Dedalus66's Language Odyssey

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dedalus66
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Dedalus66's Language Odyssey

Postby dedalus66 » Sun Jun 13, 2021 10:22 am

Hello folks -

I am writing this log to try and keep myself consistent with my language learning habits. It can be very annoying when life gets in the way of language learning. Grrrr....

I will try and post a few times a week - force myself if I need to!

Now, to my languages:

I will try and use my more established languages (French, Italian and Greek) on a frequent basis. However, I won't be commenting on those in this blog.

The languages I will be focusing on for the forseaable future are:

Spanish

I decided to pick up Spanish around 2 months ago out of sheer curiosity. Getting a massive discount from my other languages also help! I am enjoying seeing the similarities between the other romance languages and being able to learn more about many places/cultures I had not spent much time thinking about previously! My initial feeling was that Spanish was "easy" but as I learn more I am starting to see more and more aspects which may make it a bit more challenging than I first expected.

To learn, I am using a few resources:

- Language Transfer (this is ok, very similar to Michel Thomas, my first ever language learning resource I used way back in 2010 for French). I am finding it a tad slow but I'll get through the episodes.

- Easy Spanish on Youtube. I try to watch 1 episode per day, at least.

- Podcasts on spotify. Whatever I can get my hands on.

- L'espagnol sans peine. Goes without saying. This is an old resource and I am not sure how useful some of the vocab is - I am convinced that "pensión" appears at least once every two days. But I enjoy the dialogues and it keeps me consistent.

- I took a lesson of Spanish last Saturday on italki. My speaking needs a significant amount of work, but half an hour of nothing but Spanish after 2 months is pretty pleasing to me. I will keep doing at least 1 conversation class per week for the forseeable future.

Persian

A language which has always fascinated me. And it is not because there is no grammatical gender. I have had numerous failed attempts at learning this language (most notably in 2018 where I bought a bunch of resources which I used once), but I will take my time with this one. I will keep it on the backburner, mainly using Teach Yourself Persian to get my head around the alphabet and learn some vocab. In a few months, I will re-assess and will give it more time. I will eventually add Assimil's "Le Persan" and add in more input.

I think the challenge will be to keep working when I am not motivated - as with anything. I WILL keep the fire going!
Last edited by dedalus66 on Sat Jul 17, 2021 8:22 am, edited 1 time in total.
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"To have another language is to possess a second soul." - Charlemagne

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dedalus66
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Posts: 77
Joined: Thu Jul 23, 2015 11:08 am
Location: Μελβούρνη, Αυστραλία
Languages: English (N), French (C1), Italian (B2), Greek (B1), Spanish (A2 - currently learning)
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Re: Dedalus66's Language Odyssey (Spanish, Persian)

Postby dedalus66 » Mon Jun 14, 2021 8:24 am

Spent about an hour listening to Spanish podcasts today. I'm finding my comprehension to be generally pretty good; my active production is still developing, however. One resourve I forgot to mention that I am using is "Lang-8" - here is a link to a piece of writing I produced but was never corrected. I think it got buried under a whole bunch of other texts.

https://lang-8.com/1138647/journals/270 ... 2537554435

In regard to Persian, again, about 10 minutes of reading. I am thoroughly enjoying it, but I have always been a "1 language at a time" kind of person, and am attempting to keep something of a lid on it. Although, they also say, "strike while the iron is hot" - I suppose we can find an idiom to suit any situation.

¡Hasta la próxima!
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dedalus66
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Re: Dedalus66's Language Odyssey (Spanish, Persian)

Postby dedalus66 » Tue Jun 15, 2021 9:04 am

The Odyssey continues. Albeit, slowly. Spent some time cooking and put on some Spanish listening comprehension in Spanish - this tends to suit my learning style as I like consistent input over a longer period and ensuring I have a a solid passive understanding. I am also listening to "Easy Spanish" as I write this - I spent many an hour listening to "Easy Greek" as well. A very underrated resource!
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dedalus66
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Location: Μελβούρνη, Αυστραλία
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Re: Dedalus66's Language Odyssey (Spanish, Persian)

Postby dedalus66 » Wed Jun 16, 2021 7:50 am

Getting home from work, tired...the first thing I have done is listen to some Spanish :D. At the moment, I am trying to build good habits so in a few months, I will do Spanish (and Persian) even when I do not feel like it. Later on, I will thank myself for the persistence.
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dedalus66
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Re: Dedalus66's Language Odyssey (Spanish, Persian)

Postby dedalus66 » Sun Jun 20, 2021 9:30 am

I had my first full-length (1hr) lesson on italki yesterday and in general, I was pretty happy with how it went. An hour almost entirely in Spanish. I noticed some trouble with my recollection of the preterite tense in spanish - it seems to be much more used than in Italian (and French, of course), something that I will need to get used to. It was funny that my "teacher" (more of a conversation partner) couldn't understand my English for certain words that I wasn't sure of, "far" for example so we needed to resort to French as neutral ground between us, a refreshing change.

I'm thinking of recording my lessons then re-watching them - that could make for some cringe-worthy viewing! But would be interesting from a vocab incquisition point of view. Have any of you folks ever done something similar?
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Re: Dedalus66's Language Odyssey (Spanish, Persian)

Postby Beli Tsar » Mon Jun 21, 2021 10:19 am

Great to see your log, and best of luck with your plans.
dedalus66 wrote: I will keep it on the backburner, mainly using Teach Yourself Persian to get my head around the alphabet and learn some vocab. In a few months, I will re-assess and will give it more time. I will eventually add Assimil's "Le Persan" and add in more input.

Just a quick note on textbooks - I've used TY Persian, and wasn't impressed. The author clearly didn't really like the format she was writing in, and later created another course, which is free and available at persianlanguageonline.com. I think it's much better. It's much more communicative/input based, and has more reading and audio, which is clearly how the author likes to teach.

If you want a more traditional textbook, there are a few options now, but Colloquial Persian by Rafiee is the closest analogue to TY and it gets better reviews (and from a quick skim I agree).

Of course, you could just go ahead with Assimil.
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dedalus66
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Posts: 77
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Location: Μελβούρνη, Αυστραλία
Languages: English (N), French (C1), Italian (B2), Greek (B1), Spanish (A2 - currently learning)
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Re: Dedalus66's Language Odyssey (Spanish, Persian)

Postby dedalus66 » Tue Jun 22, 2021 9:47 am

Beli Tsar wrote:Great to see your log, and best of luck with your plans.
dedalus66 wrote: I will keep it on the backburner, mainly using Teach Yourself Persian to get my head around the alphabet and learn some vocab. In a few months, I will re-assess and will give it more time. I will eventually add Assimil's "Le Persan" and add in more input.

Just a quick note on textbooks - I've used TY Persian, and wasn't impressed. The author clearly didn't really like the format she was writing in, and later created another course, which is free and available at persianlanguageonline.com. I think it's much better. It's much more communicative/input based, and has more reading and audio, which is clearly how the author likes to teach.

If you want a more traditional textbook, there are a few options now, but Colloquial Persian by Rafiee is the closest analogue to TY and it gets better reviews (and from a quick skim I agree).

Of course, you could just go ahead with Assimil.


The TY Persian seems reasonable to learn the script - but barely. The font is rather small, so much so, that two dots look like one - the biggest drawback of a book for debutantes in a language! I am not sure if these are the same edition, but that would be my biggest gripe.

I have used the website you have mentioned and will peruse it in much more detail in the near future.
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Beli Tsar
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Re: Dedalus66's Language Odyssey (Spanish, Persian)

Postby Beli Tsar » Tue Jun 22, 2021 10:06 am

dedalus66 wrote:The TY Persian seems reasonable to learn the script - but barely. The font is rather small, so much so, that two dots look like one - the biggest drawback of a book for debutantes in a language! I am not sure if these are the same edition, but that would be my biggest gripe.

Memrise has a good course (or two?) on the script - I personally found this much more useful than a book, learning to associate the letters and their sounds, and then to practice reading short simple words bit by bit. Repetition helps here!
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dedalus66
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Posts: 77
Joined: Thu Jul 23, 2015 11:08 am
Location: Μελβούρνη, Αυστραλία
Languages: English (N), French (C1), Italian (B2), Greek (B1), Spanish (A2 - currently learning)
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Re: Dedalus66's Language Odyssey (Spanish, Persian)

Postby dedalus66 » Wed Jun 23, 2021 10:05 am

Beli Tsar wrote:
dedalus66 wrote:The TY Persian seems reasonable to learn the script - but barely. The font is rather small, so much so, that two dots look like one - the biggest drawback of a book for debutantes in a language! I am not sure if these are the same edition, but that would be my biggest gripe.

Memrise has a good course (or two?) on the script - I personally found this much more useful than a book, learning to associate the letters and their sounds, and then to practice reading short simple words bit by bit. Repetition helps here!


I have not used Memrise seriously in the past before, but this is a good resource too. Many thanks!
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Re: Dedalus66's Language Odyssey (Spanish, Persian)

Postby varitekkers » Wed Jun 23, 2021 10:56 pm

I used Assimil Persian and liked it a lot however I started the book with some prior knowledge of Persian. I would recommend starting the book with a decent grasp of the alphabet. Something that I found helpful when learning the alphabet was to transliterate random words like my friends' names or store names. Let me know if you have any other questions, I'd be happy to help!
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