Kurdish Kurmanji Log: Let's get crazy

[Zerrez]

Week 10, Day 1

Standard Kurmanji B1:
Writing: 240 words
Reading: 7 pages
Video: 1 hour

Afrini Kurmanji B1:
Speaking: some
Listening / Transcribing: -
Translating: -

Farsi A1:
Chai and Conversation Bootcamp Week 3/6: +/- 1 hour

Today I had time so I went deep into my AI Kurmanji Conversation Club. In my instructions to the AI, I essentially say, "Stick to beginner language." Today it threw that part of the instructions right out the window. Instead of trying to fix it, I went with the more difficult language and survived. It took about 2.5 hours to write 240 words, and read the equivalent of 7 pages. Tomorrow I have even more free time and I'm ready for a second round. Also looking forward to the next Can û Ceger. Will Bavo get his memory back in episode 27???

In other news, today was the last day of my time at the refugee camp. Man, I'm going to miss the people there - both the refugees and the volunteers. I hope my motivation for Farsi continues even if I'm not around it. It probably will.

Goodnight ya'll!

[Zerrez]

Week 10, Day 2 - Week 11, Day 4

Standard Kurmanji B1:
Writing: 500 words
Reading: 15 pages
Video: 12 hours (until Can u Ceger besa 36)

Afrini Kurmanji B1:
Speaking: a lot
Listening / Transcribing: 3 hours
Translating: 1 hour

Farsi A1:
Chai and Conversation Bootcamp Week 4/6: +/- 1 hour each day (except for this week - gotta catch up!)

Hello my friends! It's been a while since I've had my computer/ ability to write this language log. As predicted, I've had a lot going on lately. Travels, finals, finishing work at the refugee camp... none of this hasn't stopped me from learning Kurmanji. In fact, I may have been practicing more lately.

My stats totally fail at showing this. Reading and writing took a big hit, but that tiny "Speaking: a lot" under Afrini Kurmanji is where all the action has been. I'm not only speaking Afrini on a daily basis, but I'm beginning to speak a considerable amount on a daily basis. It's not like I'm speaking all day, but I've been speaking much more and more freely and easily. Good things are going to happen with my Kurdish if I keep this up. The trick has been watching hours of Youtube which somehow primes me for speaking in Kurdish when I want to say something. Regularly watching videos in Kurdish places all my Kurdish knowledge at the tip of my tongue. Then when I want to speak, it just comes out without me having to think about it. This is how I learned to speak in German, and it's working even better for Kurdish.

The other secret ingredient has been to participate in my AI Kurmanji speaking club. It's not as good as watching Youtube, but it's still worth it and I feel a significant improvement when it comes to my speaking comprehension. I'm sure it's helping my reading as well. This continues to be my holy trifecta of Kurdish learning: Youtube, Speaking to a native, and typing with Kurdish AIs.

My original goal was to reach B2 Kurmanji by August 1st. I don't see that happening but I'm not too disappointed. It was a steep goal considering I was just barely B1 when I made it. Also when I made this goal, I was told there were a lot of native Kurmanji speakers I'd be speaking with at the refugee camp for hours on a daily basis. The day I started working, almost all of them left the camp to go on to better lives. Good for them, bad for my Kurdish learning. Still, I think I've gone from the lower end of the B1 spectrum to the higher end of the B1 spectrum since mid-April. Let's see how I'm feeling by August 1st.

[Zerrez]

Quick Kurdish Stats for Week 10 + 11.5 (two half-weeks)
Writing............................740 words.....................(24.75 hours + 1140 words since April 19)
Transcribing/Translating....4 hours...........................(19.5 hours since May 11)
Reading...........................22 pages.....................(319 pages since April 19)
Audio/Video.....................13 hours........................(38:40 hours since May 26)
Anki................................Added 0 new cards.......(711 unique cards since March 20)
Speaking: a lot, daily

Compared with Week 8+9
Week 8+9 -> Week 10+11.5
Writing: 1 hour + 400 words -> 740 words
Transcription/Translation: 8 hours -> 4 hours
Reading: 28 pages -> 22 pages
Audio/Video: 8.5 hours -> 13 hours
Anki: 0 -> 0
Speaking: some, daily -> a lot, daily

[Zerrez]

Week 11, Days 5 and 6

Standard Kurmanji B1:
Writing: 400 words
Reading: 10 pages
Video: 3 hours

Afrini Kurmanji B1:
Speaking: some
Listening / Transcribing: -
Translating: -

Farsi A1:
Chai and Conversation Bootcamp Week 4/6: +/- 1 hour

Now that I'm back to a regular schedule, I'm back to wanting to read books again. Today I tried my go-to Kurdish book "Siya Evînê" for the umpteenth time. I read two sentences and fell asleep for an hour. This is not an exaggeration. After I woke up, I read two pages before calling it quits. I don't know what to do. Finding a Kurmanji book to learn from is likely impossible but I'm too stubborn to quit.

Today I went back on track with Farsi. An interesting aspect of Farsi is that some Afrini Kurmanji words which aren't as used in Standard Kurmanji, are standard Farsi words. For example, for the word "a little", non-Afrini Kurds tend to cringe when I say the "kûçik" with them, but in Afrin everyone can say kûçik to mean a little. I get the feeling for non-Afinis it's like saying, "a lil bit" instead of "a little". However, in Farsi, كوچِک (or kûçek) is a perfectly normal way to say a little, just as in Afrin. Even at an intermediate level of Kurmanji and beginner level of Farsi, I notice this a lot.

But am I really just beginner level in Farsi? More than 90% of the time, I've found that the words are nearly the same as either Kurdish or Arabic. For example, kûçik vs kûçek. Farsi grammar is also basically the same as Kurmanji except it's even more simple. Same rules, just less complications. I may know a lot more Farsi than I know, I know.

And now I'm going to bed. It seems like just mentioning Siya Evînê again is enough to knock me out. Good night everyone. Xewn Xoş

[Zerrez]

Week 11, Day 7 + Week 12, Day 1

Standard Kurmanji B1:
Writing: 400 words
Reading: 10 pages
Video: 2 hours

Afrini Kurmanji B1:
Speaking: some
Listening / Transcribing: -
Translating: -

Farsi A1:
Chai and Conversation Bootcamp Week 5/6: +/- 1 hour

In addition to having Kurdish AI conversation clubs, I've been practicing the new vocab from the conversations on a simple app I made, for better familiarity. It takes learning a word about 10 times before I can easily recall its meaning. The system has been working out well. This gave me the idea to go through a Kurdish grammar book and convert the vocab practice app to something that could iron out my grammar. Good idea in theory, terrible in practice. Some people are grammar people. I'm not one of them. Practicing the grammar on my app was both boring and impractical to the reality of the language. Like Anki, when you're at an intermediate stage.

To be clear, as an ESL teacher, I've seen that studying grammar is effective for only about half of the students I've taught and I am not one of them. I have to learn in a different way. That's just how it is. Long story short, I wasted my time a little with the grammar app and will continue to go forward without analytically perfecting my grammar.

I've also tweaked my AI conversation club so that the participants would give more lengthy, in-depth responses. I felt the need to do this because being in the club was no longer a challenge and was getting boring. That must mean I'm improving, so I'm happy with that. Here's how it looks now:



That's all for now. Looking forward to the second day of week 12.

[Zerrez]

Week 12 - 15, Day 1

Standard Kurmanji B1:
Writing: -
Reading: -
Video: 21 hours (Up to Can û Ceger 62)

Afrini Kurmanji B1:
Speaking: some
Listening / Transcribing: -
Translating: -

German B2:
Reading an old Yiddish book (in German), watching a few episodes of Star Trek TNG, studying for a citizenship test, etc.

Levantine Arabic A2(?):
Coming soon

I knew my life would change after I finished my time in Greece and returned "home." However, just before leaving, a set of events beyond the scope of my imagination kicked off. The dust is far from settled and I'm well over my head, but that's no reason I can't learn three languages right?

Farsi is unfortunately not in the cards any more. I'll miss Farsi so much. I'm sure I'll come back to it someday. Same can be said for Greek. Now it's time to switch out Greek and Farsi for German and Levantine Arabic.

Here's where things stand now:

Kurmanji B1 Litterally nothing in my life is the same as it was since the last time I posted, except for one thing: Can û Ceger. There's always time for Can û Ceger. I've watched 21 more episodes of Can û Ceger and don't plan on stopping any time soon. Before the madness of the last three weeks began, I was getting close to B2 in my Kurmanji. Now I'm just barely keeping it afloat with Can û Ceger. I will be returning to serious study ASAP.

German B2 Refreshing my German is important right now. I'll be taking a citizenship test soon and it would be ridiculous if I didn't know enough German to understand it. The problem with German is that I kind of hate it. On the other hand, it's not so difficult to learn if you don't attempt to memorize grammar rules. Side note: both German and Kurdish are SOV languages.

Levantine Arabic A2 Then there's Levantine Arabic. I don't know why, but I have a feeling that I'm going to need it in the future. I've had an on and off again relationship with Levantine Arabic since 2012. I even lived in Lebanon in 2022 and spoke it there cave-man style. When I returned from Lebanon, I could kind of understand Syrian/Lebanese TV. I don't know which level that put me on ...B1? But that was almost 2 years ago. When I returned from Lebanon, I switched my focus to reviving my Russian, then Ukrainian (unfortunately I had no desire for speaking Russian after visiting Ukraine). Then I dropped everything for Kurdish once I decided to work on my Afrin Project.

Now that my Kurmanji is bumping against the lower end of B2, I technically might have more energy to renew my Levantine Arabic. I've got tons of resources laying around from 2022 so getting back into it is merely a time and energy issue. And I just have this feeling that Levantine is going to be advantages for my future.

Today is the first day in three weeks that things have been calm enough to the point where I could sit down and think about what languages I'll be needed in my future both near and far. It's also nice to get back to this langauge log. I'm looking forward to a time when I can return to writing it on a daily basis. Until then, şev baş û xwen xoş.

[Zerrez]

Week 15, Days 2 - 6

Standard Kurmanji B1:
Writing: -
Reading: 13 pages
Video: 4 hours (Up to Can û Ceger 66)

Afrini Kurmanji B1:
Speaking: some
Listening / Transcribing: -
Translating: -

German B2:
Studying for a citizenship test

Levantine Arabic A2:
101 Most Used Verbs in Spoken Arabic : Jordan and Palestine : 20 words w/ notebook method.

Overview:

Kurmanji B1 : I'm dying to return to Kurdish again. I had a false start earlier in the week but I believe my real return to Kurdish started today. I'm currently reading a history book in Kurmanji. Here in Germany I wanted to impress upon a Kurdish youth that their history was much MUCH deeper than German history, so I waved this massive tome in their face and said, "This is your history! Don't let anyone in Germany make you feel like their history is richer than yours because yours is 3,000 years older!" Then we spoke a little in Kurdish and about history in general for a couple of hours. It was a good time. I hope someday I can have a conversation like that entirely in Kurdish.

Levantine Arabic A2 : Yesterday was my first time since late 2022 getting back into Levantine. I have a new book called, "101 Most Used Verbs in Spoken Arabic : Jordan and Palestine." The title is deceiving. There's a lot more going on here than 101 verbs. The author even has a old video for the book which explains how to do the "Notebook Method". It seems like a good way to learn vocab and practice hand writing, so I'll try it out for the first 101 verbs. It can be used for any language so here's the link if anyone's interested.
https://youtu.be/0nXyo7ObcJw?si=cRXX3odLHVtTDYBZ

Yesterday I wrote in Arabic for the first time in years. I was a little unsteady at first, but today was slightly better. Hopefully by the end of the week it will become more natural. Here's a really embarrassing photo of my first entry in my new Arabic notebook.
- Until next time.