Bolaobo Overextends With Too Many Languages in 2022

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bolaobo
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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 » Sat Nov 19, 2022 12:17 pm

ArabicAmateur wrote:
bolaobo wrote:
ArabicAmateur wrote: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!


My vocab retention has been fine. He repeats words quite often, except for the occasional straggler that shows up in exercises or once and never again.

Not including Arabic text is definitely controversial, but I don't think it's strictly necessary. It's impossible to unambiguously indicate all of the vowels, the helper vowels, and the liaisons with just Arabic text. But it's probably something that should be practiced outside of the textbook because a lot of other resources only include the Arabic text, even if there's no standard spelling. For example, all of the transcripts in GLOSS are only in Arabic script.

For what it's worth, I find that Arabic helps Persian more than Persian helps my Arabic. I study both, as you know, and I often find that Arabic helps my Persian, but I rarely encounter the opposite.
2 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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Re: Bolaobo Overextends With Too Many Languages in 2022

Postby bolaobo » Sun Nov 20, 2022 2:03 pm

I finished Speaking Eastern Arabic L14, Le Persan Sans Peine L49, A New Arabic Grammar Chapter 11

Clozemaster: Italiano from Español to level 40, 中文 from English to level 64, 中文 (Traditional) from English to level 49, Español from Français to level 51, Español from Deutsch to level 83, العربية from Français to level 25, Latina from English to level 26

I did some dedicated Persian and Japanese study since last update. Those languages were risking "falling off the wagon" with Anki reviews too low and not enough practice. Things were getting rusty but feeling a little better now.

My tenative focus for the rest of 2022 and 2023 is looking to be Arabic, with some work on Persian and Hindustani as well. I enjoy Arabic and Hindi the most lately, and while I can't quite get into Persian yet, I think it's just because Assimil is still really boring and I haven't gotten into real material yet. If Persian continues to bore me, Japanese would probably take its place. As for Hindi, I've studied it half-assedly for many years (longer than French and Japanese) and I want to get it to a higher level. It deserves some quality study time and I enjoy it when I work on it.

Japanese and Latin are languages I want to be competent in eventually, but I just can't get the passion to study them. I'll do enough of those to maintain and not lose momentum, unless my interests change.

As for French and German, those are high enough level that they're easy to maintain, and they'll slowly improve through passive activities, especially French since so many of my textbooks are in French. It's a similar case with Spanish and Italian, and I can slowly improve those with not much time spent since they're so similar to French.

As for the dabbling languages, believe it or not, I'm still learning Russian, but it's very low priority. Ukrainian is all but abandoned. I don't like the Assimil book, and it's not worth dedicating hundreds of hours unless I want to go deep into Slavic study or have interest in the region, which I don't. Russian is more generally useful. Somewhat surprisingly, I'm also finding it easier to memorize the stress of Russian words than Ukrainian ones, since the way Russian is spoken the stressed syllable is so obvious and there is vowel reduction.

I probably want to learn Akkadian eventually, but I haven't pulled the trigger on taking it seriously. As for Hebrew, I can't get into it, and I'm still contemplating learning modern Hebrew first. I feel like it's a language I should know (like Latin), but I need the right frame of mind and plan. I'm still not a fan of modern pronunciation, but being able to listen to the Assimil course would make it a lot easier to "drill in" the words. Audio is really so important even for languages I only want to read.
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
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Re: Bolaobo Overextends With Too Many Languages in 2022

Postby bolaobo » Thu Dec 01, 2022 2:16 am

I finished Le Persan Sans Peine L50, L'Arabe L45, A New Arabic Grammar of the Written Language Chapter 12, and Speaking Palestinian Arabic L15 / revision exercises on subjunctive.

That finishes J. Elihay's book 1 of Speaking Arabic. I still have 3 books to go, but it still feels good to finally finish something. As the book itself mentions, building the foundation is the hardest part, because a lot of higher vocabulary comes from MSA and once you have phonology down it's not that hard to understand.

I want to study Egyptian Arabic eventually too, but I haven't found a resource I like, and I can't fit it in with my current schedule. From what I've seen, it's quite similar to Levantine Arabic so it shouldn't be hard to familiarize myself with it later. I know Arabs understand it without any problem, but without any exposure to it, I don't think a learner could expect it to come quite as easily since we haven't been exposed to it since childhood in the media.

Persian at L50 is still quite easy. Assimil Arabic L46 is crazy. Nearly every sentence has multiple new words including relatively uncommon ones (for this level) like torch, grilled pistachios, almonds, enchant, and iced orange juice. It's not a big problem, since these are all words I need to know eventually, but it does mean I'll need some time to memorize. Assimil likes to occasionally insert less-common words into beginner dialogues and while the words might not be "useful" for a beginner, I still prefer it over boring textbook dialogues so I can't complain too much.

I'm doing a read-through of Karin C. Ryding's A Reference Grammar of Modern Standard Arabic. I'm not a complete newbie anymore so I'm able to gain something from this, although there are a lot of words I don't recognize in the example sentences, as one would expect. It's already helped illuminate some things but my goal isn't to digest everything on first read-through, just get a sample. It's been quite an entertaining read so far and not boring at all.

I've been sick the past few days which has limited my progress. I'm hoping to resume my previous pace soon but it's been nice getting reviews down a bit. Cue overused saying: it's a marathon, not a sprint! :lol:
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

bolaobo
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Re: Bolaobo Overextends With Too Many Languages in 2022

Postby bolaobo » Sun Dec 18, 2022 4:58 pm

I finished Le Russe Sans Peine L12, Le Persan Sans Peine L51, and Hindi ohne Mühe / Le Hindi L39

Clozemaster: 16,496 mastered sentences, Français from 中文 to level 67, 中文 from English to level 65, Español from Français to level 54, Français from Deutsch to level 88, Español from Deutsch to level 84, Italiano from Español to level 44

Not a very impressive update considering how much time has passed, but lesson are getting longer and reviews have to be kept up. Work has been pretty busy too.

I'll likely post an end-of-the-year update summarizing what I accomplished this year, and thoughts for next year, but I won't spend too much time making plans because my mood is so fickle and it's impossible to predict with certainty what I'm going to feel like doing.

I still lack focus, but I'm making progress and starting to find languages I enjoy more than others.

My Arabic motivation is still going strong, and I've done a lot of Persian and Urdu/Hindi lately. Most of my other languages are just doing the bare minimum to maintain because I might be interested in the future. Arabic averages 20-35 minutes of review a day and is consistently the language with the most to review, but progress in textbooks is slow since everything is foreign. When you consider the fact that I'm also doing a lot of Urdu and Persian, a good chunk of my daily practice is spent reading Arabic script and I'm seeing marked improvements.

Biblical Hebrew is likely abandoned. If I want to take up Hebrew in the future, it'll likely be starting with modern Hebrew because it provides more modern utility, is closer to Mishnaic Hebrew, and gets me a good chunk of the way to Biblical anyway. Learning Biblical Hebrew and the convoluted Tiberian vowel symbols that no one even pronounces is just a lot of work for little reward for a gentile whose scholary interest is not confined to the Old Testament.

Akkadian is still on the fence. It is also rather niche, and I'll likely never be effortlessly picking up random cunieform tablets and reading them, but I could see myself learning the fundamentals eventually. My vocabulary and grammar skills are almost non-existent, but I'm semi-fluently reading a few dozen cuneiform symbols and the sentences I've put into Anki. I'm maintaining these sentences and might put a few new ones into Anki.

I previously stated that I would never add another language family, but I'm increasingly unwilling to forgo Turkish. In the modern world, Turkish is a rising economy, a geopolitically important country, and has a lot of speakers, especially if you include the closely-related Azerbaijaini. It's also one of the few stable countries in the Middle East that one can actually visit. Historically speaking, the Ottoman Empire is hugely important to both Islamic history and world history as the center of the Islamic world for six centuries.

The problem is that although Ottoman Turkish synergizes excellently with Arabic and Persian, Atatürk's reforms throw a huge monkey wrench into things by separating the language into two distinct periods with the vocabulary purging and changing the script. I would have to either study one at expense of other or learn both Ottoman and modern, which represents a substantial effort.

I do think that both Ottoman and modern Turkish are underestimated by language learners. Ottoman seems to have a rich, rarely-translated poetic tradition, and this site has more Ottoman Turkish manuscripts than Persian, although Arabic dwarfs both of them with over twice as many as Ottoman and Persian combined. But while a lot of people study Arabic and Persian, Turkish, especially Ottoman, seems almost ignored in comparison. Even modern Turkish doesn't get that much love.

We'll see where my inclinations take me. Right not my main interest is in the (greater) Middle East, but we all know how often my interests change.
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

lichtrausch
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Re: Bolaobo Overextends With Too Many Languages in 2022

Postby lichtrausch » Sun Dec 18, 2022 7:17 pm

bolaobo wrote:I previously stated that I would never add another language family, but I'm increasingly unwilling to forgo Turkish.

I can totally relate. Another plus for Turkish is that the unfortunate circumstance of the Russo-Ukrainian War has likely accelerated the drift of Central Asia out of Russia's orbit, which I think over the coming years will mean increased vitality for their Turkic languages, and thus increased value of having a foothold in the Turkic languages through Turkish. I've also noticed that Turkey's economic dysfunction produces a very steady stream of ambitious Turkish immigrants into my city.
2 x

bolaobo
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Re: Bolaobo Overextends With Too Many Languages in 2022

Postby bolaobo » Sun Dec 18, 2022 9:20 pm

lichtrausch wrote:
bolaobo wrote:I previously stated that I would never add another language family, but I'm increasingly unwilling to forgo Turkish.

I can totally relate. Another plus for Turkish is that the unfortunate circumstance of the Russo-Ukrainian War has likely accelerated the drift of Central Asia out of Russia's orbit, which I think over the coming years will mean increased vitality for their Turkic languages, and thus increased value of having a foothold in the Turkic languages through Turkish. I've also noticed that Turkey's economic dysfunction produces a very steady stream of ambitious Turkish immigrants into my city.


I agree. That's one reason I mentioned geopolitics. I can definitely see Turkic languages becoming more important as Russia's influence wanes.
1 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

Lycopersicon
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Re: Bolaobo Overextends With Too Many Languages in 2022

Postby Lycopersicon » Sun Dec 18, 2022 10:26 pm

Well, if that can be of any help, I had a brief look at an Ottoman-era novel called Aşk-ı memnu (عشق ممنوع). I compared two versions, the original 1900 edition in the Perso-Arabic script and a contemporary adaptation into modern Turkish.

Judging from the first pages of the book, I would say that the unadapted content is extremely close to the modern version.

The only differences I’ve been able to spot on the first page is that the original edition uses the Persian ezafe, پُر for ‘dolu’ (‘full of’), لاقید for ‘kayıtsız’ (‘indifferent’) and نگاه for ‘gözleri’ (‘eyes’).

Coming from Persian (or Urdu), this looks far from insurmountable. You should definitely focus on modern Turkish; Ottoman Turkish will drop like a ripe plum. Also, there are plenty of Turkish textbooks for Osmanlıca anyway.
2 x

bolaobo
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Re: Bolaobo Overextends With Too Many Languages in 2022

Postby bolaobo » Mon Dec 19, 2022 12:48 am

Lycopersicon wrote:Well, if that can be of any help, I had a brief look at an Ottoman-era novel called Aşk-ı memnu (عشق ممنوع). I compared two versions, the original 1900 edition in the Perso-Arabic script and a contemporary adaptation into modern Turkish.

Judging from the first pages of the book, I would say that the unadapted content is extremely close to the modern version.

The only differences I’ve been able to spot on the first page is that the original edition uses the Persian ezafe, پُر for ‘dolu’ (‘full of’), لاقید for ‘kayıtsız’ (‘indifferent’) and نگاه for ‘gözleri’ (‘eyes’).

Coming from Persian (or Urdu), this looks far from insurmountable. You should definitely focus on modern Turkish; Ottoman Turkish will drop like a ripe plum. Also, there are plenty of Turkish textbooks for Osmanlıca anyway.


Thanks, that is very helpful. I'm actually currently reading "The Turkish Language Reform: A Catastrophic Success " to get an idea of the kind of changes that happened.

It is my impression that the Perso-Arabic words that made their way into common speech are still there, and for technical words, a lot of them were either replaced or are now used as synonyms for Turkish native words.

I'm actually surprised that your example from 1900 is so similar, but I guess it's because by the 1800s Ottoman Turkish was already starting to become more standardized/streamlined and authors were writing for a wider audience. For Turkish, it would probably make a lot of sense to start with modern and then gradually go back in time.
2 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

Caromarlyse
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Re: Bolaobo Overextends With Too Many Languages in 2022

Postby Caromarlyse » Mon Dec 19, 2022 7:26 am

lichtrausch wrote:
bolaobo wrote:I previously stated that I would never add another language family, but I'm increasingly unwilling to forgo Turkish.

I can totally relate. Another plus for Turkish is that the unfortunate circumstance of the Russo-Ukrainian War has likely accelerated the drift of Central Asia out of Russia's orbit, which I think over the coming years will mean increased vitality for their Turkic languages, and thus increased value of having a foothold in the Turkic languages through Turkish. I've also noticed that Turkey's economic dysfunction produces a very steady stream of ambitious Turkish immigrants into my city.


I have wanted to learn Turkish for a couple of years, and, with an interest in geopolitics, this desire is not waning! I keep trying to tell myself it's not a sensible idea, but...
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bolaobo
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Re: Bolaobo Overextends With Too Many Languages in 2022

Postby bolaobo » Sat Dec 24, 2022 5:11 pm

It is my final 2022 update! I maintained and improved (however slightly) previous languages, and set the foundation for years to come with new languages and skills. I also optimized my workflow and got better at putting sentences into Anki and using Audacity to remove silence, separate sentences and speed up lessons.

I finished Le Turc Sans Peine L1-L2, Le Persan Sans Peine L52 and L'Arabe L46

2022 Progress:

Assimil:

Japanese: L78 - L92
French: (Without Toil): L100 - L127
Spanish: L1-L27 (Without Toil) and L1-L9 (New Assimil / With Ease)
Latin: L10-L38
Arabic: L1-L46
Persian: L4-L52
Hindi: L30-L39
Russian: L1-L12
Bulgarian: L1-L7
Ukrainian: L1-L11
Italian: L1-L7
Turkish: L1-L2

Other textbooks:

A New Arabic Grammar: Chapter 1 - Chapter 12
Speaking Arabic: L1-L15
Introduction to Biblical Hebrew: Introduction and Chapter 1
A Grammar of Akkadian: Introduction and Chapter 1
Teach Yourself Urdu: Chapter 1-Chapter 2

General Skills:

Arabic/Persian/Urdu/Ottoman Turkish script (Naskh/Nastaliq/Ruqʿah styles)
Russian/Ukrainian/Bulgarian Alphabet
Hebrew script / diacritics
Arabic/Persian/Russian typing
Turkish alphabet / typing

1090 Total Kanji Count

95,857 Anki Reviews (262 a day):

French: 9907
Arabic (MSA): 16,968
Levantine: 5344
Persian: 11,875
Hindi/Urdu: 12,254
Japanese: 14,298
Latin: 5868
Spanish: 4690
Russian: 3999
German: 3740


Clozemaster has a crappy stats dashboard (they really need to improve this) but I averaged about 15 minutes of review day with a total of 16,576 mastered sentences now. Currently have a 780 day streak

Pleco also doesn't have a good way to track yearly stats but I would estimate I averaged about 35 reviews a day which would be a little under 13k reviews, mostly uncommon, literary, or classical words / Chengyu. Most of the reviews are individual words so not equal to a review in Anki, which is a whole sentence.

Looking at the review summary above makes it clear where my priorities were. Japanese reviews were higher than expected, but the new cards were front-loaded and the rest of the year was spent maintaining. Maintaining Japanese is quite a timesink, but it's not a language I'm willing to give up. MSA, especially if you combine it with Levantine, takes the top spot which isn't surprising considering how hard it is. The other top contenders for 2022 were Hindustani and Persian.

I'll most likely make a new thread for 2023 where I go into more reflections, but I'm happy with how this year went. I started exploring some languages that didn't materialize, or I got them to a level where I could casually study in Clozemaster (like Italian) but I don't regret any of the knowledge I obtained. I have a fickle personality and I sometimes have to explore my urges in order to get back on track.

I will continue this learning strategy in 2023. My method is to "never go backwards" and even if progress seems slow at times, it's because I'm also maintaining all previous lessons. Even though I only completed 14 Japanese lessons, I also solidified my previous knowledge and I feel more comfortable overall. That's the case for the other languages with "modest" progress as well. I think that's the best approach for someone like me, whose goals are always changing and who studies because he enjoys it, not for a short-term goal like traveling to a country or passing an exam where a more focused approach would be necessary. In addition, learning a language steadily and consistently over years makes it so much harder to forget than cramming it.

My motivation for Japanese nearly evaporated, and my motivation for Latin, which wasn't high to begin with, is even less now. Russian oscilates between wanting to learn it eventually and wanting to give it up, so I'm settling for studying it a little bit without forgetting it so I'm ready if I want to pick it up in the future.

My French has improved considerably, which I credit to all of the Assimil courses in French that I'm doing. My German has also improved, and is still my best foreign language after Chinese, but French is quickly catching up. My Spanish has also improved a lot, due to targeted study and the fact that I've already been studying it casually for a few years on Clozemaster.

In a future post or a new thread, I'll outline my plans for 2023 (which always change anyway) but it's looking like it's going to be a Middle East / South Asia year, with a focus Arabic and Persian and a secondary focus on Urdu and possibly Turkish. My passion for the near east isn't exactly new (after all, I started studying Hindi years ago) but it's definitely rekindled this year.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and best to luck to everyone in 2023!
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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