oho's log

[Dagane]

Thank you for the clarification! We call "ladino" to Judaeo-Spanish as well and I thought about it straightaway.

I should go back to Mia Couto as I really liked what I read by him a few years ago. Maybe I should try read his work in Portuguese as well.

[oho]

Thank you for the clarification! We call "ladino" to Judaeo-Spanish as well and I thought about it straightaway.

Yeah it's a bit confusing. In some languages like Italian and Spanish they're both Ladino. In English one is Ladino, the other is Ladin, but I'm always afraid people might think I mispelled Latin or Ladino. So I tend to use the qualifier Dolomitic Ladin or Ladin of the Dolomites to disambiguate.

So far I've just read two short stories by Mia Couto and can't wait to delve deeper. He seems a man of great imagination.

[Saim]

Ladin: It's not among my proprity languages for next year but I'd like to keep it alive and not let it get rusty. However I'm a bit frustrated right now and here's why: I've always been a person who relies heavily on written material for language learning (short stories, novels and Wikipedia articles when a beginner) and Ladin doesn't have much of it. I mean, in relative terms, if we consider that the language has 30,000-40,000 speakers, the Ladin publishing world is doing ok, but in absolute terms, the material is just scarse. There isn't even a Ladin Wikipedia. There are a few novels (mostly written in dialects other than the one I'm studying), there's a boring newspaper about boring local news and pdf's from Ladin schools.

I honestly have the same problem sometimes with "bigger" languages like Serbian and Urdu.

One issue is that of motivation, of trying to slog through materials that you don't find intrinsically interesting. In that case you just have to take it slow and make sure you keep going. Reading 1000 pages in a week is probably going to give you better, immediately usable skills than reading 1000 pages in a couple of months, but it's still 1000 pages and you've still massively increased the amount of language you've been exposed to.

Since you don't have as much momentum if you're spending fewer hours a day reading, realistically you also have to have some sort of revision system so that things will actually stick... in my experience this is where sentence mining and Anki come in. This can also help by making a game out of trying to learn new words, which makes going through materials you're not as intrinsically interested in easier.

[oho]

I honestly have the same problem sometimes with "bigger" languages like Serbian and Urdu.

One issue is that of motivation, of trying to slog through materials that you don't find intrinsically interesting.

Is it really so difficult to find interesting stuff in Urdu and Serbian?

Since you don't have as much momentum if you're spending fewer hours a day reading, realistically you also have to have some sort of revision system so that things will actually stick... in my experience this is where sentence mining and Anki come in. This can also help by making a game out of trying to learn new words, which makes going through materials you're not as intrinsically interested in easier.

Another great thing to do is translation of stuff you're interested in. It helps both with grammar and vocab. Of course it takes more time and energy than Anki does.

[AroAro]

Hebrew: another language which is not among my priorities (at least I think ) but I don't want to lose what I know so I'm in maintainance mode. A while back I bought the weirdest language book: Modern Hebrew Verbs Step by Step By Rut Avni. Why is it weird I hear you ask. Well, first of all there is no presentation of the author, we have absolutely no idea who Rut Avni is. Second, on one of the first pages it says "I cannot accept any responsibility for the correctnes of the published information" which is something I have noticed for the first time but maybe it's standard practice in textbooks (I guess not though), and just in general one can see that the book is a self-published, amateurish work. Now, is all of this a demerit? Absolutely not! I think it's one of the best Hebrew textbooks I've ever purchased. Coincise, condensed, free from academic language, I really recommend it!

Thank you for the recommendation! I'm a total beginner in Hebrew but from what I hear, the verb system (binyanim) is probably the trickiest thing in this language, so this textbook might come in handy when I'm more advanced.

[oho]

Thank you for the recommendation! I'm a total beginner in Hebrew but from what I hear, the verb system (binyanim) is probably the trickiest thing in this language, so this textbook might come in handy when I'm more advanced.

Yes, I'm not sure I would recommend it to an absolute beginner. Maybe they would need some extra explanations. This one is more of a thing for refreshing one's memory quickly.

Just to give you an idea of how coincise the explanations are:

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[oho]

I've been re-thinking my goals for next year. Due to a revived interest for Zen Buddhism I want to learn Japanese. Moreover, I want to take Hebrew seriously and become conversational in it. I've been trying to teach myself Hebrew on and off since around 2012 but due to its obnoxious (though beautiful) writing system, I've always felt discouraged and never even reached the so-called intermediate plateau. After so many years of failure, I now feel I can tackle the language and actually "win". And yes, I know Japanese has an inifinitely more difficult writing system than Hebrew but I feel I've become more patient with hostile writing systems.

So here's the new plan:

Actively learning: Japanese, Hebrew

Maintainance mode: Portuguese, Ladin

Indefinitely postponed: German

[oho]

I finally bought a bookcase for my little language book collection

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[oho]

I bought the app pealim (a Hebrew dictionary / verb conjugator) I think it's really worth the ten euros that it costs.

I started studying Slovene, I missed studying a Slavic language. It's really a cute language with a lot of interesting features. Why Slovene of all Slavic languages? Because Slovenia is the closest Slavic-speaking country to Italy :p

[oho]

Hebrew: pa'al✓ nif'al✓ pi'el<work in progress>

Slovenian: masculine declension✓ feminine✓ neuter<work in progress>

Some remarks:

-Can't wait to receive my Hebrew exercise book. I really need to practice the language, especially verb conjugations. I tried writing some text on journaly but I'm too lazy and it's not easy to come up with something to write. For the time being, I'm chatting with people on tandem and I've started reading a children's story.

-I really need to find an exercise book for Slovenian otherwise I doubt I'll ever really cement my knowledge of the declensions.

-Today I got my first semantics book. It's a domain of linguistics that I've never studied and I'm really excited about it. I'm curious also because I've seen a bunch of weird memes about semantics that made me wonder what the fuss is about this discipline.

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