SGP's Undaground Mad Not-quite-a-Scientist Languij Gizmos Lab

[zenmonkey]

Just to be clear, my previous post wasn't about how to reduce the word count or anything like that . Because I consider (almost) every single word I wrote down in that post as necessary.

As for the rest... I'd like to think of what you (zenmonkey) wrote two or three more times before posting a reply. Some of it I recognized as useful at first glance, on some we maybe wouldn't agree upon any time soon, and some could need some additional clarification. No matter if it is done by you or someone else.

Also, I am (still) interested in hearing the points of view of others as well.

Editing isn’t about reducing word count. It’s about creating clarity which itself happens to remove ineffective and redundant phrasing and words. If you feel almost « every single word you wrote is necessary » then what kind of input do you want?

In short my advice : write more about « language and learning » and less about the future of logs, or vague phrases. Be concrete. Work for clarity. For example, in prior post you talk about Esperanto tools for C1/C2 learners. As it stands, for me, it’s an unreadable mess (that sounds negative, please read on) but I think it might have some good advice if you were to make it more clear (not more verbose).

However, if you feel that your posts need to stand as is, without editing or modification, then I can only leave you with Voltaire’s apology « I’m sorry I wrote this too long a letter, I did not take the time to write it shorter ».

[SGP]

Editing isn’t about reducing word count. It’s about creating clarity which itself happens to remove ineffective and redundant phrasing and words.

We really don't differ that much on that one per se. But I am increasingly trying to figure out how exactly that can be applied. The main part of course isn't about whether a few "filler words" would be necessary or not, but about something much more general. To be specific, it is about how exactly language-related information can be conveyed in a way that always can be understood by most readers [*], rather than being sometimes unclear to some or even many.

[*] Writing something that can be understood by every single reader (without themselves asking for additional clarification) is something I, generally, don't really consider possible, no matter who is writing it.

If you feel almost « every single word you wrote is necessary » then what kind of input do you want?

What I wrote was about especially about that particular post, not about all of the other posts.

Because I consider (almost) every single word I wrote down in that post as necessary.

Maybe it would become more clear after "disclosing" my reasons for not having skipped some parts you consider unnecessary.

"Currently I am pondering on how to make my posts more / even more useful (whatever applies to you)."

If I wrote "more useful" only, rather than "more / even more", then I can easily cause, to some readers at least, the impression of considering my own posts as simply useless. Because phrases like "this can be made more useful as well" often are used as an euphemism for "currently it is useless".

"This is about all of the following:
- The way I am documenting my own language learning process. Including, but not limited to, the multi-language log."

When I said "including, but not limited to ...", I did so to emphasize that I am not only asking about the multi-language log, but also about the other ones, like Angewandte Kommunikation (the one in German).

"- This very thread, i.e. the Language Lab. For those of you who don't know yet, it is the place where I sometimes also would write about German and one of my C2 languages."

That "... where I sometimes also would write about ..." part couldn't be removed without causing a loss of significant information. Because this very thread isn't restricted at all to these two languages. For example, there was a recent post on how arts can be connected to word exploration, and some other posts on various subjects, too.

In short my advice : write more about « language and learning » and less about the future of logs, or vague phrases.

"Write more about the now and what has been done and not the plausible or imaginary future.

As for that one, I am still trying to figure out why exactly you suggested it. Because I read a lot of that content on many others logs as well ("not only writing about the now and what has been done, but also about the plausible or imaginary future").

(Some of this post's quotes belong to zenmonkey's previous one, rather than his current one, because I didn't reply to most of it up to now.)

Be concrete. Work for clarity. For example, in prior post you talk about Esperanto tools for C1/C2 learners. As it stands, for me, it’s an unreadable mess (that sounds negative, please read on) but I think it might have some good advice if you were to make it more clear (not more verbose).

Underneath it all, this is exactly the kind of input I was thinking about. Because as the time went on, I did realize that some couldn't always easily understand some of my posts, even if the reason/s didn't fully become clear to me up to now.

@Those of you who understood the Esperanto-related post: Would you have any concrete and specific ideas on how I could express things like these more clearly (to almost everyone, not just to "people like you") in the future?

However, if you feel that your posts need to stand as is, without editing or modification, then I can only leave you with Voltaire’s apology « I’m sorry I wrote this too long a letter, I did not take the time to write it shorter ».

Again, that "I consider almost every single word as necessary" thing was about that very post, not about all of them in general.

Be concrete. Summarize. Use simple sentences.

I really like that idea, and I already have been doing so in the past as much as I was able to. Still trying to figure out some more how to balance both of being concrete (adding a certain level of detail) and summarizing (not writing anything too long or detailed).

Avoid lyrical writing or prosody unless it is a specific effect you are looking for.

Ah yesss... that one I really should work on some more.

And as for anything related to learning techniques (or some other subjects as well maybe), someone told me in a PM that I would have rather many ideas that not everyone else would have, while some of them are better than others. I am pondering on that one as well. If anyone would have some (concrete and precise) input on it, I'd be interested in hearing it as well. This could be about any language technique post of mine, about that recent picture on how arts and word exploration could be connected (yes, I do realize that this one really is sorta unusual), or about anything else.

[zenmonkey]

I'm not going to spend much more time on this, but since we've started this convo, I think one last post on the subject might help.
You're trying to justify awkward sentences when being told that these are not readable.

"Currently I am pondering on how to make my posts more / even more useful (whatever applies to you)."

If I wrote "more useful" only, rather than "more / even more", then I can easily cause, to some readers at least, the impression of considering my own posts as simply useless. Because phrases like "this can be made more useful as well" often are used as an euphemism for "currently it is useless".

Don't worry about those that find your posts useless, you aren't writing for them. They aren't reading you. That invisible euphemism is only in your head. "I'm trying to make my posts more useful." is sufficient.

"This is about all of the following:
- The way I am documenting my own language learning process. Including, but not limited to, the multi-language log."

When I said "including, but not limited to ...", I did so to emphasize that I am not only asking about the multi-language log, but also about the other ones, like Angewandte Kommunikation (the one in German).

Well, you're asking about all your posts. We get that. That's why "I'm trying to make my posts more useful." is sufficient (I know I'm repeating myself). The phrase "including, but not limited to..." is either legalise, or set phrasing, it should never be part of clear writing. We get that you are asking about improving your posts. You don't need to detail where they will be. What about your posts in other peoples' threads, will those also be improved? You see, you could details every place you're going to post on this site and off and it wouldn't add to the information that you're just trying to improve how and what you communicate.

"- This very thread, i.e. the Language Lab. For those of you who don't know yet, it is the place where I sometimes also would write about German and one of my C2 languages."

That "... where I sometimes also would write about ..." part couldn't be removed without causing a loss of significant information. Because this very thread isn't restricted at all to these two languages. For example, there was a recent post on how arts can be connected to word exploration, and some other posts on various subjects, too.

No, it isn't significant information. You don't need to catalog everything you write. If you need a modifier, just add "mostly" before "about German". If it isn't what you plan to write about the most in your Language Lab, then why detail it in the first place?

----
These are recommendations for clarity. I had a harsh English Composition teacher, he took a play of mine and crossed out every other word I wrote. Every single other word. He then told me to rewrite the message, dialogue and emotions without adding back 1 word in 10. Try it, it's doable, it's a good exercise. It will help your writing.

And pick of a copy of Elements of Style by Strunk and White.

The question to ask is "what is important to my reader?" and not "what is important to me?".

[Axon]

Here is how I would write your Esperanto post in "my own" voice.

Here are a couple of ways to improve Esperanto even at the higher levels. Of course not every tip is useful for everyone, but I wanted to include them for completeness.

- Make a separate file or actual notebook for words and example sentences. Then every time you go through them using your favorite review method, make a little mark next to the word to give yourself a reminder of how many times you've reviewed it.

- As for active skills (speaking and writing), I really like Workaround Words. For example, in some situations you could get by with saying "baking thing" instead of "oven" in English. It won't always work and might end up confusing people, but at least you're able to keep your side of the conversation flowing instead of searching for words.

- Remember, you can be an adequate C1/C2 speaker without knowing every single technical word related to cooking, baking, painting, and so on. Lots of people aren't too familiar with some of those topics even in their native languages, though of course they're everyday words to specialists. But you can still express yourself at a C2 level without needing every word in every domain.

- Remember that Zamenhof (the inventor of Esperanto) did include a certain amount of words of Slavic origin, which makes sense because of his own native language. If you go through a couple of vocabulary lists of Slavic languages you may find some important roots that show up again in Esperanto.

- Once you know lots of different stems and affixes, you might find that plenty of words are transparent to you. But I still think it's important to look for example sentences frequently because you may not be aware of the specific usages of these words or their collocations.

- Don't forget to connect Esperanto to other hobbies - like if you're into the visual arts, you might find that thinking in Esperanto while creating a piece can link some things more closely in your brain and create a synergy effect (I love this phrase!)

- C1 and C2 often rely on total knowledge about the world, so if you read about completely new subjects in your other languages and Esperanto as well, you can increase then reinforce your knowledge of that subject while also getting more exposure to Esperanto.

- Finally, if you look at some more descriptors of C1 and C2 or some videos of people at those levels, you just might discover that you're closer to it than you thought!

Is this objectively "better?" No. It's just different, shorter, and without much SGP flavor. It may be more readable for some audiences and less readable for others.

In terms of what ideas you're expressing in the post, there are a couple of thoughts I had.

Advanced learners of Esperanto almost certainly know:
- Who Zamenhof was
- that words are made up of roots and affixes

Advanced learners of any language almost certainly know:
- that you don't need every technical word to be fluent
- that you can read extensively to increase your knowledge
- that you can circumlocute or use workaround words

Think about which points in your post applied specifically to Esperanto. To me, those were:
- identifying Slavic roots to learn more unfamiliar vocabulary
- advice to use example sentences even if words seem transparent

Most everything else was general language-learning advice that I have seen before many times. The specific tip about marking sentences with each repetition is something I have not seen posted about very much, and I also haven't ever heard about a learner getting inspiration from art.

If I read a post about getting to an advanced level in a particular language, I am expecting to see a lot of advice specific to that language instead of advice about study habits. For example, advanced learners of German should practice writing letters and emails, because there are some expressions and types of phrasing used in formal correspondence that don't appear much elsewhere. Advanced learners of Indonesian should consider reading about Islamic law and history because there are many expressions and words closely associated with Islam. These examples aren't even that great! I think most people here would be hard-pressed to give "advanced" advice for specific languages that can't easily be applied to other languages.

When you use the phrase "has some major merits" I am fully expecting some of these merits to follow the phrase.

I omitted your sixth paragraph because I felt that it was identical in essential meaning to your third.

If you want to make your writing very useful to others, ask yourself these questions during revision. If the answer is yes, then rewrite.
Have I repeated any points without adding additional emphasis or information?
Am I including information that I expect my audience to already know?
Am I giving suggestions that are unable to be directly followed without guesswork on the part of the reader?

Related to that last point: You said that a learner could read about subjects in EO and another language. What subjects are best to read about? Are there any that should be avoided? Why would an intermediate-advanced learner of EO need to use another language at the same time? Are there advantages to doing so? This is your advice to reaching C1/C2 in EO - how does this point help your learner, and can C1/C2 be achieved without this strategy?

But remember, this website is not all about making your posts as useful as possible to other people. I brought nothing to other people when I tallied up all my study time for 2018 and announced that I would start adding languages in 2019. In fact, if I had to judge each of my posts based on how useful they really were to others, I probably wouldn't post very much at all.

[SGP]

Here is how I would write your Esperanto post in "my own" voice.

¡Que sorpresa! Vielen, vielen Dank, colega!

Without exaggeration, that rewrite even included something like a small Rosetta Stone. . Seriously.

And as for all these other suggestions, there are a few points I'd like to think of some more.
But as for their grand total, I already do know that they are very useful as well. They contain some very generic clues writing clues as well.

Now I have got some, so to say, homework to do.

This includes:

- Comparing the original post and the rewrite a few more times, then drawing some more general conclusions as well

- Writing a version 2.0 of the Esperanto learning suggestions that includes more EO-specific points

- Doing some more efforts of lessening what you called the "SGP flavor" in my writing style (and that term isn't even a misnomer...)

[Deinonysus]

I'll give you the other side of the Rosetta Stone. I'll take the introduction to the Simple English Wikipeda article about Esperanto and transform it into SGP style.

Esperanto is a constructed auxiliary language. Its creator was Ludovic Lazarus Zamenhof, a Polish eye doctor. He created the language to make international communication easier. His goal was to design Esperanto in such a way that people can learn it much more easily than any other national language.

At first, Zamenhof called the language La Internacia Lingvo, which means "The International Language" in Esperanto. Soon, people began calling it by the simpler name Esperanto, which means "a hopeful person." That name comes from Doktoro Esperanto ("Doctor Hopeful"), which is what Zamenhof called himself in his first book about Esperanto.

There are people who speak Esperanto in many countries and in all the major continents. No one knows exactly how many people now speak Esperanto in the world. Most sources say that there are between several hundred thousand and two million Esperanto speakers.[7] A few people grew up speaking Esperanto as their first language. There may perhaps be around 2,000 of these people.[8] Therefore, Esperanto is the most-used constructed language in the world.

A person who speaks or supports Esperanto is often called an "Esperantist".

https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto

So the author of this log has, from time to time, been thinking and pondering for a long time about the International Auxiliary Language that, of course, many of us will already know as Esperanto. I have been meaning to write this for a long time, and now I have finally (and I definitely mean this) arrived at a time where I can put all of my thought (with of course a little je-ne-sais-quoi #thatsrightIjustusedFrench) into writing.

Now Esperanto, as the story begins, was conceived in the mind of the illustrious optometrical phenomenon known as Ludovic Lazarus Zamenhof, kaj li estis bonaga doktoro (as it were: you see, you can conjugate the copular verb in Esperanto very simply, and one need only consider the time frame: estas (present tense), estis (past tense), estos (future tense), and of course, needless to say there are (I would say) the infinitive esti and the imperative estu #justesperantothings #verbnerd #conjugationgeek).

This doctor, an optometrist (which comes from the greek roots ὀπτικός meaning vision and μέτρον meaning measure #justancientgreekthings #souvlakiisthebest, and here are the color-coded declension charts [redacted]), wanted to (as they say) be an international-communication-better-maker #thatsrightIjustmadeupanewword and to accomplish this esteemed feat, he decided (as one does) that he might want to begin the inception of einer neuen Sprache (which is feminine, the declension in the singular is die Sprache (nominative and accusative), der Sprache (Dativ und Genativ)) and now we be jammin mon. So dis be da ting #caribbeanenglish #onelove.

Now I would like to say (and this is important) one thing here: the author of la unua Libro (the aforementioned Dr. Zamenhof) wrote under le nom-de-plume de Doktoro Esperanto, which is, of course, to say, Doctor Hopeful and (if I could just add one more itty bitty extra thing ) although his lingvo was first indended to be known as La Internacia Lingvo, which means la langue internationale of course (or should I be so bold as to say the International (or between-nations as it were #explaining ) Language). But soon people started to call the language by the name Esperanto, meaning "hopeful" (Esperanto is an agglutinative language with several affixes, so as you can see, the word espero becomes esperanto with the affix -ant- which is a person who does something).

Now here is the best part #waitforit, which I have considered carefully and which I hope (if even just a little bit) that you would find useful: there are many people who speak Esperanto on every continent (I don't know about Antarctica too, but maybe la pengvinoj ankaŭ parolas esperanton! ). The exact number of Esperanto speakers is not quite known, but there are some number ranges that could (possibly) be said to apply in this particular situation, and those numbers would fall between a few hundred thousand or even to say so many as potentially two million speakers! #ĝiestasmultedaesperantistoj. Now, it has come to pass that some people even speak this international auxilary language as their langue maternale, and of this prestegious and select group there may be a total headcount of 2,000. Ergo, ipso facto, lorem ipsem dolor sit amet, the "Hopeful Language" of Doktoro Esperanto could be said to be in the current state of holding the position of the world's (that is, the planet on which both the author of this post and most (or probably all) ofits potential readers reside, which is to say, the third planet (a sufficiently large terrestrial or gaseous object in regular orbit) in our solar system) most widely used constructed language.

A person who speaks or supports Esperanto is given the sobriquet of (and you may have guessed this by now but then again you may not have #sherlockonlyhadtwoseasonstherestwasadream) an "Esperantist" or Esperantisto.

Of course this isn't exactly how you write, but I took some of your writing tics and exaggerated them to obscure the information in a simple and straightforward introduction that was meant to give a short, general overview to a wide audience.

Do you think that the original version or the SGP-flavorized version is easier to read?

What factors might make one version better at conveying information than the other?

The SGP flavored version added some new information. Should the Simple English Wikipedia article be amended to include any of this new information? Why or why not?

[SGP]

I'll give you the other side of the Rosetta Stone. I'll take the introduction to the Simple English Wikipeda article about Esperanto and transform it into SGP style.

Deinonysus colega, du bist brutal !

Jetzt hast du dich mal wirklich ausgetobt. Das könntest du sonst, in diesem Ausmaß, glaube ich in keinem anderem Thread im ganzen Forum machen.

So I called him "brute " because of that really extreme parody.
He even made me laugh until it hurt. Without asking!

Although I do acknowledge that it also has some posting suggestion value underneath it all. And that one isn't small even. Because now, I have got a small Rosetta stone containing all of the following:
- my own / my own previous writing style
- Axon's rewrite
- something that is way beyond anything I ever was able to write

Before, that stone was bilingual. Now it is trilingual.

Of course this isn't exactly how you write, but I took some of your writing tics and exaggerated them to obscure the information in a simple and straightforward introduction that was meant to give a short, general overview to a wide audience.

Yes you did add a lot of exaggerations. But still, you couldn't have written it without already having read a lot of my posts. Maybe some of the readers would even think that I used to write like that in the past. Que será, será.

Do you think that the original version or the SGP-flavorized version is easier to read?

Without any doubt, the Simple English version is much easier to read. And some or even many of these clues you provided in that "SGP"-flavorized version do remind me of what I shouldn't write. But not in a very direct way (although this wasn't your aim either). Instead, they tell me something like, "This was very extreme. But in case you would sometimes tend to do 1/4 of it, it still might be too much".

What factors might make one version better at conveying information than the other?

The SGP flavored version added some new information. Should the Simple English Wikipedia article be amended to include any of this new information? Why or why not?

These questions could be treated as rhetorical questions as well, and this is what I decide to do. Because I already got your point.

[David1917]

I would like to call your attention to this line:

I really like that idea, and I already have been doing so in the past as much as I was able to. Still trying to figure out some more how to balance both of being concrete (adding a certain level of detail) and summarizing (not writing anything too long or detailed).

You overly explicate many of your word choices, and in this very one instead of balance, is exhausting to read. I think you're trying to write to the absolute widest audience possible, which is a mistake on a forum with a very narrow focus. I also wonder if, even though you clearly possess a very high level of English, you might be trying to justify your word choices to yourself?

Since the Esperanto post has been discussed, I'd like to add that most people on here who want to reach advanced levels already know the majority of these things, for any language. SRS for vocabulary, read about interesting topics in the target language, etc. However, for the specific point of Esperanto, you did call to attention that one might be interested in learning about Slavic linguistics, since that is a component of the language's origin. Anything specific?

As for techniques, let's hear more about your dot/vertical bar method. I've seen a picture you posted of one of your notebooks, but what timelines do you use? How many dots/lines until you're "done"? What do you do if the sentence is utterly incomprehensible? Do you still put a line/dot? How to differentiate the usefulness of each repetition?

As someone who has reached a very high level of Arabic from a European base, you clearly have something vital to contribute to the forum in terms of language acquisition in general. Not to mention, joining in on Arabic discussions would be beneficial as well.

For example, what do you think about Prof Arguelles' Arabic level, and the conclusions drawn from this conversation, especially as it relates to the "should I learn MSA or not?" question?

[Serpent]

For the record, I like your hashtags and emoji emoticons. They allow some breathing room between walls of text. But yeah they aren't always relevant

[SGP]

Just finished talking about Five Funky Learning Tools.

Part one:

Part two:


Part three:


(The third part is the final one.)

As for techniques, let's hear more about your dot/vertical bar method. I've seen a picture you posted of one of your notebooks, but what timelines do you use? How many dots/lines until you're "done"? What do you do if the sentence is utterly incomprehensible? Do you still put a line/dot? How to differentiate the usefulness of each repetition?

After you wrote this post, we already continued speaking about that on the multi-language log. Intending to reply you there (rather than here) quite soon.

And as for what you mentioned about both of Esperanto and Arabic: just added it to my queue.