General Chat Thread (climate, snow, nights, meteorology)
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Probably will be pulling all nighters the next three nights. I have to finish TWO translation packets (each of 200 pages or so) before Thursday since I'm going out of town. ****. Oh well.
Speaking a foreign language is great and all. But, candidly, I kind of wish English weren't my first language (and that I also spoke it only as a second language). Folks from mainland Europe have it good in this regard. They get to have their own language to speak with their own folks while interacting with the outside world with the lingua franca that is English. Sometimes I wish my area were to the rest of the US what Quebec is to Canada and that we spoke our own language locally and interacted with the rest of the country (and world) in their language (i.e., English). Of course, hypothetically, I'd be partial to an imaginary Slavic heritage and language for South Jersey, or at least my part of it.
Because, really, what's so good about people around the world speaking your language?
Funny how Owen always goes on about people needing to learn English, when no one else on this forum (even people that English is their second language) make as many grammatical and spelling mistakes as Owen.
Speaking a foreign language is great and all. But, candidly, I kind of wish English weren't my first language (and that I also spoke it only as a second language). Folks from mainland Europe have it good in this regard. They get to have their own language to speak with their own folks while interacting with the outside world with the lingua franca that is English. Sometimes I wish my area were to the rest of the US what Quebec is to Canada and that we spoke our own language locally and interacted with the rest of the country (and world) in their language (i.e., English). Of course, hypothetically, I'd be partial to an imaginary Slavic heritage and language for South Jersey, or at least my part of it.
Because, really, what's so good about people around the world speaking your language?
It is interesting when I am with German friends here in Canada and we are speaking German and nobody around can understand what we are saying. But some have and ended up making friends with those people.
What! I am so glad I speak English!! I honestly don't care what people think, I am terrible at foreign languages and I have no problem admitting that.
I don't get Northstar's comment about Europe, yes they speak foreign languages but I don't go there frequently, so why should it matter?
Whatever. I don't see what's so special about English. It's good as a lingua franca, I guess. It's hard to make a very strong claim to it even from an Englishman's perspective. It is truly a mongrel tongue: so incredibly imbued with Latin and Greek vocabulary for a Germanic language.
Still, with it being the global language, I want to be able to speak it, and speak it well. But as a second language.
It is interesting when I am with German friends here in Canada and we are speaking German and nobody around can understand what we are saying. But some have and ended up making friends with those people.
Wouldn't it be neat if all the newcomers to the US and Canada of the 19th and 20th centuries had kept their languages and formed their own communities? Taught their children their ancestral languages? Had the kids go to schools in their ancestral languages (with plenty of English immersion)? That would be kind of cool.
Location: Northern Ireland and temporarily England
7,668 posts, read 5,249,138 times
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No that would be abominable
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