Peter's Bengali log

[peter]

First steps made...

A first few steps into my plan and I've kept at the idea of trying to speak Bengali where I can. Still mostly naming things, but I can name more now and construct some small sentences. I picked up some of the tricky Bengali numbers by trying to call out the numbers on car registration plates whilst driving.

I seem to have learnt around 100 words of the 625, and some of it is coming into active use where relevant. I've used my notebook more than Anki the last couple of days though. I've also reviewed the present tense from Radice so I can use most of the verbs I am learning.

Oh, and I regained enough familiarity with the script to use a (printed) Bengali dictionary! I find that very satisfying ...

[peter]

One week since starting the log!

Progress

My first step was to learn some vocabulary, and I started on a 625 word list. I have translated around half of this into Bengali. (A number of words on the list have been skipped as either the English word is used (like months) or the word isn't in the dictionary I'm using.) Much of that has been added in to Anki, which I'm trying to use for around 30 minutes a day. However, my "first learning" of the words is from my written notebook, which I find more convenient - also I'm in control of which words to learn. I'm hoping Anki will help with longer-term review/retention.

This morning I reviewed the words written so far in my notebook, and I remember around 80%, which I feel is good going for a week.

I have been fairly successful in coming up with sentences to describe things and events in a more active way. The new vocabulary is increasingly coming into use.

I've reviewed the first four chapters of Radice's grammar section, to help the construction of simple sentences. There's a temptation to move ahead, but I want to focus on using the words I am currently learning.

Apart from speaking, I think I will add some writing a couple of times a week. Writing will force me to know precisely the script (and hence sounds) for each word I am using. I can also put words which I'm struggling with into some context which should help me remember them later. Writing also persists, so I can check over time if and how I progress.

Ramble

I've also been searching around for language learning experiences and resources (such as this forum!) and learnt about the CEFR and language levels. The whole community is very inspiring, and make useful language learning sound much more achievable than I had believed. I expect I'll be making a more serious attempt with language skills when I next visit Europe - which probably means dusting off some German.

Understanding CEFR also explains why Radice's book is advertised as "Beginner to Intermediate". Learning all the grammar in the book and a reasonable vocabulary seems like it would bring you to the B1/B2 level - this seems to be the level where you are gaining facility in putting sentences together for yourself, using a wide range of grammar on a wide range of topics. (Of course CEFR requires listening and speaking skills as well as reading and writing.)

Onwards...

• Continue with the vocabulary list
• Focus on using new verbs etc in different sentences, to reinforce grammar
• Do some writing, and make use of the challenging vocabulary

[Saim]

I have a long-term goal. My wife-to-be is Bengali, and I would like to be able to speak with her somewhat in Bengali, and watch Bengali films/share books without subtitles/translation.

I don't know any Bengali, but I do know Punjabi and Hindi-Urdu (and I've seen Bengali film scenes and know that there's a similar dynamic at play) and when thinking about what media to consume you should keep in mind that most South Asian languages are diglossic and that the literary/official variant is not the same as what most film dialogues are in. The sort of speech you see in popular films often has a lot of code-switching with English and Anglicisms (making it a bit more transparent for English-speakers), whereas the news and most books will have a lot of Perso-Arabic vocabulary or Sanskritic neologisms (depending on the language). There is also a bit of a class division as middle- and upper-class people will often use a higher quantity of Anglicisms or code-switching.

So don't feel discouraged if reading skills and understanding the news take much longer to develop than understanding popular films or music, or find it easier to understand middle- or upper-class urbanites than people from lower social classes or villages. I'm at the level where I understand most of the dialogue in Hindi-Urdu cinema (unless it uses higher-register speech for whatever reason), and I'm only just starting to be able to follow the news well enough, but it's still torture for me to go through even a couple of pages of an Urdu novel.

Anyway good luck!

[peter]

when thinking about what media to consume you should keep in mind that most South Asian languages are diglossic and that the literary/official variant is not the same as what most film dialogues are in.

Thanks for describing this - and teaching me "diglossic"! The book I'm using by Radice has a section about the difference between sadhu and calit forms of the language, but I'm a long way from that part.

So don't feel discouraged if reading skills and understanding the news take much longer to develop than understanding popular films or music, or find it easier to understand middle- or upper-class urbanites than people from lower social classes or villages.

Yes, it can be easy to dive in too deep and drown. I opened up wikipedia in Bengali and also found a Bengali news channel, just to see what kinds of Bengali text there are out there. But these are way beyond me at present - I'm not much above a beginner's level.

My first aim is to communicate 'around the house', and I have some books for children which are on the verge of being readable.

[peter]

Progress

I managed quite a bit this weekend.

• Learnt around 70 words from my word list, and kept up with Anki.
• Described many steps in Bengali whilst preparing food.
• Wrote several sentences about the house and garden.
• Read a short story for children, from the Tuntuni Boi, or Tailor Bird book, covered by Radice in part 3. I had studied it some years before so was curious what I would make of it now. I can understand the story and most of the details of the words and grammar: a few words had just come up on my word list, which helped fill in some gaps.

[peter]

Progress

After two weeks I have made substantial progress on point 1 of my plan, which is "learn some basic vocabulary so I can name objects/actions around me". I have finished going through the 625 word list I started with, converting each word into Bengali in my notebook. Some words don't translate (e.g. January etc) or aren't in my pocket dictionary (e.g. lake), so I estimate I've ended up with around 500 words. I have made a fair attempt to memorise each page of words as I translated them, and also revised them. So far, I know a little over 80% of the words - that's giving the Bengali equivalent for the English word.

In addition, I have been using Anki, and have typed in much of the word list. 20 new words a day plus the review seems to give around 60 words, which I finish in 15-30 minutes. I started sceptical, but I'm gaining faith in Anki - Bengali words are popping into my mind now for terms I wasn't expecting to know!

Point 2 on my plan is "speak to myself with questions and answers to force that vocabulary into active use, using simple sentences". I'm getting considerably better with this, but need to broaden my scope with the words I have. Simply taking some words and trying to write out sentences to use the next day will help make them "active" vocabulary.

I take this less seriously, but I have also tried some courses on Memrise. There are a few Bengali courses with short but useful word lists which help reinforce some of what I've learnt from my word list.

To work on...

I need to do some focussed work on the conjuncts as I'm confusing the sounds of their written forms. There is a table at the back of Radice - I think I'll try to learn the whole table. Perhaps put it into Anki or Memrise for longer-term revision.

I am also checking how to write different tenses, especially simple past and future. Bengali verbs are more-or-less regular, so this is largely a matter of using the right endings. Although I didn't want to get sidetracked with learning more grammar this seems a simple extension, makes what I say more interesting and what I write more natural (I can write what I did and what I will do).

I'm overdue for an eye test and new glasses - sometimes I can't make out printed Bengali!

Ramble

There's a strange 'crossover' in the verb endings across tenses which disturbs Bengali's otherwise regular pattern.
The 'present' tenses use the endings -o and -e for 2nd and 3rd person familiar, whereas the 'past' tenses have -e and -o, respectively.

In the present tense we have: you do - tumi koro তুমি করো , he does - se kore সে করে
That's an -o ending for second person and an -e ending for third person (both the familiar form).
This is the same in present continuous and perfect tenses.

In the future, it's -e in both: you will do - tumi korbe তুমি করবে , he will do - se korbe সে করবে

But in the simple past, past perfect, past continuous, it's -e for second person and -o for third person.
So we have: you did - tumi korle তুমি করলে , he did - se korlo সে করলো

Resources

A list of the books and materials I have.

For learning the language:

1. William Radice's Teach Yourself Bengali: this is my main resource. I aspire to complete part II and so learn a good segment of Bengali grammar. Part III introduces pieces of Bengali literature, from children's stories to more advanced, and more advanced grammar alongside.
2. Bengali Phrasebook from the Lonely Planet: has a 1000 word glossary and many useful phrases.
3. Let's Learn Bengali from the Bengali Workers' Assocation: written mostly for Bengali speakers I think, but goes from the script up to some useful dialogues. There are also pieces of written Bengali covering topics like places in London.
4. The AQA provides a description of its GCSE specification, including an approximately 4,500 word vocabulary: http://filestore.aqa.org.uk/subjects/AQA-4635-W-SP-14.PDF

Dictionaries:

1. Samsad's dictionaries. The Bengali-English one is useful, but the English-Bengali one does not give the natural translations.
2. Gulam Murshid's pocket sized dictionary is what I've been using for my word list. It has around 3,500 words B-E and 2,000 words E-B.

Literature:

1. Five graded readers for children: useful for some practice, but the vocabulary is rooted in rural environments and needs work to translate.
2. Series of stories for children titled the "Tailor Bird's Book", bought as one story is covered in Radice's book. Should soon be readable as the grammar is simple and vocabulary repetitive.
3. Poems by Tagore, a couple of which I have had explained to me and so can read with some understanding.
4. A selection of other books picked up in a Delhi bookshop "because I was there": children's versions of classic tales such as from the Ramayana.

[peter]

Progress

Two things completed so far:

• I made a simple Memrise course to help me learn Bengali conjuncts. It was a surprise to see how many of them there are when typed out - 222! https://www.memrise.com/course/1679396/bengali-conjuncts/
• I finished adding my 500 (approx) words to Anki. I do a "set" each day with Anki, which takes 15-30 minutes.

I also found a better website to enter Bengali text (the page supports many languages): http://www.lexilogos.com/keyboard/bengali.htm

Now that I am not creating and memorising word lists, I have time for some writing practice to use the words in context. I'll aim to write something each day to the end of the month: I hope to be familiar with almost all the 500 words by then.

Ramble

Nothing to do with language as such, so perhaps this can be filed under cultural immersion? I started to read "The Bengal Renaissance" by Subrata Dasgupta (reread rather, as I read it first in 2008). The book looks at various artists, scientists etc such as Bose, Tagore, Vivekananda, giving some background and other information about their contributions.

[peter]

Serendipity, the little motivational pushes which keep the routine learning going!

I finished my session with Anki this morning feeling like it was a little more work than fun. How have I memorised the word for "court" so well but not "bedroom"? It took a few goes to remember the word for "to kill", which is হত্যা করা Also I had to check my understanding of a conjunct to discover I was using the wrong breakdown (ণ্ড is not g + u but n + d ! I blame my glasses... g + u is গু ). Anki also threw up a word for "top" which I was unsure of - I already know a word for top as in "top of a table", and this was not it. Do I need two words for "top"?

However, payback came very soon, as I tried to get over the work feeling by scanning the Bengali BBC news site for things I recognised. There's a picture of a tiger which caught my eye and what did I find? That word for "court" appears in the main headline and, thanks to the word for "to kill" I had learnt just minutes before, I could read the picture caption without help: দু্ই বছর বয়সী এই বাঘিনী চারজনকে হত্যা করেছে "this 2-year old tigress has killed 4 people".

And on the right side of the screen I see that pesky word for "top": শীর্ষ খবর "Top news". A more careful check and yes, there is a separate word for top if it means position/rank as opposed to a surface. So that's a useful lesson learnt.

Persistence is useful. But these little discoveries when using the "real" language help prove that the persistence is paying off.

I need to:

• Keep working on those conjuncts, and watch out for any that are visually similar.
• Trust the word list, but do some research on any words that appear to be duplicates of others, and perhaps most words.
• Make an effort to find "real" uses of as much of the word list as possible, and write out sentences/phrases. Words must be understood in context.

I want to do some writing in Bengali this evening - I think I'll write about the poor tiger.

[peter]

Progress

Mid-week progress check, and today Anki has shown me all the words I added to the deck! There are around 500 words in there, which are the focus of my first month or two since restarting Bengali learning. For the next couple of weeks I aim to review those words and make most of them part of my active vocabulary.

Towards that, I have been filling out a page or two in my notebook in Bengali. Mostly I am repeating some of the grammar examples/exercises from Radice's book with the new vocabulary to create phrases and sentences. This I hope will both reinforce the grammar and the new words. I also do some free-writing from time to time, trying to describe my day or make something up, just to practice writing sentences. I do better during the day, as I form sentences from whatever is around me - this has almost become a habit, with Bengali now popping in to my head for simple things.

My new Memrise course on conjuncts is useful drill practice. I do some every day, and it's helping me pay closer attention to how they are formed and exceptions to some of the "rules" I thought they had.

I found some cartoons on Youtube with Bengali voices. I don't really want to watch cartoons, but I think it's good practise for my ear. At least, I can make out more than I can from other videos I've tried, and they tend to repeat phrases which also helps.

Ramble

I see people on this forum using a nice word "wanderlust" - I think I may be catching this. Late at night, something in my head keeps telling me German would probably be easy to revise and bring back to some basic level... Especially as I see the gains I'm making in Bengali with such a short amount of effort. I don't want to get distracted, so I'm putting the thought down here and in my profile, to keep it contained. Next year! First I'll get Bengali up to speed.

[peter]

Progress

It's now a full four weeks since starting this log, and a full four weeks of consistent language learning! I've a feeling this is the most intensely I've ever worked on a language: I've been studying between 10-15 hours a week (between Anki, reading and writing), and that's apart from my self-talk and trying to recall grammar throughout the day - there's probably an extra hour a day in the car where I try to recall all the pronouns, or conjugate different verbs in the tenses I know, along with constructing and saying sentences.

My first goal, to learn an initial word list, seems to be going well. I have 500 words in Anki which I'm now reviewing (no new cards). Many of these words have become very familiar to me, and I'm increasingly noticing them when I look at "real" material, such as news stories or books. As I wrote earlier, this serendipity is very encouraging and I'm learning to look harder behind case endings and the like for words I may know.

The second goal, to speak in simple sentences to describe things and actions around myself, is also progressing well. I think the written exercises I am doing is helpful, as I practise writing the phrases and sentences to use later.

Today my partner and I went over a Tagore song she was hearing on Youtube. That gave me some speaking practice, as I recited the words while she explained the meaning. There's a lot of new vocabulary in there, but I hope to memorise enough to follow the song with understanding.

Ongoing

I still need to work on the word list to have it fully learnt. I thought it would take 1-2 months, so I'm happy with the progress so far.

I now plan to move ahead with Part II of Radice's book, which covers various aspects of grammar. I would like to know Part II by the end of the year. At first, I shall review the grammar sections and rewrite the examples to exercise my current vocabulary. At some point (when I think my current word list is 90% done), I shall start to learn the vocab in the book. Radice's glossary has around 1600 terms, and the dialogues provide context for most of it.