Spanish and French? I don't see many similarities at all... Spanish and Italian, however are pretty close. I can recognize a lot of Italian words that I see just based on my knowledge of Spanish, but I can't do much when it comes to French.
-Fantom
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Spanish and French? I don't see many similarities at all... Spanish and Italian, however are pretty close. I can recognize a lot of Italian words that I see just based on my knowledge of Spanish, but I can't do much when it comes to French.
-Fantom
I recognize a lot of Spanish words based on my impressive and vast knowledge of French :D
They are in the same language family anyway.
My Spanish friend says he understands French.Quote:
Originally Posted by fantom605
I doubt it, unless he studied French. What do you mean by he understands? He can understand when someone talks or can guess when he reads something?Quote:
Originally Posted by TATY
Isn't Romanian and French Close? Closer than General Spanish is to French?
Actually many words have the same roots but that's it and doesn't necessary mean that I can understand Spanish.Quote:
Originally Posted by fantom605
translations.nm.ru, my hat's off to you, calling upon your skills at OCS; I could hardly believe my eyes when I read your post.
One small error, though, which I determined immediately as I pulled up my Paul Diels, Altkirchenslavische Grammatik, (1963, 2. Auflage) and looked it up. The infinitive is (I don't have a yat' here so I'll use ě), вěдěти, 1.sg. вěмь. (мягкий знак)
Also, noone mentioned it, probably because it's only males here who might recall this word, but we have the word ведьма. Ведь значит The Knower, согласишь?? (I do know what it means.)
доброй ночи!
kalinka_vinnie - азбука is closest to ABC. Actually the OCS word is буки that's the name of the letter, even though it seems to be plural.
Anyway, memorize this phrase, which "everyone" knows: аз да буки а там науки.
(носители рус. яз. пож исправьте, если ошибаюсь.)
and pices reminded me
>Азбука is just a literal translation of "alphabet".
What do you think might be the origin of the English word "alphabet". Might it be alpha beta αβ Hmmm. or alef bet? As I heard it from my former wife, her high school (in Chicago) ball game cheer was: alef bet gimmel dalet. Man, oh man, are we solid!
ok, I see now. аз means 'A' and not necessary 'I' and буки means 'B', just like Alphabet is alpha beta, the two first letters.
I just got confued with the аз = 'I' thing...
I'm cool! 8)
This is from an etymology dictionary.Quote:
Originally Posted by chaika
Quote:
1567 (implied in alphabetical), from L.L. alphabetum (Tertullian), from Gk. alphabetos, from alpha + beta, the first two letters of it, from Heb.-Phoen. aleph, pausal form of eleph "ox" + beth, lit. "house;" the letters so called because their shapes resembled or represented those objects. The Greeks added -a to the end of many Heb.-Phoenician letter names because Gk. words cannot end in most consonants.
Not really. Romanian is closer to Italian rather than French.Quote:
Originally Posted by djmihow
I expect written, because in French they don't pronounce half the letters in a word...Quote:
Originally Posted by Spiderkat
In Ukrainian they have:
Алфавіт - from Greek alpha, beta
Азбука - from Old Church Slavonic az, buki
Абетка - from Ukrainian a, be,
But, if you look at the whole alphabet:Quote:
Originally Posted by chaika
Г is called глаголи
Д is called добро
Е is called єсть
etc.
The names have meanings.
Sorry but you're wrong. Who told you that?Quote:
Originally Posted by TATY
What do you mean he's wrong? In saying that they don't pronounce half the letters in a word? That's right, as far as I'm concerned. For example, the -eaux ending, that sounds like "oh".Quote:
Originally Posted by Spiderkat
And just count to ten:
un
deux
trois
quatre
cinq
six
sept
huit
neuf
dix
Most of those have more than one useless letter. (not that english is any better, but anyway)
As you know almost all the words come from Latin or/and Greek and have a reason to have such spellings. Let me explain these you've mentioned above. But I agree some letters are silent, which by the way does not mean useless at all, and he quite exaggerated saying half the letters are not pronounced. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Platinum
Here's some simple explanations.
un - the n is needed because it becomes une, also u+n creates a nasal sound and comes from unus in Latin
deux - the silent x is needed and pronounced for words made of it (deuxi
[quote=Spiderkat]As you know almost all the words come from Latin or/and Greek and have a reason to have such spellings. Let me explain these you've mentioned above. But I agree some letters are silent, which by the way does not mean useless at all, and he quite exaggerated saying half the letters are not pronounced. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Platinum
Here's some simple explanations.
un - the n is needed because it becomes une, also u+n creates a nasal sound and comes from unus in Latin
deux - the silent x is needed and pronounced for words made of it (deuxi
You spell it "touchQuote:
Originally Posted by Platinum
You take people to litterally.Quote:
Originally Posted by Spiderkat
When I say "they don't pronounce half the letters", I don't actually mean half.
But there are lots of unpronounced letters (e.g. at the end of words).
Basically, I was saying, French isn't a phonetic language, so even though a French word may look like a Spanish word, a Spanish person may find it difficult to understand.
[quote=Platinum][quote=Spiderkat]As you know almost all the words come from Latin or/and Greek and have a reason to have such spellings. Let me explain these you've mentioned above. But I agree some letters are silent, which by the way does not mean useless at all, and he quite exaggerated saying half the letters are not pronounced. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Platinum
Here's some simple explanations.
un - the n is needed because it becomes une, also u+n creates a nasal sound and comes from unus in Latin
deux - the silent x is needed and pronounced for words made of it (deuxi
Just wanted to say that the h is either mute or aspirated.Quote:
Originally Posted by TATY
les hommes, h is mute and you pronounce "layzom"
les h
I agree, some of them are unpronounced (mute is the right term) but needed especially when comes the writing or reading part otherwise you wouldn't be able to understand the words.Quote:
Originally Posted by TATY
Here's an example, "col" and "colle" are pronounced the same way but have two different meanings.
And I agree also, French isn't a phonetic language but once you know the rules of pronounciation and I would say 'you read what you see', which is not the case in English for example.
That's actually a pretty good idea, using Russian letters to show pronounciation. Not that we're trying to learn French here, but trying to use English letters to explain how a word is pronounced is pretty useless. Like I said, I think French is a weird language. BUt English is probably more insane.Quote:
Originally Posted by TATY
Quote:
Originally Posted by Platinum
Aber ich!
So, kind of going back on topic here, I have a friend that is originally from Bulgaria. She doesn't know that I am learning Russian, but I really could benefit from working with someone that knows the language. If I remember right, I think she speaks Russian too, but am not absolutely certain.
I would like to learn from her (Bulgarian too, after my Russian skills have gotten up to par), but do not want to unintentionally insult her. It seems that I read somewhere that some people do get insulted over the subject (though I don't know why exactly). Is this the case? If so, how should I ask in order to not be offensive?
In 'un', all the letters are not pronounce, more like "uh" but nasalized. If you raise your tongue to the back of the mouth so air can't pass through, you can make the proper sound.Quote:
Originally Posted by Platinum
'Deux' is not pronounced as the first two letters "done". I'm not sure how to write it linguistically yet. :? If you say "uh" again and then round the mouth, you'll make the sound. (Technique I learned in linguistics to pronounce sounds :wink: )
In 'quatre' the "r" is pronounced, though not in the way it is in Russian. It's a rolling of the "r" in the back of the throat.
In 'six' the "x" is pronounced the same as the "s". sees (not the English "sees" though) Using the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) it would be "sis". "i" is pronouced "ee". Same with 'dix'.
Huit is not pronounced "het". It's pronounced more like "wheat".
Neuf is pronounced with the 'eu' sound in 'deux'.
Why are you discussing a language you know nothing about? :roll:
Here is a link with all the number pronunciations. http://french.about.com/library/begin/bl_numbers.htm
Italian and Spanish are more alike. Spanish cannot be understood if you know French. I have been studying French for 6 years and when I was in Miami in a hotel, I couldn't understand the cleaning lady. :lol: Although another girl who claims she knows French (which I doubt) said she could understand it (which I also doubt).
Portugese is similar to Spanish. If you know Portugese, it's easier to understand Spanish than the other way around. If you know Spanish, you can understand Portugese, but it's a little harder. I know this because my friend's father, who's fluent in Spanish because he's from Panama went to Portugese one time and told me he could understand them, but needed them to speak slowly so he could understand. To conduct business, he spoke Spanish and they spoke Portugese. So it's obviously possible.
I took 4 years of Spanish in high school.
4 years later after college I had to take a reading exam in French. Just a little brush up over the summer with Palmeri & Milligan French for Reading Knowledge and I was able to pass the exam.
Jeez, I just pulled that book down off the shelf. The last time I read it was 40 years ago. omigod. Time to take a load to the used book store.
Chaika-
It's one thing to read. It's another thing when you hear the words in conversation. It's a lot more difficult to understand. Reading comprehension is always higher than conversational comprehension. Speaking is also the last that falls into place when learning a language.
Exactly. Just need to learn the alphabet and the rules of pronunciation and you can read what's written in a lot of different languages. But what's the purpose of taking a reading exam if you don't undertand what your read?
Because it's fun. And because I CAN! :DQuote:
Originally Posted by MalenkayaKatinka