What does the intermediate plateau look like for opaque languages?

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Saim
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Re: What does the intermediate plateau look like for opaque languages?

Postby Saim » Tue May 16, 2023 8:37 am

I definitely burned out hard around lower-intermediate in Urdu. In my view my mistakes were 1) spending too much time in-country without much of a plan of what I was even trying to do there 2) not spending enough time with flashcards and 3) not doing almost any re-reading of the same material. My underlying view was that I could just keep reading extensively with a dictionary, but I found this doesn't work almost at all.

I found that I could only start reliably doing extensive activities when I could understand most of the dialogue in Urdu dubs of Turkish dramas. I am now fairly strong in listening comprehension, although this of course varies a lot according to sociolect and the kind of material (your competence will be a lot more domain-specific than in more transparent languages with shared formal terminology).

I think you need to accept that you're going to being doing lots of intensive activities over a longer period of time in these kinds of languages. I actually think intensive activities are helpful in "easier" languages even in the intermediate and advanced stages, but there you can get away with not bothering with them as much while in "harder" languages they're absolutely indispensable.
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Re: What does the intermediate plateau look like for opaque languages?

Postby Kraut » Tue May 16, 2023 11:52 am

Querneus wrote:
sherbert wrote:In weaker languages, like Spanish or Finnish, I torture myself with native content that is above my level. Like today I was watching a fast- paced Chilean TV show to take a break from the Mexican or Canarian Spanish that I normally listen to, and the way they were spitting out their almost Welsh-like Spanish caused me to have to re-watch the show with subtitles, and I got hung up on the word "escaramuza." Then I had to find out the meaning, which turns out to be "skirmish" and I felt that my Spanish should have been advanced enough to understand it, at least the written meaning, since they are similar, but my knowledge failed me. Finnish is more of a boutique language for me so I feel less pressure to be perfect in it.

For what it's worth, I'm a native and I didn't know the word escaramuza until you explained it just now... Maybe it's more common in Chilean Spanish or in the genre of the show you were watching than in my dialect or the content I'm used to, but I'm much more likely to see the likes of batalla, pelea, choque, pleito.


The word is common in ... German. When I read "skirmish" it was clear that it is "Scharmützel" in German, a short attack by a band of warriors often on horseback, "Schar" meaning "small band"


" ...im 14. Jahrhundert von italienisch scaramuccia → it entlehnt; dem italienischen Wort liegen germanisch „Schar“ und italienisch mucciar → it „flüchten“ zugrunde[1]..."

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scharm%C3%BCtzel
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Re: What does the intermediate plateau look like for opaque languages?

Postby Lawyer&Mom » Tue May 16, 2023 3:47 pm

Kraut wrote:
Querneus wrote:
sherbert wrote:In weaker languages, like Spanish or Finnish, I torture myself with native content that is above my level. Like today I was watching a fast- paced Chilean TV show to take a break from the Mexican or Canarian Spanish that I normally listen to, and the way they were spitting out their almost Welsh-like Spanish caused me to have to re-watch the show with subtitles, and I got hung up on the word "escaramuza." Then I had to find out the meaning, which turns out to be "skirmish" and I felt that my Spanish should have been advanced enough to understand it, at least the written meaning, since they are similar, but my knowledge failed me. Finnish is more of a boutique language for me so I feel less pressure to be perfect in it.

For what it's worth, I'm a native and I didn't know the word escaramuza until you explained it just now... Maybe it's more common in Chilean Spanish or in the genre of the show you were watching than in my dialect or the content I'm used to, but I'm much more likely to see the likes of batalla, pelea, choque, pleito.


The word is common in ... German. When I read "skirmish" it was clear that it is "Scharmützel" in German, a short attack by a band of warriors often on horseback, "Schar" meaning "small band"


" ...im 14. Jahrhundert von italienisch scaramuccia → it entlehnt; dem italienischen Wort liegen germanisch „Schar“ und italienisch mucciar → it „flüchten“ zugrunde[1]..."

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scharm%C3%BCtzel


Familiar to English speakers through Bohemian Rhapsody, although we probably have no idea what it actually means.

“I see a little silhouetto of a man,
Scaramouch, Scaramouch, will you do the Fandango!”

“scaramouche (n.)
1660s, name of a cowardly braggart (supposed by some to represent a Spanish don) in traditional Italian comedy, from Italian Scaramuccia, literally "skirmish," from schermire "to fence," from a Germanic source (such as Old High German skirmen "defend"); see skirmish (n.). According to OED, a vogue word in late 17c. London due to the popularity of the character as staged there by Italian actor Tiberio Fiurelli (1608-1694).”

https://www.etymonline.com/word/scaramo ... ouche%20(n.),see%20skirmish%20(n.).
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Re: What does the intermediate plateau look like for opaque languages?

Postby Le Baron » Tue May 16, 2023 4:02 pm

I first saw it as the title of the '50s film Scaramouche with Stewart Granger, which I watched in bed on a day off school with chicken pox. Which fits nicely with 'to fence'.
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Re: What does the intermediate plateau look like for opaque languages?

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Tue May 16, 2023 9:50 pm

Back in the days when I flirted with escrima (the Filipino martial arts), someone told me it was the same word as skirmish, and then mentioned the old Swedish term skärmytsling.

The first part, skärm, makes a lot of sense - shield, screen, protection.
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