This Forum is becoming more Cosmopolitan

[Bajansailor]

It is interesting to see that this Forum is becoming increasingly more cosmopolitan. We have forumites of foreign tongues, based in the UK, from overseas, English speakers native language and English speakers not native language.
Over the years we had forumites from USA, Australia, NZ, France, Norway, Spain, Finland, Netherlands, Ireland and I am sure there are a few more nationalities and foreign speakers who are using this forum.
We all have yachting as common interest. I wonder how many forumites based overseas (or multi-nationals living in the UK) are actively participating in this forum.

There are also a few in the Caribbean, including myself in Barbados, and the irrepressible Rum Pirate in St Kitts, about 400 miles north of us.

I personally like the British flavour of YBW, I hop into a few sailing forum from different countries (France, Italy, US, Spain, Brazil, sometimes Quebequois Canada): the passion and interests may be shared, but the approach to sailing is sometimes really really different from one sailing culture to the other, which makes things so interesting and often funny.
Long live heterocultural sailing

Absolutely!
And it is so nice to meet other forumites in person as well - I had the pleasure of having an impromptu 'eyeball QSO' (ham radio speak for a get together) with Roberto in Horta in the Azores almost 9 years ago, where we were coincidentally moored on the same dock.
I was very impressed then by Roberto's absolute fluency in multiple languages - at least 5 re all the different forums that you mention above?

 

[longjohnsilver]

It is possible to make an educated guess - a reasonably well educated person of UK decent would be unlikely to use "overcomed" but would write/speak "overcome" instead.

However, pedantry aside, congratulations to Captain Fantastic for his excellent use of a foreign language.

Point of order, R, I assume English is not your first language

But back on topic, it's a positive aspect of the forum in that we do have a good number of overseas posters. Long may it continue.

 

[skipmac]

My case is simple: I’m a Belgian, living in Belgium, sailing from a Belgian port. My native language is Dutch, so French is my second language, but in practice English has taken second place.

I thought in Belgium you spoke Flemish, not Dutch.

 

[25931]

I thought in Belgium you spoke Flemish, not Dutch.

You must be a brilliant linguist if you are able to differentiate.

 

[Neeves]

To add to your list of nationalities there are New Zealanders (plural) and at least one Israeli. (edit - I note NZ was on the original list, apologies)

To add some humour and told to me by someone from Hong Kong whose native tongue was Cantonese but was also fluent in Mandarin (or Potunghua), English and German.

What do you call a person who speaks 3 larnguages?

What do you cal a person who speaks 2 languages?

What do you call a person who speaks on language?

Answers later......

But it is important to realiser that what is spoken (or written) in 'English' is not always understood.

My wife and I visited Greenock about 4 years ago and we stayed in the Holiday Inn (overlooking the estuary). Despite having lived in Glasgow for a few years and worked in the west of the country I had never been to Greenock. I asked Josephine to check us into the hotel whilst I scoured the tourist information for some clue as to where we might eat that evening. I was still scanning, unsuccessfully, for a decent restaurant when she came to me almost in tears. 'I cannot understand a word they are saying - except that we could have a free dinner'. I knew of course there was no free dinner and she had definitely misunderstood. I took over the 'checking in' and immediately was able to revert to broad Glaswegian, Josephine looked at me with amazement (still not understanding). There was a free dinner but you had to stay for 10 nights. During our stay I was able to show my linguistic skills every day, with suitable translations, and have lived on the story ever since. Josephine also speaks 3 languages, so better than my 2 languages - English and Glaswegian (and learning Australian).

Jonathan

 

[Koeketiene]

You must be a brilliant linguist if you are able to differentiate.

Telling the difference really isn't all that hard.
You don't need to be an English native speaker to notice the difference between cockney and scouse.
Same thing.

 

[Sybarite]

I assumed it was a simple typo, such as anyone might make.

Such as using "decent" for "descent"?

 

[Poignard]

Such as using "decent" for "descent"?

Did I do that? Sorry!

 

[Neeves]

Trilingual

Bilingual

an Englishman



Jonathan

 

[Stemar]

I take endless delight in the way that foreigners manage to mangle our tongue, not out of malice on my part, but just out of fascination at how far you can stretch the language without obscuring the meaning. There are some very strange subtleties in phraseology and grammar which most of us native speakers would be hard put to describe or classify clearly, but which we just know. English is so irregular that no one should feel any embarrassment at getting it wrong. Some contributors have described themselves as being fluent in this or that foreign language. This impresses me but I am not among them.

Milady is French, but speaks fluent English, as one might expect after 36 years here, and has a wide vocabulary, but there are still subtleties that surprise her. I tell her that we only do it to confuse foreigners. She's far from convinced that I'm joking

 

[25931]

Telling the difference really isn't all that hard.
You don't need to be an English native speaker to notice the difference between cockney and scouse.
Same thing.

But you will find regional differences in both countries to add to the difficulty of understanding which is why the terms DoubleDutch and Phlegmengo exist
I had a girlfriend in Utrecht who when I said that I would like to learn said "Don't waste your time it's a terrible language". She did teach me some words but I couldn't use them in polite company.

 

[westhinder]

I thought in Belgium you spoke Flemish, not Dutch.

Yes we do, lots of widely different kinds of Flemish dialects, or even German ones, that’s why we have Dutch as the common denominator. But our Dutch is clearly different from the Dutch used in the Netherlands. Just like American and British English, separated by the same language.

 

[CAPTAIN FANTASTIC]

So nice and colourful to see the responses from people from various places, many of whom are able to communicate in various languages.

 

[CAPTAIN FANTASTIC]

It is possible to make an educated guess - a reasonably well educated person of UK decent would be unlikely to use "overcomed" but would write/speak "overcome" instead.

Its easy to make an error, as in the case above; "descent" instead of "decent". Is English your second language too?
only kidding.
I have met many yachties over the years in marinas from various places with little understanding of English, however, after a few bottles of wine they all seem to understand each other perfectly.

 

[Frogmogman]

Milady is French, but speaks fluent English, as one might expect after 36 years here, and has a wide vocabulary, but there are still subtleties that surprise her. I tell her that we only do it to confuse foreigners. She's far from convinced that I'm joking

I've lived in France for 32 years; almost as long as your wife has been on the other side of the channel, and as of 2019, I am a French Citizen. Like your wife, I constantly discover new subtleties. Most people tell me that my speech is almost indistinguishable from that of a native born Frenchman, but in general, the first inkling that a French person has that I'm not a native French speaker is when I trip up over the gender of a noun. I still find it all completely illogical after all this time, despite my fluency in the language.

Explain to me why it is un sein (a breast) , but une bitte (a penis).

 

[Roberto]

Hello Martin!
Look what I found in the depth of my pc, the boat you were sailing on. IIRC on the way to the UK the boom did not remain in one piece(?).

Re languages, a surprising story: we once gathered on the beach to have a BBQ with a number of cruisers of several different nationalities, most surprisingly the "common" root language was Italian, not English. There were:
Belgians -last century, a lot of Italian immigration to work on coal mines
Swiss - one of their official languages
Brazilians -the south of Brazil has 3-4M people of Italian origin
Argentinians - one half of Argentina came from Italy end '800 beginning '900
Australians- they said Perth and Fremantle have very large Italian (and Greek) origin communities.
South Africans - again I did not know, a lot of It. immigration, can't remember where they came from.

Sometimes languages spread because of trade, civil or military power, other times because of spreading poverty.

And it is so nice to meet other forumites in person as well - I had the pleasure of having an impromptu 'eyeball QSO' (ham radio speak for a get together) with Roberto in Horta in the Azores almost 9 years ago, where we were coincidentally moored on the same dock.

 

[Poignard]

I've lived in France for 32 years; almost as long as your wife has been on the other side of the channel, and as of 2019, I am a French Citizen. Like your wife, I constantly discover new subtleties. Most people tell me that my speech is almost indistinguishable from that of a native born Frenchman, but in general, the first inkling that a French person has that I'm not a native French speaker is when I trip up over the gender of a noun. I still find it all completely illogical after all this time, despite my fluency in the language.

Explain to me why it is un sein (a breast) , but une bitte (a penis).

I can't explain it, and every French teacher I have asked has been unable to tell me on what basis, when a new noun is introduced into the language, it is assigned a gender.

Is there some secretive organisation that meets in conclave to review new nouns and to decide, for example, that l'internet should be masculine and not feminine?

 

[skipmac]

Yes we do, lots of widely different kinds of Flemish dialects, or even German ones, that’s why we have Dutch as the common denominator. But our Dutch is clearly different from the Dutch used in the Netherlands. Just like American and British English, separated by the same language.

Reminds me of a meeting I had once with three friends, one Dutch, one Belgian, one South African. All spoke English but quickly dropped into some combination of Dutch, Flemish and Afrikaans which seemed to work perfectly for all; except for me who as a typical American can barely speak English.

Well to be honest I can stumble along in Spanish, order from a menu and ask where's the bathroom in French and Italian and curse in all the above plus German and Greek. Oh and I can count to ten in Vietnamese. But Dutch, I can't get beyond hello, how are you.

 

[Roberto]

I can't explain it, and every French teacher I have asked has been unable to tell me on what basis, when a new noun is introduced into the language, it is assigned a gender.

Is there some secretive organisation that meets in conclave to review new nouns and to decide, for example, that l'internet should be masculine and not feminine?

Also, they have recently decided it is "la" covid, even if it's "le" virus.
Most shockingly, "le" bateau, when everyone knows they can only be "she"s

 

[skipmac]

Is there some secretive organisation that meets in conclave to review new nouns and to decide, for example, that l'internet should be masculine and not feminine?

Isn't that the job of the Académie Française?