Another fine language mess

Personally, I´m amazed by those who manage to speak Dutch. Yes, I know, most of them are born in the Netherlands and have been using the language since they were toddlers. But its still pretty impressive !

I can speak a bit Nynorsk as well ( yup, look up 'Nynorsk' in an English dictionary ); "Eg er ein grepa kar !" If that doesn´t impress you, Danyel, then I don´t know what would.

Or as Moonchild might have said it; "Prosim ! Kde sú tu záchody ?"

 

Hey, Skua, your Slovak is fine! :smok:
Do you know what you have written?

 

He played that trick on me too, once. Then it turned out he had one of those little tourist books with simple Dutch phrases. Btw, thanks Skua! Indeed it takes a lot of practice, but I don't see how it's harder than Finnish.

By the way, I know now the single most useful phrase in Norwegian. Snakker ikke Norsk.

 

LOL, hey , what is ' to be or not to be in Finnish'??

I have a report so...

 

"To be or not to be" translates to "Ollako vai eikö olla" or "Ollako vaiko ei olla".

 

I believe it roughly translates into : "Please ! Where are the toilets ?"

Roel is right, I did use a phrasebook ( you shouldn´t give away my secrets, Roel ). Very handy indeed. I can ask for directions in almost any European language, including Basque and Scottish Gaelic. It even shows how to pronounce the phrases. One question bugs me though. When I´ve asked the mad Scotsman where the nearest gas station is, how the heck am I supposed to understand his directions given in fluid Gaelic ?

 

I expect him to reply thus....

" Yew can puss inywarr yer lik, but if ya puss on ma boots I'll hammer ee!"

(With apologies to all real Scots out there)

 

Oh, I totally want to be able to say that in Scottish Gaelic. You can just apply it to everything, since no one will be able to understand you anyway.

Boy I feel like laughing evilly now... As our local Danes say, "MUHAHAHAHA!!"

En dan ga ik nu weer tekenfilms kijken.

 

You´re going to watch cartoons ?

Anyway, I´m afraid I can´t satisfy your request. The chapter on Scottish Gaelic seem to be somewhat shorter than most of the others, and don´t include the phrase asking for directions to the toilets. I hope you will accept these two short ,but useful, phrases instead, which you can practise the next time you attend a football match between the Netherlands and Scotland :

1. "A ghloidhc !", pronounced : uh ghlaichk !

2. "A amadain ! Dún do bheul !", pronounced : a-ma-tan ! doon duh veal !

1. means "You Idiot !", 2. means "You fool ! Shut your mouth !". I would like to remind you that I´m in no way responsible for any damages that might occur to you while you´re using these phrases.

 

Wow, that book you use is pretty good. It has "cartoons" in it and everything...

I thank you! These things definitely will come in handy. Even though I don't ever go to football matches. If you know what I mean.

And now, for all those Scottish Gaelic people who have taken offence, here's what you can shout back at those annoying Dutchmen.
1. "Idioot!" is for when you want to say ghloidhc.
2. "Sukkel! Hou je bek!" is for when you want to say A amadain, dún do bheul.

 

I didn´t need a book for that one.

Not too hard perhaps, considering the Norwegian words for "cartoon" and "watch" are "tegnefilm" and "kikke".

 

Laurie lantar lassi surinen, yeni unotime ve ramar aldaron!

This a sample text from 'The Lord of the Rings' It means:
Like gold fall the leaves in the wind, long years numberless as the branches (wings) of the trees!

This is actually Quenya Elvish (High-Elvish.) It is more relevent to this topic than you might think. JRR Tolkien based his Elvish languages on Finnish, including rules on grammar, verbs and pronouncing the words.

 

Ah well... I always thought our languages were alike. But since you're the one saying that Dutch is so hard, I never expected you to figure it out just like that.

Ik vind Noors trouwens volkomen onmogelijk.

 

Nice trick. I supposed you did it anyway. It's fine to know that there are available Slovak dictionaries though it's not wide-spread language. 8)

 

I had a similar problem when travelling round Germany. I could ask for something in fairly understandable German, but if they then asked me if I wanted mustard, or if I wanted a first-class ticket, or if I was sure I wanted the thigh-length leather boots with stilletto heels (with apologies to Simon for pinching his boot fetish ), I hadn't got a clue.
I found that looking puzzled, and saying 'Ja?' worked for most cases, though I did eat some interesting food.
Amazingly often, the person asking the question would just say "Ah, you are English? Right, ok, would you like mustard?"

 

:lol:

Consider yourself lucky to live in the country where the international language is native. Why do you think we get to learn four languages in school instead of the normal single one...

 

"Jeg finner Norsk ... fullkomment umulig", I find Norwegian ... completely impossible ? I couldn´t work out what "trouwens" mean.

It´s not the words themselves I find hard to understand, it´s the way you manage to pronounce them that puzzles me.

 

Hehe, the same to you! However, I'm easily overwhelmed when there's more than one sentence of Norwegian to be seen, since I can onyl identify it one word at a time.

"Trouwens" is a foul trick. It doesn't really mean anything, it's an expression along the lines of "by the way".

Don't confuse it with "trouwen", which means "to marry".

 

jeg vet ikke ogsa.

 

See, word for word I can figure out that it says "neither do I". But when they bring on a whole text of this...