TAC 2014 - Serafín (Mandarin, Latin, Ancient Greek)

[mōdgethanc]

Look, just a few months ago, I was still considering to learn 58 more languages and I called it my inner circle (my outer circle consisted of 120-140 languages of interest), but even if my rate would be 1 languages per year (you may be able to learn Italian under a year, but definitely not Korean), I'd stop learning at the age of 81 or so and I don't think my brain would be fresh enough by that time to take in the same amount of information as now or a few years ago. So all I had to do was to remove the redundant languages.

So now you've gone from criticizing the languages people like to the number of languages they want to learn. Which is it?

Hey, I'm all for being realistic. I have at most a wish list of 10-15 at any given time, and most of them are just for dabbling, but if someone really, really wants to become native-like in Hiri Motu, that's their business and not mine.

I know that there's still possibility that I won't ever go to Portugal, but it'S not such a problem to find someone on Skype who knows Portuguese. It'd be too difficult finding a Maltese or Burmese speaker IMHO. And I also realized that with some of these languages like Dzongkha or Tibetan I liked the idea of speaking them (fluently of course) much more than the actual languages.

That's funny because I know speakers of Maltese, Burmese, Dzongkha and Tibetan. And I don't even have to try hard to find them. It's not hard when you don't live in rural Wyoming.

Don't get me wrong, I like all the languages and I really should've written the post in a different way or not at all.

Mainly you shouldn't have called Lowena a douche when he did nothing to you.

P.S. I'm not new here, just back.

You know that's against the rules, right?

[Bubulus]

So, it turns out that the exact day after I made my last post, something, uh, not so good happened during the following four days. I've been going to a therapist for it since it ended. This obviously interrupted my language studying, since part of the treatment was doing wholly new things. Everything's been fine for the past three weeks since though!, for which I'm quite glad, so I studied some more pages for three hours again today:

Latin: 275/499 (was: 264/499, goal: to finish Learn to Read Latin)
Mandarin: 54/231 (was: 18/231, goal: to finish Colloquial Chinese 1)
Greek: 76/774 (no change, goal: to finish Greek: An Intensive Course)

I find it interesting that Mandarin adjectives (which are not too different from verbs, by the way, to the point some call them "adjectival verbs") seem to take complements just right after.

忙某事
máng mǒushì
busy something
'busy with something'

This language really doesn't like using preposition-like things for anything, does it? Everything is always in what seems to be a relative clause or a possessive construction, or is otherwise just juxtaposed...

I knew that adjectives are usually substantivized by basically putting them in stranded relative clauses:

大 > 大的
dà > dà de
big > big REL
'big' > 'the/a big one'

But I didn't know this even applies for the very basic concepts of "man" and "woman". Mandarin doesn't actually have basic nouns meaning "man" and "woman"! You either modify the noun rén 人 'person' with the adjectives nán 男 'male' or nǚ 女 'female', or substantivize those two adjectives:

男的 ~ 男人
nán de ~ nán rén
male REL ~ male person
'(a/the) man'

女的 ~ 女人
nǚ de ~ nǚ rén
female REL ~ female person
'(a/the) woman'

You guys have been having quite a conversation here meanwhile.

This reflects a larger trend that has characterized (my experience of) Unilang for many years now, which is that it's a place where far less actual language learning and discussion in and about target languages takes place, compared to the vast majority of pointless chit-chat and discussion only tangentially related to the languages themselves. (Of course I recognize that's what I'm doing myself in this very thread - and sorry, Serafín, this is probably not the place for it to begin with!)

*shrugs*

I'd like to attempt an answer to your question. I guess I'm only speaking for myself here, really, but I kind of suspect that other linguists on this forum might share my feelings to some extent. I am one of those linguists who is guilty of never (I guess) having academic discussions of linguistics on this forum. Why?

Because quite simply, it just gets strenuous very quickly. Oh sure, I love languages, I love pondering how they work, I've done research, etc. but as a linguist, I feel obliged to analyze and argue things to the death. As a linguistics student, I have had professors who were very easy to please, but I've also had professors who were almost impossible to please, and the harder they are to please, the more I have to work in order to convince them of anything. And on top of it all, some things about academia in general are frustrating, too, and that directly impacts my life as a linguist.

Makes sense; I hadn't thought of that. Well, I'm a linguistics undergrad (though one who reads monographs and journals for fun, I don't stay within class requirements at all), and I find it refreshing to talk to talk to people about linguistics over the Internet behind a nickname, away from academia and its often strange expectations.

There is only so much of that I can stand. I have little interest in arguing more about linguistics on a forum where most of the people don't seem to be linguists anyway, which means there is an additional burden of explaining fairly basic linguistic concepts to other people on the forum.

The thing I was saying though is that there is a number of us fairly informed at least at the BA level. Why people don't discuss formal phonology or syntax of the languages they're studying, then, is beyond me. Anyway, I'm not trying to change anything, I'll just stay here doing my own thing (and checking others' TACs).

All the more reason to have a dedicated sub-forum for it. That way you don't have to see the threads you don't want to participate in (not even accidentally, as would likely happen if you clicked on an academic thread that didn't have an obviously academic-sounding title).

Well, what I had in mind was more discussions by the linguistics-inclined in the forums as they are, not a separate forum (or thread) to contain linguists' discussions. I mean, personally I'm not all that interested in most languages except for a very few major ones and dead ones, the ones you'll find in my profile, and I'd love seeing linguist-y things in the Spanish/Chinese/etc. forum.

With Romanian, I started a thread as well and there was AdiJapan who is every learner's dream -- his explanations are exceptionally clear and elaborate and he's eager to help any learner -- unfortunately none of us lasted long, and there was AndreiB who added his Moldovan perspective.

I know right. I almost feel bad for not studying Romanian at the moment , considering AdiJapan's helpfulness and good knowledge of Romanian linguistics.

I know that there's still possibility that I won't ever go to Portugal, but it'S not such a problem to find someone on Skype who knows Portuguese. It'd be too difficult finding a Maltese or Burmese speaker IMHO. And I also realized that with some of these languages like Dzongkha or Tibetan I liked the idea of speaking them (fluently of course) much more than the actual languages.

That's funny because I know speakers of Maltese, Burmese, Dzongkha and Tibetan. And I don't even have to try hard to find them. It's not hard when you don't live in rural Wyoming.

I find this exchange very ironic too, considering I just happen to have a Burmese-speaking co-worker, and another one who speaks Dzongkha (and another one who speaks Nepali, and another one who speaks Amharic). I didn't even look for them, they just happen to be my co-workers. As mōdgethanc says, it's not hard when you live in a big city with lots of immigrants.

[Bubulus]

More progress has been had!

Latin: 304/499 (was: 275/499, goal: to finish Learn to Read Latin)
Mandarin: 74/231 (was: 54/231, goal: to finish Colloquial Chinese 1)
Greek: 76/774 (no change, goal: to finish Greek: An Intensive Course)

I also got me one of those tiny, tiny dictionaries, the Collins gem Mandarin Chinese Dictionary, and I've been reading random words from it when I commute and such. Of course, reading a dictionary raw like that isn't the best way of learning words, because they're not being used in sentences and they're out of proper context. My purpose at least is to able to recognize more words once I do see them in real-world, since every word in this tiny dictionary must be super-common.

Now, today's linguistic fun-fact: the word for "faucet" in Chinese is basically "water dragon head", shuǐlóngtou 水龙头. Admittedly, one possible etymology of "faucet" itself is perhaps "little throat/neck", a diminutive of Latin faucēs 'throat, neck'. But still, water dragon?

[vijayjohn]

Well, I'm a linguistics undergrad (though one who reads monographs and journals for fun, I don't stay within class requirements at all), and I find it refreshing to talk to talk to people about linguistics over the Internet behind a nickname, away from academia and its often strange expectations.

I think it's easier to feel that way as an undergrad than after you start grad school. I mean, the workload is just much greater in grad school IME. I used to be far more excited about linguistics as an undergrad than I am now, although personally, I have to say, I don't think I've ever found linguistics papers nearly as much fun to read as phrasebooks. Papers are awfully dry and are even supposed to be written that way.

In grad school, at first I had a high workload (basically, I was working on linguistics all day every day, and that got really tiresome especially since it wasn't even research or anything, just lots of homework and eventually more reading, too). Then I got to the stage where I was supposed to do research, which involved so much scrutiny and criticism (to put it mildly) that I got really sick of it, so now I don't even feel like talking about linguistics all that much anymore. And as I understand it, it's quite common for grad students to lack the enthusiasm of undergrads, just in general.

The thing I was saying though is that there is a number of us fairly informed at least at the BA level. Why people don't discuss formal phonology or syntax of the languages they're studying, then, is beyond me. Anyway, I'm not trying to change anything, I'll just stay here doing my own thing (and checking others' TACs).

Well, I kind of told you why I don't, at least. And I still think most people who are currently on this forum are not linguists by any means. I don't even know all that many users who are currently active on this forum and have a genuine interest in linguistics. In fact, fairly recently, I said something linguistics-y and got pretty harshly criticized for it. Say whatever you like about the person who criticized me for that, but in an environment where that's possible, why on Earth would you want to start a formal discussion of phonology or syntax?

And besides, why do we have to be so formal? Talking about it so formally is just boring, at least to me. If we are talking about linguistics, why can't we talk about it in a way that's actually fun for a change? After all, this is an online forum, not an academic journal or conference.

[הענט]

A great deal of Chinese words can be at the same time substantive, adjective, adverb and verb.
So sometimes you won't be alert enough to realize that you can use just verb instead of a verb+subst. .

Anyway the water dragon head thing is cool.

[Bubulus]

My psychosis reached a point where I ended up in the hospital in early April, so my language studying received a month-long pause. The meds have been working great since, though! And now I've continued studying.

Latin: 304/499 (no change, goal: to finish Learn to Read Latin)
Mandarin: 113/231 (was: 74/231, goal: to finish Colloquial Chinese 1)
Greek: 76/774 (no change, goal: to finish Greek: An Intensive Course)

I've found the Mandarin construction to make comparison questions very interesting...

你说北京大还是伦敦大？
Nǐ shuō Běijīng dà háishi Lúndūn dà?
you say Beijing big or London big
'Which do you think is bigger, Beijing or London?

So, basically "You say Beijing is big or London is big?", with the comparison implied.

[Bubulus]

I read Saim's story about Gandhi, and I feel like translating it into Latin too for practice.

If one of your shoes fell, or for example you lost one, what would you do with the second one? One day Gandhi was rushing to catch a train. The train had already started moving. When he got on the train, one of his shoes fell from his feet - he looked for a moment, then grabbed the other shoe and threw it away. When he was asked why, Gandhi just looked and explained that he wanted the poor man who'll find to have two so he could use them. "But if in contrast there was only one, neither he nor I would be able to benefit from it."

Sī ūnus ex calceīs tuīs vel cadat vel eum āmittās, quid dein faciās dē alterō? Diē enim quōdam Gāndhi ad hamaxostichum capiendum festīnābat quod iam cēdere incēperat. Cum deinde ad hamaxostichum attigit ūnus ex calceīs cecidit dē pedibus. Quaesīvit ideō eum paululum sed tunc dēripuit iēcitque alterum. Cum autem quīdam eī rogāvit causam, Gāndhi modo aspexit dīxitque sē velle ut pauperum quī invenīret calceum habēret duōs ut eīs ūsus sit. "Enimvērō" inquit "sī ūnus tantum sit, nec eī nec mihi prōsit."

Sadly my Mandarin isn't yet good enough to translate this.

Yesterday I also wrote a couple paragraphs on Old Chinese for Latin Wikipedia.
https://la.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingua_Sinica_antiqua

[Bubulus]

Well, I studied Latin for several hours now. Man, I'm slow, but I'm getting there.

Latin: 345/499 (was: 304/499, goal: to finish Learn to Read Latin)
Mandarin: 113/231 (no change, goal: to finish Colloquial Chinese 1)
Greek: 76/774 (no change, goal: to finish Greek: An Intensive Course)

I feel that the most annoying part of writing in Latin is that I can never be sure I'm getting my collocations right. Every language has pairs of verbs and nouns, nouns and adjectives, adjectives and adverbs, etc., that go together. "Take your time" isn't the same as "Grab your time"... Just today I learned with regards to Latin: tempus terere 'to waste one's time', officium praestāre 'to carry out one's duty', pedem referre 'to retreat', sē recipere 'to retreat', deōs obtestārī 'to implore the gods'...

The same goes for every language, of course.

[Unknown]

¡Buena suerte con todo!

[Bubulus]

Just coming in to report I've had some more progress.

Mandarin: I've continued learning random common vocabulary from my tiny dictionary, and worked through some more pages of Colloquial Chinese.

Latin: I downloaded about 15 grammars written in Late Latin from the Corpus Grammaticorum Latinorum, and I've been enjoying reading the beginning passages of them. I've also been reading random passages off Apuleius' Metamorphoses. Unfortunately, I haven't worked through some more pages of my Latin textbook.

Latin: 345/499 (no change, goal: to finish Learn to Read Latin)
Mandarin: 145/231 (was: 133/231, goal: to finish Colloquial Chinese 1)
Greek: 76/774 (no change, goal: to finish Greek: An Intensive Course)

I find it interesting that the Mandarin word for "balloon" is 气球 qi4qiu2, literally "air ball".

[Unknown]

Hola, solo me preguntaba si vas a seguir con árabe o no.

Recuerdo cuando solías estudiarlo hace mucho tiempo. ¿Porqué decidiste dejar de estudiarlo? Solo me da curiosidad.

Por favor contéstame lo antes posible y de nuevo, buena suerte con tus objetivos.

[Bubulus]

Hola, solo me preguntaba si vas a seguir con árabe o no.

Recuerdo cuando solías estudiarlo hace mucho tiempo. ¿Porqué decidiste dejar de estudiarlo? Solo me da curiosidad.

Todavía lo estudio de veeeez en cuando, simplemente le he dado más prioridad a mejorar mi francés, mi mandarín y mi latín, lo que lo deja cerca del fondo de mis prioridades, junto al griego antiguo.

Por favor contéstame lo antes posible y de nuevo, buena suerte con tus objetivos.

Ya te contesté, y gracias.

[Bubulus]

Reporting something after a while. And so I've made yet a little more progress.

Latin: 345/499 (no change, goal: to finish Learn to Read Latin)
Mandarin: 168/231 (was: 145/231, goal: to finish Colloquial Chinese 1)
Greek: 76/774 (no change, goal: to finish Greek: An Intensive Course)

I find it interesting that the word for ‘animal’ is 动物 dong4wu4, lit. “moving thing, thing that moves”. ‘Zoo’, then, is 动物园 dong4wu4yuan2, lit. “moving thing park, park of things that move”.

[Bubulus]

I've been busy working on my conlang Ilpana, so I've hardly worked through anything natlang-related. Anyway, today I felt I should at least make some progress, so I worked through a few more pages after so long.

Latin: 345/499 (no change, goal: to finish Learn to Read Latin)
Mandarin: 181/231 (was: 168/231, goal: to finish Colloquial Chinese 1)
Greek: 76/774 (no change, goal: to finish Greek: An Intensive Course)

I've been feeling like studying a little Biblical Hebrew and Mongolian on the side too.

I found relatively interesting that Mandarin 层 céng ‘layer/building floor’ is a classifier. I would've expected it to be a regular noun. Curiously it's right there in the Wikipedia article in the caption of the image of the “Variation in usage” section.

Depending on the classifier used, the noun 楼 lóu could describe either this building, as in 一座楼 (yí zuò lóu "one building"), or the floors of the building, as in 二十层楼 (èrshí céng lóu, "twenty floors").

[Bubulus]

There's been progress. Slowly. Very slowlyyyyyy. While distracted studying other languages on the side, as per usual. Hopefully I'll get done with these textbooks by the end of the year, oh gods.

Latin: 363/499 (was: 345/499, to finish Learn to Read Latin)
Mandarin: 190/231 (was: 181/231, goal: to finish Colloquial Chinese 1)
Greek: 89/774 (was: 76/774, to finish Greek: An Intensive Course)

I went to a language club for polyglots, and it was good, but didn't have the balls to practise my little Mandarin, I only spoke in Spanish and French...

I found it interesting that the 漢語大詞典 Han4yu3 Da4 Ci2dian3, as I understand, the major dictionary of Classical Chinese for Chinese speakers, uses Traditional Chinese in its entries and quotations from classical works but Simplified Chinese in its translations to modern Mandarin. Those guys do see Traditional as "old" and Simplified as "modern"...

[Bubulus]

I finally finished the Chinese book in one go today. Meanwhile I've also been studying Mandarin using http://www.antosch-and-lin.com/ , which has a fantastic number of example sentences, glossed word by word, as well as a couple other books I found.

I haven't done much in Latin, and I already gave up on doing Ancient Greek. I still hope to finish the Latin textbook though, even though I'm 150 pages away from the end...

Latin: 363/499 (no change, to finish Learn to Read Latin)
Mandarin: 231/231 (was: 190/231, goal: to finish Colloquial Chinese 1)
Greek: 89/774 (no change, to finish Greek: An Intensive Course)

Fun fact for this post: the Chinese word for diabetes is literally sugar-pee-disease, 糖尿病 tang2niao4bing4. Of course, that's also the point behind the term diabetes mellitus. Mellitus means "sweet as honey" in Latin. But the Chinese certainly don't go for obfuscation...

[Bubulus]

So now I'm on the final 100 pages of my Latin textbook. Hopefully I'll make it before the end of the year!

405/499 (was: 363/499, to finish Learn to Read Latin)

Meanwhile, I learned that the Chinese word for compass is 指南针 zhi3nan2zhen1, literally "South-pointing-needle". I guess this means compass needles point North in Europe, but point South in China?

[IpseDixit]

Meanwhile, I learned that the Chinese word for compass is 指南针 zhi3nan2zhen1, literally "South-pointing-needle". I guess this means compass needles point North in Europe, but point South in China?

AFAIK they should point North in every place of the globe because the magnetic field of Earth is the same everywhere. Maybe Chinese compasses where designed in a way that the needle of the compass would point South even though the magnete was attracted towards the North...

[vijayjohn]

Traditionally, yes, that seems to have been the case.

[Bubulus]

The South direction seems to be more prominent than the North in Chinese culture. Notice how the order of the directions begins with 南 nan2 'South' in Chinese, while it begins with "North" in English(/Spanish/French). North-South-West-East, 南北东西 nan2-bei3-dong1-xi1 ("South-North-East-West").

Chinese sometimes really seems to do the opposite of English. :p