"But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance."- St. Peter. "And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come." - Jesus.

Thursday, November 04, 2010


This is a short audio clip from an Evenki lesson in October. Here's the transcription:

The horse gallops

The fox steals

The rabbit hops

The wolf hunts

The bear sleeps through the Winter

The squirrel lives in the trees

The reindeer lives / gives life

We elicited this list from a set of pics of northern animals and asked Katya what each animal (typically) does. Her list is revealing not just language-wise but also culturally revealing. Hope you enjoy it. PS. The introductions are done by Melody in Russian.

3 comments:

Lisette said...

really cool. I can really hear the subject and verb constructs. Great set of phrases to do so. Do you have something similar with plurals so you can hear how/if that changes the verb construct? I'd love to hear some of your other recordings. How exciting!!
And a great way of learning a language. I do continue to be impressed by your ability to do this only orally though. I have come to realise how visual I am, and already being a literate person, even though I am trying NOT to, I can't but help formulate approximated pronunciation in English orthography. I see it as I listen, and I find it distracting because I know it's not accurate. How do you deal with this type of issue?

Nathan Wilson said...

cool! Evenki for 'lives'

Sue-Ann said...

yes, very cool. I can really hear the patterns too, but agree with Lisette that I would totally need to see it written down, or would at least have to write it down somehow to remember it. Very musical languages.