Our BetterMost Community > The Polling Place
which foreign language would you like to speak as well as your first language?
opinionista:
I like the English language. However, the pronunciation kills me. It is so confusing sometimes! I can never tell the difference between pronouncing ship, sheep, cheap or chip, for example. They all sound the same to me! I thought it was due to my hearing disability but it turns out to be a problem most native Spanish speakers have, since we have only five sounds for vowels and the 'sh' doesn't exist. We definitely keep it simple when it comes to the pronunciation, though the grammar is another story. English grammar is far easier.
Mikaela:
Hmmm....
English, definitely. I write it better than I speak it, and would love to become truly fluent in spoken English.
I've also let my French and German slip to a point where I understand but can't very well speak or write them anymore. :-\ I seriously ought to remedy that.
But when all was said and done, I chose Spanish for the poll. Of the languages I'm likely to come into contact with it's the largest and fastest growing one, and used by and in many different nations.
Dagi:
:laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
Susie, you are fluent, and more than this!
Jeff Wrangler:
I just went with "Other" because I'd like to be fluent in German, my ancestral tongue.
Actually, what I really wish I could speak would be Pennsylvania German. My grandmother tried to teach me a few phrases when I was a very small boy, but they didn't stick. My father can't speak the dialect either, so in our family, the ability has died out with my grandmother.
Pennsylvania German is a dialect of Middle High German derived from the language as spoken in southwestern Germany, the area from which most of the ancestors of the Pennsylvania Germans immigrated to Pennsylvania. After 300 years in Pennsylvania, the dialect has been heavily influenced my English.
I had a real Eureka! moment related to his in college many years ago. My German professor mentioned that in Schwaben (Swabia), people use schwetzen (sp?) as the verb to speak, instead of the "correct" High German schprechen. Schwetzen is used for to speak in Pennsylvania German.
belbbmfan:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on October 22, 2007, 09:16:49 am ---I had a real Eureka! moment related to his in college many years ago. My German professor mentioned that in Schwaben (Swabia), people use schwetzen (sp?) as the verb to speak, instead of the "correct" High German schprechen. Schwetzen is used for to speak in Pennsylvania German.
--- End quote ---
In Dutch, which is closely related to German, 'chatting' is called 'zwetsen', but in the sense of 'bragging, boasting'. 'Wat een gezwets!' = 'That's rubbish'
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