Duolingo

[Benny Bunter]

Was gonna say, best thing is to get yourself a foreign girlfriend, but that won't work if you stay in England cos they'll just want to to practice their English on you all the time.

 

[Benny Bunter]

youve lived and 'worked'in spain for a decade! you have a spanish wife! ive learned all of italian in a day!

What's the point of learning Italian anyway if you never leave Greenwich?

 

[luka]

i have to go to italy in july

 

[luka]

its a kryptocurrency conference in bologna. stan and gus are going to be there.

 

[Benny Bunter]

I reckon I could learn Italian in a day, it's more or less the same as Spanish.

 

[luka]

so i hear. entertainment was speaking danish to a norweigan and they understood each other. same kind of thing.

 

[Benny Bunter]

Very similar temperaments as well.

I can read Portuguese pretty easily but can't understand a word when I hear it, strangely, I think it's cos they're quite a sleepy slow people, not hotblooded like the Italians and spanish

 

[luka]

they sound more russian than iberian

 

[Benny Bunter]

Yeah exactly! Was gonna say, when I went to Lisboa I thought it sounded like russian, was quite surprised. Written down it looks pretty much exactly like Spanish but they put the letter M instead of N, but it sounds completely different.

 

[luka]

their accent when they speak english too. much harder edged than the fey lisping spanish. doesnt have that high pitched speedy gonzalez comic aspect either. ariba ariba!

 

[Benny Bunter]

Yeah it's really weird, I wonder why that is. I imagine it's really hard to learn how to speak it.

Spanish is the easiest probably, once you've learned the sounds of the syllables they correspond exactly with how they're written so even if you don't know what a word means you can pronounce it properly. English is a fucking nightmare for foreigners to learn cos you have no way of knowing how to pronounce a word correctly just by reading it.

 

[Benny Bunter]

Phonemes I should probably say, not syllables, but you know what I mean

 

[Benny Bunter]

French is really hard. I was quite good at it at school, but I just feel embarrassed trying to speak it. With Spanish you can just give it a go and not feel so self conscious. Plus the Spanish have a good natured sense of humour so they won't turn up their nose at you and make you feel stupid, unlike the french

 

[luka]

dont say that. it will give woops a big head. its basically just english with a funny accent.

 

[luka]

getting more challenging now

 

[luka]

@craner which of these should i watch to learn italian even faster?

Top up your watchlist... 31 classics of Italian cinema

From Argento to Fellini, get a grounding in the best of Italian film – all available with a free 14-day trial on BFI Player.

www.bfi.org.uk

 

[luka]

Ive seen bicycle theives but it was a bit soppy.

 

[luka]

medea was boring had to turn it off

 

[luka]

why does @craner @craner always log off when i tage him

 

[craner]

Django, Mask of Satan, Rocco and his Brothers, Bird with the Crystal Plumage.

City of the Living Dead and Suspiria are both in English and Battle of Algiers is in French and Arabic.