aliangel3499

1 minute ago, czarina84 said:

posts with accent marks over the letters

Are the words written with Roman letters? Because I know some people use short cuts such as Alt + 0225 to write "á" or Alt + 0252 to write "ü". The only catch is that you need to use the numeric keypad rather than the numbers right above the letters.

I find the hardest thing about typing Arabic is remembering where all of the keys are. For example, whenever I want to type "ر", I look for it by the 'r' when it is usually on the bottom of the keyboard, similar to the picture posted above. I think the easiest tool to use is a tablet because you do not have to try to remember which Roman letter coincides with each Arabic letter or spend the time to click on each letter using a mouse.

Another Floridian (:

I'm not too sure about movies, but I also think that telenovelas would be a good way to supplement your Spanish lessons. In my experiences, a telenovela is a bit shorter than the average soap opera, but could still go up to a year. I occasionally listen to Spanish music on the radio as well. Once you get to know the lyrics, it's always interesting picking out the words you know and looking up the meaning for others. Personally, I find it easier to learn new words through music because I can just sing a small portion of the song whenever I can't remember it.

17 hours ago, OmniHead said:

No, you shouldn't use "lo siento tu pérdida" because is grammatically incorrect

Thank you for posting about this. I was a bit confused because I would directly translate that phrase as "I'm sorry your death/loss", but I could never pick out the "por" in the sentence. Because it's only been used between close friends and I've only heard it said by a young demographic, they may have just dropped the "por" because they knew the phrase would still be understandable between them.

On 5/5/2015, 3:21:11, NATASHA said:

Italics are used only when you are quoting someone or using a quote that does not belong to you, the italics give people the message that what is in the brackets is something someone else has said.

This is the first time I've heard of this as well. I had only been taught to put the titles of books, magazines, newspapers, and musical albums in italics. Other subjects such as articles or song titles would be between quotation marks. Would you mind explaining what you mean by "brackets"?

Is anyone else having trouble reaching the link provided above?

I would like to say yes. I have seen a keyboard that has both the English letters as they are on most Western keyboards as well as Japanese letters. For example, there is a key for 'G', but there is also a Japanese character on that key so it could be used for either language.

11 hours ago, OmniHead said:

We all think in our mother language, this is why you call it "in-built" sense

I find myself agreeing with this. When I was taking Spanish in high school, my teacher would constantly say to think in Spanish rather than to translate into Spanish, but I was never truly able to do this. I had a better understanding of English so my thoughts were translated into English a lot easier.

In regard to the original question, I think the idea of thinking in a foreign language can also give you time to cool down if you're making a decision when angry. It's not always helpful, but it provides time for you to decide whether you actually want to make the decision.

On 9/27/2015, 8:32:45, Trellum said:

Se les fue el avión!

I noticed that the phrase still used the word "les", does it have a different meaning in this context? 

On 10/29/2015, 9:44:23, czarina84 said:

So, basically, "lo siento" means "I'm sorry", as in a terrible grievance has occurred, and "perdon" is the equivalent of "excuse me"?   How would you say, "I'm sorry for your loss"?

I've heard it said as "lo siento tu pérdida" as well as "lo siento por su pérdida". The second one appears to be more formal due to the use of "su" rather than "tu". However, I'm not too sure if the "por" was dropped in the first sentence or if it isn't completely necessary.

They seem interesting, thank you for posting about them and taking the time to make them. I appreciate the fact that the videos are long enough to contain substantial information, but short enough to keep your attention.

You mentioned that learned English by yourself; does that mean that English is not your native tongue?

On 9/26/2013, 8:26:22, bonniea said:

That depends on where you live. When I lived in Florida I used Spanish a lot more than I do now. I do keep my eye out for opportunities to practice. I have a lot of friends who speak Spanish so I get a chance to practice. But if I did not look for opportunities I would not find as many as I do.

I'm from Florida and there is definitely a lot of opportunities to use Spanish. I'm not really fluent, but I know a lot of basic phrases and they have been really helpful whenever I need to talk to someone who doesn't or isn't comfortable speaking English.

This sounds like a lovely idea and I really enjoy the look of the homepage. I was just wondering if this would include the direct translation of verbs or just the indefinite version? For example, if a person was reading a post that said "I want to go to the beach", would it be translated as "Quiero to go to the beach" or "I querer to go to the beach."?

I do not see anything wrong with it, but I also do not believe is is the most helpful. The subjects that are discussed in the Quran are not always subjects that will be used in everyday conversation. There are also certain words in the Quran that are written using a formal dialect when there are better ways to say the same thing. Reading relatively long passages that you are not familiar with would be a good way to judge your ability to read Arabic as long you recognize the majority of the words in the passage or there are characters that help with pronunciation. 

43 minutes ago, rtorir said:

There is a direct translation of `yes' and `no' in Swahili. They are `ndio' and `la' respectively. On the other hand the direct translation for yes in Chinese-pinyin is `Shi' (first tone) while for no is 'bu shi'. You need to check for the character representations of the Chinese words. It is much fan drawing them.

I noticed that your native tongue is Swahili, would you mind if I ask where you're from? I have family members from Kenya and I've heard them say something that sounds like a-pa-na for the word 'no'. I'm not sure if I am mishearing them or if it is only used for specific occasions.

I believe that they are extremely helpful, watching Korean films or drama with subtitles is the reason that I can recognize a few words. If you are actively trying to learn a language then I would suggest finding a film that interests you or something historical like a documentary. It provides little details such as how two people may pronounce a word differently due to the area they live in as well as words or gestures that are used when talking that do not have an absolute translation. However, as a previous poster had mentioned, I would suggest official subs. Fan subs are wonderful as an extra tool, but shouldn't be used as the only source.

46 minutes ago, Blaveloper said:

I felt like I wasn't interested enough in Spanish.
I realised once again that my favourite languages are mostly east-Asian.
Other than that, I found too many words similar to English and that made me skip them from my "to learn" vocabulary flash cards (not putting any effort in remembering those words).

But it's not like I gave up on it entirely, what I initialise must be finalised at some point ey?
So I thought to postpone Spanish rather than quitting it entirely.

As my current schedule looks like:
January - June 2016: Mandarin Chinese.
July - December 2016: Russian.
January - June 2017: European Spanish.
July - December 2017: European French.

And for 2018, I'll decide whether I want to learn new languages or improve my 'old' languages (old as of 2018 of course).

Wow, you seem really motivated in learning new languages. I was just wondering how much previous experience you've had with Chinese in general? I noticed that you commented on the translation of the United States as well as the "decapper" and seem to already have a basic understanding. A lot of East-Asian languages seem interesting, but I've been a bit intimidated by the different characters and tonal quality.

I believe that learning Arabic would be a better choice if you wish to go to the Middle East. As previous posters mentioned, a lot of people in the Middle East are bilingual so they will understand you if you speak English, but it would make them feel more comfortable if you take the effort to learn and speak their native tongue. French may be useful as well, but I believe that it has more of an advantage for someone who already knows Arabic and is trying to be bilingual or multilingual or is trying to work for a French company that is stationed in the Middle East.

On 10/26/2015, 6:07:16, foolsgold said:

I am coming back everyday to this thread as I'm really curious to know what this language is. Posting here to bump so hopefully someone with the answer can see it.

I have been going on Youtube to check which languages sound similar to it:

For comparison: Arabic / Persian / Turkish : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXI49Pefqp8

I think the original post is closely related to one of these.

I do not recognize it as an Arabic dialect. It does sound a lot like an East Asian or Native American dialect

On 12/12/2015, 7:24:54, Richard.H said:

사랑 해요 (salang haeyo)

I wanted to note that I personally pronounce that as saranghaeyo or sah-rahng-haee-yoh. The only thing that is a bit tricky is that the Korean 'R' sounds a bit like an 'L' so it would be pronounced with a letter half way between an R and L.

If I could speak five languages I would choose English, Spanish, Arabic, Korean, and Japanese. The first is my native language, the second is the language I am currently trying to learn, and the third is my mother's native language. I've also been interested in a lot of Korean and Japanese shows so it would be lovely to understand to understand the shows without relying on subtitles.