Odd Fact About American Ego, and English/Spanish Language

In Spanish and German, they capitalize the word "you." In English, we
capitalize "I." - from the American Language section of www.odd-info.com

On Mon, 30 Jul 2007 17:51:42 -0700, javawizard
wrote:

In Spanish and German, they capitalize the word "you." In English, we
capitalize "I." - from the American Language section of www.odd-info.com


Another odd fact: they make you learn umpteen different forms of
"you" in German and Spanish.

--
************* DAVE HATUNEN ) *************
* Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow *
* My typos & mispellings are intentional copyright traps *

On Aug 1, 7:11 pm, Hatunen wrote:
On Mon, 30 Jul 2007 17:51:42 -0700, javawizard

wrote:
In Spanish and German, they capitalize the word "you." In English, we
capitalize "I." - from the American Language section ofwww.odd-info.com

Another odd fact: they make you learn umpteen different forms of
"you" in German and Spanish.


Spanish as spoken in Spain has four: formal singular, informal
singular, formal plural, and informal plural. In most of Latin
America, there are three, since plural isn't broken down into formal
and informal. It's not too difficult really - the only judgment call
is whether you know someone well enough to use informal versus formal.

Spanish is a much more straightforward language than English - Spanish
words are always pronounced the way they are written, obviously unlike
English, and there are very few irregularities in Spanish - English
has a lot more exceptions to rules.

In article om,
Iceman wrote:

Spanish as spoken in Spain has four: formal singular, informal
singular, formal plural, and informal plural. In most of Latin
America, there are three, since plural isn't broken down into formal
and informal. It's not too difficult really - the only judgment call
is whether you know someone well enough to use informal versus formal.

English also has four, but three have fallen out of normal use. Vocative
singular is "thou", accusative singular is "thee", vocative plural is "ye",
accusative plural is "you". Modern English-speakers use "you" for all four
cases.

--
Randy Hudson

"Iceman" wrote in message
ps.com...

Spanish as spoken in Spain has four: formal singular, informal
singular, formal plural, and informal plural. In most of Latin
America, there are three, since plural isn't broken down into formal
and informal. It's not too difficult really - the only judgment call
is whether you know someone well enough to use informal versus formal.

German has Sie/Ihnen for formal singular and plural, du/dich/dir for
informal singular, and ihr/euch for informal plural.

If you *really* want umpteen second-person words for "you," there's
Russian. Hungarian is loads of fun too.

Spanish is a much more straightforward language than English - Spanish
words are always pronounced the way they are written, obviously unlike
English, and there are very few irregularities in Spanish - English
has a lot more exceptions to rules.

Same goes for German, as far as written language. Those genders and
declensions, though... oy.
--
dgs

Following up to Hatunen :

In Spanish and German, they capitalize the word "you."

In German it's optional, at least in the familiar form (Du/du).
--
Tim C.

Following up to (Randy Hudson) :

In article om,
Iceman wrote:

Spanish as spoken in Spain has four: formal singular, informal
singular, formal plural, and informal plural. In most of Latin
America, there are three, since plural isn't broken down into formal
and informal. It's not too difficult really - the only judgment call
is whether you know someone well enough to use informal versus formal.

English also has four, but three have fallen out of normal use. Vocative
singular is "thou", accusative singular is "thee", vocative plural is "ye",
accusative plural is "you". Modern English-speakers use "you" for all four
cases.

With some dialect exceptions.
--
Tim C.

On Wed, 1 Aug 2007 17:43:45 -0700, "dgs" wrote:

If you *really* want umpteen second-person words for "you," there's
Russian. Hungarian is loads of fun too.

Also Korean, although I've been told most of them have fallen out of
use. There were various grades of formal, depending how far above or
below you the person was.


--
Barbara Vaughan
My email address is my first initial followed by my surname at libero dot it
I answer travel questions only in the newsgroup

On Wed, 01 Aug 2007 16:23:20 -0700, Iceman
wrote:

On Aug 1, 7:11 pm, Hatunen wrote:
On Mon, 30 Jul 2007 17:51:42 -0700, javawizard

wrote:
In Spanish and German, they capitalize the word "you." In English, we
capitalize "I." - from the American Language section ofwww.odd-info.com

Another odd fact: they make you learn umpteen different forms of
"you" in German and Spanish.


Spanish as spoken in Spain has four: formal singular, informal
singular, formal plural, and informal plural. In most of Latin
America, there are three, since plural isn't broken down into formal
and informal. It's not too difficult really - the only judgment call
is whether you know someone well enough to use informal versus formal.

Spanish is a much more straightforward language than English - Spanish
words are always pronounced the way they are written, obviously unlike
English, and there are very few irregularities in Spanish - English
has a lot more exceptions to rules.

Having phonetic spelling doesn't make a language more
straighferward, but it does make it more straightforward to read.

--
************* DAVE HATUNEN ) *************
* Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow *
* My typos & mispellings are intentional copyright traps *

On Wed, 1 Aug 2007 17:43:45 -0700, "dgs"
wrote:

"Iceman" wrote in message
ups.com...

Spanish as spoken in Spain has four: formal singular, informal
singular, formal plural, and informal plural. In most of Latin
America, there are three, since plural isn't broken down into formal
and informal. It's not too difficult really - the only judgment call
is whether you know someone well enough to use informal versus formal.

German has Sie/Ihnen for formal singular and plural, du/dich/dir for
informal singular, and ihr/euch for informal plural.

If you *really* want umpteen second-person words for "you," there's
Russian. Hungarian is loads of fun too.

If Hungarian is an agglutinative language like the related Finn,
the plethora of forms is partly a result of having to tack on
endings for uses that would take distinct prepositions in
English.



--
************* DAVE HATUNEN ) *************
* Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow *
* My typos & mispellings are intentional copyright traps *