Gaming terms in your language

[fast]

Oh no, ZeroAX got taken over by a bot.

[jfrost]

Yes, it means "A Friend's Samba". I reckon it's just a bad pun on the name of the monkey (his name is Amigo, IIRC).

About understanding other languages, yes, you'll be able to at least figure something out when reading, but not talking. I could talk decently with Mexicans when I worked in the US, but not with Cubans (they speak too damn fast). I tried talking to a Venezuelan once and he said that I could understand him better than the reverse.

When reading, though, I can figure some stuff out of the text, but it's not as close as it seems at first. Still, the structure is the same, so it helps if you know anything about the other language.

[Ack]

Hell, when reading Spanish I can figure out a few things with my extremely limited contact with the language(a couple of classes in high school). I just can't roll my Rs for anything.

[ZeroAX]

Oh no, ZeroAX got taken over by a bot.

lol. i was talking to my cousin when i made that post, so i didn't notice i still had the typing language set to greek, after posting something on a greek forum, right before that

[vejita]

This may sound offensive, but I couldn't help imagining ZeroAX typing and suddenly possessed by the Old Ones language:

"Chthulu R'yleh wgha'nagl fthagn!"

[jfrost]

I just can't roll my Rs for anything.

I think you can, you just don't notice. For example, when you Americans say something like "shutting" or "hottie", the sound of the "tt" is close to the sound of the Spanish (and Portuguese) "r".

[Erik_Twice]

I have no problems to read in French, Portuguese or Italian since all three are romance (From latin) languages. You may need a dictionary for some words but with a bit of knoweldge you can survive. Specially for Portuguese and Italian since both were part of the Spanish empire for a good deal of time.

The thing is that you can only get the overall idea but not the exact phrasing. For example you know that Tintin is searching something but you will not understand what it is.

Why Samba de Amigo makes no sense:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulcXYjb4eBU

PD: I don't get why tt and r are similar.

[Ack]

The thing is that you can only get the overall idea but not the exact phrasing. For example you know that Tintin is searching something but you will not understand what it is.

Points for the Tintin reference. We don't see enough of that in the states.

[ZeroAX]

Points for the Tintin reference. We don't see enough of that in the states.

hehe

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pca3OK3Jouw

I used to love this movie as a child, saw it so many times on vhs.
Too bad they changed the voice over dubs for the dvd version (in greek) and the new voices suck ass. And the english version just sucks ass (wtf Professor Tournesol = Calculus??????) anyknow know a place i can get the french version with english subs?

[Ivo]

I have no problems to read in French, Portuguese or Italian since all three are romance (From latin) languages. You may need a dictionary for some words but with a bit of knoweldge you can survive. Specially for Portuguese and Italian since both were part of the Spanish empire for a good deal of time.

This thread is hilarious

From my experience, the vast majority of *native* Spanish speakers can not understand Portuguese. Heck, I once met a girl from Brazil that could only understand European Portuguese (unless spoken really slow, or imitating the accent) after some days of getting used to it.
Still sticking to my experience, I think the majority of Portuguese people can understand American Portuguese without any trouble, and can understand Spanish mostly without too much trouble (but it helps a lot if they speak slowly).
However, I seriously doubt an Italian-speaker could understand Portuguese just based on the similarities, and that a Portuguese-speaker could understand anything beyond very basic things in Italian (Pizza!). Certainly you can survive, ask for food and stuff like that.

Portugal was only "part" of the Spanish empire from around 1580 until 1640 (due to a succession crisis). This didn't even complete 2 Spanish king's periods. I don't know if that is meant to be considered "a good deal of time" or not, but it certainly is NOT a good deal of time as far as language influences go. Regions in the border with Spain tend to have assimilated some terms, but that is in the realm of dialects and not the language itself.

Spain has been joined up into a single kingdom for ages, and they still have 4 rather different official languages inside it, including the one that is (correctly) referred to as "Spanish" (possibly also known as Castilian, although I don't know if they reserve that notation only for the one spoken in Spain or if it is valid to say they speak "Castilian" in the Americas). Directly above Portugal, in Galicia they have Galician, which is rather similar to Portuguese. In the North near the border with France they speak Basque (they even have a nationalistic terrorist group which tries to get independence there), and they have Catalan - or Valencian - in the Eastern part, including in Barcelona.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_languages
That should be a fun article

Ivo.