Issoire Lynx

Thanks to everybody who helped with that ghastly paper of mine. Could you please have a look at this short list of key skills and tell me whether I am using the right words here?

Konzentration: concentration
Kontaktfähigkeit: ability to communicate well communication skills
Kritisierbarkeit: ability to react well to handle criticism
Teamarbeit: team work
Ausdauer: stamina perseverance
Misserfolgstoleranz: tolerance to failure persistence in the face of setbacks
Selbstständigkeit: self-reliance
Sorgfalt: diligence
Verantwortung: responsibility
Antrieb: impetus
außerdem: Rechnen, Schreiben, Lesen: furthermore: calculating, writing, reading literacy and numeracy skills

All these skills (or competencies, ahem) and some more are supposed to be essential in becoming fit for a job. (So if e.g. "stamina" is only used for athlets, or if "diligence" is too goodie-goodie a word in this context, then please tell me.)

Thank you!

By the way, over the years we learned that we cannot teach/practice impetus. All we can do is offer seminars to our students that seek to let them experience the enjoyable sides of a job.

In a university translation course, the professor included in the back of the course manual several contacts for finding translation work. This was years ago, and I've lost track of that course manual. One of the contacts was for the government, but the way it worked was quite interesting. It sounded like you could take on a document at a time and turn it in as your time allowed. When you next find your schedule light enough, you request another document. Even contract work sounds too strict for the way this was described to us. Does anyone know of a system like this?

Thanks.

Hello again.

I have a question about color. In Spanish, brown things have always been 'carmelita' to me. My family has always used this word (my parents and I were born in Cuba, though I only lived there a year), and within my Spanish-speaking community this has always been the word for brown.

However, I see that 'marron' and 'cafe' are more common outside of Cuba. The first sounds too much like 'maroon' for me to use it, and using 'cafe' just feels weird. 'Carmelita' comes naturally.

Now, my parents told me that a possible explanation for 'Carmelita' was a group in Cuba called the Carmelitas which wore brown robes. I haven't been able to find anything about carmelita being brown (not even a wiktionary entry) or having to do with this group (or maybe I'm just really dense). Does anyone else use this word? Does anyone know the origin of this word? Why is it so obscure outside of Cuba?

Hi all,

Wonder if there is someone who can clear this confusion I have about information in this book i'm reading.

The book; Lingua Latina by (need I go on) Hans Oerberg.

My confusion:

In the beginning chapter of the book even, we see examples of singular and plural forms of words. For example, Oppidum (town)

"Brundisium oppidum est. Brundisium et Tusculum oppida sunt."

Here you can see that the word ending changes from -um to -a  from the singular to the plural respectively.

This is clear.

However, when I look in the index where the vocabulum is listed, I read;

oppidum -i n 1.33


Now, the 1.33 explains the first occurrence in the text,
the 'n' explains that it is of neuter gender,
and I thought the other part was to show the plural ending of the word.
However, if that is so, it is wrong.
But I assume they didn't get it wrong.

What does the -i   mean in this case? Anyone? 

thanks in advance, and kind regards,

sean
 

I studied Russian for about 5 years (some 10 years ago now, scarily enough) and a bit of Serbian in college, and as a result I can decipher Cyrillic script with relative ease, however when it comes to long words or generally reading fluently it's a bit more of a challenge. I was wondering if anyone had any ideas on how to increase reading speed in Russian besides brute-force finding things to read (e.g. common Cyrillic roots, prefixes, suffixes, etc.).

Also, if anyone knows how to pronounce the characters added to the cyrillic alphabet in former Soviet countries (or how some of the pronunciations of existing ones shifted), that's be neat, too!

Thanks in advance!

I´m reading a book about Heian Japan /the world of the shining prince by ivan morris/ and its in this sentence:
"....Bureau of Divination (Yin-Yang Bureau as it was called), which was in charge of astrological, calendrical and aleatory calculations, the discernment of good and evil omens and similar activities that were supposed to help the government shape its policy by acting in accordance with the fundamental process of growth and change in the natural world."

thank you for your advice.

Hey all,

I have a question about the word for a homeless person in Russian. I heard a few days ago that the russian word for homeless person "бомж" is an acronym for "без о... место жить" (without ... place to live). Can someone tell me the word for the letter "o" and tell me if this is true, or if the acronym established itself after the word had been in use for a while. Also curious to me is the similarity between the word "бомж" and the english word "bum", or is this just coincidence?

Thanks for the input.

A little Osaka-ben question! If you don't know how to read Japanese, just hover over the text for a transliteration.

As I recall, true Osaka-ben substitutes 〜へん for 〜ない (as opposed to Osaka-fied Tokyo-ben, which changes it to 〜ねぇ), however for a moment tonight I got stuck on what to do for ない on its own (e.g. 時間がない "I've got no time"). Using へん on its own sounds off, and I seem to recall hearing あらへん a couple times in that context, but I thought I'd check here and see if someone else knows for certain.

While we're on the subject, thought I'd also inquire as to how it came about. My best guess is that it evolved from 〜ません to 〜まへん, then shortening to simply 〜へん, but that's just a guess.

Thanks!

A howdoyousay question: "dancing is living" in a variety of languages. Not simply "dance is life", but the more active sense of the original phrase--that is, to dance is to live and be alive; when you're dancing, in that moment, you are truly living/enjoying life.

(...when such a distinction is possible; I know the phrase won't work that way in every language.)

Eastern languages/scripts are preferred, as this may be for a bellydance t-shirt design, but anything and everything is appreciated.

Hi! I love arctic foxes / snow foxes (they're sort of my mascot, I guess) and I've looked online, but I can't find an answer to this: is there some word for them in Japanese? I was wondering if maybe it was just a compound of the kanji for snow and fox, but... I know that such a term would have to be fairly recent in its development, because arctic foxes (as far as I know) never live in Japan, so perhaps the name is katakana? :/

If anyone knows, I'd really love the kanji, kana and romaji names for arctic fox. I use "snowfox" as an online handle, and I've joined several Japanese-language websites, and it would be really convenient to know the kanji etc. for my favorite animal...

Also, they're just awesomely fluffy.
This part is solved. Snow foxes are ホッキョクギツネ. Thank you! :D

PS: Is there a Japanese-language term for tabby cats / domestic cats with striped patterning? What about grouper fish? They're my other favorite animals.

^^; Thank you in advance.

I bought some teacups at the goodwill last weekend, and I was wondering what they say, if anything? I have no knowledge of this language whatsoever, any help would be appreciated. Thank you!



( rather large image, so here's the cut... )

Firstly -- I know いざなう usually means to ask or to tempt/lure, but are there any times when it can be interpreted as "to guide" in a more benign way?

Secondly, a question about compound verbs using 〜込む. I know that typically compound verbs of this type tend to add a specific meaning onto the verb -- 〜だす usually means to begin to do the verb and 〜あう usually adds a meaning of reciprocation or mutualness (抱く meaning to embrace and 抱き合う meaning to embrace one another). But what I can't seem to figure out is what 〜込む adds to the meaning, especially since the verb by itself has so many different meanings. Is there a consistent meaning it adds to compound verbs, or does it tend to vary based on the verb, unlike 〜だす and 〜あう?

Thanks!

So, The Box starring Cameron Diaz and James Marsden is coming out. It's a thriller about a working poor family who are given a box by a stranger. The guy tells them that if they push the button someone, somewhere in the world will die. However, in exchange for this they will be given 1 million dollars.

You know, this would be no taut psychological drama if I were involved.

Scary guy: Mr Lewis, I assume you've received the box? I've got an offer to make. If you push the button, two things will happ ... what are you doing? Why are you pushing it? Stop that! Now listen. If you push that button ... hey, I see your hand reaching for it! Listen to me! By pushing that button you are ensuring that an anonymous person in an undisclosed location is going to die. Hey, give that back! Stop pushing the button so hard, you're going to break it! No, you don't get to decide who the person is. Just randomly shouting out names as you push the button doesn't change anything. Aren't you bothered by the fact that you've probably wiped out a small island nation by now ... no, screw you, Mr. Lewis! Stop waving the box at me and pushing the button angrily in my direction. It's not going to have any effect. What the hell is wrong with you? I was going to give you a million dollars ... no, you can't keep the box.

Yeah, that wouldn't make such a good movie upon reflection.

But man, have I got a list of names I'd use that fucker on ...

I'm duly ashamed of the following translation. I'm aware that many terms are jargon. The paper is directed at visitors from Finland and Belgium. My coworkers are going to explain things orally as well.

Please correct the most outstanding howlers, if you care to take a look. (And please don't tell me that I should look for someone professional to do this. I know this is an imposition, but there is no budget for this.)

( under the cut )

I know that all of this is unpleasant to read, both in German and in English. Fortunately that's not the main point, but I'm particularly concerned about headlines like "(Self-)Reflection and Documentation of Performance in the Context of Training Self- and Social Competences". Surely there has got to be a better way to say this?

Thanks in advance!

(The banner above is from berlitz.ch.)

Friends, i just wonder if anyone in the community knows bengali. If yes, how many people are there?
Товарищи русскоговорящие! Здесь кто-нибудь знает бенгали? А то и не знаю, стоит ли задавать вопросы по этой теме.

From one indian (West Bengal) source i got a list of flowers or flower related words. I'm not able to translate some words into russian. Please help me:
Night-Jasmine
Jasmine
Night-Queen
Chameli
China-box
Malati
Well, jasmine is understood, i just gave it not to mix it up with Night-Jasmine (what's the difference between Jasmine and Night-Jasmine?). Some words look like non-english, but actually they all are in english only. There's no context. Thanks

Dear Linguaphiles,

Would you say (regardless of whether you think it's true or not...) 'Snakes are dangerous more than spiders are'?

Is it (much) worse than 'Snakes are more dangerous than spiders are'?

(And of course I know that both sound pretty odd and you'd probably just say 'Snakes are more dangerous than spiders', but unfortunately I'm only interested in the full sentences :P)

Thanks :)

The PRC Hong Kong government always tell people Cantonese is a useless language. 
Quite a lot of HK local people hate being Cantonese native speaker as 
it is very painful to learn Mandarin, which is an unintelligible language to Cantonese. 
Nowadays, some kindergartens in Hong Kong ban children from speaking in Cantonese even during recess time. 
What would you do to save Cantonese?
Would you call that cultural genocide?

I'm doing a small research project this semester in my syntax course on the garden-path effect. Basically, they are sentences that are perfectly grammatical but fluent speakers have difficulty understanding them on the first try - sometimes because of ambiguous word choice ("The old man the boat," in which "old" is a noun and "man" is a verb) but more often because of an ambiguous embedded clause ("As Anna dressed the baby spit up," in which "the baby" is first thought to be the object of "dressed").

I have a decent amount of research on English, but I was wondering if anybody knows of this effect in other languages? I'm sure it happens, but I'm not sure where to start looking. Any ideas or references would be hugely appreciated.