Everyday as I go to and from work, travel on public transport, sit in cafes with my book and coffee.. I am immersed in a symphony of languages. Once upon a time, I thought Malaysia was multi-national. Then I hit Melbourne, and the diverse languages I hear and come into contact with on a daily basis is astonishing.
So, I thought I'd list my Top 5 favourite foreign languages, in order of preference - No. 1 being my most favourite.
1. Sindarin Elvish (Yes, it is a fully-fledged language, with verbs, adverbs and phonetics.)
2. Hindi
3. Arabic
4. French
5. Mandarin
Interestingly.. I only understand and speak limited Mandarin. And bits of Sindarin. If I could choose just one thing that I could be a savant at.. languages would be my choice.
6 comments:
ha ha.. who speaks the first language? does manglish qualify? i think the both of you speak better cantonese than me. Mine is pathethic with a capital P!
addie
you and Andrew would be savants at languages if opportunities rise. but i'm surprised cantonese doesn't rate up there. :) I guess Mandarin's more refined and only has 4 intonations rather than the dubious 6-9 of the Cantonese.
actually it is 8 tones for the Cantonese language. you should hear me try to speak mandarin. Its barely understandable and u would laugh.
errrr.. how do i co-blog? i'm clueless.
-addie
French is quite nice to hear but the intonation always boggles me. After my brother took French lessons, I understood some of the little idiosyncrasies associated with the language.
Needless to say, I found French-accented English to be quite interesting. I actually heard this once when a visiting French PhD student presented a little talk on her work in English. But maybe I was biased because she was good looking, something you don't find in the department everyday. :)
Aggie Aggie!
What am I supposed to do since you were so mean and awful and you tagged me? I've never been tagged before!
Wellll... now that you're tagged you have to list 7 quirky Erin facts!
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