Originally posted by dianasmama:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">When members from other countries are on the board the board is seen in their language, if their language can't translate the words they are missing maybe a great post.
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Miki.....where are you....?????

Is this true? Your English is just impeccable and I thought you read this board in English, or are you really reading it in German?

Laurie</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Here I am, Laurie!!!!

I don't translate the messages into German. I sort of have a 'switch' and when I read/speak English it's in English and I don't need to translate it into German. I've actually had the problem already that I didn't notice in which language I was actually talking/reading until I was asked a couple of times that I've not been understood as I used the 'wrong' language.


Originally posted by caroloto:
...The English language is the hardest language for example in English to say: "Hello, how are you?" is 4 words in German it's translated into 3 words....
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Caroloto, you actually picked one of the few sentences that doesn't need many words for a German translation. However, if you would say it the 'proper way' you would still need five: "Hallo, wie geht es Dir/Ihnen?" - collequial it just uses three words: "Hallo, wie geht's?".

Usually English sentences are much shorter and also have shorter words. How about this for a job-title:

Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapit?n

That's a real job!

I've done plenty of translations to know that written English is so much shorter and to the point.


As to netspeak and various abbreviations: Some of them are fine and I've gotten used to them as they're used frequently, like the ones listed in the FAQ's and even a few others. If there's something new and I can't work it out, I'll post and ask. The abbreviations that make me mad are those that use numbers in a word and you should work out that this is part of a syllable like: l8er or sk8er.