h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well, I think I got you,

To improve my comand of written swedish, I just started to (try to) read the inrikes of the Dagens Nyheter under www.dn.se. And furthermore I copied a tape refering to a swedish course...
Next step: Perhaps I can allocate some Videos (undubbed, subtitelt).

Anyway, if you would like to know, what really uglifies written language, then you might want to take a look at the german orthographik reform. Exampels:

(old -> new)
Schnelläufigkeit -> Schnellläufigkeit (lll - uargh!)
Paket -> Packet
Philosophie -> Filosofie
daß -> dass

Perhaps pupils will learn writing easier now, but I am honestly confused.

ciao jj

The word 'das' or 'daß' always caused much delight in our German classes when I went to school.
Some people in the class thought it to be very funny, since 'dass' in Swedish means toilet. Shows the maturity level of a lot of my classmates at around the age of 13. They're the ones bending exhaust pipes for cars now, though, and I'm not.

Oh, and just for the record.. The news online are a good way of getting some grasp of languages.
I think I should brush up a bit on my German, but I can't be bothered about it.
Another good site for some good treveling phrases are at http://www.travlang.com/languages
But I guess you have probably already been there.

Yup, I use their dictionaries a lot, they're pretty good....

Anyway, I also prefer proper use of a language, I always use are and you etc. I just say 'cause and abbreviations like that sometimes..
I really don't remember what else you said about it, but I pretty much agree on it

Ooh! I have a Swedish movie with subtitles!! A classic one too Mitt Liv Som Hund, it was on a American moviechannel, can you believe it?! The first time I saw it I didn't know what it was, so I'm watching it, thinking:"What on earth is that language?!", and only after ten minutes I realised that it was Swedish
I'd love to get that book somehow (in Swedish, of course), since the plot is a bit vague in the movie. So if anybody has any suggestions?

Miriam

Mitt liv som hund!?! That is definitely a classic. Thomas von Brömssen and a bunch of other good Swedish actors.
I think that you should try ot get hold of the different "Hamilton" films. Kind of like a rip-off from James Bond, only that the Swedish version of Bond, Carl Hamilton, gets shot more often than Bond. In the latest film, he even kills Luke Skywalker. Mark Hamill plays the bad guy. And Hamilton has, like Bond, been played by a couple of different people throughout the years. Stellan Skarsgård (the Hunt for the Red October (the captain of the sub that gets blown up in the end), Good Will Hunting (the professor that discovers Will)) and Peter Stormare (Fargo (the bad guy that stuffs Steve Buscemi in the wood chopper in the end), Jurassic Park: The Lost World (that hunting-guy that gets eaten by the tiny raptors) and Mercury Rising (the guy that gets thrown out of the train by Bruce Willis)) to name but two of them.
Those Hamilton movies can get a bit confusing at times, because they shift between Swedish, German and English every now and then. But they're good.

Mark Hamill, damned to play the Jedi-pupil for evermore! I just saw him in a Simpsons episode (remember the forks, Homer...). Before, he played Captain Soandso in the Wing Commander Games. Oh yes, I well remember him once beeing special Guest in the Muppets Show. (Poor Mark)

About three month ago, I saw a swedish movie (black/white, subtitled) about a bunch of young guys (I would say: "Halbstarke") living in a common flat (something like a projekt for difficult kids) in the early 60ties. I forgot the name, and most of what happend, I must confess.

Thanks for the link (I was looking forward an online dicionary)

Didn't he also play a priest or something in another very obscure movie about some strange kids?

That travlang link has helped me fake lots and lots of phrases in a lot of different languages. Really handy.

I think it's rather hard to get a Swedish movie in the Caribbean
Eek, don't have time to write more today..

Miriam\

That could, of course, be a problem. Hmm.. One way of getting hold of foreign films could be to go to a local college or somethin,g and ask if they can get hold of it for you, for educational purposes, of course.
Never relly tried it myself, cause we were pretty covered with films in the languages I wanted to learn (English) when I was younger. All we had to do was just to turn the tv on, and there it was.

'Repeat after me: A child lives in the barn.'
'Ett barn bor i ladan.*

Vilket barn?

Bin Laden, var det inte terroristen som sprengade World-Trade-Centren? (This sentence comes with absolutely no warrenty of correctnes what so ever).

Men jag tänker det blir bättre i nästan manader (sorry for the rubbish i wrote, I haven't got a dictionary at this place).

Hejda

Who blew up the world Trade Center? I thought it was still standing.
Det blir bättre och bättre varje gång man använder det.
The more you use it, the better it gets.

Ska vi prata på svenska nu?
*proud to have produced a Swedish sentence too*

Well, I just live in a really crappy place, there are not colleges here, everybody goes to Holland or the US to study after they finish highschool... and the library (eventhough it's a really nice place, and does have a good load of books for such a crappy island) doesn't supply much more then English, Dutch and, and about 5 German, French and Spanish, books etc. Or maybe I'm just picky and want a silly language nobody else wants

Oh well, it's not like they aren't keeping me entertained with maths in school....

Hej då.. (Oh, oh, oh! It's more Swedish out of my mouth! Err.. fingers... well, du vet vad jag menar...)

Hehe... Det verkar som om du kan rätt bra svenska.
Or are you playing the same as I do in the different forums of other languages? Brutal faking.
Not that I'm accusing you, cause you do seem to handle the Swedish language pretty well.

Anyhow, there are always ways to get hold of books in different languages. If you can't find an official way, look through the right contact channels. Trust me. There are always ways to get what you want. Well, pretty much anyways.

Om allt annat misslyckas kanske en vilsen person kan hjälpa till... :o)

Hmmm,

today I tried to fill in a form for the institution I will go to in august:
To sign in for a swedish intensive course, I had to look up the course number in a sepearte brochure, which I found in the AAA. On page 10 there was a remark which told me to look on page 4 for further information, OK! Page 4: For details see page 14, right... but the brochure had only 12 pages. Well you might think that's boaring, but i felt like I was chasing something misterious, unreal, dark, unmentionable... THE 14th PAGE - comming soon across Europe. *Truth is inside!*

De vilsast personer tiger, för de vet att de vet ingenting.

Tack så mycket
Oh well, I've pretended knowing more than I do too
It's a fact that people love it when you speak there language, and I like making people happy.... and I like to be known as intelligent

Do you have experience in making sure you're getting what you want?
I don't obviously Well, I'm gonna try... see if I can get my hands on anything useful...
Or wait for en vilsen person

Hej då

True JJ.. He is wisest who admits that he knows nothing, for the more we learn, the more we know that we do not know about. Or something equably philosophical.
Anyhow, I think it's rather strange how some schools and institutions can refer to pages in brochures that doesn't exist. Like the elusive page 14 in your brochure. Then there's the instance when you get to a certain brochure too late, and someone else has already seen page 14 and thought it was interesting enough to keep, but didn't really fancy the rest of the brochure. That way, page 14 exists, but not in your vicinity. Which can be quite frustrating.

MIriam, I agree that people get happier if you know a couple of easy phrases in their language. That's one of the good things to work in a multilingual call centre. We've got people from all over Europe, speaking pretty much all languages spoken in Western Europe, like French, Italian, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Danish, German.... And I think I can say "Hello, how are you?" in all of those languages. Always cheers people up. The only language I have difficulties with is Dutch, cause that's a pretty funny language.
But I do try to expand my language skills a bit at a time. I tried Japanese a couple of years back, but it didn't go too well, cause it's a complex language, and I just tried getting a book about it. Not a good idea.
Anyways. U,,,,.. I think I lost where I was going with this.

Oh well, I'll be back again, sooner or later.
Ciao.

Sure LIS, under circumstances considerable as "normal", the possibility that a "persona non cognit" could have abducted the missing page 14 is favourable one, but: it has never been there, you could see it! It was a fancy brochure, orinted on heigh quality paper in 4-coluor-mode. If anyone had have replaced the page, there would also miss four pages between page 1 and page 12, because they stick together!

We got to face the fact: Page 14 was never printed - it was never ment for us to see!

Vilset phrasa:
"We cannot not communicate" (1. axiom of X)
Vilset fraga:
"What can I say when words are not enough?" (Johnny Logan)

führti

That would mean we have a slight problem. If there has never been a page 14, the information on page 14 has never existed, and therefor someone has misled you. Even thought that might be fun for him to do (misleaading is in deed pretty much fun) it is not as fun for you since you're actually looking for the information that has been promised you to be on a page that doesn't exist and therefor does not exist itself.

"Information wants to be free! If you ket it free and it comes back, noone was interested in hearing it. If it doesn't come back, you know you've made a difference."

I'm curious about what you said about information:
Isn't it vise versa with it?

Ad 1: Can information come back on its own? Only when it's written (or taped). Otherwise somebody has got to tell you the same thing again what you said or wrote before. Then, you can deduce information about the person who told you again what you just said, from the way the information was brought back to you.
Ad 2: No Answer is an answer, too! (Remember the first axiom)
Ad 3: Still, Johnny Logan is misunderstood.

You might very well be right about that.. It's been a long day, with little to do and all I want right now is to go home.
So, I'm leaving.. Day off tomorrow, so I'll be back on Freitag.

Auf wiedersehen.