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Chung at work / Chung pri práci

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Chung
Diglot
Senior Member
Joined 6906 days ago

4228 posts - 8259 votes 
20 sounds
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish

 
 Message 57 of 541
02 August 2011 at 6:28am | IP Logged 
Kafea wrote:
You have done a great job with learning quite a bit in a few weeks, and organizing what you have learned. Thank you for sharing this!

I definitely see many similarities with North Saami. The pronunciations are very similar even if the spellings are different (b instead of p, etc.)
It does look like knowing at least some Finnish was helpful. I think you will find North Saami easier for knowing some Finnish and some Inari Saami. Good for you in tackling this. It helps to create energy for others of us who are working to learn.


Thank you for following along. It's interesting to read your comments about the different spellings. My impression is that spelling in Inari Saami aligns somewhat better with pronunciation than in Northern Saami. In Northern Saami, voiced sounds such as b, d, g, or z (dz) are pronounced more like p, t, k, or c (ts). This means that the pronunciation of Northern Saami buorre beaivi as an example sounds more similar to Inari Saami pyeri peivi than it appears as the "b" is pronounced more like "p".
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Chung
Diglot
Senior Member
Joined 6906 days ago

4228 posts - 8259 votes 
20 sounds
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish

 
 Message 58 of 541
03 October 2011 at 6:59pm | IP Logged 
I've just come back from another trip and feel set to resume my studies. For the rest of the year at least I'm working on Finnish, Northern Saami, Hungarian, Polish and Slovak in that order.

For Finnish, I'm a little unsure whether I should use FSI Conversational Finnish or the audio-visual course "Kuulostaa hyvältä" as the main set of material. Each one has its strengths and weaknesses and it may turn out that I'll combine the two. The goal is to continue improving my abilities and possibly move from being somewhere between A1 and A2 to A2 by year's end. For additional practice, I'd also be watching episodes of Supisuomea with and without the Finnish subtitles.

For Northern Saami, I have no such problem with choosing material since Davvin 1 is the only structured course that I have. I'm planning on completing at least half of the course by year's end. Ultimately I'd like to complete all of Davvin 1 and from that point I'd figure whether I continue with Davvin 2 which is already on my shelf.

For Hungarian, I've drawn a bit of inspiration after having revisited Hungary in September. I'm thinking of keeping it loose by reading the Hungarian translation of "Histoires inedités du Petit Nicolas, tome 1" and working through at least one of "Hallo, itt Magyarorszag!", "Assimil Hungarian with Ease" or "Learn Hungarian!". Using FSI or DLI Hungarian would be more intense than I'm willing to venture right now. When visiting bookshops in Budapest I was considering buying a few native courses in Hungarian for foreigners such as "Lépésenként magyarul" and "Jó szórakozást magyarul!" but the rather high cost for even my standards turned me off, and the materials themselves didn't seem to be overly suitable for my tastes despite being visually attractive.

My plans for Polish and Slovak are rather similar to Hungarian but at lower intensity as I drew some new inspiration after having revisited Poland and Slovakia respectively last month. For Polish, I am planning to work slowly through "Kiedyś tam wrócisz I" while for Slovak I would be working slowly through "Slovenčina ako cudzí jazyk B". For both languages I also plan to read short stories in both languages.

As it seems, the entries over the next few months will be dominated by stuff about Finnish and Northern Saami. I'll likely be summarizing my work through Davvin 1 by chapter as I had done when using "Sämikielâ" for Inari Saami. I like the idea of giving extra exposure to an endangered language for those who would ordinarily be discouraged from studying such a language because of the lack of teaching material in a widely-known intermediary language.

When the time comes for the next 6-week challenge, I may enter with Finnish, Northern Saami or Mari, with the last language being studied using the (to-date partial) translation in English of the Russian "Марийский язык для всех" (Mari language for everyone).
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Chung
Diglot
Senior Member
Joined 6906 days ago

4228 posts - 8259 votes 
20 sounds
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish

 
 Message 59 of 541
07 October 2011 at 6:38am | IP Logged 
NORTHERN SAAMI

I have completed Chapter 1 of Davvin 1 and was introduced to the pronunciation of a few letters that would likely be new for speakers of Finnish (my copy of Davvin 1 is meant for speakers of Finnish), and a few points about greetings. One aspect that I like about Davvin 1 is that each chapter highlights some aspect of dialectal usage as Northern Saami can be divided broadly into distinct eastern and western dialects. This kind of attention reminds me of an earlier comment made by yangbowen for the Finno-Ugric Profile in that learners of Northern Saami should "settle" on a dialect in order to develop some consistency when using Northern Saami.

1) pronunciation of a few letters

á is pronounced in western dialect similarly to Finnish aa, but in eastern dialect similarly to Finnish ää
c is pronounced similarly to English ts and often with a slight initial h
z is pronounced similarly to English ts but never with the slight initial h
č is pronounced similarly to English ch in church
ž is pronounced like a shorter version of English ch in church and can never occur initially in spelling.
đ is pronounced similarly to English this

2) greeting or taking leave with one person

To initiate a greeting, one usually says Buore beaivvi "Good day", Buore iđit "Good morning" or Buore eahket "Good evening" as appropriate. In response, the second person says Ipmel atti "Let God give!" rather than repeating the initiating greeting.

When greeting someone with a handshake, the first person says Bures while the second one replies with Bures or Bures, bures. Bures roughly corresponds to "hello" but again occurs when shaking hands.

Upon taking leave, the one who is leaving says Báze dearvan "Stay in health", while the one who is staying replies Mana dearvan "Go in health".

These customs take a little practice to get used to for speakers of many languages.

Vocabulary of Chapter 1

báze dearvan - "goodbye" (see 2) above)
biila - "car"
boahtá - "comes" (3rd person singular)
boddu - "moment"; "lesson"
bures - "hello" (see 2) above)
buore beaivvi - "good day" (see 2) above)
buore eahket - "good evening" (see 2) above)
buore iđit - "good morning" (see 2) above)
busse - "bus" (bus'se)
de - "now"
ipmel atti - "good day", "good evening", "good morning" (see 2) above)
lean - "(I) am"
mana dearvan - "goodbye" (see 2) above)
mun - "I"
sánit - "words"
vuosttaš - "first"

Numbers 1-12 (number of pages in the chapter)

okta - 1
guokte - 2
golbma - 3
njeallje - 4
vihtta - 5
guhtta - 6
čieža - 7
gávcci - 8
ovcci - 9
logi - 10
oktanuppelohkái - 11
guoktenuppelohkái - 12

Examples of Northern Saami taken from my answers to the exercises.

1. Mun lean Chung.
2. Buore beaivvi, Chung. - Ipmel atti.
3. Dá boahtá busse. - Báze dearvan!
4. Dá boahtá Máret. - Buore beaivvi!

***

Miscellaneous impressions

i) My earlier studies of Inari Saami have been helpful in making Northern Saami seem even less intimidating than otherwise.

ii) The spelling convention of Northern Saami is a little tricky to grasp. An example of trickiness is the convention where symbols often expressing voiced sounds in other languages express unvoiced sounds in Northern Saami (see message no. 57 in this log). Another example is that many clusters of triple consonants are often pronounced somewhat differently from what appears (e.g. guhtta "six" is pronounced more like kuhhta - i.e. despite there being double "t" after the "h", it is the "h" instead of the "t" that is lengthened in pronunciation)

Edited by Chung on 11 October 2011 at 5:03pm

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Kafea
Groupie
United States
Joined 4682 days ago

78 posts - 98 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Smi

 
 Message 60 of 541
07 October 2011 at 6:52am | IP Logged 
I also think it sounds like 'h' before a 'v' is said. Dictation is tricky but after a lot of practice I'm getting better at spelling what I am hearing.
1 person has voted this message useful



Chung
Diglot
Senior Member
Joined 6906 days ago

4228 posts - 8259 votes 
20 sounds
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish

 
 Message 61 of 541
08 October 2011 at 8:44pm | IP Logged 
FINNISH

I've felt so out of practice out with my Finnish that I've decided to brush up by working through Borje Vähämäki's "Mastering Finnish" before using other material. So far I've already done chapters 1 and 2 and for my purposes, the relatively few exercises that Vähämäki assigns per chapter seem good enough. It's very simple stuff so far but it's good to be thinking about Finnish grammar again, and looking things up as I do the exercises. I'm also set to take some private lessons in Finnish with a few others and look forward to meeting other people who are studying Finnish, as well as get some extra practice.

***

NORTHERN SAAMI

I have completed Chapter 2 of Davvin 1 and was introduced to the pronunciation of a few more items, and the conjugation in present tense singular of leat "to be".

1) pronunciation of a few more items

ea is pronounced somewhat like Finnish but noticeably as a diphthong (gliding vowel) rather than a pair of distinct vowels
ii is pronounced similarly to Finnish ij
ei is pronounced similarly to Finnish ej
initial b, d and g are each pronounced similarly to Finnish p, t and k
ŋ is pronounced similarly to English nk (cf. "honk")
final t is pronounced similarly to ht when it occurs at the end of a sentence. Otherwise it's pronounced similarly to h (i.e. the final t becomes nearly imperceptible or absent altogether)

2) conjugation of leat in present tenses singular

mun lean; don leat; son lea
"I am; you are; he/she is"

Vocabulary of Chapter 2

bures - "well" [adverb]
bures dat manná - "it goes well"
dat - "he, she, it"
dearvvasvuohta - "health"
do - "[over] there"
don - "you"
du - "your"
eamit - "wife"
eret - "minus"
gii - "who"
giitu buorre - "Fine, thank you"
-gis - "then"
já - "yeah", "thus"
ja - "and"
juo - "yes", "yeah"
lea - "is"
leat - "[you] are"
manná - "goes"
mii - "what"
mii gullo - "how are you?" (mii gul'lo)
mot - "how"
mu - "my"
na - "well" [interjection/particle]
namma - "name"
nieida - "girl"
nubbi - "second"
ráfi - "peace"
ráhkesvuohta - "love"
vissa - "probably" (vis'sa)

Numbers 13-24 (number of pages in the chapter)

golbmanuppelohkái - 13
njealljenuppelohkái - 14
vihttanuppelohkái - 15
guhttanuppelohkái - 16
čiežanuppelohkái - 17
gávccinuppelohkái - 18
ovccinuppelohkái - 19

guoktelogi - 20
guoktelogiokta - 21
guoktelogiguokte - 22
guoktelogigolbma - 23
guokteloginjeallje - 24

Examples of Northern Saami taken from my answers to the exercises.

1. Mii du namma lea? - Mu namma lea Chung.
2. Don leat vissa Chung? - Juo, mun lean Chung.
3. Gii don leat? - Mun lean Chung. - Já, Chung don leat.
4. Buore beaivvi. Mun lean Juvvá.
5. Ipmel atti. Mu namma lea Máret.
6. Na gii dongis leat?
7. Mun lean Joavnna.
8. Já, don leat Joavvna.

Edited by Chung on 11 October 2011 at 5:05pm

3 persons have voted this message useful



tricoteuse
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Norway
littlang.blogspot.co
Joined 6428 days ago

745 posts - 845 votes 
Speaks: Swedish*, Norwegian, EnglishC1, Russian, French
Studies: Ukrainian, Bulgarian

 
 Message 62 of 541
10 October 2011 at 12:59pm | IP Logged 
I like your choice of languages!
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liddytime
Pentaglot
Senior Member
United States
mainlymagyar.wordpre
Joined 5979 days ago

693 posts - 1328 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Galician
Studies: Hungarian, Vietnamese, Modern Hebrew, Norwegian, Persian, Arabic (Written)

 
 Message 63 of 541
10 October 2011 at 3:28pm | IP Logged 
Chung wrote:


I've just come back from another trip and feel set to resume my studies. For the rest of the year at least I'm working on Finnish,
Northern Saami, Hungarian, Polish and Slovak in that order....



Wow! Chung you are quite the inspiration to us all at HTLAL! Maybe someday you might even throw in a "hard" language! ;-)
1 person has voted this message useful



Chung
Diglot
Senior Member
Joined 6906 days ago

4228 posts - 8259 votes 
20 sounds
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish

 
 Message 64 of 541
10 October 2011 at 5:19pm | IP Logged 
tricouteuse wrote:
I like your choice of languages!


There is a somewhat negative relationship between a language's popularity and my choosing to study that language ;-)

liddytime wrote:
Wow! Chung you are quite the inspiration to us all at HTLAL! Maybe someday you might even throw in a "hard" language! ;-)


Thank you, but I defer to people such as glossika, leosmith or Vlad among others for having successfully crossed over 3 or more linguistic phyla.


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