Ogrim's Krambu - a plethora of languages, mostly European, both old and new

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S7R
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Re: Ogrim's language experiences - Russian, Romansh, Arabic and more

Postby S7R » Wed Jul 26, 2017 6:56 pm

Ogrim wrote:
One of the strengths of this Forum is the diversity of its members. It is a real treat to be able to get tips and advice from people around the globe who can help you discover the culture behind your target languages and expand your horizons. It makes language learning so much more interesting and motivating. For me, discovering the Arabic language and the Arabic world is not about politics, religion or conflicts. It is about people's daily life, the music they listen to, the books they read, the movies they watch and the food they eat. Maybe I sound a bit naive, but I strongly believe that through learning languages and embracing other cultures with an open mind, you can get rid of prejudices and make the world just a tiny bit better.




No you are not naive, of course this is the main reason why we learn a new language. even I, when i started learning Turkish language it is because i liked their literature, their movies and of course their food :D
and as you said when we learn a new language and culture, our perspective will change and we will see them in a different and nice way.
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SomnolentMe
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Re: Ogrim's language experiences - Russian, Romansh, Arabic and more

Postby SomnolentMe » Thu Jul 27, 2017 8:20 pm

Ogrim wrote:
S7R wrote:I like your idea that you listen to songs and assess your progress in the language.
But since you are studying Modern Standard Arabic, it is better to look for Modern Standard Arabic songs.
I see that the dialect use in Maghreb countries like dialect of Cheb Khaled is very different from Modern Standard Arabic.


Do you know any artists who sing in MSA? I've always assumed most traditional and pop music in Arab countries would use the dialect, but maybe I am wrong.




Same here:-) I listen to Arabic music without understanding the lyrics. And I entirely enjoy it.

I would recommend you (if I may) this channel. (Maybe you already know about it.)
https://www.youtube.com/user/MohCoolMan/videos
An absolute jewel for Arabic learners. Their project is 100 popular Arabic songs. The videos always include the Arabic lyrics, Latin transliteration and English translation. The songs are in MSA as well as in dialects whether it is Iraqi, Jordanian, Kuwaiti, Tunisian, you name it... even Bedouin.
I personally adore this song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOZFwj6AytA

And also, you can find there Disney section, even though Disney is predominantly in Egyptian Arabic, I am positive Frozen is in MSA:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEMQjIP ... o7CeQmDOzs
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Ogrim
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Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?t=873
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Re: Ogrim's language experiences - Russian, Romansh, Arabic and more

Postby Ogrim » Fri Jul 28, 2017 10:08 am

Thanks a lot for that Youtube channel recommendation! I didn't know about it. It is really fun to hear those Disney songs in Arabic! As my daughter was crazy about Frozen a few years back I think I know the English lyrics by heart just because she used to play the songs all the time. Obviously it won't be a word-for-word translation into Arabic, but at least I know what they are singing about.

Now I wonder if there is a (legal) way of transforming youtube videos into audio mp3 files. Would be great to create a playlist out of these songs.
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Ogrim
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Re: Ogrim's language experiences - Russian, Romansh, Arabic and more

Postby Ogrim » Wed Aug 09, 2017 3:22 pm

I am slowly progressing with Arabic, but I have a hard time memorising words so I do a lot of repetition. It doesn't make life easier that you need to learn two words for most nouns as the plural is irregular more often than not. I guess further on I also need to find some good exercise material to practise verb forms. I think I finally understand the concept, but it will take time to internalise it.

I've also learnt this week that in nominal sentences, where the subject is a plural noun designating anything but a person you have to use the feminine singular of the past tense of the verb as well as the feminine singular of the adjective.

Although my ambition is mostly to be able to read and understand Standard Arabic rather than speaking it, I do try to get the phonetics right. The challenge is the rich consonant system (vowels are much simpler as basically you only have a, i, and u in a long and short version). I find it particularly difficult to distinguish clearly between the various t-, d-, z-, s- and h- sounds, i.e:
ت ط
د ض
ز ظ
س ص
ح خ ه

I guess it is a matter of practise and audio-input concentrating on how natives pronounce the sounds.

I keep reading a few pages of Евангелие от Соловьёва every day, but it sometimes make me feel I don't know any Russian vocabulary at all! Soloviev has a huge register and writes in a very elaborate style, and there are many pages of theological and philosophical speculation.

As I got somehwat tired of struggling with Soloviev's prose, I turned to a Catalan book to relax, and in just three days I read Algú com tu de Xavier Bosch. It is a rather banal love story, but enjoyable and an easy read.
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crush
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Re: Ogrim's language experiences - Russian, Romansh, Arabic and more

Postby crush » Wed Aug 09, 2017 7:11 pm

Ogrim wrote:Now I wonder if there is a (legal) way of transforming youtube videos into audio mp3 files. Would be great to create a playlist out of these songs.

With Firefox, i use FlashGot or now Video DownloadHelper to download the video, from there you can use any of the video -> mp3 tools (or just ffmpeg). I think VLC can convert a video to an mp3, as well. Alternatively, there are also plenty of websites to do this for you, just search for "Youtube to mp3" (for example, this one pops up at the top of the list for me). If you want to download a ton of videos it's a bit of a slow process, but for one or two it's not so bad.
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Ogrim
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Re: Ogrim's language experiences - Russian, Romansh, Arabic and more

Postby Ogrim » Thu Aug 10, 2017 12:11 pm

Thank you for the recommendations, Crush. I will look into this when I have a moment.

I did not write about Greek yesterday, but that is because there is not much to report. I haven't been able to do something every day, as I have focused more on Arabic lately, but I do pick up the book from time to time to revise some vocabulary and do one or two exercises. As I went through two thirds of the Langenscheidt course a couple of years ago, a lot is coming back quickly.

Some posts ago I put on a video by Russian singer Артур, and since then I've discovered his full name is Artur Rudenko and I found a short article about him in Russian on the site Узнай Всё. I've been looking up the lyrics of his songs on internet and started creating a small electronic songbook so I can follow the text while listening to the songs. There are always some new words to learn.

Many of his songs are quite melancholic, and the Russian words expresssing sadness, melancholy or similar, for example грустъ, страдание and тоска, are quite frequent. Snow and rain also appear in many songs. I actually really like those sad songs, I find they convey a lot of emotion. Here are two examples, one from a live performance on TV and the other a videoclip.



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Ogrim
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Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?t=873
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Re: Ogrim's language experiences - Russian, Romansh, Arabic and more

Postby Ogrim » Fri Sep 01, 2017 3:53 pm

I am back from three weeks in Spain, so I have a lot of catching up to do on reading this forum, as I hardly spent any time online during my vacation.

I did study and read a lot though. On average I did at least two hours of Arabic every day, slowly building up basic vocabulary and starting to get the hang of some verb patterns, but there is still a huge mountain to climb. I also managed to revise most of the lessons in the Langenscheidt Greek course wich I did two-three years ago, so by the end of the year I will start looking for other materials. I may go for another course book, if I can find something decent for low intermediate learners, but I hope to be able to start exploring the real stuff as well, like short news stories on the internet etc.

I got through Евангелие от Соловьёва (The Gospel according to Soloviev) and the book, although a tough read, got more and more interesting as I progressed. It is difficult to classify it. It has elements of fantasy, of political satire, of religious and philosophical speculation, but I cannot remember having read anything quite like it. I won't say too much about the plot and how it ends apart from what I mentioned in an earlier post. I do want to say though that a lot of famous real-life persons appear in the book, not always in the best light. Apart from Bill Gates, Vladimir Putin and the Pope, there is Ted Turner, the founder of CNN, who plays an important part in the plot. There is a short and somewhat funny appearance by Tony Blair, and Soloviev also gives a kicking to some well-known Russian oligarchs. Now I am tempted to read the sequel, which is called Апокалипсис от Владимира (Vladimir's Apocalypse), but I decided to turn to something easier first, so I am now halfway through a thriller called Моё чужое лицо. I don't find it terribly exciting, and it is probably not very well written, but at least it is easy to read, a lot of useful words are repeated frequently and ther is a lot of dialogue, so for learning purposes it is very useful.

When I get tired of learning Arabic words and verb patterns, I relax with some Arabic music. I've discovered the Youtube channel for Arab Idol and I have enjoyed watching some of the videos there. Here is a clip by the last winner of the competition, Yaqoub Shaheen (in Arabic يعقوب شاهين) who is a Palestinian Christian according to this article by Al Jazeera.

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Ogrim
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Re: Ogrim's language experiences - Russian, Romansh, Arabic and more

Postby Ogrim » Mon Sep 25, 2017 2:02 pm

La rentrée this year turned out to be much more hectic than I had hoped for, both workwise and privately, so my language learning has suffered during September. I have not been able to find much time for Arabic - just the odd moment here and there when I have tried to consolidate what I've learned so far. Greek is still "on the agenda", but I've not opened my course book these last two weeks. Now things seem to calm down a little bit, so I hope for an improvement in October.

My reading in other languages has also been less intensive this month. I continue with Моё чужое лицо, but lately very little happens and it is getting a bit boring. I've actually spent more time reading new stories in my many Russian news apps than I have on the novel.

I have started on a new novel in Catalan as well, called Nosaltres dos by Xavier Bosch. The style is very similar to the other novel by this author which I read in the summer, Algú com tu. The language is realtively easy and the storyline is simple to follow. I have actually spent a lot of time with Catalan the last few weeks. As I am eager to follow the ongoing events in Catalonia I have been watching the news on the Catalan channel TV3 almost every day. Things will come to a head next Sunday, what the Catalans only refer to as "l'u-O", (or rather l'1-O, meaning 1 October of course). What happens then and in the following days and weeks is anybody's guess, but as this is entering into politics I will say no more.

I've also read a book in Norwegian, a light-hearted crime novel by Hans Olav Lahlum, who is quite a multi-faceted personality, being a historian, crime author, politician and chess expert. The book, called Menneskefluene was his first crime novel and is very much in the classical genre, clearly inspired by authors like Agatha Christie. This was actually the first book I've read in Norwegian this year, as far as I can remember, and I really enjoyed it. As there were elections in Norway a couple of weeks ago I have also watched more Norwegian TV than usual. Thing is I am in a situation where I hardly use my native tongue, so whenever I practise Norwegian, be it reading, watching a movie or TV show, listening to the radio or talking with family or friends, I "rediscover" a sensation which is very difficult to describe. At first it is almost like using any of my other strong languages, like English, but then after a while it is as if something is happening in my brain and I relate to the language and its nuances in a very different way. I wish I could express it better, but I cannot really find the right words to explain it properly.
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PeterMollenburg
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Re: Ogrim's language experiences - Russian, Romansh, Arabic and more

Postby PeterMollenburg » Tue Sep 26, 2017 12:36 pm

Hi Ogrim,

I hope things are well with you and your language learning is going well. You have a remarkably high number of languages at B2 or above. How do you do it? And, i'm curious, any knowledge of the Alsatian language?

PM
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Ogrim
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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
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Re: Ogrim's language experiences - Russian, Romansh, Arabic and more

Postby Ogrim » Tue Sep 26, 2017 2:54 pm

PeterMollenburg wrote:Hi Ogrim,

I hope things are well with you and your language learning is going well. You have a remarkably high number of languages at B2 or above. How do you do it? And, i'm curious, any knowledge of the Alsatian language?

PM


Thank you for the question PM. The answer has to be a bit longish, but as it is not the first time people ask this, I've decided to reply as honestly and succinctly as I can.

I start with a couple of caveats: Firtly, I have no certificates to prove my level in any of these languages, it is an autoevaluation to the best of my abilities. Secondly, my level may vary depending on whether we talk about reading, listening, writing or speaking. My indication of a B2 is sort of a "middle point" - for a language like Catalan I am probably a C1 in reading, a strong B2 in listening, a B1 in writing and a weak B1 in speaking. I just can't put all that information in a short profile like this.

How do I do it? Well, I am not so young any longer, I have spent many years juggling several languages at the same time. After many years I can say that learning a language well takes time. I should also say that the majority of my languages are from the Romance family, so I've got a lot "for free", at least when it comes to comprehension due to similarities in grammar and vocabulary between these languages. That being said, I have had the opportunity to live in different countries and be in a position where I just have to use several languages every day. Maybe the best answer to the question is in something I wrote in my log on HTLAL back in 2015, so I will quote that rather long post, with a few modifications to reflect changes in my situation:


The multilingual everyday life

After some hesitation I have decided to write about my everyday multilingual experience on the forum to share an experience which maybe someone will find interesting, and which goes some way to explain the list of languages and the levels indicated in my profile.

Norwegian is my native language, and from a young age I got interested in learning languages. I did a degree in Romance linguistics at the University of Oslo, where I spent six years full-time studying Spanish, Italian, French, Romanian, Catalan and Romansh, as well as Latin.

I left Norway more than 20 years ago to work in other European countries, and since then my main working language has been English. It is also 20 years ago that I married a Spanish girl, so the family language is Spanish. Since I moved to France almost 10 years ago, my second working language and my “street” language” is French. Now this may seem like a nice “compartmentalisation”, but it is not as straightforward. I don’t use only Spanish at home, or only English when writing documents at work, or only French when I do my shopping. Life is more complex, and to illustrate it, here is what could be described as a typical day in my life:

I usually walk to work listening to the radio, it can be BBC4 or France Info, to get an overview of the news. If something particular has been going on in, lets say Germany or Spain, I may listen to NDR Info or Cadena SER instead. Arriving at work, I order a coffee and croissant (in French), and have breakfast, sometimes with an English-speaking colleague. If I arrive early at work, I spend the first twenty minutes quickly checking out the news on websites in any of my languages. Then I might have a meeting, where we will mostly speak French, although both working languages may be used indistinctively. After that I spend some time answering e-mails, again in both English and French, I may draft a memo for my Director in French and (as I work in HR) prepare a vacancy notice in English. With a few colleagues I speak Spanish, and with another a little bit of German, but mostly we stick to the two official languages. If the phone rings and I don’t recognise the number, I never know whether I will be talking French or English. In the lunch break, if I have time, I normally spend half an hour reading something on the web in Russian or, when time allows, do a little bit of Arabic.

At least twice a week we go across the border to Germany, so then I speak German, although it is often limited to interaction with shop attendants, and with waiters if we stop for a drink or a meal before heading home. It does happen from time to time that I get engaged in longer conversations in German.

I try to fit in some real study time every day, my priority still being to improve my Russian, but now with Arabic and Greek added.

I don't watch a lot of TV, but I have a wide choice both through my cable provider and through apps on my tablet, so depending on what goes on in the world, I may watch programmes in Spanish, Catalan, French, German, Russian, Portuguese etc.

Then there is the time I set aside for reading. I read a lot of news and subscribe to a number of electronic newspapers and magazines in French, German, Spanish, Romansh and Russian. I normally also read two or three books in parallel, there is always a Russian book on my reading list, and then I alternate between books in all the other languages. Right now I am reading books in Russian, German, Catalan and French, next month it may be Russian, Portuguese and Romansh.

All this sounds great, right, a dream come true for any polyglot? Yes, it is mostly a positive experience, but it is also challenging and sometimes frustrating. Challenging because switching between at least three languages regularly throughout the day, every day, actually takes a lot of energy, even when you are confident and "fluent". The frustrating part is that I use two of my languages professionally, and this means ideally working at a C2 level both in oral and written communication. I think I am more or less at that level in both French and English on a good day, but sometimes when I get tired, especially my French suffers and suddenly I am no longer able to express an idea with the clarity that I want. This is frustrating, especially if it is an important conversation where you want your arguments to be listened to, or you have to draft an e-mail explaining why you cannot accommodate a request from a colleague.

Speaking Spanish with my wife comes automatically and without any effort, after so many years it is natural. However, what all this means is that I hardly use my native language, except for the occasional phone call to relatives back in Norway, the few times I go back to visit and whenever I feel like reading a book or watching a TV programme in Norwegian. I don’t think that my Norwegian has “declined”, but sometimes I actually have to make an effort to speak Norwegian well. A curiosity in that regard is that I have difficulty finding the right vocabulary to describe what my job is about, as all my job-related terminology is in English and French. Still, when I speak Norwegian, most of the time the effort involved is much less than when I juggle between two or three other languages at the same time.

I have the opportunity to live this multilingual life partly by choice, partly by chance. I would not want to switch it for a monolingual (or bilingual) life in Norway, and although it feels good sometimes to be in a purly Norwegian-speaking environment, I would miss my multilingual experience if that were to be a permanent state of affairs.
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