Kotro

That's awesome - I really didn't notice the doubles the first time reading it. Amazing the stuff your brain can filter, reminds me of those "odrer of lterets dno't matetr" kind of exercises.

Acrescento também os seguintes filmes à lista:

Tropa de Elite 2 (Brasil) - melhor que o primeiro na minha opinião.

Cidade de Deus (Brasil) - um dos melhores filmes brasileiros. Mas confesso que preciso de legendas para o ver.

Dot.Com (Portugal) - uma boa comédia, fácil de ver e entender.

Mistérios de Lisboa (Portugal) - um dos melhores filmes portugueses de sempre. Mas são 4h30m de duração.

I'm very much into gaming, more boargaming than videogaming these days, and often felt this might be a fun way to grasp some concepts and vocabulary in other languages. I especially remember learning quite a lot of English vocabulary from videogames during my childhood. These days I find I'm picking some German from boardgames!

Anyway, these are more a case of learning by inevitable contact with the language, a positive side-effect. But there are severall games out there, especially boardgames, whose main game working mechanic is language. Scrabble is by far the most well known, but it's not the only one and, in my opinion, certainly not the best. Games like Apples to Apples, Say Anything!, Dixit!, Once Upon a Time, Unspeakable Words, and even Cards Against Humanity are great to learn new vocabulary, practice phrase construction, and obvioulsly speaking, since they all involve social interaction. Because most of them are only available in English, non-English speakers really develop their language skills playing these games (something I've witnessed in my gaming group).

Do you have any experience with learning through gaming? Do you think there is any validity in this method, or does the fun much outweigh, even overshadow the learning bit?

I don't know how to answer this. I've always felt "sexyness" (whatever that might be) lies more in the tone of voice used than the language (the same way as a calm, soothing voice does wonders for babies even if you're just reading out sports results). If the tone is right, any language will sound sexy.

When it comes to my native language, I actually grew up in a region famous for not having a specific accent, or being the one closer associated with "standard Portuguese pronounciation", whatever that may be.

When it comes to English, I really don't carry anything from Portuguese. Hearing me speak English you wouldn't be able to guess my origin from the accent. However, my natural English accent is quite non-descript, somewhat of a mix between British English and maybe New England.

I see that the inevitable "saudade" is there as well. Personally I think that words like "nostalgia" and "longing" pretty much cover its meaning, but some people still find those words don't quite translate the full concept.

For an untranslatable Portuguese word I much prefer "desenrascanço" (literally disentanglement): it means to get out of a tough situation using cunning and little means. Sort of like "pulling a MacGyver". Legend has it Dutch ships used to have a couple of Portuguese sailors whose job was to do nothing at all until something went awry, during which case they were supposed to come up with a solution on the spot.

I think that estimate might be a bit on the low side - the Oxford English Dictionary has over 291.500 entries. One of the reference dictionaries of the Portuguese language has over 442.000. So I'm guessing in these and other languages the numbers must be much higher than the one you found.

Silliest thing I remember doing in order to learn a language was German Christmases. During High School, German teachers would organise small Christmas school parties, where they had everyone singing german Christmas songs - to this day if I hear one damned Oh Tannebaum I grind my teeth in anguish. The worse part was the food. There were all kinds of German Christmas sweets we usually didn't get in Portugal at the time, but if we wanted any, we had to ask for them in German, and maybe make some small talk in between. Judging from my level of German these days, you can guess I went hungry during those events.

I'd say it's more of a convenience than an attractive trait. It's good to have multilingual companions for useful purposes, but it's really not that high on the desirability scale. Plus some can be quite pedantic about it, which is a real turn-off for me.

Around here we usually just take their phones before any test is given out. During classes students are expected to keep them silent or turned off, and if they use them in any way, teachers can just take them away. If students refuse to turn them in, they're expelled from class, and usually some disciplinary action is taken.

We went into the living room. I pointed to the couch.

"Do take a seat, Mr. Johns. I was about to make some tea. Will you have some?"

Yeah, there are quite a few between English and Portuguese. Some are just mild differences, especially if the words share the same latin root. Others are more of a coincidence and the meanings are totaly different.

I had already mentioned this one on another topic:

There is one English sounding word that I have seen causing some minor confusion among English speakers and Portuguese speakers, which is the word "puxe". The reason it's so confusing is because it's part of the combination "push/pull" found on many doors throughout the world. Portuguese uses "empurre" for "push", and "puxe" (which sounds exactly like "push") for "pull". You often see English speakers in Portugal pushing doors they're suposed to pull, and Portuguese speakers pulling doors they're supposed to push.

Some other examples coming to mind:

EN: Preservative (food chemical)/PT: Preservativo (condom)

EN: Costume (party clothing item)/PT: Costume (habit)

EN: Fabric (cloth)/PT: Fábrica (factory)

EN: Legend (story)/PT: Legenda (subtitle, annotation)

EN: Injury (wound)/PT: Injúria (insult)

EN: Data (information)/PT: Data (a certain day of the week/month)

EN: Enroll (register, join)/PT: Enrolar (curl-up, wind-up)

I think James Joyce and Gertrude Stein killed the notion of proper grammar being mandatory in fiction a long time ago. Not that it's been made better that way, but there are interesting breaks from the rules.

Since college I use the Merriam-Webster Dictionary in software format or online. My go-to printed dictionary is a battered old Collins English Dictionary from the early 90's, I think.

In my heart, I do believe it all comes down to the individual. I don't think men and women are as equal as recent years have tried to convince us, but the differences when it comes to the brain aren't that radical. However, the only time I could actually test the learning ability of a man and a woman was when I had to tutor an American couple in Portuguese. Both didn't know the language when I met them, by the end of the year, the man still couldn't keep up a conversation while his wife could without problem. They did everything together, so it's not like one of them had more time to learn and practice than the other. So there is that, but I certainly wouldn't make a generalization out of it.

I haven't the faintest idea of what I regularly dream about, and even less of the languages used. I don't think my brain really works like that, most dreams I have are of non-descript people and I'm not even sure if talking is involved at all.

I took the picture. It was an old black and white of a girl smiling at the camera. Didn't look like anyone I could have known. Outside the wind was rising, the picture flickering in my hand.

I often find people don't know the meaning of "irony", when they go about spurting things like "it's so ironic". I got a lot of that this last weekend regarding Paul Walker's death: "Oh, he had those Fast & Furious movies and died in a car crash because of speed, how ironic". No, it's not. Ironic would be if he was run-over by an old lady driving 10 mph.

Funny, the most popular Pulp Fiction quote I hear is "DOES HE LOOK LIKE A B****". I guess it depends on who you hang around 

"Why so serious?" is a famous quote from a more recent film (Dark Knight). I hear that one quite a lot.

Ahah, looks like everyone has his own version of the most quoted line in Pulp Fiction. Around here we get a lot of "Say [insert word] one more time, motherf#<%&r, I dare you - I double dare you!"

Heeeeeeeeeere's Johnny!

Yeah, there's a few of those going around. Some of them have even reached the higher ranks of politic - I'm pretty sure the infamous Francis Urquhart quote "you may well think that, I couldn't possibly comment" has been uttered in Parliament.

I couldn't possible be bothered to do so, though I can see the novelty interest of it and kind of appreciate the effort some people have made to create a usable language, not just a collection of word substitutes. It's quite fun and really adds atmosphere to a work of fiction, but I'll have it translated for me, thank you very much.

Thank you for the suggestions, Meera. I notice you are not an Arabic native, but are learning the language as well. How's that working out? How long have you been doing so?

I assume you mean learning a language by option, that is, outside of the school curriculum. There are a couple good reasons to do so, both equally valid. The first one is language as a professional skill - learning the language of a foreign workplace, or a source language for translation, perhaps even a dead language for academic purposes. The second is as a hobby, to complement some interest you have in a specific culture or travel destination. My language learning has so far fallen into the first category, but I have many friends who decided to learn specific languages for the second reason.

Same here, I use English a lot when comunicating via the internet or even when doing some work. Never wrote any fiction in English, but I'm considering doing so eventually, if I can get the right mindset.

It shouldn't be considered an insult not to try and perfect an accent, as for some people it might be physically impossible to due so, because they haven't exercised specific muscles in the mouth. Forcing an accent is never a good option, as well, as some people might indeed think you are mocking them. I believe practice makes perfect, so if someone speaks naturally for some time, their accent will develop in time and become closer to the language used in his linguistic community.