A Language Log Reborn: Ellasevia —> Denzagathist

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Re: A Language Log Reborn: Ellasevia —> Denzagathist

Postby linguafranca » Fri Aug 24, 2018 12:10 am

It’s good to see you active on a language forum again :) I used to follow your language log on HTAL – I was always amazed by your detailed posts and dedication to learning languages. Your log really inspired me through my university years. I too studied linguistics which I followed up with a masters in historical Germanic linguistics.

If I remember correctly you used to watch The Little Mermaid in various languages or was it just Swedish - I can’t remember. Such a great way to learn a language (I watched Disney films in a couple of languages as well hehe)

Good luck with your language studies!
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Re: A Language Log Reborn: Ellasevia —> Denzagathist

Postby Denzagathist » Mon Aug 27, 2018 6:28 pm

WEEKS 7-8: AUGUST 13-26, 2018
Study Time These Weeks: 50.2 hours (Week 7: 22.4 hrs; Week 8: 27.8 hrs)
Average Study Time These Weeks: 3.59 hours/day

Total Study Time in 2018*: 145.1 hours
Average Study Time in 2018*: 2.7 hours/day
* Since starting to keep track on July 5, 2018
Image

I'm not really sure what happened, but two weeks appear to have passed since my last post in here. I didn't post here last week because, well, I didn't feel like it. And I felt that that time could be better spent actually studying. I was amazingly productive the past couple weeks, clocking in over 20 hours each week and over 50 hours combined. I suppose that's what comes of not having almost any obligations most days while simultaneously participating in the 6WC.

I've managed to study at least a little of each of my languages (minus Japanese, from which I am on a well-earned break) in the past two weeks, so I have several things to report on.

فارسی
Being my target language for the 6WC, Persian is by far the language that I have worked the most on during the past two weeks. As of this morning, I have finished listening to all 30 lessons of Pimsleur's introductory Farsi course. There are probably more than 30 lessons available somewhere, but I don't have them and don't think I could tolerate listening to many more anyways. Pimsleur constitutes the bulk of my Persian study activities, although I have also worked a little with my Assimil, Colloquial, and Spoken World books.

I also decided to make a significant change in my Persian Anki deck. I have always included all of the vowel diacritics in my Anki entries so as to indicate the proper pronunciation, but the result of this is that I often have difficulty recognizing words in other resources when the diacritics are omitted. Since those diacritics are almost never used in any written materials that aren't meant either for children or for foreign learners, it's essential to be able to read and recognize words without them. So, I decided to make my Persian Anki deck more similar to my Japanese and Chinese decks; in my Japanese and Chinese decks, I first see the word or expression in characters (e.g. 薫香) without any additional indication of the pronunciation. I then have to come up with both the reading and the meaning (e.g. くんこう [kunkō] 'incense'). This is achieved by having three fields: TL, English, and Reading. In the case of Japanese, the Reading field has the characters with furigana added, while for Chinese it just has the Pinyin. So I've adopted this same format for Persian, whereby the TL field has the Persian word or expression without any vowel diacritics* and then the Reading field, which appears on the backside of the card along with the English translation, shows all the diacritics. I'm hoping that this change will help me become more accustomed to seeing words without the "training wheels" of the short vowel diacritics.

* I've chosen to keep certain diacritic marks, such as the tashdid, hamza, and tanvin, which I believe do usually appear in texts (e.g. جدّاً [jeddæn] 'really, seriously'). I've also kept short vowel diacritics in cases where ambiguity would otherwise occur, e.g. کی [ki] 'who' vs. کِی [kei] 'when'; نَه [næ] 'no' vs. نُه [noh] 'nine'.

Deutsch
After Persian, I've spent the most time on German. Some of this time has been spent listening to the podcasts from SWR2 Wissen, which I'm quite enjoying (and I would welcome suggestions for similar podcasts in other languages, if anybody knows of some), on topics as diverse as the intelligence of birds to the Moorish rule of Spain. The other main activity that I've been doing in German is apartment hunting, since I am set to arrive exactly one month from today in the city in Germany where I will be living for the next two years....and do not yet have a place to live there. :D I've never actually needed to actively search for a place to live before, as until now all of my accommodations have always materialized on their own -- either in the form of student dorms, taking a friend's place in an apartment when they move out, or having the apartment prepared for me in Japan -- so this feels like a daunting task, as I'm doing it for the first time both remotely and in a foreign language. In any case, I have been reading and writing quite a bit in German and have been learning a lot of housing-related words and expressions that I never knew or needed to know before.

Ελληνικά
Recently I have been working on Greek almost daily. When I took the Dialang placement test last month, it became very clear to me that I've been letting my proficiency in Greek slip. My grammar and fluency when speaking are fine, but my vocabulary really leaves something to be desired. While staying at my parents' house a couple weeks ago, I found a copy of Assimil's Le nouveau Grec sans peine, which I apparently purchased at some point in the past for some unknown reason. I figured this would be a good resource for getting my vocabulary back up to speed. I'm not working through the course in the standard way that they recommend, if only because the content is for the most part very easy, so I've instead been speeding through it in bursts -- usually 2-3 lessons per day -- and focusing on making sure I know all of the words (other than words I deem useless, like λαχειοπώλης, 'lottery ticket seller'). It was my aim to finish studying the whole book before I depart for Greece in three weeks, but I'm not sure I'll make it as I'd need to study over three lessons per day. Θα δούμε.

Italiano
Also while at my parents' house, I found an Italian reader that I had started to work through about 8 years ago. :shock: I've started working through it again, slowly. I've also been listening to some podcasts in Italian, from the News in Slow X-Language series. I do enjoy this podcast, but don't feel like paying for it and so am stuck with only 5-9 minute episodes that only include the first item of news. Oh well, it's better than nothing.

Français
I found a book of French short stories at a thrift store last week, and seeing as it was only $2.99 and I have no French resources currently, I snatched it up. I've read the first three stories so far, all of them by Guy de Maupassant. I've been enjoying them so far. I'm terrible about finishing books -- I'm currently "reading" about 7, some of them for years -- so short stories seem to be a good way to practice my French since I can finish a whole story in one sitting and then don't have to feel bad if I don't read another one for weeks (or months or years).

Español
I read a few more chapters of La Ciudad de las Bestias last week, but haven't touched the book since then. Oops. This is exactly what I was talking about in the French section above.

Português
I finished watching season 1 of 3% last week and started on the new season. I can't tell if I like it yet or not. Either way it's good practice.

中文
Worked through a couple more Chinese stories from my Tales and Traditions reader. I always feel so delighted and accomplished when I can read and understand a whole story in Chinese (even though these are, admittedly, quite simple), but I just haven't felt like working on Chinese much lately.

Türkçe
I studied a couple new chapters from my Delights textbook. I have about four more chapters left and want to finish that book before I leave for Europe so that I don't feel obligated to bring that heavy book with me. I also watched an episode of Muhteşem Yüzyıl (Magnificent Century), a delightful Turkish period drama set in 16th century Istanbul during the reign of Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent. I watched several seasons of this show during the year that I lived in Istanbul, and credit it with teaching me quite a bit of Turkish (and certainly all of the random Ottoman and harem-related vocabulary that I know). That was 2-3 years ago, though, so I've started watching it again from the beginning recently. I was delighted to discover that it's available on American Netflix with Turkish subtitles! The only downside to these episodes is that they are very long (and thus hard to hold my attention), and the dialogue is quite sparse since there are so many overly dramatic shots of people staring at each other to intense Ottoman music. I love it though.

Hrvatski
I found a Croatian show on Netflix and watched the first episode. I can't really tell if I like it. Either way, it was nice to hear Croatian again -- it's been over a year since I was in Croatia last -- and it was interesting because it took place in Rijeka, the big city next to the little village where I used to live. I should probably find some kind of Croatian drama that I actually enjoy.

@linguafranca: Thank you for your kind message! You are correct that I used to have a rather unhealthy obsession with that movie, and did watch it repeatedly in a number of languages. I also used to be able to sing Part of Your World in ~12 languages. YIKES. :lol:
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Re: A Language Log Reborn: Ellasevia —> Denzagathist

Postby eido » Mon Aug 27, 2018 6:47 pm

Denzagathist wrote:... I used to have a rather unhealthy obsession with that movie, and did watch it repeatedly in a number of languages. I also used to be able to sing Part of Your World in ~12 languages. YIKES. :lol:

And I thought I was obsessed with The Little Mermaid. I can only sing it in Spanish. Good on you. :P I tried to watch one of the sequels once in Spanish, but that proved too difficult. I don't think I could watch the original repeatedly if I tried - I'm not six anymore. (I used to watch many Disney films over and over, much to my parents' annoyance.)
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Re: A Language Log Reborn: Ellasevia —> Denzagathist

Postby Denzagathist » Mon Aug 27, 2018 7:06 pm

eido wrote:And I thought I was obsessed with The Little Mermaid. I can only sing it in Spanish. Good on you. :P I tried to watch one of the sequels once in Spanish, but that proved too difficult.
I don't actually think Spanish was ever one of the languages I knew the full song in, though I did know the "reprise" in it. I for sure used to know it in English, Dutch, Norwegian, French, Greek, and possibly Japanese. Now I can only remember it in English and Dutch. Also, let's be honest -- the sequels are pretty terrible, so I don't think you missed out on much. :lol: The second movie is tolerable, with the exception of a few scenes, but I couldn't make it through the third movie.
eido wrote:I don't think I could watch the original repeatedly if I tried - I'm not six anymore. (I used to watch many Disney films over and over, much to my parents' annoyance.)
Unfortunately, I was about sixteen (or maybe even seventeen) when I had this obsession. Again, yikes.
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Re: A Language Log Reborn: Ellasevia —> Denzagathist

Postby Denzagathist » Wed Sep 05, 2018 8:20 pm

I think I burned myself out a bit with that 27-hour study week. I've been much more relaxed about my studies the past week or so, and haven't done any language study at all other than daily Anki reviews in ~5 days. I can't even find the motivation right now to write a formal log post for last week.

The good news is that I now have a place to live in Germany. Success!
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Re: A Language Log Reborn: Ellasevia —> Denzagathist

Postby Teango » Wed Sep 05, 2018 9:40 pm

Congratulations on finding a new place! Time now to start making your crib feel echt gemütlich... :)

And don't forget to take your tape measure out and check how many Quadratmeter your place is...as this seems somewhat important to many Germans I've met along the way. Being someone who rarely quantifies domestic space beyond how many walls my neighbors can bang on simultaneously during tuba recitals, I never had the faintest clue or inclination to find this information out while living in Darmstadt (perhaps you could even calculate Kubikmeter to really impress?) My bad, I guess. ;)
Last edited by Teango on Thu Sep 06, 2018 6:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: A Language Log Reborn: Ellasevia —> Denzagathist

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Wed Sep 05, 2018 9:49 pm

Teango wrote:And don't forget to take your tape measure out and check how many Quadratmeter your place is...as this seems somewhat important to many Germans I've met along the way.


In Sweden, it's the major measurement along with number of rooms+kitchen ("rok"). You never see an ad without these figures (e.g. 2 rok 45 m²; 3 rok 57 m²). The number of rooms are of course important, but it doesn't matter much unless you also get the square metres. Maybe it's a Northern Germanic thing.
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Re: A Language Log Reborn: Ellasevia —> Denzagathist

Postby Ogrim » Thu Sep 06, 2018 8:15 am

jeff_lindqvist wrote:
Teango wrote:And don't forget to take your tape measure out and check how many Quadratmeter your place is...as this seems somewhat important to many Germans I've met along the way.


In Sweden, it's the major measurement along with number of rooms+kitchen ("rok"). You never see an ad without these figures (e.g. 2 rok 45 m²; 3 rok 57 m²). The number of rooms are of course important, but it doesn't matter much unless you also get the square metres. Maybe it's a Northern Germanic thing.


Not only Northern Germanic - in my experience it is just as important in Spain and France, and you'll never see an ad in these countries either without the square metres indicated. In addition to that, in Spain the most important seems to be the number of bedrooms (dormitorios, so that is always mentioned, in France you count pièces, which are all the rooms except kitchen and bathroom(s). So quatre pièces could mean one living room and three bedrooms or one living room, one dining room and two bedrooms.

And apologies for derailing the log. :)
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Re: A Language Log Reborn: Ellasevia —> Denzagathist

Postby Xenops » Thu Sep 06, 2018 11:46 pm

Denzagathist wrote:
eido wrote:And I thought I was obsessed with The Little Mermaid. I can only sing it in Spanish. Good on you. :P I tried to watch one of the sequels once in Spanish, but that proved too difficult.
I don't actually think Spanish was ever one of the languages I knew the full song in, though I did know the "reprise" in it. I for sure used to know it in English, Dutch, Norwegian, French, Greek, and possibly Japanese. Now I can only remember it in English and Dutch. Also, let's be honest -- the sequels are pretty terrible, so I don't think you missed out on much. :lol: The second movie is tolerable, with the exception of a few scenes, but I couldn't make it through the third movie.
eido wrote:I don't think I could watch the original repeatedly if I tried - I'm not six anymore. (I used to watch many Disney films over and over, much to my parents' annoyance.)
Unfortunately, I was about sixteen (or maybe even seventeen) when I had this obsession. Again, yikes.


I can't decide if that's adorable...Or odd. :? :lol: But now I'm in the mood to watch it again.

To further derail the discussion: https://www.bustle.com/articles/106976- ... agnificent
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Re: A Language Log Reborn: Ellasevia —> Denzagathist

Postby Denzagathist » Thu Sep 20, 2018 3:13 pm

The past couple weeks have been almost completely devoid of study. Yikes! It was the perfect storm between having burned out, some distressing personal events, and being busy either traveling or preparing to travel. I hope I'll be able to rekindle my motivation soon!

I'm currently at my grandmother's house in rural Greece. It took 41 hours to get here from Colorado, including an overnight stop in Germany, but it's very worth it. I'm so happy to be back in Europe and surrounded by a multitude of languages. I've spoken a fair amount of German and Greek, and have heard several other languages spoken as well. I helped some Russians in the Frankfurt airport who could barely speak English and no German buy train tickets to the city center, and was tempted to try out my broken/rusty Russian since it would have been at least as good as their English. Alas, I didn't.

Next week I move to Germany for real.
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