I adopted a little girl from Ukraine many years ago. I now know what a learning disability feels like. The Cyrillic alphabet has 33 characters, and maps different sounds to characters.
If you add a t to the Russian word Pectopah. you'd pronounce it the same as in English: Restaurant. I had to sound out every slowly, which meant when I tried to read billboards and signs while riding, they went by too fast.
It's not a criticism of the Russian language; rather, just how frustrating it feels to have to slow down and sound out words to get them right.
Interesting. Picture life in Kazakhstan. The Kazakh language, which is related to Turkish, was traditionally written in Arabic script, modified to accommodate sounds not found in Arabic. Around the time of the Russian Revolution, they switched to a Latin alphabet, similar to ours, but with extra letters to accommodate those uniquely Kazakh sounds. Then, around 1940, to put distance between Kazakhstan and the rest of the Turkic world, they switched to a Cyrillic alphabet, once again with some uniquely Kazakh letters. In 2017, the president ordered the country to switch back from Cyrillic to Latin script by 2025. So, people who have grown up using Cyrillic all their lives are having to switch. From some elderly citizens, it's the second switch of their lives. I understand that after some age, it's virtually impossible for the brain to fully adapt to a new writing system. After some relatively young age, you can learn a new script, but you can never scan it rapidly the way you can a script learned early in youth.
I also have a comment regarding the recommended language study courses. The site you linked gives #1 ranking to Pimsleur. It may very well be the highest quality course but I would take their claim that you can use the program in your car with a huge grain of salt. Several years ago I tried to study Irish using Pimsleur CDs during my 3+ hour daily commute (back when there were such things as offices) and I had to quit because I would get so absorbed in it I would miss exits and take wrong turns. It *is* highly engaging -- perhaps too much so for multi-tasking while piloting two tons of metal down a concrete ribbon at a mile a minute.
My Old English is extremely clumsy although I have a fair amount of experience with English of the Chaucerian era (which really can be mostly teased out by the method you recommend of simply trying to speak it). I am fairly certain I have identified the quote but won't spoil the commentariat fun by simply blurting out the answer. I will say that you will find the puzzle easier to solve if you have even a little bit of schoolroom German.
I adopted a little girl from Ukraine many years ago. I now know what a learning disability feels like. The Cyrillic alphabet has 33 characters, and maps different sounds to characters.
If you add a t to the Russian word Pectopah. you'd pronounce it the same as in English: Restaurant. I had to sound out every slowly, which meant when I tried to read billboards and signs while riding, they went by too fast.
It's not a criticism of the Russian language; rather, just how frustrating it feels to have to slow down and sound out words to get them right.
Interesting. Picture life in Kazakhstan. The Kazakh language, which is related to Turkish, was traditionally written in Arabic script, modified to accommodate sounds not found in Arabic. Around the time of the Russian Revolution, they switched to a Latin alphabet, similar to ours, but with extra letters to accommodate those uniquely Kazakh sounds. Then, around 1940, to put distance between Kazakhstan and the rest of the Turkic world, they switched to a Cyrillic alphabet, once again with some uniquely Kazakh letters. In 2017, the president ordered the country to switch back from Cyrillic to Latin script by 2025. So, people who have grown up using Cyrillic all their lives are having to switch. From some elderly citizens, it's the second switch of their lives. I understand that after some age, it's virtually impossible for the brain to fully adapt to a new writing system. After some relatively young age, you can learn a new script, but you can never scan it rapidly the way you can a script learned early in youth.
It's funny when I listen to German spoken for long enough it starts to feel like it's almost but not quite comprehensible.
...and yes, I have your OE quote figured out. It took a few minutes, but once I got part of it, the rest fell into place.
Excellent! And it helps even more if you recite the Old English quote with a particular accent and cadence. :)
I also have a comment regarding the recommended language study courses. The site you linked gives #1 ranking to Pimsleur. It may very well be the highest quality course but I would take their claim that you can use the program in your car with a huge grain of salt. Several years ago I tried to study Irish using Pimsleur CDs during my 3+ hour daily commute (back when there were such things as offices) and I had to quit because I would get so absorbed in it I would miss exits and take wrong turns. It *is* highly engaging -- perhaps too much so for multi-tasking while piloting two tons of metal down a concrete ribbon at a mile a minute.
My Old English is extremely clumsy although I have a fair amount of experience with English of the Chaucerian era (which really can be mostly teased out by the method you recommend of simply trying to speak it). I am fairly certain I have identified the quote but won't spoil the commentariat fun by simply blurting out the answer. I will say that you will find the puzzle easier to solve if you have even a little bit of schoolroom German.
You are a kind soul. :)