User:JPLeRouzic/Icelandic stream
Useful tool
[edit | edit source]At Sourceforge there is a tool made by Icelandic scientists to automatically analyse Icelandic sentences. Its a great help for helping a newbie dissecting sentences. Go to http://sourceforge.net/projects/icenlp/files/ * Research more about the Icelandic language and improve the Wikipedia entry on the Icelandic language * Add more questions to the above quiz * Research more about the Icelandic language and improve the Wikipedia entry on the Icelandic language * Add more questions to the above quiz * Research more about the Icelandic language and improve the Wikipedia entry on the Icelandic language * Add more questions to the above quiz [[ * Research more about the Icelandic language and improve the Wikipedia entry on the Icelandic language * Add more questions to the above quiz]]
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Introduction to Icelandic Language
[edit | edit source]Beware this is an introduction so it's overly simplified and inaccurate. The purpose is just to give the first clues to start the language study! It is done in same spirit as "a quick and dirty guide to Japanese" By Tad Perry. The point of view is to teach reading.
- There are singular and plural as in English (some languages have more complex number systems!).
- There are three genders (masculine, feminine or neuter).
- There are four cases (nominative, accusative, genitive and dative).
- The nominative case is the simplest form of sentence where a noun indicates the subject: "John reads a book" => "John lesa bók"
- The accusative case is used to indicate the noun which is the object of the sentence: "The boy with whom she fell in love" => "Drengurinn sem hún féll í ást"
- The dative case is used to indicate the noun >to whom< something is given. For example, in "John gave Mary a book" => "John gaf Maríu í bók"
- The genitive case is used when the sentence name is in fact a compound of names and other words: "John lives with an Icelandic woman" => "John búa með íslenskri konu"
- The two main conjugations of verbs are present and past tense. Other tenses are rendered with auxiliary constructions.
- Like all other North Germanic languages, it uses a suffix instead of a prepositioned article. If transposed in English instead of "a man" it would be "mana" and instead "the man" it would be "manthe".
- Even worse for English speakers not only nouns but also pronouns, adjectives and the numbers (1... 4) are conjugated along number (sing. / plur.), case (nom. acc. gen. and dat.).
Dirty tricks
[edit | edit source]- For differentiating singular to plural a tip is (to be filled in)
- One can often recognize the gender of a name by the suffix:
- - If ending by "ur" it's a masculine gender
- - If ending by "a" it's a feminine gender
- - Otherwise assume it's neuter!
- Another tip about gender is when the ending consonne is doubled like in "komdu saell" then it is probably a masculine gender.
- When it comes to cases the most important is the kind of sentence and it helps to track the preposition:
- - nominative
- Masculine add "inn"
- Feminine add "n"
- Neuter add "ið"
- - nominative
- - accusative
- - genitive
- - dative
A lesson about Icelandic grammar
[edit | edit source]Words to Know
[edit | edit source]/Swadesh list List of names that are in common in lot of languages.
/Useful generic words List of generic words that are useful just to express ideas
/Dictionary This dictionary is indeed original but only at the beginning of its life and quite rough at the moment, it needs much more polishing to be really useful.
Quiz
[edit | edit source]| Less Then 40% correct answers is fail</ td> | Fail (U ) |
| 40% correct answers is that</ td> | Pass (G ) |
| 60% correct answers</ td> | Pass (VG ) |
| 80% correct answers</ td> | Pass (MVG ) |
Reading
[edit | edit source]Read the introduction to the Icelandic language on Wikibooks to familiarize yourself with the language. The following text is extracted from the "Icelandic" and "Icelander" articles on Wikipedia and from "Iceland" on Wikitravel. They were translated through Google translations, so beware of hidden dragons! After that each Icelandic sentence was decomposed in words that were further translated in English and added after the Icelandic sentence. The unfinished work is below and needs to be checked out as probably it contains numerous errors, some of them funny: It needs also to be reformated later.
Page 1 is about some Icelandic grammatical rules explained in English, along with the translation in Icelandic (thanks to Google) and each Icelandic word translated back in English. Some further comments will be written for each Icelandic word later.
Page 2 is about more complex Icelandic grammatical rules explained in English, along with the translation in Icelandic (thanks to Google) and each Icelandic word translated back in English. Some further comments will be written for each Icelandic word later.
Page 3 gives further information on specific grammar points.
Page 4 is about some Icelandic geographical, historical and life fact.
Discussion
[edit | edit source]Leave any questions or comments here.
Learning Activites
[edit | edit source]* Research more about the Icelandic language and improve the Wikipedia entry on the Icelandic language * Add more questions to the above quiz