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Geek Culture / Language

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Indicium
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Posted: 17th Sep 2010 17:58
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I'm not sure if anyone else has the problem, but i suck at french. I thought seeing as i pick up programming languages fairly quickly, french would be similar, but i've been doing it for 4 years, and i'm only getting worse lol.

Does anyone have anything to say on the matter?

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Seppuku Arts
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Location: Cambridgeshire, England
Posted: 17th Sep 2010 18:28
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J'deteste le dentefrise.


Programming language and human language are different. However, some people can be better at some languages, but worse at others, I'm terrible at French and therefore don't like it - but Germanic languages like German, Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Norse and similar, I find a lot easier to understand...it might be on the account of having lived in Germany when I was 2-4 years old, or English originally being a Germanic language itself.

Then again, I also found it easy to pick up Japanese. However, none of those languages I've fluent in, German is my best - es ist gut enough fur getting around deustchland.

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Benjamin
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Location: France
Posted: 17th Sep 2010 18:46 Edited at: 17th Sep 2010 18:48
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Programming languages have a strict (and usually small) set of rules and syntax, while natural languages usually do not.

And of course, whoever (or whatever) is teaching you French may be a bad source that doesn't explain things properly. Also, some people are more capable than picking up languages than others... and it doesn't really say much about your academic intelligence. My sisters were never very good at maths, science, that kind of stuff, but they are both fluent in French now.
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Eminent
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Posted: 17th Sep 2010 18:52 Edited at: 17th Sep 2010 18:59
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Francais c'est por le hole de ass.
My french teacher sucks. Thats why the sentence above is broken. French sucks. My school makes me learn it. If theyre gonna feed me bull about how its gonna help with getting costumers when I get older, then teach me Chinese. So I think its just that your teachers suck.


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PAGAN_old
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Posted: 17th Sep 2010 19:40
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Well french kinda sucks at being a language. Learn spanish, its easy. Or chinese, the hyroglyphics are a pain in the ass but the grammar is very simle. Also if you really want to learn the language, you should live in a country that speaks it. thats how i learned english pretty much. I dont mean to pick at the french language, i just dont like it, the way it sounds.

dont hate people who rip you off,cheat and get away with it, learn from them
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Indicium
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Posted: 17th Sep 2010 19:41
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It's not that I want to learn french, i HAVE to learn french :p

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Benjamin
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Posted: 17th Sep 2010 19:55 Edited at: 17th Sep 2010 19:56
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Quote: "It's not that I want to learn french, i HAVE to learn french :p"


Well then, there's your problem. If you don't want to learn something, you're probably not going to end up being very good at it.

Quote: "I dont mean to pick at the french language, i just dont like it, the way it sounds."


I personally love the way it sounds! I love the accent, particularly when spoken by a cute French girl.
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Quik
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Location: Equestria!
Posted: 17th Sep 2010 19:59
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Quote: "but Germanic languages like German, Swedish"


swedish is a germanic language...? i like to see it the other way around... that german is an swedienish xD language, since they have stolen more words of us than we have of them (stolen is the wrong word)
Sweden should be classified as a "scandinavic language" or something like that

Ich sprechen a little bit of german xD


[Q]uik, Quiker than most
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Seppuku Arts
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Location: Cambridgeshire, England
Posted: 17th Sep 2010 20:13 Edited at: 17th Sep 2010 20:14
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'Germanic' is the term used for a specific grouping of languages that have evolved from the same basic source - whilst Scandinavian languages evolved from Norse, Norse itself is just 'North Germanic'.

Here's a nice chart:
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~marisal/ie/germanic.html

However, these do not account for the joining of languages or borrowings. English, despite being Germanic has a bit of everything in it.

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Jeku
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Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Posted: 18th Sep 2010 01:16
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Quote: "I personally love the way it sounds! I love the accent, particularly when spoken by a cute French girl"


I too am in the "French is useless" camp. I was forced to study it for 8 years in school, but Mandarin would have been far more helpful.

I've studied Korean and now am doing Japanese again in a classroom setting. I prefer girls with Japanese accents


Senior Web Developer - Nokia
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PAGAN_old
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Posted: 18th Sep 2010 09:27
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i guess i didnt want to learn english, but since i started learning it at a young age, it stayed with me and helped me out with learning when i came to america. after 1 year a already spoke in english freely

dont hate people who rip you off,cheat and get away with it, learn from them
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Brunopark09
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Posted: 18th Sep 2010 09:36
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Your ability to learn a language depends of your native language
People who have spanish as them native language (like me) will speak a very good french, italian, and others languages.

but people who have english as them native language can easily speak german,swedish, etc.
(or that says the tv )

Personally, i think english is very easy , i never had teachers or some like that, i learn it alone, playing games with no subtitles and with audio and text in english

-Why didn't God take gaga,justin bieber or kesha instead of Randy Rhoads, Cliff Burton or Dio?

-BOOK? I HATE BOOK! BOOK IS STUPID!
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Interplanetary Funk
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Posted: 18th Sep 2010 13:54
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I speak (a very small amount, like 1 sentence) of French, German, Japanese, Tagalog and Na'vi. I used to speak a little bit of Russian too, but I can't remember it for the life of me. I can't really say anything useful in any of those languages though, I'm pretty much just learning them in the very little free time I have

BASIC programmers never die, they GOSUB and don't RETURN.
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Sepnon
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Posted: 21st Sep 2010 04:10
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my english sucks
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Libervurto
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Posted: 21st Sep 2010 04:22
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Quote: "my english sucks "

You'll fit right in

Online gaming is a great way to pick up language, especially if you get in with a group who speak the language between each other and they are patient enough with you.

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Dia
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Posted: 21st Sep 2010 17:45
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ok, so someone told me that most languages are somehow related to at least one other language, either through derivation, immigration and trade, or whatever.

someone explain Maygar and Welsh to me then!

This is not the Sig you are looking for....
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Image All
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Posted: 21st Sep 2010 19:09
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i think when learning a new language you have to have a really solid understanding of how your native tongue works. how's your english grammar? because when you learn a new language, you will most likely have to learn the grammar of the language in grammar terms, which will only make sense to you if you know what grammar is.


Remember those old guys? They made epic renders, I think one of them was called DaVinci, and all they used was MS Paint. Sometimes it's just skill....
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The Slayer
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Playing: (Hide and) Seek and Destroy on my guitar!
Posted: 21st Sep 2010 21:52 Edited at: 21st Sep 2010 21:54
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Quote: "I love the accent, particularly when spoken by a cute French girl."

It has been said, that French is the most sensual language.
I know my French pretty good. I used to date a French speaking girl. At first, I didn't know what to say. So, I tried to make myself understood with some kinda sign language.
Je pense que quelqu'un qui parle l'Anglais, peut vite apprendre le Francais (translation: I think that an English speaking person could easily learn French). French and English have lots of words that are written the same way. Pronunciation is another mather, but still.
And, I also think that anyone is capable of learning anything, as long as he's willing and taught correctly. Most humans only use 10 to 15 % of their entire brainpower. So, imagine what you would be able to do, if you would utilise the remaining 85 percent too.
But, of course, like we need to rest, so does our brain. Without some kind of mental rest, we would go nuts.

Slayer rules!!! Yeaaah, man!
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Quik
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Posted: 21st Sep 2010 23:02
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Quote: "
but people who have english as them native language can easily speak german,swedish, etc."


not swedish since we have this ÅÄÖ, which is extremely hard to prounce, also swedish is one of the hardest languages to learn (including for englishmen)



[Q]uik, Quiker than most
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Libervurto
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Posted: 22nd Sep 2010 08:00
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I often wonder why so many words have disappeared from the English language.
Lest, for example, has completely vanished despite being very useful, without it the alternatives are: in case, for fear that, so as not to. I searched for uses of lest in news articles and the only uses I could see refer to Remembrance Day for which "Lest We Forget" is a sort of slogan. There was also a "Lest We Never Forget" article about 9/11, the double negative was unintentional and rather mortifying given the context. I don't know how someone can publish an article on such a serious subject without using a dictionary, the fact it's on the internet is no excuse, if you can't be bothered to get it right don't write anything.

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Seppuku Arts
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Location: Cambridgeshire, England
Posted: 22nd Sep 2010 13:06 Edited at: 22nd Sep 2010 13:14
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Quote: "not swedish since we have this ÅÄÖ, which is extremely hard to prounce, also swedish is one of the hardest languages to learn (including for englishmen)"


I've not had too much trouble pronouncing Swedish. Although it's more difficult than say, German. Danish is meant to be really hard, even then, I don't find it too bad, I found an audio course for it...one of the lessons was to do with chatting up Danish women, it didn't come with just phrases, but advice too. If you want to learn a dead language, Old Norse can be difficult, especially with the lack of resources and lack of people speaking it. Nobody knows how it's pronounced, but some say it's good to use the Icelandic pronunciation.

Quote: "I often wonder why so many words have disappeared from the English language."


Words in a language often become redundant, but I love archaic words and phrases - however, my lecturer did write that my essay sounded very Lord of the Rings like, "Upon entering the module..." perhaps I should have said, "When starting the module...", but I like it my way.

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