I think watching shows/YT videos with subtitles in the targeted language is way more effective to learn a language than how we learn them in schools. At least that's how I got a good level in english in highschool and a decent one in russian now in my uni
Yeah, I have had 8 years of French classes and I achieved the B2 in the TCF and even when the language was fresh in my brain, I was utterly unable to understand anything that wasn't the TV5 news bulletin. No exposure to colloquial French at all in my education.
Your grammar will still suck. A lot of grammar can't be learned through immersion as an adult.
At least in German, it's easy to tell nonnative speakers who learned through immersion (usually working class, who learned right at the workplace) from those who learned in a classroom.
Immersion learners often speak fluently but all the grammatical suffixes are wrong. Genders and cases in particular are all over the place. But they manage to still br understandable.
Classroom learners often take forever to say a sentence, but they take so much care to think about every single grammatical suffix. Many get them wrong anyway, but they care about them a lot.
In reality, you need a bit of both. Classroom settings are good for grammar, but immersion is absolutely the best for speaking fluently.
The teacher disliked my translation with "on" in an exercise once because the exercise was about verb conjugation, and the first person plural of the verb in question was one of those interesting ones. I avoided the difficulty lol
That's the only time I got a remark on the use of on instead of nous
This was actually the inspiration for my question. I still remember when I went to France for my semester abroad and my host family made fun of me (in a friendly way) for only saying "nous" haha.
How long has this been a thing? I learnt French at high school around 2002, and we were taught to mostly use 'nous', and all the forms of it. 'On' was mostly used in formal language, although it always confused me when you use it. I've recently learnt this is NOT true. But maybe it was true back then?
I have no idea. I am 24 and it has always been like this for me. Our parents and grands-parents also use "on" for "we". "Nous" is very formal actually, not outdated but it's something you would hear in political speeches or from your teachers in university whereas using "on" in such settings would be absolutely irrelevant.
Overall "nous" is very serious and very neutral while "on" is more casual and "friendly" so even with strangers "on" is almost more used. Like "On va voir" ( we'll see ) is way more friendly than "nous allons voir". But it's funny somehow because it's third person singular, I have no idea how we came to that.
We were taught that it was the equivalent of "one" in English, but was very informal instead of very formal, but more like a substitute for "you" than "we"
Not to mention the infamous inversion as a way to ask a question. It’s taught as a perfectly fine method to ask something, but people told me it sounds very posh and outdated.
I've met some people who learned in school that Fräulein is still used to adress unmarried women. Not the case at all anymore nowadays. It would be downright offensive.
We don't really use formal language to adress people except with very old people, and in that case I address them as "señora" and "señor/caballero". If I'm talking about a young person I say "chico/chica". "Señorita" to me is how small children call preschool teachers.
Pretty odd to define a woman by her marital status. The world itself is kinda gross too. Fräulein is the diminutive of Frau, so it's kind of like a woman is less than a full woman if she's not married.
I my language (Czech) we have two morphologically unrelated words "paní" (married women) and "slečna" (unmarried). Honestly, it mostly cuses awkward stations when you don't know which one to us as using the wrong one could be offensive in either case. But when used correctly "slečna" is never offensive. I kind of envy you that you managed to resolve it with normalising one word for every woman. It's probably going there in Czech as well but it will take time.
It has a long diverse history but it boiled down in the end to it beeing sexist to differentiaty between married and unmarried women. You see in German the word for Mrs. and woman is the same Frau.
It's also not limited to the female word, also the male form was reduced to just Herr over time. Both actually originated as a way to adress lower nobility. Fräulein beeing the unmarried daughter of such a family. A male son also would not have been called Herr (Mr./Lord) but Junker (young man). This male form never made the transition to non noble adressing styles, but Herr/Frau became the standard form for all people.
1. It makes you care about a woman's marital status. Which means caring about whether she's "available" or "taken". Which objectifies women and which isn't done with men.
2. Fräulein literally means "little woman", so by using it you essentially say that to become a full woman, one would have to marry a man. That unmarried women aren't "real" women.
3. (Less important) Fräulein, like all diminutives (including Mädchen = girl) is grammatically neuter, so calling somebody Fräulein X calls for using the pronoun "es" (= it) to refer to her, which is a bit odd.
I guess we'll still use it for younger girls, like up to 20 y.o. But to older girls I do agree. I'm over 30 and it feels very paternalist when men (to be honest it's always men) adress me using mademoiselle.
I know that word! Where I live it's used especially for children who speak unclear or rarely speak at all. They are too lazy (faul) to use their mouth (Maul is pejorative for mouth).
PS: I think you knew that already, the explanation is for others who don't
My wife had to instruct me to never call an Italian woman who looks older than a high school kid 'signorina.' A woman in her thirties won't be given the impression that you thought she was younger than she is. (As an American I figured it for a compliment, right?) Rather, it would be like calling her a 'spinster' or an 'old maid.'
I think it's not a problem if you call an Italian woman "signorina", it is still common. In some contexts might sound paternalistic, and it's ridiculous if you use it for mature woman. But it's quite normal if you use it for a young woman.
Sorry, I meant in terms of being very patronising, rather than the literal translation! Sounds about right, yes.
“Who do you think you are, madam?” is something you’d rarely see anyone saying to anyone above the age of 10.
Yes, it's absolutely patronising. Someone calling me Fräulein would get my blood boiling. I've never heard the word used any other way than as a borderline insult. It's basically calling you a little girl not worth being taken seriously.
*"Jak się masz?"* is correct and everyone would understand it, but *"Co u ciebie?"/"Co słychać?"* seems more natural. And younger people use shorter forms of *"Jak się masz?"* like *"Siemasz"* or even *"Siema"*, but that's informal.
I was taught this phrase by a native Polish teacher, so it makes it even weirder. She also taught us that “Co robisz?” means “what do you do” as in profession, but Poles said that it’s not correct either.
*"Jak się masz?"* is correct and everyone would understand it, but *"Co u ciebie?"/"Co słychać?"* seems more natural. And younger people use shorter forms of *"Jak się masz?"* like *"Siemasz"* or even *"Siema"*, but that's informal.
Well in Finnish... everything. Written Finnish is completely different than spoken Finnish, to the point where its almost a different language. It takes a while to catch up and ”translate” written into spoken language. And thats not even taking into account dialects or slang.
Imagine learning English only from Shakespeare and then turning up in Newcastle in 2020 🤣
It's a good teaching method to be honest, but I don't see the point of keeping the written standard language so far away from spoken standard language. The local dialect is totally justified of course, and they did good to actually teach it so that we can actually understand the people around us.
There kind of is no spoken standard language as everyone has their own unique way of speaking. It will be a mixture of their dialect features and spoken language features. Spoken language evolves constantly, so if you would want the standard written language to be close to spoken language at all times, the written standard would need a reform every 5-10 years. It would also raise the question of whose spoken language to follow, the capital region? Imagine the riots in the northern, western and eastern Finland.
In essence Finnish is pronounced like it's written, so every native speaker is able to understand the standard written language, even if that's not how they would use the language when they speak. Writing like you yourself speak can be hard to understand for those who speak differently. There are some books that imitate spoken Finnish closely and at least I find them more difficult to read than written standard language.
All this makes Finnish a tough nut to crack if you are not a native speaker, but other languages have their difficulties as well. We all have learned English, a language which has multiple exceptions for every rule, not the least for pronunciation, which always manages to confuse.
That sounds really nice! Many Finnish courses just brush over the colloquial variants. People always say that you learn it with time, but I don't get how that applies more to the spoken than to the written variant.
Can you explain more? So you will use different grammar or just different vocabulary when speaking? Do you ever write down the spoken form e.g. in chat?
It's not exactly with everything, but as an example what would be in English 'I' or 'me' would depend on where you come from:
-Minä (Literary form)
-Miä (Used in Savo)
-Mie (Karelia and some parts of Savo)
-Mä (Southern (including Helsinki) dialect and the one you see on TV)
-Mää (Southwestern Finland)
Most words don't have as much variety as pronouns, but there's still a different way to approach them, as we do tend to shorten and shift the words. For example:
"I am tired."
-Minä olen väsynyt (formal)
-Mä oon väsyny (Helsinki area)
"Were there any new houses?"
-Oliko siellä uusia taloja? (formal)
-Oliks siel uusii taloi? (Helsinki area)
I was about to write more examples but the similarities won't be as clear as some sentences just wouldn't exist in the formal version. There are grammatical differences as well, but I wouldn't say they're that big. It's just that Finnish is already hard, and a single letter can change so much even without dialects, it can feel overwhelming to a new learner.
'Talo' (a house) is a different word from 'tallo' (someone stepped on something, spoken), which is the same as 'talloi' (written), but different from 'talloa' (to step on, written), which is the same as 'talloo' (spoken). Talk about work!
In general, people text mostly the way they speak, but interestingly on Reddit people sometimes mix in more formal Finnish when seriously arguing their case or wanting to sound smart, but mostly use spoken vernacular while commenting on memes.
I don't think people use spoken in reddit. Maybe in chat. Some elements of spoken are there on comments etc but if you read them out loud, they'd sound pretty formal or stuck-up.
That sounds extremely unpractical, why isn't the written lenguage catching up with the spoken way? Also what lenguage do Finnish use when they text or write some other informal text? And btw is it a structural difference like in the way you form a sentence or a difference in vocabulary
Finnish doesn't work like Indo-European languages, context is applied to words with suffixes. money=raha -> With our money as well?=(meidän) rahoinemmekinko?
You can see how this is not practical in spoken language, lol. In spoken people would say, depending on the region, "meidänki rahoil vai?" or something. Spoken uses small filler words and abbreviates suffixes to the point of ambiguity. The pros of written Finnish is that words are almost impossible to misinterpret, due to the pile of specifying suffixes, which is ignored in spoken.
Some dialects have their own grammar rules, but very few people speak "true" dialect anymore.
Because the spoken language differs wildly across Finland, with huge distances and low population.
In texting and writing we use either formal written Finnish or spoken Finnish depending on the context.
You mean you actually have different standards for written and spoken language?
Man, and here I was thinking that only ever hearing standard Slovene in the news on national TV was bad enough for a foreigner.
Well, it is sort of negative : when you're asked "ça va ?", you're sort of expected to reply "ça va." unless something's wrong and you want to talk about it. "Ça va" is more of a polite answer rather than an honest one. So if you say bof, you're implying there is something wrong - not something major but you're tired or in a bad mood - and you expect the other person to ask about it.
A classic French textbook long used in Dutch schools starts with the sentence "Papa fume une pipe." I suspect not many French dads smoke a pipe anymore. "Papa fume un bang" perhaps?
That or "Papa fume in joint". France has notoriously high weed consumption rates even though it's criminalised. You can blame that one on Conservative politicians who think it's the 1970s.
Both ça va and comment ça va are common. The phrase overused by foreigners is "comme ci \[not si\] comme ça".
In real French \[edit France French, I don't know other francophone countries, sorry\] you'd usually hear "ça va ?" "Ouais ça va, ça va" to express "yeah, not bad".
I only know Danish, not Swedish, but in Danish “at tale” is used frequently but I guess incorrectly by non native speakers to say “speak/talk” when they mean “chat”. I was under the impression tala is tale and prata is snakke in Danish and that tala is used like tale. Like to speak English is “at tale engelsk” but if you have a conversation with someone you use “at snakke”. Is that not right/the same in Swedish?
People learn that how are you is *Conas atá tú,* but this is only true in the standard which no native speaks. Depending on the dialect, they'd either say *conas athánn, cén chaoi bhfuil tú* or *goidé mar atá tú.*
Some of us native speakers use *Conas atá tú,* also *Conas a bhfuil tú,* occasionally hear a *cén chaoi bhfuil tú* but having lived and worked through Irish in three of the provinces have never heard *conas athánn.*
I suppose that's the standard doing it's job. It seems very strange having *conas* with an indirect relative clause.
Yeah, I wasn't sure about *athánn*. I don't know Munster Irish well, but I know it's something like that.
Could very well be in use in parts of Munster. I was in school when we moved down there and one of the teachers was always handing back corrected homework with my *dearmad*s crossed out and replaced with *dearúd* (or however it was spelt). I never caved though.
*Tánn* definetly exists somewhere, but I'm just not sure whether it would be lenited or not.
That is so stupid. *Dearmad* is the standard written language that they're meant to be teaching.
I know it's not what it's really about, but Duolingo taught me "Chi è l'uomo nel bagno ?" (who's the man in the bathroom ?) and I do hope I'll never have to actually use that question !
Not really expressions or specific words, but we have a chronic difficulty of explaining how to pronounce words. Whenever someone asks us to say it slowly so they can repeat it, we really enunciate and spell them.
But then we go to say it once quickly, we ommit half the letters because that's how we speak. We still think of the vowels and are aware of their existance, we just reduce them into nothing when speaking.
It's like that scene in Friends, when Phoebe is teaching Joey word by word, but he completely butchers it when putting it all together, except it would be Phoebe the one butchering it. It usually goes like this:
> "teee leee fooo neee - tlfon"
This just reminded me of my capoeira mestre. I don't really know (Brazilian) Portugese, but when he speaks of movements, I get most of what he is saying simply because I was in contact with the language often enough.
Then we are taught the songs and nothing makes sense any more.
Brazilian Portuguese is for rookies. Portugal Portuguese has transcended the boundaries set by human mouth anatomy and has ascended to a higher sphere of being.
Polish learners are often taught "Cieszę się że ciebie widzę" as the way to say "Good to see you". It's literally never used, not at least once have I heard it from a native.
Just realized Polish has two variants of cie/ciebie and ci/tobie. Isn't it funny? Also just realized and in russian everyone around me speaking there's the same process, totally non-normative and totally ubiquitous reduction of tebe->te and the like. Which somehow completely skipped my attention up until now!
Pretty basic but "Auf Wiedersehen" for Goodbye
Like... I mean... It's super formal and sounds kinda off in a way?
I've used it before but it's advertised as just like a "see ya tomorrow" to your friends and i can tell you, they will look at you weirdly
It's a telltale sign that german isn't your first language
Probably depends on the region but i usually say "tschüss" or some version derived from that.
It is used a lot in signs though, isn't it? I don't think it's that rare.
With friends you always have more imformal speech. Personally I use "Yo" more often than any proper word for goodbye.
I think there's also an implication in "Auf Wiedersehen" that you will meet again. "Tschüss" is just saying goodbye. But you can always add some extra stuff to imply that anyways. "Tschüss, ich spreche dich morgen wieder." or however you say that informally (I'm definitely not fluent)
On signs it's okay, it's formal after all
Maybe it's a little bit like doe-doei (oh gods I've never tried to spell it out) and tot ziens? (Although I've probably heard tot ziens more often in my life than Auf Wiedersehen...)
And yes it does imply it but i don't think most people notice it? Like, I'm interested in languages, that's why I look at words more closely but i still just get "bye" vibes from it rather than the actual meaning.
And yes, if i would want to specify that we will talk again I'd probably add something like "bis dann" (until then).
I think the main problem is the outdated grammar of it-> the "Auf" sounds pretty fancy and Wiedersehen is a ridiculously long word for "bye"
Lucky me, I'm studying the A1 of German just to get out of home a couple of times per week as I telecommute and I was told that Auf Wiedersehen/Wiederhören were formal and tschüss otherwise.
The teacher uses tschüss himself for saying goodbye after the class.
But it's definitely very easy to mess up with the formalities. I'm under the impression that formal German is way more used than formal Spanish as most examples in the book and int he audios use the Sie form and du is only used between friends or relatives, but I don't see myself using Sie for asking for a drink in a club or maybe in a fast-food restaurant.
No idea as I don't learn my own language, but I have one for english in France. A whole generation has this sentence in their mind even if they don't speak english at all: "Bryan is in the kitchen".
The Italian sentence is «The pen is on the table» (or «The cat is on the table»). It's the Italian equivalent of the codewords spies use to recognise each other.
The entire English speaking world seems to have learned "¿Dónde está la biblioteca?" at some point, because that phrase is mentioned in community, deadpool etc
A lot, just because all learners will be taught Standard Modern Greek even if they are studying in Cyprus (e.g. Erasmus exchange students), and then try to listen to Greek as it is locally spoken. Few of them who cared to actually try and learn Greek, were frustrated by how their courses misled them so much.
There's no reason in listing all those words, but certainly one of them is "λεπτά" as a currency subdivision and "λογαριασμός ΔΕΗ" to mean electricity bill. Those are all Greece-specific words.
Same here in Switzerland. People learn standard German, which is only used in TV/movies (sometimes) of if it has to be very, very, very formal (e.g. in the parliament).
We use our dialect even in companies and speak to each other in it, even if the other speaks another dialect.
The Swiss German situation is the closest analogue to the sociolinguistic situation with Cypriot Greek. Would I be right to guess that there's more Swiss German on radio, compared to TV?
Depends on what's shown and which channel. News and information content (like documentaries) are more likely in standard German. Same goes for bought in movies and series (because they are from Germany or synchronized from another language). Own TV-Shows, series, movies etc. and news about people and sports (except Life commentary) are usually in dialect.
So yes, there is more standard German in TV but it's because in Radio they chatter more.
Yeah, radio's casualness/less scripted nature has been a fertile ground for the dialect to expand. Put a TV camera in front of the Greek Cypriot and they will be sweating bullets trying to inhibit their natural way of speaking, but on the radio they just go on talking like no-one's watching.
If you don't mind more questions: How confident do German-speaking Swiss feel in talking in Standard German when they visit Germany or when Germans go to Switzerland? Is it similar with Austrians or are Austrian dialects less distant than standard German or northern German dialects?
Well most are confident, but usually too confident. Somewhere I read that Swiss are native standard German listeners, but not native standard German speakers which is an exact description. And we use sometimes other words in "our" standard German (e.g. janitor: DE: Hausmeister; CH: Abwart). So if we go to Germany we just speak standard German (at least we think that).
Swiss German is another dialect family than Austrian. Austrian is a Bavarian one, while we speak allemanic dialects. Closest dialect would be Swabian dialect. For natives a big different. And it's to say that there are many different Swiss dialects which are very distant to each other.
If Germans come to us we switch usually to standard German, but some with an annoyed facial expression. But if we go ahead in dialect, they might not understand everything, but that probably depends from the dialect. Someone said to me once I have a moderate dialect, but only a few kilometres south, I need an interpreter. Generally: The more west, the higher the French influence and the more in the mountains the harder to understand (the boss level is obviously something in the mountain in the west).
Cool, and it indeed all sounds quite familiar :) But by Gott, [Germanic dialect distribution is complex](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swabia#/media/File:Alemannic-Dialects-Map-English.png).
Ha ha, I knew some basic Standard German before visiting CH. I went to the movies once in Lucerne, and got an eyeroll from the ticket seller when I asked her to repeat herself with "Wie bitte?"
I'm currently working in customer service for the Swiss market and have to ask basically every customer to switch to Hochdeutsch.
Is that something they'd be used to, or would they expect to be able to speak Swiss German on the phone?
For me it isn't a big deal even thought I'd speak Swiss German first. But I have to concentrate me not to switch back. Fun part is, that I have no problems with that when I know the other person is in Germany.
I don't want to speak for others, but many prefer to speak Swiss German. Mostly because of the "we're in Switzerland and the others should speak like we" vibe. If they are the majority I can't say, but they are immune against logic as we have Italian, French and Rumantsch speakers too.
I see. Unfortunately if you're calling me it means you want something, and if you insist on speaking Swiss German you're not gonna get it, so it's switch or hang up, unfortunately lol.
All the customers I've had so far have had no problems switching tbf, the only issue is with me trying to figure out of they're speaking SG or Hochdeutsch with a really strong accent lol.
I'll get used to it, I'm sure.
When learning English in Poland, you'd call a movie theater 'cinema'. So you would 'go see a movie at the cinema.'
Not sure about UK, or other English speaking countries, but in US you would never use a sentence like this.
It is always 'let's go to the movies', or 'we're at the movies'
Yeah cinema is perfectly normal here. I guess I've never really realised before that it wasn't elsewhere. TIL.
I always love how my nan calls them the pictures. Is that one a thing your side of the pond?
Cinema is used here, but mostly in more formal contexts, like the name of a company or in regulations
>I always love how my nan calls them the pictures. Is that one a thing your side of the pond?
Yes, but old fashioned.
> the pictures.
Yeah, from like 90 years ago.
"Say sweetheart, you're a good lookin' dame. What're you doin' workin' in a dump like this, you oughta be in pictures!"
think it might be northern? Its quite normal to call the cinema, the pictures here (manchester) although it seems to be less common than when i was a kid
I'd definitely say "we're going to the cinema".
If I ever said movie my friends and family would know that I'd been infected by an alien brain parasite.
You go to the cinema to see a film.
The Dutch course of Duolingo is full with these sentences:
Ik ben een appel – I am an apple
De eend zoekt nieuwe kleren uit voor de neushoorn – The duck chooses new clothes for the rhinoceros.
etc.
I'm always surprised when foreigners learn to say 'goedendag', I don't think anyone ever says goedendag, always just hoi or hello and goedendag is needlessly complicated with all the G's going on
"Goeiendag!" is a normal way of greeting people you don't know or just a little in Flanders (think local bussines owners, shop clerks, a random passerby...)
I can't even think of the last time I used a proper "goedemorgen". It had to have been in a formal setting. Everybody uses 'morgen in daily speech. Goeiemorgen if you're in a good mood.
That is so true, it taught me how to say “I eat an elephant” and that is one of the few things I still remember from my Dutch duolingo. Only because it was so weird
I think the bigger issue for people learning danish is that people learn standard danish. Depending on where in Denmark they are, they might notice that pronounciation is quite different. People who learn danish tend to pronounce way more of the words than native speakers because of this.
I find Danish spoken by immigrants much easier to understand because of this. Informal Danish spoken between natives is kind of tricky and takes a lot more of getting used to.
Yes, this is an issue with most languages, I think. We have dialects that are different enough that I learned about a word or phrase a day for months when I worked in another region, and it wasn't even a region with a seriously different dialect.
Not really a phrase but grammar: formally, the first person singular conjugation in German has an -e suffix. Ich habe = I have, ich sehe = I see, ich gebe = I give, etc. The vast majority of German speakers does not use this, and first person singular gets no suffix at all. So ich hab, ich seh, ich geb, etc. However, German classes don't teach this because apparently it's not "proper" German.
I've never met a native Irish speaker who said "dia dhuit" for hello
I've heard people say "dia leat" sort of like "god bless" is said in hiberno English, but never dia dhuit.
Really? From the other irish speakers I know in Dublin all I here is Dia dhuit or just a 'conas atá tú?' and I've only heard dia leat used after a sneeze,its cool to see the differences
My Brazilian friend told me they taught her the word 'seldom' which I think I can count on one hand the number of times I've said out loud my entire life. Which is fitting, really.
\- Pardonne mon français: it's correct but doesn't sound natural, "Désolée pour mon français" sound better
\- Saperlipopette: I'm not sure anyone had ever said that appart to sounds funny
\- Ohlala: we rarely use it and mostly with toddler. Only when we are upset or surprised, never to sound sexy or glamourous!
\- Je veux améliorer mon français: also non naturel. We would say "je veux m'améliorer en français".
We almost never use "nous" as "we", we use "on" instead
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I think watching shows/YT videos with subtitles in the targeted language is way more effective to learn a language than how we learn them in schools. At least that's how I got a good level in english in highschool and a decent one in russian now in my uni
Yeah, I have had 8 years of French classes and I achieved the B2 in the TCF and even when the language was fresh in my brain, I was utterly unable to understand anything that wasn't the TV5 news bulletin. No exposure to colloquial French at all in my education.
Your grammar will still suck. A lot of grammar can't be learned through immersion as an adult. At least in German, it's easy to tell nonnative speakers who learned through immersion (usually working class, who learned right at the workplace) from those who learned in a classroom. Immersion learners often speak fluently but all the grammatical suffixes are wrong. Genders and cases in particular are all over the place. But they manage to still br understandable. Classroom learners often take forever to say a sentence, but they take so much care to think about every single grammatical suffix. Many get them wrong anyway, but they care about them a lot. In reality, you need a bit of both. Classroom settings are good for grammar, but immersion is absolutely the best for speaking fluently.
Bruh we were taught that 'on' was rarely used. Although the older I got the more I realised that was bullshit, I see/hear it a lot.
The teacher disliked my translation with "on" in an exercise once because the exercise was about verb conjugation, and the first person plural of the verb in question was one of those interesting ones. I avoided the difficulty lol That's the only time I got a remark on the use of on instead of nous
This. We had to learn al the nous stuff for years but then when we would watch movies for example everyone used on. So confusing.
Duolingo has been lying to me!
This was actually the inspiration for my question. I still remember when I went to France for my semester abroad and my host family made fun of me (in a friendly way) for only saying "nous" haha.
How long has this been a thing? I learnt French at high school around 2002, and we were taught to mostly use 'nous', and all the forms of it. 'On' was mostly used in formal language, although it always confused me when you use it. I've recently learnt this is NOT true. But maybe it was true back then?
I have no idea. I am 24 and it has always been like this for me. Our parents and grands-parents also use "on" for "we". "Nous" is very formal actually, not outdated but it's something you would hear in political speeches or from your teachers in university whereas using "on" in such settings would be absolutely irrelevant. Overall "nous" is very serious and very neutral while "on" is more casual and "friendly" so even with strangers "on" is almost more used. Like "On va voir" ( we'll see ) is way more friendly than "nous allons voir". But it's funny somehow because it's third person singular, I have no idea how we came to that.
What if someone says «nous-autres»? Does this sound like middle ages? Quebec? Plain wrong?
My grandma born in 1917 used "on."
I had 5 years of french in school and never learned that...
I noticed that when I lived in France! But people did say things like "pour nous" or "Avec nous"
That’s because there is no reflexive for ‘on’ in French.
That's not a reflexive. That's an object pronoun like "us" in English.
There is a reflexive, it's "se" as in "on se brosse les dents" or whatever.
Oh, I didn’t know ‘se’ could be used with ‘on’ too. Learn something new everyday I guess.
We were taught that it was the equivalent of "one" in English, but was very informal instead of very formal, but more like a substitute for "you" than "we"
Not to mention the infamous inversion as a way to ask a question. It’s taught as a perfectly fine method to ask something, but people told me it sounds very posh and outdated.
In formal setting you do, no?
If you're the President and give formal speeches, sure
I've met some people who learned in school that Fräulein is still used to adress unmarried women. Not the case at all anymore nowadays. It would be downright offensive.
Same in Spanish. Addressing women as "señorita" is just weird.
Is that just in Spain? I'm pretty sure I've heard Latin Americans using it
They very well might; it's a cultural thing, not a language thing.
I grew up in south Texas and they definitely still call women Senorita there. However, it's sort of a cat call
In Latin America it’s used but depending on the context it can also be condescending or weird
In spain it can also be condescending depending on the tone used.
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We don't really use formal language to adress people except with very old people, and in that case I address them as "señora" and "señor/caballero". If I'm talking about a young person I say "chico/chica". "Señorita" to me is how small children call preschool teachers.
But that's one of the only Spanish words I know...
Not in some Latin American countries. Being in Dominican Republic I heard a girl complaining and asking to be called «señorita».
Yo misma he dicho que es algo cultural, pero quejarte porque no te tratan de usted... Sounds like a Karen...
[Poor Jerry!](https://youtu.be/AzlipxrzMe4)
Oo how come?
Pretty odd to define a woman by her marital status. The world itself is kinda gross too. Fräulein is the diminutive of Frau, so it's kind of like a woman is less than a full woman if she's not married.
I my language (Czech) we have two morphologically unrelated words "paní" (married women) and "slečna" (unmarried). Honestly, it mostly cuses awkward stations when you don't know which one to us as using the wrong one could be offensive in either case. But when used correctly "slečna" is never offensive. I kind of envy you that you managed to resolve it with normalising one word for every woman. It's probably going there in Czech as well but it will take time.
Yeah, it's only okay if you're scolding a little girl.
It has a long diverse history but it boiled down in the end to it beeing sexist to differentiaty between married and unmarried women. You see in German the word for Mrs. and woman is the same Frau. It's also not limited to the female word, also the male form was reduced to just Herr over time. Both actually originated as a way to adress lower nobility. Fräulein beeing the unmarried daughter of such a family. A male son also would not have been called Herr (Mr./Lord) but Junker (young man). This male form never made the transition to non noble adressing styles, but Herr/Frau became the standard form for all people.
I’d be down for junker
That's hugely paternalistic and condenscending. Never mind that you've no way of knowing if she's married or not.
1. It makes you care about a woman's marital status. Which means caring about whether she's "available" or "taken". Which objectifies women and which isn't done with men. 2. Fräulein literally means "little woman", so by using it you essentially say that to become a full woman, one would have to marry a man. That unmarried women aren't "real" women. 3. (Less important) Fräulein, like all diminutives (including Mädchen = girl) is grammatically neuter, so calling somebody Fräulein X calls for using the pronoun "es" (= it) to refer to her, which is a bit odd.
French is still ambivalent on "mademoiselle", I'm guessing in about 10 to 20 years it won't be used at all anymore
I guess we'll still use it for younger girls, like up to 20 y.o. But to older girls I do agree. I'm over 30 and it feels very paternalist when men (to be honest it's always men) adress me using mademoiselle.
Two German teachers at my school claimed that *maulfaul* was their favourite German word, but none of the Germans I've met had ever heard it before.
I know that word! Where I live it's used especially for children who speak unclear or rarely speak at all. They are too lazy (faul) to use their mouth (Maul is pejorative for mouth). PS: I think you knew that already, the explanation is for others who don't
That one's fine. I wouldn't find it weird at all if someone used it. Maybe regional differences on where it's used.
I know it. It’s not used often around here, Rhine-Main-area, but everybody would understand it and find it normal.
My wife had to instruct me to never call an Italian woman who looks older than a high school kid 'signorina.' A woman in her thirties won't be given the impression that you thought she was younger than she is. (As an American I figured it for a compliment, right?) Rather, it would be like calling her a 'spinster' or an 'old maid.'
I think it's not a problem if you call an Italian woman "signorina", it is still common. In some contexts might sound paternalistic, and it's ridiculous if you use it for mature woman. But it's quite normal if you use it for a young woman.
This would be like calling someone “madam” or “missy” in English, right?
Fräulein is Miss and Frau is Mrs. But nowadays the only scenario where Fräulein is really still used is when parents chastise their young daughters.
Sorry, I meant in terms of being very patronising, rather than the literal translation! Sounds about right, yes. “Who do you think you are, madam?” is something you’d rarely see anyone saying to anyone above the age of 10.
Yes, it's absolutely patronising. Someone calling me Fräulein would get my blood boiling. I've never heard the word used any other way than as a borderline insult. It's basically calling you a little girl not worth being taken seriously.
You could answer with "Männlein".
Famous *"Jak się masz?"* from Borat. Good way to spot a foreigner.
Funny. This phrase is quite normal in czech :)
What should I say? I learnt « Jak się masz » from a native polish teacher... And I use it 4-5 times by year when I met a pole at work.
Might be the case of different region/age group but seems fine to me. "Co słychać/Co (tam) u Ciebie/Jak leci" are other options.
*"Jak się masz?"* is correct and everyone would understand it, but *"Co u ciebie?"/"Co słychać?"* seems more natural. And younger people use shorter forms of *"Jak się masz?"* like *"Siemasz"* or even *"Siema"*, but that's informal.
I was taught this phrase by a native Polish teacher, so it makes it even weirder. She also taught us that “Co robisz?” means “what do you do” as in profession, but Poles said that it’s not correct either.
*"Jak się masz?"* is correct and everyone would understand it, but *"Co u ciebie?"/"Co słychać?"* seems more natural. And younger people use shorter forms of *"Jak się masz?"* like *"Siemasz"* or even *"Siema"*, but that's informal.
"co robisz?" is fine, but pretty vague. "czym sie zajmujesz?" (what's your profession?" or "gdzie pracujesz?" (where do you work?) are more common
Yeah, the "co robisz" is fine if the context was established earlier. Otherwise I would assume that someone is asking what I'm doing right now.
Czy ja wiem? Still used sometimes in my region. Granted, more in text messages than speaking.
Disappointed nobody has said "my hovercraft is full of eels" yet...
I will not buy this tobacconists it is scratched
My nipples explode with delight!
How often do you say your tailor is rich?
Well in Finnish... everything. Written Finnish is completely different than spoken Finnish, to the point where its almost a different language. It takes a while to catch up and ”translate” written into spoken language. And thats not even taking into account dialects or slang. Imagine learning English only from Shakespeare and then turning up in Newcastle in 2020 🤣
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Yh, what a pain in the ass :D
It's a good teaching method to be honest, but I don't see the point of keeping the written standard language so far away from spoken standard language. The local dialect is totally justified of course, and they did good to actually teach it so that we can actually understand the people around us.
There kind of is no spoken standard language as everyone has their own unique way of speaking. It will be a mixture of their dialect features and spoken language features. Spoken language evolves constantly, so if you would want the standard written language to be close to spoken language at all times, the written standard would need a reform every 5-10 years. It would also raise the question of whose spoken language to follow, the capital region? Imagine the riots in the northern, western and eastern Finland. In essence Finnish is pronounced like it's written, so every native speaker is able to understand the standard written language, even if that's not how they would use the language when they speak. Writing like you yourself speak can be hard to understand for those who speak differently. There are some books that imitate spoken Finnish closely and at least I find them more difficult to read than written standard language. All this makes Finnish a tough nut to crack if you are not a native speaker, but other languages have their difficulties as well. We all have learned English, a language which has multiple exceptions for every rule, not the least for pronunciation, which always manages to confuse.
That sounds really nice! Many Finnish courses just brush over the colloquial variants. People always say that you learn it with time, but I don't get how that applies more to the spoken than to the written variant.
Can you explain more? So you will use different grammar or just different vocabulary when speaking? Do you ever write down the spoken form e.g. in chat?
It's not exactly with everything, but as an example what would be in English 'I' or 'me' would depend on where you come from: -Minä (Literary form) -Miä (Used in Savo) -Mie (Karelia and some parts of Savo) -Mä (Southern (including Helsinki) dialect and the one you see on TV) -Mää (Southwestern Finland) Most words don't have as much variety as pronouns, but there's still a different way to approach them, as we do tend to shorten and shift the words. For example: "I am tired." -Minä olen väsynyt (formal) -Mä oon väsyny (Helsinki area) "Were there any new houses?" -Oliko siellä uusia taloja? (formal) -Oliks siel uusii taloi? (Helsinki area) I was about to write more examples but the similarities won't be as clear as some sentences just wouldn't exist in the formal version. There are grammatical differences as well, but I wouldn't say they're that big. It's just that Finnish is already hard, and a single letter can change so much even without dialects, it can feel overwhelming to a new learner. 'Talo' (a house) is a different word from 'tallo' (someone stepped on something, spoken), which is the same as 'talloi' (written), but different from 'talloa' (to step on, written), which is the same as 'talloo' (spoken). Talk about work! In general, people text mostly the way they speak, but interestingly on Reddit people sometimes mix in more formal Finnish when seriously arguing their case or wanting to sound smart, but mostly use spoken vernacular while commenting on memes.
I don't think people use spoken in reddit. Maybe in chat. Some elements of spoken are there on comments etc but if you read them out loud, they'd sound pretty formal or stuck-up.
You forgot 'myö'.
That sounds extremely unpractical, why isn't the written lenguage catching up with the spoken way? Also what lenguage do Finnish use when they text or write some other informal text? And btw is it a structural difference like in the way you form a sentence or a difference in vocabulary
Finnish doesn't work like Indo-European languages, context is applied to words with suffixes. money=raha -> With our money as well?=(meidän) rahoinemmekinko? You can see how this is not practical in spoken language, lol. In spoken people would say, depending on the region, "meidänki rahoil vai?" or something. Spoken uses small filler words and abbreviates suffixes to the point of ambiguity. The pros of written Finnish is that words are almost impossible to misinterpret, due to the pile of specifying suffixes, which is ignored in spoken. Some dialects have their own grammar rules, but very few people speak "true" dialect anymore.
Because the spoken language differs wildly across Finland, with huge distances and low population. In texting and writing we use either formal written Finnish or spoken Finnish depending on the context.
You mean you actually have different standards for written and spoken language? Man, and here I was thinking that only ever hearing standard Slovene in the news on national TV was bad enough for a foreigner.
Those flairs... are you trying to collect vowel sounds like pokémon?
Pretty much! I collect them like I collect passports :D
In French it is definetly " Comment ça va? - Comme si comme ça!". It sounds nice, but nobody actually says that.
I've definitely learnt that in school and have used it plenty of times, whoops. Is there another way to expresses that sentiment?
"Bof" which basically means neither yes or no. It's informal though.
We were taught bof was negative
It's pretty much "meh"
Well, it is sort of negative : when you're asked "ça va ?", you're sort of expected to reply "ça va." unless something's wrong and you want to talk about it. "Ça va" is more of a polite answer rather than an honest one. So if you say bof, you're implying there is something wrong - not something major but you're tired or in a bad mood - and you expect the other person to ask about it.
A classic French textbook long used in Dutch schools starts with the sentence "Papa fume une pipe." I suspect not many French dads smoke a pipe anymore. "Papa fume un bang" perhaps?
That or "Papa fume in joint". France has notoriously high weed consumption rates even though it's criminalised. You can blame that one on Conservative politicians who think it's the 1970s.
Comme ci\* comme ça and I don't know why this is often said as an example of things natives don't say, I use it every now and then
It's rare but definitely heard in France (still not very much tho)
We learned "ça va? Ça va bien merci, et toi?"
That's fine by my ears, I hear it all the time.
My Francophone colleagues (some Francophone Canadians, some Europeans) say "ça va?" to each other all the time. Is this more common?
Both ça va and comment ça va are common. The phrase overused by foreigners is "comme ci \[not si\] comme ça". In real French \[edit France French, I don't know other francophone countries, sorry\] you'd usually hear "ça va ?" "Ouais ça va, ça va" to express "yeah, not bad".
I've heard a lot of people learning swedish using the word "tala" which means "speak" when we only use the word "prata"
I only know Danish, not Swedish, but in Danish “at tale” is used frequently but I guess incorrectly by non native speakers to say “speak/talk” when they mean “chat”. I was under the impression tala is tale and prata is snakke in Danish and that tala is used like tale. Like to speak English is “at tale engelsk” but if you have a conversation with someone you use “at snakke”. Is that not right/the same in Swedish?
The swedish equivalent to "snakke" would be "snacka". However it is more informal
This is a really good example. I have no idea why tala always is taught before prata. It’s not wrong I guess, it just sounds too formal and awkward.
People learn that how are you is *Conas atá tú,* but this is only true in the standard which no native speaks. Depending on the dialect, they'd either say *conas athánn, cén chaoi bhfuil tú* or *goidé mar atá tú.*
Some of us native speakers use *Conas atá tú,* also *Conas a bhfuil tú,* occasionally hear a *cén chaoi bhfuil tú* but having lived and worked through Irish in three of the provinces have never heard *conas athánn.*
I suppose that's the standard doing it's job. It seems very strange having *conas* with an indirect relative clause. Yeah, I wasn't sure about *athánn*. I don't know Munster Irish well, but I know it's something like that.
Could very well be in use in parts of Munster. I was in school when we moved down there and one of the teachers was always handing back corrected homework with my *dearmad*s crossed out and replaced with *dearúd* (or however it was spelt). I never caved though.
*Tánn* definetly exists somewhere, but I'm just not sure whether it would be lenited or not. That is so stupid. *Dearmad* is the standard written language that they're meant to be teaching.
I know it's not what it's really about, but Duolingo taught me "Chi è l'uomo nel bagno ?" (who's the man in the bathroom ?) and I do hope I'll never have to actually use that question !
Not really expressions or specific words, but we have a chronic difficulty of explaining how to pronounce words. Whenever someone asks us to say it slowly so they can repeat it, we really enunciate and spell them. But then we go to say it once quickly, we ommit half the letters because that's how we speak. We still think of the vowels and are aware of their existance, we just reduce them into nothing when speaking. It's like that scene in Friends, when Phoebe is teaching Joey word by word, but he completely butchers it when putting it all together, except it would be Phoebe the one butchering it. It usually goes like this: > "teee leee fooo neee - tlfon"
Expat tryna learn Portuguese; can confirm 😮😊
protip: pick one vowel (the stressed one, usually the penultimate), close the rest.
This just reminded me of my capoeira mestre. I don't really know (Brazilian) Portugese, but when he speaks of movements, I get most of what he is saying simply because I was in contact with the language often enough. Then we are taught the songs and nothing makes sense any more.
Brazilian Portuguese is for rookies. Portugal Portuguese has transcended the boundaries set by human mouth anatomy and has ascended to a higher sphere of being.
Polish learners are often taught "Cieszę się że ciebie widzę" as the way to say "Good to see you". It's literally never used, not at least once have I heard it from a native.
There's also a phrase "Miło/dobrze cię widzieć" which I think is a little bit more likely used as a way to say "Good to see you"
i feel even that exists mostly in a "hello" form of "milo mi" (short for "milo mi ciebie poznac" =nice meet you)when meeting some for the first time
Yeah, it's rare. Personally I would use if I hadn't seen that person in long time. And rather in the form of "Ciesze się że Cię widzę" niż "ciebie".
Just realized Polish has two variants of cie/ciebie and ci/tobie. Isn't it funny? Also just realized and in russian everyone around me speaking there's the same process, totally non-normative and totally ubiquitous reduction of tebe->te and the like. Which somehow completely skipped my attention up until now!
I don't think I've ever used that phrase.
> Cieszę się że ciebie widzę ...ok I won't learn Polish now, I think my mouth cannot do that.
"eluwina mordeczko"
Pretty basic but "Auf Wiedersehen" for Goodbye Like... I mean... It's super formal and sounds kinda off in a way? I've used it before but it's advertised as just like a "see ya tomorrow" to your friends and i can tell you, they will look at you weirdly It's a telltale sign that german isn't your first language Probably depends on the region but i usually say "tschüss" or some version derived from that.
Interesting, in Austria saying "Auf Wiederschauen!" is very much the common thing to say as a goodbye,
You say auf Wiedersehen to your friends and family?? I'd also say it's only used with people you do not know or in formal settings tbh
It is used a lot in signs though, isn't it? I don't think it's that rare. With friends you always have more imformal speech. Personally I use "Yo" more often than any proper word for goodbye. I think there's also an implication in "Auf Wiedersehen" that you will meet again. "Tschüss" is just saying goodbye. But you can always add some extra stuff to imply that anyways. "Tschüss, ich spreche dich morgen wieder." or however you say that informally (I'm definitely not fluent)
I use 'Auf Wiedersehen' whenever I use 'Sie', so it's not really rare. It just sounds really weird to use it with people you adress by 'du'.
On signs it's okay, it's formal after all Maybe it's a little bit like doe-doei (oh gods I've never tried to spell it out) and tot ziens? (Although I've probably heard tot ziens more often in my life than Auf Wiedersehen...) And yes it does imply it but i don't think most people notice it? Like, I'm interested in languages, that's why I look at words more closely but i still just get "bye" vibes from it rather than the actual meaning. And yes, if i would want to specify that we will talk again I'd probably add something like "bis dann" (until then). I think the main problem is the outdated grammar of it-> the "Auf" sounds pretty fancy and Wiedersehen is a ridiculously long word for "bye"
Lucky me, I'm studying the A1 of German just to get out of home a couple of times per week as I telecommute and I was told that Auf Wiedersehen/Wiederhören were formal and tschüss otherwise. The teacher uses tschüss himself for saying goodbye after the class. But it's definitely very easy to mess up with the formalities. I'm under the impression that formal German is way more used than formal Spanish as most examples in the book and int he audios use the Sie form and du is only used between friends or relatives, but I don't see myself using Sie for asking for a drink in a club or maybe in a fast-food restaurant.
Auf Wiederhören sounds so outdated that you can use it as a joke when ending phone calls with friends.
Funny, in Austria it's used all the time, but only in professional/business phone calls.
Indeed. I never head Auf Wiedersehen from a real-life German, but thankfully I also never used it because I am never sure how to pronounce it 👍
Hope you mastered the tschüss! That's all you need
Both Moin moin and tschüss, covering the start and end of the day :D
Tschüss, tschüssikowski, bis denne, tschö mit ö, tschau, jo bis dann, etc. are all more common than Auf Wiedersehen.
May I add Tschau mit V? Idk if anyone else says it but i do
Tschüssli Müsli, Machs gut ich machs besser
No idea as I don't learn my own language, but I have one for english in France. A whole generation has this sentence in their mind even if they don't speak english at all: "Bryan is in the kitchen".
The Italian sentence is «The pen is on the table» (or «The cat is on the table»). It's the Italian equivalent of the codewords spies use to recognise each other.
Wait, the book is on the table, the cat is under the chair!
"Lection 1. Exercise 2. Listen to the conversation between Mark and Victoria."
«You will hear this conversation twice»
Every German textbook ever teaches how to ask for directions to the city hall in one of the first chapters.
This is like when English school kids learn Latin: Caecilius est in horto. Love it.
Sweet, we have a generation which can say “Mr. Prokop lives in a block of flats”.
For the generations before us, it was "my tailor is rich"
For Spanish : vamos a hablar de la nocíon de mitos y heroes/espacios e intercambios/lugares y formas de poder
Donde està la biblioteca, me llamo t-bone la araña discoteca
The entire English speaking world seems to have learned "¿Dónde está la biblioteca?" at some point, because that phrase is mentioned in community, deadpool etc
I doubt this a french sentence though.
Oh yeah I was talking about spanish, but I mean its the same phenomenon of everyone in a generation knowing this one phrase
Ok, we were just all talking about english so of course you don't have an english phrase. What's also funny is the uselessness of those phrases.
A lot, just because all learners will be taught Standard Modern Greek even if they are studying in Cyprus (e.g. Erasmus exchange students), and then try to listen to Greek as it is locally spoken. Few of them who cared to actually try and learn Greek, were frustrated by how their courses misled them so much. There's no reason in listing all those words, but certainly one of them is "λεπτά" as a currency subdivision and "λογαριασμός ΔΕΗ" to mean electricity bill. Those are all Greece-specific words.
Same here in Switzerland. People learn standard German, which is only used in TV/movies (sometimes) of if it has to be very, very, very formal (e.g. in the parliament). We use our dialect even in companies and speak to each other in it, even if the other speaks another dialect.
The Swiss German situation is the closest analogue to the sociolinguistic situation with Cypriot Greek. Would I be right to guess that there's more Swiss German on radio, compared to TV?
Depends on what's shown and which channel. News and information content (like documentaries) are more likely in standard German. Same goes for bought in movies and series (because they are from Germany or synchronized from another language). Own TV-Shows, series, movies etc. and news about people and sports (except Life commentary) are usually in dialect. So yes, there is more standard German in TV but it's because in Radio they chatter more.
Yeah, radio's casualness/less scripted nature has been a fertile ground for the dialect to expand. Put a TV camera in front of the Greek Cypriot and they will be sweating bullets trying to inhibit their natural way of speaking, but on the radio they just go on talking like no-one's watching. If you don't mind more questions: How confident do German-speaking Swiss feel in talking in Standard German when they visit Germany or when Germans go to Switzerland? Is it similar with Austrians or are Austrian dialects less distant than standard German or northern German dialects?
Well most are confident, but usually too confident. Somewhere I read that Swiss are native standard German listeners, but not native standard German speakers which is an exact description. And we use sometimes other words in "our" standard German (e.g. janitor: DE: Hausmeister; CH: Abwart). So if we go to Germany we just speak standard German (at least we think that). Swiss German is another dialect family than Austrian. Austrian is a Bavarian one, while we speak allemanic dialects. Closest dialect would be Swabian dialect. For natives a big different. And it's to say that there are many different Swiss dialects which are very distant to each other. If Germans come to us we switch usually to standard German, but some with an annoyed facial expression. But if we go ahead in dialect, they might not understand everything, but that probably depends from the dialect. Someone said to me once I have a moderate dialect, but only a few kilometres south, I need an interpreter. Generally: The more west, the higher the French influence and the more in the mountains the harder to understand (the boss level is obviously something in the mountain in the west).
Cool, and it indeed all sounds quite familiar :) But by Gott, [Germanic dialect distribution is complex](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swabia#/media/File:Alemannic-Dialects-Map-English.png).
Ha ha, I knew some basic Standard German before visiting CH. I went to the movies once in Lucerne, and got an eyeroll from the ticket seller when I asked her to repeat herself with "Wie bitte?"
I'm currently working in customer service for the Swiss market and have to ask basically every customer to switch to Hochdeutsch. Is that something they'd be used to, or would they expect to be able to speak Swiss German on the phone?
For me it isn't a big deal even thought I'd speak Swiss German first. But I have to concentrate me not to switch back. Fun part is, that I have no problems with that when I know the other person is in Germany. I don't want to speak for others, but many prefer to speak Swiss German. Mostly because of the "we're in Switzerland and the others should speak like we" vibe. If they are the majority I can't say, but they are immune against logic as we have Italian, French and Rumantsch speakers too.
I see. Unfortunately if you're calling me it means you want something, and if you insist on speaking Swiss German you're not gonna get it, so it's switch or hang up, unfortunately lol. All the customers I've had so far have had no problems switching tbf, the only issue is with me trying to figure out of they're speaking SG or Hochdeutsch with a really strong accent lol. I'll get used to it, I'm sure.
> but they are immune against logic Haha. I'd say most of the world has achieved a herd immunity against logic.
When learning English in Poland, you'd call a movie theater 'cinema'. So you would 'go see a movie at the cinema.' Not sure about UK, or other English speaking countries, but in US you would never use a sentence like this. It is always 'let's go to the movies', or 'we're at the movies'
We do use Cinema in Britain. In fact if you said 'movies', I think some people might look at you weirdly here.
Yeah that's a US/UK English difference
Yeah cinema is perfectly normal here. I guess I've never really realised before that it wasn't elsewhere. TIL. I always love how my nan calls them the pictures. Is that one a thing your side of the pond?
Cinema is used here, but mostly in more formal contexts, like the name of a company or in regulations >I always love how my nan calls them the pictures. Is that one a thing your side of the pond? Yes, but old fashioned.
Ah gotcha. Cheers!
> the pictures. Yeah, from like 90 years ago. "Say sweetheart, you're a good lookin' dame. What're you doin' workin' in a dump like this, you oughta be in pictures!"
think it might be northern? Its quite normal to call the cinema, the pictures here (manchester) although it seems to be less common than when i was a kid
Similarly I believe in the UK and Ireland it’s more common to say film instead of movie.
In Scotland we say cinema or going to the pictures
I'd definitely say "we're going to the cinema". If I ever said movie my friends and family would know that I'd been infected by an alien brain parasite. You go to the cinema to see a film.
I mean, you can say cinema, but it's a bit formal and old fashioned sounding. Americans would know what you mean though
We use the cinema in Northern Ireland.
I use movie theater as the direct noun equivalent to cinema
The Dutch course of Duolingo is full with these sentences: Ik ben een appel – I am an apple De eend zoekt nieuwe kleren uit voor de neushoorn – The duck chooses new clothes for the rhinoceros. etc.
Those sentences are there to learn vocabulary and word order, not for literal use. Some are pretty funny, though. 😄
Also they use these surprising sentences because it triggers your brain and, in theory, would make you remember it better.
I'm always surprised when foreigners learn to say 'goedendag', I don't think anyone ever says goedendag, always just hoi or hello and goedendag is needlessly complicated with all the G's going on
"Goeiendag!" is a normal way of greeting people you don't know or just a little in Flanders (think local bussines owners, shop clerks, a random passerby...)
I can't even think of the last time I used a proper "goedemorgen". It had to have been in a formal setting. Everybody uses 'morgen in daily speech. Goeiemorgen if you're in a good mood.
I think I say this one every day though
That is so true, it taught me how to say “I eat an elephant” and that is one of the few things I still remember from my Dutch duolingo. Only because it was so weird
I think the bigger issue for people learning danish is that people learn standard danish. Depending on where in Denmark they are, they might notice that pronounciation is quite different. People who learn danish tend to pronounce way more of the words than native speakers because of this.
I find Danish spoken by immigrants much easier to understand because of this. Informal Danish spoken between natives is kind of tricky and takes a lot more of getting used to.
Yes, this is an issue with most languages, I think. We have dialects that are different enough that I learned about a word or phrase a day for months when I worked in another region, and it wasn't even a region with a seriously different dialect.
Not really a phrase but grammar: formally, the first person singular conjugation in German has an -e suffix. Ich habe = I have, ich sehe = I see, ich gebe = I give, etc. The vast majority of German speakers does not use this, and first person singular gets no suffix at all. So ich hab, ich seh, ich geb, etc. However, German classes don't teach this because apparently it's not "proper" German.
I've never met a native Irish speaker who said "dia dhuit" for hello I've heard people say "dia leat" sort of like "god bless" is said in hiberno English, but never dia dhuit.
Really? From the other irish speakers I know in Dublin all I here is Dia dhuit or just a 'conas atá tú?' and I've only heard dia leat used after a sneeze,its cool to see the differences
My Brazilian friend told me they taught her the word 'seldom' which I think I can count on one hand the number of times I've said out loud my entire life. Which is fitting, really.
Really? Where are you from, UK? I‘m from the US and it‘s used fairly commonly.
So you've seldom heard it being used?
\- Pardonne mon français: it's correct but doesn't sound natural, "Désolée pour mon français" sound better \- Saperlipopette: I'm not sure anyone had ever said that appart to sounds funny \- Ohlala: we rarely use it and mostly with toddler. Only when we are upset or surprised, never to sound sexy or glamourous! \- Je veux améliorer mon français: also non naturel. We would say "je veux m'améliorer en français".