Esperahol

The thing that got me about Hindi is that I am used to -o being masculine and -a being feminine with -i following on either side of gender depending on circumstance. But with Hindi -a was masculine and -i was generally always feminine and neither -e nor -o really came into it. But perhaps I should get back into the practice of studying Hindi... if nothing else I have a forum for practice.

Not too surprising considering they not only look the same, but relate to the same sort of meaning. That said: The difference between practice and practise relates to differences between American and British spelling/usage. In American English you will only use the spelling practice whether speaking of noun or verb. In British English you will use the spelling practice for the noun and the spelling practise for the verb. I can see why this is confusing. In terms of council versus counsel it's about the same. A council is a group of people meeting to discuss policy or whatever i.e. it is a noun. To counsel is to provide advice i.e. it is a verb. The difference here of course is that this convention works in both America and British English.

I would have to say so - I'm actually pretty bad for it myself. I only need a few minutes with someone who happens to have an accent in order to catch it myself. Worse there are some accents so engrained in me that I've actually taken to writing the way I would speak it. It's rather weird actually... funny, but weird.

Reminds me of the Monty Python skit this thread does: You see this parrot... well he um.... He's passed on. He has ceased to be. He's expired and gone to meet his maker. He's a stiff. He rests in peace. He'd be pushing up daisies. He's off the twig. He's kicked the bucket. He's shuffled off his mortal coil. Run down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. To add a bit further - he's gone and keeled over, departed this life, entered upon an eternal sabbath of rest, was summoned to appear before his judge, has assumed room temperature, kicked off, died with his boots on, bit the big one, bought the farm, cashed in his chips, fell off his perch, gave up the ghost, went to the big cage in the sky, pegged out, was promoted to glory, decided on a dirt nap, put on his pine overcoat and caught the last train to glory. And if that isn't enough ways to say someone has gone off this mortal stage I haven't anything more then a shrug for you.

To strike a chord is to touch upon something significant to another as in speaking of love to one who has lost it. To blow your own trumpet is to brag about yourself and it is not a flattering epithet. To hit the right note is to successfully select the correct tone of voice or action. To set the night to music is... well actually I've never heard of this one. Hmm.

I don't have much of a preference really - if the movie has subtitles available then I may watch it that way first, but I like the dubs. In fact when it comes to anime I will only generally use dubs because the Japanese version tends to irk me. Girls tend to come off as whiny, guys are narmtastic, and if the show is about kids the voices are always... weird. I mean I thought Gaara was 12 not 36, and someone needs to kill Sakura because that voice... yeesh. That said when learning the language subs are better, but if you just want to enjoy it then dubs are great.

Well actually Latin is quite useful - not least because science and medicine both use it in their terminology. Knowing Latin give context and therefore aids quite a bit in learning and more importantly retaining the meaning of say the name for a particular bacteria. Furthermore translations are seldom entirely correct. As the (horribly sexist) saying goes: "Translations are like women - the pretty ones aren't faithful and the faithful ones aren't pretty." Many, many, many misunderstandings of older works exist because people err on the side of pretty verse on the side of faithful. Also "outdated" philosophy? Really? Alright.

It depends really on the context as well as the writer - I myself am prone to using terms like whereforth and fortnight and persnickety and brouhaha - however these words aren't exactly included in common usage. More likely is my usage of obsolete definitions as relates to a word as in "Sport" being used to describe an abnormal genetic presentation or "Nice" being used to describe someone as simple-minded. It's awful of course, because I get accused of being a hipster... and me without a boss mustache.

Tone deaf - related to a person who is apparently incapable of understanding the situation i.e. "When it comes to women Mark is completely tone deaf." Swan song - related to the end of something or someone i.e. "So Paul just gave his swan song, he'll never work in this town again." Clear as a bell - something that is easy to understand i.e. "You're coming through clear as a bell" And that's all I've got off the top of my head.

There is something strange about the idea that learning for it's own worth is somehow odd. I personally enjoy the idea of learning a language just because it interests me - and Gaelic is one of my top picks for interesting languages. Maybe we can practice it some time or just stare in horror at Finnegan's Wake... it's about the same thing really.

There is a stereotype that Southern people have a drawl (a heavy drawl) and are apparently retarded. There is a stereotype that anyone with a Jersey Accent must be either Jewish, Italian, and/or from a Mob family. There is also the stereotype that every British person must speak the Queen's English or Cockney because that's what it's like in movies.

I'm always up to practice English with anyone who needs it. Just drop me a PM, I'm generally always online anyway so I should be here sooner rather than later.

It depends - for the lower level ones like Textbroker it's actually rather simple in nature. For the more intensive ones like The Content Authority it's actually seriously difficult for anyone to get in the door. That said there are many, many sites out there if you're looking to give it a try. In fact, if you'd like you can P.M. for a list of sites that I've had experience with. I'm trying not to hijack the thread here.

I am rather poor at the whole "nasal" quality thing - I just can't get my pronunciation to come out right and it erks me. Apparently I am just much, much better at Spanish and Latin and even Japanese (although I suck at putting the right emphasis on all my vowels).

While it isn't as friendly as Russian sometimes is I wouldn't call German aggressive or even rather rough. In my experience it is a strong language, but it is also a lovely language... like metal work. Metal is not soft, but it can be fine and bent into something lovely.