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The old morphologist has a fierce temper! | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| mahasiswa Pentaglot Groupie Canada Joined 4434 days ago 91 posts - 142 votes  Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, German, Malay Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), Persian, Russian, Turkish, Mandarin, Hindi | Message 1 of 4 20 July 2013 at 3:53pm | IP Logged | ||
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This morning I woke up having dreamt in a language I didn't understand. I've been studying Farsi with a
tutor since June 7, and in the dream I was listening in Persian to a car radio, then another language followed that I didn't understand. Where Persian is spoken, in Iran, Afghanistan and Turkey, are very multilingual places, of course, but whether it was Turkish or not, I'm unsure. I can say though that since starting Le Turc sans peine this morning, I've been hoping to have the same dream to make out whether or not it was. I recently made my course selections for my third year of undergraduate linguistics at Queen's University in Canada. I found out that a certain Hitay Yükseker would be returning, a University of Toronto and Queen's professor infamous for her temper, vulgar colloquialisms, and being a hard-marker. She's essentially a babushka, I figure, with her eccentric personality and exotic accent. But she's not Russian, she's Turkish. I know because last year I survived her Intro to Morphology course, and most of her examples and comparisons were made of improvised Turkish sentences. I made it through her hard-marking purely with good humour, because I'm not a very good student. I say this because my culminating project on analyzing Swahili affixes received more or less a 60% and most of my friends received similar marks, so the marks were balanced and we all passed. It didn't stress me out too much because I was only in my second year and as the only male in the class, I had to keep my cool. I kept my humour about me and made no judgements on the professor's character and had several good chats with her in and out of class. She's sharp as a tack and has a razor-sharp wit, and our little chats didn't earn me any favouritism on the page nor in class! My major is linguistics but my passion is studying languages. We had exercises in analyzing data from Turkish and Swahili primarily, so, agglutanation and morphology were commonly paired throughout the course's assignments. I remember her comment one day regarding the repetition of agglutanation analysis exercises, saying "I don't want to keep doing them, it gets repetitive and boring like sex." The class erupted in laughter. Her husband passed away after a lengthy battle with cancer at the end of last year. We were all unsure whether she would be returning, she's intimated to the class several times about retiring. Well, I figured that for her upcoming lecture, Comparative Morpho-Syntax, I would be able to come up with examples of certain features in or outside of class that she could add to and it would just be a great way to connect with my prof. I've had good relationships with most of my language professors in my first two years, and one of my favourite professors was actually my philosophy professor, a Croatian-Italian who spoke the two languages more or less fluently. Even though my Italian is an estimation of French and what I can remember from reading Dante, he was always game to talk to me about linguistics, telling me about the term 'mangiacake' for white people, for example, or regional dialect differences. After having studied German for two years, I understand the importance of Turkish to European culture at the moment from literary and economic perspectives (Emine Sevgi Özdamar is a brilliant contemporary writer, those interested in German literature). Turkish culture is essentially unknown to me, although I just finished the sixth lesson in Assimil and I have to say that the mix of Arabic and Persian vocabulary is brilliant, reading through the dialogues is the same feeling of reading old comicbooks, like Calvin and Hobbes, and although you won't laugh as much as you did the first time, you get a smile of fondness and appreciation for the style and diction. I'm pretty sure I'll be using this log as a journal, more or less, mostly because I love Iversen's anecdotes. I haven't done a log before because I haven't been too active on this forum since joining, and at times when I begun studying other languages, I wasn't very active here. I figure writing a journal is a good way to practice writing in the language, I've done it for French, Spanish, German, Arabic and most recently Persian, in my personal journal. I love taking a half-hour to an hour to jot down some quick thoughts when I've had it with textbook exercises, films, radio programs, social networking, translation and Anki. I'd like to focus on speaking. Those first few hours of conversation in a new language are always humbling, but I'd like to more or less dive in head first with Turkish. I've gone slow with a language like Russian, although I've spoken many times on Skype in Russian, I haven't actually entertained an hour- long call completely in Russian mostly because it becomes a pain for my exchange partner, although if they're happy with it, I really ought to go on, no? And once you break the barrier of being comfortable speaking in a language, it's hard to go anywhere but up! If there are any questions, I'll be glad to take them. I tried to give a reasonable personal background and I hope you understand my motivations more or less as linguistic interest and cultural interest. Oh, and an old morphologist with a fierce temper! 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| mahasiswa Pentaglot Groupie Canada Joined 4434 days ago 91 posts - 142 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, German, Malay Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), Persian, Russian, Turkish, Mandarin, Hindi | Message 2 of 4 21 July 2013 at 5:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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Yesterday I did my first translation of a news article, about Schindler's List being auctioned on eBay, that
is to say the physical list, not just a copy of the DVD or anything. One of the first words I look up in a new language is the word for 'news'. In Turkish, that word finds its etymology in Arabic, but applies its own suffix to it to create the Turkified 'haberler', 'haber' being a Turkish approximation of 'خبر', although in Arabic and Persian it's truly /xabar/ and pluralized as / æxbær/, a broken plural from the Arabic, but distinctly Semitic in form. '-ler' in Turkish is generally speaking the '-s' morpheme in English which pluralizes, although you'll find '-ler' as '-lar' as well as attached to words you wouldn't consider plural in English, such as 'onlar', which is the subject pronoun for third-person plural. So from haberler.com I was linked to this article on zaman.com.tr and with the glossary of my Assimil book and dict.cc, I made a gist translation which was then corrected by a Turkish friend in his third year of Translation Studies in Ankara, Turkey. I'll provide my mistakes and his corrections (which are few!) below the final copy here: Schindler’in Listesi satışa sunuluyor 20 Tummuz 2013 MURAT DURDU - BERLİN Alman fabrikatör Oskar Schindler'in filmlere konu olan meşhur listesi online satış platformu ebay'de 3 milyon Dolar'dan satışa sunuluyor. Schindler satışa sunulan liste ile, Hitler döneminde Yahudileri fabrikasında işçi olarak gösterip ölümden kurtarmaya çalışmıştı. Satışa sunulan liste 14 sayfadan ibaret. Listede 801 kişiye ait isim, doğum tarihi ve meslek bilgileri bulunuyor. Schindler 2. Dünya Savaşı esnasında bini aşkın Yahudi'yi Polonya'daki Krakow şehrindeki fabrikasında işçi olarak gösterip, Hitler'in SS polisinden korumuştu. 1990'lı yılların ortasında Steven Spielberg "Schindler'in Listesi" adlı sinema filmi ile dünyaya Fabrikatör Schindler'i ve başarı hikayesini tanıtmıştı. Spielberg bu film sayesinde Oscar ödülü almıştı. Ebay'deki ürün tanıtımda ise, listenin dünyada ilk kez satışa sunulduğu belirtiliyor. Listenin dört nüshasından ikisi Kudüs'teki Soykırım Anıtı'nda, üçüncüsü Amerika'da bulunuyor. (CİHAN) Schindler's List up for sale July 20, 2013 The list of German industrialist Oskar Schindler, of the the famous films, is being sold for 3 million dollars on the online auction platform Ebay. In regards to the list being sold, Schindler performed the spectacle of saving lives of a Hitler-era group of Jewish factory workers by recruiting them as workers at his factory. The sale is for 14 pages. In the list 801 people are named, along with the date and job information. During the Second World War, Schindler saved the lives of thousands of Jews by registering them as workers at his factory in Krakow, Poland. The story and success of the factory worker Schindler was told to the world in 1990 through Steven Spielberg with the film titled Schindler's List. Spielberg received an Oscar for this film. As for the offered Ebay product, the list is advertised as being offered to the world for the first time. Two copies out of four of the list are kept in The Jerusalem Memorial, the third [copy] is located in America. (Cihan News Agency, Istanbul) http://www.zaman.com.tr/ dunya_schindlerin-listesi-satisa-sunuluyor_2112324.html My corrections were the following: Original: Alman fabrikatör Oskar Schindler'in filmlere konu olan meşhur listesi [...] My translation: The list of German factory worker Oskar Schindler, of the the famous film [...] Kamil's correction: The list of German industrialist Oskar Schindler, of the the famous films [...] Original: Schindler satışa sunulan liste ile, Hitler döneminde Yahudileri fabrikasında işçi olarak gösterip ölümden kurtarmaya çalışmıştı. My translation: In regards to the list being sold, Schindler performed the spectacle of saving lives of a Hitler-era group of Jewish factory workers. Kamil's correction: In regards to the list being sold, Schindler performed the spectacle of saving lives of a Hitler-era group of Jewish factory workers by recruiting them as workers at his factory. Original: Schindler 2. Dünya Savaşı esnasında bini aşkın Yahudi'yi Polonya'daki Krakow şehrindeki fabrikasında işçi olarak gösterip, Hitler'in SS polisinden korumuştu. My translation: Schindler protected thousands of Jews lives from Krakow, Poland, a group of assembly line workers, from Hitler's SS police during the Second World War. Kamil's correction: During the Second World War, Schindler saved the lives of thousands of Jews by registering them as workers at his factory in Krakow, Poland. Original: Listenin dört nüshasından ikisi Kudüs'teki Soykırım Anıtı'nda, üçüncüsü Amerika'da bulunuyor. My translation: Four sample images from the list are provided by Jerusalem's Genocide Museum, the third [Genocide Museum?] is located in America. Kamil's correction: Two copies out of four of the list are kept in The Jerusalem Memorial, the third [copy] is located in America. So it's clear that my mistakes revolved around numbers ('filmlere', 'üçüncüsü') and the untranslated light verb construction (LVC) ('olarak gösterip', twice, same mistake). An LVC by the way just means that you have a verb phrase, like in English, 'to seal your lips', where there is a verb, 'to seal', and a non-verb element, 'lips', which, when combined, form a verb construction that carries a meaning quite distinct from the original meaning of the elements. There isn't any physical sealing happening and 'lips' don't otherwise mean 'secret', but when combined you have a verb that means 'to keep something secret' or 'to avoid talking about something otherwise preferred to remain somebody else's secret'. The meanings are manifold although none of them contain the original uses of the components involved. Persian pretty much relies on them, more so than we do in English or French, and so it's no surprise that Turkish is rich with them, too. I'm wondering what to do with all the cognates I come across while storming through Assimil. This morning I've only completed lesson 8, although I am trying to do seven every day so as to finish the book in a week or so. I tried this with Assimil Le russe sans peine, although I only made it to lesson 53 at the end of two weeks. Anyways, there's a calque I noticed and for being a calque, it deserves more attention than other Persian cognates in Turkish, I think: English: I'm speaking with the man. فارسی: با آدم صحبت می کنم Farsi: /bæ ædam sohbat mi konam/ with man conversation CONT do.1SG.pres 'I'm speaking with the man.' Türkçe: Beyle sohbet ediyorum. gentleman-with conversation do.pres.1SG 'I'm speaking with the gentleman.' The word order is similar, although naturally in an agglutanating language like Turkish, the 'with' that is so clear to me as an English-speaker as a preposition in Persian, is a suffix in Turkish. I hope to help out with the recently launched dict.cc initiative to verify Turkish-German translations. Dict.cc is essentially a Wikipedia-style dictionary that is open for everyone to contribute to, except that contributions don't override one another, they accumulate, and so what you get is a dictionary with the most verified and therefore, hopefully, the most common translatable usage of the target word in either language. It's a huge effort and I already see other sites, like perdic.com which I use for Persian, trying to mimic their efforts. Yesterday, I added the Assimil word for boat, 'tekne' into the engine, for instance, because they previously only had 'sandal' (Arabic صندل, 'canoe'), 'bot' (German 'Boot'), 'kayık' (English 'kayak'), 'denizaltı' (see Turkish 'deniz', for English 'sea'). I also found a Turkish etymological dictionary because I'm interested in word roots and whether they're Turkish, Italian or Greek when I don't recognize them as either English, German, Arabic or Persian. That's located here: nisanyansozluk.com Suffice it to say, I'm really enjoying myself and indulging in the language quite a bit. Also, I found a bunch of soaps to watch in Turkish with subtitles on viki.com, which a member of this forum recommended to somebody last month if I recall correctly, though I forget exactly who. EDIT: Oh, and of course, to wrap everything up in a nice little package, according to the etymological dictionary, 'tekne' comes from Old Turkic meaning 'trough' or 'washbasin', and so is unrelated to the Greek word where we get the word 'technology' from, although that was my guess! Assimil describes it as a boat for fishermen and passengers, although looking up 'tekne' on Google Images you find pictures of full-blown yachts. Funny how what used to mean something small to put on the ground and fill with water for animals is now a water-buoyant luxury vehicle for humans. Edited by mahasiswa on 23 July 2013 at 7:04pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| mahasiswa Pentaglot Groupie Canada Joined 4434 days ago 91 posts - 142 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, German, Malay Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), Persian, Russian, Turkish, Mandarin, Hindi | Message 3 of 4 25 July 2013 at 2:24am | IP Logged | ||
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Ben nerelere gittim? Ders çalışmakla çok meşgulum. Bu gece, otuz dördüncü ders yapmaya niyetim var.
Ama şu anda, biraz yazmak istiyorum. Ben daha tercüme etmedim, çünkü Gezi Parkı'dan haberlerden başka bir şey yok, ve her halde haberiniz vardı. Fakat şu anda en önemli şey benim için Assimildir. Sonra, haberler daha tercüme etmeyeceğim. Farsça unutmuyor, ama onu özlüyorum. Demek, her gün artık ders çalışmıyorum. Cumartesi günü, bene en son İran cumhurbaşkanlığı seçimleriden Farsça'da ya on beş dakika söz etmek lazım, ya da yirmi dakika. Bu ödevden sonra öğretmeni ders tamam. İngilizce bilen Türkle görüşmek istiyordum, ama aslında şu anda mümkün değil, cünkü otuz beş ders daha var. Her gün dersleri yine okuyorum. Richard Simcott ve Wei Qi'nin (yani Solferino2408 Youtube'da) videolar, sanıyorum, çok faydalı. Onlara her gün seyrediyor, pratik yapıyorum. Whereabouts have I been? I'm really busy studying. This evening, I intend to do the thirty-fourth lesson. But right now, I want to write a little. I haven't done more translation because there's nothing but Gezi Park news and you probably already know about it. But the most important thing to me right now is Assimil. Then I'll be able to translate more news. I'm not forgetting Persian, but I miss it. That is to say, I don't study it every day anymore. On Saturday, I have to talk about Iran's latest federal elections in Persian for either 15 or 20 minutes. After this project, my teacher's course is over. I wanted to talk with English-speaking Turks, but in reality it's not possible at the moment, because there are still thirty-five lessons. I read them over every day. Richard Simcott's and Wei Qi's (Solferino2408 on Youtube) videos are really helpful I think, and I watch them every day and practice. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mahasiswa Pentaglot Groupie Canada Joined 4434 days ago 91 posts - 142 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, German, Malay Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), Persian, Russian, Turkish, Mandarin, Hindi | Message 4 of 4 30 July 2013 at 3:22am | IP Logged | ||
I've got corrections (quoted in bold) and a new entry!
Dün gece arkadaşımlarımla ben bir lokantaya gittim. Her pazar günü böyle yapıyoruz. Sanat, geçen ilişkileriniz ve okul hakkında dedikodu yapdık. Sanat hakkında çok konuştuk çünkü bu arkadaşımlarım sanatın öğrenci ve ben yazdık olmak istiyorum. Onun için sık sık görüşmeleriniz enteresan, benim için. Mesela dün akşam, arkadaşım Max bana anlattı, nasıl kış tatilinimi evisinde geçirebilirim, Floransa'da! Canı da İstanbul'u gitmek istiyor. Fırsat bana olağanüstü geliyor, nasıl? Ben hâlâ dışarıya gidmiyorum! Bugün geç kalktım ve çok Türkçe ders çalısmadım. Fakat pembe dizi seyretmek başladım, adlı Küçük Hanımefendi. Çok dramatik. Wikipedia Türkçe'de diyor ki "Pembe diziler ilk olarak İtalya'da çıkmıştır". Sahih mi? Bilmiyorum. Belki sahih cevap Floransa'da bulunacak! Last night I went to a restaurant with my friends. We do this every Sunday. We chatted about art, our past relationships, and school. We talked about art a lot because these friends of mine are arts students and I want to be a writer. So our discussions are often interesting, for me. For example, last night, my friend Max told me how I can spend my winter holidays in his house, in Florence! He also feels like going to Istanbul. The opportunity seems extraordinary to me, how about you? I've never gone abroad! I woke up late today and didn't study Turkish a lot. However I did start watching a soap opera called Little Lady. It's very dramatic. Wikipedia says in Turkish that "The first soap operas came out in Italy". Is that right? I don't know. Perhaps the true answer lies in Florence! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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