andre-nunes

I use correct grammar when texting. When I was a teenager I would write all sorts of shortcuts and leet speak but I've grown past that.  :wacky:

I like straight to the point communication... that's why women are so hard on me hahaha

Body language is very important to how others perceive you. I didn't know it's effects until recently after watching a TED talk about it:

I'm trying to improve my body language so I appear more confident to others, which in turn will make me more confident

I think it depends on the definition of language... are they able to communicate with each other? I think so... dogs are very smart and are able to relate human sounds to actions. Maybe they have an innate language to speak to each other, do you think dogs have different accents?  :grin:

I believe that the wrong way to learn Spanish is basically not including any of the following: reading, writing, listening, and speaking.

These four are the important things needed when learning a language. If you don't have any of them, you are headed in the wrong direction.

Indeed this applies to any language learning, not only to Spanish. You need to learn and practice every aspect of the language to truly master it

I would assume English is at the top but does Chinese top English? I never really looked into it and as I'm typing this I feel like I am going to have to check with Google now. Oh, learning you never cease.

It's hard to tell but if we are talking about native speakers, it's obvious that Chinese has the most native speakers compared to any other language... China's a huge country!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers

It's helpful when you are at a pinch to find a certain word translation that you can't remember at that moment.  It's been improved a lot in the last years and I think that it translates texts rather well for a computer program

Welcome and enjoy the forum! Feel free to practice your French on the appropriate sub-forum.

Bonne Anné!  :grin:

Szczęśliwego Nowego Roku

Cześć Eboran Fajnie spotkać na forum jakiegoś innego Polaka (czy może Polkę?)  :wacky: Mam nadzieję że Ci się tu spodoba i nie znikniesz po tym jednym poście. Jak już się zdecydujesz na jakiś konkretny język i do niego przysiądziesz to nie będzie aż tak strasznie trudno... Najgorzej jest zacząć

:grin:

Google translate for the rescue:

"Happy New Year

Hi Eboran Cool to meet some other forum Pole (or maybe Polka?): Wacky: I hope you enjoy the site and do not disappear after this one post. As you decide on a particular language and come sit him it will not be so terribly difficult ... The worst thing is to start;)"

I live in a multiracial country that consists of three major ethnics Malay, Chinese, and Indian with smaller groups like English, American, Vietnamese, Thai, and etc. So our country speaks more than a dozen languages with different accents.

How do you know what language to speak in different situations? Like if you go shopping out of town? Is it by trial and error? You try speaking different languages until you get answered?

That's really weird for me...

Really interesting thread!

When I saw the title of the thread I was gonna talk about "saudade" but I see it's been mentioned already... I don't think that "nostalgia" truly translates that feeling but it gives an idea I guess... That's our "fado" or destiny as you can say in English

I live in London, England. And here we speak...English, lol. but there's a difference is the 'quality' of English. They do teach French in Secondary school, it's compulsory for the first 3 years of secondary school. But, I'm originally from Portugal. So in Portugal there is Portuguese and Mirandese. I can only speak Portuguese, writing it is hard!

You should practice your writing too, you could be the next Camões or Fernando Pessoa! It's such a beautiful language

I don't know of any other cultures that made an orthographic agreement.  Maybe only in Brazil and Portugal has this type of pact become necessary. Most other places have a formal means of speaking and writing the native language. The only variation is with slang or through dialect.

It's not only between Brazil and Portugal, it was agreed by every PALOP(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese-speaking_African_countries) as well. It's sad that the people, those who use the language the most were not consulted about this and that this standard was entirely done by Academics.

Here's more info about the Agreement: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_Language_Orthographic_Agreement_of_1990

I'm more of a listener myself, but lately I've been trying to improve communication skills, I used to think that communicating with others was boring and lame but now I know that it is an important part of our well being as a person.

As a Portuguese I think the Brazilian variant might be easier to learn but I don't think this distinction matter much because you'll be able to communicate with either variant, they are the same language, just some different vocabulary which can be easily explained with words common to both variants.

Actually the sound of Portuguese from Brazil is rather different from the sound of the Portuguese from Portugal, the Brazilan one seems a more sang music, it's more melodic.

But you're right, Brazil has a huge market and it's already on the top economies in the world I think, but it can grow even more.

People usually say that European Portuguese is very guttural, I think that's due to our Islamic heritage and our European neighbors. Brazil was influenced by many different cultures and developed a "softer accent"...

Welcome, enjoy the forum.

How do you say Happy New Year in Polish?

Happy New Year 

I'm Portuguese but I can tell that there's also resistance on Brazil's side, so far as I can tell there's been protests against the agreement from both sides of the Atlantic.

I'm one of the few Portuguese who's not against it  :grin: I think that a unified language is the way to go and the agreement improves some parts of the language that were difficult to teach and learn, like the silent consonants, if they are silent why should we write them? I know it is related to accentuation on the pronunciation of those words but it adds to the difficulty of the language.

My name is Sam, and I want to be fluent in Chinese and Russian!  I just got accepted into the University of Florida to get my bachelor's in Chinese, so I'm working on the first one, and after I get a little bit more fluent in Chinese, I'm going to start taking Russian classes!  So hi there, Linguaholic!

Welcome, you must be really brave to learn those languages at the same time. They look hard to me 

Enjoy the forum and feel free to share your experiences learning those languages.

Olá, André, bem-vindo!

Never heard of this Duolingo gizmo, is it worth it? Do we have to pay?

Hi!

It's free, there's a web app and a mobile app. Try it here: http://www.duolingo.com

It's really good and 100% free  :grin:

I started learning English pretty soon, probably in my third or forth grade, so I was 8/9 years old. It was great that my parents put me in a language learning school because it's a very useful skill to have nowadays. I did my first certificate in English (Cambridge's FCE when I was 17) 

Don't forget about Portuguese, most of the old Portuguese colonies still have it as official language, like Timor, Angola and Mozambique for example. Brazil's population is 200 million people so theres a lot of Portuguese speakers out there  :grin:

Well, I have learnt something today...thanks to you. 

I realize that Portuguese and Spanish are different in some ways. I always thought they were almost identical. The "Feliz" in Merry Christmas seems to be the same for both languages. However, the "Christmas" is different for both. Thanks

They have many differences, some people think that it is like UK English and American English but that's not the case, both languages are unique. We can understand each other though so there are some similarities.  :grin:

Hello Andre!! I wish you the best of luck with your learning endeavors. I would also like to learn German; could you tell me which android app you use and whether or not it is helpful? Portuguese is also one of the languages I would like to learn so if you would like to teach, I would love to learn!! In the meantime, happy posting and see you in the forums!!

Hi, merry Christmas!  :grin:

I'm using Duolingo (not sure if I can link to it without going against the rules but you'll find it easily), I think it is the best app to learn languages, it has modules with reading, writing and speaking exercises. You earn points by practicing, it's really fun and it's a different way to learn a language.

The last time I checked, you could learn French, Spanish, German, Italian and Portuguese there, but they were working on new languages.

Try it and tell me what you think of it.

I don't think this is respectful to others, when in a social setting you should always speak in a language that everyone comprehends, speaking in other languages to conceal what you are say is just like whispering secrets to someone else in a group setting, it's not polite. At least from where I come from...