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:

Polyglot Conference Notes

Postby zenmonkey » Thu Jun 08, 2017 2:55 pm

The videos of the conferences are not yet available on the conference website. There are quite few that I missed and want to watch:

  • David Price’s K’iche'
  • Netflix and Chill
  • Turkish Intro
  • Tim Morley’s Esperanto Intro
  • Learn by building a dictionary
  • Rick Dearman’s Using Anki TV and subtitles
  • Iversen’s Trees and Waves and the Germanic Mess
  • Using Deep Learning
  • Joanna’s Gender Pronouns in Language
  • Ten Things Polyglots do Differently
  • Slovak intro
  • Nootka

Of those I watched some were not noteworthy - I’m not going to comment on those. Those that merit mention:

Bienvenue chez les Ch’tis - good for French presentation. It’s the patois of the region where my two youngest live so I also bought the ASSIMIL guide for this - it’s a bit small and like a few dialects - I was interested more on vocalisation shifts which were not really covered.
Tim Keeley - Making of a Hyperglot - Just a very good speaker with an anti-conformist attitude on language levels and test that speaks a buttload of languages - he’s written quiet a few articles that I’m going to hunt down. Will post links and probably start a few discussions here on few relevant topics. We also spoke afterwards on Himalayan languages (he’s working on Tamang/Sherpa for a trip) and ‘lateral’ acquisition - approaching a language by learning another on the language tree - I pretty much put Ladakhi aside since the material is not that available but I’ve been inspired by our talk to look into classical/modern Tibetan as way to approach it. So. New/Old language on my plate.
Pragmatica Intro - not sure about the applicability to language acquisition but a nice talk in Spanish on Pragmatics, if you are looking for content in Spanish. He also recommended Maria Escandell’s book on the subject.
Klingon Intro - Went on a lark, and while I won’t say ‘go see it’ - it was interesting to see the presentation that focused on the structure of a language and not just ‘a bunch of phrases’. Geek points to those guys!
Cesco’s and Dimiitris’ talk on language weirdness - a really multilingual talk covering a lot of structural subjects. Just fun!

The Mentalist Show was just fantastic. Really top notch and Florian also gave a talk the next day.
Jessie Ann’s concert was also great - an she’s an incredibly friendly person. She may actually drop by on the forum - gave her the url and we had the same concerns about managing study time.

If you are interested in a free intro to Glossika - here is the link that was shared: http://eepurl.com/cOz5s9

Truly the best part of the conference was meeting people and the time spent between talks with you’z’all.

Languages that caught my ear and I bought material for or decided to readdress in one way or another?
  • Slovak
  • Catalan
  • Occitan
  • Italian (reactivation)
  • Brazilian Portuguese (reactivation)
  • Ladakhi

Gah! That list is really too long. But I got a few interesting ideas on approaches for some of those. Obviously I’ll write about what I’m doing when I’m doing it.

Sites I’d like to look into mimicmethod.com & yozzi.com

So, language stuff

Hebrew

Been using Colloquial Hebrew to review verb groups (and create some drills). It is, in my eyes, a pretty excellent learning book. I’m going to look into other languages from this series (Slovak, Tibetan, Icelandic...).

And on my flight last night I got in about 6 hrs of study so that was nice.
7 x
I am a leaf on the wind, watch how I soar

User avatar
MorkTheFiddle
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2113
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 8:59 pm
Location: North Texas USA
Languages: English (N). Read (only) French and Spanish. Studying Ancient Greek. Studying a bit of Latin. Once studied Old Norse. Dabbled in Catalan, Provençal and Italian.
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 11#p133911
x 4822

Re: Anki song cards - my short guide

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Thu Jun 08, 2017 11:49 pm

zenmonkey wrote:
3) convert to subtitle file using Aegisub (on the Mac) or Subtitle Edit (on the PC). Personally I found Aegis MUCH easier to use - but there is definitely a learning curve there.

1b) Make sure that the subtitle that you are using is long enough to be of interest. Cards with one/two words of dialogue aren't very useful. (See EMK's post and the links on making longer dialogues/merging subs)

Given that Excel exports an UTF16 file, when needed I also convert the file to UTF8 using http://www.fileformat.info before importing into ANKI.


- Aegisub: I think Aegisub is easier, too.

- EMK's post: that link would not work for me.

- Excel and UTF16: good to know, thanks.
0 x
Many things which are false are transmitted from book to book, and gain credit in the world. -- attributed to Samuel Johnson

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: Anki song cards - my short guide

Postby zenmonkey » Fri Jun 09, 2017 3:21 am

MorkTheFiddle wrote:
zenmonkey wrote:
3) convert to subtitle file using Aegisub (on the Mac) or Subtitle Edit (on the PC). Personally I found Aegis MUCH easier to use - but there is definitely a learning curve there.

1b) Make sure that the subtitle that you are using is long enough to be of interest. Cards with one/two words of dialogue aren't very useful. (See EMK's post and the links on making longer dialogues/merging subs)

Given that Excel exports an UTF16 file, when needed I also convert the file to UTF8 using http://www.fileformat.info before importing into ANKI.


- Aegisub: I think Aegisub is easier, too.

- EMK's post: that link would not work for me.

- Excel and UTF16: good to know, thanks.


corrected the link above - it was during the site transition. I'll edit the original post too.
The other solution for excel is to open a Google doc sheet copy and paste into that and then save it to your drive. Anki manages those nicely.
1 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 material, less learning...

Postby zenmonkey » Wed Jun 14, 2017 10:16 am

It’s been a rough week for language learning activity but a good resource week - I went to the US for personal reasons (my mother’s Yahrzeit) and spent time with my brothers and father. As we did some house cleaning I was able to get a few language books - and once again, it became really obvious what a language rich environment I grew up in.

I scored some graphic novels that my brothers didn’t want in French and Spanish, took some Portuguese Agatha Christie novels and we tossed out some really old (and bad) Chinese software that my father had never touched. The man has several methods for Japanese, Chinese, Hebrew, Portuguese, German and French - and hundreds of books in Spanish and English. I’m a bit concerned that he’s sort of given up on language learning and says his memory is going but that is another long topic.

I also took copies of Yiddish learning manuals that my aunt wrote. And a few books in Spanish that my grandparents bound in leather and gold-leaf. But I forgot to steal back the Salamanca yiddish book in Rashi. So those where my ‘house’ scores.

But the best stuff I got from the bookstore managed by the local library - I try to do a book run each time I get there - I picked up 3-4 books in Hebrew (including a Harry Potter), a Greek manual, a book on Tibetan. Lots of stuff there was not in any of my core languages - I think next time I’ll take pictured and post up here for orders - because along with what I bought for myself I also picked up a book in Cyrillic, Sanskrit and Thai for an artist friend to tear apart for her art work. All for $7.50. Pretty unbeatable.

A Barnes and Nobles run was a big zero. Really not much of interest in the language section. I settled for ‘Becoming Fluent’ - without really expecting it to be a good book, but my father wanted to get me something. And I'm enjoying the first chapters.

Yesterday, as my last evening we hunted out a huge used bookstore in San Jose and spent a few hours there - no major language book finds except for a anthropology book on the deciphering of Linear B.

Aside from collecting material - it’s been difficult to study - jet lagged, stressed out, with lots of distractions, raging allergies, poor sleep, all led to little focused time and study. In fact, all I achieved was a bit of rewriting of some Hebrew card formats in Anki and the deep dread that I am forgetting things faster than learning them. This week was not one where I sat with 'a sense of better’. But that is ok, it was also good to let go, reluctantly, to the social parts of being with family and my father’s friends. And I think I gathered a little more material for my writing.
5 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:

Re: zenmonkey's multilingual adventures of a traveller

Postby zenmonkey » Wed Jun 14, 2017 12:18 pm

And a picture of some of my finds and steals.
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
5 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 23120
Contact:

Re: zenmonkey's multilingual adventures of a traveller

Postby rdearman » Wed Jun 14, 2017 12:34 pm

zenmonkey wrote:And a picture of some of my finds and steals.

mmmm.... book porn.
2 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
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 » Wed Jun 14, 2017 1:12 pm

rdearman wrote:
zenmonkey wrote:And a picture of some of my finds and steals.

mmmm.... book porn.


Yep! By the way - the brown leather bound volumes in the middle were bound by my grandmother and the Ariele books (the boy with the cap) (ארעלע), a Yiddish primer were written by my aunt.
2 x
I am a leaf on the wind, watch how I soar

Stefan
Green Belt
Posts: 379
Joined: Sun Dec 20, 2015 9:59 pm
Location: Sweden
Languages: -
x 920
Contact:

Re: zenmonkey's multilingual adventures of a traveller

Postby Stefan » Wed Jun 14, 2017 3:12 pm

zenmonkey wrote:
● Lingvist : 755 / 3000

I recently began with Lingvist so I reached out to them and asked about length. Today they replied and told me 3980 words for the German course. Just a heads up if you're making a plan. I'm sure they've reached their 5000 before I complete it though..
2 x

User avatar
Ogrim
Brown Belt
Posts: 1009
Joined: Mon Jul 27, 2015 10:29 am
Location: Alsace, France
Languages: Norwegian (N) English (C2), French (C2), Spanish (C2), German (B2), Romansh (B2), Italian (B2), Catalan (B2), Russian (B1), Latin (B2), Dutch (B1), Croatian (A2), Arabic (on hold), Ancient Greek (learning), Romanian (on hold)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?t=873
x 4169

Re: zenmonkey's multilingual adventures of a traveller

Postby Ogrim » Wed Jun 14, 2017 6:42 pm

zenmonkey wrote:
rdearman wrote:
zenmonkey wrote:And a picture of some of my finds and steals.

mmmm.... book porn.


Yep! By the way - the brown leather bound volumes in the middle were bound by my grandmother and the Ariele books (the boy with the cap) (ארעלע), a Yiddish primer were written by my aunt.


You have an interesting family background language-wise. Spanish, Yiddish, any other language in your family (apart from English of course)?
1 x
Ich grolle nicht

User avatar
aokoye
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1818
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 6:14 pm
Location: Portland, OR
Languages: English (N), German (~C1), French (Intermediate), Japanese (N4), Swedish (beginner), Dutch (A2)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=19262
x 3309
Contact:

Re: zenmonkey's multilingual adventures of a traveller

Postby aokoye » Wed Jun 14, 2017 9:37 pm

zenmonkey wrote:My youngest daughter was singing in English today - she's in a chorus and these are songs they've memorised without really learning the meaning of a lot of words. This brute memorisation is interesting since it is only learning the sounds, which she has down perfect without meaning.

I will say for some people memorizing things like songs is just easy. I know it's significantly easier for me to memorize a sung piece of music than a piece for flute or guitar. I don't speak Latin at all but I still have much of one of the harder pieces my choir sung, which just so happens to be in Latin, memorized. Did I know the meaning, more or less, of what I was singing? Yes, but I couldn't string words in Latin together to form a sentence.
3 x
Prefered gender pronouns: Masculine


Return to “Language logs”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests