A comprehension experiment for Romance speakers, what do you understand of Menorcan Catalan?

[AndyMeg]

This is what I think I more or less got (mostly in Spanish) :

Mira, vamos a decir… una Raquel… una Raquel y … tu ves que queda de segunda. Mira… en su país…, pero ya vamos a hablar de eso... Y piensa... Es de un por el Hospital Clinic… one piece... Y, resulta que, yo digo… ella... por consideración con la excusa que tiene su panza… no sé qué. Una excusa. Y ella piensa, si va allá… si va allá... vaya a saludar, en plan yo que sé… por allá y después… Y pudieron quedar… tú y una Raquel por allá por el hospital clínica, fuera una cola o fuera lo que fuere y ella pues ya tendrá la excusa de “no, es como esperen…

[nooj]

This is what I think I more or less got (mostly in Spanish) :

Mira, vamos a decir… una Raquel… una Raquel y … tu ves que queda de segunda. Mira… en su país…, pero ya vamos a hablar de eso... Y piensa... Es de un por el Hospital Clinic… one piece... Y, resulta que, yo digo… ella... por consideración con la excusa que tiene su panza… no sé qué. Una excusa. Y ella piensa, si va allá… si va allá... vaya a saludar, en plan yo que sé… por allá y después… Y pudieron quedar… tú y una Raquel por allá por el hospital clínica, fuera una cola o fuera lo que fuere y ella pues ya tendrá la excusa de “no, es como esperen…

Interesting, nice to hear from a native Spanish speaker.

Here is the transcription, but not the translation. I'm curious to see what youse all make of it, written down:

Mira, m'heu d'ajudar tu i na Raquel; bono, na Raquel i tu vens aquí de... segundo. Mira, és que demà es de sa uni volen sopar i sortir, però a jo me fa vessa, i he pensat: dic mira, saps què? Ells viuen per Hospital Clínic, bono hi van a sopar, a un pis, i resulta que, jo dic, així perquè els hi he dit com a excusa que tenc sopar amb sa r- amb sa resi no sé què, bé, una excusa! I he pensat: si vaig allà (jo acab de sa uni a les set), dic, si vaig allà quan(t) acabi de sa uni, vaig a saludar en plan jo què sé, una hora o açò per allà i después me'n vaig. I podeu quedar tu i na Raquel per allà per Hospital Clínic a fer una Cola o fer lo que sigui i així pues ja tindré excusa de dir "No és que m'esperen allà no sé què" i com que na Raquel (e)la coneixen pues així serà més... més cantós de que és de dever que tenc un sopar. Què trobes, que vens, demà?

[guyome]

Thanks for the transcription! Much, much more understandable than the audio of course, but still a bit of a workout for me.

[nooj]

Here is my translation. Quite a complicated plan, but I confirm that it worked out.



Look, youse have to help me, you and Raquel. Well, Raquel and you come...second. The thing is that tomorrow, the guys from university want to have dinner and go out, but I can't be bothered, and I thought: look, you know what? They live around Hospital Clínic, well they go there to have dinner, at an apartment there, and it turns out that, I mean, it's like this because I told them that I have dinner with the (guys from) student accomodation, as an excuse, something like that, well, an excuse you know. And I thought, if I go there, I finish uni at 7, I mean, if I go when I finish uni, I'll go to say hello like I donno, for an hour or so and then I'll leave. And youse can meet, you and Raquel around there around Hospital Clínic to have a coke or whatever and so then I'll have an excuse to say "I can't, they're waiting for me over there" and as they already know Raquel, it'll be more obvious that it's true that I have a dinner to go to. What do you think, will you come tomorrow?

[guyome]

I wasn't sure I had everything alright because it seemed like way too complicated a plan. I probably would have just said "no, I won't come, thanks"

After your explanation of a jo me fa vessa, the bit I didn't understand was en plan jo què sé.

[mentecuerpo]

From the audio clip, I probably got all the Spanish cognates, but there were not enough to understand the gist of the story. Even reading the transcript, I could not get the main idea. This language is farther away from Spanish than say Portuguese.

[nooj]

Second round. It's a recipe for a Menorcan speciality.

In this case the women speak a western dialect of Menorcan Catalan, from the capital city Ciutadella and its outlying metropolitan area. This is the same dialect as the woman who I posted in the original post. If it's the same dialect why do I expect a different result? Because this one is accompanied by video.

The last one was just a recording, without any context, which made it pragmatically hard to understand, even putting aside the language issue. I sometimes have trouble eavesdropping in a telephone call in my own language!

So for this experiment, there are two parts.

1) first, without watching the video. Close your eyes or cover the screen to do this. Do you feel that you could rewrite (in your native language) the recipe that they described, more or less, very basically?

2) then by watching the video and using the visual clues of the video. Does your comprehension improve and if so, by how much? Do you feel that you could rewrite the recipe (in your native language) that they described, more or less, very basically?

Bonus question: they mention that traditionally formatjades were only made at a certain time of the year. What was this certain time of the year?



What are called formatjades in Menorca are the equivalent of panades in Mallorca. Except in Mallorca they're filled with red meat, fish or peas. In Menorca they make them differently, as you'll see...

[Saim]

I missed vessa. Only later in the recording did I manage to figure out that she didn't want to go.

I also didn't really know the word cantós but it was clear from the context.


Here's my translation into Central Catalan:

Mira, m'heu d'ajudar tu i la Raquel; bueno, la Raquel i tu vens aquí de "segundo". Mira, és que demà els de la uni volen sopar i sortir, però a mi em fa mandra (/pal), i he pensat: dic mira, saps què? Ells viuen per Hospital Clínic, bueno i van a sopar, a un pis, i resulta que, jo dic, així perquè els hi he dit com a excusa que tinc sopar a la resi no sé què, bé, un excusa! I he pensat, si vaig allà, surto de classe (/acabo les classes/plego) a les set, vaig a saludar en plan jo què sé, una hora o això per allà i després (/después) me'n vaig. I podeu quedar tu i la Raquel per allà per Hospital Clínic a fer una cola o fer el que (/lo que) sigui i així doncs (/pues) ja tindré excusa de dir "No, és que m'esperen allà no sé què" i com que la Raquel la coneixen doncs (/pues) així serà més... més obvi (/clar/evident) que és veritat que tinc un sopar. Què trobes, que vens demà?


Acceptable variants are in brackets. Después, pues, segundo, bueno, resi are Hispanicisms. I think después is less common among young people in Catalonia (després has made a comeback due to influence from the standard language), whereas the others are pretty much universal [EDIT: except for segundo, which is why I rendered it in quotation marks].

Lo que is common in most dialects of spoken Catalan. The literary variant is el que, which has filtered down into colloquial speech in Catalonia and coexists with lo que.

One interesting thing I noticed is that she pronounced "resi" with an unvoiced s, whereas in Catalonia this would generally be voiced. In general in Catalonia Spanish loans are phonetically adapted whereas in the Balearics they more often leave them as is.

I've never heard acabar de la uni before. I would've expected acabar les classes, sortir de classe or just plegar.

Standard Catalan would be els he dit que; els hi he dit que is vernacular Eastern Catalan (both Central and Balearic). In Standard Catalan the hi in els hi he dit refers to the direct object and els is the indirect object, whereas in spoken Eastern Catalan els hi becomes the indirect object on its own (and the direct object can't be expressed as a pronoun).

Dever doesn't have much of a direct translation, I think they would just use the noun veritat here. The word ver does exist, but it's too formal for this kind of context. There are also the expression de veres and de debò, but they're generally used as adverbs, I think they would sound strange in the above sentence (I could be wrong though).

After your explanation of a jo me fa vessa, the bit I didn't understand was en plan jo què sé.

en plan is slang borrowed from Spanish, broadly equivalent to English "like". "Like, I dunno", "like, what do I know".

[lingua]

I didn't understand a lot without the video. I picked up several more words while by associating them with what was on the screen. I believe the holiday would have been Easter. I heard what sounded like the Italian Pasqua. It is surprising how much more the brain perceives with video. I liked how they made sure they got every drop of the expensive saffron. I'm not sure I could rewrite the instructions because I missed some of the measurements. Perhaps re-watching several more times would help.

[nooj]

Exactly.

3:08 només se solien fer per Pascua, un temps

Before, they only used to be made for Easter