With that start, "shhshshsshshhsh", you could always end it with the sound "...it", and show true frustration as it is expressed in English :-)

Once you go Dutch... you don't pay as much! *ba-dum-tssh*

Nah, it wasn't a "it"-worthy kind of frustration ;) The single numbers weren't even that hard... It's just that there's a lot of "sh"-stuff in those numbers, with six being the worst. It sounds somewhat like "sheshtch". And when you try to count fast and put six between five (sounds like pjench) and seven (sounds like shedem), you end up with five sh-sounds in a row. ch-sheshtch-sh oO That's a lot of shshing for someone who's not familiar with Slavic languages ;)

I know it from The Last Wish as well, the episode isn't in the games (so far), but it's kind of referenced in the first Witcher (waking up in Vizima in Triss' home).


Well, the games kind of reveal the ending of the book series, don't they? Not exactly a happy ending, it seems...

I'm still stuck in Blood of Elves, but since i'm not a big fan of Yennefer (nor Ciri, I gotta admit) it's really slow going right now... I just hope I'll grow to like them better over time.

I always had a hard time with other languages myself, so I can certainly understand the frustration.

Best of luck, and there are some good Dutch speakers on the forum that would be glad to help you out.

I'll close in Dutch: ch-sheshtch-sh oO (see, it isn't only you, and I didn't get their assistance!)

That's probably because you're American and our language instruction programs are pretty much designed to ensure failure. After all, why would we want to speak like or to foreigners?

Given your field of expertise, you'd certainly know more about it than I, but in my early years, I just looked for a one on one correspondence between words.

It never dawned on me that the structure and grammatical rules might be different, or that parts of speech might appear transposed.

Haven't seen you in awhile, hope that work is going fine, and beware the mudslides that are probably right around the corner!

It's a pain in the ass to log in these days. I'm not sure when Mr. Gog is going to be fixing the site. But, given that it's been about 5 months, I'm not terribly optimistic.

Anyways, when I was first trying to learn my second language, it went horribly. In large part because they didn't teach me how to learn vocabulary and they were trying to formally teach grammar. Which might not normally be an issue, but they hadn't formally taught me English grammar so I was effectively learning English grammar and German at the same time.

In truth, vocabulary is more important than grammar and you should be taking it piece by piece as you go. Grammar itself is only helpful in so far as it helps you to communicate. Ideally, what you'd be doing is taking bits of grammar that you can use correctly and add the relevant vocabulary. Over time as you get more words and more grammatical structures, you can add more and more complicated grammar and ideas.

My goal for this year is to get my Mandarin to a good conversational level as well as get Cantonese to a similar level. Which is quite doable. That point before you get there is soul-sucking. You're learning without having attained any of the rewards of the learning.

Title is misleading. I thought you were searching for a person... For social purposes. And stuff... Hmmm...

Good to hear from you, and I had problems with many features on Gog/other sites for awhile too.

Mine was traced to an old browser which I wouldn't give up, Opera, but the latest rendition of Firefox seems to be serving me well.

As for languages, you must certainly be on your way towards a doctorate in them. German was my second language, too, though I must admit it was at a time when I was just being a half ass. The poor instructor was a German communications officer in WWII, and I can still hear him saying something like " Karl, shaadup you idyyut! 4 hours detention for you boy, after the classroom."

Kidding aside, it must make things all of the harder when you have a different alphabet to deal with. My hat certainly goes off to all of those who manage this feat, for all I know of the Greek alphabet I encountered in mathematics, until recently, and Asiatic languages not at all.