Flash Projects

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Teango
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Russian 1.1: Finish Ночной дозор (novel).

Postby Teango » Thu Aug 01, 2019 9:43 pm

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Status: p. 60/326 (18%); 20h in July (11h study, 9h reading)

Starting this project afresh in July, I think I've already made significant progress...

My lexical coverage in Ночной дозор has rocketed from 82% to 92% within 20 hours, which is roughly half a working week. And my ability to second-guess new words in context has apparently transferred over to other materials and skills as well.

For instance, when I sat down to read random news articles in Russian, as well as several passages taken from a selection of novels and tv transcripts, I was able to correctly identify the meaning of many new words on my own and comfortably get the gist. Flicking through a couple of Red Kalinka graded readers I'd purchased years ago but never opened, formally described as written for B2 and C1 CEFR levels, I either hit or came close to understanding 100% of all the words in the passages I read (and I asked my wife to sit next to me and check, to be sure, as I read and translated aloud). Should I be able to do this already?

I also noticed on several occasions that my Russian listening comprehension has improved too, at least to the point where I can follow most of the dialogue in children's cartoons. I know this doesn't sound like much, but if you tasked me with watching these animations a month ago, a lot of the dialogue would have flown over my head or been swiftly relegated to background noise. Now words stand out more clearly and I can focus on piecing together what I know, rather than worrying about what I don't understand.

And a final note on Ночной дозор... Much more lyrical and esoteric than first anticipated, this novel has been a real thorn in my side and has KO'd in the first round more creative language methods than I care to remember. My wife has told me to give up on it dozens of times and to pick something shorter or easier in its stead, which would of course have been the wisest course of action in this case. But my stubbornness has prevailed, and now I'm looking forward to where this infernal novel leads me, albeit slowly page by page, and am actually enjoying the overall reading process. I feel as though Goliath has finally met his David, or at least, Creed his tenacious Rocky!

Altogether, a productive 20 hours of Russian. :)
Last edited by Teango on Sat Sep 14, 2019 7:45 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Teango
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Russian 1.2: Finish Ночной дозор (novel).

Postby Teango » Fri Aug 02, 2019 10:28 pm

Status: p. 65/326 (20%)

Flash update: After a total of 22 hours, I've scored my first 95% in a reading test using Ночной дозор!
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Teango
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Russian 1.3: Finish Ночной дозор (novel).

Postby Teango » Sat Sep 14, 2019 7:49 am

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Status: Partially achieved (first story completed, p. 131/326, 40%). Total time: 45h.

It's Friday the 13th AND there's a full moon gleaming back at me from the burnt crimson star-speckled sky. Could there be a more auspicious (or inauspicious) time to finish reading the first main macabre story in Ночной дозор?! ...and is it me, or is that something hungry and unholy howling in the distance...a new language project, perhaps?...

According to a three-test moving average, I currently understand somewhere in the realm of 92-93% of all words I encounter in this novel, and have on occasion hit higher reading scores (note: dialogue is SOOO much easier than descriptive narrative). With a little help from my... ♫ Kindle Russian dictionary ♫ ...this is enough to get the gist and enjoy the story while slurping tea and indulging in cupcakes to soothe my nerves.

I intend to finish the other two stories in the book, but for now, they can wait. There are much more pressing matters to attend to first, and besides, I was far too optimistic thinking I could complete all three stories in one go at my current level. This was meant to be a short-term project after all. So I'll claim this as a partial win, but have no fear, the struggle between Day and Night isn't over yet, and I'll return to vanquish the remaining two stories another day. And as a little salve for my wishful ego, my wife informs me that the movie of the same name is only based on the first story anyway. *dab, dab; spin, spin* :)
Last edited by Teango on Tue Oct 08, 2019 12:47 am, edited 1 time in total.
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MamaPata
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Re: Flash Projects

Postby MamaPata » Sat Sep 14, 2019 11:17 am

Sounds like you're doing great!
1 x
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Teango
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Hawaiian 1.1: Dream in Hawaiian.

Postby Teango » Mon Sep 16, 2019 7:26 am

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And on to my next Flash Project.....(pahu drum roll please) drrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.....
Dream in Hawaiian.

I realize this looks a little David Lynch at first glance, but don't worry, a coconut didn't fall on my head over the weekend. Let's just say I have my reasons and this challenge opens up a broad and refreshing course to an unusual language destination.

I'll probably jump-start proceedings with a quick review of Ka Lei Haʻaheo (the main textbook I used at university), opening wide the doors to estranged vocabulary and prodigal grammar. Mai, mai e ʻai! (Come and eat!) And then I'll move on to extensive thinking aloud exercises in Hawaiian, filling in gaps and pauses where I can, and aiming for fluency over accuracy for the purposes of this particular project.

I don't know whether this will be enough for ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi (Hawaiian) to weave its way back into my dreams on such short notice, but it's worth a try. I recall that chatting for several hours in a rustic Austrian restaurant once worked for German. Although to be fair, my garrulous dream auf Deutsch the next morning was prefaced by generous helpings of alcohol the night before.
Last edited by Teango on Tue Sep 17, 2019 1:35 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Cèid Donn
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Re: Flash Projects

Postby Cèid Donn » Mon Sep 16, 2019 4:44 pm

Good luck. Honestly, the best thing I find to trigger dreams in my TLs, or where some of the dream involves me or other people speaking the TL, is reading aloud.

I regularly read aloud in Gaelic, and of all my TLs, Gaelic is the one I most often dream in. I read aloud much less frequently in French, and while I consume far more French online media over a regular week than I do Gaelic, I am far less likely to have a dream in French than in Gaelic. Another bit of evidence that reading aloud helps with this is I recently starting reading aloud in Spanish as a regular part of my Spanish study, and shortly afterward starting that, I started having dreams in Spanish, which I never had before, despite hearing Spanish where I live all the time.

I recently read a presentation by Gaelic researcher Gordon Wells for the Reading Aloud in Britain Today project that studies the practices of adults reading aloud and adult literacy, and one person Wells quotes said about reading aloud, “It feels more real that way. When I can feel it in my mouth, say it and hear it.” So there's the careful attention given to producing the language as well of multi-sensory stimuli from producing it yourself. I'd add to that when reading a loud, you are also looking at the written language as you are producing the language orally. That's covering a lot of bases. So it seems if you want to get your brain super excited about your TL to the point it wants to dream in that TL, reading aloud might be a good strategy to include.
3 x
Note from an educator and former ESL/test skills tutor: Any learner, including self-learners, can use the CEFR for self-assessment. The CEFR is for helping learners progress and not for gatekeeping and bullying.

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Teango
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Re: Flash Projects

Postby Teango » Mon Sep 16, 2019 11:56 pm

@MamaPata
Thanks for your vote of confidence. :) I was feeling a bit down that I didn't finish all three stories in one fell swoop, but completing that first story was quite an obstacle for me and now at least it's done. I realize I'm probably biting off more than I can chew with Ночной дозор (no pun intended), but ever hopeful one more big push in a future flash project will finally get me safely over the 95% known words barrier...at least for this genre and author. And besides, 40,000 words in a vampire novel so far (give or stake a word...sorry...that pun was indeed intended and sooo unnecessary :twisted: ) has really helped me level up in Russian. I guess I just need to take a little break, keep up with reviews, and be patient...

@Cèid Donn
Reading aloud is a great tip and I'm going to promptly add it to my "Hawaiian dream warrior" arsenal. Coming from a musical family, I've always preferred reading aloud and putting some real emotion into the whole shebang. Now after all these years, this predilection is really coming into its own, as my little daughter seems to love it when daddy does this too (especially all the silly funny voices and animated expressions). Sometimes a phrase can feel like a three-course meal melting in your mouth, while other times clauses stick in your gullet or dance like frisky Cossack imps on your tongue. It's all good. 8-) Mòran taing airson do chuideachadh, a chara!
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Teango
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Introducing Hawaiian...

Postby Teango » Wed Sep 18, 2019 10:36 pm

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It’s been a while since I last used Hawaiian, so there’s plenty of brush work and sanding the floor ahead of me. As a brief recap, I studied Hawaiian at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa for 2 years, which included an intensive language course over summer with prompt daily 7am starts. The result was I ended up in advanced classes after 600 hours. Since 2016, I’ve occasionally dabbled in the language, spending no more than say 50 hours maintaining the language. I’m probably a rusty B1 at the moment on the CEFR scale, but would like to be able to play with the big boys and girls at a more solid B2 level.

Speaking: My last real foray into Hawaiian was during a third/fourth year university class entitled "Advanced Hawaiian Conversation". I'd aced all the prerequisites to rise up the ranks over past semesters alongside people half my age (I was the old white haole guy in the funny hat - "psst...eh brah...check out da Ozzie!"). This last class was pretty intense. I'd chatted with mānaleo (native speakers) from Niʻihau and other islands in supplementary conversation classes, community events, and social get-togethers, and even taught Hawaiian in local elementary schools on a couple of occasions, but this was another level altogether. I think the class started off with about 16 happy campers, and by the end of the course, there were only 4 hardcore hikers left standing at the sheer face of this cliff (including me). I think one of them worked for ʻAha Pūnana Leo as a native Hawaiian teacher of the language, while the others seemed to rise effortlessly to the surface like great stoic sea turtles in advanced waters. Nevertheless, I held my own and completed the course. We discussed graduate level grammar topics, got into heated debates on geopolitical affairs, and transcribed scratchy tapes of toothless octogenarians lifted from reels of tape recorded in the 70s. And while, on the surface, I seemed relatively unflustered and spontaneous in conversation, on the inside, where the real action took place, lots of cute little furry creatures scurried around in frantic circles, waving their arms about in mad panic and pressing colorful random buttons. So it would be great to reach a more comfortable and fluent level in speaking by the end of my next Hawaiian project, if only to give the guys on the inside a chill pill.

Pronunciation: I've been told more than once that I sound like a Rasta when I speak Hawaiian. Personally I don't hear it myself, but there you go. Maybe it's because I'm half Irish (lots of similarities in phonology, believe it or not!), or maybe it's because that's simply my inner irie island voice. Who knows?? I always take this as a compliment though, as Jamaican patois is my favorite sounding form of communication in the known cosmos and people love reggae and roots music over here. However, yes, I'm well aware that I need to work on my pronunciation, particularly given that there are a mere 13 phonemes in the language to tame - no excuses already - Jah know!!

Listening: This is my weakest skill without a doubt - no big surprise there. The sad truth is that quality listening material and proficient native speakers, even proficient L2 speakers, are relatively sparse, even on Oʻahu. And I wish I could settle back on the sofa to a fun Hawaiian language tv series at the end of the day, or fill my fancy Bluetooth headphones with a variety of gripping podcasts i ka ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi over the weekend, but you just have to work with what's available.

Reading: I've bought a tonne of books in Hawaiian - practically anything I could lay my hands on locally or order over Amazon. Some of these are massive weighty tomes such as "The Epic Tale of Hiʻiakaikapoliopele" and "ʻŌlelo noʻeau: Hawaiian Proverbs & Poetical Sayings", while others are small children's picture books or translations of established classics such as "The Hobbit", "The Little Prince", and "The Wizard of Oz". Unfortunately none of these are available on Kindle as far as I know, at least not yet, but please let me know if you do find any in your travels. And given the polysemy of a language with only 13 characters, looking up words online (and usually compound words at that) is far from trivial. Translations often resolve to dozens of meanings, more often than not including an extended family of never-before-seen aquatic creatures along with several types of seaweed, rain, wind, and/or crab. And don't get me started on hidden and double meanings (I think @sfuqua would particularly appreciate this). I am however looking forward to reading Harry Potter (and any possible future installments by Keao NeSmith ;) ) in the near future, even if horcruxes and death eaters don't tend to come up in local conversation over a spam musubi or bowl of shave ice.

Writing: I've written a few full-length essays, given public speeches in Hawaiian, translated song lyrics from the 80s, and even subtitled and dubbed an amusing short animation into Hawaiian as a joint project for a Hawaiian festival. My grammar was pretty solid a few years ago, but I've let things slide, so I'll probably need to review several concepts in my most dog-eared textbook when I start up again. For those who don't know, Hawaiian has VSO (verb-subject-object) word order, employs a tricky possessive class system for nouns, and relies on a complex system of particles to determine tense, aspect, mood, and direction of verbal phrases. The language also boasts cool features such as inclusivity/exclusivity for pronouns and a third "dual" class for plurals. The biggest challenge however is that it strongly favors passive over active constructions, which takes some getting used to for an English speaker. So what I guess I'm trying to say here (and forgive me if I've said this before in other posts) is that Hawaiian is really unlike any other language I've ever studied before, not just in terms of syntax and grammar, but more importantly, in the way it paints, frames, and conceptualizes the world around it. And to a linguist and language nerd like me, I absolutely love it!
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Teango
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Hawaiian 1.2: Dream in Hawaiian.

Postby Teango » Tue Oct 08, 2019 12:13 am

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Status: Achieved. Total time: 12 hours.

After reviewing two thirds of Ka Lei Haʻaheo, I set the textbook aside and tried to immerse a bit more in Hawaiian over the weeks to follow. This included thinking in the language on several occasions, listening to recordings from a live talkshow, and even eating out at a native Hawaiian diner with my wife a couple of times. However I think this weekend had the biggest impact on my overal success to dream in Hawaiian.

First of all, I was really moved by the Aloha ʻĀina rally on Saturday, where over 20,000 people marched through the streets and sang in Hawaiian in protest against the installment of a giant telescope on Maunakea. For those who don't know, Maunakea is the tallest mountain in the world when measured from its underwater base, and the name can be translated as both "white mountain" and the "mountain belonging to Wākea" (the traditional god and father of Hawai‘i). As the most wahi kapu (sacred place) in the Hawaiian archipelago, you can think of it along the lines of a living bona fide Mount Olympus. But more importantly, this is the place where the bones of their kūpuna (relatives and ancestors) and aliʻi (chiefs and nobles) have been buried for centuries. I won't get into the politics of it all, but just simply say that it was electrifying and humbling to witness so many Hawaiian families and supporters gather together from all main 8 islands and unite en masse to defend their local native land rights and traditions. Hō...nui loa ka mana o ka poʻe! (Wow...so much spirit of the people!)

Secondly, the very next day, I brought my family to the 45th Annual Honolulu Intertribal Powwow in a nearby park, which was a first for all of us! Given that my wife and daughter are a very small part Native American, it was a special treat to meet and chat with members of different tribes from all over. I extend a special wado ("thanks" in Cherokee) to "Flying With Eagles", who was so friendly and inviting. It might sound corny, but I felt something spiritual sparked within me following our short meeting and shared aloha. My daughter was a bit scared of the big loud drum and chanting, but enjoyed the teepees, traditional clothing, and all the dancing. As I'm typing this, she's currently re-enacting the dances and trying to make some of the sounds - so cute!

And so with a mixture of the chants of indigenous peoples from all over America dancing in my head...that night...I dreamt in Hawaiian.

And this morning I looked up the word "powwow" and discovered it derives from the Narragansett word "powáw"...literally..."he dreams". :)
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Teango
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Re: Flash Projects

Postby Teango » Tue Oct 08, 2019 8:38 am

On the basis of recent successes of shorter projects, I've decided to go one step further. You're all very welcome to follow my new mini-projects on 3 Day Projects (3DP), and mahalo to everyone on this thread who stopped by.

Ke aloha,
T.
2 x


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