The Manor's purposes

[Lady Celes Crusader]

Welcome to a freshly newly renovated Manor.

 

First things first, let me introduce it's brief history. Shortly prior to my arrival to the Pen, Arlequin, a dear friend of mine, asked for a forum where he could write his stories and poems in French since it's his native tongue. So the Elders agreed upon his request and soon, the Manor of Tongue and it's sole forum, the French forum, had been created. Years passed and after the creation of a Spanish forum by request, the purpose of the Manor had been questionned many time. It was clear that status quo wasn't exactly an option so I tooked on me to suggest improvements and alteration before the Membership. Right now, with a much more defined purpose and writings being actually splitted from the discussions, it can go with a new start.

 

What is the purpose of the Café?

 

Here's what the Café is all about:

 

- Conversations about Tongues in multiple angles, like linguistic, grammar, difficulty encountered when writing in that tongue and so on. That includes English since it is, after all, a tongue.

 

- Discussions about foreign language works, songs and the like. It could be a appreciative thread or maybe somone is looking for a foreign language song and asks about it's author.

 

- Postings foreign language works of one's favorite author, such as the thread about Serge Gainsbourg (unless the forum ate it while I've moved it).

 

Keep in mind that the Pen is mainly an English forum so it is suggested to keep the level of conversation in another tongue to a minimal unless you have a very hard time in English.

 

Foreign Language forums

 

This is where poems, stories and RP (why not) are posted in another languages as long as it is a original work originally published here in the Pen. Authors are invited but not obligated to provide an English translation of their original works. Write in progress or unfinished are also welcome there.

 

Since there's so many tongues, it was unthinkable to have one forum per tongue. So regrouping them was the most logical thing to do. For now, only one forum is active. If there's someone who is very serious about writing in an language not represented by the actual forum, don't hesitate to let me know.

 

Established Forum

European Classics: The major and well-known European Tongues will go there and here they are: French, Spanish, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch and Swedish.

 

Forums planned in the future

European Exotics: This is where all the other European Languages will be.

 

Arabian Nights: Well, all the tongues used in the Middle-East will be there

 

Asian Garden: All Asian tongues will be there

 

African Wonders: Where African tongues will be.

 

Dialecte Island: Tongues and dialectes such as native amerindians, aborigenes and pidgins will de regroup there.

[Peredhil]

I, for one, would like to take a moment to applaud Lady Celes Crusader for all the hard work she's done in not only keeping this area alive, but continuously seeking to improve it, and make a more welcoming place.

 

The Pen is truly an international site - I'd not like to see people afraid to express the beauties of their own languages because the majority of membership speaks English.

 

Kisses Lady Celes on either cheek and hugs her.

 

Well done, M'lady, well done.

[Lady Celes Crusader]

Thanks Peredhil. Your support is heartwarming.

[Savannah]

Hi

Lady Cele may I say something and then ask something?

Thank you.

I think this is a wonderful idea. I can only speak English *looks sad* Please I know it is a terrible burden, but it is one I must bear. I do enjoy reading other languages and puzzling them out.

(No it is not quite the same as looking at the pictures and laughing at the words)

I find other languages quite interesting so yay for that.

 

Now to my asking. We all know there are translators around. Some are better than others, but none are as good as a real person who takes what you say and tells it to another in their mama language. Would it not be fun to do translations?

Oh and yeah - it would be funny. I have tried some of them and my face turned red with the returns when I figured them out.

 

Yes I think it would be fun-cause I know full well I can't do any of the work. But it is just a thought and if this is not the place for my thought then throw it out the window or something.

 

Thank you

[Gwaihir]

I really really love this and all the work you're doing, but may I request that you don't name the African one 'African Jungle'? After all, most of Africa isn't a jungle and...I don't know, but I can tell you that the two Africans I know would be bothered by that name.

[Lady Celes Crusader]

Gwaihir: *Changes the name* Is this better. If not, don't hesitate to come up with any suggestion.

 

Savannah: First, thank you for asking what's in it for people like you.

 

You are welcome in this forum. As for translations, many online translator I come around does a decent job when it's one word at a time but does a horrible job when it comes to full sentences and ppopular expressions. And I do sincerly think that help from native English speakers is welcomed because translation is very tough.

 

Here's how you can contribute here; you can give feedbacks on the translations, helping someone to better phrase his or her translation, correcting the grammar and spelling mistake and the like. Also, there's people who may ask questions about English that only a native English speaker can answer such as: "Is there an equivalent of "Bon Appétit" in English?" or "How do you pronouce "Hair", "Hare" and "Heir"?"

 

In short, no matter how many languages you speak, every single Pennite is welcome here.

[Gwaihir]

Celes, I really appreciate it and hope you aren't offended. I'm just protective of people and worry about some things.

[Lady Celes Crusader]

Gwai: I'm not offended. In fact, I'm glad that you saved me from potential embarassement.

[Rhapsody]

Lady Celes Crusader,

 

I'm a little late, I know, but I too applaud you for thinking of going international. I think it will be a wonderful help to aspiring writers of all ethnicities. Out of curiosity, have you had a heightened demand for forums of a different language, or is the creation of the forum purely in anticipation of multi-lingual posters?

 

I would imagine this forum would be the place to go if one wanted to translate a certain passage or poem into a different language? Or to infuse one's writing with the literary style and diction of a particular world region?

 

I personally am an Asian American and will be exicted to see the thoughts of other Asians here soon.

 

Thanks again.

[Lady Celes Crusader]

For your first question, I need to bring out the context for a full answer. The Pen had been revised throughoutly by the Elders and membership and every single forum had been in discussions. So, I know that although I want to seperate languages, I know that I couldn't have one forum per language. So European Classics is there for the tongues that are already used while the others are planned so if that anyone's want them opened, it'll be. So, the whole MoT is created because it of a French guy who wanted to write in his native tongue but it is redesigned and maintained for the multi-lingual people as well as the mono-lingual people who are curious about "foreign" tongues.

 

I would imagine this forum would be the place to go if one wanted to translate a certain passage or poem into a different language? Or to infuse one's writing with the literary style and diction of a particular world region?

Both goes into the Café as well.

[Sweetcherrie]

I haven't seen any Dutch writers yet, haven't been around long though.

 

But I would love to meet any other Dutch people that are, like me, trying to write in English but get stuck on the weirdest words. I find that especially expressions and sayings are difficult to translate, and sometimes it feels so right to put it in, but once translated it doesn't fit at all

 

So if there's any Dutch pennites around maybe we can join forces and beat the evil lords of English and escape the traps they have set out for us.

 

For now I will struggle on alone in this swamp of English words yet to discover.

(I just hope that the boot(s) won't get stuck and processes will come along nicely!)

 

(hope I didn't go wrong in my English there

[Katzaniel]

No, your English is really quite good.

 

"...swamp of English words..." is particularily appropriate.

 

Katz goes off to place some more traps, inventing the words "thair", "yoor" and "meir". (By the way, you're doing very very well if you can list three correct spellings of each of those. Contractions count.)

[Quincunx]

Katzaniel, as your post stands, you've succumbed to a common form of Internet hubris and punishment--pick at someone's spelling or grammar and invariably something will be wrong with yours. [EDIT: "Particularily"? Edit will be removed when original post is corrected.]

 

I wouldn't worry too much about expressions sounding strange in English, Sweetcherrie. Right now, I'm in a mixed gaming guild that has members from all corners of Europe, and a lot of statements get translated right before they're typed, or not at all, and yet they still make sense. It's true that the words won't seem as rich and full of meaning to you, but to readers who have never even heard the expression before, it will still make a good image--we may need the underlying moral explained, that's all.

Edited January 22, 2005 by Quincunx

[Katzaniel]

I'm sorry, but whatever you took as "picking on" was not meant in that way.

 

I really truly meant that the English was quite good.

 

Sorry if I came across poorly.

 

Edit: PS, mind telling me what mistake I made? I'd like to know, because grammar is important to me.

Edited January 22, 2005 by Katzaniel

[Zadown]

I just prefer the confuse people who only speak english with my directly translated Finnish sayings. If they try to confuse me in turn I use my "Meesa foreignerner, meesa no understand" defense. Mwhahahahaha!

[Venefyxatu]

I'm sorry to admit that I neglected this forum a bit, but I'll definitely try to make up for that

 

I'm not going to get tangled up into a spelling discussion here, but I would like to say, Katzaniel, that I can only assume that the words "thair", "yoor" and "meir" are some of the more common misspellings for "their" or "there", "your" and "mere" because I'm too lazy to get up and get my dictionary right now and too curious to let it pass by

By the way, did you know that "Meir" is the name of a shopping street in Antwerp?

 

Now, what I really wanted to say in this post :

 

YAY!! A fellow Dutch-speaker Let us join forces and bypass their traps by discussing our strategies in Dutch. Let us write up the plans for reclaiming their English swamps in Dutch so that they may not understand them!

 

Uhh ... *looks around at the weird looks from everyone, including Sweetcherrie* ... I'll go and take my medicine now

[Sweetcherrie]

Hello again,

 

Wow, so many reactions in such a short time, this warms my hart, and sends my spirit rising up into the sky where it is hopefully picked up by some floating spirits, and gets me in the right spirit to write some more in this inspiring place.

Well than to stay in the spirit of all these nice messages, some nice replies.

Hugs her dictionairy and fills a glass with one of her favourite spirits

 

Katzaniel:

 

I ran through my brain on the little quest you gave me, met some slimy old stories rotting away (should really do something with them), on the way. But I think, that somewhere in a dark corner I found some answers.

 

Thair, there, they're

Yoor, your, you're

meir, mare, mere

 

Are these right? Do I continue for the fridge/freezer combination now?

 

Oh and erm, I also looked something else up in my beloved dictionairy and found that it is Particularly no I in the middle. not trying to be a smart-ass here, just was curious myself and the dictionairy was in front of me anyways.

 

Quincunx:

 

Thanks for your words. They reassure me that i have come to the right place to spill my thoughts

 

Zadown:

 

I know exactly what you mean, I have been living in France for a while now, but every time I do some rule breaking (knowingly) and get caught, I just tell them "je ne parle pas français, no comprendo". Never fails.

 

Venefyxatu:

 

Yeah!!! dances around in her room, almost knocking her laptop of the desk

I had hoped to find some fellow Dutch speakers, but never expected it to be this quick.

 

And yes I would definitely like to join up forces and beat the slime monsters before they beat me. Maybe our Dutch beams will together melt them away for good.

 

And you know what they say:

Vele handen maken licht werk

[Quincunx]

Zadown, you can't confuse us more than Impostor did with his split and conjoined translated Russian proverbs: "if you spit in the well. . .don't expect it to fly back out again" was the only one which even approached sense. I'll try to find that post on the old Archmage boards and pray I don't have to pry it out of the middle of a flame war.

[Tamaranis]

Katzaniel:

 

I ran through my brain on the little quest you gave me, met some slimy old stories rotting away (should really do something with them), on the way. But I think, that somewhere in a dark corner I found some answers.

 

Thair, there, they're

Yoor, your, you're

meir, mare, mere

 

Are these right? Do I continue for the fridge/freezer combination now?

 

Oh and erm, I also looked something else up in my beloved dictionairy and found that it is Particularly no I in the middle. not trying to be a smart-ass here, just was curious myself and the dictionairy was in front of me anyways.

Katzaniel likes to play with English, but she doesn't make herself nearly as clear as she sometimes thinks she does.

 

According to a discussion I had with her earlier, "Thair", "Yoor", and "Meir" Are deliberately incorrect spellings of "There, their, they're," "Your, you're yore," and "Mere, Mirror, and Meer." None of those are alternate spellings for the same word, but rather are different words that sound the same, even if "mirror" doesn't really sound exactly like "Mere." And I'm not entirely sure "Meer." is an actual word, though I haven't looked into it.

 

I hope this makes her post less confusing... if it doesn't, it's best to pretend it never happened.

[Sweetcherrie]

Does this mean no fridge/freezer combination than.....?

 

Thanks anyways for clearing it up!

[Katzaniel]

I must admit I'm not sure what you mean about the fridge/freezer? Oh, as a prize... I see! Nope, you haven't won the incredible fridge, but I'll give you the second-place prize, this beautiful car...

 

Thank you Sweetcherrie for pointing out my error... I was wondering to what Quincunx was referring.

 

Okay, I have looked up "meer", and for reference, it is not by itself a word. I was thinking of it in terms of meerkat, a kind of animal, and apparently it also arises in meershaum, a kind of clay. But my quest was inherently flawed. Oops.

 

Oh, and because this is a thread that many non-native English speakers will read and because apparently I was not clear earlier, I want to make sure I say that the three words I gave are not words (as far as I know!) but could conceivably be pronounced the same.

 

I wonder, now... if a game of "Mad Gab" might fit into the Manor somewhere as a game for challenge-seeking non-native speakers. I would be interested to attempt at playing a french version, myself. (Mad Gab, by the way, is a game where phrases like "soup or man" are given and you're supposed to come up with a common and similar-sounding phrase like "superman". It would probably be made all the more difficult by the "common phrases" notion, but it might be a fun way to introduce the phrases and explain their meanings).

[Lady Celes Crusader]

Consider the Café as the Cabaret: anything that is not a prose, story or a rp can go there.

 

BTW, what the Dutches are doing is exactly what I enticed anyone to do in here.

[Appy]

'nother Duchy, no I meant a Dutchie (or is that Dutchy?) right here

 

Dutch speaking that is... also second language English, like most who grew up in the Netherlands in front of the television Third language German... which makes it all terribly complicated sometimes because of the differences between Dutch and German in way of sentence build up, plus the usual expression-differences.

 

(Best I heard so far was a Dutch woman who had lived here, in Germany, for long already and at the phone asked everyone "En wat is Uw arbeid?" .. she had to explain that she meant what kind of work they did every single time )

 

Anyways, a good way to get your grips on how to use which word when, is reading every single book you'd normally read in Dutch, in English instead. It's what I've been doing for the past 6 years (at least, make that 7 in fact)...

 

 

One thing I'm curious about right now is... do you try to write in Brittish-english or American-english?

 

 

Well, it's good to see both of you. I have been the only Dutchy here for long enough

(Louveteau is one aswell, but he was around for only a few days (or is that 'a few days only'? I swear English is a lot easier when you don't think about it too much. You'll mull over every single sentence otherwise ))

 

Would be interested to hear any reactions from the both of you on my collection of old poems in the Library too... *whistles innocently "Who said that?"*

 

Enough rambling from me, hope to see you around a lot

 

*hugs*

 

-Appy

[Sweetcherrie]

He Appy,

 

Cool, meer nederlanders, I am actually following my studies in English/French at the moment, but I still get corrected so many times by the native speakers.

 

Which is good because that helps me to improve!

 

I write English with the words that come to my mind, but I think it is maybe more British/English because I have worked with a lot of British collegues and they constantly told me things like:

 

No it is not Trash it is Rubbish and that's a Lorrie not a Truck

 

So I have probably picked up some British parts there.

 

I have read your poems in the library and they're amazing! It's a shame we can't mix the languages into one, because sometimes a sentence feels better in Dutch but sometimes the English phrase expresses it better.

 

I especially liked Opnieuw.

 

Plus I saw that some were written in Groningen and others in Peize. Now I must say that I followed part of my studies in Groningen at the Hanzehogeschool. So maybe in the past we have ran into eachother already!

 

Keep me updated off any new work of yours and I will be looking forward to be reading it!

And maybe I can PM you if I can not find translations for certain words?

 

*Hugs*

 

Sweetcherrie

[Katzaniel]

Appy: I'm pretty sure that sentence with "only" works both ways.

 

And yeah, Sweetcherrie, given those examples you'd be more British than American.

 

Simply because I'm curious:

 

Curb or kerb?

Colour or color?

Grey or gray?

Connection or connexion?

 

These are some of the words that it pays to be aware of - you'll see both in usage and both are right. Don't worry overly much about which you use, especially in a multinational community like this, but don't be thrown off when someone else uses the other.