Linguaphile's language and non-English reading log 2022

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Re: Linguaphile's language and non-English reading log 2022

Postby Linguaphile » 2022-11-24, 4:35

(et) from Lapsepõlv Nõukogude Eestis by Imre Siil
    ettevaatusabinõud precautions
    jumalavallatus profanity
    klaasipuhastaja (=klaasipuhasti) windshield wiper
    kojamees windshield wiper
    kopeer carbon paper, tracing paper
    lamburikepp shepherd's crook
    lükandklaas sliding glass; lükandklaasidega kapp cabinet with sliding glass doors
    masina-traktorijaam (MTJ) machine tractor station (MTS)
    mullikas heifer
    presentkatus canvas top (roof of vehicle)
    radioola radio-gramophone
    villis off-road vehicle, four-wheel drive vehicle, GAZ-69

    This description made me laugh:
    Ootasin Alal ikka, millal kummipuule väikesed autokummid ja sidrunipuule suured kollased sidrunid kasvama hakkavad, ent neid minu suureks pettumuseks ei tulnud ega tulnud.
    In Ala I still waited and waited for when little car tires would start to grow on the rubber tree and big yellow lemons would start to grow on the lemon tree, but to my great disappointment neither ever appeared.
    (As a child the author has understood a kummipuu to be a "tire tree" instead of a "rubber tree", because kummi in Estonian means both. As for the lemon tree, presumably it could have had lemons but simply didn't. I like the child's perspective here: a lemon tree that doesn't grow lemons and a rubber tree that doesn't grow tires are like two examples of the same situation, and both are equally disappointing.)

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Re: Linguaphile's language and non-English reading log 2022

Postby Linguaphile » 2022-11-24, 18:35

(es) from Un samurái en la revolución mexicana by Carlos Almada
    agolpamiento crowd
    carestía high cost
    encomo fury, anger, spite
    fulgurante brilliant, shining
    granjear to earn, to win
    naviero shipowner
(ja) from Un samurái en la revolución mexicana by Carlos Almada
    がいち gaichi (territorio exterior de Japón) Japanese overseas territory
    Almada actually gives this as gaichen, but がいち is what I find online, with the romanization gaichi. Does anyone know if gaichen is something different? Not がいじん.

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Re: Linguaphile's language and non-English reading log 2022

Postby Linguaphile » 2022-11-26, 5:38

(es) from Un samurái en la revolución mexicana by Carlos Almada
    aparcero sharecropper*
    cernerse sobre to hang over, to hover over
    expoliar to plunder
    garantías individuales personal rights, individual's constitutional rights
    hacer valer to make use of, to take advantage of, to assert [one's position, rank, etc]
    mediero sharecropper*

    *both aparcero and mediero translate as "sharecropper", but in context they are listed as two separate groups, not synonyms of each other: medieros, aparceros, jornaleros, ferrocarrileros, mineros, obreros, artesanos y profesores rurales.... sharecroppers (medieros), sharecroppers (aparceros), day laborers, railroad workers, miners, workers, artisans and rural teachers...
    I am not entirely sure about the difference, but if they are to be taken literally, a mediero's crop is divided in half (half for the sharecropper and half for the landowner), while it seems that an aparcero's share and the corresponding landowner's share are determined by a contract (presumably not necessarily half).
(et) from Lapsepõlv Nõukogude Eestis by Imre Siil
    ilmutilahus developer solution (in photography)
    kinnilahus fixing solution, photographic fixer
    lühinägelikkus myopia, shortsightedness
    morseaparaat telegraph for sending Morse code
    prillisang temple (of eyeglasses)
    pärilik inherited, hereditary
    säritusaeg (= säriaeg) exposure time, shutter speed
    turnimisredeled monkey bars
    voolualaldi rectifier

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Re: Linguaphile's language and non-English reading log 2022

Postby Linguaphile » 2022-11-28, 17:46

(et) from Lapsepõlv Nõukogude Eestis by Imre Siil
    klimberdama to hammer out on the piano, play the piano badly
    kruusaauk gravel pit
    pianiino (= püstklaver) upright piano
    purdelaud narrow footbridge (made from a plank of wood)
    silikaattellis silica brick used as building material
    suksu horse (term of endearment or name used when calming the horse)
    tiibklaver grand piano
    tõstuk hoist, lift
    utsitama to urge, encourage; to force, compel, provoke; to drill, school; to punish, chastise
    triiton (= vesilik) newt

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Re: Linguaphile's language and non-English reading log 2022

Postby Linguaphile » 2022-11-29, 16:27

(et) from Lapsepõlv Nõukogude Eestis by Imre Siil

    Just practicing translation with some interesting passages:

    Teisel korrusel oli meie lähimaks naabriks perekond Viiul oma kahe tütrega, kelle nimed nende perekonnanimega hästi kokku sobivalt olid Heli ja Kaja. Viiulite köök oli täpselt minu klaveritoa seina taga, kuid sealt muusikat kuulda polnud, kostis vaid kõnehääli.
    On the second floor, as our closest neighbors, was the Viiul* family with their two children, whose given names quite in keeping with their family name were Heli* and Kaja*. The Viiul's kitchen was exactly behind the wall of my piano room, but music couldn't be heard from there, only voices.
      *Viiul = violin
      Heli = sound
      Kaja = echo, reverberation
    So it could also be translated this way, if we want to be a bit funny about the translation and keep the humor without the realism (the names don't sound odd in Estonian the way they do in English):
    On the second floor, as our closest neighbors, was the Violin family with their two children, whose given names quite in keeping with their family name were Sound and Echo. The Violin's kitchen was exactly behind the wall of my piano room, but music couldn't be heard from there, only voices.

    Or change the names to English names with a similar effect:
    On the second floor, as our closest neighbors, was the Fiddler family with their two children, whose given names quite in keeping with their family name were Melody and Carol. The Fiddlers' kitchen was exactly behind the wall of my piano room, but music couldn't be heard from there, only voices.

    Autoradiaatoris ringles vanasti ainult tavaline vesi ja sellega oli eriti talvel alati suuri probleeme. Kui sooja garaaži polnud, tuli ööseks hoovile seisma jäetud autost jahutusvesi ilmtingimata välja lasta, muidu külmus see ära ja lõi radiaatori lõhki. Nii pidigi isa igal talvehommikul tegema varakult tule pliidi alla, et töösõidu eel auto jaoks uut vett soojendada.
    In the old days only regular water circulated in the car radiator and especially in winter there were always big problems with it. If there wasn't a warm garage, a car left overnight in the yard absolutely had to have its coolant water drained, otherwise it would freeze and crack the radiator. So early each winter morning Dad had to light the stove to heat new water for the car before his ride to work.

    The word order and grammatical structure for this one is so different from English that it seems there are several ways to translate it, for example with a car left for the night in the yard it was necessary to let the coolant water out no matter what (what I started with) versus a car left overnight in the yard absolutely had to have its coolant water drained (what I decided on).
    Literally
      tuli ööseks hoovile seisma jäetud autost jahutusvesi ilmtingimata välja lasta
    is
      it-came for-the-night to-the-yard to-stay left from-the-car cooling-water without-any-conditions out to-let,
    so in terms of grammatical structure and literal meaning there is no exact match and this is why we end up with two fairly differently-structured English translations that both seem to work okay.

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Re: Linguaphile's language and non-English reading log 2022

Postby Linguaphile » 2022-11-30, 14:38

(es) from Un samurái en la revolución mexicana por Carlos Almada
    desoír to ignore, disregard
    incólume unscathed
    óptica point of view

    acechanza stalking, spying, surveillance (acción de observar o esperar cautelosamente con algún propósito)
    asechanza trap, snare, ambush, ruse, beguilement, machinations (engaño o trampa para hacer daño a alguien)

    For these last two, the word the book has is acechanzas and the context is México se abrió a todas las incertidumbres y acechanzas. Mexico opened itself up to all of the uncertainties and hidden dangers.
    These two words have a common etymology, both from Latin assectāri.

    Wordreference has a discussion about acechanzas in its forum, where an example sentence is given that seems pretty similar in usage to the one I found:
    Nos lleva, en fin, a identificar las acechanzas y los desafíos de la democracia. Someone there suggested the translation of It takes us, after all, to identify the stalkings and challenges of democracy and another person rightly pointed out that "stalkings" is too literal a translation. That person suggested "hidden dangers", which I've decided to use in my translation above as well, and "dangers lying in wait". He or she contrasted those meanings with the meaning of asechanza, "someone's mean-spirited machinations against somebody else or attempts to undermine them."

    Linguee also has multiple examples of acechanza-with-a-c translated as "dangers", "hazards," and so on, as well as "snare", which is also given as the translation of asechanza-with-an-s. So it seems there is some confusion about the two words going on and overlap in their usage when it comes to the figurative "snare" and "danger" aspects of their meanings, correct or not. While I understand the meanings of the two words and the differences between them, I'm still not sure which to use in the figurative context of "hazards, [hidden] dangers". Both the sentences se abrió a todas las incertidumbres y acechanzas and identificar las acechanzas y los desafíos de la democracia have used acechanzas, but it seems like the meaning of asechanzas would have been at least as good there or even a better fit.

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Re: Linguaphile's language and non-English reading log 2022

Postby Naava » 2022-11-30, 17:32

Linguaphile wrote:Or change the names to English names with a similar effect:
On the second floor, as our closest neighbors, was the Fiddler family with their two children, whose given names quite in keeping with their family name were Melody and Carol. The Fiddlers' kitchen was exactly behind the wall of my piano room, but music couldn't be heard from there, only voices.

Ooh, that was clever! Kudos to you!

The word order and grammatical structure for this one is so different from English that it seems there are several ways to translate it, for example with a car left for the night in the yard it was necessary to let the coolant water out no matter what (what I started with) versus a car left overnight in the yard absolutely had to have its coolant water drained (what I decided on).
Literally
    tuli ööseks hoovile seisma jäetud autost jahutusvesi ilmtingimata välja lasta
is
    it-came for-the-night to-the-yard to-stay left from-the-car cooling-water without-any-conditions out to-let,
so in terms of grammatical structure and literal meaning there is no exact match and this is why we end up with two fairly differently-structured English translations that both seem to work okay.

I so know this pain. You have no idea how much I've struggled
A) when I've been translating something from English into Finnish to my parents, and mid-way through realised I can't use this syntax*, I have to change the word order to make it work... and
B) when I've translated Finnish texts into English for my friend**.

I once even tried simultaneous interpretation when my friend and I were watching TV... It was a Swedish film with Finnish subs, and I had to focus so hard that I didn't even noticed when the characters started to speak in English, but kept translating! :mrgreen:

And it's not just the word order, it's also the use of postpositions and cases instead of prepositions... You have to read/listen to the whole word and then process how it's said in English before you can do anything with it. I'm not saying it takes forever, but it would be much easier if you could just go like i en hus = in a house. :)
____________________________________

*There is/are is my nemesis. I see it and I immediately start crying because I know this is going to get messy.
**Song lyrics are the worst. They really show you that Finnish has a free word order, which means you have to go through the entire sentence before you can start to translate it. Like how the region anthem (or whatever, dunno what to call it) of Ostrobothnia begins:

- Mis' laaja aukee Pohjanmaa
- Where wide opens Ostrobothnia = Where the wide Ostrobothnia(n lands) open

Or this Christmas carol:
- lehmät ne lehdoista näkee vain / unta kahleissa kytkyin
- cows they groves-from see only / dream chains-in tethers-of = the cows are dreaming of groves in their tethers

How it goes for me: cows of gro... no wait, they're seeing from the groves, no wait they're DREAMING of groves! And they're chained? In chains? Tethered? Chained by tethers? With tethers? What? No wait I can just say in their tethers, that's the same thing... No, but I should probably say the cows because it's the family's cows, not just random cows?

- Tonttu puoleksi unissaan / ajan virtaa on kuulevinaan
- Tonttu half sleep-in-his / time's stream is thinks-he-hears = tonttu, half-asleep, thinks it's the stream of time that he hears

How it goes for me: Tonttu, half-asleep, the stream of time is... oh fuck, no.

(Tonttu = a miniature mythical humanoid creature believed to live in the forests and in or near people's dwellings. The tonttu mentioned in this song is the guardian and protector of the family's house and outdoor buildings. Also, the singer in the video I linked has slightly different lyrics: he sings ajan virtaa on kulkevinaan or time's stream is thinks-he-walks... or "he imagines he's walking on/following the stream of time".)

Or another Christmas carol:

Arkihuolesi kaikki heitä,
mieles' nuorena nousta suo!
Armas joulu jo kutsuu meitä
taasen muistojen suurten luo.
Kylmä voisko nyt olla kellä,
talven säästä kun tuoksahtaa
lämmin leuto ja henkäys hellä,
rinnan jäitä mi liuottaa?


Everyday worries-your all throw
mind-your young-as rise let!
Dear Christmas already calls us
again memories' great to.
Cold could now be whom-at,
winter's weather-from when whiffs
warm mild and breath gentle,
chest's ices which thaws?

Let go of all your everyday worries,
let your mind be young again!
Dear Christmas is calling us once again
To the great memories.
Who could feel cold now
when from the winter weather
a warm, mild and gentle wind sighs,
and thaws the ice in your chest?


Or this one (yes Finnish Christmas carols are cheery like that):

Kerran loppuun satu joulun saa
Suru säveliä sumentaapi
Kerran silmän täyttää kyyneleet
Virtaa vuolahina tuskan veet
Siks, oi tähtisilmät, loistakaatte!


Once end-to tale Christmas's comes
Sorrow tunes blurs
Once eye's fill tears
Flows heavy-as agony's waters
That-for, oh star-eyes, shine!

Once the tale of Christmas shall come to its end
Sorrow will darken the tunes
Once the eye will be filled with tears
The waters of agony will flow freely
Therefore, oh starry eyes, please shine [now]!


The Estonian sentence would be easy though:
tuli ööseks hoovile seisma jäetud autost jahutusvesi ilmtingimata välja lasta
tuli yöksi pihalle seisomaan jätetystä autosta jäähdytysnesteet välttämättä pihalle laskea/päästää.
(Although, I think it'd feel more natural to say laskea/päästää pihalle than pihalle laskea/päästää. But it's not wrong in either way, and I don't think people would even notice if I kept the original word order tbh.)

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Re: Linguaphile's language and non-English reading log 2022

Postby Linguaphile » 2022-12-01, 2:28

Naava wrote:It was a Swedish film with Finnish subs, and I had to focus so hard that I didn't even notice when the characters started to speak in English, but kept translating! :mrgreen:

That's so funny!
:silly:

Naava wrote:And it's not just the word order, it's also the use of postpositions and cases instead of prepositions... You have to read/listen to the whole word and then process how it's said in English before you can do anything with it. I'm not saying it takes forever, but it would be much easier if you could just go like i en hus = in a house. :)

:yep: :yep: :yep:

Naava wrote:**Song lyrics are the worst. They really show you that Finnish has a free word order, which means you have to go through the entire sentence before you can start to translate it.

And then often there's rhyme or alliteration or whatever along with it that's going to get lost in translation unless you sacrifice some of the actual meaning in favor of keeping the poetic devices.
I totally know what you mean about going through the entire sentence before you can translate it. Not just with songs. Especially if it's a long sentence... I'll start on a translation and get partway through and it's like "oh, that last word changes everything, gotta start over from scratch". LOL
Thanks for posting those songs! And especially your through process for translating. Very funny and very easy to identify with. I especially liked the nonrandom cows in chains seeing from the groves as they sleep.
Naava wrote:How it goes for me: cows of gro... no wait, they're seeing from the groves, no wait they're DREAMING of groves! And they're chained? In chains? Tethered? Chained by tethers? With tethers? What? No wait I can just say in their tethers, that's the same thing... No, but I should probably say the cows because it's the family's cows, not just random cows?

Love it!

Naava wrote:Once the tale of Christmas shall come to its end
Sorrow will darken the tunes
Once the eye will be filled with tears
The waters of agony will flow freely

Yes, you Finns sure know how to rejoice and spread Christmas cheer. :xmas:
:mrgreen:

Naava wrote:The Estonian sentence would be easy though:
tuli ööseks hoovile seisma jäetud autost jahutusvesi ilmtingimata välja lasta
tuli yöksi pihalle seisomaan jätetystä autosta jäähdytysnesteet välttämättä pihalle laskea/päästää.

But pihalle though... it's like pihale in Estonian, but that's the allative of either piht (waist) or pihk (resin or gum). And päästa, that's "rescue or save". So pihalle päästää = pihale päästa. Okay, got it. A car left on the resin overnight absolutely had to have its coolant water rescued at the waist. :hmm: No? How about A car left overnight at the waist has to have its coolant water unavoidably saved to the resin. :hmm: Oh dear. (What I did there is exactly the process that Google Translate uses, isn't it? :twisted: Same results, too.) And let's not even talk about how hoovile and välja are both translated as pihalle.

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Re: Linguaphile's language and non-English reading log 2022

Postby Linguaphile » 2022-12-01, 17:54

(et) from Lapsepõlv Nõukogude Eestis by Imre Siil
    esiklaas windshield
    hoob lever
    hädapäraselt hardly, barely, only to the most essential degree, only in emergencies, urgently
    juhtimispult control panel
    kangestuskramptõbi tetanus
    maanteemuhk small roundish car; Zaporozhets, ZAZ 965
    pihta panema to purloin
    sootuks maha kandma to write off completely, to total (a car)
    tagasivaatepeegel = tahavaatepeegel rearview mirror
    tüliõun bone of contention

    hädapäraselt oli see punkt ühtlasi apteegi eest, sest suurem apteek leidus alles viie kilomeetri kaugusel when necessary this place also functioned as a pharmacy, because the larger pharmacy was five kilometers away
    I had some trouble understanding that sentence at first because I didn't understand the ühtlasi midagi eest olla construction, initially understanding the sentence more like at the same time, this place was hardly a pharmacy because the larger pharmacy was only five kilometers away, basically the opposite of the actual intended meaning.

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Re: Linguaphile's language and non-English reading log 2022

Postby Linguaphile » 2022-12-02, 14:12

(et) from Lapsepõlv Nõukogude Eestis by Imre Siil
    isekallutaja dump truck
    kasvandik pupil, student
    kallur dump truck
    maamõõduturn land-surveying tower
    pluusiväel in shirtsleeves
    seadeldi device, mechanism
    sundvõõrandamine expropriation
    täie vaardiga at full speed
    tõsteseadeldi lifting mechanism
    tõstesaal weightlifting hall, weightlifting gym
    tõstja weightlifter
    vamm dry rot
    -väel teat. riietusese (mitte muud selle peal) seljas v. jalgas

(es) Un samurái en la revolución mexicana by Carlos Almada
    compungido remorseful; contrite
    desgajamiento breakdown, rupture, fragmentation
    escindir split, divide
    pundonoroso honorable
    previa (as a preposition) with prior; after
    taxativo restricted, limited

(edit: corrected typo. Pundonoroso not pundoroso!)
Last edited by Linguaphile on 2022-12-10, 19:24, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Linguaphile's language and non-English reading log 2022

Postby Naava » 2022-12-02, 17:22

Linguaphile wrote:
Naava wrote:Once the tale of Christmas shall come to its end
Sorrow will darken the tunes
Once the eye will be filled with tears
The waters of agony will flow freely

Yes, you Finns sure know how to rejoice and spread Christmas cheer. :xmas:
:mrgreen:


Oh yes we do!

To add to the list: the elf there is the same tonttu as in my previous post, and he's insomniac because he's thinking about death. The grandma is not only abandoned by her family, but her husband is dead and the path to her small hut is frozen and slippery. The pig song is so much worse than what that description makes it sound (for example, there's an uncle who drinks the blood). The song that tells you to enjoy the Christmas because memento mori also reminds you that our lives are short and miserable. The child that cries on her mother's grave also wonders if s/he can ever laugh again. The dead brother doesn't steal anything, but he does reveal he's actually dead only after his sister has given him the small seed she had. And the Christmas in Italy is... definitely on the darker end of Finnish Christmas songs:
Sylvia, or Eurasian blackcap, (Sylvia atricapilla), is a migratory bird which hibernates in Sicily. The poem tells about the wonders of the South, like Cypresses and Mount Etna, but it also tells about homesickness and patriotism.

The cage mentioned in the first verse refers to a cruel way of catching birds: The bird is trapped into a cage with its eyes pierced, and as a night singer it will attract other birds, who will fly straight to the catcher's net. Topelius opposed this harsh way of netting.

The cage reference is also said to depict Finland as an autonomic but oppressed part of Russia.


Also, I found that image on reddit, and there were these gems in the comments: "Is Finland OK?" "We absolutely are not, these songs are sung by children every year" and "And another one I remembered: 'the souls are wandering the earth as our ancestors fade into oblivion. This is very nice!'", and "Joulupuu on Rakennettu on sanomaltaan ihan iloinen, mutta senkin on pakko olla niin mollinen, että sitä luulee hautamarssiksi ellei osaa suomea" (The "Christmas tree has been built" has a kinda happy message but even that [song] has to be in minor key so that you'd think it's a funeral march if you didn't know Finnish). And you know what the kids have done with it? They've listened to the lyrics, decided they're too cheery, and rewritten them! Their version has Santa hanged on the Christmas tree while the candles of the tree are scorching him and the cops are at the door... you know, Christmas vibes! :)

If you want to listen to the songs mentioned above, here's links:
► Show Spoiler


But pihalle though... it's like pihale in Estonian, but that's the allative of either piht (waist) or pihk (resin or gum). And päästa, that's "rescue or save". So pihalle päästää = pihale päästa. Okay, got it. A car left on the resin overnight absolutely had to have its coolant water rescued at the waist. :hmm: No? How about A car left overnight at the waist has to have its coolant water unavoidably saved to the resin. :hmm: Oh dear. (What I did there is exactly the process that Google Translate uses, isn't it? :twisted: Same results, too.) And let's not even talk about how hoovile and välja are both translated as pihalle.

This is literally the reason why Estonian still makes me laugh even though I always think I've seen all the funny false friends, that I'm over it, I can keep it cool... Then they're rescuing water from the waist of a car and I am once again reminded that no, there's still plenty of false friends to be found. (Btw, I can see the connection between päästää and päästa - päästää can mean "to release, to let go, to let loose, to free someone from restraint" and I think it's not a big leap from that to rescuing and saving. Pihk has also the cognate pihka, but it doesn't have weak grade for some reason, so it'd be just pihkalle.)

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Re: Linguaphile's language and non-English reading log 2022

Postby Linguaphile » 2022-12-02, 19:10

Naava wrote:there were these gems in the comments: "Is Finland OK?"

It's a genuinely good question, though. :mrgreen:
And then I was thinking, two of my favorite Christmas songs that I listen to every year are Finnish*, how did I manage to find two cheerful ones considering the selection available? Neither is a traditional song, but still. (Although I think that Tulkoon Joulu, while not traditional, has at least made it to the "standard Christmas music" category.) Anyway I listen to them at this point without thinking about the lyrics much, so then I realized.....

Lumeen jäljet jää pienen ihmisen
Missä määränpää, sitä tiedä en.
Kyyneltäin et nää joulu yhdistää,
Tuon lahjoista suurimman rakkauden.
Haudalle vien pienen kynttilän
Ystävän vuoksi sen sytytän.
Saapuu yö, jouluyö
Jouluna ei ole yksin hän.

Ah, okay, it fits the theme. Don't cry, let's just focus on love and bring candles to our friend's grave so that he or she isn't alone when night arrives at Christmas. So cheerful! Never mind.
(Wondering now if the way the words kynttilää and kyyneltä go so nicely together contributes to this phenomenon. By the way, I used partitive there on purpose because they sound nice together like kyyneltäin and kynttilän in the song, but what kind of form is kyyneltäin? Googling it gets lyrics from a few songs and a translation of Romeo and Juliet. Is it a dialect? Poetic? Archaic? Just not often needed?)

*These two:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTz51yoK1FQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZL5hBrtuaH8

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Re: Linguaphile's language and non-English reading log 2022

Postby Naava » 2022-12-02, 22:29

Linguaphile wrote:
Naava wrote:there were these gems in the comments: "Is Finland OK?"

It's a genuinely good question, though. :mrgreen:

Judging by things like this, this and this, I think the answer is still "no".

Also, hei can mean bye and hei hei can mean hi because we wouldn't want to make this too easy, would we?

And then I was thinking, two of my favorite Christmas songs that I listen to every year are Finnish*, how did I manage to find two cheerful ones considering the selection available?

You know how funny this was to read when I could see that Lumeen jäljet jää there and had to decide if you thought a child bringing a candle to her dead friend's grave was "cheerful" or if you just hadn't read the lyrics! :lol:

(Although I think that Tulkoon Joulu, while not traditional, has at least made it to the "standard Christmas music" category.)

I'd say so, yeah. Actually, all the songs I listed are more or less in the standard category.

Ah, okay, it fits the theme. Don't cry, let's just focus on love and bring candles to our friend's grave so that he or she isn't alone when night arrives at Christmas. So cheerful! Never mind.

:lol:

By the way, I used partitive there on purpose because they sound nice together like kyyneltäin and kynttilän in the song, but what kind of form is kyyneltäin? Googling it gets lyrics from a few songs and a translation of Romeo and Juliet. Is it a dialect? Poetic? Archaic? Just not often needed?

Kyyneltäin is an alternative form of 1st person possessive suffix (= kyyneltäni). It's common or used to be common in some dialects, but you can also see it in poems and songs. I like how I managed to hijack this thread and turn it into questions about Finnish grammar thread! :twisted:

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Re: Linguaphile's language and non-English reading log 2022

Postby Linguaphile » 2022-12-03, 20:13

Naava wrote:
Linguaphile wrote:
Naava wrote:there were these gems in the comments: "Is Finland OK?"

It's a genuinely good question, though. :mrgreen:

Judging by things like this, this and this, I think the answer is still "no".

LOL. The look on the guy's face for the weather forecast is hilarious too. And as for the introvert leaving the apartment, I've done exactly that. :silly:

Naava wrote:I like how I managed to hijack this thread and turn it into questions about Finnish grammar thread! :twisted:

Yes, well, any thread that goes on long enough eventually leads to Finnish grammar, doesn't it?

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Re: Linguaphile's language and non-English reading log 2022

Postby Naava » 2022-12-03, 21:20

Linguaphile wrote:The look on the guy's face for the weather forecast is hilarious too.

You'd probably like to see Pekka Pouta, then! He's everyone's favourite meteorologist in Finland, and although he's got famous for his dog and his forecast of oncoming winter, we also remember how he couldn't keep a straight face when describing the weather in mid May one year. He starts very professionally, but when he has to say the temperatures can climb "as high as 10 degrees" he starts to lose it, and by the time the map shows some areas in Central Finland could get snow, he's done for.

By the way, his last name means literally "fairweather".

And as for the introvert leaving the apartment, I've done exactly that. :silly:

...me too. Honestly, any time I read those comics, I feel so called out. (I suppose that's their point?) Like I can feel these in my soul:
► Show Spoiler


Naava wrote:I like how I managed to hijack this thread and turn it into questions about Finnish grammar thread! :twisted:

Yes, well, any thread that goes on long enough eventually leads to Finnish grammar, doesn't it?

All roads lead to Rome, and all threads lead to Finnish grammar. It's like the final boss lurking in the highest level that you can reach in the game...

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Re: Linguaphile's language and non-English reading log 2022

Postby Linguaphile » 2022-12-04, 6:05

Naava wrote:You'd probably like to see Pekka Pouta, then! He's everyone's favourite meteorologist in Finland, and although he's got famous for his dog and his forecast of oncoming winter, we also remember how he couldn't keep a straight face when describing the weather in mid May one year. He starts very professionally, but when he has to say the temperatures can climb "as high as 10 degrees" he starts to lose it, and by the time the map shows some areas in Central Finland could get snow, he's done for.

By the way, his last name means literally "fairweather".

Thanks, those are great! I like his name, too. :mrgreen:

Naava wrote:
And as for the introvert leaving the apartment, I've done exactly that. :silly:

...me too. Honestly, any time I read those comics, I feel so called out. (I suppose that's their point?) Like I can feel these in my soul:
► Show Spoiler

What's funny is that I can really identify with a lot of those too. It's probably more common than we think (even outside Finland). :mrgreen:

Now for some more words from reading:

(et) from Lapsepõlv Nõukogude Eestis by Imre Siil
    helipilt soundscape
    jäälõhestaja ice-splitter, icebreaker* :?:
    kaldajärsak steep bank
    kuulmekile eardrum
    murdmaasōit off-road trip
    pikksilm spyglass
    plekkämber metal bucket**
    puhvaika (=vattkuub quilted padded jacket
    suusahüppemägi ski-jumping hill

    *This word appears nowhere else. The normal word for icebreaker is jäälõhkuja or jäämurdja.
    **This one nearly drove me crazy because it was in the book as plekkämbeid and there was no context to help figure out what it was - just that people were taking pieces of galvanized roofing (tsinkplekk) from an abandoned building and using them to make plekkämbeid. This is not enough information to understand what they are making, only that they are making it from galvanized sheet metal. I looked around for a word like ämp or ämb for a while, but no. Okay, there's an r missing: it should be plekkämbreid, from ämber, a bucket. (I have to marvel a bit at the resourcefulness of this though because I don't think I would be capable of getting anywhere close to making a usable bucket out of stolen, repurposed sheet metal.)

(es) from Un samurái en la revolución mexicana by Carlos Almada
    abrojo burr
    alfeñique wimp
    deturpación deformation, disfigurement
    endilgar to saddle with
    enhiesto upright, lofty
    espinar briar patch thorn patch
    impertérrito unmoved, unperturbed
    indulto pardon, reprieve
    libelo libelous article
    preconizar to advocate
    vituperio criticism

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Re: Linguaphile's language and non-English reading log 2022

Postby Linguaphile » 2022-12-04, 21:44

(et) from Lapsepõlv Nõukogude Eestis by Imre Siil
    helveskaal light flyweight
    maletama to play chess
    murdmaajooksusvõistlus cross-country running competition
    noortejärk junior-class (sports category)
    rebimine snatch (in weightlifting)
    surumine clean and press (in weightlifting)
    tõukamine clean and jerk (in weightlifting)
    teatejooks relay (running)
    teatevõistlus relay (running), team sprint
    tuletõrjesport fire-fighting sports
    võimlemisredelid wall bars, gymnastics bars
    ühe raksuga in one go, at one time

    kergejõustik light athletics (athletics, track and field: running, throwing, jumping; German Leichtathletik)
    raskejõustik heavy athletics (wrestling, boxing, weightlifting, martial arts, bodybuilding; Ger. Schwerathletik)

    jõustik is used only in compounds such as the ones above:
    raskejõustikutreening weight training, martial arts training, etc.
    naiskergejõustiklased female athletes (of track and field, etc)
    kergejõustikukarikavõistlused athletic championship competitions (of track and field, etc)
    and so on

    One thing I'm liking about this book is that the author writes about things about which I know quite little - cars in earlier chapters, and track and field, wrestling, and weightlifting in this current one, for example - but doesn't get so heavily into details that I get completely lost or lose interest. He explains things and then moves on to something else, and it's a good opportunity to learn new words. For a book that is turning out to be largely about activities that ordinarily don't interest me much, I'm enjoying this book a lot more than I might have expected had I known those topics would be such a focus. But this is a good thing.
    The words I've linked to WIkipedia articles for were all things for which the English translation alone didn't really explain it for me, but it's interesting both to learn these words in Estonian and to learn a bit more about them in English. (I had no idea that "fire-fighting sports" was a thing at all, although now that I read about it, I've heard about it before, in southern Estonia - I just didn't realize it was an actual organized "thing" beyond isolated occurrences, which I'd taken to be more idiosyncratic than they were. A difference though is that the Wikipedia article sounds like this is something done by actual firefighters, or least I think that's what I would have assumed if I'd just read the article, while in the book it was not - it was just a sport, through which the participants also learned and practiced fire-fighting skills. They were not fire-fighters.)

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Re: Linguaphile's language and non-English reading log 2022

Postby Linguaphile » 2022-12-06, 4:25

(et) from Lapsepõlv Nõukogude Eestis by Imre Siil
    igritsema to slowly seep, to trickle
    jõhv horsehair
    lant fishing lure
    silm, -u, -u, -i,/-usid lamprey
    spinning fishing reel
    sugeda saama to get a spanking
    tropsikomm a type of candy
    tõukeratas scooter
    villima to bottle
(es) from Un samurái en la revolución mexicana by Carlos Almada
    albardón packsaddle
    apremio urgency, pressure
    argucia cunning argument
    arriate flowerbed, flowerbed border, tree grate
    asonada riot, violent protest
    desaliño carelessness
    desenfado ease, self-assurance
    empréstito loan (especially a state loan, in contrast to préstamo [ordinary loan])
    erogación expenditure, contribution
    estruendo turmoil, confusion
    fraguar to forge, harden; to conceive, think up
    imbricación overlap, interweaving
    impericia negligence
    ineluctable inevitable, unavoidable
    incuria negligence, carelessness
    mortandad death toll
    quevedo pince-nez
    sin ambages without beating around the bush; telling it straight

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Re: Linguaphile's language and non-English reading log 2022

Postby Linguaphile » 2022-12-07, 5:04

(et) from Lapsepõlv Nõukogude Eestis by Imre Siil
    kolb (kolvi, kolbi, kolbe/kolbisid) vial
    lahkheli discord
    pliiatsiteritaja pencil sharpener
    sagedusmuundur = hääleplokk frequency converter (for television audio signals)
    tatsama to toddle
    täitesulepea fountain pen
    virgutama to energize
(es) from Un samurái en la revolución mexicana by Carlos Almada
    cohonestar to endorse, support, legitimize; to cover up
    desmentido denial (desmentir to deny)
    detentar hold, possess (especially unlawfully)
    pabellón pavilion, annex, flag (izar el pabellón raise the flag)
    periclitar to decay, decline
    pulular seethe, multiply
    reincidente repeat offender, recidivist

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Re: Linguaphile's language and non-English reading log 2022

Postby Linguaphile » 2022-12-08, 13:54

(et) from Lapsepõlv Nõukogude Eestis by Imre Siil
    istuma jääma to be held back a year (in school)
    istumajäänud = istumajääja student repeating a year
    kummivoolik rubber hose
    käima lükkama get going, set out going
    sääreväristaja boneshaker, motorcycle
    süsihappegaas carbon dioxide
    tõkk motorcycle*

    *this one might be very regional slang; in the Esimene Eesti Slängi Sõnaraamat it appears among the entries added by internet users, with a note saying "1984 Kose-Risti". The book I found it in takes place around 1974, about 8 kilometers from Kose-Risti, in Kose-Uuemõisa. :shock: Eight kilometers and ten years away from the *precise* time and location mentioned in the dictionary, not bad! LOL The author must have been aware of its limited usage too because he hedges a bit with calling it that, saying masin, mida miskipärast tōkiks nimetati, lükati koos minuga käima... The machine, which for some reason was called "tōkk", was started, taking me with it....
    It gets funnier because I looked on a map once I saw that it is used in Kose-Risti, since I know the book takes place in Kose-Uuemõisa and clearly they are going to be close to each other.... yes, eight kilometers apart, but it gets better because they are linked by the road to Tartu and the author specifically mentioned that's the road he was riding this motorcycle on. Talk about pinning down local dialect based on a single word - all examples of this word that I can find lead to the same 8-km stretch of the Tallinn-Tartu highway in Kose parish in the 70s-80s. LOL!


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