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M ta renmen pale Kreyòl ayisyen | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5254 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 17 of 36 08 January 2013 at 5:37am | IP Logged | |||||
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Nothing like rocking out to some voudou drumming while studying Haitian Creole, Helemano. I love living in the Caribbean, especially now. The weather is perfect!
What makes Haitian Creole seem so easy for me is that I have a few advantages. I already know Spanish and Portuguese, English of course, great similarities in grammar with (what's left of) the local Caribbean English and my long, long ago year of high school French. Once you get Japanese and Portuguese down, Haitian Creole would be a breeze to learn- 90% French vocabulary without the hassle, easier grammar, easier pronunciation and no worrying about gender and conjugation. Still, it's easy now and progress is rapid because I'm a beginner in the language and I know how to learn more efficiently now. I know I will hit the wall at the intermediate stage, when the learning curve flattens out, and that may be just fine for my purposes of being conversational. N a wè pita, we'll see later, when the time comes. I can't imagine that there are very many Haitians (besides the embassy staff), in Japan though, unlike Brazilians. There's little literature available, no film industry to speak of but, at least the music is good. There's the cultural aspect of the voudou religion, and the simple but profound wisdom of the Haitian people as expressed in their proverbs. Some say the language is worth learning for its proverbs alone. I'll touch on that in a later post. There is a small Haitian community on my island, but we're on the wrong end of the Caribbean. Florida is a much better option for migrants. A linguist could explain much better what I'm going to say, and Lord knows, I'm not one- by any stretch of the imagination. I think this language is logical because the African slaves took French and simplified it by getting rid of the stuff that they didn't need. To me it's kind of like how Interlingua was created as an artificial language- strip out gender, conjugation, pronunciation oddities and make grammar simple. The African slaves who adopted this language were a smart people. They took what they needed from French, simplified it and made it their own. PS: Too bad Interlingua isn't more popular. If you know English and a Romance language you are off to the races in no time flat with the language- at least in reading comprehension. Edited by iguanamon on 08 January 2013 at 5:45am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5254 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 18 of 36 10 January 2013 at 1:43am | IP Logged | |||||
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Lesson 19 of Pimsleur is in the bag. We've moved on from buying wine and cake for the party/ti fèt la. Now it's answering the door, introductions, "pleased to meet you/m kontan fè konesans ou" and "now we can drink some coffee and talk/kounyeya nou ka bwè yon ti kafe e pale". Next stop lesson 20, only 10 more to go. Pimsleur Haitian Creole is only 30 lessons.
I've finished lesson 9 of Ti Koze Kreyòl, 10 more to go. Jan ak Mari have just arrived at the airport, gone through customs, been complemented on their Kreyòl (natif-natal!) and are off to visit the home of Msye Nasis who has offered them a "woulib" (ride) in his "machin" car. I'm seeing and hearing familiar words from my other sources. That's part of the reason I don't use flashcards. I hear/see a word once. Then I come across it again somewhere else and again somewhere else. I see it in my twitter feed. Hear it on lvwadlamerik or in a song and it sticks. A lot of the materials I'm finding on line are, not surprisingly, educational ones. A comic book about health and sanitation, the recent cholera epidemic Chimen Lakay/The Road Home and I've been listening to a "radionvela" produced by the US Embassy in Pòtoprens called Demokrasi pou tout moun: Edikasyon pou Devlope Yon Kilti Demokrasi (Democracy for everyone: education to develop a culture of democracy) from the Digital Library of the Caribbean. This is great because it's done in a novela format. I've been listening to it on my walk, after Pimsleur and Ti Koze Kreyòl. I can understand more and more as each day passes, sometimes whole sentences and phrases. Some may question the wisdom of doing this, this early but I find it accustoms my ear to the language and helps provide synergy with the other resources I am using. I've been really moving along with the story of "Wayne Drop: Vwayaj nan Everglades la". I only have two more pages to go and should finish the booklet tomorrow morning. The booklet is also available in Spanish, if anyone is interested- Wayne Drop Español. I'm really going to miss the adventures of the ti gout dlo/little water drop when I'm finished. It's just my speed. Who knew that the US Army Corps of Engineers could be good for language learners! Wayne Drop and his classmates are in Florida Bay now and have just met a manatee.
My translation: Did you know that the closest relative (family) of the manatee is the elephant? The Manatee is only one of the 15 endangered animals we find in the south Florida national parks. I'll be meeting my Haitian friend for lunch on Friday. Anyone who wants to compare Haitian Creole with French can have a look at this Chimen lakay (graphic novel style) video with French subtitles. Sadly, there are no Kreyòl subtitles. Orevwa, n a wè pita. Edited by iguanamon on 10 January 2013 at 12:43pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5014 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 19 of 36 14 January 2013 at 12:20am | IP Logged | |||||
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Have you seen this : Basic course in Haitian creole?
I hope its of help. Edited by dbag on 14 January 2013 at 12:20am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5254 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 20 of 36 14 January 2013 at 12:26am | IP Logged | |||||
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Thanks, dbag, but yeah, I have the IU course- Ann Pale Kreyòl. There are a lot of materials freely available for such a so-called "rare" language. Edited by iguanamon on 14 January 2013 at 2:03am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5254 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 21 of 36 14 January 2013 at 1:40am | IP Logged | |||||
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This past Friday I had lunch with my Haitian friend and we talked , ate and had a drink. It was perfect for me to recite my Pimsleur vocabulary about eating and drinking. We talked about family, Haiti and the differences between French and Kreyòl. Which I only know a little because, while I am familiar with the language and can read quite a lot, I don't speak French. She helped me with my pronunciation of the Haitian "r"a bit but said that my pronunciation was decent and said it sounded like a Pòtoprens (Port au Prince) accent. I made some mistakes, of course, but not too many. I really enjoyed the chance to talk and will be looking forward to our next opportunity. Now I've got to find a skype partner.
I've finished Lesson 22 of Pimsleur's Haitian Creole course. There's only 8 more lessons to go. I finished Wayne Drop: Vwyaj nan Everglades la. I learned a lot of grammar and vocabulary from this little, free, Army Corps of Engineers booklet. It was the perfect complement to my beginning stages. I think the Spanish version would be good for Spanish learners too. Don't wait to read until after you complete a course. By reading at the same time I was going through my other methods, it showed my how what I was learning from other resources fits in to the language and why I need to know it. Pimsleur should never be used solely on its own to learn a language. It has many shortcomings and failings. It could be so much better than what it is. Supplementing it with my other resources has really helped with synergy. Many times I already know the new word they're introducing. So, why do Pimsleur? Well, hearing the word again after seeing it in print, or hearing it elsewhere, helps to cement it in my mind. I like the pressure of having to respond in the Pimsleur approach. I may look like a fool walking around talking to myself but it has really helped with pronunciation and automaticity in speech. I don't use anki, so multiple resources are what I use to learn vocabulary. With Ti Koze Kreyòl I am on Lesson 10 now with 9 more to go. My Haitian friend likes the look of this course and says that it provides good basic instruction. She agrees with me that the speech is way too slow in the early lessons. I am halfway through Lamèt lawouze, the free L/R book from Kansas University. The story is getting good. It follows the same monolingual format as Ti Koze Kreyòl does- not surprising since it was developed by the same professor. The comprehension questions help me to think in Kreyòl. While driving out to go sailing today (yeah, life on a Caribbean island is rough), I listened to an episode of "Demokrasi pou tout moun" on my phone. This kind of serves as my measuring stick. I am able to understand a lot more of what's being said. When I get to where I can make my own transcript and understand most of the words, I'll feel much better about my efforts. After I finish Pimsleur, I plan on moving this into heavy rotation on my phone for my walking time. I now have a few sources of Haitian Creole tweets in my twitter feed and this helps too. I get tweets in Portuguese, Spanish, English and now Haitian Creole. 140 characters may not sound like a lot but it's enough. It's not just vocabulary but also the links that are posted can lead you to some interesting content of which you probably would be unaware otherwise. Twitter is a good free resource that more language learners should add to their toolbox. There's a free ap for iPhone and android so, it's portable too.
My translation: "Under Secretary General of the UN, Hervé Ladsous, will visit Haiti in order to evaluate the work of MINUSTAH and the situation in the country three years after the earthquake." N a wè pita! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5254 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 22 of 36 17 January 2013 at 12:50am | IP Logged | |||||
My twitter feed taught me a new word today in Kreyòl ayisyen- goudou-goudou
My translation: The European Union signed an accord to give Haiti 20 million dollars in order to help farmers produce food after the earthquake damage of January 12, 2010. The word goudou-goudou is a neologism that entered the language after the devastating earthquake of 2010. I looked in the two extensive bilingual dictionaries I have and found nothing. I tried google translate and still, nothing. Then I searched for the term on google and found this article from Schott's vocab blog- NYT that explains it much better than I can.
From a language learning perspective, this, to me is why Twitter is a good resource to use in my studies. It's short, 140 characters maximum, and topical. It is just one of my tools to help me learn this language out of many others. I saw this on my android phone twitter ap and when I got home that's when I began to research the word. My studies update. I am on lesson 25 of Pimsleur haitian Creole, learning about driving cars and navigation in Haiti. The prompts are more in Haitian Creole now. I only have five more lessons before I finish. I am on chapter 10 of Lawouze mèt form Chita Pa Bay and lesson 10 of Ti Koze Kreyòl. I found some new bilingual resources last night from the US EPA called Dlo bay lavi “Water Gives Life” in English. I am going to know a lot about water in Haitian Creole, what with Wayne Drop, Masters of the Dew and now this four page pdf! I also downloaded a bilingual Hans Christian Anderson tale and a bilingual pdf of a Haitian diaspora writing contest consisting of poetry and short stories- kreyòlwowloy I've got enough to keep me busy for now. Orevwa. N a wè pita! Edited by iguanamon on 17 January 2013 at 12:57am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4839 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 23 of 36 17 January 2013 at 4:48am | IP Logged | |||||
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I always forget how useful having Twitter feeds in the TL are. Thank you for reminding me!
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| daristani Senior Member United States Joined 7136 days ago 752 posts - 1661 votes Studies: Uzbek | Message 24 of 36 17 January 2013 at 5:09pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I don't know if it would be of any interest or use to you, but there's a short, and at first glance rather idiosyncratic, "grammar" of sorts available to download here:
http://www.invisiblebooks.com/KreyolGram.htm I have the impression that it was never completed, but there may be something in it of use to you. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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