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Random Q & A Thread - PART 2

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03:07 / 15.04.04

how long should i set aside to learn a language? specifically arabic? i realise there is a lot of difference between ability on something like this and that that is relevant. i am good with languages when i am motivated enough, and i am fairly motivated in this.

am i being realistic if i expect to be able to speak it in six months?
and write in it?
what about a year? could i become fluent in a year?

The Prince of All Lies

03:33 / 15.04.04

Toksik: I would guess arabic would take at least a couple of years to learn, because you have to learn to write in those funky letters too..I've been learning japanese, two hours a week, for little more than two years, and I still can't read or speak fluently. I'd guess arabic would be pretty tricky too..But if you spend at least 6 hours a week studying it, you could at least speak fluently in 6 months, I guess.
By the way, your granny deserves a "Coolest Granny Ever" t-shirt---

03:36 / 15.04.04

It seems realistic, if you set aside an hour a day or whatnot... The alphabet doesn't seem that hard either... (only the 20-odd symbols, right?)

03:36 / 15.04.04

i suppose how long i can throw at the language is important, eh?

probably looking at about two to three hours a week, with extra time if i can spare it/afford it.

03:44 / 15.04.04

apparently it is a fairly stramlined language, which is in my favour. i have been told that the only rea barrier to it is the pronuncition(no problems here) and the calligraphy. accurate calligraphy gives less of the meaning than kanji, but still appears to be massively important.

08:04 / 15.04.04

Nothing to add on the language front (sorry my language skills are actually getting worse with age).

Question 1: cheap flights to Bangkok, any advice on where to pick them up?

Question 2: once there, does anyone know if central Thailand (around Gulf Coast -ish) is any good for treks?

Question 3: with extra time at the end, while I'll be traveling on my own, I'm trying to decide what to do. I've been advised to go to Laos as it's the least touristy and will be the area in which I'm most likely to feel that I really am 'somewhere else'. Also been advised to go to Vietnam for water puppets and 'just because'. Anyone any ideas?

thanks loads

08:15 / 15.04.04

Cheap flights: If you're somewhat flexible, try travelocity.com and don't specify exact dates. This has worked for me in the past.

Traveling destinations: Yes to both Laos and Vietnam. Vietnam's starting to get a bit touristy in places, so now's the time to go.

08:19 / 15.04.04

A translation request:

Can anyone out there provide a translation into latin of the phrase "Square Peg, Round Hole". The bunch of postgrads I share an office with are designing a nice-looking coat of arms to go on the door, something with a sting in the tail, and it's been agreed that the above phrase in latin (for the elitist look) would serve nicely to reflect the way we feel about what we do.

09:04 / 15.04.04

Waxy my mate went last year and the cheapest he could find from London was with a Russian airline - worth having a look, although he did say it was very basic....

09:11 / 15.04.04

Basic is grand. I'd rather spend money when I get there than on hot towels on the way over (though I do really like those hot towels). Do you remember the name of the airline by any chance?

09:32 / 15.04.04

How can I cheat death?

This is a reasonably serious query actually- I'm researching ways of doing this for someone's creative project that I'm involved in. So far we've come up with:
- Get cryogenically frozen (and hope that you can get unfrozen again in the future - and that you're not immediately plunged in as a footsoldier in some terrifying intergalactic war in the future etc)
- Download your consciousness into a computer (still a bit of a futuristic one, technology-wise)
- Head transplants to a new body (or perhaps a body from a cloned version of you that you've been growing in a vat)

ta in advance for any help

09:38 / 15.04.04

How can I cheat death?

Chess?

(sorry, that's a terrible joke, I couldn't resist it)

09:42 / 15.04.04

Canne remember the name of the airline and the guy is off ill today so I can't email him but I'll ask him tonight and get back to you...

10:47 / 15.04.04

MB - immortality is a theme of Margaret Atwoods Oryx and Crake which I recommend to you! Essentially, Crake says that immortality is overcoming the fear of death rather than death itself.

13:35 / 15.04.04

Does anyone know the origin of the phrase "the Queen is a horsethief, from a long line of horsethieves"? I came across it on a poster I picked up at the anarchist bookfair, and it has puzzled me ever since.

Goodness Gracious Meme

14:16 / 15.04.04

The Russian Airline is undoubtedly Aeroflot.

fares cheap as chips, staff rude as fuck, planes old as hills.

14:32 / 15.04.04

Yeah I did a search for Russian Airlines and that's the one that popped up for me but the site I got only mentioned flights to Mother Russia - but that'll be the boy right there...

16:27 / 15.04.04

meme...
i was told fairly confidently that tai chi can be a path to immortality.
i'm starting a class in the weege soon, thursday 22nd.
the guy seems to know his shit and its a two hour class.
giza shout if you want a number for the guy, or go look in the 'learning martial arts online' thread. he's the secretary of the organisation at the end of the first link.

is this a project of imagining, or are you guys actually after eternal life?

20:09 / 15.04.04

i have two questions. one, what nationality is the surname "popi"?

two, there's a web site that ends in ".is", what country would this be?

thanks.

toksik, i wouldn't paint on shoes for that exact same flaking reason. depending on the colors, you could use shoe polish or shoe dye. (i.e. if it's a light color on the shoe, you could use a darker color over it.) also depending on how big of an area you want to cover/yr patience level, you may be able to use nail polish, or as you might call it, nail varnish. i had a friend who put stripes on her shoes using nail polish with a reasonable degree of success. if you want to experiment, i'd try to find some used leather shoes in a similar color to yours at a thrift store, and practice using different mediums on those. good luck.

20:13 / 15.04.04

Praying Mantis: .is is the abbreviation for Iceland.

20:15 / 15.04.04

thanks grey area! that was sooo speedy.

wembley can change in 28 days

10:14 / 16.04.04

Praying mantis: Popi is a surname at least found in Albania. I'd look in that area at least.

22:06 / 16.04.04

Okay, yet another query from little me. Can anyone describe unto me an Isle of Wight accent, preferably without relating it to another British accent, as I am ignorant of such things? Or, a link to any file on the web with someone speaking with an I.O.W. accent would be appreciated. Danke.

20:19 / 18.04.04

Does anyone know of a good online chess site? I want to play chess with my friend and we want to play a game which doesn't have to be continuous and instant. Is there such a thing? Is it called correspondence chess? How can we play a game of chess which allows us to play at separate times - i.e. not having to both be online to do it, without having to both just have a chess board IRL and email each other the moves?

20:53 / 18.04.04

Mazarine, you might want to listen to the Portsmouth accent - I dare say there aren't many sound files of the Isle of Wight dialect and they're almost the same thing due to the locality of the two places. Try listening to this sound file which might help a bit. It's the voice of a man who lived in Hampshire all his life, and the latter half of it in Portsmouth. He's a bit posher than perhaps really local IOW, but if you listen to the basic gist of it, and specifically some of the words he says such as 'fleece jacket' you'll be on the right lines.

You could also listen to this woman as well because she is also from Hampshire.

For future reference if you're looking for English accents (not only specific to England) the International Dialects of English Archive is very useful, as it has all sorts on it - 57 sound file samples of local English accents as well as other people speaking English from all around the world.

Here is the link to all the sound files of local English dialects from IDEA for you.

Thanks for asking this Mazarine, finding those specific files was fun.

BTW, Isn't Sax from Portsmouth? You could try ringing him and getting him to talk to you down the phone!

21:04 / 18.04.04

Postcard Chess, olulabelle.

21:45 / 18.04.04

Smoothly Weaving, you rock.

11:00 / 19.04.04

olulabelle:

"BTW, Isn't Sax from Portsmouth? You could try ringing him and getting him to talk to you down the phone!"

Nah, he's from Hovisville in Northernland, no point ringing him up unless you fancy a barrage of 'ey-up's and 'eck-as-like's and other uncouth noises. No, I suspect you're confusing Sax with SAV, ie ME, cos I'm from Bortsmuf (as is Kit-Cat Club). The man for you is _pin, he's IOW born-and-bred, I believe. He loves it there.

18:53 / 19.04.04

Bless you olulabelle!

21:37 / 19.04.04

All the south of England 'yokel' accents kind of sound the same to me. Portsmouth sounds about the same as rural Oxfordshire. It's all that eyetse-aieee-ed (outside) or teyee-elet (toilet).
Still, I'm one to talk with my kind of fucked up Glasgow/London accent

ToksikI think immortality's maybe a wee bit ambitious a goal to set yourself when starting out in tai-chi

Although a bit of self-defence handiness might delay the mortality question for a little while. Best of luck though maty.
I'm doing research for a Radio 4 comedy programme on the subject of, well, how to avoid death (although at the moment it seems to be just how to avoid work)

21:39 / 19.04.04

Waxy dan You're talkin about that Ingmar Bergman film aren't you?

Jub Ta- I'll maybe take a look at that Margaret Attwood book

03:24 / 20.04.04

I was about to sign up for a 'Learn how to Teach English class' here in Toronto, but was having second thoughts about taking it here when I could spend a month in Prague or Spain doing the same course, and I was wondering...

Has anyone here gone through TEFL/TESL/etc. training? Can you reccomend any schools or programs or tips or anything? Especially in Europe?

Anyone do this for a living and have any warnings or tips? (feel free to PM or email me, and Thank You! for any info...)

03:34 / 20.04.04

meme, mate, i wasnt kidding
folks really do believe it has the power.

10:29 / 20.04.04

moved house at the weekend, piggybacking on old house's b-band network obviously no longer an option. so:

who's a good/easy/inexpensive ISP where I can maybe get a broadband package. do they do free little diskies that i can pick up from the post office? kind of be happy to have a dial-up but might want to change to something faster if i get annoyed.

so y'know the squestions are: who've you got? can you afford it? do they ever piss you about? that kind of thing? thanks all

Whisky Priestess

11:54 / 20.04.04

I'm doing some work on a play set in Jesus's time and place - wrt research I have read Jim Crace's Quarantine (ages ago) and now can't find it again, so are there any other sites/books resources I can look at that would tell me a bit more about the everyday lives of people living in a village outside Jerusalem in that time period?

Excluding the Bible, smartarses.

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