That fellow is the one who coached some of our skaters in the past. I shall endever to look further here for when the next tournament. I MUST be somewhere. It would be nice if folks copuld look at the event live on their computers, wouldn't it?
I stopped by my mother this afternoon. She was glued to her set - ski shooting, or whatever it's called in proper foreign. The Norwegians weren't doing very well there eigher. Seems like we're in for one of those dull years wintersports-wise. By the way - bringing a piece of another thread in here - isn't Africaans a mix of Dutch, German and English?
Afrikaans...it sounds like it sometimes. I don't know what the South Africans themselves would say about that. I have only ever spoken to two or three South Africans in my life and we conversed in Dutch+Afrikaans. I could understand them perfectly well and they me...so I believe that there may well be a mixture of the three languages that you mentioned, but I believe that the basis and most of the words are Dutch. I know that many South Africans speak english as a separate language as well. The reason that Dutch has such a strong influence on their language has to do with Dutch colonists that went there. You may have heard the term, "boer". That is simply Dutch for "farmer". Heh heh heh,,, Droopy, you don't sound to enthusiastic about the upcoming winter. Do you have trouble with all the darkness? I can recall when living in Alaska, the long periods of darkness. I personally never had trouble with it but I know folks that did. It seemed that I had so many things to keep me busy that I never let it get me down, I guess. If I got really bored, I could always just go chop some wood for the fire and listen to the ice crack....ahhhh... those were the days!
This is more than just a forked thread - from painting - to skating - to languages. Afrikaans is actually an Indo-Germanic language and is has its base in Dutch - the whole history thing of the Dutch East India Company - etc. ANd the consequent colonization. The slave trade - Malay influences, Khoi, Nguni, Zulu, etc. You are right Sjoerd - even though one is not an English speaker in one's mother tongue it is best to do one's schooling in English if one has ambitions to graduate at university. English would serve on better for post-grad studies as well. And of course there are the British descendants as well.
Boer in Dutch - bonde in Norwegian. Not too far off. Interesting to hear that you could communicate in each others' languages. Is it like Norwegian and Swedish perhaps? I'm not fond of autumn or winter. I tolerate winter because of the children. They love snow. If we have little snow, it's just dark, damp and dreary. I like December because of all the lights everywhere, and Christmas. The time from January 6th 'till March or April is horrid. February is my worst month. Too early for light and flowers, and no festive holidays either. Threads can go anywhere if one lets them. So Africaans also has native African roots? I'm sorry to say I don't know much about the colonization of Africa, just rudimentary knowledge from my school days. I do know that the Dutch were a power to be reckoned with, winning colonies all over the place.
Heh heh heh... too right, Droops. This forked-thread is becomming more like a delta...but I'm not opposed to it if you aren't. It's almost like chatting. I'm glad that Palm Tree added the info. She is certainally the authority on the subject of Afrikaans. I'm not surprized that Afrikaans has some African roots, for I can recall when visiting Australia I noticed that there were a number of Aboriginal words that had found their way into Australian english. Actually many languages have adopted 'foreign' words over the years...I know that we have. English as well. Just look at Urdu, the language of Pakistan--it's a real mish-mash of languages that men of different cultures used around campfires to communicate with eachother when they were on fighting campaigns. It must have been sort of like the mixed armies of Alexander the Great, I expect. Of course there are some cultures that do everything under the sun to keep-out foreign languages' influence to their own language, but it creeps-in anyway it seems. Look at computers. Computer language is a language all it's own. In Dutch we "Dutch-ize" many of these terms; however, not all can be, so they are mispronunced to give it a Dutch sound and voilá! a new "Dutch" word is born. Well, I have no idea how close Sweedish and Norwegian is, but if a Sweede can speak that language to you and you answer in Norwegian, and you both understand eachothwer.... well, that's how it was for me. I noticed in my travels that I could communicate with some Italians by using spanish. It didn't always go suplely... but it was possible.--of course they are both "Latin" languages, that helps. Yeah, I thought that I detected a note of discord there when you said something about that time of the year. Februari is the absolute depths of winter darkness, isn't it? I can usually get quite alot done on my website during this period, as well as seed ordering and plans for the allotments. Do you ever fly out to somewhere sunny during that period, like Portugal, Canary Islands....or South Africa, for that matter? One year we overwintered in the Algarve in southern Portugal...in a VW camper van. Although I was quite young, we met some very nice older folks and had a pretty good time all-in-all. I wonder if this gloomy feeling that comes with living so far north is one of the things that motivated the Vikings to sally-forth?
Swedish and Norweigan are very similar. There are different words here and there but I've seen Norweigan programmes broadcast here that had no subtitles. For Danish programmes there are. Also Norweigan is, to my ears, sounds more like a song than any other.
The Danes need sub-titles to me they sound like they have a mouth full of mashed potatoes an are trying to talk,,,lol. just my opinion,, an the speed skate coach for the norwegian team i think is an American, Dennis Mueller or something like that,, i know its not the American commedian Dennis Miller,, but by the looks of it it might as well be. He was an olympic speed skater back in the 80's i think or 90's,,, Mueller that is not Miller,,,lol. I have no problem with Swedish since i spoke it as a child, but i did forget a lot of it until i came back here.
We have a similarity here with the Belgians...(the Flemings, that is). We receive Flemish/Belgian tele shows here and vice-versa. We even have guests and presenters on our channels, because we understand them perfectly, and they us. The pronunciation is a bit different and they have words peculiar to them...but it's so close to the same. Personally I find Vlaams very pleasing and charming to listen to. The other half of Belgium (Wallonia) speak French.
Oh well, Biita.... Mueller (or Müller, as it is also spelled) means Miller--- so it's all that much more confusing, isn't it? chuckle You might say that Mueler is Miller and Miller is Müller--whichever way you turn it.
Definitely not. I've learnt a lot in this not-very-narrow-and-to-the-point-thread. We've tried. I think Iceland is the country with the most success. No, December and January is. In February things are starting to brighten, but too slowly for my taste. Often it's the coldest month with the most snow too. If we could choose, we probably would take a holiday in the sun, but the girls are both in school, and school holiday trips are very expensive. I shouldn't wonder! To me they sound like that too. I won't tell them if you don't. Thank you! I believe it depends on the dialect you hear spoken. Some are very soft and singing, others are harder and rolling.
When i first came to Norway all i could do is blink when people spoke to me,,, now when i speak to people all they do is blink,, lol. heres why I learned norwegian up north here at the university, it is a very soft an highly sing song dialect Kolbjørn speaks southwestern dialect but not that Oslo rolling r's from a few yrs of living down that way the relatives up here, the older ones speak a older northern dialect from what i have learned. ex. mer (more) up here its said like merry plus i learned the new norwegian when i was at school to top it all off then i have my swedish dialect which is the northern swedish/finnish dialect an at times i will use a swedish word instead of a norwegian one... not meaning too it just comes out, plus the yrs of living in the states i have that accent too. so when i speak i have 5 dialects all rolled up into one sentence,,,an i wonder why they blink...lol. For me Feb an March is when i start to get restless, and April is even worse, because i'll see on the news how the mainland is having sunshine an calm weather most of the time an where having hurricane type weather, or more snow. Everyone is in short sleeves an out walking, were in winter coats an bracing the windows for the foul weather, so i think April is my worst month really...Feb i am still working on craft an such so really not to bad, and its just starting to get light out at least 3 hours a day by then, March i usually start to finish up what ever i worked on all winter. and its usually alot of snow but not cold at all, plus we have like 6-8 hours of light by then. Its April,, coz we have a full day of light almost,, but the weather is terriable, storm after storm just hits us day after day. plus i have nothing left to do, so i start to pace the house. And come May you can't get me in the house, we have almost 21-22 hours of light an its starting to warm up.
Plaats Datum 100m 500m 1000m 1500m 3k/5k 5k/10k achtervolging Salt Lake City 9-11 november 2007 2x 2x 1x 1x details Calgary 16-18 november 2007 2x 1x 1x 1x 1x details Kolomna 1-2 december 2007 1x 1x details Heerenveen 7-9 december 2007 2x 1x 1x 1x 1x details Erfurt 15-16 december 2007 1x 2x 2x details Hamar 25-27 januari 2008 2x 1x 1x 1x details Baselga di Pinè 2-3 februari 2008 1x 1x 1x details Inzell 16-17 februari 2008 1x 2x 2x details Heerenveen 22-24 februari 2008 1x 2x 1x 1x 1x 1x details Totaal 3x 14x 10x 7x 5x 2x 4x http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wereldbeker_schaatsen_2007-2008 I have found this. It looks like the next one is Kolomna 1-2 Dec Then it's 7,8&9 dec in Heerenveen
Biita, you've got to ask Frank how to put a sound file in here, I'd love to hear what you sound like! But it really doesn't matter as long as you get understood, does it? The worst thing must be to be unable to communicate. Thank you Sjoerd, I shall have to mark the dates on my calendar. My husband will probably think I've taken serious damage to my soul.
