zompist bboard

My girlfriend has a subscription to Språknytt, the quarterly publication from the Norwegian Language Council. Two articles caught my eye in this quarter's edition, and I thought I would draw your attention to them. The first is more details of the new standard for Nynorsk . Generally, a lot of the m...

I hate memorizing vocabulary, I see it only as a painful thing you do when starting to learn a language where most roots are alien (e.g. Chinese). And even then that's only for familiarization purposes with the words, using a single simple translation. (Unless you want to spend a huge amount of tim...

I didn't know of anything else with that acronym. :( What's a special repair service? It really stands for "spaced repetition system". It's about software like Anki, Supermemo and others, that encourage route memorization using flashcards, but going over them or a fraction of them every day or so o...

Skomakar'n wrote:

Åge Kruger wrote:2. Use an SRS

Sexual reassignment surgery?

No, don't be silly, Special Repair Service.

intelligent -> clever -> sly -> tricky -> fiddly

Necktie

I thought the tips were for learning many languages, so I didn't give any, but if I were give to give tips on how to learn any language, I would say:
1. Spend as much time as possible with the language
2. Use an SRS
3. Shadow

naïve --> honest --> advisor

Next: teddy bear

I recently read in an online debate the Norwegian innovation en mørk - "a dark", for a person with dark skin. I am yet to read "en lys" for someone with light skin, but hope springs eternal for a full range of nouns to describe someone's skin colour with exceptional precision - "I was served by a fa...

The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors, su...

I think you misunderstand my intent. I was highlighting the hypocrisy inherent to the fact that Geert Wilders gets away with so much more than me. Everyone jumps on me every time I say anything remotely negative about the South or rural white as if I am talking about racial genocide. So why don't t...

But that's exactly the problem here, isn't it? You're applying American politics to a situation where it is entirely inappropriate. In fact, you've fallen into the trap of saying the same sort of things that bourgeois Norwegians say about country people and rural dialects. But aren't rural people m...

Modern Norwegian is more democratic, and is stereotyped as being more poetic. I'm quite surprised that you'd rather be associated with the literati and sophisticated-classes, than the working-man, but to each his own. Well, keep in mind the left in America has by far the most traction among the edu...

I would definitely go for Bokmål myself, given that it sounds more literary and sophisticated which obviously meets my purposes. Of course it depends on what you are planning to do with your knowledge of Norwegian and such. Modern Norwegian is more democratic, and is stereotyped as being more poeti...

They get someone in to teach that one person Dzongkha on a very slim position (like 5% of a normal position). Yeah but, where are they gonna find someone who speaks that language? In my class, there were two boys who spoke Somali. They hired a woman to come and talk to them in that language. She wa...

How can people say this is fine ? Because native English speakers don't expect perfection from foreigners, and have a huge tolerance of linguistic variation when it comes to non-native speakers. Of course, is this just the tip of the icemountain. While you may think there is something muffins with ...

Icelandic does in fact use triple consonants when a word ending in two is compounded with one starting with the same letter. The most commonly example is probably þátttakandi (participant, part+taker: þátt+takandi). But we can have fun with this: rassskítur (assshit), kopppiltur (pottieboy) and sul...

finlay wrote:... why call Nynorsk by a made-up English name if you're not also going to call Bokmål "Literary Norwegian" or something?

Okay, I've come up with a sufficiently derogatory name for Dano-Norwegian, so from now on, I'm going to be calling it Brokmal - trouser pattern.

Epicaricacy

Gulliver wrote:My smelly boyfriend started French in year 3 (aged 7),

And that is why he smells.

In Sweden, you start learning English the day you begin school. Is that so? Because I didn't start having English classes until second grade, and my sister not until third. That was 1998 and 2001, respectively. My class had English from 4th grade on (age 9-10). But those who were one class further ...

In Sweden, you start learning English the day you begin school. Is that so? Because I didn't start having English classes until second grade, and my sister not until third. That was 1998 and 2001, respectively. My class had English from 4th grade on (age 9-10). But those who were one class further ...

finlay wrote:... why call Nynorsk by a made-up English name if you're not also going to call Bokmål "Literary Norwegian" or something?

Because Modern Norwegian needs all the help it can get, and i don't care to give Bokmål anymore prestige than it already has. This is politics, nothing grander.

If one was to learn Norwegian, would it be a better idea to learn Nynorsk or Bokmal? I would guess Bokmal, but I'm not sure. That depends entirely on what you're going to be using your Norwegian for, and also how you plan on learning it. Today, there is only one book in English for learning Nynorsk...

I remember reading in a magazine article about Sweden that the only person with whom you'd use the formal pronoun in Sweden is the king. Is that true or is that one of these "how quaint" stories journalists like to make up? There was an interview recently with the King (he's been a very naughty boy...

I remember reading in a magazine article about Sweden that the only person with whom you'd use the formal pronoun in Sweden is the king. Is that true or is that one of these "how quaint" stories journalists like to make up? There was an interview recently with the King (he's been a very naughty boy...