Ogrim's Krambu - a plethora of languages, mostly European, both old and new

[Ogrim]

I've finished reading Das brennende Herz and I really enjoyed the book. Strictly speaking it is not a biography, although you do learn about the most important things in Gustav Mahler's life. The book is a subjective novel, imagining what Mahler felt, thought and said during the last few months of his life, struggling with a heart condition that could not be cured at the time. By the way, I only discovered after reading the book that the author, Hassan Ardjah, is a medical doctor specialised in cardiology and gastroenterology. He is originally from Teheran, but studied medicine and philosophy in Heidelberg. Apart from books about cardiology and Mahler he has written a "phantasy" where Mozart and Beethoven raise from the grave and travel through time, as well as books about philosophy and religion. This is clearly a very well educated man, and he writes in a very sober, yet elegant German. I will certainly read more of his books later on.

I was going to start a book in Russian, but instead I am reading a book in Swedish! Actually Systematiker is to blame, I gave him a tip about a site for buying Swedish e-books, and ended up spending some 50 euros there myself on various books I've always wanted to read (or re-read). The book I am reading is called Brobyggarna and is the first in a series called Det stora århundradet (The Great Century) by Swedish author Jan Guillou, who is probably most famous for his spy thrillers about Carl Hamilton. Det stora århundradet is what I guess you can call an epic work telling the life of a Norwegian family during the 20th century, the first book starting with the story of three brothers from a poor fishing village who are sent to Bergen when their father dies. There it turns out that they have an exceptional talent for engineering, and they are given grants to go and study engineering in Dresden - the condition being that they return to Norway to work on the construction of the railway between Oslo and Bergen. I am just a few chapters in, but already hooked on the story, and I enjoy reading in Swedish again. For a Norwegian that is no big deal, I may come across a word I don't really know once in 20 pages. My only worry now is that there are already seven books in the series, and if they are as good as it seems they are, I will not be able to resist them. That will take a lot of time I could spend on other languages...

I do find time for Arabic though. I can't say I feel much progress, but slowly I manage to keep more words active in my brain and it is nice to see that sometimes I actually (think I) understand a few words when listening to Arabic on TV. Self-learning a language is a lonely process though, so at one point I really need to consider taking classes or at least engage a tutor for a few lessons. I should probably try to advance a bit faster as well, not spending so much time on each Langenscheidt chapter as I do. I am looking at getting a couple of books with simple texts with parallel translations into French or English to get more reading practice. I do know the Arabic script by now, but I lack fluency, which I think is mostly because I don't read enough.

[jeff_lindqvist]

The book I am reading is called Brobyggarna and is the first in a series called Det stora århundradet (The Great Century) by Swedish author Jan Guillou, who is probably most famous for his spy thrillers about Carl Hamilton.(...)My only worry now is that there are already seven books in the series, and if they are as good as it seems they are, I will not be able to resist them. That will take a lot of time I could spend on other languages...

I've read them all, and my favourite is the one you're reading. I also enjoyed the sixth and the seventh, Äkta amerikanska jeans and 1968. I listened to the author at the Gothenburg Book Fair in 2011 when the first book was launched. There will be ten books in total, and the final one will end on the historical date September 11th, 2001.

[Ogrim]

The book I am reading is called Brobyggarna and is the first in a series called Det stora århundradet (The Great Century) by Swedish author Jan Guillou, who is probably most famous for his spy thrillers about Carl Hamilton.(...)My only worry now is that there are already seven books in the series, and if they are as good as it seems they are, I will not be able to resist them. That will take a lot of time I could spend on other languages...

I've read them all, and my favourite is the one you're reading. I also enjoyed the sixth and the seventh, Äkta amerikanska jeans and 1968. I listened to the author at the Gothenburg Book Fair in 2011 when the first book was launched. There will be ten books in total, and the final one will end on the historical date September 11th, 2001.

Thanks for coming by Jeff. Does your comment mean you did not particularly like books 2 to 5? My idea is certainly to read the whole series in chronological order, and I was hoping the next books in the series will be as good as the first one.

I said that for a Norwegian it's no big deal reading in Swedish, but I should probably rephrase that to say that for this particular Norwegian it is no big deal. Most Norwegians I know never read in Swedish, they wait for the books to be translated into Norwegian. I think it is actually sad that we are translating books between the Scandinavian languages (although it is probably good for translators ), and I've never really understood why so many people in Norway are reluctant to read in Danish or Swedish, when they are quite happy to read in English. I mean, I even got "friends" who will never read a book in nynorsk. People are lazy, I guess.

Just back from my Russian class and apart from a short discussion about the situation in Syria (enough said), we read and analysed a couple of lyrics by the Russian rock group Машина Времени. This was another musical discovery for me, as I had not heard any songs by this group so far. They became popular already in the 1970s during the Soviet era, and it still performs under the lead of the singer-songwriter Андрей Макаревич. So I will use today's Russian class as an excuse for posting a music video of one of the songs we analysed. It is a song called Марионетки, and the clip is from 1977. I like those haircuts!

[David27]

Послушай поворот, моя любимая песня группы машина времени, и это ещё популярная между русскоговоящими иммигрантами здесь в США.

[Lawyer&Mom]

What do you think about Norwegian learners reading Swedish? I’m quite comfortable reading in German, and I’ve taken a semester of Norwegian. I’m not actively studying Norwegian at the moment, but I’ll occasionally buy a Norwegian book when I stumble across one at our thrift store. But I also stumble across interesting Swedish books. I don’t buy them, but I’m starting to wonder why not. Swedish and Norwegian are about equally transparent to me. I know I’ll read it with Norwegian pronunciation, but so what? (Do you read Swedish as Norwegian, or do you actually try to pronounce Swedishly?)

[jeff_lindqvist]

Thanks for coming by Jeff. Does your comment mean you did not particularly like books 2 to 5? My idea is certainly to read the whole series in chronological order, and I was hoping the next books in the series will be as good as the first one.

Well, I really liked the first one - maybe because it worked very well as an introduction to the whole family, not too different from a first episode of a TV drama (e.g. classic series like North & South, Upstairs Downstairs, How the West was Won...). That's how I see the series: as an epic family drama. The lives take different paths, and sometimes the focus is too narrow (in my opinion).

I'm looking forward to the next part, of course! (September, I think)

[Ogrim]

Послушай поворот, моя любимая песня группы машина времени, и это ещё популярная между русскоговоящими иммигрантами здесь в США.

Спасибо. I've found lots of albums on Apple Music and listen to a few songs yesterday. I agree that поворот is a great song.

What do you think about Norwegian learners reading Swedish? I’m quite comfortable reading in German, and I’ve taken a semester of Norwegian. I’m not actively studying Norwegian at the moment, but I’ll occasionally buy a Norwegian book when I stumble across one at our thrift store. But I also stumble across interesting Swedish books. I don’t buy them, but I’m starting to wonder why not. Swedish and Norwegian are about equally transparent to me. I know I’ll read it with Norwegian pronunciation, but so what? (Do you read Swedish as Norwegian, or do you actually try to pronounce Swedishly?)

I guess it depends on your level of Norwegian and whether you just aim at understanding the written language or actively speaking it. Apart from morphological differences, which are not that important, the biggest difference is in vocabulary. There are after all a number of words which are different enough to sometimes make understanding difficult. Not to mention false friends, and you have to be aware of those. But yes, I don't see why you should not give a go at reading Swedish if there is a book which interests you.

About pronunciation, interesting question. When I read silently I guess I reproduce Swedish pronunciation in my head. After all, I have hundreds, if not thousands of hours of wathcing Swedish TV in my life so I know very well how Swedish sounds. If I were to read aloud, I would try to use Swedish pronunciation, although I guess my intonation would be strongly (Oslo) Norwegian. I find that is the hardest part to change.

Well, I really liked the first one - maybe because it worked very well as an introduction to the whole family, not too different from a first episode of a TV drama (e.g. classic series like North & South, Upstairs Downstairs, How the West was Won...). That's how I see the series: as an epic family drama. The lives take different paths, and sometimes the focus is too narrow (in my opinion).

I'm looking forward to the next part, of course! (September, I think)

Thanks. I am now halfway through the first book, so I guess I can start the second in a couple of weeks. Hopefully I will enjoy it as well. So far the first book focuses mostly on two of the three brothers, so I am curious to read more about what happened to the third one.

[Ogrim]

I have been pretty absent for a few weeks due to various things. First I got a bad flu which turned into a pharyngitis. I lost my voice and had a temprerature for a couple of days which kept me in bed and pretty out of shape. Once I got back to work I had a lot to catch up on in a few days before going to Valencia, Spain on a long-planned break for a week. Now I am back into the routine but again with a backlog to deal with. All this has given me less time for language studies and really no time for the LLorg. I hope I can get up to speed on what you all have been up to in this time.

I've managed to make some progress on Arabic though. On Udemy I came across a "MSA Arabic complete course" by Fadi G. Char at a huge discount so I spent 9.99 euros on that, and when I was ill but not feeling too unwell I started watching the videos. Of course, the first few lessons are basic introduction to the alphabet etc. so I am just going through them very superficially as I feel I master Arabic script well enough by now. The nice thing about this Udemy course is that you can download the videos on your tablet or computer and watch offline any time you want, and there is no time restriction on it. I mean, you can download the complete course on your hard disk if you've got the space for it. And you just pay once, not a monthly fee as you do with many other online course providers. As an aside, Udemy is an interesting place to look for courses in in a lot of areas, from IT development via design and marketing to music, health and nutrition, in addition to language courses of course .

Español
Pasé una semana agradable en Valencia. Una noche unos amigos nos invitaron a un concierto en el Palau de la Música. Es una sala de conciertos principalemente para música clásica, ya que es la sede de la Filarmónica de Valencia. Esa noche sin embargo era un concierto más pop, aunque tocaba la Filarmónica. La cantante Sole Giménez presentó un proyecto que acababa de lanzar, cantando canciones populares escritas por mújeres. Aparte de la Filarmónica la acompañó el pianista cubano Iván 'Melon' Lewis con su trío de jazz. El concierto estuvo muy bien,

Sole Giménez fue durante años la solista del grupo Presuntos Implicados, que era uno de los grupos más populares de España durante los años 80 y 90. Hace unos años dejó el grupo para empezar una carrera en solitario, lanzando nuevos proyectos como éste que presentó en Valencia. Su estilo es un pop melodioso con ritmos latinos e inspiración "jazz".

El primer vídeoclip que comparto es de una de las canciones más conocidas de Presuntos Implicados, Como hemos cambiado. El segundo es un ejemplo de Sole Gímenez cantando en Catalán (ella es de Valencia), una canción llamada Sense tu y el tercero un tema más de estilo jazz con Iván Melón Lewis, Aguas de marzo.

[MamaPata]

Thanks for the Udemy recommendation - I'll be having a look! I am getting really sick of monthly payments for language courses and related activities. I do want to support companies, but the monthly payments are very expensive. Plus, I have no regular employment for the time being and my bank charges me for paying in other currencies. I'm willing to deal with that once, but every month? No chance. (Sorry, small moan!)

Sounds like a great week - hope you are feeling nice and relaxed!

[neofight78]

Yeah, it gets expensive quick if you use everything. I'm lucky that I've had a decent income to fund my learning. I think the things I constantly paid money for were LingQ and tutors. I can't imagine what the bill would be if I started adding all things that were available. Still it's all cheaper than a university education