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 ... 446 ... 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 3561 of 3959
20 March 2014 at 10:13am | IP Logged 
I have had a somewhat unortodox night: I took a nap around 8 o'clock p.m. ... and woke up at 1 a.m. OK, then I studied Russian and Serbian until 5 o'clock and slept from 5 or so to just before 7 o'clock. Maybe not what the sleep doctors prescribe, but it functioned quite well. And it may an advantage NOT to watch TV in the socalled prime time where all the worst junk is shown. Btw. a couple of days ago I saw a reference to research that showed that people at large prefer listening to the same songs again and again and again and again and then once more and again a couple of times more. And then the article had the impertinence to suggest that 'we' just get what we really want. Not me, please, count me out.

OK, back to my nightly studies. First Russian (retranslation of a passage from the biography of Rimskij-Korsakov), followed by studies of Serbian using my guidebook to BeoZoo. And while doing this I watched 3Sat, which I now have seen is something of a patchwork channel with materials from ZDF, ORF, SRG und ARD. OK, I'm still fairly satisfied - I don't watch everything on ZDF or ARD, and besides all channels have reruns so it isn't a problem that a rerun from ZDF turns up on 3SAT instead. Last night this channel sent travelogues from all over the world from 1 to 5, and for once I didn't have to change channel for four hours in a row. Otherwise that just happen once in a blue moon.

Fasulye's loss of especially TV5 must be a problem for her - French TV may not be the most sought-after commodity on the media market, but for those who have learnt the language it is important. The problem is of course that the majority can impose its will in such cases, and the cable providers then have an excuse for referring 'narrow' channels to expensive extra packages, or they simply drop the programs in question. In that respect I'm fairly well served by Yousee insofar that it has a lot of things to choose from - there is at least one very vociferous competitor here which claims that it offers more freedom of choice, but it has not nearly the same gamut of interesting offers on its shelves.

Specifically about the South Slavic languages: I have still not decided whether I should put Croatian or Serbian on my 'studies' list - or maybe both, with a clear conscience that it will be hard to keep the two languages separated. I have more or less internalized the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet now - for instance I have abolished the urge to see any ј as the beginning of an л. I did also my transcription exercise from Cyrillic to Roman as planned, but paradoxically I found it more natural to write Serbian with Cyrillic letters than with Roman letters. So when I look for materials the most logical strategy may be to stick to Cyrillic for Serbian and keep Roman for Croatian materials - that may also be the only practical way to keep those two separated. Orally it will be hard not to be influenced by HRT1 when I read Serbian, as long as I don't have a Serbian alternative. A few hours with Serbian podcasts won't change that. I'll have to deal with that later.

As for word meanings I have found BeoZoo's animal descriptions fairly easy - I know the topic well, and the vocabulary is fairly standardized. Not a bad choice for an introductory text. And somehow it also helps that I have looked through a number of texts in several Southern Slavic languages in connection with my travels in the area. I didn't learn the languages back then, but it doesn't feel like entirely unbetrodden territory.

Edited by Iversen on 21 March 2014 at 1:35am

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 3562 of 3959
21 March 2014 at 1:01am | IP Logged 
POR: Minha leitura no ônibus-da-obra-à-casa nesta semana tem sido "Super Interesante" numa edição especial de 2011-12 exclusivamente com perguntas e respostas. Você sabia que os sinais de mão dos chineses para os números 1-5 são semelhantes aos do Ocidente, enquanto os números 6-10 são construídas sobre os caracteres corespondentes e, consequentemente, muito diferentes? Eu não sabia isso, mas eu sabía que os vândalos vandalizaram muito menos do que os hipócritas romanos, que mehercule mereciam uma amistosa visita de retorno! Eu também sabia que o rei Ricardo Coração de Leão de Inglaterra praticamente não visitou a Inglaterra durante o seu reinado de dez anos - ele chateado até mesmo chegar à coroação .. E seu irmão Johan sem-pais (Lackland) também foi um rei pessimo apesar de permanecer no pais. O talvez por permanecer no pais.

I have been reading the magazine "Super interesante" in Portuguese in the bus back home from work for a couple of days, but normally nobody takes notice of my reading habits. However today a girl saw from the other end of the bus what I was reading and came up specifically to ask me whether I was Portuguese. I had to disappoint her - but she told me that in her first three months in this town she had yet to meet another Portuguese. Maybe it is too cold for them here in Denmark. Or too expensive.

POL: Dzisiaj słuchałem wiadomości i dyskusji na programu Polonia, i skopiowałem i powrotne--przetłumaczonałem (??) teksty w niektórych lekcjach w moim polskiego podręcznika i a ponadto tekst w Indonezji. Ja też słuchałem chorwackiej programu kulturalnego.

I also listened to Polish and Croatian TV and copied/retranslated a couple of texts from my Polish textbook plus a text in Indonesian about old dynasties on Java. I think I have reached an important stage with the spoken version of both languages: now I can distinguish the words and sentences - I just don't know enough words yet to understand everything on the fly. It is amazing what a few hours of dedicated listening can do, but it will take some time to accumulate the necessary vocabulary.

Edited by Iversen on 21 March 2014 at 1:25am

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 3563 of 3959
24 March 2014 at 12:50pm | IP Logged 
Yesterday I made my first wordlist in Serbian with words gleaned from the BeoZoo guidebook - and it contained around 150 words. I have notes with maybe 100 words more in the right margin for the next wordlist, but given how easy going Serbian wo far has been I could also see myself doing wordlists directly from a dictionary soon.

It is clear that my previous studies of Polish and especially Russian are extremely helpful as a background for studying other Slavic languages - many of the words are old friends, just spelled weirdly (and with a few idiosyncratic letters thrown in for good measure). And in some cases I have to extrapolate from the words in the dictionary, as in the case of the ringtailed lemur which is called прстенорепи лемур in Serbian. Of course прстенорепи isn't in any of my small dictionaries, but прстен (ring) is and реп (tail) is - and и is a common ending on adjectives. And a hippo is called a Нилски коњ, just as in German (Nilpferd).

Btw. I have got a funny English <--> Serbian dictionary (found in Beograd) which starts from from both ends of the book - so if you will skip from Serbian>English to English->Serbian you have to turn the whole book around. I also have an Italian<>Serbian dictionary from Milano and a slightly larger old Serbocroatian <--> French dictionary and a fairly large Croatian<->English dictionary. But I need something the size of my Polish Pons for Serbian - i.e. something comprehensive in Cyrillic letters written specifically for foreign learners and not for Serbians trying to learn English, French or Italian.

When we reach October and Novi Sad I'm sure that I at least can read both Serbian and Croatian, hopefully also write them - and hopefully also understand them. But maybe not keep them apart, except in writing. On the other hand, with Polish and Russian taking their toll too it is clear that there will be less time for non-Slavic projects. My Romanian needs a brushup (and Romanian is definitely relevant for Novi Sad), but things like Irish and Latin and Esperanto will inevitably get less time this summer. And within the next couple of years I intend to add at least Czech and Bulgarian, and this should be enough background to understand the rest of the Slavic languages. But so far I try to ignore the urge to start new projects.

Edited by Iversen on 25 March 2014 at 12:12pm

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 3564 of 3959
25 March 2014 at 11:36am | IP Logged 
FR: Notre bibliothèque ici à Århus a introduit quelque chose qui s'appelle un 'café de langues' ("sprogcafé" en Danois). C'est chaque lundi à 16.00 précises, et à 16.00 heures je suis généralement encore au boulot ou dans l'autobus vers la maison. Une fois seulement j'ai jusqu'ici pu y assister, et alors j'ai parlé Danois a un immigrant de l'Afghanistan - utile pour lui, mais pas tellement pour moi.

Hier j'ai pourtant pu assister encore une fois, et cette fois je me suis assis à une table 'francophone' où on a discuté les voyages aux pays francophones. J'ai dit quelques mots sur mon tour a Dakar où il y'avait très peu de touristes - les étrangers là sont surtout des hommes d'affaires, et les touristes français qui arrive en groupes sont logés hors de Dakar. On a aussi discuté les possibilités de transport à la Corse, et on a discuté le tourisme au dedans de l'Hexagone. Une dame à la table avait enseigné le français toute sa vie, mais était maintenant en retraite. Un monsieur avait travaillé en France, et plus tard une jeune femme qui avait étudié le français et même vendu des chaussures dans la ville de Grenoble nous a rejoigné. Mais il y avait aussi une autre dame à la table qui avait un peu plus de problèmes à trouver les mots et expressions justes, et elle a dit au revoir relativement tôt. Je suis presque sûr qu'elle s'est sentie un peu en dehors parce que nous autres ont pu bavarder sans problèmes. Évidemment nous avons essayé de lui laisser le temps qu'il fallait et resoudre ses petits problèmes lexicaux, mais c'est toujours difficile d'être celui (ou celle) qui est le moins capable à mener une conversation dans un groupe. Néanmoins il faut être tétu si on se trouve dans cette situation et continuer à se mêler dans la discussion.

Il y avait aussi des tables hispanophones, anglophones et .. eh, qu'est-qu'on dit, allemandophone?? Mais les personnes autour la table d'expression allemande ont triché - ils ont parlé en danois. Comme je leur ai dit: "Das hört sich nicht sehr Deutsch an"

Edited by Iversen on 25 March 2014 at 12:15pm

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 3565 of 3959
29 March 2014 at 1:57pm | IP Logged 
I have not written anything in this thread for several days, and it will take too long to mention all the thing I have done since I left the message above, so let me just mention that I worked with several texts in Greek while watching TV-programs from several countries last night.

GR: Ένα από τα κείμενα μου αποτελείται από μια σειρά από εξηγήσεις για τα ονόματα αθηναϊκών οδών (που παρεμπιπτόντως είναι γενικά στη γενική πτώση). Είναι προφανές ότι η Ερμού είναι το όνομά του από τον θεό Ερμή, αλλά μην οτι Βουταάδων πήρε το όνομά του από ένα τάξη ιερέων, που είχα πάρει το όνομά τους από ένα μέλος της επιδρομή των Αργοναύτων. Διάβασα επίσης μερικές σελίδες του ξαναβρήκε μου Αστερίξ.

FR: J'était éveillé pendant quelques heures cette nuit et sur la télé j'ai regardé des programmes de la Pologne et de la Croatie, mais aussi un programme sur la chaîne française TF2 concernant des trains "pas commes les autres" au Brésil.

POR: Tudo começou com o carnaval no Rio, e o primeiro comboio foi "o Trem do Frevo" quem deja livre acceso às pessoas vestidas na maneira 'carnaval' para espalhar a atmosfera divertida para a zona rural ao redor da cidade. Os seguintes trens eram mais comuns. Um país do tamanho de Brasil não pode ser ligada sômente por trem - como se disse no programa: todos os países da Europa Ocidental podríam ser colocados dentro das fronteiras de Brasil. Mas portanto há linhas de trem quem vale a pena explorar.

POL: Chorwaci powiedzieli nam o zakrzepów krwi, a Polonia oglądałem wiadomości z funkcji na trasach lotniczych... i dużo o Ukrainie.


Edited by Iversen on 29 March 2014 at 2:24pm

2 persons have 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 3566 of 3959
30 March 2014 at 2:36pm | IP Logged 
GE: Gerade jetzt sehe ich deutsches Fernsehen, ein programm über Herbert von Karajan auf 3sat. Es wird natürlich viel über Musik gesagt und noch viel mehr über sein privates Leben - aber ich habe auch zum Beispiel bemerkt, daß er verneinte eine außerordentliche Gedächtnis zu haben - unerwartet weil er immer ohne Partitur und oft mit geschossenen Augen dirigierte. Aber wie er gesagt hat: er hat die Musik in seinem Kopf gehört, und um das stundenlang ohne Lücken zu können hat er seine Konzentrationsvermögen zielgerecht trainiert. Es wurde andere (jetzt toten) Dirigenten genannt die die Partituren visuell lernten - zum Beispiel Mitropoulos und de Sabata. Dieses Unterschied gibt es sicher auch bei den Sprachschülern.

Edited by Iversen on 30 March 2014 at 2:43pm

2 persons have 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 3567 of 3959
01 April 2014 at 2:13am | IP Logged 
Right now my floor is covered by small piles of foreign language magazines and booklets, which I have bought as souvenirs from my travels - mostly from the time after 2006, where I restarted my language studies, but also with a number of earlier items - like a computer magazine in Greek from 1987 (where I still had a Commonodore 64 at home and used XT's on my job). Other interesting are Carcassonne in Russian and in Catalan - a parallel to my acquisitions of Greek guides in Greek and in some othe language. The problem right now is to find out what to do with all this stuff.

Among the refound gems I would like to mention Rune T. Kidde's "Litterærlie* Klassikere" (Modtryk 2002) which I mentioned a couple of months ago - a totally irreverent comics version of the main chef d'oeuvres of the world literature (written so that people like me don't have to read or reread them). To give an impression of the style I'll translate the page about the Name of the Rose (minus the text bubbles):

* "litterærlig": not a real word, but a cross between "litterær" and "rædderlig" ("ghastly")

It's all about this freak* - a former monk - who believes he is miss Marple. Therefore the old weird transvestite takes a shitty brat as his apprentice and go to a strange monastery.// In that strange monastery some strange people live,// but then something strange happens: they start falling out of the windows and things like that, // and they also fall into the cauldron and things like that, and it it is that the old freak has to find out, why that is strange.// Luckily the little brat has an indecent relationship to an underage thai girl so that the readers also have something to do in the meantime // but then it suddenly turns out that they** go and fall into the cauldrons and out of the windows because they are aren't allowed to learn that the Bible actually is some kind of sketch for the Tivoli revue. Actually that is not very strange, and that's then the end of that story*** and they put fire to the whole shit and go home. //

* "festoriginal"
** i.e. the monks
*** "og så er den skid slået"

See, now I don't have to read the Name of the Rose again, and I'm happy about that. I read it first time during my study years, and last year or so I tried to repeat that monumental feat, but this time I found the whole book unbearably longwinded and boring. Mr. Eco's books about semiotics are actually more thrilling than the Rose of the Name...

OK, one sample more - this time from the page about the film "Casablanca":

Every time Sam Snot had finished his vulgar and tiresome song the café owner yelled: play it again, you***hole. // And then they sat for God knows which time and drank like swines from filthy gin bottles in the mouldy-stinking Moroccan night // while the terror-stricken rats shat on the floor and the scorpions vomited violet-green stuff down the walls...

Sam, stop playing that tune...   

Edited by Iversen on 02 April 2014 at 1:24am

1 person has voted this message useful





Fasulye
Heptaglot
Winner TAC 2012
Moderator
Germany
fasulyespolyglotblog
Joined 5597 days ago

5460 posts - 6006 votes 
1 sounds
Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto
Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 3568 of 3959
01 April 2014 at 8:08am | IP Logged 
Iversen wrote:
GE: Gerade jetzt sehe ich deutsches Fernsehen, ein programm über Herbert von Karajan auf 3sat. Es wird natürlich viel über Musik gesagt und noch viel mehr über sein privates Leben - aber ich habe auch zum Beispiel bemerkt, daß er verneinte eine außerordentliche Gedächtnis zu haben - unerwartet weil er immer ohne Partitur und oft mit geschossenen Augen dirigierte. Aber wie er gesagt hat: er hat die Musik in seinem Kopf gehört, und um das stundenlang ohne Lücken zu können hat er seine Konzentrationsvermögen zielgerecht trainiert. Es wurde andere (jetzt toten) Dirigenten genannt die die Partituren visuell lernten - zum Beispiel Mitropoulos und de Sabata. Dieses Unterschied gibt es sicher auch bei den Sprachschülern.


Ich habe mich im ganzen Leben nie mit klassischer Musik befasst (außer, als ich in der Schule dazu gezwungen wurde), aber Herbert von Karajan war früher als Dirigent sehr oft im Fernsehen zu sehen. Dass er seine Partituren auswendig dirigiert hat, das wusste ich nicht. Das beeindruckt mich enorm! Er muss schon lange tot sein, aber zu seinen Lebzeiten war er sehr berühmt in Deutschland.

Fasulye


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 0.7344 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.