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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 313 of 541 29 March 2013 at 3:35pm | IP Logged | |||||
If you already have BCS: A Textbook and an old Assimil course, give them a whirl. I don't see the need to spend more money for beginners' textbooks unless your existing material isn't doing the job for you (don't forget that the authors of the former textbook have made the answer keys available for free downloading). I only mentioned Spoken World Croatian and Beginner's Croatian because they're of good quality (especially the first one which has lots of audio (6 CDs) ranging from simple reading of vocabulary lists to recordings of the dialogues, and even supplementary audio drills whose cues aren't in the book), but don't get quite as much attention or exposure as the courses from Teach Yourself or Colloquial in the English-speaking world.
For a descriptive manual of grammar that's free, there's this one by Wayles Browne and Theresa Alt, although it's more suitable for linguists and advanced students rather than beginners. There's also Daniel Nikolić's less technical description available as a .pdf or a series of blog posts which are probably more useful for beginners even if they are explained in a non-specialist vein. 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 314 of 541 01 April 2013 at 2:25am | IP Logged | |||||
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BCMS/SC
I finished reviewing Chapter 6 of “Beginner’s Serbian”. As with the chapter of the same number in “Teach Yourself Serbian”, the dialogues involved shopping with associated vocabulary for dealing with shopkeepers and counting. The main grammatical topics introduced were numerals (cardinal, ordinal and collective) including their case governance and verb agreement, telling the time, and dates. 
(From Hogar za Talasa) 1) “Remember, Hamlet, it’s not important what you have in life.” 2) “[What’s] important is what will be left for you after (when) the state takes [what is] yours.” Convention for vocabulary in the comic strip that's unfamiliar to me (i.e. needed to consult a dictionary) (this will be put in both scripts partially to accommodate those unused to Serbian Cyrillic and also so that I get at least a little bit of practice using the keyboard layout for Serbian Cyrillic). 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 See here for the rationale of the excursus devoted to comparing Croatian and Serbian using the dialogues of “Beginner’s Croatian” and “Beginner’s Serbian” published by Hippocrene Books. Resources include descriptive dictionary of standard Croatian based on the work of Anić et al., Benson’s SerboCroatian-English Dictionary, Alexander’s Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, a Grammar: With Sociolinguistic Commentary and discussions on usage in BCMS/SC from Unilang and WordReference. Chapter 3 1) Cr: javni prijevoz | Sr: javni saobraćaj “public transit” Prijevoz and saobraćaj are not true synonyms as far as I can tell but their meanings overlap highly and both words are standard in each variant. The former is translated as “transport(ation)” while the latter can be translated as “communication” or “transport(ation)”. Moreover the article in Serbian Wikipedia for “public transport” bears the title Javni prevoz which is the ekavian realization of the “Croatian” spelling found in “Beginner’s Croatian”. I guess that this would be somewhat similar to a “British” textbook using “public transport” and an “American” one using “public transit”. Apart from personal choice or style, the terms used in the textbooks could have been less distinct visually by replacing saobraćaj with prevoz in the Serbian textbook without a loss of meaning or “violating” the Serbian codification. 2) Cr: europski | Sr: evropski “European” This is a codified difference for handling the spelling of some borrowings from Greek that can be transcribed in the latter as -eu-. A paper from the University of Zagreb mentions this difference and in my view magnifies its importance for future development of neurolinguistic programming tools that follow for the sociolinguistic conclusion of distinct Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian languages.
My questioning over the significance of this difference in comparing the variants is that the combination exists in loanwords of Greek intermediation / origin (especially in arcane or specialized terms in philosophy or natural sciences – no surprise considering the degree to which Greek words or affixes have been adopted in such nomenclature, terminology or jargon). What the researchers ignore or fail to acknowledge is that -eu- is not a typical or native diphthong in a Slavonic phonological inventory. Nevertheless their use of the phrase “typical example” can make the uniniated reader think that it’s a difference that turns up frequently or in words of high frequency. The only aspect that I see “typical” about it is that just about the only manifestation of it that springs to mind in a randomly selected news article is in codified translations of the familiar term “Europe” or a derivative such as “European”. Indeed the paper’s only example in its corpus analysis of Croatian –eu– to Bosnian and Serbian –ev– turns up as europski ~ evropski “European”. After a bit of reflection, the only other example that I could think of which shows the alternation of Croatian -eu- and non-Croatian -ev- and still might be familiar to the average reader of any language would be “eunuch” (Cr: eunuh | Sr: evnuh), but such a term is still rather specialized. In any case, the researchers’ seemingly air-tight example of Croatian distinctiveness regarding this diphthong using europski ~ evropski fails when seeing elsewhere that “euthanasia” and “eutrophication” have identical codifications (i.e. eutanazija and eutrofikacija respectively) in the Croatian and Serbian standards. Serbs do not spell *evtanazija or *evtrofikacija if encyclopedic usage is a guide (Croatian: Eutanzija (Wikipedia) and Eutrofikacija mora: da li je raspršenje rješenje? (Hrvatska znanstvena bibliografija) | Serbian: Eutanazija (Wikipedia) and Cvetanje vode (posledica eutrofikacije vode) (Wikipedia)) The more that I think of it, I think that I should devote an entry in the future that analyzes this paper’s examples more since it seems like a good extension of my little private exercise in descriptivist comparison. 3) Cr: studij | Sr: studije “studies (at university or college)” In the former, it is a masculine noun in singular (studij) while in the latter it is a feminine noun in plural (studija ~ studije). The entry for studij in Benson’s Serbo-Croatian dictionary refers the user to studije. The Croatian descriptive dictionary lists both studij and studija with both being translatable as “post-secondary studies” but neither being marked Serbianisms. The latter word can also refer to an artist’s sketch or “rough draft” or even a set of moves in chess that leads to victory or a draw for the player. Based on my examination, studij and studije are therefore acting as synonyms when referring to post-secondary education and don’t indicate restriction to one standard only. 4) Cr: zadnja godina | Sr: posl(j)ednja godina “final year (of studies)” As far as I can determine, both adjectives are synonyms here even though the range of meanings assignable to each is different. The former can be translated as “back” or “rear” in addition to “final” or “last”. The latter can be translated as “preceding” in addition to “final” or “last”. The Croatian descriptive dictionary lists posljednji (i.e. the ijekavian variant of poslednji) as a serviceable equivalent for zadnji in the second meaning of referring to what is at the end of a line or series. Based on my examination, there doesn’t seem anything “Croatian” or “un-Serbian” about zadnja godina nor does there seem anything “Serbian” or “un-Croatian” about posl(j)ednja godina. 5) Cr: autocesta | Sr: autoput “freeway, motorway” I’ve seen this word thrown around as part of the “proof” of Croatian and Serbian being different languages but I can detect two weaknesses. For starters, put exists in all standards meaning “way”, “path” or “journey” (cf. Sretan put! from a Bosnian or Croat, Srećan put! from a Serb all meaning “Have a nice (happy) trip!”) and so autoput’s meaning would be readily predicted by native speakers or even taken as a predictable calque of Autobahn assuming that they are familiar with German. The second problem is that autoput is listed in the Croatian descriptive dictionary as an alternative to autocesta. However I suspect that this distinction between Croatian and Serbian seems to lie in a conscious effort among Croatian language planners to create a calque with cesta which has been accepted in the Croatian codification but is not native to Slavs further east including Serbs. As if to underline the Croats’ “Western” orientation, the term cesta “road” turns up in Czech, Slovak, and Slovenian (i.e. languages further northwest) with cesta also meaning “journey” in Czech and Slovak. Benson’s Serbo-Croatian dictionary marks cesta as belonging to the “Western” variant (i.e. standard Croatian) indicating that Serbs would likely perceive the term as “un-Serbian”. Along this train of thought, autoput could be accepted or used by a Croat even though it’d likely be less common than autocesta while a Serb could perceive autocesta as a Croatianism. *** FINNISH I finished Chapter 34 of "Kuulostaa hyvältä". The chapter’s dialogue between Jutta and Kari was about Walpurgis Night (Vappu) from April 30 to May 1, which is one of the more prominent holidays in Finland. The "new" grammar introduced was an application of the active present participle in essive plural. By placing this inflected form after the appropriate conjugation of olla “to be”, one has a construction that signals feigned activity or uncertain perception. Hän oli olevinaan Kaisan poikaystävä. “He acted as if he were Kaisa’s boyfriend.” Kaisa ei ollut näkevinään häntä. “Kaisa pretended not to see him.” Olemme kuulevinamme heidät. “We thought that we heard them.” 
(From Oswald - Sarjakuva) 1) “What are you doing? – I’m carving a smiley face onto the trunk.” 2) “If people start to smile while looking at this, (then) I’ve made the world a slightly better place to live.” 3) “Someone has scribbled over the tree trunk. – This is what liberal parenting does.”* * I suspect that this is an idiom or fixed expression. The arrangement of the words and relatively wide semantic range of vapaa and kasvatus made it tough for me to figure out without a lot of checking of my dictionaries. - kaivertaa (kaiverran, kaiversi, kaivertanut) “to carve” - kasvatus (kasvatuksen, kasvatusta, kasvatuksia) “education; raising; training; upbringing” - runko (rungon, runkoa, runkoja) “fuselage; hull; trunk” - töhriä (töhrin, töhri, töhrinyt) “to smear, smudge; scribble over” 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 3 of Davvin 3 which focused on the simple past of “contracting” or dual-stemmed verbs in 1st and 2nd persons singular, use of dat “it” as a demonstrative pronoun “this”, inflection for adjectives, and a few expressions related to eating and drinking. Here is my understanding of the chapter’s “new” main points (any misunderstandings of the material are mine alone). 1) Simple past tense of “contracting” verbs in 1st and 2nd persons singular The affirmative conjugation is made by taking the stem ending in –j and adding -in for 1st person singular and -it for 2nd person singular. See this entry for details on the affirmative conjugation for the 3rd person singular. E.g. - fuobmát (fuobmáj-) “to notice” ~ fuobmájin “I noticed”, fuobmájit “you noticed” - riŋget (riŋgej-) “to telephone” ~ riŋgejin “I telephoned”, riŋgejit “you telephoned” - duddjot (duddjoj-) “to make handicrafts” ~ duddjojin “I made handicrafts”, duddjojit “you made handicrafts” See here for details on forming the corresponding negative conjugation of this tense for this class of verbs. - in fuobmán “I did not notice”, it fuobmán “you did not notice” - in riŋgen “I did not telephone”, it riŋgen “you did not telephone” - in duddjon “I did not make handicrafts”, it duddjon “you did not make handicrafts” 2) The pronoun dat “it” can also be used as a demonstrative pronoun translatable as “this” or “these” E.g. Dat biillat “These cars” (nominative), Daid biillaid “These cars” (genitive/accusative) 3) Adjectives acting as attributives with the exception of buorre “good” do not inflect in concordance with the associated noun E.g. boares beana “old dog” (nominative singular), boares beatnagat “old dogs” (nominative plural) bahás beana “bad/angry dog” (nominative singular), bahás beatnagat “bad/angry dogs” (nominative plural) Cf: buorre beana “good dog” (nominative singular), buorit beatnagat “good dogs” (nominative plural) See here for more information on inflection of adjectives, and division between predicative and attributive forms. Vocabulary of Unit 3 amma – “isn’t it?”, “aren’t they?”, “wasn’t it?”, “weren’t they?” bálddis – “halibut” buoremus – “best” divrras (attr.), divrras (pred.) “expensive” dorski – “cod” eambbo – “more” eatnat – “much” fidnet – “to get” galbma (attr.), galmassa (pred.) “cold” giksat – “to cook; ripen” guollebiila – “fish-cart” heŋget – “to hang” mearraguoli – “fish from the ocean” miella – “mind” niesteboazu – “reindeer for eating” ovddas – “in front of”, “from the front of” ráhkadit – “to make, prepare” sáltet – “to salt” varas (attr.), varas (pred.) – “fresh” válljet – “to choose” vilges (attr.), vielgat (pred.) – “white” *** POLISH I finished Chapter 17 of "Polish in 4 Weeks - II". The dialogue consisted of Basia and John talking about the former’s search for a new job. The main topics for grammar were the present conditional, verbal nouns, and the occurence of genitive after potrzebować “to need” and w ciągu “in the course of”, and a few expressions related to giving advice. 
(From fisztaki – Amatorskie tłumaczenia komiksów) 1) “I’ve heard that the price of haircuts may rise again.” 2) “Yes, isn’t that just great! My dad will be able to buy four new cars, a swimming pool and a stable of racehorses!” 3) “We’ll be able to eat steaks every evening and spend every winter on the Riviera!” 4) “I didn’t know that the son of a barber can be that sarcastic.” 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 *** SLOVAK I’ve done my week’s allotment of Slovak homework using “Hovorme spolu po slovensky! B - Slovenčina ako cudzí jazyk”. I’ve worked through pgs. 29-31 of the first workbook which consisted of exercises on deriving verbs from nouns, and verbs in their imperfective and perfective aspectual counterparts. 
(From Kyanid a Šťastie III. | The Secret Life of Sagara ) 1) “I just got back. Thanks for taking care of my dog.” 2) “Regarding your dog... I have good and bad news.” 3) “What’s the good news?” 4) “I gave to him a new cute name. Egghead. 5) “Yeah, his head looks a bit like a little egg.” 6) “Well, the same as an egg that’s been smashed.” 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 *** UKRAINIAN I’ve done my week’s allotment of at least 3 pages from “Modern Ukrainian” by working through pgs. 69-71. The exercises here focused on genitive for demonstrative pronouns and in negated direct objects, and present and imperfective future using the structure of бути conjugated in future preceding an infinitive. The more that I study Ukrainian, the more that it seems to be growing on me, even though I find the mobile stress maddening to master. I do think that my experience is also being enhanced by having a fairly small but friendly group in my class and a possible trip to Ukraine this year. *** OTHER LANGUAGES It feels a little too long since I was plowing through “Teach Yourself Beginner’s Turkish”. ______  Edited by Chung on 01 April 2013 at 4:36am 2 persons have 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 315 of 541 08 April 2013 at 5:25am | IP Logged | |||||
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BCMS/SC
I finished reviewing Chapter 4 of “Spoken World Croatian”. The dialogues involved daily routine with associated vocabulary for describing errands or household tasks. The main grammatical topics introduced were prepositions requiring genitive, reflexive verbs, forming questions with li and present tense of htjeti “to want” and verbs with infinitive ending -ovati. 
(From Strip Vesti – internet nedelnik - Cane) 1) “Are you fixing the boat? You going fishing?” 2) “Fishing? No. I’m getting ready for the next wave of inflation.” - čamac (čamca) “small boat, vessel” (чамац (чамца)) - krpiti > okrpiti (krpim, krpe > okrpim, okrpe) “to fix, mend, patch” (крпити > окрпити (крпим, крпе > окрпим, окрпе)) - pecanje (pecanja) “fishing” (пецање (пецања)) Convention for vocabulary in the comic strip that's unfamiliar to me (i.e. needed to consult a dictionary) (this will be put in both scripts partially to accommodate those unused to Serbian Cyrillic and also so that I get at least a little bit of practice using the keyboard layout for Serbian Cyrillic). 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 See here for the rationale of the excursus devoted to comparing Croatian and Serbian using the dialogues of “Beginner’s Croatian” and “Beginner’s Serbian” published by Hippocrene Books. Resources include descriptive dictionary of standard Croatian based on the work of Anić et al., Benson’s SerboCroatian-English Dictionary, Alexander’s Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, a Grammar: With Sociolinguistic Commentary and discussions on usage in BCMS/SC from Unilang and WordReference. Chapter 5 1) Cr: tjedan | Sr: ned(j)elja “week” This is a codified difference but should be put in perspective. The complexity arises when considering the meanings of these words. When expressing “week” and adhering to the standards, Croats use tjedan while non-Croats can use nedelja or nedjelja in addition to hefta and sedmica. However the dictionary of standard Croatian does list hefta and sedmica as regionalisms while nedjelja in its meaning of “week” turns up as an archaicism or in religious contexts. Nevertheless, nedjelja most frequently means “Sunday” to a Croat. Interestingly, nedjelja and sedmica turn up as alternatives in the entry for tjedan. Here’s a summary for these terms’ uses and meanings. Cr: hefta “week” (regionalism), nedjelja “Sunday” (usual meaning); “week” (archaic, religious), sedmica “(the number) seven” (e.g. “Take the ‘number seven’ [bus/streetcar] to the center”, “The ace trumps your ‘seven’” [in card games]); “week” (regionalism), tjedan “week” Sr: (and Bosnian): hefta “week”, ned(j)elja “Sunday; week” (it seems that context can help clarify which meaning is used), sedmica “(the number) seven” (e.g. “Take the ‘number seven’ [bus/streetcar] to the center”, “My ace trumps your ‘seven’” [in card games]); “week” 2) Cr: vlastit | Sr: sopstven “[one’s] own” This is a codified difference with each term being unique to its respective standard (although I suspect that at least vlastit would be acceptable in standard Bosnian). The use of these words in Hippocrene’s courses was interesting to me since I was left wondering why svoj of pan-Slavonic distribution was not used. In the textbooks the sentence in question was: Cr: Ostajem nekoliko tjedana i moram imati vlastiti stan. Sr: Ostajem ovde nekoliko nedelja i potrebno je da imam sopstveni stan. I don’t see anything ungrammatical using svoj for the underlined words (cf. Cr: “Imate li svoj auto?”, Sr: “Da li imate svoj WebSite?”). What also caught my eye is that the sentences are not identically translatable to English because of the (deliberate?) use of different structures. Croatian version: “I’m staying for several weeks and I must have my own apartment.” Serbian version: “I’m staying here for several weeks and it’s necessary that I have my own apartment.” If I wanted to make these sentences even closer while remaining grammatical and drawing on the respective standards, then I could get, Cr: Ostajem ovdje nekoliko tjedana i moram imati svoj stan. Sr: Ostajem ovdje nekoliko nedjelja i moram imati svoj stan. (Ijekavian Serbian, and infinitive instead of da plus conjugated verb as the modal verb’s complement) …and with a bit more tinkering and allowance for regionalism, Cr: Ostajem ovdje nekoliko sedmica i moram imati svoj stan. (regionalism sedmica) Sr: Ostajem ovdje nekoliko sedmica i moram imati svoj stan. (Ijekavian Serbian, infinitive instead of da plus conjugated verb as the modal verb’s complement, sedmica as alternative to nedjelja) Oh, the horror! 3) Cr: kolodvor | Sr: stanica “(bus/railroad) station” This is a codified difference with the former unique to standard Croatian. However stanica is known to Croats and can be translated as “station” or “stop” too. It just seems to be a historical accident that kolodvor was coined to refer to that building at which passengers can board or leave buses or trains. According to the Croatian descriptive dictionary, stanica can mean “cell” or a place, building or “station” that provides something for others’ benefit (e.g. meteorološka stanica “weather station”, benzinska stanica “gas station”). 4) Cr: uopće | Sr: uopšte “at all; in general” This is another codified difference with the former unique to standard Croatian but I find this pair interesting for etymological reasons. The ć in the Croatian form has been worked out as a reflex of *ť from (Late) Proto-Slavonic with this correspondence turning up elsewhere (cf. noć “night” (BCMS/SC) < *noťь ((Late) Proto-Slavonic); moći “to be able” (BCMS/SC) < *moťi ((Late) Proto-Slavonic)). On the other hand, the reflex št in the Serbian form suggests that the word was affected by a cognate in Old Church Slavonic since št in Bulgarian and Old Church Slavonic cognates regularly matches the ć of cognates in BCMS/SC as worked back to the (Late) Proto-Slavonic *ť. This is not evidence though that Serbian is more appropriately classified in East South Slavonic with Bulgarian than in West South Slavonic with Slovenian (as is sometimes expressed by those whose emphasize the “easterness” of Serbian in relation to the “westernness” of Croatian). Instead it reflects the greater use of Church Slavonic and its recensions in Orthodox Christianity than in Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. “at all; in general” Cr: uopće, Sr: uopšte, Bulgarian: изобщо [izobšto], (Macedonian обшто [obšto]) seems to be a borrowing from Bulgarian or Serbian or could even be argued as a remnant of an older form of Macedonian since the expected development in modern Macedonian would be *обќо in line with the regular presence of -ќ- which is ascribed to later influence from BCMS/SC. Depending on the native speaker -ќ- represents either a voiceless palatal stop (somewhat like Slovak -ť-) or a voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate (somewhat like BCMS/SC -ć-). “to be able” ((Late) Proto-Slavonic: *moťi) BCMS/SC: moći, Old Church Slavonic: мошти [mošti] (Bulgarian and Macedonian don’t show the correspondance here since they don’t have the infinitive. It is likely though that if they still had it, their cognates would probably be *мощи and *моќи respectively). “night” ((Late) Proto-Slavonic: *noťь) Bulgarian: нощ [nošt], BCMS/SC: noć, Macedonian: ноќ [noć / notj], Old Church Slavonic: ношть [noštĭ] 5) Cr: pješke | Sr: p(j)ešice “on foot” Unlike the preceding four entries, this pair of words does not form a codified difference. Searching for pješke in the standard Croatian descriptive dictionary redirects to pješice which is the ijekavian form of ekavian pešice. Neither pješke or pješice bear any marking there for being regionalisms, colloquialisms, archaicisms or Serbianisms. 6) Cr: kat | Sr: sprat “floor, story” This is a codified difference with each word being unknown in the other standard. Using sprat on a Croatian audience would probably mark the user as a non-Croat while using kat on a Serbian audience would probably mark the user as a non-Serb. According to the glossary in Ronelle Alexander’s textbook, both terms are used in Bosnian without any strong national marking. 7) Cr: dizalo | Sr: lift “elevator” Despite the different words, this doesn’t seem to be a simple distinction which aligns to their being distinct standards. The standard Croatian descriptive dictionary shows lift as a synonym for dizalo as well as a rarely-used term for a ski-lift. Moreover Croatian Wikipedia’s article on the elevator (Dizalo) begins with the sentence “Dizalo ili lift je uređaj za prijevoz ljudi ili tereta među katovima zgrada ili radnih platformi.” (“‘Dizalo’ or ‘lift’ is a machine for the transportation of people or cargo between the floors of buildings or working platforms”) indicating that there’s nothing improper or substandard in using lift. For dizalo, Benson’s SerboCroatian dictionary redirects to lift but for neither word does it mark each being codified or marked for just one standard. Therefore, dizalo would likely be acceptable for a Serb although I wouldn’t be surprised if lift turns up more frequently there given the tendency for it to use more loanwords rather than calques or neologisms compared to Croatian. 8) Cr: kupaonica | Sr: kupatilo “bathroom” This a difference with each word uncodified in the other’s standard. Uncontroversial. 9) Cr: stol | Sr: sto “table” This is a codified difference and like uopće | uopšte above is etymologically interesting. Within the Štokavian dialects of the past (i.e. one of which is the basis for the BCMS/SC standards) final l became o. This can be discerned also from a little bit of comparative evidence using other Slavonic languages. In general the tendency was very slightly weaker among Croats than Serbs (likely because of those Croats who did not use Štokavian dialects natively where the change did not occur), and this is visible in a few words in standard Croatian which have cognates in standard Serbian. Common examples that I’ve seen bearing this difference are bijel “white”, sol “salt”, stol “table”, and vol “ox” in Croatian. For a Serb, he/she almost certainly knows these only as beo, so, sto and vo respectively. In fact the third word is a homophone of sto “hundred” as used by all speakers of BCMS/SC. A somewhat facetious idea then is that “table” and “hundred” are the same to a Serb but in practice context would prevent misunderstandings. Non-standard or regional bio among Croats and bel among Serbs for “white” point to the accidents in language standardization and if history had taken a different turn, Croats might have been taught to say bio while Serbs might have been taught to say bel. In any case, it’s not correct to conclude that standard Serbian is characterized by total replacement of final l with o. Loanwords ending in –ol that came into use after this sound change retain the element to this day (E.g. Cr: kolesterol | Sr: holesterol “cholesterol”; Cr: karfiol | Sr: karfiol “cauliflower”) On the other hand, the shift of final l to o was completed in many instances among speakers of Štokavian and apart from a few lexical differences above it turns up predictably in inflection. BCMS/SC: Bio sam na odmoru “I was on vacation” (masculine) but Bila sam na odmoru “I was on vacation” (feminine) (Cf. Czech Byl jsem na dovoleně) and Byla jsem na dovoleně) BCMS/SC: Veliki d(j)etao vidi malog d(j)etla. “The large woodpecker sees the small woodpecker.” (Cf. Slovak Veľký ďateľ vidí malého ďatľa.) 10) Cr: tisuća | Sr: hiljada “thousand” This is a codified difference but beneath the surface, things are less simple but more interesting according to the reference material. In the standard Croatian descriptive dictionary, hiljada is marked as a literary form of tisuća and there are attestations of its use by Croats before Serbo-Croatian was formalized and the current ethnic dichotomy of the words promoted. Similarly, tisuća is not of unquestioned “Croatian” heritage considering that it is attested in a code of laws enacted in 1349 by Stefan Dušan, King of Serbia. 11) Cr: režije | Sr: troškovi “utilities” [i.e. costs payable to utility companies] I’m not sure if this is a strict difference but my dictionaries lead me to think that the first word’s use is unique to Croats, while the latter is used by all speakers of BCMS/SC although its not specific to what one pays for electricity, water or heating. The standard Croatian descriptive dictionary notes that režija in its plural form refers to the financial outlay for technical maintenance or operation of residential or commercial space including use of electricity, natural gas or water. On the other hand trošak can simply mean “cost”, and so troškovi would mean “costs”. I also can’t help but notice that režije is a loanword (cf. German Regie, Latin regere) while troškovi is a derivative of trošiti “to spend money” which is related to the Proto-Slavonic *troxa “little piece” and ultimately a development of Proto-Indo-European *terH “to rub”. The Croatian term is not “pure” or in conformance with a Slavonic past. 12) Cr: tvrtka | Sr: preduzeće “company, firm” This is another codified difference with Croats and Serbs perceiving the words to “belong” to the respective standard. Of course, there are words translatable as “company” which are common to both standards but to keep things brief, I’ll just list some options available in the standard languages. Cr: poduzeće, firma, kompanija, korporacija, tvrtka Sr: preduzeće, firma, kompanija, korporacija Kompanija and korporacija refer to especially large entities and the latter would be readily translatable as “corporation” instead of “company” despite the high semantic overlap. *** FINNISH I finished Chapter 35 of "Kuulostaa hyvältä". The chapter’s dialogue between Jutta and Anna was about architecture of Helsinki. The "new" grammar introduced was the comitative case and an explicit reminder that for nouns comprising a proper name, only the final element is declined. The comtiative is not used frequently since its function has been largely assumed by constructions that use either a relative pronoun or the postposition kanssa “with” which forces the associated noun or adjective to be in genitive. Kävin Suomessa tyttöystävineni. or Kävin Suomessa tyttöystäväni kanssa. “I visited Finland with my girlfriend”. 
(From Lilianna L: Kuka huhtaa ja kenelle?) 1) “Mom! Hey Mom!” 2) “Calvin, stop that yelling inside! If you have a problem, then walk into the living room. I’m here.” 3) “I stepped in dog poo.” 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 18 of "Polish in 4 Weeks - II". The dialogue consisted of Basia and John deciding how to spend an evening, and then talking about the performance that they saw. The main topic for grammar was the use of certain reflexive verbs, while much of the commentary was devoted to vocabulary or phrases used for expressing suggestions, likes, dislikes, willingness or refusal. 
(From Tori Komix) “You forgot to reset the clock in the kitchen for daylight saving time [Ed.: “summer time” in some parts of the world]. – I’m not in a hurry. Someone forgot to reset the season and we’ve managed (lived) somehow.”* *The second half of winter and spring so far in most of Europe (and eastern North America for that matter) have been unusually cold. It’s been so noticeable that a weatherman describes what’s been happening in his blog. The short answer is that a high pressure air mass over Greenland has been pushing the jet stream further south in North America and Europe than usual which has then lead to larger swathes of the Northern Hemisphere affected by winds bringing cold air south from the Arctic. The comic’s creator put a comment under the comic that he’s so fed up with the cold weather so far this spring that this one panel was the most that he would do on the topic. 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 *** SLOVAK I’ve done my week’s allotment of Slovak homework using “Hovorme spolu po slovensky! B - Slovenčina ako cudzí jazyk”. I’ve worked through pgs. 31-33 of the first workbook which consisted of exercises reviewing vocabulary related to sports and sayings or idioms. 
(From S H O O T Y - …som Grogy) 1) “Together at last!” 2) “Dad? Why can’t we together more often?” 3) “Ask [your] mom, Viktorko.” 4) “But I’m Kamil! – I am Viktor!” 5) “Wahhhh!!!” 6) “I want to go to mom’s place!” 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 *** TURKISH I’ve finished Unit 8 of “Teach Yourself Beginner’s Turkish”. The unit’s dialogues were about shopping while the notes introduced the present tense suffix -iyor / -ıyor / -uyor / -üyor. This suffix defies a neat classification based on my understanding of tense, aspect and mood from European languages and it turns up in translations of actions that happen at the moment of utterance (usually translatable to English using present continuous tense e.g. “I’m working now.”), as well as actions that happen repeatedly or habitually (usually translatable to English using present simple tense e.g. “I work on weekends.”), or actions that began before the moment of speaking and continue to the moment of utterance or have recently ended (usually translatable to English using present perfect continuous e.g. “I have been working since 9 AM.”). *** UKRAINIAN I’ve done my week’s allotment of at least 3 pages from “Modern Ukrainian” by working through pgs. 71-73. The exercises here were for reading/listening comprehension of Chapter 4’s dialogues and reviewing the grammar of the previous four chapters including present tense, infinitives, accusative and vocative. *** OTHER LANGUAGES The next deadline for Hungarian is drawing near. ______
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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 316 of 541 17 May 2013 at 6:48am | IP Logged | |||||
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For a while since the middle of April I scaled back drastically my effort as other things got in the way. The worst of what I was going through seems to have passed about a week ago and I’m trying to return to something close to my previous routine of studying. On one hand I’m disappointed that I’ve fallen behind the schedule that I set for myself earlier this year. On the other hand, I’m glad that I’ve been able to string together some time over the last week for studying. For the next little while I’ll be studying mainly in preparation for my next trip. Finnish is now the focus (especially getting myself more at ease with spoken (not necessarily colloquial) Finnish) with BCMS/SC not far behind in priority while Ukrainian occupies third place. Unfortunately the likelihood of a trip to Turkey this year has fallen significantly and so Turkish is now accorded scarcely more attention than Northern Saami. The importance of working on the remaining languages is somewhere between Ukrainian and Northern Saami.
*** BCMS/SC I finished reviewing Chapter 7 of “Teach Yourself Serbian” and “Beginner’s Serbian”. The former’s dialogues involved describing location while its main grammatical topics introduced were locative singular of nouns and prepositions related to position. The chapter in the latter by conicidence was somwhat similar by way of its coverage of the locative singular, but it also contained notes on the locative plural and dative which is nearly identical to the locative save prescribed distinctions in pitch accent when declining certain nouns). The dialogue of the latter was a short business meeting. Not too long after having worked through that Serbian material, I also plowed through Chapter 5 of “Spoken World Croatian”. The main points introduced in grammar were the dative and instrumental. By chance this overlapped somewhat what I had recently reviewed in the Serbian textbooks mentioned previously. 
(From Qolombo) 1) “Fishing is a suitable way to kill time [while] on watch on the mast.” 2) “However I never catch anything.” 3) “I ask myself why.” 4) “Why did God punish me with this crew?” - jarbol (jarbola) “mast” (јарбол (јарбола)) - kažnjavati > kazniti (kažnjavam, kažnjavaju > kaznim, kazne) “to penalize, punish” (кажњавати > казнити (кажњавам, кажњавају > казним, казне)) - prilika (prilike) “opportunity” (прилика (прилике)) Convention for vocabulary in the comic strip that's unfamiliar to me (i.e. needed to consult a dictionary) (this will be put in both scripts partially to accommodate those unused to Serbian Cyrillic and also so that I get at least a little bit of practice using the keyboard layout for Serbian Cyrillic). 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 See here for the rationale of the excursus devoted to comparing Croatian and Serbian using the dialogues of “Beginner’s Croatian” and “Beginner’s Serbian” published by Hippocrene Books. Resources include descriptive dictionary of standard Croatian based on the work of Anić et al., Benson’s SerboCroatian-English Dictionary, Alexander’s Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, a Grammar: With Sociolinguistic Commentary and discussions on usage in BCMS/SC from Unilang and WordReference. Chapter 4 1) Cr: budući da | Sr: pošto “because (of the fact that), since” These conjunctions are not mutually exclusive to anyone other than someone who is in the beginning stages of learning BCMS/SC. Both of these are known to all native speakers and neither budući da is a Croatianism nor pošto a Serbianism. 2) Cr: van | Sr: napolje “out” [in reference to motion. E.g. ići van / napolje “to go out(side)”] Like the conjunction above, these adverbs are not mutually exclusive to anyone other than someone who is in the beginning stages of learning BCMS/SC. Both of these are known to all native speakers and neither van is a Croatianism nor napolje a Serbianism. 3) Cr: juha | Sr: supa “soup” Croats and Serbs perceive each word as “belonging” to their respective standard; using the other variant’s term would be unusual if not viewed negatively by compatriots. Supa is displayed in the descriptive dictionary of standard Croatian as a regionalism and Serbianism whereas Benson’s Serbo-Croatian > English dictionary marks juha as a Croatianism. 4) Cr: mineralna voda | Sr: kisela voda “mineral water, spring water” This is an interesting pair of words since kisela voda is the term used in “Beginner’s Serbian” and “Teach Yourself Serbian” whereas the Croatian counterparts in the series use mineralna voda. It’s interesting that mineralna voda is the only term used by Croats, notwithstanding purists’ pride about eschewing borrowing unlike the Serbs. Kisela voda (literally “sour water”) as found in my Serbian books is a calque that would suit the Croatian puristic frame of mind quite nicely as the replacement for mineralna voda, if it weren’t something already used widely by Serbs. Another interesting point is that despite the pedagogical split of these terms in my Croatian books on one hand and Serbian ones on the other, mineralna voda is also acceptable in Serbian judging by the article in Serbian Wikipedia on the subject (“Mineralna voda”) and Benson’s Serbo-Croatian > English dictionary lacking ethnic marking for mineralna voda. 5) Cr: vrt | Sr: bašta “garden” Despite the different terms, and the Turkish provenance of the latter (cf. bahçe), vrt is an acceptable synonym to a Serb (i.e. vrt is not a Croatianism). The article on Serbian Wikipedia lists both terms in its lede without comment. Bašća (bašta) is marked in the descriptive dictionary of standard Croatian as a regionalism for vrt (presumably referring to its use by Croats in Bosnia or Serbia). 6) Cr: dobar tek! | Sr: prijatno! “bon appetit!” The former is a Croatianism, while the latter is typical of non-Croats. However according to this discussion, prijatno! is used in Croatia but less often than dobar tek!. 7) Cr: živjeli! | Sr: nazdravlje! “cheers!” These terms are used interchangeably by ex-Yugoslavs, and I’m sure that they will be pleasantly surprised by a foreigner giving a toast using these terms. *** FINNISH I finished Chapter 36 of "Kuulostaa hyvältä". The chapter’s dialogue between Jutta, Anna and Kari was about possible trips by the “Silja Line” ferry to Stockholm or Tallinn, and Anna’s reading of a short story with the title “Silja Laine”. The "new" grammar introduced was the use of partitive object with a derivative of a verb to express involuntary reactions. Mä itken. “I’m crying” Minua itkettää “I feel like crying” Heidän kirjeensä itkettää minua. “Their letter is making me cry.” There was also a summary of features showing the differences between colloquial and standard Finnish. 
(From Viivi ja Wagner 26.1.2013 – Ajassa - Plaza) 1) “It’s really quiet. I’m going to fall asleep sitting up.” 2) “These pot lids sure are dusty.” 3) “I’ll clean them by banging them together hard.” - kattilankansi (kattilankannen, kattilankantta, kattilankansia) “pot lid” - nukahtaa (nukahdan, nukahti, nukahtanut) “to fall asleep” - pölyinen (pölyisen, pölyistä, pölyisiä) “dusty” 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 *** HUNGARIAN I finished Selection 7 of “FSI Hungarian Graded Reader”. The text was the folktale of the wise girl whose ability in solving the king’s riddles or performing the tasks that he assigns to her impresses him so much that he marries her. It was accompanied by transformation exercises with verbs and matching nouns with suitable adjectives. 
(From Marabu BlogLap: Érv a nyomtatott sajtó mellett) “’The kids get along when they play’. – I have bad news, Mom. I was playing Star Wars with Zsolti and the force was with me.” Convention for vocabulary in the comic strip that’s unfamiliar to me (i.e. needed to consult a dictionary) NOUNS & ADJECTIVES: nominative singular (nouns only: nominative possessive for 3rd person singular) VERBS: 3rd person singular present tense (infinitive) ADVERBS & INTERJECTIONS: no extra information given *** NORTHERN SAAMI I finished Unit 4 of Davvin 3 which introduced the comitative of certain pronouns in singular, negative imperative for 2nd person singular, and numerals over 1000. It also reviewed present and simple past tense affirmative of parisyllabic verbs. Here is my understanding of the chapter’s “new” main points (any misunderstandings of the material are mine alone). 1) Comitative of pronouns in singular ends in –inna Nominative: mun, don, son, dat, gii, mii Comitative: muinna, duinna, suinna, dainna, geainna, mainna 2) Negative imperative for 2nd person singular consists of the negative verb preceding main verb’s stem Mun riŋgen dutnje. “I’ll telephone you” Mun in riŋge dutnje. “I won’t telephone you” Riŋge munnje! “Telephone me!” Ale riŋge munnje! “Don’t telephone me!” This is reminiscent of the Finnish formation. Mä soitan sulle. “I’ll telephone you.” Mä en soita sulle. “I won’t telephone you.” Soita mulle! “Telephone me!” Älä soita mulle! “Don’t telephone me!” 3) Numerals over 1000 can become lengthy when not expressed with numbers. 1000 duhát, 1001 duhátokta, 1100 duhátčuođi, 1101 duhátčuođiokta, 3892 golbmaduhátgávccičuođiovccilogiguokte Vocabulary of Unit 4 bassat – “to wash” baste – “spoon” beavdi – “table” cealkit – “to say greetings” čoavdda – “key” danin (go) – “because, in order to” dállearka – “dish, plate” dearvvuođat – “greetings” gáffal – “fork” geallir – “cellar” gohppu – “cup” jallas (attr.), jal’la (pred.) – “crazy” latnja – “room” moadde – “pair, couple of” muđui – “anyway, by the way” muhtun – “someone, a, any” niibi – “knife” olmmái – “friend” olmmoš – “person” ráhkes (attr.), ráhkis (pred.) – “beloved, dear” stuollu – “chair” stuora (attr.), stuoria (pred.) – “large” váibat – “to become tired” *** TURKISH I’ve finished Unit 9 of “Teach Yourself Beginner’s Turkish”. The unit’s dialogues were about making plans or suggestions. The notes introduced how to tell time, use the postposition ile with vehicles to indicate the means by which one travels, and the optative and imperative suffixes. *** UKRAINIAN Over the last month (with a bit of a surge over the last week) I’ve done the exercises in Chapter 5 (pgs. 84-89) in “Modern Ukrainian”. The exercises dealt with declining adjectives in accusative and genitive, other uses of the genitive, and the alternative construction for imperfective future of –м– followed by endings for the subject. I now feel sufficiently comfortable in my Ukrainian to include comic strips that I read in the language (with the help of a dictionary, of course). 
(From Зай та Друзі – 54 | COMX.org.ua / Українські комікси та мальовані історії) 1) “You wouldn’t happen to have a light?” 2) “Thanks a million.” 3) “What a pleasant young man.” 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 (2nd 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 feel bad about not having worked on that guide to the Uralic languages since a couple of months ago. ______
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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 317 of 541 20 May 2013 at 6:23am | IP Logged | |||||
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BCMS/SC
I finished reviewing Chapter 8 of “Teach Yourself Serbian”. The dialogues involved describing location and giving directions to strangers which lent themselves to introducing formally the vocative, imperative, modal verbs, prepositions pertaining to location which often govern the genitive, locative or accusative) and ordinal numbers. An irritant that I came across in this chapter is how the authors describe a regular change to the stem caused by adding inflectional endings as a spelling rule. The language geek in me says that a spelling rule is distinct from the underlying changes in morphology or phonology. The point in question was how the vocative ending for singular masculine nouns makes the final g, h, and k become ž, š and č respectively. Bog “God” Bože! “[Oh,] God!” However not only has the spelling changed, but the pronunciation differs. Using this logic that predictable morphological changes in a stem can be classified as belonging to spelling rules, then virtually every instance of inflection which sets off a change in the stem’s composition is just part of a “spelling rule” even when the inflected form is visually and audibly distinct from the uninflected form. Rijeka je grad u Hrvatskoj. “Rijeka is a city in Croatia” U Rijeci ima mnogo lijepih djevojki. “In Rijeka there are many pretty girls.” In my view, a “spelling rule” is apt when describing certain relationships between phonemes and graphemes (symbols). This means that one can encounter two words that are visually distinct (after accounting for script) but pronounce them identically. Examples include “color” versus “colour”, “realise” versus “realize”, “traveler” versus “traveller” This also means that I don’t treat “dove” versus “dived” as a difference in spelling as much as a different interpretation or treatment of the verb “to dive” being “strong” (i.e. “dove”) or “weak” (i.e. “dived”) which incidentally must lead to different spelling because of how English expresses “strong” and “weak” conjugations in the first place! When it comes to BCMS/SC, I view the following examples as clear matters of orthography: Cr: Napisat ću pismo | Sr: Napisaću pismo “I’ll write a letter” (pronounced identically regardless of different spelling) Cr: zadaci / zadatci | Sr: zadaci “tasks, [school] assignments/homework” (pronounced identically regardless of spelling) Cr: Stockholm | Sr: Stokholm “Stockholm” (pronounced identically regardless of different spelling) Cr & Sr: šeststo / šesto “600” / “6th” (pronounced identically but spelled differently to avoid visual ambiguity if the principle of phonemic spelling were strictly applied) For everything else, I don’t find it useful or helpful to think of stem changes or application of inflectional rules as mere spelling differences since the change in spelling is subordinate to the morphological or phonological change. Cr: minuta (predictably feminine because of final –a) | Sr: minut (predictably mascline because of final consonant) “minute” Cr & Sr: majka ~ majčin auto “mother” ~ “mother’s car” Cr & Sr: knjiga ~ u knjizi “book” ~ “in the book”, ; azbuka ~ u azbuci “[Cyrillic] alphabet” ~ “In [Cyrillic] alphabet” 
(From Qolombo) 1) “*Blech!* This is tasteless! Make it better!” 4) “Mmmmm… You see what you can [do] when you make an effort!” Convention for vocabulary in the comic strip that's unfamiliar to me (i.e. needed to consult a dictionary) (this will be put in both scripts partially to accommodate those unused to Serbian Cyrillic and also so that I get at least a little bit of practice using the keyboard layout for Serbian Cyrillic). 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 See here for the rationale of the excursus devoted to comparing Croatian and Serbian using the dialogues of “Beginner’s Croatian” and “Beginner’s Serbian” published by Hippocrene Books. Resources include descriptive dictionary of standard Croatian based on the work of Anić et al., Benson’s SerboCroatian-English Dictionary, Alexander’s Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, a Grammar: With Sociolinguistic Commentary and discussions on usage in BCMS/SC from Unilang and WordReference. Chapter 6 1) Cr: samoposluživanje | Sr: samoposluga “grocery store” As far as I can tell these aren’t total synonyms, however the semantic overlap is very high, and in their meaning for “grocery store” seem interchangeable. The descriptive dictionary of standard Croatian defines samoposluživanje as the act of self-service at a shop or cafeteria, in addition to a store where visitors do their shopping with little or no involvement from the store’s employees. samoposluga is basically the second meaning of posluživanje. Benson’s Serbo-Croatian > English dictionary lists samoposluga as a supermarket or cafeteria while samoposluživanje is defined as self-service. See 4) Cr: trgovina | Sr: prodavnica for another pair translated as “grocery store” 2) Cr: najprije | Sr: prvo “first (of all)” This was interesting for me to dig into since these terms aren’t synonymous even though they were expressed identically in the English translation as “first”. Najprije means of “first of all” whereas prvo means “first(ly)”. The Serb could use najprije like the Croat or najpre depending on whether he/she was a native speaker of an ijekavian or ekavian subdialect. On the other hand, prvo is defined in the descriptive Croatian dictionary as a regionalistic form of prije meaning “first(ly)” among other concepts. Based on the above, I don’t see why the relevant sentence in “Beginner’s Croatian” and “Beginner’s Serbian” should have been different on this score especially considering that they were linked to identical English translations. The original sentences of: Cr: Hoćemo li najprije otići tamo? | Sr: Hoćemo li prvo da odemo tamo? ...could have been expressed as follows: Cr: Hoćemo li najprije otići tamo? | Sr: Hoćemo li najpre da odemo tamo? I could with little effort make that Serbian sentence identical to the Croatian one and still be grammatical by using the Ijekavian sub-variant as typical of a Bosnian Serb or Montenegrin and use the less frequent construction of infinitive following an auxiliary verb rather than the common (and sometimes stereotyped) structure of da preceding a finite verb. 3) Cr: hladnjak | Sr: frižider “refrigerator” The textbooks’ authors stick to the contrasting tendencies of Croats and Serbs on the use of loanwords, however neither word is wrong, banned or unduly marked as being the “other side’s” word from what I can determine. In less formal settings, Croats tend to use more loanwords and items perceived by rabid and semi-informed purists as Serbianisms. Frižider is one such example of a colloquial term according to the descriptive dictionary of standard Croatian. Among Serbs, hladnjak coexists with frižider in reference to a refrigerator, if the title of the article on Serbian Wikipedia is of help (the article also indicates that zamrzivač can also refer to a refrigerator but this is new or dubious to me since up until now I’ve been taught that it refers to the freezer, and the descriptive dictionary of Croatian backs up what I’ve learned). 4) Cr: trgovina | Sr: prodavnica “grocery store” As I was trying to discern a difference between this pair, I came across several terms whose meanings overlap yet can be translated by “store” (especially when native speakers are unwilling (lazy?) to make the distinctions known). As for myself, I often just say to others when asked that I’m going to the store when buying food, even though in the name of accuracy I should say that I’m going to the grocery store or supermarket. - “hypermarket”, “supermarket” Cr: & Sr: hipermarket, supermarket - “market” (either open-air or one in a market hall) Cr: & Sr: pijaca (1), tržnica Note (1) Pijaca is marked in the descriptive dictionary of standard Croatian as a regionalism and Serbianism - “market” (in an abstract sense, especially in reference to economic theory or financial journalism) Cr: & Sr: tržište - “store” / “shop” (especially if the accent is on self-service or little or no involvement of the store’s employees with the act of shopping) Cr: samoposluga, samoposluživanje | Sr: samoposluga - “store” / “shop” (in a general sense) Cr: dućan (2), prodavaona, prodavaonica, radnja (3), trgovina (4) Sr: dućan, prodavnica, radnja (3), trgovina (4) Notes (2) Dućan is marked in the descriptive dictionary of Croatian as a regionalism. (3) Radnja can also refer to an act or a novel’s plot (4) Trgovina can also refer to commerce or trade itself See 1) Cr: samoposluživanje | Sr: samoposluga for another pair translated as “grocery store” 5) Cr: Sada su dva sata i petnaest minuta | Sr: Sada je dva sata i petnaest minuta “It’s now 2:15.” This was an interesting difference that I didn’t know about previously. When it comes to telling the time, “Beginner’s Croatian” used the plural while “Beginner’s Serbian” used the singular (literally “now [there] are 2 hours and 15 minutes” versus “now is 2 hours and 15 minutes”). This difference in subject-verb agreement / concordance reminds of the difference in English with certain nouns (e.g. British English Manchester United are playing well these days. (the team’s many players are emphasized despite “Manchester United” resembling a singular noun thus leading to using a verb in plural) versus American English Manchester United is playing well these days. (the team being a unit is emphasized and resembling a singular noun it leads to using a verb in singular) 6) Cr: nevjerojatno | Sr: neverovatno “unbelievably” The former now seems to be a Croatianism while the latter is a Serbianism. Indeed, the descriptive dictionary for standard Croatian does not mention (ne)verovatno or its ijekavian reflex (ne)vjerovatno. According to this explanation from Croatian Wikipedia (take it with a grain of salt, though) on language use, nevjerojatno originates as an adaptation of Russian невероятнo while (ne)verovatno / (ne)vjerovatno derives from the BCMS/SC verb v(j)erovati “to believe”. 7) Cr: kava | Sr: kafa “coffee” Each word is associated by native speakers to its respective standard, minor as the spelling difference is. The descriptive dictionary of standard Croatian marks kafa as a regionalism and Serbianism. 8) Cr: deterdžent | Sr: deterdžent “detergent” These differ in stress placement but as far as I could deduce, the distinction isn't as clear-cut as suggested by “Beginner’s Croatian” and “Beginner’s Serbian”. In the former, the speaker stresses the second syllable whereas the latter's speaker stresses the third syllable. However the descriptive dictionary of standard Croatian shows that the stress can fall on either syllable. Benson's Serbo-Croatian > English dictionary indicates that the stress is on the second syllable. Therefore, I'm left to conclude that there's no reliable way to distinguish a Croat from a Serb by his/her pronunciation of this word despite the possibility to conclude otherwise by a simple and cursory comparison of the accentuation in those two textbooks for ostensibly different languages. This reminds me of the differing pronunciation of “garage” which among other features can be broadly divided as North American and rest of the world depending on stress placement. North Americans place the stress on the second syllable while the stress falls on the first syllable in the other “Englishes” (see here for the different pronunciations of “garage”). “Controversy” also seems to be somewhat similarly divisible with North Americans stressing the first syllable and reducing the second syllable while Britons sometimes stress the second syllable instead and reduce the first syllable (see here for more details on “controversy”). 9) Cr: kazalište | Sr: pozorište “theater, playhouse” Each word is associated by native speakers to its respective standard, however each ultimately derives from a verb in the native lexical stock (cf. kazati “to say; to express something by means other than words (e.g. using hands, acting), zr(ij)eti “to watch” [archaic/obsolete]) *** FINNISH I finished Chapter 37 of "Kuulostaa hyvältä". The chapter’s dialogue was between Jutta and Anna about the fortress on the islands outside Helsinki, Suomenlinna. No "new" grammar was introduced in the chapter, but instead there was a review of the declension of subject and object in sentences of necessity. 
(From A&B | NEN sarjakuvat) 2) “Şћiŧ from a shark!” / “Ғџ¢к you!”* * Double entendre: hai “shark” ~ haista “from / out of a shark”; haistaa “to smell (sg)” ~ haista! “[take a] smell [of sg]!” (imperative) (Haista paska! “Ғџ¢к you!” (literally “Smell the şћiŧ!”) 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 19 of "Polish in 4 Weeks - II". The text consisted of Alice and Waldek sending emails to each other about the journalist Ryszard Kapuściński. The main topics for grammar were how to use expressions or phrases containing years (e.g. “They finished their studies in 2013”), and a review of the accusative forms of personal pronouns. 
(From Tori Komix) 1) “Hey, I might come back late today. – No problem, I won’t be coming back quickly either. Where are you going?” 2) “To juwenalia – Me too. But aren’t you too young for that? – Aren’t you too old?” 3) “How about this: we’ll go together, split up before going in, and if necessary, [act as if] we don’t know each other. – Sounds great to me.” - juwenalia (juwenaliów) [plural only] “(an extended period of partying in May for university students before exams start)” - w razie czego “just in case, if necessary” 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 *** SLOVAK Today I did the exercises on p. 31 in the textbook for “Hovorme spolu po slovensky! B - Slovenčina ako cudzí jazyk”. These were fill-in-the-blank and matching exercises involving means of transport. This is a lot less than I've done earlier this year before putting a note about Slovak in my log. However as noted in the preceding entry Slovak has been pushed down for the time being when it comes to the priority accorded to other languages. 
(From S H O O T Y - …som Grogy) 5) “Was there some chick looking for me?” 6) “We met on the internet.” Convention for vocabulary in the comic strip that's unfamiliar to me (i.e. needed to consult a dictionary) - pipka (pipky) “chicken, hen” (expressive, juvenile); “chick, girl” (slang) 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 *** OTHER LANGUAGES It's high time to start browsing Chapter 5 of “Davvin 3”. ______
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| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5169 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 318 of 541 20 May 2013 at 4:06pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Chung, what time do you usually spend on your comparative notes on Uralic languages? Do
you study everything you're supposed to at that specific day and only then go on writing? Or do you do it first? 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 319 of 541 20 May 2013 at 5:51pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I pick a topic that's on a list that I drew up a while ago and then put a summary of that topic as it pertains to each language. I only start to do the research after I've picked a topic, and make the summaries as I'm doing the research.
That reminds me. I think that I'll start working on the section about the comparative and superlative later today. Thanks Expug. 2 persons have 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 320 of 541 23 May 2013 at 5:16am | IP Logged | |||||
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BCMS/SC
I finished working through Chapter 8 of “Beginner’s Serbian”. The dialogues involved the protagonists at a party. The grammar introduced included the instrumental, interrogative, affirmative, neutral and negative pronouns, reflexive pronouns, and reflexive verbs for impersonal constructions. 
(From Nedeljni Strip #044) 1) “So, Vukota. Give [me] a bit of rakija! – The upper half of rakija in the bottle is my [paternal] uncle’s, the lower one’s mine!” 2) “Well, give me yours!” 3) “How? My uncle told me that I shouldn’t cross through his [share]!” Convention for vocabulary in the comic strip that's unfamiliar to me (i.e. needed to consult a dictionary) (this will be put in both scripts partially to accommodate those unused to Serbian Cyrillic and also so that I get at least a little bit of practice using the keyboard layout for Serbian Cyrillic). 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 See here for the rationale of the excursus devoted to comparing Croatian and Serbian using the dialogues of “Beginner’s Croatian” and “Beginner’s Serbian” published by Hippocrene Books. Resources include descriptive dictionary of standard Croatian based on the work of Anić et al., Benson’s SerboCroatian-English Dictionary, Alexander’s Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, a Grammar: With Sociolinguistic Commentary and discussions on usage in BCMS/SC from Unilang and WordReference. Chapter 7 1) Cr: Trebam gospodina Tomića, molim Vas. | Sr: Mogu li dobiti gospodina Petrovića, molim Vas? “I need [to speak to] Mr. Tomić, please” | “Can I get Mr. Petrović, please?” At face value, I can draw a simplistic conclusion where Croatian and Serbian are different languages because these divergent sentences here show how someone asks for someone else via telephone. Some digging into this led me to explore the use of trebati in BCMS/SC, and finding that the “Serbian” sentence is grammatical in “Croatian”. If one wanted the sentences to correspond to “I need [to speak to] Mr. Tomić, please.”, then it would be: Cr: Trebam gospodina Tomića, molim Vas. | Sr: Treba mi gospodin Tomić, molim Vas. If one wanted the sentences to correspond to “Can I get [i.e. speak to] Mr. Tomić, please?”, then it would be: Cr: Mogu li dobiti gospodina Tomića, molim Vas? | Sr: Mogu li dobiti gospodina Tomića, molim Vas? (i.e. no difference) On the use of trebati “to be necessary; to need; should, ought”, the rules are that for Croats the verb is bitransitive (i.e. it can take a direct object in addition to acting as an impersonal verb) while for Serbs the verb is intransitive only. For Bosnians, following either rule is acceptable. “I need a vacation.” Cr: Trebam odmor. | Sr: Treba mi odmor. “I needed to bake a cake.” Cr: Trebao sam ispeći tortu. | Sr: Trebalo je da ispečem tortu. The Croatian sentence is analogous to English “need” which takes a direct object or an infinitive. After accounting for word order, the Serbian sentence is analogous to English “be necessary” which has a passive sense (i.e. “A vacation is necessary for me.”, “It was necessary that I bake a cake.”) (N.B. According to the Croatian informants “Athaulf” and “slavic_one”, the “Serbian” form lacking the infinitive does occur among Croats (especially colloquially but occasionally formally) and I’m left to think that the prescriptions are less air-tight than let on by the employees of the language academies) 2) Cr: laboratorij | Sr: laboratorija “laboratory” A spelling difference (arguably minor) where the former is spelled and declined as a masculine noun and the latter as done as a feminine noun. This reminds me of my post on the marginal difference between Croatian pantera and Serbian panter “panther”. 3) Cr: ured | Sr: kancelarija “office” Ured is typical among Croats (and probably a Croatianism for Serbs) while kancelarija is neutrally-marked and typical for Serbs. The standard descriptive dictionary of Croatian does list kancelarija as an unmarked synonym for ured leading me to believe that most Croats probably wouldn’t mind if I’d use it in place of ured. Morton Benson marks ured as a something usual of Croatian hence something rarely used actively by Serbs. Here’s a summary for some terms translatable as “office” Cr: biro, kancelarija, pisarnica, poslovnica, ured Sr: biro, kancelarija, pisarnica, poslovnica, ured (rare) From what I gather, biro is better translated as “bureau” or a department whose workers perform a certain task or focus on a particular field that is known to everyone (e.g. turistički biro “tourist office/bureau”). It's interesting though that the first meaning of biro is matched with kancelarija and ured in the descriptive dictionary of standard Croatian. Poslovnica seems to overlap with biro (e.g. turistička poslovnica) but in other contexts can be translated as “branch office”. Kancelarija is a general or all-purpose translation of “office” (e.g. Ivana radi u novoj kancelariji. “Ivana works in a new office”) with ured commonly being a synonym of kancelarija for Croats. Pisarnica is an older and less common term for an office but in Serbian legalese pisarnica means a clerk’s office. 4) Cr: nazvati | Sr: pozvati “to call, telephone” In the sense of calling someone by telephone, using nazvati is the Croat’s alternative to using the loanword telefonirati. For the Serb, pozvati serves as this alternative. However the descriptive dictionary of standard Croatian does list pozvati as a rare alternative to nazvati with no marking of it as a Serbianism. Morton Benson’s dictionary lists nazvati as a Croatianism and a colloquial way (for Serbs?) to mean “to telephone”. Other meanings for these words are shared. Cr & Sr: nazvati “to (assign a) name; call, label; greet [colloquial]” Cr & Sr: pozvati “to call (someone to come closer or gather), summon; invite” The main point of semantic departure thus involves its suitability or frequency in acting as a synonym for telefonirati. 5) Cr: tvornica | Sr: fabrika “factory” Croats and Serbs often perceive as “belonging” to their respective standard; using the other variant’s term would be unusual. Fabrika is displayed in the descriptive dictionary of standard Croatian as a regionalism and Serbianism whereas Benson’s Serbo-Croatian > English dictionary marks tvornica as usual for Croatian. 6) Cr: izvješće “report” | Sr: analiza “analysis” This difference is interesting not so much in reflecting the authors’ choice of word (analiza is also codified in Croatian and in the dialogue of “Beginner’s Croatian” it could have been used instead without any negative effect, presumably) but in alerting me to the spread of izvješće in the face of the established izvještaj in standard language based on the preference of Croatian purists. The descriptive dictionary of standard Croatian lists izvješće as a synonym for izvještaj “report”, as well as a neologism referring to any piece of technical writing. In this paper by the Croatian linguist, Mate Kapović, the elevation of izvješće at the expense of izvještaj in the name of “re-Croatianization” (or “de-Serbianization”) of the 1990s is illogical or incoherent if the idea were to build Croatian “uniqueness” since izvješće is a loanword from Russian. On the other hand izvještaj is in Kapović’s words of “pure Croatian descent” being the expected Ijekavian derivation of the BCMS/SC verb izv(ij)esti “to inform, notify, report”. According to Kapović the popularity of izvješće arose from the belief of Croatian purists that a word’s “Croatianness” was proportional to its degree of contravention of established patterns or analogies in the existing BCMS/SC lexical stock. This sounds like pure idiocy to me. Given the preceding commentary I can revise things as follows: Original phrases: Cr: …i sve rade uspješno, kao što se vidi iz brojeva u mojem izvješću. Sr: …i sve rade uspešno, kao što se vidi iz brojeva u mojoj analizi. Revision: Cr: …i sve rade uspješno, kao što se vidi iz brojeva u mojem izvještaju. Sr: …i sve rade uspješno, kao što se vidi iz brojeva u mojem izvještaju. (Ijekavian) Oh, the horror! 7) Cr: uložiti | Sr: investirati “to invest” The use of these words does not indicate anything mutually exclusive to anyone other than someone who is in the beginning stages of learning BCMS/SC or someone using synonyms common to all variants. In addition to being translatable as “to invest”, uložiti can also mean “to deposit”, “to insert” or “to submit (e.g. a complaint)” to all native speakers. The meaning of investirati is restricted to investment be it financial or physical (e.g. “to invest one’s energy into something”) but is again valid to all native speakers. 8) Cr: gospodarstvo | Sr: privreda “economy” This was an interesting difference for me to dig into since I found out a couple of ways to translate “(the) economy” when understood as all of the means of production and their intrarelationships in a territory (in layman’s terms this can be approximated as the gross domestic product) as opposed to the idea of using minimal resources in a favourable way (cf. “fuel-economy”, “to economize”). The article on Croatian Wikipedia shows that gospodarstvo and privreda are synonyms meaning “(the) economy” (i.e. GDP) and this is reinforced by the definition of privreda in the descriptive dictionary of standard Croatian which has gospodarstvo as a synonym. “Beginner’s Croatian” could have thus used privreda instead of gospodarstvo without a loss of meaning or risk of misinforming learners, notwithstanding then matching the use in “Beginner’s Serbian”. On the other hand gospodarstvo can also mean “estate, farm; possessions” per the descriptive dictionary and these meanings are also understood by Serbs. For “economy”, privreda would be the term used. The bottom line for me is that privreda is fine for both Croats and Serbs when meaning “(the) economy” while gospodarstvo would not be understood as such (at least initially) by Serbs, even though its reference to property or assets is understood by all speakers of BCMS/SC. 9) Cr: suparništvo | Sr: konkurencija “competiton” Konkurencija also exists in standard Croatian per the descriptive dictionary. On the other hand suparništvo is listed in Benson’s Serbo-Croatian > English dictionary as meaning “rivalry” suggesting to me that its use over konkurencija when referring to business competitors may be somewhat unusual to Serbs. 10) Cr: redovito | Sr: redovno “regularly” At the least, redovno coexists with redovito in standard Croatian without marking for being a “Serbianism”. However, the source adjective for redovito, redovit, is listed as a Croatianism in Benson’s Serbo-Croatian > English dictionary. 11) Cr: sviđati se | Sr: dopadati se “to please” The difference in this pair of words is tied to frequency rather than any sense of “correctness” in the terms. According to Ronelle Alexander on p. 99 of her book “Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, a Grammar. With Sociolinguistic Commentary”, both verbs are used equally by Bosnians and Serbs but sviđati se is more common for Croats compared to dopasti se. The descriptive dictionary of standard Croatian shows one of the meanings of dopasti (se) (perfective counterpart of dopadati (se) corresponding to svidjeti se (perfective counterpart of sviđati se) with no note about dopasti (se) being a “Serbianism”. *** FINNISH I finished Chapter 38 of "Kuulostaa hyvältä". The chapter’s dialogue was between Anna, Jutta, Kari and Anssi as they visit the summer cottage of Anna’s parents. The new topic for grammar introduced was the passive past participle. 
(From Kaarina 700 vuotta | Kaarinan kaupunki) 1) “Now [that’s] something for celebrating. Kaarina* has turned 700 years old. – Oh!” 2) “I didn’t notice [it] in any way either.” 3) “Happy Birthday, Kaa… - [We meant] the city of Kaarina!” * Kaarina is a small town in southwestern Finland with that place-name being first mentioned in 1309, hence the mention of the town turning 700 years old in 2009. - huomioida (huomioin, huomioi, huomioinut) “to notice; consider; observe” - kirjanpito (kirjanpidon, kirjanpitoa, kirjanpitoja) “accounting, bookkeeping” 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 *** UKRAINIAN I’ve done the exercises for Chapter 6 on pgs. 103-5 in “Modern Ukrainian”. The exercises dealt with the past tense and the aspectual pairs (until this chapter, almost all of the verbs introduced were imperfective). 
(From Життєві комікси | VK) 1) “It must be great to be a dog. Primitive mind and primitive desires.” 2) “Squirrel. Food. Car. Tail. Dog. Birdie. Grass. Bone. Cat. ” 3) “Food. Sex.” - білка (білки) “squirrel” - хвіст (хвоста) “tail” 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 added a summary of the adjectives in comparative degree for the guide for Uralic languages but am having some trouble doing similarly for adverbs in Northern Saami. None of the books in “Davvin” has information about the comparative degree for adverbs. There’s such information only for adjectives. On the Hungarian Electronic Library, I found an Ukrainian textbook for beginners from 2006 in .pdf whose creation was sponsored by several Hungarian universities. It looks nice with explanations in Ukrainian only, lots of exercises and many colourful pictures but alas it’s meant for use in a classroom since it’s not accompanied by audio or an answer key. I think though that I’ll pass it on to my Ukrainian instructor who might find at least some sections useful for our class. ______
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