| User talk:Pereru Oct 31st 2013, 01:44, by Pereru | | | | Line 55: | Line 55: | | | | | | | | And, yeah, you can def ask me questions if need be, I tend to use (or edit) wikis in "spells," i.e., disappearing for weeks (or even months) at a time but if I'm here - definitely. [[User:Neitrāls vārds|Neitrāls vārds]] ([[User talk:Neitrāls vārds|talk]]) 01:12, 31 October 2013 (UTC) | | And, yeah, you can def ask me questions if need be, I tend to use (or edit) wikis in "spells," i.e., disappearing for weeks (or even months) at a time but if I'm here - definitely. [[User:Neitrāls vārds|Neitrāls vārds]] ([[User talk:Neitrāls vārds|talk]]) 01:12, 31 October 2013 (UTC) | | | + | | | | + | :It is a little funny for me to think that ''Veja'' and ''Istoé'' can find their way to Latvia... Maybe the idea of a Latvian guy interested in learning Portuguese is as weird as that of a Brazilian guy trying to learn Latvian! (My history with Latvian is similar, by the way. I also one say simply picked up a book about two years ago, was charmed by all the macrons -- I love diacritics and accent marks -- and decided to just learn it (previously I had been studying Russian, which was actually more help than I had expected). I actually never managed to get a magazine or newspaper in Latvian, but with all those things available on the internet, this is not such a problem. (Not that I wouldn't like to be able to by ''Ir'' or even ''Rīgas laiks'' here in the Netherlands, but...). I also became interested in the sociolinguistic situation in Latvia (so many Russian speaking people make up for quite interesting social dynamics; and since I was learning Russian and am now learning Latvian, I can see both sides of the issue). It's funny how Latvia is full of interesting problems -- more than the usual share for a country with only 1.5 million people... | | | + | :Here is one little question, if I may. There seem to be three more or less equivalent Latvian translations for "lively", "vibrant" (= full of life, quick, agile, etc.): {{term|mundrs|lang=lv}}, {{term|možs|lang=lv}} and {{term|žirgts|lang=lv}}, perhaps also {{term|spirgts|lang=lv}}. Do you feel differences between them, or are they (near-)perfect synonyms? What differences, if any? I've been translating all of them more or less consistenly as "lively", as you can see in the example sentences for these words, but maybe I should translate each with a different English word. My "Latviešu-Angļu Vārdnīca" has {{term|mundrs|lang=lv}} = "lively, spry, sprightly, brisk", {{term|možs|lang=lv}} = "alert, lively", {{term|žirgts|lang=lv}} = "brisk, lively, sprightly, vivacious", and {{term|spirgts|lang=lv}} = "brisk, lively, sprightly; fresh". Except for the "fresh" meaning in {{term|spirgts|lang=lv}}, they all seem pretty similar to me, but I don't know for sure... What do you think? --[[User:Pereru|Pereru]] ([[User talk:Pereru|talk]]) 01:44, 31 October 2013 (UTC) | | | | | | | | == Adding topics to pages == | | == Adding topics to pages == |
Latest revision as of 01:44, 31 October 2013
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- ARCHIVE: June 2012 - September 2013
A suggestion about Latvian + potential LV pronunciation template[edit] Hi, firstly I'd like to thank you for your work on Latvian entries, esp. the etymology parts have proven to be very useful on several occasions, but I also noticed that you write the "pseudo-digraph" ⟨šķ⟩ as [ʃc] (which would exactly correspond to the combination of ⟨š⟩ and ⟨ķ⟩) but in Latvian it is realized as [ʃtʃ] or respelling with LV letters the pronunciation is actually ⟨šč⟩. On the other hand I don't think it is needed to necessarily "correct" IPA for entries already done since, I'm sure, there are people bound to actually insist on "šķ" being pronounced as [ʃc], since Latvian linguists make a huge deal of the fact of how closely LV orthography corresponds to actual pronunciation, I wouldn't be surprised if such a trend emerged. Plus Latvian Russians skip it altogether - in their accent it's [ʃk] because they tend to realize ⟨ķ⟩ as [k] and not [c] (although it's quite similar to their "softened" [tʲ], i.e., Russian [t] before front vowels) also realizing "šķ" as "šk" although they wouldn't have any problems pronouncing, e.g., the name of the city of Szczecin, perhaps it has to do with the fact that ⟨Щ⟩ (šč) and ⟨Ш⟩ (š) have been "syncretized" in Russian (both pronounced more or less as "š,") or perhaps some political or psychological reasons, but that would be pure speculation on my part :D Idk. Anyways my point is that it's not necessarily needed to correct past entries with [ʃc] as IPA for ⟨šķ⟩. Pronunciation template On an unrelated note I think I've seen someone (maybe you?) asking LV editors whether they could provide some pronunciation audio files, which, I have to admit is quite the endeavor to undertake, and in this regard I have been quite impressed with the text-to-speech synthesizer Google Translate has for Latvian. It has its shortfalls, I guess it is taking full advantage of the Latvian "near 100% phonetic" writing system, this, however also means that it is not able to distinguish between the two values of ⟨e⟩ ([ɛ] and [æ]) and has a wonky intonation but that could be written off as a side-effect of the Stephen Hawking-like synthesizer voice and pronouncing all e's as [ɛ] could be written off as Eastern Latvian accent (not "optimal" but still acceptable), besides that it actually does a great job! I read somewhere that the text-to-speech option is actually based on some open source software, but I'm not sure, I would probably need to email Google and I doubt the answer would be positive although saving files from it would be very easy, I have some type of a "Download Helper" extension installed on my Firefox installation and as soon as I click the speakerphone icon in Google Translate it actually offers to download the file that the synthesizer has made for the Latvian text in the input box. But I'm thinking of a template that opens the mpeg in a new tab (or window) just feeding in the parameters (the pagename of the entry on Wiktionary) to Google Translate and I actually found the URL structure (the parameters) where you can feed in Latvian text and the Google synthesizer will give an mpeg file of synthesized voice - playable in most browsers (at least Chrome and Firefox). This is the URL to Google Translate page itself with a pretty good pronunciation of šķīstā ieņemšana ("Immaculate Conception.") I did use a "dirty" fix, adding periods after every word (Šķīstā. Ieņemšana.) because the synthesizer barely paused between the words but considering Wiktionary usually has 1-word entries that's irrelevant, I think. http://translate.google.com/#lv/en/%C5%A0%C4%B7%C4%ABst%C4%81.%20Ie%C5%86em%C5%A1ana. And here's URL to the mpeg file itself: http://translate.google.com/translate_tts?ie=UTF-8&q=%C5%A0%C4%B7%C4%ABst%C4%81.%20Ie%C5%86em%C5%A1ana.&tl=lv&total=1&idx=0&textlen=18&prev=input It can also be written directly with all the diacriticized letters (Chrome and Firefox will then convert them to the percent sign entities not sure 'bout other browsers) like this: http://translate.google.com/translate_tts?ie=UTF-8&q=Šķīstā.%20Ieņemšana.&tl=lv&total=1&idx=0&textlen=18&prev=input I also tried plugging in text that I wrote myself and it worked flawlessly, here's the first sentence of the universal declaration of human rights: http://translate.google.com/translate_tts?ie=UTF-8&q=Ikvienam%20ir%20tiesības%20uz%20dzīvību,%20brīvību%20un%20personas%20neaizskaramību.&tl=lv&total=1&idx=0&textlen=18&prev=input OK, as can be seen from the 2 examples above wiki markup does not support spaces in URLs (and Idk what's the workaround to this) so I replaced all spaces with %20 and the diacriticized letters still work flawlessly, but since 99% of entries are single words this is of little concern, imo. Also in the last example the synthesizer (besides the wonky intonation) pronounced personas as IPA(key): /ˈpɛrsoːnas/ not IPA(key): /ˈpærsoːnas/, i.e., with "narrow e" instead of "wide e" as it should be in Standard Latvian but that is still acceptable and could be written off as a slight "Eastern Latvian accent." In conclusion I will try to make a template (for entries missing audio files) redirecting anyone to a Google Translate synthesizer version. I've somewhat fallen out of loop with the advanced substitution functions in wiki templates (for example to substitute spaces with "%20") but a preliminary version could be made for one word entries just feeding in the PAGENAME parameter and later could be updated... Also, I'm not sure, but I assume it should be OK to link to an external source for pronunciation? At least on Wikipedia it would be perfectly OK to link inline to a non-free image, etc. Worst case scenario it would actually be worth it to ask Google whether or not it's open source and in the unlikely event that that licence is, indeed, compatible with WikiMedia it takes like 2 seconds to download those mpeg files (using any "Youtube downloader" extension). - OK, I just made a template
{{synth-lv-pron}} and it works with single word entries without providing any additional parameters (example: šķīsts#Pronunciation.) It did not however work with an entry with a phrase with several words with spaces between the words, I guess some substitution would be needed to substitute spaces with "%20"... Neitrāls vārds (talk) 18:01, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
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- Sveiks, Neitrāls vārds! (I assume you are a native speaker of Latvian?). Thanks for the interest and support! I see you are very interest in phonetic matters -- thanks for the tip on the pronunciation of šķ, by the way. (Do you have a reference for it? I know there is some book on Latvian phonetics and phonology that I haven't been able to put my hands on... maybe you have it or know the reference?) From hearing Latvian videos (newscasts at tv3play.lv or at ltv.lv), I had the impression that šķ, as in, e.g., man šķiet... sounded almost like Russian щ; but then again, I'm not a native speaker, and my ears may not be hearing it accurately enough.
- As for the synthetic pronunciation, I am a little doubtful about it. As you pointed out, it has the "Stephen-Hawking-ness" that reminds me of the Big Bang Theory (Howard imitating Stephen Hawking), and makes it difficult to actually "see" the pronunciation. I clicked on your examples, and I am skeptical that they would be easy to understand for the newcomer who is trying to hear how words are pronounced... At any rate, if you want to know more about the legal aspects, and also have the opinion of other people, why not post your suggestion (and a link to your files and the synth-pron template) in the community portal (say, the Beer Parlor, or maybe the Grease Pit)? Others who know more than I do (which is very little...) about the legal intricacies of Google can tell you what they think.
- (But, in passing, if you're a native speaker, why not upload a few pronunciations yourself? There's no need to "do all the words"; you can just select a few every now and then, the ones you like, record yourself pronouncing them, and upload the files to commons...)
- Also, if you're interested in Wiktionary and the Latvian coverage here, maybe we could work together to improve things? I'm not Latvian (I'm just trying to learn the language), and I certainly have doubts and difficulties (e.g., with the translations of some of the sentence examples in many entries) which you could certainly clarify. What do you think? --Pereru (talk) 18:24, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
- In fact, Neitrāls vārds, I'm also curious about the legal and/or local ramifications of the question of using Google Translate speech synthesis. I think I will myself raise the question in the Beer Parlor (here) to see what the others think. --Pereru (talk) 18:55, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
- First off, Bom dia! (ou boa noite, nao sou seguro!) and second the member Vahag is definitely not amused by my suggestion to add (external) synthetic pronunciations judging by (his/her?) their reply in the beer parlor (and also a message on my talk page), lol! I do, however, think that it is pretty good. I added it to visšķīstākais#Pronunciation and the robot does a pretty good job (I'm not even sure if I wrote the IPA correct myself (should I write the diphthong ⟨ai⟩ as [ai] or [aj]??) but the synthetic pronunciation is actually spot-on!) I kind of suspect that it could be a pretty controversial suggestion to rely on a third party service in a template for a WikiMedia project and that if you bring it up it might not be received too well... And, yep, I am a native speaker of Latvian, this also means that Latvian doesn't really interest me that much (I mean, I already know it through and through, lol!) I do however look up Latvian entries sometimes (esp. for the etymologies.) Btw, the ones I've seen created by you (I assume) are near perfect, I think there was one missing macron in a sentence for the entry for stulbs. I didn't correct it, but I could go back and do it. Anyways from a native speaker's perspective the Google synthesizer (for Latvian) is actually pretty good... I actually tried a sentence in Portuguese (I can understand some Portuguese if spoken with Brazilian accent) and it actually sounds pretty good, aka, I can actually understand what the robot is saying (she does speak Brazilian though, I'm pretty sure.) Here it is: O dogma diz que, desde o primeiro instante de sua existência, a Virgem Maria foi preservada por Deus I think the only thing that's off is the word "diz" it should be IPA(key): /dis/ or IPA(key): /diʃ/ not IPA(key): /d͡ʒiʃ/ as she pronounced it but I'm not sure... Neitrāls vārds (talk) 23:04, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
- Ora essa! :-) Você gosta de português? My attitude to Portuguese is similar to yours on Latvian: I already know it through and through, so it doesn't interest me so much (I've occasionally contributed to Portuguese entries here, and every now and then I add a translation to an English term, but not much else); other than that, I concentrate on Latvian, which to me is like exploring a different planet, full of strange alien life forms (those intonations, my god! I even made a Category:Latvian minimal pairs for intonation to keep track of words that differ only in intonation...). My accent is Brazilian, and, even though I can understand continental (European) Portuguese, it always sounds funny to my ear, as if they were children speaking... but that's just a personal impression, I'm sure they think we Brazilians talk funny. (As for "diz", the female voice is actually right for the pronunciation of Rio de Janeiro -- and basically all of the Center and South of Brazil: São Paulo, Curitiba, etc. --; it should indeed be "IPA(key): /d͡ʒiʃ/" or "IPA(key): /d͡ʒis/", this is the most widespread pronunciation; for those guys, every "di" -- say, "dinheiro", "diretor", etc. -- is a /d͡ʒʃ/. By coincidence, I happen to be from Recife in the Northeast of Brazil, where the local pronunciation is indeed not /d͡ʒis/, but /dis/; but this marks me as a "Nordestino", which, in Brazil, suggests that I should be an uneducated construction worker born in some little farm... /d͡ʒis/ is more "prestigious". Not that I like it, if you ask me /dis/ is prettier, but I'm not from Rio de Janeiro or São Paulo, so I don't decide questions of "national prestige"...)
- Thanks for the appreciation; I try really hard not to make mistakes. (If you can tell me where the missing macron is in stulbs, I'll correct it...). Of course, sometimes I have doubts. Would you mind if every now and then I asked you a question about a translation or about some specific word on your talk page?
- As for the synthetic pronunciation... the Portuguese one is way better than the Latvian one, to my ears. I'm not so much against it; if you feel like adding this template to Latvian entries, be my guest. (I think there should be some standard presentation form though, like "speech synthesized pronunciation" or something shorter.) But I don't think they'll be very useful to non-Latvians. Being a native speaker, perhaps you're so used to Latvian pronunciation that you can understand the synthesizer's voice without problems; but, to someone who hasn't got much experience with it, I'm not sure it is a big help. As a non-Latvian, I must say I don't feel like imitating that Stephen-Hawking-esque voice. Maybe later, if they manage to have something as good as the Portuguese female voice, that would be better.
- Are you learning Portuguese, and other languages? It sounds like you may be a "language geek", much like myself... Boa sorte pra você! --Pereru (talk) 07:50, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
I guess you could say I'm a language geek "lite" :) Portuguese, coincidentally, has been my only true "hobby language" - that I learned just because I wanted to. Picked up a book of Portuguese in 30 days and I think I went through it in like a week. Then read some Vejas and some others were ISTOÉ, to think of it, this was actually before I even got my first computer - early 2000s. I did have somewhat decent Spanish beforehand though. Yeah, but this also means I have literally zero knowledge of the actual language as spoken by actual people. Like greetings, for example, the only thing I know is "Oi!" Telenovelas did prove to be pretty useful in getting at least some understanding of pronunciation and thankfully they were all Brazilian so you could actually understand something. (Hopefully no Portuguese take offense, lol!) And you're right about "diz" for example Curitiba would be [kuri't͡ʃiba] so the same would probably be true for "diz." After having learned Italian and using it quite a lot (or should I say trying to use it at first) while living in Italy my Iberian language abilities dropped like a rock though, whenever I would open my mouth and make a conscious effort of trying to speak Sp. or Port. it's maybe 2 words and then I've reverted back to Italian without even realizing it. On the other hand if I would ever end up in an area speaking +/- standard br-pt I would have a pretty solid foundation... And, yeah, you can def ask me questions if need be, I tend to use (or edit) wikis in "spells," i.e., disappearing for weeks (or even months) at a time but if I'm here - definitely. Neitrāls vārds (talk) 01:12, 31 October 2013 (UTC) - It is a little funny for me to think that Veja and Istoé can find their way to Latvia... Maybe the idea of a Latvian guy interested in learning Portuguese is as weird as that of a Brazilian guy trying to learn Latvian! (My history with Latvian is similar, by the way. I also one say simply picked up a book about two years ago, was charmed by all the macrons -- I love diacritics and accent marks -- and decided to just learn it (previously I had been studying Russian, which was actually more help than I had expected). I actually never managed to get a magazine or newspaper in Latvian, but with all those things available on the internet, this is not such a problem. (Not that I wouldn't like to be able to by Ir or even Rīgas laiks here in the Netherlands, but...). I also became interested in the sociolinguistic situation in Latvia (so many Russian speaking people make up for quite interesting social dynamics; and since I was learning Russian and am now learning Latvian, I can see both sides of the issue). It's funny how Latvia is full of interesting problems -- more than the usual share for a country with only 1.5 million people...
- Here is one little question, if I may. There seem to be three more or less equivalent Latvian translations for "lively", "vibrant" (= full of life, quick, agile, etc.): mundrs, možs and žirgts, perhaps also spirgts. Do you feel differences between them, or are they (near-)perfect synonyms? What differences, if any? I've been translating all of them more or less consistenly as "lively", as you can see in the example sentences for these words, but maybe I should translate each with a different English word. My "Latviešu-Angļu Vārdnīca" has mundrs = "lively, spry, sprightly, brisk", možs = "alert, lively", žirgts = "brisk, lively, sprightly, vivacious", and spirgts = "brisk, lively, sprightly; fresh". Except for the "fresh" meaning in spirgts, they all seem pretty similar to me, but I don't know for sure... What do you think? --Pereru (talk) 01:44, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
Adding topics to pages[edit] There is a little "+" in a tab at the top of discussion pages for adding new topics. Adding a new topic without using that tag makes it look as if you are contributing to the preceding topic, which can be misleading and time-wasting for those interested in the preceding topic and less so in yours. DCDuring TALK 19:42, 29 October 2013 (UTC) - OK. --Pereru (talk) 19:55, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
- Thanks and keep up the good work. DCDuring TALK 20:11, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
- No problem. (I actually didn't know that there was a difference between using the little "+" and simply editing the preceding topic. How can you tell? Is it only because of the Recent Changes page, or is there some other means?) --Pereru (talk) 20:44, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
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