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:::Your-:~Pic7arS~:-Thread::: (pg. 106)
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| Chris Crossland |
Easter
My sis Pamela, Two cousins Hailey and Kendra and me.:)
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| Lews |
| quote: | Originally posted by Unique2701
Most Dutchies can speak a fair bit of German. Some words are pretty similiar but some others can be very different indeed. What I meant to say with it, is that by giving it a certain twist, you can get very close to saying it correct in German/Mandarin, but you can also be totally miss. |
Yeah. I can speak a decent amount of German, but can barely understand Dutch at all. My grandfather speaks amazing Dutch, and understands a pretty decent amount of German. Not as much as me, but a surprising amount for someone who has never had lessons. |
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| Lira |
Ben, you also need to keep in mind that "German" is a flexible label given to all dialects spoken in German/Switzerland/Austria that share a common root. The German spoken near the Dutch border is indeed close to Dutch, and there are cases in which someone from this area can't understand someone that lives near the Polish border, for example, or from Switzerland, even though all three of them are supposed to be speaking German.
Well, that's how it went until a few decades ago. Maybe now that television is ubiquitous there's been a levelling between different dialects and it's become easier to understand one another in German.
I believe this continuum must also exist in China... that's how languages work in general, and both Cantonese and Mandarin evolved from a common ancestor, just like Dutch and Deutsch :)
| quote: | Originally posted by Unique2701
Nah, people don't make a distinction between that for the written language. We just call it all Chinese. The only distinction we make and is what I forgot to say is that we use traditional characters for writing as Cantonese people, whereas they use simplified characters in mainland China in general (except maybe Guangzhou, just across the border with Hong Kong where they speak Cantonese more).
for example 馬 - horse with a traditional character, the simplified character for it is 马. It's usually the same aspects within a character that they choose to simplify or leave out :) |
Interesting. Doesn't it make the grammar somewhat clumsy when you read? |
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| gehzumteufel |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lira
Ben, you also need to keep in mind that "German" is a flexible label given to all dialects spoken in German/Switzerland/Austria that share a common root. The German spoken near the Dutch border is indeed close to Dutch, and there are cases in which someone from this area can't understand someone that lives near the Polish border, for example, or from Switzerland, even though all three of them are supposed to be speaking German.
Well, that's how it went until a few decades ago. Maybe now that television is ubiquitous there's been a levelling between different dialects and it's become easier to understand one another in German.
I believe this continuum must also exist in China... that's how languages work in general, and both Cantonese and Mandarin evolved from a common ancestor, just like Dutch and Deutsch :)
Interesting. Doesn't it make the grammar somewhat clumsy when you read? |
When I took German in secondary school (98-2001) it seemed, from my experience (we had 2 foreign exchange students. One from the north near Hamburg and one from Berlin) that there was very little difference, with the exception of the pronunciation of things like the G, the pronoun ich, and a few other small things. Now maybe it is just because of the education type or something. I am unsure. I am no expert either. |
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| Unique2701 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lira
Interesting. Doesn't it make the grammar somewhat clumsy when you read? |
Nah, not at all. The grammar remains the same, it's just that some of the individual characters that are being simplified.
Chinese grammer is pretty limited. Verbs remain the same for everyone (I/you/her/they etc) and for the rules for the different tenses are not very complicated. The main difference with English is that we don't place time and location at the end of the sentence.
Haha, it's funny that you ask me all these questions about the Chinese language. It really makes me think about it, which I normally never do. |
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| Unique2701 |
| quote: | Originally posted by gehzumteufel
Yeah the Dutchies understanding and speaking more German than Germans understanding and speaking Dutch was something I had heard (long ago, but never knew anyone that could speak Dutch at that time) but was never confirmed. As for the differences, I understand what you're saying, but still have some reservations. Since I know my aunt and a former co-worker both speak Cantonese, but I know that the former co-worker can't really understand a lot of Mandarin. She only knows the simplified stuff for the most part.
My aunt was born in Shanghai and lived there till about 5 or 6 years ago, when she married my uncle and moved to the US. |
I think that common ancestor that Lira mentioned really make a difference. On my last trip, I met a Danish couple who understood most of the things me and my friends were saying in Dutch.
Once you speak Cantonese and you start to pay attention to what words are being pronounced differently in what way in Mandarin, it will become much easier to get the hang of it. For example if you notice that the "ue" tone in Cantonese always turn into "u" then you can apply that for other characters as well in your pronouncation.
Quite a number of Cantonese people I know just know how to speak Mandarin without ever really learning it, they learn it while they try to maintain a conversation in Mandarin. It also makes a big difference how your counterparty speaks Mandarin. Most people (that are not from the upperclass) pronounce it in a very "rough" way. |
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| gehzumteufel |
| quote: | Originally posted by Unique2701
I think that common ancestor that Lira mentioned really make a difference. On my last trip, I met a Danish couple who understood most of the things me and my friends were saying in Dutch.
Once you speak Cantonese and you start to pay attention to what words are being pronounced differently in what way in Mandarin, it will become much easier to get the hang of it. For example if you notice that the "ue" tone in Cantonese always turn into "u" then you can apply that for other characters as well in your pronouncation.
Quite a number of Cantonese people I know just know how to speak Mandarin without ever really learning it, they learn it while they try to maintain a conversation in Mandarin. It also makes a big difference how your counterparty speaks Mandarin. Most people (that are not from the upperclass) pronounce it in a very "rough" way. |
Dutch and Danish are way closer than Dutch and German. Dutch and Danish are originating from the northern areas of Scandinavia, whereas German, and its related languages did not, that I am aware of. Although I could be wrong.
That is cool. Languages are so interesting to me. Just the intricacies. |
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| Lira |
| quote: | Originally posted by gehzumteufel
When I took German in secondary school (98-2001) it seemed, from my experience (we had 2 foreign exchange students. One from the north near Hamburg and one from Berlin) that there was very little difference, with the exception of the pronunciation of things like the G, the pronoun ich, and a few other small things. Now maybe it is just because of the education type or something. I am unsure. I am no expert either. |
As I said, it's not unlikely that, thanks to the mass media (and modern education) there's a certain levelling going on between different dialects. These are educated individuals from contemporary Germany, the tales I heard were told a long time ago.
But yeah, the only reason why there's "German" and "Dutch" today is because distant dialects of a continuum were "frozen" and they turned out to be mutually unintelligible... Spanish and Portuguese (or the trio Swedish-Norwegian-Danish) were maybe closer to one another in these continua found in Europe, but they aren't so different, yet they aren't (always) mutually intelligible. Such is speech.
| quote: | Originally posted by Unique2701
Nah, not at all. The grammar remains the same, it's just that some of the individual characters that are being simplified.
Chinese grammer is pretty limited. Verbs remain the same for everyone (I/you/her/they etc) and for the rules for the different tenses are not very complicated. The main difference with English is that we don't place time and location at the end of the sentence. |
I know Chinese grammar is simple, but I expected some major differences to arise after a few centuries, just like what happened with the pronunciation. This is all very interesting.
| quote: | Originally posted by Unique2701
Haha, it's funny that you ask me all these questions about the Chinese language. It really makes me think about it, which I normally never do. |
It's part of my job... I always do that to people - I hope you don't mind :p |
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| Lira |
| quote: | Originally posted by gehzumteufel
Dutch and Danish are way closer than Dutch and German. Dutch and Danish are originating from the northern areas of Scandinavia, whereas German, and its related languages did not, that I am aware of. Although I could be wrong. |
Actually... this is how the languages are divided:
- West Germanic languages
- Dutch (Low Franconian, West Germanic)
- Low German (West Germanic)
- Central German (High German, West Germanic)
- Upper German (High German, West Germanic)
- English (Anglo-Frisian, West Germanic)
- Frisian (Anglo-Frisian, West Germanic)
- North Germanic languages
- Continental Scandinavian languages
- Insular Scandinavian languages:
Here's a nice graph from Wikipedia:
Naturally, all classification is artificial, and geographically Denmark is closer to the Netherlands than much of the German territory... but this is all quite complex :p |
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| Frenkieee |
| quote: | Originally posted by gehzumteufel
Dutch and Danish are way closer than Dutch and German. Dutch and Danish are originating from the northern areas of Scandinavia, whereas German, and its related languages did not, that I am aware of. Although I could be wrong. |
Maybe it's because I've been taught German in high school for several years (I feel a bit ashamed I'm terrible at it now), thus making it familiar, but they way I see it, Danish is a whole lot different from Dutch than German is.
As Unique said, with some Dutch words you can give it a subtle twist, that way 'creating' the German word. With Danish, that wouldn't work. |
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| Unique2701 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lira
I know Chinese grammar is simple, but I expected some major differences to arise after a few centuries, just like what happened with the pronunciation. This is all very interesting.
It's part of my job... I always do that to people - I hope you don't mind :p |
The grammer hasn't changed. I'm trying to remember how the grammer was with the older text pieces I had to read (for history or poetry classes) but to my knowledge it hasn't changed over such a long time span either.
Does grammer change at all? Dutch grammer hasn't either (in the last 20 years), but the spelling did.
Hehe I don't mind, but it's challenging to explain it well sometimes. Cantonese is the first language I learned, so it all seems natural to me without thinking about it ;) |
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| Lira |
| quote: | Originally posted by Unique2701
The grammer hasn't changed. I'm trying to remember how the grammer was with the older text pieces I had to read (for history or poetry classes) but to my knowledge it hasn't changed over such a long time span either. |
I remember I read about it once, but I don't really remember much about the history of the Chinese language.
| quote: | Originally posted by Unique2701
Does grammer change at all? Dutch grammer hasn't either (in the last 20 years), but the spelling did. |
Yes, it does, though it usually takes a lot more than a couple of decades to change so abruptly. For example, the future marker in most Romance language is quite recent (i.e. it developed in the last thousand years or so).
In Latin, if you wanted to say "I'll sing", you said "Canta-bo". -bo marked the future for the 1st person (that is, me :p). If you wanted to say "I have to sing" you'd say "Cantare habeo" (Sing I have). Roughly speaking, all was fine and dandy until the following generations interpreted this as a future marker, because the things you have to do are invariably done in the future (you don't need to do something if you've already done it in the past). Also, some of the sounds "eroded" as you'd expect them to do over time, so "habeo" became "ho" in Italian and "hei" in Portuguese (the "h" is silent!). If you want to say "I'll sing" in these languages now, you have to say "Canter-ò" in Italian (notice that "-ò" sounds like "ho") and "Cantar-ei" in Portuguese (once again, "-ei" and "hei" are pronounced the same way). So, what used to mean an obligation became over time a future marker.
This is once again changing in my language. I won't EVER say "cantarei" in real life unless I'm drunk or in a formal environment I can't escape. I'd usually say "Vou cantar", which means "I go sing", which is a form also found in other Romance languages.
The same happened in English, but with the verb "to will"... as a matter of fact, isn't there a verb in Chinese (yao, I guess) that means "to want/to will" and that can also be used in sentences that haven't happened yet? Such as "Wo yao he cha" (I want to drink tea / I will drink tea)? It's been a while since I last studied Chinese, but I remember I saw this verb pop up every now and it's still seen as a verb by current Chinese speakers... but it's only a matter of time until it becomes an actual future marker, just like "gei" also seems to mean both the verb "to give" and the preposition "to/for"... but I'm just speculating here, because "gei wo" didn't always mean "Give me" but "for me/to me".
| quote: | Originally posted by Unique2701
Hehe I don't mind, but it's challenging to explain it well sometimes. Cantonese is the first language I learned, so it all seems natural to me without thinking about it ;) |
It's natural, I don't think that much about my own language either :) |
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