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

[Ogrim]

Iguanamon, thank you for all those links. They all seem very interesting and useful, so I will certainly add them to my resources for Portuguese.

Costa Rica - país del tica
I won't bother with a long, detailed day-to-day description of my trip to Costa Rica, but I do want to share some impressions with you, and I've decided to write in English rather than Spanish so I get a bigger audience and I don't have to bother about writing an English summary at the end.

Costa Rica is a great little country with amazing nature. With approximately 0.05% of the world's land mass, it has over 5% of the world's biodivesity, and being "squeezed" between the Atlantic (the Caribbean) and the Pacific it has several micro-climas, although overall it is tropical with only two seasons: the dry and the humid. The Ticas, as they call themselves, are very friendly and relaxed

We visited four different parts of the country. First it was El Tortuguero, which is a national parc on the Caribbean coast, where sea turtles go to lay their eggs on the beach. Now was not the egg-laying season though, so we did not see any sea turtles, but we did see a lot of other exotic animals, including the howler monkeys which woke us up each morning at 5 a.m. with their incredibly loud screams.



From there we went to the national parc El Arenal, which is also the name of a volcano which is still active and had its latest big outburst in 2007. El Arenal, and the biggest town in the area, La Fortuna, is at 1000 meters above sea level, so there the climate was less humid than in El Tortuguero, and the nature quite different as well. We then moved on to Rincón de la Vieja, another national parc, where we stayed at a ranch and had a great time doing some horse riding, river tubing and zip lining. Finally we ended up on the Pacific coast in El Tambor, where we just stayed a couple of days on the beach to relax and swim in the Pacific. There are still many parts of the country we did not visit, so I hope one day to be able to go back.

Costa Rica Spanish was not particularly difficult to understand. You quickly become aware of the typical words and expressions like mae, which means more or less "mate" or "dude", pura vida, which they use a lot in different contexts, e.g. when replying to the question ¿Qómo está?. When saying gracias they would normally reply con gusto, rather than the European Spanish de nada etc. All in all it is very similar to other Latin American varieties. As in most LA countries they don't use "vosotros", only "ustedes", they say "tomar" instead of "beber", "agarrar" instead of "coger" and so on.

An interesting observation is that most people would pronounce initial R not as a "rolled" or "trilled" sound, but something much closer to the English "r" sound. The -rr- sound in the middle of a word however would be thrilled.

Finally an anecdote a guide told us when we discussed the difference between the Spanish of Spain and Costa Rica: A Spanish tourist on a tour was looking for his wife so he went up to the guide and asked him ¿Has visto a Pepa? (have you seen Pepa). The guide looked incedulously at him, then blushed and said Eeeeh, hoy no... (Eeer, not today). The "joke" is that Pepa is commonly used in Spain as a familiar form of the name Josefa, in Puerto Rico it is a rather crude word for female genitalia, so you just don't go around asking about Pepa!

By the way, as we flew out from Madrid to Costa Rica, we took advantage of this to spend two days in Spain's capital before the trip. Although we travel to Spain several times each year, it was more than 10 years since the last time I had been to Madrid, and my kids had never visited before. To please my son we visited the Santiago Bernabeu stadium (Ronaldo and Bale were not around though), and we did a lot of other touristy stuff, including the Prado museum, Plaza Mayor, el Parque del Retiro and café Gijón which Spanish writers and artists like Valle Inclán, Pérez Galdós, Federico García Lorca, Camilo José Cela, Fernando Fernán Gómez and Luís García Berlanga used to frequent. Thus we had a nice dose of Spanish culture before enjoying the nature of Costa Rica.

[Ogrim]

I've been more or less absent for the last month, and the reason for that is basically a total lack of motivation for studying languages at all, or thinking about language learning. I emphasise learning, because I use my strongest languages every day, and during this month I have also read stuff in German, Romansh, Portuguese and Russian. Still, I have been so demotivated I even skipped my weekly Russian class twice, and this has not happened since I started taking classes three years ago.

I guess most people go through periods of demotivation, and it is not the first time it happens to me. Curiously enough, when it happens it usually does so in spring. No idea if there is a relation between more daylight, warmer temperatures and demotivation, I would kind of have expected the opposite, although in Norwegian we do have something called Vårdepresjon - "spring depression", which is a kind of Seasonal affective disorder (SAD). I haven't really felt depressed in a clinical sense though, more a tendency to lack of focus and procrastination. The on-going reality show called the French Presidential Election campaign has not been helpful either in this regard , although it means I have listened to an awful lot of French radio and TV, much more than usual.

Anyway, I will have a week off during Easter, and my motivation for language learning is slowly coming back, so I will take advantage of the break to get back on track, not least with Russian, but also try to re-activate my Arabic studies, which I kicked into the long grass a couple of months ago. In the meantime I will try to catch up with some of what's been going on here at LLORG the last couple of weeks.

[Ogrim]

I'm back.

My demotivation continued more or less throughout April, so I decided not to fight it, but just take a break and stop thinking about having to study languages. It meant no progress on Arabic, so I will have to go back to start more or less from the beginning. With regard to Russian I did manage to read some 50-60 pages during the Easter break, but nothing intensive. The only thing I did was to highlight unknown words so I will have to go back later and make a wordlist of them. I am reading a thriller called Гнилое яблоко (Rotten apple) by Natalia Salnikova. It is a relatively easy read, and the story is quite entertaining, so it does not take too much of an effort to progress.

Apart from that, like the month before it's been mostly French during April, thanks to the presidential election. Although I am something of a political anorak, I kind of got an overdose of political debate and analysis, but "it ain't over yet" . Parliamentary elections in France and in the UK in June, and elections to the Bundestag in Germany in September. (By the way there are elections in Norway as well in September, but not very many people seem to be aware of that .) However since last Sunday I have limited the time I spend every day on political stuff so I can spend more time on other things, like music and literature and, yes, language learning. The good thing is that my motivation is coming back, and I really enjoyed my Russian class yesterday, but I did realise that having taken almost two months with minimum input/output in Russian made it hard for me to speak it again. I'll see if I can get into a more regular rythm again from now on, actually doing my "homework" and making an effort to improve.

[Ogrim]

Romontsch sursilvan:
Jeu hai buca bandunau il romontsch aber ei fa memia bia temps che jeu scrivel buca cheu sin quei bi lungatg. Mintgadi retscheivel jeu la versiun electronica dalla gasetta romontscha “La Quotidiana” per e-mail, ed ei dat savens artechels interessants schebein biars denter els tractan da afferas localas dil Grischun. Jeu hai era entschiet in niev cudisch scret sin romontsch sursilvan e sin rumen. Il tetel sin romontsch ei “Il mund romontsch en mia veta”, sin rumen “Lumea romanşă ȋn viața mea”. L’autura, Magdalena Popescu-Marin ei ina linguista rumana che ha dedicau varga 40 onns al lungatg romontsch e ella ha translatau e publicau diversas ovras literarias romontschas sin rumen. El cudisch raquenta ella co e pertgei ella ha empriu sursilvan e ella lai passar revista tgi ch’ella ha entupau el Grischun romontsch. Sche vus saveis rumen anflais vus cheu in artechel dil onn 1999 che discuora dalla signura Popescu-Marin. Jeu stoi dir che jeu speravel buca studegiar il rumen cul agid dil romontsch aber co il cudisch ha la versiun romontscha silla pagina seniastra e la versiun rumena silla pagina destra eisi pusseivel da leger sils dus lungatgs el medem temps.

I have not given up on Romansh but I have not written in this beautiful language for some time. Every day I receive by e-mail the electronic version of the Romansh newspaper “La quotidiana”(The Daily) and there are often interesting articles although many of them deal with local issues in Graubünden. I have also started on a new book written in both Romansh (Sursilvan) and Romanian. It is called “The Romansh world in my life” and the author, Magdalena Popescu-Marin is a Romanian linguist who has dedicated more than 40 years of her life to the Romansh language. She has translated and published various literary works from Romansh to Romanian. The book tells about how and why she learnt Sursilvan and she talks about whom she met in the Romansh-speaking Graubünden. If you know Romanian you can find an article here from 1999 which talks about Popescu-Marin. I must say that I did not expect to study Romanian again with the help of Romansh, but as the book has the Romansh version on the left page and the Romanian on the right, it is possible to read in both languages in parallel.

[Ogrim]

The last couple of weeks have been very positive as regards Russian. I have almost finished reading the thriller Гнилое яблоко (Rotten apple), and I am eager to see how it will end. The plot is good, with some interesting and surprising twists to it, and language-wise I learn a lot of useful vocabulary, including some informal language and swear words which may come in handy one day . On the other hand, I have been working intensively with some news articles to improve my "high-level" register. Yesterday I worked my way through a longish article onKommersant.ru about the meeting between Putin and Macron at Versailles. My Russian teacher likes to use articles like these in class to start a discussion, so I better be prepared for tomorrow's class where I am sure this topic will come up.

I have been the proud owner of an iPad Pro for some months now, and although I do not want to sound like an Apple salesperon, I must say it is a fantastic product which has almost completely replaced my laptop. The big screen and the quality of the sound makes it great for watching movies or TV programmes, and I almost never buy a paper version of a newspaper any more, preferring to read e-papers and magazines on the iPad. In fact, I am subscribing to the e-versions of El País (Spanish), Le Figaro and Le Monde (French), Die Welt and Die Zeit (German) and La Quotidiana (Romansh), and I regularly buy a range of other magazines through different apps. Besides all this stuff which I pay for, my mobile provider gives me access to a number of French magazines and newspapers in electronic version for free, such as Libération, L'Express, L'Equipe, Le Journal du Dimance, Paris Match and Elle, just to mention some. Then there are free apps for numerous other news companies in all big languages (e.g. I read Kommersant and Vedomosti in Russian on the tablet) and TV stations. In short, I could spend the whole day on my iPad watching or reading stuff in all my langauges, and I keep discovering new things every week. (Hey, just found out that the Portuguese wine magazine "Revista de Vinhos" is available in e-format as well .)

I've also recently purchased the keyboard and the pen that goes with the Pro, and having got used to the smaller space of the keyboard and switching between keyboard and touching the screen, it has become just as easy to use as a laptop. You can also switch between languages on the keyboard.

OK, I'll leave the product description there. I just wanted to share this to say that personally I find that a big screen tablet is a great tool for learning or using languages easily and quickly.

The other day by chance I heard an interview on French radio with a guy from a Cuban band called Vocal Sampling, and the played extracts from a couple of their songs. I decided to find out more about the band and now I am a total fan. It is an a cappella band, and I I really enjoy their funky and positive music. Here is a clip with the song "El lunes que viene empiezo" (Next Monday I'll start). I can totally relate to the feeling - you need to start a diet, or do some exercise, or pick up your Arabic course book again, but you always procrastinate saying "I'll start next week".

[Ogrim]

With Arabic I've been going one step forward and one step back over the last year. Basically I have had good periods where I have studied regularly, followed by weeks when I have not opened my course books, so in the end I keep going over the same lessons again and again and again and again... This weekend however I had a good boost spending maybe five or six hours on Arabic while sunbathing , so now I will try to change my attitude and keep a more regular schedule. I've therefore promised myself that I will find at least 30 minutes each day. Hopefully this will make my progress more steady. I've also decided that I should not pretend to learn all vocabulary in a lesson by heart before moving on. Words will come back in future lessons, and I can always go back later to revise the words I forget along the way. The thing is that Arabic has been a long-standing frustration. I really want to learn this language, but I have never been able to work hard enough to get over that first "this-is-too-difficult" feeling. That will have to change, and for that I need to set aside the time.

Finding more time for Arabic means giving up on some other activities though, so my wanderlust into Portuguese and Romanian will have to wait for another day.

With regard to Russian, I finished Гнилое яблоко. The ending was, how shall I put it, a bit strange, but I do recommend the books of Natalia Salnikova as they are relatively easy to read, I learn a lot of vocabulary from them, and most of the time the stories are entertaining and the plots well thought out. There are at least five or six more novels by her as e-books on Amazon, so I will get round to one or two of them later on. Right now though I have returned to Евангелие от Соловьева (Soloviev's Gospel) by Vladimir Soloviev. I started on this in February on the plane to Costa Rica, and I have been reading it occasionally since then, but as I found it quite difficult I felt like reading some easier stuff during my period of demotivation. I also have several other Russian books in the pipeline, but as my reading speed is not yet very impressive, I probably should not be too ambitious with regard to the number of books I will be able to read in Russian this year.

My Russian teacher did bring up the Macron-Putin meeting last week, so I was happy I had read that article and could impress her with my knowledge and, for once, my vocabulary.

[Ogrim]

Music is for me a great motivator in the language-learning process, and the good thing about music is that you can enjoy it even if you are an absolute beginner with a vocabulary of less than 100 words. Through Russian I have explored and got to know many interesting artists and singers which would have remained unknown to me if I did not use music as part of my learning Russian.

I therefore take the same approach with Arabic, and yesterday I spent a little bit of time looking around places like youtube, Apple music etc. One artist I came across and like is Huda Saad (هدى سعد). This song is called Ma Tfakarnish (ما تفكرنيش) and I chose it mainly because I could actually understand the title (in English "What do you think"). Huda Saad is Moroccan and was discovered through the Arabic version of The X Factor.



The second video is by Asalah Nasri, a Syrian singer who lives in Egypt. The song is called Ayshni Thawani (عيشنى ثوانى) which means "Second Time".



Thing is, the more I listen to Arabic music, the more I appreciate it. Although to my "Western ear" a lot of it sounds more or less the same, I am now discovering the beauty of it and the nuances in the use of instruments and voices. Now I just need to learn the language well enough to be able to understand the lyrics. .

[Ogrim]

My plan of 30 minutes a day for Arabic has not worked out exactly as I hoped, because some days I just haven't been able to find any "quality time" at all, and listening to a couple of songs in Arabic does not really count . I have had some good sessions though. The last two weeks we've exprienced a heat wave in this part of Europe and that has actually been good for my language learning, because it meant chilling beside a swimming pool in Germany for a good part of the weekend, and when I was not in the water I used the time on Arabic and Russian. The downside is that I have not slept very well most nights because of the heat (no air conditioning in my old flat) so I have been a bit more tired in the evening than usual, which is when I do most of my intensive study.

You can learn new words every day even in your best languages. Today for the first time I've come across the English word "bung" in the meaning of "bribe". It was in the headline splashed on the front of "The Times" - the title was May buys DUP support with £1 billion "bung". And then I saw the same word repeated several times in different places and used a lot in the comment section on the Guardian. It is strange how you have been ignorant about a word for years and years, and suddenly it is all over the place. I won't forget "bung", that's for sure.

A Russian singer I have been listening to quite a lot lately is Артур (Artur). This song, called Падал белый снег (Whit snow was falling) is kind of sad, but at least watching all that Russian snow in the clip is kind of refeshing when there's a heat wave.

[iguanamon]

...Today for the first time I've come across the English word "bung" in the meaning of "bribe". It was in the headline splashed on the front of "The Times" - the title was May buys DUP support with £1 billion "bung". And then I saw the same word repeated several times in different places and used a lot in the comment section on the Guardian. It is strange how you have been ignorant about a word for years and years, and suddenly it is all over the place. I won't forget "bung", that's for sure.
A Russian singer I have been listening to quite a lot lately is Артур (Artur). This song, called Падал белый снег (Whit snow was falling) is kind of sad, but at least watching all that Russian snow in the clip is kind of refeshing when there's a heat wave.

If it makes you feel any better I'm a native-speaker of English and I had never seen "bung" used in the sense of "bribe" before either and I consider myself to be well-read and well educated, but then again, I'm American (though have lived in the UK). So, I googled it and found this article in the Sun What is a bung?

A bung is a payment made to someone to persuade them to do something – usually something dishonest.
These payments can also be referred to as a “kickback” or a “backhander”. In other words, it is a financial incentive to make things happen.

I'd only ever seen the word used in relation to the stopper in a barrel and the vulgar slang use of course (see urban dictionary). Must be a strictly British usage. Thanks for the music video with snow. A tropical summer is very warm, indeed, any relief helps!

[DaveBee]

...Today for the first time I've come across the English word "bung" in the meaning of "bribe". It was in the headline splashed on the front of "The Times" - the title was May buys DUP support with £1 billion "bung". And then I saw the same word repeated several times in different places and used a lot in the comment section on the Guardian. It is strange how you have been ignorant about a word for years and years, and suddenly it is all over the place. I won't forget "bung", that's for sure.
A Russian singer I have been listening to quite a lot lately is Артур (Artur). This song, called Падал белый снег (Whit snow was falling) is kind of sad, but at least watching all that Russian snow in the clip is kind of refeshing when there's a heat wave.

If it makes you feel any better I'm a native-speaker of English and I had never seen "bung" used in the sense of "bribe" before either and I consider myself to be well-read and well educated, but then again, I'm American (though have lived in the UK). So, I googled it and found this article in the Sun What is a bung?

A bung is a payment made to someone to persuade them to do something – usually something dishonest.
These payments can also be referred to as a “kickback” or a “backhander”. In other words, it is a financial incentive to make things happen.

I'd only ever seen the word used in relation to the stopper in a barrel and the vulgar slang use of course (see urban dictionary). Must be a strictly British usage. Thanks for the music video with snow. A tropical summer is very warm, indeed, any relief helps!

It can also mean 'throw': "bung it over the wall!"