Using English on TBBS

[Gov Kodos]

Not really that strange to me, but then again I've been fluent in English since I was like 12. So quite fluent before joining here, use it quite a bit IRL, and it's seldom that it's difficult.

Well, it's difficult I guess that a lot of my countrymen have such terrible accents when speaking English.

Like this fine countryman?

 

[Gul Re'jal]

English is not my native language, but I use it every day, as I don't live in my country.

Did I wish everyone spoke a different language? No. I speak 5, I had contact with about 15 in my life and English is one of two simplest languages I have seen.

What I find difficult about English are tenses (in my language there are only 3: past, present and future), so I have no idea what to do with all that dozen of tenses. And 'a/the.' My language doesn't have that stuff, so it's a total magic for me and I still struggle not to mess them up and I still confuse them, or forget to use them, or add them where I shouldn't.

 

[Myasishchev]

Yes, ё - yo. It's often printed like a normal e to confuse foreigners, I suppose. Or did you mean з?

Eh, yeh, and yo. I forgot about zeh, but it doesn't really strike me as an E. It's more of a 3.

Fun fact, my name is mistransliterated. But it's the usual name Myasishchyev OKB/company products go by in the West.

"Byzantine" strikes me as pretty easy--if nothing else, because biz-ahn-tyne and biz-an-teen and bie-zin-teen are all basically correct--but I bet the xenoglosses have a tought time with "engine." That is, I bet I told them it was pronounced "ehng-yne," they'd believe me.

Anyway, you haven't seen anything in that regard until you've realised that in Greek, there are about 7 different ways to create i.

I defy you to explain how it is useful.

 

[Count Zero]

Anyway, you haven't seen anything in that regard until you've realised that in Greek, there are about 7 different ways to create i.

I defy you to explain how it is useful.

It isn't.
Things like that happen when a language has been in use in some form for more than 3,5 millenia, I guess. Pronunciation rules changed, some people wanted to be fancy etc. They already did away with most of the fancy accent marks from Ancient Greek a while ago, but if you ask me, they could also do with a thorough orthographic reform. On the other hand, I sort of like the eccentricity.

 

[Shaytan]

Anyway, you haven't seen anything in that regard until you've realised that in Greek, there are about 7 different ways to create i.

I defy you to explain how it is useful.

Only anglophones want a useful language, the others prefer to be funnily elegant
àèéùâöô

 

[captcalhoun]

i found German far easier to learn in high school than French.

i barely remember any of either, though...

enschuligung, wie komme ich am besten zum bahnhoff, bitte?

yay, i can ask where the train station is, but would i understand the directions?? NO!

 

[PKTrekGirl]

Not really that strange to me, but then again I've been fluent in English since I was like 12. So quite fluent before joining here, use it quite a bit IRL, and it's seldom that it's difficult.

Well, it's difficult I guess that a lot of my countrymen have such terrible accents when speaking English.

I have a close friend (classic film trader friend) in Sweden, and we have talked on the phone a couple of times a week for years, so I'm used to the accent. His is very good in English....the only time I have trouble is with the occasional "J" in a word we do not use often in our discussions...so it comes into the conversation 'new'.

Right now, for example, he is always pointing out how much he hopes that I will quickly obtain a new yob. I'm very used to that one...but sometimes I have to get him to actually spell out a word and then I'll go "Ah!!!! You mean j______!" I assume you do not have a "J" in Swedish, yes?

But overall, the Swedes I have encountered in life (you, for example, or my friend above) have very good English. Much better than some of the Americans on this board.

 

[Sam_I_Am]

It would be nice to have a sub-forum for non-English topics, but imagine it would be horrific to moderate.

 

[Nick086]

Anyone on here speak Klingon?

 

[bigdaddy]

eIe sWear SoMe of tHa peOple on HerE know EnLiSh and JUST LiKE typIng like ThisS . . .

 

[6079SmithW]

Nglsh shld nt hv vwls lk n hbrw. Wld b bttr lk ths.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

^This may sound stupid to Romance language speakers, but I think one of the really great things about English (and Russian) is the lack of accent marks on letters. If you want to write something, you just write it.

Look at all those unnecessary squiggly things. I know how to say Espana, I don't need an estimated value of the "n." I guess it's one of those things you pick up when your native tongue does dumb things like spell an f sound with a gh... sometimes. The thought process is probably semi-ideogrammatic.

Not all diacritics are useless; personally I think it's a little easier than making sense out of digraphs, when I read in a foreign language.

I read Spanish pretty well, but am dreadfully out of practice and have lost what little confidence I had in speaking. It's not that I have trouble with my accent...my accent is actually very good. It's the confidence to put the words together quickly. I'm curious, does anyone know of any active Spanish-speaking Trek forums? I think if I get back into writing more frequently it could help me to speak.

I think that could be a good venue for me to practice. The other thing I have occasionally considered doing, though it would be damn difficult, would be translating a few of my short fanfics into Spanish.

Heck, seeing my work in ANY foreign language, translated competently, would be the biggest thrill. Being given it back for me to try a back-translation and see what I could learn would be like the best puzzle game on the planet.

 

[TerokNor]

Oh don´t translate it NG, that makes it much more difficult. If you want to have a story of yours in spanish, write it directly in that language, thats really easier. In the LOTR fandom I first wrote stories in my native language and then tried to translate them into English and that was a pain. It was really a better learning effect to try and write them directly in English, because then you think your story in the language and let the characters converse in it, though of course you can look up words while writing it. If you only translate words its well just words you translate, but the feeling and everything you felt when writing them are in the other language...if that makes sense. At least thats my experience.

TerokNor

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

I think I can probably pull it off, with some practice...I don't want to sound bad at all, but I was probably one of the best students in my translation class. That said, though, I would definitely want a native Spanish speaker to look over the translation too, to see if they feel it's natural.

At least I don't have to translate the Cardăsda parts.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

As for writing directly into Spanish, though...I would probably be likely to do that if I ever wrote Star Wars fic. I much preferred the prequels in Spanish than English and I actually hear some of the characters' voices in Spanish rather than English, so in my head that's the language of the Star Wars galaxy.

 

[Starbreaker]

I'm amazed that non-native English speakers know the language better than two or three of our posters.

 

[Emher]

Not really that strange to me, but then again I've been fluent in English since I was like 12. So quite fluent before joining here, use it quite a bit IRL, and it's seldom that it's difficult.

Well, it's difficult I guess that a lot of my countrymen have such terrible accents when speaking English.

Like this fine countryman?

For one, yes Me and some friends have made a pact that if we ever go to an American convention where it's appropriate, we are to dress as the Swedish Chef and just walk around speaking regular Swedish

I have a close friend (classic film trader friend) in Sweden, and we have talked on the phone a couple of times a week for years, so I'm used to the accent. His is very good in English....the only time I have trouble is with the occasional "J" in a word we do not use often in our discussions...so it comes into the conversation 'new'.

Right now, for example, he is always pointing out how much he hopes that I will quickly obtain a new yob. I'm very used to that one...but sometimes I have to get him to actually spell out a word and then I'll go "Ah!!!! You mean j______!" I assume you do not have a "J" in Swedish, yes?

But overall, the Swedes I have encountered in life (you, for example, or my friend above) have very good English. Much better than some of the Americans on this board.

I'm not quite sure what you mean with the "j" sound...I have this odd thing myself where in Swedish, my "r" sounds are really bad, but in English it's no problem.

As for me and my quality of the English language, I really languages and want to use them properly. That and I'm like a secret American And the accent thing it's mostly me who thinks people sound like freaking airheads sometimes when speaking English around here

 

[Emher]

EDIT: DOUBLE POOOOOOOOST!

 

[Trilliam]

Let's face it - the only people currently using English correctly live in Australia & New Zealand

 

[Gul Re'jal]

Oh don´t translate it NG, that makes it much more difficult. If you want to have a story of yours in spanish, write it directly in that language, thats really easier. In the LOTR fandom I first wrote stories in my native language and then tried to translate them into English and that was a pain. It was really a better learning effect to try and write them directly in English, because then you think your story in the language and let the characters converse in it, though of course you can look up words while writing it. If you only translate words its well just words you translate, but the feeling and everything you felt when writing them are in the other language...if that makes sense. At least thats my experience.

TerokNor

I had translated a few of my short original fiction stories to English and it it a hard work, but I certainly didn't find it as traumatic

But then, I am a professional translator, even if not working in my field right now, so maybe that's why it wasn't so terrible for me. The worst part was to work again on something that I had written myself. It was booooring

But I agree that writing in "the other" language is easier. One starts to think in that language, so forms with world in that language. Translating that could be sometimes a challenge