. I think they use particles for know which time they are talking about. I saying I think, because the only thing I know to say is Ni hao and They are Chilean (Tamen shi Zhili ren, I think). Also, the origins of Chinese are totally different of the origins of Japanese, so, you can infer both are similar in that because they're not.
Tenses seem to be vastly different from one language to the next. I have no idea if you can even find equivalents to something like gerund or subjunctive in more "exotic" languages (that is, not European at all. Sorry for the Euro-centrism here).
Maybe Lena can help us since she speaks Arabic, which is vastly different from Roman languages (well, although Spanish partially comes from Arabic).
I'm taking an Chinese Course this semester! I can ask to my teacher if you wanna know, but if they don't have any kind of conjugations, I don't see how they can have Gerund.
The half of Spain was conquered by Arabs and then taken back before the time they decided to pay crazy people to sail and discover America by accident. Of course, there a lot of words which comes from Arabic (Like the word Amohada, which mean pillow) but, mostly, our grammar and good part of our vocabulary comes from Latin. Also, is good to say Spanish itself is just one of the languages from Spain, there's also Catalan/Valencian, Basque, Galician and Aranese as co-official from diferent zones of the said Country. The Reason why Latin America speak spanish is because the conquerors come from the Zone of Castilla, from where the Spanish come from originally (And Castilla was the crown which took Spain back from the Arabs, which explain why is also their official language =P).
So kind of like Spanish, but you add gender to that.
It's originally from Sanskrit, though.
I don't know any Chinese at all, except for Ni hao, and I think I learned that from Ranma 1/2. I do know that Japanese is totally different, though. They just took China's writing system because they didn't have a system of their own. And in simplifying it, they made it even more complicated. Good job, Japan.
I think most languages would have a present and past tense, even if they use particles like Chinese instead of changing the word like all the European languages I can think of do.
a naranja => an aranja => mispronounced j => final a dropped because stress on the first syllable => spelling variation to turn it into orange.
I don't find it that much of a stretch.
I found something:
naranja (Spanish) and naronja (Catalán) -> laranja (Portuguese) -> ("la" get separated because is confused as an article) la arancia (Italian) -> (They add the word aurum (gold) for the color of the fruit) orange (French). Then, thanks to the french, the rest of europe get the name this fruit and color.
As a curiosity, the word for Orange in Greek is Portokalos, which come from Portugal, because the portuguese were the ones which introduced the tree in Greece.
(Yes, "or" means "gold" in French. Never realised that was where the "or" of "orange" came from though.)
Also, the Arab word for sweet orange is also Bortugal, with naranj being for a different kind of orange.
Bortugal come from Portugal, because the portuguese introduced that kind of Orange in Tánger. (It's everything explained in that link, but it's in spanish, I can't do to much about that =P)
Another fun fact! Bortugal is what you call the orange, but Bortugali is what you call a person from Portugal. The people on the isle of Suqtra are a fascination for anthropologists since they should be, in theory, the "oldest and purest type of Arab" yet they have a tendency for auburn hair and hazel or green eyes. One theory is that Portuguese sailors mixed with the locals, so a group came in the 60's and asked the islanders, "Do you think your fathers were oranges?"
We have loan words from Mapudungun and Quechua, which doesn't exist in spanish from Europe, and most part of Latin America. (For example, China is the Quechua word for female servant =P). Also, we have some loan words from German and English, been the most famous "Cachar" which come from the english "to catch", which a coloquial and surperficial way to say understand. And also, I just discovered my accent is a mix of Andalucian people who talk Spanish because Castilla wanted.
In a way, make me talk about Spanish "pure" is a bit problematic, mostly I talk chilean and I use another set of words than the European Spanish.
With that say it, for some reason, we also know good part of our vocabulary is just slang and we try to not use it while we write or with foreigners, but it's weird when we talk about loan words (We think they are spanish, but not that we adapted them from somewhere else). Also, there's some big differences in the words when used in Spain and in Chile. For example, in Chile "polla" is a raffle. In Spain, is the vulgar name of certain male part. So, go and tell to a Spanish person you just brought a number of the "polla" and then look at its face. Some people told me is hilarious.
In most dialects of English, "root" means to search for something, and in American English it also means to support a sports team. In Australia, it means to have sex with.
Also, in Australian English, a rubber is an eraser. In American English, it's a condom.
Apparently Portugese missionaries in Japan didn't like to eat raw fish (which they had to eat on Friday because they were all Catholic), so taught the Japanese how to deep fry fish. The Japanese really liked the fried fish and made it their own, calling it Tempura or "time to eat fish" since the Portugese only ate fish at one particular time.
And I've leaned (or figured) that meaning because it's the same case in Spansih.
"goma" means both an araser and a condom. It has other meanings, too (elastic ribbon, glue, chewing-gum...)
For that reason, I always pronounce the verb "route" as "rowt" to avoid confusion, despite merciless teasing from the English guys (they would pronounce it as "root"). Saying it as "root" tends to produce snigger-worthy comments, e.g. "Mike hasn't been able to route anything all day".
It's probably worth noting that "root" is a really vulgar way of saying "have sex with" - something like "screw" would be much milder.
Australians tend to be really big on hypocorisms (shortened words, often with added suffixes like -ie and -o), e.g. "mozzie" for mosquito, and "yewie" for U-turn. I think the most ridiculous example I've seen of it is "degga" being used to refer to a 6-course degustation menu (this was actually in print!).
It's so common that "native speakers" in general can easily navigate new hypocorisms they've never heard before, while it might be confusing to a person with a British English or American English background.
While we use orange to describe the color, the fruit is called appelsin around here. The name of the fruit is derived from the Dutch word for it and originally meant Chinese apple.
Interesting enough, the Russian word for orange is "Апельсин", pronounced almost the same, and the colour is "Оранжевый", very much like orange.
According to wikipedia, the word for the fruit Orange is also derived from the Dutch sinaasappel or the German apfelsine.
Most people from Quebec known about the French meaning, but most people from France don't know about the Quebec one
French is huge in hypocorisms, too. But they're not made the same as in English. Still, people will recognise them the first time they see them usually.
Some very common examples:
manif = manifestation (demonstration)
consulte = consultation (doctor's appointment)
McDo = McDonald's
restau = restaurant
micro = microphone
amphi = amphithéâtre (lecture room)
ciné/cinoche = cinéma (theatre)
Basically things are reduced to the first two syllables.
For names, it's often quite different from English. In English you tend to keep the beginning, in French sometimes you keep the end, the middle, or you repeat part of it.
For instance in French Donald's nephews are Riri (Henri), Fifi (Philippe) and Loulou (Louis). My name is Alice and it becomes Lissou. "Manu" is short for Emanuel, "Dédé" is short for André. Bébert for Robert. Someone called Christophe can have it shortened to either "Chris" or "Toff" (possibly "Totoff"). Olivier gets shortened to "Olive".
And although I think I've mentioned that before, all sports ending with "ball" drop it. So the sports are called "foot", "basket", "volley"... Badminton is often shortened to "bad". Baby-foot to "baby".
It's not confusing in French since none of these words mean anything else
I can imagine the personal ads: "Divorced man, late 40s, no kids..."
My name's Laura - would my French nickname be LauLau or RaRa?
People would probably still call you Laura, but "Lolo" exists too (usually for Laurent or Laurence though. Laurence is feminine in French btw).
We learn here Rubber -> plastic, but the kind which comes directly from the tree. "Goma" here is just an Eraser, but there's a kind of sweet liquid with is used for drinks which is called Goma.
In Spanish, most of those sports are called with the complete name, but written exactly how it's sound. Football become Fútbol, and Basketball become Básketbol.
Some verb conjugation in Chile and Argentina is different to rest of the Spanish speaking people, like:
- (You have) tú tienes - tú tenís (Chilean) - vos tenés (Argentinian)
A Chilean person will never write "tenís" unless is demostrative or he's with close friends in a chat, but an Argentinian will write "tenés".
The sad thing about the Chilean accent is, the big difference is between accents it's not for regional zones, it's for social class. The poorer the person is, normally, the stronger the accent is. But with more "money" they start to talk slowly but with an annoying nasal sound (At least for me). It's not that pronunced now, but it was some years ago. Also, Teenagers could start to talk more pronunced when they are in a "tribe" but then forget about it when they start College or start to work. The less nasal and the less pronunced the accent is when you are middle class or you have a good education. Have an strong Chilean accent is considered bad in social terms, but, in informal cases, often the rules get relaxed.
Appart of that, the Chilean talk like we were singing for the rest of the Spanish Speaking people. And hear an Argentinian imitate Chilean accent. it's hilarious.
Americans are so often terrible at imitating the Aussie accent, like the sniper in TF2 - ludicrously inaccurate. He sounds like a guy born and raised in the east end of London, and maybe spent a couple of years living in New Zealand or South Africa.
Yeah, I've watched Australian shows before (since they're free online, what with the neat copyright laws of Australia) and I didn't even recognise the guy's accent at first. But he kept saying "mate" so I thought "he must be Australian".
EDIT: by the way, I don't think the point of TF2 accents is that they're accurate. I think the point is that they're goofy.
Yeah that video had me laughing the first time I saw it, and the medic also sounds like an American doing a ridiculous impression.
No, it's hilarious because they are eerily acurate. But, at the same time, they just can't abandon their way of talk. So, at the end, sound like a Chilean imitating an Argentinian using Chilean Vocabulary.
My Fake Argentinian Accent is so bad, often I finish talking like a mix of European Spanish and Argentinian, with Argentinian Verbs and a Ché throw in for good mesaure. So, everytime I meet an Argentinian and he's way too annoying, I say I'm gonna punish him by imitating Argentinian Slang.
Is not The idea of all they sound like North-Americans doing bad impressions?
I don't know enough about the others to say whether they're good or bad, but they're definitely goofy.
On the other hand, its neat to know another language so you can talk about secret topics with your family in public without having to whisper.
That happen with some of my cousins who talk French too. I always want to know what the *** they are saying...
Careful that someone doesn't hear you
I too draw a blank sometimes. Even though French is my first language, sometimes I can only think of the word in English or, weirder, in something like Spanish or Japanese that I don't even really speak. (I keep saying "totemo" for instance and then catching myself. It's weird).
So I don't think it's because you were raised bilingual, I think it's the case as soon as you know several languages. But the way I think of it, other people often can't think of a word at all. At least we can think of the word in the wrong language
I was also brought up bilingually, speaking both Russian and English, and I know exactly what you mean about not being able to think of a word in the correct language (thankfully, this only happens rarely to me).
Oddly though, in school I learnt French, and am still learning German, and I would constantly confuse the two, remembering words from the wrong language. However, I never remembered words in English or Russian by accident when trying to recall French/German.
I tend to think of it as "compartments" in the brain - you have a compartment for your mother tongue/primary language, which in your case consists of Mandarin and English. This is the compartment which your brain thinks in and uses most. When you speak, your brain tries to find the right word in that compartment, and sometimes things get mixed up xD.
Then, at least in my case, there is a second compartment which contains more languages that you've learnt, e.g. French and German. Since I began learning them at the same time in school, and it would happen sometimes that I had one lesson French, then one German, then one French, both these languages have been put into the same compartment and so get mixed up when trying to remember words in them.
Since then, I have made an aborted attempt at learning Japanese, and what little I know doesn't get confused with any other languages I know, which means that another compartment must have been formed.
Ideally, there should only be one language in a compartment, then nothing would get confused, but then you wouldn't have native fluency in 2 languages, only something very close to it.
My uncle who lives in Puerto Rico also forgets French words all the time and only remembers them in Spanish or English.
Also, I have an English accent when speaking French now (and I still have a French accent when speaking English).
So I guess I'm not speaking ANY language natively lol.
But my theory is more that you can "lose" languages, and you can definitely associate two of them. English is my husband's and his family's native language, French is mine and my family's. Maybe that's the connection.
I know I used to mix English and German all the time when I studied both at school, so I dropped German and switched to Spanish. Later when I added Italian I never mixed it with Spanish, but now I do since I've forgotten most of both.
I'm not quite sure what you mean by associating two languages. Do you mean that you treat both languages as one large whole?
If I expand on my theory, I think it could still apply even in your case.
From my highly limited knowledge of how the brain works, as a part of the brain is used, the larger the neural networks around it grows and the more links it has to everything else in the brain. This is why you even have a mother tongue - when you're growing up, everything new you see is associated with a word in a language, and placed in the "mother tongue" compartment in the brain, creating a link. So, in your example, you might have seen a chair when little, asked what it is, and learnt that it was (excuse my French if this is wrong) a "chaise", or that a garden was a "jardin", or that an apple was a "pomme". So, the concept of something is linked to a word in the "mother tongue" compartment.
When you learn a new language, such as German, you'll associate the word chair with "Stuhl", or garden with "Garten". The concept will be linked to a new compartment with a new language. However, as these links haven't been used as much, or aren't as strong as those between the concept and the "mother tongue" box, your brain still remembers the word in your native tongue first before remembering it in the other language.
Since your husband and his family speak English, this means that you heard everything being described in English, and the links between concepts and the "English" compartment grew stronger, until they became a similar strength to the links to the "French" compartment. Slight variations in the strength of the links are what, according to this theory, cause you to sometimes remember a word in English and forget them in French, or vice versa. I'm not quite sure how the accents fit into this though...
Forgetting a language would be the links becoming weaker from lack of use, and eventually disappearing altogether.
If my theory works, then that would mean that you had English and German in one compartment, when you dropped German you stopped using it, so eventually you forgot it and English was left alone in that compartment. Then, Spanish formed it's own compartment, and so did Italian. However, from lack of use, both Spanish and Italian now have similar strength links to concepts, meaning that they get confused. The key difference is that you mixed German and English because they were in the same compartment, but you mix Spanish and Italian because your brain can't choose which link to follow as they are both almost equal.
This theory sure is becoming long-winded fast. I think I'll stop now, and hope it makes some sense xD
Only, I'm saying that in my opinion, it's possible to share the first language compartment with another language, rather than all first languages being forever in a single compartment that isn't ever letting new languages in.
I think it might depend on the person and their personal experience. f you adopt someone from a country and that someone is 5 and speaks that language, then learns, say, English, they can forget the first one completely and English will become their "first language" for instance. A friend's sister is from Korea and in that specific case, in every way she sounds like her first language is French, and she has no knowledge of what used to be her first language.
About the accent, I think it simply comes from not speaking much French anymore, as I mostly type it. I still know how everything is supposed to sound, but because I rarely make these sounds or use these parts of my mouth to speak English, they don't come as naturally as they used to and I sound like my first language is English when I speak French.
Hey, sounds fun.
Which word is it ? Môme ? Gamin ? For some reason i think Gamin would sound quite funny in that meaning