"Sorry for my bad english!"

[hellfish6 7]

and to this when I'm in Spain =D

Un cervéza, por favor.

I might very well be wrong, but isn't it "Una cerveza, por favor?"

[ag_smith 0]

Having learnt a few different languages, I can say that English is the easiest of them all and my native language (Polish) is the most difficult (no joke!). German.... hmmm.... it's the second most difficult language I've ever had a chance to learn. In fact I've learnt German for like 8 years and my skills at Deutsche sprache are uncomparable to English that I started to learn from computer games.

[Pathy 0]

Nah your right Hellfish.

But to show off, yo quiero una cerveza por favor  

Edit: Hehe the guy in the net cafe just came up and asked me if i wanted a beer (in spanish)....obviously saw what i was typing lol...no gracias, perro you quiero un chocolate caliente por favor....  

[Billabong81 0]

Edit: Hehe the guy in the net cafe just came up and asked me if i wanted a beer (in spanish)....obviously saw what i was typing lol...no gracias, perro you quiero un chocolate caliente por favor....  

To show off, żTú quieres un chocolate caliente en vez de una cerveza?  żTú es loco, verdad?

ˇTú necesita una cerveza para su cabeza! Chocolate caliente nunca es mejor que cerveza.

[Tovarish 0]

lol...no gracias, perro you quiero un chocolate caliente por favor....

Lol.

"No thanks, dog I want a hot chocolate please"

Anyways, after 12 years in Canada I speak English better than my native Spanish, but I'm still fully fluent even if I mess up the occasional word. Russian....I can hold my own but talk to me for more than 5 minutes and you'll know for sure I'm not native. Funny thing is, in any of the three languages I'm told my accent is perfect.

Thing I've found about Spanish...different words/phrases have very different meanings from country to country. In Cuba, "Guagua" is slang for bus. In most other countries it's slang for baby. I remember one incident close to 10 years ago when a friend of mine from El Salvador called me and my mom told him I was in the shower because I had just gone to get my hair cut - "Se peló". Well, in El Salvador, apparently that phrase means "He went beserk"

[kavoven 4]

To show off

At Pathy and hooahman:

If you speak real spanish, you leave to YO, TU etc away ;)

Quiero tener OFP 2

[Billabong81 0]

To show off

At Pathy and hooahman:

If you speak real spanish, you leave to YO, TU etc away ;)

Quiero tener OFP 2

   

It's gramatically correct...just not how anyone native speaks .

[bucket man 2]

In Finland they start teaching us english in 3rd grade and that continues in every single school after that being it high school or... I dont know what its called, anyway the place where you learn a specific job and not some general knowledge.

So in school I learned the basic rules of speaking and writing english and my vocabulary has been growing eversense because of movies or games mostly.

Novadays I visit english forums daily and read foreign news sites.

Still even though I was always one of the best students in my class considering english, I think anyone who speaks english as his mothers language can notice many small and big mistakes in my text.

Anybody who is not finnish by birth should try to learn finnish and you will know what language is hard to learn and what is not!

[Fieldcraft 0]

But, in Finland you start school when you are 7 year's old.

So in 3rd grade, you are 10 years old.

And yeah, Finnish is hard language to learn.

[Peanut 0]

Are you from Bavaria by chance?

Nah, I'm coming from Lower Saxoni, quite close to the dutch border

and I just like beer

@ Hellfish6 Thanks for the correction, I will keep this in mind on my next spanish vacation

This is the only sentence that I'm quite able to speek on spanish, so it should at least be right

[der bastler 0]

Nah, I'm coming from Lower Saxoni, quite close to the dutch border

and I just like beer

Ah, another Niedersachse! You propably heard of the OFP Maniac Locator?

http://www.stud.uni-hannover.de/~frank13/map/map.html

http://www.flashpoint1985.com/cgi-bin....t=42262

[Jimpy 0]

I am a native English speaker. It was, in fact, one of the only

things I was ever any good at in school.

I also taught myself German, basically just to see if I could.

I started off by working right through a set of text books and

kept it up to date by reading, and a year studying in Freiburg

im Breisgau (a beautiful little town in S. Germany).

Eventually I have ended up in the Netherlands and had to

learn some Dutch (I refuse to take the lazy way out and

expect the natives to speak English to suit me, although in

many cases I do have to force the Dutch NOT to speak

English to me). My biggest problem is that Dutch and German

are basically the same language. A philologist comparing them

would, I am sure, conclude that the one is just a dialect of

the other. This, by the way, is an easy way to antagonise a

Dutchman - just tell him he speaks Low German! I continually

find myself interjecting the odd German word into a Dutch

sentence, or else having to stop mid-sentence because I

suddenly realise that I am about to perpetrate a "Germanism"

and have to think of the Dutch "equivalent". One advantage

however is that reading Dutch, with a knowledge of German,

is very simple.

As regards accents and pronunciation I find it easier to

acquire a "native" accent if they have a strong accent

anyway. Just speak in a "caricatured" French or German

accent (eg. "Aha! Englander; ve haff vayz ov making you

talk!") but use the appropriate language and you can often

pass for a native quite easily. I recall once that a German

man I met, who had been blind for most of his life,

commented that I sounded like a German. This I regarded as

praise indeed! One of the problems with the Dutch is that

they don't have a recognisable accent that one can imitate.

My Dutch pronunciation therefore is terrible. I don't even

have the excuse that the Dutch "g" sound is hard for me. As

a Scot I use the open vowels and rolled "g"/"ch"  sounds all

the time in my native speech. I still have trouble

distinguishing the subtle differences in the sounds of words

like "rook" and "reuk"; to say nothing of managing to

pronounce the difference accurately myself!

I sometimes enjoy the game of spotting how a non-native

speaker has learned or polished their English. Some speak with

an American accent and use American idioms, some speak

with the English accent and idioms. The "American" speakers

tend to have got most of it from TV or films; the "English"

speakers tend generally to have got it in a more studied,

academic way.

I have never been troubled at all by non-native speakers

making mistakes in English. I am less tolerant, I must admit,

of native speakers who have not mastered English. Some of

the language standards exhibited elsewhere on the Internet,

by native speakers, are truly shocking.

[mr burns 132]

Some of

the language standards exhibited elsewhere on the Internet,

by native speakers, are truly shocking.

that´s got to be the same everywhere .. terrible youth nowadays doesn´t know their own chancellor or even dont find their own country on the map, not to speak of their grammar.

damn i sound like someones grandma

[Jimpy 0]

It's not just the "youth", I wouldn't mind so much if it was.

[der bastler 0]

that´s got to be the same everywhere .. terrible youth nowadays doesn´t know their own chancellor or even dont find their own country on the map, not to speak of their grammar.

Oh yeah!

Hey Miss (East Germany), where's your country?

Answer? Watch this:

http://www.sat1.de/tvmagazine/blitz/videos/29448/

Quote[/b] ]damn i sound like someones grandma

No, that's just personal wisdom making noise...

[Tovarish 0]

Oh yeah!

Hey Miss (East Germany), where's your country?

Answer? Watch this:

http://www.sat1.de/tvmagazine/blitz/videos/29448/

LMAO

I mean, I'm assuming Westen is not "North" and Osten is not "South" in German

[mr burns 132]

Oh yeah!

Hey Miss (East Germany), where's your country?

Answer? Watch this:

http://www.sat1.de/tvmagazine/blitz/videos/29448/

Quote[/b] ]whaa bavaria didn´t belong to the former german democratic republique?

what a classic example! omg see that? poland is situated in germany lmao

i just have to quote broesel now:

Quote[/b] ]Wir trampeln durch´s Gemüse,

wir trampeln durch die Saat

Hurra wir verblöden,

für uns bezahlt der Staat!

[Supah 0]

This, by the way, is an easy way to antagonise a

Dutchman - just tell him he speaks Low German!

Even though I am frisian (you may have heard of us) I wouldn't use that joke in company.

[4 IN 1 0]

learning english is not that hard if you know the way

saddly though that not everyone knows how.........

for me? being one of the victim of old style Hong Kong Education, i start learning ABC since Kindergarten, and thank god i got a few good english teacher in secondary school, in the matter of fact, I use english even better then using chiness

(not good at all ), i once think about learn German, but words from those folks who learnd/temp to learn German just freak me out , and IMO

*evil mode on*

Start learning Chiness while you still get chance muhAHAHAHAHA mhaha mheheheheh mhAhAhAha  :DDDD XDDDDD *cough~cough*

*evil mode off*

eh?  

[der bastler 0]

*evil mode on*

Start learning Chiness while you still get chance muhAHAHAHAHA mhaha mheheheheh mhAhAhAha :DDDD XDDDDD *cough~cough*

*evil mode off*

What I found confusing is that there are apparently no words for Yes or No in Chinese? On the other hand one just exchanges one word to turn a question into an answer...

[somebloke 0]

Well, the languages of Japan and China, and a few other countries are so different to western languages. We westerners have roughly 26 letters in our alphabets. Japan and China probably have 50,000 different symbols, with different meanings. (sorry if it makes no sense)

Basically, we use our language as a way to ask questions, and get answers.

In China, they use language to express their emotions.

And don't blame me, this is from my Tutor at College

[-33ker 0]

I learned most of English by watching Cartoon Network when I was like 4 years old.

No kidding

Hahaha... Cartoon Network was a very good teacher... for both of us!

[4 IN 1 0]

Well, the languages of Japan and China, and a few other countries are so different to western languages. We westerners have roughly 26 letters in our alphabets. Japan and China probably have 50,000 different symbols, with different meanings. (sorry if it makes no sense)

well thats non sence as there are probably "over" 50,000 symbols in chiness

[der bastler 0]

We westerners have roughly 26 letters in our alphabets. Japan and China probably have 50,000 different symbols, with different meanings. (sorry if it makes no sense)

Look in an up-to-date dictionary: We have thousands of different symbols, too. Ok, we compose them out of 26 letter symbols and call them words, but words/syllables are equal to chinese symbols.

Iirc they chopped the jungle of symbols (cut back to 5000? most used symbols) in the 50s/60s...

In our Chinese classes we learned that each symbol consists of a limited number of different lines and curves and represents a very simplified picture of its meaning. Look at Wester languages: We compose our symbols out of a limited pool of characters, too...

Found this today:

http://mandarin.org.sg/multimedia/evolution/default.htm

To me it's a very fascinating language...

[4 IN 1 0]

We westerners have roughly 26 letters in our alphabets. Japan and China probably have 50,000 different symbols, with different meanings. (sorry if it makes no sense)

Look in an up-to-date dictionary: We have thousands of different symbols, too. Ok, we compose them out of 26 letter symbols and call them words, but words/syllables are equal to chinese symbols.

Iirc they chopped the jungle of symbols (cut back to 5000? most used symbols) in the 50s/60s...

In our Chinese classes we learned that each symbol consists of a limited number of different lines and curves and represents a very simplified picture of its meaning. Look at Wester languages: We compose our symbols out of a limited pool of characters, too...

Found this today:

http://mandarin.org.sg/multimedia/evolution/default.htm

To me it's a very fascinating language...

if you look into a chinese dictionary you will find that there is more then that, most of the words are form up from different parts by many basic symbols