Does WITP increase player's knowledge

[bradfordkay]

When visiting a ww2 site in France, I had a frenchman say to me, "You Americans don't understand what it's like to have a foreign power occupy your country."

To which I replied, "Suh! Mah country is still under occupation by a furrin' power!"

Of course, he had no clue as to what I was saying...

[Oleg Mastruko]

Great poll, but I actually knew this before WITP [;)]

Now when will you post that poll I suggested Mogami?

O.

[mogami]

Hi, Oleg I must have missed it or I would have posted it. What do you want?

[Bobthehatchit]

ORIGINAL: Tristanjohn

ORIGINAL: Beezle

We have a partner in our group who speaks "English" very differently than I do, in accent and in word usage. She is Indian. In my country (the US) and hers (India) English has been spoken there, for, what, 400 years+? Gradually going its own way a in Punjab and California

That's precisely what English does. It goes its own way, and more power to it for doing so!

The variation is accents is even wider in the UK, people from different towns can speak very differently I live a hour away from Birmingham, but sound nothing like a “Brummy” they have a very strong accents different pronunciation and saying/phrases. You can then go to Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle ect. they are dam near different languages!

[Buck Beach]

I don't know if its Pearl Harbor or Pearl Harbour and I was there for 2 years in the Navy[:D]

[AmiralLaurent]

ORIGINAL: BraveHome

True, but you're not spelling phonetically [;)]

English is, in many linguists opinions, the most difficult major language in the world to learn as a foreign language. The reason is it is so irregular (spelling, grammar, pronunciation). I studied many languages in college (Russian major, Chinese/Arabic/Latin too) and they were a cakewalk compared with English.

So my hat's off to all non-native English speakers who can communicate in English (however they spell things).

Do you really find English more difficult than Chinese ?

In Chinese (and many languages of the area, Thai and Vietnamese for example), most words are very short and have up to 5 to 7 meanings.
Example: "Han" may mean "house" (low tone), "dog" (middle tone), "to sleep" (high tone), "red curry rice with chicken" (rising tone), "f..k" (falling tone) or "fat" (rising then falling tone).
In every country I went I learned during the first days the basic words of everyday life (Hello, Thanks you, How do you do, Good bye, How much and so on) and it made life a lot easier (and people I met a lot friendlier) except in SE Asia, where I was never able to say anything correctly.

As for English, most non-native English speakers (me include) don't know and use grammar rules and pronunciations vary widly in the world. I travelled a lot and used English to communicate in Europe, N America, Asia and S America (and French in Africa) and had always to wait 1-2 days in every country before hearing correctly what people said when they spoke English.

Right now, there are 66 % of good answers in this poll. I think this is better than the average population.

Does anyone know if Ba....an is still a major oil center today ?

[DeepSix]

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay

When visiting a ww2 site in France, I had a frenchman say to me, "You Americans don't understand what it's like to have a foreign power occupy your country."

To which I replied, "Suh! Mah country is still under occupation by a furrin' power!"

Of course, he had no clue as to what I was saying...

LOL. I agree.... Cain't lose what ain't over yet! [;)]

[2ndACR]

I can spell oil. That is close enough for me.[:D]

What do you expect from a lowly grunt redneck.

[Oleg Mastruko]

ORIGINAL: Mogami

Hi, Oleg I must have missed it or I would have posted it. What do you want?

This is the poll I had on mind, thanks:

Your policy regarding mods:

- I use only official 2by3 patches, no mods
- I use only graphical mods (maps, icons etc.) that do not affect the gameplay
- I use Andrew Brown map mod (and scenarios that go with it)
- I use one or more of the modded scenarios (Lemurs, Tanaka etc.) with modded OOBs, modded database etc. on regular game map
- I use (or plan to use) heavily modified stuff, like Lemurs scenario on Andrew Brown map

Vote and discuss.

Oleg

[BraveHome]

ORIGINAL: AmiralLaurent
Do you really find English more difficult than Chinese ?

In Chinese (and many languages of the area, Thai and Vietnamese for example), most words are very short and have up to 5 to 7 meanings.
Example: "Han" may mean "house" (low tone), "dog" (middle tone), "to sleep" (high tone), "red curry rice with chicken" (rising tone), "f..k" (falling tone) or "fat" (rising then falling tone).
In every country I went I learned during the first days the basic words of everyday life (Hello, Thanks you, How do you do, Good bye, How much and so on) and it made life a lot easier (and people I met a lot friendlier) except in SE Asia, where I was never able to say anything correctly.

As for English, most non-native English speakers (me include) don't know and use grammar rules and pronunciations vary widly in the world. I travelled a lot and used English to communicate in Europe, N America, Asia and S America (and French in Africa) and had always to wait 1-2 days in every country before hearing correctly what people said when they spoke English.

I was not saying I found English more difficult (being a native speaker helps, sometimes [:D]). I was referring to what my language professors were saying about teaching English to non-native speakers. And I should have been more specific about the Chinese, too -- I was referring to Mandarin (with its four basic and one neutral tone), not Cantonese (with its nine tones, nearly impossible for non-natives to speak well). Once you get used to the idea of the tone having as intimate a part of a word's meaning as consonants and syllables, it's not hard to progress in Mandarin. The reason it's considered 'easier' to learn to speak is there are few if any rules for grammar. No conjugations, no declensions, no 'tenses', no changes to words for being a verb, noun, adjective, adverb, etc.

The only difficulty occurs when you're in Taiwan in 1973 (during its martial law period), with a Chinese textbook printed in Mainland China. Then you have to do some pretty fast talking (in any language you can muster!) to avoid being thrown in jail by the local DA....[8|]

[BraveHome]

ORIGINAL: Beezle
English is really flexible. No real rules, not permanent ones anyway. So it keeps adapting and changing as either the world changes (with new technology words or careers) or the geography/culture chane (for example it went to Australia and became a language most other English Speakers can't understand at all. Something about surfing terms mixed in with how to cook seafood. And 400 words to describe a pint of beer).

That flexibility makes it irregular and hard to learn, but also gives it a power that is (one of) the things making it the, uh, "Lingua Franca" of the world.

I found it fascinating to study the concept of the 'meta language' (a phrase coined by social anthropologists to explain the way the mind is influenced to interpret 'reality'). Be interesting to study the variations in the way we process Reality based on our native culture/language structure....

[Cmdrcain]

ORIGINAL: Tom Hunter

I was at a convention in Atlanta last fall talking to an Indian woman who was looking for tea. She explained she favored it over coffee because "the English ruled our country for 150 years." "Ours too" I said.

Except we Revolted over the cost of Tea and so became Cofee Drinkers besides kicking the british out[:D][:D][:D]

[bradfordkay]

Back to Admiral Laurent's original question: I first learned about Balikpapan in either The West Point Atlas of American Wars, Vol.2 or Life's Picture History of WW2 when I was a little boy. These were portions of my dad's library that I spent many an hour with. The West Point Atlas was probably directly responsible for my love affair with wargames. Avalon Hill used the same icons on their maps as did the atlas, so I quickly caught on - thus ending any chance at a normal life.

[DrewMatrix]

should have been more specific about the Chinese

Languages have followed an evolution. The least evolved languages (The ones of the type that were spoken longest ago) are languages with long, heavily declined words. The more evolved languages (the type that have come to their current form more recently) have shorter words to use as general modifiers (eg Latin or Lithuanian have a modified form of the word to distinguish between "I plow" (now) and "I have plowed" (action completed in the past) where English, for example, uses the short additional word "have" as a modifier).

Chinese and English have gone the furthest along that path (becoming less declined).

[Drex]

I thought it was Brady posting before I SAW bEEZLE'S NAME.

[steveh11Matrix]

ORIGINAL: Oleg Mastruko

ORIGINAL: Mogami

Hi, Oleg I must have missed it or I would have posted it. What do you want?

This is the poll I had on mind, thanks:

Your policy regarding mods:

- I use only official 2by3 patches, no mods
- I use only graphical mods (maps, icons etc.) that do not affect the gameplay
- I use Andrew Brown map mod (and scenarios that go with it)
- I use one or more of the modded scenarios (Lemurs, Tanaka etc.) with modded OOBs, modded database etc. on regular game map
- I use (or plan to use) heavily modified stuff, like Lemurs scenario on Andrew Brown map

Vote and discuss.

Oleg

Oleg, you forgot one:
I mod for myself, based on one of the above.

Steve. (One vote for that, obviously!)

[BraveHome]

ORIGINAL: Beezle
Chinese and English have gone the furthest along that path (becoming less declined).

I think I understand! They're more inclined to be less declined... [;)]

[freeboy]

what was the ? again duh?

[BraveHome]

Which, the original for this thread or the word games Beezle and I have been playing? [;)]

[freeboy]

I actually was making fun of myself vis a vis the ?.. as in "duh, what is the ?" re a ? about knowledge gained/lost