Posted on 09/21/2024 9:58:18 AM PDT by sopo
Finnish is known for its challenging grammar and vocabulary, which can be daunting for learners. It features a complex system of cases—15 in total—which can change the endings of nouns based on their function in a sentence. Additionally, Finnish is a language isolated from other European languages, so there are few cognates for English speakers to rely on.
Nevertheless, Finnish is a language worth learning for its unique position in the world. Finland boasts a high standard of living, stunning natural landscapes, and a rich cultural history. Learning Finnish can enhance your experience if you plan to travel or work in Finland, allowing you to connect more deeply with its people and culture.
(Excerpt) Read more at wordstrivia.com ...
“ebonics has always thrown me. although I admit I haven’t tried to learn it.”
OK, give it a try, this will help you pick it up. See how you do.
“THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS (EBONICS STYLE)
De Ebonics Crimmus Pome
Wuz de nite befo Crimmus
An’ all ober de hood
ereybody wuz sleepin’
Dey wuz sleepin’ real good.
We hunged up our stockings
And hoped like de heck
That ol’ Sanna Claus
Be bringin’ our chek!
All o’ de fambly
Wuz layin’ in de beds
While Ripple and Thunderbird
Dance tru dey heads.
I passed out in de flo
Right next to my maw
When I heard sech a fuss, I thunk
“It must be de law!”
I looked out thru de bars
What covered my doe
Spectin’ de sheriff
Wif a warrant fo sho!
And what did I see?
I said, “Lawd, look at dat!”
Ther’ wuz a huge watta-melon
Pulled by giant warf rats!
Now ober all de years
Sanna Claus, he be white
But, looks like us bros
Gets a black Sanna dis night.
Faster dan a po’lees car;
My home boy, he came.
He whupped on dem warf rats
And called dem by name!
On Leroy, on ‘lonzo,
And on Willie Lee,
On Saphire, on Chenequa;
Dey wuz a site to see!
As he landed dat watta-melon
Out der in de skreet
I knowed fo sho
Da damndest site I ebber did see!
He didn’t go down no chimbley;
He picked da lock on my doe.
And I sez to myself,
“Shit, he done dis befoe!”
He had dis big bag
Full of prezents I ‘spect
Wid Air Jordans and fake gold
To wear ‘roun my neck.
But he left no good prezents;
just started stealin’ my shit.
Got my drugs, got my guns,
Even got my burglar’s kit!
Wit my stuff in de bag
Out da window he flewed
I woulda tried to catch him
But he stole my knife too!
He jumped on dat watta-melon
An’ whipped out a switch
He wuz gone in a secon’,
dat sonuvabitch!
Next year I be hopin’
Anutha Sanna we git
Cuz diz here Sanna Claus
Just ain’t werf a shit!”
Hebrew
LOL! I used to have that in Hawaiian pidgin.
someone forgot drunkenese...
“Ok , thanks for the discussion. You are more well informed on this than I am, as I certainly didn’t know this about Korean. That sounds like long before the division of North and South.”
Yes. King Sejong, in 1443, commissioned a group of scholars to collect everything they could about the spoken Korean language, in speech, poetry, song and everyway, and develop a Korean phonetic script that would be taught to every Korean, young and old. To westerners the Korean phonetic script resembles “characters” like with Chinese ideograpms, but the Korean “symbols” westerners see is actually the phonetic construction of syllables, with each part of the symbol representing a sound.
The same king required Korean astronomers to abandon the Chinese zodiac and the Chinese calendar, and develop a Korean zodiac and calendar based totally on the positions of the heavens looking from Korea and what should be fully Korean holidays.
Sejong hated the Chinese bully, who used its superior numbers, language and calendar to obtain “Chinese friendly” converts and subversives among the scholars and bureaucrats in surrounding countries. That influence in Koreas was so strong that Sejong had to go against all the “Korean experts” in his government and go outside of them to get what he wanted done. Sounds like someone we know doesn’t it.
I SEE WHÅT YOU DID THERE!
Arabic should not be on that list but Vietnamese should be.
This was during the last year of our war II with Japan/Germany.
He and his classmates never got answers to why Mandarin instead of Japanese or German.
They soon found out why at the end of WWII
Dad was a veteran of WWII, China, Korea and Vietnam...
I guess the Mandarin he learned in China came in handy in Korea...
Two requisites, instruction by native speakers. And almost complete immersion from day one. Both are completely lacking in how foreign languages are taught here. Drumming grammar and teaching people to translate on paper and in their heads is one reason most of us are monolingual, while lots of Europeans (Brits excepted) tend to be conversant in at least two languages.
Past the age of about six learning any new language isn't easy. There are sounds in Arabic that require one to do "unnatural" contortions at the back of your throat. But it opens the person to new worlds and ways of looking at the world.
My first job was patching code on a 68000 system written entirely in assembly language. Sometimes I cheated and used a C cross compiler. Tricky since the original designers used random registers for different global depending on who wrote sections. Since I had to patch, my first job was to optimize some area ta add space for the patch. I absolutely hated Ada! Learning to think like an assembly language optimization engineer, objected oriented lanuages seemed to just waste memory.
When I started coding all we had were 0s and 1s, and sometimes we didn’t even have the 1s.
Add Nam to your list.
In English we use contractions and have two different spellings and pronunciations but different meanings to certain words.
Mandarin Chinese is “easy” in that compared to english, and especially languages like German or Russian, it has nearly no grammar rules
The difficulty for western minds is the completely alien sound of the language and tones, as well the need to memorize every character, followed by use of the vast amount of commonly used cultural and historical 4-character idioms used everywhere in Chinese speech and particularly writing.
Let me rebut at least a bit, re: memorization vs. logic. I’d consider a non-reply as being not worth your time as opposed to acquiescence. My understanding is that there is a lot of drilling, i.e. repetition, in the way Chinese learn math. That would seem to come from concentration, leading to memorization of patterns. That would show up especially on standardized , multiple choice test, at least it does for me. It also is reminiscent of my observation of children learning to read, at least English. Grandpa, “ Did she really read that or did she just memorize that from having it read to her?” Pretty soon, it becomes clear. It also comes into the argument that Gladwell presents, that Chinese students attribute math proficiency to effort ( it seems to me, a lot of memorization) vs. American kids attributing success to innate ability ( “it’s not worth the effort, I can’t do it”). So the old adage, practice makes perfect, aligning with effort more than talent. This is about comparing standardized proficiency tests from country to country, so it seems that except at the very elite end, the proficiency comes from memorization, not logic, with the written language learning very important in developing memorization skill.
Japanese and Korean are not hard to learn, and both have simple vocal alphabets, but both also rely on Kanji (Chinese characters) to a significant extent (Japanese more so) and no way learning to draw and type 10,000 words.
Chinese texting:
LOL = 哈哈 (Hāhā)
I had to get management approval for ones due to extra electrical costs. lol. FR has the best humor
Music is also a language.
Can you, perchance, play a HÅRP? 😇
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