Whodathunkitz log French, Tagalog, Dutch, Cebuano, Spanish, Esperanto

[Whodathunkitz]

French 8 day progress (started 19 November 2019).

6 of 40 Thinking Method French audio completed (but worth listening to several times probably, building up reaction speeds).

9300 word Jesus film watched / synchronised in Readlang. Lots wasn't absorbed, some was. I could often work out what part of the story was being discussed.

This will help with any French gospel listening/reading on my commute* as I have more vocabulary now. I listened to Matthew, Mark and Luke - English wordcount according to a random site is around 50,000 words - so presumably similar or longer in French.

That's very encouraging as the (first) aim is just to load up my brain, learn sounds and let it map out interesting and frequent words to learn in other contexts (readlang, apps, videos). Then I can keep repeating the 3 gospels and pick up more each time.

I found myself muttering in a sort of French way a few times when tired/absent-minded. Few French words and a sort of French accent. Weird but good sign.

Second aim is to experiment in learning techniques and resources for other languages whether materials are plentiful (French) or not (Cebuano, Taglish). Especially keen on a mostly native material approach and emphasis on sound (listening/reading) as I tend to focus on written.

*Commute is difficult (mostly standing/crowded seating for 3-4 hours a day - hot and not great - knackering in fact), so I have done a few apps rather than listening with headphones.

But I SHOULD do mostly Listening/speaking (no chance of latter yet) instead of apps. Apps are just easier/safer when trains are crowded.


Duolingo: - Just discovered you can test out of a level (I forgot) - only done 4 times, progress is all of part 1 - 15 out of 140 done (at Level 1 Crowns). For my own interest
Level-Number of lessons
1-10
2-22
3-21
4-24
5-22
6-15
7-17
8-11
=============
8 sections -140 lessons in Total

10000 sentences:-95/10000

Memrise:- found some idiom courses and played a bit

[Whodathunkitz]

Oh dear, due to strike, am going straight to Italy via Switzerland.... no time to get into Italian but might dabble while there.

[Whodathunkitz]

Big road trip over Xmas/New Year from Uk to Italy. Countries stayed in:- France, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Belgium.

Languages spoken / attempted! during trip:-

French (minimal exposure previously, listening to 2 books of French bible, 10000 sentences, duolingo over a few days. Managed to use it for hotel/food)
German (some knowledge at school but NO conversational ability at school. Perhaps as I'm more relaxed now, I just got stuck in and it seemed to flow in some contexts, no recent learning though. Mostly in Hesse, Germany, some in Switzerland, one person (child) only had German as a language).
Italian (I did some duolingo and 10000 sentences and then tried variations on Spanish. I could read a bit and I attempted talking even when other person knew English, I'd repeat back in what I imagined the Italian would be. Sometimes good, sometimes not but muddled through, smiling)
Cebuano (meeting with friends - pretty fluid but all mixed up with German and English (fluid rather than fluent - no hangups in just chatting in whatever worked and switching between / repeating in more than one language as part of conversational agreement - 'really? Work?' / 'diay? trabaho?))
Nederlands / Vlaams (3 day stay in Belgium plus some Nederlands on road trip with other travellers - read quite a lot, ok. Spoke a bit but more as part of reply confirmations in restaurant/hotels.)

[Whodathunkitz]

Another massive gap in logging.

Cebuano at home every day, some study but not much. Textbook, Memrise (some course records) but a bit dry. Not really taken by any youtube etc, just watched a few.

Spanish, starting to get back into, watching on Netflix (couldn't use it for some reason until recently) with audio and subtitles in European Spanish when I can as it's normally quite loud in the house. Did some lyricstraining (choice not type).

When I was commuting every day, I did a lot of 10,000 sentences in a variety of languages, all kinds. I just did it as an experiment/play and chose languages of some people I worked with or knew socially. It was amazing how much I could guess even initially and after a few hundred sentences.

[Whodathunkitz]

Big gap in logging as I'm not doing very much. Cebuano speaking every day, sometimes memrise, 10,000 sentences, media in other languages. Holidays to Spain, spoke some Spanish (good vocabulary, terrible grammar & pronunciation/prosody), Hindi (greetings, odd things).

Might be off to Denmark (Billund, Lego) soon. First few videos on Danish makes it seem confusing. Oh well, see if I can get some basics in next few weeks.

Danish resources welcome, I'd prefer to go the oral/aural route as previously I've got stuck with good vocab but terrible everything else.

[Whodathunkitz]

Denmark trip off.

Back to a little Cebuano learning via ChatGPT (combining a few instructions in one).

"Act as a spoken Cebuano (also known as Bisaya) teacher and improver. I will speak to you in Cebuano and you will reply to me in Cebuano to practice my spoken Cebuano.Translate your answers into English to help me only if I ask you.

I want you to:
- Keep your reply neat, limiting the reply to 100 words.
- Point out and correct all the conjugation, spelling, grammar, and other mistakes I make, that's the most important.
- Ask me a question in your reply.

Your questions should always be in Cebuano and you should use English only to explain my mistakes. Please add translation of each newly used word under your reply in a table.

Now let’s start practicing, you could ask me a question first."

Had a conversation about history & religion.

Then had a go at conversations
Prompt from me : "Salamat, palihug suwat ang example sentence sa conversation sa mga amigo" Thanks, please write an example of conversation of friends

Response:

"Mao kini ang example sentence sa usa ka conversation sa mga amigo:

Amigo 1: "Kumusta, unsa imong kahimtang karon?"
Amigo 2: "Maayo kaayo! Nagpuyo ko karon sa Cebu City."
Amigo 1: "Nindot kaayo didto! Kanus-a ta magkita para mag-inom og kape?"
Amigo 2: "Karon lang ko busy, pero sunod semana libre na ko. Tara kita!"
Amigo 1: "Sige, kita ta sunod semana. Kita-kits!"
Amigo 2: "Salamat, amigo! Kita-kits!"

Translation:

Friend 1: "Hello, how are you doing now?"
Friend 2: "I'm doing very well! I'm currently living in Cebu City."
Friend 1: "That's great! When should we meet up for coffee?"
Friend 2: "I'm busy for now, but I'll be free next week. Let's meet up!"
Friend 1: "Alright, let's meet next week. See you!"
Friend 2: "Thank you, my friend! See you!""

[Whodathunkitz]

In case useful:-

"Please provide a translation table of bisaya words used in the whole conversation together with translation into English and in the third column add a frequency count. Order by frequency descending"

Credit for inspiration: https://twitter.com/itsPaulAi/status/16 ... 4122643456

[Whodathunkitz]

Practiced Cebuano and Spanish at a party with Cebuanos and a Chavacano (mix of Spanish, Hiligaynon & Cebuano, perhaps some kind of creole). I was surprised at how fluid (not fluent) I was at Spanish. By fluid I mean not stuttering, not translating, just using Spanish words in the conversational flow.

[Whodathunkitz]

I started reverse Duolingo course English for Tagalog speakers. Did well on questions, but unsure of how to say no to offers etc. Bit slow.

Trying Memrise now - faster to use - https://app.memrise.com/aprender/learn?course_id=300145

Kiddo tiny bit interested in learning German. Hunting for resources.

I liked a video using Pyramids for Spanish but haven't found one for German yet.

Wasn't this video, but same youtube channel - https://youtu.be/ivdvIWwnqX0?t=2198

[untrucdeouf]

I started reverse Duolingo course English for Tagalog speakers. Did well on questions, but unsure of how to say no to offers etc. Bit slow.

I'm relatively new here and it's nice to see another active Tagalog learner on the forum. I've also been using the reverse English for Tagalog speakers course, but I've been going back and forth on how useful it actually is. I feel like what I really need to get comfortable with is 'ang' phrases, but the Duolingo course is instead drilling me on the inverted 'ay' sentence form -- and I'm a lazy native English speaker who finds it easy to default to sentences in SVO order! Maybe this is less of an issue for you since it looks like you've been studying Cebuano for a while. (Though I'm not familiar with Cebuano grammar, so I could be wrong.) Would be interested to hear your thoughts after you've spent more time with the course!