I read this story a while ago and wanted to read it again. MC is bi-lingual and is freelance as an interpreter of Chinese English to Canadian English and French,
If you don't know what Chinese English is, read a tech manual or building instructions for a Chinese product.
It's called Chiglish. English words although often not quite the right ones) set to Chinese syntax. Similar to Jinglish or Spanglish (Spanish words set to American syntax and usually conjugated and pronounced wrong).
Please do NOT do that again. I was drinking a coffee when I read this and it went everywhere except where it should have gone!
I was drinking a coffee when I read this and it went everywhere except where it should have gone!
Mission accomplished! :)
I was drinking a coffee when I read this and it went everywhere except where it should have gone!
Who bought you the coffee...??
Obviously you'd never share it around if you had paid for it...
(Based on a renowned reputation for Scots being fiscally parsimonious)
:)
"The Hardest Languages For English Speakers
1. Mandarin Chinese
hardest languages mandarin chinese
Interestingly, the hardest language to learn is also the most widely spoken native language in the world. Mandarin Chinese is challenging for a number of reasons. First and foremost, the writing system is extremely difficult for English speakers (and anyone else) accustomed to the Latin alphabet. In addition to the usual challenges that come with learning any language from scratch, people studying Mandarin must also memorize thousands of special characters, unlike anything seen in Latin-based languages.
But writing isn't the only difficult part of learning Mandarin. The tonal nature of the language makes speaking it very hard as well. There are several Chinese dialects, including Cantonese β spoken primarily in southeastern China, as well as in Hong Kong and other parts of Southeast Asia β which have different written characters and pronunciations, and are also very difficult to learn. Mandarin Chinese (the most common dialect) has four tones, so one word can be pronounced four different ways, and each pronunciation has a different meaning. For instance, the word ma can mean "mother," "horse," "rough" or "scold" β depending on how you say it.
2. Arabic
hardest languages arabic
Another of the hardest languages for English speakers to pick up is also in the top five most spoken world languages: Arabic. For starters, there are dozens of varieties of the Arabic language β generally classified by the region or country in which they're spoken β that can be radically different from one another. So the first step is to choose which dialect you want to pursue, but that's the easy part.
Arabic is another language with a non-Latin alphabet. Its 28 script letters are easier for English speakers to comprehend than the thousands of Chinese characters, but it's still an adjustment to become familiar with a new writing system. The thing that makes reading and writing in Arabic particularly challenging for beginners is the exclusion of most vowels in words. Ths mks rdng th lngg vry dffclt. Arabic is also written from right to left instead of left to right, which takes some getting used to.
There are also characteristics of spoken Arabic that make it hard to learn. Some of the sounds used don't exist in other languages or are simply unfamiliar to English speakers, including sounds made in the back of your throat. The grammar is challenging too; verbs tend to come before the subject, and you have to learn a dual form of words in addition to the singular and plural forms.
3. Polish
hardest languages polish
From this point forward, the hardest languages get less hard but are still challenging for English speakers. Polish got the number three spot on our list. Spelling and grammar are a couple of areas in which Polish can give English speakers a hard time. Words are loaded with consonants, which makes them difficult to spell and pronounce. For example, szczΔΕcie means "happiness" and bezwzglΔdny means "ruthless." Ruthless, indeed. In terms of grammar, there are seven cases: it's like German on steroids.
On the bright side, Polish uses a Latin alphabet, so the letters are much more familiar to English speakers than those used in Chinese, Arabic and other non-Latin languages. In addition, being able to speak Polish as a second language puts you in a coveted group, considering Poland's developing status as a major economy in Europe.
4. Russian
hardest languages russian
Russian, our fourth hardest language, uses a Cyrillic alphabet β made up of letters both familiar and unfamiliar to us. But speaker beware: some of the Cyrillic letters may look familiar but make a different sound than the Latin letter they resemble. For instance, "B" in the Cyrillic alphabet makes a "V" sound.
Grammatically, Russian is not as difficult as Polish but pretty darn close. Polish has seven cases, while Russian has six. Also, Russians omit the verb "to be" in the present tense, which can throw beginners for a loop when they try to form basic sentences. In Russian, "I am a student" would simply translate to "I student." Like Polish, Russian uses a lot of consonants clustered together, which makes spelling and pronunciation a challenge.
Despite its difficulty, Russian might be worth the extra effort to learn. It's an extremely politically and culturally relevant language, opening the door to numerous career and leisure opportunities.
5. Turkish
hardest languages turkish
Here's a new word for you: agglutinative. Turkish is an agglutinative language, which basically means prefixes and suffixes are attached to words to determine their meaning and indicate direction, rather than using separate prepositions. This results in extremely long verbs, like konuΕmayΔ± reddediyorlar ("they refuse to talk"). Turkish also includes a concept English speakers may find confusing: vowel harmony, where vowels are changed or endings with vowels are added to make a word flow more smoothly. A large number of unfamiliar vocabulary words, of Arabic origin, add to the difficulty of learning Turkish.
The good news for Turkish learners is that there are relatively few grammar exceptions in comparison to other languages, spelling is straightforward to master, and it's a cool way to explore a rare agglutinative language (linguistics nerds assemble!).
6. Danish
hardest languages danish
Which of these is not like the others? Yes, we have crowned Danish as the least hard of the hardest languages. If you read our article on the easiest languages to learn, you may remember that the Germanic languages from Scandinavia largely dominated that list. In fact, Norwegian and Swedish took the top two spots. And like those languages, Danish has relatively simple grammar concepts and shares plenty of cognates with English.
So why is Danish on this list of hardest languages? Pronunciation. Words sound nothing like the way they are spelled, which can be quite off-putting for a beginner. For example, mit navn er ("my name is") is pronounced meet now'n air. Mastering Danish pronunciation takes a good deal of practice, making it a significantly harder language to learn than its Germanic counterparts."
The language used in lots of SOL stories sometimes makes me hard. Isn't that the hardest language?
If you don't know what Chinese English is, read a tech manual or building instructions for a Chinese product.
There are people who make a good living proofreading international contracts, legal documents, and technical specifications to verify the intent, content, and technical specifications of the documents are met.
Then there are subpar translations where little money is spent on it. Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Indian, etcetera, multinationals are capable of clear and concise instructions. Poorly translated documents of any kind are a sign the product is cheap to begin with imo.
a sign the product is cheap to begin with
Cheap? Probably why China was chosen as the site of the supplier in the first place.
Of course contracts are better written, those are made by lawyers, who are never cheap, though sometimes worth what they are paid.
People sitting on the Panic Button cost us tons.
What? You haven't got a year's supply of hand sanitiser and toilet rolls?
AJ
What? You haven't got a year's supply of hand sanitiser and toilet rolls?
Wouldn't need it. Soap, water, bidet or shower. Nuff said.
no different than any other flu season.
Except for all the people jumping up and down on the panic button.
All this virus is is just another flu, no different than any other flu season.
Somewhat yeah but no, not really. The difference is that it's extremely contagious, longer lasting outside the body, and really fast spreading which makes it very difficult to avoid for the risk cases like elderly, COPD patients, etc.
The fast spreading is probably because of the first two reasons I mentioned. I'm a COPD patient myself. If I wanted to protect myself I would have to lock myself in my home after kicking my daughter and her friend out. That daughter is a teacher in a non-closed school... My other daughter is a nurse currently working in the "red" department (=the corona dept.) in the hospital, 24/7 on call. "Luckily" see has her own home.
THEN I would have to order all my food and leave it for approximately 6 hours outside before I can more or less safely take it inside. I think I can state that it's extremely difficult to avoid if possible at all. THAT is what people are worried about.
That's a tough one. However, you can mitigate it somewhat by keeping a detailed cleaning regime.
That's a tough one. However, you can mitigate it somewhat by keeping a detailed cleaning regime.
True, but it can only do so much. A well, if I get it and it hits me hard I will see my daughter daily, the hospital where she works in the red zone is about a mile from my home so that's where I will end up.
I don't want to be a fear monger or anything but to say that it's not as dangerous as influenza is a stretch. 1400 deaths in Italy in two weeks. And that's in a country with a very good and modern health care system.
1400 deaths in Italy in two weeks. And that's in a country with a very good and modern health care system.
The most recent covid-19 sit rep from WHO (3/12) only lists 827 deaths for Italy.
Using your number.
That's 700 deaths a week. If it remains stable for that long, for a 6 month flu season. that comes to 18,200 deaths.
Using WHO's number cuts that almost in half.
I don't know the seasonal flu numbers for Italy but for the US, it's around 30,000 to 40,000 deaths every flu season.
Is carona19 more dangerous than the seasonal flu? Probably a little.
Enough more dangerous to justify drastic responses bordering on if not well into panic? It doesn't look that way to me.
Boy I love numbers. My source is worldometers.info
It's a graphing site not a news site. If you scroll down they list all their sources. They seem to be getting their data direct from the news release that health departments in each country report daily.
As to influenza average deaths in Italy I also wasn't able to find a clear #.
If it's anything like the US 30k to 40k a year and the US is five times the pop of Italy...so 6k to 8k. Over a 4 month flu season 375 to 500 deaths a week. Again I don't know how long the flu season in Italy lasts so I went with 4 months. The numbers would be a lot less using 6 months. (Here in Canada it seems to go on forever!).
Compared to covid19 at 700 a week.
The covid19 graphs are all trending up logarithmicly.
And you are right that the high death rate might just be a statistical blip but the Chinese outbreak went on for 8+ weeks so Italy might still have 6 or more weeks to go. That might be a lot of dead old
people. Over here in the new world we are just starting our outbreak curve and have a long way to go before the graphs top out. Hopefully we don't track the same!
Thanks for taking the time to respond to my post, I'm a long time reader and very rarely post.
The covid19 graphs are all trending up logarithmicly.
That is actually reassuring, not concerning. If they were trending exponentially that would be valid reason to panic.
My bad! Used the wrong term, should have been exponential progression. Doesn't change the graphs though they ar still going up hill fast.
If it's anything like the US 30k to 40k a year and the US is five times the pop of Italy...so 6k to 8k. Over a 4 month flu season 375 to 500 deaths a week.
Compared to covid19 at 700 a week.
Worse than seasonal flu, but not so much worse as to justify drastic action.
Especially not the BS our president is trying to lay on us, remember the soldiers that were NOT injured in the iran missile attack just a couple months ago? I wouldn't believe him if he told me the sun shines during the day.
All this virus is is just another flu, no different than any other flu season.
Corona Virus
Realm: Riboviria
Phylum: incertae sedis
Order: Nidovirales
Family: Coronaviridae
Genus: Betacoronavirus
Subgenus: Sarbecovirus
Species: Severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus
Strain: Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2
Synonyms: 2019-nCoV, Covid-19
Presently there are no vaccines or antiviral drugs to prevent or treat human coronavirus infections.
Influenza Virus
Realm: Riboviria
Phylum: Negarnaviricota
Class: Insthoviricetes
Order: Articulavirales
Family: Orthomyxoviridae
Vaccines and antiviral drugs are available for the prevention and treatment of influenza virus infections.
Vaccines and antiviral drugs are available for the prevention and treatment of influenza virus infections.
And still, the seasonal flu kills 30K-40K people per year in the US alone. Has the US death toll from carona even hit 100 yet?
There are a number of things about this that make no sense at all. The only thing so far is, it is much more contagious.
That has lead to an abundance of speculation. Vacuums are wont to be filled. An information vacuum is no different. That said, what is it we are not being told or shown about this?
The only thing so far is, it is much more contagious.
But not all that much more dangerous.
That said, what is it we are not being told or shown about this?
Probably that they know full well that all the panic is unjustified.
The government would actually benefit if it was as bad as they are saying, or even worse, because it can be used to justify power grabs. Given that, the presumption for what they aren't telling us should be that it's not as bad as they are saying.
Probably that they know full well that all the panic is unjustified.
I suspect this pandemic will be a relatively short but a very wide spread and heavy one. That is, IF people that had it can't get infected again and thus can't spread it again. I have not seen sufficient proof of that yet. If it's true then in a few weeks 'everyone' has had it and either survived or not and this pandemic is over.
