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Alphathon’s G&G log: Gaelic & German | ||
Tags: Gaelic (Scottish) | German | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6901 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 33 of 44 13 April 2015 at 1:08am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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To my ears it sounds as if you had said "Nothing (from the Hobbit) have I read" in English. I suppose it would work in poetry and possibly in older texts. While German word order is somewhat different from English (and perhaps more archaic?), it doesn't mean that you can put any word first in a sentence. There must be other ways to emphasize nichts.
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| daegga Tetraglot Senior Member Austria lang-8.com/553301 Joined 4513 days ago 1076 posts - 1792 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, Norwegian Studies: Danish, French, Finnish, Icelandic | Message 34 of 44 13 April 2015 at 1:37am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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"Nichts habe ich gelesen" would work as an answer to "Wie viel hast du von "der kleine
Hobbit" gelesen?" This could be phrased as a rhetorical question for emphasis: Und ratet mal wie viel ich von "der kleine Hobbit" gelesen habe. Nichts habe ich gelesen. But on its own, it doesn't make much sense in terms of information structure. Putting stuff other than the subject in the first position for emphasis needs some discourse to be placed in (this could also be extra-linguistic like situational knowledge in a conversation). You simply don't start a discourse about a not yet established topic with a marked word order. Edited by daegga on 13 April 2015 at 1:42am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Alphathon Groupie Scotland Joined 4172 days ago 60 posts - 104 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Scottish Gaelic | Message 35 of 44 13 April 2015 at 5:00pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
From what I’ve read the only thing that can’t be moved is the verb. To quote from the afore mentioned dartmouth.edu page on word order: “But the speaker always has the option of emphasizing some other element of the sentence (except for the verb) by putting it in the first position.” That of course doesn’t necessarily mean that anything can be moved under any circumstances, I just don’t know what those “rules” are yet.
Probably, but other than bolding it or something I don’t know how. I’m trying to figure out what works linguistically and how to emphasise things in German using the structures of the language (rather than merely typography). I haven’t yet developed a sense of what is idiomatic vs. merely grammatically correct (which is part of the reason for doing this). Clearly what I tried didn’t work this time for whatever reason.
This sentence “Putting stuff other than the subject in the first position for emphasis needs some discourse to be placed in (this could also be extra-linguistic like situational knowledge in a conversation).” went right over my head, and I’m not sure I understand what you mean. Are you saying that the problem is as much or more the context (or lack thereof) than the actual sentence? What about the other times I’ve used that type of word order, such as the second half of that sentence … , und keine Dokus habe ich angesehen? Is that also wrong for the same reason? What about when I’ve mentioned the item in the first position earlier in the log, such as Aus „Speaking Our Language“ habe ich gelernt,…, which followed a mention of Speaking Our Language in the previous paragraph? Is that OK? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| daegga Tetraglot Senior Member Austria lang-8.com/553301 Joined 4513 days ago 1076 posts - 1792 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, Norwegian Studies: Danish, French, Finnish, Icelandic | Message 36 of 44 13 April 2015 at 9:01pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
It's pragmatics, not syntax to put it that way. So yes, the lack of context is the problem, but it's not merely the context, other pragmatic constraints have to be fulfilled too. It's hard to explain and not a hard science I'm afraid. German doesn't have a free word order in the senses that you can swap constituents and get exactly the same meaning.
Yes to both questions. "keine Dokus..." is the same problem. "Aus „Speaking Our Language“ habe ich gelernt,…" on the other hand is used to distinguish between two previously mentioned entities, so here you did it as expected. edit: For first constituent placement you might want to compare with cleft sentence constructions in English. "It's nothing I've read in "the Hobbit"." You wouldn't say that, would you? But in some situations, you could say: It's about little humanoids I've read in "the Hobbit". But you wouldn't say that on its own. Edited by daegga on 13 April 2015 at 9:10pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Alphathon Groupie Scotland Joined 4172 days ago 60 posts - 104 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Scottish Gaelic | Message 37 of 44 13 April 2015 at 9:47pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
OK. I suppose I’ll just have to play it by ear and hope for the best (and corrections!)
That’s good to know and is at least a good start.
Actually, the first one may be OK too, although off the top of my head I can’t think under what circumstances it would be used. Certainly, the negative version, i.e. “It's nothing I haven’t read in the Hobbit.”, is fine and would basically be used as an alternative way to say “I’ve read it before in the Hobbit, so it isn’t new to me/I’ve come across it before.”, albeit in a bit of a literary or posh sounding way. That said, I don’t think it takes away from your point (and may in fact enhance it). P.S. You may already be aware of this but in English we generally alternate between double- and single-quotes to indicate nested quotes, i.e. quotes within quotes. E.g. He said “I have read ‘the Hobbit’.” See Wikipedia. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| daegga Tetraglot Senior Member Austria lang-8.com/553301 Joined 4513 days ago 1076 posts - 1792 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, Norwegian Studies: Danish, French, Finnish, Icelandic | Message 38 of 44 14 April 2015 at 12:00am | IP Logged | ||||||||
This would be fine in German too, usually slightly abbreviated in colloquial speech: Nichts, was ich nicht schon in der Hobbit gelesen hätte. ("Nothing I haven’t read in the Hobbit.”) But again, you need something to refer to. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Alphathon Groupie Scotland Joined 4172 days ago 60 posts - 104 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Scottish Gaelic | Message 39 of 44 18 April 2015 at 6:01pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Log № 5
Deutsch Deutsch   
Ich habe in diese Woche mehr als in die letzte Woche getan, aber ich denke, ich noch nicht genug getan habe. Ich habe zwei Artikel gelesen. Der erste ist über Terrorvögel: riesige Laufvögel, die in Südamerika bis etwa 18.000 Jahre vor gelebt haben. Der zweite ist über die Magnetfelder in der nahe der Ereignishorizonte Schwarze Löchers. Forscher haben mit ALMA die Plasmajets einer Schwarzer Loch beobachten, und die Polarisation ihres Lichts gemessen. Mit die Informationen haben sie die Stärke eines Magnetfelds berechnet, des sehr nahe den Ereignishorizont ist. Ich habe auch die Doku Große Völker: Die Griechen angesehen. Ich müsste die in zwei Teilen anschauen, da ich mich die erste Zeit nicht konzentrieren könnte. Leider habe ich nur bei ein halb Kapitel „Der kleine Hobbit“ gelesen, obwohl es ein Bisschen länger als die vorherige Kapitel ist. Schottisch-Gälisch 
Ich habe wieder mehr Schottisch-Gälisch als Deutsch getan: Ich habe zwei Folgen „Speaking Our Language“ angesehen, und ein Kapitel „Scottish Gaelic in Twelve Weeks“ gelesen. Die erste Folge „Speaking Our Language“ hat gelehrt, wie man über seiner Kinder spricht. Leider meistens es habe ich schon gelernt. Aber ich habe gelernt, die Sätze greas ort/greasaibh oirbh (Eil!/Eilen Sie!) und speziellen Ziffern, dass man mit Leute benutzt. Aus die zweite Folge habe ich gelernt, wie man „Wie viel Uhr ist es?“ angefragt (Dè an uair a tha e?), und wie man beantwortet. Auf Schottisch-Gälisch ist es nicht so einfach wie Deutsch oder English. Für Ein Uhr, man sagt uair. Zwei Uhr ist dà uair. Elf Uhr und zwölf Uhr sind aon uair deug und dà uair dheug (≈ ein/zwei Uhr zehn). Die andere Uhren sind wie trì uairean. (Wie Englisch, Schottisch-Gälisch hat zwölf Uhren im Morgen und zwölf im Abend.) Viertel vor zwei ist cairteal gu dhà. Halb drei (2h30) ist leth-uair an dèidh dà uair, das buchstäblich ein halb Stunde nach Zwei Uhr ist. Ich habe auch den Satz Cuin a tha a’ bhùth a’ fosgladh? gelernt, der ist wie man anfragt, an welches Zeit einen Laden geöffnet. Aus „Scottish Gaelic in Twelve Weeks“ habe ich, wie die Vergangenheit und der Imperativ auf Schottisch-Gälisch funktioniert. Ich habe auch ein gutes Wörterbuch gefunden: learngaelic.net/dictionary. Es hat IPA und Audios für viele seiner Einträge, und ich habe ein Firefox Suchen-Plugin dafür gemacht. English German
I have done more this week than last week, but still not as much as I’d like. I read two articles. The first was about terror birds: giant flightless birds which lived in South America until about 18,000 years ago. The Second was about magnetic fields in the vicinity of black holes’ event horizons. Researchers have used ALMA to observe the jets of plasma which are emitted from a particular black hole and measured the polarisation of the light therefrom. Using the data, they have calculated the strength of a magnetic field very close to the black hole’s event horizon. I also watched a documentary, Große Völker: Die Griechen, which was about the ancient Greeks and their enduring contributions to civilisation. Unfortunately I had to watch it in two sittings, because the first time around I simply couldn’t concentrate (which was probably tiredness-related). Unfortunately I only managed to read half a chapter of Der kleine Hobbit, although admittedly this chapter is a little longer than the previous ones. I do seem to be getting faster at reading it, but I just haven’t had the time. Scottish Gaelic
I have once again managed to do more Gaelic than German. I watched two episodes of Speaking Our Language and read through a chapter of Scottish Gaelic in Twelve Weeks. The first episode of Speaking Our Language taught how to talk about one’s children. Unfortunately there was little of it that was new to me. I did however learn the phrases greas ort and greasaibh oirbh, which are the informal and formal/plural versions of hurry up, as well as some special numbers which are used for counting people (in a similar way to pair or couple are used, but for all the numbers between 1 and 10). From the second episode I learnt how to ask what time it is (Dè an uair a tha e?) and how to answer. The way one says what time it is in Gaelic is a little more complicated than in English or German. One o’clock translates as uair. Two o’clock is dà uair. Eleven and twelve o’clock translate as aon uair deug and dà uair dheug respectively (≈ one/two o’clock teen). The other times are of the form trì uairean (three o’clock). Like English, Gaelic seems to primarily use 12-hour clock. Quarter to two (that’s 1:45 for any American readers) is cairteal gu dhà. Half-past two (2:30) is leth-uair an dèidh dà uair, literally half an hour after two o’clock. I also learnt the phrase Cuin a tha a’ bhùth a’ fosgladh?, which translates as When does the shop open?. From Scottish Gaelic in Twelve Weeks I learnt how to form and use the past tense and imperative. Somewhat separate from learning, I have found a reasonable online dictionary at learngaelic.net, which also has sound recordings and IPA transcriptions for many of the words. Unlike Am faclair beag (The little dictionary) which I was using previously, it works in a way that has allowed me build a Firefox search plugin for it, which makes searching it much simpler. P.S. For the next few weeks I may not be able to do very much due to work commitments, so if I don’t post anything that’s probably why. Edited by Alphathon on 18 April 2015 at 6:02pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4680 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 40 of 44 19 April 2015 at 3:19am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Wow! Your posts in German are already looking much better! Quick note on word order again in this first sentence: "Ich habe [in] diese Woche mehr als [in] die letzte Woche getan, aber ich denke, ich habe noch nicht genug getan." See the revised order in the last clause. Another option would be to say "... dass ich noch nicht genug getan habe." Maybe you meant to write that and just left a word out. Also, I don't think that "in diese Woche" is something people ever say. Just dropping the "in" makes it sound much more natural to me. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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