Peninha

Ahah, Elvish is an invented language lol! I came to this thread expecting to find Elvis fans and after all you guys are discussing "The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug". Actually, just yesterday I was watching an interview of the woman Elf and I found that "language" rather entertaining! :grin:

Maybe I am too old because I can't remember if I had that dificulty or not. It's surely harder to concentrate on the content when you're trying to read aloud, it's like if you're doing two things at the same time, it's harder to do both correctly.

I've worked maybe 15-20 years ago with an old man (he was 81 at the time and had not many teeth): I thought I would be doing translation, but he just wanted me to word process his "finantial dictionary" as he called it. Turned out to be interesting because he told me stories of the 1st World War in English... What jobs did you have that required you to speak a foreign language? How did you manage?

I have never seen him before that I can recall, but 16 hours per day it's impressive, I don't know how his brain can handle it. I've studied several hours per day, I doubt that I've managed to study over 10-12 hours at my most and those were exceptional days.

You are quite right, it's all about the image, if you are lazy and text with abbreviations people will think you can't type and that you're not so clever. It's very rare for me to text in English, I mostly do it in my native language, but I am lazy when texting in Portuguese, I do use abbreviations.

Nice thread! Apart from these words that are untranslatable there are other that can be translated, but hardly have the same meaning. I am always surprised with the way love is used in English, this translates to "amor" in Portuguese, but it's a word we use in much more special situations, it's not a day-to-day word.

My older kid started learning English when he was 5 years old and he picked up some words and structure fairly quick. We then stopped his learning because it was somewhat expensive and he's now on public school with English again, but I don't see him learning much. I think it's still early though, he has time to learn.

Yes, it was agreed between all Portuguese speaking countries, but I don't recall the population being consulted about this. Above all I don't get the point in this, to uniformize the language between all the countries that speak Portuguese? Is it that important?

My first words must have been food related because I was always a great eater. :grin: I have small kids and as shocking as this might be I don't recall their first words, they evolve from sounding to speaking pretty fast. I do recall the oldest saying peti cuca (crazy fish - peixe maluco in Portuguese) when watching Nemo, I laughed a lot when he said that.

The definition of language refers a human capacity lol, therefore animals cannot have a language, but this is a concept, there is no doubt animals can communicate, so they don't really have the need for an alphabet or something so complex as we humans do need.

Interesting ranking andre-nunes, it doesn't surprise me Mandarin is the most spoken language, almost one billion speakers! Also funny that English ranks only 3rd behind Spanish, ah, but wait, this is native speakers, a global ranking must have other numbers...

Thanks for the quiz, LOL, I had to go for a tiebreaker, but the final result was: "You Scored as Spanish. You should learn Spanish. It can be useful especially if you live in the United States" Ahah, come on, that is exactly what I am practicing on, good quiz!

I think animals can communicate, if we can call that a language or not it is highly debatable. For us to know if animals have a language we would have to speak it right? I personally think they can communicate well, but they do not have a language, that is exclusive of humans as the only rational animal that exist.

I hope that in 2014 I can perfect my Spanish and my English as well, being foreign languages I need to practice and practice to keep improving them. If I do move to Spain my Spanish will take a big boost, but I am not yet certain that will happen.

I agree with this, unless you are working as a translator or an interpreter there should be no relation. Unless the study refers to broader cultural aspects, some cultures should stimulate it's citizens since they are kids to the money aspect side in detriment of others.

This is interesting information, but I've never heard anyone speaking Mirandese, in what region of the north do they speak it? Sometimes people from Madeira and Açores, especially Açores, seem to be speaking a whole new language because they reallu have a strong accent...!

I am not familar with tongue exercises, but it makes perfect sense to me, hence is the tongue that controls the speaking. Here in Portugal we speak languages fairly OK and with no major accents because we are trained to since kids, all the TV shows and in English and so on. In Spain this doesn't happen (everything is dubbed) and they have big time difficulties with accents.

A few years ago I made two friends that can from Moldova do work here in Portugal. They knew nothing from the language and only after a couple of months they could speak the language. That is what necessity and being in the country do to a person, I'm not saying it's easy, but it's faster this way when you literally live for it.

To be honest, one of the things I love about languages is the accents. I think the accents show where we are from and they give a bit of salt to communication, they make it better. So the answer to the question made would be yes, I do prejudge, but on a positive side, not a negative one.

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.

A mi me encanta el cine en general, todos los generos. Hoy por exemplo tengo visto un filme de accion, Fast and Furious 5 y tengo gustado much. Ya tengo el Fast and Furious 6 y asi que tenga tiempo voy a veerlo también. :nerd:

I can agree with what you say brookie in what concerns to the accent, but I don't think it's possible anyone to forget their native tongue unless, as said above, you leave the country very young and you stay away for long years and you don't speak the language there. In this case is possible, but in most cases a messed up accent would be it mainly.

I think that learning a language takes at least oe year or two as you say, sometimes more depending on the intensity of your studies. If you go live in a country and you're studying the language daily I'd say that after three or six months you can already communicate. If you are in your country taking classes twice a week and that's it so it might take two years or longer...

Well, if you ask my wife she will certainly tell you that I am not! :grin: In what concerns languages we need to have a sharp ear or else we can't reproduce what we are learning and we can't speak correctly. In general terms I've realized that I only am a good listener when subjects of my interesting are being discussed, in other situations my mind sometimes flies away...

I do hope Brazil rises up as a big economy and that us Portuguese would gain more work possibilities just for the fact that Portuguese is our mother tongue. Let's see if Brazil does rise, they have worlwide events coming up that are going to be huge for them.