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Tarvos - TAC 2015 Pushkin/Scan | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5326 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 345 of 1511 17 November 2012 at 11:51am | IP Logged |
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Damn, your Swedish is good. I understand everything you write, which is quite impressive considering you
have only studied it for a short while. I see you are making major progress in Russian too - I think we might have to make you Captain of team Sputnik! Your French is also great, and you are even doing Breton. My hat is at your feet ! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4699 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 346 of 1511 17 November 2012 at 9:54pm | IP Logged |
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You can be captain, I have no ambitions in that direction, haha...
But thanks for stopping by! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Hekje Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4695 days ago 842 posts - 1330 votes Speaks: English*, Dutch Studies: French, Indonesian | Message 347 of 1511 17 November 2012 at 9:59pm | IP Logged |
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Thank God I remember enough French from my school days to be able to read your Breton
entries. They're fascinating! Good luck with your studies. :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4699 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 348 of 1511 17 November 2012 at 11:08pm | IP Logged |
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Le Breton sans peine (until lesson 16)
Doing part of the update in English, also to describe a few more Assimil-related things pertaining to the course as opposed to some grammar notes (which will follow later, for all of those people who have been waiting for hours in the Northern European cold for hours just hitting the refresh button for my update). Concerning Assimil the first two weeks really were all about introducing the learner gently into the language, for the most part discussing topics that are inherently related to any discussion about Brittany - the sea, pancakes, fish, tourism, and for some reason feeding the cat (they did mention the amount of houses bought by English and Dutch people in the area - which seems to be corroborated by my local bookstore owner who has clearly been to Brittany and has described it to me as "time having stood still" - which in many cases is not far off the mark, when I take into account my own travels to Landerneau and Le Conquêt. They have also gently eased us into some of the more outlandish things concerning Breton: its tendency to mutate (and switch voiceless/voiced consonants around seemingly at will), its interesting word order (emphasis first) and its tendency to conjugate a lot of verbs using modal auxiliaries rather than just tacking on a number/person suffix. You can actually do that in other circumstances, but it depends on how you are phrasing the sentence, and often the verb is most important - in which case you're using the infinitive + auxiliary with "to do". And furthermore there's the vocabulary, which can be either entirely outlandish: kousket for "to sleep", but sometimes astonishingly familiar: levr for "book" (think French livre). However, one thing that is conspicuously lacking from the earlier lessons is most of the humour that Assimil typically comes up with (no, the joke about the milk being for the cat is not funny), and only in lesson 16 have we got our first zinger ("But what does he paint?" "Oh, you know, just the sea and boats... the usual".) This is a bummer, but perhaps it's also because Breton really is outlandish for a while, and I don't feel like I have yet internalised many of the grammatical quirks and nuances that have been thrown my way. I suppose the active wave will have to consolidate that for me, and my understanding upon reading is not bad - and my listening is a skill that's getting fairly honed, but the active wave seems to be really necessary to retain any sort of grammar. Why Breton Grammar Is Not Hard - And Why You Should Not Be Scared of the Celts Now I have to say that Breton grammar is not as scary as it looks. There are a fair few verb conjugations, and you do have to know them - but most verbs in the present tense just require you to conjugate "ober" + infinitive (and know the particle you have to use, which is a with to do and o with to be). These verb conjugations are scary in number but not in conjugation, because thankfully Breton is really regular and only has five irregular verbs - of which one verb is completely regular apart from having a stem differing from the infinitive. Only two verbs really cause problems in this regard. Furthermore there are no cases, funky agreements with adjectives only apply to mutations (which are regular and can be learned - they're not different from knowing masc/feminine in, say, French) and the one thing that can be particularly hard to get used to is that prepositions often contract, not just with the article (er = e + ar) but also conjugate for person/number. An example is warni, meaning "on-her". War is a preposition which always means on - on the chair, on the sea, on the lake, on the roof, etc. but it matters if you want to refer to something without naming it directly, so you thunk the "elle" onto the preposition. In the same way we have ac'hanoc'h, which is a conjugation of "a" (de in French, approximately) for the plural you (or polite you), the vous-form basically. In other words, there are a fair amount of reasons why Breton is not super-hard. Most verbs are refreshingly regular, vocabulary construction is fairly logical with a few loans, words do not concatenate endlessly, prepositions are always used very logically, the orthography is quite regular (and at least much more predictable than English or French), and the stress is pretty much always on the penultimate syllable. Even though Breton does retain a few quirks that are quite "different" from how we express them in Standard Average European, and these quirks take time to getting used to - which is why you can't rush through Breton as quickly as you could while learning Italian, Swedish, or Dutch - there is no reason to make it any more scary than it is. The only problem you might have is to encounter native speakers of Breton (who, while rare, do exist). And the materials that you will want to access are in French, mostly (what else), and that is what I am using (to keep up my French as well), but for those who speak no French you might want to try Colloquial Breton instead (it exists!) and I believe there is even a course for Welsh speakers, although I do not speak any Welsh. Come in, dive in, the water's cold but refreshing. Edited by tarvos on 17 November 2012 at 11:10pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4699 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 349 of 1511 18 November 2012 at 10:04pm | IP Logged |
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Today I have not done much language study, much preferring to concentrate on some
university assignments instead having to do with totally different things, like nanoparticle technology and molecular thermodynamics, and the latter of which I will continue with studying (the assignments thankfully having been finished but one of them needing scanning) most likely after posting this entry, although I might do some bedtime reading of a French translation of some Agatha Christie stories that my friend from French class has lent me (remind me to finish it before Thursday so I can return the book). FR: Malgré cette interruption nécessaire, j'ai étudie ma leçon quotidienne, et comme hier j'ai pas vraiment écrit un petit pièce grammaticale sur le breton, je continuerai avec un morceau de la structure verbale de la langue bretonne ci-dessous (car les nouveaux mots d'aujourd'hui étaient juste sept). Le Breton sans peine (jusqu'à la dix-septième leçon) La dix-septième leçon d'Assimil parle pratiquement seulement des verbes et leur conjugaison (il y a sept nouveaux mots en tout), et les autres leçons parlaient des mutations, mais je les décrirai plus tard; d'abord je veux vraiment insister sur le sujet de syntaxe. J'ai déjà écrit ici qu'en breton, ce qui est le plus important commence toujours la phrase, et cette phénomène entraîne des conséquences pour la structure des verbes en breton. Donc ce qu'on dit en breton est toujours lié au fait stressé: alors il est absolument important de savoir si le sujet est exprimé ou non. Si le sujet est exprimé (n'importe qu'il vient en tête ou non), le verbe ne porte jamais une marque de conjugaison. Donc, si je veux dire "Anne travaille à Brest aujourd'hui" normalement la phrase neutre sera: Labourat a ra Naig e Brest hiziv. Cette phrase insiste sur le travailler qui est important, et c'est ça qu'on stresse normalement. Si on n'a pas besoin d'exprimer Anne dans une façon explicite, on rendra le phrase comme ci-dessous Labourat a ra e Brest hiziv (infinitif vient également en tête, le sujet n'est pas exprimé mais c'est à la marque du verbe (qui porte une conjugaison identique au infinitif) qu'on reconnait que nous parlons de Anne ici). Mais voici le truc: si le sujet vient en tête, la verbe ne se conjugue pas du tout! Donc si je veux insister sur le fait que c'est Anne qui travaille (et non quelqu'un d'autre), je rends le phrase comme: Naig a labour e Brest hiziv (Sujet en tête, nous avons également la particule verbale habituelle, qui est "a", et la verbe est dans la forme du troisième personne du singulier). Veuillez noter que c'est absolument une coïncidence que j'ai choisi Anne qui vient en tête ici ; je pourrais également exprimer la phrase "Je travaille à Brest aujourd'hui) et ça devient la suivante: Me a labour e Brest hiziv. La verbe porte encore la marque du troisième personne du singulier. Le sujet est exprimé. Il va sans dire que c'est un besoin qui ne convient pas souvent, car normalement on insiste sur le verbe, ou sur un autre fait, et donc pour la verbe on utilise la construction avec "ober" ou, si on insiste sur autre chose, on utilise la forme du verbe a la troisième personne avec "a". Veuillez noter aussi que je peux également stresser un autre fait: Hiziv e labour Naig e Brest insiste sur le fait qu'elle travaille aujourd'hui (et non demain, le lundi, samedi prochaine, etc.). La même idée s'impose si on veut insister sur la place (E Brest e labour Naig hiziv). (Car il ne s'agit pas d'un sujet, ou un COD, ou un complement anticipé, la particule est "e" ici) Si on veut rendre cette phrase à un autre temps, c'est possible car le verbe porte toujours la marque du temps, même quand la marque de la personne ne convient pas. Et maintenant j'aimerais parler des mutations: j'ai encore vu que ce n'est pas seulement les lettres k, b et m qui mutent après une article - t et g le font également. Il est utile de savoir que t devient d et g devient c'h (prononcé comme le c'h régulier, mais voisée). Ainsi la leçon a manqué de noter que les verbes peuvent ainsi se transformer - après la particule verbale "a" une mutation s'impose aussi, et k devient encore g (donc Naig a gomz brezhoneg, et ne pas komz). En concernant la grammaire, je voudrais noter ici que les prépositions peuvent également se conjuguer, et donc peuvent porter une marque de personne si le nom que la préposition modifie n'est pas exprimé (l'exemple déjà donnée c'est warni, "sur-elle", et war c'est la proposition signifiant "sur" quelque chose). Le coup de grâce c'est que je voudrais vous informer que le mot "mignon" existe en breton aussi - mais en breton ça veut dire "ami, copain"! Donc attention à ne pas confondre les deux! Et une banque est tout simplement un ti-bank (maison-banque). Oh, et Naig est la forme habituelle de Annaig (Anne), mais c'est Naig tout court. Autres noms ont une forme bretonne aussi, comme Yves (Erwan), Alain (Alan), etc. Edited by tarvos on 18 November 2012 at 10:39pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4699 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 350 of 1511 20 November 2012 at 11:47pm | IP Logged |
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Today's free time was mostly spent on uni things, being anxious, and other unpleasant
states of mind. I therefore have managed (just about, I was planning on skipping it actually but I didn't want to break my chain of 19 consecutive days) to finish today's Breton lesson, although how much is sticking of both the vocab and the grammar is at best debatable; at least I recognise a lot in writing, I guess. I have also taken to doing the translation exercises without the book. I just play the sentence once and then translate to French (I hit pause after every sentence). Just for fun, I am going to write some sentences in Breton now (forgive my grammar) and I hope you will all find it very instructive. (By the way, there are a few more mutations for feminine words: gw goes to w, and p becomes b). BR: Plijout a ra din debriñ bara ha evañ gwin ruz. Plijus eo ar c'hig er yenerez ivez. Debriñ a ra kig ha bara bemdez, met ne evan ket gwin bemdez. J'aime manger du pain et boire du vin rouge. La viande au réfrigérateur est bonne aussi. Je mange du pain et de la viande tous les jours, mais je ne bois pas du vin tous les jours. Komz a ran galleg ha un tamm bihan brezhoneg. Komz a rit brezhoneg ivez? Emañ ar c'helenner o chom e Breizh. Met ne sellan ket ouzh ar c'helenner. Lenn a ran ul levr mat ha bras. Je parle français et un petit peu breton. Parlez-vous breton aussi? Le professeur habite en Bretagne. Mais je ne vois pas le professeur. Je lis un bon et grand livre. ---- I have not done any systematic study of other languages, although I found out that you use à with a refrigerator in French (how did I not know that?) and that I have as usual spoken a lot of Russian on VK. My Twitter is now set to Swedish and Chrome and Gmail have been set to French for a long while. Edited by tarvos on 22 November 2012 at 12:19pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4699 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 351 of 1511 21 November 2012 at 3:51pm | IP Logged |
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Just a short list of Breton loans (from French) for you today as a curiosity item
(these are words I have seen off the top of my head, there's no rhyme or reason to them; fourchetez - fourchette asied - assiette levr - livre malizenn - valise bilhed - billet kafe - café aerborzh - aéroport laezh - lait (don't know if this is a loan or not, but it sure is pronounced like a loan with modified Breton orthography). There are a bunch more but I do not remember them right now. I'll add to them once I get home. I do not count words like breur (frère) because these are close for all Indo- European languages, or words that are similar to Latin and do have a cognate (labourat, travailler). Note also, that some of these words seem to be spelled differently, but this is due to a curiosity of the Breton orthography. At a word's end, stops are devoiced (thus asied is pronounced asiet, just like in French assiette). Note also that not all voicings/devoicings are noted in the orthography: if I say mat eo ar c'hig, then this is pronounced Mad-e(w) ar c'hig. (the e induces a voicing). Some words like articles always invoke a mutation in spelling in certain cases (usually feminine singular words. They also exist in the plural afaik but I don't know the exact rule). I believe for feminine words in the singular, the mutations are such: k --> g m --> v b --> v p --> b t --> d gw --> w (the g just disappears for some reason) g --> c'h (voiced c'h) k --> c'h (voiceless) after an article if the word is masculine - words after an article in the singular thus never start with a k, since they always mutate. This is called the 1st mutation, also known as the "mutation adoucissante", or a softening mutation (with the exception of k --> c'h, which is an exception that you could term as the 0th mutation). The verbal particule a also invokes this mutation on verbs. NOTE: these loans are assigned a gender according to BRETON rules, and mutate according to BRETON rules. Thus kafe (which is masculine) does mutate, even though it is not technically of Breton origin. Edited by tarvos on 21 November 2012 at 4:00pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4699 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 352 of 1511 23 November 2012 at 12:56pm | IP Logged |
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After a very language-productive Thursday, which was more preferably spent doing other
things than writing about it here on HTLAL in some organized, semi-uncluttered fashion, I will instead post a review of the past few days here instead, focusing mostly on the languages I did use. FR: D'abord, j'ai lu des petits nouvelles écrites par Agatha Christie sur le fameux détective Hercule Poirot. C'était amusant mais j'en ai assez des romans policiers pour les mois prochaines et donc j'ai fini le livre, je l'ai rendu à sa propriétaire et je n'y ai plus pensé. En plus, je suis allé au classe et j'ai bavardé sans cesse (c'est que je fais, je sais pas pourquoi, mais bien, c'est la vie hein?) Et bon ma écrit m'a fait penser - la structure la plus difficile à comprendre, pour moi, c'est le genre des noms. Il faudrait que je fais un essai réel afin de vraiment utiliser les genres correctement. Eh bien ça prend aussi trop de temps, donc j'ai vraiment pas hâte. Ça viendra. РУ Насчет русского языка, я получил журнал <<наука и жизнь>>. Я постарался прочитать одну или две статьи, но мне было сложно - однако, я буду продолжать. Я также разговаривал с русскими по Интернету, с помощью программой Верблинг. Это было неплохо - мне сказали, что у меня хорошее произношение и что, я почти не делаю ошибки. Конечно, я совершенно не верю в это, но если они так говорят... может быть, они правы. FR: Et puis j'ai étudié le breton, et j'ai inventé un nouveau méthode pour faire l'exercice de traduction (c'est la première chaque leçon). Mais ça devra attendre car je dois partir maintenant. Edited by tarvos on 23 November 2012 at 7:07pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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