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  #11  
Old January 28, 2013, 09:33 PM
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I worked with a guy from Jamaica and he'd sometimes talk on the phone in what I believe is calle Creo? I could understand the main idea of the conversation. I also speak fluent pig Latin
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  #12  
Old January 29, 2013, 02:27 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by carlosvilas View Post
I have a weird question for the native English speakers of the forum!

Are there any other languages that you think you may be able to understand even if you didn't take one single lesson on them?

For example, I've never studied Italian or Portuguese but when I talk with people from those countries I'm able to figure out what they're saying, probably because the roots of the three languages are the same. But it doesn't work with German, or Chinese

Does it happens to you with English and any other languages, as for example German or something?

I'm so curious about it!
When I was 20 years old I spent a month on this extremely remote Sottish island called Benbecula in the outer Herberdi Sottish islands. Girls from all over the different islands came to a dance we had. They spoke what sounded like was broken English with a heavy heavy Sottish acent. I could understand them mostly. Now were they speaking Scottish or was it a dialect of English or what? So is Scotch the closes languages to English?
And of course these girls would be speaking a very rural dialect of Scotish at that.

I have read and or been told that the English language would be very close to Dutch if it were not for the Norman French invasion of England in 1006 when the French language went into English. Somewhere between 40 to 60% of English vocabulary is Latin based because of this.

Last edited by Villa; January 29, 2013 at 02:42 PM.
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  #13  
Old January 30, 2013, 01:57 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Villa View Post
Now were they speaking Scottish or was it a dialect of English or what? So is Scotch the closes languages to English?.
They would have been speaking Scottish Gaelic, or a mixture with English. The Gaelic languages have very little in common with Germanic languages other than being Indo-European, so no, Scottish is not close to English.
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  #14  
Old January 30, 2013, 05:00 AM
AmuletoTailandes AmuletoTailandes is offline
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Germanic Latin and Greek PLus Gaelic have seemingly different etymologies and believed to have different roots.
I speak german, Spanish, Catalan, Thai, English, Italian and understand french Dutch and Maltese (arabic based language). I am a 14 year student of Pali Sanskrit and Ancient Khmer, can read Khmer (ancient) and Laoatian and also Tamil.

I have seen that although A person who knows italian will follow spanish, or an englishman will find the right way to line up words in a phrase easier in french than in german (which is backwards order to english for construction of sentences in grammar), that person will not be able to follow germanic based or Gothic based languages or Gaelic Celtic based ones such as Nordic or french.

Although these massive differences in the three or four major language barriers we have with hundreds of languages within each groups (romanian spanish italian etc in one latin basket) etc

But as i studied one of our oldest languages of 5000 year old texts
i found out something that is unified to all these 3 or 4 differing language groups

they all arose from the indus river and the Hindu vedic Sanskrit language
trai Mas means in Thai a special blessing made on amulets.
It really comes from Pali 'dtrai Maas'
meaning three months
the word trimester is english with roots in latin
trai mas and tri mester
three months
the blessing ceremony takes three months of rainy retreat by the monks to bless the amulets in their hut each evening
the rainy retreat is 3 months long

so drei monate = 3 moths german
tres mois = french
tres meses
tre mesi = italian
three months
tri mester

in sanskrit
1 = ek
2 = twee
3 = tree

twee - deux - two - due - dos - duo - twee (Dutch) twenty

someone who learns two languages in each of the major 'hard to find the connection between' groups, and then studies Pali Sanskrit, will see the big picture, where our languages came from, and how all etymology developed and changed into groups as time passed and peoples distanced each other

now when we see the word traimas and trimester, and think of all the 2500 years of pali and 5000 years of Sanskrit between then and now, and the similarity between english that came after hundreds of culture invasions and human evolution and language changes, is still so similar to its ancient root word, that one must stand and astound oneself at how this has managed to remain so deeply present within a series of ever changing and developing languages

Last edited by AmuletoTailandes; January 30, 2013 at 05:02 AM.
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  #15  
Old January 31, 2013, 08:44 AM
William Murphy William Murphy is offline
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Understanding vs Speaking Spanish

I understand Spanish better than speak Spanish

This is a myth. If you speak any Spanish at all your ability to speak Spanish will always be better than your ability to understand; which is probably true for all languages. The reason is simple. The Native Speaker of any language will always have a much larger and varied vocabulary than you not to mention all the dialects, slang, idiomatic expressions and accents that are out there just waiting to make comprehension harder than speaking. When you speak Spanish you are in control of the word choice; when you are listening to a Spanish speaker the opposite is true, thereby making understanding much more complicated than simply speaking.

So why do some people think they can understand Spanish better. The fact is there are literally thousands of words that are similar and/or identical in Spanish and English. What the person is hearing is something like this.

Blah, blah, blah, a word I recognize, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, another word I recognize, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, another word I recognize.
OR
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, CONTROL, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, STUDENT, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, OEPRATION

The words: Control, Student and Operation exist in Spanish and English

It is because of these words that exist in both language that the new student is fooled into thinking their comprehension is better than it actually is.
Quote:
Originally Posted by carlosvilas View Post
I have a weird question for the native English speakers of the forum!

Are there any other languages that you think you may be able to understand even if you didn't take one single lesson on them?

For example, I've never studied Italian or Portuguese but when I talk with people from those countries I'm able to figure out what they're saying, probably because the roots of the three languages are the same. But it doesn't work with German, or Chinese

Does it happens to you with English and any other languages, as for example German or something?

I'm so curious about it!
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  #16  
Old February 01, 2013, 12:33 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by William Murphy View Post
I understand Spanish better than speak Spanish

This is a myth. If you speak any Spanish at all your ability to speak Spanish will always be better than your ability to understand; which is probably true for all languages. The reason is simple. The Native Speaker of any language will always have a much larger and varied vocabulary than you not to mention all the dialects, slang, idiomatic expressions and accents that are out there just waiting to make comprehension harder than speaking. When you speak Spanish you are in control of the word choice; when you are listening to a Spanish speaker the opposite is true, thereby making understanding much more complicated than simply speaking.

So why do some people think they can understand Spanish better. The fact is there are literally thousands of words that are similar and/or identical in Spanish and English. What the person is hearing is something like this.

Blah, blah, blah, a word I recognize, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, another word I recognize, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, another word I recognize.
OR
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, CONTROL, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, STUDENT, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, OEPRATION

The words: Control, Student and Operation exist in Spanish and English

It is because of these words that exist in both language that the new student is fooled into thinking their comprehension is better than it actually is.
Molto interessante Guillermo. Ma che ne dici di questo? Ops, I was thinking in Italian. You got me to thinking about the order a person learns a second language/new language or even a first language. The order of learning a language is:
Also you could think of it as the normal way or natural way of learning a language is:

1. understanding (for understanding a language you have to listen to the language a lot)
2. speaking
3. reading
4. writing

So according to this theory a person must be able to understand a language before she/he can speak the language. (Not counting saying catch phrases of course but actual conversation.) Then before you can read a language you need to be able to know how to speak a language and then to be able to effectively write a language you have to be able to know how to read the language.

Of course this does not mean you can not use written language as a guide to learning a language but you can't pronounce the words well without knowing how to speak the language.(try reading French out loud without knowing how to speak French.)Spanish and Italian for that matter if you don't speak them.) Spanish and Italian have similar vowels sounds making them some what easy to read as compared to French with it's silent letters and different vowels sounds etc. etc.

Along with this there is what they call "the silent period" of learning a language. A time when the words are just not coming automatically out of your mouth. Normally for an English speaker in a total immersion or semi-total immersion situation this silent period lasts anywhere from 3 to six months. During the silent period you should be listening to your second language constantly and of course also studying the language. This has happened to me with Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and French.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Perikles View Post
They would have been speaking Scottish Gaelic, or a mixture with English. The Gaelic languages have very little in common with Germanic languages other than being Indo-European, so no, Scottish is not close to English.
Hola Perikles. Gracias for responding to me.

Was doing some searching on the internet and found this below. Not saying it's true but what do you think of it?

"Scots is closest to English, in fact you could say it's an English dialect, though it has more Scandinavian words like bairn [from Viking times] than standard English.
English is a Germanic language. After Scots, the closest is probably Dutch, then Low German, then High German.
Gaelic and Welsh are completely separate - they are Celtic languages. Welsh is called p-Celtic and Scottish Gaelic and Irish Gaelic are q-Celtic. Words that begin with a p- in Welsh often begin with a c- in Gaelic. But none of them are close to English at all. Hurray!"

Also I remember reading somewhere that if the French Normans had not invaded England or conquered England in 1066 then English would today be a lot like the Dutch language. Have you ever heard of that? Therefore maybe Dutch is the closest language to English. Also have you heard before that 1066 is the most important date as far as how the English language was effected? Latin French went into English and somewhere around 40 to 60% of English vocabulary comes from Latin by the way of French. And of course since Spanish, Italian and Portuguese come from Latin they also have these same cognate words related to English as French does.

Last edited by Rusty; February 01, 2013 at 01:48 PM. Reason: merged back-to-back posts
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  #17  
Old February 01, 2013, 01:11 PM
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Perikles Perikles is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Villa View Post
"Scots is closest to English, in fact you could say it's an English dialect, though it has more Scandinavian words like bairn [from Viking times] than standard English..
Well, it depends what you mean by Scots - I was assuming a Gaelic influence or even root.

And I agree about 1066. Thank god the Normans won!
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  #18  
Old February 01, 2013, 01:25 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Perikles View Post
Well, it depends what you mean by Scots - I was assuming a Gaelic influence or even root.

And I agree about 1066. Thank god the Normans won!
jajajajajajajajajajajajaja...hahahahahahahahahahah a... I laughed twice.
Once in Spanish and then again in English.
De todas maneras estoy 100% de acuerdo contigo amigo. Gracias a Dios por los franceses! jajajajajajajajajajajaja...

A proposito/BTW Perikles. I have a very good book for learning Spanish that's based entirely on this 1066 French into English concept. The book is called "Madrigal's Magic Key to Spanish." It has an interesting preface to it that goes like this:

"At this very moment you already know several thousand Spanish words even if you have never seen or heard a Spanish word before. You are not too aware of these words simply because they have not been pointed out to you. In this book I;m going to show you how easy it is to lern Spanish by showing you how much you already know. (All because of 1066.)
For instance, have you ever seen these Spanish words that look like English:

popular, capital animal hotel, radio, conductor, probable cable, actor ideal flexible, central, medicina, optimista, dentista, presidente, importante, restaurante, artista, confusion, atractivo, dramatico, Pacifico, Atlantico, permanente etc. etc.

The book goes on to pointing all these thousands of words out to you in groups according to their ending such as tion=cion, al, ble, ic, ent, ant, cal=co and on and on. They it teaches you Spanish phrases/sentences and verbs this way. All this posible because of what happened in 1066.
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  #19  
Old February 01, 2013, 01:26 PM
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@Perikles
Yes, but remember that battles were not won by the people who were right... but by the people who were left.
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Last edited by JPablo; February 01, 2013 at 01:27 PM. Reason: Added @Perikles.
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  #20  
Old February 01, 2013, 01:38 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JPablo View Post
@Perikles
Yes, but remember that battles were not won by the people who were right... but by the people who were left.
jajajajajajajajajajajajaj...for those who don't understand that hahahahahahahahahahaha...

Good one amigo JPablo. Speaking of 1066 and the French that one is a double entendre?
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