David27 wrote:https://medium.com/bahasantara/introduction-to-uyghur-slides-from-polyglot-conference-fukuoka-2019-with-commentary-e2136d65e00d?source=collection_home---4------0-----------------------
Uighur talk slides and commentary from the last polyglot conference
Thanks. I will check it soon!
Disclaimer:
Very long post. Don’t waste your time and skip my log. This is just for future references on what I have (and have not) been doing regarding my language activities.
Tier 1: English, Español
Tier 2: 大熊猫, 김치 , Борщ, Deutsch, Français, Italiano
Tier 3: հայերեն, ქართული ენა, Nasi Lemak, Чингис хаан
Tier 4: Team Special. Updates on “Galego, JSL”
Restarting my languages activities in April will coincide with the fiscal year of Japan. What a restart point…Anyway, my idea was to separate into different tiers, so that I could prioritize one language within a pair or a group. I will probably rotate the languages every month or every 3 months.
I got a little bit frustrated because all my trips for the first semester were cancelled. I had to cancel my trips to South Korea, Taiwan, Mongolia, Russia, Indonesia, China (Xingjiang Province, Inner Mongolia, Tibet) …
It is unlikely I will be travelling by next year, too, giving the uncertainties and consequences related to Covid-19. Most likely many countries will still not open borders that easily and I wonder which airlines will be operating by then.
Time flies and hopefully between September 2022 and April 2023, I will be visiting Malaysia, Indonesia, South Korea, Taiwan, Russia and Mongolia. Mainland China can wait. The positive aspect is that the money I was supposed to use this year, I could use to go to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. Another thing is that I will have time to improve my Russian skills and try to navigate using Russian in Central Asian countries.
To complete my journey, I still need to go back to Thailand and perhaps visit Laos and the Philippines. I feel like visiting Spain, too. Let’s see how the air tickets’ fares will be 2 years from now. If there is one thing, I have never understood is the price of the air tickets. Sometimes it doesn’t make sense at all. Also, it can change very quickly. I have always been looking for the cheapest deals in terms of cost and benefit. Going on low season has been always great choice for me.
On IT More than a year ago, I have asked IT professionals from different fields on many questions. Right now, I’m studying and practicing front-end development. I’m doing well and hopefully I will be working on more back-end development. My goal is to become a full stack developer in the near future.
What does IT have to do with a language related forum, then? The reason I’m writing here is because I’d like to highlight that my experiences in learning natural languages, they have been helping in learning programming.
Now, let’s go back to the natural languages…
Tier 1: English, Español1. EnglishAchievement list. Regarding language activities in general, I have worked as a translator, interpreter, editor, proof-reader and an educator for more than a decade. Despite not being a native speaker, both clients and superiors have highly appreciated my services.
Biggest hurdles so far:I think the biggest hurdles were related to health or physical issues in the past few years. Fortunately, I consider having overcome most of the biggest physical related challenges in my recent life. Now that I have settled them, I can finally have fun with my hobbies. It was a very hard decision, but I have decided to retire working in the aforementioned industries and move on to the next step in my life. However, at same time, having decided to restart my languages journey has made me very satisfied.
Biggest triumphs so far. I have gotten technical knowledge and work experience in many fields. As a matter of consequence, clients have highly appreciated my services and I have always achieved my kpis. It is very satisfying to know that I could earn extra money (incentives) because of the quality of my work. However, most importantly, I have always appreciated receiving positive feedback from foreign clients. At the end of the day, it makes me feel glad when I can hear “thank you for your hard working” or words like that. “I know you are just doing your job but keep this level of professionalism and you are gonna succeed in your life” and so on. English native speakers from the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, UK, Ireland and C2 level speakers from Europe have really appreciated my effort and services.
I also got lots of daily exposure to the varieties spoken in the Scotland, Northern Ireland, South Africa, as well as English spoken by people from over 30 countries. It has naturally helped me to improve my overall listening abilities and get used to how different people pronounce and structure their sentences.
Next time:There are always room to improve. My ultimate goal was to take a C level exam around this time of the year. However, due to the Covid-19 effects, unfortunately the examination center has cancelled or postponed it, until they receive further notification from the British Council.
I have been reading fiction and non-fiction books and other content written by English native speakers. I should practice more writing and practice more speaking to continue improving and maintaining my overall skills.
2. SpanishAchievement list. In the past few years, I have been speaking with native speakers from many different countries. Among all Spanish-speaking countries, I think the only ones I had little to zero contact were people from Paraguay, Dominican Republic and Cuba. I cannot recall having met native speakers from those countries last year, for instance.
Biggest hurdles so far:When I first started speaking in Spanish, I didn’t have as much vocabulary as today. Even my passive vocabulary wasn’t that great, despite being a native speaker of Portuguese and being able to recognize more words than non-Romance language native speakers. Another big challenge that I felt like I have overcome is the Argentinian Spanish varieties, some of which I had trouble in terms of listening comprehension.
Biggest triumphs so far: I have taken some online language lessons to prepare for my DELE examination. My teachers were prepared to guide students for DELE preparation. They knew about the tests and they have taught foreigners for both DELE and SIELE. I got very positive feedback for both written and speaking tasks. Aside from the boring preparation stuff, obviously I have improved my business Spanish and also talked about native content (books, films, TV series and documentaries) I have been through. All in all, I am very confident I would be able to pass DELE C1 (CEFR) if the test were today. Anyway, similarly to the situation of English, my goal is not C1, but to reach (if I haven’t yet) and maintain C2 level.
I have a hyperpolyglot friend who comes from Mexico. We have met some weeks ago and he volunteered to evaluate my skills. I asked him to evaluate my written and spoken skills, because I’m eager to take DELE C2 (CEFR) soon. Since he is aware of proficiency exams in many different languages and CEFR, he said that I would pass based on my speaking and writing skills.
He asked me if I am dating a native Spanish-speaking person, because my active vocabulary has clearly increased, and I no longer speak like a B2 level. The fact is that due to the nature of my previous career, speaking with South and Central Americans and Spanish people was necessary on daily basis. I got lot of exposure to their idiomatic expressions, to certain vocabulary that are very specific to one country or region, to their intonation and so on. I try to incorporate new expressions I learn by using them in both writing and speaking settings. Of course, some of them cannot be used at proficiency exams for obvious reasons, for not being the right register for that specific type of exam.
Next time:I need to maintain my Spanish skills during this Covid-19 and quarantine stages. As of today, Japan has officially "locked down", but not in the strict sense. completely, but it is not a good timing to keep meeting people. I cannot force or won’t convince people to talk to me over Skype or any other apps either. However, in terms of reading and listening, I can always maintain it by consuming native contents. It is what I have been doing for years and I have proved myself that it has worked due to my achievements and the positive feedback I received from native speakers, including teachers and clients.
I will work on minor mistakes that I committed on my writing tasks and try to keep writing as much as possible in Spanish. More importantly, receiving feedback from well educated native speakers will be a huge plus.
Tier 2: 大熊猫, 김치 , Борщ, Deutsch, Français, Italiano 1. 大熊猫Achievement list. I’m reading native content, but still consider my reading speed very slow. I kind of cheat because of my “guessing” when I see Chinese characters. I mean, since I first started learning it, the meaning sticks into my head. However, when it comes to the pinyin, sometimes I forget the correct tones, and this is probably because of the lack of exposure to more native content. Even if I don’t actively use it for speaking purposes, I probably lacked on training my ears.
Biggest hurdles so far:
It is not that I’m very worried about my accent, but Chinese native speakers from Mainland China and Taiwan have given me the same feedback: they stated that I have a very poor accent.
Last time I had a conversation with a Chinese native speaker from Taiwan, I felt the lack of vocabulary to explain things without relying in other common languages. Some of the vocabulary I needed and that I either didn’t know or I haven’t used in ages:
點號is used to express a pause。Some of the examples of punctuation are:
句號，句點（ 。）period / full stop
逗號, 逗點（ ，）comma
問號（ ？）question mark
嘆號， 感嘆號， 驚嘆號（ ！）exclamation mark
頓號 （、）Chinese back sloping comma, enumeration comma (separates items in a series)
分號（；）semicolon
冒號（：）colon
標號is used to indicate the property of the sentence or phrase
引號 （“ ” ‘ ’）quotation mark
省略號（······）ellipsis
破折號 （ ── ）Chinese dash
書名號（《 》〈 〉）indicates book or article titles, or names of newspapers etc.
括號, 括弧〔（ ） [ ] { } 〕parentheses/brackets
專名號 ( __ ) Chinese underline
著重號（ ．）Chinese under dot
間隔號（·）Chinese centered dot mark. It separates the given name from the surname in translations of foreign names.
I needed that vocabulary to talk about subjects that are more technical on Microsoft Word and keyboards on iOS, Android and Windows (laptop) system.
Biggest triumphs so far: Next time:I will start working on my input through Taiwanese native content. I’m quite into stuff I’m watching from Taiwan and hopefully I’m going to find out something that really catches my attention in regard to Mainland China’s media.
2. 김치Achievement list. Biggest hurdles so far:I have been making mistakes about the Korean honorifics. I still have lots to improve.
Biggest triumphs so far: I’d say that learning Korean with a solid base of Japanese (say, C2 level) is not very challenging. I have used Japanese stuff to learn Korean and that is what I’d recommend for Japanese speakers learning Korean and vice-versa.
Native Korean speakers have reported me that my accent sounds very good.
Next time:I will start using native content because it helps me to learn many idiomatic expressions and increase my passive vocabulary.
3. Борщ Achievement list. Biggest hurdles so far:Aside from the cancellation of my flights to Russia, I will have more headache soon. Japanese citizens are required to enter with Visa in Russia. However, since I have a second passport, I use it whenever I can or I want, to avoid wasting my time applying and paying for the Visa. The problem is that I need to renew my secondary passport and my documents are not in Japan. I left some of the documents in overseas and I cannot send them back to Brazil immediately due to the Covid-19 related issues.
Recently I got motivated again to keep my Russian alive. I think I’m going on the right track, but just improving very slowly.
Biggest triumphs so far: I guess, differently from Chinese, usually Russian native speakers from Russia and Ukraine say that my accent is good.
Next time:I need to keep working on every aspect of the language. My Russian skills are still at a relatively low level. It is one of my favorite languages so far. I find Russian language very beautiful and one of my biggest motivations aside from reading native content is the fact that I can navigate more easily using Russian in former Soviet Union countries such as Kazakhstan. It would be probably very useful when I visit Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine and Belarus in the future. Russian played an important role in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Russia when I was navigating through those countries few years ago.
4. DeutschAchievement list. I have studied German for years until a high-level many years ago. Since then, I keep studying on and off, but now it seems that it will become one of the most skilled languages, at least passively speaking. I really like this language, despite the lack of usage and opportunities to use it actively where I live. Yet, I really enjoy reading in German.
Biggest hurdles so far:Being consistent over the years has been a tough task to me. Sometimes due to the lack of motivation, sometimes due to other priorities in my life. But during all this time, I have always liked this language.
Biggest triumphs so far: Next time:I usually read football related stuff in Spanish and German. Due to the lack of official matches, I have not reading much about both Real Madrid and Bayern Munich, two football teams I cheer for.
I’m reviewing A1-B1 (CEFR) content due to my long inactivity. At same time, I keep watching TV in German as well as reading native content. I have been able to read and understand non-fiction contents so far, checking one word or another every few pages. Let’s see how it goes.
5. FrenchNot my priority language at all. I am still waiting for my Assimil French be shipped to Japan…
I’m aiming to read native content in French, but that will take some time…Eventually I will probably write in French, but active skills are not priority for now.
Basically, my plan is to study 10 minutes a day, five times a week.
Achievement list. Biggest hurdles so far:Biggest triumphs so far: Next time:If my Assimil French takes time to arrive, I’m going to look for other resources out there. Unfortunately, I can’t take the risk of taking trains at the moment, as they are usually very crowded and so the area where I need to pass by.
6. ItalianoAdding Italian means, I will be finally going for the famous and very popular FIGS. Italian is a transparent language and it seems to be less challenging than French, giving my background.
Basically, my plan is to study 10 minutes a day, five times a week.
A
chievement list.
Biggest hurdles so far:
Biggest triumphs so far:
Next time:Tier 3: հայերեն, ქართული ენა, Nasi Lemak, Чингис хаан 1. հայերեն I’m going to restart my Armenian related studies. I have ordered some books from Armenia, but unfortunately the shipping is going to be suspended for a while. I wasn’t prepared for backup activities on this language, but sooner or later I’m going to use Armenian textbooks once again to review everything.
Achievement list.
Biggest hurdles so far:
Biggest triumphs so far:
Next time:2. ქართული ენა I’m going to restart my Georgian related studies. That said, Armenian would be my priority over Georgian for personal reasons.
Achievement list.
Biggest hurdles so far:
Biggest triumphs so far:
Next time: 3. Nasi Lemak I had to decide whether to pick up Malay (Bahasa Melayu) or Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia) to restart with. Both have pros and cons. I chose the former over the latter for personal reasons.
Achievement list. Nothing achieved yet. Nothing done yet. Still trying to figure out which resources would be more helpful to start with.
Biggest hurdles so far:Getting more updated and reliable resources on Bahasa Melayu variety.
Biggest triumphs so far: Next time:
I should update on why I chose Malay.
4. Чингис хаан I’m going to restart my Mongolian relates studies. It is one of my favorite languages from languages list this year.
I like to see what my Mongolian friends write in their social media. No, I’m not a social media person, but sometimes I have to make good use of them. I learn a lot by reading how well-educated Mongolians write in both formal and informal messages. It is my source of getting more exposure to the language, even though it is very passive way. It is much better than textbooks with all those robotic expressions and set of awkward phrases from outdated books…
Reading how Mongolians express on the internet is also very interesting to know how technology related vocabulary are being used nowadays. When I first thought about Mongolian language, exactly by 2000, I have always wondered about the following questions: Is it highly through English-base words or are they more conservative, by creating new words to replace? Are they based on other languages’ roots such as Russian? 20 years passed already, but I still want to investigate the English literacy there. Giving the fact that Mongolian’s government statistics (2019) showed me that they have very little literacy in English, even among young and educated people in the capital city of Ulan Baator, I wonder how neologisms work in Mongolian language.
Mongolian is not a very popular language among Western polyglots or language enthusiasts. I have checked once again the thread created by Speakeasy:
https://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=10987&p=148378&hilit=buryat#p148378I’m thankful for his effort. As we can see, most resources are very outdated.
I have many questions on Mongolian language, some of which lies on the differences between the Mongolian variety spoken in Mongolia in comparison to the variety spoken in Inner Mongolia. I also want to verify how much I’d be able to understand a native speaker of Buryat, Oirat and possibly other Mongolic languages.
Achievement list:
Biggest hurdles so far:
Biggest triumphs so far:
Next time:I’m expecting to review A1 related vocabulary and grammar structures as I have not done anything in months.
I have a strong connection with both the language and Mongolian culture. Unfortunately, it is likely I won’t be able to visit their biggest festival Naadam this year. Наадам, from “эрийн гурван наадам”, it is held in the National Sports Stadium. Loooking forward to go there by next year.
Tier 5: Extra languages. GalicianI don’t need to learn this language. I don’t live in Europe and I don’t see myself visiting Galician in the next few years. Yet, this language appeals to me in some ways. I like listening to Galician native speakers and I also have lots of fun reading in Galician.
It is very interesting to read Portuguese literature in Galician. I wish I had more resources, though. I’m out of resources, so I might keep checking news until my Portuguese friend suggests something else again.
Next time:
Provided good and reliable resources, I will keep actively reading in Galician. I’d like to understand the differences on European Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, (European) Spanish and Galician in regard to the writing.
JSLJapanese sign language is definitely very interesting. There are some paper based resources such as dictionaries out there, but they need to compile the dialectal variations. I have had lots of trouble when trying to understand what a native speaker of Japanese sign language was trying to say, giving the differences on their dialects in comparison to the supposedly “standard” variation I have been taught. Due to the Covid-19, however, it is likely the classes will be suspended for an unknown period.
AinuI’m not sure when, but I should write a little bit about Ainu language anytime in the future.
é o "equipe do povo". sempre quer vencer, mas também é importante jogar com estilo atacante. aqui se diz que a derrota 4-1 em Moscovo (2000) foi uma inspiração para Wenger mudar o estilo de Arsenal 
recentemente tenho seguido o PSG por jogadores como David Luiz, Zlatan, Cavani (que ainda está ali)... claro que com as minhas línguas românicas* compreendo francês escrito, mas nem provo ouví-lo 
well I understand though that you don't want to, any language should be fun to learn and I really would hate to learn a language out of pure necessity without finding anything to enjoy it. (And well, my dad is Persian so I also have a few resources in Persian even though I'm not as good as I would like to be)