Do you speak a lot of Languages ?

Do you know what people call those of speak more 2 languages ? 3 languages ? 7 languages ?

Well.....
If you speak 2 languages, you are bilingual
If you speak 3 languages, you are trilingual
If you speak many many languages, it's easy to say that you are Multilingual.
that makes you a Multilingual person or a Polyglot :)

btw.... Indonesia's first President Soekarno was a Polyglot, as so was Gus Dur
in fact, we have a lot of polyglots in Indonesia, a lot of us can speak many of the local dialects such as the Javanese, Sundanese, Balinese, Bataknese, etc plus English of course and a lot of us are learning another foreign language such as French or Dutch.
I think, in the near future, most of us would definitely be polyglots :D

If you wanna know more :)
1- Monolingual
2- Bilingual
3- Trilingual

after 3 languages, we usually just say Multilingual or refer to someone as a Polyglot.

4- Quadrilingual
5- Pentalingual
6- Hexalingual
7- Septalingual
8- Octolingual
9- Nonalingual
10- Decalingual

Why Learn French Language ?

First of all....
I'm gonna be totally bias on this, I love learning languages and French was my first language of choice.... I completely love the language :)

But hey....
What's in it for you ?

1. If you love Design, Photography, Fashion, Arts, Architecture, Music, etc.
Then French is the language for you
2. If you love food and desserts and cheese and wine...
yup.... French is also the language for you :)
3. Oh and if you love travelling........ uhuh... still French :)
4. what's dat ? you love shopping ? .... helloowww....
There are so many reasons to learn French, really.

5. and if you love showing off in another language
(yes... deep down, we're all snobs :p)
and you love sticking out your lips while talking.... then.... you should learn french.... and it's so much fun learning to pronounce those french words.

Yes... you can survive in France without speaking a single word of French.
but hey.... trust me... everything will be so much easier if you speak the language :)

So, what do you do in France ?
You may want to visit Chopin while you're in Paris....
yes... in the cemetery
People still do visit and flowers are everywhere.
you can visit Edith Piah, Jim Morrison, Chopin etc :D
It's quite beautiful,
but I don't recommend visiting in the late afternoon towards closing hour....;p


And of course.... Paris Disneyland
You can take a train there... but be sure to pay for the train ticket
otherwise you may get fined.
I speak from experience *d'0h*
bye bye 25 Euros *sob*
I think during the summer / holidays, they're open till 11 pm and they have parades and fireworks at night.


or go visit Louvre - yes the Museum....
even if you don't like Museums.... just take a peek inside and get lost inside ;p
I love Musée d'Orsay because it has all the paintings that I love from Degas, Monet, Van Gogh, Seurat, etc.


then just stroll around Avenue des Champs-Élysées,
sit in one of the cafe and chill
or go to Ladurée there and have the macarons
Seriously....... they're really really good.....
They're not like one of those macarons at the malls that are too sweet and tastes so artificial.
This is really good....
or try Pierre Hermé's macarons at rue Bonaparte
oh my........ *drooling*


Here are some of my "collections" that I got from Ladurée (the small ones) that I moved into a plastic container to put in the fridge... yes classy I know.
and the bigger ones at the back is from Pierre Hermé
mmmmm.......... :)

Ok.... so learn French :)
oh....but I think Italian coffee is still way much better than French coffee :)

Why you should learn Italian Language ?

First of all, in learning any language, you should like the language first,
and if you want to learn Italian language, you should also like how it sounds and how they use gestures ;)
then you should like the country or the food or the culture.
I mean who wouldn't, they even beat the unbelievable beaurocrazy ;p


Venezia Carnivale

Even in this modern age,
Italians in Italy don't speak much English.
Yes a lot of them do speaks english, but there also a lot who shy away, just like Indonesians.
They avoid speaking English, at least that's how I see it.

Here are some of the reasons why you should learn Italian :
1. You love travelling
Visiting Italy is a really wonderful experience.
Milan, Venice, Florence, Rome, Capri
(of course, in Italy, they're Milano, Venezia, Firenze, Roma, Capri.)
even the little towns such as Asisi, Perugia, Verona, etc
If you speak Italian, then you'd be able to run around the country with ease.
Just hop on the Eurostar train to get around.
You can ask people for directions, you can bargain when shopping, your life would basically be a lot easier.


Perugia

2. You love the Opera
I've met some Koreans, Japanese, Americans, etc who come to Italy to learn to sing.
Yup... Opera singing.

3. You love Italian food
Culinary adventures are incredible.
You'll be able to identify what you're ordering, whether it'd be panzerotti, piadina, pizza di melanzana or frullato, etc.


Homemade Pizze

4. Just about everything happens in Italy.
well... also in New York, London, Paris, but Italy's one of them ;D
Just imagine the Food Festivals of the entire Europe in Milan
or Milano Fashion Week, or Milano Design Week.



5. You love Coffee
Believe me..... even if you don't drink coffee.... once you're in Italy... you'll become a coffeeaholic !! Learn this "un cafe, per favore" (one coffee, please) then you can ask for milk and sugar and you're good.

6. You love learning languages :)
Yes you can survive in Italy without speaking a single word of Italian, but if you did speak Italian, your life would be so much easier there.

You know, in fact, the pronounciation of Italian language is similar with Indonesian language.
My first days in Italy, people thought I've lived in Italy all my life, they all say I speak a really good Italian, but of course, they realize that I'm a newcomer once they start speaking to me really quickly and I just stare at them blankly. ;p hahahah

Yes the conjugation might be a bit scary....
Each verb must be conjugated to match the subject.
eg. I am hungry - Ho fame
She is hungry - Ha fame
(See what I mean, that doesn't look too hard, does it ?)
yuppp... the grammar is more complicated than English,
but all European Languages are slightly more complicated.
But in time, you'll definitely master it.

So.... Go ahead and give it a try.
But for me , Learning any new languages is always fun.
Even learning Sundanese with its accent ;)
*to sound more like "Project Pop*"*
hohohoho

www.RumahBahasa.com

* Project Pop is a popular comedian/singer group in Indonesia

I speak Bahasa.............Indonesia

Have you ever heard people say " I speak Bahasa " ????
Yes you speak Bahasa .... what Bahasa ? what Language do you speak ?
Bahasa means Language, period.
So when you're saying " I speak Bahasa "
it actually means " I speak Language "

The funny thing is, so many people and advertisings use the phrase " Learn to speak Bahasa "
so that's probably why so many foreigners are using the word "Bahasa" in an incorrect way.

So here it is....
According to me, yes this is so subjective... but I don't care.....;p
The correct phrase is
I speak Bahasa Indonesia ( I speak Indonesian Language)
Learn Bahasa Indonesia (Learn Indonesian / Learn Indonesian Language)

Bahasa doesn't specifically mean Indonesian Language.
Bahasa means Language, period.

Train and Metro

So, you know about
MRT in Singapore, (Mass Rapid Transit)
MTR in Hongkong, (Mass Transit Railway)
Subway in New York,
The Tube in London,
La Metropolitana in Milan (La Metro)
Le Metropolitain in Paris (Le Metro)
They're basically Trains, right ?
well, they're translated as trains (kereta) in Indonesian anyway....

So.......
When I was in Milan, Italy, I took the Metro to go to a friend's apartment.
and when I wanted to go home, my friend offered to walk me to the station.
But I confidently refused , thinking that I knew the way back to the station.
Wrong !!!
I got ,well, kinda lost...

So I asked someone on the street....
"Mi scusi, Sa Dov'e il treno ?"
"Excuse me, Do you know where the train is ?"
it's more kinda like "where the train station is."
treno = train

So... the guy said, "Non c'e il treno qua"
"There's no train here"
and he just left.
I was thinking, How Rude !!!

and then there was an old lady, so I thought I'd ask her.
"Mi scusi Signora, Sa Dov'e il treno ?"
"Excuse me Mam, Do you know where the train is ?"

"Non c'e il treno qua"
"There's no train here"

"Ma sono venuta col treno"
"But I came here by train"

"Signorina, non c'e il treno qua, ma c'e la metropolitana"
"Miss, there's no train here, but there's the metro"

And it just hit me........
D'oh......
I came by train, yes, but it's "la metro", not "il treno"
So she kindly gave me the direction to the metro station....

The Train / Il treno is used as a transport to go out of town,
while La metro is used as a transport inside the city.
There you go, they're both "trains" if translated to Indonesian,
but they're so different in terms of usage ;p
So pay attention ;)

What is the benefit of learning a new Language ?

What's the benefit of being able to speak many Languages ?

1. Well.... If you wanna study abroad.... you've gotta learn the language...
So, where's it gonna be ? USA ? Australia ? Paris ? Milan ? Beijing ? Dubai ?
or you wanna go to ITB in Bandung ? there's no harm in learning Sundanese, right ?

What if you have no intention to continue your education abroad ?
Let see, if you like a certain language, there's no stopping you in taking a language course.
It will come in handy somehow....

2. You can talk to foreigners, actually understand them and not use the basic sign language.
So, what if you're in Bali and you meet tourists who're lost... you can help 'em out, right ?
Right ? ..... maybe not ? let 'em stay lost ? hohohoho *evil laugh*

or let's say you're in Bandung and you're starving and there's this old guy who sells Surabi *yummy* but he only speaks Sundanese and he's kinda deaf.
ohhh... if only you could speak Sundanese, right ?

Or what if you're travelling abroad and you need to ask people for directions.
"but they all speak English anyway"
Well... not everyone speaks English.
I was in Germany (in a small town), wanting to buy a train ticket, and I was asking around, but noone spoke English, aarrgghhh.... Luckily, there was this lady from Kenya with her little girl who helped me out in translating my questions. So if that Kenyan Lady wasn't there to
help me out, I'd still be there, stuck in that little town in Germany hohohoho .... *ok maybe not*

Other uses if you speak many languages,
3. You can speak secret language with your friends,
As lame as that may sound, it's true... sometimes you have stuff to share with only your best friends, or you simply are just b*tching about someone else and don't want them to hear.
Try speaking Russian in class and see how many ppl can actually understand you :)
or your dad starts talking to you non stop and you got bored,
you can say to your bro "Il est trop bavard !" (he's too talkative)
hohohho.... but in a loving n respectful kinda way.

4. You can write your diary using a different language, so ppl at home would not be able to read it.
Or for boys, you can write your evil projects to rule the world in that language, so noone will realize your evil plan until it was too late to stop you.

5. You can create your own language....
ok this applies to Indonesians only... or if you speak Indonesian, then it's ok.

kalaoo akoo noolees kaiac gheeni, khamoo ngertee kanh ?
calaw caiac gheeni, masee ngar-tee gac ?
chalao chayac genee ghe-muh-na ?
There.... read it as if you're reading English mixed with Italian n French, and written in Indonesian.

or English, but written in Indonesian pronounciation.
so If you were in school abroad, noone would understand what you wrote.
men ai em so lesi tudei, lets nat go tu klas.
hohohohoh..... don't..... just don't... u don't wanna get deported.

As for me, I've always wanted to speak French,
especially at Junior High, I had this friend whose father was a Diplomat in France, and when her sis picked her up, they both talked in fluent French and I just stood there staring at them.
Finally I took a French class at CCF, and I even took the intensive everyday class woohooo....
In the end, I got a chance to go live in Paris for half a year.... hohohho

So my point is.....
There's always an advantage in learning a new Language.
ayo ikut ikut ikutt....
and now I'm most interested in learning some of the native Indonesian languages, so I'd be able to "blend in" when I'm a domestic tourist hoho
Tiang mau ikut ikut ikut..... *Balinese accent*

Horas,
RumahBahasa.com