Activity for Lundin
| Type | On... | Excerpt | Status | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Comment | Post #290214 |
For example the perhaps most common slip of non-natives is mixing up 3rd person singular verbs (is/was/does) with the other forms (are/were/do). Perhaps common to the point where native English people start to adopt the incorrect grammar as slang or dialects, "how's you". Not to mention Jamaican Engl... (more) |
— | 5 months ago |
| Comment | Post #290214 |
As a non-native English speaker I have noted that one difficult detail is knowing when to add and pronounce _-ally_ vs _-ly_. This is a somewhat frequent problem when writing and speaking both. _Occasionally_, not "_occasionly_". The impact of lots of foreigners not speaking something properly might ... (more) |
— | 5 months ago |
| Comment | Post #289988 |
Not really related to language, but counter-examples would be humor based on self-identification, nostalgia and similar. That is: some situation, theme, fashion etc which is very unsurprising and expected happens. Suppose you make a comedy movie taking place in the 1980s for example - the audience wo... (more) |
— | 5 months ago |
| Comment | Post #289957 |
"Asking for translations is a common and normal technique that novice language students use to learn their language of choice." Eh? I've never encountered such a learning technique at any time when learning foreign languages. It is on the other hand common that the teacher gives you a text and tasks ... (more) |
— | 7 months ago |
| Comment | Post #288389 |
Good question, I know a couple of Icelanders but I'm not entirely sure. I _think_ the custom is to always use first names. So if you are visiting the family of Jón Jónsson and Jóhanna Jóhannasdóttir, I think you'd refer to the family as "Jón and Jóhanna's". So it's not like English where you'd polite... (more) |
— | 11 months ago |
| Comment | Post #287886 |
This smells like an AI generated answer...? (more) |
— | about 1 year ago |
| Comment | Post #285711 |
Not as the first letter perhaps, but what about usage in the middle of a word? (more) |
— | over 2 years ago |
| Comment | Post #282933 |
I believe Guyana, Suriname and French Guyana might be such countries. See for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guyana. There are even more examples if you include Central America & the Caribbean. (more) |
— | over 2 years ago |
| Comment | Post #280895 |
When I translated this to another language, I was rather thinking "would a professional interpreter accept this?" As in, are all nuances of the original text preserved and no information lost? Now of course "English to English" is a special case. (more) |
— | about 3 years ago |
| Comment | Post #280895 |
Jargon and slang isn't really a synonym for language and definitely not for linguistics. Also I think you take way too many liberties with the original text in general. "Hi" isn't a synonym for "Welcome" and they are used in different contexts; you don't tell your guests "Hi to my home". (more) |
— | about 3 years ago |
| Comment | Post #280869 |
I take it that no abbreviations are allowed? Your link says they may or may not be allowed, but it isn't clear. I'd say that they shouldn't be allowed. (more) |
— | about 3 years ago |
| Comment | Post #280844 |
Is it enough to just make the text comprehensible even if it sounds odd? For example "(human) languages" could be translated to "(Man) languages", which sounds weird but gets the meaning across. (more) |
— | about 3 years ago |
| Comment | Post #280383 |
It would need to be a separate category, not to disrupt the main Q&A. Maybe a general "challenges" or "fun" category. (more) |
— | over 3 years ago |
| Comment | Post #280275 |
I think this is a thing of tradition and etiquette rather than grammar. (more) |
— | over 3 years ago |
| Comment | Post #279971 |
Swedish got "leja" = "to hire" too, fairly synonymous to "hyra". Though "hyra" is more broad/generic and can also be used as a noun for rent, just like English "rent" is either a verb or noun too. (more) |
— | over 3 years ago |
| Comment | Post #279971 |
Yes this prefix is what got me curious about the word, because if you add o to _hyra_ (rent, lease), you get ohyra :) Though apparently those two words aren't at all related, _hyra_ probably originates from somewhere else entirely, it is similar to English _hire_. (more) |
— | over 3 years ago |
| Comment | Post #279893 |
Interesting answer, thank you! Now come to think of it, Swedish has _ohygglig_ (hideous, abominable) which is also an old word and likely related too. (more) |
— | over 3 years ago |
| Comment | Post #279477 |
Maintaining this through tags and ensuring that people add the right tag would be a nightmare. This will create tons of re-tagging busy-work. (more) |
— | over 3 years ago |
| Comment | Post #279321 |
@ curiousdannii "I am specifically interested" and "I am only interested" are different things. The introduction of this pronoun originated from the trans gender debate specifically, even though the origin of the word comes from feminism. (more) |
— | over 3 years ago |
| Comment | Post #279290 |
I thought SE owned the copyright to everything posted on their network as per some Terms of Service? (more) |
— | over 3 years ago |
| Comment | Post #279112 |
Though obviously, cultural influences are one of the main reasons for language changes. Britain has a historical tradition of getting invaded, by the Romans, by Saxons, by Vikings, by Normans... each group leaving their mark on the language. (more) |
— | over 3 years ago |
| Comment | Post #279112 |
Speculating: I would imagine that ancient languages that were mostly spoken rarely written got complex for that reason. Also dialects and local differences would cause complexity. But once you establish a national standard for written communication, this ought to set things straight over time. Even m... (more) |
— | over 3 years ago |
| Comment | Post #278909 |
Overall I would think that Danish and Norwegian would have more influences from English, since most viking immigrants in the UK came from those countries, less so from Sweden (and Iceland, which in early middle-ages was rather a place you'd immigrate to rather than from). I think all Nordic countries... (more) |
— | over 3 years ago |
| Comment | Post #278909 |
Well, that comparison is _very_ subjective :) For example the word "ikke" also exists in Swedish - "icke", with the very same meaning. Except in Swedish, "icke" is formal/archaic and "inte" is modern, but you can use both. It is interesting to note that Swedish doesn't have double k "kk" though, alwa... (more) |
— | over 3 years ago |
| Comment | Post #278797 |
Btw French is about as inconsistent as English in this regard, and we shouldn't even mention the Nordic languages. I'm thinking most languages are fairly inconsistent here, with lots of different suffixes. Likely because in ancient days, they referred to a group of people before that group even forme... (more) |
— | over 3 years ago |
| Comment | Post #278802 |
Isn't the -i also in Latin? (more) |
— | over 3 years ago |
| Comment | Post #278592 |
@tommi Ah right, I totally translated that one wrong. Will update, thanks. (more) |
— | over 3 years ago |
| Comment | Post #278483 |
Or in case you keep excavating more text, you might just get lucky and find a Rosetta stone. That is, some object in an ancient language that we know (Greek, Latin etc), which in turn can be used to decipher even older languages. (more) |
— | over 3 years ago |
| Comment | Post #278240 |
I found lots of interesting reading on the subject at Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Germanic_languages. There seem to be no historical claims that any of the languages are somehow more "progressive"/"conservative" than the others. (more) |
— | over 3 years ago |
| Comment | Post #278240 |
It's going to end up rather subjective to attempt an answer of this, I think. Some words in modern Norwegian sound like old fashioned Swedish to Swedes and vice versa. "Spørga" for example has the direct Swedish equivalent "spörja", meaning exactly the same thing, except this is archaic Swedish that ... (more) |
— | over 3 years ago |
| Comment | Post #278150 |
The context seems to be him giving examples of words imported from other languages, gentry originating from French and referring to noblemen, easy enough to Google, [see this](https://www.etymonline.com/word/gentry). What makes you think it has any special meaning? (more) |
— | over 3 years ago |
| Comment | Post #278105 |
Isn't this just yet another case where foreign terms/names were changed in English just for the sake of it? Although the French pronunciation is "tambre" so it isn't that far off. (more) |
— | over 3 years ago |