Pt, Fr, Ar, En, Ch: Do YOU know what on earth this is about? On this forum, we occasionally see language-partner requests using these supposed abbreviations. (They seem to think Ch is “China”, but I’m

Phil｜Accent Trainer

Professional Teacher

Pt, Fr, Ar, En, Ch: Do YOU know what on earth this is about?

On this forum, we occasionally see language-partner requests using these supposed abbreviations. (They seem to think Ch is “China”, but I’m pretty sure it’s really Switzerland. “China” is Zh, isn’t it?) If someone can’t even take the time to write out the name of your language in full, just how motivated are they to study and learn a language?

How do you feel about these abbreviations? Do you use them yourself? In what context?

Jun 6, 2020 6:06 PM

Comments · 8

No, but they might put you at a disadvantage if you happened to be looking for an ARabic-SErbian exchange, for example....

June 6, 2020

EN = EN greater London postcode ENFIELD

CH = Chelmsford ESSEX England inner code for the larger outer East Midlands REGION

AR = Arizona America

FR = France second level domain

PT = POST TRAUMATIC STRESS.

which is what I have after just completing three days of spellchecking and typo removals from a website and data base of postcodes.

June 6, 2020

I can't be certain, but I believe some of these abbreviation are from file names, keyboard software, etc. I know that software that comes in multiple languages often have files and folders with two-letter abbreviations in their names (e.g. "launcher-en," "launcher-fr," etc.). I remember, prior to Windows 10, that installed Windows keyboards had two-letter abbreviations for the active language. One look at the lower right taskbar was all I needed to see if it was the EN or CH keyboard I had active.

June 6, 2020

All they are actually asking for is - is there anybody in these geographical zones or that geographical zone that wants to be my language parter. Unless the peoples in the particular zone in question are still living as they were over five hundred years ago, those zones are going to be full of a modern international global mix up different speakers, from anywhere in the world.

I agree it does not take more than a few seconds to type out the country and the language that is being referred to.

EXAMPLE:

Switzerland as a small geographical zone or country the speakers there,I believe speak maybe three or four languages.

And EN could be many things including the code to tell your browser and google what language to use and what country to display your website in, including the associated spellcheckers, grammar checkers and dictionaries.

It goes at the top of the page.

*tml* lang="en"

...

html

Language ISO Code Abkhazian - ab

Language ISO Code Afar - aa

Language ISO Code Akan - ak

Language ISO Code Arabic - ar

Language ISO Code Amharic - am

Language ISO Code Albanian - sq

Country codes for different grammar is a little different

American us = US