Register  Login  Active Topics  Maps  

Iversen’s Multiconfused Log (see p.1!)

  Tags: Multilingual
 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log Post Reply
3959 messages over 495 pages: << Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... 278 ... 494 495 Next >>


Iversen
Super Polyglot
Moderator
Denmark
berejst.dk
Joined 6453 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 2217 of 3959
15 January 2011 at 7:08pm | IP Logged 
Greetings from London, where I have been spending a couple of days running around and looking at things (the zoo and 4 museums today).

This is of course officially English speaking territory, but in the more touristy places there are folders in several languages to placate foreigners like me. And of course people are speaking many different languages around me, but I really can't bother to learn Hindi or Swahili while I'm here (thus saving myself the inevitable humiliation). There are some strange quirks here and there. For instance the train from Stanstead had messages in English, Italian and Spanish - not French, not German, not Russian and neither Chinese nor Japanese.

There are also some quirks of English. For instance I have just witnessed a discussion in the tube between a girl who corrected "the painguins" of her friend - it should be Peenguins" while the friend claimed that the birds in question didn't care. I also read in the zoo that the groundbreaking and pretty penguin enclosure with ramps and every else that a peenguin might wish had been emptied of its inhabitants; it will certainly be reopened, but then it will be "for humans". WHAT!!!! Isn't that the lame excuse which humans always have used for logging, making fields and roads and dams and houses for themselves, and now I see it in a zoo?? Shame on you, Zoological Society of London!

But English isn't enough to keep me satisfied. I did bring some printouts with Google translations from different languages to keep me occupied in the evenings, but I should have brought some dictionaries too. So right now I'm sitting in an internet caf'e (at 50p/h) so I can surf at my hearts' delight in different languages. See ya'


Edited by Iversen on 31 January 2011 at 1:17pm

1 person has voted this message useful



Hobbema
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5491 days ago

541 posts - 575 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Portuguese, French, Dutch

 
 Message 2219 of 3959
17 January 2011 at 12:37am | IP Logged 
Iversen wrote:

There are also some quirks of English. For instance I have just witnessed a discussed in the tube between a girl who corrected "the painguins" of her friend - it should be Peenguins" while the friend claimed that the birds in question didn't care.


Perhaps the birds might care. Were there to be a system of writing for transcribing their language, it might be useful to write down what the penguins say, for the benefit of those that don't speak their language.

You could call that system of writing "Pin gYin"

Edited by Hobbema on 17 January 2011 at 12:38am

1 person has voted this message useful





Iversen
Super Polyglot
Moderator
Denmark
berejst.dk
Joined 6453 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 2221 of 3959
31 January 2011 at 12:38pm | IP Logged 
Kuikentje wrote:

No, the penguins don't care about the pronunciation of "penguins" . After I've read your post I've searched on the internet, and found:

London zoo wrote:
Chris West, of London Zoo, said the penguins suffered aching joints because of having to walk all day on concrete. "The pool is too shallow for them to dive and swim in", he said. "The black-footed penguins housed here have been unable to burrow which is a part of their courting ritual."


Poor penguins!!! They must live in a better place. I hope that it's the pool which you referred.

Personally I don't like the zoos because the birds and animals don't like to have all the people there who are absolutley loud and watching all the time. Also, it's not sufficient place for them, and like a nasty prison.

The squirrel is returned, what a relief, I worried that he was dead because of the month with the snow on the grass and therefore it wasn't possible find his food.(...)

London is very nice, I hope that you will have a great holiday there. I was one week there in 2006 or 2007 I don't exactly remember. It's a nice place to walk from the Eye next to the river to the Tate Modern and then St Paul's cathedral. In the Tate Modern's café it's a beautiful view of St. Paul's cathedral, we were there as well (my parents, a friend of my mother and I).



FR: J'ai été absent de ce forum depuis quelque semaines, mais pour une très bonne raison: j'ai visité Bourkina Faso et Mali avec un groupe mixte de Bulgares et Danois, et mis apart quelques jours à Londres avant le voyage nous n'avons pas passé deux nuits dans le même lieu. Donc j'ai choisi de me concentrer sur les activités touristiques du lieu où je me trouvait au lieu des activités de portée internationale. D'ailleurs nous nous avons souvent trouvé dans la situation qu'il n'y avait pas d'accès a 'l'internet du tout. Par exemple nous avons visité le pays des Dogons qui est sans électricité (et pingouins!) sauf dans la ville de Bandiagaré - où l'accès à l'internet n'avait pas fonctionné depuis quelque semaines - et pendant deux jours et demi nous avons navigué sur le fleuve Niger dans un bateau sans electricité.

Or, ceci a été une expérience vraiment polyglotte. Bourkina Faso et Mali font partie de la soi-disante Francophonie, mais j'étais le seul (sauf le guide local) qui ait parlé français, et donc j'ai du parfois agir come interprète. Dans la présence des bulgares j'ai parlé anglais, avec les danois (et la seule Norvégienne) j'ai parlé danois, et j'ai essayé de parler uniquement en français à la population locale, sauf quand quelqu'un d'autre de notre groupe avais besoin des renseigments précises. Je vais problement faire un vidéo pour illustrer cette situation vraiment babélienne.

En outre j'avais porté quelques guides de language et textes bilingues dont je me suis autrefois servi - par examples extraits des Wikipédias Grèque, Bahasa I + M, Russe et Islandais. Mais mon bagage consistait d'un seul sac à dimensions restreintes et donc je ne pouvait pas apporter beaucoup de livres.

I have been absent from this forum for several weeks, but for a good reason: I have participated in a group tour to Bourkina Faso and Mali, two countries which for historical reason have French as their preferred European language (to the extent that all higher education is in French). And even though there are internet cafés in both countries we moved so much around - partly in areas without electricity (Dogon country!) - that I never found time to sit down and communicate digitally.

We had 5 Bulgarians, 1 Norwegian and 7 Danes in the group. So whenever there was a mix of Bulgarians and Danes/Norwegians we had to speak English, but Danes and Bulgarians spoke of course their own languages in 'pure' constellations, and I tried to speak French to all local persons - unless some other member also wanted to understand the answer.

Strangely enough I was the only one in our group who spoke French, and that included our Danish/Bulgarian tour guide - not that this meant much as he was the most lazy and passive person in this role I have ever experienced. If a crocodile had eaten a group member he would probably just have tried to take some good photos of the incident. Therefore our very competent local guide (from Mali) had to do two men's work. And this man spoke fluently English, French, several local languages and even a bit of Russian. But I sometimes had to help out as an interpreter when group members had gotten in trouble (or just ordinary friendly interaction) with local persons.

For my own amusement I brought along some small language guides plus bilingual printouts, so luckily I wasn't restricted to just Danish, English and French. This lead to a couple of amusing episodes involving other languages, such as a situation were one Bulgarian lady had explained how difficult their language was and how different it was from Russian - whereupon I translated their version of the tour program from Bulgarian at sight. Well, actually it wasn't too difficult as I knew the Danish version almost by heart. But after that I think they assumed a little too much about my ability to understand their internal discussions.


Edited by Iversen on 14 September 2011 at 1:22am

1 person has voted this message useful





Iversen
Super Polyglot
Moderator
Denmark
berejst.dk
Joined 6453 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 2222 of 3959
01 February 2011 at 10:58pm | IP Logged 
DA: Jeg har nu lavet 'snakkedelen' af min påtænkte flersproglige video om turen til Afrika - og paradoksalt nok tog det en evighed, fordi jeg febrilsk prøvede at holde varigheden under 15 minutter. Desværre gik det ud over henvisningerne til mine sprogstudier under turen, som blev spist af med et hastigt kik på de bøger og udskrifter som jeg medbragte. Jeg skal lige have checket den tekniske kvalitet og lagt nogle fotos på, inden den blivet lagt på nettet. Men ærligt talt: jeg er ikke tilfreds med resultatet. Det er mest blevet til en vekslen mellem fransk og engelsk, men jeg havde planlagt noget betydeligt mere kompliceret.

I have now made the 'speak' of the multilingual video about my African adventure ... eh, adventure? Actually I was transported around in 4wds and on boats, so as an adventure it doesn't quite compare to the expeditions of the first people who visited Timbuctu and the Niger. But it was still the most primitive voyage I have done for a very long time. Back to the subject: I have to check the technical quality of the video and add a few photos, but I will upload it - although I'm quite dissatisfied with the result: it is not nearly confused enough!

1 person has voted this message useful





Iversen
Super Polyglot
Moderator
Denmark
berejst.dk
Joined 6453 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 2224 of 3959
02 February 2011 at 8:54pm | IP Logged 
FR: Puisqu'il n'y a pas de l'électricité dans le pays des Dogons on utilise des générateurs dans les soi-disant campements où les touristes habitent durant leur séjour - mais seulement dans la soirée, pas 24 heures. Et j'ai vu très peu de paraboles ou lampes qui pourraient indiquer que les Dogons eux-mêmes aient l'électricité dans leur cabanes. Pourtant j'ai vu des téléphones cellulaires là. Le long du fleuve Niger et dans les villes il en est autrement - là on vois parfois des maisons avec des antennes ou paraboles sur le toit.

There is no electricity in the Dogon country so the campements where the tourists stay use generators - but only in the evenings, not all day long. Judged from the lack of TV dishes and antennas the Dogons don't watch TV in the evenings, but along the river Niger and in the city a fair number of houses have these things so there people apparently get rectangular eyes like the rest of us.

Btw. I was walking around with a fellow traveller in the town Djenné, and more or less by accident we were invited into a local elementary school where the headmaster explained the way they teach the pupils languages. And at this level it was not only French, but also Fulani (Peul in French). The picture below shows how the alphabet is taught using pictures of things that start with the different letters, - and below a specimen of the language itself:



Edited by Iversen on 02 February 2011 at 9:30pm



1 person has voted this message useful



This discussion contains 3959 messages over 495 pages: << Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360 361 362 363 364 365 366 367 368 369 370 371 372 373 374 375 376 377 378 379 380 381 382 383 384 385 386 387 388 389 390 391 392 393 394 395 396 397 398 399 400 401 402 403 404 405 406 407 408 409 410 411 412 413 414 415 416 417 418 419 420 421 422 423 424 425 426 427 428 429 430 431 432 433 434 435 436 437 438 439 440 441 442 443 444 445 446 447 448 449 450 451 452 453 454 455 456 457 458 459 460 461 462 463 464 465 466 467 468 469 470 471 472 473 474 475 476 477 478 479 480 481 482 483 484 485 486 487 488 489 490 491 492 493 494 495  Next >>


Post ReplyPost New Topic Printable version Printable version

You cannot post new topics in this forum - You cannot reply to topics in this forum - You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum - You cannot create polls in this forum - You cannot vote in polls in this forum


This page was generated in 0.7656 seconds.


DHTML Menu By Milonic JavaScript
Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved
No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization.