What's strange about *your* language?

Camarii

New member
Jul 1, 2011
126
0
0
Spectral Dragon said:
Woah, seems there are a lot of swedes here.
(Visst ÄR vi bra?)
Anyway, "hyperneuroaukustiska diafragmakontravibrationer" can be translated as "hiccups".
"I åa ä de en ö, å på öa ä de en å" means "in the river, there is an island, and in that island is a river" in swedish. Logical, no?
"I åa ä de en ö, å på öa ä de en å"... I just realized I actually speak like this. Funny how you, at least in Skåne, can take half the letters out of a word and then kind of pronounce it in the laziest way possible and it still makes sense... sometimes. Or the fact that we in different parts of our country have our own words. ex: Potato = potatis, but we call it päror, wich would fit more for pear = päron o_O men ändå Skånska är gött.

I also love how we swear : satans jävla helvetes fanskap. Three of thoose words pretty much means devil and the other hell, so; devil devil hell devil. Nice

Edit: Hej Brian
 

ediblemitten

New member
Mar 20, 2011
191
0
0
Well, I speak English and German as a second language. I used to think German was a ***** of a language (thanks to, accusative, dative, genitive, adjective endings, word order, genders, du, Sie, ihr, euch, dich, dir all meaning 'you' and specific endings for mein, kein, ein etc.) but now I realize German at least has consistent spelling rules. In English you can string a bow or take a bow. But a tree branch isn't a bow, it's a bough. English isn't really an original language either - it is completely bastardized, made of pint of German, a pint of French (we stole about 15,000 words wholesale), and a thousand different pinches and handfuls of everything from Old Norse to Arabic to Finnish. Not to mention that we have some of the weirdest and most annoying to figure out idiomatic expressions possible (fat chance and slim chance mean the same thing).

English must be a ***** to learn well.
 

Mausthemighty

New member
Aug 3, 2011
163
0
0
Cowabungaa said:
Dutch is extremely odd. I can't think of another country that pronounces the R and G as weird as we do, except perhaps for Germany.

I also find it weird that, apparently, it's easier for Dutch people to learn the correct pronunciation of foreign languages than it is for foreign people (pretty much any country) to correctly pronounce Dutch. At least it seems that way.
ElektroNeko said:
Well, I'm from Holland, and I speak better English then I can speak Dutch...
Welcome to the club my friend.
Bloedhoest said:
SwimmingRock said:
Not so sure I would call it *my* language, but I've always been baffled by Dutch expressions. They seem to make absolutely no goddamn logical sense. Like when you want to tell somebody they're being paranoid, you say (translated literally):"Stop looking for nails on low water." Seriously, what the fuck does that mean? Or "all silliness on a stick".

I can't remember many more off the top of my head, but it's happened to me quite a few times that I would have to turn to a Dutch friend to decipher what seemed to be complete gibberish, but was actually a commonly known Dutch expression.
Or "too look the cat out of the tree" and "Pulling old cows out of a ditch."
We are remarkable folk.
Remember that commercial?
It's so silly, yet so so true.
Never seen that one, but it's damn funny! Yeah we Dutch have strange sayings. But I don't think our language is that weird. Everybody is always talking about our guttural G and our R, but I hear it in more languages.
 

Madman123456

New member
Feb 11, 2011
590
0
0
The german Language has Umlauts and the infamous "ß". It's pronounced like "z" in most cases. "Buzzkill" is a good example. Why can't we use a double "s" for that? No one may ever know or care...
 

Etni

New member
Oct 31, 2007
15
0
0
GamemasterAnthony said:
"While they're here, it is by their oath that I swear upon my swivel chair that will not dare make fun of your heir extraordinaire. So there!"

Observe that the eight bolded words in that statement all rhyme and yet no two words share the same spelling for the ending.
And it "works" the other way around too, some words have the exact same spelling but different pronounciation and meaning, like the word live. You can live your life and watch live news. That's just silly.


Also, if you read aloud or vocalize words in your mind when you read a text, and come across the word live without context like you just did, which pronounciation do you choose as a native english speaker?
 

holy_secret

New member
Nov 2, 2009
703
0
0
SckizoBoy said:
Zaeseled said:
Finnish. So far I haven't seen any other language or word (but then again, I haven't been looking either) that uses 3 same letters in a row.
Vaaka (base word) meaning "scale" (for weights, not reptile scales.)
Vaaan (possessive) meaning "the scale's".
Yeah, Wookie: Kashyyyk!

Sorry, couldn't help it...(!)
Charmingly nerdy, sir. I dig.

In Swedish, there are at least six ways to make a future tense, depending on slight differences on what you mean and how the future will be. Some are old fashioned though, but still. It's pretty much impossible for foreigners to learn them. It's always the most difficult part.

Compare it to German, which only has pretty much one verb to make a future tense (Werden).
 

Zantos

New member
Jan 5, 2011
3,653
0
0
SwimmingRock said:
Zantos said:
TimeLord said:
The English language is weird. Apparently we're fine with stealing French words and using them as our own.

What the hell was a café before it was named with a French word?
They even steal from us the words they lack,
Le weekend, le camping and cul de sac,
That's why I hate the French, ooh oh oh.
What? Wait. You think cul de sac is English? Hate to break it to you, but cul de sac is a French term. It literally means "bottom of the sack". Or were you joking? So hard to tell on the internet sometimes.
I tried to make it obvious I was quoting a song with the inclusion of the ohs, but the internet is a damn tricky place. I actually speak a passable amount of French, so I was fairly aware that of the words they did steal, cul de sac wasn't one of them.

 

Maclennan

New member
Jul 11, 2010
104
0
0
Everyone always says English is one of the hardest languages on earth to learn because it has so many rules and exceptions while at the same time everyone including those that say it is difficult to learn ignores most of those rules.
 

rob47

New member
Nov 18, 2009
8
0
0
The strange thing about the english language is this: Almost all of our words have two meanings.
 

Exerzet

New member
Sep 6, 2010
61
0
0
The word "Church" originated in the norwegian (then norse) language, as the word "Kirk". This I guess could be considered weird. For what on earth did they call them before trying to christen scandinavia? Oo;
 

Xifel

New member
Nov 28, 2007
138
0
0
Swedish lacks words, and we borrow heavily from other languages. There is a funny clip on youtube where they point this out, but I write some of it down. The problem is that many word mean multiple things, depending on kontext and intonation. A few example with translations:

Lyssna på rock iklädd rock
(Listing to rock while wearing a coat)

De olika stegen på stegen
(The different steps on the ladder)

Jag ska ha sex vid sex
(I'm going to have sex at six)

Det ligger en banan på banan
(There is a banana on the race track)
 

go-10

New member
Feb 3, 2010
1,557
0
0
I'm a native of both English (my dad was American) and Spanish (my mom is Puertorican)
so I had huge problems with Spanglish growing up, still I love English for how easy it was to learn and speak, but Spanish on the other hand changes based on where you are, I once went to South America and everyday Spanish to me was considered sexual insults to them, but then I went to Spain and the words I used were considered polite and professional, so yeah it's a messed up language... I still can't write it for shit though
 

remulean

New member
Mar 19, 2009
17
0
0
i speak icelandic a language that hasn't really changed in 1200 years. so the strangest thing about it is basically all of it :) eyjafjallajökull for example. a perfectly innocent and simple word for icelanders that then was completely impossible for others to pronounce.
many of the newer words don't make sense. For example, the direct translation for boots is "stepping machine.
 

AperioContra

New member
Aug 4, 2011
103
0
0
I speak midwestern/southern slang quite fluently, and I will say it is quite unsettling that we refuse to pronounce the end and middle of a word or any oo sound for that matter. We have a weird way of using double negatives, Also there's a tenancy to use a sophisticated word in the midst of our slang.

This all can create some perplexing sentences, like: "Ya don' s'pose he's not meanin' somhm by that perfunctory look he givin'?" For those of you who think I'm being hyperbolic or Sensationalist, come to the midwest and have a bit of a chat with the locals, you'll find out pretty quickly.
 

mm2publish

New member
Oct 23, 2010
79
0
0
I speak English, & Spanish. Of the two I think Spanish is more difficult mainly because the words are much longer and have more syllables not to mention the tenses (past, present and future)are more difficult in Spanish however I should mention that going from English to Spanish is much easier than going to any other language because many of the words are nearly the same.
 

mm2publish

New member
Oct 23, 2010
79
0
0
We need a "WORLD" language. I don't care which one. Just pick one! an easy one preferably, so we can start learning it, and then we will all be on the same page in the future! How about html? Lol
 

AperioContra

New member
Aug 4, 2011
103
0
0
GrungyMunchy said:
Btw, stop saying English is regarded as one of the most difficult languages to learn, no one thinks that. You don't even have genders for inanimate objects.
I'm just going to play the devil's advocate here, and point out that there have been countless studies and polls that confirm English as amongst the hardest languages to learn as a second language, (Including one by the FSA and the British Foreign Offices (whereas Portuguese is considered one of the easiest)) so the evidence weighs heavily on that side. This is precisely because we don't have other verbs for proper or formal conversation or for male or female. The perceived simplicity is boggling from a person who is used to that formula. Also, our pronunciation is considered notorious nonenglish speakers.

But to be fair, difficulty in language often depends on the primary language on the speaker. If you happen to have roots in a Romantic Language (Spanish, Italian or French) or a Germanic Language (Scandinavian, Dutch) then you're going to find English relatively easier than if you have roots in an Asian language (Farsi, Cantonese or Japanese) or worse yet and African Click language, in which our language has absolutely nothing in common with, besides a brutally mispronounce Sayonara or a flirtatious whistle.