Languages and languages...... :-) Feel free to share your frustrations if you have any!

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Sunshine56		#21	[url]	[-]
Posts: 47991 09/02/08 08:34 My name: Mosken ezOP Board Owner Norway	You have nothing to apologize for, Paul. I like to understand more and to learn. As I said above, the English language is actually not so difficult because the grammar is pretty simple. I think though, that the Norwegian grammar is even more simple. The last year I have been teaching my Polish assistant Norwegian. Now I'm teaching another one also. At the same time I'm trying to learn a few words in Polish. One of my best friends is Polish, and so many people around us here now are Polish. I really think the Norwegian people should learn some of their language. When it comes to talking English or any other language, is a total different case! Dialects......... and slang -- don't get me going! (Probally Californian slang?) we used to have a member from UK that I talked to on headsets from time to time. I think you probably know her as she is very active on the other Yuku boards now. She lives in North West of UK and I could hardly understand her when she talked on the headset! It was hilarious. Now to your word "elske" is something you usually only tell your lover or spouse. Except Alice told me one day the use of more frequent in Bergen. But not here around Oslo! Talking about local slang. My Californian friend Linda called both me and my mom for "cutie" when she was here. I thought that was really funny. She said my mom was such a cutie.
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shadeaux63		#22	[url]	[-]
Posts: 3480 09/02/08 09:36 USA	Luckily, non of us have to translate anything into Inuit(some of the native people of Alaska are Inuit).They have more than 50 words that mean "snow"- one word for wet snow, another for dry, powdery snow, still another for hard packed snow, etc...I used to have an Inuit neighbor, and after talking to her about her native language, I told her it seemed to me like it would be nothing short of impossible for anyone to ever learn to speak it. She laughed and said that she often thought the same thing. Mosken, I had to laugh a bit when you said French was much harder. I took French(although briefly-only 3 months of it) in high school. The teacher was one of those who believed strongly in immersion- we weren't allowed to speak English inside the classroom. I did very well in the class, but within a few weeks of finishing it, I could barely remember any of it(and I never could get the accent down). The funny thing is, I can still remember about as much now as I could weeks after finishing- the French title of Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer and one other Christmas carol, a few numbers, and a handful of other words. BUT, if I read something in French, I can sometimes understand at least some of it,and translate it to English. Weird, huh?But even stranger is that I can do pretty much the same thing with Spanish.But if someone is speaking it, I have no clue what they're saying,except for maybe a few words her and there. Pets name: Joxer Adopt your own!
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beritso		#23	[url]	[-]
Posts: 2458 09/02/08 13:19 Fru Ugle Norway	So interesting to read about languages and different meanings of the same words. I laughed when reading about "misunderstandings" Here are some from Norwegians abroad In Norway we say "rape" for burp (a different pronunciation though) A young man was burping at the dinner table and he said a little bit ashamed : " Sorry, but I always rape after dinner" Another unlucky, young man was asked if he wanted more to eat and answered :" No thank you, I´m fed up" - It was the first day with his girlfriend´s relatives and may be the last ??!! In Norwegian we say "spiker" for nails and "piker" for girls. An Angloindian man went to the hardware store and ordered a box with PIKER He got his nails at last. But he was very ashamed when he came home to his Norwegian wife. I knew the man so this story is surely true!! I have told my daughter to be very carefull and not call someone funny in NY Berit S.
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Sunshine56		#24	[url]	[-]
Posts: 47991 09/02/08 18:17 My name: Mosken ezOP Board Owner Norway	I have told my daughter to be very carefull and not call someone funny in NY Three months to learn French, Sherry?? In my opinion you need several years to learn a language. Unless you do it full time! Although I mean in my experience -- but that is also my opinion. Your jokes are funny, Berit. I have also heard about the Norwegian telling we use pigs to drive the car in winter. Language can be very funny -- I mean fun? LOL
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Mairzii		#25	[url]	[-]
Posts: 1011 09/02/08 22:14 USA	My Norwegian father-in-law comes to visit us every year for about a month. His English is ... okay. The one that never ceases to amuse me, though, is the word he uses to refer to the refrigerator. In the U.S., we usually shorten the word to "fridge." He says it ... "frig" ... which, as some of you Americans may know, is often used as a euphemism for another 4-letter word beginning with "f" .... (It is so hard for me to keep from laughing when he says he's just going to put the rest of his sub sandwich in the "frig" for later. )
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Pintac		#26	[url]	[-]
Posts: 33 09/02/08 22:20	For those of you who don't know, I'm Mairzii's husband, imported from Norway. There are still a few things that trip me up occasionally even though I've lived in the US for over 10 years now! ;) One that I still mess up is when you go to the airport ... in Norway you'd say "jeg var på flyplassen," directly translating to "I was on the airport." Mairzii has to correct me every now and then and remind me that unless I'm standing on the roof of the airport, or maybe on the tarmac ... it's at the airport. Funny little thing, though ... Norwegians have (in the past, anyway) a tendency to translate and dub English/American movies a lot, even translating the movie titles. Given this fact, I can inform you that the Norwegian word for "speed" is "fart." Remember the movie with Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock? Best ... poster ... ever.
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Pintac		#27	[url]	[-]
Posts: 33 09/02/08 23:04	I did a couple of searches, and found some funny ones. I'll show the original English text from the movie, then the Norwegian translation, and then tell you what they said in Norwegian. Movie: Independence Day EN: "There's nothing left" NO: "Det er ingenting til venstre" Back to EN: "There is nothing to the left" Movie: Apollo 13 EN: "This is Houston, we are GO for launch" NO: "Dette er Houston, vi går til lunch" Back to EN: "This is Houston, we are going to lunch." Show: Melrose Place EN: "Don't get embarrassed if your **** gets hard" NO: "Ikke vær flau om du digger gitar" Back to EN: "Don't be embarrassed if you dig guitar" Show: Friends EN: "Ok, my bad" NO: "Greit jeg sover der" Back to EN: "Ok, I'll sleep there" Show: The Simpsons EN: "The cat needs medication" NO: "Katten må meditere" Back to EN: "The cat has to meditate" Movie: Star Wars EN: "Luke, take my light saber" NO: "Luke, ta mitt lette sverd" Back to EN: "Luke, take my light [weight] sword" Movie: Pulp Fiction EN: "It's not a bike, it's a chopper" NO: "Det er ikke en sykkel, det er et helikopter" Back to EN: "It's not a bike, it's a helicopter" Movie: Strip Tease EN: "Lap dance" NO: "Skrevdans" Back to EN: "Crotch dance" Show/Movie: unknown EN: "We are going to run a missile drill" NO: "Vi skal bore et raketthull" Back to EN: "We are going to drill a rocket hole" Show/Movie: unknown EN: "One day you will be invincible" NO: "En dag blir du usynlig" Back to EN: "One day you will be invisible"
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Mairzii		#28	[url]	[-]
Posts: 1011 09/02/08 23:18 USA
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Sunshine56		#29	[url]	[-]
Posts: 47991 09/03/08 07:43 My name: Mosken ezOP Board Owner Norway	Prepositions are very difficult in general. I struggled to teach the Norwegian prepositions to my Polish assistants. There are no rules for when to use the different prepositions in the Norwegian language. It is probably the same for the English-language. Pintac is imported from Norway to the US -- that is funny. Well, I love your love story! :-) Funny little thing, though ... Norwegians have (in the past, anyway) a tendency to translate and dub English/American movies a lot, even translating the movie titles. Given this fact, I can inform you that the Norwegian word for "speed" is "fart." Remember the movie with Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock? Best ... poster ... ever. Just a small correction: we don't dub any movies in Norway. We only text translate at the bottom of the screen. That way we learn much more English than other nations like Germany and France or Poland for that matter. When I watch a DVD, I always choose the English text instead of the Norwegian.
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Kinga27		#30	[url]	[-]
Administrator Posts: 3805 09/03/08 20:09 Lisbeth Norway Our "World Unite" Member	English is cleaver because it is easy to learn good enough to communicate with so many people around the world for the Norwegians. It is many words who means different things in different parts of the world but it is so well known that I decide to believe that it is no big deal. When you English speaking/writing people is so patient whit our simple translations we keep on learning more day by day Tiddelidi Kinga27
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Mairzii		#31	[url]	[-]
Posts: 1011 09/03/08 22:33 USA	Well, you don't really have to know all the little nuances of another language to be able to communicate effectively in it. I can remember when I was taking Spanish lessons in junior high school. Every day when I would arrive home, my dad would ask me, "Did you learn how to ask, 'Where's the bathroom?' yet?" I guess he knew what was truly important, huh? (I eventually asked my teacher for that phrase, by the way, just so that I could tell him the answer! )
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shadeaux63		#32	[url]	[-]
Posts: 3480 09/04/08 04:23 USA	Mosken, when I took French, it was an elective. And since the art class I wanted to take was full, they stuck me in French. So once I served my three month sentence in that class(which I DID end up enjoying), it was over. I tried to take French the following year, because I decided I really DID want to learn conversational French, it was already full, so I got stuck with first aid.Confusing, I know- but, that's the way the educational system was where I grew up. Pets name: Joxer Adopt your own!
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