If you know how to properly pronounce the above, I'm dying to know
My club was offered a good opportunity for a training camp in (see title) and Budapest, Hungary. It's been a while since we went on a proper training camp together, what with adjustment periods and times of economic disarray. Since the team isn't that big at the moment, our "delegation" consists of some thirty swimmers ages 13-24, of vastly different ability. To specify, the FINA point disparity between lowest and highest is 381 (428 -> 709). That might sound impractical, but it is actually a very fun experience. Everything outside practice is much more laid back and fun and practice is largely unhindered due to split sessions and individual exercises.
The trip, mostly funded by our team sponsor TYR, had one main benefit going in: bus. Now, a Sweden -> Hungary bus ride might not sound so entertaining, but total travel time accounting for standard airport issues such as 14-year olds being idiots was set to be "only +10 hours and give us 4 extra practice sessions, free sightseeing (around the clock access to our bus) by merit of an easier trip wherever.
If you didnt guess it, we didnt get here on time - we were slapped squarely in our collective face with an almost 9-hour delar. Trafficking, weather, engine issues, language issues at the Czech border... We covered most of it. Instead of arriving at 11am, we arrived at 8.15 pm. Air conditioning and/or Wi-fi on the bus would have made things significantly more comfortable. I brought the Kingkiller Chronicles on audiobook which had me covered, the less experienced first-timers were less lucky
Contrary to what you might think of a relatively small town with a name no one seems to be able to pronounce, there is an absolutely excellent training complex (2x50m pools, 1x25, some semblance of a gym, space for running and a great outdoor hot springs-ish pool complex.) Given that I train in somewhat of a shithole to begin with, this is 8 steps up.
We're heading on to Budapest the day after tomorrow, and I'd love some recommendations for things to do or dishes to eat. I eat lots of unhealthy crap so give me your worst (best)
The lock on my toilet door broke and I've been stuck in here for an hour so this is mostly me writing away the time via mobile TL, i was going to post some pictures but the connection is way too iffy. I'll get back to that later this week.
Also Life won his game in Proleague, suck it haters
I am really curious what kind of language issues you had since we do not even have any borders to speak of.
Also, it seems kindof strange for swimmers to go somewhere that far for training, isn't water moreorless the same everywhere?
And I believe I do know how to roughly pronounce it because while Hungarian is totally unrelated to Czech, the writing system is very similar - following a 1:1 letter-sound correspondence, only with some letters pronounced differently (and a couple of "double letters") but I have no idea how to convey that to a presumably Swedish person (assuming that "East Gorteau" is supposed to be something funny).
The language issues were about the driver asking a guy for recommendations on where to get breakfast ("where is the nearest McDonalds?") and mishearing the answer. Not anyone's fault but his and his old-generation Swedish English.
That does actually help me; I've been told Hungarian is a special beast but If pronounciation is similar to Czech I could probably manage. It's just not a language I've been exposed to ever so the big words are a bit intimidating
On April 01 2015 05:09 Zealously wrote: The language issues were about the driver asking a guy for recommendations on where to get breakfast ("where is the nearest McDonalds?") and mishearing the answer. Not anyone's fault but his and his old-generation Swedish English.
That does actually help me; I've been told Hungarian is a special beast but If pronounciation is similar to Czech I could probably manage. It's just not a language I've been exposed to ever so the big words are a bit intimidating
The big differences are that in Hungarian plain "s" reads as "š" in Czech (sch in German) and to get "s" you need "sz" and that "gy" reads as "ď" which is a sound you probably never heard unless you speak some Czech Other than that I always got away in Hungary with moreorless Czech pronunciation for local names - and I have had my fair share of looking for something in that country.
"gy" reads as "ď" which is a sound you probably never heard unless you speak some Czech
my guess is it's like J in the English language, or even G in most cases (like in "germ", but not like in "gram").
If you mean like joke or gin, then no. It's a different sound and it doesn't exist in English. It's between a hard g (as in goal) and the consonant y (as in play).
I can't explain the pronunciation of Hódmezővásárhely, but wikipedia has it in audio and it's correct.
"gy" reads as "ď" which is a sound you probably never heard unless you speak some Czech
my guess is it's like J in the English language, or even G in most cases (like in "germ", but not like in "gram").
If you mean like joke or gin, then no. It's a different sound and it doesn't exist in English. It's between a hard g (as in goal) and the consonant y (as in play).
I can't explain the pronunciation of Hódmezővásárhely, but wikipedia has it in audio and it's correct.
I had forgotten that "ly" is also changed, would have read it wrong!
Hód : it's like mode, but the ó is like when you would say Nooooooo, so it's somewhat longer than a normal 'o' but still, a single, longer letter, so like moode just with a h at the beginning. It actually means beaver.
mező: z is like s in english, but it's similar to the z in the word, mestizo. Ő is weird, you can't really explain it, because there's no such letter in english, but I would say it's simiar to oe, like the rally driver Sebastian Loeb. The word means land or field.
vásár: á is like the transition between r and y in the word cry, or between m y in my. Or the u in guy. S is not a z, it's sh, like shallow. The word means fair, as a place where you buy things.
hely: ly is basically y so the word is similar to hay, but instead of a it like a double e like in hey! as a form of greeting. The word means place.
There you have it, try pronouncing it and possibly vocaroo it.
I love languages with long words. Enjoy this german monstrosity: Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän. (it means "captain of the Danube steam shipping company")
Another great one is "Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz" meaning: "law dealing with the supervision of the labeling of beef"
I've been to Budapest two times. Wonderful city, imo. If you have the time for it, visit Gellert or Szechenyi. Really nice place to relax, although quite expensive.
You can get cheap and nice food from a few kebab places close to the northern train station. My favorite place is a chinese fast food place east of the Erszebest hid.
The synagogue is cool if you're into that kind of touristing. The varhegy is not worth spending too much time at. Imo you can enjoy it as well from a distance as up there. (If you're not a total history nerd )
On April 02 2015 00:42 Darkdwarf wrote: I've been to Budapest two times. Wonderful city, imo. If you have the time for it, visit Gellert or Szechenyi. Really nice place to relax, although quite expensive.
You can get cheap and nice food from a few kebab places close to the northern train station. My favorite place is a chinese fast food place east of the Erszebest hid.
The synagogue is cool if you're into that kind of touristing. The varhegy is not worth spending too much time at. Imo you can enjoy it as well from a distance as up there. (If you're not a total history nerd )
On April 02 2015 01:22 DarkLordOlli wrote: Jagshemash!
Glad you got out of the bathroom faster this time
"Jak się masz" too :D Lol that was fun.
Hungarian is a very enjoyable language to hear, although it has this trait that it doesn't remind you of absolutely anything when reading it xD (think Dutch - German - English, etc, Spanish - Italian - French, etc).
Would Hodmesowaszarej in Polish letters approximate this sound fairly?
On April 02 2015 01:22 DarkLordOlli wrote: Jagshemash!
Glad you got out of the bathroom faster this time
"Jak się masz" too :D Lol that was fun.
Hungarian is a very enjoyable language to hear, although it has this trait that it doesn't remind you of absolutely anything when reading it xD (think Dutch - German - English, etc, Spanish - Italian - French, etc).
Would Hodmesowaszarej in Polish letters approximate this sound fairly?
In what is a strange language group, Hungarian is in the same language group as Estonian, Finnish, and not a whole lot else.
It's funny to me that you would get by in hungarian with czech pronunciation, with two completely different language families I would have expected Czechs to be as lost as anyone else (except maybe finnish people)
On April 02 2015 23:57 Nebuchad wrote: It's funny to me that you would get by in hungarian with czech pronunciation, with two completely different language families I would have expected Czechs to be as lost as anyone else (except maybe finnish people)
To clarify: I don't understand shit. Honestly, Hungarian is the most confusing thing in Europe, even police cars have something crazy on them (Ronderseg?) but the writing system is for some reason pretty tame. I presume that it is because of a similar evolution - that is that a weird language that didn't have a written form has accepted moreorless straight Latin spelling with just a few weird stuff added to either represent uncommon sounds or just because of some historic reasons. So you just need to learn a few exceptions and are good to go.
English for example is a completely different beast, the pronunciation is very far from being in 1:1 correspondence with written letters and you often need to view the word as a whole to know the sound; not to mention things like French that are completely nuts. But for example sensible romanic languages (Spanish, Italian, Romanian) are very easy to start reading, at least to the level of general understanding with the locals, very fast. Actually my favourite method of "inventing" Spanish words is to pronounce the English word like it was Czech (and then maybe add some ending for a hispanic flavour) and it works wonders
actually french pronunciation rules are more consistent than english ones. the problem stems from french people talking so fast. english on the other hand is just a weird mix of (historic) languages with an easy grammar.
Whoa, I'm just browsing TL, looking out of my head, and suddenly a wild Hódmezővásárhely appears, and I'm like what the...?
You should definitely try "dobostorta", though, which is a really delicious sort of cake (one of my favorites) .
As for pronunciation, even though there are strange characters like "Ő" and "Ű" and some double consonants, it is actually very straightforward. Once you know how to pronounce all the letters, you can basically pronounce 100% of words. Unlike English, where a letter may be pronounced differently in different words.
The pronunciation of Hódmezővásárhely has already been explained quite well, and yeah, it literally means "Beaver-field-market-place".
On April 03 2015 04:20 Hryul wrote: actually french pronunciation rules are more consistent than english ones. the problem stems from french people talking so fast. english on the other hand is just a weird mix of (historic) languages with an easy grammar.
The problem with french is that we are using 5 vowels to write 16 vowel sounds, which doesn't sound like it would be practical, and isn't. But you probably don't want to hear me rant about how much the roman alphabet sucks =)
This would be the perfect dinner I'd love to eat right now: Start with Halászlé. As a main Paprikás Csirke. After Dobostorta I' d get some Kürtőskalács.
I don't know about good restaurants in Budapest.
Tarhonya would be a nice culinary souvenir: an easily transportable, very good and easy to make side dish.
On April 05 2015 03:03 xpldngmn wrote: This would be the perfect dinner I'd love to eat right now: Start with Halászlé. As a main Paprikás Csirke. After Dobostorta I' d get some Kürtőskalács.
I don't know about good restaurants in Budapest.
Tarhonya would be a nice culinary souvenir: an easily transportable, very good and easy to make side dish.
Those are nice suggestions, but tarhonya as a coulinary souvenir, really? Aside from the fact that I personally don't like it, it's actually nothing more than just pasta. With that said, it definitely is easily transportable and easy to make, but I wouldn't say it's special in any way. Kürtőskalács is really tasty, though .
You are right about the tarhonya, I'm too cheap. A fine bottle of tokaji aszú would of course make a better souvenir (at least for lovers of sweet wine).
Try Lángos, nuff said! One of the best places to grab a bite in BP is Cserpes' Tejivó (they are a dairy company but this is a café they operate in the city center) it's by the McDonalds in Deák Ferenc tér (where the three subway's meet), can't miss it. Really good sandwiches and good drinks. Also coffee culture is excellent, with Tamp&Pull, Espresso Embassy and Madal's (heh, no pun intended :D) offering really, really awesome tasting coffee at decent prices. Also a French dude has a couple of bakeries called á Táble! littered accross town, although it is not cheap, the pastries are very well worth the price.
edit: wow I'm super late with my recommendations . I grew up and spent a good chunk of my adult life in BP but now I live in the UK, I visited after 18 months recently and the city is very fun when you're just hanging out for a short spell. Unfortunately it is quite burdening to be a proper hungarian taxpaying citizen day after day.
EPT
