Something Typical

[blacknblue]

The more I learn about the big, bad world out there - the more prone I become to huddling under my desk.

[Asso]

But the world will reach you. Nobody can escape.

[TPoptarts]

Something typical: yet another of them annoying loud parties outside with the same terrible local band playing the same songs they play in all of them.

[justTripn]

Wow, I am pleased to learn about Finland and am enjoying the fascinating discussion of languages. Once upon a time I could speak two Asian languages--Thai and Hmong--and they are EASY once you get past that little hurdle of the tones.

As I recall, in Thai, the words for "near" and "far" differ only by a tone. And foreigners are warned never to speak of "buffaloes" since it differs only by a tone from the word for the male important parts.

But YES Americans can hear tones. I have a system to prove it.

The American word, Yeah (meaning yes) actually has five tones (inflections) corresponding to totally different meanings.

The high flat tone: Yeah? as in, Please, go on)

The high falling tone: Yeah! meaning YESSS!)

The middle tone: Yeah (and so what?)

The low tone: Yeah (Reluctantly, I agree).

The low rising tone: Yeah? as in Oh really?

This PROVES Americans can hear tones. Now you can get over the fear and learn the Asian tones. And once you get it, you get it. It takes a few months.

And that's the only difficult part about Asian languages. The grammar is wonderfly easy. To make a past tense, you don't need to change the verbs, just append the word "already"

You don't need to change "go" to "went" for instance.

"I went to the store" is "I go to the store already." In fact it's simpler than that. The subject of the sentence "I" is totally optional. "Go to the store already" is a perfectly good sentence if you mean yourself.

Oh and you don't even have "a" and "the" and "to"! How much easier can you get?

[justTripn]

Also with regard to dialects. In Thailand, there are as many dialects as there are villages. And they differ radically. The town a few kilometers down the road has it's own ideosyncracies. Luckily for foreigners everyone understands the standard Thai spoken in Bangkok (which by the way is pronounced "Krungteap.") Only foreigners call it Bangkok.

[Asso]

Something typical: yet another of them annoying loud parties outside with the same terrible local band playing the same songs they play in all of them.

TPoptarts, you're ...vitriolic!

[Asso]

But YES Americans can hear tones. I have a system to prove it.

I don't have the smallest doubt about that.
In fact, to hear tones (and to speak with them) is inborn, for Human genre.
And it is fascinating to try to understand what the different tones want to mean, in the different languages.

[panyasan]

But YES Americans can hear tones. I have a system to prove it.

I don't have the smallest doubt about that.
In fact, to hear tones (and to speak with them) is inborn, for Human genre.
And it is fascinating to try to understand what the different tones want to mean, in the different languages.

I always thought I did not like tone-lanquages. Because I think I can not hear the differences. So I was totally happy when I studied Japanese that it was not a tone-lanquage. It only had the most difficult grammar of the whole planet. Sigh.
Anyway, when I was in Japan, I left the light on, when I parked the car. So my battery was empty when I came back. I went to a restaurant to ask for some jump cables. In Dutch a car battery is called a accu. After the French word of battery. So I said to the waitress I needed jump cables because my accu was empty. Waitress looked very strange at the word accu.
Later I discovered that the Japanese word for battery is ba-ta-ri (of course) and that a ku means evil. Well, it least was empty.

[Asso]

[Alelou]

Don't feel too bad. I once thought I was asking a waiter for some red snapper in a Puerto Rican restaurant, but because of a slight change of pronunciation I was really asking for something much more vulgar. He got the strangest look on his face, then went back to the kitchen and we heard gales of laughter. Which, of course, my husband who'd insisted I order in Spanish was happy to explain to me.

jT, do Asian languages have pronouns? Or just not male/female pronouns? I noticed the communist party hack who was following around one of our exchange students when I was in college couldn't get he or she straight to save his life. (She still managed to defect when the term ended. Yay.)

[Lady Rainbow]

Don't feel too bad. I once thought I was asking a waiter for some red snapper in a Puerto Rican restaurant, but because of a slight change of pronunciation I was really asking for something much more vulgar. He got the strangest look on his face, then went back to the kitchen and we heard gales of laughter. Which, of course, my husband who'd insisted I order in Spanish was happy to explain to me.

jT, do Asian languages have pronouns? Or just not male/female pronouns? I noticed the communist party hack who was following around one of our exchange students when I was in college couldn't get he or she straight to save his life. (She still managed to defect when the term ended. Yay.)

I definitely sympathize with you there, Alelou.

My mom, who is Filipino, still confuses "he/she" and "him/her" even though she's been in the States for 25+ years.

[panyasan]

It is a language-thing. In Japanese you avoid the use of I and you if you can and everybody is adressed with -san or more polite -sama, male or female, for example Sato-san, mr. or mrs. Sato. You really have to guess sometimes who they are talking about, the women or the men. I did not know that other Asian languages did not also have he or she in their language.

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

From the Chinese people I've met here, and from when I was in Taiwan, I undersatnd they don't have the he/she difference. I don't think the Finno-Ugric languages have either, at least not Estonian and Finish.

[Bookworm]

I would love to learn Japanese. I've started, but since I've been so busy I haven't had time to continue. I didn't know Japanese had difficult grammar I thought the hardest thing would be to learn to write.

I don't know if anyone is interested, but to scare anyone who might think about wanting to learn Finnish here are few things you would face.

Although Finnish is easy to read and write when you know the words, because there is one sound per letter, the difficulty is that we have lots of dialects and almost no one speaks standard language. Examble a word "Minä" means "I", but also words "Mä, Mie, Miä, Mää" mean the same thing and then because we like agglutination there might be some suffixes to learn too like. "Minun, Mun, Miun, Minusta, Musta, Miusta Minulta, Minulle, Minuksi... and so on. All those have a basic meaning "I", but the suffix adds more to it like ownership or direction like from me or to me and so on.

We like to add suffixes into everyhting. Verbs have different suffixes depending on who is doing, so we don't have to always use a subject in a sentence if we don't want to. An examble "Kirjoittaa=write", "Kirjoitan= I write", "Kirjoitat=You write", "Kirjoittaa=he/she writes", "Kirjoitamme= we write" ... Then of course every verb also has several tenses so "Kirjoitin=I wrote" and so on.

We have so many suffixes with different words that add meaning to the word that I wont' write about all. Few exambles a word "Kirja=book" "Kirjoittaa=write" "Kirjailija=writer" "Kirjailijatar=writer(she)" , "Kirjasto=library", "Kirjastossa= in a library", "Kirjastoon= to a library" ....

Then we really really like to make new words by combining excisting words together with some nice suffixes.

Then we don't have strict order for words in a sentence. There is the usual order, but we can use any order we like, but then the meaning might change slightly, but many times the change is very small only a small emphasis to certain thing.

[Bookworm]

I don't think the Finno-Ugric languages have either, at least not Estonian and Finish.

No we don't and I'm always very confused what do you do when you don't know if you are talking about he or she.