Vegas & The Aftermath - Diary

[RED-DOG]

Tikay i know your interested in aviation so if your ever at a loose end you should take a look at this thread in OOT on 2+2.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/34/other-other-topics/ask-me-about-being-airline-pilot-flying-general-628324/

Once you get past the teenagers asking about the mile high club it turns into a great thread.The pilot answering has a great way of explaining the aspects of air travel without being condesending even to the daftest questions.

It's 85 pages long but well worth a read especially for anyone who is scared of flying as he is very reassuring.

What a great find. totally absorbing.

[amcgrath1uk]

Tikay i know your interested in aviation so if your ever at a loose end you should take a look at this thread in OOT on 2+2.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/34/other-other-topics/ask-me-about-being-airline-pilot-flying-general-628324/

Once you get past the teenagers asking about the mile high club it turns into a great thread.The pilot answering has a great way of explaining the aspects of air travel without being condesending even to the daftest questions.

It's 85 pages long but well worth a read especially for anyone who is scared of flying as he is very reassuring.

What a great find. totally absorbing.

+1

Thats my evening sorted!

[kinboshi]

I find the IE tab addon for FF useful for sites that have to use IE (it puts a little icon in the bottom right of FF and clicking on it switches the rendering between FF's and IE's).

I've been catching up with the last few days of posts and thought you might like these articles from the Economist about languages, the first is about the world's most difficult languages (and shows that English isn't that bad):
http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15108609

The second is about how English is losing it's nuances due to technology and more non-native speakers:
http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15108779

(at least I hope that's what they are about, I read them a few weeks ago!)

I'll read that later Bongo, I'm a bit tied up elsewhere today.

But if there's a harder language than English to master, this I need to see. Or do I mean hear?

I was listening to R4 the other day, at about 4am or something, & they were trailing a Show called "Here Here".

The continuity announcer said ".....da de da, & you can hear Hear Hear here on Radio 4". How on earth does a Scandie, or an East European, sort that lot out?

Harder language to master than English?  I'd guess there are plenty going by the vast array of resources available from which to learn English (usually American English, sigh) and the number of people who have 'mastered' English to a level of fluency.  Of course, you don't define 'master' and the idea of being 'fluent' in a language is a vague one.  A 7-year old school child is undoubtedly fluent in their native language, but their written and reading ability might be far short of a foreign student who has studied the language as an adult and can read and write the language well and 'get by' in the spoken language. Has either 'mastered' the language, is one more 'fluent'.

As a guess, I'd expect Chinese, Russian and Arabic to be far more difficult to learn than English.  Of course, it's all relative though.  A Japanese person might find Chinese a lot easier to learn (to read and write) than Russian; whereas a German might find it a lot easier to pick up Russian rather than Chinese.

I spoke to some italians (who were fluent in a few languages) about their view on this subject.

The gist of what they thought was that English is probably the easiest language to learn enough to get by in - conversational English as it were - but one of the hardest to learn completely.

Which other languages?  I'm assuming Romance European languages?  Probably not Chinese, Japanese, Arabic or Russian?

[77dave]

i take it Tikay is offline as he is watching the Celebs enter the BB House

[Jon MW]

I find the IE tab addon for FF useful for sites that have to use IE (it puts a little icon in the bottom right of FF and clicking on it switches the rendering between FF's and IE's).

I've been catching up with the last few days of posts and thought you might like these articles from the Economist about languages, the first is about the world's most difficult languages (and shows that English isn't that bad):
http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15108609

The second is about how English is losing it's nuances due to technology and more non-native speakers:
http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15108779

(at least I hope that's what they are about, I read them a few weeks ago!)

I'll read that later Bongo, I'm a bit tied up elsewhere today.

But if there's a harder language than English to master, this I need to see. Or do I mean hear?

I was listening to R4 the other day, at about 4am or something, & they were trailing a Show called "Here Here".

The continuity announcer said ".....da de da, & you can hear Hear Hear here on Radio 4". How on earth does a Scandie, or an East European, sort that lot out?

Harder language to master than English?  I'd guess there are plenty going by the vast array of resources available from which to learn English (usually American English, sigh) and the number of people who have 'mastered' English to a level of fluency.  Of course, you don't define 'master' and the idea of being 'fluent' in a language is a vague one.  A 7-year old school child is undoubtedly fluent in their native language, but their written and reading ability might be far short of a foreign student who has studied the language as an adult and can read and write the language well and 'get by' in the spoken language. Has either 'mastered' the language, is one more 'fluent'.

As a guess, I'd expect Chinese, Russian and Arabic to be far more difficult to learn than English.  Of course, it's all relative though.  A Japanese person might find Chinese a lot easier to learn (to read and write) than Russian; whereas a German might find it a lot easier to pick up Russian rather than Chinese.

I spoke to some italians (who were fluent in a few languages) about their view on this subject.

The gist of what they thought was that English is probably the easiest language to learn enough to get by in - conversational English as it were - but one of the hardest to learn completely.

Which other languages?  I'm assuming Romance European languages?  Probably not Chinese, Japanese, Arabic or Russian?

It wasn't an in depth chat - you're probably right.

Similarly to some of what you were suggesting I think it summed up nicely why some people say English is so easy and why some say it is so hard.

[tikay]

i take it Tikay is offline as he is watching the Celebs enter the BB House

Groan, please no. So will the media be bombarding us with this infantile nonsense for the next 3 months?

[77dave]

i take it Tikay is offline as he is watching the Celebs enter the BB House

Groan, please no. So will the media be bombardin us with this infantile nonsense for the next 3 months?

We are lucky i think its less than a month this time the things people have to do to make 200k

i know i wont be buying a tabloid paper this month

[kinboshi]

I find the IE tab addon for FF useful for sites that have to use IE (it puts a little icon in the bottom right of FF and clicking on it switches the rendering between FF's and IE's).

I've been catching up with the last few days of posts and thought you might like these articles from the Economist about languages, the first is about the world's most difficult languages (and shows that English isn't that bad):
http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15108609

The second is about how English is losing it's nuances due to technology and more non-native speakers:
http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15108779

(at least I hope that's what they are about, I read them a few weeks ago!)

I'll read that later Bongo, I'm a bit tied up elsewhere today.

But if there's a harder language than English to master, this I need to see. Or do I mean hear?

I was listening to R4 the other day, at about 4am or something, & they were trailing a Show called "Here Here".

The continuity announcer said ".....da de da, & you can hear Hear Hear here on Radio 4". How on earth does a Scandie, or an East European, sort that lot out?

Harder language to master than English?  I'd guess there are plenty going by the vast array of resources available from which to learn English (usually American English, sigh) and the number of people who have 'mastered' English to a level of fluency.  Of course, you don't define 'master' and the idea of being 'fluent' in a language is a vague one.  A 7-year old school child is undoubtedly fluent in their native language, but their written and reading ability might be far short of a foreign student who has studied the language as an adult and can read and write the language well and 'get by' in the spoken language. Has either 'mastered' the language, is one more 'fluent'.

As a guess, I'd expect Chinese, Russian and Arabic to be far more difficult to learn than English.  Of course, it's all relative though.  A Japanese person might find Chinese a lot easier to learn (to read and write) than Russian; whereas a German might find it a lot easier to pick up Russian rather than Chinese.

I spoke to some italians (who were fluent in a few languages) about their view on this subject.

The gist of what they thought was that English is probably the easiest language to learn enough to get by in - conversational English as it were - but one of the hardest to learn completely.

Which other languages?  I'm assuming Romance European languages?  Probably not Chinese, Japanese, Arabic or Russian?

It wasn't an in depth chat - you're probably right.

Similarly to some of what you were suggesting I think it summed up nicely why some people say English is so easy and why some say it is so hard.

Makes sense then.  From people I've spoken to (from other European countries) it does seem, at least anecdotally, that English is far from the most difficult to learn.  Having spoken to academic linguists, many seem to suggest that it's a lot of the irregularities in English that make it easier to learn - rather than making it more difficult as is often assumed.

[The_duke]

Tikay i know your interested in aviation so if your ever at a loose end you should take a look at this thread in OOT on 2+2.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/34/other-other-topics/ask-me-about-being-airline-pilot-flying-general-628324/

Once you get past the teenagers asking about the mile high club it turns into a great thread.The pilot answering has a great way of explaining the aspects of air travel without being condesending even to the daftest questions.

It's 85 pages long but well worth a read especially for anyone who is scared of flying as he is very reassuring.

What a great find. totally absorbing.

Well written and a great read

[technolog]

Which other languages?  I'm assuming Romance European languages?  Probably not Chinese, Japanese, Arabic or Russian?

Freudian?

[tikay]

I find the IE tab addon for FF useful for sites that have to use IE (it puts a little icon in the bottom right of FF and clicking on it switches the rendering between FF's and IE's).

I've been catching up with the last few days of posts and thought you might like these articles from the Economist about languages, the first is about the world's most difficult languages (and shows that English isn't that bad):
http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15108609

The second is about how English is losing it's nuances due to technology and more non-native speakers:
http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15108779

(at least I hope that's what they are about, I read them a few weeks ago!)

I'll read that later Bongo, I'm a bit tied up elsewhere today.

But if there's a harder language than English to master, this I need to see. Or do I mean hear?

I was listening to R4 the other day, at about 4am or something, & they were trailing a Show called "Here Here".

The continuity announcer said ".....da de da, & you can hear Hear Hear here on Radio 4". How on earth does a Scandie, or an East European, sort that lot out?

Harder language to master than English?  I'd guess there are plenty going by the vast array of resources available from which to learn English (usually American English, sigh) and the number of people who have 'mastered' English to a level of fluency.  Of course, you don't define 'master' and the idea of being 'fluent' in a language is a vague one.  A 7-year old school child is undoubtedly fluent in their native language, but their written and reading ability might be far short of a foreign student who has studied the language as an adult and can read and write the language well and 'get by' in the spoken language. Has either 'mastered' the language, is one more 'fluent'.

As a guess, I'd expect Chinese, Russian and Arabic to be far more difficult to learn than English.  Of course, it's all relative though.  A Japanese person might find Chinese a lot easier to learn (to read and write) than Russian; whereas a German might find it a lot easier to pick up Russian rather than Chinese.

I spoke to some italians (who were fluent in a few languages) about their view on this subject.

The gist of what they thought was that English is probably the easiest language to learn enough to get by in - conversational English as it were - but one of the hardest to learn completely.

Which other languages?  I'm assuming Romance European languages?  Probably not Chinese, Japanese, Arabic or Russian?

It wasn't an in depth chat - you're probably right.

Similarly to some of what you were suggesting I think it summed up nicely why some people say English is so easy and why some say it is so hard.

I just struggle to grasp how they get the nuances, the peculiar differences in pronunciation for identical word-tails. A cow gives milk, but is pronounced as in plough, but a cough is different again, & is not pronounced anything like rough or gruff. Rough & gruff are spelt so differently. Then there's Slough, like plough but not like slow.

The tenses too - yesterday I read, today I read, then there's lead (metal) & lead (for the dog), live & live, slightly different contexts but pronounced wholly differently.

Why has "why" got  "wh" in it, or "queue" got "ueue" in it? Their & their, lose & loose, even those for whom English is their basic language struggle with those, Who'se, who & whom.

Why are what & yacht pronounced similarly, then there's feat & feet, as well as feet as in 12 inches, meat (as in greet) & meat (as in eat), same as heat & greet but different to great. Great is different to grate, & so on.

There must be tens of thousands of such anomolies.

How do they learn them?

[tikay]

i take it Tikay is offline as he is watching the Celebs enter the BB House

Groan, please no. So will the media be bombardin us with this infantile nonsense for the next 3 months?

We are lucky i think its less than a month this time the things people have to do to make 200k

i know i wont be buying a tabloid paper this month

Fear not. They belong erxclusively to Jordan tittle-tattle.

[tikay]

How does poor Spacefrog manage so well with the Queen's English?

And English-speaking people refuse to learn French, in principle. French people learn English, but refuse to speak it.

[tikay]

I'm fully aware that in the ego-fuelled poker world it's not done to large someone up, but.....

Young Miss Nutt, who was second in yesterday's DTD £300 - what a talent she is in the making!

I've rarely seen any individual so in control of a Table. Totally relaxed, 100% at home playing pots, brutaly & mercilessly aggro. I heard (but never saw) reports that she was a tad volatile, but well, I can't recall seeing anyone at a Table in a long time who was so comfy, so in her element, so dominant.

I gather she already won (?) an ECOOP Event, but if that girl does not cut a swathe through Live Poker & get herself signed up by someone, & shake a few reputations, I'll be hugely surprised.

She took psychological control of all her oppos.  Great to watch too, if you enjoy the nuances of body language.

[tikay]

Found a great new word in that Airline Pilot thread on 2 + 2.

effluvia (The plural of effluent).

I just need a way to get that into convo now.