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  • EADD Moderators: Pissed_and_messed | Shinji Ikari

Random MSN Gibberings XCV - Love ya. Not really.

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they use the cyrillic script in mongolia so that erases the issue of having to learn a bajillion chinese characters to get by.
 
TheSpade said:
Yeah being Scottish means I just cannot pronounce many thai words, I'm 100% sure I'm repeating what they are saying to me but apparently not.
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My best pal at high school was Pakistani, in fact he still is, that and Scottish, but anyway the point is he used to try to teach me Urdu and Punjabi words and I could never get the sounds right. I thought I was repeating what I'd heard but my Scottish brain was incapable of hearing the sounds because I'd not heard them as a sprog. Those languages have sounds which are half-way between D and L, strange things like that. Same idea as your Thai I'm sure. Even the Spanish B sound which is half-way between a b and a v is tricky.

wibble said:
they use the cyrillic script in mongolia so that erases the issue of having to learn a bajillion chinese characters to get by.
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It introduces the problem of learning cyrillic though!
 
Yeah that's probably it. Thai is a tonal language, the same word can have many completely different meanings depending on how exactly you say it, just a slight difference can mean the difference between the word meaning and I haven't mastered how to get the tones right at all. It all sounds exactly the same to me when they try and show me the subtle difference in the tone.
 
A neworn baby is capable of making every sound that the human speech organs are capable of, regardless of nationality or ethnicity, but loses that ability when it starts to respond to speech in its native tongue.

Weird, but you probably all knew that.
 
SamhainGrim said:
A neworn baby is capable of making every sound that the human speech organs are capable of, regardless of nationality or ethnicity, but loses that ability when it starts to respond to speech in its native tongue.

Weird, but you probably all knew that.
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"Lose the ability" sounds a bit extreme, I would imagine those sounds which fall outside the native tongue become really fucking difficult to produce, but I'm pretty sure that practice can restore the ability, if you know what I mean. Otherwise how could any English-speaking adult without exposure to Mandarin have any hope of speaking fluent Mandarin? And I'm pretty sure those people exist.

Or you may mean that the human speech organs are capable of sounds which do not exist in any living language, and that we are in fact incapable of producing them and so a language which used them would be a physical impossibility. Do you mean that?
 
Only babies who are dropped on their heads and forcefed meph can form the necessary glide-fricatives which facilitate the ability to speak fluent Mugobian.

Hence its nature as a strictly-written language.
 
TheSpade said:
I was sure I was coming down with a fever earlier, felt shit, coughing loads, blocked up, shivering, sweating even in a cold room but now feel fine. Maybe the paracetamol and beer helped!
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If it happens again and stops as quickly as it starts, it could be symptoms of malaria. I'm sure you'll come back with a cocky dismissive retort as to why its not ;), but just something to bear in mind. We can't have anything happen to our favourite garden implement abroad.

My brother just came back from Mongolia, (well a year around the world) he spent an unplanned week alone in Ulaanbator and then 4 weeks in a landrover. He loved it, but not the food.
Here are some of his musings on arrival for those who are interested:


NSFW:
First impressions of UB are not good. I will be honest, its rough, very rough, it will never be described as the Venice of Asia that’s for sure. Most cities have a dark underbelly, but in most cities the underbelly remains hidden until after dark or is restricted certain areas in UB however, it is exposed all the time. There is a huge problem with unemployment and alcoholism in this city and it is pretty evident when you walk around. There are many old drunks on the corners of streets and the shifty young lads have adopted the baseball cap and tracksuit look, which for a chap who has grown up in Bristol has certain distinctly negative connotations.

UB is a bit menacing when you first arrive, within 24 hours of being here I witnessed two attempted bag grabbing’s (from fellow Mongolians I hasten to add) and a chap in the Guest House I was staying in had $200 taken from him by thieves, so the threats of theft are very real.

One of the questions I was seeking to answer on this trip is whether urban living is better than rural living and the truth is I still don’t really have the answer. I can see why the many of the Laotian people want to escape the grinding poverty of the countryside and head to the cities for a better life. In Laos they seem to be able to make this transition to urban living without losing the sense of well being and community they enjoy, but I am not sure that it is the same in Mongolia. Urbanizing traditionally nomadic people has never worked, just look at the Aborigines of Australia or the Native Americans, both cultures suffer from severe alcoholism and other social issues.

But despite all this, after a few days you find yourself growing in a real affection for the place. As I have grown up in England you are embodied with a sense of supporting the underdog, and UB is certainly the underdog of Asian cities. You start replacing the “r”: in rough with a “t”,
Photo 13
This is the outskirts of Ulaanbator. I would not describe it as semi rural, more semi urban. Yes they have solid structures but also have the traditional Gers in the back yard. Maybe as back up in case the houses stop working. its tough, not rough, and there is a difference. Well OK, maybe it is a BIT rough, but you get my point.

To survive the minus 40 winters here you have to be tough, especially when you are on the breadline as so many people here are. The people here have a toughness which permeates every aspect of their lives, the food is tough, the cars are tough, even their skin is tough.

When you actually get over the initial feelings of fear however, you begin to discover a different side to the place. You would never describe UB as a warm and welcoming like Lao, but they have a certain “soviet hospitality”, which means they look after you, perhaps not with gushing smiles and tourist worship but they bloody well make sure you are fed and watered. This is a very enduring quality. I have concluded that I like UB and I feel that I may well regret having to leave this place.

But my time in UB is over very soon. Tomorrow I head off in to the countryside for 23 days. In the countryside there is no WIFI, no Skyping, no skinny frappe lattes.

I thought long and hard about how to tackle Mongolia. I could have tried to buy a horse and tackle it alone, but I can’t ride a horse. I could have hired a bike and tried to tackle it alone, but I am not the fittest of people and you really need to know what you are doing if you go out their by yourself. I could have hired a guide just for me but the costs were huge. So in the end I decided to hook up with some other travelers and share the cost of a vehicle, driver and guide.
 
knockando said:
"Lose the ability" sounds a bit extreme, I would imagine those sounds which fall outside the native tongue become really fucking difficult to produce, but I'm pretty sure that practice can restore the ability, if you know what I mean. Otherwise how could any English-speaking adult without exposure to Mandarin have any hope of speaking fluent Mandarin? And I'm pretty sure those people exist.

Or you may mean that the human speech organs are capable of sounds which do not exist in any living language, and that we are in fact incapable of producing them and so a language which used them would be a physical impossibility. Do you mean that?
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Not quite. Stims, knock? :D

More the first paragraph. You forget, and you re-learn. Though few people manage to sound like a convincing native speker if they learn a new language after their teens.
 
If it happens again and stops as quickly as it starts, it could be symptoms of malaria. I'm sure you'll come back with a cocky dismissive retort as to why its not , but just something to bear in mind. We can't have anything happen to our favourite garden implement abroad.
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Unlikely to have caught malaria in Bangkok and not really been to any malaria hot spots when I have travelled. Mossies don't tend to bite me anyway, though did get a few a couple months back in Chiang Mai but i've just double checked and no malaria there. I didn't go into the jungle or anything.
 
Its on ITV4 at the moment, haven't seen it before, gonna watch it heard its good =D
 
It's fucking amazing :D

One of the funniest mockumentary-style films about.
 
ColtDan said:
anyone seen "This is spinal tap"?
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if youre deliberating on buying, buy buy buy [edit] ahhh, just saw, tis on the telly

it's one of my fave movies

note of caution tho, for reasons not known to me, a few people I know thought it was boring, however they were mainly filthy scandewegians. the humour is a little subtle in places, alongside the belly laughs, so not everyone catches the little nuances

nigel tufnell is an awesome character. must have seen it a dozen times or more
 
Excellent film indeed :D

Was chatting to someone earlier and they mentioned Drugstore Cowboy, so about to settle down to that, under a blanket and in a codeine-cloud :)
 
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