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A Linguistic Odyssey | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Lizzern Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5758 days ago 791 posts - 1053 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 129 of 265 17 December 2009 at 10:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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About the halsa på someone thing (writing this from my phone so I can't do the double dots), I still think the
implication is more in the direction of "come say hi, I want to see you guys!" (where an actual visit is obviously implied) than simply "come for a visit". That is my interpretation as a native speaker of a very closely related language that would use a near-identical structure to express such a sentiment, and that is what my understanding would be if I heard that from a Swede. I'm sorry if my explanation was unclear, I guess I wrote a sort of FYI about another possible structure too close to my comment on this specific sentence, they were meant to be separate. You can do what you want with this sort of information of course, but I'd say this is one good example of dictionaries/translations providing too little information in such a way that it can cause confusion. If you want comments that are more directly adapted to Swedish then you'll need to enlist one of the Swedish speakers on the forum, but unless and until I hear otherwise from one of them I'll stand by my interpretation - there can be significant differences between the two languages, but I don't think this is one of those times. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 5991 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 130 of 265 17 December 2009 at 10:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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Oh yeah, that makes much more sense now. Thanks! I didn't mean to be rude or anything.
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| Lizzern Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5758 days ago 791 posts - 1053 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 131 of 265 17 December 2009 at 10:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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No worries, you didn't come across as rude. My explanation wasn't as clear as it should have been -
sometimes it''s easy to just figure that things will make the same amount of sense to others as they do to you, and underexplain things. Glad it's all clear now. It's a shame, though, that such differences can't always be clarified in the courses that teach them. Sorry about the formatting if it looks as messed up to you all as it does on my phone, it seems all my posts end up looking a little off with line breaks in all the wrong places. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 5991 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 132 of 265 17 December 2009 at 11:02pm | IP Logged | ||
No, it must be your phone; this looks fine. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 5991 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 133 of 265 22 December 2009 at 10:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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WORDS of the DAYS
German das Rathaus = town/city hall der Fußgänger = pedestrian dumm = stupid die Malerei = painting die Gebrauchsanweisung = directions for use das Kopfrechnen = mental math der Wechelstrom = alternating current (AC) der Gleichstrom = direct current (DC) die Aufladebatterie = rechargeable battery knusprig = crunchy, crisp süß = sweet die Frucht = fruit die Sahne = cream die Dampferfahrt = steamboat trip das Dorf = village der Weinberg = vineyard (lit: 'wine mountain') eindrucksvoll = striking Wow. LOTS of words of the day. But, I'm saying that I get two words per day, and since it's been like six days since I've written about language progress, I get twelve words (fine, I went over a bit...seventeen). I chose some of these because I like how they sound, some because they look cool when written, and some because I'm still in disbelief that I actually know how to say this in German now! I mean, I barely know was AC and DC are (well, I learned this in physics last year, but why would I possibly want to remember this?), and now I know them in German. So, as you can imagine, I have suddenly done a bunch of German. Since Friday I have done no less than four German lessons. However, I have also wasted a bunch of time... The first lesson was ACTUALLY (I say this because I typed it up a couple days earlier) done late on either Saturday or Sunday night. And the other three have been done last night and this morning, mainly because I was at my grandparents' house and didn't have all of my usual distractions. I was able to memorize the words surprisingly well using just a list. I tried just memorizing them in the sets of seven words that Iversen recommends and would repeat. It works. :) Now I have entered three of them into BYKI and have one more to memorize. Oh, and we decorated gingerbread cookies with my grandmother, my brother and I did. It's exciting. And what relation does this have to languages? Well, I decorated several of them with "Merry Christmas" in different languages. I remember doing... English: Merry Christmas Greek: Καλά Χριστούγεννα (Kalá Hristoúyenna) Spanish: Feliz Navidad French: Joyeux Noël Portuguese: Feliz Natal Italian: Buon Natale German: Frohe Weihnachten Swedish: God Jul Russian: С Рождеством Христовым (S Rozhdestvom Hristovym) Polish: Wesołych Świąt Chinese: 圣诞快乐 (shèng dàn kuài lè) Japanese: メリークリスマス (merī kurisumasu) Finnish: Hyvää Joulua Arabic: ميلاد مجيد (miilaad majiid) Hawaiian: Mele Kalikimaka Turkish: Noeliniz Kutlu Olsun Um... What else? I got a bit sidetracked with that cookie thing. Oh, I have been listening to a bunch more of the Michel Thomas German and Japanese courses. For the Japanese, I have begun to do a sort of modified scriptorium exercise. The teacher (whose voice I have finally gotten used to) says something in English for me to say in Japanese and I type it out in Word with all of the required kanji and such. I have done over seven pages of this already. Here are two random examples: • 友達と話して仕事に行ってレポートを読みま した。そしてコーヒーを飲んでメールを書き ました。 (Tomodachi-to hanashite shigoto-ni itte repōto-o yomimashita. Soshite kōhī-o nonde mēru-o kakimashita.) = I talked with my friend, went to work, and read the report. I also drank coffee and read an email. • これを食べてから漫画を読みながらワインを 飲みます。(Kore-o tabete kara manga-o yominagara wain-o nomimashita.) = I ate this and then I drank wine while reading a comic book. Oh, and I have been really interested (obsessed, even?) lately in the concept of vowel harmony and have incorporated it (if rather poorly) into the language I am creating. In particular, I am very interested in Finnish vowel harmony and Finnish in general. I have moved it up to medium priority on my hit list. I really like Finnish. It is just one of those languages that is purely awesome in my opinion. Well I have to go now. I'll probably write more later. -- Philip Edited by ellasevia on 23 December 2009 at 2:33am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 5991 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 134 of 265 23 December 2009 at 7:45am | IP Logged | ||
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Oh, and did I mention that I like wasting my time? I don't think I did...
So, I just finished my last German vocabulary list that I mentioned before. Yes, it has taken me this long (it is now past 11 at night). Well, I was helping my mom slave away at preparing our house for all the guests who are now en route. And it was just one disaster after another. And then we watched a movie. And then I didn't think the English word "river" was a word when it came up in a flashcard for me...and I got sidetracked with raspberry and lemon sorbet...mmmm. And then I decided to re-read my original entry in this log for no apparent reason and got carried away (as usual) and read all the way up through page eight. It was, however, amusing to read some of my older posts. I have definitely changed the way I compose my entries since then. And reading about my whole Spanish/Dutch/Swedish dilemma was really amusing too. I say no more new languages and then a few posts later I write that I have started two new languages! Wow, I'm so weird. So, I made a list on a tiny little pink sticky-note of all the things I forgot to mention in my last post. Here is the table of contents: 1) Bio 2) Mme. Wojno 3) El Internado 4) Easy Italian Reader 5) Dinner party 6) Yookoso! 7) How To Learn Any Language trong>1) Bio This is a quick one. I just wanted to say that I got a 98% on my advanced biology final that I was freaking out about so much earlier. :) I think the language time lost was well-spent. trong>2) Madame Wojno After my French final on Friday (which I didn't study for but still got an A on), I whipped out my kanji book and did some of that and then pulled out my Italian grammar workbook and was doing some of that. Once most people had finished, she started making fun of the fact that I was doing a grammar workbook--in Italian--for fun. It was sorta mean but also funny. She thinks I'm so crazy. Especially when she asked how many languages I was studying and I said eight (including Spanish at school). trong>3) El Internado So, I was watching several more episodes of that again. It's so good. I don't know why! But I'm not partway into season four. My class is just on the brink of finishing season one. Oh dear... trong>4) Easy Italian Reader I was doing some more of this in the past couple days. I reviewed my two previous texts (which I think I might start translating like I do with Swedish) and did several more. Hooray. trong>5) Dinner party (and other random stuff) So I went to a dinner party at my friend's house with my parents and brother and one of my other friends who was invited had an Italian exchange student staying with her family. I got to practice my Italian with her a bit (I'm just too shy, though) and she seemed to be very impressed. My friend who was hosting her was the one I mentioned in September who is taking Italian at the university. It got us onto the topic of taking classes there, and my other friend (whose house we were at) mentioned that she might take Arabic there next year. I said that if she did, I would. It got me thinking, and it's a good idea! Yes, Arabic or Russian would be fun to take at the university. Oh, and I decided that I am for sure taking Japanese and German at school next year. I think I'm going to take level two Japanese and level three German. Spanish is done. Not sure about French yet, though... trong>6) Yookoso! As I was thinking about taking Japanese at school next year, I remembered that the Japanese teacher has a website that talks about what each course specifically entails. He mentioned that the textbook used is called Yookoso! An Invitation to Contemporary Japanese. So I found that on Amazon for a nice cheap price and got that. Only about $5 including shipping. I think I got the second edition, which I saw the best reviews for (plus, the third edition is way out of my price range). I got an email saying that it has been shipped and should be here within two weeks. trong>7) How To Learn Any Language A while back I posted that I had started to read Barry Farber's How To Learn Any Language. I continued reading that in little spurts for a while, but it felt inconsistent. So last night I started re-reading it from the beginning. I do like his humorous style (some of the stuff, especially the part talking about the one student's complaints about the Cyrillic alphabet had me laughing out loud), but find it a bit outdated. He seems so excited about the new and innovative technology of the portable cassette player, whereas nowadays anyone carrying one of those around would likely be stared at and thought of as very old-fashioned (by the way, I now know that word in German). Anyways, it's interesting. OTHER STUFF I really need to do some kanji. I'm getting behind. I didn't understand a couple kanji here and there and now it's just building up on kanji.koohii.com. I have about 35 "failed" kanji to re-study and several "due" ones too. And then I need to do some more new ones. I feel like I may have flunked Odysseas. I keep meaning to do another lesson from that, but haven't in like two months, and I'm pretty sure it said something about having to have the course completed in a certain number of weeks. I have it as a goal to go and figure that out. I would have been done long ago if its stupid homework section didn't take so long to do. Good night! --Philip 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 5991 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 135 of 265 24 December 2009 at 6:51am | IP Logged | ||
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Well, today was fairly productive language-wise. I finally reviewed all of my failed kanji that has been piling on kanji.koohii.com first thing. I also went through all of the word of the days that had been piling up in my inbox since November and sorted them out. I think there was a reason why I didn't bother to learn it before: too much clutter.
I was also able to review all of my vocabulary lists for Livemocha German 101 and Greek 101. It was fairly painless, but I was surprised at some of the basic Greek words that I had forgotten. I think the key was to listen to some pure Greek before quizzing myself (after I did this I was able to recall words better). I procured a while back a couple CDs of pure Greek listening practice. I have loaded it onto my iPod and plan to just listen to it as I sleep tonight to try to "soak in the language." Yes, I know it sounds silly, but I've heard it helps. I also watched two episodes of El Internado today. The first one was rather annoying in quality due to the fact that the picture was ahead of the sound by a couple seconds. It was rather disorienting. I also listened and "scriptoriumed" about two CDs of Michel Thomas Advanced Japanese. I am feeling much, much better about my Japanese after doing these Michel Thomas courses. I'm so glad I found them. My six-page transcript from before is now over fourteen pages. I am only a few tracks from the end, and I would probably be done except that we had a big snowstorm today and my family made me go shovel the walk and then all of my family arrived... So, I had to stop. Everyone is currently running around talking and putting stuff away around me. I did mean to do much more than this today, but oh well. And I had to help my mother with preparing again because we didn't actually know that people were going to arrive today so she started panicking. Okay, good night! --Philip 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 5991 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 136 of 265 26 December 2009 at 5:23am | IP Logged | ||
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This should just be a quick post. I am exhausted.
Today was really tiring. And everyday lately, since we have so many people staying here. It's just overwhelming. Anyways, I haven't done very much language-ness, but I did finish the Michel Thomas Japanese Advanced Course yesterday, which was momentous. Today was Christmas and I got a wealth of gifts. I got tons of money and language books too (in addition to other stuff). I got 501 Portuguese Verbs, The New Penguin Russian Course, and Easy Italian Reader. I already had that last one, so I shall have to exchange it for something else. Perhaps a Swedish dictionary--I really need one. My eyes hurt from staring at the computer screen all day (my brother gave me a city-building computer game and my cousins, brother, and I have been playing it almost all day), my head hurts from the loud music that thankfully stopped, and my stomach hurts from all the yummy food and all those gross potato chips I ate (I don't even like potato chips, why did I eat those again?). [moans] Well, on Sunday most people are going skiing but I'm not so hopefully I'll be able to get some stuff done. I need to go do something else now. --Philip 1 person has voted this message useful |
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