Aiming.

Dear fellow language-learners. 

As you may have noticed, this month is all about habits and promises and resolutions and whatnot. Let's make a short summary of how to say these things in the languages spoken at the Playground.

• English: Habit. Goal/aim. Motivation. Success. Failure. 
• Finnish: Tapa. Päämäärä. Motivaatio. Onnistuminen. Epäonnistuminen. 
• Swedish: Vana. Mål. Motivation. Framgång. Misslyckande. 
• Spanish: Costumbre. Meta. Motivación. Éxito. Fracaso. 
• Polish: Obyczaj. Cel. Motywacja. Sukces. Porażka.
• Russian: привычка. цель. мотивация. успех. неуспех.
• Slovak: Zvyk. Cieľ. Motivácia. Úspech. Zlyhanie. 
• Hungarian: Szokás. Cél. Motiváció. Siker. Kudarc. 

Mango & Peach Smoothie

This mango & peach smoothie is refreshing and the lovely color is energizing. [Oh. Let's learn languages the smoothie-way..] The following ingredients are needed for 2-3 servings:
1 mango
1 apricot
Some orange juice
Skimmed milk.

Just throw everything in a mixer and enjoy.

Prísady: mango, broskyňa, pomarančový džús a mlieko bez tuku

Składniki: mango, brzoskwinia, sok pomarańczowy i mleko beztłuszczowe.

Ингредиенты: манго, персик, апельсиновый сок и обезжиренное молоко

Oops. [Language Challenge]

This week, while working on my language project/challenge, I realized that I had completely forgotten one of the essential rules of goal setting - having a tangible goal. 

How can I really see any improvement if I don't know where I stand and have no idea where I am heading?

In order to solve the issue I decided to jolt down all the words that I could think of in Slovak in order to define my current level. The solution is far from ideal because it wasn't thought through. I also don't believe that the amount of words can be used to measure one's level in language.It doesn't work that way - in the ideal life, quality should come over quantity.

Apart from this mishap, I am quite happy about the challenge so far. I have done some writing, I have learnt some new vocab. All in all, it's fun AND it's a way to kill time on the train. 

Básnik sa modlí za deti

In my Slovak book (Slovak for You) there is a wonderful poem written by Milan Rúfus and I thought I would share it with you.

I have translated the poem into English and Swedish. Both translations are below. At the end of this post, you will find a youtube video of another text by Milan Rufús. Listen to it, and you will hear what a wonderful language Slovak is.


Básnik sa modlí za deti 

Nevedia prečo,

no vel'mi im to treba.

A možno ešte viacej ako chleba.

Aby im v duši pusto nebolo.

Aby ich mali radi okolo.

Aby im bolo mäkko

ako v mame.

Ked' bolia veci, ktoré nepoznáme,

tu každé diet'a,

plaché ako laň,

na hlave musí cítit' teplú dlaň.

Bože,

o takú dlaň Ťa l'udské mlád'a prosí.

V čase, ked' ešte ani nevie, Kto si.

Nášiel Ťa hore ten džavot tenkých hláskov?

Nášiel. Dal si im liek.

A nazval si ho láskou. 

The Poet Prays for the Children

Not knowing why,

but it was to them very necessary.

Perhaps even more so than bread.

So that their souls would not be empty.

So that they would be loved.

So that they would feel as soft

as in their mother.

When the unknown hurts,

here each child,

shy as a dove,

must feel a warm hand on her head. 

God,

the human youth is begging You for such a hand.

In a time, when it does not yet know, Who you are.

Did the chatter of thin voices find You up above? 

It did. You gave them a remedy.

And called it love. 

Poeten ber för barnen

Utan att veta varför,

behöver de det så mycket.

Kanske även mer än bröd.

Så att de inte känner sig tomma i själen.

Så att de blir älskade. 

Så att de känner sig mjuka

som i mamma.

När det okända gör ont,

här ska varje barn,

skygg som en duva,

känna en varm hand på sitt huvud. 

Gud,

en sådan hand ber människobarnen dig om.

I en tid då de ännu inte vet Vem du är. 

Hittade pladdret av tunna röster Dig däruppe?

Det hittade dig. Du gav dem ett botemedel.

Och kallade det kärlek. 

Moja ranná káva (SK: my morning coffee)

Ahojte!

Ako sa máte? Tu je všetko dobré.

I'm currently visiting my parents, or to be more precise - their dog. My parents are off travelling this weekend and I am having a loooong weekend from work. In a while I'll also need to defend my thesis. Then, what?

I'm quite happy about having been able to work on my Slovak this week. SJ (the main train operator in Sweden) had quite a chaotic week, which gave me loads of time to study Slovak.

The material that I use for my Slovak adventure is a book called Slovak for You by Ada Bohmerova. It's not the most interesting textbook I have seen, but it serves its purpose. I'm also carrying around on the Little Prince (Malý princ), attempting to read it once in a while.

My problem when it comes to Slovak is that I understand it. Is that a problem? It sure is! Because I understand quite a bit, I don't make much of an effort to actually memorize the Slovak version of words and grammar. The other day I was trying to put together some sentences, which was very hard as I intuitively wanted to use the Polish alphabet instead of the Slovak one. Silly me!

I believe that one can learn a lot by analyzing words and sentences. So, let's analyze the "Ako sa máte?" 

Ako sa máte? How are you?

Ako = how (compare with jak in Polish and как in Russian)
sa - this is actually a reflexive formant, which belongs to the verb mat' (to have).
máte = they have.

Conjugation of mat' and nemát' 

Ja mám - ja nemám
Ty máš - ty nemáš
On, ona, ono má - on, ona, ono nemá

My máme - my nemáme
Vy máte - vy nemáte
Oni, ony majú - oni, ony nemajú

And how to reply...

• Ďakujem, dost' dobre/celkom dobre. Quite well, thank you. 
• Bohužiaľ, nie vel'mi dobre. Unfortunately, not too well. 
• Dobre/ nie dobre. Well/ not well. 

The Multiple Language Experiment - Summer 2014

A while back I wrote about picking up some of my old languages.  I have given this some thought and have decided to do a little language project as I finally have the time to do so. I spend a total of 80 minutes on a train each working day, so why not spend the time efficiently.

3 languages. 5 days a week. 5 weeks for each language. 15 weeks.

The languages are Slovak, Polish and Russian. And this is how I'm going to do it:

• Day 1: Read from a book or other text
• Day 2: Read an article on current affairs
• Day 3: Translate the article into English
• Day 4: Translate a poem into English
• Day 5: Write a short story

I will be starting with Slovak because it is the weakest of the three languages. The goal is to be able to produce something in the language, a written text.  We will see how it goes.

Pravda [SK: Truth]

Pravda

Pravda! -- Ja o nej poznám veľa.

Jej hlas mi vždy bol najdrahší.

Bohovia si ju nerozdelia

v hre pri hazardnom mariáši.

Jej trpezlivým slovom večným

kdekto sa lživo honosí.

No jej sú cudzie sladké slečny,

neznáša zlaté podnosy.

Pravda je ako voda v studni

-- čistá a prostá, hlboká.

Pravda je úsvit nezáludný,

ktorý ťa budí z obloka.

Je v tvrdých dlaniach zapísaná,

zasiata v brázdach našich čiel.

A nie je ťažká žiadna rana

na cestách, ak si za ňou šiel.

Ján Majerník,  Stalo sa, 1978

Truth

Truth! --- I know much about her .

Her voice was always the dearest to me.

May the Gods not break her

in the game of hazardous poker.

On her eternal voice of patience

many would falsely pride themselves.

Indeed, hers are strange sweet ladies,

 not carrying golden plates.

Truth is like water in a well

-- pure and simple, deep. 

Truth is the non-deceptive dawn

that awakes you from the window.

She is written in the hard palms,

planted in the furrows of our aims.

And on the roads no blow 

is heavy, if you'd gone for her yourself.

Ján Majerník,  Stalo sa, 1978 - translation mine

jednoduchosť [SK: simplicity]

Jednoduchosť je najvyššia sofistikovanosť

frustrácie

Empty screen. Google won’t find what I want. Words in Slovak, words in Polish fly by. My own words are numb. The sun is shining outside, the craving for coffee is growing larger.

Hello from Sweden. 

Slovak is pretty amazing [Považuj každý deň ako svoj najlepši]

One more day in this country. For now. Oh-oh. I will miss it – will try to keep learning some Slovak in the future – even though I haven’t been so active about learning it since I moved here, mostly because of the constant lack of time.

At this moment in time I understand Slovak pretty well, but when trying to speak it, it all turns into a fabulous mix consisting mainly of Polish with some Russian and some Slovak thrown in.

Anyways. I think proverbs are fun, so I decided to post some Slovak ones. See how pretty the language is? And wise? You other Slavic speakers may practice your guessing skills….

 

S pravdou najd’alej zajdeš.

Človeka pri pijatyke a pri hre poznáš.

Silená modlitba nejde do neba.

Na zajtra je len hnev dobre odkladať.

Do domu, kde láska byva, slniečko sa rado diva.

Kto nemá v hlave, má v pätách.

Premôž svoj hnev, pokým je malý.

Považuj každý deň ako svoj najlepši.

Lepši chlebik v pokojí, ako koláč v rozbroji.

jar sa blíži [the spring is approaching]

The Slovak word for spring, jar, is quite interesting as it reminds of few other Slavic languages. In Polish spring is wiosna, in Russian and in Ukrainian it is весна. In the Balkans the word for spring are quite similar: in Bulgaria one speaks of пролет, in Serbia it is пролеће and in Croatia – proljeće. The only version being close to the Slovak version is – not so surprisingly - the Czech jaro.
My point? There is none – except that it is a lot of fun comparing languages.

One thing I’m often thinking about is the mutual understanding between languages and where to draw the line. Say, I am fluent in Swedish – does that mean that I’m capable to function in Norwegian? My initial reaction is no! Even though I might understand some of the things the other person is saying - I might be able to read a book even – the risk of being misunderstood or to misunderstand is too great! It is very often, however, that I find myself alone with this view. In general I think that the limits of languages knowledge are too fluffy. It is often the case that a long list of languages on the CV looks great, the higher the level the better. Insight into one’s own skills is often forgotten. Countless are the times people have claimed to be fluent in English – until they had to write a piece in advanced English or talk to someone from Ireland. Fluency – to me – means that one is able to communicate fluently no matter the context.

What I’m trying to say here is that one’s language skills are often judged based on what a subjectively written piece of paper says. Sometimes there are such things as language testing, but if these tests are not carried out by professionals, then what kind of a result do you expect?
And then there are those who have worked hard to acquire a foreign language and speak it like a native. That should be the goal and you who have done it, you are a great inspiration!

(this post was supposed to be about the wonders of wearing a leather jacket after a long winter, but oh well – I got a bit carried away)

Kde je moja káva? Posledné dobrodružstvo.

 

Practicing my Slovak.

Now you too know how to ask where your coffee is and say recent adventure. Life has been quite an adventure lately. I don’t have the energy to stress about it so I decided to start giggling instead. I think that’s a good rule. Giggle. The day will always end and a new one will be starting tomorrow.

How about the adventures?

 

Some time ago I went crazy in the supermarket. The result: a lot of fruit. What can one day when the fruit cravings kick in? The adventure? Carrying them home.

 

After a year and a half in Bratislava, I’m starting to find my way. The other day I realised that the main sights are visible in almost all places in the city. Here I was standing at Racianske Myto. looking at Slavin. To my left I could see the castle.

 

Adventure: trying to capture the sunrise. This is the view from my office. I am not complaining!

 

I don’t know how many times I have mentioned the fact that I like duck. Actually, the cabbage is the best, then the potato pancake and THEN the duck. We have found a really cosy place (recommended by a friend ages ago but it took some time to locate it) in central Bratislava. The food is good, the service is good, the prices are good. And they serve duck and salmon and other tasty things. So I strongly recommend Pulitzer!

dnes (SK: today)

 

Dnes som unavená. I am tired today. It’s good to know all the essentials in a foreign language The second cup of coffee (with some Arabic spices) is being emptied, while I’m pondering about the schedule for today. I need to make some pea soup, start painting (!!!!), start on an assignment for sociology class, go to Raca (one of the districts of Bratislava, also known as the producer of many good wines), buy some eye cream etc etc etc.

Maybe the correct word is not unavená, but rather ohromená (overwhelmed).

Language note: adjectives in the Slovak language – very much like other Slavic languages – need to agree in gender and number with the noun. As I’m one female, I’m unavená and ohromená instead of unavený and ohromený.

byť či nebyť, to je otázka [SK: to be or not to be, that’s the question]

Poďme to urobiť po slovensky…

Dnes budem…

byt’ láskavá.

počúvať.

dýchať a byť v pokoji.

 

Slovak word of the day: múdrosť = wisdom

Which leads us to…

mudrc = wise man, sage

múdry = wise

 

Ever wondered about the declension of Slovak adjectives?

Here’s an example:

singular
	masculine animate	masculine inanimate	feminine	neuter
nominative	múdry		múdra	múdre
genitive	múdreho		múdrej	múdreho
dative	múdremu		múdrej	múdremu
accusative	múdreho	múdry	múdru	múdre
locative	múdrom		múdrej	múdrom
instrumental	múdrym		múdrou	múdrym

plural
	masculine animate	masculine inanimate	feminine	neuter
nominative	múdri	múdre
genitive	múdrych
dative	múdrym
accusative	múdrych	múdre
locative	múdrych
instrumental	múdrymi

blizkie ,'the close ones'

This week I have entertained myself with reading reports on poverty in Russia and Bulgaria. The perception of poverty in these country makes an interesting read, but it will not be the main topic of discussion today. Instead, it will be the words близкий – near, close.

This word appeared in the Russian report and there was something similar in the Bulgarian one, so of course I needed to do a little comparison between my main three: Russian, Polish and Slovak to look for similarities.

	Russian	Polish	Slovak
	близкий	blizki	blízky

 

While we are at it. Say hello to my new friend - привет моему новому другу:

Russian	Polish	Slovak
сова	sowa	sova

Getting the Essentials: Myslím, že potrebujem kávu. Veľa kávy. Dobré ránko!

 

It’s always positive if one knows how to express one’s need for coffee in foreign languages.

And then to a completely different topic. I’m writing an interesting essay for my advanced sociology class. The other day I bumped into a very fascinating story about Democracy in Latvia. There is a website called Manabalss, where citizens may propose and sign proposals for legislation to the Latvian parliament. 10,000 signatures are needed before the parliament will take the issue on their agenda. How cool isn’t that?

The European Union actually has something similar in the European Citizens’ Initiative.  However, gathering 1 000 000  signatures from 7 countries might be require more effort and mobilisation. I believe that the Lativan version of this idea might be more effective.

život [sk: life]

View from work. Pohľad z práce.



Autumn is here. Jeseň je tu.




I love colours. Milujem farby.



Thursday. Štvrtok.



Wake up! Prebuď sa!

Status: Slovak

Natalie asked about my progress in Slovak, so I thought I’d write an entire post about it, as it has caused me a fair amount of musing and wondering - not Natalie’s comment, but the whole learning Slovak thing. I would like to say that the question is very useful for me as I get to analyse how far I’ve come in about a year.

So. How is my Slovak coming along? Ako je môj slovenský? Ďakujem za opýtanie!

• Understanding spoken Slovak is no big deal – depending on the person speaking. This might sound funny, but sometimes I understand 95% of the things people are saying, but at other times the level of my understanding is about zero. Wow, good job! Written Slovak is not so difficult but it requires a lot of concentration. Grammatical constructions etc. are not a big deal, but it takes time to become familiar with some of the letters and new vocab.
• Communicating in Slovak goes so and so. I survive in most places; I can buy food, wine and get myself out of trouble. In some cases my Slovak is not as perfect as it could be (i.e. there are lots of  Polish words thrown in), but in general people seem to understand what I want to say. I have not done much to learn writing in Slovak, though. Shame on me!
• So what have I been doing in order to (not) learn Slovak? I have not gone to classes, mainly because I think it’s difficult to find someone who shares my vision of how to learn foreign languages. Further, my schedule has been übercrazy as always. I have had some language exchange, which has been helpful. However, my main tool for learning the language has been the method of translation and comparison. I have translated some poems, some articles on current affairs, etc. while simultaneously comparing the language to those I know – Polish and Russian. In the hope of getting some great grasp of the language, I have decided to jump over the beginning steps (such as learning how to complain about a sore throat ).

 

 

Čo som mohla urobiť lepšie? What could I do better?

• Time, time and more time. This is the main requirement for learning any language. Time is a scarce resource in my world. Combine this with the knowledge that I don’t really need to know Slovak for any purpose, and the disaster is almost unavoidable. However, there is the will to at least translate stuff. Translating is fun and it gives one the opportunity to dig deeper into the essential being of a language.

Fortunately, the status of my Slovak is not as bad as for the pharmacy on our street:

Closed due to technical reasons

Polish vs. Slovak: what’s the difference?

 

How does one compare two language in a truly objective fashion? This is an interesting question, especially in cases where two languages are related and sometimes claimed to be mutually intelligible. The main reasons I‘m spending a fine Saturday morning for this type of philosophizing are a) I have a personal interest for these two languages; b) I personally find it annoying when people claim to know a language when they can guess what it means (such a noble reason to write this post!), and c) it is fascinating to see how languages are interrelated and where their actual connections lie. 

The problem may be approached in several ways. I have made a small table comparing Polish and Slovak, but, as it turns out, it does not say much, it does not show the differences.

Language	Polish	Slovak
Native Speakers	40 million	5 million
Language subgroup	West Slavic	West Slavic
Number of letters and sounds in alphabet*	47	46
Numbers of cases	7	7
Difficulty rating**	Category II	Category II

 

As mentioned above, this table does not say much more than that there are a lot more Poles than Slovaks on this planet (or, more correctly, the table shows that there are more Polish native speakers). Let’s compare the same text in the two languages instead:

UN Declaration of Human Rights in Polish

Artykuł 1

Wszyscy ludzie rodzą się wolni i równi pod względem swej godności i swych praw. Są oni obdarzeni rozumem i sumieniem i powinni postępować wobec innych w duchu braterstwa.

Artykuł 2

Każdy człowiek posiada wszystkie prawa i wolności zawarte w niniejszej Deklaracji bez względu na jakiekolwiek różnice rasy, koloru, płci, języka, wyznania, poglądów politycznych i innych, narodowości, pochodzenia społecznego, majątku, urodzenia lub jakiegokolwiek innego stanu.
Nie wolno ponadto czynić żadnej różnicy w zależności od sytuacji politycznej, prawnej lub międzynarodowej kraju lub obszaru, do którego dana osoba przynależy, bez względu na to, czy dany kraj lub obszar jest niepodległy, czy też podlega systemowi powiernictwa, nie rządzi się samodzielnie lub jest w jakikolwiek sposób ograniczony w swej niepodległości.

….

 

UN Declaration of Human Rights in Slovak

Článok 1

Všetci ľudia sa rodia slobodní a rovní v dôstojnosti a právach. Sú obdarení rozumom a svedomím a mali by sa k sebe správať v duchu bratstva.

Článok 2

Každý je nositeľom všetkých práv a slobôd, ktoré zakotvuje táto deklarácia, bez ohľadu na odlišnosti akéhokoľvek druhu, ako sú rasa, farba, pohlavie, jazyk, náboženstvo, politické a iné presvedčenie, národný alebo sociálny pôvod, majetok, rodové alebo iné postavenie. Ďalej sa nesmie robiť nijaký rozdiel na základe politického, právneho či medzinárodného postavenia krajiny alebo územia, ku ktorým osoba prináleží, či už ide o krajinu alebo územie nezávislé, poručenské, nesamosprávne alebo podrobené inému obmedzeniu suverenity.

….

 

My interpretation and analysis of these two texts is dependent on my earlier experience in Slavic languages. A person with no experience in any Slavic language might not see what I see. I can see several similarities between the two languages, in terms of both vocabulary and grammar. I must, however, admit that whereas my ability to understand Polish increases my ability to understand Slovak, it does not increase my ability to communicate and express myself in Slovak. It might be easier to get a grasp of Slovak, but I still have to start from zero.  And the differences? The spelling is an obvious difference; other differences worth mentioning are the case endings, verb endings, prepositions etc.

 

* including digraphs and trigraphs

**http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:Language_Learning_Difficulty_for_English_Speakers

First (Official) Sentence In Slovak

First “official” sentence with my “teacher”/language exchange partner J. Now, I wonder why I’m talking about going home early in the morning instead of leaving the house. It might be my dirty mind playing tricks on me.

Interesting note: domov is pronounced like domou.