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Expug’s All at On(c)e Log - TAC14 | ||
Tags: Papiamento | Estonian | Georgian | Native Materials | Norwegian | Total Annihilation Challenge (TAC) | Mandarin | Russian | German | French | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5158 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes  Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 25 of 415 08 January 2014 at 5:47pm | IP Logged |
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Don't worry, I'm familiar with C/E for a long time. I think Estonian is a bit like
Georgian where you can't ignore some textbooks now matter how unfriendly they are. I don't know which one I'm going to start with, but I will by no means let myself down or frustrated if I find I'm not learning enough from CE. I have TY Estonian too and I may start with either one of them. I also have Manuel d'Estonien and the Basic Course which will make things look less phrasebookish than those two big publishing houses do. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7148 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 26 of 415 08 January 2014 at 5:53pm | IP Logged |
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TY Estonian destroys Colloquial E on the strengths of having more exercises (that also don't assume that you've miraculously learned the grammar of a future chapter unlike Colloquial E), clearer explanations of the grammar, and better master list of vocabulary and choice of voice actors for the audio.
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| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5158 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 27 of 415 08 January 2014 at 6:02pm | IP Logged |
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It's not either/or, Chung, as I have both.
Btw, when I got Colloquial Estonian, TY Estonian didn't even exist. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7148 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 28 of 415 08 January 2014 at 6:16pm | IP Logged |
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My point is that Colloquial E is really bad, and might even set you up with some bad habits in thinking about Estonian.
The worst offender in the book is that it presents the -da infinitive as the main form for verbs. Etymologically (and if you know Finnish) it makes sense since this infinitive corresponds to the first (i.e. main) infinitive of Finnish. Pedagogically this is dumb, dumb, dumb as a beginner. The main infinitive that is taught in Estonian courses and presented in the best Estonian-English dictionaries is the -ma infinitive. If you know the -ma infinitive, you stand a better chance to figure out the conjugational stem for the present tense. Another problem is that the expalantions of consonant gradation and the vowel alternations are glib or practically useless. The only way to start to cope is to guess based on words introduced earlier that look similar. The authors of TY Estonian try to provide some framework to help you predict which alternations to apply, but even then you still need a lot of practice (or hard study of a reference guide on Estonian grammar or even a book on the history of Estonian) to know which inflectional stems to use (try to figure out the partitive plural in Estonian. I dare you). Like you, I started Estonian when TY Estonian didn't exist and really the only viable courses in hard copy were Tuldava's Estonian Textbook and Moseley's Colloquial Estonian. I ditched Tuldava's textbook after about a dozen chapters since the lack of audio and reliance on translation drills wore thin. I ditched Moseley's course after 5 chapters because of all of the flaws that I've mentioned already. TY Estonian was a godsend and appeared a few months after I started studying the language. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| prz_ Tetraglot Senior Member Poland last.fm/user/prz_rul Joined 4851 days ago 890 posts - 1190 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, Bulgarian, Croatian Studies: Slovenian, Macedonian, Persian, Russian, Turkish, Ukrainian, Dutch, Swedish, German, Italian, Armenian, Kurdish | Message 29 of 415 08 January 2014 at 6:49pm | IP Logged |
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Well, I've been thinking about the alphabet alone. Currently when I read a Georgian text I feel like I'm disabled :(
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| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5158 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 30 of 415 08 January 2014 at 8:59pm | IP Logged |
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Well then, it took me actually quite a while to get used to the alphabet in a more
practical way, I'd say nine to ten months, and when I started reading longer texts I noticed my reading/decoding speed increased yet a bit more. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5158 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 31 of 415 09 January 2014 at 6:21pm | IP Logged |
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As I'm packing again for going to my hometown (15 hours by bus, this time flights are bloody
expensive and I have 3 weeks out, so, no rush), I realize I nearly managed to finish my schedule. Only Everyday Chinese, the French film and the Papiamento book are missing. I could advance a bit with the Georgian reading at the final pages of TYGFES thanks to googling for the text excerpt and finding it where I could copy/paste and gtranslate it. All in all, my Georgian reading speed and ability are actually improving! I'm starting to consolidate some vocabulary including some verbal forms I tended to mix up, like to bring/take something or someone. I'm taking along 'Basic Georgian which only has 28 lessons, so I'll probably be done with it in early February and this means I'll probably start Estonian before March. I'm confident enough with the amount I'm learning from the Georgian bilingual reading to be able to let go textbook studying, but I still need strong reviewing on some verbal tenses. Maybe the best book for this would be Kurze Grammatik der Georgische Sprachen. It lacks the script and it would be a good exercise to write the sample sentences down in the Georgian script at my log. So, path would be as following: Teach Yourself Georgian for English Speakers -> Basic Georgian Einführung in die Georgische Sprachen -> A Georgian Reader Basic Georgian -> Kurze Grammatik der Georgische Sprachen A Georgian Reader -> [An Estonian textbook] Kurze Grammatik der Georgische Sprachen -> [Review of another grammar I've already been through) Norwegian also seemed easier today. I thought of giving up at one point because I might not have had enough time, but I went on and listened to 4 audio tracks again, it was 9 pages but it is ok, next one will make up for the half page that was missing, since I've actually done 11 and 12 pages the two previous days. I'm not going back to Chapada Diamantina this time, only in April. I'm glad my Team Exploradores mates accepted the first challenge I proposed and it was quite good to notice their progress and to be able to help. Now I want to write some short travel logs there, it will be a nice experience to write in native language, maybe that will represent a warm up for further activities. I think it's more genuine for those who are learning Portuguese that I write about my trips within Brazil. No active working yday (dialogues) and probably none today either. I'll see what I can do while I am at my parents'. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| prz_ Tetraglot Senior Member Poland last.fm/user/prz_rul Joined 4851 days ago 890 posts - 1190 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, Bulgarian, Croatian Studies: Slovenian, Macedonian, Persian, Russian, Turkish, Ukrainian, Dutch, Swedish, German, Italian, Armenian, Kurdish | Message 32 of 415 10 January 2014 at 12:53am | IP Logged |
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You're amazing... Really.
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