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Post by amber89 on May 3, 2019 20:09:51 GMT
I believe that in any country there are some people that can't speak their mother tongue properly. My ears hurt me when i am back in Romania and i hear some people talking...they make such terrible mistakes. My Romanian is not perfect anymore, but in the last 7 years i barely spoke it. I am reading in Romanian, but i am fluently speaking it less than 2h every month. Swiss German is really, really different. In Austria and Germany, on the public television channel, when a Swiss is speaking, they offer subtitles...it's that different Learning a language is a challenge, especially if one is not that young anymore. I tried a year ago to learn French, but i failed miserably. I had no one to practice it with, and i couldn't remember the stuff anymore. I started learning German when i was 4 and English when i was 8 and as a child i was doing the connections in my brain different. I really did not know about this "us". I know that when my husband was on Erasmus in the UK, in the Midlands, he complained that at the beginning he couldn't understand a word, even though his English was not that bad either. Though, i have to say, in Germany and Austria they don't have movies in OV, they are always dubbed, so they can't really practice hearing. In Romania everything is OV and with subtitles. I have started today the introduction. Since the weather was horrible, we decided to not leave the house and then push forward with the intro. God, it was scary, I thought it will fail. There was a lot of teeth chattering for about 2h. They also lunged at each other three times, but luckily no real fight happened and now i noticed some hair from Cupcake and Marshmallow in the cage. I had the oven gloves on my hands in case that they start a full fight and i need to separate them. Marshmallow was refusing any dominance grooming or dominance mounting from Pufu, was running away and teeth chattering. Pufu was also doing his share of teeth chattering. Then came the teeth chattering and chasing between the girls... Now they calmed down a bit, they are eating together from the same pile of hay, they relaxed a bit, they share houses and the teeth chattering mostly stopped. I will keep them on neutral ground until tomorrow, when i will move them into a freshly washed cage. Sorry for the very low quality
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Post by 3piggles on May 3, 2019 21:26:43 GMT
I think it went pretty well, from your description. I hope, once they're all in the freshly cleaned cage, it continues to go well. So far, so good
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Post by Bean on May 4, 2019 6:58:09 GMT
That sounds pretty promising. Finding bits of fur is always a bit of a concern, but the fact they'd settled down after that is good. I love the image of you poised with your oven gloves! (Great idea actually - I'm usually armed with a dustpan, but oven gloves would actually enable you to move them a little, rather than just creating an instant barrier.)
Some of the accents in the Midlands are really thick, and the vowel sounds are quite different ('you' can sound more like 'yow' for example) - I'm not surprised your husband found it difficult!
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Post by amber89 on May 4, 2019 14:20:27 GMT
i think they bonded. I have moved them into the big cage, after giving it a good scrub. They have settled in, without any new domination issues. Everything seems settled, Pufu is the boss, followed by Marshmallow and finally baby Cupcake. Pufu is even such a gentleman, he is staying outside, in the play pen with Marshmallow, since she hasn't learned yet how to get into the cage (the others are jumping over the plexiglas. i have also put some stairs, but the doesn't know how to use those ones either). Cupcake is inside; i believe that she is very happy that she has the wooden house for herself ( usually it is always occupied by Pufu). In a few days Marshmallow will also trust herself with the jump...and afterwards she will need to learn how to use the stairs to the upper floor.
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Post by 3piggles on May 4, 2019 15:56:46 GMT
I've found it can help, if one of them is really reluctant to use the stairs, to put sides on the stairs, so they don't think they'll fall off, or that they're getting too exposed to predators. I hope you don't need to do that, but if you do, you'll only need sides until the reluctant one is comfortable with the stairs, and the sides can be removed. I've taped pieces of cardboard to the sides of the ramp, just to give the scared pig a bit more cover. That's great that they seem to not only be getting along in the cage, but to have routines to get their own space when needed Sounds as if it's off to a great start I remember the first time we watched a Dalziel and Pascoe Mystery, and Dalziel(pronounced Dee-el), was saying owt and nowt, I think for yes and no, or is and aren't. I have trouble understanding some regional US accents, if they are really thick, so I'm not at all surprised when people speaking English as a extra language can't understand us.
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Post by amber89 on May 4, 2019 17:56:51 GMT
She doesn't seem interested in the stairs...maybe just for chewing them. Since the others are not using the stairs, she doesn't have an example. She is still trying to gather the courage to jump. I suppose that her jump will be similar to the first steps of a baby...that's how it felt when little Cupcake mastered the jump. Another pic of all 3 of them, today, in the big cage
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Post by Bean on May 5, 2019 7:47:03 GMT
What excellent news! I'm really pleased it's going so well.
Have you tried laying bits of veg up the stairs when you want someone to discover them?! Some of mine are funny about going on things without sides too.
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Post by amber89 on May 5, 2019 8:30:52 GMT
I've tried veggies. She takes them from the side, and the ones that she doesn't reach she lets them be. This morning Marshmallow managed the stairs. I've put two fleece tunnels on the stairs. Then Cupcake took the time to show her how to do it. As a reward everyone got pea flakes, with a bit of an extra portion to the two girls, since they did all the work. Pufu was upstairs, enjoying some hay while the girls were mastering the stairs.
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Post by 3piggles on May 5, 2019 20:08:18 GMT
Excellent As you said, she just needed someone to show her how, and she did it
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misspiggy01
Tin Member
Welcome to the fam Buttons and Peanut!
Posts: 53
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Post by misspiggy01 on May 13, 2019 7:02:04 GMT
So glad all the piggies are well and happy!
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Post by amber89 on May 28, 2019 21:46:01 GMT
So, last Sunday Marshmallow finally got the courage to climb down the stairs, from the first floor, where they were left to dry after a bath, to the ground floor. She had a bit of help from my husband and from little Cupcake. Unfortunately I was not home to see it I have to say, I have given up on the idea that she will ever use the top floor. Apparently I was wrong.
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Post by 3piggles on Jun 4, 2019 20:02:51 GMT
Not to keep the topic going, but we even call the remote "the clicker," which makes it that much more difficult for non-English speakers to understand.
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Post by amber89 on Jun 4, 2019 20:12:52 GMT
Not to keep the topic going, but we even call the remote "the clicker," which makes it that much more difficult for non-English speakers to understand. This reminded me on the fact that the Austrians call the projector the "beamer". I understood from a Canadian friend that for English-speakers that is a car
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Post by Bean on Jun 5, 2019 7:32:41 GMT
Ah yes, beemer - slang for any BMW car or motorbike! Beemer drivers don't have a great reputation here - they're often thought of as people who think they're great drivers but are always speeding, hogging the road and cutting people up.
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Post by 3piggles on Jun 5, 2019 20:07:43 GMT
Oh, yes. In the US, a Beamer is a BMW. Our BMW drivers don't have a bad reputation, so at least that's good. We have water fountains for drinking, which most people call drinking fountains, but here in New England, they're called bubblers. I have no idea why. Maybe because some of them barely have enough water pressure to do anything but bubble They've been called that for as long as I can remember, and that's a really long time, lol I just googled TV Clickers, and got a whole lot of information on remotes, so maybe my area isn't the only place that calls them that in the US
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Post by jolovespiggies on Jun 7, 2019 7:48:22 GMT
I think it is good that they are taught a new language. It is quite shameful when foreigners can speak our language so well.
Hugs Jo xx
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Post by 3piggles on Jun 7, 2019 19:16:17 GMT
English speakers seem to cling to destroying English, rather than trying to learn other people's languages.
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Post by Bean on Jun 12, 2019 6:49:07 GMT
Even more off topic than language - Amber, do you know Germany well (you mentioned buying hay there, that's what I'm going on!)? We're thinking of taking a trip there next year and my son really wants to visit Berlin, but we'd like to visit somewhere else while we're over (preferably somewhere we can get to by train) and are looking for recommendations.
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Post by amber89 on Jun 13, 2019 16:32:49 GMT
Even more off topic than language - Amber, do you know Germany well (you mentioned buying hay there, that's what I'm going on!)? We're thinking of taking a trip there next year and my son really wants to visit Berlin, but we'd like to visit somewhere else while we're over (preferably somewhere we can get to by train) and are looking for recommendations. Unfortunately Bean, I don't know Germany at all. The hay i bought online and i picked it up from my in-laws' house. When i am there i don't really visit around. My only sightseeing tour was in Bavaria, southern Germany (Nurnberg, rothenburg ob der tauber) and i haven't even seen the famous Neuschwanstein castle or visited Munchen. I can ask my husband, who grew up in Germany, if he would have any suggestions. In general, most places are reachable via train (bahn.de). Some Germans were though complaining that the trains are constantly getting delays, and that one should consider for longer rides up to 30min delays. How much time are you willing to spend on the train ( 8h night train, 5h during the day, max 3h train rides) so that i know what parameters to give to my husband
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Post by 3piggles on Jun 13, 2019 16:43:43 GMT
Argh! I always figured the Germans, with their technical knowledge, had some of the best trains in the world. Is the infrastructure just getting old, or are there other problems? I hope the government fixes some of those problems, so people can get around more quickly.
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