Advanced Maths ? Live life at 118% ?

Baldursgate Fan · Post by **Baldursgate Fan** » Wed Apr 24, 2002 10:34 am

Originally posted by Stilgar

And the third A?

Oh, I see where you are coming from, Stilgar. AAA is the complete credit rating. It's not the initials for the bank.

Cheers.

Rob-hin · Post by **Rob-hin** » Wed Apr 24, 2002 10:56 am

So...your German are you?

Originally posted by Beldin
We get a lot of drunken ones in the holiday seasons each year.

You get a lot of drunken Hollanders?!
Come see our beaches in the summer. Germans digging holes everywhere!

fable · Post by **fable** » Wed Apr 24, 2002 10:57 am

Originally posted by Beldin

The "article" -

Der - the (he)
Die - the (she)
Das - the (it)
Des - its

Ah, der/die/das, den/die/das, dem/der/dem...brings back school memories, on an order with the greater horror films of the 1930s.

I *do* like the sound of German its sleek design and clean structure. But the intricacies of its grammatical rules are rather off-putting.

Rob-hin · Post by **Rob-hin** » Wed Apr 24, 2002 11:07 am

*thinks back to school too*

Argh, it sucked. I never scored obove a 4 when not cheating, so I desided to cheat.

Then I menaged to score 5's. WHOHOO!
Dumb ass teacher... bad scores.... yeah, loved it.

Beldin · Post by **Beldin** » Wed Apr 24, 2002 11:27 am

Originally posted by fable

Ah, der/die/das, den/die/das, dem/der/dem...brings back school memories, on an order with the greater horror films of the 1930s. I *do* like the sound of German its sleek design and clean structure. But the intricacies of its grammatical rules are rather off-putting.

German grammar is also difficult for german pupils...english is WAY easier to handle...and what I like in the english language is its inexhaustible possibilities of hidden meanings, one line jokes and plays on words. German is to "dry" and sleek and a lot less funny to read...IMHO...

Originally posted by Rob-hin

You get a lot of drunken Hollanders?!
Come see our beaches in the summer. Germans digging holes everywhere!

I'm glad I'm from Austria then...

No worries,

Beldin

C Elegans · Post by **C Elegans** » Wed Apr 24, 2002 4:48 pm

Originally posted by Stilgar

But maybe you're right i don;t like the dutch language that much. But I don;t like German either, i think it's a real ugly language, i can;t realy explain why.

I think English is a great language, it has more words (that's true for some English words i can't think of a normal dutch word) and it's prenounched (i think i misspelled thisone) better then Dutch (or German)

I like all languages - German sounds great in some contexts, for instance the great operas

Dutch is totally incomprihensible to me, but I sort of like the harsh sound of it.

Like you, I love English and the enourmous amount of words it has - 5 times more than Swedish, my 1st language. However, according to linguistic studies, the average Swede has twice as many words in his/her active vocabulary than the average Brit, and the the Brits in their turn have twice as many as the Americans. This is strange in such a rich language

fable · Post by **fable** » Wed Apr 24, 2002 4:56 pm

Originally posted by C Elegans

I like all languages - German sounds great in some contexts, for instance the great operas Dutch is totally incomprihensible to me, but I sort of like the harsh sound of it.

Like you, I love English and the enourmous amount of words it has - 5 times more than Swedish, my 1st language. However, according to linguistic studies, the average Swede has twice as many words in his/her active vocabulary than the average Brit, and the the Brits in their turn have twice as many as the Americans. This is strange in such a rich language

I wrack it up to the differences among cultures raised on varying degrees of lookalike television shows and great native literature. Hell, most Americans have probably never even heard of JD Sallinger, led alone read Franny and Zooey or Catcher in the Rye. I'll bet the most cultural thing Brits generally read, too, is the Sunday paper.

C Elegans · Post by **C Elegans** » Wed Apr 24, 2002 5:24 pm

Originally posted by fable

I wrack it up to the differences among cultures raised on varying degrees of lookalike television shows and great native literature. Hell, most Americans have probably never even heard of JD Sallinger, led alone read Franny and Zooey or Catcher in the Rye. I'll bet they don't the most cultural thing Brits generally read, too, is the Sunday paper.

Let's hope that Sunday paper is not The Sun

With the risk of sounding very generalising, I would say that Swede's at group level aren't cultural or intellectual at all - rather I think the Swedish society is quite anti-intellectual, at least compared to for instance France, Italy, Russia, many Arab countries, etc. Size of both active (words you use) and passive (words you don't use but understand) vocabulary is usually connected to educational level though, so the average Swede may have a larger vocuabulary because s/he also has a higher education than the average Brit and American. Over 90% study until they are at least 20, and 25-30% of Swedish youths are currently studying at university level. (We only have 3 levels of education, 9 years of compulsory primary school, a 2nd level of 3+4 years corresponding to something in between late high school and college, then university)

I must say I'm highly impressed by many Indian and South East Asian writers and people I've met who have English as a 2nd language but master it so beautifully

Georgi · Post by **Georgi** » Wed Apr 24, 2002 5:31 pm

Originally posted by C Elegans
Let's hope that Sunday paper is not The Sun

Nah, probably the Sunday Sport

C Elegans · Post by **C Elegans** » Wed Apr 24, 2002 5:44 pm

Originally posted by Georgi

Nah, probably the Sunday Sport

Hello Georgi, nice to see you

Perhaps I'm fortunate not to be familiar with Sunday Sport

When I lived in the UK, I used to read the Observer, that was pretty good I thought, much better than any Swedish newspapers. For some months, I also used to read the local Orkney newspaper, which came once a week and primarily concerned stuff like "mr Thomson's flowers destroyed in hurricane"

Locke Da'averan · Post by **Locke Da'averan** » Thu Apr 25, 2002 12:19 am

Originally posted by C Elegans

With the risk of sounding very generalising, I would say that Swede's at group level aren't cultural or intellectual at all - rather I think the Swedish society is quite anti-intellectual

touche CE

in addition i too like english sometimes over finnish even.I "nothing personal against swedish ppl" hate sweden, i can talk it and understand some of it if spoken to me, but i hate it, 'cause it drops my grade by 0.5

english is great since i'm good at it

and it does have those "famous" twist and turns in the sentences, Don Rosa has taken advantage of it in his comics

Mr Sleep · Post by **Mr Sleep** » Thu Apr 25, 2002 5:54 am

Originally posted by C Elegans
Like you, I love English and the enourmous amount of words it has - 5 times more than Swedish, my 1st language. However, according to linguistic studies, the average Swede has twice as many words in his/her active vocabulary than the average Brit, and the the Brits in their turn have twice as many as the Americans. This is strange in such a rich language

Me and my brother play this game where we say a word and then the other has to use the last letter of that word to begin another word and then it follows on from there. It is kind of fun (in a sad geeky way

) i win hands down but it is amazing the amount of times it ends up on Y or G

in the end we use words like Yes and You rather than cultivating some extravagant word

I like to follow a thematic course as well, but we soon ditch that and stick to insults