Expug's 2017 Log - It's now and forever

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Expugnator
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Languages: Native Brazilian Portuguese#advanced fluency English, French, Papiamento#basic fluency Italian, Norwegian#intermediate Spanish, German, Georgian and Chinese (Mandarin)#basic Russian, Estonian, Greek (Modern)#just started Indonesian, Hebrew (Modern), Guarani
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9931
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Re: Expug's 2017 Log - It's now and forever

Postby Expugnator » Tue Oct 31, 2017 8:00 pm

Thank you guys for the discussions and the insights. As Josquin pointed out, my main trouble is having the past in those command-like subjunctive sentences. The бы as a variation of the conditional particle is really useful information.

Funny how the usage of the past as imperative in Russian finds equivalents in Georgian and in Portuguese. A common goodbye replacer is "Falou!" (lit. you spoke!, which might have started in an interrogative tone). When we want to give commands and leave no room for procrastination, we use the past instead, especially with children. In Georgian, the aorist is also the imperative form.


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Yesterday I took the day off, but instead of spending more time with the girls as planned, we started renovation work at home and so I had to drop her at my in-laws' and i'm only seeing them on Thursday. That's sad. Language-wise I wasn't really on the mood for anything. I didn't listen to I provinciali during the weekend, and yesterday was no study day apart from reading in English and in Spanish. At least I got on track with Clozemaster again, as I had been resistent the previous weeks, only doing my minimum on the languages I've been studying the longest. This is a short week, so I have today and tomorrow for full study.

As for Estonian with subtitles + G-translated English subtitles, it seems I've reached a plateau which I've also noticed for Russian and German. I need more familiarity with the Estonian sentence so I can process the subtitle lines more quickly and isolate the actually unknown words. At the current level, some unfamiliar grammatical constructs prevent me from understanding full sentences, especially the longest ones. I need to read more attentively and intensively during parallel-reading time in order to overcome this, and I also need to do a second wave on the FSI-like Basic Course in Estonian.

A relief for the day. The Georgian webreader is back. No more reading on a mobile screen. Reading was even easier today. The typology doesn't help in either book (Georgian or the original Italian), but I'm finding my way in the page more easily, while having more time to do in Georgian what I still can't do in Estonian, that is, clearly linking L2 word, collocation or noun phrase with its L1 counterpart.

Wanderlusting for Pan-Scandinavian again. I'm a member of a Whatsapp group where a Swede is fairly active and encouraging. I feel like picking Swedish now, but one is never sure one's 1st Scandilingo is advanced enough as to reduce interference.

I was going to call Cortina Greek game today, but I decided to give the Comprehension tests a try, as they seem to be gradec, comprehensible input. That gives me a couple of days more to decide which resource I'll be doing next to pair up with Assimil. I'm approaching a post-textbook stage, anyway. The texbooks are giving diminishing returns.

Found time for Hebrew! Now I can call it a day. It's becoming more and more interesting. Bits of grammar here and there, almost like a teaser for when I start denser resources.

Indonesian is slowly becoming transparent thanks to the work on both Clozemaster and Indonesianpod101. Syntax is easy so far, thanks to Mandarin and informal French and Portuguese.
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Elenia
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Languages: English (N), Swedish (C1), French (Massively Atrophied) German (lowly beginner, somehow learnt to read)


Finnish?!
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Re: Expug's 2017 Log - It's now and forever

Postby Elenia » Wed Nov 01, 2017 10:12 am

I actually saw a Swedish book on flow, I believe, that made me think of you yesterday. Seems to be a sign ;)
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lthispresey
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Re: Expug's 2017 Log - It's now and forever

Postby lthispresey » Wed Nov 01, 2017 4:01 pm

Olá como vão as coisas ? umas perguntas :
Depois de estudar estoniano, vc vai estudar finlandês ou húngaro ? essa foto de Saaremaa é linda :o
Vc já chegou a um ponto em georgiano em que vc precisou aprender as outras escritas ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian_scripts
Vc pretende um dia estudar búlgaro ? parece que a dificuldade em relação à declinação×sistema verbal é invertida em búlgaro(e bielo-russo e macedônio).
Agora que Myanmar está supostamente se abrindo, isso te dá alguma vontade aprender a língua ? ps.: digitar em birmanês é mais fácil no linux que já vem com o sistema completo (até ဂင်္, que é complicado de acertar as combinações...) do que no windows... Vc acaba tendo que usar o lexilogos.

A coisa que pega em tailandês é a classificação de cada letra e levar as outras coisas em conta : classe de consoante, sílaba aberta, sílaba fechada com vogal longa, sílaba fechada com vogal curta e os acentos...Quando eu tentei aprender a ler, o que mais me ajudou foi o sistema de cores : low = blue . mid = green . high = red... mesmo num texto normal(preto) eu consigo lembrar das cores. Cambojano também tem classes de letras, mas o que muda é a pronúncia da vogal/ditongo. O número de tons é maior que o do mandarin, mas me lembra muito o do cantonês. Uma coisa que notei em músicas de línguas tonais é que dá para ouvir os tons diferentes em tailandes e vietnamita mas não muito em mandarin; cantonês as vezes dá... E tudo que é difícil na escrita tailandesa é simplificada na escrita laosiana moderna (mas vc acaba precisando aprender a antiga)

Na procura de música grega acabei achando um cantor que gostei muito chamado Στράτος Διονυσίου, dá uma checada nele.

Como que está seu entendimento dos verbos hebraicos ? o sistema hebraico é mais diferente do árabe do que eu presumia... Acho interessante a conjugação do futuro em hebraico ser similar ao do presente(imperfeito) árabe.

Malaio-Indonésio também tá na minha lista, esperando que um dia eu possa aprender javanês. Uma língua mais ou menos próxima que resolvi aprender é Tagalog...vou ser sincero, eu achei que seria uma língua bem fácil(talvez algum tipo de preconceito :? ), mas ela é bem mais difícil; principalmente pq ela tem uma gramática totalmente difirente do que estamos acostumados, até em relação a indonésio. Isso sem contar com a diglossia, que tá mais pra tetraglossia : tagalog + espanhol + inglês + dialeto... Mas eu recomendo :lol:
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Expugnator
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Languages: Native Brazilian Portuguese#advanced fluency English, French, Papiamento#basic fluency Italian, Norwegian#intermediate Spanish, German, Georgian and Chinese (Mandarin)#basic Russian, Estonian, Greek (Modern)#just started Indonesian, Hebrew (Modern), Guarani
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9931
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Re: Expug's 2017 Log - It's now and forever

Postby Expugnator » Wed Nov 01, 2017 5:45 pm

Elenia wrote:I actually saw a Swedish book on flow, I believe, that made me think of you yesterday. Seems to be a sign ;)


Maybe it's a sign...I can't promise much, but let's see what 2018 reserves us. I've been adding new transparent languages for a long time, maybe Swedish won't do any (more) harm. I'll see if I can deal with it the Systematiker way :D

@lthispresey coincidently, i'm a member of a Whatsapp group that also has a Bulgarian, plus a Hungarian who lives in Myanmar! I'm still too early on Hebrew or Indonesian too make any assumptions, but I'm really looking forward to exploring those languages. Tagalog is another ball game.

As for Georgian, no, I haven't seen the need to learn any of the other alphabets yet.

===========================
For the second day I'm back to normal desktop reading in Georgian, and it's going well. I'm really looking forward to the next book. though.

The more my Mandarin gets better, the more I feel like going to China. It's faxcinating when a whole new world opens up thanks to language speaking skills and literacy.

Started second season of Нюхач. Good series. Great language practice.

The Comprehension test for Cortina Greek is far from being comprehensible input. Not a waste but not productive either. That makes over 2 hours of not so much useful audio (the final lessons have no translation and the comprehension test has no transcripion either).

It was a shorter day. I left earlier so I could make it to mee the girls before they went to bed. I prioritized audio-video tasks and left the reading to be taken care of confortably during the long weekend ahead.
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Ogrim
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Re: Expug's 2017 Log - It's now and forever

Postby Ogrim » Mon Nov 06, 2017 11:48 am

Expugnator wrote:Wanderlusting for Pan-Scandinavian again. I'm a member of a Whatsapp group where a Swede is fairly active and encouraging. I feel like picking Swedish now, but one is never sure one's 1st Scandilingo is advanced enough as to reduce interference.


I guess it comes down to what you want to do with the languages. If your aim is to speak and write a Scandinavian language, it is probably better to stick to Norwegian only for the time being. However, if you primarily want to understand when reading and listening, then I think your Norwegian level is good enough to make some excursions into Swedish. As a Norwegian I've never studied Swedish as such, because the differences which can potentially make mutual understanding difficult are mostly limited to some vocabulary, and I've learnt most of those by exposure. Sure, certain morphological endings are different, but not more than those existing between various Norwegian dialects, so they do not cause any problem for comprehension.
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Expugnator
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Re: Expug's 2017 Log - It's now and forever

Postby Expugnator » Mon Nov 06, 2017 8:42 pm

Thank you for the usual sensible feedback, Ogrim. I have all goals possible for Norwegian, probably to go into the C levels. As for Swedish, passive knowledge is more than desired. I'm not even speaking of the language itself: I believe attempting to study it would bring me knowledge about the Swedish society and culture as well. In this case I would use language learning as a means to an end, all in a more relaxing way given the huge discount Norwegian would bring. It probably doesn't show, but I'm comfortable with written Norwegian now, and doing some Assimil Swedish would be almost like learning another Romance language. I bet I can read Swedish better than Romanian. The way I'm doing with my new languages now is very relaxing and doesn't jeopardize the older, well-established ones. The newer ones only concur among themselves for my remaining time.

======================
The extended holidays weren't productive for language study. Wifi was intermitent and didn't work inside the hotel rooms. I did have a great family time. Our apartment is still undergoing renovation, so the girls will be out the entire week. That leaves me more time: yesterday I caught up with the tasks left undone on Wednesday, when I had to leave earlier. I found it quite relaxing and focusing to to the reading and podcast listening tasks on bed.

I listened to the Italian podcast while preparing my snacks for the week, and I'm wondering if I should make it my daily lunchbreak listening. It's a great exercise, but perhaps too noisy and upbeat for lunch breaks.

I also readded Finnish to my Clozemaster deck. This time it feels feasible. There's considerable Estonian transparency. On the other hand, Finnish has more sentences and they are graded. So, it seems I can get further with Finnish on Clozemaster. My current Estonian is not negligible: at least for these most common words I feel I could think of the Estonian counterparts almost naturally. I believe if I keep working on Finnish Clozemaster, slowly, I'm going to have a huge headstart in a couple of years.

Captain Future is real fun. I'm not doing bad at comprehension. If only I could follow German audiobooks, that would boost my German listening skills even further. Anyway, by the time I finish Captain Future I plan on indulging myself to dubbed series I'm lined up to watch, and this is going to be fun, I hope.

Let's see how this evening study comes along. I've left a lot undone at the end of the day and maybe I can do a bit more study.
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Expugnator
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Re: Expug's 2017 Log - It's now and forever

Postby Expugnator » Tue Nov 07, 2017 8:00 pm

Yesterday was a partial failure. I went just as far as the Georgian dubbed series. Estonian reading, all the Greek, Hebrew and Indonesian all left undone, plus nearly all of the Clozemaster. I had a class in the evening so my plan on catching up before bedtime didn't prevail. I could barely reach my daily 20-page quota for non-fiction reading. Better luck today.

Je ne savais pas que Monte Carlo avait de vrais gratte-ciels. Maintenant je le sais, grâce à Hors de Prix.

Current Yabla Chinese videos are working on minimal pairs, very useful! The trickiest so far was shí x shé . I can hear the difference but I'm not sure I can produce it.

After finishing an interview in English with barely inaudible audio, I decided to resume Italian audiobooks. Let's see how it comes along. If it's too easy I'll probably try German next.

It was a calmer day. I managed to study Hebrew and Indonesian again.
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Expugnator
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Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9931
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Re: Expug's 2017 Log - It's now and forever

Postby Expugnator » Wed Nov 08, 2017 9:22 pm

Yesterday I almost aced my studies. I had left Spanish reading and the rest of Clozemaster to the evening, but thanks to another class followed by two long family phone calls I was no longer in the mood to read 10 A4 pages in small fontsize before bedtime. I have only 20 such pages left on that book and I expect the next one to be more viewing-friendly, yet I'm stuck at the current one for several weeks. Let's see if I can make it today.

Papiamento
This is new to me, and I thank the newspaper La Prensa:



Proposing to go informal in Estonian:

Code: Select all

{mother-in-law} - Mis asja me nüüd jälle teeme omavahel? Me teietame ju.

{daugther-in-law} - Vabandust, aga ma ei...Ma ei saa äkki hakata sinatama.


Rough translation:

"What is the matter that we are doing to each other? We 're teie-ing each other." (cf. FR vouvoyer)
"Sorry, but I don't...I can't suddenly begin to sina"

Teie being the formal and sina being the informal you. Notice that the "tutoyer" and "vouvoyer" verbs are made from the full, emphatic form, not the shorter te and sa.

Italian audiobook - another one of Montalbano's adventures. It takes time to tune in to the story, but I'll get there.

Norwegian
When did Norwegian start replacing the infinitive with the participle on complex accents? (I bet there was a verb 'ha' early on)?

Jeg burde studert engelsk, men jeg vil heller se en film.
Translates as I should be studying English, but I'd rather watch a movie.

Kunne du kopiert dette til meg?
Could you copy this to me? (and not "Could you have copied [P.PF] this to me, which doesn't make sense).

Hebrew
Possessive constructs don't seem that complicated. They're starting to make sense.

Spanish
Ten pages read in the book, ten more to go.

Indonesian
Another absolute beginner lesson. Grammar starts to make sense, with words such as yang and sedang. I can almost hear their Mandarin equivalents.

FInally a day that felt complete. I had almost an hour working over time, which helped, because the day itself has been very busy. I'm not managing to advance my reading in the morning, despite not giving Portuguese classes anymore.
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Expugnator
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Re: Expug's 2017 Log - It's now and forever

Postby Expugnator » Thu Nov 09, 2017 8:51 pm

I don't know why, but the Estonian native TV series with Estonian subtitles and machine-translated English subtitles time is highly productive - I can understand more and more, and I learn new words as well; while the parallel reading with translated novel and the L1 translation is not so. Maybe the written language just happens to have longer sentences which are not always easy to grasp; I believe some sentences in the novel are translated rather loosely, making the Estonian diverge from the Portuguese.

Italian audiobook starts to make more sense. I have to pay attention, though, because it's a Montalbano story, and it's complicated to understand in the audiobook form regardless of language skills.

Norwegian keeps being my favorite foreign language. Råta is better each day and I'm learning a lot as well. Skam is also much fun.

Finished the ok Hors de Prix with Audrey Tatou. Now my next film in French is Amour & Turbulences.

En français. Lorsqu'on lit des livres numériques et qu'on a un quota journalier à atteindre, il vaut mieux compter le pourcentage de pages lues que le nombre de pages. Avant, je me tenais à lire 4 pages en géorgien chaque jour avec l'application de la librairie virtuelle géorgienne. Ça marchait bien lorsque je lisais sur l'écran l'ordinateur, mais il m'a fallu utiliser mon portable quelquefois pour accéder aux mêmes libres. Le compte a été compliqué lorsque j'ai eu besoin d'augmenter la taille de police. J'ai alors décidé de compter tout simplement en pourcentage et à m'engager à lire 3 % du livre par jour. Maintenant que j'ai pu reprendre la lecture sur l'ordinateur, j'ai même pu augmenter la taille de la police sans aucune crainte que j'irais tricher sur mon quota journalier de lecture.

Advil is a pain-killer. ადვილი (advili) means easy in Georgian.

Accomplished language textbook: Cortina Modern Greek

Image

It's a good textbook among those still having the old orthography. Better used at an A2-B1 stage, first because you'll be able to ignore the polytonic marks; second because the book is rather demanding. Actually it was only useful to me up to lesson 16. From then, there was no translation provided anymore. Yet it's a great source of listening-reading material.

Now, just like I'm doing with Assimil, I'm going to work on a new version of Language Transfer. This time, I'll try to pay more attention to the lessons, and as a result I expect to start activating my A2ish Greek.

I've been slacking off, that's true. Wasting at least 2 good hours in random browsing or empty chatting. I think part of it is related to my current reading pool that consists of many books that are difficult language-wise and/or content-wise: a Tourism textbook (in English), an Urbanism textbook (in German), Cipolino's Adventures (Georgian/Italian, the Italian original not being exactly transparent) and a self-help Spanish with small print. My experience shows that once at least one resource is replaced by an easier or a more fun one, things go more smoothly. Let's see what next week reserves. Anyway, Hebrew and Indonesian are done at the final minutes.
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Mista
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Languages: Norwegian (N), English (QN). Studied Ancient Greek (MA), Linguistics (MA), Latin (BA), German (BA). Italian at A2/B1 level. Learning: French, Japanese, Russian (focus) and various others, like Polish, Spanish, Vietnamese, and anything that comes my way. Also know some Sanskrit (but not the script) and Coptic. Really want to learn Arabic and Amharic.
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Re: Expug's 2017 Log - It's now and forever

Postby Mista » Thu Nov 09, 2017 11:19 pm

Expugnator wrote:Norwegian
When did Norwegian start replacing the infinitive with the participle on complex accents? (I bet there was a verb 'ha' early on)?

Jeg burde studert engelsk, men jeg vil heller se en film.
Translates as I should be studying English, but I'd rather watch a movie.

Kunne du kopiert dette til meg?
Could you copy this to me? (and not "Could you have copied [P.PF] this to me, which doesn't make sense).


You are right that ha is missing, and in my opinion, it would be more natural to include it, though I wouldn't characterize the omission as ungrammatical. It could be dialectal variation, I suppose. What's your source?
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