emilyrose93

I think "sleep with the fishes" is related to the mafia. It means when someone has been murdered by the mafia and they've dumped the body into the ocean - so they're sleeping with the fishes. I don't think you would use it for a regular death, it's quite specific.

Some more that I know are:

"Pushing up daisies", meaning someone is dead and buried.

"Dead as a dodo" or "Dead as a doornail", meaning definitely dead.

"Croak", which means die. I think this is an Australian one. You use it like "He croaked".

I want to share some Australian ones, since that's the country I'm from. We have lots of really silly ones, that barely even make sense to me! Don't try to use these anywhere except Australia, I don't imagine anyone would have any idea what you were talking about.

"Fair dinkum". When something is true or genuine. Can be used as a question.

"Bloody oath". It means like "Yes, this is true". You say it in agreement with someone.

"She'll be apples". Means everything will be alright!

I have more if anyone is interested, but they're some of my favourites

It's not really "used" anywhere. There are places in my city (Melbourne, Australia) that you can take classes in it, but it's more of a hobby. The problem is the logistics of convincing seven billion people to learn and use a new language! It's hard enough getting people to speak a second language in the first place, but convincing everyone to learn the same one is just impossible. It's a nice idea, but not really practical.

Besides, it would be a bit sad if we stopped using all other languages. Even though we could all communicate better, a lot of countries have been speaking the same language for hundreds of years, and there's such a beautiful history attached to them, that I would be sad to lose that.

I know I do! I'm Australian. However, I think my accent is less obvious than a lot of Australians. I have kind of a "newsreader" voice - clear, without any regional accent. I used to get made fun of at school for sounding "posh"! Australians don't usually sound like they do in the movies, with that ridiculous country accent. But when I'm talking to someone foreign, especially someone American or English, I can definitely hear my accent a lot more. It's still not over the top, but it's there. I would love it if we could all upload some voice clips and tell each-other if we can hear an accent!

Thank you - these looks like the sheets I used in school!

"We recommend to do the following practice.

    First Row: Carefully imitate the shape of sample letters.

    Second Row: Write letters by occasionally looking the sample.

    Third Row: Write a letter without looking, then compare with the sample."

I think this is a really good idea. Gradually making it a bit more difficult will stretch your brain.

Here is a useful link regarding stroke order: http://www.skritter.com/stroke-order-japanese

It is very important to get the stroke order right, because you use the context of the first strokes to decide where you put your other strokes. If you do it in the wrong order it may end up lop-sided!

I see what you're saying. I was lucky enough to learn Japanese in primary (elementary) school, and our Sensei used a bunch of memory tricks for each character, and so that's how I remember all of them. One example is the character for U (pronounced Oo) is "Ooh, the rock fell on the old ladys back" because that's what the character looks like! Or "I" (pronounced Ee) is supposed to be like "HawaII", because it looks like two women doing the Hula.

Hi Litnax,

I think the book review is perfect! I didn't notice any awkward sentences or incorrect grammar. The only thing in your overall post I would maybe change, is I think you would say "on a site", not "in a site". I hope this helps you. I plan to check back to this thread sometimes and try to help, so please feel free to post anything else you want to have checked over by a native speaker!

I have a few quotes as the background on my desktop. Some of my favourites are:

"Don't give up what you want most for what you want now."

"Only a fool trips on what is behind him."

Some other ones, not on my desktop, are:

"Success is the best revenge."

"Fall seven times, stand up eight." (This one is a Japanese proverb. The Japanese is "Nanakorobi yaoki" or "七転び八起き".)

Confucius, the Chinese teacher and philosopher, had many good ones, but my favourite is:

"Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life."

I agree, I think that the earlier the better is best. Start with basic things like colours and numbers. Are you teaching them a language that they will be using often, or is it just for fun/educational benefit? Depending on the situation your teaching style will probably differ a lot. Assuming it's just for fun/education, then just start small with a few words. Even if they don't end up learning the entire language, it's good exercise for their minds and will help them become more intelligent in other areas too.

Both of the languages I speak (or attempt to speak) started off being taught to me in school. My Japanese skill level was at its peak when I actually got to visit the country. I practice extra hard when I know I'm going overseas. I think the main reason I like to study them is for fun, though. I don't use them  in day to day life and usually I travel quite rarely (due to money, not because I don't want to!) but I just like exercising my brain in that way.

I would first of all like to master the ones I am already trying to learn, which are Indonesian and Japanese. But if I had to choose a new one to learn, it would probably be Spanish. I just like the way it sounds and I've always really wanted to visit Mexico. I feel like because it has many similarities with English, too, it would be reasonably easy to learn.

In a lot of situations slang is necessary to communicate. For example, in the video game world, or in certain job industries, there is slang that is so commonly used that it's almost a language in itself, and it's necessary to know it in order to communicate. A lot of words in the dictionary now were originally slang words. I like the idea that language is constantly evolving and changing and we need to keep up! Imagine if we were all still talking like Shakespeare.

Definitely, and it's a real shame. I've never been fluent in any language other than English, but I've studied Japanese/Indonesian on and off for years and in my off periods I will definitely forget a lot of the words I know. I can barely write the Japanese alphabet at the moment, so I really want to refresh that.

One idea would be to try and bring some of it into your daily life. A lot of people label things when they're first learning a language (like items around the house, label them with the foreign language) and this could be something to do, just to keep your mind half thinking in French.