You Know You're Too Obsessed with Languages when...

[koirat]

The MoUsY spell-checker

shiro-nacht

[When you go to Coldstone (the ice cream parlor) and order their Germanschokoladekake (which has several umlauts), you pronounce it properly, only to have the workers stare at you and tell you it's pronounced "German Chocolate Cake" and you say, "Not when it's written that way, it's not. I just pronounced it correctly."


(Seriously happened to me. Do people just think the umlauts are there for decoration??)

Do you mean that they had the word "Germanschokoladekake" on their menu, but with umlauts, so you pronounced it the way it should be pronounced with the umlauts, so you were corrected because they actually had them there for decoration only?

Yeah. That's EXACTLY what I mean! And then the people give you this "Whoa, where did SHE come from?" look. It's kinda sad.  

[Ryli Fox]

shiro-nacht

The MoUsY spell-checker

shiro-nacht

[When you go to Coldstone (the ice cream parlor) and order their Germanschokoladekake (which has several umlauts), you pronounce it properly, only to have the workers stare at you and tell you it's pronounced "German Chocolate Cake" and you say, "Not when it's written that way, it's not. I just pronounced it correctly."


(Seriously happened to me. Do people just think the umlauts are there for decoration??)

Do you mean that they had the word "Germanschokoladekake" on their menu, but with umlauts, so you pronounced it the way it should be pronounced with the umlauts, so you were corrected because they actually had them there for decoration only?

Yeah. That's EXACTLY what I mean! And then the people give you this "Whoa, where did SHE come from?" look. It's kinda sad.

You're still not getting it, are you? They're looking at you like you're stupid because it IS...IS IS IS IS IS pronounced "German Chocolate Cake" whether it has umlauts or not. It's a stylization, meaning it's only supposed to LOOK German. UGH  

[koirat]

Ryli Fox

shiro-nacht

The MoUsY spell-checker

shiro-nacht

[When you go to Coldstone (the ice cream parlor) and order their Germanschokoladekake (which has several umlauts), you pronounce it properly, only to have the workers stare at you and tell you it's pronounced "German Chocolate Cake" and you say, "Not when it's written that way, it's not. I just pronounced it correctly."


(Seriously happened to me. Do people just think the umlauts are there for decoration??)

Do you mean that they had the word "Germanschokoladekake" on their menu, but with umlauts, so you pronounced it the way it should be pronounced with the umlauts, so you were corrected because they actually had them there for decoration only?

Yeah. That's EXACTLY what I mean! And then the people give you this "Whoa, where did SHE come from?" look. It's kinda sad.

You're still not getting it, are you? They're looking at you like you're stupid because it IS...IS IS IS IS IS pronounced "German Chocolate Cake" whether it has umlauts or not. It's a stylization, meaning it's only supposed to LOOK German. UGH

I do get that. I REALIZE it's stylized, it just seems in insult to the language. I'm just saying it's sad because they use umlauts for decoration and fail to see that umlauts are actually real letters with a purpose.  

[lili of the lamplight]

Umlauts aren't letters, they're diacritics (marks that go on and/or around letters to achieve a different tone or sound). In German, it's acceptable to use an 'e' after the letter that should have an umlaut if you don't have umlauts on your keyboard (also, I'm told some crossword puzzles substitute them).  

[Ryli Fox]

shiro-nacht

I do get that. I REALIZE it's stylized, it just seems in insult to the language. I'm just saying it's sad because they use umlauts for decoration and fail to see that umlauts are actually real letters with a purpose.

·:Well going around saying "No, it's really pronounced like this..." makes you look like the stupid one in the end because it's NOT pronounced like that. I'm annoyed because you're calling the people working at Coldstone stupid when, in fact, they were the ones who were right and you were wrong.

And as Lili said, in German, ä,ö, and ü are not their own letters and debate continues as to whether ß should be considered its own letter (many say "no" because it's nothing more than a ligature of ‘ss’.)

And it's perfectly acceptable to use other languages' characters to make an English word look like another. Someone might write "JAアAカヨSヨ" for "Japanese" to make it look like Japanese. You wouldn't pronounce it "Jaaakayosyo".
You wouldn't pronounce "ЯЦSSIAИ" as "Yatsssiai"

Do you get where I'm going with this yet?  

[Doppelgaanger]

I just say, "I'll have that," and point at the menu because I can't pronounce it either way. e_e...

But, to get back on topic...

You know your too obsessed with languages when all language related topics have been banned from the breakfast/lunch/dinner table. [True story]  

[savta Gretle]

-you learn languages because you like learning them as opposite to intending to use them for something.
-you dream in a foreign language.
-you mutter at people in Yiddish when you are angry.
-you translate Hebrew/English songs into the language you are learning.
-the concept of proper noun no longer seems strange to you.
-when you begin to think in the language you are learning.
-when your professor ask you about vocabulary.
-when you don't know how to say something in your mother language, but can find the words in a foreign one.
-when you know more slang in Polish than you do in your mother language.
-you have at least one bilingual dictionary that does not use your mother language.
-you have 5 or more notebooks just for German.
-you can't remember words in Hebrew, so you say it in another language.

Guilty.  

[Taeryyn]

The joke in my immersion programme was, "You know you're too obsessed when you're dreaming of Le Nouveau Petit Robert dictionary for Christmas instead of the latest high-tech gadget."  

[lili of the lamplight]

When the high points of trips to tourist sites weren't seeing x, y, or z, but using various languages.  

[Eccentric Iconoclast]

lili of the lamplight

When the high points of trips to tourist sites weren't seeing x, y, or z, but using various languages.

Quite. I woggled around quite a bit in San Francisco listening to people speak different languages. I successfully identified almost all of them.  

[Hawk_McKrakken]

I'm almost certain this one lady who we stood next to in line for a trolley in San Fran was speaking German. Couldn't really make any of it out, though, since the way she was talking was a sort of quick mumbling.  

[Eccentric Iconoclast]

Hawk_McKrakken

I'm almost certain this one lady who we stood next to in line for a trolley in San Fran was speaking German. Couldn't really make any of it out, though, since the way she was talking was a sort of quick mumbling.

When I was on a bus in SF, there were these people speaking what sounded like really, really, really fast Spanish, except it didn't sound quite right (the use of the schwa was a bit of a tip-off). They were speaking Catalan.  

[Vajra B. Hairava]

Ooh, ooh! While on the tube to London (which is actually a bus) I ended up sitting next to this Japanese couple and their little daughter. So, I got the pleasure of listening to them tell their daughter to sit down, but she didn't wanna sit and stuff. Little did they know, the white guy sitting next to them could understand all they said. ninja

Besides that, nothing but hordes of French kids and Chinese tourists. So finding 2 Japanese in England people was a big thing.  

[Oh!Sweet`Serenade]

I think the only time I have listened in to other's conversations in another language was at amusement parks. One time I was waiting in line at a water slide and a Spanish speaking father and daughter were behind be...I made everyone I was with be quiet so I could hear. (: Mhmm...Then there was the time at Busch Gardens when I swear up and down that two people walking by me were speaking French and I was half tempted to turn around and follow them for awhile. And of course the Spanish and Chinese enchange students at my school. (: