OT: City Names

From: Athanasios Kotsenos <a.kotsenos_at_rca.ac.uk>
Date: Fri Apr 16 06:37:26 1999

>I always wondered why Munich sometimes gets shown as Munchen.
Because that's what the Germans call it?

> I can't do
>those funny accented characters, (umlauts?) even if I knew what they meant,
>just as well, most people around here have enough difficulty with 26
>letters. I don't know how you guys cope with all the extras, not to mention
Extras? It's the same characters. Accented. If you think about it, it
actually helps pronounciation. Can you explain why English words are
pronounced the way they are? Like not how they are spelt?

>all this masculine/feminine/neuter gender and case stuff. Confused the hell
>out of me.
m/f/n is no that difficult. Just different from language to language.
When you grow up with it, that's it!

>1) Everybody speaks English. ('Cepting a few migrants/boat people....:^)
Now they do...

>They expose kids to other languages at school, but theres is no real
>need/pressure to learn one to a level where conversation is possible.
>(Who we gonna practice on/talk to?)
>Some do learn Indonesian or Japanese, but most don't bother.
Fair enough. You get that in much smaller single country islands - like UK.

>2) You don't need a passport to drive across the road. Or travel 2000km for
>that matter.
You don't need a passport in the EU either. Just valid ID.

>3) 240VAC 3 pin sockets are a national standard.
I think only the English (and Swiss?) are the ones that want to be
different to the rest of Europe - in this case anyway (there are many
others).

:)=
Nasos
Received on Fri Apr 16 1999 - 06:37:26 BST