Post Punk Kitchen Forum

I understand a lot of languages (Nederlands, Hindi, Danish, Marathi, Polish, ASL), mais je parle seulement trois: français, italiano [che lingua bella!] and of course English, my mother tongue.

I came to PT from Spanish/Latin/French and it was easy peasy- there is almost no grammar difference from Spanish. Some weird spellings shifts (famously, spanish L becomes PT R and vice versa), and maddeningly, some gender changes in nouns between the languages, which makes me INSANE!
There's a really good program/podcast called "Tá Falado" from the University of Texas Austin which is a portuguese course for spanish speakers [native or not]. The podcasts especially feature a linguist and a native speaker of both languages doing dialogues highlighting the differences between SP and PT. I can't recommend it highly enough, and they recently added an advanced section with videos and such highlighting different regional variations.
The bisque with the PT is the difference between the spoken and written languages (which is dramatic) and the fact that pronunciation has variations that spanish doesn't have (vowels vary) and the accents, which are used to show pronunciation changes, not emphasis (like in spanish).

Oj oj oj, det är som att en enorm ordbok har exploderat här! :D

Eto moi lyubinski (thread?)


And I need to install a Cyrillic language pack.

Mi permetto di correggere le "patate arance". Non esistono... cosa intendevi dire? Sweet potatoes?

E, Lutin, si dice "che bella lingua", non "che lingua bella".

<3!

Si', sweet potatoes. Che e' la parola? Grazie per l'aiuto. Ho studiato l'italiano per solo un anno e mezzo.

Patate dolci!

Me gusto eso!

J'avais toujours l'intention d'apprendre l'espagnol, une langue scandinave et la lingue des signes britannique). Malheureusement, quand j'ai l'argent, je n'ai pas le temps et quand j'ai le temps, je n'ai pas l'argent.

Salut les autres francophones! Je suis toujours contente de recentrer les autres végételiens qui parlent français, car c'est râre. Il y a deux jours, je suis allée au premier magasin tout végételien en France! "Un Monde Vegan", qui se trouve entre métros République et Strasbourg St. Denis à Paris.

Moi aussi, je veux bien apprendre l'espagnol. Et l'italien. Mais chaque fois que je commence, je remplace les nouveaux mots espagnols/italiens avec les mots que je connais déjà en français....

Det är som om heter det väl ändå? Om vi ska vara petiga med språket här.


это мои... or is it a й? I'd guess so from my pronunciation of it, but that is not reliable. This is my what? Most of my Russian is space related in one way or another so you kind of lost me there. I read cyrillic, but don't know Russian (or any other language using that alphabet). A lot of Russian is also impossible for me to pronounce correctly.

I must say I'm a bit shocked that I actually understood the French here. I've always viewed my French as poor. I used to speak German, but have forgotten it due to lack of use. I still understand it OK, though. I also understand a bit of written Dutch. And, since I know Swedish, I understand Norwegian and at least written Danish, even if I struggle with the spoken language. Plus random bits and pieces of other languages. I like languages and wish I knew more.

Torque, thanks! Sounds like that podcast would improve my Spanish, too!

The accents kill me. So many times I've offered Wilson poop water.

I used to speak some Spanish but it all went right out of my head when I started studying Italian - they're too similar. Is there a trick to keeping similar languages apart in your head when you don't use either on a regular basis? Because I'd like to start back on the Spanish one day.

How do you get to Carnegie Hall?

It is fascinating that a native speaker can begin to lose their French. I was in French immersion throughout my childhood and won awards for highest grades, and yet my French today is pitiful. I can understand and read anything but I am so self-conscious about my speech that I can't bring myself to try to communicate.

Une année au lycée, j'ai pris des cours d'italien en plus des cours d'espagnol que j'étudiais déjà depuis 3 ans. Ça a été une catastrophe! Je crois que tant qu'on n'est pas très très à l'aise dans une langue, il ne vaut mieux pas en commencer une autre qui lui ressemble trop.

It is super weird. I think there's the added struggle that spoken French and written French are quite different (like, there are some verb conjugations and sentence structures that are natural in written form but that no one would say out loud) so even now that I make the conscious effort to read more in French, it doesn't really help me. So far it's always come back after a few days in immersion, but the first few hours / days are awful.

Wally says he experiences the same thing for Dutch.

My work wants me to lead tours in (Quebecois) French, and though I know I could pull it off...the confidence is so hard to muster! I feel bad because I have worked government jobs that require fluent French speakers, and though I managed to make the cut, when it comes down to it I know that I am not the best ambassador for french Canada. It's so interesting how closely a solid and practiced grab of a language are tied to personal self confidence.

my husband had the same in PT when we lived in the US and he never spoke PT with anyone. When we first came back he was constantly tongue-tied.
I know my English gets wonky when I'm first back in the US, because the English I write is formal, and when I'm back hanging in NJ with my family, it's a different English. Apparently I have an accent at the beginning (because I work/play with lots of South Africans/Aussies/Brits, my accent tends to drift and I find myself using vocab like "mince" and "lift" that doesn't fit in with Jersey.) It takes a day or two to find the right register.

Ndpittman-- poop water is exactly why I hate Portuguese accents.
Hopefully this helps: in PT the standard accent pattern is to put the stress on the next-to-last syllable. caipirINha. it's assumed in any word that doesn't have an accent that that's the standard stress.
Coco, the coconut, has no accent and so you stress the next-to-last, COco. You will have more success saying coco like "coke" with a hollow sort of mini-o at the end.
coCO, the poop, has an accent on the last syllable. oh-HOH! it's poop!
Most people are scrupulously careful about pronouncing these two in an exaggerated manner so there's no confusion. I know personally I always have an inner cringe when I have to say it, but think about coco more like coke and you'll be fine.

Scandinavia represeeeent! Jag pratar jättebra svenska! Og jeg snakker selvfølgelig dansk.. :)

Do you know the comic Scandinavia and the World? You probably speak "Scandinavian" too. That's the language Norwegians and Danes tend to adopt when talking to stupid Swedes (but maybe you just switch to Swedish?). I'm really surprised at how badly many Swedes understand their neighbours. Then again, I do really well with different dialects of Swedish, too. And people think it's weird that I distinguish between Farsi and Arabic when I hear it despite not speaking either language. I don't think they sound alike at all!

I can understand it somewhat, but can't really compose sentences of my own at all. (Also, how do you type in Hebrew characters?)

J'etudiais francais pour sept ans en ecole et universite, mais j'ai oublie beaucoup. Je ne souviens pas les keystokes pour les accents, aussi.