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[Mighty Midget]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(ianfreddie07 @ Aug 19 2007, 02:09 AM) [snapback]305427[/snapback]</div>

Darn... looks like I'm the only guy who knows S.E. Asian Languages (I only know one)
[/b]

At least those are languages spoken by loads of people. Try being stuck with a language spoken by 4 millions only LOL

[ianfreddie07]

LOL

Yeah, we're about 3 billion in Asia

[Blood-Pigggy]

Afrikaans, Spanish, and English.

And Pirate.

Shiver me timbers.

[Lulu_Jane]

Native English speaker, Thai (though I desperately wish I was more fluent) a small amount of Malay and for some reason I can read French but have a difficult time speaking it.

Oh yeah, I'm also proficient in Aussie Slang

Ian, yay for the SE Asian tongues!

[ianfreddie07]

And get this: I spoke English so good around the community, some people thought I'm American. It also has to do with the looks LOL

[Blood-Pigggy]

Hilarious, you said "I speak English so good" when talking about you well you speak English.

Sorry but that's really funny :P

[Japo]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Luchsen @ Aug 18 2007, 08:15 PM) [snapback]305385[/snapback]</div>

"Das kommt mir spanisch vor."/"That appears Spanish to me." means "I think there is something fishy about it."[/b]

OMG that's even worse LOL

[rlbell]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(_r.u.s.s. @ Aug 18 2007, 10:09 PM) [snapback]305415[/snapback]</div>

thats cool, where did you learn your french?
[/b]

That is the funny part. I grew up in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. French was taught in the schools, but outside of immersion programs, it was not taught well. I made the special effort needed to get over the hump for two reasons: all the anime that I could watch had been dubbed into french, and I thought that the Gaston Lagaffe strips were the funniest. A third reason was that my parents would both speak french, when they did not want us to listen in (they both spoke english, french, and german).

The joke is that I could walk to a large community (Hull, now called Gatineau, part of the province of Quebec) that diverged linguistically from the french spoken in Brittany, about three hundred years ago, yet I was taught how to speak parisian french. The quebecois dialect of french is not unintelligible to a parisian, but it requires careful attention to understand what the speaker is saying.

The marvelous thing about trying to learn french in Canada, is that all commercial packaging is labelled in both languages. This was not a popular idea with the english speaking majority, when it first came in, and gave rise to the anglo reflex, rotating any package (usually a box of breakfast cereal) so that one is facing the english side. Needless to say, anglos travelling in France, where both sides are in french, are set up for an embarrassing surprise (it took me four half turns of the box to realise that they were both in french and I thank my lucky stars that no one saw me do it).

Official bilingualism in Canada was also less than fully popular among the english speaking majority, and for many years the expression "Excuse my french" was used as an apology for swearing. The expression was later used as the title of a sitcom that was based on either an anglo family in a french neighbourhood, or a french family in an anglo neighbourhood.

[dosraider]

French native, grew up later in Dutch, some English and a bit of German ( As plenty Belgians).

Eurh, rlbell, if you pronounce your French as most Canadians it must be HORRIFIC in the ears of a native French. Really.

[rlbell]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dosraider @ Aug 19 2007, 07:21 PM) [snapback]305520[/snapback]</div>

French native, grew up later in Dutch, some English and a bit of German ( As plenty Belgians).

Eurh, rlbell, if you pronounce your French as most Canadians it must be HORRIFIC in the ears of a native French. Really.
[/b]

Either the people that I met in France were excessively polite, to the point lying to my face, or my teachers were successful in teaching me parisian french. That was the joke-- they did not teach anglos to converse with quebecois, when I was growing up!

No, I do not pronounce my French as most Canadians, not even most French Canadians.

While my teachers deserve much credit, most of my classmates would be hard pressed to order food in a restaurant, but they could all conjugate the regular verbs. I have the possibly useful gift of being able to quickly master the rules of pronounciation for most languages written in the roman alphabet. I do not speak german, but I can read it aloud in a manner that is understandable to those that do.