electronicmonk's Nepali language log

[electronicmonk]

I did a pretty good job of continuing to study this past week. I missed yesterday so I had more work to do today. I am currently in lesson 8 so about halfway through the book. I think I have started to understand a few sentences here or there of real-world Nepali. I still didn't completely understand the context, but I was listening to conversation yesterday and picked up one sentence which was "when did he/she come?" This is pretty much straight from the primer, but still kinda cool. I didn't know who they were referring to though quickly figured that out when I realized who had returned.

I was sort of saddened (though not at all surprised) to see just how many verb aspects there are in Nepali. I thought I had it made basically understanding simple past and present tense (which is basically the future tense as well) only to realize there were clearly other verb forms and I just hadn't gotten to them yet. Currently I am learning present progressive which isn't that difficult. For the most part the Nepali verbs I am learning are regular so that makes it easier.

My brain still freezes up some when someone asks me a question in Nepali. I usually need it repeated or slowed down in order to understand, but can usually make out the meaning assuming I have learned that content already. People do seem to realize I have learned a bit more; I don't think they have any idea how much time it took for me to learn the little bit that I do know.

Since I have stopped watching as much TV (a combination of poor internet connection and a desire to do something more productive with my time) I should have more time to spend on other language learning activities. Mostly I have just been reading more (English-language books as I also have been trying to read more in general). I could add in a few simple reading exercises or listening exercises. We'll see what my motivation level for that is.

[electronicmonk]

I definitely did not study as much this past week (like 4/7 days). I am about 70% of the way through lesson 8. I just finished part 8/11 and then there are grammar exercises at the end. I think the next few dialogues focus on comparisons which is a new topic. Part of lesson 8 has been review and the other part has been learning the present progressive tense. Present progressive is actually pretty easy in Nepali so that is nice. As the dialogues tend to review earlier concepts there have been a few where I understood almost all of it before I looked at the text save for a few new words (well one was pretty much all review so I skipped that after listening to it). I think there is good and bad to this. It definitely makes the dialogues more comprehensible allowing one to suss out the gist of the dialogue though it does limit learning new vocabulary. And it would be nice if the dialogues were more interesting than "Walk to the blackboard, what are you doing? What did you do? What did s/he do? What is s/he doing?" Et cetera.

As for not watching tv, well I didn't really watch much until yesterday. I realized Harrow is back on air and despite myself I had to catch up. I also am keeping up with Jane the Virgin (my fav). ::insert smiley heart-eyed emoji here:: Considering how much TV I would usually be watching though this is a relatively small amount. I have been reading more in general (or listening to audiobooks), but not studying. I am not sure the reasons why other than lack of interest some days. I got caught up with something else for a few days which distracted me and made it hard to focus on anything else.

I am noticing I am still catching bits and pieces of conversations. I will notice certain words and be able to figure out part of what people are talking about, but still miss the general conversation. I can understand some basic questions that use some of the vocabulary I have learned and then just intuiting what the person is probably asking me. I also find myself tuning out of conversations less and trying to listen more intently to pick up on what I can understand. I consider this to be progress. Honestly, anything new learned from the week before is progress and that is good enough for me at this point.

Whether or not Nepali ever plays a larger role in my future (yet to be seen) I am glad that I have learned what I have so far and will have some friends to communicate with when I leave. I think learning what I have has also given me increased confidence about learning another language in the future. I have a bad habit of comparing my speed of language learning with others around me which is not productive. This led me to believe for years I just "wasn't all that good" at learning other languages as most things that I learn come to me very quickly. Of course I discounted what I could do well (such as reading) as my speaking and listening skills weren't as good as others. I discounted that I could listen to someone speaking to me in Spanish and understand the general gist of what was being said even if I couldn't respond in Spanish. It seemed like if I couldn't do everything then I couldn't do anything. Small wins were overshadowed by unrealistic expectations. And that is just a demoralizing place to be when learning a language. I think my goal for Nepali was "learn what you can learn from this course and others around you." That's it. No grand goal of being able to communicate perfectly with everyone I meet. No pressure to be able to communicate anything in particular. My goal was to learn the material in one course. And it is remarkable how setting such a basic, small goal has actually made language learning, for me, more attainable. Instead of some vague goal of "speaking and understanding the language" it is a very concrete goal with actual goalposts I can reach. Now of course none of this is new information. Books on setting goals have talked about this for ages. But actually following that advice is a whole other story. It feels good.

[electronicmonk]

I am now half-way done with my Nepali course. I have finished lesson 8 and have barely started lesson 9. While I feel like I have learned quite a bit, I still feel like I can barely put together necessary sentences. My friends were surprised to find out I could (sort of) read Nepali. One person thought I was just guessing at the words? I am not sure how I would have been successful with merely guessing as Devanagari looks nothing like English, but after "proving" I could read a few other words he believed me. It was a little weird. I did realize part of the reason I hate speaking in front of other people, especially people I know, is because I hate being the center of attention. People don't believe me when I say that people laugh or stare at me when I speak, but they do. They don't mean any harm by it and they are definitely not trying to inhibit me from speaking, but it does that anyway. Just last week I asked for an egg in Nepali and I had a bunch of my friends just stop and stare at me. I was like, "did I say it wrong? Is that not the correct word? Like what's wrong?" And they were no, it is just a hard word (I don't actually think it is, but that it besides the point). It is moments like that that make me feel like crawling back into my skin and not saying anything. I will reiterate they meant no harm by it and if I spoke on a regular basis I am sure I would not get the same stares (it would get old eventually I am sure), but I think that just constantly reinfornces why I don't. Also you get stuck in this trap of "proving" how much you know, just like reading in Nepali. I am not learning to be tested by others. I am not getting a grade on this. Anyway, just some of my observations. If I don't know people I am much more likely to speak just because I know they one, won't test me or stare at me awkwardly, and even if they do, I can just walk away and not deal with it further. One of my friends also seemed to think I would be "fluent" by now if I just spoke to which I was like, I have only been studying the language for 2.5 months so I don't think that is true (the language isn't that easy), but I do get your point that I could advance further if I had people giving me free tutoring. Seeing as that wasn't my goal I am ok with that.

On the studying front, I finally went through my second Anki deck of the cards I imported from Memrise. It had been about 1 month since I looked at them so I instantly had a third of my deck become "mature" just like that. That was nice. I was just going to ignore that deck, but then I realized there were some words and phrases in there that I was forgetting and it would be beneficial to review them. As I have been traveling for the past few days and have exams to study for I am not sure how much more new material I am going to do in the next few days.

After texting with friends in English I am curious to learn more about how certain phrases are formed in Nepali. I feel like seeing how someone who is a second language speaker of English communicates in English tells you a fair bit about how thoughts and ideas are phrased in their first language. I received one text the other day that I had to think about for awhile before I figured out what he was trying to ask. Now I am curious what that phrase would be in Nepali as it certainly did not translate as intented into English.

There is nothing else new this week. Look forward to continuing on to the second half of my beginner material.

[Speakeasy]

You haven't posted to your log for a while. When you return, you might wish to update yourself on the latest developments on the LLORG touching upon Nepali:

Nepali Study Group
https://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=26&p=150660#p150660

Nepali / Nepalese Resources
https://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&p=150657&sid=c9f2211ea0271eaf6f5fbc2c261fc714#p150657

EDITED:
Typos: auto-correct, I'd swear to it!

[Bistari]

I see that your last post was several years ago, but I can hope that you are still here!

After many years of making no significant progress , I am now making a serious effort to learn Nepali. I do not live in Nepal (yet!), but I visit very regularly.

I am not sure whether to be impressed or depressed after reading that you learnt devanagiri in a few hours. I have been struggling for a loooong time! Because my handwriting , even in english , has always been appalling and has got worse with disuse, I think for me using a keyboard is essential.
I am now using Windows 11 Nepali on my laptop , with a plug in keyboard bought in Ktm recently. Should be a good start , BUT , like all other keyboard attempts , there seem to be letters missing , and I can't find advice online to solve the problem.
The current omission is the vowel O , both in independent and dependent forms, and I haven't even attempted conjuncts, etc., yet!

I cannot believe that anyone can use the keyboard in its current form. Most of the alternatives seem to be transliteration systems, which can be convenient for some purposes , but are little use to someone trying to learn. Unicode seems to be another possibility , but so far I have failed to make it work
Every time I think I am starting to make some progress , I run up against another keyboard failure , which is extremely frustrating , and stops me from making progress.

What do you use?

[jeffers]

I cannot believe that anyone can use the keyboard in its current form. Most of the alternatives seem to be transliteration systems, which can be convenient for some purposes , but are little use to someone trying to learn. Unicode seems to be another possibility , but so far I have failed to make it work
Every time I think I am starting to make some progress , I run up against another keyboard failure , which is extremely frustrating , and stops me from making progress.

What do you use?

I use the Windows devanagari language option, which uses unicode. When I lived in India we had keyboards with the devanagari printed next to the roman letters, so I learnt it then. I can still touch type Devanagari, more or less.