If you could speak in another accent/language what would it be?

[ChuckFaze]

Speaking of which, I took french for a semester in high school. The whole assigning masculine or feminine to nouns seemed like an unnecessary and ridiculous complication to me.

I shoulda took spanish.

As someone who does speak Spanish, I think assigning gender to nouns in Spanish makes perfect sense. Otherwise the elegant and refined "Yo quiero Taco Bell" could have easily been "Yo quiero Taca Bell" and things would have jussst not been quite the same. History and civilization would have been destroyed.

 

[Lonilover]

i allready speak some different languages.. but you probarly mean one which we do not speak yet.. would love to speak fluently spanish or portuguese..

 

[Johan]

I'd like to be bilingual english.
Then, it would be spanish.
With French, english, Spanish, I think you cover a good part of the world!!

Just with Hindi and Chinese you can speak to about 40% of the world's population.

 

[Namenlos]

I took french for a semester in high school. The whole assigning masculine or feminine to nouns seemed like an unnecessary and ridiculous complication to me.


I shoulda took spanish.

Spanish is the same way. So is German, but German also has what is called "neuter" (pronounced noy-tur)...neither feminine nor masculine, but neutral.

When the pollsters call during my supper tomorrow, as they have every night this week, what can I yell at them in German to make them hang up? Preferably something nice, and polite, but sounds violent to non German speakers.

I thought about posting something for you to tell 'em, but that might be best left to the PM system.

Indian is not a language.Major one is Hindi and then there are 100s of local ones.

There are indeed many dialects. There is a large number of Punjabi speakers in my area.

I don't want but want to learn to talk like a five foot tall nurse from The Philippines so I can mock my girl effectively. She blays bing-bong at her gomblex. Trying to learn.

I knew several Filipinos when I was in the Navy. I made it a point to have a few of them teach me all the bad words in Tagalog, simply so the others wouldn't talk shit to me.

Now that I think about it, I'd like to learn Italian or Japanese...

 

[Bribi1]

Just with Hindi and Chinese you can speak to about 40% of the world's population.

Population-wise yes, but country-wise, it's pretty weak.
With french, english and spanish, you cover North-America, Central and South-America but Brazil, Australia and probably many of the countries around, well over 50% of Africa, and some european countries (France, Spain, Belgium, Switzerland...).
You don't cover Asia and Eastern Europe isn't really covered either as they are not known to really speak english.
But it's still quite a good cover.

Anyway, french is my language, I can speak and understand english quite well, but spanish is a weak link. I would have a small use to it but it would be nice. Right now, I just have a few small memories from school.

 

[hYdl1d3]

My first choice would likely be Russian but I have been in a discussion about the Turkish language being quite similar to an Indiginous tribe from the American Southwest. The fellow got in trouble with a visiting uncle he hadn't seen in a little over a decade if I recall and the uncle scolded his linguistics claiming he sounded more American Turk if I got that correct. He went on to mention that he visited a couple people from a tribe in New Mexico, I do believe, that had a better take on the dialect within their own language context and he was able to communicate and see quite remarkable similarities to the language. Weird. I don't know how true or authentic the story was, my friend could have been pulling my leg but I found it pretty cool and intend to have a look into it myself when I'm not to lazy to ignore or forget about it.

It would be pretty cool being able to speak Pikey too, I had a go and I sound dumb, lol. Dutch is another I had in mind.

 

[Maggie Green]

I'd love to speak fluent French. I took it all through high school but dropped it in college. I love the sound of it.

 

[Bribi1]

French must be hard to learn for people who speak english.
So many damn complicated things! I know learning english is quite cool because some things are way easier than in french.

 

[Supafly]

I'd love to speak fluent French. I took it all through high school but dropped it in college. I love the sound of it.

I know. I had french lessons in school, too. But I am happy, I live right next to France, in Germany. Travel to Paris is a day's holiday

And, imagine your lover you tell you want to break up sings this for you...

Mission Impossible, ma chére

 

[Mr. Daystar]

I would love to learn Italian, and German. When things around here are a little better financially, and I can justify spending the 4 or 5 hundred bucks, I'm going to try that "Rosetta Stone" system. Italian first...or Sicilian, if they offer different dialects.

 

[Maggie Green]

French must be hard to learn for people who speak english.
So many damn complicated things! I know learning english is quite cool because some things are way easier than in french.

Really? See people always say that English is difficult to learn, we have a lot of language rules that contradict each other.

 

[Little Red Wagon Repairman]

Learning how to sound like a nutty Cajun or some Australian character from the Outback would be fun. I think the key would be to say things with meaning and conviction that no one could make heads nor tails from. Confusion through mistaken intent.

 

[Namenlos]

French must be hard to learn for people who speak english.
So many damn complicated things! I know learning english is quite cool because some things are way easier than in french.

Really? See people always say that English is difficult to learn, we have a lot of language rules that contradict each other.

I can see how English can be hard for a non-native speaker to learn (and even a lot of native speakers struggle with speaking it properly). Some of the Filipinos I've known have learned it pretty well, no matter how difficult it was...and putting the shoe on the other foot, I know I'd struggle to become fluent in Tagalog.

 

[tartanterrier]

It would have to be Scots Gaelic.

 

[PierreDK]

For "fun", I would choose Italian and Russian 'cause I've always thought these accents are so sexy...

Just like Wanda

 

[assari]

I think that no one can properly speak or write correctly in a foreign language.

I can write a few lines in English, but I do not necesarily understand what my writing means.

 

[Namenlos]

I think that no one can properly speak or write correctly in a foreign language.

I can write a few lines in English, but I do not necesarily understand what my writing means.

I recently started a new job, and I'm back to regularly reading through service manuals. It's quite obvious that they were written by someone whose first language is not English (I believe it's Japanese, in this case), as some translations are a little...off. In that case, grammar rules play a part, specifically the order in which parts of the sentence are placed. Throw in colloquialisms, and speaking especially can be tricky. Foreign-language classes almost always teach you proper, super-formal ways of speaking, though the German class I took in college was a little less so.

Speaking and writing two languages correctly is difficult, but not impossible. Folks who were raised bilingual from a young age do pretty damn good at it.

 

[sean miguel]

I think that no one can properly speak or write correctly in a foreign language.

I can write a few lines in English, but I do not necesarily understand what my writing means.

Yeah, I can relate.

I like how english actors can totally pull off a regional american accent like Andrew Lincoln and Lauren Cohan in The Walking Dead but the converse is more likely not.

 

[assari]

English language.

 

[Jack Davenport]

Klingon