Sa l-aħħar by Fabrizio Fanello

Fid-dlam moħbija
Fis-skur tal lejl
Ħsiebi biss fik u f'dik il wegħeda f'għajnejk

Moħħi jistqejqer kull x'ħin narak
Int xmara ferħ mogħdija ward u zahar
Kien hemm is-sejħa dik li l-qalb tant tixtieq
Fjamma li turi t-triq

Chorus:
Sa l-aħħar nifs flimkien
Qalbi, sa l-aħħar tarf taz-zmien
Bdejna bħall ħbieb
Sibna l-hena u't-tgawdija
Ġenna għalina t-tnejn

Sa l-ahhar ward tal-ġnien
Nisma' l-eku fil-bogħod sat-tmiem
Lilek ħabbejt
Għall-bieraħ u għall-dejjem
Lilek u bħalek xejn

Inti kullana ta tifkiriet
Kull x'ħin titbissem ninsa kull inkwiet
It-toroq tgħana miksija fjur
Agħtini jdejk u ħalli d-dinja ddur
Il-kwiekeb żgħar li jatuk l-isbaħ ġejjien
Ingawduh int u jien


My bad translation.

(If there are any Maltese speakers around, who know what I have misunderstood, and translated wrong, I would very much appreciate, if you could correct me. :-)
And also tell me what is the basic for or verb root of the words I didn't get)

To the end

Hidden of the darkness of night,
I think about you and the promise in you eyes.
my mind [jistqejqer] every time I see you
You are a river of joy of roses and flowers
There was a call that the heart so much liked.
flame to enlighten the road. 

To the last breath, together,
my heart, to the end of the times.
We started as friends,
found happiness and joy,
heaven for us both.

To the end of rose garden,
I hear the distant echo of the end of the times,
You will be there,
for now and always,
there is no-one like you

You are decorated by memories,
every time you smile, I forget all my troubles,
streets are covered with flowers.
Give me your hand and let the world turn,
We enjoy the starry future,
you and me

----------------------------------------------------------
jistqejqer

jiskantani - surprises
jisfar - he grows pale (saffar)
jistkerrah - he detests (kerrah)

maltese verb roots

q-j-d    qajjed - put on shackles  qajd - shackles
q-j-l    qajjel - pen in, shelter a herd
q-j-m    qiem - venerate, respect    (qejjem, tqejjem)
q-j-r    qajjar - dry    tqajjar - get dry
q-j-s    qies, qejjes, tqejjes, nqies, ntqies / qas, qajjes, tqajjes, nqas, tqies
q-j-t    qiet

There is an Arabic word قجق
but I don't have the slightest idea what it means. (qajaq)

In Hebrew קיק means castor-oil seed. Or raven. What ever...

Right now I'm cordially going to ignore what seeing her does to his mind. I suppose it's something good.

------------------------------

So... I reread Kato Lamb's book on learning languages, and thought about the Italian cardinal Mezzofanti. He learned his... 50-100 languages through the Lord's Prayer. Now, I don't know about you, but in Finland, every confirmand has learned this by heart. I still remember it, some 30 years later, and I am not Christian. The thing with the Lord's Prayer and the Bible is that these have been translated to most languages of the world... and the text is very closely translated, to convey the same message. Even when the language is often old-fashioned, it gives you understanding of the structures of the language. You really just need to update your language by learning some new words and expressions, you will have the language, if you use the Bible.

-----------------------------

"I hate grammar"

I love parsing. I understand so much more after I have marked the different word groups and relations and what is main sentence and what is not... My husband looked at my notes; paper full of marker lines, circles and arrows and underlinings, and said "well... if it works for you, good. I don't get anything."

Saturday

Only six hours today. I was caught writing glosses for my husband, who's studying Finnish... I wrote him most of the particles, like conjunctions and adverbs, and some more.

Which means that I have some 4 hours less hours than I had planned.

I wrote a couple of pages Maltese
I studied my glosses. Not quite 100 :-D
I translated another page of the book.
I continued my study of verbs.

Tomorrow I really plan on translating the rest of chapter 2, and write new glosses.
I also need to learn the 100 glosses. After all, it was me bragging and claiming it's not hard to learn 100 new words every day :-D

Funny...

Immediately after I decided to join the 6 weeks' challenge, I stopped having anything to do with Maltese.

And I will be going to Finland for some 3-4 months in two weeks. :-D

--------------

Update:

I have been studying for some 8 hours today.

I have been working with

- grammar

I really want to understand this thing with verbs. I'm starting to understand some of the difficulties Germanic language speakers  might have with Finnish. All these different verb forms! :-D
I still haven't quite got a grasp of the Maltese verbs, but I'm getting there.
It was also nice to finally understand għand. It's practically the same as the Finnish way of saying "I have..." or "I'm hungry, cold, tired, sad, angry..." -lla. It is even translated as a preposition in English (at, to).

- glosses

I like the word "gloss" better than "flashcards". Gloss, from Latin glossa, or Greek γλῶσσα, is a brief marginal notation of the meaning of a word or wording in a text, and the word used of the different methods of... well... flashcards. That's why I prefer it. It's hard to call a list of words or a book page "a flashcard".
Anyway, I have written all the basic words I want to know on pieces of paper (yes, flashcards :-D), and all the terms from the first chapter of Hell Lane (Sqaq L-Infern), from Learning With Texts. The problem with LWT is that it doesn't accept that one writes in the different verb forms as one word, which is what I would prefer. For it għandu, għandi and għandom are three different words, to me they are the same. Għand.
I wrote first all the terms as they are, but it is really stupid of me. I don't learn languages the parrot way. I want to understand. So I have been sorting my glosses and trying to find out which are verbs and which not... and that's not easy, because I really am an absolute beginner with Maltese. Sure, I know the alphabet and numbers and some general information about the language and recognize a couple of words from the radio channel I'm listening, but - frankly, I know nothing :-D
I have about 400 glosses, which I have divided into 100 gloss packs. The 400 gloss pack is way too big to handle and too intimidating :-D

- sentences

I have printed out some hundred pages of "tourist talk" and plan on writing them in my little notebook :-D
I have also written several example sentences with the different verb forms, to get a better grip of them.

I think that's pretty much what I will do tomorrow too.

I need to collect some 50 sentences from different sources and read them to my MP3-player so that I can take that with me, when I take my 5 km walk, and shadow. (Yes, I know. I hardly speak good Maltese, but it's what I have, and if I managed to learn French without hearing proper French, I think I can do the same with Maltese. After all, it's pronounced pretty much as it's written :-D It's only the ċ, ġ, għ, h, x and ż that are different from the Finnish counterparts, and then għi and għu, when "għ" - or ayin - becomes an a. (Finnish, not the English.)

It's kind of funny that AJATT has given up the 10.000 sentences project :-D Well... it's ok. I'll give it a change. I'm going to a place with no computers, so I need to find ways to learn language without computers... And there are so few good Maltese dictionaries... :-(

I need to translate the rest of chapter 2, and write the glosses from that. 

 

6 weeks challenge

I just registered for 6 weeks' May challenge.

Let's see how much I'll manage to improve my Maltese.

I love Maltese!

Now I have managed to read the first two chapters of the first book.
I have 402 flashcards with words and sentences. That's the words from the first chapter + about 100 extra.
I have learned the Maltese alphabet. I need to continue to the numbers.
And I'm listening to Radio 101. I'm catching a word every now and then. :-)

It is a fascinating language. It's such a mix of Semitic languages, Italian/Sicilian, English and even a bit of French... They have a lovely way of speaking English... very British, but distinctly not British :-D And I love how the pronounce the R's. :-)

kejk tal-ħawħ

Ingredjenti u Riċetti:

=> 6 bajd
zokkor => 1 u 1/2 kikkra
dqiq  => 1 u 1/2 kikkra
jogurt  => 100 dm
trab  => 1 pakkett
meraq tal-lumi  => 1 tablespoon
 => 20 ħawħ

il-preparazzjoni ta 'riċetti:

Musk-abjad tal-bajd sakemm iebes, imbagħad żid il-ħin, waqt li tħawwad wara kull partita, zokkor, isfra tal-bajd, halib, dqiq, baking powder off ma' meraq tal-lumi. Ferra t-taħlita ġo post, bix-xaħam bil-butir u dqiq għat-trab ma ħawħ ħielsa minn ġebel u jitkisser fil nofs u jagħti l-kejk fil-forn għal 30 minuta.

Now... what is "dm"? Milliliter sounds credible, that is 1 dl, or about 1/3 cup. And is it really yogurt? And how much is one package of powder? 20 peaches? Really? Well... six eggs is a lot...
But sounds interesting.

One just have to love Google Translate :-D

"that even the teachers were still surprised that Roberto had become a Christian and be awake during lessons after a break of noon!"

"illi anki l-għalliema kienu baqgħu sorpriżi li Kristjan u Roberto kienu saru jkunu mqajmin waqt il-lezzjonijiet ta' wara l-brejk ta' nofsinhar!"

All the wondrous things becoming a Christian causes... :-D

I like Maltese very much. It's fascinating how it has taken influence from both South and North, and also English. There was for a long time no national television on Malta, they watched the Italian tv shows.

 

Malta is a tiny island in the Mediterranean sea, about half way from Africa to Europe. There were people living there before the Phoenicians came, but the population of Malta is today more Phoenician than for example the population of Syria. Now, I haven't checked this, but I believe their language is closest to the ancient Phoenician among the modern languages. So - Lebanese Phoenicians could learn Maltese and slowly make it Phoenician with removing the Italian and English influences, and adding some Hebrew and Syriac. In some 100 years or so, no-one would know.

Anyway, Malta is a very beautiful place, typically Mediterranean, and it has a long history.

This is a photo of Malta during winter...

And this is Naxxar, the town where the Il-Fiddien adventure takes place

Half an eternity later, she continues as if there was no interruption...

I'm back at learning Maltese.

I'm trying to read the books I bought :-)

Il-Fiddien series at Goodreads

The best-selling Maltese trilogy will be a movie...

And, still, as far as I know, it hasn't been translated to English...

And Malta is bilangual country... 

8-(

Well... if they wait long enough, *I* have time to translate it :-D