Macaronic radio

By Simon

I listened to some Cantonese on RTHK this morning, and while I didn’t understand everything, I could get the gist of the news stories. Then I saw that RTHK has a Mandarin channel as well, so I listened to that for a while and noticed that when they had outside reports and interviews, many of the reporters and interviewees spoke in Cantonese, which wasn’t translated into Mandarin. I assume they don’t bother with translation because the majority of their listeners can speak both Cantonese and Mandarin.

Other radio stations do the same sort of thing – Radio Cymru doesn’t translate bits in English into Welsh, and source], and it comes from the New Latin macaronicus, from Italian dialect maccarone (dumpling, macaroni) [source]. As it is usually used for humorously or satirically , it might not be the best term to describe this type of language use on the radio.

Are there other radio or TV stations that assume their listeners are bilingual or multilingual and that leave segments in other languages untranslated? Do any such stations do so for more than two languages?

Grok

By Simon

Grok [ˈɡɹɒk] / [ɡɹ̩kʰ] is a word I came across today in an email, and though I’ve encountered it before, I wasn’t sure what it meant. I thought it had something to do with programming as I’d only seen and heard it used in that context.

According to the Oxford Dictionaries online, grok is a verb meaning:

  1. to understand (something) intuitively or by empathy
  2. to establish a rapport

The Wiktionary definition of grok is as follows:

to grok (verb, transitive, slang)

  1. To have an intuitive understanding of; to know (something) without having to think (such as knowing the number of objects in a collection without needing to count them)
  2. To fully and completely understand something in all its details and intricacies.

The American author Robert A. Heinlein originally coined the word grok and used it in his 1961 novel Stranger in a Strange Land, in which it was a Martian word with a variety of meanings such as “water”, “to drink”, “life”, or “to live”, and also had a figurative meaning that is hard for Earth people to grasp [source].

When learning languages I aim to absorb them, to know as much about them as possible, and to speak them without having to think too much, or in other words to grok them. I’m not a big fan of this word, but it fits what I’m trying to do with languages.

Are there words with similar meanings in other languages?

Puzzle

By Simon

A visitor to Omniglot would like your help deciphering the writing below. It comes from an old silk painting which appears Chinese, or maybe Japanese.

Writing from old painting

The bit on the left appears to be a signature which I think is 三抆向 (San Wenxiang) and perhaps the name of a town 圓山？ (Yuanshan ?) – a small town in Taiwan.

The other bit of writing might be a poem, though I can’t make out all of the characters (reading vertically from right to left): 昚中斑 (shèn zhōng​ bān) 一面二有​ (yī​ miàn èr yǒu​). The characters in the third row from the right might be Chinese hanzi: 力夕？石 (lì xī​ ? shí), or Japanese katakana: カタノ石 (ka ta no shiki), and in the next line 二而？ (èr ér ?). I’m not sure about the characters in the last line.

Mice, muscles and mussels

By Simon

Larry, the official mouser at 10 Downing Street

Today I came across the German word Mäusefänger (mouse catcher) in an article, sent to me by a friend, about the cat that recently took up the position of chief mouse catcher at 10 Downing Street, the official residence of British Prime Minister David Cameron. Number 10 apparently has a bit of a problem with mice, and there’s a long tradition of keeping cats at the prime minister’s residence and the treasury.

Mäusefänger is made up of two words: mäuse, the plural of maus (mouse), and fänger (catcher, fielder, interceptor, trap). Maus, which is of course related to the English word mouse, comes from the Proto-Germanic. *mus (a small rodent), from PIE *muHs- (mouse) [source]. The word muscle comes from the same root, via the Latin musculus (muscle, lit. “little mouse”), as does mussel, via the Old English muscle/musscel, and the Late Latin muscula [source].

While looking up some of the words in the article, I came across a useful German dictionary, canoonet, which not only gives information about German words (in German), and links to dictionaries for other languages, but also has grammatical information, such as noun and verb conjugations. There is also a Morphologie-Browser, which shows the words derived from a particular word – here’s an example with the word sehen (to see).

Spolubydlící

By Simon

I came across the Czech word spolubydlící [ˈspɔlʊbidliːtsiː] on a blog I read today and was pleased to realise that I could work out what it meant from its constituent parts. Spolu means together, byd is related to bydlet (to live), I didn’t know what lící signified, but correctly guessed that the word meant “house mate / roommate”.

I learnt spolu (together, along with, jointly, in company with) yesterday in the Czech lesson I was working my way through. It appears in the context, Musíme si někdy spolu zahrát (We must have a game together sometime). I’d come across bydlet before in such expressions as Bydlím v Praze (I live in Prague) and Bydlíte tu někde blízko? (Do you live somewhere near here?).

Other words containing spolu include:

  • spoluautor – co-author
  • spolucestující – travel companion, fellow traveller, passenger
  • spoluhráč – playmate, team mate
  • spolumajitel – co-owner, joint owner
  • spoluobčan – fellow-citizen
  • spolupráce – cooperation

By the way, what do you call someone you live with or share a house, flat, apartment, room or other dwelling with?

I would say house mate for someone you share a house with, flat mate for someone you share a flat with, and room mate for someone you share a room with.

Remembering words

By Simon

When learning a language one challenge is to memorise the vocabulary, and to be able to use it when you need it. I’ve tried a number methods to do this: repetition, flash cards, SRS, associations and so on. A method for learning individual words that works quite well for me involves making associations between the sounds of the new words and familiar words, especially if I build mental pictures to illustrate the words and their meanings. For example, a Welsh word for field is maes, which sounds like mice, so I picture a field full of mice.

Another way to remember things that I came across the other day involves giving inanimate objects character and life. The example I found discusses using this method to remember where your keys are:

[…] imbue your keys with character and life: this is my preferred gambit. Think of your keys as a living, breathing creature, and you’ll automatically know where they are.

Our brains like living things, it seems, they have more time for them.

Specifically, I deliberately experience my keys as a needy brood of motherless koala-bears on a hoop. When I drop them somewhere, my mind quickly wonders if they’re warm and comfortable, away from predators, in need of some amusing noises from their owner.

The location they’re in thus immediately gains my interest and attention, so I remember it automatically.

After reading this I started wondering whether you could do the same for words – endowing words for inanimate objects and abstract concepts with life and character might make them more memorable. You could also give masculine or feminine characteristics to nouns as appropriate. For verbs maybe you could picture conjugations as accessories – hats, scarves, gloves, bags, etc.

Snídanĕ - Czech word for breakfast

I haven’t actually tried this yet, but will give it a go and let you know if it helps.

The image on the right is a possible way to remember the Czech word for breakfast (snídanĕ) with the breve over the e filled with breakfast cereal and milk.

Have you tried this memory trick, or similar ones?

Ceathairéad téadach

By Simon

Oíche Shathairn chuaigh mé chuig cheolchoirm san ollscoil leis Ceathairéad Benyounes, ceathairéad téadach de chailíní óga bunaíodh i 2007 nuair a bhí na comhaltaí ag déanamh staidéir ar an Coláiste Ríoga Ceoil an Thuaisceart (Royal Northern College of Music) i Manchain.

Sheinn siad píosaí leis Hayden, Webern agus Beethoven, agus bhí siad go hiontach ar fad. Bhí sé cinn de na píosaí leis Webern an-ghearr, neamhthonúil agus beagán aisteach, ach dá ainneoin sin bhí siad suimiúil.

Pedwarawd llinynnol

Nos Sadwrn mi es i i gyngerdd yn y prifysgol gan Pedwarawd Benyounes, pedwarawd llinynnol merched ifanc y sefydlwyd yn 2007 pan roedd y aelodau yn astudio yng Ngholeg Brenhinol Cerdd y Gogledd (Royal Northern College of Music) yn Manceinion.

Mi ganon nhw alawon gan Hayden, Webern a Beethoven, a roedden nhw yn wych dros ben. Roedd chwech o’r alawon gan Webern yn fyr iawn, yn ddigywair ac yn ryfedd, ond er hynny roedden nhw yn ddiddorol.