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Mick’s Afrikaans study journal | ||
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| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5735 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 25 of 57 07 December 2008 at 3:08am | IP Logged |
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It's actually Sunday morning where I am, but I can post part of my first sample dialogue now. I think it may end up being more of a list of phrases than an actual dialogue but here is what I have so far. The scenario for this dialogue is that Hendrik and Jan are two good friends talking on the street so the conversation is informal. I will provide a translation below.
1st Sample Dialogue: Hendrik: Goeie dag Jan: Hallo (just a different spelling than English) Hendrik: Hoe gaan dit? Jan: Goed, dankie. En self? Hendrik: Kan nie kla nie. It's getting late now so I'll have to post the rest of the dialogue later, but here is the translation of the beginning of the dialogue. Goeie dag - Good day Hoe gaan dit? - How are you? Or literally How goes it? Goed - Good dankie - thanks En self - and yourself Kan nie kla nie - Can't complain. Edited by mick33 on 12 December 2008 at 3:16am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5735 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 26 of 57 09 December 2008 at 2:06pm | IP Logged |
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I have been unable to do more than very brief studying in Afrikaans this week, but I am in the midst of final exams for school so this is what I expected to happen. I did however translate another Afrikaans song and I will post that translation in antoher post.
About a week ago, I bought the Teach Yourself Afrikaans course though I have only briefly skimmed the contents of the book and the two accompanying CDs. The course will definitely only be a supplement to what I am already doing; I'm not impressed with it's inadequate grammar explanation, though it does give some good information about punctuation. The vocabulary and translation exercises appear, at first glance, to be fairly good even if the 1st unit is redundant for me. The original Afrikaans.us website had a more thorough treatment of Afrikaans grammar before it was hacked and I am very, very glad I took notes from that material. Dr. du Plessis has moved the Afrikaans.us site to Open Languages an ambitious project he has started that is intended to eventually be a free, collaborative site devoted to learning languages. Unfortunately, the Afrikaans.us material is not completely back up, the pronunciation and vocabulary sections are complete, but the grammar section is being expanded, thus it is still under construction. Perhaps in the meantime I will buy Colloquial Afrikaans as well and hopefully it will do a better job of explaining grammar. The Teach Yourself CDs do indeed have far too much English speaking to be useful in their current form, so I now fully understand why Professor Arguelles and others on this forum edit language course program CDs or tapes to have only the target language spoken. The first CD also includes repetitive instructions that became almost instantly tedious and are, I think, unnecessary. I am anxious to edit the CDs for "shadowing" and hope to do so next week, now I need to find out exactly how to do the editing. Edited by mick33 on 09 December 2008 at 2:09pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5735 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 27 of 57 09 December 2008 at 3:04pm | IP Logged |
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This post will be a translation of the second Afrikaans song that I have translated, and this is becasue when listening to this song Friday, I again automatically attempted translating it's lyrics even though I had known the song for about a year and had never before been concerned about what the words actually meant. I think it might be possible to sing this translation to the song's original tune, although I have not done so yet, I prefer the Afrikaans lyrics. As with my previous translation, the English words are italicized
"Fortuinverteller" gesing deur Koos du Plessis "Fortuneteller" sung by Koos du Plessis First Verse Jy nooi my na binne, na jou donker karavaan; You invite my inside, to your dark caravan met die reuke van wierook trek jy my aan. with the smells of incense you pull me in Kan die rinkels van juwele, my vir 'n oomblik laat rus Can the jinglings of jewelry, let me rest for a minute die swaai van jou heupe my stadig-stadig sus. The swaying of your hips, slowly, slowly lulls me Refrein Refrain Jy sê jy ken die toekoms You say you know the future Jy kan dit duidelik lees You can clearly read it Kaarte en kristalle sê wat die uitkoms kan wees. Cards and crystals say what the outcomes can be. Ek gee jou my palm, jy lees my lewensweg. I give you my palm, you read my life's way Maar weet jy my verlede, het lank reeds verdwyn. But did you know my past, has already disappeared. Hierdie woorde en sinne het ek iewers geërf, These words and sentences I've inherited somewhere, maar die taal wat ek praat het lank reeds gesterf. But the language that I speak has already died. Ek het eendag vergeet, waar kom ek vandaan. I have one day forgotten, where I came from. Waar my huis is, my land is, of die klank van my naam. Where my house is, my country is, or the sound of my name. Second Verse Ek sit my voete op jou kussing, my kop agteroor I sit my feet on your cushion, my head backwards ek soek 'n antwoord in die donker, spirale van jou oë. I seek an answer in the dark spirals of your eyes Jou vingers streel my saggies, steel die spanning uit my lyf. Your fingers caress me gently, steal the stress from my body Jou parfuum en droë blare, laat my tydelik wegdryf Your perfume and dry leaves, let me briefly drift away repeat refrain Third verse Die son kom op, dis môre, alles is verklaar. The sum comes up, its morning all is explained. My lewenslyn -- gebroke, my kaarte deurmekaar. My lifeline broken, my cards confused Ek vat die pad soos altyd, soek kos en 'n dop. I take the road like always, seeking food and a drink Vir 'n oomblik nog bedwelmd, teen die duiwels in my kop. For an instant still stunned, by the devils in my head. repeat refrain This is an intriguing song, tranlsating it helped me learn some new words. NOTE: In the refrain, the word "lank" means "long", in this context possibly "long ago"; but it looks and sounds redundant in English since the word "already" is also present. Edited by mick33 on 15 December 2008 at 4:23am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5735 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 28 of 57 17 December 2008 at 3:18am | IP Logged |
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I can't believe I went a whole week without writing something in this log. I found out earlier that if I read, or comment on, someone else's log I get prompted to post an entry to mine. I have been studying Afrikaans and have been working on translating the lyrics to a new song (for me, at least) "Skadu's teen die muur" by Koos du Plessis and will post the lyrics in both Afrikaans and English when I finish the translation. I have not finished my dialogues and am wondering if the idea to write them out was too ambitious, since I am not interested in the dialogues anymore, maybe I'll finish the first one during my break from school. Edited by mick33 on 30 December 2008 at 4:23am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5735 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 29 of 57 30 December 2008 at 4:31am | IP Logged |
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This winter break from school has, unfortunately, been so busy and stressful that I could not devote as much time to studying Afrikaans as I would have liked. I haven't completely neglected Afrikaans; but I have gone a whole week and a half without doing any scriptorium work, also I have been unable to finish my translation of "Skadu's teen die muur" yet though I am working on it. As for the sample dialogues, I have decided that they are indeed a worthwhile project but they will be put on hold for now.
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| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5735 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 30 of 57 04 January 2009 at 3:57am | IP Logged |
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I have decided that this will my last post for this log. I will begin another log where I will chronicle my language studying activities for 2009 and I have also started a blog which is written exclusively in Afrikaans, but the blog will not really be about language learning. I did promise that I would post the translation of the lyrics for Skadus teen die muur. Enjoy! NOTE: This song's lyrics were not as easy to translate as the previous songs I translated owing to what I think were a few older, and possibly Dutch, words that I had trouble figuring out.
"Skadu's teen die muur" gesing deur Koos du Plessis "shadows against the wall" sung by Koos du Plessis Die donker kom van buite The darkness comes from outside en syfer deur die ruite (I think "ruite"is a Dutch word) and ciphers (or numbers) through the (window) panes en ek gooi nog 'n paar kole op die vuur and I throw just a few coals on the fire en die tafel en die laaikas and the table and the drawer en alles wat eers vas was and everything that once fast was (Literal translation for this line) versmelt tot blote skadu's teen die muur melts to merely shadows against the wall ons drome van gister Our dreams of yesterday word somber en sinister become somber and sinister want kyk alles het 'n vasgestelde uur because look everything has a fast-approaching hour ons beplan toringblokke our plans are tower blocks (I think this is right) maar die slopers is betrokke but the destroyers are concerned en ons drome is bloot skadu's teen die muur and our dreams are mere shadows against the wall met orrelbegeleiding with organ accompaniment kom die voorspel tot die skeiding comes the forecast of the division ("skieding" could mean "split" or "divorce") want dis alles reg, die liefde is 'n vuur because its all right, the love is a fire en van die vurige hofmaak and of the fiery court hoor ons later in die hofsaak hear we later in the lawsuit (Literal translation) want die liefde is 'n skadu teen die muur because the love is a shadow against the wall in swart of wit getooi in black or white attire in 'n stoet of in konvooi ("stoet" is a Dutch word) in a procession or a convoy wonder elkeen hoelank alles nog sal duur everyone wonders how long everything still will last en leef holderstebolder and live helter-skelter want die kis wag op die solder because the chest waits up the stairs en die lewe is 'n skadu teen die muur and the life is a shadow against the wall Repeat once from the line "en leef holderstebolder" Die donker kom van buite the darkness comes from outside en syfer deur die ruite and ciphers (numbers?) through the (window) pane en ek gooi nog 'n paar kole op die vuur and I throw just a few coals on the fire en my voete en my hande and my feet and my hands word ou bekende lande become old well-known (or familiar) countries in skadukaarte teen die kamer muur in shadow cards against the chamber wall die wêreld word a skadu teen die muur the world becomes (or became) a shadow against the wall 'n flikkerende skadu teen die muur a flickering shadow against the wall Edited by mick33 on 23 March 2010 at 9:31am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Wayne Pearce Triglot Newbie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5320 days ago 1 posts - 3 votes Speaks: Afrikaans*, English, FrenchC1 | Message 31 of 57 25 October 2009 at 5:16pm | IP Logged |
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Hi Mick, I will translate it paragraph by paragraph - we can do this for any other song that you come across. I see your translation is quite literal at times and there are some minor errors. But extremely good for somebody who has not grown up with Afrikaans! Die donker kom van buite en syfer deur die ruite en ek gooi nog 'n paar kole op die vuur en die tafel en die laaikas en alles wat eers vas was versmelt tot blote skadu's teen die muur The darkness comes from outside and percolates through the window panes and I chuck another couple of coals on the fire and the table and the chest of drawers and all other things that were still stable melt into mere shadows on the wall "syfer' can mean cipher, digit, or percolate "alles wat eers vas was" = everything that was at first attached/fastened ons drome van gister word somber en sinister want kyk alles het 'n vasgestelde uur ons beplan toringblokke maar die slopers is betrokke en ons drome is bloot skadu's teen die muur Our dreams of yesterday become sombre and sinister since, you see, everything has an appointed hour we have plans for building massive towers but the demolishers participate in these (projects) and our dreams are mere shadows on the wall. "vasstel" as in "ek het vasgestel dat . . " = I have established that . . ; "vasgestelde" = appointed, established met orrelbegeleiding kom die voorspel tot die skeiding maar dis alles reg, die liefde is 'n vuur en van die vorige hofmaak hoor ons later in die hofsaak want die liefde is 'n skadu teen die muur At the start of the (matrimonial) organ accompaniment appears (also) a prelude to separation. But all is like this, love is (like) a fire And the erstwhile courting is recounted in the later court case since love is a shadow on the wall "skeiding" can mean separation, division, divorce - good play on words in the poem "alles is reg" = everything is correct, but in this context, it is a fact/the normal state of affairs "vorige hofmaak" = previous courting, but reminds of "vurige hofmaak" (well known Afrikaans expression = ardent courting of a suitor) Apt wordplay on 'hofmaak' (courting) and 'hofsaak' (court case) "hoor ons later" = we hear about later in swart of wit getooi in 'n stoet of in konvooi wonder elkeen hoelank alles nog sal duur en leef holderstebolder want die kis wag op die solder en die lewe is 'n skadu teen die muur (Whether) dressed in black or white, As part of a funeral procession or convoy, Each one wonders how long everything will still last and lives from moment to moment since the coffin waits in the attic since life is a shadow on the wall "getooi" is an old-fashioned Afrikaans word that means more or less 'decked out' "stoet" is only used in everyday Afrikaans for a funeral procession "holderstebolder" means slap-dash/disorganized/chaotic "kis" means coffin mostly - the early generations of Afrikaners had their coffins bought long before their demise and stored them in their attics. die donker kom van buite en syfer deur die ruite en ek gooi nog 'n paar kole op die vuur en my voete en my hande word ou bekende lande in skadukaarte teen die kamermuur die wereld word 'n skadu teen die muur 'n flikkerende skadu teen die muur The darkness comes from outside and percolates through the window panes and I chuck another couple of coals on the fire and my feet and hands become very familiar countries in maps formed by shadows on the wall of the room the world becomes a shadow on the wall, a flickering shadow on the wall. There is a very nice recording of this sung by, not Koos du Plessis, but Johannes Kerkorrel. Regards, Wayne 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5735 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 32 of 57 26 October 2009 at 6:41pm | IP Logged |
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Thank you Wayne for the help with the translation! I knew there some things I'd missed and your explanations help with making those things clear to me. For example, the part about previous generations of Afrikaners buying their coffins long before they died was something I could not figure out on my own. I'll look for Johannes Kerkorrel's version of "Skadus teen die muur" since I like his singing voice.
I was pleasantly surprised that anybody still reads this log; I last updated it in January. But now that I've revisited it, I'm thinking I will post things in this log from time to time since Afrikaans really does deserve a separate log; I know a little more Afrikaans and my other log has become more about Spanish, Finnish and Swedish. Mick Edited by mick33 on 09 July 2010 at 7:09pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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