zenmonkey's multilingual adventures of a traveller

[Jar-Ptitsa]

Doesn't show for me

Oh no

it shows on my laptop (Mac & Firefox)

[zenmonkey]

Doesn't show for me

That's interesting - both Mac and PC come with a font pre-installed that can handle those codes but I thought they might not be implemented in all browsers.

[zenmonkey]

Yes, Georgian is amazing, so pretty, but Cherokee looks nice as well. It's like Sinhala, which has got those Ꭳ type of letters (or they seem like that).

Some of the Cherokke letters, near the beginning of your screen shot look like the treble clef. I mean the 4th and 5th ones.

Sinhala is a beautiful looking script, I haven't done any of the Gupta derived scripts yet but I'm doing the background on Tibetan (by learning it). Like Cherokee, each symbol tends to represent a consonant / vowel pairing. Except these Brahmic scripts tend to use diacritics, small markers for each vowel differentiation with the consonant marker - Cherokee uses a different symbol for each consonant vowel pairing.

[DaveBee]

Screen Shot 2017-11-03 at 00.39.03.png

Oh, and does it show up in the browser?
Here is my name written out in Cherokee:

ᎡᎤᎮᏂᎣ

Shows up for me in Safari 9.1.3, FF 56.0.2, Mac OS 10.9.5.

[Jar-Ptitsa]

Yes, Georgian is amazing, so pretty, but Cherokee looks nice as well. It's like Sinhala, which has got those Ꭳ type of letters (or they seem like that).

Some of the Cherokke letters, near the beginning of your screen shot look like the treble clef. I mean the 4th and 5th ones.

Sinhala is a beautiful looking script, I haven't done any of the Gupta derived scripts yet but I'm doing the background on Tibetan (by learning it). Like Cherokee, each symbol tends to represent a consonant / vowel pairing. Except these Brahmic scripts tend to use diacritics, small markers for each vowel differentiation with the consonant marker - Cherokee uses a different symbol for each consonant vowel pairing.

I agree that Sinhala is beautiful. When I saw it in London on a shop, I thougth that it was lovely and I love their clothes as well (the saris). If my skin was darker then I'd wear those clothes, but the europeans can't wear them.

සුභ දවසක් = have a nice day.

[zenmonkey]

I've been away. It's one am and I have a Hebrew class at 7:00 so I should go to bed.

Quick note then.

Language learning has taken a back seat burner (crossed metaphor there) for the last weeks and aside from my Hebrew homework tonight I've done no studying - none, zip, nada for the last 2-3 weeks. Work has been quite busy, I have a few new projects which I hope will take me well into 2018. But they are a bit risky (the life of a consultant) so I do won't really know for a few weeks.

I have been busy in the language-but-not-learning area - completed the Cherokee Syllabary app and published it. And I've started a project to transform German A1-C1 vocabulary material (basically giant word lists with learner definitions) for immigrant languages like Dari, Pashto, Persian etc... I'm partnering with a local woman that publishes these in 'grammar' books and needs to build them into apps. And my aunt's Yiddish book still needs to be transformed ... and ... and ...

So. Good night and good luck with your studies.

[zenmonkey]

I've been reading "Fluent Forever" and see some good and some bad in that book. I should give a full review at some point but for today I'll just say that he has me thinking about working on basic pronunciation and that perhaps I should focus some energy in correcting perhaps some basic errors in German.

Except, instead I've spent a little bit of time looking for pronunciation guides and minimal pair for Hebrew. And not seeing much that I found satisfying (don't want to buy Wyner's guide because I'm not convinced of the value) I decided to see if I could make my own from the FSI lists of words and forvo content. Sure enough, there is enough good recordings to assure that my /l/ isn't a 'dark l' like in English [ɫ] but more like a Spanish [l]. Easy-peasy. Perhaps a bit less so with some of the other Hebrew sounds but I think a little more practice in getting these out would not hurt.

If I ever finish those cards I'll post them.

So, one of the good things about the book is that it has me thinking about correcting pronunciation. Obviously, by my tone, you might guess that I have some issues about other content in this book. Maybe I'll outline that in another post.

[zenmonkey]

And I forgot to post my summary for 2018 - so from another thread:

But before looking forward, a quick look back. In 2017, I got back into focused language learning and I did get a few things done:

• Completed B1 & B2 test in German
• Started active study in Hebrew and Tibetan, learning both writing systems - not perfectly but enough to be mental state of "this is neat!"
• Those led me to play with Ladakhi, Ladino and Yiddish
• Attended my first Polyglot Gathering
• Played a bit with Tzotzil, Assyrian, Nahuatl, Occitan, Greek, Icelandic (travel), Slovak (travel) ...
• Played a bit more with Italian and Portuguese but not enough to say I've reactivated these (and that's a small disappointment)
• Bought lots of language books
• Wrote 4-5 language related apps and started 3 new language projects

Pretty good year - looking back! But at the same time, I dropped a few things like Portuguese, the study and was rather inconsistent at times.

And something I want to mark:

Sometimes we have more problems with the methods of language learning than with the actual language learning.

[neuroascetic]

...don't want to buy Wyner's guide because I'm not convinced of the value...

I can understand not wanting to buy the guide, but I'll note that I found it useful for German. I didn't know any of the IPA alphabet at the time, so it may have taught me more than it would teach you. I've found the minimal pair exercises have tuned my ear in a way that would be hard for me to achieve on my own. I've had to do some of my own modifications to suit my flash card format preferences, but, overall, it improved my pronunciation tremendously. Of course, if you know which phonemes to seek for building your cards (I didn't), Wyner's deck is not needed. I credit it with helping me learn how to produce the German "r" (as someone who completely failed at being able to roll my tongue in Spanish, this was a satisfying achievement), but I'm sure if that was something I was determined to do, I could have found other resources that would have helped me with that sound.

I'm eager to hear about your criticisms of the other parts of the book. I feel like the book influenced me, however, I'm realizing that I actually don't use many flashcards that follow his model. And I was too far along for the 625 word list to be useful.

[zenmonkey]

...don't want to buy Wyner's guide because I'm not convinced of the value...

I can understand not wanting to buy the guide, but I'll note that I found it useful for German. I didn't know any of the IPA alphabet at the time, so it may have taught me more than it would teach you. I've found the minimal pair exercises have tuned my ear in a way that would be hard for me to achieve on my own. I've had to do some of my own modifications to suit my flash card format preferences, but, overall, it improved my pronunciation tremendously. Of course, if you know which phonemes to seek for building your cards (I didn't), Wyner's deck is not needed. I credit it with helping me learn how to produce the German "r" (as someone who completely failed at being able to roll my tongue in Spanish, this was a satisfying achievement), but I'm sure if that was something I was determined to do, I could have found other resources that would have helped me with that sound.

I'm eager to hear about your criticisms of the other parts of the book. I feel like the book influenced me, however, I'm realizing that I actually don't use many flashcards that follow his model. And I was too far along for the 625 word list to be useful.

That's great feedback, thanks! I think I might now go get one of the guides to see.
I'm still writing out my notes - but I'll post them when I'm done.