zompist bboard

Come on, el gato está sobre la mesa. I don't even know Spanish.

Unless that's on top and not under.

el gato está debajo de la mesa
<if you were going for "el gato esta bajo la mesa" that's, I guess, correct too... in the sense that "fuck your mother" is a correct translation for "chinga tu madre". on second thought, el gato esta bajo la mesa might be more correct in like peninsular spanish?>

edit: straio: sobre la mesa is above/over/up on the table, man.
edit edit: stahp ninjaing me!

Torco wrote:el gato está debajo de la mesa
<if you were going for "el gato esta bajo la mesa" that's, I guess, correct too... in the sense that "fuck your mother" is a correct translation for "chinga tu madre". on second thought, el gato esta bajo la mesa might be more correct in like peninsular spanish?>

edit: straio: sobre la mesa is above/over/up on the table, man.
edit edit: stahp ninjaing me!

Yes, El gato está bajo la mesa is perfectly correct too.

Astraios wrote:Do one then.

shush i was at work

I suppose I don't count, cause I never say anything, but here's a speaker of fairly unremarkable standard Dutch. I speak English, and though I had French and German in school I don't really speak either of those two languages. Which is a bit inconvenient, as I'm living in Switzerland at the moment. So, that's it.

El gato está abajo de la mesa.

[el ˈɣato ˈta axwelaˈmesa] (El gato 'tá ajo 'e la mesa.)

I'm from Canada, and my native language is English. I studied French intensively ages 5-12, and as a regular school subject for the next several years, because it's Canada. My ability has been slowly deteriorating with disuse, but the length of time I studied it and the early age I started it means that I still remember a lot and can fudge my way through things. I don't find French pronunciation particularly difficult but I find myself consistently drawing a blank on seemingly simple words, forgetting genders, and so forth.

I have been studying Japanese on my own since around 1995. I started for no particular reason other than an interest in languages and a glance at a book about Japanese that a friend of mine who was interested in anime (which was pretty nerdy and not cool in 1995, back when people still often called it Japanimation) had. Despite this, I actually have very little interest in anime. Anyway, I did not take a class; I just got some stuff out of the library (no Internet). I mostly stopped studying around 1999, and started again in 2003, when I moved to Japan. My Japanese ability has been improving since then. I have not taken any Japanese classes but I am surrounded by Japanese at work, at home, and outside, so I have had many chances to improve. Five years ago I passed the level 2 Japanese proficiency test, so I am sure my ability has improved since then. I am not confident I could pass the level 1 test though.

Like probably most people here, I know bits of various other languages but nothing really worth mentioning.

Serafín wrote:El gato está abajo de la mesa.

[el ˈɣato ˈta axwelaˈmesa] (El gato 'tá ajo 'e la mesa.)

ehgato taajwelamesa

Torco wrote:

Serafín wrote:El gato está abajo de la mesa.

[el ˈɣato ˈta axwelaˈmesa] (El gato 'tá ajo 'e la mesa.)

ehgato taajwelamesa

ehgato?

I actually speak like that though, in my more informal registers, so yeah.

in cretic foot, i assume?

[əɫˈɣates sotɐləˈtawɫɐ]

Born in the Balkans, moved to New Orleans (LA) at 6. Picked up standard english at school, with a few local features like "y'all", l-velarization, the cot-caught merger, æ > ɛə, etc. Now I'm studying in Baton Rouge. Trying to diversify my accent somewhat. Hope it works... Gonna study in Manchester next year. That will be interesting

http://vocaroo.com/i/s1qTzUDtHjrz

Torco wrote:on second thought, el gato esta bajo la mesa might be more correct in like peninsular spanish?

That's what my book says. Interestingly, the Esperanto book I read started with the same phrase, so I'm assuming this must be a very important sentence.

As for English, I'm trying to have linking but not intrusive R, which is kind of hard, and I have the wine-whine merger but not the cot-caught merger or the bad-lad split, which makes sense because I don't like wine.

Chuma wrote:and I have the wine-whine merger but not the cot-caught merger or the bad-lad split.

In addition, I fall into the habit of a not-quite-consistent father-bother merger and equally inconsistent yod-dropping when speaking to Americans.

--
EDIT: confused consequent and consistent.

Chuma wrote:

Torco wrote:on second thought, el gato esta bajo la mesa might be more correct in like peninsular spanish?

That's what my book says. Interestingly, the Esperanto book I read started with the same phrase, so I'm assuming this must be a very important sentence.

As for English, I'm trying to have linking but not intrusive R, which is kind of hard, and I have the wine-whine merger but not the cot-caught merger or the bad-lad split, which makes sense because I don't like wine.

Did you sawr'im?

I lived in Sweden when I was 0-1, in Finland when I was 1-6, and have been living in Sweden since I was 6. My L1 is Finnish, but I speak Swedish fluently. I write English much better than I speak. I have studied Japanese for one year; I can speak and write much easier than I understand written or spoken Japanese. I've been studying a little bit of Cornish, but haven't gotten very far at all.

Izambri wrote:[əɫˈɣateʃ ʃotɐləˈtawɫɐ]

iberians think they have [s] when they actually have [S] and just don't wanna admit it

El gato está abajo de la mesa.

[el gato esˈtabaxo de la mesa]

I don't speak Spanish fluently.

Ohioan born and raised. Native language is English, I have a great deal of proficiency in Spanish (I hesitate to call myself fluent), and I'm currently learning ASL, Latin, and Hebrew.

Ah fuck I didn't notice the time difference before I wrote the post. Oh well.

I am from Edinburgh, like Finlay. In contrast with Finlay, moving away, learning languages and linguistics and teaching and has made my accent stronger, and indeed made me more interested in Scots. To start with, it seems that our attitude towards the English language and Scottishness were always different. Then, I went to university in Aberdeen to study French and German (and Réunion and Jena in Germany for the year abroad).

Then I moved here in Réunion about two years ago. I initially came here for a job teaching English (just so I could come here and not be unemployed from the get-go). I did make effort to speak close enough to the standard within the classroom (which meant my accent already began to differ between the classroom setting and outwith it) but I don't feel pupils actually have much greater difficulty with a Scottish accent than other accents, barring perhaps a French version of RP.

Other reasons that my linguistic habits have become more specific are to emphasise my Scottishness, greater self-confidence (as my nationality is part of my identity, expressing this is part of open self-expression rather hiding myself like I used to more) and my learning of Réunion Creole. This has made me more aware of diglossia situation in Scotland. There are some parallels between the Creole/French situation here and the Scots/English situation in Scotland but one difference is that people here are more aware that Creole is different and that Creole is more of a viable community language, the two no doubt being linked. Also, both statements for Scotland are truer the more you go into the cities and to the South, where Scots becomes more diluted and mixed with English. In the north of Scotland, particularly the Northern Isles, the difference is more marked.

Nowadays, I rarely use English orally because I don't know any native English speaker IRL. The exceptions are skyping with my family, thought there I use also Scots, and German with my mum, (my mum's German but I didn't start speaking German with her until I was studying), speaking to some friends that studied English at university, speaking to pupils when I have an English teaching job (I currently teach chess, not English) and speaking to tourists.

So that makes Scots, English, French, German, Réunion Creole. I also know a bit of some other languages (not as fluent as the aforementioned five), primarily Scottish Gaelic, followed by some Romance and Germanic languages other than the above. The language I'm currently trying to focus on is Shimaore (the main language spoken in Mayotte, from where a significant amount of recent immigrants have come. It's close to Swahili.) because I actually know people who speak the language.

As for other people's ideas of my accent, in English, people have thought I am Scottish, English, Irish, French, German, Swedish, Latvian and Lithuanian. In French, people have thought I am Scottish, English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Norwegian, Australian and Canadian.

And 24/m/the rest

Jipi wrote:English was taught to me in school from age 11 on, French from age 13 on.

The passiveness of it all..

I'm Canadian and 23. Born in Montreal, but I've lived most of my life in Vancouver.

My Californian friends say that my accent is mostly like a Californian accent, but with a few apparently distinctly Canadian vowels. I guess Californians don't pronounce about [ʌˈbʌʊʔ]?

I studied French from grades four to eight, because it was mandatory, because this is Canada. Then I studied Japanese in my last two years of high school, because I needed to take a language to graduate. I don't remember a whole lot of either, aside from pronunciation.

Hi guys, I am from Australia, but originally from Ireland, and I moved to the UK when I was 7.

My accent is effectively a creole of Irish, Reading, Southampton, Australian and a few others. My accent does not change... It simply absorbs features from others.

I have to admit that on the languages front I am a little lacking. I still have some of my youth, however, so I shall learn some hopefully.
I began learning Irish during grades 1 and 2. I was getting to understand it, and all lessons had an Irish component. However, when a I moved to England, things changed. At first, I learned no languages and stunned the children with my meagre knowledge of Irish (I can now only say that I want a drink of water and that I want to go to the toilet...). After my knowledge began to fade, I began to learn French in a French club in junior school (from grade 5 to grade 6) but was quickly and randomly switched to German from grade 7. Admittedly, German would have been more useful, as my father used to work in Zürich, and we would often visit him and go to the lovely Swiss alps. I did one-and-a-half years of German before moving to Australia, where in my first school, there was no ability to learn foreign languages. In my current school, all they teach is Japanese, but I theorised that since I know no Japanese, and unlike most other students my age, I have not been learning it from grade 4, I shouldn't study that. I have decided to learn a bit of Abkhaz, but resources on the language on the web are few and far between, so all I know is how to say hello to a male and female, plus a few other assorted things.
In University, I plan to make a concerted effort to study Russian and General linguistics, with a view to becoming a linguist specialising in Caucasian languages.

My one major regret in life is that I didn't have the resources to learn one single language through my childhood.

Bit long... I apologise.

Learn Chechen, Georgian, and Turkish if you want to work for the state department. Or Ossete, Abkhaz, and Russian, if you want to work for the Russian state department. Mixing and matching is not recommended

R.Rusanov wrote:Learn Chechen, Georgian, and Turkish if you want to work for the state department. Or Ossete, Abkhaz, and Russian, if you want to work for the Russian state department. Mixing and matching is not recommended

I'm thinking along the Russian side, although Turkish and Chechen may not go amiss. Although I definitely will stay along the lines of Abkhaz, Ossetic, Russian, Abaza and Adyghe, perhaps delving into Kabardian. But thanks for the tip!