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Joe leaned back in his chair, the late sun spilling over the cafo
terrace. Heidi smiled, her words carrying that thick Bavarian
rhythm as their conversation turned to old childhood food.
"In Bavaria," she began, waving her hands like little fish swimming,
"we eat herrings. Herrings on bread, sometimes mackerel too. Always
fish, ja. With onion, vinegar. My mama open the jar - pfuuuh - smell
very strong!" She laughed at the memory. "But is gut, sehr gut."
Joe stared blankly. "Wait . . . herrings? Mackerel? Dude,
I've never even heard of those. What's a herring? And mackerel?
Sounds like Pokomon or somethin'."
Heidi laughed, surprised. "Not monster! Is fish. Small, silvery
fish. Very salty, make you strong. Herring keeps you warm in
winter. Mackerel, too. Always on bread in my house."
Joe shook his head in disbelief. "Wow, okay . . . nah, that wasn't
even close to my world. When I was a kid, it was all Lunchables."
"Lunch . . . what?" Heidi leaned forward, puzzled.
"Lunchables," Joe said with excitement, sketching a square
in the air. "Little plastic trays, you know? Crackers, fake
cheese, turkey slices, sometimes even mini pizzas. You build
your own meal like you're at a restaurant, but it's all,
like, processed food. Made you feel cool, though."
Heidi's eyes narrowed as she tried to picture it. "So . . . tiny
restaurant in the box?"
Joe laughed. "Yeah - like a terrible restaurant for kids.
And to drink? Oh man, Sunny D. Sunny Delight. It looked like
orange juice but tasted way sweeter, almost radioactive. Moms
thought it was healthy 'cause of the label. Total sugar bomb."
Heidi tilted her head, repeating carefully, "This Sunny D . . . "
Her lips twisted into a half-smile. "In Bavaria no Sunny D. We drink
Milch. Sometimes warm. Fresh, direkt from cow. Not neon orange."
Joe snorted. "Yeah, sounds way more hardcore than mine. You
were slamming pickled ocean in jars, and I was chugging fake
orange syrup."
"Pickled ocean?" Heidi giggled, covering her mouth. "Ja, maybe.
But herrings are good. You try one day."
Joe grinned, shaking his head. "Girl, the day I eat a 'herring'
is the day you drink a Sunny D. Deal?"
Their laughter filled the warm evening, two childhood worlds
colliding - his built on plastic trays and neon drinks, hers
on silvery fish and strong smells drifting from jars.
On 30 Sep 2025 06:06:42 GMT, ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram)
wrote:
Based on the fact that no one has responded to this post, I assume
everyone else here is as confused as I am about why it was posted.
On 30 Sep 2025 06:06:42 GMT, ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram)
wrote:
Their laughter filled the warm evening, two childhood worlds
colliding - his built on plastic trays and neon drinks, hers
on silvery fish and strong smells drifting from jars.
Based on the fact that no one has responded to this post, I assume
everyone else here is as confused as I am about why it was posted.
Stefan Ram wrote:
Their laughter filled the warm evening, two childhood worlds
colliding - his built on plastic trays and neon drinks, hers
on silvery fish and strong smells drifting from jars.
Based on the fact that no one has responded to this post, I assume
everyone else here is as confused as I am about why it was posted.
Based on the fact that no one has responded to this post, I assume
everyone else here is as confused as I am about why it was posted.
There is a much simpler reason why nobody responds to Stefan's posts.
On 02/10/25 09:29, Tony Cooper wrote:
On 30 Sep 2025 06:06:42 GMT, ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram)
wrote:
Based on the fact that no one has responded to this post, I assume
everyone else here is as confused as I am about why it was posted.
There is a much simpler reason why nobody responds to Stefan's posts.
(Isn't it strange how foreigners in fiction have no trouble with
words such as 'herring' and 'mackerel', yet struggle with 'very
good'?)
(Isn't it strange how foreigners in fiction have no trouble with
words such as 'herring' and 'mackerel', yet struggle with 'very
good'?)
Oh, it happens in real life, too. We don't necessarily assimilate words
in their order of usefulness.
Den 02.10.2025 kl. 12.51 skrev Peter Moylan:
[...]
(Isn't it strange how foreigners in fiction have no trouble with
words such as 'herring' and 'mackerel', yet struggle with 'very
good'?)
Oh, it happens in real life, too. We don't necessarily assimilate words
in their order of usefulness.
Not long after I got access to the internet I learnt two long English
words. I'll see if I still can spell them:
-a-a-a-a-a floccinaucinihilipillification
-a-a-a-a-a pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis
I think that I got the last one right.
On 02/10/25 17:10, Hibou wrote:
(Isn't it strange how foreigners in fiction have no trouble with
words such as 'herring' and 'mackerel', yet struggle with 'very
good'?)
Oh, it happens in real life, too. We don't necessarily assimilate words in their order of usefulness. I learnt this week that fein-chomhfhisioch (spelling approximate) is the Irish word for "self-conscious"; I can order coffee with or without milk and/or sugar; I can ask for directions to the train go Cork; but I still don't know yet how to say "Where is the toilet?"
Oh, and most importantly, I know that "T|i br||n orm" means "gomen nasai".--
Ar an dara l|i de m|! Deireadh F||mhair, scr|!obh Peter Moylan:
> On 02/10/25 17:10, Hibou wrote:
> >
> > (Isn't it strange how foreigners in fiction have no trouble with
> > words such as 'herring' and 'mackerel', yet struggle with 'very
> > good'?)
I donrCOt know that rCLherringrCY and rCLmackerelrCY are directly relevant to StefanrCOs
English or your comment, but part of the dynamic with that may be that the German for herring is der Hering, and the German for mackerel is die Makrele. [...]
Le 02/10/2025 |a 14:27, Aidan Kehoe a |-crit :
Ar an dara l|i de m|! Deireadh F||mhair, scr|!obh Peter Moylan:
> On 02/10/25 17:10, Hibou wrote:
> >
> > (Isn't it strange how foreigners in fiction have no trouble with
> > words such as 'herring' and 'mackerel', yet struggle with 'very
> > good'?)
I donrCOt know that rCLherringrCY and rCLmackerelrCY are directly relevant to
StefanrCOs English or your comment, but part of the dynamic with that may be
that the German for herring is der Hering, and the German for mackerel is die Makrele. [...]
Heidi says 'Herring', 'mackerel', and 'sehr gut' in the text Stefan published at the start of this thread.
though in this case herring and mackerel are apparently Hering and
Makrele, so it mayn't've been necessary.
Ah, forgive me. I clearly need to read StefanrCOs posts more closely!
Le 02/10/2025 |a 14:27, Aidan Kehoe a |-crit :
-a Ar an dara l|i de m|! Deireadh F||mhair, scr|!obh Peter Moylan:
-a > On 02/10/25 17:10, Hibou wrote:
-a > >
-a > > (Isn't it strange how foreigners in fiction have no trouble with
-a > > words such as 'herring' and 'mackerel', yet struggle with 'very
-a > > good'?)
I donrCOt know that rCLherringrCY and rCLmackerelrCY are directly relevant to
StefanrCOs
English or your comment, but part of the dynamic with that may be that
the
German for herring is der Hering, and the German for mackerel is die
Makrele. [...]
Heidi says 'Herring', 'mackerel', and 'sehr gut' in the text Stefan published at the start of this thread.
Ar an dara l|i de m|! Deireadh F||mhair, scr|!obh Peter Moylan:
Oh, it happens in real life, too. We don't necessarily assimilate
words in their order of usefulness. I learnt this week that
fein-chomhfhisioch (spelling approximate) is the Irish word for
"self-conscious"; I can order coffee with or without milk and/or
sugar; I can ask for directions to the train go Cork; but I still
don't know yet how to say "Where is the toilet?"
rCLC|i bhfuil an leithreas?rCY Agreeably enough the word starts with l so thererCOs less need to fret about its gender.
School Irish tends to mean rCLan bhfuil cead agam dul go dt|! an leithreas?rCY gets instilled more permanently than the fact that rCLbomaiterCY is the usual word for rCLn||im|-adrCY in Donegal.
--Oh, and most importantly, I know that "T|i br||n orm" means "gomen
nasai".
[...] Duolingo is unusual in that it never explicitly mentions grammar. In the case of verbs you get to see by example that the first person tends to end in -im or -imid, so that sinks in fairly quickly. But, in the two years I've been learning Irish, noun gender has never been mentioned. Nouns turn up sometimes in plain form and sometimes in lenited or eclipsed from, leaving you with the impression that the beginnings of nouns vary randomly depending on the sentence. On the web I once found a statement that the definite article "an" causes lenition, but only for feminine nouns, but that fact has never been mentioned in Duolingo lessons.
Does that happen with other languages in Duolingo? I can't imagine that
you could get very far in French, for example, without any mention of gender.
[...] Some years ago, when visiting Ireland, I asked for help in translating a gravestone inscription. The answers I got were to the effect that they had forgotten all the Irish they had learnt in school. But that was in Kilkenny, where I guess there is near-zero chance of meeting a native Irish speaker.
(A couple of years later, by coincidence, I was able to help a stranger
by telling him exactly where his grandmother was buried. It was the very person under the gravestone I had transcribed. He didn't know where his family was from.)
Ar an tri|| l|i de m|! Deireadh F||mhair, scr|!obh Peter Moylan:
> [...] Duolingo is unusual in that it never explicitly mentions grammar. In
> the case of verbs you get to see by example that the first person tends to
> end in -im or -imid, so that sinks in fairly quickly. But, in the two years
> I've been learning Irish, noun gender has never been mentioned. Nouns turn
> up sometimes in plain form and sometimes in lenited or eclipsed from,
> leaving you with the impression that the beginnings of nouns vary randomly
> depending on the sentence. On the web I once found a statement that the
> definite article "an" causes lenition, but only for feminine nouns, but that
> fact has never been mentioned in Duolingo lessons.
>
> Does that happen with other languages in Duolingo? I can't imagine that
> you could get very far in French, for example, without any mention of
> gender.
The Turkish course doesnrCOt mention vowel harmony at all, but there are plenty
of exercises where knowing about it is the only mechanism to get the answers right. No genders in Turkish. The explicit bit of grammar that springs to mind
is adding an -i/--#/-yi/-y-# to mark the definite direct object (kind of an accusative marker plus article, analagous to Persian -+#+o /-r+a/ if that is any
help to anyone.) This is not explained and is required to get various answers right. As I understand it a grammar book is needed beside Duolingo, likely for
every language they offer.
> [...] Some years ago, when visiting Ireland, I asked for help in translating
> a gravestone inscription. The answers I got were to the effect that they had
> forgotten all the Irish they had learnt in school. But that was in Kilkenny,
> where I guess there is near-zero chance of meeting a native Irish speaker.
Par for the course, morerCOs the pity.
> (A couple of years later, by coincidence, I was able to help a stranger
> by telling him exactly where his grandmother was buried. It was the very
> person under the gravestone I had transcribed. He didn't know where his
> family was from.)
Even for dealings with a small country, thatrCOs a hell of a co-incidence!
Ar an tri|| l|i de m|! Deireadh F||mhair, scr|!obh Peter Moylan:
[...] Some years ago, when visiting Ireland, I asked for help in
translating a gravestone inscription. The answers I got were to
the effect that they had forgotten all the Irish they had learnt
in school. But that was in Kilkenny, where I guess there is
near-zero chance of meeting a native Irish speaker.
Par for the course, morerCOs the pity.
(A couple of years later, by coincidence, I was able to help a
stranger by telling him exactly where his grandmother was buried.
It was the very person under the gravestone I had transcribed. He
didn't know where his family was from.)
Even for dealings with a small country, thatrCOs a hell of a
co-incidence!
Duolingo is unusual in that it never explicitly mentions grammar.
As I understand it a grammar book is needed beside Duolingo, likely for
every language they offer.
Duolingo is unusual in that it never explicitly mentions grammar. In the
case of verbs you get to see by example that the first person tends to
end in -im or -imid, so that sinks in fairly quickly. But, in the two
years I've been learning Irish, noun gender has never been mentioned.
Nouns turn up sometimes in plain form and sometimes in lenited or
eclipsed from, leaving you with the impression that the beginnings of
nouns vary randomly depending on the sentence. On the web I once found a statement that the definite article "an" causes lenition, but only for feminine nouns, but that fact has never been mentioned in Duolingo lessons.
Does that happen with other languages in Duolingo? I can't imagine that
you could get very far in French, for example, without any mention of
gender.
Peter Moylan hat am 03.10.2025 um 01:13 geschrieben:
Duolingo is unusual in that it never explicitly mentions grammar.
I guess you already did that, but just in case you didn't: what about
an online search, i.e. Irish grammar online, Irish articles nouns, <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_declension>, <https://www.celtic-languages.org/Irish/The_Article>
ASIDE: Just out of interest, do you learn Irish via your desktop or
your mobile? I recently discovered that if you do the lessons via
your smart phone, a whole range of new possibilities open up. For
example, you earn more points for completing a French lesson on a
mobile than you do on the desktop. Also, I have access to 'Maths',
'Music' or 'Chess' lessons on my mobile, whereas I do not on my
desktop. (I don't think Win 10 is a dumber OS than Android.)
as long to do anything as it would on a proper computer. Increasingly,
too, I'm finding that I need a magnifying glass to read the small fonts
on a phone. And I don't know how I would do a fada (acute accent) on my phone.
A tip: The Opera browser for Android has a nice zoom function. Any
browser can zoom, but Opera is the only one (AFAIK) that flows the text accordingly. The full text stays in the window.
On 03/10/25 16:47, Aidan Kehoe wrote:
Ar an tri|| l|i de m|! Deireadh F||mhair, scr|!obh Peter Moylan:
[...] Some years ago, when visiting Ireland, I asked for help in
translating a gravestone inscription. The answers I got were to
the effect that they had forgotten all the Irish they had learnt
in school. But that was in Kilkenny, where I guess there is
near-zero chance of meeting a native Irish speaker.
Par for the course, morerCOs the pity.
I've probably mentioned this before. P|idraig Breathnach, who was once a respected regular in alt.usage.english, was a school teacher. He once mentioned to me that the kids in his class were stunned when he spoke to
them in Irish. What's that all about? He's the history teacher, not the
Irish teacher.
In my university lecturing I met similar things. In a circuit theory
lecture, I said, "Now for this next bit we need complex numbers. I'm
sure you're all familiar with them." "No." "Never heard of them." "But they're on the Mathematics 101 syllabus. You would have studied them
last year." After a lot of reflection, someone said, "Oh, yes, we did do that. But that was mathematics, not engineering."
And they had all
decided that, once they had passed the mathematics exam, they could
afford to forget all that "irrelevant" stuff.
(A couple of years later, by coincidence, I was able to help a
stranger by telling him exactly where his grandmother was buried.
It was the very person under the gravestone I had transcribed. He
didn't know where his family was from.)
Even for dealings with a small country, thatrCOs a hell of a
co-incidence!
I'm not sure where my notes are now, but it's not such a coincidence. I
would have had a good reason for wanting to do the transcription. Her
surname probably matched names in my family; perhaps she was even a
Moylan. On the genealogy web sites, people use surname matches as a
reason to contact another member.
Usually the relationship turns out to be too distant to be of any use,
but now and then you get lucky. I found a lot of my Kilkenny ancestors through such a "long shot" contact.
!!!!!
It would never have occurred to me to use a phone for such a job. Even
in English the keyboard isn't wide enough to fit eight fingers and a
thumb. When I do go to a web site on a phone, it seems to take ten times
as long to do anything as it would on a proper computer. Increasingly,
too, I'm finding that I need a magnifying glass to read the small fonts
on a phone. And I don't know how I would do a fada (acute accent) on my phone.
On 03/10/25 18:44, Silvano wrote:
Peter Moylan hat am 03.10.2025 um 01:13 geschrieben:
Duolingo is unusual in that it never explicitly mentions grammar.
I guess you already did that, but just in case you didn't: what about
an online search, i.e. Irish grammar online, Irish articles nouns, <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_declension>, <https://www.celtic-languages.org/Irish/The_Article>
Thanks. Yes, I do sometimes look at sites like that, and I've had some useful information from them. For example, the fact that the article triggers lenition in feminine nouns, in case you happen to remember
which nouns are feminine.. (And another site cured me of the
misconception, obtained from Duolingo, that possessive pronouns cause lenition.) But such web sites also give me so much information overload
that I can't remember the information.
In the case of the Irish language, there's also the disheartening fact
that practically every noun in the language seems to be irregular. The prepositions are also irregular, a problem that rarely occurs in other languages.
I don't know your phone, but on mine (Android) I just let my finger stay
on i.e. a and can then choose: |a |i |o |n, a with tilde, with circle above it, a dash above it and some more, much easier than on the PC keyboard
I'm writing with.
Peter Moylan hat am 03.10.2025 um 12:44 geschrieben:
It would never have occurred to me to use a phone for such a job. Even
in English the keyboard isn't wide enough to fit eight fingers and a
thumb. When I do go to a web site on a phone, it seems to take ten times
as long to do anything as it would on a proper computer. Increasingly,
too, I'm finding that I need a magnifying glass to read the small fonts
on a phone. And I don't know how I would do a fada (acute accent) on my
phone.
I don't know your phone, but on mine (Android) I just let my finger stay
on i.e. a and can then choose: |a |i |o |n, a with tilde, with circle above it, a dash above it and some more, much easier than on the PC keyboard
I'm writing with.
On 03/10/25 19:14, occam wrote:
ASIDE: Just out of interest, do you learn Irish via your desktop or
your mobile?-a I recently discovered that if you do the lessons via
your smart phone, a whole range of new possibilities open up. For
example, you earn more points for completing a French lesson on a
mobile than you do on the desktop. Also, I have access to 'Maths',
'Music'-a or 'Chess' lessons on my mobile, whereas I do not on my
desktop. (I don't think Win 10 is a dumber OS than Android.)
It would never have occurred to me to use a phone for such a job.
Even
in English the keyboard isn't wide enough to fit eight fingers and a
thumb. When I do go to a web site on a phone, it seems to take ten times
as long to do anything as it would on a proper computer. Increasingly,
too, I'm finding that I need a magnifying glass to read the small fonts
on a phone. And I don't know how I would do a fada (acute accent) on my phone.
I have to admit, though, that more and more web sites are designed with
the assumption that you're going to view them on a phone.
Ar an tri|| l|i de m|! Deireadh F||mhair, scr|!obh Peter Moylan:
On 03/10/25 18:44, Silvano wrote:
Peter Moylan hat am 03.10.2025 um 01:13 geschrieben:
Duolingo is unusual in that it never explicitly mentions
grammar.
I guess you already did that, but just in case you didn't: what
about an online search, i.e. Irish grammar online, Irish articles
nouns, <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_declension>,
<https://www.celtic-languages.org/Irish/The_Article>
Thanks. Yes, I do sometimes look at sites like that, and I've had
some useful information from them. For example, the fact that the
article triggers lenition in feminine nouns, in case you happen to
remember which nouns are feminine.. (And another site cured me of
the misconception, obtained from Duolingo, that possessive pronouns
cause lenition.) But such web sites also give me so much
information overload that I can't remember the information.
GRAIM|eAR GAEILGE na mBR|UITHRE CR|iOSTA|i will be helpful in the years ahead, but requires more Irish than you have, and stretches mine:
https://www.forasnagaeilge.ie/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/GGBC_19990-2.pdf
In the case of the Irish language, there's also the disheartening
fact that practically every noun in the language seems to be
irregular. The prepositions are also irregular, a problem that
rarely occurs in other languages.
By the latter, do you mean that the declension of the prepositions?
You have to learn them, but thererCOs only so many of them. Now,
Duolingo isnrCOt going to give you tables to learn, but it is doable.
Peter Moylan hat am 03.10.2025 um 12:44 geschrieben:
It would never have occurred to me to use a phone for such a job. Even
in English the keyboard isn't wide enough to fit eight fingers and a
thumb. When I do go to a web site on a phone, it seems to take ten times
as long to do anything as it would on a proper computer. Increasingly,
too, I'm finding that I need a magnifying glass to read the small fonts
on a phone. And I don't know how I would do a fada (acute accent) on my
phone.
I don't know your phone, but on mine (Android) I just let my finger stay
on i.e. a and can then choose: |a |i |o |n, a with tilde, with circle above it, a dash above it and some more, much easier than on the PC keyboard
I'm writing with.