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

[Elenia]

Je ne vais pas parler de la politique, mais qui suit le débat sur le Brexit ne peut pas éviter de voir souvent l’expression anglais « have your cake and eat it ». En français les journaux traduisent cette expression par « vouloir le beurre et l’argent du beurre », ce qui me parait plus clair et précis que l’expression anglaise. Connaissez-vous des expressions similaires dans d’autres langues ?

It took me a very long time to understand that phrase. It used to annoy me when people used it, because I didn't understand it - it's your cake, of course you can eat it! I still find it annoying even now, when I see the logic behind it.

[Ogrim]

Je ne vais pas parler de la politique, mais qui suit le débat sur le Brexit ne peut pas éviter de voir souvent l’expression anglais « have your cake and eat it ». En français les journaux traduisent cette expression par « vouloir le beurre et l’argent du beurre », ce qui me parait plus clair et précis que l’expression anglaise. Connaissez-vous des expressions similaires dans d’autres langues ?

It took me a very long time to understand that phrase. It used to annoy me when people used it, because I didn't understand it - it's your cake, of course you can eat it! I still find it annoying even now, when I see the logic behind it.

I also find it annoying, especially when I hear it from the mouth of Boris Johnson .

I found an interesting list on Wikipedia showing how this idiom is expressed in other languages. It is almost the same in Swedish - Att äta kakan och ha den kvar - while in Norwegian we say Man kan ikke få både i pose og sekk (You can't get both in bag and sack.) I like the Italian one Volere la botte piena e la moglie ubriaca (to want the barrel full and the wife drunk) although I am not sure if there is some sexism implied in that one. And the most poetic one seems to be in Kannada: ಅಕ್ಕಿ ಮೇಲೆ ಆಸೆ, ನೆಂಟರ ಮೇಲೆ ಪ್ರೀತಿ - Desire over rice, love over relatives (I assume that is an accurate translation, I do not read Kannada myself.)

[Ogrim]

Happy New Year everyone.

Time to revive this log again after a month's silence, and as is usual this time of year, it will be an end-of-the-year review and some thoughts about the future in terms of language-learning. As I am not someone who register the time spent on different language activities or counting the pages I've read, it will be a purely personal, subjective assessment of where I am.

I will not say much about my "best" languages, English, French, Spanish, as they are with me all the time every day, so they take care of themselves.

In terms of active studying, the only language I have really worked hard to improve the last year is Russian. I am not totally satsified, as my speaking and writing skills have not improved as much as I wished, and I still need to consolidate certain grammar points. I am especially bad at writing. However, my understanding of spoken and written Russian has improved greatly, because I have put in a lot of time on reading and watching Russian TV and videos on Youtube. During the Christmas holiday I managed to almost finish reading "White Nights" by Dostoyevsky in the original, and I am also halfway through the book "И снег приносит чудеса: Рождественская история" (And the snow brings miracles: A Christmas Story) by Andrey Sorokin. In 2017 I will continue to dedicate as much time as I can to Russian, as I believe that it will just take a little bit more effort and systematic study to get to that higher level I am striving for.

In the summer of 2016 I also took up Arabic, again, I should say, because I have tried without success to get into this language before. I did some serious study during the summer, but autumn was very busy work-wise so I have not been able to keep up the speed. I spent some hours during the holidays revising a couple of lessons in Langenscheidt and I aim at slow but steady progress during this year.

My "engagement" with Romansh has been a bit on and off during the year, with some highly intensive periods and other less so. I receive the e-version of the Romansh newspaper La Quotidiana in my inbox every weekday, and always try to find time to skim through it and read a few articles some time in the day. I also watch programmes on RTR, but less frequently, but I have not yet got around to reading the novel in vallader which has been sitting on my shelf for more than a year. However, Romansh is something I just enjoy for its own sake, and I am happy with what I can do with it whenever I feel for it.

German is a language I am using more and more. Last year I read at least 10 books in German, I listen to the news channel NDR Info almost every day, I regularly buy Der Spiegel and die Zeit and I go to Germany more or less once every week, so my German is improving without my actively studying it. I could certainly do more to feel at ease when speaking German, and avoid those stupid mistakes with gender or cases, but overall I am happy with my abilities in this language.

2016 has not been a great year for Catalan, Italian or Latin, in the sense that I have done very little with them. Sure, I read stuff from time to time in both Catalan and Italian, and I help my son with his Latin homework, but apart from that I have put them on the backburner as I prefer to dedicate more time to Russian.

So what will 2017 bring language-wise? I do not have any new year resolutions as such. As mentioned I will continue to give priority to Russian and I want to advance with Arabic. My relationship with Romansh will certainly continue, and I will keep on using German regularly in the same way as in 2016. I do hope to spend a bit more time on my neglected languages, in particular Italian, so I will look for something good to read and perhaps some radio station or podcasts dealing with interesting subjects.

Given my determination to really get Russian to the next level, and to move forward with Arabic, there won't be any time for a new language very soon. Longer-term, once my Russian is consolidated, I am tempted by another Slavic language, but not sure whether to go for Polish, Czech or Serbian/Croatian. Greek is also lurking in the background, as I spent almost a year on Greek some time back before I let it go. Then there are other tempting languages out there, like Hebrew, Armenian, Basque.... But no, I'll try to keep the wanderlust under control one more year.

[Ogrim]

The other day I decided to update my bookshelves on Goodreads and I discovered that I am currently reading more books than I realised . What happens is that I tend to start reading new books quite frequently on an impulse, then I leave them aside because I start on other books which I find even more interesting and appealing. I need to be better at keeping track of my own reading, and Goodreads is a nice tool for that. I will use it more frequently than in the past.

So what am I currently reading? According to my entries on Goodreads, three books in Russian, two in German, one in French and one in Italian. They are:

Russian
Белые ночи (white nights) by Dostoyevsky. I've already talked about it in my previous post. Ditto for
И снег приносит чудеса: Рождественская история.. I never seem to get through this Christmas story during the Christmas break. I already tried last year but gave up. This year my Russian has improved, so I have advanced much further, and I'll try to get to the end of it to find out what the miracles referred to in the title are.
Почему языки такие разные (Why are languages so different), by Vladimir Plungyan. I started this book more than a year ago but only got through a couple of chapters. I'll get back to it though, it is enjoyable to read a book about languages in Russian.

In general, my list of read Russian books should hopefully increase significantly this year as my reading ability gets better.

German
Mozart - Sein Leben und Schaffen: Komplettausgabe: Die Biografie von Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, by Karl Storck. This is a "heavy" Mozart biography of more than 500 pages and I got about halfway before I took a break from it last autumn. I do intend to finish it though, slowly but surely.
Die Kunst der Freiheit: In Zeiten zunehmender Unfreiheit (The Art of Freedom: In Times of Increasing "Unfreedom"), by Alexander van der Bellen. I started reading this book by the newly elected President of Austria only three days ago, but I am already well into it, as Mr. van der Bellen is an interesting personality who is not afraid to take positions that may not be seen as politically correct in our times. As the book is not very long I should finish it pretty soon.

French
Le facteur temps ne sonne jamais deux fois (The Time Factor never calls twice), by Etienne Klein. I've also mentioned this book before in my log. It explores the concept of time and what time actually is from a scientific point of view. It is an interesting read, but I am progressing slowly, not because of the French, but because the ideas and concepts put forward in the book are not always easy to grasp for a non-scientist. I therefore need more time .

Italian
Generazione Erasmus: Il coraggio della responsabilità (The Erasmus Generation: The Courage of Responsability), by Sandro Gozi. Mr. Gozi is an Italian politician, member of the outgoing Renzi government, and a specialist in European affairs. It is pretty political, so I won't go into it here, only to say that it calls for a new generation (the Erasmus generation) to carry out reforms in order to save the European ideal.

My list of books to read is currently at 23, but in reality there are a lot more in my Kindle which I could add to those. I try to keep my list manageable though, there are still books I entered in Goodreads back in 2013 which are on the "to-read-list".

[arthaey]

What happens is that I tend to start reading new books quite frequently on an impulse, then I leave them aside because I start on other books which I find even more interesting and appealing.

Are you me??

I'm trying having a pile of physical books, one per language + 1 fiction + 1 non-fiction, to encourage me to finish these before flitting on to others. I'll let you know how well this works in practice…

[Ogrim]

Español
Dentro de unas semanas voy con la familia a Costa Rica, y estoy bastante ilusionado con la idea. Vamos a hacer un circuito por el país, es un viaje organizado, porque no estoy por conducir yo mismo, y también sale mejor de precio que si intentara organizar todo por mi cuenta. De todas maneras nos juntarán con un grupo pequeño de gente, no sabemos de qué nacionalidad(es). Espero que sea un grupo lingüísticamente diverso, o si no, que sean hispanohablantes. Vamos a pasar ocho-nueve días viajando por el país, y los últimos tres en un hotel en la playa para descansar.

De América Latina conozco Argentina, Brazil (un poquito), Cuba, México y Républica Dominicana, así que añado otro país latino a la lista. La verdad es que no sabía mucho de Costa Rica, y por eso me he puesto a leer sobre la historia del país y la situación actual. También hay vídeos interesantes en Youtube, como este especial del History Channel:



Encontré un programa muy bueno en francés, es un documental de France2 que dura hora y media. No sé si es verdad que Costa Rica es el país más feliz del mundo, pero si parece ser un país donde han sabido sacar provecho de las posibilidades que dan la tierra, la naturaleza y las capacidades de la gente:



También me ha gustado el siguiente video sobre como hablan los "ticos", como se llaman ellos mismos, de un chico joven. Así estoy más preparado para entender ciertas expresiones y palabras que no se usan en el español de España.




(English summary)
In a few weeks' time I will be going with the family to Costa Rica, and I am quite excited about it. We are going on an organised tour with a small group, hopefully people of different nationalities and languages, or if not, with Spanish-speakers. We'll spend eight-nine days travelling around the country, and three on the beach for relaxation at the end.

I am sharing a few videos which I found on Youtube about Costa Rica, one of which is in French, a very well made documentary from France2. I don't know whether Costa Rica is the happiest country in the world, but soon I will be able to get a first-hand impression.

[Ogrim]

Español

El latín, ¿lengua oficial de la Unión Europea?
El título es de El País que pregunta, de una manera un poco provocativa, sí con el Brexit y la victoria de Trump, el latín

podría resucitar como argumento identitario para un continente en horas bajas.

No encuentro el argumento del artículo muy convincente en sí, pero en él se refiere a un libro italiano, Viva il latino, storie e bellezza di una lingua inutile del profesor italiano Nicola Gardini, que parece haber lanzado esta idea de "reactivar" el latín.

Italiano
Non conoscevo il nome di Nicola Gardini, ma dopo leggere l’articolo nel giornale El País, ho trovato la sua biografia su Wikipedia ed ho saputo che è un uomo molto erudito che ha scritto molti libri (romanzi, poesia, saggistica), ed ha tradotto opere non solo dal latino ma anche dall’inglese. Nicola Gardini ha la sua pagina personale sul Web, per chi voglia sapere di più su questa persona. Io certamente leggerò questo libro che parla del latino, perché fa tempo che cerco un libro in italiano e non sapevo cosa scegliere. Non avevo voglia di leggere un romanzo, ma un saggio sulla lingua latina mi sembra molto interessante. Se questo libro mi piace, può essere che legga altri libri da Gardini più tardi.

English summary of the above
I refer to an article in Spanish newspaper El País called "Latin, offical language of the EU?" I don't find the argument of the article very solid, but they refer to a book by Italian author Nicola Gardini, "Long live Latin, histories and beauty of a useless langauge". This lead me to find out more about Mr. Gardini, who is an Italian professor with a number of publications to show for, novels, poetry, essays and translations both from Latin and English. I will certainly read the book about Latin, as I was looking for something interesting to read in Italian.

[Ogrim]

I am back from a 12-day trip to Costa Rica, and it will certainly take some time to see what has been happening on this forum during these two weeks. I also have a certain backlog at work to take care of .

The trip was great, and I may write something about it when I have more time. Today I rather concentrate on the fact that I managed to read quite a lot during the trip getting through almost 5.5 books in five different languages. You have to do something on those trans-Atlantic flights. So here is my in-flight entertainment list :

In Spanish: Breve historia de España I: Las raíces, by Luis Enrique Íñigo Frenández. This is the first of two books giving, as the title indicates, a relatively short introduction to the history of Spain. It was an easy read and a nice way of refreshing my knowledge about Spain's history. I will have to read the second volume soon.

In French: L'Evangile selon Pilate, by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt. An interesting take on the Biblical story about the crucifixtion and its aftermath. In this book, Schmitt enters the head of Pontius Pilatus assuming how he might have reacted to the news that the body of Jesus from Nazareth had disappeared from the tomb.

In Italian: Viva il latino, storie e bellezza di una lingua inutile, by Nicola Gardini. I talked about this book in my previous post. In fact, the book is the author's personal take on the great classical authors, explaining how they use the Latin language to convey not only a message, but also a certain esthetic vision of the language and the world. It certainly is a book that makes me want to go back to studying Latin again, but there is not at all any suggestion that Latin should become the "official language of the EU", as the article in El País foolishly claims. Il signore Gardini simply says that he rejects the notion of Latin as a "dead language", as per his definition a language that has been written for centuries, producing some of the most essential works of literature in Europe and having influenced numerous writers and artists throughout European history is very much alive through the works that have been preserved.

In Russian: White nights by Dostyevsky. I was already well underway in this short novel, and managed to finish it on my outbound flight. I then started on Евангелие от Соловьева (Soloviev's Gospel) by Russian TV personality Vladimir Soloviev. This is not an easy book, both the vocabulary and the syntax is rather demanding, so I am advancing slowly, but the story is intriguing and I will stay the course.

In Portuguese: Assim Nasceu Portugal - por amor a uma mulher, by Domingos Amaral. This is a novel telling the story of the young prince Alfonso Henriques who as Alfonso I became the first king of independent Portugal in 1139. As a historical novel it is very entertaining combining historical facts and fiction in a clever way. I still have a couple of chapters left, but should finish it within a few days, and then I can attack the "sequel", called "A Vitória do Imperador".

I should say that this is the first book I read in Portuguese, and it is actually a lot easier than I had predicted. It helps that I read on a Kindle, so I can quickly look up words I don't understand, but most of the time I don't have to as I understand them from context or from their similarity to Spanish (keeping in mind the risk of false friends of course). I am seriously tempted to spend more time on Portuguese taking it one step further than just being able to read it, but not sure if time will allow right now.

[Ogrim]

Although I don't really have much time available, I have decided I really want to engage with Portuguese. Having enjoyed the experience of reading Assim nasceu Portugal I want to be able to do more in this language than just reading it. Over in the thread Recursos para portugués I wrote about my study plan (that thread is in Spanish):

1. Escuchar programas de radio y ver programas de tele en portugués europeo. El app RTP Play es muy bueno para esto.
2. He encontrado una página web llamada Practice Portuguese que se centra en el portugués europeo. Hay vídeos y también puedes descargar podcasts gratis. También hay una opción premium (seis euros al mes) que ofrece bastante más material, pero por el momento no voy a pagar para eso.
3. Comprarme una buena gramática portuguesa. Todavía estoy buscando a ver qué hay en el mercado.
4. Usar la página del Centro Virtual Camões recomendada por Iguanamon. He visto que entre otras cosas hay ejercicios de gramática y léxico.
5. Seguir leyendo libros, periódicos y revistas en portugués. Creo que esto es esencial para que se me imprente la ortografía y la gramática de la lengua.
6. Empezar a escribir alguna cosita en portugués, aunque sea unas líneas en mi "diario" aquí en el foro.

So basically I want to train my ear to understand spoken European Portuguese, having realised that it is much easier to understand the written word than the spoken one, particularly as European Portuguese seems to "swallow" a lot of sounds (Brazilian sounds much softer to my ear). I also want to get a good grasp of the grammar, in particular I need to learn properly the verb conjugations, as the Portuguese verbal system is quite different to the Spanish one in many aspects (e.g. personal infinitive, split conditional etc.). I also aim at doing some grammar and vocabulary exercises and start writing a little bit in Portuguese.

I'll concentrate on European Portuguese, but this does not mean that I will shy away from everything Brazilian. I love the sound of Brazilian Portuguese, and I am a fan of Brazilian music, but as it is more likely that I will visit Portugal again in the near future than travelling to Brazil, I prefer to adopt a European Portuguese accent rather than a Brazilian (to the extent I can manage a European Portuguese accent).

[iguanamon]

Looks like a good plan, Ogrim. Portuguese will be a fairly easy pickup for you, given your background. Obviously, I gravitated to Brazilian Portuguese, but it didn't harm me in Portugal. Neither will Iberian Portuguese harm you with Brazilians. I find that being familiar with the other variety is enough. No one will ever confuse me for a native-speaker on either side of the Atlantic.

In addition to my prior recommendations, you should have a look at the free DLI Portuguese Head Start program. It will help you with basic conversation about travel topics and Iberian Portuguese pronunciation. The Centro Virtual Camões has a section of children's books about the history of Portugal's Kings Era uma vez um Rei which I used when I first started that have audio (and annoying music and song). Along the same lines from the CVC is A aventura dos descobrimentos about the history of the age of explorers. The CVC also has Guias de conversação with an English and French base. My favorite verb conjugator is Conjuga-me. My online dictionaries are Priberam.pt and Linguee.

I also used the Deutsche Welle Radio Novela Series- Aprender de Ouvido when I was actively learning. I highly recommend starting with Fábulas africanas para uma cultura de paz. The actors are Mozambican, but African Portuguese grammar and pronunciation are much closer to Iberian Portuguese than to Brazilian. The same series is also available in English and French. I have the parallel text and audio already. If you want a copy, pm me. The Learning By Ear series has many different topics with many, many hours of free conversational mp3 audio and pdf transcripts available.

From the Instituto Portugês Do Oriente- IPOR there are a bunch of links to native resources to help an advanced learner like yourself. Though you need to learn the grammar and basics of pronunciation, you're right, you don't have to reinvent the wheel by going through beginner courses with your background- Just like me if I ever decided to learn French or Italian with my background, I probably wouldn't start with a raw beginner course. Not speaking French and Italian are major holes in my language grouping, but then again, I live far from both Europe and Quebec. Kreyòl/Kwéyòl fills in the hole with French here in the Caribbean for me. Still, never say never in language-learning! Boa sorte com seus estudos em português!