zenmonkey's multilingual adventures of a traveller

Continue or start your personal language log here, including logs for challenge participants
User avatar
zenmonkey
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2528
Joined: Sun Jul 26, 2015 7:21 pm
Location: California, Germany and France
Languages: Spanish, English, French trilingual - German (B2/C1) on/off study: Persian, Hebrew, Tibetan, Setswana.
Some knowledge of Italian, Portuguese, Ladino, Yiddish ...
Want to tackle Tzotzil, Nahuatl
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=859
x 7030
Contact:

Re: zenmonkey's multilingual adventures of a traveller

Postby zenmonkey » Tue Jun 26, 2018 7:39 pm

Brun Ugle wrote:
jeff_lindqvist wrote:If I'll go to the next Gathering and you will all be there, I promise I'll join you in the No English Zone. :)

You’re welcome to join our conversations too. The next one is in two weeks.


The more Setswana, the better!
2 x
I am a leaf on the wind, watch how I soar

User avatar
rdearman
Site Admin
Posts: 7231
Joined: Thu May 14, 2015 4:18 pm
Location: United Kingdom
Languages: English (N)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1836
x 23128
Contact:

Re: zenmonkey's multilingual adventures of a traveller

Postby rdearman » Tue Jun 26, 2018 9:36 pm

I may have created some monsters.
Aitse go bala ka Setswana?
(( You can find the response in "An introduction to spoken Setswana", I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader! ))
1 x
: 0 / 150 Read 150 books in 2024

My YouTube Channel
The Autodidactic Podcast
My Author's Newsletter

I post on this forum with mobile devices, so excuse short msgs and typos.

User avatar
Brun Ugle
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2273
Joined: Mon Jul 27, 2015 12:48 pm
Location: Steinkjer, Norway
Languages: English (N), Norwegian (~C1/C2), Spanish (B1/B2), German (A2/B1?), Japanese (very rusty)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=11484
x 5821
Contact:

Re: zenmonkey's multilingual adventures of a traveller

Postby Brun Ugle » Wed Jun 27, 2018 5:35 am

rdearman wrote:I may have created some monsters.
Aitse go bala ka Setswana?
(( You can find the response in "An introduction to spoken Setswana", I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader! ))

Bongwe, bobedi, boraro? That’s as far as I’ve learned.
1 x

User avatar
zenmonkey
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2528
Joined: Sun Jul 26, 2015 7:21 pm
Location: California, Germany and France
Languages: Spanish, English, French trilingual - German (B2/C1) on/off study: Persian, Hebrew, Tibetan, Setswana.
Some knowledge of Italian, Portuguese, Ladino, Yiddish ...
Want to tackle Tzotzil, Nahuatl
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=859
x 7030
Contact:

Re: zenmonkey's multilingual adventures of a traveller

Postby zenmonkey » Fri Jun 29, 2018 12:52 am

Went into Palo Alto today and discovered that one of the local libraries has a bunch of old FSI books:
  • Cambodian
  • Hungarian
  • Kirundi
  • Chinyanja
  • Hausa
  • Lingala
  • Kituba
  • Luganda
  • Shona
  • Swahili
  • Igbo
  • Yoruba
Unfortunately these are bit expensive and I don't think I'll pick them up. Really.

fsi.jpeg
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
4 x
I am a leaf on the wind, watch how I soar

User avatar
zenmonkey
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2528
Joined: Sun Jul 26, 2015 7:21 pm
Location: California, Germany and France
Languages: Spanish, English, French trilingual - German (B2/C1) on/off study: Persian, Hebrew, Tibetan, Setswana.
Some knowledge of Italian, Portuguese, Ladino, Yiddish ...
Want to tackle Tzotzil, Nahuatl
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=859
x 7030
Contact:

vowels and Setswana and all the other stuff

Postby zenmonkey » Wed Jul 11, 2018 9:30 pm

Back in Germany and I've been organising my material.

I may have to admit that I have too much language learning material. I came to that realisation this morning trying put away some books - I can't hide the spill-over from my language shelves, in languages I will likely never study!

I think it is time to take stock on what focus / activity I'm going to have over the next 3 months, too.

Basically, as I start-up with Setswana, I noted that one of my weaknesses has been vowel notation when I transcribe. My personal notation has been weak and inconsistent around vowels - particularly the i, ɪ, e, and ɛ sounds (and the central equivalents too). Thinking about this, I want to go back to my German pronunciation too and see if I can improve a bit the production related to accent / vowel use.

The first thing here was to spend some time with the IPA. I found a pretty good video to understand the vowel IPA.


which focuses on the IPA from the point of view of an American speaker. It fits nicely my initial needs. I still need to learn how to better transcribe words into IPA when I need to.

Setswana also has important vowel length and tone components and that adds a little complexity.

For German, I'm now listening to this:



more later!
4 x
I am a leaf on the wind, watch how I soar

User avatar
zenmonkey
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2528
Joined: Sun Jul 26, 2015 7:21 pm
Location: California, Germany and France
Languages: Spanish, English, French trilingual - German (B2/C1) on/off study: Persian, Hebrew, Tibetan, Setswana.
Some knowledge of Italian, Portuguese, Ladino, Yiddish ...
Want to tackle Tzotzil, Nahuatl
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=859
x 7030
Contact:

more tswana...

Postby zenmonkey » Thu Jul 12, 2018 12:06 pm

The thing about Setswana is that the inconsistency of the name makes finding resources interesting. You can search for Setswana, Tswana, Sechuana, Bechuana or variants of these.

I found a book in French called "Etudes sur la langue Sechuana ... precedees d'un introduction sur l'origine et les progres de la mission chez les Bassoutos" by Eugene Casalis. Published in 1841! It has some interesting points, for example Setswana words with Hebrew origins ...

Screen Shot 2018-07-12 at 00.04.25.png


I think this is going to be a good read! I wonder if Casalis' book is referenced in Trubner's Catalog....

It is!

I also found in the Catalog references to:

- Archbell J, Grammar of the Bechuana Language, 112 pg, 1837
- Endemann K, Versuch einer Grammatik des Sotho, 206 pg, 1876

both available in e-format.

other finds for Daniel Jones:
Sechuana Reader - in international phonetic orthography (with English translations) - https://archive.org/details/sechuanareaderin00joneuoft
The Tones of Sechuana Nouns, 1928 -- this last also has a nice review, which scares the pants off of me!!

review.jpg


So, remaining in the area of tones and transcription, I've been trying to at the vowels used in Setswana and the transcription of these. Ended up downloading the PRAAT software and am playing with it...

I should probably start a thread on IPA transcription, because I have a lot of questions.
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
7 x
I am a leaf on the wind, watch how I soar

User avatar
zenmonkey
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2528
Joined: Sun Jul 26, 2015 7:21 pm
Location: California, Germany and France
Languages: Spanish, English, French trilingual - German (B2/C1) on/off study: Persian, Hebrew, Tibetan, Setswana.
Some knowledge of Italian, Portuguese, Ladino, Yiddish ...
Want to tackle Tzotzil, Nahuatl
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=859
x 7030
Contact:

Motivation and my current 4

Postby zenmonkey » Sun Jul 15, 2018 6:47 pm

I've bee thinking about my organisation as I try keep some balance between work and language learning and I decided to do a short post about both language aspirational goals (it's a reminder I need) and short term goals. I'm currently working on German, Hebrew, Tibetan and Setswana. It is possibly too much and as we've discussed on the forum multiple times I'm probably better off doing some sort of serial focus where I study x for 6 week and then move over to the next language. Yeah, I might try that one day. But not yet.

German - I'm somewhere in the continuum of B2/C1, I live here and I'd would love to be comfortable with media and content around me where I have the ability to just get 99% of everything. I want to be at ease with literature, science and poetry in German. I want to listen to radio stories, music, audio books and "Kabarett comedie" and get it.

So for the next 30 days, I'm diving in to learn and memorise Lied Vom Kindsein – Peter Handke, to read Der Araber von morgen and Asimov's Robot stories in German. I'll be capturing vocabulary along the way and putting that into my Anki deck. I also have a weekly German exchange session. So I expect that by the 15th of next month I'll realistically have put at least 20 hrs of focused German work.

Hebrew - A1(?) - This is a family language or lets say that my family, cousins, etc. suffer from more or less knowing it. I'd really like to feel that I am not lost on the rare occasions that I participate in a religious event (even if I'm not particularly religious - I liked understanding a mass when I attended one...). I'd like to be able to travel, to read current events, to understand the links to other semitic languages...

So for the next 30 days, I'm going to review the material I've covered with my iTalki teacher, continue with those lessons and work on 20 more lessons of Assimil. So I expect that by the 15th of next month I'll realistically have put at least 20 hrs of focused Hebrew work.

Tibetan - A1(?) - I dream of return to the Zanzkar valley and being able to interact locally with some ease. I'd like to visit and spend time in Dharamsala and the Kangra valley. I love the complexity and 'mathemacity' of Tibetan and want to be able to converse easily. It's coolness factor isn't lost to me either - people are intrigued or think I'm nuts when I talk about the region or the languages here.

So for the next 30 days, I'm going to get reorganised - review the material I've covered with my iTalki teacher, too but focus on re-editing material we worked on scattered across different notebooks and I'd like to give Colloquial Tibetan a fair shake (at least 8 solid hrs over the next month with that book). I'm going to continue with my iTalki lessons and work on my notes and Anki. I'll have put at least 20 hrs of focused Tibetan work by the 15th of August, at least.

Setswana - This started as a lark with the Setswana group and I'm A0. It wasn't on my radar two month and I don't know if I really have a long term motivation. But I'd love to have an African language somewhat under the belt - it is a region I'd like to travel in. It is vastly different from what I've studied elsewhere, yet it retains quite a few hooks (borrowed vocab, a latin script, a relatively simple tonal set-up) that I appreciate.

So for the next 30 days, I'm going to get my ducks in a row - continue with our biweekly study calls, do anki, utalk, and create new cards from material I've found, get a feel for the language. A minimum of 10 hours over the next month, I'd like to think I can stretch to 20.
9 x
I am a leaf on the wind, watch how I soar

User avatar
zenmonkey
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2528
Joined: Sun Jul 26, 2015 7:21 pm
Location: California, Germany and France
Languages: Spanish, English, French trilingual - German (B2/C1) on/off study: Persian, Hebrew, Tibetan, Setswana.
Some knowledge of Italian, Portuguese, Ladino, Yiddish ...
Want to tackle Tzotzil, Nahuatl
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=859
x 7030
Contact:

Peter Handke - Wings of Desire

Postby zenmonkey » Mon Jul 16, 2018 12:27 pm

Have I somehow forgotten to post this before? A quick search led me nowhere and I was pretty sure that I had already posted one or more versions of Peter Handke's poem Lied Vom Kindsein (Song of Childhood).

Well, I'm learning and trying to memorise this poem. So here it goes - a fitting place to drop a version from the movie.



And this truly fantastic reading.



And the poem in Spanish / English / German: https://articulosparapensar.wordpress.c ... er-handke/
and French : https://lefestindebabel.wordpress.com/2 ... -lenfance/
2 x
I am a leaf on the wind, watch how I soar

User avatar
Brun Ugle
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2273
Joined: Mon Jul 27, 2015 12:48 pm
Location: Steinkjer, Norway
Languages: English (N), Norwegian (~C1/C2), Spanish (B1/B2), German (A2/B1?), Japanese (very rusty)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=11484
x 5821
Contact:

Re: zenmonkey's multilingual adventures of a traveller

Postby Brun Ugle » Mon Jul 16, 2018 1:33 pm

I like your idea of memorizing poems. Perhaps I should try it too. Maybe in Spanish. Do you have any suggestions?
1 x

Lawyer&Mom
Blue Belt
Posts: 980
Joined: Sun Mar 04, 2018 6:08 am
Languages: English (N), German (B2), French (B1)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=7786
x 3767

Re: zenmonkey's multilingual adventures of a traveller

Postby Lawyer&Mom » Mon Jul 16, 2018 5:33 pm

Thank for for linking to Lied Vom Kindsein! I’ve always wondered the name of that poem! (Clearly I could have googled it, but I never did.) It was my first week in Germany and I had just set up my stereo in my dorm room and a woman was reading that poem on the radio and I was so moved to be hearing German in Germany... that first line has stuck with me ever since.
2 x
Grammaire progressive du français -
niveau debutant
: 60 / 60

Grammaire progressive du francais -
intermédiaire
: 25 / 52

Pimsleur French 1-5
: 3 / 5


Return to “Language logs”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests