Brits don't speak foreign languages

David Hatunen wrote:

On Tue, 06 Dec 2011 07:13:40 +0100, Runge 131 wrote:

martin loves this thread, in competition for the longest thread

You're certainly helping him along in that effort by doubling his number
of posts.

Runge manages to double the number of posts in a thread while halving
the content. Deft.

--
(*) of the royal duchy of city south and deansgate
www.davidhorne.net (email address on website)
"[Do you think the world learned anything from the first
world war?] No. They never learn." -Harry Patch (1898-2009)

On 2011-12-04 19:27:45 -0600, Erilar said:

No one teaches regional accents, but many children come to school with very
pronounced ones.

In all my European travels, the most difficult English for me to
understand was that spoken by the taxi driver taking me from Bath to
the Bristol airport. I think it is fascinating, how such a small
country can have such diverse and pronounced accents.

I assume other European countries have this effect in their native
tongues. I have heard of German being very different from one side of
the country to the other, and the late standardization of Italian
probably means Venetians and Sicilians are far apart. True?
--
Dan Stephenson
http://web.mac.com/stepheda
Travel pages for Europe and the U.S.A. (and New Zealand too)

On 2011-12-06 09:45:02 -0600, Michael said:

On 3/12/2011 13:39, Dan Stephenson wrote:
On 2011-11-29 12:19:09 -0600, mikeos said:

Even if they don't. In my experience, citizens of most Euro countries
speak better English than I do. For example,in Germany, Holland, all
Scandinavian countries slip effortlessly to English if you start
trying to express yourself in the local language. Even France,
although they pretend that they don't!

Something else. I live in Texas in the USA. There are lot of
Spanish-speaking people here, and it is amazing to sometimes hear them
interleave Spanish and English continuously through their speech, so
that half the words in each sentence are in Spanish and the other half
in English. Or one Spanish sentence followed by one English sentence.
Amazing!

Question: for the non-English people in Europe, does this kind of thing
happen, too? I wonder in particular about the Irish who speak the Irish
gaelic language.

It happens in pretty much all the areas where languages meet. It's
inevitable. It's also prevalent in cities with different communities,
as anyone who has heard young people in Paris or Brussels cross French
and Arabic - just like the generation before them would have crossed
French and Italian or Portuguese.

Cool. I bet a French and Arabic mix sounds incredible!


Michael
http://cannes-or-bust.com/


--
Dan Stephenson
http://web.mac.com/stepheda
Travel pages for Europe and the U.S.A. (and New Zealand too)

On 2011-12-05 04:58:38 -0600, Jack Campin said:


If it Irish is close to dead, why do they put up those confusing
road signs in Irish?

Similar reasons to why the US labels its money in Latin.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
e m a i l : j a c k @ c a m p i n . m e . u k
Jack Campin, 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU, Scotland
mobile 07800 739 557 http://www.campin.me.uk Twitter: JackCampin

Well those are just mottos, like that motto in French for the British
colors, something about God on the right. The labels of the
denominations are in English.

I do think it is interesting that the British motto is in a language
tracing back to the Norman invasion.
--
Dan Stephenson
http://web.mac.com/stepheda
Travel pages for Europe and the U.S.A. (and New Zealand too)

On 2011-12-05 10:34:51 -0600, JohnT said:

"Jack Campin" wrote in message
...
If it Irish is close to dead, why do they put up those confusing
road signs in Irish?

Similar reasons to why the US labels its money in Latin.


And why do Americans have Super Bowl XLVI?
-- JohnT

Oh, this is what I figu The Roman numerals have a history of
denoting something impressive or important, because people want the
imprimatur of the Roman Empire for something.

And American football is all about going BIG and outlandish, so I
figure the Roman numeraling is resulting from wanting the Super Bowl,
which started as the merger of two rival football conferences, to seem
IMPORTANT so as to improve the acceptance of the merger. And we're
stuck with it. Given that, the "XXX" Super Bowl was interesting, as
was the "Extra Large ("XL") Super Bowl.
--
Dan Stephenson
http://web.mac.com/stepheda
Travel pages for Europe and the U.S.A. (and New Zealand too)

On Tue, 6 Dec 2011 18:36:26 -0600, Dan Stephenson wrote:


I do think it is interesting that the British motto is in a language
tracing back to the Norman invasion.

Honi soit qui maly y pense.

Duh that guy is worse than martin.


"Dan Stephenson" a écrit dans le message de groupe de discussion :
2011120618332497938-stephedanospam@maccom...

On 2011-12-04 19:27:45 -0600, Erilar said:

No one teaches regional accents, but many children come to school with
very
pronounced ones.

In all my European travels, the most difficult English for me to
understand was that spoken by the taxi driver taking me from Bath to
the Bristol airport. I think it is fascinating, how such a small
country can have such diverse and pronounced accents.

I assume other European countries have this effect in their native
tongues. I have heard of German being very different from one side of
the country to the other, and the late standardization of Italian
probably means Venetians and Sicilians are far apart. True?
--
Dan Stephenson
http://web.mac.com/stepheda
Travel pages for Europe and the U.S.A. (and New Zealand too)

Awww martin people are drooling over your's...


"Martin" a écrit dans le message de groupe de discussion :
...

On Tue, 6 Dec 2011 18:01:11 +0000 (UTC), David Hatunen
wrote:

On Tue, 06 Dec 2011 07:13:40 +0100, GRunge 131 wrote:

martin loves this thread, in competition for the longest thread

You're certainly helping him along in that effort by doubling his number
of posts.

and you increased substantially the number of people who actually see
one of GRunge's posts
--

Martin

Yers and that makes you so happy happy doesn't it

"David Horne" a écrit dans le message de groupe de discussion :
...

David Hatunen wrote:

On Tue, 06 Dec 2011 07:13:40 +0100, Runge 131 wrote:

martin loves this thread, in competition for the longest thread

You're certainly helping him along in that effort by doubling his number
of posts.

Runge manages to double the number of posts in a thread while halving
the content. Deft.

--
(*) of the royal duchy of city south and deansgate
www.davidhorne.net (email address on website)
"[Do you think the world learned anything from the first
world war?] No. They never learn." -Harry Patch (1898-2009)

I double martin's worthy post, some of you actually enjoy reading them
Say thank you.

"Martin" a écrit dans le message de groupe de discussion :
...

On Sun, 4 Dec 2011 21:52:00 +0100, Wolfgang Schwanke
wrote:

Jesper Lauridsen wrote in
l-september.org:

On Wed, 30 Nov 2011 10:37:04 +0100, Martin wrote:
On Wed, 30 Nov 2011 02:15:44 +0000 (UTC), David Hatunen
wrote:
Then by night
train to Copenhagen where neither my French nor my GErman did any
damn
good, but, of course, most of the Danes spoke English.

Most of the Danes I know speak German as well as English.

Very, very few Danes speak better German than English. It would be
utterly silly for an American to use German in Denmark.

The southern part of Jutland is bilingual Danish/German. A portion of
the people in that region speak German as mother tongue, and I assume
an overproportional section of the native Danish speakers there learn
it as a foreign language. To my (limited) experience most people there
readily switch to German when they realize you're a native speaker. Of
course, if they realize you're American, they might not.

I was expecting Jesper to say what you have just said.
--

Martin