Iversen's second multiconfused log thread

[Iversen]

Two days ago on Monday morning i predicted that I would have lots of time to study due to inclement weather, and even though the weather has been slightly less adverse than expected I have actually done quite a lot of studying. The single most time consuming activity was to extract the useful part of the NeoLatin dictionary I mentioned in my message from April 7. The result was a 14 page document in MS Word. I can't make it public due to to copyright considerations, but I'll write a few lines about it below - in Latin, of course.

I also continued my studies in my bilingual collection of texts about places in Albania, this time with a whole article about the bay of Vlorë. After that I thought it I would follow up on a remark I made in another thread, namely that Afrikaans, Romanian and Esperanto are languages I can read any time, but also that I rarely do so. So I grabbed my collection of print-outs in Romanian and found one which I don't think I have ever studied: - an article about the formation of the continent plates. I did however once study its companion, which described a student experiment purporting to determine the value of the Planck constant. And that reminded me of a text I once studied from an Indonesian blog about the early history of the Bumi, and now I have started to run through it a second time - and lo and behold, I would in principle be able to read most of it even without peeking into the translation or my trusty Tuttle dictionary, but in spite of that I intend to use at least selected passages of it as study materials. And besides I'm watching TV with subtitles and listening through my collection of music by Liszt Ferenc - right now I'm in the middle of his first concert for triangle, piano and orchestra. So I'm quite busy.

AL: Këtu është një foto e Gjirit të Vlorës:

F3918a01_Gjirit-e-Vlorë.jpg

LA: Nescio an author vocabularii Furmanis semper fontes ex antiquitatis aut fontes medievalibus praecipue relinet, sed saepe ad fontes post-medievales quam exampla gratia danicum autorem Holbergem refert, et interdum adhuc at vocabula linguae graeca moderna refert. Bene, romani etiam multa vocabula graeca importabant, sed ego nescio an quidam vocabulum umquam pars linguae constituebat, aut modo inventio uni autoris erat. Nihilominus tale vocabulum forsitan utile essere potest, et forsitan ego decido eum capere. Sed etiam saepe pro translatio explicationem datur, et ego non explicationes complicatas pro translationibus accepto - quam "rei publicae constitutio" pro anglice 'constitution'. In conversatione aut texto modo 'constitutio' necesse est, quia contextus dicit quod de rebus publiciis agitur. Saepe tamen explicatio non vocabulum singulum idoneum continet et modo circumlocutionem constituet, et tunc plane vilis est. Ergo decrevi excerpere modo partes vocabularii Furmani quae mihi placent, et operem dies Lunae Martisque perfeci.

Non possum summam completam publicare, sed hic est excerptum:

Neo-Furman.jpg

RO: Având în vedere cât de rar este că eu să citească texte în limba română, este foarte satisfăcător să pot citi un articol complet despre tectonica pământului și să-l înțeleg aproape complet. Dar, desigur, pot face-o pentru că acest este un subiect științific - un roman cu o mulțime de cuvinte și desemnări pe ustensile de bucătărie și cuvinte autohtone sau din argou ar fi mai încăpățânat. Am înțeles trei cuvinte, dar care nu au fost nici măcar în dicționar meu (Teora) când le-am verificat. Mantaua pământului este menționată cu trei cuvinte diferite:

"(...) deasupra părții inferioare mai maleabile a mantalei - astenosfera"
"Crusta și mantaua superioară formează împreună litosfera"
"Când o placă alunecă sub o altă și se confună in manta, (...)

.. și eu nu știu care este diferența dintre aceste cuvinte - dacă există.

IN: Seperti yang tulis di atas (dalam bahasa yang aneh dan tidak dipahami) saya sudah mempelajari teks dalam bahasa Indonesia tentang sejarah bumi sekali, tapi itu sudah lama sekali. Saya memutuskan ini untuk mengambilnya karena sebuah kata di artikel Rumania: "eonului arhean". Akan sangat mudah untuk melihatnya di Wikipedia bahasa Rumania (yang merupakan sumber lingkaran di bawah), tetapi itu mengingatkan saya sudah pada teks bahasa Indonesia - dan bahasa Indonesia saya sangat membutuhkan kebangkitan. 'Hadean' adalah periode pertama dalam sejarah bumi di mana ia sangat panas dan sangat menjijikkan - dan ketika kami berpikir segala sesuatu sudah dingin sekarang, banyak batu dari ruang angkasa jatuh ke kepala kami. Dan kemudian memulai periode berikutnya, 'Archean', di mana muncul kehidupan, entah bagaimana. Dan kemudian ada yang salah bagi organisme tertua, karena beberapa alga datang dan mengisi udara dengan oksigen beracun - dan mulailah periode ketiga, "Proterozoikum", yang berlangsung sangat lama. Semuanya hanya butuh waktu lebih lama di masa lalu yang indah...

Sejarah bumi.jpg

RU: А между тем Иван IV (естественно) покорил не только Казань, но и Астрахань...

[lingzz_langzz]

Hey! Just came here to ask how is your Albanian going? Could you tell more about how you learn it and what´s your level?

[Iversen]

Well.... Albanian is actually one of my weakest languages, and until I did some resusscitation work on it a month or so ago it was for all practical purposes skindead due to many months of neglect. I can definitely not speak the language and not even write freely in it, but with the help of my two dictionaries and my 'green sheets' I can laboriously construct sentences in it - and then hope they aren't too errorridden. I do one control: I let Google Translate translate them back into Danish or English or whatever, and if the result is pure chaos then I have probably made a gross error. And then I try again. I never use GT in the other direction - it wouldn't serve any purpose because I wouldn't learn a thing, and it would be foolish to trust the outcome - especially in a minor language like Albanian. But at my level using it as a last control is OK - after all I use GT to make my bilingual study texts so I know the beast inside out. And GT is still better at Albanian than I am.

I have in my collection a small language guide by Luan Kaceli plus "Albanisch als Fremdsprache" by Teichmann - but the latter is a combined grammar and tutor, and I hate that format: when I want to get plain information, the last things I want to see are exercises and tests. But based on those books and some sources on the internet I have made 'green sheets' with the essentials of the Albanian morphology, and I use them when I write in the language. The halfpage below is one quarter of my Albanian stock, but I have similar sheets for my other weaklings. As for vocabularies I have a big, but somewhat confusing Fjalor by Pavli Qesku (bought from a street stall in Prishtinë) and a smaller, but welldesigned Taschenwörterbuch by Armin Hetzer, which I bought in Berlin.

Years ago I had actually signed up for an Albanian TV channel, but then it was suddenly gone - and at that point I had not not even started to study the language. There are a few videos on the internet, but so far I focus on the written language. And to train my reading skills and pick up some vocabulary and grammar I do the same thing as with any other language: I copy snippets of original text with a machine translation by hand, leaving a a margin for new words. Doing the writing by hand like this makes me slow down enough to notice all words and all grammatical quirks which I would overlook if I just read the texts. So far I haven't read a full book in the language, but I once bought a book with anecdotes as a souvenir, and one day I may be able to read it for fun. Not now..

Albanian_nouns.jpg

[lingzz_langzz]

I see! So is your goal fluency at all? Or you´d stick more to like writing, passive skills?

I´m really interested in this language, I´ll surely learn some of it in the future and I heared it´s not an easy one so hope you can beat it!

[Iversen]

It is hard to achieve oral fluency when you never hear your target language spoken. In that situation it is more logical to go for its written variant. However once I have learnt enough to bulk read a language, next step will be to try to listen to whatever sources I can find, and after that I might in principle come to the point where I also can think rudimentary thoughts in the language - which is the logical precursor to actually saying something. But my guess is that I get there with Greek and a couple of Slavic languages long before the goal is reached with Albanian.

On the other hand, just a week or so of concentrated work brought me back to the level where I CAN produce sentences in Albanian, albeit bad ones and only with much sweat, toil and labor. And the language is definitely not impossible to conquer. It has a fair amount of morphology, some weird connector things and idiomatic expressions, but I am getting to the point where I at least can read it.

If the travel market ever returns to normal then I might even take one more trip down to Albania and/or Kosova (I have been there 2+1 times already and enjoyed it), but for the moment I prefer not to plan anything concerning travels. The world has to come to its senses again first..

F3922b05_Rinas.jpg

[lingzz_langzz]

I totally get you! I think it´s really reasonable to enjoy the language the way you can (by reading for example) if you can´t speak to anyone let´s say. I am doing the same with Occitan. I can already read it thanks to Catalan, French and Spanish but I cannot speak to anyone so I just enjoy it while going through some articles on the Internet. And it´s no worse than actually speaking it!

[Iversen]

CAT: En realitat vaig aprendre una mica de català durant els meus estudis universitaris durant els anys 70, i jo crec que puc parlar-lo prou bé per utilitzar-lo per viatjes. Occità ... bé, he llavors també seguit un curs de occità antic (i un curs del francès antic) i encara avui puc llegir la llengua, tant en la versió antigua com la moderna – o almenys puc llegir l'occità escrit amb l’ortografia clàssica (no amb l’ortografia de Mistral), però sense un diccionari en la direcció de una llengua coneguda cap a l'occità no hi ha cap possibilitat de l'aprendre com a llengua activa. I això no canvia tan sols perqué vaig comprar el llibre de text d’Assimil - llibres d’aquest tipus són incompatibles amb el meu temperament.

I el meu polonès ... bé, al meu llivel encara no és de cap manera útil (PO: Ale pracuję też nad nauką języka polskiego...)

(edited - gràcies a lingzz_langzz)

[lingzz_langzz]

T´importa si et corregeixo? Parles (escrius) molt bé, però hi ha cosetes que es poden corregir fàcilment, perquè se t´han escapat per la influència del castellà o el francès

[Iversen]

CAT: Vaig corregir ahir alguns cosetes (introduint possiblement més errors), però m'agradaria saber si hi resta més errors. Quan avui jo aprenc idiomes, no tinc cap professor o mentor, i per tant no espero normalment d'obtenir correccions, i en lloc de corregir errors antics espero que valgui més absorbir noves coses dels meus materials d'estudi.

CAS/SP: Hoy he estudiado un texto indonesio, pero al mismo tiempo escuché música de Ljadov y Ljapunov y Llobet (mi colección está organizada alfabéticamente), y toda la mañana vi la TVE en español con subtítulos - y nada que virus virus virus. España tuvo muy pronto un brote violento del coronavirus, por lo que el gobierno cerró el país en sentido muy estricto, y ahora parece que está muy nervioso con respecto a incluso la más leve flexibilización de las restricciones. Por ejemplo, se debate si a las personas mayores - como ya a los los niños - se les puediera graciosamente otorgar un permiso para callejear una hora cada día cerca de su domicilio. Pero todos los que tienen una edad entre los grupos extremos aún tendrían a restar en casa, excepto durante las horas de trabajo (se hay aún un trabajo) y al comprar comestibles. Y los medios de comunicación intentan dar la impresión de que la creatividad y la lealtad han alcanzado máximos nunca vistos antes, y que toda la población está valiente y feliz - peró yo creo que hay almenos algunos españoles pálidos y deprimidos alrededor en los hogares de España quién preferirían llorar a ver esto.

EN: So by watching TV with subtitles in some of my target languages I can - with some difficulty - survive watching even more empty babble about the virus. I write 'empty' because I rarely get any any NEW information from the TV news, and I'm sick and tired of hearing the same things again and again. It is as if journalists share a production error with lousy old vinyl records: once they get into a groove that jumps backwards they can't stop repeating the same things over and over.

It also strikes me as problematic that the main number they repeat ad nauseam is the fatality number one day back in time. To boot they tend to quote those numbers for a number of countries without taking into account how many inhabitants there are in each country - I have only ONCE seen a list of percentages in a program show. Instead they should focus on percentages, and they should show a curve dating back to at least the first days of March. And fatality numbers are not relevant if you want to assess the current situation: those people that die now were typically infected several weeks ago, and the length of their stay at the hospitals depend on whatever other illnesses they already had or develop (and the level of treatment they receive).

A better and more relevant indicator would be the number of newly infected persons, and in particular a number derived from it: the average number of persons each covid carrier infects. If it is above one then the pandemy is still be growing exponentially, and if it is precisely one the illness will eat its way slowly through the population until all have been infected. But that can take years, and there has already been reports of people who get infected a second time. If it is below one then the infection rate will sink until there is minimal risk of meeting an infected person. But the whole society will then be in risk of being infected, and the pandemy may start all over again if just one infected person turns up from somewhere.

And in the meantime the TV stations have to continue showing old programs from a time where dinosaurs roamed and you still could have more than two (or five or ten) persons in the same room, sitting close together. And where people in all countries at least could take a walk if they got sick and tired of watching the same old programs over and over.

INDO: Tapi itu bisa adalah lebih buruk: teks bahasa Indonesia menggambarkan zaman Hadean, di mana permukaan bumi memanas dan ada batu yang jatuh dari angkasa sepanjang waktu dan udara tidak bisa bernafas.

Kunst132.JPG

[lingzz_langzz]

CAT: En realitat vaig aprendre un poc de català durant els meus estudis universitaris durant els anys 70, i jo crec que puc parlar-lo prou bé per utilitzar-lo per viatjes. Occità ... bé, he llavors també seguit un curs de occità antic (i un curs del francès antic) i encara avui puc llegir la llengua, tant en la versió antigua com la moderna – o almenys puc llegir l'occità escrit amb l’ortografia clàssica (no amb l’ortografia de Mistral), però sense un diccionari en la direcció de una llengua coneguda cap a l'occità no hi ha cap possibilitat de l'aprendre com a llengua activa. I això no canvia tan sols perqué vaig comprar el llibre de text d’Assimil - llibres d’aquest tipus són incompatibles amb el meu temperament.

I el meu polonès ... bé, al meu llivel encara no és de cap manera útil (PO: Ale pracuję też nad nauką języka polskiego...)

(edited )

I en queda només una cosa: un poc! Si vols dir "un poco" en català, seria "una mica", però si que s´utilitza "poc a poc" (de mica en mica!)

PL: Jeśli mogę Ci jakoś pomóc w polskim, napisz!