Language (Page 2)

yell0w
yell0w: Google translate, got so many negative grades due to it. Such an absurd.
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Anghellick
Anghellick: Born Bilingual in this nation.
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W1001766
W1001766: I study english, and it is hard
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Siera3
Siera3: I teach Spanish and French and even though English is my native language, I dislike teaching it. You are correct,it is difficult.
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Metaverseguy
Metaverseguy: I've been studying Chinese for the last couple months and it has quite a bit more difficult than learning another latin based language. For example, look at the similarity: important and importante in English and Spanish.
In Chinese every word is brand new and they pretty much all sound the same to me, but apparently there are 4 tones that you need to pronounce differently or the word changes. Ta means he/she so when you are talking about someone there isn't way to differentiate gender unless it's written in Hanzi (that blocky Chinese language).
For an English speaker Hanzi is absolutely mortifying. In Latin language there are 26 letters used to describe every word, action, thought, etc. In Chinese each word has a new character. It's not about memorizing 26 letters. It's about memorizing hundreds of and thousands of letters.
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Siera3
Siera3: Hope by now you are quite versed in Chinese Cplusplus!!
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Freyaa
Freyaa: Gonzo said something that kinda made me happy. I love languages and think i would be quite bored without them, but it doesnt make me smart. Many people know something very good, or many things very good, but when it comes to doing something people r confronted with in everyday life, they know shit (sorry for my language). For me, the ones who know many DIFFERENT things and are not full of ego, are the ones i would like to be around the entire time. Nevertheless i have the "privilege" to meet people who are the exact opposite. I know this is not what we have to discuss here but Gonzo just made me happy with that one comment )) But yeah, you can not translate a language without losing something in between. Every language has its history, its connection to the culture, way of thinking... you simply can't put that into a sentence of a language from another part of the world and not lose something in the process.
toodles
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ellenliu1428
ellenliu1428: Yes Chinese is difficult to learn. I am Chinese native speaker. Hope i can help you!
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Metaverseguy
Metaverseguy: I have some books to help and an audio CD. I've taken some classes too. Problem is that I do better with pinyin than the written Chinese characters hanzi, but most Chinese newspapers, online articles all use hanzi. It's also difficult to find native speakers because as much as they'd like to help they find that it requires more patience than they initially thought.
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ellenliu1428
ellenliu1428: yes. Chinese pinyin and hanzi are totally different. Chinese is much different from English. Chinese pronunciation has nothing to do with its writing. Pronunciation and writing are two different systems.You have to try hard to match the two together. I am a Chinese native speaker. And in fact i learn how to be a teacher in my college. So if you like, i will try my best to help you.
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Freyaa
Freyaa: ellen, i was an English teacher in China and i must say ur English is awesome )) jiayou
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Metaverseguy
Metaverseguy: Freyaa did you learn Chinese fluently?
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Freyaa
Freyaa: who does, my friend?
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Metaverseguy
Metaverseguy: I guess it's just one of those things that people try because it's so challenging, only to be frustrated with the amount of work and effort needed.
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Freyaa
Freyaa: u never really learn it, bcz its a process of constant work and sacrifice. i like to know more languages because even by knowing a bit u know a bit of culture with it. thats my thing. if i had to chose to be rich or know ll the languages in the world.. well.. obvious choice ))
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Metaverseguy
Metaverseguy: Well I was reading a book about the Mayans by an archaeologist. He could read the hieroglyphics. Kind of made me want to try. Probably harder to read than hanzi is Mayan hieroglyphics.
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Freyaa
Freyaa: oh i bet it is! lovely!
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ellenliu1428
ellenliu1428: Thanks Freyaa! I am very glad to make new friends. My skype cui.liu71 So where are you in China? I am studying English. Thought i studied many years in college, i find i still have many things to learn. The culture behind the language is so important. And i find that when you speak Chinese, you will try to think like a Chinese. When you speak English, you like to think like west people. Language can decide the way you think. I think maybe that's the culture behind the language.
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Freyaa
Freyaa: exactly ellen. English is also not my native language so i make mistakes as well. What i have learned from China and Chinese people in those two years living there is that our 看法 is completely different so you NEED to change your 想法 in order to really speak as a native. The vocabulary of ones language does not only decide how u think but it defines your whole perspective on how your brain works and thats absolutely incredible in my opinion.
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ellenliu1428
ellenliu1428: Yes, words are the foundation of the language. I am so excited that you can write Chinese. You are so excellent! 你真棒! And Language environment is also very important. I find if i stay in China for some time, i will forget the feeling to speak English. So i am always long for foreign friends. I am curious about the language and culture. It is just like a adventure to learn a language and the culture. Now i think i can speak English. But i do not know much about English culture. That's my problem. You are staying in China. So you can also learn both Chinese and culture. It is very good for you.
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Freyaa
Freyaa: 我回家了. but yeah, it was very hard for me in China. ive struggled a lot adjusting and basically i never really succeeded in doing it. But i have met people from all around the world and that gave me thje opportunity to learn more languages )) swahili, kinyarwanda, kirundi, lingala, hindi, japanese, russian...plus i became better in English, spanish and serbian. languages make me happy! 那咱们交朋友吧. 好不?
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Metaverseguy
Metaverseguy: Well I haven't learned that many languages. I've learned Spanish and French in the classroom at the college level. I'm more fluent in Spanish than French though. I've even read a couple books in Spanish and seen many movies. I took an 8-week course in Mandarin at a private school here and through skype. I would very much like to visit China one day. Of course I will probably visit Beijing and Shanghai like most tourists, but I'm reading a very interesting book on China by Bette Bao Lord. She was the wife of a diplomat and has compiled a book of short essays by Chinese people who lived through the 20th century. Many of them talk extensively about the Cultural Revolution. Some were imprisoned or had family members protest in Tiannamen square. I only briefly learned about it, but did not know that teenagers become red guards in the 60's and forced everyone to be communist and carry around Mao's "little red book".

I've also heard a little bit about Tibet and Taiwan. Of course, relations between China and USA have not always been very good since many times China supports our enemies in war, but Nixon met Mao Zedong during his time in office to improve stuff. I've wanted to get some DVD documentaries of China like I have of Europe or India that discuss the thousands of years of history in the country. Something like 5-disks would be great where a historian or something visits the most important historical sites in the country and discusses them. Something like forbidden city, great wall, yellow emperor, terra cotta warriors on one disk and maybe the religion of China on another disk where they talk about dragons and the moon calendar, then Genghis Kahn on another, etc.
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ellenliu1428
ellenliu1428: 可以啊,我很高兴能和你做朋友。You can speak so many languages! 太棒了你!Do you have Skype? This is my Skype cui.liu71 waiting for you on Skype! and also you can email me cuiliu@yahoo.com I also have Yahoo messenger.
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Metaverseguy
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mgkg2001
mgkg2001: busuu.com can learn some languages for free.
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