Peter's Bengali log

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peter
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Posts: 64
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Languages: English (N)
Studying:
Bengali (mostly harmless)
German (beginner)
Latin (beginner)
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Re: Peter's Bengali log

Postby peter » Tue Oct 24, 2017 6:43 pm

Ramble

I was thinking last night about languages I have had some contact with and those which I might have some motivation for dabbling in or learning.

Learning

  1. Bengali is occupying all my time at present. I like the language, how it looks and sounds, and hope to stick with it until I reach a decent level. I should have the grammar in my book down by the end of this year, and will develop productive skills along with reading and listening next year.
  2. German will be next. I took GCE O'level long ago and used the language a little for travel, so I should recall the basics. I would like to ultimately gain a decent level here as well. I might use one of the Goethe Institut tests as a target next year, if the Bengali is stable.
(By "decent level" I probably mean B2 in the CEFR scale.)

Who knows

  1. Cornish: A "rainy day" language. I'm intrigued by the type of language, and visit the county often. Something to have fun with one summer.
  2. French: I studied this to GCE O'level, but have done little since. Its appeal is for travel and visits to France.
  3. Hindi: for travel in India. All I would need here are basic speaking/listening skills about touristy things. Perhaps the script too, for reading road signs. I may be able to leverage my improving Bengali knowledge later (and I've seen some nice "learn Hindi from Bengali" resources too!).
  4. Italian: again for travel. Apart from India, I've visited Italy more times than any other country and will surely do so again.
  5. Latin: my third language studied to GCE O'level. Part of me would enjoy reading texts in Latin.
  6. Romanian: I may have a dabble next year to understand its phonology and basic grammar, as part of a work project processing Romanian text. Having read a little about the language it seems an interesting challenge as well, so I may get a bit further than that.
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"strange accents do not mar fair speech" - Beregond, Return of the King.

peter
Yellow Belt
Posts: 64
Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2017 3:23 pm
Languages: English (N)
Studying:
Bengali (mostly harmless)
German (beginner)
Latin (beginner)
x 93

Re: Peter's Bengali log

Postby peter » Sat Oct 28, 2017 4:37 pm

Progress

I am maintaining around 10-15 hours work a week:

  • My 500 words in Anki are now feeling much more familiar. Half of them are in the "mature" group, and I seem to recall quite a lot of words with scarcely any effort. Other words find me reconstructing, as I slowly remember what I was forgetting before.
  • I have continued with writing around a page a day using the exercises in my book, redoing the exercises but including words from my word list, and free-writing whatever I am able to express. The free-writing is becoming easier, and I can cover more subjects. It's almost a diary.
  • I can talk reasonably well now about the house, in the office and the car. Nouns, verbs and typical cases are falling into place more naturally.
  • Reading out loud is harder though - I get tripped up in cases like কে "ke" vs কো "ko", as my eye does not pick up the trailing bar quick enough before I've started saying "ke". I'm trying to train myself to focus on the consonant and pick up the surrounding vowel form as a whole.

Ongoing

I had planned to spend November studying Part II of my book to bring my knowledge "up" a notch. Part II covers the main grammar taught in the book as well as an increasingly complex series of dialogues showing the grammar and glossary used in context: Radice's glossary has around 1600 words. The enlarged grammar and vocabulary should help me understand and write/speak a wider range of ideas. My plan is to learn this in a focussed burst, make a coherent summary of the grammar, and then spend time practising and reinforcing what I have learnt.

Fortuitously, there's a 6 week challenge starting on this forum! I shall register and log my times. I will use two tags to see how my time is spent:

  • #vocab for working on word lists and using Anki
  • #writing for writing exercises or free-writing to exercise the grammar
Aims for my challenge are:

  1. Fully understand and practise all the grammar of Part II
  2. Learn at least a further 500 words from the glossary (then I'll have learnt 1000 words in total by the end of the year, which seems a good target)
  3. Become practised at conjugating different verbs - I should not have to "work out" the vowel mutation, stem and ending in popular cases. I'm thinking of creating a computer program or list: as I work through my list of verbs, I'll get thrown a random person and tense and have to respond as correctly and quickly as possible...

I visited the library today and Michel Thomas called my name - I had seen his course discussed here and curiosity won the day. It's the "Master class German". I'll hear it in the car over the next few weeks, when I'm too tired to go over Bengali.
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"strange accents do not mar fair speech" - Beregond, Return of the King.

peter
Yellow Belt
Posts: 64
Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2017 3:23 pm
Languages: English (N)
Studying:
Bengali (mostly harmless)
German (beginner)
Latin (beginner)
x 93

Re: Peter's Bengali log

Postby peter » Sat Nov 04, 2017 11:02 am

Progress

  • I have increased my vocabulary list in Anki by 100 words from my book's glossary: total words now over 600.
  • Finished going through 6 of the chapters in Part II of Radice's book, which is half way.
  • I wanted to add something for the 6 week challenge: listening practice. The BBC has audio programmes in Bengali. These are clearly enunciated, and, when I concentrate, I can follow most of the words and pick out what I know.
  • I started to use a Bengali keyboard, which should improve the quantity and variety of written output.
  • I started a Memrise course which drills some of the verb conjugations, and I continue with my conjuncts.
Ongoing

The challenge is useful in keeping track of where my time is going. I am watching the proportion of vocab vs writing/grammar time. I want these roughly balanced, as the writing time is when I practise the vocab. I take the words I'm learning and use them in sentences using the grammar I'm working with.

Listening to the audio is already helping with context and reinforcement, as well as generally in how the language sounds. For example, with my wordlist and Anki I was mixing up the word for "world" পৃথিবী (prothibi) with that for "nature" প্রকৃতি (prokroti). The science radio programme I heard had "world" repeated many times, so I think these are now fixed in my mind. Variety of material is useful.
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"strange accents do not mar fair speech" - Beregond, Return of the King.

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Jiwon
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Re: Peter's Bengali log

Postby Jiwon » Sat Nov 04, 2017 6:03 pm

I have just found your log, and am excited to find a fellow learner of an Indian language.
I wonder whether you have any specific motivations to learn Bengali. From reading your posts, I gathered that you like travelling to India (and so I), but that does not make many people actually learn an Indian language, thanks to the curse of prevalence of English in India.

Speaking of the Bengal Renaissance, I learnt in one of my lectures about the Bengal school of art, and how it was so closely related to Japanese art - to which my friend agreed on our visit the the Museum of Modern Art in Delhi.
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peter
Yellow Belt
Posts: 64
Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2017 3:23 pm
Languages: English (N)
Studying:
Bengali (mostly harmless)
German (beginner)
Latin (beginner)
x 93

Re: Peter's Bengali log

Postby peter » Sat Nov 04, 2017 7:23 pm

Jiwon wrote:I have just found your log, and am excited to find a fellow learner of an Indian language.
I wonder whether you have any specific motivations to learn Bengali.

Thanks Jiwon. I had noticed your Hindi signature in some of your posts. There don't seem to be many active Indian language learners here.
Motivation? See the end of the first post! I have some practical needs, as Bengali is my partner's language and her wider family are not all that comfortable in English. But I found that I really like the language and the challenge of learning it, and so a few months ago I decided to make a serious attempt to learn it. Which has brought me here, creating this log!

Jiwon wrote:From reading your posts, I gathered that you like travelling to India (and so I), but that does not make many people actually learn an Indian language, thanks to the curse of prevalence of English in India.

I find English works to a point, but I've often got stuck with taxis or in shops needing a few more understandable sentences. I want to pick up Hindi better for that kind of situation, which I hope will be easier once my Bengali has improved.

Jiwon wrote:Speaking of the Bengal Renaissance, I learnt in one of my lectures about the Bengal school of art, and how it was so closely related to Japanese art - to which my friend agreed on our visit the the Museum of Modern Art in Delhi.

That's one place in Delhi I've not visited to date... although we often drive past it.
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"strange accents do not mar fair speech" - Beregond, Return of the King.

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Jiwon
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Re: Peter's Bengali log

Postby Jiwon » Sat Nov 04, 2017 7:41 pm

peter wrote:
Jiwon wrote:I have just found your log, and am excited to find a fellow learner of an Indian language.
I wonder whether you have any specific motivations to learn Bengali.

Thanks Jiwon. I had noticed your Hindi signature in some of your posts. There don't seem to be many active Indian language learners here.
Motivation? See the end of the first post! I have some practical needs, as Bengali is my partner's language and her wider family are not all that comfortable in English. But I found that I really like the language and the challenge of learning it, and so a few months ago I decided to make a serious attempt to learn it. Which has brought me here, creating this log!


Sorry. That was the ONE paragraph that I missed.

peter wrote:
Jiwon wrote:Speaking of the Bengal Renaissance, I learnt in one of my lectures about the Bengal school of art, and how it was so closely related to Japanese art - to which my friend agreed on our visit the the Museum of Modern Art in Delhi.

That's one place in Delhi I've not visited to date... although we often drive past it.


It is one of my favourite places in Delhi. I'm a big fan of modern Indian Art, especially Amrita Sher-Gil.
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मेरा अधिवास कहाँ?

peter
Yellow Belt
Posts: 64
Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2017 3:23 pm
Languages: English (N)
Studying:
Bengali (mostly harmless)
German (beginner)
Latin (beginner)
x 93

Re: Peter's Bengali log

Postby peter » Mon Nov 06, 2017 12:25 am

Progress

The 6 week challenge is having a good effect, as I managed more than usual this weekend. Seeing the chart for time spent on vocab instead of writing/grammar made me want to balance the two columns, so I worked harder on the book exercises and writing:

  • I finished studying the next chapter, 20, in my book this weekend, including all the exercises.
  • I have learnt how to type in Bengali! This makes computer-based work in Bengali much easier.
  • To record my writing, I've started a blog: https://notuntalika.wordpress.com
2 x
"strange accents do not mar fair speech" - Beregond, Return of the King.

peter
Yellow Belt
Posts: 64
Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2017 3:23 pm
Languages: English (N)
Studying:
Bengali (mostly harmless)
German (beginner)
Latin (beginner)
x 93

Re: Peter's Bengali log

Postby peter » Sat Nov 11, 2017 4:33 pm

Progress

Continuing with my plan for the 6 week challenge. The recording helps keep my time balanced between vocab learning and writing, though I hit a sticky patch on Anki which helped me catch up with writing as I stopped trying to learn or add any more words.

  • Finished chapters 20 and 21 of my book, so that's 8 out of the 12 chapters in part II completed.
  • Started to add a further 120 words to my Anki deck, as I am learning them as the next set of vocab.
  • Have written a few small things for output, but need to do some more this weekend.
  • I am working through a useful Memrise course, on verb conjugations.
  • As part of the challenge, I have been hearing a radio broadcast from BBC Bangla each day. I understand little, but focus on hearing how words are pronounced and trying to recognise what I can.

Ongoing

More of the same. I increasingly find vocab I'm learning appearing in 'real' Bengali, such as the radio programmes or a book, so this part continues to give quick successes. I need to practise with the words though, to make them more "sticky" in my memory.

  • Aim for 100 words a week, but include substantial writing with the new words and reading/listening to consolidate.
  • For some intensive reading pracice, I want to work through/translate the text which accompanies at least one of the radio programmes. This may give me some of the vocabulary they use in the programme, which should then help my aural understanding.
  • Write at least one 100 word piece in Bengali and post on my blog.
  • Finish chapter 22 from my book, and perhaps more.

Rambles

I also continue to touch base with German. Currently I do around 10 minutes a day on Memrise, going over some words. I have yet to hear the Michel Thomas course I found in the library properly. I tried once in the car but it was too intense for me along with the morning traffic! I will give it a go this or next weekend.

I got a DVD on the life of Shankaracharya. I hadn't realised until it arrived that the film is in Sanskrit, which I think will be a new experience for me. I have a book on the language, but never looked beyond the basics.
1 x
"strange accents do not mar fair speech" - Beregond, Return of the King.

peter
Yellow Belt
Posts: 64
Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2017 3:23 pm
Languages: English (N)
Studying:
Bengali (mostly harmless)
German (beginner)
Latin (beginner)
x 93

Re: Peter's Bengali log

Postby peter » Mon Nov 13, 2017 12:26 am

Progress

The advantages of alternative learning material: I have been using Memrise to test my verb conjugations and, being an SRS system, the reviews "mix up" the tenses, so I was getting frustrated by confusing verb endings in 2nd and 3rd person familiar. I noted before how these change in what I thought was an unpredictable way. But the big realisation at midnight tonight is that there's actually a simple rule based on the Bengali:

  • After l/t it's e/o (simple past, habitual past, past perfect, past continuous);
  • After b it's e/e (future tense);
  • After anything else, it's o/e (present, present continuous, perfect).
Past N: তুমি করলে and সে করল
Future: তুমি করবে and সে করবে
Others: তুমি কর and সে করে

(My previous rule, "does the tense have 'past' in the name", was not working very well!)

The world makes rational sense again. 8-)

I also managed some "intensive reading" of the text which goes with one of the radio programmes I've been listening to. These are a bit beyond me at present, too many words to look up, but I persisted for a couple of paragraphs. Discovered how careful you have to be to spot English words in script: কার্বন was all right, carbon, but ডাই অক্সাইডের dioxide took me longer than it should have as I was thrown by the possessive case marker. After this I could recognise the words better in the programme itself when listening. Maybe by the end of the challenge I'll have covered most of the one programme?
1 x
"strange accents do not mar fair speech" - Beregond, Return of the King.

peter
Yellow Belt
Posts: 64
Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2017 3:23 pm
Languages: English (N)
Studying:
Bengali (mostly harmless)
German (beginner)
Latin (beginner)
x 93

Re: Peter's Bengali log

Postby peter » Sat Nov 18, 2017 10:27 pm

Progress

Steady progress this week. I'm continuing to use the 6 week challenge bot with its charts to balance time spent in writing and vocab learning.

  • Created a 101 word entry on my blog
  • Finished chapter 22 grammar + exercises (that's 9 out of 12 chapters from part II, and 3 out of 6 planned for the 6WC)
  • Learned and added over 100 words new vocabulary to Anki.
  • Continued listening to the audio programmes, and especially the one whose text I worked on. More of the words are becoming clear to me.
Ongoing

We are getting close to the midpoint of the 6 week challenge. I still have three chapters to work through, and nearly 300 words to learn to meet my goals. The vocabulary will be the most challenging. I need to review the words more in my notebooks, and not rely simply on Anki. But I must do more writing with the vocabulary, so it's not simply a dictionary acquisition exercise. In my blog entry today I covered this for two words I am mixing up: "to push" and "to pull".

Plan for the coming week:

  • Complete Chapter 23. This has a 'diary-writing' exercise with related vocabulary, so should help give more material for my writing practise.
  • Get to 800 words learnt and for review in Anki.
  • Write 500 words during the week, including something more interesting: e.g. a synopsis of the radio science programme, or a dialogue from my book.
Ramble

Part of me is becoming fluent in Bengali: today I opened a text document, pressed the "a" key and was momentarily surprised to see "a" appear on the screen and not "অ" ! I've read about people struggling at times to keep their languages separate - how about bilingual keyboard skills?? :?

I'm keeping going at a low level with the German 2 course on Memrise. I hope this will help revive some of the German I used to know, and make it easier to get started again.

It's hard not to get diverted by alternative languages: I've got a latin book out on my desk now which I've been browsing through. If I had free time, I think my heart would make this language number 3 to learn.

Edit: came across a word in the vocab I was learning the other day and tried to recall why it was so familiar. Turns out it's a favourite put down used by someone I know: a typical bit of code-switching with "he's a real কঞ্জুস" - "he's a miser".
2 x
"strange accents do not mar fair speech" - Beregond, Return of the King.


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