Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with language Questions tagged with 'language' at Ask MetaFilter. Tue, 08 Jul 2014 04:31:59 -0800 Tue, 08 Jul 2014 04:31:59 -0800 en-us 60 Why won't Mexicans speak Spanish with me? Almost every time I speak Spanish to a Mexican they answer right back in English. I live in Colorado and speak Spanish fluently if not always grammatically correct. I first noticed this in a Chipotle when I was first learning when I heard the workers there all speaking Spanish and I asked for lechuga on my burrito when the person quickly answered back, "You want lettuce?" Now there are a few exceptions. At my favorite Mexican restaurant for example, the owner doesn't speak very good English and he always chats with me in Spanish, probably thinking in some kind of novelty. The waiters there, no. If I ask permission to speak Spanish it is normally OK.When I go to South American restaurants it's different. The other day I went to watch Uruguay play futbol in a different restaurant. They had the game on ESPN in English which just isn't like watching in Spanish so I asked, "Podemos ver el partido por Univision? Yo prefiero el comentario en español" and the bartender answered back, "Sure, let me get the remote." My assistant, a second generation Mexican tells me that sometimes in the clubs she gets the same thing. <br> <br> So why is this? My theories have been that it is a class issue? Maybe they think it's condescending. I don't know. Thoughts?,2014:site.264794 Tue, 08 Jul 2014 04:31:59 -0800 Che boludo! Finding a "Webcomic" Looking for a "webcomic" I saw somewhere on MetaFilter, no luck turning it back up. Details within. I can't believe I'm using a question on this. But the not-knowing is rankling me.<br> <br> A while back I saw on MeFi (probably the green) a post about a kind of webcomic. Details I can remember: It was one interconnected scroll, not a series of panels. It had a painted quality to it. It featured early H. sapiens ancestors, sex, and was somehow about the origin of language.<br> <br> I know I'm going to feel silly once I read the name, like, "Of course that's it." But my searches have been futile.<br> <br> Thanks in advance for resolving the mystery.,2014:site.264699 Sun, 06 Jul 2014 07:49:50 -0800 xenization Hey, Chinese speakers . . . got a question for you Actually, that should read "Hey, readers of Chinese script, etc". Recently, some of my neighbors took exception to the opening of a homeless shelter in my neighborhood. They held a protest. Some of the signs were in Chinese. What do <a href="">these signs</a> say in English, if you've got a moment? Many thanks in advance.,2014:site.264507 Tue, 01 Jul 2014 18:57:49 -0800 jason's_planet What was this cartoon with a cross-language pun? As a kid, I saw part of a cartoon aimed at bilingual (Korean + English) children. The plot involved a bunch of children on some sort of fantastic quest or journey. The scene I remember most clearly is one where they're being riddled/quizzed by something (I remember it as a floating light, but it might've been some kind of creature or robot or something). It asks for the name of the backmost teeth, and the youngest of the children answers "몰라" ("I don't know"; pronounced <i>molah</i>, which the riddler interprets as "molar") This would've been some time in the 90s, and in Hawaii, but I don't know if it was on local access, tape, etc., so those may not be telling indicators.,2014:site.264452 Mon, 30 Jun 2014 21:22:32 -0800 kagredon State of Being Other How to reconcile the differences between your origin and daily society? Hello,<br> <br> I'm a first generation American Chinese citizen in my early 20s living in a suburbs outside of NYC. I've written about my self-identity crisis <a href="">previously </a> and <a href="">issues</a> with my family. Yes, I am in therapy &amp; seeing a psychiatrist. Somedays it helps. <br> <br> There's this one issues that continues to bother me whenever someone asks me if I speak Mandarin, apart from the disbelief and condescending attitude from strangers, which I've more or less gotten use to over time. I've always felt the "othering" aspect even when I interact with other ABCs or students. <br> <br> I grew up in small school district where I was the token Chinese student and I did attend Chinese school for a brief time but I didn't make much progress. Right now I can understand 75% spoken Mandarin and a local dialect from general exp from my family/relatives. However, the nightly news channel would be a challenge because of the formal vocabulary. I considered taking Mandarin in college but I was never particularly good at foreign languages. <br> <br> I admit I had problems relating to the people that's not a part of being ABC but as I grow older but sense of uncertainty increases. I have visited Asia, mainly China, and I still have the continuing feeling being out of place from the locals. It's fortunate that I live in a metropolitan area yet I feel "different." I have visited local Chinese-related areas like Queens or Chinatown but even so there is the disconnect. The colleges that I attended had culture clubs but I didn't consider joining them due to time/location situations. I've not experienced major racism from strangers or inappropriate comments from classmates but there's the constant sense that I could never "belong" due to some fundamental nature. <br> <br> My family is relatively modern compared to other Chinese families but at the same time conservative. My mother would love it if I were to learn Mandarin seriously even if I just learned basic phases. Yet, I always have the feeling that I'm not "good enough" when people ask about my Mandarin understanding. It's awkward when many of my other cousins are semi or fluent in Mandarin due to their backgrounds. I know it's my fault for not focusing on Chinese school when I was younger so now I feel even more alienated from my main culture. <br> <br> I read <a href="">this question</a> which I could relate to and searched for other posts with similiar <a href="">topics</a> online. <br> <br> Overall, how do people come to terms with feelings of displacement or "otherness" in their current society?,2014:site.264256 Fri, 27 Jun 2014 07:53:06 -0800 chrono_rabbit A catchier way to say "Nice Meeting You" / "Let's get together again"? Looking for words or short phrases that represent the idea that it was "Nice Meeting You" or "we will see each other again" or maybe "let's hang out again sometime soon." The best I've got so far is "Ciao," which may be perfect - it means hello and goodbye, and it's kind of informal. This is for an online service that might allow you to follow up with people you've just met.,2014:site.263930 Fri, 20 Jun 2014 15:37:53 -0800 jander03 Tedium, tedii, tedio I'm teaching a three-hour daily intensive college Latin class. Help me come up with ideas to relieve the mind-numbing boredom of endless drills and "The queen sent the letter to the citizens"-type sentences. I'm teaching the morning part of a daily intensive beginning Latin class. I just do drills and review; the students learn new material in an afternoon class taught by someone else (they have six daily hours of Latin total). I have two groups of about twelve students each, which I see on alternate days (there's one other morning instructor). They're a pretty even mix of undergrads and grad students, with two or three older lifelong-learning types thrown in. <a href="">This</a> is the textbook we're using. The students are motivated, smart and engaged, but sometimes the time does drag on. Help me find some creative ideas to mix things up a bit.<br> <br> They get lots of homework every day, so about half our time is spent reviewing that, which is the most boring part of the class but also the most unavoidable. What I've been doing is mostly just going through the exercises and calling on people for the answers, or sometimes having a number of students write up their answers on the board at the same time and then reviewing them all. Even so, we don't get through all the homework (which is OK as some of it is pretty mechanical). But even an hour of this can be mind-numbingly dull, especially, I imagine, if it's morning and you know you have four or five more hours of Latin to sit through that day.<br> <br> The rest of the time I've been doing some combination of: review of new concepts/constructions/forms; readings from the textbook (which are from real authors but are still very short selections at this point, so tend to be puzzling or pointless-looking out of context); readings which I bring in (Cicero; they don't know all the forms yet, so I have them read out the Latin and see what they can recognize or understand, and then I give the full translation); and Latin composition exercises where I pair them up and have them use the vocab they know, plus some extra vocab that I give them which I try to make funny, to come up with sentences containing whatever forms or constructions they've recently learned. They seem to like the latter two activities (as far as I can tell: they rarely give that kind of feedback), but it's all getting a bit repetitive.<br> <br> We're moving through the material really fast, so it's not like I can ever take a break to show them a classics-related video or anything like that; all our time really does have to be spent on mastering the forms, practicing translation and so on. But there must be less zombifying ways of doing this. Ideas?,2014:site.263905 Fri, 20 Jun 2014 08:08:45 -0800 hoist with his own pet aardvark Why do some people write "1950ies", "1980ies", etc? I would write "1950s" or "1980s", and this is universal among native English speakers, so far as I am aware. In international contexts, however, I sometimes observe that people whose English spelling is otherwise flawless will consistently write "1950ies" or "1980ies", which reads to me like it has an extra syllable. Where does this convention come from, and what linguistic background makes it sound like a reasonable way to contract these numbers? I have not noticed a specific language background among the people who write numbers this way, though I have a hunch that it might be more prevalent among German speakers. It seems to be a matter of convention rather than error, though I don't understand why there would be an alternate spelling for numbers written in an English context which is never used by native English speakers. Or is there some English dialect which writes numbers this way?<br> <br> I notice this because the number always reads in my head like it has a stutter - "nine-teen-fif-ty-eys" etc. I'm sure this is not the intended effect. I have not noticed this pattern with written numbers which are not decades, only with numbers referring to spans of years.,2014:site.263870 Thu, 19 Jun 2014 14:18:32 -0800 Mars Saxman "Learn English" videos for Spanish speakers who aren't literate? Can anyone recommend a beginner level English language tutorial series for Spanish speakers who cannot read or write in either language?,2014:site.263437 Thu, 12 Jun 2014 00:20:53 -0800 jayCampbell Heritage Speaker Guilt How can I deal with this nagging sense of guilt that I should know more Chinese than I presently do? Or, how can I improve my Chinese as a busy twenty-something year-old? As an American who grew up speaking Chinese at home, spent summers in China, and attended some Chinese school, I have a decent Chinese language foundation: I understand idiomatic phrases, my pronunciation isn't bad, I'm conversant in two dialects, and Chinese takes up a part of my brain that is very different from the parts occupied by German and French (languages I studied later in life): my vocabulary might be low, and I can't understand the evening news very well because it uses more formal language, but all of the words I do know actually <em>mean</em> something to me.<br> <br> I don't exactly have a use for Chinese at the moment, since my schooling is in English, and my friends use English. I don't go back to China often, nor do I have plans to ever live in China, and I can speak with my family just fine. I considered taking Chinese in college, but after reviewing the material and consulting my parents, decided that learning Chinese in a classroom setting would be inefficient compared to going to China for a few months and picking things up that way. Indeed, whenever I go back to China, my fluency increases after a week or two.<br> <br> I have thought about watching more Chinese television and films as a way to improve or at least maintain my Chinese. I have thought about taking Chinese classes, or living in China for for a year or so at some point in the future (if that's at all a possibility-- I have years of medical training in the US ahead of me, and who knows how life will turn out, but I've heard of doctors working internationally in, say, global health)... but upon further reflection, I'm not sure if the issue at hand is truly a matter of my fluency in Chinese or if it's more an issue of sense of belonging:<br> <br> Growing up, my parents disparagingly referred to me and my sister as "those Americans," while in elementary school, I was the token Asian. Today, I certainly do not fully identify with white American culture, and frankly, I don't even feel fully welcome in that cultural realm (especially after having moved to a region of the country where I am complimented on my English, asked if I'm adopted, and asked, "no, where are you really from?" not all that infrequently). This recent move and general lack of connection to white American culture somehow, to me, implies that I "should" identify more strongly with Chinese culture and language, but the truth is, that sense of identity, too, is lacking: no Chinese person who grew up in China would ever mistake me for one of their own. I know that there's a large Chinese-American diaspora in places like New York and California, and that cohort of individuals would best share my life situation (children of immigrants or those who immigrated in early childhood), but I have not found that to allay my sense of confused guilt. I saw <a href="">this</a> AskMe about a week ago, and I am so sad that my hypothetical offspring likely won't be able to speak Chinese well. <br> <br> Perhaps my question is not clear from what I've written, but, to summarize: I'm American when I'm around Chinese people, and Chinese when I'm around (non-Asian) American people. My instinct, which could be waaaay off, is that improving my Chinese abilities would be one way to nurse this guilt/confusion. (Plus, I do like learning languages, and it would be nice to improve my Chinese regardless.)<br> <br> If you are also a child of immigrants, or spoke another language at home, I would welcome perspective, suggestions on how to improve my Chinese this late in my life (and as a full-time, busy medical student), and/or suggestions on how to deal with this general sense of confusion. <br> <br> (<a href="">Previously</a>),2014:site.263360 Tue, 10 Jun 2014 18:01:18 -0800 gemutlichkeit Zound changes at the beginning of sentences Linguistics: Can the beginning of a sentence or phrase be a conditioning environment for sound variation? Are there any examples of languages where being at the beginning of a sentence or phrase causes a variation in sound, such as voicing, aspiration, stress, tone, to a word?<br> <br> It seems like something which could well be possible, but I can't think up any examples myself.<br> <br> Knowledge of a language where this happens, or thoughtful opinions on whether it could, are welcome.<br> <br> Thank you.,2014:site.262756 Fri, 30 May 2014 11:15:11 -0800 Thing Ottoman Turk translation help? How would one write "The Fast Ones" in Ottoman-era Turkish? I'm making a mildly humorous sign for a Turkish friend, and for various reasons I'm pretending it's Ottoman-era (1650). I have the graphic styling solved, but my Turkish is nearly nonexistent. I'm aware of the alphabet changes wrought by Ataturk, but I have no idea how this phrase would have been written circa 1650. If it makes a difference between Arabic &amp; Persian scripts, I'd want to use whatever the imperial court would have used (ie., not a random official in an eastern province).,2014:site.262695 Thu, 29 May 2014 08:44:31 -0800 aramaic Need an accurate English to Latin translation. A friend of mine wants to get another tattoo, and the phrase he's picked to get inked is this: "I am the angel of death, not mercy." He would like for the ink to be in Latin, so obviously he wants to make sure the translation is spot-on. Any Latin scholars able to help with this? Thank you so much!,2014:site.261895 Wed, 14 May 2014 11:06:14 -0800 shiu mai baby How to write Australian dialog Short of being in Australia*, I'm writing a story that takes part in Sydney, Australia. Are there any online resources, etc. that could give me an idea who to write dialog that an Australian citizen would speak (certain phrases, slang, etc). *(Warning to Australia, I'll be visiting next year),2014:site.261473 Tue, 06 May 2014 11:34:05 -0800 acquiredtarget Bring Your Own Device to Play-Work How nice is <em>too</em> nice of an electronic use policy? Our COO is open to my suggestion that we update our company's electronic use policy to allow "reasonable use" of electronic media (such as periodic checking of email), which makes sense because any associate's phone logged on to our wifi network is immediately utilizing it to keep up with any personal email or social media notifications by default.<br> <br> As I reward, I get to draft the new policy! (*groan* -- isn't that always the reward for initiative in the business world?) I don't know Rule One about policy language, but I assume a policy that suggests "reasonable use" should delineate or describe such somehow.<br> <br> "Reasonable use can be construed as...?" I'm hitting a wall in my head.<br> <br> The online research I've done suggests that if you tell people it's okay to use the web for a half hour every day, people that don't use it at all will start using it for a half hour every day.<br> <br> However, it doesn't seem well enough to just say we retain the right to inspect any communication made over our networks, does it?<br> <br> Thank yoos!,2014:site.261451 Tue, 06 May 2014 06:59:00 -0800 alice_curiouse Folks = parents? Where you live, or where you grew up, do people commonly refer to their parents as "my folks"? Would that phrasing sound odd to you, or stand out in any way, if, say, a coworker used it? I grew up hearing "my folks" often used in place of "my parents" (born and raised in Texas, but my parents are from the Midwest). In fact, I think I pretty much always refer to my parents that way. But a California native recently told me that it sounds odd to them, and almost intentionally too-casual. ("Folksy," even!) <br> <br> Now I'm curious about whether it's a regionalism, or an anachronism, or what. Please provide anecdata?,2014:site.260641 Mon, 21 Apr 2014 09:19:32 -0800 mudpuppie Getting faster at reading in-language I'm a fast reader in English. I want to get faster at reading in Russian (in which I am fluent, but rarely use at this point). How can I do this?,2014:site.260007 Tue, 08 Apr 2014 12:11:57 -0800 aaanastasia Help me be francophone again I need to return to my French language oral fluency by mid-October. What are your best tips and tricks to resuscitate your language skills? Websites? Podcasts? Structured systems? I've studied French to post-graduate level, and have a very high level of passive comprehension. I'm happy to read almost any level of French, and can deploy dictionaries or base knowledge to handle anything a bit trickier. At one stage, my grammar skills were fabulous but have clearly waned over time. I lived in France and had the thinking, even dreaming in French thing down...six years ago.<br> <br> <br> My Achilles heel has always been oral proficiency - which I think is in the main linked to a massive lack of confidence in this mode of communication in a foreign language. I like to be able to avoid silly mistakes and generally get across what I actually want to say, so oral stuff has always seemed trickier to me. I have an important work project in which I need to operate as an English-French language fixer in mid-October for a few weeks. Please help me increase my oral language proficiency by then.<br> <br> I cannot travel to France for immersion / any length of time, and my spare time is limited until September. But, I could devote a large chunk of time in September to this and will carve out necessary bits of time to get this done before then if at all possible. For $reasons, I have to be able to do this from home and can't join language swap groups etc. I'm willing to spend some cash if it's essential, but funds are very limited right now.<br> <br> What works for you? Any advice most welcome!,2014:site.259927 Mon, 07 Apr 2014 10:04:41 -0800 Anonymous New windows installation and language change My company currently has a computer that has a Japanese version of Windows 7 Professional installed on it. We want to install an English language version of Windows 8.1 on the computer. Will the language for the Microsoft Office software (currently also Japanese) already installed on the computer also change to English when we change to the new English language version of Windows 8.1? I work for a company in Japan that has a mix of Japanese and foreign staff. We have a computer that was being used by a Japanese staff member, and so it has a Japanese language version of Windows 7 Professional installed on it, along with Microsoft Office 2010, which also displays everything in Japanese at the moment.<br> <br> A different staff member, who is a native English speaker, is going to start using the computer, and we want to switch the operating system and Office language to English.<br> <br> As far as I can tell, this isn't possible to do with the version of Windows that we have, and requires an upgrade to a different version of Windows. It looks like Microsoft isn't selling Windows 7 anymore, so we're planning on upgrading to an English language version of 8.1 <br> <br> (I myself use Windows 8.1 and have no problem with it, I showed it to my coworker and he's ok with it, so we don't need advice on whether or not Windows 8 is a good OS or not, thanks)<br> <br> Anyway, my main question is, when we upgrade the Japanese language version of Windows 7 to an English language version of Windows 8.1, will the Office 2010 software that is already installed, and currently displaying all menus in Japanese, switch to English as well, or is there something else we'll need to do to get Office working in English?<br> <br> Thanks!,2014:site.259905 Mon, 07 Apr 2014 03:28:09 -0800 tokaidanshi Like, I like Like Does anyone remember a recent article by (I think) a linguist whose main point was defending the colloquial use of "like", as a way to explicate internal monologue in a way that wasn't really done before? For obvious reasons this is very hard to google for. I don't remember if I saw it here on Metafilter or some other source.,2014:site.259820 Fri, 04 Apr 2014 20:24:44 -0800 bleep What is meant by a "blind scramble"? Search results indicate this term being used synonymously with "mad scramble", but also as something to do with sports tournaments. Apart from being evocative, does it mean anything specific?,2014:site.259690 Wed, 02 Apr 2014 15:55:08 -0800 unmake What's a word that describes synonyms and antonyms together? Asking for a friend. Said friend is: A) Tired of writing "synonyms and antonyms" over and over B) Trying to shorten the paper she's writing that contains this phrase. She asked me if I knew what, if any, category of word might contain them.<br> <br> My own search has yielded me nothing, except maybe "Semantic relations", which really isn't appreciably shorter, and might not be totally complete or accurate, and "-onyms", which is plenty short, but over-inclusive, and maybe too informal.<br> <br> I suppose I may have to put up the hat signal.,2014:site.259571 Mon, 31 Mar 2014 17:27:24 -0800 Mister Moofoo OMG = Oh My (not God)? I'm an atheist with a God problem. My exclamations of surprise, disgust and frustration usually take the form of "Oh my God" or "Jesus Christ!" or "Holy shit". I want to find some new - preferably safe for work and young ears - versions of my favorite exclamations that have the same import and emphasis that I so enjoy from the current ones. I'm not interested in "oh my goodness" or similar saccharine versions of the aforementioned. But, I'm coming up blank on new ones. Bonus points for creativity and credibility (as in, I can't really see myself swearing in seriousness with "Great Odin's Raven!").,2014:site.259237 Tue, 25 Mar 2014 09:30:58 -0800 tafetta, darling! "Guys! Check it out! The English term for it is..." There's no shortage of articles online that take the basic form "here are awesome non-English words and phrases that are hilarious and/or that English doesn't have a direct translation for". Examples: A German slang term for low-back tattoos is "Aarsgewei", which translates to "ass antlers". Also in German, the term for eating because you are sad is "Kummerspeck", which is literally "grief bacon". The Finnish word for pedant, pilkunnussija, translates as "comma fucker". I'm curious about the flip-side, like a non-English-speaker being amused that low back tribal tattoos are called "tramp stamps" in the US. What English words or slang terms are amusing to speakers of foreign languages in the same way that I find some of their terms amusing and/or awesome?,2014:site.259234 Tue, 25 Mar 2014 08:31:12 -0800 rmd1023 Advanced Spanish Preservation For Short Attention Spans Hi, folks. Through work and study, I achieved fluency in Spanish. In my current job, I was hired to do bilingual work, but I have had very little opportunity to speak Spanish for about six months. I'm worried I may be forgetting Spanish, which is really very bad for me on many levels. Please help me find a few ways to keep in touch with the language. I like some Spanish fiction writers and I've seen a ton of movies in Spanish. I plan on reading more in Spanish and watching more media in Spanish. I know about reading newspapers in Spanish, etc.<br> <br> The thing is, given my current life situation, I have a lot of time to muck around on the internet. I have fairly serious distracting events during my time on the Web, so I can't get too too absorbed in things. I'm wondering if folks can recommend some Youtube channels like <a href="">EatYourKimchi</a>? Is there a Spanish language equivalent of Metafilter? What out there in Spanish can keep my attention?<br> <br> I learned Spanish before the world was as online as it is now. I'm sure people are meeting language partners and speaking with them through the net, but I'm not sure how this is done. Can someone fill me in? Is there a site where I can just hire a native speaker in another country to speak with me about challenging topics?<br> <br> I'd love to hear from others who have rescued themselves from almost forgetting languages. I really need to get back on the wagon!,2014:site.259161 Mon, 24 Mar 2014 02:47:06 -0800 Hennimore