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Poll: Where are you guys from?

Where are you from/located?


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JJB70

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On English, that is the language of administration in Singapore and professional positions require proficiency in English, however it is surprising how many have very limited or no English. You don't see it in the downtown, but we live in the heartlands (West Jurong) and Mandarin is the language here. And that is before getting into Singlish. I would add I don't say this as a criticism or anything, just an observation that surprised me as most of my previous visits to Singapore were to the downtown areas. Another linguistic observation is how few people speak Malay despite this being the official language of Singapore. My wife has native proficiency in Malay and both kids are pretty fluent, I think they found it a bit of a surprise. They find it amusing everyone in the area we live initially uses Mandarin to talk to them as they assume they are Mandarin speakers (my wife is ethnically Chinese) and have to be asked if they are able to speak in English or Malay.
 
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VintageFlanker

VintageFlanker

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happy-new-year-couple-with-fireworks-animated-gif.gif
 

killdozzer

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If anyone's interested, here's an opinion on foreign language skills from a MA linguistics prof. (It's still just an opinion although I arrived at it after exchanging it with lot of professionals from the field.)
There was this one recurring question among my people that asked how come we're so good in foreign languages. This got me interested, but I was never in a position to investigate, although I wanted to. Next best thing, I started gathering info on the subject. First, I was interested what other countries shared this trait, and, more importantly, which countries had a reputation of being bad at foreign languages.

You're guessing right, I was going for economic status and indirectly for school programs and school finance. But that wasn't it. Italy always had significantly more money in education but they are far worse (FAR worse) in foreign languages than we are. Italy was dubbing everything. In fact this is how Japanese cartoons taught Croatian kids to speak Italian. A very interesting cultural exchange. You couldn't see Mazinger Z or Astro Boy anywhere else on TV. Kids went crazy for them and tuned their antennae to pick up Italian TV (back then, coastal Croatia could use aerial antenna to watch programs from Italy since Italy is just across the Adriatic.) We used to think those were Italian cartoons.

It was a lucky thing that I compared Croatia with Italy because it made me think about dubbing and subtitling. Italy is traditionally a dubbing country and Croatia WAS traditionally a subtitling country (a-holes changed this sucking up to the market). But this gave me a frame I could work on. I started checking other countries for this exposure to foreign languages in the age before cable TV when most people watched just a few national channels.

And sure enough, it fits like a glove! Regardless of economic wealth or historical significance, countries that used to expose young people to foreign languages did better in FL skills. Most notably Poland did very poor!! (It was in fact Poland that used to have one single voice for all the roles in foreign films. People now day wrongly ascribe this to less developed countries like Moldavia or Romania, possibly because they just can't believe it's Poland. It was Poland. All dubbed and all using just one person to dub). I was in Warsaw, not long ago. Center of the city. Souvenir shops. Not a single word in English. You would expect it at least in these situations. (I, on the other hand, speak English, Italian, French and could find my way around German)

At one point in time, I was honestly worried and angry because I thought we're gonna lose this comparative advantage because of the septic tank otherwise known as free market. My countrymen invested heavily in the gut wrenching awful discipline of dubbing foreign kids' movies and animated films in order to attract wider audience and sell more tickets. And it's just dreadful, horrible. A shame, nothing less.

Luckily, new media and new technologies came to rescue (!!!!! and this is one of the rarest occasions when I speak positively about new media, so you all need to tune in). Output of gaming world, YouTube, movie industry, the rest of the Internet, cable TV is faaaar bigger than any national studio could ever dub. The kids, once again, are exposed (in never before imaginable quantities) to foreign languages, so no real damage was done. Kids today are even better in English than I was when I was their age.

What happened to other countries (Italy, Germany, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and also states of former Yugoslavia considering that dubbing took root)? Yes! they all improved by an amazing percentage. Kids in Italy speak English all of a sudden. And so do German kids etc. And quite well.

Listening to a foreign language coupled with instant translation below at a young age is a very fast and reliable way to learn foreign languages. You would spend hours watching cartoons trying to understand what was being said. So you would listen to voices and read bellow what it meant. Soon enough, you could understand an Italian person (as long as he was speaking about robots :D:D:D:D ) After some time, you could even put a sentence or two together.

Now imagine all the movies, cinema, YouTube, popular songs, most of Internet...
 
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killdozzer

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Part two

(for those who want to know more)

After all I said in my previous post, Croatians do excel in foreign languages even among other nations that exposed young kids to FL. This asks for a more expert explanation and that's why I wrote "for those who want to know more".

Even today, with all the aspects of Internet being in English, you could detect differences in FL skills among some nations of EU.

This, I believe, we can ascribe to the low (almost non-existent) sound signature of vocals in Croatian language. (Also, I believe this is why Croatian often sounds horrible when sang.) Modern Croatian has 5 and a half vocals. (I know, it sounds silly.) It's; a, e, i, o u, and a half tone. Those five vocals have no variants (thus weak sound signature). Most of Croatian vocals sound the same wherever you may find them in language. One rare, recognizable variant is a nasal vocal that ocures under the influence of the following nasal sonant like 'n'. So, 'a' will sound slightly different in front of 'n' (but only in front, if it comes after 'n', it stays the same). This means 'a' in 'arka' (ark) sounds exactly the same as in 'auto' (car) or 'majka' (mother), however, it sounds different in 'banka' (bank). Although if it comes after 'n', like in 'narod' (people), again, it sounds exactly the same.

Double vocals get separated so no variant occurs; 'violina' (violin) you pronounce with barely audible 'j' which allows you to keep the pronunciation of 'i' and 'o' pretty much the same. So you would say 'v+i+j+o+l+i+n+a'. ('j' we pronounce like 'y' in 'yard').

For those who really, really want to know more:
Croatian vocals pronunciation
'a' we pronounce like US speakers do in 'arm', or like in the shout of realization 'ah!' (variant is like when you catch cold and pronounce 'a')
'e' we pronounce like US speakers do in the word 'end' - all our pronunciations of 'e' are exactly the same as in 'end'
'i' we pronounce like US speakers pronounce 'e' in the word 'English' or 'irrational'
'o' we pronounce like US speakers pronounce it in the conjunction 'or' or in the brand Osh-Kosh
'u' brace yourselves, we pronounce like US speakers would pronounce 'oo' in 'wool' it's the same sound and as short, rarely is it longer like in 'cool', for example in 'rudnik' (mine as in goldmine) - just remember to read it like in 'cool', so it's like 'roodnick' (with long 'oo') and 'kuka' (hook) you read like you would 'oo' in 'wool' (or even 'ou' in 'would')

This makes it very unremarkable in acoustic variants and specific acoustic signatures.

Here's why I dragged you through this; my opinion is that my people can adapt to other sounds (and imitate them) easier because they don't really have prominent sounds of their own. That's why you can always tell a French speaker of English, but my people often sound like original. I think that once you learn to have heavy sonic impact on diftongs and triftongs (2 and 3 vocals in a row) like in French or Italian (French for example 'beau' being pronounced like 'boh', but 'tu' being pronounce like 'to' while you're whistling), you can't shake it and you always sound like a Frenchman speaking English. (or trying to use the same 'a' as in Italian word 'pasta' on the English word 'mother', with the same accent and everyone knows you're Italian)

I'm not going to go into accents. It would be too much.
 
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killdozzer

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So it's these two features; having no distinctive vocal inventory and being exposed to a lot of English in early childhood. First makes it easy to imitate the accent of English speakers and the second develops the vocabulary.
 

LTig

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So it's these two features; having no distinctive vocal inventory and being exposed to a lot of English in early childhood. First makes it easy to imitate the accent of English speakers and the second develops the vocabulary.
I agree with you. When I visited Norway the first time in 1981 I found out that many people speak decent english (better than me) and when I was invited into a family home I watched a German movie in native German language (good for me) with Norwegian subtitles. In fact all foreign language movies came with subtitles. Like you I concluded that this must be the reason for good english speaking.

Funny thing: I visited both Norway and Sweden several times in the following years where I had to speak a lot in English. When I came to England in 1988 (the first time being in a country where English is the mother tongue) people there thought I'd be a Swede because of my accent, not German.
 

Suffolkhifinut

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I am from France. But thats right France is Land of Freedom but ethnicity always affect everything. But my question is that actually what's my ethnicity now, with this situations!?? sometimes in a group and someone I find myself belonging other groups. whats your opnion about it?
Lived near the Tunisian border in Libya and was a regular visitor to Djerba in Tunisia. The Tunisians generally preferred speaking in French, Arabic was considered to be the language of the less well educated.
 

pseudoid

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I used to be just a 'floater' in the cesspool-of-humanity.:eek:
But I have finally set roots for my geomancy here in sunny SoCal.
I would challenge anyone who tries to tell me that the "grass is greener on the other side!"
Who needs grass; when salt, sand, sun, and water make for a better habitat. [IMHO]
Of course, it helps if one is able to ignore the high taxes, the homelessness, the elite, and the paparazzi! [YMMV]
 

pseudoid

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I was invited to join by Amir because of my experience with record players. March 2016
I didn't know record players were an optional accessory in Formula1 cars...;)
 

pseudoid

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For those who really, really want to know more:
Croatian vocals pronunciation
'a' we pronounce like US speakers do in 'arm', or like in the shout of realization 'ah!' (variant is like when you catch cold and pronounce 'a')
'e' we pronounce like US speakers do in the word 'end' - all our pronunciations of 'e' are exactly the same as in 'end'
'i' we pronounce like US speakers pronounce 'e' in the word 'English' or 'irrational'
'o' we pronounce like US speakers pronounce it in the conjunction 'or' or in the brand Osh-Kosh
'u' brace yourselves, we pronounce like US speakers would pronounce 'oo' in 'wool' it's the same sound and as short, rarely is it longer like in 'cool', for example in 'rudnik' (mine as in goldmine) - just remember to read it like in 'cool', so it's like 'roodnick' (with long 'oo') and 'kuka' (hook) you read like you would 'oo' in 'wool' (or even 'ou' in 'would')
Croatian is not the only 'phonetic' language. Some of the Germanic languages are the same way.
If I am not mistaken Turkish is such a language; bearing 29 letters in its alphabet.
Their great trick is that if you can cite your alphabet in that language; then you have mastered both the written and (maybe even the) spoken language.
There are very minimal of exceptions to pronounciation. It truly is a WYSIWIG language. Kids don't have to ever worry about 'i' before 'e', except in 'c' and there is no such thing as a typo unless it is rooted elsewhere than such a phonetic language.///

I can't believe I just binge-read all 28 pages of this great post... and missed dinner.
I LMFAO when I read @carewser answer "Somalia?" for the pop-quiz about "I am from the land of classical physics, chemistry and biology."
And the "Trump" answer was pretty funny too.
 

Frank Dernie

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I didn't know record players were an optional accessory in Formula1 cars...;)
I worked in noise and vibration research whilst doing motor racing part time. I designed quite a few record players before moving into F1 full time in 1976.
Funnily enough pretty well everything known about record players was known then - in as much as I have not seen anything yet that I did not know then, except marketing BS of course.

The big difference is that back then that was your main music source and everybody wanted one so designing down to a price was essential, and it is certainly only clever engineering which gives a good performance for a modest price.
Today whilst there are impecunious LP fans the big market is rich old people for whom price seems to be the only way they can judge quality, so the more expensive a manufacturer can get away with whilst being supported by the fans the higher the reputation.
 

killdozzer

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IME they make a bigger difference to pronunciation than nationality :)
At least in English and French which I am both reasonably well travelled in and familiar with.
I don't think you understood what I was saying. Also, nationality doesn't affect pronunciation, please don't ascribe that nonsense to me.
 
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killdozzer

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Croatian is not the only 'phonetic' language. Some of the Germanic languages are the same way.
If I am not mistaken Turkish is such a language; bearing 29 letters in its alphabet.
Their great trick is that if you can cite your alphabet in that language; then you have mastered both the written and (maybe even the) spoken language.
There are very minimal of exceptions to pronounciation. It truly is a WYSIWIG language. Kids don't have to ever worry about 'i' before 'e', except in 'c' and there is no such thing as a typo unless it is rooted elsewhere than such a phonetic language.///

I can't believe I just binge-read all 28 pages of this great post... and missed dinner.
I LMFAO when I read @carewser answer "Somalia?" for the pop-quiz about "I am from the land of classical physics, chemistry and biology."
And the "Trump" answer was pretty funny too.
My point wasn't that the Croatian is distinctive in this way. Only that this feature, in combination with exposure to some foreign language, greatly affects the end results in foreign language skills. Other such instances could be used to prove or disprove this, but I'm not native in those other languages.
 

Frank Dernie

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I don't think you understood what I was saying. Also, nationality doesn't affect pronunciation, please don't ascribe that nonsense to me.
You need to read a bit before blowing your top.

I was referring to accents which you wrote "I'm not going to go into accents. It would be too much."
Using spoken sound in any language as examples of phonetic pronunciation is only useful to somebody used to the accent you have in your head when making the comparison.
My point is simply that in English (I am English) and in French (I worked in France for 4 years) the pronunciation of the vowel sounds you used as examples varies massively with regional accent.
The vowel sounds of a Marseille accent is markedly different from the accent in central France, for example.
The way one pronounces "oo" in Lancashire where I was brought up is quite different from here in Oxfordshire where I live now. Edit "Oxford english" is the name given to English spoken with no accent, which is quite amusing given the variation in Oxfordshire regions, though I am familiar with what accent-less English is!

There are versions of English spoken in several other countries outside England, the most modified in spelling is the US version but the accent also varies considerably not only from English but from English regions and different regions of the USA as well as Australia, New Zealand and Canada..

I am not referring to the accents a foreigner to any language may have at all :facepalm:
 
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Mart68

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There's also the problem of local dialects.

Sadly it is dying out where I live but even as recently as twenty years ago you might be asked 'Ast cowd, owd?'

Totally impenetrable even for any native speaker of English who was not born within a 15 mile or so radius of its origin. (it translates as 'Are you cold my friend?')

Then you have the combined effect of local dialect and local accent:

My father worked in the glass industry and had the job of briefing visiting overseas engineers and de-briefing them at the end of their tour. One such engineer from Brazil was scheduled to visit factories in Lancashire and Tyneside. He spoke perfect English.

At the de-briefing he asked my father 'I had always thought everyone in England spoke English but at the factories I visited only the management spoke English. What are the languages that the shop-floor staff were speaking?'
 
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pseudoid

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Not being a native-born speaker of either English or French, I find a few observations that may be pertinent (no, not about location of homestead country):
*It has been said that American-English is a dynamic language, where current usage dictates (the ever-changing) meaning(s) of words.
*Whereas, it has also been reported that French take their language seriously enough as to be etched in stone/parchment (aka 'language police').
*I find that the dialects [?] spoken in both CA and NY (around 3,000miles apart) are quite similar although, much more accented in the EastCoast and varies quite a bit from Florida all the way up to Massachusetts (little above 1,000miles apart).
*I've also experienced that native French speakers look down upon those who learned it as an additional language; it may not be born of snobbery but even the pronunciation of the simple 2-letter word "No" can make a Parisian go 'tone-deaf' (when convenient) because of the accent of the speaker.
*I've read a few reports that since Brexit; France has suggested that the EU lingua franca (vernacular) should be changed to langue française.
YMMV but I have been exposed to such smack-downs too many times; although I've spent my first 8years in an all French boarding school.
Please don't get me wrong, I truly believe that French is a beautifully romantic language but I refuse to speak it anymore...:facepalm:
Q: Why did Latin die?
 

SIY

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No idea why, but when I'm in France speaking French, people assume from my accent that I'm German.
 
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