TAC 2017-2018 Iván

[Iván]

Finally, I decided to open my own TAC after binge-reading all the current ones. My goal for this year (actually this month) and for next year is to be more tenacious when it comes to learning new languages and maintaining the ones I already speak.



I study Translation and Interpreting as some of you might already know and my working languages are English and German. However, despite having many lessons taught in German, I still feel like my level is very low, well, actually, I sometimes think I have rather a passive knowledge - I can understand spoken German pretty well (Hochdeutsch, I mean), but when it comes to speaking, I don't trust my level at all.



Finnish is probably my favorite foreign language. I've watched many films and series in Finnish and even started reading a book, which was not originally written in Finnish, but it's translated by an excellent Finnish translator. However, lately, I haven't used it very often and I would like to use it more often and improve my level, especially my vocabulary. I should probably use Anki for that.



In September I enrolled in a Russian language course and it's been pretty great so far. We've already learned personal pronouns, possessive pronouns and a lot of basic vocabulary. I really want to take it slow with Russian because I don't want to stress and get unmotivated.

I'm also thinking about starting learning another language, but still, have no clue which one to choose. Swedish would be a good one. I even considered learning a Romance one, since my French is nearly rusty and Italian has always sounded interesting to me, however, the fact that it wouldn't be such a challenge - or at least this is what I think- discourages me.

[vijayjohn]

It can be a challenge to not mix them up, though! Plus French is...pretty different for a Romance language in some ways.

And if you don't think learning French is a challenge, then I might be able to interest you in TY Business French...because I promise you, if you buy that, it will definitely be a challenge no matter how well you speak French!

[Iván]

It can be a challenge to not mix them up, though! Plus French is...pretty different for a Romance language in some ways.

And if you don't think learning French is a challenge, then I might be able to interest you in TY Business French...because I promise you, if you buy that, it will definitely be a challenge no matter how well you speak French!

Yeah, I guess that I just enjoy learning languages that aren't too similar to my native ones. However, I still remember how much I used to like French and now when I think about learning it again I don't feel the urge to do so.

[OldBoring]

Isn't French quite similar to Catalan?

[Iván]

Some people say Catalan is between French and Spanish. However. according to this chart, Catalan is closer to Italian than to it is to French. It's true that speaking Catalan helped me a lot when I started learning French, especially when it comes to the use of "en" and "y" as we also use them in Catalan "en" and "hi". I also realised that we share a lot of similar vocabulary, but this is not very relevant to the connection between both languages, since it's one of the features of being part of the Romance languages.

[Saim]

French and Catalan are in theory meant to be genetically closer but I think French, by virtue of being in a peripheral part of the Romance continuum and hence more heavily influenced by Germanic languages, has kind of moved in a direction that the rest of the continuum hasn't. That's why Catalan and Italian have a higher degree of mutual intelligibility even though Catalan and French are both "Western Romance". In fact, I'd say Occitan and Italian are probably more mutually intelligible than Occitan and French, although the Frenchified accent of most modern Occitan makes it a bit more difficult. People say Romanian is the odd one out but I feel like French is almost just as much of a black sheep...

[vijayjohn]

I didn't realize French was that heavily influenced by Germanic. I thought it was mostly different from all its relatives because it went through so many more goddamn sound changes than all the rest of them, possibly combined.

[IpseDixit]

Some people say Catalan is between French and Spanish. However. according to this chart, Catalan is closer to Italian than to it is to French.

If I understand it correctly, that chart only takes lexical similarity into consideration, which is a very narrow and incomplete way to look at how closely languages are related. But in any case, I knew other data (you can see how French is closer to Italian in this chart):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexical_s ... _languages

I wonder how accurate the lexical similarity index is anyway. I don't know the exact method to work it out, but it seems to me that the measurement might be very sensitive to what kind of wordlist is used. For example Wikipedia says:

<<Ethnologue's method of calculation consists in comparing a standardized set of wordlists and counting those forms that show similarity in both form and meaning. Using such a method, English was evaluated to have a lexical similarity of 60% with German and 27% with French.>>

Which strikes me as odd when you think that almost 60% of English lexycon comes from either French or Latin and makes me wonder if the wordlist they used consisted of mainly core, basic words (which tend to be of Germanic origin in English).

[vijayjohn]

I wonder how accurate the lexical similarity index is anyway.

Not very. There are lots of ways that words can come to look very similar, and it's terrible for telling when the languages separated from their last common ancestor. This is why linguists tend to avoid it these days.

[Iván]

Ich weiß, dass ich dieser Betreff ofter aktualisieren sollte...Ich habe die Absicht, mein Deutsch zu üben, deswegen ich ein paar Bücher aus der Bücherei ausgeliehen habe. Sie sind eine deutsche Grammatik auf Spanisch und ein großes Übungsbuch.

Kuten jotkut teistä jo tietävät, minä opiskelen kääntäjäsi/tulkiksi ja tällä hetkellä minulla on yksi oppiaine yliopistossa, joka on englanti-espanja simultaanitulkkaus ja tykkään siitä, miten minun opettaja opettaa, koska hän aina yrittää kertoa meille monista hänen omansa kokemuksista tulkkina. Hän on tosi mukava ja sen vuoksi ajattelin, että voisin puhua hänen kanssa tulkkaamisesta, joten saisin tietää enemmän siitä. Eilen puhuin hänen kanssa ja oli tosi mukavaa ja auttavaa, koska olen tosi kiinnostunut tästä ammatista ja hän suositteli minulle sopivia sivuja, joista saan harjoitella minun tulkkauksen taitavuuden.

Viime aikoina olen katsonut suomalaisia leffoja ja yritän lukea päivittäin uutisia suomeksi.

(Oman puhekieli) Sanoinkin sille osaavani suomen kieltä ja se kyseli multa niin paljon kysymyksii suomen kielest ja suositteli myös mulle, ettei mun pitäis koskaa unohda sitä koska espanjalaiset tulkit ei valitettavasti oo kiinnostunut siitä ja sen vuoksi voisin saada enemmän työtä.

[Salajane]

Kuten jotkut teistä jo tietävät, minä opiskelen kääntäjäsi/tulkiksi ja tällä hetkellä minulla on yksi oppiaine yliopistossa, joka on englanti-espanja simultaanitulkkaus ja tykkään siitä, miten minun opettaja opettaa, koska hän aina yrittää kertoa meille monista hänen omansa kokemuksista tulkkina.

Mahtava! Minä myös opiskelen kääntäjäksi/tulkiksi (arvelen, että olen sinulle sitä jo sanonut). Mutta minulla ei ole ollut vielä simultaanitulkkauta, eikä minä tiedan, kuinka se on. Mielestani sen täytyy olla hyvin vaikea. Kuinka se on sinulle? Onko vaikea tai ei? Teetko sitä hyvin?

Viime aikoina olen katsonut suomalaisia leffoja ja yritän lukea päivittäin uutisia suomeksi.

Sinun suomen kielen taso on kyllä paljon korkeampi kuin minun oman. Minä en saa vielä uutisia lukea tai elokuvia katsoa.
(Onko "leffa" sama kuin "elokuva"? Onko se puhekielessä?)

[Iván]

Mahtava! Minä myös opiskelen kääntäjäksi/tulkiksi (arvelen, että olen sinulle sitä jo sanonut). Mutta minulla ei ole ollut vielä simultaanitulkkauta, eikä minä tiedan, kuinka se on. Mielestani sen täytyy olla hyvin vaikea. Kuinka se on sinulle? Onko vaikea tai ei? Teetko sitä hyvin?

Aluksi olihan kyllä vaikea. Kuten sanoin, minun opettaja on tosi hieno ja hän aina yrittää kertoa meille, mitä meidän pitäisi parantaa silloin kuin lähetetään hänelle meidän tulkkaukset ja minusta on tosi positiivista, että opettaja voi seurata opiskelijoiden tulkkauksia. Jos minä teen simultaanitulkkauta hyvin, se riippuu ihan vaan jokaisesta puheista. Toisin sanoen, jos en ole todella hermostunut minun virheistä ja puheen aihe ei ole ankara minulle, voin kyllä tehdä sen hyvin.

Mitä kieliä opiskelet yliopistossa? Minä teen Englanti/Saksa - Espanja/Katalaani

Sinun suomen kielen taso on kyllä paljon korkeampi kuin minun oman. Minä en saa vielä uutisia lukea tai elokuvia katsoa.
(Onko "leffa" sama kuin "elokuva"? Onko se puhekielessä?)

Kiitos! Kauanko olet opiskellut suomen kieltä? Itse aloitin suomen kielen opiskelemisen melkein 5 vuotta sitten. Voinhan ymmärtää jos suomalaiset puhuvat minulle sekä puhekieleksi että kirjakieleksi, mutta olisipa jo minun taso vähän parempi!

Kyllä, "leffa" on "elokuva" puhekielessä.

[Iván]

New addition:

Nu leer ik ook Nederlands, want ik woon in Antwerpen. Ik vind dat het een mooi taal die ik gemakkelijk leren kan. Om de taal te leren, ik lees de krant en ik bekijk video's op Youtube. Ik kan een beisje het Nederlands verstaan als de mensen niet zo snel spreken.

Ik gebruik http://www.dutchgrammar.com, Duolingo en ik doe een cursus die mijn universiteit me gaf.

[Antea]

Dat is cool! Ik weet zeker dat je snel zult wennen aan het spreken. Ik heb twee jaar geleden Afrikaans geleerd, maar ik was een beginner en ik herinner me niet veel.

[Iván]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvs6baB0kTI


So I got inspired by Saim's TAC as he often translates or uses music to learn new vocabulary. Lately, I've been listening to this song and I've decided to try to translate into English. Please bear in mind that I've just started learning Dutch and translating into English isn't really that easy so most things won't probably make much sense.

‘S avonds laat, loop over straat
En zei is bij me
Ja, ik ben terug van weg geweest
En niemand is met haar te vergelijken
Van haar is er maar één

In the late afternoon, I walk on the street
and she is beside me.
Yes, I have come back.
No one compares to her.
She is the only one.

En ik probeer haar te vermeiden
Maar ze trekt me toch weer terug
En iedereen heeft altijd wat te zeiken
Maar zij maakt zich niet druk
Nee, zij maakt zich niet druk

And I try to avoid her, but
she always takes me back.
And the others/everyone else always has
something else to do.
But she doesn't care.
No, she doesn't care at all.


En elke volle maan
Dan kijkt ze me weer aan
She always looks at me when
there's a full moon.

Maar zij is niet meer wie ze was
Ze verandert met de tijd
Iets anders elke nacht
Het gezicht van Amsterdam
Ze blijft zichzelf bewijzen
Ja, zij is de mooiste van ons land.

But she is not the same as she was before
she has changed with the time.
Every night there is something different.
The face of Amsterdam.
She keeps on proving herself, yeah,
She is the most beautiful in our country.

Nee ze heeft niets te verliezen
De koningin van de Jordaan
En heb hoeft ook maar een straat te kiezen
Iedereen die kent dr naam
Ja iedereen die kent dr naam

No, she has nothing to lose.
The queen of Jordan.
And you only must choose a street.
Everyone who knows Dr. Naam
Yes, everyone who knows Dr. Naam.


En elke ochtend zon
Dan draai ik me weer om
And every morning I turn around.

[Car]

"dr" moet "d'r" zijn:
https://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/d%27r

[Iván]

"dr" moet "d'r" zijn:
https://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/d%27r

Thank you so much!

Iedereen die kent dr naam - Everyone knows her name
Ja iedereen die kent dr naam - Yes, everyone knows her name

[Iván]

I've been watching some videos from a project called Molempi Parempi where you can watch videos in which Swedish-speaking Finns give their opinions on Finland's official bilingualism in both Finnish and Swedish. It's been really interesting to watch the videos since there are many different points of view regarding the situation of Swedish being one of the official languages of Finland.


Yesterday I bought a book, originally written in Norwegian (Nynorsk), that had been translated into Dutch as Kindertijd. My level is still very basic, but I'm surprised by how much I can already understand thanks to German, especially when it comes to reading. However, speaking turns out to be very difficult. Besides me not having yet a good command of the language, it seems like Belgians are not keen on speaking in Dutch with foreigners, they rapidly switch to English if they notice you're not a native speaker or can't speak it fluently. Nevertheless, I will keep on trying to force them to reply to me in Dutch.

Also, I'm using this site that I recently discovered: https://www.nedbox.be/. There are many audios and texts which you can listen/read and you can also make quizzes to test your comprehension.

[Iván]

J'ai decidé de faire un cours sur Coursera qui s'appelle Étudier en France: French Intermediate course B1-B2.
Je sais que mon niveau est pas très haut en ce moment, mais je pense qu'avec le cours je vais apprendre beaucoup de choses que je peux utiliser pour améliorer mon français. La première semaine a l'air d'être facile, parce qu'on y parle sur le passé composé et le participe passé, qui sont termes que je déjà connais. On verra comment ça se passe.

Alors les langues que je veux travailler pour cet année sont l'allemand, le français, le russe et le néerlandais. C'est un objectif un peu ambitieux, parce qu'elles sont difficiles à toujours pratiquer, les langues, mais j'espère que je m'en sors bien.

[Iván]

Last weekend I was in Cologne and I'm very happy that people didn't have any problems with understanding me and as long as they spoke clearly neither did I. I also bought some second-hand books in German (Harry Potter und der Halbblutprinz was one of them) and I'm going to start reading them. I'll probably end up using a dictionary for the words I don't know, but I'm also glad that I can understand a lot just from the context.

For French, I'm still following the course on Coursera and last weekend I met two Moroccan girls with whom I spoke French, English and Spanish. I'm really surprised how well Arabs can pronounce other languages. They told me they think it's easy for them because there are a lot of sounds in Arab which are also used in other languages.

For Dutch I've been watching some native media and listening to music, but still I don't use it too much on a daily-basis. However, yesterday a man asked me whether the tram we were in was going to a certain point and I understood him and replied to him back, so yeah. I need to be more consistent when it comes to speaking Dutch, though.

I recently joined a language exchange group in Antwerp which meets up every two weeks, so on the 21st I'll be there for the first time and will try to practice my languages.