( A request for miscellaneous help. )

Imagine that you spent years learning a language, actually taking classes and finishing a complete course at a language school, but then stopped practicing it completely. What would you do to somehow recover your knowledge, given that there is no chance of getting any private classes or going back to school?

I'm more or less used to learning on my own, so far it's worked very well with French and Italian and a bit worse with some other languages. My problem is now Spanish. I used to speak it rather well, that course thing mentioned above finished after C1, so my language was more or less at that level. My listening and reading skills almost haven't dropped since then, I can write relatively well, but whenever it comes to speaking, my brain freezes. If I do grammar exercises from a book, I can still remember most of the rules but those grammar constructions just don't come to mind when I'm writing something. I won't even mention what basic constuctions I use while speaking... Then I've become too shy to talk to native speakers because of the stupid language barrier. We actually communicate with my Spanish roommate like this: she says something in Spanish, I answer in Italian (Italian is the language we use in the house with other roommates).

I guess I can say my Spanish has switched from active to passive. So, the question is: how do you regain active knowledge? Books? What kind of books then? The ones with just grammar exercises don't help much, they just help me remember how much I've forgotten. Typical classroom books? Writing essays? Any tips are welcome)

I'm tagging posts for a comm on LiveJournal and I need a term or a noun or a short description for religious persons ie: monks, nuns, priests, fathers, vicars, imans, etc etc that covers all faiths. The best I've come up with is 'religious persons' which doesn't seem right at all, in fact it sounds rather lame. I seem to remember there is a French term, 'religous' (apologies for the spelling) which might work, but then again might not as memory is now telling me could refer to nuns *sigh*

Any ideas??

Not sure what to tag this as.

I wonder how Hispanophones write (with a pen on paper) the reverse exclamation mark (¡): from top to bottom (as the 'i' character) or from bottom to top?

I'm sorry if this is a silly question. It feels like it ought to be obvious and I just can't think of it...

I was just explaining to someone the difference between comparative and superlative forms (specifically, we were talking about 'worse' and 'worst') and I couldn't figure out what the first type of word is, like in the group of bad, worse, and worst. What do you call 'bad'? A quick google search on my phone didn't turn anything useful up, so I thought i'd ask here while I'm curious about it and don't have any other resources at my disposal.

Hi there,

Something in the text below I don't understand and type it in bold. The author is an English doctor, and she wrote the text some 60 years ago. Will you please explain what did the author mean by 'paying lady probationers'. Does it all mean that 'paying...' is equal to 'hiring lady probationers'? If so, why a nurse doing her 1st year of work (and being not so experienced) was managing her house-commetee and forced them to pay bills and all? Or maybe I follow wrong way...

Remedies, in my mind, are frequently associated with people, and this one [remedy] always recalls a nurse of the old hospital days who was trained in the days of the paying lady probationers. She was spartan, practical, competent and very, very stern, managed her house-commitee with a rod of iron, they dared not to say anything to her, but just bow to the inevitable and pay the bills for the things she considered necessary for the small hospital of which she was in charge.

Thank you in advance

My regular translator is off on a business trip and I need to bring a couple cards along to a party tomorrow. Could y'all please check my text? My usual mistakes are endings and capitalization.

Liebe C,
Alles gute zum 40sten! Liebe, Glück, und Gesundheit wünschen wir Dir zum neues Lebensjahr!
Alles liebe,
A, B, & C

Lieber J,
Zum Taufe wünschen wir Dir alles Liebe und alles Gute für die Zukunft! Schön, dass Du da bist.
Alles Liebe,
A, B, & C

I'm also happy to hear suggestions! Thank you very much!

Is there a word for when a trademarked name works its way into a language as the general word used for that item? A few examples in English I can think of are Bandaid, Kleenex, and Thermos. In German there's Tempotuch (a brand of pocket-sized tissue packs) and a few others. Is it just a subset of metonymy, or is this something entirely different? I'm also curious about examples from other languages.

On the radio today, I heard an advertisement for an upcoming local concert called z104 ShagFest. Among local beachgoers, shag is slang for dancing. I'm familiar with the BrE shag, but I have no idea whether it's still used in a sexual context.

My question is: would this name be amusing to non-AmE speakers? For that matter, AmE speakers not from Eastern Virginia or the Carolinas?

Today's "Official Google Blog" has confused me quite a lot. At the beginning of the second paragraph is the statement

"...I’m excited to announce today that our Motorola Mobility deal has closed."

My first thought was - that's an odd thing to get excited about. I carried on reading, looking for an explanation of (a) why Google were no longer dealing with Motorola and (b) why this was exciting. I didn't find one. Having reached the bottom, still in great puzzlement, I finally realised that I'd missed the title: "We’ve acquired Motorola Mobility". Which is presumably exciting.

So my questions:

(1) Do other speakers of British English find this an odd way to phrase this announcement? Did/would you read it as something having ended?

(2) For speakers of American English - is this a standard phrasing? Does the word "closed" ever mean "ended", or does it always mean "signed and sealed"?

Sorry to bother you all with a translation request, but my Filipino friend wrote something in Ilokano in my yearbook and I'd love to know what it says!

( Click for text. )

Current Mood: grateful

Inspired by this post, same question: what's your favorite curse word in a non-native language?

I like Scheiß, altercocker (I dunno how to spell it in Yiddish) and oye mama huevos, which is more a phrase than an actual word.

I'm currently reading the novel "Lucifer's Hammer" by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle (although at this point it's more a matter of making myself finish it, because of a number of issues that make me cringe, but that's not what I'm posting about).

Although I'm normally pretty good at understanding English-language idioms and jokes, there's a recurring joke (?) I don't get, which Google didn't help with either.

( I said the words aloud several times while posting, and I now suspect this might be something crude, so have an lj-cut )

--"So weird…", thought I and repaired to the theatre.--

Is this a correct punctuation? I can't remove the ellipses here because it's in the Russian original from which I'm translating.

My mother (British) used to use the French word "autre" (or something that sounded like it) to describe something that had gone out of style (passé) . . . always with a comical mock-affected, intonation . . ."Oh, my deeeeeeear . . . that is so "autre," don't you know?"

I tried to Google the word this morning to double-check the spelling, and came up with nothing. I'm starting to wonder if I misunderstood what she was saying?

Ring any bells with anyone?

English speakers always doubt if they would sit on russian "scar maker". If you explain them that it is a diminutive form of "scum ya" they anyway keep doubting.

Hello, I come with two unrelated English questions.

1) I’ve often heard the phrase “The world is your oyster” (or, my, his, her, or whatever pronoun fits the context).

I understand what the phrase means, but I am puzzled by the word oyster. Can anyone explain where this phrase comes from? I really don’t understand and I’m curious about how the world can be likened to an oyster!

2) I’m writing a short Downton Abbey fanfic. Is “knocked up” a term O’Brien would use when talking to Thomas about somebody who accidentally got pregnant?

I came across a character on a youtube video that I was wondering about, and I've no clue what it is.

( Youtube video and MS Paint picture ahoy )

For the video, you want to skip to about 10 minutes in to see it. Any clue as to what it is?

Current Mood: curious

Hi! I hope it's all right to ask this here.

I've just been offered to translate a 320-page novel from German into English, and I'm not sure how much to charge for that. I've worked as a German/English translator in a professional capacity before (TV shows, websites and movies), never gotten any complaints, but I am *not* a native speaker of English. So of course I can't ask the same price as a native speaker would. I've never tackled a novel before and I'd really love this gig, so I want to offer them a "beginner's price" or something. But for that, I first need to know what the "usual" asking price would be. I've looked online, but translation rates seem to differ wildly depending on who you ask. Does anyone here have any experience with book translations and can share some advice? I'm looking for rates in Euros since I'm working from Germany. Many thanks in advance.

I was trying to figure out if a Japanese DVD I bought eons ago came with the freebies from first press. The Japanese website says this: "初回仕様 連動応募用紙封入、「仔雅-komiyavishiki-式、ネズミ講」推奨用"巾着"付(終了)". Miyavi is the name of the artist, Komiyavi is the name of his fanclub. All I can get out of that sentence is "First press: Coupled with an application form letter for the Ko Miyavi Pyramid Scheme; we recommend using it as a "purse"." What the hell? Thanks for any help.

This might actually be more of a cultural question, also I can't tag at the moment. I apologize.

But here's my question.
I'm reading a (rather terrible) novel just now and there's the quote, [She was] alarmed [...] by the Dean's willingness to quote Shakespeare at a civilised dinner party.
What is wrong with quoting Shakespeare? Maybe I should add that the novel seems to be set around 1894 in England, although the character who is alarmed here is from New York.

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPad.

How would you call this sort of sleeves
http://foto.rambler.ru/preview/r/500x500/447df16f-3f43-fa33-9ed9-2519a1833eae

Can Spanish and German speakers recommend me some famous pieces in literature, speeches, or poetry that are often committed to memory in their respective countries? Where I grew up in the US, in school everyone memorized things like Lincoln's Gettysburg address, Paul Revere's Ride, the preamble to the constitution, the Raven etc. Obviously this is going to differ hugely from country to country, especially with Spanish, but I'm interested in memorizing pieces of historical and culture importance, things that your average Joe is going to be familiar with. Thanks for your input!

dear Linguaphiles,
any help with the following phrases will be much appreciated:
Il nous permet certes de comprendre Walter Benjamin à nouveau frais mais [in a new light?]

Berdet en fait ressortir cinq grandes « familles » et, tirant un fil de l’oeuvre du philosophe ["tirant un fil"--not sure], dégage ce qui pourrait en former un principe commun [their common principle?]

Renoncer, y compris dans la conception marxiste, à une conception positive de l’homme, constitue le seul moyen d’en déployer [not sure] toutes les possibilités dans l’histoire

once again, many thanks in advance!

Do you say graduate or graduate from? As in, I graduated college yesterday vs. I graduated from college yesterday. Along with your answer, please say your age and where you grew up. Thanks!

 
( I'm Russian and I don't get it :) )


Could somebody explain it?

UPD. Thanks! And I just wanna say that all of you comforting me about this joke are very very nice people and I love you ))) The joke isn't the funniest one in the world, but it's ok)

Could someone please tell me what "жэстачайшэ" means? I ran across it on some anti-Lukashenko propaganda, and although I get a ton of google hits on it, I can't figure out what it means from context. (Other than that it's not complimentary and seems particularly related to Belarus.)

A while ago I read an article in tempo.co.id which says ahad (dd/mm). So I'm sure it's the name of the day.

I'm an indonesian but I wasn't aware we are changing the name of the days @_@ is there any other name changes to the other days of the week?

hi, first time posting here.

I have only one question. Is there a popup English-Spanish dictionary like Rikai-chan? Doesn't matter what kind of browser I need, I just thought I could really use one.


Thanks in advance.

You're probably familiar with the notion of a self-describing pangram, e.g. "two As, one B, one C, two Ds, thirty Es, five Fs, four Gs, eight Hs, eight Is, one J, one K, one L, one M, seventeen Ns, sixteen Os, one P, one Q, eight Rs, twenty one Ss, sixteen Ts, four Us, three Vs, four Ws, three Xs, three Ys, and one Z"

I've written a program that facilitates the search. Here's what I got for French ("la lettre B", hence "une B" - please correct me if I'm wrong; I'm not sure if French uses plural -s for individual letters? ):

Cette phrase ne contient que cinq a, une b, six c, cinq d, vingt-six e, quatre f, deux g, trois h, quatorze i, une j, une k, une l, une m, dix-neuf n, cinq o, quatre p, neuf q, sept r, huit s, quinze t, dix-neuf u, deux v, une w, sept x, une y, et trois z.

Hey linguaphiles,

I've got another Russian question: in the sense of "to learn" (not "to teach"), is there any difference between учить + accusative on the one hand, and учиться + dative on the other?

For instance, can I say either "Я учу русский язык" or "Я учусь русскому языку," or is only of the two correct? Is there a difference in connotation? Does it matter whether I'm talking about a language or about maths, a musical instrument,...?

Thank you.

Dear Norwegian speakers!

 How would you translate a phrase: silver sounds over mountains?

I don't know Norwegian at all, the dictionaries give two variants: sound and klang, what's the difference and what do you

recommend using in this case? Thank you!

upd
sounds used a a noun

Hi,
I'm hoping to come up with a definitive list of the languages my great grandparents would have spoken. They all came to New York after World War I, from the late 1910's to the mid 1920's. I believe they would have spoken Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Romanian, German (and probably the Bavarian dialect also), Yiddish, Hungarian and, some English. Please let me know if you believe I'm leaving anything out or if anything should be taken away. Below are the list of places they were from and info I have gathered pertaining to what languages they may have spoken. This is just a personal curiosity of mine in researching the linguistic diversity of the country a century ago, especially as it pertains to my ancestors. Any help would be much appreciated.
Best,
Hunter


Gura Humorului, Bukovina, Romania (part of Austria-Hungary before 1917)
Also Gura Humora, hometown of paternal grandmother's father

Nuremberg, Germany
Hometown of paternal grandmother's mother - earlier Kingdom of Bavaria - probably spoke Bavrian dialect in addition to German

Smila, Cherkassy, Ukraine (then Russian Empire)
Hometown of paternal grandfather's parents - Ukraine became a republic in 1917, before part of Russian Empire

Mariupol, Ukraine (then Russian Empire)
Hometown of maternal grandfather's father - historically high Greek population, but not sure if non-ethnic Greeks would have spoke Greek - Ukraine became a republic in 1917, before part of Russian Empire

Poltusk, Poland
Hometown of maternal grandmother's parents - Part of Russian Empire, when Poland was taken over after Napoleon's defeat by Russia, 1815-1918

EDIT: I forgot about this thread here with language documents of my great great grandparents from a few years ago.

Could you please help me translate the following phrases from German into English? They're for a webpage:

- Unterhaltung mit Tiefgang

- Psychologie mit Spass

- Entertainment, aber geistreich

Thank you!

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPad.

Is there a Russian equivalent for the English word "flaky?" Failing something that encodes all the nuances of "flaky," what about just plain "unreliable?"

Is there any difference between "voguish word" and "vogue (adjective) word"?

Hello! I have an exchange between two modern characters in Chinese (any dialect/style/etc will do). The though of using GoogleTranslate just makes my skin itch, and the phrase I'm aiming to translate isn't one you'd find in a travel book.

1. "We were attacked by Falcom's magic whore." [(He's referring to a female character with minor regenerative powers, FYI.) Falcom is the proper name of a company. It would be nice to have that converted to script as well, but if not possible, not the end of the world.]

2. "Say again." [As in a polite request to repeat oneself. I found a translation on Yahoo!Answers, but I'm not sure if it's legit.]

Thanks so much in advance for all your help!

Dear linguaphiles,

According to my dictionary, робкий and застенчивый are only partly synonyms. Could anyone explain the difference between these words? Are there contexts in which you would use only one, never the other?

Thank you.

How do you pronounce the name of Sacheverell Sitwell? Thanks in advance.

Just a small Finnish question. I found something today that details the names of the fingers in Finnish, and I was curious if anyone has any idea why the other four fingers have names, but the fourth finger is called nimetön. Does it have no name, or is nimetön the word that specifically refers to it? And in any case, why is it called that?

As long as I'm asking about this, I'm also curious about the names other languages use for fingers. What are they called? Or do some languages not have any specific names beyond "fingers"?

X-posted to learn_nordic

I saw this picture and thought it looks interesting, but since I don't speak Russian, I don't understand what the words on it mean.

( I should probably put a trigger warning here. It's not really bad, but there does seem to be a suicide reference )

What are common non-medical terms for 'experience orgasm' in various languages and what are their literal meanings (like come in English, go in Japanese, finish in Russian etc.)?

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.

Does anyone know what this says?

Off topic, but how stupid is this guy if he genuinely did get a tattoo on his arm off of a takeout container?

ETA: Apparently it says Wing Chun, so the guy was making a funny about getting it off a takeout container.

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for a good (online or hardcopy) Russian-English dictionary, one that doesn't just list translations, but rather explains the difference between perfective verbs (e.g. порезать, разрезать, отрезать). Does such a dictionary exist?

I know Russian-Russian dictionaries would be ideal for this kind of thing, and I do have one of those, but I don't have the vocabulary to really use it yet.

Also, if anyone could explain the difference between порезать, разрезать, and отрезать, that would be awesome, too. :-)

Thanks for your help!

I have a question : Among the fans of the cartoon show "My little pony" started an argument about a pony named "Derpy" , some people said that "derp" or "derpy" was an insulting and discriminating US-American word against people with disabilities.
I never heard it before and thought it was supposed to be "derby" meaning "sports competition" according to my dictionary.

Is there a list of all name kanji and commonly-used kanji that can crop up in names (with meanings)? Or a generator of Japanese names or something?

I know there's a list of name kanji  and commonly-used kanji on Wiktionary, but clicking them doesn't bring up their meanings and there's so many of them...

Help!

Here is a fluoroscope film of a man pronouncing various sounds and phrases. You may find it interesting to see the lip and tongue mechanics of producing the sounds.

I'm curious about the sounds he is making - do they have linguistic significance? Is it an alphabet in a language I don't speak, or various um ... phonemes or diphthongs or something? Clearly I don't have the academic background to recognize them. And what is the usefullness of the sentence "I have put blood on her two clean yellow shoes"?

I've decided to be more serious about my occasional attempts to learn Russian. I have taken it in school, but continuing formal study isn't really an option at the moment, so I'm just going to self-study.

This probably doesn't really count as a problem, but I already speak Bulgarian (FWIW, I'm a native English speaker), and I find that it both helps and hinders my Russian. I can definitely read Russian a lot better than you would expect from someone without a lot of schooling in it, but I also find myself confusing the two and being overly dependent on cognates (which sometimes leads to, uh, super wrong and hilarious result when the cognates turn out to be false). But basically, my ability to understand Russian is much, much, much better than my ability to express myself, and I'm not quite sure of how to correct this imbalance.

I'm sure that some people in this comm have dealt with this issue before and was wondering if anyone had any tips for how to learn a language without letting a related language interfere too much.

Thanks!