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Post by psw on Jun 9, 2023 18:00:59 GMT -5
Classwork is distinct from homework.
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Post by rikita on Jun 9, 2023 19:37:11 GMT -5
Agree, saying "class test" is redundant. HOWEVER, we do use the single word "classwork," and isn't that what "Klassenarbeit" would translate to anyway? as i am not sure what classwork is, i can't say. a Klassenarbeit is a written test that takes up a whole school lesson and takes place maybe twice per semester and the grade counts more into your final grade than that of shorter tests ...
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Post by Liiisa on Jun 9, 2023 19:50:25 GMT -5
Oh wow, that's very different. I think of "classwork" as exercises and such that are done in class (as against tests or homework).
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Post by psw on Jun 9, 2023 22:20:55 GMT -5
Klassenarbeit sounds more like a midterm or final exam, which is a test on all the material covered so far and thus is a major component of your grade for the term or full year.
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Post by lillielangtry on Jun 9, 2023 23:06:17 GMT -5
Although midterm strikes me as a very North American word and Germany always teaches British English.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Jun 9, 2023 23:24:04 GMT -5
Yes, we wouldn’t use midterm in Australia either. It would be a test, or perhaps a unit test, at the end of a unit of work. Class test isn’t used.
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Post by Queen on Jun 10, 2023 1:48:22 GMT -5
I wouldn't ever use the term "classwork". It's just the lesson you're working on at school. So I think I'd say lesson.
And I wouldn't say midterm, because the school year has/had three terms, so it's just exams and then final for the end of the year.
Or sometimes exam for the big one covering the whole year's work and tests for everything in between.
But Americans are weird **runs**
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Post by vinnyd on Jun 10, 2023 14:21:57 GMT -5
American universities generally adopted a quasi-German model in the mid- to late nineteenth century: semesters, seminars, etc. Not terms and tutorials.
Some have now gone to trimesters, closer to a British term.
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Post by Liiisa on Jun 11, 2023 5:55:39 GMT -5
Another topic re English --
Another thing I notice in reading 19th century original sources is how so many of the English words that we now use to mean "great" had more specific meanings in their earlier use. For example, Darwin describes things as "wonderful," which in that context means that they make you wonder about them - it's not that he really loves barnacles. Same with "fabulous," "awesome," "terrific," etc.
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Post by lillielangtry on Jun 11, 2023 8:28:33 GMT -5
Yes, my German student struggles to remember the difference between "awesome" and "awful" and you can hardly blame him. Both contain the word awe but aren't really used with that meaning anymore, I mean like in a fear of God way...
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Post by vinnyd on Jun 11, 2023 9:46:29 GMT -5
I saw a production of Twelfth Night in which Mark Rylance as Olivia got kind of a cheap laugh exclaiming "Wonderful!" when seeing the twins (Viola still in male drag) for the first time, as if she were saying "How great! I get twins!" rather than something like "Incredible!"
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Post by psw on Jun 11, 2023 11:54:40 GMT -5
And "wondrous," which actually has that meaning, has fallen out of usage.
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Post by Queen on Jun 11, 2023 12:39:14 GMT -5
Another topic re English -- Another thing I notice in reading 19th century original sources is how so many of the English words that we now use to mean "great" had more specific meanings in their earlier use. For example, Darwin describes things as "wonderful," which in that context means that they make you wonder about them - it's not that he really loves barnacles. Same with "fabulous," "awesome," "terrific," etc. "Luxurious" used to mean sensual, so when Claudio says Hero “knows the heat of a luxurious bed” in Much Ado About Nothing, he's not meaning she had satin sheets. And what till you find out what "nice" used to mean... You may enjoy the podcast "Something Rhymes with Purple"
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Post by vinnyd on Jun 11, 2023 12:58:10 GMT -5
The male lead in Northanger Abbey gets on whatshername's case for using "nice" as a general term of approval.
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Post by Liiisa on Jun 11, 2023 13:22:06 GMT -5
Well, and "warm" used to mean something like belligerent.
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Post by Queen on Jun 11, 2023 13:34:45 GMT -5
The male lead in Northanger Abbey gets on whatshername's case for using "nice" as a general term of approval. Catherine Moreland. But I've just checked the text and the word nice/nicer comes up twice, and there's no comment about the use of the word.
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Post by Liiisa on Jun 12, 2023 4:39:20 GMT -5
That's like me being convinced that the protagonist in Murakami's "Kafka on the Shore" spends the entire novel listening to "Kid A," when in actually it's only mentioned once.
OK maybe not
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Post by Queen on Jun 12, 2023 6:42:04 GMT -5
Sometimes I think things in the movie are in the book... that was my first thought here. But I remember reading Brideshead Revisited as an adult - and I was surprised at all the religious stuff. I read it at the level of historical romance the first time
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Post by vinnyd on Jun 12, 2023 8:55:03 GMT -5
This is the passage I was thinking of, Chapter XIV:
"Udolpho" is Anne Radcliffe's Gothic novel The Mysteries of Udolpho. Johnson is Samuel Johnson's dictionary. Blair is Hugh Blair's Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres (1783).
When Miss Tilney says that he is more nice than wise, she means "nice" in the older sense, capable of fine distinctions, nitpicking even.
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Post by Queen on Jun 12, 2023 15:05:05 GMT -5
I stand corrected - no idea why that passage did not come up on search yesterday, there's enough niceness in it.
(It's my least favourite of her novels, so I've only read it twice).
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Post by Queen on Jun 15, 2023 14:47:36 GMT -5
Not the most useful word in Dutch but it always makes me laugh
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Post by sprite on Jun 15, 2023 16:06:40 GMT -5
I've read Udolpho. DO not recommend. The fact that it was considered an exciting book at the time tells you how dire fiction was back then.
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Post by rikita on Jun 15, 2023 17:10:30 GMT -5
Not the most useful word in Dutch but it always makes me laugh in german it is Eselsbrücke ...
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Post by romily on Jun 16, 2023 2:14:07 GMT -5
We have the same in german - Eselsbruecke - to remember something!
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Post by vinnyd on Jun 18, 2023 13:15:00 GMT -5
It goes back to Latin, pons asinorum, and maybe to Greek before that. It was the name given to one proof in Euclid that was a stumbling block for the donkeys in the geometry class, who could never get beyond that point. I thought that German Eselsbrücke meant that kind of stumbling block, but maybe, like the Dutch, it has come to mean a device that helps you over that bridge.
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Post by vinnyd on Jun 18, 2023 13:18:49 GMT -5
Looked it up. Wikipedia:
In geometry, the statement that the angles opposite the equal sides of an isosceles triangle are themselves equal is known as the pons asinorum (Latin: [ˈpõːs asɪˈnoːrũː], English: /ˈpɒnz ˌæsɪˈnɔːrəm/ PONZ ass-i-NOR-əm), typically translated as "bridge of asses". This statement is Proposition 5 of Book 1 in Euclid's Elements. . . .
Pons asinorum is also used metaphorically for a problem or challenge which acts as a test of critical thinking, referring to the "ass' bridge's" ability to separate capable and incapable reasoners. Its first known usage in this context was in 1645
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Post by snowwhite on Jun 18, 2023 13:48:28 GMT -5
Another topic re English -- Another thing I notice in reading 19th century original sources is how so many of the English words that we now use to mean "great" had more specific meanings in their earlier use. For example, Darwin describes things as "wonderful," which in that context means that they make you wonder about them - it's not that he really loves barnacles. Same with "fabulous," "awesome," "terrific," etc. There's a bit in Lords and Ladies (Discworld) where there's a series of statements about elves that makes this point: “Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder. Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels. Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies. Elves are glamorous. They project glamour. Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment. Elves are terrific. They beget terror. The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning. No one ever said elves are nice. Elves are bad.”
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Post by Liiisa on Jun 18, 2023 16:01:04 GMT -5
Superb -- That's one Pratchett I haven't read yet.
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Post by snowwhite on Aug 6, 2023 5:08:53 GMT -5
So my current work project means working with a dental examiner (usually they're dentists, but they can be dental therapists, apparently), and the one I've been working with is Greek, which is nice, because it means I can chat about learning (ancient) Greek and not sound like a pretentious idiot just for mentioning having learned it, because for him it's a normal thing to have learned, and his children are far too young to be at the age where he knows about what's normal for secondary education in this country.
And I've just added Greek to my long list of Duolingo languages, and have been whizzing through the early 'learn the alphabet' lessons because after doing the quiz thing DL put me at the beginning of the course anyway, because I don't really know any useful modern stuff, just have memories of conjugating 'lu-o' (the verb to loose) and learning lots of ways of saying 'the', which came as a shock after Latin I may say.
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Post by rikita on Aug 6, 2023 9:56:36 GMT -5
so, just wanted to report back about my experiences with albanian while being in albania ... of course, within the three months before the trip since i started learning, i couldn't really learn the language, but it was enough for some communication (occasionally i spoke to people who did not know english, longest conversation was with a taxi driver, where i learned, among other things, that he has 2 sons, the younger one is 9 years old, he himself is 45, i mistakenly said that i am 23, but corrected my age when i saw his surprised reaction, that there are a lot of tourists in their area in summer, but only a few in winter, and that it gets very cold there in winter ...)
a. sometimes complained about me trying to speak albanian and said i should try english first, not sure if it was because she found it embarrassing or because it took longer ... at the very least i did say "faleminderit" (thanks) and "mirupafshim" (good bye) in the end ...
i'll stop with albanian now, as i currently have no reason to continue learning it, though i hope that maybe i'll return there one day and take it up again - i think if i had had a few more months to study, and a few more weeks there to practice, i could really have gotten somewhere ... but for now, i suppose there are other languages that make more sense to study ...
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