The English Language


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DJB, my spoken French is rubbish - when I was at school it was nearly all written stuff, so that's why I picked it up. I'm really sorry I even mentioned it....

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There have been several topics recently, whereby mention has been made regarding the correct use of the English language, especially punctuation which certainly gets people baffled at times. I mentio

Yes, it's good when people's posts are spelt correctly but if they aren't then I couldn't care less. I'm more interested in what they have to say than if they've missed an apostrophe off or misspelt a

Why is everyone going on about grammar?  I suspect that  it's often predictive text or twitchy fingers that cause any mistakes on here anyway.   As long as the.post  is clear and unambiguous,  does it

DJB mentioned Polish. I can confirm it is almost impossible to learn, having tried myself, as the wife is from Polish stock and I wanted to converse with the family I can now understand a fair bit, and am OK speaking a few words, but will never be anywhere near fluent.

On the subject of cunning linguists, though, some years ago, I ran a small call centre team which included both my wife and another Polish speaker. One of the lads on the team wanted to impress a girl at the Polish club in Leicester one weekend and he asked them to teach him some words.

He was told that the phrase they taught him to speak meant "you are very nice, can I get you a drink". What he said to this girl actually translated as "get your knickers off and come to bed".

The red mark on his cheek where she slapped him had just about worn off when he came to work on the Monday. :)

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Whoops Chulla that won't get you very far. Just one of the many things that doesn't translate well. Try mio pulce ( my flea) but meaning my little one ( pulcino or little chick)

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I remember when an Italian or Spanish bloke was doing a speech on the telly & said "I am so happy-full to be here tonight!" & couldn't understand why the audience fell about laughing. I felt sorry for him but I'm afraid I laughed like a drain as well. :)

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I speak three languages fluently, English, Pit and bad.......I might add, pit and bad are closely related.

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# 141, before I put my reading glasses on, I thought it said 'Hop in my Jag and take your bra off etc".

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Ciao la mia piccola anatrocola

#134 its a nasty joke foreigners play on unsuspecting english.

On a similar situation, when my husband was learning english he had problems with certain words such as shirt and sheets. He almost got his face slapped more than once. When I was in hospital , one of the drs wanted to know how to say, camicia (shirt) lenzuolo (sheet) and m**da( yes you got it and I had to tell him in english.

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