Writer's Block: Multilingual

[saltdawg]

[Error: unknown template qotd] I'm only doing this because honorata  did it.

Fluent: English, Pidgin
Conversational: Czech, French, Swahili, Patois, Cajun
Only know How to order a drink, Curse someone out and say please & thank you: Portuguese, German, Italian, Greek, Afrikaan, Dutch, Egyptian, Chinese, Russian, Polish, Spanish, Tygrinya, Redneck, And, hell I know how to swear in almost every language...I'm a Sailor after all.

Comments

[honorata.livejournal.com]

I'll teach you a curse on archaic portuguese! dating from the XIV century


"Sapateiro da Candosa! Tua mulher é tinhosa e há-de parir um sapo chentado num guardanapo!"

trad:

"You shoemaker from Candosa! Thine wife is mangy, and she shall birth a toad-frog sitting on a napkin!"

:P

[saltdawg.livejournal.com]

On A NAPKIN!

That's hilarious. I don't think it would really quite zing the stevedores in Mozambique though.

[honorata.livejournal.com]

it'd quirk any portuguese intellectual though!

[savateuse.livejournal.com]

I call bullshit on your french till I hear it. =P

[saltdawg.livejournal.com]

Oh. My. I'll remember you said this when you come with me to Djibouti.

[snatchbeast.livejournal.com]

English, primary.

ASL, decent.

Latin, POOR

[saltdawg.livejournal.com]

OOH! OOH! I know "whore" in ASL!

[snatchbeast.livejournal.com]

Lol, me too =)

[provoca7eur.livejournal.com]

Cajun? Conversational Cajun? That is pretty darn cool.
Verdomme.

[saltdawg.livejournal.com]

I've been trying to come up with a conversational coonass way of tweaking yer nose, but I've realized that when I say "conversational" I mean: "my mind kicks into gear when I hear the lingo" NOT "I can pull phrases out of my ass" as is the case with the last category.

[hellnation.livejournal.com]

we've got the cat's ass right here!

[saltdawg.livejournal.com]

Thanks for waking me up after 30 (American) minutes of sleep. You can call nao if you want. I'm in full storytelling mode, and I'm all alone.

of hushing

[hellnation.livejournal.com]

you can always count on me to give you a nudge, if need be...
i save your messages so that i have something to listen to,
just in case the real deal is unavailable.

thank you for breaking my facecrack cherry, last night!

and your built in security feature is awesome :)

Re: of hushing

[saltdawg.livejournal.com]

Oh dear god. I dread what you have recorded on your telephone machine. I drank two whole fifths last night. I didn't go to bed until seven, woke up at ten and I'm not even drunk OR hungover.

Re: of hushing

[hellnation.livejournal.com]

me too!

wanna make out?

[justmealex.livejournal.com]

Fluent: English
Intermediate-Fluent (read/write/speak): Spanish, Hawaiian.
Conversational: Japanese

I know just enough Russian to greet our custodial staff.

[saltdawg.livejournal.com]

Aw jeeze...I think I can only actually read English and Czech. I suppose I can read a little Swahili as well. Pidgin has no written form.

[justmealex.livejournal.com]

Pidgin = fun.

Sadly I'm French-Canadian, but understand zero French since I grew up in Seattle and the mom never bothered to teach any of us. True story: I was up in a remote part of Alberta and pop into this coffee shop, the gal behind the counter starts speaking rapid fire French to me and all I can do is stare blankly and say, "uh we speak ENGLISH in this part of Canadia."

Fuck Esperanto, we've got Pidgin!

[saltdawg.livejournal.com]

I'm a little confused here. Is there some sort of visual clue that identifies you as FC, or was she just randomly spouting off in french because she felt like it?

Depending upon where I am in Europe, I'm generally approached in German, but the Czechs would address me in Czech, and mostly when I indicate I don't speak germanese, their second try is usually Russian. The Africans and Asians all know I'm American though.

Oh, there was this time I was at Foufonnes Electrique in Montreal, I think it was a My Bloody Valentine show...Anyway I got to talking with this group of kids. Finally, they asked me where I was from, and when I said "the States" they said "no you aren't! You are from PEI! and we know it." Apparently I have a Scotian/PEI accent for some reason.

Re: Fuck Esperanto, we've got Pidgin!

[justmealex.livejournal.com]

Negatory on the visual clue, most people usually guess that I'm Russian above anything else (we have a sizeable Russian population here and I'm often addressed in Russian by foreigners). I think she might've been new and a recent transplant to AB from French Canadia.

Esperanto = fail. A shame.

Haha at the Scottish fail.

[erzulie-eardrum.livejournal.com]

the only phrase my german grandfather taught me was
"I'll have another (beer)"
I would have liked to read the collected works of goethe, but no.

to this day I won't drink beer, he pushed the stuff on us girls to an inappropriate degree...and the apfelcider...beer halls are pretty intolerable w/out libations...so is yodeling...guess one needs the other...or neither (my preference)

[erzulie-eardrum.livejournal.com]

but I used to be fluent in french (& english), monsieur connasse.
now, not so much

[saltdawg.livejournal.com]

All of my language skills are much like that Resurrection plant: namely they dry and shrivel when I am not in-country, but as soon as I am, I start spewing words I didn't even know I knew. A couple of months ago I had an entire dream in Czech, and I haven't actually spoken it in almost ten years! I'd thought it was all gone...but it's all still up there on stand-by, awaiting re-activation.

Also, is there anything I can do to stop you from crying?

[hellnation.livejournal.com]

you are so sweet