Iversen's second multiconfused log thread

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Iversen
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Re: Iversen's second multiconfused log thread

Postby Iversen » Fri Jul 08, 2022 9:40 am

I've just arrive home from Copenhagen, and during the train ride I spent 2½ hours reading about half of the TY Latin from 1957 which I mentioned in my last messsage. There were some useful hints which I had forgotten, like for instance that the ending of genitive plural of the third declension generally is -um, but there are two exceptions: nouns with the same number of syllables in the nominative and genitive singular (apart from six nouns) AND monosyllabic nouns ending in two consonants - those nouns have -ium instead of -um. The last group is easy to recognize, but basing a rule for one form (gen plur) on the behaviour of another form (gen sing), with just one example (nubes - nubis -> nubium) may not be the most pedagogical trick in the world. Nevertheless it's nice to know that there is a rule. The authors also propose that I learn a rhyming 'poem' with 18 masculine nouns by heart (the rest being feminine). I may include them in a wordlist some day, but I haven't got time right now.

One amusing passage in an otherwise womewhat dry book is found at page 98, where it seems that a certain D.G.Davies has produced a splendid version in Laeland Scots of a poem by Catullus about a dead sparrow ...

SC: Ah shannae quote the hale thing, but ye shall get the first few lines o baith aneath:

Catullus:
Pass mortuus est meae puellae
Passer deliciae meae puellae
Quem pluus illa oculis suis amabat,
Nam mellitus erat suamque no
(ve)rat.

Davies:
Weep, weep, ye Loves and Cupids all,
And ilka Man o' decent feelin'
My lassie's lost her wee, wee bird,
And that's a loss, ye'll ken, past healin'.
The lassie lo'ed him like her een,
(..)
And knew and nestled to her breast,


Ah shannae pretend that this be a literal translation, but aw the elements frae Catulli poem are fund somewhaur in that o Mr. Davies - plus a few mair o his awn makkin...

IT: A parte questo: nel mio ultimo albergo non avevo Youtube, ma ho avuto la fortuna di trovare qualche programmi televisivi interessanti - come due giorni fa, dove contro ogni aspettativa ho visto lo splendido programma Superquark in italiano su RaiUno. Una delle sezioni raccontava il ritrovamento di un luogho con ossa di elefante dalle zanne dritte a pochi chilometri a norte di Roma. La loro età sta stimata a 300.000 anni, il che non è schiacciante, ma questo genere di elefante è stato uno dei più grandi mammiferi mai, con tori che pesavano il doppio degli elefanti africani oggi - fino a 10 tonnellate. Ho letto di questa specie alcune settimane fa (e l'ho menzionata qui in questo thread), ed è stato infatti il desiderio di avere una panoramica sulle proboscidae che mi ha spinto nel progetto tassonomico, dove ora sono immerso negli ultimi di oltre 30.000 specie di pesci.

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Re: Iversen's second multiconfused log thread

Postby Querneus » Sun Jul 10, 2022 4:23 am

Pretty amusing translation of that Catullus poem. Here's the rest.
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Re: Iversen's second multiconfused log thread

Postby tractor » Mon Jul 11, 2022 8:12 pm

I like those old TY books. They are dry, but they treat us like intelligent, educated adults.
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Re: Iversen's second multiconfused log thread

Postby Iversen » Thu Jul 21, 2022 11:48 pm

I have now finished the fishes, and with a little bit of good will I may soon have something to report on in this thread again. Actually I have not been totally idle (apart from those fish). For instance I showed my mother her tour and my tour to Madeira on her computer (which isn't on the internet), and because there was a missing map in my part of the system I had to reconstruct that map - and then I found the old guidebook to the famous levadas, which actually is in French (it should have been Portuguese, which is the language there - but French is OK). And now that's my goodnight book for the time being.

However I have another challenge. My old PC with windows 7 is gradually being squezed out of the internet so I have bought another on for things like my netbank, ticket shopping and other secretive operations. I have also bought a thingy that should give me a personal hotspot which I can use even at my mother's place - but so far I have not dared test it. I have to read more about things like how you establish a password when you log on, and how I can keep things involving money secret. But I'll have to do these scary things soon because of all the things I can't do on my museum machine any longer. Luckily this forum and Youtube and Google and Wikipedia still function, but for how long?

POR: Mencionei duas viagens à Madeira. Minha mãe esteve lá no ano 1988, antes da ampliação da pista do aeroporto, e naquele tempo o aeroporto era notório entre a gente da aeronáutica), enquanto eu só cheguei em 2013, depois que a gente tinham dobrado o comprimento da pista com uma seção sobre palafitas. Mas no dia anterior à minha chegada houve uma tempestade violenta, e portanto todos os hóspedes que chegaram lá tiveram que desembarcar (e passar a noite) em uma ilha vizinha mais plana. Tive sorte, embora a chuva ainda caísse torrencialmente tudo o primeiro dia.

P2316a03_Madeira88.jpg

Mais tarde o tempo ficou bonito e claro que tive de fazer um passeio numa das famosas levadas. Eles são de diferentes graus de dificuldade (sobre o qual fato você pode ler no guia francês acima mencionado), mas é claro que eu não escolhi uma das mais perigosas. No entanto, no meio do trecho notei um sinal irritante que, pelo valor de face, ter-me-ia impedido de andar o trecho final. No entanto, descobriu-se que havia apenas algumas partes inundadas e, fora isso, o mais impressionante era que eu tinha o caminho para mim só - o que era um bônus adicional. Foi um passeio muito gostoso. Também desci a pé do miradouro sobre o Vale das Freiras até Funchal (13 km), mas felizmente foi quase todo em descida, e o tráfego estava a um nível tolerável (principalmente ônibuses de excursão). A Madeira fica uma ilha muito interessante, e não se pode descartar que eu voltarei lá um dia no futuro. Mas agora eu viajo principalmente em Dinamarca -

SW: .. de fyra nätterna i Helsingborg och Malmö i denna månad var faktiskt mina första besök utanför mitt minimala hemland i år.

GER: Ich überlege aber, einige Tage in Norddeutschland zu verbringen um die 9-Euro-Monatskarten für den Nahverkehr zu nutzen, die die Bahnen dort unten verkaufen. Die Versuchung ist kaum zu ertragen – auch wenn man dort unten in den öffentlichen Verkehrsmitteln soweit bekannt immer noch einen Maulkorb tragen muss.

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Iversen
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Re: Iversen's second multiconfused log thread

Postby Iversen » Sat Jul 23, 2022 10:42 pm

Thanks to Le Baron I have just spent time listening to a mixture of Latin, Italian and some Greek which was said to be ancient, but it looked and sounded like modern Greek (else I would have been in trouble!). As might be expected from a video by Scipio Martianus the main language seems to be Latin - and even the advertisements (for VPN) are in Latin.

LA: vocabulum novum (mihi, minime): machinator = engineer

GR: Ωστόσο, οι δύο άνθρωποι συζητούν αν θα μιλήσουν αττικά, και ο Σκιπίων μιλάει κάτι που είναι λιγότερο σαφές για μένα, και θα μπορούσε να είναι ένα αντανακλαστικό των αρχαίων ελληνικών του Σκιπίου, αλλά ο Έλληνας Θάνος είναι κατανοητός σε όλο το βίντεο - ακόμα και όταν μιλάει ιταλικά.

IT: E perché italiano? Sì, Thanos attualmente vive a Roma e cita altre città italiane. A proposito, i due sono ovviamente seduti in un bar italiano con un rumore di sottofondo disgustoso, il che non dovrebbe essere ripetuto (res certe evitanda!) - la musica di sottofondo è come untare la sua pizza con merda.

Hic_Thanus_est.jpg

EN:Normally I stop the automatic continuation in Youtube (because the result rarely is relevant), but here it lead me to a video in English, but with Spanish subtitles, where a Greek lady is explaining the differences betwwen Ancient and Modern Greek - with her conversation partner reading some ancient piece of Greek (Η πολιτείας by Plato, the 'flat' one) with his best Ancient Greek pronunciation, also known as the 'Erasmian way'- which still makes her giggle in places. Afterwards she even says that she just understood five words, but she stumples herself over some passages in the old text when she reads it with her modernized pronunciation. It seems that the Greeks have three years of mandatory Ancient Greek in school, but apparently they are taught to use their modern pronunciation there. So they may end up understanding at least the written version of Attic Greek, but they can hardly be said to speak it.

Apart from that I have spent most of the day visiting two manor houses and a museum, but I have also read ..

AF: 'n teks in Afrikaans oor die geskiedenis van die taal, insluitend die oorsprong daarvan as 'n soort kreools gebaseer op 't Nederlands. Dit teks was sonder 'n vertaling, maar ek het dit nie meer nodig nie. Afrikaans is maklik om te leer, maar moeilik om ervan toepassing te vind...
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Re: Iversen's second multiconfused log thread

Postby Iversen » Tue Jul 26, 2022 8:28 am

This summer I have bought two times two consecutive 399 DKK tickets with free access to all public transport except ferries (all trains incuding intercity plus intercity and intracity busses). And why so many? Simple story, I pass by my mother's place at least once a week, and I also visit my own flat when it fits into the program. So I miss my dictionaries, grammars, green sheets and notestand with bilingual texts, But as a compensation I get some tourism opportuinities, and I can also visit places near the Danish borders (Sweden and Northern Germany) without loosing too many days on my tickets. Actually I have planned to take a dip south of the Danish border to Germany, and there I can buy a full month on local transport for just 9 €. So I can't travel as much (and far) as I did before corona, but I can get out to places where I can use some of my languages. The downside is that I won't be writing as often here as I normally do. OK OK, I did get my internet connection from my new mobile hotspot to work a few days ago, but it still has to be configured - and I don't know much about that. So... my wireless transportable internet access has to be postponed.

Right now I'm sitting in a library and writing on a PC there, and in one hour I'll take the train to Flensburg, where they sell the aforementioned 9 € ticket. And from the moment I'll switch to German mode, though retained Danish for the case I meet one of the Danish speakers there (they are quite numerous).

GER: Danach plane ich die Zoos in Neumünster und Gettorf und die Museen in Flensburg, Rendsburg und Niebühl (und vielleicht noch ein paar Orte) zu besuchen, wonach ich zurück zu meiner Mutter fahre und von dort aus wiedermals nach Hause um zu sehen, ob alles fort in Ordnung ist. Aber ansonsten ist für die nächsten 4-5 Tage nichts geplant. Gepäck habe ich keins mitgenommen - nach 2-3 Nächten muß ich mich natürlich Kleider wechseln, aber ich habe bei meiner Mutter ein Depot angelegt (so wie früher die Polarexpeditionen von Scott und Amundsen), und ich schaffe es meine Kleider zu waschen wenn ich zurück nach hause komme. Später könnte ich eine Auslandsfahrkarte von db.de kaufen zu ein Ort weiter weg, aber immer noch für 3-4 Tage - ich kann mich zurzeit keine lange Reisen leisten, wovon ich nicht schnell zurück zu Dänemark kehren kann.

FR: Je apporte avec moi un seul livre: le guide francophone des Levadas de Madère. Il n'y avait pas de place pour plus dans ma poche quand il devait y aussi avoir espace pour une muselière allemande et un parapluie.

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Re: Iversen's second multiconfused log thread

Postby Iversen » Wed Jul 27, 2022 6:02 pm

just a short travel report: I had to limit my travel to Northern Germany to two days. Let me first mention that there is a Danish hamlet Padborg right at the border, and der is a sizeable German town called Flensborg a little further South. The first problem was that the train I had expected to go to Flensburg only stopped at Padborg, so I had to combine two busses to get the final twenty km or so to Flensburg. But I succeded in getting there, and I visited a couple of nice museums. The trouble started when I wanted to find a hotel room: those places I asked at were full, and at the last one the receptionist checked booking.com and saw that there weren't a single room for offer in the town. Then I bought the 9 € ticket for travel on local transport (basically everyting except IC and ICE trains) and went to a smaller town called Rendsburg. Same story: everything booked. I finally went to the metropole Hamburg and found a room, but only for one night. Then I gave up and decided to return home, but that was also a problem: it was piece of cake to get to Flensburg, and I could buy a ticket for the trip from Flensburg to Padborg, but reservations ... no - everything was booked. I did enter a train with my ticket, but so did hundreds of others - into a pitifully short train, where I had to stand for 1½ hour. But now I'm back in Denmark. I have never seen anything like it in Germany or at the border - the Germans really seem to be in holiday mood! Maybe it's the heat further South that drove them all to the North, and those who like me couldn't room then tried to get even further North to Denmark.
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Re: Iversen's second multiconfused log thread

Postby Iversen » Mon Aug 01, 2022 7:48 am

Still travelling - with short stops at my mother's and my own place. One language related episode might be worth mentioning. After the guide to the Levadas og Madeira I chose "Océano Gramatica Practica" as my goodnight reading - a small Spanish grammar with exercises and partly superfluous explanations. Actually I don't like exercises in a grammar book - I expect it to tell ME things and not the other way round, and among all the European nationalities it has forgotten to mention "Danés". But well, I was reading it in a train from Ålborg to Hjørring in Northern Jutland, when a lady asked me whether I was learning Spanish - whereuopn she noticed that the book was in Spanish, so I probably already knew some Spanish. It turned out that she had travelled quite a bit in Latin America so we chatted for some time in Spanish, but ultimately reverted to Danish. And when she mentioned country counting I got a hunch: she actually turned out to be a member of the same traveller's guild as me. We met again in the train to and from Hirtshals and in the bus from Hjørring to Hune/Blokhus so we apparently had almost the same route - but didn't visit the same places (I'm a museum aficionade, she wasn't) - but nevermind, I got an unexpected chance to test my Spanish.

And yes, I should have written this in Spanish,

SP: pero a veces me olvido de ese opción obviamente lógica. Por cierto, no he aprendido mucho nuevo del libro, pero me recuerda cosas de las cuales podría ser un poco descuidado. Por ejemplo, "padre mio" no sería buen español, mientras que "(un) hermano mio" puede serlo porque teóricamente una persona podría tener varios hermanos, pero solo un padre. ¿Quizás el libro fue escrito sin tener en cuenta los patrones familiares modernos, o los padrastros y padres por adopción no se consideran padres en español?

DK: På dansk har vi begrebet papforældre - de er dem man får i sammenbragte familier, hvor ægtefællerne (hvis de ellers er gift) medbringer hver et sær børn. Og så kan man jo snildt have flere fædre/mødre.

Kortet nedenfor viser de steder jeg har besøgt siden forrige weekend - og jeg er ikke færdig endnu. Og grunden til at der ikke er steder øst for Lillebælt er at der var jeg tidligere i juni-juli. Men jeg ville have rejst meget mere (og til fjernere destinationer) på et normalt år.

Kort2022cd.jpg
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Re: Iversen's second multiconfused log thread

Postby Iversen » Sat Aug 06, 2022 4:56 pm

My 399 DKK train card ended Wednesday, and since then I have spent time at my mother's place plus one full day on organizing my travelogue and udating my photo registration system. I have kept 216 photos (plus one postcard, which I bought to get rid of a one e coin) out of maybe ... well, maybe 600-800 snapshots. And now I'm already thinking about one trip more abroad this summer, and I also have to find time to configure my mobile hot spot (which I bought one month ago) so that I don't have to fear that I provide free internet access for the whole community around me. I may even have time to restart my intensive text studies, which have been on low priority since the end of June - not least for the Slavic languages, Albanian and a few other outliers which I can't read fluently without a dictionary.

The last few travel days were spent in the area between Ribe in Denmark and Husum in Germany, includíng Niebüll and Westerland on Sylt. And no, I didn't go there to oggle bare-ass naked ladies on a FKK beach, I went there to add the first new zoological institution in 2½ years to my list of zoos and aquaria, which currently runs to 563 items. The Sylter aquarium lies at the Southern end of the town Westerland where the train line from Hamburg ends, and it's quite OK - except that I couldn't find any site plan for the location. I have maps from posters and brochures and occasionally my own notes for almost all the other zoos and aquariums I have visited, and it's one quite relevant thing to have when you want to remember what 563 places looked like. In cases where I can't find a ready-made one I normally make an in situ sketch on paper with measurements and directions, but since I didn't carry neither paper nor pens on this journey - actually nothing except my clothes with just the content in my pockets - I returned home with just a few photos and vague memories. I did make a sketch after I came home, but it's almost certainly not acribically correct.

Westerland.jpg

The train line to Westerland passes through the town Niebüll which also has a train line to Esbjerg in Denmark - and that's the point: I had a lot of trouble going from Flensburg back into Denmark because the only trains over the border there are IC and ICE/IC Lyn which can (and must) be booked - and the seats were all booked up :( . In contrast the trains out West are local transport, so they may be full, but the seats aren't reserved - and then I can normally find a place to sit.

GER: In Husum besuchte ich unter anderem das Nissen Museum, gegründet von einem in den USA reich gewordenen Einheimischen Bürger. Hier gibt es unter anderem Ausstellungen zur Geschichte vom Ditmarsch. Dieses Gebiet war einst groß und reich, und die Leute sprachen eine Kette von Friesische Dialekten, aber das Meer hat es allmählich zu einer Inselkette verkleinert, die sich von den Niederlanden bis zu Dänemark erstreckt - und dementsprechend ist auch die Zahl der friesischsprachigen Bürger zurückgegangen. In den Niederlanden gibt es noch etliche Westfriesisch-Sprecher ('Frysk'), aber es wird normalerweise gesagt, dass die Sprache in Deutschland fast ausgestorben ist. Ich habe jedoch das Friesenmuseum in NIebüll besucht, und der Leiter des Ortes hat uns hier gesagt, dass es immer noch 20.000 Menschen in Schleswig gibt, die Nordfriesisch ('Fräsch') sprechen - aber nicht mit mir.

Sturmfluten (Nissen-Museum).jpg

Platt: In dat Fräsch Museum vun Niebüll ("Naibel op Friesisch, Nibøl op Deens) höff ik een tour folgt op Hoogdüütsch - of dat in Fräsch wöör, harrn de twee Düütsche paare sachtens ook nix verstanden, un de Mann vun 't Museum seggte dat Platt ehr soon Ding uut Flensburg wöör. Dat Museum bewohr to Bispeel 'ne ölle Appelschiebenpann, un wiel dat dit een traditionelle Eten in Däänmark is, konn ik die seggen, dat es in miene Familie jümmer mit Buttermelk un Natron (Natriumhydrogencarbonat), aver ahn Appels maakt werd un mit 'ne Stricknadel dreht warr - aver wi höffen nu 'n elektrische Pann köfft dat jümmers de korrekte Temperatur hüllt. De Hoogdüütsche seggen meestendeels 'Futjes' oder 'Appelkrappen', aver er is in de Hoogdüütsche 'n Artikel nöömt "Æbleskiver", un ik müch wat vun dat ziteren:

GE: Der Ursprung der Æbleskiver reicht bis in das Mittelalter zurück, als im Winter die letzten Äpfel in Scheiben geschnitten, in Teig eingelegt und in der Pfanne in Butter oder Öl als Apfelkrapfen gebraten wurden.

Platt: Aver villicht is dat Ding öller: nel Museo Nazionale vun Neapel höff ik een Pann seehn, dat kloor wie een Appelschiebenpann utseeht för een bannig grote Familie - un dat Ding wörr in Pompei funnen...

F2615a04_Æbleskivepande_fra_Pompei.jpg
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Re: Iversen's second multiconfused log thread

Postby Iversen » Mon Aug 08, 2022 9:13 pm

I have just written a long rant about learning to listen to sounds instead of phonemes in the "Spanish Accent" thread so now I'll have to be rather brief here.

I have just come out of a period - effectively since the end of June - where I have spent most of my time time at my mother's dwelling or travelling around rather than sitting at home in my armchair, where I normally do most of my intensive language learning. The last couple of days I have nevertheless been able to enjoy the luxury of sitting in said armchair, studying. However a friend of my mother has lend me a thick dictionary about Southern Jutland + German Schleswig-Holstein - 439 pages, whence I have peroused roughly the first half - and that has gobbled up not only my traditional goodnight reading time, but also some of my sitting-in-my-armchair time. In spite of these diversions I have succeeded in working with some of the languages I have neglected during the last 1½ month or so ... and may have to neglect again soon because I have already planned my next trip abroad - but at least it will be a short thing lasting only 5 days and 4 nights, including one spent in a train. Maybe I can manage to read a few things there, but I have thought about leaving with just the content of my pockets so I can't carrry a whole library along.

One thing I did read was the story of the observatory in Athens from the airline magazine "Blue" - it seems that ...

GR: φαίνεται ότι η βάση για την ίδρυση του αστεροσκοπείου ήταν δώρο 500.000 δραχμών από τον Έλληνα πρόξενο στη Βιέννη. Η Ελλάδα ήταν τότε ένα ολοκαίνουργιο έθνος, μόλις έσπασε από την Οθωμανική κυριαρχία, και η Αθήνα ήταν ένα χωριό μερικών χιλιάδων κατοίκων (και τεράστια ερείπια), οπότε το παρατηρητήριο -που υπάρχει ακόμα, αλλά δύσκολα μπορεί να χρησιμοποιηθεί όπως προβλεπόταν- είναι ουσιαστικά συνομήλικη με τη χώρα και την πρωτεύουσά της.

EN: I also managed to read a bit about the pterosauria (colloquially known as pterodactyls) in a Bulgarian article from the homepage bg.nationalgreenhighway.org, but I have to say that the author ain't the most knowledgeable person on the Earth who has dared to write about this subject. So let me use this as an excuse for writing my own feeble rant in Bulgarian for the first time in several months - please bear with me if my version of the verbal system in Bulgarian has become slightly rusty (I have never really grasped the difference in meaning between the perfect and the aorist in Bulgarian - shame on me!).

BU: Заглавието гласи следното: по този начин "Пьрвите крилати диносабри - описание, снимки и видео" ... Но не, Птерозаврите не са динозаври - те са отделна група животни до динозаврите. Те също не са наистина влечуги, ако тази дума се използва в тесния й смисъл. След това в статията се посочва, че те са били намерени само по бреговете и че не са можели да излетят от равна сушата, а е трябвало да намерят високо дърво или скала, от която да скочат. Това наистина беше преобладаващата теория, но ново изследване показа, че те могат да упражняват достатъчно сила в предните си крайници, за да скочат във въздуха и да отлетят - и също така могат да ходят на четири крака. Птиците използват задните си крака, за да излетят, но най-тежките от тях трябва да тичат първи, за да наберат скорост. Съмнявам се дали прилепите могат да излетят от равна земя. И статията гласи, че Птеранодонит беше най-големият птеродактил с размах на крилете от 7 метра. Размахът на крилете на Quetzalcoatlus (Кветсалкоатлус) е бил 11-12 метра, тежал е може би 85 килограма и не е живял близо до бреговете. Но този конкретен вид може би са твърде големи, за да започнат полет със скок. Това беше може би най-голямото летящо животно някога. Между другото, птерозаврите са изчезнали в края на Креда, когато метеорит удари земята. Колата отдолу е по-нова.

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