A language learners’ forum

StringerBell wrote:Excluding the visions, this sounds similar to the game Clue. Have you ever played that one? It used to be one of my favorites, and they even made a movie based on the board game in the 80s which is absolutely fantastic. I've seen it about 100 times and I think I have all the lines memorized. Out of all the games you've played, which ones are your favorites?

True! The similarity was my first thought after our host had given the introduction. I played Clue a bit as a kid (←in the mid 1980s) and also watched a TV series based on it (some ten years later, Swedish television).

We all really like Mansions of Madness (2nd edition), and typically play it every two weeks. It has the Lovecraft theme which we all like. It's also part of the same "game family" together with Eldritch Horror (which I've played a lot on my own, and once with the group), Arkham Horror LCG, Arkham Horror - the board game, Elder Sign and maybe something else. Incidentally, it gives me a lot of inspiration to write. The games I've found most clunky/least smooth are Space Alert and Tales of the Arabian Nights. I'd love to play The Captain is Dead again. In solo settings - Eldritch Horror or Pathfinder Adventure Card Game.

Thanks for your comments!

jeff_lindqvist wrote:One language that I hear knocking on the door is Japanese. One day...

Good choice! A nice little language which will keep one occupied for a couple of decades or two!

Man your talks of board games makes me miss my gaming group back at home. Not that they're playing much due to the virus and the meetup spot being reasonably cautious. Definitely going to have to find a group in Ireland, not that they're meeting up yet either; only group that's on is a fair distance away, and poor public transportation means it'd take me over an hour to get there by bus.

Ezra wrote:Good choice! A nice little language which will keep one occupied for a couple of decades or two!

Thanks for the... encouragement.

'Clue' is the same game we call Cluedo in the UK, right?

I see the two terms being used interchangeably. Cluedo is the name of the game in Sweden (also the Swedish TV series).

Cluedo (/ˈkluːdoʊ/), known as Clue in North America

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluedo

2021 - Summary of week 45

Another late summary. Three finished books. This Thursday evening we played another game of Mansions of Madness. So close to victory!

JA: No proper Japanese studies yet, but I'll mention that I had a look in my copy of Japanese in a Hurry (as if I'm in a hurry...) and was confused by the accented Romaji vowels in lesson 1:
Where? Dóko.
Here. Kokó.
There. Asokó.

Also the word désŭ.

(The accents are persistent in the following lessons, though perhaps not throughout the entire book.)

After almost 15 years on language forums, I thought this could refer to pitch accent. Any ideas?

NL: More Loyal Books content.

jeff_lindqvist wrote:JA: No proper Japanese studies yet, but I'll mention that I had a look in my copy of Japanese in a Hurry (as if I'm in a hurry...) and was confused by the accented Romaji vowels in lesson 1:
Where? Dóko.
Here. Kokó.
There. Asokó.

Also the word désŭ.

(The accents are persistent in the following lessons, though perhaps not throughout the entire book.)

After almost 15 years on language forums, I thought this could refer to pitch accent. Any ideas?

The ŭ apparently indicates the devoiced u, where the mouth makes the shape required for the vowel but no vocal release occurs, making it sound like there's no final vowel.

As for the acute accents, it seems to be an attempt to give the busy learner an approximation of the Japanese pitch accent by mapping it onto European-style stress. It sort of works for those words in isolation, but can't really be taken as a fully accurate representation. The two fundamental laws of standard Japanese pitch are 1) the first and second mora (rhythmic unit) of the word have to have different pitches, and 2) there can only be one pitch downstep within a phonetic word. The acute accent in the above can't be taken to represent higher pitch, because then they'd have to write "asókó", and it can't be taken to represent the downstep either, because then "koko" and "asoko" would have none (in practice the words with no downstep and those with a final downstep are only distinguished when they're followed by something, like a particle). It's hard to judge how reliable the book's system is overall without looking at how it handles longer phrases and full sentences, but even leaving it at the level of separate words like that is probably better than giving nothing at all.

Thanks vonpeterhof! I'll let you know if full sentences are any different.

2021 - Summary of week 46

Catching up. I finished a couple of books in Swedish, mostly crime fiction. Since a week or so, I've been reading the second Ken Follett book of the series - Winter of the World. ~900 pages, small print. This Thursday evening we played the game Dune: Imperium. I'd love to play it again.

NL: More Loyal Books content.