[Survey] HP users around the world

[Maximilian Hohmann]

(01-13-2018 08:12 PM)Thomas Okken Wrote:  Dutch kids really have to work to learn German, even though those two languages are each other's closest relatives.

For a couple of years a shared an office with a colleague from Amsterdam. Some time we went for a beer after work with other Dutch colleagues or skiing in the weekend and on diving holidays. I was so used to hear people speak Dutch around me that one day when he was not in the office I took a call for him and without thinking answered in Dutch. When he came to our office next day he told me that his mom had called him in the evening and asked since when he shared his office with another Dutchman... I was feeling kind of proud then but that was really the one and only time that I ever spoke a few words in Dutch. Thinking of it I forgot to tick "Dutch" in my survey answer above in the category "reading newspaper articles". And of course I also forgot Latin which they made us study at school in endless boring hours.

[salvomic]

(01-13-2018 08:21 PM)pier4r Wrote:  I suppose this is due to latin. Latin was imposed/embraced and then from there the different dialects diverged, but for long hundreds of years they were influenced by the same language.

Germanic languages had multiple tribes/kingdoms that never fully mastered the others for long time. Aside from English recently that become the new lingua franca (was was latin before with some sprinkles of french, spanish and German according to the case).

yes, I agree, correct analysis by you. However during and after the "Sacro Romano Impero" (SRI) the German language (spoken by the Franchi and other peoples) had an huge influx in the vocabulary (and in lesser way in their Latin structure) of Italian, Provençal, French and Italian dialects (i.e in Siciliano, that's a mix of Latin and Italian, Greek, Arabic, French, Catalan and Spanish, and for about 5-6% also with Germanic vocabulary, left by Normans, for example; a truly " linguistic melting pot"...
However, Italian is more similar to Catalan and Spanish, a bit less to French, Provençal and Portuguese and lesser to Romanian, but this one is particular, due the shorter presence of Romans there)...

Salvo

[pier4r]

Yes but the HRE (Holy Roman Empire) was using mostly Latin/French. German was not consolidated much until popular publications were printed. Namely the bible by Luther.

Note that Italian picked up also late (but earlier than German). Around the period of the autonomous cities (~1300) and the Kingdom around Florence (~1300).

[Massimo Gnerucci]

(01-13-2018 08:21 PM)pier4r Wrote:  Latin was imposed/embraced

Yes. We did it this way:

[grsbanks]

Might as well add my 2p worth here.

Based in the UK (looks like nobody else is going by the first post).

Fluent in English and French.

Reasonable understanding of German, Dutch and Spanish.

[salvomic]

(01-13-2018 09:00 PM)pier4r Wrote:  Yes but the HRE (Holy Roman Empire) was using mostly Latin/French. German was not consolidated much until popular publications were printed. Namely the bible by Luther.
...

However consider that for "German" we should mean not the modern German but a long series of ancient languages (see here), besides also consider that Frankish people originally was not still "French" but also Germans... the modern French come later (XII-XII century), from "Oïl language", "Oc language", Provençal, Lorraine, Breton... French became "language of the Court" progressively, but Latin was always most important, as it was also in the Middle Age the "lingua franca"...
The medieval situation of our modern languages was not so easy to describe, like was at the time of Latin or it is nowadays... Maybe mathematics is easier

Salvo

[DA74254]

(01-13-2018 08:12 PM)Thomas Okken Wrote:  I find this mutual intelligibility of the Romance languages interesting, because it seems very different from the situation with the Germanic languages. Dutch kids really have to work to learn German, even though those two languages are each other's closest relatives. I found English quite a bit of work to master as well (though easier than French, although French is easier to pronounce), but I find the Scandinavian languages (Danish, Swedish, Norwegian) absolute gibberish, especially when spoken. I guess the Germanic languages have been diverging from each other a lot longer.

Ha, ha - gibberish no less
Modern Norwegian written language is mostly derived from Danish. The true Norwegian is/was Norse, which today only is used/spoken in Iceland and Faroes.

Norwegian, Danish and Swedish are all North Germanic languages, mutually intelligble. All three countries can read and converse between each other, except if you have an odd dialect. I find North Danish (around Skagen, Frederikshavn) more difficult to follow 100% than Copenhagen Danish. I've learned to fully understand Skåne-Swedish (Southern) though that is quite different than Mid and North Sweden.

Another funny fact of Scandinavian languages is that several words spells and pronounces alike, but have completely different meaning. "Rolig", in Norwegian means calm/quiet but in Swedish it means funny/lively. Meaning that if you tell your taxi driver to take you to a "rolig" place, in Norway you'll be taken to a retirement home but in Sweden to a pub
There are several of these words.

Then we have the Indo-Germanian languages, Latvian and Lithuanian. Those two languages are the only ones in their language group. Though, Latvian is based more on Germanic branch and Lithuanian is the slavic branch and they cannot understand each other (according to my Latvian friends).

Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian is yet a completely different area of lingual matter.
Estonians and Finns may understand each other, but the Hungarians cannot.

As for the Dutch; the reason I have the ability to read and understand the main contents of a text is due to my Norwegian native language and my learning of German at school. And it became even easier when I learned the ij ligature

[jch]

France
Fluent: French
Not so fluent: English
A few words of German

[Werner]

Country: Belgium
Languages: Dutch, French, English, bit of German.

Cheers, Werner

[John Keith]

Country: USA
Language: English
Basic understanding: German and Spanish.

[Guenter Schink]

Country: Germany
Languages: German
English: good enough for governments work
French: a bit

[david sanz]

Country: Spain
Languages spoken: Spanish, English
A few words of: Italian, German

I am hardly a HP user, rather a HP collector. I used mostly Casio and TI calculators

I think I can sugest a partial explanation for the abundance of Spanish language resources for HP calculators. Since HP48 was launched, every Engineering student in Spain have owned a HP calculator (HP48, HP49, HP50). I suppose the reason is that they are allowed to use them in some exams, and when you go to an exam you want to bring with you the most powerful tool you are allowed.

Why they chose HP48 over TI59, I can not say. But HP hit first and the one who hits first hits twice. HP became a trademark of engineering students in Spain until today.

[TheKaneB]

(01-15-2018 09:34 AM)david sanz Wrote:  Why they chose HP48 over TI59, I can not say. But HP hit first and the one who hits first hits twice. HP became a trademark of engineering students in Spain until today.

That's a good explanation! Here in Italy I wasn't allowed ANY kind of calculator in my exams, except maybe a few in which the professor allowed the use of basic scientific non programmable, non graphing calculators. I don't know about the other schools here, but from my experience I can say that each professor does differently.

[Krauts In Space]

Country: Germany
Language: German, English, little bit Italian.
I'm about to learn norwegian. It fascinates me bec. it has similarities as well to english as to german, and the syntax is close to german.

[PedroLeiva]

Country: ARGENTINA
City: Pergamino, Buenos Aires
T= -3 Time Zone
Z= 64.84371948 Altitude
Y= -60.56372923 LONG
X= -33.94633822 LAT
Languages: Spanish, English
Hardware: HP 25C, HP 67, HP 35s, HP 15C
Areas of interest: Agronomy, Surveying, Statistics, Hydraulics&Hydrology

[badaze]

(01-15-2018 10:44 AM)TheKaneB Wrote:  

(01-15-2018 09:34 AM)david sanz Wrote:  Why they chose HP48 over TI59, I can not say. But HP hit first and the one who hits first hits twice. HP became a trademark of engineering students in Spain until today.

That's a good explanation! Here in Italy I wasn't allowed ANY kind of calculator in my exams, except maybe a few in which the professor allowed the use of basic scientific non programmable, non graphing calculators. I don't know about the other schools here, but from my experience I can say that each professor does differently.

In France at the beginning of the 1980's few were the people who knew what a programmable calculator or a pocket basic was and they were permitted because they weren't forbidden. So I had the possibility to use my TI 57 LED at the "bac" (more or less the "maturità" for Italians or the "abitür" for Germans). Then at College I used first a Casio FX 702P and after a Sharp PC 1500.
Most friends of mine had normal calculators and a few HAD programmables. I particularly remember two guys with HP 15C, HP 41 CV. But the use of such devices was only aimed at controlling the calculations and save a lot of time.
I remember to have controlled different calculations on matrix in a few minutes while colleagues with TI 30 or calcs like that took a lot more.
Now, it's a bit different... not a bit in fact... very different. Programmable calculators that don't Exam mode are forbidden. This special mode disables programmation, wifi, mass memory.

[TheKaneB]

I updated the original post! Maybe I should learn German and French to get even more material out of the web

[mwthomasjr]

Country: USA
Language: English
I know a little Spanish.
https://youtu.be/iI5vrVmJO0Q

[Joe Horn]

Country: USA
Native Language: English

"I know a man who speaks 15 languages fluently, and has nothing significant to say in any of them." -- John Kobylt

[TheKaneB]

(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

Brilliant