Philosophical debates about languages

[Пушистая няшечка2]

Oh, yeees! Try to find first russian phrase after translate it to english and then to russian: "Леди, покидающая автомобиль, увеличивает его ход."

Hmmm, let me think. "Баба с возу - кобыле легче?"

[А.М.]

You guessed it. But what happened to the phrase after explanation.

[Пушистая няшечка2]

You guessed it. But what happened to the phrase after explanation.

Well, idioms are never (or almost never) translated literally.
The equivalent of this phrase should be something like "Good riddance to bad rubbish".

But surely, what you gave me before is a great translation in its own right.

[Дерзкий Серхио]

That makes me feel like a split personality.

Mew?

[Пушистая няшечка2]

Mew?

Well, not that bad...
By the way, what did you watch in this case? Was it English dubbing?

[Дерзкий Серхио]

Was it English dubbing?

It was. At first I’ve started to watch it in Japanese with English subs. Then I realized I don’t like it. I mean the sound. I always thought Japanese is more soft and gentle, because of their songs. So I switched to dubbing. Then I started to watch Barefoot Gen in Japanese and that was… different. Japanese in Barefoot Gen is different. Of course I can’t understand a word from it, but it sounds different. I like it, so I’ve downloaded the next one in Japanese.

By the way, I was not talking about Mew. I just mewed. Just for fun.

[Пушистая няшечка2]

It was. At first I’ve started to watch it in Japanese with English subs. Then I realized I don’t like it. I mean the sound. I always thought Japanese is more soft and gentle, because of their songs. So I switched to dubbing. Then I started to watch Barefoot Gen in Japanese and that was… different. Japanese in Barefoot Gen is different. Of course I can’t understand a word from it, but it sounds different. I like it, so I’ve downloaded the next one in Japanese.

By the way, I was not talking about Mew. I just mewed. Just for fun.

Sometimes I have a hard time trying to guess whether you're kidding or serious.

I always watched Japanese cartoons in Japanese. Nothing can be compared to the original language and its spirit. English sound is - well, it's ok. Just ok. But Russian sound is mostly terrible. If it's professional, it sounds childish, artificial and stupid. If it's amateur, it's always so monotonous and snuffling (you sure know what I'm talking about).

And Japanese language is beautiful to me. Either rude, or soft, it doesn't matter. I just enjoy how it sounds. That's one of the reasons why I want to speak this language so much.

Which songs did you have in mind?

[Дерзкий Серхио]

And Japanese language is beautiful to me. Either rude, or soft, it doesn't matter. I just enjoy how it sounds. That's one of the reasons why I want to speak this language so much.

What do you think about Chinese?

Which songs did you have in mind?

Oh, I’m very bad in memorizing things, especially names, especially Japanese names. I can’t name you their singers. I was talking about something like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXXcSyAPvD0
This is the only singer I remember and it’s always difficult for me to say either she Nanase Aikawa or Aikawa Nanase.

[Пушистая няшечка2]

What do you think about Chinese?

Well, well, well... You're not gonna trick me into ruining all my language learning plans, are you?..
Let me think. As I said before, Chinese sounds beautiful. Both Pu tong hua and Cantonese versions. From this point of view, I like it. On the other hand, I can't think of anything that I would like to read or watch in this language. I've never listened to Chinese songs. I don't know any books. And among the films, I remember only action movies. I was interested in action movies when I was around 9-10-11 years old. This time has passed. Besides, all I hear about their customs and way of living, makes me think that the cultural level of the country is very low nowadays. That's why I say: I don't feel any big desire to learn Chinese, at least for the time being.

Oh, I’m very bad in memorizing things, especially names, especially Japanese names. I can’t name you their singers. I was talking about something like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXXcSyAPvD0
This is the only singer I remember and it’s always difficult for me to say either she Nanase Aikawa or Aikawa Nanase.

It's normal thing. I had the same problem. When you don't know the language, and don't know what their names mean, you'd think they are impossible to tell apart. Only if you meet the character (or singer for that matter) a few times, you'll start to recognize him (her).

In this case, Nanase is first name, Aikawa is family name. In Japan family name goes first, so she's actually Aikawa Nanase. But for us, it's more convenient to say Nanase Aikawa. I think you'll get used to it very quickly.
P.S. Good song! I guess it's also the opening theme for some animation series.

[Пушистая няшечка2]

There's a very funny program right now on the Kultura channel. A very important-looking guy is hosting a reality show. They will learn a language from scratch in 16 days, one hour a day. He's kinda professional interpreter and works with 7-8 languages, so he definitely knows what he's talking about, doesn't he?

[Дерзкий Серхио]

Just a thought:
“Two snails are sitting on the back of a big old turtle. One snail turns to the other and says... ‘Hold on, Fred. Here we go.’”
I have no idea why I said that.

[Дерзкий Серхио]

I had a “wonderful” dream just now. I was in a place where people become zombies. There was some kind of disease, so first they were getting sick and then they become zombies. They were kinda skipping the death stage. Just sick and zombies, no dead. They looked disgusting and kinda frightening. They were not that aggressive and hungry like zombies from movies, but some of them acted in a threatening way. I was not afraid because they were quite fragile (I fought them with an umbrella) and I had a woman and two children with me to worry about. Then a girl, one of two kids, got sick, with all those zombie symptoms, and her mother started to cry about it. And there was a voice, very loud, like a voice from heaven or something, saying to me: “Don’t you think this is a little bit too cruel? Maybe that character shouldn’t die?” And I realized I’m not the guy with an umbrella. I’m only writing about him. You know, like writers write their horror novels. And that made me wake up.

This is not about languages and this is not at all philosophical, but I never saw a zombie in my dreams before this night and I can’t remember a dream to be so real. I think it was my first dream in English which I remember in details from the very beginning to the end, so I wanted to share.

[Пушистая няшечка2]

What a coincidence! Yesterday I, too, saw a sick girl, but not in a dream, in a movie. It was Deep Red, one of those 90's movies which we remember by that monotonous nasal voice-over. This girl would steam every time the virus activated. She spoke quite rarely and aftificially, like a robot. In fact, the whole movie has quite a low quality, and therefore I never felt sorry for any of the characters. Your story is more emotional and lively.

[Дерзкий Серхио]

This girl would steam every time the virus activated.

This is really crazy. I mean like reeeally crazy.

Now I had another dream. I was trying to understand why I need this language and I failed to understand that. Why people learn languages? Well, some of them just need a language because they moved to another country. This is understandable. Young or inexperienced people think that foreign language will make them successful in this life. This is understandable. Some people fall in love with those who can’t speak their native language. This is understandable and even romantic. Why people like me learn languages? I don’t really need it. I don’t need it at work. It’s nothing to my career and I live in the country where lots of people speak my native language. And most of them don’t speak other languages. So I really don’t need it. Then why?

This spring it would be three years since I’ve started to learn English. I never asked myself this question before. Maybe because I always thought I know the answer. But I don’t. This is frightening. I mean to realize I’m doing something for almost three years and I have no idea why I’m doing this. It couldn’t be I’m learning English because of a TV-show. This is just ridiculous! People don’t learn languages because of TV-shows. If I really am learning English because of a show, it means that something is very, very wrong with me. So it’s either I’m crazy or… something else…

[Пушистая няшечка2]

Just for hobby, to make your life more interesting?

I don't know why I learn languages either. I just like to produce their sounds. It's like playing a musical instrument. You enjoy it, people around enjoy it too. You make your life more beautiful, as well as theirs. And what's the most exciting is untranslatable things. You can't say it in Russian, but you can say it in French. Isn't it wonderful? Our esteemed teacher said recently that if somebody is learning many languages, he's constantly destroying his personality and there's something wrong with him. Is it about me? I don't feel it like something wrong. I feel it like enriching my personality.