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Quiz 1           Quiz 2            Quiz 3         Quiz 4         Quiz 5

Quiz 1

How serious are you about language learning?  Take this quiz to find out!  Choose one answer to each of the questions, tally up your points, and interpret the results below.


1.  What do you see here?


    Painting by a tranq'd up elephant  (+1 point)
    Some kind of Asian writing (+2 points)
    Grass script (+3 points)
    I hate when people call it grass script. The correct translation is "sloppy script"  (+4 points)

2. Arabic reminds me of  _________.
    Butterflies  (+1)
    Sand (+2)tyes
    Hebrew (+4)
    Persian  (+3)

3.  Haitian Creole is a combination of French and _________.

    Thousand Island  (+1)
    Spanish (+2)
    Wolof (+4)
    Crushing Povery  (+3)

4.  Why is American telemarketing and tech support outsourced to India?
     Because life has to be difficult  (+1)
     Because they are cheap (+2)
     
    Because they speak English (+3)
     
    Because the British beat them up for 200 years and taught them all English (+4)


5.  Why don't you speak Brazilian Portuguese?
     Already know Spanish  (+3)
     Brazilian women's bodies speak for themselves (+2)
     
    Lazy (+1)
    Hate it (+4)


6. "Kangaroo" sure is a funny word, don't you think?
     Those 5000 murdered native Tasmanians aren't laughing about it  (+4)
     Yeah! (+2)
     
    Isn't that an Australian word? (+3)
     
    What?   (+1)

7.  Pick the language NOT in the top ten in the world (by number of speakers).

     Bengali  (+2)
     Indonesian  (+3)
     
    Swedish  (+4)
     
    Mandarin  (+1)

8.  What's the deal with Vietnamese?

     Apocalypse Now  (+1)
     I don't know  (+2)
     
    Hey, 6 tones can't be all wrong!  (+3)
     
    At least the French made them write it with an alphabet instead of characters  (+4)

9.  Why are you dating your him/her?

     Looked hot at the bar  (+1)
     Sat next to me in class  (+2)
     
    Speaks the language I'm learning  (+3)
     
    Speaks the right dialect of the language I'm learning  (+4)


10.  The Russians stole from _______ .

     the French language  (2 points)
     the Greek alphabet  (1 point)
     
    Facebook and renamed it "vkontakte"  (3 points)
     
    all of the above.  (4 points)


Results


0-9 points:  That slice of pizza you're eating is delicious.  Also, you need to run by the post office and maybe the
grocery store later today. Why don't foreigners understand you when you talk slower and louder to them?  By the way,
forget about languages, you should be more concerned with improving your math skills first.  Back to the basics.


10-20 points:   You took the bare minimum language requirement in school and forgot everything.  Languages just
aren't on your radar.  In fact, I'm surprised you're even on this site reading this at all.  It's not too late for you, though -
go get drunk with a hot foreigner at a bar and get the ball rolling.  Don't learn too many new words though, or you'll try to make a living as a translator and starve to death.


21-30 points:   Pretty darn good.  You can converse in a second language, and you might even use it for practical
things like work and vacations abroad.  You are patient with foreigners when they stumble over words, and may even
ask them how to say "hello" in their home language.  Languages enrich your life, and you are happy and successful.


30- 40 points:  You are a hardened linguist to your core.  Where others see flowers, rainbows, and sunshine, you see only
a matrix of IPA symbols.  You speak your native language with an accent because you've finally un-learned 
and re-taught yourself how to speak it based on principles you've collected from other languages. Your
most personal memoirs are jotted down between the entries in dictionaries.  You know that the waitress at the
Japanese Sushi Bar is actually from China, and that those black guys over there are speaking Amharic.


41 points:  Oh wait, just kidding.  It's Tigrinya.  



Whoa, that was awesome!  I'm ready for Quiz #2 !