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DiesIrae

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Posts posted by DiesIrae

  1. In Filipino/Tagalog:

    1. Cat - miyaw-miyaw (meow-meow)

    2. Dog - aw-aw

    3. Snake - sssss

    4. Goat - meee

    5. Chicken - kokorokok

    6. Duck - kwak-kwak

    :)

    Heh, I thought it can alternately be NGIYAW for cats, just to mess it up for people who can't pronounce the NG sound. The goat sounds more like mehh, you just have to lengthen the pronunciation. At first I thought you meant it sounded like me but then I remembered our E is short.

  2. I find it hilarious and am actually planning to learn about this just so I can use it on a roleplaying game I play as a way of insulting someone without being direct. Thanks for the link. Although I don't think this type of thing is limited to the British. I can understand the invite for dinner because in the Philippines, we usually say that to people who would drop by and we're not really expecting them to eat with us, we just want to be polite, which can be also confusing to foreigners.

  3. In the Philippines, English is generally used in teaching Math and Science. I think it's because we do not have or most of us are not familiar with the Filipino translations of mathematical and scientific terms. Much more if you're studying in a private school because almost all subjects are taught in English. Most of our textbooks are also written in English.

    I studied in the University of the Philippines and there were attempts to use the native tongue in teaching the sciences and mathematics and I believe those are the classes that people avoided. Fortunately, I didn't get to take any of those because some subjects are hard enough as it is and then you are bombarded by terms you have to translate into English in your head. It's just a mess. Not to be dismissive of my language but if my country wanted to use those terms, we should've started earlier in our education, not when we're in college and are more used to the English terms.

  4. Not having English as my first language, the historical significance of idioms actually help me in remembering idioms. It places a context for which the idiom makes sense, which would sometimes (or most of the time?) is lacking given my language background. It would also help me explain these to my friends who would usually just stare at me blankly when I use one of those.

  5. I like the saying "A dime a dozen" because it is one of the idioms that can actually be deciphered if you think about it! If I say "Oh, that guitar is a dime a dozen" then I'm saying it only costs a dime for a dozen of those guitars--implying that they are cheap or average!

    I know what that means from reading English books, but it's kind of hard to think about for me because we don't really use dimes here.

    I guess related to that is nickel-and-dime which I heard means involving a small amount of money. We also don't really use nickels and it's hard to think of it in a local setting. I just think of America when those expressions are being said.

  6. This thread's been pretty informative. I remember I took the TOEFL way back, when I was around 16 years old, I think? I don't remember much about it, just that it was pretty easy. It basically just tests your understanding of English. I wonder if I have to take any new tests before I move to the US. I used to work in a call center that answered to DirecTV customers, maybe that counts as something.

  7. English was taught to us since we first start learning in school. It's hard to really think of it as a second language when it's almost everywhere. Not all Filipinos would be good at it although if you have the right resources (libraries, books inherited from relatives xD), you can naturally get better at it.

    As for another language we're not really required to learn, my tuition fee was very cheap, I just took introductory French. It was fun especially when I enrolled in it with a friend.

  8. If Americans are arrogant, linguistically speaking, so are other people of different nationalities. It can be of varying degrees, but even in the Philippines, people can make fun of others who tend to speak Tagalog in a visayan kind of way.

    Personally, there are arrogant Americans who I have talked to in customer service but I think it's more of their personality than their language. I've learned not to really judge them back because every country will have their idiots, it's not an isolated thing.

  9. Filipinos tend to learn English quite easily although our pronunciations can leave a lot to be desired. Fortunately, songs help me tame my tongue so my pronunciation is a lot better now. I've listened to French, Korean, and Japanese music and all of those sort of train my tongue into the flow of the spoken language.

  10. It's good enough for what it is, a quick way to check on what foreign words/phrases mean. I don't know about paid AI language translation but I'm guessing they aren't perfect either. It's more of the technology not being complex enough to simulate all the different structures/grammar of how languages are. It's also good for giggling at some fail translations but it's okay, at least you can get the gist of what other people are saying.

  11. All books, rawr! There's lots of books in English in the Philippines. Many of our own writings are in English too. As for a favourite author, I like Stephen King but I can also pick up classic writings like Shakespeare, Charlotte Bronte, Fyodor Dostoyevsky (in English, of course!) and Edgar Allan Poe. I love how verbose those can be and it helps me build up my vocabulary.

  12. I'm open to emails or IMs although I'm not around much. I don't know people who want to learn Tagalog though. To be honest, I think my English vocabulary is much better than my native language just because we speak only the most common words in Tagalog and then use English for the rest. It also doesn't help that most of our medium of instruction here are in English. I honestly can't imagine learning the sciences and mathematics in Tagalog.

  13. I had a few subjects one semester in college and I had a friend who wanted to study it. I was thinking, why not? It was fun learning with someone, although the class itself wasn't good. My French professor was mostly absent and late.

    A month or two ago, while I was checking more obscure films, I watched Eva Green on Cracks and I was just fascinated by her. She sounds so cool and then I learned she is French and watched The Dreamers and I fell in love with the language again!

    I'm not going to take any classes this time, I'll try to learn it by myself using my Android phone or my PC. It might be challenging but I am hoping to fly to France one day. :)

  14. Hello, all! I go by the username DiesIrae! It's from a latin hymn I think I've heard from a game. It means Day of Wrath and it's kind of cool!

    I took introductory French in college but that was a long time ago and I hope to pick it up again. I like watching foreign language films with subtitles not only to know how other people sound like, but also because other languages sound cool!

    I hope we can help each other learn more.

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