Sprechen vous svenska?

Let me guess.  You may be one of those who claim to never have been good at foreign languages, but I bet you know the meaning of each of the words in the title of this article.  Not only that, you probably know which language each is from.

Maybe the reason you are “not good” at foreign languages is that you didn’t care for the way you were taught a particular language.  Maybe you rebelled at the way it was taught and didn’t let it soak in and use it.

I myself have had mixed feelings about each of my language experiences.  For example, I forgot almost everything I learned in high school Latin, but I retained enough of my two years of college French to read books, magazines, and newspapers and to have simple conversations.

The first time it was really important was when I transferred to Europe as a Univac employee.  Supposedly I was to move to Italy.  I got an Italian grammar book and started studying from it.  “Oh, wait, before you go to Italy you will spend several weeks in Basel, Switzerland.”  So, I got a German grammar book and started studying German.

I had all my travel arrangements made for me.  The last leg was a train from Zurich to Basel.  When I got to Basel, there was nobody to meet me.  Where do I go from here on a Saturday?  I knew we were to work at Sandoz, the big pharmaceutical company, and so I looked up Sandoz at a public phone.  When I reached Sandoz the guard spoke only German and French.  As best I could I explained my situation in French.  He said he would look up the Univac people in the computer room.  Within an hour or so one of the hardware guys came and got me.  It was only once I was in the hotel that I met the software guys I was to work with.

I have many anecdotes about learning German (Hochdeutsch) and Schweizer Deutsch, two different languages.  Ja jo! Wie goht’s!

One, I learned enough German to read some of the newspapers and to read the directions on starting the computer - drucken… (push…)

Two, I didn’t learn enough German to get in and out of East Berlin on my own.  The end story is that I had ten East German marks I was not supposed to leave with.  My Swiss companions were in a discussion with the guard behind the counter.  I kept swiveling my head towards whoever was speaking.  Finally, the guard looked at me and said, “Sprechen Sie Deutsch?”  I replied, “Nein!”  That cracked everyone up.  After I put my ten marks in the Red Cross jar, we were on our way out through Checkpoint Charlie.

When I finally arrived in Italy, I slowly learned more Italian.  It didn’t help that our work language was English.  I did start reading Italian newspapers and books and speaking Italian where I could.  I spoke it to my barber and I think I bought my car using Italian.  One difficulty was at some office where I wasn’t getting across to the clerks.  One exclaimed, “Questi stranieri!” (“These foreigners”).  I understood her, but I don’t remember if I made any reply.

After two years in Italy, I requested and got a transfer to Sweden.  Again I bought a grammar book or two and started reading newspapers.  Newspapers are wonderful for learning foreign languages because of the names and events in the news and the large number of similar words.  By my second year in Sweden, I disappointed a small group I was to supervise by stating that we would speak Swedish.  My rationale was they had many chances to speak English, I had few for Swedish.  After a year, many of my colleagues said I spoke “flyttande Svenska” (fluent Swedish), even those who didn’t report to me.  On the other hand, there were many who disagreed.

When I came back to the States, I decided to take German at a community college.  I added a couple more semesters when I returned to Minnesota.  Darned if I can remember much of what I learned in class.

This same phenomenon happened when I took Russian long before I left for Europe.  I still had notions of getting a PhD, and one of the requirements was to have some familiarity with two foreign languages.  I took a year of Russian in summer school.  I did B or better work, but I didn’t enjoy it.  The basis for each lesson was a short conversation we were supposed to memorize and recite with a classmate.  I’ll never forget the first sentence of the first conversation: “Привет Нина! Куда ви идёте?”  “Hi, Nina!  Where are you going?”  I didn’t go back for a second year.  For awhile my Russian handwriting was better than my English handwriting.  I still do recognize many Russian characters, but I have made no real effort to study Russian anymore other than look at the headlines on some online Russian newspapers.

Over the years I’ve put a little bit of effort into learning some bits and pieces of Finnish, Ukrainian, Greek, Dutch, Icelandic, Serbo-Croatian, Spanish, and Japanese.  I’ll finish this with my Japanese joke: “Watashi-wa nihongo-ga wakarimasen.”  I say it well enough that Japanese relatives laugh at the contradiction: “I don’t understand Japanese.”

If you’re over 50 and enjoy languages as much as Mel does, join him for “Jolly Polyglots” in the winter quarter of University for Seniors at UMD.

This was also published in the Reader Weekly, 2014-08-28 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2014/08/28/3970_sprechen_vous_svenska

Viola plays the viola

VEYE-oh-luh plays the vee-OH-lah.

The first is a girl's name derived from the name of the flower, violet.  The second is a stringed instrument, it's name is derived from "vitula", a stringed instrument.

These inconsistencies happen in any language that borrows words from other languages.  Avez vous enjoyé le weekend?

Due to popular demand…

…grammar rules have been changed.  We no longer have to write "because of…"

I have seen "due to" usage in so many press releases that I think the strict grammarians of my school days in the 40s and 50s have lost.

If you think about it, correct grammar and spelling are what people actually say and write, not what some grammarian dictates.  Even French, with the French Academy defending it, is changing and has been changing.  If you listen to French radio you will hear "le weekend" about as many times as you hear "le fin de semaine".

Did you notice another "rule" that I broke?  I avoid putting punctuation between quote marks unless the punctuation is part of the quote.

Consider

Did he say, "I don't believe that?"

and

Did he say, "I don't believe that"?

That is, did the quoted speaker ask a question (first example) or did he make a statement (second statement)?

Where's the "W" in choir?

In English we pronounce "choir" to rhyme with "inquire", but there is neither a "w" in "choir" nor a "qu".

The answer is that English spelling never keeps up with English pronunciation.  See "Two, too, and to are pronounced the same, right?" and "How do you pronounce two, too, and to?"  And sometimes the spelling changes even if the pronunciation stays the same.

"Choir" was once spelled "quer" and an archaic form is "quire".  The "quer" (kwer) was from the then French word for "chorus".

You might think that the spelling and pronunciation of "choir" was also French, but "choir" (kwahr) is a variant of "fall".  The French use "chorale".  Apparently "choir" was somebody's idea of making English spelling conform more to Latin or French.  See "Linguists: why is 'choir' pronounced 'quire'?" for an amusing discussion.  For a more serious discussion of English spelling see "Why not Spelling Reform?"  It is a bit long and I have yet to finish it.

British refuse to negotiate with American Colonists

September 30, 1781 – The British Prime Minister, Lord North, refused to negotiate with the Continental Army, claiming, "Why should we negotiate with those who are killing our soldiers?" (Made up quote for sake of argument)

October 18, 1781 – After General Cornwallis realized that his situation at Yorktown was hopeless, sent a delegation to negotiate with the American and French.

When Lord North learned of the defeat at Yorktown, he proclaimed, "Oh God, it's all over."

May 26, 2011; Jan 23, 2012; Feb 2, 2012; May 2, 2012; and on many more dates appear variations of "Why should we negotiate with the Taliban who are killing our soldiers?"

In 1781 and in 2012, too many people wanted/want to keep up a foreign invasion because their troops are being killed by people who don't want foreign troops in their country.

When will they ever learn?

Posters, translations, and strange French idioms

A French friend sent me a poster of a shaven head guy in tights with a "wrap-around" mustache.

Overlaid on the picture was

"L'affiche est aux beaux-artes ce que le catch est aux bonnes manières."

I understood most of it except "le catch". I put the sentence into translate.google and was given

"The poster is in fine ridges that wrestling is good manners."

Ah, so "le catch" is wrestling. So I sent the following correction back to Google.

"The poster is to the fine arts as wrestling is to good manners."

You can see a version of the poster at http://www.ligneasuivre.com.

My friend has worked at Ligne à Suivre for several years.

To my readers from around the world for the past week

Thank you!
Danke!
Спасибо!
Terima kasih/谢谢/Nandri
Thank you! Merci!
Terima kasih
תודה רבה
धन्यवाद
Дякю!
If you can't guess all the languages above, see the labels for some hints.

The wonders of computers

Many of our computers nowadays will flag spelling and grammar errors. I've found that the Macintosh OS X operating system corrects French and Swedish spelling.

We will have a Russian guest later this month and I sent her a short welcome message, with a little bit of Russian. I was quite surprised to see some of the words underlined in red. For one of the words my computer gave some choices and I selected the one I thought was appropriate. The other I had to look up on Google to get the correct spelling.

Oh, for my Russian readers, the words were русский and извините in Извините! Не понимаю русский язик! (Excuse me! I don't understand the Russian language!) I had an й where I shouldn't and didn't have an й where I should.

Phishers are phools, but the phished are bigger phools

Most of us have heard that phishing and other scams are big business.  Given many of the errors of grammar, errors of spelling, and so on, it is hard to believe that enough people take them seriously.

I just started getting phrench phishing, and I think it is because at least one of two French speakers I've recently exchanged email with have had their address books hacked.

Even though I generally recognize spam from just the title or sender, I often take a peek at the contents.  I was surprised to see that one email supposedly in French may have had a Russian sender; it had securitй instead of sécurité!!

P.S. I did a search on securitй and got 598 hits.  It seems to be common usage in Russian to use this blended spelling of Latin and Cyrillic characters, both in a French context and a Russian context.

Foreign language spell-checking?

I have been writing a bit of French and Swedish lately, using Apple's TextEdit and Microsoft's Word and Outlook.  I've found that TextEdit will correct my French and that Microsoft's software corrects both.

For example, I deliberately typed "Je ne peut pass écrir français bein" and it corrected my text to "Je ne peut pas écrire français bien."  In fact I had to un-correct the first phrase.

I still have to look up words and grammar, but a lot less than a few years ago.

Oops!  Le spell-checker n'est pas parfait.  "Je ne peux pas écrire français bien" est correcte.  (2011-03-29)

A pun in French that I hope is to your taste

Il y avait un compositeur qui a écrit une chaconne à son goût.
(There was a composer who wrote a chaconne to his taste.)

A chaconne is a musical form; "chacun à son goût" means "each to his taste".

I knew there was an opera which had an aria including "chacun à son gout". I found a multi-lingual snippet of "Die Fledermaus" performed at Covent Garden in 1984.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6uEmtn56M0

But I didn't hear "chacun à son goût"!

On a second viewing I heard it at the end of Prince Orlofsky's aria.  I remember seeing a production with Beverly Sills years ago, and I remember hearing "chacun à son gout" several times.

Oh, drat!  "Chaconne à son gout" is not original.  Google gives over 1500 hits including a P.D.Q. Bach Gross Concerto by that name.

You really are good at foreign languages

How often have you heard people say, "I never was any good with foreign languages!"  But any of us who read a lot or listen a lot, know lots of foreign words and phrases as part of our own language.

Consider the following:

Oui, non, savoir faire, coup d'état, menu, restaurant, merci beaucoup, la plume de ma tante, père, mère, soirée, bon jour, monsieur, madame, mademoiselle, garçon, parlez vous français

Si, gracias, señor, señora, señorita, taco, burrito, chili, sombrero, serape, fiesta, siesta, madre, padre, muchacho, muchacha, piñata, guerrilla, mesa

Ja, nein, Blitzkrieg, danke, sprechen sie Deutsch, guten morgen, auf Wiedersehen, angst

Da, nyet, troika, glasnost, perestroika, tsar, soviet, sputnik, vodka, tundra

Smörgåsbord, fjörd, tack, Viking, ski, lingon, orienteering, ombudsman, moped

Judo, karate, karaoke, sumo, sushi, tofu, miso, manga, sake, kimono, samurai, futon, tsunami

Si, no, italiano, spaghetti, opera, pasta, forte, piano, ciao, arrivederci, buon giorno, vino

I bet you know over 90% of these words and can identify each of the groups.

Interestingly, Apple's TextEdit only flagged five words as not in its dictionary; these were burrito, chili, serape, nyet, and fjörd.  TextEdit was happy when I spelled fjörd as fjord. In fact, TextEdit insisted on changing it as I typed.  Microsoft's Word is a bit fussier; it didn't recognize any of the words that contained diacritical marks, like in garçon, señor, and smörgåsbord.

See, you're also smarter than a computer.  You could recognize all the words.

Next time somebody says they have never been good at whatever, reply that they just haven't spent enough time and interest learning that whatever.

Ciao, amici miei!

Plural humor

I've long mused that the only languages that I know that add an 's' to indicate a plural noun are English, French, and Spanish. Other languages that I've encountered use other final sounds or inflection. Inflection is the changing of a vowel sound, like one alumnus or many alumni.

English however uses inflection also. Is this a holdover from its Germanic origin?

For example, we have goose and geese, mouse and mice. Does this last mean that the plural of spouse is spice? When I mentioned this to my wife, I added I really think the plural of spouse is trouble.