Fremdsprachen ftfw, Foreign Languages Thread Options

[Raijinili]

Mein Mitbewohner und ich möchten mit einander Deutsch sprechen.

FIX IT PPA, AND GIVE ME NOTES ON WORD ORDER AND CHOICE

[Raijinili]

Assuming your room-mate is male, the only error here would be "mit einander", which should be one word, so "miteinander". But that's a rather unimportant flaw.

This post has been edited by P.P.A.: Oct 23 2008, 12:25 PM

[Raijinili]

Would you word it differently? Ordering or otherwise?

[Raijinili]

Hm, "Ich würde gerne mit meinem Mitbewohner Deutsch sprechen." or "Mein Mitbewohner würde gerne mit mir Deutsch sprechen." would work too. But since it seems the initiative is from both of you, what you said is perfectly fine. It doesn't really sound awkward either.
You could replace "sprechen" mit "reden" but it wouldn't really make that much of a difference.
"Mein Mitbewohner und ich möchten uns in Deutsch unterhalten." would work too, but none of these is really better or worse than the others.

This post has been edited by P.P.A.: Oct 23 2008, 04:47 PM

[Raijinili]

It's time for swear words.
How many swear words (or words you don't use in polite speech, at least) do you know in other languages?

Fungu: Italian for "fuck you".
B a k a: Japanese for "idiot".
Buta/Buto: Spanish for "bitch".
Ca: French for "shit". (only if the c is unaccented)

I'm not sure if the first 3 are spelled right, but they're close.

EDIT: Damn this site's override of certain Japanese words to I DON'T KNOW JAPANESE BUT I LIKE TO PRETEND I DO!.

This post has been edited by Neon_the_Chao: Oct 23 2008, 05:01 PM

[Raijinili]

Damn it, I just realized I don't know a single Spanish swear word.

[Raijinili]

You do now.

*pointing to my reply ^ *

[Raijinili]

Damn it, I just realized I don't know a single Spanish swear word.

That's a problem you have to fix. You don't have to know how to say anything else; if you can curse and form insults beyond "YOU ARE NOT INTELLIGENT", native speakers will love you.
Regardless of the language.

[Raijinili]

Neteca, an insult and a swear word are not the same thing. Baka isn't a swear.

[Raijinili]

Last time I checked, "you're an idiot" is an insult. Maybe not one of the worse ones though, I don't know.

I know how to say loco (crazy) but again, saying "you're crazy" is only a light insult.

They won't teach you swear words in school. That's a problem. Because you need to learn all the words, not simply the convenient ones.

On JapanesePod101.com in one lesson they said "We'll teach you how to say 'I'm feeling BAD' a little later" - argh, annoying, why not teach "I'm good" (genki) and "I'm bad" (warui?) at the same time.

In my Japanese class yesterday the teacher ACTUALLY DID tell us the word for "ugly" (opposite of kirei / pretty). Unbelievable. It's not in the textbook vocab list though. Teach did tell us "the word is too strong" though.

Next: Japanese learners can check out hiragana.jp - will add the furigana to all kanji on the page. Doesn't work with flash sites like the Knights in the Knightmare site but will work with sting.co.jp. There's a firefox extension called Rikaichan that helps with reading Japanese websites.

[Raijinili]

They won't teach you swear words in school. That's a problem.

That's why native speakers respect you so much when you do know them.

On JapanesePod101.com in one lesson they said "We'll teach you how to say 'I'm feeling BAD' a little later" - argh, annoying, why not teach "I'm good" (genki) and "I'm bad" (warui?) at the same time.

The reason is because a lot of more negative comments are less used, partially as a politeness issue. The textbook I use for my first and second year Japanese class does not say how to say "I'm feeling bad."

[Raijinili]

Okay I have a question:
When I am drilling vocab using flash cards, is it better:
1) Look at the English side of the card, say the Japanese word, then flip to the Japanese side to see if I'm right.
2) Look at the Japanese side of the card, say the English word, then flip to the English side to see if I'm right.
3) Drill both ways.

[Raijinili]

Both ways, but translating from your native language to the other languages is definitely better for you.
However, the best possible way to do it is to write in your target language everyday, using your vocab over and over in actual sentences.

[Raijinili]

Neteca, an insult and a swear word are not the same thing. Baka isn't a swear.

:D


This post has been edited by Neon_the_Chao: Nov 19 2008, 07:07 PM

[Raijinili]

C'est ne peut pas être mort!

I'm reviving this thread. I've started using word frequency lists to study languages. Eg, studying the most used words in the language to make it easier to understand a large amount of general stuff.