Icelandic language.

   It may be surprising ,but the little island in the northern Atlantic called Iceland ,has a seperate language. This language is not widely spoken. About 350,000 people speak it. This makes it a very rare language. This language is in the germanic branch of languages, and inside it is a scandinavian language. The seperation of the island makes this language unique. It was seperated from the events of Europe, so very little foreign words were built in the language and it stayed so unchanged, that icelandic speakers can read 1000 year old texts without much problem. Even the special characters survived like þ, ð, æ, ý. But the letter Z died out from the language.
 
   Language purity movements happened in Iceland in the 18th and 19th century. This was for the reasons to get rid of the foreign words from the language and to renew it. This was quite successful as far as I have seen. Most of the words differ from other relatives. Words like tölva (computer), rafmagn (electricity), sími (telephone) make great example. But it has a lot of similarities. For example: hár (hair), bók (book),  það (that).

   I started to learn this magnificent language, but it's really hard. The grammar is like german, but I think it is more logical. For example you can guess out the gender from the end of the word.  The weird thing is that they use the personal pronouns differently. There are different words for the english word "they". This can be þeir (for males), þær (for females) and þau (for neutral or females-males mixed). And they use the he ,she ,it for object too. If you refer to lamp in a sentence then it is like this: Hann er ... (so they use he to refer to the object).

   But for me the hardness of this language comes from the lack of books and dictionaries. It's really hard to find a useable one. So I cannot know for sure what a word means. But except for this little problem this is my 2nd favourite language after hungarian. The pronunciaton for me is beautiful and hard. The letter "r" plays a bigger role in the speech. This gives extra life to sentences. The only problem I have with the pronunciation is the double L. It's really hard to pronounce and build it in a sentence. But I feel like this language should be more recognised and widely known.

Dani

My week

                I have to say that this week was hard. On Tuesday I had to sleep at my uncle's house because on Wednesday we had a lesson at 7. My aunt was pregnant and she was in the last weeks. She told me if she was going to give birth I mustn't be nervous and  I had to sleep after they went to the hospital because I was going to have school next day. I laughed because I knew that she won't give birth to my cousin that night and  I won't sleep. At 9 or 10 p.m. we fell asleep. At midnight I heard a scream from my aunt: "My love, I'm going to give birth to your child. My water broke." I thought I was dreaming but no I wasn't.
                After 30 minutes they left but I couldn't sleep like my aunt said I had to. I remember I fell asleep at 4 but my uncle came home for something at 4:30 so it wasn't a long sleep. I was tired and that was why I wasn't at school on Wednesday.
                At 15:30 my lovely cousin, Olívia was born and she is so tiny (2490g and 50 cm). Me and my family can't wait to have a look at her. At 4 his dad brought her out of the surgery and she was smiling. I held her then and it made me relax because I was so exited to nurse her.
               Mum and me stayed at the hospital 'til 9 p.m. It was a long day but it worth. On Saturday they came home from the hospital and we nursed the tiny baby all day. She was so quite, she didn't cry while I was changing her nappy.

Betti

A little bit of Hungarian

This post introduces you into my obsession of Hungarian Literature,Grammar and everything which is related to our language. 

One question:

-Why do we have to love and know our language well?

-This is the answer: it's one of the most unique and most beautiful language of the world even with its slangs and obscene expressions. The grammar is hard and also hard to study it (mainly for a foreigner) but it's totally worth it! 

We have more words for just one little thing,so we can express ourselves in so many ways. And these words have melody when you say them.

1st problem: Unfortunately, many people started to forget old words and expressions which were used by our grandparents.But they belong to our Hungarian identification,so we should hear,note then pass them on to the next generation.

2nd problem: It is inevitable to use slang. These words mainly come from English and we use them because ot their simplicity. In my opinion we should think before we say something. With these,our language will fade away and then disappear. I hope none of you wants this!

3rd problem: incorrect usage. Sometimes I correct people who doesn't say well these: -ba,-be,-ban,-ben (and the sad thing is that they hate me because of this ) :( . But it is a serious mistake. The right usage of these isn't this: Voltam Olaszba' or 'nem volt a boltba' kenyér . please... it sounds like crap,doesn't it?

Try to avoid these mistakes!

The next is : Literature

I am always impressed by Hungarian poems and can't stop reading them.These are just magical,don't you think? Almost all of them can make me think,cry or laugh.Our poets and writers can play with words in a very mystical way.

One of my favourite poets is József Attila. I think his spiritual world is amazing,you can lose yourself during reading his works.

Here is a little magical preview from him :

So this is my message for everyone who reads this : never stop to speak,read and study this beautiful language! It deserves to pronounce its words clearly and understandably and speak it at a high-level!And of course: read as many books as you can! 

Try to speak well! :)

And an important thought from Kölcsey Ferenc: 

Meleg szeretettel függj a hon nyelvén! mert haza, nemzet és nyelv, három egymástól válhatatlan dolog; s ki ez utolsóért nem buzog, a két elsőért áldozatokra kész lenni nehezen fog. Tiszteld s tanuld más mívelt népek nyelvét is, s főkép ama kettőt, melyen Plutarch a nemzetek két legnagyobbikának hőseit rajzolá s Tacitus a római zsarnok tetteit a történet évkönyveibe való színekkel nyomá be; de soha ne feledd, miképen idegen nyelveket tudni szép, a hazait pedig lehetségig mívelni kötelesség. […] 

Panka

Language exam.

   I would like to share my experiences gained during my language exam. I did the BME B2 english language exam. This contains 3 parts: speaking, writing and listening.

   The speaking contains conversation with the inspector, ideas about a specified topic (like education or health) and a situation (like you have to help your friend). From my point of view it was better than expected. The inspector was nice, I got quite good topics, but I started 15 minutes later than expected.

   The listening has 2 different excercises. The first one is to answer questions with a few words and the second one is true or false. I wasn't as delighted about this as with the speaking. My reason for this is that I wasn't able to hear the speaker because of the echoes and the quality of the recording wasn't very good. And I am not really sure in the true and false as I got very stable pattern.

   The writing was the easiest in my opinion. The worksheet had 4 excercises. The first one was to fill in the gaps with given sentences. The second one was the traditional reading comprehension. It was the hardest for me in the exam. The third one was to fill in the gaps with specified words. And the last one was to write a letter. It was quite challanging for the reason of the 170-180 word barrier.

   For me this was quite a good experience, although I wouldn't want to do it again. I think I managed to pass the exam and I would recommend this to everybody to do it as early as possible because it was quite easy.

          Dani

Travelling

           I'm going to write about beautiful places in the world where I'd like to go once in my life. 
These places are expensive places but I think they are wonderful. I always wonder about what I would do if I visit these places.

1. I'd take millions of photos.
2. I'd visit every sight.
3. I'd try out everything. (foods, drinks, sports, games)

These are the places. I'm writing about 4 places with some details about it and with some photos.

My biggest dream to visit is the Seychelles. It is an archipelago in the Indian Ocean. The archipelago consists of more than 116 islands. Mahé, Praslin and La Digue are the three most important islands which are on granite rocks but the others are on corall-reef. The inhabitants are kind, hospitable and likeable. There are white sand beaches, exotic plants and wonderful wildlife for honeymooners and for those who want to get married there. As for me it is the best place for these.

The second place is The Wave in Arizona. This place is located in the United States of America near the Arizona-Utah border.  It is famous among hikers and photographers for its colorful, undulating forms, and the rugged, trackless hike required to reach it. I like to visit this place because of taking photos because I'd like to be a photographer. 

The third place is Iceland. There are many beautiful places, for example Blue Lagoon, Gullfoss waterfall, Dynjandi and so on. 

Gullfoss waterfall: 

Blue Lagoon: 

Dynjandi: 

And in this list the last place is the Maldives which is an island nation in the Indian Ocean–Arabian Sea area. Maldives consists of 1,192 coral islands grouped in a double chain of 26 atolls. In my opinion it is wonderful when you go out from the house to the terrace and you can dive into the water. This island is famous for honeymooners, couples who want to get married. It is similar to Seychelles.

These are my four favorite places in the world where I'd like to get once in my life to take tons of photos and for adventure. 

I hope you liked it. It was good to write this down because while I was writing I was there in my mind. I believe you'll be there, too. 

Pictures from Pinterest.

Betti 

About 2 weeks ago I bought my favourite magazine, the Elle. The main issue of March is the feminism. Many articles are about women from all around the world who fight for their rights.This inspired me to make an opinion and write it down for you. 

Now I'm 17 years old and not long ago I started to think about who I am, what does it mean that sooner or later I'll be a woman and what are the advantages and disadvanteges of this.Girls,it's a natural process,you just want to identify your being.That's why I think feminism is an important topic and women and men also have to talk about it.

But what does this expression: 'feminism' mean? Here is a little help from the Wikipedia : 

Feminism is a collection of movements and ideologies that share a common goal: to define, establish, and achieve equal political, economic, cultural, personal, and social rights for women. This includes seeking to establish equal opportunities for women in education and employment.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminism)

Anybody can figure it out that this word has a cause and not just a fiction created by mope women. A lot of female suffer from discrimination all around the world.The aim is to reduce this number. I think none of us wants to cook and do the housework all day long during our whole life. Hard working women deserve high-leveled positions in their professional life.But some think tha the place of the woman is in the kitchen. For heaven's sake, what an old-fashioned perception ! Our fate are not sealed, we control our destiny and have the strength to make the best of it. 

In my opinion we should be proud of our feminity and fight for egual acceptance, not in a violent way but with our power and knowlegde.

Some celebritias also share the same opinion and they give voice to it, for example Beyoncé. Just listen to this : 

My essay was just a little introduction to this world, but here are some people who stand for feminism in a pretty good way. If you want to know more just visit their twitter page:

@debbieblox

@caitlinmoran

@malalafund

@cocorocha

Hope you liked my post! :)

Panka

Thoughts on Meteor and other stories

    I would like to introduce you this fascinating book called "Meteor and other stories".
The book was written by John Wyndham and published by The Oxford bookworms series. This series of books contain easier to read books for an english learner. The book itself is a science fiction and it contains 4 stories.

    The first story is about a meteor that hit Earth. This is in fact not a meteor but an alien spaceship. Humans notice a hissing sound given off by it but they don't really care about it. The alien specie which travelled by the ship is called the Fortans. They are ant sized creature and their ship is the biggest thing ever built by them. The plot is that the aliens get off their ship and writes down how they percieve our home planet.

    The second revolves around the martian rights on Earth. The story starts with Duncan Weaver and his marriage with a martian girl called Lellie. The differences are stated between the human and martian culture, biology, their legal rights.

    The third is about a spaceship stranded in an orbit around Mars. The story starts with an engine failure but the captain of the ship manages to put it into a safe orbit. There the author writes down the odds of survival.

    The fourth and the last discusses the meaning of the soul. The story takes place in a peaceful world. Terry, the main character, got a severe injury where the pain turned him into a different person. His bride couldn't cope with this situation. By the end of the story there is a twist which I wouldn't like to say.

    In my opinion this book makes you think. My favourite story was the first one, because I find it fascinating how a small animal or alien could see our planet. I would highly recommend this book to everybody who loves sci-fi or would like to read fascinating short stories.

Dani