You know you're a language nerd when…

General discussion about learning languages
Dragon27
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Re: You know you're a language nerd when…

Postby Dragon27 » Wed Sep 04, 2019 12:42 pm

Bilingual_monoglot wrote:When you're accidentally writing your Chinese exam in Korean (a friend of mine)

I still chuckle a bit remembering the way Prof. Arguelles classified Classical Chinese as a variety of Korean.
Next are languages that I have not consciously abandoned, but which I do not currently work at systematically or directly, but rather only indirectly by subsuming them under other languages, which I place in brackets here: Gothic (Old High German and Old English), Romansch (Italian), Old Church Slavonic (Russian and Bulgarian), Ancient Greek (Modern Greek), Scots Gaelic (Irish Gaelic), Old Irish (Irish Gaelic), Sanskrit (Hindi-Urdu), and Classical Chinese (Korean). These are mainly older historical versions or dialectical variations of the larger or modern languages in brackets.

This was, of course, only from a reader's perspective:
As for Classical Chinese, I merely keep my passive recognition of characters alive by reading Korean.

http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/fo ... D=300&PN=4
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Re: You know you're a language nerd when…

Postby AndyMeg » Wed Sep 04, 2019 1:16 pm

Bilingual_monoglot wrote:When you're accidentally writing your Chinese exam in Korean (a friend of mine)

This made me remember of the time I wrote my name in katakana (japanese) when I was supposed to write it in hangul (korean). And sometimes, in the korean class, I spontaneously use some short japanese expressions/words (or start to, and stop midway when I realize it) and then I try to divert the attention so that the teacher doesn't notice the language I was using XD!
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AndyMeg
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Re: You know you're a language nerd when…

Postby AndyMeg » Wed Sep 04, 2019 1:38 pm

When you go to a small book fair and after seeing everything you decide that the only two books you want to buy are a dictionary of chinese and the bilingual edition (spanish/french) of "The little prince" by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. But then, when you are on your way to buy the chinese dictionary, you see a stand full of korean books (in the original language and also translated to spanish and english) and, like a magnet, you go there and end up spending all your money buying a bunch of books in korean because the person selling them gave you a big discount.

Now I have very interesting reads (at least two novels, one psychology book, one book for kids, one book about the history of Rome, etc.). The only problem is that my korean is not good enough yet and I'm really interested in all the books I bought :cry:

At least I've added an big pile of motivation to improve my korean. 8-)

(For now I'll try to start with the book for kids...)
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Beyond The Story 10 Year Record of BTS Korean version: 36 / 522

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Re: You know you're a language nerd when…

Postby Cavesa » Wed Sep 04, 2019 2:20 pm

When you are packing your personal library for storage before moving, and you find out some facts not typical of the normal population, such as:
-the real % of books in your native language in the mix :-D
-the real amount of language courses there
-the books and courses in four languages you haven't had the time to properly start yet
-all the happy memories and paper based friends in several languages
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mentecuerpo
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Re: You know you're a language nerd when…

Postby mentecuerpo » Fri Sep 06, 2019 2:09 pm

No likes on your FaceBook wall:

Persisting on posting links and comments on interesting language learning content despite not getting any “thumbs up” from your 400 and something Facebook friends.
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Iversen
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Re: You know you're a language nerd when…

Postby Iversen » Fri Sep 06, 2019 5:56 pm

When you spend a whole day studying Bulgarian verbal forms and writes a long message about the subject even though you know that you won't ever need most of the forms and constructions you mention - and you haven't even planned a journey down to the only country where they speak the language. And you seriously doubt that just one single person ever will read it in its entirety, let alone adopt the system you propose.

But it had to be done because the whole topic is a mess, and you don't like messes.
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Re: You know you're a language nerd when…

Postby Xenops » Fri Sep 06, 2019 10:59 pm

mentecuerpo wrote:No likes on your FaceBook wall:

Persisting on posting links and comments on interesting language learning content despite not getting any “thumbs up” from your 400 and something Facebook friends.


I think we (both) need better FB friends. ;)
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Re: You know you're a language nerd when…

Postby PeterMollenburg » Tue Sep 10, 2019 10:21 pm

When you’re given a new speaker as a present and while in the middle of a song you discover the language settings and keep switching the language settings between French, Spanish and German to imitate the pronunciation of:

"Batterie à trente pour cent" / Treinta por ciento de batería / Dreißig Prozent Batterie
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Xenops
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Re: You know you're a language nerd when…

Postby Xenops » Tue Sep 10, 2019 10:31 pm

PeterMollenburg wrote:When you’re given a new speaker as a present and while in the middle of a song you discover the language settings and keep switching the language settings between French, Spanish and German to imitate the pronunciation of:

"Batterie à trente pour cent" / Treinta por ciento de batería / Dreißig Prozent Batterie



When you read the first part and think “they give native speakers as presents? I want one!”
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Re: You know you're a language nerd when…

Postby kanewai » Tue Sep 10, 2019 10:37 pm

I had a phone call at work from a professor with a simple question, but he just kept talking and talking long after he asked his question. I tried to cut him off by offering a hypothetical example related to his issue. He interrupted me: But that's not true! And me, dripping venom: Sir. I used the subjunctive tense in that sentence to indicate a hypothetical state. I know it's not true.

I don't think I even knew what the subjunctive was before I studied other languages, and I'm sure I didn't know how to use it in English.
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