OK, my vote is that Portuguese is one of the most beautiful languages for singing, but years ago, the way the guy sounded who presented the news in Portuguese on the long wave Radio Suecia Internacional (or whatever), you wished that you would never encounter that language or have to look at a perso...

Lots of young Swedes pronounce the shoe label [naik].

If needed, I use the same pronunciation as for the Goddess: [ni:ke]

I would have written ga(n)demis, then we'd all have known sooner. I vote for either <gkantémis> or <gandémis>. I'm not sure I would have guessed the meaning, though. The thing I will remember from this thread will probably be argo . The Greek having imported the French word argot for 'slang' sugges...

Reminds me in one or another way of a website i once found (and lost) about Chinese characters tattoes, which were rather hilarious. BTW, before you laugh too much at the menu, consider the multimega worldwide known US company that proudly stated Where available, you can get 24 hour service ETA: TH...

Thank you, BD, for your corrections. My original point is undiminished. It is possible to make compound words in a romance language. Yep, it certainly is, but I don't think Romance speakers are as inventive as Germanic (particularly English) in this regard. Brazilian dude Not having investigated th...

Rather reminds me of Grimmy. Go for previous.

XP Pro, IE 6, decently sized Samsung SyncMaster 710v monitor, set at 1024 x 768. My only problem with the Rosetta ads was that it took a couple of minutes before I identified the Pashto numerals.

The reason English seems to have so many words is that there are more lexical efforts for English than for other languages. You can easily find 1000 lexicologists quoting millions of words each before there is even a consensus on the definition of a "word" in Chinese. English has a certain...

Belgium has three official languages: Dutch (which is Nederlands, not 'Flemish', please), French and German.] I stand corrected; although I was under the impression that the Dutch spoke in Belgium is a bit different than that of the Netherlands. Is this true or not? Trying to be forgiving, I read &...

I haven't tried the Rosetta Stone for any language. Yet.

For comparisons of study aids and tips for learning, you might find this site useful. You'll find discussions on the relative merits of the Stone and Assimil and others.

Thanks, Perry, Careful spellchecking and time to spare saves me from displaying many of the sometimes quite funny typos occurring in my first post versions. It's a pencil-large infarction, and I hope it is obvious that it didn't hit the left brain and its language centres. It's a great excuse anyway...

DUE TO MY BRAININJURY Mine was due to a stroke. Is it possible for you to write your posts off line in for example MS Word? Then you will 1) have access to a spellchecker that might help in removing typos when intention and hands don't agree, 2) be able to, when ready, convert the lot to lower case...

Anders, don't tell me you'd call someone 'aap' out of courtesy?

That's a point I overlooked. Please compare the Tarzan thread.

It really is a with a macron or rather आप but I was too lazy. Even more weird, to have my utility give me the correct Hindi, I had to write Apa (ape/monkey in Swedish).

A deacon was briefed beforehand on what his role would be at an upcoming missionary banquet and was told to be sensitive to the fact that there would be guests from foreign countries who were not accustomed to American culture. During the banquet, the deacon found himself seated next to an African m...

You (pl.) are lucky. In Hindi, there are three levels for 2nd person addressing: tu (extremely familiar, best avoided for foreigners), tum to equals or family, aap for courtesy. But for example Tibetan is much worse. Nouns! may have up to four levels, depending on whom is addressed: Example 'mother'...