OT: newbie

Hello all.

This is just a short message to introduce myself, since I just joined the list.
Actually I had been a member before for a short time, but I am back now.

I haven't made any conlang yet. Just a few tries on phonetic systems, or scripts.

As for real languages, I am really fond of asian languages. I know a little of
japanese and chinese. And I would like to know more about the other chineses
'dialects" as well as languages from suroundings countries, like vietnam, or
korea. I know those languages are not really relatd to each ohter, but i think
the interaction between them is really interesting. Take japanese and chinese,
for example. Of course they are radicaly different, but what would japanese be
without the influence of the chinese writting system and vocabular. Ok, let's
stop it for now, I will have plenty of time to talk about asian languages with
you...

I just realize that i forgot the beginning : I am french, and I attend a
computer science engineering school. I can speak french (mother language),
Englsih (not perfect, but good enough), german (I forgot much because I don't
use it), japanese (for daily life), and mandarin chinese (beginner). Now I took
a year off from my french university, and I am in china (shanghai) to study
chinese language.

I just have one question now. I know you guys often use some phonetic notation
to describe you languages, but I don't understand it, can anybody give me an
explanation on it?

Thank you, and see you soon

Florian

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