zompist bboard

(being quickly supplanted, to my utter dismay, by the word "app" )... I'm not so sure about that. First, "app" is just short for "application". "app" seems to be reserved for programs on a mobile device such as an iPod/iPhone/iPad or Android. No, people use it for all programs. I think it's the onl...

I seem close to Lyhoko.

Just asked my family, and they tell me that they never use either, but stick to "I got" nearly all of the time, something that I must listen out for!

I only realised after watching Countdown today that "got" is considered the correct British past participle, which came as quite a shock. Looking this up, I can't seem to find any definitive answers on this, just vague references to perceptions on both sides of the Atlantic. I've been thinking about...

I've been told my Icelandic is pretty much perfect, and some people even asked me if I were Icelandic when I went there and told people that I live in Sweden. I got a "oh, are your parents or one of them German" today, which I suppose is a step in the right direction! Once again though, I don't kno...

But the same can't be said for some of the more arbitrary changes. Sorry, but even after all this time, "Rad fahren" and "auf englisch" simply look wrong to me. It's supposed to be "auf englisch", "auf deutsch" etc.? I'm almost sure I've never seen that used once, and I started learning German a qu...

But the same can't be said for some of the more arbitrary changes. Sorry, but even after all this time, "Rad fahren" and "auf englisch" simply look wrong to me. It's supposed to be "auf englisch", "auf deutsch" etc.? I'm almost sure I've never seen that used once, and I started learning German a qu...

Irish wasn't reformed for centuries even though it had completely and utterly simplified, and even when it was reformed (and changed writing alphabet too to modern Roman), there's still a handful of silent letters lurking around. I've found the contrast between French and German quite amusing. Frenc...

By this I'm assuming you're asking about people who started learning the language when they were significantly old, like 20 years old or so? Kids who've managed to get a native-like accent aren't hard to find AT ALL. Yes, and the more isolated they've been the more remarkable I find it. For example...

It seems to be a trend for immigrants to not just pick transcriptions which sound "English" but also correspond with already existing "English" names. However they knew these English names is beyond me but I've seen several times where a name was transcribed more to relate to already existing names...

Funny how the father is Rocheford but the kid Rochefort. It's even funnier when you learn he later changed his name to Rushford. Still not a patch on the Polish and Jewish immigrants to Britian and presumably the USA too! Our present Justice Minister, Alan Shatter, is a good example. His grandfathe...

A lot of young Dutch people in Amsterdam have very good ( almost native sounding) accents. I know lots of people with almost native accents, and lots more people with absolutely excellent accents that I couldn't pinpoint as being a certain nationality (which I'm told I have in German). I have rarel...

I was just browsing through Omniglot, and I spotted a guest blog post on accents ( here ). The author says that he knows a lot of people who speak English with no discernable accent, and the same happened to him in numberous different languages but not Dutch. However, I, and a number of the commente...

I forgot that it was "briste", because "fear" is masculine, right? Yep, I think! Learned those rules only recently, even though I've been learning Irish for years (I think that's the problem with the Irish education system, but by the changes in the course for Leaving Cert. recently, obviously nobo...

Is fearr fear cliste ná fear bhriste. (I totally made that up, I'm not sure if that works) Briste, so close, provided you want to mean a clever man's better than a broken man. Is í a chúis sin ná fuil éinne fágtha a bhíonn á labhairt! Dáithí Ó Sé agus a athair, sin an méid is docha! :P Scríobh a at...

Nach aisteach go gceapfá go mbeadh sin amhlaidh? An raibh leabhar agat ón Siabhaileach nó rud éigin faoin nGaeilge na Gaillimhe? Muna bhfuil, níl ach cuimhní mí-cheart agam! Tá suim agam féin sa Ghaeilge na Mumhan chomh maith, fiú go bhfuil an caighdeán á úsáid agam de gnáth. Sílim go bhfuil sí an ...

linguoboy wrote:

Skomakar'n wrote:Har-har-har.

Cad atánn tusa a dhéanamh anso?

An bhfuil Gaeilge na Mumhan á úsáid agat i gcónaí? Cheap mé go raibh suim agat ar Ghaeilge na Gaillimhe!

Béar doesn't appear in the eDIL at all, so I'm wagering it's a relatively recent loan. I checked this a few hours ago in de Bhaldraithe's dictionary who certainly wouldn't be listing Béarlachas from the last 50 years or so, and he lists béar first, and then mathghamhain (something like that!) which...

"John gave me it" is perfectly grammatical, and probably the preferred phrasing, in SSBE. Well, not preferred, because of the 'it' - it's not unusual to say 'gave it to me' to make it clear when there are two pronouns. But with a noun rather than a pronoun, it's definitely preferred - "I gave John ...

A child of an native Irish speaker married to a Japanese lady I know says that he understands everything his mother says to him in Japanese, but he needs to be immersed in Japanese for a few days to actually be able to speak Japanese properly, because he normally he replies in English.

It's not that rare in Ireland that two non-native Irish speakers would raise a child in Irish outside a Gaeltacht. And obviously they have fluent English too, even if they don't really speak it at home.

The crust (which I eat as a normal piece of bread by the way), though I'd recognise the heel of a loaf, even if I wouldn't say it. And sleep in my eyes, never sand or anything like that.

Never seen anything like that, but this is a cone (ice-cream cone really I suppose), or a ninety-nine, from it's (historic) price, particularly if it has a chocolate flake.

Soap wrote:Nor do I ever have to connect letters to other letters.

Neither do the Greeks from what I've seen. And I do something similar to what you've written too.

There aren't that many English acronyms I've noticed with a small letter (the scientific dB & pH come to mind), but some languages seem to use them a more, for example the German GmbH (Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung) & Gaelic TnaG. pH and dB are different, the latter is a scientific prefix, ...

Yeah... you can tell the difference between Latin <v> and <u>, can't you? not in handwriting, no You're joking?! In handwriting one joins at the top, the other at the bottom with a descender (well, whatever you call a vertical line that doesn't ascend or descend), couldn't be more different really....