The Chronicles of An Overly Ambitious Soon To Be 20 year old.

Continue or start your personal language log here, including logs for challenge participants
Atinkoriko
Orange Belt
Posts: 202
Joined: Sun Mar 05, 2017 9:31 pm
Location: England
Languages: English (N)
Ibibio (N)
West African Pidgin English/Guinea Coast Creole[N]
Actively learning
Int: German, French, Spanish

Beginner: Russian, Japanese

Next: Mandarin Chinese, Ancient Greek, Latin, Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs, Italian
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 6&start=20
x 398

Re: The Chronicles of An Overly Ambitious Soon To Be 20 year old.

Postby Atinkoriko » Sun Apr 02, 2017 8:57 pm

Both of you are right. There is really no way that your native language does not break forth and influence your pronunciation or prosody somehow. It happens in all our languages and that's perfectly fine.

As you pointed out, Cavesa, it is true that the vast majority of the snobs who criticise pronunciation, cant even stop themselves from making the same 'mistakes' that they criticise mercilessly in others. As you've pointed out, Tarvos, these 'mistakes' shouldn't matter because we really can't be corrected by native speakers anyway. We should just relax and enjoy a great language. The problem is that the group of people I'm criticising don't think the way you do. I saw a great article by a guy who said that he had switched to Ecclesiastical pronunciation because of the lack of audio resources for Classical pronunciation and also because of the attitude of the 'community'

Latin should make a resurgence but it's never going to if people keep squabbling over who is speaking the least like what we imagine a Roman spoke like.

And I'm trying out the course and it's great by the way :)
1 x
: 50 / 2000 Remembering the Kanji :
: 33 / 75 SpanishFilms Half SC :
: 45 / 124 German Active wave :
: 3 / 100 Assimil Japanese :
: 33 / 100 Russian without Toil :
: 160 / 10000 Russian 10k srs :

Cavesa
Black Belt - 4th Dan
Posts: 4960
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 9:46 am
Languages: Czech (N), French (C2) English (C1), Italian (C1), Spanish, German (C1)
x 17565

Re: The Chronicles of An Overly Ambitious Soon To Be 20 year old.

Postby Cavesa » Sun Apr 02, 2017 9:10 pm

tarvos wrote:... even if you get the phonemes right, the prosody is going to give your accent away.


But the phonemes vary between Latin speakers with different native languages too. That is the problem. The difference is pretty clear whenever I hear Latin being spoken.
1 x

User avatar
tarvos
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2889
Joined: Sun Jul 26, 2015 11:13 am
Location: The Lowlands
Languages: Native: NL, EN
Professional: ES, RU
Speak well: DE, FR, RO, EO, SV
Speak reasonably: IT, ZH, PT, NO, EL, CZ
Need improvement: PO, IS, HE, JP, KO, HU, FI
Passive: AF, DK, LAT
Dabbled in: BRT, ZH (SH), BG, EUS, ZH (CAN), and a whole lot more.
Language Log: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/fo ... PN=1&TPN=1
x 6093
Contact:

Re: The Chronicles of An Overly Ambitious Soon To Be 20 year old.

Postby tarvos » Sun Apr 02, 2017 9:50 pm

Cavesa wrote:
tarvos wrote:... even if you get the phonemes right, the prosody is going to give your accent away.


But the phonemes vary between Latin speakers with different native languages too. That is the problem. The difference is pretty clear whenever I hear Latin being spoken.


I agree, but we do have a clear idea of what the classical Latin pronunciation of certain phonemes was like (even though the vowel qualities may not be exact). There's no need to change THOSE based on your native language and accent - and they still get changed because of our accents, such as heavy diphthongization of vowels by English speakers and so on. But even if you changed those to the correct phonemes, you'd still lack the correct prosody.

Ex: the Latin word mores which has two long vowels. An English person would definitely put glides on those vowels (the word would sound like moar-ays). We don't know whether Latin dipthongized those vowels in such a way, and it's likely that they didn't (but we don't have any recordings so we can't be certain).

The thing is that these phonemes vary because certain languages lack certain phonemes. Latin distinguishes b and v, but Spaniards? Hell no. So they will sound the same when pronounced by a Spanish speaker unless he explicitly learns and uses the two different sounds in his Latin. But even if he did that, his sentence rhythm will still sound Spanish because he would have no clue as to what sentence intonation is common in Latin of the third century BCE.
3 x
I hope your world is kind.

Is a girl.

Atinkoriko
Orange Belt
Posts: 202
Joined: Sun Mar 05, 2017 9:31 pm
Location: England
Languages: English (N)
Ibibio (N)
West African Pidgin English/Guinea Coast Creole[N]
Actively learning
Int: German, French, Spanish

Beginner: Russian, Japanese

Next: Mandarin Chinese, Ancient Greek, Latin, Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs, Italian
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 6&start=20
x 398

Re: The Chronicles of An Overly Ambitious Soon To Be 20 year old.

Postby Atinkoriko » Sun Apr 02, 2017 11:49 pm

After putting in about 10-12 hour days for the past 14 days, I've come to the conclusion that I'm very close to burned out.
Thus, I will suspend my Assimil schedule for the next 3 days and recuperate.
I shall be back with increased fervor and fanaticism but I must recognise that willpower is finite and I've expended a lot of it so far.

See you guys in 3 days time.
2 x
: 50 / 2000 Remembering the Kanji :
: 33 / 75 SpanishFilms Half SC :
: 45 / 124 German Active wave :
: 3 / 100 Assimil Japanese :
: 33 / 100 Russian without Toil :
: 160 / 10000 Russian 10k srs :

Atinkoriko
Orange Belt
Posts: 202
Joined: Sun Mar 05, 2017 9:31 pm
Location: England
Languages: English (N)
Ibibio (N)
West African Pidgin English/Guinea Coast Creole[N]
Actively learning
Int: German, French, Spanish

Beginner: Russian, Japanese

Next: Mandarin Chinese, Ancient Greek, Latin, Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs, Italian
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 6&start=20
x 398

Re: The Chronicles of An Overly Ambitious Soon To Be 20 year old.

Postby Atinkoriko » Mon Apr 03, 2017 11:21 am

Okay, staying away was harder than I expected.
1 x
: 50 / 2000 Remembering the Kanji :
: 33 / 75 SpanishFilms Half SC :
: 45 / 124 German Active wave :
: 3 / 100 Assimil Japanese :
: 33 / 100 Russian without Toil :
: 160 / 10000 Russian 10k srs :

Atinkoriko
Orange Belt
Posts: 202
Joined: Sun Mar 05, 2017 9:31 pm
Location: England
Languages: English (N)
Ibibio (N)
West African Pidgin English/Guinea Coast Creole[N]
Actively learning
Int: German, French, Spanish

Beginner: Russian, Japanese

Next: Mandarin Chinese, Ancient Greek, Latin, Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs, Italian
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 6&start=20
x 398

Re: The Chronicles of An Overly Ambitious Soon To Be 20 year old.

Postby Atinkoriko » Tue Apr 04, 2017 7:03 pm

Came up with a good idea for an encryption system of sorts, at least for myself.
Lately, I've learnt both the Cyrillic alphabet and the Greek alphabet thanks to dabbling in Russian or Ancient Greek.

So the solution seems somewhat simple to me: I'll actually formulate my thoughts in German or French but write them down [phonetically] using the Cyrillic alphabet or the Greek alphabet.

Double layer of encryption because the person peering into my journal, if I kept one at all, would have to be able to read the Greek/Cyrillic alphabet and also know some German or French in order to decode it.


I think the stress of approaching exams is getting to me :lol:
3 x
: 50 / 2000 Remembering the Kanji :
: 33 / 75 SpanishFilms Half SC :
: 45 / 124 German Active wave :
: 3 / 100 Assimil Japanese :
: 33 / 100 Russian without Toil :
: 160 / 10000 Russian 10k srs :

Cavesa
Black Belt - 4th Dan
Posts: 4960
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 9:46 am
Languages: Czech (N), French (C2) English (C1), Italian (C1), Spanish, German (C1)
x 17565

Re: The Chronicles of An Overly Ambitious Soon To Be 20 year old.

Postby Cavesa » Tue Apr 04, 2017 8:07 pm

Atinkoriko wrote:Came up with a good idea for an encryption system of sorts, at least for myself.
Lately, I've learnt both the Cyrillic alphabet and the Greek alphabet thanks to dabbling in Russian or Ancient Greek.

So the solution seems somewhat simple to me: I'll actually formulate my thoughts in German or French but write them down [phonetically] using the Cyrillic alphabet or the Greek alphabet.

Double layer of encryption because the person peering into my journal, if I kept one at all, would have to be able to read the Greek/Cyrillic alphabet and also know some German or French in order to decode it.


I think the stress of approaching exams is getting to me :lol:


Why so complicated? Write like a pig. It works. 9 out of 10 medicine students recommend it.
2 x

Atinkoriko
Orange Belt
Posts: 202
Joined: Sun Mar 05, 2017 9:31 pm
Location: England
Languages: English (N)
Ibibio (N)
West African Pidgin English/Guinea Coast Creole[N]
Actively learning
Int: German, French, Spanish

Beginner: Russian, Japanese

Next: Mandarin Chinese, Ancient Greek, Latin, Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs, Italian
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 6&start=20
x 398

Re: The Chronicles of An Overly Ambitious Soon To Be 20 year old.

Postby Atinkoriko » Tue Apr 04, 2017 8:45 pm

Hahahaha, the thought came to mind already Cavesa.
0 x
: 50 / 2000 Remembering the Kanji :
: 33 / 75 SpanishFilms Half SC :
: 45 / 124 German Active wave :
: 3 / 100 Assimil Japanese :
: 33 / 100 Russian without Toil :
: 160 / 10000 Russian 10k srs :

Atinkoriko
Orange Belt
Posts: 202
Joined: Sun Mar 05, 2017 9:31 pm
Location: England
Languages: English (N)
Ibibio (N)
West African Pidgin English/Guinea Coast Creole[N]
Actively learning
Int: German, French, Spanish

Beginner: Russian, Japanese

Next: Mandarin Chinese, Ancient Greek, Latin, Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs, Italian
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 6&start=20
x 398

Re: The Chronicles of An Overly Ambitious Soon To Be 20 year old.

Postby Atinkoriko » Wed Apr 05, 2017 12:54 am

Another 112 words wordlisted, the first A4 sheet of April.

Will aim to do a new batch at least every two days because I don't want to get overwhelmed with the repetition rounds.

April vocab challenge is a go.

EDIT: May seem trivial but I find that the quality of the paper affects my general attitude towards this form of vocab acquisition. Before, I tried it with cheap paper and absolutely hated it. Now I use quality paper of 100 gsm, obtained for just a little more money, and I thoroughly enjoy the experience. Just felt it was worth mentioning.
1 x
: 50 / 2000 Remembering the Kanji :
: 33 / 75 SpanishFilms Half SC :
: 45 / 124 German Active wave :
: 3 / 100 Assimil Japanese :
: 33 / 100 Russian without Toil :
: 160 / 10000 Russian 10k srs :

Atinkoriko
Orange Belt
Posts: 202
Joined: Sun Mar 05, 2017 9:31 pm
Location: England
Languages: English (N)
Ibibio (N)
West African Pidgin English/Guinea Coast Creole[N]
Actively learning
Int: German, French, Spanish

Beginner: Russian, Japanese

Next: Mandarin Chinese, Ancient Greek, Latin, Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs, Italian
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 6&start=20
x 398

Re: The Chronicles of An Overly Ambitious Soon To Be 20 year old.

Postby Atinkoriko » Wed Apr 05, 2017 4:14 am

I have just finished the first episode of Un village francais, so I will proceed to write some thoughts on it. Since I have virtually no experience with reviewing, do bear with me. Also, mild spoilers [if such an expression exists]

First of all, a brief description. It's set in Vichy France and aims to give a honest portrayal of the Nazi occupation through the eyes of the French who lived under it. This episode starts with the introduction of the main characters, or so I think, and concludes with the Nazis literally arriving on their doorsteps.

What I like: Firstly, the time period. I've always tried to imagine what life was like in Vichy France so this show definitely holds my interest.
Also, I like the attempt at realism. A character is introduced and killed off during a children's picnic after making plans with a love interest. A child gets killed too and the mother breaks down in sorrow (rather convincingly) on seeing the body of her little boy. Street gunfire which kills innocent civilians, the evacuation of hospitals, etc. Then, a few other things ie Loud and rough Nazi soldiers with rather convincing German chatter, delightful miscommunication between a Spanish lady and a French doctor that leads to a child being named 'Te Quiero', the fact that it seems to be multilingual, the fact that the French spoken at normal speed and incorporates colloquialisms etc

What I didn't like: Seemed a bit scattered but it's only the first episode so I should cut it some slack. Some almost instantly forgettable characters. Something something communism and printing propaganda, although that could be fleshed out in later episodes

What I found amusing: The cliches. Just 6 minutes in and a French adultery scene, which certainly made me smile wryly. It seems the French are self aware of their own stereotypes. A vacuous blonde maid, a long suffering but alcoholic French housewife, corrupt soldiers etc.

In all, I think I like it very much indeed. I'll write more about it when I'm done with the first season.

Au revoir!
2 x
: 50 / 2000 Remembering the Kanji :
: 33 / 75 SpanishFilms Half SC :
: 45 / 124 German Active wave :
: 3 / 100 Assimil Japanese :
: 33 / 100 Russian without Toil :
: 160 / 10000 Russian 10k srs :


Return to “Language logs”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: galaxyrocker and 2 guests