Ech sinn d'O'Neill. Ich wunne an d'Vereengte Staate vun
Amerika. Wien bass
du? Wou wunnst du?
I think it's easy enough to figure
out what that means; if you can't, it means you don't know English or
Luxembourgish. Besides the above I've also learned the verb 'to have', how to
negate things, and numbers from 1 to 999 billion. It's a start. Baby steps,
baby steps. I believe in me and my super-cool
linguistic powers.
Two examples of the exercises I do:
Okay, so 'to have' or hunnen. It wasn’t at all difficult. The
conjugations weren't that hard to memorize, even though it’s an irregular verb.
Still, it’s one of the most common verbs in any language, so it’s important
enough for me to have on jump on that right away.
Negation is harder than it seems.
You can put the negation word at the end of the sentence, saying in effect,
‘you read not’ or ‘you should not go.’ You can also put it before a noun to say
something like, ‘you have no book.’ Somehow, this makes sense when I write it
down to take notes and when I describe it here, but not when I’m doing
exercises.
I’ll have to practice it more. I
like saying no to people and denying them happiness.
Anyway, I’m really glad that Luxembourgish doesn't have a weird
system for naming numbers like French* does. The Luxembourgish system is really
similar to German, and it sounds like it to. I just have to memorize numbers
zero through twenty, all the tens from thirty to ninety, and the words for
hundred, thousand, million, and billion; then I'll be able to say whatever
number I want. Up to 999 billion, of course. I don’t think I’ll ever need to
say more, unless I’m talking about the national debt.
To help me in my learning, I’ve made some flashcards with pronouns
and verb forms. I plan to make more as I continue with my lessons. Also, I
found this website that also teaches you Luxembourgish, but it does it in a
different format than the QuattroPole site. It moves a lot slower and it
basically all a big game. There’s not really an easy way to take notes on what
you learn, but it does have some merits; it drills you in flashcards like Mr.
Ostrow drills holes in metal. I think I’m going to use it as a supplement for practice,
just to make sure I get all the vocabulary straight in my head.
I read up on Luxembourg, and the country is a bit puzzling. At
first glance it seems conservative; they’re the only grand duchy in the world
and are comparatively religious, with one of their stronger political parties
being a conservatively religious one. However, they have a pretty popular Green
Party and things like same-sex marriage and euthanasia, which even we here in
America don’t have in every state. They seem to be like the rest of that area
of Europe, with belts of conservatism and liberalism. They also seem to have
some interesting foods that I would like to try somehow; smoke-cured Luxembourg
ham, small-deep fried fish (friture de la
Moselle), and potato pancakes (gromper
keeschelche). I like food. Food is good.
Finally, I have some ideas for my final video. I’ll have to put
subtitles up in the video of both the Luxembourgish and English words. I might hold
signs so that the audience knows what I’m saying in reply to the video of me.
Okay, I’m done. I promise. Awar!
*Four-twenties-ten means ninety. Really, French? Really?
P.S. Guillaume, Hereditary Grand Duke of Luxembourg is still married and still much older than me.
Link:
Reading links:
