Beli Tsar's log - Ancient Greek, Farsi, Latin, Hebrew

Continue or start your personal language log here, including logs for challenge participants
Beli Tsar
Green Belt
Posts: 384
Joined: Mon Oct 22, 2018 3:59 pm
Languages: English (N), Ancient Greek (intermediate reading), Latin (Beginner) Farsi (Beginner), Biblical Hebrew (Beginner)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9548
x 1294

Re: Beli Tsar's log - Ancient Greek & Farsi

Postby Beli Tsar » Fri May 10, 2019 3:13 pm

Gordafarin2 wrote:Nice log, Beli Tsar! Khosh be haalet :)

Sadly there is no Dialang for Farsi - and no professional assessment either. So it’s down to self-assessment.

By the by, what I use for benchmarking is the DLI's Online Diagnostic Assessment - https://www.dliflc.edu/online-diagnosti ... sment-oda/ . It uses ILR language levels (1-4) instead of CEFR, but it's a good way to measure progress and identify my weaknesses.

Thanks! This looks wonderful - exactly what I need!
But, as has always happened with GLOSS, both Chrome and Safari tell me it is not a secure connection and that the security credentials are wrong... Anyone else have that problem?
1 x
: 0 / 50 1/2 Super Challenge - Latin Reading
: 0 / 50 1/2 Super Challenge - Latin 'Films'

Beli Tsar
Green Belt
Posts: 384
Joined: Mon Oct 22, 2018 3:59 pm
Languages: English (N), Ancient Greek (intermediate reading), Latin (Beginner) Farsi (Beginner), Biblical Hebrew (Beginner)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9548
x 1294

Re: Beli Tsar's log - Ancient Greek & Farsi

Postby Beli Tsar » Mon May 13, 2019 10:30 am

The Next Six Weeks - Hebrew
For my intensive push, I’m going back to Biblical Hebrew. The goal is simple - get from ‘have done a few lessons’ to ‘able to read simple texts with some helps’. In some ways this is back to familiar ground for me: learning passive abilities only, and mainly reading, and with a text I know well, whose culture and background I have studied in some detail. That makes things so much easier. It would be nice to add modern Hebrew at some point, if only for the greater mastery of Biblical Hebrew that would give, but it’s not a priority at the moment.

But I’ll have some big changes in methodology nonetheless. The first is that this is a six-week push, and not three months, because that is much more sustainable.

Overall Plan
My planned method for the whole course of my Hebrew studies will be as follows, though as you can see it will take more than one six-month push to get through. It’s in order of time and priority, though several steps will be done in parallel.

    Grammar: Kittel & Hoffer, Biblical Hebrew.
    This is, for a Biblical Hebrew textbook, about as inductive as they come. For that reason, I hope it will make a good book for a first pass on grammar while simultaneously building reading skills. Because of the ease of copy-and-pasting Biblical texts, I hope to put every excercise straight into Anki for maximum retention and growth in fluency.

    Vocab: SRS to 690.
    This will take me to knowing 80% of the vocab in your average Old Testament text, and this is the point where a footnoted reader’s edition, which footnotes everything else, becomes useful. This will be using Memrise, and courses with Audio. I’ve only got 170 of these to go, as I’ve done the rest before.

    Listening & Reading: Miqedem, Kittel & Hoffer
    I will listen from the beginning, following (roughly) Ari’s Chinesepod method, but with texts set to music by Miqedem and those found on the mp3’s with Kittel and Hoffer, so that repetition isn’t so dull. It’s not strictly necessary when reading is the main aim. But the goal is to really master these, so I’ll read them repeatedly, SRS all unknown vocab, and listen repeatedly. Perfect comprehension will be impossible until I've done a bit more grammar, but I'll aim as close to that target as I can. I want to work these into my bloodstream, to build real fluency.

    Listening & Reading: Master key texts
    With my initial listening out of the way, I will move on to the easiest short texts in the Old Testament - Ruth, Jonah, and Habbakuk. Again, the goal will be total mastery of these short texts, in grammar and vocab, and lots of repetition in reading and listening.

    Vocab: SRS to 1903
    Again, this will be via Memrise, but without audio, because it’s not easily available and I’m not going to waste time on creating it. This will be what makes real fast reading of less familiar texts actually feasible. Hitting this point will make 90% of the words in the average text familiar, so after this focused vocab study will be optional, and picking up vocab by reading will be much more viable.

    Grammar etc.: Daily Dose of Hebrew
    I’ve used the Greek equivalent of this daily video. It’s perfect for reinforcing explicit grammar as well as understanding.

    Listening and Reading: Triple reading & Listening
    Using either a Reader’s Hebrew Old Testament and/or electronic versions with pop-up definitions (Logos on my computer, Hebrew Bible Reader and/or Logos on Android) I will read daily. But I will triple-read for the first while - divide them into three sections, reading one new one each day, and repeating the last two days’ readings. I’ve found this method remarkably effective with Greek. After triple reading them, I’ll add texts to my listening queue.

    Grammar: Study Pratico & Van Pelt, Basics of Biblical Hebrew
    When I’m done with Kittel, I’ll come back for a second round of grammar with Pratico and Van Pelt. It’s much more explicit, and they lay out all the detail of each feature before going on to the next (e.g. everything about nouns before you touch verbs), so I don’t want to use this first. But it’s a good, clear textbook nonetheless.

    Grammar: Study the Cambridge Biblical Hebrew Workbook
    I’ve heard that for getting your vowels shifts right nothing beats this. The elementary textbooks don’t have enough drills to really internalise things. This does.

    Grammar: The future - syntax
    At some point I will want to do some serious study of syntax, since the ultimate aim is precise and careful reading, not just getting the gist. But there isn't much point in trying to learn detailed syntactical categories until I’ve got a lot of reading under my belt. So this is a far-future goal.

The big question
The one resource that would make real multi-track learning from a different perspective possible is the Biblical Language Centre’s online Biblical Hebrew course. It’s philosophy is entirely communicative, largely audiovisual based. I’ve heard good things about it. Should I tackle this too, for deeper learning?
A lot of this is focused on learning and internalising vocabulary, which I feel Anki + reading + listening does pretty well already. But there’s something to be said for combining grammar-translation and communicative approaches.

Should I add that to the mix?

When I will start
I'd planned to start already. But after rushing into things with Persian, and having to waste too much energy on admin in the first week, I want to do better this time. I'm going to thin down my Anki queue from Persian, get up to speed again in Memrise, and do a bit of revision, as well as just lining up key bits of audio and so on. The last week has been far too busy to get that done, with kids off school, days out of the office, and hardly any time at my desk. But once it is, I'll start.

The next six weeks - minimum weekly goals
For me, a language learning week is 5 days - with a bit of review on Saturday and rest on Sunday, which really refreshes the mind. It's the one thing I did right with sustainability last time around.
    Kittel & Hoffer - 5 lessons (30 total, taking me to lesson 37)
    SRS - 100 words (600 total, taking me to 1128)
    Listening - 1.5 hours a week (9 total)
    Reading - 10 new verses a week (all triple-read) (60 total)
My 'stretch goal' is to do all 55 lessons of Kittel and Hoffer in the next six weeks. I’ll require myself to listen only to things I’ve worked on properly, as above, and there’ll be no aimless listening. The reading target is deliberately ridiculously low, so it doesn’t distract from everything else. It's the one thing that I am confident I can do in large quantities in the future - as in every day, for the rest of my life - so other things are the priority now.

Obviously, no plan survives contact with the enemy. And I'm aware that studying another language when my Persian needs so much work is daft. But I'm looking forward to getting going again!
4 x
: 0 / 50 1/2 Super Challenge - Latin Reading
: 0 / 50 1/2 Super Challenge - Latin 'Films'

Beli Tsar
Green Belt
Posts: 384
Joined: Mon Oct 22, 2018 3:59 pm
Languages: English (N), Ancient Greek (intermediate reading), Latin (Beginner) Farsi (Beginner), Biblical Hebrew (Beginner)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9548
x 1294

Re: Beli Tsar's log - Ancient Greek & Farsi

Postby Beli Tsar » Thu May 16, 2019 3:21 pm

Week off
A week with a bit less pressure has been good for me. In fact, my language obsession has been intensifying as I can think about it a bit more.

Farsi
Gordafarin2 wrote:Nice log, Beli Tsar! Khosh be haalet :)

Sadly there is no Dialang for Farsi - and no professional assessment either. So it’s down to self-assessment.

By the by, what I use for benchmarking is the DLI's Online Diagnostic Assessment - https://www.dliflc.edu/online-diagnosti ... sment-oda/ . It uses ILR language levels (1-4) instead of CEFR, but it's a good way to measure progress and identify my weaknesses.

They have separate tests for reading and listening, and they also offer both Iranian Persian and Dari.
It does emphasise military, political, and technical vocabulary. (My vocab falls more in the literary and everyday conversation categories... But as you've been practising with news articles, you might be better prepared for ODA than me) The nice thing is at the end, you get not only your score, but feedback broken down by category and a list of GLOSS exercises suited to your needs.

Encouraged by Gordafarin2, I braved the scary warnings in Chrome and took the DLIFLC ODA tests in listening and reading to see how my Farsi is.

The answer is (predictably?) that it's extremely bad… I have assessed myself at much too high a level. I came out as not yet at level one on the ILR scale. That's a long way from the 1+ I thought I was getting near in some areas, i.e. roughly CEFR A2, depending on who you ask.

Largely I imagine that’s just my own enthusiasm and selectivity misleading me - basing my self-rating on how I am doing in my favourite areas, and not in the broad general use of the language. That, and wishful thinking.

Gordafarin2 was right that news articles made the military, technical etc. vocab easy. But I fell down completely on the day-to-day language - shopping, doctors, train journeys, culture, marriage, and all of that. I haven’t really read about these things, nor have I done the appropriate vocab, so I was largely at sea for much of the test.

In future I need to broaden out my use of the language - so more Persian Language Online, and the GLOSS lessons themselves. They look pretty simple, it’s just a matter of learning the vocab and getting in a bit of listening practice.

Of course, no-one really cares what rating I get on any scale, but I’ve found the whole exercise helpful in thinking about how to tackle things in future.

Prompted by that, instead of reading news I’ve done a few Persian Language Online lessons - everyday basics and fluency. And I’ve been broadening out my regular listening too.

Meanwhile, I’ve been keeping up with Anki reviews, and watching them - very slowly - reduce in number each day. I’ve some easy new cards too - a few vocab items from Persian Language Online, a bit of grammar catchup, some key collocations and short sentences, all to solidify what I have already.

Hebrew
It’s pleasing how easily my rudiments of Hebrew are coming back to me. Now that Anki is calming down, I’m catching up on Memrise reviews for Hebrew, after 8 months of ignoring them. I’m working through chapters I have already done. And I’m doing admin work - loading up Anki with sentences and simple grammar, filling up my playlist so that I can listen well.

Greek
This has barely seen a mention for three months. Until about a month ago, I was actually seeing pretty good progress, just by daily reading. Lately that’s tailed off dramatically - I’m so tired and needing more sleep in the mornings. I need a holiday… so it’s good we’ve got a long weekend without the kids coming up!
3 x
: 0 / 50 1/2 Super Challenge - Latin Reading
: 0 / 50 1/2 Super Challenge - Latin 'Films'

Beli Tsar
Green Belt
Posts: 384
Joined: Mon Oct 22, 2018 3:59 pm
Languages: English (N), Ancient Greek (intermediate reading), Latin (Beginner) Farsi (Beginner), Biblical Hebrew (Beginner)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9548
x 1294

Re: Beli Tsar's log - Ancient Greek, Farsi & Hebrew

Postby Beli Tsar » Wed May 22, 2019 9:39 am

Hebrew (Week 0 of 6)
: 0 / 6 Weeks

: 526 / 1126 Learn to 1126 frequency words (starting point!)
: 7 / 55 Kittel & Hoffer Biblical Hebrew
: 0 / 60 Triple-read 60 verses
: 0 / 10 Listen 10 hours

I’m ready to go. I’ve revised what I’d done before with Kittel (7 lessons), done one more for good measure, loaded up my initial listening list, and (nearly) caught up on Anki. I’ve kick-started the habits I’ll be aiming for over the next few weeks.

I already suspect my plan to race through Kittel is overambitious. In particular, I’m beginning to think that it may rely on you inferring some things or getting them from a teacher. I’m suddenly going to hit a wall about half-way through where all that assumed knowledge - especially on vowel shifts - is necessary. But I’ll keep going till then, and when it happens I’ll drop in another method or two, and go properly multi-track.

Farsi
: 89763 / 100000 Read 100,000 words
: 80 / 100 Listen 100 hours

I’m still plugging away at Anki, and it’s amazing how slowly the number of reviews is decreasing. I don’t like missing a day…

And I restarted Pimselur, at 1.5 speed. It’s fast, and that’s not ideal when your brain supplies multiple legitimate responses, but I feel like a little easy remedial work won’t do any harm.

I'm constantly tempted to learn words and sentences to Anki, to play on Clozemaster, to do more Farsi - but I need focus for Hebrew.

The big surprise for me was meeting some new Iranians on Friday. I got further talking without switching to English than ever before, and am much better able to improvise. I’ve had more than a month of not having our usual weekly meetings at work with Iranians, and I wonder how much of my discouragement at the end of my twelve week block was just because I hadn’t had the opportunity to put things to use or to see my own progress.

Similarly, last night I sat in on a discussion group in Farsi. It was pretty intense, even heated at points, so not the easiest to follow. But I felt very satisfied with what I could understand - plenty whole sentences, and a lot more getting the gist pretty accurately. Occasionally I lost what they were talking about, but not often. That said, it was hard work - I felt like I was having my head rewired from the inside. Meeting words in the wild for the first time while absorbing a fire-hose of information in different pronunciations from different speakers, some of whom are very fast, is pretty full-on.


Greek
I’ve been reading Lucian’s Dialogues of the Sea Gods, which is pretty funny, and The Martyrdom of Polycarp which is a really dramatic story. Greek literature is just really good: the more I read, the more I like it.
I’m wanting to launch into Plato properly, instead of dabbling as I have up until now, but would benefit from a little bit of SRS to speed that up. And I think I am sufficiently stretched in the SRS department for now...
1 x
: 0 / 50 1/2 Super Challenge - Latin Reading
: 0 / 50 1/2 Super Challenge - Latin 'Films'

Beli Tsar
Green Belt
Posts: 384
Joined: Mon Oct 22, 2018 3:59 pm
Languages: English (N), Ancient Greek (intermediate reading), Latin (Beginner) Farsi (Beginner), Biblical Hebrew (Beginner)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9548
x 1294

Re: Beli Tsar's log - Ancient Greek, Farsi & Hebrew

Postby Beli Tsar » Wed May 29, 2019 4:13 pm

We had a very nice weekend away this week - we spent the weekend hillwalking, without kids. I got a decent amount of time to work on my textbook, but SRS - whether learning or admin - fell behind, as did pure reading. And then some good friends have come to stay, with their three children. With five kids and four adults in the house learning opportunities aren't what they might be!

Hebrew (Week 1 of 6)
: 1 / 6 Weeks

: 553 / 1126 Words +27
: 13 / 55 Kittel & Hoffer Biblical Hebrew +5
: 7 / 60 Verses read +7
: 2 / 9 Time listened + 2 hours

I did a good chunk of textbook work, as I said, and more listening than I’d planned. While I’m badly behind on SRS, that shouldn’t be hard to catch up.

I'm pumping a lot of textbook information straight into Anki, and may be overdoing it. But the nature of an old-school grammar translation textbook is that there is an awful lot of information, and I really do need to retain it.

Farsi
: 90779 / 100000 Words read +1016
: 84 / 100 Hours listened +4 hours

As you can see, I’ve not been reading nearly enough. I feel at the moment like I really need both short intensive reading to back up long-term listening, and lots and lots of volume. I think I’m actually going backwards in vocabulary terms because of losing the volume. Unfortunately life isn’t due to calm down any and allow it.

But my speaking abilities are continuing to improve without real study. The after-effects of weeks of study are beginning to take hold, and I can form sentences on the fly now. Doing a bit of writing about my weekend this morning really helped with that - I can feel sentences forming themselves in my head without prompting.

Greek
Just a regular week’s reading, a bit of listening, and lots of fun.
1 x
: 0 / 50 1/2 Super Challenge - Latin Reading
: 0 / 50 1/2 Super Challenge - Latin 'Films'

Beli Tsar
Green Belt
Posts: 384
Joined: Mon Oct 22, 2018 3:59 pm
Languages: English (N), Ancient Greek (intermediate reading), Latin (Beginner) Farsi (Beginner), Biblical Hebrew (Beginner)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9548
x 1294

Re: Beli Tsar's log - Ancient Greek, Farsi & Hebrew

Postby Beli Tsar » Thu Jun 06, 2019 3:52 pm

All Change
Language learning has been largely on hold this week, not only because of the avalanche of house-guests we’ve had and the late nights that has involved, but more importantly because I discovered that my contract at work won’t be renewed next year. So I’ve been thinking about (and networking for) the next step instead of language study.

It’s not a huge surprise, for various reasons, and indeed I’m eager to get my teeth into something a bit more challenging.

But it does have a big impact on my language learning. Odds are that in just over a year I won’t be working with Farsi speakers any more, and it means that investing all my free time in learning Farsi probably isn’t a wise life choice.

I’m going to miss some of the people I have worked with here badly.

What next?
I’ll reevaluate my targets over the next few weeks. But my initial instinct is to revise this year’s Farsi goal from a solid B1 to a well rounded A2, or rough equivalent - basically, to work on conversation and day-to-day language. I can’t see much need for going deeper on grammar, or for force-feeding myself another thousand or more words by frequency.

I’ll keep listening daily, reading a bit, writing a little, putting key words and phrases in Anki, and perhaps set up some kind of tandem. I will still be able to improve on that sort of regime, without pushing myself really hard.

And meanwhile I’ll work hard on Hebrew, get it to a higher level faster. I can have the pleasure of really investing in Greek - use focused study periods for that instead. I’ve got a few non-language learning projects I’d like to tackle as well.

Once Hebrew is up to decent reading speed, then I can start thinking about either Latin or French.

Hebrew (Week 2 of 6)
: 2 / 6 Weeks

: 566 / 1126 Words +26
: 13 / 55 Kittel & Hoffer Biblical Hebrew +0
: 10 / 60 Verses read +3
: 4 / 9 Time listened + 1.8 hours

This week’s been pretty much a write-off for Hebrew, for the reasons above.

Farsi
: 91616 / 100000 Words read +837
: 88 / 100 Hours listened +4

I was amazed this week when I understood the first long segment of an NHK world news podcast almost word-for-word - several minutes of connected-high speed speech - without difficulty or effort. Admittedly it’s in a narrow topic I seem to do well at - violent/terrorist attacks. I think they have a tendency to come at the start of NHK episodes, at the expense of other sorts of news, meaning I’ve unfortunately got a much better understanding in this area than others.

And I have found some full-length books that I can import into LingQ and which I actually want to read. I’m really enjoying getting into a proper story. There’s a limit to how much you can enjoy a language on a diet of news stories.

Greek
Sunday is increasingly my ‘Greek day’. I’m not working on Greek the rest of the time, barring morning reading, and the occasional podcast, so it’s really pleasant to come to Sunday and relax by enjoying a language I can use so much more easily.

This time I read lots of John’s gospel (so easy!), finished the Martydom of Polycarp, and then plunged properly, for the first time, into the Odyssey. The dialect really is very different from the Koine Greek I am used to and the Attic I am finding my way around in. I had planned to keep it for a later, intensive project. But a group at the textkit forum is working their way through book 6 slowly, and it seems a pity not to join in.

It was so much fun. It really is beautiful language. I was only reading 23 lines, but working through them intensively and repeatedly with a reader’s edition and a Loeb diglot, as well as listening several times through them. I tried some proper shadowing for the first time, trying to get used to the rhythm and to pick up the tone accent. It seems helpful - I can’t believe I haven’t tried this before.
2 x
: 0 / 50 1/2 Super Challenge - Latin Reading
: 0 / 50 1/2 Super Challenge - Latin 'Films'

Beli Tsar
Green Belt
Posts: 384
Joined: Mon Oct 22, 2018 3:59 pm
Languages: English (N), Ancient Greek (intermediate reading), Latin (Beginner) Farsi (Beginner), Biblical Hebrew (Beginner)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9548
x 1294

Re: Beli Tsar's log - Ancient Greek, Farsi & Hebrew

Postby Beli Tsar » Tue Aug 20, 2019 3:42 pm

Survival mode
Despite appearances, I haven’t disappeared. Potential job turmoil + visitors + holidays has just set me back a while. I’ve been in language-learning survival mode. Even listening - my usual fallback - has stopped, as I’ve had to catch up on reams of lectures.

Hebrew
I am actually delighted with the effect of gently working away at Anki reps. It’s weeks since I cracked a book open, so I haven’t learned anything new. But the value of repetition of simple sentences for internalising a new script is huge, and the key grammatical patterns seems to be sinking in too. I can read much more rapidly and fluidly than a few weeks ago.

I have also, horror of horrors, been using Duolingo in downtime, since it’s there and it’s easy. Obviously it’s a bit different to Biblical Hebrew, but it’s been at least some help in internalising pronouns and basic patterns properly.

Farsi
No news here. As I result I’ve forgotten how to speak, though passive skills are ok.

Greek
Since Greek is an enjoyable activity when really tired, I’ve actually made some good progress here - triple-reading bits of Lucian, and backing them up with gentle, slow Anki on the vocab for the stories. This seems to be working pretty well - it’s getting me up to speed on a whole new batch of vocab more efficiently than either reading or Anki on their own.
And a few people I know have got together for a little Greek reading group. We’re just going through John’s gospel, which is incredibly simple. But I am learning a lot - particularly as one of the guys has not only taught Koine Greek, but is an expert in translation and the use of discourse analysis.
It’s a very different angle, and it’s helping me see things I’d never seen before. It helps open up the nuances a native speaker would have seen, but which I’m blind to. And I’m getting a better handle on the way Ancient Greek uses aspect/tense, which is so foreign to an English speaker.
4 x
: 0 / 50 1/2 Super Challenge - Latin Reading
: 0 / 50 1/2 Super Challenge - Latin 'Films'

Beli Tsar
Green Belt
Posts: 384
Joined: Mon Oct 22, 2018 3:59 pm
Languages: English (N), Ancient Greek (intermediate reading), Latin (Beginner) Farsi (Beginner), Biblical Hebrew (Beginner)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9548
x 1294

Re: Beli Tsar's log - Ancient Greek, Farsi & Hebrew

Postby Beli Tsar » Mon Oct 07, 2019 2:13 pm

Still not disappeared
As last time I posted, I'm still alive, but still in survival mode. I've been able to read some interesting books lately, but real time and energy for language study has been largely absent. I notice this seems to be a bit of a theme on the forum at the moment - is it something about the time of year?

Again, I'm not discouraged - while I'd love to be making real progress, this is probably a good opportunity to learn language maintenance skills. Mostly I am just using various apps on my morning commute, with the occasional listen.

Hebrew
I am most disappointed in my lack of progress here - I need to pick up a textbook and do some serious work! But plugging away at Anki and the occasional video from Daily dose of Hebrew means I am not going backwards, except perhaps in grammatical terminology.

Picking a random sentence from the Old Testament is an odd experience - they tend to be a mix of phrases I can sight-read without thought or effort and those I have no hope of comprehending. That’s the effect of Anki hammering in the basics - let’s hope I manage to add some new bits over the coming months.

Farsi
The long summer break away from Persian work activities is done. That means I am suddenly spending hours each week listening to half-understood Persian and working with translators. It brings back the frustration of having forgotten so much… but also the opportunity for practice without study time.

The struggle has been to find good ways to practice with minimum effort. Somehow I can’t get back into a streak on LingQ. The last couple of days I have been Clozemastering, which is a good, low-threshold way of getting a little practice. I’ll see if I can build on that.

Greek
Greek has been for me the most delightful reminder of how getting to a certain point in a language makes simple reading both a joy and a way to learn. I’m constantly aware of the progress I have made, of how much pleasanter and more natural it is to read more and more difficult text. And yet I have done nothing but read and a very little vocab on Anki. Variety has helped - both Lucian and the New Testament - but it hasn’t been very large volumes. Languages can bring joy!

Latin
Here’s one of the reasons I am not making progress elsewhere. I’ve wanted to learn Latin for so long. Holding off from spending real money on textbooks until the right time is manageable. Holding off from a few minutes Duolingo when you are tired on the bus is not.

I’m hoping it will make tackling Lingua Latina per se Illustrata - and some more hardcore textbooks - easier when the day comes.

At least the tree is still short. I should be able to finish it in a few months and get back to something more serious...

Sorani Kurdish
And here’s another reason I’m not making progress. I’m not going to try and learn Sorani, probably not ever, unless work needs change. But I work with a lot of Kurds, as well as Iranians, and it just seems politeness to learn some basic tourist Kurdish. Sorani’s the obvious dialect - it’s what most of the people here speak, and it’s also one with more resources (good luck to anyone who wants to learn Orami!) So I am memrising a little bit daily.

Some perspective
The above is, I suppose, a warning tale about wanderlust. This is language learning as a mild vice, comparable to reading gossipy magazines on the bus. But it’s also a rather delightful illustration of how much easier basic language learning is nowadays. All this is accessible when I’m tired on the bus to work. Isn’t that nice!

My hope is to pick up serious Hebrew again in the next few weeks. We’ll see.

I do know, though, that my next job is unlikely to be so ridiculously demanding time-wise. There are several options on the table, but I’m unlikely to be working six days a week with multiple evenings any more. Imagine having two days off a week, like a normal person!

With Farsi likely no longer part of life, I’ll be able to get on with Hebrew in a serious way and then think about Latin.

Or so I can dream...
4 x
: 0 / 50 1/2 Super Challenge - Latin Reading
: 0 / 50 1/2 Super Challenge - Latin 'Films'

Beli Tsar
Green Belt
Posts: 384
Joined: Mon Oct 22, 2018 3:59 pm
Languages: English (N), Ancient Greek (intermediate reading), Latin (Beginner) Farsi (Beginner), Biblical Hebrew (Beginner)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9548
x 1294

Re: Beli Tsar's log - Ancient Greek, Farsi & Hebrew

Postby Beli Tsar » Sat Nov 16, 2019 3:00 pm

Retrenchment
As again, I haven’t achieved much over the last weeks. What I have managed is to get everything into some kind of maintenance mode with some daily work on everything. I’m not displeased with that.

Life is even crazier than before - I’ve essentially been promoted to a much busier role while still having to look for the next job, and I’m covering someone’s paternity leave too. But leaving things till life is calmer never works, so here’s my replanning of language study.

Progress bars are back, just with much, much more modest goals!

Hebrew
: 1 / 46 Weeks

: 9 / 55 Kittel & Hoffer Biblical Hebrew -4 (!)
: 13 / 60 Verses read +


As before, no serious progress - but I’ve added some sentences and a bit of grammar to Anki, and it’s working. Slow and steady works with Anki, if you can keep it going…

So that’s my plan: I’m returning to the textbook, Kittel, but at one lesson per week rather than three or more. All of it will be Anki’d. There will be a little extra reading (also put into Anki for absorption), but other things - Daily Dose of Hebrew, much listening, etc. - will be extra bonuses if they happen.

If I absorb things as well as I have so far, I should still reach my goals, even though it will take a year!

Farsi
: 374 / 3699 Clozemaster sentences played
: 3 / 3699 Clozemaster sentences mastered
Swept up by what seems like the recent trend for Clozemaster, I decided just over a month ago (around my last post) to use that for sustainable maintenance. Starting with the principle that sustainable habits start small, I aimed for the minimum - one set of sentences per day. I’ve kept that up all but one day since. Occasionally I do more, and as I get used to it, that’s more and more often the case. Starting small is working, and I might build to something more useful.

It seems like such a ridiculously small amount, but it really is working. Even that tiny daily bit of explicit thinking about the language seems to synergise nicely with the bits I hear at work. I am actually having more confident and successful conversations than ever before, despite leaving serious study behind some time ago.
I’d really love to do a bit more - Persian Language Online, GLOSS, Subs2 SRS, more reading - but this is working for now.

This is a bigger victory than it sounds - a few minutes daily on the bus has reversed the situation a couple of months ago, where I was saying ‘I’ve forgotten how to speak’. Now I am making real progress with real conversations with real people.

Greek
As ever, this is the pleasant reminder of what a delight a language can be with a bit more skill. No new news here; I really want to get into Plato and Xenophon properly. But I’m enjoying daily reading (more often interrupted lately!) and reading with others, especially my translator friend.

Latin
I’m still painfully aware that messing around with Latin is costing me serious investment elsewhere. But I’m enjoying it, and I’m aiming to keep it a small daily habit for now. A bit of Duolingo every day till I finish the tree, and then either Memrise or Clozemaster. If everything goes well, I start Lingua Latina next year at some point.
3 x
: 0 / 50 1/2 Super Challenge - Latin Reading
: 0 / 50 1/2 Super Challenge - Latin 'Films'

Beli Tsar
Green Belt
Posts: 384
Joined: Mon Oct 22, 2018 3:59 pm
Languages: English (N), Ancient Greek (intermediate reading), Latin (Beginner) Farsi (Beginner), Biblical Hebrew (Beginner)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9548
x 1294

Re: Beli Tsar's log - Ancient Greek, Farsi & Hebrew

Postby Beli Tsar » Mon Jun 29, 2020 7:33 pm

An unintentional experiment in inefficient but sustainable learning
It’s been a long and interesting time since I last posted. After a busy Christmas I caught Coronavirus a couple of weeks before we were supposed to be able to catch it in the UK. Since then I, like many others, have been struggling with nasty postviral effects - massive exhaustion, brain fog, and a selection of other symptoms. Meanwhile I’m homeschooling in lockdown.

This has been an excellent opportunity to practice language-learning under adverse conditions! Seeing many of the logs on here, I want to learn everything as fast as possible. Instead, I’m being forced to somewhat more sustainable approaches. It’s the opposite of last spring’s intensive Farsi push.

Where have I got to? Greek
In Greek, I’ve mainly been maintaining things - a little daily reading and a weekly reading group. But I’ve finally ventured into advanced study - discourse analysis and discussions of verbal aspect especially. I’ve been agreeably surprised by both the ease of reading these books, and by the real applicability of it. Suddenly I’m seeing things in the text I’d never seen before. I’m seeing emphases and flow and logic and feel more than ever before. A few Anki close cards are making these rapid reads into part of my mental furniture.

Where have I got to? Hebrew
In November, my Hebrew comprehension was limited to short strings of nouns and adjectives, limited by very sporadic bursts of study. Now, I can read most verses I turn up randomly (2/3rds, perhaps) and do so at full natural speaking speed, without translating in my head. I can follow unfamiliar unpointed text pretty well. I still run into issues with participles and derived stems. Learning while you are sick and busy is a lot harder than maintenance. But I’ve been making progress. But I am delighted to have got to the point of reading with facility and speed with very sporadic study.

Using Anki + listening to compensate for poor study
My study has been very poor and sporadic. My head is like cotton wool, and I rarely have both time and energy. I’m also using a textbook, Basics of Biblical Hebrew, that is more like an intermediate reference grammar with exercises - not ideal for this kind of desultory study.

The progress I have made is almost entirely through leveraging Anki and listening. That has made retention possible, but also repeated exposure enough to train fluency as well as accuracy.

We’ve had plenty of discussion of Anki’s uses for efficiency lately. I feel that this is almost another use for it - making possible very slow-burn study that simply wouldn’t work without it. Learning through exposure to actual text or conversation needs a certain volume to work. Anki is enabling me to make progress without that. There is simply no way I can learn and retain from reading and conventional study with the limited time and energy I have at the moment: I simply don’t get enough exposure time.

My current approach:
1. Anki recognition cards for every translation exercise, and every part of every paradigm (in recognition-only format).
2. Anki cloze cards for grammar retention
3. Listening from the beginning, as I have mentioned before.
4. Adding in connected text (mostly Haggai and Ruth), via both Anki and listening queues.
5. Attempting to multi-track
a) first with a textbook by Kittel (very helpful, as it had a different order, but given up due to frustrations with the way it was put together)
b) now with the communicative-ish youtube videos by Aleph with Beth

In other words, slow-burn multi-track, with Anki and listening. Since there are no really easy texts in Classical Hebrew, lots of Anki exposure combined with repeated full-speed listening is helping me learn and retain what I do learn thoroughly.

It's not optimised, but it is working, even with relatively obscure information grammatical bits and pieces, despite irregular study of a poorly designed textbook over a ridiculously long and unpredictable period.

It's been a lot less efficient time-wise, because of the stuttering, unpredictable nature of my study, spread over a long period - two years, depending on how you count it, often with months in between.

That’s why I’m delighted - just because the results aren’t terrible! With Greek, having learned very badly and piecemeal, and via grammar translation, it took me a lot of slow reading work before I got up to a decent reading speed. I don’t have time to improve a second language that way. So one of my main concerns with Hebrew is that I need to be able to start reading at a good speed, with grammar that is accurate and precise and doesn’t need remedial work. Then I’ll be able to read extensively and move forward.

Things look good for that. I’m rapidly ramping up learning speed now, as things snowball and get easier.

It’s pretty different from rushing through Farsi last year - less efficient, doubtless. But if I can learn a new language, even just for reading, when I am too sick to read or sometimes to watch TV, and when that language isn’t the easiest… I’m very pleased.
6 x
: 0 / 50 1/2 Super Challenge - Latin Reading
: 0 / 50 1/2 Super Challenge - Latin 'Films'


Return to “Language logs”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests