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Liammcg-TAC’13 Team Romulans & Clan Lugus | ||
Tags: Gaelic (Scottish) | Welsh | Gaelic (Irish) | Total Annihilation Challenge (TAC) | German | French | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| liammcg Senior Member Ireland Joined 4596 days ago 269 posts - 397 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 9 of 89 11 November 2012 at 1:59pm | IP Logged | ||
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Just a little resource update for Gaelic:
Guthan nan Eilean A great find, with plenty of videos of native speakers. There are transcripts of all videos. Tobar an Dualchais A bit out of my league at the moment but I intend to use this site once I'm functional in the language. I have a great interest in the folklore and songs of all Gaelic speaking peoples and so this will prove a great resource! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| liammcg Senior Member Ireland Joined 4596 days ago 269 posts - 397 votes Speaks: English* | Message 10 of 89 14 November 2012 at 4:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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French
I've really been enjoying French lately! Most of my study time has been of a passive nature, watching various videos on YouTube (I love Loki's videos and his Belgian accent. I find it very pleasant on the ears), as well as RFI. I haven't done much active studying using TY or LingQ because of college assignments but I should be able to better organize my time from Friday on. In a week or two I'm going to start using Lang8. It'll be tough, going from almost zero writing of French but it needs to be done! As stated in a previous post, I find the Scriptorium method quite useful for spelling and will continue to spend 15 minutes a day doing it. Now for a detail that I failed to mention up till now...one of my housemates is a Moroccan who speaks fluent French. I've failed to take full advantage of the situation up until now because we are both so busy. However, two nights ago we sat down and went through some pronunciation drills (she speaks standard French). I found this very helpful as it is much easier to reproduce sounds when you can see an actual speaker articulate them as well as give you feedback. We've agreed to continue these little lessons which I'm sure will be invaluable in boosting my confidence in the language. My goal for the next few days is to work on the subjunctive tense. I have tried to avoid it up until now, but its time to take the bull by the horns! Gaelic All is good with Gaelic though my studies haven't been as focused as with my French. I must say that I'm really enjoying the learning process, in particular discovering the connections between this variety of Gaelic and my own. During classes our teacher provides interesting insights into how a given word developed from Old Irish,and then compares it to our word for it in Irish. For example, the SG word for evening is "Feasgar" whereas in Irish it is "tráthnóna". Irish had the word "feasgar" but it has faded out of common speech, except for in Munster where an element of it is used in the word for twilight (which escapes me as I don't speak a Munster dialect). Overall, I'm happy with my progress. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| liammcg Senior Member Ireland Joined 4596 days ago 269 posts - 397 votes Speaks: English* | Message 11 of 89 21 November 2012 at 12:54am | IP Logged | ||
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French
I've been browsing YouTube like crazy lately in search of interesting videos in French. Euronews is great, but there are loads of great documentaries also. Some of these are OK to follow, but I find the lack of subtitles frustrating! For example, I found what looked to be a very good, well made documentary on Morocco on YouTube, but I found the narrator's voice very deep, unclear and hard to follow (of course the fault is on my part and not on his!). For those interested, here it is: Le Maroc vu du ciel Just tonight I discovered Fluent French Now and I will definitely be using this site from now on. I began tonight by looking at the first "real life example of spoken French" which is about two women discussing the types of questions that arise at job interviews and how best to deal with them. To my surprise I was able to follow the vast majority of what they said on the first listening without looking at the script! Needless to say I am delighted but I won't declare it from the rooftops just yet. I had a good night, and hope to make these a more regular occurrence! Does anyone have any advice as to what ratio one should utilize in the intermediate stage of learning a language. Should all skills (speaking, listening, reading, writing) be given equal time slots or is it more beneficial to focus on one or two areas? As I've stated already, my main focus at the moment is on reading and listening with very little time spent on writing. Gaelic I'm progressing steadily through Scottish Gaelic in Twelve Weeks and have begun an Anki deck of all the vocab that I've come across so far. As expected, grammar hasn't presented any challenge. The main area of focus is pronunciation and the relationship between this and spelling.This has proved challenging at times. For example, the word "ris" seems to be pronounced with an initial "V" and not R. Since I feel that I've acquired a good grounding in the structure of the language, I'm going to be intensively listening to dialogues, interviews etc. in order to internalize the sounds and rhythm of the language. My goal is most definitely to be able to speak the language and not to write it, so I have done very little composition in the language except for completing exercises in the course book. Edited by liammcg on 21 November 2012 at 12:58am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| liammcg Senior Member Ireland Joined 4596 days ago 269 posts - 397 votes Speaks: English* | Message 12 of 89 13 December 2012 at 11:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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Its been a long time since my last update. I've been very busy with college work and so
I've had little time to study languages (I'm actually taking a break from an assignment now to post this!). Come Monday I will have plenty time to study more diligently. I'll just outline my plans for the near future (for the Christmas break anyway!). French Continue using RFI and euronews to practise listening to the language. Look for videos/ films etc with colloquial language 45mins-1hr grammar study a day. I feel the need to drill some of the points that I can use but aren't 100% sure why. I'll probably use FSI and french.about.com...does anyone know any good sites for drills? Write an article on lang8 everyday if possible, certainly every other day Anki of new vocab, n.b. TY book Find French songs to listen to...but I have a very particular taste! This may sound strange coming from a 20 year old, but I don't like rock,pop, techno, rap etc...I play Irish music and listen to traditional sean-nós singing! Now, I do like the idea of using song,so is there any folk/traditional French singing that someone could recommend, something unique to France/Belgium etc. and not part of mainstream western culture. Scottish Gaelic Revise chapters of Scottish Gaelic in Twelve Weeks, construct many sentences in writing and mentally Use Anki with vocab found in book in order to cement spelling...is there a way I can record myself saying each of the words/phrases and attach the file to the card? Listen to Gaelic songs, especially Julie Fowlis 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Maïwenn Diglot Groupie FranceRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4361 days ago 56 posts - 72 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Mandarin, Breton | Message 13 of 89 14 December 2012 at 1:44am | IP Logged | ||
I have a feeling that you would really like French language Breton culture music. :) Though they do sometimes take a less than traditional approach, a group with a great contemporary following is Arvest (also, they are fantastic live at Fest-Noz-es). Their songs are mostly Breton, but of the 23 songs I have on my computer from them, four are in French. I don't have the time right now to do an exhaustive search, but I know there are quite a few French-lyric Breton songs. "Call and return" type songs in particular tend to be in French now -- not everyone understands enough Breton to listen to a phrase and that repeat it while dancing. The names of the four French songs by Arvest are: Les rumeurs de la ville, Une sombre histoire, En bonne intelligence and Tant qu'il est temps. I just found the album "Bretagne Traditionnelle" with almost entirely French songs (so maybe not so traditional? haha), the first song La Jument de Michao (Le Loup, Le Renard et la Belette) sounds quite good. They might be a good place to start, if only to get song titles and then find the artist whose rendition pleases you best. (Updating to add, the rendition by Tri Yann sounds the most authentic I've found so far. Steer clear of the Nolwenn Leroy version, I think it has been rendered too pop-y for your tastes. :) ) La Bretagne me manque vraiment maintenant. :( Bonne écoute! Edited by Maïwenn on 14 December 2012 at 1:54am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| liammcg Senior Member Ireland Joined 4596 days ago 269 posts - 397 votes Speaks: English* | Message 14 of 89 19 December 2012 at 8:22pm | IP Logged | ||
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@ Maïwenn: thanks for the recommendation, I'll see what I can find!
The Holidays are here! Here's a quick update of my progress so far: French Over the past few days I've watched the film, "Les Choristes" a number of times, and this is proving effective for picking up colloquial language (the bits I can understand, the French speak FAST!). Reading wise, I've been using "Penguin short stories parallel text". Also, lots of wikipedia articles on various subjects. I'm also rereading "Le Petit Prince" using the recording available on YouTube. It is proving a useful exercise in helping with the flow of the language, and there is also some vocab that I had forgotten. I've added phrases from the book to an Anki deck. Listening wise, I'm really pleased with my progress since beginning this log. Now I can pick up the majority of RFI news broadcast the first time around. Later tonight I'm gonna do a bit of grammar study, probably using About.French and FSI to drill the grammar. Is there a proper method for doing this? I know that the course was designed for use in the classroom, so should I aim to stay loyal to the original instructions or just wing it? Writing-I've set up a Lang8 account, nothing written yet but I've corrected a few French natives writings so I hope once I begin writing tomorrow or the day after they will be able to help me out. Gaelic I managed to revise ALL the content I have covered up till now in Scottish Gaelic in Twelve Weeks during my SIX HOUR bus journey home on Monday. I've also made the discovery that we now have a Skybox installed at home...hello BBC Alba! I watched a TV program last night and was able to follow along with most of the spoken language, and the subtitles in English are a big bonus! I'm going to go through more of my course tonight, probably focusing on the future tense. I've also begun looking through Teach Yourself Gaelic in order to drill grammar points. I wrote out three dialogues last night in order to cement the spelling in my head. Irish Gaelic Over the Christmas I will be reading the story "L'Attaque", a story about the French invasion at Killala Co.Mayo in the year 1798 written in Irish. The topic is of interest to me because I love history, and I'm from Mayo! Looking through the book, the language is quite flowery and challenging in places...great! I will be keeping an Anki deck of new vocabulary. Edited by liammcg on 19 December 2012 at 8:28pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5548 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 15 of 89 19 December 2012 at 11:37pm | IP Logged | ||
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It sounds like you're making excellent progress, especially in Scottish Gaelic! I'd love to be able to follow most of the dialogue on a BBC Alba programme one day; I'm still light years away from that level in Irish on TG4 (even the kids' programmes). ;)
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| liammcg Senior Member Ireland Joined 4596 days ago 269 posts - 397 votes Speaks: English* | Message 16 of 89 20 December 2012 at 1:06am | IP Logged | ||
I hope so, Teango! Ok, just thought I'd write a bit about the verb conjugations I've learned so far and compare them with Irish. Present In SG, to form the present one must use a verbal noun to express two forms of the present which are found in English. That is to say, "I do", and "I am doing" use the same construction in SG. "Tha mi a' dèanamh"-I do or I am doing. In Irish, we use the verbal noun for the "-ing" tense only, so "Tá mé ag déanamh" means "I am doing", but to say "I do", we say, "Déanaim" or "Déanann mé". Past The system is pretty much the same for both languages. To form the past, one simply adds "h" to the beginning of the verb root (lenition) if it begins with a consonant. E.g. SG- Bhrist mi= I broke IG-Bhris mé= I broke If the word begins with a vowel, you add "dh" to the beginning in SG, "D'" in Irish. SG- Dh'òl e= He drank IG- D'ól sé= He drank Future Again, very similiar, but different in aspects. SG- Add "aidh" or "idh" to the end of a verb root. (aidh if the root ends with a broad vowel i.e. a,o,u...idh if it ends on a slender vowel, i.e. i and e) E.G. verb= cuir- to put I will put= cuiridh mi BUT verb- gabh- to take I will take- gabhaidh- I will take This is the simple "independent form which is very similar to Irish: IG I will put- Cuirfidh mé I will go- Gabhfaidh mé There is more information on the other forms found in Gaelic which can be found here: title=%C3%89iridh_e_is_ceannaidh_e%3F_or_the_Future_tense">G rammar site Edited by liammcg on 20 December 2012 at 1:08am 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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