LOL you should have used that to your advantage. I did not look like anyone so all I got were points and hands over mouths.
Coach: Just curious. With a Panamanian (sp!) wife, how many languages do you speak? BTW: I don't know how the rest of you feel about this, but I always encourage young people who are given an opportunity to live abroad to do it. IMHO, it gives one a broader and not just US-centric outlook on life. Something that is probably of increasing value in this more global society.
Sorry, I wasn't trying to sound like a phenom, and I certainly can sympathize with anyone in a situation where they can't speak well enough to get the point across. This might sound strange, but it only takes about 2 days to learn to read Korean. Japanese is a bit different because they use more of the Chinese symbols than Koreans do. Understanding the meaning when you read is a different story. I speak Korean, French, some Japanese but I don't have time for it anymore, learning Mandarin, and trying to become fluent in Spanish because it's an easy one and I was frustrated when I was in Costa Rica and couldn't speak it well.
Some languages use different sounds e.g. in Polish there is only one clear sound for "a" or "e", that is why it is hard to explain the difference between "tan" and "ten" because speaking "system" does not practice such sounds during the life.
Yeah, that is the tough thing about Japanese. I shouldn't lump the two together as far as reading and writing. The gramar is very similar to Korean, but Koreans only use about 500 Hanja (Kanji) with any frequency and you really don't ever have to use them if you don't want. I only knew about 200-300 of them when I lived there. It sure gave me a jump in learning Mandarin though.
No need to apologize. I'm always amazed by the abilities that some people have to learn other languages. For example, Sylvia Wadwa (sp?), a German correspondent on CNBC, speaks absolutely amazing English; better than I do. She does have a slight accent (beyond just the British accent), but her English is perfect and she can speak very, very fast with full command of idiomatic expressions. That reminds me, idiomatic expressions seem to be the hardest thing to learn and retain. Even when I lived in Switzerland, when I stopped using English idioms regularly, I would forget them or get them turned around. I've heard similar stories from my European friends.
At my best I spoke English, Spanish and Japanese. My Japanese has suffered tremendously since I no longer have any opportunity to use it (at the local Sushi Bar does not count). My wife and I speak Spanish and English (the joke is she speaks to me in English but yells at me in Spanish lol). Also my Dad is Cuban so I speak with him a lot in Spanish. The language I am trying to study next is Arabic since I have a growing number of Arabic friends. But maybe later on when I have more time lol. As for pronounciation, the Japanese words for "cute" and "scary" are very close together so you have to be careful about pronounciation when complimenting a person's baby. This topic certainly fills the void on a blah Friday expiration trading day.
BTW - I was participating in webinar today. We had a little talk about IB acces to large S&P options pit.: "CME floor segment has been implemented. IB has trades going through to the big S+P pits"
I think the worst one in Korean is the difference between good looking and tasty. They are very similar, and if you are trying to tell someone that his wife is good looking and accidently say tasty they get really mad. Tasty is used as a slang term with a sexual meaning in that context. OOps.....