Sae's Log (Vietnamese, Tuvan & Mongolian)

[zenmonkey]

In semi-related news, I got tickets to go see The Hu, this is going to be my 4th attempt to go see them...lets hope nothing screws this up.

Hey, thanks for posting this. I just saw that they are playing here in August and got tickets. Perfect birthday gift!

[Sae]

Welp, I finished lesson 8 and reviewed all my cards yesterday and it doesn't look like Mango is offering any more lessons, which can't be right as they advertised it as a whole course and I am subscribed too. I've put a support ticket out, but I'm hoping this isn't all they have for Tuvan, else I'm going to have to look elsewhere and it'd be a damn shame because I actually like how Mango works, and I don't for most language learning apps. Unless somebody who uses Mango knows there could be something I'm missing lol. Because the Tier I'm subscribed to says I have access to "Endangered and Indigenous Languages" (which includes Tuvan) plus 1 Premium language (I've picked Vietnamese).



[edit]

I got a response, turns out that is all the Tuvan material they have, it just wasn't clear. I've given a bit of feedback as I think it's a great learning tool, but something to just indicate that it's introductory would remove confusion and maybe some resources to follow up on would help, because I think it's good as an introduction to it and I like their learning method, so I am kinda sad it wasn't longer. But I see "Transparent" also do Tuvan, so I'll give their trial ago, because I am not sure I can budget in a Tuvan tutor just yet. And I guess having nothing to follow up on kinda adds an obstacle to their campaign to promote endangered languages.

In semi-related news, I got tickets to go see The Hu, this is going to be my 4th attempt to go see them...lets hope nothing screws this up.

Hey, thanks for posting this. I just saw that they are playing here in August and got tickets. Perfect birthday gift!

No problem, hope you enjoy

[Sae]

As it turned out that Mango was an introductory course to Tuvan I've been trialling "Transparent" Languages and I think Mango has worked out to be a good kickstart, because it covered some grammar basics that Transparent doesn't seem to have. I know not all language learning methods use it, though I prefer it, but it at least gave me some insight to some of the mentality behind Tuvan sentence structures to make it easier for me to pick out how phrases are working.

But overall, it seems decent enough. It has enough repetition and tries to drill what you learn down with multiple exercises combining reading, listening, speaking and writing. And I will give it kudos in it lets you compare your voice with a native speaker and also has the best speech recognition option I've seen so far and it will rate you on your accuracy but it will not roadblock you for poor pronunciation, but records that it was poor with the option to revisit later.

Transparent also covers Vietnamese and Mongolian, so it may be worth me getting it for all languages. I'll maybe test the water with Mongolian on it before my trial is up.

I am still practicing Vietnamese conversations, we covered family the other day and covered friends today as topics. So far we've practiced food (cooking, buying & eating), talking about work, talking about the plans for the day/week, talking about hobbies, the heat, family and friends. He is challenging me more and more and letting me get away with less, which is good. We also started getting in some writing practice now, which I think is what I need, because how we're doing it is forcing me to try to do as much as I can from memory, which I think will aid how I hear, say and write tones & accents will benefit.

Out of interest I asked my throat singing teacher about Tuvan storytelling, as storytelling as a folk tradition is something I'm interested in (and have performed before). I learned that there's not a lot of storytellers left but their cultural center is trying to preserve it. He said he may be able to get a hold of some recordings from a friend of his in Tuva, so it'll be awesome if he can. It's hard to find much of this stuff on YouTube sadly.

[Sae]

It's been a while since I've posted, it's more that er...I've not really browsed the forum rather than not pursuing my learning. But to update.

Vietnamese is going well, we're still practicing conversations and getting stronger at them, with improvements to speed and me answering more quickly and trying different ranges of topics. And my tutor has been increasing the difficulty and enforcing me to use a wider range of adjectives. But I think I am still weakest when it comes to writing, so I have done some writing, but need to do more. I think writing will help with my tone too.

Alongside that, I've been looking at options to better immerse myself with the language, I started trying to read newsfeeds in Vietnamese, but there's still a lot of words I don't know, so it's a challenge, but one of the main things I've been thinking about is listening to Vietnamese speakers speak naturally, which is where normally I "blank" and I've seen a couple of videos that have been good at explaining why and exposure is starting to help.

And I've also finally found Vietnamese music more to my taste to help me get used to some of those sounds too. So in my usual fashion, here, have a music video in Vietnamese.



With Tuvan, I think I got off to a great start, because Mango was such a good resource for it, but I've struggled to keep the motivation with "Transparent Languages" but the problem is, the resources for Tuvan are limited. So I am looking around for other resources, but may hold off until I can afford a tutor, as I have a resource there. And I am not in a rush to learn it because I will need to learn enough to help my singing, which I can learn through my singing lessons and I don't know when I'll actually go to Tuva, with how things are with Russia, it's impossible to make future plans at this time.

So I have decided instead, I'll get started with my Mongolian. Because I already have a future plan and now is probably a good time to get started, because next year I plan to go to Vietnam and Mongolia the year after. And after mentioning this in an online group I'm in for learning the Morin Khuur, I've already got one offer to show me around. And the good thing is, with Mongolian speakers in that group, I have a place to practice.

And the first few interesting points about getting started with Mongolian that I've noticed:
Like Japanese and to some degree German, it is SOV, so in having tried to learn Japanese and German, I think my brain is already wired to deal with that shift. And there's verb conjugation that seems so far to work in similar way to Japanese.
Like Tuvan, there's vowel harmony, which is a nice poetic feature I like.
Like Welsh, there's the "ll" sound, which as a Welshman (only by technicality), I appreciate it, though I don't speak Welsh myself.

[Sae]

Further update, I might look at getting a Mongolian tutor and have looked at potential people to approach as I might be able to afford it if it's once a week, but I have got some headstart with some of the grammar and improving my Cyrillic reading and some vocabulary.

With Vietnamese, we've moved away from practicing and focusing on my adjectives and are going to move onto something else tomorrow and I am trying to get into a better habit of practicing outside of lessons but I have been watching more source material to just get more input that I usually do. And found some TV shows. I watch a lot of Dragon's Den (dunno why), and there's a Vietnamese version of Shark Tank, so I might swap out my Dragon's Den for that.

Though my Tuvan is on hold, though I am learning Tuvan throatsinging, so there will be some language I pick up through that. The day has come where I am now going to be learning and practicing my first song and it's one that I've picked, which is Daglarym. We went through the lyrics in my lesson today to just work on my Tuvan pronunciation so I can start learning the song, so I can focus on pronunciation and melody first. However, it is a beautiful song.

Here is a version below:


And the transliterated lyrics:

Talygyrga choraashtyŋ
Daglarymny saktyr men.
Tanyvazym kadarchy
Taalanchyg yrlap keer.
Tanyvazym kadarchy
Taalanchyg yrlap keer.

Ujaranchyg yrydan
Urug chash shaam saktyr men.
Xajalarga öshkü dozup,
Xalyp-maŋnap choruur men.
Xajalarga anaj, öshkü dozup,
Xalyp-maŋnap choruur men.

And in English:

When I’m traveling far away,
I often remember my mountains.
Sweet shepherd’s song,
Recalls that time to me.

Sad sweet ballad,
Memories of childhood suddenly appear,
As though I were again
Chasing after sheep in the mountain.

[Sae]

I went ahead and found a Mongolian tutor. I found a way to budget one. I did a trial session on Monday and did a full lesson today. I am glad I have, I like the teaching style so far, because in both sessions we put what I learned to form a basic conversation, but learning new words and grammar along the way. The fact I had started learning Tuvan has helped, it helped me learn some Cyrillic and there's things they share I was able to carry over. I noticed when learning Tuvan there's the question word 'be', which I'd sometimes hear as 've' like in "eki tur siler be" as it's still written as 'be'. 'Be' is also a question word in Mongolian, but it seems it can change between 'be' and 've' based on vowel sounds and that the 've' is written. Which makes sense because both languages use vowel harmony.

I also like that all the written words she gives me are all in Cyrillic, she gave me the choice of learning in the Latin alphabet, but this is forcing me to get used to reading them and having that pressure is helping me focus on them better, as I am still slow on reading Cyrillic.

And I like the language so far. It feels more approachable than when I started with Vietnamese, but Vietnamese is also the furthest I've got with a second language, so maybe that learning a language has put me at an advantage and getting over what I struggled with and wiring my brain better for picking this stuff up. And maybe there's that relief from not having tones. Though I do love the Vietnamese language, it is the part I have struggled with the most.

Though admittedly, there were moments in today's lesson I had to resist giving answers in Vietnamese because my temptation was to give fuller answers and without the Mongolian vocabulary to do it, my brain tried pulled words from Vietnamese...which I think is a good sign for my Vietnamese.


I also managed to find a book of Tuvan texts, they're the Jangar dialect, which tends to be spoken in China, but I expect they'll still be really good to have. It was a little expensive and won't get it until the end of the month because of delivery time, but there are stories in there and it has English translations so it'll be good to have.

[Sae]

And today, I went from a Vietnamese lesson straight in a singing on. The Vietnamese one was short and just praciticing conversation and tomorrow should be writing practice, which is my weakness as I've stated before.

My Tuvan throatsinging lesson ended up being a language lesson too. As I am learning my first song, we've been focusing on Tuvan pronunciation and sounding like a Tuvan as it'll help the song sound correct. And I think it highlights something interesting when comparing learning a language for singing and learning a language for speech. I no doubt sound English when I speak Vietnamese because of my accent. Whereas, with Tuvan for singing, we're having to be really pedantic about the sound, but maybe when it comes to it, I may be able to use the same approach to improve my accent with other languages. It is the Tuvan 'R' I probably struggle with the most alongside the 'G', but the long vowels sounds are fairly easy if I pretend I'm a Geordie.

The guy teaching me is also learning Mongolian as he's living there for the foreseeable future and he offered to practice some time too. And now I realise I have a pretty good social circle for learning Mongolian, I have a lot of input material, I have reading material, people who speak the language, people who are learning too and of course a tutor. I feel like this is something I need to replicate for my Vietnamese too, because most of my exposure is my tutor and videos I watch on YouTube like Phuc Map's channel.

[boracasli98]

There is a book about Tuvan with over 1000 pages called "Tuva Türkçesi Grameri" by Vildan Koçoğlu Gündoğdu, published by the Turkish Language Society (TDK), but the book is in Turkish and the Tuvan parts are written in a transcription alphabet based on the Turkish Latin alphabet. They also have an online shop where they sell books published by themselves and I found out they also ship overseas.

[Sae]

There is a book about Tuvan with over 1000 pages called "Tuva Türkçesi Grameri" by Vildan Koçoğlu Gündoğdu, published by the Turkish Language Society (TDK), but the book is in Turkish and the Tuvan parts are written in a transcription alphabet based on the Turkish Latin alphabet. They also have an online shop where they sell books published by themselves and I found out they also ship overseas.

Thanks, and good call. I'll see if I can get a hold of it. Though I don't speak Turkish, I may be able to use a Turkish dictionary, or see if my Mongolian tutor would be willing help as she speaks it.

Fortunately my book of Tuvan Texts comes tomorrow, it's the Jungar dialect, but I am told it is mutually intelligible with the dialects spoken in Tuva.

And I'd maybe try to put my own study materials together from these resources when I get started with it again, which I feel may end up being the best bet. But in the mean time, I'm happy picking up as many resources as I can.

[boracasli98]

hanks, and good call. I'll see if I can get a hold of it. Though I don't speak Turkish, I may be able to use a Turkish dictionary, or see if my Mongolian tutor would be willing help as she speaks it.

Fortunately my book of Tuvan Texts comes tomorrow, it's the Jungar dialect, but I am told it is mutually intelligible with the dialects spoken in Tuva.

And I'd maybe try to put my own study materials together from these resources when I get started with it again, which I feel may end up being the best bet. But in the mean time, I'm happy picking up as many resources as I can.

I've just checked the Jungar Tuvan words in the Turkic database and some words I've encountered are just like in my native Turkish, which belongs to the Oghuz branch of the Turkic languages. And also it seems to contain more words of Turkic or even Persian origin, like "alma" (apple), "nan" (bread), "ok" (arrow), "öw" (house) and "bal" (honey).