Le Baron's casual reading log

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DaveAgain
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Re: Le Baron's casual reading log

Postby DaveAgain » Sun Mar 27, 2022 9:10 pm

Le Baron wrote:I went to buy some sandpaper at Action - because I'm restoring/refinishing an old writing desk, very slowly. Here are some real-life examples I heard today of how some Dutch people interpolate English phrases wholesale into their Dutch:
I've noticed something similar in Flemish TV programmes, they mix French, and English phrases into their Dutch. Quite fun to watch! :-)
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tungemål
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Re: Le Baron's casual reading log

Postby tungemål » Sun Mar 27, 2022 10:27 pm

Le Baron wrote:I went to buy some sandpaper at Action - because I'm restoring/refinishing an old writing desk, very slowly. Here are some real-life examples I heard today of how some Dutch people interpolate English phrases wholesale into their Dutch

You can hear these kinds of things in Norway as well. It's an interesting phenomenon. But I don't think it's necessarily to appear 'cool' - I think this happens when the English phrase is more readily recalled and rolls off the tongue, before one can recall how to say the same thing in one's native language. Or maybe the English phrase fits perfectly while there is no equivalent in one's own language. It's kind of sad, but it mostly happens among young people who might need more experience of switching between languages.
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Re: Le Baron's casual reading log

Postby badger » Mon Mar 28, 2022 2:38 pm

tungemål wrote:Or maybe the English phrase fits perfectly while there is no equivalent in one's own language.


sometimes a foreign phrase just adds a certain je ne sais quoi. ;)
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Le Baron
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Re: Le Baron's casual reading log

Postby Le Baron » Thu Apr 14, 2022 5:30 pm

Again I was making a nuisance of myself around town after work. I happened to walk up to the centre of town and in a large sports retailer (the only one really) they had a big poster, or perhaps it was a giant screen as is the thing these days, asking:
Tennis racket nodig?

It's good to note that this is the standard modus operandi for Dutch advertising. Asking a question. So you'll get something like this for someone trying to sell you e.g. a beer:
Ook een biertje vanavond?

Even though there's no indication who else they're talking about. This is the manner anyway. I happened to say to the assistant there (who turned out to be the manager...he was wearing a tie after all) that I think 'racket' should be spelled as 'racquet'. Happily some other people also interfered, one was Swedish, and said I was wrong. :P That he'd read it in the dictionary as 'racket'. I said I didn't mean the Swedish dictionary, and that 'proper dictionaries' all showed this "variant spelling" and that the French word it comes from is racquette. From Arabic for the palm 'rahat' or راحة اليد (I looked it up just now), so they must have got that game where you play with your hand from the Arabs. And that since the modern game of Tennis was codified in France/England it's more likely that name was original and that it in fact is the original word.

I freely admit I was doing this mostly to be difficult, but my real complaint is the use of English in advertising. I indicated this and the fellow quickly thought he had checkmated me by pointing out that the words 'Tennis' and 'racket' are both used in Dutch, but I deftly thwarted him by pointing out that Dutch makes a single word of these interpolated words and that the advertisement did not. So 15-love to me I think.

I probably need an extra hobby or more work to keep me busy.
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Re: Le Baron's casual reading log

Postby Le Baron » Wed Apr 27, 2022 2:36 pm

My lack of focus/organisation regarding what I consume as listening/visual material is disconcerting. Watching French and 'new wave' Japanese films is hardly likely to be advantageous to advancing Spanish. I'm starting to think I just haven't really found the groove yet with Spanish films I can truly connect with. I've been watching French films nearly all my life and I understand their 'tone'; the things under and around just the pure language. Meaning probably some familiarity with shared cultural trends and memes, historical and current. This is also crucial to a fuller understanding.

Along the path of learning Dutch, and out of sheer necessity because I live among Dutch people, I tried very hard to 'see from a Dutch perspective'. If you don't do this sort of thing it's always an exercise in simple translation/transliteration; transforming the meanings of words with associated cultural meaning into your own cultural mindset. This is generally not ideal once you get past simple and easily translatable words and concepts. Early on I made an effort to peruse as many topics as possible regarding 'Dutch culture'. Popular culture mostly, but also mainstream historical narratives. By doing so you run into the words and phrases that pepper the language generally and also form the frame of reference of the people using the language. It also helps to endear you to people; some were delighted that I knew about the history of the murder of the brothers de Witt.

It's a chore though and there is no real guide. Here I had the benefit of my wife mentioning things, suggesting things and guiding me in certain directions. That itself will be limited to what she sees, but it's an invaluable starting point. I found this a lot harder in say Norwegian or Russian and certainly Cantonese when I was tackling it many moons ago.
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Re: Le Baron's casual reading log

Postby DaveAgain » Wed Apr 27, 2022 3:10 pm

Le Baron wrote:It's a chore though and there is no real guide.
At one point I tried to work through Wikipedia's list of most successful French films at the boxoffice.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_h ... _in_France
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Re: Le Baron's casual reading log

Postby Le Baron » Wed Apr 27, 2022 3:35 pm

DaveAgain wrote:
Le Baron wrote:It's a chore though and there is no real guide.
At one point I tried to work through Wikipedia's list of most successful French films at the boxoffice.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_h ... _in_France

I'm surprised that so many are English-language films. There are also many excellent films not on that list. Not a single Chabrol film! Not a single Truffaut! Ça alors ! No mention of Plein Soleil, Les Tontons Flingueurs...shocking.

I think if I was learning French I would probably watch fewer films and more TV. Though at some point to have not seen La Grande Vadrouille or Le Corniaud (both on that list above) would be a hole in the cultural education.
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Re: Le Baron's casual reading log

Postby DaveAgain » Wed Apr 27, 2022 3:53 pm

Le Baron wrote:I'm surprised that so many are English-language films. There are also many excellent films not on that list. Not a single Chabrol film! Not a single Truffaut! Ça alors ! No mention of Plein Soleil, Les Tontons Flingueurs...shocking.

I think if I was learning French I would probably watch fewer films and more TV. Though at some point to have not seen La Grande Vadrouille or Le Corniaud (both on that list above) would be a hole in the cultural education.
There are two lists on the page, the lower list is all French productions.

I also used allocine.fr to see which were the most popular films for particular actors I liked.

I think imdb.com also lets you search by country of production, I think I used that to look for series with lots of episodes, but I'm not sure now.
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Re: Le Baron's casual reading log

Postby Le Baron » Wed Apr 27, 2022 4:04 pm

Aside from films though (yet still using French as an example) knowing about things like e.g. the election of Mitterrand and what impact this had on the subsequent political changes and current dialogue is an example of 'things of note to know' in connection with the culture.

I'm looking for this sort of thing in Spanish as a way into understanding things. I've read about the Spanish Civil War (a lot in English previously), some in Spanish.
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Re: Le Baron's casual reading log

Postby DaveAgain » Wed Apr 27, 2022 4:19 pm

Le Baron wrote:Aside from films though (yet still using French as an example) knowing about things like e.g. the election of Mitterrand and what impact this had on the subsequent political changes and current dialogue is an example of 'things of note to know' in connection with the culture.

I'm looking for this sort of thing in Spanish as a way into understanding things. I've read about the Spanish Civil War (a lot in English previously), some in Spanish.
Sure, I was just giving an example of path I followed into an unknown land. There are clearly lots of paths. :-)
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