Lisa's Language Log

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Lisa
Green Belt
Posts: 309
Joined: Tue Jul 30, 2019 8:08 pm
Location: Oregon, United States
Languages: English (N), German (intermediate) Idle: French (beginner) Esperanto (beginner) Spanish (was intermediate)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=10854
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Re: Lisa's Language Log

Postby Lisa » Sun Feb 14, 2021 11:54 pm

chove wrote:I find Spanish texts easier to read than German ones, I've assumed it was because of the Spanish cognate discount?#


That's a big factor, I think also... e.g., in the particular passage I studied, devour was verschlungen, vs. devoraron in Spanish (both conjugated)... the latin for devour is devoro and the french is dévorer.

Beside that, though, this German translation could have picked easier words. Since the English original includes a lot of obscure words and strained grammer, picking the complicated ones is probably true to the spririt. I started reading LotR in junior high and had some problems with some vocabulary and grammar. e.g. "Need brooks no delay, yet late is better than never" confused me for many years.
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Lisa
Green Belt
Posts: 309
Joined: Tue Jul 30, 2019 8:08 pm
Location: Oregon, United States
Languages: English (N), German (intermediate) Idle: French (beginner) Esperanto (beginner) Spanish (was intermediate)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=10854
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Re: Lisa's Language Log

Postby Lisa » Sat Feb 20, 2021 3:35 am

Wenn ich wirklick Deutsche so gut learnen möchte, dass ich eine Prüfung nehmen würde, solle ich auf Deutsch scrieben so oft wie möglich und vor allem, in meine Sprache-log. Ob ich weiß, daß mein Grammatik sehr schwach ist... aber man kann nur lernen beim Übungen.

Ich ziehe vor, daß ich ohne hilfe schreiben können (in Öffentlichkeit), und nur alles recht und perfekt schreibe. Meine Schreibung ist ein bißchen peinlich. Und... ich müsse gestehen, daß ich DeepL überstezten benützen haben, aber nur für meine interese und Rechtschreibung; ich behalte meine echte Fehler. Ich sehe darin etwas nicht perfecte Wörter... aber, ich auch vertraue automatische Übersetzung nicht viel.

Die letzte Woche lese ich mehr "Der Herr des Ringe", und es gefält mir gut, obwohl es gibt so viele neue Wörter! Ich trate, alle neuen Wörter in Anki zu stellen, aber es gibt doch zu viele, es ist unmöglich. 50 Wörter pro Tage kann ich nicht learnen. Es ist ein bißchen leichter wenn ich lese und zur gleichen Zeit lerne, aber jeden Tag ist eine neue 50 Wörter. Die Lesung geht schnell weil ich kenne so gut die Geschichte, ich bin doch am seite 252, und am meistens die neue Wörter sind adjektive order nicht wichtig for die Sinn der Sätze. Z.b. wenn sie lagern "unter krüppelten Erlen" machts nichts die letzte zwei Wörter für den Lauf der Geschicht.
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Lisa
Green Belt
Posts: 309
Joined: Tue Jul 30, 2019 8:08 pm
Location: Oregon, United States
Languages: English (N), German (intermediate) Idle: French (beginner) Esperanto (beginner) Spanish (was intermediate)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=10854
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Re: Lisa's Language Log

Postby Lisa » Sat Feb 27, 2021 6:25 am

Ich habe Der Herr der Ringe erledigt! Ein bißchen mehr als zwei Wochen. Zugleich habe ich auch viele (viele) Wörter in Anki geladen; 416 (es gibt andere Wörter aber die sind zu seltsam oder einigartige, und auch, manchmal war ich zu müde oder zu faul, sie aufzuschreiben). Bisher habe ich schon alles mindestends einmal gesehen... aber es werde nicht so leicht bin alles zu lernen, normaleweise füge ich nur 30-35 Wörder pro Woche. Meine Idee ist, daß auch wenn ich nur einmal gesehen haben, das Buch es veileicht wieder nützen und ich könnte sie erkennen. Auch, es scheint ein bißchen leichter zu lernen wann es sehr frisch ist, und ich lese die Seite mit dem Wort nochmals zugleich ich ins Anki eingeben.

Gestern ist die zweite Buch angekommt, rechtzeitig. Ich bin sehr froh, daß ich Bücher aus Deutsch, Spanisch und Franzöisch so leicht kaufen konnen! Etwas Franzöische Bücher - ein Wörterbuch, ein Kinderbuch, und Franzözisch-für-Dummköpfe oder so etwas, habe ich bestellt. Aber noch nicht.

Die letztes Woche, die Grammatike Übungen und online Klasse mache ich nicht ... kein Ziet, alles nur Vokablen. Besser ob ich Grammatik lernte aber was ich machte gibts mehere Spaß.
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Lisa
Green Belt
Posts: 309
Joined: Tue Jul 30, 2019 8:08 pm
Location: Oregon, United States
Languages: English (N), German (intermediate) Idle: French (beginner) Esperanto (beginner) Spanish (was intermediate)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=10854
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Re: Lisa's Language Log

Postby Lisa » Sun Mar 14, 2021 8:30 pm

I encountered the word-of-the-language for German, Igel, in LotR 2. Particularly exciting since I didn't remember this word from the English version. So happily I cross referenced the English: yes, that uses hedgehog. Since I never learned the word for hedgehog in Spanish (erizo), I went back to check the Spanish version and in there, the translation uses porcupine.
... pins... hedgehog.
... Nadeln ... Igel. I think of Nadeln as needle but the term seems to somewhat include either.
... púas ... puerco espín. Púa would be the things that stick out of porcupines but it falls far from the sense of the original.

Peculiar how much fun I have with words for small animals while einstellen and vorhaben are drudgery to learn.

A slightly more worrisome development is that I think my Spanish reading ability has recently decreased. Last time I did a cross-reference, late in book 1 (on Caradhras, probably around Feb 22), the Spanish was easier to read than the German. Now I'm almost done with LotR2 (which is still throwing massive vocab at me), but reading generally feels fairly comfortable. Today, looking at the Spanish to find the place where the hedgehogs came up in conversation, the Spanish looks now much more foreign and I have to stare at words for a bit before they resolve. The Spanish declined so slowly for that first year and I was hoping it would stick but I must have hit some level of German that is finally displacing the Spanish. Perhaps I ought concentrate on Spanish for a while now, to avoid really losing it.
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gsbod
Blue Belt
Posts: 839
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 3:22 pm
Location: UK
Languages: English (native)
German (advanced)
French (intermediate)
Japanese (intermediate)
Spanish (learning)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?t=1152
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Re: Lisa's Language Log

Postby gsbod » Sun Mar 14, 2021 9:00 pm

The thing that amuses me about the word Igel, is that when you consider a common feature of German words for animals is to smash two words together to adequately describe the creature (e.g. Eisbär, Stachelschwein, Nilpferd and so on), hedgehog feels altogether a more German way of naming the animal than Igel.
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User avatar
Iversen
Black Belt - 4th Dan
Posts: 4768
Joined: Sun Jul 19, 2015 7:36 pm
Location: Denmark
Languages: Monolingual travels in Danish, English, German, Dutch, Swedish, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, Italian, Romanian and (part time) Esperanto
Ahem, not yet: Norwegian, Afrikaans, Platt, Scots, Russian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Albanian, Greek, Latin, Irish, Indonesian and a few more...
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1027
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Re: Lisa's Language Log

Postby Iversen » Sun Mar 14, 2021 9:39 pm

Do you say that the Spanish translation uses the word "porcupine" for a hedgehog?? That would surprise me, since that word isn't even mentioned in my Spanish dictionary - it only lists erizo (and Puercoespín africano resp. Puercoespín norteamericano for two not really closely related animals from other continents - but neither one is the "Igel" from Germany).
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Lisa
Green Belt
Posts: 309
Joined: Tue Jul 30, 2019 8:08 pm
Location: Oregon, United States
Languages: English (N), German (intermediate) Idle: French (beginner) Esperanto (beginner) Spanish (was intermediate)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=10854
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Re: Lisa's Language Log

Postby Lisa » Mon Mar 15, 2021 12:08 am

Iversen wrote:Do you say that the Spanish translation uses the word "porcupine" for a hedgehog?? That would surprise me, since that word isn't even mentioned in my Spanish dictionary - it only lists erizo (and Puercoespín africano resp. Puercoespín norteamericano for two not really closely related animals from other continents - but neither one is the "Igel" from Germany).


Yes (assuming I understand your question)... the spanish translation uses the term puerco espín, the english (original) uses hedgehog and the german translation uses Igel.
Earlier in this set of books, I found Igel in the german version while the english used spotted toad and the spanish used sapo.

Both these usages are not "look over there, it's a hedgehog", which you'd need to get correct, but in expressions, specifically "as full of pins as a hedgehog" and "turn you into a slug and fill the garden with hedgehogs". It looks like (both) the translators pick the animals used in the expressions, based on common idioms and familiarity to the readers, or some other reason.
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Lisa
Green Belt
Posts: 309
Joined: Tue Jul 30, 2019 8:08 pm
Location: Oregon, United States
Languages: English (N), German (intermediate) Idle: French (beginner) Esperanto (beginner) Spanish (was intermediate)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=10854
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Re: Lisa's Language Log

Postby Lisa » Wed Mar 17, 2021 4:15 am

Finished LotR 2; about a month to read two of the three books. It took me more than three months to read all three volumes in Spanish. I did start reading the Spanish version when I was at a much lower level than for the German; the German was incomprehensible until I was a bit farther along. My subjective feeling is that they are both roughly similarly difficult to read, and I feel like I have to lookup just as many words now as I did with Spanish... although objectively I'm reading twice as fast and I don't know if I can compare my feelings across time.

I think that since Spanish has so many cognates and deducible words, you can read when you are at a lower skill level (like my experience being able to read the french telephone card, when I didn't know any french)... but it's slow and effortful to deduce the meanings from clues. I wasn't able to start the German until I actually knew a much higher percent of words... and knowing a word is much faster than deducing so the reading goes much faster.

They say that you need to know N% of words to be able to read... can't remember, but like 95%, which seemed wrong to me. But not so sure now, maybe that is right, since German was so baffling before while I could figure out the Spanish. I suppose "know" includes words that you can deduce based on french borrow-words in english.

I really like reading the same book in multiple languages. It feels like an experiment.
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Lisa
Green Belt
Posts: 309
Joined: Tue Jul 30, 2019 8:08 pm
Location: Oregon, United States
Languages: English (N), German (intermediate) Idle: French (beginner) Esperanto (beginner) Spanish (was intermediate)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=10854
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Re: Lisa's Language Log

Postby Lisa » Sat Mar 27, 2021 7:46 pm

Finished LotR3. I got tired of trying to enter and learn these very rare and obscure words that the book is full of, so I just read. I don't mind rare and interesting/easy to learn words, but rare ones that are hard to learn really seem like a waste of energy. Due to all the extra words entered during LotR1 in late February/early March, my Anki deck is a little daunting at the moment.

I read a (english-language) book on the history of the german language. What I found interesting was that (it says) the spoken german and written german are not as similar as spoken and written english. It gave a number of examples, e.g. spoken German often uses dative instead of genetive, for example. Also that the first person conjugations often don't say the final e, e.g., ich geh, ich hab... which is true in my experience). In any case, it does speak to the need to listen/learn from material that did not originate as written (e.g. not audiobooks read from the paper book).

My reading ability I'm happy with, though there is a lot of vocab still to go (Anki ~4500 words), and things like long adjective clauses before objects can throw me. When I try to speak I seem to have a much harder time since I'm trying to use words that don't come easily and trying to conjugate them... If I manage to set aside what I "know" and just speak my simple broken german it does come easily. E.g., I know üben, but wanted to use einüben instead and I could not do it easily... I start with the modal (muss) and defer the verb to the end of the sentence, but after I finish the object I've forgotten both the word and if I meant to use infinitive or participle.

To deal with my still ongoing problem with mixed sets of words, I decided to add another field to the anki cards with the meanings that it's not. I have been doing this for NL->TL, where are multiple german words for an english definition (like throw), but I can do it for TL->NL too. This will be especially useful for laut/laute/lauten/lauter.

Since garden season has started I'm going to have to spend less time on my language efforts; it has been taking up a little too much of my time and mental space.
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Lisa
Green Belt
Posts: 309
Joined: Tue Jul 30, 2019 8:08 pm
Location: Oregon, United States
Languages: English (N), German (intermediate) Idle: French (beginner) Esperanto (beginner) Spanish (was intermediate)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=10854
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Re: Lisa's Language Log

Postby Lisa » Mon Jun 07, 2021 4:28 am

As usual, long gap for the spring planting season. Finishing Lord of the Rings 3 in German, with all the obscure vocabulary - and reading this while I was getting overwhelmed by the vocab from books 1 and 2 - well, I got a bit burnt out. I attempted a few of the other books on my shelf, and just didn't have the stamina in the face of the difficult words and expressions.

Eventually I picked up the Harry Potter that had been around for months and that turns out to be very easy reading. Funny, since I read the spanish version - at a somewhat lower skill level, so it wasn't that easy - but it seemed to me to be about the same level of difficulty as LOTR (in both cases, I read LOTR and then HP), or the other spanish books I was reading. I'm wondering if it just happens to be that the set of books I ended up with in Spanish are easier-to-read translations, while the set of books I ended up with in German are at a harder reading level? It's past the point where it's just my skill level.

Though I will say German vocab is still painful - it's the combination of two parts that is so hard, each half always looks familiar and I can look at a word and not even be sure if I've ever seen that particular combination before. Still, I've kept up with the anki, actually I'd get way behind and then work like crazy for a few days to catch up... things are finally almost under control again, and some of the problem words are finally cracking.

Several years ago, I found a German book that I really wanted to read - an illustrated book about daily life in the middle ages - that has always been just too far above my level, even with a dictionary. This last time I pulled it out, I can actually understand a lot of it. The pain of being intermediate is partly that you just don't see any signs of change, so being able to read this book was encouraging.
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