What Languages Do You Speak?

[son_ov_hades]

"Das, die, und der sind alle artikel!"
Nein...
Den. der, dem
Depends on whether you are going Nominativ,  Akkusativ, oder Dativ.
That bit gets a little confusing at times. Makes me glad that I take decent notes!

Yeah fuck the Dativ! I never quite mastered that shit, oh well I know enough German to get by. I figure it;s not getting much better unless I live in a German speaking country.

[133MHz]

Old PC German Ad:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5cxJD72DV0

[manuel]

With whopping 4MB RAM and 210MB harddisk.

Funny thing is, I remember that one. 

[shoggoth80]

Ummm...
I have Atari computers with less than that...
520ST...
1040ST...
still play their games like they are supposed to!
Of course, the 800XL has what... 64Kb of RAM?
Ok ok... off topic on this one...I know.

[133MHz]

With whopping 4MB RAM and 210MB harddisk.

Funny thing is, I remember that one. 

It's nice how they mention CRT tube sizes in centimeters instead of inches. I live in a metric-system country but TV and monitor sizes are still given in inches.

Sounds kinda funny when you're not used to it. Examples
I just got this old 36 cm TV for free today!
My friend bought a 43 cm LCD monitor for his new gaming rig.

[manuel]

Back then all was given in cm. Metric system ftw.

Now still a lot of catalogs mention the screen size in cm at least with TVs. It's what we're used to. Many people just don't know how much exactly  an inch is.  With computer monitors inches are quite common.

[son_ov_hades]

You silly non-Americans, unable to understand our superior measurement system. 

[nintendodork]

I can't use the metric system worth a flying poo

[133MHz]

Metric system FTW

Seconded. Imperial is so unnatural in a mathematical sense.
I have to convert to metric in my head to understand, and it's not easy, so I tend to memorize common magnitudes and extrapolate from those.

[Walky]

You silly non-Americans, unable to understand our superior measurement system. 

I am american too!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-adpTvjNOk 

[Josh]

-English (native)
-Spanish (up to AP Spanish in high school)
-Japanese (teaching myself, but will take formal classes in college)

Oh wow, I forgot about this thread.  Man... Two years have really passed?  Well anyway, time for an update.

-English (native)
-Spanish (I got a 3 out of 4 on the AP Spanish exam in high school, but since I haven't been practicing it very much, my command of the language is slipping away)
-Japanese (I'm in my second year of classes, on Genki II now.  It's all been pretty darn easy so far, almost like I'm relearning something I already knew, or rather, as if I'm finally solving a puzzle I've been experiencing for nearly half my life)

[son_ov_hades]

You silly non-Americans, unable to understand our superior measurement system. 

I am american too!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-adpTvjNOk 

No no no, it makes perfect sense for those from the United States of America to refer to themselves as American. We are the only country that has America in the name.

This is America: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYfvDCSWu3s&feature=related

[nintendodork]

Uhm...the United States of America is in North America.  You have America in your name...but we're still all in some kind of America

[son_ov_hades]

But my point is that no other country makes any political reference to America. It's the same way that someone from the Federated States Of Micronesia is a "Micronesian" even though there are other countries located in the region known as Micronesia.

[Walky]

You silly non-Americans, unable to understand our superior measurement system. 

I am american too!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-adpTvjNOk 

No no no, it makes perfect sense for those from the United States of America to refer to themselves as American. We are the only country that has America in the name.

This is America: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYfvDCSWu3s&feature=related

Yes, I know it makes perfect sense for most people from the USA, but it still weird when you ask someone from the USA (and other countries, specially european and asian) to show you where "America" is on the map; it's very unlikely (as far as I've seen) that they'll point the whole continent.
Some people ever have to call it "The Americas" to differenciate it from the USA. I think it's perfectly fine to say The United States of America (as a whole), but when, for example, a US president says "America disagrees with..." or something like that, it sounds weird; for someone who wasn't born in the US but in almost any other country from this continent it sounds like an japanese prime minister saying "Asia disagrees with...".

Well, I understand too that United States of America is one hell of a long name for a country, and maybe that's why people started using "America" (I think sometimes you say "The States" too as an informal way?)


Even some people here in Chile (and in other american countries) refer to people from USA as americans, even when there is a word here to call them: "estadounidenses" (something like "united states-ers", I don't think there is a way to directly translate it to english).

(That monster truck jumping over the plane on fire was awesome! fuck yeah!  )