[ot] Swedish langauge

[Liquide]

Started a full-time job a few weeks ago where most of the other employees doesn't have swedish as their mother-tounge and noticed a few funny things about the swedish language.

We can use a noun as a verb , never actually thought of this before and it became quite funny to experience this.

"I shall ax a piece of wood into a better size"
"Jas ska yxa till en träbit till en bättre storlek"

which means:

"I shall chop a piece of wood into a better size"

Just wanted to share

 

[Frostmarrow]

Where do you work? (a work, to work).

 

[Liquide]

Where do you work? (a work, to work).

got a job at Katrineholm Svampcentrum (gamla mejeriet), home from work today since I busted my foot when going up some stairs yesterday (foot is all big, swollen, black and blue at the moment).

 

[green slime]

A "few"...

You people don't watch the movie (gå PÅ bio):

At least the English speakers go TO the movies. So while the English speakers are lurking around outside the doors, the Swedes are walking on the roof.

 

[Tonguez]

Started a full-time job a few weeks ago where most of the other employees doesn't have swedish as their mother-tounge and noticed a few funny things about the swedish language.

We can use a noun as a verb , never actually thought of this before and it became quite funny to experience this.

"I shall ax a piece of wood into a better size"
"Jas ska yxa till en träbit till en bättre storlek"

which means:

"I shall chop a piece of wood into a better size"

Just wanted to share

Nope not strange at all.

In fact this is a common feature in many non-european langauges where the whole Noun-Verb-Adjective division doesn't actually apply.

I teach Maori (a Polynesian Language) which actually has no 'true Verbs and No Adjectives at all.
It does have a group of Nouns and a group which can act as nouns or verbs depending on the grammatical particles used.

 

[tarchon]

Re: Re: [ot] Swedish langauge

Nope not strange at all.

In fact this is a common feature in many non-european langauges where the whole Noun-Verb-Adjective division doesn't actually apply.

I teach Maori (a Polynesian Language) which actually has no 'true Verbs and No Adjectives at all.
It does have a group of Nouns and a group which can act as nouns or verbs depending on the grammatical particles used.

How is that different from having a class of nouns and a class of verbs that can sometimes act as nouns?
The adjective class, I agree, is not universal, at least in the sense of having a distinct syntax, but the notion of a "true verb" as opposed to verbs that can be nominalized seems rather unproductive, since I've never encountered a language that couldn't nominalize verbs somehow. By this criterion, English doesn't have true verbs either. Stick the prepositive grammatical particle "to" or the inflection "-ing" on any given verb and - poof - it's a noun. "To live is good." "It's all about singing." You can do that just as easily in Chinese, Old Norse, Latin, German, Turkish, and so on.

 

[Tonguez]

The word Haere means 'to go'
te tangata = the man/person
No verb "to be" in the language

Ko te HAERE o te tangata
The journey of the man

Kei te HAERE te tangata
The man is going
Lit: At the GO(ing) the man

Kei is infact a Location marker this sentence thus locates the action in space/time

Ka HAERE te tangata
The man goes

Ka indicates initiation of an action which will occur in a period of time

 

[tarchon]

All languages have some sort of syntactic structure with their verbs (naturally). All you're doing here is taking a verb and calling it something else. It acts like a verb, therefore it is a verb. The key question is whether there exist nouns (like tangata) that cannot be used the way haere is. If a large class of such nouns exist, haere and words like it are clearly verbs.

In the first examples, I agree that we are seeing a "verbal noun" constructed as if it were part of noun phrase, but, again, that's common as dirt. If that denies the existence of verbs in Maori, it denies the existence of verbs entirely. I don't know of any languages that don't do that in some way. The English/Germanic "to" infinitive construction is a perfect example.

Celtic languages often construct sentences similarly, the only major difference being that the particles corresponding to "ke", "ko", and "ka" are interpreted as forms of an auxiliary verb meaning "to be" ("verbal particles" is probably a better term). Celtic languages also share the preference for VSO syntax, which might suggest that there are deep similarities in the grammars (they use postpositive modifiers as well). In fact, looking at a small online Maori course, many of the examples translate into Gaelic with identical word order.
Your last example however would appear to be an entirely straightforward use of haere as a finite verb with "ka" as an aspect marker, since it lacks any of the trappings of a noun phrase. Maori imperatives as well don't appear to be constructed as noun phrases, e.g.
"Homai te rakau kura."
"Hoatu te ipu ki a Mere."

 

[Trevalon Moonleirion]

This really makes me wonder....

Is English really harder than the other languages in the world? Is German pretty easy? (Right now, after nearly 2 years of high school german, I'd say sure--the only really tough thing is remembering gender of nouns...) Languages are really fascinating things, and kind of thinking about these differences and whatnot could probably make for some decent background info for a campaign world, methinks. Hell, Tolkien did that kind of linguistic stuff to make up his languages....

Okay, done rambling!

 

[Liquide]

This really makes me wonder....

Is English really harder than the other languages in the world? Is German pretty easy? (Right now, after nearly 2 years of high school german, I'd say sure--the only really tough thing is remembering gender of nouns...) Languages are really fascinating things, and kind of thinking about these differences and whatnot could probably make for some decent background info for a campaign world, methinks. Hell, Tolkien did that kind of linguistic stuff to make up his languages....

Okay, done rambling!

To answer some of your questions.

1. Is English really harder then any other langauges in the world? I would answer NO since I find english easier to learn grammtically then Swedish itself. English don't complicate things and try to keep it simple at all times. Swedish on the other hand is so bl**dy hard to learn that very few actually know all the basic grammar rules (and their exceptions) we are just so used to our own langauge we get it right anyhow. With english it is normally very straightforward with few side-treks (at least compared to swedish) that I find it quite easy to learn and use (even though my accent is horrible, just ask Russ ).
   
2. Is German pretty easy? Well even though this langauge is related to Swedish in some ways I find it harder to learn and to create working sentences in then in English. It is kinda constructed back-wards compared to Swedish while English is much more similir to swedish this way. So while comparing German and English I, myself, find english to be a simpler language to learn and comprehend.
   
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   So english is on my "one of the easier langauges to learn"-list