Thread: Pecuariam felis
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Old 11th February 2018, 11:05 AM
Regulus Regulus is offline
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Join Date: Apr 2017
Location: Varmland, Karlstad region, Sweden
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Wow! This an interesting read, Marty. And I love how you explained about the feminine form of the word. Excellent analysis, all in all
And the word felis, so that's where the English word feline originates. Cool!
I studied a few languages myself, and love Syntax.

As a kid I had to learn both the Norwegian languages, bokmål and nynorsk. And I got a good grade in both, even if I hated nynorsk. My feelings toward nynorsk would probably have been different, if we had been told the historical background. Both were developed around 1850s. Bokmål means the written language, and since Norway used Danish in official context, bokmål has only a very slight difference to the Danish language (when it is written).
Nynorsk means the New Norwegian language, and is a collection of words used by the natives themselves in different parts of Norway. Hence, nobody speaks "proper" nynorsk. But some variation of it, called dialects. So really just a construct and an attempt to have a distinct Norwegian language.
The further west, or north you get from Oslo, nynorsk dialects are the norm.

I struggled as a kid with English, but that all changed when I started to read books written in English as an adult. As basically all the books I have read as an adult were written in English, so that is the language I have the best vocabulary in. And I read non-fictional books, only rarely fictional.

I moved to Sweden and went to school again as an adult. Among other topics I chose to study languages, as that is something that I love to learn.
I studied German and can read pretty well, I can write and speak some.
I also studied English at that time, but my teachers sometimes struggled with me. As they at times believed I was in error, but upon checking found that I was indeed correct.
So they asked me to dial it back a level, as not to intimidate my fellow class mates.
I studied Russian as well, but learned only a little. I can hardly understand anything as my vocabulary is so weak.
This was back in 93-95. And of course, I had to translate everything to Swedish along with learning the new languages.

At the University I chose to study old greek, or koine greek. Along with my religious studies. My greek is pretty weak, pretty similar level to my Russian.
But I sometimes entertain myself trying to read Russian or Greek words to see if I can understand them


What I really learned by all my studies, is what my teacher in German and Russian taught me. As he was in fact a translator, he had a very different approach than any other language teacher I have met.
He focused on syntax. He explained to us that when we learned the the syntax of a language properly, we could move on and start adding to our vocabulary. But it didn't make much sense to him to have us try making conversation.
Best teacher I ever had
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Last edited by Regulus; 11th February 2018 at 11:26 AM.
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