Comments on: Language Guide

By: The Perspicacious Loris

The Perspicacious Loris — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 16:57:03 +0000

My Social Studies teacher, Mr. Sirois, is French and speaks better Japanese than our school’s French teacher, Mrs. Ibara. She is Japanese and her French is better than his.

By: xlius

xlius — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 18:46:29 +0000

When in Belgian Limburg: Woe kin ich hiej een pint kriege?. (Where can I get a beer around here?)
When in the Netherlands: Wa kleur traktor hedde gij? (What colour is your tractor?)

By: Richard Yudkiss

Richard Yudkiss — Sun, 08 May 2011 00:30:53 +0000

I know Russian and not to be rude, but your Russian accent was a little off.

Please,I really don’t want to eat soup again,: ??????????, ? ????????????? ?? ???? ?????? ??? ?????.

By: Mati

Mati — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 05:53:01 +0000

guess hebrew fonts don’t work on your site…works in the “post” box though

By: Mati

Mati — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 05:52:03 +0000

??? ??? ?? ??? ???? ???? ???????

By: The Guy Who Knows

The Guy Who Knows — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 16:08:06 +0000

I live in france, so here are some Frence phrases:

Ju Swee Amereeca (I am American)

Oo est le twalet? (where is the toilet?)

Ju noo parl pas fransays (I do not speak french)

Oo ay (where is)

I know more but those will help you out a lot.

PS. Spelling is not correct.

By: Perrygirl

Perrygirl — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 02:51:04 +0000

When in Mexico(or Miami) probably the most important phrase you could know is: ‘Tengo pantalones de diablo loco’.

By: Christina

Christina — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 04:56:01 +0000

So, I’m a Peace Corps volunteer living in Mongolia and I can definitely help you out with some useful phrases (and pronunciation). 1) “Be Mongol hell sain midgui” (I don’t speak Mongolian well) or “Be Mongol hell midgui” (I don’t know Mongolian). 2) “En yuu we?” (What is this?). 3) “Be Americaas irsen” (I’m from America). And finally 4) “Oochlaray, be okh id-deg chatgui” (I’m sorry, I can’t eat fat). Fat is a separate food group in Mongolia, and it mostly comes from sheep. If you’d rather not have globs of it swimming in all of your foods, tell them you can’t eat it. It also helps if you look apologetic, like you would love to eat it, but can’t due to digestive issues.

By: dongkyun

dongkyun — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 06:44:51 +0000

@pkw I don’t want to offend you or anything, but that was horrible romanization.

If your at a patriotic event in Korea say dae-han-min-guk!
Where is the bathroom: ha-jang-shi o-di-se-yo?
Hi: ahn-nyong-ha-se-yo (Formal)
Hi: ahn-nyong (Informal)

Korea is a country built on respect. There are many ways to say things formally, and informally. If you want to say
something respectfully, end the sentence with -yo.

Oh and whatever you do, don’t rub a head. Especially in a Buddhist temple. Buddhists believe that the soul resides in the head and rubbing it might damage it. Any country influenced by Buddhism… so ya.

By: Tyson

Tyson — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 15:23:01 +0000

Jesse’s Mom, I had the privilege of living in France for close to 3 years. They don’t hate Americans, They hate smug Americans. When I spoke in the bar (even though my french is near perfect.) They can instantly tell that I’m American.

By: AredhelCarnesir

AredhelCarnesir — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 10:17:26 +0000

Sorry, that should have been: Eigo GA dekimaska.
Also, another good thing to know about Japanese is that most objects and foods that have been recently introduced to the country sound like the English word with a Japanese accent. Examples include: Basu =Bus, Terebi = TV,
Piza = Pizza, Sandowichi = Sandwhich, Chokoreto = Chocolate, Konpyuta =Computer, Chikin = Chicken.

By: AredhelCarnesir

AredhelCarnesir — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 10:11:42 +0000

The best things to know in any language are: Where is the toilet? and Do you speak English?
In Japanese: Eigo ge dekimaska? = Do you speak English?
In Europe, if you know a good dose of Latin, it’s usually fairly easy to translate written texts, particularly in Southern, Western and Central Europe. Thankyou Catholic Church! Northern Europe is harder because they speak Scandinavian. But if you know the base language of a region, it gets easier to understand the culture as well as the regional languages and dialects.

By: meggiebean

meggiebean — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 02:12:53 +0000

I think this may be the best one yet! Wow! good work guys!

By: Niya

Niya — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 10:21:11 +0000

A friend gave me the WYOTK DVD and this was one of my favorit videos I made my family sit down and watch it with me we all had a great time learning and now you guys have…let me do the math… 9 plus 5 plus 3 plus 2 equals 19…I think…more fans. Keep up the Great work

By: Muircheartach

Muircheartach — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 20:34:06 +0000

Concerning my earlier comment: The phrase is pronounced
/tower may ooshkie baha/ in Irish Gaelic

By: Muircheartach

Muircheartach — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 05:32:59 +0000

“Tabhair mé Uisce Beatha.” in Gaelic. Pronounced /tah.hair may ooshkie bayha/. It means “Give me the Water of Life.” or “Give me Whiskey.” Its not very useful since the Irish speak english, but its fun to know!

By: nick

nick — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 22:00:58 +0000

CEDRICnumber23, what you said is not a question because there are not question marks, if there were it would be, but this only works in specific cases. Also you did not spell that correctly (as you thought was a possibility). I think you were trying to say “Que necesitas saber” I’m assuming that you heard it from a native speaker, or at least anyone with a really good accent. In the spanish language “b” and “v” are pronounced the same way. “Que necesitas saber” means “what you need to know” There isn’t the word “ought” in spanish, the closest you could get is to use “deber” it means to should, and when you conjugate it you get “debes” meaning you should. So the closest you can get to “what you ought to know” is “Que debes saber” and you would also have to option to use the formal conjugation “debe” instead of informal “debes” Just letting you know about that.

By: CEDRICnumber23

CEDRICnumber23 — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 12:03:17 +0000

“Que necessitas saver” Translation- What you ought(need) to know! . . . that might not have been spelled correctly and i think the spanish translation is a question instead of a statement, but hey, as long as im trying right!? ( :

By: crimson_woe

crimson_woe — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 05:20:34 +0000

My favorite Japanese phrase: Kodomo wa oishi dessneee (Children are tasty!!)

By: waecool

waecool — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 14:51:23 +0000

yo puedo hablar español también
(i can speak Spanish to)

By: Demoness

Demoness — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 17:07:50 +0000

Saisinko lisää salmiakkia? = Could I please get more ammonium chloride candy?

By: dawsman24

dawsman24 — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 00:50:40 +0000

If your in Haiti and someone asks “how are you?” You say “m’ap boule!” Which means I’m burning or I’m great! If someone asks “what are you doing?” You say “M’ap naje pou sori!” which means I’m trying to swim to leave. They love that one. You’ll get them to laugh every time.

By: Dee

Dee — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 23:24:04 +0000

Thank you so much for posting this. My friend and I felt embarrassed in Japan when we saw a fellow foreigner speaking loudly and slowly to order some snowcones. *sigh* I mean, there are tons of free language podcasts now. Would it really kill travelers to learn a few phrases? It passes time on the airplane (especially the long flight to Japan, trust me).

By: Nospinplease

Nospinplease — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 22:13:58 +0000

That was really funny! I really liked the spanish one. It was also informitive. It is like you guys got your groove back.

By: Ingrid

Ingrid — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 21:07:07 +0000

Thank you VERY much Lobe! That makes everything very clear to me!

By: lobe

lobe — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 12:55:22 +0000

you know what would be a nice video? if you could explain the hole american voting system. Because I don’t understand half of it. Because, how is it possible that one man can have more actual votes but still doesn’t become president? How does it work and why does it all take so long? I mean, after today, is this the real voting? when will the winner become known and when will that person take office?

It’s like this: The American President is technically chosen by a group called the “Electoral College”. Each state gets a number of electors equal to its number of members in the U.S. House of Representatives plus one for each of its two U.S. Senators. The District of Columbia gets three electors. Each elector gets one vote.

Since the number of House seats are determined by population, the number of Electoral college votes is likewise mostly determined by population. So, a state like Florida will get more votes than a state like North Dakota.

When, on Nov. 4, we Americans vote we are actually instructing the Elector’s on who we wish them to cast their ballot for. When a candidate wins the popular vote in a certain state, the Electors are then “pledged” to that candidate. It is completely winner-take-all. So, in my state of Virginia, we have 13 electoral college votes. Obama won the vote 52% to 47%. So, all 13 of our elector’s are “pledged” to vote for Obama. The first candidate to the magic number of 270 wins the election.

Because each state is taken individually for their electoral college votes, the overall nationwide popular vote does not decide, necessarily, the President. You could have an instance where, for instance, Candidate A could take 100% of the votes in 39 states low population states and DC. But if Candidate B manages to win the remaining 11 high population states by even a razor thin margin, their votes, and the election, goes to him.

The electoral college actually convenes the second Wednesday of December. This date was originally ordained in the because it simply took a very long time for the votes to be counted. There is nothing in the Constitution, strictly speaking, that mandates a Elector follow the will of his state’s voters. However, very strong tradition guards against this, and it is exceedingly rare for any elector to defy the popular vote of his state.

If the any candidate does not meet the required 270 electoral college votes, the election is decided by the House of Representatives. Again, this is exceedingly rare.

By: Ingrid

Ingrid — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 14:05:00 +0000

you know what would be a nice video? if you could explain the hole american voting system.
Because I don’t understand half of it. Because, how is it possible that one man can have more actual votes but still doesn’t become president?
How does it work and why does it all take so long? I mean, after today, is this the real voting? when will the winner become known and when will that person take office?

By: marc

marc — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 13:13:05 +0000

Okay,

So I know this is not related to the video, but I know a lot of people will keep checking in today for a new video (I usually check 20-50 times)… so… remember to vote people! Participate in the greatest thing to happen to our nation, democracy! VOTE! I don’t care for who or what are voting for, just vote!

By: Ingrid

Ingrid — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 21:18:30 +0000

@theundecided
Here are three:
Ik spreek geen Nederlands (dutch)
Je ne parle pas francais (french)
Ich spreche kein(e?) Deutch (I think, I’m not sure)(german)

By: theundecided

theundecided — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 20:59:22 +0000

one of my lifelong goals is to learn to say “I don’t speak[insert language here] ” in every language possible

By: Russ

Russ — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 03:35:26 +0000

I loved the show. My wife thought it was very informational, very true… but… she’d like to point out that when we were in France everyone knew we were Americans, and no one spat in our food (granted, we can speak French, and that helps).
I’d like to second Danielle: If you’re looking for help with phrases, visit http://www.omniglot.com. They’ve got tons of phrases (small talk, idioms) for 98 languages, and counting.
My favorite? “This gentleman/lady will pay for everything.”
Russian: Etot muž?ina platit za vsë – gentleman; Eta dama platit za vsë – lady
Japenese: konohito ga zembu haraimasu
Chinese: zhèiwèi xi?nsheng huì q?ngd?n/máid?n – gentleman; zhèiwèi n?shì huì q?ngd?n/máid?n – lady
Spanish: Este caballero/esta dama pagará por todo
Italian: Pagherà tutto questo signore/questa signora
French: Ce monsieur/cette dame va tout payer.
German: Der Herr/die Dame übernimmt die Rechnung.

By: pkw

pkw — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 19:42:58 +0000

“Hubby” here. If you find yourself in Korea, the best phrase for them to hear is, “Kimshee ga ahju mahshee eetdah. Ddoh ju say oh!” It compliments their staple, Kimche, and you will get more!!(It’s oddly addictive.)
If somebody compliments your Korean, then shake your head no and say,”Kim shee Mahnee moke u myun, Hangoonmal chal hah guess umneedah” “If I eat alot of kimche, I’ll speak Korean well”
If you’re there in the summer, then say,(“Ssoobkey Mahnd jahnah yo!”)(“it’s really humid”) because it’s true! OH! don’t say what you want to say when the kids look at you and say “ME GOOK Sahlahm!!” They’re not calling themselves names by mistake… Me is the chinese word for Beautiful, Gook is the chinese word for Nation, and Sahlahm is korean for person. So you’re the person from the beautiful nation.(America)

By: Guin

Guin — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 23:38:35 +0000

i’ve watched this like five times already and it’s still funny!!!

By: Meandering {207}

Meandering {207} — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 15:19:43 +0000

Great episode. In the Philippines there are many languages and dialects. On the island of Cebu they speak Cebuan (or Visayan), but the national language is Tagalog, which everyone understands. However, I did not know Tagalog, I know Cebuano. What I do know in Tagalog is a phase when spoke makes those in Cebu and those who speak Tagalog laugh, “Hindi ko maronong magsalita ng Tagalog” which means, “I don’t know how to speak Tagalog.” So anyone going to the Philippines enjoy!

By: effamy

effamy — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 10:49:23 +0000

that’s really excellent language work! we met a lot of fellow Canadians on our trip to europe. Actually we found that the way to differentiate Americans from ourselves seemed to be that the Americans used much larger Canuck flags on their packs then we did.

By: ivan47

ivan47 — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 07:01:34 +0000

brilliant! I just discovered this site yesterday, And I LOVE IT!!
keep up the great work!

By: dragonroka27

dragonroka27 — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 10:00:55 +0000

Fantastic as always!
kristina

By: designertoxophilite[22]

designertoxophilite[22] — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 08:22:15 +0000

Thats awesome, I have to agree with everyone else, the accents were amazing.

I have to say though, directions in German are pretty simply to understand, as long as you have a good understanding of English, as there are a lot of commonalities within the languages

For example, geradeaus über der Brücke, und der erste strasse links
(straight on, over the bridge and the first street left)

By: threeofclubs

threeofclubs — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 04:51:29 +0000

If you’re ever in Bogota, you can say the common phrase: ‘No hablo muy bien en espanol,’ which everyone knows. But what they don’t know is you can follow this phrase up with, ‘que chimba! juevon!’ (Pronounced ‘kay CHEEMBA, way-vone’). You’ll be everyone’s best friend and melt the ladies’ hearts at the same time (they’ll think it’s both cute and funny).

By: Snowmanincave

Snowmanincave — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 03:53:12 +0000

Re-commenting, Kudos on the wonderful show.
In other news, I have succeeded in logging in again.

By: Guin

Guin — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 03:22:24 +0000

@Jesse’s Mom.
I kinda did the same thing when we went to Marseilles,France. We had hit port for like 3 days. On the 3rd some friends and 1 went to the beach (oolala),and i rember these two french guys eyeing our stuff. So they come up to us and ask us if we were American. And since we didn’t want to start no sh#t.(that not wanting to end up in the brig). We just said our countries of origin.
Mejico ,El Salvador. After that we had a great time. Well except for me coming back like a lobster and being in pain for a week. Other than that it was cool. Next port we hit Italy. Italians are the friendlies people ive ever met!!!

By: graceofbass

graceofbass — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 03:16:51 +0000

And then you marry their daughter.

By: Guin

Guin — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 03:10:26 +0000

DUDE!!!!! YOu speak spanish!??!! (yeah i shouldn’t be surprised, u live in Cali) if you want a site that will help you learn a different language try Lang-8.com. It’s like having a penpal in (insert country) that helps u learn(insert language). And u in turn help them with their English.

By: Curtis

Curtis — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 02:42:09 +0000

Great show. Nice to see the shorter comments are back, too, as well as the “more” links. That’s a great help.

By: idiotonuni

idiotonuni — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 02:19:09 +0000

Will clicking on the ads for you guys, even if I don’t care about them, get me into 22?

By: Rabble of Redheads

Rabble of Redheads — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 00:21:53 +0000

“ach de leibe” german for ” ah the love”

By: graceofbass

graceofbass — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 21:56:37 +0000

My husband and I watched this last night and literally laughed out loud, for several minutes. My very favorite was the piece at the end. “Useful Mongolian” If I teach you English can I marry your daughter? That was classic.

By: nick

nick — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 19:31:14 +0000

wow good accents, nice show

By: steph {207}

steph {207} — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 18:58:17 +0000

Very funny show. Very nice accents Brett. Steripen is back! I now know how to say lets take over the world in Mangolian! Here’s some questions you might want to ask in Mexico =P
Me gusta tu sombrero. (I like your sombrero) ¿Donde puedo comprar un sombrero bien? (Where can I buy a good sombrero)
That’s when 4 years of Spanish comes in handy…

By: pkw

pkw — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 17:51:32 +0000

Hubby seconds the “they like to speak your language”, but he was in Korea. He says they say “I speaka D ingish bery goud”.
I had a friend in high school that moved from Holland. But all she taught he to say was Happy New Year, and “My Father’s a jerk”. Probably not quite what you’re looking for to communicate with locals.

By: Jennifer McKenzie

Jennifer McKenzie — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 15:56:47 +0000

I bow to the master. That was amazing.
I went to Germany, Austria, France and Switzerland for a choir competition in 1986 (Think “If This Is Tuesday It Must Be Belgium”) and the French hated us then too.
I will say that a lot of my classmates made no effort whatsoever to learn any German or French. I did, and got along a little better.
I did bitch a lot about the no ice in Coca Cola there. And the food. Hey, I was seventeen. I’m lucky I passed for human.

By: Soul Sister

Soul Sister — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 15:39:26 +0000

Ah! This is so true. And the Canadian thing? I’ve totally done that before to. YAY for Canada, they are finally doing something! :)

By: Ingrid

Ingrid — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 14:14:12 +0000

three cheers for Kel! … Nice job, it’s always nice to see people make effort to learn our language! And your spelling was awsome!
Other Hungarian phrases that are usefull in Hungary?
Hol wanna bank? (or something, it means, where is the bank?)
and the word “hitelkartje” (or something, I only know how to pronounce, but it means creditcard ;) )

By: jeffinputnam

jeffinputnam — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 14:13:44 +0000

Whenever we traveled outside the US we’d always tell people we were from Canada.

If we were in Canada, we’d always say we were from Connecticut.

It saved a lot of hassles.

By: Kel

Kel — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 14:05:11 +0000

Haha, that Russian phrase is what got me into [22], I had no idea you had a… practical… use for it!
I think this is my new favorite episode :) I’ve always wanted to go to Mongolia, because it’s one of the least-visited-by-tourists places.
Ingrid– I went to Amsterdam and to Delft, and loved them both. And I felt so guilty about only knowing how to say “Waar is… [point to address],” “alstublieft,” “dank u wel,” and “ik spreek geen nederlands,” that I then studied it for a year. And ik houd van uw taal! Ik kan niet goed spreken, maar ik kan een beetje begrijpen. (Sorry for spelling… it’s been a while, like for your French!)

Thank you is:
mare-see in French (merci!)
gra-thee-ahs in Spanish (gratias)
gra-see-ahs in Central/South American Spanish
spa-see-bo in Russian (???????)
dahnk-oo-wel in Dutch (dank u wel)
oh-bri-ga-do for boys in Portugues, and oh-bri-ga-dah for girls
cheers in British :) (obrigado and obrigada, I think)
gra-tsee-ay in Italian (grazie)
kuh-suh-num in Hungarian
dahnk-uh in German
shi-shi in Chinese (short i sounds, and I don’t remember how to write it…)
gra-ti-ahs in Latin, in case you get stuck in a time machine
I’m out of languages :(

By: marc

marc — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 10:44:12 +0000

You’re right and wrong about Japan in a way guys. Japanese citizens, at least the young women, thought it was cute while I mangled their language. However, I found most younger (15-30) Japanese people want to practice their English with you. Good thing I had my brother to help me around, though… he lives there, and knew the best stores to buy robots.
Btw, yay Steripen!

By: Drecon

Drecon — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 08:26:14 +0000

What Ingrid said.

Furthermore: bork bork bork!

By: Lodinkinni

Lodinkinni — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 07:58:51 +0000

There we go! I’d place this one up with some of the older ones, for quality. Though the phrases themselves were mostly useless, the theory behind it was very concise, very helpful, and very true.

For some added help, by the way, for those of you looking to find more ways to ask for aid fighting massed bulls attack, check out the following website. It’s helped quite a bit in my self-learning of other languages:

http://translation.paralink.com/

Although it doesn’t work on my kindle, because of the applets, for those of you with more traditional PDAs, it can be a lifesaver, in another country.

By: Ingrid

Ingrid — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 06:55:42 +0000

AAAAAH, you didn’t do the Netherlands. Haha I would have loved for you to try and speak dutch :P. But well, that is probably because everybody that comes to this country just goes to Amersterdam, and everybody there speaks English anyway. (PLEASE tell me you have been OUTSIDE of Amsterdam, that’s all people want to see and there is so much more. Really, people think the Netherlands is like a little country in Amsterdam, gosh.)
Well anyway, visiting the Netherlands for a foreigner is pretty cool. We have this real social thing where we forget we even have a own language and just adjust to the visitor. French, German, English whatever. You speak it, we reply. Or atleast we try and if we can’t we will find you someone who will.
.
Anyway, my three frases I use when talking to a French person?:
“Je ne comprends pas!”
“Je ne parle pas Francais!”
“Vous pouves parles Anglais? S’il vous plait?”
.
.
Wow, it has been a while since I wrote this down, my French is so awfull.

By: Danielle G.

Danielle G. — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 05:40:04 +0000

It’s the return of Steripen! Yaaay!

By far one of the funniest (and most useful!) shows on here. And agreed, the accents were great! (Definitely gotta try those Mongolian phrases sometime…

When I had gone to Israel, there were a number of people who were too impatient for my slow Hebrew and would interrupt me to answer in English. But most of them were very supportive of my stumbling speech. Favorite phrase is actually meant to be a response to someone asking for directions: “Yashar, yashar – ve’az tishali” = “Go straight ahead – then ask someone else!”

Useful Hebrew phrases: http://www.omniglot.com/language/phrases/hebrew.php

And of course, everyone should know this phrase in ANY language: http://www.omniglot.com/language/phrases/hovercraft.htm

By: Glenn

Glenn — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 05:34:55 +0000

If you extend further out into the family, you could add other countries to the list like: China, Mongolia, The Dominican Republic, Italy, England, Scotland, and (if you really want to stretch it) Holland. Ahhh, its good to be multi cultural. :)

By: Jesse's Mom

Jesse's Mom — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 04:37:33 +0000

Great show! And good accents Brett! I was especially impressed with the Russian, Japanese, French (obviously, as shown by the UG-Target episode) and Swedish Chef…you know, what the answer will sound like to you.
Good call on not being the Ugly Foreigner – they really hate that!
P.S. Saying you’re Canadian is a great tip ANYWHERE in Europe, and especially in France. I was living in London when the US declared “war” in ’03, and that trick probably saved our lives on a number of occasions.

By: huscarl

huscarl — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 03:41:13 +0000

That was hillarious! Great vid guys, keep up the great work! Oh, first to say first.