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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6702 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 1 of 42 07 June 2010 at 1:38pm | IP Logged |
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My Multiconfused Language Learning Log has been growing so rapidly that it may be difficult to find anything in it. This would be a problem if the thread turns up in a search result - then you would have to search through hundreds of pages, which isn't realistic (and this problem will just get worse and worse).
Therefore I decided in 2009 to make monthly summaries of the content. The list of these summaries follows below (please note that the links will open in a new window). But it become also more and more difficult to find and use these summaries, so I have here in 2010 decided to remove them from my log thread, where they lay buried among ordinary messages, and put them in a separate thread - just leaving a pointer in the first message in the log thread. So this will become their future home. General remarks: everything only marked with a language code (ENG(lish), GER(man)...) is written by me (and 1. person singular is also me). Most codes should be easy to guess, but they aren't in any way official. Contributions from others have been marked with their alias name (I am 'me'), and their language indications have in mostly cases been integrated into the text. Nov-december 2008: message 2 below, covers p. 1-19. January 2009 message 3 below, covers p. 19-29. February 2009 message 4 below, covers p. 29-50. March 2009 message 5 below, covers p. 50-75. April 2009 message 6 below, covers p. 76-100. May 2009 message 7 below, covers p. 101-117. June 2009 message 8 below, covers p. 117-130. July 2009 message 9 below (p. 2), covers p. 130-147. August 2009 message 10 below, covers p. 147-159. September 2009 message 11 below, covers p. 160-170. October 2009 message 12 below, covers p. 170-182. November 2009 message 13 below, covers p. 182-192. December 2009 message 14 below, covers p. 192-201. January 2010 message 15 below, covers p. 201-208. February 2010 message 16 below, covers p. 208-212. March 2010 message 17 below (p. 3), covers p. 212-220. April 2010 message 18 below, covers p. 220-226. May 2010 message 19 below, covers p. 226-232. June 2010 message 20 below, covers p. 233-239. July 2010 message 21 below, covers p. 239-247. August 2010 message 22 below, covers p. 247-253. September 2010 message 23 below, covers p. 247-260. October 2010 message 24 below, covers p. 260-265. November 2010 message 25 below, covers p. 265-270. December 2010 message 26 below, covers p. 270-274. January 2011 message 27 below, covers p. 274-278. February 2011 message 28 below, covers p. 278-286. March 2011 message 29 below, covers p. 287-295. April 2011 message 30 below, covers p. 295-298. May 2011 message 31 below, covers p. 299-305. June 2011 message 32 below, covers p. 305-312. July 2011 message 33 below, covers p. 312-316. August 2011 message 34 below, covers p. 317-324. September 2011 message 35 below, covers p. 324-329. October 2011 message 36 below, covers p. 329-332 November 2011 message 37 below, covers p. 333-337 December 2011 message 38 below, covers p. 338-342 January 2012 message 40 below, covers p. 343-348 February 2012 message 41 below, covers p. 348-355 March 2012 message 42 below, covers p. 356-361 In september 2009 I have also written a series of language guides for the new Techniques subforum: part 1 (about learning languages in general) part 2 (about translations) part 3 (about grammar studies) part 4 (about wordlists and vocabulary) part 5 (about understanding speech and strange languages) Edited by Iversen on 30 March 2012 at 5:44pm 6 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6702 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 2 of 42 07 June 2010 at 1:56pm | IP Logged |
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November - December 2008 29 November 2008 (p.1) ENG: Log established, with content from a first version in the multilingual forum (written around 26-28/11) Not part of TAC2009, but inspired by it SP - TVE 'Gente', IC - Einar Már Guþmundsson LAT.: about "Mikkelsens Latinske Læsebog" + "Opera latina quae tironibus facilia lectu sunt IT: Raiuno - quiz "L'ereditá, GR: three books about Delphi ('Δελφοί') in 3 languages Answers from Fasulye, JW, Gilgamesh, Jondesousa, Reineke (initiator of TAC) and one question from Akatsuki 30 November 2008 (p.2) DU: http://player.onroep.nl/?oflied=XXXX (XXX is en nummer. LAT.: bought "Gesta Danorum" by Saxo GR.: more about "Δελφοι". GER.: "Genial daneben" in SAT1 Comments from Jar-Ptitsa (about my use of TV) and Fasulye 30 November 2008 (p.2) RU: about copying GLOSS texts and Annie Christensen: Russisk Grammatik EN: watching velociraptors in TV DA: listening to Danish classical composers Fasulye: book tip in Dutch: Winkler Prins Mini, Dinosauriers, 2003 , Jar-Ptitsa: discussion about subtitles Serpent: a better expression for 'copying by hand' and correction of a erroneous use of participles 01 December 2008 (p.3) ENG: about having to do something about Russian (an answer til Serpent), about Danish letters (to Jar-Ptitsa) GER: ... and about TV stations (to Fasulye), including Phoenix and BR alpha Deploring that NDR has stopped sending Low German programs ROM: about wordlists, - my coverage of words that aren't shared with other Romance languages isn't good enough IC: more about Guðmundsson and a reply to Sprachprofi, who quoted me for saying that "Iversen thinks literature is just washing your dirty linen in public Answers: Johst comments on German ihre/seine, Jar-Ptitsa and Smurf36 make their own multilingual logs 03 December 2008 (p.4) RU: "Страницы истории" by С.Н.Сыров (with accents GE: Programs from German zoos as good sources for (High) German dialects IT: About wordlists - having reached 20.000 words the rest are pretty exotique FR: About "Le Français argotique et populaire" and "Dictionnaire des expressions idiomatiques CAT: A dubious assertion that Catalan is the language with the second highest number of blogs Comments IT,FRA and one correction DE from Fasulye 04 December 2008 (p.4) IT: About my Italian-Danish-Italian and Spanish-Danish-Spanish dictionaries Fausulye: comment about the use of second-language based dictionaries (DU) and Dinosaurs (GER) DU: more about dictionaries in Denmark and about my 26 VHS tapes with dinosaurs RU: listening to music by Римский-Корсаков and an example of seemingly free word order in Russian, based on a text about the new monorail in Moscow Fausulye: comment about DVDs with scientific content and about dictionaries in the Netherlands My reaction (5/12): I collect non fiction TV programs primarily from TV, now also from the internet, and about dictionaries Reineke: ASTRA/EUTEL satellites - dual solution 05 December 2008 (p.5) FR: about having read some of a Bulgarian grammar in French, - in Bulgarian the hard part of grammar seems to be the verbs SW: SVT1's "På spåret" på SVT 1, with railway music by Lumbye in the background, (and then a bit of Norwegian) 06 December 2008 (p.5) SP: the 30. anniversary of the Spanish constitution in TVE, followed by a program about Barcelona ENG: have read a book called "The Flight of the Creative Class" by a certain Richard FloridaPORT: Pausa. PORT: no updates on my former favorite channel TV Beiro GER: "Genial Daneben" auf SAT1 Fasulye: Comment about the program about the Spanish constitution, and about WDR Funkhaus Europa 07 December 2008 (p.5) SW: watched a good program about invisible dark matter on SV2, and a bad one "I love språk" ENG: watched "Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy - but I already knew that the world was an absurd place. Comment from Fasulye about the astronomer Zwicky, about doing a lecture on Tycho Brahe and about spending too much time on the forum. Jar-Ptitsa also feels the pang of "Internetsucht" 08 December 2008 (p.6) DU: My interest in this forum lies right now mostly in this multilingual log Fasulye: Answer in Dutch, Thanks (in FR) for my explanations about Bulgarian grammar. Goodbye to Russian 09 December 2008 (p.6) Fasulye: something in ENG about her astronomy club and Tycho Brahe FR: More about what I have read about Bulgarian grammar and the different distribution of difficulties in different languages ENG: More about Tycho Brahe and his island Hven Fasulye asks whether I'm are a professional linguist, aren't you? Also gives some of her own background My answer: No, but I was close to becoming one. Plus few definitions of some of the linguistic terms I've used JonB asks for a link to the wordlist method. ENG answer: - The first description - A later description (page 4and 9) - The description in a wiki about language learning To Jar-Ptitsa: Asks whether she has heard the Firebird (Жар-птица) by Stravinsky LAT: have read "Opera Latina quae tironibus facilia lectu sunt" now. Quote a little tale by Cesar von Hesterbach RU: have made some 'word families' based of verbs with different prefixes GR: Still working my way through the Greek book about Delphi Comments by Fasulye on astronomy without mathematics, Dutch and her conditions for learning languages Comment by Jar-Ptitsa about my lack of respect for academies, about the word "idiosyncrasique" and about classical music - didn't chose her nickname because of the ballet by Stravinsky and Diaghilev Discussion between Jar-Ptitsa and Fasulye about studying 10 December 2008 (p.7) CAT: about classical music and heavy medieval music FR: have reread parts of "Le Livre d'or de la Poésie Française des Origines à 1940" and feel that I have travelled through murky waters indeed ROM: about having an unbalanced vocabulary Comment from Fasulye about classical music, prefers pop music, findz it ridiculous that Germans ingers mostly sing in English Comment from Jar-Ptitsa about music and about French poetry, prefers less important literature, likewise likes pop music, but also play slow classical music herself. Language list (forgot Afrikaans) Comment from myself about Dion and French poets from the 19. and early 20. century Comment from Fasulye: not suitable for selfstudy, but dropped studies because the employers want natives. 11 December 2008 (p.11) Fasulye: Question about classical music and its possible relevance for foreign languages My answer: not much connection, apart from texts on record covers etc. Plus something about how I got started in language learning - I looked up the Latin animal names in dictionaries. Answer from Jar-Ptitsa about her and music. Listens and and plays it herself. Worried about filling up my log. Answer from Fasulye about growing up with families that arent't interestered in your talents Comment from Fasulye because I have slipped into using the polite Dutch 2. person form. Comment on a talk about TAC with a member of her astronomy club. 13 December 2008 (p.9) ENG: Jar-Ptitsa and Fasulye are welcome to continue contributing to this log DU: Something about Frisian and - in particular - Afrikaans IT: watched "Tutto benessere", which is a "gara di solidarietà" (a "Telethon", i.e. a program that has the intention of getting getting contributions from the viewers to some noble purpose) and "Passaggio al Nord-Ovest" (which is one of the few good programs on that channel) RU: Have read (and copied) something about a visit by Putin in Karelia and other themes, and something about the present sorry state of VNDK in Moscow Leopejo found my expressions about one Italian showhost in particular too hard Fasulye: further comments about the use of the polite "u" in Dutch and some other corrections. Something about the Italian singer Laura Pausini 14 December 2008 (p.11) Discussion with Fasulye and Jar-Ptitsa about the role of traveling in language learning, and not least about the financing, DU: Comment about my financial situation earlier and now, - how to finance a lot of travelling by avoiding expenses at home IT: Answer to Leopejo the commanding and manipulatory Italian TV host. FR/GER/SPA/PORT/DA: seen an excellent row of programs about Incas, Mayas and other American high cultures in TV5 (direct), followed a 4 hour tape with German programs from Phoenix and a program partly in Portuguese about Brazil. GR: finished the book about Delphi 15 December 2008 (p.12) Discussion between Fasulye, Jar-Ptitsa and me about travelling and earning enough money (cont.), and also about the role of the attitude of a person's family. Specific question from Jar-Ptitsa about my reasons for liking Brasilian Portugues. Several reasons, but mostly the long vowels. Mentions the Infinitivo Pessoal as something mostly European. Answer from Flarioca: also common in Brazil. 16 December 2008 (p.12) Question from Gilgamesh: Am I studying Dutch or not? DU: Study, that's a big word. I have some activities that include reading and listening a bit to Durch and writing it here on the forum LAT: Latin newspaper Ephemeris Alcuini (http://ephemeris.alcuinus.net) . Here articles about new finds of Pterodactyls in China and about the first real photographs of exoplanets (planets outside the solar system) Fasylye: comment on (and in) Dutch, mostly about the first photographs of three exoplanets.(direct link http://ephemeris.alcuinus.net/scientiae.php?id=542), with a reference to an article in "Science" from around mid November. 17 December 2008 (p.13) ENG: notice about an exoplanet in the Latin Ephemeris Fasuly: has printed out the Latin article and will try to read GE: I mention first those planets, then the 'photographs' made by a the "Felt-Ion-Mikroskop", which I read about before my chemistry teacher in school POR: About the things that I don't write about here in the log thread because they either are difficult to describe or not really interesting to read about. I mention an inquiry into the Brazilian Pedro II, which lead to some studies concerning the practice of handkissing in the 18. century. Also links to texts about the Portuguese/Brasilian ortography reform, including this one: http://michaelis.uol.com.br/novaortografia.html - http://michaelis.uol.com.br/novaortografia.html , Flarioca: comments and corrections from Brazil Jar-ptitsa suggests that I learn something called Syldavian (but that won't happen) About the use of fiction versus non fiction in language learning, posted by Fasulye 18 December 2008 (p.13) GE: some comments concerning fictional languages and the use of fiction versus non fiction in language learning. Complete translation into German of the Latin text of Ephemerides about exoplanets - though with an gratuitous and erroneous remark about the idea of wandering planets, - I should have known better!. Fasulye corrects the blunder about wandering stars, that aren't comets but planets. 19 December 2008 (p.14) Fasulye reports that the members of her astronomy club spent all the time discussing the socalled international astronomy year 2009 (so who decided that, and what are the other years then? - my comment), so she didn't get the chance to tell them about the exoplanet photos. DU: sorry to hear that. Apart from that I have started to read Teach-your-self-Afrikaans, and it seems to be surprisingly easy to learn that language - partly because it has a very simple morphology and many common words with Dutch, just spelled differently. EL: As mentioned ealier I have finished the book about Delphi, and now I'm returning to my good ol' text collection from GLOSS, - with themes from the present days. SP: I have watched a program in Spanish about the absurd gigantic lottery 'el gordo'. 20 December 2008 (p.15) Comment from Fasulye, who likewise prefers to read non fictional stuff. Discussion about ways to obtain books through the internet, with or without a credit card. ENG: I mention the site GLOSS once again, and Fasulye mentions "Quarks & Co" in WDR. JonB and Jar-Ptitsa ask whether .. or rather why I can't see all German TV programs in Denmark. Something about buying books through the internet 22 December 2008 (p.16) GE: I have made an excursion 21/12 to Flensburg to buy books (my mother lives in the Southern part of Jutland). Returned with a bunch of dictionaries, partly meant for possible later use. But most importantly I bought 6 small Low German books. AS far as I remember I haven't seen the program mentioned by Fasulye, and even when visiting my mother and her satellite disc I can't see all German TV channels. Christmas greetings in 11 languages from Fasulye, plus greeting in 2 languages from JonB. Jar-Ptitsa reports some minor problems with the character sets which make some letters look funny. She proposes a riddle: a fragment of the New Testament of the Bible in a language which is not French or Latin. Fasulye presents four of her linguistical Christmas presents (27/12 = p. 17 in the thread), including a recording of her favorite singer Faustini, who this time sings in Spanish 23 December 2008 (p.16) Jar-Ptitsa and Fasulye discuss Christmas and internet code sets (mostly GER) 27 December 2008 (p.17) Fasulye: language oriented Christmas presents 28 December 2008 (p.17) GE: list of some of the TV program that can be seen with Astra. ENG: My guesses to Jar-Ptitsa's unposed riddle: Koine Greek? Aramaic? A presentation of the favorite Danish christmas tree decoration, the "julehjerte" ('Christmas heart'), with 6 examples LOW GER: Reports from reading some of the books in Platt from Flensburg, including a quote from "Dat harr noch leeger warrn kunnt" vun Eduard. LAT: a list in Latin of TV programs - mostly German - I have watched while visiting my mother this Christmas. A honourable mention of my mother's neighbor because she speak such an impeccable Southern Jutish dialect - that is unfortunatly becoming rare, and Danish TV does absolutely nothing to stop the process.. ENG The solution to Jar-Ptitsa's riddle: "Platt LOL!!! 'Dat Niee Testament' " 29 December 2008 (p.18) ENG: this summary Fasulye writes a message in Esperanto (with translation). I can't yet answer it, but finds it quite easy to read. She has apparently dabbled with Danish earlier, but postponed learning it. 30 December 2008 (p.18) ESP: I have found some information about Esperanto and manages to construct 9 lines in that language, - including a few passages that may even be correct. I copy the 'strange' characters from articles in Esperanto on the internet. AFR: My Afrikaans bidirectional dictionary AFR <-> ENG has arrived - another concurrent project. 31 December 2008 (p.19) Fasulye is surprised and answers in ESP, this time without translation. Lumulo explains some of the aberrant Esperanto way of using the pronouns. Sprachprofi also salutes my intention of learning that language. Both Sprachprofi and Fasulye tell about their Esperanto dictionaries. Edited by Iversen on 07 June 2010 at 2:23pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6702 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 3 of 42 07 June 2010 at 2:01pm | IP Logged |
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SUMMARY FOR JANUARY 2009
01 January 2009 (p.19) Fasulye: found major mistakes in my Esperanto and asks Lumulo to explain the rules about the use of participles Lumulo: explains the rules about the use of participles 02 January 2009 (p.19) ESP: I have found the list of participles in Esperanto and assumed mistakenly that the usual combinations of a form of 'to have' plus passive participle were legal. They aren't. Found a reasonably comprehensive Teach yourself Esperanto dictionary between my other exotic TY's. PORT: Have heard among other things an interview with Cristina Branco on the internet. Read a travel magazin Boa Viagem, which I once bought as a souvenir in the airport of Rio de Janeiro RUS: Have read and copied the GLOSS text about the Russian town (or area) Белгород, where swearing is outlawed 03 January 2009 (p.20) Fasulye: has bought scientific DVDs ("PM Magazin"). IT: likes Cristina Branco 04 January 2009 (p.20) SP: Listened for the first time to clips from the homepage Instituto Cervantes, which has the purpose to spread the gospel about Hispanophone literature. Lots of material in Spanish, but utterly boring. LAT: Saw a program about gladiators on Discovery and used this as an excuse for writing something in Latin 06 January 2009 (p.20) Fasulye: Is glad that one language now is enough for TA`C and also glad that ProfArguelles thinks that even older people can learn languages. (EDIT: She has of course known that all the time) IT: Have had a look at some old books in Romantsch, which I found among my other dusty old books. A few quotes from Friulian and Surselvic ('Engadin' in German). Had to search for my thread far down into the list after just a few days of absence, which shows that TAC 2009 is a great success. Fasulye is of the same opinion. 08 January 2009 (p.20) ENG: Some remarks about the use of translations, inspired by some remarks in Jar-Ptitsa's log. I use the word 'colouring' about version of your target language where you fill aout the holes with loans from a neighbouring language and also use sentence strructures from that one. AFR: This is in fact what I'm doing in the case of Afrikaans (with Dutch as the closely related langue) 09 January 2009 (p.20) Fasulye is not of the same opinion, - she prefers to keep her languages as distinct as possible. Discusses (in Dutch) her experiences with Latin and Turkish. Also mentions (in German) her VHS telling about the Large Hadron Collider of CERN. Writes that NDR hasn't got much to say about the Scandinavian countries. DU: Explains in more details form the idea of using an 'intermediary' language to kickstart the thinking and maybe even speaking in a new language. GE: Some comments about the machinery of CERN and others. I mention the Higgs-particle and gives a link to an article from "Spektrum der Wissenschaft" that proudly proclaims the discovery of the Tau-neutrino, another missing link in the quark tables. Question from Smurf36: do I have set times for each languages? Answer: no, I'm not that organized Fasulye is still not of the same opinion as me concerning intermediary languages, but she likes the link to the article about the neutrino. Gives some references to science books in German and Dutch. 11 January 2009 (p.21) Mick33 (in Afrikaans): comment to the situation with non-Afrikaans elements in Afrikaans GER: Visited my mother and Sister, saw therefore a lot of German TV. The surprise - seen in relation to the normal paucity of Nordic themes in NDR - was that NDR and Phoenix Friday had a whole evening with one program from the Arctic or the Nordic countries after the other (though the first one was about Antarctica). IT: The last of these programs told the story of the Franklin expedition, which perished in the Northern part of Canada while searching for the Northwest-passage. Wrote the comment in Italian with the tenuous reason that one of the best programs in Raiuno is called "Passaggio al Nord-Oveste" SW/NO/DA: Saturday evening RBB followed with a series of Nordic programmes, including one about a train to Narvik in Norway and another about the Norwegian Hurtigrute. Og tilslut var der så et program om Danmark (= And finally there was a program about Denmark). So for once German television had a solid representation of Nordic themes in its programs. Fasulye comments on the programs at Phoenix about the Arctic regions Sprachprofi gives a link to a series of Astronomy-videos with Harald Lesch (in German, shown on BR alpha duuring a period of several years). 13 January 2009 (p.22) DE: Have listened to the lectures of Harald Lesch for several hours. FR: Have listen to some rare French lute music. Was inspired to reopen one of my old books from my time at the university: "La Défense et Illustration de la langue Française" by Joachim du Bellay, member of the (once) famous grup 'La Pléiade', who wrote in the 1500s in something that must be called Middle French. GR: borrowed "Teach yourself colloquial Greek" in a relatively new version from the library, - I own a much older and much thinner version from 1980. For writing in Greek I use the site http://www.lexilogos.com/clavier/ellenika.htm. It permits input from both the mouse and from the keyboard, which is much faster than my other solutions which only take input through mouseclicks. 14 January 2009 (p.22) GER: Saw quite accidentally Harald Lesch on ZDF Fasulye (GER): he has taken over the series "Wunder des Universums" from Joachim Bublath. Also a comment in Esperanto about mixing languages and asks for a clarification. 15 January 2009 (p.22) ESP: it is not a method, but something that tends to occur naturally and which I just don't fight because it obviously makes it possible to think in a new language (or at least something close to it) long before it otherwise would be feasible. Both Fasulye and Sprachprofi have their Esperanto groups. I don't, but it is too rash to conclude that I just travel instead - for the moment I don't travel very much, except that ... speaking about using Esperanto as an international tool: I announce my upcoming travel to the Philippines, but my Esperanto isn't ready. AFR: I have read all of "Teach Yourself Afrikaans RUS: Nothing much to tell (apart from my usual exercises with copying and making word lists). I reminiscences about my trip during Easter 2008 to Belarus and Russia, where I could watch excelent TV programs about history and other non fictional themes every evening. I mention (again) the monorail from a Gloss text, because I saw it during my stay in Moscow. 16 January 2009 (p.23) Fasulye and Sprachprofi discuss astronomy and astronomy clubs and Harald Lesch, including a reference to the Wolf-Rayet stars (very hot and shortlived helium stars). IT: I mention one of my favorite ways to find interesting stuff to read: limite Google to your target language, feed it a suitable search term and see what happens. I tried this with Wolf-Rayets stars and found among other links one in Italian with a list of all the main 'weird' kinds of stars. PORT/ROM/CAT: Searches in other languages gave varying amouns of material, though of course not as much as the 169.000 links in English. ENG: I have read that Tagalog - the official language of the Philippines (in combination with English) - is an ergative language. I refer to something that isn't ergativity. but an expression of a similar concept in 'normal' Western languages, such as in this case: S - V "The wood splits", S - V - O "I split the wood " where the object in a transitive construction beconmes the subject in an intransitive construction with the exactly the same verb. SII: corrections to my last attempt to write in Russian (the one about the monorail) Fasulye: likes the Italian links to weird stars. Asks for clarification about the notion of ergativity 17 January 2009 (p.24) Jar-Ptitsa guesses - probably misled by my examples - that ergativity is something with the the object and the subject exchanging themselves 19 January 2009 (p.25) ENG (writing from Copenhagen): definition of ergativity, kudos to Jar-Ptitsa for her guess DU: announces a period with few or no updates due to an upcoming holiday in the Philippines 20 January 2009 (p.25) Fasulye: a few Dutch corrections, can't travel herself, reckons that there is a chance to pick up some Spanish in the Philippines Shapd: Jar-Ptitsa's explanation is rejected, the information given by me is accepted (though with some corrections concerning the naming of the cases in ergative constructions) Fasulye: has looked up some facts about the linguistic situation of the Philippines 23 January 2009 (p.25) SP (writing from Cebu): according to TVE risk of a hurricane around the Biscayan Bay (and yes, that region did get some nasty weather in the following days!). Spanish as a living language has almost disappeard from the Philippines, though it has left some traces in the local languages (and a 'ñ'-key in local keyboards) Fasulye: has found Cebu on the map, gives percentages for the local languages and for the different population groups of the Philippines, has been watching the language videos of ProfArguelles on Youtube Jar-Ptitsa: reaction to the criticism of her remarks about ergativity 25 January 2009 (p.26) DU (writing from Tagbilaran on the Island of Bohor): the videos about Germanic languages made by ProfArguelles are indeed interesting, hopefully he will proceed to make videos also about for instance the Romance languages. 15 pesos/hour (0.25 €) to acces the internet. Tagalog = Filipino ENG: bought a small book about the Cebuan language and read most of it, some remarks about Cebuan grammar, mostly concerning the noun phrase structure (solely based on an analysis of the sentences in that book), more about ergativity in general including the reason for referring to sentence construction based on transitive/intransitive verbs like French "fendre" (split), also mention 'make sby do' constructions 28 January 2009 (p.26) LAT (from Cebu): have bought a cheap, but excelent bildirectional Latin-English dictionary ENG: .. plus a similar dictionary for Tagalog-English with some grammatical notes including ultraliteral translations in the beginning and lots of (normally) translated examples in the main sections. First remarks about the verbal system of Tagalog/Filipino and about Philippines micing English words into their own languages Comments from Fasulye about the role of English in Germany and (mostly) about keeping languages separate or not, which also has something to do with "sequential learners" (herself) versus "holistic learners" (me). Jar-Ptitsa counts herself as a holistic learner, also defends translations - though not of each and every word, still finds the criticism of her view of ergativity puzzling, invites comments from people who know ergative languages 29 January 2009 (p.27) DU (from Manila): Fasulye en Jap-Ptitsa certainly make this log a lively place to be. Tempted to start learning Tagalog, but resist the temptation FR: About the lack of ultraliteral translations and of repetitive structures in the examples of ordinary studay materials Fasulye (FR): also rejects Wanderlust, has bought cheap non-fiction books at a sale at her local bookstore 30 January 2009 (p.25) FR: About the internet as a source for non fictional texts in different languages. This log has now reached 20050 readers ENG: About learning languages extremely fast, based on knowing a closely related language (NB: this post in the fact intended for an other thread, but allowed to remain here) Fasulye: congratulations in Italian, her own log (about learning Turkish) has an other purpose and is not yet written in Turkish Jap-Ptitsa: congratulations, mentions the error of writing 'k' in a French word Glossa.passion: congratulations in DA, SW, GER. Good that less than 1% of the readers answers, otherwise the thread would get clogged up Felipe: congratulations in PORT, ESP, comment to the displaced post about rapid learning, wants to learn Dutch Esp: Yo también disfruto de este hilo. Un día de éstos voy a empezar uno igual. 31 January 2009 (p.28) ENG: can't find the French word with 'k'. I compare the role af Fasuyle, Jap-Ptitsa and others to the role of the 'permanent discussion partner' in most talkshows. Felipe urged to start his own multilingual log now Fasulye assumes full responsability for writing "skeletons" instead of "squelettes" ENG: Long rant about the morphology of Tagalog/Pilipino verbs Fasulye would find it too boring to analyse the grammar of a language she hadn't even learnt. Btw. she would like to visit the European Space center (mentioned by Jar-Ptitsa). Also some remarks on railticket prices in Germany and in Belgium Jar-Ptitsa: something about railticket prices in Belgium. Link to the Europspacecenter in Belgium Felipe has now started his own multilingual thread 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6702 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 4 of 42 07 June 2010 at 2:08pm | IP Logged |
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Summary for February 2009
01 February 2009 (p.29) ENG: something about the multicultural breakfast buffets in Asian luxury hotels, has to return back home without having learnt all aspects of the Tagalog verbal system PORT: has read "Contos" by José Régio Jar-Ptitsa: spurred on by my remark about fish as breakfast she mentions a strange long fish that her father got as a present (later even publishes a photograph of the monster) Fasulye: is amused by the fact that I have had to read literature instead of real books SP (from Manilla): I only brought one literary work to the Philippines but several small dictionaries, and I have bought even more dictionaries and language guides during the trip. The verb conjugation site Verbix is temporarily down, but I have found www.allverbs.com. I have still not seen any evidence that Tagalog is a strictly ergative language (even though it is a heavy user of passive verb forms). Only a few hours left in Manila Jar-Ptitsa asks whether I have learnt any sign language. 02 February 2009 (p.29) ENG: No sign language and no plans to learn one Felipe also would like to travel, but has his family to tend to Fasulye: amused that I have managed to find so many internet cafés during my travel. Visited Rome in 1978, before learning Italian Jar-ptitsa: is considering cutting down on her internet time Fasulye (DU): Jar-Ptitsa should just answer selectively and keep balancing her social contacts and your life in the "cyberworld" 04 February 2009 (p.31) Monthly summery for January Fasulye (GER) finds it strange that people can discuss whether you can learn languages at an advanced age, - of course they can Jar-Ptitsa has got a Low German bible and quotes a few lines from it GER: Being 55 years old I cannot but agree with Fasulye about the possibility of learning languages late (otherwise sign me up for a coffin) 05 February 2009 (p.32) IC: I have borrowed a book by Jón Kalman Stefánson for writing in the bus back home from work (edited 6/2) 06 February 2009 (p.32) Fasulye answers even before I have corrected my writing errors, then proceeds to write in German and Dutch about the VLT (= Very Large Teleskope) and about stars circling a black hole in Sagittarius A Jar-Ptitsa finds the word "Milchstraße" very funny - reminds us that 2009 is the year of astronomy Fasulye and Jar-Ptitsa discuss hobbies 08 February 2009 (p.30) DA: As promished I publish my table with the morphology of Tagalog verbs and describes the system (it is based on aspect, there is something that I call a reduplication element ... and there are lots of affixes, including some that split the redup element or other affixes. But I'm not going to learn more of the language right now Jar-Ptitsa is shocked because something by written Fasulye has disappeared, - but Fasulye has just removed her own text. Fasulye tries to read something I have written in Danish, but stays focused on Turkish 09 February 2009 (p.33) Fasulye: sees my Tagalog as a result of Wanderlust LAT: I have read an article in Scientific American about 'naked' singularities, i.e. singularities (like black holes) without an event horizon. I quote a humoristic section from the article about the possibilty that a jet from such an object could kick us right out of space ROM: reference to an internet page with scientific texts in several languages, including a Romanian summary of the elementary particles according to the Standard Theory Fasulye has followed up on the thing about singularities by reading about black holes. Refers to their weight, but corrects herself: they have mass, but not weight as long as they aren't in a gravity field. I mention that I used the word for 'weight' because I couldn't find a (safe) Latin translation of 'mass'. Jar-Ptitsa publishes some pretty astronomical pictures. Fasulye is happy about having found a place to discuss natural science in different languages, and on page 35 she proposes the word 'massa' (!) for mass. Slickas writes Latin lacks a word for 'mass' because the notion of mass was invented by Newton. Amoore - who also is living in Denmark - asks for some advice about sources for learning Romanian and about the kind of Romanian that is spoken in Moldova (where it is called Moldavian) 10 February 2009 (p.35) GER: I thank Jar-Ptitsa for the pcitures, using a fairly formal greeting (Sehr geehrte Jar-Ptitsa-Sênmurw: ich bedanke mich recht herzlich für die schönen Bilder) - I comment on the syntax of this construction DA: I mention how and why I learned Romanian. Moldovan as so close to standard Dacoromanian that even I didn't have problems with it during my visit in 2006. The real troublesome dialects of Romanian are spoken by dwindling minorities outside Romania. I mention my Teora dictionary, but haven't got a suggestion for an up-to-date textbook ENG: to SlickAs: Newton wrote his book about gravity (and mass) in Latin, and as suggested by Fasulye the proper word for mass is "massa" Fasulye comments on my 'translations' and mentions that she tries to understand my Danish texts 11 February 2009 (p.35) (me) GER: My translations in this thread aren't meant to be exact (and not even complete). I then proceed to illustrate the notion of 'hyperliteral translation' by making such a translation (interlaced) of my Danish description of how I learnt Romanian, followed by a couple of sentences by Fasulye which I translate myself, but on top of that I also let some of the translation programs translate these sentences. Fasulye likes those interlaced hyperliteral translations because through them she can understand the Danish text. It will take a long time before machine-made translations can compete with human-made translations. Btw. she has been in Denmark in 2001 and has kept some cassettes with Danish speech FRA: I comment on an excellent article in "Science et Vie" about the new theory by a man called Lisi 'about everything' - which is the usual way to refer to a theory that encompasses all four fundamental forces in physics. The theory of Lisi is based upon a mathematical group E8, so I first describes very briefly what a group is, and why groups are relevant in this context. I also mention that he has chosen to publish it through the internet instead of using one of the recognized scientific journals. Fasulye has been listening to her Danish tapes and finds "dass die Dänen beim Sprechen den Mund zu haben und die Hälfte der Buchstaben verschlucken.". She is utterly baffled by my text about the 'theory about everything'. GER: I said she sould hear Danish at the homepage of DR, but it turns about to be a bad advice because the transmissions there are blocked outside Denmark (see message from 14/02-09). Fasulye (GER) has some comments about the Danish mouth position 12 February 2009 (p.37) GER: I have also noted that different languages call for different mouthpositions. I mention the different German R's Fasulye denies that there are rolled R's in German. GER: I quote Wikipedia to support my claim that there are 3 R's: rolles R's in the far South and when singing classical music. And there is also a multipleflap-uvular R. Fasulye is reminded of her studies where she had to learn about Phonetics. Mentions that Felipe also has made a multilingual thread. She declares her Danish intermezzo finished and over. She listens to radio in ENG - FRA - ITA - TUR, and she has good results with the L-R method. 14 February 2009 (p.37) Fasulye: Direct Danish TV through www.dr.dk can't be seen outside Denmark, - it is in a test phase DU: I find that restriction totally idiotic, - DR should cater to people who wants to learn Danish (there aren't too many). IC: I still read "Sumerljos" in the bus back home from work. It hasn't got much of a plot, and that's fine with me. I compare a good bus-book to a good view from the bus, - it mustn't be too interesting. GR: I went to the library and reborrowed "TY Colloquial Greek", - there could be a few useful colloquial phrases in it that I might want to learn. I also read some things in the Greek newspaper Ta Nea, but it seems that gthe liobrary has ended the subscription - instead it will provide access to 250 newspaper throughout the knopw univers through the PCs of the library. The homepage http://www.lexilogos.com/clavier/ellenika.htm has an excelent tool for writing in Greek and other strange alphabets (including Russian) - warmly recommended. DA: During a walk in Århus (my Danish hometown) I discovered that our local urban Openair museum has started the construction of a new section with relatively modern streets. SW: A short reference to a message in Swedish TV - the icebreakers now have to get into action in the Swedish waters DA/ENG: Hyperliteral translation of the Danish text about my walk in Århus, and after that I describe the Danish number system, that show traces of a system based not on the number 10, but on 20 (Franch has something like it). At the end of the (normal) translation of the Swedish part I add that SV2 now shows something about a woman that went to Amazonas to live with a native tribe - but she didn't strip naked. Fasulye: comments on a 'u' in the Dutch text (I have a tendency to use the polite form, and Fasulye discovers it before I stand a chance to find it myself and correct it). Comments on the notion of 'Wanderlust'. Besides she has read something about the open air museum in Århus: "Den Gamle By". She asks for more hyperliteral translations, and I promise to make some. Assimil also uses them 15 February 2009 (p.38) Fasulye: Another comment about the stop for the subscriptions of paper-newspapers at my local library DU: I confirm that it seems to be true. If just we could get lightweight and easily mobile screens for reading then I would not mind to read electronic newspapers instead DA (with hyperliteral translation): I have glued 180 photos from the Philippines into my photoalbum FR: I watched the end of a program in Quebecois on TV5 and comments on the nasal vowels of that dialect. I have also had a chance to speak French, - Air France/KLM demanded that I either bought a regular ticket or used my airmiles before June, so I chose to use some of these on a flight to Strasbourg in the near future ENG: I also saw a program about Chinese dinosaurs. 16 February 2009 (p.33) SII: one small correction to a Russian sentence Fasulye: knows the Quebecois dialect, but doesn't really like it. She likes Strasbourg though. And she is continuing her studies of Turkish in spite of some illness. Her family only accepted that she studied Dutch wenn it appeared that she sould earn some money with it. She doesn't tell them about her Turkish studies. GER: You can never know what knowledge you can use to earn money from - I studied French and literature for many years, but I have never had a job based on that - insted I earn my money as an IT consultant POR: I have seen a program about new Chinese dinosaur finds. I mention the great extinction after Perm and the likelihood of at least one global glaciation in Precambrium, but then proceed to describe how I searched for something about the subject in a random language which happened to be Portuguese. .... SPA: Here I saw a shocking case of misinformation .- in Spanish - about the extinction that happened 65 mio. years ago. Somebody claimed that only single-celled life remained afer this event, which is pure nonsens - it is not even the worst extinction in the history of the Earth - the one after Perm was much worse. By the way, the dinosaurs didn't die out, - birds are 100% dinosaurs. DaraghM has a short comment about dinos Recht apparently uses this thread as a source for German and asks a question, which is promptly answered by Fasulye. 17 February 2009 (p.39) Fasulye asks in Esperanto for some more information about the extinctions, - she knows the one that killed off most dinosaurs (not the birds), but hasn't got a clue about the others 18 February 2009 (p.40) ESP: Perm was the last part of the Paleoziocum and ended with an almost complete extinction of all life. After that I mention a series of extinction events dating back to the Precambrian. Speaking about that period I also mention a very early 'community' of animals, the so called Ediacarian Biota, and I even mention the Cambrian animal community that was first found in the Burgess Shales. ENG: After the English summary I mention that there also is a Permian language group, source Wikipedia Fasulye: first reaction in Esperanto, second reaction in Dutch: she wants to learn more about these paleontologic/Geological themes JonB: severe warning against Wikipedia, which is called untrustworthy Fasulye: accept the warning ENG: .... but I don't. There are errors in Wikipedia, but I have also seen too much rubbish from scientists and in other kinds of reference works to trust them blindly. 19 February 2009 (p.41) JonB: There are crucial differences between scientific peer-reviewed articles and anonymous articles in Wikipedia, written by " pranksters, cranks, teenage kids, etc." DaraghM finds Wikipedia useful for language learning. ENG: I would also generally trust a (possibly) peer reviewed article more than the work of amateurs, but I have seen too much junk science written by people from respectable institution. And any crackpot can in principle write a book with a name on the front page. Or a commission could do it, which is worse. Journalism is also suspect. I hint that some academics might hate Wikipedia because they see it as unfair competition which they have to live with. RU: I have visited the Slavic section of the Academic Bookstore in the Students' house in my town, and I describe the books that I have bought - covering several Slavic languages, that I might want to learn later. JonB: The academics don't have to live with Wikipedia: "Students who are caught using it lose marks or fail." Fasulye (DU) proposes a compromise: Wiki is OK to learn from, but not for writing a lecture. She has got a library card and can now use their PCs. She has also borrowed a book by B.Ziegler about the Paleontology. DU: comment about books about Paleontology, - a problem to find some that are up to date (test: try to see whether there is something about the Ediacaria) DA (with hyperliteral AND normal translation): some differences between Danish and English that make it difficult to make perfect hyperliteral translations. You can get an internet interface that writes like Elmer Fudd talks SII (RU): a thorough correction of my last text in Russian (and there were quite a few errors!) RU: Short discussion about some Russian words, including the name for a Students' House and a memory stick 20 February 2009 (p.43) Recht reads this thread every morning, comment and some corrections from Fasulye Fasulye (DU): Is steadily becoming more interested in Paleontology, but still finds Astronomie to be a more exact science. Comment to the last hyperliteral t5ranslation from Danish: it may be very good didactically, but she doesn't want it in her collection because it contains nonsense sentences. RU: short comment to SII about words DU: short comment to Fasulye about hyperliteral translations RU: short comment to Recht - don't trust my spelling, especially not in Russian Fasulye (GER): has had some time off from her job, will use it for reading 100 pages of Paleontology (later: is reading about Paleozoicum in the coin laundry). DU: To Fasulye: Can't see that there is much nonsense in the last hyperliteral translation Recht, Fasulye and me: A short discussion with about the difference between direct and indirect object. Fsaulye is reading about paleontology in the coin laundry 20 February 2009 (p.45) GER: I mention the extinctions before and after Kambrium and the one after Ordovicium, also that Carbon often is subdivided into two periods named after US localities. The climatic problem in Perm was not least due to the fact that all landmasses were combined into one supercontinent Pangäa, and that caused both a very harsh climate and little low water available for marine life. I wouldn't like to be neither paleontologist nor astronomer, - but when they deliver their results I am very interested in seeing what they have found out. POR: I have watched the 1 hour of news in TV Ciencia in Portuguese. It is more about technology and society than about real science, but at least there was a clip about an exhibition about Darwin (who was born 200 years ago). Fasulye: Report from the laundry: she has looked at TV Sciencia, but didn't really understand the language (though she can read some Portuguese) - and besides it wasn't really about science, but about working conditions. (me) RU: Something about a Russian homepage which contain a copy of some of the older sections of ww.darwinawards.com. The Darwin-awards are 'given' to people who - mostly - die in self-inflicted accident that are so absurd, that it must be seen as a positive contribution to the quality of the human genome that they don't get the chance to procreate. Fasulye: One more report from the laundry: she has been speaking Italian with an acquaintance, and she has also found time to read about Mesozoicum. She quotes a passage from her book, which shows that it clearly is intended for experts. GER: I look up some of the words, and the passage quoted becomes sometwhat comprehensible, - it is about characteristic mussel species in the Paleozoicum. I also mentions a Catalan page about long extinct mussels, but written with so small letters that it is almost impossible to read it. Fasulye: She has checked the links that I have provided - mostly to Wikipedia. In her book she has reached the end of the Cretaceous, where the Chicxulub meteor is mentioned but apparently not the even more disruptive volcanic activity at the collision zone between India and Asia. 22 February 2009 (p.46) SII has again delivered a complete correction of my last text in Russian, and it was full of errors. In at least two cases I had looked up words in the dictionary, tipped them into Lexilogos and copied the results to the forum without any changes. In some other cases I had chosen a word with a related meaning, but still not correct in the context. And one sentence was a total mess. Asks why I don't write "ë" ENG: I write e instead of ë because that has become the norm in most Russian texts PLATT: NDR has stopped first its Low German talkshow, then the magazine programs that came instead of it. Now NDR somewhat unexpected sent a rustical comedy program in Platt. GER: Besides I have seen 3 hours transmission from the Carnival in Braunschweig. Even the staff of "Genial Daneben" the evening before had been carnival dressed. AF: I have now put my one and only issue of the travel magazine "Weg!" on my night table, - I need to do something about that language. 23 February 2009 (p.46) Recht: warns against fierce Danish rhinos Fasulye both liked and understood the Low German passage (her family comes from that area). But she certainly doesn't like carnival because she lives smack in the middle of a carnival-infested area, and the participants are both noisy and drunk. JonB: Sorry that he didn't get to Köln to see their Carnival. He has seen the word "Fasching" somewhere. Fasulye: "Karneval (Rheinland) = Fasching (Oberbayern) = Allemannische Fastnacht (Baden-Würtemberg)" GER: Something about "Fasching" and about the Carnival in Braunschweig. JonB makes fun of me because of the references to Wikipedia. GER: It is fiendishly difficult to avoid references to Wikipedia, simply because it is fairly comprehensible and totally free. Who else could I quote regarding the carnival traditions in Germany? JonB admits that it is difficult to see how you could avoid references to Wikipedia with such a subject, 24 February 2009 (p.47) (me) AF: Some of the oldest rocks (or rather isolated small granules in granite called 'Zircons') are found in South Africa. They are supposed to be remaining fragments of a supercontinent called Vaalbara, 3½ billion years ago. A link to a Wikipedia page about supercontinents. ENG: After that I saw a program about carnivals from the old Babylonia until our days, FRA: .. which reminded me of my first visit to Martinique. I had in fact heard over the phone that there was a risk of Carnivalistic activity, but because of a reasonably cheap hotel room, an error in Lonely Planet and wishful thinking I had convinced myself that there wouldn't be a problem. But there was: the carnival of Martinique is famous for it size and lively chaaracter, and I ended up smack in the middle of it. Fasulye: found the Wiki link about the supercontinents useful. Asks what a 'peer reviewed' magazine is. ENG: I answer that is a magazine the let scientists check the articles before they (maybe) are published. The idea is good, but errors can slip through, and hostile reviewers can block a good article. In the case Wiles against Fermat's last theorem the reviewer found an error in the proof, which Wiles had to correct before the article was accepted for publication. However academics and others should be open for reading relevant stuff outside these magazines, - of course with all the necessary caution. 25 February 2009 (p.48) Fasulye: Is "Sterne und Weltraum" peer reviewed? How do you know whether a magazine is peer reviewed. She finds that it's a good idea to confront the readers with different natural sciences seasoned with foreign languages as in this log, and that makes it special. ENG: Quotes the editorial policy of the magazine Science from its homepage, where "peer reviewing" is mentioned. Can't find the same kind of information about "Sterne und Weltraum", but with the kind of articles they have it is fairly certain that they use scientific advisors. While reading SUW I noticed an article about possible 'Trojan' asteroids caught in the Lagrange points relative to the Earth. And I have looked at the homepage of Fasulye's astronomy club, - but the quizzes were too difficult. JonB: has tried to find a translation of the term "peer", ends up with 'kollegiale Rezension'. Fasulye: Has around 60% correct answers in the quizzes. Glossa.passion: proposes "durch Fachleute überprüft" or "von Experten begutachtet". Fasulye: has studied an issue of "Sterne unD Weltraum" und found a reference to a so called "Beirat", which must be the group of scientists that review the articles that the magazine receives before publication, i.e. 'the editorial board'. GER: The satellites that should look for Trojans in the Lagrange points of the Earth haven't arrived there yet, so we just have to wait it out. SPA: I have been listening to music by Rodrigo, a Spanish composer who lived from 1902 to 1999, followed by Mudarra in the 1500s and a ferocious Fandango by Soler in the 1700s, and finally to Paco de Lucia for some hefty Flamenco sounds. I like to listen to music from a relevant country if I'm studing a certain language, and I prefer classical instrumental music. 26 February 2009 (p.49) Felipe also likes the idea of listening to music from a certain country when you work with the language from that country, and he also likes Paco de Lucía and mentions his cooperation with the jazz musician John McLaughlin Fasulye is favorable to the idea of listening to relevant music, - but she certainly doesn't like not the kind of music that I have referred to above (maybe with the exception of Mudarra). JonB likes the feeling of being able to understand the Spanish of Fasulye without having studied the language SP: I have found the score for the Mudarra fantasy from 1546 on the internet, - try it out if you dare... ROM: I have watched a Romanian TV show from Antena 1 with a female 'sexual astrologist' who kept waffling about an asteroid named Lilith (after Adam's apokryphal first wife). It was 100% nonsense, and for once even the studio audience was rolling with laughter. It is important to search for things to listen to, and my best source for internet TV channels is the portal http://wwitv.com/portal.htm. 27 February 2009 (p.50) Summary for March DU: Mudarra's music was not written in modern notes, but in tablature Fasulye (GER): Has found a reference book which explains the letters for the fingers. All guitarists in the world know tabulatures. GER: I have written music, so I can write notes - but not tabulatures 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6702 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 5 of 42 07 June 2010 at 2:10pm | IP Logged |
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Summary for March 2009
01 March 2009 (p.50) Fasulye: describes her 17 years of polyglottery, likes this log GER: The musical instruments I have played, something about composing music (post 400 in this thread) GER: The dialect of Allgäu, with examples from Bayrisches Rundfunk FR: Something about gourmet restaurants, soon going to Strasbourg Recht: question about bleiben / verbleiben 03 March 2009 (p.52) (me) DA: About learning styles (with hyperliteral translation) Answer in Dutch from Fasulye (me) LAT: Comments to articles in Ephemeris, including error concerning Obama and Lincoln and the oath PLATT: About a schocking experience with the book "Wiehnachts-Stress" Fasulye: has heard some expressions in Low German in her youth Recht points out my error concerning the oath of Obama 04 March 2009 (p.52) Fasulye has made a word list with words from my rant about learning styles (above) 05 March 2009 (p.53) ENG: comment about the words "ved" and "med" in Danish Recht: question about Absatz/Abschnitt Fasulye is going to search for a better Danish dictionary. In German: learnt Danish word in the doctor's waiting room, has to do her "Steuererklärung" 06 March 2009 (p.53) Recht: has to do his tax declaration too, ughhh... Going to Germany around mid March for 4½ month FR: First posting from Strasbourg, - there is a computer at the hotel, but it has a weird keyboard (example of keyboard-induced spelling errors provided) Fasulye uses a Dutch keyboard Jar-Ptitsa: LOL 07 March 2009 (p.54) FR: Report from the zoo near Amnéville. A "Rue du docteur Zamenhof" found at Hagondange. Have bought popular scientific magazines, comments to an article about the quest for the Higgs particle and about gauge theories Fasulye: There is a zoo in her town. She has read "Revue de la Presse" and the rest of her book on paleonthology JonB: Arnold Schwarzenegger said "I'll be back!" with a deadpan expression 08 March 2009 (p.54) Fasulye: has translated the song "Entre dos tierras" from Spanish to German (result: headache). L-R with a French crime novel, has started a Spanish one too and has trouble with the audio part. Gives guitar lessons (me) FR: report from Colmar and Strasbourg, have visited 9 museums in one day and read something about the Cambrian Explosion Fasulye: has the impression that I read a lot in France, but don't speak much. She stayed with a family during her own visit, speaking profusely 09 March 2009 (p.54) Fasulye: Tax declaration finished, ready for two lectures the following week DA (with hyperliteral translation): comments on the Bulgarian verbal system, which combines features from the other Slavic languages (aspect) with the present/aorist-system from Greek. Also comments on completive phrases in Bulgarian Recht: his tax declaration isn't ready yet 10 March 2009 (p.55) Jar-Ptitsa: has read my Low German text from March 3 and apparently likes it 11 March 2009 (p.56) Fasulye: have devised a method for learning to think in Turkish, where she among other things is going to collect expressions for things in her daily life in a notebook ENG: reference to a American guy who changed his surroundings completely into 'Japanese'. Warns Fasulye about being too critical about her thinking in Turkish, suggests learning astronomy terms GER: remark about the relative easiness of thinking in a language in corresponding surroundings Jar-Ptitsa: picture of a Turkish burger Fasulye: has started her new method, but will learn astronomical terms later. Doesn't have to eat Turkish to learn Turkish. In Dutch: has been to a lecture about Finland, especially about the Northern part and the Sami DU: My own visits to Finland, comments on the the languages of that country 12 March 2009 (p.58) ENG: have found Khatzumoto-san's blog. More about using language-related stimuli in your surroundings Fasulye: has found out that she isn't the first to use her new method ("everydaylife language transfer") ENG: quote about thinking in a target language from one of my own earlier constributions GR: searched for astronomical stuff in Greek and found for instance homepages for Greek amateur astronomers' clubs. But first after a detour around some pages describing Albanian grammar 13 March 2009 (p.58) Jar-Ptitsa: mentions that you can visit Father Christmas in Finland Fasulye: amused by the mention of amateur astronomers' clubs in Greece. Comments to the strange fact that she has more trouble getting to the stage of thinking in Turkish than with her other languages ENG: Yes, Santa is said to stay at the Polar circle in Finland, - at least his marketing agency has an office there, maybe also Rudolph the reindeer, but Santa himself may prefer to stay at his abode in Greeenland. Some comments on the precise location of the Polar circle, which has moved since the marking at the roadside near Rovaniemi was established. Same problem with the Equator in Ecuador. DU: I promise to make a list of the planets in Greek. Fasulye: The movement of the Polar Circles and the Equator is due to the thing called 'precession' LAT: have read Ephemeris,- more about Obama and the president of Sudan, but also something about a galaxy with a big and a small black hole at the center, found by astronomers in Tucson, AZ Fasulye asks about the meteor crater of Arizona (answer: it is to the East of Flagstaff). She has made a copy of the science articles (in Latin) from Ephemeris Jar-Ptitsa: has studied the homepage of the Santa-monster near Rovaniemi. Genuinely surprised that there aren't reindeer in Greenland (answer: they have musk oxen instead) Fasulye (IT): would like to see the Northern lights (Aurora borealis). Report (in English) from a lecture in her club about the visibilities of Mercury and Venus. IT: sorry, I haven't seen the Northern lights. You have to go to the Northern parts of Scandinavia in the winter to see them because the sun is up all day long in summer, - and I don't like cold weather and darkness 24x7. SP: sorry, I haven't visited Galapagos, - too expensive even from mainland Ecuador FR: comment about exoplanets after having read an article in "Science et Vie" - our combination of small rocky and big gassy planets is hard to produce in computer simulations, which suggests that it is even more unlikely to find extraterrestrian life than previously thought 14 March 2009 (p.60) GR: at long last the promised list of the planet names in Greek, - they don't use the names of Roman gods like the reast of us, but the names of their own gods (who are much more colorful characters). Reference to Gustav Holst's orchestral suite "The Planets" - written before Pluto was found Fasulye: doesn't like the music, but intrigued by seeing the Greek letters again after many years Jar-Ptitsa: finds it funny that Greece is called (H)ellada, which is close to the Spanish word for ice. Feels sorry for Pluto because it has lost its status as a planet. In Dutch: something about the strange rythms of Holst's Planets, something about music in her family (she apparently can read scores) DA: inspired by Fasulye's remark about slumbering languages to quote and partly translate a Danish poem "Guldhornene" about finding golden horns from the 200's in the earth … but Fasulye doesn't like poems. She quit Greek 30 years ago. Jar-Ptitsa is reminded of a Greek woman with a very harsh voice GR: "I see that Greek has few friends here" GER: Watching "Genial daneben", a German TV-program about unknown words and strange facts. One of the words is the name of a snail-cutter (!) FR: I knew that the French eat snails, but hadn't expected the Germans also to do it 15 March 2009 (p.61) Fasulye: reads Modern Greek with the (presumed) pronunciation of Ancient Greek DU: no problem - as long as you don't have to speak to Modern living Greeks. Jar-Ptitsa: answer to Fasulye about strict upbringing and some remarks about her own Fasulye: warning against writing too much personal stuff on the internet GER: have worked with Russian wordlists and copies, but not in a way that it would be fun for others to read about. Expect reader no. 100.000 before August Fasulye: makes a list of the songs that she has used in her guitar lessons GER: one of Fasulye's songs 'Amazing Grace' is common in other versions, I provide links to a version for sackbuts and to one in Cherokee. Have been inspired to read a Kauderwälsch book about Scots. Fasulye: prefers a version with a gospel choir SCOTS: a wee bit of Scots, with several links to video clips and reading materials 16 March 2009 (p.63) Fasulye: is going to the Netherlands for a stargazer event (written in Dutch and Esperanto) and to a lecture about Greenland (in Italian) Fasulye: What an idea to dig out Scottish! Mick33: Likes Scots. Comments on its spelling Jar-Ptitsa: finds Scots funny, LOL. Picture of the Loch Ness monster. ENG: I forgot to mention the TV series Taggart, - but ah cannae stand it .. too much bluidy murther ESP: I wish Fasulye some nice days in the Holland IT: Greenland is an interesting place, for instance it has some of the oldest rocks on the planet, and a 'missing link' between fish and amphibium has also been found there (Ichtyostega) Jar-Ptitsa: (in German) Fasulye shouldn't have bad feelings about writing 'off-topic', it isn't like the opening the parliament. Find it 'toll' that I write in languages/dialects that I don't know. Mentions profArguelles, she hasn't anything against him, but find some comments too subservient GER: comment about writing in languages that I don't know: I use my known languages as a base for this. I have much respect for ProfArguelles, but take my languages less seriously - as evidenced in this log 17 March 2009 (p.64) Jar-Ptitsa: is going to try to write in Lumbuergisch and Afrikaans, she reminds us about her writings in Old Dutch Fasulye: (in Esperanto) Mentions her Esperanto-weekend, after that some questions about scientific magazines in for instance Italian. Has only seen a few of profArguelles' videos because she isn't as literature orientated. GER: I couldn't answer in the Old-Dutch thread because I have seen very little about the old stages of Dutch. I have found the videos and techniques of ProfArguelles very interesting, but like Fasulye I prefer materials about for instance natural sciences to literature. Fasulye: answer to Jar-Ptitsa, who has noticed my writings in languages/dialects that I don't really know (in this case Scots). You need a special talent for this, and she hasn't got that. Jar-Ptitsa: admits that she invented her way of writing Old Dutch. And her Limbuergisch will also be in her own homemade orthography. GER: specific method for writing in an unknown dialect like Scots: you make an interlingual sketch, and then you correct it. With better known languages you can drop the sketch, because the holes and errors can be filled out during the writing. The reason that Fasulye can't do such experiments is that she doesn't use an interlinguage, but sees every language as a separate entity from the start. To Jar-Ptitsa: try to write in Limbuergisch, even if it is a homemade version. Jar-Ptitsa: Preliminary remarks about Limbuergisch (in Dutch) Fasulye: she has her method, which works, even if she can't do certain wild experiments Jar-Ptitsa: It is possible to learn languages without travelling (much), witness herself … and at long last the promised specimen og Limbuergisch: " ech zaal en bietieke plat kalle noe,…." GER: reaction to Jar-Ptitsa's Limbuergisch, - a lot of diphtongs AFR: I have been reading at the homepage of "Weg!", for instance about a man who missed several comets, but now he and his dog at long last saw the McNaught-comet - but it was something of a let-down 17 March 2009 (p.67) Mick33: (in Afrikaans): Reaction to Jar-Ptitsas Limbuergisch with several links Fasulye: has noticed a new member of the forum, named after a living 'dinasour'. She knew the McNaught-comet from "Sky & Teleskope". Fasulye: report in German from her lecture about Greenland, - less scientific than she had hoped, but still interesting. She isn't going to translate it Jar-Ptitsa: Fasulye doesn't have to translate it. A final remark in Afrikaans 18 March 2009 (p.67) (me) FR: These days I'm reading "Science and Vie" in the bus back home from work, today among other things about a little green sea-snail from the Western shores of the Atlantic. This critter eats a meal of alguae once in its life and then uses their chlorophyl for photosynthesis for the rest of its life (up to 10 months) - it doesn't have to eat ever again. SW: I have been listening to the "Drottningholm music" of the Swedish Baroque composer Johann Helmich Roman, - with a link to one short movemenet on Youtube. Thinking about a trip to Sweden now that the rate for Swedish crowns is low (compared to Danish crowns and the euro), but I'm going to Italy first ROM: Just saw on Swedish TV that they have a visitor, the Romanian foreign minister, who is desperately trying to raise enough money to keep his country runnning. He was interviewed in Romanian with Swedish subtitles - that's how it should always be done! Mick33 has translated the summary of Fasulye's Greenland lecture into English, after that a comment in Afrikaans, including a question about the alphabet used by the Inuit AFR: the Inuit use ordinary Latin letters ENG: A few comments to passages in the translation 19 March 2009 (p.68) Mick33: He asked for information about the Greenlandic alphabet because the Inuits of Canada have been using a syllabary (originally developed for Cree). Has read that Limbuergisch is a tonal language Fasulye (in Dutch): has been reading the Swedish Wikipedia (prompted by a link in my post about the music of J.H.Roman). Thanks to Mick33 for the translation + the true meaning of the word "Volkshochschule" Josht: asks me whether I ever ended the project of using a whole Russian dictionary for writing word lists RUS: I certainly did, though not with all words in the dictionary. But I have still heard too little, and I can't think fluently in the language Glossa.passion: has read the rant in Swedish about Roman and liked it, would have answered in Swedish, but "irgendwie wollen die Tasten einfach schnell tippen und das geht nur mit Deutsch". 20 March 2009 (p.69) SWE: I have read a book about how the Peking-man was found, - the man who found the first two teeth didn't tell anybody about it for several years, not even to the official leader of the expedition Fasulye (FR)is now going to get cable TV, including Dutch and French programs. She can buy even more programs in other languages, but has to think it over. (GER): She finds it something of a consolation that she isn't the only one who has trouble thinking in a language. Her goal is to be able to think in Turkish at the end of 2009. 21 March 2009 (p.69) Jar-Ptitsa: More about Limbuergisch, including the question whether it is a Dutch or German dialect. Unsure about the claim that it is tonal Fasulye: Has read that Kriewelsch - spoken in Germany around Krefeld - is a Dutch dialect (but it really doesn't matter as it is all but extinct). Jar-Ptitsa: Limbuergisch is in fact recognized as a separate language, and it is not going to die out. 22 March 2009 (p.69) DA (with hyper-literal translation): Congratulations to Fasulye, who is now going to get a lot of TV-programs. My mother, who until now has had an oldfashioned antenna (with two Danish programs) plus a satellite receiver (pointed at the Astra satellites), has since my last visit got a broadband connection, so now she has 39 programs on the fibre connection and 36 on her 'Satellitus', with 8 doublets. This means that she now has got TV in 8 languages. SP: European hotel rooms have long had very few TV channels to offer. Now the situation is getting better, but we are still far from having the typical 50-70 channels of far cheaper rooms in Latin America or the Far East. RU: after a tip in another thread I have ordered (and now received) a book about word roots in Russian. I had hoped that there would be grammatical indications at every word, not least because derivation is used to produce aspect pairs of verbs. Fasulye (in Spanish): Thinks that my mother now live in a television paradise. But does she speak 8 languages? SP: It would be practical for Fasulye to have TV programs in Turkish, but they apparently cost extra.My mother understands Danish (and the other Scandinavian languages), English, German and a little bit of French. My own array of TV program (through cable) covers the same number of languages, but with fewer programs. 23 March 2009 (p.70) Fasulye has printed out the scientific articles from the Latin internet newspaper Ephemeris and now reads them with the help of a dictionary. She wouldn't dream of translating any of them, she had enough of that in school. LAT: Something about the relevance of hyperliteral and ordinary translations ENG: Something about learning styles as evidenced by the interviewees in the book "Success with Foreign Languages, Seven who achieved it and what worked for them" by Earl W. Stevick. Fasulye: this is real "Pflichtlektüre" (obligatory reading) for those who are interested in language learning 25. March 2009 (p.71) RUS: Some remarks about the splendid Paleontological Museum in Moscow Corrections from SII Questions concerning some points in the corrections Further clarifications from SII Thanks from me, - plus the acknowledgement that I have made a slight error: Scutosaurus is not a mammalian reptile, but an Anapside, i.e. a far relation of turtles. Gorgonopsis belongs to the group formerly called mammalian reptiles (the therapsides, which are a subgroup under the Synapsides). True mammals can be traced back to this group, but no reptiles at all, so the old name is erroneous and misleading. Dinos (including birds) lizard, snakes and the tuatara are all Diapsides. Anapsides, Synapsides and Diapsides are all members of a larger group called the Amniotes. Fasulye has discovered that there is another splendid new paleontological Museum near Saarbrücken in Germany. GER: now I have to go there. Until now the best one in Germany has been the Senckenberg in Frankfurt, while the one in Berlin suffers from a seemingly endless renovation process. 26 March 2009 (p.72) GER: Also paleontological museums in Munich and Hamburg, - and a Neanderthal Museum in Neanderthal. 27 March 2009 (p.72) (me) ROM: Something about the Aromanian dialect ('normal' Romanian is called Dacoromanian). IT: Comment to a program on Raiuno about amnesia, based on one of those films where womebody is postulated to have lost all memories about himself and his family without losing other mental skills (as Alzheimer patients do) Fasulye (in >Esperanto): Can't read the Romanian text, mentions the Greek polyglot Iconomou (known from a thread in the "Polyglots" section). She has been to a meeting in her Esperanto group, and they have spoken Esperanto and only Esperanto for two hours. ESP: answer in Esperanto, where I write that I have a more 'formalistic' attitude to language learning (with ?? after the adjective "formalistika"). Fasulye (in Dutch): has asked a expert, - the correct Esperanto word for 'formalistic' is "formalisma" ESP: Left for a short break in Italy. ENG: The visitor count passed 50.000 visitors around 17.30 GME (18.30 Danish time). Not bad. 28 March 2009 (p.73) Fasulye has visited the Natural History Museum of Dortmund and seen fossils for the first time IT: Saluti da Milano. It is raining, so I have spent the day visiting the Natural History Museum of Milano and the Aquarium in Parco Sempione. You learn a lot of the local language by visiting museums because you spend most of the time reading small and big notices in Italian. btw. I have decided only to think and speak Italian during my stay, apart from the summaries here. Popular scientific journals are apparently not as popular here as in France, - the few I have found are Italian editions of international (mostly American) magazines. A museum right beside the cathedral has put up a gigantic electronic billboard right beside the the famous facade. Fasulye (IT) has participated in an event in Limburg, and people there speak Limbuergisch Jar-Ptitsa (SPA) asks for some photos 29. March 2009 (p.74) IT: More rain, so one more museum day. I have visited the big Museum for Science and Technology, which was full of people. After that Palazzo Sforzesco, which is home to several specialized museums. Near the poor scandalized Cathedral I found several book stores which were open on a sunday, and I bought several Italian-based dictionaries for languages that I just might study later, each at a price around 14€. 30. March 2009 (p.74) IT: Beatiful weather, used it for a trip to Lago Maggiore even though the Borromean islands weren't open for visitors yet (they open April 1). Precisely because of that the number of tourists was still fairly limited which made it a pleasant experience. And apparently Volte is living near the lake. Also some comments about the weather forecasts on Italian teletext - the winds have strange names here, and nobody could agree on the forecast for the day after. Fasulye (IT) finds that the German museums are quite expensive. She likes the idea of having audio-guides in different languages. Besides she asks me a question about .jpg, and she asks Jar-Ptitsa about a way to publish her picture of a Styracosaur. 31. March 2009 (p.75) Jar-Ptitsa tells Fasulye something about how to publish pictures, and she publishes the aforementioned picture of a Styracosaur IT: nice weather (at least until the late afternoon). I first visited Bergamo, which has an old walled city with - among other things - a good museum for Natural History and a pizza-shop that beats everything I have ever seen. After that through Brescia to Desenzano at the Garda Lake, and from there to Verona. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6702 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 6 of 42 07 June 2010 at 2:19pm | IP Logged |
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Summary for april 2009
1 april 2009 (p.75) DA (with hyperliteral translation): I'm back from Milan. Something about an Italian magazine Mente e Cervello, with articles about psychology and brain physiology Fasulye: has read 10 pages about galaxy structures and heard a lecture about white dwarfs (summary in Turkish in her own log) ENG: something about picture file formats, including JPG. 2 pictures from Milano (a Triceratops and the Cathedral plus an ugly screen) 2 april 2009 (p.76) Fasulye has visited an exhibition with paleontological plants (DU) (me) DU: Devon was an interesting period for plants. I have seen something called Gondwana Lland in Brisbane 3 april 2009 (p.77) Jar-Ptitsa: can read sheet music Fasulye (FR): has attended to 'stargazerday' in the Netherlands ENG: I have watched videos in English on Youtube about many aspects of language learning and the functioning of the brain, with names as Steve Kaufman and Chomsky and Elman 4 april 2009 (p.77) Recht is still very much alive Fasulye: has done some active planetgazing Jar-Ptitsa: some remarks about autism (including savants) robertsl: extra sensitivity for sights and sound isn't a necessary element of autism, but affective disorders are Jar-Ptitsa: answers to robertsl 5 april 2009 (p.77) IT: more pictures from Milan: a mandolin-guitar-mandolin from Napoli , a dino called Tanistrofeo from the Museum of Natural History and some magazines and books which I bought in Milan NOR: comments to a TV program from Norway about the Danish royal grave church in Roskilde. Apart from that not much language study due to a visit to the indoor zoo of Randers and a meeting in my travel club, summary of the latter i DA (with hyperliteral translation) ENG: comment to robertsl: what ever the formal definition are - disturbances in the perception of sights and sounds are present in many cases of autism Recht: has bought Langenscheidt's "Basic German Vocabulary" with 4000 words, - not much for a dictionary, but nice colors Fasulye (IT): comments on the magazines and books on my picture from Milan Jar-Ptitsa: finds my photos from Milano incredibly funny (in SP) me (GR): a photo of my linguistical collection (grammars, dictionaries) with comments in Greek 6 april 2009 (p.78) Recht (GER): philosophical remarks about dictionaries Josht: asks whether I have a list with the names of my books Fasulye: finds that my book collection is well structured, with grammars and dictionaries together, but sorted after languages, Portunhol: ¡Caray! (in Spanish,) - how much time did it take me to collect those books? SP: I have linguistical books from my school years, a big lump from my study years, then some years with few books except some exotic ones bought as souvenirs, ENG: to Josht: no booklist right now, and it would be a big task to make one Fasulye: comment on the fact that many of my dictionaries etc. are old FR: have got an idea for a minor restruction of my book collection by looking at the photo Jar-Ptitsa: Is seriously thinking about placing her own books according to a logical principle 8 april 2009 (p.80) RO: long post about the present tense of the Romanian verbs. Only one of my dictionaries give sufficient information about which verbs use a postfix and which don't Fasulye: dictionaries should give such information RO: agree LATIN: I also learnt Latin irregular verbs by heart by learning the 'main tenses' FR: I have borrowed a Dutch grammar and an English book about the Loire castles/palaces Fasulye (DU): the rules for Dutch 'er' are complex, but now she has learnt them. Her Dutch is on a native level DU: short answer about grammars, in particular the Dutch one from Routledge 9 april 2009 (p.81) GER: Comments to German articles on the net about the brain and language, including a reference to a brain formation called the 'caudatum' which apparently reacts to ambiguous expressions (in one language or across languages) Fasulye (GER): it is too simplistic to speak about the language centres as something that always lies in the left hemisphere. Reference to the role of Caudatum Recht (GER): is trying out the wordlist method 10 april 2009 (p.81) Josht: wonders why Recht isn't learning more words each evening, and why should an American buy a German dictionary for English? Recht: bought it in Germany Josht: sometimes the two directions in a bilingual two-way dictionary aren't treated on equal footing Fasulye: More about dictionaries, with some caveats about old dictionaries. A multilingual experiment: has let Google translate three sentences from English into most of my languages: DA, GER, FRA, IT, SP, ROM, POR, CAT, SWE, TAG, NOR, NL. The translations into the Romance languages FR, SP and IT are perfect, but the German translation is strange. Recht: why Karfreitag. Answer from Josht 12 april 2009 (p.83) GER: something about the revised version of my wordlist method. Reaction to the experiment of Fasulye, incl. some corrections and 6 translations more: AFR, IC, LAT, ESP, PLATT. I don't study Tagalog yet Fasulye: knew about Tagalog. Proposes rather different translations for Esperanto. Has corrected the expression "train station" Recht: can't see why "train system" shouldn't be correct Josht: finds "railroad station" strange. The normal name in Ohio is "train station". Fasulye is shocked that she can't trust her dictionaries Recht: asks for some clarifications concerning the wordlists ENG: some hit counts from Google: 11.900.000 on both "train station" and "Railway station", only 980.000 on "railroad station". So the dictionaries are plainly wrong . To Recht: sorry for being Eurocentric, I provide measures in inches. However my measurements are based on the fact that I have a rather small handwriting. People with a big handwriting have to organize their pages in a way that leaves wider columns. 13 april 2009 (p.84) Recht: asks for more clarifications concerning the wordlists ENG: wide columns have to conatins three subcolumns, narrow columns just two. In German you could choose to mark the changes in the stem vowel for strong verbs (singen, sang, gesungen). With nouns you should mark feminine and neutral nouns, - then those that are unmarked must be masculine. The details of irregular words don't belong in a wordlist. The Fasulye variant of the wordlist method (GER) GER: my attempt to show the different columns in her method, plus the newest version of my own method (with a reference to my profile thread) Fasulye: some clarifications concerning the process of filling out her columns. She also expects to use her word lists for estimating her Turkish vocabulary GER: I wouldn't use my wordlists for that, instead you should make a separate count based on all known lexemes on a number of pages in a standard midsized dictionary: Estimate = number of known words times total number of pages divided by number of counted pages 14 april 2009 (p.85) Recht has worked with a wordlist layout based on the formular L2 L1 L2 L1 L2 IT: the main factor of working with word lists is not as much writing and recalling the words before writing GER: a lexeme can be a two-word combination Fasulye: ... such as Turkish "sahde kahve" = "schwarzer Kaffee" me (ENG,FR,SP,IT,PORT,CAT,RO,GER,DU,SW): A multi-lingual translation of a long post in another thread about word counts, including my regular counts and the experiment from 2007 where I counted all the words I actually had used in the forum during my first 3-4 months. The proportion of active words is higher the better you know a given language, but even for English - where my newest counts gave around 35.000 lexemes - I have probably only used about 5000 words and would be able to muster 2-3 times as many active words. Fasulye (in Dutch): liked the multilingual translation. She reckons that you need around 5000 word to understand TV programs from WDR Funkhaus Europa, and the word list in her Turkish textbooks contains 1000 words. DU: the conclusion is that you do need a lot of words. You can learn to ask for bread with a diminutive vocabulary, but you can't prevent the seller from using words you don't know 15 april 2009 (p.86) Fasulye (GER/PLATT): a quote from a Low German song book from the area around the lower part of the Rhine, - rather exotic! Jar-Ptitsa (SP): back again after her Easter pause, and Fasulye and I are still discussing. She has visited a Spanish lady and made Spanish food Fasulye (FR): has not eaten much Spanish food, but like to read about food in different languages Leonidus: has made a wordcount by writing words down from his books, and then he has calculated that this amounts to 9000 English words (more now) 16 april 2009 (p.87) SP: I don't know much about Spanish gastronomy. Last time I was there I had a pizza, but no gaspacho, no paella, no squid, no wine, no tapas (i think), but bread, milk and ICE CREAM! IT: Analysis of the sentence "Nei borghi o grumi di case che vedi qua e là, la gente del luogo ti scruta come se venissi da chissà dove". Then the analysis of the sentence "Un percorso che offre uno spraccato di cosa sia la pianura bresciana, ...". No translation, because it would be meaningsless unless you already knew Italian Recht: "we'll take your word for it! Looked like fun, however" Fasulye: Help! Help! Jar-Ptitsa: Has had some Spanish food, but no gaspacho, no paella, no squid. Maybe next time. ENG: English analysis of the first of the two sentences above. Fasulye: still no good, the English version is also incomprehensible ENG: Besides I have been watching a splendid program in English about the Middle Ages (with interviews in other languages). NO: After that a Norwegian light-weight program about preparing food 17 april 2009 (p.88) Recht has decided to relearn Latin in order to read Thomas Aquinas LAT: Then RECHT can tell me how many angels can dance on a pinhead Recht: Then I'll have to wait several years me: no problem, if Recht promises to study Latin in the meantime After discussion about hardcore grammar Fasulye is thinking about reading a bit more in a regular Turkish grammar in addition to the grammar information in her textbook ENG: maybe it would be better to stay with her proven methods. I wrote the two analyses of Italian sentences to show just how complicated perfectly ordinary sentences can be. Fasulye: has found a new job, where she will be communicating in Dutch and French. More about this in these two questions. 18 april 2009 (p.89) Maya_Star17 has found an concordance error in one of my French texts FR: yes, I did forget a feminine ending. I make repentance by explaining the rules for concordance me (ENG,GER,IT,SP,PORT): something about learning languages at home without proper access to audio sources (such as teachers), and how to get a passable pronunciation at a later point in spite of that - at least native speakers representing my languages have been able to understand me during my travels. I'm not going to publish recorded sounds. Fasulye (FR/DU): has to focus on French now, and she takes pronunciation exercises and -perfection more seriously than me, suggesting that poor people have to work and rich people just can learn pronunciation while travelling around the world FR: protest, I'm not that rich (especially not with an unsold flat on my back), but I live frugally to be able to travel. I didn't like working in a language laboratory during my study days, and I still don't like such contraptions. But during my travels I have found that I can adapt fairly quickly. Fasulye sorely misses having access to a language laboratory 19 april 2009 (p.90) Fasulye (FR) is going to use her ADSL-line more actively, for instance by listening to scientific podcasts in French. FR: I have suggested some sources for scientific podcasts to Fasulye in another thread, but I haven't tried them myself, - I listen to ordinary TV, internet TV and clips, which I find with the help of Google. I also use Google for language-restricted and site-restricted searches. GR.. and then a practical example. I searches for Hesiod in Greek, but the summary I found of this Theogony in Modern Greek seemed to be rather different from the version I knew of the history of the Greek gods. So I switched to a modern source with the usual tale of bloody murder and incest and brutality. 20 april 2009 (p.91) Jar-Ptitsa points out that the number system in the French-speaking part of Switzerland (which btw. is called Suisse Romande) is the same as in Belgium, i.e. based on 10. Fasulye is glad to hear that. IT: referring to the crash course in Greek mythology I mention that both Saturn (=Khronos) and many of its moons are named after Greek titans. This includes not only the one called Titan, but also one calledd Enceladus, which has recently been studied by the satellite Cassini. GR: I have made a word count of my Greek vocabulary. 7.800 out of 28.000 (= 28%) with one dictionary and 11.600 out of 33.000 (=35%) with another. Not enough yet, much work ahead. And a final digression: I have written in another thread something that deserves a repetition here. The problem is how to make information stick in your memory. I would personally see this as a major point: 'never write anything down before you have thought about something else' 21 april 2009 (p.91) Fasulye and Jar-Ptitsa tell Recht that Dutch will be easy for someone who already knows German DU: ..but I have just read the chapters about the endings of adjectives and nouns, and those rules were as confused and difficult as anything in German Fasulye (IT): doubts that both Jupiter and Saturn can have a moon called Callisto (as indicated by me) ENG: my error - I have checked my sources, and I'm fairly sure that I have misread the name of the Saturn moon Calypso (Calipso in Italian) . At least Calypso is also a Titan, so she should feel at home as a moon around Saturn Fasulye has studied two books with CDs about speaking on the telephone in English 22 april 2009 (p.93) Recht asks me about my favorite language(s) and about what I think about Danish, Spanish and English ENG: I don't like to choose a favorite language. I try to keep the writing style across all my languages. Fasulye prefers Dutch for personal reasons RO: I have now also counted my words in Romanian: 13.300 words out of 40.000 (33%) with my bilingual Teora, 21.440 out of 50.000+ with an old edition of the monolingual dictionary of the Romanian Academy (43%). Some remarks concerning this notable difference. 23 april 2009 (p.94) Josht: which dictionaries are best for wordlists? Found one that should contain 195.000 "words and translations", but it just contained an estimated 24.300 lexemes. ENG: long rant about tiny, medium and mammoth dictionaries. The most relevant for word lists are the medium-sized with 25-50.000 thousand words on 500-1000 pages (this is also valid for bilingual dictionaries). Size isn't everything. Fasulye: likes all her languages, and you can express just about enything in any language. (FR:) The tests for her new job continues. Congratulations (DU) from Jar-Ptitsa, who also mentions that she will be having lessons in two new classrooms. DU: Congratulations. IT: I have watched a quiz in Raiuno, where one question was about the Finnish name for the Milky Way RU: I have been listening to B.Smekhov reading Master and Margarita of Bulgakov, - though with holes in the text, which I had to mark in the text in order to be able to concentrate on listening later. ENG: I have read about tone languages and perfect pitch and I also took two tests for absolute pitch on the internet (perfect or absolute pitch: the ability to identify sound levels just from hearing a note). 24 april 2009 (p.95) SII: Corrections to my Russian text about Bulgakov from 23/4, some just stylistic, some morphological, but in a couple of places SII was even in doubt about the intended meaning. RU: my answer to SII, with proposals to change some of the most problematic sections. SII: Corrections to this second Russian text - I make too many errors of congruence and should train this. My phrases with gerunds and participles are also really bad. ENG: Some of the problem with the congruence errors is that I write my Russian in Lexilogos, a few words at a time, which I then transfer to the edit box, so that I don't really see the whole thing before I post it. There are of course of practical things that could be changed, but the biggest fault with my stop-go process of learning Russian obviously is that I have read too little and listened to even less genuine Russian. So that must be my prime objection, even if it has to be from the internet. Both Josht and Fasulye suggest sites which can help with the installation of Russian keyboards, but I don't think that this would be better than Lexilogos, where it also is possible to use a normal keyboard SII: warning about bad Russian on the internet ENG: It may be bad Russian, but I can at least read about something that I find interesting. I half-jokingly suggest that I should read literature backwards to sabotage the plot, which is the thing I find most annoying about it. Fasulye: Does "absolute pitch" means "absolutes Gehör"? Then she hasn't got it, no need to test anything. GER: Yes. According to some recent results there may be a strong genetic foundation for absolute pitch. ENG: I have listened to a couple of lectures in brain functioning by Aniruddh Patel, with information that is relevant both for language learning and music. Jar-Ptitsa has watched one of the videos and really liked the opera-singing parrot. Question about the meaning of the term 'amusic' - would such a person hear everything as one tone? ENG: No, they would probably not hear the difference between tones that are less than ½ tone apart, but it is mostly a question of being unable to deal with melody, rhythm and timbre, - they can't tell to different melodies from each other. Nevertheless they seem to be able to learn tonal languages. SP: made word counts for Spanish with three dictionaries of different size: Gyldendal 19.500 out of 54.000 (36%), Langenscheidt 17.600 words out of 30.000 i.e. words AND expressions (I didn't count expressions), and finally 34.400 words in my big Bratli with 200.000 lexemes (17%). CAT: I'm going to Catalunya soon to speak some Catalan. 25 april 2009 (p.96) Fasulye took the test for tonedeafness and twice got 77,8% of 100%, followed by 83,3% - besides she can tune her guitar. She can read my Catalan. Jar-Ptitsa: thinks that the test for tonedeafness really is a test for memory, and that absolute pitch has got very little to do with musicality Fasulye: is planning to do a multilingual interview on youtube Jar-Ptitsa: already sees Fasulye in line for a Nobelprize. She once recorded some pianomusic for Youtube, but was told to remove it. 26 april 2009 (p.97) Fasulye: Am I already in Spain? Also more about the upcoming interview. ENG: I'm still at home. CAT: Word count for Catalan, though based on just one dictionary with 27.000 words in each direction. Estimate 13.600 words, - but I'm going to buy a bigger dictionary soon, and then I'll try again. My other Catalan dictionary from 1978 is too small. Jar-Ptitsa: It must be fun to have a dictionary from the first year after Franco (who banned Catalan) CAT: I'll definitely keep the old one, - it is a souvenir from the democratic revolution. In general I keep my dictioanries until I find something better. I'll by a bigger Catalan dictionary around mid May, but my present Larousse is quite handy so I'll keep it. Apart from that: I have found a series of programs about nature and science from Catalan TV3, for instance something about an observatory on Las Palmas, the Canary Islands. 27 april 2009 (p.97) Fasulye (SPA) knows the observatory on Las Palmas and confirms that the refraction telescope wasn't invented by Galileo, but instead of Hans Lipperhey. CAT: I first correct a lot of my own errors from the last Catalan post, then mentions that there are two ways to spell Lipper(s)hey Fasulye (DU) asks whether I use a spelling checker DU no Jar-Ptitsa: normally uses Quick Locale switscher in Firefox, which includes a spelling checker Fairyfountain only scored 20% on the test for tonedeafness, - but still has been able to learn to play the drums. Fasulye: has got the job at the call center, where she has to speak Dutch and French. 28 april 2009 (p.97) Congratulations from Jar-Ptitsa and me. ENG: something more about the verbs of Tagalog/Pilipino, as I have found an excellent source for learning this language: http://www.seasite.niu.edu/Tagalog/Tagalog_mainpage.htm. But I'm not going to learn it, - I just study a corner of its grammar. LAT: My wordcounts for Latin showed 10.800 and 8.999 words with two dictionaries that both count both words (including the actual lexemes) and expressions. Therefore I noted down the total number of lexemes on the consulted pages and made my own estimates, - it must be more relevant to compare the number of known words with the number of words I have actually looked through. Another aspect: maybe my Latin counts would have been slightly better if I had learned a lot of relevant Neolatin words. 29 april 2009 (p.99) Fasulye suggest a German Neolatin dictionary. We have reached page 100 in the log. Congrats from Fasulye and Jar-Ptitsa. Fasulye (FR) has used the local mediateque to study audio sources. It only had 3 foreign newspapers.. FR: French word count: 19.100 lexems with an old Micro Robert (from the 60s) and 23.100 with a newer Gyldendal. The numbers could be higher, but I have been rather brutal in ignoring all compund words no matter how idiomatic they are. CAT: I have found out that the Catalan Larousse also count words and expressions, so I have had to reevaluate the number of known lexems as a percentage of all lexemes on the relevant pages AFR: I have read a chapter in a thesis in Afrikaans (on the homepage of the Pretoria University), - the link was suggested by Mick33 in his log.. 30 april 2009 (p.100) Fasulye would have thrown any dictionary from the 60s away long ago, but her father has still got some from the 50s. AFR: 13600 words in Afrikaans! Rather unexpected because I didn't think of learning it before last December, my reference language Dutch is also a fairly new addition and there are few ressources. For the word count I have used a school dictionary from Pharos with 40.000 words. Some time ago I tried to get a bilingual text by combining the beginning of the Bible in Afrikaans and Deutsch, but I gave it up because I didn't want to run around sounding like an oldfashioned preacher. Summary for April Comments and corrections from Fasulye and Jar-Ptitsa ESP: I had other plans for the evening, but ended up watching clips in Esperanto on Youtube. I would also have listened to several Quicktime clips from the late professor Pirons homepage, but to listen to that I apparently had to download a driver which turned out to be infected. I was saved by my virus program. In the meantime somebody tried to kill the Dutch queen. It's an evil world. Fasulye (ESP) respons vedr. Claude Piron and the attack on the Dutch queen Lumulo: other sources for Esperanto speak Edited by Iversen on 07 June 2010 at 2:26pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6702 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 7 of 42 07 June 2010 at 2:25pm | IP Logged |
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SUMMARY FOR MAY 2009
2 may 2009 (p.102) Fasulye is busy studying French for her new job Jar-Ptitsa fears that she will be made invisible for her part in a heated discussion elsewhere 3 may 2009 (p.102) ENG: I can't see any reason that she should be muzzled. I'm not yet in Catalunya, - just a family visit Fasulye has to stop writing late because she gets too tired 4 may 2009 (p.103) SW: I have spent the evening with a bit of Dutch grammar, some Russian wordlists and a word count for Swedish: 12.100 in "Stribede ordbøger" (with around 20.000 lexemes), 30.800 with Gyldendal (out of 92.000), 32.100 with Langenscheidt (around 42.500). Fasulye (GER): Has watched Harald Leesch speak about astronomy in German TV channel ZDF Recht: has lernt 160 words with wordlists GER: I have updated the description on the Wikia thing. The new idea is that the repetion columns should be on the same sheet as the original wordlist I have seen the program with Leesch on the internet DU: I have now got my own copy of "Comprehensive Dutch grammar" (Routledge) IT: I have used the Italian magazine "Turisti per caso" as bus-reading. Fasulye (DU): tells about her new job 5 may 2009 (p.104) IC: I made a word count more the evening before: Icelandic. With Sigurdsson I got 10.300 (of around 21.000), with Iðunn 10.800 (of around 22.300). I have also made bingual Icelandic (and other) texts based on the Bible, because I found a section of Lexicologos (the one I use for Cyrillic and Greek etc.) that could do such things Fasulye is getting slightly fed up with all those wordcounts Me: I do a whole series of them for all my languages. But I have also studied the Mediathek of ZDF, and I have watched a series of podcasts in English about the Byzantine emperors. Recht: asks me which languages I think in, - he sometimes thinks in half English, half German Fasulye: writes English with Greek letters, using Lexilogos Me: I try to think in all my languages, and during immersion travels I try to think exclusively in the local language. 6 may 2009 (p.104) LOW GER: I only have two small Low German dictionaries, - 4900 out of approx. 9000 with the largest of them. With most of my other languages it isn't a problem to find suitable material, and with English I feel like one of these French geese that get enormous quantities of fodder stuffed right down their throats with a hose so that their livers can get really bloated and disgusting. But it is difficult to find enough to read in Platt Josht: Asks me how I study grammar, especially morphology. He knows about mye 'green sheets' ENG: the green lists have several purposes. They force me to think the morphology through instead of just learning it passively, and later they serve as constant reference so that I don't have to make drills. There are however many grammatical subjects that aren't suitable for green sheets. Fasulye (DU): Has two little used languages: Spanish and Latin. Her brother-in-law speaks Low German, and she can understand it 7 may 2009 (p.105) POR: This time I have counted Portuguese. Porto Editora: approx. 50.000 lexemes, I knew 21.900. Langenscheidt approx. 27.800 words, I knew 19.800. Finally Oxford University Press with around 20.000 lexemes, 12.500 known. ENG: I also watched a program in National Geographic about global mass extinctions, not least the one after Perm, which was caused primarily by immense basalt flows in Siberia, but probably also by methane hydrate deposits that escaped from deep sea. Fasulye's new job is so demanding that she only can do language studies in the weekends. SW: I have seen a Swedish professor state on Swedish TV than the differences between ecologic and non-ec food are minimal compared to the differences within each group. ENG: I have also seen a program about the for 'Adam': by tracing single mutated genes you can follow the migrations of different groups. And also search for the 'original' gene bearer. Also something about 6000 maladies caused by genes. ENG: Danish word count, - I didn't know maybe 2 % of the words in Retskrivningsordbogen 8 may 2009 (p.105) Fasulye in GER: The word "Aufschlagwörter" doesn't exist. And she doesn't know the expression "willy-nilly" Recht: meaning in USA of willy-nilly: thoughtlessly or carelessly done, often on a whim ExtraLean: Didn't know it, found a link to an article about it, - originally it meant "with or against somebody's will" GER: I had translated the Danish "opslagsord" literally and got an non-existant word. It should be "Stichwörter" ENG: I used primarily used "willy-nilly" for the historical meaning, but the maning quoted by Recht also is appropriate.. I don't mind ecological farming, but forcing all agriculture to switch overnight would be thoughtless. ENG: Last word counts: Dutch, Russian and English. I had to exclude Esperanto because the number of words I actually knew was a fraction of those that I could guess. Dutch: 22.600 words (out of 45.000). Russian: 14.400 (out of 39.000) with Gyldendal, 10.800 (out of 35.000 or - revised - 27.000) in Langenscheidt. English: in the big Webster with around 165.000 single-word lexemes I knew around 51.600, 31%. With Oxford Advanced I got aroudn 27.600 out of the approx. 30.000 headword that fulfilled my criteria. Finally an estimate of 43.500 out of 48.000 with Gyldendal, that officially has 115.000 headwords - but I have chosen to exclude compound 'words' because it is impossible to draw the line between something wordlike and other word combinations with just a hint of idiomaticity. This hits English harder than any other language, maybe with French on the second place. To mark the end of the bil count a table with all the results is shown. Fasulye (DUT) also counted things in Excel in her youth (where she apparently collected stamps), but that's history. Has noticed that she also uses some of the dictionaries in the table. Warns that the percentages cannot be compared directly. Besides I had forgotten Italian. GER: I know that the numbers can't be compared directly (and have indicated this in earlier threas). However the combination of dictionary size, percentage and estimated number of known words is as close as I can get to a precise characterization of each language (unless I could somehow estimate the number of 'true' compound words against mere expressions. 9 may 2009 (p.107) IT: Have now added Italian, though just with one count based on 5 pages from Gyldendal. Result: 29.500 lexemes, - i.e higher than French, which must be a spurious result. Corroborating count necessary. Jar-Ptitsa is back - and still visible. States that she doesn't mean the things that some people have thought she meant. Asks to Fasulye's new job. Josht: has got some Old Norse materials and wonders whether it would be easy to convert the knowledge of Old Norse into knowledge about Modern Icelandic. RUS: I have been reading and listening to a travelogue from G.L.O.S.S. in two parts about the Russian town Vladimir which I in fact visited last year. ENG: details about the differences between Old Norse and Icelandic, - they are airly small Leonidus (RUS): also likes the Russian town Vladimir 10 may 2009 (p.107) DU: I have got the Dutch grammar which I ordered through the internet. I have earlier used the copy of the local library for back-home-from-work-reading. There I had learned a cornucopia of interesting details about Dutch grammar. Btw. I have to program an online photo competition for my travel club. Jar-Ptitsa: thinks that this must be an interesting book. Has not totally understood what the photo competition is all about. DU: It is an electronic photo competition, and I have promised to program it so that our members can vote through the internet. My new Dutch grammar can only be interesting for people who read grammars for fun, and they are rare, Fasulye (DU): has spotted a number of errors in my latest Dutch text. Agrees that few people read grammars for fun. Jar-Ptitsa (DU): likes to look things up in grammars, but is not an avid grammar reader. Charlmartell (DU): gives a link with an explanation of the word Cornucopia. DU: I should work on the Photo competition, but now I just sit and write things on forum instead Josht: needs to learn some Dutch to follow the discussion Fasulye: has read Charlmartell's link to an explanation in Dutch of the word cornucopia Jar-Ptitsa: has found the English Wiki-link for cornucopia ENG: I know that the word sometimes is used in English and guessed that it also would be known to the Dutch. In fact there are 9410 Dutch links, but mostly to foreign hotels and companies. I have basically finished my programming task after 13 hours of working, - one whole Sunday. 11 may 2009 (p.109) JW (DU) knows the Dutch grammar and also likes it. The author Dondalsson hs also written grammars for German and Afrikaans. Cornucopia is a very mellifluous high register word in English as is one of its synonyms: Plethora. Fasulye: corrects my expression "naar thuis". Josht: has seen in another thread that I don't write ë in Russian. Don't I ever write accents in Russian? ENG: I write accents in my wordlists if they are found in my source (which is the case if it is a dictionary). But the Russians don't write accents in normal text, except this ugly little ë. However many Russians have dropped the trema here, and I follow in their footsteps. Fasulye: The last repair mission for the Hubble space telescope has been launched. 12 may 2009 (p.110) Jar-Ptitsa is deeply distressed because people have written ugly things about her in another thread (the ususal one), including that she should be male. People have also made scathing remarks about her orthography. ENG: I have written an answer in that thread, and in the present one I advice her to stop writing there, to stay calm and maybe to use the inbuilt spelling checker in Word. Fasulye: quotes me from the aforementioned thread, and also mentions that medicine can have effect on people's writing. 13 may 2009 (p.110) JW: Agrees with me and with Fasulye, including the advice about writing in Word and using the spelling checker. He does it himself, because people in the forum judge their fellow members on the spelling. 14 may 2009 (p.110) Jar-Ptitsa will stop writing in the problematic thread, and she is trying out the advice about writing in Word. However it automatically changes everything it sees as errors, and in multilingual texts there are lots and lots of red curve lines. Besides the preview is totally corrupted. ENG: Yes, the preview uses another character set than the rest of the forum, and that can make in unusable. Besides spelling checkers just look whether a word exists or not, not whether it is used in an appropriate way in a certain document. My travel club has problems not with my programming as such, but with e-mails, that's why I'm still up at 3.26. My current bus reading is Ina Müller (more about that later), and I have been studying Tagalog again. Finally: in another thread a couple of members have mentioned the idea of making a linkslist to my more substantial postings. But I can du that faster myself, because I keep a backup in Word for my own contributions. Fasulye (FR): one more language in my collection? She has already problems combining the studies of two languages, French and Turkish. Jar-Ptitsa has a problem getting Word to check more languages ENG: Localized versions of Word come with at least one language-package, which normally contains 3 or 4 languages. You can write in many more languages, but not do spellings checks or automaric division of Word. Besides not all languages in the languages are necessarily activated. An alternative could be to use a thirdpart spelling-checker. JW asks whether the German spelling checker of the Office package controls case endings. He uses orangoo. Fasulye (DU) has tested jspell and finds that it might be useful. FR: I came too early to a meeting which gave my almost an hour to read the French computer magazine ("Micro"). The French have their own expressions for many things, and I'd better learn then. LOW GER: Comments to the aforementioned book of Ina Müller. There is an essay about her friend and and farting cows - their methane is even more ozone-hostile than ordinary CO2.. 15 may 2009 (p.111) Fasulye: will tell her astronomy club about the content of the Danish article about space travel which I mentioned earlier in this log 16 may 2009 (p.112) GER: Ina Müller again, and something about learning German dialects Jar-Ptitsa (GER): is still looking for optimal solutions to use spelling control. She uses Safari as a writing media Fasulye (GER): has been experimenting with Skype 17 may 2009 (p.112) Johst asks the question: how do you find room for all the old wordlists, and how do you find anything in them? ENG: that's not what word lists are for - you use them to learn something, you repeat once or twice, and then that is it. I keep mine for sentimental reasons, but you could just as well throw them out. A visit to my travel club is briefly mentioned, and then something more about Tagalog verbs. CAT: As a preparation for my upcoming journey I have listened to a 4 hour tape I made while I still had Catalan TV through my cable operator ENG: I have made a list of my own favorite posts in my profile thread Fasulye: Understands much of my Catalan writing. Likes the looks of the Tagalog grammar page I have referred to 18 may 2009 (p.113) CAT: I have read about a paleontological museum in Coll de Nargó in Spain (just South of Andorra). LOW GER: I have listened to a program about the Varrus-battle in Low German through the internet. But this kind of Platt sounded different from the kind I'm used to, maybe a more Southwesterly dialect. 21 may 2009 (p.113) CAT: first post after several days because I couldn't find a place with internet in Girona, written in Figueres. Something about my (positive) experiences with speaking only Catalan to everybody. I have bought the two English<->Catalan dictionaries of the Catalan Academy. Fasulye: Understands why people in Catalunya don't expect tourists to speak Catalan. Understands most og my text, but asks what "això" means. 22 may 2009 (p.113) CAT: Now I have found a computer with internet in Girona (with the help of the Tourist information). Something about the differences between Valencian and 'Central' Catalan, - some things from Valencian are rests from Old Catalan. "Això" is a neutral demonstrative: 'this'. I have visited Lloret de Mar, Tossa de Mar and San Feliu de Guixols. Fasulye (DU): Is mildly shocked that I have paid 40€ for a taxi from Tossa to San Feliu. Reads my Catalan. Has visited the zoo in Münster, but not the Natural History Museum - doesn't know where exactly it is. 23 may 2009 (p.114) CAT: now in Barcelona, where I have visited the Zoo and the Aquarium, and both things cost a lot to visit. One visit from the '100% Catalan' rule: I have found an excellent Castillian travel program 'Viajar' on the TV, and I have watched several programs there. But me, I still only speak Catalan. The Natural History Museum in Munster is right beside the Alwetterzoo. Fasulye: - is deliberating about the expenses of a visit there (studied in Münster in 1986). But first a visit to the Planetarium of Bochum. 24 may 2009 (p.114) CAT: with the help of the Tourist Information I have found a reasonably priced internet place in Barcelona. I have visited among other things the Maritime museum, where there were free audio gudies (of course I chose the Catalan version). They also had a big exhibition about the Chinese superadmiral Zheng He. One lady at my hotel couldn't or wouldn't understand my room number in Catalan (cinc cent vuit - sing senn v-uit). Well, her problem. Fasulye: asks about the meaning of the word "Soroll" (= noise, - I had used it about the background music in the internetcafé the day before). 25 may 2009 (p.114) Jintro: a multilingual post, including the first French sentences in 10 years. "Catalans" and "Catalonie" in Dutch, not with "K", otherwise impressed by Fasulye's Dutch. ENG: back home again. Ultraliteral translation of my latest Catalan post into English. Something about the four different keyboards I used in Catalonia. Conclusion of my travel: I can peform well enough in Catalan to deal with a pure Catalan holiday, so basic fluency is warranted. I am going to make more of this kind of tours later this year. 26 may 2009 (p.114) Jar-Ptitsa (DU): something about Danone yoghurt and the weather in Belgium. Fasulye (DU): Is going to spend some time on my Catalan rants, including the hyperliteral translation. Tanks to Jintro for the positive words. Asks whether I'm still in Catalonia. DU : no, I'm back home. I have been occupied with the four hundred photos I brought back, and besides I have watched a Norwegian program about the aquarium in Bergen. Jar-Ptitsa (DU): Uses Firefox and the 'locale switcher'. Is also going to travel soon. malta had been under consideration, but it will be the Belgian coast. DU: has Jar-Ptitsa seen Brugge? Fasulye (DU): has visited Brugge long ago, but doesn't remember much Jar-Ptitsa: is looking forward to visit Brugge, which is close to the coast. Much trouble with a hotel in Tunisia during an earlier travel. 27 may 2009 (p.115) DU: Brugge is a very interesting place, that invokes the Middle ages just like Girona IC: I have bought a flight ticket to Iceland SW: I have been watching Swedish TV while looking through my photos on the PC. There was for instance a splendid program in Swedish about the Hettites, an old Indoeuropean warrior people from Turkey. 28 may 2009 (p.116) IC: Now that I'm going to Iceland I have to train my Icelandic. I started out reading about volcanoes, including the one at Laki that killed a fifth of the Icelandic population in the late 1700s. But through a reference to a volcano on Venus I also found an Icelandic astronomical internet page. Hyperkliteral English translation on a short text about the return of the shuttle with the people that made the 5. and last repair round on the ageing Hubble telescope. ENG: Through a hint in Weizenkeim's log I found an interview in 5 parts with the man who invented Klingon (Marc Okran, a professional linguist). IC: I have tried to find Icelandic texts with audio, but it is difficult - I once saw some news with text and audio at the home page of RUV (the national Icelandic TV company). However the home page has been restructured.and I can't find them. However there are some podcasts in Icelandic. Jar-Ptitsa: Is being tempted to learn Icelandic at a later time (not now), - it is like the father and mother of the Germanic languages, like Latin is it for the Romance ones. Fasulye: has to cut down on her internet time, because she gets neck pains from her job. Will record the planned Youtube clips this weekend. (GER): Has been watching programs about fighting dinosaurs on Arte. GER: to Jar-Ptitsa: it would be much easier to learn Icelandic if it wasn't so difficult to get good materials. To Fasulye: I can only watch Arte when I visit my mom. Good luck with the upcoming video - personally I prefer to stay invisible and only communicate through writing 29 may 2009 (p.116) Fasulye: Only few people who learn languages show the result on the internet. About my upcoming journey to Iceland: Probably only few Germans go there, but seeing forward to hear about the place and its language. IC: I have been to a peptalk-meeting arranged by my employer, followed by a social event, so I haven't had much time to study. However in the train back home from the neighbour town - approx. one hour - I had time to read some excerpts from the so called 'Poetic Edda' in Old Norse. 30 may 2009 (p.117) Summary for May 31 may 2009 (p.117) Jintro (FR) has also returned from Barcelona. (DU) Something about bike riding in Flandern. (GER) Link to the official Dutch wordbook in an online version 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6702 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 8 of 42 07 June 2010 at 2:28pm | IP Logged |
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SUMMARY FOR JUNE 2009
1 june 2009 (p.117) IC: about some Old Norse myths (in fact written 30/5, but moved to make space for summary) ENG: congratulations to Fasulye for making her first video 2 june 2009 (p.117) IC: hyperliteral translations of some Icelandic expressions with the word "koma" (to come) SW: I am going to extend my holiday by traveling through Sweden to Kastrup Airport at Copenhagen ENG: I have watched a TV program not about the Permian extinction, but about a similar situation that is likely to occur in 250.000.000 years, when all the continents again will coalesce into one supercontinent. But mankind will be extinct long before June 250.002.009 Cordelia (ENG + SW): telling me that every Swede will be able to understand my Swedish, and that Scandinavians have a bad habit about getrting drunk when they visit each other's countries. We shouldn't speak English to each other. She didn't know the word 'maltrakterat' SW: the word 'maltrakterat' occurs in a few Swedish texts, but I'd better avoid it when it is so rare. I don't understand how Swedes can eat 'surströmming' (rotten fish) 3 june 2009 (p.118) IC: I have found a thing on the Lexilogos site that can produce bilingual texts based on the Bible. CAT: I have read an article in one of my Catalan magazines about the blunders of Napoleon during the battle at Waterloo 4 june 2009 (p.118) LAT: While searching for Latin texts at Youtube I found a piece based on a pseudo-Latin text: Adiemus by Karl Jenkins. I also found out that my dictionaries didn't contain the word 'compositor', but it is used in Neolatin texts so I am also going to use it. Fasulye: hasn't met Swedish or Icelandic people in person, but has had a Swedish penfriend 1996 (they communicate through English) IC: Something about the Old Norse poem Vọluspá which describes the whole history of the world from the beginning to after the end (which is called Ragnarọk in Old Norse, - notice the letter "ọ", which corresponds to "ö" in Modern Icelandic ). (RUM): Something about my visit to Sibiu i Romania and about the zoo of Bucureşti. 5 june 2009 (p.118) LAT: Something a list of computer expressions in Latin 6 june 2009 (p.118) IT: I have been listening to ouvertures and other instrumental sections from Rossini's operas, - a man who definitely believed in early retirement. GER: watching Genial Daneben on SAT1 7 june 2009 (p.118) Jar-Ptitsa: find that the dating "June 250.002.009" far to imrpecise (LOL hahahah). Likes the dolphins in one of the Adiemus videos. Has experimented Fasulye's, mine and her own nicks in Firefox' spelling checker ENG: "June 250.002.009" is precise enough - we will be extinct long before. But many TV programs are very worried about our fate 250.000.000 years from now, which is ridiculous. My own name is often changed into "Iverson", which is Swedish - but a spelling checker wouldn't catch that. Fasulye: Busy Sunday - doesn't understand polyglots that only are interested in languages. Has bought books and magazines about astronomy plus a 13,7 billion year world history by Harald Lesch. Has also written some snail mail. ENG: I have watched TV in English (something about Japanese gardens, but unfortunately I can't write in Japanese. One of the gardens described is very near my own town) me (FR,IT,EN,LAT,GER): Have also watched a truly multilingual program about Pompei, - not even undertitles! FR: ... but the following program about Jeanne d'Arc was in English, - rather ironic considering that they burnt her alive ENG: this log just passed 100.000 visitors while I was writing 8 june 2009 (p.119) SW: Writing on a computer on the Swedish-owned ferry to Varberg in Sweden, - so I have to write in Swedish. The Pirat party (who wants to abolish all copyright rules) has got a mandate at the election for the EU parlament 9 june 2009 (p.120) SW: I'm now sitting at computer in the public library of Varberg, which means that I only have 10 minutes at my disposal. I have visited the castle of Varberg and seen the skeleton of the 11th century Bocksten man, who was buried in a bog with spikes through his body like a Transylvanean vampyre. I have also read parts of a book about the great Swedish explorer Sven Hedin Fasulye (DU): Impressed that I spent my 10 minutes at the computer on writing stuff for the forum. Tries to understand the Swedish text 10 june 2009 (p.120) Jar-Ptitsa: points to my remark about a Transylvanian vampire in the Swedish text (but not in the translation). Has slept badly because of allergy, but at least the room wasn't full of dead bodies 11 june 2009 (p.120) DU: The Bocksten probably wasn't a vampire, but ramming people down in bogs with a spike through their hearts is a way of making certain that they don't run around as ghost or vampires. SW: I am now writing at a computer in the tourist information at the Central Railway station in Malmö (the public computers didn't work). I have visited the local castle Malmöhus (with historical collections and an aquarium) plus the remains of a Viking age fortress in the neighbourtown Trelleborg. Ready to go to Iceland. Fasulye: asks for a translation of a passage in the Swedish text where I write something about speaking Danish in Sweden 12 june 2009 (p.120) ENG: Translation of the said passage, - I had decided to speak Danish to Swedish people who could understand it and Swedish to the rest. But unfortunately almost all Swedes I met could understand my Danish, so I didn't speak much Swedish myself - but I thought in Swedish most of the time which is almost as good. IC: I have found a computer in one of the tourist informations in Reykjavik, Iceland. I read a free newspaper during the flight, and I I have already bought a big Swedish-Icelandic dictionary and three magazines. It is difficult to find a useful dictionary XX--> Icelandic because they almost all are written for Icelanders, and then they lack morphological information about the Icelandic words. SW: Before leaving Malmö I bought a science magazine in Sweden, and here I read several articles about physics and astronomy: a new estimate for the size of the Milky Way, a relativistic version of a theory that dispenses with dark matter and energy by operating with a dependency between gravity and mass density in space, and finally a large exoplanet that is far too close to its star for comfort. Anders H: some corrections to my Swedish, including *ock instead of 'och' and some cases of *at instead of 'att' 12 june 2009 (p.120) Fasulye: has understood that I spoke Danish to the Swedes in order to test their comprehensiion skills, - and that is not wrong. She refuses to believe that the Milky Way should be as large as the Andromenda Galaxya and envies the possibilities I have during my travels for buying bilingual dictionaries with weird language combinations. Jar-Ptitsa: likes the Icelandic letters ð and þ. Recognizes the problem with missing morphological information from Dutch-->French dictionaries, - even the gender of the Dutch words is often missing. Fasulye (DU): Points to the "Wolters Sterwoordenboek Frans-Nederlands en Nederlands-Frans" which has exactly this defect. 13 june 2009 (p.121) IC: I have visited several places outside central Reykjavik yesterday. Conclusion after the tour: I didn't speak much Swedish in Sweden, but could have done it at any moment. In Icelandic I didn't because I distrusted my level in that language, and the local people seemed to get a shock every time I tried. However my passive skills - especially reading - have progressed immensely after just a few days here. The words that I try to look up in my little Langenscheidt dictionary now mostly are so rare that I can't find them, - that's a good sign. I have bought an audio book with the saga of Egil Skallagrimsson. ENG: To Fasulye: the Swedish replied in Swedish even when I spoke to them in Danish. I'm happyly surprised that I can use a dictionary based on Swedish without missing out on words. To Jar-Ptitsa and Fasulye: The situation with Dutch-based bilingual dictionaries is a resultat of the relative lack of people who want to learn Dutch. 14 june 2009 (p.121) DA: Back home again, which is celebrated with a hyperliteral translation into ENG 15 june 2009 (p.121) Fasulye: Something about having an account with Youtube, has also found a course in Danish there Recht: happy to hear words he just has learned, such as "verkösten" 16 june 2009 (p.121) ROM: had to wait for a large print job at my job and spent the time reading something about the town Sinaia in Romania, which I visited in 2006. ENG: At home: listened to Beowulf, partly in Anglosaxon (but didn't catch much of that part). Read about a solar eclipse that will pass over Southern China July 21, - but I can't comment on it because I can't write in Chinese 17 june 2009 (p.122) ENG: spent some hours the previous evening on working with bilingual texts in Tagalog, - first a Danish-Tagalog text from the Book of Kings (in the Bible), made with the tools at Lexilogos, but then I realised that two of my Tagalogean dictionaries were even more suite to this activity because each word was illustrated with a sentence in Tagalog and its translation into English. However I was puzzled by having two words for grasshopper in the Tagalog sample sentence I quoted (against just on occurrence in the English version) GoldFibre: Suspicion confirmed with the help of a Filipino coworker. ENG: ... but the most puzzling thing was that this coworker had to look up the word 'luktón' - there was no warning in the dictionary that this might be a rare word. 18 june 2009 (p.122) Josht mentions another dictionary with sentences at every word: "A Phrase and Sentence Dictionary of Spoken Russian" (written for the US military) ENG: more about "Ordinary good dictionaries (OGD)" versus "Phrase dictionaries (PD)" 19 june 2009 (p.121) CAT: a podcast about the small town Tossa de Mar which I have recently visited, sent on TV3 Catalunya, series "Espai de terra". POR: the running programs from the Portuguese TV Ciênca have apparently stopped, which is really bad - I used them much in order to learn to understand spoken Portuguese. LAT: a rant about funny and otherwise interesting country names in neo-Latin, based upon data from Ephemeris and the Latin Vicipedia. Fasulye: has had a very efficient Turkish studying week, but found time at 6.30 in the morning to read the English language version of National Geographic, with articles about the find of a mammoth baby in Sibiria ansd something about the diplomatic problems concerning the division of the arctic seafloor, now the the ice cap there is melting away. 21 june 2009 (p.123) ENG: something about word lists for Chinese (spurred on by a private message). Maybe a four-column solution would be suitable: Chinese pictograms, Pinyin, English, pictograms.. GER: I have also read about the mammoth baby, but furthermore I have seen a program in English on National Geographic about the find (which was stolen, but found again in a local shop, and now it is going to Skt. Petersburg). Concerning the Arctic area: Rusland and Canada have wide Northern coasts, while Denmark (through Greenland) and Norway have very Northerly, but relatively narrow coasts. My guess is that we will be cheated into a solution that primarily benefits Rusland, with Canada in its footsteps. IC: A history from the airport magazine from Keflavik about an Icelandic priester who bathed in rotten urine, spiced with the raw hide including the hairs from the carcass of a selfdead mare. Even the local Icelanders didn't like the smell. Anya mentions the problem with Chinese pictographs that you have to learn not only the whole sign, but also the stroke order used to produce it. ENG: true, but even in languages with an alphabet you cannot put all information into a word list. Btw: how can you learn about the stroke order, - is it indicated in any way in a Chinese dictionary? Fasulye: Yes, the article she had read was about the mammoth baby Ljuba 22 june 2009 (p.123) Anya: You can learn the order of the strokes in Chinese pictograms from textbooks or some sites (but she just draw them at sight when she meets them in Japanese) Turaisiawase: a good off-line source for the stroke order: http://wakan.manga.cz/?page=download ENG: I have read something about an upcoming minor revision of the Chinese spelling in my local newspaper, Jyllandsposten. This article also tells about Chinese who resort to the use of computers because they have problems writing their native language According to Geological Journal and Science Daily, a C14 test on Mammoth bones from Shropshire has indicate an age of just 14.000 years. GR: This announcement has also found its way to the Greek internet site kathimerini.gr. ENG: Science Daily also tells about an experiment with genetically manipulated mice that have received a copy of the gene FOXP2, which is involved in the physical side of our language production Fasulye likes Science Daily and has signed up for no less than three of its newsletters ENG/FR: as an answer to a question from Toufik18 in another thread: a practical illustration of the selection of dictionary words for a word list Toufik18: used to learn each word with all its derivations in one go, - jubilant to see that this isn't necessary. Learn one base word and postpone learning the derivations. 23 june 2009 (p.124) GR: More articles from Kathemerini.gr: a claim that slightly overweight people live longer than skinny people, another article that states that vingear makes it difficult to built fat reserves and a third article that states that the Earth's hidden reserves of Methane are escaping due to global warming, and that will make the climate go totally berserk. So it really wouldn't matter if I ate one more icecream. GER: TV about Flensburg (just South of the Danish-German border) with Ina Müller, my preferred Low German author - but unfortunately in High German here. IT: After that I watched Superquark on the Italian TV-station Raiuno, with a film from the African savannah (including the chase and consumption of a warthog). Jar-Ptitsa: likes chocolate icecream, pities the poor warthog. IT (still watching Superquark): now something about Richard Lionhart and the extraction of gold 24 june 2009 (p.124) Fasulye (ENG): Has watched a DVD about the climate changes, including something about the Methane problem. Only 10 years left to save the world. Jar-Ptitsa and me: belated happy birthday to Fasulye (actually it was 22/6) 25 june 2009 (p.125) FR: A long rant about how to say "window seats" in French, but expressions like "place (côté) fenêtre" are quite rare in French, according to Google Jar-Ptitsa would say "siège côté fenêtre". ENG: I check the expression with "siège" and find some very hit scores, - deeply worried because I thought I knew my French IT: Something about some experiments performed by an Italian neurophysicist named Proverbio. Apparently it is easy to se differences in the brain responses to words in your mother tongue and even the best second languages, if you look at the amplitudes. Reineke: has checked the frequency af the expressions with "siège" and found that they are as rare as those wiht "place". Apparently the French don't care about a name for these seats as long as they have the option of reserving them. ENG: I had simply forgotten the quotation marks around the expressions with "siège", and therefore my results were totally off the mark. Jar-Ptitsa (post no. 1000 - and 1001 - in the thread!): sorry for having proposed a little-used expression for "window seat" ENG: No reason to be sorry (and do keep on writing in French), - in fact it seems that there aren't any common way to indicate a windows seat in French, only ways to get one. NO: I have watched a Norwegian program about rowing boats, mostly with people from the Western part of the country whose dialects were the foundation for Nynorsk, my preferred version of the (written) language. Also some glimpses from Roskilde, where the is a wiking ship museum - the smaller boats here are very close to those used in Norway today. Saw also the end of a program in the series "My brilliant brain". It seems that you can acquire some of the skills of the savants by having your left brain temporarily blocked by magnetic pulses. To be frank I'm not tempted. Jar-Ptitsa (ENG): After the thing with the "sièges" she has become somewhat critical of her level in French 26 june 2009 (p.126) Jar-Ptitsa (DU): Something about having seen a butterfly 27 june 2009 (p.126) DA: I haven't got much to say about butterflies right now ENG: in a reference in another thread to the aptitude tests of the American military I noticed the expression "one can improve their scores by..." Fasulye: will try to get a less sedentary job, and until that's found she will have to do gymnastics - and that time will be taken from language learning. DU: my suggestion is to use an MP3 player Fasulye (FR): Will try different kinds of physical activity each Sunday, - her health can't endure sitting down all day long throughout the week Jar-Ptitsa (DU): suggests that Fasulye should find an ergotherapeut, that can suggest some suitable job alternatives. Somebody somewhere in an unknown place near Fasulye has mentioned the menial job of "fietsbode" (bike courier or messenger), but for Fasulye it might be better to become a language teacher - teachers can move around as much as they wish while teaching. Btw. the spellingchecker doesn't accept "vietsbode". Fasulye (DU): Is seriously thinking over the suggestion to become a language teacher, but you need a diploma for that. The word "Vietsbode" doesn't exist, - use "bote" or "kourier" (with a 'k' ?) STAF250: True, vietsbode doesn't exist. An ordinary 'postbode' however may be using a'fiets' (not 'viets') Mick33: "one can improve their scores by..." may a typographical error 28 june 2009 (p.128) Fasulye (GER): Her local library ('Mediathek') has sold out of its old books, and she managed to buy several books about languages - French, Italian and Latin. Jar-Ptitsa (GER): Did get the meaning of the 'book flea market' right, puzzled that "Antikmarkt" isn't accepted by her German spelling checker - is a tad annoyed with it. Mentions another thread about the collision between apparently singular nouns that are combined with plural words - apparently it is acceptable Recht: gives a link to an external source, which allegedly also condones this usage Bao: Glad to hear that it is permitted, - has seen some examples with singular, some with plural markers GER: to Fasulye: The Danish libraries also sometimes sell old and little-used books, but rarely anything that I would buy DU: to Jar-Ptitsa: The spurious word "vietsbode" makes me think not of postmen on bikes, but of these young madmen that whisk around major cities to deliver all kinds of goods. ENG: to Recht: I now that singular nouns are often combined with plural markers, but even the source Recht mentions warns against doing it with 'one' (the quintessential marker of uniticity) FR: A long rant about troubadour poetry in Occitan, - which I couldn't write in the proper language, sorry. GR: Something about some Ancient Greek melodies (and one even older Hurritic melody), which have been put on Youtube by a specialist. To be frank they sound terribly. Fasulye (GER): You don't say "Antikmarkt" in German, but "Trödelmarkt" oder "Flohmarkt". And while the book sale did give some results, she didn't find relevant books about natural sciences, grammar or classical sheet music this time. Bao (GER): Has through Google fond out that the word "Antikmarkt" exists, but it is used about places where you specifically sell antiques, not ordinary flea markets. Fasulye (GER): Has learnt something about her own language. Jar-Ptitsa: has commented in another thread on people who sneakily try to find people who have re-registred and was asked to ignore those discussions for that. Now asks for advice here. ENG: I also think she should ignore them, not least because the whole question of closing an account or muzzling somebody is irrelevant until the Administrator returns (if he ever does). ENG: a practical example of the decoding of a biblical text in Tagalog, using a parallel English version, 3 small dictionaries and Translate.Google. The goal should be a hyperliteral translation, but it is not easy even with such an arsenal of ressources. 29 june 2009 (p.129) Mado Proverbio (IT) has made an account at this forum because she was angry about my references to her study of the way the brains of Italian EU interpreters react to Italian vs. English words (25/6). IT: I didn't deliberately denigrate the provess of Italian interpreters or scientists (except maybe through the use of the English expression "guinea pigs"). However she is right in another respect: my Italian in that passage was abysmal, but now I have corrected the worst blunders. 30 june 2009 (p.129) GER: Something about Wagner's opera tetralogy the Niebelungenring and its sources, - I used it as relaxation music during a hernia operation. Fasulye (GER) wishes me a speedy recovery. She is aware that classical music is said to have a tranquilizing effect, but only if you like it. GER: Something more about the original Middel High German poem Niebelungenlied, with a couple of links 1 person has voted this message useful |
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