I am very lazy, but soon I will be in Japan 88 days, so that’s my last real chance to start actually learning Japanese!
*** Regularly Scheduled Programming ***
What I Want to Learn:
Japanese: Media, Shinto, Personal Interest
Spanish: Conversation, Convenience, and legacy
French: Philosophy & religious theory
German: Philosophy, religious theory, legacy
Russian: Long epic novels, some religious theory, professional interest (Maths and Sciences)
Latin: Religious Texts and commentary
Greek: Religious Texts and commentary
Hebrew: Religious texts and commentary, legacy
Swedish: Personal Interest (Music)
Esperanto: Personal Interest (for Writing)
Mandarin: Professional interest (Maths and Sciences)
Stupid quotes from people I know:
Esperanto is primarily derived from Norwegian vocabulary. It is no way related to Romance languages.
Now, I confess I don't know much about Norwegian, but...
List of Materials for Future Reference:
OLD ENGLISH
Prof Drout reading Beowulf
JAPANESE
hukumusume.com – 6 folktales and stories each day in Japanese, many with Audio
Aoitori Bunko – Japanese novels aimed at 12 y/o, full furigana
JCAT Japanese Language Test
tsubasabunko.jp/menu – more tween reading material
sosekiproject.org/ – mid/high level reading
Remember to research Kuzushiji (Cursive Characters)
KOREAN
vonPeterhof wrote:Instead of thinking of Korean speech levels as a continuous ladder it might be more helpful to think of it as a grid with politeness on one axis and formality on the other.
SPANISH
Cervantes Placement Test
Ceclia (Biography)
Los Destinos 60 episodes w/ sassy shoulderpads
"Spanish Verbs: Ser and Estar. Key to Mastering the Language" Juan and Susan Serrano
"Correct your Spanish Blunders" Jean Yates
Daína Chaviano (S/F)
Terry Prachett translated
Felix Balma (Steampunk)
"El fin de los suenos" Campbell y Cotrina
"El Principe de la niebla" Carlos Ruiz Zafon (YA, Magical/Realism)
"El Marciano" Andy Weir (Novel, Astronauts)
Noticias en Practica Español -- news stories graded from A1-C2
FRENCH
“French for Reading” by Sandberg and Tatham
“Cours de Langue et de Civilisation Francaises” by Gaston Mauger (Books 1-4)
Le Déchronologue, by Stéphane Beauverger (novel; Alternate History)
Subjunctivisor is a website that helps you decide to use the subjunctive or indicitive
House (dubbed)
ER (dubbed)
“Le retour de Martin Guerre” (movie)
D'Accord – La Prononciation du Francais Internationale: Acquisition et Perfectionnement
RUSSIAN
Sergei Esenin (Poet)
“мы” by Zamyatin
"Как стать полиглотом" Spivak (Non-Fiction/Memoir)
“A Book of Russian Idioms Illustrated” MI Dubrovin
Jules Verne is translated
habrababr.ru – articles in russian
issuu.com/pulseuk – newspaper
issuu.com/angliya – newspaper
Blaurebell wrote:So a good progression would be: Wyner's pronunciation trainer while doing Russian World 1 on Youtube, followed by Assimil + Duolingo (worthwhile until the last Checkpoint, painful and useless beyond that), Modern Russian 1, New Penguin Russian or Russisch mit System if you want to do laddering and then Modern Russian 2. I suspect that after Modern Russian 2 I will probably still need more drilling for verbs of motion and aspect. Ah, Russian grammar ! And of course none of that is enough to read without a dictionary because Russian has insane amounts of vocabulary I found that half of Duolingo was enough to start intensive reading, but it's hard work / decryption meets black magic. There are so few cognates in general and the word order is insane too!
As you can see, you're replacing a language that you get almost for free after French and Spanish with one that can be summed up with grammar gulag meets black magic
GERMAN
"Klipp un Klar” grammar
“Ubungsgrammatik fu:r Anfa:nger” Hueber (u:/a: = u/a with umlaut)
Deutsche Welle (Graded Audio)
Kack & Sachgeschichten - Der Podcast mit Klugschiss! (What philosophical approaches represent the figures in Watchmen - and where does Spongebob poop? The Kack and Sachgeschichte throw an analytical view on pop culture, games, series and pursue a goal: the perfect mix of crap and surplus value.) http://www.podcast.de/podcast/613365/
GEO Audio (Background stories, interviews with GEO reporters and experts - travel focused. New podcast every Thursday.) http://www.podcast.de/podcast/2166/
NORWEGIAN
The Artemis Fowl books are available in Norwegian.
DANISH
“Persisk kronologi og længden af jødernes babyloniske fangenskab” Rolf J.Furuli (Non-Fiction)
SWEDISH
“Konsten att lära sig språk” Erik Gunnemark