> Shade never made anybody less gay —Taylor Swift

@alphabet I get the impression that he is imitating the North-American accent very poorly on purpose.

Poety ennobles the soul

@Mitch @jlliagre So which one is easier to learn? And which one is better to learn?

I've probably asked this before? I'm not sure. Maybe in a different room.

French has a richer literary tradition.

But Spanish is not bad either.

This time, the years did me in.

@Cerberus You may be onto something; I can't tell if it's intentionally bad or unintentionally bad. Presumably a native British speaker would be able to tell better than I could.

@alphabet You're expecting linguistic perfection from a 1970's comedy ? Biggus Mistakeus !

The Brits have a very sharp ear for their language.

Indeed!

@alphabet All I can say is that it sounds intentional to me.

Too obvious, too many basic mistakes.

Intention is very strongly context dependent.

Who knows what people are thinking?

One can deduct intention from behaviour sometimes.

Knowing the context, as you say.

Sure, body language, intonation, etc.

The so-called "btw" rule of thumb.

Body language > Tone > Words

@Criggie I just listened to a podcast that said that the 1970s and 80s were the golden years for educating children reading and writing.

They didn't say it was "linguistic perfection" but it has been down hill ever since.

Especially, the last 10 years.

That was short & sweet @Cerberus

Heh.

Did you ever see the film?

Nope.

@Vikas What do you want to do with this language? Spanish is useful in the US, where it is a second language, and in South America, as well as Spain. French is useful in France and, I suppose, some diploatic circles, as well as some former colonies in Africa.

@Vikas French is by far easier to learn, I don't even remember having needed to do it. It just comes naturally when you're a toddler ;-)

Oh dear, unfortunately by high school French had become difficult. I’d rate Spanish easier in both grammar and pronunciation.

For usefulness in the future, English is first, Chinese probably second.

For sheer beauty, French takes the cake. I got stuck behind the Iron Curtain once and heard a French female newsreader, and thought it was the most beautiful language I had ever heard.

And the music.

@Xanne Want to learn some European language. Any one of those two. I want to do what? : 1) Show off language skills 2) Learn a language that is spoken in a lot of areas of the world (after English) 3) Knowing multiple foreign languages could be cool and lastly, 4) I might watch some movies/series in that language.

@Vikas just to add on to what others have said, there are three main things that contribute to difficulty in language learning: mechanics (like pronunciation and grammar), vocab (common vocab, is it easy to build up new words), and culture (access to lots of material in that language).

@Vikas Spanish orthography is easier but as you know English (already an European language), you'll recognize more French words. French and Spanish grammar are similar. Mastering French pronunciation is harder. Stress rules, unpronounced letters, mandatory, optional, and forbidden liaison rules that sometimes requires to know the words origin (Latin or not) or the way they used to be written in the middle age. Non native speakers tend also to be bothered by numbers from 70 to 99.

The mechanics of Spanish and French are almost the same (as far as Hindi and English are concerned, which you already know).

For vocab, also they both have a huge overlap with English, so that doesn't really separate them.

As to culture though, that's a big difference. It all depends on context and what you want. Spanish is the native language for most of the Americas (not US Canada Brazil and some small others). And Spanish is a very important 2nd language in the US.

French is an important 2nd language in West Africa but is not really native there.

As to accessibility of cultural items to learn from...it's hard for me to tell...I took French in high school so I know about all the 19th c novels and poetry, and the 20th c movies and comics. I'm sure Spanish has those things I just don't know enough to tell whether there is more of it.

@Cerberus Still an excellent score, for all that.

@Vikas Why stop at one? Spanish is easier than French, IMO, so that is a good place to start. What you learn there you can apply to French. I studied German in high school and university, then worked in Germany for a time. Then I studied Japanese as an adult and got quite proficient. Then, as a retiree, I studied Spanish and am able to read just about anything, and converse well enough to have non-trivial conversations.

There is a joy in being able to speak other languages.

@Cerberus 50 cm on #3!! How did you do it?

@Mitch this one always struck me as oddly progressive actually

@M.A.R. at the time very much progressive.

Nowadays people may get their nose out of joint because it is making fun of trans people.

Sure, it was making fun of them back then but the things Eric Idle were ludicrous at that time. Nowadays I feel like I've heard those things stated seriously.

@Mitch Well, it's like everything else then, isn't it? People failing to find the balance between being responsible for what they say and feeling offended on behalf of others.

Or maybe like everything these days ...

Haha same thoughts.

It's rude to say the truth?

Depends on its presentation

There are some things you can't say.

But if you decide to be offended beforehand

@Mitch just harder presentation

Make a Tarantino movie about it

That would say all the things

And more

Actually I was going to amend 'I feel like I've heard those things stated seriously'

I bet I -haven't- and am just making small logical inferences based on hearsay.

The biggest attack on bad things said seriously is having them said non-seriously

@M.A.R. that works in some people. Some people may not understand that it's a joke.

Make the racist/homophobe/xenophobe the butt of the joke

@Mitch so what then?

Who is going to learn it from comedy movies?

@jlliagre I don't remember which one that was!

But you don't use Google any more, do you?

I do try to get the exact spot when possible.

@Robusto Merci. You haven't done it yet?

@Robusto Oh, I didn't see this, you used the AHK method! Well done.

Has anyone done a proper scientific trial where they communicated with nothing but "ugaah" for a year or two in a foreign country to see if they learn the language?

Just a few times.

It sounds OK to me.

Just heavy on content.

@Cerberus Not yet. Just got back from my 50 mile (80 km) ride. I'll have a look soon.

@MichaelRybkin It's OK. I'd prefer matching articles ("A cognitive bias is a deviation from reality" OR "Cognitive bias is deviation from reality"), but it's not critical.

@Robusto That is all the way to The Hague!

Far.

@Cerberus Heh! Just a morning's ride for me! ^_^

Tsk.

Can language models handle recursively nested grammatical structures? A case study on comparing models and humans

@Cerberus Not bad for guessing, but still not quite up to your level today.

Oh wait, I'm looking at @jlliagre's score.

We were all very close together, though.

I felt that there were few good web resources about series out of control, so I took a stab at a canonical Q&A for it.

@Cerberus Thank you.

@Robusto Thank you very much.

@Robusto Well, you scored higher than I.

@Cerberus Not by much. A statistical tie all around.

Your years are better but my distances.

@Cerberus 'Protect our future' demonstration.

@jlliagre Ah, that one.

Yeah, I managed to find the building.

And tried to get to the right spot.

Of course it is a matter of luck, how far off the GPS location was.

@Cerberus Yes, I stopped using Google or whatever resource, just the picture and my memory.

@Cerberus I was lucky to find the city. I somewhat remembered the area where these demonstrations could have occurred, but that was fuzzy.

I had never heard of the protests.

Do you recognize where ipinfo.io located me after I switched to a VPN?

Yes haha.

I might be in that picture.

On the 7th floor were many of my classes.

A few hundred metres from here.

It is like the ugliest building in the inner city...

Heh not quite.

Is that a kind of coördinate point?

@Cerberus Yes. The site pick our IP address and provides estimated coordinates.

@jlliagre Oh, four decimals.

L'esprit de l'escalier prevented me to answer @Robusto that this was the new, post fire modern Notre Dame just rebuilt for the Olympics ;-)

Hahaha.

I know some people had some 'modern' ideas for the reconstruction of the roof and the spire.

Barbarians.

@jlliagre The coordinates it gave for my IP address were to Phoenix, Arizona. Hundreds of miles from me.

@Robusto I'm not surprised. IP geolocation doesn't work well with the 14.4k modems you still used in the desert ;-)

The BBS you use as a proxy must be in Phoenix.

@Cerberus They didn't take my suggestion of turning it into a nightclub?

I think it'd be more profitable that way. There's no money in churches anymore.

We have churches here turned into nightclubs or party locations.

My friend's mother, who is Christian, found the idea scandalous.

It's owned by the government. Think of how much money that nightclub could make--they could put that money into the country's educational system. Not making Notre Dame into a nightclub is destroying their children's futures.

Well, France already has good education, especially Paris.

And they could always raise taxes a little bit instead.

Sure, but they could raise taxes a little bit and turn Notre-Dame into a nightclub. The latter can only provide an additional benefit.

@jlliagre What are you talking about? I'm still trying to communicate using two tin cans and a length of string.

@Robusto Ah Okay, that explains the delay.

Actually, the internet here is just fine. And it's going to get even better. Soon we'll have competition among gigabit ethernet choices, which should drive the prices down. I'm currently at 200 Mbps, which serves me well.

@alphabet You don't need to turn it into anything: you can just rent it out for parties at will, like many churches here.

The biggest, oldest church is now mostly a museum, for modern-art installations.

Though you can still also see the Mediaeval building itself.

I know some 18th-century churches that are mainly party locations.

@Cerberus I like modern art because looking at it makes me feel like a sophisticated aesthete.

And of course this happens all the more so with post-industrial churches, like 19th-century upwards.

@alphabet I only like some of it.

Much I find a bit hard to enjoy.

@Cerberus "It may look like someone just painted a bunch of stripes on a wall, but it's actually about feminism."

"The sculptor's assurance that his art is not intended to look phallic is a sure sign that it is, indeed, so intended."

Haha, both no doubt true.

When women achieve true equality, it will all be thanks to weird abstract art.

All.