JLS log - Spanish, Greek, Hebrew, Latin, Chinese

[JLS]

Hebrew Headaches and Progress

Still slogging through Hebrew. It's getting easier and easier to sight-read words. My mind better recognizes the letters and marks on site, and some words have reached "instant-recognition" status. Still, it's overall laborious. I know from experience this drag will slow.

After 20 minutes in Hebrew I go to Greek (the Septuagint), and for some reason it seems more difficult than the New Testament. Maybe because I've just never read the Septuagint in Greek, but I have spent a lot of time over the years in the New Testament.

After 20-30 min/ea in Greek and Hebrew, I read for a half hour in Spanish. By the time I get to Spanish though, my mind isn't as keen to process things.

However, I've experienced these headwinds in learning before. I have swam through the breakers. I know what's on the other side of this effort. I'll keep going.

What was good for me in Greek was to read record-breaking portions all at once. That was hard, but it made the standard 2-3 chapters of reading feel very easy. Perhaps I need to do that with Hebrew, and maybe I need to read some enormous chunks of the Septuagint all at once. Where I'll get the time is another question.

Spanish Saturation - And a Win!

Perhaps I'm just tired (I am sick today), but it seems you get to a point where the language is almost contemptively familiar. You start getting a feeling of "seen that, done that." The language doesn't seem as fascinating. Progress doesn't seem as rewarding because your wins aren't as noticeable. Maybe this is what a plateau feels like. You don't feel like there's anything unique to do besides continuing to read, listen, stack and review vocab, etc. I've been on Spanish intensively for two months (not a long time by any standard), and I've taken a lot in. Just time to keep going.

Have you been to this point of drag in a language? Could you share your own experience?

On the up-side, I sent a Spanish manuscript to a friend in Spain. This is for an address I intend to deliver in a Spanish-speaking environment, and I sent only about half to him. The rest is in progress. He made some corrections to articles and prepositions for me, but he thought overall my Spanish composition was quite good. That's a win!

FYI, it takes a while for me to produce that manuscript. I'm looking up words frequently, and I'm trying to quality check grammar as I go. This is me breaking into new territory of language application.

[JLS]

The Spanish List

I finished the Spanish list of 100 words. Just one or two run-through's and it'll be solidly in my memory. The story method helps such tasks go wonderfully quick.

Now to make use of those words.

Chinese Wubi keyboard

I don't like to handwrite things. I'm a man of my age. Still, I want to familiarize myself better with the hanzi. The wubi keyboard method may be just the way to help. It's easy to use pinyin input and half-recognize the character that you typed, but the wubi method requires you to understand each hanzi, what it's made of, and the order in which you write the radicals. Much steeper learning curve, but they say you can reach incredible typing speeds if you master it. Hanzi by wubi take usually four strokes at the most to type out.

I dipped in a little Saturday. What a system. Although there are major rules and an overall system, Mandarin keyboard is both science and art. It arranges over 300 radicals in five major groups, and they are laid out in their groups in a relatively progressive order. Still, some keys contain exceptions you just have to know. But we language lovers are used to raw exceptions.

System and Memory - Two Hobbies

I personally enjoy memorizing and acquiring for their own sake, and I like learning systems. Others don't like memorizing, but I enjoy the idea of putting all I can in my head for easy retrieval. If I memorize in a system, or I connect all my memories in a system, it enhances retrieval, and the ability to put more things in the system. Like spider's web, more strands means more connections, and a tug felt on one side of the web is felt by the spider on the other side of the web, regardless where on the web he is. It's about connections.

[JLS]

Wubi Will Wait

I'm not going to put in a strong effort to learn wubi at the moment. You need to somewhat comprehensively understand Chinese radicals and the shapes found in hanzi. You also need to understand the writing process for hanzi. Add to that, you need to be able to think creatively about key sequences. It looks like a genius system, but there are foundations I must get in place first. I'll wait until a better season.

Memory and Attention

Kraemder's blog (More Korean than Japanese 2022-2023) has a post dated August 18, 2024 about a girl from Canada with Highly Superior Autobiographic Memory. She remembers every day of her life. I think the same interview mentions a woman who even remembers the day of her birth! Such people might have a rare gift in their mental abilities, but there's an interview with Merilu Henner (also HSAM) that perhaps gives the secret to their gift: They organize their memories, and they constantly review them. Organization is key to understanding, and knowing where in the overall system the data fits. On the downside, there's often a painful OCD element with our HSAM friends, so their gift is a rose with thorns. And some of them find more thorns than rose in the gift.

I wonder though if HSAM persons perhaps also possess incredible attentiveness. There are some things which we remember because of how they capture our attention. We can't forget them. Every American born around or before the mid nineties is going to vividly remember 9/11 (please, no comments on this). Why? Because of its significance it held our attention that firmly. I can recall old feelings like yesterday, and it was 23 years ago. I wonder if HSAM persons have this level of attention, and that helps them remember, although I don't have proof for that. It wouldn't surprise me. Their abilities seem to require some level of active engagement.

I did a little personal "HSAM" experiment yesterday, to see what all I could recall just by keeping some level of "extreme attentiveness" throughout the day. It's the degree of attention that hurts your head and makes you feel like you did a mental power-lift. It was tiring, but very effective, and I processed a lot in the day.

It needs to be this way with language. When you memorize, memorize with all your attention. When you listen, listen with hyper-focus. It's reality: your brain far better absorbs and retains things when attention is fully engaged.

[JLS]

"Finding Nemo" in Spanish

Last night as a family we watched "Finding Nemo" in Spanish ("Buscando a Nemo"). Kids will pay attention to any amount of Spanish if it comes in the form of media. I caught good portions of what was being said, and my wife caught perhaps a quarter of everything. We all know the storyline, so it helped. I'm almost certain they tried to give one of the characters an Aussie-sounding accent.

Authoring a Spanish Speech

I'm working on an address in Spanish I intend to give in a trip to South America soon. I asked a native Spanish speaker to look over three pages of what I've done. He changed rather little. I was quite happy. I'm now soon going to practice delivery. I have to think rehearsing and delivering this address is going to be a good boost to my abilities. I might even author one or two additional addresses over the next few weeks. We will see.

[JLS]

Hebrew - Slow Progress but Real Progress

Nothing too flashy; just that reading is becoming easier. I'm also working through a Hebrew frequency list of words that appear at least ten times in the Old Testament, 1903 words in total.

Hebrew Frequency List - Two Methods

I just realized that the book of frequency words also lists the words according to root in a separate section, which roots are arranged alphabetically. I see advantages to both. Words in order of frequency guarantees that you can read more, but perhaps the root method allows you to recognize patterns--and therefore words--much more easily. So, if you are reading and you come to a word that you haven't encountered yet in the list, but you recognize the root, you can make a well-informed guess on what it means.

I'll stick with my present method, encode the frequency list, and perhaps some day I'll make a point to study the root list. I prefer to stick to paths I've already chosen and adjust along the way.

[JLS]

Chinese Radicals - Halfway Done! Familiarity and Memory

Learned 116 of the 214 Chinese radicals! Halfway there!

Why do this? Learning hanzi is difficult, and to an English speaker they seem made of random pieces. If I become familiar with the radicals, I'll have some familiar symbols to help me remember each individual hanzi. Familiar ideas stick better than unfamiliar ones, and this method will breed some familiarity in just about every hanzi that I encounter.

[JLS]

Full Speech Translated to Spanish

I completed translation of a 6.5-page speech manuscript of mine into Spanish. I translated it myself then used AI for grammatical and verbal polish. It's truly my original work with an advanced proof-editor. I should be delivering it live within the next two to three weeks.

[wallflower]

Full Speech Translated to Spanish

I completed translation of a 6.5-page speech manuscript of mine into Spanish. I translated it myself then used AI for grammatical and verbal polish. It's truly my original work with an advanced proof-editor. I should be delivering it live within the next two to three weeks.

This sounds exciting, good luck!

[JLS]

Full Speech Translated to Spanish

I completed translation of a 6.5-page speech manuscript of mine into Spanish. I translated it myself then used AI for grammatical and verbal polish. It's truly my original work with an advanced proof-editor. I should be delivering it live within the next two to three weeks.

This sounds exciting, good luck!

Thank you friend, I'm very excited!

[JLS]

Completed Spanish Reading Project

I just completed a work translated to Spanish that I estimate was 180,000 words.

GOAL REACHED: Foreign Language Reading Word Count - 1 Million Words Read!

I keep records on what I read, and their approximate word counts. I have to use estimates, and I tend to use the lower part of the range for estimates, but I can say I have exceeded a total of 1 million words read in foreign language.

My structured reading is at 997,300 minimum words read, and here I used the very bottom part of the estimate range, but that range is in the thousands to maybe ten thousands. Furthermore, there are many things I've read in a foreign language that have not been part of this structured reading. So, I can say I did it.

I'm not sure when I can say the structured reading began, but it was probably 2021 at the earliest. The most intense structured reading began in summer of 2023.

Language-wise, and in regards to the structured reading, I estimate that this total reading is apportioned between language as follows:

Spanish - 40%
Greek (Koine) - 28%
Hebrew (OT) - 7%
Latin - 25%

This does not count the many hours of listening to these various languages, with Chinese and Spanish in particular. Although I am putting real effort into Chinese, I am not at any level to be able to read systematically. I've got no doubt though that the amount of reading I've done would itself have tipped me that last 2,300 to get me over the million mark.

So there you go. I've reached a major goal.