The problem with English

[Radio]

The core problems as an English speaker are both choosing language(s) and actually getting to use the language you learned.

Mandarin, Japanese, Russian, German, French, Spanish, etc are all languages with some value in learning, but which one do I pick, and will I get the opportunity to use them?

If I decide to move overseas one day, then learning their local language would be an easy choice and would your learning efforts would be constantly supported by your new environment.

I could just choose to learn most of the important languages, but that is not only extremely difficult but time consuming. I already have a career and responsibilities.

[Macaquerie]

I can't speak for U.K., Canada or Australia, but the US has disturbing xenophobia towards other national multilingualism. It's sad that 3rd world countries can teach children to be fluent in 3+ languages but US is still abiding by its WWII imperialist policies.

It has nothing to do with imperialism and is purely a practical issue. Multilingualism tends to thrive when people are split up into these ethnic enclaves where minority languages are used for day to day life alongside a national lingua franca for formal matters. This used to be the case in the US back when our cities were dotted with immigrant ghettos, but these days everyone is pretty well integrated so there isn't much of a need for that anymore.

People always talk about multilingualism like it's a sign of being cultured and enlightened, but at least part of the reason people continue to speak minority languages in other countries is so that they can talk shit about each other in "code" without being understood, and to put up arbitrary walls of separation between communities. And while some might like it that way, it's just not the American way.

Translator programs are incredibly bad, because accurate translation involves context, nuance, and a strong command of idioms (and other language devices).

Star Wars the Third Gathers: Backstroke of the West is what happens when you run Star Wars Episode III through an English to Chinese translator and then back to English. Anything that isn't a simple sentence has a high likelihood of getting butchered.

Oh my...

[Atrea]

Realistically, it doesn't matter which language you try to learn in addition to your mother tongue. It doesn't matter if you'll "never use it" either.

Learning a second language expands your ability to understand your first language. It teaches you a method of thinking that is valuable, and there is a strong correlation between learning a second language at an early age, and the ease at which one learns additional languages later on in life -- when you might have circumstances which require you to do so.

This "blueprint", if you will, is an advantage that children who only speak one language will lack in life.

[Sliske]

Of course, it means people can make plots against you and you have no idea what they are saying. Me, my mother, sister and other family can speak to one another and be reasonably certain its practically secret code to the people around us.

How to not have plots made against you

- Learn every language in the world, fluently
- Learn (in real time) every on-the-spot created language to disguise itself from possible intelligence

Yes, thats totally reasonable..

The fact that they couldn't interrogate him in arabic is incompetence of the interrogators. Its trivial to find a translator. The idea that the CIA couldn't is hilarious to say the least.

Its not like the second you learn Polish, you suddenly discover that they're all sitting in a mcdonalds like

"Good thing these CIA morons at the table behind us can't understand polish. So hows the plans going for bombing the pentagon in 2018?"

They're speaking in code, on the dark web and very little is recorded. Wait, lmfao, do you actually think the problem with finding terrorists is that NO ONE at the CIA speaks arabic?

Thats hilarious hahaha

Thats like, "we'd go and stop these terrorists easily! we just don't have a car or the money to get the bus ="

fuck me

Like seriously, me and my wife practically have a secret code with just in jokes. We can insult the shit out of people without them even knowing it, or some times they think we're being nice. Everyone has secret code accidently, do you really think terrorists wouldnt INTENTIONALLY invent it?

[Radio]

Realistically, it doesn't matter which language you try to learn in addition to your mother tongue. It doesn't matter if you'll "never use it" either.

Learning a second language expands your ability to understand your first language. It teaches you a method of thinking that is valuable, and there is a strong correlation between learning a second language at an early age, and the ease at which one learns additional languages later on in life -- when you might have circumstances which require you to do so.

This "blueprint", if you will, is an advantage that children who only speak one language will lack in life.

What happens when you can't/won't decide as a society is that you have different schools teaching different languages with different levels of proficiency. After going through my education through 4 different schools worth of mandarin education and 1 stage of japanese education I ended up learning anything of significance.

We had a prime minister for a period in 07 who saw this and encouraged the nation to wholly get on board with proper Mandarin education, but then he fucked up by being a shit politician in other ways.

[Deleted]

Well only like 0.07% of the world speaks Finnish so I can plot anything I want.

[Blobfish]

Latin is still taught in some schools in Australia.
I started a Latin course, but then found out no one speaks this old language.

What a waste of time..

[Kapadons]

There are over 7000 living languages, but only a few are widely used. I took French in high school, but I never actually used it and now cant remember more than a few words. I now deal with German, Spanish, French, and Mandarin speakers, and they all communicate with me in English (except for the Germans, who write emails to me in German because my last name is German, going so far as to actually spell my name in the correct German....).

French is the fasting growing language at the moment. Thanks to the Chinese moving to Africa. Believe it or not.

I take a Spanish lesson everyday to work. The shit gets hard. I have plenty of bilingual people to talk to but that just further complicates it because they each have a different dialect or meaning to words than each other and my "textbook" Spanish comes off as "elitist" Being a white guy with blonde hair and bright blue eyes actually helps- people don't correct you in an asshole kind of way. Pretty much come off as them appreciating me taking the time to learn their language.

If I ever felt 100% in Spanish I would move on to Mandarin. If I could speak English, Spanish and mandarin, there isn't many places in the world that I couldn't get by.

[ImpTaimer]

The problem with every language is slang. Slang is not something that can be taught bluntly, and must be acquired naturally through... you know... "multiculturalism". Because, as much as some loud idiots would protest, multiculturalism exists outside race and religion cards.

English has undoubtedly the most slang of any core language, ontop of borrowing and integrating words (and creating slang versions of them).

The US (and if so bold to include British-Canada) is the biggest (geographically established) country with the most diverse sub-dialect of a single core language. When a foreigner of their native language/dialect comes to America and integrates themselves naturally (without special training) they will create their own sub-dialect unconsciously. Over time dialects will meld or regress (mostly depending on accessibility of educational tools).

Seemingly everyone is convinced even Math itself isn't a language at all. In fact, that's all it is.

This article (or at least, the OP/Title) is as laughably xenophobic propaganda as any poster on this forum would like to claim otherwise. Most people can't see past their own eyes, but only because they're not in a position that requires to do so. Some just willfully choose to be ignorant.

I will agree it's embarrassing that schools in the US don't bother to teach even remedial forms of Native American languages (including Hawaiian ones), but I will laugh at anyone who thinks Americans are required to dive into any foreign language outside oversea business / extended education purpose.

The real crime on language is "political correctness". Rather than simply abiding one's own moral code, people of power aim to create an excessive regression of expressive thought to control and suppress others while masking their own intentions. Just look at how politicians/MSM try to "politically correct" even Math itself. It's disgusting.

Regardless--as a final note--the effort being wasted forcing people to hand-learn multiple languages instead of creating better technology to improve and/or alleviate the process is blatant gerrymandering. Unfortunately the current world is in no shape to cooperate in such a way, so in the meantime--Don't move to a country and refuse to integrate. If you don't like it, go back.

[Chrno]

It's not my fault that we speak the master language. I can go to a lot of different countries in the world and im pretty close to guaranteed someone will speak atleast a little English, You can't really say that about any other language.

yes, the only problems i have with english is that it doesn't seem to have words for everything.
I can express myself more precise in dutch.

[Darthslider]

yes, the only problems i have with english is that it doesn't seem to have words for everything.
I can express myself more precise in dutch.

Maybe it`s because dutch is your native language?

[Tackhisis]

it's embarrassing that schools in the US don't bother to teach even remedial forms of Native American languages (including Hawaiian ones)

Each aboriginal language is many times more difficult that any civilized language. You cannot teach them in school to non-native children, it is waste of time which could be spent for some useful stuff.

[Garnier Fructis]

Just look at how politicians/MSM try to "politically correct" even Math itself. It's disgusting.

Wait, what? Do you have examples? I've tried looking for examples because looking at bad math is a guilty pleasure of mine, but I never was able to find politically correct math.

[Elim Garak]

Wait, what? Do you have examples? I've tried looking for examples because looking at bad math is a guilty pleasure of mine, but I never was able to find politically correct math.

Here's some politically correct math:
x<=2^3

[Independent voter]

Yet another thing for AI to do. Google Translate has been gone over by AI recently, they had the AI go to the country of native speakers and practice. Here is some text translated by Google AI. How does it do?






"Til tross for alle anstrengelser å bruke den beste vitenskapen tilgjengelig, banebrytende teknologi, samt modellering og råd fra dyktige fagfolk som er den beste i sitt felt, dessverre , søk har ikke vært i stand til å lokalisere flyet," byrået sa i en uttalelse, som var et felles kommuniké mellom transportministrene i Malaysia, Australia og Kina.

"Følgelig undervanns søket etter [flyet] er suspendert. Beslutningen om å suspendere den undersjøiske søk har ikke blitt tatt lett eller uten sorg."

Tjenestemenn undersøker flyet forsvant har anbefalt søke mannskap kursen nordover til et nytt område identifisert i en fersk analyse som en mulig ulykkesstedet . Men den australske regjeringen har allerede nixed den ideen.

=====

"Trotz aller Anstrengungen mit der besten Wissenschaft zur Verfügung, modernste Technologie, sowie Modellierung und Beratung von hochqualifizierten Fachleuten, die die besten in ihrem Bereich sind leider die Suche nicht in der Lage, das Flugzeug zu finden", sagte die Agentur In einer Erklärung, die ein gemeinsames Kommunique zwischen den Transportministern von Malaysia, Australien und China war.

"Die Unterwasser-Suche nach [dem Flugzeug] wurde ausgesetzt." Die Entscheidung, die Unterwasser-Suche auszusetzen, wurde nicht leicht und nicht ohne Traurigkeit aufgenommen. "

Beamte, die das Verschwinden des Flugzeugs untersuchen, haben Suchkreuze empfohlen, nach Norden zu einem neuen Gebiet zu gehen, das in einer neuen Analyse als mögliche Absturzstelle identifiziert wurde. Aber die australische Regierung hat diese Idee bereits vermischt.

====

"A pesar de todo esfuerzo usando la mejor ciencia disponible, la tecnología de vanguardia, así como el modelado y el asesoramiento de profesionales altamente calificados que son los mejores en su campo, desafortunadamente, la búsqueda no ha sido capaz de localizar el avión", dijo la agencia En un comunicado, que fue un comunicado conjunto entre los ministros de transporte de Malasia, Australia y China.

"En consecuencia, la búsqueda submarina del [avión] ha sido suspendida, y la decisión de suspender la búsqueda submarina no se ha tomado a la ligera ni sin tristeza".

Funcionarios que investigan la desaparición del avión han recomendado que los equipos de búsqueda se dirijan hacia el norte a una nueva área identificada en un análisis reciente como un posible sitio de accidente. Pero el gobierno australiano ya ha anulado esa idea.

====

Ajans, "Mevcut en iyi bilim, en yeni teknolojiyi kullanan her çabaya rağmen, alanlarında en iyi uzman kişilerden gelen modelleme ve tavsiyeler maalesef arama, uçakları bulamadı" dedi. Malezya, Avustralya ve Çin'in ulaştırma bakanları arasında ortak bir bildiri bulunan bir bildiride.

"Buna göre, [uçak] için yapılan sualtı araştırması askıya alındı. Su altı araştırmalarını askıya alma kararı hafifçe ya da hüzünlü bir şekilde alınmadı."

Uçakta meydana gelen kayboluşu araştıran yetkililer, arama görevlilerinin yeni bir analizde muhtemel bir kaza yeri olarak tanımlanan yeni bir bölgeye gitmesini önerdi. Ancak Avustralya hükümeti bu fikri zaten reddetti.

=====

"Несмотря на все усилия, используя наилучшие научные данные, передовые технологии, а также моделирование и советы от высококвалифицированных специалистов, которые являются лучшими в своей области, к сожалению, поиск не был в состоянии определить местонахождение воздушного судна", сообщает агентство в заявлении, которое было совместное коммюнике между министрами транспорта Малайзии, Австралии и Китая.

"Соответственно, подводный поиск [плоскости] было приостановлено. Решение о приостановлении подводного поиска не принимать всерьез, ни без печали."

Чиновники, расследующие исчезновение самолета рекомендовали поисковые бригады на север к новой области, определенной в недавнем анализе в качестве возможного места катастрофы. Но правительство Австралии уже отверг эту идею.

[Tackhisis]

Here is some text translated by Google AI. How does it do?

Quite bad, every sentence has to be corrected manually.

[Chrno]

Maybe it`s because dutch is your native language?

Perhaps, but the fact that the dutch dictionary is the largest in the world has got to count for something . Im not saying we have the language that uses the most words, but just saying we have quiet allot of common used words. More then english at least (from what googles tells me).

counting words seems to be impossible

[Independent voter]

Quite bad, every sentence has to be corrected manually.

Today we’re putting Neural Machine Translation into action with a total of eight language pairs to and from English and French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Turkish. These represent the native languages of around one-third of the world's population, covering more than 35% of all Google Translate queries!

November 2016

Oh, I guess they've only had the AI work on English and French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Turkish.

[I Push Buttons]

Perhaps, but the fact that the dutch dictionary is the largest in the world has got to count for something . Im not saying we have the language that uses the most words, but just saying we have quiet allot of common used words. More then english at least (from what googles tells me).

counting words seems to be impossible

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...umber_of_words

This list has Dutch at 15th and a little over half as many words as English in current use (90,000 vs 171,476).

[Chrno]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...umber_of_words

This list has Dutch at 15th and a little over half as many words as English in current use (90,000 vs 171,476).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woorde...rlandsche_Taal

Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal (Dutch: Dictionary of the Dutch language, commonly abbreviated WNT) is a dictionary of the Dutch language. It is (by far) the world's largest monolingual dictionary and contains between 350,000 to 400,000 entries for Dutch words from 1500 to 1921. The paper edition consists of 43 volumes (including three supplements), almost 50,000 pages. The dictionary was almost 150 years in the making; the first volume was published in 1864, and the final volume was presented to Albert II of Belgium and Beatrix of the Netherlands in 1998.

oh well, it's wiki =) just remembered hearing it somewhere about it being the largest. doesn't really matter anyway xD