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You know you’re a language nerd when...

  Tags: Language Geek
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion Post Reply
3737 messages over 468 pages: << Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... 107 ... 467 468 Next >>
karaipyhare
Tetraglot
Groupie
Paraguay
Joined 5374 days ago

74 posts - 150 votes 
Speaks: Portuguese, Spanish*, English, Guarani
Studies: German, Italian, French, Mandarin, Japanese

 
 Message 849 of 3737
19 July 2010 at 4:04pm | IP Logged 
Tally wrote:
When your idea of small talk is mentioning random facts about languages
and you are
surprised when people look at you funny.


Guilty!

Only yesterday, I was in a friend's house with all his family having dinner. There was
a baby around and everybody was laughing and mentioning her because she learned to make
the "Bronx cheer" sound, and you know.. babies... whatever they do seem funny to
adults.
So I thought it would be very enlightening and interesting for everybody to learn a bit
and I couldn't resist sharing my knowledge and so I said: you know that that sound is
very similar to the voiceless dental bilabially trilled affricate, that is: bbllrrr!
(me reproducing the sound), there's a tribe in the Amazon, the Piraha, that actually
uses it as part of they phoneme inventory. It was only discovered in 2004 because the
natives didn't utter that sound in front of the white researchers fearing they would
sound awkward and be laughed at. Besides them, there is only a handful of laguages that
use that sound.
They all stared at me like, is that a joke or was it supposed to be cool?

Well, I think not everyone possesses the virtue of appreciating the diversity of human
languages...
12 persons have voted this message useful



Kary
Groupie
Canada
Joined 5938 days ago

85 posts - 113 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: French, Spanish, German

 
 Message 850 of 3737
19 July 2010 at 8:40pm | IP Logged 
When a trip to the grocery store sends you into a (minor) panic because the translated terms on the labels don't match the terms on your flashcards.
1 person has voted this message useful



ellasevia
Super Polyglot
Winner TAC 2011
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 5931 days ago

2150 posts - 3229 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian
Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian

 
 Message 851 of 3737
19 July 2010 at 8:57pm | IP Logged 
Teango wrote:
When the first thing you do when you return from holiday is flop on the sofa, kick off your weary sand-filled shoes, and log on to the forum to check through several hundred email notifications.


I also did exactly this last Thursday, despite being exhausted by a 36-hour trip!
1 person has voted this message useful



Thaorius
Diglot
Groupie
ArgentinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5332 days ago

40 posts - 58 votes 
Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishB2

 
 Message 852 of 3737
19 July 2010 at 10:22pm | IP Logged 
karaipyhare wrote:
Oh yes, I could feel the thrill in your story. Was it in Buenos
Aires? That city's
great for rare old books!

Thaorius wrote:
...when, on the way to a Japanese only bookstore, you find a used
books bookshop, you
enter curiously, and ask for material in Japanese, or otherwise a foreign language that
isn't English. The store clerk shows you a few things, nothing very convincing... and
then, just as you are leaving the store, you see a kanji across the room. You take the
book off the shelf, and oh boy... jackpot. A 1965, perfectly preserved, color
illustrated
book in German about Japanese history. Annnnddd it comes with a lot of kanji! I mean,
what more could you possibly ask for, right?

(I am not, nor will I be studying German for the next 2 years or so. I am, however,
learning Japanese.)


As a matter of fact it was. And I wasn't aware of that; would you happen to know some
good stores? :)
1 person has voted this message useful



Teango
Triglot
Winner TAC 2010 & 2012
Senior Member
United States
teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5345 days ago

2210 posts - 3734 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Russian
Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona

 
 Message 853 of 3737
20 July 2010 at 4:20pm | IP Logged 
karaipyhare wrote:
voiceless dental bilabially trilled affricate, that is: bbllrrr!
(me reproducing the sound), there's a tribe in the Amazon, the Piraha, that actually
uses it as part of they phoneme inventory.

What an amazing sound, and here's what it actually sounds like (source: UCLA Phonetics Lab Library).
4 persons have voted this message useful



karaipyhare
Tetraglot
Groupie
Paraguay
Joined 5374 days ago

74 posts - 150 votes 
Speaks: Portuguese, Spanish*, English, Guarani
Studies: German, Italian, French, Mandarin, Japanese

 
 Message 854 of 3737
20 July 2010 at 4:43pm | IP Logged 
When realizing one of your posts in this thread got 7 votes really makes your day!
3 persons have voted this message useful



B-Tina
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Germany
dragonsallaroun
Joined 5316 days ago

123 posts - 218 votes 
Speaks: German*, English, French, Polish

 
 Message 855 of 3737
20 July 2010 at 6:33pm | IP Logged 
... when people start asking you in buses in slowly, well accentuated German if you "make progress" while you are flipping through your flashcards - thinking you are a foreigner just because you bought the flashcards in the country of your target language.

2 persons have voted this message useful



johntm93
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5116 days ago

587 posts - 746 votes 
2 sounds
Speaks: English*
Studies: German, Spanish

 
 Message 856 of 3737
20 July 2010 at 9:28pm | IP Logged 
Teango wrote:
karaipyhare wrote:
voiceless dental bilabially trilled affricate, that is: bbllrrr!
(me reproducing the sound), there's a tribe in the Amazon, the Piraha, that actually
uses it as part of they phoneme inventory.

What an amazing sound, and here's what it actually sounds like (source: UCLA Phonetics Lab Library).
For some reason I'm taking a liking to this sound, I find it interesting. Probably because of it's rarity.


2 persons have voted this message useful



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