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Tim och britterna | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Elenia Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom lilyonlife.blog Joined 3644 days ago 239 posts - 327 votes  Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Swedish, Esperanto | Message 9 of 34 12 May 2015 at 4:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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Seems like you are getting along very well indeed. Looking over my old annotations (made
directly onto the page) I probably only picked up on a tenth of the details you've highlighted. Well done, I bow down in awe :) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Meddysong Triglot Groupie United Kingdom timeofftakeoff.com Joined 3395 days ago 56 posts - 84 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, French Studies: Italian, Catalan Studies: Swedish | Message 10 of 34 13 May 2015 at 9:51am | IP Logged | ||
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Hello, everybody. You're all very nice - thank you :)
I've done a couple more pages before work. Here are my notes: Lots of instances of the verb coming in second place, so inversion of subject and verb if the sentence starts with an adverb (/adverbial phrase): På den tiden talade britterna och gallerna ungefär samma språk (= At the time, Britons and Gauls spoke roughly the same language), Nu har Caesar beslutat sig för att erövra hela den brittiska ön (= Now, Caesar decided to conquer the entire British island) In that last case there appears to be a past form equivalent to HAVE + -ED in English, in which case the inversion occurs between the auxiliary and subject. It seems it's possible to deviate from SVO, in which case there is also inversion: Dem klarar vi i ett nafs! (= We can handle them in a flash) I'm getting used to seeing combinations of WORD + ARTICLE + GENITIVE: Britternas hövding var X (= The chief of the Britons was X), Men stridens hetta kunde inte få de modiga britterna att glömma sina underliga seder (= But the heat of battle could not get the brave British to forget their strange customs). These last two cases are really highlighting to me the similarities between German, Swedish and English. Swedish has var, as German has war and English was. (At least in the case of Swedish we can see the link to the verb it's formed from!) The form kunde inte is clearly reminiscent of konnte nicht and could not. The nerd in me loves finding these features common to the language family. I think I've found my first imperative: "Sluta att klaga nu!" (= Stop complaining!). If so, then imperatives seem easy, as in English - they're bare infinitives. I found an example of what seems to be a future form: Det blir en svår match (= That will be a difficult match). Looking it up in my verb book, I can see a verb bli meaning to become. It seems to me that this works the same way as German werden, as a present-tense form to indicate a future. I noticed earlier that som is a relative pronoun. It seems that it has other uses too: Det ser ut som en invasion (= It looks like an invasion), Som ni behagar, min herre (= As you please, my lord/sir). Some questions that I'm asking myself: - Why Som ni behagar, min herre but Givetvis, herrn (= Of course, sir)? - Why Havet är fullt av Romare (= The sea is full of Romans) instead of av Romarna? - Why Rädde sej den som rädde sej kan! instead of sig. Blimey, this seems a lot of work for two pages. I don't think I'll have the discipline to keep this up quite so vigorously. Fingers crossed I won't need to take so many notes soon, even if I still need a dictionary. I remember Catalan being similarly slow at the start (although I didn't need a dictionary quite as often as here) and I was reading the later part of the book relatively well (ten pages at a time or so) after a slow start. Edited by Meddysong on 13 May 2015 at 9:52am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sarnek Diglot Senior Member Italy Joined 4003 days ago 308 posts - 414 votes Speaks: Italian*, English Studies: German, Swedish | Message 11 of 34 13 May 2015 at 9:59am | IP Logged | ||
1) If I remember correctly when a title (like Doktor, Herr, etc.) is in the determinate form it's used in a formal and courteous way. 2) Romarna would be "the romans" 3) "sej" was suggested to replace sig during the most recent ortographic reforms, together with dom instead de, jus instead of ljus, etc, but they've never caught on. Edited by Sarnek on 13 May 2015 at 10:03am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| daegga Tetraglot Senior Member Austria lang-8.com/553301 Joined 4309 days ago 1076 posts - 1792 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, Norwegian Studies: Danish, French, Finnish, Icelandic | Message 12 of 34 13 May 2015 at 10:32am | IP Logged | ||
This is one of the things in Swedish that might be a bit confusing. The imperative is the same form as the stem, not as the infinitive. It's just that the stem is equal to the infinitive for some verbs (more exactly: for 1 word class with infinitive ending -a and the words with the infinitive not ending in -a), but not for others (where the stem is like the infinitive without the ending -a). edit: Actually this isn't the full story and applies only to the second person (singular?) imperative. And even this one can have a separate form (at least for strong verbs), but it isn't used anymore. In addition to Sarnek's comment on question 1: "min herre" and "herrn" are both definite, just by different means. You don't use the article when using a possessive because the possessive already has the function of the article included. Edited by daegga on 13 May 2015 at 10:48am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4495 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 13 of 34 13 May 2015 at 11:09am | IP Logged | ||
We call this V2 word order. In most Germanic languages, the (conjugated) verb always comes second in the sentence. That is actually the most important characteristic. Using the object up front occurs if you want to emphasize it; "THEM we can handle in a flash!" (them in particular). Basically, most things are allowed as long as you put the verb second. However you usually find the subject or an adverbial complement of time there. Place is more rarely found up front. Objects can be placed there for emphasis as I mentionem. Also, some people drop the att in "sluta att klaga nu". I might do that if I was speaking colloquially. "Sluta klaga nu!" Edited by tarvos on 13 May 2015 at 11:11am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6697 days ago 4250 posts - 5710 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 14 of 34 13 May 2015 at 6:08pm | IP Logged | ||
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It's great to see non-natives give perfect answers to questions about Swedish. Some extra comments:
Sluta klaga nu! Perfectly OK as an imperative. Sluta att klaga nu! No change in meaning, just an added infinitive marker (which I'm not even sure has to be there - some verbs don't require it. Modal/auxiliary verbs belong to that category for sure.). Sluta upp att klaga nu! Still no real change in meaning, but if you use this construction, you have to include "att". Sluta upp med att klaga nu! "Att" has to be there. All four expressions are used interchangeably. When you get to spoken Swedish, you'll notice how "att" often changes to "o"/"å"/(even "och"!). But never ever write anything else than "att". 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Meddysong Triglot Groupie United Kingdom timeofftakeoff.com Joined 3395 days ago 56 posts - 84 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, French Studies: Italian, Catalan Studies: Swedish | Message 15 of 34 14 May 2015 at 11:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thank you, everybody, for feeding into this. It's definitely something I should come back to read properly when I'm not tired.
I'm now on page 16 of 48, so the pace is OK, especially because I can put in some more time over the weekend. It's more tricky than Catalan is; I have to jump to the dictionary in nearly every sentence, even if it's only one word. BUT: I am getting better. I'm recognising some words that I didn't know before yesterday and I reasonably comfortable with the grammar. Today's notes: - Jag har en kusin, som bor i en gallisk by, som romarna ännu inte lyckats besegra! Där har man en trolldryck som ger övermänskliga krafter! (= I have a cousin who lives in a Gallic village, the Romans have not yet managed to defeat! There they have a magic potion that gives superhuman powers!) Those were the first two sentences and I was delighted that the only problem was needing a dictionary for "ännu inte lyckats besegra". That wouldn't have been the case two days ago. The new grammar point from this to me is that there seems to be a pronoun man equivalent to the German Mann. - Här finns inte en enda romare att släss med! Du vet ju mycket väl att alla romarna är i Britannien! (= There is not a single Roman to fight with! You know very well that all the Romans in Britain!) Sentences can end with prepositions (as they can in English, irrespective of what fools trying to apply the rules of Latin to a Germanic language say). I can see that passive form finns again, which I suppose would be equivalent to English "are found". - Om britterna vill vara med att leka, sä får de väl komma hit! (= If the British want to play, so they may well come here! (= let them come here, they should come here)) My first conditional sentence. Om seems to be the equivalent of English if. I've met this verb får a couple of times so far. It's not quite registering with me yet, as meaning may, can. - Britterna har inte bett romarna att komma dit! (= The British have not asked the Romans to go there!) This was a fun sentence because I understood it, and also because it makes me smile to think of the sequence, where Obelix is moaning about how boring it is that the Romans are in Britannia and how if the Britons want all the fun, then they should come to Gaul instead of making the Romans go there. I love Obelix.) - Dumskalle! Han ville inte mäta sina krafter med dina! Han ville bara hälsa! Du tror att alla vill slåss! (= Blockhead! He did not want to measure his strength with yours! He just wanted to greet! You think everyone wants to fight!) A lovely sequence, and with some useful points in it too. I'm seeing a past form of want and some new possessive adjectives. - Den drycken behöver vi britter för att kunna slä tillbaka romarna! (= We Britons need the to fight back against the Romans!) More reinforcement that an object can be moved to the front of a sentence for the sake of emphasis. - Det är en man här, som talar konstigt, men han säger att det är vi som talar konstigt! (= There is a man here, who speaks strange, but he says that it is we who speak strange!) I love this sentence because if I needed to, I could write it out. It's so natural, and brought together lots of little bits that I've learned, such as som and men. Plus it's Obelix too. - Jag ska be vår druid att göra en hel tunna trolldryck, sä ni kan kasta romarna i kanelen! (= I will ask our druid to make a whole barrel of potion, so you can throw the Romans in the Channel!) Another sentence which is behaving exactly as I thought it should. I'm starting to get a bit more of a feel for the language now. - Och var nu snäll mot alla stora hundar (= And now be kind to all the big dogs?) Speaking to Obelix's small dog, who he's leaving behind. I took note of this because it appears that the imperative of vara is var, which is useful to know. I don't know for sure, though, because my verb book doesn't contain the imperative. - Det vore bättre om vi inte tog några risker! (= It would be better if we did not take any risks!) That tog is jumping out at me. Could it be related to ta. If it is, then I have a suspicion that Swedish contains a subjunctive, which is used here. - Detta är vildarna, jag talade om (= Those are the savages I spoke about) I've seen talar and tala. Now there's talade, a past form. - Det har vi talat om i många år! Vi tycker det är synd att ni ska vara så isolerade på kontintenten. (= We have talked about that for years! We think it's a shame that you should be so isolated on the continent.) And this time another past form of tala. So it seems there is one form for completed actions (talade) and another (har talat) for ones which are ongoing. - Ja, de är knepiga, romarna! Yay - finally the presence of Obelix's catchphrase: "Ils sont fous, ces Romains!" Edited by Meddysong on 14 May 2015 at 11:42pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| daegga Tetraglot Senior Member Austria lang-8.com/553301 Joined 4309 days ago 1076 posts - 1792 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, Norwegian Studies: Danish, French, Finnish, Icelandic | Message 16 of 34 15 May 2015 at 3:09am | IP Logged | ||
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It's more fun with sound, isn't it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EegMYzYE-SE Edited by daegga on 15 May 2015 at 3:19am 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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