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Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6700 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map
| Message 1801 of 3959 28 April 2010 at 2:51pm | IP Logged |
SP: Mis colegas ciertamente saben lo que es un poliglota, y saben tambien que los idiomas me interesan. Además saben que yo viajo un poco pues pueden ver en nuestros tableros los postales que he mandado a casa de todo el mundo. Pero mi trabajo es un lugar donde las lenguas no importan, y generalmente no hemos contactos con extranjeros. El inglés está presente en la forma de manuales de informatica - es todo.Pero yo no soy el único a haber una vida 'compartimentalizada'. Durante el tiempo donde he hecho musica y pinturas mis colegas sabian tampoco lo que hacia.
Fasulye is not sure that my collegues know what a polyglot is, but I'm confident that they know the word. They also know that I'm interested in languages and that I travel a lot - which is easy to see on the notice boards, which are full of postcards I have sent home. The funny thing about Monday's episode is that they apparently hadn't expected that I actually could talk Spanish. But we are an informatics department, and the only foreign language we normally come into contact with is English (in the form of computer manuals).
Yesterday I worked late on an assignment at my job, and today I have spent most of the evening transferring the content of the latest issue of the magazin of my travel club to our homepage, so I haven't really got much to report right now. But I hope to be able to make up for lost time tomorrow. ¡Hasta la vista!
Edited by Iversen on 28 April 2010 at 2:57pm
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Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6700 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map
| Message 1802 of 3959 28 April 2010 at 9:50pm | IP Logged |
DU: Op dit moment zie ik het laatste deel van een tv-serie in Nederland op Europa haar geschiedenis. Deze avonds is het programma over de oorloog in Bosnië in 1992, en dus geeft 't voornamelijk interviews in de lokale talen, waarvan we weten zij zijn zeer nauw verwant. Maar ik heb niets met mijn anvankelijke studies van het Serbisch gedaan voor een aantal maanden, en ik begrijp dus alleen enkele woorden daarvan. Met de Nederlandse passages heb ik geen problemen.
IT: Prima c'era un programma sulla scoperta di una camerra funeraria con mille morti vicino alle Catacombe di Roma. Il programma è stato in inglese, ma con alcuni interviste in Italiano, altri in francese (perché una parte degli studi tecnici si è svolta presso l'Università di Bordeaux) - purtroppo avevano convinto alcuni dei contribuenti francesi e Italiani a parlare inglese. La prima teoria era quello che erano martiri cristiani, ma non ci sono segni di violenza. E le camere sono vicine alle catacombe, ma non associati ad essi. D'altra parte, c'è tanta uniformità nei riti esegioti per i morti, che questa dev'essere cossiderata come una fossa comune. Dunque si potrebbe pensare piuttosto che si tratti dei morti durante una epidemia. Ma gli studi del DNA nelle goccie di sangue nei denti erano apparentemente incompletati quando il programma è stato registrato.
SW: Dessutom har jag gått igenom de första lektionerna i min gamla Teach Yourself irländska igen - jag kännte at jag behövde en booster detta språk, och det att återgå till sin första lärobok för en tid kan vara ett sätt att stärka sitt fundament. Men jag kommer att göra en liten resa till Sverige och Norge snart, och så skall jag ta med en del nytt material för irländska och för ryska till mina lediga stunder. Jag vil förmodligen försöka att prata lite mer svenskt än förra gången, och jag kommer givetvis att försöka hitta något att läsa på Nynorsk.
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I have watched the last part of a TV series about the history of Europe ... in Dutch. Except that the program followed a journalist who had fled from Banja Luka in Bosnia during the civil war in 1992, and now he returned to discuss with old collegues from different groups. So for most of the time I was listening to the local languages. However my incipient studies of Serbian have been a bit in the background since New Year because I have concentrated on things like Scots and Irish, so I only understood a word here and there. On the other hand I didn't have problems with the Dutch parts.
Speaking about Irish: while watching TV I recapitulated the first lessons of my old Teach Yourself Irish - it can be helpful to recapitulate one's first textbook to reinforce one's foundations. I'll be doing a small trip to Sweden and Norway soon, and then I intend to bring some study materials in Irish and Russian.
I have also seen a TV program about the find of a tomb with 1000 skeletons in Roma, near the Catacombs but not connected to them . The first guess was that the dead were Christian martyrs, but there are no signs of physical violence, so now the theory is that they all died during an epidemy. The program was English, but many of the interviewees spoke Italian or French (some of the technical tests were performed in Bordeaux, and one of the archeologists was French). And it was the archeological service of the Vatican that organized the examination of the place.
Edited by Iversen on 28 April 2010 at 10:23pm
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Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6700 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map
| Message 1803 of 3959 29 April 2010 at 3:30pm | IP Logged |
I'm still at my job, but it is time for a pause. Tomorrow is "Store Bededag" here in Denmark (Big prayer-day, though I have other plans). And therefore everyone has left, and I have the whole office for myself.
This evening I'm going to a meeting in my travel club, where the theme is the three Caucasian countries: Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. And then there is of course a lot of language related things to tell about, though I don't know whether the person who shows his pictures is interested in that aspect. I have not planned to learn any of the languages down there, but I have read several books about Kartuli (Georgian), and while I was there I could also read the letters - this is very practical when you buzz around in Georgian towns.
So today there won't be time for language studies, but I expect to be able to find some free time for language studies the next couple of days.
Edited by Iversen on 29 April 2010 at 3:31pm
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Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6700 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map
| Message 1804 of 3959 01 May 2010 at 8:58am | IP Logged |
SW: Jag sittar nu på centrala järnvägsstationen i Göteborg. Det är lördag och det skulle ha varat ett tåg till Oslo klukkan 8.15 på lördagar, men det är tydligen fortfarande helg här, så det nästa toget är 12:45 som på helg. Men lyckligtvis här stationen ett fint litet internettsted utan musik för endast 19 SKK per. timma. Ock efter det ser jag något musee innan turen går mot Norge.
Jag har köpt tre tidsskrift på Pressbyrån: Science et Vie på fransk (!), Illustrerad Vetenskap och Världens Historia på svensk. I detta sista är det en artikel om Volapük, et kunstsproåk före Esperanto. Uppfinnaren af detta var en pensionerad tysk präst Schleyer, som påstods att tala 60 språk. Det sägs dock att hans kunnskap även i engelskan var begränsade, det sägs att "enligt samtida källor var hn till eksempel övertygad om att även engelskan hade vokaler med omljud. Han argumenterade för att ordet sir skulla stavas sör, för så lät det engelska uttalet. Och i hans tyska öron blev ordet much efter samma mönster till möch". Det förra är väl inte så dummt, det sanare er mera kontroversielt.
Da selveste Gud Herran en sömnlös natt i 1879 beordrade Schleyer att skapa ett nyt världssprog (=vola-pük), kom hans ibland säregna ideer att präga resultatet. Han tyckte till eksempel synd om kinesare og andra som inte kan skelna r og l, så r ersättades generallt av l - så engelsk friend ble till flen på Volapük. Och han var inte alls benägen att lyssna til nogen anden. Trots detta fikk hans kunstspråk i början framgång: vid den 3. volapük-kongress i Paris 1889 fördes alla samtal på volapük, og anhängerne hade dannet 283 sellskab, gav ut 25 tidningar og tidsskrift, og 250.000 personer skönnades att tala språket.
I dag är tallet måske 20 personer. Hvad gikk galt? Ett ord: Esperanto. Zamenhofs språk var mycket enklare, og hann var icke så autokratisk och orubblig som Schleyer. När Schleyer dog i 1912 var hans projekt i praktiken uttplånat.
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I should have travelled from Göteborg to Oslo 8.15, but it seems that today isn't a normal Saturday, so the next train will be at 12.45. Luckily the Central Railwaystation in Göteborg has a nice musicfree internetplace where the machines cost 2 euro for an hour, so until the museums open I have at least something to do.
I have bought one French magazine and two Swedish ones, and in one of these there is an article about the conlang Volapük (which in some languages has come to mean completely incomprehensible gibberish). Its father was a retired German priester Johann Martin Chleyer, who claimed to speak 60 languages. On sleepless night i 1879 the Lord himself ordered him to invent a new world language for the benefit of mankind. The result was Volapük (which actually means "world language").
Schleyer intended to derive his new language from existing languages, which was a new idea. The vocaubarly is ostensibly based on (not least English), but.. well I shan't do any polyglot bashing here, but it appears that Schleyer may not have been aware of even the pronunciation of English (remember: this was before the advent of radio, TV and the internet), and he had some idiosyncratic ideas of his own, so the result didn't quite look like the original words he used. The grammar was also slightly overdone, - a man Kerckhoffs who had written a Volapük grammar calculated that a standard verb would have 504.440 forms due to the many affixes (which presumably weren't used for different meanings as in, but as morphological entities). However Schleyer was adamanet that he and he alone would decide about the shape of the language, which he had created by divine order.
In the beginning the new language met with some succes: at the 3. congress in Paris 1889 all speeches and conversations were performed in Volapük, and 259.000 persons were clamed to have learned it. Yet the whole thing crumbled. Schleyer's attitude and the undeniable difficulty of his creation were partly responsable, but even more important was the advent of Esperanto, which had all the simplicity and transparency that Volapük lacked, and a founder, Zamenhof, who wasn't quite a stubborn as Schleyer. When the latter died in 1912 has project had cleairly failed. Today something like 20 persons are known to be able to speak it, - around 100.000 times less than Esperanto.
Edited by Iversen on 01 June 2010 at 2:49pm
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Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6700 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map
| Message 1805 of 3959 01 May 2010 at 8:26pm | IP Logged |
NO: Jeg sitter nå på mitt hotell i sentrum av Oslo, Norge, og har funnet en gratis computer i hotellets resepsjon. Siden jeg kom til byn ved firtiden har jeg vandret rundt og fotograferet, og jeg har også vært en tur rundt festningen Akershus, som vokter innseilingen. Hotellet her er rimelig i pris, men matpriserne her er ganske sjokkerende, - og det synes de arme nordmenn åpenbart også - ellers ville butikkerne ikke selge juice i pakninger med mindre enn 1 liter i ett forsøk på at lure dem. Jeg skulle ha tat med forsyninger fra Sverige - det gør nordmennene selv. Et par eksempel (en euro er runnt 8 norske kroner): 1/2 liter brus = 26 kroner, ett kremmerhus med fire baller is = 55 kroner, .. jeg kommer at leve av tørt brøt, fastfood og vand her!
I arrived here in Oslo around 4 o'clock and have since then found my hotel and walked around the city center. I like my hotel, where there even are free computers with internet access in the reception, and the room price is also reasonable here. But food prices... ohhh my GOOOOOD !!!!, as the Americans say... but then they should just try food prices in Norway! Admittedly, I have only seen the prices in shops like7-11 and Narvesen, but what about 26 NKK for a 1/2 liter soft drink (3 euro)? Ice cones that cost one euro per ball? Even the Norvegians themselves are shocked - otherwise the shops wouldn't try to cheat them by selling juice and chocolate milk in packings with less than one full liter. Unless the prices are much lower in the supermarkets I'll have to settle for dry bread and water until I leave this country. I should have brought supplies for several days from Sweden, - that's what the Norwegians do!
Edited by Iversen on 01 May 2010 at 8:31pm
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| Hobbema Senior Member United States Joined 5738 days ago 541 posts - 575 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Portuguese, French, Dutch
| Message 1806 of 3959 03 May 2010 at 1:17am | IP Logged |
Iversen wrote:
---I should have travelled from Göteborg to Oslo 8.15, but it seems that today isn't a normal Saturday, so the next train will be at 12.45. Luckily the Central Railwaystation in Göteborg has a nice musicfree internetplace where the machines cost 2 euro for an hour, so until the museums open I have at least something to do. ..... |
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I myself have been in the Central Station in Göteborg! This reminds me of a story about my language learning. It was a couple of years ago, I had 2 days to get to Borås, Sweden, get my work done, and get out. We took an absolutely wonderful train trip across the country from Stockholm to Göteborg, planning on picking up a rental car at Central Station and driving to Borås. But the rental car counter was closed when we arrived early evening, so seeing that the Avis car rental was still open across the street from the train station, I walked in (with no car reservation), and being the cosmopolitan polyglot that I am (Ha!), for some stupid reason, I thought it would make sense to try to speak Dutch, thinking that the extremely attractive blonde behind the counter would not only understand the similar Germanic language, but that she would be awed and amazed at my language skills.
It was not to be; she laughed out loud at me.
Trying to save my dignity, I said in Dutch, “Spreekt u Engels?”
To which she replied in English, “Of course!”, and found me a car in short order.
Edited by Hobbema on 03 May 2010 at 2:32am
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Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6700 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map
| Message 1807 of 3959 03 May 2010 at 9:23am | IP Logged |
NO: I går spiste jeg først en god frokost ved hotellets buffet, for med de matpriser ... og så kjøpte jeg et Oslo Pass for 230 NKK. Det skulle definitivt bli brukt effektivt, så i løpet av dagen besøkte jeg museer 09:15 til 16:30 pm - en full arbeidsdag. Jeg begynnte på halvøya Bygdøy, som man kommer til med bus 30 eller en ferje direkt fra centrum. Og først kom Vikingskipshallen med de tre skip fra Oseberg, Gokstad og Tune - alle tre brukt til gravlegging af vikingfyrster (en konge, en dronning og den siste husker jeg ikke). Herfra til Kontiki-museet med minner fra Thor Heyerdahls ekspeditioner, fulgt af Fram-museet byggt omkring polarskipet Fram (og med utstillinger om blant andre Amundsen og Nansen) og sist Sjøfartsmuseet. Da jeg kom med fergen tilbake til centrum klokken 12, var køa 100 meter lang.
Jeg tok så metro til parkområtet Tøyen, og så her Munch-museet, Geologisk/Paleontologisk museum og Zoologisk museum, herfra med metro tilbake til centrum for att sjå Kulturhistorisk museum, som blant annat har myke material om den Germanske jernalder og vikingetiden, og på de øvre etasjene etnografiske utstillinger. Herra med bus 30 tilbake til Bygdøy for at se Norsk Folkemuseum, der er et kombinert frilands- og innehus museum, medblandt annet en genuin stavkirka fra 1200, kirken fra Borgund. Og etter det kørte jeg frem og tilbage i byn i buss og trik. Fin dag, det!
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I started out yesterday eating a good serving at the hotel buffet - that's a life saver with those food prices! Then I bought an 24 hour Oslo-pass at 230 NKK (around 35 €), and of course it should be used fully so I visited museums from 9 til 16.30, and after that I drove around town in busses and trams. The first four museums are situated on a peninsula called Bygdøy: the famous viking ship museum, the Kontiki museum about the expeditions of Thor Heyerdahl, the Fram Museum with a complete polar research ship and the Maritime Museum (where I found out that a whole bunch of ships from the 1600s have recently been discovered in the fiord outside Oslo)
After that the ferry back to the town center (where the ferry queue now had grown to at least 100 meters), and here I went to a park area known as Tøyen, where I saw a museum for the depressed painter Munch, a Geological/Paleontological museum with dinos and other fossils and a Zoological museum with lots of dioramas. Back to downtown, where I saw the (Cultural) Historical museum with good collections about thhe Germanic tribes and the Viking age plus a lot of Etnigraphical things upstairs. And finally back to Bygdø with bus 30 to see the Norwegian Folk museum, which is a combined indoor and open air museum. And after that I just drove around town for free.
And now: what has this to do with language learning? Not much, except that I heard a bewildering array of different languages, from Spanish and Italian over German, English to a surprising number of tourists from Slavic speaking countries. Just a moment ago I sat beside a group of people who spoke Schwiizertüütsch at the other hotel computer. But of course I hear Norwegian more than anything else, - but mostly in the comprehensible Oslo version.
In a moment I'll leave for Kristianssand, and from there I can take a ferry back to Denmark.
Edited by Iversen on 01 June 2010 at 2:53pm
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Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6700 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map
| Message 1808 of 3959 05 May 2010 at 7:15pm | IP Logged |
Da: Og nu er jeg hjemme igen, så jeg får lidt bedre tid til at blande mig i andre dele af dette forum.
NO bokmål: Jeg var i to bokhandlere i Kristiansand (i Norge) i går og jeg måtte få en ansatt til å spore op noe nynorsk - og det endte med 'berre' en roman. På byens bibliotek fant jeg en bok om fiolinbygging på nynorsk, men det er verdt å merke seg at den var gitt ut som selvpublisert (i.e. "eget forlag"), men med støtte fra en offisiell fond. Kommercielle utgivere af bøker trur tydligvis ikke at det er penger å hente på nynorske bøker, - og det er trist (det minner om situasjonen for skotsk). Det er imidlertid en viss prosentdel nynorsk på tekst-TV og det er folk som skriver nynorsk på nettet. Men er det nok?
Jeg leste også et blad (på bokmål) fra det norske Språknevn, som omtalte et empirisk pilotstudie av spredningen av målføreformer. Dvs. er det egentlig to separate skriftspråk i Norge, eller blander nordmennene dem? Og kva ord karakteriserer ytterpunktene? Noen nynorske former ses også sammen med bokmålformer, mens andre kun brukes av "ekstremister". Og ditto på den andre fløyen. Det blir nå undersøkt statistisk.
Og tilsist leste jeg noe av en bok om studieteknik, - blant annet om Mind Maps (som forfatteren var mye glad i, - det er jeg ikke) og noe om hurtiglesning, som jeg brukte på ham selv fordi det var nær stengetid.
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I'm now back from my Scandinavian trip. Yesterday I visited the Zoo of Kristianssand in Norway (halfway a theme park), and after that I tried to find some books in New Norwegian. I visited two bookstores, and I had to ask an employee in no.2 to help me ... and I ended up with just one novel. There are people who write it (even in NRK's text TV), and the less formal the situation the more they get the chance. But it is evident that Publishers don't think there are money to be earned on books or magazines in New Norwegian (this reminds me sadly of the plight of Scots in Scotland).
Later I visited the local library, and I did manage to find a book in New Norwegian about violin building - but characteristically it was published at the authors' expense, although with support from a national fund. Apparently no commercial publisher had accepted it, even though it looked like a quite good book - just written in 'the wrong' language form. After that I read a magazine (in Bokmål) from the Norwegian language commitee (Språknevn), with among other things an article about a project that will provide statistical material about the 'purity' of texts written according the two official norms for written language in Norway - are people mixing things up? Which elements are used 'across' the boundary, and which are markers for 'extreme' Nynorsk resp. Bokmål? Not yoo early to get some numbers for that. Finally I also speedread parts of a book about study techniques. And then the library closed.
Edited by Iversen on 12 May 2010 at 11:10am
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