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Josquin’s Language Symphony (RU, IR, 東亜) | ||
Tags: Gaelic (Scottish) | Gaelic (Irish) | Icelandic | Portuguese | Multilingual | Total Annihilation Challenge (TAC) | Italian | Japanese | Russian | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4695 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 409 of 646 01 May 2013 at 11:29pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Nobody would understand a Frisian fisherman. Frisian is a separate language and is
taught in schools as a separate language - it's more closely related to English than to Dutch, genetically speaking (substratum influences both ways have ensured that some mutual intelligibility with Dutch exists). If a Brabantian farmer talks to me, I will definitely understand (not least because I grew up listening to the thing), but I can't speak it back. This is the case for most dialects if they're not too obscure or weird (Low Saxon dialects, Limbourg dialects, strange local Belgian dialects like in West Flanders...). But Frisian is a whole different kettle of fish and it's so different that them lot have their own rights, languages. It's an official language of the country, and every Frisian has the right to conduct all official business in Frisian (given they are in Frisia). One member of parliament took the national oath (swearing fealty to our new king) in Frisian. People are still wondering whether that is legal but she did anyway. Note that Frisians have some of the strongest Dutch accents. Almost all of them are bilingual. Note also that this is West Frisian (Westlauwers Fries), related to your German Saterland Frisian and such. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5044 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 410 of 646 02 May 2013 at 12:03am | IP Logged | |||||
Спасибо! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4832 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 411 of 646 02 May 2013 at 12:02pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Yeah, I know Frisian is a language on its own. I even watched Prof. Arguelles's introductory video for Frisian. I rather thought of a Frisian fisherman speaking Dutch with a Frisian accent. Sorry for not expressing myself clearly enough.
I'm quite good at imitating German accents, so I might try talking back to a Saxon or a Bavarian, but I'd be lost if they spoke real dialect. Especially Low German (which actually is a language, not a dialect) and Swiss-German are extremely difficult. I myself speak High German with a little Westphalian accent now and then, but it only shows when I'm talking to people from my home region. But let me get back to Dutch: I don't really have any experience talking Dutch to real people, but at least listening to the TV is really easy, sometimes easier than listening to Swedish. In my home region, there used to be a lot of Dutch tourists and they were quite easy to understand, too. Well, I think it's no wonder if you take into account how closely related Dutch and German are. And we Germans have the advantage that Dutch morphology is less complex than our own. That makes understanding a bit easier as well. Of course, you have to learn some Dutch vocabulary, but a lot of words can be derived from Low German, English, or French. @Марк: Не за что. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4695 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 412 of 646 02 May 2013 at 12:32pm | IP Logged | |||||
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A Frisian fisherman speaking Frisian with a Dutch accent would sound funny in any case,
Frisian accents sound hilarious to my ears. The only thing is that if they do then the Dutch is bound to be very standardized because of the languages being so different (so you can't mix as easily as you would with some dialect). It's ok, no offense taken. Frisian is a minority language, and it's pretty much the least densely populated area of the country. Some Frisians also just speak Dutch at home. My first name derives from Frisian, actually (it's not a Dutch name). The Frisians have quite a strong identity and there are many things we would consider very typical of Frisia (cows, lakes, speed skating, some sports particular to the area). They've got the reputation of being stubborn Nordic types (blonde, usually). I'm not Frisian (my heritage is southern) but everyone likes Frisians. The funniest thing about that accent is the vowel changes and the extremely dark l they have. Haha, I can imitate a few accents, but it would sound patronising if I spoke them back I guess. I might be able to get away with a light Brabantian accent). The tourists, did they speak Dutch, or did they speak some kind of Dutch/German hybrid? For the people here who have forgotten their school German (all of us learn German pretty much), what they generally do is Germanify their Dutch rather than speak German proper (nowadays people might even resort to English, although that would be frowned upon a bit as being like "what? did you pay no attention in class at all?"). My mother grew up watching German television and she understood most of it without ever having taken German at school. She eventually took German and learned the grammar. Nowadays she doesn't speak German but she will understand very well if *you* do. This is the case for most Dutch people - the language, contextual clues and such give it all away. Only a select few learn to speak fluently (those with partners, wives, experience living in German-speaking areas...). Germans that live here vice versa also tend to learn Dutch, but retain their German accent. I think mutually intelligibility actually exists to quite a big point; many of my uncles who didn't have much academic credentials can simply speak/bumble along in German and make it out what people are saying without a huge effort. It's all contextual clues that they use. Their responses won't sound proper, a bit Tarzanish, but unless you have a good reason to speak German properly, this bumbling is the default state. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4832 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 413 of 646 02 May 2013 at 9:16pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Well, it seems the status of Frisian is somewhat comparable to that of Low German. Native speakers of Low German had to learn High German in school as a second language. When they did this, they ended up pronouncing the language as it was written, while Southern Germans would speak it with the accent of their dialect. So, in the end, the originally Low German regions became the regions with the best, accent-free High German (especially Hannover), while the other regions kept on using their local accents. It's too late for Low German now, because I think it will become extinct sooner or later, but I hope the Frisians cultivate their language better.
The Dutch tourists mostly spoke some German, but it was not always sufficient for communication, so one often had to speak some kind of Dutch-German hodgepodge. But even when they spoke Dutch, one could mostly understand what they wanted. When I grew older, I could often resort to English, but many older people in my hometown (including my parents) didn't know any English at all, so they would continue using this pidgin. The comparison to Tarzanish is not inappropriate at all. Of course, clever businessmen and hoteliers realized that they could acquire customers by learning Dutch, but most Germans don't know any proper Dutch at all. Some even see it as some kind of German dialect because of the mutual intelligibility, but that's of course pure chauvinism. Nevertheless, the Westphalian dialect of my home region is phonetically already quite close to Dutch, because it's a sub-dialect of Low German. So people say "dat" instead of "das" and "et" instead of "es". Of course, there are still many differences compared to Dutch, but it's closer to it than High German. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4695 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 414 of 646 02 May 2013 at 9:47pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Frisian is stable, it's so different and it's taught separately in schools. I don't think
the amount of speakers really varies. I know very few people sit the central exams, and I'm not sure whether the youth speaks Frisian much. You'd have to ask a genuine Frisian about that. The east of thе country also speak Low Saxon dialects. When they speak that it's incomprehensible gibberish to me, but in the old situation before the dominance of standard Dutch, it meant borders were pointless because the dialects formed a continuum of course. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4832 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 415 of 646 04 May 2013 at 5:18pm | IP Logged | |||||
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SATURDAY, 04 MAY 2013
Summary for April and plans for May April has been a mediocre month. I was busy with other projects and life in general, so I didn't study as much as I probably should have. I'm participating in the May 6 Weeks Challenge, so I'll concentrate more on my languages again. Generally speaking, my focus has shifted from Russian and Gaelic to Japanese, which also is my target language during the 6WC. РУССКИЙ I'm not very satisfied with my Russian studies at the moment. On the one hand, I have finished the third text in Ну что, поехали? and am now working on the fourth one. I also wrote a text on lang-8, which wasn't that bad, and I'm doing my Anki reviews and a bit of Russian Podcast from time to time. On the other hand, I have the feeling I should be doing more in order not to only keep my level in Russian but to improve it. Goals for May: Work through at least two texts from my bilingual reader, keep track of Anki reviews, write another two texts on lang-8, and go on with Russian Podcast. GÀIDHLIG I'm currently working on unit 19 of Lehrbuch der schottisch-gälischen Sprache. This means I worked through seven units in April, which is really good. Although grammar is getting a bit more complicated now (irregular verbs) and vocabulary doesn't stick so well any more, I hope I can go on at this speed. When I reach unit 20 I will only have worked through the first half of the book, for it continues up to unit 40. Anyway, I'm mostly aming for passive understanding of Scottish Gaelic, and although I'm on Clan Lugus it's not that important to me at the moment. Goals for May: Work through another six units in the Lehrbuch and review old vocabulary. ÍSLENSKA I'm not doing a lot in Icelandic right now. I read a bit in Introduction to Old Norse once in a while, but that's it. I even returned my copy of Praktisches Lehrbuch Isländisch to the library, because I won't be working on my active skills during the next time anyway. I have an intermediate level in the language, and I'm quite satisfied with it. Goals for May: Read something in Icelandic or Old Norse. 日本語 This is my target language for the 6WC and my newest language-love. I have almost finished unit 4 in Colloquial Japanese (I still have to review some katakana) and already had a look at unit 5. Japanese is foreign and exotic, but that makes it only more interesting. In addition to Colloquial Japanese, I borrowed some books about Japanese language and culture from the library, including Heisig's Remembering the Kanji and Hadamitzky's Japanese Kanji and Kana. I must say I'm not really a fan of Heisig, because the stories he makes up in order to explain some kanji are not really that helpful. I prefer Hadamitzky's more classical approach. Moreover, the Hadamitzky is more comprehensive as it also covers kun- and on-readings, compounds, and stroke order all of which are not covered by Heisig. I have also thought about getting an additional textbook, in order to supplement Colloquial, maybe Assimil, Genki, or Minna no Nihongo. We'll see. Goals for May: Study as much Japanese as possible! Go on with Colloquial Japanese, practise kanji and kana, maybe write something on lang-8 if possible. OTHER LANGUAGES Apart from English, I'm not working on other languages right now. I'll listen to some French, Italian, Swedish, or Faroese music, of course, but that's it. I discovered that The Hobbit DVD came with a French soundtrack, so I'll probably watch it in French once again. Other than that, I will continue watching films and series in English, as I have got to hate dubbed films. Perhaps, I'll do some Faroese when I'm up for it, but otherwise I'll concentrate on my target languages. Goals for May: None except trying to use languages as often as possible. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4695 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 416 of 646 04 May 2013 at 9:49pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Hei Josquin, ég er nu að læra islensku. Það er gaman!
In my experience the only way to really improve any language (that you can't just pick up a book and read for) is to do it so much that you get to that latter stage. I could probably drop Russian for a week and I wouldn't forget that much right now, but if I drop, say, Breton or Romanian, then that will take its toll. I watched the Hobbit in the French dub (there's also a German dub with subtitles for the hearing impaired). It's a good dub actually, although the subtitles don't match up with the audio for some inscrutable reason! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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