עברית סוף סוף - Hebrew and German, and Anglophone Lit

[Deinonysus]

Yes, you would understand them without any problem (but you'll have to learn some words), however, I warn you, purely Standard Croatian is not spoken at all, except by speakers on the Public TV and Radio. Some standard words are not used in everyday speech at all, not even in most newspapers and novels, or words are used in a bit different form. It's a kind of idealized, a bit (some would say: quite) artificial standard. So basically no school for foreigners teaches purely Standard Croatian, since you would sound extremely formal and weird.

If you're that interested in pitch accents, then, of course, Lithuanian is another option.

Cool! I'm looking for more of a neutral BCMS than trying to perfectly speak one of the national languages, so Standard Croatian sounds fine to me even if it's a bit artificial. I probably won't get to it for a decade or two anyway so I could change my mind by then.

I'm definitely interested in Lithuanian but I don't know if I'll ever get to it. Maybe if I live until they discover immortality...

I took a year of Japanese in college but the pitch accent was never discussed. Japanese, Norwegian, and Ancient Greek are all high priority for me, so by the time I get to Croatian I should be well versed in pitch accents.

[Deinonysus]

ייִדיש

I think I'm done with Wanderlust for now.

My latest temptation was that my copy of Assimil Le yiddish sans peine just arrived. I quickly went through the first five lessons, and Yiddish is honestly the easiest language I have ever learned (and probably will be for you too if you speak German and you can read Hebrew). It took my until the fourth or fifth lesson to see a word that didn't have a German cognate (it's סך "sakh", which comes from Hebrew; it's used in אַ סך "a sakh", meaning "a lot").

According to a Polish article on the mutual influence between Yiddish and Polish:

In regard to Yiddish vocabulary it is estimated that the Germanic element makes up some 70-75 percent of the overall lexicon. The remaining 15-20 percent words come from Hebrew, while the Slavic element is estimated at 10-15 percent (an additional couple of percent is of early Romance origin).

https://culture.pl/en/article/how-much- ... -in-polish

But I have the feeling that as in English, the proportion of Germanic words is much higher in simple, everyday speech than in more academic or literary speech. I haven't run into any Slavic-origin words in the early chapters of Assimil or Uriel Weinreich's College Yiddish, although I'm sure I'll run into plenty of Slavic words later on.

According to the intro to Le Yiddish sans peine, one of the biggest Slavic influences is an aspect system. Standard German does not reflect aspect in its conjugation system. Yiddish, however, uses various various prefixes or auxiliary verbs to systematically show aspect:

Habitual aspect
The habitual past aspect or tense is formed by a special auxiliary verb followed by the infinitive (or participle, in some dialects):

Person	Number		- (no standalone form)
First Person	Singular	איך ikh	פֿלעג fleg
Second Person	Singular	דו du	פֿלעגסט flegst
	Familiar
Third Person	Singular	ער er	פֿלעגט flegt
		זי zi
		עס es
First Person	Plural	מיר mir	פֿלעגן flegn
Second Person	Plural/	איר ir	פֿלעגט flegt
	Polite
Third Person	Plural	זיי zey	פֿלעגן flegn

Example: איך פֿלעג קומען ikh fleg kumen (I used to come).

Momental aspect
Two forms of the momental aspect, which expresses a one-time action, are formed by the auxiliary verbs טאָן (ton, to do) or געבן (gebn, to give) followed by an indefinite article and a verbal noun, similarly to such English expressions as 'have a look'. The verbal noun may be modified by adjectives, such as 'have a good look' in English. The form with געבן is more emphatic and requires the dative for the verbal noun. If the verb contains a separable prefix, it usually stands between the auxiliary and the noun.

Unlike English, such forms in Yiddish are highly systematic and may be used with virtually any verb. The nouns used sometimes appear only in the context of the verbal aspect. For example, אַ שרײַב געגעבן a shrayb gegebn, meaning 'hurriedly or suddenly wrote', contains a noun, which one would not normally used independently, and which may be translated as 'an act of writing'.

Examples: זי האָט אים געטאָן אַ כאַפּ אָן zi hot im geton a khap on ('she gave him a grab on'); מיר גיבן אַ שרײַ אויס mir gibn a shray oys ('we give a scream out'). Note that another form, אויסגעשריי oysgeshrey (an out-scream), is usually used as an independent noun.

Perfective aspect
The perfective aspect — indicating a completed action in the past or one whose completion is contemplated in the future — can be formed by adding a prefix to many verbs. For example: איך האָב געלייענט ikh hob geleyent 'I read', 'I was reading' vs. איך האָב איבערגעלייענט or איך האָב דורכגעלייענט ikh hob ibergeleyent / ikh hob durkhgeleyent 'I read entirely', 'I read through'; ער וועט שרײַבן er vet shraybn 'he will write', 'he will do some writing' vs. ער וועט אָנשרײַבן er vet onshraybn 'he will write completely', 'he will write up', 'he will get (something) written'; מיר לערנען זיך פֿראַנצייזיש mir lernen zikh frantseyzish 'we are studying French', 'we are taking French' vs. מיר ווילן זיך אויסלערנען פֿראַנצייזיש mir viln zikh oyslernen frantseyzish 'we want to learn French thoroughly'. The most common perfectivizing prefixes are דער־ ,דורכ־ ,איבער־ ,אָנ־ ,אָפּ־ ,אויס־, and צו־ (oys-, op-, on-, iber-, durkh-, der-, tsu-), but there are no definitive rules for determining which prefix(es) attach to which imperfective verbs. Though not as fully developed in Yiddish as in the coterritorial Slavic languages, it is nevertheless a vital feature of the Yiddish verb system.

Other aspects
Various other aspects, generally paralleling the complex aspect system of the Slavic languages, are formed by auxiliary verbs or prefixes, sometimes combined with the reflective particle זיך (zikh). Different aspects may be combined, if the logic of the sentence allows for it.

Examples: איך פֿלעג געבן אַ שרײַב אָן ikh fleg gebn a shrayb on (I used to suddenly start and complete writing); זיי נעמען זיך צעלאַכן zey nemen zikh tselakhn (they start bursting into laughter).[2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yiddish_grammar

This is not entirely absent from German. For example, you can use the prefix „auf-“ to indicate that something was done completely. This is used the same way that "up" is used in English phrasal verbs: „ich habe es aufgegessen“ = "I ate it up". But it seems like aspect is much more pervasive and systematic in Yiddish than it is in German.

I could see myself going through Le yiddish sans peine pretty quickly, doing multiple lessons a day and finishing within a month or two. But, that would completely throw off my goal to learn enough German vocab to read through novels by the end of the year or early next year, so I'll be holding off on Yiddish for now.

Deutsch

I reviewed the first 5 essential German verbs again, and started learning the prefixes and idioms for "denken" but didn't quite finish. Hopefully I can get through it tonight and maybe move on to "fahren".

עברית

Hebrew is going well. I started Pimsleur Hebrew level 2 (out of 3) this morning, and I made it to the highest league (Ruby) in Duolingo. I may be done reviewing by next week and start in on the third checkpoint.

[Deinonysus]

Here's why I'm glad I always use multiple beginner resources at once:

In yesterday's Pimsleur lesson, they translated "Do you like Tel Aviv?" as a long string of gobbledygook: "Tel Aviv motzetkhenbe'enecha?" They said that it literally means something like "meets with your approval'.

But fortunately, I had enough exposure to grammar and vocabulary that I was able to parse this into simple and meaningful components.

First, I recognized motzet as the feminine singular of מצא, meaning "to find", so I correctly deduced that Tel Aviv is feminine. I knew that verb from Duolingo.

Then, I realized that there must be a final word with the prefix ב-‏ "be-", meaning "in", and it was inflected to belong to a second-person masculine posessor (I guess I could have figured that out from just what I learned from Pimsleur)

So the seven-syllable wall of gobbledygook was parsed into three short words: מוצאת חן בעינך "motzet khen be'eynekha", meaning "finds (something) in your (something).

I looked it up and חן "khen" means "grace", and עינך "eynekha" is an inflected form of "eyes". The singular is עין "ayin", which the letter ע is named after. So the whole phrase means "finds grace in your eyes".

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D7%9E%D ... 7%A0%D7%99

Langfocus came out with a great video on Polish the other day, just when I've been interested in the Slavic languages (and the West Slavic languages in particular)! It does a great job of explaining how the verbal aspect system works in conjunction with the tenses.