Do you like your native language?

[Bvenged]

Well English is the only language I speak, so yeah, I like it.

It certainly makes getting things a lot easier.


Ever tried to order a meal via charades?

You rarely get what you want.

Seriously though, English is a a very malleable language.

You can mix and match a lot of things that just aren't possible with other languages.

What Daystar said for English, plus the fact that nearly everybody on this planet can understand it, though it would be cool if I could speak my home language of Welsh.

I don't like it. Knowing I'm living in an lesser-known country where only half the population actually bothers to learn the native tongue can make it all the more interesting, like knowing you could speak a language nearly nobody else on this planet would understand, but I'd much rather learn to speak Greek or German than I would Welsh any time soon. Also, the accent is so flamboyant: It bled over from Welsh to English for those of us who speak English first.

As the great Rhod Gilbert sounds:

I know place names and how to sound words out, but I couldn't converse in Welsh at even a basic level. So no, but I do like English more.

 

[Chromatic Aberration]

Hmmm every language has its strengths somewhere - my native language being German I have to say it is sometimes needlessly complex and overly bureaucratic in its form. Hence, why I personally like English a bit more when it comes to casual conversations - I feel, its more....to the point. On the other hand, there are so many examples of just absolutely beautiful German verses that I cannot see to work in any other language. Take, for instance, the following poem.

Spoiler: Der Panther von Rainer Maria Rilke

Der Panther

Sein Blick ist vom Voruebergehn der Staebe
so mued geworden, dass er nichts mehr haelt.
Ihm ist, als ob es tausend Staebe gaebe
und hinter tausend Staeben keine Welt.

Der weiche Gang geschmeidig starker Schritte,
der sich im allerkleinsten Kreise dreht,
ist wie ein Tanz von Kraft um eine Mitte,
in der betaeubt ein grosser Wille steht.

Nur manchmal schiebt der Vorhang der Pupille
sich lautlos auf - Dann geht ein Bild hinein,
geht durch der Glieder angespannte Stille -
und hoert im Herzen auf zu sein.

If you understood it, you have to admit: it's fucking awesome and I can't really see how one could transfer this strength into any kind of translation.

 

[Toaster Hunter]

I'm fine with English. Its has a great ability to take from other languages and make it its own. Plenty of words to describe my thoughts with.

 

[James Crook]

My native language is French.
OH CHRIST ALMIGHTY. I absolutely hate it. Thank fuck I know English.

Cantonese... as much as I like how musical it is... it's annoying as fuck, especially when you get an intonation wrong. And don't bother asking about the writing...

I study Mandarin. I tried to take a look at Cantonese but eventually gave up.

 

[Zagzag]

Ever tried to order a meal via charades?

Once, (kind of), it was hilarious!

I was in Germany with some german friends of mine, some of whom spoke reasonable English. For some reason we decided to have a bet on who could go the longest without speaking any German, which ended up with us trying to order a meal in a restaurant run by an Italian who spoke no English. Suffice to say, noone got what they wanted!

Spoiler: Der Panther von Rainer Maria Rilke

Der Panther

Sein Blick ist vom Voruebergehn der Staebe
so mued geworden, dass er nichts mehr haelt.
Ihm ist, als ob es tausend Staebe gaebe
und hinter tausend Staeben keine Welt.

Der weiche Gang geschmeidig starker Schritte,
der sich im allerkleinsten Kreise dreht,
ist wie ein Tanz von Kraft um eine Mitte,
in der betaeubt ein grosser Wille steht.

Nur manchmal schiebt der Vorhang der Pupille
sich lautlos auf - Dann geht ein Bild hinein,
geht durch der Glieder angespannte Stille -
und hoert im Herzen auf zu sein.

Despite not speaking German fluently I have to agree with you. German is a great language for poetry and music, despite the stereotype over here of it being ugly and clunky.

 

[Smokej]

Hmmm every language has its strengths somewhere - my native language being German I have to say it is sometimes needlessly complex and overly bureaucratic in its form. Hence, why I personally like English a bit more when it comes to casual conversations - I feel, its more....to the point. On the other hand, there are so many examples of just absolutely beautiful German verses that I cannot see to work in any other language. Take, for instance, the following poem.

Spoiler: Der Panther von Rainer Maria Rilke

Der Panther

Sein Blick ist vom Voruebergehn der Staebe
so mued geworden, dass er nichts mehr haelt.
Ihm ist, als ob es tausend Staebe gaebe
und hinter tausend Staeben keine Welt.

Der weiche Gang geschmeidig starker Schritte,
der sich im allerkleinsten Kreise dreht,
ist wie ein Tanz von Kraft um eine Mitte,
in der betaeubt ein grosser Wille steht.

Nur manchmal schiebt der Vorhang der Pupille
sich lautlos auf - Dann geht ein Bild hinein,
geht durch der Glieder angespannte Stille -
und hoert im Herzen auf zu sein.

If you understood it, you have to admit: it's fucking awesome and I can't really see how one could transfer this strength into any kind of translation.

a lyrical masterpiece needs a true poet to understand it, like KAHN!

 

[Wintermoot]

I hate dutch I set all my electronics to English by default

 

[Chromatic Aberration]

a lyrical masterpiece needs a true poet to understand it, like KAHN!

Ach wie geil XD

Because If I had to look for someone who can properly express the depth and strength of this poem I immediately think of Olli Kahn. Not that he does a bad job at it, even, but the absurdity of that situation is rather striking.

Also for completeness:

 

[ClockworkPenguin]

Someone once told me that English and French are the only languages that lend themselves easily to puns.

And for that alone, I thank the stars I'm English. I can't imagine a life without puns.

 

[liquidsolid]

I like English. The grammer can be a pain because there are all these stupid rules that sometimes get broken. I am really into rap music and the way that English can interlock can be complex. Wordplay really works in English as well. I like to listen to it and like to speak it.

On a somewhat related note: This song was written by an Italian and is supposed to imitate the way that American English sounds to an Italian.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcUi6UEQh00

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

Well my country is technically bilingual and yes I do like Irish and English. I just wish the former was thought much better and to a higher standard in primary schools.

 

[Aksor]

What are people hating on the dutch language? Niks mis mee
I found the dutch language fantastic, but also found it fantastic that we are wise enough not to dub stuff ( I'm looking at Germany/France), or even worse talk over it telling what they are saying (poland I think does that)

 

[Someone Depressing]

No, I hate English. It has so many stupid little rules that don't make ANY sense.

And, ironically, I was the top of my primary school class in English, which was weird, because I absoloutely hated the language. Though, I guess it's easier to learn than other, actually sensible, languages.

 

[Henkie36]

Nope. My native language is also Dutch, and there isn't one particular thing it's the best at. Shoouting orders in the military is best in German, in romance it's French, in music it's Italian, but Dutch isn't really good for anything. The only thing I can say is that it provides hilarious accents when Dutch people are speaking English. On top of that, it's a very plain language, but that may have something to do with the region I live in. It's funny, because every country has dialects, but are there any coutries where you can drive through, and the dialect changes every ten minutes?

So no, I don't like Dutch. It's complex, vague, there are no rules without exceptions, it's not good for anything, and speaking it makes you sound drunk.

 

[Major_Tom]

No. We have a same word for "time" and "weather" but ten (10!) different words for a helicopter (these are NOT different types but a helicopter in general, for example there is no distinct name for a gunship).

 

[Ambient]

Not really. It's really dull. I can hardly write in Danish anymore.

 

[SecretsOfMoon]

I find my native language tends to lack the subtlety and sophistication of English, which is why these days I mostly think in English, but then again, English doesn't quite carry the weight and power of my native tongue. So as for whether I like my native language, yes it's all right.

 

[The Diabolical Biz]

English? I think it's great. Exceptionally versatile, and capable of absolute breath-taking beauty.

 

[Llil]

Finnish here, and yes, I like it a lot. For a couple of reasons.

For one, Finnish has very few exceptions to the grammatical rules. There is a lot of rules to make up for it, but it's a lot better than having few rules with a ton of exceptions and exceptions to the exceptions. So it's a very systematic language and I like that.

The spelling is phonetical, which means that a letter is pretty much always pronounced the same way, no matter where it is in a word. That makes it easy to learn to read, even if you don't understand what you're reading.

Finnish also doesn't use prepositions (or articles), but instead uses suffixes. And compound words are really common. These two things make for looong words and those are always fun. ("Sisävesiristeilylaivojen", "juoksentelisimmekohan", although the second one is stretching it a bit with the suffixes.)

And finally, Finnish is just so different from the more widely spoken languages like English and Spanish. Not necessarily that difficult, even though that's what's usually said about it, but different. (I mean, how hard can it be? Even children can learn it, after all.)