Which languages do you know?

[Alec Rivers]

Apart from those who will not be able to resist the temptation to claim Klingon or Furbish, etc., I would be interested to know which languages (other than English) people have any grasp of, as well as how fluent they are. For me it would be nice to find someone else who knows a bit of Dutch.

Dutch: More-or-less fluent.
French & Spanish: A smattering. Good pronunciation, though.

EDIT: (As I hadn't specified human languages only) Visual Basic: Proficient hobbyist.


Over to you.

[Marc Meakin]

I hear Matt's a cunning linguist

[Jon Corby]

COBOL, Visual Basic, Java, C#, SQL

[Derek Hazell]

Oh dear, these boys. *shakes head* A sensible question deserves a sensible answer. But I only know Gibberish.

[Jon Corby]

Mine was a sensible answer

[Marc Meakin]

I am fluent in bollocks (but you already knew that)

[Sue Sanders]

I speak Franglais formidable.

[Michael Wallace]

I did German to GCSE and am often surprised by how much I can still remember (that is, more than none), I did French until I was about 13, and can remember almost none of that. I've started learning Japanese, but the whole new alphabet thing is a bit of a bitch. Other than that I can do some stuff in Python and C, although R is my main language.

[Oliver Garner]

For me it would be nice to find someone else who knows a bit of Dutch.

Frank Rodolf

[Alec Rivers]

For me it would be nice to find someone else who knows a bit of Dutch.

Frank Rodolf

Cool. Although it seems he went off the radar in January, both here and on Apterous. Ik hoop dat alles nog goed met hem gaat.

[Derek Hazell]

Another one who went off the radar (an acronym that has made it into the dictionary) was Spanish Cifras y Letras contestant Francisco Segura.

[Andy Thomson]

I have Highers (you know - inferior Scottish equivalent to A Levels! ) in French & German. I have a working knowledge (i.e. enough to be able to use public transport, conduct simple transactions in shops and order food and drink in restaurants - what more do you need?) in Spanish and Italian. I have a smattering of Russian and a dash of Gaelic. I can tell people to fuck off in Aafrikans.

Oh, and I'm fluent in American.

[Charlie Reams]

I can read French reasonably well but my speaking and listening is awful, and I have a little Chinese although it's rusty now. Also I'm posh so Latin and Greek obviously (I never bothered to refute this because it made me laugh so much).

I've recently been learning about modern language teaching in other countries and it really does explain why English people are so crap at other languages. The way languages are taught in Germany, for example, is much more interactive and exciting, and you get a lot more opportunities to use your nascent skills in practice (for more reasons than geographical convenience). It annoys me because I'm pretty sure I and many other residents of this board could've been good at languages, given the general skill for word recall, grammatical precision and so on, but it's much harder to learn now. If I were a cynical type I might wonder whether the lack of modernisation in language teaching is a bit of a ploy by Anglophone governments to promote English as the lingua franca...

[Alec Rivers]

If I were a cynical type I might wonder whether the lack of modernisation in language teaching is a bit of a ploy by Anglophone governments to promote English as the lingua franca...

Wouldn't surprise me one bit.
If we hadn't moved from Holland back to England when I was 8, I'd probably be fluent in at least four languages now, instead of two.

[Karen Pearson]

Spanish - Fairly fluently still
French - Used to be fluent but a bit rusty now
Italian - Enough to get by on holiday (although I can always resort to speaking Spanish with an Italian accent - seems to work fairly well).
Portuguese - Enough to get a room, a meal and a taxi (as above but with a Russian accent)
German & modern Greek - pretty well limited to getting a bottle of red wine!!

I agree that teaching of modern languages here is pretty woeful generally. I think other countries are helped by having films and TV programmes available in English. IMHO most French films are depressing and most Spanish films are a bit weird or pervy (Y Tu Mama Tambien, Como Agua Para Chocolate and another one I can't remember the title of but was about a boy with a breast fixation to which I took my Spanish class (largely retired ladies)!!!

[Ben Hunter]

I really regret not knowing another language. I once sat down and tried to learn French a few years ago, I was making some progress but it took way too much effort to motivate myself.

If I were a cynical type I might wonder whether the lack of modernisation in language teaching is a bit of a ploy by Anglophone governments to promote English as the lingua franca...

Interesting theory, I'm going to steal it and say it to this international student I'm trying to pull.

[Phil Reynolds]

I took French at O Level and can still get by in the language passably well, numerous holidays over the years having kept me in practice; but I wouldn't describe myself as fluent. I also have a smattering of holiday Spanish, Italian and German, although it's mostly just vocabulary rather than any understanding of grammar. I like to think my pronunciation is pretty good though - I take pride in mimicking what I hear rather than just trying to force the words into an Anglicised pronunciation the way most English people seem to. I love the fact that in Spanish and Italian, especially, the pronunciation is mostly phonetic, meaning that if you learn a few simple rules you can see a new word and immediately know how to say it. Makes life much easier.

I took three years each of Welsh (another phonetic language) and Latin in school and can remember odd snippets of both, though I've been getting some recent practice at the former from an unexpected quarter as my nephew's girlfriend speaks Welsh as a first language and my other half is constantly asking me to interpret her Facebook posts.

I agree with the comments about the different culture surrounding language learning in other European countries. My mother's brother was married to a Finnish woman for a while in the 1970s and her parents came over from Helsinki to stay with us a few times. They all spoke fluent Swedish, Norwegian and English as well as Finnish and seemed to think this unremarkable; I once asked Helena's mother how many languages she spoke and she smiled wisely, held up a forefinger and said, "One".

As far as computer languages go: at various times over the years I've been fluent in C, CORAL, Pascal, BASIC, BCPL, numerous flavours of Unix shell but especially ksh, and countless others. Nowadays my only practice is with PHP (does that even count as a language?) and that has whole function libraries I've not even looked at.

[Sue Sanders]

I did a home stay in a totally untouristy town in Costa Rica a couple of years ago. The company organising it said there would be an English speaker in the house. The English speaker was my housemother Maria's daughter and she'd left home some months previously. I did O level Spanish in 1981, scraped a 'c' grade largely through our Spanish teacher, about to retire, cheating during our oral by mouthing answers to us. For the 5 days I was there I relied largely on 'tengo', 'vengo', and 'quiero' and the 35 year old Berlitz Spanish (Catalunia rather than Central American) phrasebook I'd bunged in my rucksack at the last minute plus a list of 'building site' lingo given to me for the volunteer build thing I was there to do. Having already been in Costa Rica for 3 weeks with little need to speak Spanish, I did find when it mattered, I was starting to remember words seen when flicking through my phrase book and found myself making what, along with gestures, could be considered an exchange of information, with waiters, taxi-drivers and the family at the house build. Each day, when returning to Maria's from the village where I'd been building, I'd go into my room, get some vocab from Berlitz and return to the kitchen where Maria would smile encouragingly, brace herself and I would deliver my day's story in the form of a cobbled together sentence! If she had any visitors, Maria would make me repeat my 'story' particularly wanting me to include all the exaggerated gestures. We built up quite a rapport! It was amazing what I managed in those few short days and depressing too how quickly I forgot it again after getting home.

[Allan Harmer]

I got GCE O'Level and did Business French at College.

My boss is based in Paris, so I get to visit regularly and get a bit of conversational in. I can read and write it much better than speak it though. Mind you, I don't know how many more visits I will have, as I have applied for early retirement. Hopefully, I will get one or two more in.

I have also visited most of the other European countries, both for work and holiday, so I can get by well enough to buy tickets and order beers, etc.

At least I make an effort to speak the local lingo!

[Rosemary Roberts]

The way languages are taught in Germany, for example, is much more interactive and exciting, and you get a lot more opportunities to use your nascent skills in practice (for more reasons than geographical convenience).

YMMV in Germany. English is very commonly taught by non-native speakers, some of whom have no more than school English themselves. I remember a neighbour of ours who was an elementary school teacher and had only rudimentary English being suddenly told off to take a beginners' English class. That was probably 30 years ago, but even now my German granddaughter is coming home from school unable to correctly pronounce words that she previously knew.

My own German is still fluent but was never faultless. Quite far from faultless actually, depending on who you ask.

[Peter Mabey]

Did French & Latin at school (latter required for Cambridge entrance) - not very good now, but was still able to translate French technical manuals at work.
Know some German, having worked in Stuttgart for a few weeks, also had some holidays, though not really up to conversational standard.

[Richard Adams]

... it really does explain why English people are so crap at other languages. The way languages are taught in Germany, for example...

It seems to me that as a nation we lack incentive. The perception seems to be, why bother to learn a foreign language? What's going on in foreign that's of interest to us?

Dutch kids, uniformly recognised as brilliant at languages, have two advantages: a) an astonishingly 'wide' language which you have to be able to make most noises it's possible to make with a mouth to speak - hence their ability actually to pronounce the sounds you need in order to be understood in most European languages without stretching too much or feeling embarrassed - and b) loads of English language media, including music, TV shows etc. They know what our language sounds like and what the words mean from an early age. They have no lack of confidence in trying it out, or lack of opportunity to practice.

If I'd like my kids to watch TV in German or French or any other language, come to that, I have to do something like buy a dish and subscribe to some foreign service, which would be an expensive and artificial thing to do, and probably wouldn't achieve a great deal as the chances are they wouldn't be interested by it. Particularly if it's Disney stuff dubbed so the words don't fit the characters' mouths.
We can't even easily get hold of foreign films: Lovefilm's stock is very thin, and if we do find one, it may well be dubbed, which denies a lot of the whole point.

Foreign language is rarely heard on our television, the voices are invariably dubbed over, rather than sub-titled.

And, astonishingly, languages were recently made entirely optional at secondary school level. That was nearly their death-knell. They are surviving, but only just. What future in teaching an optional subject?

The incentive is there, if only we look for it. If as a nation we want to export, we have to be able to sell, which surely means speaking the buyer's language.

[Alec Rivers]

Many good points there, Richard, but:

without ... feeling embarrassed

is true except for TH, because to them it seems retarded to speak with your tongue between your teeth, hence their preference for S, Z or T.

[Charlie Reams]

Many good points there, Richard, but:

without ... feeling embarrassed

is true except for TH, because to them it seems retarded to speak with your tongue between your teeth, hence their preference for S, Z or T.

I met a Dutch girl who kept referring to her homeland as "dee Nederlands", which is basically the cutest thing ever. So maybe this is an elaborate seduction plan.

[Alec Rivers]

I met a Dutch girl who kept referring to her homeland as "dee Nederlands", which is basically the cutest thing ever. So maybe this is an elaborate seduction plan.

That might stem from the fact that our noun in 'The Netherlands' (a plural) is almost identical to their adjective, 'nederlands'* (not a plural, obviously), meaning 'of or from Nederland'. As a singular noun it is also the name of their language. Note that Dutch words almost always form their plurals with -EN or -N (cf oxen, brethren and children as the last surviving examples of this in English) as opposed to our -S / -ES (although these days they often adopt this use for new words: e.g. computers, not computeren). So the full name for their country is Koninkrijk der Nederlanden (plural) = Kingdom of the Netherlands.

Cute it is, yes. And seduction it may also be.


* Or 'nederlandse' depending on position. deze auto is nederlands / een nederlandse auto

[Darren Carter]

I know French to GCSE Level, and then very very basic knowledge of German, Italian and Arabic.

[Kathleen Batlle]

I speak Castillano Spanish fluently, but that's probably because I've lived in Spain for almost 38 years! I did French at school in UK for 4 years but, I'm ashamed to say, that I do not speak or understand French at all. What a disgrace - I really should have listened to our excellent French teacher, but chose not to. My husband speaks to me all the time in Catalan and I answer him in English, so we both understand each other's language perfectly well but neither of us actually speak the other's native tongue. That's very complicated to understand I know, but the joyful outcome is that both our daughters speak fluent English, Spanish and Catalan, which has enabled them to find work in tourism. They also both speak German, Italian and French fluently which I think must be the result of having to cope with parents who spoke to them in two different languages from birth.

[Matt Bayfield]

hoi Alec! ik wist niet, dat je nederlands kan! helaas spreek ik helemaal niet vloeiend nederlands, want het was bijna 10 jaar geleden dat ik in nederland woonde. maar als je wilt apterous-NL spelen... dan kan wel als je een elektronische woordenboek kan vinden!

(ik heb vroeger scrabble in het nederlands gespeelt...)

See, told you I wasn't fluent. Very rusty... don't have many occasions to speak the language nowadays.

[Derek Hazell]

We can't even easily get hold of foreign films: Lovefilm's stock is very thin, and if we do find one, it may well be dubbed, which denies a lot of the whole point.

Foreign language is rarely heard on our television, the voices are invariably dubbed over, rather than sub-titled.

The two places that I have most to do with, Oxford and Swindon, both have film societies which you can join to see foreign-language films with like-minded people. You should look into that, as your area probably has similar.

[Charlie Reams]

hoi Alec! ik wist niet, dat je nederlands kan! helaas spreek ik helemaal niet vloeiend nederlands, want het was bijna 10 jaar geleden dat ik in nederland woonde. maar als je wilt apterous-NL spelen... dan kan wel als je een elektronische woordenboek kan vinden!

(ik heb vroeger scrabble in het nederlands gespeelt...)

This looks awesome. I have a Finnish friend whose Facebook statuses always look so curious and pretty, like this one:

Muista äänestää huomenna tai ylihuomenna edarivaaleissa (esim. numeroa 711)! Muutoin menetät kahdeksi vuodeksi lupasi valittaa mistään, ja sekös vasta tekee elämästä ja puheenaiheiden keksimisestä hankalaa.

Incidentally if anyone can find a suitable wordlist then I'll happily add more languages to apterous.

[Matt Bayfield]

At the risk of calling Charlie's bluff, there appears to be a pretty sound Dutch wordlist on this gentleman's personal website. Aad is clearly a fan of the short-lived Dutch equivalent of Countdown ("Cijfers en Letters") and is a general words and letters puzzle buff.

The files which would need to be downloaded are the two zipfiles under the section "Een woordenlijst (1,1 MB gezipt) en nog een (1,3 MB) samen met ruim 680.000 Nederlandse woorden. Bevat de eerdergenoemde 250.000 woorden, bijgewerkt tot en met november 2009". The first file contains all words up to 11 letters in length, the second file contains all words from 12 through 19 letters in length. That should be sufficient for all variants of apterous, as it's extremly rare that a 20+ letter word crops up in English language HyperUnlimited, so I'd guess it would be similarly unlikely in Dutch.

Would anyone play Dutch language apart from Alec and I? Much as I'd like to play in Dutch, and it might also encourage a few new subscribers from The Netherlands and Belgium, I don't want to waste Charlie's time.

[Charlie Reams]

Would anyone play Dutch language apart from Alec and I?

I'll give you a game

Cheers for the woordenlijst.

[Matt Bayfield]

Deal - I'll look forward to it! Alec will kick both our asses, mind...

Btw, there appears to be a choice of 2 wordlists. If you want a shorter wordlist (250000 words), you could just use Aad's alternative 1 MB list. As my Dutch vocabulary is probably less than 10000 words, I can't really comment much on which list is more appropriate, although perhaps you should go for the lexicon which is of a similar size to the 2-through-19-letter wordlist for English or French?

[Charlie Reams]

Btw, there appears to be a choice of 2 wordlists. If you want a shorter wordlist (250000 words), you could just use Aad's alternative 1 MB list. As my Dutch vocabulary is probably less than 10000 words, I can't really comment much on which list is more appropriate, although perhaps you should go for the lexicon which is of a similar size to the 2-through-19-letter wordlist for English or French?

I don't know much about Dutch, but it appears to have a much richer inflection system than English, which means you get a lot of words "for free" once you know the grammar. The full wordlist is 227,330 words up to nine letters, which is roughly three times the length of Jimdic, but whether that indicates much more obscurity or just much more regularity I'm not sure. We can try it and see.

BTW I just did a first pass on the conundrums and there were 56,000 of them after removing cooked ones and some plurals, compared to around 14,000 in ODE. There are also loads of awesome dupe nines such as ZWIJNESLA+ELZASWIJN and WEERKOMST+STEEKWORM.

[Matt Bayfield]

I don't know much about Dutch, but it appears to have a much richer inflection system than English, which means you get a lot of words "for free" once you know the grammar. The full wordlist is 227,330 words up to nine letters, which is roughly three times the length of Jimdic, but whether that indicates much more obscurity or just much more regularity I'm not sure. We can try it and see.

Agree about the inflections - pretty much any adjective has two forms (with and without a trailing "-e"), and you've probably got double the inflections of verbs compared to English.

BTW I just did a first pass on the conundrums and there were 56,000 of them after removing cooked ones and some plurals, compared to around 14,000 in ODE. There are also loads of awesome dupe nines such as ZWIJNESLA+ELZASWIJN and WEERKOMST+STEEKWORM.

Of those four 9ers, I only know WEERKOMST! I don't think I'll be getting too many max games (heh, as if I do in English...), but it'll be fun to try.

Incidentally, Omelette in Dutch would be very tricky, because many abbreviations in Dutch are written entirely in lower case and are thus regarded as words, e.g. "gsm", "cd".

In my experience, the Dutch are fanatics about spelling and grammar. They have some sort of official committee which regularly meets and decides on language and spelling rules (there used to be controversy about changing the spelling of words nicked from other languages, like "kado" vs "cadeau"). There's even a quiz show on Belgian/Dutch TV which is essentially just a spelling show, featuring exceptionally difficult, or new words (there's a Dutch team, and a team from Vlaanderen).

[Phil Reynolds]

many abbreviations in Dutch are written entirely in lower case and are thus regarded as words, e.g. "gsm", "cd".

Not sure I get this. Just because an abbreviation is normally written in lower case doesn't make it a valid word, at least not in English for Countdown purposes - consider "tbsp", "mph", "kg" etc. (Haha - was trying to think of one that wasn't a unit of measure, gave up, and then realised I'd finished the sentence with one. ) You may well be right about these being considered words in Dutch - I'm just saying that it doesn't follow from the premise that they're lower case.

[Jon O'Neill]

many abbreviations in Dutch are written entirely in lower case and are thus regarded as words, e.g. "gsm", "cd".

Not sure I get this. Just because an abbreviation is normally written in lower case doesn't make it a valid word, at least not in English for Countdown purposes - consider "tbsp", "mph", "kg" etc. (Haha - was trying to think of one that wasn't a unit of measure, gave up, and then realised I'd finished the sentence with one. ) You may well be right about these being considered words in Dutch - I'm just saying that it doesn't follow from the premise that they're lower case.

pH used to be valid in Scrabble because of some stupid rule about the leading letter being in lowercase,I think.

[Charlie Reams]

Not sure I get this. Just because an abbreviation is normally written in lower case doesn't make it a valid word, at least not in English for Countdown purposes - consider "tbsp", "mph", "kg" etc.

It's difficult to draw the line because bus, vet, phone etc. are also abbreviations and yet would obviously be allowed. ODE handily marks abbreviations explicitly, but not all dictionaries do that (hence the pH problem in Scrabble).

[Marc Meakin]

Not sure I get this. Just because an abbreviation is normally written in lower case doesn't make it a valid word, at least not in English for Countdown purposes - consider "tbsp", "mph", "kg" etc.

It's difficult to draw the line because bus, vet, phone etc. are also abbreviations and yet would obviously be allowed. ODE handily marks abbreviations explicitly, but not all dictionaries do that (hence the pH problem in Scrabble).

Wysiwig

[Phil Reynolds]

Not sure I get this. Just because an abbreviation is normally written in lower case doesn't make it a valid word, at least not in English for Countdown purposes - consider "tbsp", "mph", "kg" etc.

It's difficult to draw the line because bus, vet, phone etc. are also abbreviations and yet would obviously be allowed. ODE handily marks abbreviations explicitly, but not all dictionaries do that (hence the pH problem in Scrabble).

Which sounds like you're agreeing with me - i.e. lower case does not necessarily mean it's a valid word in its own right, as Matt seemed to be suggesting - or am I missing something?

[Charlie Reams]

Which sounds like you're agreeing with me - i.e. lower case does not necessarily mean it's a valid word in its own right, as Matt seemed to be suggesting - or am I missing something?

The point I was not conveying terribly well is that, if your dictionary happens not to mark abbreviations explicitly, then you really have no choice but to allow stuff like "kg". This is the case in Italian Scrabble, too, where abbreviations are lower case and hence words like "cdrom" are valid.

[Phil Reynolds]

The point I was not conveying terribly well is that, if your dictionary happens not to mark abbreviations explicitly, then you really have no choice but to allow stuff like "kg".

Ah right, I see (I think). So presumably ODE2r doesn't classify words like "phone" and "vet" as abbreviations (even though they are), otherwise they'd have to be disallowed?

[Charlie Reams]

The point I was not conveying terribly well is that, if your dictionary happens not to mark abbreviations explicitly, then you really have no choice but to allow stuff like "kg".

Ah right, I see (I think). So presumably ODE2r doesn't classify words like "phone" and "vet" as abbreviations (even though they are), otherwise they'd have to be disallowed?

Yep, I think so.

[Matt Bayfield]

Yup - I think you've got it now Phil - I was only taking about Dutch, not English.

As far as I'm aware, the Dutch Language Union, who set the rules for spellings, etc, tend to spell many abbreviations made from initial letters, e.g. "gsm", in lower case, and without any punctuation. They are therefore included as "words" in official lists of Dutch words, including the list of words used for playing Dutch language Scrabble.

For those who can read Dutch, the official ruling on these so-called "initiaalwoorden" is here.

[Phil Reynolds]

Yup - I think you've got it now Phil - I was only taking about Dutch, not English.

Yes, I realised that - I was using English examples because I don't speak Dutch. The principle was the same though.

As far as I'm aware, the Dutch Language Union, who set the rules for spellings, etc, tend to spell many abbreviations made from initial letters, e.g. "gsm", in lower case, and without any punctuation. They are therefore included as "words" in official lists of Dutch words

This is the bit I didn't (and still don't) get - your claim that an abbreviation is deemed a word simply because it's spelt in lower case. I don't think you really mean that, though.

[Matt Bayfield]

No, I didn't mean that all abbreviations written entirely in lower case are regarded as words in Dutch. What I meant is that many common "strings", which are formed from the initial letters of a longer expression, are regarded as Dutch words, in which case they will be written in lower case without punctuation, despite being pronounced as a string of letters (i.e. "say-day" rather than "cud", for the Dutch word "cd", or "bay-tay-way" rather than "betwer" for the Dutch word "btw").

In English, strings pronounced as a number of initial letters, e.g. "cd", would not be regarded as "words" in most dictionaries, regardless of upper or lower case. Strings that can be pronounced as an acronym e.g. "laser" may go on to become classed as words in English, but that's another issue.

Apologies if I'm still not being clear Phil, but I really can't be fussed to try to explain further, especially since I don't make the rules!

[Kai Laddiman]

I would love a German dictionary on apterous. Anyone?

[Charlie Reams]

I would love a German dictionary on apterous. Anyone?

QFT.

[Phil Reynolds]

Apologies if I'm still not being clear Phil, but I really can't be fussed to try to explain further

It's slightly clearer I think, Matt, so thanks. It's all rather dull though so let's move on!

[Alec Rivers]

hoi Alec! ik wist niet, dat je nederlands kan! helaas spreek ik helemaal niet vloeiend nederlands, want het was bijna 10 jaar geleden dat ik in nederland woonde. maar als je wilt apterous-NL spelen... dan kan wel als je een elektronische woordenboek kan vinden!

(ik heb vroeger scrabble in het nederlands gespeelt...)

See, told you I wasn't fluent. Very rusty... don't have many occasions to speak the language nowadays.

Hoi, Matt, wat leuk! Jouw nederlands is helemaal niet slecht, hoor. Ik heb het gevoel dat onze taalkennis weinig verschild, want ik woon al 32 jaar niet meer in nederland. Maar ja, we zullen wel zien.

Cheers for the woordenlijst.

You're a natural!

As my Dutch vocabulary is probably less than 10000 words

Don't be surprised if mine's no different because I left Holland at the age of eight and have probably lost as many words from my original 'stock' as I've gained from speaking with Dutch friends in the 32 years since. However, ...

... you get a lot of words "for free" once you know the grammar.

... is true, so that still holds for me as well. For instance:

When you know a phrase like dat maakt niks uit (lit. trans. 'that makes nothing out' = 'that makes no difference' or 'that doesn't matter')
you can form another word thus: zal dat veel uitmaken? (lit. 'will that much outmake?' = 'will that make much difference?' or 'will that matter much?')
I'd say it would be akin to making the word 'awaygo' from the verb 'go away' in English.

Also, Dutch uses the diminutive suffix 'je' to refer to a smaller and/or less significant and/or more familiar object. It's often done just to make a word sound more pleasant or friendly. In English, we have words like 'birdie' and 'sweetie' (you can see the etymology here) but they sound childish. In Dutch it's much more prevalent and sounds perfectly normal. Its form is changed depending on the letter it follows, e.g. 'kje', tje', etc. Hence hand (hand, but pronounced similar to 'hunt') becomes handje, but vogel (bird) becomes vogeltje and koning (king) becomes koninkje (the G is left off). Where the final letter is M: lam (lamb) becomes lammetje (emphasis remains on first syllable). All of this is driven by ease of pronunciation. It is more difficult to enunciate -LJE than to throw in a T to make -LTJE. (Note that the J is soft like the Y in 'yes'.) If, however, the addition of an extra letter causes ambiguity, its use is avoided. e.g. pin (pin) becomes pinnetje because pintje is already the diminutive form of pint (pint, rhymes with bint).

Of those four 9ers, I only know WEERKOMST!

Ditto!

... many abbreviations in Dutch are written entirely in lower case and are thus regarded as words, e.g. "gsm", "cd".

But, crucially, they're still spelled out when spoken. The Dutch use 'gsm' as their usual word for mobile phone, but they say g-s-m (English phonetic spelling, using the 'ch' from 'loch' for the G: chay-ess-em). In fact, they often use the diminutive gsm'etje!

It's difficult to draw the line

Personally, I don't think words should be included in word games if they're spelled out rather than being spoken like acronyms. But that's just me.

I would love a German dictionary on apterous. Anyone?

They glue words together even more than the Dutch do – the list would be huge!

[Lesley Hines]

I can barely play in English, so I'd really struggle in another language At least I'd still be able to do the maths...

I did French A-Level and Latin GCSE. Latin would be a quite a good one as at least the words have stopped evolving. Once the list's done it'll never need amending. (I'm not volunteering, btw ) I studied 17th century Italian opera too, so some antiquated Italian. I can't say much to anyone who's been alive in the last 300 years though.

[Charlie Reams]

I can't say much to anyone who's been alive in the last 300 years though.

At least you can chat to Howard.

[Ian Volante]

English
French (GCSE, A grade, which is impressive given that I copied 90% of tests we ever did, or isn't impressive cos it's GCSE)
German (two years at school, didn't really like the teacher, nor the language compared the the romance set)
Spanish (various holiday phraseology)
Italian (what my grandma taught me plus what I got from working in a pizza restaurant)

That plus a smattering of academic Latin and Greek doesn't add up to a huge amount, especially given my lack of confidence trying them out on natives. I'm told my arm-waving when I try to speak Italian is entertaining however!

[Ian Volante]

Just thinking, is there a way to harvest words from the dictionaries in Firefox say?

[Charlie Reams]

Coming soon!

[Alec Rivers]

Fabulous! Nicely done, Charlie. I'm panicking now, though, cos my vocab is really no better than a Dutch eight-year-old's. Best I start reading some Dutch literature.

[Lesley Hines]

Best I start reading some Dutch literature.

Is that a euphemism?

[Charlie Reams]

Coming soon!

To quote Richard Brittain, "it is done".

[Derek Hazell]

Can Karen Pearson or Andy Thomson or anyone else read any of this? http://www.1tv.ru/list/pi=7&pa=%80

I was talking to a Russian friend, and she was saying the closest thing they have had to Countdown there is "Zvezdny Chas", which is a gameshow for children and translates as something like "A Star Hour" (their equivalent of 15 minutes of fame). She also gave me this link to the guy who created it, who was apparently murdered . . .

[Alec Rivers]

Coming soon!

To quote Richard Brittain, "it is done".

Yay! Does the letter distribution correlate to the language? It needs more Ks, Vs, Js and Gs than English. I'm sure you've done that.

Unfortunately, as has been the case for several weeks now, I can't get on there when the net's busy. I'm down to 1.2Mbps (from the usual 6.8Mbps) but I still don't get how that prevents Apterous loading or, if I do get on, how it causes terrible hangs.

EDIT: My Java is up to date.