Sae's Log (Vietnamese, Tuvan & Mongolian)

[Sae]

I did double check the society's webpage yesterday, and it looks like they may not sell it anymore. They used to have a few other "manuals" like it too (Yakut and Chuvash). A shame really. They are a good spot to check for Mongolian resources though. I bought the Sain Baina Uu? series there. It was a bit pricy, but worth every penny.

Do you have a copy of "Let's Learn Tuvan"? If not, I have a copy I'd be willing to scan for you. I should note I won't be able to scan it until I'm with my scanner, and that's not going to happen until May. But if you don't mind waiting, I don't mind scanning it for your personal use. (Unfortunately I don't have the audio that was suppose to go with it.)

That's very kind, I can maybe let you know closer to around that time and let me know if I can offer anything for your time, but I've been trying to find it to no success, but by May it's possible I get lucky or will know whether or not I still need it (as I wouldn't want to waste your time).

But yeah I've seen the Yakut manual for sale too, it might be cool to get my mitts on that too, but I know I am unlikely to try learning it, but it might be interesting to see how it compares given I know they are related to each other. And I find Siberia in general to be an interesting part of the world.

And I will check out the store regardless because if they still have good Mongolian resources, it'd be useful to take a look.

[księżycowy]

Chances are probably pretty slim on your being able to actually use these, but there are 4 or 5 textbooks (written in Japanese, hence my opening line) for Tuvan here:
http://www.aa.tufs.ac.jp/en/publications/language-text

I have them on file for if/when my Japanese is good enough to fumble through a few lessons.

And yes, please, let's get in touch in the beginning of May after I'm back in the States and we can see about Let's Learn Tuvan.

[Sae]

Chances are probably pretty slim on your being able to actually use these, but there are 4 or 5 textbooks (written in Japanese, hence my opening line) for Tuvan here:
http://www.aa.tufs.ac.jp/en/publications/language-text

I have them on file for if/when my Japanese is good enough to fumble through a few lessons.

And yes, please, let's get in touch in the beginning of May after I'm back in the States and we can see about Let's Learn Tuvan.

Thanks, my Japanese is better than my Turkish or Russian, which are the other two languages I've seen stuff in so I'd probably have better luck even if it was something I tried to learn back when I was 16.

But funnily enough my brother and sister are learning Japanese though they are still beginners, but maybe something like Google lens can help, so long as the JP translations it offers aren't too terrible.

[księżycowy]

Yeah, I've got the Russian wall many a time trying to learn things spoken in Russia. I know very little Russian, and it's not up to bat yet for me. I have other priorities right now.

It makes sense, but it's still a bit surprising to me that there are Turkish resources for Tuvan. Huh, small world. (Not that I know any Turkish.)

I'll keep an ear to the ground and an eye to the sky. If I find anything I'll let you know.

If I haven't said it before, cool language choices too, by the way! Personally, I'm very interested in Vietnamese and Mongolian. I like reading your updates.

[Sae]

Yeah, I've got the Russian wall many a time trying to learn things spoken in Russia. I know very little Russian, and it's not up to bat yet for me. I have other priorities right now.

It makes sense, but it's still a bit surprising to me that there are Turkish resources for Tuvan. Huh, small world. (Not that I know any Turkish.)

I'll keep an ear to the ground and an eye to the sky. If I find anything I'll let you know.

If I haven't said it before, cool language choices too, by the way! Personally, I'm very interested in Vietnamese and Mongolian. I like reading your updates.

Thanks! Glad you like my updates, and I'll keep doing them though I sometimes forget.

I hear that Russian can be a challenging language to learn, but of course hope all goes well once you get around to it, I imagine it has pretty good resources for it. But I think chances are if I am going to try learning a Slavic language, Polish would probably be my first choice as I am more likely to speak it.

As for the Turkish, I know somebody earlier in the thread had a resource and I've seen some Tuvan songs translated into Turkish.


Also, as it's Christmas day and I like sharing videos. I'm just gonna throw this in:

[księżycowy]

I hear that Russian can be a challenging language to learn, but of course hope all goes well once you get around to it, I imagine it has pretty good resources for it. But I think chances are if I am going to try learning a Slavic language, Polish would probably be my first choice as I am more likely to speak it.

That's very interesting, as Polish is one of the languages I really want to learn next, when I feel ready to add a new language to my work load. My grandmother used to speak Polish, and ever since I found that out, I've wanted to learn it. And I've done some starts and stops through out the intervening years. I can't help but be curious why you want to learn it first among the Slavic languages.

Anyway, I'll stop invading your log now.

[Sae]

I hear that Russian can be a challenging language to learn, but of course hope all goes well once you get around to it, I imagine it has pretty good resources for it. But I think chances are if I am going to try learning a Slavic language, Polish would probably be my first choice as I am more likely to speak it.

That's very interesting, as Polish is one of the languages I really want to learn next, when I feel ready to add a new language to my work load. My grandmother used to speak Polish, and ever since I found that out, I've wanted to learn it. And I've done some starts and stops through out the intervening years. I can't help but be curious why you want to learn it first among the Slavic languages.

Anyway, I'll stop invading your log now.

There's a strong Polish community where I live and I have a couple of Polish friends too. So I think out of the Slavic languages, should I want to try learning one then Polish would be the most useful and also I like the aesthetics of the language too. One of my friends ended up learning Polish because he works with so many and he also went to Poland earlier this year and loved it, and I would be game to visit myself one day.

I think my runners up for languages I think would be good to learn after I've got my current ones to a satisfactory level would be one of:
Polish, Finnish, Japanese, Kazakh and Turkish.

[księżycowy]

I would absolutely love to visit Poland. Hopefully in the next year or two, provided I stay in Ireland. And that's cool that you have a good Polish community there. There seems to be a lot of Poles here in Ireland too, but I've only meant a few so far. Back in the States (where I'm originally from anyway, this is no general statement about the whole of the US) there's nothing but monolingual anglophones and your random East Asian (usually Chinese). Though in Rochester there's a better mix.

Cool runners up list too!

I'll let you get back to your present language now, though. And I'll keep in touch about the Tuvan.

[Sae]

I would absolutely love to visit Poland. Hopefully in the next year or two, provided I stay in Ireland. And that's cool that you have a good Polish community there. There seems to be a lot of Poles here in Ireland too, but I've only meant a few so far. Back in the States (where I'm originally from anyway, this is no general statement about the whole of the US) there's nothing but monolingual anglophones and your random East Asian (usually Chinese). Though in Rochester there's a better mix.

Cool runners up list too!

I'll let you get back to your present language now, though. And I'll keep in touch about the Tuvan.

I find a lot of British people are Monolingual too, which I guess makes sense with English as a lingua franca, but of course foreingers living here tend to bilingual or multilingual. But we do learn French or German in school (though maybe more for some schools) but it's not taught well, my German is terrible and I got a 'B' at the end of it.

[Sae]

I think I am going to do something maybe stupid, maybe not.
But I'll call it "Sae Fails a New Year's Resolution".

It's that time of year we optimistically fail to achieve the things want to, so why not set myself a goal designed to fail? And then try to be serious about achieving it.
We've seen the YouTube videos of "I learned 'x' in 6 weeks" and "how to learn a language in 1 month" and they feel like appropriately unrealistic goals to draw inspiration from.

The challenge:
Learn Mongolian to a conversational level
Time Limit: 40 Days
Deadline: 10th Feb

I only got a couple of days to plan it before the new year starts.

I want to:
- Get at least 1hr a day in of studied learning
- Still get my Vietnamese sessions in each week so I don't neglect it (but I can get away with 1 or 2 sessions a week)
- Immerse myself, turn my Facebook & YouTube to use Mongolian only. Try to read Mongolian news every day even though I don't understand it. Only watch videos that are in Mongolian with the exception of a friend sending me something to watch like a funny clip or something. Only listen to music that's in Mongolian.
- Get some few spoken sessions in for practice
- Produce some written work

My resources:
- My learning materials, such as: a Mongolian language book, a dictionary, notes I've taken, Nomin Ger
- Mongolian news sites
- Stories in Mongolian
- Several YouTube videos in Mongolian, like some Tuuli (storytelling), some Mongolian YouTubers and Artger
- A Mongolian ebook site (if it comes back online, if it doesn't I'll have to find another).
- A couple of Mongolian movies I've picked out, maybe I will try to find more.
- iTalki, I already found an iTalki tutor I have good rapport with
- A Mongolian Discord group I'm in.
- a huge library of Mongolian music
- Milk Vodka

Although the premise is tongue & cheek, if I take it seriously, I'll make the best progress I can and it'll be interesting to see how much it goads me and how much I progress, given my prior moderately casual approach to learning. Anything I don't achieve, I'll carry on past the deadline. But I can put the pressure on by arranging a session with my iTalki tutor for around the deadline to try to see how well I hold a conversation with her to gauge the success.