IronMike's 2023 log: Fewer means better, right? (EO & RUS)

[IronMike]

Went to a lecture last night (prelego) given by Cesco Reale (Ческо Реале), an Italian Esperantist/Polyglot who is traveling through Russia right now. He's also the UEA representative to the UN in Geneva. If I understood him correctly, his first L2 was Esperanto. Then he added 12 more.

His talk was on how Esperanto is a useful language for learning other languages. The best part of the talk was that my Esperanto instructor did consecutive translation into Russian. So the night gave me an hour of Esperanto and Russian practice!

The evening was great. I've got pictures which I'll upload later. I also got my atestilo from the KER exam I took in June showing that I passed the C1 written exam. Nice to have finally. I'll take a picture of that as well and upload it.

[jeff_lindqvist]

Wow, Cesco! He's one of those polyglots who have no problems changing languages in the middle of the sentence. I've attended a number of his Polyglot Gathering lectures over the years.

[rdearman]

Wow, Cesco! He's one of those polyglots who have no problems changing languages in the middle of the sentence. I've attended a number of his Polyglot Gathering lectures over the years.

Yeah, I especially liked his word puzzles talk in Berlin.

[Elenia]

Sounds like you had a great night, Mike!

Wow, Cesco! He's one of those polyglots who have no problems changing languages in the middle of the sentence. I've attended a number of his Polyglot Gathering lectures over the years.

I bumped into him in Vienna after the gathering and he did a great job of understanding me blunder my way through a Swedish response (to a question in German) and then he smoothly switched to French to make things easier on me. He was extremely impressive - only wish I wasn't so stressed at the time!

[IronMike]

...and then he smoothly switched to French to make things easier on me. He was extremely impressive - only wish I wasn't so stressed at the time!

I was so stressed also when speaking with him in Esperanto! He offered to switch to English but I refused. He also switched effortlessly between French, English, Esperanto, some Russian, German during the talk. Very impressive.

[IronMike]

Finally uploaded some pictures from the prelego on Wednesday.



That's Cesco on the left sitting with my Esperanto instructor, Mirinda. She did a great job translating, at time simultaneous and others consecutive. Great practice for me!



And of course had to get the requisite selfie after the talk.

Finally, here's a pic of my atestilo for my C1 skriba test. Nicely done by the KER folks.

[IronMike]

Dawned on me I failed to report back on my Russian class last week.

Sadly, I missed Wednesday. The other student and instructor spoke about Russian rap-battles, which apparently are all the rage here. Had no idea. The only rap battle I know anything about is at the end of the film 8 Mile. Not even sure that's what rap battles really are.

But here? They are the biggest thing going. So for Friday's class I listened to a youtube link about a recent famous battle between Oxxxymiron and Gnoyniy. That's 20+ minutes of my life I'll never get back. There's also this article explaining what the hell these battles are all about.

I decided to get to the point and looked up this battle that everyone's talking about. Yowza. Talk about colloquial and fast. The "yeah booooy's" are a nice addition /sarc/. Some nice мат in there as well. Still, no desire to listen to one ever again.

So I was prepared for Friday's class...when my classmate, who brought this stupid topic up, wasn't there! I don't know where the hell she was, but I'm going to have to "thank" her on Wednesday when I see her. It wasn't all a loss though. The instructor and I did talk about language, and whether or not things like rap battles (and social media, advertisements, etc) degrade or enrich language. She said that there are two camps in Russia right now about these things: those who consider them the updated and current versions of the poetry duels that used to happen in Russia years (and years) ago. Others think these rap battles are degrading the language. Some nice discussion out of that, and some good vocabulary, both new and remembered:

царапать/по- to scratch, scrape, tear
покровитель protector, sponsor, patron
в настоящем времени vs. в настоящее время (in the) present tense vs. now, presently
размяться to limber up, warm up, c.f. разминка
портить to spoil, blunder, blemish, c.f. порча

[IronMike]

Prepping for my class this morning by re-reading the article my instructor gave me entitled: Максим Кронгауз: "Большинство людей рассматривают новое в языке как порчу."

The article is an edited (by my teacher) interview btwn this Kronhaus guy and someone named Lutz. Great vocab in the article, to include:

отчасти: partly, somewhat
искажать: disfigure, corrupt, mangle
в одном флаконе: rolled into one, of one opinion
прерываться: discontinue, abort, interrupt [obviously from the same root whence the word перерыв]
свойство: property, character, quality, kind
вседозволенность: permissiveness, lawlessness, license

and my absolute favorite of the year:

сарафаннное радио: word of mouth, grape-vine

We'll see how the discussion goes in class and if my classmate comes today!

[IronMike]

в одном флаконе: rolled into one, of one opinion

We'll see how the discussion goes in class and if my classmate comes today!

So, learned yday at class that the second definition above was not correct. She described this phrase as being used when you're describing a person as having the attributes of two others. Like, I guess, a child having the attributes of both parents "rolled into one."

But, I did ask her how to say that two people are of the same opinion, and she suggested на одной волне "on the same wave." Being a swimmer, I love that idiom!

Oh, and my classmate did not make it to class yesterday, so I got "my lips beat," a phrase we used to say at DLI when we were called on the majority of time to speak and/or we were just not having a good day and our speaking was crap. I asked one of my Russian friends how to say something similar in Russian and he suggested Я обтрепал все губы, which I'm not sure about...perhaps he was trying to come up with something too close to my phrase?

[aaleks]

So, learned yday at class that the second definition above was not correct. She described this phrase as being used when you're describing a person as having the attributes of two others. Like, I guess, a child having the attributes of both parents "rolled into one."

I guess в одном флаконе stems from tv-commercials (from the 90s), like shampoo & conditioner in one bottle . I can't say for sure because I was just a teenager at the time all those tv-commercials became a common thing for our (Russian) tv. Back then it all seemed weird and funny, as a result some of phrase from those commercials became a kind of idiom .

I asked one of my Russian friends how to say something similar in Russian and he suggested Я обтрепал все губы, which I'm not sure about...perhaps he was trying to come up with something too close to my phrase?

I think it's exactly what he tried to do . I'm afraid there's no Russian equivalent of the phrase "got my lips beat", or I don't know it. I can recall only смозолить/намозолить язык which is probably close but it has a negative connotation.