Team Middle East

An area with study groups for various languages. Group members help each other, share resources and experience. Study groups are permanent but the members rotate and change.
geoffw
Orange Belt
Posts: 195
Joined: Sun Aug 09, 2015 3:15 pm
Languages: Speak well = English (N), Deutsch
Speak poorly = יידיש (Yiddish), Français
"Speak," I guess = עברית (Hebrew), Русский (Russian), Español, Nederlands, Esperanto
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Re: Team Middle East

Postby geoffw » Sun Oct 30, 2016 1:00 am

Systematiker wrote:For the modern stuff, I'll use Duolingo (anyone know if that's any good?)


I like the Duolingo course, but I already knew Biblical Hebrew reasonably well when I started with it (and I had studied the modern language at least a little) so I can't really say how it would be for starting from scratch. I was worried at first because the picture vocabulary doesn't have audio, but nearly every *sentence* does have audio, so it's fine.

I also have Assimil courses from both an English and French base (neither of which I've really worked though yet), and they seem to be of average to above-average quality as Assimil courses go.
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LadyGrey1986
Orange Belt
Posts: 140
Joined: Fri Jul 22, 2016 1:20 pm
Location: The Netherlands
Languages: Dutch (N),
Has studied: English, French, German (I never took a test, no idea where I belong on the CEFR scale)
Studies: Arabic (Beginner)
Wishes to Study: Farsi/Persian
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Re: Team Middle East

Postby LadyGrey1986 » Sun Oct 30, 2016 6:18 pm

All we need to kickstart Team Middle-East are natives or advanced learners willing to act as godparents. Luso and Doitsujin, may I invite you to consider becoming one?
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Luso
Yellow Belt
Posts: 51
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 5:25 pm
Location: Portugal
Languages: Portuguese (N), English (C2), French (C2), Italian (C2), Spanish (advanced), German (used to be advanced), Arabic (beginner to intermediate), Sanskrit (studying)
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Re: Team Middle East

Postby Luso » Mon Oct 31, 2016 6:41 pm

LadyGrey1986 wrote:All we need to kickstart Team Middle-East are natives or advanced learners willing to act as godparents. Luso and Doitsujin, may I invite you to consider becoming one?

Thank you for considering me, but at this point in time, that would be a gross overestimation of my abilities. To be honest, I had entertained the idea of joining the group, but the simple idea of maintaning a log was a bit daunting. If you'll have me without my having to keep one, I'll be happy to join (MSA), but not as a godfather.
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LadyGrey1986
Orange Belt
Posts: 140
Joined: Fri Jul 22, 2016 1:20 pm
Location: The Netherlands
Languages: Dutch (N),
Has studied: English, French, German (I never took a test, no idea where I belong on the CEFR scale)
Studies: Arabic (Beginner)
Wishes to Study: Farsi/Persian
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Re: Team Middle East

Postby LadyGrey1986 » Mon Oct 31, 2016 7:55 pm

You are very welcome Luso. The last thing I want to do is to create more stress and pressure. You leave a comment here when you feel like it .
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LadyGrey1986
Orange Belt
Posts: 140
Joined: Fri Jul 22, 2016 1:20 pm
Location: The Netherlands
Languages: Dutch (N),
Has studied: English, French, German (I never took a test, no idea where I belong on the CEFR scale)
Studies: Arabic (Beginner)
Wishes to Study: Farsi/Persian
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Re: Team Middle East

Postby LadyGrey1986 » Mon Nov 07, 2016 9:44 pm

How is everyone doing?
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Corrections welcome in any language :)

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NIKOLIĆ
Orange Belt
Posts: 219
Joined: Sun Jul 19, 2015 11:11 pm
Location: Banat, Serbia.
Languages: Speaks: Cрпски (N), English, Română.
Learning: Italiano, Magyar, 中文, Levantine Arabic, Русский.
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Re: Team Middle East

Postby NIKOLIĆ » Tue Nov 08, 2016 4:48 pm

LadyGrey1986 wrote:How is everyone doing?

Not too bad. What about you? :)

I decided to drop MSA for the time being and focus just on Levantine due to time constraints and MSA's lofty verbal system, although of course there's a huge vocabulary overlap. I certainly don't want to mix up the conjugations now that the dialectic conjugations are starting to click. MSA is so hard that it makes learning a dialect look like a walk in the park. :D I got hold of "Course d'Arabe Palestenien" and already worked my way through the first 3 lessons. Seems like a good course so far.

Here's a nice song I found today:

ma fi 'amal (there's no hope)
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LadyGrey1986
Orange Belt
Posts: 140
Joined: Fri Jul 22, 2016 1:20 pm
Location: The Netherlands
Languages: Dutch (N),
Has studied: English, French, German (I never took a test, no idea where I belong on the CEFR scale)
Studies: Arabic (Beginner)
Wishes to Study: Farsi/Persian
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Re: Team Middle East

Postby LadyGrey1986 » Tue Nov 08, 2016 6:42 pm

I am progressing quite nicely. I am focussing mostly on Levantine Arabic as well, at least for now. I am halfway done with Syrian Arabic a Functional Course. Thanks for the song! I really should do some of the pronunciation of FSi Levantine Arabic ;)
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Saim
Blue Belt
Posts: 676
Joined: Sun Nov 15, 2015 12:14 pm
Location: Rheinland
Languages: Native: English
Others: Catalan, Serbian, Spanish, Polish, Hungarian, Urdu, French etc.
Main focus: German
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Re: Team Middle East

Postby Saim » Tue Nov 08, 2016 7:29 pm

I got through three chapters of Syrian Colloquial Arabic (in a month) and have retained most of the vocabulary pretty well (I have a custom Memrise deck with 100 new words from the first three chapters of the book), but I've ended up distracted by Duolingo's Turkish course. I only have the last couple of lessons on the tree left though so hopefully I'll get back on track with Arabic afterwards, although I'm also tempted to take Turkish further with some other resources. :|

Maintaining Hebrew's been going good. I did a couple of conversation classes through iTalki and was surprised at how much I've retained. I think I have a pretty solid B2 that's probably only marred by some gaps in vocabulary (I'm probably better at talking about politics than describing what's in my living room :lol: ) -- I guess that's what I should work on next. I've also been skimming Ynet articles a couple of times a week and adding new vocabulary to Memrise.

A good thing I've noticed is now that I'm reading and listening to the news in Urdu a lot, my new formal Urdu vocabulary has helped tremendously with Arabic.

NIKOLIĆ wrote:
Here's a nice song I found today:

ma fi 'amal (there's no hope)


Haadi ghiniye 7elwe, shukran. :)
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NIKOLIĆ
Orange Belt
Posts: 219
Joined: Sun Jul 19, 2015 11:11 pm
Location: Banat, Serbia.
Languages: Speaks: Cрпски (N), English, Română.
Learning: Italiano, Magyar, 中文, Levantine Arabic, Русский.
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Re: Team Middle East

Postby NIKOLIĆ » Tue Nov 08, 2016 8:26 pm

Saim wrote:Haadi ghiniye 7elwe, shukran. :)
3afwan. sima3tha kull yawm mbare7. :)
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Systematiker
Blue Belt
Posts: 823
Joined: Tue May 10, 2016 6:09 pm
Languages: ENG (N); DEU (C2+) // SWG (~C1); BAR (~C1); SPA (4/3); FRA (~C1); SCO (~C1); NLD (~B2*); LAT (Latinum Bavaricum); GRC (Graecum Bavaricum); CAT (~B2*); POR (~B2*); SWE (~B2*); HBO (Hebraicum); DAN (~B1*); RUS (~A2); KOR (~A1); FAS (still a raw beginner)
*Averaged for high receptive skill
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=7332
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Re: Team Middle East

Postby Systematiker » Tue Nov 08, 2016 8:28 pm

I'm still around, making slow progress - through ch5 in my text, and the vocabulary is coming back (I'm not having to work too hard to remember them, at one point I knew them pretty well). It's a busy time of year for me, so progress won't be anything but slow...
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