Language discussion thread

[SeriousSam]

'they' used instead of he or she is supposedly 'perfectly organic'? That's news to me. When last I read something about the need for a suitable gender neutral pronoun, it didn't seem to me that everyone loves 'they'.

I've read a science fiction book that used an invented word, 've'. If everyone started using it, that would be much better.

Anyway, since internet forums are overwhelmingly male, I use 'he' until a poster requests to be addressed otherwise.

 

[djpbaltimore]

When I was in High School and people communicated exclusively on home phones, one of my friends would intentionally change 'she' to 'they' in order to prevent his eavesdropping conservative parents from catching him talking about girls. I still do this occasionally when referring to someone of unknown gender. Interesting to see its use on the forum.

 

[hrotha]

Re:

'they' used instead of he or she is supposedly 'perfectly organic'? That's news to me. When last I read something about the need for a suitable gender neutral pronoun, it didn't seem to me that everyone loves 'they'.

It developed to fill a gap in the English language, just like "you guys" or "y'all". That many people hate on those other examples I just put forward doesn't mean they're not organic developments, i. e. innovations that appear among the speakers themselves, not forced from above.

 

[Maaaaaaaarten]

Is there any language besides English that uses gender specific pronouns that has a specifically neutral form like this?

Besides English I only speak Dutch fluently and Dutch certainly doesn't have anything like that. I know a little bit of German, French and Spanish and to my knowledge it doesn't exist in these languages either, though correct if I'm wrong, because I'm not too confident in my knowledge of these languages.

I've personally never experienced a gap for such a pronoun. I think the internet might be the only context where this is a problem somewhat frequently. When you can see people or when you know their real name it's usually perfectly obvious whether it's a he or a she (or do I have to say, 'whether he is a he or she' or 'whether they are a he or a she'? ) I don't mean anything by it, but I just find the phenomenon somewhat interesting and I genuinely don't see much use for using 'they' as a kind of gender neutral singular pronoun outside of the internet, where it's often not clear what somebody's gender is.

 

[jaylew]

Then maybe you should take issue with "you" for the singular too. Neutral they is a perfectly organic development to fill a perceived gap in the English language, and it's also older than you seem to think.

edit: Uton sprecan ymb "they" and englisces gereordes lufe, gif þe lyst. And ymb þine yldran.

It's certainly not new but at least in the U.S. it's been much more common to use he /she or the like, though singular they has been making a comeback.

I think my problem is that people here are using it to refer to a specific, named, individual and I thought you were never supposed to use singular they in that circumstance.

Anyway, we don't really know the gender of most people here. I'm certainly not going to go around calling everyone "they". The whole thing just seems ridiculous and unneccessarily dramatic.

 

[42x16ss]

Does anyone know of a good online resource for learning Spanish? (Preferably free ) I'm not a total beginner, my grandparents taught me when I was younger and I was getting conversational when I lived in Europe but I haven't had anyone at all to speak it with in about 8 years (the joys of living in such a proud, single language nation )

My fiancée and I are planning to do a lot of travelling after we get married next year and it will be very useful if I tune up.

 

[hrotha]

Re:

Then maybe you should take issue with "you" for the singular too. Neutral they is a perfectly organic development to fill a perceived gap in the English language, and it's also older than you seem to think.

edit: Uton sprecan ymb "they" and englisces gereordes lufe, gif þe lyst. And ymb þine yldran.

It's certainly not new but at least in the U.S. it's been much more common to use he /she or the like, though singular they has been making a comeback.

I think my problem is that people here are using it to refer to a specific, named, individual and I thought you were never supposed to use singular they in that circumstance.

Anyway, we don't really know the gender of most people here. I'm certainly not going to go around calling everyone "they". The whole thing just seems ridiculous and unneccessarily dramatic.

I find "he/she" very unwieldy, especially when transferred to the spoken language. "They" feels much more natural to me. If using "they" for the singular feels wrong to you, remember that "you" originally referred only to the plural, but the language simply adapted.

Most people haven't been around as long as LS or had the same opportunities to clarify their gender. That makes me think LS consciously avoids the issue, which makes gender-neutral pronouns vastly preferable when referring to them. It doesn't have to be "they", but that's what comes naturally to me and there's nothing wrong with it.

 

[The Hitch]

Re:

Does anyone know of a good online resource for learning Spanish? (Preferably free ) I'm not a total beginner, my grandparents taught me when I was younger and I was getting conversational when I lived in Europe but I haven't had anyone at all to speak it with in about 8 years (the joys of living in such a proud, single language nation )

My fiancée and I are planning to do a lot of travelling after we get married next year and it will be very useful if I tune up.

Yes.

where to begin.

One thing that immediately comes to mind is "Destinos". A tv seriers created in the 1990's by the University of Chicago I think it was for English speakers to immerse in Spanish. There's a basic story of a woman looking for her lost relative from the Spanish civil war and flying all over the hispanic world looking for her. Very basic, each episode the dialogue gets a little more complicated. Easily findable online.

There's also of course the Spanishdict website which you might know. Specifically their forum. Any grammar question you have, leave it there and someone will answer it, usually within a few minutes.

But what I would reccomend are listening to tapes such as Pimsleur or Michel Thomas. Preferably Pimsleur. Its 45 hours of recordings. 3 units, 30 tapes in each unit, each half an hour long.

How they work is they give you the English in conversations and then a few seconds pause (though you can pause yourself if you need more) to translate into Spanish. And repeat the process over and over again with variations on the sentence or conversation.

They are in my opinion very good because they immerse you in the language, and help your brain figure out the grammar for itself. 1 hour (2 lessons of tapes) a day and your brain thinks automatically.

If you think you already are good you can skip unit 1 or maybe even unit 2. But its worth doing them even if you know them just to get practice.

Far better than flashy *** like Rosseta stone or everyone's favourite - duolingo. These make out learning languages to be fun, and can be but ultimately learning a language will get boring and 99% of people who use duolingo just give up when they get tired of it or have to figure *** out for themselves.
Pimsleur is boring- that's the point. If you can get through 45 hours of it you are for serious. And rewarding.

Also, tapes like Pimsleur or MT, even if basic teach you to understand and speak. Which is quick and on the spot. Duolingo or RS teach you to write and read and work out the grammar.

The former is far more important. Real world conversations are quick, even if the person is being nice to you and trying to speak slowly. You need to be able to form the sentences fast, and won't know how to do that if you use programmes that involve picking out written words.

By all means try duolingo too though since its free. Every little bit helps.

Ultimately though all virtual or online resources will only be able to get you to a certain very base level. No matter how much you do it the second you land in the country you won't understand word 1. Speaking with real people, once you have a base level, is a must, even if you struggle at first.

And I reccomend any immersion techniuqes. Eg giving up your own music and listening just to Spanish language music. With Spanish I think its quite easy as they have some real cool stuff like Salsa Bachata Merengue Mariachi, all slow and easier to understand. Do that for a few months and it helps too.

A lot of people say to watch films too. that's a bit more complicated since you need a very high level and even then a lot of them will use heavy slang. If you must watch films better to get your hands on Spanish versions of English films.

 

[42x16ss]

Re: Re:

Does anyone know of a good online resource for learning Spanish? (Preferably free ) I'm not a total beginner, my grandparents taught me when I was younger and I was getting conversational when I lived in Europe but I haven't had anyone at all to speak it with in about 8 years (the joys of living in such a proud, single language nation )

My fiancée and I are planning to do a lot of travelling after we get married next year and it will be very useful if I tune up.

Yes.

where to begin.

One thing that immediately comes to mind is "Destinos". A tv seriers created in the 1990's by the University of Chicago I think it was for English speakers to immerse in Spanish. There's a basic story of a woman looking for her lost relative from the Spanish civil war and flying all over the hispanic world looking for her. Very basic, each episode the dialogue gets a little more complicated. Easily findable online.

There's also of course the Spanishdict website which you might know. Specifically their forum. Any grammar question you have, leave it there and someone will answer it, usually within a few minutes.

But what I would reccomend are listening to tapes such as Pimsleur or Michel Thomas. Preferably Pimsleur. Its 45 hours of recordings. 3 units, 30 tapes in each unit, each half an hour long.

How they work is they give you the English in conversations and then a few seconds pause (though you can pause yourself if you need more) to translate into Spanish. And repeat the process over and over again with variations on the sentence or conversation.

They are in my opinion very good because they immerse you in the language, and help your brain figure out the grammar for itself. 1 hour (2 lessons of tapes) a day and your brain thinks automatically.

If you think you already are good you can skip unit 1 or maybe even unit 2. But its worth doing them even if you know them just to get practice.

Far better than flashy **** like Rosseta stone or everyone's favourite - duolingo. These make out learning languages to be fun, and can be but ultimately learning a language will get boring and 99% of people who use duolingo just give up when they get tired of it or have to figure **** out for themselves.
Pimsleur is boring- that's the point. If you can get through 45 hours of it you are for serious. And rewarding.

Also, tapes like Pimsleur or MT, even if basic teach you to understand and speak. Which is quick and on the spot. Duolingo or RS teach you to write and read and work out the grammar.

The former is far more important. Real world conversations are quick, even if the person is being nice to you and trying to speak slowly. You need to be able to form the sentences fast, and won't know how to do that if you use programmes that involve picking out written words.

By all means try duolingo too though since its free. Every little bit helps.

Ultimately though all virtual or online resources will only be able to get you to a certain very base level. No matter how much you do it the second you land in the country you won't understand word 1. Speaking with real people, once you have a base level, is a must, even if you struggle at first.

And I reccomend any immersion techniuqes. Eg giving up your own music and listening just to Spanish language music. With Spanish I think its quite easy as they have some real cool stuff like Salsa Bachata Merengue Mariachi, all slow and easier to understand. Do that for a few months and it helps too.

A lot of people say to watch films too. that's a bit more complicated since you need a very high level and even then a lot of them will use heavy slang. If you must watch films better to get your hands on Spanish versions of English films.

Thanks for the info! I've managed to chase down Pimsleur audio, so I'll give that a try. I've always enjoyed Cuban and Spanish music (big Ibrahim Ferrer fan) so I'll try a bit more immersion. We also get the Spanish news on SBS which is good for football and cycling coverage

It's frustrating trying to learn sometimes because out of all the people I know, the only multilinguals are my good friend's Finnish in laws and a French friend I see 2-3 times a year. Even my fiancée, who has a German mother and Serbian father only speaks a couple of basic words in each language.

Nuts.

 

[jaylew]

Re: Re:

Then maybe you should take issue with "you" for the singular too. Neutral they is a perfectly organic development to fill a perceived gap in the English language, and it's also older than you seem to think.

edit: Uton sprecan ymb "they" and englisces gereordes lufe, gif þe lyst. And ymb þine yldran.

It's certainly not new but at least in the U.S. it's been much more common to use he /she or the like, though singular they has been making a comeback.

I think my problem is that people here are using it to refer to a specific, named, individual and I thought you were never supposed to use singular they in that circumstance.

Anyway, we don't really know the gender of most people here. I'm certainly not going to go around calling everyone "they". The whole thing just seems ridiculous and unneccessarily dramatic.

I find "he/she" very unwieldy, especially when transferred to the spoken language. "They" feels much more natural to me. If using "they" for the singular feels wrong to you, remember that "you" originally referred only to the plural, but the language simply adapted.

Most people haven't been around as long as LS or had the same opportunities to clarify their gender. That makes me think LS consciously avoids the issue, which makes gender-neutral pronouns vastly preferable when referring to them. It doesn't have to be "they", but that's what comes naturally to me and there's nothing wrong with it.

Most haven't been around as long but plenty have. I think I've been around longer, possibly you have as well. I don't recall that either of us has clarified our gender, though we're certainly not as noted or prolific as LS. Anyway, I put it at about .05% that "they're" female.

 

[hrotha]

You didn't address the "had the same opportunities to clarify their gender" bit, though. Most people, when addressed by one gendered pronoun they don't favour, will correct the other speaker eventually. LS hasn't done this, even though this discussion has popped up several times and LS can't have failed to notice. Hence, LS must be consciously avoiding the issue. By using neutral gendered pronouns, I feel I'm respecting that decision on their part.

 

[jaylew]

Re:

You didn't address the "had the same opportunities to clarify their gender" bit, though. Most people, when addressed by one gendered pronoun they don't favour, will correct the other speaker eventually. LS hasn't done this, even though this discussion has popped up several times and LS can't have failed to notice. Hence, LS must be consciously avoiding the issue. By using neutral gendered pronouns, I feel I'm respecting that decision on their part.

People have been primarily referring to LS as "he" for years and he's never corrected it so I assume he's a male (and everything points that way to me anyway). Either that or he just wants to be mysterious and I'm not going to indulge that by using some awkward term in a way in which it's not supposed to be used. If LS is a female (which I highly, highly doubt), then she doesn't care that people refer to her a he anyway.

I'll certainly never use they or their when referring to a specific, named, individual, but to each his own.

 

[Jspear]

I'm sure LS is enjoying all this speculation around his/her gender right now. I think we should hire a professional to find out the exact gender of this poster so all my live in harmony again.

 

[hrotha]

Re: Re:

People have been primarily referring to LS as "he" for years and he's never corrected it so I assume he's a male (and everything points that way to me anyway). Either that or he just wants to be mysterious and I'm not going to indulge that by using some awkward term in a way in which it's not supposed to be used. If LS is a female (which I highly, highly doubt), then she doesn't care that people refer to her a he anyway.

I'll certainly never use they or their when referring to a specific, named, individual, but to each his own.

This is the language thread, and I've already said my peace about LS, so... how am I using neutral they in a way it's not supposed to be used? Whether you like it or not, it's fairly common usage, and there's no greater arbiter of suitability than that.

 

[The Hitch]

Re: Re:

Does anyone know of a good online resource for learning Spanish? (Preferably free ) I'm not a total beginner, my grandparents taught me when I was younger and I was getting conversational when I lived in Europe but I haven't had anyone at all to speak it with in about 8 years (the joys of living in such a proud, single language nation )

My fiancée and I are planning to do a lot of travelling after we get married next year and it will be very useful if I tune up.

Yes.

where to begin.

One thing that immediately comes to mind is "Destinos". A tv seriers created in the 1990's by the University of Chicago I think it was for English speakers to immerse in Spanish. There's a basic story of a woman looking for her lost relative from the Spanish civil war and flying all over the hispanic world looking for her. Very basic, each episode the dialogue gets a little more complicated. Easily findable online.

There's also of course the Spanishdict website which you might know. Specifically their forum. Any grammar question you have, leave it there and someone will answer it, usually within a few minutes.

But what I would reccomend are listening to tapes such as Pimsleur or Michel Thomas. Preferably Pimsleur. Its 45 hours of recordings. 3 units, 30 tapes in each unit, each half an hour long.

How they work is they give you the English in conversations and then a few seconds pause (though you can pause yourself if you need more) to translate into Spanish. And repeat the process over and over again with variations on the sentence or conversation.

They are in my opinion very good because they immerse you in the language, and help your brain figure out the grammar for itself. 1 hour (2 lessons of tapes) a day and your brain thinks automatically.

If you think you already are good you can skip unit 1 or maybe even unit 2. But its worth doing them even if you know them just to get practice.

Far better than flashy **** like Rosseta stone or everyone's favourite - duolingo. These make out learning languages to be fun, and can be but ultimately learning a language will get boring and 99% of people who use duolingo just give up when they get tired of it or have to figure **** out for themselves.
Pimsleur is boring- that's the point. If you can get through 45 hours of it you are for serious. And rewarding.

Also, tapes like Pimsleur or MT, even if basic teach you to understand and speak. Which is quick and on the spot. Duolingo or RS teach you to write and read and work out the grammar.

The former is far more important. Real world conversations are quick, even if the person is being nice to you and trying to speak slowly. You need to be able to form the sentences fast, and won't know how to do that if you use programmes that involve picking out written words.

By all means try duolingo too though since its free. Every little bit helps.

Ultimately though all virtual or online resources will only be able to get you to a certain very base level. No matter how much you do it the second you land in the country you won't understand word 1. Speaking with real people, once you have a base level, is a must, even if you struggle at first.

And I reccomend any immersion techniuqes. Eg giving up your own music and listening just to Spanish language music. With Spanish I think its quite easy as they have some real cool stuff like Salsa Bachata Merengue Mariachi, all slow and easier to understand. Do that for a few months and it helps too.

A lot of people say to watch films too. that's a bit more complicated since you need a very high level and even then a lot of them will use heavy slang. If you must watch films better to get your hands on Spanish versions of English films.

Thanks for the info! I've managed to chase down Pimsleur audio, so I'll give that a try. I've always enjoyed Cuban and Spanish music (big Ibrahim Ferrer fan) so I'll try a bit more immersion. We also get the Spanish news on SBS which is good for football and cycling coverage

It's frustrating trying to learn sometimes because out of all the people I know, the only multilinguals are my good friend's Finnish in laws and a French friend I see 2-3 times a year. Even my fiancée, who has a German mother and Serbian father only speaks a couple of basic words in each language.

Nuts.

If you want people to practice with try something like conversation exchange. Depending on the city and culture you live in, there might be Spanish people who want to learn English.
Can also check on gumtree or leave advertizement. You can also try to search through Google or gumtree if there are maybe Spanish speakers meetings in your city.

If not you can find the ones in Spain or Europe and practice by Skype.

 

[Red Rick]

Cool thread. I've been thinking about starting to learn Spanish, but i'm not entirely sure where to start, and especially about how much effort goes into it on a weekly basis if you want to do it right. I'm not too sure how easy it would be for me as i've never really actively tried to learn a language.

 

[The Hitch]

Re:

Cool thread. I've been thinking about starting to learn Spanish, but i'm not entirely sure where to start, and especially about how much effort goes into it on a weekly basis if you want to do it right. I'm not too sure how easy it would be for me as i've never really actively tried to learn a language.

Interesting that you don't consider English as a second language.

Then again, in Nederland, English is more like a joint first.

But the point is, it is a 2nd language as in - 2 languages. Which is important as it makes things much easier to do.

One of the most difficult things for people about learning a language, is teaching their brain to think differently.

If you only speak 1 language for 20-30-40 years, its a bit of a shock to the brain to try and piece by piece try and convince it that there's a totally different way to speak.

But if you speak two then at least your brain understands the concept.

I would reccomend if you want to learn Spanish to start of with the pimsleur programme I recommended to 42x above. Because its boring and long, but if you complete all 45 hours you will A) have a solid base, and B) know deep down that you do have it in you to learn the language or you wouldn't have gotten through all 45 hours.

After that there are so many ways to progress from the solid base you've built up. Watching cycling streams in Spanish. Listening to Spanish radio. Taking evening classes. Going to Spain. Meet spanish people to talk with, idealy ones who want to learn English/ Dutch so they'll be bothered to help you if you help them. Etc.

First put in the hard yards though.

 

[Red Rick]

Re: Re:

Cool thread. I've been thinking about starting to learn Spanish, but i'm not entirely sure where to start, and especially about how much effort goes into it on a weekly basis if you want to do it right. I'm not too sure how easy it would be for me as i've never really actively tried to learn a language.

Interesting that you don't consider English as a second language.

Then again, in Nederland, English is more like a joint first.

But the point is, it is a 2nd language as in - 2 languages. Which is important as it makes things much easier to do.

One of the most difficult things for people about learning a language, is teaching their brain to think differently.

If you only speak 1 language for 20-30-40 years, its a bit of a shock to the brain to try and piece by piece try and convince it that there's a totally different way to speak.

But if you speak two then at least your brain understands the concept.

I would reccomend if you want to learn Spanish to start of with the pimsleur programme I recommended to 42x above. Because its boring and long, but if you complete all 45 hours you will A) have a solid base, and B) know deep down that you do have it in you to learn the language or you wouldn't have gotten through all 45 hours.

After that there are so many ways to progress from the solid base you've built up. Watching cycling streams in Spanish. Listening to Spanish radio. Taking evening classes. Going to Spain. Meet spanish people to talk with, idealy ones who want to learn English/ Dutch so they'll be bothered to help you if you help them. Etc.

First put in the hard yards though.

K, thanks. For me learning English happened pretty passively, starting with playing on a gameboy colour, playing video games and watching tv shows that weren't dubbed. Anyway, I spoke to a Brazilian exchange students, and he wants to keep up his Spanish, so that could be place to start.

 

[The Hitch]

Re: Re:

Cool thread. I've been thinking about starting to learn Spanish, but i'm not entirely sure where to start, and especially about how much effort goes into it on a weekly basis if you want to do it right. I'm not too sure how easy it would be for me as i've never really actively tried to learn a language.

Interesting that you don't consider English as a second language.

Then again, in Nederland, English is more like a joint first.

But the point is, it is a 2nd language as in - 2 languages. Which is important as it makes things much easier to do.

One of the most difficult things for people about learning a language, is teaching their brain to think differently.

If you only speak 1 language for 20-30-40 years, its a bit of a shock to the brain to try and piece by piece try and convince it that there's a totally different way to speak.

But if you speak two then at least your brain understands the concept.

I would reccomend if you want to learn Spanish to start of with the pimsleur programme I recommended to 42x above. Because its boring and long, but if you complete all 45 hours you will A) have a solid base, and B) know deep down that you do have it in you to learn the language or you wouldn't have gotten through all 45 hours.

After that there are so many ways to progress from the solid base you've built up. Watching cycling streams in Spanish. Listening to Spanish radio. Taking evening classes. Going to Spain. Meet spanish people to talk with, idealy ones who want to learn English/ Dutch so they'll be bothered to help you if you help them. Etc.

First put in the hard yards though.

Anyway, I spoke to a Brazilian exchange students.

Eh?

I take back what I said about you being fluent in English

Anyway, conversation is very good but you do need a base level first imo (don't know if you have one).

BTW, do your Brazilians actually speak Spanish?

Many Brazilians and Portugese people and Italians as well, claim to speak Spanish but all they do is speak Portugese trying to use a spanish ish accent.

That includes someone on this forum who frequently claimed to speak Spanish but then once tried to correct someone in a thread for getting Spanish wrong. The other person was actually right and it was a very basic grammatical issue ( I was a beginner at the time and even I knew the original poster had gotten it right)

I haven't forgotten though and though I won't name the poster, you know who you are

 

[Red Rick]

Re: Re:

Cool thread. I've been thinking about starting to learn Spanish, but i'm not entirely sure where to start, and especially about how much effort goes into it on a weekly basis if you want to do it right. I'm not too sure how easy it would be for me as i've never really actively tried to learn a language.

Interesting that you don't consider English as a second language.

Then again, in Nederland, English is more like a joint first.

But the point is, it is a 2nd language as in - 2 languages. Which is important as it makes things much easier to do.

One of the most difficult things for people about learning a language, is teaching their brain to think differently.

If you only speak 1 language for 20-30-40 years, its a bit of a shock to the brain to try and piece by piece try and convince it that there's a totally different way to speak.

But if you speak two then at least your brain understands the concept.

I would reccomend if you want to learn Spanish to start of with the pimsleur programme I recommended to 42x above. Because its boring and long, but if you complete all 45 hours you will A) have a solid base, and B) know deep down that you do have it in you to learn the language or you wouldn't have gotten through all 45 hours.

After that there are so many ways to progress from the solid base you've built up. Watching cycling streams in Spanish. Listening to Spanish radio. Taking evening classes. Going to Spain. Meet spanish people to talk with, idealy ones who want to learn English/ Dutch so they'll be bothered to help you if you help them. Etc.

First put in the hard yards though.

Anyway, I spoke to a Brazilian exchange students.

Eh?

I take back what I said about you being fluent in English

Nothing will ever top my comment about Contador wiping Nibali's arse though.

Anyway, thanks for the tips. I do think they speak a decent bit of spanish .

 

[BigMac]

Re: Re:

Eh?

I take back what I said about you being fluent in English

Anyway, conversation is very good but you do need a base level first imo (don't know if you have one).

BTW, do your Brazilians actually speak Spanish?

Many Brazilians and Portugese people and Italians as well, claim to speak Spanish but all they do is speak Portugese trying to use a spanish ish accent.

True.

That includes someone on this forum who frequently claimed to speak Spanish but then once tried to correct someone in a thread for getting Spanish wrong. The other person was actually right and it was a very basic grammatical issue ( I was a beginner at the time and even I knew the original poster had gotten it right)

I haven't forgotten though and though I won't name the poster, you know who you are

 

[The Hitch]

Re: Re:

Cool thread. I've been thinking about starting to learn Spanish, but i'm not entirely sure where to start, and especially about how much effort goes into it on a weekly basis if you want to do it right. I'm not too sure how easy it would be for me as i've never really actively tried to learn a language.

Interesting that you don't consider English as a second language.

Then again, in Nederland, English is more like a joint first.

But the point is, it is a 2nd language as in - 2 languages. Which is important as it makes things much easier to do.

One of the most difficult things for people about learning a language, is teaching their brain to think differently.

If you only speak 1 language for 20-30-40 years, its a bit of a shock to the brain to try and piece by piece try and convince it that there's a totally different way to speak.

But if you speak two then at least your brain understands the concept.

I would reccomend if you want to learn Spanish to start of with the pimsleur programme I recommended to 42x above. Because its boring and long, but if you complete all 45 hours you will A) have a solid base, and B) know deep down that you do have it in you to learn the language or you wouldn't have gotten through all 45 hours.

After that there are so many ways to progress from the solid base you've built up. Watching cycling streams in Spanish. Listening to Spanish radio. Taking evening classes. Going to Spain. Meet spanish people to talk with, idealy ones who want to learn English/ Dutch so they'll be bothered to help you if you help them. Etc.

First put in the hard yards though.

Anyway, I spoke to a Brazilian exchange students.

Eh?

I take back what I said about you being fluent in English

Nothing will ever top my comment about Contador wiping Nibali's arse though.

Anyway, thanks for the tips. I do think they speak a decent bit of spanish .

I remember that. Can't find it though. Was it me that called you out?

 

[Red Rick]

Edit, starts here, in the best male rider of 2014 thread
viewtopic.php?p=1602847#p1602847

 

[phanatic]

From the Richmond 2015 WC thread:

I don't think LS is a woman. I just don't assume LS is a man, because they have never identified as such as far as I know. Neutral they exists just for this kind of situation.

'He' is the neutral, and was for centuries, until a bunch of vagrants who have no love for the English language took it upon themselves to make a deliberate assault on my culture and language and that of my ancestors. The use of the plural to indicate an individual drives me up the wall; you may as well spit in my face.

Then maybe you should take issue with "you" for the singular too. Neutral they is a perfectly organic development to fill a perceived gap in the English language, and it's also older than you seem to think.

edit: Uton sprecan ymb "they" and englisces gereordes lufe, gif þe lyst. And ymb þine yldran.

This is an embarrassing post to read. English is a living, adapting language and always has been. 'He' in that sense is a social construct for a variety of purposes and is outdated, just like the use of 'mankind' to describe humanity. It is not an assault on British culture. Nothing is permanent, everything that survives changes.

Thanks for the block quotes and responses. I agree that the use of "they" seems organic or homespun, but only as a correction to the once popularized (if never popular) "he or she." Perhaps the use of the plural annoys others as well, as I see more and more people using "she" as "he" once was used. The use of "she" is a striking inversion, yet, as unbelievably ballsy as that word choice is, "they" is never going to sound right to me. Maybe it's the singular and plural confusion, and maybe it's something else, like the widespread use of "they" to describe unspecified, yet known and nefarious groups -- for example, "that's how they get you," "they get you coming and going," "they're back!"

 

[Zam_Olyas]

Can somebody explain the origins of english language?