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Tarvos - TAC 2015 Pushkin/Scan | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Warp3 Senior Member United States forum_posts.asp?TID= Joined 5524 days ago 1419 posts - 1766 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Korean, Japanese | Message 1049 of 1511 09 January 2014 at 1:41am | IP Logged | ||
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Several animals have names ending in 이 so it gets confusing when you don't realize it
isn't a subject marker: 호랑이 = tiger 고양이 = cat 원숭이 = monkey 멍멍이 = slang for a dog/puppy (based on the fact that 멍멍 is the Korean "bow-wow") Also young animal names have a big tendency to end in the 이 sound, even if not using the full 이 syllable block: 강아지 = puppy 송아지 = calf 망아지 = foal, colt (baby horse) 병아리 = chick (baby chicken) 꼴뚜기 = baby octopus 새끼 = baby animal (or an insult when used to refer to a person) Some young human words follow this pattern as well: 아기/애기 = baby (야기 is the "correct" term, but 애기 is quite common despite that fact, especially as a pronunciation) 아이 = son, child Edited by Warp3 on 09 January 2014 at 1:45am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4696 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 1050 of 1511 09 January 2014 at 11:40am | IP Logged | ||
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This morning I wrote some Afrikaans, which is basically Dutch to me anyways - really -
but I adapt the spelling and some grammar rules to make it read like Afrikaans. (I would still pronounce it as Dutch, though). It's quite easy to adapt to, but you have to know a bunch of false friends and terms people use in Afrikaans. It's fun to try. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4696 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 1051 of 1511 12 January 2014 at 11:11am | IP Logged | ||
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Considering the past few days have been annoying as hell for my mental state of mind,
I've not made much progress on my languages. However, I've managed to add some Korean words to Anki, I've completed a bit of Hebrew Assimil, and I've finished a French novel by Nothomb (whenever I study French, I revert to Nothomb apparently). I've also written in various languages, including Russian, Romanian, English, Swedish, Spanish, Breton and Afrikaans, although I never got a reply to my Spanish. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4696 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 1052 of 1511 12 January 2014 at 5:38pm | IP Logged | ||
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Lately, I've been very interested in my Russian again, and today I spoke with Via Diva
for about two hours in a mixture of English and Russian. Since Russian is my third language in terms of my social circle (after Dutch and English), it's a really good feeling I get so much use and satisfaction out of my Russian. I'm trying to improve my stress and pronunciation in Russian, and looking up the stresses for every word that I don't know the stress for. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4696 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 1053 of 1511 13 January 2014 at 12:22pm | IP Logged | ||
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About diminutives - and how sometimes, an unexpected phenomenon can help understand
linguistic concepts in distant languages If you are a native English speaker, the concept of a diminutive might seem strange to you. And that is as it should be - diminutives are rarely or never used in English, and people do not tend to shorten or lower the formality of many words by adding a suffix. However, plenty languages contain the idea of diminutive suffixes, and some make extensive use of them - one of which is Russian, which absolutely adores diminutives. Now there are ways of saying "I don't know how to cope with a system so radically different" - some would go as far as to not use these suffixes, only understand them. But to speak naturally, in Russian, diminutives are necessary - you need to use them to sound proper when you are speaking Russian. And so, you need a way of conceptualizing how these things work - which is hard if that concept does not exist in your native language. However, this is how I overcame this problem - by looking at other languages which do know the concept of a diminutive, but don't necessarily use it in the same way - NOWADAYS. Fortunately, my native language, Dutch, is familiar with the use of diminutives, and uses them quite a bit, though not to the same extent as Russian - and ESPECIALLY not in the sense of diminutives of personal names. In Russia, it is common that a name like Анна becomes Аня, Анюта, Нюта, Нюся, Аннушка, Анюра, and so on. In Dutch, a name like Anna stays Anna, or it can become Anneke (-ke is a diminutive suffix especially common in the south of the Netherlands and in Belgium), in the same way that Maria can become Marieke in Dutch. Or in some cases, the universal -tje is used - Jan becomes Jantje, and so on. Some of these in Dutch have become fixed forms that are now used as first names - Anneke is a common first name, and so is Marieke. Jantje, however is only a character in jokes, and sometimes used to refer to someone called Jan in jest if he is a child (cf. Pietje, Klaasje which have the same sense). But, the idea of having a name which is not used when addressing that person *is* a tradition rooted socio-culturally in the Netherlands. In the Netherlands, it used to be so, that under the influence of the church (more so the Catholic church, but it exists among protestants as well), that children were given many first names upon birth, and that these were drawn from the names of saints or other historical figures. (In Protestant circles, usually people would receive less names, and the names might be more traditionally Dutch and Calvinist, as opposed to Catholics, where children can have up to five first names; and many Dutch people have more than one name, with the second functioning a bit like the American middle name, but Dutch people can have more of these than one - it is not uncommon to see something like FHM Verhoeven on letters, where FHM is something like Frederik Hendrik Maria) However, these names, long Catholic names usually, are never used for address. Someone who is given the absurdly common first name Johannes will never be called Johannes - he will be called any of: Jan, Johan, Jo, Jos, Han (and maybe some other variants like John, which is also popular but pronounced like "Shon" in Dutch). Usually the family designates a "roepnaam", a calling name, which is the name by which we call that person in public, despite all formal and official letters never mentioning that name (some forms, however, require you to fill out your roepnaam instead of the first name and initials). Similarly for someone with the first name Antoinetta - this is usually Antoinette or Annet(te), but can become An or even other variations. Traditionally the names descend from Latin, although some don't, such as in the case of Willebrordus, Albertus and so on (Willy, Albert, and so on). Sometimes the calling name is also taken from the second, third, or fourth name - someone called Maria Christina Adriana van Zanten may be called Christel in informal speech, because the roepnaam is descended from Christina, not Maria, and this is a normal procedure. However, that practice is becoming outdated in Dutch society (there are still people in my generation that adhere to such a tradition, mostly in more religious or traditional families). However, in the younger generations, the giving of middle names is still common (though some people give only one - I myself have two, however), and the popularity of short names, non-religious names, and foreign names has risen under the influence of foreign immigration, secularization, and the ease of pronunciation. My personal first name contains only one syllable, is not an abbreviation, and is of Germanic/Scandinavian origin, and my calling name is thus identical to my formal name. Sometimes, a roepnaam may be elected as the formal name: "Martin" as a name, not the full "Martinus". Despite its descendance from Martinus, if the name given to the authorities is Martin then that is the formal name. The roepnaam does not have to be identical but can be. How does this tie into Russian? Well, the old simplification of names, or the use of a diminutive, is used in Russian to a great extent. Someone called Anna will rarely be addressed as Anna, as described before. But if you are Dutch, and you hear of this practice, you will be a bit surprised to learn the mechanics, but almost all Dutch people familiar with a bit of Dutch tradition should not be surprised at the fact that address does not match formality, nor that a diminutive suffix is used - it used to be almost equally common in Dutch. The only difference is that a "roepnaam" in Dutch tends to be fixed for that person - i.e. someone called Johannes with the roepnaam "Johan" will always be addressed as Johan, not as Jan. If you know how the process works in a similar language, if you know what a diminutive is, even though you don't use it the same way (using diminutives in standard Dutch is common, though not as common as in Russian), due to a fortunate coincidence, use it in your foreign learning. It gives you more insight into the foreign process and the foreign culture - and you'll soon be addressing Мария as Маша! Edited by tarvos on 13 January 2014 at 2:13pm 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| vermillon Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4667 days ago 602 posts - 1042 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, German | Message 1054 of 1511 13 January 2014 at 1:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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Amazing post, tarvos! Being myself in the process of learning Polish, raising this kind of issue is very important (something I wasn't really paying attention to, to be honest..): Polish apparently uses diminutives everywhere, for given names of course, but also for countless items. Will require some getting used to it, I guess.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4696 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 1055 of 1511 13 January 2014 at 1:44pm | IP Logged | ||
In Dutch you also use diminutives for items pretty commonly. C'est de rigueur. ;) But you don't use them so much for personal names, although the concept is not alien. And think about it - in Breton, the -ig suffix is also commonly used "Komz a ran un tammig brezhoneg" Edited by tarvos on 13 January 2014 at 1:47pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4833 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 1056 of 1511 13 January 2014 at 3:08pm | IP Logged | ||
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What about English nicknames like Johnny, Betty, Freddy etc. and words like horsey, doggy, etc.? It's not like the concept were totally alien to English.
1 person has voted this message useful |
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