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Tristano’s log 2015 [EN|FR|NL|RU|ES]

 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log Post Reply
177 messages over 23 pages: << Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... 16 ... 22 23 Next >>
tristano
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Netherlands
Joined 4039 days ago

905 posts - 1262 votes 
Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English
Studies: Dutch

 
 Message 121 of 177
07 April 2015 at 1:55pm | IP Logged 
What if I do both?
No, I'm joking.

I started to listen to Portuguese news (the actual news, not the slow ones).
It's very easy to get the gist of what is said and I'm glad I studied French and
Spanish before otherwise would be quite difficult. What I saw with French and Spanish
is that it's easier to listen to the formal language (the difficult words are more
similar to Italian than the most common ones, quite interestingly), so a difficult
text or audio is actually easier than everyday colloquial speech. So something about
the philosophical and sociological aspects of the sub-urbanization derivation
patterns in the 17th century (just random words) it's easier to understand than "Mum,
I want cookies" "no dear, you already ate the chocolate and that's enough for today".
I don't have a lot of podcasts by the way. Some news and that's it. I would be glad
about receiving suggestions :)

I think I'll do Arabic.
1 person has voted this message useful



tristano
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Netherlands
Joined 4039 days ago

905 posts - 1262 votes 
Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English
Studies: Dutch

 
 Message 122 of 177
08 April 2015 at 1:31pm | IP Logged 
I'll do Arabic.
I'm going to buy a book.
1 person has voted this message useful



Luso
Hexaglot
Senior Member
Portugal
Joined 6053 days ago

819 posts - 1812 votes 
Speaks: Portuguese*, French, EnglishC2, GermanB1, Italian, Spanish
Studies: Sanskrit, Arabic (classical)

 
 Message 123 of 177
08 April 2015 at 3:43pm | IP Logged 
tristano wrote:
What I saw with French and Spanish is that it's easier to listen to the formal language (the difficult words are more similar to Italian than the most common ones, quite interestingly), so a difficult text or audio is actually easier than everyday colloquial speech.

I've noticed this too, and it should be obvious: over the course of 2000 years, the common people managed to (slightly) mangle the common Latin words. So, you have pão-pan-pain-pane, leite-leche-lait-latte, and a many more dialectal variations. But the scientific words were left alone. Everyone knew what a lake was, but "lacustre" (concerning a lake) was beyond daily worries. So, the word stayed unchanged.

I remember asking in class things like: "How do you write 'arbitrariamente' in Italian?" and my teacher would reply: "Exactly the same as in Portuguese."

As the Monty Python would say: "Terrific race, the Romans! Terrific."
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tristano
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Netherlands
Joined 4039 days ago

905 posts - 1262 votes 
Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English
Studies: Dutch

 
 Message 124 of 177
09 April 2015 at 10:43am | IP Logged 
At first Portuguese sounded to me like drunk Spanish.
Though I still prefer Spanish for how it sounds, Portuguese has a gentler prosody that it
sounds to me more similar to Italian than Spanish.
1 person has voted this message useful



Serpent
Octoglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
Joined 6589 days ago

9753 posts - 15779 votes 
4 sounds
Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese
Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish

 
 Message 125 of 177
10 April 2015 at 4:48am | IP Logged 
Well, afaiu the phonetic processes generally affected more or less all words. The "educated" words are basically considered loans from Latin. In many cases they co-exist with their vulgar descendants.

A fun aspect is that Italian seems to have preserved more of those words "naturally", rather than as loans. And of course sometimes the distinction is blurry.

And then there are later loans from French that have me wondering why a Danish word is the same as Romanian or Turkish...

Edited by Serpent on 10 April 2015 at 4:52am

2 persons have voted this message useful



tristano
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Netherlands
Joined 4039 days ago

905 posts - 1262 votes 
Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English
Studies: Dutch

 
 Message 126 of 177
13 April 2015 at 6:20pm | IP Logged 
Italian is the new Latin <3

Portuguese: it will take three times the time I needed with Spanish, seemingly.
Dutch: this is kind of cool, I discovered that I know much more Dutch than what I
thought. I went with my girlfriend to visit a friend of us, I managed to speak half the
time in Dutch (I had to ask to speak slower, but they were often forgetting that :D).
It's like Dutch it is inside me and it just has to come out.
1 person has voted this message useful



tristano
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Netherlands
Joined 4039 days ago

905 posts - 1262 votes 
Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English
Studies: Dutch

 
 Message 127 of 177
14 April 2015 at 1:44am | IP Logged 
Uhm, I have to admit that I don't have a structure in my studies.
I read with admiration people that can say: "I do 15 minutes of reading, 10 of grammar, 20 of listening and so on
and so forth". And they do.

No, either I can tie my learning to something (like taking the tram, so if I go to work by bike I don't study anymore)
or it is a mistery if I will actually study. The other strategy is to do nothing else than study the language.
I can't do this.

I know how I did study Spanish, I know how I did study French, I still don't know how am I studying Dutch :D I
brought Assimil and Methode 90 to study during the lunch break. *cough cough* never happened. I know I can
trade my friends with Dutch. :(
1 person has voted this message useful



Jeffers
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4901 days ago

2151 posts - 3960 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German

 
 Message 128 of 177
14 April 2015 at 2:24pm | IP Logged 
I'm a lot like you: my study time is either a part of my commute/exercise time, or it's just random. I used to have a 30 minute drive, so it was perfect for doing a Pimsleur lesson each way. I've managed to embed languages enough in my life that I end up doing a fair bit every day, but it's rare that I have a fixed time set aside. Most of that random time is spent feeding my French media habit (films, TV, music, podcasts).


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