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A person who used to be active on Conlang-L and who was raised bilingually always insisted on using "mother tongue" and "father tongue" for the respective languages of his parents.

Guitarplayer wrote:A person who used to be active on Conlang-L and who was raised bilingually always insisted on using "mother tongue" and "father tongue" for the respective languages of his parents.

I said this as a joke only before but I would still ratehr not refer to English as my mother tongue, just the first language I learnt.

Well, being half German, he used "Muttersprache" and "Vatersprache" in German as well, although only the former usually exists, regardless of your father and mother.

Guitarplayer wrote:Well, being half German, he used "Muttersprache" and "Vatersprache" in German as well, although only the former usually exists, regardless of your father and mother.

Yeah that's exactly what I'd said as a joke: English isn't my "Muttersprache" because it's German that's my mother's tongue, even if she didn't speak it with us.

Sorry, I didn't get that at first

Guitarplayer wrote:Sorry, I didn't get that at first

That's all good. I didn't explain it fully at first - that's how.

I really like "journée" in French. While the word "jour" refers to a regular, 24-hour day, the word "journée" is much more personalized, meaning your day, the time from when you woke up to when you went to bed, rather than from midnight to midnight.

I also inadvertently think of the Czech "svůj" a lot. It's just nifty to have a reflexive possessive pronoun. When the possessed object belongs to the same person that is the subject, "svůj" is used.

This is my cat --> To je moje kočka.
I see my cat --> Vidím svoji kočku.
You see my cat --> Vidíš moji kočku.
You see your cat --> Vidíš svoji kočku.

Well, in English you can at least ask "How was your day?", or you can say "I had a nice day." This does not refer from midnight to midnight, but rather from the point of your waking-up onward. Unless you're one of those nitpicks who refer to the following morning as "today" as soon as it's past midnight.

I really miss the Dutch word 'wel', especially in online discussions in English. It's a bit like the opposite of 'not'.

'Het is niet zo dat alle allochtonen crimineel zijn. Wel is een hoog percentage van de criminelen allochtoon.'/

'It's not that all foreigners are criminal. [WEL] A high percentage of criminals is foreign.'

In English, you would probably fill the gap with something like but, however etc. But you can't do this in all instances:

A:'Allochtonen zijn niet de voornaamste oorzaak van problemen in achterstandswijken, maar er moet wel wat aan de problemen gedaan worden.'
B: 'Dat zijn ze wel!'

A: 'Foreigners aren't the primary source of trouble in problematic neighbourhoods, but something should [WEL] be done about the problems.'
B: 'They are [WEL]!'

Though B could say 'But they are!', or even 'They are too!' (which sounds very childish), it's quite hard to translate the gap in A. The only way is to emphasize 'should', but you can't always do that in writing.

^ That. English needs modal particles.

German can't use "wohl" in each of those gaps either, only in the answer of B. I'd mostly put in "allerdings" (however), "doch" (though), or "aber" (but).

"Still" works for me in your first two gaps, but not the last.

'It's not that all foreigners are criminal. Still, a high percentage of criminals is foreign.'

(The awkward use of percentage of criminals is hurts my grammar though... )

'Foreigners aren't the primary source of trouble in problematic neighbourhoods, but something should still be done about the problems.'

The pronoun in the retort "they are" is unclear to me, do you mean the Foreigners are the problem or that things are being done (i.e. to solve the problems)? That affects what one might retort.

In Dutch you can say:''het boekje'' (the little book, -je changes book to little book) instead of ''het kleine boek''(which you can actually can say too). This is (in my opinion...) very handy

English has the diminutive suffix -ie/-y /i:/, but it's not freely productive, especially for inanimates. I've said "bookie" when looking for a missing book, but normally it's a diminutive form of "bookmaker," a person who accepts bets on sporting events. I think the problem is that diminutives lexicalize (is that a word?...it is now) quickly in English if possible.

In English there is no difference between you and you(plural). In many languages like Dutch you have jij:you, and jullie:also you but plural. This is very usefull I think:P

AppelAanEenStok wrote:In English there is no difference between you and you(plural). In many languages like Dutch you have jij:you, and jullie:also you but plural. This is very usefull I think:P

Formal/Standard Written English may lack this, but most if not all dialects do have a plural form for "you." For me and many other people the plural is "you guys", which may be two words but is otherwise (as far as I can tell) fully grammaticalized as a pronoun. Other dialects have "y'all", or "yinz" or "youse (guys)" and so on.

NA UND

The one thing cynics lack

Elector Dark wrote:NA UND

The one thing cynics lack

We've been over this. In English we say "so what".

Astraios wrote:

Elector Dark wrote:NA UND

The one thing cynics lack

We've been over this. In English we say "so what".

Doesn't carry the same connotation of indifference and unaffectedness.

Elector Dark wrote:Doesn't carry the same connotation of indifference and unaffectedness.

Yes, it does...

Astraios wrote:

Elector Dark wrote:Doesn't carry the same connotation of indifference and unaffectedness.

Yes, it does...

"Ich fickt' ein Pferd"
"Na und?"

"I fucked a horse"
"So what?"

The other one's a bit more negative I'll say.

Where are you dragging this from? They both mean exactly the same thing, i.e. "I don't give a flying fuck".

Uh, have you so completely missed my point?

Prostitute, slut and whore are all the same functionally but not connotationally.

And? (< Look, another English translation of na und that works just as well.) I don't think you've grasped the fact that so what and na und are closer equivalents than prostitute and whore. Prostitute and whore are used in different contexts (besides the fact that they also have different actual meanings as well), but so what and na und are used in the same contexts with always the same meaning. You're doing a Sko and trying to change your L2 to how you imagine it to be, which is not a good idea.