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A bit of anything - living languages | ||
Tags: Using Foreign Languages | Living Language | Catalan | Romance Languages | Latin | Russian | German | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4643 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 1 of 109 19 March 2013 at 10:43am | IP Logged |
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I have decided to start a second log, in addition to my TAC log for Greek and Russian. The main reasons for this are the following:
1. Inspired by others, not least by Iversen, I would like to write about my experiences with other languages, and write in other languages, but I do not want to “clutter” my TAC log with this. 2. I sometimes have observations on certain things that I would like to comment on, but I do not want to start a lot of new threads on the forum. Without wanting to offend anyone I think that sometimes people start a new topic to quickly, and often it is a topic that has been discussed many times already. Furthermore, I also like to share things about languages, literature and culture without necessarily create new threads on each and every topic. So to get started, here is my first piece. En febrero estuve dos semanas en la República Dominicana. Fueron vacaciones de playa, pero hicimos algunas excursiones. Una de ellas fue una experiencia muy bonita. En el mes de febrero llegan cientos de ballenas jorobadas desde el Atlántico del Norte hasta las costas de la República Dominicana, que son las zonas de reproducción de estas ballenas. Fuimos en avión desde Punta Cana hasta la bahía de Samaná, y allí salimmos al mar en barco. Durante un período de media hora vimos varias ballenas que salieron del agua para respirar. Desgraciadamente, justo en ese momento mi cámara de fotos dejó de funcionar, así que sólo he vuelto con una foto bastante mala donde apenas se ve la espalda de una ballena que está saliendo del agua. ¡Mala suerte! En cuanto al español hablado por los dominicanos, no era demasiado difícil entenderlo, aunque si hay algunas diferencias importantes con respecto al español hablado en España. Una cosa que me llamó la atención era que muchos de ellos confundían l y r (al pronunciar por ejemplo “tortuga” o “martes”). Aparte de eso, diría que es un español típicamente “caribeño”. También aprendí un par de cosas nuevas en cuanto a vocabulario. En los bares del hotel había carteles que decían: “Si quiere un sorbete, pregunte al barman”. En España, si pides un sorbete, tienes un postre, pero en la RD significa una pajita. Otro ejemplo, lo que en España se llama “césped”, allí se dice “grama”. Aparte de eso, es un buen sitio si quieres practicar ruso. Se ve que se ha establecido como una destinación popular en Rusia, y en el hotel donde nos alojábamos (que era enorme), la mitad de la clientela era rusa. Hasta había un supermercado cerca del hotel donde todos los empleados eran rusos y todos los carteles estaban escritos en ruso. (Short English summary: In February I spent two weeks in the Dominican Republic. I went on a trip to observe humpback whales which go there from the North Atlantic every year to mate. Just when the whales emerged from the water, my camera decided to die. Bad luck! I noticed that Dominicans often confuse the pronunciation of l and r. Not an uncommon phenomenon in phonetics. Furthermore I observed that some words have a totally different meaning from European Spanish. In Spain, a “sorbete” is a cold dessert, but there it means a drinking straw. Another word I didn’t know is “grama” which to Dominicans means lawn. Finally, if you want to practise Russian, The Dominican Republic is not a bad place to go. I stayed at a huge resort where at least half of the guests were Russian.) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4643 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 2 of 109 20 March 2013 at 11:02am | IP Logged |
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I had a very strange dream last night, and although I won't come here to tell my dreams, there was one part of it that I wanted to share: In the dream, I absolutely had to learn Armenian! I cannot remember what the reason for this is, but it is the one thing that I had a clear memory of when I woke up.
As a matter of fact, Armenian has sort of been on my "secret" wish list ever since I visited Yerevan about four years ago. I only spent four days there, and at the time I had no serious intention of learning the language, but I did buy a couple of books, Assimil's Guide de conversation and one called "Parlons arménien: langue et culture". It did look like a fascinating language, but also a difficult one, and although it is Indo-European, at a superficial level it looked quite different from any language I have learned. Finally I made no serious attempt to learn even the Armenian script, and the books have stayed on my shelf gathering dust. I am not sure if dreams really tell you something, but maybe I should brush of the dust and have a second look? Anyone reading this who has studied Armenian? Although with Russian and Greek on my plate I probably should not try to embark on yet another languge. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| renaissancemedi Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Greece Joined 4362 days ago 941 posts - 1309 votes Speaks: Greek*, Ancient Greek*, EnglishC2 Studies: French, Russian, Turkish, Modern Hebrew | Message 3 of 109 21 March 2013 at 6:48am | IP Logged |
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Ogrim, I see your languages leading you further into the enchanting east.
I have no experience with the language myself, but I knew a wonderful lady from Armenia who moved to Greece after a devestating earthquake at Spitak, back when there was still a Soviet Union. She is Armenian, and she told me things about her culture, civilization etc. We exchanged recipes and things like that, and I used to ask her words in her language, which I also thought was beautiful. It's definitely a language worth learning, as it comes attached with an old and beautiful civilization. Edited by renaissancemedi on 21 March 2013 at 6:49am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5338 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 4 of 109 21 March 2013 at 5:55pm | IP Logged |
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¡Interesante tu viaje! En el pueblecico dónde estuve viviendo en Andalucía también había gente que
mezclaba la l y la r. La señora con quién estaba viviendo hablaba de "clocletas" en vez de croquetas. Tengo amigos de Cuba que también mezclan esos dos. Sol caribeño, mar, hispanohablantes y rusos parece una combinación ideal :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4643 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 5 of 109 22 March 2013 at 10:08am | IP Logged |
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Hola Cristina, me alegro de saber de tí otra vez. Yo también he oído a gente en España que dice cloquetas, cocletas y cocretas. Parece ser un fenómeno bastante común.
renaissancemedi, it is true that I have turned eastwards with my languages, but I am not sure how far east I will venture. In any case I am not leaving the Indo-European sphere for the time being, and as I said, I really have enough with Greek and Russian right now. Of course, if someone would pay me handsomely for studying languages fulltime, it would be a different matter :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4643 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 6 of 109 27 March 2013 at 3:14pm | IP Logged |
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Cette semaine au travail j’ai dû rédiger quelques lettres formelles en français. Cela m’a pris pas mal de temps, parce qu’il y a toute une série de « règles » à respecter. En France, peut-être plus qu’en autres pays européens que je connais, il faut faire beaucoup d’attention au style et à choisir les bons mots. En effet, cette tâche a été un bon exercice pour améliorer mon français écrit.
J’ai consulté quelques sites internet qui fournissent des consignes et conseils utiles pour la rédaction des lettres et autres documents formels en français. Ce document est assez utile, pas seulement pour rédiger des lettres, mais aussi pour d’autres documents formels comme le compte rendu ou le rapport. Qui cherche peut facilement trouver d’autres sites qui donnent également des exemples de lettres et de documents. (This week at work I have been drafting formal letters in French. It has been quite time-consuming as there are a lot of rules to respect, and in France you have to pay a lot of attention to style and choosing the right words. The work has actually been a good exercise for improving my written French. I also consulted documents I found on the internet, and the one I link to is quite useful not only as a help in drafting letters, but other formal documents as well.) On another note, learning languages can sometimes be dangerous. Walking home from work yesterday I had my headphones on listening to Assimil Russian, and at one point I took the book out of my pocket to check a word I did not understand. Because of that I did not see or hear a car coming out from a parking place leading right onto the pavement, and I was a few centimetres from being hit. Next time I think I will wait to get home before I look up the words I don’t understand… 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4643 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 7 of 109 02 April 2013 at 12:21pm | IP Logged |
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Am Samstag habe ich Calw besucht. Calw ist eine kleine deutsche Stadt in Baden-Württemberg, etwa 30 Kilometer von Stuttgart gelegen. Der berühmte deutsche Schriftsteller Hermann Hesse wurde in Calw geboren, und am Marktplatz kann man Hesses Geburtshaus sehen. Es gibt auch ein Hesse-Museum, und auf der Calwer Nikolausbrücke kann man eine Skulptur von Hesse sehen. Von Hesses Werke habe ich nur den Roman Siddhartha gelesen, und das nur in norwegischer Sprache, aber jetzt möchte ich gern Werke von Hesse in Originalsprache lesen.
(Last Saturday I visited Calw, a small German town in Baden-Württemberg and birthplace of the writer Hermann Hesse. The house where he was born is at the market square of the town, where you can also find a museum dedicated to him, and there is also a sculpture nearby. I have only read one of his novels, “Siddhartha” and that was in Norwegian, but now I was inspired to find and read some of his work in the original.) I also got inspired to read some Latin this weekend. I have an interlinear Bible with Latin, English and Koiné Greek parallel text, so I went through a couple of Chapters of Exodus and of the Gospel of St. John. This lead me to looking for e-books in Latin for Kindle, and I did find a couple of interesting books, including Ovid’s Metamorphoseis. Without wanting to sound as a commercial, I must say that the Kindle is a great tool for a language and literature enthusiast. You can buy literature in the original in a number of languages, you can find thousands of classics for free, and to my joy I have discovered that there are more and more e-books in Russian published on amazon. However, for the sake of my finances I do try to refrain myself, I guess I already have enough books to read for the next couple of years. There is really a danger of becoming a “Kindleaholic”. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4643 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 8 of 109 05 April 2013 at 5:23pm | IP Logged |
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I have been suffering from Wanderlust lately, which has impacted negatively on my study of Greek and Russian (as can be seen in my TAC log), but has lead me to read quite a bit of Latin. Thanks to Iversen I found the website Ephemeris and it is quite an experience to read current news in Latin. Now if anyone knows of any good radio station or podcasts in Latin, I would be very interested.
Apart from that, I have also been playing around with Catalan lately, and today I bought an e-book by Catalan writer Victor Català. This is actually a pseudonym for Caterina Albert i Paradís, who lived from 1869 to 1966 and was part of the Catalan modernism movement. This movement is probably better known for its contribution to architecture, through the likes of Antoni Gaudí, than for its contribution to literature, but it had an important impact on the development of Catalan literature from being "regional and traditionalist to being national and modern", to quote another important writer in Catalan language, the Valencian Joan Fuster. I am looking forward to starting on the novel by Victor Català/Caterina Albert i Paradis this weekend. Finally, in my previous posting here I talked about Hesse and Kindle. I was however disappointed to see that the only e-books by Hesse that I could find on amazon.fr were translations, when many of his books are available on amazon.de. However, my account is on .fr, and I still have not got around to whether you can buy e-books from other amazon sites without switching your account or whether I am even allowed to buy e-books on amazon.de. I also wonder why amazon.fr does not link up to the German site when it comes to e-books. After all, we are talking about virtual goods, so a global company like this should be able to dive into the total catalogue regardless of language. However, if I want to buy Hesse's novels in paperback/hardback, then I can order them from amazon.de without any difficulty. I find this pretty ironic in our "virtualised" modernity. Edited by Ogrim on 05 April 2013 at 5:28pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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