Herodotean's log (Latin, Greek, German, Spanish, etc.)

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Herodotean
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Languages: English (N)
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Re: 21-27 November 2021

Postby Herodotean » Sun Nov 28, 2021 7:09 pm

MorkTheFiddle wrote:I've not read the Hecuba even in translation.
Thanks for the names of the podcasts.


I should have asked: do you have any podcast recommendations? More for Spanish than for French, but if the spoken French is slow enough I could give it a try.
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MorkTheFiddle
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Posts: 2114
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 8:59 pm
Location: North Texas USA
Languages: English (N). Read (only) French and Spanish. Studying Ancient Greek. Studying a bit of Latin. Once studied Old Norse. Dabbled in Catalan, Provençal and Italian.
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 11#p133911
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Re: 21-27 November 2021

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Mon Nov 29, 2021 7:39 pm

Herodotean wrote:I should have asked: do you have any podcast recommendations? More for Spanish than for French, but if the spoken French is slow enough I could give it a try.

The only Spanish podcast I listen to with any regularity is Radio Ambulante, and I listen to it only through the app, LUPA. LUPA breaks the podcast into segments, each segment having a trascript you can read along with. The scripts are read at 0.8 speed, but you can push it to full speed. Periodically LUPA releases a new story, usually a human-interest story about South and Central Americans.

I don't know of any slow French podcasts, but LLORG member Jeffers listed French podcasts: intermediate to advanced. Some of them strike me slow enough to maybe fit your bill. No promises. Also, follow that (short) thread for another possibility.

In sum, I myself listen to very few podcasts either because they are beyond my comprehension or because they don't interest me.
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Many things which are false are transmitted from book to book, and gain credit in the world. -- attributed to Samuel Johnson

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Herodotean
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Re: 21-27 November 2021

Postby Herodotean » Mon Nov 29, 2021 8:10 pm

MorkTheFiddle wrote:
Herodotean wrote:I should have asked: do you have any podcast recommendations? More for Spanish than for French, but if the spoken French is slow enough I could give it a try.

The only Spanish podcast I listen to with any regularity is Radio Ambulante, and I listen to it only through the app, LUPA. LUPA breaks the podcast into segments, each segment having a trascript you can read along with. The scripts are read at 0.8 speed, but you can push it to full speed. Periodically LUPA releases a new story, usually a human-interest story about South and Central Americans.

I didn't know about the app! Thanks.
MorkTheFiddle wrote: In sum, I myself listen to very few podcasts either because they are beyond my comprehension or because they don't interest me.

Ay, there's the rub.
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Herodotean
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28 November to 11 December 2021

Postby Herodotean » Sat Dec 11, 2021 7:43 pm

Latin
  • Bradley’s Arnold: since my last update, I’ve cracked it open a few times and have now reached Lesson 31. This year, I worked on it consistently in March, May, June, and August, which brought me from Lesson 4 to 27. It really is a marvelous book – I wish there were something comparable in detail for Greek – but it’s challenging enough that after a long day I simply don’t want to do it.
  • Erasmus’ Colloquia: I’ve decided to read these through for 2022, so why not get started now? My text is the Amsterdam edition of the Opera omnia (1972), available for free (legally!) online.
  • Lactantius’ Epitome divinarum institutionum: up to section 29. In December I’ve only read one section so far . . .

Greek
  • Xenophon’s Ἑλληνικά: stalled (at 5.4.42).
  • Plato’s Πολιτεία: also stalled (at 337a); I’m teaching this in the spring, so I’d like to read it through in Greek over the next few months.
  • North & Hillard: paused while I work on Görgemanns, Baumbach & Köhler.
  • Griechische Stilübungen (Görgemanns, Baumbach & Köhler): this was recommended by Indeclinable, along with some other Greek prose comp books I'd never heard of, so I decided to give it a shot. It’s substantially below my level, but there are a few details here and there that I had forgotten about, and it’s satisfying to finally be able to use German as a means to an end rather than as an end in itself.

German
Unlike Latin and Greek, which have been languishing a bit recently, my German is progressing well. I’m moving steadily through Buscha and Szita’s A-Grammatik, which is easy and fun. I think it’s largely responsible for the apparent increase in my reading speed over the past month or so. Should I have done a systematic grammar review earlier? Probably so. On the other hand, having read a fair amount of academic and newspaper German has made the grammar review more interesting and enjoyable, since I’ve already encountered every structure in the grammar book.
Anki: my drive for daily Anki study has returned. The shared deck based on Routledge’s Frequency Dictionary of German (mentioned recently somewhere on the forum) is fantastic.
Reading: more of Schwabe's Greek myths and some 19th-century academic prose.
YouTube channels:
Resources that will arrive soon (thanks to recommendations here):
  • Deutschland: Grundwissen und mehr
  • Dichter, Denker und Erzahler: A German Reader

French
  • A YouTube video or two on a newly discovered channel, ARTE.

Spanish
Not much Spanish recently. I've watched some news on France 24's Spanish channel.

Italian

Persian
Enticed partly by Lycopersicon’s phenomenal log, I’ve decided to expand my linguistic horizons and learn Persian. I’m currently learning the alphabet. The last new alphabet I tried to learn was probably Cyrillic a few years ago; that didn't go anywhere. I used to know the Hebrew alphabet and use Greek regularly, but the Arabic alphabet seems rather more difficult than either of those. I do recognize some similarities with Hebrew, though . . .

Resources identified:
  • Persisches Lehr- und Lesebuch für die Umgangssprache (Sobhani 1971)
  • Persisch-deutsches Wörterbuch (Sobhani 1971)
  • Le Persan sans peine (Assimil): quite expensive for book + audio; I'll hold off at least till I see whether my interest in Persian sticks.
  • Persian of Iran Today: I'm using the free PDFs and audio here to learn the alphabet.
  • Farzad, Complete Persian (Teach Yourself): I might pick up a copy of this; the audio is free from the publisher's site.
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devinfitz
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Languages: Chinese(C1), Japanese (B2), Korean(B1), Persian(B1), Spanish (B2), Italian (A2), Dutch (A2), German (B1), Western Armenian (A1), Indonesian (B1), MSA (A1), Tibetan (A2), Ge'ez (reading), Manchu (reading), Latin (B1), Koine Greek (A2)
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Re: Herodotean's log (Latin, Greek, German, Spanish, etc.)

Postby devinfitz » Sat Dec 11, 2021 9:01 pm

Love this combination of languages.
A couple of questions: during the pandemic I got really into spoken Latin, and am no working on Koine - have you dabbled in these approaches? I found that it was a total game-changer for my reading abilities, and I've been trying to convince faculty at my uni to introduce colloquial methods for undergraduate classes. Tons of resources support this now.

Second, on Persian, it's definitely worth checking out https://persianlanguageonline.com/
Everything is free, and it works pretty well to improve reading skills. The Routledge Colloquial Persian isn't too bad, for a pretty easy introduction to most of the colloquial grammar.
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Herodotean
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Re: Herodotean's log (Latin, Greek, German, Spanish, etc.)

Postby Herodotean » Sat Dec 11, 2021 10:19 pm

devinfitz wrote:Love this combination of languages.
A couple of questions: during the pandemic I got really into spoken Latin, and am no working on Koine - have you dabbled in these approaches? I found that it was a total game-changer for my reading abilities, and I've been trying to convince faculty at my uni to introduce colloquial methods for undergraduate classes. Tons of resources support this now.

I completely agree: I speak both Latin and ancient Greek for precisely that reason. I studied Greek for a few years before I took an summer immersion course taught entirely in Koine, and the difference was like night and day. That convinced me I needed to speak Latin too. I couldn't really read Greek or Latin before I started speaking them. Good luck convincing the faculty -- some people are open to new ideas, but others range from bemused to hostile.
Second, on Persian, it's definitely worth checking out https://persianlanguageonline.com/
Everything is free, and it works pretty well to improve reading skills. The Routledge Colloquial Persian isn't too bad, for a pretty easy introduction to most of the colloquial grammar.

Thanks for the tips!
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Lycopersicon
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Posts: 53
Joined: Sat Jan 16, 2021 8:17 am
Location: Issoire
Languages: French (N), English, Persian, Italian, Latin
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=16534
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Re: Herodotean's log (Latin, Greek, German, Spanish, etc.)

Postby Lycopersicon » Wed Dec 15, 2021 11:30 am

Fantastic! If you like living classical languages, you will have a great time with Persian!

And here is a little welcome dance performance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YAjG__a67g
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Herodotean
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12–23 December 2021

Postby Herodotean » Fri Dec 24, 2021 12:53 am

Latin
  • Bradley’s Arnold: no progress since last update.
  • Erasmus’ Colloquia: after the introductory dialogic exercises in paraphrase, I’ve finally reached the actual dialogues.
  • Lanctatius’ Epitome: sections 30–47. A few pages a day and I can finish it before 2022.

Greek
  • Xenophon’s Ἑλληνικά: up to 6.1.16. Ten or so pages a day and I can finish this before 2022.
  • Plato’s Πολιτεία: will resume after finishing Xenophon.
  • Prose composition: stalled. I think I need to find more interesting ways of producing Greek, at least for a while.

German
  • Buscha and Szita’s A-Grammatik: progressing steadily.
  • Dichter, Denker und Erzähler: pp. 1–67. I had forgotten that I tried to read my university’s copy of this book a few years ago; back then, I eventually gave up because it was too hard. Now it seems right at my level. Always pleasant to see evidence of progress.
  • Listening: some Tatort with subtitles, some YouTube videos.

Spanish
Some podcast listening, not much else. I’ve enjoyed trying out some recommendations on old threads here on the forum.

Italian
In 2016 or so, I started reading Elena Ferrante’s L’amica geniale on Kindle. I read maybe 70% of it and then lost interest. Now I’m close to finishing it; oddly enough, it might be the first complete book I’ll have read in Italian – mostly I use Italian for academic articles and book chapters.

Persian
I have kinda sorta learned the Persian alphabet, mostly with a Memrise course. I'm finding it harder than I think it should be. Multiple characters are still fuzzy, but I’m comfortable enough to use Sobhani’s Persisches Lehr- und Lesebuch. We’ll see . . . I’m reading Ferdowsi in translation, which is helping keep my motivation up. There really seems to be a dearth of help for learning the Persian alphabet; I'm guessing that's not true for Arabic, but since there are some differences, I wanted to stick with specifically Persian resources.

Lycopersicon wrote:Fantastic! If you like living classical languages, you will have a great time with Persian!

Thanks! I'm excited.
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Herodotean
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Sobhani's Persisches Lehr- und Lesebuch

Postby Herodotean » Thu Dec 30, 2021 4:48 am

Persian books have arrived!

Image

My German is just barely good enough to use for learning another foreign language, and I'm glad it is, because this really does seem to be a quality textbook. Persian is a delight (aside from the writing system, which I'm slowly making peace with). It's fun to play "Indo-European or Semitic" with each new vocabulary word and then look it up to see. I was pleased that my guess of Semitic for روح, based on dim memories of Hebrew רוח, was correct, and there's a certain thrill of discovery when a completely unrecognizable word turns out to derive from an Indo-European root I'm familiar with from Hellenic or Italic languages.
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Herodotean
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24–31 December 2021

Postby Herodotean » Fri Dec 31, 2021 9:44 pm

Latin
  • Bradley’s Arnold: no progress since last update.
  • Erasmus’ Colloquia: I’ve neglected this in order to finish Lactantius.
  • Lanctatius’ Epitome: finished! For each of its 67 sections (1–3 pages each), I wrote a brief Latin summary. In all, I produced about 1,200 words. Knowing I’d have to write a summary made me a more attentive reader and gave me a reason to write Latin regularly. I plan to continue this practice with other works.
Greek
  • Xenophon’s Ἑλληνικά: no progress since last update. I will definitely not finish this before 2022.
  • Plato’s Πολιτεία: on hold because I’ve decided to read the Gorgias first.
  • Plato’s Γοργίας: 447a–458d. The characterization of Gorgias, the celebrity rhetorician who doesn't quite realize Socrates is exposing him as a fraud, is exquisite. Plato would have written such brilliant novels . . .
German
  • Buscha and Szita’s A-Grammatik: progressing steadily.
  • Dichter, Denker und Erzähler: pp. 68–95. The selections are getting harder, but they’re still manageable (and quite interesting).
  • Reading: some academic prose.
  • Listening: some YouTube videos. I’d like to be able to listen to the EasyGerman podcast, but it would take a lot of pausing and replaying, which I don’t have the patience for right now.
Spanish
I tried listening to the Voz de América daily news podcast for a few days, but 30 minutes is more than I can easily finish in the morning (and I don't want to listen to the morning news in the evening). Telemundo’s “Noticias de la mañana” is only 10 minutes and more interesting.

Italian
At long last, I have finally finished Ferrante’s L’amica geniale. It’s about at my level, but I’m not inclined to read any of her other novels. Now I’m reading Machiavelli’s Il principe; more on that soon, in a post on my goals for 2022.

French
On a whim, I started reading Hugo's Han d'Islande. We'll see if I finish it.

Persian
Now that my hardcopy of Sobhani has arrived, I’m starting in earnest. So far I’ve done lessons 1–5.
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