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:
O'Neill, I have to confess, I didn't know what the first line meant at first. Only when you said it's obvious, I saw your name and "America". I think it's very impressive to be able to count from 1 to 999 billion :) I visited the website that you're using, and I think that's a perfect way to learn! It's very visual, and keeps on repeating the same information, which helps to stay in your brain. I also admire you for choosing a language most people are unaware of, because it takes bravery! It's a relief that it's very similar to German, because you seem to be very fluent in German. I like the way you incorporated Luxenbourgish culture, because it shows the perspective of the country that you're learning the language of. Nice job, O'Neill! Maybe next time, learn basic conversational phrases you use in restaurants. Since you like food, it will come in handy!
ReplyDeleteYour blog is awesome. The format is great, but I like the voice you bring. This is genuinely fun to read. The fact that it's Luxembourgish makes it all the more awesome. I'm impressed that you're taking on such an obscure language, though it appears it is similar enough to German that you aren't having much trouble. I think in the TED Talk it would be cool if you talk about the dying languages of the world, and how they should be preserved. I look forward to seeing the dialogue. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteSo, I take it that the Luxembourgish numerical system is much like our own? For example, in order to say 1,640, you recite the word for 1, then the word for thousand, then the word for 6, etc. (Oop, you answered this later in your post; ignore it. My impression is that the answer to the above is "yes".)
ReplyDeleteThose exercises look oddly entertaining. You could probably babysit your siblings just with QuattroPole! When your parents come home and your siblings are all speaking in Luxembourgish, though, just talk to your parents in Luxembourgish and pretend that you cannot understand their English. It works every time.
Negatives in Japanese are a bit easier; in order to say "I do not read," the grammatical structure changes to, "I read not." However, in order to say "There are no books," it changes to, "Books do not exist." Oh, Japanese, how I love you.
Potato pancakes are good. That is all.
I've made the attempt to teach my siblings German. It only resulted in Quinn screaming, 'Nein nein nein!' while giving me a devilish smile. Maybe I'll wait until they get older to start teaching them another language. But not too much older, obviously, since learning a language is easier when you're young.
DeleteI was once told about Japanese sentence structure, and it made absolutely no sense. And 'books do not exist'? Stop it, Japanese, before you hurt yourself.
And yes, potato pancakes are excellent.
Hey O’Neill, it’s Noah again, coming to see how the Luxembourgish goes, bien it looks like. (meaning “well” in Spanish, for those who only learn Germanic languages *hint hint*). I’m glad to see that you’re interspersing pronunciation/the vocal language with grammar/the written language (backslashes are the best). If you did this as per my suggestion, then I would be honored, but if you were already doing it before my I recommend trying it, then… I’m still taking credit for giving you the idea; I have so few good ones. For example, the invention project we did last year, my original idea was an implant that dictates song choice, but I digress. Enough about me and my strange ideas, let’s get back to your Luxembourgish journey. I think it is quite wise that you are (primarily) learning grammatical concepts and verbs before vocabulary words, because being able to say cheetah, is not as important as learning the verbs that would require you to say cheetah. I believe that Mr. Perlman spoke to this last year whilst (yeah, that’s a word) discussing his professor’s ability to learn languages quickly, Italian specifically. After several animated hand gestures and exclamatory statements like “What is this!?” Mr. Perlman made the point that learning the verbs of a language are far more important than learning vocabulary, which is very wise indeed. Since you don’t seem to be having many problems, I guess all I can do is wish you luck and say that your humorous anecdotes were quite amusing.
ReplyDeleteSincerely yours,
Noah Gilly
Oh, Noah, you make me smile. I did remember Mr. Perlman's monologue about Italian and the verbs and all that, so I thought I would try it out. I'm trying to find common conjugations so that I can learn verbs more easily, and then I'll probably tackle the nouns. Thank you for your comment!
ReplyDelete