suiko

Does the cold issue still apply to an (old) house in the Algarve?

Btw, isn't Nazaré at the heart of the area favoured by American migrants (the "Silver Coast"), and so subject to price specualtion?

chislenko

Yes you are very correct about the proper / colloquial part.

Very occasionally now I help out at Welsh Language weeks where people come for extended stay to have a whole week of immersion into the language.

However many are pretty dismayed from the start as most things they have learnt from books is not actually how we speak in the shop / down the pub and that is the style of language most widely used and what we teach.

toots sweet

"the foreigner always wants to speak correctly, the native just speaks to be understood....."
Yes. I try very hard not to do this ,but am always checking that my adjectives correspond to the male/female noun and the verb declines in the correct manner.!(you singular/you plural).

AND.... yes the cold issue is even more applicable to an older house. Have been in my OH's aunts house sitting in bobble hat,jacket,scarf,while aunt/uncle stoically sit there in their day to day clothes.

macliam

Is Welsh fairly standardized? I know there are differences in accent/usage between North and South Wales, but are they large? My few words of Irish are heavily weighted towards the Munster dialect, becuse of family and because my teacher in Limerick railed incessantly against "Illiterate Dubliners who are ruining the tongue!", so taught us the minimum "standard" Irish and always gave the Munster equivalent! ("Standard Irish" is heavilly Connacht-based). I'm sure that's less frequent nowadays - but I remember looking at the BBC Ulster Irish education programmes and being shocked that there were some basic phrases in Ulster Irish that were unrecognizable to me! It's also a problem that the National Anthem is written in Munster Irish (as it predates standardization) with the great result that people can't fully understand their own Anthem even after years of schooling!

macliam

These days I just jump in...... I'm not trying to be Portuguese, so I's rather be the ignorant foreigner who's understood than stand there saying nothing!

The amazing thing is that I've been into my neighbour's house when it's Baltic, yet with a few twigs in the hearth it's warm enough........ until you go into the next room where you could store frozen peas without a fridge! My place too had one bedroom that was like a fridge in Winter, but insulation helped that.

suiko

Is that on the coast?

macliam

No, I'm in the hills.................. on the coast it's worse

chislenko

Yes, maclaim, North Walian and South Walian have many differences, even from valley to valley, county to county, town to town.

I think from memory I am sure I read somewhere it is one of the reasons the Basque language survived as no-one could access the area back in the day to influence it with Spanish.

macliam

Aye, makes sense..... my auld ma used to say we spoke the way we did so the Dubs couldn't understand!
Having said which, for those with a broad Limerick brogue, the same applies in English!