daveprine's language commitments for 2018/2019

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daveprine
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daveprine's language commitments for 2018/2019

Postby daveprine » Mon Sep 03, 2018 10:15 pm

I, Dave Prine, being of sound mind (well, relatively speaking for a language nerd) and body (don’t go there), hereby register for the Super Challenge 2018/2019 committing to the following:

German (Full Challenge) (currently A2-B1)
Spanish (Full Challenge) (currently A1-A2)


In addition, I plan on regular and focused study of the following languages in order to achieve the corresponding goals by December 31st, 2019:

Desire to maintain and improve (the “FIGS” group):
German: 10,000 words (currently comfortable with ~1500), C1 level
Spanish: 10,000 words (currently comfortable with ~500), B1-B2 level
French: 2,000 words (currently comfortable with ~400)
Italian: 2,000 words (currently comfortable with ~200)

Other (partially in support of an upcoming project):

Esperanto: 2,000 words (currently comfortable with ~100)
(in order to interact with local and international communities, as well as to finally learn something so gosh darn easy)

Slovak: 2,000 words (currently comfortable with ~75)
(in order to consistently communicate with the Slovak community during Polyglot Gatherings as long as they continue to take place in Slovakia)

Indonesian: 2,000 words (currently comfortable with ~50)
(in order to prepare for potential employment to Indonesia)

Hungarian: 1,000 words (currently comfortable with ~50)
(What can I say? I love the language)

Manx: 1,000 words (currently comfortable with ~50)
(an easy revitalized language to pick up, and there are plenty of resources)

Tswana: 1,000 words (currently comfortable with ~20)
(because a certain Rick D who shall not be named suggested a group of us learn this simultaneously)

Lakota: 1,000 words (currently comfortable with ~10)
(to show support of an endangered Native American language, and I have a lot of resources for the language)

K’iche’: 1,000 words (currently comfortable with ~80)
(I’ve studied this casually in school and want to continue for fun and perhaps the chance to become involved with creating more awareness)

Tunica: 1,000 words (currently comfortable with ~40)
(I’m marginally involved with working on this language and feel that one should know asmuch of a language they’re involved with)

The plan is to return to this thread monthly with updates in addition to the Twitter/forum logs. The updates will be brief, yet rambling.

Other languages might come into play over the next 16 months and my goals might fluctuate, but I will work to stay on track to the best of my ability since this constitutes the core that I plan to develop and build from. At the very least, I plan to end 2019 having completed the two challenges as well and reach the goals for the FIGS group.

But expect all of this to change daily, nay, hourly.
Last edited by daveprine on Tue Sep 04, 2018 5:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Main: German, Spanish, French, Italian, Indonesian
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And then: Manx, Japanese, Tunica, Chinuk Wawa
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Re: daveprine's language commitments for 2018/2019

Postby IronMike » Mon Sep 03, 2018 10:57 pm

What resources are you using for Lakota and K’iche’?
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Re: daveprine's language commitments for 2018/2019

Postby devilyoudont » Mon Sep 03, 2018 11:48 pm

I feel like two thousand words is overkill for Esperanto.

This list might be of interest to you:

http://esperanto-chicago.org/esperanto- ... -glossary/

This word list was pulled in large part from the Frekvencmorfemaro de Parolata Esperanto (List of Morpheme Frequency in Spoken Esperanto), an analysis of usage frequency in spoken Esperanto. That list revealed that 467 morphemes are enough to yield 95% comprehension in Esperanto, and that 564 words are enough to obtain 80% comprehension based on frequency of use.


No idea how many Esperanto words I know, but I am high intermediate/low advanced and can get on just fine in the online Esperanto community, and in my local club.

Basically, once I got about half way thru duolingo, I started going into Esperanto chatrooms, and I tried to ensure I knew the words on that list. Later on I went backwards and finished out duolingo in a single afternoon just to say I finished the tree. Then I read probably about thirty percent of PMEG (this is a grammar guide to Esperanto written in basic Esperanto) (still occasionally return to reading it, but mostly use it as a reference now to help answer other people's questions). Now I'm jumping into literature in Esperanto.
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Re: daveprine's language commitments for 2018/2019

Postby daveprine » Tue Sep 04, 2018 12:11 pm

IronMike wrote:What resources are you using for Lakota and K’iche’?


For Lakota, I'm using a series of books and CDs that I ordered from The Lakota Conservancy bookstore:

http://stores.languagepress.com/levels-1-4-package/

There's a significant discount when you buy the bundle, but to be honest, I bought this when they had a "50% off everything" sale which made it even more affordable. (I think the sale was in December if you want to wait and see if they offer it again.)

I'm also returning to the Berenstain Bears in Lakota. The DVD is available but the material is online:

https://www.lakotabears.com/

and each episode comes with a script and vocab. I started this ages ago but didn't focus on Lakota at the time so I didn't get far.

I have another Lakota book ("Reading and Writing the Lakota Language") somewhere but I have to find it.

For K'iche', I have a draft of a textbook from a class I took (actually, 4 classes taught remotely by Vanderbilt University), and the basics are taken from:

https://tzij.coerll.utexas.edu/

Resources are few but now and then I come across something decent. I did an interview with Lindsay Williams and gave her a number of resources to which she added and posted. You can find everything here:

http://www.lindsaydoeslanguages.com/lan ... episode-9/

Hope this helps!
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Main: German, Spanish, French, Italian, Indonesian
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And then: Manx, Japanese, Tunica, Chinuk Wawa
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daveprine
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Re: daveprine's language commitments for 2018/2019

Postby daveprine » Tue Sep 04, 2018 12:36 pm

devilyoudont wrote:I feel like two thousand words is overkill for Esperanto.


I see your point. Actually, Esperanto is the only language (that I can think of) where I already know words even if they don't "exist" yet. If I know 10 nouns, I suddenly now know 10 verbs, 10 adjectives, and 10 adverbs, even if they don't truly make sense. (I used the sentence "Birda birdo birdas birde" in a presentation last year to make this point.)

Although when I say "words," I usually include set phrases, expressions, idioms, etc. (like "how are you?" "down the tubes," "don't touch my duck!" [an actual phrase I used A LOT in German]) as well as morphemes/affixes (which Esperanto has several of, as we know. 467, according to the link, which is way more than I thought!).

Which then leads to the question of how much can I know and have it count? If I know 10 prefixes, 10 roots, and 10 suffixes, all of which are combinable, I could theoretically know how to make 1000 words, even though I only "know" 30. My measure usually just comes from the number of vocabulary flashcards I create. (I still use physical cards. I'm old. Sue me.)

Above everything else, these goals will require some flexibility and modification as I progress. I might reduce the Esperanto for the reasons you point out and/or in order to focus on another language. Or I might become obsessive with learning more Esperanto due to it's simplicity, (I sometimes have an addictive personality) and thus not focus as much on other languages. This is my first public log, which now forces me to pay attention to my progress. So I'm really excited to see how this goes.

But now you've got me curious to see how Esperanto actually unfolds. Thanks for the comment and the link!
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Re: daveprine's language commitments for 2018/2019

Postby Deinonysus » Tue Sep 04, 2018 6:32 pm

Interesting, I thought that Yucatec Maya had the most speakers of any Maya language but I looked up K'iche' after seeing your post and now I see that it has more than twice as many.

Did your classes cover the Popol Vuh at all? And I see that you're a beginner with a vocabulary of around 80 words, but are you able to somewhat understand any passages from the Popol Vuh or is Classical K'iche' too different from the modern language?

It's on my bucket list to study at least one Maya language before I die. I was between Ch'orti' (the closest living language to Classical Maya) and Yucatec Maya, but now K'iche' is in the mix too. Or of course maybe I'll never get to any of them.
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Re: daveprine's language commitments for 2018/2019

Postby Elenia » Tue Sep 04, 2018 8:15 pm

daveprine wrote:The updates will be brief, yet rambling.


Do we believe this? Do we?'

Also: Hi Dave.
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Re: daveprine's language commitments for 2018/2019

Postby rdearman » Tue Sep 04, 2018 8:16 pm

Elenia wrote:
daveprine wrote:The updates will be brief, yet rambling.


Do we believe this? Do we?'

Also: Hi Dave.

I believe the rambling, brief.... well not so much.
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Re: daveprine's language commitments for 2018/2019

Postby Elenia » Tue Sep 04, 2018 8:28 pm

rdearman wrote:
Elenia wrote:
daveprine wrote:The updates will be brief, yet rambling.


Do we believe this? Do we?'

Also: Hi Dave.

I believe the rambling, brief.... well not so much.


I much of the same opinion.
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daveprine
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Re: daveprine's language commitments for 2018/2019

Postby daveprine » Wed Sep 05, 2018 1:01 pm

Deinonysus wrote:Did your classes cover the Popol Vuh at all? And I see that you're a beginner with a vocabulary of around 80 words, but are you able to somewhat understand any passages from the Popol Vuh or is Classical K'iche' too different from the modern language?


Actually, I had 4 classes and learned a ton of vocab and grammar, but due to starting with Level 2 (and then taking Levels 1 & 3 simultaneously the following semester), I got a rocky start, and also lost a lot when I stopped (because I don't use it all that much in Virginia-go figure). I can probably get a lot back when I re-study, so take the numbers with a grain of salt :D

We studied the Popol Vuh in Level 3 (or maybe Level 4?) and I also sat in on a class that discussed digitizing the Popol Vuh. The original is very different in that it uses a different orthography, and word divisions are inconsistent with today's standard. But you can find a moderniozed version at

http://www.mesoweb.com/publications/Chr ... iteral.pdf

which removes the mystery. So this version makes a little more sense to me.
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Main: German, Spanish, French, Italian, Indonesian
To a lesser degree: Hungarian, Dutch, Ukrainian, Brazilian Portuguese, Albanian, Plains Cree
And then: Manx, Japanese, Tunica, Chinuk Wawa
And then I'll cure world hunger and build a hotel on the moon.


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