zompist bboard

Twas the night before Allsaintsmas...

I went to a Deaf pub night and successfully and non-inanely conversed in BSL all night. I'm rather pleased. Can I say I speak four languages now?

In the next month, I'm restarting a PGCE (post-grad teacher training), starting a BSL course and launching a pilot scheme helping young people with disabilities get paying work. Also, it's my birthday soon. I start my NQT year on Monday. Pretty terrified. What are you doing your PGCE in? FE/post-16...

In the next month, I'm restarting a PGCE (post-grad teacher training), starting a BSL course and launching a pilot scheme helping young people with disabilities get paying work. Also, it's my birthday soon.

Roedd yr wythnos yma yn dda iawn. Roedd y gwaith yn gyffrous a cynhyrchiol. Roedd fy nosbarth arwyddiaith yn dda a wnes i ddysgu llawer o pethau newydd, a wnes i ddysgu cafodd y nosbarth lefel 2 ei gadarnhau e. Ddoe, wnes i fynd nofio anwar gyda ffrindiau yng Nghymru a roedd hi’n braf. Dw i’n mwynh...

Also do Welsh people really talk like that?! I would be extremely embarrassed if I'd talk like that, haha ! Ugh, not really. That's a very exaggerated, and false, example. Also, he has the most plummy, actory accent I've ever heard as his "normal voice". It's that weird not-quite-posh-just-really-o...

Shrdlu wrote:or maybe I'm just stupid.

No, jStor is irritating.

I went for a six mile run and it was lovely but I think my legs might fall off.

It's a mixture of fencing I got off freecycle as firewood and broken pallets. My local Wicks has a box of free scrap timber out the back, and I got a carload of broken pallets out of a skip in a reclamation yard by asking nicely. Do you know any builders or plumbers? Anyone who usually has to pay to...

I've just built a raised bed! I only paid for the nails, so that's good. I'm going to build another one soon, and I need to get my hands on some more free compost, as mine has been mined as much as was possible. God tupping dammit, shoveling compost is hard work. I'm trying to gather the energy to w...

Ketumak wrote:I'd recommend Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke.

This is one of my favourite books. You should all read it right now.

I've got alpine strawberries right in the middle of my vegetable patch - they're pretty hardy and pretty tasty. I just bought a load of seeds actually. Mostly boring everyday things like leeks and beans and the like. After last summer's crappiness, I think I should stick to boring northern European ...

(Whatever happened to Viktor?) I do not know but whatever it is it is a good thing. I seriously hope it doesn't transpire now that he has in fact died in a horrible accident. Don't be mean. We're friends on Facebook and he seems to be doing well enough. I like his posts about nice houses. I'd call ...

It likely depends on the language, and I'm sure there's a huge amount of variety, but I'd go for genitive in the majority of cases.

Have a read about different cases on Wikipedia. The detailed stuff can be a bit overwhelming at times, but use the examples to help you understand it.

Yeah, and it's not very searchable when you want English > PGmc. :/ But I couldn't find any better "dictionary". Do you know of one that's online or downloadable? (Almost) everything I know about PGmc I learned from Wiktionary . (Cue people not taking me seriously anymore.) turns out wiktionary pro...

I agree that your topic is to big for a BA thesis. You mention Bible translations being "obviously less interesting" but folk tales being "good". Why don't you contrast the language used in the two? Describe how L1 writers write differently to L2 writers? That's still quite a big topic, though.

So do you have a name IYD for this handy little contraption? https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/de/Moka2.jpg/180px-Moka2.jpg [This is a compact form of percolator for brewing espresso which sits directly on the burner of a stove.] I think I should call it a mocha moka, but I thi...

Everything mentioned so far is pretty solid. What sort of resources do you have access to? A university library is a wonderful thing, but Wikipedia might have to do. Find a book on number. Read it. It will have lots of examples of number in different languages. Find a book on gender. Read it. It wil...

I dreamt last night that a load of ZBBers were organising an orgy in the next town over from me, but only me, Pthag and Imralu could make it, and Pthag only stayed to have a drink. I don't think Imralu and I banged, but I think we had a hug. I can't remember anything else.

My Latin American friends used to refer to us as gringo and gringa , and I remember a discussion between a Mexican and a Bolivian as to whether it meant American or white person . The Bolivian used to refer to her Australian flatmate as "mi gringa", whereas my Mexican housemate told me I wasn't a gr...

Thomas Payne's Describing Morphosyntax is excellent for learning some of the different morphosyntactic strategies and categories that can be found in various languages. I'm less well-equipped to suggest books on contemporary theories--most recent introductory textbooks will probably have some helpf...

It has always baffled me since young age and it only occurs to me now to ask this community: How in the world did people (travellers, missionaries etc.) learn compeltely new, completely unrelated langauges with which they had no prior contact and no-one who understands the foreigners' language? Wit...

I've heard of a scruple. black indian eskimo gypsy You'll be pleased to know that "black" is the de facto term for black people in the UK, Indians come from India (although you might be talking about American Indians which probably wouldn't be said on the news but I don't think anyone would poop on ...

That layout is tolerable, but the entrance door needs moving. The door location is a good location for a dining table, so having the door there is awkward. Your kitchen is itself too small for a table and to have it anywhere but near the kitchen is awkward and weird and a potential carpet disaster....

IDo languages *have* to change over a certain period of time? Also, are certain types (e.g. an agglutinative language, or one containing a certain phonemic inventory) of languages less likely than others to undergo (certain) sound changes? (an example would be if a language specifically avoided ful...