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 Language Learning Forum : Lessons in Polyglottery |  | |
| Sean Heiss Newbie United States Joined 5593 days ago 6 posts - 6 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Norwegian, Icelandic, Irish | Message 1 of 17 22 July 2009 at 1:05am | IP Logged | |||||
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Dear Professor Arguelles,
Hello, I'm Sean Heiss, 15 years old, shall be a sophomore this upcoming year, live near Seattle, Washington, and absolutely love languages. There are a couple different points I would like to talk to and with you about. I started learning Norwegian on my own last November, and within a couple months got through the course I had (Teach Yourself), and since then I have barely learned anything. I am currently at a stage where I do not know a whole lot of words (at least 500), but I know the grammar quite well, so language courses for Norwegian are useless to me. I do not know any speakers of it near me, so the only chance I get to use it on online forums like Unilang or Omniglot, or with some friends on Skype. Learning Norwegian is very important to me, as it is perhaps my favorite language of all time, in many different ways, I am part Norwegian and have a large family in Norway, and in 10 to 15 years I plan to move to Norway, hopefully Tromsø. It is definitely possible for me to become fluent in that time, but I am completely stuck on how to learn usages and more words and the like. What ways would you recommend for me to increase my knowledge of grammar and vocabulary? Next subject, learning German. I know German better than I do Norwegian, but I have stopped learning it for a couple of reasons, that make it seemingly impossible for me to learn it. Here's my problem: No matter how many times I look up a word in the dictionary or use it in a conversation, I am just unable to remember the gender of words, their plural, and irregular conjugations of verbs. I still would really like to learn it, so I have stopped learning and using it much, in hopes that in a few years, after I graduate high school, that I can try learning it again, and that time I would be able to remember those things. Do you know of any other people with a problem like this? I have no idea what this is, if anything, but it only seems to happen with German; I can remember genders and plurals and conjugations for Norwegian and Irish just fine. I really love languages, and would love nothing more than being able to work with them. Unfortunately, I know nothing about what kind of jobs I could get, nor what I should do in a college/university. My favorite linguistics field is historical/comparative linguistics, as I love learning about dead languages and their speakers' culture. I would really love to have a job helping reconstruct a dead language, but I know nothing about how I could get one, so could you perhaps give me a few pointers on what I should do and learn? Also, I would like to share my language goals with you, to see if they are quite realistic, or if anything should be changed. Here is what I have been thinking: By 2015: Begin a course here in Lushootseed, and become advanced/fluent in it before I move to Tromsø, which will probably happen by ~2022. By 2017-18: Speak Norwegian (top priority, since I'll hopefully be living in Norway) and Irish fluently. By 2025: Should be able to speak German with basic fluently by then, and will have moved to Tromsø and started learning Northern Sami. By 2035: Speak Northern Sami fluently, then some level of Basque and Dutch, perhaps basic fluency. If getting a job helping reconstructing a language is not possible, I would love to do field work, but I wouldn't want to go too far from home in Tromsø. While I'm talking about it, could you show me to some websites or books talking about field linguistics, and what field linguists actually do? Thank you so much for your time in reading this. If you could help me, I should finally be able to figure out what in the world I'm currently doing, and what I want to do! :) Edited by Sean Heiss on 22 July 2009 at 1:59am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| JonB Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6254 days ago 209 posts - 220 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Italian, Dutch, Greek | Message 2 of 17 22 July 2009 at 11:49am | IP Logged | |||||
It would be very interesting to see the professor's thoughts on this. (I say "would be", because he rarely seems to post on this forum anymore.) Anyway, my own two cents on the issue is...just relax! Don't get too hung up about the problem. Try to remember the correct genders and plurals of new words, but don't panic if you can't. I myself studied German at university, and I lived there for quite a while too. Yet I still sometimes forget genders! IMHO the right way to learn any language is by completely sinking yourself in texts, films, TV, audiobooks, etc. That way you build up an overall understanding. After having lived in Germany I can now understand 95% (at least) of any German book, newspaper, film, etc. Yet, as I said, I still sometimes forget those pesky little genders! The correct gender or plural of any given word is of limited importance if you can understand almost everything, and if you are able to communicate fluently (albeit without 100% perfection.) Therefore I would advise you to favour quantity over quality when it comes to vocabulary learning. (These are just my thoughts - but I do hope that Prof A. will return to the forum somewhen, because it was always genuinely interesting to see his answers to questions like this one from Sean Heiss!) Edited by JonB on 22 July 2009 at 11:56am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| ILuvEire Diglot Newbie United States iluveire.wordpress.cRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5624 days ago 26 posts - 26 votes Speaks: English*, Sign Language Studies: Esperanto, Italian, Arabic (Written), Danish, Japanese | Message 3 of 17 25 July 2009 at 3:43pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Hey cutie. ;)
If I were you, for the Norwegian, I would buy a medium length, young adult book in Norwegian. As you read it, keep a notebook and highlighter on hand, and highlight the words you don't know and write them in the notebook with the page number and date. Then you can look them up at the end of the paragraph or sentence. This is what I do with Italian (when I'm not being lazy right now, I've been reading Il Nome della Rosa forever :P) And, as for German, I really think I agree with JonB, don't get hung up with the plural or gender, I can't ever remember them either. Actually, my German teacher gave us a helpful way to study vocab, when you look the word up, say it to yourself with the definite article, then do the same for the plural. So "das Mädchen, das Mädchen, das Mädchen" until every time you say Mädchen, das pops into your head. Then do the same for the plural (Mädchen isn't the best example because it doesn't change in the plural, but bear with me, I just woke up.) I know when you're reading this, you're probably thinking "yeah, right, whatever," which is exactly what I thought when my German teacher showed me this. But it really helps, when I started doing this, my vocabulary test scores went from 85s to 100s. Hope I helped, just a little. Oh, and now I have a question (not to hijack your thread or anything, love) am I supposed to post in this forum? I'm super new here, is the Prof the only one supposed to answer these questions? Oh well I already typed that crap out, I'm not deleting this post. Lol :P 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Pyx Diglot Senior Member China Joined 5724 days ago 670 posts - 892 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Mandarin | Message 4 of 17 25 July 2009 at 4:47pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Ignore those German specialities. Seriously, nobody cares if you say der Maedchen or die Maedchen or das Maedchen. Likewise for irregular verbs. The key is to learn to many new (!!) words that you can comfortably watch movies and read books. If you do that, you will come across 'das Maedchen' so often, that it just won't feel right to write/say anything other than that. Really, if you have the choice between learning a gender and learning a new word, always go for the word. The details will take care of themselves.
4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Sean Heiss Newbie United States Joined 5593 days ago 6 posts - 6 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Norwegian, Icelandic, Irish | Message 5 of 17 25 July 2009 at 10:06pm | IP Logged | |||||
Well yeah, German natives might not care, but I do. I hate making mistakes, and if I'm not sure something is right, I don't say it, and ask for help. >< Are there many German's that go crazy when someone says something incorrect like I do? :D Anyways, thanks for all the words of encouragement, I'll surely start learning German after Norwegian and Irish; I can't learn more than 2 at once.
I do have a book that fits that description, Naiv. Super. by Erlend Loe, but I haven't read it in like 2 months, and I'm only on like page 5. :( 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Katie Diglot Senior Member Australia Joined 6707 days ago 495 posts - 599 votes Speaks: English*, Hungarian Studies: French, German | Message 6 of 17 25 July 2009 at 11:33pm | IP Logged | |||||
Sean, I'm with you - I HATE making mistakes - but I'm slowly learning with languages that you can't always learn every tiny detail from the very beginning. What Pyx is saying is much the same as I have read a number of times all over the internet and what I'm working on now. What I believe he's saying (& please correct me if I'm wrong Pyx!), is really to focus on your input - so watch movies, read books, listen to music and radio as much as possible. If you're doing this, all of those common words will be used HUNDREDS of times throughout the audio and eventually when you think of the word, it's proper gender/pronunciation etc will just come to you because you have heard it so many times and it 'feels' right. So, to work with your desire to know every gender..... You could also use Anki if it's especially bothering you. Using the example above, put "Maedchen" on side 1, and then "das Maedchen" on the other (forgive me if I have that wrong, I don't know German at all apart from a few polite greetings!). In the meantime, I really suggest to give Pyx's suggestion a go. You might be surprised at the results! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Pyx Diglot Senior Member China Joined 5724 days ago 670 posts - 892 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Mandarin | Message 7 of 17 26 July 2009 at 12:37am | IP Logged | |||||
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Sean, an imperfect German working knowledge still beats a pure non-knowledge, don't you think? Not to mention that it's a short step from imperfect to perfect. Shorter than from nothing to perfect ;)
Also, if you really can't stand making any mistakes, then just shut up until you've read a couple of books. Read "Das Maedchen" by Stephen King and don't talk until you've finished. Let's see if you can ever forget which gender 'Maedchen' is after that when you eventually speak ;) Katie, that's pretty much what I mean ;) However, as to Anki, in my experience foreigner really get too hung up on genders and the grammatical details of German. I'll say it again because it's really important: If you have the choice between learning a new word or some 'detail' (like gender, some irregular verb, some obscure grammar rule, ...) *always* go for the word!!! :) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Sean Heiss Newbie United States Joined 5593 days ago 6 posts - 6 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Norwegian, Icelandic, Irish | Message 8 of 17 26 July 2009 at 12:55am | IP Logged | |||||
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Well of course I know the gender of "Mädchen", it was one of the first words I learned. :P
The only German book I have is Der Kleine Prinz, which is a good and easy book. :) Is Das Mädchen a good book? Should I get it? Also, I totally suck with flashcards and SRS things, I remember words way better by using them and reading them. ;) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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