Kreyòl Ayisyen language log

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maxalmonte14
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Kreyòl Ayisyen language log

Postby maxalmonte14 » Sun Sep 19, 2021 2:01 pm

At the moment of writing these lines I've been learning Haitian Creole for at least 12 days, this number is not random, but what my Anki deck indicates me, despite what my Anki deck says I would say I'm close to 3 weeks in my journey. During that time I've been collecting resources, most of them taken directly from https://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=8232&sid=1616e82892dbdb954d71a8c506520b82, this is what I achieved:

- Created an Anki deck with 500+ cards (curated by myself and added progressevily as I encounter them)
- Curated a list of videos in Haitian Creole with subtitles in YouTube
- Completed 6 Ann Pale Kreyòl lessons
- Kinda completed the first DLI Hatian Creole Basic Course 10 lessons, since the audio is really bad I skipped a lot of exercises, I'm planning to start the book over after I finish Ann Pale Kreyòl
- Watched a lot of videos from https://www.youtube.com/c/Espa%C3%B1olCr%C3%A9ole (since my native language is Spanish) from which I got most of my vocabulary
- Make a couple of Haitian friends via Tandem with whom I chat regularly
- Joined an Haitian Creole Discord Server
- Had a conversation with an Haitian man who sells coconuts at the park, he seemed very pleased to know I'm learning Haitian Creole
- Read a couple of articles in Voa Kreyòl and Wikipedia (in Creole)
- Finally, yesterday started working on a tool that fetches articles from Voa Kreyòl and count how many times a word occurs, this way I kinda automate what words I should learn since I can add the words that keep encountering to my Anki deck. Also I added a database with all the words present in my Anki deck to the app, so I can ignore them from the articles (since I already know them)

I'm pretty pleased with what I've accomplished so far, I want to move to speaking as quick as possible, which I think won't be that difficult since I've been learning French for a couple of years (now taking B1 level in l'Alliance Française), Haitian Creole grammar is pretty straightforward, and there are a lot of native speakers where I live.

Still struggle to understand normal speed speech, but since Haitian Creole has a very limited number of different sounds I'll be fine.
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Re: Kreyòl Ayisyen language log

Postby Decidida » Mon Sep 20, 2021 11:25 pm

You have been busy! Good luck!
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Re: Kreyòl Ayisyen language log

Postby maxalmonte14 » Sun Sep 26, 2021 2:47 am

Study update. This week has been productive, but I still feel it could've been a lot more productive, I'm closing the week with:

- 700+ cards in my Anki deck, my learning pace is 50 new words per day, asuming I'm feeding Anki with new words in a daily basis, which I'm not. I added images to the flashcards, since there's no easy way to add audio ('cause there's no Kreyòl text to speech solutions out there), images seem to help me to remember a little bit better than just plain text.
- 14 Ann Pale Kreyòl completed lessons. I'm impressed by how this book manages to pack so much information in such short chapters, I like this book approach way more than the one used in the DLI course, which lessons seem to take forever and go over and over about the same things.
- Kept reading articles in VOA Kreyòl and Wikipedia, sadly VOA Kreyòl articles are all about politics, topic that I enjoy but gets old very quickly; and Wikipedia articles translated to Kreyòl tend to be just a couple of paragraphs long, which frustrastes me. Fortunately I recently found blogs like https://ht.eyewated.com/, https://www.linuxadictos.com/ht/, https://techacute.com/ht/ which offer articles in different topics, all in Kreyòl.
- Kept practicing my oral comprehension and growing my YouTube library, I try to watch at least a new video in Kreyòl (with subtitles also in Kreyòl) every single day, then I'd rewatch some of the old videos so I can notice things I didn't catch the first time and get a better grasp of what is being said. I'll let my video collection here, just in case you're curious! https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbkCQCZs2dUTxAIwt9slvMVRH3UTqxmwL
- Still get in touch with the Haitian friends I've met so far via chat, that's an excelent way of getting corrections in real time, or just reaching out to clear my doubts.
- Sadly didn't have much opportunity of practicing my speaking this week, since I'm working 8 hours from Monday to Friday, plus studying French for 2 hours 4 days a week, and studying some different software development tools and languages every single day, there's just not enough time in the day to dedicate to this learning as a hobby project.
- Finally I'm still working in the little tool to fetch words from VOA Kreyòl articles and generate a frequency list from it, actually at the moment it is fully functional, I'm just organizing the code so I can make it open source and more people can use it and improve it. One of my plans is to add fetch from Wikipedia too, and possibly from some French sites like The Figaro, we'll see.

As a final note I have to say that this is the most fun I've had while learning a language ever, Kreyòl is a very fun to learn language, and since I can connect with locals wherever I go while in my country it's pretty nice and handy knowing some, sadly there are no enough resources out there to learn it, and even the media made from natives for natives is written in French in a lot of cases, I spend a lot of time every week looking for different resources online, and while I always find something new (a book, a video, a blog), it's tiresome to dig into the internet for half an hour just to come out with a 5 pages PDF about Zika written in Kreyòl, LOL.

Edit: A great resource I found is the Jehovah's Witnesses library in Kreyòl https://wol.jw.org/ht/wol/library/r60/lp-cr/tout-piblikasyon-yo, I'm not a religious person, fortunately the Jehovah's Witnesses provide the magazine Awake! which often features scientific articles about different topics (with some "actually, god did all this" from time to time of course), and what is even better these publications come with audio, so you can take even more advantage of them!

In fact I think the Jehovah's Witnesses library is an excellence resource to learn no matter what language (since they seem to offer their publications in every single language on the planet), I mean, text and audio for free? Yes please!
Last edited by maxalmonte14 on Wed Mar 02, 2022 3:42 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Kreyòl Ayisyen language log

Postby maxalmonte14 » Sun Oct 03, 2021 8:41 pm

Study update. This week I couldn't study as much as I'd have wanted, but still I made sure to study at least a little every single day, I'm closing the week with:

- 800+ Anki flashcards in my deck. I didn't have the chance to add a ton of new vocabulary since last week, that gave me the chance to focus in the words I already know. I did see new vocabulary tho, just didn't add it to my deck.
- 20 Ann Pale Kreyòl completed lessons. At this point I'm just 5 lessons away of finishing the book, which is exciting, I'll have time to dedicate to other resources once I'm done with it.
- Kept practicing my oral comprehension by using my Youtube playlist with subtitles, started to get a better grasp of the content after watching the videos multiples times, particularly love this story called Tim Tim! Bwa Chèch! https://youtu.be/-oUxfhjXHtg
- Had an improvised short conversation in Kreyòl in a Discord server, and even though it felt pretty unnatural (because I'm not able to produce in the language quick enough), I was able to make myself understood using mostly Kreyòl (I used some French, but I would say it was at leat 95% Kreyòl)

What I didn't achieved this week:

- Didn't was able to read as much as I wanted, if at all.
- Didn't add new videos to my YouTube library. I actually have been surfing the web trying to find videos in Kreyòl with subtitles in Kreyòl too, but it seems that's no easy task.
- Didn't worked in the app for fetching vocabulary from VOA Kreyòl.

New resources I've stumbled on:

- Diksyone Kreyòl Vilsen. A great monolingual Kreyòl dictionary that can be consulted for free thanks to the Digital Library of the Caribbean https://www.dloc.com/AA00010738/00001, or you can also grab a copy from Amazon if you want (which I think I'm gonna do)
- Kreyonomi blog/podcast. Kreyonomi is a blog and podcast made entirely in Kreyòl, it's more of an advanced resource but it's still a good idea to have it around https://kreyonomi.blog/
- OtakuTòk. A podcast about anime in Kreyòl, it's awesome that this kind of media exist, so people can connect with the language while listening to what interest them https://anchor.fm/otakutok

I think that would be it for now, looking to achieve way more this upcoming week. M'ap wè nou pi ta!
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Re: Kreyòl Ayisyen language log

Postby maxalmonte14 » Sun Oct 10, 2021 11:16 pm

Study Update. After having not so ideal results last week I put on my big boy pants and started working harder, I'm closing the week with:

- 1100+ Anki flashcards in my deck: I added 300+ new cards to my Anki deck this week, my goal was to add 50 cards per day but I fell short, I ended up with maybe 315 new cards. I don't think I'll continue with this pace though, making/studying these cards takes time and my main priority now is learning French (I got another deck for French and being adding 50 cards per day too, that's 100 new words every single day between the two decks)
- All Ann Pale Kreyòl lessons finished: I made the most out of this book and really enjoyed using it, I would recommend it to anyone who wants to get into Kreyòl, it's well written and help you building a good foundation.
- 13 DLI lessons completed: after finishing Ann Pale Kreyòl I wasn't going to stay crossed arms, I needed to fill that time with study material, so I grab the second book in the DLI course (I previously finished the first one) and completed 3 lessons, I should complete the following 7 ones by next Sunday.
- Created a transcript for a YouTube video: which then was added to the video by the YouTuber! I talk more about this in a Reddit post https://www.reddit.com/r/Kreyol/comments/q2iy8e/i_created_a_transcript_for_a_youtube_video_in/
- Started reading the Jehovah's Witnesses magazine Awake!: first of all, I gotta say I'm not a religious person. With that out of the way I think the magazine Awake! is such an underrated resource for language learning, it features a lot of great articles with minimal or no religious content, they come with audio and are free to download, they offer you the magazine in different formats like PDF and EPUB so you caa visualize the content wherever you want. I've been listening to the audio article online and then reading the article by myself in Calibre (a program for managing your books collection) while highlightening every word I don't know and cannot deduct from context, so I can get back to them later and add them to my Anki deck.
- Also I kept practicing my oral comprehension thanks to my YouTube playlist which provides subtitles (just in case yoiu're wondering where you can find that playlist https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbkCQCZs2dUTxAIwt9slvMVRH3UTqxmwL)

As a final note, I was invited to moderate a subreddit dedicated to the Kreyòl language, I've been trying to post as frequently as I can but that's not easy task. I invite you all to join the community, ask questions, post, and reply to the existing posts, I'm sure you'll find something interesting in there https://www.reddit.com/r/Kreyol/
Last edited by maxalmonte14 on Wed Mar 02, 2022 3:43 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Kreyòl Ayisyen language log

Postby maxalmonte14 » Mon Oct 18, 2021 12:17 am

Study Update. After going really hard last week I'm taking a step back and focusing more on French since this is the language I want to master as soon as possible, I'm closing the week with:

- 1200+ Anki flashcards in my deck: last week I added 300+ cards to my deck and tried to keep a pace of 50 new cards per day, but since this was interfering with my French learning I decided to go with a more conservative approach from now on, this week I added 10 new cards per day for a total of 70 new cards, which is good if you're not dedicating a crazy amount of time to a language.
- 20 DLI lessons completed: I just finished the second book in the DLI course, which I have to admit was way deeper than I anticipated, I'm pretty sure the 3rd book will be even better and I'm looking forward to it.

That's basically all the work I put on this week, my French studying routine doesn't leave me with a lot of time/energy to dedicate to this pleasure project, anyway I make an effor to fit some Kreyòl wherever I can, like having short conversations in a Discord server, watching a video, or posting in https://www.reddit.com/r/Kreyol/

Bon, m'ale m'ap wè nou pi ta!
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Re: Kreyòl Ayisyen language log

Postby maxalmonte14 » Mon Oct 25, 2021 12:47 am

Study Update. This week I kept an steady pace without going to overboard, since my main priority right now is learning French (which I've been learning for quite a while but still have to keep perfectionning) I'm devoting only 10-% of my time to Kreyòl in contrast with the 90+% that I'm dedicating to French. Despite that I'm closing the week with:

- 1,200+ Anki flashcards in my deck: Since last week I'm only learning 10 new words per day, so this week I added a total of 70 new cards, unfortunely I couldn't reach the 1,300 by this week, but since my goal is to learn the language instead of blindly collecting words I'm good with the 70 new words I learnt this week.
- 27 DLI lessons completed: I started the third book in the DLI Haitian Creole course, I would say this book covers topics more advanced than any other book/course that I've seen so far, this upcoming week I should start the fourth one, which I'm pretty sure will be even more valuable to my learning.
- A short conversation with an Haitian man: in the first entry of this log I mentionned a conversation that I had with a man that sells coconuts at the park, since then I went back to the park a couple of times (just doing my commute) but couldn't find him until yesterday, we had a little chat, I told him I went back a couple of times but he wasn't there, he told me that he was sick, it was a very rudimentary conversation (from my part of course) but I managed to express myself and understand what he was saying, that is until he started thrown words at me like a machine gun shooting bullets and I ended up with no clue saying "wi" to everything LOL.

And that's my week in a nutshell. I'm thinking about creating another journal for my French study, still not sure, we'll see.

M'ale, ke bondye beni nou !
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Re: Kreyòl Ayisyen language log

Postby maxalmonte14 » Tue Mar 01, 2022 2:05 am

Study Update. After not being able to write in this log for 4 months I plan to resumme the weekly updates starting now, these 4 months have been crazy and my focus on learning Haitian Creole went from active to passive, but I never stopped learning. Now I pretend to shift from passive to active learning again and keep that mindset for as long as I can. This is where I stand right now:

- 1300+ Anki flashcards in my deck: I added at least 30 new words the past week and I still have a list of unknown words that I have to investigate and act to my deck, the end goal is to memorize then and make them part of my vocabulary.
- 27 DLI lessons completed: This has not changed since the last time, I've been trying to get up to speed with my studies so I can resumme my studies of this course.
- Around half the units of the new Duolingo Krèyol course: I've been checking Duolingo's course, even tho is not nearly as good as the other resources that I've been using, there's no harm in taking a look, I even have stumble upon some new vocabulary in there.
- I've been working on my oral comprehension: as I've said before, I have a Youtube playlist of videos in Haitian Creole with subtitles that I use to train myself https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbkCQCZs2dUTxAIwt9slvMVRH3UTqxmwL
- I've been working on my reading: the Jehovah Witness site offers articles and magazines in Haitian Creole with audio, that's in my opinion one of the best resources for Haitian Creole out there, specially if you don't want to limit yourself to religious content, since the JW write articles about science, health, news, and other related things.

And that's what I've been up to during the last week, it's not a lot, I hope to get more serious in the upcoming weeks, nevertheless I'm happy to be able to continue my learning process.

M'ale, ke bondye beni nou !
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Re: Kreyòl Ayisyen language log

Postby maxalmonte14 » Mon Mar 14, 2022 10:30 pm

Study Update. These last two weeks I tried to pick up my pace and study the hardest since I resummed my learning. This is where I stand right now:

- 1400+ Anki flashcards on my deck: I've been adding cards to my deck most days, usually learning 10 words per day, I try to add words that I don't understand when I encounter them, since most kreyòl words come from French I can infere the meaning of may words without having to study them.
- 37 DLI lessons completed: I've been working with the DLI course and these last two weeks I was able to study at least 10 new lessons
- Oral comprehension: most of my oral comprehension is done by watching videos in kreyòl with subtitles over and over again, that's possible to my personally curated playlist which counts with more than 60 videos at the moment https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbkCQCZs2dUTxAIwt9slvMVRH3UTqxmwL. I also listen to articles being narrated by native speakers in the Jehovah Witness page.
- Reading: most of the reading I do is through magazines provided by the Jehovah Witness, not necessarily the most entertaining material in my opinion, but good enough.

That's what I've been to during the last 2 weeks, I hope to finish the DLI course in the next 2 weeks so I can focus on other type of resources from that point out.

M'ale, ke bondye beni nou !
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Re: Kreyòl Ayisyen language log

Postby maxalmonte14 » Mon Mar 28, 2022 12:43 am

Study update. For the last two weeks I've been continuing my habitual routine, nothing too drastic, at this point I'm focusing more on consistency than innovation. Anyway, this is where I stand right now:

- 1500+ Anki flashcards on my deck: these last two weeks I've been adding cards to my deck in a consisting manner, my goal is to add 10 new words every single day, these words I usually find while reading or watching videos, then add it to a list to eventually add to my deck. In these last two weeks I've added almost 150 new cards, which is not bad at all by any means.
- 45 DLI lessons completed: since my last update I've finished the 4th book in the DLI course program and I find myself at the halfway mark of the last book. I was supposed to finnish the whole course a couple of days ago but didn't have the chance to study for personal reasons. The last two books focus more on kind of advanced constructions of the language, which are great if you want to sound more native-like, but in my opinion one shouldn't sweat it too much since you'll end up picking them further down the line.
- Oral comprehension: as always my oral comprehension is done by watching my always reliable YouTube playlist. I haven't worked that much on oral comprehension lately, but I added a couple of new videos to the collection https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... RH3UTqxmwL.
- Reading: I'm not gonna lie, during the last couple of weeks my reading has been almost null, most of the reading I've been doing has been trough a Discord server, Facebook and Instagram pages, and direct messages with people from Haiti, which is cool since you can get familiar with the slang terms people are using nowadays, but still lacks the complexity of a well redacted text.

I've been sprinkling some Haitian Creole here and there in my life now that I feel more comfortable with the language, I also think that I'm at the point where diminishing returns start to show, I can have small conversations here and there, but feel like I'm getting less and less from my session studies, hopefully I'll be focusing on native content sooner than later.

Bon, se tout mwen t appran denye semèn yo, n a wè n nan quinze jou!
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