Sinuhe 2011

[AldenG]

So what is your methodology, and how are you choosing these quite sparse excerpts to ask us about?

In particular, how are you parsing these forms so quickly and where is your vocabulary coming from?

[maximumforum]

So what is your methodology, and how are you choosing these quite sparse excerpts to ask us about?

In particular, how are you parsing these forms so quickly and where is your vocabulary coming from?

I just read. That's how I learned English, at my early teens I had English books (whatever I could get my hands on back then with no internet and not really much sources, an example is a Stephen King novel) and an English -> Arabic or English -> English dictionary on the side. It took a longer time to learn back then as I didn't have internet or someone to ask, just the books and the dictionary.

I've read a Moomin book before Sinuhe (Muumipeikko ja Pyrstötähti) and I listen and watch Finnish things, so I have some idea already. Vocabulary isn't a big problem to me, it wasn't with English and it wasn't with German at high school.

At the beginning I posted a lot more, to check my comprehension with others and learn from them. Now I only post the parts that I am confused about and that I can't figure out on my own. I think that I understand well and I don't feel like bothering with translation so much anymore, that's why I post sparsely now. I have Wiktionary, Nykysuomen Sanakirja and Wikipedia etc, I only ask people as a last resort.

Edit: And it seems the way you think of the -piirteinen words are -featured, too. So I'll think of them as that. I think it makes sense.

[Jukka Aho]

What is teräväpiirteisyys, rohkeapiirteisyys, kaunispiirteisyys, hämäräpiirteisyys (< from Nykysuomen Sanakirja at "piirteinen".) Is that a pompous way to say sharpness, braveness etc? Or is it more like a tereväpiirteinen, sharp-featured, like describing someone's face or something that has features of the adjective but not the adjective itself (face can't be sharp, but can have sharp features)? So then would teräväpiirteisyys be sharp-featuredness?

From piirre > piirteinen.

piirre = feature, aspect, characteristic

So you’re right:

teräväpiirteinen = sharp-featured (characterized by its sharpness)
teräväpiirteisyys = sharp-featuredness

kaunispiirteinen = beautiful-featured

etc.

Edit: Another offtopic question (should I start a different thread for these kind of questions? I feel that they're too menial to deserve a thread each)
täydentää vs täyttää, what's the difference?

täydentää = to supplement, replenish, complement, augment, fill in, flesh out, restock
täyttää = to fill up/in/out, refill

The former is more about filling in the missing pieces to some existing structure, complementing something, or restocking supplies if they’re running low.

The latter is about filling something (such as a gas tank) up to the brim, making it full/packed, utilizing all the available space, volume, or capacity.

[maximumforum]

täydentää = to supplement, replenish, complement, augment, fill in, flesh out, restock
täyttää = to fill up/in/out, refill

The former is more about filling in the missing pieces to some existing structure, complementing something, or restocking supplies if they’re running low.

The latter is about filling something (such as a gas tank) up to the brim, making it full/packed, utilizing all the available space, volume, or capacity.

Mmh. So täyttää is to fill something, täydentää is to help something become full. I wonder if täydentää has something to do with intransitivity, while täyttää has to do with transitivity.. Maybe if täydentää comes from täyttyä, or if there's some rule behind that. I can only think työntää that looks like täydentää but I don't think it means "to help something be pushed", it's just to push, as far as I know. Unless työntää is from työ... but maybe työntää doesn't have anything to do with it and only just rhymes. I'm just babbling my thoughts but if someone knows better, then let us know.

[Jukka Aho]

The only one of these I definitely recall hearing is teräväpiirteinen, which describes (for instance) someone with sharp or angular features.

That’s my gut feeling of these as well. Save for teräväpiirteinen, they’re not really used — not any longer, at least.

Kaunispiirteinen is (to me) one of those "oh - really?" words that sound like something someone made up. But if you say it's in Nykysuomen sanakirja, I suppose you could use it to describe a boat or a ship, where you want to draw attention to the elegance of overall lines. It wouldn't surprise me to be corrected on this one, though. Personally I'd be more tempted to talk about siro or sirous.

Kaunispiirteinen is more like “fine-featured in a beautiful/delicate/tactful/elegant way”. Siro is maybe a bit less — more of just petite, slender, delicate — not necessarily always that beautiful or fine-featured.

But the problem is the word sounds a bit too flowery for any modern text. It would be more at home in the usage of the 1950s, and earlier.

Rohkeapiirteinen

I can’t imagine using that at all. Just say rohkea.

Hämäräpiirteinen

A much more common word is hämäräperäinen (shady, dodgy, shadowy, suspicious, being of dubious or mysterious origin or background).

[maximumforum]

http://i.imgur.com/V5qK72O.png

7th line from top at that paragraph, what is tekotakaraivo? I also saw irtotakaraivo from book 10 but didn't give it a care. takaraivo is the place between päälaki and niska from Nykysuomen Sanakirja but I can't find what prefixing things to it does. Maybe it's a Waltarism?

Then we have rekensä. Google translate says reken- is 'calculating' and I can't find info elsewhere. Edit: Is that just reki + -nsa?

[jahasjahas]

7th line from top at that paragraph, what is tekotakaraivo? I also saw irtotakaraivo from book 10 but didn't give it a care. takaraivo is the place between päälaki and niska from Nykysuomen Sanakirja but I can't find what prefixing things to it does. Maybe it's a Waltarism?

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/irto- -- Used as modifier in compound terms to signify detachable, removable, separate, loose.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/teko -- As modifier in a compound term, signifies artificial, manmade, false, mock, cod, simulated.

So it's a thing you wear on your head to make the back of your head look bigger.

tekoparta = fake beard
tekonenä = fake nose
tekohampaat = dentures / false teeth
irtoripset = fake eyelashes

Then we have rekensä. Google translate says reken- is 'calculating' and I can't find info elsewhere. Edit: Is that just reki + -nsa?

"reken-" does mean "calculating"... in Dutch

Yes, it has to be reki + -nsA

[maximumforum]

Silti sappeni kiehuu kertoakseni sinulle erään pienen salaisuuden, mutta koska salaisuus ei ole minun, en voi sitä kertoa eikä se kenties tehoisi sinuun, kun olet hulluutesi vallassa

What is tehoisi?

[jahasjahas]

Standard spelling: tehoaisi

tehota, 3rd person singular, conditional mood

It wouldn't work on you; it wouldn't affect you

[maximumforum]

I finished it.
Somewhere near the end, I didn't need to translate to English or Arabic in my brain anymore. Everything just started to carry its own meaning, the way English does. It's a very satisfying feeling.

[jahasjahas]

Onneksi olkoon!

"Read Sinuhe and you'll learn the language", the AldenG method of language learning clearly worked.

[AldenG]

Onneksi olkoon!

"Read Sinuhe and you'll learn the language", the AldenG method of language learning clearly worked.

I just never expected it to work quite so, uh, quickly.

[maximumforum]

Onneksi olkoon!

"Read Sinuhe and you'll learn the language", the AldenG method of language learning clearly worked.

Paljon kiitoksia! It isn't only AldenG's method, I said that's how I learned English too. I didn't know what genitive means, what diphthongs are, and all those words like "transitivity", "perfect", "imprefect" and anything about grammar until I started to read about Finnish few months ago. I had fluent English without an idea about all those things. I learned not a word (well maybe a few, but everybody's sound was just a fly's buzz in my ears hammering the same old "verb to be" table year after year, that it seemed like there is nothing in English other than "verb to be table") of English at school, because our education is not made to teach people; it's made to make them hate learning (system works as designed perfectly). I learned it from many hours alone with books (literature books, not English learning books), dictionaries, movies, music and then later when I got internet it was a great help.

Onneksi olkoon!

"Read Sinuhe and you'll learn the language", the AldenG method of language learning clearly worked.

I just never expected it to work quite so, uh, quickly.

I'm not coming blank. I've started attempting to learn Finnish at summer 2013, around June. And I might be gifted with a nice brain.

I don't know yet what I'll do next. I'll take a break, then I think I'll read Kanteletar. I always wanted to read it, but the only version I found is Finnish and that was an obstacle. No more! And I should read modern stuff too.

[jahasjahas]

I'll take a break, then I think I'll read Kanteletar. I always wanted to read it, but the only version I found is Finnish and that was an obstacle. No more! And I should read modern stuff too.

Many Kanteletar poems are a bit obscure and hard to understand language-wise even for native speakers. But since they're easily available online (here's one site, for example), it's not a huge commitment to take a look at them now and then.

[AldenG]

Waltari's Johannes Angelos is another one I enjoyed. I'm not sure where you put your hands on that abroad nowadays. Then there's Turms, kuolematon and probably others I don't recall offhand. They're more straightforward historical fiction -- still his characteristic sentence structures but not so tongue-in-cheek.