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od ZOV, 06. februar 2009

Sporočila: 90

Jezik: English

Rogir (Prikaži profil) 16. februar 2009 00:21:34

When I hear Chinese like I did on the bus today (I wasn't sure it actually was Chinese), it actually makes me wonder how people can understand each other that way. Few other languages give me that feeling.

ceigered (Prikaži profil) 16. februar 2009 05:47:05

ebeckhusen: "faucet".
'Faucet'? I'm presuming this is what Americans call a tap (eo: Krano)? And I'm taking it that this is a French loanword?

RiotNrrd (Prikaži profil) 16. februar 2009 06:21:01

In my part of the US we call it a "faucet". Although we call what comes out of it "tap-water". Go figure.

I also presume it is from the French (although we pronounce the "t").

eikored85 (Prikaži profil) 16. februar 2009 09:36:53

Rogir:When I hear Chinese like I did on the bus today (I wasn't sure it actually was Chinese), it actually makes me wonder how people can understand each other that way. Few other languages give me that feeling.
Yeah, it takes time to get used to lango.gif

One of the hardest things about tonal languages that have such extreme forms of isolating morphology is that many words can be pronounced with the same articulation, but with different tones, and the meanings can be completely different depending on tone.

For example, although I understand two Chinese languages, I still find Vietnamese (an unrelated language) fairly difficult, since oftentimes, meanings of a word are distinguished solely by tone.

eikored85 (Prikaži profil) 16. februar 2009 09:38:11

RiotNrrd:In my part of the US we call it a "faucet". Although we call what comes out of it "tap-water". Go figure.
.
We Californians also have that odd distinction between "faucet" and "tap water", though I don't think we use a hyphen in "tap water".

ceigered (Prikaži profil) 16. februar 2009 10:40:31

We Australians are just lazy and call it a 'tap' and 'tap water', 'tap-water' or 'tapwater', depending on the laziness levels in the atmosphere. But I'm sure that you got that since I needed to check for what 'faucet' meant rido.gif

Senlando (Prikaži profil) 16. februar 2009 18:05:45

ceigered:We Australians are just lazy and call it a 'tap' and 'tap water', 'tap-water' or 'tapwater', depending on the laziness levels in the atmosphere. But I'm sure that you got that since I needed to check for what 'faucet' meant rido.gif
I think i use "tap" more often then faucet, but i grew up around expatriate English speakers from all over. So i picked and choose which words i prefer and how to pronounce them.
When I hear Chinese like I did on the bus today (I wasn't sure it actually was Chinese), it actually makes me wonder how people can understand each other that way. Few other languages give me that feeling.
I admire anyone who manages to learn a Chinese language during adult life. but like any other language, a native speaker finds it just as simple as any other language (not the written part though, that's exponentially harder then any other written system in the world). But when it comes down to the spoken language, children brains just adapt to the tones as if they where just different sounds. It comes down to how your brain is programed. here's an artical about that...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3025796.stm

jchthys (Prikaži profil) 17. februar 2009 01:34:31

One of the hardest things about tonal languages that have such extreme forms of isolating morphology is that many words can be pronounced with the same articulation, but with different tones, and the meanings can be completely different depending on tone.

For example, although I understand two Chinese languages, I still find Vietnamese (an unrelated language) fairly difficult, since oftentimes, meanings of a word are distinguished solely by tone.
Chinese is probably, objectively speaking, an easier language than English. Chinese is isolating and has no grammatical inflexions. Also, though Chinese might use tones in a way alien to English speakers, Chinese speakers have to learn all the nuances of English tone--after all, English uses tone too, just not as predictably.

tommjames (Prikaži profil) 17. februar 2009 14:11:44

jchthys:Chinese is probably, objectively speaking, an easier language than English.
*blink*

jan aleksan (Prikaži profil) 17. februar 2009 14:35:29

RiotNrrd:In my part of the US we call it a "faucet". Although we call what comes out of it "tap-water". Go figure.

I also presume it is from the French (although we pronounce the "t").
In french it's "robinet", so no obvious relation... It comes from old french:
etymonline

ridulo.gif,

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