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Favourite Aspect of a Language | ||
Tags: Reasons for study | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Zimena Tetraglot Groupie Norway Joined 4594 days ago 75 posts - 146 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, English, German, Spanish Studies: Czech, Mandarin | Message 17 of 33 04 July 2013 at 2:47pm | IP Logged | |||||
Well, I hear or think of Portuguese less often than French, so in this case the Portuguese one would simply not fall into my head as an example to demonstrate this point. But I suppose my automatic reaction to it is similar to what I think of the French one, yes. Also, as for using J to describe the Russian sound that I would usually write as ZH... I've seen that a lot of Russians do this around the net, and it always makes me think that it's an influence from the French way of transcribing Cyrillic, as those who do this are also often the same people who write names like Сергей as Serguei - again something I think of as "French transcription", even including an extra letter to make sure the G gets pronounced correctly. ...Oh, and besides, to me personally, Jirkov would read like "Йирков" and not Жирков :) 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7158 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 18 of 33 04 July 2013 at 3:10pm | IP Logged | |||||
As I noted I do sometimes get a faint sense of euphoria after having figured out something unfamiliar but nothing stands out. In any case this is distinct from being enamoured with a linguistic feature for its own sake which is what you're pointing to. In a way my neutrality or absence of enthusiasm over a language's characteristics ties back to my sense that I don't assign absolute superiority to one language's way to express a concept over another language's way (if applicable). I see language primarily as a communicative code, and its grammar (broadly defined) as something to learn so that I can use it usefully with others who use that code. An example might be how I realized how Finnish can use a participle instead of a relative clause. Sanakirja joka on hyllyllä on vanha. "The dictionary that's on the shelf is old" Hyllyllä oleva sanakirja on vanha. "On-the-shelf being dictionary is old" The second way is interesting and different from what I'm used to, but both ways are valid in Finnish, and fundamentally neither is superior over the other. I certainly don't get a rush using one form over another, nor do I look for ways to use the unfamiliar way over the more familiar one. Exposing me to vowel harmony, consonant gradation, declension, pitch-accent, telicity, in/definite conjugation etc. likewise yields minimal emotional response and these features are just things for me to learn how to use. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4709 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 19 of 33 04 July 2013 at 3:13pm | IP Logged | |||||
It depends on who's transliterating. I hate the French transliteration of Hebrew, because they mix up chet and hei (chet sounds like chaf nowadays, not like hei, in 95% of Hebrew). Therefore saying Nehmad is weird - it's clearly pronounced Nechmad, so write it like that (or write it Nekhmad in French because ch is a different sound in that language). If Serpent wants to adhere to a transliterative standard based on Portuguese, that's her call. I generally use English, because it has the broadest audience, but in Dutch I will write Russian words with Dutch spelling (e.g. Poetin, not Putin). Edited by tarvos on 04 July 2013 at 3:14pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Zimena Tetraglot Groupie Norway Joined 4594 days ago 75 posts - 146 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, German, Spanish Studies: Czech, Mandarin | Message 20 of 33 04 July 2013 at 6:50pm | IP Logged | |||||
Obviously, yes. I was not criticizing her in any way, though. I simply meant to say that transliterating Ж with a J looks unusual to me and makes me read the word differently from what was intended, at least until I've figured out what's what. Going with Serpent's example, what happens in my mind when I see a word like Jirkov is that I think something like this: Jirkov??? Oh yeah, that's Zhirkov, which is actually Жирков - I basically transliterate it to what I'm familiar with before I try to work out the original cyrillic spelling. I guess Russian is a bit of a strange case for me; I don't speak it at all, but I learned the Russian Cyrillic alphabet due to wanting to read song titles and lyrics many years ago. Some words have obviously stuck to my mind because of this and some others may be familiar if I recognize them from other languages, but I don't have any real knowledge of the language. Because I don't generally understand the majority of the Russian I see, the Cyrillic alphabet OR the English transliterations are a big part of my recognition system for it, and I guess if I see transliterations that are different from what is natural to me, I tend to read those in a slightly different way (either in the language they remind me of OR in the way that would be automatic for a native speaker of Norwegian - I think I've done both!) before my mind cottons on to the fact that "oh, this is Russian!!!" Did any of that make sense? 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6599 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 21 of 33 04 July 2013 at 7:10pm | IP Logged | |||||
As for j for ж, i simply don't wanna type two letters. picked this habit from a friend but never linked it to her liking of French :O basically, for me there's a "proper" transliteration for Russian (which in my head should use h for x like Croatian does :P not that ugly kh), and there's sms-Russian where i might write w as ш too (not in proper names, though). and wow, tarvos, if there is a nicer way to write that name, it's Poetin for sure... also in case you didn't realize, Zimena and I know each other really well outside htlal ;) Edited by Serpent on 04 July 2013 at 7:14pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6599 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 22 of 33 04 July 2013 at 7:15pm | IP Logged | |||||
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and Chung, it's kinda shocking tbh. why are you studying such unusual languages then???
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4709 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 23 of 33 04 July 2013 at 7:16pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Yup... it makes some words sound really weird though. Like бабушка - baboesjka. The most
annoying thing about it is that Dutch people stress the second syllable... 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| darkwhispersdal Senior Member Wales Joined 6042 days ago 294 posts - 363 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Ancient Greek, French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Mandarin, Japanese, Latin | Message 24 of 33 04 July 2013 at 9:04pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I enjoy the grammar of a language particularly if it has a large case system, the presence of a dual and grammatical gender . The more cases the better as it frees up the word order which is probably why I love dead languages so much.
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