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Josquin’s Language Symphony (RU, IR, 東亜) | ||
Tags: Gaelic (Scottish) | Gaelic (Irish) | Icelandic | Portuguese | Multilingual | Total Annihilation Challenge (TAC) | Italian | Japanese | Russian | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4681 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 617 of 646 19 April 2015 at 3:29am | IP Logged | ||
If you're looking to have some fun with Hebrew, let me suggest tracking down the Israeli TV show Srugim. If hulu.com is available where you are, you can watch it online for free, with English subtitles. I also found it on Amazon Instant Video, and there are DVDs for sale out there. I originally started watching the show to work on my Hebrew, but I got completely caught up in the show and had to know what would happen to the characters. Slate had an article about how amazing the show was. (N.B.: While I think the show mostly explains the biggest points of Jewish practice you need to follow what's going on, before watching the episode where Hodaya goes to the beach, you NEED to know that the ocean is considered a mikveh, and you should know what a mikveh is used for.) EDIT: Updated to include a link to the theme song, which is amazing in its own right. The youtube post includes the Hebrew lyrics and parallel English translation. Edited by geoffw on 19 April 2015 at 3:38am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6902 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 618 of 646 19 April 2015 at 6:14pm | IP Logged | ||
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Josquin, is there a chance that you're going to the Polyglot Gathering in Berlin? If so, you'll be able to use your Irish on half a dozen speakers.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4837 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 619 of 646 20 April 2015 at 11:41am | IP Logged | ||
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@geoffw: Thanks for your recommendation! A series about a group of orthodox Jews sounds very interesting and different from the usual. However, I tried to track it down on the Internet and it seems to be difficult to watch it from Germany.
@Jeff: Unfortunately, I won't be going to this year's Polyglot Gathering. I don't have any money left for it and also I have been very ambivalent about language learning in general lately, so I decided not to go. Maybe next year, we'll see. Edited by Josquin on 20 April 2015 at 11:46am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4837 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 620 of 646 26 April 2015 at 1:01pm | IP Logged | ||
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SUNDAY, 26 APRIL 2015
Okay, not much has happened here. I have mainly been busy preparing my presentation and also I have started an initiative to lose some weight, which means I didn't study much. For this reason, I'll keep this entry short. There simply isn't much to report. Русский This is my main achievement of the last week: I finished the first season of Кухня! It took a somewhat sad twist in the final episode, which surprised me, but other than that it's hilarious as ever. Looking forward to the second season! Italiano I'm stuck on unit 3 of the Langenscheidt course. Yes, I should have done a little bit every now and then, but I didn't. My bad! Gaeilge I have an itching in my fingers to get back to Irish. I can resist it at the moment, but how long will I stand the urge to go back to Ireland's green meadows and study this Celtic beauty? How long, how long? Aahhh... עברית Okay, Hebrew is back on the table! Instead, I put Portuguese back to rest. I got the Routledge Introductory Course from the library again and will start working with it as soon as I have delivered my presentation, which will be on Wednesday. Other than that, I managed to memorize the Israeli national anthem "התקווה", whose melody I can't get out of my head any more. I also plan on learning about Jewish culture, the history of Israel, and the conflict with the Palestinians. I'm very much interested in these topics right now. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4837 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 621 of 646 13 May 2015 at 6:07pm | IP Logged | ||
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WEDNESDAY, 13 MAY 2015
Long time no see! Well, there hasn't been much to report and I have mainly been busy with other stuff than languages, so what should I have written about? In fact, all those glorious projects like reviving my Italian and getting started with Hebrew haven't worked out. I can't explain why, but I think my focus has simply shifted. I don't feel the thrill of learning a new language any more. It doesn't give me any satisfaction, so I feel no motivation to study. Well, I have been listening to some episodes of JapanesePod101 now and then and that's quite fun, but other than that - nothing! What I'd really love to do would be improving my Irish, but the problem with Irish is resources. I can't be bothered to deal with Learning Irish and Gaeilge gan Stró may be the extreme opposite, but that doesn't mean it's any better. Maybe, I should check out the DuoLingo course? Well, anywho, I got some books from the library, among them Teach Yourself Irish, Basic Irish, and Intermediate Irish, so I hope I can put them to use in the near future. It would be a shame to let all the effort I put into learning Irish go to waste. Also, I'd really love to go to Ireland this year, but probably that won't work out - again! Money is my constant worry, and also my scholarship expires in October and God knows what will be after that. I already let go of the dream of finishing my thesis before the scholarship will run out (there's no way I'll manage that), so I'll have to find some sort of job which will allow me to work on my thesis at the same time. Well, we'll see. One thing at a time. On the bright side, my presentation in Munich went quite well, although there were some critical questions afterwards which confused me a little bit. Well, that's science! Anyway, some questions and remarks were really stupid, but I only realized that afterwards when everything was over and it was too late to reply appropriately. Maybe, I should train my repartee. Well, that was that and it was good to finally get some feedback on my work, however, now I'm sitting in my room again, close to being bored out of my mind. Yes, doing a PhD sounds great, but when you're not presenting your results, it's a lot of the same dull, never-ending work. Rant over! Anyway, I hope I can squeeze in some Irish from time to time now. Might be a good distraction after all and, as I said, it would be a pity if I forgot all the Irish I know. I still feel a big affinity for traditional Irish culture and I listen to traditional Irish music regularly, so there's more motivation than for my other languages, which I simply study for fun and curiosity. One of my dreams is doing an Irish language course in the Gaeltacht, but as long as I'm a poor student, that won't come true. So, textbooks and TG4 it is! ;) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| liammcg Senior Member Ireland Joined 4597 days ago 269 posts - 397 votes Speaks: English* | Message 622 of 646 13 May 2015 at 7:21pm | IP Logged | ||
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Ná caill misneach! I don't know if this mini-course will be of any benefit to you, but it's good to know it's
out there: Rté Easy Irish A few programs from TG4 on Irish music: Bailitheoirí Ceoil Darach Kane Willie Clancy 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Woodsei Bilingual Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Woodsei Joined 4790 days ago 614 posts - 782 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Egyptian)* Studies: Russian, Japanese, Hungarian | Message 623 of 646 14 May 2015 at 7:49am | IP Logged | ||
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Hi Josquin!
Been some time, and we really miss you over at the East Asian team. I have to be honest, I felt sad reading that you were taking a break from the forum. You've been a pretty big inspiration to me over the past few years. I definitely understand priorities, and following ones passions, and it's wonderful that you have this powerful connection with music. I'm glad you're still around, though. It doesn't have to be all or none. You can work on languages anytime you feel like it, and you don't necessarily have to have benchmarks and milestones that you have to hit, you know. All the passion of languages here at the forum can be pretty addictive, and that sometimes makes people shoot higher than they originally intended. So just enjoy the process, and don't worry about the tiny details! I really hope I see you here for a long time to come :) Edited by Woodsei on 14 May 2015 at 7:51am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4837 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 624 of 646 14 May 2015 at 3:01pm | IP Logged | ||
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@Liam: Go raibh maith agat, a chara! Those links look interesting. I’m going to check them out one by one in a quiet minute. Especially the programme about Darach Ó Catháin looks promising!
@Woodsei: Thanks so much for your kind words! I appreciate your honesty and I’m touched that my absence has caused you sadness. To be honest, I also missed the forum a lot. I have been a pretty active member of this community for nearly four years and made lots of friends I never thought I would make. However, this is a forum for language learning, so what do I have to contribute if I’m not studying languages? You’re right, it doesn’t have to be all or nothing, but I still need to get to that point where I truly understand that. When I started my career on HTLAL, I was just learning Icelandic for fun. I didn’t think about why I was learning it, I didn’t think about how well I wanted to learn it. I just had a textbook and a CD and kept going, simply because it was interesting and fun. Then I joined HTLAL and I got gradually sucked into the community, which meant writing a log, participating in challenges, and adding new languages. This was good in the beginning, because I started to learn some languages I had always wanted to know, such as Russian or Japanese. However, slowly I started to forget what I really wanted and only studied because I was member of a language learning community. So yes, I shot higher than I had originally intended. I started one language after another and lost track of my real goals. As interesting as studying a language can be, I needed to find out what I really wanted. When I realized what that was, it was not getting fluent. I’m a scanner personality. I’m excited by new things. As long as I don’t know how something works, it’s interesting. However, the moment I know it fairly well, the excitement is over. I’m not a perfectionist. I’m not a person who reviews their vocabulary with Anki every day. I can understand and produce Russian fairly well, so I need a new challenge. The same goes for every other language. I know the basics and can get along, so all the excitement is gone. This isn’t restricted to languages. I’m experiencing the same thing with singing right now. In the beginning, it was new and exciting and there was so much to learn. Now, one year after I started, I’m getting bored by doing the same exercises and songs over and over again. My voice has improved a lot and I’m participating as a tenor in a local choir, so I got what I wanted. Why should I keep practising every day? It just doesn’t make any sense to me. Yes, it’s the intermediate plateau. I know the basics, I have made a lot of progress, but now I’m stuck. In order to make more progress I would have to keep going, the only problem is that the excitement and the motivation of the beginning is gone. As soon as I know something fairly well, I’m satisfied. Other than that, language learning has been an escape from reality for me. I had a severe mental crisis five years ago from which I only slowly recovered. The first year after the crisis, I was barely alive. All I could focus on was finishing my studies and somehow get through every damned single day. I have never before or after felt this awful in my entire life. However, when I started learning languages, I had a hobby which didn’t challenge me physically or emotionally and which offered comfort. I had my books, I had the HTLAL community, I had an escape from the awful reality which was my life. As I said, it took a lot of time to recover and I’m still not sure if I’m quite there where I used to be, however, I realized I don’t need an escape from reality any more. I want to cope with it, not escape it. So, long story short, I had some very intense years studying languages, but I guess my priorities have simply changed. I have reached the goals I had and language learning isn’t as important any more as it used to be. Yes, I guess I’ll keep using my Russian, my Japanese, my Irish, otherwise I’d forget everything and that would be a pity. But I’ll probably never again study languages like the obsessed lunatic I used to be. Studying without pressure and benchmarks might be the solution, but I think I still need some time to get there. I need to find new goals and new priorities and somehow redefine my entire focus in life. I’ll keep visiting this forum. As I said, I would miss it terribly, but I don’t know yet what importance languages will have for me in the future. Πάντα ῥεῖ - Everything flows. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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