The iguana's tale- Portuguese, Spanish, Haitian Creole and Ladino

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Xenops
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Re: The iguana's tale- Portuguese, Spanish, Haitian Creole and Ladino

Postby Xenops » Tue Feb 13, 2018 4:21 pm

Thank you for your reply, iguanamon. I appreciate it.

I suppose I was under the false impression (or maybe not so false, but inefficient) that watching shows in the target language with English subtitles, even when you don't catch a whole lot, is supposed to help you in some magical way, especially if you hit that 2000 hour mark.

As for materials, I regularly read the Bible in English, and I plan/need to make a practice of reading/listening. At this point, I agree, that reading a transcript while listening to it would be the most useful at this point, especially since French words just meld into each other. As for shows, I agree, I don't get much out of the X-files at this point except for the occasional word. I did find that they have French dubbing for the Nickelodeon show Danny Phantom (or Danny Fantôme rather) and for the Pokemon show (which I found to be really well done). I am pleased to say that just a few months ago I tried to watch a dubbed Pokemon episode, I got maybe 10% comprehension: I had no idea what the story was about. Last night I watched a different dubbed episode, and my comprehension was between 30% and 40%. I had a general idea of the plot.

Thank you for your thoughts. I also find it encouraging that you started with a kid's book, as my previous efforts in Dutch found me a limited number of materials in that language. Perhaps I will get back to it after I tackle French.

Edit: Even after finding and using your directions to navigate NHK, I still found the French site to be even less comprehensible. :lol: But I have no qualms about using the Bible or fairy tales, so I will probably stick with those.
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iguanamon
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Re: The iguana's tale- Portuguese, Spanish, Haitian Creole and Ladino

Postby iguanamon » Tue Feb 13, 2018 7:47 pm

Xenops wrote:...I suppose I was under the false impression (or maybe not so false, but inefficient) that watching shows in the target language with English subtitles, even when you don't catch a whole lot, is supposed to help you in some magical way, especially if you hit that 2000 hour mark.
As for materials, I regularly read the Bible in English, and I plan/need to make a practice of reading/listening. At this point, I agree, that reading a transcript while listening to it would be the most useful at this point, especially since French words just meld into each other. As for shows, I agree, I don't get much out of the X-files at this point except for the occasional word. I did find that they have French dubbing for the Nickelodeon show Danny Phantom (or Danny Fantôme rather) and for the Pokemon show (which I found to be really well done). I am pleased to say that just a few months ago I tried to watch a dubbed Pokemon episode, I got maybe 10% comprehension: I had no idea what the story was about. Last night I watched a different dubbed episode, and my comprehension was between 30% and 40%. I had a general idea of the plot. ...Even after finding and using your directions to navigate NHK, I still found the French site to be even less comprehensible. :lol: But I have no qualms about using the Bible or fairy tales, so I will probably stick with those.

You're welcome, Xenops. For a big language like French there will certainly be plenty of materials available for you to use for learning. My observation here on the forum has been that shows in L2 with L1 subtitles aren't very efficient in training listening. I always shake my head when I see someone in the A2 to B1 range doing that. I think one of the issues is these folks read our logs talking about what we are watching and enjoying in terms of native media and they don't see the work that went into getting there or the benefit that our experience in having already learned at least one second language to a high level gives us. It was easier for me to learn Haitian Creole because I had already learned Spanish and Portuguese. I started off with Genesis and "Wayne Drop" in HC because there just isn't a lot of choice in that language. Whatever you do, if you are persistent and consistent, if you finish your course, do some focused grammar study, speak, listen, read and write, you'll get there. If a shiny thing comes along and you get distracted from those tasks, if somebody offers you cookies to learn Mandarin, then, well...
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Re: The iguana's tale- Portuguese, Spanish, Haitian Creole and Ladino

Postby Eceec » Wed Feb 21, 2018 8:50 am

Just read your first post and have to thank you very much for linking Dicionário inFormal, I had thought I remembered a site similar to this but had forgotten the URL. Will have a look at all of the series you mentioned as well! Muito obrigado!
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Re: The iguana's tale- Portuguese, Spanish, Haitian Creole and Ladino

Postby galaxyrocker » Sat Feb 24, 2018 2:45 am

I'm not sure if you saw this, but someone shared it on a linguistics chat I'm part of. figured you might find it interesting

Nace la academia ‘nasionala’ del ladino en Israel

https://elpais.com/cultura/2018/02/20/a ... ssion=true
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Re: The iguana's tale- Portuguese, Spanish, Haitian Creole and Ladino

Postby iguanamon » Thu Mar 01, 2018 12:37 am

galaxyrocker wrote:I'm not sure if you saw this, but someone shared it on a linguistics chat I'm part of. figured you might find it interesting Nace la academia ‘nasionala’ del ladino en Israel https://elpais.com/cultura/2018/02/20/a ... ssion=true

Yeah, I follow several Sephardic accounts and, of course, the Cervantes Institute on Twitter. So, I knew about it. Still, I appreciate your thinking of me, galaxyrocker :). Having an Academy connected with the Real Academia Española is a huge help for Ladino/Djudeo-espanyol. I am more pessimistic than the article due to the current situation of the language with it's speakers spread out all over the world and even spread out in Israel too. As I've discussed previously here in the log, I think the future of Ladino lies in preservation rather than revitalization. If the Academia can spur a gathering of literature and writings in Ladino from around the world in a central repository; an effort to record the last native-speakers telling their own stories and maybe even reading some literature aloud- that would be great. Time will tell, vamos ver.

I've been speaking a lot of Spanish over the past couple of weeks as I had a visitor from Puerto Rico. That's been good for my Spanish. I'm still speaking Portuguese regularly too. My time with Ladino/Djudeo-espanyol is being spent mostly with the Tanah (Pentateuch) in Ladino. I am almost to the end of the Book of Numbers (Bamidbar) in Rashi script. I also read it the next day in Haitian Creole and then listen to the half an hour study on Atravè Labib. Well, sometimes I reverse the order and read in HC first, then Ladino, then listen and sometimes, like today when I spent half the day driving around the island, I listen first.

Listening to HC is pretty easy nowadays. I went up to the US over the weekend to Miami and rode the train north for about an hour. I had to listen to all the announcements in English, Spanish and Kreyòl. They didn't have any in Portuguese, thankfully. Not that I would have minded, except the audio volume was annoyingly loud. I spoke in all three languages ES, HC, and PT. That was nice. I didn't have much time to explore Miami as I was visiting my parents who drove down on their winter holiday.

Spanish
I stopped off at the bookstore at the Miami airport and bought Arturo Pérez-Reverte's latest novel Eva. I usually read on my kindle e-ink reader but occasionally I like to have a real book to read.
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Pérez-Reverte is one of my favorite Spanish authors. I first discovered him years ago when I bought "La Reina del Sur" in the discount rack of my mainland US bookstore for $5.00. I couldn't put the book down I enjoyed it so much. His latest novel, Eva, follows the exploits of Spanish spy, Falcó and is the second in a planned series. Falcó is the first book in the series.
perezreverte.com wrote:Marzo de 1937. Mientras la Guerra Civil sigue su trágico curso, una nueva misión lleva a Lorenzo Falcó hasta Tánger, turbulenta encrucijada de espías, tráficos ilícitos y conspiraciones, con el encargo de conseguir que el capitán de un barco cargado con oro del Banco de España cambie de bandera. Espías nacionales, republicanos y soviéticos, hombres y mujeres, se enfrentan en una guerra oscura y sucia en la que acabarán regresando peligrosos fantasmas del pasado.


The 1930's and 1940's were turbulent times in the world and the Spanish Civil War was the precursor to World War II. I'm looking forward to reading this one.

Haitian Creole
I tried out Lavwadlamerik (VOA Kreyòl) "Anglè Fasil/Anglè san grate tèt" (Easy English/English without batting an eyelash) which is an English-learning podcast. I do learn some more natural ways to say things from this. The English is so stilted at times it is hilarious to listen to, but I get a kick out of it and I like how it makes me think of what to say in HC and then I can check it against the native-speaker (who also translated "Robinson Crusoe" into HC). It's a fun and easy way to keep up with HC besides listening to Atravè Labib podcasts. TL English-learning podcasts and websites can be quite useful (especially for native English-speakers) in learning even at advanced levels. I almost always pick up a new word or way of phrasing something. Whether I remember it or not... that's another thing entirely! One of my favorites in Brazilian Portuguese is English Experts. This one is free and they also have a podcast about learning English (or any language really) sharing many of the same tips we give here all the time. The podcast is almost all in Portuguese.

I've been reading about Balaram nan liv Nonb la (Book of Numbers- Balaam). I'd known about him before. He was an Old Testament prophet but not an Israelite. The Atravè Labib pastor, Pastè Storly Michel, says "Pwofèt Balaram ki se yonn nan moun pi ra e ki etranj ke nou ta ka jwenn nan Bib la."/The Prophet Balaam is one of the most rare and strange people who you could find in the Bible. I agree with him. Balaam comes off as being pious and righteous but there's something a little bit "off" about him. First of all, he doesn't seem to find it strange that his donkey spoke to him and saved his life. Hmmm... might be a sign! He praises and blesses the Israelites (doing God's will)... but... at the same time he's setting them up for a big fall/back stab. He wants to have it both ways. He's a real prince of a guy this dude is. Balaam/Balaram is referenced in the New Testament and the Quran too. The Old Testament, besides its religious aspect, is chock full of treachery, betrayal, dishonesty, sex, drugs and rocks that roll (omwens ki bay dlo a/or at least give water), miracles, plagues (Biblical ones, surprise!) and amazing/extraordinary action. If God tells you to speak to the rock in order to get water in the desert (pale avèk woch la pou bay dlo nan desè la), speak to it, don't strike it (pa fwape'l)! You'll never get to the promised land... as Moyiz/Moshe/Moses is sadly about to find out soon. In fairness, Moses knew he'd messed up and God had to punish him somehow for his disobedience, but [spoiler]he still makes it to the ultimate promised land (nan peyi san chapo) in the hereafter[/spoiler].

One of the reasons I like this Thru The Bible podcast from Trans World Radio is that it makes me think. It makes me think about what I've read and it does it in Kreyòl (plus a bunch of other languages too... some with accurate transcripts). I can also put the transcripts on my phone for reading during "hidden moments". I listened to a bunch of these today and also in Florida and on the plane over the weekend. It's very useful for me and it's free and legal.

Something that strikes me as a bit odd is how Hebrew names get transliterated into my languages. In Ladino, this prophet's name is Bilam. In Haitian Creole it's Balaram; in English he's Balaam; in Portuguese he's Balaão; in Spanish he's the same as in English- Balaam... go figure.
Last edited by iguanamon on Sat Mar 03, 2018 7:33 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: The iguana's tale- Portuguese, Spanish, Haitian Creole and Ladino

Postby kujichagulia » Thu Mar 01, 2018 3:27 am

C’mon iguanamon! The story is ruined for us because of the spoiler! :D
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Re: The iguana's tale- Portuguese, Spanish, Haitian Creole and Ladino

Postby coldrainwater » Thu Mar 01, 2018 3:43 am

Thanks for the recommendation for Pérez-Reverte. Several of his look like they would be awesome audiobook listens and I see over 100 hours of such material available. With respect to spoilers, I have made several half-hearted attempts to get them to work in my own posts and methinks they perhaps are not enabled as one might expect. I was considering starting a technical thread to ask about it, but have been [far] too lazy to do so.
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Re: The iguana's tale- Portuguese, Spanish, Haitian Creole and Ladino

Postby vonPeterhof » Thu Mar 01, 2018 5:19 am

iguanamon wrote:Something that strike me as a bit odd is how Hebrew names get transliterated into my languages. In Ladino, this prophet's name is Bilam. In Haitian Creole it's Balaram; in English he's Balaam; in Portuguese he's Balaão; in Spanish he's the same as in English- Balaam... go figure.

I'm really liking the idea of transliterating the ancient Hebrew ʿayin as a Haitian Creole "r" ([ɣ]). Goes to show that whoever made that translation actually went to the original rather than copying from the French tradition. The same thing happens with the Arabic ʿayn in some Turkic languages, like Kazakh, Tatar and Bashkir: ʿAbdullāh -> Ğabdulla, As-salāmu ʿalaykum - Assalawmağaleykuwm, etc. There's actually evidence that the letter ʿayin in early Biblical Hebrew could stand for a very similar sound in some cases, although due to the fact that the etymology of "Balaam" is uncertain it's hard to tell whether it was one of those cases or not.
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Re: The iguana's tale- Portuguese, Spanish, Haitian Creole and Ladino

Postby iguanamon » Fri Mar 09, 2018 3:15 am

I haven't done much this week out of the ordinary. I'm quite busy with work at the moment and probably will be for a while. That's life, I'm grateful to have it. I'm going to write this week in my languages with no English summary and then I'll be back to normal next week. If people can't read my languages, they can try Google Translate. The only one you can't use is Ladino/Djudeo-espanyol but Spanish-speakers should be able to figure it out, mostly. I enjoy reading Ogrim's Romansch writing over at his log and trying to make it out on my own. For those of you who write in French, I can pretty much read your writing based on my languages without running it through any translation. I can also get a lot out of reading Italian, but not as much as I can with French. If you speak French, try reading the Kreyòl aloud, phonetically, you might be surprised to understand more than you think you can.

Português
Por fim, esta semana, já terminei com "Orgulho e Preconceito" de Jane Austin. Li o livro em português e espanhol, em grande parte. Prefiro a tradução em português à tradução em espanhol porque acho que é um pouco melhor, mas ambas servem bem. Li os últimos dez capítulos em português. O que posso dizer é que a senhora Austin é um gênio, uma verdadeira craque do gênero da literatura romântica, talvez a primeira, pelo menos no mundo de fala inglês. Nunca, jamais, li o livro em inglês. O meu preconceito foi ignorar esta obra-prima do gênero. Pensei que seria ultrapassado sendo escrito duzentos anos atrás, mas, me surpreendeu como é mais como um livro moderno do que um livro da época georgiana. Já foi traduzido em muitos idiomas, até tenho a tradução em catalão.

Em Inglaterra, nesta época, uma mulher tem poucas opções na vida. Ela só pode trabalhar fora de casa em empregos domésticos como, por exemplo, uma empregada ou uma governanta de crianças. Uma mulher não pode herdar bens como um homem pode perante a lei. Assim, o casamento é a melhor opção disponível para a maioria das mulheres. É preciso fazer uma boa escolha para ter uma boa vida, levando em conta a posição social, e o dinheiro do noivo, claro. Os protagonistas no livro, na família Bennet, são da classe média baixa. Os pais têm cinco filhas e nenhum filho. Por isso, a propriedade da família passará (depois da morte do pai) como herança à parente mais próxima do pai, um tal Senhor Collins- um homem indigno e repugnante. As filhas precisam de casar-se para ter uma boa chance na vida. O livro trata com essas forças e as escolhas que as jovens têm que fazer.

Gostei das personagens, das protagonistas- Elizabeth Bennet e Mr. Darcy, e também da narrativa. É tão bem escrito, e como dizia anteriormente, é muito moderno apesar de ter sido escrito duzentos anos atrás. Por isso é um clássico, né? Pra mim, ler um bom livro é como fazer uma boa amizade e, ao terminar com a leitura é como despedir-se de um bom amigo. Vou ter muitas saudades deste livro.

Español
Sigo leyendo y escuchando, hablando y escribiendo casi todos los días, ya tú sabes. El español está siempre conmigo. Ahora mismo, no hago nada que sea especial. Debería empezar a leer "Ficciones" con el grupo pero no sé si todavía quiero leerlo. Y estoy muy ocupado con mi trabajo. Vamos ver.

Ladino/Djudeo-espanyol
Esto dayinda meldando el Tanah en letras Rashi. Esto agora en el kapitulo 33 del livro Bamidbar kon Moshe i su trivo parados al lado sur del rio Iorden kontando la istoria de los djudiyos en sus viajes en el desierto despues de fuyir desde Ayifto. Ay munchos nombres de lugares i nombres de sivdades, rios, montanyas i paises eskritos en ebreu que son difisiles meldar, ma esto amiljorando mi konosimiento de las letras i nombres ebreus. Kuando no puedo meldar un byervo en ebreu, entonses, puedo meldarlo en krioyo i me ayuda. Malorozamente, no puedo eskrivir aki en Rashi porke no tengo un teklado en Rashi i no se komo enkontrar uno salvo de ke usar el sitio Ladinotype, ma no se puede usarlo aki.

Keyòl Ayisyen
Bonjou mezanmi. Kòm mwen te di pi wo, m kontinye ak lekti a nan Bib-la, liv Nonb (Resansman), Chapit 33. M koute pwogram "Atravè la Bib" la toulejou. Pwogram sa a akonpanye lekti nan Bib-la e se pa menm difisil koute'l. M li yon chapit nan Bib-la nan chak maten e pita, koute odyo pwogram ladan machin mwen. Kounye a, Moyiz ye lòt bò larivyè Jouden an avèk pèp Izrayèl yo. Li pat ka janbe larivyè, paske Bondye te fache anpil ak li pou dezobeyisans li. Li di'l konsa- "w pap rantre tè mwen te pwomèt zansèt ou yo". Bondye te fache avèk Moyiz paske lè pèp la te vle dlo pou bwè nan desè la, Bondye te di'l "Pale ak ròch la e li va bay dlo". Men Moyiz fwape ròch la olye pale ak li. Moyiz ap rete lòt bò larivyè pou Bondye fini ak zafè lwa pou bay pèp Israyèl yo. Moyiz konnen ke depi pèp Israyèl yo rantre nan tè pwomèt, li pral mouri. Se tris, men Moyiz toujou gen lafwa, non! Paske li konnen ke Bondye va pran swen li pou tout tan. Li prale moute nan syèl la, Bib-la di nou pita.

M a wè nou pita, orevwa.
Last edited by iguanamon on Fri Apr 27, 2018 12:49 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: The iguana's tale- Portuguese, Spanish, Haitian Creole and Ladino

Postby reineke » Mon Mar 12, 2018 12:55 am

Spain Recognizes Ladino as Spanish
March 10, 2018
Language Magazine

More than half a millennium after most Jews were expelled from the country in 1492, Spain is officially recognizing their language, Ladino, as a type of Spanish.

In Madrid last month, the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE—Real Academia Española) announced the establishment of a new Ladino academy in Israel. “One of its goals will be to save Ladino from fading away,” says Professor Shmuel Rafael, director of Bar-Ilan University’s Salti Center for Ladino Studies.

Ladino, also known as Judeo-Spanish or Giudeo-Spagnola, “was the main tool for creating, disseminating, and preserving the spoken and written culture of the Spanish Jews,” Rafael says.

He says Spain’s decision derives from an understanding that Ladino is a Spanish language in the same way as the Spanish dialects spoken in Argentina, Mexico, Venezuela, the Philippines, and elsewhere. “Remember, there’s no single form of Spanish throughout the world,” Rafael says."

https://www.languagemagazine.com/2018/0 ... s-spanish/
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