Luna’s Adventures in English

D1tchd1gger said:
Shakespeare is the one author everyone has to do. I do remember doing Animal Farm by George Orwell:

There's also an animated film of it.

I also read War of the Worlds by H G Wells (I've still got the school copy I forgot to return):

There's also the musical version:
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Don't forget that wells had an infamous broadcast. I forget the radio broadcaster but they let wells read his book on air. People were tuning in honestly thinking mars is attacking...
 
Luna said:
So I had the idea, to polish it up by doing some vocal training. Which consists of reciting English stuff in "Lunaish", record that and compare it with a correct English recording. Rinse and repeat. (A whole lot, because I'm probably tone deaf.)
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Have you thought of just getting an audio book and reading along with the physical copy? Something like Harry Potter maybe would work for that although you'd end up sounding like Stephen Fry which whilst amusing could be unfortunate.

Can anyone think of a "casual and generic" english speaking audio book narrator?
 
Adam-M said:
Have you thought of just getting an audio book and reading along with the physical copy? Something like Harry Potter maybe would work for that although you'd end up sounding like Stephen Fry which whilst amusing could be unfortunate.
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Actually, I was thinking more on the line of poems than novels as a start. (Or perhaps play scripts, but that would be stage 2 at least one year in the future.) The idea is to start off with something short and self-contained, which I can do as a first thing in the morning and before-bed exercise. Regularity is the priority and knowing me, I will start off groveling in shame under my blanket at the very least the first ten weeks questing myself why I am doing this again. If it's short I could console myself with "at least I reached the end!" and stick to it.
(Also on a practical note, something I can place on my phone and replay whole without the trouble of hitting the right point on the running time bar as would be the case for audio books. So something that's not all that longer than a few minutes max.)

Also poems usually are more melodic, so better for vocal stuff. They also usually either don't make sense at all (Nursery Rhymes) or you have to look at it more than once to get through the metaphors. So they stand a better chance to survive Rinse and Repeat without me ending up loathing the thing like a plague.
 
Adam-M said:
A quick Google came up with this. The pronunciation itself is quite posh, but there's some useful examples there.
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This poem looks... steep. But looks like good material. Though it doesn't seem to be a classic literature everybody knows either.
 
Got a new one~

What's the best way colloquial to say you are accepting/getting something while at the same time you are dismissing it?
Like somebody is preaching to you and you verbally agree, but obviously don't really. In many languages that goes with doubling the agreement word and a dismissive tone.
What'ts more common?
"yeah, yeah"?
"right right"?

(There is also the sarcastic "of course", but I'm after the doubling effect there.)
 
Luna said:
Got a new one~

What's the best way colloquial to say you are accepting/getting something while at the same time you are dismissing it?
Like somebody is preaching to you and you verbally agree, but obviously don't really. In many languages that goes with doubling the agreement word and a dismissive tone.
What'ts more common?
"yeah, yeah"?
"right right"?

(There is also the sarcastic "of course", but I'm after the doubling effect there.)
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It sounds like sarcasm, or being ignorant. I'm not sure if there's really a word for it. Dismissive may come to mind, but saying one positive thing and meaning the opposite is pretty much what sarcasm is
 
Got another one:

When you bicycle, there is wind blowing into your face. I quite enjoy this feeling. Does that have some proper word? There is a German one (Fahrtwind) which literally means "drive wind". When I look it up I get "airstream", "airflow" or "turbulences". They all sound kind of rather scientific to me and the latter sounds outright negative.

What's the usual expression, if you want to say, that you enjoy the blow of wind when traveling into you face?
With non-travels there is wind breeze, but sounds more like natural wind (?).
 
If it’s actually the wind blowing then I guess you could say you enjoy the headwind, if it was blowing in the opposite there’s always the tailwind too! (Hmmm wonder what that would make it if wind blows from the side?)
 
Armwind doesn't seem to exist, no dictionary entries there.
Heardwind wasn't exactly what I was looking for, but fits the use case quite well.

Headwind/tailwind never occured to me (complete new words there), don't sound very intuitive to me somehow. (In German it's literally "toward-wind and "back wind".) Crosswind is definitely a nice word, too.



Anyhow, got another one:

Say you have a pretty old bicycle. It's squeeching and perhaps rusty and you just get the impression it might just fall into pieces soon enough.
What's the best word to describe that? There is a German words called "klapprig", it yields:
rickety
ramshackle
decrepit
rattletrap
frail
clapped-out
tottery

Which aren't words I think I have seen being used for gadgets falling apart soon. (decrepit, ramshackel and rattletrap for old buildings perhaps and frail is more like for old and weak bodies or badly designed constructions.)
On the top of my mind I also thought of ratty. Anything else there? There is of course also worn, but that doesn't have this implied connotation of it about to fall apart.

(clunky perhaps? Although that would stress more the part of the bycicle being not all too confortable to ride on.)
 
Luna said:
Headwind/tailwind ... Crosswind
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They're all terms used in professional cycling a lot as the different types can effect the race in different ways. Same with other sports such as F1 and athletics (records can be void if the tailwind is too strong!)

I can't think of a word for what you described, only saying like "I enjoy the wind rushing through my hair/stinging my face"


Luna said:
rickety
ramshackle
decrepit
rattletrap
frail
clapped-out
tottery
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Of those I would use rickety.
 
Luna said:
It's squeeching and perhaps rusty and you just get the impression it might just fall into pieces soon enough.
What's the best word to describe that?
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I think the way language has evolved, people wouldn't use a single word to describe the state of a bicycle. The statement would likely be made in conversation so you wouldn't need to be as concise. I think the only case in which I'd say a single word would be to refer to it as being knackered. Most people I know would say "my bike is falling to pieces".
 
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