michamotor Tetraglot Newbie Germany Joined 5442 days ago 23 posts - 31 votes Speaks: German*, Czech, French, English Studies: Hungarian
| Message 9 of 43 03 June 2010 at 10:29pm | IP Logged |
The craziest thing in Hungarian ist the definite article "a" ("az" before a vowel), because in French and English, it sounds almost the same "un" or "a", but they are the indefinite article. So every time I hear or read "a" in Hungarian, it is connected in my brain to the indefinite article.
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Derian Triglot Senior Member PolandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5310 days ago 227 posts - 464 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, German Studies: Spanish, Russian, Czech, French, Mandarin, Japanese
| Message 10 of 43 03 June 2010 at 10:47pm | IP Logged |
Oh, the Hungarian spelling is also confusing.
The Hungarian 's' and 'sz' are pronounced the other way around than they are in Polish, and all other languages (that have a 'sz', 'sh' or a 'sch').
Edited by Derian on 03 June 2010 at 10:49pm
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ReneeMona Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5337 days ago 864 posts - 1274 votes Speaks: Dutch*, EnglishC2 Studies: French
| Message 11 of 43 04 June 2010 at 12:03am | IP Logged |
I still have trouble negating things in French sometimes because you have to add ne before the verb and pas (not), jamais (never) etc, behind it. I'm so used to just adding not/niet that I often forget one of the two.
Strangely enough, I've never been bothered by the word je meaning you in Dutch and I in French.
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Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7158 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish
| Message 12 of 43 04 June 2010 at 1:26am | IP Logged |
Derian wrote:
Chung wrote:
I sometimes forget to use "-ko/-kö" in Finnish because [U]my brain has noted that I've marked the question already by using rising intonation[/U] or a question mark per conventions in languages other than Finnish. |
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That's exactly the thing. |
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Yet it doesn't seem to be exactly the same. Judging by your post it's not clear whether Japanese calls for rising intonation in a question with "ka" (I don't know Japanese so feel free to enlighten me here).
The thing with Finnish is that by adding the suffix -ko/-kö it's been indicated that the statement is a question. It is not codified or deemed necessary by native-speakers of Finnish to raise intonation as well (although it's still deemed necessary to use a question mark at the end).
Therefore in prescribed oral Finnish "Puhutko englantia?" ("Do you speak English?") has the same intonation as "Puhut englantia" ("You speak English".). That intonation is the one associated in many other languages just with making a statement or declaration (i.e. the intonation which falls as the sentence progresses).
Here's a mistake that I made quite often when I started learning Finnish.
e.g. Translate "Is Sanna at home?"
1) On Sanna kotona?
It's wrong in print by omitting -ko ending attached to "On" at the beginning (in other languages that I know, questions are often formed by letting the verb go near the beginning of the sentence and using a question mark at the end. Using a dedicated interrogative suffix did not occur to me initially. In speech I could make a second error with this sentence by using it with rising intonation toward the end.
2) Onko Sanna kotona?
It's correct in print but can be wrong in speech when my intonation rises toward the end. This second question is totally correct ONLY when my intonation does NOT rise at the end AND when I include "-ko". Obviously it took some practice for me to get better at using Finnish questions.
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Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7158 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish
| Message 13 of 43 04 June 2010 at 1:26am | IP Logged |
michamotor wrote:
The craziest thing in Hungarian ist the definite article "a" ("az" before a vowel), because in French and English, it sounds almost the same "un" or "a", but they are the indefinite article. So every time I hear or read "a" in Hungarian, it is connected in my brain to the indefinite article. |
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I got thrown off by this initially but surprisingly got used to it quite quickly.
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DassiD Pentaglot Newbie Norway Joined 5322 days ago 7 posts - 9 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Swedish, Danish, German
| Message 14 of 43 04 June 2010 at 3:52am | IP Logged |
Norwegian verb placement versus German:
Since the second verb in a German sentence comes last in infintive form, I have had some
problems adapting.
Norwegian: "Jeg vil gjerne kjøpe bordet"(I would like to buy the table)
German: "Ich möchte gern der Tisch kaufen"(I would like to the table buy)
But I've learned it now :)
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Luai_lashire Diglot Senior Member United States luai-lashire.deviant Joined 5830 days ago 384 posts - 560 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto Studies: Japanese, French
| Message 15 of 43 05 June 2010 at 7:05pm | IP Logged |
Chung wrote:
Derian wrote:
Chung wrote:
I sometimes forget to use "-ko/-kö" in Finnish because my
brain has noted that I've marked the question already by using rising intonation or a question mark per
conventions in languages other than Finnish. |
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That's exactly the thing. |
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Yet it doesn't seem to be exactly the same. Judging by your post it's not clear whether Japanese calls for rising
intonation in a question with "ka" (I don't know Japanese so feel free to enlighten me here).
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Yep, Japanese does call for a rising intonation, and actually in very casual speech it's pretty common to drop the
"ka" marker. There are a lot of things that get dropped in casual speech and there's fairly complicated rules for it.
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karaipyhare Tetraglot Groupie Paraguay Joined 5587 days ago 74 posts - 150 votes Speaks: Portuguese, Spanish*, English, Guarani Studies: German, Italian, French, Mandarin, Japanese
| Message 16 of 43 07 June 2010 at 4:01pm | IP Logged |
DassiD wrote:
Norwegian verb placement versus German:
Since the second verb in a German sentence comes last in infintive form, I have had
some
problems adapting.
Norwegian: "Jeg vil gjerne kjøpe bordet"(I would like to buy the table)
German: "Ich möchte gern der Tisch kaufen"(I would like to the table buy)
But I've learned it now :) |
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"Ich möchte gern DEN Tisch kaufen"
masculine accusative! oohh such a headache
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