zenmonkey's multilingual adventures of a traveller

[zenmonkey]

Oh wow, Triel-sur-Seine! I taught English in Chanteloup-les-Vignes! The other English language assistant who was also assigned to the same "district" as me taught in Triel-sur-Seine. What a small world

Small world indeed - I led many a Sunday bike ride through Chanteloup-les-Vignes!
Possible your friend had my daughters in the English class...

[zenmonkey]

Moving this over to my log so as not to add to Iversen's by mostly responding about me.

- I'm currently in Lille, my two youngest live here, so I go back and forth - usually I'm also in the Wiesbaden area. And yes, I lived in Munich before and Triel sur Seine before that. And Bordeaux, Paris, etc..... before that. My oldest lives is Strasbourg - I'll be visiting next week...

I move a lot.

I think that Iversen doesn't mind about the conversaiotns on his log.

You have children everywhere

which was your favourite place to live?

Bon, j'espère que pas partout!
Et pas avec n'importe qui!

Je n'ai pas de lieux favoris - je pense souvent que je voudrais habiter encore, un jour, a Munich mais plus souvent je pense que le monde est vaste et je pourrais vivre dans un petit village au Ladakh ou Takuu bien avant de revenir sur mes pas.

[Jar-Ptitsa]

Bon, j'espère que pas partout!
Et pas avec n'importe qui!

Haha natürlich nicht. Mein vater hat auch Kinder überall aber eigentlich auch nur 4 wie du. meine älteste Schwester ist in brüssel, dann die andere keine Ahnung weil sie hässlihc ist. Mein Zwillingsbruder ist immer überall weil er Pilot wird. Dann bin ich in London, aber meine Eltern sind auch hier.

Je n'ai pas de lieux favoris - je pense souvent que je voudrais habiter encore, un jour, a Munich mais plus souvent je pense que le monde est vaste et je pourrais vivre dans un petit village au Ladakh ou Takuu bien avant de revenir sur mes pas.

Vielen sagen, dass München schön sei.

[zenmonkey]

My farther is in town for a few weeks and has been traveling with my daughter - immersed in French, he is now taking a breather and spending time with me.

- I've noticed that I'm making a lot of mistakes in Spanish (what we speak most, along with English). It's good to have him around for the practice, but I need to be careful, if not I'll code-switch in the middle of a sentence. Not for clarity or precision but from being lazy. Ugh.

- We've been talking language learning. I showed him what I was working on. We read some Ladino together and he's decided to pick up Hebrew ASSIMIL. So we went to the local store which has a very nice language area.

Just a small part:

IMG_1179.jpg

I was surprised as to how fast he actually read Hebrew while not really knowing any. In his childhood he learned Yiddish, which is why he can navigate reasonably well in Germany.

Spreading the virus, far and wide.

[zenmonkey]

This post is to cover Hebrew Resources beyond my intro post in this log.

on-line Hebrew dictionaries
- best is Morfix - (http://morfix.mako.co.il/)

Free dictionary tools
- Babylon (http://www.babylon.com/products/babylon/)
- LingvoSoft (http:// http://www.lingvozone.com/LingvoSoft-On ... Dictionary)
- Firefox : hover over - add-on Quick TransLation - translates from Babylon by hovering your mouse over the word you are looking to translate.

Verb conjugation
- Hebrew Verbs (http://www.hebrew-verbs.co.il/)
- Learn Hebrew Easily (http://learnhebreweasily.blogspot.com/2 ... table.html)

Pronunciations guides
- http://www.dictionary.co.il/pronunciation_guide.php
- http://www.hebrew4christians.com/Gramma ... chart.html

Wishlist: A Reference Grammar of Modern Hebrew by Edna Amir Coffin and Shmuel Bolozky

[tags: #tagLangHE]

[zenmonkey]

I needed to extend a car rental contract today. Dialled the number and got the choice of continuing in German or "press 2" for English. I was lazy and pressed "2". Well, the person that came on line answered in German and I had a choice of staying in German or falling back to English. I stayed in German - which is my usual behaviour but I do it uncomfortably and not truly willing.

Well, the guy on the phone told me that I had to show up in person at an office. Not a problem, quick drive and I'm at the counter. Again, I have the choice of English or German - having thought about it and being a little more awake here I stick to German.

I need to break the habit of "falling back" to English in a regular fashion.

Contract was extended, conversation was fine and I made two beginner mistakes. I said "dreißig" instead of "dreißigste" and "ab" instead of "bis". But really, only making them and correcting them is the way to NOT make them.

[Jar-Ptitsa]

Why did your father learn Yiddish when he was younger? has Yidddish some native speakers now, or before (when?)

[zenmonkey]

Why did your father learn Yiddish when he was younger? has Yidddish some native speakers now, or before (when?)

Yiddish was the first language of many European Jews from about the 9th or 10th century. It was the leading vernacular language among Ashkenazi Jews before the Holocaust. My father learnt it from his parents - they emigrated from Poland to Mexico in the early 1930's (before the war, but during the pogroms in Poland) and then Yiddish was an important heritage language to the large Polish/Russian Jewish population in Lat Am.

Today, Yiddish is disappearing - although it was spoke as a first language - it just doesn't get passed on versus local dominant languages. For example, Isaac Asimov's first language was Yiddish but you know him as an English author.

Yes, there are still communities where it is the primary spoken language - especially among the Hassidim Jews. The US has over 100,000 primo speakers, the UK maybe a 1/3 of that and Sweden, Germany and several other EU countries have it as an official minority language. A generation ago it over 11 million speakers, now probably around a 10th of that.

But it has a large literature and cultural base, there is even a wikipedia version in yiddish: https://yi.wikipedia.org. For example, the painter Marc Chagall and the Nobel Lit writer - Isaac Bashevis Singer were two Yiddish native speakers. It is a language with a strong literary production.

[Jar-Ptitsa]

how interesting and how sad as well. What a pity that they don't protect Yiddish, like they protect welsh. It seems weird that the Jewish people don't want to maintain this language.

I find it unique because it's Germanic but use the Hebrew orhtography. I wonder how much I would understand of the spoken Yiddish, I can understand about 95% spoken Dutch and about 80% spoken German. I know some muslims, but not Jewish I think, or maybe one or two, but not the Yiddish ones.

If i were jewish I would learn it, but I am catholic.

[zenmonkey]

how interesting and how sad as well. What a pity that they don't protect Yiddish, like they protect welsh. It seems weird that the Jewish people don't want to maintain this language.

I find it unique because it's Germanic but use the Hebrew orhtography. I wonder how much I would understand of the spoken Yiddish, I can understand about 95% spoken Dutch and about 80% spoken German. I know some muslims, but not Jewish I think, or maybe one or two, but not the Yiddish ones.

If i were jewish I would learn it, but I am catholic.

There is definitely an effort to protect it - more or less successful - there are schools and what not.