Let's talk about langages (Advice/Help)
Aug 19th 2004, 9:42 am
#136
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Re: Let's talk about langages (Advice/Help)
I would certainly believe that is the case. Seems to me I read that
Rome is the second most popular destination. I also wonder if perhaps
Warsaw and Prague might be more popular tourist/business destinations
than anywhere in Spain or Russia, so I would certainly put Polish and
Czech ahead of Russian and Spanish on the list of useful languages to
know for Europe. In fact I think I would put Ukrainian ahead of Russian
as a language to know for people in the US.
--
wf.
Mxsmanic wrote:
>
> randee writes:
>
> > For that matter, probably more people travel to Italy or Germany for
> > vacation or business than they do Russia or Spain, so you could easily
> > put German and Italian ahead of Russian and Spanish.
>
> As it happens, France is the world's most popular tourist destination,
> and Paris is the most popular city destination.
>
Rome is the second most popular destination. I also wonder if perhaps
Warsaw and Prague might be more popular tourist/business destinations
than anywhere in Spain or Russia, so I would certainly put Polish and
Czech ahead of Russian and Spanish on the list of useful languages to
know for Europe. In fact I think I would put Ukrainian ahead of Russian
as a language to know for people in the US.
--
wf.
Mxsmanic wrote:
>
> randee writes:
>
> > For that matter, probably more people travel to Italy or Germany for
> > vacation or business than they do Russia or Spain, so you could easily
> > put German and Italian ahead of Russian and Spanish.
>
> As it happens, France is the world's most popular tourist destination,
> and Paris is the most popular city destination.
>
Aug 19th 2004, 9:42 am
#137
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Posts: n/a
Re: Let's talk about langages (Advice/Help)
In article <[email protected]>,
Hatunen <[email protected]> wrote:
>On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 15:25:01 -0500, erilar
><[email protected]> wrote:
>> Well, those are some good reasons for learning German, too. So? There
>>are certainly literary masterpieces in German, as well as more than one
>>or two major philosophers.
>Many major scientific papers written pre-WW2 tend to be in
>German.
A major computer science/applied mathematics journal called
Numerische Mathematik is in German. Of course, it gets translated,
and if there's anything that doesn't lose much in translation,
it's mathematics.
>>And Chinese is certainly spoken by plenty of people 8-)
>The number of people who speak "Chinese" depends on how you
>define "Chinese". Certainly many people speak, e.g., Mandarin or
>Cantonese, but calling the many dialects, even these two, the
>same language is quite a stretch.
Absolutely. However, 70% of mainland Chinese speak Mandarin
as a first language, so that's still a pretty large number
of people.
Hatunen <[email protected]> wrote:
>On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 15:25:01 -0500, erilar
><[email protected]> wrote:
>> Well, those are some good reasons for learning German, too. So? There
>>are certainly literary masterpieces in German, as well as more than one
>>or two major philosophers.
>Many major scientific papers written pre-WW2 tend to be in
>German.
A major computer science/applied mathematics journal called
Numerische Mathematik is in German. Of course, it gets translated,
and if there's anything that doesn't lose much in translation,
it's mathematics.
>>And Chinese is certainly spoken by plenty of people 8-)
>The number of people who speak "Chinese" depends on how you
>define "Chinese". Certainly many people speak, e.g., Mandarin or
>Cantonese, but calling the many dialects, even these two, the
>same language is quite a stretch.
Absolutely. However, 70% of mainland Chinese speak Mandarin
as a first language, so that's still a pretty large number
of people.
Aug 19th 2004, 9:58 am
#138
Guest
Posts: n/a
Re: Let's talk about langages (Advice/Help)
* Magda <[email protected]> [2004-08-19 13:32]:
> On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 15:48:35 -0700, in rec.travel.europe, Jacques Guy
> <[email protected]> arranged some electrons, so they looked like this :
>
> ... You see lots of signs announcing "omiloume ellinika".
>
> The verb is "milaw"... What's that omicron doing there ??
"Milaw" is demotic/modern Greek, while "omilw" is kathareuousa -
"omiloume ellhnika" is more formal.
--
Alexandros Diamantidis * [email protected]
> On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 15:48:35 -0700, in rec.travel.europe, Jacques Guy
> <[email protected]> arranged some electrons, so they looked like this :
>
> ... You see lots of signs announcing "omiloume ellinika".
>
> The verb is "milaw"... What's that omicron doing there ??
"Milaw" is demotic/modern Greek, while "omilw" is kathareuousa -
"omiloume ellhnika" is more formal.
--
Alexandros Diamantidis * [email protected]
Aug 19th 2004, 10:23 am
#139
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Posts: n/a
Re: Let's talk about langages (Advice/Help)
This is the *.*.europe group, so naturally I was thinking Europe.
--
wf.
Richard wrote:
>
> "randee" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
> > For that matter, probably more people travel to Italy or Germany for
> > vacation or business than they do Russia or Spain, so you could easily
> > put German and Italian ahead of Russian and Spanish.
>
> Spanish is far more useful than Italian, German or Russian. You seem to
> forget how wide-spread it is from Mexico all the way down to Argentina.
>
> Richard
--
wf.
Richard wrote:
>
> "randee" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
> > For that matter, probably more people travel to Italy or Germany for
> > vacation or business than they do Russia or Spain, so you could easily
> > put German and Italian ahead of Russian and Spanish.
>
> Spanish is far more useful than Italian, German or Russian. You seem to
> forget how wide-spread it is from Mexico all the way down to Argentina.
>
> Richard
Aug 19th 2004, 10:33 am
#140
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Posts: n/a
Re: Let's talk about langages (Advice/Help)
On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 14:12:54 -0600, Hatunen wrote:
> The number of people who speak "Chinese" depends on how you
> define "Chinese". Certainly many people speak, e.g., Mandarin or
> Cantonese, but calling the many dialects, even these two, the
> same language is quite a stretch.
What's this thing about Cantonese? I suspect it would remain an
insignificant dialect, except for one small detail: the large number of
emigrants from Hong Kong. But in the larger scheme of things, it's just
one of the many local Chinese languages.
Furthermore, just back from two weeks in China, I would add that my
feeling is that the importance of local languages/dialects will probably
dwindle over the next couple of decades at least on the mainland. For one
key reason: all TV seems to be in Mandarin. (In contrast, for instance
if you go to Taiwan, you now have TV in Minnanyu.) And yes, I suppose one
can make a case that from a cultural standpoint, disappearance of these
older and richer Chinese languages to the benefit of a marginal language
out of a relative cultural desert in the northeastern confines of the
empire is indeed a loss.
But anyway, it really is the case that you can go anywhere in China
speaking Mandarin. It seemed to me that you could not find anyone in
China who did not speak it, in fact.
> The number of people who speak "Chinese" depends on how you
> define "Chinese". Certainly many people speak, e.g., Mandarin or
> Cantonese, but calling the many dialects, even these two, the
> same language is quite a stretch.
What's this thing about Cantonese? I suspect it would remain an
insignificant dialect, except for one small detail: the large number of
emigrants from Hong Kong. But in the larger scheme of things, it's just
one of the many local Chinese languages.
Furthermore, just back from two weeks in China, I would add that my
feeling is that the importance of local languages/dialects will probably
dwindle over the next couple of decades at least on the mainland. For one
key reason: all TV seems to be in Mandarin. (In contrast, for instance
if you go to Taiwan, you now have TV in Minnanyu.) And yes, I suppose one
can make a case that from a cultural standpoint, disappearance of these
older and richer Chinese languages to the benefit of a marginal language
out of a relative cultural desert in the northeastern confines of the
empire is indeed a loss.
But anyway, it really is the case that you can go anywhere in China
speaking Mandarin. It seemed to me that you could not find anyone in
China who did not speak it, in fact.
Aug 19th 2004, 10:40 am
#141
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Posts: n/a
Re: Let's talk about langages (Advice/Help)
And in colloquial English (Cajun English too), you would say: 'I done
did'.
--
wf.
Neeraj Mathur wrote:
> Let me elaborate on my point a bit. In Italian, there is a contrast between
> 'feci' and 'ho fatto'. In Spanish, there is a contrast between 'hice' and
> 'he hecho'. In English, there is a contrast between 'I did' and 'I have
> done'.
>
did'.
--
wf.
Neeraj Mathur wrote:
> Let me elaborate on my point a bit. In Italian, there is a contrast between
> 'feci' and 'ho fatto'. In Spanish, there is a contrast between 'hice' and
> 'he hecho'. In English, there is a contrast between 'I did' and 'I have
> done'.
>
Aug 19th 2004, 10:57 am
#142
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Posts: n/a
Re: Let's talk about langages (Advice/Help)
Thu, 19 Aug 2004 20:57:56 +0100: "Neeraj Mathur"
<[email protected]>: in sci.lang:
>Perhaps an example of what I meant would help. In the 12th century, spoken
>French had a difference between the 2 sg. 'chantes' and the 3 pl.
>'chantent'. This difference was present in the written French of the time.
>Since then, however, the written form has continued exactly - we still write
>'tu chantes' and 'ils chantent' - but the spoken language has diverged from
>this, and only one form is used, [sat] (with a nasalised vowel - sorry, I'm
>not an IPA pro yet - have I written that wrong?).
Spose so. Try [SA~t].
Otherwise, I agree with you - form the very limited knowledge of
French that I have.
--
Ruud Harmsen - http://rudhar.com
<[email protected]>: in sci.lang:
>Perhaps an example of what I meant would help. In the 12th century, spoken
>French had a difference between the 2 sg. 'chantes' and the 3 pl.
>'chantent'. This difference was present in the written French of the time.
>Since then, however, the written form has continued exactly - we still write
>'tu chantes' and 'ils chantent' - but the spoken language has diverged from
>this, and only one form is used, [sat] (with a nasalised vowel - sorry, I'm
>not an IPA pro yet - have I written that wrong?).
Spose so. Try [SA~t].
Otherwise, I agree with you - form the very limited knowledge of
French that I have.
--
Ruud Harmsen - http://rudhar.com
Aug 19th 2004, 11:00 am
#143
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Posts: n/a
Re: Let's talk about langages (Advice/Help)
Thu, 19 Aug 2004 20:57:56 +0100: "Neeraj Mathur"
<[email protected]>: in sci.lang:
>In any case, what is important is that there is a distinction in written
>French which is not present in spoken French. This makes it difficult for
>learners - those who learn spoken French first (Francophone children,
>students in immersion classes, etc.) will have difficulty (minute, yes, but
>present) learning the written forms, while those who learn both together
>(older students learning French as a second language) will have to deal with
>the fact that the grammars of the written and spoken languages are
>different. These difficulties are not experienced by students of, say,
>Spanish.
In many kinds of Spanish in Latin America and southern Spain, final -s
is becoming -h, and then to disappear. This also involves the plural
ending -s, so the same thing seems to be happening there that happened
in French a few centuries ago.
--
Ruud Harmsen - http://rudhar.com
<[email protected]>: in sci.lang:
>In any case, what is important is that there is a distinction in written
>French which is not present in spoken French. This makes it difficult for
>learners - those who learn spoken French first (Francophone children,
>students in immersion classes, etc.) will have difficulty (minute, yes, but
>present) learning the written forms, while those who learn both together
>(older students learning French as a second language) will have to deal with
>the fact that the grammars of the written and spoken languages are
>different. These difficulties are not experienced by students of, say,
>Spanish.
In many kinds of Spanish in Latin America and southern Spain, final -s
is becoming -h, and then to disappear. This also involves the plural
ending -s, so the same thing seems to be happening there that happened
in French a few centuries ago.
--
Ruud Harmsen - http://rudhar.com
Aug 19th 2004, 11:07 am
#144
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Posts: n/a
Re: Let's talk about langages (Advice/Help)
Thu, 19 Aug 2004 20:57:56 +0100: "Neeraj Mathur"
<[email protected]>: in sci.lang:
>> As to comparing spelling and grammar difficulty in French and in English,
>> again the comparison is by no means as straightforward as you make it
>> sound. True that French is more structured, that it's much more
>> rule-based, and that it has more redundancies governed by rules. OTOH,
>> it's almost always much more predictable than English. In English, you
>> may not have rules, but you end up having to learn the usage in effect on
>> a case-by-case manner. A point that native speakers may have a hard time
>> noticing, BTW, because they will typically have learned the cases before
>> reaching an age where you become conscious and aware of your own learning
>> process.
>I'm afraid I'm not entirely sure what you're talking about here - would you
>mind rephrasing that for me, with an example, so that I can follow you
>better?
I think I understand him. When reading 'A practical English Grammar'
by Thomson and Martinet (ISBN 0 19 431342 5/6) I find that many
grammatical rules apply to only between 100 and 6 words or
expressions, so that English seems to have not something like the 20
word types or parts of speech that are common, but rather several 100s
of them, perhaps better called classes as in Swahili? English grammar
is much more complicated when properly described (as I think this book
does) than many other books (which more or less follow the grammar of
Latin, in order to describe English) lead us to believe.
--
Ruud Harmsen - http://rudhar.com
<[email protected]>: in sci.lang:
>> As to comparing spelling and grammar difficulty in French and in English,
>> again the comparison is by no means as straightforward as you make it
>> sound. True that French is more structured, that it's much more
>> rule-based, and that it has more redundancies governed by rules. OTOH,
>> it's almost always much more predictable than English. In English, you
>> may not have rules, but you end up having to learn the usage in effect on
>> a case-by-case manner. A point that native speakers may have a hard time
>> noticing, BTW, because they will typically have learned the cases before
>> reaching an age where you become conscious and aware of your own learning
>> process.
>I'm afraid I'm not entirely sure what you're talking about here - would you
>mind rephrasing that for me, with an example, so that I can follow you
>better?
I think I understand him. When reading 'A practical English Grammar'
by Thomson and Martinet (ISBN 0 19 431342 5/6) I find that many
grammatical rules apply to only between 100 and 6 words or
expressions, so that English seems to have not something like the 20
word types or parts of speech that are common, but rather several 100s
of them, perhaps better called classes as in Swahili? English grammar
is much more complicated when properly described (as I think this book
does) than many other books (which more or less follow the grammar of
Latin, in order to describe English) lead us to believe.
--
Ruud Harmsen - http://rudhar.com
Aug 19th 2004, 11:10 am
#145
Guest
Posts: n/a
Re: Let's talk about langages (Advice/Help)
Thu, 19 Aug 2004 20:57:56 +0100: "Neeraj Mathur"
<[email protected]>: in sci.lang:
>Let me elaborate on my point a bit. In Italian, there is a contrast between
>'feci' and 'ho fatto'. In Spanish, there is a contrast between 'hice' and
>'he hecho'. In English, there is a contrast between 'I did' and 'I have
>done'.
And one of these tenses is called 'perfect' or "having perfective
aspect', although semantically it is exactly the opposite, in denoting
actions that can continue or have impact into the present.
--
Ruud Harmsen - http://rudhar.com
<[email protected]>: in sci.lang:
>Let me elaborate on my point a bit. In Italian, there is a contrast between
>'feci' and 'ho fatto'. In Spanish, there is a contrast between 'hice' and
>'he hecho'. In English, there is a contrast between 'I did' and 'I have
>done'.
And one of these tenses is called 'perfect' or "having perfective
aspect', although semantically it is exactly the opposite, in denoting
actions that can continue or have impact into the present.
--
Ruud Harmsen - http://rudhar.com
Aug 19th 2004, 11:11 am
#146
Guest
Posts: n/a
Re: Let's talk about langages (Advice/Help)
"Ruud Harmsen" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> In many kinds of Spanish in Latin America and southern Spain, final -s
> is becoming -h, and then to disappear. This also involves the plural
> ending -s, so the same thing seems to be happening there that happened
> in French a few centuries ago.
Yeah - I forgot to mention the fact that written French has many more
distinctions of singular and plural than does the spoken language, another
instance of divergence.
About that missing Spanish 's' - there's a great Gipsy Kings song in which
he dedicates 'ehta rumba a ti, Gitana' and I've heard lots of 'vamo-noh' I'm
sure as well.
I am very interested in the development of past tenses, particularly in
English. I remember a lecturer here in Oxford saying that he had trouble
with a phrase like 'Did you see that movie yet?', where the adverb would
trigger a perfect for him - 'Have you seen that movie yet?'. Having lived
most of my life in Canada, though, I had less trouble with the preterite
being used in that way. He also mentioned an Australian tour guide who
proclaimed that 'This bridge has been built in 1935' - a usage that struck
most of us as particularly odd, and yet a perfect parallel to the
development of French!
Neeraj Mathur
news:[email protected]...
> In many kinds of Spanish in Latin America and southern Spain, final -s
> is becoming -h, and then to disappear. This also involves the plural
> ending -s, so the same thing seems to be happening there that happened
> in French a few centuries ago.
Yeah - I forgot to mention the fact that written French has many more
distinctions of singular and plural than does the spoken language, another
instance of divergence.
About that missing Spanish 's' - there's a great Gipsy Kings song in which
he dedicates 'ehta rumba a ti, Gitana' and I've heard lots of 'vamo-noh' I'm
sure as well.
I am very interested in the development of past tenses, particularly in
English. I remember a lecturer here in Oxford saying that he had trouble
with a phrase like 'Did you see that movie yet?', where the adverb would
trigger a perfect for him - 'Have you seen that movie yet?'. Having lived
most of my life in Canada, though, I had less trouble with the preterite
being used in that way. He also mentioned an Australian tour guide who
proclaimed that 'This bridge has been built in 1935' - a usage that struck
most of us as particularly odd, and yet a perfect parallel to the
development of French!
Neeraj Mathur
Aug 19th 2004, 11:17 am
#147
Guest
Posts: n/a
Re: Let's talk about langages (Advice/Help)
On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 21:58:07 +0000 (UTC), in rec.travel.europe, Alexandros Diamantidis
<[email protected]> arranged some electrons, so they looked like this :
... * Magda <[email protected]> [2004-08-19 13:32]:
... > On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 15:48:35 -0700, in rec.travel.europe, Jacques Guy
... > <[email protected]> arranged some electrons, so they looked like this :
... >
... > ... You see lots of signs announcing "omiloume ellinika".
... >
... > The verb is "milaw"... What's that omicron doing there ??
...
... "Milaw" is demotic/modern Greek, while "omilw" is kathareuousa -
... "omiloume ellhnika" is more formal.
Thank you.
<[email protected]> arranged some electrons, so they looked like this :
... * Magda <[email protected]> [2004-08-19 13:32]:
... > On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 15:48:35 -0700, in rec.travel.europe, Jacques Guy
... > <[email protected]> arranged some electrons, so they looked like this :
... >
... > ... You see lots of signs announcing "omiloume ellinika".
... >
... > The verb is "milaw"... What's that omicron doing there ??
...
... "Milaw" is demotic/modern Greek, while "omilw" is kathareuousa -
... "omiloume ellhnika" is more formal.
Thank you.
Aug 19th 2004, 11:18 am
#148
Guest
Posts: n/a
Re: Let's talk about langages (Advice/Help)
Thu, 19 Aug 2004 20:57:56 +0100: "Neeraj Mathur"
<[email protected]>: in sci.lang:
>Well, let's test it. Is there anybody here with experience with Spanish or
>Italian Immersion, and who can comment on the abilities of such students
>with regards to the written language?
Or the other way around: it is possible to be completely fluent in
reading written Portuguese, to understand everything almost at first
sight, or certainly after occasionally consulting some dictionaries;
while still having great difficulty at times to understand the spoken
language (of Portugal). Not always as much difficulty: success rates
may vary between 95% and 5% for no detectable reason. Same language,
same region, same accent, same dialect; yet sometimes it works out,
sometimes it doesn't.
--
Ruud Harmsen - http://rudhar.com
<[email protected]>: in sci.lang:
>Well, let's test it. Is there anybody here with experience with Spanish or
>Italian Immersion, and who can comment on the abilities of such students
>with regards to the written language?
Or the other way around: it is possible to be completely fluent in
reading written Portuguese, to understand everything almost at first
sight, or certainly after occasionally consulting some dictionaries;
while still having great difficulty at times to understand the spoken
language (of Portugal). Not always as much difficulty: success rates
may vary between 95% and 5% for no detectable reason. Same language,
same region, same accent, same dialect; yet sometimes it works out,
sometimes it doesn't.
--
Ruud Harmsen - http://rudhar.com
Aug 19th 2004, 11:24 am
#149
Guest
Posts: n/a
Re: Let's talk about langages (Advice/Help)
"DeMaisonneuve" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Bravo, sans aucune faute d'orthographe. Je vois que vous avez atteint un
> niveau de francais eleve. Seul conseil, mais c'est simplement pour rendre
> plus naturelle votre structure de phrase, vous devriez plutot utiliser la
> tournure de phrase suivante:
> Je vous invite, vous tous qui habitez dans des pays...
> ou bien encore:
> J'invite tous ceux qui habitent dans des pays...
Je vous remercie pour vos mots d'encouragement! Vos corrections et
suggestions sont vraiment bienvenues et me donne de l'esprit. J'etudiais le
francais en ecole, mais je n'ai jamais perfectionne ma connaissance de la
langue. Maintenant je travaille pour mon BA entre les etudes Classique et de
Sanscrite, avec un peu de la linguistique. Je veux presenter des examens
comme le DELF / DALF pour faire parfait mes pouvoirs - que pensez-vous? Mon
francais, il vous semble trop influence par l'anglais? Comment puis-je le
corriger?
Neeraj Mathur
news:[email protected]...
> Bravo, sans aucune faute d'orthographe. Je vois que vous avez atteint un
> niveau de francais eleve. Seul conseil, mais c'est simplement pour rendre
> plus naturelle votre structure de phrase, vous devriez plutot utiliser la
> tournure de phrase suivante:
> Je vous invite, vous tous qui habitez dans des pays...
> ou bien encore:
> J'invite tous ceux qui habitent dans des pays...
Je vous remercie pour vos mots d'encouragement! Vos corrections et
suggestions sont vraiment bienvenues et me donne de l'esprit. J'etudiais le
francais en ecole, mais je n'ai jamais perfectionne ma connaissance de la
langue. Maintenant je travaille pour mon BA entre les etudes Classique et de
Sanscrite, avec un peu de la linguistique. Je veux presenter des examens
comme le DELF / DALF pour faire parfait mes pouvoirs - que pensez-vous? Mon
francais, il vous semble trop influence par l'anglais? Comment puis-je le
corriger?
Neeraj Mathur
Aug 19th 2004, 11:58 am
#150
Guest
Posts: n/a
Re: Let's talk about langages (Advice/Help)
Fri, 20 Aug 2004 00:11:42 +0100: "Neeraj Mathur"
<[email protected]>: in sci.lang:
>About that missing Spanish 's' - there's a great Gipsy Kings song in which
>he dedicates 'ehta rumba a ti, Gitana' and I've heard lots of 'vamo-noh' I'm
>sure as well.
Andalusian Spanish, I suppose.
>I am very interested in the development of past tenses, particularly in
>English. I remember a lecturer here in Oxford saying that he had trouble
>with a phrase like 'Did you see that movie yet?', where the adverb would
>trigger a perfect for him - 'Have you seen that movie yet?'. Having lived
>most of my life in Canada, though, I had less trouble with the preterite
>being used in that way.
Probably some US/UK difference again. I have enough trouble
understanding and learning the correct use or the English simple past
and perfect as it is. US-UK differences in top of that are beyond me.
Too difficult and subtle.
--
Ruud Harmsen - http://rudhar.com
<[email protected]>: in sci.lang:
>About that missing Spanish 's' - there's a great Gipsy Kings song in which
>he dedicates 'ehta rumba a ti, Gitana' and I've heard lots of 'vamo-noh' I'm
>sure as well.
Andalusian Spanish, I suppose.
>I am very interested in the development of past tenses, particularly in
>English. I remember a lecturer here in Oxford saying that he had trouble
>with a phrase like 'Did you see that movie yet?', where the adverb would
>trigger a perfect for him - 'Have you seen that movie yet?'. Having lived
>most of my life in Canada, though, I had less trouble with the preterite
>being used in that way.
Probably some US/UK difference again. I have enough trouble
understanding and learning the correct use or the English simple past
and perfect as it is. US-UK differences in top of that are beyond me.
Too difficult and subtle.
--
Ruud Harmsen - http://rudhar.com
