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NorthNineteen · September 2014

My wife was saying the other day she'd be up for seeing a bit of Irish music (she's half Irish and spent a lot of time in Ireland as a child so has a soft spot for it) - any recommendations? Which corner of Hanley Rd was the Chinese out of interest?<br>

Sutent · September 2014

Didnt the fallback to Irish music on a Sunday night?

ToTeLondon · September 2014

Hello Everyone!<div>It's Ollie@ ToTe London - The new 'Vintage Eyewear, Accessories and Clothing Fusion Boutique' at 190 Stroud Green Road. One of our customers told us about how fabulous this board is so here we are!</div><div>We are so excited about opening on Stroud Green Road, its been six weeks since we opened and so far we are loving it..We hope you can pop down some day it'll be lovely to meet you all in person ..:)</div>

Arkady · September 2014

Welcome ToTe. What are your opening hours?

ToTeLondon · September 2014

Thank you Arkady, we are open 10:30am - 6:30pm Monday- Saturday..although we are currently considering staying closed on Mondays but that is not set in stone yet

matchless_match · October 2014

Hello Everyone!<br><br><br>After a time of sneak-peeking (<span style="font-style: italic;">way</span> too long) I, too, have decided it's time to come on board. This forum is an amazing resource, and lots of fun. Happy to be here!<br><br>Joanna<br>

Arkady · October 2014

Glad to have you on board. Tell us something interesting about yourself.

NorthNineteen · October 2014

Welcome to SGR Tote, you seem a good addition. One thought - a bit of colour on your shop shutter wouldn't go amiss, there's quite a few colourful ones on that little stretch of Stroud Green Road and yours is very, ummm... black!<br>

matchless_match · October 2014

Thanks Arkady!<br><br><br>I am a freelance writer and translator, and have been living on the Hornsey Road (the bit closer to Crouch End) for almost four years now. I'm a fan of Hamlet's Cafe, Osteria Tufo and Snow White dry cleaners on the SGR. <br><br>

ADGS · October 2014

What languages do you translate? Since working with translations, I've become quite fascinated by how some languages run long and others short - so a given passage of English will almost always end up shorter in Hungarian and longer in Romanian, say.

matchless_match · October 2014

I'm Polish, so most of the time I translate English-Polish, occasionally also from the German and Italian.<br><br>Your observations about the different 'length' of different languages are spot-on - and surprises like these are one of the most rewarding aspects of translation. Polish tends to be 'longer' than English, but shorter than Italian.<br>How did you learn Romanian? And Hungarian? Hungarian fascinates me: if I had time to learn another language now, it would probably be Hungarian, just to get access to a completely different way of thinking and different music. That or classical Greek.<br>

ADGS · October 2014

Oh, I haven't learned any of them, I just process the translations other people have done! Meaning I do pick up odd bits along the way, but generally only the funny bits, like 'jedi' being Slovenian for food, or 'titkok' being Hungarian for secrets. If I were to learn another, classical Greek would be a tempting one, or else maybe Russian - it'd be more about wanting to read the literature than for purposes of travel &c.

Marquis · October 2014

@ADGS: you made laugh! Hungarian is my second native language and in four decades I never noticed that there was anything odd about 'titkok'!<br><br>Also, I really recommend classical Greek. So fascinating! The way you learn it is very similar to Latin at the beginning, very structured and grammar-focused. But unlike Latin, the words themselves are rather beautiful and interesting. Prepositions always were a source of bogglement for me, as you often can't translate them on a one-to-one basis, ie. the idea of how things relate to each other is different. Or the mediopassive voice, a voice that is neither active or passive!<br><br>... I am a poor sod, I know!<br>

checkski · October 2014

I can't imagine mediopassive, Marquis. Care to tell us a bit more?

Marquis · October 2014

Oh, there's a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediopassive_voice">good Wikipedia entry </a>on that!<br>

checkski · October 2014

That's funny. That link gives me nothing but "doesn't exist".

checkski · October 2014

Found it via Google. Complicated! Interesting, though, to a language freak like me.

Marquis · October 2014

Should be fixed now. The hyperlink thingy has http:\\ already set, so that was doubled up.<br>

vetski · October 2014

I studied ancient Greek, but have never heard what I learnt as 'middle' referred to as 'mediopassive'!

Marquis · October 2014

In my (German) textbook it was 'Medium', I just wanted to make sure it's internationally comprehensible, and 'mediopassive' comes up a lot on the internet! I only studied koine Greek as a preparation for theology, so my knowledge is probably very small in comparison. Did you study Greek specifically, or Classics? One thing I have always found strange is that in the Latin declension of nouns the British have a different order of cases than other countries. Maybe you know why that is? I grew up on the continent with nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, ablative, whereas in this country they come in a rather weird sequence! Maybe that's the reason why Brits don't get grammar? :-)<br>

vetski · October 2014

@Marquis, Classics - but my Latin was, & remains, much better than my Greek... And oi! Some Brits DO get grammar!! I didn't realise the case sequence was taught differently in other countries - so nom, acc, gen, dat, abl looks right to me, & your sequence looks odd. I think it's because it makes more sense to me to prioritise the direct object over the indirect? I was 11 when I started learning Latin, so my sequence is hardwired into my brain!

checkski · October 2014

Don't forget the vocative, Vetski. Between nom and acc. Mensa, mensa, mensam, mensae.. forgotten the rest. O level Latin, 1958. Vocative - you are addressing the table - "O table...!" Bonkers, I know.

ADGS · October 2014

I find there's a real elegance to some Latin words, though often ones that have made it through to English to some degree - carnifex, aviatrix, nihil. <div><br></div><div>The mediopassive is puzzling me. Will come back to it once I've had more tea.</div>

vetski · October 2014

@checkski, I promise I didn't forget the vocative! But I left it out for the purposes of a direct comparison with @Marquis'; list.<div><br></div><div>@ADGS, I remember finding the middle very baffling when I started Greek. Will see if I can find my old Greek textbooks - they must have explained it in some comprehensible manner.</div>

miss annie · October 2014

I wonder how many local forums have discussions like this one?

checkski · October 2014

I hope you approve, O Miss Annie.

NorthNineteen · October 2014

It's fairly fitting for the part of the country with the highest proportion of post-grad qualifications!<br>

checkski · October 2014

I only got a third. Sorry about that.

vetski · October 2014

@checkski, forgot to complete the declension of 'mensa' for you... mensae, mensa. Pl: mensae, mensae, mensas, mensarum, mensis, mensis. Yes, I am a nerd. Nice use of the vocative above!<div><br></div><div>What I love about this forum is how we start somewhere and end up somewhere so completely different that even Monty Python wouldn't be able to see how we got there...

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minim · October 2014

<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; color: rgb(85, 85, 85); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Having been taught nominative, </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; color: rgb(85, 85, 85); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">accusative, </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; color: rgb(85, 85, 85); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">genitive, dative, ablative on 'the continent', a quick search came up with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instruction_in_Latin#Order_of_declension_in_various_curricula">this interesting wikipedia entry</a> on declension order in different countries.</span><div><span style="color: rgb(85, 85, 85); font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;"><br></span></div><div><div><span style="color: rgb(85, 85, 85); font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">After two years of Latin and four of Greek in high school I got tired of all those cases and decided to ditch them and stick to all science, only to then choose... German as an optional extra. I was obviously a bit of an idiot.</span><br></div><div><div><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; color: rgb(85, 85, 85); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br></span></div><div><br></div></div></div>

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