kanewai's book shelf (current: italian)

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Hanuman
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Re: Kanewai's meandering log

Postby Hanuman » Tue Mar 22, 2016 6:18 am

I was wondering how your Burmese was going and I see that it is causing some frustration that I am all too familiar with.

As I was reading some of your recent posts I couldn't help thinking that these are eerily similar to the questions most learners ask when learning Thai and that Stu-Jay Raj's recent book on Thai fundamentals has a excellent break downs on the guttural, aspirated, unaspirated consonants, tones etc. and wouldn't it be great if you had access to something similar. So I checked out his Indic-script compass and saw that he had included Burmese, and that the post itself also has a pretty good explanation of how the compass works with a little Burmese specific stuff. The key to pronouncing tones is fundamentally linked to parts of the mouth you speak from, tongue position etc.. I think it might give you some good insight into the tonal system and create another way of linking the alphabet to something more concrete with your pronunciation.

http://stujay.com/2009/01/02/jazz-lessons-on-language-improvisation-101-stuart-jay-raj%e2%80%99s-indic-script-compass/

Or if you google 'stu jay raj indic script compass' you should get the same post. He has a variety of different posts related to similar stuff including an interactive version of the chart which breaks down the sounds with audio.

Good luck!
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kanewai
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Re: Kanewai's meandering log

Postby kanewai » Fri Mar 25, 2016 5:38 am

Spring Play Offs

There are ten languages in play. Not all will survive the coming months. Some might not even survive the weekend.

All the links are for Memrise courses with audio. Their search function sucks, and it took some trial and error to find the right level of course for me.

Japanese. Introduction to Japanese was the best I could find, and it's more of a 'useful phrases' course than an intro to the grammar. I was hoping for a casual review of Nihongo; this isn't it, and I don't see other options on Memrise that work for me.
Odds of survival: Next to nothing.

Anglo-Saxon. I only added this as a whim, because I saw an audio course and thought, it's still technically kind of English. And also: Beowulf! But there's only 86 words in Old English - with audio!/, and I don't see any other options that aren't simple word lists to memorize. There's a Teach Yourself Old English book that is out of print and now costs $500 on Amazon, and a Learn Old Englishpodcast that stopped after five lessons. And I'm already stumbling on the declension of "to be."
Odds of survival: Low, unless I find another free and fun course.

Russian. I have stumbled early and often with Russian. I never learned Cyrillic writing enough to get far with DuoLingo, and I couldn't understand what the guy in Pimsleur was saying at all. Learn Basic Russian starts with the Cyrillic alphabet, which will be nice to know. I don't know what will happen once I get to grammar.
Odds of survival: Good in the short term, low in the long term ... unless LingVist releases their Russian course. And then we're on!

Arabic. I'm just looking for an easy review. Learn basic Arabic might be too easy - five days in and they've only covered five or six letters. Even though a review of the writing will be nice, this is going to take forever.
Odds of survival: Good in the short term if I don't get bored, low in the long term.

Turkish. Turkish just keeps hanging on. Hacking Turkish 1 is a decent refresher, and DuoLingo Turkish is ok.
Odds of survival: Moderate for now, but what are the long-term prospects?

German. I would love to be literate in German, but haven't had the time to properly focus on her. A1 German plus Pimsleur plus DuoLingo might be enough to take me through the summer, after which I can actually commit.
Odds of survival: Moderate for now, excellent if I last until September.

Italian. The language I just can't quit. Intermediate Italian is still easy for me, and DuoLingo Italian is irritating me.
Odds of survival: Excellent if my brain stops confusing it with Spanish.

Burmese: A surprisingly high ranking for Burmese! The free Burmese by Ear audio course has a Memrise counterpart, Burmese by Ear, Complete. This is just the right combination for me to push on through the summer. I only want to learn good "tourist level" Burmese, and this will put me on track.
Odds of survival: very good

I'm not relying on online games for Spanish or French.

Wild Cards - If I find the right audio course on Memrise I might play with any of these for awhile:
Latin
Ancient Greek
Indonesian
Thai
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Super Challenge - 50 books
Italian: 11 / 50
Spanish: 50 / 50
French: 16 / 50

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kanewai
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Re: Kanewai's meandering log

Postby kanewai » Fri Mar 25, 2016 7:57 am

I'll be live blogging this weekend. I've got a couple reasons: it'll be interesting to see how balancing ten languages goes, on a micro-scale, it'll be too hard to write summaries at the end of the week, and the big one: this is week four of me not having smokes. I have a lot of nervous energy to spend, and I'm on a self-imposed lock-down for one last weekend. The next three and one-half days will be about language study and nothing but ... anything to keep my monkey mind occupied and not smoking.

After this I'll be back to normal (I hope), and won't have insane hours to dedicate to nothing but my books.

My German morning: I got bored during a meeting, and pretended to take notes on my iPad but I was really going through German lessons on DuoLingo and Memrise. Even with the microphone off I could guess the pattern and get the right answer. That's not a good sign regarding the integrity of the program. Later I listened to Pimsleur I Lesson V while riding to my next meeting. German is still easy, but I'm still in the flirty review phase. I haven't encountered anything new.

Italian for lunch. I read another chapter of L'amica geniale. I still haven't gotten used to the author's style. She uses short sentences and simple-appearing constructions, and yet it's challenging to read. This is a good example of why questions like "how many words should I know to be fluent" are so misleading. I can read an author like Umberto Eco comfortably. His ideas are well thought out and closely argued, so I can follow his writing even when I reach a section with a lot of unknown words. I have anchor points on either end of any difficult section. But for an author like Elena Ferrante, whose language is Spartan and where every word counts, I will be completely lost if I only miss one or two words.


My Anglo-Saxon evening: I listened to The History of English podcast while shopping and cooking dinner. This episode was on the 10th Century Wessex literary revival. I didn't even know there was such a thing until tonight. I love this podcast, and it's one of the things that motivates me to learn Anglo-Saxon. I did a Memrise lesson while the pasta was cooking. I'm still working on declining To Have. Nothing exciting.
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Super Challenge - 50 books
Italian: 11 / 50
Spanish: 50 / 50
French: 16 / 50

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kanewai
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Re: Kanewai's meandering log

Postby kanewai » Fri Mar 25, 2016 7:33 pm

Japanese didn't survive the night. And now there are nine.
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Super Challenge - 50 books
Italian: 11 / 50
Spanish: 50 / 50
French: 16 / 50

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kanewai
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Re: Kanewai's meandering log

Postby kanewai » Fri Mar 25, 2016 9:13 pm

Day 6, and Arabic and Russian are still on the alphabet, and Anglo-Saxon is still on "to have." I'm going to need some context soon!
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Super Challenge - 50 books
Italian: 11 / 50
Spanish: 50 / 50
French: 16 / 50

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kanewai
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Re: Kanewai's meandering log

Postby kanewai » Sat Mar 26, 2016 1:41 am

DuoLingo is removing bars faster than I can earn them. I don't know how anyone progresses in this program.
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Super Challenge - 50 books
Italian: 11 / 50
Spanish: 50 / 50
French: 16 / 50

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kanewai
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Re: Kanewai's meandering log

Postby kanewai » Sat Mar 26, 2016 6:38 am

Finishing the day with Spanish. And though I've barely studied it at all for years, my passive understanding is pretty good. I jumped in on Chapter 17 of FSI Basic, and the Assimil's advanced course.

My active skills are non-existent, and I cannot recall words at all unless I'm prompted. I need to build my vocabulary back up.

The good news is that Italian and Spanish look like completely different languages at this level, and I hope this means that there won't be as much interference as I'd feared. I still think of Italian words when I'm trying to produce Spanish, but I think that's more a factor of having a limited active vocabulary than actual interference.

It's time to load up on some more Memrise decks.
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Super Challenge - 50 books
Italian: 11 / 50
Spanish: 50 / 50
French: 16 / 50

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kanewai
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Re: Kanewai's meandering log

Postby kanewai » Wed Mar 30, 2016 7:24 pm

Ten days, and eight languages are left. I dropped Russian a few days ago. I was only using Memrise, and I'm finding that programs like this do not work for me at all to learn a language. They're good for testing myself, and for reinforcing things I already know - but otherwise there's not enough context for me to retain anything.

Eight is still too many.

Anglo Saxon - Memrise is still drilling on "to have" and "to be." Like Russian, I need to start seeing these in context soon; otherwise this will be the next to go.

Arabic - I'm less than half way through the alphabet. The slow pace is killing me. I can't imagine spending two more weeks just reviewing letters. I know most of the letters very well, and I'm just lazily clicking through the drills, waiting for the more exotic (or non-Anglo) letters to show up; I really could use the drills for these.

Turkish - It's going ok. There's a large Turkish contingent coming to our September conference, and it would be nice to be able to speak a little bit with them. Otherwise, I'm not really committed to spending a lot of time this summer with Turkish.

Burmese - I know four sentence patterns (it's hot; it's hot, isn't it?; yes, it is hot; and it is not hot) and can count to ten. This is already going to be enough to dazzle my friends. I'm on a solid track. The only catch is that I don't really like the way the language sounds. Hopefully I'll learn to appreciate tonal languages more as the summer progresses.

German - I'm in that part of Pimsleur where you ask a girl out for a drink over and over and over. When she says yes you pester her about where to meet and at what time. When she says no you only pester her about the time. And because Pimsleur courses all follow the same pattern, I know that I am going to be pestering the poor Fräulein all week.

Italian - I'm enjoying L'amica geniale a lot. If this year's Super Challenge includes language families I'll sign up for "Romantics" and aim for a balance of Italian, Spanish, and French.

Between Il commissario De Luca, Il giardino dei Finzi-Contin, Se questo è un uomo, La tregua, and La storia I've spent a lot of time over the past year watching the rise and fall of fascism in Italy. It's sad and frightening to think that crypto-fascists are now gaining power my own country. I used to think it could never happen here. I was wrong.

Spanish - I'm aiming to do a good solid 30" of study each day. I was going to do a mix of Assimil Español perfeccionamiento and FSI Spanish basic each evening, but I don't have the energy for both. For now, I'll work through FSI.

French - I've discovered that I can listen to French news on tv with a high level of comprehension. Not so much with radio news - I think I need the visual clues. I'll need to work the news into my day. Otherwise, still watching and enjoying Un Village français. Life is getting very dangerous for everyone in Villeneuve, and I'm tempted to binge watch the rest of the season.
3 x
Super Challenge - 50 books
Italian: 11 / 50
Spanish: 50 / 50
French: 16 / 50

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lingua
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Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=12257
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Re: Kanewai's meandering log

Postby lingua » Thu Mar 31, 2016 3:14 am

kanewai wrote: DuoLingo Italian is irritating me.


I just started using DuoLingo Italian today and I find it slightly irritating as well. Their English translations are often too literal and end up sounding unnatural. Outside of that I like the way it forces you to write in Italian which is something I don't do enough of.

As far as Thai, I'm a beginner and (on memrise) I like Mrs Yanisa's Thai for Foreigners where you learn consonant + vowel sounds as blocks which is how Stu Jay Raj recommends learning Thai. She has another course she created that is for Thai's learning English and eventually I'm planning to give that one a try since I think it could be helpful in reading the Thai word and writing in English as a way of avoiding transliteration .
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Super Challenge 2022-23:
DE: books: 0 / 2500 film: 1654 / 4500
IT: books: 3065 / 5000 film: 5031 / 9000
PT: books: 2921 / 5000 film: 5010 / 9000

Output Challenge 2023:
IT: write: 0 / 50000 record: 84 / 3000
PT: write: 0 / 50000 record: 0 / 3000

PT: Read 100 books: 28 / 100

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kanewai
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Re: Kanewai's meandering log

Postby kanewai » Sun Apr 03, 2016 10:25 am

Anglo-Saxon did not survive the weekend. I pushed on to finish conjugating to have and to be ... and discovered that the rest of the Memrise course was only word lists. That won't do me much good at this point.

Turkish and Arabic are the two that are at risk now.

Italian, Spanish, French, Burmese, and German are all safe.

Seven is within the realm of possibility.
1 x
Super Challenge - 50 books
Italian: 11 / 50
Spanish: 50 / 50
French: 16 / 50


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