December 24

[Nic Corelli]

[color=#000000ost_uid0][imgost_uid0]http://www.fmueller.net/krampusmaske1a.jpg[/imgost_uid0]


Krampus! [/colorost_uid0]

[catalina_marina]

[color=#000000ost_uid0][iost_uid0]That's[/iost_uid0] Krampus? :O Â Alright, so maybe it's not a predecessor.

[imgost_uid0]http://www.alleskids.nl/images/sinterklaas/5.jpg[/imgost_uid0]
Zwarte Piet[/colorost_uid0]

[taya17]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]::blinks blearily and rubs her eyes::

Did I miss something here?

Yo, this board is giving me more education about the cultures of the world than twelve years in the school system ever did.. [/colorost_uid0]

[Nic Corelli]

[quoteost_uid0="taya17"][color=#000000ost_uid0]Yo, this board is giving me more education about the cultures of the world than twelve years in the school system ever did.. [/colorost_uid0][/quoteost_uid0]
[color=#000000ost_uid0]I believe you!

I learned more English in two or three years of watching TV and playing computer games than in 12 years of elementary and high school. I also studied German for 7 years in school, and I can`t speak it at all! [/colorost_uid0]

[catalina_marina]

[color=#000000ost_uid0][quoteost_uid0]I learned more English in two or three years of watching TV and playing computer games than in 12 years of elementary and high school.[/quoteost_uid0]
Ha! Are you kidding? I remember not being able to follow the first season of 24 when it first aired back in November 2001, so I waited for it to appear on Dutch television with subtitles. A year later, I had absolutely no problems following the second season without subtitles.

[quoteost_uid0]I also studied German for 7 years in school, and I can`t speak it at all! [/quoteost_uid0]
Seven years? Poor you. I got only four. I don't speak it either, well, I can, but I don't. Despite all the Germans calling every day. Most understand a little Dutch, anyway.[/colorost_uid0]

[taya17]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]So, languages poll: how many languages do you guys speak, and where did you learn them from?

Me, I basically speak English and a smattering of Chinese. English is my first language; I learnt it at home (mostly from watching programmes like Sesame Street) but I was force-fed Chinese for twelve years in school (hence explaining the whole "ewww ::wards off with cross sign::" knee-jerk reaction to it).[/colorost_uid0]

[Zeke]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]I speak English, French, German, Latin, and classical Greek. I've forgotten what I once knew of sign language, but I know about five programming languages.[/colorost_uid0]

[NAHTMMM]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]English and some Spanish, plus a few isolated words in German, Italian, French, Latin, and whatever else I happen to pick up. But that last bunch doesn't count really .


Edit: Whoops, forgot. I also know several dialects of Pig Latin! [/colorost_uid0]

[Sa'ar Chasm]

[color=#000000ost_uid0][quoteost_uid0]Me, I basically speak English and a smattering of Chinese.[/quoteost_uid0]

I can attest that her accent sounds like that of every Chinese-speaker I've ever met, except that she's fluent in English.

I can just about speak my birth tongue, and little else. I took French in school from Grades 7-11. I can get by reading street signs (as the recent trip to Quebec proved), and I can make myself understood, after a fashion. However, I can't understand anything that comes back, especially if it's in arcane Joual or Acadian accents.

I can say thank-you in 9 languages: English, French, German, Dutch (thanks, Cat), Spanish/Portuguese, Italian, Russian, Mandarin (thanks for the spelling, dear) and Japanese.

I also have a smattering of Latin and Greek root-words (mostly from English words built on them) as well as Sindarin and Quenya (although it's even money whether I'll be able to tell which is which).

Oh, and I can say "little buddy" (or something resembling it) in Russian, which came in handy when I was writing Nuclear Weasel.

People who are bilingual make me feel unworthy.[/colorost_uid0]

[Derek]

[quoteost_uid0="Zeke"][color=#000000ost_uid0]but I know about five programming languages.[/colorost_uid0][/quoteost_uid0]
[color=#000000ost_uid0]Oh, [iost_uid0]those[/iost_uid0] count? Sweet.

I know English and a tiny smattering of Spanish since I took it in my high school class (the main benefit I get is being able to partially read Spanish and Italian, I really can't speak it).

But if computer languages count, then I know C, C++, Java, Javascript, Smalltalk, Perl, PHP, HTML, XML (and a number of its derivatives such as XSLT), VB (though I hate it), and a little shell scripting. It's actually possible I'm leaving out more languages.[/colorost_uid0]

[catalina_marina]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]"Speak" is a relative term. I speak Dutch and English, I can understand German, as long as it doesn't get to difficult, and I'm supposed to know French. But I don't.

[quoteost_uid0]I speak English, French, German, Latin, and classical Greek.[/quoteost_uid0]
Wow, that's a lot. And that for a native English speaker. I'm impressed.[/colorost_uid0]

[Nic Corelli]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]I speak Croatian and English, plus I can understand a lot of Spanish and Slovenian (since it`s a neighbouring country... Slovenia, that is). German and Latin I can understand to some point, until they become too complicated. Thanks to bad school system combined with my laziness, German is wasted on me. (oh, and also because I always disliked that language A LOT.)

Since they are quite similar to Spanish, I know some phrases from Italian and French... Â And thanks to my cellphone, I know that "Sanoma lahetety" means "Message sent" in Finnish,

In few weeks I`m starting to study Norwegian on my college, along with History. And next year I`m planning to take Swedish too. I always thought that Norwegian is very similar to German, but then I found out it`s not at all - it`s actually extremely similar to English, with even less complicated grammar! So I was thrilled, of course, [/colorost_uid0]