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Besides English, what languages do you speak?

None. I only speak English.
Total votes: 55 (24%)
German
Total votes: 47 (20%)
Dutch/Afrikaans
Total votes: 14 (6%)
Other North Germanic lang (Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Icelandic, Faroese)
Total votes: 11 (5%)
Spanish
Total votes: 22 (9%)
Portuguese
Total votes: 4 (2%)
French
Total votes: 22 (9%)
Italian
Total votes: 4 (2%)
Other Romance lang (Romanian, Catalan, etc.)
Total votes: 3 (1%)
Greek
Russian
Total votes: 10 (4%)
Other Slavic lang (Polish, Ukrainian, Czech, Bulgarian, etc.)
Total votes: 7 (3%)
Arabic (any dialect)
Total votes: 2 (1%)
Japanese
Total votes: 9 (4%)
Korean
(No votes)
Mandarin or other Chinese dialect (Min, Wu, Yue, Cantonese, etc.)
Total votes: 4 (2%)
Tai-Kadai lang (Thai, Lao, etc.)
(No votes)
Indo-Aryan lang (Hindi/Urdu, Punjabi, Gujarati, etc.)
Total votes: 4 (2%)
Any notable Conlang (Esperanto, lojban, Interlingua, etc.)
Total votes: 2 (1%)
Other -- Let us know in the comments!
Total votes: 12 (5%)
Total votes: 233
Post

Re: What languages do you speak?

#121
TheJuggler wrote:Cough - [ khɑf ]
Goth - [ gɑθ ]
Ah, that'll be my working-class Norfolk background in play there. Generally only words starting with 'th' use θ, words ending with it often use f instead.
TheJuggler wrote:Ah. This may be an example of the Cot-Caught Merger in action. I wasn't aware that you were referencing regional differences in pronunciation.
I wasn't, so much - it's not so much regional differences because some Americans pronounce it with a long o and some Brits with a short o - it's just that they are two entirely different pronunciations (with a short u :mrgreen: ) that are used depending on the word.


The fact that we can argue over how to pronounce words itself means there's a big problem here. :mrgreen:
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Post

Re: What languages do you speak?

#122
DigitalDuck wrote: The fact that we can argue over how to pronounce words itself means there's a big problem here. :mrgreen:
Agreed. But assuming we do reform English spelling, the question becomes: should we (a) standardize pronunciation to match the orthography, or (b) simply spell everything the way it sounds?

In other words, if "car" is spelled "caa" under the new spelling rules (reflecting the British tendency to omit the 'r' sound and instead lengthen the preceding vowel), do we then mandate that [kʰɑː] is the standard pronunciation, and all others are wrong?

Or do we instead opt for option (b), resulting in Brits writing "caa" and Americans writing "car"?
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Post

Re: What languages do you speak?

#123
TheJuggler wrote:Or do we instead opt for option (b), resulting in Brits writing "caa" and Americans writing "car"?
Well, for a start, let's scrap that stupid C. It's useless. Well, maybe keep it as a replacement for CH, but other than that we already have K and S. This would help with internationalisation of the language too (for example, Japanese people already pronounce the English "car" as カー (Romanised as kaa)).

I'd actually go for option B. It's not like we don't already have differences in spellings between dialects, yet it's still easily understandable. So even though I might write "kaa", if I see someone using "kar" I'll know what they're talking about just as I understand someone writing "color" instead of "colour" (although "kuler" is universal :mrgreen: )

While we're at it, let's get rid of apostrophes. While "use if it's a contraction, otherwise don't use if it involves a pronoun, otherwise use if it involves possession, otherwise don't use" isn't that complicated (despite how often people get it wrong), we don't actually pronounce it in any way yet still understand speech perfectly so it's superfluous. We understand the difference between "it's" and "its" through context, so its use is unneeded.

Or we could just scrap English entirely because it's one of the hardest languages to learn and just pick a different one. We should all be speaking Turkish.
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Re: What languages do you speak?

#125
Zanteogo wrote:C and K sound the same as S?
No, but C is always pronounced as either K, S, or otherwise is combined with one of them to be superfluous. CH is usually pronounced differently, but not always.

For example:
as K - cat, abacus, scone, sonic, colour, chaos, second, cod
as S - cent, space, prince, placebo, recess, ounce, centimetre, plaice
superfluous - scent, science, scintillating, scissors, attack, back, duck, quack

You could replace C with K in the first list, S in the second list, and miss it out entirely in the third list, and if anything the pronunciation of the words would be less ambiguous.

And just for fun: "school". It looks like one of the superfluous examples, but obviously the CH means it's different and pronounced like that, except it's neither because it's pronounced with a K sound and the H is silent.
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Re: What languages do you speak?

#129
Native german, so i guess, I can handle myself as long as it´s not medicine or other highly specialised stuff.
I´ve been told that my english is quite good, but that´s already a while ago...time to get back on my former niveau...Aside from that i´m currently learning Japanese in a nearby course...speaking and understanding is quite good...but still on a fundamental level...reading and writing is way more complicated...at least i can read and write all simple characters...and from the Kanji i can read, i can also write...30 or so I think...(Need to exercise those more :think: )
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Re: What languages do you speak?

#132
DigitalDuck wrote:
TheJuggler wrote:Or do we instead opt for option (b), resulting in Brits writing "caa" and Americans writing "car"?
Well, for a start, let's scrap that stupid C. It's useless. Well, maybe keep it as a replacement for CH, but other than that we already have K and S. This would help with internationalisation of the language too (for example, Japanese people already pronounce the English "car" as カー (Romanised as kaa)).

I'd actually go for option B. It's not like we don't already have differences in spellings between dialects, yet it's still easily understandable. So even though I might write "kaa", if I see someone using "kar" I'll know what they're talking about just as I understand someone writing "color" instead of "colour" (although "kuler" is universal :mrgreen: )

While we're at it, let's get rid of apostrophes. While "use if it's a contraction, otherwise don't use if it involves a pronoun, otherwise use if it involves possession, otherwise don't use" isn't that complicated (despite how often people get it wrong), we don't actually pronounce it in any way yet still understand speech perfectly so it's superfluous. We understand the difference between "it's" and "its" through context, so its use is unneeded.

Or we could just scrap English entirely because it's one of the hardest languages to learn and just pick a different one. We should all be speaking Turkish.
I'd like to make English have a little more of a Welsh or Latin aesthetic and use <c> for /k/ instead of <k> for /k/, for the reason that k is an annoying letter to write and it frequently comes out looking like an <h> in my handwriting, and also that <c> looks nicer.

bank -> banc
black -> blac
kick -> cic
kaleidoscope -> caleidoscope
school -> scool
square -> scware*
lark -> larc
pork -> porc

* I'd change the spelling of "square" (and a lot of other words) even more to unambiguously represent different vowel sounds. After all, English has between 11 and 14 vowel phonemes (depending on who you ask and what dialect they speak) and only 6 letters to represent them.
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Post

Re: What languages do you speak?

#133
OR! we can follow this plan:

Directors at Daimler Benz and Chrysler have announced an agreement to adopt English as the preferred language for communications, rather than German, which was another possibility.

As part of the negotiations, directors at Chrysler conceded that English spelling has some room for improvement and have accepted a five-year phase-in plan.

In the first year, "s" will be used instead of the soft "c". Also, the hard "c" will be replased with "k". Not only will this klear up konfusion, but komputers have one less letter.

There will be growing kompany enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replased by "f". This will make words like "fotograf" 20 persent shorter.

In the third year, DaimlerKhrysler akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reash the stage where more komplikated shanges are possible.

DaimlerKhrysler will enkourage the removal of double letters, whish have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of silent "e"'s in the languag is disgrasful, and they would go.

By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps sush as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" by "v".

During ze fifz year, ze unesesary "o" kan be droped from vords kontaining "o", and similar shanges vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.

After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubls or difikultis, and employes vil find it ezi to kommunikat viz eash ozer.

Ov kors al supliers vil be expekted to us zis for all busines komunikation via DaimlerKhrysler.

Ze drem vil finali kum tru ….

Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.
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Post

Re: What languages do you speak?

#134
I won´t have any complains with english as standard-for-communications...but once it sounds like that, i will vote for a separation of the both...When I read Pracks post, I started to hear the text in a really disturbing voice...

need to forget that...*shudder*
Apparently, sometimes stuff might happen.
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Re: What languages do you speak?

#135
Grumblesaur wrote:I'd like to make English have a little more of a Welsh or Latin aesthetic and use <c> for /k/ instead of <k> for /k/, for the reason that k is an annoying letter to write and it frequently comes out looking like an <h> in my handwriting, and also that <c> looks nicer.
Then we need a new letter for /t͡ʃ/ because using two characters like <ch> is nonsensical, especially when neither of them fit the sound.

Of course, we could just use the phonetic alphabet.

(Also, how does a k become an h? I could understand it becoming |< or IC or even R, but h?)
Grumblesaur wrote:After all, English has between 11 and 14 vowel phonemes (depending on who you ask and what dialect they speak) and only 6 letters to represent them.
Ignoring any arguments over Y as a vowel, I'd argue English has many more than 14 vowel phonemes.

I'd say cat, cart, cot, caught, kit, Kate, curt, cut, cute, kite, coat, colt, and court make up twelve just by being {/k/ /vowel/ /t/}. Add to that the sounds in kitty (latter vowel), seat, setter (both vowels), soot, shoot, koi, cow, care, and cure and I count 22.

Either way, English is terrifying. :mrgreen:
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