What languages do you speak?

[Chase Cat]

I'm speaking German and I'm always trying to express myself in English. My English lessons were quite funny for a while, except that one of my English teachers died during a school year. No, I don't want to depress you. The center of our school was a big hall, so it could be changed for different events. Every morning all pupils met there, waiting for the first bell ring. In opposite to US schools, not every teacher has an own room in Germany. So the teachers have a community room, where they went in the morning. The stage of the hall was elevated. All teachers had to pass the stage to come into their room. This misconstruction was the matter that we all get a little catwalk show everyday. Angela would say: "It was like… depressing." To come to the point, our substitute teacher for English was always the last who came. And he looked absolutely tired. Every day he carried along a bottle of soda. Some strange rumors spread through campus. So we decided to watch the teacher's parking lot one morning. It was really surprising. His car was an old ambulance car. He slept the whole night in it. He was embarrassed that we have found out about his secret. But he explained it to us. His wife kicked him out of the house few weeks ago and he was still in hope that he will be able to return. I have to say the rest of this year was the best English education I've ever had. We laughed very much. This was his way to teach us so much. The next year he had to leave. We started a petition to keep him with us. But it hasn't worked. My new English teacher was an old unmotivated and fat woman. She had to cough a lot, because she was asthmatic and a smoker. One day she nearly choked on her usual cough drop in her mouth. Maybe we wished… I guess she's the reason for my bad English. Do you see the parallels to an episode of a well-discussed TV series? Yeah…

[starbug]

<snip> sanskrit, and pretty good latin. Bits of swahili too... a pretty weird collection.

Can't resist a movie quote:

"Sanskrit? You're majoring in a 5,000 year old dead language? Hmmm... Latin, best I can do. Phys Ed? Get out of here... I mean, no, really get out of here."

- PCU

OK, you two have completely got me - what film is that from?

[Natasha (candygirl)]

OK, you two have completely got me - what film is that from?

PCU

[starbug]

My boyfriend is learning how to swear in multiple languages - any chance he gets!

Yeah, that was the best bit about going to school in inner-city London; kids from Bangladesh and Pakistan would happily teach you how to say dreadful things in their language... one that stuck in my mind was (and I have no idea how to actually spell this so bear with my phonetics here)

"Too-ie Ba-toy". It apparently means 'go f**k your mother' in Bangla. Heh.

I just remembered when I was in primary school (60% ethnic minority) we had a couple of lessons of Bangla - can't remember any of it though...

[starbug]

OK, you two have completely got me - what film is that from?

PCU

Never heard of it.... dare I admit that? Yeah...

[fnordboy]

OK, you two have completely got me - what film is that from?

PCU

Never heard of it.... dare I admit that? Yeah...

Guess you don't have Comedy Central...they air the movie like every 3 hours

Great movie, highly recommend it. And I am not just saying that because I am a Megan Ward slore..err...fan

[Natasha (candygirl)]

As long as you aren't leaving footprints outside her window, there's nothing with being a "fan"!



To take this a little off topic, there was a competition at a recent sci fi convention where fans were asked to make their own music videos featuring Spike of BtVS. You can see the winning video here (warning - huge file!) which is a pop up video using "I Touch Myself" - one of the pop ups says, "It's not stalking if you both happen to be at the same party." Hee!

Starbug - PCU is a movie about political correctness gone way too far. It stands for fictional Port Chester University but is really referring to being PC. Besides the aforementioned Megan Ward, the movie also stars Jeremy Piven and Jon Favreau. Funny! (makes me want to sing "Afternoon Delight")

[lance]

Besides German (obviously), I speak more or less English and French. My French is pretty bad although I live partially in France, but I never had much fun with learning languages. I had *very* bad grades in languages in my early high-school years. It got better at the end of high-school, when I had a few years Latin behind me and finally understood some of the "principles" of the Roman languages (Once you know Latin, it's far more easier to learn French and English).

My English teacher was a lazy, always drunken wanna-be-rockstar, so he did nothing much else than playing us some songs from the Beatles and we had to transcribe them. Or we would watch some Monty Python tapes. Grammar? Only in your wildest dreams. But we always had a great time - he was incompetent as a teacher, but a pretty good singer and guitar player

When we finally got a satellite dish at home and MTV UK started airing "The Real World USA" weekend marathons all over Europe, I was hooked. They also had a VJ named Ray Cokes, his call-in show was a must-see. Around the same time "The Simpsons" were broadcasted over here for the first time (one of my first CDs was Bart Simpson's "Deep Deep Trouble" ). So I learned English by watching TV. And now you know why my grammar in my postings is so bad...

Sascha,

Your grammer is actually pretty good. I've seen far worse from native speakers, including yours truly. Learning via Monty Python must have been interesting.

Best,

Lance Man

[Natasha (candygirl)]

Lance, you are so right on! Sascha has great English grammar skills, unlike many native speakers whose writing I have read (both online as well as in an academic setting). Starbug, don't hate me for saying this, but some of the most consistent poor English grammar I have seen (besides American!) is from the British. It's entirely possible that I have been exposed to a very specific population segment, but man - a lot of the Brits whose stuff I have read (at work, at school, and online) have had atrocious spelling, grammar, and punctuation. And I'm not talking about the slight differences between the Queen's English and American English! To be fair, I admit that Americans are just as bad (if not worse) a lot of the time. Most of the British at this forum do have excellent writing skills though.

[fnordboy]

I've seen far worse from native speakers

... unlike many native speakers whose writing I have read (both online as well as in an academic setting).

They is referring to me

[lance]

I've seen far worse from native speakers

... unlike many native speakers whose writing I have read (both online as well as in an academic setting).

They is referring to me

LOL!

Lance Man

[K-man]

Two thumbs up for PCU. But you gotta rent it or catch it on cable. Comedy Central edits out a lot of funny stuff.

[Natasha (candygirl)]

Very true - interesting what some cable channels get away with and what other channels choose to censor. I love that MTV still edits with all their bleeps so that the cast members say ass*bleep* - you know, because "hole" is the part of the word that is offensive.



Meanwhile, they use assh*le on network shows like NYPD Blue and I think I even heard it on ER.

[starbug]

Starbug, don't hate me for saying this, but some of the most consistent poor English grammar I have seen (besides American!) is from the British. It's entirely possible that I have been exposed to a very specific population segment, but man - a lot of the Brits whose stuff I have read (at work, at school, and online) have had atrocious spelling, grammar, and punctuation.

Believe me, I know; it's a daily bugbear of mine. I often joke with friends of mine about the state of the nation's grammar. Basic sentence construction seems to elude a sizeable chunk of this country. What's really disturbing is that I see lots of draft legal documents as part of my job, and the very people who should be of the highest educational standard seem incapable of writing something that either
a) reflects their intentions
b) is grammatically correct.

One of my friends has just been made assistant editor of the Law Society website, and part of his job is to proof everything that's to be published on there for errors. He spends hours each week correcting other people's grammar - which for him (being another grammar Nazi) is the perfect job.



she writes, hoping that there are no errors of grammar in this post...

And I'll see if I can find that PCU movie; it sounds like something I'd enjoy...

[Natasha (candygirl)]

I think that people sometimes forget that when writing a formal paper or proposal, it shouldn't simply be a transcript of what they would say word for word (like, um, you know?).

One of the reasons I love books like Dangerous Liaisons and Ella Minnow Pea is because they demonstrate what you can do with the English language. As the Marquise de Merteuil says, you are supposed to write for the person who is reading it.



It's amazing how many intelligent people can't form a coherent sentence to save their lives. I just read an email from a med student at UCSF (which is one of the top schools in the country) and the spelling, punctuation, everything was atrocious. On the plus side, he has lots of medical skills that I don't so I guess it's a trade-off.