No lol I was just taking the piss, a lot of people do it up here instead of saying they speak english lol.
I cant speak Gaelic, used to know someone who did though.
Same when it comes to nationality I always put Scottish on the forms instead of British.

besides English, I can speak a bit of German and Spanish, but I'm not fluent

Uuuu...we're addressing me as if I'm not here and using the full username, I must've pushed the right button...

I wasn't using my definition, I believe it's a standard everywhere, apart from America apparently. I'd say that makes you a tad self-absorbed, as usual, and a little silly in your desperation to reconnect to the "old world" or find something to belong to. No one outside of America would claim they were Spanish if only their grandfather was, especially if it's clear they have absolutely no cultural ties to Spain. So yeah, once again, you're not Spanish so stop telling people you are. You are a white, middle class American, deal.

Oh I'm fully aware of my intellectual capabilities and don't need others to confirm or deny them, thanks...;)

yeah see this is what I mean. Its an arrogance thats unprecendented. You expect me to know what other people would understand when i say "spanish" and respond according to that?

As Janzsoon was suggesting, no one made the mistake of thinking I was from Spain myself.

I'd also like to point this out too, since my father grew up learning spanish until his father left, would I be less spanish if my father came from spain and up and left, leaving my cultureless? Would you call my father spanish?

What American's do is their own business, and I'm still not understanding why you feel is necessary to bash them for a culture they came up around? I'm sure they'd think you're a lazy **** for getting to your 20's without doing any actual work in your lifetime, but thats their problem, not yours.

No ones doubting your intelligence, we're just wondering about your social graces. I'm called self-absorbed because whats culturally understood here, isn't there. I'm not sure the logic fits.

As I said previously in this thread, I receive mail, written in Spanish, other spanish people here ask me if I speak it when they see my last name. Hell I got a text message a week before mothers day asking if I wanted to send my mother a ringtone, the song was something like "Amore'd de Madre."

People here think I'm spanish. Seeing as I was speaking to someone who comes from MA, I saw no reason why I should alter my response to fit your delicate cultural sensibilities.

Hello:wave:

I am french, so my mothertongue is french.

Then i can speak medium english skills and a little bit of german:pimp:

Stopien die auto - stop the car
Ich bin ruhig. - i am calm

when my cousin went to Germany she said these 2 phrases a lot, mostly the second one.

your cousin doesn't know how to speak German.

yeah isn't it halt? I mean you don't even need a class for that.

I wouldn't have minded had you said your grandfather was Spanish and left it at that. But you went on speaking in a manner which infers you actually feel Spanish, a part of that ethnicity, and you're not, which is why I took issue with it. Apart from a surname, you have nothing to tie you with it, after all, the other 3/4 of your genes are English/American/Whatever.

I didn't think you were from Spain either, I could have concluded you were of a Spanish ethnicity had your parents been Spanish, but they're not.

No I wouldn't, I'd say he's ethnically half-Spanish, culturally full American, just like you would've been. :)

I am a lazy fucker, have I ever disputed that? :laughing: However, this is an international forum so I just assume we're all speaking in a manner which is understandable to all.

That's ok, logic was never on your side...http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/c...wer/mazi-1.gif

Yeah, again, your only tie to Spain is a surname. I have a French surname, does that entitle me to calling myself French?

Well now you know and should act accordingly. Glad we got that sorted. http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/c...lpower/hug.gif

No one would assume your French because your country is poor and you can't get EU access.

well stoppen is a verb but rarely (if ever) used, aufhalten/abhalten is usually the preferred verb.

not to mention the conjugation and gender of 'Auto' were wrong as well.

And I still manage to make you feel inferior...http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/c...pointsmile.gif

Not very well at least. she could say other phrases but she wanted to confuse the locals

Well I'm not sure you do. For one thing, I've never met a man who would mock someones spelling as often as you do, but utilizes, in fact hunts down, smiley faces to deliver your point.

I'm waiting for the day you start posting your doodles in lieu of writing words.

And my last point, which I've made prior, is that things either live up to your standards, or you find them less than par. You said you don't rely on others for confidence in your intelligence, and I fully believe that because I'm almost certain your rationalize everything.

Anyone who doens't think you're intelligent must be an idiot.

And with yourself as a judge, the jury always comes back in favor of you being highly educated and professional. But for someone who's still dying to be British, (which you're not by the way, you're a middle class Croatian, deal) you have the manner of a 3rd worlder.

See, I knew you couldn't sustain a level of coherence for more than two posts in a row.

You've made some points? *unsure* How dare I! How dare you call me a rational person!

Well obvs. :rolleyes:

Education and professionalism is related to this discussion and musicbanter in general how? http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/c...aodsmijeha.gif No, I'm French actually, remember, surname=nationality.http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/c...wer/giggle.gif Well that was kind of xenophobic...http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/c...er/shrug-1.gif

This is all very lulzy but also very off topic, so either tell us more about the languages you speak (*chortle*) or move this freakshow to a separate thread. Or does this fulfill our biannual catfight quota? 'cause I could just go on and on and on...remember, I got shit else to do all day...*dreamy*

Just as long we we're clear. friend.

Haha I'm in the same boat with German: du bist hund shiza, jah?

I don't even know if that's right. I want to properly learn German though as it's a huge part of my blood. :)

I think you just ask if someone is a shit dog.

I meant dog ****! Haha.

Sh*t is scheisse I'm pretty sure. It's what my german friends say when something goes wrong. ;)

Hundscheisse sounds a bit weird though.

English and some Spanish though I wish I knew more. My father is from Mexico but growing up he never spoke to me in Spanish. In fact the only Spanish I really heard was the nanny who took care of me when I was a kid because she didn't speak English but then I started school and none of the kids there spoke it. For the most part I can understand Spanish just fine, but putting together coherent sentences and spelling are the things I have the hardest time doing. The best thing I can do is curse which I've been able to do since I was 5, but that comes from watching soccer with my dad.

Languages
 

The words you hate thread gave me the idea for this thread. We have a lot of members from different countries, and many who have learnt English as a second language. So for those of you who've learnt or are learning a different language, what was your first language and what are you learning now? What's the most difficult thing about it?

I've been trying to learn Turkish since I got here, and it's slow going, mainly because there's absolutely NOTHING similar about the two in terms of grammar or syntax. In Turkish, most parts of speech are just suffixes, so sometimes a full sentence in English would be translated into one damn long word in Turkish. Confusing as hell. I found this on wikipedia and it illustrates this really well. Of course, most of the time the words are not this ridiculously long.

Avrupa Europe
Avrupalı European
Avrupalılaş become European
Avrupalılaştır Europeanize
Avrupalılaştırama cannot Europeanize
Avrupalılaştıramadık whom could not Europeanize
Avrupalılaştıramadıklar those whom could not Europeanize
Avrupalılaştıramadıklarımız those whom we could not Europeanize
Avrupalılaştıramadıklarımızdan one of those whom we could not Europeanize
Avrupalılaştıramadıklarımızdan mı? one of those whom we could not Europeanize?
Avrupalılaştıramadıklarımızdan mısınız? Are you one of those whom we could not Europeanize?

Within the same context, the longest Turkish word consists of 44 characters: Çekoslovakyalılaştıramadıklarımızdanmışsınız = You are apparently one of those we weren't (or haven't been) able to make a Czechoslovakian.

I've no idea when you'd use either of those sentences, ever, but it's still funny.

Also, English is a stupid language.

Arabic should my first language, still I learned French before I could utter any word of Arabic. Then learned English when I was 8, though school didn't hep much with my English learning process.

I just grew up on French and American television. English is just too easy.

i've read about this element of language before, it's called agglutination. lots of languages do it to varying degrees, the ones that use it extensively come up with some pretty crazy words though. there's a hungarian one: "megszentségteleníthetetlenségeskedéseitekért " wikipedia says it means "because of your continuous pretending to be indesecratable," and in an interview (a band uses it) the guy says: "The meaning of this word is also kind of cool, because it's about consecration and deconsecration, and that someone is acting like he would be not the one who could be deconsecrated, and he got this thing as a consequence." pretty fascinating.

i took french for 10 years or so but i'm not completely fluent. i guess the most annoying thing about it, coming from speaking english, is dealing with masculinity/femininity, haha.

i learned the russian alphabet for shits and giggles, so i can sound out words but haven't a clue what they mean.

My parents spoke to me in both English and French when I was a kid, and I went to French elementary school. So I think I'm pretty fluent in both languages ;) I've also picked up a bit of Italian and German from my music studies over the years. Having to analyze opera arias in Italian, for example, kinda forces you to learn a bit of the language.

The most difficult thing about French is knowing when to use what verb tenses. As a nearly native speaker of French I can do this subconsciously when writing and speaking, but if I have to explain verb conjugation to somebody, it's really hard. Especially in regards to which auxiliary verb ("avoir" and "être") to use when conjugating verbs into complex tenses. I don't normally have this problem with English as the auxiliary verbs ("have", "do", and "be") and most modal verbs ("can", "will", "may", and "must") are conjugated in the same fashion for most tenses, especially when used together. And, like CC said, the masculine/feminine thing is hard at times.

Languages like French, Italian, Spanish - the Romance languages - are so lyrical in comparison to the Germanic languages like English, Dutch, and of course German, are not. I wish English wasn't such a harsh language.

I was born in Italy so I can speak fluent Italian, but moved to New Zealand and back so I can speak fluent English aswell - though English is my second language. I can speak quite a bit of French and Spanish aswell though.

I am a native English speaker, but I know a bit of chomorro and consider mysel to be an intermediate spanish speaker (only because I've lost much of my vocabulary, but I know gramar and most verbs just fine) I am now attempting to teach myself russian, and it's proving to be quite difficult, but fun. i'd love to learn arabic afterwards!

My primary language is English. I know a handful of Spanish and French but both are very sketchy. I once thought it would be cool to learn Scottish Gaelic, but it's so different from the languages I know, that I learned like one sentence, absolutely murdered it, and gave up.

if you ever feel like trying it again here's a website i think is pretty good:

taic

Wow, that's an awesome site. I like the sound key, that's where my initial issue was.

I've merged your thread with my one from last year.

Since learning a bit of Russian a couple of years ago, I sadly haven't done much on the language front. I'm pretty lazy so I can't see myself doing much more until I go overseas and rekindle the passion. But I should really make the effort to maintain my French.

I'm English, but my mum is Iranian, so I'm learning Farsi, and I do German at school, but I'm learning Italian next year :)

Well hello there.

Good to "meet" you Nadia. Best of luck in your venture.

Thanks! Nice to "meet" you too ^___^
Funny thing is I actually suck at languages... but I try =P

I miss arguing with Brennan...*sigh*

English (second) and French (first). I'm better at English now of course.

Spanish (First) Spanglish (Second) English (Third)

I still do my fair share of Spanglish.

Pues, en California, hay la mayoria mexicanos, asi si se quiere saber lo que se pasa, debe aprender espanol, y tambien, las muchahchas les gustan white boys

I'm British, surely everyone should just be learning to speak English to accommodate me anyway...

As strange as it is you're not far off the mark. Most non-english speaking countries really value the ability to speak English, it's definitely become the standard language around the world.