General conversation thread: Chat about anything that's not WipEout.

[willsgb13]

When the Dutchmen are chatting in the mother tongue I can understand bits of it. This is a combo of having been to Holland a few times and watched some Dutch-subbed English shows and having done A-level German. German does help with vocabulary, but I'm not sure about syntax. I think German and Dutch have similar rules about where the verb goes and stuff so probably does help there too. English, Dutch and German have a lot of similar words, I think Dutch has more in common with English and German than either of those two do with each other. It can also be confusing though, when you see a word which looks the same as English and it's actually something completely different. I still only know the odd word of Dutch anyway though.

yeah, i know no dutch but it sounds great to listen to, like spicy german. german's too rigid, but it's a typically efficient and in those terms satisfying affair, from my experience. i'd love to learn some dutch though, currently reading a book about dutch footie and have always harboured a desire to spend some time exploring the country, not just the dam but the rotterdam and the country and the dykes and all of it. seems like a progressive, artful, fascinating place

I am a Singaporean Chinese...Singapore is an immigrant country.If you look into Singapore's past,you will see that early immigrants came from Asia and some settled in Singapore.
Singapore has only one season,and that is Summer.Being a densely populated country,most of us(Singaporeans)live in flats(or as some people may say,"stacked" on each other).Education is begins by first going to playgroup,then Nursery(and maybe Nursery2),then Kindergarten 1 and 2,followed by Primary school(very competitive that in good schools,people have to ballot)then PSLE at Primary 6(Primary School Leaving Examination,EVEN more competitive as Secondary school is decided by score)then Secondary school and "O" Levels at Secondary 4.Then Junior College or Polytechnic,and if you are successful,University.

i didn't know much about singapore, only that it was a small but quite prosperous place, amirite? constant summer sounds nice but despite the annoyance of slushy roads and freezing temps snow can be fun. still, we don't get particularly 'real' summers, know what i mean? we get some scorchers, but not many. we have plenty of flats here though, i think in the 60s it was decided that all boroughs should have council estates for those who couldn't afford houses. we do have open spaces though... are you guys thus more adept at using whatever space you have to its maximum potential? is there more of a community? i grew up in london and it's a big place, but from where i grew up and from my experience, there's not much community here.

are you at uni then? i hope you aced it all mate! make the most of it, life's short and a bitch and the rest of it. competition is good too though, builds your steel for later life. perhaps i'm lacking, but that's not a particularly interesting story for telling

Btw; Did you know that Kindergarten is a German word? Well it's not only a word.
Being in a Kindergarten as a child is the best thing you can get.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oA0IpS_3S-0

ih8you, i don't hate you, or anyone else here, but i do love chocolate milk.

cigarettes and chocolate milk! these are just a few of my cravings!

well, not cigarettes

but chocolate milk, definitely