About to walk out the door

[Tired]

Makes me think of one YouTube's tech gurus, Gilles Letourneaux (sp?). His English sounded a bit peculiar until I realized he was Quebecois. No doubt speaking French as his first language rather than be simultaneously being fluent in both languages.

As a person who knows 4 languages, I can say I can't speak any of them without some accent.

 

[Outdated]

I remember a young and dumb programmer complaining to Linus Torvalds one day, he reckoned there was a long term bug in the kernel that everyone refuses to fix. If you want to use the "color" command you have to deliberately misspell it by putting a u before the r.

Linus never bothered to respond to that one no matter how many times he repeated his complaint.

 

[Neia]

Makes me think of one YouTube's tech gurus, Gilles Letourneaux (sp?). His English sounded a bit peculiar until I realized he was Quebecois. No doubt speaking French as his first language rather than be simultaneously being fluent in both languages. Not sure if that's unusual or not.

Yet also knowing how the French tend to look down on how the Quebecois speak their language. But then the Brits sometimes do the same to us...lol.

I love the Quebecois French accent

I purposefully murder the French language when I'm forced to speak it because I wanted to learn German in 7th grade but they forced me to learn French instead.

I still don't like it to this day.
Wel... unless it's Quebecois.

 

[Neia]

Sitting around waiting for the AC technician to fix the thing is giving me neck pain.

I just wish I could do my chores already

 

[Judge]

I love the Quebecois French accent

I purposefully murder the French language when I'm forced to speak it because I wanted to learn German in 7th grade but they forced me to learn French instead.

I still don't like it to this day.
Wel... unless it's Quebecois.

The pronunciation of words in French never bothered me, but their spelling terrified me.

 

[Neia]

The pronunciation of words in French never bothered me, but their spelling terrified me.

You should learn Portuguese.

 

[Outdated]

I did French too, but I never saw any point in learning it, not in my part of the world. French people will cringe hearing this but on this side of the globe French is a dead language. It doesn't exist. I would have been a lot more interested if they taught us Cantonese.

 

[Tired]

You should learn Portuguese.

And Danish.

 

[Judge]

You should learn Portuguese.

I took Spanish and later studied German in college. Left me with an indelible fear of Portuguese pronunciation/spelling and Italian spelling. And everything Scandinavian.

Though I still have wanted to learn Dutch. Ever since one of my website jobs was once to create an entire website. Just another job until they mentioned to me that it had to be in Dutch, and not English. What an experience...

But then I also recall my brother's agony in trying to learn Russian from a Polish instructor.

 

[Outdated]

You should learn Portuguese.

When we freed Timor L'Este from Indonesia their newly formed government decided that history was important and they made Portuguese their official language. The trouble is that none of the people speak Portuguese, they all speak Indonesian.

The more the world changes the more she stays the same.

 

[Outdated]

Sitting around waiting for the AC technician to fix the thing is giving me neck pain.

I just wish I could do my chores already

At least you've got us. Not exactly sure what good we are but we're here.

 

[Tired]

At least you've got us. Not exactly sure what good we are but we're here.

We are totally not stealing her thread with talks about languages.

 

[Tired]

But then I also recall my brother's agony in trying to learn Russian from a Polish instructor.

Well, every Slavic language is very hard to learn, if you never knew any to start with. But the more of them you learn, the easier it is to understand other Slavic languages.

 

[Judge]

Well, every Slavic language is very hard to learn, if you never knew any to start with. But the more of them you learn, the easier it is to understand other Slavic languages.

Yes, the Cyrillic alphabet is no picnic for non-slavic people. A tough start from my perspective. Then come all those cases. Six if I'm not mistaken in Russian. Only four in German.

I just recall Russian nationals saying my brother's accent was terrible. All academic though, as he flunked out of college in 1970 with a "34" draft number.

Within a couple of months he was having to learn a new "language" with the US Navy.

 

[Outdated]

Well, every Slavic language is very hard to learn, if you never knew any to start with. But the more of them you learn, the easier it is to understand other Slavic languages.

I worked with a Romanian man who's English was so good that I asked him about it. He was self taught. As a young man he loved reading novels but anything written in Romanian was rare and expensive, so he started buying books in English and taught himself that way.

The trouble was that he grew up with the Cyrillic alphabet and when it came to the Roman alphabet he had no idea what order the letters were meant to go in. So his English was impeccable but his filing was atrocious.

 

[Tired]

I just recall Russian nationals saying my brother's accent was terrible. All academic though, as he flunked out of college in 1970 with a "34" draft number.

Within a couple of months he was having to learn a new "language" with the US Navy.

Sorry, I don't follow what is 34 draft number
But yeah getting the accent right is so hard with many languages.

 

[Judge]

Sorry, I don't follow what is 34 draft number
But yeah getting the accent right is so hard with many languages.

A very low draft number instead of a high one. (Universal Military Conscription)

It was a "free pass" to a place called "Vietnam" back then. If you lost your student deferment, you'd either find yourself in a uniform or in Canada. Very different times for young Americans.

Even I had to carry a draft card by law back then with my student deferment status coded on it.
But the war ended and I went onto college for another four years.

 

[Neia]

At least you've got us. Not exactly sure what good we are but we're here.

Yes, indeed.
Thank you.

You've helped me to get my mind away from my anxiety.
Still fell it. But I'm not ruminating.

 

[Judge]

Yes, indeed.
Thank you.

You've helped me to get my mind away from my anxiety.
Still fell it. But I'm not ruminating.

You're in good company in this respect. Who we are and what we do!

 

[Outdated]

But yeah getting the accent right is so hard with many languages.

I've seen a lot of youtube videos where people say that the Aussie accent is one of the most difficult to learn, but anyone that spends a year here goes home sounding like one of us.

Our use of language gets some of them in to trouble too, they pick up on more than just the accent. Here the c-bomb is often used as a term of endearment.