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Iversen’s Multiconfused Log (see p.1!) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 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 3049 of 3959 03 October 2012 at 4:16pm | IP Logged |
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I have not been writing in this log for a few days, and look what has happened: it got buried at page 3.
SCO: Ailice: (...) I ken I hae tae beat time whan I lairn music "Ah! That accoonts for it," says the Hatter. "he winna staun beating. Nou, if je juist kept on guid terms wi him, he'd dae juist aboot onything ye wantit wi the clock. Like, gin it were nine a'clock in the mornin, juist time tae start yer lessons: ye'd juist hae tae whusper a word tae Time, an roond gaes the clock, like that! Hauf-past ane, time for oor denner!" I haven't kicked Time, but still it runs like mad. I have mostly worked with old sources since the last post, like my guide to Singapura in Indonesian and Mad Alice in Wonderland and things like that so there has not been many new things to report. I have watched TV from the usual places, including local news from Norway and Sweden and Germany, and I have been surfing in a number of languages without taking much notice of what I found out there. Which makes it difficult to report on it. One study item however was slightly unusual: a text about speech synthesis in Greek. The unusual thing about it is that most of the Greek I have read has had a something to do either with geography/travelling or with archeology or history. GR: Το εργαλείο χρησιμοποιεί κατάλληλες τεχνικές για την αναγνωριση τον σημαντικών στοιχείων κάθε σελίδας και τηυ ομαδοποίησή τους (…) Εγω αναρωτιέμαι πώς θα λειτουργήσει αυτό στην Βικιπαίδεια. Εχω κάποιες φορές έχω σηματοδοτήσει ένα τμήμα και στην συνέχεια προστεθεί μόνο ένα γράμμα περισσότερο, και ξαφνικά το μισό της οθόνης σημειώνεται. Η δομή μιας ιστοσελίδας μπορεί να είναι αρκετά περίπλοκη. Φυσικά, είναι επίσης δύσκολο να επιλέξει προφορές όταν η εξαρτηθεί από την γύρω τους ήχους, και θα πρέπει να έχετε ένα λεξικό προφοράς για να πάρει κάτι σωστό στα αγγλικά. Ωστόσο, η τεχνική αυτή έχει σημειώσει μεγάλη πρόοδο στην τελευταία δύο χρόνια. Edited by Iversen on 03 October 2012 at 4:33pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 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 3050 of 3959 05 October 2012 at 12:31pm | IP Logged |
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GER: Gestern Abend habe ich Lokalprogramme aus Schweden und Norwegen und (Nord)deutschland geschaut, und dann begann ich haufenweise deutsche Orgelmusik von wenig bekannte Komponisten zu hören statt Sprachen zu studieren. Mit 'wenig bekannt' denke ich zum Bespiel an Leute wie Jakob Praetorius (Bruder des weltberühmten Michael Pratorius), Matthias Weckmann, Heinrich Scheidemann, Franz Tunder und Melchior Schildt, und ich meine generell, daß man sich nicht nur Johann Sebastian Bach beschränken sollte. Gleich wie man auch nicht nur English und (vielleicht) Deutsch lernen sollte.
After that I made wordlists in Indonesian and Irish. Well, I intended also to study some texts, but I found that my memory worked slightly better than expected (in the sense that I could remember the words after fewer repetitions and with less use of 'memory hooks') so I decided just to carry on. Due to the nature of the language Indonesian dictionary is based on roots with articles that also mention their main derivations. And articles about words with affixes systematically give the roots, which can be difficult to look up if you don't know some rules of thumb - such as the one that says that initial s- often is changed into y after a prefix. I would dearly love to see the same attention to 'wordfamilies' based on derivative or etymological patterns in other dictionaries - not least in Russian. My Irish dictionary deals with a language which uses flexible word beginnings AND inflexion at the other end, so you will soon learn to disregard any h's as letter no. 2 in a word and h's before wowels and t's before s'es and anything with an apparently unpronouncable combination of two initial consonants, especially if no.2 is written as a capital letter - all these things are the result of specific sound transformations caused by the grammatical context, and the dictionary sticks to the basic forms -otherwise it would be several times thicker. SCO: The day ah'll finish wee Ailice an her Àdventuires - tho not withoot mentionin that the orthography uised in the beuk is different frae the ane ah ken frae the online dictionar ah for ordinar breuk. For ensaumple the beuk writes "I" whare ah write "ah". Edited by Iversen on 05 October 2012 at 12:48pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4829 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 3051 of 3959 05 October 2012 at 1:12pm | IP Logged |
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Iversen,
waren Jakob Praetorius, Matthias Weckmann, usw. Zeitgenossen von Johan Sebastian Bach, oder?" (Im Vorbeigehen, habe ich eine Freundin, die sehr stolz auf ihre scots Sprache (und Robert - nie Rabbie!) Burns ist. Sie wohnt nebenbei Glasgow, deswegen sehe ich sie leider sehr selten. Ich glaube aber, dass sie sehr froh über dein Scots sein würde!") (wäre hier "schottische", bzw. "Schottisch" besser?) Danke. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 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 3052 of 3959 07 October 2012 at 11:08pm | IP Logged |
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EN: As far as I know People in Scotland prefer the word Scots, so that's the one I use. GER: Auf Deutsch müßte ich wohl "schottisch" schreiben, weil es kein Wort wie *Schots gibt. SCO: I dunno knaw hou hamewart Scotsmen micht react tae my feebel mynts tae speak an write o thair leid - or rather in a somewhat eclectic mix of hardline Scots dialects. Juist fair confeerance: NO i ei norsk sammenheng ville det likesom hardnakket å skrive på nynorsk snarare enn på bokmål, sjøl om de fleste nordmenn brur bokmål, å prøve å snakke ei blanding av dialekt fra Vestlandet. PLT: In Düütschland wöör 't wie Platt apenlich te snacken, aver GER: ich fürchte die Leute dort wurden es als herablassend interpretieren, weil Platt oft mit sehr altmodische ländliche Typen im TV verknüppft wird (Buttenwerder und so was). DA: Den samme negative reaktion kunne jeg komme ud for, hvis jeg uden nærmere forberedelser prøvede at tale danske dialekter uden at være enormt god til det.
GER: Die deutsche Komponisten, die ich erwähnt haben lebten rund ein Jahrhundert vor J.S. Bach (geboren 1685), - einige wurde um 1580 geboren, die letzten um 1620. Ausser Bach ist Buxtehude wohl der bekannteste Orgelkomponist Deutschlands, aber es gibt eine Fülle von weniger bekannte Namen, deren Musik nicht sehr bekannt ist. Under das ist Schade. EN: This weekend I have visited my mother, and the most surprising thing is that her Astra reception suddenly was if not excellent, then at least passable even for many HD programs - it has been pure misery all summer long since somewhere around April or may. Of course I watched 'funny' languages whenever I had the chance. And sligthly surprising I even got the chance to hear some Spanish and Italian while she was watching with me. EN: Ik keek naar Nederlandse TV van BVN, toen ze uit de keuken kwam. En natuurlijk heb ik geprobeerd over te schakelen naar iets dat we allebei kon begrijpen. EN: Un poco al azar terminé en TV Andalucia que está a una distancia de sólo unos pocos números de BVN, y esto le gustaría ver porque havia clips de sitios turísticos en el sur de España que ella havia visitado. IT: In seguito abbiamo riguardato almeno un'ora di Holiday TV da Italia, dove il tema ovviamente era il Lago di Como. Si tratta di un canale strano che mostra solo clip turistici intervallati da pubblicità di alberghi di lusso ecc. E quando, per esempio, si visita un museo, si cambia da un stanza alla prossima stanza ed una voce ci dice che cosa c'è esattamente in questa stanza - tutto senza la scimmia usuale facendo volte davanti alla telecamera. Mi piace questo ultra-sobria forma - ma vorrei che qualcuno strangolarei la persona responsabile per il piano elettrico nel fondo.GER: Heute (Sonntag) haben wir unter anderem ein Paar deutsche Zoos besucht, derunter Leipzig Zoo, Zoo am Meer in Bremerhaven und Jaderberg Zoo. SCO: Ah finished wee Ailice an her àdventuirs on the wey doun to Soothren Jutland, an GR: κατά τη διάρκεια της παραμονής μου εκεί κάτω, αντιγραφεί (και σπούδασε) ένα δίγλωσσο κείμενο σ'ένα παλαιοντολογικό μουσείο κοντά στο Ρέθυμνο, Μουσείο Απολιθωμενων Θηλαστικών Κερασιας (στον Τέμενος Μασταμπá). EN: Normally you would be more inclined to expect historical museums in Greece, but next time I visit Crete I'll definitely want to visit the Μουσείο Απολιθωμενων Θηλαστικών Κερασιας, i.e. the "Fossilized Mammal Museum Cherries" according to Google translate (which I used to make the bilingual printout). Actually "Απολιθωμενων" is a derivation of "λίθος" (stone), but what about the cherries? A "κερασι" is a cherry, no doubt about that, but I nevertheless find it hard to reconcile this translation with the content of the museum according to the description: petrified pygmy elephants and hippos, giraffes and rhinos. Maybe the intended root is "κερασ", horn. And thewording of the translation is of course as intriguing as ever: "Στην έκθεση που φιλοξενείται στο Μουσείο Κερασιάς παρουσιάζεται ένας κυνóδους, γνáθοι καθώς και πολύ σπάνιο μετακρανιακó υλικó." --> "In the exhibition hosted at the Museum presents one kynodous Cherry, gnathoi and very rare metakraniako material." . One curious fact is that my old translation into Danish gives tentative translations for the untranslated words in the English translation above, which I let Google produce a few moments ago. This is actually fairly brave as my 484 page Greek-Danish dictionary runs into great problems with these words. As of now I doubt that the word "μετακρανιακó(ς)" exists in Greek, but its meaning is fairly clear: the parts of the cranium behind the snout with the teeth. And "γνáθοι" (γνáθος): well, 'jaw' in all my dictionaries so Google Translate shouldn't hesitate to relearn this word. And finally "κυνóδους", which is more mysterious. My new Langenscheidt (GR<->GER) and my Greek-Danish dictionary only know "κυνοδóντας" (canine .. literally 'dog tooth'), ), which btw. gave the name to the intermediary group of animals between reptiles and mammals, the cynodonts.. A Google search only came up with two irrelevant quotes, but lo and behold: my old Langenscheidt (GR->GER) from 1969 has got "κυνóδους" = "Eckzahn" (canine). Which only leaves one nagging questions what about the other teeth? Edited by Iversen on 11 October 2012 at 4:27pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 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 3053 of 3959 09 October 2012 at 12:08am | IP Logged |
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This evening I have studied a text in Indonesian about the Toraja people on the island Sulawesi, which I visited ten years ago, when I still didn't study languages - so I missed the opportunity to learn some bahasa (actually the Toraja have their own language, but it is not written, only spoken, and Bahasa Indonesia is used for communication with outsiders).
Right now I look at the Danish TV station DR K, where there is a program in English about a female French photographer who long ago visited a purely Celtic community at Claddagh at the outskirts of Galway in Western Ireland - almost a suburb with a totally different culture. I could have wished they spoke more Irish in the program, but that's apparently too much to expect. And the French ladies are mimicked by a speakeress with an assumed pseudo-French accent which is almost unbearable. Claddach is now buried under modern houses, but I can at least say that I have been there. But I have also studied a text about another place called Cloch na Rón ('Stone of Seals' ('seals' here meaning the pinipedes)), and I did some wordlists with the words in that text. And Irish is still a constant source of amazement and fun for me. The expression "taobh thiar den.." (/ti.v hir dæn.../) means 'behind', but "thiar" in isolation first and foremost means "West" or "Western" - methinks this represents a lesson in mental geography? I have seen something similar in Bahasa Indonesia where 'North' is "utara", but 'Northwest' is "barat laut", where "barat" as expected means 'West', but "laut" means 'sea'. And I could quote other examples. Another funny Irish word: "sliabh" (plural "sleibhte") which can mean either 'mountain' or 'moor' - the common denominator must be that you can't put up a corn field there. "Deireadh" has two meanings: it can be a infinite form of the verb "abair" ('to speak'), or it can be a noun meaning "end, conclusion" - as in "deireadh seachtaine" ('weekend' - literally 'end og week') or "Deireadh Fomhair" ('october', literally 'end of automn'). In the concrete case I go for the weekend: "...ag Regatta. Bíonn sé ar siúl ar an tríú deireach seachtaine de Mhí Iúil" ('.. Regatta. It takes place on the third end week's of month July). If accent signs cost real money Irish would be an expensive hobby. Edited by Iversen on 11 October 2012 at 1:04pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 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 3054 of 3959 11 October 2012 at 12:54pm | IP Logged |
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Yesterday I stayed in my armchair almost the whole evening, studying Russian, Irish, Icelandic and intermittently other languages.
The Icelandic part was pure wordlisting, where I went through something like sixty words beginning with "ein-" or "eld-". The Russian part was the study of a long article about the find of an 1.83 m long deceased Celtic nobleman in a mound in Southern Germany, with (limited use of) a dictionary, but without a translation. I still prefer working with bilingual texts in Irish because some words are so difficult to look up in a dictionary that it helps to know what they mean - and in some cases I even look up the translation in the English-Irish dictionary in order to find out what I should look up in the Irish-English section. Google Translate is a great help when I make these bilingual texts, but on the other hand it isn't so slick and perfect that it does the job for you. I don't have my dictionary with me right now so I'll just illustrate a few points about the translations of Google. The texts I used were those about cutlery in Vivipéid - which are short, relevant and sometimes intriguing ... as when the article about forks in all seriousness explains how you stick your fork into some food, cut off a piece with your knife and carry the isolated piece of to your mouth with the fork - dear me, I might inadvertently have inverted the roles of knife and fork without this priceless information! Consider the specimen: Original: Sceanra a thugtar ar chnuasach sceana, gabhlóg agus spúnóga. Google: Cutlery called cluster knives, fork and spoons . (=cutlery is-given {as} collection {of} ...) How do you look up "thugtar" in a dictionary? Well, you don't. You learn all nine or so irregular verbs in Irish by heart, and then is is obviously the passive present form of the verb tabhair ('to give'). How do you look up "chnuasach"? Well, you have internalized the rule 'remove the second letter h', so you try "cnuasach" and find the translation 'cluster', 'collection' etc. The funny thing is that Google Translate doesn't apply this rule on the last word of the preceding passage "go dtí an béal leis an ghabhlóg" ('to the mouth with the fork'), which is left as "to the mouth ghabhlóg". But other information sources can also become sources of bewilderment - in this online Irish dictionary "gabhlóg" is only elucidated through a bilingual example* where the word stands for the fork on a vehicle. Instead it proposes the loanword "forc" for the thing you eat with. * feithicil atá feistithe le gabhlóga nó le haon ghabhálas chun earraí a chruachadh, a luchtú nó a dhíluchtú = a vehicle fitted with forks or any other attachment for stacking, loading or unloading goods I shan't tire you with my observations concerning Vicipéid's articles about spoons and knives. At least they are short. Edited by Iversen on 11 October 2012 at 1:02pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Brun Ugle Diglot Senior Member Norway brunugle.wordpress.c Joined 6621 days ago 1292 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1 Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish | Message 3055 of 3959 11 October 2012 at 2:58pm | IP Logged |
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You really do make me laugh sometimes. I loved your explanation of the word 'sliabh' and your description of the cutlery article. And of course, reading your multilingual entries is always an interesting and entertaining challenge.
I had a look at your paintings by-the-way and I thought they were fantastic. I wish I could learn to do that. It amazes me how you have such a great command of so many areas - language, art, science... 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 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 3056 of 3959 11 October 2012 at 4:16pm | IP Logged |
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I had intended to make a whole series of videos about my paintings, but dropped the idea when I realized that nobody really cared (or knew, which in practice has the same effect). In one case (no. 3 about my hometown Århus) only 26 has seen the video after one month, and even the most 'popular' ((no. 1) has only been watched by 107 persons). I know a fiasco when I see one. Similarly my musical compositions haven't been seen or heard by anyone since the mid 90s, and now I don't even play my instruments anymore. One more fiasco (though I enjoyed writing the stuff)
In contrast around 1500 HTLAL visitors read this log every day. Edited by Iversen on 11 October 2012 at 4:19pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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