French/Dutch/...

[Ogrim]

Just discovered your log. Good luck with Brazilian Portuguese!

I see you've taken your nick from the main character from Der Tod in Venedig. That was one of the first books I read in German many many years ago and it has been a favourite ever since. I just like the style and language of Thomas Mann. I do wish you a happier, longer and healthier life than that of Mr. Aschenbach though!

[Gustav Aschenbach]

Hi Ogrim

Thanks for your comment. Yes, Thomas Mann mastered German like no other. And Der Tod in Venedig is one of those books where you discover something new each time you read it. But it's no easy language, if you had no problems with it, your German must have been very good already By the way, there's a free audio book of it in French, maybe you're interested:

http://librairie-entropie-paris.blogspot.com/2014/01/thomas-mann-la-mort-venise-audio.html

[PeterMollenburg]

I must say, Gustav, that I'm a little disappointed to read about your dropping of Dutch. Of course that comes from my perspective, that is, someone who is learning Dutch, so it's a selfish view and in reality I am happy to see you learn whatever you like, languages or not, Dutch or not... so good luck with Portuguese!

[Gustav Aschenbach]

Hi Peter

Yea I understand. I can't say I'm not disappointed, but the problem is that I don't have a real motivation besides Dutch being an easy language and being familiar with the Netherlands because I am actually from the Dutch-German border (not living there anymore). Maybe I will start again, maybe not. The funny thing is, I feel I'm already able to hold a conversation in Dutch.

I really love Portuguese, but I think I will take it slowly, no big goals, no "B2 by December", no "Assimil first, then novel XY, then 200 newspaper articles plus 100 podcasts and I'll be fine" and all that.

The main problem, and that goes for most of us, is time and energy. My main focus is and — will continue to be — French.

[Gustav Aschenbach]

Have been working from home for two weeks now. All shops except grocery stores and drug stores are closed. Not much to do, but it‘s okay, actually. I already got used to it.

No Brazilian Portuguese so far . Watched a Spanish series on Netflix with French subtitles, took notes (10 pages). Created Anki cards of those notes (75 cards). Did some French shadowing (3 x 10 minutes). Had a conversation in French on the internet. Will start watching another series with French dubs (Elite, 3rd season) and take notes as well.

Playing with the idea of starting Japanese again. But I won't...

[Gustav Aschenbach]

Playing with the idea of starting Japanese again. But I won't...

Come on, let‘s study some Japanese, just for the heck of it. I never got beyond the intensive reading level (i.e. extensive reading is not possible because I simply don‘t understand enough), so why not starting by analyzing a „representative chunk“ (as the Professor Arguelles would say) of „native material“:

ごらんなさい。アッシェンバッハの暮らしかたは、昔からいつもこんなふうで、」と言いながら、語り手は左手の指をぎゅっとにぎり合わせて拳をつくった――「こんなふうだったことは一度もないんですよ。」――と言いながら、かれはひらいた手を、だらりと安楽いすの背からたらした。

(Source: https://www.aozora.gr.jp/cards/001758/files/55891_56986.html )

That looks quite difficult and complex, right? So how can we approach this with limited (intermediate or less) comprehension of Japanese? The first step would be to romanize* the whole sentence to make the morphological structure clear (looking up unknown kanji readings at the same time of course):

go.rañ nasai# AsyeñbaQha=no kurasi.kata=wa, mukasi=kara itu=mo koñna huu=de=to ii=nagara, katari.te=wa hidarite=no yubi=o gyutto nigiri-awase.te kobusi=o tukut.ta – koñna huu=dat.ta koto=wa iti.do=mo na.i=ñ=des.u=yo=to ii=nagara, kare=wa hiraita te=o, darari=to añrakuisu=no se=kara tarasi.ta#

(*I use an amended form of 日本式　nihoñ.siki.
https://green.adam.ne.jp/roomazi/nipponsiki.html)

Okay, that already looks better. The next step would be to segregate the phrase units and to analyze their meaning:

go.rañ honorific prefix+‘look‘
nasai ‚to do‘+imperative

AsyeñbaQha=no ‚Aschenbach‘+genitive
kurasi.kata=wa ‚to live‘+‘manner‘+nominative
mukasi=kara ‚past‘+ablative
itu=mo ‚when‘+'also'
koñna ‚such a‘
huu=de=to ‚style‘+essive+quotative
ii=nagara ‚to say‘+‘while‘
katari.te=wa ‚speaker‘+nominative
hidarite=no ‚left hand‘+genitive
yubi=o ‚finger‘+accusative
gyutto ‚tightly‘
nigiri-awase.te ‚to press together‘+link
kobusi=o ‚fist‘+accusative
tukut.ta ‚to make‘+past

koñna ‚such a‘
huu=dat.ta ‚style‘+‘to be‘+past
koto=wa 'thing'+nominative
iti.do=mo ‚one‘+'time'+'also'
na.i=ñ=des.u=yo=to ‚not to be‘+genitive[<=no]+‘to be‘+present+ICS [individual cognition for share]+quotative
ii=nagara ‚to say‘+‘while‘
kare=wa ‚he‘+nominative
hiraita ‚to open‘+past
te=o ‚hand‘+accusative
darari=to ‚loose‘+comitative
añrakuisu=no ‚easy chair‘+genitive
se=kara ‚back‘+ablative
tarasi.ta ‚to dangle‘+past

Wow. That was a lot of work. (Please take the grammatical terms that I have employed with a grain of salt. This is not a linguistic analysis digne de ce nom… it‘s just to give a rough overview of the meaning. The same goes for my English translations… ). But it's already a bit clearer, right? I'm sure I forgot something or made a mistake, but we can see that syntactically we actually have three sentences: The first one (go.rañ nasai) is very short. The second and the third one are quite complex, containing quotes. Okay so according to the above analysis, the meaning of the sentence(s) should be something like this (very rough translation):

"Look. Aschenbach‘s lifestyle has always been like this." —while saying it, the speaker firmly pressed the fingers of his left hand together to form a fist. — "It has never been like this." — while saying it, he let his open hand hang loosely from the back of his easy chair.

[Gustav Aschenbach]

Okay let’s analyze another - this time randomly chosen - Japanese sentence:

根津の大観音に近く、金田夫人の家や二弦琴の師匠や車宿や、ないし落雲館中学などと、いずれも『吾輩は描である』の編中でなじみ越しの家々の間に、名札もろくにはってない古べいの苦沙弥先生の居は、去年の暮れおしつまって西片町へ引き越された。

(The first sentence from 夏目漱石　Sooseki Natume’s　僕の昔 „Boku=no mukasi“)

https://www.aozora.gr.jp/cards/000148/files/1750_19607.html

First the romanization and the morphological analysis:

Nezu=no dai.kañnoñ=ni tika.ku, Kaneda huziñ=no ie=ya nigeñkiñ=no sisyoo=ya kuruma-yadori=ya, naisi Rakuuñkañ tyuugaku=nado=to, izure=mo „wa=ga hai=wa neko=de ar.u“=no heñtyuu=de nazimi.gosi=no ie-ie=no aida=ni, nahuda=mo roku=ni hat.te na.i hurubei=no Kusyami.señsei=no kyo=wa, kyoneñ=no kure osi-tumat.te Nishikatamati=e hiki-kos.are.ta#

Nezu=no ‚Nezu‘+genitive
dai.kañnoñ=ni ‚big Goddess of mercy'+dative
tika.ku ‚near‘+adv
Kaneda huziñ=no ‚Kaneda‘s wife‘+genitive
ie=ya ‚house‘+‘and‘
nigeñkiñ=no ‚two-stringed koto‘+genitive
sisyoo=ya ‚teacher‘+‘and‘
kuruma-yadori=ya ‚shelter for cars‘+‘and‘
naisi ‚or‘
Rakuuñkañ tyuugaku=nado=to ‚Rakuuñkañ middle school‘+‘etc.‘+‘and‘
izure=mo ‚which‘+‘also‘ –>‘all‘
wa=ga hai=wa ‚me‘+nominative
neko=de ‚cat‘+locative
ar.u=no ‚to be‘+genitive
heñtyuu=de ‚in the book‘=locative
nazimi.gosi=no ‚familiarity‘+‘through‘+genitive
ie-ie=no ‚houses‘+genitive
aida=ni ‚amid‘/'between'+dative
nahuda=mo ‚name plate‘+‘too‘
roku=ni ‚properly‘+dative
hat.te ‚to stick‘+continuative
na.i ‚to not be‘+present
hurubei=no ‚old rice‘+genitive
Kusyami.señsei=no ‚teacher Mr. Kusyami‘+genitive
kyo=wa ‚residence‘+nominative
kyoneñ=no ‚last year‘+genitive
kure ‚end of year‘
osi-tumat.te ‚to approach the year and‘+continuative
Nishikatamati=e ‚Nishikata.mati‘+allative
hiki-kos.are.ta ‚to move‘+passive+past

Wow. That‘s a very hard sentence. It‘s still not clear to me; I will try to split the sentence into logical chunks while trying to translate them:

Nezu=no dai.kañnoñ=ni tika.ku
near the big Goddess of mercy of Nezu

Kaneda huziñ=no ie=ya
Mrs. Kaneda‘s house

nigeñkiñ=no sisyoo=ya
the two-stringed koto teacher

kuruma-yadori=ya
the car shelter

naisi Rakuuñkañ tyuugaku=nado=to
or the Rakuunkan middle school

izure=mo „wa=ga hai=wa neko=de ar.u“=no heñtyuu=de nazimi.gosi=no ie-ie=no aida=ni
amid all the houses that are familiar in the book „I am a cat“

nahuda=mo roku=ni hat.te na.i hurubei=no Kusyami.señsei=no kyo=wa
the residence of the old teacher Kusyami, which has no proper name plate

kyoneñ=no kure osi-tumat.te Nishikata.mati=e hiki-kos.are.ta#
has moved towards the end of last year to Nishikata-Machi


This is my attempt:

Near the big Goddess of mercy in Nezu, amid the house of Mrs. Kaneda, the two stringed koto teacher, the car shelter and the Rakuunkan middle school etc., i.e. all the houses that are familiar in the book „I am a cat“, the residence of the old teacher, which has no proper name plate, has moved towards the end of last year to Nishikata-Machi.

I don't know. The sentence doesn't make a lot of sense to me. The residence of the teacher is one of the houses that are familiar in the book and will move to Nichikata-Machi (how can a residence move, see below)?

I have several doubts:

なじみ越し: I‘m not sure about ～越し – it should be something like „through“ or „by“, but what does it mean then, „through the familiarity“ or what? It would be more logical if the houses were familiar through the book...

古べい: My guess is that it's just a way to say 'old'. But literally it means 'old rice' (not 100% sure either)...

苦沙弥先生の居は～引き越された: Okay, something has been moved places (passive voice). But how can a residence itself be moved from one place to another?

Can someone help me with this?

Now I remember why I gave up Japanese many years ago

[ryanheise]

苦沙弥先生の居は～引き越された: Okay, something has been moved places (passive voice). But how can a residence itself be moved from one place to another?

Can someone help me with this?

Your approach to analysing Japanese is an interesting one. I certainly don't know all of the grammatical terms for everything, although similarly to you, I do know how to recognise grammatical structure and apply labels (having designed grammars for computer languages and written parsers).

Of course the issue with natural languages is that in reality they are far too fuzzy to fit into a strict Chomskian context-free grammar, so I prefer to take a more fuzzy approach. i.e. where exceptions vastly outnumber rules, and I just go with the flow. It also saves a lot of frustration.

As to the Japanese sentence above, take my interpretation with a grain of salt, but to me the sentence makes sense if you take 引き越された to mean "relocated". In the same sense that you can say in English "The company's offices were relocated to Strathfield."

So on this occasion it might not be too dissimilar from English, although there are many other occasions where English and Japanese take different perspectives on active vs passive, and there are also occasions where the English way is very confusing. For example, when I say "This coffee smells great!", how can I say that when the coffee doesn't have a nose! Of course, native English speakers don't feel the need to rationalise that expression grammatically and we tend to just use common expressions that we've heard many times before without thinking about them.

[Gustav Aschenbach]

Of course the issue with natural languages is that in reality they are far too fuzzy to fit into a strict Chomskian context-free grammar, so I prefer to take a more fuzzy approach. i.e. where exceptions vastly outnumber rules, and I just go with the flow. It also saves a lot of frustration.

That's true. But keep in mind that Japanese has only two irregular verbs (する and 来る).

As to the Japanese sentence above, take my interpretation with a grain of salt, but to me the sentence makes sense if you take 引き越された to mean "relocated". In the same sense that you can say in English "The company's offices were relocated to Strathfield."

Yes, that sounds logical and I had the same idea, but then why does he even describe the building of the old man's house (名札もろくにはってない) if it's meant like you said ("moving houses" in the sense that the inhabitants are relocating)?

[ryanheise]

As to the Japanese sentence above, take my interpretation with a grain of salt, but to me the sentence makes sense if you take 引き越された to mean "relocated". In the same sense that you can say in English "The company's offices were relocated to Strathfield."

Yes, that sounds logical and I had the same idea, but then why does he even describe the building of the old man's house (名札もろくにはってない) if it's meant like you said ("moving houses" in the sense that the inhabitants are relocating)?

When I look up those words in the dictionary, it seems to mean "The label was not stuck on properly", so I'm not sure if it is about the building of the old man's house.

If I were to take a stab at it, the gist seems to be that we are looking at a picture, and we're reading the label, and perhaps it simply describes the relocation of the residence? It's a bit above my level though, so I don't feel confident at all with my interpretation.