Accepted a job offer

[C0ckney]

wow that was quite an x-post; i was responding to reg.

[N35t0r]

Eh? English vocabulary is very much like French.

I'm also amazed at how much like English the Northern Dutch and Glaswegian language sounds. It's like they are speaking English with a very thick accent.

Eh, there's a lot of overlap in vocabulary, but not that much. Critically, the grammar is quite different, and some of the 'basic' verbs are also different.

[Bereta_Eder]

I think if you know french, learning italian is very easy.
BTW german is the only language (AFAIK) that has a dativ sense, same as ancient greek had (but modern greek has phased out)
I also heard that in english, lots of unprocessed foods have a germanic root, whereas lots of processed foods have a french (latin) origin. Something which signifies a difference of socioeconomic class (in the old days)

[C0ckney]

Eh? English vocabulary is very much like French.

I'm also amazed at how much like English the Northern Dutch and Glaswegian language sounds. It's like they are speaking English with a very thick accent.

yeah people who speak pomeranian (east low german) sound like they're speaking english too. there are a few communities here in brazil. i've got a visit pencilled in for next year to one in espirito santo.

[N35t0r]

xpostcalypse

[N35t0r]

I think if you know french, learning italian is very easy.
BTW german is the only language (AFAIK) that has a dativ sense, same as ancient greek had (but modern greek has phased out)
I also heard that in english, lots of unprocessed foods have a germanic root, whereas lots of processed foods have a french (latin) origin. Something which signifies a difference of socioeconomic class (in the old days)

Italian is closer to Spanish than to French IIRC (only barely though, they are all pretty close to each other).

And yeah, it comes from the saxon peasantry rearing the animals (cow vs vache, sheep vs mouton, etc.) vs the nobility eating the cooked meat (boeuf vs beef, mutton vs mouton, etc.)

[Hauldren Collider]

I think if you know french, learning italian is very easy.
BTW german is the only language (AFAIK) that has a dativ sense, same as ancient greek had (but modern greek has phased out)
I also heard that in english, lots of unprocessed foods have a germanic root, whereas lots of processed foods have a french (latin) origin. Something which signifies a difference of socioeconomic class (in the old days)

It's not processed versus unprocessed, it's what would have peasant food versus what would have been noble person food back in the days of William the Conqueror. "Processed" food might have a latinate root if it's based on scientific naming.

[C0ckney]

Yeah, that definitely helps. I had a much harder time in Prague than in any of the Italian cities i've been in.

Cockney, I think it's more that people don't think of speaing slowly and not use complicated grammatical structures, they just speak like normal.

i think that's certainly part of it, but there have been several times, in normal situations (on the bus, in shops etc.) when i've seen tourists from other south american countries simply not able to make themselves understood asking for basic things.

[Dauphin]

Eh, there's a lot of overlap in vocabulary, but not that much. Critically, the grammar is quite different, and some of the 'basic' verbs are also different.

There are close to 2,000 words spelt identically and another 10,000+ spelt with the same root. I'd never claim conversing in French is as easy for a non-romance speaker as a romance speaker, but it is far easier to get by than if you were a non-romance non-English speaker.

[Dauphin]

A big issue is with words that are intelligible but not directly meaning the same thing. E.g demand vs ask, impatient vs awaiting.

[Bereta_Eder]

From the POV of a non latin, non germanic native speaker, english seems precise but lacking in nuances and french seems rich in nuances but lacking in precision.

[N35t0r]

That's because one language evolves from a civilized tongue, whereas the other from barbaric grunts

[Ben Kenobi]

Well, that probably explains why the French don't bathe.

HC, I can only speak for the US and Canada. I don't know if you're interested in taking a trip to either, but I quite enjoyed my visits to Texas, and BC and Vancouver is actually really pretty. Just not in the winter. After April in Vancouver is really nice.

[DaShi]

Rah, by contrast, we had other groups of exchange students from several other places and their english was generally excellent. It was only the Japanese that couldn't speak it well. And they generally did not speak English as well as the Japanese language students spoke Japanese.

Yes, I'm sure that the Japanese language students thought they didn't speak Japanese like drunken retards and that every word of their's didn't sound like baby screams scratching a chalk board to Japanese ears.

[Aeson]

I used to think the "take anything you want, spare me my life" was to use with muggers, but maybe it's to use with US cops?