Modal Verbiage

When it came to the partitive in Finnish (with it's little detour into Italian), I was less than pleased with the native's explanatory attempts and less so with that of the textbook. Eventually, I went online and printed out every long, lengthy, overdone explanation of the idea until finally it made sense in my head.

There's a certain level in my mind where I need to make things make sense. I'm finally getting to a level in some of my pursuits where, not only do I sometimes need to have something explained more fully to reach that level, I sometimes need to sit down, concentrate, and make a strong mental effort to get my mind around it.

Oddly enough, I always thought that was just a weird way to speak of learning... never really understood it. I knew that it sometimes happened to less intelligent people with easier things, and pitied them. I knew it sometimes happened to super-geniuses with their original theories, and respected them. But I didn't realize it would actually happen to me before I was out of high school. :P

It happened in Spanish the other day with the future uses of the Subjunctive, for example. "Voy a decirte, tan pronto como ella venga." It means, "I'm going to tell you, as soon as she comes." The subjunctive is, loosely, used to demonstrate subjectivity. So in my mind scheme, the first part would be subjective, since it depends on the second.

But no, it's the second part which is in subjunctive. Eh? I wish I could just memorize that and be done with it, but it doesn't make sense to me. Kiser says that of course 'I'm going to tell you", it's the condition, 'her coming', which is uncertain. You can't be sure it will happen, it's in the future.

But then how can Spanish express anything in the future without the subjunctive? Future could carry a certain amount of doubt along with it inherently, but why would this inherent room for possibility and change be implied in some usages, but not others? I would use it for everything or nothing, according to that line of thinking, but then, I didn't invent the language.

"Voy a decirte, tan pronto como ella venga."

So they should both be in subjunctive. Or neither one should be. But if you're going by degrees of subjectivity, a rather subjective matter in of itself, then I would still, incorrectly, choose to make the first part subjunctive and the second part indicative.

Even with all the hazy 'whys' of the subjunctive aside, even looking at this one isolated construction, I have to ask - How can something that depends on something 'subjective' be objective? If it depends on something that is uncertain, how can it be certain? How can the indicative rely upon the subjunctive?

I think I'll ask Altadonna about this tomorrow. For now I'm just speculating. For Spanish, fortunately, I have the luxury of asking my elders. :D Norwegian is another matter entirely.

Skulle. Bør. Burde.

Should. Should. Should.

Which one is which? At first I thought it was the only tangle in the mercifully similar to English modal system. I was wrong. It only opened the door, and wasn't itself resolved in the process! Books skirt the subject as if it were of no importance. Evan wouldn't give me a decent answer, and neither would Svein. Lene gave it her best shot, and I was content with her explanation for a while. Then, the more I thought about it, I couldn't think of any situation under her system in which I would be able to use Skulle. And, as Skulle is a word, there must therefore be a flaw in the system as I understood it.

So finally I found this way too linguistic and scholarly artical, online, about all the Norwegian modal verbs and their being "Epistemic vs. Non Epistemic, Quotative vs. Assertive vs. Probabilitive vs. Speculative, Partly Dynamic Deontic - Partly Epistemic, Dynamic vs. Deontic, Compulsative vs. Colitive vs. Intentive vs. Abilitive, Necessitive vs. Appropriative vs. Possibilitive, and Directive vs. Hortative vs. Permissive"

Yeah, it makes me want to die inside. But it actually goes fairly slowly, actually provides enough information to crack it's own code. And I firmly believe that if I give it a little time, go at it with a clear, unhurried mind, throw at it all of my pitiful self taught linguistic background and knowledge of Latin roots, and try to use my common sense, I will come out of it understanding Skulle, Bør, Burde, and the rest, and even learn some useful new words in the process.


Forget memorizing dates, formulas, or vocabulary lists. THIS is learning.

Lovely Saturday

I had work off because we were to stay at the lake, but instead we came home early Saturday morning and I spent all day online, chatting with old friends. I had more windows up on messenger than I have for years. At one point it even became too much... I was talking to Alberto (Spanish), Svein (English), and Caroline (Norwegian) actively, and Lucía (Spanish-English) passively, when Stian (English w/ some Norwegian) and Isa (Spanish) came on. Ahh! :P

I chatted a bit with Lucía and caught up with Isa. I met my new friend Alberto... he goes to my school, needs help with his English, and doesn't have many friends, so Lucía and I have volunteered. :D I talked to Caroline for the first time in a while... she probably would have forgotten who I was if I hadn't been that weird American who could speak a small bit of norsk. We only spoke in Norwegian, so that was good practice.

I talked to Jashen at one point too... he's so fun. ^^ And huggy, as I believe he said himself. Apparently he's got a huge blog post brewing that I'll need to check out this week.

Svein and I chatted for a good while. I missed Evan... it's so fun with the three of us. He was gone all day, probably for that UN thing or his class trip, can't remember, I'm awful. :D Anyhow, Svein and I played pronunciation practice once I got my microphone working. (Turns out it was a driver problem... :D) Apparently I was saying Svein too much like Swine... there's less juncture between the S and the V than I anticipated. Fixed that and had him throw correct pronunciation of Lene and Stian into the bargain.

So, when Stian and I finally got the MSN thing right, I was actually able to say his name right for the first time. Then the two of us talked for several hours.

Amazing that it could have been good for my mental sanity - since the break up, it's usually stressful and awkward to talk to him. Instead, for the most part, it felt good.

We spent the time mostly just catching up, of course. Amazing how so many things change while so many things stay the same. I was surprised to see how much both of us had grown up and changed, especially physically. For some reason I wasn't expecting that. And it was nice to hear that I wasn't the only one who had ever harboured any regrets about the way things turned out, even if we're both content now.

I said Good Night, and he told me he hoped I had terrible nightmares. I didn't... I slept better than I have in months. Pleasant day, really needed it. :D

Walking Like Tidbit

Coming down from our neighborhoods only private lane, whose residential destination newly features a white cross and a miniature trash dump, Tidbit ran a bit ahead without a care in the world. I was a bit worried about her, as we were coming around a blind corner with concrete on all sides, and was keeping a close eye out for cars coming around the bend.

None of this was a concern to Tidbit. She's a smart little dog in some ways - we've never had a problem with her going into the street or anything. But when she's out with us she never seems to worry about what might happen. She trusts us, and so is content to march forward fearlessly, even around such a blind corner. I know any good Christian ought to be able to do the same, but I guess I need a different sort of God for that.

Tidbit has other admirable features, too. We can't walk down the street without half a dozen kids begging to pet the 'weiner dog'. She's a minicelebrity... but a kind word from someone she cares about means more than the admiration of the faceless multitude.

It was a nice walk, at any rate, with the fall colours at their latest but brightest, red everywhere. And it was unnaturally warm today, too... felt like the coming of Spring, when it should be the dawn of Winter. And I felt oddly at peace with myself. Distress and Eustress, were those the terms? Living in the future may be more pleasant than living in the past, but they both carry a certain load of stress, which is, if you believe in the media, along with poor diet the leading factor in illnesses.

Perhaps this is why dogs rarely get sick?

:D Lets Kill French! :D

Click here for a laugh at the Frenchies. :D

The boys, 11 and 16, who have a French mother and a British father, were taken to live in France after the parents' marriage broke down. But during a visit to England they asserted their "Britishness" and refused to return to live with their mother.

The mother took the case to court, arguing that she had a right to decide where they should live and that the father had put the children up to it, the Times newspaper reported.

But three of Britain's most senior judges decided the boys had an inherent right to refuse to live in France, where nearly 300,000 Britons have chosen to live.

Describing the case as "not just exceptional but very exceptional," the chief judge said it was clear the children really disliked the country and hadn't settled in.

They preferred England because, apparently, they could "walk to school, could have their own key and would not have to do as much homework."

In his ruling the judge said he had "rarely, if ever, heard such strongly expressed views by children."

Jeg, Claudius

Okay, to me, and the like 2 other people who could maybe understand all of it's nuances, this says more than words. :P A part of me just died...

Fall Break

I'm sort of fed up with America not having a fall break, except for like two days for Thanksgiving, so I decided to take my own in the form of a five day weekend. We had Friday off, and I'm going to an out of town concert on Monday night, so I won't be back in school until Wednesday. Yay! :D

I have a lot of makeup work, but it's SO worth it.

Friday was great, in the morning we had a birthday party for Lucia... really small but happy. Sara and Claudia and Lisa and I went and kidnapped her from her house... I don't think they do that in Chile or Brazil, she was kind of surprised. Best part was her talking to her mom in Spanish...

"Don't worry about me, I'll come back..." And I was like...

"Di Adios a Lucia! No vas a verla otra vez!" :D

Then we went to IHOP and ate... I tried pumpkin pancakes with Boysenberry syrup... yummy... :D For some reason we had major accounting issues, though, trying to split the bill four ways so Lucia wouldn't have to pay... and working out the tip... everyone felt like they paid twice their bill, kind of funny, but no one really cared. We're finally getting to that age where, while a few dollars might still matter to us, they don't matter enough to make any sort of deal about it.

Aww, it was so cute.

In the evening Melissa and I went to see the Elizabeth movie. It was pretty good, focused on the Pirate romance but the war in Spain for some reason drew some attention as well. :P The movie was harshly reviewed but it wasn't horrible - not amazing but not horrible. The architecture and costumes were gorgeous, and I loved understanding the Spanish and, to an extent, the German.

Then of course I worked on Saturday and couldn't go to church when I got home because Tidbit was freaking out from being alone all day and I didn't feel I could leave her. Then today I slept in, hung out with Lucia awhile to get a head start on my Neruda project (I swear, I want to die... I chose an English project which requires I translate lots and lots of complicated literary Spanish...), and then I've been trying to do my housework and break up my homework in an easy to travel way.

This is good for my mental health. ^^

Oh, and I had a lovely time talking with Evan and Svein in Norwegian... I think I did okay, I mean, they were always correcting me, but Evan even made a few mistakes... and besides, I was proud to be able to communicate. I also made my first two posts on diskusjon.no, although the first doesn't really count, but it made me feel more confident. Yay! :D