Working with Foreigners

[Kropotkin]

Next time you're at IKEA you must speak swedish!!!

[DaShi]

I work in China now, and it's terrible. I have to repeat myself all the time. This is Earth! Learn the bloody language!!!

[Combat Ingrid]

Originally posted by Kropotkin
Next time you're at IKEA you must speak swedish!!!

[Drake Tungsten]

I really hate it when my coworkers talk to each other in another language

Yeah, me too.

Just think what would happen if you went to Japan. Do you think you could get a job their just speaking english??? I dont think so.

[Drake Tungsten]

now, there's flimsy evidence linking korean and japanese to other languages, the current one in vogue being the ural-altaic group (turkish, finnish, magyar), but that's tenuous at best. japanese and korean also are flimsily linked: some of the basic words that would show genetic linkage are different: dad: "ah.bu.ji" (k), "chi.chi"; i: "na" (k), "wa.ta.shi" (j).

The evidence isn't "flimsy", especially for a link between Korean and Japanese. The most accepted theory places them both in the Altaic family with Turkish, Mongolian and various Tungusic languages spoken by native tribes in Siberia. The whole Ural-Altaic family fell out of favor a while ago, with most linguists now believing that the similarities between the two language groups resulted from some close interaction between Uralic and Altaic speakers in the past, not some sort of genetic relationship.

The picture is muddied a bit by the influence of Chinese and Malayo-Polynesian languages on Japanese and the destruction of the Korean languages of Paekche and Koguryo, but many linguists think that there are a core group of words in modern Korean and Japanese that indicate a genetic relationship between the two.

On a side note, you can't just pick a couple words that you think are basic, show that they are different in two languages and claim that they aren't related based on that. Languages evolve in complex ways and there is no such thing as a "basic group" of words that will always stay the same.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Q Cubed
of course. until recently, chinese, korean, and japanese all had similar sounding names for the days of the week. then china turned red, and that changed.

AFAIK, we (the Chinese) have always referred to days of the week by a number, ever since we got weeks.

I reckon the confusion comes from us naming various planets after the elements. Mercury - water, Venus - metal, Mars - fire, Jupiter - wood, and Saturn - earth.

[Gangerolf]

At one of my old jobs I was a bloody minority! damn swedes invading my city.

I once worked with a guy who spoke a mix of Norwegian and English with a THICK African accent. Nice fellow, but I couldn't understand a word. OK maybe one or two. Funny thing is he understood me (or at least he pretended to).

[axi]

I always wanted to learn a non-western language, but I can't choose which one.

Russian seems easy enough, although it's a bit difficult to speak. It has lost it's coolness after the fall of the Siviet Union though.

Arabic is cool and it sounds very familiar to my ear, but that writing is probably a nightmare. I might need it one day too, I live close enough to the Arab world.

Chinese is the tongue of a huge country with tremendous growth, which means that in the future more and more Chinese will be communicating with us. Chinese is tough though and it has dialects too.

Japanese has the same problems as Chinese and is spoken by less people, but hey, the Japs are the coolest dudes in Asia.

So what do you say? Which one? And is it worth it?

[VetLegion]

Axi, I myself plan to learn Chinese one day. I suggest that because of sheer number of speakers

[axi]

What's your avatar vettie, a nun doing some stretching excercises?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by axi
Arabic is cool and it sounds very familiar to my ear, but that writing is probably a nightmare. I might need it one day too, I live close enough to the Arab world.

Chinese is the tongue of a huge country with tremendous growth, which means that in the future more and more Chinese will be communicating with us. Chinese is tough though and it has dialects too.

Japanese has the same problems as Chinese and is spoken by less people, but hey, the Japs are the coolest dudes in Asia.

Both Arabic and Japanese are phonetic, making them easier to learn than Chinese. Sure, now there's is pinyin for Chinese, but the writing is still ideographical, so you might as well bite the bullet and learn the hard way.

[Q Classic]

The picture is muddied a bit by the influence of Chinese and Malayo-Polynesian languages on Japanese and the destruction of the Korean languages of Paekche and Koguryo, but many linguists think that there are a core group of words in modern Korean and Japanese that indicate a genetic relationship between the two.
On a side note, you can't just pick a couple words that you think are basic, show that they are different in two languages and claim that they aren't related based on that. Languages evolve in complex ways and there is no such thing as a "basic group" of words that will always stay the same.

see, here's where it gets tricky. i see about equal amounts of sources going for or against the ural-altaic hypothesis. i don't really have an opinion as of yet, since i'm not convinced either way. as for japanese-korean links, they're kinda but sorta but not really related. it's strange that japanese would be largely a language with vowel terminators for the syllables, while korean have more variety on that part. often times, those languages that are related to each other have far more similar phonemic structures. but hey, they're a lot closer to each other than to anybody else, that's for sure.

AFAIK, we (the Chinese) have always referred to days of the week by a number, ever since we got weeks.
I reckon the confusion comes from us naming various planets after the elements. Mercury - water, Venus - metal, Mars - fire, Jupiter - wood, and Saturn - earth.

huh. i was told that the names were all derived from chinese weekdays, and that it changed with the coming of communism and modernity to china? ah, well. i don't know chinese, so~

Japanese has the same problems as Chinese and is spoken by less people, but hey, the Japs are the coolest dudes in Asia.

"japs"?
japanese is also not a tonal language at heart, the dialects are all mutually intelligible, has a negative growth rate, and is about as tough as chinese, korean, arabic, and english, according to the us army (level 5).
contrast: china is still growing, but at a lowered pace; the dialects should rightly be considered more as separate but related languages, since many of them are not mutually intelligible. it is a tonal language, as well.

[Adagio]

/me excuses for not having read the whole thread


I don't mind if foreigners speaks their own language... from time to time... but if they do it all the time, it's just annoying (Specially if you're talking to two of some other nationality. You say something to one of them, the he/she turns to the other one and starts talking in their language... You just get the feeling they're talking about something you're not supposed to hear, which kinda kills the point in a conversation)


At my school, there's very many chinese students (About 40% of the students in the first year are chinese)... not that I mind to have chinese girls around this school, (I defently not mind, some of them are really good looking ), the problem is they don't understand english*(or danish for that matter), they only speak chinese. Most of our teachers are giving up on them, but the one who's in charge on who'll be going to this school, is doing his best to get more chinese students to school, but nobody else at our school has any idea why... none of the chinese students passes exams last year. And what we're learning is pretty diffecult (About 35% of the danish students, failed exams last year)

And this is a problem all over Denmark (or so I've heard)... If you at least could make a conversation with them, it would be great, but it's impossible...




* They do speak little english... very little... I've heard from one who had worked in a project with some of the chinese students, and one of them asked: "What is 'house'?"...

[flipside]

Umm.................

I was taught French and Latin at school and since then, I have found it easy to do the basics in any other similer language.

I found it hard to speak Uzbek as the basic structure was different.
I found that if I made the effort, however, to be patient and communicate on the same level( i.e we both were poor at the others language but respected each other,) that people would realise that their basic motivation was met and we could work it out.

Those, who while on a level several above mine, expected the foreign speaking nationalities to blend into theirs and ignore obvious body language, found that they were quickly ignored.

Ummmmm.............

On a lot of levels language is VERY similer and expresses key emotional needs.
If you ignore that , I have found that most foreigners speak their own language and belittle YOUR culture.

[flipside]

Oh does anyone else believe in the theory that the basic structure of language is determined by the fact that important things are said in short syllables whereas more abstract ideas are longer in length?