Dutch
French
(German)

Cha0zz wrote:Dutch
French
(German)

Nice, Belgium allrounder.

German and English here, fluent at both, though I hear my accent conjures up visions of jackboots and barbed wire. *cough* I'm also terribly at doing smalltalk in either language.
I do understand Dutch (it's close enough to the German dialects I speak), but can't speak it. There's also some residual Latin that I worked hard to forget.

For everything else, there's Bing Translate.

-Hardenberg

Dinosawer wrote:

Scytale wrote:

Dinosawer wrote:Why would we use logical names if we can have confusing ones instead?
South African is surely much closer to Dutch than to English? They even use their own words instead of English loan words (rekenaar in stead of computer etc ).
Dutch is awesome indeed. I speak East Flemish myself

I speak Afrikaans, and the mutual intelligibility with Dutch is... Cool. Here is an interesting clip of Charlize Theron and a Belgian reporter speaking Afrikaans and Dutch to each respectively.

South African != Afrikaans though, Afrikaans is just one of the most common languages spoken there

Nice clip I had indeed little trouble understanding it.

On that topic, there is quite some common ground between Dutch and German too (though way less than Dutch and Afrikaans). I can usually read German texts and understand the general point without actually knowing German.

Cheers. In learning the fairly limited German I have, I found my Afrikaans to be a major advantage. Not as much as I would Dutch though, if I knew how to speak it; Afrikaans has a ridiculously simplified case system and is not gendered.

It's funny that you can't choose english at lest is the only one you can speak. So I chose "Spanish" and "Others".

And where is Klingon?

Etsu wrote:where is Klingon?

that would fall under "notable conlangs"

English isn't an option because it's a given that everyone here speaks it.

Cheers. In learning the fairly limited German I have, I found my Afrikaans to be a major advantage. Not as much as I would Dutch though, if I knew how to speak it; Afrikaans has a ridiculously simplified case system and is not gendered.

Understandable you wich to learn Dutch, but it is pretty hard to learn though. (I heard)
If you ever need someone to practice on --->pick me<---
South african is weerd, you know, their word for metro is "moltrein" which means "moletrain".

Yeah it's a fun language, but the idioms and expressions are... Unique

Scytale wrote:Yeah it's a fun language, but the idioms and expressions are... Unique

I'm interested why honestly, can you give me an example here?

I found this online which I think is a good sample: https://in.answers.yahoo.com/question/i ... 140AACdrHv

One or two of them (like the baby and the bathwater) are also found in English.

I will add there's a place in SA called "Tweebuffelsmeteenskootmorsdoodgeskietfontein" - literally "place where I shot dead two buffalo with one shot fountain", where the 'fountain' is like 'burg', to indicate a place. There is a strong sense to this name that whoever named it was thinking "and it was awesome" while he was writing it - 'mors-dood' means dead beyond any hope of revival

Scytale wrote: 'mors-dood' means dead beyond any hope of revival

I think they say "as dead as a doornail" in English
However, Tsjernobyl is Dutch and we say the same in Dutch so I'm sure he understands.

Precipitevolissimevolmente

Now, this may not be known to some Italians, as anyone I told it to says they don't know what it means.
However, I was visiting Italy with my Italian girlfriend at the time and her friends thought it would be funny to teach the Irish person a word that they will fail.

It basically means to do something very fast.

Ironically, by the time you say it, it's more than likely done!

Dinosawer wrote:

Scytale wrote: 'mors-dood' means dead beyond any hope of revival

I think they say "as dead as a doornail" in English
However, Tsjernobyl is Dutch and we say the same in Dutch so I'm sure he understands.

I'm somehow really happy to hear it's the same in Dutch, I should've expected it

Scytale wrote: 'mors-dood' means dead beyond any hope of revival

hmm... could be the origin of the german "mause tot" (mouse dead) sein (instantly fell into german...) ...
because i was always wondering what a mouse has to do with being dead

Cornflakes_91 wrote:

Scytale wrote: 'mors-dood' means dead beyond any hope of revival

hmm... could be the origin of the german "mause tot" (mouse dead) sein (instantly fell into german...) ...
because i was always wondering what a mouse has to do with being dead

I'm vigilantly taking notes, here.
reminds
Also, Dutch sounds awesome. I remember a while back I mentioned to some German friends of mine that I had fallen in love with Sächsisch (because it reminds me of Dutch). You should have seen their faces .