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Quirky things in old language materials | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| FuroraCeltica Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6865 days ago 1187 posts - 1427 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, French | Message 9 of 41 05 January 2012 at 6:22pm | IP Logged | ||
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I remember coming across a self taught Russian course from 1943, which still had some of the old cyrillic letters from the pre-revolutionary period "In case you are reading some books published before then".
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| fiziwig Senior Member United States Joined 4865 days ago 297 posts - 618 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 10 of 41 05 January 2012 at 7:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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One reading exercise in an old Spanish textbook I have includes a dialog where one of the speakers is very excited to visit her friends house because her friend has electric lights in every room of the house and a coal-burning furnace in the basement. (She replies sadly, "Nosotros no tenemos luz eléctrica en nuestra casa.")
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| FuroraCeltica Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6865 days ago 1187 posts - 1427 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French | Message 11 of 41 05 January 2012 at 7:42pm | IP Logged | ||
I am sure in one of the old Assimil advanced Dutch there is a comment like "Did you know most houses in Belgium now even have their own refridgerator?!" 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6470 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 12 of 41 05 January 2012 at 7:53pm | IP Logged | ||
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A friend of mine has a Chinese textbook teaching the phrase "I am learning Chinese in
order to support Chinese Communism". 8 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6909 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 13 of 41 05 January 2012 at 8:20pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have a nice little German phrase book from 1885 (with the old th-spelling) and while the phrases are well thought out grammatically, I find some of the examples quite funny.
-Dieser Rinderbraten schmeckt mir nicht. Er ist nicht nach schwedischer Manier zubereitet. Bitte, bereiten Sie mein Beefsteak nach schwedischer Manier zu; die deutsche Küche schmeckt mir nicht. Sie sehen nicht wohl aus. Ihr Herr Onkel sieht wie ein Engländer aus. -Es thut mir leid, mein Herr, aber ich kann sie Ihnen wirklich nicht billiger lassen. -Dann muss ich die Waren anderswo kaufen. Ich kann sie zu diesem Preise nicht brauchen. Maybe not historically quirky, but a bit unrealistic for a beginner to get away with during a stay in Germany. Didn't Splog mention an old Czech textbook in one of the videos? 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6783 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 14 of 41 05 January 2012 at 8:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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Not from a language course but this topic reminds me of one thing I love to see, namely
in books from say 1920 the word "wireless" doesn't mean... you know.. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Aquiana Newbie United States Joined 4709 days ago 6 posts - 8 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin | Message 15 of 41 05 January 2012 at 9:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have a Spanish reader that has a part about inkwells...*whatever that is...*
Sarcasm aside, I have encountered passages that talk about the "6" continents and one-room school houses. I have a really good one that has some interesting passages about the USSR. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5453 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 16 of 41 05 January 2012 at 9:32pm | IP Logged | ||
I have an old Teach Yourself German where "wireless" is used in that old way. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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