How are you?
Along with counting to ten, saying "How are you?" and "Well thanks" in a foreign language is not too difficult - and it can be quite fun to add to the list of languages in which you know how to make basic greetings.
Recently I've been Balkanizing myself by spending time with a Macedonian and an Albanian and, as you can probably tell, they've been teaching me snippets of their language.
I was feeling pretty chuffed to be able to 'communicate' in such 'random' languages and it got me thinking: how many more weird and wonderful languages could I add to my repertiore.
So dear reader, I'm turning to you. In which language(s) can you say "How are you?" and respond appropriately?
I'd especially like to hear from you if you have an unusual or a dead language, but all the well-known ones are welcome too. It's all about quantity as well as quality here.
To start the ball rolling, I'll share Macedonian and Albanian.
Macedonian: Kakosi? Doba
Albanian: Sijeni? Mir
posted by tdix @ 11:04 pm
3 Comments:
Any tips on how to communicate for St. Patrick's day tomorrow?
Minus the necessarily pint of Guinness...
How's this for a tip. Don't say "top of the morning".
I once said that to an inebriated Irishman in the Rocks and he got quite upset.
"Noobody says that in Ireland. Nooobody!"
I am reliably informed that to celebrate St Pat's Day this year it is quite acceptable to speak only about cricket in an Australian accent.
Saying things like 你好吗 or お元気ですか isn't so much fun when you don't understand the answer. I suppose you can be ready to reply with 我很好 or 元気です, but even then you'll miss your chance if someone asks you the equivalent of "How's it going?"
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