the best languages to learn (article)

[Cainntear]

Random thought... Given the author's obsession with CEÒS and the omission of the world's allegedly second richest man... Can we conclude that Elon Musk doesn't speak Afrikaans despite being from Pretoria...?

According to your buddy:

Musk has stated that he is proficient in Afrikaans

What is your source for the claim that Elon Musk can speak Afrikaans?

I apologize for the incorrect information in my previous response. After re-evaluating my knowledge, I could not find any credible sources or reliable information to confirm that Elon Musk can speak Afrikaans. It appears that my previous statement was inaccurate, and I apologize for the confusion caused. Elon Musk's primary language of communication is English, and there is no widely known evidence to suggest that he is fluent in Afrikaans. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.

I cannot say which statement is true and which is a hallucination.

Googling whether he speaks it or not gives no decent answers.

Anyway, apologies for leading everyone off on a silly tangent.

[tastyonions]

Musk is one CEO who probably won't be learning any new languages:

Verbal communication is just too imprecise and unreliable, according to Elon Musk, which is why he is hoping to do away with it all together within the next decade.

Speaking on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast – yes, the same one he famously smoked weed on, which resulted in a $5 million NASA investigation into the suitability and professionalism of SpaceX as a government contractor – the SpaceX boss claimed that his company Neuralink could allow brain-to-brain communication in as little as five years, thereby overcoming the need to go to the trouble of actually talking.

It’s worth pointing out that the primary objective of Neuralink is not to eliminate speech. The company is developing a device that links people’s brains to a computer in order to treat brain injuries and traumas, using tiny threads that are implanted directly into the relevant parts of the brain.

https://www.iflscience.com/elon-musk-cl ... ears-55984

There we have it, Musk is going to bless us with telepathy and we'll no longer have to bother flapping our mouths around.

[Sae]

Maybe when a native doesn't say you're good and talk to you like a regular person, maybe that's when they're truly complementing your language. If they complement you, it means you still have more work to do.

Without a doubt. As soon as someone doesn't alter their normal register when speaking to you they have already unconsciously judged you competent.

I'm eating my own words now.



It translates to: "Your Vietnamese is very good".
And the guy's a native speaker. Time to improve my Vietnamese.

[lichtrausch]

It translates to: "Your Vietnamese is very good".

Just learned that tiếng is related to Chinese 聲. Wild.

[Sae]

It translates to: "Your Vietnamese is very good".

Just learned that tiếng is related to Chinese 聲. Wild.

Nice, and makes sense. Vietnamese has a lot of borrowed words from Chinese, just Vietnamified.

[leosmith]

I did see a couple of reaction videos to Zuckerberg's Chinese from Chinese speakers. It sounded like his vocabulary and grammar was good but his tones weren't, which seems to correlate with what you're saying too.

He had lots of other pronunciation mistakes (initials and finals, or vowels and consonants to the layman), and vocab/grammar mistakes. For example he said his wife was Chinese, but he said Chinese language (中文) instead of Chinese person (中国人), to the audience's loud applause. I mean, who wouldn't want to marry a language?

[Sae]

I did see a couple of reaction videos to Zuckerberg's Chinese from Chinese speakers. It sounded like his vocabulary and grammar was good but his tones weren't, which seems to correlate with what you're saying too.

He had lots of other pronunciation mistakes (initials and finals, or vowels and consonants to the layman), and vocab/grammar mistakes. For example he said his wife was Chinese, but he said Chinese language (中文) instead of Chinese person (中国人), to the audience's loud applause. I mean, who wouldn't want to marry a language?

Heh, I've made a similar mistake, except I think I said "I am England". It's possible then the videos I was watching were being a little forgiving and considered them more acceptable errors than tones. But I guess, it gets the message across of "get your tones right", because it's probably where we non-tonal language speakers screw up the most.

[Querneus]

Maybe when a native doesn't say you're good and talk to you like a regular person, maybe that's when they're truly complementing your language. If they complement you, it means you still have more work to do.

Without a doubt. As soon as someone doesn't alter their normal register when speaking to you they have already unconsciously judged you competent.

There is an American YouTuber who learned Japanese (Dōgen) who once joked that you know you're competent when the Japanese stop reacting saying "Your Japanese is good/skillful (上手 jouzu)" and start saying "How long have you been living in Japan?"

Incidentally, it's kind of interesting how the related word 上手者 jouzumono means 'flatterer'. Someone who says 上手.

[tastyonions]

Maybe when a native doesn't say you're good and talk to you like a regular person, maybe that's when they're truly complementing your language. If they complement you, it means you still have more work to do. ;)

Without a doubt. As soon as someone doesn't alter their normal register when speaking to you they have already unconsciously judged you competent.

There is an American YouTuber who learned Japanese (Dōgen) who once joked that you know you're competent when the Japanese stop reacting saying "Your Japanese is good/skillful (上手 jouzu)" and start saying "How long have you been living in Japan?”

That’s my favorite kind of compliment: “Wait, you’ve never even lived in / been to [insert TL country] and you speak like that?!”