@Ivana: My mom said that because we, d_a and I, are technically Chinese, and to her, speaking mandarin is a must

Oh I see. @_@ But do you speak Mandarin with your parents? I mean, if your mom can only speak Mandarin, then that's understandable...

No. That's why we have to take mandarin lessons to be able to speak mandarin, which sucks.

I'm Chinese but for my immediate family, I'm the only one who actually speak, read and write in fluent Mandarin. My parents were English educated and they only speak Cantonese and our clan/denomination's dialects - Hing Hwa (Dad's) and Hokkien (Mom's). I never really got to learn these dialects but I can understand a few simple words and phrases. My relatives are split between Mandarin and non-Mandarin educated one due to our choice of being educated in different language medium. (I went through all 3 types: English, Mandarin and Malay a.k.a Bahasa Malaysia)

Anyway...As for liking or disliking Mandarin or any Chinese language. It's a love/hate relationship ^^; Learning to speak it one thing, while learning to read and write are another headache. I'd spent countless of hours on my writing HW- this are one of the killer for me who was a kid then.

But as I get to know the history behind how Chinese characters came to be, I came to appreciate the beauty of language and its writing. Especially earlier this year when I watch a video of a Christian preacher preached using Chinese characters to unfold how each stroke of the characters had a meaning and were related to familiar bible stories. Which in my opinion was really awesome.

It's pointed that mandarin is that important,
and i know almost nothing.
It's really great for you all that can learn so mandarin that so hard.
I'm prefer english,
and why don't we learn another language besides mandarin, because of it's second after english, it's needed to know it to get a job,
meh

@Rogue
Imo, learning it would be a waste if it's not applied to your daily life. :/


@Elie
Bah, Chinese always must have the need to find meaning in everything. -_- Especially names, which gets quite annoying. Sometimes, I can't really determine if that person's a boy/girl by just hearing the name.

Oh so why didn't you go to a school that uses Chinese (Cantonese) as their medium language instead of Mandarin since your parents speaks Cantonese? o.o

Ok, in all of my 5 years learning Chinese (Cantonese)... No, I still cannot find it's 'hidden beauty'. Dx I'd very much go back to Philippines and study in an English school tyvm. But I won't deny, the only good thing of learning Cantonese is I can lmao at Steven Chow's movies. xD Srsly. They're awesome. x)

@Ivana: Thing is, she says it's a shame if we "let our roots disappear". Except that... nowadays a lot of people don't speak their ancestral language anyway, so... I don't see the point in that

@Ivana
If my memory doesn't fail me, I think you were from Hong Kong, weren't you?

The only "official" Chinese language that's used here in (Malaysia) official and educational matters is Mandarin. Same goes for Singapore if I'm not mistaken. Any other dialects are "just dialects" and can't be used in school. The teachers, well as far as school rules are...They disallow usage of dialects during school so we almost never speak Cantonese with our classmates even if both parties know the dialect. It even gets to a point where speaking the dialect to another might feel a bit strange since we spent the rest of our times speaking in Mandarin.

Same thing goes for the other languages. Well, it's probably just me, when I'm used to speaking one specific language to someone, I might find it a bit hard to converse in another language which we both may be equally fluent in, cause my brain seems to be set that one language as default when I speak to a certain person

As for names, I no longer want to guess a person's gender based on their names whatever the language of origin that is. Not to be gender bias or anything, some guys have names like girls and the other way around for girls. I don't know what's what anymore...Gender equality? xD

@Daeva
LOL sucks to be you then x)


@Elie
Yup. Well that sucks. x/ When I was studying in my English school, they also disallow students to use bisaya (Philippines dialect). But I find it easier to communicate with my classmates in Bisaya in private. xP

@d_a: I agree. Plenty of my schoolmates comes from Chinese ancestor/heritage, but none of them can actually speak Chinese. Well, some can- but very few

@Argoyle
"*btw: Those two dots are called an umlaut (pronounced Oom-lout). It's just a fun word to say.

umlaut umlaut umlaut"

Wow, I never thought someone else would use the word "umlaut" than Germans Here in Finland we have phone for that kind of letters and we just pronounce them as they are

And the letter "ü" we call here "the German y" because ü and y are pronounced the same way in German language. It sounds a bit like "eww"

The lettet å (you may find it while watching Stargåte) we call "the Swedish o" because they're pronounced the same way in OUR language, and å is a Swedish letter. I don't know if that letter exists in other languages than Swedish, we use it only in Swedish names in Finland. And if it does, I've never seen it and it's extremely rare.

Btw. everyone in Finland, who has watched Stargåte, is laughing the head off every time seeing the name spelled on TV It sounds something like 'Stargauteh' in our ears I bet it sounds hilarious in Swedes' ears, too And the ppl living in Denmark, Norway and Iceland

ä and ö are just ä and ö. They are very hard to learn for ppl who move to Finland from another country. When you say 'and' the a sounds like ä. And when you say 'an' the a sounds like ö. SO easy

LOLz, yeah that ü DOES sound like "y" and "euy" or something.....

Ohh, those Finnish/Swedish letters... Drives me nuts coz I don't know how they're supposed to be pronounced. Was trying to learn singing the "caramelldansen", see, and man, it's so hard to sing when I don't even know how to pronounce the lyrics!!! XDDDD

Well I know one Finnish song, "Erämaan viimeinen", by Nightwish. I tried singing it but it was ok though, at least now I know the word 'j' is 'y' in English. Dx

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofHh6xatxx4

Mmm

Is there anyone here who speaks Dutch?

*sighs..
i wish i could learn French.
I mean, its unfair, in my school, only those who are in a specific course (since im in college) had the chance to have the subjects..
well, still I guess im lucky to have known 2 languages and 2 other that needs polishing

@slimmmeiske2, you speak Dutch?

Yes, I do. It's my mother language That's why I was wondering if someone else could too.

Btw be glad you didn't have to learn French. Nine years of French forced down my throat and I still can't speak it. (Well, not fluently at least T.T)
But my German is even worse. (But then I again I only studied it for three (three hours a week) with a teacher that rather talked about her holiday, then teach us anything at all!)

you're so lucky! having the chance to learn those language but still, i'd love to learn french.. XD

Say, is it possible for a language to NOT have a written form? It's been bugging me ever since I saw it mentioned in... some... fantasy novel or whatever. Yeah, so basically there's this language that does not have a written form. Since that's a fantasy, I wonder if such thing actually exists in the real world.

I just did some quick searching, and apparently there are around 6800 known languages in the world. Of those, only 2261 have a written form. The rest are only spoken and the majority of these spoken-only languages are found in small, remote populations.

@Argoyle,
wow really? o.o -never knew that-

ummmm I think it's safe to say I know Japanese
only know basic, basic spanish ._.
a few words in latin, italian and french... ._.