Military historian's corner - EN, HE, ZH, AR, sometimes RU, FR and DE

[StringerBell]

Congratulations on publishing your article!

How would you rank the difficulty levels of the foreign languages you've learned/have been learning? Which do you consider harder vs. easier?

[cjareck]

Congratulations on publishing your article!

Thanks!

How would you rank the difficulty levels of the foreign languages you've learned/have been learning? Which do you consider harder vs. easier?

It is difficult to answer since I am convinced that English is the easiest, but I started learning it as a child, so it seems to be a natural foreign language for me. French is abandoned for a few years, but I will come back to it soon. But if I had to put a list (starting from the easiest) it would be:
English (because it has easy grammar)
Russian (because it is similar to Polish)
German (case system is not natural for me)
French (I am not sure where to put it, but the pronunciation makes it hard)
Hebrew (script has no vowels, and the grammar is complicated; I learn it more than Arabic and understand more, so I consider it easier)
Arabic (script has no vowels, and the grammar is complicated)

[SGP]

But if I had to put a list (starting from the easiest) it would be:
English (because it has easy grammar)
Russian (because it is similar to Polish)
German (case system is not natural for me)

Long time no see . Jak się masz?

Now I am wondering why Polish and Russian cases would be natural to you, but German cases aren't. As for me, I don't make any difference .

Background: Mainly Austrian ancestry, but partially Slavonic, too. However, none of them (PL, CZ, RU, ...) is a heritage language of mine.

[cjareck]

Now I am wondering why Polish and Russian cases would be natural to you, but German cases aren't. As for me, I don't make any difference .

In Russian, they are the same as in Polish. Russians do not have a vocative case, but it is used very seldom. In German you have only 4 in place of our 7 (or 6 if you do not count vocative case). I drilled neither Russian nor German, so I do not know which German case I should pick. In Russian I do not have to think about it, I just pick a Russian equivalent of it.

[cjareck]

Russian
The log's reader may notice the change of the title of this topic. The Russian language has been added. The reason for this is very simple - I found (I was told where to look for them actually) Russian archival material online - mostly war diaries of regiments, divisions, corps and armies. The database is huge already but should expand in the future. I didn't expect to visit Russian archives earlier, so I am extremely happy that I can do it without leaving my home! There are, however, two main obstacles. The first one is my general knowledge of the Russian language and the second one is an inability to read Russian cursive script. Most of the documents are hand-written. So the nearest goal is to be able to read the script until the end of this year. I found a handbook for students in my library, and I will copy it tomorrow and start working with it

Arabic
There is nothing much to report here. I am just doing Anki.

Hebrew
I had two LE this week. Very nice! I overcame my shyness, and I can, at least with my LEPs, speak with confidence. The "only" problem is that I have limited vocabulary and limited knowledge of Grammar.
Lesson 25 of the FSI goes very slowly, and I will probably not finish it as planned.
I started reading and listening to the podcasts. I choose one about 188 Brigade since I have to write an article about it till the end of February. "Przyjemne z pożytecznym" (pleasant and useful) as we say in Poland.

English
I have noticed that my activity on this forum helps me a lot. I have never produced so much text in English before

[cjareck]

I think it's time to report again
I am mostly busy with my new articles in Polish. They are about the history of a small town, Działdowo (German Soldau) in both world wars. That occupies me a lot, and when I start writing I simply forget about the whole world, unfortunately including my family...

Hebrew
I have regular LEs with two LEPs. They are different in their approach to the Polish language so I can also learn from them how to learn a foreign language. But, except for that, I had problems with doing my Anki sessions. Only today I managed to add some new cards. Because of that, it will take me more than the end of this year to finish lesson 25.

Arabic
I am doing Anki sessions, and slowly I am adding material from DLI Lesson 9. I will probably finish it till the end of the year. But there are more 130 lessons before me, so this will not be an achievement...

German
If you remember my struggle with the presentation about "Polish military units in the last year of the war", I started writing it. I have about 700 characters up till now, so there is a long way ahead. Nevertheless, psychology is on my side. I do not have to write it from scratch; I just have to finish it
I am writing it in German in Google Translate and check the translation into English. Then I copy it into:
https://rechtschreibpruefung24.de/
Check the grammar, copy into GT again and if everything is OK, I put it into Libre Office Writer. It takes some time, but if think it will go quicker with every paragraph

[cjareck]

This post is just a quick update to inform you that I have just finished adding Lesson 25 to the Anki. It will take probably to the middle of January to get through it.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone!

[cjareck]

I have decided not to start a new log for 2019 because this log doesn't seem to be too long even at the end of the current year.

Arabic
Yesterday, I finished 9th Lesson of the DLI MSA course. I have to prepare audio for the next one, so it will take a few days. Hopefully it will be finished till the end of the month.

Hebrew
I am still getting through exercises of 25th Lesson of FSI. I have very limited time (I was supposed to finish two texts on December 31st, and I managed to finish only one and on January, 2nd), but starting new Lesson in February seems to be a resonable expectation.
I hope to go to Israel for one week in the second half of March, so I plan to use my LEPs to practice some survival Hebrew. The most important one:
סליחה, איפה את השירותים? (Excuse me, where is the restroom?)
I managed to develop and use it by myself last time
I was also able to say something about books that I was looking for.
Since it was almost a year ago, I expect to use more Hebrew in the upcoming trip. Hovewer, that will not be easy because
- friends of mine with whom I will go, with one exception, do not speak Hebrew at all;
- people whom we are going to meet usually speak English better than I.
This will limit possible Hebrew usage to the abovementioned survival situations

[cjareck]

It is almost two weeks since my last post. Not much happened during that time, however. I finished struggle with my article with two weeks delay, luckily the person who ordered the text* was indulgent and waited cautiously.

* Google was unable to translate zleceniodawca and my old paper dictionary gives me principal, employer, customer as English equivalents. Which one of them, if any, suits best here?

The abovementioned struggle had of course impact on my language learning. In the case of Hebrew, often I was too tired to introduce new Anki cards, so there are 80 more from the 25th lesson of FSI Hebrew. I hope to finish them next week. I should be able to prepare audio for the next lesson about that time.

I practised some airport conversations with my LEPs. I hope I will find enough courage to speak Hebrew with the clerk at the airport. We'll see!

With Arabic, it still goes unfortunately slowly. Nevertheless, I prepared audio for the 10th lesson of DLI MSA. I even started adding vocabulary cards, so it is very probable that I will finish it this month.

[SGP]

With Arabic, it still goes unfortunately slowly. Nevertheless, I prepared audio for the 10th lesson of DLI MSA. I even started adding vocabulary cards, so it is very probable that I will finish it this month.

What kind of AR vocabulary are you learning right now? (Even if it is directly from the MSI course, I still wouldn't know what is covered in this and that lesson. So that's why I am asking.)