tiia's log (FIN, SPA, SWE, EUS)

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tiia
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Language Log: viewtopic.php?t=2374
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Re: tiia's log (Finnish, Spanish)

Postby tiia » Tue Jan 17, 2017 3:25 pm

DaveBee wrote:
tiia wrote:Ok, actually I thought that I should choose one of the three unread books in my shelf I own longest*.

*Is there any shorter/better way to say this? In German I'd say "die drei am längsten ungelesenen Bücher".
... I should choose from the three unread books on my shelf the one that I have owned [the] longest.

...I should choose the oldest of my unread books.


No, that's simply not what I wanted to say.

I have around 8 unread books. Three of them I bought in 2014. The other ones later. So I was going to choose one out of those three books, that I have since 2014.
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Re: tiia's log (Finnish, Spanish)

Postby Systematiker » Tue Jan 17, 2017 4:04 pm

It has to end up somewhat nested. "One of the three books (on my shelf) [that] I've left unread the longest" is about as simple as I can get it.
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Re: tiia's log (Finnish, Spanish)

Postby DaveBee » Tue Jan 17, 2017 4:15 pm

tiia wrote:
DaveBee wrote:
tiia wrote:Ok, actually I thought that I should choose one of the three unread books in my shelf I own longest*.

*Is there any shorter/better way to say this? In German I'd say "die drei am längsten ungelesenen Bücher".
... I should choose from the three unread books on my shelf the one that I have owned [the] longest.

...I should choose the oldest of my unread books.


No, that's simply not what I wanted to say.

I have around 8 unread books. Three of them I bought in 2014. The other ones later. So I was going to choose one out of those three books, that I have since 2014.
OK.
...I should choose between my three oldest unread books.
...I should choose one of/from my three oldest unread books.

You could quibble about 'oldest'.
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Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=7332
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Re: tiia's log (Finnish, Spanish)

Postby Systematiker » Tue Jan 17, 2017 4:28 pm

DaveBee wrote:
tiia wrote:
DaveBee wrote:
tiia wrote:Ok, actually I thought that I should choose one of the three unread books in my shelf I own longest*.

*Is there any shorter/better way to say this? In German I'd say "die drei am längsten ungelesenen Bücher".
... I should choose from the three unread books on my shelf the one that I have owned [the] longest.

...I should choose the oldest of my unread books.


No, that's simply not what I wanted to say.

I have around 8 unread books. Three of them I bought in 2014. The other ones later. So I was going to choose one out of those three books, that I have since 2014.
OK.
...I should choose between my three oldest unread books.
...I should choose one of/from my three oldest unread books.

You could quibble about 'oldest'.


Not picking a fight or anything, but I would (quibble, that is). Your first sentence doesn't work (between with three); for the second I wouldn't get "oldest" as "longest in my possession"; I'd probably assume "age of the work" (thus, she wants classic lit) or "age of the copy" (stuff's getting yellow and falling apart, yo).
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Re: tiia's log (Finnish, Spanish)

Postby DaveBee » Tue Jan 17, 2017 5:34 pm

Systematiker wrote:
DaveBee wrote:
tiia wrote:
DaveBee wrote:
tiia wrote:Ok, actually I thought that I should choose one of the three unread books in my shelf I own longest*.

*Is there any shorter/better way to say this? In German I'd say "die drei am längsten ungelesenen Bücher".
... I should choose from the three unread books on my shelf the one that I have owned [the] longest.

...I should choose the oldest of my unread books.


No, that's simply not what I wanted to say.

I have around 8 unread books. Three of them I bought in 2014. The other ones later. So I was going to choose one out of those three books, that I have since 2014.
OK.
...I should choose between my three oldest unread books.
...I should choose one of/from my three oldest unread books.

You could quibble about 'oldest'.


Not picking a fight or anything, but I would (quibble, that is). Your first sentence doesn't work (between with three); for the second I wouldn't get "oldest" as "longest in my possession"; I'd probably assume "age of the work" (thus, she wants classic lit) or "age of the copy" (stuff's getting yellow and falling apart, yo).
1. Between works beyond two options. (see 7, collins dictionary)
7. preposition
If you must choose between two or more things, you must choose just one of them.
⇒ Students will be able to choose between English, French and Russian as their first foreign language.

2. In context I think oldest works, but as you say it is ambiguous.
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Re: tiia's log (Finnish, Spanish)

Postby Elenia » Tue Jan 17, 2017 8:28 pm

Or 'I should choose one of the three books that have been sitting unread on my shelves for ages'

There is probably no short way of saying this, but that is how I would have said it (and very similar to something I did actually say just last week).
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tiia
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Re: tiia's log (Finnish, Spanish)

Postby tiia » Fri Jan 20, 2017 8:08 pm

Thanks for all your answers. I can see similar thoughts to mine, when I was writing the sentence originally. Though I think it's somehow sad, that there's not such a nice short way of saying it as in German.

Btw. it is intersting to see how many people suddenly react here, when I'm asking a small questing about English. :)

----
I should write one of today's tasks in the Spanish class down here. We only did it orally and it would be a nice practice to make a written version of it, with more content and less mistakes.
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Elenia
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Re: tiia's log (Finnish, Spanish)

Postby Elenia » Sat Jan 21, 2017 9:17 am

tiia wrote:Btw. it is intersting to see how many people suddenly react here, when I'm asking a small questing about English. :)


Ah, well it was finally something I could help with!

Also, about the other comment I missed from that original post, about being typically Finnish and silent: I had a Finnish friend who was au pairing here for a year. I'm quite a talkative person, so I think I exhausted her. We would stay out quite late and go for long walks, and I always talked a lot more than usual, because she was so quiet. It was a nervous reflex.
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tiia
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Location: Finland
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Language Log: viewtopic.php?t=2374
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Re: tiia's log (Finnish, Spanish)

Postby tiia » Sat Jan 21, 2017 4:12 pm

Elenia wrote:
tiia wrote:Btw. it is intersting to see how many people suddenly react here, when I'm asking a small questing about English. :)

Ah, well it was finally something I could help with!

I didn't really expect to get answers at all. :D

I might be extremely careful allowing certain discussions/topics and try to avoid them here completely, because they are extremely sensitive to me, but people might not expect them to be sensitive.
Despite such topics I still have to learn to ask for adivce/help in general. I know that I really have a problem doing so.

One of those sensitive topics - probably the most important one - is my awful internet connection - something that affects my life every day and I cannot change. I am absolutely sick of any advice here as I've gotten far to many already. If there exists an "easy" solution, the problem would have been solved already.
So of course I try to avoid anyone getting into this topic as I really don't want to discuss it over and over again. (And this is not an invitation to pick up this topic.) In case anyone is wondering: That's why I don't really try podcasts, why I don't watch series online regulary. There's simply a pretty strict data limitation.
E.g. The audiobooks on youtube I can download elsewhere to listen to them at home later. It's not really comfortable, so I kind of dislike doing it. When it comes to films I start to consider buying a (used) DVD much earlier than "normal" people as I can just compare it with the price of additional data volume.
That's it. Now you probably got some kind of impression.


Just in case someone has some nice idea, what to write here, or what s/he what's to know... :)
I mean, I can still decide not to answer for whatever reason.


Elenia wrote:[...] and I always talked a lot more than usual, because she was so quiet. It was a nervous reflex.

You're not the only one. When someone is "too silent" I either end up talking like a waterfall or not really saying anything. However, with Finns I am a lot more often ok with being silent. But in general it depends on the person and my mood. In lively discussions it can be similar, you'll often encounter only one or the other option.
It's kind of interesting, because it leads to some people knowing me as extremely talkactive and others as extremely silent, and then they don't believe me, that it can be the other way. (It's especially annoying when people don't believe me being actually shy...)
But when comfortably being silent around someone, who is silent as well in that moment, that can be just wonderful. Unfortunately such situations are rare.
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Elenia
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Re: tiia's log (Finnish, Spanish)

Postby Elenia » Sat Jan 21, 2017 8:36 pm

tiia wrote:One of those sensitive topics - probably the most important one - is my awful internet connection - something that affects my life every day and I cannot change. I am absolutely sick of any advice here as I've gotten far to many already. If there exists an "easy" solution, the problem would have been solved already.
So of course I try to avoid anyone getting into this topic as I really don't want to discuss it over and over again. (And this is not an invitation to pick up this topic.) In case anyone is wondering: That's why I don't really try podcasts, why I don't watch series online regulary. There's simply a pretty strict data limitation.
E.g. The audiobooks on youtube I can download elsewhere to listen to them at home later. It's not really comfortable, so I kind of dislike doing it. When it comes to films I start to consider buying a (used) DVD much earlier than "normal" people as I can just compare it with the price of additional data volume.
That's it. Now you probably got some kind of impression.



The internet situation sounds like a nightmare, I'm sorry. When I was in France, the internet got awfully slow after eleven, as a general rule. There were no data restrictions, and no real reason for it to happen. It just did, and sometimes would stop completely.


tiia wrote:
Elenia wrote:[...] and I always talked a lot more than usual, because she was so quiet. It was a nervous reflex.

You're not the only one. When someone is "too silent" I either end up talking like a waterfall or not really saying anything. However, with Finns I am a lot more often ok with being silent. But in general it depends on the person and my mood. In lively discussions it can be similar, you'll often encounter only one or the other option.
It's kind of interesting, because it leads to some people knowing me as extremely talkactive and others as extremely silent, and then they don't believe me, that it can be the other way. (It's especially annoying when people don't believe me being actually shy...)
But when comfortably being silent around someone, who is silent as well in that moment, that can be just wonderful. Unfortunately such situations are rare.


I don't think anyone who has ever met me would think of me as 'quiet'. And I have the same problem, it took my mum years to realise I was shy, even though I told her I am. I'm learning to just let the silence be though. Slowly, by I am learning!
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