# Forum More Stuff At the end of the day  Crab man

## PlatypusGardens

Following on from the discussion in the plasma cutter thread, to keep that somewhat on track.    

> *krabba människa*

   

> Haha, something like that but not quite right...

   

> So how is it?

  
it's complicated.... 
yes, krabba means crab, but when you put it with another word you drop the a on the end.
människa does mean man, but only in the sense of human being, mankind, etc.
the word for man as in a male person is...man 
so krabba människa just means crab human, but written like that it makes no sense. 
you could say krabbmänniska, but that's odd too. 
as it was to be crab man, it would be krabbman   
now...it get worse. 
one crab - en krabba
2 crabs - 2 krabbor
the crab - krabban
those crabs - de krabborna 
To define anything in Swedish, by the equivalent of putting "the" in front of it, you put one of these at the end of the word 
-en
-et
-an 
and further extensions for plural, possession etc and so on.   
1 dog - 1 hund
2 dogs - 2 hundar
the dogs (plural) - hundarna
the dog's - hundens
something belonging to 2 dogs - hundarnas
The dog - hunden 
and then....if you wanna put the dog in a kennel...(koja) it goes off the rails again.
it becomes hundkoja
the dog kennel becomes hundkojan with the "the" suffix at the end  
And so it goes on.
There's no rhyme or reason as to which word ends in what, it just is what it is.
A bit like Der, Die, Das in German I suppose, and other languages have similar things as well, which makes them hard to learn.  
So going back to the crab man, yes you would have done a google translate most likely and that came up.
Which is understandable.
No online translation engine can pick up on the correct way to use words, it just translates.

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## Random Username

But what about the crab people???  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tV5wmDhzgY8

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## PlatypusGardens

Sorry I've filled my quota of intelligent postings for the day.
Nothing but silly pictures and random loosely connected anecdotes for the rest of the day. 
Peaked too early   :Rolleyes:

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## Marc

I like "de krabborna man" better ... ha ha

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## Marc

Yes, when describing an expression in a language we know, to someone that does not, we get all worked up. I regularly ask a Vietnamese guy at work how to say this or that before going to the Vietnamese take away. He get's all tangled in a knot trying to explain the different meanings according to the different intonations. 
I ask him to say it a few times, then repeat it a few times, and that's it. The girls at the take away understand perfectly.  
It get's worse though. Sometimes I go to a Vietnamese restaurant where they don't know me and order in Vietnamese. (My pronunciation is very good according to native Vietnamese) The person at the counter is clearly Vietnamese yet they stare at me and ask in broken english what is it that I want. 
It works like this, The person can see I am not Vietnamese by any stretch of the imagination, so what comes out of my mouth _must_ be english it is expected to be english ... but it is very bad english, so what is it? say again? 
All I need to do is to say, I am speaking to you in your own language, and try again. It is very funny krabbman

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## PlatypusGardens

> . It is very funny krabbman

  
Of course, if you were to address me as Crabman, it'd be different again as you'd say _krabbmannen_.....
You have to put the -en on the end to make it directed at me.  
I think....or maybe at would only apply in a situation where you're showing respect and/or being polite.
Like addressing someone as "officer" or along those lines....   :Gaah:  I dunno anymore  :Sigh:   
Told ya I was all out of intelligent conversation for the day haha   :Monkey dance:    
I do know that native English speaking people have great difficulty getting their tongue around the way most European countries bend their vowels though, which is amusing at the best of times.     :Smilie:

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## Marc

Mm ... considering most if not all other languages use the vowels a to sound a ... e to sound e ... etc, when english uses a to sound e, e to sound i, I agree it is amusing.

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## PlatypusGardens

I think Dutch is an awesome sounding language, the way they use vowels and talk at the back of the throat.
Unlike Afrikaans which just sounds like they want to kill you. 
German is a harsh sounding language, or as described by Dylan Moran, _A typewriter eating tinfoil while being kicked down the stairs_ 
I've yet to meet anyone who can pronounce Neuschwanstein properly hehehee.   
My old Latin teacher was a cool dude.
6foot-everything, grey hair, balding.....looked like a mix between Julius Caesar and John Cleese.
The man was a language machine, fluent in something like 14 languages and aware of another 20 probably. 
Could find similarities between some obscure dialect spoken on a remote island off Greenland and Polish and talk at length about it.
In an interesting way too, I should add. 
And knew a lot about the old Greek and Roman history too.

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## phild01

Nuosh-van-stine  :Confuzzled:

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## Bros

Gee you're crabby today PG.

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## PlatypusGardens

> Gee you're crabby today PG.

  
Krabbig   :Wink:

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## Random Username

Please remember that English was the result of the Norman occupiers attempts to chat up the local anglo-saxon/germanic speaking barmaids...

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## PlatypusGardens

I think it's odd that such a vast country like Australia is so lacking of different accents and dialects.
On our travels I noticed different words and expressions for things here and there, but overall everyone talks pretty much the same. 
Sure, some parts sound more british english, while the further north you go on the east coast the pace slows a bit and more drawl perhaps.

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