Cadence

I rarely use Siri, if ever. I don't really see the point of it and I guess it could be entertaining but most of the time she just doesn't understand me..

Interesting! I don't think I've ever heard the word "twerk" before the whole Miley thing either..

I think I do this sometimes, it's been a while now though since I did it. It's convenient when you don't have a piece of paper nearby, given that you have a pen of course.. When I do write something on my hands or arms I think it's mostly phone numbers or quite often just a simple "X" to remind me of something I need to do. I really liked Momento too, great movie!

Oh yes this happens all the time. Sometimes I really can't remember the word in swedish but most of the time I just like the english equivalent much more and use that word instead even if I know the word in swedish. This leads to me talking a whole lot of "swenglish" basically all the time, not only when talking but also when writing on my blog etc. I guess I do this because I love english and prefer it over any other language..

I think this depends on who I'm talking to. When I talk to my american friends I tend to use less correct english because of the simple reason that they don't. When talking in english with my swedish friends (yes, I do this, not sure why) I am more keen on using correct english, at least in writing. Me and my boyfriend both writes and speaks almost exclusively in english with each other (even though we both speak swedish) and we tend to do it in a less serious way. Not that our english isn't good but we generally don't care for correct pronunciation and substitute correct grammar for more lolcat-like talking (i can haz?). I really don't know why we do this. Maybe because we're weird..

I decided to learn german for a few different reasons. First of all my mother comes from germany (but she's lived her whole life in sweden) so most of my relatives on her side of the family lives in germany and speaks german of course. My boyfriend is also german and he speaks german at home with his mother and sister so I thought it could be interesting to be able to understan them and join their conversations in german. Also in 6th grade we had to chose a language, the choices were german, french or spanish and I picked german. So I learned it in high school for three years - unfortunately I had a horrible teacher and it was my most hated subject. But now, 5 years later, I decided to pick it up again.

I use Duolingo to learn German and I think it's great! It makes it fun to learn a new language! I thought it was really easy at first but now at level 7 I think things are getting more complicated.. It's great that it's available on both you phone and computer so you can use it whenever it suits you.

I use Duolingo too and like it a lot! I'm currently learning german aswell! I think it's great that you can use the program both on your phone and on your computer. They don't have the option of learning swedish yet but I signed up so that I can help with the development when they start!

I completely despise dubbed anything to be honest. Not only because things get lost in translation but because I think it feels and looks really stupid. I can however tolerate dubbed cartoons to some extent, since it's not as obvious to the eye. I definitely prefer subtitles but unfortunately subtitles are also very often incorrect and I believe they should be checked more closely before used in movies and TV. Like you mentioned it is a good way to learn a new language, even if it's not always subtitled correctly. Watching movies in english when growing up was a big help for me when learning the english language and I think it's genreally a big contributor to most swedes being good at english. And in the same way perhaps a contributing reason to why people in countries like germany (who dubb basically everything) are genreally not quite as good at english.

I don't think I really have a specific favorite english accent. I do know I prefer american english over brittish english, both the accent and the vocabulary. I do sort of like scottish and irish accents though. Some sort of north american accent is probably what I like the most.

I think this is a hard question to answer and the only way to really know whether or not you have an accent I think would be to ask someone listening to you talk, and still it would be hard to know since people might have different opinions of how a certain language/accent sounds. When speaking english I think I have some kind of accent, of course, but if people are able to tell what kind of accent I'm not sure. I think compared to other swedes speaking english I don't sound as "swedish" as most others. When I spent a year in the US as an exchange student most people didn't realise that I was actally foreign, many just assumed I had transferred schools so I guess my accent isn't that apparent, at least it wasn't at the time. However I do think my swedish accent would be more apparent if I were to speak english right now, since I don't speak english all that often in my daily life. When speaking swedish I also have trouble finding an accent that I would consider myself "belonging to". After moving 50km south and spending four years with people from all over the country with different accents I think my accent has changed quite a bit. I generally don't notice it myself but my family and friends have mentioned it several times so I guess it must be true. I suppose my swedish accent is some kind of mix of different accents and not noticeble from one certain area. But as I mentioned earlier, it's not easy to know yourself how you sound to others.

Interesting video! There are indeed many idoms that, when you really think about it, makes little sense. Also I believe most languages have their own idioms that wouldn't work if you translate them. And then of course there are many idioms that are shared among languages.

I'm interested in trying out using a site like this too. I just registered at iWriter yesterday and right now they didn't seem to need any articles in any subject suiting me, perhaps in the future. Textbroker seems interesting as well but as a swede I suppose I'm not able to register at any of their sites. Does anyone know any other sites like these that might be worth looking up?

I agree with most post in this thread; "Thousands" sounds the most correct in this situation. "Thousand" could be used if we were talking about actually one thousand (1000) documents. But in that case I would lose the "of" and only say "thousand documents". However I think you want to say thousands as in several thousand in this case.

I guess I don't genreally think of sign language as it's own language, but thinking about it more closely - of course it is! It's just different from the common definition of what a language is..

I think I usually use a simple, or normal, vocabulary when writing and speaking. Every now and then though I like to throw in some more complex words, not to "seem smart" or anything but because some words just feels right to use. However I never get too complex in my writing, I never use words I don't know the meaning of.

I think there are more than one reason for this. One reason could be that the education level vary very much between countries. For example I experienced high school in the US to be very elementary compared to the education level in sweden at the same age. When i talk to my american friends (or read their posts on facebook etc) their english is actually very poor compared to my own and the level of english I'm used to in sweden. I think it's interesting that people with english as their main language care less about proper grammar and spelling than people with english as their 2nd language.

I suppose grammar both is and isn't important to me. When talking/writing english I think it's quite important and I generally don't like when people have really poor grammar or writing skills. That might be because I assume people know english.. But when it comes to learning a completely new language I don't think grammar should be the main focus for anyone. You can make yourself understood without having perfect grammar and I think that's the most important thing in the beginning.

I consider myself to be a quite fast reader, but I guess in reality I'm more of a "normal" reader. Compared to my sister I read pretty slow (she finishes really thick books in just a few hours) but compared to others I know I do read sort of fast. I think it depends on what it is I'm reading too, if I read a really good book I can get really caught up and just continue reading until I finish the book. If I on the other hand read something rather boring or something that is hard to understand I read much slower.

I never use LOL when writing in my own language (swedish) but I use it quite often while talking to american friends. I don't really like to use it though cause like most people I don't actually (or very rarely) laugh out loud when writing it, but use it more as an answer for pretty much anything or when I just don't know what to say.. So I guess it's original meaning is more or less lost. LMAO is even worse because, really, who laughs that hard?

I personally do not like google translate too much.. I believe it translates incorrectly far too often. However I do use it from time to time to translate words or sentences in languages I don't know at all. I'd say it works to use it maybe 50% of the time but I wouldn't trust it to translate text for any serious use.

I don't think carrying a dictionary with you is such a bad idea actually. Perhaps it isnt the most effective way to follow a conversation but it can be good for other situations! When I was in Germany last year I brought a small pocket-sized dictionary with me and it was good when needing to look up certain words. I agree that having an app in your phone would be easier than an actual dictionary but at least when I'm travelling I cant really use my phone as I do in my own country, if I use the 3G abroad it will leave me with a HUGE bill to pay afterwards. If you're on wifi it's cool of course but it might be a good idea to check how much surfing the web and using apps will cost you abroad.

I think option two; "does he cause any problems for you" sounds like the most correct one in my ears. Either that or I would rephrase it to "is he causing you any problems".

I'm afraid I don't have an answer for you question about which language would be the best to learn since I don't know all that much about danish. As a swede I'm supposed to understand both norwegian and danish quite well but to me it might as well be chinese (no offense to anyone speaking chinese though, I just don't understand it at all). I do understand some words every now and then but as a rule I'm mostly lost in any conversation that is not in swedish or english (or german, which is actually far more understandable). Nowegian is however a bit closer to swedish and then comes danish, which sort of sounds like speaking swedish with your mouth full of oatmeal (at least that's what most people are saying). Perhaps norwegian would be the key language to learn to understand the two?

I realise now that it is really hard to explain your own language to someone who's learning it for the first time. I know all the right forms of every word in the swedish language but if I tried to explain it it would probably just get really messy and confusing. To me it's so obvious that "visa" becomes "visade" in past tense that I don't even think about why. It's just "how it's supposed to be". Interesting.