Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Sandwich on October 02, 2003, 01:33:44 am
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Why is it called "toothpaste" and not "teethpaste"?
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if someone asks you you'll tell him you don't know :p
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I suppose in the same way that nail varnish isn't nails-varnish, and boot polish isn't boots-polish.
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English is possibly the most inconsistency-riddled language in the world. ;)
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don't think so, really :p
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Well, the only other language I know is Cantonese, which is as straight-laced as it comes - if you can hear the accents (best learnt at a young age, even people who devote years to it in future life can't get all the nuances), you won't mistake anything for anything. :p English, though, that's a terror to learn... things which don't sound the same, things which sound the same but shouldn't, things which mean different depending on... well, are you willing to put up a challenger? ;)
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Nah, I knew how to speak English since I was 8 years old. Somehow it was very easy for me to learn.
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Originally posted by Setekh
Well, the only other language I know is Cantonese, which is as straight-laced as it comes - if you can hear the accents (best learnt at a young age, even people who devote years to it in future life can't get all the nuances), you won't mistake anything for anything. :p English, though, that's a terror to learn... things which don't sound the same, things which sound the same but shouldn't, things which mean different depending on... well, are you willing to put up a challenger? ;)
deifintively:
French ( altho dutch is probably not much better ).
From all the latin based languages, trust me, english is really the simplest, less oddity ridden one.
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True. There's no gender in English, which makes it much simpler (I think). Although there are lots of words which mean more than one thing, and many words which can be used to mean the same thing. If you want a really evil language, try Welsh. ;7
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Originally posted by TheCelestialOne
Nah, I knew how to speak English since I was 8 years old. Somehow it was very easy for me to learn.
Growing up in it is quite a different matter - children have a remarkable ability to learn language. Maybe it's coming to English from Chinese thought processes... I still maintain English is a butt to learn. :p
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I don't think Finnish qualifies as an easy or non-evil language either don't you think :p
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Originally posted by Setekh
Growing up in it is quite a different matter - children have a remarkable ability to learn language. Maybe it's coming to English from Chinese thought processes... I still maintain English is a butt to learn. :p
I never really "learned" it. I just knew... for some reason. Maybe I watched a bit too much television :drevil:
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I think english is allot easier to learn then Dutch or French.
I learned english prety fast from stuff like TV, Books, and ofcourse at school.
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Originally posted by Setekh
Growing up in it is quite a different matter - children have a remarkable ability to learn language. Maybe it's coming to English from Chinese thought processes... I still maintain English is a butt to learn. :p
for odd reason i agree
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Originally posted by pyro-manic
True. There's no gender in English, which makes it much simpler (I think). Although there are lots of words which mean more than one thing, and many words which can be used to mean the same thing. If you want a really evil language, try Welsh. ;7
w/o counting the fact the in french verbs are way more complicated to... her to do that:
doing:
I do
you do
he does
you do
we do
they do
faire:
je fais,
tu fais
il fait
nous faisons
vous faites
ils font
and that's just for present tense, you'd choke yourself if I were to show you the "plusqueparfait au subjectif" tense of faire :D
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Took the list from Venom:D
Note: i suck at dutch:D
One of the reasons i go to night school:)
doing:
I do
you do
he does
you do
we do
they do
doen:
ik doe
je doet
hij doet
jullie doen
wij doen
zij doen
Corrected my post thanks to TCO:D
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doing:
I do
you do
he does
you do
we do
they do
doen:
ik doe
je doet
hij doet
jullie doen
wij doen
zij doen
Not that hard :p Actually very much like in english. Even pronounciation!
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Come on, 50% of our comedy industry is based on the double meanings found in the english language :nod:
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:lol:
losers :rolleyes:
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Originally posted by diamondgeezer
Come on, 50% of our comedy industry is based on the double meanings found in the english language :nod:
not to mention the judicial system :D
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True :D
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after learning german for three years, I found out that I could make out quite a portion of dutch just by guessing.
hmm... lesse:
doing:
I do
you do
he does
you do
we do
they do
göra:
jag gör
du gör
han gör
du gör
vi gör
de gör
swedish is simple, isn't it...
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Originally posted by TheCelestialOne
Nah, I knew how to speak English since I was 8 years old. Somehow it was very easy for me to learn.
Hey, same here. We were taught from third grade onwards, and I just... knew. I don't remember ever having to put any effort in learning it. It was great. :nod:
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Originally posted by Setekh
Well, the only other language I know is Cantonese, which is as straight-laced as it comes - if you can hear the accents (best learnt at a young age, even people who devote years to it in future life can't get all the nuances), you won't mistake anything for anything. :p English, though, that's a terror to learn... things which don't sound the same, things which sound the same but shouldn't, things which mean different depending on... well, are you willing to put up a challenger? ;)
Estonian. No question.
doing:
I do
you do
he does
we do
you do
they do
Note that the word do remains the same in every form except he.
now...
tegema
ma teen
sa teed
ta teeb
me teeme
te teete
nad teevad
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Originally posted by Venom
w/o counting the fact the in french verbs are way more complicated to... her to do that:
doing:
I do
you do
he does
you do
we do
they do
faire:
je fais,
tu fais
il fait
nous faisons
vous faites
ils font
and that's just for present tense, you'd choke yourself if I were to show you the "plusqueparfait au subjectif" tense of faire :D
ok, venom, try to imagine a foreigner having to study all the following tenses in french:
present, future, past simple, past perfect, and some other ****.
i need to get 80% right on the test monday to get a ****ing 6, so i am pretty much freaking out here. :shaking:
dutch is my motherlanguage, probably the only reason i can speak it, it is terrible to spell, and it looks like hell for foreigners.
german is reasanably doable, the only hard part is the way that words change when there function in the sentence changes, and the gender of the word affecting that.
french is terrible, an awfull lot of exceptions and stuff, and the way you guys count, beyond 60, it gets wierd. and gender, just more hard stuff.
Ancient Latin has to be the worst of the things i am thought right now, the order of words in a sentence means nothing, and making long sentences appears to be the national sport. same joke as in German with the proper nouns, it keeps changing, also, the verbs have a way of shifting around a lot.
also:
doing:
I do
you do
he does
you do
we do
they do
facio
facis
facit
facimus
facitis
facent
(IIRC)
Ancient Greek has the same **** as latin, plus a different alfabet to learn. i only had one year of it, and nothing more.
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if you think Eglish is complicated, look in the fs2 techroom in the vasudan database and scroll down until you come to the language part.
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Originally posted by kasperl
and the way you guys count, beyond 60, it gets wierd. and gender, just more hard stuff.
I used to get disturbed by that, back in the day.
99 = Quatre-vign-dix-neuf (excuse the spelling, I've not done French for years)
Translates as Four-twenty-ten-nine. I mean wtf?
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Because it only really works if you do them one at a time.
Black Wolf - able to rerail theads with a single post (Until another of these weird euro language pimps comes along anyway)
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Originally posted by Black Wolf
Because it only really works if you do them one at a time.
Or perhaps it was invented by a man with only the one tooth, and by god, he wasn't going to lose it.
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Originally posted by Petrarch of the VBB
99 = Quatre-vign-dix-neuf (excuse the spelling, I've not done French for years)
Translates as Four-twenty-ten-nine. I mean wtf?
4*20+10+9 = 99
:p
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Originally posted by Petrarch of the VBB
99 = Quatre-vign-dix-neuf (excuse the spelling, I've not done French for years)
Translates as Four-twenty-ten-nine. I mean wtf?
Sounds a bit like Latin. :)
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Originally posted by TheCelestialOne
4*20+10+9 = 99
:p
Yes, but why?
Why not just have a term for ninety, and another for nine?
That's why I always preferred German, it makes sense.
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Originally posted by Petrarch of the VBB
Yes, but why?
Why not just have a term for ninety, and another for nine?
That is both simpler and more complex. Simpler, because it requires less terms to define a value; but more complex, because it requires more unique terms in the first place. Terms such as 'ninety'.
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Originally posted by Petrarch of the VBB
That's why I always preferred German, it makes sense.
German's great for shouting in. 'ACHTUNG!' or 'DAS IST VERBOTEN!' and stuff like that
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Indeed. Much as I've tried, I've never been able to shout in French. German and Russian, on the other hand, are made for it.
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well, how would you shout in french?
sil vous plait monsieur, c'est interdit?
and what about russian? i know nothing of it. aside from Tovaritsj =comrade.
and Mir = Peace
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I know very little Russian, but simply repeating something phoenetically sounds threatening enough.
I was told the Russian for "**** your mother" a few months ago, but I've forgotten it since.
There's stuff like, Da, tovarisch Kapitan, which is simple enough.
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yob tvoyu matj - **** your mother
The only thing I can do fluently in russian - curse
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Originally posted by Stunaep
yob tvoyu matj - **** your mother
The only thing I can do fluently in russian - curse
That's the one, thanks.:)
It's all you need in any language really, "Do you speak (insert your native tongue here)?", and an insult.:p
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Originally posted by Petrarch of the VBB
I used to get disturbed by that, back in the day.
99 = Quatre-vign-dix-neuf (excuse the spelling, I've not done French for years)
Translates as Four-twenty-ten-nine. I mean wtf?
yeah, I know.
it starts all over again, so to speak: consider sixty to be like zero, therfore when you reach seventy ( soixante-dix ) you go on like if it was ten, so it goes "soixante et onze " -seventy one, or word for word, sixty and eleven :p - ( ok, and there's an article -et- in the mix, so it gets really confusing :D ) .
Anyway, that only further proves my point that french is probably the worst langauge in the world. well, it's rich, so it comes at a ( very heavy :p ) cost.
oh, and words that have multiple meanings, there's countless of those in french, of course :p
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*starts to gibber in the corner*
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Originally posted by kasperl
well, how would you shout in french?
sil vous plait monsieur, c'est interdit?
lol :D when you shoot, you're usually not that polite :lol:
but you can curse very loudly :D ( watch matrix reloaded, there's a nice sample of french curses in there - we have such an amount of swearing words and sentences, you couldn't even believe :p )
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Originally posted by Petrarch of the VBB
That's why I always preferred German, it makes sense.
Yeah, but the number 5555 sounds funny.
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Oh christ yes, even 55 is comical enough
Funfundfunfzig
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*shouts*
GENERAL VON KLINKERHOFFEN!
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Ohhh, René.
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i don't even try anymore speak other languages than my home language (japanese) ,english because i did forgot one French sadly
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Originally posted by Styxx
Yeah, but the number 5555 sounds funny.
fünfthausendfünfhundertfünfundfünfzig
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ok, i think i have trouble speaking now......
also, i ****ing hate german.
at least, i do right now, with this test tommorow
/me is nervous like hell.
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Originally posted by kode
fünfthausendfünfhundertfünfundfünfzig
oddly enough, i just slobbered over my keyboard and monitor when i did that.
i had 3 years of german btw
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so did I. but that was years ago. odd how much I remember, tho.
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The thing with English is that there are so many irregular verbs. Requires a lot of memorization.
Anyone here know Esperanto? Or Klingon? :nervous:
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Wow. Who woulda guessed that a small thread about toothpaste would turn into such a multi-essay on linguistics? :p
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:lol:What's toothpaste?:lol:
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There is no toothpaste.
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English: What happens when Germanic languages and Latin collide.
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The problem with English, I think, is that a lot of people try to learn it who aren't really educated to begin with. Look at all the people in this world that speak broken english... it's practically the universal language these days. Plus, people whose language is radically different (east asian) seem to have a more difficult time getting the nuances of English down (not that there are many nuances to get really, but hey). The thing you are all considering though, I/you/he/we/you(ya'll as we say around here)/they do is not that complicated in any language, you have roots and endings and so forth. The trouble is the I/... did, I/... was doing, I/... will do, etc. English seems to have a lot more of those, all of which mean something unique, than most other languages I am basically familiar with.
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Originally posted by StratComm
Look at all the people in this world that speak broken english...
Originally posted by StratComm
(ya'll as we say around here)
:p
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Hey, ya'll ain't broken, it's southern! :p
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If the plural of mouse is mice, shouldn't the plural of spouse be spice?
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Find - found
Remind - remound?
And as for Esperanto,
A frog? In which bidet?
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Originally posted by Sandwich
Wow. Who woulda guessed that a small thread about toothpaste would turn into such a multi-essay on linguistics? :p
I'm never going to raise language again. :D
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Dunno why, but t seemed appropriate to put this here. Sandy'll remember it, he posted it last year (Or longer):
A 20-year plan for the Improvement of English Spelling
by Mark Twain
For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped to be replased either by "k" or "s", and likewise "x" would no longer be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be retained would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with "i" and Iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all.
Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants. Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez "c", "y" and "x" -- bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez -- tu riplais "ch", "sh", and "th" rispektivli.
Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.
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Wlel, it's been perovn taht if the fsrit and the lsat lteetr of ecah wrod in a setncene are at tiher rhgit pacle, our bairns wlil siltl be albe to uanerdnstd the sneetnce on the fsrit try, eevn if you raed at a naroml pcae :)
aern't our biarns wudnfeorl? :D
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It's an exegeneration, Venom.
It is well seen that you made spelling mistakes designedly.
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Originally posted by TopAce
It's an exegeneration, Venom.
It is well seen that you made spelling mistakes designedly.
:wtf:
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Originally posted by Sandwich
:wtf:
Deliberate spelling mistakes I'd guess :nod:
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oh the joys of language variety indeed :lol:
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skool
:)
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Originally posted by TopAce
It's an exegeneration, Venom.
It is well seen that you made spelling mistakes designedly.
it's something that's been around for a while, so he dind't witre it.
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teethpaste sound stupid.
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Hear hear.
Or should that be here here?
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Originally posted by Venom
Wlel, it's been perovn taht if the fsrit and the lsat lteetr of ecah wrod in a setncene are at tiher rhgit pacle, our bairns wlil siltl be albe to uanerdnstd the sneetnce on the fsrit try, eevn if you raed at a naroml pcae :)
aern't our biarns wudnfeorl? :D
Pterty fkiucn' azeamnig, ins't it?
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[color=66ff00]Dman, I kenw I souhld hvae mdae poelpe pay for the rgiht to use tihs tcenihuqe on HLP. ;)
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its yuor own msitkae now Maoemgalr... :p
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Originally posted by Maeglamor
[color=66ff00]Dman, I kenw I souhld hvae mdae poelpe pay for the rgiht to use tihs tcenihuqe on HLP. ;)
[/color]
You should do that to your title. ;)