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WTG, do you speak Latvian? Does anyone else here?
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ShiroKuro
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WTG, you don't speak Latvian do you? Or only Lithuanian? (Or, am I remembering it in reverse and you do speak Latvian?? Now I'm panicking....)

Anyway, a friend of mine posted this on Facebook, one of her uni students (in Japan) went to Latvia for study abroad and ended up on Latvian tv singing his song with Latvian and Japanese lyrics. It's neat to hear how similar the phrasing sounds for the Latvian lyrics and the Japanese lyrics (to my ear anyway). This link should start at 8:55, but if it doesn, skip ahead to 8:55, which is where the song starts.

https://www.facebook.com/LNT.L...9143872043578/?t=535

Don't know if this is how to embed a FB video, but:
https://www.facebook.com/LNT.LV/videos/419143872043578/

nope...


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Posts: 18543 | Location: not in Japan any more | Registered: 20 April 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
wtg
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I only speak Lithuanian.

Some words are similar in Latvian, so I can pick things up here and there but not enough to put together a coherent translation (I did a little better reading the crawler - Wink )

The guy who lives across the street is Latvian, but I really don't know him very well. I would hesitate to pop by to ask him to translate.... I think he already thinks I'm a bit odd and this would be one more nail in the coffin.... WhoMe


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We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love… and then we return home. - Australian Aboriginal proverb

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Posts: 37955 | Location: Somewhere in the middle | Registered: 19 January 2010Reply With QuoteReport This Post
ShiroKuro
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quote:
I only speak Lithuanian.


Oh good, I was sure it was Lithuanian, but then I got paranoid (they do both start with L... suave )

Anyway, I thought it was neat. Smiler


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Posts: 18543 | Location: not in Japan any more | Registered: 20 April 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
wtg
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They are next door to each other and the languages are similar.

I poked around a bit and found this, which I found interesting:

https://forum.wordreference.co...nt-are-they.2768830/

Couldn't find a comparison of Latvian and Japanese.... Big Grin


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We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love… and then we return home. - Australian Aboriginal proverb

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Posts: 37955 | Location: Somewhere in the middle | Registered: 19 January 2010Reply With QuoteReport This Post
wtg
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quote:
(I did a little better reading the crawler)


This seems to be a shared experience (quoted from that forum):

quote:
First I have to say that if Latvian or Lithuanian is completely new to the second Baltic language, than it would be almost impossible to have dialog between those two. They would be able to say hallo to each other, but after that it would be very hard. Written language is much easier in the beginning. After I started to study Lithuanian I was able to read some texts in Lithuanian quite fast.


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We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love… and then we return home. - Australian Aboriginal proverb

Bazootiehead-in-training



 
Posts: 37955 | Location: Somewhere in the middle | Registered: 19 January 2010Reply With QuoteReport This Post
wtg
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From that forum.

quote:

Jancis said:
Both languages should be compulsory from primary school without any reservation and then only unversal languages such as English and German. Pretty much Latvian private schools have taken over this tradition - need to lift in the national level which has already been recommended to govorment. The main opponents to this case is the Russian minority - who call it discrimination. although many Latvians underst lithuanian. It is easy becouse the Language is based on the same footing. Our Native people are very well aware that the Lithuanians are not the neighbors - they are our blood. For example, I approach the Lithuanian language as a dialect - and I can say hell I understand it without studying it. The main thing are - we need contact with each other more frequently and more freely Imagine! We are almost 6 million....

Jancis, I absolutely agree with you that Lithuanian and Latvian should be mandatory in school. They are so closely related that a couple of years would make any child pretty much fluent in the language. Young children pick up new languages like it's nothing. Jesus, I picked up and had a good understanding of Japanese from watching untranslated cartoons on cable up to the age of 7.


Damn. I could have spoken Japanese if my parents had only had cable....


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We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love… and then we return home. - Australian Aboriginal proverb

Bazootiehead-in-training



 
Posts: 37955 | Location: Somewhere in the middle | Registered: 19 January 2010Reply With QuoteReport This Post
ShiroKuro
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quote:
I picked up and had a good understanding of Japanese from watching untranslated cartoons on cable up to the age of 7.


Riiiggghht....

Yes, this person might have been able to understand and follow the *cartoons* because there's a lot of supplemental information, and they are, um, how to say, cartoons? So not exactly the most complex subject matter. Also, more to the point, the person may have thought they understood all or a lot, but when did they ever have the opportunity to confirm that? How do they know that they really understood, and not that they only believed they understood?

Nope, I don't buy it.

As for being able to understand written better than spoken, that doesn't surprise me. If there are lots of cognates, pronunciation differences might distract you, but seeing it written you can ingest it more easily.

I studied both French and Spanish at different times in the past. I cannot now speak or understand either (ok, well sometimes I can understand a little if the topic is simple and people aren't speaking too fast). But if I see something written, I do much better.

Anyway...


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Posts: 18543 | Location: not in Japan any more | Registered: 20 April 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
AdagioM
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Cartoons can be life changing!

My niece went to Spain as a 10 year old, with her grandparents. She wanted to learn more Spanish. But she fell in love with German cartoons on cable TV. She graduated from high school, went to work as an au pair in Germany, and decided that’s where she’s going to spend the rest of her life. She’s studying at the University of Hamburg.


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Posts: 9801 | Location: Oregon | Registered: 06 June 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
ShiroKuro
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quote:
Cartoons can be life changing!


Don't get me wrong, a lot of our best students originally got interested in Japanese because of anime and manga. There's nothing wrong with that. Sometimes I wonder if I would even have a job if it weren't for kids who love anime.

And exposure to other languages through TV (looking, at you Sesame Street!) can be great for both linguistic and cultural reasons.

But one-way input only from cartoons is very limited in terms of actual language acquisition.

That's all I wanted to say.


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My piano recordings at Box.Net: https://app.box.com/s/j4rgyhn72uvluemg1m6u

 
Posts: 18543 | Location: not in Japan any more | Registered: 20 April 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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