The Official Language Thread II

[Earniel]

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

I haven't taken Basic I, or any French course. I'm just hoping that what the bits and pieces that I've picked up from francophonic friends, cognates, rough familiarity with the structure of other languages, etc., will add up to not having to take Basic I.

oh, now I get it. I hadn't thought of the possibility of your knowledge of French not coming from a previous class. Sometimes I forget the differences between school systems.

[katya]

Katya's Favorite Little Things About the English Language
Episode 1: Quaint Sentence Structures

1. Pronouns and Indirect Objects

For example, "I gave her it." It sounds a little bit odd. "I gave her the book" or "I gave it to her" sound fine, though. "I found a cool picture, let me show you it." "I have a joke, let me tell you it."

2. too __ of __

"You have too small of hands, they're like a girl's hands." (Real life example, which made me notice it.)
"This bar plays too loud of music."

Both of these things sound to me like something children say. Maybe they will start to say "You have too ..." and up to there it's fine. "You have a strange haircut." "You have too many freckles." But once they get to "small" it sounds weird to say "You have too small hands" so they just finish it off with "of hands." Or you might start the sentence off the same as "I gave her the book" but then instead of saying "the book" just say "it" when really you should've started off by saying "I gave it".

[katya]

A question for Swedish-speaking Mooters. How might one say "That's not how one makes friends," or whatever phrasing would sound natural? I've been practicing by writing messages to people on the marker board, and I wanted to write that to my cat today. I caught him batting around a little mouse, which I caught and released into the backyard. After a couple google searches what I came up with was "Det är inte hur man skaffar vänner", but I feel like there's probably a better way. I'm still an absolute beginner so I don't really have a feel for what sounds good yet.

[Jonathan]

You're quite right. A more naturally-sounding phrase would be:
På det sättet får du inga vänner! (In that way, you'll get no friends!)

That's one lucky mouse to get out alive

[Varnafindë]

Am I right that Katya's suggestion isn't even fully correct, but should have been
"Det är inte hur man skaffar sig vänner"?

As a Norwegian, I'm no expert on Swedish, but I've been reading it a lot over the last few years - and linguistically speaking, it's only a different dialect of Scandinavian anyway

[katya]

Thanks Jonathan! That way sounds cool. I will update the board.

I'm curious about the "skaffar sig vänner" too- when I tried google sometimes the "sig" would be there sometimes not.

Oh, and about the mouse, I was pretty worried about it. It seemed so small and helpless, like a baby mouse. It sat on my hand for a long time, not trying to get away (but seemingly unhurt). I tried to put it down on the grass but it seemed like it would rather stay on my hand (warmer?). Eventually I put him down (even flat on the ground my hand was almost twice his height!) and he crawled under some leaves. I brought some bread out later but I couldn't find him. I thought about trying to keep him but I figured I would probably end up inadvertently killing him or something. It was SO cute.

[Varnafindë]

Originally Posted by katya

Thanks Jonathan! That way sounds cool. I will update the board.

I'm curious about the "skaffar sig vänner" too- when I tried google sometimes the "sig" would be there sometimes not.

The Norwegian for that is "skaffer seg venner" (very often the two languages are very similar). I think it goes with the verb - some verbs would require the "oneself" bit, others wouldn't use it, and some would use it or not depending on the context.

Oh, and about the mouse, I was pretty worried about it. It seemed so small and helpless, like a baby mouse. It sat on my hand for a long time, not trying to get away (but seemingly unhurt). I tried to put it down on the grass but it seemed like it would rather stay on my hand (warmer?). Eventually I put him down (even flat on the ground my hand was almost twice his height!) and he crawled under some leaves. I brought some bread out later but I couldn't find him. I thought about trying to keep him but I figured I would probably end up inadvertently killing him or something. It was SO cute.

Sat on your hand??? How cute is that?!!
He might be scared stiff, but he wouldn't have seen you as an immediate threat, then. Probably wise of you to let him go - even knowing the right things to feed him might turn out difficult. Let's hope he'll have a long and happy life and have something exciting to tell his grandchildren

[katya]

So, I've been getting a German word of the day for a while now, and I've taken to writing sentences myself on the topic of the example sentence. Usually at least three sentences each in German, French, and Japanese. If there are confident speakers of those languages around, I could use some help checking them. Google translate is a bit iffy. I'm thinking of maybe checking around at livemocha or somewhere similar.

Yesterday's sentence that they gave me was this: (wotd is "draussen")
Er steht schon seit Stunden draussen im Regen.

I tried to say:
[I like to go outside when it is not too cold- gave up on how to say all that]
Ich bringe meine Katze mit.
Spielt er in das Gras.

J'aime quand il pleut aussi.
J'aime ecouter de la pluie de ma fenetre.
Elle est belle.

昨日、空気を感じるために、そとへ出てみたけど、寒すぎてすぎに戻りました。
はやく春になるとうれしいですね。
やっぱり、あたたかいところに住もうかな。

I did kind of a bad job today. I'm really bad at trying to produce any German, though I can understand quite a bit of it now. French and Japanese are both rusty too.

[Earniel]

The German reads (if I'm not mistaken): "He's already standing outside in the rain for hours. I take my cat with me. He plays in the grass."

I sucked at German despite -or perhaps because- of its close relation to Dutch. But the sentence seems okay to me, as far as I can tell. Not sure about the last one, the subject should be before the verb if it's not a question.

The French needs an accent on écouter and you don't need the 'de' for the rain. J'aime écouter la pluie.

Obviously not going to touch the Japanese.

[katya]

Thanks Eärniel. I always thought the official languages of Belgium were only French and German, not Dutch.

Ok, the first German sentence is the example sentence and says "He has been standing outside in the rain for hours." But if anyone can help me understand how the first part of the sentence works that'd be nice.

About the playing in the grass, I actually got that word order from google translate. I would've on my own just written, "Er spielt in das Gras."

The French also needs a ^ on fenetre but I got lazy. Thanks for the note on the "de" though- that's from google translate again.

Looks like what I really need to do is try hitting up Google for similar sentence patterns from real foreign sources.

[Jonathan]

In fact, no 'de's should be there at all in the French sentence.
J'aime écouter la pluie par la fenêtre.

[Earniel]

Originally Posted by katya

Thanks Eärniel. I always thought the official languages of Belgium were only French and German, not Dutch.

Which is rather funny as the Dutch-speaking people are a majority in Belgium and the German-speaking part is tiny.

Originally Posted by katya

But if anyone can help me understand how the first part of the sentence works that'd be nice.

Which words are giving you trouble?

Originally Posted by Jonathan

In fact, no 'de's should be there at all in the French sentence.
J'aime écouter la pluie par la fenêtre.

Hm, if you want to say "I like listening to the rain from the window", I think 'de la fenêtre' is correct too.

[Mari]

Originally Posted by katya

So, I've been getting a German word of the day for a while now, and I've taken to writing sentences myself on the topic of the example sentence. Usually at least three sentences each in German, French, and Japanese. If there are confident speakers of those languages around, I could use some help checking them. Google translate is a bit iffy. I'm thinking of maybe checking around at livemocha or somewhere similar.

Yesterday's sentence that they gave me was this: (wotd is "draussen")
Er steht schon seit Stunden draussen im Regen.

I tried to say:
[I like to go outside when it is not too cold- gave up on how to say all that]
Ich bringe meine Katze mit.
Spielt er in das Gras. Er spielt in das Gras.

昨日、空気を感じるために、そとへ出てみたけど、寒すぎてすぎに戻りました。 すぐに入りました。
はやく春になるとうれしいですね。
やっぱり、あたたかいところに住もうかな。

In the German sentence you are now asking a question 'Does he play in the grass?'. In an ordinary sentence the subject comes first. Though it can come second after some verbs like 'Da kann er im Gras spielen.'

With the Japanese I was wondering if it would be modoru, since that often means going back to a previous state whereas here you are trying to use an opposite verb of deru and are not actually going back to a previous state per se.

And 'Er steht schon seit Stunden draussen im Regen. ' is literally: He - stands - already - since hours - outside - in the rain.
He's been standing outside in the rain for hours already!

[katya]

Thanks Mari!

Ok like I said, I blame everything on google translate!

I wasn't really sure what verb to use in the Japanese either. I feel like if I say "hairimashita" (the opposite of "deru") it seems like I hadn't just been in the house.

Ok I think the part that was throwing me off was the "seit Stunden". I didn't know what that meant. I looked up that "Stunden" meant hours but it sounds like "stand" so my brain kept wanting to think it was part of that. やれやれ！^^;

[Mari]

Yeah, I know. I don't really feel comfortable about the hairu either, but modoru sounds wrong too.

[katya]

Does anyone speak spanish fluently? I've decided to learn it. I don't much care for it, but it's the only useful language around these parts, it seems. So I've decided the next month (until April 18th) will be dedicated entirely to Spanish study. So far I've been pleasantly surprised with how easy it is.

Edited to try to write some Spanish that I've learned so far.

Estudio español! No me gusta mucho el idioma, pero es muy útil. Vivo en Estados Unidos. Me encanta estudiar los idiomas.
Ahora, MarÃ*a está leyendo un libro en la biblioteca. MarÃ*a es la más bonita en la clase. Ella es más alto que Andéa. Andéa es tan bonita como Carmen. Carmen está dormiendo.
Hoy es domingo, el veinti de marzo. Es la primavera! Hace fresco y sol. No hay muchas nubes.
Fernando va a comprar un libro. Lesen macht ihm spass. (Yeah sometimes other languages pop into my head like that.) Él acaba de comer pizza. Quiero pizza también. Tengo hambre. MarÃ*a acaba de dar a sus amigos de pizza.

Not sure how accurate all that is but that's what I've learned so far (I knew some of it before). I studied for like 11 hours today, no joke.

[katya]

Sé que Link sabe por lo menos un poco de español, ¿verdad? Anyone else?

日本語を勉強したいなぁ。No quiero estudiar español.

>_<

[katya]

So I enlisted my friend who's first language is Spanish to help me, and I help him with Japanese, and it's crazy all the time when we practice. It's like back and forth between the two languages and English for the really difficult parts, with some french or who knows what appearing out of no where. It's a dream come true, actually, to be talking to someone and switching back and forth between languages and not really keeping good track of which one you're speaking. It's also rather confusing. But fun.