On Friday, July 24, 2020 9:14:36 AM EDT Martin Vlietstra wrote: > A quick note about my experience in South Africa. Please read it carefully: > > > > Ek het in Suid Afrika groot geword. In Johannesburg, tydens die > wintermaande dal die temperatuur soms tot -5°C maar in die somermaande styg > did tot 35°C. > > > > Did you understand what I wrote? Probably not, but I suspect that most Brits > could pick out three items – "Johannesburg", "-5°C" and "35°C" so they > could hazard a guess what I was writing about. The British are probably as > monolingual as the Americans, but how many Americans would understand > "-5°C" and "35°C"? This is a very good reason to use the International > System of Units.
I can also pick out "wintermaande", "temperatuur", and "somermaande". Adding what I know of German, I can understand everything except "tydens" (which I suspect has something to do with tide or time), "dal", "soms", "maar" (which I happen to know from the knappe kapper tonguetwister), and "styg did" (I suspect that "did" does not mean "did"). I am not monolingual, but my second and third native languages are Romance, which doesn't help. German is my fourth, and first non-native, language. Pierre -- I believe in Yellow when I'm in Sweden and in Black when I'm in Wales. _______________________________________________ USMA mailing list [email protected] https://lists.colostate.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/usma
