European languages, phrases and words
 

What language has been the easiest/hardest for you to learn? What phrases sound romantic/funny to you? Also, I recently watched the movie "Sliding Doors" - exactly what does "bullocks" mean? I have a feeling it's not too nice! ;-)

Greek! <BR> <BR>I speak French, German and Italian reasonably and have a bit of spanish, Dutch and Gaelic; But Greek is a disaster area

French. I truly made a good effort; frustrated many times. French people were good about it though.... <BR> <BR>Side Note: I loved 'Sliding Doors'!!

I speak French like a native... Mongolian. I can read and mostly understand Italian (especially the naughty words); a little bit of Spanish. Greek IS Greek to me (why do they have to use a DIFFERENT alphabet?). For pronunciation, Maltese is a absolute murder. They have this glottal stroke thing that's IMpossible....

Spanish (native), some Italian (hard to learn without injecting some Spanish) and am picking up Armenian here and there. I doubt I would ever learn the Armenian alphabet though - 34 letters!

Hi, Samantha, <BR>I know enough Russian to get in deep trouble, but nothing floored me like Polish. Now don't get me wrong, dear Poles, but there are so many "sh"s and "sz"s and "scze"s in it that you end up excusing yourself constantly for er.. expectoratin' on your pals. It sounds like Russian, but woebetide if you USE Russian (even most of the older generation had to learn it.) That will be the end, fin, konyetz of the discussion. <BR> <BR>Oh, "Bullocks" is a defunct department store chain in Los Angeles. "Bollocks" is a crude term in Britain referring usually to Rocky Mountain Oysters. <BR>

What the hang are 'Rocky Mountain Oysters'? <BR> <BR> Bollocks !

French, I think is the most beautiful language to learn. That, I speak fairly well. I have tried learning Italian, Catalan/ Spanish and Dutch. But that was only to make myself understood when I traveled. I am currently learning phrases in Czeck,Hungarian, and German because it is where I will be in Sept. I always try to learn enough of the language of the country I will be visiting so as to not have to use any English while there.

Well I *used* to be fluent in French. Now I slaughter that beautiful language with impunity. The hardest language I STARTED to learn was Hungarian. The structure and vocabularly is non-Indoeuropean so no cognates to fill in the gaps. <BR> <BR>I am now learning Macedonian. I'm over the cyrillic hurdle - there are enough cognates with english/french etc... to give you a leg up. My main problems are the "clitics" that go before the verb as a reduplication of direct and indirect objects and that most verb have a perfective and imperfective form. Pronunciation is another matter... 3-5 consonants in a row is fairly common. For example the word for Thursday is Chetvrtok. Give it a try :)

So Gwenyth Paltrow repeatedly saying "bollocks to him" in reference to her ex-boyfriend in "Sliding Doors" means she wanted him to eat Rocky Mountain Oysters?! Me thinks not! ;-) Can anyone from the UK give me the real meaning to that phrase?! ;-)

Tony did. "Bollocks" means exactly the same thing that "Rocky Mountain Oysters" is a synonym for.

Yeah, you've heard the saying, "Rocky Mountain Oysters," said the Queen, "if I had them I'd be King!"

Tony, I'll try to be delicate about this: Rocky Mountain Oysters are mmm uh that part of a sheep that mmm uh it never wants to get hit in.

If you'd like to brush up on languages, go to www.travlang.com. Soundfiles can be downloaded and replayed until you get the pronunciation just right. Lots of languages to choose from. Enjoy.

England! <BR> <BR>Some of you dont seem to know british slang. "Bullocks to him" would mean like "Screw him", or "Forget him". Like a kind of irritation phrase. Sometimes they say "bullocks" to mean like, "Da*m or Darn". Other british/american words. <BR>Pavement - Sidewalk <BR>Jello - Jelly <BR>Bloke - Guy <BR>Buiscuits - cookies <BR>Lorry - truck <BR>Lift - Elevator <BR> <BR>Look for the American/British dictionary online. =)

England! <BR> <BR>Some of you dont seem to know british slang. "Bullocks to him" would mean like "Screw him", or "Forget him". Like a kind of irritation phrase. Sometimes they say "bullocks" to mean like, "Da*m or Darn". Other british/american words. <BR>Pavement - Sidewalk <BR>Jello - Jelly <BR>Bloke - Guy <BR>Buiscuits - cookies <BR>Lorry - truck <BR>Lift - Elevator <BR> <BR>Look for the American/British dictionary online. =)

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I actually did French at uni nont that you'd know it to listen to me now... <BR> <BR>Once upon a time I could go to France and they could identify whuich region my accent was from and assumed I was born there.... *sigh* them were the days <BR> <BR>The difficulty was always the idioms... <BR> <BR>I remember their expression for fainting was something like "falling in the cherries" and where we brits say raining cats and dogs they say "raining cords". <BR> <BR>Although I guess most of my generation use the less polite "It's pissing it down" rather than cats and dogs these days... <BR> <BR>But it was laways the idioms that threw me.. you know... even when you _do_ understand all the words the thing still doesnt make sense! <BR> <BR>I must admit, I do use Bollox quite a lot, much like the French "Merde"...!

Growing up in Massachusetts, I often heard my father say something at work had gotten "bollixed" or "all bollixed up." At the time, I thought it was a para-military term along the lines of "snafu." <BR> <BR>Now out of idle Sat. afternoon forum-surfing curiosity, I learn from my US Webster's that it means "to throw into disorder bungle," but that its source is indeed a Middle English word pertaining to a part of the anatomy unique to the male and commonly occurring in pairs. <BR> <BR>Having contributed that, I will also observe that the same father had a major emotional implosion on learning, during a business trip to Denver, that the Rocky Mountain Oysters he'd been induced to eat were in fact the relevant by-product of converting bulls to cattle. <BR>

Back to the languages, FRENCH. I know Italian fluently and studied Spanish and was fluent when I studied it 20 years ago. Recently took a French class and although it is similar to Italian, i.e. I can read it pretty much, the pronunciation is hard. In Italian, what you see is how it is pronounced. Not French. But yes, it is a pretty language.