Where are you from?

[Springheel]

 

These three view especially look almost exactly like my birth town Meissen (Germany). It's fascinating how alike those old medieval cities were, even after all those modern-day renovations and such.

 

Someone needs to turn that top image into a skybox.

[7upMan]

I went through Meissen when I was backpacking from Berlin to Dresden and back. It was a wonderful place, but a lot more grandiose in places. It's far more interesting than Whitby, but less quaint I found. German architecture usually is really impressive though =P

 

Well, you do have been around a lot, I must say. Yes, Meissen is quite a beautiful place.

 

 

That being said, here is the photo that I was referring to:

 

[Airship Ballet]

Well, you do have been around a lot, I must say.

 

It's mostly backpacking with the few close friends I've kept over the years. It simply means being allowed to go wherever you want in a city without having to get back to a bus or anything like that. That said, we pretty much only went around Germany, France, Scandinavia and Russia. I've never been anywhere else, actually, maybe just because I find them the most interesting in terms of history and culture. That, and they speak languages I learned growing up.

 

 

It was these kinds of streets I had in mind too. They're built similarly but have lovely dressings, trims and facades and can obviously afford a sorcerer of some sort to conjure awesome weather. Whitby is the Everyman's Meissen, let's say =P

Edited January 23, 2014 by Airship Ballet

[7upMan]

It's mostly backpacking with the few close friends I've kept over the years. It simply means being allowed to go wherever you want in a city without having to get back to a bus or anything like that. That said, we pretty much only went around Germany, France, Scandinavia and Russia. I've never been anywhere else, actually, maybe just because I find them the most interesting in terms of history and culture. That, and they speak languages I learned growing up.

 

Ты говоришь по русски? Oder nur Deutsch? Jag talar liten Svenska.

[RJFerret]

Ты говоришь по русски? Oder nur Deutsch? Jag talar liten Svenska.

 

Show off! *hangs head feeling like an illiterate 'Merkin. ;-)

[Airship Ballet]

Ты говоришь по русски? Oder nur Deutsch? Jag talar liten Svenska.

 

да, ja, och lite svenska är nog! Auch Dänisch, Norwegisch und Französisch, Finnisch natürlich auch. German is my weakest... =P

 

I wanted to be a linguist when I was young, maybe an interpreter or something. I lost the job ambition but kept the interest in foreign languages through university ^^

 

@RJ Foreign languages aren't necessary for all walks of life =P

Edited January 23, 2014 by Airship Ballet

[7upMan]

да, ja, och lite svenska är nog! Auch Dänisch, Norwegisch und Französisch, Finnisch natürlich auch. German is my weakest... =P

 

Okay, I can't compete with that, especially with my French being terribly weak. Although they say that if you managed to learn Finnish with its grammar and all, every other European language is a walk in the park. Anyway, it's a great loss for the translator's community that you haven't become a professional in my industry. A Belgian colleague of mine has the same talent as you, she has an ear for languages and can easily pick up new ones in a very short time. It's always extremely impressive to hear her talking in Russian knowing that she doesn't really speak the language.

[Airship Ballet]

Hehe, I was lucky enough to grow up in Finland so the learning wasn't really a conscious process. I'm sure things would be different if I tried to learn it as an outsider. French is actually the easiest of any I learned, very formulaic once you learn the basics, and its etymology is fairly well-behaved compared to some. I did go through my optional language classes in Uni with people who struggled to retain the information but were really charismatic with presentations and the like. I was the opposite... really terrible at public speaking. Still, it's nice to go missed ^^

[7upMan]

French... I'm less bad at reading it than understanding spoken French. For me, sentences in this language consist of one overly long word. I'm pretty sure it's just be, because millions of French native speakers can't be all wrong...

[Airship Ballet]

That almost definitely comes from speaking German. It's the same as Swedish in that it's a very blocky language, spoken quite haltingly. French and Finnish do just merge together into sentence-long words. I feel sorry for people who try to learn either through just listening.

[RJFerret]

Verdad, pero un poco Espanol... (*insert tilde over the appropriate "n")

 

And...that's as far as I got.

 

True, but a bit of Spanish would be useful in my walk of life. Not only interacting with my clients, but I have some bilingual relations. However once we got to different tenses, it all fell apart for me, and I'd more than satisfied my foreign language schooling requirement, so happily discontinued. I was doing well with Duolingo for a bit, but haven't kept it up.

 

Now public speaking on the other hand, I'm one of the rare ones that doesn't mind it. Don't get me wrong, I'll happily leave it to others, but have found most crowds empathetic to the speaker, since they really don't want to be the one up there speaking themselves!

[Airship Ballet]

Now public speaking on the other hand, I'm one of the rare ones that doesn't mind it.

 

Yeah, I don't mind it at all once I start. Beforehand I'm stressed for days, which is why I dislike it. I'm fine with speaking in huge crowds, too, which is odd. I once had to fill in for the violinist of the uni's nerdy vidya orchestra, didn't so much as jitter while playing in front of the entire music festival's crowd. I used to get really nervous about oral exams though. It'd be horrible knowing I was about to step into what was pretty much a broom closet with a native speaker and have to look them in the eye while butchering their poor beautiful language.

 

As for Spanish, I'm not a huge fan. Something about the way it's spoken and sounds, I think it sounds really graceless. I was just lucky to have an interest in other cultures planted in me when I was young, so I ended up renting out books on other languages before I hit 10. Some people don't care for some subjects, and languages are difficult to learn. I couldn't stand another minute of math once it started veering towards being applicable to engineering and the like. Confusing and rarely applicable? No thanks!

 

I am a total beast at Dr Kawashima's arithmetic tests though.

Edited January 23, 2014 by Airship Ballet

[jtr7]

............

Edited February 19, 2014 by jtr7

[Airship Ballet]

What interests the hell out of me bores others to death.

 

You just haven't found the right people to talk to yet! It's difficult to bore me in conversation anyway, as you can probably tell; I'm very aware that a lot of the forums on the front page were last posted in by me...

 

I know a few people who've never stepped off their rock of birth, even as briefly as that =P

[Xarg]

Public speaking is really easy until you have to do it, hah. As far as other languages went, I briefly studied Korean, and Japanese for a little longer than that, though since I didn't continue to study them, the most use I get out of them now is being able to tell them apart, and knowing how to look up a katakana chart to decipher parts of manuals that come with Japanese import cars.

[Petike the Taffer]

I'm just your meek, unremarkable freelance translator from rural Slovakia. I also did some volunteer work on castle ruin research and conservation, if anyone finds that interesting. Otherwise nothing particularly peculiar about me.

[Anderson]

I'm from Moldova. The poorest country in Europe.

A short comedy film about it if anyone's interested:

[esme]

Originally Manchester, now Sheffield where I've found that for some people the War of the Roses never ended

[Destined]

I'm from Germany, more specific near Nürnberg.

[Paralytik]

Grew up in a small town (12K inhabitants) in the midwest of Sweden, but I'm living in Oslo, Norway since a couple of years back.

I spend my days unemployed, fighting depression, but I work freelance as a club photographer. I also rent a space outside of town where I make music.

EDIT there's a beautiful old cathedral in Skara, where I come from, here are some photos. Lots of nice architectural details that would fit perfectly in a TDM map.

Edited March 1, 2015 by Paralytik

[Talviomena]

I'm from Finland, and seems like I'm not the only one.

[Airship Ballet]

Torilla tavataan :DDDDDDD

[Talviomena]

Kyllä näin on :DDDDDDD

[Sotha]

I'm from Finland, and seems like I'm not the only one.

 

Tervetuloa! Kyllä meitä jokunen täällä pyörii... Enemmänkin saisi olla.

[Talviomena]

 

Tervetuloa! Kyllä meitä jokunen täällä pyörii... Enemmänkin saisi olla.

Kiitos! Hienoa, että on edes jokunen.