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Ugla soars higher TAC13 Sakura桜 & Romulan | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Brun Ugle Diglot Senior Member Norway brunugle.wordpress.c Joined 6418 days ago 1292 posts - 1766 votes  Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1 Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish | Message 49 of 156 10 January 2013 at 12:18pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Americans also say "thank you" for everything, at least that's what I'm used to, but there are great differences from place to place. For example, in some places they always say "sir" and "ma'am," but most people don't do that where I come from. Also things are much more informal now then they used to be, though not as informal as Norway.
I remember once I went to the employment office soon after I first came to Norway. It was in the summer so there weren't very many people working and the boss was working at the front desk. He sat there in a pair of ragged cut-offs and NOTHING else! No shoes or shirt or anything. Of course that's a bit extreme even for Norway. But the work clothes here are a bit more casual than I was used to in the US. The usual office clothes in Norway are a little bit more casual then our "casual-Friday" clothes. Things might have changed there too though, so I don't know exactly how it is there. I still can't get used to the idea of people going into stores and things without shoes and shirts. That's not even legal in the States except perhaps on the boardwalk at the shore. And when the men walk down the street with no shirts on, I don't know where to look. It's a bit uncomfortable. I can only imagine how shocking it is for people from Muslim countries. And the girls don't have much on either which is probably even more shocking for them. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| stifa Triglot Senior Member Norway lang-8.com/448715 Joined 4671 days ago 629 posts - 813 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, EnglishC2, German Studies: Japanese, Spanish | Message 50 of 156 10 January 2013 at 12:30pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm surprised how polite English folks are, when I don't catch something, I go "hææ",
but they say stuff like "pardon" which just sounds a bit formal and stiff to me. Might be because most people here are posh as hell. :p I don't think I've seen people wandering the streets like that... Perhaps the folks from Steinkjær are a bit ... :p 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| sans-serif Tetraglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4357 days ago 298 posts - 470 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, German, Swedish Studies: Danish | Message 51 of 156 10 January 2013 at 1:51pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Thank you so much for the heads-up on 三毛猫ホームズ, Brun Ugle! It's perfect for my level judging from the Amazon preview! Do you have any other recommendations for easy but interesting native materials? Any particularly easy audio books among the ones listed in the RTK wiki?
I've learned most of what I know by watching anime, so my Japanese is a bit of mess, but I've finally gotten to the point where I can read easy stuff without resorting to a dictionary, which is a massive milestone for me. I thought I'd have to stick to manga with furigana and anime with Japanese subtitles for a good while longer, so this is a VERY pleasant surprise. Edited by sans-serif on 10 January 2013 at 1:51pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Brun Ugle Diglot Senior Member Norway brunugle.wordpress.c Joined 6418 days ago 1292 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1 Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish | Message 52 of 156 10 January 2013 at 5:50pm | IP Logged | |||||
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@stifa:
I have the bad habit of saying "hæææ", too. I should do something with that. I suppose people in Nord-Trøndelag are a little less sophisticated (or perhaps domesticated) than in other places. The guy at the employment agency wasn’t in Steinkjer, but in Grong, but I think it is the same many places in Nord-Trøndelag. When I think about it though, I can’t remember anyone running around Levanger like that, so maybe Steinkjer is on the border for bad taste as well as the border for road salt. (They don’t salt the E6 and major roads north of Steinkjer, only south.) Another “clothes-style” that shocked me when I got here, was the way older women take their shirts off when it gets hot and run around in a ratty old bra. (At least they don’t take that off, right?) I can’t imagine anyone doing that in the US. They might wear a T-shirt or even a tank-top, but not just a bra. @sans-serif: I'm glad you find my reviews helpful. That was my intention. I know how hard it is to find materials in another language when you have no idea what is available or how good it is from a language-learner's perspective. I'm a slow reader though, so it might be a few weeks before my next review comes out. The others I've done are on my blog (the link under my name) if you haven't already seen them, but there aren't many. Most of my reading experience so far has been with Harry Potter. These are copied directly from my links section: Sherlock Holmes audiobook-blog Professional quality readings of Sherlock Holmes stories in Japanese. The stories are done in installments and may be downloaded for free. His reading is excellent!! kikudora Super fantastic radio plays with highly skilled voice actors and sound effects. The plays are based on classical literature. The Sherlock Holmes one is still quite difficult for me. I catch bits here and there, but there is a whole lot I miss. The radio plays are a bit easier though. They are quite short, 2-15 minutes long, which is perfect for me since my attention soon starts wandering if something is hard to listen to. The difficulty varies. Some I found quite easy, others I couldn't understand very well at all. The Grimm brother's stories were fairly easy, so was Ｏ・ヘンリ「最後の一葉-The Last Leaf-」. If I remember correctly, 芥川龍之介「食物として」 was easy too as well as extremely short. There were some others, but I can’t remember off hand which. You just have to try different ones to find out what is easy(ish) for you. Listening to these plays was the first time I ever felt that I really understood something in Japanese. I've downloaded nearly 6 hours’ worth so far and I'm not even halfway done, so I've got a lot to listen to. I haven't tried all the audiobooks on the RTK-Wiki, but I've tried a few. I find listening to the ones on these two sites I've listed up here to be much better than a lot of the others. These ones are professional quality, and that makes a big difference in how easy it is to listen to something, at least for me. I’m not a good listener in any language, so it is hard to get and keep my attention. Oh, a few of the plays just cut off after a couple of minutes, so there might be something wrong with those, but most of the ones I’ve listened to seem to be fine. Edit for PS: If you read 三毛猫ホームズの推理, let me know if you figure out who killed those girls before you get to the end. Edited by Brun Ugle on 10 January 2013 at 6:22pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4982 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 53 of 156 10 January 2013 at 5:52pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Nice job doing the lang 8. I haven't done a post there in a while it's such a struggle. They don't comment
on my entries very much... Just mark it up. And you're right, you get replies quickly. I've non idea what the difference is between ga and kedo, sorry. I don't see a difference between ga and demo but my professor seems to and always wants me to use ga. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Brun Ugle Diglot Senior Member Norway brunugle.wordpress.c Joined 6418 days ago 1292 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1 Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish | Message 54 of 156 10 January 2013 at 6:28pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Here comes some grammar, so be prepared to be bored. I just thought if I paraphrased what I read, I might remember it better when I try to use it. Writing things down usually helps me to remember them.
が is a much softer form of “but” and けれど is more like “although.” With が the connected sentences don’t even have to be contrasting. が is used when connecting two independent clauses like this: Independent clause #1 が, independent clause #2. On the other hand, けれど is used to connect a subordinate clause to an independent clause in the form: Subordinate clause けれど, independent clause. から and ので both have the basic meaning of “because,” and join two sentences such that the first sentence states the reason for the second. The difference between the two is that ので is used when the speaker considers the reason given as valid and that it will also appear so to the listener. Therefore ので cannot be used when the reason 1) expresses the speaker’s conjecture about something, 2) when the main clause (the second sentence) is a command, request, suggestion or invitation or 3) when the main clause expresses the speaker’s volition or personal opinion. So I think in the cases where the one person changed my から to ので and the other only suggested it, it wasn’t technically incorrect. I think the first person probably meant it sounded better that way, perhaps to give a bit more variety as I had perhaps overused the から. That the other person suggested that I might like to try using ので sometimes also supports the idea of it being more to get a little variety. I can understand the second person not correcting things that weren’t technically wrong. I tend to do the same thing myself. If someone’s English is very good with few real errors, then I will try to make it more elegant. But if they are clearly not that good at writing and have a number of mistakes, then I will try to leave the writing as close to the original as possible and only correct it to the point where it is technically correct even though it might not be beautiful. I think it is important to get things correct in terms of grammar and spelling and so on, before worrying about style. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5132 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 55 of 156 10 January 2013 at 6:33pm | IP Logged | |||||
People from Trøndelag are famous for their bad taste in clothing, even by Norwegian standards - white socks in sandals being the typical example. In the summer I think most Norwegians are eager to get as much of their clothes off as possible, to catch any errant ray of sunshine, but working in shorts only in an office sounds extreme. We are very relaxed at my job too, and we are informal when it comes to clothes, but we are definitely expected to wear some. My husband might wear white socks in sandals and shorts (and a shirt!) to work, but he is the only one I know off, and his grandfather came from Trøndelag, so he doesn't count. Sitting in your bra and not a bikini top is something I find utterly tasteless, and I have just seen it is a couple of times - it is definitely not considered to be standard attire in any sort of circumstances. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Brun Ugle Diglot Senior Member Norway brunugle.wordpress.c Joined 6418 days ago 1292 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1 Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish | Message 56 of 156 10 January 2013 at 7:33pm | IP Logged | |||||
I wear socks with sandals, but not white ones, I don't think. Woolen ones, more likely. I'm not known for my fashion sense either, I guess. :-) I also have some socks with green and white stripes and with a place for each toe. I wish I could find some more of those. My toes like a bit of privacy sometimes. Mostly, I prefer to keep as much clothing on as possible.
Obviously, you haven't been to Namdal. Usually the bras look about 10 years old and are worn by saggy old women. The kind that turn heads --- in the other direction. And the men, if not going around with their shirts off, go to the store in their farm clothes, stinking of manure. Now, I grew up in the countryside, so I don't mind the smell of cows (though pigs are a bit much), but some of those people apparently don't even bathe. At least, you can smell them coming from a long way off. There are people that can be recognized by scent. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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