Social "International Interview" Thread--All Are Welcome!

Eh, in my case it was Wikipedia.

 

(Edit: I had actually wondered...but then I didn't see any hyperlinked words/font irregularities or other obvious signs of copying and pasting)

 

In mine, stuff they teach you around grade 5. Because you know, teaching the kids that "those darstardly Turks thought they were choosing a Turkish word, but even the name Istanbul is Greek" is an important national issue here

 

Yeah, I wrote it with my own words, and combined some info from another entry on phonotactics, which was the linguistic phenomenon I was referencing. I know to take Wikipedia with a pinch of salt in politically sensitive topics, but in this case it seemed credible enough not to doubt it. I knew some of it from before, and used the entry to fill in the gaps. Especially the phonotactics part, there was no reason to doubt.

We also have similar phonotactics with consonant clusters in Persian, which is why you will hear Persian speakers have difficulty saying words like school, smith, trip and problem. 'Fresh off the boat' immigrants pronounce these as eschool, esmith, terip and peroblem.

 

I always find those types of pronunciation issues from language to language interesting...of course, when I was studying French, I was continually frustrated and humiliated by my inability to pronounce the "r" sound correctly (as, for example, with the subtleties of the French pronunciation of a word like "Sartre")...but yet I always found it endearing that, even after living in the US for decades, my German grandfather always said "tink" instead of "think"

Edit: This is likely unconnected to the theme of this thread, but I must know...Violent Violet Menace--who/what is the character in your current avatar?

 

You guys should hear me speaking English Greek doesn't have "sh" and "j", so "shush" becomes "suss" and "juju" becomes "zoozoo", plus I roll my Rs all the way from here to the Acropolis.

 

You might find this interesting:

 

Have not seen it but my first reaction to the title is this:

 

Found this fascinating too:



It's interesting that they referred to their gods as ais (plural aisir) as the norse had an almost identical word for their gods.

 

This is the most watched Youtube-clip in Sweden. Might be of interest, or at least fun

 

Incidentally, Norwegians pronounce kex as kjex. That's why we don't have fikas.

 

That was hilarious Gamiel

Violent Violet Menace I still need to make time for the two videos you posted, but it's finally FRIIIIIIIDAAAAAAY so I'm hoping to watch them this weekend. I started the first one and it looks fascinating.

 

The second one is much shorter. Less than ten minutes and, in truth, more fascinating than the long one.

 

I didn't get a notification for this tag so I missed it when you wrote it. Was it the one I have now?

 

No, it was actually the one before it (something in a sweater with a hat I think?)

Though now that you mention it, I'd be interested to know the source of the current one as well...I know that it's a part of the whole goat-watch thread in the JCC, but beyond that...?

 

It began when I took this cat picture as my avatar. A JCC regular thought that it's my cat (I've never had a pet, I just liked the picture) and put a picture of his own cat as his avatar, and other cat owners in the JCC followed suit. At some point, Diggy instigated that we all switch to dogs. To continue with the cute theme, I picked the videogame character Parappa the Rapper, who's from a very charming rhythm game from 97, where you have to press the button combinations that are prompted on screen in time with the beat. For the Goat Watch thread, to continue with the cute and cartoony theme, I googled to see if there exists any goat cartoon characters and found that there is an old obscure Looney Tunes character called Gabby Goat.


As for Parappa, here's a stage from Parappa the Rapper 2:




Skip to 2:10 for the actual gameplay. The premise of the games is that Parappa the dog in each stage of the game learns some new life skill by rapping along with a mentor. In the above video, he learns flipping burgers from the ghost (!) of the previous owner of the burger joint, so he can take a job there.

Don't forget to French the fries. French them!

 

Wow,Violent Violet Menace , there's a lot to all that; thanks for giving me the low-down! Very cute game. I thought maybe the goat was a Looney Tunes character from the style of drawing. I used to watch Looney Tunes faithfully every Saturday morning as a kid.

That's funny that it all goes back to the smiling cat pic--I remember noticing that one when you were using it--I knew it was a web pic because I had sent it to a fellow cat-loving friend a while back, and I remember really liking the fact that you were using it as your av.

I hope you win the "goat watch" lottery

 

Sorry to bring up Parappa again, but this video of a group of teens playing it for the first time is pretty funny:




And remember: you gotta believe!!!

 

Since New Zealand does not seem to be on the list yet, I will gladly volunteer

 

Something I think would interest people. I will just quote WIkipedia since I'm tired

"The Local is an English-language digital news publisher with local editions in Sweden, Germany, France, Spain, Switzerland, Norway, Denmark, Austria and Italy. Each site, while alike in appearance, has separate editorial teams, each focused on its respective market.[1]
Coverage is purely domestic in each country, and includes current events, politics, business, sports and culture, as well as analysis and opinion. The company also owns the largest English-language discussion forums in Germany (Toytown Germany) and Switzerland (English Forum).
The original Swedish edition began in 2004 as a weekly email newsletter. The German edition was launched in 2008 and Swiss edition in 2011. In 2013 the company opened offices in France, Spain and Italy. By January 2015 the company claimed to have over 4.5 million readers per month.[2]
The Local's founders are Managing Director Paul Rapacioli, formerly a director of reed.co.uk[3] and Managing Editor James Savage, formerly a radio journalist and PR consultant.[4][5] Shareholders include the 6th AP Fund and IQUBE.[6]
The Local's Swedish edition was nominated in 2009 as Swedish Digital Newspaper of the Year ('Årets Dagstidning Digitala Medier'), as part of media magazine Medievärlden's annual newspaper awards.[7]
In January 2010 The Local acquired thelocal.com from First Quench Retailing, a UK alcohol retailer which went into administration at the end of 2009."

Links to the different sites:

• The Local - Europe's news in English
• The Local - France's news in English
• The Local - Germany's news in English
• The Local - Italy's news in English
• The Local - Norway's news in English
• The Local - Sweden's news in English
• The Local - Switzerland's news in English
• The Local - Austria's news in English
• The Local - Denmark's news in English
• The Local - Spain's news in English

 

Interesting. Never heard of it before. Is the intent behind it to raise proficiency in English?

 

The Local looks very interesting...thanks Gamiel!

And welcome, Kyber Acyk! Glad you decided to drop by here (I remember posting in your "Hello" thread in the Welcome New Users forum )

We've actually stopped the more "formal" interviews that used to go on in this thread (I should've asked our mod to update the original post to make that clear, but it will be locked soon anyway) as I'm going to be rebooting the thread in January with a different format (a "question of the month" type of thing that anyone/everyone can respond to--still focused on "international exchanges" but not focused on a single interviewee at a time).

But we'd love to hear more from you while we're "waiting" (for me ) to start the new thread, so let me throw out a question for you now--if you were welcoming a visitor to NZ who had never been there before, what are two or three "must-see" sites (natural or man-made) that you would take that person to and why?

 

I would want to take them to Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers first of all - although you are not able to see it with the naked eye, the glaciers have been on the move for centuries. And if the visitor was a movie fan, I would take them to the town of Matamata in the North Island, where they have rebuilt the village of Hobbiton from Peter Jackson's version of Lord Of The Rings and The Hobbit.

 

Oh, are we torturing asking questions to Kyber Acyk now?

I'm curious about the variety of English spoken/written in New Zealand. How would you describe it to a non-native speaker?

 

Any New Zealand movies that you would recommend?