 |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Invisible wrote:
>>> For me, the most baffling thing was hearing little kids uttering
>>> complex-sounding French sentences. Now, logically, this isn't
>>> surprising. They're probably from France! What else would they be
>>> speaking? And yet, it still amazed and astonished me every time...
>>> French words seem to have such a complicated structure. And yet these
>>> kids toss it around as if it's *easy*. Which, when you're a French
>>> person, it probably is.
>>
>> That's completely normal. I used to think the same seeing little kids
>> speaking English.
>
> I think the little kids speaking German amaze me more though...
>
> [Not many of those where I was - but I saw one in the Science Museum in
> London one time...]
In his essay _The Awful German Language_, Mark Twain mentions that a
museum curator he met in Germany was interested in making Twain's manner
of speaking German an exhibit in the museum.
Regards,
John
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Gail Shaw wrote:
> "Invisible" <voi### [at] dev null> wrote in message
> news:47a2f325$1@news.povray.org...
>
>> To speak French, you have to actually speak in a
>> French accent, or nobody knows what you're saying. Which actually makes
>> sense, really...
>
> Try Thai. It's a tonal language. The same sounding word has different
> meanings if you say it with a high pitch, medium pitch, low pitch, rising or
> falling.
Chinese is the same way.
In other languages, saying a vowel in a word quickly or slowly changes
the meaning of the word. This is originally where short and long vowels
came from in English, but over the course of centuries of slow
alteration the short and long versions of each vowel acquired different
tonal qualities and lost the difference in actual length.
Regards,
John
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Gail Shaw wrote:
> Try Thai. It's a tonal language.
Same with Mandarin. I learned to say "My aunt scolded my mother's
horse". It's "ma ma ma ma".
--
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
On what day did God create the body thetans?
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Darren New wrote:
> Same with Mandarin. I learned to say "My aunt scolded my mother's
> horse". It's "ma ma ma ma".
Is that why it's called "mandarin"? ;-)
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Alain wrote:
>> Hmm. I've just spent several hours translating every naughty phrase I
>> can think of from English to French. Damn, this has got to the the
>> silliest thing I've done in a long, *long* time... ;-)
>>
>> Je me demande, cela fait un sens?
>>
> Absolument!
> Can you post some of those?
OK, you asked for it... ;-)
* Vous avez très gros seins.
* J'adore vos yeux.
* Je tiens à vous faire nu.
* Puis-je AVC votre vagin?
* Puis-je mettre cela en vous?
* Pouvez-vous enlever ma virginité pour moi s’il vous plaît?
* Puis-je prendre une photo?
* Vous sonore agréable.
* Vous goût agréable.
* Vous êtes très confortable.
* Nous devons le faire encore quelque temps!
I *said* it was childish, no? :-S
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Orchid XP v7 a écrit :
> Alain wrote:
>> Can you post some of those?
>
> OK, you asked for it... ;-)
>
Now you could try to do the reverse, make Google translate each of these
sentences and see if it still makes sense in English :-)
FYI, these do not make any sense in French:
> * Vous sonore agréable.
> * Vous goût agréable.
> * Je tiens à vous faire nu.
> * Puis-je AVC votre vagin?
I'm especially puzzled by the last one... AVC?
There are other sentences that are correct but not what you would say in
French. But at least they make sense.
--
Vincent
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Vincent Le Chevalier wrote:
> Now you could try to do the reverse, make Google translate each of these
> sentences and see if it still makes sense in English :-)
I do this anyway. ;-)
I discovered that various sentences subtly but significantly change
their meaning. For example, things like "I want to make you smile"
become "I want to smile", which is quite different. Seems Google has a
few glitches in there. (Apparently it's using statistics to decide what
to translate to. I did find a few sentences that Google was simply
unable to produce a decent translation for...)
> FYI, these do not make any sense in French:
>
>> * Vous sonore agréable.
>> * Vous goût agréable.
>> * Je tiens à vous faire nu.
>> * Puis-je AVC votre vagin?
>
> I'm especially puzzled by the last one... AVC?
Yeah, I was wondering about that...
> There are other sentences that are correct but not what you would say in
> French. But at least they make sense.
LOL! Sense enough to get a black eye anyway...
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Vincent Le Chevalier <gal### [at] libertyALLsurfSPAMfr> wrote:
> Orchid XP v7 a écrit :
> > * Puis-je AVC votre vagin?
>
> I'm especially puzzled by the last one... AVC?
I'm more puzzled by the mention of the female sexual organ... :)
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
nemesis wrote:
> I'm more puzzled by the mention of the female sexual organ... :)
Erm... I think we kinda covered that one already? ;-) Scroll up:
Orchid XP v7 wrote:
> Hmm. I've just spent several hours translating every naughty phrase
> I can think of from English to French. Damn, this has got to the the
> silliest thing I've done in a long, *long* time... ;-)
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Orchid XP v7 wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
>
>> Same with Mandarin. I learned to say "My aunt scolded my mother's
>> horse". It's "ma ma ma ma".
>
> Is that why it's called "mandarin"? ;-)
No. (Yes, I know it's a joke.) "Da" is big. "Ren" (or "rin") is man.
"Man" is an area of china. So "mandarin" is the "important (big) people
from the Man area".
I always amuse my wife when we go in a chinese restaurant and I write
"big man" (Da-ren) on the waiting list. Of course, it's the only version
of the characters pronounced that way that's simple enough for me to
remember how to "spell".
--
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
On what day did God create the body thetans?
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
