Iversen's second multiconfused log thread

[Iversen]

... and because tomorrow suddenly has become today, I have added one text to my Polish collection, namely one that tells about the strange object known as Cruithne. This tiny object (5 km in diameter) follows the Earth around the Sun like cute little dog that sometimes is in front of you, sometimes behind. On the BBC quiz QI it was presented as the second moon of the Earth, but that was misleading since the object circles around the Sun 770 times for each time it completes its complicated trajectory around the Earth. The name Cruithne (or Cruthin) comes from a medieval tribe on Ireland. And speaking about astronomy, I made a new collection in Slovak with the main theme exoplanets - including the announcement of the first exomoon discovered outside the solar system.

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The problem is that I haven't really had time to study any of these texts yet. I bought a new compact camera a few days ago, so I have been running from one museum to the next taking pictures. I did of course spend some time at the library, but only one hour this time, so I only got halfway through a book by a P.Vuust named "Musik på hjernen" (music on the brain). I have borrowed the book so that I can finish the whole brain-with-music later. [EDIT: done]

But ..

CA: He llegit almenys el text català que vaig esmentar en el post anterior com a lectura nocturna. El article va explicar la benconeguda història de la invasió dels iamna (Yamnaya), però va fer més honor a un col·lega del Sr. Willerslev, David Reich, i el seu grup. No obstant això, deixa un major dubte sobre si realment era els iamna que varen portar les llengües indoeuropees a Europa occidental, o si almenys les llengües helleniques, albaneses i italiano-cèltiques van recórrer la desviament a través d'Anatolia. Personalment, crec que aquest és una complicació poc probable, però tampoc se-l pot excloure al 100%.

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[Iversen]

I have spent the weekend on an internetless family visit, and when I returned home yesterday at 8 PM my first priority was to transfer the test pictures I have taken with my new camera and find out what to keep and what to throw out. I have got a multilingual miniature manual to the thing, but it didn't tell me enough about the functions so I also had to experiment a bit. For instance I found three MP4 films among the pictures, and even though I know the function is there, my main concern is now how to avoid to activate it without noticing. So to keep things short: I haven't studied from Friday morning until the wee hours this morning, where I read the latest issue of "Esperanto" and the last third of my GEO in Greek.

GR: Το μακρύτερο άρθρο στο τελευταίο τμήμα του GEO είχε ως θέμα τους παππούδες και τα εγγόνια τους και γράφτηκε από γερμανική κυρία, έτσι υπήρχαν κάποια γερμανικά ονόματα. Θα μπορούσε να χρησιμοποιηθεί σχεδόν ως ερώτημα κουίζ, αλλά τι είναι το Λούντβιχσχαφεν; Ναι, βέβαια είναι Ludwigshafen (γραμμένο με την έμφαση πριν από τις τρεις τελευταίες συλλαβές, ένα πράγμα που στην πραγματικότητα δεν επιτρέπεται στην ελληνική ορθογραφία). Από την άλλη πλευρά η λέξη για το φορητό υπολογιστή είναι πολύ εύκολη: είναι λάπτοπ (laptop).

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[Iversen]

I may have spent a weekend without studying (unless you count television watching in English, German, Swedish and Norwegian), but I have made up for it afterwards by spending several hours on each of the Slavic languages I have on my workbench: Russian, Polish, Slovak, Serbian and Bulgarian. Of course there are more languages in this family, but I'm not studying them so far - I expect that it will be easy to add them later. In all these cases I have copied and studied short texts intensively (most from the bilingual printouts I mentioned last week), and then I intend to make wordlists with all the new words - but not today.

Apart from that I have something language related to read in Danish, namely an article over two pages in my newspaper which states that the riddle of the Inca quipus ('knot' messages) now is all but solved. The problem is that when I read it I'll also have to check the information on the internet. It would not be the first time somebody announces that an old writing system has been decrypted, and then the specialists in the field are as divided as before - like in the case of the Indus writing. At least the language of the Incas is known (Quechua), but I'll venture the guess that the messages in the quipus are as boring as those in Linear B - if not more.

And now I'm going to present the texts I have studied yesterday evening and today:

RU: Я напечатал краткие биографии некоторых русских композиторов: Бородина, Мусоргского и Кюи́а - последние только в отрывках, потому что он был посредственным композитором, но чем болше жестоким как критик. Вчера я изучал биографию Бородина. Его проблема заключалась в том, что он был чрезвычайно успешным лекарством (он стал профессором и членом академии), поэтому у него не было времени на завершение своих работ - его коллеги должны делать это от его произведения (как например оперы "Князь Игорь" и третья симфония). ). Я нашел выбор этого текста, потому что недавно услышал мои файлы с его музыкой (но теперь я достиг Брамса - мой прослушивание происходит в алфавитном порядке).

PO: Po polsku studiowałem artykuł Wikipedii z okresu Dewon, gdzie niektóre zwierzęta pomyślały, że nadszedł czas, aby zejść na brzeg.

SLK: Slovenský článok (z Kozmonautika.sk) tvrdí, že aj amatéri s malým ďalekohľadom môžu robiť astronomické objavy - napríklad identifikovať premenlivé hviezdy (čo znamená, že je potrebné niekoľkokrát merať jas). Potom sa pýta: môžu amatéri vidieť exoplanety (tj planéty mimo slnečnej sústavy)? Odpoveď je v zásade áno, ale keďže prechod planéty spôsobuje len veľmi slabé oslabenie svetla z hviezdy, je to veľmi optimistické. Dokonca som malý ďalekohľad pre safari, ale nezaťažujem sa sa pozerať na hviezdy - obrázky observatórií sú oveľa príjemnejšie.

BU: Моя български текст (от fakti.bg) се занимава с йети. В него се споменава, че някои физически остатъци всъщност са произлезли от изчезнала междинна връзка между кафявата мечка и полярната мечка - което е интересно, но три метра висок снежен човек би бил по-забавен.

SR: Мој српски материјал је преузет из сајта Природњачког музеја (највероватније у Београду), који је очигледно има палеонтолошке колекције. Никада нисам видио овај музеј, али сам током претходне посјете посјетио привремену изложбу модела диносауруса (види слику испод).

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By the way, I have proposed my annual lecture at the Gathering in Bratislava. It will be in Portuguese (for the first time and just for fun) and my theme will be: "A tradução como ferramenta na aprendizagem de línguas". They always ask for lectures in other languages, and I like the idea of speaking in a new language each year. If they accept this one I'll have made lectures (long or short) in eight languages, and I still have a few left that could be used for the purpose.

I have still not made up my mind about the conference in Japan later this year. The chances of having a speech accepted is at least four times higher at the gatherings because they are longer and have more simultaneous things going on. And I don't want to participate if I don't have anything to offer myself - it's as pointless and humiliating as going to a concert.

[Iversen]

I have just had my first ever conversation in Icelandic in Denmark - albeit a fairly short one. I saw a father and his young son at the sweets gallery in a supemarket and heard them speak the language, and then I asked whether it was Icelandic (of course I knew it was, but I needed an 'icebreaker'). And then ...

IC: .. faðirinn svaraði (á dönsku) að það væri svo, og ég svaraði (á íslensku) að ég gæti lesið tungumálið. en ekki tala það - að vera lítil um hæfileika þína á erfiðu tungumáli er alltaf ráðlegt! Ég sagði ennfremur að ég hefði verið á ráðstefnu fyrir tveimur árum í Reykjavík, og að ég hefði spurt á íslensku í bókasafninu í Reykjavík þar sem gamla tölublað af "Lifandi Visindi" voru (bókasafnið hefur stefna að því að svara á íslensku á spurningum sem eru á íslensku). Það var allt, en það var eintölu atburður, og tilefni kom upp án viðvörunar.

DA: For øvrigt så jeg en udsendelse (vistnok på History Channel, men i alt fald på engelsk) om ringborgene i Danmark og Skåne, som med sikkerhed kan dateres til Harald Blåtands regeringstid sidst i 900-tallet. Det mærkelige er at der INGEN henvisninger er til dem i samtidige kilder! Der er mindst seks borge, og de er alle cirkulære med regelmæssigt placerede haller indenfor voldene og en port i hvert verdenshjørne - nord, syd, øst og vest. Strontium-analyser på skeletfund og analyser af fundne genstande viser at besætningerne kom fra såvel Skandinavien (ikke mindst Norge) som det dengang slaviske Pommern og Polen. Faktisk var Haralds ene kone en slavisk prinsesse ved navn Tove, datter af fyrst Mistivoj. På den anden side oplyser Adam af Bremen at han var gift med en dronning ved navn Gunhild, så sagen er noget uklar. Ringborgene blev opgivet senest ved Haralds død - nhan fik en pil, afsendt af en vis Palnatoke, i numsen under et toiletbesøg i skoven (en noget forsmædelig død for en konge, der havde samlet Danmark og Norge og kristnet sit rige og formået at bygge mindst seks enorme ringborge uden at nogen samtidig krønikeskriver nåede at havde opdage det).

Apart from that my main linguistic activity yesterday was to build a word list with some 350 Slovak words, partly from my old prints about Slovakian sights, partly from the new text about exoplanets and the role of amateurs in astronomy and last, but not least, from the letter K in my big Slovak dictionary from Lingea, which I bought during the gathering in 2017.

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[Iversen]

GER: Vor zwei Tagen habe ich so etwa 12 Stunden von Brahms durchgehört - das heißt: alle vier Sinfonien, vier Konzerte, zwei Serenaden, die 21 ungarische Tänze, viel Kammermusik und unmengen von Klaverstücke. Mein Problem mit Brahms ist, daß er zu berühmt ist und deshalb zu viel gespielt wird - und vor allem, daß ich seine Musik bereits zu gut kenne. Ich versuche deshalb nicht immer mehr Werke von 'großen' Komponisten zu kriegen. Stattdessen versuche ich Werke von weniger bekannte Leute zu kriegen (oder wenigstens zu hören), und gestern habe ich das in extrem hohen Grad getan: ich habe mit nur einer Ausnahme kein Ton von Komponisten gehört denen ich bereits in meiner Sammlung hätte.

EN: Let me just quote the main composer names - and as you can see most are from the Caucasus, and no 1-5 are female. The one exception I mentioned is Ina Boyle, who already was represented in my collection. I have the truly terrible and labour intensive idea that I MUST have a collection of the themes of all works in my collection, and since Boyle isn't even represented on the free score site IMSLP that means that I had to listen through her works and note down anything that striked me as a noteworthy theme. Afterwards I checked Boyle on Youtube and that's where I ran into a number of other female composers, and since a number of them came from the former USSR I ended up searching deliberately for composers (male or female) from Georgia and Armenia and Azerbaijan - with limited, but by no means neglible success. And what has that to do with language learning, you may ask? .. Well

RU: Потому что я не могу читать языки на Кавказе, я прочитал несколько биографий на русском языке вчера. Информация о "экзотических" композиторах на Youtube также часто пишется на местных языках. Кстати, я до сих пор не понимаю, как Youtube можно избежать того, чтобы его срывали, расстали и ставили на колёса, а также крутили за нарушение законов об авторском праве, но пока сайт есть, я должен использовать его, как упоминалось, иначе я бы никогда этого не слышать о композиторах, как Масгуди Исламовни Шамсутдинови, Э́дварда Миха́йловича Мирзоя́на (арм. Էդվարդ Միքայելի Միրզոյան) и Victoria Borisova-Ollas (последняя дама родилась в России, но сейчас долго живет в Швеции - поэтому латинские буквы).

IR: Ba í Ina Boyle shaoránach Éireannach, ar níor labhair sí (is dócha) ach Béarla amhain - agus nuair a bhí sí ina mhná agus bhí saol ciúin agus scoite ina gcónaí, níl anaithnid uirthi sa Danmhairg - ach amhain ionadaíocht ar Youtube.

Yesterday's new composer acquaintances:

Masguda Shamsutdinova
Victoria Borisova-Ollas
Ellen Taaffe Zwilich
Cindy McTee
Ekaterina Kozhevnikova
Janis Ivanovs
Rutland Boughton
Emils Darzinš
Jevgenyj Fjodorovich Svetlanov
Giya Alexandrovich Kancheli
Armen Tigranyan
Edward Mikaeli Mirzoyan

and the only 'old' name:
Ina Boyle

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[Iversen]

After I had written my latest message here two days ago I listened to Italian baroque music by a certain Brescianello and some of his contemporaries plus Spanish music by the romantic composer Tomás Breton, whose style is heavily indebted to the zarzuela tradition. Yesterday I listened to British music by Havergal Brian (the guy who according to Guinness wrote the worlds longest symphony), Bridge and Britten, and today I have just started two evening with German/Austrian music by Max Bruch and Anton Bruckner. If I want more German music I would search for it under Sch, and there is an avalanche of Russian composers under Sh and Tsch if I'm in that mood. But in this moment .. (SCO) ah'm in Scotland .. acause ah'm listenin tae the Scots Fancy by mister Bruch frae Germany. If the name of the cupmakker o the Hebrides ouverture didnae commence wi M(endelssohn) ah coud have listened tae that wark afterhaund, but ah ettle tae listen to me music in alphabeetical order.

EN: Within the last week or so I have also read a dissertation in English about perfect pitch plus a couple of books about people and music (and brains) in Danish. Inspired of this I spend several hours yesterday reading internet stuff about that elusive animal in the jungle, the perfect pitch, first in English and afterwards in French. I have mentioned it a couple of times because it is one of the very few human skills which is assumed to be unlearnable after a certain age - the other one is nativelike pronunciation of foreign languages. I'll write something more about it below, but before that I'll like to mention that I have visited our municipal art museum Aros today, and that's of course a place where our visitors from other countries tend to congregate. So I had the opportunity to follow and eavesdrop on a group of Portuguese tourists, but I didn't interact with them. I need to listen to some Portuguese beause of my travel plans and my lecture proposal for Bratislava, but that's not reason enough to annoy a group of perfectly innocent visitors from abroad.

FR: L’oreille absolue ('perfect pitch' en Anglais,'absolut gehør' en Danois - et presque la même chose en Allemand)) est l’aptitude d'aucuns à reconnaître à l'écoute la hauteur d'un son quelconque et/ou à produire le ton qui correspond à un certain nom (comme lettre ou selon le système de solmisation). On dit normalement que seulement UNE personne parmi 10.000 dans le monde Occidental possède cette faculté (un nombre qui peut-être provient d'une étude de Guimarães & cie), mais parmi ceux qui qui parlent une langue tonale comme le Chinois ou le Vietnamien l’oreille absolue est beaucoup plus fréquente (selon une étude de Deutsch & cie.). De même chez les autistes et les synésthètes - et évidemment parmi les musiciens professionels, mais il parait que la majorité des compositeurs fameux ne l'avait pas, et on doit assumer qu'ils étaient alors contraints à utiliser un piano pour écrire leur musique.

On dit aussi qu'il faut recevoir une éducation musicale avant l'âge de 6-7 pour la développer, mais apparemment l'éducation précoce ne suffit pas car on a aussi pu prouver qu'il y a un facteur génétique important en jeu sans lequel il est très peu probable qu'on obtienne l'oreille absolue. Il est normal de nier catégoriquement que ce soit possible de développer la faculté après l'âge de 6-7 ans, mais je sais de moi-même que c'est possible parce que je seulement commencé à apprendre un instrument à l'âge de 8 ans, et à l'âge de 13-14 un prof du séminaire (école pour les futurs enseignants) de ma ville m'a fait subir un test - et je n'avais pas pas encore la moindre trace d'oreille absolue, bienque j'etais déjà alors en train de produir des compositions et d'apprendre à jouer plusieurs instruments. Or, je l'ai aujourd'hui, et la raison est sans doute les milliers d'heures que j'ai gaspillées à apprendre a jouer des instruments, à composer de la musique (assis dans un fauteuil avec mon stylo à encre et une pile de papier de musique) et a compléter ma collection de thèmes correspondant à mes collections de musique classique (ce qui équivaut à des milliers d'heures de dictée musicale). Quant aux cours commerciaux ou sur Youtube (et ailleurs) qui prétendent qu'ils peuvent donner l'oreille absolute dans quelques mois je ne saurais dire s'ils fonctionnent ou non - tant que je sache, on n'a jamais fait un test rigoreux sur les élèves d'un tel cours avant et après le cours.

Il y a aussi un, peut-être deux autres types d'oreille. D'abord l'oreille rélative, c'est-à-dire la capacité de distinguer et réproduir les intervalles, et certains aussi parlent de l'oreille des harmonies comme une aptitude indépendante. Si on possède l'oreille relative bien développée (ce qui est nécessaire pour tous les musiciens professionels, sauf peut-être ceux qui jouent le piano) il est en principe possible d'obtenir la hauteur d'un ton quelconque si on a récemment ouï un ton de référence, comme le a d'un diapason. Et pour presque tous le monde c'est déjà assez. Mais il y a un problème. Le ton de référence par excéllence devrait être le a de 440 Hz, mais beaucoup d'orchestres emploient en effet un a de 442-443 Hz (et l'Orchestre Philharmonique sous Karajan l'avait en effet poussé jusqu'aux 446 Hz). De l'autre part, la majorité des ensembles spécialisées dans la musique de la renaissance ou de du baroque utilisent un a diapason d'environ 415 Hz, ce qui est environ un demi-ton sous le a de 440 Hz. Et les vieilles orgues testifient encore de nos jours qu'il y avais jadis un vrai chaos dans l'hauteur du a.

On s'est demandé dans la litérature sur le phénomène si Johann Sebastian Bach a eu l’oreille absolue ou non. Mais à quel 'a' de référence serait-il alors programmé (pour ainsi dire)? Dans chaque église qu'il a visitée l'orgue était accordée différemment! Pour repondre à cette question il faut considérer encore une fois le rôle du ton the référence. Si j'écoute une pièce for trompette et orchestre baroque écrit dans la tonalité en D il est très probable ce que j'entend sonne comme une pièce en C# ou D♭ .. et les gens qui écrivent des idioties sur l'internet prétendent que c'est la fin du monde. Mais non - c'est exactement le même situation on a avec les instruments transpositeurs: on regarde une note dans la partitions qui est manifestement un C, mais les clarinettes jouent un B♭ - boff!!! Voilà un héritage agaçant, mais on s'y habitue parce-qu'on ne peut pas changer les habitudes invétérées des musiciens qui jouent de tels instruments. Donc pour moi un orchestre baroque est tout bonnement un orchestre transpositeur accordé en C♭ ... et on peut s'y habituer.

Avec des déviations plus petits on a un tout autre type de problème - surtout pour ceux parmis les 'oreilles' qui ont un diapason très précise et tout à fait immuable. Certains d'entre eux ont racconté quelle horreur c'est pour eux d'écouter un ensemble qui n'utilise pas le même 'a' que celui qui s'est faufilé dans leur cerveau pendant leur enfance. D'aucuns même ont des problèmes si un son non-musical ne correspond pas à une note précise. Je ne voudrais pas vilifier ces pauvres personnes surdouées, mais pour moi une telle rigidité pourrait ressembler la rigidité des autistes. Personellement j'ai peu de problèmes, probablement parce que mon 'a' est plus flou que le leur - mais assez rigide pour me dire qu'un ton ressemble un 'a', sauf quil est peut-être un peu trop haut. Mais cela correspond à regarder le monde à travers des lunettes avec du verre coloré: on sait que les couleurs qu'on voit sont fausses, mais on peut s'y habituer.

La plupart des commentaires sur le divers forums sur l'internet prétendent que l’oreille absolue n'a aucune valeur, qu'elle est seulement quelque chose comme une astuce ou passe-passe avec laquelle on peut impressionner ses amis et qui nuirerait plutôt la vraie musicalité et la faculté de l'oreille relative, qui selon eux est la seule valable. Mais écouter de telles voix criards est comme laisser des daltonistes choisir les couleurs de vos vêtements ou meubles. Si j'écoute une pièce de musique je peux voir en même temps les notes de la mélodie (parfois avec les harmonies dessous), et cela augmente l'expérience parce que je sais ce qui se passe. Si je ne savais pas dans quelle tonalité on jouait la musique en chaque instant ce serais comme s'être égaré dans une ville et ne pas savoir du tout où l'on est.

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[Iversen]

I began the day by reading a book in Romanian - or rather, I read about 30 pages, and then I was already contemplating which of my buckets I should grab and keep within reach just in case... well, no details necessary. In other words, I'm not terribly fond of the genre, but I found the "100 de pași..." on a rack in the library and grabbed it because it was totally unexpected to see something in another language that wasn't a novel of some kind, and finding something in Romanian in a Danish library was like finding a Martian in your kitchen. Gosh, ...

RO: .. întreaga carte a fost una dintre acele cărți extrem de 'feel good' fericite care pretind ca pot să-ți face bogat și fericit și un succes strălucit în toate privințele, urmând numai rețetele unei minți netede de publicitate ai carele propuse niciodată l-au condus dincolo de a scrie o carte care îmi da grețuri. Astfel de cărți (prototipul este, desigur, groaza carte lui Dale Carnegie) mă sprijină pe trucurile de viață ('life hacks') care abundeau pe Internet, unde se spune că problema insomniei poate fi rezolvată prin se bătere ei înșiși în cap cu un ciocan (zâmbind în același timp) sau lipiți-vă capul într-o sobă de gaz dacă încă puteți găsi una.

So during the afternoon I went back to the library to return the book (and the three music books I mentioned earlier), and of course I chequed the same rack.. well, it contained books in several languages of the kind that otherwise aren't ever found in the library, including Romanian. But alas, three novels and just one non fiction book, a do-it-yourself manual to makeup for women. I then asked a librarian what the heck was going on with that rack, and he told me that they had an agreement with a special library for foreigners, who would occasionally lend them a box full of random books, which the library staff then gave a a temporary barcode and placed on the shelf provided for that purpose. They had no influence on the content of that box,it seemed. Funny.. I did however check whether the shelves with their 'own' exotic languages (those that the library has in its own collections) contained anything but literature, and I found absolutely nothing on the Spanish, Italian or French shelves, but on the Bosnian one there was a book about venereal diseases - the only one that wasn't a novel.

SE: Међутим, нисам планирао да стекнем такву болест, па сам оставио књигу на полици.

I did however read one book in English called something like "Broken English" by S.Clark in Danish/B.E. (se the example below). It was hilarious, and I regret that I haven't systematically collected such examples from my own travels.

There was also the weekly "Sproghjørne" (language corner), but it has never really developed into kind of the multilingual event one could have hoped for. I met two other men whom I recognized from earlier weeks, and we got a good discussion (in English) about things like wordcounts and how to survive long flights if you aren't rich enough to buy a ticket to the upper floor of a 777.

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Other examples (from memory):

promotion sign in a Danish airport: "We send your luggage in all directions"
promotion sign in the window of a Spanish travel agency. "go away"
note on a Norwegian railway station: "the toilet at ... is closed, use platform 6"

[Iversen]

I'm currently listening through my music collection, and since it would last almost three months to play it all if you had it on for 24 hours every day, 24x7, it is a fairly longwinded process. Today I expect to finish letter B with composers Byrd and Børresen. However this aural activity means that I usually only watch TV with subtitles, but around 2 o'clock this past night I had just consumed the first half of William Byrd's virginal music and was heading for my bed when it occurred to me to listen to a bit of Slavic speech, and then I ended up watching Croatian television for more than an hour.

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SE: У програму летјели смо преко пејзажа у Боцвани, а слава је била да сам их познавао - јер сам и сам био тамо. У Мауну, где сам требао да се нађем са својом путничком групом и одлетим у наш први камп у делти Окаванго, нисам могао да пронађем никакве информације. Онда сам питао групу са водичем и 3 туриста да ли су видели представника мог путничког агента ... и да - то је била моја група. Да ли је моје име Иверсен? Па, онда смо летели. Нема контроле над собом, мојим пртљагом или мојим папирима. И то је било лепо путовање, где на крају се нисам трудила да видим још лавова. А онда наш водич је нашао неку црна антилопа (Хиппотрагус нигер) за мене ...

CA: I després hi va haver un programa sobre la Costa Brava, on es va visitar, entre altres coses, el jardí botànic Marimurtra en la ciutat de Blanes, on jo vaig viure les meves primeres vacances en aquesta costa....

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[Daniel N.]

SE: У програму летјели смо преко пејзажа у Боцвани, а слава је била да сам их познавао - јер сам и сам био тамо. У Мауну, где сам требао да се нађем са својом путничком групом и одлетим у наш први камп у делти Окаванго, нисам могао да пронађем никакве информације. Онда сам питао групу са водичем и 3 туриста да ли су видели представника мог путничког агента ... и да - то је била моја група. Да ли је моје име Иверсен? Па, онда смо летели. Нема контроле над собом, мојим пртљагом или мојим папирима. И то је било лепо путовање, где на крају се нисам трудила да видим још лавова. А онда наш водич је нашао неку црна антилопа (Хиппотрагус нигер) за мене ...

I've bolded the parts where I could not understand what you meant. Also, the je is out of place, it should rather be А онда je наш водич...

Also, you're not using strictly standard Serbian, and mix some Ijekavian and Ekavian forms, but an average speaker would very likely find it completely acceptable.

[Iversen]

Thank you to Daniel N for checking my Serbian. Well, the mind sometimes work in strange ways, and the results thereof tend also to look weird - especially in languages where I'm still fumbling around like Serbian. And I'm not surprised that some non standard forms enter my pretended Serbian - after all I only have TV in Montegrin and Croatian now, because my purely Serbian channel has disappeared from the choices offered by my cable provider. And I read everything I see in any South Slavonic language (except Bulgarian) as if it was in pure Serbian - but sometimes it ain't. Serbian is just the tool I use to read it all with, but it absorbs all these different influences like a sponge.

As for the murky passages..

In the first I tried to express that 'it' (i.e. flying above the landscapes of Botswana) was lovely, because I already knew them, and I knew them because I had been there myself. And then I bungled some endings...

In the second I just tried to say that there wasn't any controle at all in Maun airport, neither of me, my luggage nor my papers. The neutral "soboj" comes from the reflexive constructions, but I should of course have used a personal pronoun in the first person singular.

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