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 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6484 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes  Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 9 of 42 07 June 2010 at 2:30pm | IP Logged |
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SUMMARY FOR JULY 2009
1 july 2009 (p.131) Crush: "they" and "their" are often used with singular meaning me: .. all because there is a hole in English concerning the use of 'one'. Btw. the original phrase "one can improve their scores by" could easily have been corrected by using 'they' instead of 'one' Mado (Proverbio): had apparently thought that "NB: Il passaggio "** EDIT: don't believe these numbers," referred to her experiment (see 25/6), but it refers to the lookup of frequencies for French train expressions (because of this misunderstanding I have now changed the order of the elements) IT: Comments to articles in "Le Scienze", including one about photosynthesis and competing non-aerobic reactions. Comment on the fact that 60% of the total genome of some Neanderthal bones has been extracted, - and still no evidence of interbreeding SW: I understood one word in the Sami news on Swedish TV (Oddasat), namely "merabotn" - sea floor. Before that a program dubbed in Swedish (and with subtitles during the interviews) about the sea currents through out the history of the Earth. If the currents stop totally the sea becomes an anaerobe hell like at the end of the Permian, but even without one supercontinent we face disturbances in the currents due to global warming. Fasulye: comments to my summary for May. The newsletters from Science Daily consisted just of headlines, and *'viets' should be spelled with an 'f' Jar-Ptitsa: bike courier was NOT an item on Jar-Ptitsa's joblist, - somebody mentioned it to Fasulye (or she mentioned it herself). Picture of a black cat and a birthday cake. Hopes that I soon will get well after my hernia operation. Photo of a toucan. 2 july 2009 (p.131) GER: During my operation I listened to Instrumental excerpts of Wagner's Ring. Here the links to some of it. ENG: "Kourier" is a rare word i Dutch, - "courier" is much more common, but often because of its use in proper names (e.g. newspapera). Something about the extinction that occurred at the end of the Paleocene. Jar-Ptitsa: The Ride of the VAlkyies of Wagner is too agitated. Instead some links to more peaceful pieces (Chopin, Mozart, Brahms) ENG: picture of a 'pio tico' toucan from Amnéville Aquarium. Link to a wikipedia article about bike couriers Fasulye (IT): likes the pio tico toucan. (ENG) Quotes from the article about bike couriers Jar-Ptitsa: bike courier isn't a nice job, - maybe a job in a garden center, but otherwise language teacher would be better for Fasulye Fasulye: .. but then you need to be a qualified 'Buchhändler' PORT: the tale of a meeting with four seriemas (incl. photo) in Foz de Iguaçú Jar-Ptitsa (GER): is 'Buchhändler' a hard study? One of the choices mentioned to Jar-Ptitsa was 'library assistant'. Pities the seriemas because they had to live in a cage ENG: The pitiemas had a nice big cage and looked happy. (GER) In Denmark 'boghandler' is learnt as an apprentice in a bookstore. Librarian is a regular education, but there are also uneducated staff in libraries - but they don't give advice to the customers. 3 july 2009 (p.133) DU: Something about the epoch called Eocene, based on articles in the Dutch Wikipedia. Prosimians and true monkeys developed in this periode, - photo of a Tarsier from my trip to the Philippines in January. FR: my current bus-reading is a dictionary of French idiomatic expressions. Maybe such expressions can be memorized through ultraliteral translations. Fasulye (GER): 'Buchändler' is learnt through an apprenticeship in a bookstore, "Bibliothekar" is a a HBO education in the Netherlands. The job in a call center was interesting, but her health just couldn't stand it. Is preparing questions for her next video on Youtube. (IT): Recommends a clip in 7 languages from a young man called Amir. ENG: I did listen to Amir, but I ended up listening to three talks by Steve Kaufmann ('Zhuangzi') instead. I agree with him on the subject of formal teacher-directed courses (we 'ate them!), but not on his dislike of grammars, wordlists/flash cards etc. It is not enough just to speak X languages in a video, you should also have something to say. 4 july 2009 (p.133) Fasulye: Didn't know about the videos of Steve K, but they are interesting and well recorded. Anya: Mentions a French expression "revenons à nos moutons" (return to the subject), which also is found in Russian: "вернемся к нашим баранам" FR: This expression is said to come from a comedy "La Farce du Maître Pathelin" (XVe siècle), but on a Russian forum there is a hint that it also is found in Rabelais "Gargantua et Pantagruel", which is a much more famous work. (RUS) Link to an illustrated collection of Russian expressions on the internet. Jar-Ptitsa (GER): Wouldn't like to work in a library because she doesn't really like to read books, and she doesn't like having to deal with questions from the customers. Maybe in the children's department, but children make too much noise. Tricoteuse (FR) Knows the expression "revenons à nos moutons", but has generally a problem with such expressions, - maybe because Swedes don't use many colourful expressions of this kind ENG: I have been watching a whole day of episodes of "Weird connections" on Discovery Science. In one episode there was a chimp that sat down to 'read' a magazine page by page in order to fight the impulse to snatch a bowl of candy before it was full. The apes can't pronounce our languages and they haven't much idea about grammar, but they can communicate using other symbol systems, including sign language and computer graphics. Also something about a machine that can detect lies by monitoring people's face expressions. Fasulye: "Nice dosis of behavioural science relating to primates' language abilites and intelligence." 5 july 2009 (p.134) Fasulye: Participating in a walk in Venlo in the Netherlands, just across the border. me: Venlo has a TV station on the internet Fasulye: Lives just 25 kmn from Venlo, but all the Dutch TV stations have blocked their signals in the direction of Germany. Watches another web TV channel " Nederland 2" through cable. Too hot for comfortable walking and no one to talk to, but had luckily brought some astronomy magazines. ENG: a long description of the intriguing problems involved in studying Tagalog when more than half the words you search in the dictionary aren't found there, when Google only translate some parts of the sentences and when your sources don't agree on word meanings or even wordclasses. Jar-Ptitsa thinks that the tarsier is sweet 6 july 2009 (p.135) RO: The pope has accepted a skeleton under San Pietro as the mortal remains of St. Paul (source: www.tvr.ro), and I mention that I have visited the place in Damascus where he is supposed to have stayed after his conversion AND the hole through which he is said to have fled ENG: I have read a language blog, where an author describes how his book about a computer language was mangled by an incompetent proofreader. There is also a description of an experiment with a French philosopher whose works are so meaningless that you can make positive expressions negative and vice-versa, and even his supporters couldn't guess which version was the original one. 7 july 2009 (p.135) LAT: Now even an extremely old portrait of St.Paul has been found in Sta. Thekla's Catacombs in Rome, - and again I have a travel reference, namely to the town Maalula in Syria, which not only is one of the few remaining places where Aramaic is spoken, but also the place where Sta. Thekla died. 8 july 2009 (p.135) me: A sentence or two in each of my languages (originally written for another site) Fasulye: for her Dutch plays the same role as English for me, i.e. as something close to a second native language 9 july 2009 (p.136) Jar-Ptitsa (DU): Thought that my Esperanto specimen (marked ESP) was a strange form of Spanish. Has read the interview on the site HelpWithStudy.com (where Fasulye and others also are featured) and ask whether the picture there was taken in my home DU: no, the picture is taken in my mothers house, but I painted the paintings in the background. FR: My 'bus reading' is currently a French idiomatic dictionary. Maybe 'hyperliteral' translations can be used to remember such expressions Anya: Two corrections to the Russian text from July 8 ENG: Comments to the corrections Anya: Comments to the comments to the corrections Tricoteuse: Some suggestions for non fiction sites in Russian RU: Comments in Russian to the comments to the comments to the corrections of the text from July 8. After that something about the Paleontological Museum of Moscow BlueJay: Wants to see some of my paintings GER: Painting illustrating works of Kafka FR: Painting illustrating "Le Cimetière Marin" by Paul Valéry Fasulye: Can now see that these paintings are surrealistic, but has lost interest in art ENG: Painting illustrating "The Waste Land" by T.S. Eliot Fasulye: Impressed. Has long ago visited the 3 art museums in Düsseldorf IC: Painting illustrating "Völuspá" by Snorre Sturluson 11 july 2009 (p.137) Fasulye (GER): Last day at her current job, which she has to leave because of health problems. Will maybe take a DELF-test on level B in French. Has read two publications about polyglots: "Languages for ALL" by Ron Peek and "The gift of the gab" by Michael Erard - all this due to M.Erard's inquiry into (hyper)polyglotism 12 july 2009 (p.138) DU: I have also answered that inquiry. DU/DA: Painting illustrating "Karrig Nidding" (in Danish from 1633) by Hieronymus Justesen Ranch SW: Painting illustrating works by the Swedish poet Snoilsky, in particular a poem about a porcelain pot NO: Painting illustrating "Det myke Landskapet" by Thor Bringsværd 13 july 2009 (p.138) ENG: Article in fora.tv with Everett about the Brazilian language Pirana, which hasn't got many common features of other languages FR: Painting illustrating "La Queste dou Saint Graal" (in Old French), probably by Gautier Map Fasulye asks about the mesures of the paintings ENG: 40 x 32 cm, Fasulye: same measures as her Hundertwasser FR: Painting illustrating "El Desdichado" by Gerard de Nerval - outside the series FR: Painting illustrating "Gaspard de la Nuit" by Aloysius Bertrand - outside the series (and also something about the suite by Ravel) 14 july 2009 (p.139) Fasulye (FR): This log has become a museum FR: There is more underway NO: I have tried to write a post in New Norwegian in the Norwegian thread, - but it is a quite difficult task RU: Painting illustrating a poem about Frost and a red nose in Russian, I don't know who wrote it 15 july 2009 (p.139) Anya (RU): The poem is written by Nekrasov RU: Something about this work plus a quote Anya: Corrections to my 'something' in Russian Tricoteuse (FR): Like the paintings, but surprised because they have literary motives - didn't think that I liked literature. (NO): Confirms that it is difficult for Scandinaves to write in each others' languages. Likes the online dictionary http://www.tradusa.se/lexicon/capere.jsp Fasulye: Sitting at a computer in the local library (mediathek), last three issues of "Bild der Wissenschaft" are missing. Lurks on the Scandinavian texts here and in the multilingual subforum, finds that Tricoteuse's Norwegian looks exactly like Danish FR: the literary series date from the 70s, where I had to deal with literature because of my studies. DA: New Norwegian is not treated too well by tradusa DU: Found an excellent video series on AVRO about the Hermetage, partly in Russian with Dutch subtitles Fasulye (DU): Can't watch videos in the Mediathek Tricoteuse (ENG): confused by some nonsense I wrote about "å" in Norwegian (New and Book) ENG: a better researched post about the use of "å" in both kinds of written Norwegian Tupiniquim (POR): Looking for details about other of my techniques than wordlists POR: references to the Learn-any-Language Wikia and to the page in my profile thread where I have listed some of my own favorite posts Tupiniquim (POR): Asks for something about hyperliteral translations POR: A short post about them, including a specimen with some Portuguese translated hyperliterally into English. Something about a painting illustrating the poem "Alcool" by an unidentified Lusophone author 16 july 2009 (p.141) Fasulye: Has now made her first hyperliteral translations from Turkish to English - likes it (see her TAC log) ENG: With hyperliteral translations you avoid wasting your time on exactly those things in your base language that would harm your learning of the target language. IC: Something about Icelandic Tolkien sites and Ardalambion and invented languages. Fasulye: her computer has broken down SP: Painting illustrating poems by Gustavo Adolfo Bequer CAT: Painting illustrating the philosophical work "Arbre de filosofia d'amor" (in Old Catalan) by Ramón Llull (Raimundus Lullus) 18 july 2009 (p.142) SP: Painting illustrating a poem called something like 'The Worried Cornfield', probably by a Romanian author called Vrînceanu Fasulye: her computer had only entered sleeping mode Jar-Ptitsa: doubts that my paintings are surrealistic, because they are based on motives from one book per painting. Her favorite painting was a very precise depiction of a hen and some chicks, but it was too expensive to buy. 19 july 2009 (p.142) me: I still think they are surrealistic. The world is a strange place, and the paintings show that. Thinking about a trip to the Balkan Peninsula Fasulye (DU): press the start button twice and your computer sleeps Jar-Ptitsa: Have I also painted non-surrealistic paintings? Dubrovnik should be pretty. Next week she starts her one month holiday, where she can't access the internet. (DU) Her own laptop makes a snoring sound. DU: I got my paint box and stuff because my Grandpa returned from a Mediterranean cruise without present for anybody, - then we were allowed to buy something, and I chose some artist's gear. And then I painted all Danish birds and a big crocodile, but from 1975 to 1995 almost exclusively surrealistic things 20 july 2009 (p.143) LAT: Painting illustrating "Metamorphoses" by Ovide, reference to an entertaining site about Greek mythology: http://www.paleothea.com GR: Painting illustrating some poems by the Greek poet and diplomat Seferis - last in the series Fasulye: looking forward to a return to scientific themes 21 july 2009 (p.143) POR: I know a Danish - Portuguese couple, They have just had a baby, and I'm sure that kid will become a bilingual interpreter because the parents don't speak each others' language too well. Also reference to an online Danish <-> Portuguese dictionary, which delivers more than one translation per word NO: Read an article about problems of understanding between speakers of Nordic languages 22 july 2009 (p.143) RO: I have bought flight tickets to Romania and back from Albania. I may also find time to visit Northern Greece, so in the coming month or so I'll will spend a lot of time on Romanian and Greek. Also something about the total solar eclipse that passed from India through China to somewhere in the Pacific Ocean this morning Fasulye: Saw something about this eclipse on CNN, and is now looking forward to speaking with the other members of her astronomy club about it ENG: map showing the weather over South East Asia DA: something about the noble art of converting doors made of cheap wood into something that looks like mahagonny and other expensive kinds of wood ('graining') ENG: Youtube clip about Maalula, the village in Syria where Aramaic still is spoken (and where St. Thekla died .. and then I don't care whether the pope accepts her as a saint or not) 23 july 2009 (p.144) Staf250 knows a woman who speaks Aramaic with her children, and who fled from Turkey because of religious persecution. ENG: I have put links with pages numbers into all summaries in this log Fasulye is spending her time on Steve Kauffman's site (LingQ) SP: I have visited the site and seen his videos, but I haven't subscribed to the site IT: Some good programs on Raiuno, including a program about the yearly migrations of the sardines near South Africa. Yesterday something about the medieval water systems under the Townhall of Siena. GR: I have been reading about the giants in Greek mythology. 24 july 2009 (p.144) ROM: As part of my preparations for my next holiday I'm on permanent lookout for interesting Romanian texts, and I have found a lot of travelogues at travel.blog.cotidianul.ro - some with, some without the special Romanian letters. 25 july 2009 (p.144) LAT: A discussion about word in Neo-Latin, including the words for 'terms' (as in 'terminology') and 'dictionary'. After that a reference to a famous lecture from 1886 by W.G.Hale, who thought that it was idiotic to teach the students to understand sentences by analyzing their complete structure, when the Romans listened to sentences from the beginning and understood the meaning better and better while they passed through dem. The funny thing is that Chomsky has declared that 'linear' grammars are insufficient and returned to the abstract total analysis from before Hale. Hitory repeats in this case itself. Fasulye: Found it interesting to read about Hale, but both the Latin language and linguistics belong to an earlier period in her life ENG: Chomsky is the worst thing that ever has happened to linguistics 27 july 2009 (p.145) IT: Following a hint in another thread (from LIzzern and taf250) I found an Italian blog written by a certain PersonalitàConfusa (the 'who-am-I's' doesn't dissipate the mystery). It is very funny, and one af the items therein is a thought experiment: what would have happened if the Vikings that discovered America had continued Sourthwards to the Caribbean Islands? I give some links to sites with more information about the discovery of America around 1000. 28 july 2009 (p.145) Fasulye (SP) found the information about the vikings interesting. But right now she is spending a lot of time on Spanish, with the help of Steve K's site LingQ. SP: That's a good idea, now that she has a lot of free time IC/O.NO Hyperliteral translation of the part of Greenlanders' Saga that describes how Bjarni Herjolfson saw America, but didn't land ENG: The vikings had a 'sunstone' and it is fun to make hyperliteral translations 29 july 2009 (p.145) Fasulye also has discovered how fun it is to make those translations, and she doesn't get headache from making them GUT/SWE/ENG: Hyperliteral translation of Gotasaga about the oldest history of Gotland, - with a Swedish text as help. Fasulye (ENG): Boring subject, but interesting to compare Old norse and Swedish ENG: It is not Old Norse, but an archaic form of Old Gotlandish (Gutnic), which still exist but is close to dying out. And the saga is interesting because the travels of the main persons reflect the route of the Goths Fasulye: What is Gutnic? - Old Gothic maybe?? GER: Gutnic is the old language of the Island Gotland, and it is different from Old Norse, but still part of Northern Germanic - Gothic is the main representative of Eastern Germanic. In German the name must be Gutnisch, because Gotländisch is a Swedish dialect. Links to Wikipedia pages in Alemannic, English and (High) German Fasulye (GER) understands more or less the Allemanic text, but reckon that few foreigners (apart from profArguelles) can do it. GER: When I want to understand something in a dialect or language I haven't learnt I try to imagine someone reciting the text, - just looking at the written words isn't effective enough Fasulye: Same method 30 july 2009 (p.145) Fasulye (FR): The French penpal of Fasulye states that the French are bad at learning languages. Fasulye doesn't think you can say anything like that about a whole population FR: I agree, - but the French didn't need to learn new languages as long as everybody else spoke French. Now this role has been usurped by the English language, and the French at large have become more interested in learning languages ROM: I have listened to several hours of "Tourist TV" from Romania, with programs about a number of foreign countries Anya: Her 'copine' says exactly the same thing as Fasulye's Statistics (30/7-09 21.16 CET): 132.089 views, 1168 posts - and still going strong! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6484 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 10 of 42 07 June 2010 at 2:34pm | IP Logged |
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Summary for August 2009
2 August 2009 (p. 147) ENG: Announcing an upcoming tour from Bucuresti in Romania to Tirana in Albania. In between lies Serbia, so I'll have a go at Serbian (ont he basis of my shaky Russian). 4 August 2009 (p. 147) ENG: I have made some bilingual Serbian - English printouts based on texts from the homepage of a Serbian TV station, and they are surprising easy to understand. However one of them was about the amazing genius Nikola Tesla, who invented alternating current and a lot of other stuff. Then I found a full biography in English about him and forgot all about language learning. ROM: I have also made printouts in Romanian: the travelogues from cotidianul.ro, and I have read some of them now. GR: Then I returned to the Serbian text about Tesla, and from there to Greek. I bought a greek touristguide to Athens during my last visit, and now it has been put to use 5 August 2009 (p. 147) Fasulye (ESP): Her computer is dead, but she has found out that the Word congress for esperantists 2011 will take place in Copenhagen, so now she is preparing for a trip there - which includes learning Danish. She didn' t go to this years' congress because it took place in Poland, and she can't speak Polish. Pavilion: likes this log thread ESP: Poor Fasulye because of her computer problems. The Esperanto congress in 2010 takes place in Cuba; Maqdrid wanted to do the one in 2011, but apparently two hispanophone countries in a row was too much. Mick33 (AF): Esperanto has a weird spelling, with all those x's AF: Fasulye forces me to write in Esperanto and Mick33 in Afrikaans, in both cases after a long pause. Good job, keep it up! Fasulye uses a way of writing Esperanto where all strange letters are changed into something normal plus an x. I prefer the strange characters of dr. Zamenhof. RO: More Romanian travelogues. Fasulye (ESP): You can participate in a World congress of Esperanto without being able to speak the language. (DU): to Mick33: She likes the writing method with the numerous x'es, (ESP) Her Esperanto group is 'diluza' (desillusioned?) because she didn't attend a number of recent Esperanto congresses. 6 August 2009 (p. 148) Mick33 (AF) is somewhat disappointed that the x'es aren't a regular part of Esperantean ortography Fasulye (ESP): is going to study Danish for 6 months leading up to the congress in Copenhagen, using "Einstieg Dänisch" Sprachprofi (ESP): Asks whether Fasulye is also going to go to some lesser congresses, besides a link to a sketch in Esperanto on Youtube. Fasulye: (ESP) The two actors have a bad accent and are so difficult to understand that she doubts that I can do it. Couldn't participate on a meeting with her Esperanto group in Düsseldorf because of her job me (ESP): which job? The sketch was indeed difficult to understand (illustrated with a transcript of af few sentences). And the administrator has returned to the forum after a long absence. Sprachprofi: (ESP) The sketch was illustrating how people with different accents can massacre Esperanto, so no wonder that it was difficult to understand. The idea to make it came from Sprachprofi herself. Fasulye (ESP): A few links to some more normal clips in Esperanto Sprachprofi (ENG): discloses what the two amateur actors really were saying in the passage I transcribed. Fasulye: no job, has edited the preceding post that led to the misunderstanding 7 August 2009 (p. 147) ESP: Fasulye and her Turkish learning partner should be able to speak Turkish fluently by 2011 ENG: I have watched a program on National Geographic about the aftermath of hurricane Katrina (as measured by the effects on the Audubon zoo and two aquaria) SP: ... followed by another program on Nat Geo about a Spanish musician walking the Camina de Santiago in Spanian, - mostly in Spanish with subtitles. DE: Interruption by German TV where there is a program about Zoo Hellabrun with some delicious Bayrisch High German SP: Inspired by some remarks in the program about El Camino to check out the old poem "Cantar del mio Cid" (and a mangled, but resonant version on Youtube) Fasulye (GER): knows the poem El Cid from her study days. But is more interested right know in planning her visit to Copenhagen, where she has discovered that there is a Geological Museum. Is there a Planetarium? Yes there is. GER: The Geological museum is nice, but not a world class institution. Fasulye (GER): doesn't need world class institutions when she for once can travel somewhere GER: The Geological museum has a series of maps that show the position of the cotninents throughout the history of the Earth. There are also some copies of dino bones. But there are other museums in Copenhagen. 8 August 2009 (p. 147) NO: I have been to the library, and there I have borrowed a book in Bokmål about Norway and its kings from 800 to 1130, - from Harald Prettyhair to Harald Hardrule, who a died in a battle at Stamfordbridge in England, but with the consequence that Edward the Conqueror could beat the tired army of Harold Godwinson and take over the whole of England. If Harald hadn't arrived precisely when he did, English would still have been a modernized kind of Anglosaxon. Fasulye (GER): Remembers a museum with statues near Tivoli in Copenhagen - and she has jsut one free day during the congress in 2011 to visit museums. (DU) Besides she has been to Venlo, where she bought a book about fossils. She has noticed that the author is not quite adamant about the dinosaurus being wiped out by a meteorite GER: That museum is the Glyptothek. DU: More and more things are in fact suggesting that the dinosaurs were in decline even before the meteor fall at Chicxulub, and maybe even for a short while after (according to an article at Sciencedaily.com). The main culprit is now seen as the Deccan traps, some gigantic lavaflows caused by the collision between India and Asia. Fasulye (DU): ALL her astronomy books blame the meteor DU: the astronomers may like the meteor theory, but most geologists now believe more in the volcanism theory. Picture of a robus Australopithecus from the Geological museum in Copenhagen 9 August 2009 (p. 151) Fasylue (DU): agrees to the theory that geologist like lavaflows, astronomers meteors LAT: I have spend the morning sorting my papers in different languages according to their types and putting them in portfolios. Which made me think about a good Latin word for portfolio, - I found "scrinium". Also deliberations about good words for television and video. RU: One of the sheets I found was a list of some verbals roots with different affixes. ENG: about Serbian - I have studied the morphology of the nouns and the adjectives, - this language apparently has definite and indefinite adjectival forms, though most forms are the same. And the verbal system operates with an aorist like Greek and Bulgarian, but also many things in common with Russian. SII: Corrections to the Russian passage ENG: the worst error was the use of a word for origin, where I wanted to use one for derivation. 10 August 2009 (p. 152) SII: responds to my questions concerning some of his corrections Poligloton (SP): Has read most of this thread, is impressed by the number of languages here, - but I do mix some Italian into my Spanish and some Spanish into my Portuguese ENG: thanks to SII for the answers SP: I use the relations between languages to learn them, which makes it impossible to avoid interference, - though hopefully less and less as I get better Fasulye: learns language as isolated entities, which means fewer languages and slower learning, but also less risk of interference Tupiniquim (SP): would like also to be able to speak Spanish, - that shouldn't disturb his studies of Swedish Poligloton (SP): Understands the argument about mixing languages. Has problems finding materials in and for Romanian. (POR): to Tupiniquim - it shouldn't be a problem for a native speaker of Brasilian to learn Spanish Tupiniquim (SP): Wants to learn ever more languages. POR: I would also like to learn every new language I see, but you have to fight your "Wanderlust" - and I'm worried if this logs induces people to indulge in that practice Tupiniquim (POR): Isn't in peril of succumbing to Wanderlust 11 August 2009 (p. 153) ENG: I have made prints of Serbian articles about Mars found through Google, and I have used Google to translate to give some hints about the meaning. In most cases the meaning if the translations is clear, but sometimes thy are not only wrong, buit also funny. One example about "lender" ('lander') translated as Danish "långiver" ("loan giver"), another where temperature at the poles was interpreted as "sex temperature". Fasulye: This shows the low quality of the translations ENG: The really interesting thing is not to find the errors, but to search for likely explanations for them Fasulye: Google gets into trouble when words have more meanings. Humans can chosse the right meaning based on the context, machines aren't equipped for that Mick33 has occasionally used machine translation for Spanish and Finnish, - the last ones are sometimes mangled beyond recognition ENG: The translations are just silly and errorridden enough not to take the sport out of translating. But the point is that evven a translation with errors may help to make otherwise incomprehensible texts comprehensible. Fasulye: Doublechecks the translations with a paper dictionary Tommus: you can get better translations by writing simpler phrases. Google Translate doesn't respond too efficiently to corrections. ENG: Google translations have surprisingly many errors where a negation is ignored,- that should be fixed ASAP. It is also irritating when it simply ignores words it doesn't know instead of marking the 'hole' in the sentence. But in spite of this I'm impressed that it is possible to make those translations at all. Gives a Dutch-English examples that indicates that constructions with concrete words get better translations 12 August 2009 (p. 154) Tommus: I wrote "learning", but meant "teaching" (i.e. teaching the Google translator something) ENG: The sentence become wrong because of an unfinished change, but the mechanism suggested by Tommus can explain that I didn't notice the error. After that: hyperliteral translations from Synnejysk (a Danish dialect) 13 August 2009 (p. 154) IT: Saw an Italian program about the origins of metallurgi GR: Has read about Chimaires (i.e. 'mixed' creatures) in Greek Mythology RO: Triumph: spoke with a person from a Romanian hotel in Romanian over the phone - 1. time ever Fasulye: congratulations to me for becoming member of the moderator team. Liked my hyperliteral translations from Synnejysk, - has never read anything in a Danish dialect before. Oz-hestekræfte: Always glad to see some Danish in this thread. Puzzled by the English word "moribund". Asks whether I have seen the film "Frygtelig Lykkelig" ('terribly happy') which is set in Southern Jutland Densou: Corrections to my Italian note about "Passaggio a Nord)-Ovest" (I had forgotten the "Nord"). 16 August 2009 (p. 155) DA: The word "moribund" does exist (even if it isn't in Oz' dictionary), it means "doomed" or "fay". I haven't seen the film "Frygtelig Lykkelig") IT: Most of Densou's corrections are well deserved, but in one case he has misunderstood my sentence - speaking about the invention of metallurgy is not the same as a description of the processes involved in its use. FR: I have seen a French program about going to Mars (the moon Titan was also mentioned) - I don't uderstand why anybody would swpent 2-3 years the get there (it is clearly a place with a nasty climate). GER: In "Genial Daneben" (SAT1) the team guessed all but one of the proposed words. Besides I have written my first Serbian wordlist and prepared my first green morphology sheet. ENG: .. and I have read a lot of stuff for moderators. But so far not found anything to throw into Tartaros. Densou: Accepts that my sentence about metallurgy had another meaning, - but I used one more unidiomatic formulation in my comment about the correction of it. Fasulye (GER): Genial daneben is Saturday at 22, - too late. (FR): à propos the word "moribond" : first verse from the song "Moribond" by Brel FR: It is like the operas, where a dying person always has time to sing one more song 17 August 2009 (p. 155) GR: During my upcoming tour I will also pass through Northern Greece DA (with hyperliteral translation): I have made my first wordlists and my first 'green sheet' in Serbian, - and while reading my proper grammar I had overlook a common infix in the noun declension - I found it in the grammatical section of my otherwise insufficient Italian<-->Serbian dictionary DU: I have seen the start and the end of Fasulye's latest video, - but skipped the middle, which is in Turkish Fasulye (DU): it was just a reading of som Turkish text - the next will have 4 languages, which won't frustrate me ENG: A reference to an article about the neurolinguistical declarative/procedural model, according to which there is one part of the brain that collects readymade chunks (mostly words), while another is responsible for the automatized combination of those chunks DU: I don't know whether there are headphones at the computers in Balkan - if not, then I can't listen to Fasulye's next video until I return home PLATT: The Low German Wikipedia has opted for the socalled Sass-spelling (named after the linguist Johannes Sass) 18 August 2009 (p. 156) DA: About Storm P and his version of Low Copenhagenish, plus the beginning of the monologue "Othello and me" (partly with hyperliteral translation) 19 August 2008 (p. 156) DaraghM: The declarative/procedural model (see 17/8) has wide applications not only for language learning, but for learning in general, such as. martial arts. ENG: at home I tend to focus the written languages, and this implies a focus on declarative learning. I train my procedural skills while thinking and travelling. Fasulye: Could you please define what a "procedural language" and what a "declarative language" is? 20 August 2009 (p. 156) ENG: Declarative elements are those that can't be derived from other things. Procedural elements are those that can be derived through automatized rules. GR: It looks like a problem to enter Albania from Greece through the Eastern border crossings, so I may have to settle for the one near Ioannina or even Korfu RO: First leg: Bucuresti to 'The Iron Gate' to Timisoara SER: Boat Carnival in Beograd during my stay. Onwards to Thessaloniki GR: Onwards to FLorina and probably Kastoria, then somehow into Albania to end up in Tirana. ENG: One liguistical problem: I don't speak Albanian, not good at Greek, much less Serbian, whereas my Romanian should be reasonably useful. Will add to the log if I can find PCs with 'Romanized' keybards. And if I can find scientific/touristical magazines I'll buy them. Felipe: Has restarted his Romanian studies, understand more now, but still not speak the language Fasulye: Romanian magazines OK, Greek probably OK, but Serbian and Albanian must be for later use ENG: I'm in fact not far from being able to understand the Serbian articles without looking at the translations, - scientific articles are relative easy to understand, compared to ordinary literature. 21 August 2009 (p. 157) Lingua opposes the declarative/procedural model because it underestimates the idiomaticity of languages. ENG: I also have expressed my doubts about the demarcation line between linguistical items belonging to the two sides. But basically I do believe that the mechanisms for learning irreducible chunks are different from those that derive complete utterances from the chunks. ENG: reference to a homepage in English and Norwegian about Swiss German, include the observation that Swiss German has dropped the simple preterite of standard High German and only uses the compound perfect. Lingua: The same tendence can be seen in Southern Germany Densou: The same tendence can be seen in Italian DaraghM: Has read my first on so far only line in Serbian. Comments and questions concerning the Serbian Cyrillic letters ENG: Something about the special letters of both the Serbian alphabets. Listened to Fasulye's 3. video 22 August 2009 (p. 157) ROM: First message from Bucuresti, Romania. Written on an American keyboard without the Romanian special letters 23 August 2009 (p. 158) ROM: Second message from Bucuresti, Romania - a busy day running from one museum to next, including Ceaucescu's monster house Fasulye finds that a bit onesided 24 August 2009 (p. 158) GER: The next towns have not nearly as many museums to visit, so the problem will solve itself Poligloton (ESP) has started a log for all Romance languages 28 August 2009 (p. 159) ROM: First message from Serbia, a short list of places I have visited in Romania SER (!): First message in (tentative) Serbian. I have visited Kalemegdan and the Tesla museum, and I have bought a serbian<-->English dictionary for just 2 € plus a big German->Serbian one Fasulye: thought I had got lost in the cyber-desert of Romania ENG: you should estimate the cleverness of people down here (Balkan) - they do have computers, btu I just didn't see any internet cafés 29 August 2009 (p. 159) ENG: I threw the German-Serbian dictionary out when I discovered how old it was. Apart from my 2€ dic it is problem finding Kyrillic Serbian dictionaries for languages that use Latin letters themselves. Besides I haven't found a useable grammar. Touristical activites: for instance a visit to an exhibition about Argentinian dinosaurs. 30 August 2009 (p. 159) SER: Last day in Serbia, partly spent in a town called Vrsac ENG: Plans for the next days: I'm taking the one and only night train to Thessaloniki. I have tried to watch wellknown TV programs with Serbian subtitles, and even though I don't understand many of the words, I can more or less understand maybe half the sentences. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6484 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 11 of 42 07 June 2010 at 2:49pm | IP Logged |
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Summary for September 2009
2 September 2009 (p. 160) GR: Found an internet place in Florina, Greece, and luckily with Latin letters. I have bought three international science magazines in Greek versions: Focus, NEO and Science Illustrated. My tiny Langenscheidt is clearly not big enough, but otherwise it isn't difficult to read them. ENG: Thinking about how to get a representation in the new Techniques etc. subforum, it will be by moving or copying single posts rather than whole threads. Now 150917 visits here Fasulye: Focus can be bought in Germany in the Itallian version 4 September 2009 (p. 160) ENG: Found an internet place in Korça, Albania - the keyboard has local layout, but functions like an American keyboard. GR: I could have used a few days more in Greece, because it was first on my 4. and last day (in Kastoriá) that I felt ready to make it into a monolingual holiday. Sceptical about the foreign language skills of the Albanians. ENG: I am not going to try to learn Albanian, but if I see a good textbook or grammar then I'll buy it 5 September 2009 (p. 160) IT: Now in Vlora, a coastal town with three ferry lines from Italy and therefore a strong Italian influence, - Italian is more useful here than English. ENG: I have decided to collect some of my posts in 5 guides to language learning. But I will have lots of other things to do when I return home Fasulye: finds these ideas interesting. She spends a lot of time herself on forum work 6 September 2009 (p. 160) ENG: Now in Tirana. Even during travels there are times where you don't visit museums or eat pizzas ('touristical activities'), so there is time left for the forum. I have bought a small language guide in the style of Berlitz and Lonely P, - but written in Albanian with English as the target language. Fasulye (GER): Which language group does Albanian belong to? 7 September 2009 (p. 161) Tommus: questions the -al "touristical activities" Densou: many corrections to the Italian passage I wrote in Vlorë Paranday: Random house accept 'touristical', but as a sideform to 'touristic' GER: Albanian is an indoeuropean language, but the only one in its group ENG: I used 'touristical' to get an ironical twist to the phrase IT: I am writing this answer on a computer in Durrës with an Italian keyboard. One of the errors found by Densou was a morphological slip, while the others are idiomatical. ENG: the connection disappeared while I was writing, so I had to find another internet place. Btw. we also had a minor earthquake last night (5.4 on the Richter scale). FR: I also had a conversation in French with a lady at the Archeological Museum of Dürres - and my second keyboard in Durrës has a keyboard with French letters. But English menus. Fasulye (IT) has never read a text in Albanese. But has now read many old post at the from, including some by Fanatic and Administrator. Will be visiting the planetarium in Bochum, where there is a conference on asteroids and meteorites. Is going to write an astronomical essay. 11 September 2009 (p. 161) GER: Back in Denmark, but with a stopover in Hamburg where I visited Hagenback Zoo and Aquarium plus a big bookstore named Thalia. Here I bought a lot of dictionaries and other language oriented books, including some in Platt and Asterix in Latin. Before leaving Tirana I had to throw a couple of books away because they were big and heavy, but not spot on what I needed. But I'm quite safisfied with others, including the Serbian<->English dictionary I bought for approx. 2€ in Beograd. ENG: I have also kept the Albanian textbook, even though I would have preferred a real grammar. It does seem like Albanian isn't as intractable as I had thought ENG: hyperliteral translation from Albanian into English, with comments 13 September 2009 (p. 162) ENG: Now I'm sitting at my own computer again. But I have promised to write a guide in 5 parts to language learning, so I'll do that before adding more to this log. However I have added the summary for August at pag 160. 14 September 2009 (p. 162) Artistscientist has discovered the posts from January in this thread about languages in the Philippines. Illongo is absent from a list quoted by Fasulye. Fasulye: a few comments to summary for August Artistscientist advices me to get some better Tagalog dictionaries, and the best are apparently those compiled by James Leo English (link) because they are based on word roots. ENG: I have not worked on Tagalog for months, not only because of my insufficient materials, but also because of my Balkan trip. Besides my guide takes much time to write. Fasulye: (IT) has been to Bochum to hear about meteorites, (ESP) She will get her expenses paid for the international Esperanto Congress in Copenhagen in 2011 17 September 2009 (p. 163) Fasulye: likes the new voting system here and has distributed a number of votes, and my new guide to language learning has got some of these votes. She is going to do something unusual: read a French literary book DU: understandable that Fasulye wants do read something unusual and talk about astronomy again after the marathon sessions with this forum. Thanks for the votes. 18 September 2009 (p. 163) ENG: my physical workplace is a mess today because we are moving to a new location. I have spent some time on my photos from the trip to the Balkans and on TV viewing. However my digital cable TV box doesn't function. Fasulye (FR) has bought two books in French by Jules Verne 19 September 2009 (p. 163) I can't update this log directly because there is a problem with the new language-marking system of the log room, so I will have to store the posts from this weekend somewhere else [but everything moved back today, Sept. 22] SW: watched a Swedish program with a woman who was totally crazy about mashed potates, and who had a gadget to cut them. Also a program about the Stag Beetle ( Lucanus cervus). While writing this a program about the story of the Finnish language (and of Swedish in Finland) began. rggg asks whether I have ever considered learning Finnish or Hungarian ENG: I have put my Tagalog studies on hold, and I don't think it would be a good idea to start a totally group of languages right now, - I should concentrate on the Slavic languages (not least Russian) 20 September 2009 (p. 163) LAT: Watched a program (in English) about Stonehenge while reading about Asterix & co. Not a single Celt was involved in building Stonehenge. FR: TV5 Monde celebrates its 25th anniversary. But I still don't understand why they make 'programs ' that only last a few minutes. ENG: Something about studying Albanian using a bilingual guide to Korça and a dictionary I bought in Kosovo last year. Fasulye: finds the Latin version of Asterix very useful LAT: and I like having readers who an understand what I write in Latin 21 September 2009 (p. 164) Fasulye (DU): my number of votes will be difficult to match, but the votes are also going to others, - right now she is checking out profArguelles' room. She will be attending a lecture on Kepler 22/9, and she is reading "De la terre à la lune" by Verne, who read a lot about astronomy before he wrote the book. Patuco: where did I buy the Latin Asterix? Fasulye: quotes me for buying it in Hamburg DU: Verne overlooked or disregarded the fact that anybody shot out of a canon with enough speed to reach the Moon would be squashed immediately. FR: However the plot of the Voyage to the centre of the Earth was even more impossible. it: I have been reading the Italian Focus in the bus back home from works, incl. an article about the physical location of the Garden of Eden and pictures from extraordinary airports. ENG: I have also reread my old Russian printouts about the Paleonotological Museum of Moscow Fasulye: refers to the drawings of the 'bullet' that should transport some persons to the Moon. May read the '20.000 leagues' under the sea too, -these paperbacks are rather cheap. (IT) Where did I buy the Italian issue of Focus? IT: I bought it in the airport of Tirana. The moon travellers of Verne would be squashed because a cannonball has to obtain its maximum speed before it leaves the bore, whereas a rocket will continue to accelerate for several minutes which makes for a much lower G force. Fasulye: (it) Understands now, - she had not noticed that the men were inside the cannon ball. (FR) And subterranean dinosaurs surviving for millions of years is a ridiculous idea 22 September 2009 (p. 165) ENG: I can now access my log thread again, so I have moved the content of my "Iversen's interim log post dump" to the log. Vilas (IT): this thread has no head or tail, but is as confused as indicated in the title, and he doesn't understand a 'emerito cactus' of it (an eufemism in Italian, but also a reference to the language evaulation system of the forum) IT: Well, it does have a head, but no tail. 23 September 2009 (p. 165) GR: I spent almost two hours reading stuff in the forum of http://www.kypros.org, and afterwards I did some intensive reading at the beginning of Hesiod's Theogony. Ancient Greek doesn't seem as incomprehensible to me now as it did just a few months ago, but I find the number of diacritical signs and accents quite bewildering Metaphrastria: These signs were introduced during the Byzantine period, where the old polytonal pronunciation system broke down. Ancient Greek sounded much different from Modern Greek. ENG: So the classical Greeks had a tonal system, but because everyone knew the tones no one bothered to mark them. When that system started to break down during the byzantine period someone decided to indicate the tones, but this didn't save the old pronunciation, it just cluttered the orthography Vilas wonders whether there is a special section in my brain for each language EUR: my log thread is just like Europanto, just with more than one word in each language (NB: Vilas was once very active in the Europanto thread) Fasulye asks whether I have planned to add tags to my log thread 24 September 2009 (p. 166) DU: no tags, - what should I choose? This thread is too heterogenous for tags DA (hyperliteral): About postcards to my travel club and about Danish numerals IT: Something in the Italian magazine "Focus" about the European satellite Herschel Fasulye to Patuco: the Latin Asterixes can be bought in German bookstores ROM: I have just received a Romanian and a Finnish grammar (Routledge) which I ordered through the internet. My old Romanian grammar (Alf Lombard) was good, but printed from a dactylographed copy and therefore almost illegible, - and also written for the old orthography PLA: Today's busreading: Ines Barber: "Geiht da ok'n beten fixer?" SW: Excellent Swedish nature program on TV from Öland ENG (to Patuco): reference to the airport in Gibraltar, where a road crosses the landing strip of the airport 25 September 2009 (p. 166) Densou: corrections to my last Italian passage ENG: There are traces in the Danish of a numbersystem based on 20, not 10. But you don't need to understand these traces, just learn them Fasulye: this is reassuring Rameau: fiinds the 'halv-something' in the Danish number system particularly troublesome, and also draws the attention to the inversed order of the 1's and the 10's Darobat: humorous Norwegian sketch about Danish at Youtube Lizzern's grandpa switched from Norwegian to German, when he was speaking to a Dane and the Dane started to count Tommus: the inversion mentioned by Rameau also occurs in Dutch Patuco: finds it bloody annoying when a start or landing at the airport of Gibraltar blocks the main road 26 September 2009 (p. 167) FR: The French also have traces of a 'hands-and-feet' number system based on 20 GER: We have guests from Berlin in my travelclub. The funny thing is that their club is extremely loosely organized, while our club is organized with a member list, home page, journal and rules. Somewhat unexpected to hear so many Copenhageners speak quite good German ENG: strange signs made by hotel computer 27 September 2009 (p. 168) Fasulye: Spends so much times tagging threads that she hardly has time for anything else. Has bought "Science et Avenir" (in French) at Düsseldorf Hauptbahnhof FR: I have removed the strange signs made by the hotel computer in Copenhagen GER: Long day the day before: I visited three bookstores, but only bought a Finnish-Danish dictionary. Then I visited 8 items on the official list of sights in Copnhagen, and in the evening I participated in a meeting with the Berliners. I taught two Berlinerinnen the basics of Danish, using comparative methods. 'Today' (27/9) I visited Roskilde, including the Viking Ship museum. Fasulye (GER): thought she had deleted my latest post (by pressing "edit" instead of "quote"), but it was saved - probably because I still had a copy on the screen for editing. GER: the syntax of the sentence "ist mir das peinlich" is quite interesting FR: "Science et avenir" seems to be linked to the magazine "Nouvel Observateur". The corresponding homepage has some interesting articles, including one about IBM entering the field of automatic translations with a human touch Fasulye: the homepage of "Science et avenir" has other articles than the magazine, which costs 6,50€ 28 September 2009 (p. 168) PORT: I first put order in my photos from COpenhagen, and then I watched Brazilian educational TV, - first FAAP, then the program "Biosfera" from Rede Mundial, and finally something from Paraná (all three through wwiTV.com, where there are no less than 98 totally free programs from Brazil alone) 29 September 2009 (p. 169) Pauline/Jar-Ptitsa (GER) is back. She finds Brazilian TV funny. In a following post as usual some pictures. 29 September 2009 (p. 169) GER: To Jar-Ptitsa/Pauline: To get an avatar at your name you have to be a either pro-mumber or a moderator or both. IT: In Raiuno seen a program that commemorated a string of quizzes and other entertainment programs back to the times where TV was still shown in black and white SP: TVE news with the tale about all the extra work for the Danish police caused by a big ecology conference in Copenhagen AND a visit by Obama, who allegedly is here to promote Chicago as an Olympic city - poor Chicago, who may have to host that monstrous cirkus. GR: I have read some articles in the Greek magazine "Science Illustrated", including one about black holes. 30 September 2009 (p. 169) FR: An interview in French with David Tammet on Youtube ENG: A comment to some of Steven Kaufmann's videos, with a reference to a 7part double interview with him and Robyn Matthews Both Jar-Ptitsa and Fasulye have seen and commented on the interview with Tammett. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6484 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 12 of 42 07 June 2010 at 2:51pm | IP Logged |
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SUMMARY FOR OCTOBER 2009
1 October 2009 (p. 170) Fasulye (DU) has returned to her own vocabulary learning methods after some experimenting with my kind of wordlists. Said to be too time consuming and problematic for lefthanded people 2 October 2009 (p. 170) CAT: I have bought a notebook for my mother, so now I have to transfer a lot of photographs and other things to it. But I did find time for some Catalan TV (Espai Terra from TV3) through the internet … IC: ,,, and I have also watched some Icelandic TV from RUv, but it is mostly just the news, the weather and a program called Kastljós that are put on the internet. GER: The wordlist method can be adapted for lefthanded use, but OK that Fasulye wants to try her own method Lingua: "The backside of this" not correct, - "backside" not used as "bagdel" in Danish ENG: I have changed 'backside' into 'downside'. Danish 'bagdel' is fairly informal (=bum) - the neutral word is 'bagside' (often in the fixed expression 'bagsiden af medaljen') Fasulye (GER): not "try", but "return to" her usual methods 3 October 2009 (p. 171) Densou wants to say 'hvordan har du det / hvordan går det ?' in Danish. Also corrections to my Italian rant from 30/9. 4 October 2009 (p. 161) IT: One of Densou's corrections has something to do with a sentence with "il pubblico" (the public), which is in the singular, and therefore I had used a singular verb. Both ENG: Danish expressions are correct. Fasulye: Knows these expressions. Has had an hourlong Skype conversation with another Youtube polyglot Amir: he spoke Portuguese, and she spoke Spanish FR: The small laptop I bought for my mother could only show 600 pixels vertically, - ouch! I didn't bring any dictionaries, but found an old French-Danish dictionary from 1933 in her collection and used it for some wordlists. Besides I had brought a couple of small language guides (Finnish, Hungarian) plus an Old French Syntax from 1930. SP: Watched a quiz for children on TVE, - they correctly found out that Lisboa was the largest town in Spain around 1600, but had much trouble with a simple letter game. GER: Saw a program yesterday at Phoenix about the 'forgotten pharao' Radjedjef (oder Djedefre), whose pyramid as been destroyed. Leopejo (IT): The Italian phrase with "Il Pubblico" has not this word, but "gli Italiani" as subject, therefore the verb should be in the plural IT: I had indeed interpreted my own phrase as if it had "Il Pubblico" as the subject Crush: I have writen "peró" several places insead of "pero" in my Spanish rant, - and "sopraviver" instead of "sobrevivir"? Leopejo: Maybe influence from Italian "però" 5 October 2009 (p. 171) ENG: Correct, - I had been reading Italian homepages before writing that text in Spanish 6 October 2009 (p. 172) SP: I returned home 3 weeks ago, but first now found time to glue my photographs into my photoalbum no. 39, while watching a program in Spanish about Spaniards who live in other countries. The first group lived in Seoul, - which makes me mention the Koran national dish Kimchi (rotten cabbage). At least one had tried to learn some Korean. FR: The second bunch of Spaniards lived at the French Côte d'Azur. My bus reading today was the Ancient French syntax by Foulet. I have several book with texts and an Old French->Modern French dictionary, but not one the other way. 7 October 2009 (p. 172) LAT: The Latin web-newspaper Ephemeris told this time about a skeleton of a Neanderthal child with some cutmarks that might indicate cannibalism - maybe sapientses eating neandertalers. Also something about the neck position of Sauropods. Fasulye asks or a link. 8 October 2009 (p. 172) LAT: Several links given. More about Sauropod neck positions Fasulye (GER): Has dropped her Tukish study group, so now she has to publish regularly in her TAC to keep the momentum GER: Good that she isn't a beginner anymore in Turkish. My Latin has benefited from reading Asterix in Latin. Also nice to return to Ephemeris. RU: Something about the mysterious Tunguska incident in 1908, conceivably caused by an exploding comet. Fasulye: Has had the study group for 1½ year and kept to a strict study rhythm, which should be continued even without the group. Btw. has read/heard that the Tunguska thing was a meteorite, - the comet theory is new 9 October 2009 (p. 173) ENG: The specialists still don't agree about the Tunguska incident, and Wikipedia in different languages also disagree. Fasulye: Was told that it was a meteorite at the planetarium (= her new 'portrait'). Was absent from a lecture about this thing in her local astromy club. ENG: More about Tunguska, with links Fasulye: Busy tagging the threads of the forum, can't find time to read enough about Tunguska DaraghM (SP): There is right now a satellite underwas to the Moon, where it will crash in order to give information about the water supply. SP: One of my collegues mentioned this experiment (I have found more about it on the internet). This is an unmanned expedition, and good so. Jar-Ptitsa (SP): Is also against manned expeditions. And the extraterrestrials function in another dimention with more flexibility Jar-Ptitsa (DU): Can only see nonsensical letters when she searches for things on the forum. DU: No idea about the reason for this Jar-Ptitsa (DU): It seems to be something that has hit members that aren't PRO (i.e. haven't paid a subscription). She wanted to see which of her posts had received votes in the new voting system. Felipe: "Alunizaje" (moon landing) SP: thanks to Felipe ENG: I have tried to find the posts that Jar-Ptitsa wanted to see. But mostly I have spent my time running around town - there has been something called a "Culture Night" (though it is an evening event) Fasulye: from member Johannes she knows that non-Pro, but registered members again can access the last 10 posts by a certain member, - a bug has been fixed 10 October 2009 (p. 175) Jar-Ptitsa: Sees the 10 posts mentioned above, but rubbish with other searches. FInds this is annoying. Crush: Uses Google (there is a new Google search button) ENG: More about searching. I mention my monthly summaries and the "Edited by" below almost all my posts. Spent an evening transferring the content of the magazine of my travel club to our homepage Jar-Ptitsa: could pay a Pro membership, but what then if she is thrown out? (which actually happened soon after) ENG: If other members are nasty to Jar-Ptitsa the new corps of moderators will take action. Found Jar-Ptitsa's 10 month old post that had got a vote. FR (+ IT, GER, RO): Photos of books and magazines bought during my Balkan trip - plus the front of a translation office in Drobeta-Turnu Severin. Fasulye (GER): Recognizes a couple of Pons dictionaries GER: Pons GER<-->Bokmål (Norwegian) and GER -> ICE IT: I watch "L'eredità" and "Passaggio all'Ovest" at Raiuno Jar-Ptitsa: Glad to hear that the moderators will stop attacks on her, glad to know which post had received a vote, celebrating this with 3 pictures (including a big colorful Jar-Ptitsa-like peacock) 13 October 2009 (p. 176) ENG: The big pictures became Jar-Ptitsa's bane. She put 3 woodpeckers on the screen in another thread and received a warning, to which she reacted by writing that she didnt want to write here more. And from there things escalated. The end resultat was that her Jar-Ptitsa account was closed, but kept visible - so the big peacock from the 10/10 became her last contribution to this log (and to the forum). Apart from that: I spent the evening organising my travel report and uploading the magazine of my travel club, while watching lectures in English at the Ted.com site, followed by a nature program from Sweden 14 October 2009 (p. 176) FR: Comment to a program on TF2 about the conditions of the court hourse in Aix in France DA (with hyperliteral translation): Something about travels made by members of my travel club: one has visited the Eastern part of DR Congo and got out alive, another went to Shanghai to watch a complete solar eclipse, and then it started to rain precisely when the eclipse happened Fasulye: noticed the word "solformörkelse" (Solformørkelse) ENG: something about this word Fasulye (ESP): has noticed that I have started a Cyrillic alphabetical game. Has been to an Esperanto meeting, learnt about the African country Mali. Asks whether I know the Esperanto slang expressions "krokodili", "aligatori" kaj "kajmani". SP: Watching a program about old human bones and about adult Spaniards who try to learn English GER: Also a program in German about an elderly Polish owner of a barbershop i St.Pauli, Hamburg ESP: Something about some crocodile-like animals and the almost homonymous Esperantean notions -for instance "krokodili"= when some persons keep others out of a discussion by speaking their native language (instead of Esperanto) 15 October 2009 (p. 176) Fasulye (ESP): illustrates the crocodile-like notions with concrete examples ESP: systematic lists over these expression, using quotes from the Esperanto Wikipedia. Description of the gavial Fasulye: polyglots shouldn't crocodile, but it does happen at Esperanto congresses 16 October 2009 (p. 177) ESP: Surprised that crocodiling is allowed at those congresses FR: Very peaceful time at my office - it is the Autumn holiday in Denmark. My current Bus-back-home-rom-work book: the old Ancient French syntax by Foulet (mentioned earlier) NOR: Watching Norwegian news quiz - with humorous stabs at the man who announce the Peace Nobel Price of Obama GR: intensive reading about eye colours and elephant tusks in the Greek "Science Illustrated" Lizzern: I have used the word "stikkpille" in my Norwegian text, - in Danish it can be used about jokes, but in Norwegian it can only be used about medicine you put up your bum (my German-Norwegian Langenscheidt has got an error here). Besides the Nobel price announcer had another personal name. 17 October 2009 (p. 177) Fasulye (DU): Her log thread had been deleted through an inadvertent error by a moderator DU: That's bad! Jar-Ptitsa's log was deleted deliberately, but Fasulye's was erased accidentally, and that could happen to anybody - but I have a copy in Word at least of my own posts SW: I have watched a TV program mostly in Finnish, but with Swedish subtitles, and the theme was: are Finns less fashion-conscious than Swedes? If so I would see that as a positive sign, but there was no clear conclusion. Also something a a group of sign language students who wanted to become interpreters. Fasulye: Our administrator has rescued Fasulye's log from the trash bin 19 October 2009 (p. 178) DA (with hyperliteral translation): Report from a Travel fair in Øksnehallen in Copenhagen ("øksne": an old Danish synonym for Eng. "oxen") SP: Something about a volcano on one of the Canary Islands. It has a rift that means that a large part of it could slide into the sea, which would produce a very large tsunami. I wrote "Teide" on Tenerife, but.. Fasulye: proud that she already can understand parts of the Danish thread in the multilingual forum after two lessons of Danish Tommus: the correct volcano is the one on La Palma (Viejo Cumbre) SP: I haven't visited the Canary Islands, but my mother has been there twice. When I go - among other things to visit the Loro Parque - I'm going to visit more than a single island, unlike most visitors. And I'll try to find placesto stay where I don't hear and see German and English all the time. 20 October 2009 (p. 179) POR: I haven't been to the Canary Island, but I have visited Cape Verde - and not just the flat ugly island Sal where the plane lands, but also two other islands. I studied hard one month before leaving, and because I already knew Spanish and some other relevant languages I could speak some Portuguese when I arrived. Later I have had several holidays where I tried to avoid speaking anything but Portuguese (Moçambique, Portugal). In 2008 I visited the Açores with my mother. 22 October 2009 (p. 179) GR: I have read some parts of a Greek language guide by the French editor Harrap. LAT: I have watched a program (in English) from National Geographic about the origin of the Earth, - with a short turbulent period in and then several billion years without much drama. Fasulye (ESP): Has been to a meeting in Düsseldorf with some other Esperanto 'samideanoj'. She won't confuse Danish and Turkish. 23 October 2009 (p. 179) ESP: Why should she confuse them? IC: I have read about gamma ray bursts and about 'bad astronomy' in Icelandic on the internet FR: More Old French syntax, - this time about subordinate structures and about negations 24 October 2009 (p. 179) Fasulye: Started to learn Danish in 2003, but dropped it. Will now learn it in alternation with Turkish. 25 October 2009 (p. 180) DU: In principle I have the goal to learn all Germanic and Romance languages, but for practical reasons Faroese, Frisian, Sardic and some other languages are not on my immediate agenda. Fasulye will certainly be able to learn Danish before 2011, where she's going to visit Copenhagen RO: I have watched a lecture in Romanian on http://Stiinta.ro, where different ways of counteracting the upcoming climatic problems were discussed 26 October 2009 (p. 180) My cable TV provider Yousee has announced that some of my favorite programs will cost (even more) money in the future, and at least one Norwegian and one German program will be thrown out. Instead I get a pile of Danophone rubbish for fools and children plus just one single program that I might conceivably want to watch. Ultimately the solution is to kick out the cable provider and get all my TV through the internet. Fasulye: bad news Siberiano (RUS): How can I keep all those languages in my head without mixing them RU: The problem isn't that I might mix them, but rather that keeping all those languages alive makes it difficult to give new and/or weak languages sufficient time and attention - and Russian is one language that has suffered under this Fasulye: Danish will be her first language learnt entirely through selfstudy. 2011 is her deadline, - I'm an optimist, and she sees it as a challenge SII (RUS): corrections to my Russian text: one totally wrong word, one wrong 'aspect partner' and some spelling errors. 27 October 2009 (p. 181) Inspired by Administrator's language map project I have done some research on the internet about the percentages of the population in different countries that speak whichever languages. One conclusion is that the European languages that have become official languages in Africa generally are only spoken by a minority of the local populations - but as a tourist you will meet a disproportionate large number of these people. GER: I'm watching a program on ZDF about the fall of the Berlin Wall Administrator's uncle has brought home a piece of the wall. He wonders whether the two populations in the divided city spoke differently Zeta has got a list in her German class with words that were different in East and West, eg. die Jahresendflügelfigur - der Engel (invisible): finds this expression very funny (and writes 6 invisible posts about it) (me): different institutions and media will give lexical differences, but I would be surprised to see differences in grammar and pronunciation after such a (relatively) short period 29 October 2009 (p. 182) GER: I have read the thread about the Expolingua, but I don't have enough holiday days left to go there SPA: Something about the very Spanish music of Pablo de Sarasate - and about the effect of language on musical style 30 October 2009 (p. 182) Something about the usability site of Jakob Nielsen - apparently internet users skip 4/5 of all but the shortest texts - bad for a verbose multiposter at the upper range of the Zipf trianglw Captain Haddock: most verbose internet pages are devoid of content, but he reads some sites to the last word DA: Noget om Niels Hausgaard and the Danish dialect called Vendsysselsk FRIULEAN: hyperliteral translation 31 October 2009 (p. 182) Hobbema: find the idea of an effect on music from language interesting, is clearly heavily into classical music with a preference for pieces written in his own country, the USA ENG: Taken literally this idea can just be a vague hypothesis. But in the formation of separate folk music traditions a lot of factors are relevant, and the 'melody' of the local languages is in all likelihood one of them. Sarasate's Basque piece is clearly inspired by the Basque language, but not necessarily by genuine Basque folk music - it could be seen as program music Number of hits (1/11-09 15.18): 182.032 ... and this is my post no. 3001 Edited by Iversen on 07 June 2010 at 2:51pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6484 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 13 of 42 07 June 2010 at 2:52pm | IP Logged |
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SUMMARY FOR NOVEMBER 2009
1 November 2009 (p. 183) ENG (answering a message from Hobbema): I have collected classical music on cassettes for many years, but my last big collection - which includes a lot of classical US American music - dates from 1991-92. FR: I have scanned my mother's 140 photographs from a family tour to the Loire valley, where we averaged 2 palaces per day SW: I have watched a TV program in Swedish about a Swedish rapper from Uruguay, whose mother pronounced "Castellano" as "Casteshano". GER: I have also watched a program about Archbichop Willigis and the building of the Cathedral in Mainz Hobbema: has had few discusions about classical US American music, i.e. people like Roy Harris and Walter Piston. Something about the sources for both this and European music 2 November 2009 (p. 183) ENG: One reason for the relative silence about classical American music is that is started late and soon drowned in jazz and other kinds of socalled 'rythmical' music. Persojnally I have played the recorder, the violin, the cello and some piano. I stopped playing when I stopped composing music - now I only listen. 3 November 2009 (p. 183) Hobbema: A book called “Piano Lessons” by Noah Adams told him not to worry whether he would ever be the best player, and this also inspired him to start learning languages. About wordlists: by folding the paper you could alleviate some of the problems for lefthanders 4 November 2009 (p. 183) ENG: The music played at concerts obeys Zipf's law: a few works dominate. This law also governs things like no. of posts on language forums. More about the chirality of three column wordlists. FR: My current bus-back-from-work book is "Parlons Georgien". I want to know the alphabet and something about the grammar, but I am not going to learn the language. Tommus: in Dutch the word "dan" means both "then" and "than" - is it the same in Danish (I had made a printing error that might suggest this?) ENG: No, its roles are divided between "så" and "end" 5 November 2009 (p. 184) AF: I have read some articles in an old magazine "Weg" which I bought in Jo'burg, including one about a car trip to the Zimbabwe ruins. IC: I have read the articles about chess in the Icelandic Wikipedia, - it is a popular sport up there LAT: Something about the Roman cookbook by Apicius, a rich and gluttonous man who committed suicide when he had spent all his money on fine food IT: Something about an old Italian cookbook in the tradition of Apicius. I point to an Itaian idiomatic expression that literally indicates that the food - here birds- wants to be cooked and eaten. I doubt that. Hobbema: will find some music by Sarasate and listen to it (I had written about it at the end of October). An anecdote about Mozart: once his father left the harpsichord without playing the last chord in a piece. Little Mozart then sneaked out of his bed to play the missing chord - otherwise he couldn't sleep. ENG: Sarasate was one of the best of a generation of violinistic composers/players who followed in the footsteps of Paganini 6 November 2009 (p. 184) Hobbema: Something about musicians wo allegedly had sold their soul to the devil, - and also a brief comment about Paganini's hands. Liszt mentioned as an example of a musician who could strike the balance between virtuosity and musicianship. ENG: Something about Liszt and about Youtube FR: More comments to my Georgian bookk, this time about the nominal morphology Hobbema: Wasn't aware of the historical context of people like Liszt. He is right now listening to the Vaughan-Williams symphonies. Reference to some macabre legends about Paganini's doublejointed fingers and surgery on Liszt's hands. Pohaku: link to material about Paganini and some of his music. Liszt was Wagner's father-in-law. ENG: I don't believe the histories about surgery on Liszt's hands, - he wouldn't have risked it. However the psychically instable composer Robert Schumann spoiled his hand with a contraption of his own concoction, and that put an end to his career as a pianist. Paganaini might have had Marfan's illness whichamong other things gives long and loose fingers. He wasn't an alien from outer space. CAT: Through Pohaku's link to the Newyorker I ended up reading the homepage of the "Palau de Musica" in Barcelona (!), and I listened to a couple of videoclips there Hobbema: "doublejointed" fingers don't have two joints, they are just more agile than common joints. This is mentioned in a biography about Paganini, with reference to his personal physician. ENG: I didn't know the meaning of "double-jointed" - a hole in my knowledge about English! Funny that a violin maker also can be called a "luthier" (after the family of string instruments that preceded the violin family), and that the violin itself can be called a "fiddle" (after a medieval instrument) Meramarina: Knows the expression 'doublejointed' too well - from personal experience. A reference to Renoir, whose fingers were spoiled by arthritis. Amused by the tale in another thread about my first English word being "Yabadabadoo!" (from The Flintstones) 7 November 2009 (p. 185) Hobbema: Has himself some beginning finger problems due to arthritis. Interesting reference to Renoir, but fears that I will throw him and Meramarina out for discussing art ENG: Then I should also throw myself out - reference to the messages with my own paintings from around July 7 in this thread. My own involvement with art was discovered rather accidentally, because I had used a picture with my own paintings in the background for an interview at the foreign-languages-guide.com site. 8 November 2009 (p. 185) POR: revisit to the site of TV Ciencia, which has a miserable collection of old clips - nothing like the excellent site I used for learning Portuguese in 2006. But the streaming program is still somewhat useful, and the archive for written articles is actually quite good. I read for instance an article about mysterious finds of methane on Mars. ENG: the etymology of the English word 'loo' Hobbema (ENG/DU/POR): likes my paintings, especially the one about the Old Norse poem Völuspá. ENG: Something about the poems and about translating Old Norse DU: Something about a backdoor http://player.omroep.nl/?aflid=*** to www.avro.nl, where there is a lot of video clips in Dutch (AVRO Museum TV was once a part of this system, but it has stopped) 9 November 2009 (p. 186) Hobbema (POR): a question about the sources for the style of Völuspá and other paintings, - Munch, Bosch? POR: The style is surrealistic, and among the main influences I would mention cartoons. I painted in a cultural institution called 'Huset' (the house), but it became more and more difficult to find space and peace, and I didn't want to do it at home in a one-room flat. So I stopped. FR: Something about the verbal system of Georgian SP: A TV program about Spanish expats in Etiopia GR: While watching the Spanish program I was reading in one of my Greek magazines, and then I began taking notes from Spanish, but written in the Greek alphabet 10 November 2009 (p. 186) SW: I'm working at home today (Nov 10), so at the same time I can watch Swedish television: a program about the Swedish-Estonian lady who illustrated most of Astrid Lindgrens books (though not Pippi). 12 November 2009 (p. 186) RU: The 'Slavic bookstore' at the Students' house in Århus has closed SII: corrections to my Russian message Fasulye: Has been absent from my log thread during the long discussion about classical music. has been busy with Spanish and Turkish and with a new string of Youtube videos from Glossika, and has thrown out some old books to make rooms for new ones. DU: something about Glossika's expression "triangulation" from one of his videos. FR: I have finished the book about Georgian. In French TV (TF2) I have seen a program about people who because of the crisis have had to take up badly paid jobs GR: I have read some pages at www.sciencedaily.gr, including one about the mighty hadron collider of CERN that has been out of service for almost a year. In the meantime some Chinese scientists have produced black holes, and the Earth didn't disappear in a puff. 15 November 2009 (p. 186) Hobbema: About "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand. The idea is that the "movers and shakers" of society might go on strike by taking menial jobs instead of struggling. 16 November 2009 (p. 186) ENG: I doubt that they would take those jobs, but they might stop moving and shaking and just let inertia rule instead. FR: Something about a TV program on Arte in French, where our place within the realm of all living things was explained on the bases not of the usual tree with us at the top, but instead of a round structure with the oldest common ancester ('Luca') at the centre and us somewhere at the periphery DA: Several featherclad dinos have been found in China in the last 10-20 years, but they have all been Saurischia (which is the group from which birds developed),. However now one from the other group Ornithischia as been found (seen in "Videnskabens Verden") GER: In the same magazine there was an article about a 35.000 years old bone flute. Something about the philosophical implications. Hobbema (ENG/DU/POR): too many bad people in big jobs as CEO in the US Fasulye: A list of Danish words that she has gleaned from my mention of the Chinese dino DA: The same text again, this time with a hyperliteral translation. NB the species has been named after Confucius ENG: Homo sapiens has existed for at least 200.000 years, but for 150.000 nothing much happened in their culture ... then suddenly an explosion of creativity. Why? POR: something about CEO's 17 November 2009 (p. 187) ENG: A reference toanother thread about adapted placenames, where some members took exception to the idea that that foreign names generally should be pronounced in a form reasonably close to the original, even though this rule has to be bend in some cases to accommodate inflexible traditions. Something about an article by W.Decco, where he in humouristic terms describes the pendulum motions of language teaching since the mid 1800s. IC: I have red some articles at the homepage of Lifandi Vísindi, including one that states that shopaholics have the same kind of reaction in their brains as amphetamine users. Fasulye: Has been corresponding with a Danish girl on Youtube who wants to become a polyglot 18 November 2009 (p. 188) ENG: Something about word order in Danish and Icelandic Mick33: A reaction to the article about language learning and its vagaries. Strange that behaviourism ever has been taken seriously as the fundament for language learning. Fasulye (DU): Anmoder om navnene på danske astronomiske tidsskrifter DU: Names of four astronomical (or physical/astronomical) journals in Danish Fasulye (DU): What's the price level of those journals? 19 November 2009 (p. 188) DU: no idea, but "Illustreret Videnskab" costs 8-9 €, and it has recently opened its archives at its home page. Fasulye (DU): not bad, - "Sky & Teleskope" costs 13,50€. "Illustreret Videnskab" looks interesting. 20 November 2009 (p. 189) IT: A bird has been singing in another place about a book called "The centre can't hold". This title reminded me of Yeats, and then I started looking for magnificent beginnings of monumental books. First the beginning of Milton's Paradise Lost, which I found a tad weak DA/ENG: This reminded me of the beginning of an old, but good translation into Danish of Homer's Iliad. After this of course the original version in 'Old Greek' IT: Finally the beginning of Dante's Divina Commeddia. I have read the whole thing in the 70s, but found the Purgatory and Heaven parts somewhat bland and boring in comparison with the Hell part. Fasulye: not "old", but "Ancient Greek" 21 November 2009 (p. 189) ENG: Some Google-based research into the use of 'Old' vs. 'Ancient' with language names. Greek and Chinese seems to be the exception with their epithete 'ancient'. B.t.w. I'm scanning my mother's photos from 2003 and up, - which has become relevant since she got a notebook computer and a screen. Comments to a TV program called "Future superhumans", - with sections about things that might be relevant for language learning such as pills to accelerate memorizing and thinking, a computer screen on a contact lense, drugs that can make mice and (maybe) men slim and longlived, plus the promise of a drug that simply blocks the mechanism that is responsible for ageing. Gusutafu: "Ancient" Greek is not the same thing as "Classical" Greek ENG: true, - Classical Greek refers mainly to the works of authors that wrote in Attic Greek during a periode of a few hundred years. "Ancient Greek" is a wider notion. The use of "Greek" alone to denote Ancient (or Classical) Greek is obsolete, - it reflects the interests of a few scholars that didn't care about the later development of the Greek language. However nowadays 'Greek' can just as well refer to Modern Greek, i.e. Dhimotiki. And that's how I use it because I so far haven't studied Ancient Greek. 23 November 2009 (p. 189) ENG: The log thread passed 200.000 views sometime since my last message. Thanks to all contributors. Fasulye: Congratulations. Will be searching for a new job . Hobbema: Congratulations. Has been listening to Sarasate. POR: Will be studying Brazilian music with an eye on the African influence (among others) Mick33 (AF): Congratulations. Doesn't find it confused or confusing. Understands some parts better than others. POR: Brazil has one and only one worldfamous classical composer, Heitor Villa-Lobos, and it is difficult even to find anything at all by his collegues. In contrast the country has a thriving scene for popular and rhythmical music, such as bossa-nova and samba. ENG: I recently saw Oliver Sacks' Musicophilia lecture, and now I have reread his book about a man who mistook his wife for a hat. I have even painted this book. DA + hyperliteral translation: I have found a book about conducting in the cellars of our local library, written by no less than Richard Wagner and printed with 'Gothic' letters (Fraktur in German, - a word that makes me associate to brooken legs). GER: First a scanned clip from the book, then comments to the rather harsh - but probably welldeserved - comments of Wagner to the orchestras and conductors of his day. 24 November 2009 (p. 190) Fasulye: Glossika has published a new series of video lectures, where he among other things tell about the internation 'pronunciation alphabet' IPA, and Fasulye wants to learn it Buttons: Not surprised that this log has passed 200.000 readers GER: I have had a look at IPA at Wikipedia, and I think that it will be too cumbersome for practical use - for instance I haven't got a clue as to how it can be written at the internet. It is obviously very relevant in scientific descriptions of languages, but for me as a privat person I'll make do with simpler systems based on normal letters. 25 November 2009 (p. 190) LAT: Ephemeris has apparently had a reference to Italian primeminister Berlusconi's feud with the juridical system of his country. This innocuous comment got an angry reply in an Italian newspaper, where the kind of Latin that Ephemeris represents was repudiated in fairly gross terms. 28 November 2009 (p. 191) Tommus (DU): Something about the upcoming climate conference in Copenhagen, which is going to attract protesters (and cause a masive need for interpretaers and translators). Also a remark about a new rule that says that people who teach languages should have immersion stays as part of their education. ENG: I expect the conference to be a futile fight between indifferent politicians and ecologists (who sometimes are so fanatical that they can't tolerate conflicting views), - and in the streets there will be gangs running around that just want to cause chaos and violence. Such conferences should be relegated to the Antarctic iceshelf. DU: When the conference starts I may have a few comments. I didn't know about the new rule for language teachers. SP: Comments to an interview with the Argentinean author Alberto Manguel in my daily newspaper LAT: Ephemeris also had an article about the Amazonian tribe Pirahã, whose language lacks some of the most fundamental categories such as tempus, colors and numbers. Besides it can't express things that haven't been seen by me, you or a first hand witness. Fasulye is going to Venlo to meet a Dutch friend - and to visit a good bookshop there. Edited after the visit: it didn't result in any science books, but she bought a book about Italian cooking and another (with a CD) about Dutch Christmas charols. And she saw three women dressed up as Black Pieter 29 November 2009 (p. 192) Hello from Recht Hobbema: link to a video about the Pirahã GER: I have once seen the German couple Skt.Nicolaus + Knecht Ruprecht FR: I have been to the annual general assembly in my travel club, so I have had at least three hours train travel in each direction for language studies (plus several hours at my hotel). I found and bought a Serbian magazine at the Main Railway station in Copenhagen, and it doesn't look too scary - thanks to my rudimentary Russian I can understand much of it even without a dictionary. 30 November 2009 (p. 192) Tommus (DU): more about the climate conference in Copenhagen, a report about the consequences of a 2 meter rise in the sea level and other scary ecological themes, plus a reference to a publication called Copenhagen News which is distributed for free in Copenhagen. DU: I don't trust the politicians at the conference, and I have also lost faith in the environmentalists. Besides it has clearly become politically incorrect to mention the population explosion in some parts of the world - but it is still an important risk. SII (ENG): Russian text corrected ENG: comments to the corrections 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6484 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 14 of 42 07 June 2010 at 2:53pm | IP Logged |
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SUMMARY FOR DECEMBER 2009
1 December 2009 (p. 192) SII: corrections to my Russian text from Nov. 30 ENG/RU: comments to corrections from SII ENG: a comment about the Danish 'stød' (mostly seen as a global stop) SII: comments to my comments to the corrections to my Russian text from Nov. 30 ENG: answer to SII's comments to my comments to the corrections to my Russian text from Nov. 30 SII: the level of grammatical correctness in Russia has fallen after the fall of the Sovjet Union 2 December 2009 (p. 192) SP: something about a stair in Copán with inscriptions about the Mayan kings there, and something about the downfall of the Mayan culture. RU: more comments to the downfall of the mayas, based on a Russian site 3 December 2009 (p. 192) ENG/SER: Something about my attempts to read a maazine in Serbian which I bought at the Copenhagen Main Station, - including articles about the late patriarch Pavlje and other clerics. Hyperliteral translation of a passage from an article about a Russian oil town in Sibiria 4 December 2009 (p. 192) GER: Omtale af en tysksproget artikel om 'brune dværge' på hjemmesiden www.alphagalileo.org (brune dværge er små kolde stjerner). But most articles are in English, and there are several articles about the upcoming climate conference in Copenhagen. FR: Another article at the same site tells about photos of some bright and very young stars taken with a new kind of telecope without a lens or mirrors, a socalled a 'Multi-conjugate Adaptive optics Demonstrator' SII: corrections to my Russian passage from Dec. 2 6 December 2009 (p. 193) Fasulye (GER): About a lecture in her astronomy club Tommus (DU): About the climate conference (based on the internet newspaper Kopenhagen Post) ENG/RU: comments to the latest round of corrections from SII DU: A comment to a passage in Tommus' summary where he mentions an offer from prostitutes in Copenhagen to serve registrered delegates for free (as a response to a plea from the 'over'mayor urging them not to use the services of these ladies) GER: About 'genial daneben', which I from now on only can see during visits to my mother because I have lost the channel SAT1. Also something about TV programs discussing the movements of astronauts in space ANYA (RU): a reference to a very philosophical Russian text about selfstudy SII: comments to my comments to his corrections to my Russian text from Dec 2, including references to his own problems with English 7 December 2009 (p. 194) Fasulye (ENG) points out that Danish hasn't got cases, contrary to German ENG: cases as such is not a problem for me, because I know languages like German and Latin. But the use of cases in Russian is sometimes unexpected 8 December 2009 (p. 195) PLATT: JW asked in another thread about a transcript with the Lord's Prayer (Paternoster) in Low German. I repete it here and add some comments about Low German dictionaries and orthography Tommus (DU): more about the climate conference JW: thanks for the transcript, gives a link to a site with an online Low German dictionary PLATT: It has been raining all but three days in November in Denmark, and the Transsibirian railway takes too long time for someone as impatient as me 10 December 2009 (p. 195) ENG: I have listened to Laoshu5050's videoclip where he mentions other Youtube polyglots. PLATT: I have looked the High German word 'bereits' (already) up in the dictionary referenced by JW, and I got some weird results. I have also heard a clip from Radio Bremen, stating that one in five young persons in that area speak Platt, - well, I doubt that GR: Something about new finds of dinosaurs in Australia, based on an article in the Greek edition of "Science Illustrated" 11 December 2009 (p. 196) ENG: My computer was infected by a virus... CAT: About a series of short articles in "Sàpiens" about suspicious sudden deaths, including those of pope John Paul l, the Roman emperor Augustus and emperor Otto III of the German-Roman empire ENG: More about cleaning my computer Fasulye: Bad luck with that virus, but at least I could do something about it myself Hobbamy: Today's viruses are downright nasty. Also something about MalwareByte's software 11 December 2009 (p. 196) ENG: More about the virus Juan M: the link to a progam called Spyware Terminator PLATT: Back to Low German: some proverbs and sayrings from www.deutsch-plattdeutsch.de. Stranges results from its dictionary with the High German word "speziell" (--> thin coffee, urine) Fasulye (DA!): has installed the plugin Silverlight and can now see Danish TV clips (from a newspaper) 12 December 2009 (p. 196) GER: more links to Danish newspaper sites with video clips Fasulye (GER): super SER/ENG: I write this partly in Serbian after having read parts of the zooguide of Beozoo (Beograd). Comments in English to problems encountered while translating the notes about the Whitewinged Eagle 13 December 2009 (p. 196) RU: comments to a TV program in Danish TV about the experiments with closed environments in which some Russian had to live as a preparation for spacetravel to Mars (which so far hasn't happened. IT: Something about program from Sardegna in Raiuno Tommus (DU): Something about the climate conference and its surroundings (the Danish police arrested almost 1000 presons) 14 December 2009 (p. 196) SII: Corrections to my Russian remarks from the day before SW: Something about the flamencomusic and its gipsy roots (in Swedish because I'm reading it in a Swedish book) 15 December 2009 (p. 196) Staf250: why is flamenco called 'flamenco', which means 'Flemish' ? ENG: The most likely explanation has something to do with the arrival of king Carlos I, who already was German emperor and was raised in Gent in Flanders. With him arrived a horde of Flemish bureaucrats and courtiers from Flanders, and the name for these ('flamencos') was probably transferred to unpopular immigrants in general. 16 December 2009 (p. 197) SP: Something more about flamenco, this time about the use of the guitar FR: A hyperliteral translation of a text in Old Occitan about the poet Marcabrus 18 December 2009 (p. 198) SP: I have finished the Flamenco book RU: I have found and studied some printouts about the Tunguska incidents, which I had dropped when I first commented on this theme because they were too difficult. I also read parts of an old language gudie from Berlitz, which I bought before my first travel to Russia in 1975 SII: Corrections to the preceding text ENG: my compliments to SII for being so quick to make corrections,- and as usual some comments plus one (silly) question SII: comments to the comments and answer to the question 19 December 2009 (p. 198) RU: Luckily the next pages in the Tunguska article seem to be easier GR: I was suspicious enough to look up the Greek word for "Atlantis" while writing an answer in another thread, and lo and behold it was not "Atlantis", but "Atlantida" (at least in Modern Greek). A reference to the volcanic eruption at Akrotiri/Thira, which must be the real background for the myth. Tommus (DU): news from the climate conference. Scepticism about the meager outcome, "Fossile (fuel) day" planned by Canada. 20 December 2009 (p. 199) Fasulye (DU): The conference was a fiasco DA (with hyperliteral translation): The climate conference was a indeed fiasco, and you couldn't expect anything else from a conference under UN - unless all major powers already have an agreement ready, which wasn't the case here, and then you don't need UN. GER: People living in Germany during the 30 years war (which also happened to be in the middle of the 'Small Ice age' and a period of widespread religious fanatism) had a hard time, but the composers wrote some beautiful and calm music, exemplified by music written by Schein, Scheidt and Rosenmüller. In the preceding period the emphasis had been on developing new instruments with very characteristic sounds. References to M.Praetorius and Tielman Susato from this period. Hobbema: The case for a changing climate is undeniable. And that it’s caused by human factors highly probable. But international political conferences are pointless, expensive, and doomed to failure. Has seen an excellent collection of old musical instruments and points out that the music from the early Baroque has a small but dedicated group of 'fans'. The sackbut has a funny name. (POR) A hyperliteral translation from Portuguese about the situation of the Indians in Amazonas. 21 December 2009 (p. 199) I have seen other fine collections of instruments than the one mentioned by Hobbema. Some remarks about the possibilities of playing difficult music on old instruments, - including references to contrapunctal music for violin and Cello by Biber and J.S. Bach, and to the extremely difficult 'clarino' trumpet parts in late Baroque music. Hobbema wonders how the modern sense of inteonation developed. He also wonders (in POR) about the reason that violins by Stradivarius and others has this excellent sound. However some people say that their tone is getting worse these years. IT: I haven't heard that the tone is getting worse, - except in those instruments that are put in museums and private collection instead of being used for playing music. Apart from that: almost all old instruments have been changed since they were made. GER: Something about 'well tempered' vs. 'natural' tuning. ENG: I have been collecting (and studying) Russian phrases with prepositions. SOmething general about learning common words with many uses and meanings. 22 December 2009 (p. 199) Hobbema: (ENG & POR) someone scanned some strads and found that the wood in them was extremely dense - and such wood is hard to find now. The Hobbema family follows a concert series, and some pianists employ their own professional tuner who retunes the instrument before concerts (or even in the pause). ENG: .. but they still use the welltempered tuning, which in fact is marginally false on all intervals GR: I have been reorganizing the channels on my TV so that all the junk programs come at the end, while documentary programs and Swedish/German have been 'promoted'. Besides I have reread some tourist brochures from the Greek town Kastoriá. 23 December 2009 (p. 200) I have made some prints in Scots from a site called www.scottishcorpus.ac.uk plus some pages from the Scots Wikipedia, and I have found a Scottish online dictionary at www.scots-online.org.Besides I will be spending Christmas reading bilingual printouts from the Revelations with Esperanto and other languages, made using the multilingual Bible of Lexilogos. 27 December 2009 (p. 200) Fasulye has made two new videos, one in and about Danish, the other in and about Turkish. DA: I find her pronunciation fully comprehensible, but have proposed some changes to a number of very common words in another thread SCO: Something about Alex Smith: "A Fer Chauve", and something about the absurd yearning for a white Christmas. Will be listening to scotsman Billy Connally. 28 December 2009 (p. 200) Fasulye (GER) has got a Memo-Recorder as a Christmas present and is now studying the instructions DA: my Danish answer to Fasulye from 27/12, but this time with a German hyperliteral translation ENG: Something about a technique to learn about people's thoughts by attaching a gadget to them that ressembles a beeping walkman with one earphone and a microphone for recording their immediate responses (to be elaborated through a later interview). Fasulye (GER): has not yet really learned the Danish preterite verb forms. GER: I also had to correct a couple of German preterite subjunctives, and because they are fairly rare I had to check "ständest" (from stehen) in verbix. Here I also found the old sideform "stündest". 31 December 2009 (p. 201) ENG: Message from London, where I'm on New Years leave. Something about the many languages you here in that town, and something about the language books I've bought. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6484 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 15 of 42 07 June 2010 at 2:55pm | IP Logged |
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SUMMARY FOR JANUARY 2010
1 January 2010 (p. 201) Fasulye (GER): Answer to my report from London. Reference to Jiwon's trilingual song video, Fasulye will make a similar video 2 January 2010 (p. 201) GER: Jiwon's Auld Long Syne video is an audacious project. I wouldn't try something like that, but I have at least found the song in Jutish (a Danish dialect) ENG: I have discussed English dialects with a member of the staff in a museum in London, and I have studied my new TY Irish grammar - but its structure isn't ideal 3 January 2010 (p. 201) ENG: rapport (4:40) from a half-dream: language relations seen as a parallel to ornitological nomenclature (and green parakeets); Scots thinking using the voice of Billy Connally Hobbema thinks that I should go to sleep 4 January 2010 (p. 202) ENG: back home, but still reading about Irish grammar: negations and pronouns fuse, and some prepositions also fuse SPA: TVE report about gift buying (in Spain the gifts are distributed in January), strengthened security in airports - and about a discount airline that let its customers wait in Morocco for up to 6 days instead of offering them an alternative transportation home 6 January 2010 (p. 202) SCO: My log thread got buried under an avalanche of updates after just one 'silent' day RU: Something about the composer Rimskij-Korsakov Elvisrules: an exhortation to continue studying Irish, a couple of truly native Scots words instead of the English sounding forms I had used SII: Corrections to my latest Russian passage, the one about 'Father Frost' from December DaraghM IR: an exhortation to continue studying Irish. SPA: Strange that Cuba is on the list of nations, whose inhabitants will be scrutinized before entry to the USA, RU: his Russian has become rusty SII: corrections to DaraghM ENG: I have discovered that long posts systematically have been truncated, on top of problems with the tags for bold typeface and the continuing javascript thing that tries to add silly links to posts and PMs. Thanks to SII for his corrections, list of my ouvertures etc. to operas of Rimskij-Korsakov 7 January 2010 (p. 202) SII: explanations concerning some Russian words for 'having to'. Easier to find music of 'Western' composer than native ones in Moscow. ENG: Danish TV program (in English) about an attempt to build a house in Surrey of Lego bricks. SP: Cold weather with lots of snow in Spain ENG: Giftgiving in Suzdal, Russia apparently happens in January 7 January 2010 (p. 203) SII: 'late' giftgiving because of the use of an old calender 8 January 2010 (p. 203) RU: Something about 'Father frost' (blue Santa called 'Father Winter' by my guide in 1975) and about julemanden ENG: Have read about the history of Belarus, more studies in Irish grammar (nouns) 9 January 2010 (p. 204) SII: corrections to my latest Russian passage ENG: comments to the comments and something about "julenissen" in Danish. IT: a string of interesting programs on Raiuno (Italian): a panel program about health, and after that something about counterfeit money. There are even counterfait Euro coins now. Fasulye IT: Mostly problems with the 50€ bill in Germany 11 January 2010 (p. 204) GER: A string of programs about old cultures in ZDF (German). First something about the Gilgamesh epos, then the legend of 'priester king John' and finally a program about the Niebelungenlied, including the information that there still are people who actually search for the Rhine gold. Fasulye: not 'tod', but 'tot' as adjective. Plus a link to lectures about astronomy in French (cieletespaceradio.fr) FR: I'm going to listen to the astronomy lectures. GER: I have corrected 'tod', and ZDF continued with a program about a forgotten tribe in the Andes 12 January 2010 (p. 204) FR: Excellent lecture in French about very young and heavy and wasteful blue stars ENG: The Northern Irish prime minister has had to resign because his wife had an affair ?!? 14 January 2010 (p. 205) ENG: Buried again because I skipped one day. Studied a text in Irish about the Andromeda Galaxy. More about the structure of my TY grammar. DA (hyperliteral): Quote from the Danish language board about the attitude of young people to English loanwords. 15 January 2010 (p. 205) ENG: Buried again, but this time after a slip of just 14 hours. SP: About The Big Red Book of Spanish Idioms 17 January 2010 (p. 205) GER: Comments to a TV program in Sorbian about the Sorbians which I watched at my mother's place (she has Astra). The Sorbians are the remnant of the Slavic population of the former DDR, - very prominent in the Medieval period, but now an endangered culture with an endangered language. Their prime folklore ensemble has just been halved due to economical problems. 19 January 2010 (p. 205) SP: More about The Big Red Book of Spanish Idioms, and something about ways to remember idioms 20 January 2010 (p. 205) ENG: Lack of time because the home page of my travel club has been hacked. Did however find time to study some sections in the Zooguide to the Beograd Zoo (in Serbian and written in Cyrillic - but surprisingly easy to understand) 21 January 2010 (p. 205) ENG: Travel club home page now clean, back to work on languages. More about the animals in Beozoo. Wrote some lines in Latin for another forum, put my old TY Irish on my night table. Read some Greek from Wikipedia, inclusive a text about the Oidipos figure (but not the part that referred to its use by Freud) and a list of Ancient Greek authors, incl. geographers and historians. 22 January 2010 (p. 205) ENG: Listened to some genuine Irish on TG4 (an Irish TV station with a homepage). GR: Scattered reading in Greek: an article about Sahara in my Greek "Science Illstrated", a brochure from Kastoriá, two texts from Gloss - which I have used extensively earlier, but they haven't added much new stuff lately. One of the Gloss texts treated the plight of the Greek Tourism industry. Hobbema: Some lawmakers have proposed selling off parts of the National Parks. His daughter once fainted in one of them, and only tourists came to help her. 24 January 2010 (p. 206) ENG: Those lawmakers should be locked into the nearest psychiatric asylum. Maybe Hobbema's country men didn't dare to help because they feared getting sued? LAT: Friday evening I attended a meeting in my travel club (with the Virgin Islands as its theme), and most of Saturday was spent on a board meeting in the same club - where among other things an upcoming book project took a lot of time. Sunday 24 at long last I had time to watch TV, where David Attenborough told about sweet water fauna, including the Japanese giant salamander. I saw a Plesiosaur named in (presumably) his honor at the Natural History Museum in London, opposite another skeleton found by Mary Anning in the early 1800s (long before Darwin and Huxley). 25 January 2010 (p. 206) Hobbema: Out-of-control and frivolous law suits in the United States cost millions every year... but the National Parks have somehow been spared, - here your mad actions are still your own personal responsibility. "There’s nothing like personal responsibility to enable natural selection!" ENG: "The problem is not that some people die while doing such foolish things, - the problem is that they set a bad example by surviving". I have spent several hours cleaning up my piles of wordlists, handwritten copies and other things. I noticed that the 'repetition section' had not been filled out in many of those, so from now on I'll do the word lists in conjunction with copying/reading, and then I'll do repetation rouns before the whole sheet is filled out. GR: I applied this principle to a text in a Kastoriá brouchure, where therich mansions were described GER: I also listened to symphonies by Schubert and had Mythbusters running without sound, but with Danish subtitles on my TV set. ---> men can also multitask. We just want to select the activities ourselves. 26 January 2010 (p. 206) Fasulye (GER): 'Multitasking' is also used in German. She prefers job offers where multitasking is NOT implied. GER: Multitasking is very useful for unmarried people, who still have control over the remote control. 27 January 2010 (p. 206) RU: Cyrillic handwriting has once again been discussed, and as usual it is mentioned that Russians and Ukraineans all write in cursive and look down on those who wrote in block letters. I don't care: I prefer writing something that ressembles printed text as much as possible (specimen shown), and the risk that I have to communicate with Russians in handwriting is so far minimal. ENG/GR: More about the Kastorá brochures - this time I learned a lot of ecological buzzwords from an article about the lake that surrounds the town. 28 January 2010 (p. 206) RUM: I have four Romanian dictionaries, but only one gives information about which verbs have suffixes in their conjugation tables. I have now started to mark the words in the Romanian part of my Teora dictionary to show whether they have a suffix or not. SW: I have also watched the Swedish news, where an epidemy of the new "Winter-vomit-illness" was mentioned. Apparently a number of hospital sections have been closed because the staff have been infected. SII: Corrections to my latest passage in Russian - one sentence was totally correct, but also totally incomprehensible ENG: I had tried to say "this (argument) still applies", - but "применяется" for "applies" is a false friend. 29 January 2010 (p. 207) SW: Watched Swedish TV quiz "På spåret" ('on track'), which partly had my hometown Århus as its subject - including a slightly botched question about runic alphabets GER: Listened to chamber music by Schubert - I have more than 13 hours of his music, and I'm halfways now GR: Studied one more excerpt from the Kastoriá brochures 30 January 2010 (p. 207) GER: More Schubert: this time the Rosamunda music, which allegedly had a totally hopeless libretto, which now has been 'lost' (hehe) FR: Stand-up comedy in French on TV5 International 31 January 2010 (p. 207) Hobbema listened to some music supposedly by Schubert. But in fact it was the 1. symphony by Schumann, which clearly also is good music. GER: Schumann has sometimes been underrated, not least because of his instrumentation. But he has written many excellent things, not least around the time where he married Clara Wieck- and the 1. symphony symphony is from this period. ENG: Something about the numbering of Schubert's symphonies. Hobbema (DU): Critics and history shouldn't be unkind to Schumann. Schubert's 8. is his favorite. ENG: There are more sides to Schubert than often imagined, link between Beethoven and Bruckner. GR: An Austrian scholar has pointed to a new source for elements in the Iliad, namely the plight of Greeks in Kilikia ind Asia Minor around 700 BC. He even claims that Homer was a scribe there in his youth. Edited by Iversen on 07 June 2010 at 2:56pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6484 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 16 of 42 07 June 2010 at 2:57pm | IP Logged |
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SUMMARY FOR FEBRUARY 2010
1 February 2010 (p. 208) Fasulye: Hobbema speaks about Robert Schumann's compositions and Iversen always speaks about Schubert. me (ENG): Hobbema happened to listen to some Schumann instead of Schubert (German/Austrian composers), and then we also discussed Schumann. This thread is meant to be confusing. Fasulye: has been occupied with Danish and her own threads, including the new culinary log thread, and had had less time for things like paleontology 2 February 2010 (p. 208) Hobbema also has been interested in astronomy and own a refractor, but can't yet write about it in Dutch Fasulye: there are some practical astrophotographers in her club, but she can't spend her nights watching stars and she doesn't have a telescope. me (ENG): I didn't want just to have a log consisting of pages read and minuts spent, - it should be multilingual and manysided. However I have started a pure hyperliteral-translations log at languagelearners, so those translation will be be rare here in the future. GER: 20 million German credit cards are defect and can't be used outside Germany, - they can't deal with the number "2010". It has snowed in Denmark. SP: I was speaking over the phone with my sister who had planned to travel to Gran Canaria with my mother. But just while we were speaking the TV behind showed pictures from a deluge at the Canary Islands, so they aren't going anywhere now, LAT: I have borrowed Petronius' Satyricon, one of the few classical books with some spoken Latin in it Fasulye (IT): has bought a Dutch-Latin dictionary. (DU): In the preface it states that all words are from the Classical period, except a limited number from medieval Church Latin. (IT): Latin isn't very popular in the Netherlands so you have to be happy finding a Latin dictionary. 3 February 2010 (p. 209) me (LAT): I have the New College Latin and English Dictionary (bidirectional), which contains a lot of Neolatin. I also a good Latin-German dictionary from Langenscheidt, whereas my "Lexicon recentis latinitatis" is irritating because it gives circumlocutions for modern things instead of simple translations. 4 February 2010 (p. 209) me (POR): I made a Google search for the Portuguese town Guimarães and accidentally stumpled over a biography of the Brazilian author Guimarães Rosa, who apparently was something of a polyglot. Afterwards I proceeded to study the history of the town, which was the place where the first king of Portugal was born. Fasulye (SP) and Hobbema (POR) found the quote from the biography interesting. 5 February 2010 (p. 209) me (IC): I have read about Robin Hood in the Icelandic Wikipedia (ENG): I have also redone my tables over the Irish substantives, because I have found a way to simplify them by separating the changes that occur at the beginning of the words from the tables of endings. 8 February 2010 (p. 210) me (ENG): a list of some of my activities during a family visit without computer access. Hobbema invites me to write something about the family visit. me (ENG): a few details about my family, plus some comments to the verbal system in Irish, in particular the verbs that share the domain of English "to be". Fasulye (ENG): have I ever seen a TV program from the zoo of Krefeld? Plus a few details about the language skills of some of her family members (2 posts) Hobbema (ENG): A few details about the language skills of some of his family members. 9 February 2010 (p. 210) me (GER): I have never seen a TV program from the Krefelder Zoo, but I have visited it myself. There are other good zoos in Germany which also haven't figured in TV programs. A man named Petzoldt has made an excellent homepage with a list over all German zoos: www. zoo-infos.de Fasulye (GER): has just seen five zoos, and she pitied the animals there. me (GER): I have so far seen 417 zoos and aquaria, and the one in the capital of Trinidad will be the next one. (POR): I have been reading a Portuguese magazine Focus from 2007, It had less on travels than I had expected when I bought it, but I found an article about the current head of the family Bragança, who reestablished Portugal as an independent nation. Besides I studied the use of infinitives, including the weird 'infinitivo pessoal'. 10 February 2010 (p. 211) me (ENG): something about udnerstandign vs. learning dialects.: they should be learnt from the bottom up, using the same methods that you would use to learn an full, undisputed language - it just takes less time Hobbema (POR): The general public of the USA don't really understand the European monarchies. But many are obsessed with the British royal family. Will the European Union change the situation of the monarchies? me (POR): The attitude of the Danes towards our queen has nothing to do with the EU. 78% support the monarchy, maybe because we have been spared a string of decrepit and senile politicians serving as presidents. 11 February 2010 (p. 211) Unityandoutside (ENG): recommends a book called "Russian Area Reader (NTC Russian)" 12 February 2010 (p. 211) me (ENG): I might buy the Russian book next time I'm on a shopping spree on the internet. But right now I'm mostly reading Russian texts from the internet. (POR): I the Portuguese "Focus" I have now read an article in which the possibility is discussed that the Portugues discovered America before the Spaniards, and that they got the demarcation line of the Tordesillas placed in such a way that the coast of Brazil was included (though in those days it wasn't Brazil yet). 13 February 2010 (p. 211) me (ENG/DA): Today I had planned to visit Herning, a town 2½ hours in train from my hometown, but the train got stuck long before so I ended up visiting another town, Silkeborg, where I revisited the bog body known as the "Tollund man" at the local museum. I spent the waiting time in the train reading in my irish grammar, and during the return trip I read a book written by a member of my travel club. (SP): Back home, I watched Spanish television. 14 February 2010 (p. 212) Fasulye (GER): her new avatar is an ammonite from the Museum of Natural History in Dortmund 15 February 2010 (p. 212) me (GER): She could also see ammonites at the Museum of Natural History of Münster, a bit further North. Btw. I have seen a TV program about the total glaciation of the Earth that occured several times during the Precambrian. Fasulye (GER): Unfortunately Münster lies outside the validity area of her Regio rail card. 16 February 2010 (p. 212) me (SW/AFR): I have watched Swedish TV2, where there was a program about the eland antilopes in the Drakenberg Mountains that lie at the border between South Africa and Lesotho. I have actually been there myself and seen the elands. (IT) After that I watched the quiz L'Eredità (the Heritage) at the Italian TV station RaiUno. (SW): Finally I returned to Swedish TV where I saw a program about CERN's new gigantic hadron collider, which among other things is supposed to find the mysterious Higgs particle. Fasulye: Knew about the hadron colliderm but had not read about Peter Higgs. 17 February 2010 (p. 212) me (ENG): A short message, written just before leaving for Trinidad. Fasulye: will find something to read about Trinidad 20 February 2010 (p. 212) me (ENG): message from Trinidad, more precisely from the capital Port of Spain. The street signs in the central are bilingual in English and Spanish, but this is meant as a help for visitors from South America (Venezuela is very close) - in spite of the name the population of Trinidad is Anglophone, though their English has a special 'lilt'. And among themselves they also speak some kind of Creole. (FR): I have visited the local zoo and a suburb called St. James, but also an art gallery with Haitian art - and I used of course the occasion to have a long conversation in French. Fasulye (FR): Has never heard Creole, but she has heard the Haitians speak French on TV (PS: much TV from Haiti after the disastrous earthquake). Are there many tourists in Trinidad? 23 February 2010 (p. 212) me (ENG): Now writing from Arima. Have visited Ada Wright's Nature Center in the Northern mountain range, where there were a lot of birds right below the verandah. I walked the 12 km from that place to Arima - in 34 degrees C. This town is said to be the center for the remaining Carib indians, but as far as I know they have given up speaking their own language long ago. There are three groups of tourist here: package tourists on the island Tobago, Carnival guests and twitchers. I came right after the famous carnival. 24 February 2010 (p. 212) Hobbema (DU): Fantastic, - not least the idea of walking the 12 kms down from the mountains. me (ENG): Will visit some swamps shortly, but spending the wainting studying Irish verbs (using my Kauderwelsch booklet). In some cases they have an integrated ending, but most verbal forms consists of a 'neutral' form combined with an unstressed personal pronoun. Also something about the tricks I use to indicate the pronunciation. Questions are initiated by special particles. 26 February 2010 (p. 212) DaraghM (ENG), who is Irish himself, likes my writings about Irish..He has learnt to associate Irish 'an' and 'ar' with the English 'do' and 'did' me (ENG): writing from the Southerly town San Fernando, fro an internet café with a slow connection and unreliable electricity supply. Latin "num" and "Danish" 'num' are closer parallels to the question particles 'an' and 'ar' because the main verb remains in a finite form. The difference is that there are special forms of the particles in the past tense. Furthermore a few remarks about the local language of Trinidad, - sometimes it is quite far from the English(es) I know. Because of the lack of things to see in this town I have at last found time to complete a number of Greek wordlists. 28 February 2010 (p. 212) ruskivyetr (GER): "Das ist das größten Log, dass ich gesehen habe!!!" 1 person has voted this message useful |
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