What language (other than English) do you speak?

[CHILENO20]

Muy bueno, amigo!

For anyone wanting to brush up on their Huttese:
http://otca.com.au/boards/showpost.p...4&postcount=20

Gracias Gok

[GoktimusPrime]

I tend to hear a lot of people mangling the pronunciation of German words around September (re: Oktoberfest time), and generally when trying to pronounce names and words from other Germanic languages. Somewhat ironic considering that English is a Germanic language too, but whatever. Anyway, here are a few words/names that I hear being mispronounced, along with a guide on how to pronounce it correctly.

For some reason, some English speakers have a tendency to ignore accent marks such as umlauts. Dön't! I mean, don't! Note that pronunciation guides are approximations. See the IPA spellings in brackets for the technically correct pronunciation.

Mjölnir (/ˈmjɒlnɪər/)
Aahhh, Thor's mighty hammer. This is pronounced as "mee'yurl-near," not "mee'yoll-nur." Be mindful that the "-ir" is pronounced as "ear," and not as "err"; similar to Mithrandir (/ˈmɪθrændɪər/; the Elvish name for Gandalf), which is pronounced as "Meeth-ran-dear."

Löwenbräu (/ˈlɜrvənbrɔɪ/)
A famous German brewery in Munich, and also the first part of the name of a famous Bavarian restaurant in Sydney (Löwenbräu Keller). Every year I hear people talking about the Löwenbräu Keller and referring to it as the "Low-wen-brow." <shudder> It's not. You say, "Ler-vern-broy."

Möbius (/ˈmɜrbiəs/)
I sometimes hear people say "MOH-bee-us," but it's "MER-bee-us." Ad infinitum.

Gestalt (/ɡəˈʃtalt/)
A word which has been widely used by Transformers fans since 1994 to describe Combiner team robots. I've heard it pronounced as "Guess-stollt" to "Jess-stollt." A more accurate approximation is "Guh-shtah'lt."

Ikea (ɪˈkeːˈa)
A lot of people say "Eye-kee'yah," but the correct pronunciation is "Ee-keh-ah." This is how it's pronounced in Japanese (イケア). Having said that, a lot of native Swedish speakers frequently mispronounce it as "Ee-kee-ah," but "Ee-keh-ah" is technically more correct because it's an acronym which stands for Ingvar Kamprad Elmtaryd Agunnaryd. The mispronunciation by Swedes is likely because Ikea is typically spelt without an accent mark on the "e." It used to be spelt with one (Möbel-IKÉA), but it's since lost the accent mark, and so there's been a vowel shift from é (eh) to e (ee), even among Swedish speakers.

Ægir/Ägir /ˈægɪər/
The Norse god of the sea. I frequently hear it being mispronounced as "Ey-Gar," but it's actually "Ag-gear."

Many words and names from Middle Earth are based on Germanic pronunciation, which is not surprising considering that Tolkien was a Germanic linguist. And so we have...

Smaug (/smaʊg/)
The "au" is pronounced as in the word "Audi," and not as in the word "naughty." So it's "SmOWg," not "SmORg." Things have gotten a lot better since the Hobbit films came out, but before then, I encountered a lot of people who'd pronounce it as "SmORg." I used to teach The Hobbit as an English text, and students were often reading it as "SmORg," no matter how many times I'd tell them at it's "SmOWg." It's also the same as the "au" as in "Sauron," which of course is pronounced, "SOW-ron," and not "SAW-ron."

Beorn (/bɛɔʀn/)
"BEH-orn," and not "BEE-orn." This is actually an Old English name (not all words and languages in Middle Earth were inventions of Tolkien -- the Rohirrim language is actually just Old English!).

Gandalf (/gɑn.dɑlf/)
The A's are pronounced as in the word "father," and not as in "apple." Thus you say, "Gun-dulf," not "Gan-dalf." Sir Ian McKellen actually pronounces it correctly as "Gun-dulf," and even made a point of it in one of the DVD special features interviews. It comes from the Old Norse word "Gandalv," which means magic wand or staff. Some people argue that it should be pronounced as "Gun-dulv," in keeping with its Norse origins, but Tolkien himself pronounced it as "Gun-dulf," thus making that pronunciation canonically official.

[CHILENO20]

[QUOTE=GoktimusPrime;470817]

Gestalt (/ɡəˈʃtalt/)
A word which has been widely used by Transformers fans since 1994 to describe Combiner team robots. I've heard it pronounced as "Guess-stollt" to "Jess-stollt." A more accurate approximation is "Guh-shtah'lt."

[QUOTE]

Hooray! I knew I was always pronouncing it wrong! My best mate & me always pronouced it "gee-salts" completely missing the "t" LOL. Great work Gok

[Akky82]

Speak, read, and write some mandarin, speak a little japanese (not like fanboi), trying like hell to learn Toisan on my own.

Toisan is a dialect (southern cantonese) from Taishan, my wife and all her family speak it, the only references i have are a pdf of a handbook for US soldiers to learn from like 1947 or something, and some drills to get sounds right. I'm trying to learn on my own to surprise my wife, as sometimes the language barrier is still there (she's been here 4.5 years but speaks mostly toisan to her family and friends, mandarin to a few other friends, and cantonese to workmates). It's not some kind of 'i wanna learn to see what they say about me', i'm very good at reading body language and can often tell what they're talking about, which has led them to believe i can already understan a bit, and her mother has given up trying to speak to me in english because she thinks i can understand already (despite all of us trying to tell her different).

You might say "but you know some mandarin, and so does she", but honestly she's from the south, it'd be easier to speak english than me improve my mandarin, because hers isnt that great anyway (self admitted).

[GoktimusPrime]

An oldie but a goldie:
How German sounds compared to other languages
I've shown this to my German speaking friends/colleagues and they all think it's accurately hilarious.

[unicronsblood]

English is my first language but am fluent in Indonesia bahasa. Siapa saja disini yang bisa berbahasa indonesia? (Anyone else speaking indonesian? )

[GoktimusPrime]

I tried learning Indonesian once, and I failed miserably at it.

Barack Obama used to be able to speak Indonesian, however whenever I see videos of him speaking it, it appears to be virtually non existent. He can manage to say a few words and phrases, but unable to actually sustain a conversation. And this isn't unusual -- languages are not like a riding a bicycle, it can and will be forgotten if it's not practised/maintained. Obama probably hasn't used it in his adult life. This is quite different from say Kevin Rudd's Chinese which is highly fluent since he's continued to maintain it.

Obama speaking limited Indonesian
Rudd speaking fluent Mandarin Chinese

[unicronsblood]

[QUOTE=GoktimusPrime;475197]I tried learning Indonesian once, and I failed miserably at it.

It is painfully hard to learn, especially the slang, fortunately my wife is indonesian so she always corrects me
Your right, Barack Obama sounds a little rusty at it...

[GoktimusPrime]

Postman Pat theme in Norwegian

Postmann Pat, Postmann Pat
med sin svarte og hvite katt.
Alltid tidlig ute
på sin postmanns rute
har han all posten med seg i sin bil.

Postmann Pat, Postmann Pat
Med sin svarte og hvite katt
Pat skal kjøre bil, han
Og det er med et smil han
drar avsted i sin bil med dagens post

Alle mennsker kjenner bilen hans
små og store smiler når han vinker til dem
noen lyder kjenner de godt
så som bank, ring da har han post til deg

Postman Pat, Postmann Pat
med sin svarte og hvite katt
alltid tidlig ute
på sin postmanns rute
har han all posten med seg i sin bil
har han all posten med seg i sin bil