Beosweyne learns more Zulu in 2023

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Beli Tsar
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Re: Beosweyne's log

Postby Beli Tsar » Fri Feb 05, 2021 7:23 pm

MorkTheFiddle wrote:Geoffrey Steadman has edited books 1, 3, and 4 of the Anabasis, which you can download here. His free editions are helpful in the same way that Hadavas' version of Lucian is helpful. By the by, Steadman notes, "If you are new to the Anabasis, I recommend that you read Books 1 and 4 before you consider Book 3."

I can vouch for the helpfulness of Steadman's book 1. I've recently resolved to stop reading any other Attic until I've gone through 10 or so readers by Steadman, Hadavas, and similar.
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Beosweyne
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Re: Beosweyne's log

Postby Beosweyne » Sat Feb 06, 2021 3:04 am

Beli Tsar wrote:
MorkTheFiddle wrote:Geoffrey Steadman has edited books 1, 3, and 4 of the Anabasis, which you can download here. His free editions are helpful in the same way that Hadavas' version of Lucian is helpful. By the by, Steadman notes, "If you are new to the Anabasis, I recommend that you read Books 1 and 4 before you consider Book 3."

I can vouch for the helpfulness of Steadman's book 1. I've recently resolved to stop reading any other Attic until I've gone through 10 or so readers by Steadman, Hadavas, and similar.

Thanks very much indeed MorkTheFiddle & Beli Tsar, and χάριν ἔχω ὑμῖν too, for the pointer to Steadman's editions. I have a copy of Goodwin's Greek Grammar to consult in case of difficulty while reading, but now the need to do so should rarely arise!
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Learn More Zulu: 28 / 468 (p. 28/468)

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Beosweyne
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Re: Beosweyne's log

Postby Beosweyne » Mon Feb 08, 2021 7:17 am

Week 5, 2021

Afrikaans
  • TY Afrikaans, 44% (+3)
  • Graad 10 Lewenswetenskappe, 47% (+4)
  • Hoe verklaar jy dit, 3/Jan/2021 episode.
Ancient Greek
  • Greek Beyond GCSE, 49% (+1)
  • True Stories (complete)
Classical Arabic
  • Routledge Intro. to Qur'anic Arabic, 24% (+1)
French
  • Que sais-je? La religion romaine, 40% (+9)
  • Tintin - les sept boules de cristal, ep. 1 (of 4). This episode has some amusing renditions of foreigners' French pronunciation: an Indian hypnotist, an Italian opera singer and a South American general. But for me they cannot outdo the caricature of an English major I heard in an earlier story (listen here from 3:05-6:25).
Latin
  • Roma Aeterna & exercitia, 73% (+1). I finished reading chapter 51 in which Livy describes events in the latter half of the 2nd century BC, when the military leadership of Scipio Aemilianus Africanus often won the day for the Romans: Carthage and Corinth were razed to the ground and a Spanish rebellion was put down. There was also domestic strife in the wake of populist reforms proposed by the Gracchi brothers. Almost as a conterbalance to Livy condemning the Gracchi, we find a more sympathetic account by Sallust at the end.
  • Selections from 'De Bello Gallico', 26% (-)
  • Composition, wrote 360 words.
Middle Egyptian
  • Middle Egyptian Grammar, 53% (+1)
Zulu
  • Say It In Zulu, 10% (+1)
  • Listen-read Mathewu 2. I had a 45-minute session in which I followed the LR plan from last week: thrice L2R2 + twice L2R1.
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Learn More Zulu: 28 / 468 (p. 28/468)

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Beosweyne
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Re: Beosweyne's log

Postby Beosweyne » Mon Feb 15, 2021 7:09 am

Week 6, 2021

Afrikaans
  • TY Afrikaans, 47% (+3)
  • Graad 10 Lewenswetenskappe, 48% (+1)
  • Hoe verklaar jy dit, 7/Feb/2021 episode.
Ancient Greek
  • Greek Beyond GCSE, 50% (+1)
Classical Arabic
  • Routledge Intro. to Qur'anic Arabic, 24% (+0.5)
French
  • Que sais-je? La religion romaine, 45% (+5)
  • Tintin - les sept boules de cristal, ep. 2.
Latin
  • Roma Aeterna & exercitia, 74% (+1)
  • Selections from 'De Bello Gallico', 30% (+4)
  • Composition, wrote 210 words.
Middle Egyptian
  • Middle Egyptian Grammar, 55% (+2)
Zulu
  • Say It In Zulu, 10% (-). Next is lesson 7.1 with the ominous title 'All The Clicks'. The course considerately brings you all the way to this point without making you say anything with clicked consonants, apart from 'cha' which means 'no' (the letter C is the dental click or 'suction sound as when extracting a pip from between the front teeth with the tongue tip.') I also found an article at John Wells's phonetic blog about making clicks where examples from this very textbook are cited.
  • Listen-read Mathewu 3.
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Learn More Zulu: 28 / 468 (p. 28/468)

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Beosweyne
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Re: Beosweyne's log

Postby Beosweyne » Mon Feb 22, 2021 8:11 am

Week 7, 2021

Afrikaans
  • TY Afrikaans, 47% (-)
  • Graad 10 Lewenswetenskappe, 49% (+1)
  • Hoe verklaar jy dit, 14/Feb/2021 episode.
Ancient Greek
  • Greek Beyond GCSE, 51% (+1)
Classical Arabic
  • Routledge Intro. to Qur'anic Arabic, 24% (-)
French
  • Que sais-je? La religion romaine, 48% (+3)
  • Tintin - les sept boules de cristal, ep. 3.
Latin
  • Roma Aeterna & exercitia, 74% (-)
  • Selections from 'De Bello Gallico', 30% (-)
  • Composition, wrote 205 words.
Middle Egyptian
  • Middle Egyptian Grammar, 56% (+1)
Zulu
  • Say It In Zulu, 10% (-)
  • Listen-read Mathewu 4.
5 x
Learn More Zulu: 28 / 468 (p. 28/468)

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Beosweyne
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Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=16342
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Re: Beosweyne's log

Postby Beosweyne » Mon Mar 01, 2021 9:44 am

Week 8, 2021

Afrikaans
  • TY Afrikaans, 47% (-)
  • Graad 10 Lewenswetenskappe, 50% (+1)
  • Hoe verklaar jy dit, 21/Feb/2021 episode.
Ancient Greek
  • Greek Beyond GCSE, 51% (+0.5)
Classical Arabic
  • Routledge Intro. to Qur'anic Arabic, 24% (-)
French
  • Que sais-je? La religion romaine, 50% (+2)
  • Tintin - les sept boules de cristal, ep. 4 (complete)
Latin
  • Roma Aeterna & exercitia, 74% (-)
  • Selections from 'De Bello Gallico', 30% (-)
  • Composition, wrote 190 words.
Middle Egyptian
  • Middle Egyptian Grammar, 56% (-)
Zulu
  • Say It In Zulu, 10% (-)
  • Listen-read Mathewu 5.
4 x
Learn More Zulu: 28 / 468 (p. 28/468)

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Beosweyne
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Re: Beosweyne's assorted A1s and A2s

Postby Beosweyne » Sat Jul 03, 2021 6:23 am

June 2021

During most of March, April and May I had to halve the time devoted to languages, and I did so by suspending my 'lower priority' languages, which are Afrikaans, Arabic, French and Zulu. This kind of interruption happens once in a while when I get excited about my second hobby, computer programming. Anyway by the end of May I had completed one of my programming projects, but got so bogged down in the complexities of the other one that I gave it up and resumed my usual learning schedule. Not everything is back on track, as my Arabic is still waiting to be rescuscitated.

The total time spent on language learning in June was 101 hours, or broken down by language:
june.png

I find it helpful to differentiate between 'study' and 'language use' activities, since the ability to use the language for comunication is evidence that I am learning successfully. Mostly it is doing textbook exercises that keeps me busy, and I count that time as 'study'. Time spent reading a novel for pleasure or writing a journal entry to my future self would count towards 'use'. The admittedly vague criterion I have is: in this exercise am I focusing on the linguistic structures or on the content? When in doubt I file the activity under 'study'.
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Learn More Zulu: 28 / 468 (p. 28/468)

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Beosweyne
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Re: Beosweyne's assorted A1s and A2s

Postby Beosweyne » Wed Jul 07, 2021 11:46 am

Afrikaans

'Graad Tien Lewenswetenskappe' is die titel van my eerste Afrikaanse leesboek. Ek het dit gratis via internet afgelaai.

Gisteraand het ek die driehonderdste bladsy gelees. Daar was inligting rondom verskillende biome wat in Suid-Afrika gevind word soos velde, woude, woestyne, ensovoorts. Maar die vorige hoofstuk oor bloedsirkulasiestelsels was meer interessant. Ek was verras om daaruit te leer dat: Dit is goed vir jou hart om te lag. Wanneer jy lag maak bloedvate oop (verwyd), bloedvloei vermeerder, en dit hou jou hart gesond.

Daar is 'slegs' vyf-en-sewentig meer bladsye om te lees. Daarna behoort ek 'n ander dik boek te kry.

... and that's what I do for extensive reading. Biology is a familiar subject and I have been able to recognise nearly all the vocabulary (both general and subject-specific) from context, especially as there are labelled diagrams and graphs as you would expect from a science textbook, and plenty of repetition too. Most sentences are in present tense and straightforward, at least there aren't layers upon layers of subordinate clauses.

I read aloud at the rate of a page every 5 minutes. It was 7.5 minutes per page when I began last December.
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Learn More Zulu: 28 / 468 (p. 28/468)

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Beosweyne
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Re: Beosweyne's assorted A1s and A2s

Postby Beosweyne » Tue Jul 27, 2021 2:54 pm

Afrikaans

Finally I finished reading my biology textbook! It took me 6 months to get through all 370 pages. I was able to infer the meaning of most words from context, in fact all the more easily the further I progressed. Since I wanted to keep up the reading momentum I didn't stop to look up a single word. The book was written for grade 10 students (15 year-olds I guess). Here is a typical page from the English version.

Now ideally I would have another text of comparable level to continue reading but I was not able to find anything sufficiently interesting. The books I do have are of the kind that would demand lots of dictionary lookups and cause me some frustration:
  • Afrikaans translation of Tolkien's Hobbit. I've read the original a few times and vividly remember the main scenes. I might do a parallel reading alongside the original for a dictionary-free experience.
  • New History of South Africa. 430 densely packed pages covering events and currents in SA history from the dawn of humanity to the turn of the century. It could easily take me a year and a half to read through.

I think I will start reading the history book and save the Hobbit as a reward for completing TY Afrikaans. Speaking of which: I am now doing the exercises at the end of chapter 26 of TYA (old edition, 1957) with a further 7 chapters remaining. Lately I've tended to take 2 weeks to complete a chapter. Although I could work faster if it weren't for those tough English-to-Afrikaans translation exercises.

French

In the first half of the year I read 3 short non-fiction books of around 120 pages each, most recently Epicure: sa vie, son œuvre by André Cresson (1940). For the rest of the year I will focus on improving my comprehension of the spoken language.

I found a fine audiobook of Charles Dickens' David Copperfield. I've never read it in English. Even though the book reader is excellent, my comprehension is so poor that I can hardly listen to 2 sentences in a row without mis-hearing something! So I keep the English book in hand to consult whenever that happens, or if I encounter an unknown word. I also listen to each chapter a second time after a week's interval, this time while looking at the French ebook. Going through the complete audio twice is going to take a total of 80 hours. I'm now at chapter 13 out of 64.

I noticed something funny in chapter 1. Dickens gives an oblique description of a familiar thing which I only recognised thanks to the French translation. See the underlined words: "he was strongly suspected ... of having once ... made some hasty but determined arrangements to throw her out of a two pair of stairs' window." A what window? Voici la traduction: "on le soupçonnait ... d’avoir un jour ... pris quelques dispositions subites, mais violentes, pour la jeter par la fenêtre d’un second étage".
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Learn More Zulu: 28 / 468 (p. 28/468)

DaveAgain
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Re: Beosweyne's assorted A1s and A2s

Postby DaveAgain » Tue Jul 27, 2021 3:10 pm

Beosweyne wrote:
I found a fine audiobook of Charles Dickens' David Copperfield. I've never read it in English. Even though the book reader is excellent, my comprehension is so poor that I can hardly listen to 2 sentences in a row without mis-hearing something! So I keep the English book in hand to consult whenever that happens, or if I encounter an unknown word. I also listen to each chapter a second time after a week's interval, this time while looking at the French ebook. Going through the complete audio twice is going to take a total of 80 hours. I'm now at chapter 13 out of 64.

I noticed something funny in chapter 1. Dickens gives an oblique description of a familiar thing which I only recognised thanks to the French translation. See the underlined words: "he was strongly suspected ... of having once ... made some hasty but determined arrangements to throw her out of a two pair of stairs' window." A what window? Voici la traduction: "on le soupçonnait ... d’avoir un jour ... pris quelques dispositions subites, mais violentes, pour la jeter par la fenêtre d’un second étage".
That "pair of stairs" is a first for me too. A websearch brings up a free/websters dictionary entry:
a set or flight of stairs. - pair, in this phrase, having its old meaning of a set. See Pair,

https://www.thefreedictionary.com/Pair+of+stairs

https://www.cadnav.com/3d-models/model-32929.html
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