How Are You? A Start To Foreign Languages
About half a foot of snow is on the ground from the snowfall yesterday. The trees look magnificent with their snow jewelry on.
I sat outdoors enjoying the fresh air as I watched bits of snow fall from the trees spreading white wisps of faerie dust into the air.
From yesterday’s suggestions list I did the one: Learn a sentence in 5 languages.
Without pronunciation symbols
as I believe said
How are you
Chinese: Ni hoa mah
nee hohw ma
French: Comment vas-tu?
comee vah tu
Greek: Ti kanis?
tee kahnees
Dutch: Hoe is het?
whoos is heht
Polish: Jak sie masz?
yah shay maz
The exercise is interesting. The easiest for me to speak is Chineses. Like Spanish, (I’m semiliterate), Chinese has a song quality that makes speaking easier for me. All of the languages are fun to speak.
Note, not all languages in Google Search results are well represented as far as audio available for how to pronounce the words.
Next week I’ll do 5 more languages
Have Fun!
I have never thought to learn languages like that. Interesting!
ReplyDeleteMarie,
DeleteSince childhood when I had to take a special class for phonetics to catch up with my reading grade level, I've been interested in languages.
How neat that you want to learn different languages. It's not an easy thing to do. I smiled with the Greek and Polish verses, as that is my heritage on my dad's side. You got quite a bit of snow, and I love how you referred to it as white fairy dust. : )
ReplyDelete~Sheri
Sheri,
DeleteA sentence a week in conversational language is the goal. I write them down in phonetics for practice.
May
What a fun thing to do! I love languages and learning bits and pieces of them whenever we travel. I speak English, then Spanish, then French most fluently.
ReplyDeleteLorrie,
DeleteBeing fluent is fantastic!
I can write what I hear and read in Spanish, but I don’t know all the meanings of the words. It is weird.
Interesting, I don't speak or understand any other languages. I'd love to learn Spanish however.
ReplyDeleteJim & Barb,
DeleteSpanish is a beautiful language. I learned more about English grammar in Spanish class than in English classes.
I know there's different 'languages' within Chinese, something I learned from our Asian-born daughter-in-love. In reference to the new year, you see 'gung hay fat choi' commonly but she says that 'zin nian ku aile' is for most people outside the family unit, but 'xin nian hao' is used for family.
ReplyDeleteMaryanne,
DeleteThe formal and informal uses are good to know. It is wonderful you have help.
Learning a new language, especially how to greet someone, is a great undertaking. My problem would be the remembering.
ReplyDeleteBeatrice,
DeleteRemembering is an issue with me as well. Writing them down and practicing might help.