[Survey] HP users around the world

[Mark Hardman]

Country: Texas
Language: American English
Fluent: French (Lived two years in Paris, two years in La Rochelle)
Conversational: Portuguese (From the two years in La Rochelle)
Survival: Spanglish (From living in Texas)
Dead: Biblical Greek, Hebrew and Latin (Four years at the university level)

[d b]

Country: USA (California)
Native language: I talk American
Basic (but less each day that I don't use it): South American Spanish (no Vosotros other than Vos!, lots of Quechua & Aymara nouns)

Side note 1: I spent 3 months pretending to teach English in La Paz Bolivia in '98, at the engineering college of the public university. A personal computer was a rare possession among the budding young engineers but the HP48 was nearly ubiquitous. They downloaded programs at the uni's computer lab and wrote their own. They envisioned themselves using the 48 in the field as their main number cruncher. They were much better prepared to solve real world problems as they encountered them than today's plug-n-crank "engineers". We spent my second-to-last night before my visa expired showing them how many english nouns they had already known because of technology, mathematics and television. That's me: "un diccionaryo con orejas".
I told them that I owned an SX and used it in "topografia" but that I preferred my HP41cx. They had heard of those old things.

Side note 2: Mark Hardman; Tell the folks you spent your formative years in the mountains of Colorado. No one will believe a native Texan speaks American English!

[TheKaneB]

(01-17-2018 01:55 AM)Den Belillo (Martinez Ca.) Wrote:  A personal computer was a rare possession among the budding young engineers but the HP48 was nearly ubiquitous. They downloaded programs at the uni's computer lab and wrote their own. They envisioned themselves using the 48 in the field as their main number cruncher.

That explains a lot of things!
Thank you very much for sharing your experience!

[Mark Hardman]

(01-17-2018 01:55 AM)Den Belillo (Martinez Ca.) Wrote:  Side note 2: Mark Hardman; Tell the folks you spent your formative years in the mountains of Colorado. No one will believe a native Texan speaks American English!

Den, you knew my father and the nature of his work. Our family moved from one major infrastructure project to the next every two to three years. By the time I had graduated from high-school, I had lived in seven different states. I promised myself I would never force my family to live that sort of nomadic life. So, I'm not a native Texan but I've been here for almost three decades. Where else would I call home? (Though I really, really miss the mountains of Colorado.)

Mark Hardman

[salvomic]

(01-17-2018 12:20 AM)Mark Hardman Wrote:  ...
Dead: Biblical Greek, Hebrew and Latin (Four years at the university level)

me too: I translate dead languages (Greek, Latin, Hebrew), and also classic Arabic...

[pier4r]

(01-16-2018 05:43 PM)Joe Horn Wrote:  "I know a man who speaks 15 languages fluently, and has nothing significant to say in any of them." -- John Kobylt

saving this.

[TheKaneB]

I do know a fair bit of Latin, 5 years study at school + some more on my own, but I will only consider regular spoken languages for this survey, because it's strictly related to materials found on the internet about the HP calculators (I don't expect to find articles in ancient Hebrew anytime soon!)

[EdS2]

Country: UK
Language: English
Other languages: very basic French, willing to skim-read German

[pier4r]

(01-17-2018 10:48 AM)TheKaneB Wrote:  I do know a fair bit of Latin, 5 years study at school + some more on my own, but I will only consider regular spoken languages for this survey, because it's strictly related to materials found on the internet about the HP calculators (I don't expect to find articles in ancient Hebrew anytime soon!)

Then also Fruilan can go? I mean, not from the posts. The more the data the better, but from the first list. I'd wage it is more likely that someone on a whim writes something calculator related in Latin rather than Fruilan.

I studied latin as well, but claiming to be able to use it would be a bold claim, so I completely forgot it.

[TheKaneB]

you are right, I should remove that one. I didn't think of it until now

[Marc van Lemmen]

Country: The Netherlands
Language: Dutch
Languages spoken: Dutch,English,German
Basic understanding: French

[grsbanks]

(01-17-2018 12:20 AM)Mark Hardman Wrote:  Fluent: French (Lived two years in Paris, two years in La Rochelle)

I always tried to avoid Paris, mainly because I have an aversion to heavily built-up areas. So I spent 1 year near Cahors (SW France), 15 years in various parts of the SE between Marseille and Fréjus, then 8 years in the central town of Chinon.

[Giancarlo]

Hello,
Country: Italy
Languages: italian, french and english

French was my native language until my parents decided to move to Milan in Italy. English for my job and my hobby (hp calculators).

Temporary in ksa (saudi arabia),

Ciao

Giancarlo

[Andreas]

Country: Germany
Languages: German, English
Basic: Italian (enough for reading books and enjoying holidays), Latin, Ancient Creek

Cheers
Andreas

[Jlouis]

Country: Brazil

Language: portuguese, can read, write and speak in English, but with errors.
Basic French- can read, but no talk, I used to write, but after ten years idle, the words don't come out; Spanish- can read, no talk or write.
I'm trying to learn German, although it's too hard, but I'm advancing a little bit.
Basic (computer language). I learned Fortran 30 years ago, but I forgot everything now.

For other languages, I'm still learning RPL!!!!!

[Harald]

Country: Germany
Fluent: German, English
Very Basic, not enough to discuss anything meaningful: Spanish, Latin

[jebem]

Country: Portugal

Languages spoken: European Continental, Angola and Mozambique Portuguese, Brazil Portuguese, UK London English (but excluding cab drivers English, can't understand a word of what they say), USA (Miami and San Diego) English, South Africa English.

Basic understanding enough to speak and communicate: Azores Islands Portuguese, Madeira Islands Portuguese, Cape Verde Portuguese-Crioulo.

Basic understanding enough to read and even exchange a few spoken words: Spain Castilian, Spain Galician, Spain Catalan, Italia Milan Italian , Belgium Brussels French, France Paris French, Ukraine Donetsk Russian, and last but not least, Southern Africa Zulu-Changana (this one I forgot almost all, except the insult words, after leaving that region 40 years ago).

[gvasesores]

Country: Spain
Languages spoken: English, Catalán, French
Able to grasp limited content: Italian

[John Smitherman]

Country: USA
Languages spoken: English, German
Basic understanding: Spanish, French

[ArneStolti]

Country: (north) Germany
Language (fluently): German, English
Language (stuttering): France, Norwegian
Computer languages: C, Pascal (then), Basic (even before), Matlab, ...

____________________________________________
Calcs: HP-48Gx, Sharp EL-W506, HP-35s, HP-30b, WP-34s, WP-31s, HP-50G, HP-17IIbi, HP-10 ... and still no DM42 (waiting for 2. batch)