Language Learners

[Florestan]

Don't forget : Dutch =Flemish!

Belgian Dutch ( Belgisch-Nederlands (help·info)), the national variety of the Dutch language as spoken in Belgium,[2][3][4] be it standard (as used in schools, government and the media)[5] or informal (as used in daily speech, "tussentaal ");[6] Nevertheless, the use of Flemish to refer to the official language in Flanders is erroneous. The only official language in Flanders is Dutch.
East Flemish, West Flemish and French Flemish are related southwestern dialects of Dutch.[7]

Check Wiki for more details:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flemish

Peter- who speaks Dutch, French, English, some German ( writing is difficult).

During my one-year stay in The Netherlands, after an intensive Dutch course I noticed that, while reading a newspaper posed no problem to me, understanding the spoken language was much more difficult --- but I understood the most while watching Belgian TV stations. It seems to me that the Flemish pronunciation is more stressed and clear than its Dutch proper counterpart.

IMO Dutch is a mixt between bad spoken and written English and German. 

[greg]

During my one-year stay in The Netherlands, after an intensive Dutch course I noticed that, while reading a newspaper posed no problem to me, understanding the spoken language was much more difficult --- but I understood the most while watching Belgian TV stations. It seems to me that the Flemish pronunciation is more stressed and clear than its Dutch proper counterpart.

IMO Dutch is a mixt between bad spoken and written English and German. 

lol, I can see what you mean. Understanding spoken language is almost always harder than written language. Sometimes I think I need subtitles for this guy that works with me who has a strong Jamaican accent.

[karlhenning]

Tuning one's ear to the cadence of the foreign language is the greatest challenge.

[Superhorn]

   The Chuvash language,spoken in the Volga region of Russia,is the most divergent Turkic language of all.
  It's so different as to be scarcely recognizable.
  I've seen examples of it,and here and there I could recognize a few words,but some one from Turkey or Azerbaijan would find it as incomprehensible as an English speaker would find Icelandic.
   The Chuvash are Chrsitians and are indistinguishable in appearance from Russians and Finnic people who live next to them like the Mari and Mordvins.

[greg]

Here's Chuvash:
http://www.youtube.com/v/_hFvTXk1KRY

As the comment says, the language sounds like Russian, even though it's supposed to sound like Hungarian.

[Christo]

IMO Dutch is a mixt between bad spoken and written English and German. 

Almost correct. Both are indeed well-known dialects in relation to the standard Dutch - which itself, in its turn, relates as a dialect to my native Low Saxon

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

my native Low Saxon

Low Saxon was once a language of prestige, being the lingua franca of the Hanseatic League.

[Christo]

Low Saxon was once a language of prestige, being the lingua franca of the Hanseatic League.

It was, and we are very much aware of it. Also: a perfect historical explanation for my otherwise unforgivable stubborness

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Are there any notable differences between Low Saxon as spoken in the Netherlands, and Low German (Platt)? Or is it all really the same language?

[Florestan]

Almost correct. Both are indeed well-known dialects in relation to the standard Dutch - which itself, in its turn, relates as a dialect to my native Low Saxon

This remembers me a friend who, after emmigrating in Montreal, Canada, told me that the French spoken there was horrendous, but "they are very proud of their peasantly vernacular". 

Honestly, and meaning no offense, before going to Holland I used to consider German a harsh language but after leaving Holland, German sounded like music to my ears. 

[Christo]

Are there any notable differences between Low Saxon as spoken in the Netherlands, and Low German (Platt)? Or is it all really the same language?

There is no standard Low Saxon. Nowadays, it's no more than a large collection of related dialects, spoken especially in Northern Germany (over ten million). In the East and North of the Netherlands, there are about two million speakers of a handful of dialects that might differ so much that the speakers hardly recognize each other as belonging to the same Low Saxon at all. E.g. a northern variant, Gronings, is basically a Low Saxon superstructure on a Frisian substructure - making it hardly recognizable as Low Saxon at all.

But for me, they are all related and many features of `my' Low Saxon are clearly discernible all across nothern Germany and along the Baltics - and of course in the inscriptions on buildings stemming from Hanseatic times in cities like Tallinn, Riga,  Kaunas, Klaipeda (Memel), Gdansk, Gotenburg, Turku, etc.

[Christo]

Honestly, and meaning no offense, before going to Holland I used to consider German a harsh language but after leaving Holland, German sounded like music to my ears. 

My Romanian visitors (students from Brașov) last night, did not dare to suggest anything of that kind, not even after having consumed my last bottles of Romanian wine (And yes, we played Romanian music too - but only folk music). 

[Florestan]

My Romanian visitors (students from Brașov) last night, did not dare to suggest anything of that kind, not even after having consumed my last bottles of Romanian wine

Why of course! It would have been the top of rudeness from them to drink your wine while making fun of your language! 

For my ears the most "harsh" feature of Dutch is the hard glottal h. 

(runs away)

[Christo]

For my ears the most "harsh" feature of Dutch is the hard glottal h.    (runs away)

Just try something like: `Achtentachtig allemachtig prachtige grachten' (88 extremely beautiful canals) in Amsterdam - and you'll be cured, sheer poetry ...

[Brian]

While in Morocco this week, I had a surreal "wow" moment when I realized that, purely in terms of sound-world, Arabic and German have a lot in common. In fact, if it weren't for the insh'allahs and alhamdulillahs, I would have happily suspended myself in a state of manufactured ignorance and soaked in the possibility that everybody was actually speaking German.

[greg]

While in Morocco this week, I had a surreal "wow" moment when I realized that, purely in terms of sound-world, Arabic and German have a lot in common. In fact, if it weren't for the insh'allahs and alhamdulillahs, I would have happily suspended myself in a state of manufactured ignorance and soaked in the possibility that everybody was actually speaking German.

Interesting.
Though... I wonder how the sound of Arabic from, say, Iraq, would fit into this... 

[Florestan]

Just try something like: `Achtentachtig allemachtig prachtige grachten'

Graag gedaan!

In Romanian phonetical orthography transliteration, the expression above reads:

Ahtăntahtăh alemahtăh prahtăhe hrahtăn. (Looks like a line from Wulfila's Gothic Bible, ain't it?  )

Now, for balance, try pronouncing : "Şase saşi cu şase saci"!

Hint: "Ş" is like "sch" in German, "şi" in this context is like "sj" in Dutch (I mean, like German "sch" followed by a (very) short "i"), "ci" in this context is like German "tsch" followed by a (very) short "i", "s" everywhere is like German "ss" and "cu" is exactly like Dutch "koe"...

After you pronounced it correctly, guess its meaning.  . If you're right, I'll replace ad libitum two bottles of your gone Romanian wines  (provided, of course, you did not seek the help of your Romanian acquaintances  ).

Bonus: guess what "dop" means in Romanian. 

and you'll be cured, sheer poetry ...

You gotta be kidding.

Here's what poetry sounds like:

Un vultur sta pe pisc
Cu un pix şi-un plic in plisc.

Go figure the pronunciation and the meaning. 

[greg]

Inuit:

http://www.youtube.com/v/aCA0YsIS3yY

What's interesting is- listen closely- how pronounced the pauses are in their speech. It sounds like a doubled consonant that you'd find used commonly in Finnish or Japanese (like the "ck" in bookcase), but they have a very emphatic pause, like they're almost holding their breath for a half a second each time.

[Florestan]

BTW, what languages (other than the native one) do you speak / read, gentlemen?

[karlhenning]

I have fair reading knowledge of French and Italian;  with a week's practice, I could rehabilitate conversational speech.

I do speak and read Russian; no surprise, as those nearest and dearest to me are native Russian speakers.