Spanish is the most spoken language in the world?

K. T.   Sun Jul 19, 2009 2:19 am GMT
Thanks for sharing the link, Besançon.

You can find the examples in the book/link and other interesting stuff.
______________

I want to say that I am not fluent in Mandarin, so it was more like words than phrases for me when I talked to the girl I mentioned above.
J.B   Sun Jul 19, 2009 2:47 am GMT
I don't like portuguese language.

Is truth, portuguese grammar is very funny lol
Tionghoa   Sun Jul 19, 2009 3:19 am GMT
K. T. Sun Jul 19, 2009 1:05 am GMT
(As far as Mandarin, Shanghaiese, etc. the situation is similar, but different. Shanghai dialect sounds very different from Cantonese,)

Re: In fact, Shanghainese (上海話) is a wrong name, it should be called Wunese (吳語), instead.
Visitor   Sun Jul 19, 2009 11:55 am GMT
<< I read an article that say Spanish is the most spoken language in the World as mother tongue, and not the second, as all linguists say.

The most spoken officially is Mandarin Chinese. The problem is that Mandarin Chinese has 8 dialects, and some of them, like Ji Lu Mandarin is very different from Beijing Mandarin.

I don't know if the differences are very important or not. If they are very important, Spanish and Portuguese can be also one language.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_dialects>>


This list is a completely shit. This list is completely false. I think that Hispanidad paid the Instituto Cervantes huge sum of money, because NOTHING of this list is true.

For example,

1. The number of Mandarin Chinese speakers is over 800 million in China alone.

2. Hindi has a native speakers of 425 million speakers in India, Guyana, and Fiji.

3. Spanish has just 320 million native speakers just behind that of English with 375 million native speakers. Less than twice that of Mandarin Chinese and 105 million less than Hindi. No more.

http://the_english_dept.tripod.com/esc.html
Guest   Sun Jul 19, 2009 6:44 pm GMT
Brazilian Portuguese and Spanish are mutually intelligible. If we consider Brazilian Portuguese + Spanish then it's the most spoken language in the world.
Kelly   Sun Jul 19, 2009 7:40 pm GMT
''Brazilian Portuguese and Spanish are mutually intelligible. ''


not so if you're as dumb as Gabriela Spanic:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4c7YwuTCPc
K. T.   Sun Jul 19, 2009 9:54 pm GMT
"(As far as Mandarin, Shanghaiese, etc. the situation is similar, but different. Shanghai dialect sounds very different from Cantonese,)

Re: In fact, Shanghainese (上海話) is a wrong name, it should be called Wunese (吳語), instead."

I left out the "n" too. I prefer to call it Shanghai dialect even though this doesn't say much about it.

I'm not sure what to say in regard to Wu. Aren't there multiple dialects?
Does Wunese cover several or only what is spoken in Shanghai? Thanks for replying in advance.
吳方言? Seeing it with characters makes me see things differently although I am not sure that I can translate it perfectly as this means Wu or Go (?) dialect and the other 吳語 seems to indicate Wu/Go language, yet all fall under the umbrella of "Chinese" because of the written language.

I'm not a linguist (just a polyglot), so forgive me if I don't see it yet as a linguist would. Also my knowledge of Chinese characters comes from Japanese and a small amount of study of Mandarin.
K. T.   Sun Jul 19, 2009 10:05 pm GMT
"Brazilian Portuguese and Spanish are mutually intelligible. If we consider Brazilian Portuguese + Spanish then it's the most spoken language in the world."

I can understand this, but I can see how this would upset people. Brazilians can understand a lot of written and spoken Spanish, but Spanish speakers do better with the written part.
Mallorquí.   Sun Jul 19, 2009 10:40 pm GMT
El semanario Presència publica hoy una entrevista con un barcelonés que, desde hace veinte años, es catedrático en Estados Unidos.

Explica, con buen conocimiento de causa, que la primera generación inmigrada de lengua española, mantiene el español como lengua familiar, que la segunda es bilingüe, con predominio ya del inglés, y que la tercera es francamente angloparlante, habiendo olvidado la lengua de sus antepasados.

No tiene nada de extraño, ya que la lengua de promoción social es el inglés y a nadie le gusta ser identificado con personas de clase social inferior.

También explica, dicho catedràtico, el fenómeno, muy general, de escritores hispanoparlantes inmigrados a Estados Unidos que están abandonando el español por el inglés como lengua de creación.

Todo indica que esta inmigración hispanoparlante servirá para reforzar la demografía de la lengua inglesa.

En dos viajes que hice a Estados Unidos, me encontré con el caso de matrimonios que regentaban bares u hoteles y que, aun hablando español entre ellos, se negaron a hablarlo conmigo. Uno de los maridos me confesó que le daba vergüenza, que lo hacía sentirse socialmente inferior, que quitaba categoría a su establecimiento.

Basta con ver cuál es la lengua de tantos actores estadounidenses de origen hispanoparlante: muchos de ellos no dominan en absoluto el español.

Por consiguiente, todos los participantes en este foro que tanto entusiasmo demuestran ante su perspectiva de que el español llegue a dominar en Estados Unidos, todos esos participantes, digo, deliran. Sus delirios de grandeza y dominio, características tan españolas, les hacen tomar sus fantasías por realidades.

Si incluso en Mallorca me he encontrado con turistas mejicanos que preferían expresarse en inglés...
Mallorquí.   Sun Jul 19, 2009 10:46 pm GMT
Soy la peor escoria española, represento lo que es España, lo peor de Europa (y no se equivoquên, ahi esta incluida Catalunia y Mallorca que tambien e España).
Mallorquí.   Sun Jul 19, 2009 10:53 pm GMT
Sobre todo, no se "equivoquên".
Joao   Sun Jul 19, 2009 11:15 pm GMT
They're just lying, it is obvious that Portuguese is a bastardized version of Spanish, you just need to look at both languages, they're identical but Portuguese words are like lazily-pronounced Spanish words.

It's called "mirroring". Your comments mirror yourself. You are too lazy to learn Portuguese, and if one day you try to do it, you'll start complaining about the fact that Portuguese has too many rules even compared to Spanish (lol). Many laguage students of Portuguese complain about that.

I think that Spanish is a bastardised version of Portuguese. Spanish developed in the center-north of Spain when Spain did not exist as a country yet. Then it was imposed throughout Spain. The vowel pronunciation system of Spanish is simpler than the one from Portuguese. Portuguese comes from the original Galaico-Portuguese language that begun to be spoken in the XII century.

Apart from most of the crap you wrote, in one thing you're right. Portuguese is closer to Spanish than to Italian. It's easier for me to undestand Spanish. Some Portuguese words are closer to Italian, French or English though.

PT is a bastardized version of Spanish (lol). What is English from French and German then? (lol)
joao   Sun Jul 19, 2009 11:21 pm GMT
"I don't like portuguese language.

Is truth, portuguese grammar is very funny lol "

At least you say your honest opinion without slandering. You do not have to like PT.
Tionghoa   Mon Jul 20, 2009 3:34 am GMT
To: K. T. Sun Jul 19, 2009 9:54 pm GMT

Re: Wu Chinese, may be abbreviated to Wunese in English, and called as Wú yǔ (吴语) or Wú fāngyán (吴方言) in Mandarin. Actually Shanghai dialect is only regarded as one of the Wunese group, most foreigners would like to call it Shanghainese, mainly because it's an international large city, though the most genuine Wunese is Sūzhōu (苏州) dialect. Fortunately, most dialects of Wunese are almost mutually intelligible, if you could master how to speak Shanghai dialect, then Suzhou dialect, or other Wunese, would be a piece of cake for you. And It's worth mentioning that, the Wunese dialect of Southern Zhèjiāng (浙江) province, is rather different from Shanghai or Suzhou. Usually, that dialect is considered close to Minnanese (闽南语), so the only thing you should pay attention to is that, northern Wunese, which is still spoken in Sūzhōu and Shànghǎi, is relatively easier and more useful than Southern dialect such as Wēnzhōu dialect. BTW, 呉語(ごご)=吴语(Wú yǔ). If any further questions, please let me know again.
Note: the Chinese characters in above post is Simplified style (except Japanese Kanji), because I know that most foreigners don't understand Traditional characters. (Perhaps K.T. knows a lot).
K. T.   Mon Jul 20, 2009 3:50 am GMT
"Fortunately, most dialects of Wunese are almost mutually intelligible, if you could master how to speak Shanghai dialect, then Suzhou dialect, or other Wunese, would be a piece of cake for you."

"呉語(ごご)=吴语(Wú yǔ)."

Tionghoa,

Thank-you very much. I enjoyed reading your reply. You confirmed for me what was simply a guess based on the Hanzi/Kanji.