Bolaobo Overextends With Too Many Languages in 2022

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bolaobo
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Posts: 237
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Location: Pennsylvania
Languages: English (N), Mandarin Chinese, German, French
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=19845
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Re: Bolaobo Overextends With Too Many Languages in 2022

Postby bolaobo » Sun Jul 03, 2022 4:28 pm

I finished Spanish L14 (review) and Levantine Arabic L6.

The older Assimil review lessons are perfect. They don't go into excruciating detail about everything that anyone who was paying attention already picked up on, but focuses on harder, more elusive concepts that are worth going into more detail on. I'm liking this Spanish book in terms of pace of grammar introduction and vocabulary, but the spoken audio is still too slow. I'm speeding it up 70% in Audacity and also getting rid of unnatural gaps they insert between words. I have no idea why they felt the need to make it this slow for Spanish of all languages.

The pace that I'm going through these courses might seem laboriously slow, but I've come to learn there really is no rushing things. The most recent Hindi lessons I "overstudied" are so much more familiar to me than the beginning of the Hindi textbook that I half-assedly went through. To get things to stick, you really do need to drill it repeatedly and there are no shortcuts.

I'm wrapping up Persian L42 which is a review lesson but has new vocabulary. I'm now going to put the review sentences into Anki to get more input. I will likely do the same for future Arabic review lessons too, which were previously too easy to be worth it.

Comparing to the Hindi textbook, this Persian one is much, much easier. There is less vocabulary introduced, the spoken pace is slower, and grammar is introduced more slowly despite Persian having easier grammar to begin with. I think I prefer the pace of the Hindi textbook more, and the lessons are more interesting. But the Persian isn't a bad textbook at all and it has offered a gentle, clear introduction to the language.

Believe it or not, I'm still working on Hindi L37. :lol: With 20 exercises per lesson, long dialogues, and example sentences in the explanations that randomly introduce new vocabulary, it takes time, but the overlearning has helped my confidence a lot. I also enjoy comparing the German and French editions and seeing how they choose to explain/translate things. The German one is more liberal with translation while the French one includes the literal translation in parentheses that the German lacks for some reason. Besides inferior formatting, I can confidently say that the French base is what I'd choose to use if I could only choose one.
4 x
Perfectionnement Arabe: 11 / 70 New Arabic Grammar: 30 / 51
Le Grec Ancien: 15 / 101
Hindi ohne Mühe: 44 / 54
Le Persan: 85 / 86
Le Turc: 19 / 71
Tobira: 3 / 15

bolaobo
Orange Belt
Posts: 237
Joined: Fri Mar 05, 2021 5:48 pm
Location: Pennsylvania
Languages: English (N), Mandarin Chinese, German, French
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=19845
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Re: Bolaobo Overextends With Too Many Languages in 2022

Postby bolaobo » Thu Jul 07, 2022 3:22 pm

I finished Arabic Grammar L4.

The grammar textbook is working well for me. I get to drill additional vocab and get more exposure to structures I've seen in Assimil. It hasn't covered anything complicated yet but it has taught me a few nuances I didn't pick up on my own. My approach for Arabic right now is still input first but covering previously-encountered grammar in more detail.

Latin on the other hand....is not going well. I'm only on L33 so obviously I won't be an expert but I feel like I'm behind where I should be in terms of grammar. I eventually memorize what the sentences mean due to constant exposure, but then the next lesson comes and I'm a slave to the French translation to figure out what the hell is going on. One reason I haven't been motivated to study Latin is I feel like I'm starting off each lesson with a handicap.

So I'm going to have to either go back and intensively read previous lessons and ensure I understand, add another "natural method" resource like LLPSI, or use a GT resource such as Wheelock's in order to force myself to slow down and gain more confidence on the grammar aspect of Latin. Latin grammar has challenged me more than any language so far (including Arabic and Japanese). It's not surprising that I'd need more than one resource to study Latin since even if I mastered Assimil it likely wouldn't be enough to jump into the deep end of native material.

About Anki, it's still working well for me. I'm contemplating adding more recall-based cards to my reptatoire, because recalling a vocabulary word in cloze context is so good for internalizing the structure of a language and cementing hard-to-learn words. But as you know, I'm mainly interested in reading and listening so it's hard to get the motivation to do such hard recall tasks!
5 x
Perfectionnement Arabe: 11 / 70 New Arabic Grammar: 30 / 51
Le Grec Ancien: 15 / 101
Hindi ohne Mühe: 44 / 54
Le Persan: 85 / 86
Le Turc: 19 / 71
Tobira: 3 / 15

bolaobo
Orange Belt
Posts: 237
Joined: Fri Mar 05, 2021 5:48 pm
Location: Pennsylvania
Languages: English (N), Mandarin Chinese, German, French
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=19845
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Re: Bolaobo Overextends With Too Many Languages in 2022

Postby bolaobo » Sun Jul 10, 2022 3:23 pm

I finished Assimil Arabic L33, French L122, Spanish L15, and Persian L42.

I've opted against adding a secondary Latin resource for now. Looking back at old lessons, the situation really isn't as grim as my last post implied and I mostly know what's going on. I just need much more exposure and have to make sure I fully understand a sentence before putting into Anki. I looked at a textbook called Teach Yourself Beginner's Latin by g.d.a Sharpley and it looks quite promising. It takes place in the Dark Ages and is about members of a medieval monastery and Viking invasions and offers a gentle introduction to the language. But I don't want to spread myself too thin and need to focus on mastering Assimil first.

I'm feeling a romance language phase coming on. Even with a little time put into Spanish and French, I've really felt progress, and it's satisfying to be able to feel improvement so quickly unlike Arabic where it's an uphill struggle lasting many years. Latin, Spanish and French are also undeniably important languages to the Western canon. I checked out El Nuevo Italiano Sin Esfuerzo and I feel like going through this text comparing the Spanish text with the French version to the Italian would be a good way to get a good handle on the "big 3" of modern romance languages. There's many comparative grammars of the modern romance languages but I'm not sure how effective such a book would be from a learning perspective, although it would undeniably be an interesting linguistic read. I've just always been hesitant that reading a bunch of rules will translate into improved comprehension of the language in real-life.
7 x
Perfectionnement Arabe: 11 / 70 New Arabic Grammar: 30 / 51
Le Grec Ancien: 15 / 101
Hindi ohne Mühe: 44 / 54
Le Persan: 85 / 86
Le Turc: 19 / 71
Tobira: 3 / 15

bolaobo
Orange Belt
Posts: 237
Joined: Fri Mar 05, 2021 5:48 pm
Location: Pennsylvania
Languages: English (N), Mandarin Chinese, German, French
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=19845
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Re: Bolaobo Overextends With Too Many Languages in 2022

Postby bolaobo » Sun Jul 17, 2022 12:15 am

I finished Spanish L16, French L123, and Japanese L89.

I'm really anxious to finish the French and Japanese textbooks so I can cross them off my list. But I can't rush it because it's still a lot of content. The "slow and steady" has been working for me and I can't rush the hardest lessons!

French Without Toil is still helping me, and the ending lessons seem to be about as difficult as the end of Using French, which I'm not sure I will bother doing since I get so much practice with French already and I've done French With Ease as well. I have a feeling that Using French would help my listening which is still rather poor, but listening also isn't my main goal.

I abandoned the Japanese active wave. It's just not my focus right now, and it's of questionable effectiveness. My time would be better spent elsewhere, like actually finishing the passive wave in this lifetime.

Arabic is still my focus language, and I can feel the progress coming along nicely. If only I could dedicate this amount of time to all of my languages! For those who care, the new Assimil Arabic gets Prof. Arguelles' stamp of approval. He calls Perfectionnement Arabe "truly outstanding" which is not something you hear about just any course from him. He claims that it segues nicely from the introduction course, but he has a lot more background than the average person and I'm sure I will appreciate the additional grammar work that I'm doing. I will also need all the French I can get so I can actually understand the source language!

I've increased my time spent in Clozemaster. I'm averaging about 15 minutes a day by adding new cards when my reviews for a language pair gets below 5. I have a bunch of language paris so it adds up. I'm undecided if I'll keep it up, but Clozemaster is certainly not the least productive thing I could be doing and it gives me practice typing the language and learning new vocab in an environment less stressful than Anki. I'm ranked 224th this week, just before the reset.

I've been unable to integrate Russian or any other languages I'm interested in. My plate is just too full right now! I technically haven't abandoned Russian, but I get like 5 minutes a day tops, enough to get some practice with the script. I'm interested in the entire romance family as well but I need to improve my Spanish and make more progress with Latin.
5 x
Perfectionnement Arabe: 11 / 70 New Arabic Grammar: 30 / 51
Le Grec Ancien: 15 / 101
Hindi ohne Mühe: 44 / 54
Le Persan: 85 / 86
Le Turc: 19 / 71
Tobira: 3 / 15

bolaobo
Orange Belt
Posts: 237
Joined: Fri Mar 05, 2021 5:48 pm
Location: Pennsylvania
Languages: English (N), Mandarin Chinese, German, French
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=19845
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Re: Bolaobo Overextends With Too Many Languages in 2022

Postby bolaobo » Fri Jul 22, 2022 3:37 pm

I finished Assimil Arabic L34 and L35 (review), Spanish L17, Haywood Grammar L5 (Sound Masculine/Feminine Plural, Pronouns, Dual, Simple Verbs)

The Arabic grammar lesson was quite a lot to take in, even though Assimil had already covered everything but the dual. A lot of new vocabulary and new grammar concepts are introduced at same time. The next two lessons are dedicated to broken plurals so more fun ahead! Anki really shines for Arabic, just like Japanese, because there is so much memorization required. I just need to grind it out and be patient.

Spanish is finally starting to pick up at L18, with more substantial exercises and longer lines. I'm anxious to get out of these boring dialogues but I can't ignore the basics because although I can "decipher" a lot of Spanish in the wild I lack fundamentals and structured study. Middle school was a long time ago! This book definitely has some serious dialogues at end, just like French Without Toil, so I'm not worried about staying bored.

Assimil Arabic is picking up as well. L35 is a review lesson but starts to get confusing when it comes to verb forms and how roots transform and it's the first review lesson that seems to be targeted at higher level. I've found there really is no way to memorize this and you just need massive exposure which comes with time. I'm not going to sweat memorizing these different patterns, and that's what the book suggests too.

I'm already thinking of future plans once I finish these books.

For French, I'll probably do Using French, in German base so I can improve both languages. I would see improvements from an advanced German course too, but my German, especially listening, is better than my French so it makes sense to do French first.

For Japanese, almost certainly Tobira. The beginning starts off slightly too easy but there is still plenty of vocab and grammar to learn. With my base in Hanzi, I could probably use an advanced reader as well but I think I need some more structured study first. I'm in no rush.

For Hindustani, probably an Urdu reader. I don't want to go through beginner hell again with a boring introductory book, and I want to read more advanced things. I plan on "leveling up" my Urdu because it synergizes better with Persian and Arabic.

The rest of my languages are too far away to make any plans, except the advanced Assimil Arabic course, and eventually perhaps the old, dense Perfectionnement Allemand. The newer one is a bit too boring for me and it's unlikely I'll finish it when I could be reading novels or listening to podcasts. But the completionist in me wants to finish an advanced Assimil course in multiple languages.
5 x
Perfectionnement Arabe: 11 / 70 New Arabic Grammar: 30 / 51
Le Grec Ancien: 15 / 101
Hindi ohne Mühe: 44 / 54
Le Persan: 85 / 86
Le Turc: 19 / 71
Tobira: 3 / 15

bolaobo
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Posts: 237
Joined: Fri Mar 05, 2021 5:48 pm
Location: Pennsylvania
Languages: English (N), Mandarin Chinese, German, French
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=19845
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Re: Bolaobo Overextends With Too Many Languages in 2022

Postby bolaobo » Sat Jul 23, 2022 5:42 pm

I finished Assimil Le Russe Sans Peine (1973) L0.

Yep, lesson zero! I'm almost there! :lol: This book opens up with 100 vocabulary words, mostly cognates, aimed at teaching the script, rules of pronunciation, stress, etc. I thought it was important to start off slow especially since Russian pronunciation is notoriously difficult.

The last time I tackled Russian was many years ago, I was completely thrown off guard by the pronunciation, the fact that o is sometimes a, the palatalization....but it was much less intimidating this time around, probably because I have so much more language learning experience now. My aim is mainly to develop mostly correct patterns when sub-vocalizing, since as usual I'm focusing on reading and listening. I don't need to pass as a native Russian.

I was close to putting Russian aside, but I'm probably going to stick with it. I don't really have any languages at a pure beginner level right now and if I manage my time well, I can make some progress. It's just too important of a language to ignore for someone like me who is aiming to learn many languages and it's the only UN language I have zero knowledge of..

My French and Spanish reviews are getting a little high lately. I'm probably going to let them go down a bit. Those languages are in no danger of regressing and I can spend some more time on other languages. Arabic is my only language where reviews take more than 15 minutes since it's a focus.

I had 37 Japanese reviews today, despite the fact that I've barely added new cards for this language. It really shows how reviews accumulate as you go through textbooks (but I have cards from other sources too). That's why my progress slows down as I get near the end of a book, as you can see with Japanese, Hindi, and French. I'm still interested in Japanese, just not as much as some others.

On a completely unrelated note, the Haywood grammar book has a disturbing amount of typos. I'm careful adding new cards (I frequently check Wiktionary) so I've noticed them, but it's getting a little concerning. Most of the time the errors are in the romanisation but I spotted some errors in the vocab list too! Here is example of an error I spotted today.

إنكليزي is romanized as 'inkilīzīyun while I believe it should be ʾinklīziyyun. It could be an older spelling, but putting a long vowel on z when it's a short vowel is almost certainly wrong and doesn't match the Arabic script in the vocab list.

Sometimes I peak at the romanization because the print is a little hard to read and I'm not sure where the vowel diacritics are supposed to be, but I can't rely on it since it will go away in later chapters. Let's hope there are no serious errors in the Arabic script!
5 x
Perfectionnement Arabe: 11 / 70 New Arabic Grammar: 30 / 51
Le Grec Ancien: 15 / 101
Hindi ohne Mühe: 44 / 54
Le Persan: 85 / 86
Le Turc: 19 / 71
Tobira: 3 / 15

bolaobo
Orange Belt
Posts: 237
Joined: Fri Mar 05, 2021 5:48 pm
Location: Pennsylvania
Languages: English (N), Mandarin Chinese, German, French
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=19845
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Re: Bolaobo Overextends With Too Many Languages in 2022

Postby bolaobo » Tue Jul 26, 2022 2:46 pm

I finished Le Russe Sans Peine L1, L2. It's still too early to say too much about the textbook, but I like the voices and the recording is high-quality. I listened to the 50s course and the voices were significantly worse.

For stress, in Anki, I'm grading myself as if it were unmarked vowels in Arabic or a Kanji reading. If I get it wrong, I'm marking it as incorrect. Otherwise I'll inevitably get lazy and not learn it properly.

I'm putting a bit more time into Russian than my usual amount for secondary languages because it's so new and because the early lessons are so boring and I want to get them over with. I don't plan on keeping with this pace. I'm also learning how to type using the real Russian keyboard because if I'm going to eventually be transcribing 100 Assimil lessons, I should at least use that time to practice typing. I know there's phonetic keyboards based on English layout but I learn the "official" keyboard whenever I can because in the long-term it's a nice skill to have. I've never regretted learning the INSCRIPT, Arabic, or Persian keyboards.

Let's talk about Japanese. I know about 1075 Kanji officially, and many more from Chinese passive knowledge. It's better than my Hindi despite the fact I've studied Hindi for years more. I've actually found Assimil too easy. But I just can't get motivation! I know how much content I would have to consume to go from beginner/intermediate to upper intermediate/advanced and I can't justify the time expenditure for a culture I'm not in love with at the moment. People fluent in Japanese seem a dime-a-dozen on the internet these days and it wouldn't even be considered special. But nevertheless, I've been able to maintain my knowledge and make very slow progress and that's so much better than abandoning it and forgetting everything. As you can see from this log, my motivation is always changing!

Today was review hell for Arabic, with more reviews than I've ever had for it. I'm absorbing the information and remembering (92% retention, 87% for mature) but I'm reaching my limit for how much I can do in a single day because I was quite exhausted by end of reviews. Arabic is still my focus language and one can only go so fast! That's why I split time between languages. Levantine Arabic is significantly easier but useless for my primary focus: reading.
6 x
Perfectionnement Arabe: 11 / 70 New Arabic Grammar: 30 / 51
Le Grec Ancien: 15 / 101
Hindi ohne Mühe: 44 / 54
Le Persan: 85 / 86
Le Turc: 19 / 71
Tobira: 3 / 15

bolaobo
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Posts: 237
Joined: Fri Mar 05, 2021 5:48 pm
Location: Pennsylvania
Languages: English (N), Mandarin Chinese, German, French
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=19845
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Re: Bolaobo Overextends With Too Many Languages in 2022

Postby bolaobo » Sat Jul 30, 2022 2:33 pm

I finished Assimil Latin L33, Persian L43 and Russian L3.

Not much to update on. I'm feeling Urdu, Persian, and Arabic starting to come together, and often a word I learn in one will help reinforce the other which really helps retention.

I started the Urdu Narang reader to give myself some targeted Urdu practice and get a break from Assimil. I'm averaging about one unknown word per sentence, which is perfect for my i+1 strategy. This book was written by an Indian writer so also incorporates words from Sanskrit so it's a good mix of the two registers.

I found another mistake in the Arabic grammar textbook. خَدَمَة‎ was translated as maidservant (singular, feminine) when it should be translated as servants (masculine, plural) according to Wiktionary. This is quite the shocking error and I'm surprised to see it, but I'm pretty sure Wiktionary is correct because I know that maidservant is خَادِمَة.

I've never seen this many errors in Assimil. It makes me appreciate good editing that I usually take for granted. I still plan on using this book but I'm going to have to be really careful going forward because although errors won't derail my progress entirely, it's not something I want to be putting into my Anki reps!
Last edited by bolaobo on Sat Aug 06, 2022 9:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
4 x
Perfectionnement Arabe: 11 / 70 New Arabic Grammar: 30 / 51
Le Grec Ancien: 15 / 101
Hindi ohne Mühe: 44 / 54
Le Persan: 85 / 86
Le Turc: 19 / 71
Tobira: 3 / 15

bolaobo
Orange Belt
Posts: 237
Joined: Fri Mar 05, 2021 5:48 pm
Location: Pennsylvania
Languages: English (N), Mandarin Chinese, German, French
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=19845
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Re: Bolaobo Overextends With Too Many Languages in 2022

Postby bolaobo » Sat Aug 06, 2022 9:34 pm

I finished Levantine Arabic L7, Russian L4-L7, Spanish L18, Assimil Ukrainian L1 and L2

As you can see, the focus was on Slavic languages as I try to get out of pure beginner stage where memory is most fragile. I'm still working on other languages but other than Levantine, no chapters completed. I'm working on getting daily Arabic reviews down. Adding the grammar book to my reptatoire really slowed down my Assimil progress for Arabic but I think it's a necessary sacrifice to get my vocab count up since there are so many words, so many broken plurals, so many rules to learn....and Assimil is just too laissez-faire regarding the monster that is Arabic grammar.

Ukrainian is a mix of dabbling and an experiment to see how it works learning two closely related languages together. I read in the Loom of Language about advantages of this, and methods like the Seven Sieves also use this, but I've never done it this early in the process. It is my experience that having the brain make additional connections and sort out differences and find common areas helps cement memory in the long run (I've seen this with Spanish/French/Latin, Hindi/Persian...) but it's obviously an additional time investment. I don't care about production skills so "mixing up" isn't a huge deal to me.

I'm interested in Ukrainian, and it's probably the Slavic language I'll tackle next as a halfway point to Polish (lexically), but if I don't like doing it together, I'll have to focus on Russian. Or who knows, I could switch my focus entirely. The Assimil Ukrainian book is not nearly as "deep" as the old Russian one. It's a classic third-generation course with plenty of culture, overabundance of notes and a gentle learning curve. Despite how mediocre it sounds, I haven't really found anything better in French or German (I prefer using those languages to ladder instead of English).

About German, the temptation to either continue Perfectionnement (I'm on L10 or so) or La pratique de l'allemand rises. My German daily reps are minuscule, and I have time to build vocab. I don't enjoy reading as much as I wish I did so targeted study would be helpful. Mastering one or both of those books would be a boost to my level and confidence. La pratique de l'allemand is by far the more challenging and more intellectually stimulating with more real content, but Perfectionnement contains plenty of useful info too so it's a tough choice which one to do first. My German isn't going anywhere so I have time to think about this.
9 x
Perfectionnement Arabe: 11 / 70 New Arabic Grammar: 30 / 51
Le Grec Ancien: 15 / 101
Hindi ohne Mühe: 44 / 54
Le Persan: 85 / 86
Le Turc: 19 / 71
Tobira: 3 / 15

bolaobo
Orange Belt
Posts: 237
Joined: Fri Mar 05, 2021 5:48 pm
Location: Pennsylvania
Languages: English (N), Mandarin Chinese, German, French
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=19845
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Re: Bolaobo Overextends With Too Many Languages in 2022

Postby bolaobo » Tue Aug 09, 2022 2:56 pm

I finished French L124, Spanish L19, Latin L34 and Arabic L36.

The Spanish dialogues are getting a little more interesting, as are the Arabic ones. The Arabic speed is still frighteningly slow and I had to increase L37 by 66% in Audacity has well as reduce pauses they randomly put in the middle of sentences. A while back, I also started using speed 1.0 for Azure TTS instead of 0.8. I'm using at least 1.0 TTS speed for all of my languages now except for Russian which I prefer using 0.8 for now.

L37 is finally introducing the dual, in typical humorous Assimil fashion. Even when I complain about this course, I still like it. I haven't spotted a single error, it's voweled including declensions, includes nice sayings and cultural notes (which I appreciate more for Arabic than a European language), and the learning curve has been perfect for me. The only problem is the audio, really.

I've basically learned the Russian and Ukrainian keyboards now, but my input is really slow, as one would expect. It's quite laborious but I'll get faster like I do with all input methods. I actually find it harder to type than Arabic because some of the Cyrillic letters are the same as Latin but in different places.

I'm always planning out the future. Just for fun, here's a future "wishlist" of languages I will or might study in the future. It's impossible to guess my motivation years from now but I'm always thinking ahead. I'm going to avoid going into new, unrelated language families if I can help it (i.e. Turkish) and limiting distant branches within families (i.e. Greek). Afro-Asiatic, Japonic, Sino-Tibetan, and Indo-European are enough!

Will probably study eventually: Italian, Polish, Lithuanian (I have Lithuanian heritage and I feel like I should study a less common language but it's SO HARD)

Could/might study (mostly low-hanging fruit that complement existing): Catalan, Romanian, Portuguese, Swedish/Norwegian, Dutch

Slight interest / Lower Priority (a lot of work for these) : Bengali, Ancient/Modern Greek, Sanskrit, Hebrew, Scottish or Irish Gaelic, Egyptian Arabic or a North African dialect
8 x
Perfectionnement Arabe: 11 / 70 New Arabic Grammar: 30 / 51
Le Grec Ancien: 15 / 101
Hindi ohne Mühe: 44 / 54
Le Persan: 85 / 86
Le Turc: 19 / 71
Tobira: 3 / 15


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