yong321

That's indeed a great idea. I can see the value in language studies. But I wish the books they publish were originally in more diverse languages. I mean, look at the selection of the titles. Most were written in English, and then translated to other languages. I would love to have e.g. Don Quixote in Spanish and English, Madame Bovary in French and English, Calvino's novels in Italian and English, etc. I recently read Le Petit Prince in French, English and Chinese (a trilingual book) and noted quite a few differences or even errors in the English and Chinese translations. It was fun.

I'm a little surprised too. But note that the poll creator has both Mandarin and Chinese. If you add the two together, Chinese will be lower than Russian but higher than Portuguese. It's still lower than what many people would expect. The reason may be that this poll is about people's free choice of languages to study, not really out of usefulness to their career or work. Secondly, the members of the Polyglots group are probably concentrated in Europe. (I'm guessing. I don't have the stats.) It makes sense for Europeans to study Europeans languages more than non-European languages.

Everything "linguaholic" said. But it really depends on your personal interest. I choose languages to study 99% out of interest and 1% out of usefulness. I happen to know a big poll about what other polyglots are studying and I saved the result as follows I happen to be studying the top few languages. Not a pure coincidence! You listed "Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Greek" as possible languages to study. They are all good. But I heard that the Dutch people don't appreciate much if you study Dutch; they may ask "Why do you study that?"

It means, if the OCS skills (not sure what it is) are mastered earlier, then when these kids grow up, their skills are more relevant or (simply) more useful in a complex environment.

It would be better to allow people to see what's going on first. The link forces visitors to sign up.

I have completed writing my book, Learning French Words Through Etymology and Mnemonics: A New Approach to Vocabulary Study. Please see http://yong321.freeshell.org/lfw/ for details. Unfortunately, I was not able to convince a publisher to have it published. In the meantime, I can accept donation for a free copy of the book, on the condition that the book is not shared beyond your immediate family. Any comment or critique or correction is very welcome.

I replied to you and the message disappeared, and got an email in my Yahoo email account: Sorry, we were unable to deliver your message to the following address. <admin@linguaholic.com>: 550: No Such User Here --- Below this line is a copy of the message. ...[some crypted text snipped]... ------=_Part_2105749_1282543207.1548198877556 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Yes I tried that, many times. I would never try other means without going = to that first. The Contact Us page is working now. Thanks for fixing it. Yong On Tuesday, January 22, 2019, 5:08:51 PM CST, Linguaholic <admin@lingua= holic.com> wrote: =20 =20 =20 | | | | | | Linguaholic | | | | | | | | =20 | Hi yong321,=20 linguaholicquoted one of your posts in a topic. | | =20 | =20 | =20 | Posted in Need better way to contact admin | | =20 |=20 | 4 hours ago, yong321 said: =20 Finally logged in, after months of this error=20 Sorry, there is a problem =C2=A0 Something went wrong. Please try again= ..=C2=A0 Error code: 2S119/1 =C2=A0 and not being to able to contact a= ny admin, including admin@linguaholic.comand postmaster@linguaholic.com | | Really? I am very sorry to hear that! Have you tried the Contact US=C2=A0section of the website?=C2=A0 That shou= ld workjust fine. Thanks for pointing this out! Best,=C2=A0 Lingua

Finally logged in, after months of this error Sorry, there is a problem Something went wrong. Please try again. Error code: 2S119/1 and not being to able to contact any admin, including admin@linguaholic.com and postmaster@linguaholic.com

I subscribe to a few news feeds on Facebook, such as Le Figaro, Le Monde. On my cell phone, I use an old version Opera Mini browser, the only one I find that allows you to copy text in the big block of text plus image (not sure how to call it). In other browsers, you can't select the text. So, whenever in doubt, I copy the text and click the Google Translate bubble.

I just published my book Basic Chinese Characters https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07F5TC3RD/ with detailed descriptions in the Notes on page http://yong321.freeshell.org/bcc/ The book contains 2500 commonly used Chinese characters selected by the Ministry of Education of China. It sorts the characters by frequency usage according to Google's estimate of occurrences on the Internet. A learner may choose a certain point in the book suitable to his level and start to learn the characters. The book is ideal for learning Chinese characters in a casual way and on a cell phone.

If the learner is an adult, I suggest learning IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet), just the subset of it that English uses. By no means do I suggest excluding other practices, especially lots of listening to native speakers and mimicking. But knowing and consciously checking the tongue positions and articulating places with the help of IPA is an important supplementary method. Most adults don't do this, and they end up with heavy accent the rest of their life.

l’Office québécois de la langue française has excellent webpages discussing the fine distinctions of various synonyms, e.g. the page about éclaircir and éclairer http://bdl.oqlf.gouv.qc.ca/bdl/gabarit_bdl.asp?id=3087 I wonder if there is another website, especially one hosted by a formal institution. The best would be one on Centre National de Ressources Textuelles et Lexicales (www.cnrtl.fr), a branch of French Academy of Sciences if I'm not mistaken. But as far as I can tell, they don't have such webpages. The Québécois pages are definitely authoritative. But sometimes I wonder if they may unintentionally bring in word connotations and nuances that are in Canadian French but not in French French.

"你吃了吗？" is a native greeting for sure, used around meal time. (You wouldn't say it around, say, 3 PM.) But as I said, it's slowly getting old-fashioned, at least to the young generation in big cities. How the English greeting "How do you do?" became old-fashioned is what's happening to this Chinese greeting now.

I'm a native Chinese speaker. If I utter an interjection spontaneously, it's distinctively Chinese. I think that's a good way to test how native one's language is, isn't it? "你好" is for greeting. "你还好吧?" can be used for greeting but more for inquiry (about health, about recovery from a car accident, etc.). I consider English "How are you?" a greeting more than an inquiry. "嗨" is used for greeting among the young generation that have at least some exposure to foreign culture. I worked at eBay Shanghai for over a year about ten years ago. People say Hi to each other. (I'm referring to the native Chinese speakers. But everyone is proficient in English as that's the language at work.) I guess its usage as greeting is equivalent to using "uh-huh" as a synonym for "Yes". All Chinese that have some exposure to foreign culture or language understand it, and some even say it. But when I said that to my mother in answering her question on a phone call, she repeated the question, thinking I had not heard her. The Chinese people are highly tolerant of variation of the language, not only in accent, but in word choice as well. When a foreigner says "嗨", they know he's greeting. When he says "你好吗?", it's understood the same way. If you explicitly ask a native Chinese whether these greeting words are correct, most likely they won't say they're wrong. But to many people, these greetings still sound foreign (and very friendly by the way).

Hi Wanda, "你好!" is equivalent to "how are you?" in actual usage, and is not just used for the first meeting. Well, it depends on how you interpret this "first". I can say "你好!" to my coworker (officemate) this morning and say it again tomorrow morning, but probably not again just a few minutes or even hours later. “嗨” is not used in China as a greeting. “你吃饭了吗？” is, especially around meal time, but this is slowly becoming old-fashioned.