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My second language is dutch but after so many years living in london i forgot soo much vocabulary and get mixed up with english. I only speak it when on the phone with my grand parents or buying weed in a coffeeshop.

I'm an Indian born in the UK - thing is, Gujarati is my first language as its what I learnt first, and English my second...

Yeah, its like - the language you speak more often is the language you develop a lot more. I'm pretty weak in Gujarati now, I can speak it well enough, but not as well as an Indian.

However, I've been watching watching Bollywood films since I was a kid so understanding the Hindi language and learning it all came from the movies themselves - I now speak Hindi better than I can speak Gujurati... Mad eh?

But strangely enough - I found that I quite like watching world cinema too (French, Italian, Brazilian, Kung fu, Anime, the list is endless... So yeah - I think that learning a language can give you a thirst for other cultural experiences - and the ability to appreciate the differences between cultures, and not be intolerant towards different cultural/ethnic/religious groups...

I think that as stoners - our natural pacifism helps us to enjoy these differences na am sayan?

Yeah T.D. I also like foreign movies and learning languages. It helps one to be more open and see the people in a different way.
What you said about losing your first language, I know what you mean.
It is called Language attrition.
It affects me a lot! And it ennoys me when I go to my country and people say; 'you speak good french, where you from?' Like im a foreigner in my own country(Belgium) as well as in england when I speak english.
often feel like i dont belong nowhere. Lol! Rrr i need a zoot!

view PM

/o

Sure thing buddy,

I have only been to India twice in my life. Once when I was 10 and once when I was 18. When I was 10 I spent 8 months out there... It was the best childhood experience of my life. It's a different world out there where the heart rules the head - not the other way round like it is here in the UK, where the head has to rationalise absolutely everything... (so tiring, and against our natural instincts)

There are many languages in India... I am from the North West in what is known as the Gujurat region. My locality in India is not that far from Delhi and Mumbai (prev. Bombay) or even Goa for that matter. The language native to the Gujurat region is Gujurati. But it is interesting to note that the dialect of the language is remarkably different for every 100 miles you travel in any direction, even though it is essentially still the same language. So much so in fact that if I were to travel, say 200 miles in a straight line - the Gujurati dialect would have changed to a point where I would struggle to understand it. But that is me and I was born here in the UK so it's understandable...

The languages of India are many - Some I can name are:
Hindi (most popular) and spoken in Mumbai, Goa, Delhi (old and new Delhi) but understood by all - Hindi is the most popular language in India.

Marathi (a mixture of Hindi and other languages/ but Hindi takes prevalence here) spoken in all cities to aid communication between tribal and religious groups

Gujurati (native to the Gujurat state) interesting to note that the many Patels who owned cornershops in the UK were Gujurati speaking, as Patel is a Gujurati surname about as common as Smith is here... lol

Tamil (southern Indian language) Tamil is a tribal tongue bought over from Sri Lanka into India. It's format is unlike other Indian languages but shares the same roots - Also interesting to note that Tamil can be spoken very fast indeed... it baffles me when I hear it spoken

Bengali is spoken in Bangladesh but also in India too... Mainly on the North East of India... However, there are Chinese languages spoken by chinese migrants who came over fromtheir homeland and settled in India. The languages they speak are Cantonese adn Mandarin, but they also pick up whatever local language is spoken in the locality they settle in.

I remember having CHinese friends in Mumbai city who spoke Gujurati - it just seemed real wierd to the 10 year old me... but very warming when you experience something like that...

However IMO the second most popular language in India is English - absolutely every city dweller can speak English in India - and some Indians would put our own pretty common English to shame with their rather Queenly command of the English language.... quite endearing actually... and a bit embarrassing when you get corrected in your own language for incorrect use of grammer... lol

There are many more languages spoken in India - but these are the most common - I would have included Urdu here too - but Urdu is reserved for Pakistan... and just for your info - Urdu and Hindi are like The Queens English and Common English - Urdu being the Queens English, whereas Hindi is a lot more common sounding in comparison... basicallly the same language though.

As for visiting India - I'm not gonna tell you to buy a guide book. I will tell you this, I personally would love to visit The Taj Mahal again (I was 18 when I first saw it and the romantic in me, cried at its beauty, and also cried at the thought of why it was built -

it's a giant tomb built for the Maharajahs beautiful wife who died - it was designed by a master architect and after the buildings completion - the architects hands were chopped off so he could never design anything so magnificent again - the Maharajah didnt want anything casting a shadow over his wifes memory - even a the rep of a building... How much love did he have for his wife? unbelievable but true.

It took many many years to bulid and the marble walls were encrusted with precious stones (which the british plundered) now all that is left is the marble building (minus the presious stones like rubies and emeralds - but can you imagine what it would have looked like - shimmerring away like a building belonging in heaven - when the suns rays caught its diamonds and rubies and emeralds? the Queens crown has a diamond in it called the Kohinoor - this was plundered from the Taj but claimed it was given as a gift to the british empire - the Indians know the real truth which is that Diamond - the largest Diamond in the world - was plundered by the British) It was the size of a small rugby ball but the brits kept chipping away at it for the queen - and now it is the size of a chickens egg, what a shame.

Other places to visit - Mumbai for the experience of a truly busy metropolis.

Bangalore - For the amazing buildings which the British empire built and left behind.

New Delhi - some fine fine cuisine to be had here as well as tons of history inNew Delhi and Old Delhi.

Outi - a beach favoured by Indians as it is not laden with tourists.

Goa - Tourist beach - where you will find good Hash

Madras - South India - for the hot curry and the diverse cultural change form the north

Man I could go on but my fingers are flat and bleeding. I hope this has helped you mate...

I'll be going to India this November for a month (any less and I just wouldnt do it any justice)... If you really wanna go man - come with me.

Peace!

that was really interesting, thanks. i've often wanted to go to india. would love to see the taj mahal. Maybe that should be by next destination, if I can drag myself away from A'Dam!

this place looks fascinating http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vijayanagara

Hey, I didnt know any of that - Appreciated mate - just goes to show how large and ethnically diverse India really is. Nice one.

i know some words but its very basic,I can understand better than i can speak & write funny enough,I was lugging into a couple of guys conversation in the rockerij,The guy asked who i was & the dealer says i was cool & i am waiting on my flight back to schotland lol,The guy went on to say he has a new girlfriend in or from hernievien & they went on to talk about the ajax game,I didnt catch it 100% but i followed quite well,Think its time for me to get the dvd & learn proper! i did notice people treated you better if you made an effort on that front like,Just dont ask me to eat those herrings out of the stalls .

Is learning Dutch really that difficult?

I'm about to start by using Rosetta Stone. I hope it's not really all that bad...

metal4mullets wrote:Is learning Dutch really that difficult?

I'm about to start by using Rosetta Stone. I hope it's not really all that bad...

Ive heard english is the easiest to learn,Ps if you go often enough to holland you should know words anyways so your not gona be starting from scratch,Ps any chance of ripping that dvd & rapidsharing it?.

Kingdoc wrote:Ps any chance of ripping that dvd & rapidsharing it?.

Lol...uh, is this English? You're not speaking my language, sir

Ive heard english is the easiest to learn...

Actually, no. According to many linguists, English (proper English, that is) is one of the most difficult to learn. For every rule there is an exception..and then the exceptions have exceptions...Yikes!

I seldom, see or hear grammatically correct English. Even the old BBC, sometimes lets me down. (It USED to have such great copywriters, but alas, no more).

However, pidgeon English (which is the most common variant of English, (probably due to the media dumbing it down over the years)) is quite easy to learn. I think this is because English is such a wonderfully flexible language (likely due to the amazing number of languages upon which it was derived).

Hence, if a new speaker of English says: "Store go now I" or "I store go now" or "Store I now go" or "Go store I now" and so on, we native speakers can easily get that this person is going to the store now.

Thus, many people "speak" or "understand" English, but not really.

Try mangling French like that (see above). Native French speakers will look at you like you are from Mars until you get it grammtically correct.

When I lived in France, they would still pretend to not understand and yet, I had been speaking French for over 15 years. AND French is a very easy language to learn. No wonder new immigrants have such a hard time integrating in France; the native population refuses to try to understand them. Also, they were very snotty regarding accent. THey look down upon Quebec and other non-Parisian accents and it was quite surprising (and insulting) to see French sub-titles on screen, when a Quebecker was speaking.

When it comes to Dutch, I find that if I practice Dutch for a short while, I can be very fluent in day-to-day conversational Dutch. Keep in mind, the Dutch like to string many smaller words together to make one big word (Something they got from German, no doubt, as this also happens in German) Don't let those monster words scare you and you'll be reasonably fluent in no time.

I do agree that Dutch is pretty easy to forget, but, that is true for most languages if you don't use them for long periods.

Trichome_Dense wrote:As for visiting India - I'm not gonna tell you to buy a guide book. I will tell you this, I personally would love to visit The Taj Mahal again (I was 18 when I first saw it and the romantic in me, cried at its beauty, and also cried at the thought of why it was built -

it's a giant tomb built for the Maharajahs beautiful wife who died - it was designed by a master architect and after the buildings completion - the architects hands were chopped off so he could never design anything so magnificent again - the Maharajah didnt want anything casting a shadow over his wifes memory - even a the rep of a building... How much love did he have for his wife? unbelievable but true.

It took many many years to bulid and the marble walls were encrusted with precious stones (which the british plundered) now all that is left is the marble building (minus the presious stones like rubies and emeralds - but can you imagine what it would have looked like - shimmerring away like a building belonging in heaven - when the suns rays caught its diamonds and rubies and emeralds? the Queens crown has a diamond in it called the Kohinoor - this was plundered from the Taj but claimed it was given as a gift to the british empire - the Indians know the real truth which is that Diamond - the largest Diamond in the world - was plundered by the British) It was the size of a small rugby ball but the brits kept chipping away at it for the queen - and now it is the size of a chickens egg, what a shame.

Other places to visit - Mumbai for the experience of a truly busy metropolis.

Bangalore - For the amazing buildings which the British empire built and left behind.

New Delhi - some fine fine cuisine to be had here as well as tons of history inNew Delhi and Old Delhi.

Outi - a beach favoured by Indians as it is not laden with tourists.

Goa - Tourist beach - where you will find good Hash

Madras - South India - for the hot curry and the diverse cultural change form the north

Man I could go on but my fingers are flat and bleeding. I hope this has helped you mate...

I'll be going to India this November for a month (any less and I just wouldnt do it any justice)... If you really wanna go man - come with me.

Peace!

I've always wanted to visit India as well.. but first stop on my list would have to be the Amritsar Palace... particularly at sunset...

Ingwey Gooblebogger wrote: Hence, if a new speaker of English says: "Store go now I" or "I store go now" or "Store I now go" or "Go store I now" and so on, we native speakers can easily get that this person is going to the store now.

Thus, many people "speak" or "understand" English, but not really.

I get this a lot with Dutch speakers.. they may not have perfect English, but they are understandable. I do not pick holes in their sentences or correct them - that would be rude! I wish, the same could be said for them to my attempts at their language. This is the reason many won't try to speak any language to a native speaker.

Ingwey Gooblebogger wrote:Try mangling French like that (see above). Native French speakers will look at you like you are from Mars until you get it grammtically correct.

I actually lived in Paris for a year and never had any problems with practising on native Parisians.. both in the residential area in which I lived and also in the touristy areas.. they were always happy that I was trying! Mind you, I only tried on the opposite sex.. perhaps that was the clue?!