Bolaobo Overextends With Too Many Languages in 2022

[Cavesa]

Not sure what to be in awe of the first. The huuuge numbers of Anki cards and repetitions, that you actually keep doing unlike me? The highly difficult languages that you're learning? The passion for extremely hard foreign scripts?

Hard to choose. So, I'll simply be in awe and leave it at that!

[Iversen]

If you succeed in learn to read Akkadian cuneiform you might find museums that will be happy to know what the heck is written on their tablets. I guess that the number of people who can read that kind of stuff is limited, and those that can do it don't live forever.

[bolaobo]

Not sure what to be in awe of the first. The huuuge numbers of Anki cards and repetitions, that you actually keep doing unlike me? The highly difficult languages that you're learning? The passion for extremely hard foreign scripts?

Hard to choose. So, I'll simply be in awe and leave it at that!

Haha, thanks for following my log and for the very encouraging words!!!

I've been studying pretty hard, and enjoying it. But since some of the languages are so hard, and I have to maintain existing ones, progress is frustratingly slow at times. But my personality doesn't allow me to "give up" language knowledge, hence the Anki reps. It's a good thing I have a personality that doesn't mind repetition and tedium.

I hope I can keep it up, and good luck with your studies as well!

If you succeed in learn to read Akkadian cuneiform you might find museums that will be happy to know what the heck is written on their tablets. I guess that the number of people who can read that kind of stuff is limited, and those that can do it don't live forever.

Definitely, it's a relatively niche field (Sumerian cuneiform much more so) and one where advancements are constantly being made and new tablets being discovered. It would be exciting to be involved in a subject where research is actively being done, as opposed to languages like Classical Latin which are basically "figured out" and fully understood. We'll see.

I've learned some cuneiform readings and read about the basic phonology and structure of the language, but still undecided how far I want to take it. It's definitely a longer term goal to explore further because I'm interested in Semitic languages lately.

[bolaobo]

I finished L'Arabe L42, L'Espagnol Sans Peine L24, Le Latin L38, and A New Arabic Grammar of the Written Language Chapter 9

Clozemaster milestones: Français from 中文 to level 64, Italiano from Español to level 33, Español from Deutsch to level 82, 中文 (Traditional) from English to level 45, Français from Deutsch to level 86, 中文 from English to level 6, Español from Français to level 47

I'm really enjoying A New Arabic Grammar. All of the exercises really help drill patterns and vocabulary. I know I'm still not far into it so hopefully I can continue to keep up with it without getting beat up by the increasingly detailed grammatical explanations, although the author focuses on minutia less than Thomas Lambdin (see below) which is a good thing.

I wanted to make more progress with Arabic, but I had a huge amount of reviews popup in Anki and I had to slow down for a few days to let things sink in.

Following my recent interest in Semitic languages, I taught myself how to read Biblical Hebrew alphabet and diacritics, and took a peek at Lambdin's textbook. But something about Biblical Hebrew just doesn'ṭ seem right to me and I don't think I can fit in serious study of it until later. Grammar is simpler than MSA, but it's really confusing with all the vowels and the letters which modern Israelis don't distinguish. I'm someone who learns better with audio, and when I listen to TTS or spoken audio and it doesn't match what is written, it makes it harder to memorize because of the disconnect. I'm interested in Hebrew, eventually, and I'll have to find a way around this, or use a source that includes properly pronounced audio (like Aleph with Beth). But to truly tackle Biblical Hebrew I need to wait until my Arabic is better and give it the time it deserves.

Nonetheless, the dabbling time wasn't wasted because I learned a lot of knowledge that I could relate back to Arabic, and now I can read the cognates when they're listed on Wiktionary or in Huehnergard's book of cognates in Akkadian.

For the upcoming stretch, I'm going to continue to make progress in both Arabic books, finish the latest Hindi and Persian lessons which are nearly mastered, and fill in the downtime with my other languages that need work or are on backburner.

[księżycowy]

I'd be inclined to suggest Khan's Routledge Introduction to Biblical Hebrew. It has audio for all lessons. The only cadavet is, it's Modern pronunciation.

[bolaobo]

I finished Le Persan Sans Peine L47 and L48, El Nuevo Italiano Sin Esfuerzo L6 and L7, Speaking Arabic (Levantine) L12, L'Arabe L43, Lambdin's Intoduction to Biblical Hebrew L1, A New Arabic Grammar of the Written Language Chapter 10, and Le Hindi / Hindi ohne Mühe L38.

Clozemaster milestones: Level 170, Español from Français to level 49, 日本語 from English to level 69, 中文 (Traditional) from English to level 46

Quite the big update, but a lot of the lessons were ones that were almost finished, short, or easy (Italian).

I'm still in a Semitic phase, with most of my review time spent on Arabic and heavy dabbling in both Akkadian and Biblical Hebrew. I know enough cuneiform signs to be able to start tackling the short phrases in my textbook. As Huehnergard suggests, I'm learning to recognize Old Babylonian cursive which is supposedly the majority of the corpus. I use the Santakku unicode font. Real inscriptions will be harder to read, but I have to start somewhere. If I'm able to learn MSA grammar, Akkadian grammar doesn't look that bad. It's mainly the writing system that will require a lot of work which is why I'm focusing on it early.

I'm still interested in Persian and Hindi, but I'm able to make progress while spending less time. The Hindi texts are quite interesting, but Persian is still quite boring but picking up in difficulty. There are lots of cultural notes as usual.

Even though I was planning on going through Assimil faster than the Arabic grammar, I'm thinking I need to get a bit further in the grammar book. The Assimil is already covering things quite firmly in the intermediate level, but the grammar hasn't even gotten to verbs yet (besides basic past tense). Chapter 11 is literally just titled "Adjectives". I just don't want to go too fast and either get burned out or lose track of where I'm in Assimil.

As for Assimil L'Arabe, L44 is a little silly with nearly every sentence hammering in the dual nominative / dual oblique / construct case, but there's enough new things in here that I'll still need some time to master. As for L45, it starts a mini storyline and introduces a ton of new vocab each lesson. Hopefully most sentences are still i+1! I'm excited to transition into more substantive dialogues but I need time to get reviews down.

[bolaobo]

I finished French Without Toil (1940) L127, L'Espagnol Sans Peine L25 and L26, Speaking Eastern Arabic L13, Assimil L'Arabe L44

Clozemaster Milestones: Italiano from Español to level 37, 中文 (Traditional) from English to level 48, Español from Français to level 50, Français from 中文 to level 65, Latina from English to level 25

I found some time to get some targeted romance language study in again with Assimil, even though I get a lot of periphery practice with those daily. L'Espagnol Sans Peine is clearly below my level, but there's still a few new concepts/words introduced each lesson and I can use the listening practice. Using Spanish is still too hard for me, but I could see myself switching to it down the road.

Arabic is still my focus but usually, when the review time starts exceeding 30 minutes in a day, I'll spend some time on other languages to give my brain a rest. But I'll likely have to increase this limit if I want to make significant progress in the language without spending 10 years.

I've been happy with my maintenance routine of secondary and dabbling languages. Even for languages at a low level, like Russian, I've been able to keep up with reviews and I feel like I could easily resume my study if I were so inclined.

Akkadian and Biblical Hebrew are still in an awkward stage. I would like to study them more, but I'm also not willing to give up my existing languages or slow down my Arabic pace for them. The daily study of cuneiform and Hebrew is helping, but it's also frustrating that I don't have more time to spend on them. I think it's likely I'll pursue these languages seriously in the future, but I don't know when.

[ArabicAmateur]

I’ve read through your whole blog with interest - inspiring stuff, not least because we’re attempting to learn Arabic at a similar age and from a similar level!

I’ve probably put more time into MSA overall than you, but I am keen to focus more on Levantine (and also have Elihay’s Complete Eastern Arabic). While I’m perhaps less introverted than you, I am keen to use my Arabic (both MSA and dialect) to be able to consume content or strike up conversations - which I could do fairly easily in my city. While MSA is overall likely a better base to build off of for dialects than the reverse, I’m likely to make quicker progress in a dialect.

That said, like you, Persian appeals - it’s beautiful, and substantially easier than Arabic. I’m interested in Dari specifically, but recognise I’ll likely need to use plenty of Persian resources. That said, the colloquial Vs academic Persian means it’ll be similar to Arabic with needing to cover both if I want to be functionally literate. However, I imagine the diglossia isn’t quite as extreme as with Arabic (as with most things in the language)…

[bolaobo]

I’ve read through your whole blog with interest - inspiring stuff, not least because we’re attempting to learn Arabic at a similar age and from a similar level!

I’ve probably put more time into MSA overall than you, but I am keen to focus more on Levantine (and also have Elihay’s Complete Eastern Arabic). While I’m perhaps less introverted than you, I am keen to use my Arabic (both MSA and dialect) to be able to consume content or strike up conversations - which I could do fairly easily in my city. While MSA is overall likely a better base to build off of for dialects than the reverse, I’m likely to make quicker progress in a dialect.

That said, like you, Persian appeals - it’s beautiful, and substantially easier than Arabic. I’m interested in Dari specifically, but recognise I’ll likely need to use plenty of Persian resources. That said, the colloquial Vs academic Persian means it’ll be similar to Arabic with needing to cover both if I want to be functionally literate. However, I imagine the diglossia isn’t quite as extreme as with Arabic (as with most things in the language)…

Thanks for reading my log! Happy to see another Arabic learner here. Arabic is definitely underappreciated in language learning communities.

You can't go wrong with learning a dialect, especially if you have the opportunity to use it. Levantine is also quite close to MSA. I'm on lesson 15 of Elihay's and my main struggle is the verbs, because I find the suffixes and prefixes hard to make out in normal speech. MSA is spoken a lot more....methodically with clear vowel boundaries. But despite small grammar differences Levantine helps me with MSA and vice versa.

As for Persian, if that's where your motivation lies, I don't see why you can't study it a bit. Motivation is so important. But if you want to wait, you'll likely find it much easier than Arabic. Arabic requires a lot more time, obviously, so if you're on the fence I'd focus on Arabic for now.

[ArabicAmateur]

I’ve read through your whole blog with interest - inspiring stuff, not least because we’re attempting to learn Arabic at a similar age and from a similar level!

I’ve probably put more time into MSA overall than you, but I am keen to focus more on Levantine (and also have Elihay’s Complete Eastern Arabic). While I’m perhaps less introverted than you, I am keen to use my Arabic (both MSA and dialect) to be able to consume content or strike up conversations - which I could do fairly easily in my city. While MSA is overall likely a better base to build off of for dialects than the reverse, I’m likely to make quicker progress in a dialect.

That said, like you, Persian appeals - it’s beautiful, and substantially easier than Arabic. I’m interested in Dari specifically, but recognise I’ll likely need to use plenty of Persian resources. That said, the colloquial Vs academic Persian means it’ll be similar to Arabic with needing to cover both if I want to be functionally literate. However, I imagine the diglossia isn’t quite as extreme as with Arabic (as with most things in the language)…

Thanks for reading my log! Happy to see another Arabic learner here. Arabic is definitely underappreciated in language learning communities.

You can't go wrong with learning a dialect, especially if you have the opportunity to use it. Levantine is also quite close to MSA. I'm on lesson 15 of Elihay's and my main struggle is the verbs, because I find the suffixes and prefixes hard to make out in normal speech. MSA is spoken a lot more....methodically with clear vowel boundaries. But despite small grammar differences Levantine helps me with MSA and vice versa.

As for Persian, if that's where your motivation lies, I don't see why you can't study it a bit. Motivation is so important. But if you want to wait, you'll likely find it much easier than Arabic. Arabic requires a lot more time, obviously, so if you're on the fence I'd focus on Arabic for now.

While the way MSA is put together is fascinating, and I would like to read, dialect just feels like it offers the more traditional core of learning a language - speaking to natives, consuming native media etc.

How have you found your retention of vocab and concepts from Elihay’s books? I’m only on lesson 4 and do really appreciate the pronunciation transliteration, but find the lack of Arabic text quite disconcerting. There’s also the realisation that while dialect may do away with a lot of the grammatical complexities there remains, as you note, a lot of challenges in pronunciation and listening.

I used Mango Languages extensive Levantine course to get a base before and may revisit. It’s good for vocab and grammatical structures, but the pronunciation can be a bit all over the place. I’m hoping the two would work together well!

I’m dipping my toe into Persian sporadically, hopefully to either decide I have a more realistic chance in making progress vs Arabic and shifting focus or, more likely, to realise it remains challenging and ensure I’m not distracted by thoughts of other languages!