zenmonkey's multilingual adventures of a traveller

[zenmonkey]

Wouldn't this be nice... alas it doesn't fit the character restrictions

Hebrew				German
☞ Assm ☞ Pod	: 13 / 87 : 12 / 200	❖ Essnt ❖ Voc	: 33 / 368 ☜❖☞ : 10 / 1000 ☜❖☞	Books Pods	: 1 / 25 : 5 / 100	❖ C, etc. ❖ D, etc.	☜ ☜

Too much time playing with this!! I'll keep it here, not in my signature

Hebrew
☞ Assimil ☞ HebrewPod101	: 13 / 87 : 12 / 200	❖ Essential ❖ Vocab	: 33 / 368 ☜ : 10 / 1000 ☜

German
☞ Books ☞ Podcasts	: 1 / 25 : 15 / 100	❖ Songs/Movies ❖ Lang-8	: 5 / 50 ☜ : 1 / 50 ☜

[zenmonkey]

Finally found a great Text To Speech site for Hebrew

http://dragonmobile.nuancemobiledevelop ... dLanguages

I've yet to see another that is easy and free.

Tonight I listened to several of my old German podcasts and discovered that they are no longer challenging. However, they are very boring! So, I'm now searching for more difficult and interesting podcasts - what I found so far is tougher but I'm not sure I'm going to understand a podcast of 100 years of relativity!

For example, this podcast left me in the dust - just too many unknown words: http://www.dw.com/de/der-korruptionserm ... a-18502946

Well, material to work on.
What I did was try to listen to it in the car, I gave up. So, I've looked it up and have it on the screen - on one side in German - and in another browser google translated (not so perfect...) allowing me to get the meaning as I read along. I'll listen to it again tomorrow. Probably grave a few sentences for Anki.

[zenmonkey]

Yesterday, I had some time to begin with Manuel de Judeo-Espagnol. Very enjoyable read - particularly appreciate the presentation of the fluidity of language. A little searching for communities, etc. shows that there was a summer program in Paris, maybe next year...

http://www.ueje.org/

and another little discovery (in French)
https://sites.google.com/site/sefaradin ... s-en-ligne
http://www.akadem.org//sommaire/cours/l ... 8_4266.php

An interesting presentation on Ladino as a "calque" or literal transliteration of Hebrew and Judeo-espagnol as the vulgarian language of archaic Spanish influenced by the cultural necessity of the Sephardi. This is a position (to which I don't particularly adhere) in opposition to the general idea that classifies all variants of Judeo-espagnol as Ladino.

Yesterday was also a travel day - so I got to listen to many podcasts - some German with DW, my usual "This American Life" and a new discovery: The Language Mastery podcast. I can really recommend the one I heard:

http://l2mastery.com/blog/shownotes/int ... -language/

[zenmonkey]

I've been reading (well trying to) Four Penny Shockers (Arthur Conan Doyle) in a bilingual edition German/English (DTV - parallel texts). I'm struggling and disappointed that I have so many words I don't understand. I'll give this a day or more and use this to make a few lists but if I'm not enjoying it I'll drop it for now.

Not worth sticking to material I don't enjoy.

[Jar-Ptitsa]

Not worth sticking to material I don't enjoy.

I agree.

[extralean]

I'm glad to see that you've gone from strength to strength in the time since I last read a journal by you! Keep it up Zenmonkey!

[zenmonkey]

An interesting presentation on Ladino as a "calque" or literal transliteration of Hebrew and Judeo-espagnol as the vulgarian language of archaic Spanish influenced by the cultural necessity of the Sephardi. This is a position (to which I don't particularly adhere) in opposition to the general idea that classifies all variants of Judeo-espagnol as Ladino.

Both exist.

This should help to clear things up.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrara_Bible

And from the Wikipedia page

"Informally, and especially in modern Israel, many speakers use Ladino to mean Judaeo-Spanish as a whole. The language was formerly regulated by a body called the Autoridad Nasionala del Ladino in Israel. More strictly, however, the term is confined to the style used in translation. According to the website of the Jewish Museum of Thessaloniki,

Ladino is not spoken, rather, it is the product of a word-for-word translation of Hebrew or Aramaic biblical or liturgical texts made by rabbis in the Jewish schools of Spain. In these, translations, a specific Hebrew or Aramaic word always corresponded to the same Spanish word, as long as no exegetical considerations prevented this. In short, Ladino is only Hebrew clothed in Spanish, or Spanish with Hebrew syntax. The famous Ladino translation of the Bible, the Biblia de Ferrara (1553), provided inspiration for the translation of numerous Spanish Christian Bibles."[4]"

What I mean is that I am perfectly ok with the double meaning of "ladino" - Ladino as the religious calque and Ladino as the vernacular 'judesmo' or Judaeo-Spanish. I am fine with the fluid definition of word - while the video author took lengths to argue that the informal, modern Israeli position and the ANLI is wrong. The author of the Manuel is also of a more fluid interpretation. I understand the need for clearly defining both and yet, I'm going to put it aside and continue to use the word to mean one or the other without offense or political consideration to the presence/absence of judeo in ladino, etc....


you might like this : https://lad.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingua_djudeo-espanyola

wikipedia article on djudeo-espanyola in ladino

[zenmonkey]

I agree!

----
German:
Converting a few DVDs to files so I can study off the computer when I travel and discovered that Almanya comes with a small German language guide for Turkish! So I'll put that with the Turkish manuals.

I think I'm going to do another pass through Assimil Perfectionnement.

Still struggling with the Penny Shockers.

[zenmonkey]

So I spent the last half hour looking for German subtitles for Wings of Desire, one of my favourite films. No luck, I can find them in many languages but the German ones I find are only for the part of the movie spoken in English. I even thought about buying the film again on Amazon if it had the right subtitles.

No luck - except the laughter from the negative movie reviews. People.

I did find out that the script exists in German - so I've ordered it and will use that as my review support. Not quite as light as Anki cards but I really like that film and text.

Assimil - reviewed my pass 1 methodology - it has forced me to slow down on the German and really study each sentence and not just passively understands it but produce each German sentence. This is a method improvement for me.

[zenmonkey]

Gah! The movie I am working on in Anki - The Dark Valley - has a lot of Tyrolean dialect, which as fun as it might seem, isn't the core of my study at this time. Well...

Onwards and forward!