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| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7159 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes  20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 393 of 541 10 November 2013 at 9:04pm | IP Logged |
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FINNISH
I finished half of the exercises in Chapter 36 of “Finnish for Foreigners”. These exercises comprised fill-in-the-blank and substitution drills on verbs used in impersonal constructions, dates, verbs whose conjugational pattern can be modelled on either haluta “to want” or tarvita “to need”, and words whose declensional pattern can be modelled on that of huone “room”. 
(From Viivi & Wagner – Plaza 14.9.2013) 1) “What the? – I’m washing the window.” 2) “Spontaneously? – Is it already clean?” 3) “You’ve gone crazy, you poor thing. – Nope. There was still a bit of lint and streaks.” - oma-aloitteisesti “spontaneously, on one’s own initiative” - nukka (nukan, nukkaa, nukkia) “lint; fuzz; tuft ” - raita (raidan, raitaa, raitoja) “stripe; band; track” - raukka (raukan, raukkaa, raukkia) “wretch; coward; poor thing” Convention for unfamiliar vocabulary in the comic strip (i.e. needed to consult a dictionary) NOUNS & ADJECTIVES: nominative singular (genitive singular, partitive singular, partitive plural) VERBS: 1st infinitive (1st person singular present tense, 3rd person singular past simple tense, active past participle) ADVERBS & INTERJECTIONS: no extra information given *** POLISH I finished Chapter 28 of "Polish in 4 Weeks - II". The dialogue consisted of Basia and Alice talking about the former’s pregnancy and upcoming wedding. The unit introduced verbs that can take dative complements (e.g. mówić “to say, tell”), plural declension for przyjaciel “friend”, and a few points about the temporal adverbs na początku “at the start of”, w połowie “in the middle of”, pod koniec “at the end of”. Nothing of what was introduced in the notes was new to me but it was still worthwhile to do exercises recalling their use. This was the last chapter in the course meaning that it took me a little over one year to finish working through the course (see here for my initial impression of the course and here for my first entry using the course) I’m looking forward to starting another course with my choices down to “Wsród Polaków II”, “Kiedyś wrócisz tu... Gdzie nadwislanski brzeg” or “Polski. Bez problemu! + Advanced”. Each of them has its strengths and weaknesses and have material at a suitable level of difficulty (the first two courses are supposed to be for someone at CEFR’s B1 or B2 according to this list while the third course’s authors list B2 / C1 on the cover). Regardless of the course(s) that I choose, I’ll work with Polish very similarly to how I’m using “Modern Ukrainian” and “Elementary Turkish” in that I’ll aim to complete a few pages worth of exercises every week or so. 
(From Gustaw Biurowy – odcinek 9 « KochamSzefa.pl – humor i praca) 1) “I even like my job. At least I’m creating something.” 2) “Documents, printouts, charts, graphs… I know that I’m leaving something out.” 3) “Well, in the end, [there’s also] the rationale. Where are you taking that, by the way?” 4) “To the shredder.” - niszczarka (niszczarki) “shredder” - wykres (wykresu) “graph” - zostawiać po sobie > zostawić po sobie (zostawiam, zostawiasz > zostawię, zostawisz) “to leave behind, to leave out” Convention for vocabulary in the comic strip that's unfamiliar to me (i.e. needed to consult a dictionary) NOUNS & ADJECTIVES: nominative singular (nominative plural, genitive singular) VERBS (where applicable using convention of imperfective > perfective): infinitive (1st person singular present tense [imperfective verb] / future tense [perfective verb], 2nd person singular present tense [imperfective verb] / future tense [perfective verb]) ADVERBS & INTERJECTIONS: no extra information given *** TURKISH I’ve worked through Unit 9 of “Turkish Self-Study Course” and Unit 3’s exercises on pg. 51-3 in “Elementary Turkish”. In the former, the main points in new grammar were using the existential adverbs (quasi verbs?) var “there is/are” and yok “there is/are not” in questions, and the locative (i.e. suffix –da / –de / –ta / –te. In the latter, I worked on interrogative sentences in present tense using the suffix -mı / -mi / -mu / -mü, and pronouns kim “who”, nasıl “how” and ne “what”. *** UKRAINIAN I’ve continued to study Chapter 11 of “Modern Ukrainian” and completed exercises on pgs. 193-4 which focused on verbs of motion. I’ve also finished the exercises in Chapter 5 of “Beginner’s Ukrainian” with these mainly being reading and listening comprehension, as well as dictation exercises involving cardinal numerals. 
(From Залежність via Dilbert | Огірок – переклади коміксів українською) 1) “I have Internet addiction because the Internet is more interesting than people.” 2) “Are there maybe some types of medication which can be prescribed to all of them which makes them more interesting?” 3) “Doctors never want to treat a real problem.” - роздавати > роздати (роздаю, роздають > роздам, роздадуть) “to dispense; distribute; prescribe (of medicine)” Convention for vocabulary in the comic strip that's unfamiliar to me (i.e. needed to consult a dictionary) NOUNS & ADJECTIVES: nominative singular (genitive singular) VERBS (where applicable using convention of imperfective > perfective): infinitive (1st person singular present tense [imperfective verb] / future tense [perfective verb], 3rd person plural present tense [imperfective verb] / future tense [perfective verb]) ADVERBS & INTERJECTIONS: no extra information given *** OTHER LANGUAGES God, it's been a while since I've looked at any Hungarian (apart from incorporating some examples in that guide to Uralic languages that's I'm still compiling). ______ 
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| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7159 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 394 of 541 10 November 2013 at 9:15pm | IP Logged |
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SLOVAK
As noted here, I’m compiling a list of verbs that use prefixes in derivation or to indicate changes in aspect. 
(From Typický severoangličan... Blog – Stanislav Šimčík) 1) “That horse that you bet on was last – what was he called? – ‘Speed of Light’” 2) “There are only two possibilities – either he had a day off today or he has a sarcastic owner.” - stavať na (+ accusative) > staviť na (+ accusative) (stavia, stavajú > staví, stavia) “to bet on sb/sg” Convention for vocabulary in the comic strip that's unfamiliar to me (i.e. needed to consult a dictionary) NOUNS & ADJECTIVES: nominative singular (genitive singular) VERBS (where applicable using convention of imperfective > perfective): infinitive (3rd person singular present tense [imperfective verb] / future tense [perfective verb], 3rd person plural present tense [imperfective verb] / future tense [perfective verb]) ADVERBS & INTERJECTIONS: no extra information given --- See here for the rationale for and information about this exercise in comparing Czech and Slovak. The Czech sentences are red while the Slovak ones are blue. (…) denotes text that has been omitted because its subject matter does not tie back to the common translation thus making it ineligible for grammatical or lexical comparison. Unit 1 Dialog 4 / Dialóg 3 A: Dobrý den. Jak se máte? A: Dobrý deň. Ako sa máte? “Hello. How are you?” Cz: jak | Sk: ako “how“ The reflexes of the reconstructed *jako in Proto-Slavonic are distinct in Czech and Slovak. Cz: jak se máte? | Sk: ako sa máte? “how are you?” In addition to the difference between jak and ako, the reflexive pronoun in each language also differs (i.e. Cz: se vs. Sk: sa). Although it is not apparent in these phrases, the Czech and Slovak conjugations of most verb classes differ from each other to varying degrees. In this instance, Czech mít and Slovak máť meaning “to have” (mít se and mať sa mean “to be feeling, to be faring”) follow what is sometimes called the “–á” class per the verbal stem’s final vowel. The full conjugations in present tense for Czech mít and Slovak mať meaning “to have” are as follows. I have, you have, he/she/it has, we have, you have, they have. Cz: já mám, ty máš, on/ona/ono má, my máme, vy máte, oni/ony/ona mají Sk: ja mám, ty máš, on/ona/ono má, my máme, vy máte, oni/ony majú The difference is in the 3rd person plural. A: Děkuji, dobře. Čekáte dlouho? A: Ďakujem. Dobre. Čakáte dlho? “Well, thank you. Have you been waiting long?” Cz: děkuji | Sk: ďakujem “(I) thank you” As a follow-up to the notes in 3., the different forms not only suggest distinct reflexes (i.e. Cz: děkovat vs. Sk: ďakovať) of a common root, the conjugational patterns applied in present tense on verbs whose infinitive ends with –ovat in Czech and –ovať in Slovak are different. The full conjugations in present tense of this verb class are as follows: “I thank, you thank, he/she/it thanks, we thank, you thank, they thank” Cz: já děkuji, ty děkuješ, on/ona/ono děkuje, my děkujeme, vy děkujete, oni/ony/ona děkují Sk: ja ďakujem, ty ďakuješ, on/ona/ono ďakuje, my ďakujeme, vy ďakujete, oni/ony ďakujú The differences between the Czech and Slovak conjugational patterns here lie in the 1st person singular and 3rd person plural. Incidentally, the conjugational pattern for this class of verbs differs yet again in colloquial Czech. Coll. Cz: já děkuju, ty děkuješ, on/ona/ono děkuje, my děkujem, vy děkujete, oni/ony/ona děkujou The difference between the colloquial Czech pattern and its standard counterpart is in the 1st person singular, 1st person plural, and 3rd person plural. As can be guessed by comparing the respective infinitive forms of this verb (i.e. Cz: děkovat vs. Sk: ďakovať), the infinitive endings of these languages differ also with the Czech ending almost always being an unpalatalized t* and the Slovak always being a palatalized t. *The exceptions are moci “to be able to” as the older alternative to “regular” moct and pomoci “to help” being the older alternative to “regular” pomoci. Cz: čekat | SK: čakať “to wait” Small difference in the verbal root (see here for comparison of čeká with čaká “[he/she/it] is waiting”) in addition to the aforementioned difference in the infinitive suffix. Cz: dlouho | Sk: dlho “long (time)” [adverb] This spelling difference corresponds to a stronger tendency in Slovak to use l as a vowel compared to Czech. However examples of l acting as a vowel in both languages are Cz & Sk: vlhký “humid”, vlk “wolf” A: Ne. Jenom chvíli. A: Nie. Krátko. “No. Only (for) a moment. / (Just) briefly. The difference in A’s responses in each language are different but can be expressed in a way that is much closer. An example could be: A: Ne. Jen chvíli. A: Nie. Len chvíľu. As far as I can tell, it would however be impossible to make them identical. Cz: jenom | Sk: len “only” [adverb] The Czech adverb may also be expressed as jen thus resembling more closely the Slovak counterpart but len in Czech means “flax, linen” which is cognate with Slovak ľan. On the other hand, the difference for the terms meaning “only” can be enhanced by using the synonymous iba for len in the Slovak sentence. As far as I know iba is not codified in Czech. Cz: chvíle | Sk: chvíľa “moment” The first pair of words illustrates a different phonological development in the forerunner of Czech that did not occur in Slovak. Sometime in the Middle Ages, feminine nouns ending in –a when preceded by a “soft” consonant started to take on the ending of -e instead. This change then set off a wide-ranging change in declension with the result being incrementally more divergence between the forerunners of Czech and Slovak (incidentally the result of this sound change initially caused a few problems for me as a learner since I had become accustomed to –e being a reliable indicator of a singular neuter noun as I had picked up from learning Polish and Slovak). In the original transcript, jenom chvíli is an eliptical sentence with chvíli being the accusative singular of chvíle (essentially it acts as the “direct object” of the subject’s waiting). The Slovak counterpart to this sentence would be len chvíľu with chvíľu being the accusative singular of chvíľa in the “regular” way (i.e. accusative singular for feminine nouns ending in –a is always -u). The forerunner of Slovak not having gone through this particular sound change affecting certain feminine nouns should be clear enough in its effects in modern Slovak. Other examples of these nouns are: “ski”, “street”, “spirit”, “work” (nominative) / “ski”, “street”, “spirit”, “work” (accusative) / “ski”, “street”, “spirit”, “work” (dative) Cz: lyže, ulice, duše, práce / lyži, ulici, duši, práci / lyži, ulici, duši, práci Sk: lyža, ulica, duša, práca / lyžu, ulicu, dušu, prácu / lyži, ulici, duši, práci In contrast Czech feminine nouns which end in –a but are preceded by a “hard” consonant did not change and as it is decline more like their Slovak cognates “post office”, “truth”, “water”, “woman” (nominative) / “post office”, “truth”, “water”, “woman” (accusative) / “post office”, “truth”, “water”, “woman” (dative) Cz: pošta, pravda, voda, žena / poštu, pravdu, vodu, ženu / poště, pravdě, vodě, ženě Sk: pošta, pravda, voda, žena / poštu, pravdu, vodu, ženu / pošte, pravde, vode, žene On this point, Slovak would be considered more conservative than Czech since its feminine nouns did not change their endings as they did a few centuries ago in Bohemia. Cz: krátce | Sk: krátko “briefly” Krátko also exists as synonym for krátce per the monolingual dictionary of standard Czech. In summary to reduce the sentences’ divergence it would be possible to re-express the original pair of Cz: Ne. Jenom chvíli. / Sk: Nie. Krátko. as: Cz: Ne. Krátko | Sk: Nie. Krátko ...or Cz: Ne. Jenom chvíli | Sk: Nie. Len chvíľu However these answers couldn’t be identical on account of the codified difference between Ne and Nie. Using the alternative pair with chvíle / chvíľa would only highlight the codified inflectional difference used in Czech and Slovak as is usual when dealing with separate languages, not to mention the difference between jen(om) and len. H: Máte tady dopis. Prosím. B: Tu máte list. Nech sa páči. “You have here a letter. Here you are.” Cz: dopis | Sk: list “epistle, letter” According to the dictionary of standard Czech list is a literary and outdated counterpart of dopis. According to the monolingual dictionaries of Slovak dopis is an outdated term for list and the user is directed by the editions from both 1959-68 and 2003 to consult list. The dictionary from 1959-68 goes so far as to mark dopis with lepšie meaning “better” (i.e. preference for list over dopis) likely on the grounds of dopis being considered a Czechism when used in Slovak. Cz: Prosím | Sk: Nech sa páči “Here you go.” This is an interesting pair in that using prosím to mean “here you go” would also be grammatical in Slovak, albeit it doesn’t seem to occur as frequently as nech sa páči or the shorter páči sa in my experience. On the other hand, nech sa páči literally means “let it please [you/him/her etc.]” and can also correspond to “help yourself” or even “feel free” in addition to “here you go”. The expression’s uniqueness among Czechs and Slovaks is heightened in that páčiť sa has no cognate in Czech as far as I can tell. Nevertheless it’s still well-known to and understood readily by most Czech adults because of their exposure to Slovaks dating from the Czechoslovakian era if not instances of travel to Slovakia or mixed marriages between Czechs and Slovaks. Incidentally, páčiť sa is also used in an impersonal structure that translates “to like” in a passive sense and/or based on a first impression of something inanimate or abstract and in this sense has an analogue to a construction with the Czech verb líbit se. The person expressing the admiration is put into dative. “They like your idea.” [“Pleases itself to them your idea”] Cz: Líbí se jim tvůj nápad. Sk: Páči sa im tvoj nápad. A: Děkuji. Na shledanou. A: Ďakujem. Do videnia. “Thank you. Goodbye” Cz: Na shledanou | Sk: Do videnia “Goodbye” These expressions are codified for the respective languages even though the prepositions (i.e. na and do) are used in both languages, and the underlying sense of sight or vision in shledanou and videnia can be discerned by recalling the appropriate related verbs (cf. hledět / hľadieť “to look at”; vidět / vidieť “to see”). These expressions translate more closely in Czech and Slovak as “to [the next] meeting” and “until [the next] seeing” respectively (cf. German auf Wiedersehen). 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| stelingo Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5835 days ago 722 posts - 1076 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Czech, Polish, Greek, Mandarin | Message 395 of 541 11 November 2013 at 12:19am | IP Logged |
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I am enjoying reading your comparison of Czech and Slovak, Chung. I worked my way through Colloquial Czech a few years ago and also did the first few chapters of Colloquial Slovak, before deciding I would never be able to keep the 2 languages separate in my head and dropped it. Keeping Czech and Polish separate is bad enough. I have to admit, though, that I prefer the softer sound of Slovak.
I have also worked my way through Polish in Four Months Vol 1 and am now on chapter 5 of volume 2. I very much like the audio. I am also working through Z Polskim na Ty. (Not too sure how you would translate the title?). I believe this is the prequel to Kiedyś wrócisz tu. Have you used this book? I also have Polski. Bez problemu! + Advanced, but am not using it as yet. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7159 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 396 of 541 11 November 2013 at 5:04am | IP Logged |
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So you're the one who's been voting for the usefulness of those comparisons! ;-) It's nice to see that you find the content interesting. For a while I've known that the differences between Czech and Slovak are such that it's dubious to look for parallels with pluricentric languages and vice-versa. I don't plan to comb through every chapter in each of "Colloquial Czech" and "Colloquial Slovak". A sampling that draws on just some of the dialogues or narratives that are effectively translations of each other (i.e. material that the author "recycled") should be enough to show that Czech and Slovak are separate languages using structural linguistics alone even though they're highly mutually intelligible.
I did work through "Z polskim na ty" several years ago, and in conjunction with a native speaker to correct your homework in the second part of the book, I recommend it strongly. I can't speak highly enough of that series of textbooks published by Universitas. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4710 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 397 of 541 11 November 2013 at 12:47pm | IP Logged |
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Very interesting, Chung! I want to cover Czech someday (as well as BCMS - as I mentioned
before these are the only Slavic languages I really care about apart from Russian, which does more for me than for you!). It is interesting to see how Czech and Slovak differ way more strongly than BCMS. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| hribecek Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5352 days ago 1243 posts - 1458 votes Speaks: English*, Czech, Spanish Studies: Italian, Polish, Slovak, Hungarian, Toki Pona, Russian | Message 398 of 541 15 November 2013 at 11:29pm | IP Logged |
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I also enjoy your Czech/Slovak comparisons and have just caught up on the latest post as I wanted to read it properly and didn't get round to it until now (your posts are very interesting, but I like to give them enough time rather than skim reading, due to the length).
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| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7159 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 399 of 541 24 November 2013 at 7:52pm | IP Logged |
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FINNISH
I finished the remaining exercises in Chapter 36 of “Finnish for Foreigners” and finished the first third of those in Chapter 37. The exercises in the rest of Chapter 36 comprised fill-in-the-blank and comprehension questions on texts and recordings pertaining to the seasons and climate. The exercises in the following chapter were drills on the superlative of adjectives. 
(From A&B | NEN sarjakuvat) 1) “Look! That man knows how to blow smoke-rings!” 2) “Why should I look? Is it supposed to be some Olympic[-style] performance?” - muka “allegedly, supposedly” - suoritus (suorituksen, suoritusta, suorituksia) “performance” Convention for unfamiliar vocabulary in the comic strip (i.e. needed to consult a dictionary) NOUNS & ADJECTIVES: nominative singular (genitive singular, partitive singular, partitive plural) VERBS: 1st infinitive (1st person singular present tense, 3rd person singular past simple tense, active past participle) ADVERBS & INTERJECTIONS: no extra information given *** NORTHERN SAAMI I finished Unit 10 of Davvin 3 whose main topics in grammar were comitative plural, and the subtleties inherent verbs meaning “to lend” and “to run”. Here is my understanding of the chapter’s “new” main points (any misunderstandings of the material are mine alone). 1) The comitative plural is marked by the suffix -iguin which translates approximately to “with sb/sg”. The ending is attached to a stem derived from the accusative/genitive plural. See here and here for a comparison with the comitative singular. E.g. “dog” (nominative singular, accusative/genitive plural, comitative plural) beatna, beatnagiid, beatnagiiguin “fish” (nominative singular, accusative/genitive plural, comitative plural) guolli, guliid, guliiguin “reindeer” (nominative singular, accusative/genitive plural, comitative plural) boazu, bohccuid, bohccuiguin “Saami person” (nominative singular, accusative/genitive plural, comitative plural) sápmelaš, sápmelaččaid, sápmelaččaiguin 2) The verbs translateable as “to lend” reflect the lender’s expectations about recovering the item or the quality of that item upon recovery. luoikat “to lend” (applies to an item that can be returned in more or less the same condition before the loan was made) lonet “to lend” (applies to an item that’s meant to be consumed and implies that the borrower must obtain the same quantity and quality of that item in the meantime to make repayment. This is related to the economic concept of fungibility) Cf. luoikkahit “to borrow” (applies to an item that can be returned in more or less the same condition before the loan was made) Sáhtátgo munnje beaskka luoikat? “Can you lend to me a reindeer-fur coat?” (i.e. the borrower intends to return the same jacket intact after using it) Sáhtátgo munnje lonet ovtta kilo gáfiid? “Can you lend to me a kilo of coffee? (i.e. the borrower cannot return that same kilo of coffee when both parties expect the borrower to use at least some of it. He/she is typically expected to repay the loan by presenting a new kilo of coffee of the same quality, if not perform a pro-rated repayment by returning the remainder of the unused coffee with an amount of new coffee that is the difference between a kilo and the amount consumed by the borrower.) Cf. Sáhtán luoikkahit biilla? “Can I borrow the car?” 3) The verbs translateable as “to run” are distinguishable semantically in whether they refer to two-legged motion or not ruohttat “to run” (of beings with more than two legs) viehkat “to run” (of two-legged beings) Vocabulary of Unit 10 bábir – “paper” báhčit – “to shoot” bierggas – “good, item, merchandise” čuorbbes (attr.), čuorbi (pred.) – “inexperienced, unskilled” deaivat – “to hit” (a target) duhtavaš (attr. and pred.) – “satisfied” gávdnat – “to find” geađgi – “rock” goarrunmášiidna – “sewing machine” haga – “without” heahti – “emergency; need” jápmit – “to die” loatna – “loan” luoikat – “to lend” (non-fungible item) luoikkahat – “to borrow” (non-fungible item) lonet – “to lend” (fungible item) muorra – “tree” ohcan – “application, form” rievssat – “willow ptarmigan” ruohttat – “to run” (not on two legs) viehkat – “to run” (on two legs) *** TURKISH I’ve worked through Unit 10 of “Turkish Self-Study Course” and Unit 3’s exercises on pg. 54-9 in “Elementary Turkish”. In the former, the main points in new grammar were using ne “what” and kim “who” in plural (i.e. neler, kimler) and the adverb da / de “also”. In the latter, I worked on the locative singular and related adverbs nerede “where”, burada “this place here”, şurada “that place there” and orada “that place (over) there”. The exercises that I did in “Elementary Turkish” were effectively review of what I had seen earlier in “Turkish Self-Study Course”. *** UKRAINIAN I’ve continued to study Chapter 11 of “Modern Ukrainian” and completed exercises on pgs. 195-6 which focused on verbs of motion. I’ve also finished roughly the first two-thirds of the exercises in Chapter 6 of “Beginner’s Ukrainian” with these mainly being drills for the present tense and locative singular. The majority of these being speaking drills makes them suitable for me to do on my way to and from work in addition to when I’m sitting in my living room (I whisper or mutter the answer once given the cue when on the bus). 
(From Годзілли теж люди via Це Прекрасно!) 1) “He’s about to ruin his first city and you’re at a meeting?!” - руйнувати > зруйнувати (руйную, руйнують > зруйную, зруйнують) “to destroy, lay waste, ruin” Convention for vocabulary in the comic strip that's unfamiliar to me (i.e. needed to consult a dictionary) NOUNS & ADJECTIVES: nominative singular (genitive singular) VERBS (where applicable using convention of imperfective > perfective): infinitive (1st person singular present tense [imperfective verb] / future tense [perfective verb], 3rd person plural present tense [imperfective verb] / future tense [perfective verb]) ADVERBS & INTERJECTIONS: no extra information given *** OTHER LANGUAGES I’ve been fairly busy and unfortunately haven’t been able to do much Hungarian or Polish. On the other hand I recently made acquaintance with a few more Ukrainians through Meetup.com (Russian meetups sometimes have at least a few Ukrainian visitors). It's not surprising that I've picked up a little more motivation to work on Ukrainian. ______
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| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7159 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 400 of 541 24 November 2013 at 7:58pm | IP Logged |
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SLOVAK
As noted here, I’m compiling a list of verbs that use prefixes in derivation or to indicate changes in aspect. 
(From S H O O T Y – ….som Grogy) 6) “So I bought for Christmas that (toy-)highway set for the boys. – Great. They’ve wanted that for a long time. Hide it well, I’ll bring them over to your place in a sec.” 7) “Not a problem. They still haven’t found what I bought for them last year.” Convention for vocabulary in the comic strip that's unfamiliar to me (i.e. needed to consult a dictionary) NOUNS & ADJECTIVES: nominative singular (genitive singular) VERBS (where applicable using convention of imperfective > perfective): infinitive (3rd person singular present tense [imperfective verb] / future tense [perfective verb], 3rd person plural present tense [imperfective verb] / future tense [perfective verb]) ADVERBS & INTERJECTIONS: no extra information given --- See here for the rationale for and information about this exercise in comparing Czech and Slovak. The Czech sentences are red while the Slovak ones are blue. (…) denotes text that has been omitted because its subject matter does not tie back to the common translation thus making it ineligible for grammatical or lexical comparison. Unit 1 Dialog 5 / Dialóg 4 A: Ahoj, Evo! A: Ahoj, Eva. “Hi, Eva!” Czech uses the vocative, while Slovak almost always uses the nominative instead in this instance. This means that Czech has 7 cases to Slovak’s 6. However, certain masculine animate nouns in Slovak do show a vocative form but these are taught as exceptions rather than expressions of a distinct case. See here here for more discussions and examples. E: Ahoj, Adame! E: Servus, Adam. “Hi, Adam!” In addition to another example of the vocative in Czech (i.e. Adame), this pair gives a clue about the different greetings available in Czech and Slovak, although for the most part they overlap. According to the descriptive dictionary of standard Czech, Servus is an archaic and colloquial greeting, while the Slovak descriptive dictionary marks it as a colloquialism but not an archaism. This is in line with my experience in that I’ve only encountered the term among Slovaks Czechs, if only occasionally. Ahoj is even more common for both languages. It would have been perfectly grammatical for the Slovak sentence to have been Ahoj, Adam instead. A: Jak se máš? A: Ako sa máš? “How are you?” This difference has been dealt with here E: Dobře. E: Dobre. “Well.” This difference has been dealt with here A: Čekáš dlouho? A: Čakáš dlho? “Have you been waiting long?” Čekáš and Čakáš have been dealt with here while dlouho and dlho have been dealt with here E: Ano. Strašně dlouho. Tady máš ten kufr. Kde máš auto? Ty nemáš auto? E: Áno. Veľmi dlho. Tu máš kufor. Kde máš auto? Ty nemáš auto? “Yes. Very long. You have a suitcase. Where do you have [a] car? Don’t you have a car?” Cz: strašně | Sk: veľmi “awfully, terribly; extremely” | “very” Each word exists in the other language with minor differences, and are semantically interchangeable. Cz: strašně | Sk: strašne “awfully, terribly; extremely” Cz: velmi | Sk: veľmi “very” Thus the sentences could have been expressed as: Cz: Strašně dlouho Sk: Strašne dlho ...or Cz: Velmi dlouho Sk: Veľmi dlho For spelling difference in strašně strašne, see here on how Czech and Slovak mark palatalization as exemplified by the pair těší and teší. The difference between velmi and veľmi is that the latter contains palatalized l as signalled by -ľ-. Note though that the sentences could never be identical because of the codified differences. Cz: ten | Sk: ten “the; that” (masculine singular) The use of ten in the Czech sentence reflects a judgment of emphasis, and it would have been grammatical for it to have been omitted. Conversely the absence of ten in the Slovak sentence reflects a similar judgment, and it would have been grammatical for it to have been included. See here for the contrast of tady and kufr with tu and kufor respectively. A: Ne. Nemám. A ty máš? A: Nie. Nemám auto. A ty máš? “No. I don’t have a car. But do you have one?” The absence or presence of auto is not important given the context. It would be grammatical here to use Nemám auto in Czech as much as it would be to use Nemám in Slovak. E: Ne. Taky nemám. Bohužel. E: Nie. Tiež nemám. Bohužiaľ. “No. I don’t have one either. Unfortunately.” Cz: taky | Sk: tiež “also, too” Taky is a colloquial or slightly less formal counterpart to standard také. It is not codified in Slovak. On the other hand, tiež is a cognate of též however the dictionary of standard Czech marks it as a literary form implying that it’s less common than také / taky. Cz: bohužel | Sk: bohužiaľ “unfortunately” Each language has a distinct form, although the similarity is such that Czechs readily understand the Slovak term and vice-versa. A: Tenhle kufr je ale strašně velký! A těžký. A: Ale kufor je veľký! A aj ťažký. “This suitcase is very large! And heavy,” Strictly speaking each sentence has different emphasis which requires the use of elements that do magnify the divergence. The Czech sentence is more closely translateable as: “This suitcase here is awfully large! And heavy.” The Slovak sentence is more closely translateable as: “How the suitcase is large! And heavy too.” What is interesting is that the author chose to construct the sentences in this manner Cz: tenhle | Sk: tento “this [here]” (masculine animate) The suffix –hle is attached to certain demonstrative pronouns to indicate high proximity to the speaker or emphasis. The Slovak counterpart is the suffix –to; –hle is not codified in Slovak. For whatever reason, the Slovak version lacks this kind of emphasis. Cz: ale | Sk: ale “but” In this sentence, it is used to indicate emphasis or contrast but note the difference in the position of the adverb in each language. Note also the adverb strašně “awfully, terribly” is used in the Czech sentence but no such adverb is used in the Slovak sentence. Cz: i, také/taky | Sk: aj “also, too” The use of aj in the Slovak sentence marks the speaker’s heightened reaction to the weight in addition to the size of the suitcase. On the other hand, the Czech speaker seems less explicit in his reaction to the weight of the suitcase. As it concerns the lexicon, aj “also, too” is codified in Slovak, and would be translated by i or také/taky in Czech depending on the nuance desired. E: Ale ty jsi přece silný, ne? E: Ale ty si silný chlap. Nie? “But you’re a strong guy, no?” In a similar way to the preceding set of sentences, the author constructed this set slightly differently too. The Czech sentence is more closely translateable as: “But you’re strong after all, no?” The Slovak sentence is more closely translateable as: “But you’re a strong guy. No?” Cz: přece | Sk: predsa “after all” Each word is codified for its respective language. Cz: chlap | Sk: chlap “guy” Identical. If the goal were to try to reduce the divergence between Czech and Slovak using these sentences, one could put down: Cz: Ale ty jsi silný chlap, ne? Sk: Ale ty si silný chlap, nie? However the spelling differences would prevent total overlap. A: Ne, nejsem tak silný. Ale máme štěstí! Venku čeká taxík. A: Nie. Nie som veľmi silný. Ale máme šťastie! Vonku čaká taxík. Another difference between Czech and Slovak occurs in the pattern for negating the verb meaning “to be”. The full negated pattern in present tense is as follows: Cz: já nejsem, ty nejsi, on/ona/ono není, my nejsme, vy nejste, oni/ony/ona nejsou Sk: ja nie som, ty nie si, on/ona/ono nie je, my nie sme, vy nie ste, oni/ony/ona nie sú In the Czech negated forms, the j- of the verb is audible unlike in the affirmative forms (i.e. jsem, jsi etc.). Note also the obvious difference in the 3rd person singular (i.e. není versus nie je). Cz: tak | Sk: tak “so” Cz: velmi | Sk: veľmi “very” For some reason, the author used a different adverb in each language even though for all intents and purposes, the semantic difference is trivial. The Czech sentence is more closely translateable as: “No, I am not so strong.” The Slovak sentence is more closely translateable as: “No, I am not very strong.” If the goal were to try to reduce the divergence between Czech and Slovak using these sentences, one could put down: Cz: Ne, nejsem tak silný. Sk: Nie, nie som tak silný. Cz: štěstí | Sk: šťastie “happiness, luck” Each word is codified for its respective language, and the endings (i.e. -í and -ie) reflect different outcomes in the evolution of an ancestral suffix for certain neuter nouns. In brief, Slovak neuter nouns that end in –ie in singular correspond regularly to ones ending in –í in Czech in the same case and number where cognates exist. This in turn sets off a difference in the declensional patterns for this type of noun in Czech and Slovak respectively. E.g. “happiness” (singular) (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, locative, instrumental) Cz: štěstí, štěstí, štěstí, štěstí, štěstí, štěstím Sk: šťastie, šťastie, šťastia, šťastiu, šťastí, šťastím “exercise” (singular) (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, locative, instrumental) Cz: cvičení, cvičení, cvičení, cvičení, cvičení, cvičením Sk: cvičenie, cvičenie, cvičenia, cvičeniu, cvičení, cvičením “exercises” (plural) (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, locative, instrumental) Cz: cvičení, civčení, cvičení, cvičením, cvičeních, cvičeními Sk: cvičenia, cvičenia, cvičení, cvičeniam, cvičeniach, cvičeniami For comparison of čeká and venku with čaká and vonku respectively, see here 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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