Anyone any good at them? How many languages can you say 'I love you in?' I can do German and Serbo-Croat. Ich liebe dich. Volim te. Anybody got any others?
mai teri bond marni ah ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ That's Punjabi - something along the lines of 'I want to **** you up the arse' (which I don't)
Iche hou van yow (spelling) Dutch I can order beer in most countries i go to or also tell someone to **** off, it's universal all over the world.
One of my biggest regrets not learning at least one if not a couple of languages, especially as I worked a lot of exhibitions and conferences in most European countries. I remember 1990 when the government talked the talk about pushing languages in school because of our involvement in Europe. Does it seem that kids these days are struggling with English let alone anything else?
I can converse very well in German. Once you master the gender of the definite article its pretty easy. Like they have three words for 'the'. Der, Das & Dis, masculine, feminine & neutral. They have a habit of joining words together mind. Like we would write 'cupboard door' the Germans link them together - schranktur. They are ****ers for that, they do it all the time. It's weird because although I can happily chat away to a German person, if I'm watching a German film without subtitles I haven't a ****ing clue what they're on about. They speak so fast. Langsam bitte - slow down. I picked up a bit of Serbo-Croat in Yugo. I could order a beer, a packet of tabs & tell some sexy Serbian lass I love her but there's no way I could converse with them.
The Scandinavians have it spot on mate. Kids from Sweden & Denmark are taught English from a very early age. Some of them speak it better than we do. A lot of them you wouldn't even know were foreign.
Why do English schools continue to teach kids French, German and Spanish? They should be best prepared for the real world, nobody needs to speak ****ing French. If it was up to me, I'd have them all learning Mandarin, Cantonese and Arabic.
Mrs. A and I learned Spanish a good few years ago, because we regularly had/have our Glenn Hoddledays in Majorca Whenever I go there I never speak English unless I really have to, and the Spaniards (in the main) appreciate the fact that I make the effort I've mentioned my views before about the appalling standard of English grammar spoken by 'us' and, unfortunately, it really is a 'lost cause' simply because people, generally, accept these extremely poor standards. Consequently, people don't know what they're doing wrong if nobody corrects them I mentioned an example a few days ago, whereby people, like Jamie Redknapp, Merson etc., say 'fink' or 'fort' or 'free' and people just accept this as being alright No it ****ing isn't . . . . but if nobody mentions it, and if companies like Sky employ lazy bastards like them, it becomes 'the norm' and we become a country that can't be bothered (or should that be bovvered ?) to speak properly The problem is exacerbated when foreigners (like footballers) are taught to speak like they're thick (fick, I mean) and they appear on the telly as icons/heros that young-uns 'look up to' Anyway, I speak pigeon Spanish p.s. someone on here speaks fluent French
I studied French to postgrad level, and lived there for a year. It's a belter for impressing the birds like.
Nowhere near as relevant today as China and The Middle East for making money. If it's being learned as some sort of hobby, or travel exercise then it's even more pointless.
@Gordon Armstrong I'd be very surprised if Smug wasn't fluent in French. I hate this 'you're in their country speak their language' ****. I've just been to Mexico, and paid through the ****ing nose to stay at a top hotel, the last thing I want to do is spend my time flicking through a little pocket book to learn how to ask where the nearest toilet is. Yeah, it's polite, but so ****, I pay their wages and they should at least do me the service of speaking my language if I'm putting food on their table.
Well apart from being able to tell a lass I love her in German & Serbo-Croat I can also do it in American, Australian, Canadian & Northern Irish. See, multi ****ing lingual me.
Ani l'dodi, v'dodi li - phonetic - anee ladoddy, vadoddy lee I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine. There you go, you can also say a bit of Hebrew now pal
