Hayden, I was gonna call you a "goofball," then I saw your mood: Goofy
Anyway... My suite mate sophomore year of college was a Japanese student (not exchange--she was all four years), and she taught me a few words of Japanese. When the other Japanese girls heard me speak those few words with near-perfect accent, they went nuts. And, again, that was just a few words!
Even more interesting to me is that half of my new neighborhood is Mexican (no, not just Hispanic, but actually Mexican). That is one of the few accents laid back enough I can understand in Spanish. My Spanish is really crappy, but the kids go happy-nuts when the new white lady on the block fumbles through. They try to help, bless them! ;-)
I don't know. Maybe there's something to seeing someone you just don't expect to be able to speak your language able to speak it. Weird. LOL 
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Lol sorry guys, it's a really poorly thought out thread title xD.
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Wouldn't it be lovely if we could take back and edit our thread names?! 
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mrk2010 Wrote:I totally disagree with that fair enough asian languages are full of little squiggles lines and pictures it doesn't make them any easier or harder to learn. Any language is hard and it takes dedication to master. I speak English, fluent German bits of French and I'm currently teaching myself Italian.
You appear to be an autodidact by nature Mrk :biggrin: That's awesome!
On this topic I think it's part of the culture. I read that many individuals from Asia are thrilled to have others share in not only their language but culture. I think it's seen as a sign of respect. If you think about it, for example, here in the U.S. it is common place to see many foreigners speak English. The United States doesn't really have a culture of its own per se. It possesses a combination of many cultures and ethnicities; meanwhile Asia may be heavily populated by natives, therefore they are shocked to witness a foreigner speak their language fluently.
I'm currently learning Mandarin and am fascinated by the depth of the written language and the phonetics. It is challenging but very rewarding to be able to read, write and speak Chinese. In my current state I can't imagine being fluent in the language without a formal instructor but I will do my best with the resources given to me.
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I think since Asian languages use an entirely different alphabetic of pictures and such and the languages don't sound as...similar to ours I guess....That makes it seem more difficult.
The funny thing is after taking Japanese for four years I can tell you even though there's three alphabets it's WAY easier than English. It's impossible to spell a word wrong because every word spells exactly as it sounds. Each character is a syllable rather than a letter I guess. The sentence structure at a basic level is even simpler than English. You can often use one, two, or three words and have a complete colloquial sentence. That doesn't happen tooo often in English at least not in the way I'm thinking about it.
In school a lot of people would be like OMG WRITE MY NAME IN JAPANESE and I'd you know Japanify their name and they wouldn't believe me that it was there name in Japanese and then I'd have to explain how actually simple it is thanks to the foreign-language alphabet so it's really not so fancy~ to have your name written in Japanese at least to me...then when they ask me to pronounce it I always get a look of dissapointment because it really just...their name with Japanese syllables so it doesn't sound all that different than in English.
I think Chinese would be pretty hard because of how much you have to pay attention to the sound of words and since the alphabet is all kanji that would be difficult for me to get through so I can see Chinese being kinda hard to learn. But I imagine if I actually found a teacher and dedicated time to it I imagine it wouldn't be as hard as I think.
I think people don't realize languages seem impossible because you're not being taught it..of course that doesn't mean any or all are easy..but honestly...English is a thousand hundred times harder than Japanese.
Oh and when I was Japan some guy selling...nuts...was trying to sell us some and he was English. We responded back in Japanese and he got all excited and gave us a large bag of nuts for the price of one. My Japanese teacher told me that it used to be believed that it was impossible for someone who couldn't speak Japanese to ever learn it and I guess maybe even if people today know that's impossible the mentality is still there subconsciously?
But it also could be that most people at least here in America learn either French or Spanish maybe German so it's not often someone decides to learn an Asian language.
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Personally, I had a prejudice of white people alot growing up, in regards to trying to "act black" or speak in our Bermudian accent, as I thought only Black people could act black and only Black Bermudians could speak with the accent, because that's what was represented when I was growing up. I wasn't integrated with a whole lot of white kids and the ones that were there acted generically "White" and didn't speak with our accent.
So when I saw Eminem "acting black", I was immediately disenchanted with him as a person because he wasn't "acting" his colour, which is White. But then as I grew up, I saw the diversity in people and that it's not so bad and when I learned of Eminem's past and what not, I began to see why he was the way he was/is.
I mean, I don't like when a White person tries to overtly make a pretense as being Black, despite being raised differently, only because it's cooler than how they are generally and Ethnically. Because I believe everyone is unique and shouldn't have to try to be something else.
Which is why I sort of have a problem with White people obsessing over getting Tans and what not, but that's a whole different story.
As a Bermudian, I'm very proud of my Culture and I hate seeing on T.V a person raised Bermy, being something else, such as Politicians, because they change their accent to make it sound less Bermudian. Similar to the Jamaican Politicians who often drop their Patois[which is something I love and have heard a lot growing up], so that they sound less Jamaican, however more understandable they become to non-Jamaicans/non-Carribean people[who speak english].
So for me, I can see why it's alittle weird, because when I run into White Bermudians who speak with our accent, it throws me for a spin, because 9/10 of the white people here have little to no Bermudian accent, even if they were born here. Majoritively due to the fact that their parents don't speak with one and that they go to private schools, which hardly any Black Bermudians can afford to go to.
But I've come to accept that diversity can exist, so long as it isn't blatantly forced for the purpose of becoming something they're obviously not.
I had to learn this the hard way being Biracial and have now become comfortable in being "inbetween" two cultures and races.
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I know what you mean, but it is true that if someone is fluent in more than one language it is really impressive. I think asian languages are rarer because they are more likely to speak spanish or something like that as it is more relatable (coming from Latin and all that).
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I am learning Mandarin Chinese and when I speak to the Chinese employees in the Chinese restaurant in town, they love it!  mile: The only white girl who works there also finds it fun to listen to me. She works there and I know more of the language than she does! XD
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Im personally trying to learn Japanese myself, certainly takes some skill to learn another language, i mean i can do french alittle better than most simply because i have family i stayed with in france and engulfing yourself in a language i find is the easiest way to learn, i learnt more japanese from listening than what i do on paper.
I admire anyone who can speak more than one language because sometimes my simple mind cants handle it &^.^
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Zennyboy Wrote:Im personally trying to learn Japanese myself, certainly takes some skill to learn another language, i mean i can do french alittle better than most simply because i have family i stayed with in france and engulfing yourself in a language i find is the easiest way to learn, i learnt more japanese from listening than what i do on paper.
I admire anyone who can speak more than one language because sometimes my simple mind cants handle it &^.^
i didn't know you were learning japanese lol ^__^
when i was last living in kyoto , my friend (a white girl) moved out there for a while , too . she speaks fluent japanese (as well as loads of other languages . she's an uber genius) , but even after she'd been living in japan for over six months , she'd still get people exploding with excitement whenever she said anything at all in japanese ~
it really irritated her , lol
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