English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Leaky Nun

17:00

@tchrist what does -esc- become in Spanish?

tchrist

Verb or noun?

Example?

Leaky Nun

verb

I don't have an example

just the inchoative -esc-

Mithrandir

Hey - would this question fit on ELU? literature.stackexchange.com/questions/2534/…

tchrist

-cz-

Leaky Nun

@tchrist not -zc-?

tchrist

17:02

Sorry.

Yes.

I was thinking of cognosco > conozco

Leaky Nun

is that regular though?

tchrist

For the most part.

note also luceo > luzco

Leaky Nun

that's extrano

tchrist

traducir > traduzco, etc

Mithrandir

So someone asked for the above question to be migrated here, and even with almost 1k rep here I don't know if it's on topic here. Can one of you please check it out and tell me? Thanks

tchrist

17:04

@Mithrandir Sure, go ahead.

> This group of verbs—which originated in the Latin inchoative verbs but now includes other verbs as well— substitute -zc- for stem-final -c- before o and a. The group includes nearly all verbs ending in -acer (except hacer and derived verbs), -ecer (except mecer and remecer), -ocer (except cocer and derived verbs), and -ucir. For example:
nacer: yo nazco, tú naces...
crecer: yo crezco, tú creces...
conocer: yo conozco, tú conoces...
producir: yo produzco, tú produces...
Yacer may alternatively be conjugated with -zc- (yazco), -g- (yago) or a compromise -zg- (yazgo).

Mithrandir

@tchrist K, thanks

tchrist

sure

Leaky Nun

@tchrist alright.

Mithrandir

(and I forgot to clear the comments. Whoops.)

tchrist

I'll fix.

cocer, cuezco

Leaky Nun

17:07

well, there's certainly a high degree of regularization in the -zc- part

tchrist

@Mithrandir Stupid job is tardy.

Hasn't hit yet.

Leaky Nun

and an even higher degree of doubt as to where the z comes from

tchrist

There it is now.

Leaky Nun

@tchrist isn't it cuezo?

Mithrandir

O_o he deleted it here after I migrated it

tchrist

17:08

@LeakyNun gosh no

Leaky Nun

wordreference.com/conj/ESverbs.aspx?v=cocer

tchrist

You're right, forget what I was thinking!

"cuesco" is a thing

pits

stones

Leaky Nun

alright

tchrist

I think.

dle.rae.es/?id=BatAWF0|BauFwt9

Did you know that America doesn't use cocer? They replace it with cocinar so it doesn’t collide with coser.

Leaky Nun

@tchrist I didn't.

fun fact: Latin fortis is cognate with... English -borough

tchrist

17:13

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_irregular_verbs#Anomalous_stems_in_the_pr‌eterite_and_derived_tenses

Leaky Nun

nice link

@tchrist wait, cocer is a commonly used verb?

tchrist

@LeakyNun Yes. In Spain. To heat up, cook up.

Leaky Nun

:o

tchrist

Not to prepare.

I have never thought telling learners that Spanish has around 900 irregular verbs is a good thing. But for a few anomalies, almost all of those are simply differently regular.

Then again, I feel the same away about English.

Leaky Nun

sure.

irregular verbs are just verbs that are not regularized

tchrist

17:18

The clusters have their own regularities.

All the strong verbs.

Leaky Nun

fun fact: understand is cognate of intersto

@tchrist sure

tchrist

Sure.

Leaky Nun

fun fact: English "season" and Spanish "estación" are not cognates

tchrist

> Before o (in the first person singular of the indicative present tense) and a (that is, in all persons of the present subjunctive), the so-called G-verbs (sometimes "go-verbs" or "yo-go" verbs) add a medial -g- after l and n (also after s in asir), add -ig- when the root ends in a vowel, or substitute -g- for -c-. Note that this change overrides diphthongization (tener, venir) but combines with vowel-raising (decir). Many of these verbs are also irregular in other ways. For example:

Leaky Nun

@tchrist ?

tchrist

17:30

traigo

Leaky Nun

I see.

@tchrist did you have any thesis?

tchrist

"add -ig- when the root ends in a vowel"

WHY they did that, I don't know.

Leaky Nun

alright.

I mean, university thesis

tchrist

dissimulation or something

Oh.

No, I did two masters projects instead, one on a natural language processing system I wrote and the other on a standalone operating system I wrote.

Leaky Nun

I see

terdon

17:35

Did you mean PhD thesis?

Leaky Nun

I think so

terdon

If not, the masters projects also involve theses.

tchrist

During compsci grad school I continued to take courses in French, plus one in Italian. I had over 60 credits in Spanish or something insane by then.

terdon

Depends on the country you do them in. In Spain, they're called tesinas, as I recall.

Leaky Nun

@tchrist I should probably do the same

tchrist

17:36

I have 183 undergraduate credits -- for a 120-credit undergraduate degree.

terdon

@tchrist But you were essentially raised a native speaker weren't you?

tchrist

@terdon Only in English; I started Spanish when I was 12 or 13 though.

terdon

Oh, I had understood that you were somehow raised bilingual.

tchrist

So it's long, long, long since assimilated. It wasn't lost because I not only majored in it but lived and studied, later worked, in Spain in a monolingual environment, which sealed it in.

I have official duties at work involving translation, and no week goes by that I don't use it outside of work.

For speaking.

Leaky Nun

my French and Spanish never sealed in

I still can't listen to them.

tchrist

17:38

I'm sorry to hear that.

Leaky Nun

you don't need to be

tchrist

My French, despite what 7 university courses, is a bit dodgy because I never lived there and have rarely used it since. I can't really understand everything in a French movie or broadcast as I can Spanish. If it were subtitled in written French, I could.

Leaky Nun

I can't understand anything

tchrist

It's "catching it in the ear" that you need. That "magically" happened to me after living in Spain something like four months or so. It just suddenly all made sense, which word was which. Every so often they'd say a word I didn't know but I always knew which word it was they said and it usually could be understood in context. It has to be wetware rewiring.

I have read so many thousands and thousands of printed books in Spanish that I read it quite quickly and without any confusion ever.

Leaky Nun

sure

tchrist

17:42

Well, almost ever. Colloquial refrains from random Latin American countries can be a puzzle.

Besides being in an immersive monolingual environment, I always had Spanish going in the background on the radio or TV. Sometime around Thanksgiving or Christmas, certainly before the New Year, I realized that what had been garbled goop for so long was now people saying words and sentences and it all just fell out.

Leaky Nun

that must have been a great moment

tchrist

It's a great relief.

When I read French, I never reflexively translate it into Spanish in my head.

terdon

Language acquisition is a sigmoid curve. Really slow, then blindingly fast and then really slow again.

tchrist

With Portuguese, I think there is some of that happening. I can simultaneously translate written Portuguese into spoken Spanish in real time, but I cannot do that into English with either of those languages.

Leaky Nun

@terdon nice analogy

tchrist

17:46

There is no short cut for the work it takes.

Leaky Nun

@tchrist peixe

tchrist

@LeakyNun yeah

Leaky Nun

translate it in real time lol

terdon

@tchrist That's odd. I can do Spanish <-> English quite easily and yet I'm pretty sure your Spanish is better than mine. Might have something to do with being raised a bilingual child.

Leaky Nun

(it's long past real time by now)

tchrist

17:47

@terdon It doesn't flow right. I have to do it much more slowly.

Leaky Nun

@tchrist which Portuguese do you speak?

tchrist

I think it is having to rearrange to the Germanic structure that's slower.

@LeakyNun Lisbon's.

Leaky Nun

I'm more acquainted to Brazilian Portuguese than European

although I don't really know much either way

terdon

Hmm yes, 'cause the syntax is different. For Pt <-> Es it's enough to just translate each word as it's read usually.

Leaky Nun

when I see "dizer" I just say "jizer"

tchrist

17:48

@terdon Yes, and 93% root cognate.

Leaky Nun

and "eli" for "ele"

terdon

Whoops, have to run. Later all!

Leaky Nun

and "zhenchi" for "gente"

tchrist

@LeakyNun See, I never do those things, because I've spent more time in Portugal than in Brazil, and earlier.

Leaky Nun

@tchrist when I hear "iesu pie", I keep thinking about foot

tchrist

17:51

I can certainly speak the English when reading the Spanish, but it slows down my brain seriously, and is clumsy, in ways that PT > ES is not. At least for me. When I do written translations ES > EN, I take more time so that it sounds more natural. I think the problem is that I'm still thinking in Spanish because that's what I'm reading.

@LeakyNun haha

Leaky Nun

@tchrist you got it :o

it's a trilingual joke

@tchrist do you know why the French were so successful?

because they eat pain

tchrist

@LeakyNun Vietnamese boyfriend? :)

Leaky Nun

@tchrist lol

tchrist

Trust me, it's the real secret.

Oh, you say "the" not "my"

Leaky Nun

indeed

tchrist

17:54

oops, phone

Leaky Nun

do you have any multilingual joke?

@tchrist nun heißt Morpheus

Færd

18:09

@Cerberus That may be just another one of the factors involved. We'd have to know more about the show and its audience and fan club etc to solve the mystery.

Many of its episodes have garnered hundreds of millions of views on YouTube: youtube.com/…

There is no shortage of idiotic YouTube channels that have millions of subscribers. This show is, at least, cute, compared to those.

When A Separation was first introduced on IMDB, a great many Iranians flooded its page and rated it 10 (in a way that angered some other users of the site) and the film's rating soon soared above the site's top ones. It was not until after more users came and impartially rated it that it found its current rank. Maybe a similar thing happened to this show too.

Dunno.

@Cerberus Because most high-end English cartoons are fully copyrighted and reserved for sale and profit?

This one is broadcast free and might be meant to attract as much attention as possible.

> On May 7, 2013, at a bilateral meeting with South Korea's President Park Geun-hye at the White House, U.S. President Barack Obama cited the success of "Gangnam Style" as an example of how people around the world are being "swept up" by the Korean Wave of culture.

These things affect a country's global image.

Robusto

18:42

@tchrist Thanks for that. I'll watch it later when I have time.

Tonepoet

18:53

@Færd This one even has over two billion:

Маша и Медведь (Masha and The Bear) - Маша плюс каша (17 Серия)

►

I'm surprised. It's well made, but even people who are famous for earning a fortune off of Youtube don't get anywhere near that order of magnitude in terms of view count.

Jason Bourne

19:07

@Tonepoet That must be you in front of the bowl.

Tonepoet

Am I really that mischievous ?

Jason Bourne

I wonder what the bear does in the cartoon.

Tonepoet

@JasonBourne Is there anything in particular that makes you especially curious?

Jason Bourne

@Tonepoet No, as usual, I am just making small talk.

Tonepoet

@JasonBourne Hmm, well, the book he has diagrams that are reminiscent of chess textbooks, although I suppose they substituted the game of checkers to simplify it for younger people.

Jason Bourne

19:16

@Tonepoet I used to play both chess and checkers in the past, on a board that came with both piece sets.

@Tonepoet There was a major change in my life last week. Maybe I will email you and talk about it soon.

Tonepoet

@JasonBourne Okay.

Mitch

20:13

OK

Færd

20:50

@Tonepoet Yeah, we're tryna figure why.

Mitch

22:06

@JasonBourne I still don't know what longanimity is. Enmity from a long way off? I could look it up but that would be cheating.

Jason Bourne

@Mitch Forbearance and patience under provocation.

Mitch

@JasonBourne equanimity isn't so bad either

Jason Bourne

@Mitch Longanimity is like me. Equanimity is like Buddha.

Mitch

@JasonBourne Guess what else Ferrero makes?

Jason Bourne

@Mitch Cars? That is Ferrari.

Mitch

22:11

I think the Buddha was also langanimous too

@JasonBourne right. keep guessing

Jason Bourne

@Mitch However, I am not equanimous, lol.

@Mitch Motorcycles.

Mitch

@JasonBourne colder. think food. in the chocolate direction but not chocolate

Jason Bourne

@Mitch Ah, ice cream!

Mitch

haha no. slightly different direction. closer to their rochers

Jason Bourne

Milk!

Mitch

22:14

I can't say it!

Jason Bourne

Never mind.

Mitch

oh so you are patient under provocation!

Jason Bourne

I am. I just said never mind. I didn't take a knife and kill you.

Mitch

it has hazelnuts in it

Jason Bourne

Nutella.

Mitch

22:16

starts with an 'N'

whoo hoo!!!!

Jason Bourne

Woo Hoo!

Now that I guessed it, it is a sign that I will get well very soon...

Mitch

it's a sign that I persevered and that hazelnut is a compelling object of nature

@englishstudent nice. good to have background in two things, SW and something with content (like finance)

Jason Bourne

@Mitch Walnut looks like brain

Mitch

22:36

@JasonBourne yeah. I wonder if the same (very general) physical processes lead to the same folding. Like for brain coral or for ... (trying to think of others)

Cerberus

@Færd Mm you make some interesting points.

But I still don't fully understand it.

Transcript for

English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…