I'm aware that Hiragana and Katakana used to be simply Chinese characters. I don't know how far back Kanji became the Kana, but does this mean that the sentence 魚は白いです (The fish is white) used to be written 魚波白以天"寸? When did the Kanji become Hiragana and Katakana?
 

I know that the word 耳新しい has both the meanings of novel/unfamiliar and something heard for the first time, but I'm unclear as to the usage of it in the first meaning. Can it be used idiomatically and refer to something unfamiliar in a sense not related to hearing, or is it strictly an auditory reference?

Thanks!

Hi there! This is the greatest community! Anyway, I was wondering if anyone knew the original characters for Never Forget by Kobayashi Issa; it's a wonderful poem, but all I've been able to find are English translations. I thought that if anyone knew, it would have to be you guys! Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

"Never forget:
we walk on hell,
gazing at flowers."
— Kobayashi Issa

Current Mood: cold

Quick question about slang: I seem to remember that "boat" can be used as an adjective, meaning something like "cool" or "sexy". "X is boat" ~ "X is fly". Is that right at all? And if, what are the connotations?

Regular dictionaries are not helpful, neither is urbandictionary.com, and my (poor) google-foo fails me.



(That's a t-shirt: http://www.topatoco.com/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=TO&Category_Code=BEAT)

EDIT: Thanks. ...Memory seems to have played me a trick. (Pity.)

"He was extremely jumping out of his skin,"

source

Thanks!

Current Mood: curious

I need help on a translation please. My grandma put "Szep almokat rozsas csokokat" on their gravestone (in hungarian) when my grandpa passed away when I was little. I don't remember if I asked my Grandma what it meant, but it's too late to ask her because my grandma passed away in 2003.. A couple years ago my mother found a woman who can speak/read hungarian, and the woman translated it to my mom. Sadly my mom doesn't remember the whole translation, but she said it had something to do with sleeping with roses...

This means a lot to me and I really like to know the translation because I've been curious for years. I know I didn't put any accents because I'm just learning the language..

Current Mood: hopeful

Hi everyone, this is in part inspired by the entry regarding favourite words in different languages. I'm curious to know your opinions on what the most 'musical' language is. I myself have always loved music and I think there are many connections with music and language.

Personally, I find Italian to be very musical, and Portuguese as well. But I'm not sure how much of this relates to the actual language itself, or as reflected in the personality of the speakers...I've definitely noted that the Italian people are very theatrical and animated in even the merest of day-to-day actions! and perhaps this is what is manifested, thereby creating the 'musicality' of their speech.

What does this say in English or romaji?

Here are some French and German textbooks from my collection that I don't need any more. These are all from the Concordia Language Villages immersion program and are pretty hard to come by elsewhere.

Sorry about the cell phone pictures; that's what I have to work with right now.

If anyone experienced in American Sign Language and/or Special Olympics and Special Education could help me with these questions, I would be very grateful.

I am a long-time Special Olympics volunteer and coach. Sign language is sometimes used by athletes with poor hearing or especially pronounced speaking difficulties but I have never met an adult athlete fluent in sign language, only children.

I know very little sign language but am intrigued by the interpreters I have seen. It is typical at large events (such as the Summer State Games) for there to be a sign language interpreter who interprets the speakers at awards ceremonies and the opening and closing of games. Among college-age friends I have from Special Olympics, especially those studying to be Special Education teachers, sign language is commonly taken for foreign language credit.

I was wondering if anyone was aware of noticeable differences in MR individuals using American sign language as opposed to average intelligence deaf individuals? Also, what considerations do Special Ed teachers have to take in when speaking to MR students and what areas of speech do such individuals typically have difficulty with?

I am an ESL tutor in Texas. I have two questions for you linguaphiles-

1- Next week I will be getting an intermediate- to advanced-level ESL student (a visiting Spanish-speaking lawyer) for a two-week custom class. I am wondering if anyone could recommend any resources I could use to help him work with his English-speaking clients. If you know of a website with Spanish/ English definitions of legal terms (or just English ones for that matter) I'd love to hear about them.

2- I have a special request for those of you in this community who are studying English; what websites do you use to help you learn English? What do you like about them?

Thanks, Yall!

There was a lot of security here in Toronto yesterday, when members of the Japanese royal family were visiting.

Can anyone tell me what these signs in vehicles say?

( どうもありがとう )

Strago Zabranjeno penjat se na Bunar.

I don't speak Croatian, but with the help of a dictionary it's easy to guess that this is the prohibition to climb on a fountain. Anyway, I don't understand what "strago" means. ("At the back"? Doesn't make sense, does it?)

How well do you think one has to know a language before being able to hear and place the accents within it? (The social, economic implications which one learns to attach to certain accents aside).

I would say my English accent placement for UK accents is fairly well developed - within London and for general swathes of the country (Welsh, Geordie, Black Country etc).

In Italian I can recognize that they are different, but cannot place it.
Same for Japanese.

Mandarin... well China is a different case of dialects ...

Haven't had a chance to hear French or German regional accents yet.

I could recognise a really obvious Russian accent in German... but probably not one that is intra-country.

What are your experiences?

Current Mood: hungry

There's a store that sells crepes in central Osaka called "Client". The katakana underneath the letters shows the pronunciation クリアン (koo-ree-an). I'm wondering if this comes from a language other than English because 1) the English word doesn't have this pronunciation, and 2) the English word has nothing to do with crepes.

TIA!

Hi fellow Linguaphiles,


do you know any languages that distinguish between various sorts of the first person in plural i.e. we ?  I can think about several different ones but I never heard of a language whose grammar would distinguish between them:

1) WE = ME + YOU i.e. the person(s) I am talking to

2a) WE = ME + the persons on whose behalf I am speaking and who are present

2b) WE = ME + the persons on whose behalf I am speaking and who are absent

3) WE = ME + YOU + THEM

In languages that offer a variety of pronouns that are related to levels of formality/politeness some of the above distinction could be delivered between lines - but are there languages that can do the same by simply using separate personal pronouns?

In the following passage,

Bakanın Çin boykotu hükümetten döndü Hürriyet gazetesinin haberine göre, Sanayi ve Ticaret Bakanı Nihat Ergün, Yozgat'ta Çin malları için boykot çağrısı yaptı. Ancak kısa süre sonra danışmanı "Bakanın kendi görüşü. Hükümetin böyle bir kararı yok" dedi.

how do you translate the bold part? I can't work out whether it's a definite izafet Bakanın [Çin] boykotu or an indefinite Çin boykotu. Any ideas how I would be able to tell for future reference?

Thanks guys and gals.

What is the exact meaning of English "debil"?
My friend, a professional translator told me that it is not the equivalent of the Russian "дебил", but many Russian translators translate debil as дебил so it is a kind of "popular mistake"
What is the meaning of debil? Is it a medical word? Can it be used to offend someone?

Hi guys, maybe those studying linguistics or simply more knowledgeable about this, will be able to give your feedback on this.

So I should probably know a lot more about the Dravidian family of languages, as my father's from South India, but I guess it's hard to keep up since I don't feel there's as much necessity to know these languages, is that just me/my opinion? (nearly every North/South/East/West Indian knows English!) my friend was asking me the following and regretfully i didn't know the answers. maybe you guys do. =)

1. which Dravidian language is most spoken, or there is more of a need for knowing, in the US? Specifically in major cities: like DC, New York, San Francisco, Seattle.

2. which one is hardest to learn?

3. which one is easiest to learn?

4. if i know one, does it make it easier to learn another?

5. Are there any specific similaries worth noting among any of them? Like for example, I think Malayalam came from Tamil, so I am wondering if these two are really more like dialects or like...very similar in the way Spanish and Portuguese are.

I haven't attempted to learn any other but Tamil, that's what we speak at home. so if anyone has any feedback, thoughts/opinions, would love to hear it!

I'm teaching myself Chinese with the textbooks Integrated Chinese Level 1 Part 2 (3rd edition) and Huanying 2. Being that I don't have a teacher around, what are some activities to put my language into use? What I currently do, mostly, is make up my own sentences in order to practice the language, but that gets tiring and monotonous after a while. A really useful tool to help me learn writing are the little character boxes for practice, which I probably won't get tired of. What are some more interesting ways to practice Chinese?

Quick question, as I am about to take a French Proficiency Test next week.

Are there any sites out there discussing French grammar in a simple and easily understandable way? I've tried hitting my old books but since the test has been scheduled so soon I fear I might not have the time to pick them apart in depth. (I'm stressed enough by the other exams coming up).

I used to be quite good at French in school but lost my touch due to the lack of conversation partners/pen pals etc. I'd really like to catch up again. (Vocabulary won't be much of a problem since we're allowed to use a dictionary.) But the grammar - which the test focuses on - will be vital.

Any suggestions to hit the net would be greatly appreciated!

Current Mood: bouncy

A classmate of mine got this tattoo...



She said it is Irish for "inner peace." Is that right?

I don't speak Irish but I know the dangers of getting a tattoo in a foreign language. :P

American English speaker, here - I have only the barest knowledge of Italian, mostly from having sung in it and partially from one of those "Italian in 10 minutes a day" workbooks, which has not been very helpful. So, I have a few silly questions, mostly regarding how to talk about cars - any help is appreciated.

I'm working on a fic that involves a young Venetian (Edit: exact location is undecided currently, but assume Northern Italy somewhere) man gushing to a close friend about his new car (the conversation is not in Italian, but I want him to slip into it when he gets particularly excited) - so, it's a very informal situation, and slang or expressions that a mid-twenties native speaker might use would be great.

According to my dictionary, the word for "car" is macchina. How general is this term? That is, does it just apply to, say, a sedan, or could one also use it for a pick-up truck, or a van, or something else? Is there a more specific word for a really top-notch sports car?

Can one refer to a car with the female pronoun? I often do this with my car, i.e. "her headlight is out," "she gets very good gas mileage," et cetera - so could/would an Italian use lei to refer to his/her car? Or is this even an issue (since Italian nouns have gender, whereas in English it's only a few inanimate objects - boats, sometimes other vehicles - that have a gender ascribed to them)?

I know that bello/a is beautiful or handsome - can this be used for an inanimate object? Can a car be bella, or would that be strange? I have an Italian dictionary, but I'm wondering what adjectives would be most appropriate for describing a really beautiful sports car, maybe even to the point of being stereotypically associated with that - especially things like a particularly glossy finish, its shape/build, nice leather interior, and whatever else a car aficionado would emphasize. Bonus points for descriptions that would border on ridiculous/obsessive or even amorous for comedic effect, if that's an acceptable thing for the language.

Alright, here is where I'm really worried about knowing so little. Am I correct in assuming that che magnifico is something like "how magnificent!" or "it's magnificent!" or something equivalent? And if I am completely wrong, which seems likely, how would I go about saying that (preferrably in the context of babbling near-incoherently over the telephone without entirely revealing what is so awesome)?

I'm probably not going to end up using all of this, since I definitely don't want there to be too much of a language that I don't know, but do I want to have my bases covered, so anything and everything is appreciated. Anyway, apologies again for my ignorance of the language, and thank you very, very much in advance!

Current Mood: curious

Could anyone advise me as to the best way of starting Japanese? My fifteen-year-old son's passion for anime has sparked an interest in learning Japanese that seems to be quite genuine.  He has not been the most successful learner of modern foreign languages so far but the difference between his success levels in those he has been exposed to seems to be down to the teaching methods.  He responds better to more formal tuition in grammar  - rather the way I was taught Latin, with verb tables and vocabulary lists - rather than the 'direct method' that is popular with language teachers and is presumably more successful with the natural linguists amongst us.  The which I am not.  His school, despite being a Language College, doesn't teach Japanese.  I'm quite prepared to pay for him to have group or even one-to-one lessons, which seem to cost about the same as the instrument tuition he has recently given up, but I have no way of judging between the various language schools and teachers offering their services in Cambridge.  Some appear to teach Japanese initially in the Roman alphabet, others get started straight away in Kanji (which from my experience of learning Hebrew sounds the better way to go). Any thoughts? And apologies if this is a much-asked question - LJ isn't the easiest place to search.

(Reposted here from my own LJ on alienor77310 's recommendation - thanks!)

Have started by ordering the DS game,  Let's Learn Katakana  & Genki 1 (from the Japan Centre - thank you supervesna ) - thanks to everyone for your very informative and enthusiastic responses.

Often news headlines are structured oddly and they just don't make sense to me, I'm curious if this one makes sense to anyone else.

Fate of pasture developer wants rezoned should be decided with good reasoning

"Fate of pasture developer wants rezoned"? To me that makes absolutely no sense.

ETI: Ah, soon as I post I realize a "which" or "that" put in there makes it make sense to me. "Fate of pasture which/that..." Any thoughts on that?

In Russian the popular word for male gays is "голубые" (blue)
but the lesbians are named "розовые" (rose)

Is it typical for other languages?
What the origin of these names?

My native language is English, and I've been teaching myself Brazilian Portugese for abou 4 months. No teachers, just books, and the internet.
How did you learn?

Current Mood: contemplative

For all who may be interested, the language study challenge linguathon is currently preparing for its 2009 commencement. Our goal is to study a language (or languages), daily, for one month, all the while logging our progress. At the end of the month, we can then look back and see how much we've learned. :) Hope to see you there!

(Please delete if not permitted.)

Привет!

I wanted to ask how you answer the following questions correctly in Russian:

Как дела?
Как ты?
Как твои делыа?

I understand in the big scheme of things they all mean "How are you?" but I don't think you can answer them all with "хорошо" for example. Or am I wrong? Are there any more ways to ask this question? EDIT: Also, how would you reply with a "And you?" in in example?

Спасибо!

hi everyone, i have a few more questions regarding some korean grammar/vocab.

1. i've so far come across two words for 'very' or 'really' which are 'chongmal' and 'chin'ch'a' and i wanted to know, how do you know when to use which? are there other words meaning 'really'?

2. how do you know when it's okay to omit the particles at the end of nouns (i/ga, eun/neun, eul/reul.) because of the formality levels/structure of korean, i'd be too afraid to do this, worrying that it might come across as terribly rude.

3. if pronouns are not used in Korean, like 'tongshin' for you - how do people know who is being addressed? is it all simply context?

4. what's the difference between all the various words for 'and'? I've so far come across 'kurigo' 'hado' and attaching '-do' to the end of pronouns, i think this is for saying 'me too' as in 'cho-do.'

5. is the same verb used for 'to be' and 'to have'? because i've come across the following examples: like, to say 'i am' i would use 'issoyo' but then to ask someone what they have, like when ordering a drink, i've heard you would ask 'mwo issoyo?' for asking 'what do you have?'

so i was just wondering for this clarification.

chongmal kamsahamnida =)

(X-posted to learning korean)

this was written about the band of a friend of mine and he would like to know what it means:
The Unbending Trees
Enginn texti til. Viltu koma upplýsingum á framfæri? Þú getur sent okkur póst á

I've studied Mandarin for two years now using Pinyin as my primary way to learn how to pronounce new characters. I have, however, also turned to IPA and Wade-Giles to try to get my pronunciation to be as accurate as possible. Recently, I became interested in learning Zhuyin. Despite the fact that it's only in wide use in Taiwan, how useful is it to learn it?

Setting up a cross-lingual dictionary, and I'm looking for source material. Japanese and Chinese have been covered (EDICT and CEDICT, respectively), but I'm keeping my eye out for others as well, especially one for Korean that includes hanja. Tried poking about the one on StarDict a bit, but couldn't figure out their formatting. Any other languages people know of open-source databases (or even just simply amassed word lists) for are greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

Just out of curiosity, which languages are spoken fluently in this community? I've always wondered how many languages (and dialects) are represented here. Go!

 ( Questions about Catalan studies and potentially going to a univeristy in the Cataluña province )

Hallo ihr!

Gestern Abend habe ich einige Leute kennengelernt, wobei einer davon mit einem sehr komischen Wort beschrieben wurde. Es fängt mit einem "a" an, und ich hatte es bis gestern noch nie in meinem Leben gehört. Als ich gefragt habe was es denn bedeutet, meinte er es heißt soviel wie "brutal". Nun verstehe ich gar nicht wie dieses Wort als Beschreibung einer Person benutzt werden kann (die in dem Moment nur getanzt hat, was für mich nicht unbedingt brutal ist) und was denn ein Synonym mit "a" dafür ist.

Danke für eure Hilfe!

hey linguaphiles!

I'm sure we've all come across those nifty phrases we could never have done without. For me, I make it a point to learn how to say 'Good morning', 'Thank you' and 'Where is the toilet?' (very important indeed) before anything else.

So what's your opinion of the three most important/useful phrases when you're learning a new language?

I'd like to ask everybody's opinion about 'mother tongue' and 'first language'. According to my copy of Oxford Advanced Learners, mother tongue and first language both refer to the language you acquire as a child and are most fluent in. When we use these words in everyday speech, do they include any connotations of race, culture and background? For example, if a person is Japanese does it necessarily mean that their mother tongue is Japanese? What about second and third (etc) generation immigrants who have lost the language of their parents?

Another question is, who do you call a 'native speaker'? Again, OAL says that a native speaker is one who speaks a language as a first language. I've always considered English as my first language simply because it's the language I'm most fluent in. But in my country English functions as a second language, and as a result I've never considered myself a native speaker of English.

What do mother tongue, first language, and native speaker mean to you? Does culture and society matter? Any random thoughts welcome :)

In my preparation for linguathon I am trying to find things I can watch in Finnish (preferrably with English subtitles at this stage). I'm having a right difficult time finding anything. Could anyone recommend me anything I could watch? Films, TV shows, etc.

Also, along a similar vein, do Finland have their own "version" of youtube? Like Japan has niconicodouga.

If you've got anything else you think is relevant please post : )

Kiitos!

Current Mood: sick

I'm making a D&D character, and I'm trying to think of a good name for my character.... Any suggestions for death-related words?

(Preferably using the English alphabet? Accents are okay)

Please and thank you!


Edit: Pronunciation help would be appreciated. :)

2nd edit: I'm an English speaker. Preferably something non-English.

3rd edit (third time's the charm, right?): Male. :)

Sorry to post twice consecutively.  Errr…another English question about past perfect.  

He had lived in Iraq for ten years before moving to Marlboro in 1987.  

This sentence said that he HAD LIVED even he had been living for ten years.  So I wondered why it cannot be said as 'had been living'.  And somebody pointed out that "LIVE" is the state verb; therefore we cannot use progressive form.  

And some other guy said at the point of 1987, everything whichever had been going on beforehand was over, so finished = perfect form.

But some other guy said that this sentence has two meanings; experience (because "before" was used) and continuation (because of "for" was used) so if LIVE was not the verb, progressive form could be used.

Hope you understand my point.

My question is this: the above states are all correct?

Current Mood: confused

What good introductory books are there on Japanese which rely heavily on romaji so as to avoid learning other scripts (initially)? It may be "lazy," I suppose, but I wish primarily to read things which can be run through a transliterator at will.

I'm also curious if any attempts have been made at, with any language, laying out the grammar/syntax formally, similar to as if it were the formal grammar/syntax of a programming language (cf. yacc/bison and EBNF)? It certainly would be interesting, albeit quite difficult with languages that make many arbitrary rule exceptions. I suppose I could look at what OSS rule based MT software there is, but I'm meaning something more laid out to teach a human.

One English nerd(Japanese) was saying something like this...

When she was in high school, she learned this idiom:

'all the more for + noun./because S+V.'.  For example, 'I love him all the more because he is dull'. Then she wondered why this syntax means she came to love him more because of his character (as being dull).  The English teacher replied "because 'THE' works as an adverb." Do you understand what does "THE is adverb" mean in this case? She said "ablative case" is the clue to analyze the sentence.  

I love him is the main sentence and then others are all adverb?

Current Mood: blah

( **ていく/てくる** teiku/tekuru question )

Is the word "brat" a very rude one or may it be used, say, to refer to your own child that you really do love but are temporarily dissatisfied with (like in "It' s 11 PM, and the brat is not in bed yet!")? If not, what would one use instead in a situation like this?

My friend asked me to find some sing along kid songs from Brazil for her and I was wondering if there were any japanese ones?

I'm thinking something along these lines:

( Read more... )

This time, it's off to the lovely Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, for a catchy little number about withholding tax rates (and I'm working on the French version).

Near the top, I've got three boxes on the right side, with the following (the first line is a title for the section):

ETAT CIVIL (cél., marié(e), veuf(ve), divorcé(e), separé(e))

_______ au 1.1.2009

_______ à p. du _______

_______ à p. du _______

-=-=-

The problem I'm having is trying to decipher the last two boxes, the ones with "à p. du" in them. What exactly is meant by this? I can see it's something to do with the marriage status of the declarant; the first line is obviously "as of", but what are the next two for?

Thank you for your time.

DUH. à partir du, of course. Sorry.

Does anyone know if there's ever been any proposals for a full scale reformation of French orthography? I'm quite interested in seeing what something like that would look like but I can't find anything - I'm guessing mostly because that's a pretty eccentric idea, and I'm the only person who doesn't speak French who could find that at all interesting.

I'm translating a rather technical text about wood-processing. In the part about forklift safety, the German text goes on and on about "Staffellegen" when loading a truck.

Does this refer to the way things are loaded on the truck from a forklift? To provide access for the forklift, I mean? And how would you call that in English?

Unfortunately I'm not all that versed in this subject. I have been googling for half an hour but couldn't find out anything useful. Thanks in advance!

Just for a change of pace...

I'm doing a project on chatspeak, in all its varieties, however it's sort of like Spanish for me: I can understand it well enough, but I can't generate it in any sort of a natural fashion. As such I thought I'd consult the community to try and assemble something resembling a comprehensive list of sorts. Examples from other languages are welcome, too! Just indicate what language it's for when you post it.

Also, as a bonus, if you have any favorite 1337 characters, fire away! Having trouble thinking of a good one for P (unless you want to cheat and use the thorn þ), if anyone's got some good suggestions. Once again, if there's an analog in a foreign language (particularly one that doesn't use Latin script), feel free to share!